The Key (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 8)

by Patricia Wentworth

  Garth Albany said, ‘I don’t think it did. Sir George was coming down next day – they were bound to bump Harsch off before he delivered the goods. Look here, Ida – Miss Mary Anne told you that she had overheard Harsch’s call to Sir George. Did you repeat that to Mr Everton?’

  Ida Mottram opened her eyes as wide as they would go.

  ‘Oh, no, but he was there – we were there together. He was always so very interested about Mr Harsch.’

  ‘You bet he was!’ said Garth. ‘And you bet he’d have collected the papers if Madoc hadn’t got them off to his bank. He didn’t have to risk getting them on the night of the murder, because he could count on Madoc being pretty sticky about handing them over to Sir George. Sorry, Mrs Madoc, but anyone who knew him could have counted on that.’

  On being addressed by what was, after all, her legal name, Medora Madoc blushed painfully. She looked suddenly a good deal younger and, to Garth’s amazement, shy.

  Miss Silver inclined her head.

  ‘I think that is quite true, Major Albany. I believe the plan was to allow Mr Harsch to complete his experiments, and then murder him before he could hand the results over to the government. They knew that the time was running short and they must be ready to act at any moment. The meeting at the Ram may have been for the purpose of handing over a weapon very carefully chosen with a view to suggesting suicide. It is, I think, instructive to look back and see how very near the plan came to succeeding. If it had not been for the fact that Mr Madoc’s conduct exposed him to suspicion, the verdict of suicide would almost certainly have stood, since but for Mr Madoc’s arrest I doubt very much whether Ezra Pincott’s death would have received the attention it deserved. It is reassuring to reflect that criminals so often come to grief over some small happening which they could not have foreseen. Although, Mr Everton’s success and safety depended on his never being suspected. Actually, the very pains he took to avoid suspicion convinced me that there was something to suspect. When Mrs Mottram told him that I was to be called in, there is, I think, no doubt that he took steps to discredit Miss Janice. I have never been able to regard the conversation I heard behind me in the Tube station as fortuitous, I am quite sure that it was carefully planned. He is known to have gone over to Marbury on the Saturday evening, and I have no doubt that he telephoned from there to a confederate in London. It has not, unfortunately, been possible to trace the call. As we now know, Mr Everton’s name is not Everton at all, but Smith. His parents were Germans of the name of Schmidt. He was born and brought up in this country, but paid frequent visits to Germany and became a fanatical Nazi. But—’ she turned graciously to Frank – ‘Sergeant Abbott is better qualified than I am to deal with this.’

  ‘Well, it’s no secret now. He was up before the magistrates yesterday. The real Everton is still having a nervous breakdown somewhere in Devon. They picked him carefully. He doesn’t seem to have any relations, and his friends were the sort you pick up doing business over a drink or a lunch – easy come, easy go. It was “poor old Everton” for a bit, and then nobody bothered. He’s too bad to write letters. He just dropped clean out. I gather there’s no real likeness between him and Schmidt, but a superficial description of one would fit the other – height, figure, colouring. He seems to have played the part of the cheerful little man with country tastes and a liking for having a finger in everybody’s pie, and to have played it very well indeed.’

  Miss Sophy sat up and said, ‘I don’t believe it was a part. I believe it was what he might have been if that wretched Hitler had left him alone. When you think how many, many people were killed in the last war, it does seem a pity Hider shouldn’t have been one of them.’

  Frank Abbott turned an appreciative eye upon her.

  ‘Thanks for those kind words, Miss Fell.’

  With a faint cough Miss Silver resumed.

  ‘From the moment I had talked with Mrs Mottram it was, of course, clear to me that Mr Everton’s alibi for Tuesday night was no alibi at all. He called Mrs Mottram’s attention to a shot which she did not hear and, looking at his watch, remarked that it was a quarter to ten. Actually, I believe that it was then half-past nine. He ran very little risk, as Mrs Mottram does not wear a watch and has no clock in her drawing-room.’

