The Fingerprint

Chapter XXX

THE FOLLOWING DAY being Sunday, Miss Silver attended morning service in the church at Deeping. Georgina did not come with her, and Mirrie was much divided in her mind. She would have liked to wear her new black coat and skirt and the little hat with the veiling. Since the funeral was over, she wouldn’t need to be all over dead black right up to the neck. Mrs. Fabian said she could wear a white jumper or a white blouse and the string of pearls that Jonathan had given her. And she needn’t wear black gloves. That was the funny thing about Mrs. Fabian, she wore the oddest things herself, years out of fashion and quite dreadfully ugly, but she knew what was all right for a girl to wear, and what simply wasn’t done. It didn’t matter how old your clothes were in the country so long as they were the right sort of clothes, and she could wear her little black hat to go to church in because of it being church and Sunday, but it wouldn’t do for every day. In the end she didn’t go to church, because Johnny said he would take her out in his car.

Miss Silver enjoyed the quiet service, listened attentively to a kind, practical sermon, and came out into a blowing wind and the threat of rain. She was going to lunch with the Abbotts, and was relieved to find that they were able to reach the shelter of the house before a really heavy shower came down.

Lunch over and Colonel Abbott retired to the study with the Sunday papers, the two ladies, esconced themselves comfortably in the morning-room.

It was some time later, after a full and frank discussion of village affairs, that Maggie Bell’s name came up. Monica Abbott was never quite sure which of them had mentioned it, but all at once it was there, and she was saying,

“I don’t suppose she has had the receiver away from her ear for more than five minutes since Wednesday morning.”

Miss Silver coughed in a noncommittal manner.

“Ah, yes-the party line.”

“One doesn’t grudge it to her,” said Monica, “because really I don’t know what she would do without it. It prevents her feeling out of things, if you know what I mean. And it would be all right if one could remember that she was probably listening, but of course one is so terribly apt to forget. I know I have always said I didn’t care who heard me ordering the fish, but of course there are times! When Cicely was so unhappy, for instance, and Grant used to ring her up and she wouldn’t speak to him. I’m quite sure Maggie didn’t miss a single word of it. Oh dear, what a miserable time that was.”

Miss Silver said in her kindest voice, “But so happily over now, my dear.”

Monica Abbott whisked away a tear.

“Oh, yes! And Grant is so good for her. She is a proud, obstinate little thing, you know, and it would be fatal if he were to give way to her. She would only despise him, and she might get to be quite like her grandmother, which would be dreadful for us all.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Cicely has too warm a heart for that. And she is happy. Have you ever considered that Lady Evelyn must have been a most unhappy woman?”

A spark replaced the tear.

“She was a very cruel and mischief-making one. And it’s no use your trying to make me feel sorry for her, because I can’t. Oh, I suppose I can, but she was so horrid to Reg, and to Frank’s father and mother, and to Frank. Don’t let’s talk about her any more.”

Miss Silver said,

“I was going to ask you whether it would be possible for me to pay a short visit to Maggie Bell.”

Monica gazed. Her eyes were the same sherry-brown as Cicely’s, but she was much better-looking. In place of Cicely’s wayward charm she diffused an atmosphere of warmth and kindness. She said quickly,

“Oh, but she’d love it! She adores having visitors, and especially on a Sunday afternoon, because if she is well enough to be left, Mrs. Bell goes over to see a sister in Lenton and Maggie is alone.”

“So I understood from Georgina. She has provided me with some magazines and picture papers as an introduction-if one is needed.”

At half-past-three Miss Silver rang the bell of Mr. Bisset’s private door. If she had depended on Mr. Bisset answering it, her errand would have been a fruitless one, since by two-thirty on a Sunday afternoon at the latest he was plunged in a slumber too deep to be broken by any bell. It was Mrs. Bisset, whose repose was of a lighter character, who came to the door and found Miss Silver standing there. She hadn’t been expecting anyone, because everyone in Deeping knew that she and Mr. Bisset liked to take it easy of a Sunday afternoon. And she wasn’t best pleased when she saw who it was, because sleep as tidily as you will, there isn’t anybody that looks as neat when they wake up as what they did before they dropped off. She put up a hand to pat her hair, repressed an inclination to yawn, and was about to ask what she could do for Miss Silver, when she was forestalled.

“Pray forgive me for disturbing you, Mrs. Bisset, but I heard from Mrs. Abbott that Miss Bell was likely to be alone this afternoon, and I wondered if she would care for a visitor. I have some magazines for her from Miss Georgina Grey.”

