The Listening Eye

Chapter 37

INSPECTOR ABBOTT was of the opinion that the elimination of Mr. Masterson and Mrs. Herne was, to use a favourite word of Miss Silver’s, providential. His present use of it, however, drew from her a look of reproof which stimulated him to defend himself.

“A particularly cool and dangerous murderer, and one of the most callous young women I have ever encountered as his accessory before, during and after two murders and two attempted murders-and I don’t suppose it would have been possible to get up a case against either of them! We might have nailed them on this last attempt, but you can’t even be sure about that. The girl was in her own home-she had married Masterson secretly, and he was visiting her. By the way, I’m sorry the evidence about the marriage didn’t come through yesterday-not that it would have made any particular difference if it had. But what put you on to the idea that there might have been a marriage?”

“The fact that whoever was acting with Mrs. Herne must be very sure of his hold over her. I felt convinced that there must be some legal tie. It might have been that Oliver Herne had survived the wreck of his car. Or Mrs. Herne might have made a second marriage. I asked you to ascertain if there was any record of such a marriage at Somerset House because I felt the urgent necessity of discovering the identity of Mrs. Herne’s male associate.”

“Yes, it would have been useful. But the fact that they were married could have been used to cover up this last attempt at any rate. Since they are both dead, it doesn’t matter, but if it had ever come to a trial he had his excuse ready. He was in her room, they heard Bellingdon cry out, and they ran in to see what was the matter. Counsel for the defence could have made a lot of play with that, and there is no proof-absolutely none-that he shot Arthur Hughes, or that anyone pushed Paulina Paine. Of course we might have dug something up, but then again we mightn’t. After that smash there’s not much chance of an identification by Pegler. Bray, of course, comes into it somewhere as jackal, toady, what-have-you. I’ve thought all along that he was the most likely person to have tampered with Bellingdon’s wheel. It’s the sort of sneaking trick he’d be good at. No risk, no responsibility, just a few turns with a wrench and some easy money. But if he played that trick once, then he certainly played it again, and on his associates this time. Masterson probably tried to bilk him, and he wasn’t standing for it. Of course there’s no evidence there either, and never will be. An immoral suggestion, but I should say it would pay Bellingdon to give him a small allowance which would cease at his death or if Arnold ever showed up again. He’s a slimy bit of work and best kept at a distance.”

Miss Silver looked at him gravely and steadily.

“Whose work?” she said.

“You mean, what made him like that?”

“Well, what has made any of them like that-Clay Masterson-Moira Herne-Arnold Bray? Any criminal, at any time and anywhere? Small causes a long way back-small faults that were never checked and have grown into great ones and crowded out justice, humanity. As Lord Tennyson so truly says:

Prone as he was to indulge his sense of humour in the matter of what he irreverently termed Maudie’s Moralities, Frank was bound to admit the aptness of the quotation. After a slight reverential silence he said,

“How right you are.” And then, “When are you leaving here?”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“I am travelling up to town this afternoon. It will be very pleasant to be back at Montague Mansions. I can return for the inquest if my presence is considered desirable.”

They were in the schoolroom at Merefields. He leaned back in a comfortable shabby chair and said with some accentuation of his usual coolness of manner,

“Well, you never can tell. We can find you if we want you, but I have a faint prophetic feeling that we’re not really very likely to try. I may be wrong, or I may just conceivably be right, but when there is nothing to be gained by a public scandal about an Influential Person it is surprising what a lot can be kept out of the papers.” He sat up with a jerk. “That, my dear ma’am, was a scandalously heretical observation and one which should never have been permitted to pass my lips. In fact I expect you to bury it in oblivion.” There was a sardonic gleam in his eye as he added, “In point of fact I shouldn’t be surprised if the inquest didn’t result in a good many things being buried in oblivion.”

“My dear Frank!”

One of his fair eyebrows twitched.

“Well, why not? Two people have been murdered, and Lucius Bellingdon’s life has been attempted. The people who conspired in that business are both dead. What point would there be in involving the wretched Bellingdon in a public scandal? My guess is that there will be a verdict of accidental death, and that that will be that. You are no doubt about to say that someone must have loosened the nuts on the wheel and so brought about the accident, and there will certainly be talk about the coincidence that two cars from the same garage should each have lost a wheel on Emberley Hill, one on Sunday afternoon and the other during Monday night. It certainly suggests a nut-twiddling addict on the premises, and as I said, if I was asked to pick anyone for the job I should plump for Arnold Bray. It’s the sort of creeping, fiddling crime which would be right up his street. But how is anyone going to bring it home to him? I’m told there are no fingerprints in either case, so he either took care to wipe them off, or else he wore gloves for the job. So there’s no evidence against him, nor against anyone else.”

Miss Silver made a highly unprofessional remark. She said,

“Well, it would certainly save a great deal of trouble.”

Frank got to his feet.

“To Arnold,” he enquired-“or to the law?”

She smiled indulgently.

“Perhaps to both,” she said.