Miss Silver Comes To Stay (19 page)

Saturday slipped away. Catherine Welby bought some face-cream, a box of powder, and a new lipstick, after which she took the next bus back to Melling. Saturday being a half day at the office, Allan Grover snatched a hasty lunch and went to watch a football match. Returning home in time for a six o’clock tea, he had a wash and brush up and went out again, announcing that he thought he would look in at The Feathers for a game of darts. He was home by half past ten and in bed a few minutes later, but sleep remained obstinately aloof. Mrs. Grover, in the next room, decided for at least the hundredth time that she really must do something to stop that bed of his from creaking so. Every time he turned over it made a noise like a door with a rusty hinge, and why a healthy boy should turn and twist like that was beyond her. But there, boys and girls were all the same—a trouble over their teething, and a trouble over their schooling, and a trouble over their lovering. The way Allan was going on he’d got something on his mind, and she didn’t have to think twice to know what it was. Pity he couldn’t have just gone on quiet with Gladys Luker that was a real nice girl and thought the world of him. But there—a man wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t make a fool of himself some time in his life, and better first than last. He was young, and he’d get over it and be married and settled one day, and Gladys too. And then there’d be the same trouble all over again with their children—you couldn’t get from it. She pulled the bedclothes well up over her ears and went to sleep.

Sunday morning came in bright and clear. Mrs. Fallow, professionally off duty, took time from her own domestic affairs to run up to Melling House just to keep in touch. If, for instance, Cyril had been arrested, it would be a severe affront to hear the news from anyone but Mrs. Mayhew herself. Passing the Gate House at half past nine, she thought Mrs. Welby was lying late—no smoke from the chimney and the milk not taken in. She remarked to Mrs. Mayhew that she only wished she had the time to lie in bed of a morning.

A cup of tea having been proffered and accepted, twenty minutes slipped away. After which Mrs. Fallow buttoned up her coat and said she didn’t know what she was thinking about, sitting like this with everything waiting at home and the Sunday dinner to cook. She made off down the drive at a quick trot. Slackening her pace when she came to the Gate House, she was astonished and a little shocked to see the milk bottle still on the step and no trace of smoke coming from the chimney. A good lay-in on a Sunday was one thing, but best part of ten o’clock was what you might call overdoing it. She went out between the pillars, and something nagged at her to go back again. All the years she’d known Mrs. Welby she hadn’t ever known her to be late in the morning. If it was some she could name, it wouldn’t be anything to think twice about, but Mrs. Welby was one of the early ones— always had been so long as she’d known her.

She went along the flagged path to the little porch and stood looking at the milk bottle. It ought to have been taken in best part of two hours ago. She didn’t like it. On the other hand, Mrs. Welby wasn’t one that would care about your poking your nose into her business. If she hadn’t been one of the most inquisitive women on earth Mrs. Fallow would have turned round and gone away.

She couldn’t bring herself to do it. She went round the corner of the house and saw all the curtains closely drawn and the windows shut. It was downright unnatural. Always slept with her windows open Mrs. Welby did, the one to the side of the house and the one to the front, and if she was up and about she’d be airing the room. Talking about it afterwards, she said she got a cold creep all down her back, and what came into her mind was it looked for all the world as if there was someone dead in the house.

She walked all the way round. There wasn’t a window open or a curtain pulled aside. She came back to the porch and pressed her finger on the electric bell. No one answered, no one came.

Mrs. Fallow found herself getting out her handkerchief and wiping her hands. It was a bright, cold morning, but they were clammy with sweat. The silence in the house seemed to be seeping out of it like—she didn’t know what it was like, but it frightened her. She rang again and again, and when that failed she beat upon the door loud enough, in her own words, to wake the dead. Nobody waked, nobody came. She picked up her feet and ran for the White Cottage.

She looked scared to death when Rietta Cray opened the door, and next minute she was crying, and saying she thought something had happened to Mrs. Welby and what did they ought to do about it. It was Rietta who suggested the telephone, but when there was still no reply they all went round to the Gate House, she, and Carr, and Fancy, and Mrs. Fallow.

It was Fancy who tried the door and found that it wasn’t locked. The key was on the inner side, but it wasn’t locked. They went through into the living-room, and found the light turned on in the reading-lamp and the curtains closed. The light showed the gold waves of Catherine’s hair against one of her pastel cushions. She lay on the sofa in her blue house-gown and looked as if she was asleep. But she was dead.

The Chief Constable’s car drew up at Mrs. Voycey’s front door. He rang the bell, asked for Miss Silver, and was shown into the drawing-room where she and Mrs. Voycey were sitting by the fire. Cecilia Voycey displayed a commendable degree of tact. She shook hands, she beamed a welcome, and removed herself and her novel to the dining-room. When the door was closed upon her Randal March turned to Miss Silver and said,

“Well, I suppose you have heard the news.”

She had her knitting in her lap. The two fronts and the back of little Josephine’s jacket having been completed and sewn together, she was engaged upon the left sleeve, for which four needles were in use. They clicked briskly as she replied,

“Oh, yes. It is extremely shocking.”

