He said quickly,
“Oh, yes-yes-I’ll go into it with Smith. As to there being any unidentified prints, there were some he was enquiring about.”
Miss Silver inclined her head.
“If it can be proved that Sid Turner was in this room, it will have been proved that he had the opportunity of murdering Mr. Field.”
Frank Abbott drew the telephone fixture towards him and rang up Lenton police station. There was a little coming and going before Inspector Smith was on the line. Miss Silver had resumed her knitting. Frank said,
“That you Smith? Abbott speaking. Those prints in the Field End case-there were one or two which hadn’t been identified. There was something about a man coming up to take measurements for curtains, wasn’t there? You thought they might be his, but there was a difficulty in tracing him- gone off to another job. Have you caught up with him?… Oh, you have? Good! Well, what about it? Are those unidentified dabs his?… Oh, they’re not? Well, well- All right, I’ll come in and have a look at them. Be seeing you.”
Chapter XXXVI
MISS CUMMINS had always made a point of arriving early at the office. This Tuesday morning just a week after Jonathan Field had come in about the final instructions as to his new will was no exception. She could indeed have been a couple of hours earlier, since she had not slept all night. She had her own key. When she had let herself in, taken off hat, coat, and gloves, and ordered her already tidy hair, she sat down to wait for Jenny Gregg and Florrie Hackett, who would be on time but not before it. Mr. Maudsley would not appear until the half hour had struck, if then, and in his absence Miss Cummins was in charge. She sat down to wait.
The thoughts which had prevented her from sleeping were still agonizingly present. During the night a few hard-won tears had forced themselves beneath her straining eyelids, but now in this desert of ruined hopes they were as dry as if its dust were physical. She had seen the last of Sid Turner. A cold shudder went through her at the thought that she did not even want to see him again. She had ruined herself for him and she didn’t want to see him again. As she sat talking to him in the back of the empty tea-room a number of things had come home to her with dreadful finality. He did not care for her. He had never cared for her. He cared for money, and he cared for Sid Turner. He had used her, and now he would drop her. She thought that he had murdered Jonathan Field.
Florrie and Jenny came in. Jenny had been crying. She was a pretty, fair girl with fluffy hair and a fine skin. She had powdered over the tear marks but they showed. Everything showed when you had a skin as fine as that. She sat down at her desk and began to be busy.
When Mr. Maudsley arrived he went straight to his room. Jenny said in a high, thin voice,
“He’ll ring in a minute, and when I go in he’ll give me the sack.”
Florrie said comfortably,
“Well, suppose he does-there are lots of good jobs to be had.”
Jenny dashed away a tear.
“Not without a reference there aren’t. They’ll want to know what I’ve been doing, won’t they? I’ve been here three years, and they’ll want to know why I’ve left, and when he tells them it was for talking out of turn, who’s going to take me on?” She dragged a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind, only I can’t afford to be out of a job with Mum the way she is. And I swear I never said a word-not to anyone!”
The sound of Mr. Maudsley’s bell came in upon them. Bertha Cummins had been standing by the window with her back to the room. She turned round, saw Florrie Hackett with an arm round Jenny’s shoulders, and spoke.
“I’ll see what Mr. Maudsley wants. I have to see him anyhow.” She went through the connecting door and shut it behind her.
Mr. Maudsley was at his table. He lifted a frowning face and said,
“Oh, it’s you, Miss Cummins. Good-morning. Send Miss Gregg in to me, will you. I suppose she’s here. I’d better see her now and get it over. It’s a most unpleasant business.”
She stood in front of the table, her fingertips touching the edge.
“What makes you so sure that it was Miss Gregg who talked, Mr. Maudsley?”
He looked up at her. He was still frowning.
“Why, the whole thing. She’s just the sort of girl this Sid Turner would try and pick up with-pretty, not too many brains, a bit of the come hither in her eye. She’s been here how long-three years, and there’s been nothing to complain of in the office. Naturally, you would see to that. But I’ve passed her in the street before now, giggling with some young man or other. Then there was the way she took it when I spoke to her about the leakage-burst into tears right away almost before I’d got a word out.”
Bertha Cummins said in a forced flat voice,
“She would be afraid of losing her job. She has an invalid mother to support.”
“Really, Miss Cummins, I think that is beside the point! This office is not a charitable institution. You can’t expect me to overlook a thing of this kind, now can you?”
She said,
“No. But it wasn’t Miss Gregg who talked, Mr. Maudsley. It was I.”
Mr. Maudsley gazed at her in a quite stupefied silence. He had heard what she said, but his mind was refusing to accept it or to deal with it in any way. He looked at her, and became aware of her pallor and of the fixity of her regard. As an alternative to taking in what she had said, he snatched at the idea that she was ill. She never had any colour, and he was used to that, but she now looked-the word that came into his mind was ghastly. He heard himself say,
“Miss Cummins, you are ill.”
She just stood there, her eyes fixed upon his face.
“Oh, no. It wasn’t Miss Gregg who talked. It was I.”
