Through the Wall

Chapter 29

Cyril Felton came back on Sunday morning. He had spent all the money with which Marian had provided him, and returned with a hangover to the only place where he could be sure of free quarters and free meals. If he expected a welcome he did not receive one. There seemed to be a consensus of opinion that his room would have been preferred to his company. And quite literally, since all four bedrooms were now occupied and Marian refused point-blank to allow Richard to turn out.

A curious little family scene followed. Miss Silver was about to walk down the hill into Farne in order to attend the morning service at St. Michael and All Angels, a new and very ugly red brick church with a new and very energetic Vicar whose sermons were the last word in frankness. They shocked everyone so much that people who hadn’t been to church for years flocked there to hear them. She stood there practically unnoticed whilst Cyril went over to lean on the back of his wife’s chair and say in what he intended to be a caressing tone,

“Oh, well, I can go in with Ina.”

Ina Felton was already so pale that it would have been very difficult for her to turn any paler. What did happen was that the muscles under the bloodless skin became stiff and rigid, as if she braced herself to take a blow. Her eyes went to Marian, and Marian said,

“No, you can’t do that. She isn’t sleeping, and you would disturb her. There’s a camp bed in the attic, and the little front room by the dining-room isn’t being used. I’ll have it put there for you.”

It was Richard Cunningham who asked, “What about the audition? How did it go off?”

Cyril said in an injured voice that it was a washout.

“The whole thing’s off. The backer backed out at the last moment. Of course I wasn’t to know that.”

Miss Silver found herself wondering whether there had ever been any prospect of an audition. She smoothed the black kid gloves which she wore on Sundays and proceeded on her way to church. On her return she was able to edify the party at lunch with quotations from the Vicar’s sermon. It appeared that in the main it had met with her approval. She was not sure that it was altogether in good taste to refer to Miss Adrian’s murder-“A shocking crime which has been perpetrated in our midst”-but she agreed very strongly with his subsequent remarks. He was an ugly, forceful young man, and he did not mince his words. “You have just heard the fifth commandment read. I’m not going to tell you that it is wicked to commit murder. You all know it’s wicked. You are all shocked when somebody else does it, but every single one of us every single day of our lives thinks, and says, and does the things which are the seed from which murder springs.” Miss Silver had been much struck by the fact that he went on to quote the very words which she had used herself- “envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.”

When lunch was over Ina went up to her room. Miss Silver on her way to her own room saw her go in and heard the key turn in the lock.

When she came down again she found Cyril Felton alone in the study and very much at a loose end.

“Marian’s gone off down to the beach with that fellow Cunningham. They’re very thick, aren’t they? As good as told me they didn’t want me along. I shouldn’t call it the thing myself, having a lot of strangers staying in a house when there’s just been a murder there.”

Miss Silver preferred a chair without arms. She settled herself and opened her knitting-bag. As she did so she considered Mr. Cyril Felton, who lounged upon the couch from which he had not troubled to rise when she entered. His skin was pasty, and he was heavy about the eyes. But quite a goodlooking young man, and not without ability. Possibly an only child-probably unwisely indulged. Certainly of very little use to himself or to anyone else in the world. A pity- a very great pity.

In this kind but firm attitude of mind she looked at him across Derek’s stocking, now of considerable length, and said,

“Do you include me among the strangers, Mr. Felton?”

“Oh, well, you know what I mean. You needn’t take it personally. But after all I’m Marian’s brother-in-law and Ina’s husband, and I should have thought-I mean, I just don’t get the idea. You don’t usually go and have a house-party when there’s been a murder-I mean, do you?”

If Miss Silver considered this speech to be conclusive evidence of the faulty upbringing which she suspected she did not allow this to appear.

“Your sister-in-law and your wife are two young girls. I hope that my presence is some comfort and support to them. Mrs. Felton has had a great shock.”

He stared and said,

“It’s been a shock to us all. Why pick out Ina? It’s not as if she and Helen were friends. They never set eyes on each other before this week, and no love lost when they did.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“That is not a very prudent remark, Mr. Felton.”

He made a pettish gesture.

“Oh, well, I didn’t mean anything. Ina wouldn’t murder a mouse-she’d be much too scared of hurting it. Nobody but a fool would imagine she’d do anything to Helen. She just didn’t like her. Other girls didn’t, you know. She got off with their men, and you couldn’t expect them to like it. Jealous, you know, and wondering what she’d got that they hadn’t. Not that I went in off the deep end about her myself. Not my type, if you know what I mean-and certainly not Ina’s.” He was getting out a cigarette and lighting it as he spoke, pitching the match in the direction of the fireplace without bothering where it fell. He inhaled a mouthful of smoke and let it out again slowly. “Now that chap Felix-he was in off the deep end all right. Funny thing his coming back like that. I mean it’s practically committing suicide, isn’t it? And if he was going to commit suicide, why didn’t he just let himself drown instead of coming back here and waiting to be arrested-and then all that filthy business of being stood up in the dock, and all the stuff in the papers. Something odd about it, don’t you think? I mean, why bother? Much simpler and easier to drown, don’t you think?”