He dropped into the chair which Mrs. Voycey had vacated.

“You were, of course, perfectly right. I don’t know how you do it. I must confess I was sceptical, but—we got a statement from the Luker girl. She did listen in on Wednesday night, and this is what she says.” He took out some folded sheets of typescript, straightened them, and began to read aloud:—

‘ “I was on duty from Wednesday evening at seven o’clock. Things were quiet. There weren’t many calls. At a quarter to eight Mr. Lessiter rang through from Melling House to know if I could help him with Mr. Holderness’s private address. I looked it up and put him through. I wouldn’t have listened, only I was worrying about something and I thought maybe it would stop me thinking about it. But I’d another call to see to, so all I heard was Mr. Lessiter saying, “Good-evening, Mr. Holderness. I’ve found my mother’s memorandum.” The call was quite a short one, and I didn’t listen any more. A little after eight Mr. Lessiter called again. He gave Mrs. Welby’s number, and I put him on. There has been a lot of talk about Mr. Lessiter in Melling. I don’t listen as a rule, but I thought I would, just to see what he sounded like talking to someone like Mrs. Welby—’ ”

He looked up from the paper and said,

“We didn’t get all this straight off, you know. She was a good deal upset. There seemed to be something behind this listening in—some animus against Mrs. Welby. Do you know of anything that would account for it?”

Miss Silver was knitting composedly. She said,

“Oh, yes. Gladys Luker used to be very friendly with Mrs. Grover’s son at the Grocery Stores, the young man I told you of in Mr. Holderness’s office. He has been rather advertizing a foolish infatuation for Mrs. Welby.”

He broke into a half laugh.

“How in the world do you discover these things?”

She gave her faint dry cough.

“My friend’s housekeeper is Gladys Luker’s aunt. Pray continue.”

“Yes—we now approach the meat… Where was I?… Oh, here—“I thought I would, just to see what he sounded like talking to someone like Mrs. Welby. He began just the same as he did to Mr. Holderness—“Well, Catherine, I’ve found the memorandum. I thought you’d be pleased to know. You are, aren’t you?” I wondered what it was all about, because it sounded as if he was saying something nasty. Mrs. Welby didn’t sound at all pleased. She said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “You know very well what I mean. It’s all down in black and white. My mother never gave you any of those things. She lent them, and they are my property. If you have disposed of any of them, I shall prosecute.” Mrs. Welby said, “You wouldn’t do that!” and he said, “I don’t advise you to count on it, my dear Catherine. I’ve an old score to settle, and I always settle my scores. I’ve just been ringing old Holderness up—” I didn’t hear any more than that, because another call came through. At twenty past eight Mrs. Welby rang Miss Cray. I can’t remember everything she said, but it was all telling Miss Cray about Mr. Lessiter finding this memorandum, and his saying the furniture and things she had were only lent to her. She wanted Miss Cray to tell Mr. Lessiter that his mother’s memory was bad and she didn’t know what she was doing, and Miss Cray wouldn’t. Mrs. Welby went on at her, but she wouldn’t. Mrs. Welby got very worked up, and right at the end she said, “Well, if anything happens, it’ll be your fault. I’m desperate.” And she rang off.’ ”

He laid the paper down.

“It’s just what you thought, isn’t it? And if you’ll let me say so, I don’t think even you have ever done a better bit of work—bricks without straw, and good solid bricks at that. I think it’s quite clear now what happened. Catherine Welby’s bluff was called. She was faced with prosecution. Lessiter was a vindictive devil and he had it in for her. When she found she couldn’t get Rietta to say what she wanted she went up to Melling House to make a personal appeal. But when she got there Lessiter wasn’t alone. Rietta had taken the short cut and got in first. She may have passed Catherine, or I suppose Catherine may have passed her and waited to see who it was behind her. That would account for the footprints under the lilacs. We have found the shoes which made them. There’s a little of the black earth and a grain or two of lime between the heel and the upper.”

Miss Silver nodded. She was knitting busily.

“Pray go on.”

“Well, there it is. She must have waited for Rietta to go. Then she went in herself, tried to soften him, but failed. He would be sitting at the table with the memorandum in front of him. It would be easy enough for her to pick up the raincoat and put it on—he wouldn’t notice or care. It wouldn’t occur to him to be afraid of anything she might do. He was pretty full of himself, and he’d got her under his thumb. She had just told Rietta she was desperate. She could have gone behind him to the fire and picked up the poker. Well, there you are.”

Miss Silver said nothing at all for quite a little while. Her needles clicked. When she did speak it was to say,

“You consider that she has committed suicide.”

“I shouldn’t think that there was any doubt about it. There will have to be a post-mortem of course, but there’s no reason to doubt that her death was due to an overdose of sleeping tablets. There was an empty bottle on the table by her side— one of those new preparations which everyone seems to fly to the minute they have anything the matter with them nowadays.”

