The Listening Eye (6 page)

“Yes, Mr. Bellingdon, I have read about the necklace. An interesting and well-written account of a beautiful and valuable piece.”

He gave a short grim laugh.

“A paste copy would be as beautiful, and no one would do murder for it. I say that to myself, and I’ve said it to my daughter, but all the time there’s something in me that won’t tolerate a fake.”

Miss Silver looked up brightly.

“That is because it carries with it the suggestion of fraud. But if you call it a copy or let it stand on its own merits of design and craftsmanship, the stigma vanishes.”

He shook his head.

“If I can’t have a Rembrandt I don’t want a copy. Not rational, but there are plenty of us all in the same boat. Which is why the price of the real thing keeps on going up, and why murder was done for my necklace in Cranberry Lane a couple of days ago. Well, we’ve run off the rails. I was saying there had got to be a contact with my family circle, so I had better tell you something more about it. To start with, I am a widower, and I have a daughter—twenty-four last birthday—married a couple of years ago, not exactly against my will, but certainly against my wish. Nothing much against him—nothing much to him. Rackety young fellow whose idea of amusing himself was to drive as near a hundred miles an hour as his car would let him, and when he wasn’t doing that to spend as much money as possible in the shortest possible time. He finished up by crashing over a precipice in the Austrian Tyrol and leaving Moira a widow just about the time she was beginning to think she’d have done better to take my advice. Well, there she is—Moira Herne.”

Miss Silver said, “Excuse me, Mr. Bellingdon—” She went over to the writing-table, took from a drawer a bright blue exercise-book and a neatly pointed pencil, and came back to her chair. Her knitting laid aside for the moment, she headed a page with the words The Bellingdon Necklace, placed Moira Herne’s name on the left-hand side of the next line, and entered the particulars which Mr. Bellingdon had just imparted. When this had been done she said “Yes?” in an interrogative manner and waited for him to go on.

He said abruptly, “I have a service flat in town, but my home is at Merefields near Ledlington. Cranberry Lane is a short cut to it from the London road. It is a comfortable old-fashioned house, and I am lucky in having a good staff. The butler and cook have been with me for twenty years. They are husband and wife. The name is Hilton.”

Miss Silver wrote it down.

“Then there’s my secretary, Hubert Garratt. He has been in my employment for ten years, but I have actually known him for a great deal longer than that.”

Miss Silver held her pencil suspended.

“His death will have been a personal loss?”

“He is not dead.”

“The shot was not a fatal one?”

“Oh, yes, it was fatal all right. The person who was shot was not Hubert Garratt.”

“The papers—”

“The papers had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. What information they had was correct, but it didn’t go far enough—and don’t bother about my mixing my metaphors, because I’ve never been able to worry about that. I was earning my living when I was fourteen, and the books I bothered with were the ones that were going to help me to earn it. But to come back to Hubert Garratt. I wrote and told the bank he’d be fetching the necklace at twelve noon on Tuesday. Now the people who knew that were myself and the bank, Hubert Garratt, my daughter, and two other people. Early on Tuesday morning I was told that Garratt was ill. Since the war he has a tendency to asthma. I went to see him, and found him quite disabled, and told him he wasn’t to attempt to go for the necklace. I rang up the bank, spoke to the manager, and told him there was a change and I was sending Garratt’s assistant, a young fellow called Arthur Hughes. The manager took the precaution of ringing off and then ringing me back, and I gave him Arthur’s description and said he would show a letter from me naming him as Garratt’s substitute. Well, that all went off without a hitch. Arthur left the bank with the necklace, but he was shot dead in Cranberry Lane.”

Miss Silver confided these details to the blue exercise book. Bellingdon watched her with an odd look upon his face. The pale blue knitting and the bright blue book, the pencil, the hair-net, the brooch which fastened the front of her olive-green cashmere, a rose carved out of a black bog-oak with an Irish pearl at its heart, all combined to make as unlikely a picture of a private detective as he could well imagine. He thought he could transplant her to Merefields without there being the slightest risk of her being taken for one. When she had finished writing she looked up.

“And the other two people who were aware that the necklace was being fetched—was Mr. Hughes one of them?”

“Well, no, he wasn’t. As far as I know, he knew nothing about the plan until I called him in and told him he would have to go to the bank for me instead of Garratt.”

