The Fingerprint (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 30)

by Patricia Wentworth

  He let go of her and she shrank there like a little wild creature that is caught and can’t get away. She didn’t dare to move, she hardly dared to breathe, obeying the age-old instinct that sends its message along the frightened nerves – ‘Keep still – make yourself small – melt into the earth – pretend that you are dead.’

  Mirrie froze where she sat. Sid Turner was putting the pearls away in his wallet. When he had done he turned on her again.

  ‘Where are we – suppose you’ve been out driving with your fancy boy! What’s this place?’

  She had to speak, because he would be angry if she didn’t. It didn’t do to make Sid angry. Her lips were stiff and her breath whispered as she said,

  ‘It’s Hexley Common.’

  ‘There was a track going off to the left – we just passed it. Where does it go?’

  ‘Nowhere. There’s an old gravel pit.’

  The word came into his mind and made itself at home there. Tangled up overgrown places those old pits – handy if there was anything you wanted to hide. His sullen resentment and anger against Mirrie Field had been piling up since yesterday. She had misled him about the will, she had tried to fob him off at the funeral, and she had given him away to the police. The darkness and the anger in him were piling up. If they were to break – if he were to let them break – well, there was the gravel pit as you might say to his hand. He said,

  ‘That’ll do us fine. We’ll get off the road, then we’ll talk.’

  He backed the car to where the track led off and for a little way along it. Careful, that was what he was. That was why nobody had ever tripped him yet. Nor they weren’t going to.

  When he thought he had gone far enough he shut off the engine and the lights. Then he got out, came round to Mirrie’s side, and opened the door.

  ‘You and me have got to talk. And just in case anyone comes along and gets nosey about the car, we’re going a bit farther from the road. How far did you say it was to that pit?’

  She held back trembling.

  ‘I – don’t know. Can’t we talk here?’

  She didn’t want to go any nearer to the pit. Johnny had pointed it out in the wintry dusk, a dug-out place grown over with blackberry and gorse. She hadn’t liked it then – it terrified her now.

  Sid Turner took her by the arm and yanked her out of the car. He set her down so hard that the jar of it ran right through her up to the top of her head. She didn’t dare cry out, but she stumbled as he pulled her along, and he swore and held her up. He had a torch in his pocket, but he didn’t put it on. He had good night sight and the sandy track showed up against the dark heather on either side. The sky is never without some light, and it is astonishing how much you can see once your eyes have adjusted themselves.

  The track got rougher as they came near the pit. They were now about fifty yards from the car, and he judged it to be far enough from the road. He said, ‘This’ll do,’ and stopped. He kept his hand on her arm and pulled her round to face him.

  ‘I asked you just now in the car whether you remembered me tickling you with my knife. D’you remember why I did it? It was to remind you what would happen if you ever thought of splitting on me, wasn’t it? Remember that? And on the top of it you go blabbing to the police about talking to me on the phone and what you said to me and what I said to you!’

  ‘I didn’t, Sid, I didn’t! It was Maggie Bell. She listens in. She hasn’t got anything else to do and she listens in all the time. She had an accident and she can’t walk, and she just lies on her sofa and listens in.’

  Fear pricked her, as Sid’s knife had pricked her. The words came tumbling out.

  ‘You told the police about ringing me up and telling me how your uncle had made a new will and left you a lot of money!’

  ‘Maggie told them. It wasn’t me – it was Maggie. They knew all about it.’

  ‘And what they didn’t know you told them, just in case this Maggie had left anything out! You can lie all right when it suits you, but you tumbled over yourself to give the busies what they wanted! You could have said this Maggie Bell was making it up, couldn’t you?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been any good. Everyone knows she listens.’

  He flung her away from him with an angry shove, then caught at her wrist.

