The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 33

Coming back into the lounge, Miss Silver took particular note of the occupants. All the Taverner cousins were there, but Mr. Castell was not. She took a chair and got out her knitting. Little Josephine’s dress was now a complete skirt and bodice, and she was half way down the left sleeve. She had chosen a chair beside Florence Duke. After a moment or two she remarked,

“It’s for my niece, Mrs. Burkett’s little girl. She had three boys already, so they were of course delighted when Josephine was born. Such a pretty child, and so good.”

Florence Duke had been staring in front of her. She shifted her gaze now and focussed it upon the bright blue dress.

“I like kids-I’d have liked to have some. But you never know your luck-I expect it’s as well I didn’t. He wasn’t any sort of father to have in the house with children, and he wouldn’t have changed. Bad all through, Luke was. There aren’t many you can say that about, but it’s true about Luke.”

Miss Silver went on knitting. She said very kindly,

“Marriage can be a most unhappy state. It is very hard on the woman when it turns out that way.”

There was a sombre spark in the big dark eyes.

“I’ll say it is-” She made a heavy pause, and then brought out more words in the slow, deliberate way she had. “The worst is you can’t get rid of it. There was a gentleman I used to know when I was at the George-partner in a firm of solicitors-I came across him again after Luke went off. He wanted me to see about a divorce, but I wouldn’t. ‘I’ve had enough of being married,’ I told him, ‘and I won’t want to do it again. And as far as it goes for him, I’m not letting him loose to marry some other poor girl.’ He said, ‘You’ll think better of it, Floss,’ but I said, ‘No,’ and I haven’t.” She gave herself a sort of jerk. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you like this.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“If you keep everything to yourself, things come to weigh too heavily,” she said.

Florence Duke nodded.

“That’s right-like a ton weight, till you don’t feel you can get your breath. Seems you’ve got to get some of it off your chest.”

There was a short silence. Then the slow speech began again.

“There’s things you can’t forget-you’d like to, but you can’t- they come back on you.” She gave another of those jerks and got up. “I’m talking too much. I don’t know what’s got into me. What do you say we have some more coffee? I’ll take your cup and see what’s left.”

She went across to the coffee-table, and as she did so, Geoffrey Taverner came strolling over with his cup in his hand. He took the chair upon Miss Silver’s other side and said in his pleasantest voice,

“May I come and talk to you for a little? I should like to thank you for being so kind to my sister.”

Miss Silver would have been justified in showing some surprise. As she had informed Frank Abbott, Mr. Taverner’s manner had not hitherto commended itself, or him. It had, indeed, conveyed the opinion that she was a negligible dowdy person and a meddler. Now quite suddenly all was changed-she was being addressed with courtesy and deference. She replied with rather more than her usual sobriety,

“You need not thank me, Mr. Taverner.”

He was looking at her in an earnest way.

“Oh, but I do. Mildred is so very highly strung. She has not, if I may speak frankly-well, she has not a very stable mentality.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Geoffrey became explanatory.

“You mustn’t think-I didn’t mean to imply-I’m afraid what I said might give you a wrong impression. I really didn’t intend to convey more than that she is highly strung and not well fitted to undergo a strain. To be in the house where a murder is committed is naturally a shock. I have noticed that you have a calming and reassuring effect upon my sister, and I want you to know that I am grateful.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Thank you, Mr. Taverner.”

He finished the coffee in his cup and set it down.

“Mildred has always been nervous,” he said. “Fortunately the friend who lives with her is a cheerful, sensible woman. I may say that I was not at all anxious for this invitation to be accepted, but she has always been fanciful about the old place-from a child she would make up stories and act them-and when I advised her to stay quietly at home she became so excited that I thought it would really be best to let her come. In fact I do not think that I could have prevented her. Like all nervous people she can be extremely obstinate.” He heaved an exasperated sigh. “It is a combination which can be very difficult to deal with.”

Miss Silver agreed with him.

He sighed again in a resigned manner.

“Oh, well, I suppose we shall all be allowed to go home tomorrow as soon as the inquest is over. Do you happen to know whether that is so?”

Miss Silver turned the bright blue knitting in her lap.

“I really do not know, but I should think there would be no objection. Neither you nor Miss Taverner are in a position to do more than corroborate what other witnesses have said.”