There was something so warm and friendly in the way this was said that Mrs. Bisset relaxed. Stepping back a yard, she raised a rather strident voice and called up the stairway,

“Lady to see you, Maggie! Are you awake?”

It appeared that she was, and Miss Silver being encouraged to go right up, Mrs. Bisset returned to her comfortable easy chair and to the rhythmic snores of Mr. Bisset.

Maggie Bell was on her sofa by the window. Sunday afternoon was a dreadfully dull time. Mum went over to see Aunt Ag at Lenton, and the telephone might just as well have been dead for all anyone used it. There was the wireless she could turn on, but she wasn’t all that fond of music, or of talks either for the matter of that. It was people she liked- people she knew and who knew her-what they said to each other when they didn’t think anyone was listening-the appointments they made, and the things they ordered from the shops. You found out quite a lot about people when you listened to what they said on the telephone, but Sunday afternoon was a wash-out. She had a magazine, which she called a book, lying open in her lap, but she had lost interest in it. There was a girl in the serial that she didn’t have the patience to read about. There was ever such a good-looking young man after her, with money and a nice place and all, and all she did was to bite his nose off every time he spoke to her. Just plain silly was what Maggie called it. If it hadn’t been in a story, he’d have gone off and never given her another thought, same as Annie White’s young man did when she cheeked him once too often.

Miss Silver’s knock was a most welcome sound. She brought two magazines and three picture papers from Georgina and a book from Mrs. Abbott, who had had it given to her for Christmas and thought Maggie might like to look at it. It was called Dress Through The Ages and there were a great many pictures, so Maggie thought she would. Meanwhile she set herself to make the most of her visitor. Miss Silver had been at the funeral, she had lunched at the Abbotts’, and she was actually staying at Field End, all of which combined to make her a most desirable source of information.

Miss Silver was so amiable in her response that they were soon launched upon one of those long, comfortable conversations which cover a great deal of ground and are trammeled by no special rules. At first the questions were mostly Maggie’s, and the replies, nicely calculated to maintain the interest of the proceedings whilst adding very little to what had already appeared in the Press, were Miss Silver’s. It thrilled Maggie Bell to be told what Miss Georgina and Miss Mirrie had worn at the funeral-everything new, the both of them.

“And time some of the ladies did the same, if you ask me. There’s Mrs. Fabian-you wouldn’t credit it, but that black costume of hers, well, it’s one she had when Mr. Fabian died twenty years ago! That’s what Mum says, and she ought to know, seeing she’s had it in I don’t know how often, letting it out when Mrs. Fabian puts on and taking it in when she goes down again, to say nothing of lifting the hem when skirts go up and dropping it again when they come down. And last time she had it in, she took and told her straight, Mum did. ‘Mrs. Fabian,’ she said, ‘it isn’t worth what I’ll have to charge you for the alterations, and that’s the fact,’ she said.”

When the murder had been discussed and the enthralling subject of clothes exhausted the conversation, guided by Miss Silver, began to concern itself with the disadvantages of a party line.

“I am sure, with so much going on and so many police calls, you must find it very disturbing. There is that peculiar tinkle every time anyone is rung up, is there not? And of course there is always the possibility that the call is for oneself. It must be a great help to Mrs. Bell to have you here to attend to all that sort of thing.”

Falling comfortably into Miss Silver’s assumption that a tinkle could be readily confused with a ring, Maggie said in a longsuffering tone that it was ever such a nuisance, but of course she had to do what she could to help poor Mum, or she’d never be able to get on with her work.”

These preliminaries over, Miss Silver coughed and said,

“I suppose you would not happen to remember whether you were much disturbed on Tuesday evening? But no-it’s so many days ago now, and even at the time I do not suppose you would have noticed anything.”

Maggie bridled. She was the noticing sort and nobody was going to tell her she wasn’t. And as to not remembering, there wasn’t one single thing that happened in Deeping or round about that didn’t stay just as sharp and clear in her mind as when it happened. She said as much, and was rewarded by Miss Silver’s declaring that it was a gift.

“Do you really mean to say that you could remember whether anyone rang up Field End on the Tuesday evening?”

Maggie nodded, her sharp little face intent.

“Miss Cicely did for one.”

“Do you remember what time that was?”

“It was eight minutes to ten. Miss Cicely wanted some pattern or other, and Miss Georgina said to come over and get it any time in the morning-only come the morning I don’t suppose either of them thought about it because of Mr. Field being murdered on the Tuesday night.”

