Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 30

As Ella Jackson was coming away from Vandeleur house she met a small, dowdy-looking woman coming in-curled fringe under a close net, small neat features under a black hat with a bunch of mignonette and pansies pinned on one side and two old-fashioned hatpins keeping it in place, black cloth jacket with the shoulder line and waist of a bygone day, laced shoes very neatly blacked, thick grey stockings, and a fur tie which had probably been at its best round about the time of King George V’s accession to the throne. Black gloved hands carried a small case and a tidily rolled umbrella. A black handbag depended from the left wrist.

The encounter took place upon the steps. Miss Silver enquired if this was Vandeleur House, and receiving an affirmative reply, passed on and took the lift to the first floor, where Mrs. Underwood welcomed her with relief.

Miss Silver let her talk until she had said everything she wanted to say and said it twice over. She listened with admirable patience to an account of Giles Armitage’s loss of memory, his engagement to her niece, and her determination that there should be no shilly-shallying about it. She heard what Mrs. Underwood herself knew or had gathered about the murder- a narrative derived mainly from Mrs. Smollett-and she received an almost verbatim account of Mrs. Underwood’s own interview with Chief Inspector Lamb, at the end of which Mabel Underwood burst into tears and said,

“I know they think I did it!”

They were in Mrs. Underwood’s bedroom, a cheerful flowery room with a good deal of the same pink as in Meade’s room next door-rose chintzes, pink and green cushions heaped on the bed and smothering a comfortable deep sofa, moss-green carpet, and pink lampshades. Miss Silver thought it was all very pretty. She looked at Mrs. Underwood, who was gulping and dabbing with her handkerchief, and said briskly,

“Dry your eyes and stop crying. I cannot help you if you give way like this. Naturally it has been a shock, but you must control yourself. Now, Mrs. Underwood, if I am to help you I must know what really happened last night. Did you see Miss Roland?”

Mabel Underwood gave a faint sob.

“No-I didn’t-”

Miss Silver coughed.

“If that is not correct, it would be better to admit it at once. If you did see Miss Roland last night, some evidence of your visit may be in the possession of the police. It is difficult to be in a room without touching anything, and you may have left fingerprints.”

Mrs. Underwood flushed.

“I didn’t take my gloves off. But I didn’t go in-I swear I didn’t. I didn’t even ring the bell. I was going to, but when it came to the point I hadn’t the nerve, and that’s the fact. I never had more than half a look at that letter in her bag, and every time I got up to the bell I thought what I’d look like if she showed it to me and it wasn’t my letter at all.”

Miss Silver nodded, and asked who was in charge of the case. On being informed, she nodded again approvingly.

“A most excellent man-very sound indeed. I know him. Mrs. Underwood, can you put me up? I would like to be on the spot.”

Mabel Underwood looked rather blank.

“We’ve only got two bedrooms-and Ivy’s room. But Mrs. Spooner did say to make any use of her flat if my husband was coming on leave or I wanted to invite a friend. I could send Ivy up there to sleep-”

“I hardly think that would be advisable. She would be afraid to be alone up there after there had been a murder in the house. But if I might occupy one of the rooms, that would be a great deal more suitable. Could you not telephone and get Mrs. Spooner’s permission? I think you said she was in Sussex. Perhaps Miss Meade could ring her up at lunchtime. Then after lunch-if I might make a few suggestions-”

Miss Silver’s suggestions resulted in Ivy being sent out to shop whilst Mrs. Smollett obliged with the washing-up. In the next three-quarters of an hour Miss Silver acquired a mass of information about everyone in Vandeleur House. She was an excellent listener, the best Mrs. Smollett had ever had, not wanting to hold forth herself, but always ready with the encouraging monosyllable and the attentive glance.

“Mind you,” said Mrs. Smollett, “I’m not one to talk.”

As she gave a hand with the washing-up Miss Silver learned that Mrs. Spooner was pleasant enough and very bright about the house but not what Mrs. Smollett would call a lady, and that Mr. Spooner liked his glass and didn’t always come home the way he should. That Miss Roland had a deal too much jewellery to be what Mrs. Smollett would call out and out respectable, but of course her sister’s husband being in the trade she might have got a good bit off the price, and no use saying anything about the pore thing now she’s dead. That Mr. Drake was a nice enough gentleman for those who liked a gentleman to be what Mrs. Smollett called secretive. “Two years he’ve had his flat, and off in the morning and back at night and not a word to anyone where he goes or what he does, and if he’s got friends he doesn’t bring them here-never seen him with anyone if it wasn’t with Miss Lemming yesterday, and I couldn’t hardly believe my eyes when I see them going into Parkinson’s together and set down to have tea. I’d just looked in to see if they’d any of their sausage rolls, but they hadn’t. Very scarce and difficult to get they are now, and I’m sure-”

Miss Silver recalled her gently.

“You must have a very interesting life, Mrs. Smollett, going in and out of so many people’s homes. Do you help Mrs. Willard at all-in No. 6? Mrs. Underwood was telling me-”

“Twice a week regular,” said Mrs. Smollett. “And very nice to work for, I must say-likes everything shined up proper but lets you alone to do it your own way and no fuss about where everything goes. Now I put it to you, when you go in and out of arf a dozen places, how can you be expected to remember what goes where? Miss Garside in No. 4, she’s dreadful that way-a place for everything and everything in its place. A proper old maid if you don’t mind my saying so. But Mrs. Willard don’t care where anything goes so long as it’s clean.”

“Do you help Miss Garside also?”

Mrs. Smollett tossed her head in a majestic manner.

