The Catherine Wheel

by Patricia Wentworth

  Miss Silver agreed with him.

  He sighed again in a resigned manner.

  “Oh, well, I suppose we shall all be allowed to go home tomorrow as soon as the inquest is over. Do you happen to know whether that is so?”

  Miss Silver turned the bright blue knitting in her lap.

  “I really do not know, but I should think there would be no objection. Neither you nor Miss Taverner are in a position to do more than corroborate what other witnesses have said.”

  He gazed at her earnestly.

  “My sister is not likely to be called as a witness, Inspector Crisp tells me, but he said she had better attend. If you would add to your kindness by sitting with her-” He met her thoughtful gaze with a quick attractive smile. For a moment his rather priggish manner gave way sufficiently to permit some genuine feeling to appear. “If I may say so, she has come to-well, rely on you.”

  Miss Silver said, “I shall be pleased to do what I can. But there is surely no need for Miss Taverner to be nervous.”

  Geoffrey shook his head.

  “No-no-of course not. But a person of her temperament doesn’t need a reason for being nervous, and you undoubtedly have a calming effect. I just thought that I would like to express my gratitude, and to ask whether you would sit with her tomorrow. It will relieve her mind very much if I can tell her that you will do so.”

  “By all means, Mr. Taverner.”

  She watched him go over to his sister and take the vacant seat beside her. Knitting as she did in the continental manner, it was possible for her to make rapid progress with little Josephine’s left sleeve whilst continuing her observation of what was going on in the room. She saw Mildred Taverner look uneasily at her brother as he approached and then brighten up and send a glance in her own direction, after which only an occasional remark appeared to pass between them. Miss Taverner, she considered, would have been the better for a piece of good plain knitting to occupy her hands. It was, of course, indicative of her nervous state that she seemed unable to keep them still. They plucked at the stuff of her dress, they twitched, they jerked, they fidgeted with those unbecoming bright blue beads, with the old-fashioned gold chain. They were not still for a moment.

  After some half dozen remarks at widely spaced intervals Geoffrey got up and drifted over to the fire, where he presently engaged in conversation with Jacob Taverner, who was doing a cross-word puzzle. In a short time they appeared to be doing it together.

  As Florence Duke came back with fresh hot coffee, Mildred got up and came to join them, fluttering and uncertain.

  “Would you mind… Oh, that is very kind of you! It makes one feel so nervous sitting alone. Not you of course, because you are not like that. Oh, no-no coffee, thanks. I’m afraid it might keep me awake.” She addressed Florence Duke. “You don’t find it does?”

  Florence Duke looked at her as if she were seeing something else. She said with a sort of slow finality,

  “It isn’t coffee that would keep me awake.”

  At ten o’clock they went upstairs together. Their rooms were next to each other along the right-hand passage, Miss Silver nearest the stairs, then Florence Duke, and beyond her Mildred Taverner.

  Florence went straight into her room, but Mildred lingered, her door half open, the knob in her hand, as if she could not make up her mind to go in.

  “Perhaps this is our last night here. Oh, I do hope so-don’t you?” And then, “You are so very kind-I wonder if you would just stand at the door whilst I look in the cupboard and under the bed. I always do it at home-not that I think there will be anyone, but it just gives me a more comfortable feeling. And my friend comes with me, because of course if there should be anyone there, or-or anything, I don’t really know what I should do.” She drew a long breath. “There was a very large spider once, and I have never been any good about spiders.” Her head poked and her long nose twitched.

  Miss Silver came briskly to the door and opened it wide.

  “I do not suppose for a moment that there will be any spiders,” she said with her slight dry cough.

  There was neither a spider nor a cockroach, there was not even a concealed miscreant. With a sigh of relief Mildred Taverner said good-night all over again and locked the door on the inside.

  Miss Silver went into her own room, where she took off her watch, which she wound, and her bog-oak brooch. She then stood for a few moments in thought, and had just begun to cross the room in the direction of the door, when there was a light tap upon it. In response to her “Come in!” Eily appeared, carrying four hot-water bottles.

