The Case Is Closed

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Henry rang up at a quarter past nine, a time nicely calculated to ensure that Marion would have left the flat. Hilary stopped in the middle of making her bed, put the receiver to her ear, and stuck out her tongue at the mouthpiece.

‘Hilary – ’ said Henry at the other end of the line.

‘Thank goodness it’s you!’ said Hilary.

‘Why shouldn’t it be me? Who did you expect it to be?’

Hilary giggled.

‘Darling, you don’t know how nice it was to hear your voice – I mean a man’s voice. The telephone has been too, too exclusively female and completely incessant this morning.’

‘What about?’

‘First of all Aunt Emmeline’s Eliza rang up to say she was in bed with a chill – Aunt Emmeline, not Eliza, she doesn’t hold with chills – and she was selling at a stall for the Infant Bib Society, or something of that sort this afternoon – still Aunt Emmeline – Eliza doesn’t hold with infants, or bibs, or bazaars – ’

‘Hilary, what are you talking about?’

‘Darling, it was grim! Aunt Emmeline wanted me – me, Henry – to take her place – to go and help at a bazaar for Infant Bibs! I said to Eliza, “As woman to woman, would you do it?” And she coughed and said she didn’t hold with bazaars and well Miss Carew knew it, so I said “Nothing doing,” and rang off. And about half a minute later the secretary of the Bib Society rang up and said Miss Carew had told her I was kindly taking her place, and about two minutes after that a girl with an earnest voice said that as we were going to work together at the basket stall – ’

‘Hilary, dry up! I want to talk to you.’

‘I told them all there was nothing doing, but they didn’t seem to take it in. People with the bazaar habit are like that, and once they get bold of you you never get out alive. I’d love to talk to you, darling. What did you particularly want to say?’

‘I want you to come round at once to 15, Montague Mansions, West Leaham Street.’

‘If it’s a bazaar, I’ll never speak to you again.’

‘It’s not. Don’t be an ass! I’ll meet you there. And you’d better take a taxi – I’ll pay for it.’

Hilary was very pleasantly intrigued. It didn’t very often run to taxis, and she liked them. She liked the way they whisked in and out of traffic and cut corners as if they didn’t exist. She looked out of the window and found it a pleasant day – just enough sun to gild the fog, and just enough fog to give the bricks and mortar, and stone, and stucco the insubstantial glamour which Turner loved and painted. Nice to be going to meet Henry. Nice to be off on an adventure without knowing where she was going – because Montague Mansions was only an address to her, and not a place. She got quite a thrill out of thinking that if this was happening in a book and not in real life, the voice on the telephone would turn out not to be Henry’s voice at all, and the minute she entered No. 15 she would be gagged, and drugged, and hypodermicked. She immediately made up her mind that she wasn’t entering any house or any flat without Henry. She had always thought how unpleasant it would be to be gagged. So if Henry wasn’t on the doorstep, there wasn’t going to be anything doing here either. Better an Infant Bib bazaar than a Lair of Villains complete with drugs and lethal hypodermics. Besides, Henry had promised to pay the taxi.

Henry was on the doorstep. They went up in a lift to No. 15 and both talked all the time, because Henry was trying to explain Miss Maud Silver, and Hilary was telling him what she would have done if it had been a Den of Murderers.

‘I didn’t want to go to a woman, but Charles Moray says – ’

‘I’d absolutely made up my mind – ’

‘There’s something about her that impresses you. She found out – ’

‘Suppose it hadn’t been you – ’

‘That the Mercers weren’t married – ’

‘But someone imitating your voice – ’

‘Until the day after James Everton’s death.’ The superior resonance of Henry’s voice got through with this.

Hilary pinched him hard and said,

‘What?’

‘If you’d been listening instead of talking all the time – ’

‘Henry, I like that! You’ve never stopped – I haven’t been able to get in a word!’

‘Then why didn’t you hear what I said?’

‘I did.’

‘Then why did you say “What?” ’

Hilary extricated herself nimbly.

‘Well, darling, what did you expect me to say? I mean – Mrs. Mercer! Say it again!’

‘The Mercers weren’t married till the day after James Everton’s death.’

The lift had been stationary for some time. Hilary opened the door and walked out on to the landing.

