The Key (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 8)

by Patricia Wentworth

  Garth and Janice walked side by side. They had hardly spoken. The feeling of having been at a funeral hung over them. They walked in silence as far as the corner. Here the road branched off on one side to the houses which faced the Green, and on the other something not much better than a track led through a straggle of cottages and beyond them to Prior’s End. They stopped and looked at each other.

  ‘You will come to tea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look here, come out early and we’ll go for a walk. I want to talk to you – not in Aunt Sophy’s drawing-room. I’ll be at the stile by the Priory field at half-past two. Can you make it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll ask for the afternoon off.’

  They stood for a moment. There was at once too much and too little to say, and none of it could be said within earshot of half the village streaming home. She turned and went quickly away from him up the track.

  Garth followed Miss Sophy and Miss Doncaster, who by now were safely discussing the best method of storing onions. Far in front of them, moving with a kind of restive energy, was the tall black figure of Miss Brown. As it turned in at the Rectory gate, Miss Sophy heaved a sigh.

  ‘Medora has felt it all very much.’

  Miss Doncaster stiffened.

  ‘I hope we have all felt it, Sophy. But some of us were brought up to control our feelings. Miss Brown makes hers too conspicuous for my taste.’

  Miss Sophy’s round blue eyes administered the reproach which for prudence sake she refrained from putting into words. Then, with a faint chill upon her voice, she went on talking about onions.

  Arriving at the Rectory, and Miss Doncaster safely on her way to her own house and her afflicted sister, Garth grasped Miss Sophy by the arm, took her into the drawing-room, and shut the door.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you remember last night?’

  ‘My dear boy—’

  He shook the arm a little.

  ‘About the Pincott girl’s triplets – which one was it – Minnie?’

  ‘No dear – Eliza.’ She gazed at him out of eyes as blue and bewildered as a baby’s.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. The point is this. You sent me to get the snapshot of them out of your bureau drawer – the left-hand top drawer.’

  ‘I don’t see—’

  ‘You will. Isn’t that the drawer where you keep the church key?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t there last night.’

  Miss Sophy’s gaze was quite untroubled.

  ‘My dear, it must have been.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘But my dear – it is always there except when Miss Brown is practising, and last night—’

  ‘She was playing the piano with her back to us – I know. And the key wasn’t in the drawer. There was nothing there except a clip of bills and the snapshot.’

  Miss Sophy released herself, walked over to the bureau, and pulled out the small top drawer on the left. The clip of bills was there, the snapshot was there, and right on the top of Eliza and the triplets lay the fourth church key. Garth stared at it over her shoulder.

  ‘It wasn’t there last night, Aunt Sophy.’

  She said, ‘It must have been,’ but she looked disturbed.

  Garth put his arm round her.

  ‘Aunt Sophy, look! If it had been there last night, I couldn’t have helped seeing it. And if it had been there last night it wouldn’t be on the top of the snapshot now – the snapshot would be on top. I had it out, and I put it back, and the key wasn’t there. Someone has put it back since last night. That’s the only way it could be on the top of the photograph. Don’t you see?

  Something touched the blue of Miss Sophy’s eyes. They didn’t look blue any more, they looked frightened. She put out a hand which was not quite steady and shut the drawer. Then she said, ‘There is some mistake, my dear. I think we won’t talk about it any more.’

  ELEVEN

  GARTH SAT ON the stile at the end of Prior’s Wood and whistled, ‘Tell it to the soldier, tell it to the sailor, tell it to the lad from the marines.’ He sat with his back to the wood through which he had come by way of a green winding path known locally as Lover’s Walk, and his face to the Prior’s Field, where the ruins of what had been Bourne Priory lay in picturesque disorder. There was still an arch or two of the cloisters where the monks had paced up and down with the western sunlight slanting in, but for the most part what had once been chapel, refectory, dormitories, and kitchen, was now nothing but heaped masonry with much of its stonework pilfered to make the doorsteps, the well-heads, and the tombstones of Bourne. Beyond the held and the tall hedgerow which bordered it was the lane leading to Prior’s End. The roof of the house was visible amongst sheltering trees. The nearer hedge was broken by another stile. Janice would not have far to come.

  Garth whistled because he didn’t particularly want to think. He wanted to see Janice and hear what she had to say before he set his mind working upon such things as the glass on the Rectory stair, the glass on Evan Madoc’s shoe, and the odd behaviour of Aunt Sophy’s key. It is much easier to make up your mind not to think than it is to stop thinking. Behind the silly jingling words suggested by the tune he was whistling there came and went a crowd of shadowy, half-conscious speculations. It was a relief when something moved behind the hedge on the far side of the held and a moment later Janice came into view at the stile. He jumped down and went to meet her.

  She had hurried a little, and there was colour in her cheeks. She wore the white frock which she had worn at the inquest, but she had taken off the hat with the black ribbon. The sun picked up the gold threads in the short brown curls. He thought again how little she had changed. The very bright eyes of no particular colour – they could look grey, or brown, or green – the little brown pointed face, the short bright curls, and the short white frock belonged as much to Janice at ten years old as to Janice at twenty-two.

