Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 27

Upstairs Lamb frowned over Sergeant Abbott’s notes.

“Fishy story,” he said. “And she was frightened-badly frightened. Wonder what she was being blackmailed about. It might be that-she might be afraid of its coming out-there’s always that.”

Frank Abbott said without any expression at all,

“The letter was in the bag where she said she had seen it. If she killed Carola Roland to get it back, why did she leave it there?”

Lamb nodded. Frank was sharp-there was a time when he had thought he was going to be too sharp-but he was shaping well-a good boy, if a little inclined to think a step ahead of his superiors. Wind in the head-that’s what he had to watch out against-wind in the head, and being too clever. He’d seen a lot of good men spoilt that way-up with the rocket and down with the stick. When necessary, he did not hesitate to point the moral. At the moment he was too busy.

“Oh, I don’t think she did it. But there’s no denying that she’d motive and opportunity-not a great deal of either, but some. To my mind Major Armitage is the more likely of the two.”

“She was alive fifty minutes after Armitage left. Of course he may have come back.”

“ Bell saw a man going away from the house at eight-thirty. Those were a man’s prints on the larger of the two glasses-the one with the whisky and soda in it. She had a man here some time before she was killed, and it may have been the man Bell saw going away-it probably was. Someone else may have seen him come in or go out. He may have been the murderer, and he may have been Major Armitage-he’s engaged to Miss Underwood. Carola Roland was trying to blackmail him, and it looks as though she had been blackmailing Mrs. Underwood. That brings the Underwood family right into the case, doesn’t it?”

Frank Abbott nodded.

“That address Mrs. Underwood gave-the one to which she sent the money, sir-I saw you noticed that.”

Lamb nodded again.

“It’s the one that was being used in the Mayfair blackmail case. Accommodation address of course. We only got Smithson, worse luck, and I’ll eat my hat if he was alone on the job. He hadn’t the education for it, or the brains. No, to my mind the principal got away and left him to take the rap. Let me see- that would be about six months ago, which corresponds very nicely with the date when Mrs. Underwood sent her fifty pounds. Of course two separate blackmailers may have been using the same address, but I’d want good jury-proof evidence to make me believe it. Now I wonder whether Miss Roland was the principal who slipped through our fingers. Looks as if she might have been.”

Frank Abbott looked over his Chief Inspector’s head.

“In which case a good many people may have had a motive for murdering her,” he observed.

At this point there was a knock on the door and Sergeant Curtis came in-a dark young man with horn-rimmed spectacles and an air of polite efficiency. He had seen everyone in the flats he had been sent to cover, and proceeded to detail the results.

“Flat No. 1, sir:-Mrs. Meredith-very old lady-deaf-partially helpless. Companion, Miss Crane. Maid, Ellen Packer. Both middle-aged. They say none of them went out all day, except Miss Crane to the pillarbox at the corner. She puts this at between 8:30 and 8:45. Says she saw no one except Miss Garside, tenant of No. 4, who was coming up from the basement. Did not speak to her.

“Flat No. 2:-Mrs. and Miss Lemming. Mrs. Lemming out with friends until just after 7:00. Miss Lemming out until about 6:20, when she returned to flat, but left it again at 6:35 to pay a short call on Miss Underwood in No. 3.

“Flat No. 3:-Covered by Sergeant Abbott.

“Flat No. 4:-Miss Garside. I could get no reply on my first visit, but returned after covering 5 and 6. Miss Garside had then come in. Said she had been out shopping. I thought this strange, as she appeared to be having breakfast. Said she had not been out all the previous day and could shed no light on Miss Roland’s movements or those of anybody else. When I mentioned Miss Crane having seen her come up from the basement between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m. she said, ‘Oh, that? I didn’t see Miss Crane or anyone else. I went down to tell Bell that there was a faulty washer on one of my taps.’

