Randal March surveyed Miss Silver with a look which she found quite easy to read. It was, or would have been, severe, if severity had not hesitated upon the brink of expression. She was well aware that for no one else in the world would it have so hesitated. If she had been anyone but Miss Maud Silver, the Superintendent would have been telling her very stiffly indeed exactly what he thought of people who concealed bloodstained handkerchiefs discovered on the scene of a murder, and then played a lone hand with two suspects instead of turning the whole matter over to the police. Being not without feminine tact, she showed no disposition to argue this point, presented, as it was, politely but firmly. She even nodded her head and said “Quite so” as the official view was expounded, and then addressed herself to turning the heel of the pink bootee. The official remonstrance went past her. Presently it ceased. Randal March allowed himself to relax.
“You seem very sure of the Madisons’ innocence.”
“My dear Randal, of course I am sure.”
She spoke without lifting her eyes, and he replied with vigour.
“I wonder what a jury would say about it.”
She did look up then.
“I do not imagine that a jury will ever have the opportunity.”
He allowed himself an exasperated movement.
“Why are you so sure? You say that Madison would not have had time to commit the murder because his wife would have been too timid to let him get far enough ahead of her. But you know, there is an answer to that. He knew the pistol was in her bureau. Two of the statements agree that the fact was mentioned on Thursday evening when the Madisons were here. There may have been such a scene between him and his wife as to make him resolve to put a violent end to the situation. He is the type of man who might do a violent thing.”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“Bad psychology, Randal. Mr. Madison would not shoot a woman in the back. He might strangle her if he was sufficiently provoked. It would, I think, require contact to rouse him to the point of murder. Besides he was most firmly convinced that his wife had shot Miss Lyle. It was this conviction which was almost driving him out of his mind. No—you will find that my solution is correct. It springs from the characters of the people concerned. They are both simple types— he the vigorous, rather primitive male, and she his feminine counterpart, the timid clinging female. When you interview them—I suppose you mean to interview them—you will, I am convinced, find yourself believing in their innocence as firmly as I do.”
He thought it likely enough, but he did not say so. He made instead an impatient movement and said,
“Well, someone shot her, and I mean to find out who it was. If you won’t have the Madisons, who is left? Let’s get down to it. You won’t be any better pleased if I head the list with Desborough and Laura Fane.”
He drew pen and paper towards him and wrote the names upon it in a small, forcible hand:
carey desborough
laura fane:
motive——to extricate desborough from an entanglement to which he may have been deeply committed, and which had become intolerable.
Miss Silver’s eyebrows rose.
“Is that a motive for murder?”
“It has been, time and again.”
“Men break such entanglements every day, my dear Randal.”
He nodded.
“That is true. But once in a way they break them violently— like this.”
He turned back to his paper and wrote:
opportunity. they both admit to being up and out of their rooms long after everyone else had gone to bed. laura fane was seen returning to her room at 3:00 a.m. desborough puts his time at 1:55, but we have only his word for it. l.f.’s shawl disappeared that night. two threads from the fringe caught on miss lyle’s ring. bloodstained fragment found amongst ashes of drawing-room fire.
Repeating aloud what he had written, he added,
“The stain was blood, you know.”
Miss Silver knitted unperturbed.
“So I supposed.”
“Well, it doesn’t look too good for Desborough and Miss Fane—does it?”
“Appearances are often extremely deceptive. Pray continue your list, Randal. It is most interesting.”
He wrote:
alistair maxwell:
motive——jealousy.
opportunity—undated note making assignation 1:00 a.m. or later found in his dress clothes. admits he kept appointment and quarrelled with deceased, but states it was on the previous night.
He looked up again.
“A case could very easily be made out against Alistair Maxwell. You saw the condition he was in. Are you going to tell me he mightn’t have shot Tanis Lyle if he had come in upon her and found her on the point of admitting another man?”
Miss Silver unwound some of her pink wool.
