Danger Point

Chapter 27

MISS SILVER laid down the telephone receiver and picked up her knitting. She was engaged upon a rather elaborate blue jumper designed by herself and intended for her niece Ethel. Purl two – knit two – slip one – purl two… It was absolutely necessary to keep the mind unwaveringly fixed on this part of the pattern. But after ten minutes or so the clicking needles slowed down, the pale, plump hands came to rest upon the blue wool. It was always annoying when a client broke an appointment – annoying and unsatisfactory. It indicated a wavering purpose – that much was certain. A purpose might waver because of a naturally unstable character. With some people, to act on impulse provoked an immediate reaction; the impulse was regretted and reversed. Another cause would be fear. The girl who had spoken to her in the train had been quite desperately shocked and afraid. If she had made her appointment then, Miss Silver would not have been at all surprised at its being cancelled later on when she had had time to recover and reflect. But it was after this time for reflection had elapsed that the appointment had been made, and made urgently under some pressure of necessity and fear. Made – and now cancelled. If the reason for making it had been fear, that reason still existed. The voice that had cancelled the appointment had trembled with fear. The girl who spoke was afraid of her own voice. She was afraid of saying too much. She could not stay for the ordinary courtesies. Mrs. Dale Jerningham had been gently bred. If fear had not driven her, she would have softened the breach of her appointment with apology and regret. She had not tried to soften anything. There had been no room in her mind for any other thing than her own fear and haste.

Miss Silver considered these points at length. Then she took out of a drawer on her right a bright blue exercise-book with a shiny cover. Opened and laid out flat on the convenient mound produced by Ethel’s jumper, it disclosed under the heading “Mrs. Dale Jerningham” an account of her conversation with Lisle in the train. There were also a number of newspaper cuttings. To these Miss Silver paid a very particular attention. The room about her settled into silence.

It was a cheerfully Victorian apartment with a brightly flowered Brussels carpet and plush curtains of a particularly cheerful shade of peacock-blue. In front of the empty grate stood a fire screen with a frame of the same yellow walnut as the writing-table and carved in the same regrettably ornate manner. On the front of the screen was a pattern of poppies, cornflowers and wheat ears worked in cross-stitch upon canvas, with a background of olive green. In front of the fire-screen there was a black woolly mat. The mantelpiece supported a row of photographs in silver frames, whilst above them, against a flowered wallpaper, hung a steel engraving of Millais’ “Black Brunswicker”, in a border of yellow maple. Similar engravings of “Bubbles”, “The Soul’s Awakening”, and Landseer’s “Monarch of the Glen” adorned the other walls. On either side of the hearth there was one of those odd old-fashioned chairs with bow legs profusely carved, upholstered laps, and curving waists.

Miss Silver herself, neat, drab, and elderly, her hair in a knob behind and a fuzzy fringe covered with a net in front, fitted perfectly into these surroundings. The only jarring note was struck by the telephone standing incongruously upon the faded green leather top of the writing-table. New, workmanlike, shiny, without curve, colour or carving, it proclaimed an era removed by nearly four decades from that in which Victoria lived and died.

A small clock wreathed with wooden edelweiss which lurked among the photograph frames on the mantelpiece struck the half hour. Miss Silver put the exercise-book back into the drawer from which she had taken it, laid Ethel’s jumper carefully on the left-hand side of the table, and drawing in her chair, proceeded to dial “Trunks”. There was a little delay, during which her thoughts continued to be busy. Then a click heralded a booming bass. It said,

“Police Station, Ledlington.”

Miss Silver cleared her throat and said precisely,

“Thank you. Good-morning. I should like to speak to Inspector March.”

“What name, please?”

“Miss Maud Silver.”

The bass voice appeared to be allied to extremely heavy boots. They could be heard receding with a measured tread. After an interval other, less resounding footsteps and a familiar voice.

“Miss Silver? How are you? What can I do for you?”

Miss Silver’s faint cough travelled along the line. It took Randal March a long way back to a schoolroom where a little inky boy and two much tidier little girls had absorbed instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic from a Miss Silver who must in those days have been a good deal younger than she was now, but who never seemed to him to have changed in any way with the passage of years. Kind, dowdy, prim, intelligent – oh, very intelligent – and firm. That was Miss Silver twenty-seven years ago, and that was Miss Silver today. They had always kept up with her, his mother, his sisters, and at long intervals himself. Recently however they had been rather closely associated, for it was from Matchley that he had just been transferred to Ledlington, and it was in Matchley that the horrible dénouement of the affair of the poisoned caterpillars had taken place. If it had not been for Miss Silver, he might very well have been occupying a grave in the family plot instead of listening with grateful attention whilst she replied to his questions.

“Thank you, Randal, I am quite well. I hope you are settling down comfortably. Ledlington is a charming, old-fashioned place, though rather spoilt by some of the newer buildings.”

“What does she want?” thought Randal March. “She didn’t ring me up to discuss architecture. What is she on to?”

“I hope you have good news of your dear mother,” pursued Miss Silver.

“Oh, yes – very. She never gets any older.”

“And dear Margaret and Isabel?”

“Blooming.”

“Please give them my love when you write – but I shall be seeing you.”

“Oh, you will, will you?” He did not say this aloud, but he grinned.

Miss Silver went on speaking.

“I thought of taking a little holiday in Ledlington.”

“A holiday?” said Randal severely.

“I hope so. And I really rang up to know whether you could recommend me a quiet boarding-house, not too expensive. I am sure you will know what would suit me.”

“Well – I don’t know-”

“I thought of coming down this afternoon. If you would be so kind as to make some enquiries about a boarding-house-”

“Yes, of course-”

“I could call in at the station, and if you should not be there, perhaps you would leave a note.”

Inspector March said that he would. He hung up, wondering what Miss Silver had got hold of. It couldn’t be the Cole case – or could it? He felt a pringling in his bones. If Maud Silver was coming to Ledlington, it was because she had got her nose down on a trail. All that about a holiday and “your dear mother,” and “dear Margaret and Isabel,” and a nice boarding-house, was camouflage. She had just had a holiday with her niece Ethel. Not only did he know that, but he knew that she knew that he knew it. And she didn’t throw any dust in his eyes. He knew his Miss Silver.

He went off to enquire about boarding-houses.