Miss Silver Deals With Death (23 page)

“Do you really think she murdered Miss Garside?” said Agnes Drake in a shrinking voice.

“I think she did,” said Miss Silver soberly. “It was, from her point of view, a perfectly logical thing to do. She knew from Mrs. Smollett that the poor woman had exchanged a worthless ring of her own for a valuable one of Miss Roland’s. She had also been informed of a conversation between Mrs. Lemming and Miss Garside which made it quite plain that the latter was not in her flat at the time of the murder. And she had herself seen her coming up from the basement just before this time. It was perfectly clear that while Miss Garside’s continued existence might be extremely dangerous, Miss Garside’s death might be extremely useful. If it could be made to look like suicide it would be tantamount to a confession. We do not know how she effected this latest crime. She may have used the sale of the ring to introduce herself. She brought the morphia tablets with her, and found an opportunity of slipping them into Miss Garside’s tea. It will not, fortunately, be necessary to prove all this. She will be tried for the murders of Louisa Spedding and Carola Roland, and with Ivy Lord’s evidence there should, I think, be no doubt of a conviction.”

They talked a little more, and then they said goodbye.

Meade and Giles walked slowly down the street. When they had turned the corner, he said,

“They’re sending me back to the States. Will you come too?”

She looked up at him, flushing.

“Will they let me?”

“I think so. Will you come if they do?”

Her look was enough. The hand on his arm shook before she could control it. She said,

“When?”

“Next Clipper. But you mustn’t tell.”

Nicholas and Agnes Drake walked in a companionable silence. They had everything in the world to say, and all the time in the world in which to say it.

Frank Abbott remained alone with his hostess. Her room delighted him as much as she did. His gaze travelled reverentially from the flowered wallpaper to the curly walnut chairs, from Landseer and Millais to the silver-framed photographs which thronged the mantelpiece, from a monstrous pink china ornament in the form of a bee to Miss Silver herself in her best afternoon dress of a neatly patterned purplish material with collar and cuffs of Maltese lace, a brooch of carved bog-oak set with three small pearls and bracelets to match, the double eye-glass which she used for reading suspended about her neck by a fine black cord, her feet encased in beaded glacé slippers.

Having arrived, the gaze remained and was fixed. Miss Silver, aware of it, glanced at him with mild enquiry. She saw a tall young man who could be impudent, but whose demeanour at the moment was modest in the extreme. Whilst she looked up, he looked down. And then, without any warning at all, he was bowing over her hand and kissing it.

“You’re a wonder, Maudie!” he said, and fled.

Miss Silver’s eyebrows rose, but she did not appear displeased. She said, “Dear me—” and relaxed in an indulgent smile.

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