Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 32

Ella Jackson sat at her sister’s dressing-table checking the dead girl’s jewellery. There was, as Chief Inspector Lamb had said, a good deal of it, and some of the things had cost a lot of money. Every now and then it came over Ella that Carrie would never wear them any more, and when that happened the diamonds swam before her eyes and she had to stop what she was doing and have a quiet cry. Carrie had always been a trouble right away from the time when their mother died and left a serious little girl of ten to look after a pert little girl of five. Pert and pretty-that was Carrie. And Dad encouraged her. All the men encouraged Carrie. They led her on until you couldn’t do anything with her. No use for Ella to talk. She remembered Carrie saying, “You’re jealous-that’s what you are. Men like me, and they don’t so much as look at you and never will.” The part about the men was quite true, but the part about being jealous wasn’t true. Ella didn’t want men. She only wanted Ernie, and in the end she got him. But that was after Carrie had run away and Dad was dead of a broken heart. Ten years ago and nothing to cry about, but the old trouble seemed to come welling up until she couldn’t tell it from the new one.

In the sitting-room Miss Silver held converse with Inspector Lamb. Compliments had passed, and a due exchange of courtesies.

“I hope Mrs. Lamb is well. And your three daughters… Really-how very interesting-one in each of the services! You must be very proud of them. Have you photographs-in uniform? I should be so much interested.”

A cynical but admiring gleam was in Frank Abbott’s eye. Humbug? No, something cleverer than that. Humbug wouldn’t go an inch with old Lamb, not even about his daughters. This was the real thing-genuine interest. And it was going down like butter-the best butter. From this by tactful transition to the case-simple sincerity of manner, due deference towards the law and its immediate embodiment, all the old-fashioned politenesses one had observed in one’s great-aunts.

“I am afraid I cannot tell you very much more than Mrs. Underwood herself has done. I can only assure you that I believe her to be telling the truth when she asserts that she did not in fact enter this flat last night or see Miss Roland. I am doing my best to persuade her that since she is innocent she should cooperate with the law to the fullest possible extent. As dear Lord Tennyson so wisely says, ‘Pure law corn-measures perfect freedom.’ So true, and so beautifully put. Do you not think so?”

Lamb cleared his throat and said he wasn’t much of a hand at poetry, but people couldn’t be free to break the law, only to keep it, and if that was what was meant, he agreed with her and with Lord Tennyson.

“And now I’m going to tell you some things in confidence. I’m not making any bargains, but I’m telling you just about where we stand at the moment, and if there’s anything you know that we don’t, or anything you get to know, well, fair’s fair, and I hope you’ll do as much for me as I’m going to do for you. No bargains, but what they call a gentleman’s agreement- how’s that, Miss Silver?”

Miss Silver gave her little dry cough.

“Indeed, that is exactly what I had in mind. I can assure you that at the moment I know very little. Mrs. Underwood consulted me. I advised her to go to the police, and she burst into tears and said that she could not. There are a few small circumstances which I hope I shall be in a position to communicate to you before very long. The information will be of more use when I have been able to complete it. There are points which require delicate handling, and any premature intervention of an official kind would be very undesirable. I should be glad if for the moment you would refrain from pressing me upon these points.”

Lamb cleared his throat again.

“Well, if you were anyone else, I should say you had better let me be the judge of what course to take when it comes to handling a witness who knows something and doesn’t want to talk. That’s what you mean, I take it.”

Miss Silver gave him the gracious smile with which in her schoolroom days she would have received a correct answer from a deserving pupil. She inclined her head and said,

“You put it so well, Inspector.”

Lamb laughed.

