Ladies’ Bane

CHAPTER 29

It was next morning that Ione Muir betook herself down the drive and along the village street to Miss Falconer’s cottage. After three sleepless nights she had come to a point from which she felt that she could not go on. Geoffrey and Jacqueline Delauny who had certainly been his mistress once whatever she was now! And Geoffrey so frank about the whole thing-or should the word be plausible? An old affair which ought never to have been, but all quite over and done with now. Anything she had overheard the fruit of a temporary hysterical breakdown. So why not let the dead past bury its dead? She didn’t know whether she believed him or not. She didn’t even know whether she ought to try to believe him. The matters involved were too weighty. She had no scales to weigh them in. The balance could tip too violently, too dangerously, for her handling.

On the one side, and in the light of that whispered conversation in the fog, that near escape from death in Wraydon, could it be safe for Allegra to go on living in the house with the woman who had demanded so passionately of Geoffrey Trent, “If you were free, would you marry me?… You were in love with me once, and you could be again. Try-and see!… I can give you your heart’s desire-not me nor any other woman, but the Ladies’ House! You won’t get it without me… You may do your damnedest but you won’t!” A bait and a threat, and a woman who thought her own heart’s desire might be within her grasp. “If you were free-” And in what way was he to be free? Ione had the same thought as Frank Abbott-how easy to say that a morphia addict had somehow contrived to get hold of an overdose? Matter heavy enough to weigh a scale down into the depths!

And on the other side herself as the home-wrecker, dragging up a dead and gone affair out of Geoffrey’s past to thrust between him and Allegra and shatter their marriage. Whichever way you looked at it, the tipping of the scale could so easily be fraught with disaster. As she pressed the electric bell which supplemented Miss Falconer’s old-fashioned knocker she was, in fact, in that state of mind which had brought Miss Silver so many of her clients. She no longer felt that she could go on alone.

It was Miss Silver herself who opened the door. Miss Falconer had gone out to visit a blind woman, and her very efficient daily was busy in the kitchen. Ione was taken into the pleasant living-room and ensconced in a comfortable chair. Since it was no use beating about the bush, she came directly to the point, and a very interesting point Miss Silver found it. She listened with profound attention to a description of the shaft in the wall between the study and the sitting-room next door.

“I suppose I really should not have listened, but I am afraid I would do it again. You see, Jacqueline Delauny was speaking, and the very first words I heard her say were ‘Oh, Geoffrey, my darling!’ ”

In the course of her professional career Miss Silver had frequently been obliged to draw a distinction between the code of a gentlewoman and the duty owed by a detective to her client. Repugnant as it might be to her feelings to listen to a private conversation, she had quite often felt obliged to do so, and where it was a question of a life to be saved, an innocent person cleared, or a criminal brought to justice, she had no compunction in the matter. She therefore diffused a very comforting atmosphere of approval as she said,

“Pray proceed, Miss Muir.”

Ione proceeded.

When she had heard everything Miss Silver looked very grave indeed.

“Certainly Miss Delauny should go,” she said. “It is not at all suitable that she should be there.”

Ione had to suppress a laugh. Suitability and Jacqueline Delauny were by now such poles apart!

“Geoffrey won’t send her away. He says it isn’t fair. The whole thing has been over and done with for years, and if she had this outburst, it was because she was so overdone and upset about Margot.” She changed colour and hurried a little over her next sentence. “He just digs his toes in and says how wonderful she was with Margot, and how good she is with Allegra. And how difficult it would be to replace her. Of course that is just what he would say if there was something between them. But at the same time, isn’t it just what a decent man would say if he was speaking the truth and didn’t think it fair to send Jacqueline away for an old affair which was just as much his fault as hers? You know, the time I came nearest to believing him was when he stuck it out that he was fond of her. He kept saying she had been so wonderful with Margot, and he really did sound as if he meant it.” She propped her chin in her hand and gazed at Miss Silver out of those big eyes of hers. “But of course that is what the really first-class liar does-he sounds as if he was telling the truth.”

Miss Silver had a new grey stocking on her needles. Johnny’s three pairs had been completed, and this was the first of Derek’s. She was knitting in her usual smooth and rapid manner, her hands low in her lap, and her attention apparently entirely given to Ione.

