Miss Silver Comes To Stay

CHAPTER 31

Jonathan Moore set down his cup, said, “No, thank you, my dear,” in rather an absent voice, and continued to gaze vaguely at his niece Elizabeth and at the gloomy young man to whom she had, rather precipitately he considered, reengaged herself. The radiant air of a betrothal was entirely absent. He might be out of touch with the world-it pleased him to think so, because there was a good deal about this post-war world that he disliked-but it was borne in upon him that Carr Robertson was being talked about, and that Elizabeth had been precipitate. The quality of the look with which he now regarded Carr began to resemble that with which he was wont to consider some object of doubtful authenticity. True, he had known Carr for a long time, but look at the pedigree he had got with that buhl writing-table! Fifty years in the one family, and a receipted bill from the old marquis with the guarantee of another hundred years before that. Yet at some time in that hundred and fifty years a fake had been substituted. There are times in a man’s life when he may turn to fakery. Conscience slips, the pressure of events comes down hard upon a weak spot, and the honest man turns rogue. Easier still to picture the sudden splintering of control, followed by a quick protective build-up to hide the smash.

Elizabeth could read his thoughts so well that it was with a good deal of relief that she saw him shake his head doubtfully, get up, and go out of the room. As the sound of his feet retreated, Carr said,

“Not much doubt about what Jonathan thinks.”

She gave him a strange look. Her eyes were always bright. They had now the added brilliance of unshed tears. She said,

“Oh, yes, there’s plenty of doubt. If there wasn’t-”

“I wouldn’t be here?”

She nodded.

“Something like that. Officially forbidden the house, and I’d be getting out at the back to meet you in a purlieu.”

“Would you?”

Her voice had all the sweetness in the world as she said,

“Yes, my darling.”

It brought him to his knees beside her chair. Without word or kiss he pressed his head against her shoulder, holding her close. They stayed like that for a long time.

When he raised his head it was to say,

“Holderness has changed his mind. He says I’ll have to make a statement at the inquest but I’d better not wait for it to be dragged out of me. He thinks it will make a better impression if I go to the police now.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you about it. It seems to me the moment I make that statement they’re bound to arrest me-or Rietta.” His face went hard and bleak as he repeated the last words-“Or Rietta.”

“Carr!”

“The man was dead by half past ten, a couple of hours after I had threatened him. Sometime in those two hours I was there, and Rietta was there. Sometime in those two hours he was killed. And I fetched away Rietta’s raincoat soaked with blood. The fact that it wasn’t really Rietta’s coat but an old one of mine just helps to distribute the probable guilt- Rietta gets half a million, and I get my revenge. The scales are about equal there. I should think it’s fifty-fifty as between murder for money and murder for revenge.”

He was still kneeling beside her, but drawn back from touching her. She made no attempt to bridge the gap between them, only looked at him and said thoughtfully,

“You think Rietta did it-”

He drew back farther still, got up, and stood there with his hands clenched.

“I don’t think anything-I can’t. I can just see the facts- I can’t deal with them at all. If you put those facts before a thousand people, at least nine hundred and ninety-nine of them are going to say that if Rietta didn’t kill him, I did. We shan’t have a thousand opinions to spread the chances, we shall have twelve. It’s very long odds they’d make it unanimous.”

Her soft wordless protest fired him.

“What’s the use? It lies between the two of us. If I didn’t do it, Rietta did. Well, I didn’t-so what?”

“Carr, you don’t really think-”

“I told you I couldn’t, and I can’t. When I try, it always comes out like that-Rietta or me-me or Rietta.”

“And when you don’t think, Carr?”

“I get quite long sane patches when I know she couldn’t have done it.”

“I’m glad you call them sane.”

The dark look had come back. He said,

“But we’re not sane any longer, my dear-we’re in a nightmare. When you’re in Rome you do as the Romans do-à la guerre comme à la guerre, and all the rest of the proverbs. What in the name of all that is damnable has sanity got to do with our nightmare?”

She got up and came to him.

“Well, I think it’s what is going to pull us through.”

“Us?”

“Yes, darling.”

His hand closed so hard upon her arm that she found a bruise there afterwards.

“If I was sure about Rietta I’d make this damned statement and be done with it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because-” She broke off with something that was half a laugh, and half a sob. “Oh, Carr, please wake up! It must be a very bad dream in which you can think that Rietta could creep up behind someone and hit him over the head with a poker. You couldn’t let it worry you for a moment if you weren’t fast asleep. Wake up! It’s just too silly for words.”