“Almost as well as Lord Tennyson? Well then, I won’t press you, but the sooner I have all the threads in my hand the better pleased I shall be, so don’t hold out on me too long. Now this is where we’ve got to. I’ve just had the surgeon’s report and the fingerprints. She was killed somewhere around about three-quarters of an hour to an hour after she had a light meal-if you can call it a meal-of wine and biscuits. We don’t know when she had this meal, but it wasn’t before half past seven, when she returned to her flat after seeing her sister off by the seven-twenty-five bus at the corner. When Mrs. Smollett found the body at eight o’clock next morning there was a tray with drinks and biscuits set out on that stool in front of the fire. Miss Roland’s fingerprints were found on the smaller glass, which contained port wine, and those of an unknown man upon a tumbler which had been used for whisky and soda. I don’t mind saying I was quite prepared to find that the tumbler prints had been left by Major Armitage. Well, they weren’t-they’re not his, or Mr. Drake’s, or Mr. Willard’s, or Bell ’s. So we get the certainty that some man from outside this house was here in the flat within an hour before the murder. Miss Roland had been living here very quietly indeed, because she was going to be married. We shall expect the man who was going to marry her to account for his movements during those evening hours. Now as to the crime itself. It looks as if it had not been premeditated, because the weapon used was undoubtedly this metal statuette.”

Miss Silver looked at the dancer’s silver figure with the pointing, upflung toe.

“Where was it found?”

Lamb indicated the couch.

“Flung down there where you see the stain. She must have been struck from behind, and the weapon dropped on to the couch. According to how the body was found, the murderer would have been standing just right for that. But here’s the queer part-the stain was like you see it. It hadn’t been touched, but the statue was as clean as a whistle-not a mark on it except where the back of the figure had come into contact with the stain whilst it was still wet. The sharp pointed foot which undoubtedly inflicted the wound hadn’t a mark on it-nothing for the microscope to pick up, nothing for a chemical test. They got a faint trace of soap in the folds of this sort of scarf.” He indicated the wisp of drapery which fell in a slender twist from the dancer’s naked waist.

“It had been washed?”

“Very thoroughly,” said Lamb. “But the extraordinary thing is that whoever took the trouble to do that shouldn’t have put the figure back on the mantelpiece. I don’t know that I ever came across anything like it before. The murderer throws it down on the couch and makes that stain, and then he or she picks it up, washes it with soap and water, and puts it back on the stain again. It doesn’t make sense.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Dear me-were there no fingerprints on the figure?”

Lamb shook his head.

“Not a trace. Clean as a whistle. Looks as if gloves had been worn, but unless they were rubber gloves that soaping and scrubbing would come a bit difficult, wouldn’t it?”

“Rubber gloves would mean premeditation,” said Miss Silver briskly. “And premeditation in connection with the use of this statuette as a weapon would mean that the murderer was familiar with the room and with this particular ornament. I suppose a man might have held it under the tap and washed it whilst wearing, let us say, heavy motoring gloves, but I do not believe that any woman wearing an ordinary pair of gloves would have done so. I am inclined to believe that no gloves were used. The washing of the statuette seems to me to be one of those instinctive and unpremeditated actions-something done whilst under the influence of shock-which puzzle the investigator just because they are in fact meaningless, except as an index of character. I put forward the suggestion with diffidence, Inspector, but I imagine that no fingerprints would be left if the statuette and the hand holding it were wet at the time of contact.”

Both men looked up sharply. Lamb struck his knee and exclaimed,

“By gum-yes! You’re right!”

Miss Silver rose to her feet and walked over to the couch.

“The heat of the room would quickly dry any surface damp, but I should expect some slight spreading of the stain. It should, I think, be paler at the edges if the statuette had been wet enough not to take fingerprints. Yes-look here, Inspector-the stain has definitely been spread. Here-and here. Look how pale it is at the edges.”

The three of them stood there looking at the spoiled blue and grey brocade. Lamb said,

“Yes, you’re right-that’s the way it was. Though why on earth it was done at all beats me. If it was to puzzle us about the weapon, the figure should have been put back on the mantelpiece. If it was to remove fingerprints, it might just as well have been left in the bathroom. It don’t make sense.”