‘It is extremely difficult to deal with.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. Jackson says he has an aunt like it, and there’s nothing you can do. As he put it, by the time they’ve finished working themselves up they don’t know black from white, nor chalk from cheese. So there we are—one pound note from you, one from Augustus Remington, one from Miss Gwyneth, and one from wherever you please. Where did yours come from?’
She said in an expressionless voice,
‘Mrs Craddock pays my salary weekly.’
‘Oh, she does, does she? And that pound note was part of it—you’re sure about that?’
‘I am perfectly sure.’
‘Then three out of the four notes come from the Colony.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘It is more than a month since the robbery at Enderby Green, and there has therefore been a good deal of time for the notes to circulate. The one paid over the counter to Miss Weekes may have passed through a number of hands before it reached her. Since I myself cannot be sure that I did not handle it, the same may be the case with regard to Mr Remington and Miss Gwyneth Tremlett. Any of us could have passed one of the stolen notes in complete innocence.’
‘But the chances are still three to one that it came from the Colony.’
There was a hint of reproof in her voice as she said,
‘I think it would be fairer to say through instead of from.’
TWENTY-ONE
AS MISS SILVER walked down towards the station to wait for her bus she reflected gravely upon the conversation which she had just had with Frank Abbott. It had not clarified anything, it had not led them anywhere, but it had certainly added to the apprehension with which the whole situation inspired her. She had the unpleasant sensation of trying to find her way in a fog. No sooner did a clue present itself than it petered out, any attempt to follow it resulting in confusion. Having started out to discover what had happened to Anna Ball, she found herself involved with Mrs Craddock’s fears for the safety of her children. And now, superimposed upon everything else, there was this business of the notes taken from the bank at Enderby Green. When she referred to what might be called the Craddock problem Frank had not given it very much attention. Three unruly children were enough to upset any boat, and as for the mushrooms—well, there was that close copy of the real thing, and anyone might be taken in by it. He remembered a correspondence about it in the Times, and the last word of the experts was that there was no certain test, but if you found the things growing near pine trees they were not mushrooms, and that was that. In the matter of the stolen notes, as she pointed out to him, once in circulation, any one of them might pass through a dozen hands before it was paid over Miss Weekes’ counter. But whether she regarded the problem of the Craddocks or the problem of the notes, a feeling of apprehension not only persisted but increased.
She was half way down the slope, when she heard footsteps behind her and a whispering voice said,
‘Whither away, fair lady?’
Since she knew only one person capable of such a form of address, it was no surprise to find Augustus Remington at her elbow, looking a good deal less peculiar than usual. It could not be said that his clothes were like those of other people, but he no longer wore the blouse and corduroy trousers which he affected in the Colony, and beyond a certain flowing line and the fact that he wore a low-necked shirt, his garments approximated to those of the ordinary man. He was bareheaded, and his long lint-white hair lifted in the breeze.
Miss Silver said soberly,
‘I am catching the five o’clock bus.’
The slender hands gestured.
‘I also. A deplorable necessity. These mechanical inventions defile the purity of country life.’
It had never occurred to Miss Silver that life in the country was particularly pure, but she refrained from saying so.
‘The smell—’ said Augustus Remington, his whisper becoming fainter. ‘The noise—I am quite terribly susceptible to noise. The ruthless, inexorable grinding of the—ah, gears. I am entirely ignorant of these hideous mechanical contrivances, but I believe I am right in supposing that there are such things. As I have just said, a painful convenience, an outrage upon every artistic sense, but a present necessity. You have been shopping?’
‘I have been having tea with a friend.’
‘And I in pursuit of beauty.’ He gave a little giggling laugh. ‘But you must not misunderstand me. I refer to that abstract beauty which is the guiding star of art, and in this case it led me to what I have been seeking vainly for many weary weeks. I have been impeded, obstructed, frustrated, but today my struggles have been crowned with success. Without any volition of my own I found myself entering a little shop in the Square. The old beams exuded an aroma of the past—there were strange whisperings in the walls. A young girl served me, blooming and unimaginative as a cabbage rose. She had a hideous accent—she had been eating peppermints. She laid a tray of embroidery silks before me, and there, at last, was the shade I had been seeking—one of those fainting hues which resemble the haunting of a rose that has died in the bud.’
