The Clock Strikes Twelve

Chapter 25

Mark had reached the head of the stairs, when Elliot Wray caught him up.

“Here-wait a minute.”

“What is it?”

“Where have you put this woman?”

“In the study. I’ve told Lane she’s to have the bedroom next to yours.”

Elliot said abruptly,

“I want to see her.”

“All right, come along. Do you want me to come too?” Elliot considered.

“I don’t know… No, I’ll see her alone. How much does she know?”

“ Lydia saw her first-I don’t know what she said. I told her what happened last night, and told her the names of the people who were there and the way they were related-things like that.”

Elliot stood for a moment as if he were in two minds whether to say something or not. In the end he laughed grimly and said what he hadn’t thought about at all.

“Well, you seem to have inherited a bomb-throwing tendency along with the rest of it.” After which he went off down the stairs and round the corner towards the study, just missing Robert Moffat, who had emerged from the drawing-room on the other side of the hall.

Elliot’s first view of Miss Silver gave him a shock of surprise. She wasn’t in the very least like anything he had expected. Just what he had expected, he didn’t know. Something hard and efficient-a stony eye and a mouth like a trap-certainly not this mild, decorous little person in clothes which must have been out of date when he was born. He was reminded of an Edwardian period film seen recently enough to bob up at the sight of her.

He said, “Miss Silver?” and received a pleasant smile and a slight inclination of the head.

She was seated at the table with a green copybook before her. It was curious to see her there in old James’s chair. The police had occupied the room all the morning. Photographs had been taken both here and on the terrace, everything had been gone over for fingerprints. Now the room was straight and tidy again. The police had done with it. Mr. Paradine had done with it. Except for the fact that this little governessy person was sitting at his table, everything was just as it had been last night. The chairs had been put back in their accustomed places. The table, the ink-stand, the blotting-pad were just as usual, except for the green copybook in front of Miss Silver and, a little way off on the left, one of those small pocket diaries which Miss Paradine had been handing out last night. It was the blue one. He wondered how it had got there. He couldn’t remember who had had the blue one-he hadn’t been noticing. He thought it would be Mark, or Richard. He came over and picked it up. As he turned it in his hand, it fell open, as a book will do when it has been bent back to mark a place. A date sprang into view-February 1st.

With the diary still in his hand, he was aware of Miss Silver saying,

“Is it the date that interests you, or the book?”

He put it down at once.

“Oh, neither. Miss Paradine was giving these diaries as presents last night. I wondered-”

“To whom this one had been given? You think not to Mr. Paradine?”

“I don’t know.” There was some finality in his tone.

He took a chair and sat down.

“I believe you have a list of all our names. I am Elliot Wray. Mark Paradine said I could come and talk to you.”

“Oh, certainly.”

Her voice was the voice of a gentlewoman, pleasant in tone, a little prim. As he was thinking this, she said,

“What do you want to talk to me about, Mr. Wray?”

Something prompted him to say,

“I am wondering how much you know.”

Miss Silver smiled. Rather a rugged-looking young man-intelligent-not so obviously under a strain as Mr. Mark Paradine. Her excellent memory provided her with the reflection that he was one of the two members of the family circle fortunate enough to have an alibi for the time of the murder. She smiled at him.

“Not so much as I should like to know, Mr. Wray. Perhaps you will add to my knowledge. I may say that I am very glad to see you. Will you mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Not at all.”

“Well then, Mr. Wray-you do not live in Birleton?”

“No.”

“And you are engaged on confidential work in connection with aeroplane construction?”

“Yes.”

“These things are common knowledge? And so is the fact that your present visit to Birleton was connected with work being done for the government at the Paradine-Moffat Works?”

“I shouldn’t say that it was common knowledge.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Will you agree that this knowledge was common to the party dining here last night?”

He gave her a glance of quick surprise.

“Yes, I would agree to that-at least to this extent that they could all have known as much, if they had been interested. I don’t suppose any of the women would have bothered about it.”

Miss Silver coughed again.

“Suppositions are not always reliable, Mr. Wray. But let us continue. You stayed here last night, I believe, but not the night before. Had you expected to stay here at all?”

She saw his fair brows draw together in a frown as he said,

“No.”

“Had you expected to dine here last night?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me what occasioned the change in your plans?”

He said with an assumption of carelessness, “Mr. Paradine rang me up at seven o’clock. He said he wanted to see me on a matter of business.”

“And when you came out here he insisted on your remaining for dinner and staying the night. May I ask how you had intended to spend the evening?”

He gave her a curious look.

“I was dining with Mr. Moffat, Mr. Paradine’s partner.”

“And you broke the engagement?”

