The Fingerprint (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 30)

by Patricia Wentworth

  But as soon as they were clear of the town she spoke again.

  ‘Anthony, I want to talk to you. Will you draw in to the side of the road?’

  ‘Not here – not now. They’ll be expecting us back.’

  There was a moment’s silence before she said,

  ‘Does that matter to you so much?’

  ‘I think we should get back.’

  She had the feeling that if she let him put her away from him now, there would be no time in which they would come together again. She said,

  ‘Anthony, will you stop now if I tell you that it is very important to me?’

  They had been so near, and for so long, that she could feel him resisting her. And then quite suddenly the resistance lessened and the car slowed down and stopped. He said without turning towards her,

  ‘I shall be going away tomorrow. I only came back to get my things.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that was what you were going to do. You didn’t feel there was anything you had to say to me?’

  ‘I was going to write.’

  ‘You were afraid to come to me and say that you had let yourself be carried away – that you don’t really care for me the way I thought you did.’

  ‘You know that’s a lie.’

  ‘I know you said you loved me. But you didn’t, did you? You only said so because Uncle Jonathan had hurt me so much and you thought it would comfort me. And now, of course, I don’t need comforting any more.’

  ‘Georgina!’

  ‘That doesn’t get us very far, does it? You are Anthony, and I am Georgina, and I thought you loved me. You did too. I want to know when you stopped. Have you fallen in love with someone else?’

  ‘You know I haven’t.’

  A little warmth came into her voice and shook it.

  ‘Of course I know! I shouldn’t be talking to you like this if I didn’t. You’ve loved me for a long time. I knew when you began, and I should know if you were to stop. You haven’t stopped. You’re just offering us both up as a burned sacrifice to your pride, and it’s a horrible, cruel thing to do and completely senseless.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘I understand perfectly. Everyone understands but you. Uncle Jonathan did. That last evening when I talked to him he told me he did. He said he had always wanted us to get married some day. He said he thought we should be very happy, and he had left you something in his will as a mark of his trust and confidence.’

  He turned round then for the first time.

  ‘Did he say that? Are you sure he meant it that way? I thought—’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I thought— No, it doesn’t matter. It sounds—’

  ‘You thought you were being put on your honour to keep away from me?’

  ‘No, no – of course not—’

  ‘I knew it was that. You see, I do always know what you are thinking – at least I always have until now. And when you began to lock your doors and bolt yourself away, and I couldn’t get near you—’ Her voice broke off short.

  He could see that she turned away from him, catching at the edge of the open window and hiding her face against her hands. If he touched her he wouldn’t be able to hold out any more. He had only to take her in his arms and all that obstinate ingrowing pride would melt. He sat where he was and heard the sound of her weeping.

  It was not for long.

  She sat up, straightening herself and leaning back. Then she said,

  ‘I don’t think you love me very much. I just want to say that there wouldn’t be a terrible lot for your pride to swallow after all. Mr. Maudsley says I can’t give Mirrie any of the capital, but I can make her an allowance of five hundred a year if I like, so that is what I shall do. I don’t quite know how much there will be left by the time all the duties are paid, and Cousin Anna’s legacy. Mr. Maudsley doesn’t know yet, but he says I shall have to pay the income tax on Mirrie’s allowance. Goodbye, Anthony.’

  She had spoken in a soft, tired voice and without any expression. On the last word she turned the handle of the door and stepped out into the road. Since he had been trying not to look at her, he was not really aware of what she was doing until it had been done and he saw her walking away from him into the darkness.

  Anger. An absolute fury of anger putting paid to the struggle in his mind. She would walk out on him, would she? Walk three lonely miles on the Lenton road in thin evening shoes rather than sit by him another moment and let him drive her home! Didn’t she know how impossible it was for either of them to leave the other? He had wrenched mind and body to do it, only to find how damned impossible it was. He was out of the car, banging the door behind him and catching her up before she had gone a dozen yards.

  Georgina heard him come. She went on walking, neither quickening her step nor slowing down. If she had been quite alone she would have walked like that, without hurry and without delay. He took her by the arm and she did not turn her head.

