Miss Silver Deals With Death (9 page)

Meade had scarcely shut the door upon Giles, when Ivy Lord put her head round the kitchen door.

“If you please, Miss Meade, I’d like to go out to the post.”

“All right, Ivy.”

“Will you be going out, miss?”

“No, I don’t think so—not tonight.”

Ivy hesitated.

“Mrs. Underwood said she wouldn’t be back till half past seven. If you wouldn’t mind lighting the gas under the steamer at seven—full till the water’s hot, and then down to a point—”

Meade found a smile. It took exactly five minutes to reach the pillar-box at the corner and return. The post was most undoubtedly a young man. She said,

“Of course I will.”

She went back into the sitting-room to wait for Giles. She heard Ivy come running out of her room in a hurry to be off. The door of the flat opened and shut. She tried to think what sort of young man Ivy would have. She was such a funny little bit of a thing. But something nice about her too—queerness and niceness in layers, like streaky bacon… What a thing to think of. Anything was better than thinking about Giles and Carola Roland. Thoughts didn’t ask whether you wanted them or not, they came in—some of them like visitors tapping at the door, and when you opened it, instead of a friend on the doorstep you found an enemy there; some of them like ghosts tapping at the windows and calling strangely in words which you couldn’t understand; some of them like thieves creeping in to steal; and some breaking in with violence like a plundering army. A shiver went over her. People kept saying how mild the weather was, but she was cold.

She looked at her watch and wondered when Giles would come. It was between twenty and a quarter to seven. She mustn’t forget to light the gas under the steamer, or Ivy would get into trouble. Giles had been gone nearly a quarter of an hour—

The front door bell rang, and she ran. But it wasn’t Giles. It was Agnes Lemming with a big dress-box. She had set it down to ring the bell; now she picked it up and came into the little hall with her head up and a flush on her cheeks. She was in her old purple coat and skirt again, but somehow she looked different—younger, and with something taut and purposeful about her.

“Are you alone? Can I speak to you? I mustn’t stay. I’ve only got a moment.”

With her ears straining for Giles’ return, Meade could only be thankful for this. But it wasn’t in her to be unwelcoming. She said,

“Aunt Mabel is out, and Ivy has gone to the post. What is it? Won’t you come in?”

She had shut the door, but Agnes did not move away from it. She said in a difficult voice,

“I mustn’t stop—my mother will be back at any moment. Will you do something for me? Will you keep this box until the day after tomorrow and not say anything about it to anyone?”

It sounded so strange coming from Agnes Lemming that Meade could not make her voice quite as ordinary as she wanted to. She said,

“Yes, of course I will.”

Agnes faltered a little.

“It must seem—-strange to you. I can’t ask anyone else, and you have always been kind—” She paused, and found herself saying what she had not meant to say. “My cousin Julia Mason sent me some very nice clothes. I want to wear them the day after tomorrow. You see, I am going to be married.”

Meade was so much surprised that she very nearly cried out. And then, flooding right over the surprise and blotting it out, came a tide of warmth and kindness. She reached up to put her arms round Agnes’ neck and kiss her.

“Oh, Agnes—how nice! I’m so glad—I’m so very, very glad!”

“You mustn’t tell anyone. Nobody knows—my mother doesn’t know. I can’t tell her until afterwards. I didn’t mean to tell anyone.”

“I won’t tell—you know I won’t. Who is it? And are you very happy?”

Agnes smiled down at her. It was her old nice smile, but with something added. She said in quite a young voice,

“It is Mr. Drake, and I am very happy. We both are. I mustn’t stop.” And with that she kissed Meade on the cheek, and was gone.

Meade was left in the middle of the hall with the dress-box. Of all the extraordinary things—Agnes Lemming and Mr. Drake! But how nice. And he looked as if he would be able to cope with Mrs. Lemming. That was what Agnes wanted—someone to rescue her and bang the door in Mrs. Lemming’s face. Agnes could never have done it by herself, it just wasn’t in her. She put the box away in her wardrobe and had just shut the door on it, when she heard the bell again.