  ‘Everyone knows – and you go blabbing! Now listen, you little piece of dirt – anything you said to the police, you’ve got to take it back, that’s what! You can lie cleverly enough when you like – practised for years on Grace, didn’t you? Well, now you can turn it to some account! Whatever you told the police, you’ll go over it and mess it up! Whatever day you told them you rang me, you’ll get down to telling them you’re not sure what day it was! What you’ve got to get across is you never told me anything about the old man having signed his will! D’you hear – you never told me! That’s what you’ve got to stick to! And if this Maggie Bell says different, she’s the one that’s lying, and not you! You never rang me up on Tuesday night – it was next day, after he was dead, and you just told me that, and when the funeral was going to be! If Maggie says anything more she is making it up!’

  As he heard his own words he knew that it wasn’t any good. He could scare her, and she would promise whatever he asked, but she wouldn’t stick to it. As soon as she got back it would all come tumbling out – how he’d frightened her, and what he’d told her to say. He would have to finish her off. There was no way out of it, and with the rage that was in him now he’d be glad to do it. He said in the soft dangerous voice which terrified her more than any loud one,

  ‘No, it’s not any good – I couldn’t trust you.’ His hand went into his pocket for the knife. ‘You little blabbing slut! Suppose I show you a cure for a leaky tongue – suppose I cut it out!’

  She gave a faint high scream, twisted her wrist away from him, and ran wildly, blindly, desperately, without aim, without thought, without sense of direction.

  FORTY-ONE

  JOHNNY FABIAN STOOD with the open door behind him and looked across the hall. He saw Anthony and Georgina. And Miss Silver, who had just asked him where Mirrie was. That meant Mirrie wasn’t here, but he had to hear it said.

  ‘Isn’t she here?’ The words sounded stupid and empty, because he knew already that something had happened to her.

  Miss Silver came towards him.

  ‘Mr. Fabian, you are supposed to have rung her up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Someone rang up who gave your name. The line is said to have been very bad. Maggie Bell was listening in. I got on to her as soon as Mirrie was missed. She says Mirrie began by asking you what about the garage. Was it what you wanted? Was there really a flat over it, and would you be able to buy it? The man on the line said, “Now listen—” And then he went on to say that there would not be a flat or any garage unless a deposit was paid tonight, because there was someone else after it, and Mirrie was to slip out of the house with all the money she had and her pearls, and she was not to say a word to anyone.’

  Johnny said short and hard,

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just before half past seven.’

  He looked at his wrist-watch.

  ‘Twenty minutes start.’

  He turned and went out as he had come in, with Anthony Hallam after him. They exchanged a word or two in the dark. Anthony said,

  ‘Three ways they could have gone – to Lenton, or by this road, up or down. We had better separate.’

  Johnny said,

  ‘All right, you take the Lenton road. It’s Sid Turner. He must have seen me across the street at Pigeon Hill – knew I wasn’t here – tried it on. If he’s on the run he’ll be heading away from town. If he’s got a car it’ll be stolen, and he’d steal a fast one.’

  He went round the car to get in, and as he did so Miss Silver slipped into the passenger’s seat. She had picked up the first muffler that came to hand in the cloakroom off the lobby, and a coat used by Mrs. Fabian for walking in the garden or stepping across the r
oad to post a letter. The fact that she had come out without a hat and in her evening slippers with their beaded toes bore witness to the urgency of the occasion. She could have guessed Johnny Fabian’s expression from the tone in which he said, ‘I must ask you to get out. I can’t possibly take you.’

  She replied in words which he had been about to use himself.

  ‘There is no time to be lost. I may be of some assistance. I have excellent sight, and I am provided with an electric torch.’

  Johnny ceased to regard her presence. The words filled his mind – ‘No time to be lost.’ But the time might already be lost. Mirrie might be lost. He set his mind away from that. He set it to drive the car, to get the last ounce out of her. They shot past the straggle of houses at Field End and ran on towards Hexley Common.

