The Alington Inheritance (13 page)

Jenny led the way to the sitting-room. Under her bright look of welcome there was something disturbed. Miss Silver wondered whether she had known the dead girl well. Two girls of very much the same age, living next door to one another—no, the dead girl was three or four years older, but that was no great matter. It would be natural enough for them to be friends. In any case the shock of this sudden and tragic death would be bound to affect a sensitive girl.

Miss Silver had remained standing. She turned as the door opened and Miss Danesworth came in.

“My dear Miss Silver, I am so pleased to see you!” she said.

Miss Silver smiled and responded.

“But I must tell you that I am here on business.”

“This Mottingley case—it’s dreadful, isn’t it? I met the boy in the summer. I can’t believe that he would commit a brutal murder. He always seemed such a quiet lad—gentle and rather repressed. But do sit down, won’t you?”

Miss Silver seated herself. She said,

“You interest me very much. I should make it clear at once that I am here on behalf of the Mottingleys. They have engaged me to go over the case, and to see what can be said for the young man who is accused.”

Miss Danesworth was silent for a moment. Then she said,

“I don’t know that you ought to ask me about it, for if ever I disliked a girl in my life it was that unfortunate girl who was murdered.”

Miss Silver looked at her gravely.

“Miss Danesworth, will you give your own account of what happened as far as the circumstances are known to you? I am not asking you for a weighed and balanced account. I want simply to know how the whole thing seemed to you. I am not asking you to be fair, or to weigh your words. I want to know just how the affair struck you at the time. Will you do that for me?”

Miss Danesworth met Miss Silver’s eyes, and experienced what so many people had experienced in similar circumstances. She felt a great many things that she could not have put into words. The truth—that was what mattered, and it was the only thing that did matter. The conventions did not matter. The only thing that mattered was the truth. She said,

“Yes, I’ll tell you the truth as far as I know it. But I don’t know very much—” She paused for a moment and then went on. “I have a nephew staying with me. His name is Richard Forbes. He is in love with the girl who let you in. She is Jenny Forbes, and she is a very distant cousin of his. They are not engaged, and there is nothing given out. I know that you will be very discreet—they have only known each other for ten days. I don’t ask any questions, but I can see how things are with them. But that’s another story. This girl who was murdered came down to stay on Friday—last Friday. She came in with Mrs. Merridew—that is her mother’s cousin who lives next door—and she talked to Richard all the time, not to Jenny. She was that sort of girl. I remember she talked about the children in the carriage coming down. They ate peppermints, and she said there was something sickening about children who ate in trains. Oh, I don’t know—I didn’t like the way she talked—that’s all. She was just trying to make up to Richard. And he did rather lead her on, I suppose. You know the way men do when they don’t really like a girl. Jenny was angry about it—I could see that. I think they quarrelled afterwards—but you won’t be interested in that.”

“I am interested in everything,” said Miss Silver. “Pray go on.”

Caroline was silent for a moment or two. Then she said,

“You want to know everything, so I’ll tell you. Jenny went to bed early, and Richard talked to me. He said he was in earnest about Jenny, and that he had rushed things. Apparently he had kissed her, and she had turned as white as a sheet and gone out of the room. Well, in the morning they were just beginning to talk, when Miriam came in. She said she had come with a message from Mrs. Merridew to ask them to lunch. And Richard said he couldn’t come because he was going over to see his friend Tommy Risdall. Tommy is in the Navy, and his people live at Tillingdon, which is about five miles away. Well, Miriam asked if Tommy wouldn’t come too, and when Richard said he was afraid that was out of the question she said, ‘What about tomorrow?’ And when Richard said that would be Sunday, she said did that matter? And he said yes, it did, and that the only excuse for not going to church was a bed of sickness. I wasn’t there, you know, but I’ve heard about it since. So then she said, ‘What about Monday?’ and he said, ‘All right,’ and she went away. Nothing more happened until the evening. Richard was away. I left Jenny here with a book and went to see a neighbour who isn’t well. When I got back we had tea and just sat on talking until it got dark. Then Miriam came. She said her cousin had gone to a meeting. She said wasn’t Richard back—she wanted to see him. And I said he wasn’t back yet, and that I never expected him until I saw him. And she said, ‘That’s not very convenient, is it?’ Then she said to Jenny that it wasn’t very complimentary to her his going off for the day like that. She said she wouldn’t feel flattered if she was visiting in a house and the young man made off. Oh, I suppose I oughtn’t to say it now that she’s dead in that dreadful way, but she really was a most odious girl. Well, then she sat there talking about the last place she had been in, and how sorry they were to lose her. And then suddenly she looked at the clock and asked if it was right. When I said that it was, she jumped up and said she must go. She said to tell Richard that she wanted to see him, ‘Not tonight— I’m doing something else. But if he likes he can come round in the morning.’ And she was out of the door whilst she was speaking. And gone.”