“How had they been taken?”

“Oh, in coffee. The tray was there on the table—coffeepot, milk-jug, the cup with the dregs still in it.”

“It would take a good deal of coffee to dissolve enough tablets to kill a healthy young woman. What size was the cup?”

“An old one—quite a fair size. Why?”

“I was wondering if the tablets had been dissolved in the cup, or in the pot, or whether they might have been separately dissolved in water and added to the coffee either in the pot or in the cup, in which case I should not expect any sediment to be found.”

He looked a little surprised.

“There was no sediment from the powdered tablets. But I’m afraid I don’t quite—”

She gave him a brief smile.

“It does not matter, Randal. Have you anything more to tell me?”

“Not about Catherine Welby. But we have had a report on Cyril Mayhew, and there, I must admit, you score again.”

She coughed in a protesting manner.

“My dear Randal, I merely repeated his friend Allan Grover’s opinion, with the comment that it appeared to be reasonable and sincere.”

“Well, the boy seems to have turned up at his lodgings in pretty bad shape. He said he missed the last train and had to thumb a lift. He’s been in bed with a temperature ever since. The gold figures are certainly not in his room, and he doesn’t seem to have any opportunity of disposing of them. The only time he could have done it would be between leaving Melling and arriving at his lodgings, and that’s out, because we’ve traced the man who gave him the lift—a doctor called out of town to a consultation. He says the boy seemed ill when he picked him up in Lenton, so he went a mile out of his road and took him all the way home.”

Miss Silver knitted briskly. The sleeve of little Josephine’s jacket lengthened.

“What does Cyril Mayhew say himself?”

“Oh, he admits going down to see his mother, and admits that it was because he wanted money, but he says his mother gave it to him. When he was pressed he broke down and said it was his father’s money and his father didn’t know. Well, that’s a family matter—unless Mayhew makes a charge, which he won’t. But it accounts for Mrs. Mayhew getting so hot and bothered. I suspect she has been strictly forbidden to go on providing the prodigal with pocket-money, and she’s been doing it behind Mayhew’s back.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“You did not find the gold figures at the Gate House?”

“No, we didn’t.”

She said in a thoughtful tone,

“They must be somewhere.”

He laughed.

“Too true! But we haven’t found them yet.”

She continued in the same manner.

“A woman in Mrs. Welby’s position would find it extremely difficult to dispose of that kind of stolen property.”

He made a gesture of protest.

“She disposed of other things.”

“They were not known to be stolen. I do not suppose for a moment that she regarded them as stolen. She had probably quite persuaded herself that Mrs. Lessiter had given them to her, and she had no reason to suppose that her actions would ever be called in question. There is a vast difference between that and the disposal of these four gold figures, taken at the time of a murder and in the very presence of the murdered man.”

“She may have hidden them somewhere.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Why should she take them at all? For a woman of her type to kill by violence she must have been very highly wrought. Mr. Lessiter was threatening her with prosecution. If she was so beside herself with fear as to have recourse to an unnatural degree of violence, would she choose that moment for a theft which must involve her in a fresh series of risks and would, if traced, convict her of the murder? That is one thing I find difficult to believe. But there is another. Miss Cray left Mr. Lessiter at a quarter past nine. We know that Mrs. Welby stood behind the lilacs, and we have drawn the deduction that she was waiting for Miss Cray to go. We know that she ascended the step, and it is fair to conclude that she listened at the door. Miss Cray broke off her interview in anger, and she admits that the anger was on behalf of a friend. Can you doubt that the friend was Mrs. Welby, and that Miss Cray’s generous anger arose from his obstinate determination to prosecute?”

“Yes, I admit all that.”

“Then, Randal, can you explain why Mrs. Welby should have allowed more than half an hour to go by before entering the study?”

“Where do you get your half hour?”

She said very composedly,

“From Mrs. Mayhew’s statements. You will remember that she opened the study door at a quarter to ten and saw Miss Cray’s raincoat hanging over a chair. She described the cuff as being stained with blood. When she was later pressed on this point, it appeared that the stain was no more than could be accounted for by the scratch on Miss Cray’s wrist. But when Mr. Carr Robertson brought the raincoat home more than an hour later the sleeve was quite soaked with blood. If this soaking occurred whilst the coat was being worn by Mrs. Welby, then it happened after Mrs. Mayhew opened the door at a quarter to ten. From what Miss Cray has told me, I believe that it must have happened considerably later than that. Miss Cray says the blood was still quite wet. Blood dries quickly, and she says it was very hot in the study. If Mrs. Welby stained that coat in the act of murdering Mr. Lessiter, then she must have deferred her interview with him for something between half an hour and an hour and a quarter. Why should she have done so?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nor do I, Randal.”

He said in an exasperated voice,

“My dear Miss Silver, what are you trying to prove? The case is solved, the murderer has committed suicide—two and two have made four. What more do you want?”

She coughed in a deprecating manner.

“You say that two and two have made four. I regret to say that at the moment they appear to me to be making five.”