“Mr. Paradine broke it for me.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me-” and then, “I am going to ask you a question which you may not wish to answer. Miss Pennington and Mr. Mark Paradine have given me an account of what took place at the dinner table last night. It must have been a very trying experience, especially for the guilty person. I understand that Mr. Paradine actually used that expression, ‘the guilty person,’ but beyond stating that the family interests had been betrayed he gave no indication of the nature of this betrayal. The police will, of course, have made enquiries on this point. I have no means of knowing what information they may have obtained, or what conclusions, if any, they may have arrived at. I should just like to ask you whether you brought any papers or plans with you on this visit. I feel sure that you must have done so.”

“Naturally.”

“You had entrusted these papers to Mr. Paradine?”

“What makes you think that?”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I feel sure of it, Mr. Wray. I also feel sure that when Mr. Paradine summoned you at seven o’clock last night it was in order to inform you that these papers, or some of them, were missing.”

Elliot jerked back his chair and sprang up.

“Who told you that? Was it Mark?”

Miss Silver regarded him with intelligent interest. Then she said primly,

“I do not imagine that Mr. Mark Paradine knows.”

Elliot was leaning towards her across the table.

“Then it was Lydia-Lydia told you.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I am quite sure that Miss Pennington does not know either.”

“Then how the devil do you know?”

Miss Silver gazed at him in reproof. To his extreme astonishment he found himself flushing beneath this gaze.

“I beg your pardon! But would you mind telling me who did tell you?”

Her look became one of forbearance. He felt himself the backward boy to whom a teacher patiently explains the obvious.

“The evidence told me, Mr. Wray. You will forgive me if I touch on what may be painful. There had been a breach between you and Mr. Paradine’s family for a year. Your dining and spending the night here could only mean one of two things-a reconciliation, or an emergency of such gravity as to cause all other considerations to be set on one side. There was no evidence of a reconciliation. Your appearance in the drawing-room just before dinner startled everyone. It was obviously quite unexpected even by Miss Paradine-even, pardon me, by Mrs. Wray. I had therefore to consider the other alternative, an emergency so sudden and urgent that Mr. Paradine himself cancelled your dinner engagement and was able to induce you to co-operate in a plan which necessitated your joining the party at dinner and staying the night. Taken in conjunction with his remark about betrayal and his statement that he knew who the guilty person was, this led me to the conclusion that Mr. Paradine had missed some important paper or papers, that he knew who had taken them, and that he believed he could put sufficient pressure on this person to secure their return. On this assumption your acquiescence and the scene at the dinner table fall naturally into place. A very serious motive is also supplied for the murder of the person who possessed such damaging information.”

Elliot dropped slowly back again into his chair. His hands still gripped the edge of the table. They continued to grip it. After a moment he said,

“You’ve been about a quarter of an hour in the house. Are you telling me that you’ve found this out for yourself? I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it. I want to know what Mark and Lydia have been telling you. I don’t want to be offensive, but you must see that if either of them knew that my blue-prints had been taken, well, it points to one of them as the thief. Only three people knew that the prints were missing-the person who took them, Mr. Paradine, and myself. If Mark or Lydia knew-”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Very well put, Mr. Wray. It is a pleasure to deal with anyone who can take a point so quickly. I can, however, assure you that neither Mr. Mark nor Miss Lydia so much as hinted at the possibility that Mr. Paradine’s accusation had anything to do with your papers. Miss Lydia merely informed me that there had been a serious breach between you and the Paradine family, but that your business relations were not affected. Mr. Mark added that your present visit was on government business of a confidential nature. My deductions were drawn from these and a number of other small facts. I gather from what you have said that they are correct.”

He let go of the table and leaned back.

“Oh, yes, they are correct.”

Miss Silver opened the green copybook and wrote in it. Then she said,

“Mr. Paradine told you that he knew who had taken the papers?”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you any indication of who that person was?”

“No, he didn’t.”

She looked up at him, pencil in hand.

“Mr. Wray, you can help me here. You are shrewd and observant. I want to know the impression made on you at the time by his voice, his look, his manner. To what extent did they betray feeling-emotion- shock?”

Elliot gave a short laugh.

“It wasn’t Mr. Paradine’s way to show his feelings.”

“Still, you might have received some impression, and you must subsequently have gone over that impression in your own mind. The discovery of the loss must have been a shock to Mr. Paradine. Did you think then, or do you think now, that this shock was a personal one?”

Elliot looked at her, first with surprise and then with attention.

