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Title: The Catherine-Wheel
Author: Wentworth, Patricia [Elles, Dora Amy] (1878-1961)
Date of first publication: 1949 [U.S.], 1951 [U.K.]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Coronet Books, Hodder Paperbacks Ltd., 1973
Date first posted: 18 April 2014
Date last updated: 18 April 2014
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1175

This ebook was produced by: Alex White
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                          The Catherine-Wheel

                           Patricia Wentworth





    To those readers who have so kindly concerned themselves about
    Miss Silver's health. Her occasional slight cough is merely a
    means of self-expression. It does not indicate any bronchial
    affection. She enjoys excellent health.

                                                              P. W.





                               Chapter 1


Jane Heron took a few graceful gliding steps and came slowly back round
the circle of watching women. Clarissa Harlowe's dress show was in
progress, and she was showing a dress called Sigh no More. There was not
very much of it above the waist, just a few opalescent folds, but the
skirt was new and rather exciting. There were almost more yards of stuff
in it than you would have believed possible, all coming in slim and
tight to the waist, but they would swirl like spray in the wind when you
danced. Jane lifted her arms in a movement which she contrived to make
perfectly natural and took a few floating waltz steps. The skirt flew
out. A woman close to her drew in her breath with a gasp. Another said,
'Heavenly! But I mustn't--I really mustn't.' Mrs. Levington raised her
rather harsh voice and called across the room to Mrs. Harlowe, 'I'll
have it--but you mustn't sell a copy for three months.' She turned as
soon as she had spoken and beckoned to Jane.

'Come here! I want to see how it fastens.'

Jane came with the graceful submissive air which was part of the job.
Inwardly she was thinking that Mrs. Levington wouldn't get into the
dress by at the very least four inches. She wasn't fat, but she was
solid--rather high in the shoulder, rather square in the hip. Handsome,
of course, if you liked them that way. Jane didn't.

It wasn't her business to mind who bought Clarissa Harlowe's
dresses--they were out of her reach, and always would be. She was there
because her really lovely figure added at least twenty-five per cent to
the price.

Mrs. Harlowe came up, brisk, businesslike, smartly tailored.

'That will be quite all right, Mrs. Levington. You can have a fitting
tomorrow at ten-thirty. No, I'm afraid I can't make it any other
time--we are very busy.'

Indifference bordering on rudeness, that was her line--'Take it or leave
it--we can do better than you.' It was astonishing how it went down. It
went down with Mrs. Levington now. She accepted her appointment quite
meekly. Jane was dismissed.

The dressing-room was full of clothes and girls. One of them went out as
Jane came in, a lovely blonde in a thin black afternoon dress made
incredibly distinguished by its cut and some clever skirt drapery. Jane
took off Sigh no More and hung it up carefully. She had a feeling that
she would never look so nice in anything again. It was only her figure
that was beautiful. Her face was too small, too colourless. When she
looked in the glass she would see a pair of good grey eyes and quite a
lot of dark hair, and that was about all you could say for Jane Heron
apart from her figure. No one had any fault to find with that. It was
slim without being thin. Everything about it was just right. Jane
thought a lot of it, and well she might, since it provided her with the
roof over her head and her daily bread and butter. It was a good
biddable figure, too, not the sort you had to pander to and placate. She
knew girls who went in daily fear of their hip measurement, and who
simply didn't dare to look at a potato or a pat of butter. There was no
nonsense like that about Jane's figure. If she ate chocolate and suet
pudding for a year she wouldn't put on an ounce. Jeremy had given her a
box of chocolates last week.

She turned round from hanging up Sigh no More and began to put on her
own clothes. The show was nearly over--she wouldn't have to go through
again. She slipped into a dark skirt, pulled a jumper over her head, and
put on her coat. Everyone was trying to dress at once. She had to stand
on one leg at a time to change the shoes she had worn for her own dark
ones. All the girls were dressing now, chattering nineteen to the dozen.
She managed to get the glass for a moment while she pulled on the small
dark turban which went with her suit, and there she was--Cinderella
after the last stroke of twelve--no features, no bloom, no colour,
except for the lipstick which brightened her mouth. It was too bright
really, but you had to make up a bit extra for a show. Jeremy would look
sideways and say things about pillar-boxes. Well, let him--she didn't
care.

She came out on to the street and found it icy cold. It was going to
freeze quite hard. She exchanged good-nights with Gloria and Daphne and
took her way to the end of the street. Sometimes Jeremy met her there,
but he wouldn't tonight because of the show. There just wasn't any
saying how long it would go on.

She turned the corner, and he loomed up out of a doorway. It was
heartening when you had been feeling like Cinderella. He slipped his
hand inside her arm, and she said, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come!'

Jeremy Taverner said, 'Don't be silly! How did it go?'

'Two of my things sold. That puts my stock up.'

'The usual frightful women?'

'They're not all frightful.'

'I don't know how you stand it.'

'Well, I don't see there's anything else I could do which I shouldn't
hate a good deal worse.'

'As?'

'Serving in a shop--nursemaid--companion--'

'There are lots of jobs for women.'

'Darling, I'm not trained for any of them.'

He said in an angry voice, 'Don't call me darling!'

'Did I?'

'You did. I don't like it.'

She laughed easily.

'It doesn't mean anything--one does it all the time. It just slipped
out.'

He said still more angrily, 'That's why!'

The hand inside her arm gripped her quite painfully. She said, 'Darling,
you're pinching me!' Then, with a sudden change of voice and manner,
'Don't be a tiresome toad, because I want to talk to you--I really do.'

In spite of being called a tiresome toad in the sort of voice which
makes an intimate and flattering term of it, Jeremy remained angry.

'I don't see why you weren't trained for anything. Girls ought to be.'

'Yes, darling, but I wasn't. My mother married a more or less penniless
parson with his head in the clouds, and they never thought about it.
They never had any time to think about anything, because the parish was
much too big and poor. And they died when I was fifteen, and my
grandfather took me in and sent me to the sort of school where they
concentrate on your manners and don't bother about sordid things like
earning your living.'

'Which grandfather?' said Jeremy in a different voice.

'Oh, the Taverner one--mother's father--your grandfather's brother--old
Jeremiah Taverner's eighth child and sixth son. I know the whole lot off
by heart. The eldest was Jeremiah after his father, and then there were
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and the two girls, Mary and Joanna.
Your grandfather was John, and mine was Acts. And if we hadn't met by
accident six months ago at the dullest party on earth we shouldn't have
known we existed. I mean you wouldn't have known I did, and I wouldn't
have known you did.' She came up close, so that her shoulder rubbed
against his arm. 'You know, the other six probably all left descendants
too, and I expect most of them will have seen the Advertisement and
answered it. I do wonder what they're like--don't you?'

Jeremy said, 'It must have been a whale of a family row.'

'Oh, I don't know--people drift away--'

'Not to that extent. My grandfather used to talk about his twin, Joanna,
but I don't think he ever saw her. He was clever, you know--took
scholarships, and got into one of these research laboratories. That's
how my father came to be a doctor. He was killed in nineteen-eighteen.
My mother married again and went to Australia, leaving me with the old
boy. So we were both brought up by our grandfathers--Hi! There's your
bus!'

They ran for it, and managed to scramble on, but it wasn't possible to
go on talking. Jane was lucky, because the bus passed the end of her
road. When they got off they had only to cross the street and go about a
third of the way along Milton Crescent to No. 20.

She let herself in with her key and took Jeremy up three flights of
stairs to the attic floor. There were two attics which had once been
maids' bedrooms, and there was a boxroom and a bathroom. Jane had both
the attics, and alluded to them as 'my flat'. The back one was the
sitting-room. With the light switched on and the curtains drawn it
always gave her a thrill, because it wasn't in the least what you would
expect. There was an old walnut bureau, and two Queen Anne chairs with
seats of Chinese brocade. A walnut mirror surmounted by a golden eagle
hung above the bureau. There was a very good Persian rug, and a
comfortable sofa heaped with many-coloured cushions. The oddly named Mr.
Acts Taverner had, in fact, started life as a purveyor of second-hand
furniture and finished up by achieving the kind of antique shop which
provides its owner with a good deal of pleasure without bringing in a
great deal of cash. Jane's furniture was what she had been able to salve
from the sale.

'_Now_,' she said, turning round from the window. 'Put on the kettle,
there's an angel--I'm dying for a cup of tea. And then I'll show you
what I got this morning.'

Jeremy put a match to the gas ring and stood up.

'I know what you got--an answer from Box three hundred and whatever it
was, because I got one too. I brought it along to show you.'

They sat down side by side upon the sofa and each produced a sheet of
rather shiny white paper. The notes were headed Box 3093. One began
'Dear sir,' and the other 'Dear madam'. Jane's ran:

'Your answer to the advertisement inviting the descendants of Jeremiah
Taverner who died in 1888 to communicate with the above box number
received and contents noted. Kindly inform me of the date of your
grandfather Acts Taverner's decease, and state whether you remember him
clearly, and to what extent you were brought into contact with him.'

Except for a variation in the name the two letters were identical.
Jeremy and Jane gazed at them frowning. Jeremy said, 'I don't see what
he's getting at.'

'Perhaps he's writing a family history.'

'Why should he?'

'I don't know--people do. Let's write our answers, then perhaps we'll
find out.'

His frown deepened.

'Look here, you'd better let me write.'

'Jeremy, how dull!'

'I didn't want you to answer the advertisement.'

'I know--you said so.'

She jumped up and began to get out the tea-things--a dumpy Queen Anne
teapot, two Worcester cups and saucers, one of them riveted, a dark blue
lustre milk-jug, an engaging tea-caddy painted in pastoral scenes.

Jeremy said slowly, 'What does he want?'

'A family reunion, darling--all our cousins. Perhaps some of them will
be rays of sunshine. You are not doing much in that line, you know, my
sweet.'

He came over to her and stood there in a very up-in-the-air kind of way.

'I think you had much better drop it. I'll write if you like.'

Jane lifted her eyes. They held a definite sparkle.

'Perhaps you didn't hear me say, "How dull!" '

'Jane--'

'Well, I'm saying it again--dull, dull, dull--ditchwater dull.' Then she
stepped back and tapped a warning foot. 'You wouldn't like me to lose my
temper, would you?'

'I don't know--'

Dark lashes fell suddenly over the sparkling eyes. A little flush came
up under the pale skin.

'I'm too tired.' Then, with a sudden change of manner, 'Oh, Jeremy,
don't be a beast!'




                               Chapter 2


Jacob Taverner sat there, as thin as a monkey and with the same alert,
malicious look. A good many different climates had tanned and dried his
skin. He had kept his hair, and whether by luck or good management, it
was not very grey. It wasn't dyed either. No hairdresser would have made
himself responsible for its odd dried-grass appearance. His eyes behind
the sparkle were hazel. For the rest, there wasn't a great deal of him.
He had dropped an inch from his original five-foot-six. Arms and legs
had a frail, spidery look. He wore the sort of old clothes which only a
tramp or a millionaire would be seen dead in. He wasn't quite a
millionaire, but he was getting on that way, and he was seeing his
solicitor, Mr. John Taylor, about the disposition of his property. Not
that he intended to die--by no means--but having managed to enjoy a
great many different things in the course of his seventy years, he now
intended to amuse himself with the always fascinating possibilities of
will-making with a difference.

Mr. Taylor, who had known him for some forty-five years, knew better
than to try and thwart this latest of many preoccupations. Sometimes he
said, 'Certainly,' sometimes he said, 'I should advise you to think that
over,' and sometimes he didn't say anything at all. When this happened,
Jacob Taverner chuckled secretly and the malice in his eyes grew
brighter. Silence meant disapproval, and when John Taylor disapproved of
him he felt that he had scored, because John Taylor represented
middle-class respectability, and when it was possible to give
middle-class respectability a brief electric jolt he always enjoyed
doing it.

They sat with the office table between them and John Taylor wrote. A
pleasantly rounded little man with everything very neat about him,
including a head very shiny and bald with a tidy little fringe of
iron-grey hair at the back.

Jacob Taverner sat back in his chair with his thumbs in his waistcoat
pockets and laughed.

'Do you know, I had fifty answers to my advertisement. Fifty!' He gave a
sort of crow. 'A lot of dishonest people in the world, aren't there?'

'There might not be any dishonest intention--'

Jacob Taverner puffed out his cheeks, and then suddenly expelled the air
in a sound like 'Pho!' Contempt for his solicitor's opinion was
indicated.

'Taverner's not all that common as a name, and when you tack Jeremiah on
to it--well, I ask you! "Descendants of Jeremiah Taverner who died in
1888"--that's what I put in my advertisement. I had fifty answers, and
half of them were just trying it on.'

'He might have had fifty descendants,' said Mr. John Taylor.

'He might have had a hundred, or two hundred, or three, but he didn't
have half of those who answered my advertisement. He had eight
children--I'm not counting four that died in their cradles. My father
Jeremiah was the eldest. The next five sons were Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, and Acts, and the two girls were Mary and Joanna. Mary came fourth
between Mark and Luke, and Joanna was a twin with John. Well, there's
quite a lot of scope for descendants there. That's what first put it
into my head, you know. Old Jeremiah, he kept the Catherine-Wheel inn on
the coast road to Ledlington, and his father before him. Up to their
necks in the smuggling trade, they were, and made a pretty penny out of
it. They used to land the cargoes and get them into Jeremiah's cellars
very clever.' He chuckled. 'I remember him, and that's the way he used
to talk about it--"We diddled them very clever". Well, he died in
eighty-eight and he left everything to my father, his eldest son
Jeremiah.' He screwed up his face in a monkey grimace. 'Was there a
family row! None of them ever spoke to him again or had any truck or
dealings with him. He let the inn on a long lease, put the money in his
pocket, and set up as a contractor. He made a pile, and I've made
another--and because of the family quarrel I can't make a decent family
will without advertising for my kith and kin.'

Mr. John Taylor looked incredulous.

'You don't mean to tell me you don't know anything at all about any of
them!'

Jacob laughed his queer dry laugh.

'Would you believe me?'

'No, I should not.'

Jacob laughed his queer dry laugh.

'You don't have to. I know a thing or two here and there, as you might
say. Some of them went up in the world, and some of them went down. Some
of them died in their beds, and some of them didn't. Some of them got
killed in both wars. Between the little I knew and what was in the fifty
letters, I've got them more or less sorted out. Now, to start with--my
own generation don't interest me, and they're mostly gone. So far as my
money is concerned you can wash them out. They've either made enough for
themselves or they've got used to doing without. Anyway I'm not
interested. It's the next generation, old Jeremiah's
great-grandchildren, that I'll be putting my money on, and this is what
they boil down to. It's not the whole of them--you're to understand
that. I've picked them over and I've sorted them out.'

'Do you mean you've been interviewing them?'

'No, I don't. I didn't want to be mixed up in it personally--not for the
moment. As a matter of fact I've taken the liberty of using your name.'

'_Really_, Jacob!' Mr. Taylor looked decidedly annoyed.

His client gave that odd laugh again.

'You'll get over it. I haven't compromised you--only invited the ones
I've picked to come and meet you here this afternoon.'

John Taylor tapped his knee.

'To meet me--not you?'

'Certainly not to meet me. I am the great Anon. as far as a personal
appearance goes. You can give them my name, but I want to have a look at
'em before they have a look at me. You will interview them, and I shall
lurk'--he jerked a scraggy elbow--'behind that door. I shall hear
without being heard. You will place nine chairs with their backs to me,
and I shall be able to look through the crack and see without being
seen.'

John Taylor leaned forward and said in a perfectly serious voice, 'You
know, Jacob, sometimes I really do think that you are mad.'

He got a grimace and a burst of laughter.

'My dear John, I pay you handsomely to prevent anyone else saying so.
Besides it isn't true. I have merely retained my youth, while you have
become a fogy. It amuses me to gambol, to disport myself, to play
tricks. I have a lot of money. What's the good of it if I don't make it
amuse me? Well, I'm going to--that's all. And now, perhaps, you will let
me get down to brass tacks and tell you about the people who are coming
to see you this afternoon.'

Mr. John Taylor pursed his lips, pulled forward a sheet of notepaper,
and took up a nicely pointed pencil. His manner showed resignation, with
an underlying suggestion of protest.

Jacob let out one of his cackling laughs.

'All set? Well then, off we go! Taverner's the name--Geoffrey and
Mildred--grandson and granddaughter of Jeremiah's second son
Matthew--brother and sister--somewhere in their forties.'

John Taylor wrote them down.

'Got 'em? Now we come to the next brother, Mark. Granddaughter of his in
the female line--Mrs. Duke--Florence--Mrs. Florence Duke.'

John Taylor made no reply. He wrote down, 'Mrs. Florence Duke.'

Jacob rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

'Jeremiah's fourth child was a daughter, Mary. This is where we go up in
the world. She ran away to go on the stage and married the Earl of
Rathlea--old family, poor wits, twopence halfpenny in his pocket, and a
tumbledown castle in Ireland. The family didn't know whether they were
coming or going. First she disgraced them by going on the stage, and
then they disgraced her by being in trade. One way and another there was
no love lost, and what you might call a pretty clean cut. Well, Mary's
gone, and the title's gone--last male heir killed in the war. But
there's a grandaughter, Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington.'

John Taylor looked up quickly.

'Lady Marian--'

Jacob nodded.

'Lady Marian O'Hara--Lady Marian Morgenstern--Madame de Farandol--Lady
Marian Thorpe-Ennington.'

'My dear Jacob!'

Jacob Taverner grinned.

'Famous beauty--or was. Lively piece by all accounts--varied taste in
husbands. Married Morgenstern for his money--no one could possibly have
married him for anything else--and he diddled her out of it.'

'I remember. The will made a sensation. He left everything to
charities--and a secretary.'

'Bit of a sell for my cousin Marian. She married a young de Farandol
after that--racing motorist--got himself killed just before the war. Not
much money from him. Now she's married to Freddy Thorpe-Ennington whose
father's pickle factory has just gone smash. She hasn't had much luck,
you see. And now we come down in the world again. The next son,
Luke--well, there are quite a lot of his descendants running around.
Luke wasn't what you'd call respectable--he took to the roads and died
in a workhouse. But one of his daughters married a railway porter at
Ledlington, and they had one son. I've picked him. His name is Albert
Miller, commonly called Al.'

'What made you pick him?'

John Taylor's tone was mildly interested. He was prepared to maintain,
professionally, to all comers that Jacob Taverner was not legally mad. A
man who has amassed nearly a million pounds can be allowed his
eccentricities. In his private capacity, John was interested to see how
these eccentricities worked, and how nearly they might be said to
approach the borderline.

Jacob withdrew a pin from the lapel of his shocking old jacket and made
small stabbing passes with it in the air.

'Wrote the names on a bit of paper, shut my eyes, and prodded at 'em.
Didn't want more than one or two out of any line. The pin went right
into Al at the first go, clean through the M in Miller, so I took him.
It's a good pin. Do you know how long I've had it--forty-five years. And
when in doubt I've always shut my eyes and pricked, and it's never let
me down once. Never lost it but once, and I thought I'd have gone off my
head. Dropped in my own office, and they said they couldn't find
it--slipped out of my hand as I was sticking it back into my coat, and
they said they couldn't find it. I had every man jack of 'em up, and I
said, "Man, woman, or boy, who finds that pin gets ten pounds, and if it
isn't found, everyone gets the sack." A matter of two hours afterwards a
smart boy comes along and says he's found it. I took a look at the pin
he brought and I said, "I've no room for fools in my office. You can get
out and you can stay out".'

'Why was he a fool, and how did you know it was not your pin?'

Jacob cracked his fingers.

'How do you know your children from anyone else's? When you've lived
with anything for forty-odd years, nobody's going to take you in. And he
was a fool because he brought me a brand-new pin out of a packet.
Thought himself smart, and all he got was the sack.'

'But you did get it back?'

Jacob put the pin carefully into his lapel.

'I paid a blackmailing young woman five hundred pounds for it. I'd have
paid double. She thought she'd scored me off, but I got back on her.
Nobody's ever scored me off and got away with it--nobody. It's too long
a story to tell you now. We've done the descendants of Matthew, Mark,
Mary, and Luke, and now we come to the twins, Joanna and John. We'll
take Joanna first. Her lot is interesting. She married a man called
Higgins, and a daughter of hers married a man called Castell--Fogarty
Castell--Portuguese father, Irish mother. And I've picked a Higgins
grandson, John Higgins--carpenter by trade--bit of a local preacher in
his off time. Well, I've picked him, and I've picked the Castells. I
said I wasn't going to have anyone in my own generation, but they are
the exception that proves the rule. I've picked 'em because they'll be
handy. Now for number seven, John. I've got his grandson, Jeremy
Taverner--regular soldier--Captain Jeremy Taverner. Then there's number
eight, Acts--old Jeremiah took all his children's names out of the
Bible--I've picked a granddaughter of his, name of Jane Heron. She's in
a shop--tries on the dresses and walks round in 'em so the fat old women
and scraggy old maids think they're going to look like she does. There's
twice at least this afternoon you've called me mad, John Taylor, but I'm
not so mad as the women who go to dress shows and buy the clothes off a
girl with a figure they probably never had and certainly don't have now.
Well, that's the lot, and I'm off into the next room. Here's the family
tree to keep you straight. By the way, the Castells won't be coming.
I've my own private arrangement with them, and they're down at the Inn.
The others are just about due. Amusing to see who comes first, don't you
think? Might be the one that's hardest up--but then sometimes that
sort's proud. Poverty, greed, or maybe just plain punctuality--any one
of the three might bring 'em here on the dot. Now you get those chairs
set out so that I can look and listen, and you ask 'em what I told you
to ask 'em, and tell 'em what I told you to tell 'em. And the devil take
the hindmost!'




                               Chapter 3


A young clerk opened the door and announced, 'Miss Taverner--'

Mildred Taverner took a poking look at the room with its nine empty
chairs and came in rather after the manner of an early Christian
entering the arena. To be sure, John Taylor would have hardly fluttered
the nerves of the most timid martyr, but Miss Taverner became
immediately so tied up in explanation and apology that it is doubtful if
she noticed his round face, his bald head, or any of the other features
which might have had a reassuring effect.

'Oh, dear--I didn't know I was going to be the first. Do you mean to say
nobody else has come? I had no idea--I mean I expected my brother--he
telephoned and said to be here punctually at the half hour. Nothing
annoys him so much as to be kept waiting, and I do try, but it's so
difficult. Unless my watch should happen to be running fast--it does
sometimes when the weather is warm, but not on a day like this. And I
know I am five minutes late, because I broke a shoe-lace just when I was
starting, so I didn't expect to be the very first.' She put a limp hand
into John Taylor's, and he noticed that she was wearing odd gloves, one
being black and the other navy blue. The black one had a hole at the top
of the first finger.

As she took one of the nine chairs she dropped her handbag, from which
there immediately cascaded a bunch of keys, a pocket comb, a pair of
nail-scissors, a bottle of aspirin tablets, three pencils, a couple of
crumpled bills, and a rather dingy handkerchief. She said, 'Oh dear!'
and crammed everything back in an agitated way and without any attempt
at arrangement, so that the bag bulged and at first refused to shut.

               Jeremiah and Ann Taverner's Eight Children

   -------------------------------------------------------------------
   |        |       |        |        |          |           |       |
   1        2       3        4        5          6           7       8
Jeremiah Matthew   Mark     Mary     Luke      Joanna  and  John    Acts
   |    (builder) (solic-  m. Earl    |          m.  (twins) |       |
   |        |      itor's    of       |         Thos.        |       |
   |        |      clerk)  Rathlea    |        Higgins       |       |
   |        |       |        |        |          |           |       |
   |        |       |        |        |     -----------      |       |
 Jacob      |       |        |        |     |         |      |       |
Taverner   son   daughter   son    daughter |       Annie   son   daughter
            |   m. Wil-      |        m.  James       m.  (doctor)   m.
            |  liam Duke     |      Miller  |      Fogarty   |     Heron
       -----|       |        |        |     |      Castell   |    (parson)
    Mildred |       |        |        |     |                |       |
       Geoffrey Florence   Lady    Albert  John            Jeremy   Jane
                  Duke    Marian   Miller Higgins         Taverner  Heron

John Taylor contemplated the performance in an interested manner. He
hoped Jacob was getting a good view. He wouldn't have picked Mildred
Taverner himself, but then of course he didn't know what Jacob was
picking these relatives for. Miss Taverner appeared to be about
forty-five years of age. She had a long, stringy figure, she poked with
her head, and her fingers were all thumbs. Her fair reddish hair
reminded him of Jacob's. It had the same brittle look, and it stuck out
at odd angles under a very unbecoming hat. Her rather colourless blue
eyes avoided him. They were set under colourless brows in a long, pale
face. She wore a navy-blue coat and skirt which had a general air of
having belonged to somebody else. The skirt dipped at the back, and the
coat rode up in front. Her neck was encircled by a wispy scarf of pink
and blue checked wool.

Having taken all this in, he smiled pleasantly and said, 'Well now, Miss
Taverner, this is excellent. We can make a good start before the others
arrive.' He took up the family-tree, upon which there appeared the names
of Jeremiah Taverner's eight children and their descendants, and
consulted it. 'Mr. Jacob Taverner wishes me to run over a few points
with each of you. You are descended from--'

'Oh, yes, my grandfather was Matthew--the second one. The eldest was
Jeremiah, after his father.' She bridled a little, caught his eye, and
immediately looked away. 'Oh _dear_, yes--I know all about the family
tree. Old Jeremiah had eight children and he died in
eighty-eight--Jeremiah, Matthew, Mark, Mary, Luke, Joanna, John, Acts.
And Matthew is our grandfather--my brother Geoffrey's and mine. He was a
builder and contractor, and he did very well--quite rich, and very much
respected, though a Nonconformist--I, of course, am Church of England.
Oh, yes, my grandfather left a very good business, but my father was
unfortunate.' She sighed and adjusted the wispy scarf. 'We were in quite
reduced circumstances after his death, so I joined a friend in a fancy
work shop at Streatham. Geoffrey didn't like it very much, but what was
there to do? I wasn't called up in the war, because I have always had a
weak heart. Of course Geoffrey is so clever--you have to be in the Civil
Service.'

The door opened and Geoffrey Taverner came into the room.

Looking through the chink which he had thoughtfully provided, Jacob
Taverner inspected his cousin Geoffrey. Like his sister, and yet not so
like after all. They were both fair, thin, and forty, but the sister
looked like a bit of chewed string, whereas the brother would pass for a
good-looking man. He was a few years the younger. Where she drooped, he
was well set-up and well tailored. As he came up to the desk, his
expression changed from one of formal but courteous greeting for John
Taylor to a definite flicker of annoyance as his eye fell upon his
sister.

She broke at once into explanation and apology.

'I quite thought you would be here. I had no idea of coming in by
myself--I was really quite upset when I found I was the first. Of
course, as Mr. Taylor kindly said, someone has to be--but I wouldn't
have gone in, only I was delayed just as I was starting, so I thought I
was late. My watch--'

Geoffrey Taverner said in a repressive tone, 'Your watch is always
wrong.'

He took a chair and addressed Mr. Taylor.

'I don't quite know why we have been asked to come here. I answered an
advertisement asking the descendants of Jeremiah Taverner who died in
eighteen-eighty-eight to communicate with a certain box number, and
after a brief interchange of letters my sister and I were invited to
come here this afternoon. My first letter went, as I say, to a box
number. The reply which I received had no signature, and I must say at
once that I should like to know with whom I am dealing.'

'Certainly, Mr. Taverner. You are dealing with me.'

'And you represent?'

'Mr. Jacob Taverner, who is the son of Jeremiah Taverner's eldest son,
Jeremiah.'

Geoffrey appeared to consider this. After a moment he said, 'Very
well--I'm here. What about it?'

John Taylor balanced a pencil.

'My client informs me that you have satisfied him as to your identity.'

'He has had copies of our birth certificates and of my parents' marriage
certificate--yes.'

'I am instructed to ask for a few further particulars. You are, I
understand, the grandson of Matthew Taverner, Jeremiah's second son.'

'That is so.'

'Do you remember him?'

'I have already been asked that. I said I did. I was about twelve when
he died. My sister was older.'

'I remember him very well,' said Mildred Taverner. 'He had a very bad
temper before he had his stroke, but he was much nicer afterwards. He
used to tell us stories about the old inn and give us peppermints out of
a tin--the striped bullseye kind.'

The young clerk opened the door again, began to murmur inaudibly, and
was swept aside. There came in a bright presence and a faint delicious
waft of expensive French scent. Something very tall, very elegant, very
feminine advanced with a vague but radiant smile. Dark blue eyes with
incredible lashes came to rest upon John Taylor. A deep musical voice
said, 'I'll have to introduce myself--Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington.
Nobody ever gets it right the first time, and I'm sure I don't wonder.
I'm always telling Freddy he ought to drop one of the bits, but he says
he can't, in case the relations who might be going to leave him money
have their feelings hurt and cut him out of their wills. So I just have
to go about explaining, and spelling it. There's an E at the end of the
Thorpe, and two Ns in Ennington.' She sank gracefully into a chair. 'And
now do tell me--is it you I've been writing to?'

As she moved away from the door, a lank, uncertain figure appeared from
behind her. It was a male figure, and it looked very uncomfortable in an
awkwardly cut blue suit--too tight, too light, too jaunty. John Taylor,
perceiving it, made a shot in the dark, 'Mr. Miller?'

Al Miller said, 'That's right.'

He had a cap in his hand and kept turning it and plucking at it in a
manner extremely likely to shorten its life. He stood long enough to
enable Jacob Taverner to see how nervous he was, and that he had dank
hair with too much grease on it, a set of dark irregular features
shining with perspiration, and a most distressing tie. All at once he
seemed to realise that he was the only person standing, and came down
suddenly on the edge of a chair, where he produced a brightly-coloured
handkerchief and mopped his brow.

He was still doing so when Jeremy Taverner and Jane Heron arrived
together.

Behind his chink Jacob Taverner grimaced. He didn't see they were going
to be much use to him, but of course there was no saying. If at first
you don't succeed, try, try, try again. They were the youngest of the
party by some years. He had seen all their birth certificates and he
knew. The Lady Marian woman was thirty-seven. Didn't show it of course,
and wouldn't for the next ten years, if then. She was a looker all
right--he'd give her that. Complexion out of a box, but quite a good
skin underneath. Good hair--you didn't often see that bright chestnut
shade. Good teeth, and not spoilt with smoking like threequarters of the
women's were nowadays. Fine figure of a woman--good curves. He liked a
woman with curves himself, but he thought she'd have to watch her weight
when she got into the forties. He hummed to himself inside his mind:

    'There will be too much of me
    In the coming by and bye.'

Al Miller, he'd be about thirty. Bit of a fish out of water, and a wet
fish at that. Young Jeremy Taverner and him cousins--comic when you came
to think of it. Good-looking fellow young Jeremy--credit to the family.
Twenty-seven he'd be--or was it twenty-eight? No, twenty-seven. And the
girl, Jane Heron, would be twenty-two. Graceful girl--very good
figure--she'd have to have that to be a mannequin. Not much to look at
otherwise--little pale face--scarlet lipstick--rather good turn of the
head--dark hair--plain dark clothes.

He cocked an attentive ear, and heard Lady Marian say, 'My
grandmother--Mary Taverner? Oh, yes, of course I remember her. I'm
supposed to be exactly like her. She ran away, you know, and went on the
stage, and married my grandfather. We've got a portrait of her at
Rathlea, and everyone says I might have sat for it.' She turned a
radiant smile upon the room as if she were collecting applause.

John Higgins received the full impact as he opened the door. It put a
slightly bewildered look into his very bright blue eyes. She had looked
right at him and smiled, but now she looked away. She was talking to the
gentleman behind the desk. He stood where he was and waited for her to
be done. Her laugh floated out.

'She was a great beauty, and my grandfather adored her. But an awful
warning all the same, because when I remember her she weighed about
sixteen stone. _And she didn't care._' The words were heavy with drama.
'Fatal of course--quite fatal. Because there's nothing like worry to
keep you thin--and it's so difficult to worry, isn't it?' There was the
least, faintest touch of Irish on the last word. The beautiful eyes went
here and there, for sympathy this time. 'She never could worry, and nor
can I. She lived to be ninety, and I suppose I shall too. Marvellous
stories she used to tell me about her acting days and all.'

John Higgins stood there looking and listening. He couldn't possibly
have put it into words, but she gave him the kind of feeling you got
when the sun first came to having any strength in the spring. He
wouldn't have known what to say about it, but you can know a lot of
things you don't know how to say. He didn't say anything, he just stood
with those very blue eyes fixed on her, and the thick fair hair which
wouldn't lie down no matter what you did to it standing up in a shock
all over his head, which was a couple of inches above that of anyone
else in the room. Jacob, looking through his chink, put him at
six-foot-three, and young Jeremy somewhere between six foot and
six-foot-one.

Marian Thorpe-Ennington was still talking when the door handle rattled
and the door bounced open. The woman who came in looked big and tall
even by John Higgins. She had fine eyes, a lot of dark hair, and the
sort of bright, fixed colour which takes a lot of toning down. She was
handsome still, but her looks were coarsening. Her dress did nothing to
conceal the fact--a royal blue coat and skirt, a white lambskin coat
with a plaid lining, a cheerful scarf with a scarlet overcheck, and the
sort of hat which you can't get away with unless you are young and slim.
She looked all round her, said, 'What--am I the last? Well, good
afternoon, all!' and came up to the table.

'Mrs. Duke--Florence Duke--that's me--Floss to my friends. I'm Mark
Taverner's granddaughter--old Jeremiah's third son. Solicitor's clerk he
was. Never made much of a living, but always very kind to us children. I
had two brothers killed in the war. My father died when I was a baby. He
was a clerk too--William Duke--so we lived with my grandfather.' The
words came out one after the other like bubbles rising in oil, not fast
but steadily.

Jacob thought, 'She'd be a hard woman to stop if there was anything she
wanted to say.'

John Taylor put the same question to her which he had put to the others.

'You remember your grandfather, then.'

'Remember him? I should say I do! I don't know what we'd have done if he
hadn't taken us in, because my mother was delicate. I was too as a
child, though you wouldn't think so to look at me now, would you?' She
gave a deep rich laugh. 'Small for my age too, and so thin I looked as
if you could blow me away. Well, it only shows there's hope for
all--doesn't it?'

She showed magnificent teeth as she laughed again.

Then her colour deepened. She held her head well up and said, 'If you're
thinking about my name--Duke I was born, the same as you'll see if
you've got a list of us all, as I suppose you have.'

John Taylor said, 'Yes.' He wondered what was coming.

She went on speaking in her deep, deliberate voice.

'Ellen Taverner was my mother, and William Duke was my father, so Duke I
was born. And Duke is what I've gone back to. I married, and I got a bad
bargain, so I went back to my own name that I didn't have any reasons to
be ashamed of. My grandfather was dead by then, and I went behind the
bar to keep myself. And there's nobody can say a word against me--I've
got nothing to hide. I've a little business of my own now, a snack bar,
and doing well.' She looked from one to another, not aggressively but
with a large tolerance. 'There you are. It's best to say what's to be
said and be done with it to my way of thinking, then nobody can cast it
up at you afterwards that you weren't straight with them. That's all.'

She gave John Taylor a smile and a nod, and went and sat down between
Jeremy and Al Miller. As she did so, John Higgins came slowly up to the
table and gave his name.

'I got a letter telling me I was to call here.' He spoke slowly with a
pleasant country accent.

John Taylor observed him with interest. There was a puzzled frown
between the blue eyes.

'That's quite all right, Mr. Higgins. Just where do you come into this
family tree?'

'Well,'--the big work-roughened hands took hold of each other--'well,
sir, my grandmother Joanna, she was one of the twins. Joanna and John
they were, boy and girl. And Joanna Taverner, she married my
grandfather, Thomas Higgins, head carpenter on Sir John Layburn's
estate. Son and daughter they had, James and Annie. James was my father,
so that's where I come in. Annie, she took and married a foreigner, name
of Castell. Is that what you want, sir? I don't know that there's any
more I can tell you, except that I'm a carpenter too, like my father and
grandfather before me.'

John Taylor looked him up and down.

'You served in the war, I suppose?'

The blue eyes looked straight back at him.

'Mine-sweeping, sir. They let me do that. It was clean against my
conscience to kill.'

He went back to the last vacant chair and sat down beside Jane Heron.
Marian Thorpe-Ennington turned her smile upon him, and then allowed it
to travel from one end of the line of chairs to the other.

'And we're all cousins,' she said in a voice thrilling with interest.
'We've none of us ever seen each other before, but we're all cousins.
All our grandfathers or grandmothers were brothers and sisters, but we
don't know anything about each other. Well, I mean to say, it's divine,
isn't it? Such a bore to grow up with one's relations, but too wonderful
to meet them all ready-made.'

'I think some of you know each other,' said John Taylor, 'Captain
Taverner, Miss Heron--I think you do, don't you? Now may I just take
down your particulars? Ladies first--'

Jane Heron opened her grey eyes rather widely. A little colour came into
her cheeks.

'My grandfather was the youngest. His name was Acts.'




                               Chapter 4


Jacob Taverner was getting bored. He had heard enough--most of it stale
stuff which he knew already. 'Your grandfather was John--your
grandmother was Joanna--you are in this, that, or the other--' It was
all as dull as a parish meeting. No zip about John Taylor--no go, no
sparks flying. He wanted to put his own fingers into the pie and stir it
up his own way. He thought he had stood behind the door long enough. He
pushed it open, walked in, came round in front of the line of chairs,
and said, 'Better introduce me, John.'

John Taylor said, 'This is Mr. Jacob Taverner,' whereupon Jacob walked
down the line and shook hands with them all. Some of the hands were hot,
and some were cold. Mildred Taverner, Lady Marian, and Jane Heron wore
gloves. Florence Duke had taken hers off and stuffed them into a gaping
pocket. Geoffrey, Jeremy, and John Higgins rose to their feet. Al Miller
sat uncomfortably on the edge of his chair and said, 'Pleased to meet
you.' Geoffrey's hand was dry and cold--a thin hand, stronger perhaps
than it looked. Al Miller's was so damp that Jacob had no scruple about
taking out a cheap brown pocket-handkerchief and drying his fingers
before offering them to Jeremy Taverner's casual clasp. John Higgins had
a warm hand and firm grip.

Jacob noticed everything--that Jane's gloves had seen a good deal of
service--that Mildred Taverner had a hole in one of hers, and that the
right hand didn't match the left--that Marian Thorpe-Ennington's clothes
had cost a packet. A mouthful of a name, an armful of a woman. It would
have surprised him very much to hear that she paid her bills.

When he had finished shaking hands he came over to the writing-table and
sat informally on the far corner, so that by pivoting slightly he could
command his whole audience from John Taylor to Jane Heron. Sitting like
that with the cold afternoon light striking in and chilling everything,
he really bore an astonishing resemblance to an organ-grinder's monkey.
His legs dangled, a shoulder hunched, the bright malicious eyes went
from one to another. They made Mildred Taverner fidget with the cotton
thread which stuck out an inch from the torn fingertip of her glove, too
long not to be noticeable, too short to break off. They made Al Miller
mop his brow again. Jane Heron said afterwards that they made her feel
as if she was something in a cage being poked at.

It was the affair of a moment. When he had finished looking Jacob said.

'Well, here we all are, and I don't mind betting it's a case of a lot of
minds with but a single thought, as the poetry book says. And if you're
wondering where I ever read poetry, I'll tell you. Everybody gets top
marks for thinking it's not my line. But I once broke a leg on a coral
reef. There was a trader took me in, the only white man on the island,
and the only mortal book there was in his hut was a thing that called
itself Beeton's Great Book of Poetry. Don't ask me where he got it, or
why he kept it--he never looked inside it himself. But before I was
through I pretty well knew it by heart. I even made some up myself, so
you see what I was up against. And to come back to the bit I said just
now, what you're all thinking at this moment is, "What has he got us
here for?" and, "Why doesn't he come to the point?" '

Marian Thorpe-Ennington fixed her beautiful eyes upon him and said, 'But
you're going to now, aren't you? Because of course we're simply dying to
know why you advertised. You're not going to let us down, are you? I
mean of course you didn't say that we were going to hear of something to
our advantage, but naturally one hoped--and when Freddy said it would
all turn out to be a do, I told him he was the most utterly unbelieving
person, and what was the good of always expecting the worst? I mean,
it's too sordid, isn't it? But then of course he's feeling terribly
jaundiced, poor lamb. Because of the pickle factory, you know--too
completely on the rocks. And what we are to live on, I can't imagine!
Freddy says there won't be enough to buy bread, let alone butter--but
then, of course, he does worry so, poor sweet. I don't, because what's
the use?'

By the time she had finished there was a general feeling that everyone
had received a personal confidence. A kind of glow was diffused. Even Al
Miller got his share of the warm glance and throbbing voice.

Jacob Taverner waited for her to talk herself out. He was, in fact,
enjoying himself. When the last note died upon a fascinated silence he
observed drily.

'I'm afraid I can't substitute for the pickle factory. But--' He made
quite an impressive pause, let a swift mocking glance travel over them
all, and went on, 'Well, we'll come to that in a minute.'

Mildred Taverner, picking at her glove, had broken the cotton off short,
with the disastrous result that another inch of the seam had come
undone. She made a small vexed sound and slipped her left hand in the
torn black glove under her right in the navy blue which was what she had
meant to put on, because the black pair were really not fit to be seen,
though she could of course cobble them up and make them do for the
household shopping. A glove never looked the same after it had been
mended.

Her brother Geoffrey gave her a cold, quelling look.

Jacob Taverner went on.

'I have asked you all to come here because I want to make your
acquaintance. All your fathers and mothers were my first cousins--the
nephews and nieces of my father, Jeremiah Taverner the second. I want to
make your acquaintance. When my grandfather, old Jeremiah Taverner, died
there was a first-class family row because he left every blessed thing
to my father. Any of you know why?'

Quite a bright blotting-paper pink came up into Mildred Taverner's face.
She said in an unnaturally high voice, 'It was most unfair! My
grandfather always said so!'

Al Miller rubbed his hands together, rolling the handkerchief between
them.

'So did mine. He said it was a right-down shame.'

Jacob's mouth twisted.

'I believe there was complete unanimity on that point. It was the only
one on which the rest of the family did see eye to eye. The very minute
they'd got over telling my father what they thought of him for taking
his legal rights, they started a first-class dog-fight over their
mother's money.'

Florence Duke said in her deliberate way, 'There wasn't any to speak
of.'

He gave his cackling laugh.

'That's just why. Throw one bone in amongst half a dozen dogs and see
what happens! As you say, it wasn't a very big bone, and by rights--mark
this--by rights it had to be divided among the whole eight children. But
my father didn't claim his share. I don't say it was handsome of
him--I'm just stating facts. He left his mother's belongings to be
divided up among the other seven.'

'Wills are so tiresome,' said Lady Marian in her delicious voice.
'Freddy's father left a simply dreadful one.'

Geoffrey Taverner moved impatiently.

'Just what was there to divide?'

'Nothing to write home about. There was a cottage with a bit of land to
it, a few pieces of jewelry, and five hundred pounds in Consols.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, they each got a hundred pounds.
Mary and Joanna got a brooch and a bracelet or so apiece, and Joanna got
the cottage. She was just going to marry your grandfather'--he addressed
John Higgins--'and when they'd all fought themselves to a standstill and
Thomas Higgins had put down another twenty pounds, they took a fiver
each out of it and let her have the cottage. Mary didn't come into it,
because she was married to Lord Rathlea and safe away on the other side
of the Irish Channel. Well, after that there wasn't much love lost.
Matthew did well out of his money. He bought a couple of old cottages
and doubled his capital on them. House-coping--that was his job.' He
glanced maliciously at Geoffrey and Mildred. 'No need to be offended--my
father was in the same line. Mark--respectability was his middle
name--country solicitor's clerk to the end of his days. Whilst Mary was
an ornament to the Peerage, and Luke--well the less said about Luke the
better.'

'Why can't you let him alone?' said Al Miller. His dark skin did not
seem to be susceptible to a flush. Anger turned him sallow. He rolled
the brightly coloured handkerchief between sweating palms.

Jacob laughed.

'All right, all right--least said soonest mended. Joanna lived and died
in her cottage in a state of rural felicity. John went up in the
world--made a ladder of his brains and climbed. And Acts worked up from
rags and bones, figuratively speaking'--he bowed to Jane--'to quite a
nice little antique shop in Ledborough. And there we are.'

Geoffrey Taverner said, 'Very clear and succinct, but I don't know that
it gets us anywhere. I think we should all like to know why we have been
brought here.'

'Naturally. Now I hope--I really do hope you haven't all been buoyed up
with the idea of hearing something to your advantage.'

Marian Thorpe-Ennington sighed in a dramatic manner.

'But of course we have, my dear man. I said to Freddy at once, "Things
simply can't go on being as foul as they've been ever since we got
married. I mean, if there's a silver-lining, it's simply bound to show
up some time, isn't it? And why shouldn't it be now?" I said that at
once. But he's so gloomy about the whole thing, the poor sweet, and no
wonder, having to go to these dreadful creditors' meetings. That's why
he couldn't be here this afternoon. And he simply hated my coming alone,
because he always thinks I'll do something stupid. But, as I told him,
"There will probably be hordes of us there, and probably some of them
will be quite bright people, so it won't depend on me".' She sighed
again, even more deeply. 'You don't really mean to say that there isn't
going to be anything at all?' Her voice went down into really tragic
depths.

Jacob said, 'Well, well--' And then, 'I'm afraid you may all be rather
disappointed. I have asked you here for three reasons. I thought the
family quarrel had gone on long enough. I haven't made any ties, and I
thought it would be interesting to get to know my kith and kin. For
which purpose I want to invite you all to pay me a visit at the old
family Inn.'

John Higgins's blue eyes turned on him.

' 'Twas sold when great-grandfather died, the old Catherine-Wheel.'

Jacob said, 'Ah, but it wasn't. My father never sold it, though I
daresay it was put about that he had--I don't say he didn't put it about
himself. He gave a lease, and the lease ran out last year, so it's back
on my hands, with the Castells running it. Mrs. Castell being your
father's sister--Joanna's daughter, born Annie Higgins.'

John Higgins said slowly, 'I knew my Aunt Annie was there. It's ten
years since I saw her.'

'And you not a mile away in the cottage Joanna got for her share of her
mother's property?'

'Yes, I'm in the old cottage.'

'Married, or single?'

A slow smile gave charm to the impassive face.

'There's something you didn't know? Seemed you knew everything. I'm
single, and I do for myself. And I haven't seen my Aunt Annie for ten
years, though she's living but a mile away.'

Jacob nodded.

'Very interesting. United family, aren't we?'

John Higgins shut his mouth firmly. He sat with a big hand on either
knee, quiet and unembarrassed. Jacob said.

'The inn is the Catherine-Wheel on the old Ledlington coast road.
Nearest station Cliff Halt--a mile and a half. I'm inviting you all to
come and stay with me at this next weekend. Some of you may not find it
easy to get away--you may have to engage extra help--you may find it
difficult to get leave of absence--you may be put to inconvenience or
expense. You will therefore each receive the sum of one hundred pounds
as, let us say, some recognition that your grandfathers and grandmothers
were shabbily treated under old Jeremiah's will, and that in inviting
you for this visit I don't want to put you to any further
inconvenience.' He stopped rather abruptly, crossed his right leg over
his left, leaned sideways with his hand on the leather-covered
table-top, and watched them.

Geoffrey Taverner had a slight frown. Mildred's scarf had slipped, she
pulled at it with small ineffectual jerks. Florence Duke's rather heavy
features had taken on a look of severity oddly at variance with their
previous expression of tolerant good nature. Al Miller had an eager,
startled air. John Higgins sat as he had done all through, large, fair,
placid, self-contained. Jane had her eyes very wide open, and her lips
parted. Her hands held one another tightly in her lap. Jeremy looked
angry. The only one to speak was Marian Thorpe-Ennington. She said, 'My
dear man--how marvellous!'

'You'll come then?'

'But of course. You do mean Freddy as well, don't you? He won't like it
if you don't, and the poor sweet is so upset already.'

Jacob nodded curtly.

'He can come.' He turned to Geoffrey Taverner. 'You can get away? Your
sister said you were in the Civil Service.'

Geoffrey looked annoyed.

'My sister was inaccurate--she very often is. I resigned some time
ago--I am now in private employ. I could manage the weekend you
mentioned.'

'And you, Mildred?'

He smiled maliciously at the nervous start which sent her handbag to the
floor and once more exposed its contents.

Jacob took in the whole assembly with a dancing gleam of malice and
proceeded.

'Since we are all cousins, I propose that we should address one another
without handles. Plain Christian names will be sufficient until intimacy
warrants some affectionate contraction. But I am afraid I startled
Mildred. I apologise. I was merely about to enquire whether she could
get away for the weekend.'

Miss Taverner clasped and reclasped the errant bag. A piece of the
handkerchief stuck out. It was the one she had intended to put into the
wash before she came out. 'Oh dear, oh dear--' She sought for words in
very much the same way as she had fumbled for the overflow from her bag.

'Oh, yes--oh dear--I'm so sorry--the catch should be seen to, but there
never seems to be time. My partner, Miss Millington, will take charge,
and we always shut on Saturday afternoons. I'm sure it's very kind.' Her
lips continued to move as they repeated soundlessly, 'Oh dear--a hundred
pounds--oh dear, oh dear, oh dear--'

Jacob dismissed her with a nod.

'And you, Florence?'

She gave him the same straight, bold look as she had done before.

'Yes. I'll come. I'd like to see the old place. I've a friend that comes
in to give me a hand when I'm pressed, and I don't open Sundays. She'll
manage.'

'And you, Al Miller? Let me see you're a railway employee aren't
you--Ledlington Station--porter?'

'That's right. I could get off Saturday evening.'

Jacob nodded.

'The Inn is only three and a half miles out of Ledlington. You've got a
bike, I take it. You can come along when you come off duty. That suit
you?'

Al Miller thought, 'What's he getting at? A hundred pounds would suit
anyone, wouldn't it?' He jerked his head and said it suited him all
right.

Jacob said, 'Well, we're getting along. Marian has already told us that
she and Freddy can come. Now what about you, John?'

John Higgins said in his pleasant country voice, 'No, thank you, Cousin
Jacob.'

The monkey face screwed itself into a vexed grimace.

'My dear chap, why not?'

'I've my reasons, thanking you all the same.'

'Come, come--there's a hundred pounds just waiting to be picked up.'

The blue eyes rested calmly upon him.

'If I'd a good reason for coming, I'd come. Since I've my reasons for
staying away, I'll stay.'

'And the hundred pounds?'

'You're welcome to it, Cousin Jacob.'

Jane found her hands clapping themselves together softly in her lap. She
looked sideways at Jeremy and saw that he was extremely angry. It was
all very nicely controlled, but she didn't trust him a yard. If she
didn't take things into her own hands, he was going to put his foot
down, or something stupid like that. She reflected that men were quite
dreadfully Early Victorian. In point of fact she didn't suppose there
had ever been a century in which they didn't throw right back to the
cave man and announce that their will was law. Not really civilised,
that was the trouble. She gave him a look and said without waiting to be
asked.

