Miss Silver Deals With Death (12 page)

Mrs. Smollett went downstairs in a very glorified state. She met Mr. Willard coming up. He looked as if he had been up all night, and he looked as if he had been drinking—two things so extraordinary in so proper a gentleman that Mrs. Smollett, who had usually no difficulty in believing anything about anyone, really did feel some difficulty about stretching her mind to take them in.

As she passed through the hall, Miss Crane popped out of No. 1 with an alacrity which suggested that she had been on the look-out and had no intention of letting a possible source of information pass her by.

“Oh, Mrs. Smollett, do come in for a minute! Such an unpleasant experience! How did you get on? I thought perhaps a cup of tea—and perhaps a dash of brandy in it just to steady your nerves—”

Mrs. Smollett responded graciously. She wasn’t making herself cheap. She had become an important personage and she knew it. Reporters would question her, her photograph would be in all the papers, but she had no objection to a rehearsal. Miss Crane was an audience. Hot tea and brandy were a lure. She pressed a hand to a massive side and said the spasms were something cruel and she didn’t mind if she did.

Miss Crane was most appreciative. She didn’t know how Mrs. Smollett bore up as well as she did. And as for going into the witness-box and having to take an oath and swear to things, well, she always hoped she would never have to do anything of the sort, for she was quite sure she would never survive it.

“There was a young man here just now wanting to know when any of us saw Miss Roland last, and whether we’d seen Major Armitage. Such a handsome soldierly-looking man. Major Armitage, not the detective, though he was quite a nice-looking young man too. And of course I was able to say that we hadn’t. Such a comfort, because one doesn’t want to get anyone into trouble. But as I told him, none of us actually went outside the flat yesterday except just down to the post in the evening. And then I didn’t see anyone at all except Miss Garside coming up from the basement. And I wondered what she’d been doing there, though of course no business of mine. And as I said to him, I can’t be too thankful, because anything like being dragged into a murder case would have a very bad effect indeed on Mrs. Meredith’s state of health, and that must always be my first consideration. She was quite poorly yesterday—that’s why we didn’t go out. Packer and I were quite anxious. But I’m glad to say she had a good night and is a great deal more like herself this morning.”

Packer, happening to pass through the room at this moment, was called upon to confirm the happy improvement. She was a tall, lanky woman with hard features and a sour expression. There was no softening of either as she jerked head and shoulder in something which might be construed as assent and went out again, shutting the door with what was not quite a bang.

Miss Crane, sighed and said in a deprecating manner,

“That’s the worst of a murder—it’s so very upsetting. Packer is quite upset. Now, Mrs. Smollett, another cup of tea—and a dash, just a dash of brandy—”

Mr. Willard had passed Mrs. Smollett on the landing without seeing her. He used his key to let himself into No. 6 and, crossing the lobby, pushed open the sitting-room door. The curtains were still drawn and the electric light blazing. At any other time this sinful extravagance would have called forth a well-phrased and pertinent rebuke. The state of Mr. Willard’s mind is indicated by the fact that he hardly noticed it. He came just inside the door and stood there staring at his wife.

Mrs. Willard was sitting at the fumed-oak writing-table. She was still in the dress she had worn the night before, an artificial silk patterned in red and green. It looked as clothes look when they have been up all night. Mrs. Willard looked that way too. She had stopped crying hours ago. The handkerchief which had been a soaked rag at midnight lay forgotten in the corner of the couch. It was almost dry. It was nearly ten hours since she had left it there and gone up the last flight of stairs to the top landing, her usually placid mind in a state of conflagration at the thought that Alfred was behind that right hand door, the door of No. 8. It was these flames which had dried her tears. Afterwards she had been too cold to cry. She had come back to her room and sat down upon the couch again, and the time had gone slowly by.

