Miss Silver Deals With Death

CHAPTER 3

Mrs. Underwood gave a little gasp.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. Well, really it’s nothing. It’s such a very warm day, don’t you think?”

“I think that something has frightened you,” said Miss Silver, “and I think that you had better tell me about it. If we share our troubles we halve them.”

Mabel Underwood drew a long breath. With a sudden drop into simplicity she said,

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Miss Silver smiled. She said,

“I can believe anything, Mrs. Underwood.”

But the moment of simplicity had passed. The pearls rose and fell rapidly.

“I’m sure I can’t think why I said that. Girls do walk in their sleep once in a way, and it’s nothing to make a to-do about.”

“Has your niece been walking in her sleep?”

“Oh, no-not Meade. But I’m sure if it were, it wouldn’t be at all surprising, poor girl, after all she’s been through.”

Miss Silver had picked up her knitting again. The needles clicked encouragement.

“Indeed?”

“Oh, yes. She was torpedoed, you know-at least the ship was. She took her brother’s children out to America last year, after he was killed in France. Their mother is American, and she was out there visiting her people and quite distracted, poor thing, so Meade took the children out to her. And then, of course, she couldn’t get home again, not till June. And the ship was torpedoed and she was all smashed up, poor girl, and lost her fiancé as well-at least they hadn’t given it out, but she met him in the States. He was on one of those hush-hush missions- something about tanks, I believe, but perhaps I oughtn’t to say so, though I don’t suppose it matters now, because he was drowned. Of course it was a most dreadful shock for Meade.”

Mrs. Underwood had certainly found her tongue. Miss Silver recalled Charles Moray’s “A gushing gasbag!” and Margaret’s “Charles, darling-gas doesn’t gush!” She gave a slight cough and said,

“Naturally. But you say it is not your niece who walks in her sleep.”

Mrs. Underwood dabbed at her lips.

“Well, I don’t know-I didn’t think about it being Meade-I thought it might be Ivy.”

“Ivy?”

“The maid, you know-Ivy Lord. I wouldn’t keep her, but they’re so scarce and difficult to get, you have to put up with anything.”

The needles clicked. Miss Silver said,

“What makes you think this girl is walking in her sleep?”

Mrs. Underwood gulped.

“There was a letter on my floor.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes?” and saw the mauvish colour run up into the plump, pale cheeks.

“How could it have got there? I keep on trying to think of ways, but there aren’t any. I mean it wasn’t there when I went to bed and that’s flat. And if it wasn’t there then, who put it there-that’s what I want to know. The flat was all locked up for the night, and there was just me and Meade and Ivy inside, and the very first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning was that bit of paper lying right under the window.”

“A bit of paper, or a letter?”

Mrs. Underwood dabbed her forehead.

“It was a bit torn off my own letter, and it was lying there right under the window. And someone must have come into my room in the night and dropped it, for it wasn’t there when I went to bed-I can swear to that.” The dabbing hand was shaking. She dropped it into her lap and it lay there, clutching the handkerchief.

Miss Silver leaned forward.

“Why does this frighten you so much? Is it because of something in the letter?”

The hand had stopped twitching and was clenched. Mrs. Underwood said in a quick, breathless voice,

“Oh, no-of course not-it was just a bit of a business letter- it wasn’t important at all. I just didn’t know how it got there, and that frightened me. Very stupid, I’m sure-but this close weather and the war-well, it plays tricks with your nerves, don’t you think?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I am not troubled with nerves, I am thankful to say. They must be very disagreeable. Was it a letter you had received, or a letter you had written?”

Mrs. Underwood had taken out her powder compact and was attending to her face.

“Oh, one that I had written-nothing of any importance- just a torn piece, you know.”

“And you had not posted it?”

The compact sagged in a shaking hand.

“I-well, I-”

“It had been posted then? It is really better to tell me the truth, Mrs. Underwood. The letter had been posted, and that is why you were alarmed at finding a piece of it on your bedroom floor.”

Mrs. Underwood opened her mouth and shut it again. Miss Silver was reminded of a fish gasping. Not an attractive resemblance. She said in her kind, firm voice,

“If anyone is blackmailing you-”

Mrs. Underwood put out both hands as if to push something away and said,

“How did you know?”

Miss Silver smiled. It was a perfectly kind smile.

“It is my business to know that sort of thing. You are frightened about a letter. That naturally suggests blackmail.”

Put like that, it seemed quite simple. Mrs. Underwood experienced a sort of relief. The worst, or almost the worst, was over. She had not thought that she could tell anyone-not even when she got the address from Margaret, not even when she came up in the lift and rang the bell-but since this dowdy, governessy person had guessed, there was no doubt that it would be a relief to talk about it. She needn’t tell her everything. Something in her shuddered and said, “Oh, no-never!” But they could talk it over from the outside, as it were-they needn’t go farther than that. Like an echo of her thought, she heard Miss Silver say,

“You need not tell me anything you do not want to.”

