Vanishing Point (21 page)

Miss Silver was quite ready when Craig called for her at a little after half-past nine. She wore the hat which had been her best for no more than two winters, a black felt with a bunch of pansies on the left-hand side. Frank Abbott has always maintained that during the years he has sat at her feet Maudie has only possessed two hats, labelled respectively Best and Second Best, but that periodically, like the Phoenix, they renew their youth and rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things—these being exemplified by new black or purple ribbons and fresh bunches of the more sober kind of flower. It is, of course, so far true that her hats are always of the same shape, and that they are always made of black felt or black straw, according to the season. The current hat carried a black ribbon edged with purple, and the stalks of the pansies were controlled by a small jet buckle. She had in readiness to put on the pair of grey suede gloves which Cecilia Voycey had sent her for Christmas. She considered them far too light to be practical, but for a wedding they would be most appropriate. From her composed and serene appearance nobody would have guessed that she had been up all night.

After a search of the study at the Dower House had disclosed the presence of the Melbury rubies the arrest of Henry Cunningham had, of course, been inevitable. Lucy Cunningham’s distress had been painful to witness, and it had not been possible to leave her until she had fallen into an uneasy sleep. Nicholas had been really helpful, and she had come away towards morning feeling that Lucy might safely be left in his care until Mrs. Merridew could relieve him.

Fortunately, Marian had slept through the hours of the night without any suspicion that the front door was unlocked and her guest absent. By the time she awoke to these facts they could no longer be considered of the first importance. The arrest of Lydia Crewe, of Henry Cunningham, of that good-natured Mr. Selby, dominated everything.

“Oh, my dear Maud, those poor girls—what will they do! And Lucy! She will feel it quite dreadfully, poor thing! I must go to her! Poor Henry—it doesn’t seem possible! He was such a good-looking young man. Of course Lydia has always been strange. It isn’t really good for people to live in the past as she has done. After all, these old houses, and pictures, and furniture—they don’t matter as much as people do, and we oughtn’t let ourselves think so. But Lydia did—one couldn’t help seeing it. And whatever happened, she had to have her own way.”

Hazel Green buzzed with talk. But for once Florrie was not first with the news. She found Mrs. Merridew and Miss Silver already informed, and very little inclined to talk of what they knew. Mrs. Merridew’s, “It’s all very sad, Florrie, and I must hurry and get dressed so that I can go to Miss Cunningham,” was as much as she could get from her, and Miss Silver had taken her cup of tea into her own room and shut the door.

When Craig arrived Mrs. Merridew had already gone over to the Dower House and Miss Silver was ready. She waited until the village was behind them before giving him anything but a grave “Good-morning.” Then she said,

“How have they taken it, Mr. Lester?”

There was a touch of defiance in his answer.

“They don’t know.”

“You have told them nothing?”

He shook his head.

“Not a word. As soon as it began to get light I called through their window and told them to get dressed and come along. They didn’t ask any questions. I think there must have been some kind of a scene with Miss Crewe. Jenny looked odd. She wasn’t in her own room—she was in with Rosamond. I didn’t ask any questions either. I thought I’d leave well enough alone until we were married. Rosamond is perfectly capable of saying she can’t go through with it because that madwoman has been arrested. But once I’m her husband I’ll be able to deal with that, and with anything else that crops up. I don’t mind telling you I’m like a cat on hot bricks until I’ve got her safe.”

“Where have you taken them, Mr. Lester?”

“Well, I thought about my uncle’s house. Highly respectable and all that, but it would have made too much fuss. Elderly maid, nurse companion, everything going like clockwork—you know the sort of thing. It wouldn’t have done. So I took them to the Station Hotel—they’re used to people arriving by early trains. They’ll stay in their room—or at least I hope they will— until we come for them. I don’t think Jenny had had much sleep, and Rosamond would be trying to keep her quiet.”

Miss Silver sat silent and thoughtful. News flies fast in the country. The case was a sensational one. The arrested persons had been taken to Melbury to be charged. There might already be talk in an hotel, where the staff would be coming to work. The Melbury rubies would set tongues wagging. She hoped indeed that Rosamond Maxwell would remain in her room.

At Craig’s knock on the door Rosamond opened it. If he too had had misgivings, they were swept away. She was wearing the blue jumper in which she had come to tea with Mrs. Merridew. It wasn’t new, but it deepened the sapphire blue of her eyes. When she looked at Craig they were full of light.

