Mr. Tattlecombe took it hard. After saying that it was a blow but that he supposed it was the Lord’s will, he ran both hands through his hair, fixed round blue eyes upon William and Katharine, and observed that it didn’t matter, because he was past the three score years and ten already and it wouldn’t be for long. From there to a lonely deathbed, with no one to close his eyes or so much as put up a stone, was an easy short cut.
At just what point in the proceedings it occurred to Katharine that he was enjoying himself, she didn’t quite know, but she found herself holding his hand and saying, ‘Dear Mr. Tattlecombe, please don’t talk like that or I shall cry.’
Abel was distinctly gratified. He sat there as pink and healthy as a baby with his grey hair all fuzzed up and said there was no call to drop a tear, because we must all come to it and there would be nobody left to grieve.
William said firmly, ‘That’s not quite fair, Mr. Tattlecombe. There’s Mrs. Salt, and there’s me, and Mrs. Bastable, and Miss Cole, and Katharine — you know very well we’d all grieve. And now I’d like you to listen to what I’ve been thinking. There’s that friend of Ernie’s, Jim Willis — ’ He proceeded to put forward his plan whilst Abel looked blankly over the top of his head.
When he had finished what he had in mind to say, there was one of those silences. It had prolonged itself to a really dreadful extent before Mr. Tattlecombe broke it with a heavy sigh.
‘Very kind of you, William, and I’ve no doubt he’s a steady, good-living young man — Ernie always did have the right sort of friends — but there’ll be no need for an assistant in the grave.’
‘I wasn’t talking about the grave, I was talking about the shop, and you’re going to need an assistant there. I don’t want you to think I’m going to give up my interest or just walk out and leave you, because I wouldn’t think of it. But you must see for yourself that there’ll be a good deal of business to attend to with Eversleys, and that I’ll have to attend to it personally. Now my idea would be to get Jim to come in as soon as he can, so that I can put him in the way of things.’
By the time they left him the gloom had to some slight extent lifted. There were fewer references to the tomb and to David’s rather gloomy estimate as to the appropriate age for retirement to it. There were even some gleams of interest in Jim Willis, and an early recollection or two of his coming about the house with Ernie. In fact the worst was over.
Just before they went away Katharine said how kind it was of Mrs. Salt to send them a pot of her apple honey.
Abel nodded.
‘She said she was going to. My cousin Sarah Hill sends it to her. I’ve got a pot or two myself. Sarah won’t let on how it’s made, but she lets us have some every year. Abby said something about bringing a pot round here for you tomorrow. That Emily’s all right again, and she’s coming to have tea with me. She said she’d bring it along then and leave it for you. You’ll like it.’
Katharine said, ‘It’s lovely. We had some when we went to tea with her. But we’ve had our pot already — we found it waiting for us when we got back to the flat last night. I was going to ring Mrs. Salt up and thank her, but William said she would rather have a letter, so I’m going to write to her as soon as we get home. It was so very kind.’
Abel wagged his head.
‘She must have taken it round herself,’ he said. ‘But Sunday evening she’d have been in chapel — never misses, wet or dry — ’ He paused, and then added, ‘William’s right about the telephone. It took a long time before she’d have it put in, and she wouldn’t have had done it then if I hadn’t put it to her that one or other of us might be took suddenly, and no chance of a last word if it wasn’t for being able to call up and say so.’
It was half-past twelve before William parked his car in the yard at Eversleys and walked round the building to the front door. The factory stood on the outer edge of the London fringe. It did not seem to have suffered any bomb damage, but even from the outside it had rather a going-down-hill appearance. His previous visit had been paid after dark. He took time now to look about him. The neighbourhood had changed a good deal. The big electrical works opposite was new. Marsdens, which had towered up a couple of hundred yards away, was gone — the site cleared, new foundations rising. Looked as if there had been a direct hit there.