  ‘Watches won’t go on me,’ said Ida, looking round for sympathy. ‘They say it’s electricity or something. And I can’t sit in the room with a clock – it worries me. But I’m practically sure I did hear something chime – and of course I thought it was a quarter to ten like he said.’

  Miss Silver smiled at her.

  ‘Yes, my dear – I think he counted on that. He left you at half-past nine, and four or five minutes later he entered the church. I felt sure all along that the murderer was on friendly terms with Mr Harsch, and that some conversation preceded the shot. You see, the curtain which screens the organist was pulled back, and no one seems to have heard the organ later than a very few minutes after half-past nine. Unless the murderer makes a statement, we shall never know quite what happened. But since the appearance of suicide was aimed at, it would be necessary to put Mr Harsch off his guard, and to hold him in conversation until the next set of chimes fell due at a quarter to ten. Schmidt would be watching the time, standing close up to the organ stool. To pass as suicide, the shot must be fired at point-blank range. The three chimes for the quarter begin. At the second he fires. Mr Harsch falls down. Schmidt has only to wipe the weapon, clasp his victim’s hand upon it, and let it drop again, releasing the pistol. If Ezra Pincott had not been in the Church Cut upon his own affairs that night, there is no doubt that a very wicked plan would have succeeded.’

  Garth laughed.

  ‘Ezra was after Giles’ rabbits!’ he said. ‘He could get rabbits anywhere, but it tickled him to get Giles’s – he’d been doing it for years. And a clever old poacher like him wouldn’t be foxed over which side of the road that shot came from. There wasn’t anything about sounds that Ezra wasn’t up to – I’ve been out with him and I know. He told me once he could hear an earwig walking on a leaf, and I believe him.’

  ‘That is very interesting, Major Albany. To continue. Hearing the shot, Ezra ran to the door in the churchyard wall and opened it. He saw Schmidt leave the church, and ran after him. We know that he caught him up, since Sam and Gladys now say, what would have been more useful if said at once, that, returning from their walk by way of the road which passes the houses, they observed Mr Everton and Ezra in conversation at Mr Everton’s gate. They heard Ezra say, “Drunk or sober, it’ll be something to talk about in the morning”, and he then went off laughing.’

  ‘Fit to bust himself,’ said Frank Abbott. ‘They also say that a little later on they saw Miss Doncaster come out and post a letter. As soon as she’d gone in they went into the churchyard. When I asked them why they hadn’t said all this when it was some use, they said it was only old Ezra and Mr Everton, and that old Miss Doncaster that’s always posting letters, and Gladys giggled and said, “You wouldn’t think she’d have a boyfriend, would you?”’ He turned to Miss Silver, sitting on the footstool with his arms locked about his knees.

  ‘Reverend preceptress, why don’t you say, “I told you so”?’

  He got an indulgent smile, but before Miss Silver could speak footsteps were heard in the hall and the door was flung open. Striding past the indignant Mabel, Mr Madoc bounced the door shut and comprehended the assembled party in a scowl of greeting. There was some kind of an inclination of the head in the direction of Miss Sophy and Miss Silver, after which his frowning regard came to rest upon his wife, who sat there as if she had been turned to stone. He addressed her in a series of angry jerks.

  ‘If you’re coming home you had better pack your box! Pincott’s van will call for it in half an hour!’

  Without waiting for an answer he turned and went out. The door banged after him. The front door banged.

  Medora Brown got up. Her marmorial pallor seemed to have gone for good. She was very much flus
hed, and she looked as if she might be going to cry. She came over to the sofa and said, ‘Dear Miss Sophy – may I?’ and then fairly ran out of the room.

  Garth said, ‘Gosh!’ And then, ‘How long will it last?’

  Miss Silver gave him a glance of mild reproof.

  ‘They have both been so very unhappy,’ she said. ‘I do not really think she will find him difficult to manage. Tact and affection should cure him of expecting to be hurt. I saw at once that that was the trouble, and I believe she will be able to deal with it.’