“And was that the only call for Field End on Tuesday evening?”

“Ten o’clock Mum started getting me to bed. The bell went twice, but we didn’t take any notice. My back was bad and Mum was having a job to get me moved. She brings the phone over nights once I’m in bed. Sometimes it rings and sometimes it doesn’t. When it does as likely as not it’s someone ill and ringing up the doctor from the call-box at the corner, and if it’s one of my bad nights I don’t always bother.”

Miss Silver looked at her compassionately.

“Was Tuesday one of your bad nights?”

Maggie screwed up her face.

“Well, it was. Mum sleeps in the next room. I don’t call her unless I’ve got to-you can’t work all day and not get your rest at night. The phone’s kind of company.”

“Did anyone ring up Field End after you were in bed?”

“Well, they did.”

“Do you know who it was?”

Maggie shook her head.

“Not but what I’d heard him before.”

“You mean you knew the voice?”

“I’d heard it before-not to know who it was though.”

Miss Silver sat there pleasant and composed. No one would have known that Maggie’s answers were of any special interest or importance. To Maggie herself they were just a part of the nice interesting conversation she was having with Mrs. Abbott’s little visiting lady. It was always nice to have someone fresh to talk to, and it wasn’t everyone who listened to what you had to say as if they appreciated it. Miss Silver listened, and Miss Silver said,

“It was a man’s voice? Do you know to whom he was speaking?”

“Oh, it was to Mr. Field.”

“I suppose you do not remember what they were talking about?”

“Of course I remember-as far as it went.”

“How do you mean, Miss Bell?”

It enchanted Maggie to be called Miss Bell. When you never go out and you live in a village where everyone has known you since you were a baby, it isn’t a thing that very often happens to you. She became as anxious to speak as Miss Silver was to hear. Someone who really listened, someone who called her Miss Bell. A flow of words set in.

“Well, you see, it was like this. There I was in my bed, and not so bad as long as I didn’t try and move, and there was the phone and I couldn’t reach it without I did move. So first I thought I wouldn’t, and then I thought I would, and by the time I got hold of the receiver there was Mr. Field saying, ‘Rather a late hour to suggest a meeting, isn’t it?’ ”

“And what did the caller say?”

“Oh, he said he’d had trouble with his car or he’d have been down earlier-had to stop at a garage and have something done. And then he went on to say it was the best he could do-he was bound to push on to London because of having to take the first plane in the morning. ‘So it’s now or never,’ he said, ‘and the chance of a lifetime.’ And then Mr. Field said, ‘All right, come round on to the terrace behind the house and I’ll let you in. You’ll see the light.’ ”

There was a momentary pause before Miss Silver said,

“Miss Bell, did it not occur to you that the police should be informed about this call?”

Maggie sniffed.

“They’ve their own ways of finding out, haven’t they?”

“They were aware that a call had been put through to Field End at half-past-ten, but the operator was unable to tell them any more than that.”

“It wasn’t any business of mine-not if no one troubled to ask me!”

Miss Silver became aware that Maggie was not one of those who can be prompted to further confidences by severity. She said in her mildest voice,

“You are being most helpful. I am sure you can see that what you have just told me might be very important. When you heard next day of Mr. Field’s murder it must have occurred to you that the person who made that appointment on the telephone was most probably the murderer.”

Maggie said, “Oooh!” drawing the vowel out very long indeed.

“You are a great deal too intelligent not to have seen the connection and to have drawn your own conclusions.”

Maggie was twisting her handkerchief into a rope.

“Well, I did think-”

Miss Silver gave her an encouraging smile.

“Of course you did. Now you said that you thought you had heard this man’s voice before.”

“I didn’t think nothing about it! I knew right away I’d heard it. And that’s why I thought I’d keep quiet, because I thought if it was someone that was friendly with the family there couldn’t be anything to tell, and anyway least said soonest mended.”

“You knew the voice because you had heard it before? On the line to Field End?”

Maggie nodded, made a grimace as if the movement hurt her, and said,

“I’d heard it all right, and I’d know it again if I heard it again.”

“Miss Bell, when did you hear it before?”

There was no hesitation this time. Words came trippingly.

“Fortnight ago, the Saturday they gave that dance for Miss Georgina and Miss Mirrie-that’s when I heard it.”

“At what time?”

“Ten minutes past seven, because she was in the middle of her dressing and she run over to Miss Georgina’s sitting-room to take the call.”

“Who did, Miss Bell-who took the call? Miss Georgina?”

