Hilary heard all about Ella’s whooping-cough, and Johnny’s mumps, and the time Mr Brown went off his food and couldn’t fancy anything but a lightly-boiled egg, thus leading up to the day when the egg was bad and what Mr Brown said after he had spat it out.
Owing to these reminiscences, the journey was lost time as far as working out a plan of campaign was concerned. Hilary had meant to sit with her eyes shut and think hard all the way to Ledlington, instead of which she was fully occupied in following Mrs Brown’s acrobatic leaps from one family illness to another and in murmuring at suitable intervals, ‘How inconvenient!’ and ‘How dreadful!’ She therefore walked out of Ledlington station without any idea of what she was going to do next. She gazed around her, and felt her heart sink like a stone. Ledlington was quite a place. Ledlington would in fact have been very much offended if it had struck a stranger as anything but a full-sized town. How did you find a woman whose address you didn’t know in a full-sized town? The post-office wouldn’t give you an address, it would only forward a letter. And it would be no good writing to Mrs Mercer, because Mercer would certainly read the letter. No, what she wanted was what she had had and had thrown away—ten minutes alone with the woman whose evidence had sent Geoff to penal servitude for life. There is one drawback to breaking a woman’s spirit—and Mercer might live to become aware of it. A broken spring no longer holds the lock—it has lost its resistance, and any resolute hand may jar it open. Hilary felt a good deal of confidence in her own ability to make Mrs Mercer speak, but she hadn’t the faintest idea of how to find her.
She stood still in the station yard just clear of the traffic and thought. The post-office wasn’t any good, but there were food shops—butchers, bakers, grocers, dairies. The Mercers would have to eat, and unless they went out and shopped for everything themselves, and paid for it on the nail and carried it home, one or other of these food shops would have their address. The thing you are least likely to go out and shop for yourself is milk. Nearly everyone lets the milkman call. Hilary thought she would begin with the dairies. She made enquires and was given the names of four.
As she walked in the direction of Market Square, it seemed to her that she had made a beautiful plan, and one that was practically sure of success unless:
(a) the Mercers were passing under another name;
(b) they were living in a boarding-house or an hotel, in which case they wouldn’t be doing their own catering.
She didn’t think they would have changed their name. It would be a definitely fishy thing to do, and Mercer couldn’t afford to be fishy. He’d got to be the brave, honest butler with a wife who was out of her mind. And she didn’t think they would be in an hotel, or a boarding-house, because of the danger of Mrs Mercer wailing and breaking down. Landladies and fellow-boarders have gaping ears and galloping tongues. No, Mercer would never risk it.
She came round the corner into Market Street, and saw the first dairy straight in front of her. They had no customer of the name of Mercer, but the woman behind the counter tried to sell Hilary a special cream-cheese, and some very special honey. She was such a good sales-woman that if Hilary had had anything in her purse except her return ticket and sevenpence-halfpenny, she would almost certainly have succumbed. As it was, she emerged a little breathless, and hoped that everyone in Ledlington wasn’t going to be quite so brisk and efficient.
There was neither briskness nor efficiency in the second dairy. A mournful elderly man said he had no Mercers on his books, and then coughed and called her back from the door to enquire if she had said Perkins.
It was the girl in the next dairy who introduced the first real ray of sunshine. It was a good, strong, hopeful ray, but it petered out in a very disappointing manner. The girl, a plump, rosy creature, reacted immediately to the name of Mercer.
‘Two of them, Mr and Mrs—a pint a day. Would that be them?’
Hilary’s heart gave a jump of pure joy. She hadn’t realised just what a hopeless, needle-in-the-hay kind of business she had embarked upon until she heard those stirring words. Her imp chanted:
A pint of milk a day
Keeps despair away.
She said eagerly, ‘Yes, they might be. What were they like?’
The girl giggled a little.
‘She didn’t look as if she could call her soul her own. I wouldn’t let a man get the upper hand of me like that. Silly, I call it.’
‘Can you give me the address?’ said Hilary.
