Mr. Brading's Collection

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘No, Mrs. Robinson.’

  Maida said in a meditative voice,

  ‘There are some lovely things. Emeralds — I do adore emeralds. What is your favourite stone?’

  Edna Snagge considered.

  ‘I don’t know — you have to think what you’re going to do — I mean, there are times and places and what’s suitable—’

  Maida caught up the word with a laugh.

  ‘Suitable! Gosh — how dull that sounds!’

  As she spoke, Major Constable came lounging up with a big white plastic bag dangling from his hand.

  ‘That right?’ he said.

  Maida burst out laughing.

  ‘Darling! It wouldn’t be Lewis’s or James Moberly’s, would it? It’s got my bathing things in it. Come along!’

  Edna watched them go out into the sunlight, stopping a moment to retrieve their tennis racquets from the porch. She began to think what sort of ring she would have if she really got engaged to Bill Morden. It was all very well for Mrs. Robinson to laugh like that, but if you were engaged you would be wearing the ring all the time, and you did have to think of what it was going to look like with your other things. Most of the time she wore blue. She looked down at her neat linen with the large white buttons. Navy, or butcher, or one of those nice grey-blues — they always did look good style, and a sapphire would go with them all. If she got engaged to Bill, she thought she would have a sapphire ring.

  SIXTEEN

  AT A LITTLE BEFORE three Lilias Grey walked up the porch steps and came into the hall. She wore a blue dress and a pair of dark sun-glasses with white rims. Her hair caught the light as she paused to put down the sun-umbrella she was carrying. Edna Snagge, looking up, was confirmed in her opinion that pale blue was tricky. ‘Makes you look like a chocolate-box when you’re young enough to wear it, and too much like mutton dressed as lamb when you’re getting on.’ Everyone knew that Miss Grey must be getting on a bit. Pretty of course, but getting on. Glasses always made you look older too.

  Lilias stood just inside the hall and took them off. It made a lot of difference — showed the colour in her cheeks — restored her almost to chocolate-box stage. When she had put the glasses away in her bag she came up to the office window and said,

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Snagge. I’m just going over to the annexe. Mr. Brading is expecting me.’

  Then she went on and turned into the passage.

  The office was on the left-hand side as you came in. It was just a slice of the hall, with a counter across the front and some matchboarding run up all around. Fortunately it took in one of the windows which flanked the hall door, so that you did get some light and air. The passage turned off on the opposite side of the hall, but much farther along. As soon as Miss Grey turned the corner she was out of sight.

  Edna Snagge went back to thinking about Bill Morden. He wasn’t getting bad money, but nor was she. Once you’d had your own money, how was it going to feel having to ask someone else for every penny? Of course she could go on working, but she didn’t really plan to do that when she married. She planned to have a home and kiddies — a couple anyhow, boy and girl. Not too quick of course, but it didn’t do to wait too long either — you wanted to have them whilst you were still young enough for it to be fun. She began to think about names. Bill would want to choose for the boy, but a girl had a right to something pretty. Not too fancy, but something a little bit different. Denise, now, or Celia. Celia Morden — very good style that sounded. She liked it better than Denise — or did she? She began to toy with the idea of twin girls.

  It was ten minutes past three when Lilias Grey came back through the hall. She had put on her glasses again. She went right through, picked up her sun-umbrella in the porch, and down the steps with the light catching her hair again.

  As Edna turned back from seeing her go, Miss Hester Constantine was on the stairs. She had on the new dress she had bought the last time she went into Ledlington, a flowered silk, not very suitable and a bit too bright for her with all those colours. She’d always be difficult to dress. You’d have to make her hold herself up a bit better before anything would have a chance of looking right. She hadn’t bad hair if someone would show her how to do it. She came down the stairs poking her head and looking worried to death, and off round the corner and down the passage. She might be going to the billiard-room, or the study, or the annexe. Wherever she was going, she looked worried to death, and she didn’t come back again.