“Flat No. 5:-Mr. Drake. He waited in to see me, and has now gone to business. Says he was out as usual all day yesterday. Returned about 9:15. Says he met no one.

“Flat No. 6:-Mr. and Mrs. Willard. Some disturbance going on there-possibly a quarrel. Mr. Willard left flat at a little after 7:00. p.m. and did not return until about 9:30 this morning. Says he went to see his brother at Ealing and stayed the night. Agitated-signs of tears. Mrs. Willard-face puffed with crying- eyes red. Looked as if she had been up all night. Crumpled handkerchief in corner of sofa. Says she didn’t leave flat and saw no one. Considerable evidence of strain.”

“She had a row with her husband, and he stayed out all night. She kept hoping he’d come home, and he didn’t, so she cried her eyes out and forgot to go to bed. That’s about the size of it, my boy.”

The efficient Curtis disciplined a sensation of annoyance and returned to the charge.

“It might have been like that, sir. But there was more than an ordinary quarrel would account for-definitely. If there was a quarrel, it must have been a very bad one.”

Lamb gave his deep chuckle. He liked getting a rise out of Ted.

“Wait till you’re married, my boy!” he said, and heard Frank Abbott murmur,

“I wonder what they quarrelled about.”

Lamb chuckled again.

“What do husbands and wives quarrel about? Perhaps you’d like to ask ’em.”

“I wonder if it was about Miss Roland,” said Frank Abbott in the gentle voice which Curtis found irritating.

Lamb looked up sharply.

“Any grounds for that?”

Curtis said, “No, sir.”

Frank Abbott slid a hand over his already immaculate hair.

“First-class row between husband and wife suggests other man or woman. The lady in this case, is, I gather, middle-aged.”

“They’re never too old to get into mischief,” said Lamb a little grimly.

“Not if they’re that sort, sir. I took the opportunity of asking Miss Underwood about the people in the other flats, and she described Mrs. Willard to me as a perfect pet-rather like a hen without any chickens.”

Lamb chuckled.

“Well, I don’t like hens myself and shouldn’t want to make a pet of one. But it doesn’t sound as if Mrs. W. was one of the gay deceiving kind-I grant you that. What about it, Ted?”

Sergeant Curtis agreed, a thought stiffly.

“Not that sort at all, sir. Good housewife and all that. Everything as clean as a new pin-polished up to the nines. She only has Mrs. Smollett twice a week, so she must do most of it herself. That sort hasn’t got time for carrying on.”

“A world-beating cook according to Miss Underwood,” said Frank Abbott. “Lucky Willard! You wouldn’t think he’d risk all that-would you? Did he strike you as a gay deceiver, Ted?”

Curtis frowned.

“He struck me as a man who had just had a pretty bad shock. I don’t really think a quarrel would account for the state he was in. He’d been crying-actually crying, and he was as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.”

Lamb swung round in his chair.

“Well, if he’d been flirting with her a bit he’d be bound to be upset. That’s the worst of police work-it makes you forget about people being human. If you come to think of it, Ted- there’s a pretty girl living next door to you, and you see her going up and down. Perhaps you pass the time of day, perhaps you flirt with her a bit, perhaps you only think you’d like to. Perhaps you have a row with your wife about her, perhaps you don’t. I don’t know. But if you’ve got any human feelings, what are you going to feel like when you hear that girl has been murdered? It’s bound to be a shock, isn’t it? Human feelings are things you’re bound to take into consideration. That’s where a lot of these detective novels go wrong-there aren’t any human feelings in them. They’re clever the same way a game of chess is clever, or a problem in mathematics, and nobody with any more feeling than one of the chessmen or the plus and minus signs. It isn’t natural, and it don’t do to go jumping to the conclusion that a man’s a criminal because he’s got his feelings and they’ve been too much for him. All the same you’d better see if you can dig up anything about Willard and Miss Roland. Find out where he goes to lunch and dine. See what you can get. And now I’d better see Mrs. Jackson.”