Miss Silver was silent for a moment. Then she said,

“When did your nephew come home?”

“About half an hour later.”

“Which way did he come?”

“The opposite way—through the village. Miss Silver—”

“Yes, Miss Danesworth?”

“You’re not thinking—you can’t think… Oh—”

Miss Silver looked at her gravely.

“What have I said to disturb you, Miss Danesworth?”

The door opened and Richard came in. Miss Silver saw a good-looking young man. He was tall and straight, and just now he was very grave.

Miss Danesworth said with a noticeable effort, “My nephew Richard Forbes—Miss Silver.”

Miss Silver bowed. Richard came forward. Miss Danesworth went on speaking. She had command of her voice now. She said,

“Miss Silver has come down here to get as much information as possible about Miriam’s death. She is a private investigator. Forgive me, Miss Silver, but it is better for me to be plain.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“There is nothing to forgive, Miss Danesworth. I have no wish to pass for any other than I am.”

Richard looked from one to the other. He had heard of Miss Silver, and now he saw her. He could hardly believe his eyes. She really was incredible. He took in the neat elderly clothes, the hat with its bows of watered silk ribbon, the neat but rather worn black coat, the black kid gloves by no means new, and the speculation just touched his mind as to how he would have described her. Not as a detective—that was certain. And then quite suddenly she was looking at him and he changed his mind. Her eyes went straight through him and out on the other side. Nonsense, of course, but the feeling that they were doing so was very strong and persistent. He felt as if she were reading his very soul. Whatever was there to see, she would see it. He was thankful with all his heart that, whatever there was, it wasn’t murder. It had only lasted a minute, but he knew that he would never forget it. And now she was smiling at him. She said,

“You have come to help us, I hope. Miss Danesworth and I are old acquaintances. It is very pleasant to meet her again, but I wish, as she does, that the circumstances were of a less tragic nature.”

Richard said, “Yes.” And then, “My aunt has told you what we know?”

“I think so. You did not see Miriam Richardson at all that evening?”

Richard looked her straight in the eyes.

“No, I did not see her. I gather that she came here to see me and waited for some time. Then suddenly she looked at the clock and said she could not wait any longer. She said, ‘Tell Richard I want to see him, will you? Not tonight—I’m doing something else. But if he’d like to he can come round in the morning.’ That’s right, isn’t it?” He turned to Miss Danesworth.

“Yes, it was just like that, and she was out of the door before either of us could answer her. She gave me the impression that she was afraid of being late for an appointment.”

“Miss Forbes was in the room?”

Miss Danesworth said, “Yes, Jenny was here.”

“Then perhaps I might see her—”

“Oh, yes.”

Miss Danesworth was quite calm again. Looking at her, it seemed impossible that a momentary turn of speech should have brought her to the verge of breaking down. Miss Silver discerned compassionately that it was Richard for whom she had feared—Richard who was the weak point in her amour. She remembered what she had heard from Mrs. Lucius Bellingdon— “She lost the man whom she was engaged to in the war, and then her sister and brother-in-law. They were killed in a car crash—or an air raid, I forget which. She took their boy and has brought him up splendidly. He is in the Army—a very nice fellow, about five-and-twenty.”

Miss Danesworth had gone to the door. She opened it and called, “Jenny!”

Miss Silver understood. Jenny was not to be biased. She was to come and answer whatever Miss Silver cared to ask her.

Jenny came in.

“This is Miss Silver. She wants to ask you about Miriam’s visit on Saturday.”

Jenny stood there. She didn’t understand. She looked at Richard, and then back at Miss Silver.

“Miriam? She came here to see Richard. How much do you want?”

“All of it, I think, my dear.”

Jenny stood there. She repeated that last conversation with Miriam. She was rather pale, but she had herself well in hand. Richard watched her all the time. When she came to where Miriam looked at the clock, her tone altered. She said,

“She looked at the clock suddenly, and she said, ‘Is that right?’ Miss Danesworth said, ‘It keeps excellent time,’ and Miriam said, ‘Oh—then I must go. Tell Richard I want to see him, will you? Not tonight—I’m doing something else. But if he’d like to he can come round in the morning.’ And she was out of the door almost before she had finished speaking. That’s all. We—we didn’t see her again.”

