The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 18

Doesn’t get us much forrader, does it?” said Frank Abbott. “If the Duke woman stabbed him, why didn’t she get away while the going was good? She wasn’t there when Eily came down. If she killed the man, why should she come back and allow herself to be caught, quite literally, red-handed?”

Crisp frowned.

“Say the girl Eily’s statement is correct. What she hears is the sound of the man falling. Mrs. Duke hears her coming and dodges back through the baize door, keeping it open a chink. She sees Eily go into the lounge, and thinks she’ll have time to get away up the stairs.”

Frank’s fair eyebrows rose.

“And she is found bending over the body. No-you can’t make it fit.”

Miss Silver coughed in a gentle deprecating manner.

“You suggested that I should comment upon any point which I considered significant, Inspector.”

He said, “Yes,” with some appearance of reluctance.

Miss Silver, perfectly well aware that he would have preferred to continue his argument with Frank Abbott, remarked that a point had occurred to her.

“In Eily Fogarty’s statement she says that Luke White had threatened her. I gather from Miss Heron that she overheard a scene between them just before my own arrival at the hotel.”

“What kind of a scene?”

Miss Silver said very composedly,

“You had better ask Miss Heron. The point that occurred to me is this. The threats which frightened Eily were not made until nine o’clock in the evening, yet John Higgins seems to have known about them when he came here at some time after eleven.”

“The girl told him of course.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“Quite so, Inspector. But Eily says that he had already arranged with Mrs. Bridling to take her in until they could be married. Mrs. Bridling is, I believe, his next door neighbour. She is in the habit of coming in to assist Mrs. Castell when the hotel is full. She was here last night.”

“She left before nine o’clock.”

“Yes, but she came back.”

“What!”

Miss Silver gave him a glance of mild reproof. Quite an intelligent officer, but inclined to be abrupt. She said,

“I find that she left a scarf in the pantry. She must have come back for it, because when Mrs. Castell told Eily to bring it through-it had been left on the drip-board-the scarf was gone. It will, of course, at once occur to you that if Mrs. Bridling had returned to fetch her scarf at the time that Eily was alone with her aunt in the kitchen, she may have overheard some particulars of this scene with Luke White. If she did so, and if she repeated what she had heard to John Higgins, it would account both for his coming out here to speak to Eily, and for his decision to remove her at all costs from the danger of any repetition of such a scene. It also accounts very satisfactorily for his having arranged with Mrs. Bridling to take Eily in. It seems quite plain to me that he had seen Mrs. Bridling after her return from the Catherine-Wheel, and that something which she then told him made him resolve to get Eily away with no further loss of time.”

Crisp said abruptly, “We’ll have to see the two of them- Higgins and Mrs. Bridling. And we don’t want them cooking up a story either. Cooling had better take the car and fetch them along. We can be seeing Miss Heron.”

He got up and went out to give his orders.

Frank Abbott raised those fair eyebrows and looked across at Miss Silver with half a smile.

“All zeal, isn’t he?” Then, “Well, here you are, right in the middle of it. And the Chief said he was giving you a nice change from murder! Are you going to tell me who did it?”

Miss Silver looked shocked.

“My dear Frank!”

He said in a bantering voice,

“Don’t tell me you don’t know!”

She coughed reprovingly.

“It would be quite improper to advance an opinion at present. There are a good many possibilities. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the motive for the murder is to be found somewhere in the background which we were sent down here to investigate. Taking the family history into consideration, this man Luke White’s connection with it, and the fact that he has been employed here for the last three years, there is the possibility that he had acquired some dangerous knowledge, and was murdered either to prevent his informing or, more probably, because he was attempting to use his knowledge for the purpose of blackmail. There is also the possibility that he was murdered for purely personal reasons either by John Higgins or by Eily Fogarty. I should give more weight to this theory if the wound were such as might have been received during a struggle. But a girl like Eily would be very unlikely to stab a man in the back. From what I hear of John Higgins, it would be equally out of character in his case.”

“And what do you hear of John Higgins?”

“He comes of good local yeoman stock. He is head carpenter on Sir John Layburn’s estate, as were his father and his grandfather before him. His mother was Mrs. Castell’s sister, and a granddaughter of old Jeremiah Taverner. He seems to bear a very high character, and has struck Captain Taverner and Jane Heron as being rather an exceptional person.”