‘They were staying with Mrs Green round in Albert Crescent—rooms, you know.’
‘What is the number?’ said Hilary quickly.
The girl yawned, covering her mouth with a plump white hand.
‘Oh, they’re not there any longer. Just a matter of one night, that was all.’
The disappointment was quite dreadful.
‘They’re not there any longer?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Friends of yours?’ she enquired with a sort of easy curiosity.
‘Oh, no. I just want to find them—on a matter of business.’
‘You’ve got to be careful,’ said the girl. She put her plump elbows on the counter and leaned towards Hilary. ‘I wouldn’t have liked to say anything if they were friends of yours, but Mrs Green wasn’t half pleased to get rid of them. She liked him well enough but Mrs just about gave her the creeps. Like a ghost about the house, she said, and a bit queer by all accounts. But what put her out more than anything else was her waking everyone up screaming in the night. Never heard anything like it, Mrs Green said. And him trying to calm her down, and apologising all round. Quite the gentleman she said he was. And it was then he let out about her not being right in the head, and “Mr Mercer,” says Mrs Green—I know all about it, because she’s a friend of Aunt’s and come round and told her—“Mr Mercer,” she says, “I’m sorry for you, and if your wife’s afflicted, I’m sorry for her, but this isn’t a home for the afflicted and I’ll trouble you to go elsewhere.” And Aunt said she done perfectly right, because you’ve got to think about your own house, and screams in the night are just what might get a house a bad name. And Mr Mercer said he was very sorry, and it shouldn’t occur again, and they were leaving, anyway.’
‘They’ve gone?’ said Hilary in the woeful voice of a child.
The girl nodded.
‘First thing. Closed their account and all.’
‘You don’t know where they’ve gone?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Not to say know. There was a cottage to let out Ledstow way. Mrs Green passed a remark about it.’
A cottage—that was just what she had thought of—a place where there wouldn’t be anyone for Mrs Mercer to talk to—a lonely cottage where a woman might scream without being heard. A shiver ran all the way down her spine as she said, ‘Can you tell me how to get to this cottage?’
The girl shook her head again.
‘Sorry—I can’t.’
‘Mrs Green might know.’
Another shake of the head.
‘Not her! Why, she told Aunt someone had told her about the cottage, but she didn’t know who it was. And Aunt said one of the agents would know, but Mrs Green would have it that it was being let private and nothing to do with the agents. And then all of a sudden it came over her who it was told her about the cottage.’
‘Yes?’ said Hilary. ‘Yes?’
The girl giggled and lolled on the counter.
‘It was Mr Mercer himself. Funny—wasn’t it? It came back to her as clear as anything. He’d heard about the cottage from a friend, and he thought maybe he’d go and have a look at it. So that’s what he must have done. She didn’t take any notice at the time, but it came to her afterwards.’
The ray had faded out completely.
‘How far is Ledstow?’ said Hilary in a discouraged voice.
‘A matter of seven miles,’ said the girl.
Seven miles. If Hilary’s heart could have sunk any lower, it would have done so. It w
as a nasty, dull, grey, foggy afternoon. It would be early dark, and still earlier dusk. The cottage might be as far away as the last of the seven miles between Ledlington and Ledstow. There was a horrible sagging inexactness about that ‘out on the Ledstow road’. She couldn’t just walk out into the fog with the prospect of perhaps having to do fourteen miles and returning in the dark. Somewhere at the back of her mind she was remembering that Mercer had followed her this morning and all of a sudden she was occupying herself with how he had come to be in Putney, and why he had followed her. The Mercers had gone down to Ledlington yesterday afternoon, presumably on their way to look at the cottage on the Ledstow road. They had slept at Mrs Green’s—or rather, they hadn’t slept, because Mrs Mercer had screamed and raised the house. And Mrs Green had given them notice and they had gone away ‘first thing’. Well, that left time for Mercer to get up to Putney and go to Solway Lodge. But what had he done with Mrs Mercer? And why had he gone to Putney? And why did Mrs Mercer scream in the night? Yes, why did Mrs Mercer scream in the night?
