Silence in Court

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Well, go on. She had the draft—what were ye going to say about it?”

  Mr. Hood looked very unhappy.

  “Well, I suppose I had better tell you. She said that all the minor legacies were to stand—servants, charities, small bequests to friends—but the big legacies, the ones to the near relatives, were to be divided into four portions instead of into five as in the last will.”

  “Imphm—and who would the five be?”

  “Under the last will Mr. Robert Maquisten, Mrs. Hull, Miss King, Mr. Harland, and Miss Silence.”

  “So that one of those five was to be dropped. But she didn’t say which?”

  “No, she didn’t say which.”

  Ever so faintly Mr. Hood laid a stress on the word “say.” It might have been by a nervous inadvertence, or by an equally nervous intent.

  McGillivray took him up sharply.

  “I think ye know something, Mr. Hood, and I’ll thank ye to tell me what it is.”

  The beaded brow was mopped again.

  “She didn’t name any names, but there was something she said—”

  “Ye’d best let me have it.”

  “It was when she was saying that she had been deceived.”

  “She said that she had been deceived?”

  “She kept on saying it. She was very angry and very much upset, and she said, ‘But I ought to have known—it wasn’t for want of being warned. Ellen warned me, but I didn’t take any notice’—that’s the old maid, Inspector. So I said, trying to calm her down, ‘Well, it’s not too late, Mrs. Maquisten,’ and she said, ‘Old friends are best. Ellen’s faithful—she warned me. Up with the rocket and down with the stick,’ she said. I thought that was a queer thing for her to say, and I suppose I looked surprised, because she said, ‘That’ll never happen to you, will it? You’re one of the steady-going ones. How would you like to be a rocket? A stranger for a week, an heiress for a week, and then down with the stick and a stranger again.’ Well, Inspector, you can’t help your thoughts—and what was I to think?”

  “And what did ye think?” enquired McGillivray.

  For once Mr. Hood was blunt.

  “I thought she was talking about Miss Silence.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ellen came into the room in her black afternoon dress with a star-shaped brooch of Whitby jet at the throat. Her small, sunk eyes were rimmed with red, her skin very yellow, lifeless, and wrinkled. She came in slowly, her head with its neatly banded hair poked forward, her hands with their bony knuckles clutched together at her waist. When offered a chair she sat down upon the edge of it and sniffed.

  “I won’t have to keep ye long, Miss Bridling.”

  There was a gleam of anger in the small, sunk eyes.

  “Mrs. Bridling is what I’ve had from everyone in this house for thirty-five years, if it wasn’t for the family.”

  McGillivray contrived a smile. “Brevet rank?” he said. “Well, we’ll not quarrel about that, Mrs. Bridling.”

  Ellen was not placated. She gave him her hooded stare.

  “And if it’s any more questions, why weren’t they all asked at once, when the other young man wrote everything down and I put my name to it?”

  “Ah well, Mrs. Bridling, there’s things that come up afterwards—ye must see that for yerself. And it’s not everyone that’s been as long in the family as ye’ve been—there wouldn’t be much going on that ye wouldn’t know about.”

  Ellen sat stiff.

  “Thirty-five years—ah well, it’s a long time. Ye’d be more like a friend than a servant—a confidential friend. I wouldn’t wonder if Mrs. Maquisten didn’t tell ye things she wouldn’t name to the family.”

  Ellen pressed her lips together—thin lips from which the blood had receded—leaving them pale.

  “And I wouldn’t wonder if she didn’t listen a good bit more to what ye said than she did to the family.”

  There was a spark in the hooded eyes.

  “She wasn’t one to listen, Mrs. Maquisten wasn’t!”

  “Better if she had been?”

  The lips tightened, deepening the lines about them. Then they opened.

  “It’s what I said to her myself—no later than that last day I said it—‘Better if you’d have listened to those as have served you faithful and not let yourself get imposed upon by them you don’t know nothing about—creeping in, and sucking up, and pushing those on one side that’s been like your own children!’”

