Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 19

About ten minutes before Mr. Willard left his flat, that is to say at seven o’clock, a young woman in an imitation astrakhan coat came in at the front door of Vandeleur House and took the lift to the top floor. She bore the same kind of resemblance to Carola Roland that an under-exposed photograph bears to its original. The features were the same, but the skin was sallow, the eyes greyish, and the hair plain mouse. Her clothes were neat but without style-mole-coloured coat, brown shoes and stockings, and a dark brown hat with a brown and green ribbon.

Bell saw her passing through the hall and said good-evening in his cheerful way. It wasn’t the first time she had dropped in like this after business hours-Miss Roland’s sister that was married to Mr. Jackson the jeweller. Not a big shop, but old-established and very respectable. Bell knew all about them. The business had belonged to Mrs. Jackson’s father-Miss Roland’s father too for the matter of that. Ella had married her cousin and carried on the name and the shop, but Carrie had run away and gone on the stage. She needn’t think he didn’t know who she was when she come back here with her hair shined up, and her face painted, and a fine new name. He knew her all right, and thought the better of her for wanting to be near her sister, and it wasn’t his business what she called herself or what she did to her face and her hair. Mrs. Smollett would like to turn and twist it about on that tongue of hers no doubt, but she wouldn’t hear anything about the Jackson girls from him. He could keep his mouth shut. Why, he’d bought his Mary’s wedding-ring in Mr. Jackson’s shop a matter of forty years ago. Well, Mr. Jackson was gone ten years, and Mary a matter of thirty-five. Bell could hold his tongue.

Ella Jackson stayed with her sister for a short twenty minutes. Then they came down in the lift together, Carola bare-headed, with a fur coat thrown over her white dress.

As the lift went down, Miss Garside stood at her half open door and watched it go. She had reached the stage when you do things without quite knowing why. Her body was starved, and her mind, like some restless creature in a cage, thrust this way and that, seeking a way out. She had had no food all day. She had no money to buy food. She did not know quite why she had opened her door-some half formed thought of going over to the Underwoods’ flat to ask if they could spare her some bread and a little milk-she could say she had run out-

As soon as the door was open she knew that she could not do it. That common, pushing Mrs. Underwood-she couldn’t do it. She must hold on till tomorrow and get the Auction Stores to take some more of her furniture. The good things were all gone. They would give her next to nothing for what was left. It couldn’t pay the rent, but it would buy her food for a little time longer.

She stood with the door in her hand and watched the lift go down. The landing light shone upon Carola’s hair, her fur coat, a glimpse of her white dress. She thought bitterly, “She’s going out. She’ll be out all the evening now. She’ll be meeting some man. They will go to a restaurant and pay as much for a meal as I should need for a week.”

She watched the lift pass out of sight and went back into her cold empty room. Carola would be out for the evening, her flat upstairs would be empty. She seemed to see it standing there empty, and, somewhere in one of those empty rooms, the ring which was so like her own. The idea that Carola might be wearing the ring presented itself and was rejected. She didn’t always wear it. In fact yesterday in the lift was the only time that Miss Garside had seen it on her hand. They had met perhaps a dozen times in the lift, and always there had been those white, useless hands sparkling with rings. If the girl was going out she carried her gloves until she reached the street. If she was coming in she pulled them off in the lift. Long white fingers, scarlet nails, an emerald on one hand, a ruby and a diamond on the other. But not the diamond solitaire which was the twin of hers-never that until yesterday. So why should she be wearing it tonight?

Miss Garside made up her mind that she would not be wearing it. It would be there, in the empty flat, thrown down carelessly no doubt upon the dressing-table.

“If I had the key of the flat, it would be quite easy to change the rings-”

A voice which was Miss Garside’s own inner voice said this very distinctly. It said,

“She will never know the difference-never. It is life and death to me, and nothing at all to her. Mine shines just as brightly. It will look as well on her hand as it has done on mine. It won’t make any difference to her at all. Why should I starve so that she may have something which makes no difference to her? If I had a key I could change the rings-”

Bell had a key. Mrs. Smollett went down into the old basement kitchen every morning at eight o’clock and took the key of No. 8 off its hook. Then she went up, let herself in, made Miss Roland an early cup of tea, and cleaned the flat. No one who had the slightest contact with Mrs. Smollett could avoid hearing all about Miss Carola Roland and her flat.

“Lovely curtains, Miss Garside. And what they must have cost! I got a niece in the upholstery, and what those brocades cost-well, it’s wicked.”

You might turn your back and take no notice, but it didn’t stop Mrs. Smollett’s tongue.

The key of No. 8 would be hanging now on its hook on the old kitchen dresser. In about twelve hours’ time Mrs. Smollett would fetch it and go upstairs and let herself in.

Anyone could fetch it now.

No, not now, because Bell would be about. But later, between half past eight and half past nine, when he would have “stepped out” to have a pint of beer and play a game of darts at the Hand and Glove. At half past eight, rain or fine, snow or fog, Bell “stepped out.” Between half past nine and ten he returned. There was a whole hour during which it would be as safe to get the key as it was to sit here and think about it. Between half past eight and half past nine-