'I'd love to come, Cousin Jacob. It's frightfully nice of you to ask us.
I get Saturday afternoon and Sunday off, but I shall have to be back at
half-past nine on Monday.'

Jeremy had a rush of blood to the head. He experienced some primitive
reactions. Bounce him, would she? Well, he would show her. And if she
thought--if she thought for one minute that he was going to let her go
off with this gang and without him to that God-forsaken inn with its
shady past and Lord knows what kind of a present, well--Jacob Taverner
was addressing him.

'And you, Jeremy?'

He answered with controlled politeness.

'Thank you, sir. I am on leave--I shall be able to come.'




                               Chapter 5


When they had walked half the length of the street Jane smiled sweetly
at an unresponsive profile and said, 'Thank you, darling.'

In a distant voice Captain Jeremy Taverner enquired what she was
thanking him for.

'Coming down to the Catherine-Wheel as my chaperon, darling. Having
always been accustomed to being wrapped up in cotton wool and sheltered,
I do appreciate it. You know that, don't you?'

There was a fair imitation of a flash of lightning accompanied by a
smart clap of thunder.

'Just stop talking nonsense, Jane, and listen to me! You can't possibly
go!'

'Why can't I possibly go? I am going.'

'You can't--with that gang.'

'No, darling. With you.'

She distinctly heard Jeremy grit his teeth.

'Jane, you can't possibly want to get mixed up with that appalling
crowd.'

'They're all the relations we've got.'

'Thank the Lord for that! What a crew!'

Jane's tone warmed a little.

'Jeremy, they're not! You're being a snob. I love John Higgins--he's a
lamb.'

'And he isn't going to be there--he's got too much sense. Do you love Al
Miller?'

'Not frightfully.'

'Or Geoffrey--or Mildred?'

'Geoffrey might have possibilities. I wouldn't mind exploring them.'

The teeth-gritting was repeated. Jane said hastily, 'On the chilly side
though, don't you think? But I rather like Floss-to-my-friends. And
Marian--now don't tell me you don't think she's beautiful because I
simply shan't believe you.'

He made an angry sound.

'I should think she has probably less brain than anything outside a home
for the mentally deficient.'

Jane wrinkled her nose.

'Well, I don't know. I think she's got a pretty good idea of which side
her bread is buttered.'

'That isn't brains--it's primitive instinct. I grant you she's probably
got plenty of that.' His voice changed. 'Jane, stop playing the fool and
tell me why you want to go to this damned place.'

She looked up at him with wide, clear eyes.

'Darling, it's too easy. I want that hundred pounds.'

'Jane!'

She mimicked him sweetly.

'Jeremy!' Then she laughed, but when she spoke again her voice was
serious enough. 'Don't you realise I've never had a whole hundred pounds
in my life before? It's the most marvellous thing that's ever happened.'

'You can't take it!'

'Watch me!'

'Jane--'

'Don't be silly, darling! You don't know what it means. I was ill for
six weeks last winter, and I hadn't a penny saved. The insurance money
doesn't go on for ever--I began to have nightmares. I didn't know I'd
got a relation in the world then. Quite apart from the money, that's why
I'm not prepared to go all snob about them like you when they do turn
up. I'm going to make friends with them. And I'm going to have my
hundred pounds and put it into the Post Office Savings Bank for a
nest-egg. So there!'

He put a hand on her arm.

'Jane--why were you ill?'

She said with a touch of defiance, 'Because I hadn't proper shoes, or a
warm coat, or enough to eat.'

'Why hadn't you?'

'Because I wasn't in a regular job--just odd dress shows and things. And
I had to keep up my insurance, or I'd have been sunk. I just couldn't
afford another time like that, and I'm not going to have one. I'm going
to have all my kind relations--_and_ my Cousin Jacob's hundred pounds.'

Jeremy said nothing at all. She could feel him withdrawing silently
behind his frontiers. That she had heard the last of Jacob Taverner, his
invitation, and his hundred pounds was so unlikely that she gave it no
consideration at all. That he had retired in order to marshal his forces
and would presently march upon her with horse and foot, bombs and
flame-throwers, was reasonably certain. He might be intending to wait
until he had her alone, or he might just pounce with annihilating effect
on the top of a bus. She decided on going home by tube, where the
facilities for pouncing would be fewer as long as you kept up with the
crowd and avoided being marooned with your adversary in an underground
passage.

After one or two light-hearted remarks which were received in complete
silence she resigned herself and occupied the train journey in sorting
out and polishing her own armoury of weapons. Because two things were
quite certain. Whatever Jeremy said or Jeremy did, two things were
_quite_ certain. She was going to go down to the Catherine-Wheel and she
was going to have that hundred pounds.

All the way home and all the way upstairs he never said a word. She drew
the curtains, she put on the kettle, she laid the table and got buns out
of a tin. Jeremy propped the mantelpiece in abstracted gloom until his
right trouser leg began to singe at the gas fire, when he came across to
her, took a knife out of her hand, laid it down on the table, and said,
'Will you marry me?'

Jane felt as if someone had lifted her up and dropped her again, all
very suddenly. Her voice came odd and breathless.

'No--of course not--'

He appeared to be undeflected.

'What's the good of saying "No--of course not," when you haven't given
it the least thought? You just blobbed that out without thinking. It's a
business proposition, and you've got to think it all out before you say
no. And before you can think it out at all you've got to listen to me
properly.'

Jane said, 'Oh--' And then, 'How do I listen to you properly?'

'You sit down on that sofa.'

'And have you somewhere up in the ceiling talking down on the top of my
head? No, thank you!'

'I sit down too. I'm going to turn off the gas under the kettle first,
because we don't want to have it boiling over whilst I am proposing to
you.'

Jane gave a sort of gasp and sat down. Not so much because Jeremy told
her to as because her knees were wobbling and he might think--

She sat down. When he had turned out the gas he came and sat down beside
her. He was frowning deeply, and began at once in a businesslike voice.

'I haven't got a great deal to offer you, but they don't kick you out of
the Army unless you're pretty bad, and there's a pension. I get a
pension when I retire, and you get one if anything happens to me, and if
we have any children they get something till they're eighteen--or
twenty-one--I'm not sure which, but I can find out.'

'Jeremy, how frightful! Do stop!'

'It's not frightful at all--it's provision. And you ought to be
listening instead of making frivolous objections which put me out. Then
I've got three hundred a year private means.'

Jane gazed at him with respect.

'How on earth did you get it?'

'My mother had two hundred, and my grandfather had life insurance which
brings in the rest. It's not a lot, but it's safe, and it makes a lot of
difference to have something besides your pay.'

'Jeremy--_please_--'

He frowned her down.

'I do wish you would listen. I think you'd like the life. There's rather
a lot of moving about, but you see places, and everyone's very friendly.
Anyhow you'd have proper shoes and enough to eat. And you wouldn't have
to try on other people's clothes for a lot of desiccated vultures to
gloat over.'

Jane looked sideways from between her lashes.

'They're not all desiccated, darling. Some of them bulge.'

He said quite violently, 'It revolts me! It ought to revolt you. I want
you to chuck it up and let me look after you.'

Jane gazed down at her hands. There seemed to be something odd about
them--they were a long way off. She said in a small obstinate voice, 'I
can look after myself.'

'You think you can ... girls always do. But they can't. Anyhow you're
not going to.'

Jane lifted her eyes.

'Who says so?'

'I do, and you do. How much notice do you have to give your Mrs.
Harlowe?'

'I'm not giving her notice.'

'I don't see any sense in a long engagement.'

'We are not engaged.'

He turned a rather daunting look on her.

'You're just being deliberately obstructive.'

She shook her head, and then wished she hadn't, because it made the room
go round.

'I'm not. You've been asking me to marry you. I'm saying no.'

'Why?'

'You don't love me--I don't love you--cousins oughtn't to marry.'

He looked away for a minute, and then back again.

'Why do you say that?'

'Because it's true.'

He gave rather a curious laugh.

'That I don't love you? Jane, you're not really a fool--you know
perfectly well.'

'I don't. Why should I? You've never said so.'

'I love you like blazes, and you know it.'

Jane said, 'Oh!'

He put his hands on her shoulders. They felt hard and heavy.

'Do you love me? Come along--be honest!'

Jane said, 'No--' She said it three times in a voice that dwindled until
it made no sound at all, because every time she said it Jeremy kissed
her. The last kiss went on for quite a long time.

When he lifted his head he said, 'Liar!'

Jane said nothing at all.




                               Chapter 6


Chief Detective Inspector Lamb rose from behind his office table and
shook hands with Miss Maud Silver. As always when they met, there was a
ritual of polite enquiry.

'I need not ask if you are well, Chief Inspector.'

He had his jovial laugh for that, a sign, if one had been needed, that
the proceedings were to be of a not too formal nature.

'My health doesn't trouble me, I'm glad to say.'

'And Mrs. Lamb? I trust she has not felt the inclement weather.'

'She's too busy being a grandmother.'

Miss Silver beamed.

'Ah--Lily's boy--little Ernest. Called after you, is he not?'

'Fancy your remembering that! Well, what do you say to a granddaughter
as well? A month old yesterday--little Lily Rose. Pretty, isn't it?'

Miss Silver thought it very pretty indeed.

Detective Inspector Abbott, who had ushered her in and now stood waiting
to offer a chair, regarded this interchange with affectionate sarcasm.
Lamb's three daughters were the pride of his heart and the surest way to
it. But Miss Silver had no ulterior motive, her interest was genuine and
perennial. She was now enquiring after Violet, who had a good job at the
Admiralty.

Lamb shook his head.

'Just engaged again. My wife says it won't last. She's a pretty girl and
a good girl, but she doesn't know when she's well off, and that's a
fact. When she's got a young man she thinks she'd like to have a job,
and when she's got a job she thinks she'd like to get married. Wants to
eat her cake and have it.'

'And Myrtle? Is she still training for a nurse?'

Lamb looked gloomy.

'Yes, she's training, and kept pretty hard at it. My wife says it's too
much for her. The fact is, she's our youngest and we miss her in the
home. Well, take a chair, Miss Silver. I know you're always ready to
help, and there was something I thought perhaps you'd be willing to do
for us--privately and without any formality, if you know what I mean. So
I thought if we could just have an informal talk--'

Miss Silver seated herself. Her pale, neat features displayed a polite
degree of interest. Everything about her was neat, old-fashioned and
rather shabby. A breadth of olive-green cashmere showed beneath the
black coat. A bunch of brown and yellow pansies, the gift at Christmas
of her niece Ethel Burkett, had replaced the purple ones with which her
black felt hat had started its career. She wore black knitted gloves,
and a tippet of yellowish fur, friend of many years standing, encircled
her neck--so warm, so cosy. She settled herself without hurry, arranged
an elderly handbag on her lap, and gazed at the Chief Inspector with
just the right degree of deference.

'Well,' he said, 'let's get down to it. We've generally met over a
murder case, haven't we? This isn't anything so violent, but I think
perhaps you might be able to help us. It isn't as if your name had ever
got into the papers. Of course you're known to the police, if I may put
it that way, but I don't know that outside of two or three people
there's been anything that would make you, so to speak, a suspected
character so far as the criminal classes are concerned. In other words,
speaking generally, I don't think they'd be on to you.'

He was watching her all the time he spoke, wondering if she would take
the job or not. Behind a massive faade his mind worked shrewdly. He
leaned back in his chair, hands folded at his considerable
waistline--heavy, square hands with capable fingers. The overhead light
picked out the thinning patch in the strong black hair, and showed up
the florid colour in the broad face. The brown eyes bulged a little.
Frank Abbott in his irreverence allowed himself to be reminded of
peppermint bullseyes.

Miss Silver said, 'Yes?' on an enquiring note.

Lamb brought himself forward with a jerk, leaned across the table, and
said, 'Smuggling.'

Miss Silver looked reproof. During her youth she had been engaged in
what she herself called the scholastic profession. It had often stood
her in good stead that she looked and talked like an old-fashioned
governess. She said, 'Indeed?'

'There's a lot of it going on, you know--bound to be with the customs so
high--and in the ordinary way it wouldn't come to us. No, there's more
in it than that. First of all there's drugs. Of course we're always up
against that, because as long as people will pay a fancy price for their
stuff the drug-runner will stick at nothing to get it to them. Now
there's a place we've had our eye on for some time--an old inn on the
coast road beyond Ledlington. March--let me see, you know March, don't
you? He's the Chief Constable down there now. Used to be a pupil of
yours, didn't he?'

Miss Silver smiled.

'A long time ago, Chief Inspector.'

'Oh, well, we don't any of us get any younger. He's done pretty well for
himself, hasn't he? Does you credit. Well, as I was saying, March has
had his eye on this place for some time. It's got an old smuggling
history. Then it changed hands. Recently it's changed again--come back
to the family that used to own it. But the manager has stayed on.
Nothing in that, you may say--nothing against the man, except that he's
half Irish, half Portuguese.'

Frank Abbott gazed down into the fire. Lamb's dislike of foreigners
never failed to amuse.

The Chief Inspector allowed a bulging gaze to rest for a moment upon his
profile, and continued in a louder voice and with a quite portentous
frown.

'That's not his fault, of course, and nothing against him so long as he
behaves himself. He's a British subject, and he's got an English wife.
Nothing against either of them. That's the trouble. There's nothing
March can get his hands on to anywhere, but there's a kind of feeling
about the place--it may be just the old smuggling history, or it may be
something new. Well, that's as far as the drug business goes, but now
there's something more. All these jewel robberies--you'll have seen
about them in the papers--it's not so easy for them to get the stuff out
of the country, because everything's being watched. We got just one
small shred of a clue after the Cohen affair the other day. You remember
old Cohen woke up and fired at the men. He hit one of them, and the
others carried him off. We were pretty hot on their trail, and they left
him for dead by the side of a country road. We picked him up, and he
wasn't dead--not then--but he died before we could get him to hospital.
He was muttering to himself. One of the constables had his wits about
him and listened. He couldn't make head or tail of most of it, but he
did get two words, and he had the sense to report them. They were, "old
Catherine". Well, the inn on the Ledlington road is called the old
Catherine-Wheel.'

There was a silence. Miss Silver looked thoughtful.

Frank Abbott had not sat down. He stood against the mantelpiece, tall,
slim and elegant; his dark suit faultlessly cut, his handkerchief, his
tie, his socks, discreet and beautiful; his fair hair mirror-smooth. No
one could have looked less like the hardworking efficient police officer
that he was. He had a cult for Miss Silver, at whose feet he was content
to sit, and a sincere and affectionate respect for his Chief, but
neither of these feelings prevented him from considering that their
encounters had a high entertainment value.

Miss Silver coughed and said, 'In what way do you think that I can
assist you?'

Lamb said bluntly, 'You could go and stay at the inn.'

'On what pretext? It does not sound quite the kind of hotel for a lady
travelling alone.'

Lamb gave his jovial laugh.

'Oh, we'll make that all right. Now look here, there's something very
odd going on. The man who owns this inn is Mr. Jacob Taverner, and he's
the grandson of old Jeremiah Taverner who owned it in its smuggling
days. About three weeks ago there was an advertisement in all the papers
asking the descendants of Jeremiah Taverner to apply to a box number. We
followed it up because we were taking an interest in the
Catherine-Wheel. The advertisement was put in by Jacob Taverner, and out
of the replies he received he has picked out eight people, and he has
asked them down to the Catherine-Wheel for this next weekend. What we
would like to know is, "Why?" '

Frank Abbott turned his cool, pale eyes upon the Chief Inspector.

'He may be just throwing a party,' he said.

'March says none of the Taverner family have been on speaking terms with
each other since anyone can remember. The only exceptions are Luke
Taverner's descendants. Luke was old Jeremiah's fourth son and an
out-and-out bad lot. He left quite a lot of scallywag disreputable
children and grandchildren, most of them with no right to his name.
March says they turn up in every shady business in the county. The only
legitimate and fairly reputable one is a young fellow called Al Miller
who is a porter at Ledlington station, and he's none too steady--likely
to lose his job, March says. Well, one of the other lot is barman at the
Catherine-Wheel. Nothing against him, but he comes of bad stock. If you
could get into the inn whilst this family reunion is going on you might
tumble to something. What I'd like is your opinion on the Taverner
family circle. If I may say so, that's where you come out strong--you
get the feeling of people.'

Miss Silver gazed at him with mild attention.

'Who are they?' she enquired.

Lamb opened a drawer and rummaged.

'Where's that paper, Frank? Oh, you've got it. There you are, Miss
Silver. Geoffrey Taverner--travels for a firm called Hobbs and
Curtin--all sorts of jims for making housework easy--perfectly
respectable people. His sister, Mildred Taverner--old maid running a
fancy work shop. Mrs. Florence Duke--a snack bar on the Portsmouth road.
Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington, sister of the last Earl of Rathlea--first
husband Morgenstern the financier--he left all his money to somebody
else--second husband Farandol, the French racing motorist who smashed
himself up about two years ago--now married to young Thorpe-Ennington
just going into bankruptcy. That's four of them. Then we have the one I
was telling you about, Al Miller, railway porter--they took him back
after he was demobbed, but they're not over anxious to keep him. Next,
John Higgins, carpenter on Sir John Layburn's estate not more than a
mile and a half from the old inn--very high character locally, steady
religious kind of chap. And for the last two, Captain Jeremy Taverner,
regular soldier, and Miss Jane Heron, mannequin. Nice mixed bag.'

Miss Silver gazed mildly at the sheet of paper with all these names on
it and said, 'Dear me--'

The Chief Inspector laughed.

'You're wondering how they'll mix over a weekend. Well, there's one that
won't. John Higgins won't go near the place, though he's said to be
sweet on a girl who works there and an aunt of his is married to the
manager, Castell. The girl is Castell's niece or something. Regular
family affair, you see.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'I was wondering why Mr. Jacob Taverner should have asked all these
people for the weekend.'

Lamb sat back easily.

'Well, you know, there mightn't be anything in it at all. He's a rich
man, and he hasn't anyone to leave his money to. So far as the police
are concerned, he's got a clean sheet. I don't suppose he's sailed any
nearer the wind than a lot of other people who have got away with it and
made their pile. He may be wanting nothing more than to have a look at
his relations and make up his mind which of them he'll put into his
will. That's one possibility. There are others, of course. Maybe he's
got a finger in the smuggling pie. Maybe he thinks a family party
wouldn't be a bad cover-up for anything that might be going to happen
down that way. Maybe he's just got interested in the family history. I
don't know, but I'd like to. I want these people sized up, and when it
comes to that kind of job--well, we all know you're a wonder at it.'

Miss Silver smiled graciously, but with restraint. A truly excellent
man, the Chief Inspector, but sometimes just a little inclined to be
patronising. At such moments she was apt to, as it were, recede and
become the governess again. Lamb may or may not have felt a slight touch
of frost upon the air.

Miss Silver coughed, glanced at the paper in her hand, and addressed
him.

'Is Miss Jane Heron young?'

He nodded.

'Yes, bit of a girl--mannequin. Not the sort of job I'd like one of my
girls to take on, but there's nothing against her. She and Captain
Taverner are said to be sweet-hearting.'

'I believe that I have met her. Some months ago at a friend's house. An
attractive girl, and quite young.' She spoke in a meditative tone.

Frank Abbott allowed himself to smile.

'There!' he said. 'What more do you need? We can't offer you a murder,
but a love affair with a nice girl in an invidious position should
really do almost as well.'

Her glance reproved him.

'Murder is much too serious a thing to make jokes about.'

Lamb said a thought impatiently, 'Well, well, that's true enough. But
there's not question of murder. Will you do it? Frank here suggests
driving you down. He's got a cousin with a place close by--one of his
fancy relations with a handle to his name. He fetches them up like
rabbits out of a hat. Beats me where they all come from.'

Frank's fair eyebrows rose.

'Too easy, sir. My great-grandfather had nineteen children. They all
married and had large families.'

Lamb grunted.

'Well, this particular cousin's name is Challoner--Sir John Challoner,
if you please--and he lives not a mile and a half down the road from the
Catherine-Wheel. Frank's idea is--well, he'd better explain it himself.'

Frank Abbott passed a hand over his immaculate hair.

'Well, I drop you at the inn and go on and stay with Jack Challoner. I'm
there on the spot quite nice and handy. If you want me you ring up
Ledstow 23, and they pass it on, upon which Jack and I drop in for a
drink. As far as you're concerned, I lurk until I'm really sure that
you've got in. They'll be pretty full up, and they probably won't want
strangers. On the other hand, if there's anything illegal going on, they
won't want to draw attention to themselves by repelling the bona-fide
traveller. Now just how bona-fide can we contrive for you to be?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'My dear Frank, there should be no difficulty about that, the truth is
always best.'

'The truth?'

Miss Silver smiled benignantly.

'I shall ring the bell and say that a gentleman very kindly gave me a
lift and recommended their hotel.'

The Chief Inspector's eyes bulged a little. Frank permitted himself to
laugh.

'And what exactly are you doing getting lifts and arriving after dark at
strange hotels? It's going to look funny, isn't it?'

Miss Silver beamed.

'I tell the simple truth--I have a professional engagement in the
neighbourhood.'




                               Chapter 7


The week between being interviewed by Jacob Taverner and travelling down
to Cliff was of a very variable emotional temperature as far as Jeremy
and Jane were concerned. It was, in fact, like some of our more
versatile weather forecasts, including gales, bright intervals, frost in
places, and fog locally. There were some sharp clashes, a major quarrel,
a reconciliation which was not without its softer passages. But in the
end there was not very much real change in their relations, since Jeremy
continued to disapprove of the whole Taverner connection and proposed
marriage as an alternative to acquiring what he described as a lot of
riff-raff cousins, and Jane continued to observe with varying degrees of
firmness that it wasn't any good his putting his foot down, that she
meant to have her hundred pounds, and that everyone said cousins
oughtn't to marry.

When the Saturday afternoon arrived there was what might be described as
a fine interval. Since Jeremy possessed a car known to his friends as
The Scarecrow, they were going to drive down to the Catherine-Wheel, and
it did seem a pity to waste a fine afternoon quarrelling. As Jane
pointed out, Jeremy would probably make himself frightfully disagreeable
over the weekend, and there was no point in taking the fine edge off his
temper before they got there.

'It would be a pity if you ran out of frowns and things half way through
Sunday just by being extravagant with them now.'

Jeremy said briefly that he wasn't in the least likely to run out, after
which he suddenly burst out laughing, kissed her before she had time to
stop him, and informed her that he would probably be the life and soul
of the party.

'Wait till you see me putting down cocktails in the bar with dear
Geoffrey and our attractive cousin Al! When I'm well and truly lit I
shall make love to Call-me-Floss. When just on the edge of passing out I
may even get as far as whispering rude nothings in dear Mildred's maiden
ear. I say, what do you think she'd do if I really did?'

'Drop her bag and blush a deep pure puce.'

'Well you watch me!'

Jane giggled.

'You'd better watch yourself. Either Mildred or Floss might feel that
they'd like to get about and see places with the Army.'

They were driving down the Great West Road. A pale winter sun shone
overhead. The sky was turquoise blue, the air fresh without being cold.
Jeremy took his left hand from the wheel and flickered Jane lightly on
the cheek.

'I shall be protected by our engagement.'

'We're not engaged.'

'Darling, you can't refuse to protect me. There shall be no
misunderstanding. We shall advance hand-in-hand into the bar and
announce that we are affianced. The clan will then drink our health in
bumpers of synthetic port, after which we shall all expire, the family
ghost appearing when we are at the last gasp to mutter, "You had been
warned".'

Jane put her chin in the air, but the corners of her mouth quivered.

'We are not affianced. And if it's going to be fatal as quickly as
that--'

'Darling, I have a plan. We will pour the lethal draught on to the
aspidistra, then everyone else will expire, and we will run the family
pub. What shall we do with it? It's had a shady past, so I think we
might give it a decorated future. What shall it be--a gambling hell, or
a dope den?'

Jane said primly, 'I was very nicely brought up. I once got a good
conduct prize. It was a bowdlerised edition of _The Vicar of Wakefield_
with all the bits about lovely woman stooping to folly cut out. I think
we'd better make it a tea-garden.'

'Jane, you can't have tea in a garden in England--at least hardly ever.'

'You don't. You have a sort of leaky verandah--only it sounds better if
you call it a loggia. The rain drips down your neck and the earwigs get
into your tea, but it gives you a nice out-for-the-day sort of feeling,
and if the cakes are really good, you just can't keep people away. I
make frightfully good cakes. Gramp said I had a natural aptitude. He
said I'd inherited it from his mother who was the world's best cook. He
made me have really good lessons.'

Jeremy took his hand off the wheel again. It caught hers and held it in
an ecstatic clasp.

'When can we be married? I can't wait! I knew that you were lovely and
talented, but what's that to the solid worth of a really good cook?'

They went on talking nonsense very comfortably.

The daylight was fading when they passed through Ledlington and took the
long flat road out of it which runs through Ledstow to the coast. It is
a seven-mile stretch, but the old coast road takes off just short of
Ledstow and bears away to the right. It is quite easy to overshoot it,
because it isn't much used and the trees have grown in and made it
narrow. After a mile the ground rises. There are no more trees, and the
hedges are low and bent by the wind off the sea. Cliff is quite a small
village, and very few trains stop there. That the railway passes it at
all is due to the fact that the land was Challoner property, and at the
time the railway was built Sir Humphrey Challoner was someone to be
reckoned with. He had married an heiress. And he represented Ledlington
in Parliament.

As they ran through Cliff and out at the other side, Jeremy slowed down
and looked about him.

'What is it?'

He said, 'Nothing. I just wondered--there's a place my grandfather used
to talk about here. As a matter of fact I know the man it belongs to
now--Jack Challoner--a very good chap. It's a frightful white elephant
of a place. It ought to be somewhere along here. Well, I'd better be
lighting up.'

A moment later the headlights picked out two figures walking in the
road--a girl with a handkerchief over her head, and a big man,
bare-headed with a shock of fair hair. Their arms were linked.

Jane exclaimed, 'It's John Higgins! Jeremy, I'm sure it is! Do stop!
Perhaps he's coming after all--they might like a lift.'

Jeremy said, 'I shouldn't think so.'

But he ran slowly past them, drew up, and got out.

'John Higgins, isn't it? I'm Jeremy Taverner. Jane Heron and I are on
our way to the Inn. Can we give you a lift?'

Jane arrived in a hurry.

'I do hope you are coming.'

'That's nice of you, Miss Heron, but--why, no.'

'Oh, but you mustn't call me Miss Heron, when we are cousins.'

She could just see that he was smiling and shaking his head. The girl
holding his arm spoke up. She had a very pretty voice with something
like the ghost of a brogue.

'Miss Jane Heron?'

Jane saw her pull at John Higgins's sleeve. He said, 'Yes,' and turned
to Jane.

'This is Eily Fogarty. You'll be seeing her at the Inn. She's related to
Mr. Castell. My Aunt Annie brought her up.'

'We're terribly short-handed,' said the pretty lilting voice.

Jane could see no more of her than the oval of the face, with the
handkerchief hiding what seemed to be dark hair and tied under the chin.
There was an effect of charm, but perhaps that was just because she had
such a pretty voice.

If John Higgins had not seen his Aunt Annie in ten years, he seemed to
manage to see his Aunt Annie's _protege_. The little bare hand never
let go of his arm. Jane thought it would be a nice strong arm to hold on
to. She said, 'We'd love to give you a lift if you'd like one.'

John Higgins said, 'Would you, Eily?'

The hand plucked at his sleeve. Jane saw him smile.

'Thank you, Miss Heron, but I think we'll have our walk.'

Just as they reached the car Jeremy went back.

'What was that for?' said Jane when he returned.

'I thought I'd ask John about the Challoner place. He says the entrance
is about a hundred yards farther on.'

Her little quick frown of surprise came and went unnoticed in the dusk.

'You're very interested in the Challoners, aren't you?'

Jeremy said nothing. He was watching for a pair of tall stone pillars.
When they loomed up he slowed the car right down. They hardly broke the
encroaching darkness. Iron gates held the space between. Something like
an eagle topped the right-hand pillar. The left-hand capital was broken
and the bird gone. A few stunted trees and huddled shrubs made a black
background. Jeremy whistled and said, 'Poor old Jack!' And then, with a
laugh, 'Better him than me.'




                               Chapter 8


The old Catherine-Wheel looked up on the edge of the cliff like a bank
of cloud. Someone had set a lantern on the wide flagstones in front of
the door. There was something dazzling about the circle of light in what
was now a dusk so deep as to be more bewildering than actual darkness.
There was moss between the flagstones. One of them was cracked in a
black jagged line running cornerways. The crack glistened under the
light as if a snail had crawled there. The house stood up, an irregular
bulk.

Now that they were out of the car, the sound of the sea came to them.
They stood on the cracked flagstone. Jeremy pulled the bell. Almost at
once the door was opened. The man who stood back from it appeared in
sihouette against the light of an oil lamp which hung from the ceiling.
Jeremy looked, frowned, and said, 'Miller, isn't it--Al Miller?'

And then, as the man turned and the yellow glow struck across the right
side of his face, he wasn't so sure. There was a very strong likeness,
but this man had a different manner--hardier, bolder, more assured. He
was wearing a waiter's grey linen jacket. There was the least trace of a
laugh in his voice as he said, 'No, I'm not Al. The name is White--Luke
White.'

Jeremy remembered that Luke Taverner had left assorted offspring
unrecognised by the law. This was probably some irregular descendant
come home to roost. The whole thing took on an added shade of fishiness
as he grasped Jane by the arm and followed Luke White along an extremely
narrow passage. Jeremy had the idea that it might have been convenient
in the smuggling past. It was noticeable that the narrowness had, as it
were, been ministered to and increased by such things as a very large
stand for coats and hats and a great awkward chest. Where a flight of
rather steep stairs ran up, the passage widened into a small hall with
doors opening to left and right. The right-hand door was ajar, and from
the room beyond there came the sound of voices. Luke pushed the door and
stood aside to let them pass.

They came into a fair-sized, fusty room with curtains drawn, oil-lamps
adding their flavour to a smell compounded of old drinks, old smoke, old
heavy furnishings. There was an immense stuffed fish in a glass case
over the mantelshelf flanked by two very large blue china vases. There
were framed oleographs of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. There
was a long table with drinks.

Jacob Taverner sat on the arm of a chair by the fire with a glass of
whisky and water in his hand. The entire cousinhood were assembled, and
in the midst of them stood Mr. Fogarty Castell, diffusing an aroma of
cigars and extreme gratification at this happy reunion of his wife's
relations.

Jane and Jeremy were barely allowed to greet Jacob before Fogarty had
them each by a hand.

'Captain Taverner--Miss Heron--I cannot at all express how delighted I
am! My wife's relations are my relations. Ah--not to intrude, you
understand. No, no, no, no, no--a thousand times--but to welcome, to
serve, to entertain, to offer the hospitality of the house. What will
you drink--Miss Heron--Captain Jeremy--on this auspicious occasion? You
are the guests of our friend Mr. Taverner--everything is on the house. A
whisky-soda--a pink gin--a cocktail? I make the very good cocktail.' He
gave a deep-throated chuckle. 'There is one I call the Smugglair's
Dream. You will try it--yes--please? Very appropriate, do you not think,
since this was a great haunt of smugglairs a hundred years ago. It is a
joke--not? I will tell you something, my friends. If you have a shady
past, do not cover it up--make a feature of it. Here are your
Smugglair's Dreams. As for my wife, your Cousin Annie, accept for the
moment my excuses. We are very short-handed--she is in the kitchen. Oh,
but what a cook! What a fortune to marry a woman who cooks like Annie
Castell! Is it any wonder that I adore her?' He spoke over his shoulder
to Luke White. 'Where is that Eily? Send her to me quick! The ladies
will wish to go to their rooms. Where is she?'

'Not in, guvnor.'

'Not in? Why is she not in?'

'Mrs. Castell sent her out for somethin' she wanted.'

Jane and Jeremy stood back and watched. The round beaming face with its
dark skin and small bright eyes had changed like a landscape overtaken
by storm--darkness suffused by anger. The fat, paunchy body balancing
jauntily upon small carefully shod feet had become taut. He looked as if
he might do some barbaric thing--scream, spring, shout, dash down a
glass and stamp his heel upon it. And then all at once the effect was
gone. The large face beamed again, the voice was rich with good humour
and with its own peculiar blend of accents.

'Ah, my wife Annie--no one can have every virtue. She is an artist, and
the artist does not think beforehand--he does not plan, he does not say,
"I shall do this or that." He waits for his inspiration and when it
comes he must have what he needs for the masterpiece. Annie will without
doubt have had an inspiration.' He bounded from the room.

Jane felt a little sorry for Annie. She hadn't cared very much for that
moment of threatened storm. She saw Jeremy go and speak to Florence
Duke, and was herself caught hold of by Marian Thorpe-Ennington.

'Jane--you are Jane, aren't you? I'm so dreadfully bad at names.'

'Yes--Jane Heron.'

Lady Marian gazed at her soulfully.

'And the man you came in with?'

'Jeremy Taverner.'

'You're not married to him--or divorced, or anything? I mean, it's so
much better to know straight away, isn't it, instead of suddenly saying
something one shouldn't, and always at the worst possible moment. I'm
always doing it, and Freddy hates it, poor sweet. Oh, you haven't met
him yet, have you? Freddy, this is my cousin Jane Heron.'

Freddy Thorpe-Ennington had been leaning mournfully against the
mantelpiece sipping the last of a series of Smuggler's Dreams. He had a
vague impression--he had reached the stage when all his impressions were
vague--that the world was full of creditors and relations, and that it
might be a good plan to put his head down on somebody's shoulder and
burst into tears. He was a small fair man, and when sober, very kindly
and confiding. At the moment he was so obviously beyond the reach of
conversation that Jane went and sat down beside Jacob Taverner.

'So you've come,' he said.

'Yes.'

'Jeremy didn't want you to.'

'No.'

'What brought you?'

Jane said, 'That.'

'And the hundred pounds?'

'Yes.'

'Do anything for a hundred pounds?'

Jane shook her head.

'Not anything--reasonable things.'

'As what?'

'Coming down here.'

He gave a small dry chuckle.

'Thus far and no farther--is that it?'

She looked at him. It was a look that was at once smiling and cool. He
was reminded of a child bathing, a bare foot exploring cold water to see
just how cold it was. He thought she would go a little farther if she
were tempted. He said, 'Well, well, let's talk about something else.'

'What shall we talk about?'

'Your grandfather, Acts Taverner. How much did you really know of him?'

Jane said soberly, 'I lived with him.' Something in her voice said, 'I
loved him,' though she didn't use the words.

Jacob was quick in the uptake. He nodded.

'Ever tell you stories about the old place?'

'Yes--lots of them.'

'As what? Suppose you tell me some of them.'

He was aware that she withdrew.

'Why do you want to know, Cousin Jacob?'

He chuckled again.

'Well, I've given up business--I must have something to do. I might have
a fancy to write down all I can get hold of about the old family place.
It would make quite good reading. What did Acts tell you?'

She answered without any hesitation.

'He said there was a lot of smuggling in the old days, and it went on
right down to his father's time. He used to tell me stories of how they
outwitted the customs officers.'

Jacob nodded.

'Quite a lot of that sort of thing in the eighteenth century, and well
on into Victoria's reign. There was a lot of lace, and silk, and French
brandy landed all along this coast.'

'How did they do it?'

All this time she was in the lap of the chair, and he on the arm looking
down at her. He cocked his head sideways and said, 'Didn't he tell you?'

Jane looked about her. Everyone was talking hard except Freddy
Thorpe-Ennington, who propped the mantelpiece and gazed at his now empty
glass after the manner of a medium consulting the crystal. Whatever he
saw, it had no reassuring effect. He appeared frowned in gloom, and at
intervals shook his head in a despondent manner.

Jane dropped her voice.

'He said something about a passage from the shore--'

'What did he say?'

'He said nobody would find it unless they were shown. He said that it
had beaten the Preventive men time out of mind. That's what they called
the customs officers in the eighteenth century.'

'And a good bit after. Well, this is getting interesting. Go on.'

Jane's eyes widened.

'There isn't any more.'

'Didn't he tell you where the passage came out?'

'On the shore.'

'But this end--didn't he tell you that?'

'I don't suppose he knew. They wouldn't tell the children.'

Jacob cackled.

'Surprising what children'll know without being told. Sure that's all he
told you?'

Jane smiled sweetly.

'I expect he was making most of it up anyhow. He used to tell me a bit
of a story every night after I was in bed. Sometimes it was dragons, and
sometimes it was pirates, and sometimes it was smugglers. And of course
it made it much more exciting to hang the stories on to a real place
like the Catherine-Wheel--'

The door opened and Fogarty Castell came into the room with a bounce. He
had a girl by the shoulder.

It was the girl who had been walking with John Higgins on the cliff
road. Without the frieze coat and the handkerchief over her head she
could be seen to have a slim figure and a lot of black hair drawn up
into a knot at the back of her head. She wore a dark blue indoor dress,
and her eyes were exactly the same colour. She was extremely pretty but
at the moment rather pale. Behind the black lashes the eyes had a
startled look.

Fogarty Castell took her up to Lady Marian, to Florence Duke, to Mildred
Taverner. He kept his hand on her shoulder.

Jacob finished his drink and said drily, 'Fills the room, doesn't he? A
bit of a mountebank, our Cousin Annie's husband. But why not? It pleases
him so much more than it hurts us. Half Irish, half Portuguese--and
under all that nonsense quite an efficient manager. And here he comes.'

He came up with a flourish.

'This is Eily Fogarty--me grandmother Fogarty's second cousin twice
removed but she calls me uncle, and she calls your cousin Annie aunt,
seeing it's all the uncles and aunts she's got, and all the fathers and
mothers too. And if there's anything you or the other ladies are
wanting, you'll ring your bells and Eily will see to it. Or if you'd
like to go to your rooms--'

Jane felt quite suddenly that she had had enough of Jacob Taverner. She
said, 'Yes, I would,' and saw the look in Eily's eyes change to relief.
She thought, 'She was afraid I was going to say I had seen her before.'
And then she was out of the chair and crossing the room.

The door closed behind them, and they went up the stair, Eily said in a
quick whisper, 'You didn't say you'd seen me?'

Jane shook her head.

'Aren't you supposed to go out with John Higgins?'

'No--no--I'm not.'

'Why?'

They had come out on a square landing. There was a side passage with
four irregular steps going up to it--doors on either side of it, and a
passage going off to the left--two steps up, and two steps down again
farther along. All very bewildering.

Eily turned into the right-hand passage. At the top of the steps she
opened a door, disclosing a large gloomy bathroom with worn brown
linoleum on the floor and a painted Victorian bath profusely stained
with rust and furnished with a broad mahogany surround.

'It's the little room next door I've given you. Lady Marian and her
husband are beyond, and Captain Jeremy and Mrs. Duke and Miss Taverner
opposite.'

She stood aside to let Jane enter a small room almost entirely taken up
with a very large double bed. It was lighted, like the bathroom, by a
wall lamp which diffused a warm oily smell. It was a forbidding little
room. A battered chest of drawers painted mustard yellow, a tarnished
looking-glass standing on it, two chairs, and a shabby wash-stand, were
all the furniture. There was a huge flowered ewer in a small plain
basin. Half a dozen rickety hooks behind a yard or two of limp chintz
supplied the only hanging accommodation. The window curtains of the same
material swayed in an unseen draught. The pattern of the carpet had long
ago been obliterated by dirt and age.

Eily shut the door and said, 'It's no place for you at all. John said to
tell you that.'

Jane had so much of the same feeling herself that she found this rather
undermining. She put out a quick thought in the direction of the hundred
pounds, and said with spirit, 'Well, you're here, aren't you? What's the
difference?'

Eily said in her pretty mournful voice, 'He doesn't like my being here.'

'Then why do you stay?'

'I can't be leaving Aunt Annie.' A pause, and then after a dreadful
sigh, 'I'd not dare. He'd have me back.'

Then, before Jane could say anything at all, she was gone, opening the
door and slipping out without any sound.




                               Chapter 9


Jane was drying her hands, when there was a knock on the door. As soon
as she said, 'Come in!' Jeremy was in the room. He shut the door, came
up close, and said, 'We're just staying as we are. I suppose you're
getting into a dress.'

'I thought I'd better.'

'All right--hurry! There's a little room half-way down the stairs--I'll
meet you there. Don't take too long over the face--it's quite good as it
is.' And then he was gone again.

Jane hung up her suit on two of the hooks behind the limp curtain,
improved the face, slipped on a grey dress with an amusing rose-coloured
curlicue coming down off the left shoulder, and went down to the little
room on the half-way landing.

She found Jeremy walking up and down like a hyena in a cage.

'Why do women take hours to do the simplest things?'

'Darling, they don't. What is it?'

'What is what?'

'Why the assignation?'

'I had to see you.'

'You _are_ seeing me.'

'Jane--what were you talking about to Jacob Taverner?'

'Gramp's bedside stories.'

'What did you tell him?'

'I said there was one about a passage from the shore.'

'Was there?'

She nodded.

'What did Jacob say?'

'Wanted to know where it came out this end. So I said I didn't suppose
Gramp knew and sheered off. And then Eily came in with Castell.'

Jeremy said, 'Look here, he asked me the same sort of thing--did my
grandfather tell me stories about the old place--if he did, what
stories?'

'What did you say?'

'I spread a fairly thick fog.'

She dropped her voice to a whisper.

'What did your grandfather say?'

'Lots of things. What did yours?'

'That's telling.'

'Aren't you going to tell?'

'Not unless you do--and not here--not now.'

'Why not?'

They had been standing quite close together, his arm half round her. Now
he drew away frowning.

'Because I don't like this place. You've no business to be here.'

'Jeremy--really!'

'Jane, we've got to clear out tomorrow. We ought never to have come.'

'Yes, darling--you've said all that before. Do you know, I've got a sort
of feeling that I might get bored if you don't stop soon.'

He gloomed.

'There are worse things than being bored. If ever I saw a bad lot in my
life, it's that fellow Luke White. The man Castell is an offensive
bounder, and that girl Eily looks scared to death. I don't know what's
going on here, but it's something shady, and we're leaving tomorrow.'

Jane opened the door and walked out. Jeremy had all the makings of a
trampling bully, and she had no intention of being his door-mat.

She said, 'Goodbye, darling,' and waited for Florence Duke who was
coming down the stairs. She had caught only a glimpse of her when they
arrived, and she had thought there was something odd about her colour.
She couldn't very well turn pale, but the heavy red in her cheeks had a
curious undershade of purple. She now wore a remarkable garment of very
bright red silk profusely patterned with pink and green. It was rather
tight and rather short, and it had seen fresher days.

As they went down the stairs together, a cloud of strong pungent scent
accompanied them. Jane was just thinking that she really preferred
paraffin, when Florence said under her breath,

'Do I look all right?'

Jane took in the heavy untidy hair, the overdone make-up, the dress, the
shoes with their tawdry buckles, and said the only thing that it was
possible to say, 'Oh, yes.'

She wouldn't have found it convincing herself, but it seemed to go down
all right with Florence. She put a large coarse hand with bright
fingernails on Jane's arm and said, her deep voice lower still, 'I've
had a most awful turn.'

'What sort of a turn? What can I do for you?'

Florence shook her head.

'Nobody can't do anything. That's the way when you're in a fix. You get
yourself in, and you've damn well got to get yourself out--nobody can do
it for you.' She stood on the bottom step but one and swayed a little.
'Oh, gosh--why did I have to come!'

Jane thought, 'She's tight. We _are_ going to have a jolly party.'

Florence gazed at her with tragic eyes and swayed. Jane said briskly,
'Those cocktails were much too strong. We'll feel a lot better when
we've got some food inside us. There's the gong now. Come along and see
how Cousin Annie cooks.'

The dining-room was opposite the lounge. Dark panelling rose to within a
foot of the ceiling, which was crossed by massive beams. Above the
cavernous hearth a wide brick chimney-breast ran up. It supported an
irregular trophy composed of old flintlocks, bayonets, and heavy
horn-handled knives. There was a long table covered with a coarse linen
cloth. Someone had set a tankard full of evergreens half-way down the
narrow board. For the rest, the service might have been described as
rag-tag-and-bobtail--here and there a heavy silver fork or spoon amongst
cheap electroplate, old knives worn down to a point and three inches of
blade, the flimsiest modern glass mixed up with half a dozen old cut
beakers. The chairs were as mixed--rush-bottomed, Windsor, common
kitchen. There were places laid for nine, with Jacob Taverner at the top
of the table in a massive old chair carved with lions' heads. A lamp
hung down from the central beam and made of the table and the people
round it an island of light.

They took their seats--Marian Thorpe-Ennington on Jacob's right, and
Florence Duke on his left; Geoffrey Taverner beyond Lady Marian, then
Jane; Jeremy opposite Jacob at the end of the table, with Freddy
Thorpe-Ennington on his right; and beyond him Mildred Taverner, leaving
an empty place between her and Florence Duke which was obviously
destined for Al Miller whenever he happened to arrive.

Luke White served them with soup in a variety of odd plates, and after
the first spoonful Jane was aware that Fogarty Castell had made no vain
boast of their Cousin Annie's cooking--the soup was a dream. She looked
across the table anxiously to see whether Florence was getting it down,
and was a good deal relieved to find that she was. If the rest of the
dinner was anything like up to this sample, there would be no need to
worry any more about the Smuggler's Dreams.

As her eye travelled back, she became aware with concern that Freddy
Thorpe-Ennington had not so much as taken up his spoon. She kicked
Jeremy, but before she could do any more about it Lady Marian was
calling down the table.

'Freddy--Freddy, my sweet--the most marvellous soup! Jeremy--that's your
name, isn't it?--do make him have some!'

Freddy stared at her with glazed eyes. That recourse had been had to the
sobering properties of cold water was obvious--his fair hair shone wet
under the lamp. That the remedy had been ineffectual was also obvious.
He swayed where he sat, and on a repetition of his wife's appeal
pronounced very slowly and distinctly the only two words which anyone
had heard him utter:

'Bilge--water--'

It was at this moment that the door opened to admit Al Miller. He had
taken time to change out of his porter's uniform and was wearing the
suit in which he had attended at John Taylor's office. It was also
unfortunately apparent that he had taken time to have a few drinks. He
was not drunk, but he was definitely exhilarated and all set to be the
life of the party. After hailing Jacob from across the room with a wave
of the hand and a 'Cheerio, Jake!' he advanced to slap Jeremy on the
back, and casting an 'Evening, all!' at the rest of the company, steered
himself to the vacant place with a hand on the rail of Mildred
Taverner's chair and saluted Florence Duke as 'Ducks'. After which he
took his soup noisily and with gusto.

Jane said to herself, 'It's going to be the most frightful evening--it
really is.' And then all at once she wanted to laugh, because Mildred
Taverner was obviously quite petrified at finding herself between Al and
Freddy. She sat with her elbows well drawn in and picked at her food
with an expression of concentrated gentility.

The soup-plates were removed and Fogarty Castell produced a napkined
bottle of champagne with a flourish and filled Lady Marian's beaker. As
he passed round the table, Jane saw Florence Duke lift her glass and
drain it, an example quickly followed by Al Miller. Miss Taverner took a
birdlike sip and returned to picking at a pea.

'_Freddy_--' said Marian Thorpe-Ennington in rich poignant tones.

Freddy uttered again. Dividing the words with care, he enquired,
'What's--marrer?'

'My sweet, you know champagne doesn't agree with you.'

He shook his head solemnly.

'Absolutely--not.'

'Freddy, you'll be ill!'

'Absolutely.' He took up the glass with an air of serious purpose and
emptied it.

Lady Marian said, 'Oh, well, he'll pass out now,' and apparently ceased
to take any further interest.

Jane found herself engaged in a conversation with Geoffrey Taverner. It
was a very dull conversation all about the things he travelled in, his
dry, precise manner doing nothing to enliven the subject.

'We have a washing-machine which I do not hesitate to say is twenty-five
per cent better than any other on the market--gas-controlled eleven
pounds seven and six, electrically controlled thirteen pound ten, which,
you will realise, is a considerable reduction upon the standard price.'

Here there was a hiatus, because Jane's attention was diverted to Jacob
Taverner owing to the fact that she had just heard him say to Florence
Duke, 'Didn't he tell you where it came out?' The words were spoken in
an undertone, and why they should have reached her through the buzz of
conversation, she had no idea. But reach her they did. She felt them
slipping into her mind like small round lumps of ice, she didn't know
how and she didn't know why. They gave her a cold, lost feeling.

She came back to Geoffrey Taverner talking about something that did your
washing-up for you, by which time Fogarty Castell was going round with
more champagne. Her own glass was untasted, and as he came by, she asked
if she could have some water.

Geoffrey was saying, ' "Halves the labour and doubles the pleasure."
Would you think that a good slogan? Or perhaps, "You give the party, we
do the washing up." Which of those would catch your attention and make
you look a second time at an advertisement?'

'Well, I think, perhaps the one about the party.'

He nodded complacently.

'That was my own opinion. I am glad to find that you agree with me. I
have given a good deal of thought to the advertising side of the
business, and some of my suggestions have been adopted.'

He embarked upon a full and particular description of the bright ideas
which he had put up to Messrs. Hobbs and Curtin and the rather
disappointing manner in which most of them had been received. Mr. Hobbs,
it appeared, was old-fashioned. 'What was good enough for my father is
good enough for me--you know the style.' And Mr. Curtin was noncommittal
and timid. 'The pain of the new idea, if you take me. But as I ventured
to submit, a business without new ideas is a business without new
customers. I am sure you will agree with me on that.'

Jane was wondering whether it was she or the firm which was to agree,
and had just made up her mind that it couldn't possibly do any harm to
say, 'Oh, yes,' when the voice of Al Miller came into the conversation
with loud irrelevance.

'Where's Eily?'

Fogarty Castell leaned between him and Florence Duke, champagne bottle
poised.

'And where would she be if she wasn't helping her aunt in the kitchen?'

Al picked up his glass, gulped, and set it down with a bang.

'Prettiest girl anywhere round about,' he said thickly--'prettiest girl
anywhere. Oughtn't to be in a kitchen--ought to be here.' He pushed back
his chair. 'Going to look for her--going to bring her here--good as
anyone--better than half your society ladies.'

By this time everyone was looking and listening. Jacob Taverner said,
'Sit down, Al Miller! If you wish to see Eily you can do so presently.'

There was nothing in the words. The tone had an edge on it.

Whilst Al hesitated, Florence Duke put up a strong hand to pull him
down. As he dropped back, she said not at all inaudibly, 'You won't get
your hundred pounds if you don't behave.'

Fogarty patted him on the shoulder.

'You'll be seeing her,' he said, and passed on.

The dinner proceeded--turkey stuffed with chestnuts--bread-sauce and
vegetables so beautiful that they might have served as a pattern to any
chef. One at least of the family could do something supremely well.

Jeremy relaxed so far as to lean across the corner of the table and
murmur the word, 'Genius! What do you suppose she's like?'

Jane laughed.

