The Listening Eye

Chapter 14

AFTER leaving Lucius Bellingdon Miss Silver retired to her room, where an extremely comfortable easy chair offered an opportunity for rest and thought. For once her hands were unoccupied. Her knitting-bag lay on a stool beside her. She leaned back against the cushion, which admirably repeated the predominant colours in the very charming flowered chintz with which the chair was covered, and reviewed what she had gathered during the late interview. As she went over it in her mind, it was clear to her that anyone in the house could have known of and repeated the information which had made it possible for the necklace to be stolen. Mr. Bellingdon, having averred that Miss Bray did not know what were his arrangements about the necklace, went on to say that he supposed she knew that he was getting it out on the Tuesday, but stated that she did not know the time or who would be the messenger. Pressed as to who did know these things, he said the bank manager, Hubert Garratt, and at the last moment Arthur Hughes. But to further questioning he admitted that his daughter knew that the necklace was to be fetched on Tuesday. Miss Silver found herself perfectly convinced that what was known to Miss Bray and to Moira Herne would be no secret from the rest of the house-party. If it was generally known, it would be generally and freely discussed. In which case the Hiltons, Mrs. Stubbs, Mrs. Donald the gardener’s wife, and the dailies from the village could also have been in possession of the facts and could have passed them on just by way of gossip and without any criminal intent. She considered sedately that really men had very little idea of what went on in a house. It was the women who worked there, and especially those who went to and fro from their work to a neighbouring village, who had an unerring instinct for anything out of the way and an unflagging interest in retailing it. Lucius Bellingdon might flatter himself that no one knew anything which he had not himself imparted, but she had no doubt that he was mistaken. As to his point about the time being unknown to anyone except himself and Hubert Garratt, Mr. Garratt might not have considered himself bound to secrecy. He might, for instance, have mentioned the matter to Mrs. Herne.

She had reached this point, when there came a gentle tapping on the door. Mrs. Scott made a graceful entrance.

“I do hope I am not disturbing you. I really did want to have a little talk if you can spare the time.”

Her smile was charming. Her whole manner was charming. It said, “I want to be friends. I do hope you will let me.” There was just a touch of diffidence which, like the quality of her voice, made her seem younger than she was.

Miss Silver responding, Annabel pulled up a second and rather smaller chair and sat down. All her movements were easy and pleasant to watch. She leaned forward now, an elbow on the arm of the chair, and said,

“I do hope you won’t mind, but I know why you are here.”

Whilst she was settling herself Miss Silver had reached for her knitting-bag. Taking out the almost completed shawl, she disposed its pale blue fluffiness upon her lap and began to knit. In reply to Annabel Scott’s “I know why you are here” she looked at her with grave enquiry and said,

“Mr. Bellingdon has told you?”

There was a half shake of the head with its smooth dark hair. A half laugh was immediately checked, and Annabel was saying,

“Well, he did. But I knew already.”

“Did you?”

Annabel smiled and nodded.

“Well, yes, I did. You see, I know Stacy Forrest [see The Brading Collection.] -in fact she’s a kind of distant cousin. She did a miniature of me in the autumn. I wanted to give it to Lucius for Christmas, and he was quite terribly pleased with it. She does paint beautifully, doesn’t she?”

Miss Silver acquiesced but did not enlarge upon the theme. She did not really imagine that Mrs. Scott had come here to talk about Stacy Forrest, who had been Stacy Mainwaring.

Annabel went on talking about her.

“Lucius is so critical, but he was delighted. She told me all about that affair of the Brading Collection and how marvellous you were, and when you came down here you were exactly the way she had described you, and of course I knew why you had come-I simply couldn’t help it! So then I taxed Lucius with getting you down here professionally, and he had to own up. You won’t be cross with him, will you?”

Miss Silver said, “No-” in a meditative tone, to which she presently added, “And how many people have you told about your discovery, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel laughed.

“Now you’re cross with me! I did so hope you wouldn’t be, because I really want to talk to you. And I haven’t, I really haven’t, breathed a word to anyone. I promised Lucius I wouldn’t. And of course you don’t know me enough to trust me, but I don’t break promises.”

Miss Silver smiled. There was something very attractive about Annabel Scott, a warmth in the dark eyes, a natural charm. She pulled on her ball of pale blue wool and said,

“What did you want to talk to me about, Mrs. Scott?”

