The Gazebo (14 page)

IT WAS EARLY the same afternoon that Miss Silver looked across the second of the vests she was knitting for Dorothy Silver’s little Tina and said,

‘My dear, I think you will just have to make it a duty to eat.’

Her mind had been on her knitting and upon the pretty fair-haired child who was to wear the vest. Pinks vary a good deal, but this was really a particularly pleasing shade. She looked up from it now and saw Althea Graham in profile. She had a book upon her knee, but it was a long time since she had turned a page. Her face was colourless and there were dark smudges under her eyes. The eyes themselves looked as if she had not slept. In reply to Miss Silver’s remark she said in a soft, indifferent voice,

‘Oh, I’m all right, thank you.’

The needles clicked briskly.

‘It is possible to starve for quite a long time without being aware that one is doing so. The mind is occupied, food has become distasteful, there is a complete loss of appetite. It all happens unnoticeably. And then suddenly when one is called upon to confront an emergency one finds oneself at a loss. The mind is not active, and the judgement not to be depended upon. I should like you to promise me that you will eat an egg with your tea.’

Althea looked up with the ghost of a smile.

‘How very, very kind you are. But you needn’t worry about me – I am really very strong.’

Miss Silver produced what Frank Abbott would have acclaimed as one of her Moralities.

‘Strength is given to us when we are trying to do what is right, but we are better able to avail ourselves of it if we do not neglect a proper allowance of food and sleep. You have eaten nothing all day. If I make a nice cup of tea, will you not please me by drinking it – perhaps with a beaten-up egg?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t. I don’t like them raw.’

Miss Silver beamed.

‘Then I will boil it lightly and cut a little thin bread and butter. I assure you that you will feel a great deal better when you have taken it.’

All at once it had become too much trouble to go on saying no. Miss Silver produced the egg, the tea, the thin bread and butter with the minimum of fuss, and when Althea had taken the first mouthful she found herself suddenly hungry. She ate the egg, the bread and butter, and some cold milk pudding pleasantly sprinkled with brown sugar, and whilst she ate Miss Silver conversed in a manner which somehow managed to be soothing without being dull. She seemed to be interested about Grove Hill.

‘It is not of any very great age as a suburb, I believe?’

‘No, I don’t think it is.’

‘These houses would be – about how old?’

‘I think they began to be built about 1890. This is one of the older ones.’

‘Before 1890?’

‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean that. But I think it was the first house built on what used to be called the Grove Hill Estate. Grove Hill House just above here, where the Harrisons are, was really an old country house. It was built somewhere about 1750. Our gazebo was in the grounds. It must have had a lovely view before everything was so built over. The house was wrecked and partly burned down in the Gordon Riots. It belonged to a Mr Warren who was a Roman Catholic, and the rioters were looting and burning all the Catholic houses. Mr Warren was a wealthy brewer. He had a fine collection of pictures and a lot of beautiful furniture and things. He was warned about the rioters but he wouldn’t go away. He tried to save what he could, but I think nearly everything was burned, and some of the masonry fell in on him and killed him. Nicky’s great-greatgrandfather bought the estate from Mr Warren’s grand-daughters.’

Miss Silver was gazing at her with rapt attention.

‘How extremely interesting! Mob violence is a terrible thing. We now hardly know what it is in this country. Charles Dickens has left a very vivid picture of the Gordon Riots in his novel Barnaby Rudge. It is extraordinary to reflect that the rioters attacked the Bank of England, burned down the prison of Newgate, and destroyed and pillaged at will, practically without a hand being raised to stop them.’

As she spoke she noticed with approbation that Althea was making good progress with the egg and bread and butter. Having contributed a Morality on the subject of religious intolerance, she said,

‘This is all most interesting. Pray continue.’

‘I don’t think there is very much more to tell. My father liked going into the history of the place. There are some books of his up in the attic – there is one about Grove Hill. I think the High Street and the shops and the railway station were built somewhere between 1850 and the end of the century. The houses came farther and farther up the hill. Nicky’s great-grandfather began to sell some of the land on the Grove Hill Estate. His grandfather sold everything except Grove Hill House and the garden round it. Nicky used to spend his holidays there with his aunt, Miss Lester. While he was away in the East she sold the house to the Harrisons who are cousins and went to live with a sister in Devonshire. That is why Nicky came here – the attic was full of his things and he had to sort them. It is Jack Harrison who is the cousin, not Ella.’