When he had had a look round he went inside. This time he wasn’t going to be put off with seeing Miss Jones. He went up the stairs and into the outer office. A girl looked up from her typing, and he asked,
‘Is Mr. Cyril Eversley in?’
She said, ‘No.’
‘Mr. Brett?’
‘Yes.’
William said, ‘Then I’ll just go through and see him. You needn’t announce me.’
He left her fluttering behind him and went out of the other door and along the passage. Brett’s room used to be at the end. He wondered if he had changed it.
Apparently not. There was his name on the door, like everything else a good deal the worse for wear. He turned the handle and went in. This time there wasn’t going to be any surprise. Cyril would have been on the telephone — possibly Mavis too, but certainly Cyril. The only question was how Brett was going to take it. There was just a moment after he got inside the door, and then it was,
‘William — my dear chap!’ and his hand was being wrung.
Well, that was that, and a considerable relief. He looked at Brett, and found him a little heavier, a little older, but essentially the same. In face, after the first moment, it was difficult to see any change at all. The warmth, the charm, were paramount.
‘My dear chap, I never was so pleased in my life! Cyril got me on the telephone an hour ago — said he’d been trying to get hold of me ever since you turned up yesterday. Well — ’ he laughed with a sound of real enjoyment — ‘I was weekending, and one doesn’t hurry back on Monday morning — at least I don’t. There isn’t all that business to attend to. I wish there were. I’m afraid things aren’t quite what they were when you went away.’
William said, ‘So I gathered from Cyril.’
Brett’s eyebrows rose. The dark eyes under them took on a rueful, laughing expression.
‘We got through the war, but that’s about all you can say.’ The laughter flickered out. ‘Look here, William, it’s no good making any bones about it, we’re in the devil of a mess.
There was a pause before William said,
‘What sort of a mess, Brett?’
Brett Eversley looked him straight in the face and said,
‘Katharine’s money’s gone.’
Katharine, waiting in the flat, picked up the telephone receiver and heard William’s voice sounding rather faint and far away.
‘That you, Kath?’
She said, ‘Yes.’
‘Look here, darling, I can’t possibly get back to lunch. We’re up to the eyes in business… Yes, Brett’s here. I’m speaking from his office. We’re going into things together. Cyril’s still at Evendon. About that appointment with Mr. Hall — I can’t keep it. Brett rang through and caught him before he went out to lunch, so he knows I’m back, and I’ll be seeing him tomorrow.’
‘When will you be home?’
‘I’ll try and make it by five — but don’t wait tea.’
She said, ‘Of course I will. We’ll have apple honey.’
She hung up and went back to the table, which was set for lunch. There was a savoury stew in a casserole keeping hot in the kitchen, but the cold shape was at the far end, and a little cut glass dish of Abigail Salt’s apple honey. Katharine picked it up and put it away in the glass-fronted cupboard. She wasn’t going to start on it without William. She took out the remains of a pot of raspberry jam instead. Then she went to the kitchen to fetch the casserole.
It was well after five before William came home. He looked at the tea-table drawn up in front of the fire, at the whole warm glow of the room, and at Katharine. Then he kissed her. She said,
‘How did you get on, darling?’
‘It’s the real devil of a mess, Kath.’
She said, ‘Well, don’t bother about it now. Have your tea.’
He kept his arm about her.
‘Presently.’ Then after a moment, ‘You know, I think Brett is really glad I’m back.’
‘Was he — nice?’
William gave a sort of half laugh.
‘Perfectly charming. Brett’s got a brain if he’d use it. Cyril hasn’t — at least not the kind that’s any good to himself or anyone else. And I don’t mean that unkindly either. What I do mean is that Brett has got brains enough to see that it would have to be one thing or the other. I’d either got to be William Smith who was trying it on, or he’d got to get busy with the fatted calf and all the trimmings — that was obvious. And he wouldn’t want more than one look at me to see that the William Smith idea wouldn’t wash, so he did the thing handsomely. And of course it was very good business, because they’ve got themselves well on to the wrong side of the law, and Brett doesn’t want to go to prison.’