It was as if something had passed over a bright landscape, the glow and the brightness were less bright, less glowing. Annabel said,

“Well, I don’t want to make too much of it, and I don’t want to say anything to Lucius. And of course it may not have anything to do with it, but just in case it has I thought somebody ought to know.“ She paused, bit her lip, and then said in a hurry, ”That Hughes boy was only twenty-two!”

Miss Silver said, “Yes,” and waited for more.

Annabel went on.

“I didn’t know him very well, I didn’t even like him very much, but there he was, just a boy, and one minute he was all right, and the next someone had shot him dead for the sake of that wretched necklace!”

Miss Silver stopped knitting for a moment and made a quotation which she considered to be apposite.

“ ‘The lust of gain in the spirit of Cain,’ as Lord Tennyson so aptly puts it.”

If Annabel was taken aback she did not show it. She murmured, “Oh, yes,” and Miss Silver turned the blue shawl and began to knit again. She said,

“Murder is indeed a terrible crime. If you know of anything which could throw any light upon the theft of the necklace and the death of Mr. Hughes you certainly should not keep it to yourself.”

“That is what I thought. Of course, as I said, it may not have anything to do with Arthur Hughes being shot, but I can’t seem to get it off my mind, so I thought if you would let me tell you about the snuffbox-”

“The snuffbox?”

“It’s supposed to have belonged to Louis XVI-a really beautiful piece of enamel. Lucius was showing it to us last week-end. He bought it at a sale in Paris about a month ago, so it’s still something new to show people, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well, he opened it to show the inside of the lid, and there it was, half full of snuff. Someone made a joke about the King’s snuff, and Mr. Rennick was explaining that of course if it was, it wouldn’t have any flavour left in it, and just as he was saying that Mrs. Rennick and I began to sneeze. Honestly, it was fierce! I can’t imagine how anyone can touch the stuff, but of course everyone used it in those days. As a matter of fact, I believe lots of people do now. Too silly, isn’t it?”

“A foolish habit.”

“It must have made a horrid mess of all those silks and satins they used to wear, but if everybody did it, I suppose nobody minded. Anyhow the minute we began to sneeze Hubert Garratt absolutely covered his face with his handkerchief and made a bee line for the door, and Lucius shut up the snuffbox and said he ought to have remembered about Hubert getting asthma, and he hoped he hadn’t been near enough for the snuff to have reached him. I was still sneezing, but someone asked would it do him any harm, and someone else-I think it was Clay Masterson-laughed and said, ‘Well, he seems to think so, the way he bolted!’ And Lucius put the box away and said it had better be cleaned out some time.” She paused, and added, “It doesn’t seem very much when you tell it.”

Miss Silver was looking at her in a brightly interrogative manner.

“That is not all?”

“No-” her voice had a reluctant sound- “not quite. Something made me look inside the box last night. It’s in that big cabinet between the windows. I was alone in the drawing-room before the others came down, and I took it out and opened it-”

“Yes, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel’s bright colouring was one of her charms. The pure deep carnation was heightened momentarily. She said,

“Nearly all the snuff was gone.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Annabel nodded.

“That’s what I thought. And I remembered something-” She paused with the half startled look of someone who has taken a step not fully realized or intended.

“Yes, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel shook her head. Then, with a burst of confidence, “Oh, I don’t know-I must tell someone. Perhaps it isn’t anything at all! It keeps coming niggling into my mind in a stupid kind of a whisper. You know the way things do-when you listen and try and make sense of them they aren’t there any more, and when you say, ‘Oh, well,’ and get on with what you were doing, there they are again!”

Miss Silver said in her temperate voice,

“If you would like to tell me what is troubling you-”

Annabel sat up straight.

“Yes, I’m going to. I meant to all along, but you know how it is when it comes to taking the plunge.”

She received an encouraging smile.

“It is something to do with the snuffbox?”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. I mean, it looks as if it might be, but I don’t know whether it is. I expect Lucius has told you all about Tuesday?”

Miss Silver released some strands of wool from her pale blue ball.

“It would be better if you were to assume that I know nothing except what was in the papers.”

Annabel gave a quick laugh.

