Through The Wall (22 page)

She said in a thoughtful voice,

“No, Randal. I was reflecting that Cyril Felton was an actor, and that an actor is trained to enunciate more clearly than, shall we say, Constable Wilkins. You will have noticed yourself that Mr. Felton had a very clear and pleasant speaking voice. I was also reflecting that acuteness of hearing varies considerably in quite normal individuals. I seem to have heard that Miss Remington rather prides herself on this quality. Was there not something about her having heard a cry in the night and saying that it might have been a bat?”

“Yes—Crisp said there was something like that. She exasperated him a good deal, I believe.”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“Only the most acute hearing is aware of a bat’s cry, Randal.”

March received Richard Cunningham’s demand that Marian Brand and her sister should on no account be expected to spend another night at Cove House with gravity. Impatient of the passing of what he regarded as precious time, Richard had interrupted the Chief Constable’s interview with Miss Silver by walking into the room and putting his point.

“Two people have been murdered here, and I want to get those girls away.”

He got a very serious look.

“Quite apart from the question of accommodation, which I believe you would find very difficult, I think you must realize that until all the possible evidence has been obtained and gone through no one who was in the house at the time can be considered to be entirely beyond suspicion.”

“Good heavens—you can’t suspect that poor girl Mrs. Felton!”

“I did not say I suspected her. She was the last person to see her husband alive, and her evidence is of the first importance. There is every likelihood that we may want to question her again, and she should be available for this. We shall, of course, take every precaution for her safety and that of her sister.”

“What precaution do you propose to take?”

“I would suggest that Mrs. Felton shares her sister’s room tonight. The arrangement had better not be talked about. I also suggest that the two girls keep together, or with yourself or Miss Silver. I will put a man on the bedroom landing with instructions that if he leaves his post for any purpose at all he is to knock on your door so that you may relieve him. Does that satisfy you?”

“I think so. My door will be open anyhow.”

March nodded.

“You wouldn’t have got rooms anywhere in the neighbourhood. This fine weather has filled the hotels. And the case is bound to be very much discussed—they wouldn’t find the notoriety pleasant. Besides, I notice you haven’t said a word about their wanting to go. Do they?”

Richard maintained a perfectly inexpressive countenance.

“As a matter of fact Miss Brand rather takes the point of view that this is her house, and that she is responsible for it. I was hoping to induce her to change her mind.”

March said, “I think she’s right. And you needn’t worry. We shall be taking every precaution.”

On the other side of the house Mrs. Larkin was going about the business of the search in a very efficient and orderly manner—Penny and her clothes—Mrs. Alfred Brand and Miss Remington and their respective wardrobes. Net result a scratch on Penny’s bare brown arm and a smear of blood on her cotton frock, the blood in just the place where it would have been if it had come from the scratch—that is, on the front of the dress and a little to the right. But also just where it might have been if she had handled a blood-stained knife. No other marks either on Penny Halliday or on her clothes.

Mrs. Alfred Brand’s dress was not of a colour and pattern to make it easy to see whether it was stained or not, the ground being black with a design of brown and red. Held up to the light, the front breadth disclosed a long dry stain crossing the black background and two bits of red pattern before it petered out against a brown one. At this point, and at this point only, it was possible to discern that the colour of the stain was also red. Mrs. Brand, speaking in a deep angry voice, called her sister and Penny Halliday to witness that they had a red currant and raspberry tart for lunch, and that she had spilt some of the juice on her dress. In spite of which and of a good deal of corroborative detail as to the desirability of bottling your own fruit and the advantage of being able to have raspberries out of season, the garment was set aside with Penny’s frock for police inspection, Mrs. Larkin merely replying in a very civil manner that fruit juice was worse than anything to get out, but there were very good cleaners in Ledlington, only the police would have to have the dress first.

Miss Remington’s lilac cardigan, her white silk blouse, and her pale grey skirt were spotless. A search of the rest of her wardrobe did bring to light an old navy cotton dress which had been washed out, Miss Cassy declared, on Saturday and rolled down for ironing.

