The Listening Eye

Chapter 5

MISS SILVER stood at the window and watched Paulina Paine until she was out of sight. This was quite soon, because she took the first turning to the left, which would bring her out upon a busy bus route. She was uneasy. She did not know when she had felt more uneasy about a case on which she could not really be said to be engaged. Miss Paine had reached out for help, refused to be guided by her advice, and then gone away, leaving nothing between them except the words which, once spoken, could not be taken back. She looked down at the people passing along the opposite pavement, half a dozen perhaps, who had gone by since Miss Paine had done so-an elderly man, a young one, two middle-aged women, a young girl, a man in a black felt hat. From opposite the side street a man crossed over. He turned off as Paulina Paine had done. So did the two women, the young girl, and the man in the black felt hat. When she had watched them out of sight Miss Silver sat down at her writing-table. But she did not immediately go back to her interrupted letter. There was a moment when she picked up the pen she had laid aside to greet Miss Paine, but it was almost immediately set down again. A few moments passed during which she finally made up her mind to an unwonted course of conduct. A client’s confidences were sacred, but in a case where a violent crime might be contemplated there must be an over-riding public duty. She put out her hand to the telephone, dialled Scotland Yard, and asked to speak to Chief Inspector Lamb.

They were old friends, and though he was sometimes conscious of a feeling of exasperation when he found her mixed up in a case, she enjoyed his most profound respect. As always, she was punctilious in her greetings and in enquiries after his family.

“Mrs. Lamb is well, I hope. And the daughters? Lily’s little Ernest and the baby? They must be such a pleasure to you.”

Lamb’s daughters were his weakness. Lily was very happily married, and her children were the core of his heart. Even over his office line he could not resist the temptation to embark upon a fond anecdote or two. Had Miss Silver’s interest been simulated, the temptation would not have existed. It was the genuine warmth with which she responded to his family news that made it irresistible.

She passed to his daughter Violet, a pretty girl with a habit of getting engaged to highly unsuitable young men, the more recent of whom had included a South American dance-band leader and a long-haired crank with an enthusiastic belief that only the British Navy, Army, and Air Force stood in the way of universal brotherhood and perpetual peace. These two young men had almost brought the Chief Inspector to the point of manslaughter, from which only the calming influence of Mrs. Lamb and his other two daughters had restrained him. Miss Silver was relieved to hear that they had now faded from the scene, and that Violet’s current boy friend was an atom scientist.

“And what she sees in him, I don’t know. Head full of figures and no thought for anything else. But Mother says not to worry, it won’t last. There’s one thing, Myrtle never gives us any trouble except that she thinks of nothing but her nursing, and we’d like to see her happy in a home of her own.”

Appropriate and sympathetic comment having been made, Miss Silver came to the point.

“You are always so kind, Chief Inspector, so I hope you will forgive me for taking up your valuable time. The fact is, I have had a caller with a story which has left me uneasy, and I thought I should feel happier if I could pass it on to you.”

He listened while she repeated what Miss Paine had told her. When she had finished he exhibited some of the scepticism that Paulina had anticipated.

“You’re not asking me to believe that a couple of men would meet in a public gallery to discuss a robbery and a murder for anyone to hear!”

Miss Silver gave a gentle cough.

“That is the point, Chief Inspector. My caller’s seat was too far removed from the men for them to be within earshot of her, and there was no one else in the gallery at the time. Also the two men were not together. They arrived separately, and to an ordinary observer would have appeared to be merely exchanging a few casual remarks about the pictures in front of them.”

“You say she was too far off to have heard anything?”

“That is my information.”

“And she asks you to believe that she can tell what a man is saying at such a distance by the movement of his lips?”

Miss Silver said steadily,

“She sat in my own room and conversed with me as if she could hear every word I said.”

Lamb’s hearty laugh came to her along the line.

“And what makes you think that she didn’t?”

“Mrs. Charles Moray told me that she was stone-deaf. Charles Moray’s cousin, a young artist, rents a studio in her house.”

He said gruffly,

“Well, well, it’s all one. Seems to me a pretty fancy sort of thing, and nothing we can do about it. Suppose it’s all genuine, or she thinks it is, what does it amount to? There isn’t a clue to the men, and as she describes them you could pick up a dozen like them anywhere. There isn’t a clue to the bank, or to the stuff that’s being removed from it. A secretary is mentioned, but there isn’t a clue to whose secretary he might be. How many banks do you suppose there are in London alone? And from what you’ve told me this one could be in Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, Leeds, Birmingham, Hull, Manchester, or any one of dozens of other places. No, no, I’d follow up anything if there was anything to follow, but there isn’t. If you give me the address of the gallery, I’ll send someone round to make enquiries about the two men who are said to have been there at-what time did you say?”

Miss Silver said,

“Just before five. But they were not known at the gallery. My informant enquired.”

“Well, well, that’s that, and nothing we can do about it. I’ll be surprised if we hear anything further. But I’d better have that address.”

Miss Silver gave it to him, after which he said goodbye and rang off. She had done what she could. She could neither do nor suggest anything more. She completed the letter which she had been writing to Ethel Burkett.

The next day was very fully occupied. She travelled down to Blackheath to see Andrew Robinson, the husband of her niece Gladys, and found that she would have her work cut out if a reconciliation was to be effected. Mr. Robinson was nearly twenty years older than his wife and had indulged her whims and condoned her extravagances for a very long time. Gladys was now over forty, and he expected a more reasonable standard of conduct and some peace and harmony in his home. But if this was not forthcoming, he contemplated a separation, and his income being no longer what it had been, the sum he was prepared to allocate to Gladys was one which would necessitate the strictest economy. Miss Silver returned home persuaded that the situation was indeed a serious one, and that Gladys must be made to realize the fact. She wrote a long letter to Ethel Burkett and another to Gladys herself. She wrote to Andrew Robinson.

Her mind, being thus taken up with family affairs, had neither the leisure nor the inclination to concern itself any farther with the problem presented to her by Paulina Paine, yet waking suddenly and unexpectedly in the night, she found it vividly present. So much so that it was a long time before she fell asleep again.