  “Meaning Miss Silence?” said McGillivray.

  Ellen stared.

  “And who else would I mean? Coming in where she wasn’t wanted, and my poor dear making the fuss of the world over her, with Carey this and Carey that, and, ‘I’m leaving her the rubies, Ellen.’ Putting ideas into her head, that’s what I called it! I don’t know how I kept myself! Only Sunday afternoon she made me open the safe and get them out—put the necklace on her so that she could go and look in the glass! And I thought to myself then, ‘Well, pride goes before a fall, Miss Carey Silence.’ And if Mrs. Maquisten didn’t take the very words out of my mouth before they got there!”

  “And what made her do that?”

  Ellen sniffed.

  “Called her a proud, obstinate creature in a laughing sort of way, and then came out with those very words—‘Pride goes before a fall.’ And I thought, ‘There’s many a true word spoken in jest.’”

  McGillivray sat looking at her.

  “Ye’ve no great love for Miss Silence,” he said at last.

  Ellen sat up a little more stiffly, her shoulders squared, her hands at her waist. Only her head still had its forward poke. She said in a bitter voice,

  “She come in as a stranger and she was loved like a child. And look what come of it!”

  “And what did come of it in your opeenion, Mrs. Bridling?”

  He got one gleam, and then the eyes were hooded again.

  “It’s not for me to say.”

  He came back at her hard and quick.

  “Meaning that ye think it was Miss Silence put yer mistress to sleep. Why?”

  The eyelids came up with a jerk. Bright anger looked out.

  “Is there anyone else who’d have done it? Tell me that! Is there anyone else who had everything to lose if my poor dear went on living? Don’t you know it was Miss Carey who was going to come out of her will?”

  “Can ye substantiate that?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did she tell ye it was Miss Silence she was cutting out? If she did, why did ye not say so before? I have yer signed statement here, and it says, ‘She was very angry, and talked about being deceived, but she didn’t mention any names. I didn’t ask her any questions, because I’d enough to do as it was to get her quieted down.’ That’s what ye said.”

  The angry, bright regard did not waver.

  “The young man asked me did she mention any names, and I told him the truth. You don’t need names when you’ve been as long with anyone as what I have. I knew what she meant, and so would anyone else with any sense in them.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said I’d warned her and she did ought to have listened to me.” Two filmy tears obscured the anger. One of the gnarled hands went groping to a pocket and came back with a large old-fashioned handkerchief neatly folded. There was a dabbing of the eyes, a resonant sniff. Ellen choked, swallowed, and went on. “And if she had she’d been alive now, my poor dear, but I wasn’t to know that then. ‘But you were right, Ellen, and I did ought to have listened,’ she said, and she cried.” She choked again.

  “Imphm.… And ye took it she was meaning Miss Carey Silence. Why?”

  Ellen unfolded the handkerchief and blew her nose vehemently.

  “It was Miss Carey that I’d been warning her about, and it was Miss Carey that was in both our minds.”

  “Imphm. But ye see, Mrs. Bridling, it’s possible that while ye had Miss Carey Silence in mind, Mrs. Maquisten might have been thinking of a d
ifferent pairson.”

  Ellen gave a sniff of contempt.

  “Well then, she wasn’t! The first I went in to her after she’d had the letter she said to me as angry as you please, ‘Well, Ellen, you were right, and I suppose I shall never hear the last of it,’ she said, and ‘Thank God, I had a friend that told me the truth before it was too late.’ She’d the letter in her hand, but she didn’t tell me who it was from—only thank God she’d got a friend that wasn’t afraid to tell heir the truth.”

  “Ye didn’t think she might be meaning yerself?”

  “No. It was the person who had written her the letter she meant. She had it in her hand. And then she said, ‘Those that go up quick can come down quick. And I’ll not be deceived a second time,’ she said. ‘I’ll make a new will, and then we’ll see who’s going to laugh on the wrong side of their mouth.’ And she took hold of me by my hand, and she said, ‘You warned me, and I did ought to have listened, Ellen,’ and the tears running down her face, my poor dear. So I took and said, ‘Don’t you fret, my dear, for she isn’t worth it. Put her away out of your will and out of your mind, and we’ll all be the same as what we were before.”

