Dark Threat

by Patricia Wentworth

  Penny was enchanted. She packed an imaginary suitcase with blankets and a pillow for her latest ‘pretend’, a baby bear called Bruno—‘Only he’s not ’xactly a baby, because he can talk. You can hear how nice he talks, can’t you, Judy? He says we’ll come every day and play with J’rome and Judy. He loves J’rome because he gifted him to me—and he gifted me his ’tacha case, and his blankets and his pillow. Wasn’t it kind of him? Bruno and me think it was very kind.’

  Judy came back with a light step. Penny, joyfully absorbed by the evacuees, had not even turned her head to see her go. She would be perfectly happy and perfectly, perfectly safe. Nothing else mattered. It restored her self-respect quite a lot to realize that, now Penny was out of it, she wasn’t afraid any more. She was quite ready to go in and do Jerome Pilgrim’s room, but it appeared that she wasn’t going to be allowed to. Lona Day took the things out of her hands and practically shut the door in her face. Quite unreasonably, Judy’s temper flamed. She shut her mouth on the words she wanted to say, but her eyes were much too bright.

  Lona was very nice about it afterwards.

  ‘I can’t let anyone in today. He must be kept absolutely quiet. Please don’t feel it’s anything to do with you. I’m just afraid of his talking about it—wanting to apologize for having disturbed you—that kind of thing. You do understand, don’t you, Judy?’

  Judy felt that she had made a fool of herself.

  There was an uncomfortable, prickly sort of feeling in the house. Mrs. Robbins looked as if she had been crying. Gloria, chattering in the bathroom which Judy shared with Miss Silver, supplied the reason.

  ‘It’s her daughter’s birthday. Turned out a real bad girl, Mabel Robbins did. Got too big for her boots, my mum says, getting scholarships, and passing examinations, and thinking herself somebody. I tell you what—she had lovely hair—nearest thing to black you ever saw. Curled natural, with a lovely wave across the front—never had to have it permed nor nothing. And ever such big dark blue eyes. But she was a bad girl, and she come to a bad end. Only nobody never knew who the fellow was. Must have been someone she met in Ledlington, my mum says. Mrs. Robbins was all broke up about it. And look here, I’ll tell you something—she and Mr. Robbins, they’ve been having words. I was a bit early and I heard them. “It’s her birthday”, she says, and of course I knew who she meant. “Anyone’s got to cry sometimes”, she says. And Mr. Robbins says, “Crying won’t bring her back,” and she says, “Don’t talk so cruel!” And he says, “It’s nothing to what I’d do if I was to get the chance!” What do you think of that?’

  Judy said, ‘I think you’d better get on with those taps—they’re a disgrace,’ and felt that she should have said it before.

  As she went out of the door she almost ran into Miss Silver, who was standing there with a packet of soap-flakes in one hand and half a dozen handkerchiefs in the other. Judy wondered how long she had been there.

  It was at lunch that the general discomfort came to a head. Miss Janetta was fretful to a degree, complained that she could not eat sausages, enquired whether cabbage was the only vegetable which the garden produced, and complained that there was a draught somewhere.

  ‘Are you sure there is nothing open, Robbins? The least crack affects me. Please see if all the fastenings are firm.’

  Miss Columba kept her eyes on her plate. Miss Silver enquired innocently whether fish was obtainable from Ledlington, but it appeared that she could have introduced no more unfortunate subject. With a high laugh Miss Janetta replied, ‘Oh, yes, we can get it—we do get it. But how often is it bad? That, I think, is the point.’

  ‘We had some very nice fish last week,’ said Lona Day, in a voice that was meant to be soothing.

  It did not, unfortunately, soothe Miss Janetta, who tossed her head until the piled-up curls were quivering.

  ‘My dear Lona! Well, of course it all depends on what you call nice. Tastes differ of course, but I was brought up to consider that fish should be fresh. That may be all a mistake, but I was brought up that way, and I am afraid I can’t change now. I would be glad to, but I don’t see my way to it.’