“Used to be there every day. But she don’t have anyone now- come down in the world if you take my meaning.” She clattered plates into a rack and started to scrape a saucepan. “Well, miss, if you really want to, there’s that soft cloth and the silver to polish. My word, Ivy hasn’t half let this pan catch! Girls don’t trouble these days, and that’s a fact. She’d have found out what’s what if she’d worked for Miss Garside and no mistake about it. You’d got to see your face in everything there, and the floor fit to take your dinner off any time of the day. Lovely furniture she’d got too before she took and sold it. Gone to be mended, she says, but there wasn’t nothing wrong with it, and it never come back. And if you ask me, things have been pretty bad over there, for I was in Talbot’s Tuesday and the girl in the groceries says to me, ‘What’s come to Miss Garside up at Vandeleur House? We haven’t had an order from her this last three weeks, butter, nor margarine, nor tea, nor fats, and she haven’t been in for her bacon neither. Is she all right?’ And I says, ‘So far as I know’-not being one to talk. If ever I see anyone starving on her feet it’s been Miss Garside this last week, pore thing, white as a sheet and her cheeks regular drawn in, but this morning I see her come in with her shopping basket all piled up, butter and marge and tea and all-you could see the packets sticking out over, and a nice tin loaf right across the bag. And I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s a funny time to go out shopping, right on the top of someone being murdered,’ so I up and says, ‘This is ’orrible news, Miss Garside, isn’t it?’ And she says, ‘What news?’ just as if she hadn’t took my meaning, and I says, ‘Oh, Miss Garside, haven’t you heard-Miss Roland’s been murdered.’ She looks at me and she says, ‘Oh, that?’ as if it wasn’t nothing at all, and then she says, ‘I’m going to have my breakfast,’ and she goes into her flat and shuts the door. Funny- wasn’t it?”

Miss Silver laid down the spoon she had been polishing and agreed.

“You have such a graphic way of telling things, Mrs. Smollett. I am sure you quite make me feel I know all these people. Do pray go on. It is most absorbing. What about the two ground-floor flats? Do you know the people in them?”

Mrs. Smollett preened herself.

“Old Mrs. Meredith in No. 1, I’m there regular twice a week- have been ever since they come. The beginning of the summer it was, if you can call it a summer.”

“They are newcomers?”

“They and Mrs. Underwood and Miss Roland, they all come round about the spring. Spooners, they’ve been here since Christmas. Mr. Drake, and the Willards a matter of two years, Miss Garside and the Lemmings nearer five. You see, Mrs. Meredith’s got to be on a ground floor because of going out in her chair-and awkward enough getting it up and down the steps, but there’s two of them and Mr. Bell gives a hand.”

“Two of them?”

Mrs. Smollett nodded.

“Miss Crane-she’s the companion. And Packer-she’s the maid.”

“I hope they look after the old lady well. It is very sad to be dependent upon strangers.”

Mrs. Smollett heaved a sigh.

“That’s right, miss, and if it was that Packer, I wouldn’t like to be the one that depended on her. Mind you, I don’t say but what she’s good at her work. Give everyone their due, she keeps the place and the old lady well enough with me going in twice a week, but not a word out of her half the time and sour enough to turn the milk. I don’t know how Miss Crane puts up with it. Quite a different kind of person she is, and devoted to the old lady-well, you wouldn’t credit it. Only yesterday she says to me, ‘Mrs. Smollett,’ she says, ‘I don’t know what I should do if anything happened to Mrs. Meredith.’”

Miss Silver took up another spoon.

“Has she been with her long?”

“Bound to have been,” said Mrs. Smollett, wringing out a dishcloth. “She’s not the changing sort Miss Crane isn’t. Come to think of it, there was Mrs. Meredith’s nephew that come to say good-bye before he went off to Palestine, and I heard him say when he come in, ‘Well, Miss Crane, it must be a matter of ten years since I saw my pore aunt. I’m afraid I’ll see a great change in her.’ And Miss Crane she says, ‘I’m afraid you will, Colonel Meredith. There’s changes in us all in ten years,’ she says, ‘and I don’t suppose you’d have reckernised me if you’d a-met me in the street,’ and he laughs and says, ‘I’d a-known you anywhere.’ A very jolly, laughing gentleman, but I thought he was having her on, for the hall was that dark you could hardly see your way let alone reckernising anyone you hadn’t seen for ten years. Seems he’d been in Ireland and India and all over the place, and about the only relation the pore old lady’s got by all accounts. Funny the way things turn out, isn’t it? There’s Miss Garside and pore old Mrs. Meredith with next to no relations at all, and Miss Lemming in No. 2 that’s got one too many, pore thing.”

Miss Silver said “Indeed?” in an interested voice.

Mrs. Smollett stood the washing-up bowl on end and hung the dishcloth over it to dry.

“Well you may say so!” she said. “If ever there was a pore trampled slave it’s Miss Agnes Lemming. Day nor night her mother don’t give her no peace. It’s ‘Do this!’ and ‘Do that!’ and ‘Come here!’ and ‘Go there!’ and ‘Why did you do this?’ and ‘Why didn’t you do that?’ till you’d wonder how any ’uman woman could put up with it. She don’t do it to me, Mrs. Lemming don’t, for I wouldn’t take it not from her nor from nobody, not if I was a heathen black I wouldn’t. And why Miss Agnes don’t walk out and leave her passes me. Her spirit’s broke, pore thing, that’s what it is, and a crool shame, for she’s as nice a lady as you could find, and a very feeling heart-too feeling, if you was to ask me.” Miss Silver went on asking her.