“Do you—think—they planned it—between them?”
“Don’t you? Remember Ellen’s door just opposite Aunt Honoria’s and nearly always open. She knew there was an unholy row brewing because everyone in the house knew that, and she’d know that Ernest had been sent for, because Molly had orders to bring him up as soon as he came. Don’t you think she’d have been waiting to have a word with him when he came out?”
“Do you think they planned it then?”
“No, I don’t. It would have been too dangerous. I don’t believe he’d have risked it. I think he told her to meet him somewhere when he got away from the office, which he did at half past five. I checked up on that myself because I wanted to be sure that he couldn’t have met Honor, and that was all right. He was back in the office before she left her parcels place, and she was back here before he left the office—they couldn’t have met. But Ellen went out ‘to the post’ at twenty past five, and I don’t mind betting that ‘the post’ was Ernest, and that she got her instructions then—she simply hadn’t got the brains to work it out for herself. But she has got the most phenomenal memory. She’ll repeat a long conversation and get it word-perfect, or tell some interminable story a dozen times and never vary a syllable. I’ve heard her doing it since I was a child.” He stopped dead, and then said slowly and painfully, “That’s why I believed her evidence, Carey.”
The tears stung in Carey’s eyes. She bit her lip and nodded.
He went on.
“I think he told her just what she was to do. Look what a careful alibi was provided for Honor. If she had been even slightly under suspicion it would have, been too dangerous for Ernest to marry her. She had to be kept absolutely clear, and it was very cleverly and plausibly done.”
Carey said suddenly,
“But Aunt Honoria wasn’t angry with Ellen. If she knew that Ernest had been making love to Honor and she was furious with them; then why wasn’t she furious with Ellen too?”
Dennis looked grim.
“That’s the nastiest part of it, my dear. There’s only one way of accounting for it. Ellen must have absolutely convinced Aunt Honoria that she hadn’t known anything about what was going on, and that she was just as much shocked and horrified as she was herself. And once she was convinced of that, don’t you see what a strong position Ellen was in? She knew from previous experience that Aunt Honoria would be given a sleeping-draught—she always had one after an upset, and this was a bad one. She knew that it was Magda’s evening off, and she would know just how to make sure that Aunt Honoria would insist on Magda going out. A suggestion of eavesdropping would have done it all right, and after that everything was easy. She came away and left you alone with Aunt Honoria after dinner so as to provide time for you to go into the bathroom and tamper with the draught, and if Honor or I had come along too soon she would have delayed us on the landing. It’s all so beautifully clear now that one has the key.” His tone was very bitter as he ended.
Carey looked at him.
“Dennis—don’t mind so much.” She saw his face change, and went on quickly, “Please—please don’t! Let’s just wipe it all out and be friends again.”
“Can we?”
“I don’t see why we can’t.”
“Don’t you, darling?” It was the old light tone, but the bitterness ran underneath.
Carey said, “No, I don’t. You see, I never really had any family before, and it wasn’t easy to have friends of my own age when I was at the Andrews’. He was a darling, and she was very kind to me, only she took quirks about things and nearly everything shocked her.”
“I can’t imagine how you stood it.”
“Oh, she isn’t as bad as she sounds. She was having an aggravated attack of conscience in the witness-box—she gets them sometimes. But he was a lamb, and I met a lot of interesting people—only not young. And then I came here, and you were all so nice to me. And Jeff wanted me to say I would marry him, but I didn’t want to be rushed. I wanted to play about a bit and not be in a hurry, and you were the very nicest playfellow.”
“No more than that?”
“Now, Den, you know perfectly well you didn’t want to be anything more.”
“Didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t,” said Carey firmly. “Nor did I.”
He looked right into her eyes for a moment, his own very bright and rather cynical. Then he burst out laughing.
“Are you refusing me, darling?”
Carey’s colour rose.
“I don’t think there was anything to refuse.”
“That wouldn’t matter, would it? Did you never hear of Jenny Baxter, who refused the man before he axed her?”
“Den, do be good! We can’t go on playing, but I want to be friends.”