Frank gave a short laugh.

“Some kind of a local preacher, isn’t he? There’s no saying what the most exalted character may do if somebody threatens his girl.”

Inspector Crisp opened the door.

“This way, Miss Heron. If you will take a chair-there are just a few questions we should like to ask you.”

Jane sat down. She faced the Inspector and the window. The pale, chilly daylight had not brightened. It showed her pallor and the dark marks under her eyes. It occurred to Frank Abbott that she would have done better not to paint her lips. He did not, however, attach any importance to the fact that she had done so, an ample quota of female cousins having taught him that a girl feels quite immodestly undressed without her lipstick, the natural lip being as sedulously concealed as was the Victorian ankle.

Inspector Crisp picked up his pencil and balanced it.

“Now, Miss Heron-Eily Fogarty says in her statement that this man Luke White had threatened her. She gives this as her reason for being afraid to stay in her own room last night, and for coming along to yours.”

Jane said nothing. Her bright lips were a little parted. Her eyes went in a quick glance from Frank Abbott to Miss Silver, from whom she received an encouraging smile, and came back again to Inspector Crisp and his pencil. “Nervous,” was his mental comment. He made it with satisfaction, since a nervous witness handled with just the right amount of severity could usually be relied upon to spill the beans. In his official capacity he would not, of course, have employed such a vulgarism, but thought is apt to be less formal than speech.

“Well now, can you corroborate that?”

“I don’t quite know what you mean by corroborate.”

Frank Abbott had a fastidious ear. He found Jane’s voice extremely pleasing.

Crisp said, “Do you know that Luke White threatened her?”

She hesitated, and then said, “Yes.”

“Will you tell us what you know about this threat.”

“I don’t know-” The words came out slowly and reluctantly.

Miss Silver said with mild firmness,

“Truth is always best. It harms no innocent person.”

Jane didn’t feel so sure about that. She was remembering how Eily had looked at her nail-scissors, and how she had said, “Suppose they had been a knife.” But she wouldn’t ever tell that. She was distressed and uncertain.

Crisp said, “Come now, Miss Heron!”

She said, “Luke White did threaten her. I heard him.”

“Where did this take place?”

“In my room. Eily was turning down the bed, and he followed her in. Mr. Taverner had been showing us the old smugglers’ passage. When we came back Jeremy-Captain Taverner-told me I’d got a smudge on my face, so I went up to my room. The door was half open and I could hear Luke White talking to Eily. I didn’t exactly like to go in-I thought it would be embarrassing for Eily. I stood where the steps come up-”

“He was threatening her?”

Jane’s voice had steadied.

“He said he would have her whatever she did, and she’d better come willingly. He said if she married anyone else, he’d come in the night and cut the man’s heart out. He talked about her being drenched with his blood. It was horrible. Then, I think, he caught hold of her. She called out, and he swore, and I made a noise on the steps as if I had stumbled. He came out then, and I went in to Eily. She was very much upset.”

Inspector Crisp made a little stabbing pass in the air with his pencil.

“The dead man had his left hand tied up in a handkerchief. There was a small wound just short of the knuckles. Do you know how he got it?”

“I saw him with his hand tied up.”

“When did you see that?”

“When he was letting Miss Silver in.”

“And that was when?”

Miss Silver said, “Nine o’clock, Inspector.”

“And how long after this scene in your room?”

“Just after. He was letting Miss Silver in as I came down.”

He made that stabbing pass again.

“Come, come, Miss Heron, I don’t think you are being frank. Did you know where Luke White got that wound?”

“I didn’t see him get it.”

“No-for you were outside your bedroom, and he and Eily Fogarty were inside. You heard her cry out, and you heard him swear. And then you saw him come out of the room. Could you see his left hand?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing with it?”

“He was holding it with the other.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Yes, he said the window had stuck and Eily had called him in to help her. He said he had hurt his hand on the catch.”

“Did you believe him?”

After a long pause Jane said,

“No.”

She pushed back her chair and got up.

“I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you,” she said, and walked out of the room.