Miss Silver was knitting briskly.

“People do not always do the simplest and easiest thing, Mr. Felton. Sometimes they do what they believe to be right. That surprises you?”

He hardly troubled to put a hand to hide a yawn.

“Oh, no-no-no. What I mean is, it’s all very odd. I mean, why don’t the police arrest him?”

“They may not believe that there is sufficient evidence.”

He was leaning back in the sofa corner. With his eyes half shut, he drew in another mouthful of smoke.

“Oh, well, I just thought it was odd.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Mr. Felton, do you believe that Miss Adrian was murdered by Felix Brand?”

The eyes opened vaguely.

“Don’t ask me. Anybody’s guess is as good as mine.”

The eyes closed again. The hand with the cigarette drooped towards the floor. Ash fell upon the carpet. The cigarette fell too. Miss Silver rose, picked it up, and dropped it on to the unlighted fire. She also picked up the match. Then she sat down again and went on knitting. Mr. Felton was asleep.

He was not, however, permitted to repose in peace. Sunday afternoon or no Sunday afternoon, Inspector Crisp was on the doorstep, the news of Mr. Felton’s return having reached him at one o’clock. Cyril was obliged to wake up and answer a great many questions, which he did with the utmost vagueness and inattention. He yawned, he smoked, he fidgeted. He had constantly to be recalled to the point.

Crisp got nothing out of him.

“He’s either much sharper than he looks, or he doesn’t know a thing,” he told the Chief Constable, who had arrived a little later.

March said thoughtfully,

“Well-he’s an actor-”

“Not much of a one by all accounts.”

“You never know-he may be better off the stage than he is on it. He didn’t show any signs of nervousness?”

“Not a sign. Smoked and yawned most of the time. Didn’t even seem interested.”

March’s look became alert.

“That’s not natural.”

“Well-”

“Overplaying the part. I’d say there’s more in Cyril than meets the eye. Hang it all, man, he’s blackmailing a woman, she’s murdered within a stone’s throw of him, and the police have got him on the mat-he ought to be nervous. And he simply can’t help being interested. Indifference to the extent you describe just isn’t possible. If it isn’t genuine it’s a smokescreen. And if it is a smoke-screen, what is behind it? You didn’t mention the blackmail?”

“No-I thought I’d hold that up. There’s no evidence of course. She must have destroyed those two letters Miss Silver describes. She was going to get married, and she wouldn’t want them about. No, I just took him through the picnic, the return to the house, the business about the doors and windows, and whether he had heard anything in the night.”

“And what has he got to say to all that?”

“Nothing that amounts to anything. He saw Felix Brand go off with Miss Adrian at the picnic and noticed him coming back alone, but didn’t see Miss Adrian come back. Says there were some raincoats and rugs about down on the beach, but doesn’t know who they belonged to, and doesn’t remember who brought any of them in. Says he only got up once during the night to go across to the bathroom and went straight off to sleep again. Says everything was quiet-no unusual sounds anywhere.”

“What does he mean by unusual?”

“I asked him that. He said he could hear the sea.”

“That means he was up somewhere between twelve and two. Do you know, I’m wondering about this visit to the bathroom. It’s just the sort of story he might put up if he’d been out meeting Helen Adrian and was afraid he might have been heard. There’s a creaking board just outside the room he was in then. He is new to the house, and might easily have stepped on it coming or going. If he did he’d be afraid and look round for a cover up. Which is just a lot of theory without a square inch of fact to balance on. We want to dig up some facts. What about this fellow Mount Helen Adrian was engaged to?”

Crisp nodded.

“He’s been on the telephone. He was up in Scotland on business and didn’t know a thing till he saw it in the papers this morning. Very upset and all that, but I gather he doesn’t mean to come down. There was a lot about his business, and their not being officially engaged. If you ask me, I’d say he wanted to keep out of the limelight. You can’t blame him of course-a business man doesn’t want to get mixed up in a murder case. And there’s no question of his being implicated. I asked Glasgow to check up on what he said about his movements, and it’s all right. He registered at the Central Hotel on Thursday morning before breakfast, and he’s been there ever since. Well, she was murdered between twelve and two on Thursday night, so it wasn’t Mr. Mount that did it. Not that he was a very likely suspect, but just as well to get him out of the way.”

March said, “Nice to get somebody out of the way. Well, we’d better get on with Cyril Felton. Let’s have him in.”