  It was about ten minutes later that Charles Forrest ran up the steps and said,

  ‘Hullo, Edna! How’s everything?’

  Edna Snagge came back from planning her kitchen. She wanted one of those cabinets — everything right up to date — and a fridge. She gave a little start and said,

  ‘Oh, you made me jump!’

  He laughed.

  ‘Asleep — or only dreaming? Look here, is Mr. Brading in?’

  ‘So far as I know. He’s quite popular this afternoon — people in and out to see him all the time.’

  ‘Anyone there now?’

  ‘Not unless it’s Miss Constantine — but she’d be more likely—’ She broke off, her colour rising.

  Charles laughed and said,

  ‘Hush — not a word!’ And then, ‘Unfortunate James!’

  ‘Major Forrest, I never said a thing!’

  ‘Nor did I — wash it out! One man’s poison is another man’s meat. Well, well, it’s a sad world, and we needn’t make it any sadder. How’s Bill? Going out with him tonight?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘He’s one of the lucky ones. Tell him I said so. Be good!’

  He went off whistling.

  The breeze that had been coming in through the window had dropped. Edna got out her compact and powdered her nose. She wished that she had done it before Major Forrest came through. Definitely shiny, that’s what it was, and would be again before you could turn round if everything went on getting hotter every minute the way it was doing.

  Down in Ledstow it was a good five degrees hotter than it was on the hill. The heat was coming down out of the sky and up off the pavement without so much as a breath to stir it. The police station looking due south got all its share and a bit more. The brick with which it was faced was as hot as an oven door, and inside — well you could carry out the simile for yourself. Constable Taylor didn’t know when he had been hotter. He was a large young man with a rosy face, and his uniform was tighter than it had been six months ago. He undid a button or two, laid down his pen, and leaned back in his chair. He had no intention of dropping off. He would not have admitted that he had done so. It was a hot afternoon, and he might have closed his eyes. He was thinking about his marrows. No doubt of it, they’d beaten Jim Holloway’s to blazes. And a much handsomer marrow. And still growing. And likely to.

  In that moment when his eyes were shut the marrows all had faces on them. The biggest had a ginger moustache like the Super. Regular fierce expression too. There was a little dark green one with a gimlet eye for all the world like old Ma Stevens. She’d got a hand-bell in her skinny old hand and was ringing it something wicked — fair went through your head. His eyes came open with a jerk, and the marrows weren’t there any more. The room was a bit swimmy, but no marrows and no Ma Stevens, only the bell was still ringing. After a couple of blinks he got that straight. It was the telephone-bell, and it was fair ringing its head off. He picked up the receiver, subdued a yawn, and said, ‘’Ullo!’

  A familiar voice said, ‘That Ledstow police station?’

  Constable Taylor’s jaw ached with his effort not to yawn again. ‘Ledstow police station’— that’s what he ought to have said first go off when he lifted the receiver. He said it now with the feeling that it sounded flat. The voice that had seemed familiar became Major Forrest’s voice. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t known it at once after all the cricket they’d played.

  The slow-moving thought was cut sharply across.

  ‘Major Forrest speak
ing from the Warne House Annexe. There’s been an accident here — to Mr. Lewis Brading. I’m ringing Dr. Elliot, but I’m afraid it’s no use — he’s dead.’

  Constable Taylor found his voice.

  ‘What kind of an accident, sir?’

  Charles Forrest said, ‘He’s been shot,’ and slammed down the receiver.

  SEVENTEEN

  IT WAS MISS SILVER’S practice to open her letters before she looked at the morning papers. There had been times during the war when she had departed from her usual custom, but except under the pressure of a national emergency she would deal with her correspondence before she so much as scanned the headlines. On this Saturday morning London was even hotter than Ledstow. The thermometer in her bedroom already registered 75°, and would certainly pass the 80° mark by midday.