  Roger Pilgrim had been eating in silence. Now, as Robbins came back from the farther windows, he straightened up and said with a note of nervous anger in his voice,

  ‘If it’s a change you want, Aunt Netta, we’ll all be having one quite soon, and I can’t say I’m sorry. There’s been quite enough dilly-dallying over selling the place—I’ve had too much of it. I’m taking Champion’s offer, and I’m going to have the sale pushed through as quickly as it can be done. And if you want my opinion, I should say it would be the best thing for all of us.’

  Everyone appeared to be struck silent and motionless. Miss Columba had not looked up. Lona Day leaned forward, her lips parted, her eyes on Roger Pilgrim’s face. Robbins, half way down the room, had halted there, his dark face set, his hands and arms quite stiff, like artificial limbs. Miss Janetta’s face worked. She cried out, ‘No, no—you don’t mean it! Oh, Roger, you can’t!’ and with that caught her breath and began a low hysterical sobbing very painful to watch.

  Roger Pilgrim did not stay to watch it. He said a little too loudly, ‘I meant every word I said!’ and with that pushed back his chair and went out of the room and out of the house. They heard the front door bang.

  Miss Janetta was crying into her table-napkin and dabbing her tears. Lona Day got up to go to her. Miss Columba lifted her eyes for the first time and looked at her sister.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Netta!’ she said.

  That evening between six and seven o’clock Roger Pilgrim fell from one of the attic windows to the paved garden below and was taken up dead.

  SIXTEEN

  DR. DALY CAME out of the room and shut the door, his cheerful face drawn into lines of appropriate gravity.

  ‘Well, it’s a bad business,’ he said—‘and nothing I or any other doctor could have done for him if we’d been here when he fell. Pitched on his right shoulder and broke his neck, by the look of it. You’ll need to notify the police.’

  Miss Columba looked him full in the face and said,

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s no need for you to worry about it—it’s just the law. When there’s a fatal accident the police must be notified, and it’ll be for the Coroner to say whether there’s to be an inquest. I’d do it for you myself, but I think I had better look in on Captain Jerome. Perhaps this lady—I didn’t catch the name—’

  Miss Columba spoke it heavily—‘Miss Silver.’

  Dr. Daly turned to her, and saw with relief an elderly person with a composed manner and an intelligent eye.

  ‘Just ring up Ledlington and ask for the police station. Tell them what’s happened—that will be all you need to do. I’ll go along to my patient. But tell me first—does he know?’

  ‘Miss Day was obliged to tell him.’

  He allowed himself to look more cheerful.

  ‘Ah—Miss Day—what would he do without her, poor fellow? You’re in luck to have her—great luck, with the war where it is and all.’

  He moved off along the passage with Miss Columba.

  Miss Silver went down to the study and put through a call to Ledlington police station.

  ‘I should like to speak to the Superintendent.’

  A bass voice appearing to demur, she repeated the words with firmness.

  ‘I wish to speak to the Superintendent. You will inform him that it is Miss Silver.’

  A good many years before, Randall March and his sisters had received their early education in a schoolroom dominated by a younger but no less efficient Miss Silver. Now well in the running for a Chief Constableship, he would no more have disregarded her summons than he would have done in those far-off days. She had kept in affectionate touch with his family, and in the past few years they had been thrown together in circumstances which had enhanced his early respect. In the case of the Poisoned Caterpillars he freely admitted she had saved his life. She await
ed him, therefore, with considerable confidence.

  ‘Miss Silver?’

  ‘Yes, Randall. I am staying in the neighbourhood. At Holt St. Agnes. I have something to report to you in your official capacity. Do you know the Pilgrims at all?’

  ‘I know of them. I used to know Jerome.’

  Miss Silver said gravely,

  ‘Roger Pilgrim is dead. He fell from one of the attic windows about half an hour ago. I am staying in the house. Dr. Daly asked me to ring you up.’

  He had made some exclamation. Now he said,

  ‘Bad business. I’ll send Dawson over at once.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘My dear Randall, I said that I was staying here. I should be much obliged if you would come over yourself.’

