The Case Is Closed

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He came into her waiting-room, and after a very short pause found himself being ushered into a most curiously old-fashioned office. There was a good deal more furniture than there had been in Charles Moray’s day, and the chairs were not modern chairs. They looked to Henry like the ones he had sat in as a schoolboy when he visited his grandmother and his grandmother’s friends. The mantelpiece was crowded with photographs in gimcrack frames.

Miss Silver herself sat at a good solid writing-table of the mid-Victorian period. She was a little person with a great deal of mousey grey hair which was done up in a bun at the back and arranged in a curled fringe in front. Having worn her hair in this way through a period of practically universal shingling varied only by the bob and the Eton crop, she had become aware with complete indifference that she now approximated to the current fashion.

Yet however she had done her hair, it would have appeared, as she herself appeared, to be out of date. She was very neatly dressed in an unbecoming shade of drab. Her indeterminate features gave no indication of talent or character. Her smooth sallow skin was innocent of powder. She was knitting a small white woolly sock, and at the moment of Henry’s entrance she was engaged in counting her stitches. After a minute she looked up, inclined her head, and said in a quiet toneless voice,

‘Pray be seated.’

Henry wished with all his heart that he hadn’t come. He couldn’t imagine why he had asked for this woman’s address, or rung her up, or come to see her. The whole thing seemed to him to be absolutely pointless. If he had the nerve he would get up and walk out. He hadn’t the nerve. He saw Miss Silver put down her knitting on a clean sheet of white blotting-paper and take a bright blue copybook out of the top left-hand drawer of her writing-table. She opened the book, wrote down his name, asked him for his address, and then sat, pen in hand, looking mildly at him.

‘Yes, Captain Cunningham?’

Henry felt that he was making the most complete fool of himself. He also felt that this was Hilary’s fault. He said in an embarrassed voice,

‘I don’t think I really ought to have troubled you.’

‘You will feel better when you have told me about it. I don’t know if you read Tennyson. He seems to me to express it so very beautifully:

‘Break, break, break,

On thy cold grey stones, oh sea.

And I would that my heart could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.’

It is always difficult to make a beginning, but you will find it easier as you go on.’

‘It’s about the Everton Case,’ said Henry abruptly.

The Everton Case? Quite so. But it is closed, Captain Cunningham.’

Henry frowned. An obstinate feeling that having made a fool of himself, he might as well see it through stiffened his courage.

‘Do you remember anything about the case?’

Miss Silver had picked up her sock and was knitting rapidly in the German manner. She said, ‘Everything,’ and continued to knit with unbelievable rapidity.

‘I’ve been going through it again,’ said Henry. ‘I’ve read the inquest and I’ve read the trial, and – ’

‘Why?’ said Miss Silver.

‘I missed a good deal of it at the time -I was abroad – and I must say – ’

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Miss Silver. Her needles clicked. She gazed mildly at him. ‘You see, Captain Cunningham, I always prefer to draw my own conclusions. If you will tell me in what way I can help you. I will do my best.’

‘It’s about the Mercers. They were the chief witnesses against Geoffrey Grey. I don’t know if you remember.’

‘Mr. Everton’s cook and butler. Yes?’

‘I would like some information about those two.’

‘What sort of information?’

‘Anything you can lay hands on. Their antecedents, present circumstances – in fact, anything you can get. It has – well, Miss Silver, it has been suggested that these people committed perjury at the trial. I can’t see any reason why they should, but if they did commit perjury, they must have had a reason. I want to know if they’re any better off than they were. In fact, I want to know anything you can find out about them. I don’t expect you to find out anything damaging, but – well, the fact is I want to convince – someone – that there’s nothing to be gained by trying to re-open the case. Do you see?’

Miss Silver dropped her knitting in her lap and folded her hands upon it.

