Miss Silver Comes To Stay

by Patricia Wentworth

  “So I am informed. I haven’t had a report yet.”

  Rietta Cray said, “I’m the chief suspect, Randal,” and rang off.

  CHAPTER 23

  Randal March looked up from the typewritten sheets which he had just been reading. He went through them without comment until he came to the end. When he let the last page fall Superintendent Drake said,

  “Well, sir, there you have it. There’s no denying there’s quite a serious case against Miss Cray.”

  March smiled.

  “My dear man, it’s absurd. I’ve known Miss Cray since she was a child. She is quite incapable of hitting anyone over the head with a poker.”

  Drake stiffened. So that was going to be the way of it. Class-consciousness rose in him, bitter as brine. He had known her since she was a child-so she couldn’t do murder! All these people hung together! His thin nose had a pinched look as he said,

  “That’s what somebody always says until it’s proved. A murderer is just like anyone else until you get him on the end of a rope.”

  Randal March had the pleasant, even temper which goes with a good physique, good health, and a good conscience, but at this moment a jag of pure rage went through him. It surprised him a good deal. He found it uncomfortably revealing. He was, fortunately, able to control any outward manifestation and merely repeat his former assertion.

  “Miss Cray is quite incapable of murdering anyone.”

  That pinched look extended to the rest of Drake’s features. One might have said a hungry fox.

  “What we have to look at is the evidence, sir. If you will just cast your eye over those statements again you will see that Miss Cray has quite a strong motive. She was engaged to this Mr. Lessiter a matter of twenty years ago or more. She says she broke off the engagement herself, but she declines to say why, and the local opinion is that he treated her badly. I don’t say there’s actual evidence that she bore him any grudge, but she might have done. On the top of that he comes back here twenty years later full of money. Then we come to the events of last night. Mr. Carr Robertson refuses to make any statement. That, to my mind, is a very suspicious circumstance. I wouldn’t think so much of it if he was older. It’s more natural for a middle-aged person to be cautious, but it isn’t natural for a young man of twenty-eight. It’s highly suspicious. He knows something, and he’s afraid it’s going to look bad, either for himself or for Miss Cray, so he’s holding his tongue. But look at Miss Bell’s statement. She makes it perfectly clear that Mr. Robertson went banging out of the house because he had just seen a photo of Mr. Lessiter in a picture-paper with the name underneath. I find they had never met or seen each other, but the minute Mr. Robertson sees this photo with the name under it he recognizes it and rushes off out. Now the local talk is that Mr. Robertson’s wife ran off to France while Mr. Robertson was in Germany. Nobody knew who it was she’d run off with. Then Mr. Robertson is demobbed and comes home. Presently his wife turns up ill. The man she went away with has left her flat. Mr. Robertson takes her in and nurses her, and she dies-a matter of two years ago. The talk is he’s set himself to find out who was responsible. Mrs. Fallow that works for Miss Cray, she’s got some story about a photo-says she heard Mr. Robertson tell his aunt he’d know the man if he saw him because Marjory-that’s his wife-had a photo. Well, that’s just local talk, but it fits in. Now come back to Miss Bell’s statement and you’ll see that no sooner has Mr. Robertson gone out by the front than Miss Cray goes out by the back. She picks up the first coat she comes to-it happens to be her nephew’s-and she goes off up to Melling House, where Mrs. Mayhew hears Mr. Lesiter tell her about the will he made when they were engaged-‘Everything to Henrietta Cray,’ etc. And she hears him say, ‘If young Carr was to murder me tonight, you’d come in for quite a tidy fortune.’ ” Drake paused, pleased with what he felt to be an efficient and convincing exposition.

  Randal March said, “Well?”

  “Well, sir, does that leave any doubt in your mind that Miss Cray’s reason for hurrying up to Melling House was to warn Mr. Lessiter that he might apprehend some act of violence on the part of Mr. Carr Robertson?”

  Randal March smiled a little more pleasantly.

  “If she took the trouble to go and warn him, then she didn’t murder him. You’re trying to have it both ways, Drake. I’m afraid you can’t do that.”

  Drake’s eyes narrowed between the red lashes.