  At the other end of the line Randall March sat up and took notice. He knew his Miss Silver tolerably well. If she wanted him to come over, he would certainly have to go. She had summoned him before, but never on a fool’s errand. He resigned himself and said without any perceptible pause,

  ‘All right, I’ll be over.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘Thank you,’ replaced the receiver, and turned to see that Miss Columba had entered the room. She was in her gardening clothes—boots mired well over the uppers, earth under her nails, a smear of mud on her cheek, the grey curls wild. She might have been a figure of fun, but she was not. The heavy face had its own dignity, the eyes their own courage. She set her back against the door as a man might have done, and waited for Miss Silver to come to her before she spoke.

  ‘It was an accident.’

  Miss Silver met her look with one as steady.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘That will be for the police to say.’

  There was no expression at all upon Miss Columba’s face. She said, ‘My nephew engaged you. He is dead. Your engagement is over. I should like you to go as soon as possible.’

  Miss Silver showed no offence. She said, ‘Are you sure that you wish me to go?’

  ‘What can you do now? He’s dead.’

  ‘Others are living.’

  ‘He thought you could help him. He’s dead.’

  ‘He would not take my advice. I begged him yesterday to let it be known that he was proceeding no farther with the sale of the property. You know how completely he disregarded that advice.’

  The courage in Miss Columba’s eyes never wavered. She said, ‘That’s all over. He’s dead. It was an accident.’

  Miss Silver shook her head.

  ‘You do not think so, and nor do I. Let us be honest with each other. We are quite alone. I should be glad if you will listen to what I have to say.’

  ‘You can say it.’

  ‘You said just now that it was over, but that is not true. Two people have died violently, perhaps three. Are there to be more deaths? If you can believe that your brother’s death was an accident, can you believe in the three successive accidents which befell your nephew? Either of the first two might have proved fatal. The third has done so. If you can believe that all these things were accidents, can you accept the coincidence of their happening in each case just in time to prevent the sale of the property?’

  Miss Columba drew a long, slow breath. There was not enough sound in it for a groan, but it had the effect of one. She put her head back against the door and said, ‘What’s the good?’

  Miss Silver looked at her with steady kindness.

  ‘I must remind you of the remaining members of your family. You have a nephew who is a prisoner in Japanese hands. I understand that the estate now devolves upon him. If he survives to come home, and wishes to sell, is he to be the victim of another accident? If he does not survive, the estate will pass to Captain Jerome Pilgrim. If he decides to sell, is he to pay the same penalty?’

  Not a muscle of Miss Columba’s face moved. Something flickered in her eyes. It was gone again in a flash. She said in a sort of deep mutter, ‘It’s not that—how can it be that?’

  ‘What other motive is there? Do you know of any?’

  There was a negative movement of the head with its blown grey curls.

  Miss Silver said very firmly, ‘Someone is determined to prevent the sale of this property. No owner will be safe until this person’s identity is discovered.’

  Miss Columba straightened up and moved away from the door. She said gruffly, ‘The place belongs to Jack. He’s in Malaya. Let sleeping dogs lie.’

  She went out of the room and up the stair.

  Miss Silver pressed her lips together and reflected upon the shortcomings of her own sex. She would not have admitted these shortcomings to Chief Inspector Lamb, or to Superintendent March. She thought very highly of women, and hoped to be able to think more highly yet, but to credit them with any abstract passion for justice was beyond her.

  She considered it probable that she would have to leave Pilgrim’s Rest with her work there only half done, and it went very much against the grain. Roger Pilgrim had engaged her professional services, and she had failed to save his life. He had gone against her advice, but she felt that she owed him a debt. And a much heavier one to that Justice which she served with a single mind.

  SEVENTEEN

  RANDALL MARCH HAD been in the house for well over an hour before he asked to see Miss Silver. It was no part of his plan to advertise an intimacy, nor did he wish to be presented with her opinions before he had had the opportunity to acquire some of his own. The study having been placed at his disposal, he sat there at the writing-table which had been used by at least three generations of Pilgrims, and looked, against a background of olive-green curtains and walls lined with unread books, much more like a country gentleman than a police officer. He might have been in the Army. The overhead light shone down on a tall, well set-up figure, good features, clear blue eyes, and naturally fair hair burned brown.

  He got up to meet Miss Silver as she came in. She had a knitting-bag on her arm, and she wore an expression of gravity until she took his hand and smiled at him. Even in the presence of murder she retained the social amenities.

