Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 17

Mrs. Maple sat and looked at her visitor. Naturally, she knew Miss Silver by sight-visiting Mrs. Merridew at the White Cottage, and an old school friend. Florrie Hunt spoke well of her, and it wasn’t everybody that got the soft side of Florrie’s tongue. But the gentleman with her-well, he was a bit of a puzzler. A gentleman he was and you couldn’t get from it, and none of those nasty uniforms. But if he hadn’t got something to do with the police, why was he here and wanting to know about Miss Holiday? For the matter of that, why was Mrs. Merridew’s friend here either? Questions they wanted answered. Nice clear voices they’d got-took the trouble to open their mouths and speak plain so that you could hear what they said. But she hadn’t properly made up her mind whether she’d let on that she’d heard them or not. Perhaps she would, and perhaps she wouldn’t-she was in two minds about it. She was getting a little tired of being out of whatever it was that was going on, but on the other hand she wasn’t going to make herself cheap by talking to constables and such.

She was a very clean, tidy old woman with a round face, blue eyes, and an obstinate chin. Her white hair was done up in a great many tight plaits at the back of her head, and she wore a black stuff dress and a hand-knitted purple cardigan. No one could have found a speck of dust anywhere in the house. She gazed mildly at Miss Silver and said,

“I’m hard of hearing.”

Miss Silver made the comment that it was a sad affliction, and Mrs. Maple found that she could hear her comfortably. Approving the sentiment, she made up her mind to oblige. She folded her hands in her lap and said graciously,

“I don’t rightly know what it’s all about. There’s people that come in and you can’t hear a word they say-nothing but mumble, mumble, mumble. And most upsetting it is, for what you don’t hear you can’t answer, but so far as I can I’m sure I’m more than willing if there’s anything the gentleman wants to ask me-or you, ma’am.”

Frank leaned towards her.

“That is very good of you, Mrs. Maple. We just want to know whether Miss Holiday came home at all last night.”

Mrs. Maple shook her head.

“Seven o’clock I woke up same as I always do, and downstairs to get myself a cup of tea. There was a lady I lived with put me in the way of it, and Miss Holiday she likes one too, so I come down, and as a rule she won’t be long. As soon as she hears me she’ll slip into her dressing-gown and be after me for her cup of tea. Then back she’ll go upstairs and into her clothes and off up to Crewe House where she gets her breakfast. Mrs. Bolder’s a good hand with hens, and there’ll be an egg most days this time of the year. I’ll say that for Mrs. Bolder, a temper she may have and there’s no denying it, but she don’t grudge anyone their food. Very good meals they have up at Crewe House and Miss Holiday couldn’t say different.”

“But this morning she did not come down for her cup of tea?” said Miss Silver.

Mrs. Maple shook her head.

“Not a sign of her. So I called up the stairs, and when I’d called three times I went up, and there was her room with nobody in it and the bed not slept in.”

Frank Abbott said,

“You don’t think she could have got up and gone out early? If she had done that she would have made her bed before she went, wouldn’t she? Are you quite sure she didn’t go out?”

Mrs. Maple produced a slight air of triumph.

“With both of the doors locked and all the windows latched!” she said.

“I see. Then it comes to this-the last you saw of Miss Holiday was when she went off to Crewe House yesterday morning?”

Mrs. Maple tossed her head.

“Time enough to say what it comes to when you’ve heard me say it!”

Frank smiled in an agreeable manner.

“Well, when did you see her last?”

Mrs. Maple was enjoying herself. There wasn’t anyone could tell them what they wanted to know except her, and she wasn’t going to be in too much of a hurry. If you made things too easy for people they didn’t think any the better of you for it. She retreated into being rather deafer than she need have been.

“Ten years past she’s been lodging here,” she said, “and never gone over her time.”

“Yes, but when did you see her last, Mrs. Maple?”

She decided that perhaps she had better hear him. She shook her head in a melancholy way.

“Ah, now, if you’d said that to start with. I’m sure I’m not one to keep anything back-far from it. Now let me see-she come in a quarter to six by the church clock, but I didn’t speak to her then-not to say speak.”

“That is what we wanted to know-whether she came back here after leaving Crewe House.”

“Oh, yes, she come back all right.”

“You are sure about that?”

Mrs. Maple drew herself up in an offended manner.

“I may be hard of hearing, but I’ve the use of my eyes, sir.”

Miss Silver judged it prudent to interpose.

“And you saw Miss Holiday come into the house at a quarter to six?”

“With my own eyes,” said Mrs. Maple. “And up the stairs to her room.”

“Would there be anything out of the usual about that?”

Mrs. Maple couldn’t say that there would, adding that Miss Holiday wasn’t the chattering kind, which she didn’t hold with herself and wouldn’t have kept her ten years if she had been.

“And when did she go out again?” said Frank Abbott.

“Well now-” She considered, her plump form upright, her head a little on one side. “Just after seven it would have been, because I’d heard the church clock strike the hour.”

“Then you can hear the clock strike all right?”

“Seeing it’s just about overhead, so I ought! Deaf as a post I’d have to be before I couldn’t hear that! When she first come here Miss Holiday used to complain about it, but I told her she’d get used to it, and she did.”

Frank maintained his agreeable smile. If he tried to push her he would get nothing.

“So she went out again at seven. Did she say where she was going?”

It is possible that Mrs. Maple discerned the impatience which he was at so much pains to hide. She produced a clean pocket-handkerchief and leaned her nose against it in a meditative manner.

“She wouldn’t go out without letting me know,” she said.

“Where was she going, Mrs. Maple?”

This time she gave him his answer.

“Oh, just down the road to see Mrs. Selby.”

Miss Silver said in her ordinary voice,

“They live just at the end of the lane. He is a retired business man, and they keep hens. Florrie tells me that Miss Holiday would sometimes go in to keep Mrs. Selby company in the evening while Mr. Selby was at the Holly Tree.”

It appeared that Mrs. Maple had been perfectly able to follow this speech. She said,

“That’s right. Miss Holiday’s a bit soft about men-don’t hold with them and wouldn’t go down to the Selbys only when Mr. Selby was out of the way.”

“She was afraid of him?”

Mrs. Maple looked superior.

“Not of him special-it was just men she didn’t hold with. Nobody couldn’t be afraid of Mr. Selby. Sweets for the children, and a laugh and a joke for everyone. Why, in most houses where there was a gentleman Miss Holiday wouldn’t go into them at all, but she’d go down to Mrs. Selby’s when she knew Mr. Selby would be out.”

“And she could count on that-Sundays and all?”

Mrs. Maple nodded.

“Till closing time-regular as clockwork.”

Frank Abbott took up his questioning again.

“So Miss Holiday went out to see Mrs. Selby soon after seven o’clock. What time would you ordinarily expect her back?”

“Nine o’clock. Not often she’d be later than that. Come nine o’clock I’m in my bed, and she knows it.”

“And if she should be any later, would you sit up for her?”

“Not for her nor for no one,” said Mrs. Maple in an obstinate voice. “I’ve got to have my rest. Nine o’clock I’m in my bed and I won’t go from it.”

“Then if she came back after nine?”

“She’d find the key under the mat same as I put it when she goes in to Melbury for the pictures.”

“And where was the key this morning, Mrs. Maple?”

She said in a voice with a sudden quaver in it,

“Under the mat-same as I put it when I went upstairs.”

“So she didn’t come in?”

Mrs. Maple had recovered herself. She didn’t know why she had had that moment when everything seemed to shake. She was all right again now. She said,

“Stands to reason she didn’t-not if the key was under the mat.”