Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 37

All over Vandeleur House tea was being prepared. Mrs. Willard, refreshed by several hours of sleep, made herself a nice strong pot and partook of it with some thinly buttered toast. Mr. Willard had not returned, but as he never was at home to tea except on a Saturday or a Sunday, that did not disturb her. She felt as if she had emerged from a nightmare. Alfred had been foolish, but he was her own again. He had knelt at her feet and wept. Carola Roland was dead. She had had a nice long sleep, and she was enjoying her tea. Ivy Lord had returned from the town. She had seen her boy friend in the distance and had a wave of the hand and a smile, so she was feeling better. Mrs. Underwood had retired to her room directly after lunch and could be presumed to be resting. Giles and Meade had the drawing-room to themselves. Meade had stopped thinking. She felt as one feels after an anaesthetic which has blotted out pain. Consciousness has come back, but it is a state in which one is afraid to move lest the pain should return. She was content to feel Giles’ arm about her, to lean her cheek against his, and to let him talk.

Presently Ivy came in with the tray, and after that the front door of the flat opened and shut. Mrs. Underwood came in. She said in a complaining voice,

“I can’t think what Miss Silver is doing. She’s been up in the Spooners’ flat all the afternoon. I’ve just looked out to see if she was coming, and there isn’t a sign of her. Ring her up, Meade, and say tea is ready. You know the number.” She plumped into a chair, and as Meade went over to the telephone, she said, “Miss Garside has had a visitor-wonders will never cease! I saw her getting into the lift.”

Miss Garside had just poured the boiling water from the kettle into the small brown pot which had replaced a cherished piece of Queen Anne silver, when there was a ring at the bell. She opened the door and saw with surprise that the person who had rung was a stranger-an ultra-fashionable youngish woman, a good deal made up, with fair hair curling on her shoulders, a smart black coat, a ridiculous little tilted hat, and spectacles with rims of very light tortoise-shell. She moved into the lobby and spoke with a mincing accent.

“Miss Garside?”

Miss Garside inclined her head.

“If I could just speak to you for a moment. It is about the ring.”

Miss Garside closed the door. Her manner, always very reserved, became more so.

“Are you from Allingham’s?” she said.

The conversation which followed was not a very long one. Some time later the visitor came out of the flat and went down in the lift. It was at this moment that she was seen by Mrs. Underwood.

The woman in black makes this brief passage and disappears. Her remark about the ring and Miss Garside’s response were heard only by themselves. There was therefore nothing to connect her in anybody’s mind with Allingham’s or with the ring. What passed between her and Miss Garside in the closed flat is, and must remain, a matter of conjecture. The most important thing about her brief appearance is that she was the last person to see Miss Garside alive.