The Listening Eye (9 page)

Annabel gazed at her.

“It’s all too horrid! Lucius has known Hubert for simply years. I can’t believe he would do anything like that. And as to anyone wanting to get Arthur Hughes into trouble—” She stopped suddenly. “Miss Silver, you didn’t mean anything worse than that! You didn’t mean that you thought anyone might have planned to have Arthur shot!”

She had a feeling that she was being looked through and through as Miss Silver said,

“Will you tell me why you should have the thought of that?”

Annabel found herself without the ability to keep anything back. She said,

“Lucius told me about Miss Paine and the men she watched in that picture gallery. She told you one of them was looking in her direction, and that she could read what he was saying. I have a cousin who is deaf and can lip-read, so I know it can be done. Lucius said she told you this man said that the plan was to shoot the messenger who went for the necklace. If—if that was what was meant, then—then someone in this house— No, it’s too dreadful!”

Miss Silver said with gravity,

“The person who used the snuff may not have known that the plan to steal the necklace included the murder of the messenger. There could have been merely a knowledge that the necklace was to be stolen, and either a desire to protect Mr. Garratt or a wish to discredit Mr. Hughes. Do you know of anyone who could have had such a motive?”

Annabel said in a rather distracted way,

“I don’t know. It’s all too difficult. Arthur wasn’t much liked. There wasn’t anything you could put your finger on, but he just didn’t fit in. Lucius didn’t mean to keep him on. He was making a nuisance of himself about Moira for one thing.”

“Did Mrs. Herne encourage him?”

Annabel made an odd but quite expressive gesture. Her hand came out palm upwards and empty. Yet there was a suggestion that she had something to offer.

“Oh, I don’t know. She does something to these boys. It doesn’t look like encouragement, but they go in off the deep end. Arthur Hughes had gone in off the deep end. I don’t think Moira had any use for him, but he couldn’t see it, and Lucius was getting annoyed. But all that is a long way off anyone wanting to get him into trouble.”

“Had he an idea that he had been badly treated?”

“By Moira? I don’t know. I daresay he had. You know, you are making me speak about her, and I didn’t mean to. I ought not to, because I don’t like her—I never have and I never shall.”

“And why do you not like her, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel’s colour rose brightly.

“Because she doesn’t care for anything or anyone except herself—because she’s got a lump of ice instead of a heart—because she makes Lucius unhappy! There—you’ve made me say it!”

Miss Silver said,

“Pray do not distress yourself.”

Annabel looked back at her ruefully.

“I didn’t mean to say it, you know. Right up to the last moment before I came and knocked on your door I had made up my mind that whatever happened I wouldn’t breathe a word about Moira.”

“Half confidences are not very helpful.”

“No, they’re not, are they? I suppose it’s in for a penny in for a pound, and I don’t say it won’t be a relief to say what I really think, so here goes! She has been nothing but a trouble since she came into the family. When she married, I did think she would be off Lucius’ hands. He didn’t like Olly Herne. He was one of these ranting, bragging young men with a superiority complex if I’m to wrap it up, or plain swollen head if I’m leaving out the frills. He was a racing motorist, a perfect dare-devil in a car, and Moira fell for him. All Lucius could do was to tie up the money he had settled on her. Well, he crashed over a precipice.”

“During a race?”

“No, as a matter of fact he was off on his own. He and Moira had had a row, and he had left her planted and dashed off. It was rather frightful for her, because they had run out of money and she had to borrow to get home. The car was burnt out, so anything Olly had with him was lost. Moira turned up perfectly cool and said she didn’t want to talk about any of it. Lucius thinks that in a way it was a relief. Anyhow she never speaks of him, and she hasn’t got a photograph or anything. It might mean she cared more than we think, or it might mean that she just wanted to shut the door on Olly and not be bothered with him any more.”

It was plain to Miss Silver that the latter view was the one to which Mrs. Scott inclined.

Annabel threw out her hands and said,

“There! I’m being thoroughly catty, and I’ve enjoyed it! You know, I wouldn’t mind how many husbands she didn’t care about, or how many young men she played fast and loose with, if she had just one spark of feeling for Lucius.”

Miss Silver coughed mildly.

“Has Mr. Bellingdon any very deep feeling for her?”

Annabel looked startled.

“I don’t suppose he has—in fact I know he hasn’t. But he would have had if she had given him a chance, and she didn’t. Of course the whole thing started wrong—his coming home and finding her there like that. I don’t know how Lily dared. He must have been furious, and Lucius in a fury is something I shouldn’t like to have happen to me!”