He gazed at her earnestly.

“My sister is not likely to be called as a witness, Inspector Crisp tells me, but he said she had better attend. If you would add to your kindness by sitting with her-” He met her thoughtful gaze with a quick attractive smile. For a moment his rather priggish manner gave way sufficiently to permit some genuine feeling to appear. “If I may say so, she has come to-well, rely on you.”

Miss Silver said, “I shall be pleased to do what I can. But there is surely no need for Miss Taverner to be nervous.”

Geoffrey shook his head.

“No-no-of course not. But a person of her temperament doesn’t need a reason for being nervous, and you undoubtedly have a calming effect. I just thought that I would like to express my gratitude, and to ask whether you would sit with her tomorrow. It will relieve her mind very much if I can tell her that you will do so.”

“By all means, Mr. Taverner.”

She watched him go over to his sister and take the vacant seat beside her. Knitting as she did in the continental manner, it was possible for her to make rapid progress with little Josephine’s left sleeve whilst continuing her observation of what was going on in the room. She saw Mildred Taverner look uneasily at her brother as he approached and then brighten up and send a glance in her own direction, after which only an occasional remark appeared to pass between them. Miss Taverner, she considered, would have been the better for a piece of good plain knitting to occupy her hands. It was, of course, indicative of her nervous state that she seemed unable to keep them still. They plucked at the stuff of her dress, they twitched, they jerked, they fidgeted with those unbecoming bright blue beads, with the old-fashioned gold chain. They were not still for a moment.

After some half dozen remarks at widely spaced intervals Geoffrey got up and drifted over to the fire, where he presently engaged in conversation with Jacob Taverner, who was doing a cross-word puzzle. In a short time they appeared to be doing it together.

As Florence Duke came back with fresh hot coffee, Mildred got up and came to join them, fluttering and uncertain.

“Would you mind… Oh, that is very kind of you! It makes one feel so nervous sitting alone. Not you of course, because you are not like that. Oh, no-no coffee, thanks. I’m afraid it might keep me awake.” She addressed Florence Duke. “You don’t find it does?”

Florence Duke looked at her as if she were seeing something else. She said with a sort of slow finality,

“It isn’t coffee that would keep me awake.”

At ten o’clock they went upstairs together. Their rooms were next to each other along the right-hand passage, Miss Silver nearest the stairs, then Florence Duke, and beyond her Mildred Taverner.

Florence went straight into her room, but Mildred lingered, her door half open, the knob in her hand, as if she could not make up her mind to go in.

“Perhaps this is our last night here. Oh, I do hope so-don’t you?” And then, “You are so very kind-I wonder if you would just stand at the door whilst I look in the cupboard and under the bed. I always do it at home-not that I think there will be anyone, but it just gives me a more comfortable feeling. And my friend comes with me, because of course if there should be anyone there, or-or anything, I don’t really know what I should do.” She drew a long breath. “There was a very large spider once, and I have never been any good about spiders.” Her head poked and her long nose twitched.

Miss Silver came briskly to the door and opened it wide.

“I do not suppose for a moment that there will be any spiders,” she said with her slight dry cough.

There was neither a spider nor a cockroach, there was not even a concealed miscreant. With a sigh of relief Mildred Taverner said good-night all over again and locked the door on the inside.

Miss Silver went into her own room, where she took off her watch, which she wound, and her bog-oak brooch. She then stood for a few moments in thought, and had just begun to cross the room in the direction of the door, when there was a light tap upon it. In response to her “Come in!” Eily appeared, carrying four hot-water bottles.

Miss Silver was so used to her own that she took it from Eily without having any thoughts about it at all, but she felt that she could at once allocate the other three to their respective owners. Very fine white rubber in a white satin bag with pale green quilting could not possibly belong to anyone but Lady Marian. Bright blue with no cover at all would, she thought, be Jane Heron’s. But the last one? There were two more ladies and only one bottle, a rather battered specimen with a washed-out flannel cover. It might belong either to Florence Duke, or to Mildred Taverner. It took her only a moment to decide. Florence Duke might have owned one as shabby, but both it and its cover would have started life in some gayer shade. With hardly any perceptible pause she was asking Eily,

“Does Mrs. Duke not have a bottle?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Silver. But I saw her go over to the bathroom, so I thought I’d slip it in and get rid of it. It’s a red one. Fortunately they’re all different. Sometimes it’s a job not to get them mixed- and that’s a thing a nobody likes.”

