The Ivory Dagger

CHAPTER XXXIV

Emerging from the Blue Room a little later, Miss Silver encountered Ray Fortescue. The day was a blowy one, and she was very becomingly and suitably attired in a brown tweed skirt and a soft yellow cardigan and jumper. A scarf which repeated these two colours was tied over her dark curls. Miss Silver approached her with a smile.

‘I see that you are going out. I wondered if I might speak to you for a moment. But I should not wish to detain you if you have an appointment.’

Ray’s colour came up brightly.

‘Oh, no, it doesn’t matter at all. I-I just thought it would be nice to get some Mr. There’s something about this house-I suppose it’s the central heating. It’s very nice of course but-I expect you know what I mean.’

She had a horrid feeling that if the first part of this rather hurried speech declined a little from the ways of truth, the last few words were painfully accurate. Under a kind and candid scrutiny she became convinced that Miss Silver did indeed know exactly what she meant. She was going to meet Bill Waring, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t have said so. She allowed herself to be shepherded into the Blue Room with the consoling reflection that it wouldn’t do Bill any harm to have to wait.

Miss Silver seated herself and took out her knitting. She had observed a slight restlessness which suggested that Miss Fortescue might be in a hurry. On such occasions she found that the gentle regular click of the needles had a soothing influence. Conversations conducted in a hurry were of very little value.

When after a few minutes Ray had not taken a seat, Miss Silver invited her to do so.

‘Pray, my dear, sit down. I will not keep you, but I am really anxious to ask your opinion on a matter to which I have given a good deal of thought.’

The note of mingled frankness and authority carried Ray back to the schoolroom. She dropped into the nearest chair and said in rather a startled voice,

‘What is it?’

Miss Silver pulled on her pale pink ball.

‘It is the matter of the young footman, Frederick. I do not know if you have observed him at all particularly.’

Ray showed frank surprise.

‘Oh, yes. He is a nice boy. His people live in the village. Mary Good was telling Lila about them.’

Miss Silver knitted placidly.

‘Indeed? Now that is just what I was hoping for-a little information about Frederick. Pray proceed.’

A hint of distress came into Ray’s voice.

‘But, Miss Silver, you don’t think he had anything to do with it? I mean, he really is a nice boy-everyone says so. He’s just waiting to be called up, you know. And then he wants to go to one of those vocational places they have now and train for something. He doesn’t want to stay in service-he’s just putting in time. He’s frightfully keen to get on because there’s a girl, and he’s planning to save all he can so that they can get married by the time he’s twenty-one.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘And did Mary Good tell your cousin that also?’

‘Oh, no, he told me that himself. I asked him what he was going to do when he’d finished with the Army and it all came out. I like boys, you know, and they’ll always talk to me. As a matter of fact it was his being so sure about Lila that broke the ice. He came in here to show me where the telephone was on that very first day and quite burst out with it. I thought he was rather a lamb, because about every other person in the house was going round glooming and believing the worst.’

Miss Silver found these remarks of considerable interest but rather lacking in clarity. In the tone of one who encourages a backward pupil she said,

‘Perhaps you will tell me what Frederick actually said.’

‘I will if I can. I don’t know that I remember exactly…Oh, yes, he sort of burst out like I said-“Miss Lila never did it!’ I’m sure he said that, but I can’t remember the rest of it-something about the police-“They’re thinking she did it, but of course she didn’t.” I’m not sure about that part, because I was in a hurry to get to the telephone.’

She could hardly have given herself away more completely. With Lila under the suspicion of murder, she had been able to devote only a fragmentary attention to the one person who protested her innocence. Her colour flamed. If Miss Silver hadn’t known all about her before, she would certainly do so now. She might just as well have said straight out, ‘I was going to ring up Bill Waring, and I hadn’t room in my head for anything else.’

Miss Silver said, ‘I see-’ Her gaze rested calmly on Ray’s flushed face. ‘And was that all?’

‘Oh, yes-I think so. He went away.’

Miss Silver smiled very kindly indeed.

‘And you rang up Mr. Waring at the Boar. You would naturally be in some concern for him.’

The flush subsided. It didn’t matter what Miss Silver knew. Ray said quite simply,

‘Yes, I was. You see, he asked me to come down here-I told you about that-and I hadn’t seen him. I wanted to see him dreadfully. I didn’t know if he was being arrested or anything. That is why I wasn’t taking much notice of Frederick. Lila was here in the house, and I knew what was happening about her-I mean, I knew she wasn’t being arrested or anything. But I didn’t know about Bill. And I expect you know how it is, when people are out of sight you can’t help thinking of all the things that might be happening to them.’

There was a note of appeal in her voice, and before Miss Silver could make any reply she went on in a kind of soft rush.