‘Let us understand one another, Captain Cunningham,’ she said in her quiet voice. ‘If you employ me, you will be employing me to discover facts. If I discover anything about these people, you will have the benefit of my discovery. It may be what you are expecting, or it may not. People are not always pleased to know the truth.’ Miss Silver nodded her head in a gentle deprecating manner. “You’ve no idea how often that happens. Very few people want to know the truth. They wish to be confirmed in their own opinions, which is a very different thing – very different indeed. I cannot promise that what I discover will confirm you in your present opinion.’ She gave a slight hesitating cough and began to knit again. ‘I have always had my own views about the Everton case.’

Henry found himself curiously impressed, he couldn’t think why. There was nothing impressive about mouse-coloured hair, indeterminate features, and a toneless voice. Yet Miss Silver impressed him. He said quickly,

‘And what was your opinion?’

‘At present I should prefer not to say.’ She put down her knitting and took up her pen again. ‘You wish me to get any information I can about the Mercers. Can you give me their Christian names?’

‘Yes -I’ve just been going through the case. He is Alfred, and she is Louisa Kezia Mercer.’

‘I suppose you don’t know her maiden name?’.

He shook his head.

‘I’m afraid I don’t. I don’t know anything about either of them except what came out in the evidence. I don’t know where they are living or what they are doing – and I want to know.’

Miss Silver wrote in the bright blue exercise-book. Then she looked up at Henry.

‘I could help you more if you would trust me, Captain Cunningham. Nearly every client is the same -they hold something back, and the thing they hold back is the thing which would help me most. It always comes out in the end, but frankness in the first instance would save me a good deal of trouble.’ She coughed again. ‘For instance, it would assist me greatly to know when and where your friend encountered the Mercers, and what happened when she encountered them. Quite obviously it was something which encouraged her to think that the case might be re-opened. You did not agree, and you are employing me because you hope that I shall enable you to support your opinion with evidence which your friend will accept.’

The colour rose in Henry’s face. He hadn’t mentioned Hilary. The last thing he wanted was to mention Hilary. He was prepared to swear that he had got no nearer mentioning her than to say that there was someone whom he wanted to convince. This infernal little maiden aunt of a woman had nosed Hilary out and guessed at an encounter with the Mercers. He felt secretly afraid of her, and looked up with a frown to find that she was smiling at him. Miss Silver had a smile which seemed to belong to quite a different person. It changed her face to that of a friend. Quite suddenly Henry was telling her about Hilary getting into the wrong train and finding herself in the same compartment as the Mercers.

Miss Silver listened. Her needles clicked. She said ‘Dear, dear!’ at one point, and ‘Poor thing’ at another. The ‘Poor thing’ referred to Marion Grey. Mrs. Mercer’s stumbling, agitated sentences repeated by Henry in a completely unemotional voice drew forth a fit of coughing and an ‘Oh, dear me!’

‘And they got out at Ledlington, Captain Cunningham?’

‘She says they did, but I don’t suppose she really knows. She got out there herself because it wasn’t her train and she had to get back to town.’

‘And she hasn’t seen either of them since?’

‘Well, yes, she has.’

Heny found himself telling her about Alfred Mercer following Hilary through the byways of Putney for the purpose, apparently, of informing her that his wife was out of her mind. And then, before he knew where he was, he had thrown in Bertie Everton’s visit to himself upon what seemed to be a similar errand.

Miss Silver looked up from time to time and then looked down again. She was knitting so rapidly that the woolly sock appeared to rotate.

‘And you see, Miss Silver, if there is something fishy going on, I don’t want Miss Carew to get mixed up in it.’

‘Naturally.’

‘But at the same time I can’t say I think that there’s any doubt at all about the murder. Grey did it all right. I just want – ’

Miss Silver drew out a needle and stabbed it into the wool again.

‘You just want to have your own opinion confirmed. I have told you that I can only undertake to provide you with facts – I cannot guarantee that they will be to your liking. Do you still wish to employ me?’

Henry had the strangest feeling. It was just as if a shutter in his mind had jerked open. Light and air rushed in upon a dark place – bright light, strong air. And then the shutter banged to again and everything was dark.

He said, ‘Yes, please,’ and was astonished at the firmness of his own voice.