Miss Silver Comes To Stay (14 page)

The Chief Constable laid down the papers submitted by Superintendent Drake. He saw before him an unpleasant and harassing day. He found Drake zealous, efficient, and extremely uncongenial. He allowed none of these things to show in face or manner.

Drake, always ready to break a silence, took up his tale.

“As you see, the medical report puts the time of death anywhere between nine and eleven. Well, we know he was alive at nine, because Mrs. Mayhew heard him speak about then. If we knew when he had his last meal we could narrow it down a bit, but with a cold supper left, we can’t do better than that. They think it couldn’t have been later than eleven. Well now, Mrs. Mayhew saw that raincoat with the blood on it at a quarter to ten. That means he was dead within half an hour of the time at which Miss Cray admits she was there. If he was dead then, Miss Moore’s statement gives Mr. Robertson an alibi—he was with her until nine-fifty. But I’ve seen Mrs. Mayhew again, and I don’t make out from what she says that there was all that blood on the sleeve when she saw it. She says it was stained round the cuff and she saw the stain. But when I put it to her, was it soaked, she said no it wasn’t, it was just stained. And that would tie up with the scratch Miss Cray had on her wrist. The way I see it now is this. Miss Cray goes home, like she says, at a quarter past nine. Miss Bell corroborates this. We don’t know why she left the raincoat, but leave it she did. My guess is, either there was a quarrel and she came away too angry to notice, or maybe he started to make up to her and she got nervous and cleared out. Now to my mind one of two things happened. Either Miss Cray gets thinking about that old will and the half million it would bring her, and then she remembers her raincoat and goes on up to get it back. Mr. Lessiter is sitting there at his table. She puts on her coat, goes over behind him to the fire as if she was going to warm herself, picks up the poker and—well, there you are. Then she comes home and washes the coat. It must have needed it!”

The Chief Constable shook his head.

“Impossible.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir. It’s one of the things that might have happened. The other is that Mr. Robertson took Melling House on his way back from Lenton. He gets there about half past ten, goes in, and sees the raincoat lying there—it’s an old one of his own, you’ll remember. He recognizes it, as Mrs. Mayhew did, by the lining. Remember too that he isn’t wearing a coat himself. He picks it up and puts it on. He has only to make some excuse to go over to the fire. It was a bitter night, and he had been walking in the wind, so it would be easy enough. Well, there he is, with the poker to his hand, as you might say.”

Randal March leaned back in his chair.

“Isn’t all this a little too easy, Drake? Do you know what strikes me?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll tell you. It’s what you might call the supine acquiescence of Mr. Lessiter. Here is a young man with quite a bitter quarrel against him—I am assuming that it really was James Lessiter who had seduced Marjory Robertson—that’s your theory, isn’t it? Well, if you assume that, you also assume that Miss Cray’s object in going to Melling House was to warn James Lessiter. Now on the assumption that Carr had just found out who was his wife’s seducer, and that James Lessiter had just been warned that Carr had found him out, do you really think that an interview between them would have been conducted on the lines you indicate—Carr Robertson strolling in, putting on his raincoat, going over to the fire to warm himself, with James Lessiter just sitting at the table with his back to him? I’m afraid I find it quite incredible.”

“Then it was Miss Cray.”

“Who has a witness to prove that she returned home at a quarter past nine, and Mrs. Mayhew to prove that the coat was only slightly stained at a quarter to ten.”

“That leaves more than an hour for her to go back, kill him, and bring the coat away.”

“And no evidence to prove that she did any such thing.”

Drake looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“That raincoat was hanging in her hall, sir. It didn’t walk there.”

A short silence ensued. Drake thought, “Set on getting her out of it, that’s what he is. All the same these people—whoever’s done murder, it can’t be one of them. But you can’t hush things up like you used to—not nowadays.” He went on with his report.

“Mr. Holderness—he was Mrs. Lessiter’s solicitor, and he’s acting for Mr. Robertson, and I suppose for Miss Cray—”

“Yes, I know him.”