This time it was Giles. He came in, and she said at once,

“Ivy’s out. Oh, Giles—what’s happened? It’s been like years!” But even as she spoke, her heart shrank. There was no comfort in his look—angry eyes, and a face set like a flint. He walked past her into the sitting-room.

“I mustn’t stop. What’s the time? Ten minutes to seven—is that clock right? Your aunt will be coming back. I don’t want to meet her. I’m not fit to meet anyone. I must go back and see if I can get on to Maitland. He’s my solicitor, and if there’s anything in this four hundred a year business, he’ll probably know something about it. I believe he’s moved out to the country, but I expect I can get a line on him. The sooner he’s on to it the better. She needn’t think she’s going to have it all her own way!”

Meade was appalled. He might have been talking to himself— she mightn’t have been there at all. She had never seen him like this—the angry, fighting male who wants to get on with his job and hasn’t any time for women. She was appalled but oddly reassured. If there was no softness for her, there was certainly none for Carola. And he meant to fight.

He hardly looked at her as he put a hand on her shoulder for a moment and said,

“I’ll ring you.”

Then he was gone, and the door well and truly slammed behind him.

From this point onwards the sequence of events becomes of the first importance.

Giles slammed the door of Mrs. Underwood’s flat at five minutes to seven, and at about the same time Mrs. Willard confronted her husband with two pencilled notes and a flood of reproachful tears. The first of the notes has already been in evidence. It ran:

“All right, Willie darling, lunch at one as usual.

Carola.”

The second had been discovered only this afternoon after an exhaustive search of Mr. Willard’s effects. It was very short, but it had brought poor Mrs. Willard to the point of open accusation.

“All right—what about tomorrow night?

C. R.”

The dreadful thing about this note was that it wasn’t dated. Tomorrow night might already have come and gone. It might be this present Wednesday night, or it might really be tomorrow. Mrs. Willard had reached the end of her tether. She had been a mild and submissive wife for twenty years, but this was too much. She looked a good deal like a stout motherly sheep at bay as she produced the note.

It was a most annoying situation for Mr. Willard. Throughout their married life he had maintained a masterly discipline in his household. His word had been law, and his foot had been permanently down. Now he was being forced into a position of defence. His word was in question, and the foot was required to save his balance. He cleared his throat and said,

“Really, Amelia—”

Mrs. Willard burst into tears and stamped her foot.

“Don’t you Amelia me, Alfred, for I won’t stand it! Running after a bad girl like that at your time of life!”

“Really—”

“Yes, your time of life, Alfred! Fifty you are, and look every day of your age! What do you think a girl like that wants out of you except to pass the time because she’s bored, and to get your money, and to b-break my heart—”

Here Mrs. Willard’s voice broke too. She subsided on to the couch, large and untidy, her face red and puffed with crying, and her grey hair coming down.

Mr. Willard took off his glasses and polished them. He tried for the voice of authority but fell short.

“Amelia, I must insist—”

Mrs. Willard interrupted him. She had no longer to rely upon her own shaking legs. The sofa gave her confidence.

“Haven’t I been a good wife to you? Haven’t I done everything I could?”

“That’s not the question—” He cleared his throat again. “About these notes—”

“Yes, Alfred—what about them?”

Mr. Willard’s neat features took on an unbecoming flush.

“There’s nothing in them,” he said. “And I’m surprised at you, Amelia—more than surprised. And I may say at once that I wouldn’t have believed you would do such a thing as to go looking through my pockets.”

This was a little better. Too familiar, too colloquial, but it was putting Amelia in her place. It was she who would be on the defensive now.

The vigour of her counter-attack surprised and pained him.

