The Alington Inheritance

Chapter XXVI

Frank Abbott came in on that. He was very much on duty, and he took Miss Silver away as soon as possible. It wasn’t until they were in the car that he relaxed.

“Well?” he said. “Did you have a satisfactory visit?”

“I think so, Frank. Are you taking me to see Jimmy Mottingley?”

“I will if you would like me to. It would probably make things easier for you.”

Miss Silver gave him a warmly sympathetic look.

“That is indeed kind. I shall be most grateful.”

“Well, how did it go? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“I think that you should not ask me, but I will tell you. The thing that struck me when I asked to see the young girl, Jenny Forbes, was that Miss Danesworth went to the door and called for her. She wished me, I think, to understand that she was not putting words into her mouth. Jenny Forbes gave me an account of the dead girl’s visit which was practically identical with what Miss Danesworth had already told me. The important thing about both these accounts was that they represent Miriam Richardson as looking at the clock suddenly and asking if it was right. Miss Danesworth said yes, it was, and Miriam said, ‘Then I must go. Tell Richard I want to see him, will you? Not tonight-I’m doing something else. But if he’d like to, he can come round in the morning.’ In my opinion this definitely contradicts any idea that it was Richard Forbes whom she was expecting to meet.”

Frank Abbott threw her a sharp look.

“That had occurred to you?”

“Yes.”

“And you regard it as a wash-out?”

“My dear Frank!”

He laughed.

“Language to be expressive must be, shall we say, apt.”

“You may, and do, say what you like as long as you do not attribute your slang expressions to me.”

He laughed.

“Oh, that was it, was it? I retract and apologize.”

They came into Colborough half an hour later. Miss Silver had been silent for the greater part of the way. A good deal would depend upon what she thought of Jimmy Mottingley. His father’s trust in him might not be justified. She was very well aware of the turns and twists possible to a man’s conscience. Mr. Mottingley appeared to be under no illusions with regard to his son-but there were reservations in all of us. He could admit the utmost culpability in one direction whilst strenuously denying it in another. She thought that she would know when she saw Jimmy whether she could take his case or not. To justify the guilty was a role she would not undertake. She remained abstracted during the drive, and Frank respected her silence.

When they had arrived at the prison she left the talking to Frank Abbott. He was an old friend of the Governor’s, and the way was smoothed for her. She was shown into a light, bare room with a long table and a chair at either end of it. Presently a warder came in with Jimmy Mottingley, whom he escorted to the chair at the opposite end of the table, and when Jimmy had seated himself, the warder withdrew to the door, paused there for a moment to say, “I’ll just be outside if you want me, madam,” and withdrew. The upper portion of the door being of glass, they were still under observation, but they could not be overheard.

Miss Silver turned back to the table, and to Jimmy Mottingley at the other end of it. She saw a boyish looking young man, fair haired and blue eyed, the kind of youth who in any average family would be rather a spoiled child. She wondered whether Mr. Mottingley had been as firm with his son as he declared.

And then Jimmy Mottingley was looking at her with a kind of bravado and saying,

“Why have you come?”

Miss Silver did not answer him for a moment. She looked at him, and saw the signs of weakness, the signs of pain. That the boy was on the verge of a breakdown was obvious. She smiled reassuringly and said,

“I have come at your father’s request to try and help you.”

He laughed.

“At my father’s request! Do you know what he thinks? He thinks I did it. He sat there and lectured me. He said he would pay for my defence, but I mustn’t imagine that I would get off the punishment due to me. And he talked about God’s law which couldn’t be broken with impunity.”

Miss Silver said with cornposure, “Mr. Mottingley, I do not think that you understood your father… No, one minute, please. You must try to control yourself, or we shall be interrupted. The warder on the other side of that door will only remain where he is whilst you conform to the regulations. If he has any reason to suppose that you are becoming violent he will feel it his duty to come in, and you will be taken away to your cell again. I must beg of you to preserve calm.”

Jimmy stared at her. He shuddered and said in a whisper,

“Calm- Oh, my God! Do you know what it is like to be suspected of the one thing on earth that you could never do? Do you know what it’s like?”

“I can only know what you tell me. Would you like to go back to last Saturday, and to tell me just what happened?”