‘I keep thinking like that all the time. Sometimes I feel as if it’s too dreadful to happen. And then I feel it must be going to happen just because it is too dreadful. I mean, I can’t really see why they don’t arrest him. He was there, and Lila was there, and I know that neither of them could have done it, but I can’t see why the police should think so, or why they didn’t arrest them straight away. And now I am afraid they are going to. You know, Mary Good lives next door to Inspector Newbury, and Mrs. Newbury is her cousin or something.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘She has been talking?’

‘Well, not really. She just said that some big man was coming down from Scotland Yard tomorrow-a Chief Detective Inspector, I think. And she kept looking at Lila in a hushed sort of way-you know how people do when they think something horrid is going to happen and they feel sorry for you. I think she is sorry for Lila. She has got rather fond of her, you know.’

Miss Silver inclined her head.

‘Let us now return to Frederick. He is also sorry for your cousin. I would like to know a little more about the attachment you mentioned. Is it a local girl?’

‘Oh, yes. Didn’t I tell you? She is a sort of relation of Mary Good’s. You know how it is in country places, they are all married to each other’s relations or something. This girl’s name is Gloria Good. Her stepfather married an aunt of Frederick ’s, and she isn’t very happy at home. Frederick gets worried because he’s afraid she will run away, and she isn’t seventeen yet.’

Miss Silver smiled benignly.

‘He seems to have confided in you to a considerable extent.’

‘Oh, he’s bursting with it, poor lad. Boys will always talk if you let them, and he saw I was interested. People are interesting -don’t you think so? The way their minds work, and the odd kind of things they do.’

Miss Silver had recourse to Alexander Pope for an apt quotation.

‘ “The proper study of mankind is man”.’

Ray looked a little taken aback. She hadn’t been studying Frederick -she had merely listened to him. She said so, and added,

‘He was so worried, poor lamb, or he wouldn’t have-’

Since she did not finish the sentence, Miss Silver prompted gently,

‘He would not have-’

Ray’s colour rose.

‘Well, I was going to say something, but I had better not. It wasn’t anything really-just the sort of thing boys do. I wouldn’t like him to get into trouble.’

Miss Silver coughed gently.

‘He was so worried? He did something that might get him into trouble, but it wasn’t anything serious?’

‘Oh, no.’ Ray sounded distressed. ‘I oughtn’t to have said anything. I thought I had stopped in time, but you’re so quick.’

Miss Silver looked at her gravely.

‘I really think you had better tell me what you mean. If it has nothing to do with the case in which we are both so much interested, I will regard it as a confidence. If on the other hand it has to do with that case, you would be very unwise to withhold it, and you will not expect me to do so.’

‘Oh, but it isn’t anything like that-it isn’t really. I’d better tell you, or you will be imagining all sorts of things. It’s only that Frederick slips out of the house sometimes after he has finished his work and goes down to see Gloria. I know he did it once when they had had a quarrel and he wanted to make it up, and another time when he thought she was going to run away. You won’t say anything, will you? He really was dreadfully upset, because he said Gloria is only a kid and she wouldn’t know how to look after herself. He says his aunt is quite kind and the stepfather isn’t a bad sort, but he and Gloria have rows, and then Frederick has to soothe her down and stop her from doing anything silly.’

Miss Silver gazed abstractedly at little Josephine’s vest, which was now between four and five inches in length.

‘You interest me extremely,’ she said. ‘Since Frederick has been so informative, may I ask whether he mentioned at what time he was in the habit of getting out of the house?’

Ray had a rueful expression.

‘I expect it would be pretty late.’

‘After Marsham had made his rounds?’

‘Well, I expect so.’

‘And Gloria-he could hardly expect to find her up at such an hour.’

Ray coloured high.

‘Oh, Miss Silver, I do feel such a beast, giving the poor child away like this. But I’m sure there wasn’t anything wrong-I’m really sure there wasn’t. He’s just a boy, and frightfully romantic and very fond of her. And there’s an apple tree-he gets into the crotch about a yard away from her window and they talk. The aunt and the stepfather are on the other side of the house, and anyhow nothing wakes them. But there’s no harm in it-or he wouldn’t have told me, would he?’

Miss Silver gave a thoughtful cough.

‘Did Frederick happen to mention whether he was out of this house on the night of the murder?’

The question hit Ray like a blow. Afterwards she couldn’t think why it had been left for Miss Silver to ask it. Her mind had been taken up with Bill, with Lila, with herself, and with the relation in which they stood to each other, and she to each of them. Frederick ’s artless tale had remained upon the very surface of her thought. She did not connect it with herself, with Bill, or with Lila. It was like something she had read in a book picked up to pass the time. And then all at once it was real, it linked up. She caught her breath and stammered,

‘No-no-I never thought-he didn’t say-’

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

‘I was wondering if it was he who left the door to the terrace unfastened,’ she said.