Mrs. Mercer -how incredible! Respectable, middle-aged Mrs. Mercer! There was something quite horrifying about it. She felt shocked and a little frightened. Her dream, which she had forgotten, came vividly up in her mind. It came up so vividly that it made Henry, and the lift-shaft, and the bare, cold landing outside Miss Silver’s flat all seem rather unreal. She heard her own voice say in the dream, ‘What did you sell it for?’ And she heard Mrs. Mercer say, ‘Something I’d have given my soul to get.’ They were talking about Mrs. Mercer’s evidence – the evidence which she had sold – and what she had sold it for -

Henry’s hand fell on her shoulder, and she blinked up at him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. I remembered something.’

He put his arm round her for a moment. Then he rang the bell and they went in.

Miss Silver sat at her desk with the file of the Everton Case open before her. An infant’s pale blue coatee had been relegated to the edge of the table, and the ball of wool attached to it had fallen unnoticed on to the floor and rolled away. Hilary picked it up as she came in.

‘Thank you,’ said Miss Silver. ‘Wool becomes so very easily soiled. If you would just spike it on one of the knitting-needles – thank you very much.’

She had not appeared to be looking at anything except the file. Now she lifted a slightly frowning gaze, inclined her head towards Hilary, and indicated a chair.

‘This is Miss Carew?… Will you please sit down? Captain Cunningham has explained why I wish to see you?’

‘No, he hasn’t,’ said Hilary. ‘He just rang me up, and I came.’ She contrived a reproachful look at Henry out of the corner of her eye, but it did not appear to get anywhere.

Miss Silver continued:

‘Captain Cunningham rang me up at a very early hour. He seemed a good deal perturbed – ’ she paused, coughed slightly, and added – ‘about you, Miss Carew. He desired my advice without delay, and he informed me that he had in his possession the entire file of the Everton Case. I asked him to bring it round to me, and he did so. When he had told me about your experiences yesterday I suggested that he should ask you to join us. In the meanwhile I could run through the file and find out whether it contained any evidence with which I was not familiar. I have not, of course, had time to read all the documents.’ The accounts of the inquest and the trial are taken from the public press, and I am quite au fait with them. The statement made by the chambermaid at the Caledonian Hotel is new to me, and so is the statement of the Glasgow solicitor with regard to Mr. Francis Everton. They are both typed copies, and I imagine that the originals were obtained by the police. Do you know if that is so, Miss Carew?’

‘No, I don’t. I was abroad in July – I didn’t come home until the inquest was over.’

Miss Silver said, ‘I see. Captain Cunningham was abroad too, and he tells me that Mrs. Grey is exceedingly disinclined to answer questions.’

‘She simply won’t,’ said Hilary.

Miss Silver primmed her lips.

‘Decidedly foolish,’ she said. ‘Relatives almost invariably hamper investigation by an unwillingness to be frank. They are afraid of disclosing some point which will tell against the person in whom they are interested. Yet if Mr. Grey is really innocent, the more light that is thrown upon every point the better for his case. If Mrs. Grey is concealing something which she fears may tell against her husband – ’

Henry struck in, frowning:

‘We haven’t any reason to suppose she’s doing anything of the sort.’

But Miss Silver’s small pale eyes were fixed not on him, but on Hilary.

‘Miss Silver, why do you say that?’

‘It is true, is it not? Why else should she refuse to answer questions -to aid in an investigation? She is afraid of what may be brought to light – something damaging – something she has knowledge of – something – Miss Carew, I think you know what it is.’

Henry looked with astonishment at Hilary, and saw the red distressed colour run up to the roots of her little brown curls. Her eyes swam with tears. She said in a startled voice, ‘How did you know?’

Miss Silver looked down at the file again. She gave a deprecating cough.

There is nothing wonderful about seeing what is in front of one. Will you tell me what Mrs. Grey is afraid of?’

‘I don’t see how I can.’

Miss Silver looked at her in a different way. She had the air of a kind aunt – of Aunt Emmeline when she was about to give you five pounds at Christmas. She said in a voice that was nice as well as prim.

‘I am a great admirer of Lord Tennyson’s. The mot juste – how often one comes across it in his writings. “Oh, trust me all in all, or not at all.” I find I often have to quote that to my clients. The most complete frankness is necessary.’

Hilary looked at Henry, and Henry nodded. After all he didn’t see that anything Hilary said could do any harm. They wouldn’t hang Grey now whatever came out, and he was prepared to bank on the discretion of this respectable little spinster.