Katharine said, ‘Oh — ’
‘Your money’s gone, Kath.’
She said ‘Oh — ’ again.
‘It was the old game. They took a bit to pull the firm round, and then took more to bolster it up. They’d got to the point where they’d have been ruined if you married. Brett skated away from that, but of course it’s why he was trying to marry you.’
Katharine’s lip quivered.
‘There couldn’t be any other reason, could there, darling?’
‘Well, you said yourself he wasn’t in love with you,’ said William reasonably. ‘Thank goodness! There are quite enough complications without that. What I really set out to say was that I think Brett would have put up a pretty good show of being glad to see me whether he was or not, because he’s got brains enough to know which side his bread is buttered. But I’ve got a hunch that he really was glad to see me. I don’t think he could put on an act that would take me in.’
Katharine nodded. William always could see through people. He seemed so simple and easy, and in a way he was, but he saw through most brick walls. She said,
‘What are you going to do about them — about Brett and Cyril?’
‘Oh, Cyril can retire. Evendon, if it’ll run to it. He’s no use to the firm. Brett — ’ he grinned suddenly — ‘Brett can turn on the famous charm and go out and get us orders for the Wurzel toys. I’m going large on them, and I think they’ll pull us out of the mess. Gosh, I’m hungry! We had a sandwich lunch. Make the tea while I go and get washed.’
He came back to find Katharine standing at the table with the teapot in her hand. But she wasn’t looking at it, she was looking at something on the other side of the table. He got the impression that she had been looking at it for some time — something about her expression, something fixed. As he came up to her, she put the teapot down and said without any expression at all,
‘There’s a dead fly.’
‘Flies — at this time of year?’
‘There are always some in the Mews — no proper larders, and people are careless. But it’s dead.’
He said, ‘What — ’ and all of a sudden her hand came out and caught at his. The room was warm, but the hand was very cold. She said,
‘There’s another. Wait!’
They both looked at the table. Beyond Carol’s bright green lacquer tray with the teapot, sugar-basin and cups there was a loaf of brown bread, a plate of scones, a seed cake, a dish of butter pats, and the flat cut-glass dish heaped with Abigail Salt’s apple honey. It was a lovely translucent amber colour. There was a dead fly on it. As they stood there looking, a second fly came buzzing and circling down. It settled on the apple honey, plunged its tiny proboscis down on to the jelly, quivered, and rolled over dead.
Katharine’s ice-cold hand stiffened on William’s warm one in a frantic grip. Neither of them spoke. When the telephone bell rang Katharine’s grip loosened. She went to the writing-table, lifted the receiver mechanically. What she heard was Miss Silver’s voice.
‘Mrs. Eversley?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have received a pot of apple preserve from Mrs. Salt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do not on any account partake of it. You have not done so?’
‘No.’
The tension was sufficiently relieved for Miss Silver to cough.
‘I am truly thankful to hear it. May I speak to Mr. William Eversley?’
William took the receiver. He put an arm round Katharine and heard Miss Silver say,
‘There has been a very grave development. I am speaking from Selby Street. We are awaiting the arrival of the police. I think that you and Mrs. Eversley should come here at once. The matter concerns you deeply. Will you bring with you the pot of apple preserve which Mrs. Eversley tells me you have not tasted. It should not be touched with the hand, but replaced in its wrappings in such a manner as not to disturb any possible fingerprints.’
After a moment William said, ‘All right,’ and hung up. He and Katharine stood looking at one another.
Miss Silver had rung the front door bell of 176 Selby Street about half an hour earlier. She came by appointment, and was most unwillingly received. That she was received at all was due to the fact that in the course of her brief telephone conversation with Mrs. Salt she had taken it upon herself to quote Mr. Tattlecombe with some authority.
‘He would, I think, advise you to see me.’
Abigail’s voice came back stiffly.
