The Listening Eye

Chapter 13

IT was some time after tea that Lucius Bellingdon found himself showing Miss Silver his collection of pictures. He was a little uncertain as to just how this had come about. It had not really been his intention to show the pictures at all, at any rate not at this moment, and not to Miss Silver. Yet as the party at tea broke up he was aware of Miss Silver putting away her knitting in a flowered chintz bag with green plastic handles and looking up at him in a brightly intelligent manner.

“So kind of you, and I shall be most interested to see them,” she was saying. And then, “I have some pictures that I am very fond of myself. Only reproductions of course, but in some cases I have been privileged to see the originals.”

After which there was no doubt that he had in some way committed himself. They went up the stairs and through to the wing which he had restored in order to house his collection. There had been extensive damage by fire at the turn of the century, and the then owner had not been able to meet the expense of re-building.

“He’d let the insurance lapse. Silly thing to do, but I don’t suppose he could find the money. Pity when an old family goes down hill like that, but no sense in hanging on to a place when you can’t afford to keep it up. Takes the heart out of you trying to do something that can’t be done.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes indeed.”

She listened with interest and respect to a disquisition on Dutch painting culminating in the proud display of a very small picture of a girl standing by an open window and putting tulips into a jar. She was a plain young woman, but the way the light came slanting through the window to touch the tulips and her smooth fair hair had an astonishing beauty. It had not occurred to her before that light could be painted, but it occurred to her now. Her comment to that effect certainly pleased Lucius Bellingdon. He went on talking, showed her a flower piece which she admired very much, and then all at once he was being addressed with some gravity.

“Mr. Bellingdon, may I take this opportunity of asking you to add to the information you have already given me?”

He showed some slight surprise, but no more than was natural.

“Why, certainly. What is it you want to know?”

“In the course of conversation Miss Bray mentioned that you had a house-party during this last week-end.”

“Yes, there were people here-there generally are at the week-end.”

“Quite so. But on this occasion, so shortly before the theft of the necklace and the murder of Mr. Hughes, I should be very interested to hear anything that you can tell me about your guests.”

He looked at her sharply.

“I don’t see-”

“I think you must, Mr. Bellingdon. I do not know just when you decided to withdraw your necklace from the County Bank, but I imagine that all the details were already decided upon at the time of this week-end party. You informed me that you had communicated them to the manager in writing, and since Tuesday was the day for the withdrawal it seems probable that your letter would have been posted on the Saturday or Sunday. Therefore any leakage of information on the subject would be likely to have occurred during that time.”

“It was posted on the Sunday.”

His tone was one of displeasure. It was by no means Miss Silver’s first experience of being invited to an investigation which subsequently proved very little to the taste of the person who had invited her. She looked steadily at Lucius Bellingdon and said,

“This is not pleasant for you, is it? Before we go any farther I should like to say that I appreciate your position. It is still for you to choose whether you really wish me to go on with the case. The police have it in hand, and there is no need for you to retain my services. It is still open to me to return to town and relieve you of the embarrassment of having introduced an enquiry agent into your private family circle. But what I must make quite clear to you is this. The course I have proposed is possible now, but it may not be possible tomorrow. It could, in fact, become impossible at any moment.”

He was frowning deeply.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that at present I feel myself at liberty to withdraw, but if I continue on the case I am not, and could not be, prepared to hush anything up. The case is one of murder. Anything that throws light upon the murderer’s identity will be, and must be, at the disposal of the police. I am saying to you what I feel it my duty to say to any client. I cannot go into an investigation with the object of proving anyone guilty or anyone innocent. I can only go into it with the object of discovering the truth and serving the ends of justice.”

He walked a little way from her, looked fixedly at a lowering seascape, and so remained for a slow minute or two. When he came back, she saw that he had made up his mind. He said,

“Well, I like to do business with someone who doesn’t beat about the bush, and you don’t do that. If there has been a leakage, I’m bound to trace it. It could have occurred through nothing worse than a tongue too loosely hung-I suppose you realize that.”

She inclined her head.

“You wish me to remain here?”

He said “Yes-” in a considering tone. Then, more firmly, “Yes, I do. There is such a thing as any sort of certainty being better than not knowing where you are. If there’s a worm in a board I like to know it and have it out before it lets me through and I break my ankle-or my neck. And that being that, what do you want to know about last week-end?”

“Just who were the guests, and something about them.”

“The question is, what did Elaine tell you? She can generally be trusted to talk.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I should prefer you to assume that Miss Bray did not say anything at all.”

He gave a short laugh.

“That’s a pretty tall order, but I’ll do my best! To begin with you have to understand that there are very few week-ends when we don’t have people here. Moira is young and she asks anyone she likes. I have people down on the sort of business that goes better when it isn’t done in an office. Well, last week-end there was this young chap Wilfrid Gaunt who is coming down tonight-he’s by way of fluttering round Moira. And another young chap called Masterson. And some people for me of the name of Rennick-Americans, a very nice couple. And Elaine’s brother Arnold Bray. And that’s the lot.”

She asked him questions eliciting very much the same information as had been imparted by Miss Bray. Clay Masterson was a clever chap, keen to get on, but there wouldn’t be a lot of money in running round the country looking for antiques-not at this time of the day.