“I shouldn’t dream of washing anything out on a Sunday, but if it had been very hot after tea and we were going down on the beach, I might have just run the iron over it and put it on. One gets one’s things so dirty on the sands. I am afraid I have never lost a rather childish love of poking into pools, and really the weather has been so warm, I thought this old cotton dress—”

Mrs. Larkin said in her quiet way that the weather was very seasonable indeed, and put the rolled-up dress with the other things to be handed over to the police.

When she had finished she went round to the front door of the other house and rang the bell. Admitted by Eliza, who had reached a state of disapproval which gave her the appearance of being by far the likeliest person in either house to have committed a murder, she was handed over to Miss Silver, who immediately offered herself as the first subject for search.

They had quite a pleasant little conversation whilst this was going on in Miss Silver’s bedroom. Mrs. Larkin, being passionately addicted to crochet, became quite warm in her admiration of the edging which decorated Miss Silver’s high-necked spencer and serviceable flannelette knickers, which had three rows on each leg, each row being a little wider than the last. On being informed that the design was original she was emboldened to ask for the pattern, which Miss Silver promised to write down for her. After which they parted on very friendly terms.

Since Miss Silver had submitted to being searched, even Eliza could not manage to feel that she was being singled out for insult. Her demeanour was, however, that of a martyr about to be put to the question. In a voice of awful indignation she invited Miss Silver to be present, observing darkly that there were those she wouldn’t name but she wouldn’t put it past them to make up something against you if there wasn’t anything without they did. After which she stalked up to her room and gave Mrs. Larkin and even Miss Silver the surprise of their lives when the removal of her black afternoon dress displayed pink silk cami-knickers with French legs. Nothing more compromising than this came to light.

Marian Brand also asked Miss Silver to be present. She went through the unpleasant business with dignity and simplicity, and was glad when it was over.

Ina Felton was last on the list. She undressed, and afterwards dressed again as if she hardly noticed what she was doing. There was no stain on any of her things. But in the bathroom between her room and her sister’s a pale blue dress had been washed out and hung up to dry. It was the one she had worn at the picnic. She declared that she had not worn it again. Marian Brand said that it was she who had washed it out before lunch, and Miss Silver was able to confirm that it had been hanging there when she came home from church. She was a little vexed when the Chief Constable remarked later on that if Mrs. Felton had intended to kill her husband she could very easily have slipped on the still damp dress, and after stabbing him have rinsed it out again and put it back on its hanger to dry. He was perhaps not unwilling to get some of his own back, since she had once more been advancing with earnestness a theory which he could not help regarding as being farfetched, and for which he could see no evidence at all. As a result, she became a little remote and addressed herself to casting on the requisite number of stitches for the first of another pair of stockings in the sadly uninteresting grey wool which is the schoolboy’s universal wear.

There was an eventual departure of the police, with the exception of Constable Wilkins, who remained behind to clutter Eliza’s kitchen until such time as the family repaired to their rooms for the night, when he had instructions to be on duty on the bedroom landing and on no account to allow himself to be overtaken by sleep. Everyone was only too anxious for the day to be over. Violent events have much the same effect upon the day in which they fall as a bomb has upon the surrounding country. The bomb itself may provide a brief excitement, but it reduces all about it to a condition of arid dullness. As the dust settles, everything within its reach is blighted.

Eliza served a cold supper out of a tin—one of the more depressing so-called lunch loaves, with a marmoreal corn-flour shape and some rather grey apple to follow. In the kitchen Constable Wilkins partook of herrings and cocoa under the watchful eye of Mactavish, who exasperated Eliza by repeating his almost soundless mew until she left off her own supper to bone a nice piece of herring for him, and then intimated that it wasn’t good enough by backing away from it and continued to mew. Eliza said “Drat!” but she fetched shredded meat and breadcrumbs from the larder and warmed up the gravy that had been left from lunch. After which Mactavish condescended to partake and Eliza was able to go on with her own supper.