Frank Abbott came in on that. He was very much on duty, and he took Miss Silver away as soon as possible. It wasn’t until they were in the car that he relaxed.

“Well?” he said. “Did you have a satisfactory visit?”

“I think so, Frank. Are you taking me to see Jimmy Mottingley?”

“I will if you would like me to. It would probably make things easier for you.”

Miss Silver gave him a warmly sympathetic look.

“That is indeed kind. I shall be most grateful.”

“Well, how did it go? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“I think that you should not ask me, but I will tell you. The thing that struck me when I asked to see the young girl, Jenny Forbes, was that Miss Danesworth went to the door and called for her. She wished me, I think, to understand that she was not putting words into her mouth. Jenny Forbes gave me an account of the dead girl’s visit which was practically identical with what Miss Danesworth had already told me. The important thing about both these accounts was that they represent Miriam Richardson as looking at the clock suddenly and asking if it was right. Miss Danesworth said yes, it was, and Miriam said, ‘Then I must go. Tell Richard I want to see him, will you? Not tonight—I’m doing something else. But if he’d like to, he can come round in the morning.’ In my opinion this definitely contradicts any idea that it was Richard Forbes whom she was expecting to meet.”

Frank Abbott threw her a sharp look.

“That had occurred to you?”

“Yes.”

“And you regard it as a wash-out?”

“My dear Frank!”

He laughed.

“Language to be expressive must be, shall we say, apt.”

“You may, and do, say what you like as long as you do not attribute your slang expressions to me.”

He laughed.

“Oh, that was it, was it? I retract and apologize.”

They came into Colborough half an hour later. Miss Silver had been silent for the greater part of the way. A good deal would depend upon what she thought of Jimmy Mottingley. His father’s trust in him might not be justified. She was very well aware of the turns and twists possible to a man’s conscience. Mr. Mottingley appeared to be under no illusions with regard to his son—but there were reservations in all of us. He could admit the utmost culpability in one direction whilst strenuously denying it in another. She thought that she would know when she saw Jimmy whether she could take his case or not. To justify the guilty was a role she would not undertake. She remained abstracted during the drive, and Frank respected her silence.

When they had arrived at the prison she left the talking to Frank Abbott. He was an old friend of the Governor’s, and the way was smoothed for her. She was shown into a light, bare room with a long table and a chair at either end of it. Presently a warder came in with Jimmy Mottingley, whom he escorted to the chair at the opposite end of the table, and when Jimmy had seated himself, the warder withdrew to the door, paused there for a moment to say, “I’ll just be outside if you want me, madam,” and withdrew. The upper portion of the door being of glass, they were still under observation, but they could not be overheard.

Miss Silver turned back to the table, and to Jimmy Mottingley at the other end of it. She saw a boyish looking young man, fair haired and blue eyed, the kind of youth who in any average family would be rather a spoiled child. She wondered whether Mr. Mottingley had been as firm with his son as he declared.

And then Jimmy Mottingley was looking at her with a kind of bravado and saying,

“Why have you come?”

Miss Silver did not answer him for a moment. She looked at him, and saw the signs of weakness, the signs of pain. That the boy was on the verge of a breakdown was obvious. She smiled reassuringly and said,

“I have come at your father’s request to try and help you.”

He laughed.

“At my father’s request! Do you know what he thinks? He thinks I did it. He sat there and lectured me. He said he would pay for my defence, but I mustn’t imagine that I would get off the punishment due to me. And he talked about God’s law which couldn’t be broken with impunity.”

Miss Silver said with cornposure, “Mr. Mottingley, I do not think that you understood your father… No, one minute, please. You must try to control yourself, or we shall be interrupted. The warder on the other side of that door will only remain where he is whilst you conform to the regulations. If he has any reason to suppose that you are becoming violent he will feel it his duty to come in, and you will be taken away to your cell again. I must beg of you to preserve calm.”

Jimmy stared at her. He shuddered and said in a whisper,

“Calm— Oh, my God! Do you know what it is like to be suspected of the one thing on earth that you could never do? Do you know what it’s like?”

“I can only know what you tell me. Would you like to go back to last Saturday, and to tell me just what happened?”

