The Key (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 8)

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘Did you see anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And that was all?’

  ‘I went in, and I did my round, and I come out, and I didn’t see no one.’

  Lamb said sharply, ‘Nothing to add to that?’

  ‘No.’

  Lamb made a sudden movement. He leaned forward and thrust out a hand across the table.

  ‘Look here, Bush – you were seen. You didn’t see anyone, but two people saw you – a boy and a girl who were under the tree by the Rectory wall. Now what about it? What have you got to say to that?’

  All the knuckles of the hand which held the cap showed white as bone. The melancholy face remained calm. Bush said slowly, ‘I don’t know what they saw. I was doing my round.’

  ‘They saw you come out of the church.’

  ‘They might have seen me come out of the porch.’

  ‘They saw you come out of the door, and they saw you lock it after you.’

  There was a long pause. Then Bush said, ‘I was doing my round.’

  ‘And your round takes you into the church?’

  ‘It might do.’

  ‘Did it take you into the church on Tuesday night?’

  ‘I won’t say it didn’t.’

  Lamb drew in his hand and sat back.

  He said, ‘Look here, Bush, you’d better make a clean breast of it. If you were in the church you knew Mr Harsch was dead getting on for about two and a half hours before you went in it with Miss Meade and found the body. You can see for yourself that gives you something you’ve got to explain. If you’re an innocent man, you’ll be willing to explain it. If you’re not you’ve got a right to hold your tongue, and a right to be told that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you. Now – are you going to talk?’

  There was a prolonged pause. When it had lasted for an indefinite time, Bush said in the same tone that he had used throughout.

  ‘Seems I’d better.’

  Lamb nodded.

  ‘That’s right! Well, you went into the church—’

  ‘Yes, I went in to do my round. The rector, he’s careless with the windows.’

  ‘Did you see Mr Harsch’s body?’

  ‘Yes, I saw it.’

  ‘Just tell me what you did from the time you went into the church – everything.’

  Bush put up his free hand and rubbed his chin.

  ‘I went in, and when I come round the corner where you can see the organ the curtain was pulled back and Mr Harsch fallen down off the stool.’

  ‘Were the lights on?’

  ‘Only the one he had for playing. And the pistol was fallen down beside him. When I saw he was dead, I didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t nothing I could do for him, so I thought what I’d better do for myself. Seemed to me it’d be better if it wasn’t me that found him when I was by myself at that time of night. Seemed to me he was bound to be missed up at the house and someone ’ud come down to look for him – same like Miss Janice did. So I thought that’d be best, and no getting mixed up with the police.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lamb. ‘What did you do?’

  Bush appeared to consider.

  ‘I didn’t touch him. I knew that wouldn’t be right – no more than to put away his key.’

  There was a sharp exclamation from Lamb. Bush went on.

  ‘Lying aside of where he’d been sitting on the organ stool.’

  ‘On the stool?’

  ‘That’s where he’d put it. He’d let himself in and come along with the key in his hand and put it down on the stool. I’ve seen him do it, and I’d say,

  “You’ll be losing that key one of these days, Mr Harsch”, and he’d shake his head and say “No”, and slip it back into his waistcoat pocket. So when I saw it lie there, that’s what I done – I picked it up and put it back in his pocket.’

  Lamb came in quick and sharp.

  ‘Then why hadn’t it got your prints on it?’

  Bush looked mildly surprised.

  ‘I took hold of it with my handkerchief.’

  Both men stared.

  ‘What made you do that?’

  ‘Seemed as if it was the right thing to do.’

  ‘Why?’ The word came back as sharp as a pistol shot.

  Bush put up his hand to his chin again.

  ‘I’d no call to leave my prints on it.’

  ‘You thought about that?’

  ‘It come to me.’ He dropped his hand.

  Lamb said, ‘All right, go on. What did you do next?’

  ‘I put out the light, and I come out and locked the door and off round the church like I said.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Struck ten just as I come to the gate.’

  ‘Was the church door locked or unlocked when you came to it?’ The Chief Inspector’s eyes were intent and shrewd.

