Miss Silver Comes To Stay

CHAPTER 30

Mrs. Crook brought in tea, and reported afterwards to her friend Mrs. Grover that the Chief Constable was ever such a nicelooking gentleman and ever so polite, “but no appetite for his tea, and the scones were lovely though I say it myself.” In these circumstances the meal was not prolonged. When March refused a third cup of tea, Miss Silver coughed in a deprecating manner and said,

“I should like to ask you to do me a favour, Randal.”

He smiled.

“What is it-the half of my kingdom?”

“I hope I should never ask you for what you would find it impossible to give.”

“You alarm me! Let me know the worst!”

She gave him her own charming smile.

“It is really a very simple matter. I would very much like to see the study at Melling House.”

“Well, it will make talk, you know.”

“My dear Randal, do you imagine that people are not talking now?”

“Not for a moment. But I am not anxious that they should talk about a triangle consisting of you and me and Rietta Cray.”

“It is quite impossible to stop people gossiping-especially in a village.”

“What do you hope to effect? Drake is highly efficient. Everything will have been gone over with a microscope.”

“I have no doubt of it.”

Under her mildly obstinate gaze he gave way.

“Very well. You’re taking an unfair advantage of me, you know. I am too anxious about this case to be sure of what I ought to do.”

“My dear Randal-”

He pushed back his chair and got up.

“We had better make the best of a bad job,” he said.

Mayhew, answering the door a little later, peered out. It was a dark afternoon, and the light was on in the hall. He ought to be able to see who it was in the car, but he couldn’t. He blinked up at the Chief Constable and wondered what had brought him back again. Dreadful times when you had to brace yourself up every time the front door bell rang.

He said, “Yes, sir?” in an enquiring tone, and went on bracing himself.

It appeared that no blow was about to fall. March was saying,

“I’m sorry to trouble you again. I just want to go through to the study. Nothing’s been done to the room yet, I suppose?”

“No, sir. Superintendent Drake told me they’d finished and we could get on with it, but I thought I’d leave it till the morning.”

“Oh, well, I shan’t be long. I’ve a lady with me. She may find it cold waiting in the car. I’ll just ask her if she would prefer to come in.”

With this discreet piece of camouflage, March ran down the steps again. His voice came back to Mayhew at the door.

“It’s cold for you here. Perhaps you would rather come in. I won’t be any longer than I can help.”

Miss Silver emerged. Mayhew knew her at once-the little governessy person who was staying with Mrs. Voycey. Mrs. Crook had a tale of her being some kind of a detective. Maybe she had a fancy to see the room where a murder had been done. Maybe not. It wasn’t his business. He’d enough on his mind without troubling about other people’s affairs. Anyway she was coming in with the Chief Constable.

He showed them to the study, switched on the lights, and went over to draw the curtains. Then he went across the hall, and through the baize door to the housekeeper’s room where his wife sat dabbing her eyes and staring at the unwashed tea-things.

Randal March gave him time to get away before he said,

“Well, here you are. What do you make of it? The stain on the writing-table shows you where he fell forward. It won’t come out. The grate was choked with burnt paper. Drake had it removed and gone through, but there was nothing left. If your memorandum went that way it’s gone for good.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I do not imagine that the murderer would have risked waiting to burn it here. The ash came from Miss Cray’s letters.”

His face was quite impassive.

“You are probably right. There was a full set of her prints on the mantelshelf-none anywhere else. If Carr was here, he did not leave any. Mrs. Mayhew’s prints are on the outer knob of the door into the hall. That’s where she stood and listened. The handle of the poker had been wiped clean, and so had the outer handle and edge of the glass door to the garden. The inner handle had Lessiter’s prints.”

“Yes-he opened the door to Miss Cray.”

“I forgot to say that a stained half-burnt handkerchief was found on the top of the ash in the fireplace. It is Lessiter’s own, and is presumably the one he lent Miss Cray when he noticed the scratch on her wrist. That is about all I can tell you.”

She went over to the window and parted the curtains.