It was not until nine o’clock that she went over to the writing-table and rang up Alfred’s brother. The Ernest Willards lived in Ealing. Ernest was a clerk in the Admiralty. She had come very slowly and stiffly to the conclusion that Alfred might be at The Limes. She dialled the number, and was answered immediately by a click and Ernest’s voice. Very like Alfred’s, but a little lower in tone. The resemblance was strengthened by a note of displeasure.

“Yes, Alfred is here. We are just about to start—in fact we should have started already. You had better ring him at his office.”

Mrs. Willard said in a cold, dull tone,

“I can’t, Ernest. He will have to come home. Something has happened here. Will you tell him that Miss Roland was murdered last night.” She rang off, letting the receiver fall clattering back upon its stand.

After that she didn’t move, just sat there in her crumpled dress, her hair fallen untidily about her neck. The flush which had covered her face changed to a heavy waxen pallor.

Mr. Willard stood and stared at her. For a moment she was someone he had never seen before. And then his own sense of shock and misery blotted that out and she was Amelia again— Amelia who was always kind, Amelia who nursed him when he was ill, Amelia to whom he had been married for twenty years. He came over to her at a stumbling run, dropped down, put his head in her lap, and burst out crying like a child who has lost a glittering toy. His dry precision gone, he found simple phrases, broken by sobs.

“She was—so beautiful. There wasn’t anything—in it, Amelia. It was just—that she was—so beautiful. I didn’t even—kiss her—she wouldn’t let me. She laughed at me—and called me— a funny little man. Perhaps I am—but she was—so beautiful—”

After a moment Amelia Willard put her arms round him. No child had ever called to her in vain. It was the child in Alfred that she loved. For the sake of that child she had for twenty years put up with his tidiness, his fault-finding, his dictatorial ways. When he was tired, when he was unhappy, when he was ill, the child would cling to her. The agony of last night had been the agony of believing that the child was dead.

She held him now, rocking him, and saying foolish, loving things. After a while he lifted a tear-stained face. His glasses were crooked and smudged. He took them off, dried and polished them, wiped his eyes, blew his nose, put the glasses on again, and gazed at Amelia. When he had drawn away from her she had rested her right elbow on the table, lifting the hand to prop her head.

Alfred Willard’s gaze became fixed and horrified. The sleeve which fell away from that lifted hand was stained and dabbed with blood.

Mrs. Underwood sat in the tubular chair. She thought how uncomfortable it was, and tried to remember that she was a Wing Commander’s wife, and that the stout man facing her was, after all, just a plain-clothes policeman, not so very far removed from the constable who stops the traffic for you and helps you on your way in the black-out. She had put on a smart hat and taken pains with her face, but none of these things prevented her from feeling as if more than twenty years had been rolled away and she was Mabel Peabody again, dreadfully frightened and wishing that the ground would open and swallow her up. Old Lamb, country born and bred, was reminded of any scared animal. Fear is fear, and you can’t hide it. Cows in a burning shed— he’d seen that when he was a boy and never forgotten it—a rat in a trap, sheep when a dog has been worrying them, a badly startled horse, and this fine lady in her smart London clothes— frightened creatures, the lot of them. He didn’t wonder what Mrs. Underwood had to be frightened about, because he knew. That is to say, he knew enough to be going on with. There might be more to it. There might even be a great deal more, but this would do for a start.

He began in his pleasant manner.

“I believe you were out for a good part of yesterday afternoon and evening, Mrs. Underwood. We are making a timetable of the comings and goings of everyone in the flats. It will help us to find out at what times it would have been possible for a stranger to have visited Miss Roland without being seen. Have you any objection to giving us your times?”

This was quite reassuring. Mabel Peabody faded—Mabel Underwood produced the required information.

“I went out to lunch, and then on to take my niece’s place at Miss Middleton’s centre. They pack parcels for people who have been bombed out, and for necessitous evacuees, and I’m sure it’s all very useful, but I couldn’t work under her myself. Well, of course that won’t interest you, and I mustn’t take up your time. Let me see, where was I? Oh, yes—I packed parcels till five o’clock, and then I went on to play bridge at the Soames’, and I suppose I got back here about half past seven.”