“He was on to me this morning. It seems Mr. Robertson mentioned a circumstance to him which he thought we ought to know about. The Mayhews have a son, a lad of about twenty. He’s been working in London. Mr. Robertson says he saw him get off the six-thirty at Lenton the evening of the murder. He and Miss Bell were on the train too. Well, it might be he’d made a mistake, or it might be he’d made it up, but as it happens, there’s corroboration. The Mayhews go to relations in Lenton on their day out—name of White—tobacco and sweets, 16 Cross Street. We checked up on them for the Wednesday of the murder. You remember Mrs. Mayhew came home early, on the six-forty bus—well Whitcombe checked up on that. There’s a boy there, Ernie White—seventeen—helps his father in the shop. When Mr. Holderness handed us this about young Mayhew I sent Whitcombe along and told him to find out if Ernie White had seen his cousin. You see, if he came down on the six-thirty he’d have to get out to Melling or find someone to put him up in Lenton. As it turns out, Whitcombe finds out that Cyril Mayhew had borrowed young Ernie’s bike. Told him his father had forbidden him the house, but he was going to pop over and see his mother.”

The Chief Constable straightened up.

“Why had Mayhew forbidden him the house?”

“Oh, he’d been in trouble. Spoilt only child brought up in a big house. Got a job in London. Caught taking money out of the till—put on probation. The officer got him a job. Mayhew wouldn’t have him about the house. He’s a very respectable man—and I don’t mean just the ordinary respectable kind—he’s something rather out of the way— very much respected in Melling. I suppose he felt it was a bit of a responsibility. Well, there you are—Cyril Mayhew came down on Wednesday night and borrowed his cousin’s bike. And Mrs. Mayhew took the six-forty bus. There wasn’t much doubt why she went home early. Mr. Holderness and his clerk are out at the House now with Whitcombe checking over the inventory. I looked in on my way, and they say there are some figures missing from the study.”

“Figures?”

Drake consulted a note.

“Four figures—The Seasons—”

“Seems an odd sort of thing to be taken. What were they— china?”

“No; sir, gilt. I asked Mrs. Mayhew about them, and she says she thinks they were there Wednesday morning. She says they were after the style of those statues you see in a museum—not much in the way of clothes. About ten inches high.”

If the Chief Constable felt inclined to smile he did not permit himself to do so. He said,

“They might be valuable, but it would be a connoisseur’s value, and a strictly limited market. Of course there are people who specialize in that sort of thing. The boy might have been got hold of. What does Mrs. Mayhew say about his being there on Wednesday night?”

“Oh, she denies it—she would of course. Cries and says she hasn’t seen him for six months. Well, everyone knows that isn’t true. It’s common talk he’s been up and down, and Ernie White admitted it wasn’t the first time he’d lent his bike.”

March frowned.

“Look here, Drake, Mrs. Lessiter must have had an insurance policy. It was probably used as a basis for probate. What were those figures insured for?”

Drake looked alert.

“I put that point to Mr. Holderness, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. The only separate items in the insurance were some of the old bits of furniture and the jewelry. Everything else was just lumped together and not put very high. The total amount including the house was ten thousand.”

March said, “I think we might ask Miss Cray about those figures. She would know if they were still there when she left at a quarter past nine.”

“That’s what I thought, sir. Meanwhile I’ve taken steps to find out whether this young Mayhew is back at his job. I got the address from Mrs. Mayhew—a firm of house agents in Kingston. I’ve been on to the local people and asked them to keep an eye on the boy without letting him know. I thought better not startle him till we knew a little more.”

“No—quite right, Drake.” March glanced at his wrist-watch. “Well, if we are to see Miss Cray before we go up to the House we’d better be off.”

After another night, sleepless except for indeterminate stretches of time in which there was a vague sense of half-recognized calamity, Rietta Cray was paler than yesterday but steadier—nerves taut and rigidly controlled. She opened the door to the Chief Constable and Superintendent Drake, and needed no reminder that this was an official visit. To the end of her life there would be nightmare moments when she would re-live that interview.

It was circumstance rather than detail which made the nightmare. They went into the dining-room, and Drake produced a notebook. Randal sat on one side of the table and she on the other. She had known him since she was ten years old. Lately, with Lenfold only five miles away, they had seen a good deal of one another, and the friendship of slow years had deepened into something closer. Each had felt a growing awareness of the other, and each had known where this was leading them. Now, with the table between them, they were strangers—the Chief Constable of the county and a pale, strained woman who was the leading suspect in a murder case. The position came near to being intolerable. Being what they were, they kept their dignity and observed the social forms. Mr. March apologized to Miss Cray for troubling her, to which Miss Cray replied that it was no trouble.

Horrified at his own feelings, Randal March continued.

“We thought you might be able to help us. You know Melling House well, don’t you?”

Her deep voice said, “Yes.”

“Can you describe the study mantelpiece?”

She showed a faint surprise. She said,

“Of course. It’s one of those heavy black marble affairs.”

“Any ornaments?”