“Well, I don’t know what was in the papers and what wasn’t-it’s all mixed up. But you know Lucius was getting the necklace out of the bank. Hubert Garratt was driving over-he was to be there at twelve. And then when it came to Tuesday morning, he hadn’t come over to breakfast. Mrs. Croft who comes up from the village looks after the East Lodge. She goes in on her way to the house, and as a rule Hubert is up and she can do his room, but when Lucius asked her if he was all right she said oh, no, he wasn’t, he’d got a bad attack of his asthma. So Lucius went off to see him, and he really was bad. It didn’t seem as if it was going to be possible for him to drive in to Ledlington and get the necklace. Lucius gave it as long as he could, and then he rang up the bank and said Arthur Hughes would go instead. But before that I took a thermos and coffee and went down to the East Lodge to see how Hubert was getting on. I didn’t suppose he’d want to see me or anyone else, but it seemed so brutal just to leave him on his own, and I thought he might like the coffee. Well, actually, he was pretty bad, and he was quite grateful. I put his bed straight and shook up the pillows and all that. He’d got everything into the most frightful mess-men do, don’t they? And when he had had some of the coffee he staggered along to the bathroom for a wash. That’s when I did the bed, and it was whilst I was doing it-” She stopped, leaned nearer, and dropped her voice. “It dropped off the pillows-he’d got them all piled up. I didn’t know what it was at first, not until I picked up some of the grains and began to sneeze-” She broke off again, and then came out with, “You’re not believing me-I can’t see why you should. I couldn’t believe it myself-not at first.”

Miss Silver went on knitting.

“I have not said that I do not believe you, Mrs. Scott. Pray continue.”

The dark eyes were not laughing now, they were wide and horrified.

“It was snuff-it really was-just the same as in the snuffbox! And it was there amongst his pillows! I picked up all the grains I could find and screwed them up in my handkerchief, and then I shook the pillows out of the window and beat them up and put them back on the bed. Well, it seems silly, but I hadn’t any opportunity of comparing the grains I had got with the stuff in the snuffbox. There was all the business about Arthur Hughes being shot and the necklace stolen, and it really did go out of my head. Only, yesterday I had put on the same suit, and there was my handkerchief with the corner knotted up, and it all came back. So I changed early and got down before anyone else and looked inside the snuffbox. And most of the snuff was gone, but there was enough left for me to compare it with the grains in my handkerchief, and there wasn’t any doubt about it at all, they were the same.”

Miss Silver said, “Yes-” in a meditative voice.

Annabel Scott watched the rhythmic movement of her hands. Knitting-needles, pale blue wool, and a baby’s shawl-they seemed such a long, long way from the thoughts that she had not wanted to think but which would not leave her alone. She said in a whispering voice,

“The snuffbox was nearly empty. Hubert went out of the room when it was open because he was nervous about the snuff. But there were grains of it amongst his pillows, and he had an attack of asthma. If he hadn’t had it, he would have been the one to go and fetch the necklace from the bank, and he would have been the one who was shot. It’s the sort of thing that sticks in your mind once you’ve thought about it. I can’t get it out of mine.”

Miss Silver said in her even voice,

“You have kept the handkerchief in which you knotted up the grains you found amongst Mr. Garratt’s pillows?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

“There are, of course, two possibilities, both of which imply a guilty knowledge of the plan to steal the necklace, either on the part of Mr. Garratt himself, or on the part of some other person. If it was he himself who possessed this knowledge, nothing would have been easier than for him to bring on his asthma by inhaling snuff. He would thus avoid being in charge of the necklace at the time of the theft. If, on the other hand, it was some other person who induced the attack, then that person’s motive must have been either to protect Mr. Garratt or to involve Mr. Hughes, since it would not have been difficult to guess that he would be a probable substitute should Mr. Garratt be incapacitated.”

Annabel gazed at her.

“It’s all too horrid! Lucius has known Hubert for simply years. I can’t believe he would do anything like that. And as to anyone wanting to get Arthur Hughes into trouble-” She stopped suddenly. “Miss Silver, you didn’t mean anything worse than that! You didn’t mean that you thought anyone might have planned to have Arthur shot!”

She had a feeling that she was being looked through and through as Miss Silver said,

“Will you tell me why you should have the thought of that?”

Annabel found herself without the ability to keep anything back. She said,

“Lucius told me about Miss Paine and the men she watched in that picture gallery. She told you one of them was looking in her direction, and that she could read what he was saying. I have a cousin who is deaf and can lip-read, so I know it can be done. Lucius said she told you this man said that the plan was to shoot the messenger who went for the necklace. If-if that was what was meant, then-then someone in this house- No, it’s too dreadful!”