He said, “Miss Silver has come to see us married,” and she turned at once and put out both her hands.

“How kind of you—how very, very kind!”

Jenny was feeling rather grand because she was wearing a skirt and jumper of Rosamond’s. Her own clothes were all up over her knees, and you can’t go to your sister’s wedding like that. These things weren’t new—none of their things were new—but she could feel the skirt swishing against her legs in a perfectly grown-up way, and though it was just rather a dull old tweed and the jumper was brown, they did show up her hair. Odd that when Miss Silver looked at her she should feel as if she wanted to cry.

They went down to the Register Office in Craig’s car. Jenny thought it was a very dull way to be married. Rosamond would have looked so nice in a long white dress with a train behind and a lovely floating veil. And Jenny would have been bridesmaid, in a white dress too, with a wreath of flowers on her hair. And an organ, and singing, and a lot of flowers in the church. Dull, that’s what this was, and all over whilst she was still thinking how nice the other sort of wedding would have been. She hadn’t really got as far as deciding whether she would have snowdrops and ivy leaves or grape hyacinths in her hair before the Registrar was saying, “Let me be the first to congratulate you, Mrs. Lester,” and it was all over.

Craig and Rosamond didn’t kiss. They looked at each other. There was something in the way they looked which gave Jenny a curious shaky feeling. It wasn’t flowers and a white dress and music that made a wedding romantic. It was something else— something which was between the two people who were marrying each other. And just for a moment when Craig looked at Rosamond and she looked back at him Jenny had seen it.

She never stops talking,” said Frank Abbott. “It’s pretty grim. They’ve got her in the Infirmary—she just goes on and on and on. Detailed accounts of everything for the last twenty years.”

Miss Silver sighed.

“An extremely shocking case,” she said.

It was the evening of a crowded day. They sat in the drawing-room at the White Cottage, Frank stretched out in the largest chair, Miss Silver primly upright with her knitting in her lap. Mrs. Merridew was still with Lucy Cunningham, and would remain there until she had seen her settled for the night. The coffee-tray stood at Frank’s elbow, and a pleasant fire burned upon the hearth. He said,

“The Chief Constable wouldn’t believe it, you know. Said she had gone off her head, and the whole thing was just a painful delusion. Even the sight of the Melbury rubies didn’t shake him. There had been Crewes at Crewe House for three hundred years, and so forth and so on. If there was a villain in the piece it would be Henry Cunningham. The Cunninghams, you see, have only been here about thirty years, and as to Selby, a mere chance-come Londoner, well naturally, he might be anything. Odd, you know, because he is quite an able man. But that sort of thing is died in the wool—the old county family can do no wrong.”

Little Josephine’s leggings were very nearly completed. There had been just enough of the cherry-coloured wool. She said,

“And pray, how did you convince him?”

Frank poured himself out another cup of coffee. He sugared it extravagantly.

“Well, you know, when she said that Maggie Bell’s body was in the old sand pit just off the road down the second lane to the left on the way to Melbury and it was there under a tangle of nettle and bramble, he had either got to credit her with second sight or come round to the idea that she had helped to put it there just as she said. She told us with a good deal of pride how she had intercepted Maggie on her way to the Hunts’s and got her into Selby’s car by saying there was something she wanted her to explain to Florrie’s mother. After which it was quite easy for Selby to knock her on the head, and so to the sand pit. Exit Maggie who, like the unfortunate Miss Holiday, had seen too much. Very regrettable, and a lot of trouble for Lydia Crewe. Henry had been careless enough to leave stolen diamonds lying about on his table when he went out of the room and returned to find Maggie looking at them. Naturally, after that there was only one thing to be done, and Selby and Lydia did it. I gather they didn’t tell Henry. All he did was to pack the stuff in his specimens.”

“That is so. Mr. Lester and I overheard her assuring him that Maggie had gone away because she was bored, and that Miss Holiday had committed suicide. He was uneasy, but only too anxious to be convinced. A weak man, and very much under her influence.”

Frank finished his cup and set it down. .