“Miss Muir, I do not think that you have told me everything.”

“What do you mean, Miss Silver?”

She received the smile with which Miss Silver had been wont to encourage the backward pupil.

“It is something about that poor girl Margot Trent, is it not?”

Ione said, “Oh-”

“There were parts of your narrative where it was obvious to me that something had been omitted. Later you showed signs of discomfort when, in a quite unembarrassing connection, you were obliged to mention the girl’s name. If the subject of Margot Trent’s death was mentioned in the conversation which you heard between Mr. Trent and Miss Delauny, it might be of great importance. Will you not tell me whether it did so occur?”

Ione was pale. All along it had seemed to her that she must keep this one thing back. Whatever Geoffrey had done, he was Allegra’s husband. What touched him would touch her. But now, with Miss Silver’s level gaze upon her, it came to her that she couldn’t hold anything back. If Geoffrey was guilty of Margot’s death, then might he not have been guilty, through his agent, of the Wraydon attempt, and might he not even now be planning something against herself, or even against Allegra? She said in a distressed voice,

“You mustn’t make too much of it. It’s all just hearsay, and Jacqueline was behaving as if she were off her balance.”

“It was something Miss Delauny said?”

“Yes. It was just after what she said about his never getting the Ladies’ House, not if he did his damnedest. And then she said, ‘You’ve done quite a lot already, haven’t you? Do you ever dream about Margot and that crazy rope you told her she could take? I didn’t think you would go as far as that, you know.’ ”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked. Derek’s grey stocking revolved.

“And what did Mr. Trent say?”

“He said she was mad. And she said oh, no, she wasn’t. ‘You told her she could take the rope, and that is that!’ And then she went on-”

Ione’s voice faltered and broke off.

“Yes-you had better tell me.”

“Jacqueline Delauny said, ‘You will have to shut Flaxman’s mouth, but nobody will ever hear anything about it from me! Unless you were to do something stupid like trying to send me away!’ ”

It was as she repeated the words that it came to Ione how impossible they made things look for Geoffrey Trent. She should have shut her mouth on them and kept it shut. But if they meant something as bad as all that, to what might she then be exposing herself-Allegra? With that shuddering thought she passed the point at which the mind can be brought to bear clearly and definitely upon its object. She heard Miss Silver say in her kindest voice,

“Believe me, my dear, the truth is always best.”

Ione drew in her breath sharply.

“You really think so?”

“I am quite sure of it. Let us take your own case. As you spoke to me you became afraid of the words you were repeating. They placed vividly before you the possibility that your brother-in-law had contrived the death of his unfortunate ward, and that being blackmailed by Flaxman, he had intervened to silence him. This upset you so much that you began to regret what you had just told me.”

She saw through you just as if you were made of glass. It was no good trying to keep anything back-

Miss Silver went on speaking.

“If it is true that Mr. Trent has committed these two crimes, you are yourself in considerable danger. He knows that you have overheard his conversation with Miss Delauny. He is therefore aware that you heard her accuse him of being a party to Margot’s death. He would also know that you had heard the allusion to Flaxman and the necessity of stopping his mouth. He already has a financial interest in your death. Would it not be strongly reinforced by all this? You must remember that with each successful killing the murderer becomes more inflated with his own self-importance and more certain of his own ability to flout the law. In the end he thinks himself infallible, and so perhaps makes a false step. But in the meanwhile how much suffering may be caused, how much irreparable damage may be done!”

“Miss Silver-”

“One moment, Miss Muir. I do not say that Mr. Trent is guilty of these or of any other crimes. If he were, the bringing of the truth to light would still be the best course, for him as well as for others, since the longer a sinner remains undetected the more terrible will be the reckoning. But assuming that he is not guilty. Circumstances may look very black against an innocent man, you know, and if he is innocent, it is only the truth that can prove him so.”

She quoted from an older poet than her usual favourite Lord Tennyson:

“Trust thou in him and let thy ghost thee lead,

And Truth shall thee deliver, it is no drede.”

Ione said, “Yes.” Her deep, beautiful voice was firm again.

Miss Silver looked at her kindly.

“There are certain facts which must be the foundation of all our reasoning. Margot Trent is dead, and Flaxman’s mouth has been closed. We have to ask ourselves very seriously who benefits by these two events.”