Miss Silver said with gravity,

“The person who used the snuff may not have known that the plan to steal the necklace included the murder of the messenger. There could have been merely a knowledge that the necklace was to be stolen, and either a desire to protect Mr. Garratt or a wish to discredit Mr. Hughes. Do you know of anyone who could have had such a motive?”

Annabel said in a rather distracted way,

“I don’t know. It’s all too difficult. Arthur wasn’t much liked. There wasn’t anything you could put your finger on, but he just didn’t fit in. Lucius didn’t mean to keep him on. He was making a nuisance of himself about Moira for one thing.”

“Did Mrs. Herne encourage him?”

Annabel made an odd but quite expressive gesture. Her hand came out palm upwards and empty. Yet there was a suggestion that she had something to offer.

“Oh, I don’t know. She does something to these boys. It doesn’t look like encouragement, but they go in off the deep end. Arthur Hughes had gone in off the deep end. I don’t think Moira had any use for him, but he couldn’t see it, and Lucius was getting annoyed. But all that is a long way off anyone wanting to get him into trouble.”

“Had he an idea that he had been badly treated?”

“By Moira? I don’t know. I daresay he had. You know, you are making me speak about her, and I didn’t mean to. I ought not to, because I don’t like her-I never have and I never shall.”

“And why do you not like her, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel’s colour rose brightly.

“Because she doesn’t care for anything or anyone except herself-because she’s got a lump of ice instead of a heart-because she makes Lucius unhappy! There-you’ve made me say it!”

Miss Silver said,

“Pray do not distress yourself.”

Annabel looked back at her ruefully.

“I didn’t mean to say it, you know. Right up to the last moment before I came and knocked on your door I had made up my mind that whatever happened I wouldn’t breathe a word about Moira.”

“Half confidences are not very helpful.”

“No, they’re not, are they? I suppose it’s in for a penny in for a pound, and I don’t say it won’t be a relief to say what I really think, so here goes! She has been nothing but a trouble since she came into the family. When she married, I did think she would be off Lucius’ hands. He didn’t like Olly Herne. He was one of these ranting, bragging young men with a superiority complex if I’m to wrap it up, or plain swollen head if I’m leaving out the frills. He was a racing motorist, a perfect dare-devil in a car, and Moira fell for him. All Lucius could do was to tie up the money he had settled on her. Well, he crashed over a precipice.”

“During a race?”

“No, as a matter of fact he was off on his own. He and Moira had had a row, and he had left her planted and dashed off. It was rather frightful for her, because they had run out of money and she had to borrow to get home. The car was burnt out, so anything Olly had with him was lost. Moira turned up perfectly cool and said she didn’t want to talk about any of it. Lucius thinks that in a way it was a relief. Anyhow she never speaks of him, and she hasn’t got a photograph or anything. It might mean she cared more than we think, or it might mean that she just wanted to shut the door on Olly and not be bothered with him any more.”

It was plain to Miss Silver that the latter view was the one to which Mrs. Scott inclined.

Annabel threw out her hands and said,

“There! I’m being thoroughly catty, and I’ve enjoyed it! You know, I wouldn’t mind how many husbands she didn’t care about, or how many young men she played fast and loose with, if she had just one spark of feeling for Lucius.”

Miss Silver coughed mildly.

“Has Mr. Bellingdon any very deep feeling for her?”

Annabel looked startled.

“I don’t suppose he has-in fact I know he hasn’t. But he would have had if she had given him a chance, and she didn’t. Of course the whole thing started wrong-his coming home and finding her there like that. I don’t know how Lily dared. He must have been furious, and Lucius in a fury is something I shouldn’t like to have happen to me!”

Miss Silver’s busy needles stopped. She laid down her hands upon the pale blue shawl and said,

“My dear Mrs. Scott, you interest me extremely. Just why should Mr. Bellingdon have been furious?”

“Because Lily simply hadn’t any right to go behind his back and adopt a baby whilst he was over in the States on business. And I really don’t know how she dared!”

“Mrs. Herne is an adopted daughter?”

Annabel’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t know?”

“I had no idea.” She picked up her knitting again. “But surely-I did not think that an adoption could take place without the husband’s consent.”

“No, Lily couldn’t do it legally, but she had taken the child and she made a great play about Lucius being away so much and how lonely her life was, and in the end he gave in. If Moira had been different, he would have got fond of her-I’m sure he would. But it wasn’t a good start.”

Miss Silver said, “No.”