“Yes-yes-I’ll tell you.” He rummaged in his pocket and produced a handkerchief. He blew his nose and said, “You want what happened on Saturday? I had an appointment with Miriam-you know that. She-she wanted to see me. I didn’t want to come. I knew what she wanted-oh, yes, I knew. But I never saw her. I mean, she was dead when I got there, because my mother had a visitor she wanted me to see and they kept me. When I did get there it was nearly an hour late, and I knew how angry she’d be. She had said to meet her on the Heath just up the hill from where she was staying. We had met there before. There’s a clump of gorse close to the road-she said she’d meet me there. Well, I ran on past it and left the car, and then I came back. There wasn’t any sign of her. I was nearly an hour late, and I wondered if she’d given me up and gone away, and I wondered what I’d better do. Now that I was there, it seemed as if I’d got to see her. You know how it is, you screw yourself up to something, and it doesn’t seem as if you could go away and wait for a week and come back and do it all over again.”

“Yes, I can understand that. Go on, Mr. Mottingley.”

A shudder passed over Jimmy. He was getting to the point which pursued him into his dreams. His hand which gripped the handkerchief shook. He said in a failing voice,

“I thought perhaps she hadn’t waited. I went behind the bushes-and she was there-” The words trembled away. He sat looking down at his shaking hand and the handkerchief in it. But he didn’t see them. He saw only what he had seen that night-the circle of light cast by his torch, and within it Miriam’s face horribly distorted. He went on speaking in a dead tone without emphasis. “She was there. But she was dead. She had been strangled. I ran out on to the road. There was a bicycle coming. I waved and called out. It was Mr. Fulbrook. I didn’t know his name. I called out, and he stopped. I told him that I had come there to meet Miriam and found her dead. He came round with me-round the bushes -and he saw her. She was quite dead. Then he asked a lot of questions. I don’t remember what I said. It doesn’t matter, does it? I can’t remember anything about that. But we got into my car up the road, and he drove-my hands were shaking too much. And we went to the police station. And everyone took it for granted that I had done it. But I didn’t. I didn’t, I tell you. I couldn’t have! Even to think about doing it makes me feel sick and shaky. I tell you I’ve thought and thought about it. I’ve thought of what I could have done, and of what I could never, never do, and it always comes to the same thing, I couldn’t kill anyone. There are things you know you can do, and things you know you can’t do. This is one of those things-I just couldn’t do it.”

He bent forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table, and said in a smothered voice, “Look here, I’ll tell you something. I’ve never told anyone, but I’ll tell you because it proves what I’ve been saying. I suppose I ought to be ashamed of it-but I don’t know. I can’t kill anything -it makes me sick even to think of it-it does really. And Miriam-she was so much alive-so sure about everything. I didn’t really like her, you know.” He lifted his head and looked at Miss Silver. It was a puzzled look and it touched her oddly. “That seems a queer thing to say, but I didn’t, you know. When I was away from her I used to think how dreadful it would be to be married to her, to have to sit down to meals with her every day, to-to sleep-” He stopped, reddening, and brushed his hands across his eyes. “I used to think of all those things. And then when I saw her again she-she seemed to-to have the upper hand. I think she had a very strong will. I haven’t. I used to think of what I was going to say to her about-about breaking it off-and it went quite well as long as she wasn’t there. But when she was, all the things I had thought of to say seemed to be gone. She made plans about our getting married. When I said that my father would never allow it she laughed-she just laughed, and she said that he wouldn’t be asked. I did try to make her understand, but it was no use. She just went on talking. When I said that my father would never forgive us if we got married in a registry office like she said, she just laughed. It was no good. She had a picture in her mind of us doing just what we wanted to-or what she wanted to, and she just didn’t listen. That’s what my father didn’t understand. I don’t think he has ever met anyone like Miriam-I never had before. If she wanted a thing she got it-somehow.” The handkerchief came up to his eyes, and behind that friendly screen he broke down completely.

Miss Silver sat and waited. This was not a story that would make a good impression in a court of law. What the judge and the jury would see in it was the case of the weak creature driven too far, the young man who couldn’t kill a spider or any creeping thing suddenly maddened to the point of defending himself from the horrifying prospect of a lifetime to be spent with Miriam Richardson. He had said things which would support this point of view. Miriam had gone to the place where she had been found dead to keep an appointment with him. No one else knew of this appointment. There had been no robbery, no other violence. She had been hit on the temple and then strangled. Miss Silver did not believe that Jimmy Mottingley, however maddened, would have knocked a young woman out and then proceeded to strangle her. But would the jury in a murder trial take the same merciful view? She thought not. It would be a difficult case, but she could not refuse to take it. She spoke in a cheerful voice and with a greater certainty of manner than she could really feel.

“Mr. Mottingley, I will take your case. Now there are one or two questions I should like to ask you.”