‘I do not always follow my brother’s advice.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘In this instance you would, I think, be well advised to do so.’
‘Can you tell me why?’
‘He thought you would find it preferable to a more official visit.
Abigail Salt said in an expressionless voice,
‘You can come at five o’clock.’
Conducted to the upstairs parlour, Miss Silver seated herself and the interview began. In her quiet, restrained manner, Mrs. Salt was formidable. She took her own seat immediately below a grim photographic enlargement representing her mother-in-law in an alarming widow’s cap and a jetted chain strongly suggestive of a fetter. All the furniture in this room had belonged to old Mrs. Salt. It was out of date, without having attained to being antique, but it was solid and handsome, and had cost quite a lot in its day. Amid these surroundings Abigail Salt felt herself to be entrenched in the family tradition. The Salts had been well-to-do, respectable chapel people for a hundred years, and that is far enough for anyone to go back. The clock on the mantelpiece had come from the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Miss Silver could appreciate both the atmosphere and Mrs. Salt’s demeanour. She slightly inclined her head and observed,
‘It is very kind of you to see me.’
Receiving no reply, she pursued her theme.
‘Kind, and if I may say so, very wise.’
Abigail sat quite still with folded hands. She wore the dress reserved for Sundays and tea-parties. She wore her Honiton lace collar and her diamond brooch. These things gave her moral support. What she did not know was that they told Miss Silver she felt in need of it. She looked at her visitor’s well worn coat, at the rubbed fur about her neck, at the black felt hat which she would have considered too shabby to go out in, at the black woollen gloves which were such a contrast to the fur-lined pair reposing in her bedroom drawer next door. When, in spite of all this attention to all this detail, her eyes unwillingly returned to Miss Silver’s face, she looked away again almost at once.
Miss Silver gave her slight cough.
‘I will be quite frank with you, Mrs. Salt. Mr. Tattlecombe asked me to go and see him on Saturday evening, and when I did so he communicated to me the substance of his conversation with you that afternoon.’
Abigail pressed her lips together so tightly that they became a mere pale line. She said nothing.
Miss Silver continued,
‘You must, of course, be aware of the very serious nature of that conversation. What you told Mr. Tattlecombe amounted to an admission that it was your sister-in-law who assaulted Mr. William Smith. You spoke of finding Mr. Tattlecombe’s raincoat wet, and the kitchen poker out of its place and rusty.’
Abigail opened those closed lips and said,
‘I spoke to my brother in confidence.’
‘Mr. Tattlecombe is very much attached to Mr. Smith. He believes his life to be in danger.’
‘That is absurd.’
‘I do not think so. On the occasion of your brother’s accident he declared, and has since maintained, that he was ‘struck down’. That blow was, I believe, intended for William Smith. The second attempt was the one to which I have just referred. All the evidence points to Miss Salt as the assailant. On the third occasion, which might very well have proved fatal, William Smith was on his way back from a visit to this house. He was pushed in the back with a stick whilst waiting to cross the road from an island, and would have been thrown under a motor-omnibus if he had not been saved by the promptitude and strength of the gentleman next to him in the crowd. In the latest attempt one of the wheels of his car was loosened.’
‘My sister-in-law knows nothing at all about cars. And she was laid up all last week with an attack of influenza.’
‘So Mr. Tattlecombe informed me. I do not attribute the attack on your brother or the attempt on the car to Miss Emily Salt. I believe that the other two attempts can be attributed to her. You will see of course, as I have done from the first, that two people are involved. Miss Emily Salt is one of them. I have come to you to find out who is the other, and what is the connection between them.’
Abigail Salt sat there in her handsome dress, the grey curls of her hair neatly ordered, her eyes as round and blue as her brother’s, her cheeks rosy, her lips unnaturally compressed. She opened them to say,
‘I can’t help you.’
Miss Silver looked at her very steadily.