  ‘Come back and get into the car!’

  Her heart leapt at the fury of his tone. If this was to be a battlefield, she could fight and lose, or fight and win. It was being alone in a cold wilderness with no voice nor any that answered which had brought her to the breaking-point. She wasn’t afraid of Anthony when he was angry. She wasn’t afraid of anything as long as he was there – not half a universe away in some cold hell of his own making.

  ‘Did you hear what I said? Come back at once!’

  ‘Thank you, I would rather walk.’

  Her tone made him the merest stranger.

  ‘Georgina, are you mad?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would it be anything to do with you if I was?’

  He experienced a horrifying resurgence of the emotions of primitive man. There was nothing but a little matter of perhaps half a million centuries between him and the male creature who knocked his woman over the head with a lump of stone and dragged her senseless to their cave. A gratifying experience if there ever was one! But the centuries had done their work. He merely stopped her where she stood and made her face him with a bruising grip upon either arm.

  ‘Don’t be such a damned fool!’

  She said in a whispering voice,

  ‘You may go away from me, but I mustn’t go away from you?’

  ‘You mustn’t ever go away from me! I can’t bear it! Georgina, I can’t!’

  She began suddenly to laugh very softly.

  ‘Darling, you don’t have to. You don’t really, you know. Not unless you want to.’

  He put his head down on her shoulder, and they stood like that for a long time, until the headlights of an oncoming car picked them up and dazzled them out of their dream.

  FORTY-FOUR

  JOURNEYS END IN lovers’ meetings. Anthony and Georgina came in with so radiant an air that no one could have mistaken them for anything else. Mrs. Fabian was delighted.

  ‘And so would dear Jonathan be, I am sure. And of course perhaps he is – we don’t know, do we? But he was so fond of Anthony, and I am sure he would have been quite delighted. Because so many girls get engaged to someone they have only known for a few weeks, if that, and then perhaps it doesn’t turn out at all well, and you can’t really be surprised. Whereas, when you have known each other practically since one of you was in her cradle, you do feel that you know what to expect. I remember old Mrs. Warren telling me her grandmother had a rhyme about it –

  ‘Marry a stranger,

  Marry for danger,

  Marry at home,

  No ill will come.’

  Johnny blew her a kiss.

  ‘Pause, darling, or you’ll be putting your foot in it. Now you’ll have to think up a nice quotation for Mirrie and me.’

  Mrs. Fabian smiled in her most amiable manner and replied that for the moment all she could call to mind was a Scottish song which began – at least she thought that was how it began –

  ‘Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,

  Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
<
br />   I would wear thee in my bosom

  Lest my jewel I should tine.

  ‘And I believe the last word means lose. So it is really very good advice for you, my dear boy, because a young girl does need quite a lot of looking after, especially if she happens to be a very pretty one.’ She beamed upon Mirrie and continued, ‘It must be at least forty years since I heard anyone sing that song. My mother had cousins in Scotland, and one of them had a very good tenor voice. I remember his coming to stay with us and singing a number of these Scottish songs until my father was quite put out and wanted to know whether we couldn’t have an English air for a change. It was most embarrassing, because he used the expression “Barbarian music only fitted for the bagpipes,” and Cousin Alec wasn’t at all pleased and wouldn’t sing again. It really was very uncomfortable.’

  Frank Abbott came in to see Miss Silver next morning. He found her pledged to come and stay at Abbottsleigh for a double wedding in June.

  ‘I am returning to town this afternoon, but Georgina is most insistent that I should come down again for the wedding.’

  He looked at her with a gleam of malice in his eye.

  ‘Extraordinary the attraction these morbid occasions have for what is called the gentler sex. In the days of public executions I believe that quite three quarters of the assembled crowds were women.’

  Miss Silver was putting the finishing touches to the white baby shawl. They included a finely crocheted border. She looked across it at Frank and smiled.

  ‘Then you will not be attending the wedding?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact Anthony seems to want me to be his best man, and since the case will be closed there isn’t really any reason why I should refuse.’

