Through the Wall

Chapter 24

Before going up to Cove House Miss Silver had some preparations to make. Richard Cunningham left her to them and went back to be firm with Marian Brand.

“She will be here by four o’clock, and whether you like it or not, my dear, I’ve brought a suitcase, and I’m staying too. I can sleep on the study sofa.”

Marian looked at him. She had much ado not to show all the relief she felt. She said gravely,

“There are two spare rooms. I will put you in the one Cyril had.”

“Isn’t he coming back?”

“Not today, or tomorrow. I don’t feel that we can look any farther ahead than that.”

When Ethel Burkett came up from the beach Miss Silver was packing a well worn suit-case. She exclaimed, and received an affectionate smile.

“So fortunate that your friend Miss Blundell should be arriving this evening. Really quite providential. It would have distressed me to feel that I was leaving you alone.”

“But, Auntie-”

“A professional call. And you will enjoy a tête-à-tête with your friend. I shall not be at any distance, and shall hope to return before Miss Blundell leaves.”

Her packing completed and lunch disposed of, she rang up the exchange and gave the Chief Constable of Ledshire’s private number. When his familiar voice came on the line she allowed no restless hurry to intrude upon the occasion.

“My dear Randal-”

“Miss Silver! Now where have you dropped from? You don’t sound like London.”

“No-I’m at Farne with my niece Ethel and her little girl. Such delightful weather. But tell me of yourselves. Rietta is well?”

“Blooming. And the boy is immense. We have begun to call him George.”

“And your dear mother?…And Isabel-and Margaret?”

He had with these two sisters once shared a schoolroom over which Miss Silver presided. Her voice could still evoke its memories. The delicate spoiled little boy whom she had taken over had outgrown these drawbacks. She would never have admitted to having any favourite among her pupils, but she had remained on terms of close affection with the March family, and during the last few years had been more than once brought into what she herself would have described as professional association with Randal. His feelings for her were those of affection, gratitude, and the deepest respect, with an occasional tinge of impatience. She had a way of cropping up in the middle of a case and disrupting it. The fact that she was so often right did not really make things any better.

As he answered her warm enquiries he could not help wondering whether her call was a purely friendly one. He would like to see her, Rietta would like to see her, and they would both like to exhibit George in the breath-taking performance of pushing himself up on to his feet, staggering three steps, and sitting down bump with a fat face wreathed in smiles. So far the natural man. But the Chief Constable could not help remembering that a rather well-known young woman had just been murdered no more than a mile from Farne. Crisp was investigating the affair. There should, of course, be no connection with Miss Silver, but if there were, he felt sorry for Crisp, who had encountered her before. A most excellent, zealous, and efficient officer-his mouth would always twist a little over the commendation.

Miss Silver’s discreet cough came to his ear. The social preliminaries were over.

“I should be glad of an opportunity of talking to you, Randal.”

He thought, “Now we’re getting down to brass tacks,” and said aloud,

“About anything special?”

“About Miss Adrian.”

“Don’t tell me you are mixed up with that affair!”

“To some extent, Randal. She approached me professionally just before I came down here at the beginning of the week. I did not see my way to undertaking the case. I met her yesterday morning in Farne. We had some further conversation. I was subsequently invited to a picnic that afternoon, I went. I was there for some hours. I met a number of people in whom you will now be interested, and I had another conversation with Miss Adrian in the course of which I advised her to leave at once and go back to town. I have today accepted an invitation to stay at Cove House with Miss Marian Brand.”

The reaction of the natural man to this was, “The devil you have!” The Chief Constable suppressed it. After no more than a moment’s pause he said,

“I think I had better see you before you go.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Thank you, Randal. I think it would be as well. I shall be catching a bus at the station just before four.”

He could picture her, neat, shabby, indefatigable, suit-case in one hand, handbag in the other, the flowery chintz affair with her knitting hanging from a wrist. She was probably going to be a nuisance. Crisp was certainly going to be very much annoyed. But when all was said and done, she was the one and only Miss Silver. He said in an affectionate voice,

“You can give the bus a miss. I’ll drive you out when we’ve had our talk. I’m telling Crisp to meet me there. I want to see the lay-out.”

An hour later she had told him what she had already told Richard Cunningham, with some additions.

“I do not know if you are aware that Miss Adrian was engaged to be married.”

