He came back into the house and joined her in the dining-room. When he had shut the door he said,
“You speak of the person who planned this murder. You maintain that it was not Miss Anning. I have given you proof that it could not have been Cardozo. If Marie was killed in the way that you suggest by someone who reached in at the bottom of that window and took her by the throat, the person who did it must have had very strong hands. I suppose you are not suggesting that Pippa Maybury could have done it?”
“Oh, no, I am not suggesting that.”
“James Hardwick? Is that what is in your mind?”
“I would prefer not to say. There is a point we have not touched on, and it is, I think, important. Marie was a strong, active girl. When she felt hands at her throat she would have fought desperately to release herself. Has Miss Anning any scratches or bruises about the wrists or arms?”
He gave her rather an odd glance.
“No, she hasn’t. Do you know of anyone who has?”
“No, Frank. But if, as I believe, the murder was very carefully planned, this would have been guarded against. Gloves would have been worn, or the wrists and arms padded in some way.”
He nodded.
“A man’s coat sleeves would protect him. But if, as you say, the whole thing was planned, a woman could guard against being scratched or bruised—Darsie Anning could guard against it.”
She said mildly but firmly,
“I do not believe that it was Miss Anning.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Can you produce an alternative? There is a good deal of prima facie evidence—motive and opportunity—bad blood between her and Field—the old business of his jilting her. And Colt tells me there was quite a lot of talk about that. She was away for months and came back very much changed. Local gossip believed the worst—and sometimes local gossip gets hold of the right end of the stick. Marie may have got something there. She disliked the Annings and would have enjoyed tormenting them, especially if it meant money in her pocket. On the psychological side it all adds up, you know. And I must say that if I had to pick a probable murderer out of our set of suspects I think I would go for Darsie Anning. She is an embittered, frustrated creature and obviously strung up very nearly to breaking point.”
Miss Silver said in a tone of deep compassion,
“She has been very unhappy. If you arrest her, what will happen to Mrs. Anning?”
“Are there any relatives? If not, I suppose a nursing home.”
She coughed.
“That is why you sent for me, is it not? And if you proceed with this arrest, I will do what I can. But if you could see your way to staving it off, even for a few hours—”
“We can’t risk another death.”
“No, I realize that. But pray consider, if Miss Anning is arrested, her business here will be ruined, and the effect upon her mother may be very serious indeed. If she is guilty, all this goes for nothing, but if she is innocent, irreparable harm will have been done, and for the want of perhaps only a few hours’ delay.”
He looked at her intently.
“Do you seriously believe that you can produce the murderer in those few hours?”
“I believe evidence can be produced which will point to someone else as the guilty person.”
He said,
“Well, you’ve never let me down yet. You can have until tomorrow. I’m not in charge, you know, only assisting— Cardozo is really my pigeon—but I think I can stall the local people off until then. Do you want to see either of the Annings?”
“No, Frank, I think not. I believe I should return to Cliff Edge. Later on I shall appreciate the opportunity, but at the moment I think I should go back.”
Darsie Anning never knew just how near she had been to arrest. She had been interrogated endlessly. But everything did at last come to an end, and now they had all gone—the police surgeon, the fingerprint man, the photographer, the two Inspectors, and the Superintendent, a big blunt person who came in after the others and went away before they did. Now they were all gone, except for Sid Palmer whom she had known since he was a shy little boy hanging on to his mother’s skirts when she brought their washing home. She was a very good laundress, but nobody did that kind of private work now. Sid must be twentyfive. He was long and lanky, and as shy as ever. He turned the colour of a beetroot when she spoke to him, and never got beyond “Yes, miss” and “No, miss” in his mumbled replies.
Presently he was giving her a hand in the kitchen. Not that there was so much to do. A murder in the house had sent the old ladies scuttling like rabbits. The big house held no one but the Annings and Sid Palmer. Mrs. Anning was fretful, and wanted to know what was going on. The information that some of the boarders were leaving did very little to soothe her.
“And how are we going to pay the bills if everybody goes? Is there anybody else coming in? You don’t tell me that. You don’t tell me anything—you never do!”
As Darsie went out of the room, it came to her with surprise that she could not remember her mother having ever made any reference before as to how the bills were to be paid. Not since her illness, she thought. She had sat in her room with her unfinished embroidery in her lap, or walked a little in the garden, on the cliff, or down into the town, and never spoken of anything except the merest surface trivialities—“It is very hot today, Darsie,” or, “It is a little colder.” “There are not so many visitors as there used to be.” It was as if all this turmoil of thought about her was breaking in upon the dead secluded place in which she had lived so long.