  “When was this?” said McGillivray.

  Ellen stared.

  “It was after the nurse went out,” she said in an offended voice.

  McGillivray glanced down at the timetable on his blotting-pad.

  “She went out at seven. Seven to seven-thirrty ye were in yer room with the door open. Seven-thirrty to eight ye were with Miss King.”

  Ellen went on staring in that offended way.

  “Do you think I’d leave her and never look in? Why, the first thing after the nurse was gone I stepped across.”

  “Then ye were not in yer room between seven and seven-thirrty.”

  “I was there all the time I wasn’t with Mrs. Maquisten. And if you’re thinking of anyone getting into the bathroom, they couldn’t have done it, because I was in and out with the door open, getting her a glass of water and a sponge to dab her eyes after she’d been crying.”

  “How long would ye be there?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Ten minutes?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not longer than that?”

  Ellen gave herself a jerk.

  “Not so long,” she said in a grumbling voice. “I don’t keep looking at clocks, but it wasn’t so long as ten minutes. She said what I told you, and she cried, poor dear. And I got her a sponge and a glass of water, and I come away to let her get quieted down. And when I looked in at half past seven, like I told you, she didn’t say a word—only to shake her head when I told her I was going up to Miss Honor, and did she want anything?”

  “And when did ye see Mrs. Maquisten again?”

  “I got her up and into her chair for her dinner after Miss Honor went down. But we didn’t say anything more about it, neither of us. I didn’t want to upset her, and she didn’t want to be upset, with the family coming up to coffee, so we didn’t say nothing. Nor we didn’t when I put her to bed—only she took hold of my hand tight and said, ‘You won’t ever leave me, Ellen, will you?’ And that was the last thing she ever said to me.”

  McGillivray leaned back in his chair. He might have been thinking about Ellen, or he might not. When the silence had lasted quite a long time he said in an absent-minded voice,

  “Ye were with Miss King between seven-thirrty and eight.” Then, with a sudden sharpness, “Why?”

  Ellen produced that offended stare.

  “There was a dress Mrs. Maquisten give her, it wanted the hem taking up.”

  “Was she going to wear it?”

  “I got it done all but a matter of inches, but she wouldn’t wait, not after she heard Mrs. Hull come in, so I finished it and left it on her bed, and she come up and put it on after dinner was over.”

  McGillivray produced a smile which sat rather oddly upon a mouth whose ordinary expression was grim.

  “Ye have a particular fondness for Miss Honor King, no doubt.”

  Ellen gave that jerk again.

  “Her!” she said. “And who’s been telling you that?”

  “Oh, no one, no one—I just thought of it for myself. And ye said ye were altering her dress—”

  He got a look which showed him how very little Mrs. Bridling thought of the police. She said in her grumbling way, “What’s that got to do with being fond of anyone? Miss Honor, to be sure! Find me anyone that’s fond of her, in the house or out of it! A poor winnicking child she was—nothing wrong with her, and nothing right—whooping-cough twice as long as anyone else, and all the other things to match. A poor thing she was to start with, and a poor thing she’ll be all her days. Miss Honor indeed!”

  McGillivray had seldom heard so much resentment in a human voice, and he was prepared to stake his professional reputation that it was genuine. If she didn’t dislike Honor King she despised her. Any idea that Ellen had lent herself to fabricating an alibi faded from his mind. He knew resentment and contempt when he encountered them. You don’t perjure yourself to provide an alibi for someone you despise and dislike. Honor King was definitely out of it.

  He changed the subject abruptly.

  “Just one thing more, Mrs. Bridling. I suppose Mrs. Maquisten will have provided for ye?”

  Ellen’s bony fingers tightened upon the handkerchief. She looked at him defiantly.

