The Alington Inheritance

Chapter XXXIX

Miss Silver had tea at Miss Danesworth’s. Richard was not there. He had gone to London, and she had a very pleasant time with Miss Danesworth and Jenny. After tea she enquired the way to Mrs. Pratt’s, and Jenny at once offered to go with her. Miss Silver thought for a while, and then accepted the offer.

It was bad luck for Dicky that things turned out as they did. On most afternoons he would not have been there at all. On this particular day he was there, because he had come in to wait for Stuffy Craddock who was going to pick him up when he had had his tea. Stuffy wouldn’t miss his tea, not if it was ever so, and Mrs. Craddock wouldn’t have let him miss it either. Dicky thought with assurance how much more fortunate he was himself. His mother never noticed whether he was in or not. And then quite suddenly he had a curious lonely feeling, and he set his chin and whistled quite loudly to keep up his spirits.

Mrs. Pratt was out. She wouldn’t be home for another hour. She wasn’t a good worker, but she managed to get enough work to keep her going. People were sorry for her, and she didn’t do too badly under strict supervision.

Miss Silver and Jenny came to the door of Mrs. Pratt’s cottage and heard Dicky whistling.

“He’s there,” said Jenny. “I was afraid he mightn’t be. They don’t have any regular times for meals.”

Miss Silver looked shocked.

“Do you think that this boy’s word is to be relied on?” she said.

“No, I don’t,” said Jenny frankly. “I think he’ll twist and lie if he can. That’s why I offered to come with you.” She knocked on the door as she spoke, and the whistling stopped instantly.

After a moment steps could be heard descending the stairs. A pause, and the door was opened. An untidy, shabby boy stood there. He smiled and his face lit up. His very blue eyes beamed on them.

“My mother’s out,” he said. “Can I take a message?”

There was nothing to show that he recognized Jenny, yet he had done so at once. She said quite directly,

“Hullo, Dicky. It’s you we want to see, not your mother. Can we come in? This is Miss Silver.”

“How do you do, Dicky?” said Miss Silver.

Dicky gave back her “How do you do?” His mind was racing. He knew who Miss Silver was, and knowing that, he could guess why she had come to see him. The question was, did he tell what he knew, or didn’t he? He wasn’t at all sure. With a sense of the fitness of things he led the way, not into the dirty, crowded, and disordered kitchen, but into the front room, never used and dreadfully neat. Four chairs stood with their backs to the wall, and a hard unyielding sofa stood with its back to the window. The curtains were neither clean nor dirty. They had hung there since James Pratt had been carried home dead-untouched and disregarded over the years that had passed since then. To Dicky the room was a very fine one. He showed an immense pride in it. The stuffy atmosphere and the film of dust over everything merely marked it out as a place apart.

Having taken them into this room, he shut the door and leaned against it, his smile subdued by the importance of the occasion and by its setting. His blue eyes were soft and pensive. He was thinking very hard, and what he thought was, “They want something, else they wouldn’t be here. What do they want? If I listen I shall find out.”

He glanced up at Miss Silver. It was a look to melt the heart of any old lady, he knew that. But the look was met by a gaze so clear and so alarming that it was all he could do to hold on to the innocence of his smile. He would have backed away a little, but he was already against the door. In his mind he was saying, “What jer want? I’ve done nothing, I haven’t. What jer want to come down on me for?” but he kept the words in.

Miss Silver spoke. She said his name.

“Dicky-”

Her tone steadied him. He smiled with an effect of shyness.

“Dicky, I have heard that you are a very intelligent boy. I wonder if you are intelligent enough to realize that it is better to keep on the right side of the law.”

Dicky swallowed and said, “Is it?”

Miss Silver smiled.

“You will find that out for yourself,” she said. “It is very easy to pull things crooked and to make an effect, and that is what starts a boy going wrong.”

“Is it?” said Dicky in a tone of limpid innocence.

“Yes,” said Miss Silver on an assured note. “Now you, Dicky, are at the parting of the ways. You can tell the truth and be praised for it, or you can tell lies which will be found out, and which will destroy your character.”

Dicky hastened to put his best foot forward.

“I wouldn’t tell no lies,” he said. “Not if it was ever so.”

Miss Silver nodded approvingly.

“I shall know if you do,” she said.

And quite suddenly Dicky felt it in his bones that she would. It was a very alarming feeling. He had never had it with anyone before, and he didn’t like it at all. If he had been outside the house he would have yielded to his instinct and have run away. He could have kept out of sight until the old lady had gone. He could-he couldn’t do anything- not really. He was a fool to have got up against the door like he had. If he turned round to open it she’d have him, and the girl would come and help her.