'Let's go and see, shall we--after dinner? She's almost an aunt, and we
ought to thank her.'

On the other side of her Geoffrey was saying, 'Every hotel in the
country ought to have our patent plucker.'

Jane discovered that she was too hungry to care who talked about what.

When the plates had been taken away Jacob Taverner waited a moment, and
then got to his feet.

'It is, perhaps, just a little early in the evening for speeches, but I
propose to make a short one and to give you a toast. I am sure that you
must all have been feeling curious as to why you have been asked here.
Well, I am going to explain. It is really all very simple. Here we are,
a lot of cousins most of whom have never met before. I thought it would
be a good thing if we did meet. In the course of two world wars family
ties all over the world have been strained, wrenched, and generally
bombed to blazes. Annie Castell and I are the only two left in our
generation--the only surviving grandchildren of old Jeremiah Taverner.
He had eight sons and daughters, and we two are all that are left of his
children. We are the grandchildren, and all the rest of you are
great-grandchildren. I have no other kith and kin, and as I can't take
my money with me when I die, I thought I had better get to know you all
before I set down what I want to happen to it. I naturally intend to
live as long as I can, and as I don't feel any older than I did twenty
years ago, I should say I was good for at least another twenty. That is
the first instalment of my speech, and at this point I will ask you to
drink to the Family. Fogarty has just filled your glasses. Here is the
toast--

    The Family.'

Jane touched her glass with her lips and set it down again. Everyone
drank except Freddy Thorpe-Ennington, sitting slumped in his chair and
quite obviously dead to the world.

Jacob's bright malicious glance travelled down the table. He repeated
the words of the toast, 'The Family,' and added, 'May it never be less.'
Then he went on briskly, 'Well, now I know you all, and you know each
other.'

Jane thought, 'How much does he know--how much do any of us know? I know
Jeremy, and Jeremy knows me. He's raging under that polite look. What
he'd really like to do is to drag me out of the room and beat me, but he
can't, poor lamb. Too bad. I shall have to make it up to him somehow. I
always know just what he's thinking. But the others.... Something's the
matter with Florence, but I don't know what. She looks as if someone had
hit her over the head and she hadn't quite come to. Al's drunk, and he
wants Eily. Mildred'--a little inward laughter shook her--'in a way
she's hating every moment--Al on one side of her and Freddy on the
other--two drunk men, and she's miles and miles away from her little
fancy work shop. But in a way she's thrilled. I don't suppose anything
has ever happened to her before, and I don't suppose anything will ever
happen to her again, so she's simply got to make the most of it.... I
wonder what Geoffrey's thinking about. Perhaps a slogan introducing the
word Family--"Our Potato-peeler--every Family needs one" ...'

Marian.... No need to guess about Marian. There she was, magnificent in
Parisian black with three rows of pearls dripping down into her lap and
her beautiful eyes gazing soulfully at Jacob. She had in fact taken the
stage and was discoursing richly.

'My dear man, I couldn't agree more--I really couldn't. We all need to
get closer together, don't we? After all, if we can help each
other--that's what we're here for, isn't it? I've always said so. And as
to wills, we don't need to talk about them, because everybody lives to a
simply incredible age nowadays if they don't get killed by a bomb or
something. My first husband, Morgenstern, would have been alive now if
he hadn't _insisted_ on flying over to the States in the middle of all
those air attacks. That's why I really _do_ feel a little prejudiced
about wills, because, you know, he left simply everything to charities
and to his secretary, a horse-faced woman with streaky hair. It only
shows you never can tell--doesn't it? _Nobody_ could have imagined she
wasn't perfectly safe.'

'My dear Marian, I am supposed to be making a speech.'

She gave him a warm, indulgent smile.

'You were doing it so well too. Men are so good at that sort of thing.
Ren used to make wonderful speeches--my second husband--after he had
won a trophy or something. But I always knew he would kill himself
racing, and of course he did. So there I was--a widow for the second
time and not a penny.'

Florence Duke on Jacob's other side said deep and slow, 'Some people
have all the luck.'

Marian Thorpe-Ennington took no notice. It is doubtful if she even
heard. She flowed on.

'So you see why I don't like wills--so dreadfully undependable. Of
course Ren hadn't any money at all, and now Freddy isn't going to have
any either. And what I always think is, how much better to see what a
lot of pleasure you are giving whilst you are here to enjoy it, instead
of waiting until you are dead. I mean--'

Jacob's smile became suddenly malignant. He said softly and coldly,
'Thank you--I know exactly what you mean. And I am now going to go on
with my speech.'

He leaned forward and rapped upon the table.

'Now that you have all had a breathing-space I will go on. I am sorry if
you thought it was all over, but I'm going to be brief, and I'm not
going to be dull--at least I hope not, but of course you never can tell.
I expect you have all noticed that I have asked a good many questions as
to how much you know about the old Inn. All your grandfathers and
grandmothers seem to have known something about its smuggling past.' He
paused for a moment to address Castell. 'All right, Fogarty, go
on--serve the ice-pudding. Annie will never forgive us if we let it
melt.' Then, turning back, he resumed. 'They could hardly have helped
knowing something, since they were born and brought up here, and had the
advantage for a good many years of old Jeremiah's company and example.
What I have wanted to find out was how much of what they knew they had
handed on. Anybody got any contribution to make?'

The ice-pudding was quite terribly good--all the food was terribly good.
Jane felt really sorry for Freddy, who was missing it. She looked
sideways at Jeremy, and found him giving a polite attention to his host.
She wasn't sure if there wasn't a momentary flicker in her direction, or
whether it was merely that she knew with what energy he was saying,
'No!' to the question which had just been put to them all. She
transferred an innocent gaze to Jacob's face.

Nobody answered, nobody stirred. Mildred Taverner divided a small piece
of her ice-pudding into three. Delicious--really delicious. She savoured
the mouthfuls slowly, laid down a thin old silver spoon, and said in her
high voice, 'There used to be a passage from the shore.'

Her brother Geoffrey looked across the table and said, 'Those old
stories!' His tone was bored and contemptuous.

Jane had the oddest conviction that behind the coolness and the boredom
there was a sharp edge of anger. Yet Mildred had really said nothing
that had not been said before by one or another of them.

Jacob grinned his monkey grin.

'I wondered whether the old stories hadn't been handed down, and it
seems they have. Now just how much did my Uncle Matthew tell you,
Mildred?'

Mildred Taverner said in a confused voice, 'Oh, I don't know--there was
a passage--the smugglers used it--'

'Is that all?'

'I think--' she broke off--'yes, I think so.'

The grin became more pronounced.

'Well, that's pretty vague, isn't it? I can do better than that, because
I can show you the passage.'

Everyone moved or made some involuntary sound--a shifting of the
balance, a leaning forward or back, the faint rattle of fork or spoon as
a hand released its hold, a quick involuntary intake of the breath. Jane
saw Geoffrey Taverner's hand close hard and then very deliberately
relax.

Jacob nodded, delighted with his effect.

'Surprised--aren't you? I thought you would be!' He chuckled. 'I could
see you all thinking you'd got hold of a shocking family secret, and all
the time it wasn't a secret at all. As soon as everyone has finished,
come along and I'll show you. We'll go and look at the passage while
Annie is sending the coffee up, but before we go--We've drunk to the
Family, and now we'll drink to the Family Secret, it's smuggling past,
and its harmless present--

    The Secret!'




                               Chapter 10


They went trooping through a green baize door at the back of the hall,
to find themselves in a confusing rabbit-warren of stone-floored
passages. There was a smell of cooking, and of mould from old walls
which held the damp. One passage ran straight ahead, not narrow like the
one which had led from the front door, but wide enough for two men to
walk abreast and carry a load between them. All the passages here had
this convenience of width--and no difficulty in guessing why. The smell
of food came from a half open door on the left, carried out and away by
the heat of a noble fire.

But Jacob Taverner turned into a cross passage which went away to the
right. Doors opened on either side of it, a stair came down on the
right. The middle door on the left disclosed a cellar stair going down
easily into the dark with wide shallow steps.

Fogarty Castell had a bright electric lamp. He stood at the bottom and
lighted them down. Eighteen steps, and they were in a wide hall with
doors opening on three sides of it. The floor was dry and dusty under
foot, and the air warm. Fogarty went ahead with his lamp and stopped at
a door which was locked on the outside. He turned the key--a heavy old
thing like a church key--and took himself and his light into a long,
narrow cellar with brick walls and a stone-paved floor. It was quite
empty except for one or two small wooden boxes lying in the corner.

Jeremy had Jane by the arm. He thought, 'What is he getting at?' and he
kept her near the door.

Jacob took the lamp and went to the far end of the cellar. He said, 'All
right,' and Fogarty Castell did something in the corner where the boxes
were. They couldn't see what he did. Nobody could, because they were all
looking at Jacob and the light. Castell might have bent down and
straightened up again. Jeremy had the impression that that was what he
had done, but he couldn't be sure, and in the next moment he had
something else to think about, because Jacob Taverner laughed and pushed
hard against the brick wall at the end of the cellar. He pushed hard
with both hands on the right side, and it gave and swung in. A long
black gap showed all down that side. The whole end wall of the cellar
moved--eight foot of it--the right-hand side going back, and the left
swinging out until it stood endways on, with a four-foot passage on
either side.

Jacob held up the lamp for everyone to see.

'Well, here's the old back door of the Catherine-Wheel. Ingenious, isn't
it? The wall looks solid enough, but it's only a door built into a
wooden frame and pivoted on an iron bar. There's a simple locking
arrangement, and when it's locked no one can get in from the shore.
There were some rough characters in the smuggling game, and our
forefathers took precautions against waking up some fine night with
their throats cut. Well, there's the road to the shore. The cliff's
about forty foot, and we're ten foot underground here, so there's
another thirty foot to go before you get down to shore level. But they
didn't bring the cargoes in off the shore. There's a cave right under
here, no size but very convenient. They used to run a boat in at high
tide and land the stuff where the passage comes out. So you can cut off
another eight or nine feet. That leaves a twenty-foot drop, and with the
help of a few steps they've managed a passage with quite an easy
gradient. Anyone want to come along and see? I don't advise it for the
ladies, because it's all pretty foul from not being used, and they'll be
apt to spoil their dresses. I don't suppose anyone's been into it a
dozen times since Jeremiah died.'

Mildred Taverner, standing very near the middle of the cellar, said in
that high voice of hers, 'But I thought--'

Nobody had spoken whilst Jacob spoke. Everyone listened, and when he
stopped speaking there was a hush. Mildred's 'But I thought--' came
right into the middle of it. When she caught herself up, everyone was
looking at her. She said, 'Oh!' with a sort of gasp, and stood there.

Geoffrey Taverner said, 'No, I don't think the ladies ought to go.'

Jacob moved, passing between Geoffrey and Florence Duke. He said,
'Mildred was saying--What was it you were saying, my dear Mildred?' His
tone sharpened on the question.

There was confusion in her manner and colour in her face--ugly, flat
colour. She said in a hurry, 'Oh, nothing--nothing at all.'

'You said, "But I thought--" What did you think?'

'I don't know--I'm sure I don't know why I said it--it must have been
the excitement. It's very exciting, isn't it? And my dress won't hurt. I
should like to see where the passage comes out. These patterned silks
are so useful--they don't show marks.'

In the end they all went down except Marian Thorpe-Ennington.

'Not that I'm not interested, my dear man, because of course it's too
utterly thrilling, but as this is probably the last garment I shall ever
be able to buy from Dior, I really should hate to get it spoilt with
slime and seaweed and things. They never really come out--too
devastating. And of course the very minute Freddy goes into bankruptcy
nobody will give us any more credit--so unfair, I always think. Only I
can't stay here in the dark.'

'Fogarty's got a torch--he'll take you back. I'm afraid we must stick to
the lamp.'

One underground passage is very much like another. Jane wouldn't have
stayed behind for the world, but she had never hated anything quite so
much in all her life--the dark descent, the shadows cast by the electric
lamp, the smell of the cave coming up on a salt breath, the smell of
decaying seaweed that might easily have been something worse. There
might have been murders in a place like this--a knife stuck suddenly
between someone's ribs, and dead men's bones left lying in the dark. It
was like all the worst nightmares she had ever had, the kind where
something chased you in deep places where there isn't any light. She
held Jeremy's arm in a painful grip. He felt her heart beat as she
pressed against him. His whisper at her ear had a laughing sound.

'If you'll stop mangling my arm, I can put it round you.'

It came round her, and she held on to his jacket instead. They were
behind the others. He said, 'Silly!' still in that laughing whisper, and
kissed the back of her neck.

The smell which she kept telling herself was only seaweed got stronger.
There was an oozy feeling under foot. The lamp stopped a little way
ahead, and they were called forward one by one to look out over a lip of
rock and see black water moving under the light a couple of feet below.
The walls of the cave went away up out of sight. They glistened with
moisture. The light glittered on the water. Jane felt as if at any
moment the whole cliff might tilt and drown them. The glittering and the
glistening and the oozy feeling under foot began to run together in her
mind. Just for a minute she didn't know where she was, or that it was
only Jeremy's arm that kept her on her feet.

When the giddy feeling passed they were going back up the slope. She
said, 'I'm all right now. Oh, Jeremy, I do hate secret passages.'

'I rather gathered that. Sure you're all right?'

'Yes, quite.'

He let her take her weight again. They came out into the cellar and up
the cellar stairs to the warmth from the kitchen door and the wholesome
smell of food. The door was still half open, as it had been when they
went down. There was a fragrance of coffee. Jane said close to Jeremy's
ear, 'Let's go and see Annie Castell.'

It was quite easy to fall back and let the others go on. They pushed the
kitchen door and went in, to find themselves in a big room with a stone
floor and a low ceiling crossed by heavy beams. The beams had big hooks
in them here and there, and in the old days there would have been hams
hanging up to cure. Now there were only strings of onions and bunches of
dried herbs.

Annie Castell turned round from the range. She was a heavily built woman
of middle height with a flat pale face which reminded Jane of a scone,
and flat pale hair dragged back into a scanty knot behind. At first it
was difficult to say whether it was fair, or grey, or somewhere betwixt
and between. She looked at them out of small nondescript-coloured eyes
which had no expression at all. The few sandy lashes did nothing to
shade them, and the wide colourless eyebrows showed like smudges on the
pale skin. If Jane had stopped to think she would have felt discouraged.
But she was too full of a sense of escape. The warm room and the smell
of coffee were too heartening. She said in her prettiest voice, 'We're
some of the cousins. This is Jeremy Taverner, and I am Jane Heron. We
want to say thank you for the lovely dinner, Cousin Annie.'

She put out her hand as she spoke. Annie Castell looked at it, looked at
her own, wiped it slowly upon the washed-out overall which enveloped
her, and then just touched Jane's fingers in a limp, hesitating way. She
did not speak at all.

Jane persevered.

'It was a most beautiful dinner--wasn't it, Jeremy?'

'I don't know when I tasted anything better.'

Annie Castell made some kind of a movement, but whether it was intended
to be a modest disclaimer, or a mere acknowledgment of compliments
received, it would have been difficult to say. For a moment nobody said
anything. Then a raw-boned elderly woman emerged from what was evidently
the scullery. She had a battered-looking hat on her head, and she was
buttoning up a man's overcoat some sizes too large for her.

'I got through,' she said in a hoarse confidential tone. 'And if you're
really not wanting me to do the silver--'

Annie Castell spoke for the first time. She had a country accent and a
very flat, discouraged voice.

'No, Eily can do the silver. You've done the glasses?'

'I didn't know I had to.'

'Yes, please.'

The woman bridled.

'I'm sure I don't know that I can. Mr. Bridling, he won't half carry on
if I'm late. But there, if I must, I must, and no good having a set-to
about it. I'll tell him you kept me.'

'Thank you.'

Annie Castell turned back to Jeremy and Jane.

'The coffee has gone through,' she said in her flat monotone.

They were dismissed, and, as far as it was possible to tell, without
acquiring any merit. As they shut the kitchen door behind them, Jeremy
said, 'Effusive person our Cousin Annie.'

'Jeremy, do you suppose he beats her?'

'Who--Fogarty? I shouldn't think so. Why?'

'She's got that crushed look. People don't look like that if they're all
right.'

Jeremy put his arm round her.

'Sometimes I like you quite a lot. But talking about looks, you've got a
green smudge--you'd better slip upstairs and do something to the face.'

They separated at the foot of the stairs. As Jane turned into the
passage which led to her room she heard a man's voice. She didn't get
any words, only the voice. There was something about it that made her
angry. She came up the four steps where the level of the passage rose,
and heard Eily say, 'I won't!'

Just at this point she realised that the voices came from her own
bedroom, and that one of them belonged to Luke White who certainly had
no business there. Eily, she supposed, would be turning down the beds,
and if either of them thought of Jane Heron at all, they would expect
her to be taking coffee in the lounge or whatever they called that big
room downstairs. In the circumstances, she didn't feel the least bit
ashamed of standing still and listening.

Luke White said with an odious drawling sound in his voice, 'And what
good do you think you're doing by saying you won't?'

Eily sounded breathless.

'I'm saying it because I'm meaning it.'

'And what good do you think you're doing by meaning it? I'll have you in
the end. If you'd a grain of sense you'd know that and come willing.'

He must have reached out and caught hold of her, because there was a
half-stifled 'Let me go!'

'You'll listen to me first! And you'll give me a nice kiss, and then you
can go--for this time.'

She said, 'I'll scream. You've no business here. I'll tell Aunt Annie.'

'Annie Castell--that makes me laugh! And what do you think you'll get
out of telling Annie Castell?'

Her voice wavered.

'I'll tell Uncle.'

'You won't! If you want to start anything like that, there's two can
play at telling. Where had you got to this evening when I spoke up for
you and told Castell Annie had sent you out on an errand? I lied for you
and got you out of the mess you'd have been in if he'd known where you
was. Along of John Higgins, wasn't it? Keeping company
like--sweet-hearting like--holding hands and kissing, or perhaps a bit
more. For all he's so pious, I bet you don't sing hymns all the time
you're with him!'

'Luke--let me go!'

'In a minute, when I've said what I want to. Here it is. You go
snivelling to Castell or you go running away to John Higgins, and I'll
cut his heart out. If you want to wake up some night and find your bed
a-swimming in his blood, you run off and marry him and that's what
you'll wake up to some fine night. I'll not swing for him neither--you
needn't think it--I'd not give you that satisfaction. I'll have an alibi
that the two Houses of Parliament couldn't break, not if they tried ever
so. And I'll have you too, whichever way it goes and whatever you do.
You can choose whether you'll come willing and now, or whether you'll
let it come to what I said and have John Higgins's blood on you first.
And now you'll kiss me proper!'

Jane went back down the four steps, and made a noisy stumble on the
bottom one. Just as she did so she heard Eily cry out. Hard on that Luke
White cursed. Jane ran, and almost bumped into him as he came out of the
bedroom looking dangerous and nursing a hand. When he saw her he stopped
for a moment and said, 'Eily called me in to see to the catch of your
window. It slipped and caught my finger.'

Jane watched him nearly to the end of the passage before she shut the
door.

Eily stood by the chest of drawers which served as a dressing-table. She
had a fixed sick look, her eyes staring, her face dead white. She was
holding Jane's nail-scissors. There was blood on the blades. She was
wiping it off with her finger and staring at it.

Jane went close up to her and put an arm round her shoulders.

'I heard what he said. Why do you stand it?'

Eily went on wiping the blades with her finger.

'There's nothing else I can do.'

'Of course there is! You ought to tell Mr. Castell and your aunt.'

A faint shudder went over Eily like a ripple going over water.

'You don't understand.'

'You could walk out of here and marry John Higgins. He wants you to,
doesn't he?'

'I can't be doing that.'

'Because of what Luke said? He was just trying it on. You could go to
the police. There, that's three things you could do. And you can put
those scissors down--they give me the creeps. You stuck them into his
hand, didn't you?'

The dark blue eyes widened. There was another of those slow shudders.
Jane said half impatiently, 'I shouldn't worry--he was asking for it.'

She turned round to the glass, exclaimed at what it showed her, and
began to get busy with cleansing tissue.

Eily put the scissors down and moved a step or two away. All the time
Jane was doing her face she was aware of her, standing there with that
fixed staring look.

When she was ready, Eily was still there. Jane began to feel that she
needed shaking. A girl who was chambermaid at an inn which certainly
contained some odd people ought to be a bit tougher than that. The
Catherine-Wheel was no place for a sensitive plant--very few places
were. If you had your living to earn you had to learn how to look after
yourself, but it oughtn't to have to come to stabbing, not even with
nail-scissors. She said rather briskly, 'Come along, Eily--there's no
harm done.'

Eily looked down at the blood on her forefinger.

'It was only the little pair of scissors,' she said, 'and no harm done
at all.'

'Then what are you worrying about?'

She said, 'Suppose I'd had a knife--'

This time the shudder was in her voice.




                               Chapter 11


As Jane passed the turn of the stairs on her way down, a cold wind came
blowing up to meet her. She stopped half-way, and saw the front door
open and Luke White standing there with his back to her. She could see
that it was Luke because of his grey waiter's jacket. His left hand hung
down and there was a handkerchief around it. His voice came back to her
with the blowing wind--quite a polite, civilised voice for someone who
had just been talking about cutting people's hearts out.

'I am sorry, madam, but I am afraid we have no room.'

Beyond him, still upon the doorstep, Jane could see a woman's figure. A
voice said, 'Dear me!'

Jane came down the rest of the way into the hall and took a step or two
along the narrow passage to the front door. There was something familiar
about the voice with its very clear enunciation. She came right up to
the door and saw a little woman in dowdy old-fashioned clothes, a well
worn fur tippet about her neck, a shabby handbag in one hand and a small
fibre suit-case in the other.

She said, 'Oh!' And then, 'But I've met you, haven't I--at Mrs. Moray's?
Your name--'

There was a faint prim cough.

'Miss Silver--Miss Maud Silver. And you are Miss Jane Heron?'

'Yes. Do come in, won't you?'

'We haven't any room, Miss Heron,' said Luke White. He spoke smoothly,
but with an underlying impertinence which brought Jane's head up.

Miss Silver stepped past him and set down her case.

'Pray shut the door.' Her tone was one of quiet authority.

She addressed herself to Jane.

'The wind is extremely chilly. I was on my way to keep an appointment,
and after some difficulties with which I need not trouble you a
gentleman very kindly gave me a lift in his car and recommended this
hotel. He himself was going to stay with a Sir John Challoner who
resides in this neighbourhood, so it has all turned out most
conveniently. I really do not feel able to proceed any farther
tonight--so inclement, and I have no conveyance. But I shall be quite
content with an armchair if there is no bedroom available.'

She had been walking down the passage as she spoke. They now emerged
upon the small square hall. From the lounge door half open on the right
there came the smell of coffee and the sound of voices. As Miss Silver
turned with a pleased smile in this direction, Luke White pushed past
her.

'That's a private party in there. And we've no room--I told you we
haven't.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'I have no wish to intrude--' she began with dignity.

But before she could say anything more the half open door was thrown
wide. Between Jeremy, who obviously intended to come out, and Jane, who
obviously intended to come in, there really was no room for Luke White.
He had a look of black anger as he slid past Jeremy into the lounge and
made his way to where Fogarty Castell was standing beside the
coffee-tray.

Jane had slipped her hand inside Miss Silver's arm.

'Jeremy, this is Miss Silver whom I met at Mrs. Moray's. She got held up
on the road, and that horrible Luke White says there isn't any room
here. But we can manage something, can't we?'

'I expect so. Come in, Miss Silver, and have some coffee with us.'

Miss Silver gave him the smile reserved for the polite and attentive
young.

'Most delightful--most refreshing,' she said.

As they advanced into the room they encountered Fogarty Castell, all
smiles and apologies.

'My excuses, madam, but we really do not have any room that we can offer
you. Mr. Taverner's party has taken up all our accommodation. Captain
Taverner will tell you that this is so.'

Captain Taverner frowned. He could see just what Jane had landed him
into, and he didn't see any way of getting out of it. He would have to
give up his room. The thought was sweetened by the fact that this was,
for some reason, going to annoy Luke White to whom he had taken a
considerable dislike. It was also, apparently, going to annoy Fogarty
Castell. He made his offer pleasantly enough, received the gracious
thanks of Miss Silver and the approbation of Jane, and then had to meet
some suave opposition.

In the end it was Miss Silver herself who decided the matter. Speaking
with the quiet precision with which she had so often in the past quelled
an unruly schoolroom, she observed that if there were any question of
the intrusion of a stranger into some private family affair, she would
of course withdraw.

Fogarty threw up his hands.

'But there is no private affair! There is a family reunion--you can see
it. I will speak to Mr. Taverner. He is the owner, you understand. The
inn is his, the party is his--I am only the manager.' He made another of
those foreign gestures and was gone. They could see him waving his hands
as he talked to Jacob Taverner.

Jane spoke on a sudden impulse. 'He didn't like your saying that about
its being a private affair, did he? Look here, come and sit down, and
Jeremy will get us some coffee. How odd that the man who gave you a lift
should be going to stay with Jack Challoner. He's a friend of Jeremy's.'

The room was a good size. There were chairs scattered about over the
floor-space in groups of twos and threes. Heavy plush curtains masked
the windows, giving out a smell of must and tobacco. Even under the
softening influence of lamplight both they and all the other furnishings
had a drab and dingy look.

Mildred Taverner was sitting by herself at a small table upon which she
had placed her coffee-cup. She was thinking how shockingly in need of
spring-cleaning the whole place was. Her head felt queer and light, but
not quite so queer and light as it had done before she drank her coffee.
It was very good coffee--very good indeed. All the food and drink was
very good. Without meaning to, she gave a little giggling laugh. The
champagne was very good. She had never had champagne before. It made you
feel funny afterwards, but it was very good at the time. Might have been
a bit sweeter. She would have liked a spoonful of sugar in it herself,
but there wasn't any on the table, and if there had been, she wouldn't
have liked to make herself peculiar, she would have liked another cup of
coffee, but she didn't feel too sure about getting up and going over to
ask for it. She thought perhaps she would, and then she thought she
wouldn't.

She looked about her. Geoffrey was standing with his back to her talking
to Lady Marian. Funny to think they had a cousin who was an earl's
daughter. But she didn't think much of that Mr. Thorpe-Ennington. Awful
to be married to a man who got drunk like that. Drunk? He might have
been dead the way he was lying in that chair. She wondered how they had
got him in from the dining-room. Al Miller wasn't much better. Noisy,
that's what he was--noisy and vulgar--laughing too much, and talking too
loud to the waiter and Mr. Castell. The waiter--Luke White--one of the
Luke Taverner lot. Not at all a nice family connection. She didn't
really care about any of them, and they didn't care about her. Nobody
came and talked to her. She didn't want them to--she had much rather
they didn't--she liked looking on.

Jeremy Taverner and Jane Heron were having their coffee with the
governessy-looking person who had come into the room with Jane. Such an
unfashionable hat, such a shabby fur tie. She remembered her own fur,
bought just before the war in a January sale, kept very carefully in a
drawer with moth-balls and only worn on special occasions. She kept all
her clothes in moth-balls, and had become so used to the smell that she
no longer noticed it. It was diffusing itself now like the quality of
mercy and contending not unsuccessfully with the odours indigenous to
the room.

She was mentally pricing the rest of Miss Silver's attire, a process
which gave her a pleasantly superior feeling, when Jacob Taverner came
and sat down beside her. The superior feeling petered away and left her
fluttered and wishing herself anywhere else. His eyes were so bright
they made her quite giddy, and there was something about his voice--as
if he was laughing at you, only of course there wasn't anything to laugh
at.

'Well, my dear Mildred, Annie Castell makes good coffee, doesn't she?
You're none the worse, I hope, for your visit to the Smuggler's Cave?'

She bridled a little, lifting her long neck out of its habitual poke and
drawing in her chin. He was a cousin of course, but to call her 'My dear
Mildred' like that--well, it was only the second time they had met. It
wasn't really quite nice. Too familiar, that's what it was, and it
wasn't a thing she had ever cared about or encouraged. And then it all
went out of her head, because he was saying, 'What did you mean when you
said, "But I thought--"?'

At once she became quite dreadfully confused. Men made her feel nervous.
Though he was two years younger, Geoffrey had always bullied her. She
could still feel the place on her arm where he had pinched her down in
the cellar. As if she had said something dreadful. He oughtn't to have
done it--she was sure she was going to have a very bad bruise. What she
had said was nothing really--anyone might have said it. She hadn't meant
to.

'Well? Why did you say it?'

'I don't know--'

'You were surprised--was that it?'

'Oh, yes.'

'You didn't think there was a passage?'

She looked as confused and nervous as she felt. Because of course she
had always known there was a passage, and Geoffrey had always told her
not to talk about it. Jacob Taverner didn't give her any time.

'No, it wasn't that. You knew there was a passage, didn't you? But you
didn't know that it opened out of the cellars. Was that it? You said,
"But I thought--" Did you think it opened somewhere else?'

The questions came as quick as peas out of a pea-shooter. That's what
they reminded her of--Geoffrey shooting peas at her out of his
pea-shooter when he was eight years old and calling her a cry-baby
because she burst into tears. As if anyone wouldn't cry if they thought
they were going to have their eyes shot out! She had a moment's
terrified recollection of just how frightened she had been.

Jacob fired that last question at her again.

'Did you think it opened somewhere else? Where did you think it opened?'

The champagne was still in her head. She didn't mean to speak, but
before she knew that she was going to she had said, 'Upstairs--'

His bright, twinkling eyes were much too near. He had his elbows on the
table, leaning across it. She didn't like anyone to be so near her.

He said, 'Why?'

'I don't know--'

'Come along--you must know why you thought it was upstairs. What made
you think so?'

It was like being pushed into a corner. His eyes twinkled at her and
made her feel giddy. It was like being pushed. She hadn't any resistance
left.

'My grandfather said so.'

'Matthew? What did he say?'

'It was when he was very old--he liked talking. He said he woke up in
the night and heard something. It was all in the dark and he was
frightened--he was only a little boy. Then he saw a light coming from a
hole in the wall. He was dreadfully frightened, and he ran away back to
his bed and pulled the clothes over his head.'

'And where did he see this hole in the wall?'

She shook her head.

'He didn't say.'

'Didn't you ask him?'

She shook her head again.

'That's what Geoffrey said, but I didn't think about it. It was when I
was helping to nurse him before he died. Geoffrey was angry, but I
didn't think about it at all--not like that. I thought he'd been
dreaming. I didn't think there was a passage. But when you said there
was--then I thought perhaps it really happened. Only I didn't think he
could have gone all the way down to the cellars--not a little boy like
that, in the dark. And that's why I said, "But I thought--"'

The twinkling eyes fixed hers.

'That was all?'

She nodded.

'It wasn't anything really.'

He took his elbows off the table and sat up. Such a relief to have him
farther away.

'No, it wasn't anything,' he said. 'You were right about what you
thought the first time. He'd been dreaming. And whether he dreamed what
he told you when he was a kid or when he was in his second childhood
doesn't make a ha-porth of difference. The passage has always opened out
of the cellar just the same as you saw it tonight. Seeing's believing.
And first to last what Matthew told you would be just something he'd
dreamt.'

He began to get up out of his chair. 'Not that it matters anyway,' he
said, and went over to the group beside the coffee-tray with her empty
cup in his hand.




                               Chapter 12


Florence Duke was standing there. She had been standing there ever since
they came back from the cellars--not talking to anyone, just standing
there drinking coffee, sip after sip, quite slowly until the cup was
empty, and then sip after sip again after it had been filled up. She had
the look of a woman among her thoughts, listening intently. It was plain
that she was taking no part in what was going on around her--Geoffrey
Taverner's conversation with Marian Thorpe-Ennington, Al Miller's noisy
talk and laughter, or the sometimes angry, sometimes tactfully intended
remarks of Fogarty Castell. Not even when he turned to her with one of
his foreign gestures and said in a passionate undertone, 'This Al
Miller, we are going to have a scene with him, I tell you. Why can't he
take his drink quiet and go to sleep on it like the other one?'--not
even then did she really come back. Her eyes looked past him as she said
in that slow way she had, 'He's all right. Let him alone.'

She reached for the coffee-pot and filled her cup again. Fogarty
wondered if she was drunk. She wasn't flushed. As much of her colour as
she could lose was gone. Now and again the drink would take someone that
way. Her hand was steady and she stood like the figurehead of a ship, a
big, bold woman, solid and firm. But there was something.... He
shrugged, and went back to Al Miller, who hadn't stopped talking.

'Where's Eily? I want Eily. Got something I want to tell her.'

Fogarty threw up his hands.

'Didn't I tell you she's busy? You wait a bit and you'll see her fast
enough. Do you think my wife has three pairs of hands? You leave Eily be
till she's finished her work!'

Al hitched a leg over the corner of the table and sat there swaying. He
began to sing in a weak falsetto.

' "Eileen alannah, Eileen asthore--" That's the song for her! Irish song
for Irish girl. We've got an Irishman up at the station, he sings
it--name of Paddy O'Halloran. He says I can't sing.' He caught Castell
by the lapel and swayed. 'Who says I can't sing?' He lifted his voice
again, ' "Eileen alannah--" ' then as suddenly broke off. 'I say I want
Eily--something to tell her--'

'She's busy like I said. You have another drink. What is it you're
wanting to tell her?'

Al let go of the lapel, fumbled for a handkerchief, and mopped his face.
He said, 'I don't mind if I do,' and tilted the proffered glass. He took
a deep draught and blinked. He said, 'I'm not drunk.'

Fogarty said nothing. He hoped this drink would do the trick, but of
course you never could tell.

Al finished the tumbler and set it down just over the edge of the table.
When it fell and smashed he laughed unsteadily and repeated his former
remark.

'I'm not--drunk.'

'No one said you were.'

'Better not--thass what I told them. Nobody's going to say I'm drunk.
Give me the sack, will they--say I'm drunk and gimme the sack?' He put a
hand on Fogarty's arm. 'I'll--tell--you who's get'n the sack. They are.
I'm--get'n--out. No one's goin' to say--I'm drunk.' His voice rang loud.

'No one's saying it.'

Al stared.

'If I was drunk--I'd talk. Not drunk--not talking--only to Eily. If
there's anything there--we'll get it. If there ishn't--no harm
done--we'll get married allersame--married on prosheeds.'

Fogarty said, 'You come along with me, and I'll get Eily. Another little
drink, and then I'll get her.'

Al shook his head.

'All right here.' Then he suddenly advanced his lips to Fogarty's ear
and said in a penetrating whisper, 'Like to know--what I know--wouldn't
you? Well, I'm--not tell'n.' He let go suddenly, lost his balance, and
slumped down, half on, half off a chair.

All this time Luke White had stood behind the table, his face
expressionless, his manner unconcerned. He might have been listening to
Marian Thorpe-Ennington telling Geoffrey Taverner the story of her three
marriages. He might have been watching Jacob talking to Mildred
Taverner. Or he might have been watching Jane and Miss Silver and
Jeremy, or Florence Duke. He might have been listening to Al Miller.
When Jacob came across and put down Mildred Taverner's cup he lifted the
tray and went out by the service door at the end of the room.

Castell had got Al Miller on to the chair. He wouldn't talk any more for
a bit. Luke looked back, holding the door with his shoulder, and then
let it fall to again.

Florence Duke straightened up, felt at her sleeve in a vague, abstracted
manner, and said slowly, 'I haven't got a handkerchief.'

It was not said to anyone, and nobody took any notice. She walked round
the table and out at the service door.

Back in the room Jane was saying, 'I expect you think it's a very odd
kind of party. We're all cousins, descended from old Jeremiah Taverner
who used to keep this inn. It belongs to Jacob Taverner now. That's him
over there by the table. He's giving the party. He's a grandson, and the
rest of us are great-grandchildren. Most of us haven't ever seen each
other before. Jeremy and I have of course, but that's all. Because of
family rows. Cousin Jacob advertised for his grandfather's descendants,
and here we are.'

Jeremy said, 'A job lot!' and Jane gave her pretty laugh.

'Would it amuse you to be told who's who?'

Miss Silver coughed and said with perfect truth, 'It would interest me
extremely.'

Down in the kitchen Eily was putting away the glass and silver. She
wasn't being as quick as usual, because every now and then a very bitter
salt tear escaped from between her fine dark lashes and ran slowly down
over a white cheek. Sometimes the drop splashed upon spoon or glass, and
she had to polish it again. Annie Castell was busy over the range. All
her movements were slow and dragging. It was a wonder how she ever got
done. There was no word spoken between them until at the end of it she
turned round and said in her toneless voice, 'What's the good of your
standing there crying? It never helped anyone that I heard tell.'

Eily said, 'There's no help at all--'

Annie Castell took the lid off a saucepan with porridge in it, gave it a
good stir round, and covered it again. Then she said, 'It's that Luke?'

Eily said, quick and choked, 'If he touched me, I'll die.' She snatched
a breath, 'Or I'll kill him.'

Annie Castell made a clicking sound with her tongue against the roof of
her mouth, but she didn't say anything for a piece after that. She heard
Eily fetching her breath quick, but she didn't say anything. In the end
she put a question, 'Has he touched you?'

Eily began to cry like a lost thing.

'He came up into the room where I was. I was turning down Miss Heron's
bed. And I said to go away, but he wouldn't. And I said I'd tell, and he
dared me. He said'--she fought for her breath and got it hard--'he said
if I went to anyone else, he'd come in the night and cut his heart out.'

Annie Castell was clearing the kitchen table. When she had everything
off it she took an old clean cloth out of the drawer and spread it. She
took knives and forks and laid them neat and orderly, and set glasses.
Then she said, 'Men talk a deal of nonsense.' And after a pause, 'I'd
lock my door nights.'

'Do you think I don't?'

Annie nodded. She said, 'Mrs. Bridling left her scarf. Fetch it through
from the scullery and put it handy on the dresser and come and have your
supper. No knowing when Luke and Fogarty'll be down. You have your
supper and get off to bed.'

Eily said nothing. She went to the scullery, and she came back again
empty-handed.

'It isn't there.'

A slow frown came between Annie Castell's eyes.

'It's there, at the end of the drip-board. I let it out of my hand when
I was bringing it through.'

'It's not there.'

Annie Castell said, 'She must have come back for it. Sit down and have
your supper.'




                               Chapter 13


Miss Silver looked about her at the room which Captain Taverner was so
kindly relinquishing.

'Very comfortable,' she said,--'and most good of you. Mrs. Duke next
door, and then Miss Mildred Taverner, you say? And Lady Marian and her
husband opposite?'

Jeremy said, 'Not quite. It's Jane who is just over the way from you,
and the Thorpe-Enningtons beyond her. The bathroom's on Jane's other
side.'

'So very convenient. You really are too kind. These old houses are
sometimes so confusing. There are some more bedrooms, are there not,
across the landing?'

Jeremy wondered why elderly ladies took so much interest in other
people's affairs. He said, 'Yes. Mr. Taverner's over there, and
Geoffrey--and I suppose the Castells, and that girl Eily.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'And Mr. Miller?'

Jeremy was packing his bag. Jane was sitting on the end of the bed. She
wrinkled her nose and said, 'Thank goodness no! He's gone.'

Jeremy turned round with a shaving-bush in his hand.

'How do you know?'

'Eily told me. He was--well, you saw what he was--and just to keep him
quiet, that wretched Castell wanted Eily to come and see him, and she
wouldn't. She had already had a scene with Luke White, and Al was the
last straw. She ran out of the room in the end, and a little while after
Fogarty told her he'd gone home.'

Miss Silver put her head on one side like a bird and repeated the last
word in an interrogative manner.

'Home?'

'Ledlington. He's a porter at the station--I told you. He's got a room
in some back street.'

Jeremy reached for his pyjamas and pushed them down on the top of his
shaving tackle.

'Long odds against his making it. Drunk and incapable in a ditch would
be the form, I should think. As a matter of fact I saw him go, and if he
doesn't sober up, I shouldn't think he'd get half a mile. He was still
singing "Eileen alannah".'

Jane said, 'It's nonsense Eily staying here. She ought to marry John
Higgins and get out of it.' She turned to Miss Silver. 'He's another of
the cousins, but he won't come here. Perhaps he's afraid of not being
able to turn the other cheek to Luke White. He's a sort of local
preacher when he isn't being Sir John Layburn's head carpenter. Eily and
he are in love, and he'd make her an awfully good husband. Quite a nice
change after Luke and Al.'

Jeremy picked up his case.

'I've plumped for the room half way down the stairs.' He took Jane by
the wrist and pulled her up. 'If you're good, you can come and help me
unpack. Good night, Miss Silver.'

They went down the short flight to the room where they had talked before
dinner. A bed had been made up on the deep old-fashioned couch. It
really looked very comfortable.

Jeremy shut the door, and said with frowning intensity, 'Why on earth
were you spreading yourself like that?'

'Why on earth was I spreading myself like what?'

'Like you were to Miss Silver.'

'I wasn't!'

He said contemptuously, 'Of course you were! I want to know why.'

Jane softened. She had been looking rather haughtily at a point just
above his head. She now allowed her eyes to meet his for a moment, then
looked down and said in a tentative manner, 'Jeremy--'

'Well?'

'There's something--and I don't know whether to tell you--' She paused,
and added thoughtfully, 'or _not_.'

Jeremy threw his bag on to the couch. He turned back to say, 'Look here,
what's all this?'

'Well, perhaps it's nothing--'

'All right, if it's nothing, you'd better go to bed.'

'No--I'll tell you. It's only--you know--I met Miss Silver at Mrs.
Moray's, and I thought just what anyone would think, that she was a sort
of Edwardian specimen governess and really ought to be under a glass
case in the British Museum or somewhere, but rather a lamb, and we'd
been getting on like a house on fire.'

'Darling, is all this going to get us anywhere? Or shall I just go
quietly off to sleep until you arrive at the point?'

'I have arrived at it. That's what she seemed like, and that's what I
thought she was. But she isn't. At least she is really. That's why it's
so convincing. I mean, she used to be a governess and all that sort of
thing, so it's the most marvellous protective colouring--like insects
pretending to be sticks--'

'Jane, you're raving!'

'No, darling, I'm only leading up to it gently.'

'Leading up to what?'

She gave a little gurgle of laughter, put her lips quite close to his
ear, and said, 'She's a detective.'

'You're pulling my leg.'

'No--really. Mrs. Moray said she was marvellous. Charles said so
too--they both did. They said the Criminal Investigation Department at
Scotland Yard thought no end of her.'

'You're not spoofing?'

She said indignantly, 'As if I would!'

'You might. Then--'

They looked at each other. Jane nodded.

'I know--that's what I've been thinking--about her being here. It might
be accidental like she said, or it mightn't. She might be detecting.'

Jeremy said in an exasperated tone, 'I told you there was something
fishy about this place. You oughtn't to have come.'

'The theme song!' She blew him a kiss. 'So I thought if there is any
dirty work going on, she might just as well know which of us is which
and have some sort of an idea of the layout. Because--well, I didn't
tell you about Luke White, did I?'

She proceeded to do so, finishing up with, 'It really was--_horrid_. And
don't keep saying I oughtn't to have come, because that's nonsense. It's
Eily I'm thinking about. You could see what a shock she'd had. You know,
really it isn't civilised to go round throwing your weight about saying
you'll cut people's hearts out and drench them with blood if they marry
somebody else.'

Jeremy said, 'Not very,' in rather an odd tone of voice.

Then he tipped Jane's chin up and kissed her in a good hard kind of way.
It was agreeable, but undermining. It was still more undermining when he
said in a different voice, 'Let's get married soon.'

Jane didn't want to be undermined, but she felt it coming on. She hadn't
ever realised before how dreadfully easy it would be to say yes. She
kissed him back once, and pulled away. And ran out of the room.




                               Chapter 14


Everyone began to go to bed. The downstairs rooms were left to darkness
and silence except for the glimmer of a wall-lamp in the small square
hall. Old houses settle slowly to their rest. Floors upon which many
generations have walked, furniture which has been a very long time in
use, walls which have borne the stress and weight of old beams for
centuries, have a way of lapsing into silence by degrees. There are
small rustling sounds, creakings, movements--a whispering at the keyhole
of a door, a stirring amongst spent ashes of a fire, a sighing in the
chimney--and all in the darkness which has been there night after night
for perhaps three hundred years. Thoughts, feelings, actions which have
left their impress come to the surface. The life of today no longer
dominates these empty rooms. The past comes stealing back.

Upstairs Miss Silver braided her hair and pinned it up neatly for the
night. She had spent a very instructive evening. She folded her crimson
dressing-gown, made in the last year of the war from utility cloth but
most warm and comfortable and ornamented with the handmade crochet lace
which was practically indestructible and had already served two previous
gowns. Her slippers were new, a present from her nephew's wife Dorothy,
who had brought them home from the East. So very kind, and just the
right shade of red. They had black pompoms on the toes, and of course
these would not wear so well as the slippers, but could be replaced. She
arranged them neatly side by side before getting into bed, after which
she put on a warm blue shawl with an openwork border over her
long-sleeved woollen nightdress, and read a chapter from the Bible
before blowing out the candle and composing herself to sleep.

Mildred Taverner also wore a long-sleeved nightgown of a woolly nature.
She had embroidered a spidery bunch of flowers on either side of the
front opening, which she had trimmed with little ruches of lace. She lay
in the dark and wished that she had drunk less champagne. The bed really
was not steady at all, and she felt far from well. She tried to remember
what she had said to Jacob Taverner.

In the big double bed over the way Freddy Thorpe-Ennington could just
hear his wife's voice going on and on. He wasn't asleep, because he
could hear Marian talking, and he wasn't awake, because he wouldn't have
been able to answer her even if he had wanted to. He didn't want to. He
wanted her to stop talking and put out the light, which hurt his eyes.
He wasn't drunk--he had walked upstairs, hadn't he? All he wanted was to
go to sleep. Why couldn't Marian let him alone and put out the light? He
wished she would stop talking, because every now and then he couldn't
help hearing what she said. She said things like, 'Freddy, my sweet, you
know you really shouldn't drink so much,' and, 'You'll feel rotten
tomorrow--you know you will.' He didn't want to hear what anyone said.
He wanted to go to sleep.

Marian Thorpe-Ennington finished creaming her face and put on the
chin-strap which she wore at night though it was really dreadfully
uncomfortable, tied a cap over her hair to preserve the waves, and
slipped her hands into soft wash-leather gloves. When she had done all
this she took off the cape which she had been wearing to protect her
nightgown. It was worth protecting--white triple ninon smocked at the
shoulders and at the waist in a delicate apple-green. She put on the
matching apple-green coatee and took a casual look at herself in the
glass. The chin-strap rather spoilt the effect, but anyhow you had to
cream your face, and it wasn't as if there was anyone to see you.
Freddy, poor sweet, never knew how you looked or what you had on.

This happened to be true, because having once made up his mind that she
was the most beautiful woman in the world, he remained in that simple
belief, and nothing she did or omitted to do had the slightest effect
upon it.

Marian Thorpe-Ennington gave a fleeting sigh of regret to the days when
her complexion owed its astounding brilliance to her own youth and to
the soft water and softer airs of Rathlea and when she didn't have to
bother about a double chin. Then she got into bed, kissed the back of
Freddy's head, and blew out the candle.

On the other side of the landing Geoffrey Taverner was reading in bed.
He wore neat grey pyjamas, and a grey dressing-gown edged with a black
and white cord. He had only two pillows and he had been at some pains to
arrange them comfortably. He wore pale horn-rimmed glasses. He was
reading a thriller with the intriguing title of _Three Corpses and a
Coffin_.

In the room next to Miss Silver, Florence Duke hadn't undressed. She sat
on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap. There was a
lighted candle on the chest of drawers which served for a
dressing-table. The flame moved in the draught from the window. It made
the candle gutter. The flame, the guttering wax, and the candle itself
were reflected in the tilted glass. There were two wavering tongues of
fire, two little caves running with melted wax, two candles thickened
with what old wives' tales call winding-sheets. Florence Duke stared
past them at the wall.

Jane felt the air come in cold and salt from the sea. It hadn't taken
her five minutes to undress. Now she was here in the dark with the wind
blowing in, a wind from a long way off. She lay in the dark and watched
the oblong of the window form upon the darkness until it hung there like
a picture in a frame. The frame was there, but the picture was all a
soft blur of grey, without form and void. That was in the Bible, in
Genesis. Her thoughts began to drift. Under the drifting thoughts she
was warm and happy. Jeremy had kissed her as if he loved her--very much.
Cousins oughtn't to marry--perhaps it wouldn't matter if they
did--perhaps--

She came awake with a start. There was a soft knocking on her door, and
then the door opening, the wind rushing through and Eily's voice saying,
'Miss Heron--please--'

Jane sat up. The door shut, the wind stopped rushing. She said, 'What is
it? Look here, shut the window, and I'll light a candle.'

The window closed, and at once the room fell still. The curtains came
together, and by the candle-light Jane saw Eily in her blue dress. She
had some things gathered up in her arm, a nightgown, a dressing-gown.
She stood halfway between the window and the bed, catching her breath,
her eyes fixed on Jane's face, her own as white as milk.

Jane said, 'What is it?' again.

Eily came up close.

'Miss Heron--if you'd let me stop here--I'd sit in the chair and not
make a sound.'

'What is it?'

Eily said in a shaken voice, 'There's no key in my door.'

'Do you mean there isn't one ever, or there isn't one now?'

The shaken voice sank low.

'It's gone. Aunt Annie told me to lock my door. She didn't need to say
so--I've always locked it--since that Luke's been here. But tonight
there's no key--it's gone.'

'You must tell your aunt.'

'I can't--they're in the one room together, she and Uncle. If you'll let
me stay--'

'Of course you can stay. Get your things off and get into bed! It's big
enough for half a dozen.'

Eily caught her breath.

'I didn't mean that--or to trouble you--only to stay in the room. He
said to ask you.'

Jane took her up quickly.

'He? Who?'

'It was John, Miss Heron--John Higgins.'

'When?'

'Miss Heron, you'll not tell? There's no harm, but you'll not tell?
There's once in a while he'll come out here and go by whistling to let
me know he's there. It's a hymn tune he whistles--Greenland's Icy
Mountains--and I'll look out of my window, and he'll say, "Are you all
right, Eily?" and I'll say, "Yes". But tonight--oh, dear, he was in a
way!'

'Why?'

Eily shrank.

'You know what happened up here tonight with that Luke. I went down and
I told my Aunt Annie. Mrs. Bridling that comes in to help when we're
busy, she'd finished up and gone home, and I was putting away the
silver. I didn't know there was anyone there. But Mrs. Bridling came
back. She'd left her scarf, and she came back for it, and she heard what
I said when I thought it was just Aunt Annie and me, the two of us
alone.'

'How do you know?'

Eily sat down on the edge of the bed. It was just as if she couldn't
hold herself up any more. There seemed to be the weight of the world on
her. She went on telling Jane about Mrs. Bridling.

'She went right back to Cliff and saw to Mr. Bridling--he's in his bed
and can't get out of it. Then she began to think about what she'd heard
me tell Aunt Annie, and when she'd thought about it for a bit she went
along next door and told John Higgins, and John came out here right
away. I've never seen him in such a taking.'