“You say as far as you know, Mr. Bellingdon.”

“Oh, that? It meant nothing. Garratt said he didn’t mention it, and no one else would.”

“And the other two people were?”

He made a mental note that she could be pertinacious.

“One of them is a guest in the house, and the other—there could be no possible connection.”

Miss Silver gave a gentle cough.

“If I am to help you, Mr. Bellingdon, it would be better that I should have all the facts. As Lord Tennyson so wisely says, ‘So trust me not at all or all in all.’ ”

“Does he? Well, it might do with some people, but I wouldn’t like to say it would answer in every case. Anyhow there isn’t any question about trusting here. The two people are my late wife’s cousin, Elaine Bray—Miss Bray, who is kind enough to run Merefields for me—and Mrs. Scott who is a guest in the house.”

Miss Silver remained in an attentive attitude. Without so much as a word or a look it was conveyed to Lucius Bellingdon that something further was expected. There are times when silence can be more particular than speech. Since the last thing he desired was any particularity in either of these two cases, he yielded the point with a trace of stubborn amusement.

“Miss Bray took charge of my daughter and of the management of the house when my wife died. She had been living with us for some years as my wife was not strong. I owe her a good deal. Mrs. Scott—” he tried, with what success he was not certain, to keep his voice and manner as indifferent as might be— “Mrs. Scott is, as I said, a guest and a close personal friend.”

Miss Silver wrote these things down. She also made a mental note that Mr. Bellingdon felt himself to be under an obligation to his late wife’s cousin, and that it was something of a burden to him. In the case of Mrs. Scott she had no difficulty in discerning a warmer feeling and the fact that he did not desire this feeling to appear. She wrote in her book, and heard him say with a note of relief in his voice,

“Well, I think that is all. There is a gardener and his wife—she helps in the house —and there is a woman and a couple of girls who come in by the day from the village, but they could have had no knowledge of how or when I should be getting the diamonds out of the bank.”

Miss Silver reflected that this was what was invariably said whenever an important leakage of information occurred. No matter how completely the event would prove him wrong, the person concerned invariably expressed entire confidence in those surrounding him and was prepared to dogmatize on the question of there being no possible way in which a leakage could have taken place. She picked up her knitting, drew on the blue wool, and said,

“Mr. Bellingdon, impossibilities do not occur. You will not ask me to believe that they do. This robbery and the resultant murder was no chance affair. It was very carefully planned, and every detail of the proposed transfer of the necklace was known to the people who planned it some nineteen hours before the crime took place. This is not in dispute. If the leakage did not occur in your own immediate circle, then it must have occurred at the bank. When you first notified them that you would be withdrawing the necklace, did you write, or did you telephone?”

“I wrote to the manager. You are thinking that a telephone conversation might have been overheard?”

“It had occurred to me.”

He shook his head.

“There was no telephone communication until the Tuesday morning, when I rang up to say that Garratt was ill and that Arthur Hughes would be acting for him. The leakage had already occurred—at least on the previous day.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“That would not preclude a leakage from the bank. To whom did the manager either pass your letter or speak of the matter?”

“I took that up with him personally, and of course the police have done so too. He says nobody saw the letter except himself, and he locked it away carefully and only gave the necessary instructions when young Hughes arrived at the bank with my second letter next day. He is quite definite on these points.”

Miss Silver observed a meditative silence. There was nothing to be gained by continuing to dot i’s which had already been dotted, or to cross t’s already sufficiently provided in that respect.

Lucius Bellingdon regarded her with a certain frowning intensity. It was the kind of look which was apt to make people nervous—it had, in fact, very seldom failed to do so. It failed now. Miss Silver went on knitting in a perfectly placid manner.

He leaned forward suddenly and said,

“When will you come down to Merefields?”

She did not appear to be at all taken aback.

“In what capacity, Mr. Bellingdon?”

“Well, I’ve got to find out who has been talking.”

“You do not, I suppose, desire to advertise that fact. My usefulness would be very much impaired if it were known.”

“My idea was that you should replace young Hughes as assistant secretary.”

She appeared to consider this before saying,

“I am not versed in typing and shorthand. Nor do I really feel that I could sustain the part.”