Miss Silver’s busy needles stopped. She laid down her hands upon the pale blue shawl and said,

“My dear Mrs. Scott, you interest me extremely. Just why should Mr. Bellingdon have been furious?”

“Because Lily simply hadn’t any right to go behind his back and adopt a baby whilst he was over in the States on business. And I really don’t know how she dared!”

“Mrs. Herne is an adopted daughter?”

Annabel’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t know?”

“I had no idea.” She picked up her knitting again. “But surely—I did not think that an adoption could take place without the husband’s consent.”

“No, Lily couldn’t do it legally, but she had taken the child and she made a great play about Lucius being away so much and how lonely her life was, and in the end he gave in. If Moira had been different, he would have got fond of her—I’m sure he would. But it wasn’t a good start.”

Miss Silver said, “No.”

SALLY FOSTER and David Moray arrived at Merefields next day in time for lunch. They travelled down together, David having discovered more or less by accident that Sally was to be a fellow guest.

“And why you didn’t tell me before, I can’t imagine.”

Sally smiled brightly.

“We can’t all have a lot of imagination. I daresay you do very well without it.”

He frowned.

“As if an artist could get on at all without imagination! I would have you know that I’ve as much as I want and a bit over!”

She laughed.

“Isn’t that nice, darling! No, consider that retracted—it just slipped out. I’m not to call you darling and you don’t like it and it means nothing. And we’re back where we were before I said it.” He went on frowning.

“And still I don’t know why you didn’t tell me you were going to Merefields. I told you I was going there as soon as I knew, and you never said a word.”

“Because I didn’t know. Moira only asked me yesterday.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

“Perhaps I wanted it to burst on you as a lovely surprise.”

He said angrily, “We might actually have gone by different trains if I hadn’t happened to come down the stairs just as you were telling Mrs. Mount that you were going into the country near Ledlington, and that you didn’t want any letters forwarded because you would be back on Sunday night!”

Sally had a flash-back in which she saw herself standing in the hall explaining to Mrs. Mount, who was an old fuss and always had to be told everything, and who felt herself quite intolerably responsible since Paulina’s death. She herself had been perfectly well aware of David coming down the stairs, and if she had taken pains to speak with extra clarity, there was always the excuse that Mrs. Mount was hard of hearing. Anyhow there had been no need for David to look like a thunderstorm and to take the first opportunity of scolding her up hill and down dale.

It was quite idiotic of her to feel warmed and heartened by the scolding.

His voice cut in severely upon these reflections.

“It might have led to our each having a taxi from Ledlington. Did you think of that?”

Sally gazed at him, her eyes very bright, the lashes round them very dark. Nothing would have induced him to say so, but it is a fact that he was reminded of peat-water with the sun shining on it.

“The taxi? Oh, I didn’t! Frightful of me, wasn’t it? I expect I shall come to want some day. I just don’t think of things like that. You’ve saved me from myself this time though. We’ll share one!”

“If there isn’t a bus,” said David.

There wasn’t a bus. The taxi ran out past the really old houses with their modern fronts, past the Victorian villas now divided into flats, past the bungalows called Kosi-Kot and Maryzone and Cassino out on to the open road, from which they presently turned into Cranberry Lane. There was nothing to show that this was the way Arthur Hughes had come a few days ago with a Queen’s necklace in his pocket.

The first person they saw at Merefields was Lucius Bellingdon. He took them through to the drawing-room where Hilton was bringing in the tea.

“But they would like to take off their things! Miss Foster, I am sure you would like to go up to your room and take off your things!” Miss Bray was instant in hospitality. “Moira will take you up. She is a friend of yours, isn’t she? Moira, I am sure Miss Foster would like to go to her room!”

Sally had seldom felt so little convinced of being regarded as a friend of Moira Herne’s. The slow light eyes had slid over her without the faintest welcome. They rested now upon David Moray, and it was to David that she spoke.

“You are Lucy’s latest discovery, aren’t you? He’s always finding them, and then—he finds them out.”

The words turned to insolence, but just as they did so she began to smile. Sally remembered the trick of it from their schooldays—some outrageous remark, and then the smile which changed everything. It beckoned, it promised, and it was gone again, but you couldn’t forget that it had been there.