“You know, what got everyone all wrong was the original assumption that the disappearance of Maggie Bell had anything to do with the leakage of information at Dalling Grange. If Maggie hadn’t been working for the Cunninghams, and Nicholas Cunningham had not been employed upon highly confidential work at Dalling, the two things would never have got mixed up. The security people couldn’t get it out of their minds, and it coloured the whole approach. For instance, they investigated Selby and found he had retired from a perfectly respectable garage business in which he and his brother were partners. If they had found out—which they didn’t—that Mrs. Selby’s father used to have a small jeweller’s shop which he left to his daughter, it really wouldn’t have meant anything to them at all, but that is where all the funny business went on. Mrs. Selby didn’t know anything about it—I gather Selby was pretty lordly about her affairs. He picked up a very clever jewel-faker cheap— French Jewish refugee—and they got going on substituting new stones for old. What I want to know is, how did you tumble to it?”

Miss Silver reprehended the expression. A slight cough conveyed the fact. Frank blew her a kiss.

“Apologies and regrets! Evil communications corrupt good manners. My cousin has a lamentable vocabulary. After which honourable amend you will, I am sure, relent and tell me all.”

She smiled with indulgence.

“My dear Frank, you talk very extravagantly. What is it you want to know?”

“How you got on to the jewel business.”

Her needles clicked. She pulled on her cherry-coloured wool.

“It is a little difficult to say. Miss Crewe affected me in a very disagreeable manner. She was closely and curiously linked with the Cunninghams. There had been an engagement between herself and Henry Cunningham. Mrs. Merridew made it clear that he was completely dominated by her. Then a valuable piece of jewelry was missed in circumstances which threw suspicion on Mr. Cunningham, and he lent colour to it by leaving the country. After more than twenty years he returned, a quiet depressed recluse, interested only in natural history. And Lydia Crewe went out of her way to advertize the fact that there was a complete breach between them. She would cut him dead in the street. She did so on the occasion when she came here to tea. Mrs. Merridew was very much distressed about it, and told me that it was her invariable practice. The conversation at tea turned upon Lady Muriel Street having discovered that the stones in a brooch which she had always believed to be valuable were imitations. It was Mrs. Merridew who introduced the subject, but Miss Crewe pursued it in rather a curious manner, instancing a similar discovery on the part of Lady Melbury which need never have been made public if it had not been that Lord Melbury had most indiscreetly talked about it among their friends. She went on to say that if all were known, it would be found that a great deal of historic jewelry had been copied and the originals sold, and that sensible people kept these things to themselves. There was something in the way she spoke which I find difficult to describe, it left a certain impression. Her tone was disagreeably censorious, yet it evinced a kind of pleasure. The subject undoubtedly pleased her. She dwelt upon it. I fancied I could detect some personal pride—I cannot get nearer to it than that.”

He was watching her with interest from between half-closed lids, those light eyes of his intent.

“Yes—go on.”

“When Miss Holiday disappeared, and after the discovery of her body, I went back over these first impressions and found in retrospect that they were considerably intensified. For one thing, it was impossible not to connect this latest disappearance with that of Maggie Bell a year ago. But I could not accept a theory which would link the murder of Miss Holiday with a leakage of military secrets from Dalling Grange.”

“May I ask why?”

She inclined her head.

“I was becoming convinced of a sinister connection between Miss Crewe and the tragic death of Miss Holiday. Miss Cunningham met this poor woman coming away from Crewe House on Sunday evening. You informed me that the police had obtained a statement from a young woman who happened to pass them on her bicycle. She said that one of them dropped a letter and Miss Cunningham picked it up. Miss Cunningham’s explanation was that this letter was one which Miss Holiday pulled out of her overall pocket when she used her handkerchief. Seeing that the envelope had been opened and was addressed to Miss Crewe, she considered that it had been picked up by mistake, and offered, as she was going there, to take it up to Crewe House. In the brief episode the motive for the murder of Miss Holiday became plain. The letter contained something so dangerous to Miss Crewe that she would stick at nothing to ensure that it went no farther. When the murder of Miss Holiday was followed by an attempt upon Miss Cunningham, I felt convinced that Miss Crewe was engaged in something of a criminal nature, and that Miss Cunningham’s life was in serious danger. But I was not prepared to accept any theory which involved Miss Crewe in the sale of secrets to a foreign power.”

Frank Abbott opened his eyes.

“You surprise me.”

Miss Silver’s gaze rested on him in a disappointed manner.