  She took up her letters and sorted them through — one from her niece Ethel Burkett; one from Ethel’s sister Gladys, a selfish young woman for whom she had no great affection; a third in a handwriting which she had seen before but could not immediately identify, the postmark Ledstow. Her brows drew together in a slight frown. The writing was that of Mr. Lewis Brading. He had made an appointment and paid her a visit about a fortnight ago, and she had not been favourably impressed — oh, not at all.

  She put his letter aside and opened Ethel Burkett’s.

  ‘DEAREST AUNT MAUD,

  The scarf is just lovely...’

  Miss Silver’s eyes rested fondly upon the page. Dear Ethel — always so affectionate, so grateful. And the scarf was really nothing at all — just made up out of the odds and ends she had left from Ethel’s last two jumpers and one or two of the frocks she had knitted for little Josephine. Such a pretty, healthy little girl, and so good in spite of having three brothers to spoil her.

  Returning to the letter, she read with concern that Josephine had had a cold — ‘so trying in this weather’ — and with relief that ‘it has now, I am glad to say, completely disappeared and she is getting her colour back’. The boys were enjoying their holidays — Ethel’s husband was the manager of a bank in a Midlands county town — but, ‘we are hoping to get a fortnight at the sea in September. Mary Loftus has offered to exchange houses. She has that tiresome business of her Uncle James's furniture to go into. And, dearest Auntie, you must keep the time clear and come to us. September 2nd—17th. With love from us all, Ethel.’

  Miss Silver gave a slight pleasurable cough. A fortnight by the sea with dear Ethel and the children — how really delightful. She must do her best to keep the time clear.

  She turned to Gladys’s letter with a good deal less warmth. Gladys never wrote unless she wanted something, and she thought of no one but herself. All through the war she had managed to preserve this attitude. She had married a well-to-do man of middle age because she disliked having to earn her own living. At first the advantages had outweighed the disadvantages. Now that income tax was so heavy, the cost of living so high, and domestic help almost unobtainable, Gladys was having to work again — to cook, to clean, to polish. The advantages had disappeared, and the disadvantages remained. The elderly husband was ten years older than when she married him, and she was feeling very badly treated. ‘It isn’t as if I couldn’t get a job, and a good one. I’m sure the money some of these girls get makes you open your eyes. And it wouldn’t be cooking and cleaning, and that sort of thing either. Really I’m nothing but an unpaid servant...’

  Miss Silver read to the end with deep disapproval. Not the letter of a gentlewoman. And the postscript! Piling Pelion on Ossa, Gladys had written, ‘Next time you go away, do give me a ring. I could come up and look after the flat and do some theatres. Andrew is so sticky about my being out at night.’

  Miss Silver pressed her lips together as she laid the letter down.

  She opened Lewis Brading’s envelope with a feeling of distaste. She had not liked him — oh, not at all. ‘Self-interest — there is no stronger motive’ — a really shocking statement! And his treatment of that unfortunate secretary. Very dangerous, and really not very far off blackmail. She unfolded his letter and read:

  ‘DEAR MADAM,

  I am writing to ask you to reconsider your decision. There have been developments. The matter is confidential, and I do not wish to go to the police — at present. This is a pleasant country club. I have reserved a room for you, and must beg you to come down immediately. You may name your own fee. If you will ring me up and let me know by what train you will be arriving, I will see that you are met at Ledstow.

  Yours truly,

  LEWIS BRADING.’

  Miss Silver sat and looked at the page. Curious writing, formal and precise. But the lines sloped upwards and the signature was blotted. The letter had been written in a hurry and under some strong impulsion. ‘You may name your own fee...’ Something had happened, or he was afraid that something was going to happen. Her mind became engaged with the possibilities. They might be, would be, interesting. But she did not like Mr. Brading.