  “Wait a minute, sir-I don’t think you’ve got the point. When she came up to warn him she didn’t know about that will. They say he’s worth the best part of half a million. You might come up to warn a man, and change your mind about it if it was going to mean half a million in your pocket.”

  Randal March had himself very well in hand. He maintained the exact shade of attention due to an efficient subordinate with whose conclusions it is impossible to agree. He had the air of giving due weight to the supposition that a hypothetical half million might have inspired Rietta Cray to hammer out a man’s brains with a poker. Attention having been given to this theory, he shook his head.

  “Not in character, I’m afraid.”

  Superintendent Drake pursued the theme.

  “There’s evidence which is going to take a lot of explaining away, if you don’t mind my saying so. After refusing to explain why she was in such a hurry, Miss Cray says in her statement that she picked up the first coat she came to-they hang in the passage, and she went out by the back door. The coat she did take was an old one of Mr. Robertson’s. It has a plaid lining with a yellow stripe in it. Mrs. Mayhew’s statement refers to this. When she went back to the study the second time and opened the door this coat was hanging over a chair. A bit of the lining showed, and she describes it. One of the sleeves was hanging down, and she says the cuff was all over blood. Miss Cray explains this by saying she scratched her wrist coming up through the wood. But mark this, sir-all the right side of that coat had been sponged down. It was hanging in among the others in the passage, and all one side of it still wet. I sent it right away to see what a test could make of it, and this is what I’ve got. I was on the phone to them, the last thing before coming out, and they say there are traces of human blood over the whole damp area. The right cuff must have been fairly drenched-there’s quite a lot left along the stitched seam and where the lining is doubled over. There’s no doubt at all that the staining was very extensive, and a great deal more than could be accounted for by a surface scratch. Miss Cray showed me her wrist, and the scratch theory just won’t wash.”

  March turned over the sheets in front of him and picked one up.

  Drake went on speaking.

  “The only thing that would account for the condition of the coat is that it was worn by the murderer.”

  March looked up from the sheet he was holding.

  “Mrs. Mayhew particularly says in her statement that she heard no sound in the room on this second occasion. That would point to Miss Cray having left. There is no proof that she was wearing the coat when it became so deeply stained. If she scratched her wrist as she says, there might have been enough superficial staining to attract Mrs. Mayhew’s attention. And the murderer’s. Somebody else’s coat with somebody else’s blood on it would be a bit of luck, not to be counted on, but certainly not to be overlooked.”

  “You are putting forward the theory that Miss Cray went home without her coat-it was a very cold night-and that someone else put it on to murder Mr. Lessiter. If that is so, how do you account for the fact that the coat was hanging up in her hall and had been washed? There is, of course, just one thing that would account for it-I’ve thought of that myself. If Mr. Carr Robertson came up to Melling House after Miss Cray had left he could have slipped on the coat-it was an old one of his own, you remember-and when he had done the murder he would only have to walk back to the cottage and make the best job he could of cleaning up the mess he had got it into. There’s no doubt where that job was done. There’s a little wash-place at the end of the passage. We found a smear on
the underside of the basin, and a couple of splashes of blood on the floor-there’s a dark linoleum and they didn’t show. The coat must have been reeking wet when it was taken in there. I suppose they thought they had cleaned up, but there’s usually something gets overlooked.”

  Randal March sat appalled. This was evidence which couldn’t be dismissed with a shake of the head. Not evidence against Rietta-there reason continued to block the way-but the possibility of a strong case against Carr Robertson. If last night he had really identified James Lessiter with the seducer of his wife, it might prove to be a damnably strong case.

  And Carr wasn’t making any statement.

  CHAPTER 24

  May I come in, dear?”

  Mrs. Voycey, who was doing accounts, turned her head. She beheld Miss Silver attired for walking, in her second-best hat which resembled her best so closely that it would have been indistinguishable from it but for the fact of being trimmed with a band of plain petersham instead of an abundance of satin loops. In either case there was a small nosegay of flowers on the left-hand side, but the everyday bunch was smaller, older, flatter, and consisted of a tired wallflower in a pale circle of mignonette, repeating the tones of the elderly fur neck-tie much treasured for its draught-excluding qualities. The black cloth coat remained the same whether it was Sunday or weekday, and so did the neat black laced shoes and black woollen stockings which it was Miss Silver’s habit to wear from October to April, and sometimes beyond if the spring was a cold one.

