Miss Silver Comes To Stay

CHAPTER 28

After another night, sleepless except for indeterminate stretches of time in which there was a vague sense of half-recognized calamity, Rietta Cray was paler than yesterday but steadier-nerves taut and rigidly controlled. She opened the door to the Chief Constable and Superintendent Drake, and needed no reminder that this was an official visit. To the end of her life there would be nightmare moments when she would re-live that interview.

It was circumstance rather than detail which made the nightmare. They went into the dining-room, and Drake produced a notebook. Randal sat on one side of the table and she on the other. She had known him since she was ten years old. Lately, with Lenfold only five miles away, they had seen a good deal of one another, and the friendship of slow years had deepened into something closer. Each had felt a growing awareness of the other, and each had known where this was leading them. Now, with the table between them, they were strangers-the Chief Constable of the county and a pale, strained woman who was the leading suspect in a murder case. The position came near to being intolerable. Being what they were, they kept their dignity and observed the social forms. Mr. March apologized to Miss Cray for troubling her, to which Miss Cray replied that it was no trouble.

Horrified at his own feelings, Randal March continued.

“We thought you might be able to help us. You know Melling House well, don’t you?”

Her deep voice said, “Yes.”

“Can you describe the study mantelpiece?”

She showed a faint surprise. She said,

“Of course. It’s one of those heavy black marble affairs.”

“Any ornaments?”

“A clock, and four gilt figures-”

“Four gilt figures?”

“Yes-The Seasons.”

“Miss Cray, can you tell us whether they were there on Wednesday night?”

The question took her back. She saw the study in a bright small picture-James with the light shining down upon him, his eyes watchful, teasing her-the littered ash of the letters she had written to him-his mother looking down on them, a handsome young matron in white satin with her ostrich-feather fan-the graceful golden figures posed on the black marble slab. She said,

“Yes, they were there.”

“You are quite sure they were there when you left at a quarter past nine?”

“Quite sure.”

There was a pause. He had to make headway against his crowding thoughts. How ghastly pale she was. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. How else should she look? He was neither friend nor lover. He wasn’t even a man, he was a police officer. That horrible moment was the first in which he consciously used the word love in his thoughts of Rietta Cray. He said,

“Can you tell us anything about these figures?”

She seemed to come back from a long way off. Something, some shadow, darkened her eyes. He thought she was remembering, and felt a sharp inexplicable pang. She said,

“Yes-they’re Florentine-sixteenth century, I think.”

“Then they are valuable.”

“Very.” Then, after a slight pause, “Why do you ask?”

“Because they have disappeared.”

Rietta said, “Oh!” A little colour came into her face.

“Mr. Holderness is taking an inventory, and they are missing. Anything you can tell us will be a help in tracing them.”

Her manner changed. It became controlled. She said in a hesitating voice,

“I suppose you know that they are gold?”

“Gold!” Drake looked up sharply, repeating the last word.

March said, “Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, quite sure. Mrs. Lessiter told me. They were left to her by an uncle who was a collector. They are museum pieces, very valuable indeed.”

“And she had them out on the mantelpiece like that?”

“Oh, yes. She said nobody would know.”

The Superintendent came in rather sharply,

“They’re not even mentioned in the insurance.”

Rietta turned her Pallas Athene look upon him.

“Mrs. Lessiter didn’t believe in insurances. She said you paid away a lot of money and got nothing for it, and if you had anything valuable it was just drawing attention to it. She kept on her husband’s insurance on the house and furniture, but she didn’t bother about any of her own things. She had some valuable miniatures and other things. She said if you just left them lying about, everyone got used to them, but the more fuss you made, and the more you locked things up, the more likely they were to be stolen.”

March was frowning.

“Would the Mayhews know about these figures, that they were gold?”

“I should think so. They are old servants.”

“Was the son brought up here?”

“Yes-he went to Lenton Grammar School. He was rather a clever boy.”

“Would he have known about the figures?”

“How can I tell?” Her look changed to one of distress. It went from one man to the other. “Why do you ask that?”

Randal March said,

“Cyril Mayhew was down here on Wednesday night, and the figures are gone.”