  Miss Silver was so used to her own that she took it from Eily without having any thoughts about it at all, but she felt that she could at once allocate the other three to their respective owners. Very fine white rubber in a white satin bag with pale green quilting could not possibly belong to anyone but Lady Marian. Bright blue with no cover at all would, she thought, be Jane Heron’s. But the last one? There were two more ladies and only one bottle, a rather battered specimen with a washed-out flannel cover. It might belong either to Florence Duke, or to Mildred Taverner. It took her only a moment to decide. Florence Duke might have owned one as shabby, but both it and its cover would have started life in some gayer shade. With hardly any perceptible pause she was asking Eily,

  “Does Mrs. Duke not have a bottle?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Silver. But I saw her go over to the bathroom, so I thought I’d slip it in and get rid of it. It’s a red one. Fortunately they’re all different. Sometimes it’s a job not to get them mixed- and that’s a thing a nobody likes.”

  “No-I suppose not.”

  Miss Silver had placed her own bottle inside the turned-down bed. She now went over to the door and closed it.

  Eily watched, three bottles in her arms and a look of surprise on her face. She was to be still more surprised. Miss Silver coughed and said,

  “Where are you sleeping, Eily?”

  “In my own room.”

  “I think it would be better if you were to sleep with Miss Heron tonight.”

  The dark blue eyes were fixed on her in a look between wonder and fear.

  “But, Miss Silver-”

  “I think it would be best. I advise you very strongly to ask Miss Heron to let you share her room.”

  Eily shook her head.

  “My uncle wouldn’t like it.”

  “I do not see why he should know.”

  There was an odd fleeting look before the lashes fell.

  “There isn’t much my uncle doesn’t get to know.” Then, more quickly, “And what’s the need? It was Luke I was afraid of-and he’s gone.”

  “Eily-”

  She shook her head again.

  “My uncle wouldn’t like it at all. If you please, Miss Silver-the bottles will be getting cold.”

  Miss Silver moved away from the door. She was satisfied upon one point, but seriously uneasy upon another. She saw Eily go out of the room, and waited with her door ajar for Florence Duke to return from the bathroom.

  As soon as she heard what she was listening for she looked out into the passage.

  “Mrs. Duke-if I might have just a word with you-”

  Florence came across with a slow, unwilling step. She had taken off her dress and was wearing her outdoor coat in place of a dressing-gown. Her face, stripped bare of make-up, had a sagged, unhappy look, the lines from nose to mouth accentuated, the colour in cheeks and lips dull and lifeless. She said heavily,

  “I just want to get into bed and sleep.”

  Miss Silver shut the door.

  “I will not keep you. There are one or two things I could not say downstairs, where there was a risk that we might be overheard. Inspector Crisp rang you up this evening, did he not?”

  “What if he did?”

  “He asked you to give evidence at the inquest tomorrow?”

  Florence said heavily,

  “What if he did?”

  “Mrs. Duke, is there no one in this house wh
o might be concerned to prevent you from giving that evidence?”

  “Why should they?”

  “Do you not know of a reason?”

  She stared down at the bath-towel she was carrying. It hung on her right arm, but she had slipped her left hand under it too. It hid both her hands. She stared at it with hidden eyes. A moment passed before she said,

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Do you not?”

  The eyes were lifted. They were angry now.

  “Let me alone, can’t you! What has it got to do with you?”

  Miss Silver said very quietly and steadily,

  “I am concerned for your safety, Mrs. Duke. Will you please listen to me for a moment?”

  The anger flickered and died down.

  “What do you want?”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “You have been asked to give certain evidence. I do not know what that evidence will be, but I can think of circumstances in which it might prove dangerous to people who have already shown that they will stick at nothing. I would like you to consider whether you might not be in danger, and whether it would not be safer for you to spend the night elsewhere.”