They had by this time reached the bus. Since it was not due to start for another five minutes, there was still plenty of room inside, and it was therefore quite impossible to avoid sitting next to Mr Remington, who continued to discourse in a manner which Miss Silver found very trying to her patience. A little before five o’clock Miss Gwyneth Tremlett got in, and quite at the last minute a large young man with a suit-case stepped on board and, making his way to a vacant seat at the very front of the bus, sat down and stared gloomily at the driver’s back.
Miss Silver recognized him at once, and she may be forgiven for an exasperated feeling that he was, in his own person, the proverbial last straw. There was, however, nothing she could do about it. The engine started, the bus quivered and leapt forward. Augustus Remington gave her a running commentary on the sensations which this induced. His voice fell, now fading into inaudibility, and now recurring to a full-blown whisper. Miss Silver had no attention to spare for him. Her eyes were fixed on the back of Peter Brandon’s head, and her mind was quite taken up with annoyance that he should have followed Thomasina to Deep End and speculations as to how soon he could be induced to go away.
As they continued their progress in the direction of Deeping, the passengers thinned out, the largest number getting off at Ledhill, once a country village but rapidly becoming industrialized. There being now a vacant seat just across the gangway, Miss Gwyneth Tremlett took the opportunity of moving into it, and was affectionately greeted by Mr Remington.
‘Ah, now—how much better this is! I have been asking myself what have we done that we should be ostracized.’
Miss Gwyneth bridled in a pleased sort of way.
‘Really, Augustus—don’t be so absurd! You can’t have been noticing, or you would have seen that I took almost the only seat which happened to be empty.’
He heaved an ostentatious sigh.
‘I have a very sensitive soul. The least breath of coldness from a friend, and I am not well. Last week when you were vexed with me I had to take three aspirins. And then today I was already suffering. I yield to no one in admiration for our Peveril, and I know that you and Elaine do not like to hear a word against him, but I cannot pretend that I do not feel hurt when he drives his car into Ledlington and drives it back again without so much as thinking of offering any one of us a lift.’
Miss Gwyneth sat up rather straight. She wore a shapeless green coat and a great many scarves, one in orange and purple stripes over her head, and two or three others in varying shades about her neck and shoulders. As she talked, the ends kept poking out and having to be tucked in again. She said rather abruptly,
‘But Peveril wasn’t in Ledlington.’
Augustus Remington’s whisper took on a purring note.
‘My very dear Gwyneth, of course he was. He had parked his car in the Market Square—I saw it at once when I came out of my l
ittle dark shop. But you don’t know about that. It was Miss Silver that I was confiding in. My dear, at last I have attained the object of my search—the exquisite shade which had eluded me for so long that I had begun to despair of finding it. It glowed like a jewel in the little dark place! And when I came out, there was Peveril’s car. Remembering that I had confided my intention of visiting Ledlington this afternoon, I could hardly fail to be wounded. Or do you think I could?’
Miss Gwyneth, aware that she also had told Peveril that she was going into Ledlington, could do no better than to say with some bluntness,
‘If he had wanted us to come with him, I suppose he would have suggested it.’
‘Dear Gwyneth! How well you put it! If he had wanted us he would have asked us. So simple, so direct, so entirely to the point! Since he did not ask us, he did not want us. An inescapable inference. The whole wounding truth packed into the fewest possible words. Only those endowed with the supreme wisdom of common sense have courage enough to achieve such clarity. For myself, I am a creature of emotion. I cannot analyse, I can only feel. When a cold wind passes over me I shrink and I am silent.’
Miss Gwyneth’s colour had risen. She seemed about to speak, but it was some time before he afforded her any opportunity of doing so.