He said,

“I get a great many begging letters and appeals of all sorts. I should think they might be quite in your line. Hughes was no good at them at all. They have to be weeded out. I don’t read a tenth of them myself, the rest go straight into the waste-paper basket. Then there’s a good deal of social correspondence. My daughter ought to do it, but she can’t be bothered. I noticed that you write a very clear hand. Garratt will deal with anything that needs typing. What about it?”

The busy needles stopped. She laid down her hands upon the pale blue wool.

“Have you said anything about replacing Mr. Hughes?”

“Yes, I have. All I need do now is to ring up Miss Bray and tell her you have been recommended to me by a friend, and that I am bringing you down with me tomorrow.”

MEREFIELDS lay in the spring sunshine with a sprinkle of daffodils in its shrubberies and a broad band of many coloured hyacinths where the drive spread into a wide sweep and half a dozen grey stone steps went up to the front door. The hyacinths looked across the gravel at the house, and from every room which faced that way you could look back at the hyacinths. Lucius Bellingdon pointed them out to Miss Silver with pride.

“Gardeners like cutting holes in the grass and putting in skimped-up mats of flowers. Donald was a bit obstinate when I said I wanted hyacinths all the way along opposite the house, and that sweet-smelling stuff my mother used to call cherry pie to come along after them.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“But you got your way.”

He nodded.

“Smell nice, don’t they—but a bit heavy if you have them in the house. Well now, come along in and meet everyone. Lunch is at one and I’m ready for it, so I hope you are too.”

They encountered Miss Bray in the hall. Bellingdon had expanded his original account of her on the way down.

“Ellen is what she was christened, but don’t say I told you. She thinks Elaine sounds better. Personally I think it’s silly, but what’s the odds so long as it makes her happy? There’s no reason why it should but it seems to, and I ought to be used to it by now.”

She came towards them in a grey woollen dress with a dreary-looking black scarf trailing down below the waist on either side and a jet chain looped two or three times about her neck, which was long and thin. She had fair hair with a good deal of grey in it worn gathered into a loose untidy knot quite insufficiently controlled by an unusual number of hairpins. A further attempt to confine it with a piece of black velvet ribbon could not really be said to be successful. She peered at Miss Silver as if she were shortsighted, but her manner was perfectly amiable as she said,

“Oh, how do you do? I am afraid it is a great rush for you coming down here like this. Lucius did tell me your name, but I am afraid I have forgotten it. Names are so very difficult, don’t you think? And so often they are very misleading. Now I find I so rarely think of my friends by their names. I always feel that there is something much more personal—something that cannot really be put into words—something which I have heard compared to the scent of a flower—”

Lucius Bellingdon said briskly,

“This is Miss Silver, Elaine, and I expect she would like to go to her room before lunch.”

Miss Bray talked all the way up the beautiful staircase with its shallow steps and along a panelled corridor to a room which, she informed Miss Silver, was opposite to her own. It had a good view of the hyacinths and was most comfortably furnished with bright chintzes, a moss-green carpet, and what she was very pleased to see, a small electric fire. Previous experiences in the country had left her under no illusions as to the icy temperatures to which many habitual residents had apparently become enured. Her warmest clothing invariably accompanied her on a country visit, but it would be more comfortable not to require it. There was not only this convenient fire, but the sight of a radiator and the genial warmth of the temperature informed her that the house was centrally heated.

Miss Bray was assiduous in her attentions.

“The bathroom is next door. I cannot tell you how relieved I was when Lucius rang up and said that he had induced you to come down. Even in two days the letters and appeals have piled up in the most trying way. Poor Mr. Garratt is still far from well. I cannot think what can have brought on such a shocking attack. The begging letters are the worst, but Lucius does not think it right to tear them up unread. He tells me you are particularly well adapted to deal with them. It is work which I could not possibly undertake— it would upset me too much. I am afraid I am foolishly sensitive to anything sordid. The seamy side of life—it does not do for me to allow myself to come in contact with it. It haunts me. Now I’m sure you are very strong-minded!”

In her private capacity Miss Silver might have wished to unpack and to tidy herself in privacy. In her professional capacity she could welcome any flow of words however tedious. People who talk all the time are seldom discreet. She owed no small part of her successes to the fact that she was outstandingly easy to talk to. Miss Bray found her a most sympathetic listener as she discoursed upon the difficulty of staffing a house like Merefields.