They were in Muriel Lester’s bare, bright sitting-room, Miss Silver in the sofa corner, March in the least uncomfortable of the chairs. A narrow strip of orange linen framed the wide window without offering any suggestion that it formed part of a curtain or could contribute to screening the room at night. There was nothing on the walls except distemper, but the narrow mantelshelf supported a writhing torso. There was no clothing, there were no arms or legs, there was no head. Miss Silver regarded it with philosophic detachment, but little Josephine still said “Poor!” whenever it attracted her attention.

March shifted his chair so as not to have to look at it.

“Engaged to be married, was she?”

She was knitting briskly.

“To a Mr. Fred Mount, a well-to-do business man a good deal older than herself. He and his family hold strict views about morality. It was on this account that Miss Adrian would neither go to the police nor take my advice and tell her fiancé the whole story.”

He looked at her quizzically and said,

“And what was the whole story?”

“I do not know. She did not admit that there had been anything between her and Felix Brand, but his feeling was very obvious, and I have no doubt that she had encouraged it. Just at the end she said to me, ‘It’s no good hanging on to things when they’re over, is it?’ That was when I took that walk with her during the picnic. She had asked me for my impressions, and I gave them to her for what they were worth.”

“And what were they?”

She repeated the words which she had quoted to Richard Cunningham.

“‘Envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.’”

“On the part of Felix Brand?”

“I would not say that. He was in a state of jealous passion and despair. She was tormenting him by paying as much attention as possible to the other two men. But he was not the only unhappy person there. Mrs. Felton was obviously in a state of deep depression. She was unhappy about her husband, about their relationship, about the financial demands he was making on her sister. She hardly spoke or raised her eyes. Penny Halliday was equally unhappy. She has been brought up with Felix Brand, and she loves him with all her heart. She is a young girl, very single-minded and devoted. She has had to stand by and see another woman playing havoc with his health, his career, his whole character.”

“It was like that?”

“I think so. He has shown promise as a composer, but he has left everything go for Miss Adrian. Then there is Mr. Felton, an insincere young man a good deal concerned with the impression he wishes to produce. He does not support his wife, and objects to supporting himself if anyone else can be induced to do so. I think there is very little doubt that it was he who was blackmailing Miss Adrian. And there are the two older ladies, Mrs. Brand and her sister Miss Remington. They are full of resentment at the disposition of Mr. Martin Brand’s fortune. Apart from this, Mrs. Brand appears indifferent to the members of her family, whilst Miss Remington’s behaviour suggests that she feels an active dislike for them.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“My dear Miss Silver!”

“ ‘Envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness,’ Randal.”

There was a pause, during which it was obvious that he was considering what she had said. For her part she continued to knit. After a minute or two he said,

“Helen Adrian was being blackmailed. I think you said there were letters and a telephone call. Did she identify either the writing or the voice on the telephone?”

“The letters were printed, the telephone voice disguised. Her reason for suspecting Cyril Felton was to be found in the subject matter of these communications. Two episodes were referred to, the first at Brighton in May a year ago, the second in June. Miss Adrian told me that Felix Brand and Cyril Felton were the only ones who knew of these episodes, and she did not think that blackmailing was in Felix’s line.”

“The episodes were damaging?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“In the first she arrived with Mr. Brand, who was her accompanist, to find that the friend with whom they were to stay had been called away but had left her flat at their disposal. They stayed there for the week-end. There was a professional engagement involved.”

“Well, there need have been no harm in that.”

“She declared that there was not, or in the June episode, when she and Felix Brand were cut off by the tide and were obliged to stay there all night. They had gone out to swim by moonlight, and when they came back to the house in the morning it was merely supposed that they had been out for an early dip. But she told Cyril Felton-”

March raised his eyebrows.

“She seems to have been on pretty intimate terms with him.”

“I think so, Randal.”

He said, “Well, none of this seems to give grounds for any very serious blackmail.”

“I agree. But you have to remember that Mr. Mount is rich, strict, middle-aged, and jealous. Miss Adrian was nervous about her health. She had a delicate throat, a very serious thing for a singer. She made no secret of the fact that she wished to be married to a man who could provide for her. In the ordinary way she would, I think, have snapped her fingers at Cyril Felton, but she was nervous of a possible threat to her marriage. She told me Cyril would take ten pounds to hold his tongue. What she meant to do was to leave Cove House this morning, meet her fiancé in town, and tell him that she was willing to marry him without delay. Once they were married, I think she felt quite confident that she could dispose of any further attempt at blackmail.”

“She was going to leave Cove House this morning?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And she intended to have an interview with Felton before she left?”

“Yes, Randal.”

He said in a thoughtful voice,

“I wonder if she did have that interview.”