  He laughed, and said, ‘You haven’t grown a bit.’

  The colour brightened against the brown of her skin. She stuck her chin in the air.

  ‘Why should I have grown? Last time you saw me I was nineteen. People don’t grow after they’re nineteen.’

  His eyes teased her.

  ‘I did – I grew two inches.’

  ‘Well, I call that extravagant! You were six foot already – another two inches was just swank. And everybody doesn’t want to be yards high anyhow.’

  Garth laughed. It was really very difficult to disentangle her from the little girl who had passionately wanted to be tall, and who had coloured up just like this when he teased her. Then all of a sudden the past shut down. The old safe, easy world was gone – its rules, its pattern, its way of life. The violence which was shaking the world had reached out and shaken Bourne, for whether Michael Harsch had shot himself or had been murdered, he had most certainly died because an Austrian house-painter aspired to an empire beyond the dreams of the Caesars. He said abruptly, ‘I want to talk to you, Janice. Where shall we go – up over the downs?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  ‘Or we can stay here, if you don’t want to get hot.’ Her colour had failed, and he noticed how tired she looked – quite suddenly. ‘Lots of good places to sit, if you’d rather do that.’

  ‘Yes – I think so—’

  They found a place where tumbled heaps of stone would screen them from the lane. Garth felt again how far away the past had gone. The little girl Janice had tagged about at his heels all day with as little thought of fatigue as a rabbit. He frowned and said, ‘You look all in. What’s the matter? Is it this Harsch business?’

  She said, ‘Yes. I don’t mean just because he’s dead.’ She leaned forward, her hands locked about her knees. ‘Garth – he didn’t shoot himself – I know he didn’t.’

  He was looking at her hard.

  ‘If you know anything, you ought to have said it at the inquest.’

  ‘But I did—’

&nbs
p; ‘You mean you just think he didn’t shoot himself. You don’t really know anything at all.’

  This was the old superior Garth, talking down over a five years gap. She reacted at once.

  ‘Don’t be stupid – facts aren’t the only things you can know. You can know people – you can know a person so well that you can be quite sure he wouldn’t do that sort of thing.’

  ‘Meaning it would be out of character for Harsch to have committed suicide?’

  Her ‘Yes’ was very emphatic.

  ‘But, Janice, don’t you see that when something pushes a man off his balance, that’s just what he does do – he acts out of character. It isn’t normal for a man to pitch on his head or go down on his hands and knees, but if his physical balance is upset, it may happen. And when it comes to mental balance, well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it? Normal motives and restraints cease to operate, and he does the last thing he would dream of doing if he were himself.’

  Janice looked at him with those very bright eyes.

  ‘He didn’t do it, Garth.’

  ‘You’re just being obstinate. You’ve got nothing to go on.’

  ‘But I have. You haven’t listened to me yet. I want you to listen.’

  ‘All right – go ahead.’

  She set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand and went on looking at him.

  ‘Well then – it’s five years since Mr Harsch came over here. That’s to say it’s more than five years since his wife and daughter – died. That would have been the time to kill himself if he were going to do it. The Nazis had stripped him of everything. He hadn’t got anything left except his mind, and they couldn’t touch that. If they didn’t break it then, why should it break suddenly now? I don’t care how dreadful a tragedy has been, it can’t be quite the same after five years as it was at first. He told me himself that last day that in the beginning he kept going because he wanted punishment and revenge, and he thought this stuff he was working on would give it to him.’

  ‘Harschite – yes.’

  Her face changed.

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Yes – that’s why I’m here. Don’t tell anyone, Jan.’

  The colour came brightly to her face. She nodded and went on with what she had been saying.

  ‘But now, he said, all that had gone. He said the desire for revenge wasn’t civilised. He only wanted to stop the dreadful things that were being done, and to set people free. And he spoke of working with Mr Madoc, and asked if I would help him. You see, none of that is like a man who is off his balance. He wasn’t like that at all – I lived in the house with him for a year, and I know. He was gentle, and considerate, and very patient. He was always thinking of other people. I know he wouldn’t have made that appointment with—’ she stopped suddenly.

  Garth supplied the name she had bitten off.

  ‘With Sir George Rendal.’

  ‘Oh, you know that too?’

  ‘I’m acting for him – but that’s not to be known. Go on.’

  ‘I was going to say that he would never have made that appointment and failed to keep it. I know he wouldn’t.’

  Garth leaned back and looked at her. No doubt about it at all, she most passionately believed what she had said. Her eyes, her lips, the colour in her cheeks, made up a picture of absolute conviction. He was, if not himself convinced, a good deal impressed. The impression was definite enough to make him give a little more weight to such things as two pieces of glass and a key. He said, ‘All right, you’ve got that on the record. Now it’s my turn. I want you to answer some questions. Will you?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘You think Michael Harsch was murdered?’

  She brought her hands together in a way he remembered. Her colour was all gone.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  He gave his old impatient jerk of the shoulder.

  ‘What else? If he didn’t commit suicide, he was murdered, wasn’t he? What else have you been saying, except that he was murdered?’