  Having entered and closed the door gently behind her, Miss Silver coughed. A capacious handbag depended from her wrist, and she wore black knitted gloves. She said,

  “Such a terribly raw day. I hope I do not disturb you, Cecilia, but I have just received an invitation to lunch. I thought that you would have no objection to my accepting it.”

  Mrs. Voycey was amiable but surprised.

  “An invitation to lunch?”

  “Yes, Cecilia-from Miss Cray.”

  Mrs. Voycey said, “Oh-”

  Since the arrival of the milkman with the first intelligence of James Lessiter’s death the village news-service had been extremely active. Mrs. Crook had “popped out” to the general shop for a packet of cake-mixture, a thing which she ordinarily despised, and had there encountered a niece of Mrs. Fallow’s who had almost, if you might put it that way, seen Mrs. Mayhew. The niece had been inspired to “step up” to Melling House with an offer of neighbourly assistance, and if she hadn’t actually seen Mrs. Mayhew, she had seen and talked to Mrs. Fallow who had only just left her.

  “Can’t hardly lift her head, pore thing,” said Mrs. Crook, retailing the interview to Mrs. Voycey and her guest. “They’ve had the doctor to her, and he says it’s the shock, and Mrs. Fallow’s to stay and not to let her set her hand to anything. And from what Mrs. Fallow says there’s been enough to give her a shock-blood everywhere, and Miss Rietta Cray’s coat soaked with it up to the elbow.”

  Mrs. Voycey said, “Nonsense, Bessie!”

  Mrs. Crook stood her ground.

  “That’s what Mrs. Fallow told her niece, and she come straight from Mrs. Mayhew that saw it. And they do say the pore gentleman left everything to Miss Cray, and the will lying there right under his hand with his blood on it. Mr. Mayhew seen it when he found the body, and he says it’s right enough someone had been trying to burn it, because it was scorched all down one side.”

  “Rietta Cray wouldn’t harm a fly,” said Mrs. Voycey.

  Mrs. Crook maintained an immovable front.

  “Flies don’t make wills,” she said darkly. “But they do say there was maybe more in it than that. It seems Mr. Carr, he comes bursting out of the Cottage round about half past eight. Jim Warren that goes with Doris Grover, he happened to be passing, and he tells Doris that if ever he sees anyone in a passion it’s Mr. Carr. Pretty well beside himself, he says, and goes past him like anything wound up, and he hears him say Mr. Lessiter’s name swearing-like. Horrid, Jim says it was-made him think of a dog that’s got something between its teeth worrying it. Doris says he come in looking all anyhow, and she says, ‘What’s up, Jim?’ and that’s what he tells her. Always a bit soft Jim was from a child. Doris says she had to get him a nip of her father’s whisky, and Mr. Grover didn’t half carry on.”

  At this point Miss Silver intervened.

  “Which way was Mr. Carr Robertson going?”

  Mrs. Crook stared in a contemplative manner. Miss Silver phrased her question again.

  “Was Mr. Carr going in the direction of Melling House?”

  Mrs. Crook considered. She took her time.

  “Couldn’t have been,” she said at last-“not if Jim met him. Up from the other side, that’s the way Jim would come. First of the small cottages on the left, that’s where the Warrens live, and that’s the way Mr. Carr must have gone, because Jim says their dog run out and barked at him as he went past. But they do say it could have been Mr. Lessiter that ran off with Mr. Carr’s wife, and that maybe it all come out and Mr. Carr killed him for it.”

  It was with all this in the background that Mrs. Voycey heard Miss Silver say that she was going out to lunch with Rietta Cray and said, “Oh-” It was so very unlike her to have no more than that to say that Miss Silver instinctively paused for what would come next.

  An expression of lively interest overspread Mrs. Voycey’s face, and she exclaimed,

  “Maud! Has she consulted you? Professionally, I mean. Oh, I do wish she would!”

