Danger Point

Chapter 39

INSPECTOR MARCH came back to his office, to be told that a lady had been ringing him up – “Wouldn’t leave a message, only said she wanted to see you and she’d ring again – a Miss Silver.”

March’s eyebrows went up.

Ten minutes later the telephone went. A familiar cough came to him on the line.

“Oh, you are back. I am so glad. I think I had better see you for a moment. Would it suit you if I came round now?”

March said, “Yes,” and hung up.

A constable presently ushered in Miss Maud Silver, neatly dressed in a grey washing silk printed with a design of small mauve and black flowers. Being her last summer’s dress, it was quite good enough for Ledlington in the morning. Her hat was of the same date, a rather wilted black straw with a small bunch of mauve and white lilac on the left-hand side. A brooch of bog-oak carved into the shape of a rose fastened her collar. She wore black cotton gloves and black shoes and stockings. Her manner was one of extreme gravity. She took the chair that was offered her, listened to the constable’s heavy receding step and then said without any preliminaries,

“Mr. Rafe Jerningham is beneficiary under Mrs. Jerningham’s will.”

March swung his chair round to face her.

“Oh, is he?”

“To the extent of twenty thousand pounds.”

He whistled.

“Well – well – and what do you know about that, as they say across the water?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I am not entirely up to date in American slang, but if, as I suppose, you would like to know the source of my information, well, that is one of the things I came here to tell you. It came from Mrs. Jerningham herself.”

“She told you she had left Rafe Jerningham twenty thousand pounds?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Silver. “You see, when we met in the train and she was so very much upset, she spoke about her will, and I got the impression that she had left everything to her husband. So this morning when I met her in Ashley’s I asked her if this was so.”

An expression of incredulity appeared upon the well cut features of Inspector March.

“You asked her about her will in Ashley’s?” His voice was as incredulous as his expression.

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Silver brightly. “She was buying a bathing-dress, and there was no one else at the counter. A shop is really quite a safe place to talk in, because people are thinking about their own affairs – shopping lists, and whether they can match the ribbon they got two months ago – all that kind of thing. We had quite a private talk while the saleswoman was serving someone at the next counter.”

March leaned back and contemplated his late preceptress. He was thinking how thoroughly she looked the part – so thoroughly that no matter what she talked about or where she talked about it, no one would dream that her conversation could have the slightest interest for anyone at all. He gave a half exasperated smile and said,

“Go on – tell me all about it.”

Miss Silver folded her black gloved hands over a shabby black handbag.

“Well, I think that was really all. I asked her if there were any substantial legacies, and she mentioned Mr. Rafe. That was really all, except that I urged her most strongly to ring up her solicitor and instruct him to destroy her will.”

March made a movement.

“He would be very unlikely to act on instructions given over the telephone.”

Miss Silver coughed in a slightly reproving manner.

“That would be no matter. What I urged Mrs. Jerningham to do was to go home and tell the whole family that she had instructed her solicitor to destroy the will. If anyone was contemplating another attempt upon her life, he would naturally hold his hand until he was sure that the will under which he would benefit was still in existence. He could not afford to run the risk of committing murder only to find that the money was now irrevocably beyond his reach.”

“That would apply to Dale Jerningham as well as to his cousin Rafe.”

“It would apply to Mr. Dale Jerningham, to Mr. Rafe Jerningham, and also to Lady Steyne.”

“And you seriously believe that her life has been attempted by one of these three people?”

“Has been – and will be again.” She paused, and added, “Is that not your own opinion, Randal?”

He pushed his chair back.

“Neither your opinion nor mine is of very much value. What we want is evidence, and so far all the evidence in this case is lumped into the scale against the wretched Pell. I went over and saw Rafe Jerningham this morning – that’s where I’ve been – and a more useless, profitless morning I never spent. I saw Mrs. Jerningham first. She’s a very good witness, and she was quite clear about the coat. She wore it last on Sunday evening. Rafe brought it to her. Rafe helped her on with it – faint prints on the collar all present and correct. He certainly didn’t take hold of her by the shoulders in the way he would have had to in order to leave those much clearer, fresher prints. And no one else touched her at all. She went straight in, took the coat off, and hung it up in a cupboard in her bedroom. She wasn’t anywhere near her husband. The rather uncertain prints may or may not be his. The one in the middle of the back may have been done at some other time. It’s all mixed up with Pell’s prints. But Rafe Jerningham did take hold of that coat and whoever was wearing it, and as his prints are the freshest of the lot, he took hold of it on Wednesday night. Only I can’t prove that.”

“Did he offer any explanation?”

March laughed.

“Oh, yes – slick as you please. He’d fetched his cousin’s coat and helped her on with it. And that was that. There aren’t any flies on Mr. Rafe Jerningham. He knows as well as you and I do just how much of that prints stuff would go down with a jury. Can’t you hear him in the box? ‘Of course I touched the coat. I brought it to Mrs. Jerningham and I helped her on with it. I should think my prints would be pretty well all over the place.’ I tell you he grinned in my face – and asked me to come up and have a friendly game of tennis when I wasn’t on duty.”

Miss Silver got up.

“I must not take up any more of your time.”

He said, “Wait! About Mrs. Jerningham – was she going to take your advice – change her will?”

She shook her head with an air of concern.

“I’m afraid not. She did not say, but – I am afraid not.”

March went to the door, but stopped there without opening it.

“I’ve gone as far as I can. The Chief Constable is very insistent that there should be no scandal unless we’ve got evidence that can be taken to a jury. I’ve let Rafe Jerningham see that he’s under suspicion, and that’s as far as I can go. You can’t give a girl police protection in her own home. Could you induce her to go away, do you think?”

Miss Silver shook her head again.

“What would be the use of that, my dear Randal? An accident may happen in one place just as easily as in another.”

“In fact,” said March grimly, “accidents will happen. I have often wondered what proportion of them were really murders.”

“A good many,” said Miss Silver. She paused, and added, “It is a very shocking thought.”