The Listening Eye

Chapter 28

MISS BRAY was certainly in a fuss, but it wasn’t about them. Lucius Bellingdon had rung up to say that his car had broken down at Emberley, which was fifteen miles away, and he and Annabel were therefore going to be late.

“And he said not to wait supper, because they would have something there, and of course I said it would be quite all right whenever they came, because with everyone out on Sunday evening we always do have cold. Most inconvenient, but there it is. But he just said, ‘We’re dining here,’ and rang off. What I can’t understand is why the car should have broken down.”

Wilfrid said in his light malicious voice,

“My dear Miss Bray, what did you expect it to do? It’s the oldest dodge in the world. All the best cars are trained to oblige.”

Elaine looked at him, first puzzled and then cross.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. But they are bound to be frightfully late, and if Lucius says not to wait, we had better go in.”

Moira walked in just as they were sitting down. She had been home long enough to change into a pale green housecoat and to make up her face. When she heard that Lucius and Annabel had been stuck at Emberley she lifted her eyebrows and remarked that they were probably bearing up. After which she slid into her place, addressed David as “My sweet,” and said that cold food was foul, and too early-Victorian to be expected to eat it on Sunday evening, but as there wasn’t anything else, he could give her some chicken-salad. As he complied he was considering that she must certainly have taken a lift in the car which they had heard driving away.

Aware of his silent gaze, she met it with her own light stare and said,

“Well, what is it? I’ll give you a penny for your thoughts-tuppence if they’re worth it.”

They were waiting on themselves. He brought round her plate of salad and set it down.

“I don’t think they are. I was just wondering how long it took you to dress.”

She said, “Ages.” And then, in exactly the same voice, “Oh, by the way, the North Lodge is a wash-out as far as my sittings go. We’ll have them up here at the house. There’s quite a good sort of attic place-”

Elaine raised a protesting voice.

“Oh, Moira, no-not the attic!”

“And why not?”

“My dear, it’s so dusty-and things spread about all over the floor!”

Moira dismissed the topic with a casual “It’ll do.” She turned to David, who had gone back to his seat on the other side of the table. “Did you get your stuff all right?”

It was a curious little passage. Sally wondered about it. First Moira had been all over the idea of having the sittings at the North Lodge, and now she was calling them off. And she was calling them off because the man whom she met at the lodge had told her to call them off. As to his reason, it could be one of two, or it could be both of them together. He might want to keep the North Lodge for his own private meetings with Moira, or he might be cutting up rough at the idea of her meeting anyone else there. Whichever it was, Moira could hardly have appeared more indifferent than she did.

Lucius and Annabel were very late. To all enquiries he merely said that they had dined, and that they had had to leave the car in Emberley and hire one to come home. But to Miss Silver in the study he was more communicative. A touch on her arm indicated that he wished to see her there, and after a discreet interval she had followed him.

She found him with his back to her, looking out of the window. At the sound of the closing door he turned and came towards her. Her attention was at once engaged by the way he looked. There was a hardness and severity which exceeded anything which she had seen in him. The effect was formidable indeed. Without any preliminaries he said,

“The car was tampered with.”

Miss Silver gave no indication of surprise. She said in a very composed manner,

“Let us sit down, Mr. Bellingdon.”

It was like having tepid water splashed in his face. The check affronted him, but he was sufficiently master of himself to set a chair for her and to take one himself. When she was seated she looked at him thoughtfully and said,

“You have reason to believe that the mishap to your car was not accidental?”

“I know it wasn’t. There is a steep hill just out of Emberley. A wheel came off there. Fortunately, we had almost reached the bottom. If it had happened a little sooner, we should probably have both been killed. The hill takes two bad corners, and there is a sheer drop into a quarry. If we hadn’t been past the danger points we should have had it. As it was, we crashed into a bank and pretty well wrecked the car.”

“Mr. Bellingdon, are you sure that the wheel had been tampered with?”

He said, “Perfectly-if you mean am I sure in my own mind. I couldn’t prove it.”

“How would it have been done?”