‘I think you can. I do not wish to be misleading. When I say I have come to you to find out who is the second person concerned in this affair, I mean that I have come to you to discover the link between this person and Miss Emily Salt. The person’s identity is known. Where you can help me is — ’
‘Miss Silver, I can’t help you.’
‘I believe you can.’
‘I know of no such person.’
Miss Silver put up a hand in its black woollen glove.
‘Mrs. Salt, I only ask that you will answer a few questions. If I do not ask them, the police will do so.’
The colour deepened in Abigail’s cheeks.
‘You can ask your questions. I can’t say whether I can answer them.’
Miss Silver smiled gravely.
‘I feel sure that you will endeavour to do so. Pray do not think that I do not appreciate the difficulty of your position. You have had a heavy charge in the care of Miss Emily Salt. You cannot have fulfilled it without being aware of certain things. Will you tell me whether she has ever shown any tendency to violence before?’
There was a silence. When it had lasted some time Miss Silver said gently,
‘I see.’
Abigail looked away.
‘It was a long time ago. She was jealous. I don’t want you to think it was worse than it was. I had a maid in the house then — a very nice, superior girl. She came to me and said that Emily had tried to push her down the stairs. I have thought it best not to have a resident maid since then. Emily gets jealous.’
‘And she was jealous of William Smith?’
‘My brother had made a will in his favour. She was vexed on my account.’
Miss Silver inclined her head.
‘I can see that she has been an anxious charge. These unstable temperaments are easily moved to jealousy and passion. They fall readily under the domination of a stronger will. I am seeking for evidence of such a domination. This is where I feel that you can help me.’
Abigail said, ‘No.’
She got another of those grave smiles.
‘I hope you can, and that if you can you will. Come, Mrs. Salt — when you look back, is there no one in the family, no friend or connection, with such an influence as I have described? If you can think of anyone of the sort, pray do not hesitate to tell me. You will not harm any innocent person, and you may be protecting your sister-in-law as well as William Smith. If, as I suspect, her peculiarities have been worked upon and she has been used as a tool, she may be in very grave danger. A tool which is no longer needed is quickly discarded by the criminal who has used it, and the discard is apt to be final.’
The gravity of Miss Silver’s voice and expression shook Abigail Salt. Her immobility was gone. She said in a different voice,
‘That sounds dreadful.’
The answer came back with an added gravity.
‘It might be even more dreadful than it sounds. Mrs. Salt, what associates, what friends, what connections has your sister-in-law had?’
‘Very few. She doesn’t make friends. As long as my mother-in-law lived she treated Emily as if she was a child. She was very stern with her — she directed everything she did. She would never admit that there was anything wrong. I think sometimes that if she had been differently treated she might have been different. She wasn’t allowed to do the same as other girls did. She hardly ever saw anyone outside the family — unless you count going to chapel.’
Miss Silver shook her head.
‘As you say, Mrs. Salt, most unwise treatment. But if there were no outside connections, was there perhaps anyone inside the family circle?’
‘There’s no one — ’ She broke off and then went on again. ‘There was a niece of hers — it’s some years ago now — Emily took one of her violent fancies for her. She gets them sometimes — they make her very tiresome. I was very glad when it faded.’
‘You say a niece?’
Abigail hesitated.
‘Well, in a way. That fact is I don’t know much about her. There was one of my husband’s sisters made a runaway marriage and the quarrel was never made up. I never met her, and the family never spoke about it. Then just before the war Emily met a cousin who said that a daughter of Mary’s had turned up. I forget how she’d come across her. She said she recognized her from her likeness to my mother-in-law.’ Abigail half turned and indicated the grim enlargement on the wall. ‘That’s how she was when I knew her, but she was considered very good-looking when she was young. You’d never think it, would you? Those enlargements don’t flatter anyone, but I’ve got a photograph in that album over there that shows you what she was like. I think her father was partly Italian. He had a restaurant in Bristol and he’d an Italian name, but her mother was English. Mary, the daughter who ran away, was like her, and by all accounts her daughter was too.’
