Latter End

CHAPTER 29

Miss Silver, having fetched a fresh ball of grey wool from her bedroom, proceeded downstairs with it. She had left her knitting-bag on a table in the hall, and it was while she was slipping the wool into it and hanging the bag on her arm that the door of the study opened and Mrs. Maniple came out. The dignity of her bearing was unimpaired. She crossed the hall and made her way down the long passage which led off it to the kitchen wing.

As soon as she was out of sight Miss Silver entered the study. The Chief Inspector, who was on his feet, was saying, “Well, you’d better go and get her, and Miss Silver too. I don’t want-” He broke off at the sound of the closing door. “Well, there!” he said, “How did you know you were wanted? I was just sending Frank for you.”

Miss Silver smiled agreeably.

“For me-and also, I think, for someone else. May I enquire who else was to be summoned?”

He said briefly, “Miss Mercer. I was going to ask her about those fingerprints, and as she looks as if it wouldn’t be any trouble to her to faint, I thought I’d have you handy.”

A shade of distance tinged Miss Silver’s manner. She did not regard herself as something to be kept handy, nor did she expect to be so regarded. Frank Abbott, gathering up his papers, suppressed a smile.

Miss Maud Silver reached the chair which she had occupied before, altered its angle slightly, and sat down. As she disposed the knitting-bag on her lap and drew out Derek’s half-finished stocking, she observed,

“I am always pleased to do anything I can to assist you, Chief Inspector.” She made a slight but impressive pause and continued. “I would, however, ask you to defer Miss Mercer for the moment. I have just overheard a conversation between Gladys Marsh and the young girl Polly Pell. When I have repeated it to you, you will, I think, agree that it would be as well to question Gladys without delay.”

Lamb gave a snort of disapproval.

“What’s she been saying?”

“I will tell you. I was in the pantry, with the door ajar into the kitchen. I heard Gladys boasting that she was going to be a witness, and that if it came to a trial she would have her photograph in all the papers. She regretted that as she was already married she would not be able to avail herself of the many offers of marriage which she anticipated. She had, however, the effrontery to indicate that the difficulty might be surmounted.”

Frank Abbott looked over his shoulder to say,

“We shall certainly want you here as a chaperon if we’re going to interview Gladys-shan’t we, Chief?”

There was an impudent gleam in his eye which drew a frown from his superior officer. Lamb said gloomily,

“I suppose that wasn’t all, or you wouldn’t be wanting us to see her.”

Miss Silver was knitting with great rapidity.

“It was by no means all,” she said. “After boasting that she would be one of the chief witnesses in a big murder trial, she went on to use these words, ‘There’s more than that I could say if I choose, but I’m not saying it yet-I’m keeping it back to make a splash with.’ Polly asked her what she meant. In reply Gladys said that she could put the rope round somebody’s neck if she chose, and she was going to choose all right. She added, ‘There’s someone in this house that’s going to swing for what they done, and it’s me that’s going to put the rope round their neck, and get my photo in all the papers and have everyone talking about me.’ ”

The Chief Inspector pursed up his lips as if he were about to whistle.

“She said that?”

“Word for word.”

“Then we’ll have her in and find out what she meant by it. It mightn’t be very much, you know, if she was boasting like you say. No, there mightn’t be very much to it, but we’ll have her in. Where did you say she was-in the kitchen?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“She was there. But Mrs. Maniple having returned, I think it probable that Gladys will now be somewhere else.”

Wherever she was, it did not take Frank Abbott long to locate her. She could be heard giggling before he opened the door and ushered her into the room, where she looked impudently at Miss Silver, rolled her eyes at the Chief Inspector, and tripped round the table to sink gracefully upon the chair which had been placed for her. Seated, she crossed her legs, bringing a brief skirt several inches above the knee. The blue eyes rolled in Frank’s direction, glanced coyly down at the expanse of silk stocking, and then swam back to his extremely unresponsive profile.

Lamb, reflecting that someone had missed the chance of spanking her when young, thumped the table with a formidable hand, and rapped out,

“Please pay attention, Mrs. Marsh! Sergeant Abbott isn’t here to look at you-he’s here to take down what you say, so I’ll be obliged if you’ll give your mind to it.”

He received a languishing gaze and a giggle.

“You haven’t asked me anything yet-have you?”