“A clock, and four gilt figures—”

“Four gilt figures?”

“Yes—The Seasons.”

“Miss Cray, can you tell us whether they were there on Wednesday night?”

The question took her back. She saw the study in a bright small picture—James with the light shining down upon him, his eyes watchful, teasing her—the littered ash of the letters she had written to him—his mother looking down on them, a handsome young matron in white satin with her ostrich-feather fan—the graceful golden figures posed on the black marble slab. She said,

“Yes, they were there.”

“You are quite sure they were there when you left at a quarter past nine?”

“Quite sure.”

There was a pause. He had to make headway against his crowding thoughts. How ghastly pale she was. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. How else should she look? He was neither friend nor lover. He wasn’t even a man, he was a police officer. That horrible moment was the first in which he consciously used the word love in his thoughts of Rietta Cray. He said,

“Can you tell us anything about these figures?”

She seemed to come back from a long way off. Something, some shadow, darkened her eyes. He thought she was remembering, and felt a sharp inexplicable pang. She said,

“Yes—they’re Florentine—sixteenth century, I think.”

“Then they are valuable.”

“Very.” Then, after a slight pause, “Why do you ask?”

“Because they have disappeared.”

Rietta said, “Oh!” A little colour came into her face.

“Mr. Holderness is taking an inventory, and they are missing. Anything you can tell us will be a help in tracing them.”

Her manner changed. It became controlled. She said in a hesitating voice,

“I suppose you know that they are gold?”

“Gold!” Drake looked up sharply, repeating the last word.

March said, “Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, quite sure. Mrs. Lessiter told me. They were left to her by an uncle who was a collector. They are museum pieces, very valuable indeed.”

“And she had them out on the mantelpiece like that?”

“Oh, yes. She said nobody would know.”

The Superintendent came in rather sharply,

“They’re not even mentioned in the insurance.”

Rietta turned her Pallas Athene look upon him.

“Mrs. Lessiter didn’t believe in insurances. She said you paid away a lot of money and got nothing for it, and if you had anything valuable it was just drawing attention to it. She kept on her husband’s insurance on the house and furniture, but she didn’t bother about any of her own things. She had some valuable miniatures and other things. She said if you just left them lying about, everyone got used to them, but the more fuss you made, and the more you locked things up, the more likely they were to be stolen.”

March was frowning.

“Would the Mayhews know about these figures, that they were gold?”

“I should think so. They are old servants.”

“Was the son brought up here?”

“Yes—he went to Lenton Grammar School. He was rather a clever boy.”

“Would he have known about the figures?”

“How can I tell?” Her look changed to one of distress. It went from one man to the other. “Why do you ask that?”

Randal March said,

“Cyril Mayhew was down here on Wednesday night, and the figures are gone.”

It was just before half past three that Mrs. Crook ushered the Chief Constable into Mrs. Voycey’s drawing-room. Miss Silver rose to meet him with a good deal of pleasure. She could not even now look at the tall, personable man without recalling the frail, determined little boy who, after resisting all previous efforts at discipline, had by her own peculiar mixture of tact and firmness been guided into the paths of health and knowledge. She had never permitted herself to have favourites. It was perhaps on this account that, whilst referring to his sisters as “dear Isabel” and “dear Margaret,” she had never been known to accord their brother any such prefix. Not even to herself would she admit that the conflict between them, and its happy termination, had given him a particular place in her affections.

“My dear Randal—how extremely kind!”

He had his customary smile for her, but it was a fleeting one. The ritual of their meeting proceeded.

“Your dear mother is well? I had a letter from her only last week. She is a most faithful correspondent. I think you will find this a comfortable chair.”

The smile showed again for a moment.

“If you have heard from my mother you have had all our news. Margaret is well, Isabel is well, Margaret’s last long-legged brat is shooting up. And now let us put the family on the shelf. I want to talk to you. Have you—perhaps I oughtn’t to ask it, but I do—have you had any communication from Rietta Cray?”

Miss Silver’s hands paused on the thin strip of knitting which represented, embryonically, the back of little Josephine’s woolly jacket. She gave her faint dry cough and said,

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I very much want to know. She rang me up and asked me about you. I hoped you would have heard from her.”

The busy needles moved again. She said,

“I have.”

“You have seen her?”

“Yes, Randal.”

“What do you make of it all?”

She lifted her eyes and looked at him steadily.

“What do you make of it yourself?”

He got up out of his chair and stood half turned away from her, looking down into the fire.

“She is quite incapable—” He had neither voice nor words to complete the sentence.