“No,” she said. “In those circumstances he might have shot her. But I do not see how they could have arisen. Tanis would not have invited Mr. Madison if she already had an appointment with Mr. Maxwell. The fact that she was expecting Mr. Madison bears out Mr. Maxwell’s statement that her note to him referred to the previous evening. Added to this, if Mr. Maxwell had been worked up to the point of murdering her he would have been quite past undertaking the cool removal of fingerprints—and, as I said before, the burning of the shawl is not explained.”
“Miss Lyle might have been wearing it. Say she felt cold when she came downstairs, and picked it up.”
Miss Silver’s pink ball dropped and rolled. He bent to pick it up. She said equably,
“But why should Mr. Maxwell burn it? I can see no motive at all. It would not compromise him.”
“No.” March laid a finger on the names at the top of the list. “No. There it is—you’ve said it. The shawl could compromise no one except Laura Fane. Only she, or someone acting in her interest, had a motive for destroying it.”
Miss Silver said, “I wonder. Pray go on with your list, Randal.”
He wrote:
petra north:
motive—quite strong.
opportunity—the same as that of everyone else in the house. obviously bogus confession—made on spur of moment to divert suspicion from maxwell,
tim madison:
motive—none so far ascertainable.
opportunity—admits to having assignation with her that night. says he found her already dead, denies entering house,
mrs. madison:
motive—jealousy.
opportunity—her bloodstained handkerchief found in ruins. admits to being there and to having touched the body but says she followed her husband and found miss lyle dead.
Miss Silver coughed slightly.
“That is not quite correct. Mrs. Madison did follow her husband, did find him standing or kneeling over the body, and did touch it herself, afterwards losing her stained handkerchief. But she has not yet admitted to any of these things, though she will undoubtedly do so when you tax her with them.”
Randal March smiled.
“I’m merely being a little previous? I’ll let it stand for the present. Well, I suppose that is about all. Miss Fane and Miss Adams could have no possible interest in their niece’s death. She seems to have been the main object of their existence. There is no motive at all, and in Miss Fane’s case at least no opportunity, since she can only move about in her invalid chair.”
Miss Silver primmed her mouth.
“I agree with you that Agnes could not possibly have desired her niece’s death, but had she desired it she could, I think, have done everything that was done by the murderer.”
He made an exclamation of surprise.
“From an invalid chair?”
Miss Silver was silent for a moment. Then she said,
“She is extremely skilful in her use of it. She can go up and down in the lift without any assistance.”
“I didn’t know that!”
She nodded.
“I thought perhaps you did not.”
“Could she have taken the pistol from the drawer and replaced it?”
“I think so.”
He frowned.
“There’s something wrong here. Wait a minute—if Miss Fane came down in her chair by way of the lift, Miss Lyle must have both seen and heard her. The machinery is by no means silent. Even with a high wind blowing, I think it must have been heard by anyone who was standing at the door of the octagon room.”
Miss Silver said, “The door was open, but the wind was on the other side of the house. That point has not been brought out. In my opinion it is an important one. The octagon room is screened by the south wall of the Priory. It is in fact so much sheltered that the door to the church had not blown to, but was still standing open when Dean discovered the body.”
March nodded.
“As you say, it is a point—and it bears out my contention that Miss Lyle would have heard the lift. Remember, she must have been on the lookout for Madison, and also for any sound from the house. I can’t believe that she could have been taken by surprise from the lift. Also Miss Fane would have had no need to touch the inside handle of the sitting-room door, which was certainly touched and wiped by the murderer. It’s all quite incredible.”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“Nothing in human nature is incredible. Some things are harder to believe than others, that is all. But you must not think that I have any wish to direct your suspicions toward Agnes. I merely feel it my duty to tell you that her physical condition does not make it impossible for her to have done what the murderer did.”
He frowned again.
“If the shot had been fired from a sitting position, the course of the bullet would have been slightly upwards. Miss Lyle was a tall woman.”
Miss Silver looked at him seriously.
