Miss Silver Comes To Stay

CHAPTER 29

It was just before half past three that Mrs. Crook ushered the Chief Constable into Mrs. Voycey’s drawing-room. Miss Silver rose to meet him with a good deal of pleasure. She could not even now look at the tall, personable man without recalling the frail, determined little boy who, after resisting all previous efforts at discipline, had by her own peculiar mixture of tact and firmness been guided into the paths of health and knowledge. She had never permitted herself to have favourites. It was perhaps on this account that, whilst referring to his sisters as “dear Isabel” and “dear Margaret,” she had never been known to accord their brother any such prefix. Not even to herself would she admit that the conflict between them, and its happy termination, had given him a particular place in her affections.

“My dear Randal-how extremely kind!”

He had his customary smile for her, but it was a fleeting one. The ritual of their meeting proceeded.

“Your dear mother is well? I had a letter from her only last week. She is a most faithful correspondent. I think you will find this a comfortable chair.”

The smile showed again for a moment.

“If you have heard from my mother you have had all our news. Margaret is well, Isabel is well, Margaret’s last long-legged brat is shooting up. And now let us put the family on the shelf. I want to talk to you. Have you-perhaps I oughtn’t to ask it, but I do-have you had any communication from Rietta Cray?”

Miss Silver’s hands paused on the thin strip of knitting which represented, embryonically, the back of little Josephine’s woolly jacket. She gave her faint dry cough and said,

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I very much want to know. She rang me up and asked me about you. I hoped you would have heard from her.”

The busy needles moved again. She said,

“I have.”

“You have seen her?”

“Yes, Randal.”

“What do you make of it all?”

She lifted her eyes and looked at him steadily.

“What do you make of it yourself?”

He got up out of his chair and stood half turned away from her, looking down into the fire.

“She is quite incapable-” He had neither voice nor words to complete the sentence.

Miss Silver said, “Quite so. But there might be a strong case against her. She is aware of that herself.”

He said, “Damnable-” and again had no more words.

Miss Silver failed to reprove him for the one which he had used. She continued to knit. After a little while she said,

“There is something which I think you ought to know- in your private capacity.”

He pushed a log with his foot.

“I haven’t got a private capacity. I’m a policeman.”

She coughed.

“You are Chief Constable. You would not, I imagine, find it necessary to impart everything you knew to a subordinate.”

He had a wry smile for that.

“Jesuitry!” Then, before she could summon up the look with which she had been used to quell him in the schoolroom, he went on in a voice quite broken away from its habitual control. “I’d better make a clean breast of it. You always do know everything whether one tells you or not, so it’s just as well to make a virtue of necessity. Rietta is completely incapable of harming anyone, but she is also completely incapable of defending herself at the expense of someone she loves.”

Miss Silver answered this very directly. She did, in fact, justify his assertion that she always knew everything by answering what he had merely implied.

“You are afraid that Mr. Carr Robertson is the guilty person, and that Miss Cray will screen him at the risk of incurring suspicion.”

He drove hard at the fire with his foot. A torrent of sparks rushed up. He said,

“Yes.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“I think I can relieve your mind. I was, in fact, about to do so. I have had no opportunity of questioning Mr. Carr, but one thing you may rely upon-Miss Cray has a very strong reason for being sure that he is innocent.”

“What reason?”

“A most convincing one. In fact, one may say, the only one which could carry complete conviction. He thinks she did it.”

Startled into turning quite round, Randal March said,

“What!”

Miss Silver reflected that the scholastic profession was a discouraging one. How many times had she corrected such an interjection in the schoolroom, offering instead the politer, “What did you say?” She continued without comment.

“Mr. Carr was at first quite sure that Miss Cray had done it. He did, in fact, come into her presence with the words, ‘Why did you do it?’ Even after he had heard all that she had to say, Miss Cray is of the opinion that he is still in doubt. This is naturally very painful to her, but it does relieve her mind with regard to his having any connection with the crime.”

Resting both hands on the mantelpiece and staring down into the fire, March said,

“Then it was Carr who brought the raincoat back from Melling House.”

She said very composedly, “You will not expect me to answer that.”

“You needn’t-it answers itself. He was with Elizabeth Moore until about ten minutes to ten. He took Melling House on his way home and brought the raincoat away. That means he either killed James Lessiter or found him dead.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I do not believe that he killed him. Miss Cray is very sure that he did not. She had to labour hard to shake his belief that she herself had done so.”

He went on looking down into the fire.

“What is your own feeling? Do you believe he didn’t do it?”

“Miss Cray is positive upon that point.”

He said, “Oh, well-” Then he straightened up and went over to where he had left a small attaché case. He opened it, took out a sheaf of papers, and brought them to her.

“You had better read the statements and see what you make of them.”

“Thank you, Randal.”

He went back to his chair and watched her while she read. Her small, neat features remained expressionless. She made no remark, and never once looked up. When she had finished March said,

“There’s a later development-you’d better hear that too. Mayhew’s son is known to have been down here on the night of the murder. He is an unsatisfactory lad and has been in trouble with the police. He arrived by the six-thirty train and borrowed a bicycle in Lenton-which explains why Mrs. Mayhew went home early. Her husband had forbidden him the house. We have no absolute proof that he was at Melling House, but there isn’t any reasonable doubt about it. Mrs. Mayhew denies the whole thing, and says she hasn’t seen him for six months. It is quite certain that she is lying. And four sixteenth-century figures representing the Seasons which stood on the study mantelpiece are missing. Rietta says they were there when she left at a quarter past nine. She also says they were made of solid gold.”