  ‘None at all. It will be pleasant to meet you on a purely social occasion.’

  He leaned back in his chair.

  ‘I think we may all be thankful to be so well out of the affair. There were some nasty moments, and if Sid Turner hadn’t managed to get himself killed in that smash with the Hexton bus, we should still have the trial hanging over us. Mirrie might have been given a nasty time in the box by the sort of chap Sid’s solicitor would have put up for the defence, but as it is, the whole thing can just go down the drain and be forgotten. What I should like to ask you is, how did you tumble to that fingerprint business being a red herring, and when?’

  Miss Silver continued to crochet the frail shells which bordered the shawl.

  ‘It is always difficult to say at what moment the faint suggestion of a possibility becomes something more definite. Whereas you had been actually present when Jonathan Field related the supposed history of a murderer’s fingerprint, it only reached me at second hand and without the dramatic emphasis with which he no doubt contrived to invest it.’

  Frank laughed.

  ‘Oh, he made it convincing enough, the old blighter! You should have seen us! We were fairly lapping it up! He was a good showman, and he put on a first-class act, I’ll give him that.’

  ‘To my mind the whole thing appeared to be a little too dramatic. It was, of course, necessary to give it the most scrupulous attention, and one or two points presented themselves. According to this story of Mr. Field’s, after getting the murderer’s fingerprint on his cigarette-case a second bomb came down in the neighbourhood and he lost consciousness. When he came to he found himself in hospital with a broken leg. As I said before, I found it difficult to believe that any fingerprint would have survived the handling which the contents of his pockets must have received. I also doubted very much whether the existence of a single print with no more to authenticate it than the hearsay evidence of a man who had been taken unconscious out of a heap of ruins in which no trace of any other person had been found could possibly be supposed to carry sufficient weight to supply the motive for a murder.’

  This formidable sentence having been achieved, Miss Silver paused to loosen some strands from the ball in her knitting-bag, but before Frank could say anything she resumed.

  ‘As Lord Tennyson so truly says:

  “The end and the beginning vex

  His reason; many things perplex

  With motions, checks, and counter checks.”

  ‘From the moment Maggie Bell informed me that Mirrie had an appointment with Sid Turner on the night of the dance it was plain that she would have had an opportunity of repeating this story about the fingerprint. It undoubtedly made a deep impression on her. This was clear from what you had told me and from what Georgina was able to add to it. When it came to a choice between believing that Jonathan Field had been murdered either in order to destroy the fingerprint or to prevent him from revoking the will which made Mirrie his heiress, I could not really consider the fingerprint motive as sufficient or even credible. But if Mirrie within an hour or two of hearing it repeated the story to Sid Turner – and we know now that she did repeat it – it could, and no doubt did, provide him with the idea of using Mr. Field’s collection as a pretext for obtaining an interview. By the Tuesday night of the murder the will in Mirrie’s favour had been signed, but since it might at any time be revoked, Mr. Field’s death was determined upon. Owing to the fact that Maggie Bell overheard the conversation in which Sid Turner introduced himself, we know that he obtained admittance at an unusually late hour by exploiting Mr. Field’s interest in his fingerprint collection. He was admitted by the terrace door and accomplished his wicked purpose. There may have been some talk before the shot was fired – there probably was. Mr. Field was, I think, quite unsuspicious. He had got out his album, and had no doubt opened it and displayed some of the more interesting prints. He may himself have referred to the supposed bombing incident, or the subject may have been introduced by Sid Turner. Be that as it may, we must, I think, assume that the album was opened at that particular page, and that the murderer was prompt to avail himself of the opportunity of diverting suspicion from the real financial motive. By tearing out that particular page and destroying the notes used by Mr. Field to substantiate his story of a murderer’s confession Sid Turner undoubtedly hoped to ensure that the police enquiries would be turned in quite another direction. His own danger lay in any possible connection with Mr. Field’s will and Mirrie’s financial interest in it.’

  Frank nodded.