'I don't wonder. Eily, why don't you marry him like he wants you to? He
does, doesn't he?'

Eily looked at her, a long mournful look.

'And have his blood on me the way Luke said?' She shook her head. 'I'd
rather jump off the cliff--I told him so tonight.'

'And what did he say to that?'

Eily's voice went lower still.

'He said I'd lose my soul and go to hell, and he said he'd come after
me--there or anywhere. And he said, "God forgive me, but it's true."
I've never seen him like it before. What's the matter with men, Miss
Heron, to get worked up about a girl the way they do? There's Al, and
Luke, and even John--what gets into them at all?'

Jane bit her lip. She wanted to laugh, and she wanted to cry. She
remembered Jeremy kissing her that hard way.

Eily went on in her pretty grieving voice.

'He wanted me to come out by the side door. He said he'd take me out to
Mrs. Bridling and we could be married in three days. And I said I
couldn't leave Aunt Annie. You'd never think he'd carry on the way he
did. I just said no, and no, and no, and at the last of it he said would
I give my solemn promise I'd go along to your room and ask you to let me
stay, and he'd come out in the morning and talk to uncle, so I said I
would--' Her voice trailed away.




                               Chapter 15


Eily slipped in on the far side of the big bed and felt warmth and
safety close round her. She said, '_Thank_ you, Miss Heron,' on a soft
breath, and heard a laugh from the neighbouring pillow.

'Oh, drop the Miss Heron! We'll be cousins when you marry John Higgins.'

Jane lay there thinking how odd it all was. She knew the moment when
Eily fell asleep, but she herself was broad awake. If you scare your
first sleep away, it doesn't readily come back. Her mind went over all
the things that had happened since they came to the Catherine-Wheel--the
old house, the dark passage to the shore, Al Miller's drunken laugh,
Eily, Luke White nursing a bleeding hand, Jeremy kissing her in the
little room half way down the stairs. They came back as thoughts, but
the thoughts changed to pictures, and the pictures went with her over
the edge of sleep. In the last of them she was out of bed standing at
the door of the room. The door was open. She looked into the passage,
and it was empty--empty and dark. But there was a light at the end where
the stair went down. She went along as far as the landing and looked
over the stair. The door of the little room half way down was open and
someone was coming out. It was Jeremy. That is what she thought when she
saw him. And then she wasn't sure. His hair was much longer, and he
looked so ill. He had on a big loose coat and a high dark stock. His
hands were pressed hard against his side, the blood ran between his
fingers. It wasn't Jeremy--it couldn't be Jeremy. He came out of the
room and looked up at her standing there. She knew that he was going to
die. She screamed, and the scream waked her.

She was sitting up in the big bed in the dark with her hand at her
throat and the scream ringing in her ears. For a moment the dream hung
there--Jeremy looking up at her, and the blood running down--and the
scream. It was her own scream. Or was it? The dream went back into the
place from which it had come, and she wasn't sure. She remembered Eily.
If she had screamed like that, why hadn't Eily waked?

She stretched out a hand across the bed to feel for Eily, and she wasn't
there. From the time of her waking to that time was a matter of seconds.
It takes too long to tell. To live through, it had taken no longer than
to lift a hand and let it fall again. In the moment she knew Eily wasn't
there she heard the scream again. It came from somewhere in the house.

Jane was at the door before she knew how she had got there. The passage
stretched away dark to the landing--dark and empty. It was just like her
dream, except that in her dream she hadn't known whether it was hot or
cold, and now she was so cold that she could hardly get her breath. Her
heart thumped and her breath caught in her throat. She must have picked
up her dressing-gown, because she had it clutched up against her. She
must have caught it up from the foot of the bed without thinking what
she did. She huddled it about her shoulders, and heard the house wake
round her. A bed-spring creaked, doors opened. Miss Silver came out of
her room fastening the cord of her crimson dressing-gown.

Jane ran past her to the head of the stairs and halted. It was just as
if she had gone back again into her dream, because the door of the
little room halfway down was open and Jeremy was coming out. Terror went
over her like a cold breath. And then it was gone, and the dream with
it. This was Jeremy, very much alive and on the spot, in blue and white
pyjamas, with his hair standing on end.

Jane ran down the half-flight and caught his arm. She said,
'Jeremy!'--or she began saying it and then stuck. With her lips parted
and half his name froze on them, she looked down into the hall. There
were three people there. One of them lay sprawling in the middle of the
floor. He lay on his face as if he had tripped on the bottom step and
pitched forward with his arms spread wide. There was a handkerchief
twisted round his left hand. He was in his stocking feet, but he wore
dark trousers and a grey linen coat. The rough horn handle of a knife
stuck up under his left shoulder. The yellow light of the hanging lamp
showed all the grey linen on that side horribly stained. The lamp hung
on three brass chains and it had been turned low, but it showed Luke
White lying there dead with a knife in his back.

It might have been Florence Duke who had screamed. She stood just past
the newel of the stair where the passage went on to the baize door. She
was dressed as she had been at dinner. The scarlet dress with its
flaring pink and green pattern gave her a most ghastly look. The old
make-up put on hours ago stood out from the pallor of her face with
shocking effect. She held her hands a little away from her and stared at
them. The fingers were red.

Eily was on the bottom step of the stair, crouched down with her face in
her hands.

In the moment that it took Jane and Jeremy to see all this Miss Silver
passed them. She went straight down into the hall and touched one of
those outflung wrists. As she straightened up again, Fogarty Castell
came running down, dishevelled past belief, red pyjama jacket open at
the neck, plaid dressing-gown flapping. At once the whole frozen scene
broke up. His noisy agitation swamped it. Ejaculations, protests,
asseverations set the air throbbing.

'My poor Luke! What has he done that this should happen to him? Who is
the assassin? And why should it happen to me, in my house--my
respectable house? And Mr. Taverner here--and the party--the reunion!
What a reunion! We must have a doctor--why does nobody send for a
doctor? Perhaps he may be restored--perhaps he may speak--if it is only
one word--if it is only the name of the murderer who ruins me by
arranging an assassination in my house! My poor Luke--such a
waiter--such a hand with a cocktail!' He ran his finger through his
already distracted hair and produced an epitaph in a single
word--'Unreplaceable!'

It was at this moment that Geoffrey Taverner made his appearance, an
unruffled figure, his grey dressing-gown neatly fastened, his hair
immaculate. The horn-rimmed glasses had been removed and left behind in
his room. They marked the place at which he had been interrupted in his
reading of _Three Corpses and a Coffin_.

Jacob Taverner followed a step or two behind, overcoated and muffled as
if about to take the road, his face puckered up with cold. Or perhaps it
wasn't cold but something else which gave him that yellow tinge under
the tan. He came round the bend of the stair on Geoffrey Taverner's
heels, and heard Miss Silver say, 'He is quite dead, Mr. Castell. The
police must be rung up immediately.'




                               Chapter 16


Eily didn't move. Jacob Taverner stepped past her into the hall. He
stood there looking down at the prostrate figure.

'Luke White--eh?' He turned sharply on Miss Silver. 'You say he's dead.
How do you know? Not a doctor, are you?'

Miss Silver's air of authority had left her. She coughed in a
deprecating manner and said. 'There is no pulse. And the position of the
wound. I may have spoken too decidedly.' She produced a slightly
flustered impression. 'I was in London during the war. One could
scarcely avoid some painful experiences.'

Jacob said, 'H'm!' And then, 'We ought to get him out of here.'

Miss Silver became very flustered indeed. With all the wish in the world
to remain unobtrusively in the background, she really could not
acquiesce in the removal of the body, she gave an excellent imitation of
something very feminine and clinging.

'Oh, do you think so? Of course you will know best, but I have always
understood that nothing should be disturbed until the arrival of the
police. So extremely inconvenient, but I have always been under that
impression.'

From the half open dining-room door came the raised exasperated voice of
Fogarty Castell.

'Yes, I have said it twice--Ledlington police station! ... Is that
Ledlington police station? ... I have an assassination to report.... I
say an assassination! A man has been stabbed with a knife! He is dead!'

Jacob Taverner crossed over to the dining-room and went in, shutting the
door behind him. They could no longer hear what was said.

All this while Florence Duke had not moved at all. Eily still sat with
her face in her hands. She was wearing a faded pink dressing-gown over
her nightdress, and a pair of old bedroom slippers on her bare feet. Her
dark hair was loose upon her shoulders. Jane sat down on the step beside
her and put her arm round her. She could feel then that Eily was
shuddering. Long tremors went over her like waves coming in on a low
tide.

As Jeremy stepped down into the hall he felt a touch on his arm. It
might have been accidental, but he thought not. Miss Silver stood just
within the open doorway of the lounge. He thought that it was she who
had touched him. As she stepped back, he moved forward. The darkness and
warmth of the empty room were behind them. The fire still glowed upon
the hearth. Whilst in full view of the hall, they were to all intents
and purposes alone.

Miss Silver said in a very composed manner, 'Captain Taverner, I am not
anxious to put myself forward. You are accustomed to some authority.
Will you assert yourself if it is necessary? Nothing should be moved or
touched before the arrival of the police, and if it is possible,
everyone should come in here and await their arrival.'

He nodded.

'The girls aren't dressed--none of us are, except Florence Duke. She--'
He broke off suddenly.

Miss Silver coughed.

'She has blood on her hands. That does not prove anything, you know. If
she found him, she may have attempted to stanch the wound. She has
certainly received a severe shock. I think I had better go to her. The
police should be here within half an hour. Pray do your best to get
everyone into the lounge.'

She crossed the foot of the stairs and came to where Florence Duke stood
motionless, her eyes on her reddened hands. She did not move when Miss
Silver touched her.

'Mrs. Duke, will you come into the lounge and sit down. The police will
be here before long. They will want to see everyone. You have had a
shock.'

The arm she was touching jerked under her hand. Florence Duke made a
choking sound in her throat. There were no words. Then on a deep,
hard-won breath they came, not pouring out, but in her old slow way,
like bubbles rising.

'He's dead--I found him--'

'Yes. The police will want to know anything you can tell them. Come and
sit down in the lounge.'

Florence did not move. She went on looking at her hands. She said, 'She
was there--that girl Eily--she came from the lounge--she screamed. She
said, "It's Luke! He's dead!" And I said, "You never know your luck." '

Miss Silver coughed.

'Why did you say that?'

Florence moved for the first time--moved and shifted her gaze. The fine
dark eyes rested for a moment upon Miss Silver. They had a blank look.
She said in that slow way.

'Well, you don't, do you? Perhaps she doesn't know hers. Perhaps it will
catch up on her. It does sometimes when you're not expecting it.'

Miss Silver said, 'Dear me! Now what did you mean by that?'

Something flickered in the dark eyes. The heavy, monotonous voice said,
'Wouldn't you like to know?'

She turned with a jerk and walked into the lounge.

Geoffrey Taverner was lighting the wall-lamps. As the light came on it
showed Florence Duke standing over the fire. She had a handkerchief, and
she was rubbing her hands and wiping them dry. When she had finished she
dropped the handkerchief into the fire, where it presently blazed up and
fell away to a light ash.

Jeremy was getting everyone into the lounge and doing it very well.

Jacob Taverner came over from the dining-room with Castell and said that
the police were on their way. He looked like a mummified monkey, but his
manner was brisk and businesslike. He was very much in command, and was
pleased to approve what had been done.

'Quite right, quite right! The police will want to see everyone--they
said so. And of course nothing must be touched. But we're not all here.
Who's missing? I don't see Mildred--or the Thorpe-Enningtons.... Yes,
that's it--Mildred, and the Thorpe-Enningtons, and Annie Castell.'

Fogarty bounded into the conversation. He didn't exactly run his hands
through his hair and tear it out, but he gave the impression that he
might do so at any moment.

'Annie?' he said on a piercingly interrogative note. 'And what has Annie
got to do with it? Does anyone imagine that she rises from her bed in
the middle of the night to assassinate the best waiter we have ever had?
I am her husband, and I can tell you that when she is in her bed she
stays there, and that when she puts on her clothes it takes her
threequarters of an hour.'

'Then she had better start now,' said Jacob drily. 'The police will
probably want to see her.' He frowned and looked about him. 'Someone had
better see about the Thorpe-Enningtons and Mildred Taverner. I should
have thought they'd have been down. There's been enough noise to wake
the dead.'

There was a gasp from Eily. Jane had got her into one of the big chairs
by the fire. She sat on the arm of it herself with her hand on Eily's
shoulder. Eily leaned towards her, her head against Jane's knee, her
face hidden.

Jacob touched Miss Silver on the arm.

'You, madam--I don't know your name, but you seem to have a head on your
shoulders--will you go upstairs with Mr. Castell and see if Miss
Taverner and Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington and her husband are all right.
They'd better come down.'

Miss Silver said nothing at all. Even if she had wanted to, Fogarty
Castell would have given her very little opportunity. He talked with
passion about his house, his reputation, his loss, the purity of his
motives, his devotion to the interests of the public and his patron, the
excellency of his wife Annie as a cook and her virtue as a woman.

This got them to the Thorpe-Enningtons' door, where Fogarty tapped and
met with no response. When repeated knockings, each louder than the
last, had failed to elicit a reply, Miss Silver turned the handle of the
door and opened it halfway.

If there had been any anxiety, it was immediately dispelled. The deep
blended sound of two persons snoring filled the room. There was quite
unmistakably a male snore and a female snore. Fogarty Castell threw up
his hands.

'What do we do? You can hear? They are asleep--the two of them. As to
him, I could have told you it would be ten o'clock in the morning before
he was awake. And the Lady Marian--am I to assault her, to wake her up,
to shake her by the shoulder? If she is like my wife Annie who is her
cousin she will not wake for anything less than that.'

He held a lighted candle. Miss Silver took it from his hand and entered
the room.

In the big four-poster bed Freddy Thorpe-Ennington lay with his face to
the wall. His fair hair stuck up all over his head. He looked young and
defenceless. His mouth was wide open, and he snored in irregular jerks.
Lady Marian lay on her back. She looked exactly like a lady on a tomb,
with her hands folded on her breast and a long dark plait lying outside
the bedclothes and reaching almost to her knee. In the wavering
candlelight even the chin-strap added to the medieval effect. She looked
beautiful and imposing, and she snored in a deep, harmonious way.

Miss Silver allowed the candlelight to shine upon the closed lids.
Except for the fact that it displayed the magnificence of Marian
Thorpe-Ennington's eyelashes, nothing happened.

Miss Silver coughed and retreated.

'I think they may be left until the arrival of the police,' she said in
her natural tone. 'It can then be decided whether it is necessary to
rouse them.'

Fogarty threw up his hands.

'What a gift! If I could sleep like that! What a magnificent woman! What
a heart--what lungs--what a digestion! It is worth all the fortunes in
the world to be able to put your head on your pillow and not to think
again until the morning! My wife Annie is like that too, but for me, I
will be thinking, and tossing round, and tossing back, and turning
everything upside down in my mind a hundred times in the night. And that
is how I can tell the police who is the assassin. If I am asleep I do
not hear him. But I am awake. I am thinking that the house must be
painted outside without fail in the spring, and that the spring is a bad
time for the outside painting, because if by some miracle we have a hot
summer, the paint will blister. And that if I cannot have the best paint
it will not be worth while to have it done, because for bad paint it is
not worth the labour expenses. Over and over, and round and round, it
goes in my head. And then I hear him go whistling past the end of the
house.'

They were in the passage. Miss Silver still held the candle. It
illuminated her small prim features, her neat hair, the crochet edging
of the warm red dressing-gown. She said, 'Dear me!' And then, 'Who was
it?'

Castell made an expansive gesture.

'It will be for the police to say. But when they hear that he comes
round the house at night whistling under my niece Eily's window, and
always the same tune--' He pursed up his mouth and rendered very
melodiously the first two lines of Bishop Heber's celebrated hymn. 'Does
he come in the day? He does not! It is in the night that he comes and
whistles under Eily's window--like that. And when I ask my wife Annie
she says it is a hymn tune called "Greenland's Rocky Mountains".'

Scholastic tradition was too strong for Miss Silver. She coughed and
said, '_Icy_.'

Fogarty looked outraged.

'Icy--rocky--it is all one what you call it! I do not sing hymns. It is
John Higgins who sings them, and whistles them under Eily's window. And
my poor Luke who is in love with her, wouldn't he be angry now? Wouldn't
it come to words between them, and maybe fighting? And maybe a knife in
the back? And Eily out of her bed and downstairs there in the hall where
she had no business to be in the middle of the night!'

Miss Silver coughed again.

'You will have to say all that to the police, Mr. Castell. Do you not
think we should knock on Miss Taverner's door?'

They knocked and received no reply. This time Miss Silver did not wait
to knock again. She opened the door and stepped across the threshold.

The room was of a fair size and sparsely furnished. The bed, a small
modern one, stood back against the right-hand wall. It was empty, and so
was the room. Mildred Taverner wasn't there. Her clothes were neatly
folded on a chair at the foot of the bed. The room offered no place of
concealment. She wasn't there.

Miss Silver came back into the passage, leaving the door ajar. From
where she stood she could see that the bathroom door was open, and that
the room itself was dark. She went along past Jane's door and her own
and looked in. There was certainly no one there.

As she stepped back, her eye caught a movement in the corresponding
passage on the other side of the landing. Like the one in which they
were standing, it was dark. But someone was coming along it towards the
light. In a moment Mildred Taverner emerged. Her hair was wild and her
manner distracted. She wore a heliotrope dressing-gown.

'Oh, Mr. Castell, what has happened? I woke up, and there was such a
noise. I went along to find Geoffrey, but he wasn't in his room. Is it a
fire? Have I time to pack my things?'




                               Chapter 17


A cold winter daylight came in through the single window of Fogarty
Castell's office. Beyond the fact that it possessed a large, plain table
which supported a blotting-pad, an inkstand, and a pen-tray, there was
nothing to differentiate it from any other small shabby room tucked away
in the irregular plan of an old house. It was dull, it was bare. It had
a square of dirty carpet on the floor and a peeling paper on the walls.
A fly-spotted engraving of the Duke of Wellington directing the battle
of Waterloo hung on the chimney-breast which cut off a corner of the
room and gave it an uneven shape.

There were two doors, one leading through from the lounge, and the other
giving upon a cross passage to the kitchen. The hotel register lay on a
chair by the window, the table having been cleared for the accommodation
of the police.

Inspector Crisp from Ledlington, small, wiry, and dark, sat before the
blotting-pad with a pencil between his fingers and the alert expression
of a terrier watching a rat-hole. Round the corner from him at the side
of the table, with his chair at an angle which permitted him to stretch
his long legs, Inspector Abbott of Scotland Yard leaned back in as easy
an attitude as the chair permitted. He had his hands in his pockets. His
dark blue suit was unwrinkled, the trousers had a perfect crease. The
tie was just what it should have been, adding a discreet touch of colour
to an otherwise sombre scheme. His fair hair, mirror-smooth, was slicked
back from a high, pale brow. He was beautifully shaved. There was, in
fact, nothing about his appearance to suggest a police officer who has
been up most of the night dealing with a murder case.

The third occupant of the room was Miss Maud Silver, who had also been
up all night, and showed it as little. Her hair with its Alexandra
fringe in front, its coils behind, and its controlling net, was the last
word in neatness. Her olive-green dress was fastened by a cherished
ornament in the shape of a rose carved in bog-oak with an Irish pearl at
the centre, a legacy from her aunt Editha Blake, who had departed from a
sedate family tradition by marrying a wild Irishman and breaking her
neck in the hunting field. Editha's rose had come a long way and changed
a pretty harum-scarum mistress for a prim and practical one. It remained
one of Miss Silver's most valued possessions.

She sat on a low upright chair of the kind produced in the early years
of Queen Victoria's reign. A capacious knitting-bag lay open on her lap,
and she was knitting rapidly without once glancing at the busy needles.
About four inches of bright china-blue wool depended from them like a
frill. When completed, the garment would be a warm woolly dress for her
niece Ethel Burkett's youngest, little Josephine, now just two years
old. Since she was a fair child with rosy cheeks and round blue eyes,
Miss Silver considered this bright blue wool a very happy choice.

Inspector Crisp was speaking.

'Inspector Abbott suggests that we should run over the statements with
you and see whether there is any point which strikes you. The position,
as I understand it, is that you are here unofficially at Chief Inspector
Lamb's suggestion.'

Miss Silver inclined her head.

'That is the position.'

'He also tells me that you have worked confidentially with the police on
previous occasions.'

Miss Silver made a slight verbal correction.

'I have worked confidentially upon cases with which the police were
connected.'

A faint sardonic smile appeared for a moment on Frank Abbott's face.
Inspector Crisp put his head on one side and looked alert. He didn't get
the point, but he thought there was one, and that it had got away. He
didn't like things to get away. He pounced on one of the papers in front
of him and turned to get the light on it.

'Now here's Castell's statement--a lot about it and about. What it boils
down to is this. He's been manager here for five years, first under a
Mr. Smith, and then under Mr. Jacob Taverner whose father had granted
the lease of the Catherine-Wheel to Mr. Smith's father. The original
lease ran out a good many years ago, after which Mr. Smith had a yearly
tenancy. On his death Jacob Taverner took over the control. Castell's
wife is his cousin. Castell identifies the dead man as Luke
White--barman, waiter, general handy-man at the hotel. Says he's been
here three years and he has found him satisfactory. But he belongs to a
family with quite a bad name in the neighbourhood--and they are
illegitimate connections of the Taverner family. Everyone in this case
is a connection of the Taverner family.'

Miss Silver intervened.

'They are all grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Jeremiah Taverner
who kept this inn until his death in eighteen-eighty-eight.'

The Inspector's eyebrows twitched.

'I've got a list of them--a kind of a family tree. But I suppose you
don't need to see it.' His tone was sharp.

Miss Silver smiled disarmingly.

'I have had some time to get it by heart. And then I have met the
people, which makes it so much easier.'

The paper in Crisp's hand rustled as he turned it.

'Well, all this party came down yesterday. You arrived at about nine
o'clock, and the party broke up some time after ten. One of the guests,
Albert Miller, was not staying in the house. He left in an intoxicated
condition at half past ten. Did you notice his condition?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'It would have been difficult not to do so. He behaved in a very noisy
and illbred manner. Mr. Castell was doing his best to keep him quiet.'

'Were there any words between him and Luke White--any quarrel?'

'I did not see any quarrel. He was calling out for Mr. Castell's niece,
Eily.'

'And Luke White was sweet on her, wasn't he? There might have been a
quarrel over that.'

Miss Silver shook her head.

'Luke White did not seem to be taking any notice. He was standing by the
coffee-tray attending to the guests.'

Crisp tapped with his pencil.

'Well, Castell says Miller left the hotel just before half past ten.
Captain Taverner confirms this--says Castell drew his attention to the
state Miller was in. They were in the lounge at the time, and Captain
Taverner says they looked out of the window and watched Miller go off
down the road. He says he was walking unsteadily and singing some song
about a girl called Eileen.'

Miss Silver's needles clicked.

' "Eileen alannah". He was singing it in the lounge.'

Crisp said shortly, 'I don't know one song from another. But it seems
Albert Miller's out of it. He left here before half past ten, and his
landlady, Mrs. Wilton, 6, Thread Street, Ledlington, she says, and her
husband corroborates, that Al Miller came in drunk just before half past
eleven. They say he made a lot of noise and kept singing this song. The
Wiltons are respectable people. Mr. Wilton called up to him to say
they'd had enough and he could find himself another lodging in the
morning. And Miller said he was clearing out anyhow--used language and
said he was fed up with the place and his job and everything--said he
was getting out and wouldn't be back in a hurry. This was on the stairs,
him at the top and Mr. Wilton at the bottom. Then he went into his room
and banged the door, and Mr. Wilton went down and locked the front door
and took away the key because he didn't want any moonlight flittings.
Seven o'clock in the morning Miller came down, paid a week's money, and
said he wouldn't be coming back. Said he'd send for his things when he
got a job. Mrs. Wilton wasn't dressed. Mr. Wilton opened the bedroom
door a bit and took the money. When he saw it was all right he gave
Miller the key to let himself out. Miller went up to the station, where
he was supposed to be on duty for the seven-thirty. He walks in as bold
as brass in his plain clothes and says he's had enough--says what he
thinks about the station-master and the whole bag of tricks and walks
out. Nobody's seen him since. We'll pick him up of course, but there
doesn't seem to be any chance of his being mixed up in the stabbing,
because--to get back to Castell--he says he and Luke White were together
for some time after Miller left. He says he went up to his room at about
ten to eleven, and left White alive and well. White had a downstair
bedroom opposite the kitchen. There doesn't seem to be any reason why
Castell should give Miller an alibi if it isn't true.'

Miss Silver said, 'At such an early stage motives may be very obscure.'

Crisp came back sharply.

'Does that mean you have any reason for suspecting Castell?'

She appeared mildly surprised.

'Oh dear no, Inspector.'

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, and turned again to the
paper in his hand.

'Castell says he didn't get to sleep at once. He was lying awake, when
he heard footsteps coming from the direction of Cliff--that's the next
village along the road. He has a window that looks out at the front. He
says the footsteps turned off and went down the other side of the house
and round to the back. He says he got up and went along to the lavatory
window, which looks out that way. He heard someone come along whistling
a hymn tune--"Greenland's Icy Mountains", he says. So then he went back
to his bed, because he know who it was. It seems John Higgins, who is
another of these Taverner relations, is courting this girl Eily Fogarty,
and once in a way he'll come along like that and whistle under her
window and they'll have a word or two. Seems he always whistles the same
tune. Castell says he doesn't approve--says the girl has been in two
minds between Higgins and Luke White. But he says she's of age and can
please herself, and he isn't prepared to have a row about it. He goes
back to bed, and he can't fix the time any nearer than that it must have
been well after eleven.'

He paused, put the paper down, and took up another.

'Now we'll take the girl Eily's statement. She says she went up to her
room between half past ten and a quarter to eleven, she undressed, and
was going to lock her door, when she found the key was gone. She says
she was frightened--says she always locked her door at night.' He ran
his eye down the page. 'Here we are--"I dressed and put on my shoes and
stockings. I was frightened to go to bed. I didn't know what to do. I
put out my candle and sat by the window and looked at the sea. I don't
know how long it was before I heard John Higgins whistling. If he wanted
to speak to me any time he would come along and whistle Greenland's Icy
Mountains under my window. We can talk like that without anyone hearing,
because my room is at the corner, and there's the lavatory, and the
linen-room, and the back stairs before you come to another room that
side. I told John I was frightened about my key, and he said to go along
to Miss Heron and ask her to let me stay with her, and he would come in
the morning and take me away and Mrs. Bridling would take me in until we
could be married. He said he'd got it all fixed up." Asked what she was
frightened of, she said Luke White had threatened her.'

He laid the paper down.

Miss Silver had been knitting rapidly, her hands low in her lap, the
needles held after the Continental fashion. She said now, 'I believe
that is correct.'

Crisp nodded.

'Yes--Miss Heron confirms it. She says the girl came into her room, and
seemed frightened, so she told her to stay. She says Eily undressed and
got into bed, and they both went to sleep. She woke up, thinking she'd
heard a scream, and Eily Fogarty wasn't there. When she'd heard a second
scream and ran down to the half landing Luke White was lying
face-downwards in the hall with a knife in his back, and the girl Eily
was sitting on the bottom step with her head in her hands. Mrs. Duke was
standing by the newel with her hands covered with blood.'

Miss Silver inclined her head.

'That is correct. I was just behind Miss Heron. She remained on the half
landing with Captain Taverner who had just come out of his room there,
whilst I went down into the hall. There was no one else present. Mr.
Geoffrey Taverner and Mr. Castell came down later, and then Mr. Jacob
Taverner. Afterwards Mr. Castell and I found Mr. and Mrs.
Thorpe-Ennington very deeply asleep.'

'They really were asleep?'

Miss Silver looked across the clicking needles.

'Undoubtedly.'

'And you met Miss Taverner returning from her brother's room?'

'Yes. She was much disturbed, and enquired if the hotel was on fire.'

Frank Abbott said with a suspicion of a drawl in his voice, 'And what do
you suppose made her think of that?'

Miss Silver gave her slight cough.

'I cannot say. She is an extremely nervous person.'

Inspector Crisp rustled among his papers.

'When I asked this girl Eily in what way Luke White had threatened her
she burst into tears and I could get no coherent statement. Now it looks
to me as if she may very well have done more than talk to John Higgins
out of a window. Suppose she came downstairs and let him in. She says
she was up and dressed. Suppose she meant to go off with him--she'd had
some sort of a fright, you know. Or she may have just meant to let him
in and have a good cry on his shoulder.'

Frank Abbott shook his head.

'That won't do, because she went along to Jane Heron's room and
undressed and went to bed there. Miss Heron confirms that, you know.'

Crisp said in a dogged tone, 'She may have gone to bed, but she got up
again. She was down in the hall in her nightgown when the man was
murdered--or as near as makes no difference.'

Abbott nodded.

'Just let Miss Silver hear what she says about that. I'd like to hear it
again myself.'

Crisp read from the paper before him, his sharp voice making an odd
contrast with Eily's faltered words.

' "I went to sleep almost at once, I was so tired. Then I woke up. I
thought I heard something. I went to see what it was. I saw Luke White
lying there in the hall. I didn't know what had happened. I screamed,
but he didn't move. Then I saw the knife. I ran into the lounge. I
thought--they'd had drinks there earlier--I thought of getting something
to help him, but everything had been cleared away. I came back. Mrs.
Duke was there bending over him. Her hands were all red. I screamed
again. Everyone came down." '

Frank said in a considering tone, 'Well--it might have happened like
that--'

'Doesn't sound natural to me,' said Inspector Crisp. 'What did she go
into the lounge for? They'd been having drinks there!' He made a sound
of contempt. 'There were windows there, and she could have been letting
John Higgins out that way.'

Frank nodded again.

'It could be. Let's hear what the other woman says--Florence Duke.'

'Well, here we are. "I hadn't undressed. I got thinking about old
times--I suppose because of the old inn. My grandfather used to tell me
about it. I'm accustomed to sitting up late. I didn't think I could
sleep if I went to bed. I had taken off my watch and wound it up, so I
didn't take any notice of the time. I got restless after a bit. I
thought I'd go down and see if I could raise a drink, or if I couldn't
get a drink I might lay my hands on a paper or a magazine. It was
getting me down, being the only one awake and all the old stories about
the inn. I went downstairs, and there was a light in the hall. There
wasn't anyone there. I went into the lounge. It was all dark, but I had
my bedroom candle. The drinks had been put away. I hadn't much hope of
getting one, but you never know your luck. I went over to the
dining-room. Same thing there. Then I went through the baize door and
along to the kitchen. I found a bottle of sherry, and I had some. Then I
had a look round. I was curious to see the old place after hearing so
much about it. I don't know how long I was out there. I'm not any good
at noticing the time, and I didn't look at the clock. I could hear it
ticking, but I'd have had to go right up to it with my candle to see the
hands. After a bit I thought I'd go back to my room. Just as I came to
the baize door I heard someone scream. The candle dropped out of my hand
and went out. I lost time finding it. When I got it again I remembered I
had no matches to light it with. I dropped it down and went through into
the hall. Luke White was lying on the floor with a knife in his back. I
went up to him to see if he was dead. I got his blood on my hands. Then
I saw Eily Fogarty coming out of the lounge, and she screamed." '




                               Chapter 18


'Doesn't get us much forrader, does it?' said Frank Abbott. 'If the Duke
woman stabbed him, why didn't she get away while the going was good? She
wasn't there when Eily came down. If she killed the man, why should she
come back and allow herself to be caught, quite literally, red-handed?'

Crisp frowned.

'Say the girl Eily's statement is correct. What she hears is the sound
of the man falling. Mrs. Duke hears her coming and dodges back through
the baize door, keeping it open a chink. She sees Eily go into the
lounge, and thinks she'll have time to get away up the stairs.'

Frank's fair eyebrows rose.

'And she is found bending over the body. No--you can't make it fit.'

Miss Silver coughed in a gentle deprecating manner.

'You suggested that I should comment upon any point which I considered
significant, Inspector.'

He said, 'Yes,' with some appearance of reluctance.

Miss Silver, perfectly well aware that he would have preferred to
continue his argument with Frank Abbott, remarked that a point had
occurred to her.

'In Eily Fogarty's statement she says that Luke White had threatened
her. I gather from Miss Heron that she overheard a scene between them
just before my own arrival at the hotel.'

'What kind of a scene?'

Miss Silver said very composedly, 'You had better ask Miss Heron. The
point that occurred to me is this. The threats which frightened Eily
were not made until nine o'clock in the evening, yet John Higgins seems
to have known about them when he came here at some time after eleven.'

'The girl told him of course.'

Miss Silver's needles clicked.

'Quite so, Inspector. But Eily says that he had already arranged with
Mrs. Bridling to take her in until they could be married. Mrs. Bridling
is, I believe his next door neighbour. She is in the habit of coming in
to assist Mrs. Castell when the hotel is full. She was here last night.'

'She left before nine o'clock.'

'Yes, but she came back.'

'What!'

Miss Silver gave him a glance of mild reproof. Quite an intelligent
officer, but inclined to be abrupt. She said, 'I find that she left a
scarf in the pantry. She must have come back for it, because when Mrs.
Castell told Eily to bring it through--it had been left on the
drip-board--the scarf was gone. It will, of course, at once occur to you
that if Mrs. Bridling had returned to fetch her scarf at the time that
Eily was alone with her aunt in the kitchen, she may have overheard some
particulars of this scene with Luke White. If she did so, and if she
repeated what she had heard to John Higgins, it would account both for
his coming out here to speak to Eily, and for his decision to remove her
at all costs from the danger of any repetition of such a scene. It also
accounts very satisfactorily for his having arranged with Mrs. Bridling
to take Eily in. It seems quite plain to me that he had seen Mrs.
Bridling after her return from the Catherine-Wheel, and that something
which she then told him made him resolve to get Eily away with no
further loss of time.'

Crisp said abruptly, 'We'll have to see the two of them--Higgins and
Mrs. Bridling. And we don't want them cooking up a story either. Cooling
had better take the car and fetch them along. We can be seeing Miss
Heron.'

He got up and went out to give his orders.

Frank Abbott raised those fair eyebrows and looked across at Miss Silver
with half a smile.

'All zeal, isn't he?' Then, 'Well, here you are, right in the middle of
it. And the Chief said he was giving you a nice change from murder! Are
you going to tell me who did it?'

Miss Silver looked shocked.

'My dear Frank!'

He said in a bantering voice, 'Don't tell me you don't know!'

She said reprovingly, 'It would be quite improper to advance an opinion
at present. There are a good many possibilities. It is difficult to
avoid the suspicion that the motive for the murder is to be found
somewhere in the background which we were sent down here to investigate.
Taking the family history into consideration, this man Luke White's
connection with it, and the fact that he has been employed here for the
last three years, there is the possibility that he had acquired some
dangerous knowledge, and was murdered either to prevent his informing
or, more probably, because he was attempting to use his knowledge for
the purpose of blackmail. There is also the possibility that he was
murdered for purely personal reasons either by John Higgins or by Eily
Fogarty. I should give more weight to this theory if the wound were such
as might have been received during a struggle. But a girl like Eily
would be very unlikely to stab a man in the back. From what I hear of
John Higgins, it would be equally out of character in his case.'

'And what do you hear of John Higgins?'

'He comes of good local yeoman stock. He is head carpenter on Sir John
Layburn's estate, as were his father and his grandfather before him. His
father was Mrs. Castell's brother and a grandson of old Jeremiah
Taverner. He seems to bear a very high character, and has struck Captain
Taverner and Jane Heron as being rather an exceptional person.'

Frank gave a short laugh.

'Some kind of a local preacher, isn't he? There's no saying what the
most exalted character may do if somebody threatens his girl.'

Inspector Crisp opened the door.

'This way, Miss Heron. If you will take a chair--there are just a few
questions we should like to ask you.'

Jane sat down. She faced the Inspector and the window. The pale, chilly
daylight had not brightened. It showed her pallor and the dark marks
under her eyes. It occurred to Frank Abbott that she would have done
better not to paint her lips. He did not, however, attach any importance
to the fact that she had done so, an ample quota of female cousins
having taught him that a girl feels quite immodestly undressed without
her lipstick, the natural lip being as sedulously concealed as was the
Victorian ankle.

Inspector Crisp picked up his pencil and balanced it.

'Now, Miss Heron--Eily Fogarty says in her statement that this man Luke
White had threatened her. She gives this as her reason for being afraid
to stay in her own room last night, and for coming along to yours.'

Jane said nothing. Her bright lips were a little parted. Her eyes went
in a quick glance from Frank Abbott to Miss Silver, from whom she
received an encouraging smile, and came back again to Inspector Crisp
and his pencil. 'Nervous', was his mental comment. He made it with
satisfaction, since a nervous witness handled with just the right amount
of severity could usually be relied upon to spill the beans. In his
official capacity he would not, of course, have employed such a
vulgarism, but thought is apt to be less formal than speech.

'Well now, can you corroborate that?'

'I don't quite know what you mean by corroborate.'

Frank Abbott had a fastidious ear. He found Jane's voice extremely
pleasing.

Crisp said, 'Do you know that Luke White threatened her?'

She hesitated, and then said, 'Yes.'

'Will you tell us what you know about his threat.'

'I don't know ...' The words came out slowly and reluctantly.

Miss Silver said with mild firmness, 'Truth is always best. It harms no
innocent person.'

Jane didn't feel so sure about that. She was remembering how Eily had
looked at her nail-scissors, and how she had said, 'Suppose they had
been a knife.' But she wouldn't ever tell that. She was distressed and
uncertain.

Crisp said, 'Come now, Miss Heron!'

She said, 'Luke White did threaten her. I heard him.'

'Where did this take place?'

'In my room. Eily was turning down the bed, and he followed her in. Mr.
Taverner had been showing us the old smugglers' passage. When we came
back Jeremy--Captain Taverner--told me I'd got a smudge on my face, so I
went up to my room. The door was half open and I could hear Luke White
talking to Eily. I didn't exactly like to go in--I thought it would be
embarrassing for Eily. I stood where the steps come up--'

'He was threatening her?'

Jane's voice had steadied.

'He said he would have her whatever she did, and she'd better come
willingly. He said if she married anyone else, he'd come in the night
and cut the man's heart out. He talked about her being drenched with his
blood. It was horrible. Then, I think, he caught hold of her. She called
out, and he swore, and I made a noise on the steps as if I had stumbled.
He came out then, and I went into Eily. She was very much upset.'

Inspector Crisp made a little stabbing pass in the air with his pencil.

'The dead man had his left hand tied up in a handkerchief. There was a
small wound just short of the knuckles. Do you know how he got it?'

'I saw him with his hand tied up.'

'When did you see that?'

'When he was letting Miss Silver in.'

'And that was when?'

Miss Silver said, 'Nine o'clock, Inspector.'

'And how long after this scene in your room?'

'Just after. He was letting Miss Silver in as I came down.'

He made that stabbing pass again.

'Come, come, Miss Heron, I don't think you are being frank. Did you know
where Luke White got that wound?'

'I didn't see him get it.'

'No--for you were outside your bedroom, and he and Eily Fogarty were
inside. You heard her cry out, and you heard him swear. And then you saw
him come out of the room. Could you see his left hand?'

'Yes.'

'What was he doing with it?'

'He was holding it with the other.'

'Did he say anything?'

'Yes, he said the window had stuck and Eily had called him in to help
her. He said he had hurt his hand on the catch.'

'Did you believe him?'

After a long pause Jane said, 'No.'

She pushed back her chair and got up.

'I'm afraid that's all I can tell you,' she said, and walked out of the
room.




                               Chapter 19


Mrs. Bridling, in the chair pushed back by Jane, sat bolt upright and
met Inspector Crisp's questioning gaze with the agreeable consciousness
that no one had ever been able to say a word they shouldn't about her
nor any of her family. Go where they would and ask what they liked,
they'd only be told the one thing. Bridlings or Bents--she herself had
been a Bent--there was only the one thing to be said about them--they
were good-living, hardworking people, Chapel members for the most part,
and nobody could say different. She was buoyed up by these thoughts, and
by the fact that she had kept Constable Cooling waiting whilst she put
on her Sunday dress, a bright royal blue, her good black coat, and the
hat which she had had for her mother-in-law's funeral three years ago
with a nice bunch of berries at the side to take off the mourning look.
Her gloves had been bought for the same occasion and were still very
good indeed, being too uncomfortable to wear except upon high days and
holidays. They pinched her fingers, and it was a dreadful struggle to
get them on, but they gave her a good deal of moral support. She was a
tall, thin woman with a screwed-up knob of hair under the funeral hat.
She had pale eyes, a long pale nose, and very pale lips.

Inspector Crisp looked hard at her and said in his rather jerky way,
'You were helping Mrs. Castell last night, Mrs. Bridling?'

'That's right. I've got my husband bed-ridden and my hands full, but
he's willing for me to oblige Mrs. Castell. We went to school together
when she was Annie Higgins and I was Emily Bent.'

'Old friends--eh? Well, you were here helping. What time did you leave?'

Mrs. Bridling smoothed down her black kid gloves.

'It was every bit of a quarter to nine. I'd reckoned to get off by the
half hour, but she asked me to stay and do the glasses.'

'You're sure it wasn't later than that--it wasn't after nine?'

'I wouldn't have stayed as late as that. I'd Mr. Bridling to see to at
home. I'm sure I don't know when I've been so put out.'

'What put you out, Mrs. Bridling?'

'The same as would have put anyone out--getting all behind.'

Miss Silver gave a gentle cough and looked at Inspector Abbott, who
immediately responded by enquiring in a languid voice, 'If you left at a
quarter to nine you were not so very late. But you had to come back for
your scarf, had you not?'

Mrs. Bridling nodded.

'Left it on the drip-board. I don't know when I did such a thing, I'm
sure. And why I didn't notice it sooner was on account of my coming over
so hot with my hands in the boiling water. "Come out hot, go home cold",
as my father used to say. So I ran back for it sharp. I didn't like
keeping Mr. Bridling waiting, but I knew how he'd carry on if I came in
without my scarf. Very particular he is about my keeping my throat well
wrapped up, because he says, "If you go and get yourself into hospital
through acting silly, well, it's all very well for you", he says.
"You'll be comfortable enough and waited on hand and foot," he says,
"but who's going to look after me?" so I thought, "If he's going to be
put about, it had better be because of me being late, and not bring all
that up again about the hospital not being able to keep him on account
of his being a chronic case," so I just came back for my scarf.'

Crisp said, 'What time did you get back to the inn?'

The pale eyes dwelt upon him.

'It'd be after nine. I'd gone a good bit of the way.'

'Did you see Mrs. Castell?'

'No. Her and Eily were talking--Mr. Castell's niece, Eily Fogarty.'

Crisp said, 'Ah!' And then, 'Did you hear what they were saying?'

Mrs. Bridling looked down her long, pale nose.

'I'm not one to listen at doors,' she said in a virtuous voice.

Frank Abbott's lip twitched. He had never encountered an eavesdropper
who did not preface his statement by explaining just how abhorrent it
was to him to overhear what was not meant for his ears.

Inspector Crisp made the accustomed response.

'I'm sure you're not. But if the door was open--'

She nodded.

'Well, it was and it wasn't. I was looking round for my scarf, and I
couldn't help but hear what Eily Fogarty was saying.'

'And what was she saying?'

'You may well ask! I'm sure I never heard such goings-on. The poor girl
was all of a shake. Seems that Luke White followed her into one of the
bedrooms, caught hold of her, and used dreadful language, and if it
hadn't been for Miss Heron coming along there's no saying what might
have happened. Eily said she had to pick up Miss Heron's nail-scissors
and run them into his hand to make him let her go. And all Annie Castell
had to say was, "Lock your door nights." Well, I thought the sooner the
girl's out of that house the better, and I didn't wait to hear any more,
I just picked up my scarf and ran.'

Frank Abbott said, 'You live next door to John Higgins, don't you? Did
you tell him what you had heard?'

She turned her pale gaze on him.

'Indeed I did, and before I slept last night. I told Mr. Bridling about
it whilst I was getting him his cup of cocoa and getting him comfortable
for the night. "Emily," he says, "if anything happens to that girl,
you'll have it on your conscience for ever. Nothing but an abode of
iniquity, that's what that place is, same as it always was, and you
can't get from it. And I don't care if you went to school with Annie
Castell ten times over. I've been willing for you to keep up with her
and oblige when short-handed, but I'll not have you going over there
again," he says, "not if there's that kind of shameless goings-on, and
Annie Castell with no more to say about it than 'Lock your door nights'.
She was brought up in a God-fearing home, and she did ought to know
better," he says.' She looked round enjoyably. 'I don't know when I've
seen Mr. Bridling so worked up. Quite cheered him up having something he
could disapprove of so thorough--kept on talking about it and hindering
me. "There'll be a judgment," he said. And when the news come this
morning you couldn't hold him. "The triumphing of the wicked is short,"
he says.'

Crisp stemmed the flow.

'Did you in fact tell Higgins what you had overheard?'

She gave a vigorous nod.

'Mr. Bridling wouldn't have given me a minute's peace if I hadn't. I'd
him to see to, and a bit of washing to do, and then I went in and told
John Higgins.'

'How did he take it?'

Mrs. Bridling tossed her head.

'The way you'd expect any man to take it that was a man--clinched his
hands up and turned as red as fire and then as white as a bit of curd. I
don't know how he kept himself, but he didn't say anything, not till
he'd got a hold of himself. I said, "You'll have to get her away, John.
It's no place for a good-living girl." And he says, "No." And then he
says, "Mrs. Bridling, you'll take her in if I can get her to come away
tomorrow? We'll be married as soon as I can fix it up, but you'll take
her in till then?" So I said I would, and glad to do it, for he's a good
neighbour and a good-living man if there ever was one, and she's a lucky
girl to get him for a husband. Many's the time he's been up half the
night with Mr. Bridling when he's had one of his turns, so as I could
get a bit of rest. So I said to him, "If there's anything I can do, you
know I'll do it and be glad of the chance".'

'Thank you, Mrs. Bridling,' said Inspector Crisp.




                               Chapter 20


Mrs. Bridling left with regret. She didn't know when she'd enjoyed
anything more, but like all the great moments of life it was over too
soon. There was a hymn they used to sing in Sunday school:

    'Fleeting ever, fleeting onward,
    Earthly joys will never stay.'

The lines came to her mind regretfully. Over it was, but it would be
something to tell Mr. Bridling when she got home.

She came through the door between Castell's office and the lounge and
sat down to wait until they should be finished with John Higgins. After
due consideration she had rejected the idea of going through into the
kitchen to see Annie Castell. For one thing, here she was in her best,
and with Annie working it wouldn't seem hardly friendly not to give her
a hand. She wasn't ever one to stand by and watch other people work, but
risk spotting her best dress was more than could be expected. The lounge
was empty. She picked a comfortable chair and sat down to wait.

John Higgins was in the office, sitting with a hand on either knee, his
fair hair standing up in a shock and his blue eyes steady on the
Inspector. Frank Abbott thought, 'Solid, dependable chap. Hope he didn't
do it. Not the type to stab a man in the back. Unless--' Suppose the
fellow had caught hold of Eily Fogarty and John Higgins had come upon
them struggling. No, that wouldn't do. There was no doubt where the
knife had come from--that trophy on the chimney-breast in the
dining-room. Whoever used it had got to get it from there. It wouldn't
be lying about in the hall to be snatched up on the spur of the moment.

John Higgins said, 'Yes, I walked over last night to see Miss Fogarty.'

Crisp balanced his pencil.

'Mrs. Bridling told you that there had been a scene with Luke White?'

'Yes. I went over to tell Miss Fogarty that she must leave in the
morning. It wasn't fit for her to be there. We are going to be married,
and I told her she could stay with Mrs. Bridling while I got it all
fixed up.'

'Did she tell you that the key of her room was missing?'

Angry colour swept up to the roots of the fair hair.

'Yes. I told her to go along to Miss Heron's room and ask if she could
stay there.'

Crisp's bristling dark eyebrows rose.

'Do you know Miss Heron? Is she a friend of yours?'

John Higgins said, 'I was sure that she would let Eily stay with her.'

Crisp stabbed at the blotting-paper.

'You had quite a talk with Miss Fogarty, didn't you?'

'We talked.'

'For how long?'

'I couldn't say.'

'An hour?'

John Higgins shook his head.

'Not near so long.'

'Half an hour?'

Another slow head-shake.

'More like a quarter, but I won't swear to it.'

'And where did this conversation take place?'

'Eily was up at her window.'

'And you?'

'Down underneath.'

'Sure she didn't let you in?'

The blue eyes looked at him very directly.

'She wouldn't do that, and I wouldn't ask her to.'

'That's no answer. Did she let you in last night?'

'No, she did not.'

'Sure about that?'

John Higgins said in a hard, steady voice, 'It's five years since I've
been over the threshold of this house till I came here today.'

'Why?'

He gave the same answer that he had given in John Taylor's office.

'That's my business.'

Crisp stabbed at him with his pencil.

'Nobody's got any private business in a murder case. Mrs. Castell is
your aunt, isn't she? What's your quarrel with her?'

'I've no quarrel with my Aunt Annie.'

'Then with Castell--what's your quarrel with him?'

'I've no quarrel with him. I don't like his company. He would tell you
that he doesn't like mine. We go our own ways.'

Crisp shifted impatiently in his chair.

'We've got away from the point. You know that a man was murdered here
last night--the barman, Luke White?'

John Higgins nodded.

'That kind of news travels fast.'

'You had a quarrel with the man, hadn't you?'

'I had no quarrel with him.'

'Not after you'd heard what Mrs. Bridling had to say?'

The muscles of the big hands lying on either knee tensed, the knuckles
stood up white. John Higgins said in his steady, deep voice, 'He was an
evil-liver. It wasn't fit for Eily to be under the same roof. I'd have
fetched her away as soon as it was day.'

Crisp repeated the last words.

'As soon as it was day. But what about last night? You came out here
hotfoot after you'd seen Mrs. Bridling. Are you going to say Eily
Fogarty didn't let you in?'

'I've said so.'

'And you sent her along to Miss Heron's room and didn't see her again?'

'I didn't see her again.'

'Do you think she stayed with Miss Heron?'

'Of course she did.'

Crisp gave another of those darting stabs.

'Then how do you account for the fact that she was found down in the
hall in her nightgown, and Luke White not a yard away from her with the
knife in his back?'

The blood rushed powerfully to John Higgins' face. He sprang to his feet
and stood there, his hands on the table edge, gripping it hard.

'Eily--' he said. His voice caught on the name. He tried for it again,
and as he did so, the hot blood drained away and left him ashy pale.

Miss Silver laid her knitting down on the floor beside her chair and got
up. At the touch of her hand on his arm he turned and looked at her, an
agonised question in his eyes. She said in a kind, cheerful voice, 'You
have no need to be anxious, Mr. Higgins. Eily is quite safe.'

His look went blank for a moment.

'Safe--'

'She is perfectly safe, Mr. Higgins. Nothing has happened to
her--nothing at all.'