SEVENTEEN
HILARY GAVE IT up. She felt as small and mean as one of the little scuttling things that you turn up under a stone in the garden, but she gave up. The urge to follow Mrs Mercer and find out whether she was out of her mind or not failed and faded away before the prospect of a fourteen-mile walk in the dark along a country road which she did not know in search of a cottage which might not even exist and a woman who might be anywhere else in England. She had lunched on milk and a bun and she wanted her tea. You can’t buy much tea with sevenpence-halfpenny, of which twopence had to be reserved for a bus fare at the other end, but she did her best with it.
Sitting in the train which was taking her back to London, she found that her opinion of herself was rising. Perhaps it was the tea, perhaps it was merely the revival of common sense which made her feel that she had done the right thing. Silly to lose herself in dark lanes, and impossible to frighten Marion by not getting home till all hours. Tonight of all nights Marion would want someone to come home to. It always took her days to get over one of those tormenting visits to Geoff. No, she was doing perfectly right to come back. Where she had been a stupid ass was in starting to go down to Ledlington in the afternoon. The thing to do was to get down there bright and early, say not later than ten o’clock, and so have plenty of time to look for the cottage and Mrs Mercer by daylight. Horrid beyond words to think of being benighted, and hearing perhaps a footstep following her in the dark as Mercer had followed her this morning. She hadn’t liked it very much then, but what had been just vaguely unpleasant in a Putney street by daylight took on a nightmarish quality when she thought of it happening in the black dark without a house in call.
These arguments placated her conscience easily. The cottage wouldn’t run away. If Mrs Mercer was there, she wouldn’t run away either. Tomorrow she would pawn Aunt Arabella’s ring and go down to Ledlington on the proceeds. It was the most hideous ring Hilary had ever seen in her life—a very large, badly-cut ruby practically buried in enormous heavy masses of gold. It weighed like lead and was quite unwearable, but it could always be trusted to produce a fiver at a pinch. Hilary decided that this was definitely a pinch. She planned to hire a bicycle and so escape an interminable search on foot. And that being off her mind, she went to sleep and slept peacefully all the way to town. She had a dream about Henry—a very encouraging dream—in which he told her that he had been in the wrong, and that his only wish was to be forgiven. This agreeably improbable picture was extremely solacing, but even in a dream this contrite and humble Henry seemed a little too good to be true. She awoke with a start, and dreamed no more.
Marion Grey came home that night in a state which made Hilary feel thankful that she was there and not in Ledlington. Marion was cold, strained and exhausted beyond belief. She fainted twice before Hilary could get her to bed, and when there just lay and stared at the ceiling in wordless misery. There was no question of going down to Ledlington next day, or for the rest of the week. Marion was ill and had to be nursed, coaxed into taking food, petted and cajoled out of the thoughts which were consuming her. She must rest, but she mustn’t be left alone. She must be talked to, read to, interested, and fed. Aunt Emmeline sent a cheque, but Hilary had to do the work—keep the flat, buy and cook the food, and look after Marion. For the time at least, Ledlington was off the map and the Mercers didn’t exist.
It was during this time that Henry Cunningham paid a second visit to Miss Silver. He was rung up and invited to call. The gentle, precise tones of her telephone voice gave him no clue as to whether she had any news for him, or whether she had merely sent for him in order to tell him that there was no news to be had.
She received him with the same inclination of the head as before, and she appeared to be knitting the same white woolly sock. When she was seated she took out a tape-measure and did some minute measuring with it. Then, as she rolled up the yard measure again, she said in a pleased, brisk voice, ‘Well, Captain Cunningham, I have some news for you.’
Henry, not so pleased, was a good deal taken aback, and showed it. What was going to be raked up now? News on a detective’s lips was unlikely to be anything pleasant. He felt a very active impatience with the Everton Case, and a very decided reluctance to hear what Miss Silver’s news might be. Those indeterminate eyes of hers rested upon him mildly.