His mouth twisted.
“Do you want to be a sister to me, darling?”
She laughed, but her eyes were full of tears.
“I wouldn’t mind. I want to be friends, like you are with Nora. You see, I know just what it’s been like for you.”
“Do you? I wonder. I hope you don’t.”
Carey went on steadily.
“You loved Cousin Honoria, and you were getting to be just a little bit in love with me. Then you thought I’d killed her, and you were afraid I’d make you forget what she’d done for you and what you felt about her, so you rather piled everything up against me to make yourself do what you thought you ought to do, and the more it hurt, the more you had to do it. That’s true—isn’t it?”
He looked at her for one direct moment and said, “Yes.” Then he got up, reached for the cigarette-case lying open on the mantelpiece, and busied himself with lighting a cigarette. When he had got it going he said over his shoulder,
“Going to marry Jeff?”
Carey didn’t answer, because the door opened suddenly and Nora and Jeff came in.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
It appeared that they had met on the doorstep, and that they each had news. Nora got hers out first, throwing off her coat, her cap, her gloves, and talking all the time.
“I went to try and see Honor, and I got Chief Inspector McGillivray. He says they’ve just about finished with her for the moment and she can come home. They’ve asked her millions of questions, and I expect she’ll be in a flat spin, but thank goodness they don’t seem to be going to arrest her. I told McGillivray that he ought to have more brains than to imagine that Honor would do anything but sit down and moan if she thought she was going to be cut out of a will, and he said, ‘I’m inclined to agree with ye.’ Very growly and Scotch, but with rather a twinkle in the eye. So I suppose she’ll be back any moment now—only what we’re going to do with her, I don’t know.”
Dennis gave her his charming smile.
“She will continue to be our little ray of sunshine, darling. It’s a glad prospect. Why didn’t you bring her with you?”
“McGillivray said I’d better not. He said she was hysterical, and they’d send her back with a policewoman in a taxi. He patted my shoulder and told me to run along and put a hot-water bottle in her bed. He’s rather a pet.”
The door opened again and Molly came in with the tea. As she set down the tray, Nora said easily,
“Miss Honor will be back any time now. You’d better put two hot-water bottles in her bed please, Molly.”
Molly made eyes like saucers.
“Miss Honor?”
Nora gave her casual laugh.
“Yes. And see the water’s boiling—there’s an angel.”
Molly departed, obviously bursting with curiosity. Nora began to pour out.
“Jeff’s been seeing Mark Aylwin. Oh—Mrs. Deeping’s made us peanut-butter toast! Carey, that’s for you. We have to drag it out of her by inches—or don’t I mean that? Anyhow Jeff really has got news—they’ve arrested Ernest. Go on, Jeff, tell us about it! Carey, here’s your tea and the butteriest bit of toast.”
Jeff gave her the cap and then propped himself against the mantelp
iece on her side of the hearth. He said,
“Well, I went to see Mr. Aylwin for reasons of my own, and rather to my surprise he came across and told me things. Hood was arrested about an hour ago.”
Nora exclaimed, “But McGillivray never told me! I call that low!”
