Pilgrim’s Rest

chapter 30

When Maggie Pell left Miss Silver she went part of the way down the back stair. At the turn she heard heavy feet coming up. She stepped back into the bathroom and saw Judy Elliot go by with a police sergeant and a tall fair young man in plain clothes. They went up, and into the corridor and along. The sound of their feet died away, a door opened and shut. Judy Elliot didn’t come back.

Maggie waited a little. A wisp of hair had come loose. She took off her cap and made sure there were no more ends. If there was a thing she was faddy about, it was her hair. All very well for Gloria to go about with it flying every way, but it wasn’t her style at all. Satin-smooth she liked it. The way some girls would go about in uniform with their hair all of a fuzz-well, she didn’t think it ought to be allowed.

When she was quite satisfied she went on down the stair and made her way to the kitchen. Mrs. Robbins had been busy when she arrived, but she couldn’t go away without seeing her. She might be in the kitchen, or in the housekeeper’s room next door. She tried the kitchen first. It was empty, but the door to the scullery stood half open, and on the far side of it there were voices-Robbins’ and Mrs. Robbins’. Well, Maggie would rather have found her alone, but you can’t always pick and choose.

She was halfway across the kitchen, when she realized that the Robbinses were having words. Nothing so very out of the way about that when all was said and done. It was Maggie’s opinion that Mrs. Robbins had done a bad day’s work for herself when she married, and if a girl couldn’t do better than that she’d best stay single. Give and take was one thing, but to have a man lay down the law to you till you couldn’t call your soul your own was what there wasn’t any need to put up with, not if you set a right value on yourself.

Robbins was undoubtedly laying down the law.

“Police in the house, and everyone knowing about it! And Mr. Jerome giving them leave to carry out a search! If Mr. Pilgrim was here he’d not have let them across the doorstep. They’re in Mr. Jerome’s room now for all I know. ‘I’ve given them leave,’ he says, ‘and they can start on my room first.’ And him the master of the house!”

Maggie Pell shared his horror. So that was what the police were doing upstairs. A good murder on the front page of your paper was all very well, but when it came down to searching people’s bedrooms in a house like Pilgrim’s Rest-well, it did bring it home to you and no mistake. She wondered if they’d search all the rooms, and if they did, whatever would Miss Netta say? She heard Mrs. Robbins give a sort of sniffing sob, and then Robbins again, very angry.

“What’s the good of that? I tell you it’s the end!”

“Don’t speak like that!”

“I’ll speak how I like, and you’ll listen! And this is what I’ve got to say-you stop all this crying and whining about someone that’s better dead!”

Her sharp cry stopped him there.

“Alfred!”

“Don’t you Alfred me! He ruined your daughter, didn’t he? And he’s dead and damned, and nobody to thank for it but himself, and you go snivelling about ‘poor Mr. Henry’!”

“Alfred-” It was just a frightened gasp.

Maggie was frightened too. She wished she was anywhere else. She wished she had never come, but she didn’t seem able to go. She heard Mrs. Robbins break into bitter weeping. She heard the sound of a blow, and a wincing cry. She moved forward a step or two. She couldn’t just stand there and hear a woman treated like that.

And then, short of the scullery door, Robbins’ voice halted her. It wasn’t loud any more, but it was all the worse for that. He said,

“Shut up! Do you hear-shut up! And you keep shut up-do you hear? I tell you the police think I did it, and the way you’re going on is the way to make them think it. ‘What’s she carrying on like that for?’ they’ll say. ‘What’s anyone want to carry on like that for if they haven’t got something on their mind? And what’s she got on her mind?’ they’ll say. ‘Why him’-that’s what they’ll say. ‘And she knows who done it. And who would she know about if it wasn’t her husband? He done it’-that’s what they’re going to say. Do you want to put the rope round my neck? Because that’s what you’re doing. I tell you they think I did your damned Mr. Henry in. I heard them talking in the study, and that’s what they think-they think it was me!”

Mrs. Robbins called out wildly.

“Was it?” she said-“was it?”

Maggie felt the trickle of sweat on her temples. She couldn’t have taken another step forward to save her life. She heard Gloria’s voice calling her in the passage.

“Mag-where are you? Maggie!”

She turned round and ran out of the kitchen.