“You needn’t trouble about that-I’m going to. Now, Mrs. Marsh, you’ll be so kind as to give me your whole attention. About a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes ago you were in the kitchen talking to Polly Pell-”

Gladys pouted her scarlet lips.

“That’s right-we were having an elevens. Anything wrong about it?”

She didn’t get any answer to that. Lamb looked at her as stolidly as if she had been a rag doll. He said,

“Your conversation was overheard.”

Gladys raised her plucked eyebrows and said in a genteel voice,

“Reelly? I don’t know how people can lower themselves to listen at doors-do you? It isn’t what I’d call naice myself.”

This was too much for Lamb. His eyes bolted perceptibly, and his voice rasped as he said,

“That’s quite enough of that! You were heard to say that you knew more about Mrs. Latter’s death than you had disclosed to the police. You said you could put a rope round the neck of someone in this house and you were going to do it, but you were holding back what you knew because you wanted to make a splash.”

The blue eyes ceased to languish. They showed a calculating gleam.

“You don’t say!”

“Will you explain what you meant?”

“Well-I dunno-”

“I think you’d better. Ever heard of an accessory in a murder case? It means someone who knows something about the murder, either before or afterwards-a person who participates by advice, command, or concealment.” He repeated the last two words in a slow, weighty tone-“Or concealment, Mrs. Marsh. And an accessory can be put in the dock and tried with the principal.” His manner changed suddenly. “But there-I expect you were just doing a bit of boasting, trying to impress that girl Polly. If you really knew anything, a smart girl like you wouldn’t be getting herself into trouble keeping it back. You’d look a lot better in the witness-box than you would in the dock-but I needn’t tell you that. Come now, out with it! You were just boasting, weren’t you?”

She tossed her head.

“It’s a free country, isn’t it? I can say what I like!”

He kept his easy manner.

“You said you could put a rope round somebody’s neck. You can’t say that sort of thing in the middle of a murder case and not be asked what you mean by it. Now-did you mean anything, or didn’t you? If you did, you can only tell it once, you know. No good saving it up to make a splash like you said and finding you’ve landed yourself up to your neck in trouble.” He let her have a moment, and then came back at her with a point-blank, “Have you got anything, or haven’t you?”

She gave him a bright, bold stare.

“Well then, I have.”

“All right, let’s have it.”

Frank Abbott pulled a block towards him and took up his pencil. Gladys watched him out of the corners of her eyes. He was going to take down what she said in shorthand. Then he would type it out, and they would ask her to sign it like they did before. She didn’t care-she might as well tell it now as later. She didn’t want to get into trouble with the police-they could make it ever so nasty for you if you got on the wrong side of them. Good-looking chap that Sergeant Abbott-looked cold enough to freeze you, but you couldn’t always tell by looks-she wouldn’t mind having a date with him. He must be bored stiff at the Bull… She recrossed her legs, hitching her skirt a little higher. A good thing she’d got those new long stockings. Mrs. Latter hadn’t liked the colour and she’d passed them on. Funny to think of her being gone and the stockings still here. A feeling of sincere regret that the source of so many favours should have been removed gave impetus to her decision. She tossed back her mane of hair and said,

“I dunno who heard me talking to Polly, but I don’t need to take any of it back. I know what I heard and I know what I saw, and I know what I think about it. But I didn’t know at the time, so there’s nothing for me to get into trouble about.”

The Chief Inspector was bluff.

“You won’t get into trouble if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Me?” She swept her lashes up, and down again-an accomplishment very carefully practised before her looking-glass. “I’m a good girl, I am-anyone’ll tell you that.”

Lamb controlled himself with difficulty.

“Well now, suppose you tell us what you heard and saw.”

“I’m going to. It was on the Tuesday evening-”

“You mean Tuesday this week?”

“Yes, last Tuesday-the day after there was that turn-up in Mr. Antony’s room, and the day before Mrs. Latter was poisoned.”

“All right, go on.”

“Mrs. Latter stayed in her room most of the day. Mr. Latter was out pretty nearly all day. I didn’t know he was in until I come out of Mrs. Latter’s room about seven o’clock and I heard him in Miss Mercer’s bedroom-”

“What’s that?”

Gladys looked through her lashes.

“He was in Miss Mercer’s bedroom on the other side of the landing. The door wasn’t fastened.”

“You listened?”

She tossed her head.

