Out of the Past

CHAPTER 17

Miss Silver continued to knit. She had a thoughtful expression and she did not appear to be in any hurry to speak. Frank Abbott watched her. That she could have stayed for twentyfour hours in the same house as Alan Field or been the repository of his stepmother’s confidences regarding him without receiving some very definite impressions, he was unable to believe. To what extent she was prepared to impart them was another matter.

After a lapse of time which made him wonder whether he was to be told anything at all she said,

“I have felt uncertain in my own mind as to just what I had better do. I have no professional connection with this case, and no direct evidence to offer to the police. There are, on the other hand, certain things in the background which you will be bound to hear about, and I have been considering whether you had not better hear about them from me.”

“And you have decided?”

She did not answer his question directly.

“I have always been of the opinion that the truth is best for all concerned. The worst thing that can happen to a guilty person is to evade justice and so be able to persist in crime. This evasion may cast a terrible shadow of suspicion upon the innocent. What complicates a case like this is the fact that it is not only the criminal who may have reasons for shunning the light.”

Frank’s irreverent mind recalled a couple of lines by Owen Seaman written, to the best of his recollection, on the subject of the blackbeetle:

“He loves the dark because his deeds are evil,

He loathes the blessed light.”

He did not, however, venture to quote them.

Miss Silver continued.

“There are passages in many people’s lives which they would find it painful to disclose. There are things which they would give almost everything they possess to conceal. But to become involved in a murder case is to find a searchlight directed upon their private lives. They are very much afraid of what it may reveal, and this fear may produce the appearance of guilt.”

He nodded.

“Yes, we have seen that happen.”

“I will ask you to bear it in mind. But first, in what capacity are you here?”

He laughed.

“I got sidetracked over Pearson! As soon as I reported my conversation with him to the Chief he rang up Maynard Wood who is the Chief Constable down here, and they fixed it up between them that I should come along and have a finger in the pie. And now what have you got to tell me?”

Miss Silver pulled on her ball of pale pink wool.

“How much do you know already?”

“I have seen the statements which Colt took from the people at Cliff Edge. I hope to see the people themselves tomorrow. Do you know them all?”

“I have met them. Miss Anning introduced me. As I told you, she knew the Fields very well some years ago. I have been helping Mrs. Field with her knitting-she has really been very badly taught-and whilst sitting with her on the beach I have met other members of the house-party.”

“It is not her house, I gather.”

“Oh, no, it belongs to her niece’s husband, Major Hardwick. He has been abroad and only returned yesterday evening. That is to say, not more than a few hours before the murder.”

“And how well did the Hardwicks know Alan Field?”

“Mrs. Hardwick was brought up with him. She was left an orphan at the age of twelve. Mrs. Field and another of the guests, Colonel Trevor, were her guardians. They are, by all accounts, very much attached to her. Three years ago she was engaged to Alan Field and about to marry him, but he left the country and has not been back again till now.”

Frank’s fair eyebrows rose.

“Any reason given?”

“No-he just went away. The Fields have friends down here, and there was quite a lot of talk about it. The affair went as far as the bride going to the church and waiting there for a bridegroom who never came.”

He laughed.

“After all these years you can still amaze me! You have been here-how long-a fortnight, and you know everyone’s family history!”

Miss Silver smiled.

“That, my dear Frank, is an exaggeration. The Annings are old friends of Mrs. Field’s. I have been staying in their house, and since the first day or two it has been my practice to spend a little time with Mrs. Anning after dinner. An invalid’s life is sadly restricted.”

He nodded.

“So Mrs. Hardwick was jilted at the altar-is that it? And nobody knows why. When did she marry Hardwick?”

“About three months later.”

“And she didn’t see Field again until he walked in on Tuesday. Any evidence as to how she reacted to the prodigal’s return?”

“Mrs. Field mentioned that they were all very much surprised. She had not heard from her stepson for three years.”