Sally went upstairs with Moira and was shown her room. She was wondering why she had been asked to Merefields. Nothing could be more apparent than the fact that Moira didn’t want her here. There had been a smile for David Moray, but none for Sally Foster. She was shown her room and abandoned.

Standing in front of the mirror, Sally discovered that it seemed to think that she was in a blazing temper. If she went down looking like this, everyone else would discover it too. You can subdue a brilliant colour with cream and powder, but how did you put out the angry fire in your eyes? Rather a pity to have to try, because it was all extremely becoming. And it wouldn’t do, it simply wouldn’t do. She had got to be the normal school friend who was no longer an intimate. There could be a cool allround friendliness, with just a hint of having outgrown what had been pleasant enough in its time—nothing more than that. If Moira Herne didn’t know how to behave herself, Sally Foster did. Even if Moira made an absolutely dead set at David, it had nothing to do with Sally, and no one must think it had. She remembered with pleasure that Wilfrid would be there. If the worst came to the worst, she could always flirt with him.

DETECTIVE Inspector Abbott came out from Ledlington in the early afternoon next day and was closeted with Lucius Bellingdon. When they had talked for a time he interviewed members of the family party and of the household. It was not until the last of them was disposed of that he expressed a desire to see Miss Silver.

She came into the small writing-room which had been placed at his disposal, greeted him, and settled herself in an armless chair of the type which she preferred. Looking at her, Frank had the thought that she was a fixed point in a changing world. Wars came and went, political changes like vast landslides swept the habitable globe, monarchies dissolved and new tyrannies took their place, but here she was, not changed at all as far as he could see from the time when he had first encountered her, not changed indeed from a very much earlier time than that—wise and sedate, with her Edwardian hair-do, her old-fashioned clothes, her beaded slippers, and the large gold locket with her parents’ initials entwined upon it in high relief. With her wisdom, her intelligence, her moralities, she was a continual delight to him. He looked across at her now, cocked an impudent eyebrow, and said,

“Well, ma’am, who did it?”

She extracted the blue shawl from her knitting-bag and took up the needles. She said,

“I have really no idea.”

He laughed.

“No? You surprise me! Anyhow that makes us two hearts that beat as one. Or to be quite accurate, a number of hearts. The Yard haven’t any idea either, nor have the Ledlington police, and nor have I. Do you know, I quite hoped that you would have had the murderer all taped and packaged and ready for me to take away.”

Her glance reproved him.

“My dear Frank!”

“I know—I’m being frivolous, and frivolity doesn’t mix with murder. But I’ve not only had large doses of Inspector Crisp, all very brisk and efficient and quite furious at the Yard having been called in, but I’ve had to suffer the new Ledlington Superintendent, a most worthy and reliable officer and, I should say offhand, just about the most crashing bore in southern England. His name is Merrett and he deserves every letter of it, including the extra T! And having got that off my chest, let us get down to business. Have you got anything for me?”

She regarded him with indulgence.

“I think so. Nothing definite of course, but at least one curious thing has come to my notice.”

She repeated what Annabel Scott had told her about the snuffbox and the grains of what was undoubtedly snuff which had been found amongst Hubert Garratt’s pillows. He listened intently, and when she had finished he said,

“The inference being that Garratt’s attack of asthma was deliberately induced either by himself—which would make him art and part in the plot to steal the necklace—or by someone else in the household who must have had a guilty motive. That certainly narrows things down a bit. You say the snuffbox was exhibited on the Sunday before the murder. Well, the snuff must have been used on the Monday night if Garratt had to be incapacitated from going to the bank on Tuesday morning. Which of the people now in the house were here on that Sunday, Monday, Tuesday?”

“All of them except Miss Foster and Mr. Moray.”

“You pay your money and you take your choice! Which of them was interested in seeing to it that Hubert didn’t go to the bank or—that Arthur Hughes did? The butler, the cook, the daily maids, the secretary, the attractive Mrs. Scott, the garrulous aunt, the decorative daughter—which of them do you fancy?”

Miss Silver was knitting. She said in a noncommittal voice,

“There were also present until the Monday Mr. Clay Masterson, and Mr. Wilfrid Gaunt. They are friends of Mrs. Herne’s. Mr. Masterson drives about the country picking up antiques. He has, I believe, a small business. Mr. Gaunt is an artist. He is also a cousin of Miss Paulina Paine’s, and he is staying here now. It might perhaps be advisable to make some enquiries about these young men.”

“And what about Arnold Bray? You’ve rather left him out, haven’t you?”