“And if I’d left your saccharine tablets in the pocket of the blue coat you told me to send to the cleaners, what would you have said then, I’d like to know! That’s where the first note was, and it just shows how that girl has upset you and got you all played-up, or you’d never have left it there for me to find. And if you’ll show me a woman that doesn’t read that sort of note when she’s got it in her hand, I’ll tell you straight out to your face that she’s no proper woman at all, and no feelings like a man expects his wife to have!”

Mr. Willard was thrown off his balance again. He said, “Really!” several times in varying tones of protest and annoyance, whilst Mrs. Willard attempted to stanch a fresh access of tears with a handkerchief which was nothing but a sodden rag.

“Really, Amelia! Anyone would think that it was a crime to take a neighbour out to lunch!”

“A neighbour!”

“Well, she is, isn’t she? And she wanted to consult me about a matter of business, if you want to know.”

“Business!” said Mrs. Willard with a rending sniff.

“And why not, Amelia? If you must know, it was about her income tax.”

“Income tax?”

“Yes, income tax.”

“I don’t believe a word of it!” said Mrs. Willard. “And I’m ashamed of you, Alfred, standing there and telling me lies—bringing them out like peas out of a pod and expecting me to believe them, which I don’t and never will! And if she had lunch with you to talk about her income tax, what were you going to talk about ‘tomorrow night’—and which night was it to be? Is that where you were on Saturday when you told me you’d been down to see Mr. Corner? Or was it tonight you were going to make up an excuse and off upstairs to her? Haven’t you got anything to say?”

Mr. Willard hadn’t. He had never suspected Amelia of so uncomfortable a talent for putting him in the wrong. And after all, what had he done? Run upstairs for a neighbourly chat, changed an electric bulb, unbent in a little friendly badinage, and fibbed about Mr. Corner. She hadn’t even let him kiss her, only called him “Funny little man” and bundled him out—he dwelt regretfully on this. And here was Amelia behaving as if he had given her grounds for divorce. Such a suspicious mind. And complete lack of self-control.

He achieved a voice of marital authority.

“I must refuse to listen to any more of these—these recriminations. They are unjustified, and I must decline to listen to them. I am surprised at you, Amelia, and I hope and expect that you will before long be surprised at yourself. You have quite lost your self-control and your sense of proportion, and I intend to leave you alone in the hope that you may recover them. In the meantime I should like you to know that I am very much displeased.”

This time it came off. The voice was once more his own. Large rolling words came flowing out. He turned to the door with the strutting dignity of a bantam.

Mrs. Willard had shot her bolt. She called after him with a lamentable sob,

“Where are you going? Oh, Alfred—you’re not going to her!”

Mr. Willard was himself again. Let Amelia cry—it would do her good. On his return he would find her repentant and submissive.

He went out of the flat and shut the door.

About ten minutes before Mr. Willard left his flat, that is to say at seven o’clock, a young woman in an imitation astrakhan coat came in at the front door of Vandeleur House and took the lift to the top floor. She bore the same kind of resemblance to Carola Roland that an under-exposed photograph bears to its original. The features were the same, but the skin was sallow, the eyes greyish, and the hair plain mouse. Her clothes were neat but without style—mole-coloured coat, brown shoes and stockings, and a dark brown hat with a brown and green ribbon.

Bell saw her passing through the hall and said good-evening in his cheerful way. It wasn’t the first time she had dropped in like this after business hours—Miss Roland’s sister that was married to Mr. Jackson the jeweller. Not a big shop, but old-established and very respectable. Bell knew all about them. The business had belonged to Mrs. Jackson’s father—Miss Roland’s father too for the matter of that. Ella had married her cousin and carried on the name and the shop, but Carrie had run away and gone on the stage. She needn’t think he didn’t know who she was when she come back here with her hair shined up, and her face painted, and a fine new name. He knew her all right, and thought the better of her for wanting to be near her sister, and it wasn’t his business what she called herself or what she did to her face and her hair. Mrs. Smollett would like to turn and twist it about on that tongue of hers no doubt, but she wouldn’t hear anything about the Jackson girls from him. He could keep his mouth shut. Why, he’d bought his Mary’s wedding-ring in Mr. Jackson’s shop a matter of forty years ago. Well, Mr. Jackson was gone ten years, and Mary a matter of thirty-five. Bell could hold his tongue.