  “She has asked me to lunch,” said Miss Silver.

  Mrs. Voycey clasped her hands. Three handsome rings which were a little too tight for her gleamed under the pressure.

  “Then you must certainly go. Really, you know, it is quite providential that you should be staying here, because nothing will ever make me believe that Rietta would do anything like that. It’s really too shocking and it only shows what a dreadful thing gossip is. The breath is hardly out of that poor man’s body before everyone in the village is saying he ran away with Carr’s wife, and that Rietta murdered him because he had left her a fortune. I mean, it isn’t sensible, is it? I don’t suppose he ever set eyes on Marjory. I’m sure I only saw her half a dozen times myself, and if I ever did see a young woman whom I disliked-dreadfully pretty and not a bit of heart. And Carr was engaged to such a nice girl before he met her. Marjory simply grabbed at him and he went down like a ninepin, and that nice Elizabeth Moore went off and joined the A.T.S. I believe she commanded an anti-aircraft battery or something like that. And Marjory ran away like I told you, but I can’t see why it should have had anything to do with James Lessiter.”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “Perhaps, dear, I should be going-”

  It took her another ten minutes to get away.

  At the White Cottage she found that Miss Cray was not alone. Mrs. Welby was with her but almost immediately rose to go. Miss Silver, observing her with attention, took note of the fact that her make-up, discreet and carefully applied as it was, had as its foundation that rather ghastly pallor which no make-up can quite conceal. No one seeing Miss Silver would have supposed her to possess the eye of an expert where cosmetics were concerned, or indeed in any other direction, yet at a single glance she was aware of that underlying pallor, and of the fact that the foundation cream, the powder and the rouge with which Mrs. Welby had done her best to conceal it were the best and most expensive of their kind. They had been applied with a high degree of art, and, for a woman who had run over before lunch to see an old friend and country neighbour, Catherine Welby had taken a good deal of trouble with her clothes. Whereas Rietta Cray was in a short brown tweed skirt and an old sweater of natural wool, both very well worn, Catherine looked as if everything she had on had been most carefully chosen. There was nothing that was not suitable, but the general effect was that everything was a little too new. She might have taken part just as she was in the mannequin parade of some house which specialized in country clothes. The grey tweed coat and skirt were
perfectly cut. The jumper, of a paler shade, displayed the very latest neckline, her smart brogues the very latest heel. If she was bare-headed, it was not from informality, but because it was the fashion. Not a wave of the golden hair was out of place.

  Had her acquaintance with Mrs. Welby been less recent, Miss Silver would have recognized that she had somehow passed the intangible line which separates enough from too much. Even without this longer acquaintance she was aware of something of the sort. It seemed to her that there was an indefinable hardening, the failure of something which might have given life and freshness to the whole.

  In the few minutes which elapsed between greeting and goodbye Miss Silver dealt with the impressions she was receiving. She was too intelligent herself not to recognize intelligence in others. She recognized it in Catherine Welby, and a quotation from an older poet than her favourite Lord Tennyson presented itself:

  “Still to be neat, still to be drest,

  As you were going to a feast…

  Lady, it is to be presumed…

  All is not sweet, all is not sound.”

  There was intelligence up to a point, but to overdo an effect is not intelligent. Perhaps it was only against this background of sudden tragic death and gathering scandal that the effect appeared in this instance to be overdone. Perhaps-

  Her eyes followed Catherine Welby thoughtfully as she left the room.

  CHAPTER 25

  When the door closed there was a little pause. To Rietta Cray it was like the moment when you stand above an icy pool and brace yourself to take the plunge. There came to her the thought that it need not be taken. Her confidence was still her own. She had only asked Miss Silver to lunch. If anything more had been implied, it could still be ignored. She became aware of Miss Silver’s regard, and lifted her eyes to meet it.

  Something incomprehensible happened. She experienced what many of Miss Silver’s clients had experienced. When she thought about it afterwards the image which presented itself was that so often seen during the war, the spectacle of a house with the front ripped right off and every room on every floor open and bare to the passing eye.