The Key (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 8)

by Patricia Wentworth

  Lamb stared.

  ‘Indeed?’

  The needles clicked, the khaki sock revolved.

  ‘I had a conversation with her this afternoon, and she informed me that she married Mr Madoc on June 17th five years ago, at Marylebone Register Office.’

  Frank Abbott said, ‘That’s torn it!’

  His Chief Inspector turned a deep plum colour.

  ‘Well, if that doesn’t beat the band!’ he said in an exasperated tone.

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘I felt that you should be informed immediately. But let us return to Ezra Pincott. Without wishing to link my second item of information with his death, I cannot but feel that it has a certain relevance in view of the fact that the churchyard paths are gravelled. I have discovered a witness, a young girl by the name of Gladys Brewer, who was in the churchyard round about ten o’clock on the night of Mr Harsch’s death. Her companion was a lad of the name of Sam Bowlby. I have not interrogated him, but Gladys says they saw the sexton, Bush, come out of the church at a little before ten.’

  The Chief Inspector’s eyes bolted.

  ‘She saw him come out of the church?’

  Miss Silver inclined her head.

  ‘She says he came out, locked the door behind him, and went off in a hurry round the building in the direction of the gate which opens upon the village street.’

  ‘Miss Silver!’

  She inclined her head again.

  ‘Yes, I know. It makes a very considerable difference, does it not?’

  ‘Bush came out of the church before ten o’clock?’

  ‘A few minutes before the clock struck. We must allow time for him to lock the door, skirt the church, and be out of sight before the clock struck. Gladys and her friend were sitting on the flat some of Mr Doncaster’s grave right up against the Rectory wall. They were immediately opposite the side door of the church, and it was bright moonlight. They could see perfectly, but were screened themselves by the branches of a copper beech which overhangs the wall at this spot.’

  Lamb was leaning forward, his big body tilted, his eyes more like bull’s-eyes than ever.

  ‘You think she’s reliable, this girl? She’s not having us on – or working off a grudge against Bush? If she’s in the way of going into the churchyard with her boyfriend at night she might have had the rough side of his tongue – see?’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘I do not think so. I believe that she was telling the truth. I arrived at the point in a somewhat oblique manner, and it was only when pressed for every detail of what she had seen on Tuesday night that the facts emerged. She was so impatient to be gone to the pictures with Sam Bowlby, and she had, I am sure, no idea that what she told me was of any importance whatever. She said at the end, “I told you it wasn’t nothing, any of it,” and went off without a thought in her head except about her boy and the film they were going to see.’

  Lamb took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.

  ‘Well, I’ll take your word for that. But what a mix-up! Bush came out of the church before ten. He was in it not so very long after the shot was fired. If he hasn’t got an alibi to cover the time, there’s nothing to say he didn’t fire that shot himself. He was seen coming out. If he wasn’t seen going in, well.... And there’s another thing. If that girl’s telling the truth and she saw him lock the door, then all that business about the key goes west – there’s nothing to show that the door was locked at all before Bush locked it. The fact that Madoc had a key isn’t nearly so important as it was.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘Exactly. The theory that Mr Harsch committed suicide was based on the fact that he was found behind locked doors with his own key in his pocket. The case against Mr Madoc was based upon the discovery that he had come into possession of Miss Brown’s key after a jealous scene with her, and about a quarter of an hour before the shot was fired. But since it now appears that the door behind which Mr Harsch’s body was found was neither locked by his own key nor by the one in Mr Madoc’s possession, but by Bush, it seems to me that the case against Mr Madoc is very much weakened. When it is further considered that there is evidence that Ezra Pincott was murdered last night, the case would seem to be very weak indeed, since Mr Madoc could have had no hand in this murder.’

  Lamb hoisted himself out of his chair.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I won’t say yes, and I won’t say no. But this man Bush has certainly got something to explain. We’ll have to see him and ask him what about it.

  Half way to the door he turned back.

  ‘You haven’t got a motive to hand us, I suppose? Respectable sextons don’t go about murdering organists as a rule. You’ve got to have a motive, you know. Juries are funny that way.’

  Miss Silver drew herself up. It was the slightest, most ladylike of gestures, but it certainly conveyed to Sergeant Abbott, if not to his superior officer, that the Chief Inspector had allowed a perhaps natural exasperation to impair the courtesy due to a gentlewoman. There was a faint chill upon her voice as she said, ‘There is a possible motive, and I feel it my duty to acquaint you with it. Bush, though born a British subject, is of German origin. His parents settled in this country. The name was Busch, spelt in the German manner with an sch, the English spelling being adopted during the last war. Miss Fell informs me that a short time previously this man Frederick Bush, who was then about seventeen years of age, was approached by enemy agents who endeavoured to persuade him to obtain information for them. He was at that time under-footman in a house where the conversation at the dinner table might have been of considerable value. I must hasten to add that he immediately refused, and that he acquainted Miss Fell’s stepfather, who was then Rector of Bourne, with the particulars.’

  Lamb pursed up his mouth and whistled.