By the time that Constable Wilkins was well away with his third herring and his second cup of cocoa she was preparing him for his night’s vigil by narrating the really horrid tale of her grandfather’s experience in a haunted house. It had so many uncomfortable similarities to the present situation that Joe Wilkins wasn’t really able to relish that last herring. Like himself, Eliza’s grandfather had been obliged to sit up all night on the landing of a house where there’d been murder done. It was an old house and it creaked something dreadful, and right in the middle of the night there was a footstep where no lawful footstep ought to be. Down in the hall, and all the family upstairs and abed. It was Eliza’s best story, and she told it very well, dwelling with loving care on how her grandfather could feel the short hairs on the back of his neck prickling. When she came to the bit about his taking the candle and coming down to the turn of the stair, Joe Wilkins found himself very resolute that he would do no such thing. Asking for trouble, that was what it was, and why couldn’t her grandfather stay where he was, the silly old fool?

Eliza dropped her voice to a frightening whisper.

“And round the turn of the stair the candle came out of the socket and went rolling down afront of him. There was my grandfather, and there was his shadow on the plaster, and the last thing he saw when the candle went rolling down was his own shadow come off of the wall and standing there on the mat at the foot of the stair looking up. And the candle went out.”

“Wh-what happened?”

Eliza’s voice became brisk.

“What should happen? My grandfather come back and got another candle, and when he went down again there wasn’t anything there.”

When supper was over in the dining-room Miss Silver announced her intention of stepping in next door.

“Poor Penny—a trying experience for a young girl, being searched. And Mrs. Brand and Miss Remington—really most unpleasant and disturbing. I think it would console them to know that we have all been subjected to the same ordeal. But I shall not stay long.”

Penny opened the door. She was pale under her tan, but she had lost what Eliza called her heart-rendering look. She was tired, and everything was dreadful, but Felix had gone off to the drawing-room with the score of his quartet, laid aside for months. Upon the blank of thought images and combinations had begun to take shape. Every now and then he touched the keys of the piano, every now and then he wrote. Penny was so thankful to see him working again that nothing else really mattered.

She took Miss Silver into the parlour, and listened to the aunts animadverting on a system which allowed the police to penetrate into private houses and search the occupants.

Miss Silver was most sympathetic. She herself had been searched.

“Oh, yes, indeed, Mrs. Brand. Not at all pleasant—most distasteful in fact. But I felt it my duty. It is, after all, for our protection. We shall none of us feel safe till this dreadful business is cleared up. I am sure you must feel that.”

Florence Brand said heavily,

“I have lived here for nearly twenty years. Nothing happened until my brother-in-law made that unjust will.”

Cassy Remington tossed her head.

“Miss Silver won’t be interested in Martin’s will,” she said in an acid voice. “And really, Florence, I can’t see how you can make out that it has anything to do with Helen Adrian or Cyril Felton, neither of whom came in for a penny or ever expected to.”

Miss Silver said, “Indeed?”

Cassy Remington jingled her chain.

“I don’t know why we go on talking about it. It is all extremely unpleasant. Think what the headlines in the papers are going to be, to go no farther than that. Eliza and Mrs. Bell were sending away reporters most of Friday and all Saturday. At least Mrs. Bell would have if she had been here on Saturday afternoon, but she wasn’t, so we just kept everything shut. And of course they’ll be a great deal worse tomorrow.” There was a sparkle in her eyes as she fixed them on her sister and repeated with energy, “A great deal worse!”

Florence Brand pressed her rather thick pale lips together and said nothing. Miss Cassy continued to talk.

“And it’s not as if that would be the worst of it. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if we didn’t have bus-loads of trippers! And have to cook for ourselves! I shouldn’t think Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Woolley would come—not after they hear about Cyril Felton. And it’s quite extraordinary how things get round. Of course everyone in England will know by the time the papers are out tomorrow.”