He said in a stumbling voice, 'She was down there--with that man--'

'She heard a noise and came down and found him. It was a shock of
course, but she is quite safe.'

Frank Abbott had a moment of unreasoned admiration for his Miss Silver.
At what she considered the dictates of humanity she would without
hesitation sacrifice a point in the game. She had in fact just done so,
and it was annoying Inspector Crisp very much. He said with an angry
edge to his voice, 'I think you had better leave this to me, Miss
Silver. We have no evidence to support Eily Fogarty's statement. If I
may say so, you had no business to repeat it.'

Miss Silver turned a look of calm rebuke upon him.

'I beg your pardon, Inspector!'

Nothing could have been more proper than the words, yet in some singular
manner Inspector Crisp had the feeling that his collar was too tight,
and that he did not quite know what to do with his hands and feet. These
were sensations which had afflicted him in his teens, now many years
behind him. He had hoped never to experience them again, but during the
moments that he had to support Miss Silver's gaze they were
uncomfortably prominent. It was with a good deal of relief that he saw
her turn back to John Higgins. She gave a little cough and said in a
confidential voice, 'You really need not be troubled about Eily. Miss
Heron is with her all the time. They are doing the bedrooms together.'
After which she resumed her seat and her knitting.

Inspector Crisp's collar returned to its normal size. He felt an urgent
need to assert himself. His tone was brusque as he said, 'Sit down,
Higgins! Eily Fogarty says she heard a noise and came downstairs. If
that's true, the noise may have been made by the murderer. Suppose there
was a window open in the lounge. I'm not saying who opened it, or for
what purpose. I'm not saying it was Eily Fogarty, but it could have
been. I'm not saying anyone came in that way, but you can see for
yourself that someone might have done, and you can see for yourself that
it might have been you. Eily Fogarty was seen to come out of the lounge
with Luke White lying dead in the hall. She could have been shutting
that window after you.'

John Higgins shook his head.

'I neither came in nor went out,' he said.

Crisp made a sharp thrust with his pencil.

'There was a window unlatched in the lounge.'




                               Chapter 21


There were a good many more questions and answers, but the result was
the same. In a perfectly deliberate manner John Higgins stuck to it that
somewhere about eleven o'clock he had stood under Eily Fogarty's window
and talked to her for something like a quarter of an hour, and that he
had then gone home. He had not then or at any time during the past five
years set foot inside the Catherine-Wheel. He had not at any time during
the past twenty-four hours either seen Luke White or had any
communication with him.

When they had let him go Crisp said in his most didactic manner.

'You may depend upon it that's the way it was. There was that window
unlatched--the one just through there.' He pointed at the door going
through to the lounge. 'All the others were hasped--that one wasn't.
Castell says he checked them all over when he shut up for the night.'

Frank Abbott gazed abstractedly at his beautifully polished shoes.

'I don't know that I should want to hang a dog on Castell's evidence,'
he observed.

Crisp nodded quite good-humouredly.

'Oh, yes. But that's what you're down here for, isn't it--to find
something against Castell? He's a slippery customer, and British subject
or no British subject, he's got foreigner written all over him.'

Frank said, 'Cosmopolitan, if you want to be polite--mongrel, if you
don't. Portuguese father, Irish mother. Born more or less by accident in
some London purlieu, and brought up for the most part in Marseilles,
where his parents kept what may pass for a boarding-house.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'That would account for the fact that his turn of speech is often
decidedly French.'

Crisp gave a short laugh.

'Give a dog a bad name!' he said. 'You can't hang Castell because his
mother was no better than she should be. He may have a finger in this
dope-smuggling pie that you people are so set on, but for that very
reason he'd keep clear of a thing like murder. And where's the motive?
The two men were as thick as thieves.'

Frank Abbott smiled.

'You've said it--they were as thick as thieves. Haven't you ever heard
of rogues falling out?'

When John Higgins left the office he walked through the lounge into the
hall. It was five years since he had been in the house, but he knew his
way. He took a look round the screen at the dining-room door, found the
room empty, and then walked up the stairs. On the halfway landing he
checked, and stood for a moment listening. There was the sound of
voices. He knocked on the door of the room in which Jeremy had slept the
night before and went in.

Eily and Jane Heron was making up a bed on the old-fashioned couch.
Jeremy was at the table writing. Eily gave a cry of surprise. She stood
where she was, very pale, and made no move to come to him, not even when
he said, 'Eily!'--only caught her breath and moved a step closer to
Jane. There was a short uncomfortable silence. Then Jeremy said, 'Hullo!
I suppose you've heard?'

John nodded.

'The police sent for me, and for Mrs. Bridling. Seems we were both here
last night. Along with a good few other people.' He turned to Jane.
'Miss Heron, I've to thank you for helping Eily. That Miss Silver that
was down with the police, she told me you were looking after her.' He
put a hand on Eily's arm. 'Will you come down into the dining-room,' he
said. 'There's things I want to say to you, and you to me.'

She went out with him and down into the dining-room. Seen by daylight it
was like a gloomy cave, the light all at one end where two straight
windows faced the door. Dark panelling drank the light. Nothing had been
done about the fire. The ash of last night's logs stirred in the chimney
draught.

There is a nature drift even to a dead hearth. John and Eily came up to
it and stood there, a little apart. Behind them, masking the door to the
hall, was one of those screens covered with pictures cut from old papers
and magazines, some coloured and some plain, but all glazed this hundred
years in a varnish which time had deepened to amber. It served to keep
the worst draughts from the room when the front door stood open. It did
very little to mitigate them. A cold current of air moved in the room,
appearing to come now from the hearth, now from the windows, and now
from the masked door.

John Higgins didn't notice it at all, but Eily shivered as if the air
could move her bodily. She looked frail enough, standing there and
holding out shaking hands to the cold hearth. His arms came round her.

'Eily--darling--what is it? He didn't hurt you? Say he didn't hurt you!'

She stood quite passive in his embrace, not yielding to it at all, but
stiff, as if she was holding herself against the shaking and against
him. She said in a faraway voice, 'He didn't hurt me. He was dead when I
came down. They think I hurt him.'

'Eily, what made you come down?'

He felt the beginning of a shudder, and the way she wouldn't let it
come. He was reminded of a creature shamming dead because it was so
frightened. Wild things would do that if you got your hands on them, but
Eily had nothing to be frightened of with him.

He laid his cheek against her hair.

'What is it? What's frightening you? I must know, or how can I help you?
Tell me, my little dear. You went along to Miss Heron like I told you?'

'Yes--' It was more like a sigh than a word.

'Then why didn't you stay there? Eily, I told you to stay.'

Her head had been bent so that he couldn't see her face, she lifted it
now and stared up at him.

'You know--'

'I?'

'You--called me--'

'Eily!'

'You came under the window whistling. I heard you, and I went along to
my room. When I looked out of the window you were going round the corner
of the house--'

He stopped her.

'Eily, what are you saying?'

She said it again, like a child that repeats a lesson.

'You went by whistling. When I saw you go round the corner of the house
I came downstairs. I was going to open one of the windows in the lounge
and tell you to go away--but he was there in the hall--he was dead.
John, why did you do it?'

He lifted his big hands and put them on her shoulders.

'Why, my little dear, what made you think that of me? Do you think I'd
touch you like this if I'd blood on my hands? No, no--don't you think
it! I won't deny when I heard what Mrs. Bridling had to say that the old
Adam got up in me pretty strong, and I thank the Lord I didn't meet him
then. Not but what he deserved a good hammering, for he did, and if I'd
met with him, that's what he'd have got. But not a knife in the back my
dear--don't you think it! Don't you let it trouble you, for that's a
thing I couldn't do, not however much my blood was up. I'm not denying I
might have struck him and found it hard to be sorry afterwards. The
servant of the Lord mustn't strive, but there's times when it comes
hard--I'm not denying that. But not knives and suchlike, and stabbing a
man in the back. You've no call to be frightened I'd do anything like
that.'

Insensibly his warmth, his voice were reassuring her. When she spoke her
tone was more natural.

'Why did you come back?'

'I didn't, my dear, I didn't.'

'I heard you.'

He said grimly, 'You heard someone whistling my tune. It might be
someone who wanted you to come down, but it wasn't me. After I'd said
good night to you I went right back to Cliff and stayed there. I knew
you'd be safe with Miss Heron for the night, and I was coming to fetch
you in the morning. Why should I come back?'

'It--wasn't you?'

'No, my dear.'

He put his arms round her again, and this time she came close to him and
put up her face to be kissed. After a little he said, 'Tell me, my dear.
You said you saw someone go round the corner of the house, and you
thought it was me, and you were going to open one of the windows in the
lounge and tell me to go home. Did you open that window?'

'Oh, no, John.' The shudder took her. 'He was there in the hall--he was
dead.'

He held her warm and close.

'You didn't go into the lounge?'

She said, 'Oh!' and then, 'Yes, I did.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I told the Inspector it was because there had been drinks
there, and I thought about getting something for Luke. I don't know if
it was true--I don't really. I just said it, but I don't know whether I
thought about it or not. I couldn't tell him about seeing you go round
the corner of the house and wanting to tell you to go home--I couldn't
tell him that.'

'You should have told him the truth, my dear.'

She had begun to cry, tears flooding up into the dark blue eyes and
brimming over.

'You can't tell what you don't know. I was too frightened to know why I
did it. I did think about the drinks, but I did think about you being
there and wanting to get to you. And then it came over me that you'd
done it, and I was too frightened to go on. So I went back, and seeing
him--like that, dead--' She clung to him, sobbing.

'There, there, my dear, don't you take on. You're coming back with me
now like I said, and Mrs. Bridling will look after you till we're
married, and then I'll look after you myself.'

She pulled away from him at that, rubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of
her overall.

'Oh, John, I can't!'

'Eily--'

She shook her head.

'But we're ever so short-handed. I can't--not with all these people in
the house. Miss Heron's helping me.' She smiled suddenly and dabbed her
eyes again. 'She says to call her Jane, because we're going to be
cousins--if I marry you.'

He said indulgently, 'Aren't you going to marry me, Eily?'

Her smile came, and went, and came again.

'Not with all this going on in the house. There's no need for me to go
away now that I can see. I'll be all right. It was Luke I was afraid of,
but he's dead.'

Her movement as she pulled away from him had left him facing the door
and the screen which partly covered it. As he stood he could see the
panelling above the door. He should have been able to see an inch or two
of the door itself. But there was nothing there--only two fingers of
emptiness. The door was open, and a draught blowing in from the hall.
Just when it had opened, or who had opened it, there was nothing to
show. Eily and he had been too far away to know or care.

He left her and ran out into the hall. Mildred Taverner was on the
stairs.




                               Chapter 22


She was on the fifth or sixth step. She had both hands on the balustrade
and stood there pressed up against it looking down into the hall. It was
impossible to say whether she had been going up or coming down. When she
saw John Higgins she poked with her long neck and said in a discontented
voice, 'It's quite terribly cold, isn't it? I've been in my room, but it
is so very chilly there. Do you suppose there is a fire in the lounge?'

He wondered whether it was she who had opened the door to see if there
was a fire in the dining-room. He said gravely, 'Yes, there is a fire in
the lounge. Did you think there would be one in the dining-room? Was it
you who opened the door just now?'

She was immediately very much flustered. The three separate chains which
she wore, one of rather large gold links, one of sky-blue Venetian
beads, and one of some kind of brown berry strung upon scarlet thread,
all jiggled and clanked. The berries became entangled with each other
and mixed up with a very large silver brooch which was rather like a
starfish. She came down the stairs, plucking nervously to disentangle
them.

'Oh, no. I've been up in my room. I didn't really feel--I mean it's so
very awkward, isn't it? Such a dreadful thing to have happened--and no
knowing who did it. So if you are with anyone, you can't help thinking,
suppose it was him, or her, or them, as the case might be. So I went up
to my room, but when you are alone you can't help having the feeling
that there might be someone under the bed or in the wardrobe, even if
you've looked there before--or perhaps creeping along the passage with
their shoes off.' She shivered, and the chains all clanked again. 'So I
thought perhaps the lounge. Do you know if there is anyone there?'

He opened the door for her. There was certainly a fire, and a
comfortable chair drawn up to it. But Mrs. Bridling, who had been
sitting there, had got tired of waiting and gone home. There was Mr.
Bridling to see to.

There was only one person in the room, and that was Freddy
Thorpe-Ennington. He was standing by a window immediately opposite the
door with his hands in his pockets looking out. He turned round as
Mildred Taverner came in, stared at her as if he had never seen her
before, and went back to looking out of the window.

John Higgins shut the door upon this ill assorted couple. Eily had come
out of the dining-room. She stood there, troubled and uncertain. He took
her by the arm, and along through the baize door by the other way into
Castell's study.

Inspector Crisp was on his feet, and Miss Silver was putting away her
knitting. Frank Abbott, who had been making a note, looked up, pencil in
hand. They all looked up.

John Higgins said in a firm, cheerful voice, 'Now, Eily, you'll tell the
Inspector what you've just been telling me.'

He felt her whole body jerk with the start she gave. He got a glance of
passionate reproach. She began to tremble and to trip over her words.

'It wasn't anything--it wasn't anything at all. I told the Inspector--'

Miss Silver gave her little cough.

'It seems, perhaps, that there is something you did not tell. There very
often is. Sometimes it is quite important. There is nothing to be afraid
of. Just tell us what it is that you have remembered.'

As Eily stood there catching her breath, John Higgins said, 'She's
upset--she's had enough to make her. It's just this, Inspector, and it
may be important. Eily came down last night because she thought I was
whistling for her.'

Crisp said, 'What!' very abruptly. Frank Abbott stopped in the act of
putting the notebook into his breast pocket.

John nodded.

'She went along to Miss Heron's room like I told her. They went to
sleep. Then Eily woke up. Reason she woke was someone was going past
under the window whistling Greenland's Icy Mountains. That's the tune I
always whistle when I come over to have a word with her. So she went
along to her room and opened the window, thinking it was me, and all she
saw was someone going round the corner of the house. The lounge is that
side, so she ran down to call to me out of the window there. But when
she got into the hall, there was Luke White dead. Tell them Eily, what
you did.'

She was pinching his arm--angry enough to pinch as hard as she could,
and frightened enough to want to hold on to him. She found some odds and
ends of a voice.

'That's true, Inspector. I thought it was John--or I'd never have come
down.'

'You came into the lounge and opened the window?'

'No--no--I didn't. I was going to, but I didn't. He was dead, and it
came over me. I thought about the window, but I didn't get there. And I
thought about the drinks like I told you, but they'd been put away. And
I came back into the hall and I saw the knife. And I couldn't go on--I
came over giddy, and I sat down on the stair.'

Miss Silver slipped the handle of her knitting-bag over her arm. It was
of flowered chintz, a very pretty pattern, the gift of her niece Ethel,
not new but very well preserved. They had all remained standing.

When Eily's voice had faded out on a sob she took a step towards John
Higgins, and he put his arm about her.

'That's how it happened, Inspector,' he said.

Crisp snapped out, 'Then why didn't she say so at once?'

If they had been alone, or with only Miss Silver present, Frank might
have made an enemy for life by permitting himself a classical quotation.
The words 'Elementary, my dear Watson,' were upon his lips, but he
restrained them. He did not quite restrain a faint sarcastic smile.

John Higgins neither smiled nor trifled. His answer was simple and
direct.

'It would be because of me, Inspector--on account of not wanting to get
me into trouble, as she thought. When she heard that tune it never came
to her for a moment that it would be anyone but me.'

'You say it wasn't you?' Crisp was very short and sharp.

'I say the same as I've said all along. I went straight back to Cliff
after Eily had talked to me out of her window, and there I stayed till
Wat Cooling fetched me along this morning.'

'That's your story?'

'It's the truth.'

'And the first you knew about Luke White being murdered? Well now, what
was the first you knew?'

'When Wat Cooling came along and fetched me.'

Crisp fairly glared.

'Cooling told you?'

'I've known him all his life. I don't want to get him into any trouble.'

'He'd no business to talk! So you came here knowing all about it--time,
place, weapon, everything, I suppose!'

'He said it would be one of those knives out of the dining-room.'

Crisp pounced.

'Oh, you knew about the knives in the dining-room? I thought you said
you hadn't been inside the place for donkey's years.'

This time John did smile, showing strong white teeth.

'Five years, Inspector. And those knives have been there a sight longer
than that--nearer the hundred, I'd say.'

'But you knew they were there. You knew where you could lay hands on a
knife.'

'That's not to say I'd use it.' He stood up straight. 'That's all I've
got to say. I didn't come back, I didn't set foot inside the inn, I
didn't set eyes on Luke White. And I'd like to take Eily away. She's
upset.'

When they were gone, Crisp turned his angry stare upon his fellow
Inspector.

'Well, what do you make of that? What put him up to bringing the girl in
here and making her tell how she'd heard him come along whistling the
second time?'

Miss Silver made a verbal amendment.

'She thought that it was he whom she heard.'

He pursed up his lips.

'Who else would it be?'

Frank Abbott smiled.

'Almost anyone. Greenland's Icy Mountains is one of the easier tunes to
whistle.'

Crisp made a sound half derisive, half vexed.

'Easy to turn it off with a joke! What I want to know is, what's behind
it? What's he about, bringing the girl in here to say she heard him
under the window and came down to let him in round about the time the
murder was done? What's he getting at?'

Miss Silver said gravely, 'It might be the truth, Inspector.'

He made the same derisory sound again.

'When you've seen as many criminals as I have you won't be in such a
hurry to believe what they say!'

Frank Abbott slid his hand across his mouth. He had seen Miss Silver
deal with disrespect before, and had found it an enjoyable spectacle.
Impossible to say just how it was done, but done it was. There was no
raised voice, for she did not speak. There was no flashing glance, for
her eyes were not made to flash--she would, in fact, have considered it
a very unladylike proceeding. There was a certain distance, a certain
dignity, which relegated provincial Inspectors to their very minor place
in the service of the law. A sense of authority diffused itself. Even
Chief Inspector Lamb had on occasion felt himself carried back to the
village school in which he had first learned that two and two make four.

The picture which confronted Inspector Crisp was of a slightly different
but no less chastening kind. He had received his education at Lenton
Grammar School. There came vividly to his mind a winter's day and a
group of boys throwing snowballs. A massive back presenting a too
tempting target, he had let fly. There had been a direct hit, a snowy
explosion, and, sudden, majestic and awful, the face of the headmaster
looming up from the ensuing flurry. The memory was as momentary as it
was vivid, but an oppressive sense of delinquency remained. He said
abruptly, 'There isn't much more to be done till we get the result of
the post-mortem. Not that there's likely to be a lot in it. He couldn't
have been dead very long when we got here at one-thirty. Not much doubt
it had just happened when the house was roused. You would agree with
that?'

He was addressing Miss Silver. She answered him with the air of a
teacher who, having reproved, is now willing to overlook the fault.

'I am not an expert. When I touched his wrist it was cold. But the night
was a cold one.'

Crisp nodded.

'We were half an hour getting here, and the blood wasn't dry.'

Miss Silver said a surprising thing.

'Do you think he was killed where he was found?'

Frank Abbott's cool blue eyes took on an interested look.

'What makes you think of that?'

She said in a deprecating manner--the little dowdy spinster who looked
as if she could be snubbed with impunity, 'It seems such a curious place
to kill him,' she said.




                               Chapter 23


It was one of the longest Sundays that any of the twelve people shut up
together in the Catherine-Wheel could remember. Perhaps Jane and Jeremy
felt it least, since each was still exploring the other's territory and
finding it full of new and exciting things. They were also helpfully
bent upon making themselves useful, laying and clearing meals and
washing up with efficiency and despatch. In the evening Mrs. Bridling
returned to oblige, having conducted an all-day battle against Mr.
Bridling's scruples as to her doing so on the Sabbath. She had emerged
victorious, not only on account of her own prowess, but because of some
fifth-column assistance from Mr. Bridling's passionate desire to be kept
in touch with what was going on. Having arrived, it was difficult to see
how she was going to acquire any information, since she never stopped
talking and Annie Castell never seemed to open her lips.

Be that as it may, she went on talking for a long time after she got
home.

'Annie's got something on her mind, you can't get from it.' She beat a
pillow vigorously and slipped it back under Mr. Bridling's head with the
dexterity of long practice. 'It isn't what she says, but I didn't go to
school with her for nothing, and there's something she's got on her
mind. You wouldn't have known the pastry for hers, for one thing. I
don't say it was heavy, and I don't say there isn't many a cook that
wouldn't be glad if she could make it as well, but it wasn't her usual.'

Mr. Bridling observed in a rather perfunctory manner that he didn't hold
with cooking on a Sunday--not if it wasn't a work of necessity and mercy
like doing for an afflicted husband.

Rightly considering that this required no answer, Mrs. Bridling
continued.

'Mr. Castell, he keeps talking about his dear Luke and where is he going
to find his equal. I could have told him, but I kept myself. In prison,
or in any other place where there's off-scourings is what I could have
said, but I kept myself. Never said a word, and let him run on about his
dear Luke, which if ever there was a good riddance--'

Mr. Bridling gave it as a considered opinion that it was a judgement. He
was a plump old man with a nice colour and a soft purring voice.
Successive hospitals had failed to find any reason why he should lie in
bed and be waited on hand and foot, but he continued to do so. He spoke
through the sheet which his wife had drawn up over his face whilst she
straightened the blankets.

'How's the others taking it?'

'Old Mr. Jacob Taverner, he sits by the fire with the Sunday papers.'

Mr. Bridling said he didn't hold with papers on Sunday.

'And I'll thank you to turn down the sheet and let me get my breath. If
I was to die choked--'

Mrs. Bridling turned it down, and went on talking.

'Looks like a sick monkey and don't fancy his food. Mrs. Duke, she
doesn't fancy hers neither--sits and looks at it and doesn't eat a
thing. Another one that doesn't eat is that Lady Marian's husband. Makes
up with what he drinks--had to be carried to bed last night, so I hear.'

'One of the drunkards of Ephraim,' said Mr. Bridling. Then, in a less
lofty vein, 'Then it wasn't him that did it.'

'Seems it couldn't have been. Well, then there's Mr. Geoffrey
Taverner--some kind of a traveller, they say he is, but quite the
gentleman. He walks into Ledlington and gets the papers and comes back
and reads them and does the crossword puzzle. I'll fetch it along for
you to do tomorrow. And that Lady Marian and the other one, Miss
Taverner, they say they've been up all night and go off to their rooms
and have a good lay-down. I could have laughed. A lot they know about
being up in the night! I could have told them a thing or two! It's not
so much the up, it's the up-and-down that gets you.'

Mr. Bridling checked her by shutting his eyes and groaning.

'Are you throwing my affliction up at me, Emily?'

Mrs. Bridling was struck to the heart.

'I wouldn't do it, Ezra--you know I wouldn't. It was thinking of a
sufferer like you.'

He said in a resigned voice, 'There may be those that suffer more. I'm
not complaining.'

'Nobody can't ever say you do, Ezra.'

'The nights I never close my eyes,' said Mr. Bridling. 'And nothing the
least bit of use--not hop pillows, nor cups of cocoa, nor hot bricks to
the feet changed constant, nor my mother's fumitory drink, nor yet your
grandmother's herbal tea. Have we tried them all night after night, or
haven't we?'

'Indeed we have. And if there was anything else--there's nothing I
wouldn't do.'

He gave a confirmatory groan.

'I don't complain. What about that Al Miller? Mrs. Cleeve looked in and
said he'd run off. Seems Mrs. Wilton where he lodged is some sort of a
cousin and they met at the Congregational. Mrs. Wilton told her it was a
real good riddance. She supposed he'd come back and want them to take
him on again, but Mr. Wilton wouldn't have it. What with coming in late,
and coming in drunk, and talking big about how he was going to be a rich
man and show everyone how, she said they'd downright lost patience. And
there's a very respectable young man, a brother of Mr. Wilton's sister's
daughter-in-law, that would like the room, so they're letting him have
it.'

Mrs. Bridling said, 'Well, I never!' And then, dropping her voice, 'Run
off, has he? You don't suppose--'

Mr. Bridling shook his head regretfully.

'Seems it couldn't have been, because he come in drunk just before half
past eleven--made an awful noise and used language. And Mr. Wilton, he
gave him his notice--told him he could get out in the morning and stay
out, and went down and took away the front door key so they'd be sure
they got their money before he went. What time of night did you say it
was when they all roused up and found Luke murdered?'

'One o'clock, Annie says. And the police come it might have been half an
hour later.'

'And the blood still wet,' said Mr. Bridling with gusto. 'And Al Miller
locked in in Thread Street a matter of three miles away, and the key
under Mrs. Wilton's pillow. Don't seem possible Al Miller could have a
hand in it. A back slider and a sinner he is if ever there was one. In
my class at Sunday school, and brought up Band of Hope, and look what
he's come to now--drinking, and all kind of carryings on! But seems he
couldn't of murdered Luke White, not if he was locked into a house three
miles away.'

'They both wanted Eily,' said Mrs. Bridling. 'Time a girl's married when
it comes to too many men wanting her. It makes trouble.'

'Girls always make trouble,' said Mr. Bridling. 'What about the rest of
them up at the Catherine-Wheel?'

'The little detective lady, she has a lay-down too. Seems nobody knew
she was a detective when she come. And the gentleman that's staying at
Sir John Challoner's, he's another--'

Mr. Bridling took her up sharply.

'Don't you demean yourself calling him a gentleman!'

'He's Sir John's cousin.'

Mr. Bridling stared.

'Then he did ought to be ashamed of himself. There aren't any real
gentry left like there used to be.'

Mrs. Bridling was mixing cocoa in a cup and being very careful about it,
because Mr. Bridling was most particular in the matter of lumps and
grit, and if there was one thing that roused her, it was for him to tell
her that she couldn't make cocoa like his mother did.

'That's right,' she said. 'Well, this Mr. Abbott--Inspector Abbott--he
goes off, and the other Inspector. And Captain Taverner and Miss Heron,
they go off in his car, and not back till just on seven. And that's the
lot of them, except for Eily.'

'What about Eily?'

Mrs. Bridling began pouring boiling water very carefully and stirring
all the time.

'By the look of her, she'd been crying her eyes out. "I can't leave Aunt
Annie," she says. And John Higgins wanting her to marry him right away.'

Mr. Bridling had his eye on the cocoa.

'Marriages and murders don't agree,' he said sententiously. 'That's
enough hot water, Emily. Don't drown it.'




                               Chapter 24


On Monday morning Jeremy drove Jane up to town. At half past nine she
was going in at the side door of Clarissa Harlowe's dress shop. Jeremy
was about to drive off again, when he noticed that his off-side front
tyre was flatter than it ought to be. He discovered that he had picked
up a nail, and set to work to change the wheel.

He had just about finished, when Clarissa Harlowe's side door opened
again and Jane came out. She had a bright colour and she was walking
fast. She got into the car, sat down, and said crisply, 'I've got the
sack.'

Jeremy whistled and said, 'Why?'

Jane looked at him angrily.

'Murder is quite the wrong sort of publicity,' she said.

He whistled again.

'Why did you tell her?'

'There's going to be an inquest, isn't there, and I've got to go down
for it--and there are newspapers and reporters and things. Of course I
had to tell her. And for goodness' sake let's get away! I never want to
see the place again!'

Jeremy got in, banged the door, and said cheerfully, 'Let's go round to
the flat and get something to eat. You'll feel a lot better after a cup
of something hot.'

This, though infuriating, was true. At the time it merely brightened
Jane's eyes and made her colour rise alarmingly, but after her second
cup of coffee she relaxed sufficiently to discuss the future.

'I'll take the week off and get through with this blasted inquest, and
then I'll hunt another job. I did hold my tongue, so she may give me a
reference.'

'She's bound to, isn't she?'

Jane looked coldly at him.

'There are references _and_ references. How many jobs do you suppose I
should get if she were to say "Jane Heron? Oh no, I've nothing _against_
her. It's just rather a pity she got mixed up in that murder case"!'

'She wouldn't play a dirty trick like that.'

Jane laughed without amusement.

'Let's say, "I hope she _won't_." That's about as far as it will
stretch.'

There was a pause. Then he said, 'I want to go back to the
Catherine-Wheel.'

Her answer was unexpected.

'So do I.'

'All right then--we'll go.'

'There's the inquest, and Eily, and--well, it's horrid, but it's
interesting.'

Jeremy laughed.

'You needn't give your reasons. I'm not giving mine.'

'Have you got any?'

'Oh, yes.'

'What are they?'

'I'm not giving them.'

Down at the Catherine-Wheel Inspector Crisp was acquainting Miss Silver
with the police surgeon's report.

'You see he says that the man had taken a considerable quantity of
alcohol. Now you had the opportunity of observing Luke White--he was in
the lounge, wasn't he, most of the time that you were?'

They were in the office. A nice snug fire was burning, Frank Abbott, who
had a way with fires, having coaxed it from a reluctant smoulder to its
present cheerful state. That he had done so without in any way impairing
his customary air of having just emerged from a glass case had an
irritating effect upon Inspector Crisp. It sharpened his voice a little
as he enquired, 'You were in the lounge with him for about an hour and a
half. Did he appear to have been drinking then?'

Miss Silver gazed thoughtfully down at the wide blue flounce to which
little Josephine's woolly dress had now been advanced. Another two
inches, and she would be able to make the sharp decrease which would
impart a gathered effect to the skirt before beginning upon the tight
plain bodice. She might have been considering how many more rows it
would take to finish the skirt, or she might not. She kept Inspector
Crisp waiting long enough to start him tapping on the table with his
pencil. Then she raised her eyes to his face and gave him a quiet, 'No.'

Crisp tapped. She could speak plenty when she liked. Now, when he could
have done with a few more words, she seemed to have run out of them.

'He let you in, didn't he? Did he smell of drink then?'

Miss Silver repeated the irritating monosyllable.

'No.'

'When did you see him last?'

She seemed to consider this too.

'It would be just before half past ten, when I went up to my room.'

'He didn't seem to have been drinking then?'

Miss Silver produced another 'No'.

Crisp tapped.

'Well, some time between then and the time he was killed he must have
put away quite a lot. Castell ought to know something about that. We'll
have him in.'

He went out through the door on the kitchen side.

Frank Abbott, who had been standing in a lounging attitude beside the
fire looking down into it as if admiring his own handiwork, now shifted
his cool gaze to Miss Silver and said, 'What are you up to?'

'My dear Frank!'

'Yes, I know, I know, but you can't put it across with me.'

Without attempting any further reproof she said very composedly, 'There
are some interesting points about this case.'

'As what?'

'The attempt to implicate John Higgins.'

'Attempt?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'Do you believe that he returned nearly two hours after he had said good
night to Eily, and that having drawn attention to himself by whistling
his customary tune under Miss Heron's window he induced Eily to let him
in, that he then deliberately selected a knife from the trophy in the
dining room and killed Luke White in the most public place in the
house?'

Frank's fair eyebrows rose.

'Is that how it strikes you?'

'Undoubtedly.'

He said, 'Well, well--' And then, 'You said, "_under Miss Heron's_
window." Did you mean anything by that?'

Her needles clicked.

'Oh, yes. The person who whistled under Miss Heron's window knew that
Eily was there.'

'If you say that to Crisp, it will go down to John Higgins's account.
He's pretty sure he did it, you know.'

'My dear Frank.'

'You're quite sure he didn't?'

She smiled.

'He was telling the truth.'

'Then--'

'Someone in the house must have known that Eily had left her own room
and gone to Miss Heron's. If we can find that person we shall, I think,
have found the murderer--or, at the very least, someone deeply
implicated in the murder.'

'And who, do you suppose, could have known that Eily was in Jane Heron's
room?'

She said thoughtfully, 'Almost anyone. Her room, as you know, looks out
at the back, and is on the opposite side of the house from Miss Heron's.
It is, in fact, the corner room at the end of the opposite corridor.
There is only one other bedroom opening on to the back from that
corridor. It is next the landing, and is occupied by Mr. Jacob Taverner,
the intervening space being taken up by the back stairs, linen-room, and
lavatory. On the same corridor, looking to the front, are the rooms
occupied by the Castells and Mr. Geoffrey Taverner. There is also a
bathroom, and a large housemaid's cupboard. Mr. Taverner might possibly
have overheard Eily's conversation with John Higgins if he had opened
his window and leaned right out, but I do not regard this as at all
likely. The linen-room has no window, and that which lights the back
stairs is not conveniently accessible, but the lavatory window, which is
next to Eily's room, would be very convenient indeed. Castell says in
his statement that he did in fact hear someone come along the road and
go round to the back, and that he went across to the lavatory and looked
out of the window. He says he heard someone come along whistling
Greenland's Icy Mountains, and that he then went back to bed because he
knew it was only John Higgins come to have a few words with Eily.
Castell was, I think, a little too anxious to inform the police that
John Higgins had been out to the Catherine-Wheel that night. We have
only his word for it that he went back to bed without listening to the
conversation between him and Eily. He could very easily have done so. On
the other hand, Mr. Jacob Taverner or Mr. Geoffrey Taverner might also
have done so.'

Frank made a slight grimace.

'Not so very likely.'

'Perhaps not. But we really do not know enough to say what is likely or
unlikely at present. On the other side of the landing, in my own
corridor, either Lady Marian and her husband, or Mrs. Duke, Miss
Taverner, or myself could have heard Eily go into Miss Heron's room,
though we could not, of course, have heard the conversation which
induced her to do so.'

Frank Abbott gave her a quizzical look.

'Are you by any chance the villain of the piece? Did you hear anything?'

'No, Frank.' After a pause she continued, 'If John Higgins did not
return at one o'clock, then someone was being at pains to manufacture
evidence against him by whistling that tune under Miss Heron's window.
It would have to be someone who knew that Eily was there. So far as we
know, the most likely person to have that knowledge was Castell.'

Frank gave a slight sarcastic laugh.

'And, as Crisp put it, I'm here to get something on Castell! "The
innkeeper Framed!" You know, it's almost too much to hope that it is
Castell. He's so beautifully obvious, isn't he?'

If Miss Silver was going to reply, the sound of approaching voices
stopped her. The door by which Crisp had gone out was flung back, and
there came in Castell in full spate, with the Inspector only
occasionally managing to stem the flood.

'If I can be of any assistance--any assistance whatever! All murders are
atrocious--that goes without saying! The sight of blood makes me
incapable of digesting my food! All are, I say, atrocious, but this one
is an outrage! In the middle of a festivity--in the middle of a family
reunion! Depriving me of a friend as well as of a servant most valued!
Leaving me short-handed with the house full!' He threw up his hands in a
gesture of horror. 'And the consequences! You will pardon me, but--the
police in the house! Mr. Jacob Taverner, my patron, is indisposed! I
myself--I will not trouble you with how I suffer! My wife Annie whose
cooking is unsurpassed--last night her hand fails her! I do not say that
the pastry is heavy--it is impossible for Annie Castell to make heavy
pastry--if I say that it is made by an ordinary chef, it is enough! Can
you then doubt how eagerly I would help to unmask the assassin?'

Inspector Crisp used the most repressive tone at his command.

'Sit down, Mr. Castell, and stop talking! I want to ask you some
questions.'

Fogarty Castell spread out his hands in an expansive gesture.

'Anything--anything!'

'It's about this man Luke White. The police surgeon says he'd had a lot
of drink. When did he get it, and how?'

Fogarty brushed away a tear.

'My poor Luke! Yes, I will tell you. There was some champagne left, and
I said to him, "Come, my friend, we will finish it." That was after
everyone had gone up to bed, you understand. For me, I take one
glass--two--I am the most abstemious of men--and my poor Luke, he
finishes the rest.'

'How much?'

Castell hesitated. Then he said, 'There was a half bottle--'

'You're not going to tell me you had a couple of glasses or so, and Luke
White got drunk on what was left!'

There was that gesture with the hands again.

'No, no, no--I will tell you! He had a weakness that poor Luke. In his
working-time he takes nothing, but--how shall I say--when he is off duty
he takes what he can get.'

'Are you telling me he was a heavy drinker, Mr. Castell?'

Fogarty's dark face glistened with feeling.

'Only when he is off duty. And for champagne he has a passion. He
finishes the bottle, and then he says, "Come on, boss--the old boy won't
miss it!" and he opens another. There--I have told you! Do not repeat
it, I beg of you. I would not, of course, have put it on the bill.'

Frank's eye rested upon him with cool enjoyment. Crisp said sharply,
'That's nothing to do with us. You're telling me White was a heavy
drinker?'

'Only when he was off duty,' said Fogarty Castell.




                               Chapter 25


'Well,' said Crisp when the door had closed behind him, 'there you have
it. The man was drunk when he was killed, and the way he got drunk was
drinking Mr. Jacob Taverner's champagne along with his manager after
everyone else had gone upstairs to bed. Nice work, I must say! Not put
it on the bill, indeed!' He made a sound that was more like a snort than
a laugh.

Miss Silver said mildly, 'What is your theory, Inspector, as to how Luke
White came to be lying in the position in which he was found? There was
not more than eighteen inches between his feet and the bottom step. To
fall in such a position he must have been standing either on the step
itself or just below it with his back to the stairs, and the murderer
must have been on the step behind him.'

Crisp stared.

'You mean they were both coming down the stairs?'

Miss Silver knitted two, slipped one, and knitted two together. Little
Josephine's skirt was being gathered in to the waist.

'Can you think of any other explanation?' She paused, decreased again,
and added, 'If he was really killed where he was found.'

Crisp said impatiently, 'There isn't the slightest reason to suppose he
wasn't. Coming downstairs--I wonder. Let's see--Eily lets John Higgins
in, and they go upstairs together. Luke White hears something--comes
after them. Higgins has the knife. He turns round with it. Luke sees it,
takes fright, and makes off. Higgins catches him up on the bottom step
and stabs him in the back.'

Miss Silver shook her head, but she did not speak. It was Frank Abbott
who said, 'You say John Higgins has the knife. Why?'

Crisp shrugged his shoulders.

'He's jealous--he's angry over the girl--he's where he's got no business
to be, and he knows Luke White is an awkward customer--so awkward that
it's not many hours since he had threatened to cut the heart out of any
man that the girl took instead of him. Plenty of reasons for picking a
knife off the dining-room wall before he went upstairs with her.'

Miss Silver shook her head again. Her lips were primmed together. She
knitted in silence.

Frank Abbott said seriously, 'I don't think it happened like that. The
girl isn't that sort of girl, and the man isn't that sort of man.'

Crisp stared angrily.

'Then how did it happen?'

Getting no answer but that conveyed by a lifted eyebrow, he produced a
counter-attack.

'It's got to be Castell to satisfy you, hasn't it--or one of the
Taverners? Well, there's not a shred of evidence to connect them with
the crime, or a shred of a motive. Mr. Jacob Taverner says he was in bed
before eleven and slept until he was roused by the commotion in the
house. Mr. Geoffrey Taverner says he read till after twelve. He heard no
unusual sounds, he went to sleep as soon as he put his light out, and
was waked by the noise downstairs. Castell's statement amounts to very
much the same thing. After hearing John Higgins come along whistling
round about eleven he lay awake for a bit, and then dropped off, waking
up like everyone else when the noise began. Mrs. Castell corroborates as
far as to say that Castell was in bed when the house was roused. She is
a heavy sleeper and can't say anything about the earlier part of the
night. Well, you can't expect alibis when people are in bed and asleep.
There's nothing to say that all those statements aren't correct. Same
with the people on the other side of the house, the Thorpe-Enningtons,
Miss Taverner, Miss Heron--and yourself, Miss Silver. There is nothing
to connect any of them with Luke White, or to suggest that they had the
slightest motive for murdering him.'

Miss Silver coughed in an exceedingly pointed manner, and Frank Abbott
said, 'What about Mrs. Duke? You've rather left her out, haven't you?
She was very much on the spot at the time of the murder--victim's blood
on her hands and a pretty thin story to account for it.'

Miss Silver said in a meditative tone, 'True stories often appear to be
regrettably thin. Fabrications are so much more carefully composed. We
do not know of any motive in the case of Mrs. Duke.'

As the words left her lips, the door through which Castell had made his
exit was opened in a tentative manner. Castell looked through the
opening with what was obviously intended for an ingratiating smile.

'If I intrude, it is, if I may say, my eagerness to assist in the
discovery of the assassin.'

Crisp said shortly, 'Come in, Mr. Castell!'

He came in sideways like a thick-bodied crab, rubbing his hands together
and turning his eyes this way and that.

'You will pardon if I interrupt--'

'Sit down if you've got anything to say!'

Fogarty balanced himself on the edge of the chair which he had occupied
before.

'It is not I--it is my wife. You are married, Inspector? Yes? ... No?
... Ah, but what a pity! There is no fortune in the world like a good
wife. So when I find my wife in tears just now when I go out of this
room--when I find her in such a great distress that she cannot give her
mind to the art in which she excels--I take her hand, I speak to her
tenderly, I say, "What is it?" And she says, "Is it true that the police
are suspecting John Higgins? Is it true that they think he killed Luke
White?" And I say, "How do I know? I am not in their confidence. It
looks that way." Then she says, "It will break Eily's heart. John is a
good man. He is my own nephew. He did not do it." And I say, "He was
jealous about Eily, and Luke had threatened him. If it was not John
Higgins, who was it? No one else had any reason." Then she cries and
says, "That is not true. There is someone who might have a reason".'

Miss Silver's eyes were on his face. Frank Abbott put up a hand and
smoothed back his hair.

Inspector Crisp said, 'What!' in a voice like a barking terrier.

Fogarty looked from one to the other. His expression seemed to say, 'See
how clever I am--how acute--how discerning! You are a lot of clever
people in the police, but it is Castell who puts the clue into your
hands!' He gestured complacently.

'That is what I say too. "What!" I say. "Annie!" I say. "Tell me at once
what you are talking about!" But she does not. She puts her head down on
the kitchen table and cries. We have been married fifteen years, and I
have never seen her cry like that. She says, "What shall I do, what
shall I do?" And I say, "I am your husband--you will tell me".'

He looked round again, as if for approbation. 'So in the end she tells
me.'

Crisp tapped impatiently.

'Well--well--what did she tell you?'

Castell's eyes gleamed. It was quite obvious that he was enjoying
himself.

'She does not want to tell me, you understand. She cries and says she
has always kept it to herself. And I say, "What has always been must at
some time come to an end, and when there is a murder and the police in
the house, that is the time for it to come to an end." And at the last
she tells me.'

Crisp fairly banged on the table.

'Mr. Castell, will you come to the point and tell us what your wife
said!'

Castell spread out his hands.

'And with what reluctance she says it! That is part of the evidence, her
reluctance, is it not? She does not wish to suggest a motive, to accuse,
to say anything at all. I say to her, "It is your duty," and she shakes
her head. I say, "I am your husband and I command you!" She weeps. I
say, "Have you no heart for John Higgins who is your nephew, and for
Eily who looks already like an apparition from the tomb!" Then she tells
me.'

Frank Abbott said in his languid voice, 'All right, Castell, we've got
the _mise en scne_. Just tell us what she said.'

If Chief Inspector Lamb had been present he would at this point have had
something to say. It was his considered opinion that the English
language contained all the words required by any police officer who
hadn't got wind in the head. French words in particular had a highly
inflammatory effect on his temper and his complexion. In his absence
Frank could indulge himself with impunity.

Castell became very animated indeed. He turned from one to the other, he
waved his hands.

'My wife Annie Castell, she says a name.'

Crisp said sharply, 'What name?'

'I will not disguise it from you, Inspector--it is the name of Mrs.
Duke.'

'What does she say about Mrs. Duke?'

'She weeps as she says it. If you could have seen her!'

'Never mind about that! What did she say!'

Castell spread out those fat hands.

'She weeps, and she tells me. It is before we are married, you will
understand, and my wife she is chef at the White Lion at Lenton. Never
has the hotel done so much business. From all over the county they
come--to lunch, to dine, to give supper parties, because of her cooking.
And my poor Luke, he is the barman. She has known him a little all her
life, you understand, because he is some sort of a cousin--on the wrong
side of the blanket, as you say. One day he says to her, "I am going to
get married, Cousin Annie." He calls her that because it vexes her, and
he can be malicious that poor Luke. So then she says who is it he is
marrying, and he says, "You would be surprised." And when he tells her
it is her own cousin Florence Duke--'

This time both Inspectors said, 'What!' together.

Castell smiled and nodded.

'When he tells her that--well, she is surprised like you have been.'

Frank Abbott said, 'Florence Duke was married to Luke White?'

'My wife says so. Florence, she was behind the bar at the George, which
is the other hotel at Lenton. Annie knew she was there, and they had
spoken once or twice, but they did not know each other well, as cousins
should, because of the quarrel in the family. She was also young and
gay. My wife Annie, you will understand, is very particular, very
respectable.'

Frank Abbott said, 'Are you sure there was a marriage?'

Castell nodded.

'My wife Annie says so. She says it would be in '31 or '32--in July--at
the register office in Lenton. And after that they went away, the two of
them, to take a job together, and she did not see Luke again'--he
shrugged and gestured--'not for many years. When he comes here she asks
him, "What about your wife Florence?" and he laughs and says, "It didn't
last long, and she has gone back to calling herself Florence Duke
again".'

Crisp said, 'Is that all?'

Castell leaned forward, dropping his voice confidentially.

'Shall I tell you what I think? I think that when Florence comes here
she does not know at all that Luke is here. I think it gives her a great
shock. She looks very bad after she has seen him. I think she comes down
in the night to have a meeting with him. She says she was in the
kitchen. Pfft! His room is opposite--I think she was there. I think they
quarrel. He is very inconstant with women that poor Luke. He fascinates
them, and goes away and forgets. What is it in the proverb--"Hell hasn't
got anything so furious like a woman who is scorned"? It is not my
business to say anything, but we all saw the blood on her hands.' He
pushed back his chair. 'That is all! I go to console my wife!'

When they could no longer hear his footsteps going down the passage
Crisp growled, 'What do you make of that?'

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

'I think Annie Castell wouldn't stand for putting it on John Higgins.'




                               Chapter 26


Inspector Crisp fussed off to use the telephone and set the Lenton
registrar looking up July marriages in '31 and '32.

When he had gone Frank Abbott remained draped against the fireplace. He
contemplated Miss Silver, whose attention appeared to be absorbed by
little Josephine's bright blue dress, the completed skirt of which now
lay spread out upon her lap. The gathered effect was very
satisfactory--really very satisfactory indeed. The tight plain bodice
which she was about to begin would be becoming and quaint. She decided
that the measurements were just what they should be, picked up her
needles, and set them clicking.

The smile with which Frank was regarding her would not have been allowed
to betray him if they had not been alone together. It expressed very
faithfully the feelings with which she had now for many years inspired
him. They were an odd mixture of affection, respect, amusement, and
something very like reverence. It would have surprised a good many
people to catch the expression which softened those cool blue eyes,
though there was still a hint of sarcasm when he smiled. It was there as
he said interrogatively, 'Well?'

She looked up at him with gravity.

'What is it that you want to know?'

'Your reaction to Castell's _volte face_. First he pushes John Higgins
at us up hill, down dale, and across country, and then he bounds in all
helpful-boy-scout, says his wife Annie forbids the banns, and offers us
Florence Duke instead. What do you make of it?'

She was knitting steadily.

'What do you make of it yourself?'

'What I said to Crisp. I think the bright idea was to frame John
Higgins, shift the interest away from the Catherine-Wheel--I believe
that's fundamental--make a _crime passionel_ of the murder. And Annie
Castell wouldn't stand for it--cut up rough--maybe threatened to spill
the beans. She may, or may not, have any to spill, but if she has, I
think she's been threatening to spill them if Castell doesn't lay off
John Higgins. He's her own nephew, and she may be fond of Eily.'

Miss Silver inclined her head.

'I think so.'

'The bit about Eily, or the whole lot?'

'I think the whole of it. But the scene described by Castell could not
have occurred as he described it. There was not time for all that story
about Luke White's marriage to have been discussed by him and his wife
in the interval between his leaving this room and returning to it,
especially if Mrs. Castell was in the state of distress upon which he
insists.'

Frank said, 'Yes--I agree. They had probably had a series of scenes
about Higgins. When he came away from seeing us she presented an
ultimatum--if he didn't stop framing John, beans would be spilled.
Castell got the wind up, came to terms, and bounded in to offer Florence
Duke instead. What do you think about her?'

She said in a meditative manner, 'She had certainly had a shock.'

'Do you mean before the murder?'

'Oh, yes. I noticed her at once. I thought at first that she had had too
much to drink, but I came to the conclusion that there was something
more than that. When Miss Heron was telling me about all the Taverner
cousins I asked her whether anything had happened to upset Mrs. Duke.
She looked startled, and replied, "Yes, I think so, but I don't know
what it was." She then told me that she had met Mrs. Duke on the stairs
just before dinner. Mrs. Duke asked if she was looking all right, and
added that she had had "a most awful turn". Jane Heron enquired whether
there was anything she could do, and Mrs. Duke said nobody could do
anything. She then used these words--"That's the way when you are in a
fix--you get yourself in, and you've got to get yourself out".' Miss
Silver paused and coughed. 'As a matter of fact Miss Heron reports her
as putting it more strongly than that.'

Frank Abbott laughed.

'Let's have it!'

Miss Silver let him have it in a prim quoting voice.

' "You get yourself in, and you've damn well got to get yourself
out--nobody can't do it for you." After which she said, "Oh gosh--why
did I have to come!" I have questioned Miss Heron again about this
scene, and she gave me exactly the same account of it. I should consider
her a reliable witness.'

Frank whistled.

'Looks as if Castell was right, both as to the marriage and the
supposition that Florence had no idea that she was going to encounter
the fascinating Luke. It begins to look as if she might have had a
brain-storm and done him in. There would be the Eily motive--'

Miss Silver coughed.

'There is no evidence to show that she was aware that Luke White was
paying attentions to Eily.'

He frowned.

'There is no evidence to show that she wasn't aware of it. That sort of
thing is supposed to be in the air, isn't it? She may have seen the man
look at her. Wouldn't that be enough for a jealous woman? That's a very
thin story she put up about going out to the back premises to have a
look at the dear old family kitchen. I think she went to have a meeting
with Luke, and if they met they'd be likely enough to quarrel. He may
have taunted her with Eily. I suppose there would be plenty of ways in
which a hot-blooded woman could be worked up to the point of doing
murder.'

Miss Silver had been knitting placidly. She now gave a gentle cough.

'When did she take the knife? If it was on her way to his room, then she
already meant to kill him. It seems to me that that would be a little
sudden after fifteen years or so of separation. If, on the other hand,
she first quarrelled with him in his room, and then after reaching a
state of passionate anger went into the dining-room and took the knife,
what was Luke White doing? Did he stand in the hall and wait for her? If
so, he must have seen her come out of the dining-room with the knife in
her hand. She was wearing a tight thin silk dress and could not possibly
have concealed it. If he was killed where he was found, she must have
been standing behind him on the bottom step. You will remember the
medical evidence states that the thrust had a downward trend. If it was
made by a woman, she must have been standing above him at the time. Can
you imagine any circumstances which would have brought them into such
relative positions--she on the bottom step with the knife in her hand,
and he not more than eighteen inches away with his back to her.'