  Florence Duke looked past her.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  As if she had not spoken, Miss Silver continued.

  “I would like to ask Captain Taverner to take you to Cliff House, where Inspector Abbott is staying. He would, I am sure, arrange for you to be accommodated.”

  Florence Duke gave a sudden laugh as far removed from merriment as it well could be.

  “Cliff House? Me-at this time of the night? I suppose you think I haven’t got a character to lose-going to stay with two young men, and one of them in the police! No, thank you!”

  “Mrs. Duke-”

  Florence put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Look here, you mean well, I grant you that, but this isn’t your business. And I don’t know what you’re talking about neither, and if I did I wouldn’t care. Get that-I wouldn’t care! If someone was to bring me a good glass of poison this minute, I’d just as soon drink it and be done with everything! So you can stop your hinting about my being in danger! I don’t care if I am! Do you get that? I don’t give a damn!”

  Miss Silver looked at her with compassion. There was a moment when their eyes met, a moment when things hung in the balance. The hand on Miss Silver’s shoulder weighed heavily. It shook a little, and then it was withdrawn. Florence Duke said with a catch in her voice,

  “Oh, well, it’ll be all the same a hundred years hence.”

  Then she turned and went out of the room and into her own, and shut the door.

  CHAPTER 34

  Miss Silver waited for what she was hoping to hear, the sound of a key being turned in the lock of the door which was next to her own. It was turned roughly and with no attempt at concealment. To all whom it might concern, Florence Duke had locked herself in for the night. Miss Silver experienced a decided feeling of relief. She had no desire to sit up all night, but if that door had not been locked, she might have felt herself obliged to do so. As it was, she felt quite sure that by setting her door ajar she would at once become aware of any attempt to tamper with the lock of Mrs. Duke’s room. The mere fact that her own door was ajar would act as a deterrent.

  She undressed, put on her dressing-gown, and went across to the bathroom to wash, taking her towel with her. There was a faint pleasant scent in the passage. The light from a small wall-lamp disclosed the fact that powder had been spilled upon the carpet. The scent was agreeable and not too insistent. It suggested an expensive beauty-shop and Lady Marian. The bathroom smelled of it too. It required no great powers of deduction to assume that Marian Thorpe-Ennington had taken a bath and had spilled some of her powder as she came or went.

  Her ablutions over, Miss Silver crossed the passage again, drew a blue crochet shawl about her shoulders, and sitting up in bed, reached for her old shabby Bible. It was her custom to read a portion of Scripture before she slept. As she opened the book, the yellow candlelight fell upon the psalm in which David prays to be delivered from Saul and Doeg:

  “The proud have laid a snare for me and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me.”

  The words appeared to her to be almost too appropriate. She turned the leaves in search of a more consoling passage.

  She did not put out her light for quite a long time. With her door some six inches open, sounds came to her from the other rooms, from the well of the stairs. Footsteps crossed the landing, entered the passage on the farther side, and passed out of hearing. The murmur of voices from the Thorpe-Enningtons’ room died away. Midnight and silence were in her house. She blew out her candle and fell into a light sleep. The smallest sound would have roused her. Even without being aware of such a sound she was never far from consciousness. When the old wall-clock downstairs struck each of the hours between twelve and seven she was at once fully awake and, waking, was aware only of sleep in the house and the silence gathering.

  At seven footsteps came again, a long way off in the passage on the other side of the landing-doors opening, the distant sound of voices. Eily and the Castells were up. Miss Silver got up too. She went over to the bathroom to wash, as she had done the night before, and was pleased to find that the water was still warm.

  Before she came back into her own room she very gently tried the handle of Florence Duke’s door. It was still locked. She completed her dressing with a feeling of satisfaction. The night was safely over, and within the next few hours the inquest would be over too and Florence Duke’s evidence would have been placed on record. Alone in her room, she admitted to herself that it would be very pleasant indeed to get back to her comfortable flat, and to the ministrations of her devoted Hannah.