Miss Silver continued to listen to what was being said, and to watch Mr Peter Brandon. Once in a while a trick of the light would show her his reflection in the glass which faced him. It was not a very clear reflection, depending as it did upon the dark backing of the driver’s coat and the angle at which the light struck the pane, but it confirmed her impression that Mr Brandon was in a very bad temper, a fact which greatly increased the likelihood of his committing some fatal imprudence.
The bus jogged on, and ultimately arrived at Deeping, leaving the passengers for Deep End a walk of about three-quarters of a mile. It was at this point that Peter Brandon addressed himself to Augustus Remington. He asked to be directed to Deep End and enquired whether it would be possible to find accommodation there for the night.
‘I have come down to see a relation of mine who is staying here. A matter of business. My name is Brandon.’
As these remarks were made in quite a loud, abrupt voice, neither Miss Gwyneth nor Miss Silver could avoid hearing them. It was, in fact, quite apparent to Miss Silver that Mr Brandon was at one and the same moment issuing a challenge and fishing for an invitation.
Miss Gwyneth’s response was immediate.
‘Mr Brandon—I really must introduce myself. Your aunt was our very dear friend, as you know, your dear little cousin is our guest—mine and my sister’s. My name is Tremlett—Miss Gwyneth Tremlett. I do hope there is nothing wrong. We are enjoying Ina’s visit so much.’
That he boggled at the ‘Ina’ was plain. Miss Silver thought that he would have had a very good face for a silent film—what she would herself have called a speaking countenance. But Miss Gwyneth, whose scarves were being blown all about her, was too much taken up with retrieving them and buttoning them inside her coat to notice anything. As soon as she had dealt with the scarves she was deploring the fact that they had no second spare room and wondering whether Mrs Masters would take Mr Brandon in.
‘She has quite a nice room, and everything most beautifully kept. And I know that it is empty, because young Goddard who has lodged there for the last eighteen months has managed to get one of the new Council houses at Deeping, so of course he decided to get married at once. He and Mabel Wellstead have only been waiting for somewhere to live. Mrs Masters was quite adamant about not taking a married couple, and of course Deeping is much more convenient for them, as he works in the Nurseries there. But I don’t really know about you, Mr Brandon. You see, she goes to the Craddocks at Harmony for three hours every morning, and of course she gave Jim Goddard a wrapped lunch, and he had breakfast and supper with her and her father-in-law, who is our oldest inhabitant.’
If Miss Gwyneth had been obliged to sit silent in the bus, she made up for it now. Peter felt himself in danger of being submerged. Snatching at the one essential point, he said firmly that he didn’t care where he took his meals, and that the room at Mrs Masters’ sounded as if it was just what he was looking for.
He had to say it all over again when he reached the cottage, where he found it extremely difficult to get in a word edgeways, Miss Gwyneth being quite extraordinarily informative and diffuse, and Mrs Masters using the slightest pause to repeat that she didn’t know that she wanted to take another lodger, and that she didn’t reckon to let to the gentry.
It was Mr Masters who finally settled the matter. From behind his daughter-in-law’s back he crooked a finger and beckoned Peter in. The kitchen was warm with firelight and lamplight, the table was spread for a meal. There was a mingled smell of paraffin and kippers, there was a singing kettle and a purring cat. Old Mr Masters pointed to a chair and said, ‘Set down.’ Then he opened the door a chink and bellowed through it into the darkness.
‘You come right in, Maria, and dish up! It’s my house, and he’s staying!’
It was a good deal earlier than this, not in fact more than ten minutes after the bus had left Ledlington, that Frank Abbott was being ushered into the closed and shuttered County Bank. Inspector Jackson accompanied him, and the Superintendent of the Ledlington police and the Chief Constable of the country were waiting for them. Outside, darkness was closing in upon the winter dusk. Here there were bright lights and hard dark shadows. The lights shone down upon two dead men, men who had been alive and in their full strength when he had talked with them only that morning. They could give no evidence now but the mute accusing testimony of their blood. The manager was a married man with two children still of school age. The clerk was Hector Wayne, who had been so quick to detect that one of the pound notes paid in by Miss Weekes had been tampered with. A cold anger came up in Frank as he looked at them. He had nothing to say, and he said nothing. It was the Chief Constable who spoke.