“The police don’t tell everything they know. I was rather surprised that Aylwin did, but I thought he wanted to be friendly, and it will all be in the papers when Hood comes up before the magistrates. It seems one of Aylwin’s clerks, an old fellow called Sharp, came to him last night and said that after hearing Miss Gwent’s evidence there was something he thought Aylwin ought to know. He said he hadn’t thought of it as important until yesterday, when he was in court for the first time, heard Miss Gwent, and saw Ellen. He said he remembered everything that happened on November 16th, both because of the case and because of Aylwin being away. He remembered Hood being sent for by Mrs. Maquisten. He says he got back to the office again at a little after half past four and quit just before half past five, leaving Sharp to close up. Just after he had gone Sharp remembered something he had meant to ask Hood. He locked up and hurried after him. Well, he saw him meet Ellen—that is to say he saw him meet a woman whom he identified yesterday as Ellen Bridling. As they were in very deep conversation, he didn’t like to interrupt them and sheered off without being seen. But before he did so he had come up pretty close. There was a crowd on the pavement. The shops along there all close at half past five, and the sidewalks were full of people going home. He was right up behind Hood before it got home on him that something of the nature of a private conversation was going on. People do talk like that in a crowd—I’ve done it myself. Well, he was just going to touch Hood on the arm and ask whatever it was he had run after him to ask, when he heard him say, ‘Look here, there’s nothing to worry about—I’ve got it all planned. You’ve just got to do exactly what I tell you and everything will be quite all right.’ When Sharp heard that he thought he’d better not butt in. He edged away out of the crowd and cut down a side street. He said he never thought about any of it again until he heard Miss Gwent’s evidence yesterday and recognized Ellen Bridling in court. Then it came back to him, and the more he thought about it, the less he felt he could keep it to himself. He didn’t sleep all night, and by the time Aylwin went out for lunch he’d got to the point where he followed him and made a clean breast of it. Aylwin took him off to Scotland Yard, and they’ve collected Hood.”
Carey had the giddy feeling of things sliding past her, sliding away. She shut her eyes and leaned back against the cushions of her chair. There were two cushions, one blue and one green. She put her head against the blue cushion and waited for the giddy feeling to pass. A hand came down and took away the cup and plate which had slid together in her lap. She thought it was Jeff Stewart’s hand. She looked through her lashes, and was aware of him sitting on the arm of her chair, screening her from the others. Dennis had moved round to the other side of the table. There was so much of Jeff that he made a very adequate screen. She thought, “It’s nice of him—and nice not to make a fuss.” He put down the plate and cup and went on talking. They all talked, except Carey.
And then Molly opened the door and said, “Please, ma’am, Miss Honor’s here,” and Nora jumped up and ran out, dragging Dennis with her. Carey heard a tempestuous “I don’t care what you say, Den! You’ve got to come—you’ve got to be nice to her for once in your life!”
They went out. The door banged.
Jeff turned round and took hold of Carey’s hands.
“You’re cold,” he said.
His hands were very warm and strong. Carey opened her eyes and smiled. “I’m all right, Jeff. It was just a little like being in a train—everything going past—rather quick—”
“Let it go, honey.”
“You haven’t called me that for a long time.”
“Are you going to let me? You used to say, ‘No.’”
“Did I? It’s such a long time ago.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it is as far as I’m concerned. You know that.”
“Yes—you said so in court. It was a dreadfully public proposal, Jeff.”
Still holding her hands, he said, “You didn’t give me any answer either then or the first time. Do I get one now?”
Her lashes came down. She said haltingly,
“I—don’t know, Jeff. I don’t think—I—ought to.”
“Why?”
“You’ve been so good. I don’t know what I’d done without you—” Her voice went away into a murmur.
The very strong hands which were holding hers tightened painfully. “If you’re thinking of having me out of gratitude, honey, I’m not taking any.”
Her eyes opened with a startled expression.
“I didn’t say anything about having you.”
“Won’t you?”
She hadn’t known that his voice could be so melting soft. It made her breath catch and her words stumble.
“You oughtn’t—to marry—someone—who’s been mixed up—in a murder.”
“We’ve both been mixed up in it. Now we’re in the clear again. I don’t propose we shall spend our lives raking over the garbage.”
“Other people will.”
He laughed. “They’ll soon stop. Of course if you’re going to get down on your hands and knees and rake too, you can spoil your life and my life, but it would be a pretty foolish thing to do. We’ve got a good life coming.”
Carey began to feel, “Yes, we have,” but what she said was,
“Have we?”
He let go of her, laying her hands down gently in her lap. Then he said soberly, “If you want it that way. Do you?”
The hands had been warm. Now they began to feel cold again. When Carey lifted them they shook a little. They went out towards him with a groping movement, but he did not touch them. Instead he put his arms right round her and said,
“Going to take me, honey?”
Carey said, “Yes.”
About the Author
Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1945 by Patricia Wentworth Turnbull
Cover design by Maurcio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3323-7
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Silence in Court Page 23