  Bush made his undisturbed reply.

  ‘It was open. Mr Harsch didn’t use to lock it, not once in a blue moon.’

  Sergeant Abbott thought, ‘And there goes our case against Madoc!’ He wrote the answer down.

  Lamb sat forward in his chair, his jaw hard under heavy muscle and firm flesh.

  ‘You should have said all this before. Holding your tongue like this, you’ve thrown suspicion on others. When did you see Ezra Pincott last?’

  With undiminished calm Bush thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Last night – in the Bull.’

  ‘Did you leave together?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What time did you leave?’

  ‘Seven minutes to ten.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went my round.’

  ‘Did you go into the church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure you didn’t take Ezra in with you?’

  For the first time Bush looked disturbed. He said, ‘What would I do that for?’

  ‘You know he had been boasting that he knew something about Mr Harsch’s death, and that it would put money in his pocket?’

  ‘Anyone could know that. He was there in the Bull, saying it for all to hear.’

  The next question came very sharply.

  ‘You keep brandy in your house?’

  Bush moved his chair. A slight frown creased his forehead.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong about that. Mrs Bush’s aunt, she takes it for her spasms.’

  ‘So I’ve been told. Did you give Ezra some of it last night?’

  The frown straightened out. The grave lips moved into a smile.

  ‘Ezra never needed for no one to offer him drink. What makes you think I’d give him my good brandy?’

  Lamb brought down his fist on the table.

  ‘Someone gave him brandy, and someone knocked him out and put him in the water to drown.’

  Bush stared.

  ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Bush went on staring. ‘Whatever for?’

  Lamb gave him back look for look.

  ‘To stop him opening his mouth about who killed Mr Harsch.’

  Bush dropped his cap on the floor. It seemed as if it just slipped from his hand and fell. He stooped to pick it up.

  ‘Whoever ’ud do a thing like that?’ he said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THEY WOULD NEVER forgive me if I did not take a visitor to call,’ said Miss Sophy. ‘I have known them all my life, and Mary Anne is such a sad invalid.’

  Miss Silver smiled, and spoke the simple truth.

  ‘I shall be delighted to call on the Miss Doncasters.’

  ‘Then I will just finish the letter I was writing to my cousin Sophy Ferrars. It will not take me long, and it will give them time to finish their tea.’

  The afternoon was mild and fair. Miss Silver put on her hat, her gloves, and a light summer coat, and strolled in the garden, where the trees made a shady pattern across Miss Sophy’s lawn. It was very agreeable – very agreeable indeed. If her mind had been at rest, she would have been en
joying her visit very much. But her mind was very far from being at rest – oh, very far indeed. She walked up and down upon the grass and considered the unsatisfactory details of the Harsch case.

  From nowhere on her left a voice of peculiar shrillness spoke her name. No one who had heard that voice could possibly mistake it. She had made it her business to encounter Cyril Bond that morning. She turned now to see him astride the wall between the Rectory and Meadowcroft, one hand holding an overhanging branch, the other flourishing a stick in a manner which suggested that he regarded it as a spear.

  ‘What is it, Cyril?’

  ‘D’you reckon you know what “Spricken see Dutch?” means?’

  Miss Silver smiled benignly.

  ‘You are not pronouncimg it correctly. It should be, “Sprechen sie Deutsch?” It means, “Do you speak German?’”

  Cyril flourished his spear.

  ‘I arst Mr Everton, and he said he didn’t know any German. There’s a boy at our school, his father’s a refugee. He’s a Jew. He knows a lot of German – he can talk it ever so fast.’

  Miss Silver smiled.

  ‘You are a great climber, are you not? I hope you are quite safe upon that wall. Which was the window you climbed out of?’

  Cyril drooped.

  ‘I won’t ’arf get in a row if Mr Everton knows.’

  Miss Silver continued to smile.

  ‘I shall not tell him. Which window was it?’

  Cyril reduced his piercing tones to a hissing whisper.