The unbelievable truth began to penetrate his thought.
“Do you know what you are saying?”
“Oh, yes. I told him about the will.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“I told him.”
“What made you do such a thing as that? It wasn’t- money?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, no, I thought he-cared for me. He made me think he did. I thought he wanted to know about what went on in the office because he liked to know what I was doing-because he cared. It was the first time anybody had ever cared what I did. I thought he cared. I know now that he only wanted to find out about-the-will-” Her voice got slower and slower and the words just faded away. It was like hearing a gramophone record run down.
Mr. Maudsley did not know when he had been so much shocked. If there was anyone in this world for whose integrity he would have vouched, it was Miss Cummins. He did not know what to say to her. He only knew that he must bring this painful interview to a close. He must have time to adjust himself, to think what must be done next. The thought of Jenny Gregg presented itself, and he snatched at it.
“I had better see Miss Gregg,” he said. “This has been a shock. I must think what I had better say to her. Do you happen to know, is she under the impression that any distinct accusation has been brought?”
“She knows that she was suspected. She has been a good deal distressed.”
Even now he couldn’t break himself of the old habit of consulting her. He said,
“How would it be if I had her and Miss Hackett in together and just told them I was quite satisfied that they are not responsible for the leakage? Then after I have seen them I will ring again for you. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Atkins will be here at eleven about the winding up of that family trust. You were going to let me have a memorandum so that I can give him the whole thing in a nutshell.”
She said, “I’ll see about it,” just as if this was an ordinary day. But as she went out of the room it was in her mind that this might be the last time she would leave it as an employee of the firm. Now that Mr. Maudsley knew she was not to be trusted he would probably want her to leave at once.
Jenny and Florrie went in and he said his piece to them, cutting it as short as he cou
ld. They came back with beaming faces, and obviously with no idea that the blame had been transferred.
“I’m sure you must have spoken up for us. You did, didn’t you, Miss Cummins?”
“I did what I could, Jenny.”
Florrie said,
“He was quite different this morning. He said not to think about it any more. Thank you ever so, Miss Cummins!”
She sat at her table, putting the notes about the Atkins family trust in order and waiting for Mr. Maudsley’s bell to ring, doing her accustomed work just as if nothing had happened, and thinking that it was for the last time. After today there would be no more work, and no more money coming in. She hadn’t saved a great deal. There had been what she thought of in her own mind as calls. A helpless younger sister left a widow with four children-she couldn’t say no to Louie. At least she couldn’t go on saying no, and there was no end to the asking.
Mr. Maudsley sat back in his chair and endeavoured to order his thoughts. The sense of shock dominated everything. His mind went back over the twenty-five years during which the plain, shy girl of nineteen had been developing into an invaluable head clerk. During all those years he had never known her to fail in the most conscientious application to her duties. And as to honesty and trustworthiness, he had taken them so completely for granted that he would as soon have thought of questioning his own.
She would, of course, have to go.
His reaction to this was immediate and vehement. She would be quite irreplaceable. Experience recalled the discomforts of her annual holiday, and provided even more vividly and pertinently a recollection of the time she had been laid up for six weeks with a broken leg. He had not been able to put his hand on anything, he had not known where anything was. He had completely forgotten a memorandum which might have made all the difference in the Smithers case. Fortunately, Miss Cummins had come back just in time to enable them to use it. He had never had to remember these things. Miss Cummins remembered them for him. She forgot nothing, overlooked nothing. She was devoted, reliable, indispensable. He had a sudden picture of her standing on the other side of his table, telling him that once in those twenty-five years she had given something away, and waiting for his judgment. He remembered her ghastly look as she waited. And she was waiting still.
Indispensable.
The word pushed through all these thoughts and stood there boldly with its feet planted upon the hard dry ground of common sense.
He stretched out his hand and rang the bell.
Chapter XXXVII
MISS SILVER came down on the same Tuesday morning to find that a note had been dropped in the letter-box for her. It ran-“Off to town to compare fingerprints. Interesting possibilities. Smith has produced three or four prints which may be S.T’s. They don’t belong to the fellow who came to measure the curtains. There is rather a smudged set just under the edge of the writing-table in the study. Blake has S.T’s prints, and we’ll see how they compare.” There followed a scrawled F.A., and that was all.
Miss Silver went on into the dining-room. Finding nobody there, she read the note again and dropped it into the fire. The post arriving just afterwards, she became occupied with a letter from her niece Gladys Robinson, who was Ethel Burkett’s sister but so very unlike her in character. Since Gladys only wrote when she had got herself into difficulties and was looking for someone to help her out of them, she opened the envelope with no very pleasant anticipations.