  ‘Well!’ he said. Then with an abrupt movement he turned to the door again. ‘Oh, come along, Frank – come along before she tells us anything more! I’ve got as much as I can get through with for today.’

  THIRTY

  WHILST THIS CONVERSATION was going on Miss Sophy had slipped into a gentle refreshing sleep in the drawing-room. Though she never admitted to an afternoon nap, and would not on any account have put up her feet, she had no objection to supporting them on a foot-stool, or to leaning back against a number of comfortably piled cushions and closing her eyes. Garth Albany on one side of her and Janice upon the other became aware that they no longer had her attention. Her white woolly curls rested becomingly against a blue silk cushion, her breath came evenly and without sound from the slightly parted lips, her plump hands were folded in a purple lap. To all intents and purposes they were alone.

  If Janice could have been anywhere else she would have been glad. Or would she? She didn’t know. Ever since that walk on Sunday she didn’t know what she wanted. Down deep in a hidden corner something wept and refused to be comforted. Because Garth had been going to make love to her and she had stopped him, and now she wouldn’t have anything to remember. He would go away, and it might be years before he came back again. He might go abroad, he might be killed, and she would have nothing, nothing to remember. He might have said, ‘I love you,’ he would certainly have kissed her. Even if it had meant nothing to him, it would have been something to treasure up and remember when he was gone. But she had chosen her pride instead. She was finding it icy comfort.

  She looked at him across Miss Sophy’s plump bolster of a shoulder, tightly upholstered in plum-coloured cashmere, and found him unbearably dear. The way his hair grew, the line of cheek and jaw, and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled—

  They crinkled now. He said in a laughing voice, ‘Stock situation from a farce! The chaperone is asleep. What do we do about it?’

  Her heart gave a little jerk. Her lips trembled into a smile. She said ‘Ssh!’

  Garth laughed again.

  ‘Oh, no – I don’t think so. My stage direction says, “Crosses R.”’ Getting up as he spoke, he came round the sof
a and sat down on the arm of her chair. ‘You needn’t worry, you know – she won’t wake. Family trait – once I’m off, I’m off – it takes a bomb to wake me.’

  ‘But you’re not any relation – she’s a step. You can’t inherit something from your grandfather’s step-daughter.’

  His arm stretched lazily across the back of the chair behind her shoulders.

  ‘I didn’t say it was inherited. There are such things as acquired characteristics. Anyhow the point is, she’s good for at least half an hour, and –wilful waste makes woeful want. I suppose you wouldn’t like to be kissed?’

  He saw the colour leap like a flame in either cheek and flicker out. When she slowly turned her head and looked at him she was so pale that he was startled. She moved colourless lips to say ‘Yes.’ Instead he put his hand upon her shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He gave her a little shake.

  ‘My child, this was a farce. You’re playing tragedy – “Unhand me villain – I have taken poison”. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m not very good at farce.’

  He looked at her with laughing eyes.

  ‘I’m not at all set on it myself. Let’s make it drawing-room comedy – the great proposal scene. I come of rich but honest parents. I know all about you, and you know more than any other girl does about me. Life’s highly uncertain for both of us. As someone once wrote, “Gather ye roses while ye may”. What about it?’

  Her lips were stiff. She forced them to a smile.

  ‘I don’t know my part, Garth.’

  His hand came up on the far side, taking her by the elbow, turning her a little.

  ‘There’s always the prompter. If it’s a very modern play, you say casually, “All right, I don’t mind if I do.” But if it’s one of those romantic period pieces, it would be, “Oh, Garth – this is so sudden!’”

  She managed to go on smiling.

  ‘It is rather, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it is. It’s funny the way things are. I’ve always been fond of you. You were such an odd little thing – I was very fond of you. And then I went away and forgot all about you, but when I saw you come in at the inquest I felt just as if I hadn’t ever been away at all. It’s difficult to explain, but it felt good – it felt quite extraordinarily good. I – Jan, I’m really trying to tell you something.’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘It’s just as if you were part of me – part of the boy I was. You can’t ever get away from what you’ve been, and you really are a part of that. I found that out when I came back, and now I keep finding out that you’re still a part of me. It goes deep down as far as I can get. If it’s been like that and it’s like that now, don’t you think it’s good enough to suppose it will go on being like that? You know, when you said you didn’t want me to make love to you because you’d rather keep something that was real, you made me think. And what I thought was this – why, we’ve got the real stuff – it’s there – we can’t get away from it – it’s as solid as wedding cake, but what’s the matter with having the almond paste and the sugar icing too?’

  This time she didn’t speak. The no-coloured eyes were very bright and rather scared. His arm came round her neck, the hand under her chin tipping it up.

  ‘Hate me?’

  ‘Not dreadfully.’

  ‘That’s something. Like me?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Impassioned creature! Love me a little?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  The scared look went out of her eyes. A sparkle made them brighter than before.

  ‘You haven’t said you love me. Do you?’

  ‘Quite a lot, Jan.’

  She repeated the words gravely – ‘Quite a lot.’