  “And what are you trying to make out of that? Haven’t I been with her for thirty-five years? What would you think of her if she hadn’t provided for me?”

  “Did she tell ye the amount of the provision?”

  Ellen sniffed fiercely.

  “No, she didn’t!”

  McGillivray let her go.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Den!” Nora came running up behind him and put a hand on his arm.

  “What is it?”

  “I want to talk to you. That policeman is in the study—he’s got Ellen there—I want to talk to you. Come to the drawing-room!”

  The big room was cold and gloomy to a degree—blinds drawn down, chandeliers in linen bags, dust-sheets covering the furniture, a smell of soot and mould. Nora made a face.

  “It’s frightful in here, but there are people all over the place.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “A heart-to-heart?”

  She nodded vehemently.

  “Yes. Den, it’s frightful—that man’s got Ellen in there, and God knows what she’s saying!”

  They were standing quite close to the door. He moved nearer to it now and switched on one of the corner lights. Under it he could see that Nora was frightened. Her naturally vivid colour was all gone, leaving her reddened lips too bright and rather ghastly. He said,

  “What has she been saying to you?”

  The round eyes became rounder. She said in a childish whisper,

  “She says it was Carey that Aunt Honoria was going to cut out of her will.”

  Dennis didn’t say anything at all. He began to look as if he was cold. He didn’t say anything.

  Nora’s round brown eyes were brimming. They were exactly the colour of water in a peaty pool.

  “Den, that’s what she said—and now she’s saying it to him.”

  “When did she say it to you?”

  “Just now, whilst he was talking to Ernest. And then he sent for her, and I know she’s telling him. She’ll be glad to—she hates Carey.”

  “She’s jealous. I don’t believe she knows a thing. Don’t you remember, you suggested at dinner on Monday night that Ellen might know who was for it, and I said she didn’t, because I’d asked her.”

  “I know. I told her that, and she said Aunt Honoria had told her not to say anything so of course she didn’t, but now she was dead it was different and she’d be bound to tell what she knew. Den, it’s horrible! Carey couldn’t!”

  Dennis had a frozen look. He said,

  “We don’t know her very well, do we?”

  “Den
!”

  “What did Ellen say?”

  “That Aunt Honoria had talked to her about it and said it was Carey—‘as near as makes no difference.’”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “She said, ‘Oh, we didn’t name no names, but it was Miss Carey she meant.’ Den that’s what frightens me, because if she was making it up out of jealousy and spite she wouldn’t go and boggle at the name—she’d say right out that Aunt Honoria had told her it was Carey.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Oh, she would—I’m sure she would.”

  “She might want to leave herself a loophole, in case it came out that it was someone else.”

  “Do you think she’d be clever enough for that? She’s just an ignorant, spiteful old thing, but she’s been here donkey’s years, and she did love Aunt Honoria.”

  Dennis stood quite silent for a moment. Then he said,

  “You’d better know—Ernest Hood says the same thing.”

  Nora drew in her breath.

  “Oh, Den—he doesn’t!”

  Dennis frowned.

  “He does. I met him coming out of the study, and he blattered out the whole thing—said he hoped he’d done right, and he didn’t know what Mr. Aylwin would say, but the Chief Inspector had put great pressure on him, and as it was a murder case he hardly liked—and so forth and so on. You know his style.”

  Nora gave a small sharp cry.

  “Murder? Oh, Den!”

  Dennis nodded.

  “Doesn’t sound too good, does it? But that’s what it is—someone murdered Aunt Honoria to stop her altering her will. Cui bono? Who profits—in case you’ve forgotten your Latin.”

  “Den—don’t!”

  He turned towards the door, fumbling with his crutch.

  “If I don’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s, the Chief Inspector will.”

  Nora began to cry, her eyes wide open and the tears running down over her cheeks.

  “Den, she wouldn’t—not Carey—she couldn’t! I thought you were fond of her. Aren’t you?”

  He had got the door open. He looked back at her and said, his mouth awry,