Danger Point

Chapter 30

IN the gangway which had been left down the middle of the hall Miss Silver contrived to find herself beside Mrs. Dale Jerningham. With her small habitual cough she attracted her attention.

“How do you do, Mrs. Jerningham?”

Tall, slender, Lisle looked down at her. There was to the sharp watching eye instant recognition, something that might have been relief, and then quite unmistakably dismay.

“Miss Silver!”

Miss Silver beamed.

“How nice of you to remember me. I am taking a little holiday in Ledlington. Such a relief to get out of London in this heat – really most oppressive, though of course beautiful weather and so good for the harvest. Perhaps you will come over and have a cup of tea with me one day. I was recommended to a very nice boarding-house – Miss Mellison, Snaith Street – recommended by a friend and really most comfortable.”

“I am afraid-”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be,” said Miss Silver surprisingly.

“Miss Silver-”

Miss Silver smiled and nodded.

“Miss Mellison, 14 Snaith Street, and the telephone number is Ledlington 141. I do hope you will come,” she said, and fell back behind Mary and Mrs. Ernest Crisp.

As they came out into the hot sunshine, Dale said,

“Who was that you were speaking to? I don’t know her.”

Lisle looked up with a tinge of colour in her cheeks.

“Nor do I really. I just met her in a train. She’s staying in Ledlington on a holiday.”

Dale was frowning.

“Funny idea of a holiday to come and gape at that poor devil Pell. I don’t know what women are made of. Who is she? What’s her name? Looks like a governess.”

Lisle said, “Yes she does. Her name’s Silver – Miss Silver.”

He said nothing at all, and all at once she was nervous. How could he know the name? He didn’t know the name. If he didn’t say anything it was because there was nothing to interest him, nothing to say.

Alicia came over to her, slipped a hand inside her arm, and walked along beside her, talking in a low, confidential voice. It was only the voice that was confidential – there was nothing in what she said. A little hot flame of anger burned up in Lisle. The glow of it reached her cheeks. The village was being provided with a demonstration of sisterly affection, and Lisle rebelled. She had said that she would help Dale, but she had not known that it would be so hard. What she wanted to do was to pull her arm away and walk on. She could walk a good deal faster than Alicia if she tried.

Dale’s hand touched her on the other side. It was a touch which became a hard, compelling grip. It was no good thinking of what she would like to do. She bent her head and gave due response to Alicia’s talk.

They had only gone a little way, when Mrs. Mallam caught them up. She had hurried to do so, and for once in a way her pasty cheeks were flushed. She wore a tightly fitting white dress, a short black and white striped coat, and a solid-looking black bandeau round her thick golden hair. She panted a little as she said,

“I thought I was going to miss you. Aren’t you in a hurry!”

“Well, we are rather.” Alicia Steyne did not trouble to make her voice polite.

Mrs. Mallam was not at all easily snubbed.

“My dear, you can’t have an inquest and turn me away from your very door. I don’t think, I’ve ever been so thirsty in all my life. The atmosphere in there! I really thought I was going to faint.”

Dale turned to her with a sudden charming smile.

“We’re walking, but I take it you’ve got your car. Be an angel and go along up to the house. Ring till someone comes and say we all want drinks – with lots of ice. It will be a noble act.”

Mrs. Mallam beamed.

“Can’t I take someone with me? Your wife – she looks all in.”

Before Dale could answer Lisle had said,

“Oh, thank you.” To be saved that hot walk in the sun with Alicia’s arm through hers and Dale shepherding them – Real gratitude flooded her heart. And no one could think it strange or say anything. She felt delivered as she leaned back in Aimée Mallam’s little car. The air flowed past her, cool and reviving.

Aimée drove slowly. She said in a sympathetic voice,

“Are you all right? It was frightfully hot, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, quite all right.”

“Horrid business. Nasty for you its being your coat and all. Must have given you a kind of feeling that it might have been you.”

Lisle said nothing. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

They reached the house, and when the drinks had been ordered Mrs. Mallam asked to be taken upstairs. As she powdered and lipsticked she returned to the charge.

“Do you think that man did it?”

“It looks like it,” said Lisle in a weary voice.

“I suppose it does. But do you know, I thought he was fond of her. Of course that mightn’t stop him killing her if he was jealous or thought she was going to walk out on him. But I couldn’t help thinking suppose he’d come up behind her and just seen the coat and thought it was you, and thought he’d score off Dale by pushing you over-”

Lisle’s voice cut in clear and steady.

“Please. Mrs. Mallam – that’s nonsense. You can’t have listened to the evidence. He took Cissie up there with him. He was talking to her after they got there. He couldn’t possibly have mistaken her for anyone else.”

Aimée Mallam drew a bold cherry-coloured curve with her lipstick. It gave her mouth a queer tilt at the corners – thin, tilted lips, too bright for the pale, plump face.

“Perhaps not – but someone else could. I wonder if anyone did.”

Lisle said, “Please-”

“Your height, wasn’t she, and about your figure? Fair-haired too. When I saw the photograph in the paper I made up my mind to come to the inquest. You see, I couldn’t help wondering-”

“There’s nothing to wonder about.” Aimée Mallam laughed without amusement.

“Well, I wonder all the same,” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking about poor Lydia – Dale’s first wife, you know. I was only just round a bend of the path when she fell, and I heard her scream. I’ve never forgotten it. They said she was picking flowers. Anyhow she fell and she was killed. It was only your coat that fell and another woman who was killed, but don’t you think there’s something odd about it all?” She slipped the lipstick back into her bag and turned round from the glass. “Look here, I’ll tell you about Lydia. That place where she fell – it wasn’t a dangerous place. She wasn’t climbing or anything like that. There was quite a good wide path along the cliff, curving in and out – you know how those paths do. Well, my husband and I were behind. The others had gone on out of sight, and we heard that awful scream. I ran and got round the corner, and there nearest to me, was Dale looking down over the cliff. And a little way on where the path took another bend – there was Rafe, looking over too. And between them was the place where Lydia had gone over. There was a bush, and it was broken. Alicia and Rowland Steyne had been up the hill – there was quite an easy slope above the path. He was a long way up, she was having hysterics on the inner side of the path. They hadn’t seen anything, only heard the scream. Rafe said he was round the next curve and came running back. Dale said Lydia was picking flowers along the edge, and she told him to go back and see what my husband and I were doing. He said he had just got to the corner when he heard her scream. He didn’t see her fall. He said he was out of sight of the place where he left her. He might have been, you know – the path twisted all the time. So nobody saw her fall. Nobody saw this girl fall either, did they? Except the person who pushed her – if somebody did push her.”

Lisle stood and looked at her. She had the feeling that her eyes were fixed. She couldn’t look away. She said in a stiff, unnatural voice,

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“I wonder,” said Aimée Mallam. “And if I were you I should do some wondering too. And there’s something else I’d do, and I wouldn’t wait about, thinking it over either.”

“What do you mean?”

Mrs. Mallam gathered up her bag and walked over to the door. With her hand on it – a bare, plump hand with too many rings – she turned.

“I should go back to America.”