“You came straight back?”

Mrs. Underwood looked surprised.

“Oh, yes.”

“Straight back to your own flat, Mrs. Underwood?”

She was frightened again now. She hadn’t enough breath to answer. She looked at the window—at the fireplace—anywhere except at Chief Inspector Lamb.

“I don’t know what you mean. Of course I came back to my flat.”

“Yes, of course you did. But you didn’t come straight back— did you? Your maid, Ivy Lord, says you were in front of her all the way along from the corner, and that Miss Roland was in front of you. There would be quite enough light at half past seven for her to recognise two people whom she knew. She says Miss Roland was not in sight when she came in, but that you were standing by the lift shaft waiting for the lift to come down again. She waited in the porch until you had gone up in the lift. Miss Underwood had given her leave to go out, but she had overstayed her time. She hoped you would go straight to your room and not realise that she was out, but when she entered the flat she found to her surprise that you had not come in. It was then a minute or two before the half hour. She says she looked at the clock in the hall as she came in, and at the kitchen clock as soon as she had taken her coat off. It was then exactly half past seven. She says that it was not until ten minutes later that you came into the flat. Do you dispute this statement?”

That unbecoming mauve flush had risen to the roots of the tinted chestnut hair. The high bust lifted and fell.

“No—no—of course not.”

Lamb leaned forward a little.

“Miss Roland was in front of you all the way from the corner?”

“Yes. She was seeing someone off by the bus in front of mine.”

“You didn’t speak to her?”

“Oh, no. She had started back before I got off my bus.”

“You mean that you waited purposely to give her a start— you didn’t very much want to catch her up?”

“Well, something like that. I had only met her once. The Willards had her in to make a fourth at bridge on Monday. I didn’t want to get too intimate—I had my niece to consider.”

“Just so. Well now, Mrs. Underwood, would you like to account for that time between half past seven and twenty to eight? Ivy Lord saw you go up in the lift. Where did you go to?”

The flush deepened almost to purple. Mrs. Underwood gripped the tubular arms of the chair. The metal was cold against her sweating palms. She drew a long breath, and lost control of it. Her words came unevenly, catching and stumbling.

“I went up—to the top floor. There was—something I thought of—something I wanted to—say to Miss Roland. It wasn’t anything at all—I just thought—I would speak about it—if I could catch her. It wasn’t really anything—but I thought—it might be—a good opportunity—”

“And was it?” said Lamb.

She didn’t look at him.

“Oh, I didn’t see her. I changed my mind.”

“You just went up to the top floor and came down again? But that wouldn’t take ten minutes, would it?”

Mrs. Underwood took another of those long breaths.

“Well, no—but I didn’t come down at once. I expect it sounds very silly, but I just couldn’t make up my mind. I got out of the lift, and there was the flat but the door was shut, and I thought, ‘Well, it’s getting late.’ And then I thought I might as well see her and be done with it. I got right up to the door, and I was going to ring the bell but I didn’t. I walked down the stairs nearly as far as the next landing. And then I thought I was being stupid and I went back, but in the end I just came down again. I suppose that’s how the time went.”

It sounded a very lame and unconvincing tale. Sergeant Abbott, sitting a little to Mrs. Underwood’s rear, permitted himself to raise an unbelieving eyebrow. Lamb had a frown as he said,

“You didn’t see Miss Roland then?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t.”

He allowed a pause to weigh upon them all before he said with an abrupt change of manner,

“What did you want to see her about?”

“Oh—nothing special—”

“It wasn’t by any chance about a letter?”

Lamb rummaged among the papers before him and leaned towards her with a folded sheet in his hand. One of the corners had been torn off. She stared at it, holding to the arms of the chair.

Lamb unfolded the sheet.