“Well then, she didn’t. He wasn’t Miss Georgina’s sort- anyone could tell that.”

“Was it Miss Mirrie?”

Maggie had coloured right up. The flush made her features look very sharp and thin. She hadn’t meant to give Miss Mirrie away, not if it was ever so. That bit about her having run over to take the call in Miss Georgina’s sitting-room had just slipped out and no harm meant. But now that it was out she couldn’t take it back. Not that she had said the name, but name or no name you couldn’t miss that it was bound to be Miss Mirrie, with her room just over the way from Miss Georgina’s.

Miss Silver had missed nothing.

“It was Miss Mirrie who took the call on the night of the dance?”

“Well then, it was.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Miss Mirrie is a very pretty girl. It would not surprise me to hear that a good many young men would be glad if she rang them up.”

Maggie nodded.

“They say she’s going steady with Mr. Johnny. But this one she was ringing up before the dance-bit of a jealous one I should say he was. He’d got to see her. Right up on his high horse he was about it. He would come down on his motorbike and he’d be out on the terrace just before twelve, and she was to come out and see him. She said something about showing him her dress-ever so pretty it was, all white frills. And he come in as sharp as sharp and said dresses weren’t nothing to him, but he’d got to see her and tell her about new arrangements for where to write. Said the old ones weren’t safe any more, and nor was the phone, and she wasn’t to ring him up on any account or there’d be trouble. And he rung off without giving her time to say anything.”

“You are sure it was Miss Mirrie he was speaking to?”

“Oh, yes, there was several times she tried to get a word in and he wouldn’t let her. Right away at the beginning he said he doesn’t want anything out of her, only to listen to what he’d got to say and do like he told her.” Maggie tossed her head. “Well, I know what I’d have said to him, talking like that! But all she did was to say, ‘Oh!’ and shut up like he told her.”

“You are sure about its being the same voice that was speaking to Mr. Field on Tuesday night?”

“I didn’t mean to say, because of Miss Mirrie, but I’m sure all right.”

There was a vexed sound in Maggie’s voice. She lay immovable on her sofa, but Miss Silver was aware of a withdrawal. She said,

“Was that the only time you heard Miss Mirrie talking to this man?”

Maggie did not stop to think. She saw what she thought was a way out and she made a dash for it. She tossed her head again and said,

“Why, she couldn’t get a word in edgeways, which isn’t what I’d call talking to anyone!”

Miss Silver ignored the sharpness of her tone.

“No, you made it quite clear that it was this man who was doing the talking. What I am asking you now is whether there was any other occasion when you heard the same voice speaking, either to Miss Mirrie or to anyone else.”

Maggie waited a second too long before she came back with “It wouldn’t be my business if I had!”

Miss Silver looked at her kindly.

“You do not wish to do Miss Mirrie any harm. But you may be helping her, you know. If this man has been frightening her into meeting him or giving him information she may need to be protected from him. She is a very young girl and she has no father or mother. I think there is something you have not told me, and I would like you to do so. If this man is a murderer, do you not think that Miss Mirrie may be in need of protection? I would ask you very seriously indeed to tell me what you know.”

There was a moment of indecision. Then Maggie said,

“She rang him up.”

“Quarter-past eight Tuesday evening. And it’s no use your asking me what number, because I didn’t get on in time to hear it. First thing I did hear was him scolding her for ringing up. ‘And no names,’ he says, ‘or it’ll be the worse for you.’ Proper bullying way he’d got with him, and not what I’d have put up with if I’d been her. And she says oh don’t- she’d only got a minute because of their all being in the drawing-room having coffee. And then a bit about her uncle having got back from London and telling her he’d made a new will and signed it and all and he was treating her just like she was his daughter. Ever so pleased she was, and no wonder.”

“What did the man say to that?”

“Oh, he said it was a bit of all right, and he’d got a friend at court that had okay’d it or he might have thought it was just a bit too good to be true. Miss Mirrie asked him what he meant, and he said he’d got ways of finding out what he wanted to know and she wasn’t to trouble her head, he could look after them both! And she’d better be getting back to the drawing-room, or someone would be wondering where she was.”

Miss Silver said in her most serious tone,

“Miss Bell, are you quite, quite sure that the man who spoke to Miss Mirrie before the dance was the man whom she rang up on Tuesday evening at a quarter past eight, and who rang up Mr. Field and made an appointment with him later on the same night?”

Maggie stared.

“It was the same voice. I could swear to that.”

Miss Silver said,

“You may have to.”