Miss Silver went back to Cliff Edge, and found, as she had expected, that the news of the murder was there before her. Since her avowed errand to Sea View had been a visit to Mrs. Anning, it was not altogether easy to answer Esther Field’s concerned enquiries, or to take a natural share in the general conversation. She avoided prevarication, and maintained a discreet reserve by offering the simple fact that it had been thought wiser to put off telling Mrs. Anning of Marie Bonnet’s death until the police had completed their investigations.
“Miss Anning has naturally had a great deal on her hands, and since Mrs. Anning does not as a rule leave her room except occasionally to take a turn in the cool of the day, it has been quite possible to keep the tragedy from her for the present. I will go down there again later on, when I may perhaps be of use.”
Lady Castleton observed that according to all accounts Mrs. Anning was very little likely to be disturbed by the death of a maid in the house.
“Even in the old days she was always inclined to be wrapped up in herself and her family. Didn’t you think so, Esther?”
“She was very fond of them,” said Esther Field in a troubled voice.
Adela Castleton sketched a slight but perfectly graceful shrug.
“One of the women to whom the domestic hearth is not only the centre but the boundary of their interests,” she said, and walked towards the door. “I think I shall go down on to the beach. The tide won’t be right for bathing until later on, but the water will be delicious then. Are you coming, Esther?”
“Yes, I think so—presently.”
“Then, my dear, do us all a favour and leave that hot knitting of yours behind. It is really quite unendurable to see you martyrizing yourself with that conflagration of crimson wool.” She looked back with the flashing smile which was one of her beauties and went out, shutting the door behind her.
Esther Field said in what sounded like a tone of apology,
“She didn’t really know the Annings at all well—she just knew them.”
Pippa’s light nervous laugh floated out.
“Oh, Aunt Esther, darling!”
Esther looked up, puzzled.
“Why, my dear—”
“She just doesn’t care a rap for anyone except herself— but you’d find excuses for anyone. Well, I’m off to get into a bathing-dress. I don’t care how low the tide is, Bill and I are going to walk out in it for miles. I adore catching those little squirly crabs with my toes, and if it never gets deep enough to swim, we can paddle and look for odd creatures in the pools— Bill knows quite a lot about them. And we’ll forget there’s ever been such a thing as a policeman or a murder—” The carefully made-up features dissolved suddenly into the face of a child who is going to cry.
As she ran out of the room, Miss Silver rose and followed her. Behind her, before she had time to close the door, she heard Maisie Trevor say with something very like a sniff,
“Really—that girl! How uncomfortable it all is! And Tom says we can’t go away until after the inquest!”
Miss Silver did not follow Pippa in her flight upstairs. The scarlet beach-shoes were, as a matter of fact, already taking the last two steps in a flying leap. As she emerged into the hall, Colonel Trevor was coming out of the study. Looking, not at her, but back over his shoulder, he said,
“All right then, James, I’ll see about it.”
Miss Silver let him go by and up the stairs, after which she opened the study door and went in.
James Hardwick was sitting at the writing-table with a pen in his hand, but he was not writing. His face was hard and set. He certainly wasn’t thinking about the reinvestment of some shares of Carmona’s which Tom Trevor had been talking over with him. He looked at Miss Silver with acceptance. After what had passed between them last night it was inevitable that she should return to the charge. Better get it over.
She came right up to the table before she said,
“I think you must have been expecting me. I was detained at Sea View, and on my return I met Mrs. Field and Lady Castleton on their way to the morning-room. It seemed best to give a little time to answering their very natural enquiries.”
“Yes?”
She said, “I should like to feel that we shall not be interrupted.”
“Colonel Trevor won’t come back. Carmona is the only other person who might look for me here. You want to speak to me?”
“Yes, Major Hardwick.”
The chair which Colonel Trevor had been using stood at a convenient angle to the table. She seated herself. James, who had risen, sat down again. The room had a faint smell of leather and old books. Green and white sun-blinds shaded it, giving a twilight effect. There was no breeze, and the air was hot. Miss Silver said,
“You will have heard of Marie Bonnet’s death. She ran a more immediate risk than I expected. I feel that we are both of us to blame.”
“You don’t expect me to agree about that?”
She said,
“I blame myself. If she was blackmailing a murderer, I knew that she must be in danger. I warned her, but I did not anticipate that the murderer would strike again so soon. I should have reflected that every moment Marie Bonnet continued to live was a moment of danger to a person who had killed once already—skillfully, ruthlessly, and without warning. Major Hardwick, you will not, I suppose, regard this, but if you know something about that person, I have to warn you that you are not only making yourself an accessory after the fact, but you are taking a very considerable risk. If your knowledge is suspected—and I think it may be—the person who has already killed twice will not hesitate at another crime.”