“This letter is signed Mabel Underwood. You wrote it, didn’t you? There is only a small piece missing. It starts without anybody’s name and says, ‘I really cannot do what you ask me. It is quite impossible. I ought not to have sent you anything the first time, but you said that would settle everything. It is quite impossible for me to give you any more money without my husband knowing about it.’ Your signature follows. Then there’s this piece that’s been torn off—was there anything written on that?”

She gave a sort of nod.

“Do you remember what it was?”

She spoke with a gasp.

“I said—I had no money to give.”

Lamb leaned over the table, resting his arms upon it.

“Miss Roland was blackmailing you?”

“I—don’t know.”

“How do you mean you don’t know?”

“I didn’t know it was Miss Roland. I posted the letter.”

“Will you give me the address.”

Frank Abbott took it down.

“Was it the same address to which you sent the first letter— the one with the money in it?”

“No—that was another address.”

“Will you give me that too?”

She gave it, unable to do anything except answer whatever they asked her. Her first desperate fear had slipped into lethargy. It was no use—they had her letter—she must answer them. She did not see the quick look which passed between Lamb and Abbott as she gave the second address.

Lamb said quickly,

“Can you give me the date of this first letter? I take it it was the first—the one with the money in it?”

There was some additional distress. She answered with difficulty.

“Yes—I don’t know—I sent the money—I don’t remember the date—it was about six months ago—in the spring—”

“And how much money did you send?”

“Fifty pounds.”

“And you heard no more for a time?”

“No—not till the other day—last week.”

She told them about writing the letter and posting it.

Then Lamb said,

“How did you know that Miss Roland had your letter?”

It was no use—she had to answer them.

“I saw it—in her bag.”

“Will you explain that a little, Mrs. Underwood.”

Another long breath.

“It was on Monday evening—when we were playing bridge at the Willards’. She opened her bag to get a cigarette, and I saw my letter.”

“You recognised it—like that?”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought it was my letter—I wasn’t sure.”

“Then you went to see Miss Roland with the idea of finding out whether she had your letter?”

“Yes. But I didn’t see her—I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Underwood pulled herself together. She hadn’t told about finding the torn-off corner of the letter on her bedroom floor, and this small circumstance helped her back to self-control. It was as if she had managed to keep her feet for a moment, and the fact that she had done so steadied her. She said,

“Because I wasn’t sure. Coming up in the lift, I thought I was, but when I got out on the landing I wasn’t any more, and I thought how awkward it would be if I went in and said a thing like that and then it wasn’t my letter after all. That’s when I began to go downstairs, and when I got a bit of the way down it came over me that it really was my letter and that I ought to go back and ask about it. But I just couldn’t make up my mind, and that’s the truth.”

They pressed her, but she stuck to it. She had had her finger on the bell, but she hadn’t rung it. She hadn’t entered the flat. She hadn’t seen Carola Roland or spoken to her.

In the end Lamb let her go. She went back to her flat a badly frightened woman and rang up Miss Maud Silver.

A prim little cough and a kind, decided voice:

“Miss Silver speaking.”

“Oh, Miss Silver—I’m in such trouble—such dreadful trouble! I don’t know what to do. You said you’d help me—you remember—Mrs. Underwood—and I said I didn’t see how I could manage it—but now I must. It would be so dreadfully bad for Godfrey—if I got mixed up—in this case—and I could see they didn’t believe me—though I swear I was telling the truth—”

Miss Silver’s voice cut in sharply.

“What case, Mrs. Underwood?”

Mabel Underwood lowered her voice to a shaking whisper.

“She—has been—murdered. Oh, Miss Silver!”

Miss Silver said, “Who?”

“The girl I told you about—the one who had my letter—Carola Roland.”

“Dear me!”

Mrs. Underwood began to pour it all out, but was presently stopped.

“I think it is inadvisable to say any more. I will come and see you.”