  ‘That one there’ – he pointed with the spear – ‘over the libery. That’s how I got down.’

  ‘Were you not afraid that Mr Everton would hear you?’

  Cyril cast her a look of scorn.

  ‘Naow,’ he said, making two Cockney syllables out of the word and lingering on them. ‘I don’t do it except when he’s out.’

  ‘And he was out on Tuesday night?’

  ‘Acourse he was! Up at Mrs Mottram’s fixing something for her. She can’t do nothing by herself.’

  ‘How do you know he was there?’

  “Cos I heard him say so. Called right out in the hall he did. “I’m just going up to Mrs Mottram’s,” he says, “to fix her wireless set.” Cook and the other lady didn’t ’arf laugh when he’d gone.’

  ‘When did he come back?’

  ‘I dunno – I went to sleep. Oh, boy! When I think I might have heard the shot!’

  ‘How do you know Mr Everton was not in when you got back?’

  Cyril dropped his voice.

  ‘The black-out isn’t all that good in the study. I don’t say it’s bad, but there’s always places you can see if there’s a light on.’

  ‘Perhaps he’d gone up to his room.’

  His tone was scornful again.

  ‘Naow! He sits up ever so late, Mr Everton does.’ He looked sideways out of the corners of his eyes.

  ‘You couldn’t be sure,’ said Miss Silver mildly but firmly.

  ‘Well then, I could!’ He made a sudden cast with his spear into the garden of Meadowcroft and slid down after it.

  As she walked with Miss Fell past the intervening two houses to Pennycott Miss Silver had not a great deal to say. Miss Sophy found her a delightful listener. Scarcely drawing breath, she managed to impart a good deal of information about the Miss Doncasters in the short time at her disposal. It went back to their schooldays, and contained some particulars which interested Miss Silver very much.

  ‘But of course it all rather faded during the war – the last war – and for some years afterwards. And we all hoped there wouldn’t be any more of it.’

  ‘And was there?’ said Miss Silver in a most attentive voice.

  Miss Sophy stood quite still opposite the Lilacs and said,

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She leaned towards Miss Silver and fooffled. ‘And when it came to such an inordinate enthusiasm for a housepainter ...’

  It was some minutes before they resumed their interrupted progress towards Pennycott.

  They were admitted by an elderly maid and taken upstairs into what had been the best bedroom, now converted into the drawing-room for the convenience of Miss Mary Anne, who slept in the room behind and could be easily wheeled to and fro. She was there when they came in, propped up by cushions in an invalid chair with rubber tyres.

  Miss Sophy made the introductions.

  ‘My friend Miss Silver. Miss Doncaster – Miss Mary Anne.’

  Miss Silver took a seat beside the wheeled chair and remarked that Bourne was a very picturesque village, and that the weather was delightful. As she did so she was observing the two sisters and their surroundings – the overcrowded room, its walls covered with dark oil paintings in the heavy gilt frames of a bygone day, the floor space contracted by a quantity of ugly, useless furniture which must have cost a great deal some hundred years ago. Curtains of maroon velvet obscured the light. An ancient drab carpet could be seen here and there between the chairs, the cabinets, and the tables which were crowded with gimcracks – a family of wooden bears from Berne; frames carved with edelweiss; a miniature Swiss chalet engrained with dust; other frames of tarnished silver holding faded photographs; little boxes in Tunbridge ware; in filigree, in china; a snowstorm in a glass paperweight; an Indian dagger in a tarnished sheath. Family history come down to trifles.

  A hideous teaset with a great deal of gilding occupied the mantelpiece, and above it a monstrous overmantel inset with mirror-glass reared itself to the ceiling and reflected a score or so of distorted views of the room.

  As a background to the Miss Doncasters nothing could have been more appropriate. She had not been five minutes in their company before she understood why kind Miss Sophy could find no warmer words for either than ‘Poor Lucy Ellen’, and ‘Poor Mary Anne’. There was a strong family resemblance between the sisters, but whereas Lucy Ellen was sharp and ferrety, Mary Anne was heavy and shapeless. Both had sparse grey-white hair and deep lines of discontent.