They sat looking at one another across the rubbed green leather and shining mahogany of the late Mr. Octavius Hardwick’s writing-table. There it was, a symbol of the solid Victorian age when a gentleman had everything handsome about him and as much elbow-room as he wanted. A massive silver inkstand with an inscription bore witness to an earlier Hardwick with forty years’ service on the Bench. He had been Nathaniel James, and the great-grandson to whom this trophy had descended was wont to feel some gratitude that he had been spared the Nathaniel. His glance left Miss Silver and dropped to the inscription. Against this background of respectability and worth the conversation in which he was now taking part appeared fantastic.
But there had been two murders, and he was being seriously warned that he might be the subject of a third. He spoke as much in protest against his own thoughts as against anything she had said.
“I think we need not exaggerate. And I think you are assuming a good deal. For one thing, I haven’t admitted to any special knowledge, and I don’t see that you have any grounds for imputing it. I have made a statement to the police. I have nothing to add to that statement.”
He heard his own words, and was aware that they received no credence. Abruptly, and with complete irrelevance, he was reminded of an examination taken when he was rising twelve. There was a viva, and he had gone in feeling quite all right, and then all at once his inside was shaking like a jelly and he got his very first answer wrong. He knew it was wrong because of the look in the examiner’s eye. At this moment Miss Silver had that identical look. He had made the wrong answer, and she was, not angry, but rather sorry about it. She said,
“Major Hardwick, I said last night that I would not press you then, but there has been another murder, and I feel obliged to do so now. I will tell you in confidence that the local police have made up their minds that Miss Anning is in this case the murderer, and since it is accepted that the motive is to be found in an attempt by Marie to blackmail the person who committed the earlier crime, this would also involve her in that. Mr. Cardozo is out of it. He had gone to London, and very fortunately for himself he was being shadowed by the police. It is not possible that he can have killed Marie. That leaves Mrs. Maybury and Miss Anning, and the circumstances of the second crime are such that they are considered to point strongly to Miss Anning. If you do not speak, she will be arrested in the morning. An accusation of this sort once brought is never wholly forgotten. Apart from the damage to her business, Mrs. Anning’s health would almost certainly be seriously affected. I believe that you are in a painful and difficult position, but I urge you to tell what you know.”
She was aware of a change in him. The antagonism between them was gone. His eyes were candid and serious.
“It might make very little difference.”
“You did not see the murder committed?”
“No—no—of course not!”
Something that was not quite a smile just touched her gravity. She said,
“I did not think you had. I believe you would not in that case have remained silent. What did you see?”
He threw out a hand.
“Just someone coming up from the beach.”
“After Mrs. Maybury went down?”
“Immediately after. Pippa was still crossing the shingle in the direction of the hut. Someone came up the path from the beach and went past me. That is all. You see how little it is.”
“But you know who it was?”
He remained silent.
“This person passed you, and went where? In the direction of Cliff Edge?”
“And of Sea View, and the town.”
“Was it Miss Anning?”
“I can’t tell you anything more.”
“Not even that?”
“No—not now—not yet.”
Miss Silver coughed with a slight note of reproof. If she pushed him too far she might get nothing more. There were other points. She said,
“Very well, we will leave it. What did you do after this person had passed you?”
“You know that already. I waited for Pippa Maybury to come back. She wasn’t very long—seven or eight minutes from start to finish—perhaps ten—certainly not more than three or four in the hut.”
“Not long enough for anything like a quarrel?”
“Oh, no.”
“And she came back in a very considerable state of distress?”
“Very considerable.”
“You didn’t speak to her?”
“I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t think she would want to know she had been seen.”
“And for the same reason you did not follow her back to the house?”
“Well—yes.”
Where was this taking them? He was to know immediately.
“Instead, you went down to the beach hut yourself.”
It was not a question, it was a calm and positive statement. He could find nothing better than,
“What makes you think so?”
She said,
“How could it be otherwise? If you did not follow Mrs. Maybury, you would certainly have gone down to the hut. It was plain that she had been greatly disturbed and upset, and I am quite sure you would have felt yourself bound to investigate. Will you now tell me what you found when you reached the hut?”
“Just what Pippa has described. Field had been stabbed. He was lying on his face with one arm thrown out. He was dead.”
“Did you see the dagger?”
“Mrs. Field’s paper-knife? Oh, yes—it was sticking in his back.” ‘
“You recognized it. And you decided that it would be better out of the way.”
“I?”
“I think so, Major Hardwick. It linked the crime with your household. I suppose you threw it into the sea?”
He nodded.
“It seemed the best thing to do at the time.”
She shook her head in reproof.
“It was extremely wrong. Major Hardwick—did you at any time believe that it was Pippa Maybury who had stabbed Alan Field?”
“I knew she hadn’t.”
“How?”
“I suppose I might as well tell you. I could hear Pippa on the shingle. I knew when she reached the hut. Well, she cried out—I heard her. It must have been when she stumbled over the body and came down. It wasn’t a scream, you know, just sort of a gasping cry. I waited a minute and listened. Then I started to go down the path, but before I got half way she came out, running across the shingle. I only just had time to get back to the upper path and out of her way before she passed me.”