  By eight o’clock others were stirring. There was some competition for the bathroom. Jane Heron came out of her room looking fresh and blooming. She ran downstairs humming a tune, and Jeremy joined her. Mildred Taverner appeared next, pale, nervous, and not sure whether she ought to wear her blue beads to an inquest. Miss Silver’s door being half open, she knocked upon it and came in to invite an opinion.

  “I shall have my coat on and a scarf, so I don’t suppose they will show, but if it should be very hot-at the inquest, I mean- I should want to open my coat-I always do get hot when I’m nervous-and perhaps take the scarf off too, and then the beads would show. Of course the scarf is a coloured one, but I haven’t any black, and I couldn’t be expected to know that anyone was going to be murdered.” The tip of her long, pale nose became quite pink with agitation. “It really is so difficult, because I shouldn’t like anyone to think I was heartless, and in a sort of way I suppose you might say he was a cousin.”

  Miss Silver said in a kind, firm voice,

  “I am sure no one would think that you were heartless, but if it made you feel any more comfortable, you could leave the beads in a drawer and put them on again after the inquest is over.”

  Mildred Taverner’s nose became a much deeper pink. Her agitation was sensibly increased.

  “Oh, but I wear them always. I shouldn’t like to leave them here, not with things like murders happening. I really couldn’t bear it if-you see, they were given to me by such a very dear friend-such a very dear friend-and he is dead, and I have always worn them. We weren’t exactly engaged, but he gave me the beads.”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “Then I should wear them.”

  The door was still open to the passage. It really was a relief that Lady Marian should come out of her room at this moment, since, without some interruption, it seemed quite possible that Mildred Taverner might continue to discuss her qualms indefinitely. Unfortunately the sight of Lady Marian in a beautifully cut black town suit had anything but a calming effect. Miss Taverner gazed at the white crepe blouse, the two rows of pearls, the small black hat, and the slimming elegance of the coat and skirt, with a feeling akin to despair. So
smart, so suitable, so completely beyond her reach. She resigned herself, but the feeling of inferiority sank deep and added to the chronic uncertainty with which she contemplated the problem of living.

  Lady Marian was in excellent looks and spirits. She had enjoyed nearly ten hours of refreshing sleep, and by lunchtime the Catherine-Wheel and its unpleasant happenings would have gone to join all those other past events which served her as an inexhaustible source of anecdote. Even the fact that Freddy with another painful business meeting before him was in a state of suicidal depression raised no more than a ripple upon the surface of her mind. She showed, in fact, some zest in explaining how low he was. “But, as I said to him, ‘Something always does turn up, and as to being ruined, well, who isn’t? And I can’t see it makes any difference whether the creditors have your money, because it all goes in income tax anyhow, and when you haven’t got any more they do have to stop, so we shan’t have to go on filling up any more of those dreadful forms.’ ”

  Miss Silver, who was nearest to the door, had not been attending very closely to these remarks. From where she stood she could see the landing and the top of the stairs.

  At this moment Eily came round the corner carrying three or four pairs of shoes newly cleaned. She put Jane Heron’s inside her room, Lady Marian’s and Freddy Thorpe-Ennington’s beside their door, and then crossed over with the remaining pair in her hand-shabby patent leather with bulging toes and exaggerated heels. She had put them down at Florence Duke’s door and was straightening up again, when Miss Silver stepped into the passage and addressed her.

  “Just knock on the door, Eily, and see whether Mrs. Duke is up.”

  Eily tapped on the panel, waited for a moment, and tapped again. When there was no reply she looked round at Miss Silver in a hesitating manner.

  “Do you think she is asleep?”

  Miss Silver stepped forward, put her hand on the knob of the door, and turned it gently. The door was locked, as it had been when she tried it last. She knocked herself this time, so loudly that Mildred Taverner and Marian Thorpe-Ennington came out into the passage to see what was going on. But from behind that locked door there was neither voice nor answer.