Ella Jackson stayed with her sister for a short twenty minutes. Then they came down in the lift together, Carola bare-headed, with a fur coat thrown over her white dress.

As the lift went down, Miss Garside stood at her half open door and watched it go. She had reached the stage when you do things without quite knowing why. Her body was starved, and her mind, like some restless creature in a cage, thrust this way and that, seeking a way out. She had had no food all day. She had no money to buy food. She did not know quite why she had opened her door—some half formed thought of going over to the Underwoods’ flat to ask if they could spare her some bread and a little milk—she could say she had run out—

As soon as the door was open she knew that she could not do it. That common, pushing Mrs. Underwood—she couldn’t do it. She must hold on till tomorrow and get the Auction Stores to take some more of her furniture. The good things were all gone. They would give her next to nothing for what was left. It couldn’t pay the rent, but it would buy her food for a little time longer.

She stood with the door in her hand and watched the lift go down. The landing light shone upon Carola’s hair, her fur coat, a glimpse of her white dress. She thought bitterly, “She’s going out. She’ll be out all the evening now. She’ll be meeting some man. They will go to a restaurant and pay as much for a meal as I should need for a week.”

She watched the lift pass out of sight and went back into her cold empty room. Carola would be out for the evening, her flat upstairs would be empty. She seemed to see it standing there empty, and, somewhere in one of those empty rooms, the ring which was so like her own. The idea that Carola might be wearing the ring presented itself and was rejected. She didn’t always wear it. In fact yesterday in the lift was the only time that Miss Garside had seen it on her hand. They had met perhaps a dozen times in the lift, and always there had been those white, useless hands sparkling with rings. If the girl was going out she carried her gloves until she reached the street. If she was coming in she pulled them off in the lift. Long white fingers, scarlet nails, an emerald on one hand, a ruby and a diamond on the other. But not the diamond solitaire which was the twin of hers—never that until yesterday. So why should she be wearing it tonight?

Miss Garside made up her mind that she would not be wearing it. It would be there, in the empty flat, thrown down carelessly no doubt upon the dressing-table.

“If I had the key of the flat, it would be quite easy to change the rings—”

A voice which was Miss Garside’s own inner voice said this very distinctly. It said,

“She will never know the difference—never. It is life and death to me, and nothing at all to her. Mine shines just as brightly. It will look as well on her hand as it has done on mine. It won’t make any difference to her at all. Why should I starve so that she may have something which makes no difference to her? If I had a key I could change the rings—”

Bell had a key. Mrs. Smollett went down into the old basement kitchen every morning at eight o’clock and took the key of No. 8 off its hook. Then she went up, let herself in, made Miss Roland an early cup of tea, and cleaned the flat. No one who had the slightest contact with Mrs. Smollett could avoid hearing all about Miss Carola Roland and her flat.

“Lovely curtains, Miss Garside. And what they must have cost! I got a niece in the upholstery, and what those brocades cost—well, it’s wicked.”

You might turn your back and take no notice, but it didn’t stop Mrs. Smollett’s tongue.

The key of No. 8 would be hanging now on its hook on the old kitchen dresser. In about twelve hours’ time Mrs. Smollett would fetch it and go upstairs and let herself in.

Anyone could fetch it now.

No, not now, because Bell would be about. But later, between half past eight and half past nine, when he would have “stepped out” to have a pint of beer and play a game of darts at the Hand and Glove. At half past eight, rain or fine, snow or fog, Bell “stepped out.” Between half past nine and ten he returned. There was a whole hour during which it would be as safe to get the key as it was to sit here and think about it. Between half past eight and half past nine—