“Anyone with a spanner could loosen the nuts. I suppose you’ve seen a wheel changed -well, it’s as easy as that. Anyone who wanted me to have an accident could have done it. Parker could have done it.” He gave a short laugh. “He has driven for me and looked after my car for fifteen years, but he could have had a sudden urge to kill me. It would have to be a particularly strong one, because whatever he feels about me, I should have said he worshipped the car, and it was bound to be pretty badly damaged. There’s negligence of course, but I’ve never known him negligent yet. And there’s no chance of its having happened in a strange garage, because we haven’t been near one, and if we had, Parker has a deep-rooted distrust of mechanics and he’d have checked everything over.”

Though much of this was Greek to Miss Silver, she continued to look intelligent. After a brief pause Lucius Bellingdon said harshly,

“Well, where do we go from there? Anyone could have done it, but I don’t believe it was Parker. There’s no way of proving anything, but I think someone has made an attempt upon my life-” He paused, and added on a harder note, “and Annabel’s.”

“You have indeed had a providential escape.”

He got up, drove his hands into his pockets, and went over to the writing-table. After standing there for a moment he turned and said,

“It doesn’t seem to surprise you that there has been an attempt on my life?”

“No, Mr. Bellingdon.”

“Why?”

She regarded him with composure.

“I have feared that such an attempt might be made.”

His “Why?” was repeated as sharply as before.

“Because I have not been able to feel any assurance that one such attempt has not already been made.”

“What do you mean?”

“Has it never occurred to you that the person who induced Mr. Garratt’s fit of asthma may quite reasonably have supposed that, your secretary being incapacitated, you would fetch the necklace yourself?”

He bent a hard frowning gaze upon her.

“It was Arthur Hughes who was shot.”

“I have never been able to believe that his death was intended.”

“Then why shoot him?”

“The necklace was in any case a tempting prize, and the person who took it could not risk being recognized. But I have always thought it possible that the theft of the necklace was originally intended to cover a darker and more ambitious crime.”

His laugh conveyed no idea of mirth.

“What’s the good of wrapping it up? You might just as well say straight out that someone wanted to kill me. I take it that is what you meant?”

“Yes, Mr. Bellingdon, that is what I meant.”

“Then don’t let us beat about the bush any longer. The theft of the necklace was a blind. I was to be murdered. Perhaps you can tell me why.”

She observed him mildly.

“Yes, the motive is of the first importance. Setting on one side those cases where a sudden impulse may produce a fatal result, and considering only those which involve premeditation, there are, generally speaking, three main motives for what the law calls wilful murder-love, hatred, and the desire for gain. I use the word love in the sense in which the murderer would doubtless use it, and not in my own understanding of it. I should, perhaps, have employed the term jealousy instead, since what is involved is what the French would call the crime passionnel.”

A momentary gleam of humour passed across his face.

“Well, I think you may count that one out. And I can’t think of anyone who hates me enough to kill me-not off-hand-” He broke off with an effect of suddenness.

After waiting to see if he would proceed she said,

“The third motive remains. You have great worldly possessions.”

There was a silence. He turned back to the table and stood there, straightening the pen-tray, lifting a stick of sealing-wax, a pencil. After a little he turned back again.

“You may just as well say what you mean.”

She said it.

“Mr. Bellingdon, who would profit by your death?”

He said without any change of expression.

“To a limited extent quite a number of people.” Then, as if the sound of his own voice had touched something off, look and manner betrayed a mounting intensity of feeling. “What are you suggesting? You’ll have to come out with it. I’ve never had any patience with hints, and you’ve gone too far to draw back. If you suspect anyone, you must come out with your suspicions. If you have an accusation to make, you must make it.”

Miss Silver maintained her quiet manner.

“Mr. Bellingdon, I have asked you who would profit by your death. You have not answered my question. You have asked me to be plain with you, and I am prepared to do as you ask. If, as I suppose, Mrs. Herne would benefit very largely under your will, I think you may have to consider whether she may not be the object of some design-”

He broke in as if he could no longer control himself.

“What do you mean by some design? You wrap everything up! Are you accusing Moira of trying to kill me?”

Miss Silver coughed in a reproving manner.