“Miss Cray found this door shut when she arrived. She knocked, and Mr. Lessiter let her in. She went away in a hurry, and may have left it ajar. I shall be glad if you will help me with a little experiment. I am going outside. When I have shut the door, will you go over to the other side of the writing-table and say anything you like in your natural voice?”

“All right… Be careful-there are two steps.”

When the door had closed behind her he crossed the room and stood before the empty hearth.

“Is this what you want? Can you hear me at all? One feels a good deal of a fool, saying something just for the sake of saying it.”

The door opened and the curtains were divided. The pansies on Miss Silver’s hat appeared.

“No more than on many social occasions, my dear Randal. I could hear you perfectly.”

“Then come in out of the cold, my dear Miss Silver.” He said the last words with a disarming smile.

She shook her head.

“Not just yet.”

She disappeared again. A cold draught blew in. Coming out upon the steps, he found her standing on the path below, in the act of producing a torch from her capacious handbag.

“What are you looking at?”

She said, “This.”

After the brightly lighted room the dusk baffled him. She switched on the torch and directed its disc of light upon a small patch of earth at the extreme edge of the lower step. He said,

“What of it?”

“It has dropped from someone’s shoe.”

“The men have been up and down.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“It is soft black earth mixed with white particles. I think you will find them to be lime. The gardener who works at Cecilia Voycey’s has been spreading lime upon the roots of her lilac bushes this week. Lilacs apparently require a great deal of lime. I am not a gardener, but that is what Cecilia tells me.”

“Yes.”

“The path leading to these steps is of flagged stone, but here, where the shrubbery ends by the window, there are lilac bushes. Let us see if their roots have been dressed with lime.”

He came down to where she stood and parted the bushes. The torch sent a most efficient beam into the opening, picking out every small twig and passing to and fro across the earth below. It had been newly dug. Everywhere on the soft turned surface the light picked up those white particles. It picked up more than that-footprints deeply sunk in the soil.

March exclaimed, reached back with his left hand, and took the torch. It was plain enough that someone had stood among the lilacs. The deepest prints were farthest in. Someone had stood there. Four prints in all-one going in; one coming out, and the two deep ones nearest to the wall. They were the prints of a woman’s shoe.

Randal March stood back and switched off the torch. His mind was dark. He had nothing to say.

Miss Silver coughed.

“You are troubling yourself unnecessarily. Miss Cray has a well shaped foot at least two sizes larger than the one which made those prints. She is a tall woman.”

The darkness passed. He said,

“I’m a fool. As you probably guess, I’m-vulnerable.”

She said, “Yes,” very kindly. And then, “This is important evidence, Randal. It means that a woman who was not Miss Cray stood here among the bushes and afterwards ascended the steps. This would seem to indicate that she had suddenly to find some place of concealment. Let us say that she had come up here to see Mr. Lessiter, that she heard someone else approaching, that she stepped back amongst the bushes. It may have been Miss Cray who disturbed her. The thought then suggests itself that she may have mounted the steps and listened at the door. She could, in that case, have overheard the greater part of Miss Cray’s interview with Mr. Lessiter. We must not assume that she had any motive for wishing him dead. But if-I say if-she had such a motive, how suggestive that conversation would be. It would inform her that Mr. Carr Robertson had just identified Mr. Lessiter as the seducer of his wife, and that he had rushed out of the house in a state so alarming to Miss Cray as to bring her up to Melling House to warn Mr. Lessiter. She would also learn of the existence of the will benefiting Miss Cray. If you desired to commit murder, could you hope for a situation better calculated to enable you to do so with impunity?”

He laughed a little unsteadily.

“I suppose not. And now, I suppose, you are going to give me a description of the hypothetical murderess.”

She said very composedly,

“Not at present. I think I had better leave you now. You will wish to communicate with the Superintendent and have casts made of these footprints. It is fortunate that no rain has fallen since Wednesday, but it is never safe to trust to a continuance of fine weather. I think it possible that a very careful search would disclose particles of lime on the upper step, and on the study carpet if this person did indeed enter the room. Have you a torch-or shall I leave you mine?”

“I have one in the car.”

“Then I will leave you. The air is quite pleasant now. I shall enjoy the walk.”

Randal March went back into the study and rang up Lenton police station.