Frank said, 'They must have been coming down the stairs--there isn't any
other way it could have happened. Look here, we don't have to take her
story about going through to the back premises. Suppose she didn't go to
his room at all--suppose he came to hers. They quarrel. She follows him
down the stairs and stabs him from the bottom step.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'And when did she get the knife? Are you presupposing that she took it
up to bed with her?'

He made a gesture of submission.

'Revered preceptress! I give it up--you'll have to tell me. What did
happen?'

She gave him a glance of indulgent reproof and knitted thoughtfully for
a few moments. Then she said, 'I am unable to believe that he was killed
where he was found. As you say, it could only have happened if he had
been coming downstairs with the murderer a step behind him. This would
imply premeditation, for the murderer must have had the knife ready. But
who would plan to murder a man in so public a spot? At the sound of a
cry, or of the fall, it was to be expected that the house would be
roused. It would be very difficult for the murderer to retreat without
being seen. I really am quite unable to believe that Luke White was
killed in the hall. Then, if he was killed elsewhere, could Florence
Duke have dragged him single-handed to the place where he was found? To
say nothing of the fact that such a proceeding would almost certainly
have left a trail of blood, can you give me any single reason why it
should have been attempted?'

Frank shook his head.

'No, I can't.'

Miss Silver pursued the theme.

'A jealous woman who has just stabbed a man in a fit of passion would be
in no state to transfer the body from one place to another. Mrs. Duke is
a strongly built woman--she might have been able to move the body. But
what motive could she have for doing so? A woman in the frame of mind
you have supposed would either have remained beside the body in a dazed
state, or else got back to her room as quickly as possible.'

Frank nodded.

'Florence Duke was found beside the body in a dazed state,' he observed.

Miss Silver said sharply, 'She was not beside it when Eily came
downstairs.'

'She heard the girl coming and slipped into the dining-room. When Eily
went into the lounge she thought she could get away up the stairs, but
there wasn't time. Eily came out again, and Florence was caught with the
blood on her hands.'

Miss Silver said in a mild, obstinate voice, 'That still does not
explain how he came to be in the place where he was found.'

Crisp snapped the door open, came in from the lounge, and snapped it
shut again. He looked alert and pleased as he came up to the table.

'Well, Mrs. Castell was speaking the truth. Luke White married Florence
Duke at Lenton register office on July 7th '31. So now we'll have her in
and ask her what about it.'




                               Chapter 27


Florence Duke took the chair which faced Inspector Crisp and the cold
light from the window. Frank Abbott's cool cynical gaze dwelt upon her.
A big strongly built woman. He thought she could have shifted the corpse
all right if she had wanted to. But Maudie was quite right--why should
she want to? But she was set on it that someone had shifted Luke White,
and for the matter of that, why should anyone want to? There could be
only one answer to that--he had been killed in a place which would have
implicated the murderer. Suppose that place was Florence Duke's room.
The idea occurred, only to be rejected. Impossible to believe that she
had dragged the corpse along the corridor and bumped it down the stairs
without at least rousing Maudie who had cat's ears and slept with one
eye open when she was on a case. He remembered that Mrs. Duke's room was
next to hers, and the idea which had for the moment seemed quite bright
went out like a quenched spark.

His attention returned to Florence Duke. Crisp was reading over the
original statement she had made, and he had leisure to observe her. She
must have been a handsome girl of the type which coarsens young. He
supposed her to be in the early forties. Good hair, good eyes, good
teeth. Odd fleeting likeness to the magnificent Lady Marian, who
wouldn't have been at all pleased if her attention had been drawn to it.
Colour in the cheeks probably a good strong red when things were going
all right--a nasty bluish look about it now. Frightful clothes--too
tight, too bright, too short, too everything. Short royal blue skirt,
elaborate revealing knitted jumper which failed to match it by a couple
of shades, a cheap paste brooch pinned on to the front of it.

Crisp laid down the paper from which he had been reading.

'That's your statement, Mrs. Duke.'

'What about it?'

The words came in that slow way she had. Frank could imagine the voice
having its attractions--the voice, and that slow way of speaking, and
the really fine eyes. Might have been quite an alluring figure behind
the bar of the George in '31.

Crisp tapped the table.

'You call yourself Mrs. Duke. Is that your real name?'

'It's what I was born with.'

'But you're a married woman, aren't you?'

'Not now.'

'Do you mean you are divorced?'

'No--we separated.'

'What is your legal name?'

'That's my business. He was a bad lot. I went back to my own name that
I'd a right to.'

Crisp tapped vigorously.

'Is your legal name White?'

Her colour drained away, then rushed back alarmingly.

Crisp said sharply, 'Did you marry Luke White at the register office at
Lenton on July 7th, 1931?'

There was sweat on her forehead. She was flushed to the very roots of
her hair. The colour receded slowly, leaving a hard fixed patch on
either cheek. She said, 'You've got it.'

'The murdered man was your husband?'

'We were married like you said. It didn't last above six months. He was
a bad lot.'

Crisp frowned severely.

'Well, this alters the position--you can see that, can't you, Mrs.
White?'

She said sharply, 'Don't call me that!'

He gave a slight shrug of the shoulders.

'You can call yourself what you please. The fact that Luke White was
your husband puts you in a very different position from the one you were
in when all the information we had was that you and he were strangers.
You can see that, I suppose. If he was a stranger, you hadn't any motive
for wanting him out of the way. If he was your husband, you might have
quite a strong one. I'm going to take you over that statement of yours
again, and I've got to tell you that your answers will be taken down and
may be used in evidence.'

Frank Abbott left his place by the fire and came forward to drop into
the chair at the end of the table. He produced pencil and notebook and
sat waiting.

Miss Silver continued to knit, her hands low in her lap, her eyes on
Florence Duke, who did not speak. The fine dark eyes looked at Inspector
Crisp with something of defiance. Frank Abbott thought, 'She's got cold
feet all right--but she'll put up a show.'

Crisp had the statement in his hand. He ran his eye down the page.

'Here we are. You say you hadn't undressed, and you give a number of
reasons for why you hadn't. You got thinking about old times--you were
accustomed to sitting up late--you didn't think you would sleep if you
went to bed. Now wasn't it the real reason that you were waiting for the
house to be quiet before going down to see your husband?'

She went on looking at him without speaking. He only gave her a moment.

'You needn't answer if you don't want to, but wasn't that the reason?
You were the only person in the house who hadn't undressed--weren't you?
Everyone else had been in bed and asleep--hadn't they? You hadn't
undressed because you were waiting to come down and go along to your
husband's room. That's right, isn't it? Perhaps you had an appointment
with him--'

Her lips parted on the one slow word, 'No.'

Something like a smirk of satisfaction just touched Crisp's expression.
She had spoken, and she had practically admitted that she had in fact
come down to see Luke White. He proceeded to follow up the advantage.

'But you came down intending to see him?'

Quite suddenly she blazed.

'What's the harm if I did?'

'Oh, none--none. He was your husband, wasn't he? You waited till
everyone was asleep, and you came down to see him. No harm in it at all.
Only what you said in your statement was that you were looking for a
drink and something to read. That wasn't true, was it?'

The deep angry voice said, 'I wanted the drink all right.'

'But you came down to see your husband.'

She cried out, 'Not so much of the husband! I was through with him! I
came down to see Luke White!'

'I thought so! And then you quarrelled.'

She said flatly, 'That's a lie! He wasn't there!'

Crisp said, 'What!'

Florence nodded.

'Nice to think there's something you don't know. He wasn't there.'

He looked furiously at her. Before he could speak Miss Silver said,
'Pray, Mrs. Duke, how did you know which room to go to?'

She turned her head, and seemed for the first time to be aware of Miss
Silver's presence. She said, with all the heat gone from her voice, 'I
asked that girl Eily where he slept. Not just like that, you know--she'd
have thought it funny. The way I put it was, how many bedrooms did they
have, and where had everyone been put.'

Frank Abbott's hand moved to and fro across the paper. Crisp tapped with
his pencil. He said impatiently, 'That doesn't matter! You say you went
to Luke White's room and he wasn't there.'

She shook her head.

'No, he wasn't there.'

'Sure you struck the right room?'

'Yes. There's only the one bedroom--opposite the kitchen.'

'How long were you there?'

'I don't know. I thought he'd be coming. I looked round a bit. Then I
thought I'd wait in the kitchen. That was all what I said before. I went
in the kitchen and had a look round and a couple of glasses of sherry
like I said. There was a bottle on the dresser.'

'How soon did Luke White come along?'

She shook her head.

'He didn't come. I got tired of waiting and went through to the hall
like I told you. He was laid there with the knife in him, and that girl
coming out of the lounge. I went to see if he was dead, and got my hands
all messed up. Then Eily screamed, and everyone came down.'

He went on asking his questions, but he got nothing more from her. She
had come downstairs to see Luke White, but she hadn't seen him. She
hadn't set eyes on him until she saw him lying dead in the hall. She
hadn't laid hands on the knife or used it. She hadn't stabbed Luke
White.

Crisp let her go in the end. He was at once complacent over what he had
got, and irritated because he had got no more. He stabbed with his
pencil at the blotter and broke the point as he said, 'She did it all
right. It couldn't be anyone else.'

Frank Abbott looked up from his neat shorthand notes. He used the voice
which Crisp stigmatised as B.B.C. to say, 'I don't know.'

The Inspector fetched a knife from his pocket, released the blade with a
jerk, and attacked the damaged pencil. Between slashes he said, 'Of
course she isn't Castell! It's got to be Castell, hasn't it?' He laughed
harshly. 'No substitutes accepted!'

Miss Silver coughed in a hortatory manner.

'Pray, Inspector, is there no news of Albert Miller?'




                               Chapter 28


Jeremy and Jane drove down from London. It was one of those grey
afternoons when the clouds are low and a seeping vapour comes out of the
ground to meet them. It wasn't a fog yet, but there was no saying when
it might take a turn that way. They ran through Cliff just after four,
and out on the other side within sight and hearing of the sea. Jeremy
was looking to his right, watching, as he had watched before, for the
pair of tall stone pillars which marked the entrance to Cliff House. As
they came in sight, weather-beaten and damaged, the one topped by an
eagle, the other with the bird and half the capital gone, he slowed
down.

'I'm taking you to tea with Jack Challoner.'

Jane said, 'Oh!' in rather a startled manner, and then, 'Why?'

'He's a pal of mine. I rang him up. He said, "Bring her along to tea,"
and I said, "Right you are!"--just like that.'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I don't know. I didn't want you to say no. Its a mouldy old place, but
I'd rather like to see it. Jack's a good chap.'

'Isn't Inspector Abbott staying there?'

'Yes. He's some sort of cousin. I don't suppose he'll be there. Anyhow
we're not suspects.'

They had passed between the pillars and were pursuing a long, neglected
drive with a tangled shrubbery on either side, wind-swept and stunted.
The house when they reached it was gaunt and forbidding--a square, bare
eighteenth-century block with the same neglected look as the drive.

An old man admitted them to an icy cavern of a hall, took them across
it, and down a passage to a small room with a blazing fire, curtains
already drawn, and two oil lamps giving out plenty of light, heat, and
smell. A red-haired young man with rather a flat, freckled face heaved
himself out of a shabby armchair and clapped Jeremy on the shoulder.

'Hullo, hullo! How do you do, Miss Heron? It's frightfully good of you
to come--it really is. I get the pip when I'm here by myself. Frank's
out chasing murderers, and I don't suppose he'll be back for tea, so you
and Jeremy are probably going to save my life. Do you like muffins?
Matthews always keeps them going because he likes them himself. I say,
these lamps do stink, don't they? That's me, I'm afraid. Matthews always
tells me not to turn them up, and then I forget and they smell to
heaven. Of course, what this place wants is about ten thousand pounds
spent on it. Nothing's been done for donkeys' years. My
great-great-grandfather ruined himself playing cards with the Prince
Regent, and nobody's had a penny ever since. He married an heiress and
got rid of every farthing she had. Fun whilst it lasted!'

He was pulling chairs round as he spoke. The one Jane got had a broken
spring. The curtains were Victorian--maroon velvet gone the colour of
old blood, with a ball fringe ripped and hanging in loops. The carpet
looked unswept, but that may have been merely an effect of age and
decay. Jane thought how grim it would be to be saddled with a house like
this. Jack Challoner seemed to bear up, but she felt sorry for his wife
when he married.

As if her thought reached him, he laughed and said, 'What we want is
another heiress--only I'd have to keep her carefully away from the place
till it's too late to draw back. No girl in her senses would take on a
mouldy old ruin like this. I mean, she'd have to be frightfully in love,
wouldn't she? And I'm not the sort that girls fall frightfully in love
with. Look here, would you like to see how bad it is? Jeremy said he'd
like to--I can't imagine why.'

Jeremy hadn't sat down. He was leaning against the mantelpiece looking
down into the fire. He turned now and said, 'Tales of my grandfather.
His mother used to tell him stories about your people. It was Sir
Humphrey Challoner in her time--somewhere in the eighteen-forties. I'd
like to see the family portraits, you know.'

'All right. But we'd better go now, or there won't be any light.' He
turned to Jane. 'What about you? Wouldn't you rather stay by the fire? I
say, I do call you Jane, don't I? I've known Jeremy for centuries.'

He was about the same age as Jeremy, but he seemed younger. He reminded
Jane of a large friendly puppy.

They went back through the icy hall to a stark dining-room full of
dreadful Victorian furniture. Above a massive sideboard hung the
portrait of a gloomy gentleman in a stock and side-whiskers.

'That's old Humphrey,' said Jack Challoner. 'What sort of stories did
your great-grandmamma hand down about him? He was my great-grandfather.'

Jeremy said slowly, 'He disinherited his son, didn't he?'

'Yes--his eldest son, Geoffrey. Nasty family scandal. Geoffrey took
after _his_ grandfather, the old boy who ruined us--went the pace--was
mixed up in some smuggling affray and got himself bumped off. After
which everyone breathed more freely, and my grandfather, John, came in
for the title and the place.'

Jeremy said, 'My grandfather said his mother used to talk about
Geoffrey.'

Jack Challoner laughed.

'I suppose she would! I'm afraid it was your Taverner lot that led him
astray. By all accounts the Catherine-Wheel was a regular Smugglers'
Arms. There's a portrait of Geoffrey upstairs. Like to see it?'

They went up the big stairway, Jack Challoner carrying a tall
candelabrum with twisted arms and candles which must have been in it
since before the war, they were so dusty and yellow. The silver had
probably not been cleaned since then either. Jack tapped it with a
laugh.

'Only Sheffield plate, or it would have gone up the spout long ago.'

Jane said quickly, 'It might still be worth quite a lot.' Then, catching
herself up and colouring, 'My grandfather had an antique shop.'

She got a cheerful shake of the head.

'Drop in the bucket. It'll have to be the heiress.'

They went on up the stairs. There was still daylight of the sort which
doesn't do very much to a dark corner. Geoffrey Challoner's portrait
hung in a very dark corner indeed--the black sheep tidied away out of
sight. Jane wondered in an odd fleeting way whether anyone had been used
to come and look at it there. His mother might have, if she had been
alive. She wondered.

Jack Challoner set the candelabrum on the floor, produced matches from a
bulging pocket, lighted the five discoloured candles, and lifted it
high.

'You can't see in this corner even in the morning. That's why I brought
the contraption,' he said. 'Well, there's our black sheep. Painted
before the scandal of course, when he was twenty-one. Coming of age of
the heir, and all that.'

The candlelight fell on a young man in a shooting-jacket carrying a gun
under his arm and holding a brace of pheasants. The birds were very well
painted, the iridescent feathers still bright. Geoffrey Challoner looked
out from the canvas, very much the proud, good-looking young man with
the world before him. The chance shot in the dark which was to come as a
relief to his family was still a couple of years away.

Jack Challoner said, 'If you're looking for a family likeness you won't
find one. It was my grandmother who brought the red hair into the
family, and we shall probably never be able to get rid of it. She had
eight daughters, all carroty.'

'No,' said Jane, 'there isn't any likeness, is there?'

And as she said it she knew it wasn't true. There was a likeness, and a
strong one, but it wasn't the likeness that it ought to have been. She
looked at Jeremy, and looked away quickly. Lengthen his hair, give him
those little side whiskers just coming down on to the cheeks, put him
into those clothes, and he might have sat for the portrait. She was
aware of something, some tension. She couldn't risk a second look.

Jack Challoner said, 'He's more like Jeremy than me, isn't he?'

They went downstairs and ate muffins out of a cracked Worcester dish,
and drank tea from a solid hideous Victorian teapot all curves and
bulges, it had a silver strawberry on the lid, and had probably served
the red-haired Lady Challoner and her eight carroty daughters.

When they had said good-bye and were going slowly down the long drive
Jeremy said, 'Mouldy old place, isn't it?'

'Frightful! I'm sorry for Jack.'

Jeremy laughed.

'You needn't be. He's a cheerful soul, and he's only there once in a
blue moon.'

Jane laughed too.

'Will he marry an heiress? He doesn't look the sort.'

'He will not. He's in love with a girl called Molly Pemberton, a
tremendously good sort. She hasn't got a penny, and neither of them will
give a damn. He's down here now because someone wants the place for a
sanatorium, or an orphanage, or something. Sea air--ozone--dollops of
it. He's seeing lawyers and trying to make up his mind to the wrench.'

He stopped the car just inside the two tall pillars.

'Jane, I want to talk. The Catherine-Wheel is crawling with constabulary
and cousins, so I think we'll have it out here. When are you going to
marry me?'

He had let go of the wheel and taken her hands. She didn't pull them
away, but they were rigid and stubborn in his.

'I haven't ever said I'd marry you at all.'

'Does it want saying?'

'Yes, it does.'

'Then say it!'

'Jeremy, let go!'

'Say it! Jane--darling--say it!'

She had meant to let him hold her hands for as long as he liked in a
perfectly calm and friendly manner, but she couldn't do it. His voice
did things to her when it changed like that. Suddenly friendship was all
gone. A horrid undermining flood of emotion had swept it away. In a
split second it would sweep her into Jeremy's arms, and if he kissed her
she would say anything he wanted her to say. She snatched her hands away
and strained back into the corner.

'No--no!'

'Jane!'

She pushed him away.

'No--no--I won't!'

'Why?'

'Cousins oughtn't to marry.'

'I'm not your cousin.'

He spoke quite quietly, but it was like a thunder-clap. It stopped the
giddy feeling. She blinked and said, '_What!_'

Jeremy said it again.

'I'm not your cousin.'

Jane produced another monosyllable. She didn't seem to have enough
breath for anything else. She said, 'Why?'

'I'll tell you. I've been going to. There hasn't been much chance up to
now. But we might as well be comfortable. Stop doing the "Unhand me!"
act and relax.'

Jane relaxed. The flood of emotion had subsided. It seemed, as Jeremy
had just said, comfortable to have his arm round her. This place behind
the pillars was dark. The Cliff road was dark and empty. She said, 'Why
aren't you my cousin?'

'Because I'm not a Taverner at all. My grandfather was Geoffrey
Challoner's son. That's why I wanted to see the picture. Even I can see
that I'm like him.'

'You're frightfully like him.'

He laughed.

'I ought to be Sir Jeremy Challoner, with that old ruin tied round my
neck, you know. Geoffrey was the elder son.'

'Jeremy--how exciting!'

'It is rather. My grandfather told me. You remember he was one of the
twins, John and Joanna. Well, old Jeremiah Taverner died in
eighteen-eighty-eight. His wife, Ann, lived another three years. She
never said a word while her husband was alive, but this is what she told
my grandfather John before she died. Geoffrey Challoner used to come to
the Catherine-Wheel a lot. He was wild and he was in debt, and he got
mixed up in the smuggling trade, partly for the fun of the thing, and
partly because he wanted to make enough money to run off with Mary
Layburn. She was Sir John Layburn's daughter--same family John Higgins
works for--and they had been engaged, but old Challoner and Sir John
fell out over politics and the engagement was broken off. That's what
started Geoffrey running wild. The Layburns sent Mary away to a strict
aunt in London, but Geoffrey followed her and they were secretly
married. Ann Taverner was positive to my grandfather about the marriage.
She said she had seen the certificate, but she couldn't remember the
name of the church. "One of those grand London churches," she told him.
Well, about six months after that Geoffrey had to skip over to France. A
coastguard had been hurt, and he had been recognised. They planned to
let the thing blow over, and then for him to come back and get Mary.
Unfortunately the man died--not at once, and not with any certainty from
his injuries. But the Layburns pressed the matter. They wanted to keep
Geoffrey out of the country, and a warrant was issued. That meant
Geoffrey couldn't come back. And Mary Layburn was going to have a child.
She came to Ann Taverner and told her she couldn't hide it any longer.
She didn't dare tell her people she was married--fathers were fierce in
the 'forties. She was a gentle, timid girl, and she said he'd kill her.'

'What happened? Go on--quickly!'

'Ann Taverner told Jeremiah, and he sent word over to Geoffrey in
France. They used to run the cargoes pretty regularly when the moon was
dark. Geoffrey sent word back that he'd come on the next run--that would
be three weeks away--and he said Mary must manage till then. When the
time came Ann was to let Mary know, and she was to slip out of her room
when everyone was in bed and come out to the Catherine-Wheel. None of
them seem to have thought it was anything to make a song and dance
about, but I don't suppose the poor girl had ever been out by herself at
night before. She arrived terrified and upset, and Ann was afraid of
what might happen. It was awkward enough without that, she said, because
she herself was expecting her sixth child at any moment. As it turned
out, that child was born about midnight. The midwife was in the
house--Ann Taverner's cousin, and a very discreet woman. At one o'clock
there was a noise of fire-arms under the cliff. The run had been spotted
or given away, and the coastguards were there. Geoffrey Challoner was
fatally wounded. Jeremiah and one of his men got him away into the
Catherine-Wheel by the secret passage, and he died in Mary's arms. It
finished her, poor girl. She had her baby before its time, and was dead
by morning. With the midwife's help Ann Taverner passed the child off
for a twin of her own child. Hers was a girl, Joanna. She was John
Higgins' grandmother, and the Challoner baby was a boy--my grandfather
John.'

Jane drew a quick excited breath.

'Did old Jeremiah know?'

Jeremy stared.

'Must have done.'

She shook her head.

'Oh, no--not if the women didn't want him to. Ann and the midwife, they
could have managed if they'd wanted to. I wonder if they did.'

'I don't know. My grandfather didn't say. You've got to remember that
Ann was very old when she told him--it was in her last illness. What she
was out to impress on him was that Geoffrey Challoner and Mary Layburn
were legally married, and that he was their legitimate son.'

'Why didn't they say so at the time? I mean, the baby was Sir Humphrey
Challoner's heir--why didn't they hand it over to him?'

'Because it would have got them into a peck of trouble. Geoffrey was
wanted for the coastguard's death. Though everybody in the neighbourhood
must have known that Jeremiah Taverner was up to the neck in the
smuggling trade, having it all come out at a coroner's court would have
been quite another pair of shoes. Anyhow, whatever Jeremiah knew or
didn't know about the baby, he wasn't for having an inquest on two
sudden deaths on his licensed premises.'

'What did he do?'

'Well, I gather he was all for throwing the bodies into the sea, but Ann
wouldn't have it. I don't know that she'd have got her way if it hadn't
been for her final argument. "Two people dead like that and done out of
their rights--the sea wouldn't keep them," she said. That's what she
told my grandfather, and it brought Jeremiah up with a round turn. It
wouldn't have suited him at all to have those bodies come ashore.'

'What did they do with them?'

'Bricked them up in the secret passage together with the marriage
certificate which Mary had brought along and a statement signed by Ann
and the midwife. Ann put all the papers together and sealed them with
Geoffrey's signet-ring. She kept that, and she gave it to my
grandfather. I've got it now.'

'But, Jeremy, there wasn't any brickwork in that passage we went
down--not any at all.'

Jeremy said in rather an odd voice, 'No, there wasn't, was there?' Then
he put his hands on her shoulders and said, 'Never mind about that just
now. I'm not your cousin--I'm not the farthest, most distant relation.
We are in fact complete strangers. Are you going to marry me?'

Jane caught her breath and said, 'I suppose I am.'




                               Chapter 29


The inquest was to be next day. It was understood that the police would
offer merely formal evidence and ask for an adjournment. Inspector Crisp
reported to his Chief Constable that he thought a good enough case could
be made out against Florence Duke. On the face of it, Randal March was
inclined to agree, but recommended caution and some further enquiries.

'Abbott now,' said Inspector Crisp--'he's come down to work up a case
against Castell. I'm not saying anything behind his back that I haven't
said to his face, and that's about the size of it.'

March said with a kind of pleasant firmness, 'I know Abbott rather well.
He wouldn't pull a case.'

Crisp looked injured.

'I'm not saying he would. He's down here on this dope-smuggling
business, and it's likely enough Castell's up to his neck in it. But
we've looked for evidence against him ourselves, and if we haven't found
any, I don't see it's likely someone down from the Yard will have any
better luck. Stands to reason the locals have the better chance, if
there are chances going, which it doesn't look as if there were. What I
mean to say, Abbott's got Castell in his mind and he can't see past him.
But as far as he is concerned, the murder isn't his pigeon--it's only,
as you might put it, incidental. It's natural he should see it linked up
with the job he came down about, but they mightn't have anything to do
with each other.'

'Or they might,' said Randal March.

'Not if it's Mrs. Duke, sir.'

'No, not if it's Mrs. Duke.'

'Or John Higgins. There's a strong jealousy motive there, and it's
suspicious that girl Eily being downstairs in her dressing-gown. In the
lounge too, with the window unlatched. I must say before all this Duke
business came out it looked very much to me as if Eily Fogarty had let
Higgins in, and was letting him out again after Luke White was stabbed.
She admits having gone into the lounge, and there was a window there
unlatched.'

The Chief Constable glanced down at the pile of papers in front of him.

'So I see.'

Crisp continued a thought morosely.

'Then there's this Miss Silver.'

March raised his eyebrows.

'You're not telling me she's a suspect?'

A good many years ago a delicate and insubordinate little boy of eight
had shared his sisters' schoolroom, a schoolroom presided over by Miss
Maud Silver. The respect she then inspired had never left him. It had
been cemented by a very real affection. He had certainly on one occasion
owed his life to her professional acumen. The case of the poisoned
caterpillars was an old story now, but he never forgot it. Subsequent
encounters of a professional nature had only served to increase his
admiration for her powers of observation and deduction. There was, in
fact, no one whose opinion he more valued, or to whom he would more
willingly defer. Aware that she was unofficially concerned in this case,
he had been wondering what Crisp's reactions would be. Enquiring whether
Miss Silver was a suspect, he was, in fact, both indulging his humour
and fishing to see what he would get.

Crisp sat up a little stiffly.

'I wish she was anything you could lay hold on. The Yard can do as they
like, but I must say it all seems a bit irregular to me. I don't say
anything about her being down there to get the gossip of the
place--that's what she's supposed to have come down for, isn't it? But
when it comes to Abbott treating her the way he does--well, she might be
his superior. And mine.'

March leaned back in his chair. Crisp was ruffled, and Crisp must be
soothed. He smiled slightly and said, 'I know. He's worked with her a
good many times before. I've heard him say that when she comes in on a
case the police come out of it in a blaze of glory. And you know,
actually it's true. She's a remarkable person. Do you happen to know
what she thinks about this case so far as it's gone?'

Crisp made an exasperated sound. But for the restraining influence of a
superior officer it would undoubtedly have been more emphatic.

'I don't know what she thinks. I can tell you what she does. Sits there
and knits, and keeps on asking every so often what about Al Miller.'

March shook his head.

'Albert--surely Albert--'

Crisp stared.

'Well, that's his name, I suppose. Everyone calls him Al.'

'I should be surprised if Miss Silver did. So she asks about the missing
Albert, does she? Well, what about him?'

Crisp frowned.

'I made sure we'd have picked him up by now. Nobody seems to have seen
him since he walked out of Ledlington station and said he wasn't coming
back. That would be about seven-thirty Sunday morning. Of course there
wouldn't be a lot about--people lie in Sundays. What I can't make out is
why she thinks it matters. He couldn't have been mixed up in the murder,
and that's flat.'

'Ask her.'

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'Ask her why she thinks it matters. If she keeps wanting to know about
him she'll have a reason, and it will be a good one. On the whole, I
think we'd better find him.'

If it had been anyone but the Chief Constable, Crisp would have let fly.
He restrained himself with an effort which brought the dark blood to his
face and said with some emphasis, 'Look here, sir, he couldn't have had
anything to do with it. He was out of the Catherine-Wheel by half past
ten. We don't have to rely on Castell for that, because Captain Taverner
watched him go. He was drunk, walking unsteadily, and singing bits of a
song he'd been trying to sing earlier on in the lounge. Irish, I believe
it is. Something about a girl called Eileen. It's in the statements.'

'Eileen alannah--yes.'

'That was just before half past ten. The Wiltons, where he lodged, say
he was in before half past eleven. He made a shocking noise, singing
this same song and stumbling on the stair. Mr. Wilton was fed up and
told him he could clear out in the morning, and he went down and locked
the door and took away the key so as Miller couldn't get away without
paying his bill. There's St. James' church at the bottom of the street,
and the chimes went for half past eleven as he was locking the door.
Luke White was found dead a little before one--we had the telephone
message at one a.m. The blood was still wet when we got there. The
medical evidence is that he must certainly have been alive at half past
ten. Dr. Crewe saw him at a quarter to two, and said he'd been dead
something under an hour. Well, Al Miller couldn't have done it. Now
could he?'

'Unless he got out of a window and went back to the Catherine-Wheel. I
suppose he could have done that.'

'I put it to the Wiltons was there any way he could have got out of the
house and back again, and they said they could swear to it he didn't.
Seems his room was right over theirs, and he kept them awake the best
part of the night--in and out of bed, to and fro in the room, groaning
and carrying on. Now they're very respectable people, and they were
properly worked up about it. Mrs. Wilton says she heard twelve o'clock
strike, and one, and two, before she could get any sleep. They're
properly worked up about Al Miller, and no reason to clear him, but as
she says, right's right, and she's ready to swear he didn't leave the
house all night. As you know, he was there all right in the morning.
Paid his bill at the bedroom door and got the key to let himself out.
It's my idea Miller walked out in a huff. He'd been on the edge of it
for weeks. Well, he's gone, and he won't turn up again until he wants
to. If he's heard about the murder that would be another reason for
keeping out of the way. People disappear without half his reasons. He
can't have had anything to do with murdering Luke White. And what Miss
Silver wants, going on about it like she does, is more than I can say.
Just waste of time, sir, if you ask me.'

Randal March hadn't asked him. He said in his pleasant voice, 'All the
same, you know, Crisp, I think we'd better find him.'




                               Chapter 30


Miss Silver sat in a corner of the lounge, to all appearance quite taken
up with her knitting. Not very far away from her Marian Thorpe-Ennington
engaged in conversation with Mildred Taverner. Occasional words and
phrases were sufficiently audible to make it clear that she was
imparting another instalment of that fascinating serial, her life story.
Such phrases as, 'The very first time he saw me ... swore, actually
swore, that he would jump out of the aeroplane,' and, most surprising of
all, 'blood on the diamond wreath, and blood on the floor.'

Mildred Taverner was undoubtedly fascinated. Her Venetian beads clashed
against her gold chain as she shuddered, her pale eyes remained fixed
upon Lady Marian's beautiful face, her pale lips parted upon a hardly
intermittent 'Oh!'

Miss Silver continued to knit in a very thoughtful manner. When the door
was presently opened and Frank Abbott looked in she rose, picked up her
knitting-bag, and advanced towards him.

'If you can spare the time, I should be glad of a few moments,
Inspector.'

He held open the door into Castell's office.

'I shall be delighted.'

When he had shut it behind them she went across to the window and stood
there looking at the room. There did not appear to be very much to look
at, and with what there was she must by this time have surely been
familiar, yet she continued to gaze in a rather abstracted manner until
Frank Abbott said, 'I ought to know by now when you've got something up
your sleeve. What is it?'

'My dear Frank!'

He returned her reproving glance with a smile.

'Come--out with it!'

She shook her head very slightly, came over to the low chair which she
had occupied before, turned it round to the fire, and having seated
herself, took up her knitting, observing, 'There is really a good deal
that I would like to say, and if you can spare the time I should like to
say it now.'

He pulled up another chair and stretched out his feet to the comfortable
blaze.

' "Time spared is time saved," as the proverb says--and as you know I am
very much at your service.'

Miss Silver's eyes dwelt upon him indulgently, her voice only mildly
critical as she said, 'I do not recall any such proverb.'

'Perhaps not. It's an impromptu contribution of my own. After all, they
have to be started by someone. I dedicate it--without permission--to
you.'

'My dear Frank, when will you learn not to talk so much nonsense?'

His hands were deep in his pockets. He looked at her lazily through his
fair lashes.

'I don't know. But I'm finished for now. What did you want to talk to me
about?'

Her needles clicked briskly.

'Our own particular connection with this case, and to what extent it is
linked with the murder of Luke White.'

'Interesting thesis. Go on.'

She said, 'We came down here to investigate certain vague rumours with
regard to the Catherine-Wheel. These involved the possibility that it
was being used as a place of call by smugglers, by persons engaged in
the illicit drug trade, or by jewel thieves. Chief Inspector Lamb
pointed out that this family reunion organised by Mr. Jacob Taverner
might be intended to cover some special activity connected with one of
these illegal pursuits. As you know, a murder took place during the
night following our arrival. It is of course possible, in theory, that
the murdered has no connection with these illegal practices--in fact
they have not yet been proved to exist. The whole matter has advanced
very little from its original realm of suspicion and conjecture. In
spite of which I must tell you that I am quite unable to dissociate the
murder of Luke White from what I may perhaps term our case.'

Frank nodded.

'That means that you reject the case against John Higgins. His motive
would be a strictly private one--jealousy over Eily Fogarty.'

She inclined her head.

'It was not John Higgins who murdered Luke White.'

The light eyebrows were raised.

'Sure as all that? All right, exit John. What about Florence Duke? Her
motive would be a private one too--unless Crisp digs up evidence to
connect her with the dope trade or any of these jewel thefts, in which
case she might have fallen out with Luke over a division of the swag.'

Miss Silver gave a hortatory cough.

'My dear Frank, pray recall the undisputed evidence of the position of
the body and the position of the wound. If Luke White was killed where
he was found, the murderer was immediately behind him on the bottom
step. No one has yet supplied any theory which makes this intelligible
if Florence Duke is supposed to have committed the murder. On the other
hand, if he was not killed where he was found, what possible motive
could she have for dragging him there? It could not have been done by
one person without making enough noise to run the risk of bringing
someone down to investigate. We have been over all this before, and I do
not see my way to supporting a case against Florence Duke.'

'Well, what do you support?'

Her needles clicked.

'I have come to certain conclusions. They are these. The murder greatly
deepens the suspicions attaching to the inn. Mr. Jacob Taverner's party
and the circumstances leading up to it also deepen those suspicions. We
will come back to this later. I believe that those suspicions are
justified, and that the death of Luke White is linked with the
circumstances which gave rise to them. It is my opinion that at least
two people were engaged in the murder, and that it certainly did not
take place in the hall.'

He looked at her keenly.

'Two people?'

'It would have required two people to carry the body to the place where
it was found, if this was to be accomplished without risk.'

Frank was regarding her with a slightly quizzical air.

'Is that all?'

'I have reached no definite conclusions beyond these. But I have some
observations to offer on the subject of Mr. Jacob Taverner and his
party.'

'What are they?'

'These, Frank. I have had opportunities of conversing with several of
the Taverner cousins. All of them have been extremely communicative.
They are, Captain Jeremy Taverner and Miss Jane Heron--friendly likeable
young people--Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington, and Miss Mildred Taverner.
Lady Marian has the habit of talking about herself and can easily be
induced to do so. Miss Taverner is nervously apprehensive. She has led a
very narrow life, and the murder has alarmed her very much. Her brother
represses her. She is frightened of being alone, and has been glad of my
company. From these four people I have learned that Mr. Jacob Taverner
has made a point of pressing each of them as to what they may have heard
about the Catherine-Wheel from their grandparents, with whom there was
in each case a rather particularly close association. Looked at in the
light of what has since happened, those questions would seem to refer to
the existence of some concealed passage from the house to the shore.
Miss Taverner gave me the best information on this point. Jane Heron
really knew nothing. Captain Taverner said his grandfather had mentioned
such a passage, but he had no idea where it was, and so he had told Mr.
Jacob. Lady Marian talked a great deal, but I really did not discover
that she knew anything. Florence Duke denied any knowledge, but admitted
to having been questioned by Mr. Jacob Taverner. She has not been
inclined for conversation, but when I put the question to her directly
she answered me. I am, however, very strongly of the opinion that she
was holding something back. I did not question Mr. Geoffrey Taverner.
His manner to me has been discourteous, and I did not think I should
gain anything by doing so.'

Frank Abbott drew up his legs, leaned forward, and put a log upon the
fire. He knew his Miss Silver tolerably well, and it wasn't like her to
flog a dead horse. He said, 'But Jacob Taverner knew all about the
passage to the shore. He took the whole party through it on the Saturday
night as soon as they had finished dinner. He showed it to us without
any hesitation, and we've been through it with the proverbial
tooth-comb. No contraband, no corpses. Not the least, furthest smell of
a clue.'

The fire blazed up. Miss Silver's needles caught the glow and flashed it
back. She said very composedly, 'I refer, of course, to the other
passage.'

There was a brief electric silence. Frank Abbott got to his feet
gracefully and without hurry. Standing against the mantelpiece and
looking down at her, he said with some accentuation of his usual manner.

'Would you mind saying that again?'

'My dear Frank, you heard me perfectly.'

'It was the mind that boggled, not the ear.'

'Pray bring your mind to bear upon the evidence. Since Jacob Taverner
was already aware of the passage leading from the cellars to the shore,
his questions cannot be taken as referring to it. But he did, either
directly or by implication, question four or five of the Taverner
cousins as to their knowledge of a secret passage. I believe he
questioned them all, but there is no evidence in the cases of Mr.
Geoffrey Taverner, John Higgins, or Albert Miller. These questions
cannot be taken to apply to the passage leading out of the cellars.'

'He might have wanted to find out if they knew about it.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'I believe not. The impression left upon my mind after hearing what
these people have to say, and especially after listening to Miss Mildred
Taverner, is that the entrance to this second passage is somewhere
upstairs. Miss Taverner's grandfather--he was Matthew, the second son of
old Jeremiah Taverner--told her that when he was a very little boy he
woke up frightened because he heard a noise. He went to see what it was,
and he saw a light coming out of a hole in the wall. He was dreadfully
frightened, and he ran away back to his bed and pulled the blankets over
his head.'

'Is that all?'

'That is all she could tell me.'

'He may have dreamed the whole thing.'

'It is, of course, possible, but I do not think so. It is the kind of
thing that a child would remember.'

Frank looked down meditatively into the fire.

'Interesting theory,' he said. 'Not of any immediate practical value
perhaps.' He bent down and carefully added another log. Then, as he
straightened up again, 'And what, after all this, are your views on
Jacob Taverner?'

She stopped knitting for a moment and looked at him very seriously
indeed.

'I am unable to make up my mind. There are, of course, two
possibilities. His father was old Jeremiah Taverner's eldest son, a
second Jeremiah. After his father's death he came in for the whole of
the family property, but he is said almost immediately to have severed
his connection with the Catherine-Wheel. I gather there was an
impression that a sale had taken place. But this was not the case. The
inn was leased.'

'Yes--March handed that on. There were two generations of Smiths, father
and son, and when the last one died the place reverted to Jacob
Taverner. Castell was already manager and he kept him on. The question
of course is, had the Taverner connection with the Catherine-Wheel ever
really ceased--did the smuggling trade still go on, with part of the
profits going to Jeremiah the second, and afterwards to his son
Jacob--have they continued during the last five years--and is Jacob an
active partner? That's what we're here to find out, isn't it?'

Miss Silver was knitting again. She said, 'Precisely.'

'Well, that brings us back to what do you think of Jacob Taverner?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'I have seen very little of him. Yesterday, as you know, he kept to his
room. Today he came down to lunch. He complains of the cold, and is said
to be suffering from a chill. He appears to me to have had a shock, but
so have we all. He may be implicated in the smuggling, but not in the
murder.'

'You think that?'

'No. I have not enough information to draw any conclusions. It is merely
a hypothesis which would account for the known facts. If he were
implicated in the smuggling, it would explain his desire to find out
whether his Taverner cousins were in a position to give away any
secrets. If there were two passages, one of which was very much more
important than the other, he might consider it well worth while to
sacrifice one of them by making it public property, and thus protect the
secrecy of the other. He would hope that any stories or rumours, whether
current locally or preserved by the family, would thus be laid to rest.
This would account for his getting the family together and making a
feature of displaying the passage from the cellars to the shore. It
will, of course, occur to you that Luke White may have been murdered in
order to preserve the secret of the other passage. If he knew of it, and
was using his knowledge to blackmail his associates, there would be no
need to look any further for a motive. I may say that I consider this
far more likely than the motive of jealousy insisted on by Inspector
Crisp.'

'It might be.'

'It is not possible at present to say whether Mr. Jacob Taverner is
implicated or not. He may be merely what he appears to be, an elderly
man with a great deal of money, no ties, and the desire to promote a
family reunion, perhaps with the intention of deciding upon the terms of
his will. He might have a financial interest in the Catherine-Wheel,
without any knowledge of its smuggling activities, if indeed these
exist. There is, of course, no proof that they do, only a good deal of
suspicion, and the suggestion that where there is smoke one would expect
to discover a fire.'

Frank stood up straight.

'In fact Jacob may be innocent, and so may the Catherine-Wheel. We've
got nasty suspicious minds, and we are apt to see what we are looking
for--as per my esteemed colleague Crisp. Well, we shall see.'

Miss Silver was folding up her knitting and putting it away. She now
rose to her feet.

'Just one moment, Frank. I would like you to have this carpet washed.'

'My dear Miss Silver!'

'Very carefully, of course. I should not, perhaps, have said washed. I
should like it to be examined very carefully, with a view to
ascertaining whether there are any bloodstains.'

'Bloodstains?'

'Recent ones, of course. The colour of the carpet and its dirty
condition would conceal them.'

He gazed at the floor. The square of carpet which covered it to within a
foot of the walls must originally have been of a deep brownish red with
a small all-over pattern now almost entirely lost in the general gloom.
He said slowly, 'Just what do you expect to find?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'Evidence that Luke White was killed in this room,' she said.




                               Chapter 31


Jeremy and Jane, returning to the Catherine-Wheel in a state of mind
blissfully superior to murder, were encountered by Miss Silver as they
opened the front door. She had, in fact, been listening for the sound of
the car.

'Just one moment, Captain Taverner,' she said.

They stood where they were, the door still open, until Miss Silver
stepped outside and shut it between them and the inn. It was then that
Jane came down to earth sufficiently to realise that Miss Silver was
attired for the road. She wore the black cloth coat, the elderly tippet,
the black felt hat, and the woollen gloves.

Without any delay she came to the point.

'Captain Taverner, I am going to ask you a favour. Will you be so kind
as to drive me in to Ledlington?'

Jeremy said, 'Of course.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'It is very good of you. I should prefer to start immediately if it
would be quite convenient. There is someone with whom I should like to
have a short conversation. I think I can undertake not to keep you
waiting more than twenty minutes. It might be less, but I think I can
promise that it will not be more.'

Jeremy laughed.

'Jane will hold my hand!'

Miss Silver sat at the back and smiled indulgently at the two young
people in front. She had, of course, been offered the seat beside the
driver, but her refusal had been definite.

'I should really greatly prefer to be behind. I find the headlights
disturbing.'

She sat in the dark and watched them go by. Not so very many after all.
It hardly needed the sudden flashing light to inform her that Jeremy and
Jane were sitting very close together, and that they were in a state of
extreme happiness. Neither of them would really mind if her conversation
with Mrs. Wilton were to last more than twenty minutes.

They drew up in Thread Street, with the old church of St. James looming
dark at the corner. Measuring the distance to No. 6 with her eye, Miss
Silver could well understand that the Wiltons need never be in doubt as
to the time. As she pressed the bell, the clock in the church tower gave
two chiming strokes for the half hour. Once you were accustomed to the
sound it would no longer rouse you, but if you were lying awake in the
night you would hardly fail to hear it.

The door was opened a little way. A dimly lighted passage appeared, and,
blocking most of the view, someone very tall and broad.

'Mrs. Wilton?'

'Yes.' The voice was firm and pleasant.

Miss Silver moved so that what light there was might fall reassuringly
upon her own face and figure.

'My name is Silver--Miss Maud Silver. You will not know it. I wonder if
I might have a very short conversation with you.'

Mrs. Wilton hesitated.

'If it's about a subscription--' she began.

'Oh, no--nothing of that sort, I assure you.'

The passage light enabled Mrs. Wilton to observe the smile which had won
so many confidences.

'It is just that I should be very grateful if you would allow me to talk
to you for a little about Albert Miller.'

For a moment the thing hung in the balance. If it hadn't been for Miss
Silver's smile, the scales would have gone down with a bang on the wrong
side and the door would have been shut. The momentary pause allowed a
variety of considerations to present themselves. Mrs. Wilton had her
share of curiosity, but if she had been expecting Mr. Wilton home to his
tea she would not have allowed it to interrupt her preparations. But Mr.
Wilton was working overtime and would not be home until eight o'clock.
She wouldn't mind a bit of a sit-down and a bit of a gossip. She opened
the door and asked Miss Silver in.

The room into which she showed her smelled of furniture-polish and
moth-balls. Except on occasions of state the Wiltons used their warm and
comfortable kitchen. The sitting-room existed as the shrine of their
respectability. It housed in unblemished splendour the suite bought
thirty years ago out of Mrs. Wilton's own earnings on the occasion of
her marriage. It consisted of a sofa and two chairs--lady's easy and
gent's ditto. The springs were intact, the bright blue plush as bright
and blue as on the day when she had proudly paid the bill. Moths had
been kept at bay by the cunning insertion of moth-balls in every
crevice--hence the smell. The carpet, contributed by Mr. Wilton, matched
the suite in colour and had been just as carefully kept. There was a
white woolly mat in front of the cold hearth, where a fan of pink
crinkled paper faintly simulated an absent flame. There were two blue
vases on the mantelpiece, and a gilt clock which had at one time been a
source of strife in an otherwise harmonious married life, Mrs. Wilton
having bought it cheap at an auction because it took her fancy, and Mr.
Wilton having used it as the text for a good many heavy-handed sermons
when he discovered that it had no works. Everything in the room was
spotlessly clean, and anything that could be polished had been polished
until you could see your face in it. There were pink curtains at the bow
window, and a gas-bracket with a pink glass shade on either side of the
mantelpiece. At the application of a match to the nearest bracket all
this colour and polish sprang into view.

Miss Silver, who shared Mrs. Wilton's partiality for pink and blue, and
had no objection to seeing them mixed, was able to exclaim with genuine
admiration, 'But what a charming room! So comfortable, so tasteful!'

Mrs. Wilton swelled with pride. She would at once have detected a
feigned appreciation, but this was the genuine thing. She was not one to
show her feelings, but she warmed to the visitor.

They sat down, Miss Silver in the lady's easy, and Mrs. Wilton in the
gent's ditto. Under the pink shaded gaslight she appeared as a massively
built woman with a fine head of grey hair. She had on a flowered overall
which allowed glimpses of a brown stuff dress. Her whole appearance was
that of a person who respected herself and expected others to respect
her. Miss Silver surveyed her thoughtfully. Not the woman to gossip
easily, or perhaps at all. She said, 'It is very good of you to let me
talk to you about Albert Miller, Mrs. Wilton.'

There was a slight perceptible stiffening.

'If it's anything to do with his wanting the room again it isn't a bit
of good. I wouldn't have him back, nor I wouldn't ask my husband. We put
up with it long enough--too long, if it comes to that. And I wouldn't
have done it if it hadn't been for knowing his mother, poor thing.'

'Is she alive?'

Mrs. Wilton shook her head.

'Dead these ten years. She'd a bad husband that she couldn't stand up to
nor yet leave like I'd have done. And 'twas for her sake I took Albert
in when he come out of the army, and put up with him when by rights I
shouldn't have done. But we've had too much of him, Mr. Wilton and me,
and we're not taking him back. Getting too big for his boots and talking
about what a lot of money he was going to have--and where it was coming
from, dear knows, for he wasn't going to keep his job the way he was
carrying on, and Millers never had anything that I heard tell about.'

'He must have been a very trying lodger.'

Mrs. Wilton looked majestic.

'Coming in all hours,' she said. 'And the Worse. And no thought to wipe
his boots on the mat.'

Miss Silver said, 'Dear me! How extremely inconsiderate!'

'We're not taking him back,' said Mrs. Wilton with gloomy finality.

Miss Silver coughed.

'No one could possibly expect you to do so. I can assure you that I am
not here to question your decision. As I said before, he must have been
a most trying inmate, but since you knew his mother and have spoken of
her so kindly you would not wish any harm to come to him--would you?'

Mrs. Wilton bridled.

'I'm sure I'm not one to wish harm to come to anyone,' she said.

'Then I may tell you that I am seriously concerned about Albert Miller.
It would help me very much if you would tell me just what happened on
the Saturday night before he left you.'

For the moment there was no reply. Mrs. Wilton produced a rather
portentous frown. She let the best part of a minute go by before she
said, 'I'm not one to beat about the bush. I'm going to ask you right
out what it's got to do with you.'

Miss Silver smiled.

'I did not know Albert Miller, but I know some of his relations. I am
concerned as to what may have happened to him. I should like to know his
present whereabouts, and I should like to ask him a few questions. That
is all. Now will you tell me about Saturday night?'

Mrs. Wilton said slowly, 'There's nothing to tell.'

'Then it would be soon told, and you could do no harm by telling it.'

There was another frowning pause. Then Mrs. Wilton said, 'What do you
want to know?'

'I should like you to tell me just what happened from the time he came
home on Saturday night till the time he left on Sunday morning.'

Mrs. Wilton pursed her lips.

'Well, there's no harm in that, and it's soon told, as you say. He come
home just before half past eleven, and he was the worse for drink,
banging on the door and singing a song about that girl Eily he's been
running after--out at the Catherine-Wheel. Never heard such a noise in
my life. We were in bed, but Mr. Wilton wouldn't go to sleep till he
heard him come in. He needn't have troubled--there was enough noise to
wake the dead.'

'Did Mr. Wilton go down to let him in?'

The massive head was shaken.

'We'd left the door, but after Al got upstairs Mr. Wilton went down and
locked it. We were both properly fed up, and we'd made up our minds
about giving him his notice. What with him coming in like that and the
noise that was going on overhead, we'd had enough. Mr. Wilton called up
the stair to tell him so. And the language he got back! I had to put my
fingers in my ears! Mr. Wilton come back into the room and said, "That's
the last of him. Says I didn't need to give him notice, because he was
getting out anyhow--and getting out of the place." And then he went down
and locked the front door and brought away the key because Al owed us a
week's money and it wouldn't be right to let him go off without paying
it.'