Miss Silver said, “Quite so. But there might be a strong case against her. She is aware of that herself.”

He said, “Damnable—” and again had no more words.

Miss Silver failed to reprove him for the one which he had used. She continued to knit. After a little while she said,

“There is something which I think you ought to know— in your private capacity.”

He pushed a log with his foot.

“I haven’t got a private capacity. I’m a policeman.”

She coughed.

“You are Chief Constable. You would not, I imagine, find it necessary to impart everything you knew to a subordinate.”

He had a wry smile for that.

“Jesuitry!” Then, before she could summon up the look with which she had been used to quell him in the schoolroom, he went on in a voice quite broken away from its habitual control. “I’d better make a clean breast of it. You always do know everything whether one tells you or not, so it’s just as well to make a virtue of necessity. Rietta is completely incapable of harming anyone, but she is also completely incapable of defending herself at the expense of someone she loves.”

Miss Silver answered this very directly. She did, in fact, justify his assertion that she always knew everything by answering what he had merely implied.

“You are afraid that Mr. Carr Robertson is the guilty person, and that Miss Cray will screen him at the risk of incurring suspicion.”

He drove hard at the fire with his foot. A torrent of sparks rushed up. He said,

“Yes.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“I think I can relieve your mind. I was, in fact, about to do so. I have had no opportunity of questioning Mr. Carr, but one thing you may rely upon—Miss Cray has a very strong reason for being sure that he is innocent.”

“What reason?”

“A most convincing one. In fact, one may say, the only one which could carry complete conviction. He thinks she did it.”

Startled into turning quite round, Randal March said,

“What!”

Miss Silver reflected that the scholastic profession was a discouraging one. How many times had she corrected such an interjection in the schoolroom, offering instead the politer, “What did you say?” She continued without comment.

“Mr. Carr was at first quite sure that Miss Cray had done it. He did, in fact, come into her presence with the words, ‘Why did you do it?’ Even after he had heard all that she had to say, Miss Cray is of the opinion that he is still in doubt. This is naturally very painful to her, but it does relieve her mind with regard to his having any connection with the crime.”

Resting both hands on the mantelpiece and staring down into the fire, March said,

“Then it was Carr who brought the raincoat back from Melling House.”

She said very composedly, “You will not expect me to answer that.”

“You needn’t—it answers itself. He was with Elizabeth Moore until about ten minutes to ten. He took Melling House on his way home and brought the raincoat away. That means he either killed James Lessiter or found him dead.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I do not believe that he killed him. Miss Cray is very sure that he did not. She had to labour hard to shake his belief that she herself had done so.”

He went on looking down into the fire.

“What is your own feeling? Do you believe he didn’t do it?”

“Miss Cray is positive upon that point.”

He said, “Oh, well—” Then he straightened up and went over to where he had left a small attaché case. He opened it, took out a sheaf of papers, and brought them to her.

“You had better read the statements and see what you make of them.”

“Thank you, Randal.”

He went back to his chair and watched her while she read. Her small, neat features remained expressionless. She made no remark, and never once looked up. When she had finished March said,

“There’s a later development—you’d better hear that too. Mayhew’s son is known to have been down here on the night of the murder. He is an unsatisfactory lad and has been in trouble with the police. He arrived by the six-thirty train and borrowed a bicycle in Lenton—which explains why Mrs. Mayhew went home early. Her husband had forbidden him the house. We have no absolute proof that he was at Melling House, but there isn’t any reasonable doubt about it. Mrs. Mayhew denies the whole thing, and says she hasn’t seen him for six months. It is quite certain that she is lying. And four sixteenth-century figures representing the Seasons which stood on the study mantelpiece are missing. Rietta says they were there when she left at a quarter past nine. She also says they were made of solid gold.”

“My dear Randal!”

He nodded.

“A nice bright red herring, isn’t it? Or is it?”

“It is extremely interesting. What is your view?”

He frowned.

“I don’t know. Drake, who had been running the case against Rietta and Carr very hard, shows his versatility by producing a theory that Cyril had been put up to steal these valuable antiques, was caught out, and had recourse to the poker. I can’t make that square with the facts. The figures were on the mantelpiece, and Lessiter was sitting at his writing-table when he was hit over the head. He had his back to the fireplace, and the blow was struck from behind. You can’t square that with Cyril Mayhew being caught in the act of stealing four gold figures. But there is another possibility. You’ve got a plan of the room there—look at it. The door at which Mrs. Mayhew listened is in line with the fireplace. That is to say, it would be behind Lessiter’s back as he sat at the table. Cyril could have opened that door, as his mother did, without being heard. He may not even have had to open it—she may have left it ajar. He could have come in his stocking feet, reached the poker, and hit Lessiter over the head with it, all without being seen or heard.”