“I was about to mention him, but I see that there was no need for me to do so.”

“No, as it happens, there wasn’t. The locals have had their eye on Bray from the word go. As a matter of fact he very nearly qualifies as being ‘known to the police’.”

“Dear me!”

He nodded.

“He hasn’t actually ever been run in, though he got as far as having his fingerprints taken a couple of years ago in connection with a case of blackmail. There had been anonymous letters of the ‘pay up or I’ll tell’ order, and he was under suspicion, but there wasn’t enough of a case and he slipped through the net. If he was in the house and any dirty work was going on, I should expect him to have a finger in it, but there’s a strong consensus of opinion that he wouldn’t be the man behind the gun. A petty small-town near crook and definitely allergic to firearms—that is how Arnold seems to strike those who know him— I won’t say best.”

Miss Silver pulled on her ball of wool.

“Mr. Bellingdon gave me very much the same description.”

“Well, we can put Arnold through it. Sprinkling snuff on Garratt’s pillows might be right up his street. We’ll see what he has to say about it. Is there anyone else you fancy?”

She remained silent for a little. Then she said,

“There is Mr. Gaunt’s connection with Miss Paine. I do not see how it can be more than a coincidence, and as a coincidence it is easily accounted for. Mrs. Herne is acquainted with Miss Sally Foster who has a flat in Miss Paine’s house. She and David Moray, another tenant of Miss Paine’s, are here for the week-end—David Moray because Mr. Bellingdon has just bought his portrait of Miss Paine, which he considers to be a very fine picture. You see, all these people were loosely linked together before the robbery and murder took place. David Moray had not, I gather, met Mrs. Herne before, but the other two young people knew her quite well, so that what I mentioned as a coincidence is not really one at all. I was, I believe, merely thinking aloud when I used the expression.”

He gave her a quizzical look tempered with affection.

“You pay me quite a compliment.”

She went on as if he had not spoken.

“There is, however, a circumstance which I think you should know about, and which concerns Mrs. Herne. She is not really Mr. Bellingdon’s daughter but an adopted child, and she was adopted without his knowledge or consent. I gather that there is no very strong tie of feeling between them.”

She told him what Annabel Scott had said about Moira Herne’s marriage and Oliver Herne’s death, and continued,

“I have thought that perhaps some enquiries as to their friends and associates might be advisable. They may have been in contact with people who would have been interested in Mr. Bellingdon’s wealth and his more valuable possessions, such as the Queen’s Necklace. You will understand that I am not suggesting complicity on Mrs. Herne’s part, but it is obvious that this crime was very carefully planned and could hardly have been carried out without professional backing. One of the men whom Miss Paine watched in the gallery had no part in the shooting or the actual robbery, but he was certainly indispensable to the success of the plot.”

Frank nodded.

“He would be the fence. The other, the man who spoke, was of course the murderer, and it was he who must have been an intimate. Now, just let us sum up what we know about him, and we can start with that. He must not be recognized. Hubert Garratt would have recognized him, and so would Arthur Hughes. Therefore whoever fetches the necklace cannot be allowed to survive. For some reason he does not wish to shoot Hubert Garratt—or, let us say, he would prefer to shoot Arthur Hughes. Hence the snuff on Garratt’s pillow. So we know that he is an intimate, that he cannot risk being recognized, and that he either doesn’t want to shoot Garratt, or that he does want to shoot Hughes. In either case he is taking a tremendous risk and there must be a correspondingly strong motive to induce him to take it. The necklace is said to be worth thirty thousand pounds, but it would probably have to be broken up, and he’d be lucky if he got five thousand.”

“Murder has been done for a great deal less than that, Frank.”

“Of course it has. But—”

She put up her hand to stop him and said gravely,

“You conclude that Hubert Garratt was incapacitated in order that Arthur Hughes might take his place. Since talking to Mrs. Scott I have been considering that there might have been another and a far more likely substitute.”

“My dear ma’am!”

She continued in the same tone.

“Arthur Hughes was a young man. He had not been very long in Mr. Bellingdon’s employ, though he had been on social terms with the family both before he went up to college and after he came down. He was about to leave his appointment as secretary and take up another one. Mr. Bellingdon was annoyed at his attentions to Mrs. Herne. In these circumstances, do you consider that there was any justification for supposing that, with Mr. Garratt incapacitated, it would necessarily have been Arthur Hughes who would be deputed to fetch the necklace?”

