Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 24

When Frank Abbott dropped in after supper that evening he was struck with the gravity of Miss Silver’s expression. He had come to tell her the result of the post-mortem on Miss Holiday. They sat in the dining-room, and she gave him her usual strict attention whilst her busy needles clicked and little Josephine’s legging lengthened.

“Well,” he began, “she was alive when she got that bump on the head, and she was alive when she went into the water, but no one is going to swear that she didn’t hit her head on the side of the well as she went down. It could have been that way, you know, though I’ll give you this-the police surgeon doesn’t think it was. He is inclined to believe that there may have been an earlier bruise.”

“Were there any signs of a struggle?”

He paused for a moment before answering this.

“Not as far as any damage to her clothes went. But you will remember that Mrs. Selby said she was wearing a string of blue beads-”

“Yes, Frank.”

“Well, when we got her up out of the well it looked as if the string was missing, but afterwards at the mortuary it was discovered that two or three of the beads had run down inside her clothes and been caught there, which looks as if the string had broken when she was attacked.”

“That could well have happened. And quite compatible with a theory that she may have been stunned by an initial blow but not put down the well until later. You seemed to suggest this as a possibility.”

“Something like that.”

She pulled on her ball of wool.

“It is what I would expect. She must have been attacked in the short distance between the Selbys’ bungalow and the cottage. But it would be unlikely that the person or persons who attacked her would have taken the risk of carrying the body to the bottom of Mrs. Maple’s garden at an hour when she might still be supposed to be about. Florrie informs me that her bedroom looks to the back of the house, and though she is too deaf to have heard footsteps in the garden, she would certainly be able to perceive the transport of an inanimate body if she had happened to be looking out of her window at the time.”

Frank nodded.

“People do look out of the window the last thing.”

“It is an extremely common practice. I do not think that a murderer’s guilty conscience would have allowed him to take the risk. He would, I am sure, decide to wait until there was no chance that anyone would be abroad. The question would then arise as to what was to be done with the body. We know now that she was not dead. For his purpose it was important that she should go into the water alive. He could not, therefore, just finish her off and conceal the body in a ditch, and he must have been faced with a considerable problem. It is, of course, of the very highest importance to discover what his solution was. I need not ask you whether you have given particular attention to all this. The Selbys’ premises constitute the nearest shelter. They comprise the bungalow, a garage, two sheds, and a number of hen-houses. Mrs. Selby was alone in the bungalow between seven o’clock and ten. Mr. Selby is supposed to have been at the Holly Tree.”

“He was there till closing time.”

Miss Silver laid down her knitting for a moment, an occurrence so unusual as to direct particular attention to what she was about to say.

“I do not doubt that he was there at closing-time. Is there, however, any evidence that he was there continuously between the hours of seven and ten, and particularly during the quarter of an hour just before and after nine o’clock? The distance from the Holly Tree to the bungalow is a very short one. If a game of darts was going on and Mr. Selby did not happen to be playing at the time, would anyone have noticed if he had been absent for, say, fifteen minutes?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll do my best to find out. Fifteen minutes doesn’t give him very long to come and go, hit Miss Holiday over the head, and get her out of the way.”

“It would have had to be very carefully planned-but then careful planning is evident at every stage of this affair.”

Frank said in a thoughtful tone,

“Yes. But why Selby?”

“He is a stranger.”

“My dear ma’am, the countryside is littered with strangers.”

“There have been many changes since the war, but not so many in Hazel Green.”

“There are a great many in and around Melbury, which is not so far away.”

“But Mr. Selby is here. And he was here a year ago when Maggie Bell disappeared. I am puzzled to account for it.”

He sketched a shrug.

“Business men do retire. Quite a lot of them have an urge to settle down in the country and keep hens. A foul employment-”

He gave a sudden laugh. “No, no, withhold your lightnings! I swear I didn’t intend the pun-didn’t even know it was there until I heard myself say it.”

Rightly dismissing this as trivial, she said,

“It is obvious that Mrs. Selby has no leanings towards a country life. Mr. Selby, whilst professing his enjoyment, is not infrequently away for several days at a time. He makes a joke of it and says the pavements call him. During his absence the care of the hens devolves upon Mrs. Selby.”

“All this from Florrie, who I suppose had it from Miss Holiday?”

“Yes, Frank. I gather that Mrs. Selby not only dislikes the care of the hens, but that she is extremely nervous at being alone in the bungalow, especially as Mr. Selby would not hear of their having a dog.”

“Which might mean anything, or nothing at all-except that Mr. Selby doesn’t like dogs. You know, there really are people that don’t.”

Miss Silver herself had a preference for cats, but she did not consider this the moment to say so. She allowed him to proceed, which he did, and in a graver voice.

“You may care to know that Selby’s antecedents are all on record. The Security lads thought of that over the question of leakages at Dalling Grange. As a newcomer, he was naturally suspect, but nothing emerged. He and his brother used to run a garage business in the Streatham Road. Perfectly decorous and respectable. Regular subscriber to the local Conservative Association. Life and soul of the party at local whist drives. In fact a perfectly blameless past.”

Miss Silver inclined her head. It was in her mind that a perfectly blameless past would be essential if a man was to be either a catspaw or an active agent in some nefarious business. Not judging that this was the moment to say so, she observed that a careful examination of the garage and outhouses attached to the bungalow would, she supposed, be a part of the routine enquiries which the police would undertake. She was assured that this would be the case.

“They shall be gone over with a toothcomb. I suppose you don’t include Mrs. Selby in your suspicions?”

Miss Silver gave a slight hortatory cough.

“I do not suspect either Mr. or Mrs. Selby. There are not, as yet, any grounds for doing so. I merely suggest that their premises may have been used, and that in view of the fact that Miss Holiday’s body must have been concealed somewhere, and that Mr. Selby’s garage or one of his outhouses stand out as the most likely if not the only possible places of concealment, there is an urgent necessity for a very careful and thorough investigation. As Lord Tennyson put its-‘And in its season bring the law… Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all’.”

He took the impact of this with fortitude. After a slightly stunned silence he remarked,

“As you say. Everything shall be gone through with the toothcomb. Well, I suppose I had better be getting along.”