Miss Silver interrupted with her slight cough.

'Would there be any light in the hall, or on the stairs?'

Mrs. Wilton pursed her lips.

'We've lived thirty years in this house. Mr. Wilton don't need any light
to go up and down.'

'But Albert Miller--he would not know the house so well as Mr. Wilton.'

'Uses a torch!' said Mrs. Wilton contemptuously. 'Nasty flickering
things--I can't abide them!'

'Did your husband see him when he went upstairs?'

Mrs. Wilton stared.

'Saw him, and heard him--shouting about this Eily, and shining his torch
into Mr. Wilton's eyes till he was pretty near blinded!'

Miss Silver said,

'Most inconsiderate and disagreeable.'

Mrs. Wilton achieved a magnificent toss of the head.

'_And_ kept me awake best part of the night, bumping, and groaning, and
making the bed creak.'

'Dear me!'

'And first thing in the morning down he comes and bangs on the door. Mr.
Wilton calls out to him he won't get the key till he pays up what he
owes us. Al says he's got it ready, and he won't be coming back, and Mr.
Wilton says, "Not much you won't!" So then he lights the candle and goes
over to the bedroom door and opens it just enough to take the money me
being still in bed. And he counts it, and it's all right. And Al says
he's giving the railway the sack and he'll send for his things when he
gets another job. So then Mr. Wilton gives him the key to let himself
out. And that's the last we saw of him.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'When you say _saw_, Mrs. Wilton--it would be quite dark in the
passage?'

Mrs. Wilton nodded.

'He'd got his torch,' she said, 'Swinging it about like I told you. Put
Mr. Wilton's back up properly.'

'Did Mr. Wilton take the candle over to the door?'

Mrs. Wilton stared.

'He hadn't any call to. Took the money and brought it across to me to
count, and then back with the key. He'd no call to take the candle, nor
to stand at the door with the draught blowing in and that nasty torch in
his eyes.'




                               Chapter 32


Miss Silver sat silent in the back of the car until they had passed
through Cliff. Then she leaned forward and spoke.

'Captain Taverner, would it be trespassing too much on your kindness if
I were to ask you to take me up to Cliff House? I would like to speak to
Inspector Abbott.'

Jeremy said, 'Of course.' And then, 'We had tea with Jack Challoner, you
know. Abbott wasn't there then, but of course he may have come in
since.'

Frank Abbott had not come in. Matthews stood there waiting. Miss Silver
addressed herself to Jeremy.

'Sir John Challoner is a friend of yours. Do you think he would allow me
to use the telephone? I would rather not use the instrument at the inn.'

Jeremy went into the house and came out again with a large red-headed
young man, whom he introduced. Miss Silver was inducted to the study and
left there with the telephone and the only fire, whilst the others
shivered in the hall and Jeremy brightened the proceedings by announcing
that he and Jane were engaged.

The number called by Miss Silver was Ledlington police station. A hearty
male voice responded. Yes, Inspector Abbott was there. He was in
conference with Inspector Crisp and the Superintendent. He didn't know
know--

Miss Silver said in a peremptory manner, 'Would you tell him that Miss
Silver would like to speak to him.'

At the other end of the line Frank Abbott was not sorry to exchange his
present society for that of Miss Silver. He found that a little of Crisp
went a long way, and had most regrettably summed up the Superintendent
as a pompous bullfrog. It was not in his nature to suffer pomposity with
resignation.

Just behind in the adjoining room Crisp and Superintendent Johnson heard
him say, 'Hullo!' and then, 'Yes, it's me. What can I do for you?'

Following on this he said at irregular intervals, 'Florence Duke--yes, I
could.... Well as you say--I shouldn't think there would be any
difficulty.... No, I shouldn't think so.... Well, I'll put it to him....
All right. Goodbye.'

Miss Silver rang off, thanked her temporary host in the most gracious
manner, and again relapsed into silence at the back of the car.

As she stepped into the narrow entrance of the Catherine-Wheel, someone
had just set foot upon the stairs. She had the impression that this
person had come from the direction of the dining-room, but so newly from
the dark, and with the lamplight in her eyes, she could not be certain.
She thought that there had been a movement from left to right across the
hall, but she could not be certain. By the time her eyes were really
serving her clearly the person whom she had seen had mounted to the
third or fourth step.

Miss Silver came out into the hall and recognised Florence Duke. A most
vexatious theory which would explain Mrs. Duke's presence in the
dining-room presented itself. She had particularly asked--she had made
it quite plain--it really would be very vexatious indeed.

She mounted the stairs with more than her usual briskness and came up
with Florence Duke on the landing. With a slight preliminary cough she
observed that she had been out and had rather forgotten the time.

'I hope that I am not late, I should be glad to change my dress before
dinner.'

In the light of the wall-lamp Florence Duke turned a ghastly face. Fear
sat naked in her eyes. Almost involuntarily Miss Silver took her by the
arm.

'Mrs. Duke--are you not well? I am afraid you have had a shock.'

The pale lips twitched. A sound like an echo came from them.

'A shock--'

'Were you talking on the telephone?'

Florence stared with the wide, blank eyes of a sleepwalker. The echo
came again.

'The telephone--'

Miss Silver said firmly, 'You are unwell. Let me help you to your room.'

This was no conversation to hold on the open landing for anyone to hear.
She got Florence Duke into her room and shut the door.

'What is it? Can I help you?'

The big woman went across to the washstand, tipped half a jug of cold
water into the basin, and stooped down to plunge her face into it. She
came up gasping, to do it again, and yet again. Then she took the rough
bath-towel and scrubbed herself dry. Cold water, rubbing, and time to
catch at her self-control--between them they worked wonders. The
dreadful bluish look was gone from her face and some of the natural
colour had come back. She said in something very like her ordinary
voice, 'Just one of my turns--I have them sometimes. I'll be all right
now.' Then, after a good long breath, 'We haven't got too much time if
we're going to change.'

'You feel able to come down?'

'I'm going to.' She laughed without merriment. 'Do you suppose the old
man will stand us champagne? I could do with it.'

Ten minutes later Miss Silver descended the stairs. She had changed into
her last summer's dress, which like the one she had been wearing every
day, was of a dark olive-green in colour but distressingly patterned in
a kind of morse code of orange dots and dashes. There were hints of
other colours too, but on the whole the orange had it. Nothing could
have been less becoming. The bog-oak brooch reposed upon her bosom. She
also wore an extremely ancient black velvet coatee--most warm and
comfortable--without which she never ventured upon a country visit. In
her experience country houses, especially old country houses, were apt
to be cold and draughty in the extreme. The gong having sounded when she
was halfway down the stairs, she joined the rest of the party on their
way to the dining-room.

They were all seated before Florence Duke appeared, looking very much as
she had looked all that day and the day before. She could not have known
how closely she was being observed. If she had, it would perhaps have
made no difference, since she was already making the maximum effort at
self-control. On three separate occasions when she discovered her hand
to be shaking she dropped it quickly to her lap. Miss Silver, facing her
across the table, missed nothing of this. There was, in fact, very
little that she did miss in the behaviour of any one of the Taverners.

Jacob was in his place. He had an old, frustrated look. The likeness to
a sick monkey was painful. He had Marian Thorpe-Ennington on his right
and Mildred Taverner on his left. Lady Marian talked uninterruptedly
from one end of the meal to the other, and everyone was grateful to her
for doing so. She told them all about her French mother-in-law who was,
to put it mildly, eccentric.

'Absolutely _nothing_ but high-heeled slippers with pink feather
trimming and a diamond hair-band which used to belong to
Josephine--really too embarrassing. And one never knew where one was
going to meet her--it was such a rambling old chteau--oubliettes and
all that sort of thing. Of course the servants were trained to look the
other way.'

Florence Duke stopped crumbling a piece of bread and said in a voice
louder than she meant it to be, 'What is an oubliette?'

Marian Thorpe-Ennington was only too pleased to explain.

'All those old places had them. There was a story about one at Rathlea,
but we never found it. The one at Ren's place was quite horrid. You
pulled out a bolt, and a bit of the floor gave way and let your enemy
down into a frightful sort of cesspool. Of course it's been drained and
all that--and I believe there were quite a lot of bones. But I don't
think the French are very thorough about that sort of thing, and I never
really fancied living there, what with Eglantine being quite mad and
there being no money to keep anything up, so perhaps it is a good thing
we didn't have any children. Though of course it was a frightful tragedy
when Ren crashed, and I thought I should never get over it.'

She looked down the table and kissed her fingertips to Freddy
Thorpe-Ennington.

'Freddy, my sweet, do you remember how absolutely crushed I was? I know
I never thought I should marry again. But perhaps it was all for the
best, if it hadn't been for Freddy's father's pickle factory crashing
too.'

Jacob surveyed her with just a hint of his old sardonic amusement.

'What you want is someone to leave you a fortune, isn't it?'

She could not have agreed in a more whole-hearted manner.

'Of course my first husband ought to have left me his, but most of it
went to his secretary, a perfect frump. Shattering--wasn't it?'

Mildred Tavener was fingering her Venetian beads. She said in a low
hurried voice, more as if she was talking to herself than to anyone
else, 'Oubliette--_oublier_--that's French for forget--at least I think
it is--I never was good at languages, and my French is very rusty. I
suppose it means they went down that hole and were forgotten--' She gave
a sharp involuntary shiver. 'Oh, that's horrid! I hope I shan't dream
about it.'

Marian Thorpe-Ennington glided into the full history of Freddy's
courtship.

When everyone had left the dining-room Miss Silver watched her
opportunity for a word with Eily. She managed to intercept her coming
through with the coffee-tray.

'Eily, is there an extension to the telephone?'

'In the pantry there is--for my uncle to use.'

'Is he in there now?'

Eily looked surprised.

'A moment ago he was--putting away the silver. But you could telephone
in the dining-room, Miss Silver. There's nobody there.'

Miss Silver returned to the lounge. Presently, when she saw Castell come
in, she slipped across to the dining-room and called up Cliff House.
Matthews, answering the call, was requested to deliver a message to Mr.
Abbott--Miss Silver would like to speak to him.

Mr. Abbott was produced. The first tones of Miss Silver's voice informed
him that she had reason to suppose that caution was necessary. The fact
that she was ringing up at all made it clear that she had something
important to say. It became immediately apparent that she required
answers to two questions.

'I have something to ask you--two things in fact. The request I made of
you before you left the hotel this afternoon--have you done anything
about it?'

'Well, there was a bit of obstruction, now overcome by my well-known
tact. I'll get on with it bright and early tomorrow. That all?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'By no means. I made a second request to you later. Was that acceded
to?'

'Yes.'

'I requested that no communication should be made till the morning, but
I have reason to believe--'

'I know. But I couldn't stop him. I'm sorry.'

She said, 'It was a mistake. I hope--'

As she said this last word she heard a faint unmistakable click. The
receiver on the extension had been lifted. She continued quite smoothly
and with no perceptible pause, 'You will give my love when you write,
and say I always take the greatest interest? Goodbye.'

Frank Abbott had also heard the click, and was able to applaud his Miss
Silver's presence of mind.

As he rang off at his end he considered the points which she had raised.
Crisp had been very sticky about the carpet--sticky and fussy. He didn't
want a row, and he didn't want to do the job himself without a witness.
It occurred to him that Crisp would hate to have his neat presentment of
the case upset. The inquest was set for eleven-thirty. If they were
going to find bloodstains on the carpet in Castell's study, the case to
be served up wouldn't be neat at all but highly complicated. Because if
Luke White hadn't been killed where he was found, all the bits of
evidence about Eily and Florence Duke coming down and finding him would
go by the board. Instead of the murder being a sudden affair of passion
it would become a carefully premeditated crime almost certainly
involving more than one person. No, Crisp wouldn't be a bit keen on
those bloodstains. He wasn't really keen on them himself, but they would
have to be looked for, and before the inquest opened. As to Miss
Silver's second question, he had done his best to prevent Crisp ringing
the Duke woman up. His best hadn't been good enough, and that was that.

He dwelt for some time on the implications of this second question. The
affaire Duke had its possibilities. He went on considering them.




                               Chapter 33


Coming back into the lounge, Miss Silver took particular note of the
occupants. All the Taverner cousins were there, but Mr. Castell was not.
She took a chair and got out her knitting. Little Josephine's dress was
now a complete skirt and bodice, and she was halfway down the left
sleeve. She had chosen a chair beside Florence Duke. After a moment or
two she remarked, 'It's for my niece, Mrs. Burkett's little girl. She
had three boys already, so they were of course delighted when Josephine
was born. Such a pretty child, and so good.'

Florence Duke had been staring in front of her. She shifted her gaze now
and focused it upon the bright blue dress.

'I like kids--I'd have liked to have some. But you never know your
luck--I expect it's as well I didn't. He wasn't any sort of father to
have in the house with children, and he wouldn't have changed. Bad all
through, Luke was. There aren't many you can say that about, but it's
true about Luke.'

Miss Silver went on knitting. She said very kindly, 'Marriage can be a
most unhappy state. It is very hard on the woman when it turns out that
way.'

There was a sombre spark in the big dark eyes.

'I'll say it is--' She made a heavy pause, and then brought out more
words in the slow, deliberate way she had. 'The worst is you can't get
rid of it. There was a gentleman I used to know when I was at the
George--partner in a firm of solicitors--I came across him again after
Luke went off. He wanted me to see about a divorce, but I wouldn't.
"I've had enough of being married," I told him, "and I won't want to do
it again. And as far as it goes for _him_, I'm not letting him loose to
marry some other poor girl." He said, "You'll think better of it,
Floss," but I said, "No," and I haven't.' She gave herself a sort of
jerk. 'I don't know why I'm talking to you like this.'

Miss Silver's needles clicked.

'If you keep everything to yourself, things come to weigh too heavily,'
she said.

Florence Duke nodded.

'That's right--like a ton weight, till you don't feel you can get your
breath. Seems you've got to get some of it off your chest.'

There was a short silence. Then the slow speech began again.

'There's things you can't forget--you'd like to, but you can't--they
come back on you.' She gave another of those jerks and got up. 'I'm
talking too much. I don't know what's got into me. What do you say we
have some more coffee? I'll take your cup and see what's left.'

She went across to the coffee-table, and as she did so, Geoffrey
Taverner came strolling over with his cup in his hand. He took the chair
upon Miss Silver's other side and said in his pleasantest voice, 'May I
come and talk to you for a little? I should like to thank you for being
so kind to my sister.'

Miss Silver would have been justified in showing some surprise. As she
had informed Frank Abbott, Mr. Taverner's manner had not hitherto
commended itself, or him. It had, indeed, conveyed the opinion that she
was a negligible dowdy person and a meddler. Now quite suddenly all was
changed--she was being addressed with courtesy and deference. She
replied with rather more than her usual sobriety.

'You need not thank me, Mr. Taverner.'

He was looking at her in an earnest way.

'Oh, but I do. Mildred is so very highly strung. She has not, if I may
speak frankly--well, she has not a very stable mentality.'

Miss Silver said, 'Dear me!'

Geoffrey became explanatory.

'You mustn't think--I didn't mean to imply--I'm afraid what I said might
give you a wrong impression. I really didn't intend to convey more than
that she is highly strung and not well fitted to undergo a strain. To be
in the house where a murder is committed is naturally a shock. I have
noticed that you have a calming and reassuring effect upon my sister,
and I want you to know that I am grateful.'

Miss Silver coughed.

'Thank you, Mr. Taverner.'

He finished the coffee in his cup and set it down.

'Mildred has always been nervous,' he said. 'Fortunately the friend who
lives with her is a cheerful, sensible woman. I may say that I was not
at all anxious for this invitation to be accepted, but she has always
been fanciful about the old place--from a child she would make up
stories and act them--and when I advised her to stay quietly at home she
became so excited that I thought it would really be best to let her
come. In fact I do not think that I could have prevented her. Like all
nervous people she can be extremely obstinate.' He heaved an exasperated
sigh. 'It is a combination which can be very difficult to deal with.'

Miss Silver agreed with him.

He sighed again in a resigned manner.

'Oh, well, I suppose we shall all be allowed to go home tomorrow as soon
as the inquest is over. Do you happen to know whether that is so?'

Miss Silver turned the bright blue knitting in her lap.

'I really do not know, but I should think there would be no objection.
Neither you nor Miss Taverner are in a position to do more than
corroborate what other witnesses have said.'

He gazed at her earnestly.

'My sister is not likely to be called as a witness, Inspector Crisp
tells me, but he said she had better attend. If you would add to your
kindness by sitting with her--' He met her thoughtful gaze with a quick
attractive smile. For a moment his rather priggish manner gave way
sufficiently to permit some genuine feeling to appear. 'If I may say so,
she has come to--well, rely on you.'

Miss Silver said, 'I shall be pleased to do what I can. But there is
surely no need for Miss Taverner to be nervous.'

Geoffrey shook his head.

'No--no--of course not. But a person of her temperament doesn't need a
reason for being nervous, and you undoubtedly have a calming effect. I
just thought that I would like to express my gratitude, and to ask
whether you would sit with her tomorrow. It will relieve her mind very
much if I can tell her that you will do so.'

'By all means, Mr. Taverner.'

She watched him go over to his sister and take the vacant seat beside
her. Knitting as she did in the continental manner, it was possible for
her to make rapid progress with little Josephine's left sleeve whilst
continuing her observation of what was going on in the room. She saw
Mildred Taverner look uneasily at her brother as he approached and then
brighten up and send a glance in her own direction, after which only an
occasional remark appeared to pass between them. Miss Taverner, she
considered, would have been the better for a piece of good plain
knitting to occupy her hands. It was, of course, indicative of her
nervous state that she seemed unable to keep them still. They plucked at
the stuff of her dress, they twitched, they jerked, they fidgeted with
those unbecoming bright blue beads, with the old-fashioned gold chain.
They were not still for a moment.

After some half dozen remarks at widely spaced intervals Geoffrey got up
and drifted over to the fire, where he presently engaged in conversation
with Jacob Taverner, who was doing a cross-word puzzle. In a short time
they appeared to be doing it together.

As Florence Duke came back with fresh hot coffee, Mildred got up and
came to join them, fluttering and uncertain.

'Would you mind.... Oh, that is very kind of you! It makes one feel so
nervous sitting alone. Not you, of course, because you are not like
that. Oh, no--no coffee, thanks. I'm afraid it might keep me awake.' She
addressed Florence Duke. 'You don't find it does?'

Florence Duke looked at her as if she were seeing something else. She
said with a sort of slow finality, 'It isn't coffee that would keep me
awake.'

At ten o'clock they went upstairs together. Their rooms were next to
each other along the right-hand passage, Miss Silver nearest the stairs,
then Florence Duke, and beyond her Mildred Taverner.

Florence went straight into her room, but Mildred lingered, her door
half open, the knob in her hand, as if she could not make up her mind to
go in.

'Perhaps this is our last night here. Oh, I do hope so--don't you?' And
then, 'You are so very kind--I wonder if you would just stand at the
door whilst I look in the cupboard and under the bed. I always do it at
home--not that I think there will be anyone, but it just gives me a more
comfortable feeling. And my friend comes with me, because of course if
there should be anyone there, or--or anything, I don't really know what
I should do.' She drew a long breath. 'There was a very large spider
once, and I have never been any good about spiders.' Her head poked and
her long nose twitched.

Miss Silver came briskly to the door and opened it wide.

'I do not suppose for a moment that there will be any spiders,' she said
with her slight dry cough.

There was neither a spider nor a cockroach, there was not even a
concealed miscreant. With a sigh of relief Mildred Taverner said
goodnight all over again and locked the door on the inside.

Miss Silver went into her own room, where she took off her watch, which
she wound, and her bog-oak brooch. She then stood for a few moments in
thought, and had just begun to cross the room in the direction of the
door, when there was a light tap upon it. In response to her 'Come in!'
Eily appeared, carrying four hot-water bottles.

Miss Silver was so used to her own that she took it from Eily without
having any thoughts about it at all, but she felt that she could at once
allocate the other three to their respective owners. Very fine white
rubber in a white satin bag with pale green quilting could not possibly
belong to anyone but Lady Marian. Bright blue with no cover at all
would, she thought, be Jane Heron's. But the last one? There were two
more ladies and only one bottle, a rather battered specimen with a
washed-out flannel cover. It might belong either to Florence Duke, or to
Mildred Taverner. It took her only a moment to decide. Florence Duke
might have owned one as shabby, but both it and its cover would have
started life in some gayer shade. With hardly any perceptible pause she
was asking Eily.

'Does Mrs. Duke not have a bottle?'

'Oh, yes, Miss Silver. But I saw her go over to the bathroom, so I
thought I'd slip it in and get rid of it. It's a red one. Fortunately
they're all different. Sometimes it's a job not to get them mixed--and
that's a thing nobody likes.'

'No--I suppose not.'

Miss Silver had placed her own bottle inside the turned-down bed. She
now went over to the door and closed it.

Eily watched, three bottles in her arms and a look of surprise on her
face. She was to be still more surprised. Miss Silver said, 'Where are
you sleeping, Eily?'

'In my own room.'

'I think it would be better if you were to sleep with Miss Heron
tonight.'

The dark blue eyes were fixed on her in a look between wonder and fear.

'But, Miss Silver--'

'I think it would be best. I advise you very strongly to ask Miss Heron
to let you share her room.'

Eily shook her head.

'My uncle wouldn't like it.'

'I do not see why he should know.'

There was an odd fleeting look before the lashes fell.

'There isn't much my uncle doesn't get to know.' Then, more quickly,
'And what's the need? It was Luke I was afraid of--and he's gone.'

'Eily--'

She shook her head again.

'My uncle wouldn't like it at all. If you please, Miss Silver--the
bottles will be getting cold.'

Miss Silver moved away from the door. She was satisfied upon one point,
but seriously uneasy upon another. She saw Eily go out of the room, and
waited with her door ajar for Florence Duke to return from the bathroom.

As soon as she heard what she was listening for she looked out into the
passage.

'Mrs. Duke--if I might have just a word with you--'

Florence came across with a slow, unwilling step. She had taken off her
dress and was wearing her outdoor coat in place of a dressing-gown. Her
face, stripped bare of make-up, had a sagged, unhappy look, the lines
from nose to mouth accentuated, the colour in cheeks and lips dull and
lifeless. She said heavily, 'I just want to get into bed and sleep.'

Miss Silver shut the door.

'I will not keep you. There are one or two things I could not say
downstairs, where there was a risk that we might be overheard. Inspector
Crisp rang you up this evening, did he not?'

'What if he did?'

'He asked you to give evidence at the inquest tomorrow?'

Florence said heavily, 'What if he did?'

'Mrs. Duke, is there no one in this house who might be concerned to
prevent you from giving that evidence?'

'Why should they?'

'Do you not know of a reason?'

She stared down at the bath-towel she was carrying. It hung on her right
arm, but she had slipped her left hand under it too. It hid both her
hands. She stared at it with hidden eyes. A moment passed before she
said, 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Do you not?'

The eyes were lifted. They were angry now.

'Let me alone, can't you! What has it got to do with you?'

Miss Silver said very quietly and steadily, 'I am concerned for your
safety, Mrs. Duke. Will you please listen to me for a moment?'

The anger flickered and died down.

'What do you want?'

Miss Silver said, 'You have been asked to give certain evidence. I do
not know what that evidence will be, but I can think of circumstances in
which it might prove dangerous to people who have already shown that
they will stick at nothing. I would like you to consider whether you
might not be in danger, and whether it would not be safer for you to
spend the night elsewhere.'

Florence Duke looked past her.

'I don't know what you mean.'

As if she had not spoken, Miss Silver continued.

'I would like to ask Captain Taverner to take you to Cliff House, where
Inspector Abbott is staying. He would, I am sure, arrange for you to be
accommodated.'

Florence Duke gave a sudden laugh as far removed from merriment as it
well could be.

'Cliff House? Me--at this time of the night? I suppose you think I
haven't got a character to lose--going to stay with two young men, and
one of them in the police! No, thank you!'

'Mrs. Duke--'

Florence put a hand on her shoulder.

'Look here, you mean well, I grant you that, but this isn't your
business. And I don't know what you're talking about neither, and if I
did I wouldn't care. Get that--I wouldn't care! If someone was to bring
me a good glass of poison this minute, I'd just as soon drink it and be
done with everything! So you can stop your hinting about my being in
danger! I don't care if I am! Do you get that? I don't give a damn!'

Miss Silver looked at her with compassion. There was a moment when their
eyes met, a moment when things hung in the balance. The hand on Miss
Silver's shoulder weighed heavily. It shook a little, and then it was
withdrawn. Florence Duke said with a catch in her voice, 'Oh, well,
it'll be all the same a hundred years hence.'

Then she turned and went out of the room and into her own, and shut the
door.




                               Chapter 34


Miss Silver waited for what she was hoping to hear, the sound of a key
being turned in the lock of the door which was next to her own. It was
turned roughly and with no attempt at concealment. To all whom it might
concern, Florence Duke had locked herself in for the night. Miss Silver
experienced a decided feeling of relief. She had no desire to sit up all
night, but if that door had not been locked, she might have felt herself
obliged to do so. As it was, she felt quite sure that by setting her
door ajar she would at once become aware of any attempt to tamper with
the lock of Mrs. Duke's room. The mere fact that her own door was ajar
would act as a deterrent.

She undressed, put on her dressing-gown, and went across to the bathroom
to wash, taking her towel with her. There was a faint pleasant scent in
the passage. The light from a small wall-lamp disclosed the fact that
powder had been spilled upon the carpet. The scent was agreeable and not
too insistent. It suggested an expensive beauty-shop and Lady Marian.
The bathroom smelled of it too. It required no great powers of deduction
to assume that Marian Thorpe-Ennington had taken a bath and had spilled
some of her powder as she came or went.

Her ablutions over, Miss Silver crossed the passage again, drew a blue
crochet shawl about her shoulders, and sitting up in bed, reached for
her old shabby Bible. It was her custom to read a portion of Scripture
before she slept. As she opened the book, the yellow candlelight fell
upon the psalm in which David prays to be delivered from Saul and Doeg:

'The proud have laid a snare for me and cords; they have spread a net by
the wayside; they have set gins for me.'

The words appeared to her to be almost too appropriate. She turned the
leaves in search of a more consoling passage.

She did not put out her light for quite a long time. With her door some
six inches open, sounds came to her from the other rooms, from the well
of the stairs. Footsteps crossed the landing, entered the passage on the
farther side, and passed out of hearing. The murmur of voices from the
Thorpe-Enningtons' room died away. Midnight and silence were in the
house. She blew out her candle and fell into a light sleep. The smallest
sound would have roused her. Even without being aware of such a sound
she was never far from consciousness. When the old wall-clock downstairs
struck each of the hours between twelve and seven she was at once fully
awake and, waking, was aware only of sleep in the house and the silence
gathering.

At seven the footsteps came again, a long way off in the passage on the
other side of the landing--doors opening, the distant sound of voices.
Eily and the Castells were up. Miss Silver got up too. She went over to
the bathroom to wash, as she had done the night before, and was pleased
to find that the water was still warm.

Before she came back into her own room she very gently tried the handle
of Florence Duke's door. It was still locked. She completed her dressing
with a feeling of satisfaction. The night was safely over, and within
the next few hours the inquest would be over too and Florence Duke's
evidence would have been placed on record. Alone in her room, she
admitted to herself that it would be very pleasant indeed to get back to
her comfortable flat, and to the ministrations of her devoted Hannah.

By eight o'clock others were stirring. There was some competition for
the bathroom. Jane Heron came out of her room looking fresh and
blooming. She ran downstairs humming a tune, and Jeremy joined her.
Mildred Taverner appeared next, pale, nervous, and not sure whether she
ought to wear her blue beads to an inquest. Miss Silver's door being
half open, she knocked upon it and came in to invite an opinion.

'I shall have my coat on and a scarf, so I don't suppose they will show,
but if it should be very hot--at the inquest, I mean--I should want to
open my coat--I always do get hot when I'm nervous--and perhaps take the
scarf off too, and then the beads would show. Of course the scarf is a
coloured one, but I haven't any black, and I couldn't be expected to
know that anyone was going to be murdered.' The tip of her long, pale
nose became quite pink with agitation. 'It really is so difficult,
because I shouldn't like anyone to think I was heartless, and in a sort
of way I suppose you might say he was a cousin.'

Miss Silver said in a kind, firm voice, 'I am sure no one would think
that you were heartless, but if it made you feel any more comfortable,
you could leave the beads in a drawer and put them on again after the
inquest is over.'

Mildred Taverner's nose became a much deeper pink. Her agitation was
sensibly increased.

'Oh, but I wear them always. I shouldn't like to leave them here, not
with things like murders happening. I really couldn't bear it if--you
see, they were given to me by such a very dear friend--such a _very_
dear friend--and he is dead, and I have always worn them. We weren't
exactly engaged, but he gave me the beads.'

Miss Silver said briskly, 'Then I should wear them.'

The door was still open to the passage. It really was a relief that Lady
Marian should come out of her room at this moment, since, without some
interruption, it seemed quite possible that Mildred Taverner might
continue to discuss her qualms indefinitely. Unfortunately the sight of
Lady Marian in a beautifully cut black town suit had anything but a
calming effect. She gazed at the white crepe blouse, the two rows of
pearls, the small black hat, and the slimming elegance of the coat and
skirt with a feeling akin to despair. So smart, so suitable, so
completely beyond her reach. She resigned herself, but the feeling of
inferiority sank deep and added to the chronic uncertainty with which
she contemplated the problem of living.

Lady Marian was in excellent looks and spirits. She had enjoyed nearly
ten hours of refreshing sleep, and by lunchtime the Catherine-Wheel and
its unpleasant happenings would have gone to join all those other past
events which served her as an inexhaustible source of anecdote. Even the
fact that Freddy with another painful business meeting before him was in
a state of suicidal depression raised no more than a ripple upon the
surface of her mind. She showed, in fact, some zest in explaining how
low he was. 'But, as I said to him, "Something always does turn up, and
as to being ruined, well, who isn't? And I can't see it makes any
difference whether the creditors have your money, because it all goes in
income tax anyhow, and when you haven't got any more they do have to
stop, so we shan't have to go on filling up any more of those dreadful
forms." '

Miss Silver, who was nearest to the door, had not been attending very
closely to these remarks. From where she stood she could see the landing
and the top of the stairs.

At this moment Eily came round the corner carrying three or four pairs
of shoes newly cleaned. She put Jane Heron's inside her room, Lady
Marian's and Freddy Thorpe-Ennington's beside their door, and then
crossed over with the remaining pair in her hand--shabby patent leather
with bulging toes and exaggerated heels. She had put them down at
Florence Duke's door and was straightening up again, when Miss Silver
stepped into the passage and addressed her.

'Just knock on the door, Eily, and see whether Mrs. Duke is up.'

Eily tapped on the panel, waited for a moment, and tapped again. When
there was no reply she looked round at Miss Silver in a hesitating
manner.

'Do you think she is asleep?'

Miss Silver stepped forward, put her hand on the knob of the door, and
turned it gently. The door was locked, as it had been when she tried it
last. She knocked herself this time, so loudly that Mildred Taverner and
Marian Thorpe-Ennington came out into the passage to see what was going
on. But from behind that locked door there was neither voice nor answer.

Miss Silver turned from it, her face grave.

'I am afraid that there must be something wrong. I think, Eily, that you
had better fetch Mr. Castell.'

Eily looked scared.

'Should I just take a look through the keyhole?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'The key will be in the lock--'

But Eily was already stooping down.

'But it isn't,' she said. 'I can see right over to the bed.... Oh, Miss
Silver, she isn't there--it's not been slept in!'

'Can you see any sign of Mrs. Duke?'

'Oh, no, I can't! There's the bed turned down--like I left it--'

Miss Silver said in a quiet voice, 'Go and fetch your uncle.'

As they stood waiting, Geoffrey Taverner came along the opposite passage
from his room and crossed the landing to join them.

'Is anything wrong, Miss Silver?'

'I am afraid that there may be. I think you had better take your sister
away.'

But Mildred refused to go--or at any rate no farther than Miss Silver's
room, where she sat trembling on the edge of the bed and shed weak,
forlorn tears. They dripped upon the Venetian beads, and so down into
her lap as she listened whilst Castell enquired of all and sundry why
heaven should be thus afflicting him.

'My respectable house!' he groaned. 'Mrs. Duke--are you there? If you
are asleep, will you wake up and speak to us! We are getting alarmed. I
shall have to break in the door if you do not answer.' He raised his
voice to a bellow--'_Mrs. Duke!_' then turned away with a gesture of
despair. 'It is no good. She may be ill--she may have taken too much of
a sleeping draught--she does not hear--we shall have to break the
door--'

Jeremy and Jane had arrived to swell the crowd. Jacob Taverner came
across the landing wrapped in his greatcoat. Freddy Thorpe-Ennington,
fully dressed but with his fair hair wildly unbrushed, stared from the
threshold of his room. Jeremy said, 'Wait a bit--don't any of these
other keys fit?'

'Fool!' said Castell, smiting himself upon the breast. 'Idiot--imbecile!
Why did I not think of that? I tell you I am out of my senses with all
this trouble! The key of the cupboard at the end of the passage, perhaps
that will fit--I do not know. It fits one of these rooms, but I have
forgotten which. It may be this one, or it may be one of the others--I
do not know any more. I have no memory left--the brain gives way--I am
distracted!'

In this state of distraction he precipitated himself along the passage,
wrenched the key from a cupboard door, rushed back with it, and forced
it violently into the lock. It grated, creaked, and under the utmost
pressure turned.

Castell jerked at the handle and threw the door wide open. Every inch of
the rather dingy room was visible. One side of the curtains had been
pulled back. The daylight which entered was not bright, but it was
sufficient. It showed the bed as Eily had described it, stripped of its
coverlet and turned down for the night. It showed the space beneath it
quite empty. It showed a worn square of carpet on the floor, a chest of
drawers, a washstand, and two chairs. It showed a hanging-cupboard with
the door fallen open. Inside it hung the bright blue coat and skirt and
the sheepskin coat in which Florence Duke had arrived. But of Florence
Duke herself there was no sign whatever. Except for its ordinary
furniture the room was empty.




                               Chapter 35


It was the police who found her getting on for an hour later. She had
gone over the cliff at its highest point, about a hundred yards beyond
the hotel. She had fallen upon the rocks, and must have been killed
immediately. The body had not been in the water, since this heaped and
tumbled mass of rocks was covered only at the highest tides. She was
wearing what she had worn the night before, the brightly flowered dress
of artificial silk, the silk stockings, and indoor shoes. One of the
shoes had come off and had been caught up on a small straggling bush
about half way down.

A little later in Castell's office Inspector Crisp was giving it as his
opinion that it was a plain case of suicide, and that in the
circumstances it was as good as a confession to the murder of Luke
White.

'Clears the whole thing up, if you ask me. Can't see any reason for
putting the other inquest off myself, but the Chief Constable seems to
think it would be better.'

Frank Abbott nodded.

'Yes--I think so.'

'Well, I can't see it myself. But there, I'm not the Chief Constable--as
I expect you were going to say.' He laughed quite good-humouredly.

Miss Silver, who had so far contributed nothing to the conversation, now
gave a slight dry cough. Frank Abbott turned his head as if expecting
her to speak, but she did not do so. For the moment her eyes were upon
her knitting. The blue dress approached completion. He turned back to
Crisp.

'You are satisfied that it was suicide?'

Crisp made a gesture.

'What else? She killed Luke White--jealousy over that girl Eily--and
when I rang her up and told her she would have to identify the body she
got the wind up. Wouldn't face it--went and chucked herself over the
cliff.' He gazed complacently at the London man who couldn't see a
simple solution when he'd got it right under his nose. 'Psychology,' he
said--'that's what you've got to bear in mind, especially when you're
dealing with women. This Florence Duke--you've got to put yourself in
her place, look at it from her point of view. She was jealous of Eily
Fogarty. This Luke White, he'd got the name for being able to get round
any woman, and by all accounts he got round a good few of them. He got
round Florence Duke, married her, and left her. Then she comes here and
finds him making love to this girl Eily. On her own admission she went
down to meet him the night he was murdered, and she was found
practically standing over the body with his blood on her hands. Well, a
woman will stab a man she's been fond of if she's jealous enough. But
this is where psychology comes in. She's done the murder when she was
all worked up, but when she's told she's got to come in cold blood and
look at the corpse she just can't face it--she goes and chucks herself
over the cliff. That's psychology.'

Miss Silver laid her knitting down in her lap and coughed again.

'That would be one explanation, Inspector, but it is not the only one.'

Crisp looked hard at her.

'Look here, Miss Silver, you were the last person to see Florence Duke
or to have any conversation with her. Was she, or was she not, in a
state of nervous depression?'

'I have already told you that she was.'

'She was nervous and depressed because she knew she had got to see her
husband's body and give evidence at the inquest?'

'She was frightened and nervous about the identification. I would remind
you, Inspector, that I had particularly desired she should not be told
until this morning that she would have to identify the body.'

Crisp frowned.

'I thought it best to let her know. Now, Miss Silver--are you prepared
to state that there was nothing in Mrs. Duke's conversation or behaviour
to support the idea of suicide?'

Miss Silver looked at him in a candid manner and said, 'No.'

'Then I think I have a right to ask you what she did say.'

Miss Silver said gravely, 'She spoke of her married life. It was
obviously very much on her mind. She spoke of there being things which
she could not forget. When I warned her that she might be in danger and
begged her to let Captain Taverner take her to a place of safety for the
night--'

He interrupted forcibly.

'You did that?'

She inclined her head.

'I am thankful to be able to recall that I did. She would not listen to
me. She said she did not care. She went so far as to say, "If someone
was to bring me a good glass of poison this minute, I'd drink it".'

Crisp brought his fist down with a bang on the table.

'That's all I want, thank you, and that's all the jury will want! Short
of someone seeing her go over the cliff it's all anyone could want!'

Miss Silver said, 'I wish to be perfectly fair, and I have told you what
the poor woman said. But I did not believe at the time, nor do I believe
now, that she had any serious intention of taking her own life. She was
in the mood to wish herself dead as an alternative to the painful
position in which she found herself, but I have to state that I do not
believe she committed suicide. I believe that she was murdered.'

Crisp threw himself back in his chair.

'Come, come, Miss Silver, you can't expect us to swallow that! On your
own showing Mrs. Duke locked herself into her room last night. You left
your own door open, and you say that you are a very light sleeper and
that the slightest noise in the passage would have waked you, yet you
heard nothing. Are you going to ask us to believe that someone got into
Mrs. Duke's room, overpowered her, got her downstairs, and threw her
over the cliff, all without making any sound at all?'

'No, Inspector.'

He went on in a tone flavoured with contempt.

'To start with, according to you she had her key in the door, so no
other key could have been used from the outside. To go on with, she
walked down that passage on her own feet. There was powder spilt there,
and she had walked through it--her stockings were full of the stuff.
Look here, it's simple enough what she did. She knew you were watching
her, and she meant to give you the slip. You say you went over to the
bathroom to wash. Well, as soon as you'd gone she unlocked her door,
locked it again on the outside in case you tried the handle, took her
shoes in her hand, and went off along the passage and down the stairs in
her stocking feet. That's how she picked up the powder. Castell found
the back door unlocked this morning, so that's how she got out of the
house. Then all she'd got to do was walk up the hill to the top of the
cliff and throw herself over. And to cap it all, there's the missing key
in her pocket. It's as plain as a pikestaff.'

Miss Silver's expression remained mildly obstinate. Before she had time
to speak the door opened and the Chief Constable came into the room.




                               Chapter 36


Half an hour later Randal March sat looking across the table with
something very like exasperation dominating his thought. He now
possessed all the information with which a zealous and efficient
subordinate could supply him. The medical evidence was not to hand, but
as Crisp had put it, 'When a woman has broken her neck you can't get
from it. And if she hadn't done it herself, it looks as if the law would
have had to do it for her. A clear case of murder and suicide--and how
anyone can make out anything else, well, it passes me.'

March was inclined to agree with him. But there sat Miss Maud Silver
with that mild air of deferring to authority which, as he very well
knew, could mask a quite incalculable degree of obstinacy. He had sent
the estimable Crisp to take statements from other members of the party,
and was now alone in the office with Frank Abbott propping the
mantelshelf and Miss Silver who sat with her hands folded in her lap
upon little Josephine's completed dress. On his first entrance she had
risen to go, but he had detained her. Crisp undeterred by her presence,
had expressed himself quite vigorously on the subject of amateur
detectives and their theories, to all of which Miss Silver had listened
with unruffled calm. She had not, as a matter of fact, advanced any
theories of her own. She had actually hardly opened her lips, but she
undoubtedly conveyed an impression of uncompromising disbelief in the
theory advanced by Inspector Crisp. She sat there with folded hands and
waited in very much the same way in which she had been used to wait when
she was governess to the March family and Randal did not know his
lesson. He was Chief Constable of the county now, and she was a little
elderly person with no status at all, but the atmosphere of that
schoolroom and its moral values persisted.

Randal March's exasperation proceeded from the fact that he found
himself influenced by all this. Whatever his reason said, he could never
quite rid himself of the old feeling of respect with which Miss Silver
had managed to imbue a singularly disrespectful little boy of eight.
There were reinforcements in the shape of all those subsequent times
when Miss Silver had taken her own line in the face of other people's
theories and earned a good deal of credit, not for herself but for the
police.

Frank Abbott, watching the two of them, was being a good deal diverted.
His affection and admiration for his Miss Silver did not at all stand in
the way of his considering her entertainment value to be high. He was
perfectly well aware of what she was waiting for, and could spare a
rather sardonic sympathy for Randal March. With all the evidence on one
side and Maudie on the other, he was certainly in for a bad time.

It was really only a minute or two before March said, 'You know, Miss
Silver, Crisp is perfectly right--no jury in the world is going to
hesitate about its verdict.'

Miss Silver looked at him mildly.

'I have not said anything, Randal.'

He gave a half-angry laugh.

'Not in words perhaps, but the amount of solid disapproval with which
you have been filling the room--'

'My dear Randal!'

He laughed again.

'Are you going to tell me you don't disagree, disapprove, and thoroughly
dissociate yourself from Crisp and all his works?'

She gave her prim little cough.

'No, I shall not say that.'

'Then what have you got to say? I would rather hear it, you know.
There's the evidence--part of it resting on your own statement. You saw
the woman with the murdered man's blood on her hands, and you heard her
say that she didn't care if anything happened to her or not, and that if
anyone offered her a glass of poison she'd be glad of it. On the top of
that, don't you believe she murdered Luke White and then committed
suicide?'

'No, Randal.'

'On what grounds? You must have reasons for refusing to accept all this
evidence we've just been through. Do you expect me to disregard it?'

'No, Randal.'

'Then what do you expect me to do?'

She coughed reprovingly.

'It is not a case of expecting. It would, I think, be advisable--'

'Yes?'

'There are points upon which further evidence should be obtained.'

'Are you going to tell me what they are?'

She inclined her head.

'I have mentioned them before. I should like, if I may, to urge them
very strongly now. There should be more evidence as to where the first
murder was committed. I have repeatedly asserted my belief that it did
not take place in the hall, where the body was found. I suggested
yesterday that there should be a careful examination of the carpet in
this room. I think it extremely probable that the crime was committed
here, in which case traces of blood may still be found. That is my first
point.'

Randal March looked at her gravely.

'Well, I have no objection. What else?'

Miss Silver met his look with one to the full as grave.

'Thank you, Randal. The second point concerns the identification of the
body.'

Frank Abbott's colourless eyebrows rose perceptibly. There was a brief
but startled pause before March said, 'Luke White's body was seen by
everyone in the house. Castell has made the formal identification. Do
you suggest that there is any doubt about the matter?'

'Yes, Randal, I do.'

'My dear Miss Silver!'

She said, 'You say that the body was seen by everyone. There were three,
or at the most four, people present to whom Luke White was not a
complete stranger. They were Castell, Eily, Florence Duke, and perhaps
Mr. Jacob Taverner. As to the others--and I include myself--what they
saw was a dead man lying face downwards dressed as they had all the
previous evening seen Luke White dressed, in dark trousers and a grey
linen coat. Let us now take the three or four people who really knew
Luke White. Mr. Jacob Taverner did not go near the body. Eily was
overcome with horror and half fainting. Castell identifies the dead man
as Luke White, and it is his identification that is in question.
Florence Duke actually handled the body. We have no means of knowing
whether her subsequent condition of shock was due to the fact that she
accepted it as that of her husband, or--' She paused.

March said, 'Or what?'

'Or that she did not.'

'You suggest?'

'That the body was not that of Luke White. If she had realised this she
would, I think, have known that her husband must be a party to the
murder. She knew him to be a most unscrupulous man. She may have known
more than that, but she had once cared for him very much, and she had
suddenly to decide whether she would shield him or give him away. I
think all her behaviour is accounted for if you accept the theory that
she made up her mind to shield him.'

'But, my dear Miss Silver--' March broke off. 'Are you suggesting that
the murdered man was--'

'Albert Miller.'

Frank Abbott straightened up. March leaned forward. 'Albert Miller!'

'I think it possible.'

'But--was there any likeness?'

'Oh, yes, a very strong one. They were both grandsons of the
disreputable Luke, old Jeremiah Taverner's fourth son. Luke White was
the elder, and much the stronger character, but the resemblance was very
decided. I was struck by it as soon as I saw them.'

'You did see them together?'

'They were practically side by side whilst we were having coffee in the
lounge on Saturday night. Even the difference in dress and the fact that
one man was drunk and the other sober could not disguise the likeness. I
do not mean that I would have mistaken one for the other in life,
because there was a very obvious divergence of character, but if I had
been shown the dead body of one dressed in the clothes of the other, I
cannot say whether I would have suspected anything.'

'Then what makes you suspect anything now?'

Miss Silver gazed at him thoughtfully.

'The fact that Albert Miller should have such a perfect alibi and then
disappear completely. It struck me as so extremely odd that I was unable
to believe it had no bearing upon the murder. Yesterday evening I saw
Albert Miller's landlady and discovered the following facts. There was
no light in the passage or on the stairs on Saturday night when her
lodger came in, and both were still dark when he left in the morning.
Mr. Wilton spoke to him at the bedroom door, but he was dazzled by the
beam of a small torch which, as Mrs. Wilton put it, "that Albert kept
flickering across his face." Mr. Wilton identified the man with the
torch as Albert Miller because they were expecting Albert Miller and he
was singing a song which they associated with Albert. I myself and
everyone in the hotel had heard Albert singing snatches of this song,
the well known Irish air "Eileen alannah".'

March said, 'Albert Miller may not have been seen by the Wiltons, but he
was seen at Ledlington station.'

Miss Silver asked quietly, 'In what circumstances? From what Inspector
Crisp said, the man supposed to be Albert Miller arrived at Ledlington
station soon after seven o'clock, when it would still be dark. He was
wearing Albert Miller's clothes, and had all the appearance of a person
who has been drinking heavily and is not yet sober. He did not go on
duty, but shouted out that he had had enough of his job and of
Ledlington, and that he was not coming back. If this man was really
Albert Miller, why did he go near the station at all? Why did he not
simply leave the Wiltons' house and disappear? But if he was Luke White,
his appearance at the station was part of the plan to make it quite
clear that Albert Miller had disappeared of his own free will.'

Frank Abbott said, 'If there was a plan to murder Albert Miller and
cover it up in the way you suggest, Luke White would have to
disappear--permanently. Well, there might be quite good reasons for
that. Things were getting a bit hot for him at this end. He may have
thought he'd be safer in France. I've always thought that if there was
any funny business going on here, any backstairs traffic in dope and
diamonds, that Luke would be in it up to his eyes.'

March turned in his chair.

'If the dead man was Luke, Albert Miller couldn't have killed him. But
the alibi works both ways. If it was Albert who was murdered, you can't
pin it on Luke. Whichever of them it was who was keeping Mrs. Wilton
awake by tossing and turning overhead whilst she heard the church clock
strike twelve, and one, and two, he wasn't murdering the other somewhere
between half past twelve and half past one at the Catherine-Wheel.' He
turned back to Miss Silver. 'This is a very interesting theory, you
know, but where is the motive? If the murdered man was Luke White, there
is a very strong jealousy motive both for John Higgins and for Florence
Duke, and the bare possibility of a blow struck in self-defence by the
girl Eily. But what motive would there be for the murder of Albert
Miller?'

'A very strong one, Randal. I cannot offer any proof of it, but I
suspect that he was engaged in a highly dangerous attempt at blackmail.
He threw out hints to Mrs. Wilton that he might soon be rich. I think he
knew too much, and was attempting to use his knowledge.'

'What could he have known?'

'My dear Randal, from first to last in this case there has cropped up
the question of a secret passage or a secret room. That it was not the
passage between the cellars and the shore is proved by the fact that Mr.
Jacob Taverner not only knew all about this passage but was quite
willing to display it to his guests and to the police, whereas he
continually plied the Taverner cousins with carefully contrived
questions as to what they might have heard from the grandparents with
whom each had been rather closely associated. These questions strongly
suggest a second passage, or perhaps merely a secret chamber, the
existence of which was known to Mr. Jacob Taverner, but of whose
whereabouts he was ignorant. I have thought all along that this second
passage might prove to be of immense importance in the case. I think
most of the Taverner cousins know something about it. Florence Duke may
have passed her knowledge on to her husband, and so may Annie Castell.
If these two men were making money out of their knowledge, and Albert
Miller was using what he knew to blackmail them, you have a motive which
would account for the events of the last few days.'

There was a hint of humour in March's eyes, but he said quite gravely,
'Since you know everything, are you going to tell us who killed Al
Miller?'

Miss Silver shook her head.

'I am afraid I do not know.'

Frank Abbott allowed himself a short laugh.

'Not Castell?'

'Possibly. But there was more than one person concerned. I am quite sure
that the murder was not committed where the body was found. Albert
Miller was more than half drunk when I saw him in the lounge. He became
very noisy, and was hustled through into this room by Luke White and
Castell. I do not think he ever left it alive. It would have been easy
to complete the process of making him drunk, to give him a wound on the
back of the hand corresponding to that which Luke White had received
when he tried to kiss Eily and she picked up Jane Heron's scissors to
defend herself, and then, when the right time had arrived, to inflict
the fatal stab and convey the body to the hall. As I have said before, I
think that two people must have been involved in this. There is no one
in the house of sufficiently powerful physique to make sure of moving a
dead body from this room to the hall without noise.'

Randal March said, 'I agree to that. But all the rest is, if you will
let me say so--well, pure hypothesis.'

Miss Silver smiled.

'I only ask that you should put it to the test. I suggest that Mrs.
Wilton should be approached. She was a friend of Mrs. Miller's, and must
therefore have known Albert from a child. She might be aware of some
distinguishing mark. Then, as to the scene of the murder, the carpet may
provide you with evidence.'

She put little Josephine's dress into her workbag and rose to her feet.