She sat back in her chair and said in her natural voice,

“Well then, if you must know, I had posted it. That’s what gave me such a turn.”

“You had posted a letter of which a fragment was found on your bedroom floor?”

“Well, yes, I had. And that is what upset me.”

“Dear me!” said Miss Silver. “You wrote a letter and you posted it, and afterwards a piece of that letter was found lying under your window.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you post the letter yourself, or did you give it to your maid?”

“Oh, no-I posted it myself, with my own hand.”

“Did you make more than one copy of the letter?”

Mrs. Underwood shook her head.

“It was as much as I could do to write it once.”

Miss Silver knitted. After a moment she said,

“Your letter was in reply to one from a person who is, or has been, blackmailing you. Do you know who this person is?”

The head with its tinted chestnut curls was shaken again. The mauvish colour rose.

“I haven’t an idea. There isn’t anyone I can think of. There was an address, so I went to have a look-right the other side of London, but I went. And when I got there, it was nothing but a tobacconist’s shop, and they said a lot of their customers called for their letters there, and made out it was all on account of people being bombed out-and I didn’t believe a word of it, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. So I posted my letter at the end of the street and came away.”

“You posted that letter on the other side of London?”

Mrs. Underwood nodded.

“Yes, I did. And that’s what gave me the turn, because how did it get back into Vandeleur House, and how did that Ivy Lord come by a piece of it to drop in my room? Because that’s what she must have done. Don’t you see, if she got a bit of my letter walking in her sleep, it means the person I wrote it to is right there in one of those Vandeleur flats-and if that isn’t awful, I don’t know what is. I feel like having a heart attack every time I think about it, but I just can’t stop thinking. And if she wasn’t walking in her sleep, well, that’s worse, isn’t it? Because that means she’s in with this wretch, whoever he is. And there’s something crazy about it too, because what’s the sense of dropping a piece of my letter like that? It would be just going out of her way to get herself into a mess, and no gain to anyone. So when I hadn’t had a wink of sleep for two nights, I remembered what Margaret said about you and I got the address and came. And that’s the truth.”

Yes, that was the truth, and a different woman speaking it- a woman who had been country born and country bred, and who still retained a vein of country shrewdness. Charles Moray’s crashing silly bore was in abeyance.

Miss Silver nodded approvingly.

“Very well put, Mrs. Underwood. You know, you should go to the police.”

The head was shaken again.

“I can’t.”

Miss Silver sighed.

“They all say that, and so blackmail goes on. Have you paid anything yet?”

Mrs. Underwood gulped.

“Fifty pounds-and what I shall say to Godfrey, I’m sure I don’t know!”

“The money was in the letter you posted?”

“Oh, no, that was in the first one, getting on for six months ago, just after Godfrey went up north. And this time I said I couldn’t pay anything. And I can’t-I haven’t got it to give, Miss Silver. And that was what was on the torn bit of paper-‘I haven’t got it to give’.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“This person is threatening to tell your husband something. Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

Mrs. Underwood gave another of those distressing gasps. She said, “I can’t!” and left it at that.

Miss Silver shook her head reprovingly.

“It would be very much better if you did. But I will not press you. What makes you think that this girl Ivy Lord may have been walking in her sleep? Do you know of her having done so on any previous occasion?”

Mrs. Underwood stared.

“Why-didn’t I tell you? That’s what comes of being upset- I thought I had. Why, the first thing Ivy told me was all about how she walked in her sleep, and after she found her shoes which she’d cleaned the night before all muddy in the morning, her aunt said she’d better take a job in a flat, and not on the ground floor either, because it wasn’t respectable for a girl to be going out lord knows where and lord knows when, with nothing on but her nightgown and a pair of lace-up shoes. I thought I’d told you.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“No, you didn’t tell me. What do you want me to do, Mrs. Underwood? Would you like me to come down to Putney and see your maid?”

But Mabel Underwood was getting to her feet. Handkerchief and powder compact had gone back into the shiny black bag. The country voice and country manner had retired behind the façade of sham gentility. She said with the old affected accent,

“Oh, no-I couldn’t dream of troubling you. I’m sure you’ve been most kind, but I wasn’t thinking of anything professional, you know-just a friendly call-but of course quite in confidence-I can rely upon that, can’t I?”

Miss Silver shook hands gravely. There was a hint of reproof in her voice as she said,

“You can certainly rely upon that. Good-bye, Mrs. Underwood.”