“Yes—yes—I’ll tell you.” He rummaged in his pocket and produced a handkerchief. He blew his nose and said, “You want what happened on Saturday? I had an appointment with Miriam—you know that. She—she wanted to see me. I didn’t want to come. I knew what she wanted—oh, yes, I knew. But I never saw her. I mean, she was dead when I got there, because my mother had a visitor she wanted me to see and they kept me. When I did get there it was nearly an hour late, and I knew how angry she’d be. She had said to meet her on the Heath just up the hill from where she was staying. We had met there before. There’s a clump of gorse close to the road—she said she’d meet me there. Well, I ran on past it and left the car, and then I came back. There wasn’t any sign of her. I was nearly an hour late, and I wondered if she’d given me up and gone away, and I wondered what I’d better do. Now that I was there, it seemed as if I’d got to see her. You know how it is, you screw yourself up to something, and it doesn’t seem as if you could go away and wait for a week and come back and do it all over again.”

“Yes, I can understand that. Go on, Mr. Mottingley.”

A shudder passed over Jimmy. He was getting to the point which pursued him into his dreams. His hand which gripped the handkerchief shook. He said in a failing voice,

“I thought perhaps she hadn’t waited. I went behind the bushes—and she was there—” The words trembled away. He sat looking down at his shaking hand and the handkerchief in it. But he didn’t see them. He saw only what he had seen that night—the circle of light cast by his torch, and within it Miriam’s face horribly distorted. He went on speaking in a dead tone without emphasis. “She was there. But she was dead. She had been strangled. I ran out on to the road. There was a bicycle coming. I waved and called out. It was Mr. Fulbrook. I didn’t know his name. I called out, and he stopped. I told him that I had come there to meet Miriam and found her dead. He came round with me—round the bushes —and he saw her. She was quite dead. Then he asked a lot of questions. I don’t remember what I said. It doesn’t matter, does it? I can’t remember anything about that. But we got into my car up the road, and he drove—my hands were shaking too much. And we went to the police station. And everyone took it for granted that I had done it. But I didn’t. I didn’t, I tell you. I couldn’t have! Even to think about doing it makes me feel sick and shaky. I tell you I’ve thought and thought about it. I’ve thought of what I could have done, and of what I could never, never do, and it always comes to the same thing, I couldn’t kill anyone. There are things you know you can do, and things you know you can’t do. This is one of those things—I just couldn’t do it.”

He bent forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table, and said in a smothered voice, “Look here, I’ll tell you something. I’ve never told anyone, but I’ll tell you because it proves what I’ve been saying. I suppose I ought to be ashamed of it—but I don’t know. I can’t kill anything —it makes me sick even to think of it—it does really. And Miriam—she was so much alive—so sure about everything. I didn’t really like her, you know.” He lifted his head and looked at Miss Silver. It was a puzzled look and it touched her oddly. “That seems a queer thing to say, but I didn’t, you know. When I was away from her I used to think how dreadful it would be to be married to her, to have to sit down to meals with her every day, to—to sleep—” He stopped, reddening, and brushed his hands across his eyes. “I used to think of all those things. And then when I saw her again she—she seemed to—to have the upper hand. I think she had a very strong will. I haven’t. I used to think of what I was going to say to her about—about breaking it off—and it went quite well as long as she wasn’t there. But when she was, all the things I had thought of to say seemed to be gone. She made plans about our getting married. When I said that my father would never allow it she laughed—she just laughed, and she said that he wouldn’t be asked. I did try to make her understand, but it was no use. She just went on talking. When I said that my father would never forgive us if we got married in a registry office like she said, she just laughed. It was no good. She had a picture in her mind of us doing just what we wanted to—or what she wanted to, and she just didn’t listen. That’s what my father didn’t understand. I don’t think he has ever met anyone like Miriam—I never had before. If she wanted a thing she got it—somehow.” The handkerchief came up to his eyes, and behind that friendly screen he broke down completely.

Miss Silver sat and waited. This was not a story that would make a good impression in a court of law. What the judge and the jury would see in it was the case of the weak creature driven too far, the young man who couldn’t kill a spider or any creeping thing suddenly maddened to the point of defending himself from the horrifying prospect of a lifetime to be spent with Miriam Richardson. He had said things which would support this point of view. Miriam had gone to the place where she had been found dead to keep an appointment with him. No one else knew of this appointment. There had been no robbery, no other violence. She had been hit on the temple and then strangled. Miss Silver did not believe that Jimmy Mottingley, however maddened, would have knocked a young woman out and then proceeded to strangle her. But would the jury in a murder trial take the same merciful view? She thought not. It would be a difficult case, but she could not refuse to take it. She spoke in a cheerful voice and with a greater certainty of manner than she could really feel.

“Mr. Mottingley, I will take your case. Now there are one or two questions I should like to ask you.”