“He was in very good spirits. If you ask me, I should say that he was enjoying himself. He told me I’d got to stay, and told me I should have my papers back in the morning. Since you know so much, I may as well tell you that he was perfectly right-I did get them back. They were here on his table.” He leaned over to indicate the corner on her left. “I took them, but I didn’t mean to say anything about it. I thought that Mr. Paradine’s death was an accident-we all did at first. When it seemed that it was murder, I had to consider my position. As a result I didn’t feel justified in holding my tongue, and when the Chief Constable came out here this afternoon I told him what you’ve just been telling me.” On the last words his lips twisted into an odd one-sided smile.

Miss Silver said,

“Thank you, Mr. Wray. You did quite rightly. Let us return to Mr. Paradine. He was not, you think, emotionally affected by his knowledge of the thief’s identity?”

Elliot grinned suddenly and said,

“Mr. Paradine didn’t have emotions.”

It seemed to Miss Silver that he was evading the issue.

“I will put it another way,” she said. “Mr. Paradine had ten guests last night. From your own observation, for which of those ten people had he most affection?”

Elliot said bluntly,

“I’m not really stupid, you know-I can see what you’re getting at. You want to know whether the person who took the papers was someone he was fond of, and whether he was upset about it on that account. Well, offhand, I should say he wasn’t. I’m not saying this to the police, and I’m not swearing to it in any conceivable circumstances, but if you want that impression you were talking about just now, I don’t mind giving it to you. I thought he’d caught someone out and he was going to enjoy scoring him off. But that may have been a put-up show. I don’t think it was, but that’s just my opinion. I’ve known one other person who could look as pleased as Punch and be in a perfectly foul temper underneath. I don’t think Mr. Paradine would have given himself away whatever he felt. He didn’t show his feelings-you wouldn’t even know whether he’d got any. He had a very detached, sarcastic manner. But if you want my own personal impressions about him and the family, here they are. I think he was fond of my wife. And I suppose he was fond of his sister-she’d kept house for him for twenty years. But that’s supposition, not impression. I believe he thought a lot of Mark. He’s in the research department, and he’s done very good work. He wanted to go off to the R.A.F. a couple of years ago, and Mr. Paradine went right through the roof. I wasn’t here at the time, but I believe there was an absolutely first-class row. I don’t know what he felt about Dick Paradine. Everyone in the family is rather fond of him, so there’s no reason to suppose Mr. Paradine wasn’t. Then there are Frank and Brenda Ambrose. They’re steps-his wife’s children. He thought a lot of her, and I suppose he thought a lot of them. He settled money on them when they came of age. Frank’s in the business-solid, useful kind of chap, very thorough and methodical. Brenda is a bit odd-man-out in the family-a bit on the downright side.” His laugh informed Miss Silver that this was an understatement.

She looked from him to the portrait over the mantelpiece.

“Is that the late Mrs. Paradine?”

“It is-covered with diamonds.”

Miss Silver gazed earnestly at the portrait. Fair and placid, Clara Paradine looked down upon the room. Ruby velvet and the diamonds of her husband’s choice-a plump white neck and shoulders- fair hair of an even shade-blue eyes rather widely set under colourless brows-a kindly mien… Miss Silver considered her with attention, then turned again to Elliot.

“Was she English, Mr. Wray?”

He looked at her.

“What makes you ask that?”

“It is not quite an English type. I wondered whether she had been Dutch, or German.”

Elliot said, “German.”

“And her first husband, Mr. Ambrose?”

“Oh, English.”

After a slight pause Miss Silver dismissed the subject. She said, “Please go on with the rest of the party, Mr. Wray,” and saw him frown.

“Well, that’s very nearly the lot. You’ve seen Lydia Pennington. She’s the sort you can depend on. Mr. Paradine used to make a show of disapproving of her, but it’s my opinion he liked her quite a lot-I just give it to you for what it’s worth. Miss Paradine will tell you that he loathed her. Her sister Irene is married to Frank Ambrose. Quite candidly, she’s a bit of a fool-hasn’t two ideas in her head. No, that’s wrong-she has just two, little Jimmy and little Rena. She rams them down everybody’s throat. I should say that Mr. Paradine put up with her because he’d got to. That brings us to Albert Pearson- the perfect secretary and the perfect bore. He’s some sort of third cousin. Mr. Paradine found him about three years ago supporting a widowed mother and improving his mind at evening classes.”

“Very praiseworthy,” said Miss Silver in her most decorous voice. “May I ask how he was supporting his mother?”

“He was a jeweller’s assistant, I believe. His mother died, and Mr. Paradine brought him here as his secretary. He had mugged up shorthand and typing.”

“And was Mr. Paradine attached to him?”

Elliot laughed.

“Nobody could possibly be attached to Albert,” he said.