‘Yes, Mrs. Salt?’
‘Well, there isn’t much more. Emily went to see this May, and she took one of her crazes about her. It was very tiresome indeed. Always running round with pots out of my jam-cupboard, or half a chicken, or the best part of a tongue, and no sooner any money in her pocket than it was out of it again — gloves for May — stockings for May — handbags. I put up with it because there wasn’t anything I could do and I hoped it would come to an end of itself, because presents or no presents, I didn’t think anyone would go on putting up with Emily for long — not unless they had to.’
The silence maintained through all the years of her life with Emily had been forcibly broken. Through the breach there came flooding in the realization of just what that association had cost Abigail Salt in friendship, in service, in constant daily effort.
Miss Silver answered words which had not been spoken.
‘It must have been a great strain.’
Abigail said, ‘Yes.’ A fleeting expression of surprise crossed her face. It may have been caused by her own recognition of what the strain had been, or she may have been wondering how Miss Silver came to know about it. After a moment she went on speaking.
‘May got tired of it — anyone would. There must have been a scene. Emily came home in the worst state I’ve ever seen her in. I couldn’t do anything with her. In the end I had to get the doctor, a thing I hadn’t had to do since my husband died.’
‘What did he say, Mrs. Salt?’
Words which she had never repeated came from Abigail now.
‘He said she might do herself or someone else a mischief. ’ Her colour changed, the surprised look came back. She said, ‘I’ve never told anyone before.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘He said she ought to be in a home. But she quieted down again and got back to her usual.’
‘That was before the war?’
‘Just before — that July or August.’
‘And was that all? Was there no recurrence of the friendship?’
Abigail hesitated.
‘Well, that’s just what I can’t say. I’ve thought sometimes — ’
‘Yes, Mrs. Salt?’
‘Well, there’s been something going on for the last two months, and I’ve wondered if it was that May again or — somebody else. Emily’s taken to slipping out in the evenings like she used to do — and not so natural in the winter. If I asked her where she’d been, she’d put herself in a state. I did put it to her point-blank, was she seeing May again, and she said she wasn’t. But it was just the same thing all over again — money just running away and food gone from the larder. There was a whole shape once when I’d got someone coming to supper, and no longer ago than this weekend a pot of my apple honey which I had set aside all ready to leave at my brother’s for William Smith and his wife.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘Mrs. Salt, what is the name of this niece of Miss Emily Salt’s?’
‘May — ’
‘But what surname?’
‘Well, I believe it is Woods — Mrs. Woods — or Wood — I can’t really say which.’
‘And her maiden name?’
‘I really don’t know. Her mother ran away, as I told you, and the family never mentioned her. And Emily always spoke of this daughter as May, and to begin with when she spoke of her a good deal — I don’t know — I got the idea — but perhaps I had better not say.’
Miss Silver said firmly, ‘I think it would be better if you did.’
A slight frown appeared upon Abigail’s smooth forehead.
‘Well, it was just an idea I got that there was something — ’ She hesitated, and then came out with, ‘not too respectable. There was a good flat, and everything nice, but nothing about who the husband was or what he did — only that he came there sometimes, and that if he was coming May would ring up and put Emily off. I thought it sounded as if there was something wrong, and after the first once or twice Emily didn’t say anything more, and I thought perhaps she’d been told to hold her tongue.’
There was a pause, after which Miss Silver said thoughtfully,
‘Mrs. Salt, have you ever heard of Eversleys?’
Abigail’s eyes remained perfectly blank. She said,
‘No — ’ and then, ‘Mrs. Smith was a Miss Eversley.’
Miss Silver looked at her in a very searching manner.
‘William Smith is Mr. William Eversley. He has recovered his memory, and has been recognized by members of his family. He has a controlling interest in the firm, and there are some who may find his return inconvenient. Do you know anything at all about this?’