  She looked down at her hands and said, ‘Yes.’ And then, in a childish, almost inaudible voice, ‘It sounds so dreadful.’

  It touched him in an odd kind of way, like a child saying ‘I don’t like it’ in the middle of a thunderstorm or a bombardment. He said in a tone that was grim just because he had been moved, ‘Well, murder is dreadful.’

  She said, ‘I know—’

  ‘And the murderer, if it were murder, is still at large. Now let’s go back to my questions. I want to know a lot of things that the coroner didn’t ask. I want to know whether you suspect anyone.’

  She took a long time to answer that. Then she said, ‘No.’

  He looked at her sharply.

  ‘Tell me about the other people in the house. Tell me about Madoc. That show he put up at the inquest – was that genuine, or was it a stunt? Is he like that all the time?’

  ‘Oh, yes – he really is. He doesn’t put it on – he’s like that.’

  ‘Gosh!’

  She was looking at him again. There was a sparkle behind the brown lashes.

  ‘You’d say so if you worked for him.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘Scolds – calls you names – things like atomy—’

  Garth burst out laughing.

  ‘My poor child! You can sue him for libel.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have stayed if it hadn’t been for Mr Harsch.’

  Garth was grave again.

  ‘How did they get on?’

  ‘Oh, you couldn’t quarrel with Mr Harsch – nobody could. He always said Mr Madoc didn’t mean anything, and just went on being nice.’

  ‘There was no quarrel between them, then?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Jan, what happened on Tuesday night – after Harsch went out? Do you sit with the Madocs in the evening – were you all together?’

  She said slowly, ‘Miss Madoc and I were together.’

  ‘And Madoc?’

  ‘He hardly ever sits with us.’

  ‘Where does he sit?’

  ‘In the laboratory. It’s really his study too. He’s got his writing-table there, and all his books.’

  ‘Did you see him at all on Tuesday evening after Harsch went out?’

  ‘Not till he was going up to bed.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘About a quarter past ten.’

  ‘Then you can’t say for certain whether he left the house or not. You don’t know that he didn’t leave it?’

  Her eyes changed. She looked down again.

  He put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Jan, you’ve got to tell me! Did he go out – do you know that he went out?’

  In a whisper which yet seemed not to have enough breath to carry it, she said, ‘He often goes out—’

  The hand on her arm felt very strong, very warm, very insistent. She wasn’t sure whether she was shaking just of herself, or whether Garth was shaking her. His voice wasn’t loud, but it meant to have an answer.

  ‘Did he go out on Tuesday night?’

  Janice said, ‘Yes.’

  The hand let go, but she was still shaking. The voice went on.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I heard the front door. You can’t help hearing it.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been anyone else? Who else is there?’

  ‘Only the housekeeper, Mrs Williams, and she’d die before she went out in the dark. She’s a townswoman really, from Cardiff. She only stays because she adores Mr Madoc.’

  So Madoc had gone out. He wondered where he had gone.

  ‘When did he go?’

  ‘It was just before we turned on the nine o’clock news.’

  ‘And when did he get back?’

  Her voice went away to a whisper again. She said, ‘It was about ten minutes past ten.’

  TWELVE

  SILENCE FELL BETWEEN them. The sky was very blue overhead and the sun shone, a little wind went whispering through the
wood. Garth tilted his head and watched a small white cloud move very slowly just above the line where the downs cut the sky. All the way between, the land ran upwards in a gentle even slope. A very quiet, peaceful land. Sound of the light wind moving among summer leaves. Sound of the Bourne water slipping idly over its stones. Sound of the wind in its bordering willows. The stream ran down the farther edge of the field and then slid into the wood no more than a dozen yards from the stile.

  Janice watched him, and wondered what he was thinking about. She had always liked to watch him when he was thinking, and it was quite safe, because his thoughts took hold of him and made him forget that anyone else was there. She thought he hadn’t changed at all, but then of course the three years between twenty-four and twenty-seven don’t make such a lot of difference to a man. The long, lightly built figure; the thin, dark face; the rather grave mouth; the marked brows with the upward kink which somehow gave him an impatient look; the eyes grey where you would have expected them to be brown; the hair so dark as to be almost black – all these things were as familiar to her as her own face in the glass. Dear and familiar too the knowledge that the grave lips could take on the most mischievous smile, and that when they did this the slant of the eyebrows no longer spelled impatience, but served to set an accent upon laughing, teasing eyes. She had thought a hundred times, ‘He’ll fall in love with a fair-haired girl – he’s simply bound to. She’ll be pink and plump, and she’ll have lovely blue eyes and a most frightfully sweet temper, and they’ll be very, very happy. And if you’re going to be stupid enough to mind, you’ll get hurt, and it will be your own fault and nobody else’s.’

  Garth brought his eyes down from the sky, and said abruptly, ‘What is going on between Madoc and Miss Medora Brown?’

  It was partly because she had been caught looking at him that the startled colour ran right up to the roots of her short brown curls, but he wasn’t to know that. She gave a little gasp.