“Room for quite a lot of emotions. But I’m told he dined there that night, having booked a room here in the house of another old flame.” He made a French quotation which would have incensed his respected Chief. It was the opinion of Chief Inspector Lamb that if a thing couldn’t be said in English it had much better not be said at all. “Sounds like a case of ‘On retourne toujours à ses premiers amours.’ Tell me about Mrs. Hardwick. What is she like?”

“A charming girl-sensitive and rather quiet. About twenty-four or twentyfive.”

“Happily married?”

“There is no reason to think otherwise. I have not met Major Hardwick.”

“And the rest of the house-party-have you met them?”

“I have met Colonel and Mrs. Trevor, and Lady Castleton. They are old friends of Mrs. Field’s and have known Carmona Hardwick since she was a child. Colonel Trevor is a keen gardener. His wife is a silly woman with a taste for bygone scandal. Lady Castleton was a famous beauty and is still very handsome. She is rather an imposing person, and does a good deal of public speaking in the Conservative interest and on various philanthropic subjects. Then since Tuesday there has been a Mrs. Maybury at Cliff Edge, a very pretty lively young woman who was, I believe, at school with Carmona Hardwick.”

He nodded.

“One of my various cousins is married to a man in Bill Maybury’s regiment. Everyone likes him and thinks she leads him a dance, but Jenny says there’s no real harm in her. What I don’t know, and should like to know, is had she any previous acquaintance with Alan Field?”

“I believe they all belong to the same set, and would therefore know each other, but how well I cannot say.”

“He didn’t by any chance jilt her as well as Mrs. Hardwick and Miss Anning?”

“I never heard any suggestion that he did.”

Frank repeated the last of the three names he had mentioned.

“Miss Anning-have you any idea as to the circumstances in which her affair with Field was broken off? Of course three years is a long time to keep up a grudge, but women don’t take kindly to being jilted, do they? There’s the old hackneyed ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’-usual incorrect quotation, but let it pass. Mrs. Hardwick has married, but Miss Anning has not, and she looks very much as if she might have been through hell. What were her reactions to Field’s return?”

Miss Silver made no reply. After a short pause she turned the conversation back to José Cardozo, enquiring whether there was any evidence of his having been seen in Cliffton-on-Sea on the night of the murder.

“Well, nothing decisive. A man who seemed to be a foreigner came into the bar at the Jolly Fishermen at about half past nine. There was a girl with him whom they took to be a foreigner too. They had a few drinks and went away before closing time. Colt has turned up someone who came out of the Fishermen at about the same time and says he saw them get into a car and drive away. I don’t know why Cardozo should have brought a girl with him or had a girl with him, and it was probably someone quite different, but you never can tell. Colt doesn’t seem to have been able to pick up anything that gets us nearer than that. He says that as far as he can make out Cardozo neither rang up nor came to this house, so just how he was going to make his contact with Field one doesn’t know.”

Miss Silver gazed at him in a meditative manner.

“On so fine an evening Mr. Field would be unlikely to stay indoors. It is possible that Mr. Cardozo may have counted on this.”

“And on such a fine evening a car parked anywhere near enough to this house to be within watching distance would certainly have been both noticeable and noticed.”

Miss Silver remained silent for a time. Then she said mildly,

“But the murder, Frank, and therefore we may presume, the interview which led up to it, must have taken place after darkness had fallen.”

Just what did one make of that? He didn’t know, but he was to return to it afterwards. Meanwhile his mind went back to Miss Anning’s maid. If anyone had been watching the house or had attempted to communicate with Alan Field, she was the most likely person to know something about it. Colt had drawn a blank there. A worthy chap, but not perhaps the lightest of hands with a girl. He thought he would see her himself. He said so with a quick change of voice and manner.

“That girl-the one who let me in-I’d like to have a talk with her. But first just tell me-how does she strike you?”

Miss Silver made a curious oblique answer. She said,

“Mrs. Anning does not consider that she is trustworthy.”