  Garth just gazed, until Miss Silver turned back to her audience. Then he leaned over Janice, on the arm of whose chair he was sitting, and murmured, she hoped inaudibly, ‘Darling – swear to be tactful and affectionate.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘There is very little more to say. I think that Ezra received some money on account. He seems to have stood drinks all round at the Bull, which was not his habit. But he showed the usual mounting appetite of the blackmailer, and – he began to talk. He became too dangerous to be tolerated. I think he was asked to call at a fairly late hour, met by Schmidt himself, and invited – probably – into the garage. Yes, I feel sure that it would have been the garage. Being a converted coachhouse, it is very roomy, and it houses a most convenient wheelbarrow. Ezra was offered brandy, which he accepted with avidity. He was then knocked out, placed in the wheelbarrow, and conveyed – probably across the Green, the shortest and safest way – to the place where he was found. There was some risk about this, but not very much – Bourne goes early to bed, and I recall that the night was cloudy. Returning home and unobserved, Schmidt must have considered himself safe. The case against Mr Madoc must have seemed very strong to him, and he would confidently expect a verdict of accidental death in Ezra’s case. I cannot praise too highly the acumen of Sergeant Abbott in detecting the dry specks of gravel which had adhered to the mud on Ezra’s boots, and his brilliant deduction that Ezra had not walked but been carried to the miry place where he was found.’

  For the first and only time in his history Frank Abbott was seen to blush. The colour, though faint, was quite discernible, and it may be said that it filled Garth Albany with joy.

  Miss Sophy heaved herself up from the sofa and announced that she must go to her poor Medora. Ida Mottram embraced Miss Silver, rolled her eyes at Frank, and announced with a faint scream that she must fly to Bunty.

  But at the door she turned.

  ‘Oh, Mr Abbott, I suppose you can’t tell me, but it does seem such a pity – those lovely hens of Mr Everton’s – I suppose he wouldn’t divide them among us?’

  ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t suggest it, Mrs Mottram.’

  ‘Oh, well—’ She kissed her hand to the room and departed.

  Miss Silver looked after her with affection. Then she turned to Garth and Janice.

  ‘I have a few things to put together in my room. My taxi should be here in about ten minutes’ time. Sergeant Abbott will be travelling with me as far as Marbury. It is always a little sad to say good-bye at the end of a case, but if the guilty have been discovered and the innocent cleared, I am cheered and encouraged. There is no greater cause than justice, and in my humble way I try to serve that cause. May I offer you my very best wishes, and my earnest hopes for your happiness?’

  She went out – a little dowdy person in garments of outmoded style, the bog-oak rose at her throat, her hair, neatly controlled by a net, piled high in a tight curled fringe after the fashion set by Queen Alexandra in the Nineties and now just coming in again, her feet in woollen stockings and bead-embroidered shoes, a brightly flowered knitting-bag depending from her arm.

  She went out, and Frank Abbott shut the door after her. As he turned back he was again seen to be slightly flushed. In a tone so far from official that it actually sounded boyish he exclaimed, ‘Marvellous – isn’t she!’

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Miss Silver Mysteries

  One

  THE AIR IN THE Food Office was cold and stuffy. It would be nice to get out into the fresh air again. It would be nice when this business was over. She hadn’t really been waiting for so long, but she felt an angry impatience. To go through all she had gone through, to come back quite literally from the dead, and to be wasting time standing in a queue for a ration card was, at the very least of it, an anticlimax. She was Anne Jocelyn come back from the dead, and here she was in a queue, waiting for a ration card instead of ringing up Philip.

  The people in front of her moved on slowly. She began to think about Philip. Three years was a long time to have been dead. Philip had been a widower for more than three years, and in about half an hour somebody would call him to the telephone and a voice—her voice—would impart the glad tidings that Anne Jocelyn wasn’t dead. It gave her a good deal of pleasure to think about telling Philip that he wasn’t a widower after all.