  She put the letter down and opened her morning paper. The name which had been in her mind stood out at the top of the page in a bold headline:

  THE BRADING COLLECTION

  MR. LEWIS BRADING FOUND SHOT

  She said, ‘Dear me!’ and began to read what the paper had to say about it. There was quite a lot, but it did not amount to very much. The story overflowed into two columns, but there was really more about the Brading Collection than about Mr. Brading’s sudden death. His cousin Major Forrest, coming to see him by appointment, had found him shot dead in his laboratory. He had fallen across the table at which he was sitting. A revolver lay beside him on the floor. Major Forrest had at once rung up the Ledstow police station and sent for a doctor, but life was extinct. There was a lot about it and about the Collection, but that was what it amounted to.

  After a short interval for reflection Miss Silver dialled Trunks and gave the private number of the Chief Constable of Ledshire. At this hour of the morning it would, she hoped, be possible to get through without delay. Actually, she hardly had to wait at all before a familiar voice said, ‘Hullo!’

  ‘Miss Silver speaking, Randal.’

  At the other end of the line Randal March pursed up his lips in a soundless whistle. After which he said,

  ‘Well, here I am. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You are all well? Rietta? And the baby?’

  ‘Blooming. Well — what is it?’

  ‘The Brading case.’

  ‘And where do you come in on that?’

  She would never have allowed such an expression in her schoolroom. Her cough reproved him.

  ‘My dear Randal!’

  ‘Well, well, what is it?’

  ‘I had been approached a fortnight ago—’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘By Mr. Brading.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was uneasy. He wanted me to come down to Warne. I refused.’

  ‘Again why?’

  This time the cough was of a deprecatory nature.

  ‘The case did not attract me.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That is not all, Randal.’

  He gave a short laugh.

  ‘I didn’t think it was.’

  ‘No. I had a letter from him this morning.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘The postmark is Ledstow, two-thirty, so you see—’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That there had been developments. That he had taken a room for me at Warne House. That any train I might come down by today would be met. And that I might name my fee.’

  This time March whistled aloud.

  ‘And what is your reaction to that?’

  She said in a thoughtful voice,

  ‘I have not made up my mind. I believe that Major Forrest is his cousin’s executor.’

  ‘Did Brading tell you that?’

  ‘Yes, Randal.’

  ‘During a first interview — when you were refusing the case?’

 
; ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did it occur to you that he was anticipating — how shall I put it — what has just happened?’

  She said,

  ‘I could not put it quite as strongly as that. He had made certain arrangements.’

  There was a pause. Randal March was frowning. He said,

  ‘I’d like to see you.’

  She said in a deprecatory voice,

  ‘I thought perhaps I should ring Major Forrest up. If he wishes me to do so, I could come down to Warne House for the week-end. Without his endorsement Mr. Brading’s commission lapses — I have no status.’

  March said,

  ‘Yes, I see. Let me know if you are coming down. I think I should see you.’

  Miss Silver’s call found Charles Forrest in his cousin’s study at Warne House. She had decided that she was more likely to find him there than at his own address, which she would in any case be obliged to ascertain, whereas Mr. Brading’s number was embossed upon his notepaper.

  When she got as far as the exchange a voice said,

  ‘That is Mr. Brading’s number. We are putting all calls through to the club.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘Thank you,’ and waited.

  She got Edna Snagge next.

  ‘Major Forrest? Yes, he’s here. I’ll put you through.’

  In the study Charles Forrest lifted the receiver. A prim, pleasant voice repeated his name in an enquiring manner. He said,

  ‘Speaking.’

  There was a slight introductory cough.

  ‘My name is Miss Maud Silver. I do not know whether it conveys anything to you.’

  Charles’ expression of weary indifference changed to one of attention. He said,

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘May I ask in what connection?’

  ‘My cousin left a letter — I suppose you’ve heard?’

  ‘I have seen the morning papers.’

  ‘He wished you to be called in — if anything happened. He went to see you about a fortnight ago?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wanted you to come down then. You refused. He seems to have been impressed. He says you warned him that he was upon a dangerous course.’