“That was not my intention. If Mrs. Herne were your heiress, that might provide a motive for a man who believed that she would be willing to share her inheritance with him.”

With a quick impatient gesture he said,

“A prospective son-in-law is usually prepared to wait for the decent course of nature. I don’t know which of Moira’s young men you imagine would risk a hanging to anticipate it. People do these things in melodrama, not in real life.”

She said soberly,

“Can you pick up a newspaper without finding material for a melodrama? The passions of greed and lust are essentially crude. They do not change.”

He said in a more moderate tone,

“The whole thing is preposterous. To start with, your hypothetical murderer would have to be pretty sure of Moira before he risked his neck by bumping me off. As far as I can see, there isn’t anyone in that position. Men come round her and she amuses herself with them, but there’s never been the slightest sign of anything serious since her husband’s death- not on her side at any rate.”

She did not answer him. She could have told him that he was arguing against his own fear, his own inward doubt, but she remained silent. It was only after an uneasy pause, when he said on a sharpened note, “Well, haven’t you anything to say?” that she spoke.

“Mr. Bellingdon, we are dealing with facts, not fancies. May I remind you of some of them? There was a plan to steal your necklace. The plan provided for the death of the person in charge of it. Mr. Garratt, who was to have been that person, was incapacitated, I believe deliberately. The most likely person to have taken his place was yourself. The person who did take his place was murdered. The whole plan could only have been devised and carried out by someone who was in close touch with your household. So much for the first crime. There has now been an attempt at a second. In this case not only you yourself were clearly aimed at, but Mrs. Scott was involved. Can you neglect the possibility that there may be further attempts, and that she may be involved in those?”

He made an abrupt movement.

“No, I can’t. She must go away.”

“Do you think that she will go?”

Lucius Bellingdon said, “No.”

“Your car has been tampered with and you have had a narrow escape. I gather that the accident which occurred was rendered especially dangerous by the fact that it took place on this particularly steep hill.”

“Yes.”

“Then the question would seem to arise as to whether it would have been possible for the person who tampered with your car to count on your driving down such a hill.”

“Yes, that question might arise.”

“May I ask whether you had planned to go the way you did, and whether anyone knew that you had made such a plan?”

“Yes, it was known. I spoke of it in the drawing-room before lunch. I think you were not present.”

“Will you tell me who were present?”

He said in an even voice,

“I think all the rest of the party.” He ran over the names in an undertone, “Elaine-Hubert- Arnold Bray-Sally Foster and that young Moray-Moira-Wilfrid Gaunt-Annabel-”

She said,

“You see, there is the same pattern. Anyone could have tampered with the car, but only certain people knew that you would be driving down this dangerous hill.”

He walked past her to the window, flung the curtains rattling back, and pushed the casement wide. The wind had dropped and the sky was clear. The smell of the damp earth came in, and a faint herby tang from the rosemary bush against the wall. When he was a boy he had had an ungovernable temper. He had learned to govern it, to harness it to his purposes, to make it do his bidding. It was there at his call. Not for years had it come so near to breaking loose. He stood there mastering it. When he turned and came back to his table he had the look of a man who has the upper hand of himself. His voice was grave and resolute as he said,

“Miss Silver, I offered you a professional engagement, and you accepted it. You have formed certain opinions-you are within your rights in expressing them. I invited you to come down here, and I told you that you would have a free hand. On my part, I have to decide whether I desire the arrangement between us to continue. In the event of my doing so, what have you to offer me in the way of advice?”

Miss Silver’s look was as grave as his own. She said,

“I believe you to be in considerable danger. It is not possible to say just how pressing the danger may be. From the fact that this attempt on you has followed so closely upon the murder of Mr. Hughes, and from the ruthless manner in which that murder was carried out, I am inclined to consider it to be very pressing indeed. In these circumstances, I would strongly urge you to protect yourself by letting it be known that you have made important alterations in your will.”

He gave her a sharp glance.

“Who told you that I was thinking of doing so?”

She smiled faintly.

“No one, Mr. Bellingdon. It occurred to me as advisable.”

After a short silence he said,

“And if I were to let it be known that I intended to alter my will?”

“I should consider that very inadvisable indeed.”