“Seemed funny to me. I thought Mrs. Latter might like to know. Seemed he’d made a lot of fuss about her being in Mr. Antony’s room, and here he was, in with Miss Mercer. Seemed funny to me.”

Lamb stared at her.

“There’s quite a difference between twelve o’clock at night and seven o’clock in the evening, isn’t there? Well, you listened-”

“I thought Mrs. Latter would like to know what they were saying. Ooh-I did get a start!”

“Why?”

“Mr. Latter was crying-he was reelly-down on his knees with his head in Miss Mercer’s lap.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I looked round the door. They was a great deal too taken up with themselves to notice if I’d come right into the room, but I just took a look and back again, and there was Miss Mercer in the little low easy chair, and Mr. Latter down on his knees with his head in her lap, and her stroking his hair and saying, ‘My poor Jimmy!’ ” Gladys sniffed virtuously. “And I thought to myself, ‘How’s that for goings on!’ ”

Miss Silver looked across her clicking needles and said in a repressive voice,

“You are doubtless aware, Chief Inspector, that Mr. Latter and Miss Mercer were brought up together like brother and sister.”

He said, “Yes, yes,” and put up a hand for silence. “Go on, Mrs. Marsh.”

“He went on crying for a bit, just like a big baby. And then he said all of a sudden, ‘I’ve got to sleep. I’ll go mad if I don’t-or I’ll do something I’ll be sorry for. You’ve got to give me something to make me sleep. What have you got?’ I took another look round the door, and he’d gone over to the medicine-cupboard she had in her room-the police took it away, but it used to hang right over the middle of the bookcase. He’d got the door open, and I saw him take a bottle out and look at it.”

“What kind of a bottle?”

“One of those flat ones with a screw top. He said, ‘This’ll make me sleep,’ and Miss Mercer come up to him and took it away. She said, ‘Oh, no-that’s morphia. You mustn’t have that-it’s dangerous.’ And he said, ‘As long as I sleep, I don’t care if I never wake up again.’ ”

“Sure he said that?”

She nodded.

“Of course I’m sure! I heard it, didn’t I?”

“Go on.”

“Miss Mercer put the bottle back. She said something about it oughtn’t to be where it was. Seemed she thought she’d put it away out of sight. She took out another bottle and tipped something out into her hand. She gave it to Mr. Latter and said, ‘Take these when you go to bed. They won’t do you any harm.’ And he said, ‘All the harm’s done, Min.’ And I come away, because it looked like he was getting ready to go.”

Miss Silver gave a short dry cough. She addressed Gladys Marsh.

“Mrs. Latter came down to the evening meal, I believe.”

Without troubling to look at her Gladys said,

“Yes, she did.”

“Did you go back into her room to help her dress?”

“What if I did?”

“Nothing at all, Mrs. Marsh-I should merely like to know.”

Gladys was inspecting a row of scarlet fingernails. With scant attention and no attempt at politeness, she said languidly,

“Well then, I did.”

“And did you acquaint her with what you had overheard?”

Gladys threw up her head with a jerk and enquired of the Chief Inspector,

“Look here-who’s she anyway? I don’t have to answer her, do I?”

His voice was grim as he told her,

“You don’t have to answer anyone-not till you come before the Coroner. But if you haven’t done anything wrong, what’s your objection? It’s a simple question enough. Perhaps you’ll answer me if I put it to you. Did you tell Mrs. Latter what you had overheard?”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“What do you think?”

“I think you did.”

“Clever-aren’t you?”

He went on as if she had not spoken.

“But I’d like to hear whether you did or not. Come along- out with it!”

Her hair had fallen forward again. She tossed it back.

“Well, of course I did! That’s what I listened for, wasn’t it?”

Lamb said,

“That’s what you said. So you told Mrs. Latter there was a bottle of morphia tablets in Miss Mercer’s room-you did mention that?”

Gladys looked sulky.

“I told her what I heard and saw, same as I told you.”

“You mentioned the morphia?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at. Of course I did!”

Lamb was silent for a moment. Then he said,

“Sure you’ve told us all you heard and saw?”

“Isn’t it enough for you?”

“I’m asking you whether you’ve told us all you heard and saw.”

“I saw Mr. Latter with the morphia bottle in his hand, and I heard Miss Mercer tell him the stuff was dangerous. That’s something, isn’t it?”

He said, “Yes-that’s something.”