  ‘There’s no doubt his girl friend in Maudsley’s office had given Sid to understand that Mirrie’s chance of inheriting under the will which Jonathan had just signed was a pretty shaky one. Maudsley made no secret of his opinion as to the injustice of cutting Georgina out, and Jonathan, having acted on impulse, was likely enough to go back on it as soon as he had time to think. If Sid wanted to make sure of an heiress he had to strike while the will was valid, and he had a shrewd idea that it wouldn’t be valid for long. So he thought he would go whilst the going was good and came sprinting down here on Tuesday night. As it happened, he was a couple of hours too late and the will had already been destroyed. So he had his crime for nothing, and the Hexton bus has saved the hangman a job.’

  He got to his feet.

  ‘Well, I must be off. I suppose you wouldn’t like to invite me to tea on Sunday?’

  Miss Silver gave him an indulgent smile.

  ‘We still have a pot of Lisle Jerningham’s honey, and Hannah has the recipe for a new kind of scone.’

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Miss Silver Mysteries

  ONE

  JENNY SAT FORWARD in her chair. It was eight o’clock in the evening. She sat leaning forward, her elbow on her knee, her chin in her left hand, her brown eyes, big and mournful, now fixed on Miss Garstone’s pale face, now taking a quick glance round, as if to see the other presence that was so plainly in the room. There was a candle shaded by two propped books on the chest of drawers a little behind the bed. It was a cottage room, oddly shaped, with the thatch coming down to just above the little windows.

  Miss Garstone lay in a narrow bed, her head raised by pillows, her arms neatly laid down by her sides, her face as pale as if she we
re already dead. She had not moved since they had brought her home that morning. She had not moved and she had not spoken. The doctor had been and gone. Miss Adamson, the village nurse, had been there all day. Now she had gone home to get one or two things she would need for the night.

  ‘It’s not likely she’ll come round at all. And there’s nothing to be frightened of, Jenny.’

  Jenny said, ‘No—’ and then, ‘I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be long – not longer than I can help.’ Her footsteps went away down the narrow stairs where you could not walk quietly however hard you tried, because the stairs were all twisty and they had never had a carpet on them since they were first built three hundred years ago.

  As the sound of Miss Adamson’s feet on the stairs died away and the other sounds of her going ceased, Jenny drew a long breath. Miss Adamson had been very kind, but she would rather be without her. As this was the last time she and Miss Garstone would be alone together, that gave her a solemn hushed feeling. She looked at the quiet white face with the grey hair parted neatly in the middle, and the clean white nightgown coming up to the chin and down to the wrists, and she wondered very much where Miss Garstone was. Was she asleep? And if she was asleep, did she dream? Jenny herself nearly always dreamed when she was asleep. She did not always remember her dreams, but she always knew that she had dreamed. Sometimes she remembered what the dreams were, sometimes they were just out of sight, sometimes there was no remembrance.

  She mustn’t think about her dreams, she mustn’t think about herself. She wondered what could have happened to Miss Garstone on that lonely bit of road. Every day for as long as Jenny could remember, or nearly every day, Miss Garstone had got on her bicycle and gone off to the village. If she had not things to do for herself, there was always plenty to do for Mrs Forbes who lived in the big house.

  Jenny didn’t wonder about Mrs Forbes, because she was one of the people to whom she was so much accustomed that she hadn’t to think about her. If you have always known someone and they are always there, you don’t think about them, you take them for granted. Mrs Forbes was always there, and so were her little girls Joyce and Meg, and her grown-up sons Mac and Alan. There was a lot of difference between them in age. That was because of the war. Mac and Alan had been born in the first years of Mrs Forbes’ marriage and the two girls came after the war, so that the boys were quite grown-up and the girls were only nine and ten. They were all part of Jenny’s life. She hadn’t any relations of her own. When Mr Forbes died she felt as if she had lost an uncle. He was always nice to her in a vague, absent-minded sort of way. He had been a very absent-minded sort of person. He had always struck Jenny as being only half there. Sometimes she wondered where the other half was. But the half that was there was always vague and kind.