All the while that he was thinking these things his smile remained limpidly innocent. It had only wavered for a moment. Miss Silver was saying,

“Now, Dicky, will you tell me truthfully about the note you had?”

“The note?” He might never have heard of such a thing.

“Yes. The note that was addressed to Miss Jenny Hill.”

“Oh, that note-”

He was playing for time, but Miss Silver gave him no time. She said, “Yes,” and then, “I want to know what you did with it. Who gave it to you and told you to give it to Miss Jenny Hill? Did you know who Miss Jenny Hill was?”

Dicky considered. If he put a foot wrong now it would be very difficult to recover. He could think of lots of lies to tell, but there was no doubt that the plain unvarnished truth would be safest. He immediately felt a strong glow of virtue.

“Course I knew!” he said in a tone of scorn. “Everyone in the village knowed as Miss Jenny Forbes had two names, and that her other name was Miss Jenny Hill. It was Mrs. Warrington as let it out. She’s a talker she is. Everything as goes on at Mrs. Merridew’s she talks about, and everyone in the village could know what she knowed.”

“Then you meant to give the note to Miss Jenny?”

“Yes, I meant to. Only-” He came out with a burst of truth. “Only Roger Barton and Stuffy Craddock came up with me, and they had a smashing scheme on, and-and I went off with them. And I forgot all about the note until after the murder.”

“And then did you not think that what you knew might be important?”

It was really astonishingly easy to tell the truth. You didn’t have to think all round what you said. You could just go ahead and say it as it came. In a glow of virtue Dicky replied,

“Not at first it didn’t.”

“And why was that?”

Dicky wriggled.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t till I got to thinking about the number-plate being covered up.”

Jenny had been standing over by the window. She felt terrified. Something was coming down on her-on all of them. She couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was like standing in the path of an oncoming train. You could hear the whistle and you could see the smoke, and you couldn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dicky’s face. She couldn’t move, or speak, or do anything. The dreadful thing that was going to happen came nearer and nearer.

Miss Silver was speaking.

“How was the number-plate covered?”

“There was some sacking in the boot. It hung down behind and covered the number-plate.”

“Then you couldn’t see it?”

Dicky hesitated, but only for a moment. It was a smashing game telling the truth. And it was safe. You didn’t have to stop and think about it, you could just go ahead. He went ahead.

“I’d some matches in my pocket. I struck one, and I looked at the number.”

Jenny couldn’t move. She had known that it was coming. Her hands were tightly clasped before her. When she looked at them afterwards she would see that her nails had cut the skin. At the time she saw nothing, felt nothing. Everything in her was keyed up to take what she knew was coming.

The questioning went on.

“Do you remember the number?”

“Acourse I do. It was 505.” He gave the county letters too.

“You are quite sure about that?”

“Acourse I’m sure. I wouldn’t make up a thing like that.”

Jenny drew a long breath. The window seat was just behind her. She felt her way to it and sat down. She put her head in her hands and time went by her. So it was Mac. And Miriam had been killed instead of Jenny. She hadn’t the slightest doubt about that. If Dicky hadn’t met his friends, if he had delivered the letter, what would she have done? Would she have gone out to meet Mac? She couldn’t tell. One moment it seemed to her as if she would have gone, and the next she recoiled with a shudder. She did not know what she would have done. She was never to know.

In upon her confusion and her hurrying thoughts there came Miss Silver’s voice.

“Drink this, my dear. No, you must try. It is only water.”

She managed a sip, and then another, and another. Her head cleared. She looked up at Miss Silver with piteous eyes.

“I’m all right.”

“Yes, my dear, you are going to be quite all right. Stay still a little while.”

Jenny opened her eyes. She had slid down from the window seat and was lying on the floor. The window above her head was wide open. It was the first time it had been open for years and years. Dicky disapproved very much. His mum never opened that window. His mum didn’t hold with suchlike, his mum didn’t. These thoughts contended with the uplifting experience of having told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He remembered the words of the oath which he had taken in the case when he had had to give evidence, and repeated them to himself with the greatest satisfaction. There were no snags about telling the truth. You hadn’t got to watch out for saying a thing one minute and contradicting yourself the next. You could just go straight on and tell it the way it happened, and nobody couldn’t do nothing to you, not if it was ever so.

He ran upstairs and got Mac’s letter. When he came down with it in his hand, Jenny had got up. She was sitting on the window seat and she looked very pale.

He came into the room with the letter in his hand and offered it to Miss Silver. It was indescribably dirty, creased, and stained, but it was still quite legible. Miss Silver took it, and read what Mac had written to Jenny nearly a fortnight before:

“Jenny, don’t say anything to anyone, but come out and meet me up on the heath as soon as it is quite dark.

Mac

Bring this with you.”

And up in the top left-hand corner there was a date-the date of the murder.