“Everything worth having must have been pretty well combed out by now, and you have got to have all your wits about you not to be taken in. He’s a friend of Moira’s too. But she isn’t serious about any of them. That’s the worst of all this running about together-it’s all very nice and easy, but it doesn’t get a girl anywhere. What Moira wants is a home of her own, but all she does is to play around. It’s ‘Darling’ here and ‘Darling’ there, but I wish I thought she cared a snap of her fingers for any of them.”

“You would like your daughter to marry again?”

“I’d like to see her settled.”

It was said with emphasis. Miss Silver did not pursue the subject. She turned instead to Mr. Arnold Bray.

“He is Miss Bray’s brother?”

“He is. Didn’t she mention him?”

“Only in passing.”

He gave a short angry laugh.

“Well, one wouldn’t feel tempted to dwell on Arnold! To be honest, he’s a liability. I suppose most families have something of the sort knocking about. He comes when he’s short of money, and he goes when he’s got enough to make it worth his while. I can only stand him for just so long, and he trades on it. But if you are thinking of him for your murderer you’ll have to think again. He simply hasn’t got the guts.”

Miss Silver asked a practical question.

“What does he do?”

Lucius Bellingdon was at his most overpowering as he replied,

“As little as he can help.”

Observing the jut of his chin, the formidable curve of his nose, the characteristic air of command, it occurred to her that it might be possible that he had undervalued Arnold Bray in respect of what he had rather coarsely referred to as “guts”. The expression offended her, but she did not allow herself to dwell upon that. What presented itself with some force was the fact that it would certainly require courage of some sort to obtrude oneself upon Mr. Bellingdon as an uninvited and unwanted guest, to say nothing of dunning him for money which he was under no obligation to supply.

Lucius said,

“If you asked him, I suppose he would describe himself as a commission agent. Goes round trying to get people to buy things they don’t want and could get much better in a shop.”

Miss Silver considered that Arnold Bray sounded very much like the sort of person who might pass on any information he had the good fortune to pick up. With Elaine Bray aware that the necklace was to be fetched from the bank on Tuesday and her brother Arnold in the house for the week-end, she did not feel that the source of the leakage was very far to seek. She gave a slight preliminary cough and said,

“I do not wish to impute any wrong motive to Miss Bray, but she talks a good deal, and usually about the people round her and the things that are happening to them from day to day. Do you find it difficult to suppose that she may have mentioned your arrangements about the necklace to her brother, and that he may have repeated what she had told him? It could in either case have been done through inadvertence.”

He was at his most abrupt as he said,

“That’s out. She didn’t know what my arrangements were. She knew I was getting the necklace. I suppose she knew that I was getting it on the Tuesday. She didn’t know the time, or who would be fetching it.”

“Who did know those things?”

“The bank manager because I wrote to him, Hubert Garratt who was supposed to be fetching the necklace, and later, but not until the Tuesday morning, Arthur Hughes who had to take Hubert’s place.”

Miss Silver looked up at him.

“When you came to see me in town and I asked you how many people knew of your arrangements for withdrawing the necklace your reply included the bank manager, Mr. Garratt and Mr. Hughes, your daughter, and Miss Bray and Mrs. Scott.”

He said with impatience,

“They knew I was getting it out of the bank. I told Moira that Hubert would fetch it on Tuesday.”

“Did she regard it as a confidential communication, or as one which it would be natural to speak of amongst her friends and relations?”

He gave her a chagrined glance.

“Oh, well, I don’t suppose she considered that it was a top-level secret. I suppose she may have spoken of it here in the house. I can’t blame her if she did. One doesn’t exactly go about expecting people to be murdered.”

“When did you tell her?”

“I believe it was on the Sunday.”

“Mr. Arnold Bray was still here?”

He shrugged his big shoulders.

“And Clay Masterson, and the Rennicks, and Wilfrid Gaunt.”

“And Mrs. Scott?”

She saw an angry colour come up into his face, but he did not speak. After a moment she went on.

“Mrs. Herne could have mentioned the matter to any of these people. She could have mentioned it in the hearing of any of your staff. And any of these people could have mentioned it again. And all without evil intent. The ripples spread quickly in a pool. There were so many people in the house, some partially and some more accurately informed, and one of the latter a girl surrounded by her friends and with no particular reason to suppose that she would be doing wrong if she mentioned what was going to be a very important adjunct to her costume for the ball that you were giving. Is it difficult to see how this information could have passed rapidly from one to another until it reached someone who was prepared to turn it to his own advantage? At present we have only one clue to help us in searching for this person. It is the fact that the murderer could so little afford to be recognized that he was prepared to go to any length to avoid it. That is the point to which I find myself recurring. This man was someone who would not trust any disguise to protect him from being recognized by Mr. Garratt.”

“By Hubert?” The words came slowly.

“It was Mr. Garratt who was to collect the necklace.”

“It was Arthur Hughes who was murdered.”

“I have given some attention to that point. It could mean that Mr. Hughes was equally dangerous, or that having made up his mind to shoot, the criminal’s intention held in spite of the fact that it was no longer Mr. Garratt who would be the victim.”

Lucius Bellingdon moved abruptly.

“I don’t see that it gets us any forarder either way.”