She spoke in a gentle, colourless manner, as if she were reciting a lesson so often repeated as to have lost its meaning. She had finished the bread and butter, and in the same almost mechanical manner she was now helping herself to the cold rice pudding. Miss Silver noticed the improvement in her colour with satisfaction and continued to talk upon such harmless and improving topics as the tendency of towns to expand and absorb the villages of an earlier day, with especial reference to London.

It was while she was so engaged that two of the Miss Pimms came out of Warren Crescent into Belview Road, which it joins no more than a hundred yards down the slope. They stood at the corner for a moment looking up and across in the direction of the lodge. After exchanging a few words they were about to cross the road, when the green bus came up the hill from the town. It stopped at the corner of Belview Road and Hill Rise and Frank Abbott got off. Lily Pimm had a second moment of triumph, since she knew who he was and her sister Mabel did not. She was quite beaming as she told Mabel that that was the inspector from Scotland Yard.

Mabel Pimm was justly annoyed. It wasn’t often that Lily could tell her something she didn’t know, but this was the second time it had happened today, and her instinct was to reject it. She said in a deep, vibrant voice,

‘Nonsense, Lily – he doesn’t look in the least like a policeman!’

‘I know he doesn’t but he is. Mrs Justice told me all about him. His grandmother was Lady Evelyn Abbott, and she had one of these big shipping fortunes and she left it past all the rest of the family to a grand-daughter who was a schoolgirl of fifteen. This man’s name is Abbott too – Frank Abbott.’

Mabel Pimm made the small explosive sound which is sometimes written ‘Tchah!’ When and how had Lily elicited this information from Louisa Justice, and why had she failed to pass it on? Lily was getting above herself. Lily would have to be snubbed. She snubbed her sharply.

‘Frank indeed! Really, Lily, what has the man’s name got to do with either of us, or why should you suppose it would be of the least interest to me? I can only repeat that if he is a police officer he doesn’t look like one!’

Lily was unabashed.

‘You hardly ever hear of anyone called Frank nowadays, do you? Look Mabel – he’s going into The Lodge! I suppose we shall have to put off our visit now.’

‘And why should we? We are calling upon Althea to condole with her upon the death of her mother. I can see no reason at all why we should alter our plan. I am merely waiting for the bus to go on.’

The bus moved. They crossed the road and were knocking at the front door of The Lodge just as Miss Silver preceded Frank Abbott into the dining-room. She had not expected him, and was wondering whether it was Althea or herself whom he wished to see, when he settled the matter by asking whether he could have a few words with her. There were times when she would have welcomed him more warmly. She intimated as much now.

‘I have just got that poor girl to eat something. I have been trying to take her mind off the case. I am really very much afraid of the strain proving too much for her. I hope that you have not brought any bad news?’

He looked at her with affection.

‘Well, I haven’t come here with a warrant in my pocket, if that is what you mean by bad news. I don’t think there’s very much doubt about Carey’s guilt, but up to date there isn’t any evidence to show that he came back to the gazebo after Mrs Graham had gone into the house. Of course there isn’t any evidence that he ever left the gazebo. He may have gone for a walk as he says he did and have come back again, or he may just have hung about in the gazebo and waited for Althea Graham to return. Her windows look that way, you know, and Mrs Graham’s don’t. He could have reckoned on her looking out of her window the last thing when she put out her light and drew back the curtains. Most people do that, you know. And he could have signalled to her with a torch. Suppose he did, and suppose it was Mrs Graham who got the signal. Her windows don’t look that way but the bathroom window does. On Miss Cotton’s evidence she was a hysterical woman, and she was in a very angry and suspicious frame of mind. I think she might easily have expected Carey to make some further effort to see her daughter. If she looked out of the bathroom window she could see the gazebo. She would see the least flicker of a torch. I think we’ve got to believe that she did see something, and that what she saw took her up the garden to the gazebo, where she was murdered. What we haven’t got at present is a single scrap of evidence after Althea Graham took her mother in and Miss Cotton looked back at the corner of the road and saw Mrs Graham’s bedroom light go on. From that moment there is a complete stalemate. Carey can’t prove that he didn’t just stay where he was, and we can’t prove that he did. He may have gone away as he says he did. If he did, he can’t produce anyone to prove it any more than we can prove that he came back and strangled Mrs Graham. He certainly had a motive, and he could as certainly have made the opportunity. As far as we’ve got there’s nothing in it either way.’