“My dear Randal!”

He nodded.

“A nice bright red herring, isn’t it? Or is it?”

“It is extremely interesting. What is your view?”

He frowned.

“I don’t know. Drake, who had been running the case against Rietta and Carr very hard, shows his versatility by producing a theory that Cyril had been put up to steal these valuable antiques, was caught out, and had recourse to the poker. I can’t make that square with the facts. The figures were on the mantelpiece, and Lessiter was sitting at his writing-table when he was hit over the head. He had his back to the fireplace, and the blow was struck from behind. You can’t square that with Cyril Mayhew being caught in the act of stealing four gold figures. But there is another possibility. You’ve got a plan of the room there-look at it. The door at which Mrs. Mayhew listened is in line with the fireplace. That is to say, it would be behind Lessiter’s back as he sat at the table. Cyril could have opened that door, as his mother did, without being heard. He may not even have had to open it-she may have left it ajar. He could have come in his stocking feet, reached the poker, and hit Lessiter over the head with it, all without being seen or heard.”

“Extremely shocking.”

He frowned more deeply still.

“It could have been done. The trouble is that I can’t persuade myself that it was done.”

Miss Silver gave a thoughtful cough.

“It is certainly difficult to see why the young man should go out of his way to do murder. He had only to wait for Mr. Lessiter to retire, when he could have removed the figures without this quite unnecessary bloodshed.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head-you always do! I can think of a dozen reasons for the theft, but not one for the murder. However badly I want a ram in the thicket, I can’t persuade myself that Cyril Mayhew is going to fill the bill. He may or may not have come down to steal the figures. He may or may not have found Lessiter dead. He may or may not have then yielded to the sudden bright idea that all that gold might just as well be in his pocket.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“What I cannot understand, Randal, is why such valuable ornaments should have been left out upon the study mantelpiece in what was practically an unused house. Mrs. Lessiter had been dead for two years. Mr. Lessiter had not been near the place for over twenty.”

“Yes, it’s a bit casual, but Mrs. Lessiter was like that.” He told her what Rietta had said about the insurance, and then continued, “I asked Mrs. Mayhew just now, and she says the figures were put away at the back of one of the pantry cupboards after Mrs. Lessiter died, but she got them out again before Lessiter came down because they belonged to the study mantelpiece and she thought he would miss them.”

Miss Silver said, “I see-” She knitted briskly. “Randal, what was Mr. Lessiter doing when he was killed? Was he writing?”

He gave her a curious look.

“Not so far as we can ascertain. He had obviously been clearing up-the fireplace was choked with burnt stuff. On the writing-table itself there was only one paper-the old will leaving everything to Rietta. It had been scorched down one side and is rather badly stained. All the pens and pencils were in the pen-rack. All the writing-table drawers were shut.”

“Then what was he doing at the writing-table?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked at him in her most serious manner.

“I think it may be very important to find out.”

“You think-”

“I think there is a suggestion that some paper is missing. If so, it must be of vital importance. It may have been abstracted by the murderer. It certainly cannot have disappeared by itself. It is also quite certain that a man does not sit at his writing-table without any occupation. He must either be writing, reading, or sorting papers. The only paper before him was this short will. But both Mrs. Mayhew and Miss Cray make some slight reference to another paper. Miss Cray mentioned it to me.”

“What paper?”

“The memorandum referred to by Mrs. Mayhew in reporting what she had overheard of the interview between Mr. Lessiter and Miss Cray. She reports him as saying that he had come across her letters when he was looking for a memorandum his mother had left for him.”

“There is nothing to show that he had it out on the table.”

“Not in Mrs. Mayhew’s statement. But in conversation with me Miss Cray did refer to it. I asked her if she knew what was in it, and she replied that she believed it to contain information as to certain dispositions Mrs. Lessiter had made.”

“Did she say that this paper was on the table during her interview with Lessiter?”,

She weighted this thoughtfully.

“Not in so many words. I certainly received that impression.”

“It may be important-” he paused, and added, “very important. Will you call her up and ask her whether the memorandum was actually there, in sight?”

“Yes, I can do that. The telephone is in the dining-room. You had better come with me.”

Rietta Cray answered the call in her deep voice. No one would have guessed with what shrinking she had lifted the receiver. Miss Silver’s voice brought relief.

“I hope I have not disturbed you. In describing your interview of the other night you mentioned a certain memorandum. Did you actually see this paper?”

The scene came back. James, with his smiling malice and his talk of her letters-“love’s young dream.”…And then, “The memorandum my mother left me… some people would be glad if they could be certain it was in ashes like your letters…” Catherine’s voice on the telephone-“He’s found that damned memorandum.”

The reassurance was all gone. She felt the buffeting of opposing loyalties-Catherine-Carr. It was characteristic of Rietta Cray that she did not think of herself. She tried to steady her thoughts, to determine just how much she could safely say.

Miss Silver repeated her question.

“Did you see this paper?”

She said, “Yes.”

“Can you describe it?”

No harm in answering that.

“There were several sheets of foolscap. They had been folded up to go in an envelope, and taken out again. The envelope was lying there, and the foolscap half unfolded. I recognized the writing.”

Miss Silver said, “Thank you,” and hung up. She turned to face Randal March.

“You heard?”

He said, “Yes.”