“My dear Frank, you are not really thinking. Miss Crewe is an evil and ruthless woman, but it is never safe to neglect the motives which prompt a criminal. In the case of Lydia Crewe they are not difficult to discern. She has an implacable pride of race, a passion amounting to idolatry for her family, its traditions, its exploits, its accumulated possessions. Since the Crewes were an integral part of the county, and the county an integral part of the nation, she would no more be a party to anything of a treasonable nature than she would neglect to rise to her feet when the National Anthem was played. But in the business of robbing her neighbours she was probably well within the family tradition. History presents one with a continuous picture of the rise and fall of great families—lands lost by adherence to a losing cause—lands acquired at a neighbour’s expense through the chance of being found upon the winning side. I have no doubt that the Crewes had their ups and downs in just such ways as these, and that Miss Crewe’s depredations appeared to her in this guise. Everything fitted into this picture. The complacency which I had observed when she was talking about the jewel robberies, the touch of personal pride, her assumption that the conversion of valuable heirlooms was now widespread—all these things left me in very little doubt as to what had been going on. But it was Miss Cunningham’s danger which made the situation so urgent. After you had left me I became more and more uneasy on her account. In the end I felt impelled to go to the Dower House. I thought I would see if there was a light in her bedroom. Beyond that I had no plan. As you know, I most providentially encountered Mr. Lester, and as we were making our circuit of the house we saw Miss Crewe go in by the secret door.”

He passed a hand over hair already mirror-smooth.

“My dear ma’am, you are always in the right place at the right moment. In fact, the complete reply to that dreary fallacy— ‘Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together’.”

“My dear Frank—”

He hastened to forestall rebuke.

“Miss Cunningham owes you her life.”

Miss Silver was casting off. As the last cherry-coloured stitch dropped from the needles, she said,

“It has all been a terrible shock to her. I do not think she had many illusions about her brother. She knew him to be weak and drifting, but she had no suspicion that he was involved in a criminal enterprise, and no idea at all that the breach between him and Lydia Crewe was no more than a sham and that in reality he was seeing her constantly and was as much under her influence as he had ever been. His trial and all that must come out at it will be a very terrible experience for the poor woman.”

He hesitated for a moment. Then he said,

“Keep this to yourself. Selby’s for it, of course, but Cunningham isn’t at all likely to stand his trial. He has had some kind of a seizure. I gather he is not expected to come round. It would save his sister and young Cunningham if he didn’t. By the way, the Dalling Grange affair has been cleared up— the Security people let us know this morning. An attempt was made to frame Nicholas, and apparently he turned the tables. The real villain of the piece was Burlington’s trusted private secretary, Brown. It’s the same old story—a minor indiscretion to start with, a glass too much, the temptation to magnify his own importance by appearing to be well informed. Then pressure, the threat of exposure, blackmail— the whole bag of tricks—you know how it goes. Fingerprints on a compromising letter which had been planted on Nicholas finally gave him away. When confronted with them Brown collapsed—one of Kipling’s ‘brittle intellectuals who crack beneath a strain’! So that is that. I hope you went to bed and slept this morning after being up all night?”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I was more pleasantly engaged.”

“And now what have you been up to?”

She laid her knitting-needles down upon little Josephine’s completed leggings.

“I attended a wedding. I was giving away the bride.”

“How extremely versatile! Who was it?”

“Rosamond Maxwell. Miss Crewe was sending Jenny away to school today, and Mr. Lester had persuaded Rosamond to consent to this sudden wedding in order that he might have the right to act for her in the matter. The two girls were entirely financially dependent on Miss Crewe. Owing to Jenny’s long period of invalidism following upon an accident, Rosamond had been unable to earn anything. The situation was, in fact, so difficult that an immediate marriage seemed to be the only solution. Mr. Lester asked me to be present because he felt that Rosamond should have some support, and they did not like to involve any of Miss Crewe’s friends in what she was bound to consider an affront.”

Frank whistled.

“Poor old Craig—he’s run into something!”

Miss Silver coughed reprovingly,

“I can assure you that he considers himself extremely fortunate to have won the love of so good and charming a girl. As Lord Tennyson so aptly says:

‘If I were loved, as I desire to be,

What is there in the great sphere of the earth,

And range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear—if I were loved by thee?’ ”

Frank sat up laughing.

“Oh, if it’s that way of it, there’s nothing more to say, is there! What is a mad murderous aunt or two when you and Lord Tennyson approve! She’s raving, so they won’t hang her anyhow. All that remains is to offer one’s felicitations, select a suitable gift, and hope for the best. It’s a mad world anyhow.”

Miss Silver smiled.