'I feel sure that I can leave the matter in your hands. But with regard
to Florence Duke there is a point which deserves your attention. If she
committed suicide shortly after I had seen her lock herself in her room,
can you tell me why she did not just walk to the edge of the cliff
behind the house and throw herself over? The tide was high and she would
have fallen into the water. Do you think it possible that any woman
would climb in the dark to the top of the cliff and throw herself down
upon rocks?'

'She might not have known--'

'My dear Randal, we had all been out walking along those cliffs. There
had been talk about the tides. It had been mentioned that those rocks
were only covered by a spring tide. I think it an incredible place for a
suicide. But if it was murder, there would be a strong reason for
choosing it. It would be necessary that Florence Duke's body should be
found, because it was intended that she should appear to have killed
herself out of remorse for the murder of her husband. There must be
immediate proof that she was dead. She could not just disappear. There
are very strong currents here, I believe, and a body might be carried
out to sea and never washed up.'

Frank Abbott said in his most casual voice, 'Well, about the only thing
you haven't told us is how Florence was spirited out of her locked room.
Crisp made a point there, you know. She walked along the passage in her
stocking feet, as he said, probably carrying her shoes. Why?'

Miss Silver looked at him gravely and compassionately.

'I think, Frank, that the poor woman went to meet her husband, and that
this time Luke White will have no alibi.'




                               Chapter 37


The Thorpe-Enningtons departed to town for the day, Freddy to his
business meeting, Lady Marian to a fitting, a hairdresser, a lunch
engagement. It was understood that they would return in the
evening--'Though I am sure I don't know what we can do, and as far as
the inquests go, I'm thankful to say we didn't see anything. But of
course we shouldn't like to feel we were running away, should we, Freddy
my sweet?' Freddy having made some mournfully inarticulate response,
they got into their expensive car and slid away in the direction of
London with Marian Thorpe-Ennington at the wheel.

Geoffrey Taverner had gone off in his small cheap car an hour earlier.
As he explained to Inspector Crisp, he could do a day's business and be
back by seven o'clock--'Quite a number of contacts to make in the Lenton
direction, so I shan't be far away.' Jacob Taverner gave the
Thorpe-Enningtons half an hour's start, after which he also took the
London road. Miss Silver wondered if he was really fit to drive.

Randal March and Inspector Crisp departed somewhat later, leaving
Inspector Abbott and a young man called Willis, who was a plain-clothes
detective, shut up in Castell's office.

Miss Silver, after a few words with Jane Heron, descended to the lounge,
where she cast on the requisite number of stitches for a pair of bright
blue knickers to match little Josephine's woolly frock. She had chosen a
chair quite close to where Mildred Taverner sat nervously turning the
pages of an old _Picture Post_. After looking at her sideways once or
twice Miss Taverner edged her chair a little nearer.

'Oh, Miss Silver, when do you think we shall get away?'

She got a kind reassuring smile.

'I am afraid it is impossible to say.'

Mildred's hand went up to her blue Venetian beads.

'It's all so dreadful, isn't it? Having to pass that poor thing's door
every time I go up to my room. Do you believe in haunted houses and
ghosts--' She broke off with a little gasp.

Miss Silver knitted placidly.

'What makes you ask that, Miss Taverner?'

Mildred Taverner shuddered.

'I was thinking how dreadful it would be if the door were to swing open
when I was going past--her door, I mean--and _something_--were to come
out.'

Miss Silver counted briskly.

'Sixteen--eighteen--twenty--twenty-four--yes, I think that will be about
right. No, I think you should put aside these unhealthy fancies. There
is nothing in the least supernatural about what has been happening in
this house. Now I wonder whether you can tell me whether Mr. and Mrs.
Castell are occupying the bedroom which used to belong to your
great-grandfather old Jeremiah Taverner and his wife. Family tradition
is an interesting thing, and it occurred to me--'

'Oh, yes--' Mildred Taverner was quite brightly interested--'it's the
same room. The landlord has always slept there. The windows look out in
front, and when the coaches came down from London the postillions used
to blow their horns at the top of the hill so that he could hear them
and be ready to come down. My grandfather said he could remember hearing
the horns, though of course his window looked the other way. He and his
brother Jeremiah, and Mark, and Luke, they all slept in the corner room.
Eily has it now. It looks out at the back, and you can see the sea from
the window, but he said he could hear the horns quite late at night. Of
course travelling by coach was really over, because the railway had been
built, but they had these coach parties just the same. People used to
come from quite a long way off--and gentlemen riding, and in their
dog-carts and all. I think, from what he said, there was a lot of
gambling and high play. You know, one doesn't like to say it, but I
can't help feeling that it wasn't really a very respectable house. My
grandfather didn't say so of course. He left home when he was quite
young, and he had the highest--oh, the very highest character himself.
But I think a lot of people in those old times weren't exactly what we
would call respectable now, and I can't help thinking that Jacob
Taverner is making a mistake in trying to rake things up. Geoffrey
doesn't like it, and--and I don't either.' She gazed at Miss Silver from
under damp pink eyelids. 'I mean, we're all respectable now, so why not
leave it alone?'

Miss Silver opined that there were incidents in the histories of most
families which might very well be forgotten.

Mildred Taverner said, 'Oh _yes_!'

It was shortly after this that Frank Abbott walked through the lounge.
Since he could have left the office without doing so, Miss Silver's eyes
followed him. As he went out into the hall he turned and gave her a
brief nod before he closed the door. Mildred Taverner was well away with
the story of a haunted house in Hampstead. Having received Frank's nod,
Miss Silver gave this narrative all the attention she could spare.

At a quarter to one John Higgins arrived. The news of Florence Duke's
death had reached him, and he announced that he had come to take Eily
away. He could not, of course, have chosen a more tactless moment. Lunch
was imminent, Annie Castell was up to her eyes, and Eily and Jane were
laying the table.

John said, 'I'm sorry, Aunt Annie,' and walked through the kitchen,
passing Castell as if he wasn't there. He pushed the baize door and went
through, letting it fall back in the angry landlord's face.

Eily looked up as he came round the varnished screen at the dining-room
door. He didn't see Jane Heron--he didn't see anyone but Eily. He had
just one thing to say, and he said it.

'I've come to fetch you away.'

Eily flared up. It is wonderful what a little anger will do for a
failing courage. Ever since the horrid moment when they had all stood
looking into an empty room and seen that Florence Duke wasn't there Eily
had had a little clear picture in her mind. It was the picture of
herself running down the road to Cliff--running like the wind, beating
in John Higgins's door, and throwing herself into his open arms. This
picture was at once a source of alarm and of solace. A source of alarm
because it admitted to some dreadful danger from which she could only
save herself by headlong flight. A solace because it pointed the way to
safety. And now here was John in the middle of their all being busy over
lunch, talking to her as short and sharp as if she was something he
could order about. Well, what would any girl feel like? Fear ceased to
operate, because of course, with John here, there wasn't anything to be
afraid about. Anger took its place. Her dark blue eyes gave him a
spirited denial. She said, 'I won't go!'

'Eily!'

Eily stamped her foot.

'I'm in the middle of getting lunch!'

'I'll wait for you.'

'Now look here, John--'

'Eily--'

The foot stamped again.

'I'm not leaving Aunt Annie, and that's flat!'

And with that Castell came round the screen, magnificent in dignity and
control--no gesticulation, no spluttering rage. He was the respectable
host, under his own respectable roof. It had been hard of achievement,
but he had achieved it. Self-satisfaction exuded from every pore. He
took a striking pose and pointed to the door.

'You will leave. At once. We do not desire your presence. We do not
invite it. I will not serve you. If you were not the nephew of my wife
Annie, I would have more to say. I control myself. I do not say it. I
say only this--"Go--and immediately!" '

John didn't even look at him. He went up to Eily and took her hand.

'Come away with me, my dear. This is a bad house. Come away out of it.'

She jerked her hand from his. She wanted to throw herself into his arms,
but a host of little things held her back. Uncle--she'd always been
afraid of him, she didn't quite know why--lunch to serve--Aunt Annie and
the washing up--She jerked her hand away.

'Oh, for goodness sake, John, get along out of here and let me get on
with my work!'

He stood for a moment, and then turned and went out without another
word. The minute he was gone Eily had that picture in her mind again,
small and bright like something seen through a peephole--the road to
Cliff and herself running down it. But this time John was there too,
walking away ahead of her and never turning back, and run as she would
she couldn't catch up with him. She came back with a start to Castell's
hand on her shoulder.

'Come, come, come--get on with your work! You did that very well, but
there's no time to stand here dreaming.'

Jane Heron ran after John Higgins and came up with him by the baize
door. Her breath hurried and her colour came and went, not because she
had run that little way, but because she had a sense of urgency and she
couldn't find the right words. She caught at his sleeve, and he turned
and looked at her with grave blue eyes. Under the gravity there was
distress. Jane knew right away that it was not for himself, but for
Eily. She said, 'Don't worry about her--I'm with her nearly all the
time. Miss Silver asked me--'

'Why?'

'She said Eily had had a shock and had better not be left by herself.
She slept with me last night. She told Miss Silver she wouldn't, but she
did after all, and I'll get her to do it again.'

He said, 'There's a lot of badness in this house. It isn't fit for her.'

Jane nodded.

'I'll talk to her. She just doesn't want to be rushed, and she's fond of
Cousin Annie. Don't worry. I'll see she's all right.'




                               Chapter 38


Miss Silver spent the greater part of the afternoon in the lounge
teaching Mildred Taverner to knit. In reply to the complaint that she
knew it was very stupid but she never could help dropping her stitches
Miss Silver instructed her firmly that if the needles were held in the
continental manner, it was practically impossible for this to happen.
She was not a quick learner, and the effort involved so engaged her
attention that she had none to spare for what her preceptress had
previously described as unhealthy fancies, and was able to partake of
her tea with a very good appetite.

The evening dusk closed down. After some windy days there was a light
mist and a mild, still air. The tide was coming up and could be heard
lapping against the cove behind the hotel. There was sand there between
the rocks--quite a wide half-moon of it when the sea was out. In summer
the bathing would be pleasant and safe.

Jeremy and Jane went out after tea and walked up and down watching the
tide come in and the last light fade. Eily would be washing up the
tea-things in the pantry with Annie Castell. It couldn't be selfish to
snatch half an hour for themselves.

It must have been just short of half past five when Miss Silver pushed
the baize door and went along a rather dark passage to the kitchen. It
was in her mind that she would like to talk to Annie Castell. Not about
anything in particular, but just to talk to her and see what kind of a
woman she was. There were a good many possibilities about Annie Castell.
Even quite a short conversation might eliminate some of them. But when
she came to the bright streak which showed the position of the kitchen
door she knew that she would not be able to have her conversation with
Annie. Fogarty Castell was there, and even the thick old door could not
disguise the fact that he was angry. He was, in fact, shouting at the
top of his voice.

Miss Silver took hold of the door-knob and turned it gently until the
catch released itself, after which she drew in her hand until the door
stood a finger's breadth from the jamb. As a gentlewoman, eavesdropping
was naturally repugnant, but as a detective she was prepared to engage
in it without flinching. She now heard Castell shout, 'Leave me? You
would leave me?'

A string of words in the French language followed.

Miss Silver had never heard any of them before, and she had no
difficulty in concluding that in this case ignorance was scarcely to be
deplored. She hoped that Annie Castell did not understand them either.
But Castell's voice, expression, and manner required no translating. An
angry man who is swearing at his wife sounds very much the same in any
language. Miss Silver could not see into the kitchen, but she could hear
well enough. She could hear Annie Castell take a long breath and steady
it when Castell stopped swearing, and she heard her say, 'I can't stand
anything more.'

Castell stamped his feet, first one and then the other.

'You will stand what I tell you to stand, and you will do what I tell
you to do! Are you not my wife?'

She said, 'Not any more. I'll cook the dinner tonight, and I'll cook
breakfast tomorrow, and then I'll take Eily and go.'

'Go? Where will you go?'

'I can get a place--any day--at once.'

Castell roared at her suddenly--a French word culled from the Marseilles
slums where he had played as a child. And then, like someone checked in
a spring, his voice dropped to a horrid whisper.

'The door--who opened the door?'

Miss Silver did not wait for anyone to answer that question. She was
light on her feet, and she could move very quickly indeed when she
wanted to. She moved so quickly now that by the time Fogarty Castell
looked out in the passage the faint lamplight showed it empty. She had
not risked trying to reach the baize door, but had taken the cross
passage and gone quickly through the office to the lounge. When
presently the door opened and Castell looked in, she was making good
progress with little Josephine's knickers and encouraging Mildred
Taverner in what, it must be confessed, was a sadly bungling effort.

At six o'clock Frank Abbott returned and once more walked through the
lounge, but this time in a reverse direction. He left the door of
Castell's office ajar, and Miss Silver immediately joined him there. As
she came in and shut the door behind her, he was turning up the
old-fashioned wall lamp. The light struck upon his face and showed him
with rather more than the usual dash of sarcasm in his expression. At
her sober, 'Well, Frank, you have something to tell me?' he smiled
provokingly.

'Have I? I wonder. You see, you always know the answers already.'

'My dear Frank!'

He laughed again.

'Oh, you were quite right of course! You always are!'

She shook her head in a reproving manner.

'Exaggeration is a bad fault in a detective. An attempt to improve upon
facts may be fatal.'

As she spoke she seated herself and resumed her knitting.

With a brief murmur of 'Facts!' Frank took a chair and stretched out his
long legs.

'Mrs. Wilton delivered the goods,' he said. 'She had bathed Albert when
a baby and nursed him with a broken collarbone. She deposes to a large
mole on the left shoulder-blade, and has identified the corpse in the
mortuary as that of Albert Miller. That being that, the police are
naturally anxious to interview Luke White. Alibi or no alibi, the
changeover must have been with his consent. Of course he may have been
bumped off since.'

Miss Silver said, 'I do not think so.' After a slight pause she
continued. 'You will, perhaps, agree that he would have a strong motive
for preventing Florence Duke from seeing the body which Castell had
identified.'

Frank said, 'He and Castell would both have a motive.'

'Yes. That was why I made such a particular point of her not being told
until just before the inquest that she would have to identify the body.
As soon as Inspector Crisp rang her up I knew that she would be in
danger, and I did my best to persuade her to place herself under your
protection at Cliff House. Captain Taverner would have driven her there,
but she would not hear of it. There is no doubt that someone was
listening to that call on the extension. Did it never strike you as
peculiar that the extension should have been in the butler's pantry, and
not in this room which was in use as an office? There could be but one
reason for so odd an arrangement, and that was the greater privacy of
the pantry. No one could approach it without being seen by Annie
Castell. But this room, with its two doors, one opening upon a passage
and the other on the lounge--'

Frank nodded.

'Yes, I agree. Well, that's that--so much for the identity question. You
were right about the other thing too. Willis and I got to work on the
carpet in here, and there's been blood spilt on it. Wiped off the
surface, but some of it had soaked through. It wasn't quite dry. Miller
was killed in this room, just as you said.'

'Yes, I was sure of it.'

'Crisp is a bit shaken, but still clinging to the idea that Florence
Duke committed suicide.'

Miss Silver shook her head.

'Oh, no, she didn't do that. When it was known that she would be asked
to identify the body it became too dangerous to let her live. I do not
think that the substitution had ever taken her in. I think she knew very
well that the body in the hall was not that of Luke White. I think she
lifted it sufficiently to see the face--she was a strongly built
woman--and that she was not deceived. She must, therefore, have known
that her husband was implicated in the murder, and she had to decide at
once what she should do. She decided to screen him. A very disastrous
decision, but it is hard to blame a wife for shielding her husband. But
the people who had murdered Albert Miller would not know whether she had
recognised him or not. They would not dare to take the risk of her being
confronted with the body and asked to make a formal identification. We
have no means of knowing whether it was then and there decided to remove
her in such a manner as to make it appear that she had committed
suicide, or whether there was an intermediate stage during which they or
Luke White entered into negotiations with her. As I said, we shall
probably never know, but I incline to the belief that she received some
kind of communication. It may have been something directly from her
husband, or something purporting to furnish her with information about
him. Whatever it was, it decided her to leave her room and meet her
murderer.'

Frank nodded.

'I expect you're right. But we shan't be able to prove anything--unless
somebody turns King's evidence.'

It was at this moment that there was the sound of running feet. They
came from the direction of the lounge. The communicating door was thrown
open and Jane Heron appeared, her eyes startled, her colour coming and
going. She checked on the threshold with an 'Oh, Miss Silver!' and then
came out with, 'I can't find Eily!'




                               Chapter 39


Miss Silver knew then what she had been afraid of. She rose to her feet
and put her knitting down upon the table.

Jeremy had come up behind Jane. Mildred Taverner was straying towards
them across the lounge. There was a horrid similarity to the scene
before the door of Florence Duke's room that very morning. Mildred said
in a trembling whisper, 'Things always happen in threes--first Luke, and
then Florence, and now Eily. Oh, why did I come to this horrible house!'

Miss Silver said, 'Hush!' And then, to Jane. 'Was she not with you?'

'We went out just for a little--really only up and down on the cliff.
Eily said she was going to help Cousin Annie. When we came in she wasn't
there. She isn't anywhere--we've been all over the house.'

'You do not think that she has gone to meet John Higgins?'

'No--he's just been up asking for her. He's outside now. He didn't want
to come in. That is why I was looking for Eily.'

Miss Silver acted with decision.

'Please go and fetch him. Miss Taverner, will you go back to the
lounge.'

She shut the door upon herself and Frank Abbott.

'Frank, this may be serious. Inspector Crisp should be here, and enough
men to take charge. There are dangerous criminals involved. If Eily has
really disappeared, it means that one of them has played his own hand
and is risking the safety of the others. I don't need to tell you just
how dangerous that may be.'

'Crisp should have been here by now. He may be here at any minute.'

She said in as grave a voice as he had ever heard her use.

'We have no minutes to spare. That man Luke White is not sane about
Eily. If, as I have suspected, he has the secret of the other passage
and is somewhere in the house--'

'You think he has carried her off? But the risk--'

'My dear Frank, when did the thought of risk deter a man with a crazy
passion?'

The door on to the passage was thrown open and John Higgins came in,
Jane and Jeremy a little way behind. It was clear that he had run and
outstripped them.

'Where's Eily?' he said.

Miss Silver went up to him and put her hand on his arm.

'We will find her, Mr. Higgins, but everyone must help.'

'Help?' He gave a sob. 'What do you mean?'

She said, 'I will tell you,' and at the same moment Frank Abbott touched
her.

'There's Crisp. What do you want--the Castells rounded up?'

'Everyone rounded up. I think one of the Mr. Taverners has returned. I
thought someone came in while we were talking. I want everyone together,
and at once. There must be no delay. It is extremely urgent.'

He said, 'All right--everyone in the lounge,' and went out that way.

Miss Silver spoke to the three who remained.

'Mr. Higgins--Captain Taverner--Miss Heron--if any one of you know
anything at all about this house, you must disclose it now. Mr. Jacob
Taverner showed you a passage between the cellars and the shore. I think
that it was shown to you as a blind. It may have been shown to him in
the same way--I do not know. But I am sure that there is another
passage, or at the very least a secret room, perhaps communicating with
that passage to the shore. If Eily has disappeared she will be in this
room, and the entrance must be found without delay. It was Albert Miller
who was murdered on Saturday night. Luke White is alive. This is the
first time since Saturday that the moon and the tide would be favourable
to his being put across the Channel. Eily's disappearance looks as if
the attempt was to be made tonight and he was making a crazy bid to take
her with him. Now if one of you knows any single thing that will help us
to discover the entrance to this second passage or room, you will see
that you must not hold it back.'

A few minutes later she was saying this all over again to a larger
audience. There were present Inspector Crisp, the plain-clothes
detective Willis, a constable at either door of the lounge, Castell,
and, of the Taverner connection, Annie Castell, Jane, Jeremy, Mildred
Taverner, and her brother Geoffrey looking as neat as she was
dishevelled and a good deal concerned.

'Most unfortunate--there must be some mistake. Surely the girl may have
gone out to meet a friend--I really can't imagine--'

Most of these sentences were addressed to Jane, who merely received them
with a shake of the head, upon which they petered out and led to
nothing.

Inspector Crisp rapped upon the table at which he had seated himself and
said, 'Eily Fogarty has disappeared. She is not in the hotel. Her
outdoor coat and shoes are not missing, and it seems improbable that she
would have gone out without them. Miss Silver has something which she
wishes to say. I don't take any responsibility for it, but I am willing
to give her the opportunity of saying it. Miss Silver--'

Miss Silver rose to her feet and looked about her. Mildred Taverner was
sniffing into a damp handkerchief. Her brother Geoffrey had a bewildered
air. Annie Castell sat large and shapeless upon a chair which
disappeared from view beneath her bulk. Her face was pale and without
any expression, the eyelids faintly rimmed with pink. Her hands lay one
on either knee. Every now and then the thumbs twitched. Castell, beside
her, bobbed up like a jack-in-the-box.

'What a lot of nonsense is this? Eily is not in the house? Eily is out?
Does a young girl never go out? Am I a slave-driver that I always keep
her in? Does she not have a boy friend--a lover? Does John Higgins think
he is the only one she meets? If he does, I tell him he can have another
think coming!' He gave an angry laugh. 'That she even runs away, how do
I know? There has been a murder--there has been a suicide--she has a
crisis of the nerves--and she goes off--with this one, that one--how do
I know?'

Crisp said sharply, 'Sit down and hold your tongue, Castell!'

Miss Silver said what she had already said to John Higgins and to Jeremy
and Jane.

When she had finished there was a silence which was broken by Jeremy.

'You are right about there being another passage. My grandfather told me
enough to make me feel sure of that. And I think the entrance is on the
bedroom floor, because a wounded man was brought up through it and died
in the room which Eily has now.'

Frank Abbott said, 'How do you know that?'

'It was a corner room at the back. The younger children slept there to
be near their parents, but on that occasion they had been turned out. My
grandfather told me what his mother had told him. The whole thing was
very hush-hush--I don't think they could have risked carrying that
wounded man through the house. That's all I can tell you.'

Castell snapped his fingers.

'What you call an old wives' tale!'

Miss Silver said reprovingly, 'It agrees with what Miss Taverner's
grandfather told her about being frightened at seeing a light coming out
of a hole in the wall when he was a little boy. He was one of the
children who slept in what is now Eily's room. But it is clear that he
had left the room before he saw this light. It is impossible to believe
that he went down to the cellar.'

John Higgins said heavily, 'I don't know where it is, but there is a
room. My grandmother told my father, and he told me. I've never spoken
of it till now. I don't know where it is.'

Miss Silver said, 'Miss Taverner?'

Mildred sobbed and sniffed.

'Oh, I don't know anything--I don't really. I only thought--he wouldn't
have gone very far--a little boy like that. It must have been somewhere
near his room--he said he ran back to it.'

'Mr. Taverner?'

Geoffrey's eyebrows drew together.

'Quite frankly, I have always thought my grandfather made the whole
thing up--or dreamt it. He became very childish in his last illness, and
I am afraid that my sister is credulous. There certainly is a passage
which we have all seen, but as to anything more--well--' He shrugged his
shoulders.

'Mrs. Castell?'

Annie Castell did not move. Miss Silver addressed her again.

'Mrs. Castell, what do you know about this secret room or passage?'

She did speak then, with the least possible movement of pale, flabby
lips.

'Nothing.'

'Are you sure?'

The single word was not repeated. This time she shook her head.

Miss Silver rose to her feet.

'Then I think we must go and look for ourselves. There is certainly no
time to be lost.'




                               Chapter 40


Eily came back to consciousness. She had lost herself and all the world
she knew when the door she was passing had opened slowly upon the dim
passage and showed her a dead man standing there. Luke White was dead,
but he stood there looking at her, and she fell from him down into
fainting depths. Now she was coming back, but not to any place she knew.
The ground was hard under her and she could not move. At first she did
not know why. Consciousness ebbed and flowed. Then it came to her that
her ankles were tied together, and her wrists, and that there was
something stuffed into her mouth. It was difficult to breathe, and she
couldn't call out or speak. The thing in her mouth was a handkerchief,
she could feel the stuff against her tongue, and there was a bandage
which covered her mouth.

She made an instinctive movement with her bound hands, and from
somewhere behind her Luke White said, 'Don't do that!'

Her eyes had been shut, but she opened them now. She was in a small
narrow place, and Luke White was coming into view with a candle in his
hand. He set the candle on the ground, kneeled down beside her, and took
both her hands in one of his. His touch was warm and strong, and at that
the worst of the fear went out of Eily, because it wasn't a dead man's
hand which lay on hers. As if he knew her thought, he gave her the kind
of careless caress he might have given to a dog or a child, a mere flick
of the fingers as he said, 'No call to look like that. I'm not a ghost,
as you'll very soon find out. It was a good trick, wasn't it? And it
took everybody in, just as it was meant to. They'd all seen me in my
waiter's jacket, and when they saw that jacket on a dead man they didn't
look past it--not close enough anyhow to see that it was Al Miller who
was wearing it for a change. It was a very clever trick, and you're
going to have a very clever husband.'

With one fear gone, another began to take its place. This was not a dead
man. It was Luke, most dangerously alive. She pulled to get her hands
away, but he held them fast.

'Now, now--what's the good of that? I'll marry you safe enough when we
get over to France. Floss is dead, and it can all be quite proper and
legal. They're coming for me tonight. There's no moon till two, and the
tide's high at eleven. All you've got to do is to be good and quiet till
then. We'll be in France before morning along with as sweet a cargo as
we've ever run, and we'll be married just as soon as I can fix it.'

She moved her head in a frantic gesture of denial. Her tongue pushed
against the gag and tried to make words, but nothing came except small
muffled sounds without meaning or any power to reach him--or anyone.

His teeth showed white against the dark face as he smiled.

'Save the love words,' he said--'they'll keep.' He touched her lightly
on the cheek again. 'Best try and sleep--it'll be some hours yet.' And
with that he went past her and out of sight, and took the candle with
him.

Time went by.

Inspector Crisp led the way up the stairs, but when they came to the
landing he stood aside, and it was Miss Silver who turned to the
left-hand passage. To left and right were the rooms occupied by Jacob
and Geoffrey Taverner. Beyond Geoffrey a large housemaid's cupboard, a
bathroom, and the room occupied by the Castells. Beyond Jacob Taverner a
back stair, the linen-room, a lavatory, and Eily's room.

Miss Silver turned to John Higgins.

'Mr. Higgins, you are a carpenter. If there is a concealed room here,
what would you take to be the most likely place?'

He looked at her, frowning and intent.

'Round about the chimney or the stair it would be.'

'The stair is an old one?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'But the lavatory--that wouldn't be so old. There must have been work
done here when the plumbing was put in. The passage would be older than
that. They wouldn't have risked the secret by having work done too near
the hidden place. It won't be that side. But I have thought the
linen-room would guard such an entrance very well. It would be quite
natural to keep it locked. It seems to me that the entrance may very
well be somewhere between the linen-room and the back stair. It might
even be that the treads of the stair were utilised.'

Castell flung up his arms.

'But this is madness! Are you going to pull my house down over my head
because Eily has taken a fright and run away?'

There was a delay over the key of the linen-cupboard.

'I tell you, Eily will have it! She is in charge of the linen. She has
to change the sheet, the pillow-case, the towel. Do you think she comes
running every time to me? Have I nothing else to do?'

Miss Silver turned to Annie Castell.

'There will be a duplicate key. I think you have it. Will you get it? Or
must I ask Mr. Higgins to force the lock?'

Annie's lips moved without sound. But before it was possible to know
what she would do her husband stepped between.

'This is folly! You cannot break my doors!'

Miss Silver coughed quite gently.

'There will be no need to do so if you will give me the key, Mr.
Castell.'

He flung out his hands.

'You insult me! But I have nothing to hide. If there is another key, you
shall have it. You shall see that there is nothing.' He turned upon his
wife with a gesture of command. 'Annie!'

She went across the passage then, into their room. After a lagging
minute she came back with a key in her hand. Castell took it from her,
fitted it in the lock, flung the door open with a flourish, and stood
aside.

'There--you can see for yourself! There are no girls shut up, no
corpses--there is only the linen of the house! On the middle shelf there
is a candle--take it, light it, and look for yourselves! And when you
have found nothing except my sheets and my pillow-cases, perhaps you
will apologise for this insult that you make me!'

The linen-room had no window, but in every other respect it really was a
small room. Shelves ran from floor to ceiling. The candlelight played
upon orderly piles of linen. There was a shelf devoted to pillows,
another to the old-fashioned honeycomb bedspreads which are now hardly
more than a memory. There was a smell of lavender and a just perceptible
trace of something else.

Miss Silver went first into the room. She found the trace quite
definite. As she struck a match and lighted the candle, it was for the
moment overlaid by the smell of sulphur. But when the sulphur trace was
gone the other was still there--a faint, light trail of cigarette smoke.
None of the party was smoking, and there had been no hint of tobacco
until Miss Silver stepped across the threshold of the linen-room and met
it there.

She set down the lighted candle upon one of the shelves and came back to
the doorway. She was looking for John Higgins, but when she saw him she
waited for a moment before speaking his name. He stood back against the
passage wall behind all those who had crowded forward to look into the
linen-room. His hands were clenched at his sides, his eyes were closed,
and his lips moved. There was sweat on his brow. The old-fashioned
phrase, 'wrestling in prayer,' came into Miss Silver's mind. After a
momentary hesitation she stepped forward, the others making way for her,
and went to him.

'Mr. Higgins--'

As her touch fell on his arm, his eyes opened. They had a bewildered
look, as if he had been a long way off and suddenly called back.

'Mr. Higgins, I think that you can help me. Will you come?'

He came after her then into the candlelight and the smell of lavender
and that something else. As soon as they were there he said, speaking
low so that only she could hear, 'I'd clean forgot, but the Lord has
brought it to my mind--something my grandfather said, but I didn't
rightly know what he meant--not till now. It was some carpenter's work
he'd done up here, working with his father when he was a lad. That's how
he came to court my grandmother, Joanna Taverner.' He was down on his
knees as he spoke, feeling along under the bottom shelf. 'He rambled a
bit when he was old, and talked about his courting days, and about the
work he'd done at the Catherine-Wheel with his grandfather. "A handle
made clever to look like a strut," that's what he said. And he picked
himself up and said, "And I took my Bible oath I'd never tell a living
soul, so you take and forget it, my lad." And it went clean out of my
head till the Lord brought it back. Just give me that candle, ma'am....
I think I've got it. There's a strut here where there's no call for one
to be.'

Miss Silver gave the candle into his hand and stepped to the door. Her
eye met Frank Abbott's. She noted with approval that he and Inspector
Crisp stood side by side between the rest of the party and the back
stair, and that Willis had cropped up again and was on the other side of
the group. Mildred Taverner was sobbing audibly. Jane had her hand on
Jeremy's arm. Geoffrey Taverner was leaning forward to see what was
happening inside the linen-room, his expression one of vexation and
surprise. The Castells stood side by side, he for the moment silent, she
with her hands at her apron, pinching the stuff into pleats and letting
it go--the same action mechanically repeated over and over again. There
was no expression on her face, but the pale skin glistened with sweat.

As Miss Silver turned back to the linen-room, something very strange was
happening. John Higgins had set the candle down upon the floor. He was
using both his hands to move something under the left-hand bottom shelf,
and as he pulled on it it did move, and the whole shelf with it,
pivoting round so that one end of the shelf with a double pile of
pillow-cases stuck out across the door and the other end went back and
disappeared into the wall. There was left a gap some three feet wide and
just over two feet high.

John Higgins reached for the candle and crawled forward through the gap.
Miss Silver nodded to Jeremy Taverner and stood back to let him pass.

Outside in the passage Castell gave a roar like a bull and plunged for
the stairs, to come down with a crash as Frank Abbott tripped him.
During the ensuing struggle Annie Castell did not turn her head. She
looked down at her apron and pleated it--four pleats and let it go, and
four pleats and let it go again.

Mildred Taverner screamed when the shelf swung in. She said, 'Oh, that's
what he saw! Oh, no wonder it frightened him, poor little boy--the hole
in the wall and the light coming out of it! Oh--'

Geoffrey said, 'Be quiet!' He leaned forward and listened. The light was
receding now. The sound of footsteps was receding, going down an unseen
stair which followed the line of the one which they could see.

Castell was handcuffed. He lay cursing vociferously. Crisp left him, ran
to the linen-room, and so down after the others. When Frank Abbott was
about to follow him, Miss Silver shook her head.

At the sound of those feet upon the stair Eily opened her eyes again.
She could see nothing except the rough plastered roof and walls of the
place where she lay. And then Luke White came into view, bending to pick
her up. She tried again, most horribly, to scream. The effort sent the
blood against her ear-drums, deafening them. She felt that she was
dropped, her head bruised against the floor. And then her hearing came
back, and there were voices--Luke White's--'Fight for her then!' and
John's, cursing him. At least it sounded like a curse, and even at that
moment it surprised her a good deal. She heard them clash somewhere
behind her just out of sight, and the sound of a fall, and more running
steps and voices, and quite a lot more cursing, only this time it wasn't
John.

And then John was undoing the bandage and taking the gag out of her
mouth, and her tongue was sore and bruised, and she began to cry.




                               Chapter 41


Miss Silver stood waiting. The footsteps had gone away out of sound. She
had heard them fall heavy on the secret stair and die away. An
indeterminate sound came up, quite vague and indistinguishable. And
then, what seemed a long time afterwards, there were footsteps again.
She stood inside the linen-room. Someone had provided another candle and
set it down upon one of the upper shelves. Beneath the bottom shelf the
gap yawned wide to the secret stair. Outside in the passage everyone
stood and listened, except Castell sitting handcuffed against the wall
drawing long sobbing breaths, and his wife who took no notice of him. Or
of anyone or anything. Mildred Taverner had stopped crying. She shook
and trembled, her hand at her beads, her head poked forward, listening
with the rest.

Then up through the gap in the linen-room wall came the voice of John
Higgins:

'Can you manage it, Eily?'

It was only Miss Silver who could be sure of the faint murmur of assent.
The sound was one of the most welcome she had ever heard.

The next moment Eily was crawling out of the gap and being helped to her
feet. John followed her, to say briefly, 'They've got him. They're
bringing him up.'

And then he and Eily and Jane went into Eily's room and shut the door.

There came out next Inspector Crisp, and then Luke White, propelled from
behind by Jeremy. Miss Silver stepped into the passage to make way for
them. Crisp put a whistle to his mouth and blew. As the sound of heavy
feet fell on the stairs, he turned his head to say, 'Keep him inside
there till we get the handcuffs on him, Captain Taverner.' Then, to
Frank Abbott, 'It's Luke White all right. Higgins and the girl
identified him. He can be charged with abduction, and as an accessory to
the murder of Albert Miller.'

But behind him Luke White laughed.

'I never laid a finger on Al, and you can't prove I did! Let them swing
for him that did him in! Castell, you fat pig, get up on your feet and
tell them I wasn't anywhere near the place!'

Castell glared at him.

'You are drunk--you are mad! Hold your tongue! What do I know about Al
Miller--what does anyone know? It is a conspiracy against me!' He went
spluttering and cursing into the Marseilles patois of his youth.

Two police constables came up the back stairs. Frank Abbott looked
across at Miss Silver and found her face intent. She was listening, and
in a moment he heard what she was hearing. Someone was coming up the
main stairway. In another moment Jacob Taverner was in view. He crossed
the landing, walking slowly like a tired man. But when he came to the
group in the passage beyond his room he straightened up. His voice was
harsh as he said, 'What's going on?'

From just inside the linen-room Luke White tipped him an impudent nod.
There was enough drink in him to give him a kind of swaggering bravado.

'What's going on? Why me, when I ought to be dead! Shakes you up a bit,
doesn't it? Here today and gone tomorrow and back again before anyone
wants you!'

Castell erupted suddenly into English again.

'Why hadn't you the sense to leave Eily alone? There are ten thousand
girls--what does it matter which one you have?'

Jacob Taverner came into the group of people and looked from one to the
other--at Castell on the floor jerking at his handcuffed wrists--at
Annie Castell, at Mildred and Geoffrey Taverner--at Miss Silver, Frank
Abbott, Luke White with Jeremy Taverner gripping his elbows from behind.
He saw the open linen-room door, the candle burning on the shelf, the
gap in the wall. He said in a curious quiet voice, 'So you've found it.
That's what I came down here to look for.' Then, on a rising tone, 'Who
knew about it? This man of course, and Castell. But they wouldn't give
it away. Who else?' His small bright eyes went from one to the other,
came to rest upon Mildred and Geoffrey. 'Was it one of you--or perhaps
both? Matthew's grandchildren. He came next to my father, and he was a
builder too. I always thought he'd be the most likely to know. Why
didn't you tell me? I'd have seen you didn't lose by it. Why did you
wait until you'd brought the police into it?'

Miss Silver coughed. She looked at Geoffrey and said, 'Yes, why, Mr.
Taverner?'

The words were clear and emphatic. If they had been stones thrown in
Luke White's face they could not have had a more startling effect. He
gave a kind of shout in which the only word distinguishable was Geoffrey
Taverner's name.

'Him--_him_!' now the words came pouring out. 'You, Mr. blank Geoffrey
Taverner! Give us away, would you--call in the police on us and save
your skin? But you'll not get away with it--not while I've a tongue in
my head! If anyone's turning King's evidence, it's going to be me, not
you, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it! And if anyone's
going to swing for Al Miller, it's going to be you, not me--do you hear?
I never laid a finger on him, and no one can prove I did!'

Geoffrey Taverner stood his ground with some courage.

'The man's mad,' he said. 'I don't know what he's talking about.'

With a sudden wrench Luke White had twisted free. He came at Geoffrey
with a spring and took him by the throat. The two went down together,
with Mildred Taverner screaming and the police rushing in.

Pulled off and handcuffed, with Geoffrey getting up greenish pale and
holding his throat, Luke White was aware of two voices coming through
the buzz of talk about him. Castell was cursing him for a fool, and
Mildred Taverner was weeping on a high, shrill note and saying over and
over again, 'But it wasn't Geoffrey who told them--he never told them
anything! You didn't, did you, Geoffrey? It was Miss Silver--Miss
Silver--_Miss Silver_!'

Luke White fell to cursing too.




                               Chapter 42


Much later that evening Frank Abbott came in to the lounge and found
Miss Silver alone there. Castell and Luke White had been removed under
arrest. Geoffrey Taverner had been taken to Ledlington police station
for questioning. Mildred had gone to bed with a hot-water bottle, and
when last visited had been found to be sleeping. Mrs. Bridling was with
Annie Castell, and John Higgins with Eily. Jacob Taverner had made a
statement to the police and had retired to his room. Jeremy and Jane
were no doubt somewhere together. There were two stalwart police
constables on the premises. There really seemed to be no further grounds
for anxiety.

Frank took a chair and stretched himself out comfortably.

'Well, I suppose you want to know all about everything?'

Miss Silver coughed.

'Undoubtedly.'

His smile had a spice of malice.

'If there's anything you don't already know.'

'My dear Frank!'

She sat there very alert and composed, knitting briskly. Little
Josephine's knickers were approaching completion.

'Well, we've done our job all right. The Chief will be pleased, and I
shall get some of his best Advice to Rising Police Officers on the
Importance of not getting Wind in the Head.'

He received a benignant smile.

'It will not do you any harm.'

He laughed.

'I suppose not. Now, for your information. The stair runs down beside
the open one and comes into the shore passage not a dozen feet from the
other cellar entrance. It's all very ingenious, and of course a lot
older than the linen-cupboard entrance. They used a dummy chimney-flue
for part of the way, and just before you go through into the shore
passage there's a concealed cellar full of stuff. That's where Luke
White had Eily, and that's where they stored their contraband. There's a
lot of stuff that looks like heroin and other assorted drugs which have
been smuggled in and not distributed. And, all ready to go over, there
was as pretty a collection of jewelry as anyone could wish for. They've
identified the Laleham stuff and the haul from the smash-and-grab raid
in Bond Street, but there's still a lot to go through. There's no doubt
this has been a main clearing-house, and I don't mind betting my boots
that Geoffrey Taverner was in it up to his neck. A commercial
traveller's job could be a very convenient screen.'

Miss Silver gazed at him enquiringly.

'Geoffrey Taverner _was_ in it?' she said, repeating his words with some
additional emphasis.

He nodded.

'You're too quick. He had cyanide on him--he was dead before we got him
to the station.'

Miss Silver sighed. 'It will be a terrible shock to his sister.'

'Not so great a shock as seeing him stand his trial for murder and be
hanged at the end of it. Castell swears it was Geoffrey who planned and
carried out Al Miller's murder. You were right about the motive. Albert
knew about the passage and was threatening to go to the police if he
didn't get a handsome rake-off. Castell says Geoffrey stabbed him. Luke
White says he changed clothes with Albert and impersonated him--not
because he knew anything about a plot to bump him off--how could we
think that he would be a party to anything like that? All he thought was
Albert was going to be shipped off out of harm's way for a nice little
holiday in France. And after he had made his way back here, of course he
had to be in hiding and nobody told him anything--only that the police
were after the passage and he'd got to skip over to France with the next
run.... Florence Duke? Oh, yes, they'd been married and separated, but
he'd never set eyes on her from the time he walked out of the inn as Al
Miller. It was very stupid of her to commit suicide, because, beyond
telling him a bit about the passage years ago, she'd nothing to do with
any of it, and it wasn't her business. That's going to be his line of
defence, and he'll get a slick lawyer to put it over for him. I'm afraid
there isn't an earthly chance of pinning poor Florence Duke's murder on
to him, but I shall be very much surprised if a jury doesn't find that
he was up to his neck in the conspiracy to murder Al Miller, every
detail of which must have been most carefully thought out and planned
beforehand.'

Miss Silver said, 'I have no doubt of it.'

He nodded.

'Well, as I said, Castell swears Geoffrey Taverner did the actual
stabbing, and if Geoffrey were alive, no doubt he would say it was
Castell. Both of them were only just across the passage from that very
convenient back stair which comes down on the far side of Castell's
office. When last seen alive Al Miller was being bustled into that
office through the door which opens from the lounge. He was then more
than half drunk. This was about ten o'clock. At a guess I should say
Castell kept him there, and kept him drunk. Remember, he said he had
been drinking downstairs with Luke White till round about eleven. This,
of course, wasn't true, because Luke was impersonating Albert at the
Wiltons' in Thread Street, but I think it's pretty well certain that
Castell was down in his office plying Albert with drink. He may have
slipped upstairs about eleven and pretended to go to bed, in which case
Geoffrey could have gone down and kept an eye on Albert. They had to
give time for everyone in the house to be asleep, and they had to give
time for Luke to establish his alibi. Then, right in the middle of their
arrangements, John Higgins cropped up. He had heard from Mrs. Bridling
of Eily's scene with Luke, and naturally enough he came out here
hot-foot to try and get her to come away. As you know, they compromised
on her going to sleep with Jane Heron. But meanwhile Castell had
overheard their conversation, and it gave him a bright idea.'

Miss Silver said, 'I do not think that it was Castell's idea. We know
very little about Geoffrey Taverner's part in the whole affair, but I am
not inclined to minimise it.'

He looked at her sharply.

'Did you suspect him at all?'

Her needles clicked.

'I was beginning to do so.'

'On what grounds?'

'I thought him a little too calm and unruffled on the night of the first
murder--a little too--no, I cannot get a word for it. But there was
something, some discrepancy between his behaviour and the impression
which it made upon me. It was all very slight, and people sometimes pose
when there is no criminal motive. Then today, after Florence Duke had
been found dead, he showed a definite change of manner towards myself.
He had at first treated me in quite an offhand way. This morning quite
suddenly he changed, became confidential on the subject of his sister,
and thanked me for my kindness to her. He had noticed that she was
inclined to talk to me, and he was anxious to convey certain impressions
with regard to her. He wished me to believe that she was nervous,
fanciful, credulous, and more than a little unbalanced. Some of these
things were true, but why should he desire to impress them upon a
stranger? My answer to that was that he was afraid of what she might
have told me and wished to discount it without delay. I naturally found
this very suggestive. To begin with, Geoffrey Taverner and his sister
were the grandchildren of Jeremiah's second son Matthew. Like his elder
brother he was a builder. The older members of the family would have
been the most likely to know the secrets of the house. A man who was a
builder by trade would be apt to notice structural peculiarities. The
eldest son obviously knew something which decided him to break off his
connection with the Catherine-Wheel and strike out for himself. His son
Jacob has shown an extreme interest in the matter. I discovered from
Mildred Taverner that she had been the constant companion of her
grandfather Matthew, the second son, and that he had told her he had
been frightened by seeing a hole in the wall when he was a little boy.
It occurred to me that he might have told Geoffrey a good deal more than
that. The secret, if there was one, would be more likely to be handed
down to a boy than to a nervous girl. These were some of the things
which occurred to me.'

Frank nodded. 'Yes, I expect it was something like that. Well, to get
back to Saturday night. I think we may assume Castell went and told
Geoffrey that John Higgins had rolled up, and that one of them, probably
Geoffrey, saw a way of making use of this. They waited until twelve or
so, one of them in charge of Albert, and then they dressed him in Luke's
clothes, bumped him off, and laid him out at the foot of the stairs to
be found by the first person who came down. Then, I think, Geoffrey went
out and whistled Greenland's Icy Mountains under Jane Heron's window. If
nobody heard him, well, that was that. If anyone did, it would throw
suspicion on John Higgins. Castell unlatched one of the lounge windows
to help the good work along. Then they both went back to bed and waited
for someone to give the alarm. It was a very ingenious plan, and if it
hadn't been for you it might have come off.'

Miss Silver gave a modest cough.

'What about Mr. Jacob Taverner? He made a statement, did he not? What
did he say?'

Frank's smile had a tinge of malice.

'He hasn't confided in you?'

'No.'

'How surprising! All the same, I'd like to know how he strikes you.'

She laid her knitting down for a moment and rested her hands upon it.

'Because a man has made a fortune in business it does not follow that
his judgment in other matters is to be relied upon. I have thought that,
having retired from active management, he has perhaps found time hang
heavy upon his hands, and I think that he has always had some kind of
romantic fancy about the Catherine-Wheel. Most men have a point on which
they are not quite grown up. I think that with Mr. Jacob Taverner this
point is the Catherine-Wheel. Like the rest of the family, he knew
something, and I think at the back of his mind there was the idea that
some day when he had time he would go into the matter and clear it up.
The lease ran out, the property came back to him, he retired from
business, and there was his opportunity. By assembling as many of
Jeremiah Taverner's descendants as possible he hoped to piece together
what they knew. I think he also may have had the idea of observing them
with a view to the ultimate disposal of his fortune.'

'Well, well, you were looking over his shoulder, I suppose. Invisible,
of course, because Crisp and I were there and we didn't see you.'

She smiled indulgently.

'Did his statement say anything like that?'

'Practically word for word--especially the bit about not being quite
grown up. He said his father told him there was a secret room--_room_
not passage--when he was a boy, and it took hold of him. He used to plan
to go and find it, and to find it full of gold and silver. Rather an
ironical way for a dream to come true! When he took the place over he
pressed Castell about it. He didn't get anything at first, but after he
had put in his advertisement and the relations began to roll up Castell
showed him the passage between the cellar and the shore. He said Annie
had only just told him about it. Jacob didn't believe him, and he still
believed there was a secret room, because that's what his father had
called it, and nobody would have called that passage between the cellar
and the shore a room. So he went on fishing to see what he could get
from the relations. He thought they all knew something, and if he got
them all down here he'd be able to put the bits together and get what he
wanted. Well, he got more than he bargained for. He's a bit shattered.
Two murders and a criminal conspiracy--it's a little like going out with
a shrimping-net and finding you've caught a shark!'

Miss Silver was casting off her stitches. She said gravely,

'It has been a very trying time, but it is over.'




                               Chapter 43


Mrs. Bridling was very late in getting home. On any other day she would
have felt some apprehension on the score of Mr. Bridling's temper, and
would certainly have had to endure a prolonged dissertation on the duty
of a wife, supported by quotations from the Scriptures, but tonight she
had so much news to impart that she could count upon holding the floor.
Mr. Bridling's curiosity, whetted by rumour and far from being appeased
by the snatches of news which had come his way, was in a really rampant
condition. Wat Cooling's aunt had rushed in with the bare statement that
Geoffrey Taverner had committed suicide, and then rushed out again to
give an irascible husband who was working overtime his belated supper.
John Higgins hadn't been near him. He was, in fact, what Mrs. Bridling
called 'all worked up'.

Mrs. Bridling found herself being listened to as never before, and she
fairly let herself go.

'Seems there's been goodness knows what going on. Secret passages full
of gold and diamonds and all sorts. And Mr. Castell taken up for
murder--and Mr. Geoffrey Taverner too if he hadn't killed himself. And
that Luke White not dead at all. Too bad to be killed easy is what I
say!'

'Flourishing like the green bay tree,' said Mr. Bridling with a groan.

His wife gave an emphatic nod.

'You couldn't have put it better. You're a wonderful hand with texts,
Ezra, and that I must say.'

Mr. Bridling groaned again, this time with impatience.

'Go on,' he said.

Emily Bridling went on with an extremely colourful narrative.

'It's poor Annie I'm sorry for,' she said at the end of it.

'She shouldn't have married a foreigner,' said Mr. Bridling.

Mrs. Bridling brought him his cup of cocoa.

'Someone's got to marry them.'

Mr. Bridling blew on the froth.

'Let them marry foreign,' he said. 'Annie Higgins was brought up chapel
and she did ought to have known better.'

'She didn't know he was going to turn out the way he did. Ever such a
way with him, and she was tired of cooking for other people--wanted a
home of her own.'

Mr. Bridling sipped complacently.

'And look where it's brought her,' he said. 'Lucky for her if she isn't
took up too. There's no word of that, I suppose?'

Mrs. Bridling flushed.

'No, there isn't, nor there won't be if anyone's got a grain of sense.
Poor Annie didn't know a thing. Nor they wouldn't tell her--why should
they? A bit simple from a child, but that good-hearted, and such a hand
for pastry as never was.'

Mr. Bridling sipped again.

'Ah, well,' he said, 'she's made her bed and she must lie on it.'

Up at the Catherine-Wheel Jane and Eily were talking in bed. Jane looked
into the darkness and thought of all the things that had happened since
Jeremy drove her down on Saturday evening. It was only Tuesday now, and
by another Saturday she wouldn't be Jane Heron any more, because she was
going to marry Jeremy. She had lost her job, she had got past feeling
proud, they loved each other, he wanted to take care of her. There
really didn't seem to be anything to wait for.

The last thought got itself into words.

'There doesn't seem to be anything to wait for.'

Eily made a rather indeterminate sound--a kind of murmur with a question
in it. Then she said, 'John is in a terrible hurry.'

Jane said what she had said once before.

'He wants to look after you. You can't stay here.'

Eily shuddered. She put out a hand, and Jane held it.

'Don't you want to marry him?'

Eily didn't answer that. She said, 'He says there's room for Aunt Annie
and she'll be welcome.'

'He's good. He'll look after you, Eily.'

Eily drew a long sighing breath.

'I shall have to go to chapel twice on a Sunday.'

                                THE END




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES


Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.






[End of The Catherine-Wheel, by Patricia Wentworth]