“No-I suppose not.”

Miss Silver had placed her own bottle inside the turned-down bed. She now went over to the door and closed it.

Eily watched, three bottles in her arms and a look of surprise on her face. She was to be still more surprised. Miss Silver coughed and said,

“Where are you sleeping, Eily?”

“In my own room.”

“I think it would be better if you were to sleep with Miss Heron tonight.”

The dark blue eyes were fixed on her in a look between wonder and fear.

“But, Miss Silver-”

“I think it would be best. I advise you very strongly to ask Miss Heron to let you share her room.”

Eily shook her head.

“My uncle wouldn’t like it.”

“I do not see why he should know.”

There was an odd fleeting look before the lashes fell.

“There isn’t much my uncle doesn’t get to know.” Then, more quickly, “And what’s the need? It was Luke I was afraid of-and he’s gone.”

“Eily-”

She shook her head again.

“My uncle wouldn’t like it at all. If you please, Miss Silver-the bottles will be getting cold.”

Miss Silver moved away from the door. She was satisfied upon one point, but seriously uneasy upon another. She saw Eily go out of the room, and waited with her door ajar for Florence Duke to return from the bathroom.

As soon as she heard what she was listening for she looked out into the passage.

“Mrs. Duke-if I might have just a word with you-”

Florence came across with a slow, unwilling step. She had taken off her dress and was wearing her outdoor coat in place of a dressing-gown. Her face, stripped bare of make-up, had a sagged, unhappy look, the lines from nose to mouth accentuated, the colour in cheeks and lips dull and lifeless. She said heavily,

“I just want to get into bed and sleep.”

Miss Silver shut the door.

“I will not keep you. There are one or two things I could not say downstairs, where there was a risk that we might be overheard. Inspector Crisp rang you up this evening, did he not?”

“What if he did?”

“He asked you to give evidence at the inquest tomorrow?”

Florence said heavily,

“What if he did?”

“Mrs. Duke, is there no one in this house who might be concerned to prevent you from giving that evidence?”

“Why should they?”

“Do you not know of a reason?”

She stared down at the bath-towel she was carrying. It hung on her right arm, but she had slipped her left hand under it too. It hid both her hands. She stared at it with hidden eyes. A moment passed before she said,

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you not?”

The eyes were lifted. They were angry now.

“Let me alone, can’t you! What has it got to do with you?”

Miss Silver said very quietly and steadily,

“I am concerned for your safety, Mrs. Duke. Will you please listen to me for a moment?”

The anger flickered and died down.

“What do you want?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You have been asked to give certain evidence. I do not know what that evidence will be, but I can think of circumstances in which it might prove dangerous to people who have already shown that they will stick at nothing. I would like you to consider whether you might not be in danger, and whether it would not be safer for you to spend the night elsewhere.”

Florence Duke looked past her.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

As if she had not spoken, Miss Silver continued.

“I would like to ask Captain Taverner to take you to Cliff House, where Inspector Abbott is staying. He would, I am sure, arrange for you to be accommodated.”

Florence Duke gave a sudden laugh as far removed from merriment as it well could be.

“Cliff House? Me-at this time of the night? I suppose you think I haven’t got a character to lose-going to stay with two young men, and one of them in the police! No, thank you!”

“Mrs. Duke-”

Florence put a hand on her shoulder.

“Look here, you mean well, I grant you that, but this isn’t your business. And I don’t know what you’re talking about neither, and if I did I wouldn’t care. Get that-I wouldn’t care! If someone was to bring me a good glass of poison this minute, I’d just as soon drink it and be done with everything! So you can stop your hinting about my being in danger! I don’t care if I am! Do you get that? I don’t give a damn!”

Miss Silver looked at her with compassion. There was a moment when their eyes met, a moment when things hung in the balance. The hand on Miss Silver’s shoulder weighed heavily. It shook a little, and then it was withdrawn. Florence Duke said with a catch in her voice,

“Oh, well, it’ll be all the same a hundred years hence.”

Then she turned and went out of the room and into her own, and shut the door.