  Without effort on her part Miss Silver found the conversation turning upon Mr Harsch. It was of course the most dramatic thing which had happened in Bourne since Jedediah Pincott ran away with his cousin Ezekiel’s bride twenty-four hours before the wedding and they were both killed in a railway accident, which Bourne considered to be a very proper judgement. It was Miss Mary Anne who introduced the subject of Mr Harsch, greatly to Miss Sophy’s relief as Lucy Ellen was being what she could only call persistent in cross-examining her about Miss Brown. She hastened to join in.

  ‘I am sure we must all hope that the matter will be cleared up.’

  Miss Doncaster gave it as her opinion that it was suicide.

  ‘I said so from the beginning. The jury said so at the inquest. There was never any doubt about the verdict. As I served on the jury I suppose I may be allowed to know.’

  Miss Silver gave a slight cough.

  ‘Most distressing for all his friends,’ she observed. She inclined an attentive head towards Miss Mary Anne. ‘And is it true that he was engaged upon an invention of some value? How doubly distressing if he was not about to finish it.’

  ‘Oh, but he was.’

  ‘Really? How very interesting.’

  Miss Mary Anne’s voice did not resemble her sister’s. It was thick and treacly. She said with unction.

  ‘He finished it that very day – some last experiment, and a complete success. He rang up a Sir George Rendal at the War Office at half-past six on Tuesday evening and arranged for him to come down next day. I heard him with my own ears.’

  Miss Silver looked mildly surprised.

  ‘You heard him?’

  Miss Doncaster said sharply,

  ‘We are on a party line here – you can hear everything. It is most inconvenient.’

  Miss Mary Anne went on as if her sister had not spoken.

  ‘You would be surprised at what you hear – people are most incautious. I had lifted my receiver, and I could hear everything he said. I remember I turned to Frederick Bush who was setting
up those shelves in the corner – he does all our odd jobs for us – and I said, “There – Mr Harsch has finished his invention – isn’t that a good thing? Sir George Rendal will be coming down from the War Office about it tomorrow.” And he said, “Then I expect Mr Harsch’ll be down at the church playing tonight. Last time I saw him he said he’d be down so soon as his work was done.”’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Miss Silver.

  Miss Doncaster cut in with determination.

  ‘Which goes to show that he had planned to take his life. Suicide – that’s what I’ve said all along.’

  ‘Unless there’s something in this story about Mr Madoc,’ said Miss Mary Anne. ‘You know, Sophy, they say that he and Mr Harsch had a quarrel over your Miss Brown.’

  Under her best hat Miss Sophy bridled.

  ‘People will say anything. But there is no need to repeat it, Mary Anne.’

  It was perhaps as well that at this moment the door should have opened to admit Mrs Mottram attired in crimson corduroy slacks and a bright blue jumper, her fair hair encircled by a green and orange bandeau. She looked extremely pretty, and when she saw Miss Silver she uttered a scream of joy and addressed her as ‘Angel!’

  ‘Because she was – she really was,’ she explained. ‘You see, I’d lost – but perhaps I’d better not say what, but it belonged to my mother-in-law, and you know what mothers-in-law are – she’d never have believed I hadn’t sold it, and then there would have been the devil to pay. And this angel got it back for me and practically saved my life.’

  She rolled her blue eyes and sat down beside Miss Silver, who patted her hand and said in kind but repressive tones, ‘That will do, my dear – we will say no more about it.’

  Fortunately all eyes were on the slacks. Miss Doncaster’s strongly resembled those of a ferret observing a young and incautious rabbit. She said in acid tones, ‘I notice that you have gone out of mourning.’

  The blue eyes opened to their fullest extent.

  ‘Well, I only put it on because of my mother-in-law, and it’s so long—’

  ‘When I was a girl,’ said Miss Doncaster, ‘the rule for a widow used to be one year of weeds and crepe, one year of plain black, six months of grey, and black and white, and six months of grey and white, heliotrope, and purple.’