Mrs. Robinson wrote:
“Dear Auntie
I believe you have more influence with Andrew than anyone else has. He is being most unreasonable. All my friends say they don’t know how I put up with it. He does not give me enough for the housekeeping, and it isn’t any good his saying he does. Betty Morgan says…”
Miss Silver had really no need to read on. The letter followed a pattern which had varied very little for many years. There were always the same complaints about her husband, about money. There was always the unwise friend who encouraged her. A particularly mischief-making one who had recently been eliminated appeared to have been replaced. Betty Morgan was a new name. Reflecting that it was a pity Gladys had not half-a-dozen children to occupy her, and then checking herself with the thought that Providence in its inscrutable wisdom had doubtless hesitated to entrust them to her care, she replaced the letter in its envelope, committed it to her knitting-bag, and turned to bid Captain Hallam good-morning.
The word good, though customary, is sometimes lacking in appeal. It did not appear at all probable that Anthony was regarding the morning in that or in any other favourable light. He had returned to Field End at a late hour on the previous evening, and he now presented a gloomy and preoccupied appearance. Georgina, coming into the room a little later, said,
“Oh, you’ve got back?” After which neither of them seemed to have any further observation to make.
Fortunately Johnny and Mirrie had plenty to say, and Mrs. Fabian, who was last, could always be relied upon for a trickle of conversation.
Johnny had had a letter from a friend with particulars of a very nice little garage business out beyond Pigeon Hill, and Mirrie was being alternately thrilled by a description of the flat that went with it and put off by the reflection that if there was a place she never wanted to see again it was that particular suburb. They wrangled about it in a lively manner all through breakfast.
“Darling, you’ll adore being able to drop in on Aunt Grace and Uncle Albert.”
“I shan’t! I shall hate it!”
Johnny shook his head in a reproving manner.
“Never neglect your relations. You don’t know when you may want to borrow a fiver.”
“Aunt Grace wouldn’t give anyone a fivepenny bus fare!”
“She hasn’t come under my softening influence.”
Mirrie made melting eyes at him.
“I don’t want to go back there-I don’t!”
“Darling, it’s miles away really. And listen-the flat has three rooms and a kitchenette. I’d better catch the first train from Lenton and go up, or someone may snatch it.”
Mrs. Fabian, making the tea and forgetting to fill up the pot, remarked brightly that she hoped Johnny would be careful and not do anything at all without consulting a solicitor.
“Because you know, my dear, there are some very dishonest people, and all sorts of things to look out for like being charged a premium because there’s a bit of torn linoleum on the bathroom floor. I knew a Mrs. Marchbanks who took what she thought was a most delightful flat, but there was a chair which had been left behind she thought because it was broken, in the bedroom, and some cocoanut matting in the passage-such a terrible dust-trap and of course not at all what she wanted. And I think there was something else but I don’t remember what it was, only they wanted her to pay quite a large sum down, and her solicitor said it was an imposition and not to have anything to do with the people.”
Johnny blew her a kiss.
“All right, Mama, I have been warned. No cocoanut matting, no broken chairs. We will go to auctions and pick things up cheap.”
He and Mirrie ate their way gaily through a large breakfast. Georgina drank half of a very nasty cup of tea and crumbled a piece of toast. Anthony ate a sausage with a gloom which it really didn’t deserve, and drank the tea squeezed out by Mrs. Fabian from an unwatered pot as who should say, “If this be poison, let me make an end!” Miss Silver, conversing amiably, reflected that young people really had an uncommon talent for making themselves miserable.
Frank Abbott rang up at two o’clock. He asked for Miss Silver and spoke in the manner of one who is remembering Maggie Bell.
“That you, ma’am?… I thought I’d just let you know that the whatnots are the same. Our friend was certainly there, and Blake and I are hoping to collect him this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed.”
Aware that this expression was unlikely to meet with approval, he rang off before Miss Silver could express her views upon the subject of what she would certainly re
gard as a vain superstition.
Johnny Fabian, standing in a queue at Pigeon Hill waiting for a bus which he had been informed would take him within a hundred yards of Rooke’s Garage at the four crossways just beyond the Blue Lion, received a slight set-back at seeing what he took to be Sid Turner emerging from a small eating-house on the other side of the road. Having no desire to renew what could scarcely be described as an acquaintance, he looked away. It occurred to him that, however desirable Rooke’s Garage and the flat over it might be he wouldn’t really want Mirrie to be in the way of knocking up against Sid if she happened to shop in Pigeon Hill. The effect of this wore off presently when he had met Jimmy Rooke and discovered a liking both for him and for the terms on which he was willing to dispose of the garage. It wore off, but it had been there and it was to recur.
What he didn’t know was that Sid Turner had seen and recognized him. At the time Sid was not interested. He recognized Johnny, felt an angry pricking grudge against him, and thought no more about the matter until later, when it suddenly became important. He was not at this time seriously worried about the police and their enquiries. They would nose about for a bit, and when they didn’t get anywhere they would come off it. They might suspect him, but there wasn’t anything they could prove. Absolutely nothing. He had a dangerous smouldering anger against Mirrie Field for blabbing about those two telephone calls. Women! Couldn’t keep their mouths shut, not even when they’d be getting themselves into trouble by talking. All the same they were. He wasn’t all that easy about Bertha Cummins. A pound to a tanner she’d be slopping over to old Maudsley and spilling the beans.
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