Out of the Past

CHAPTER 28

The two young people who stood hesitating outside the police station appeared to be a good deal on edge. Frank Abbott observed them because the girl was rather out of the way graceful and well put on. She was, as a matter of fact, Miss Myrtle Page, and she worked in the local beauty parlour. Her companion, Norman Evans, was a clerk in the solicitor’s office over the way. They were in the middle of an argument, and as Frank approached he heard the girl say, “I said I’d meet you here, but I didn’t say I’d go in.” To which Mr. Evans replied that she ought to make up her mind and not keep chopping and changing.

“Well then, I have made it up! Let the police find out about their own murders! It’s no business of ours!”

Frank slackened his pace.

“But Myrtle-”

“I don’t care what we heard her say! We didn’t see her do anything, did we? And he wasn’t pushed over the cliff either! If he had been, perhaps you’d have had something to come bullying me about! Yes, I did say bullying, and I meant it! And of all things I do hate a bully, so you had better have a good think over that!”

Frank Abbott came up with them and addressed himself to Mr. Evans.

As it happened, he had an assignation with Miss Silver a little later on. She was at once aware that he had something to tell her. He lost no time in letting her know what it was.

“I am afraid the scales are being weighed down against Pippa Maybury,” he said.

The heat was dropping out of the day. Miss Silver had spread out a rug and had spent the hour before he joined her with a book, her knitting, and her thoughts. She was serious, though not unduly disturbed, as she enquired,

“Pray, what makes you think so?”

He sat down on the sand beside her.

“Just a little piece of corroborative evidence. Two young people who were walking on the cliff on Tuesday night overheard part of what was probably Alan Field’s blackmailing interview with Pippa Maybury. Anyhow they heard her say, ‘I can’t think why someone hasn’t murdered you, Alan.’ To which he replied ‘My dear Pippa, you surprise me.’ And then, ‘Look out-someone is coming!’ ”

She maintained what appeared to be a placid silence for a moment or two before she said,

“Has it not occurred to you to wonder how often such things are said? They pass unnoticed, and are, in fact, just a part of the exaggerated style of speaking common to the young and sometimes persisting into later life. They have no real significance, and it is very improbable that they would be employed by anyone who was seriously contemplating the crime of murder.”

He ran his hand over hair already immaculately smooth.

“In general I will agree. In this case I don’t know. Here are two stubborn facts. On Tuesday night Pippa Maybury is heard to wonder why no one has murdered Alan Field, and on Wednesday night he is murdered. Since there is already a good deal of evidence against her, this certainly does add some corroborative detail, and I must warn you that her arrest is not likely to be long delayed.”

Miss Silver opened her lips to speak. She closed them again as he forestalled her.

“You will, of course, remind me that Darsie Anning went a step farther on that same Tuesday when she was heard to say, ‘I could kill you for that!’ but we have no evidence to show that she took any steps to carry this sentiment farther than words.”

The little pink coatee was now almost completed. Another row and she would be casting off. Miss Silver laid the knitting down upon her knee and said in a reluctant voice,

“I am afraid, my dear Frank, you may feel that I owe you an apology.”

“Now what have you been up to?”

Her glance reproved this levity.

“There is something which you will feel I should have communicated to you before.”

“And are you going to communicate it to me now?”

“I do not feel justified in withholding it any longer.”

With careful accuracy she repeated her conversations with Mrs. and Miss Anning, and proceeded.

“She had on several previous occasions referred to what she called Alan Field’s wickedness and the fact that he ought to be punished. This afternoon she used these words, ‘He has been punished, you know! Somebody stabbed him, and he is dead! The knife was sticking up out of his back!’ ”

Those rather pale eyes of Frank Abbott’s had become intent. He said quickly,

“The knife-you’re sure she mentioned the knife?”

“Yes, Frank. I found the inference quite inescapable.”

“That she had seen the body?”

“I feel sure that she had done so.”

He whistled softly.

“That looks like throwing a spanner into the works! You don’t think she-Look here, how mad is she?”

Miss Silver contemplated him and the question in a very thoughtful manner.

“I am not, of course, qualified to give you an opinion, but I would not like to say that Mrs. Anning was out of her mind. She has seemed to me to be suffering from the effects of some shock or strain too great for her to bear. They have robbed her of initiative and kept her thoughts imprisoned in the past. The return of Alan Field revived some very painful memories, and if I may so express it, the barrier between past and present was broken down.”

“You think she may have killed him?”

“I believe she saw him lying dead. I do not know who killed him.”

He was sitting up straight, his arms clasped about his knees.

“I should say it was much more likely to have been Darsie. Look here, what time was it when you were at your window and saw them come up the garden?”

“I cannot say.”

“You must have some idea.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I could not put a time to it. There was no reason to suppose that the incident had any importance. I found myself unable to sleep. My room had become very much heated by the afternoon sun, and I got up to enjoy the breeze at the window, but I did not put on the light or look at my watch. In such circumstances one’s sense of time can be very misleading, and I should not care to hazard a guess.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate, because it all turns on the time. Pippa Maybury’s appointment was at twenty past twelve. She says someone had been there before her, and Field was already dead. If it was the Annings, then the odds are one of them killed him, but if they came along after Pippa ran away, then all they did was to find the body. Now what are the probabilities at the Sea View end? Field could have gone along to the hut at any time before, let us say, five or ten past twelve. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for Mrs. Anning to go there unless she followed him-or her daughter. Look here, what about this? Field has another appointment at the hut-an earlier one with Darsie Anning. She keeps it, and her mother follows her. There is another bitter quarrel and one of them stabs him. That’s the most likely way of it, you know.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “ ‘Brief are the moments of repose which duty’s day affords,’ as Lord Tennyson would doubtless have said if he had thought of it. I must now go and hunt the wretched Colt, who will be very far from pleased. You haven’t any more evidence up your sleeve, I take it?”

“I have no more evidence, Frank.”

He went away over the shingle, and she watched him go. Surmise and suspicion were not evidence. After a brief pause she picked up the little pink coatee, knitted the last row and cast off.