“Yes? On what grounds?”

“I do not really have to tell you that.” Her tone was indulgent.

He said, “No.” And then, “I’ve a good mind to do it all the same. In which case it would be now or never for the hypothetical gentleman whom you suspect of wanting to murder me. If there’s anything in this very unpleasant theory of yours, he’ll either have to get on with the job before I alter my will or give it up.”

“I believe that you would be taking a very great risk.”

“Well, do you know, I’d rather take it and get it over. I’m an impatient man and I don’t like sitting and waiting for things to happen. If there is another attempt, it may provide us with some sort of evidence. This one isn’t going to do much in that line, you know. The garage is a converted coach-house. Parker lives over it. He’s a bachelor, and he has his Sundays off- spends them with relations in Ledlington. The place would be open all day. Moira has a car there, and so has Annabel.”

She made no reply. After a moment he spoke again.

“Well, what about it? I’ve told you my plan. Will you stay and see it through?”

“Do you wish me to do so?”

Oddly enough, he did. She had come nearer to making him lose his temper than anyone had done for years, but he wanted her to stay.

Having said so, he received her acceptance with an unexplained feeling of relief. She had risen to her feet and was going towards the door, when he overtook her. He had an impulse to speak-to voice his anxieties about Annabel, to ask her what could be done to keep her safe, when she anticipated him. At the very threshold she turned and spoke.

“You are in a good deal of concern about Mrs. Scott?”

He said, “Don’t you think I have reason to be?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I have begged her to go. She won’t hear of it. That is my one objection to this plan of mine-if I speak of altering my will, it may be thought-it will be thought-” Speaking with unusual emotion, he was now unable to proceed.

Miss Silver said, “Yes.”

There was a silence between them. She put out her hand to the door, but she did not open it. Instead she turned again and said,

“A little while ago I angered you by referring to Mrs. Herne’s interest under your will. You have asked me to be plain. You have just admitted that the announcement of a prospective change in your dispositions might bring about another attempt upon your life, and that this attempt might endanger Mrs. Scott. This would implicate either Mrs. Herne herself or someone directly and overwhelmingly interested in her inheritance.”

“Miss Silver-”

“Pray allow me to continue. You said that she has many admirers but no serious commitment to any of them, and that there could be no one sufficiently sure of her interest to risk so much upon it. I agree that anyone who took that risk would have to feel very sure of his claim on her. In fact, I think that only a legal claim would provide a strong enough inducement.”

He repeated her words,

“A legal claim-”

She said with the utmost gravity,

“Mr. Bellingdon, are you perfectly persuaded in your own mind that Mrs. Herne’s husband is dead?”

They stood looking at one another. She saw surprise, anger, and something else succeed each other in his aspect. She was not entirely sure of what the third expression might be. She did not think that fear would be in keeping with his character, but it might perhaps be caution. He said,

“There has never been the slightest doubt on the subject. Oliver Herne took his car out and crashed on a mountain road. He was alone, and the car was burnt out. The body was considerably disfigured, but there was no reason to doubt that it was his. It was identified by Moira and his mechanic. His signet-ring and his cigarette-case were recovered. There has never been the slightest reason to suppose that the evidence was insufficient or unreliable. I should like to ask why you have made this astonishing suggestion.”

She said,

“I think you know why I have made it. You said yourself that the hypothetical murderer whom we were discussing would have to be very sure of his claim upon Mrs. Herne if the realization of that claim was to be the motive for his attempt on your life. From what I have been told about Mr. Herne by yourself as well as by others I have formed the impression that he was a reckless young man, living for excitement and not too scrupulous as to how he came by it. Such a character would fit into the pattern of recent events, and a husband’s claim upon Mrs. Herne’s inheritance might provide the temptation.”

He gave an angry laugh.

“I’m afraid you have too much imagination!” he said. “Moira’s marriage was turning out just as I told her it would turn out. He was spending her money, and they were quarrelling all the time. Any feeling she may have had for him was quite gone and they were on the brink of a divorce. I can assure you that as far as Oliver Herne is concerned I can rest easy and so can he. He won’t come back from the grave to trouble us.”