‘It’s a bad business,’ he said.
TWENTY-TWO
THE PAPERS CARRIED heavy headlines next day—Another Bank Robbery—Double Murder At Ledlington. Miss Silver came down to find Mrs Craddock trying to stop the children talking about it. She was not having any great success, and at Miss Silver’s appearance Maurice rushed at her, waving a newspaper and demanding in his loudest voice,
‘Did you hear the shooting? Your bus must have got in just about the right time! The bank manager was shot, and one of his clerks! Were you near the bank? Did you hear anything? I wish I had! I wish I’d gone into Ledlington with you, because if I had I was going to buy marbles, and the marbles shop is right opposite the bank, so I should have heard the shooting and I might have seen the man who did it! This paper calls him the Bandaged Bandit! He had his head all done up in bandages!’
‘My dear Maurice!’
‘He did! All over his head so you couldn’t see what he was like! I call that a wizard idea—don’t you? Miss Silver, if I’d seen him I’d have had to try and stop him, wouldn’t I? I could have kicked him on the shins, couldn’t I, and dodged behind the car if he tried to shoot?’
‘I would have kicked him too!’ said Benjy at his shrillest. ‘I would have kicked him like this!’ He aimed a violent kick at the table leg, hurt his foot, and started to roar.
Maurice went on without taking breath.
‘There was a car with a girl in it! Beautiful Blonde is what they call her! She drove him away! Beautiful Blonde and Bandaged Bandit—that’s what it says! And they got right away! But the police have got a Clue! Look—it’s all here!’
Miss Silver removed the newspaper from his grasp and turned a critical eye upon his nails.
‘My dear Maurice, what have you been doing to get so dirty before breakfast? Please go and wash. No, Benjy, it wasn’t the table’s fault, it was yours. You kicked it—it didn’t kick you.’
The tears stopped rolling down Benjy’s scarlet face. His chin quivered and he began to laugh.
‘W
ouldn’t it be funny if it had kicked me! Wouldn’t it be funny if all the tables and chairs began to fight and kick! Wouldn’t it be funny if that big old chair was to get up and kick Mrs Masters!’
Jennifer had not spoken. She had her shut-in look. Now she pounced on Benjy and shook him.
‘It wouldn’t be funny at all—it would be horrible!’
Mrs Craddock said in a distressed voice,
‘Children—children—please—’
And then the door opened and Peveril Craddock came in.
A sudden silence fell. Maurice stopped half way through a sentence, and Benjy in the middle of a roar. Jennifer let go of him and backed away until she came to her place at the table. When she reached it she pulled the chair out with a jerk and sat down. The boys scrambled for their places and began to eat the porridge which had been cooling. Jennifer did not touch hers. She drank a cup of health tea, and presently got up and poured herself out another.
As a rule Mr Craddock read one of the papers at breakfast and kept the other beside him in case he wished to read that too. This morning he made no attempt to look at either, merely removing them from the table, folding them, and laying them aside. All this in an abstracted and gloomy manner. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that he had already read the news, and that it had affected him painfully. Miss Silver had not been long in discovering that whilst he constantly proclaimed the right of children to complete freedom in the manner of self-expression, he was in practice extremely intolerant of anything that ran counter either to his opinions or his comfort. That Jennifer both disliked and feared him was apparent, but even Maurice’s bold tongue was apt to fail him under a certain portentous look, and when Maurice blenched all the spirit went out of Benjy too. They sat as still as mice and gulped their porridge whilst Mr Craddock frowned over his coffee, complained of the sausages, and enquired how many times he had stated that he would not eat cold toast.
Death at the Deep End Page 13