“Extremely shocking.”

He frowned more deeply still.

“It could have been done. The trouble is that I can’t persuade myself that it was done.”

Miss Silver gave a thoughtful cough.

“It is certainly difficult to see why the young man should go out of his way to do murder. He had only to wait for Mr. Lessiter to retire, when he could have removed the figures without this quite unnecessary bloodshed.”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head—you always do! I can think of a dozen reasons for the theft, but not one for the murder. However badly I want a ram in the thicket, I can’t persuade myself that Cyril Mayhew is going to fill the bill. He may or may not have come down to steal the figures. He may or may not have found Lessiter dead. He may or may not have then yielded to the sudden bright idea that all that gold might just as well be in his pocket.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“What I cannot understand, Randal, is why such valuable ornaments should have been left out upon the study mantelpiece in what was practically an unused house. Mrs. Lessiter had been dead for two years. Mr. Lessiter had not been near the place for over twenty.”

“Yes, it’s a bit casual, but Mrs. Lessiter was like that.” He told her what Rietta had said about the insurance, and then continued, “I asked Mrs. Mayhew just now, and she says the figures were put away at the back of one of the pantry cupboards after Mrs. Lessiter died, but she got them out again before Lessiter came down because they belonged to the study mantelpiece and she thought he would miss them.”

Miss Silver said, “I see—” She knitted briskly. “Randal, what was Mr. Lessiter doing when he was killed? Was he writing?”

He gave her a curious look.

“Not so far as we can ascertain. He had obviously been clearing up—the fireplace was choked with burnt stuff. On the writing-table itself there was only one paper—the old will leaving everything to Rietta. It had been scorched down one side and is rather badly stained. All the pens and pencils were in the pen-rack. All the writing-table drawers were shut.”

“Then what was he doing at the writing-table?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked at him in her most serious manner.

“I think it may be very important to find out.”

“You think—”

“I think there is a suggestion that some paper is missing. If so, it must be of vital importance. It may have been abstracted by the murderer. It certainly cannot have disappeared by itself. It is also quite certain that a man does not sit at his writing-table without any occupation. He must either be writing, reading, or sorting papers. The only paper before him was this short will. But both Mrs. Mayhew and Miss Cray make some slight reference to another paper. Miss Cray mentioned it to me.”

“What paper?”

“The memorandum referred to by Mrs. Mayhew in reporting what she had overheard of the interview between Mr. Lessiter and Miss Cray. She reports him as saying that he had come across her letters when he was looking for a memorandum his mother had left for him.”

“There is nothing to show that he had it out on the table.”

“Not in Mrs. Mayhew’s statement. But in conversation with me Miss Cray did refer to it. I asked her if she knew what was in it, and she replied that she believed it to contain information as to certain dispositions Mrs. Lessiter had made.”

“Did she say that this paper was on the table during her interview with Lessiter?” ,

She weighted this thoughtfully.

“Not in so many words. I certainly received that impression.”

“It may be important—” he paused, and added, “very important. Will you call her up and ask her whether the memorandum was actually there, in sight?”

“Yes, I can do that. The telephone is in the dining-room. You had better come with me.”

Rietta Cray answered the call in her deep voice. No one would have guessed with what shrinking she had lifted the receiver. Miss Silver’s voice brought relief.

“I hope I have not disturbed you. In describing your interview of the other night you mentioned a certain memorandum. Did you actually see this paper?”

The scene came back. James, with his smiling malice and his talk of her letters—“love’s young dream.”…And then, “The memorandum my mother left me… some people would be glad if they could be certain it was in ashes like your letters…” Catherine’s voice on the telephone—“He’s found that damned memorandum.”

The reassurance was all gone. She felt the buffeting of opposing loyalties—Catherine—Carr. It was characteristic of Rietta Cray that she did not think of herself. She tried to steady her thoughts, to determine just how much she could safely say.

Miss Silver repeated her question.

“Did you see this paper?”

She said, “Yes.”

“Can you describe it?”

No harm in answering that.

“There were several sheets of foolscap. They had been folded up to go in an envelope, and taken out again. The envelope was lying there, and the foolscap half unfolded. I recognized the writing.”

Miss Silver said, “Thank you,” and hung up. She turned to face Randal March.

“You heard?”

He said, “Yes.”