  Suppose he wasn’t there.... A curious tingling ran over her from head to foot. It was exactly the feeling she might have had if her next slow step forward had shown her the floor broken away and her foot poised above a descending emptiness. She had a moment of vertigo. Then it passed. Philip would be there. If he had had no news of her, something of his movements, his whereabouts, had been conveyed by careful, circuitous channels to those who had helped her on her way. He had been in Egypt, in Tunisia. He had been wounded and sent home. He was to have an appointment at the War Office as soon as he was able to take it up. He’d be there all right, at Jocelyn’s Holt—sleeping in the tower room, walking up and down the terrace, going round the stables, thinking of all the things he’d be able to do with Anne Jocelyn’s money now that she was dead. Of course he would have to wait until the war was over. But it would take more than a world war to stop Philip planning for Jocelyn’s Holt. Oh, yes, he’d be there.

  She moved up one in the queue and went on thinking. Suppose he had married again.... Something pricked her sharply. She bit her lip. No—she would have heard, she would have been told, warned.... Would she? Would she? Her head came up, lips parted, breath quickened. No, she couldn’t reckon on that, she couldn’t reckon on anything. But all the same she didn’t think that Philip would have married again. She shook her head slowly. She didn’t think he would. He had the money, he had the place, and she didn’t think he’d be in too much of a hurry to tie himself up again. After all, it hadn’t gone too well, and once bitten twice shy. A faint smile just touched her lips. She didn’t think Philip was going to react very pleasurably to the idea that he was still a married man.

  There were three people in front of her—a very stout woman with a basket full of shopping, a little dowdy creature with a string bag, and a stooping elderly man. The stout woman was explaining at the greatest possible length how she had come to lose her ration card ... “And I’m not one to do that in a general way, Miss Marsh, though I suppose there’s nobody that doesn’t lose things sometimes, and I don’t set up to be better than anyone else, but many’s the time my husband’s said, ‘Give it to Mother—she’s as safe as a church.’ So I don’t know what come over me, but put it down somewhere I must of, for when I got home there was Father’s, and Ernie’s, and Carrie’s, and my sister-in-law’s that’s on a visit, but as for mine I might never have had one. So I went back and round to all the shops where I’d been, and there wasn’t nobody had seen it... .”

  The woman behind the counter dived and came up with a book in her hand.

  “You dropped it in the High Street,” she said in a resigned voice. “Good afternoon.”

  The little dowdy creature moved up. She leaned on the counter and whispered.

  Anne stood there, tall, fair, and thin. She looked over the stooped shoulders of the elderly man, shivering a little and drawing her fur coat about her. Her hair hung down over the collar in a rough bob. It had a dull, neglected look, but it was thick, and with a little care it would be bright again. Just now it might have been a light brown burned by the sun, or a much fairer shade dimmed by neglect.
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br />   She was bare-headed. A long straight lock fell forward on either side, framing a thin oval face, straight nose, pale well-shaped lips, very deep grey eyes, and fine arched brows much darker than the hair.

  The coat which she drew close was a very handsome one. The soft dark fur would be flattering when she had got something done to her face and her hair. That was the next thing. She buoyed herself up with the thought. In about ten minutes this ration card business would be over and she could go and have her hair cut and waved and see what was to be had in the way of face-powder and lipstick. She was perfectly well aware that she was looking a mess, and Philip wasn’t going to see her like that.

  Less than ten minutes now ... less than five.... The little whispering woman had gone, and the elderly man was going. She moved up into the vacant place and set down her bag on the counter. Like the coat, it was or had been very expensive, but unlike the coat it showed signs of wear. The dark brown leather was rubbed and stained, a piece of the gold initial A had broken off. Anne undid the clasp, took out a ration book, and pushed it across the counter.

  “Can you let me have a new book, please?”

  Miss Marsh picked it up, brought a colourless gaze to bear upon it, raised her eybrows, and said,

  “This is a very old book—quite out of date.”

  Anne leaned nearer.

  “Yes, it is. You see, I’ve just come over from France.”

  “France?”

  “Yes. I was caught there when the Germans came. I’ve only just managed to get away. Can you let me have a new book?”

  “Well, no—I don’t see how we can—” She gave a fleeting glance at the cover of the book and added, “Lady Jocelyn.”

  “But I must have a ration book.”

  “Are you staying here?”

  “No—only passing through.”

  “Then I don’t see what we can do about it. You’ll have to get your ration book wherever you’re going to stay—at least—I don’t know—have you got your identity card?”