“Men really have no idea! Take the butler and the cook. Because they have been here for twenty years Lucius thinks they are perfect! And of course they think so too! I am sure I daren’t say a word! And the girls from the village—of course quite untrained—one has to be after them every minute! And they don’t like it! Only the other day Mrs. Hilton told me that Gloria Stubbs was thinking of giving in her notice, and when I wanted to know why, she said it might be better if I were to leave the training of the girls to her! It just shows, doesn’t it!”

Miss Silver observed tactfully that the staffing and running of a big house must be very difficult indeed.

“And Moira is no help at all! I brought her up, you know, after my cousin died—at least she was sixteen, so I didn’t really have the training of her, and she has been married since, which of course makes a difference, don’t you think? But if I suggest her doing anything she only says that there are too many fingers in the pie already. She said that only yesterday, and I’m sure I can’t think what she meant, because if the Ball is going to be put off—you know, I suppose, that Lucius was giving a fancy dress ball at The Luxe next month? That is why he was getting the necklace out of the bank—Moira wanted to see it. And I can’t help feeling intensely thankful that it was stolen before it got here if it was going to be stolen at all. Lucius wasn’t going to keep it here of course—it’s too valuable. Moira wanted to see it, and then they were going to take it up to town and leave it at the jeweller’s to be cleaned and taken care of until the day of the Ball. Of course it is terribly shocking about poor Arthur Hughes, but when I think it might have been Lucius and Moira I really can’t be too thankful! I don’t suppose Lucius will think it necessary to put off the Ball—there were such a lot of people coming. Moira thinks it would be absurd, but young people are so apt to be callous. I often think it would be so much more comfortable not to have such sensitive feelings, but on the other hand does one really want to be insensitive?”

Miss Silver opining that there was a happy mean and introducing a quotation from Lord Tennyson in support of this, they went down to lunch together on the best of terms.

Lucius Bellingdon and three other people were waiting for them—a girl in smoky blue who was Moira Herne, someone taller and older who was Mrs. Scott, and Mr. Hubert Garratt. Introduced by Bellingdon, Miss Silver found herself regarded with as complete a lack of concern as she could have desired.

Her own interest was, however, warmly engaged. Every person in this household had some part in the problem she was here to investigate. Because one of them had talked young Arthur Hughes lay dead. The leakage could have occurred through inadvertence, heedlessness, lack of self-control. It could have been the result of fear, of some burst of confidence, or of malice aforethought, but somehow through one of these people it must have come about. She could not neglect Mr. Bellingdon’s secretary, Mr. Bellingdon’s daughter, or Mr. Bellingdon’s guest.

Moira Herne would have been remarked on anywhere for her ash-blonde colouring. As to her features, they were of the kind you really hardly notice. It was the gleaming hair with its soft full waves, the rather light eyes with a dark ring about the iris, and the fine white skin, which fixed and held the attention. The lashes and brows were slightly and artistically darkened to a golden brown. The mouth, which might have been too pale, had been deepened to a delightful rose, the pointed fingernails matched it to a shade. She allowed the eyes to rest upon Miss Silver in an indifferent stare and did not speak.

Mrs. Scott could hardly have exhibited a greater contrast in looks and manner. She was a tall, slim creature with smooth dark hair, dark eyes, a skin warm with colour, a wide mouth, and teeth as white as hazel-nuts. She might have been anything between twenty-five and forty. Her voice as she said “How do you do?” had a quality of youth which it would probably never lose. She smiled, showing the white teeth, slipped into her place by Lucius Bellingdon, and began to talk to him about this and that. She had an easy charm of manner, a trick of saying things that made them sound interesting, a way of laughing with her eyes. It took Miss Silver rather less than a minute to discern that Lucius Bellingdon’s feeling for her was something out of the ordinary.

Mr. Garratt was middle-aged and inclined to put on weight. He took the foot of the table opposite Mr. Bellingdon and sat there pale and depressed, eating little and talking less, with Moira Herne on one side of him and Miss Bray on the other. Miss Silver, between Miss Bray and her host, could hardly have been better placed. She need not talk, because Mr. Bellingdon was quite taken up with Mrs. Scott. She was therefore free to look and to listen.

The conversation might have been confined to that end of the table if it had not been for Elaine Bray. She appeared to be able to eat and talk at the same time, and was most solicitous about Mr. Garratt’s loss of appetite.