  From the first moment it was the Common that had been in his mind. He didn’t know why. He ought to be able to think, to find a reason, but he couldn’t. He could feel. Or he could shut off the feeling and just drive the car. But he couldn’t think. From the darkness beside him Miss Silver said,

  ‘I have reason to believe that there is a warrant out for Sid Turner’s arrest. Inspector Abbott and Inspector Blake were going down to Pigeon Hill this afternoon. It looks as if he had received some warning and had got away. As I heard you say to Captain Hallam, he has probably stolen a car. I cannot see that he has anything to gain by harming Mirrie, but he will not risk driving through a town with her in case she should attract attention. Having taken the money and her pearls, the most obvious thing for him to do would be to put her down in an unfrequented place from which it would take her some time to find her way home. He would naturally wish to secure as long a start as possible.’

  Her words and the quiet, composed tone which had carried them passed over the hard surface of Johnny’s mind and found no entrance. He heard what she said, but implicit between them was the dark thing which she did not say. There was one means of securing that Mirrie Field would not return to Field End with any tale for the police. There was the dreadful means of murder – as old as Cain, running like a scarlet thread through all the history of every nation upon earth – the one final answer to every murderer’s need. Johnny shut his mind against it.

  They ran up the long slope to Hexley Common. It lay dark under the sky. A chill breeze passed over it. Miss Silver was aware of it as she leaned from the open window to scan the side of the road. She saw the track going off to the left.

  ‘Mr. Fabian, there is a path—’

  But he was already slowing down. He got out, and she followed him. She said,

  ‘Where does it go?’ And he, ‘There’s a gravel pit.’

  And with that, faint and high, there came the sound of Mirrie’s scream.

  FORTY-TWO

  WHEN SHE HAD run from Sid Turner she was in no case to think or plan. A blind panic drove her. The track led straight to the gravel pit and she followed it. It was only when her foot went over the edge and she lost her balance that she knew anything at all. What came to her then was thought in its simplest, most elementary form – ‘I’m falling.’ And with that she fell, out of thought and out of consciousness.

  The first thing she knew after that was something pricking her. She didn’t come to all at once. She had been very badly shocked and frightened, and she had had quite a fall. The pricking became more insistent. Her face and hands were scratched, her shoulder hurt. She heard Sid calling her, softly, cautiously. She lay as still as a rabbit and saw a small round disc of light go dancing by. Sid had a torch and he was looking for her. The thing that was pricking her was gorse. She had rolled, and slipped, and slithered down the side of the pit, and she was lying between two gorse bushes. They covered her against the dancing light, and it passed over her and was gone. The fear that had been holding her rigid relaxed and let her go. She lay in a soft trembling heap and prayed that the light would not return. If she was very good always, if she never told another lie in all her life, if she always remembered to say her prayers, perhaps God wouldn’t let Sid find her.

  She drew herself up very, very carefully. She was stiff and sore, but there wasn’t anything broken. When she peered from between the bushes she could see the light going away to the left, sliding to and fro over the gorse, and the blackberry trails, and the yellow side of the pit. Sid was walking away from the place where she had fallen. As he went he shone the light over the edge and looked down and called her name.

  ‘Mirrie, you little fool, where are you? I was only joking, you know. You wouldn’t be afraid of me – not of Sid. Just call back, and I’ll get you up. You don’t want to make me angry, do you? Mirrie!’

  She began to crawl out from between the bushes. If he went on round the pit – if she could get out whilst he was on the other side – if she could get back on to the road … She hadn’t fallen very far, but if he heard her he would come back and kill her with the knife. She knew what his hand had gone into his pocket for – it was to get the knife. It opened with a spring. She had seen him open it before, the time he had set the point against her throat. If he caught her now he wouldn’t stop at frightening her, he would kill her dead.

