Out of the Past

CHAPTER 19

Emerging from Miss Anning’s office, Frank Abbott made his way towards the drawing-room. Manners demanded that he should say good-bye to Miss Silver, but it is not to be denied that he had an ulterior motive. He wanted to check up on Marie Bonnet’s story and to know just what Mrs. Burkett had heard when she walked in on Miss Anning and her old friend Alan Field.

There was an even more formidable concentration of elderly ladies, the party having been reinforced by a couple of visitors. From the sudden hush which greeted his entrance he deduced that they knew that he was a police officer, and that they had been discussing the murder of Alan Field.

To his suggestion that Miss Silver might care to take a stroll along the cliff path she replied that it would indeed be pleasant, and most kindly shepherded him into the hall, where he waited whilst she went upstairs to put on her hat and gloves. Returning with a pair which had been the gift of her niece Dorothy-white net with a fancy stitching, so cool, so easy to wash-and a hat of black straw with a ruching of lilac ribbon, she accompanied him into the evening air, which she described as most refreshing.

They made their way to a seat overlooking the bay, where she commented upon the pleasing effect of a sky reflected in a sea just ruffled by the breeze, and produced an apposite quotation from her favourite poet Lord Tennyson:

“The trenched waters run from sky to sky.”

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ve never heard that one before.”

She said sedately,

“It occurs in one of the early poems.”

He smiled.

“What a pity we can’t just sit here and swap quotations. The time, the place, a revered preceptress-what could be more favourable? Yet we must recur to the sordid annals of crime. It is a pity, but when duty calls-”

Miss Silver gazed at the shoaling colours in the bay. She might have known no more about crime than an occasional headline in the morning paper.

After waiting for her to speak, and discerning that it was not her intention to do so, Frank Abbott proceeded to a frontal attack.

“It’s no use, my dear ma’am. You see, I’ve got to know whether Marie Bonnet was speaking the truth. She wouldn’t unless it suited her book-I am pretty well sure about that. But she has a grudge against the Annings, and she would be pleased to do them a bad turn. At the same time there is a motive, if not for invention, at least for a little embroidery. If there’s any truth in what she says, your niece Ethel walked in on an interview between Miss Anning and Alan Field. Marie happened to be passing at the time, and she says both she and Mrs. Burkett heard Miss Anning say, ‘I could kill you for that!’ Now if anything of this sort happened, I am quite sure that Mrs. Burkett must have told you about it. Did she?”

When Miss Silver continued to say nothing, he allowed his voice to sharpen.

“It is the question of the credibility of a witness, you know.”

She turned to face him with a faint protesting movement.

“You need not tell me that. I merely wished to give the matter my full consideration before I replied. Marie Bonnet’s statement is substantially correct.”

He nodded.

“I thought so. Is she also correct when she says that Miss Anning was speaking ‘not loud, but as one speaks when one would be glad if one had a knife in one’s hand’?”

Miss Silver’s tone held a slight shade of reproof.

“I am really quite unable to say. You must remember that I was not there.”

“But your niece was. I feel sure, when she repeated Miss Anning’s words, that she also gave you some indication of how they were spoken. She would not perhaps use quite so dramatic a metaphor, but I suppose once more I may take it that Marie was substantially correct?”

“You may take it that Miss Anning had lost her temper. Just what provocation she had, none of us are in a position to know. As I said to my niece Ethel at the time, though she has it very well in control. Miss Anning’s natural temper is a hot one. If she and Mr. Field had known each other when they were boy and girl-and this was, I believe, the case- and if some attachment or engagement had existed between them, such a phrase as was overheard could mean no more than an angry impulse and the revival of an earlier, cruder way of speech. It could mean very little.”

He said in his most serious tone,

“Very little-or a good deal more. When a woman says that she would like to kill a man, and within thirtysix hours that man is discovered to have been murdered, one can’t quite discard the remark as negligible.”

“No-I see that.”

He looked at her with a curious expression.

“Do you know, I wish you would tell me why you are so much concerned about Miss Anning.”

She said sedately, “I am living in her house.”

He laughed.

“I’ll give you a nice homely quotation straight from the soil-‘Soft words butter no parsnips.’ I have known you to live in a house for whose owner you did not appear to feel any such protective passion.”

“My dear Frank-such exaggerated language! I really cannot let it pass.”

There was more than a hint of sarcasm in the smile with which he met this rebuke.

“You defend her as if she were a favourite niece.”

She said with gravity,

“I hope that even in such a case as that I should not allow myself to be swayed by personal bias.”

“Then will you tell me just why you take Miss Anning’s part? If Marie had not told me what she and Mrs. Burkett had overheard, you would not have spoken of it-now would you?”

“Not perhaps at this stage, Frank.”

“And I should like to know why.”

After a minute she said,

“I am not obliged to answer that question, but I will do so because I do not wish you to mistake the motive for my silence. I have none, except a natural feeling of compassion for a woman who has been hardly done by, and who now finds herself in a position which must be painful to her. I think it probable that she suffered considerably when her engagement to Mr. Field was broken off. His return would revive these painful impressions, and it was impossible that his murder should not accentuate them to an almost unbearable degree. I did not wish to contribute anything to her distress.”

He said,

“You do not take into account the possibility that it was she who stabbed him?”

Miss Silver made no direct reply. Instead she asked a question of her own.

“Is it true that though Mr. Field was stabbed, no weapon has been found?”

“Perfectly true. If the murderer had his wits about him he probably threw it into the sea.”

“If he did so, it may quite easily be washed up again. A strong current sets into the bay.”

He gave a short laugh.

“I notice we both say he! But I must point out that you haven’t answered what I asked you.”

“Which was?”

“Whether you have not taken into account the possibility that it was Miss Anning who did the stabbing.”

“Is there any evidence to support such a theory?”

“There is quite a strong motive.”

“I imagine that might be the case with quite a number of people. There is, for instance, Mr. Cardozo.”

“Oh, yes. I’m not really suggesting that Miss Anning has the stronger claim. I just wondered why you are being so careful not to suggest that she had a claim at all.”

Miss Silver watched the gradual dimming of the light upon the sea. After a little while she said,

“I met Mr. Field very briefly. He had great good looks and a great deal of personal charm. I received the impression that he was entirely taken up with himself and his own affairs. The charm was being rather deliberately used. When I began to hear him discussed, this impression was confirmed. He was considered to have behaved very badly both to Miss Anning and to Mrs. Hardwick. From what Mrs. Field said about him it was plain that he was making extravagant demands upon her for money, and that not for the first time. She was, in fact, so deeply troubled that it came into my mind to wonder whether he might not be bringing some kind of pressure to bear.”

Frank whistled.

“What do you mean by pressure?”

She made no reply.

“Do you mean blackmail?”

“I think he was the type who might have had recourse to it, in which case there may be quite a number of people who had a motive for wishing him out of the way.”