The Listening Eye

Chapter 22

IT was no more than nine o’clock when Hubert Garratt got up and made his way to the door. As far as Miss Silver could tell he had not spoken to anyone either during dinner or since they had come into the drawing-room and the young people had begun to dance. When addressed, his replies had been monosyllabic and as nearly as possible inaudible. As the dancers required most of the floor space, he was more or less forced into the group of those who were looking on. They had their little coterie around the hearth-Miss Bray with some rather aimless crochet work, Miss Silver with her knitting, Mr. Garratt barricaded behind The Times. He now folded the paper neatly and left it lying across the arm of the chair. Looking after him, Miss Silver observed that he did not appear to be at all well, and went on to enquire whether he was always as silent. Miss Bray’s reply was a little confused. She had dropped a stitch and was not being very successful in her attempts to pick it up again.

“Hubert? I don’t think I noticed. He isn’t a person you notice very much. Did you say you thought he looked ill?”

“He does not look well. This affair has been a great shock to him.”

Miss Bray had retrieved her stitch. The threads all round it were strained and the pattern would be spoiled, but she did not seem to mind. She said with a sort of bright vagueness, “Oh, yes, indeed,” and began to talk about something else.

At the far end of the room, where curtains of green brocade screened the two long windows which overlooked the park, Lucius Bellingdon stood with Annabel Scott. They had been dancing, but had come to a standstill here. With a brief “It’s hot” he sent the curtains sliding to right and left and opened a window in the recess behind them. The air came in softly and was grateful. The moon was up and nearly full. By day the prospect would be bright with colour-green of the grass and a hundred other shades of green in swelling bud and breaking leaf-now all muted, all half seen as something in a dream. From the room behind them a panel of light slanted between the curtains and met the moonlight. As they stood there, Annabel moved a step nearer and said,

“ Arnold is back.”

He took some time to answer. When he did so, it was to say,

“What makes you think he’s back?”

“I saw him.”

“Where?”

“Coming out of the station in Ledlington.”

“When?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“What were you doing in Ledlington a couple of hours ago?”

“I was taking Minnie Jones to catch her train.”

“Minnie Jones!”

“Yes. She is Arthur’s aunt.”

“I know that. What was she doing here?”

“You’ll have to ask Miss Silver about that. I gather she found the poor thing fainting in the park. She is quite terribly discreet, and she wouldn’t have told me that if she hadn’t been obliged to. But there was I with a car and an obliging disposition, and there was Minnie with no car and a train to catch, so Miss Silver forthcame, which she wouldn’t have done if there had been any other way of getting Minnie to the station.”

He was frowning in the manner which most people found intimidating.

“What on earth made her come here?”

“Minnie Jones? Your guess is as good as mine. Mine would be that she came to see Moira.”

The intimidating quality was in his voice as he said,

“What makes you say that?”

“I’m not saying it-I just told you it would be my guess.”

“Your reason for a guess like that?”

She gave him a fleeting look. There was anger in him. She wasn’t afraid of his anger-she would never be afraid of it. She said,

“Guessing and reason don’t go together.” And then, “Don’t you really know that there was something between her and Arthur?”

He gave a half contemptuous laugh.

“There was something on his side-any fool could see that. But on hers-I certainly never thought-”

The things that Annabel could have said remained unspoken. They burned in her, but she kept them back. What she did say was,

“Why has Arnold come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“How much did you give him this time?” He shrugged. “Twenty pounds.”

“Do you suppose he’s spent it?”

“Well, he said he only wanted it to tide him over.”

After a moment she said, “Minnie Jones recognized him.”

“She hadn’t ever seen him before!”

“Oh, yes, she had. She had seen him in London with”-her voice indicated quotation marks-“ ‘the gentleman who talked with Mr. Pegler in the gallery.’ ” Lucius Bellingdon asked sharply, “Who said that?”

“Miss Silver. Minnie saw Arnold coming out of the station, and she said, ‘That’s the one who was with the gentleman Mr. Pegler recognized.’ Miss Silver asked her if it was Arnold who talked to Mr. Pegler in the gallery, and Minnie said, ‘Oh, no, it was the other one.’ You had better hear the whole thing from Miss Silver herself. Neither she nor Minnie knew Arnold by name until I told them who he was, but Minnie and Mr. Pegler had seen him with the man whom you and the police have been looking for. Miss Silver is a perfect clam, but when we were driving back together and she found that you had told me about Miss Paine and that lip-reading business she did let out as much as that. Of course it’s the sort of thing that might mean a lot, or it might mean nothing at all. Nobody could be surprised to hear that Arnold had any number of shady acquaintances. This gallery man might just be a casual contact. Or he might not. The point is that Arnold knows him, and I should think it was up to the police to find out what else he knows.”

The door in the drawing-room behind them opened. Hilton stood there looking in. As he skirted the room in their direction, Lucius moved to meet him. He came up close and said in a lowered voice,

“It’s the London inspector, sir. He says he is sorry to disturb you, but if you could spare him a few minutes-”