The two Miss Pimms stood on the doorstep without either lifting the knocker or ringing the bell. As they had walked up the flagged path there was a drawing-room window to their right and a dining-room window to their left. The drawing-room window was a square bay, and there would have been quite a good view of the interior if a completely opaque curtain had not been drawn across the side which was next the porch. The dining-room had a bay too but no curtain drawn, and the nearest window stood a handsbreadth open. Lily Pimm was looking to her right, but Mabel was more fortunate. She actually saw Miss Silver and Detective Inspector Abbott come into the room behind the open window. Most fortunately, they did not look in her direction. She touched Lily on the arm, put a finger on her lips, and rapidly gained the shelter of the porch. When Lily on a singularly foolish impulse opened her lips to speak, the touch on her arm became so painful a pinch that the water rushed into her eyes and she immediately desisted. Mabel removed her finger from her lips and pointed with it, and they both heard the Detective Inspector say, ‘I don’t think there is very much doubt about Carey’s guilt.’ After that even Lily did not need to be pinched.

They stood out of sight as if riveted to the doorstep, Mabel tall and thin, Lily round and plump. Her nickname as a child had been Podge, and it still suited her. They could hear everything that was said. But when Detective Inspector Abbott reached the point of asserting that Nicholas Carey certainly had a motive and could as certainly have made an opportunity, and went on to say, ‘As far as we’ve got there’s nothing in it either way,’ he began to walk round the dining-table in the direction of the window. They heard him say, ‘I don’t know why we shouldn’t sit down.’ And then quite suddenly he turned towards the side window of the bay and saw them standing in the porch.

Mabel Pimm behaved with the greatest presence of mind. She had hardly glimpsed the movement of a coat sleeve on the other side of the casement, when her hand was on the knocker. Her vigorous knock practically coincided with Frank Abbott’s ‘There’s someone at the door.’ As a second knock followed he stepped back and said only just above his breath,

‘Is there anyone to answer it, or shall I go?’

Althea was already in the hall. She did not show her dismay at the sight of the Miss Pimms, but it came in on her like a fog. Having known them since she was six, she was under no illusion as to the rigorous cross-examination to which Miss Mabel would subject her. It was therefore with feelings of considerable relief that she saw the dining-room door open and Miss Silver and Frank Abbott emerge. The ceremonial kiss which Mabel Pimm was about to bestow was checked, and with no more than a subdued murmur of condolence they proceeded to the drawing-room. Frank Abbott was in two minds whether to stay or go. In the end he found himself being introduced to the Miss Pimms and decided to stay.

The interrogatory note in Miss Mabel’s voice was very decided as she addressed Miss Silver.

‘I do not think I have heard your name before. You are a relative?’

They were seating themselves, Miss Silver and Mabel Pimm upon the sofa, Frank Abbott in a fireside chair a little small for his elegant length, Althea on one of those square upholstered dumps a good deal in vogue at the time of Mrs Graham’s marriage, and on the opposite side of the hearth to the sofa Lily Pimm, rather isolated in a big armchair. Her feet only just touched the floor. She wore her skirts as long as possible in order to add to her height, but the attempt was a failure. Her black kid gloves were too tight for her plump hands, and both she and Mabel had put on black coats and hats in order to visit a house of mourning. The garments were those usually reserved for funerals. They had the air of never having been in fashion, and they smelled powerfully of mothball.

Miss Silver picked up her knitting and replied to Miss Mabel’s question.

‘Oh, no, I am not a relation.’

‘A friend then?’