“You mean the idea that someone might want Arthur Hughes out of the way won’t hold water?”

“I mean something more than that. I mean that if Hubert Garratt were not able to fetch the necklace, the most natural person to do so would have been Mr. Bellingdon himself.”

“Lucius Bellingdon!”

“I do not think the possiblity could have been ignored. It may even have been desired and counted upon. A motive for the murder of Arthur Hughes eludes me, but it is not difficult to imagine that there might be strong and compelling motives for the murder of Lucius Bellingdon.”

He was looking at her, his eyes cold and intent. He said,

“As what?”

“He is a very wealthy man. He controls large interests. His death would endow Mrs. Herne with a fortune. There are a number of young men vaguely connected with this affair whose interest in her is apparent. While Mr. Bellingdon lives he will continue to hold the purse-strings. He can disinherit Mrs. Herne. He wishes her to marry again, but he wishes her to marry suitably. He has a very marked partiality for Mrs. Scott. No one who has seen them together would be surprised if they were to announce an engagement.”

He said, “You really mean all this?”

“My dear Frank!”

“With all the implications? I’m not insulting you by asking you whether you realize what they are.”

“I believe I am fully aware of them.”

“In fact you suggest that the theft of the necklace is no more than a cover up? That Arthur Hughes was shot merely because he was there and could have identified the criminal? And that the real purpose of the plot was the murder of Lucius Bellingdon?”

“I consider it to be a possibility.”

“All right, let us go on considering it. It involves believing that Hughes was shot because he might have recognized the man who carried out the crime. And if the sole purpose of the crime was to kill Bellingdon, where was the need to run the risk of murdering Hughes? It would be known that he was the messenger in plenty of time to have called the whole thing off. Even if there was no accomplice in the household, or no opportunity of warning the man on the job— which is something I would find very difficult to believe—the man himself would have had the opportunity of sheering off. He must have been following Hughes for the best part of a mile and a half. He must have known that he wasn’t following Bellingdon. Even at the last moment when he came abreast of him before driving him off the road and forcing him to stop there would be time for him to change the plan and draw back from murdering Hughes.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“There would be time. But you have to consider that there was still the necklace. The prime object of the plot may have been the death of Mr. Bellingdon, but the apparent reason was the theft of the necklace. The details had all been worked out. It was to be handed over to the man whom Miss Paine saw in the gallery. It was probably to be out of the country before an alarm could be given. Thirty thousand pounds, or even a quarter of that sum, was not to be despised. In these circumstances a reckless and unscrupulous man would not shrink from murder. In fact, as we know, he did not shrink from it.”

“And that, my dear ma’am, leaves us exactly where we were to start with.”

She remained silent for a little. After which she said,

“We have been discussing a number of people connected with this household. I should be interested to know where each of them was, and what he or she was doing, at twelve o’clock last Tuesday when Arthur Hughes was shot in Cranberry Lane. I suppose enquiries of this kind have been made?”

He nodded.

“Oh, yes. The locals are very good at that kind of thing. You’ll remember Crisp. Terrier at a rat-hole. Not a soul-mate of mine, but efficient as they come. Well now, let’s see—” He got out a notebook and flicked over the pages. “We’ll start at the top. Mr. Lucius Bellingdon says he didn’t leave the house and grounds until the news of the murder reached him. He was actually in the garden talking to Donald the gardener from twelve o’clock until the half hour, and Mrs. Scott was with him. Alibi for both of them, reinforced by Donald. They were planning a water garden. Mr. Garratt states that he was incapacitated by asthma. He was visited shortly before ten by Mr. Bellingdon, who confirms his condition, and by Mrs. Scott a little later. She says he was still pretty bad, and that she stayed there getting him to take some coffee and generally tidying up for about twenty minutes, when she joined Mr. Bellingdon in the garden. Since Garratt was still in bed and incapacitated shortly before twelve he could hardly have been following Hughes from the bank at twelve o’clock and murdering him in Cranberry Lane as soon as the coast was clear. Moreover he hasn’t got a car and wouldn’t have had time to steal one. In fact another beautiful alibi.”

Miss Silver inclined her head, but did not speak. Frank went on.

“Hilton and Mrs. Hilton and the rest of the staff are all accounted for, and I don’t think we need seriously consider Miss Bray. Not, I think, the stuff of which the efficient criminal is made, and as a matter of fact I gather that she was, as usual, very busy getting in the way of the staff. So we come to Mrs. Herne.”