“These eggs—now you really should! They are done in onion sauce—a Portuguese recipe, I believe. The cheese in it neutralizes the onion to a very great extent. Now how do you suppose you are going to get up your strength if you do not eat?”

Mr. Garratt said, “I don’t know.” He took about a dessertspoonful from the proffered dish and left it on his plate.

Moira Herne took a large helping and said in a drawling, husky voice that she adored onions. Her way of speaking was so much at variance with the ethereal fairness of her colouring as to heighten its effect. Miss Silver found herself wondering whether this was deliberate.

“Mrs. Hilton is a marvellous cook,” said Annabel Scott. She smiled warmly and unconventionally at Hilton as she spoke, and turned back again to Lucius with a laughing “I shall put on pounds if I stay here too long!”

As the butler went back to the serving-table, Moira said in exactly the same voice and manner as before,

“Wilfrid is coming down for the weekend.”

Miss Bray echoed the name in a fitful manner. Lucius said,

“That fellow Gaunt? He was here last week, wasn’t he? I don’t remember being struck with him.”

Moira said, “I don’t suppose you would be. I’ve been dancing with him quite a lot in town. He is a dream.”

Elaine said, “My dear!” and Lucius enquired, “As a dancer?”

“Of course.”

“Does he make it his life work?”

“He paints. He has two pictures in the Masters galleries.”

Bellingdon’s attention was caught.

“I bought a picture there the other day—a very good one.”

Moira said “Oh—” And then, “Who was it by?”

“Not your friend Wilfrid, I’m afraid. A young man of the name of Moray—David Moray.”

The large blue eyes gazed at him without expression. There was no expression in the husky voice as she said,

“Wilfrid hates him.”

Lucius burst out laughing.

“Then that will be nice for them both! Because Moray is coming down for the weekend too. I asked him if he would like to see my pictures, and he said he would.”

Moira just went on gazing.

“Wilfrid’s picture is about a tombstone and an aspidistra. The tombstone is in a sort of blue mist, the aspidistra is in a pink pot, and there are some bones.”

Annabel laughed and said, “Why, darling?”

“I don’t know. He painted it like that. It doesn’t really mean tombstones and aspidistras—it means things going on in your Unconscious.”

“Darling, I should hate to have a pink aspidistra in my Unconscious!”

Moira shook her head.

“It was the pot that was pink.”

It was at this point that Miss Bray came in on a worried note.

“Oh, my dear! Oh, Lucius! Do you really think—a party—just at this moment—is it really suitable?”

Moira’s gaze shifted to her. She said without hurry,

“What do you call a party? Two men for the week-end? Not my idea of one, Ellen.”

An unbecoming magenta flush spread over Miss Bray’s face. To call her Ellen was Moira’s way of punishing her. As a rule she avoided giving occasion for it, but at the moment her feelings of propriety were engaged. In the spirit of the proverb that you might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb she added to her offence.

“I think we should be as quiet as possible— I think it will be expected of us. The house is full enough as it is.” Her glance touched Annabel Scott, fell away, met Lucius Bellingdon’s frown, and withdrew. “Of course”— the words came tumbling out—“the inquest was adjourned, and the funeral is over. I don’t mean that we have to shut ourselves up, or that there is anything wrong about having a friend or two down quietly.”

“Then what do you mean?” said Moira Herne. “Do you know?”

Miss Bray was twisting her long jet chain. She said in a nervous hurry,

“I was really thinking about the Ball. I don’t know whether anything has been decided yet, but of course with all those people coming—”

Moira said, “There is nothing to decide.”

Miss Bray tried a second look at Lucius Bellingdon and found him frowning still. He said with some accentuation of his usually decided manner,

“There can be no question about the Ball. It will take place as arranged. The date is still a month away. No one could possibly expect us to call it off.”

“No—no—of course not. I only thought we ought to know what is going to happen. I wasn’t really suggesting—Naturally, as you say, a month is quite a long time.”

He laughed.

“Did I? I don’t remember. Anyhow there is nothing to worry about.”

Hubert Garratt had taken no part in this interchange. He crumbled the slice of bread beside him and drank from a glass of water. The arrangements might have had nothing to do with him at all, yet the brunt of the work in connection with the Ball would fall to his share. As soon as lunch was over he disappeared.