“Randal—when Agnes Fane commissioned me to discover who had murdered her niece she used a remarkable expression. I warned her that suspicion might rest upon a member of her household or of her family. She replied that she wished the murderer to be discovered, even if it were herself. Her maid Perry had been mentioned just before, and she said in that sardonic voice of hers, ‘If it is Perry, I shall have to find a new maid, which would be very tiresome. And if it is I, Perry will have to find a new mistress.’ ”
“Perry?” March’s voice had a startled sound.
“Yes.”
“And what motive would Perry have?”
“I do not know.”
“Do you think Miss Fane meant that she suspected Perry?”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“I do not think so. But Agnes has a strange character. She may have been hinting at some suspicion of her own, or she may have meant nothing at all—she is very secretive. There is something I feel I ought to tell you. I am in her employment, but on terms which in no way bind me to silence.”
March wondered what was coming. He was not at all prepared for her next words.
In a considerably lowered voice she said,
“You can leave the invalid chair out of it, Randal. Agnes Fane is not dependent on it. She can walk.”
“What!”
Miss Silver nodded.
“I have seen her. She has a pronounced limp, but she is perfectly active. It is supposed to be a dead secret. Perry knows of course, and Lucy—and, I suspect, the Deans. She sleeps badly, and likes to walk about the house at night when there is no one to see her. The doors to the servants’ wing are locked by Dean before he goes to bed, so she feels safe from observation.”
“But why?”
“I told you she has a strange character. Her accident left her with one leg considerably shortened. She used to have a fine figure and a very graceful walk. She could not bear to be seen limping. She preferred the role of complete disablement, and she has kept it up for more than twenty years.”
He still looked startled.
“Do you mean that she could walk down the stairs?”
“Oh, yes—I have seen her do it.”
“When?”
“The night after I came here. She moves quite freely.”
“Does she know that you saw her?”
“Oh, no—I am sure she does not.”
He went on looking at her for a moment, and then pushed back his chair.
“Is this a red herring?”
She was putting away her knitting.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
He laughed a little.
“Haven’t you? Look here, tell me frankly—do you really suspect Miss Agnes Fane?”
Miss Silver rose with dignity.
“I am quite unable to answer that question.”
“That means you do. But why? Tell me why.”
She shook her head.
“Would she have known how to use the pistol? Can you tell me that?”
She relaxed a little.
“Yes, I will tell you that. I have been thinking that you should know. When I visited here as a young girl Mr. Fane, Agnes’s father, had us all taught to shoot. He set up a target in the ruins, and we used to practice at it with his pistol. It was considered rather eccentric of him, but we found it quite enjoyable.”
He said, “We?” on a sharp note of enquiry.
“Agnes, Lucy, and myself—oh, and of course Perry.”
“Perry?”
Miss Silver moved towards the door.
“Oh, yes,” she said soberly. “Perry was a very good shot.”
Miss Silver walked out after tea to post a letter. Being Saturday afternoon, and the destination of the letter London, it might just as well have been posted next day, but Miss Silver was feeling a necessity for solitude accompanied by gentle movement. In fact she desired to take a walk, and made the letter her excuse.
The evening was dark and still. The temperature had risen sensibly. The air, soft against her face, held a promise of rain. With the reflection that it was really quite pleasant out of doors, and that possibly a mild spell was about to set in, she turned out of the drive and made her way to the pillarbox at the crossroads.
When she had posted her letter she walked back at a pace much slower than her usual brisk trot. Her mind was, in fact, busy with the train of thought evoked by her last conversation with Randal March. Perry—the name stayed in her mind—the name and what it stood for—forty-one years of devoted service to Agnes Fane, a relationship begun when both were young, and which had endured past youth, past the crash of Agnes’s happiness and health, through many years of invalidism to this last tragedy. Search as she would, Miss Silver could find nothing in this relationship on which to base a motive for the murder of Tanis Lyle. If motive there were, it must lie elsewhere. But in what dark and secret places of a warped, frustrated nature? If there was one person in that household less unlikely than another to be capable of the hatred which is the essence of murder, it was Perry. No hot rage or sudden impulse would prompt her, but some cold, fixed, implacable resentment might do so. But from what would such a resentment spring? There seemed no answer to that, unless—unless. A thought which had come to her earlier in the day now presented itself again and clamoured to be heard.