She was silent for a few moments. Then she said,
“You have made up your mind to tell me no more than this?”
“For the moment.”
She said in a reflective tone,
“You want time—”
It was what she had wanted herself and what Frank Abbott had given her—time to bring pressure to bear upon James Hardwick, time to test his reactions to that pressure. And now it was he who wanted time. It was not hard to guess that it would be for the same reasons as her own. There was pressure to be brought, perhaps a warning to be given. But in this case at what a risk! Would the double murderer submit to pressure, accept the warning, and with it the label of guilt? Or would there be a third and most disastrous attempt to find a violent solution? She said,
“I can give you a little time, but not much. After that I shall have to go to the police with what you have told me. If I do not go immediately, it is because I very much hope that you will take this course yourself. And meanwhile I beg of you to remember that you are in danger. If your knowledge is suspected, the danger may be grave. I beg you to put aside all preconceived ideas and to remember only this, that with each crime a killer becomes bolder and more ruthless. Pray do not neglect this warning.”
Going from the study to her bedroom, she encountered Carmona on the landing, bathing-dress, towel and bath-robe over her arm, and made trite comment.
“You are going to bathe—”
“Presently, when the tide is right. I think we all are. Pippa and Bill have gone on. They say they don’t mind walking about half a mile to get out of their depth, but as far as the rest of us are concerned, we would rather wait for the sea to come to us. I’m going to see if I can get out to the Black Rock. I’ve never managed it yet, but I don’t mind trying if James is going to be there.”
“He is a good swimmer?”
“Oh, yes. He and Lady Castleton are our star performers. Esther is quite good too. She and Adela were at school by the sea, and swimming was the thing. Colonel Trevor isn’t bad either.”
“And Mrs. Trevor?”
Carmona laughed.
“Oh, she doesn’t go in! She says it upsets her waves!”
A little later as she was coming downstairs Miss Silver met Carmona again, coming up. She was still carrying towel, robe, and bathing-suit. Miss Silver stopped to admire.
“Such a pretty green. It should be most becoming. I shall look forward to seeing you swim out to the Rock in it.”
As she spoke, it struck her that Carmona’s expression had altered. She was paler, and she had lost the look of pleasurable anticipation which had been noticeable when they had met so short a time ago. Her smile was a little forced as she said,
“Well, I don’t think I’m bathing after all. I find the others are going to race each other to the Rock, and I should be in the way. I’m not in that class at all, you know. I should just be left behind, and then James would feel that he had to come back for me. It’s quite a long way out to the Black Rock, and I should be on his mind. He wouldn’t like me to do it alone.”
It seemed to Miss Silver that she was putting forward all these reasons in order to convince herself, and that in spite of them her spirits were a good deal dashed. They parted with no more said, Carmona continuing on her way upstairs, and Miss Silver descending to the hall.
The two older ladies were just going out. They carried towels and bathing-suits, and were proposing to change later on in the hut. To their enquiries she replied that she would join them presently.
Colonel Trevor, it appeared, had letters to write, and Mrs. Trevor was going down into the town to have her hair washed and set.
Miss Silver passed on into the morning-room, where she left the door ajar and waited.
After a little while Mrs. Trevor went down the stairs and out by the front door, which stood open to take the breeze. Then the house fell silent again until James Hardwick emerged from the study. He went upstairs and out of sight and hearing. Miss Silver judged that it would not be long before he was down again. Since there was only the one instrument in the house, she could not prudently use the telephone until she could reasonably count on being safe from interruption. She set the door a little wider and waited.
Carmona and James came down together, she in a flowered beach-suit, bright green sandals and shady hat, and he bareheaded in a dark blue regulation swimming-suit, with a gaily patterned bath-robe draped across his shoulders and a towel over his arm. Snatches of what they said came through the partly open door.
“Don’t be disappointed, darling. I just want to have this talk. Esther never sits about after swimming, and it seems such a good opportunity. We can go any other time.”
He had an arm about her shoulders, and Carmona laughed a little and said,
“Oh, yes, of course we can. It wouldn’t be any fun in a crowd.”
They went through the drawing-room and out by the door to the terrace. Miss Silver came from the morning-room to watch them go. Carmona was happy again.
They went down the hot cement path and through the gate at the bottom of the garden. When it had closed behind them, Miss Silver went to the study and shut herself in.
Inspector Abbott had left Sea View.
No, he was not at the police station.
Inspector Abbott? The receptionist at the George would see if he was in the hotel.
She stood at the writing-table and waited through some very long minutes until the line came alive and Frank Abbott was saying,
“Miss Silver?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“What is it?”
“I am not at all easy.”
“What can I do for you?”