  She couldn’t climb in her coat. She slipped it off and let it go. The slope where she had fallen was not a steep one. She crawled on it an inch or two at a time, sometimes a little to the left, sometimes a little to the right, according to the lie of the ground. And then just as she got to the top, the flickering light and Sid’s voice calling her. They turned and began to come back again. She got her knee over the edge, her other knee, her foot. If she stood up he would see her. If she didn’t stand up she couldn’t run away. The dancing light would pick her up – Sid would catch her and she would feel the knife.

  She stumbled to her feet and ran screaming down the track. It was rough and rutted under foot. She didn’t think, ‘I mustn’t fall,’ she knew it with a kind of shuddering intensity. If she tripped, if she slipped, if she fell, the knife would be in her back. She kept her hands stretched out before her as if they could save her from falling. They did just save her from running into the back of the car. She called out as it brought her up with a jerk, her hands sliding on the paintwork, but she didn’t fall, and through the sound of her choked breathing she could hear the running steps behind her. She made her last, most desperate effort, pushed back from the car, and stumbled round it, feeling her way, banging into a mudguard, getting clear, and staggering on again towards the road.

  She ran right into Johnny Fabian’s arms. He said,

  ‘Mirrie! Oh, Mirrie!’ and she said his name over and over again as if she couldn’t stop saying it, as if it was something that would keep her safe as long as she held on to it and didn’t let go. They stood on the edge of the track and held each other.

  Miss Silver, coming up at a more sober pace, was aware of them. She had put on her electric torch, but she turned the beam away. And then quite suddenly it was cutting the dark again and she was calling out,

  ‘Mr. Fabian – the car – it’s moving! Take care!’

  There was the roar of the engine behind her words. It startled him to action. He jumped Mirrie off the track among the heather roots and saw the black shape of the car lurch past them and out on to the road. With the lights coming on and a dangerous reeling swerve to avoid Johnny’s car Sid Turner was out on the tarmac and away.

  Miss Silver, who had also stepped into the heather, now emerged from it. She addressed Mirrie Field.

  ‘My dear child! You are not hurt? It was indeed providential that Mr. Fabian should have been led to come this way. You are quite safe now, and you must try to compose yourself. There must be no delay in getting in touch with the police.’ She directed herself to Johnny. ‘I endeavoured to take the number of the car as it passed me, but the plate had been, no doubt designedly, obscured by what looked like splashes of mud.’

  Johnny shrugged.

  ‘He’ll get rid of the car as soon as he can. He’ll have pinched it, so the number wouldn’t have b
een much help in tracing him. And he’d have had the legs of us even if we could have got off in time to follow him. He’d pick a fast one while he was about it.’

  They got into Johnny’s old car and ran back to Field End. Just about the time that the lobby door swung to behind them and they came into the lighted hall Sid Turner went blinding round the corner of Jessop’s Lane into the main road and crashed into the Hexton bus. It was fortunately not very full. The driver had a miraculous escape, and of the few passengers no one was seriously injured, though old Mrs. Brazely lost her front teeth and could never be persuaded that her son-in-law had not trodden on them on purpose. But the stolen car was what the conductor described as a mess, and Sid Turner was dead.

  FORTY-THREE

  ANTHONY RANG UP from Lenton. The first sound of Johnny’s voice was enough to tell him that Mirrie had been found and was safe.

  ‘And you’d better come back quick or there won’t be anything left to eat. We’re not waiting for anyone, and personally I could cope with an ox.’

  Anthony hung up and came out of the call-box. He hadn’t reckoned on Georgina being so close to him. She had insisted on coming, but they had hardly spoken until now when he almost ran into her and she caught him by the arm and said,

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘She’s all right. They’ve got her back.’

  Just for a moment they stood close together like that, her hands on his coat-sleeve, her face tilted up to him and the greenish light of a street-lamp turning her hair to silver. She was bare-headed, with a coat thrown round her, and there was no colour about her anywhere, not in her face nor in her lips, nor in the pale glimmer of her hair. Only her eyes were dark and fixed upon his own. She said,

  ‘Thank God!’ Then her hands fell and she stepped back from him, and they got into the car and drove away.