She said in her ladylike voice, ‘Something rather surprising has come to light, Captain Cunningham. I felt that you should know about it at once.’
With a good deal of apprehension Henry said, ‘Yes?’ He could not for the life of him think of anything else to say—and felt a fool, and feeling a fool, felt cross.
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
‘Decidedly surprising, I thought. But you will judge for yourself. After you had left me the other day I put on my hat and went to Somerset House. You were not able to supply me with Mrs Mercer’s maiden name, but I thought I would see if I could trace her marriage. In a case of this sort previous history is all important. Her Christian names, one unusual in itself, and the two certainly unusual in juxtaposition, encouraged me to hope for success. It was unlikely that there would be more than one Louisa Kezia who had married an Alfred Mercer.’
‘Yes?’ said Henry again.
Miss Silver paused for a moment to count her stitches.
‘Ten—twelve—fourteen,’ she murmured. ‘Knit one, slip one, knit two together—’
The sock rotated, and a fresh needle stabbed into the wool.
‘Well, Captain Cunningham, fortune—or I should prefer to say providence—favoured me. I was able to trace the marriage. Mrs Mercer’s maiden name appears to have been Anketell—Louisa Kezia Anketell. The uncommon surname ought to make it easy to trace her antecedents. But there is more than that. There is a circumstance connected with the marriage itself—a circumstance connected with the date of the marriage.’
‘Well?’ said Henry Cunningham. He was not cross any longer, he was excited. He did not know what he expected to hear, but he was impatient to hear it.
Miss Silver stopped knitting for a moment.
‘The date gives food for thought, Captain Cunningham. Alfred Mercer and Louisa Kezia Anketell were married on 17th July, 1935.’
‘What?’ said Henry.
‘The 17th July,’ said Miss Silver, ‘the day after Mr Everton’s death.’
‘What?’ said Henry again.
Miss Silver resumed her knitting.
‘Think it over, Captain Cunningham. I told you it provided food for thought.’
‘The day after James Everton’s death? But they had been with him for over a year as a married couple.’
Miss Silver primmed her lips.
‘Immorality is not confined to the upper classes,’ she said.
Henry got up from his chair and stood there looking down at her across the table.
‘The day after James Everton’s death—’ he repeated. ‘What does that mean?’
‘What
does it seem to you to mean, Captain Cunningham?’
Henry was no longer frowning. This was too serious an occasion. He looked more seriously perturbed as he said, ‘A wife can’t be made to give evidence against her husband—’
Miss Silver nodded.
‘Quite correct. That is one of the occasions on which the law regards husband and wife as one, and a man cannot be forced to incriminate himself, though he may make a confession, and his wife may give evidence if she wishes to. The law, if I may say so, is extremely inequitable in its treatment of married people. It regards them as one in such a case as this, and they pay income tax as one person, thus bringing both incomes on to a higher rate of taxation, yet when it comes to death duties the spouses are regarded as two, and the survivor is mulcted.’
Henry was not listening to all this. His mind was completely occupied with the Mercers. He said, ‘She couldn’t be made to give evidence against him—he was in a blazing hurry to shut her mouth—’
Miss Silver nodded again.
‘It certainly has that appearance. I should be glad if you would resume your seat, Captain Cunningham—it is difficult to talk to someone who is, so to speak, towering.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Henry, and sat down.
‘I have a nephew who is six-foot-one,’ said Miss Silver, knitting busily. ‘Very much your own height, I should say—and I have constantly to remind him that it is very tiring to converse with someone who, so to speak, towers. But we must return to the Mercers. There might, of course, be other explanations of this sudden marriage, but at first sight it certainly does suggest a desire on Alfred Mercer’s part to make sure that his associate could not be compelled to give evidence against him. But if you accept this suggestion, you will find yourself forced to a most sinister conclusion.’ She laid down her knitting and looked directly at Henry. ‘Consider the date of the marriage.’
‘The day after the murder.’
‘Yes. But consider, Captain Cunningham. You cannot just walk into a register office and get married—notice has to be given.’
Case Is Closed Page 12