Hilary put her hand to her cheek and began to tell Miss Silver about going to see Mrs. Ashley.

‘She was the daily help at Solway Lodge, and nobody thought of calling her, because she went away at six o’clock and she told the police she didn’t know anything.’

Henry took her by the arm.

‘What’s all this?

‘I didn’t tell you, Henry – I couldn’t.’

‘Go on,’ said Maud Silver.

Hilary went on between quick breaths.

‘I went to see her – she’s a frightened little thing. She cried, and said she’d promised Marion not to tell.’ Henry began to regret his nod. His hand tightened on Hilary’s arm. ‘I made her tell me. She did leave at six, but she went back. She had dropped a letter, and she thought it might be in the study – and she thought she could get in through the open window – but when she got near she heard voices – quarrelling. And she heard Mr. Everton say “My own nephew!” And then she heard a shot, and she ran away and never stopped running till she got home.’

‘I see,’ said Miss Silver. ‘Yes, I see. And what time was this?’

Hilary caught her breath.

‘That’s the worst part of it -for Geoff, I mean. She heard a church clock strike as she came by Oakley Road. It struck eight, and at first when she said that, I thought it was going to be all right, because the outside of what it would take her to get to Solway Lodge from Oakley Road would be ten minutes. Geoff did it in five, and I don’t think anyone could really take more than seven or eight, so I’m saying ten as an absolute limit. Well, if she heard that shot at ten minutes past eight, it clears Geoff, because the very earliest he could have got there was a quarter past, so I thought it was all right.’ Her voice very plainly indicated that it had turned out all wrong.

Henry said, ‘Why wasn’t it all right?’ and Miss Silver gazed at her expectantly.

‘Oh, it wasn’t, because she said, and stuck to it like a leech, that that blighted clock was a good ten minutes out, and that it must have been “getting on for the half hour” when she reached the house.’

‘She said the clock was slow?’ said Miss Silver.

‘She said everyone in the house knew it was slow.’

‘Clocks,’ said Miss Silver, ‘are extremely unreliable as evidence. You are quite, quite sure that she said the clock was slow?’

‘I asked her, and asked her, and asked her,’ said Hilary in a wretched voice. ‘She said she was always talking about it to Mrs. Mercer. She said it used to give her a turn coming in the morning.’

‘Why?’ Miss Silver shot the word out short and sharp.

‘It made her think she was late when she wasn’t.’ Hilary’s eyes widened suddenly. ‘Oh!’

‘But then it was fast,’ said Henry. He took her by the arm and shook her. ‘I say, Hilary, wake up! Use the head – it’s meant to think with! The clock would have to be fast to make her afraid she was late, not slow.’

Hilary’s eyes got rounder and rounder. She said ‘Golly!’ in a hushed whisper.

Miss Silver said, ‘Exactly.’

‘How could you be such an ass?’ said Henry Cunningham.

‘Golly!’ said Hilary again. ‘She said it just like I told you, and I just gulped it down! And she must have said it to Marion, and Marion swallowed it too, and made her promise not to tell. And if she had told, – Miss Silver, it would have cleared Geoff-oh, it would!’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘Do not build on it too much. The facts must be verified – and fifteen months have elapsed. But if it can be proved that this church clock was ten minutes fast in the July of last year, it would seem that the shot which killed Mr. Everton was fired at somewhere very near to eight o’clock.’

‘Oh, Miss Silver!’

Miss Silver nodded.

‘Then with regard to the words which Mrs. Ashley overheard, they are’ -she gave her little dry cough – ‘well, they are certainly capable of more than one construction. She appears to have considered, and Mrs. Grey appears to have considered, that those words “My own nephew!” indicated that Mr. Everton was at that moment addressing his nephew Geoffrey Grey. You appear to have taken the same view. But it really doesn’t follow, you know. He may have been addressing Mr. Geoffrey Grey, but the words which you have quoted by no means prove that he was doing so. For instance, he may have been replying to some accusation or slander against Mr. Grey, and the words “My own nephew!” might be construed as an indignant denial. Further, Mr. Everton had three nephews. The words may have had no reference at all to Geoffrey Grey.’

‘It’s the time that matters,’ said Hilary. ‘If we can only prove that the clock was fast – oh, Miss Silver, we must be able to prove it! Because if James was shot at eight, Geoff couldn’t possibly have done it.’