Miss Silver became so engrossed that she missed her way in the drive and found herself well away from it upon a path hedged by shrubs. A holly bush brought her up short where the path took a sudden turn. She received a slight scratch on the cheek, and immediately stood still to take her bearings. The shrubbery was dense, and it was extremely dark. She thought she must have skirted the north wing, and that she must be somewhere in the neighbourhood of the back premises, in which case it might be simpler to keep straight on until she came to the house.
She was regretting that she had not brought her torch, when the sound of footsteps and voices arrested her attention. The steps were cautious, the voices lowered. There was a smothered “O-oh!” as a twig snapped. A man spoke, low and gruff—“Look out,” and a girl giggled and said, “Can’t look far in this blinking dark.” The word she used was not “blinking.” It shocked Miss Silver considerably, especially from the lips of a young person of seventeen.
The girl was Florrie Mumford, and she had no business to be out in the shrubbery after dark with a man. Really Mrs. Dean ought to know more about what went on. However that might be, there was Florrie, on the other side of the holly bush by the sound of her, and by his voice the young man was William Shepherd, one of the undergardeners. “And not the first time Florrie has slipped out to meet him” was Miss Silver’s conclusion. The sounds from the far side of the holly bush were suggestive of practice.
Miss Silver had been much too well brought up to indulge in eavesdropping. She had a moment’s indecision as to whether it would not now be better to retrace her footsteps, when she heard something which translated her from the role of private gentlewoman to that of private detective. In this latter capacity her scruples about overhearing a private conversation ceased to be scruples at all.
What she heard was William Shepherd saying urgently,
“If you know who done it, Florrie, you did ought to tell.”
Florrie giggled.
“I’m not saying what I know, and I’m not telling neither, so there!”
“Then you shouldn’t go hinting the way you been doing.”
“Who’s been hinting?”
“You have, and well you know it, and if you don’t mind out, your tongue’ll be getting you into trouble one of these days.”
Florrie giggled again.
“Oh, will it?”
“Yes, it will. And you’d better shut your mouth on it and keep it shut, or you’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry I took up with you!” Florrie’s voice was pert.
There was the sound of a kiss, a slapped cheek, a scuffle, another kiss. Then William Shepherd, complacent over his smack.
“Silly—aren’t you? Suppose I go off after another girl— how’ud you like that? You be’ave yourself or you’ll find out! And you drop this ’ere hinting or you’ll be getting both of us the sack.”
Florrie sounded pettish.
“Oh, well, you’ll be getting called up anyway, so what’s the odds?”
“Mother wouldn’t like it if I got the sack, and no more she won’t like it if you carry on the way you been doing, hinting and suchlike. If you got anything to say, you say it right out and ha’ done, or you’ll be getting trouble for your pains like I said.”
Florrie giggled and whispered.
“Suppose I was to get money. There’s some people that’d pay proper for me to keep my hints to myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her voice teased him.
“Wouldn’t you just like to know! Money—that’s what I’m talking about. A word here and a word there, and maybe they’ll bring me in a nice bit of money—enough to make you sit up and take a bit of notice. What’d you say to a hundred pounds?”
What William would have said can only be guessed at. From the distance Mrs. Dean could be heard calling Florrie with acerbity.
“Florrie! Florrie! Where have you got to? It don’t take half an hour to empty the potato peelings, does it?”
Florrie giggled.
“There she goes! No, you can’t—you’ve had enough. You lemme go! I’ll be out tomorrow for my evening. Maybe I’ll meet you, and maybe I’ll have something in my pocket—there’s no saying.”
Miss Silver stood where she was. Mrs. Dean called again.
Florrie rustled away. William Shepherd pushed through onto the path and went down it, passing so near that she could have touched him.
When all the sounds had died she made her way back to the drive, and so to the front door.