Mrs. Brand gave her sister a slow, cold look of dislike.

“I can see no good in making out that things are worse than they are. Mrs. Bell wouldn’t miss the reporters for anything, and I don’t suppose Mrs. Woolley would either?” Her voice went down into depths of disapproval. “They are enjoying themselves.” She did not say, “And so are you,” but it was in her tone.

Cassy Remington tossed her head.

“Oh, well, I suppose we shall all have our pictures in the papers,” she said.

Miss Silver did not stay very long. When she got up to go she asked if she might go round by the garden, as it would save Eliza coming to the front door.

“There is so much extra to do, and I feel that I am adding quite enough to her work by being in the house.”

Penny took her out through the kitchen. But when they were there, and the door to the hall had been shut, Miss Silver paused and said,

“Are you still sleeping in the attic?”

Penny looked a little surprised, a little reluctant.

“No, I’ve come back to my own room. I had to move out for Helen Adrian, but they thought I had better come back. They thought it would be better for us all to be on the same floor.” After a pause she added, “It’s silly to mind.”

Miss Silver smiled at her very kindly indeed.

“The room is your own. You will soon overcome any other associations. And the sooner the step is taken, the more quickly this will be done.”

Penny nodded.

“Eliza knew someone whose daughter died, and she kept the room just as it was, and hot water put there, and her nightgown laid out—” A little shudder went over her.

Miss Silver gave a gentle cough.

“Very morbid indeed, and not at all in keeping with Christian hope and faith.” Then, with a slight access of briskness, “I am going to ask you if you will do something for me.”

Penny had the strangest feeling, a sense that she was going to be asked something important. And of course what nonsense! Because what could Miss Silver possibly want her to do that would matter twopence one way or the other? It was dreadfully silly to think it could, and dreadfully silly to find her voice shaking as she said,

“Oh—yes—what is it?”

Miss Silver’s air of kind concern persisted, but it was backed up by a certain firmness.

“It may sound strange to you, my dear, but I hope you will do what I ask.”

Penny said, “What is it?” again, and this time her voice didn’t shake, because she held it steady.

“I want you to turn back the key of the door between the houses on the bedroom floor.”

Penny said very slowly and stiffly, “The door is bolted on the other side.”

Miss Silver coughed and said, “Yes.”

Penny’s eyes were fixed on her—wide brown eyes the colour of peat-water.

“You mean—you might want—to come through?”

“There is no need to look too far ahead. Constable Wilkins is spending the night on our side of the house. He will be on the bedroom landing. Without anticipating any need for his help, I should prefer to feel that there was a possibility of access.”

Penny did not ask her what she meant. She kept that wide, fixed gaze and said,

“I don’t know—if I ought to—”

“I think so.”

“Very well.”

Miss Silver said, “Go and do it now, my dear.”

Unspoken between them was the thought that there would at this moment be no one on the bedroom floor.

They stepped out into the garden. The smell of the wallflower came up. The fruit trees against the wall were shedding their blossom. The sea showed blue and calm. Miss Silver, looking round upon the scene, admired its beauty and remarked that it reminded her of Lord Tennyson’s description of the island-valley of Avilion—“fair with orchard lawns, and bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea.” After which she proceeded along the flagged path to Eliza’s kitchen door and Penny went back into her own side of the house.

As she passed the drawing-room, Felix struck a soft full chord. She hesitated for a moment, and then turned the handle slowly and stood there looking in. He was at the piano, leaning forward and scribbling on one of the tossed pages which littered the polished top. His pencil drove furiously. His face was turned in her direction, but he did not see her. He had gone through into his own country, and as far as Cove House and its problems were concerned he had ceased to be aware of it or of them.

Penny watched him for a little while. Then she closed the door and went away.

She went up on to the bedroom landing and along the little bit of passage which led to the dividing wall between the houses. When she came to the door she turned back the key, and left it there and came away.