  ‘My dear Randall! I hope you are well.’

  No one could have looked at him and doubted it, but he produced a suitable reply.

  ‘And your mother? I hope she has quite recovered from the cold she had before Christmas?’

  ‘Oh, yes, quite, thank you.’

  ‘And dear Margaret and Isabel? I hope you have good news of them?’

  She had never allowed herself to have favourites in the schoolroom. The ‘dear’ in front of his sisters’ names marked this unswerving impartiality. She would not have found it necessary to say ‘Dear Randall’ if she had been speaking to Isabel or Margaret. She may have admitted to herself that the blue-eyed, fair-haired little boy with the angelic smile and a talent amounting to genius for resisting instruction was dearer to her than the two docile and intelligent little girls, but she would certainly never have admitted as much to anyone else. And so successfully had she overcome the little boy’s resistance that here he was, in his early forties, on the brink of becoming a Chief Constable. Even the presence of death in the house could not prevent her beaming upon him as he informed her that Margaret was in Cairo, her husband in Italy, and that Isabel had just received a commission in the A.T.S.

  These preliminaries over, he gave her a chair and returned to his own, looking at her across the table and thinking how little she had changed—how little she ever changed. From fringe net to beaded shoes she remained intact and unique, a stable factor in a dissolving age.

  Over Ethel Burkett’s jumper her needles began to click. Thirty-five years slid away. It might have been the same jumper, the same needles, the authentic Miss Silver of his childhood.

  ‘My dear Randall, you are not attending.’

  She hadn’t really said it, but at any moment she might. He hastened to forestall her by speaking himself.

  ‘Well? What are you going to tell me?’

  ‘W
hat do you know already, Randall?’

  He picked up one of the papers on the blotting-pad.

  ‘Here it is, as far as I can make it out. Roger Pilgrim rode in the afternoon, came in late to tea, and hardly spoke to anyone. Somewhere before half past five he went up to this attic room to go through his father’s papers. I gather that they had been damaged in a fire about ten days ago, and what had been salved had been taken up to this empty room to be gone through. There were a couple of tin boxes more or less intact, and a lot of partly burned stuff from a bureau or a nest of drawers. Somewhere about half past five Robbins answered the door and let in Miss Lesley Freyne. She said Roger was expecting her and went straight up to the attic. She seems to be very intimate with the family. Isn’t there something I ought to remember about her?’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘She was engaged to Henry Clayton. You will remember that he disappeared on the eve of their wedding.’

  ‘Of course! Did they ever find out what had happened to him?’

  She stopped knitting for a moment, let her eyes meet his, and said,

  ‘No, Randall.’

  He thought to himself, ‘I’m meant to make a note of that.’ The needles were clicking again. He said, ‘How people crop up! I remember the case. But the Yard was handling it—Henry being in the Ministry of Information and properly their pigeon. Frank Abbott was on it, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, to get back to Miss Freyne. It looks as if she was the last person to see Roger alive. She says he rang her up and asked her to come over because he thought she might be able to help him out over some of the damaged papers. His father was very fond of her and used to talk things over with her. She says they were sorting papers there for about three quarters of an hour. Then she looked at her watch, saw it was a quarter past six, and said she must go home and help put the children to bed—she’s got her house full of evacuees. She came downstairs and let herself out without seeing anyone to speak to. But as she crossed the bedroom corridor to the head of the stairs, she says Miss Day came out of Jerome’s room and into her own. They didn’t speak, and it’s the length of the corridor away. Miss Day says she was backwards and forwards between her own room and Jerome’s because he had had a bad turn during the night, and she never saw Miss Freyne. You may call that para one. Now we come to para two. Miss Judy Elliot says she was in the bathroom off the back stairs washing out some things in the hand-basin. The door was half open, and she saw Robbins go up the stairs to the attic floor. Unfortunately she doesn’t know what time it was, except that it was after six and before a quarter to seven, because the light was still good. Her feeling is that it was before half past six, but she is really very uncertain. Robbins says it was only just after six, and that he went up to his room for a handkerchief. He says he wasn’t there five minutes, and that Miss Elliot didn’t hear him come down because there’s another stair and he used that. He says he doesn’t know why—he just did.’