  It was at this moment that Miss Sophy opened a round blue eye. It rested hazily upon the agreeable spectacle of two young people embracing one another, and closed again. Miss Sophy was no spoilsport. It was only when the subsequent soft murmurings became so articulate as to make her feel she was eavesdropping that she most regretfully stirred, rustled her cushions, yawned with emphasis, and sat up. The embrace, alas, was over. Dear Janice had a very becoming colour. Dear Garth was also somewhat flushed. She beamed upon them.

  ‘My dears – how nice!’

  Garth had the hardihood to enquire, ‘What, Aunt Sophy?’

  Miss Sophy patted her curls.

  ‘I believe I have had quite a nap,’ she said, and beamed again. ‘Very pleasant – very pleasant indeed. I had a most agreeable dream – if it were a dream.’

  Before she could receive any reply the door was opened. Chief Detective Inspector Lamb appeared – a solid presence, but with an air of haste.

  ‘Beg pardon, Miss Fell.’ He came in and shut the door behind him. ‘I suppose, between you, there isn’t much you don’t know about this village. Can you tell me who keeps brandy in the house?’

  ‘Brandy?’ said Miss Sophy in a surprised voice. ‘I think we have some.’

  Lamb looked past her.

  Janice said quickly, ‘Mrs Bush – her aunt has spasms. She lives with them – she’s bed-ridden. They always have brandy in case—’

  ‘Is anyone ill?’ said Miss Sophy in a bewildered voice.

  Lamb gave a kind of snort. He had an exasperated air. He said testily, ‘He isn’t ill, he’s dead!’ and went out of the room and shut the door. You couldn’t say that he banged it, but he certainly shut it a little more loudly than he need have done.

  Miss Sophy opened her eyes as far as they would go.

  ‘Why did he want the brandy?’ she enquired.

  THIRTY-ONE

  FREDERICK BUSH STOOD looking down from his spare height upon the two London police officers who had summoned him to this interview. Invited to take a seat he did so, retaining an upright carriage and his habitual air of dignified melancholy. He had removed his cap, and held it now in the hand which rested upon his right knee.

  Lamb looked shrewdly at him and said, ‘Thank you for coming here, Mr Bush. We are checking up on the events of Tuesday night, and I think perhaps you can help us.’ He reached across the table with a paper in his hand. ‘This is a transcript of the evidence you gave at the inquest. Will you look it through and tell me if you agree that it is correct.’

  Bush took the paper and laid it upon his left knee. He then put down his cap upon the floor, produced a leather spectacle-case from an inside pocket, opened it, and put on the spectacles, all in a very deliberate manner. After which he picked up the paper, read it through without haste, and laid it back upon the table.

  Lamb watched him.

  ‘You find that correct?’

  Bush was putting away his glasses. When the case was back in his pocket, he said, ‘Yes.’

  Sergeant Abbott, writing down that single word, made the mental comment that the interview bore a certain resemblance to a slow-motion picture. Shorthand, he considered, was going to be thrown away on Mr Bush.

  Lamb was speaking.

  ‘Have you anything to add to that statement?’

  Bush said, ‘No.’ He took his time over saying it.

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Bush – it is your habit, is it not, to make the round of the church and churchyard every night?’

  With no more hurry and no more hesitation than before, Bush again said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘At what hour?’

  Frank Abbott thought, ‘I’ll get something that isn’t a yes this time anyhow. I’m about tired of writing it.’

  The answer came as the others had come, and without change of voice. ‘Ten o’clock.’

  ‘You made this round on Tuesday night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you say so at the inquest?’

  ‘I wasn’t asked.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to you to volunteer a statement?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You a
nswered only what you were asked. If you had been asked, you would have said that you had made this round?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Frank thought ruefully, ‘We’re off again.’ His mind played with questions which could not be answered by a mere affirmative.

  Lamb said, ‘Then we’ll get back to this round you made on Tuesday night. When did you start out?’

  ‘A little before my usual time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not bound to a time. I suit myself.’

  ‘And why did it suit you to make an early start on Tuesday night?’

  This time there was a definite pause before the answer.

  ‘I don’t know that I can say. You don’t have to have a reason for everything you do.’

  ‘You say you went out before your usual time. How much before?’

  ‘I couldn’t rightly say – a matter of ten minutes perhaps.’

  ‘Did you hear the shot?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It wasn’t because you heard the shot that you started out before your usual time?’

  ‘No.’

  Lamb looked at him shrewdly. The melancholy calm of look and manner were unimpaired. He had picked up his cap again and was holding it on his knee as at first, but in a closer grip. A knuckle showed bloodless where pressure tightened the skin.

  Lamb said in an easy voice, ‘Very well – you went out on your round. Now tell me just where you went and what you did. And don’t leave anything out because you haven’t been asked – I want the whole bag of tricks.’

  Bush put his left hand in his pocket, pulled out a red bandanna handkerchief, and solemnly blew his nose. It was a leisurely affair. So was the return of the handkerchief. So was the measured fall of words which followed.

  ‘I went out of my front door into the street and a bit along till I come to the churchyard gate and in.’

  ‘That would be the gate that opens on the village street?’

  ‘Yes. And along the path on the right, and right round the church, and out by the gate where I come in.’