The Clock Strikes Twelve (13 page)

She looked from him to the portrait over the mantelpiece.

“Is that the late Mrs. Paradine?”

“It is—covered with diamonds.”

Miss Silver gazed earnestly at the portrait. Fair and placid, Clara Paradine looked down upon the room. Ruby velvet and the diamonds of her husband’s choice—a plump white neck and shoulders— fair hair of an even shade—blue eyes rather widely set under colourless brows—a kindly mien… Miss Silver considered her with attention, then turned again to Elliot.

“Was she English, Mr. Wray?”

He looked at her.

“What makes you ask that?”

“It is not quite an English type. I wondered whether she had been Dutch, or German.”

Elliot said, “German.”

“And her first husband, Mr. Ambrose?”

“Oh, English.”

After a slight pause Miss Silver dismissed the subject. She said, “Please go on with the rest of the party, Mr. Wray,” and saw him frown.

“Well, that’s very nearly the lot. You’ve seen Lydia Pennington. She’s the sort you can depend on. Mr. Paradine used to make a show of disapproving of her, but it’s my opinion he liked her quite a lot—I just give it to you for what it’s worth. Miss Paradine will tell you that he loathed her. Her sister Irene is married to Frank Ambrose. Quite candidly, she’s a bit of a fool—hasn’t two ideas in her head. No, that’s wrong—she has just two, little Jimmy and little Rena. She rams them down everybody’s throat. I should say that Mr. Paradine put up with her because he’d got to. That brings us to Albert Pearson— the perfect secretary and the perfect bore. He’s some sort of third cousin. Mr. Paradine found him about three years ago supporting a widowed mother and improving his mind at evening classes.”

“Very praiseworthy,” said Miss Silver in her most decorous voice. “May I ask how he was supporting his mother?”

“He was a jeweller’s assistant, I believe. His mother died, and Mr. Paradine brought him here as his secretary. He had mugged up shorthand and typing.”

“And was Mr. Paradine attached to him?”

Elliot laughed.

“Nobody could possibly be attached to Albert,” he said.

Miss Silver dined with the family and afterwards sat with them in the crimson and gold drawing-room, which she admired very much. A grandly proportioned room—such warm colouring—such rich brocades—such a deep-piled carpet—the crystal chandeliers too, the finest of their kind. She approved Mr. Paradine’s taste, and sincerely regretted his demise. Now, all too probably, these handsome and dignified furnishings would be replaced by chintz or linen.

Dinner had been a particularly trying meal. Since Miss Silver especially desired to see the entire family and Mark had made a point of this, they were all there, but nobody had dressed. The men were in their day clothes, Irene, Lydia and Brenda in coats and skirts, Phyllida in her grey dress; but Miss Paradine had put on a long black gown, high and plain in the neck. Miss Silver, as was her custom, had changed into a two-year-old summer dress—green artificial silk with a distressing pattern of orange dots and dashes, the front adorned by a large cameo brooch depicting an apocryphal Greek gentleman in a helmet. The removal of her hat showed her to possess a good deal of soft mousey hair done up in braids behind and tightly curled into a fringe upon her forehead, both braids and fringe controlled by a hair-net. In addition to the cameo brooch she wore small golden studs in her ears, a gold chain about her neck, and a bar brooch set with seed pearls to loop up the pince-nez which she occasionally required for reading. She still wore the warm ribbed grey stockings which she found so comfortable in winter, but had changed her laced outdoor shoes for a pair of black glacé slippers with beaded toes. Elliot’s conviction that he had encountered her in an Edwardian film became intensified every time he looked at her—only the dress should have been longer—right down to her feet.

He had been placed as far from Phyllida as the table would allow—Grace Paradine had seen to that. She had seen to it too that he had never had five minutes alone with her all day. And she was trying to hoof him out. All right, let her try. He had been dragged in, and now he was going to stay, and Grace Paradine could pull all the strings she liked. It was Mark’s house and not hers, and somehow he didn’t think she’d get Mark to the point of telling him to go.

His preoccupation with this theme kept him silent through the greater part of the meal. Not that he was remarkable in this—Frank Ambrose spoke exactly twice, and Mark could not be said to have spoken at all. The meal was too much yesterday’s party in caricature. Hashed turkey, fried plum-pudding, the empty place at the head of the table which nobody cared to take. A detective sitting with them to watch how they looked, spoke, ate, drank, thought. These things were not conducive to conversation. Even Dicky’s flow of talk had dried. Women have more social sense than men. Phyllida went on trying to talk to Frank on one side of her, and to Mark on the other, until it was so obviously useless to expect an answer that she gave it up. Lydia and Dicky exchanged a few low-toned remarks and then fell silent. Miss Paradine, at the foot of the table, was a dignified figure of grief. The long black dress with its high neck and falling sleeves enhanced the effect. There were dark shadows under her eyes, the line from brow to cheek had sharpened. There was no longer any anger in her look. Her eyes were sad. There was no resentment in her manner. She was the considerate hostess, anxious to make things easy for her guests, veiling her private sorrow. She spoke tenderly to Phyllida, with conventional courtesy to Miss Silver, kindly to everyone except Elliot Wray who might not have been there at all.

Miss Silver, placed beside Albert Pearson, received the full benefit of his conversation. It took more than a murder in the house to inhibit his passion for imparting information. But she was to learn that it must be information of his own choosing. Having received a sketch of his early history from Mark Paradine, she attempted to engage him upon a topic with which he might be supposed to be particularly conversant.

She had herself an interest in curious and unusual jewels, but when she addressed a question upon the subject to Albert it met with no response. Instead she was favoured over the hashed turkey with a concise history of Birleton from Saxon times until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The pudding afforded an opportunity of bringing the story up to date. The founding of the Paradine works by Benjamin Paradine— “grandfather of the late Mr. Paradine, and my own great-grandfather”—was interrupted by Miss Paradine giving the signal for the ladies to retire.

In the drawing-room Miss Silver found herself engaged by her hostess.

“I hope you have everything you want.”

“Indeed yes, Miss Paradine.”

“You must tell me if there is anything I can do.”

Miss Paradine was being very gracious. If there was a hint of condescension in her manner, a trace of the pride that apes humility, it was very carefully restrained. Yet it is indisputable that Miss Silver was reminded of Royalty opening a bazaar. She took up her knitting-bag, a Christmas present from Ethel, extracted her needles and a ball of dark grey wool, and said,

“You are very good.”

About half an inch of the nether part of little Roger’s suit depended from three of the needles. Miss Silver inserted the fourth needle and began to knit with great swiftness and dexterity. After a slight hesitation Miss Paradine sat down in the opposite corner of the settee.

“We all hope so much that this terrible business may be cleared up as soon as possible.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“Oh, yes indeed.”

Miss Paradine’s manner had undergone a change. It had become warm and sympathetic like her voice.

“These sudden bereavements are sad enough without the additional shadow of suspicion.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“My brother meant very much to us all. Miss Pennington, of course, did not know him well. She is my niece Mrs. Ambrose’s sister—not really a member of the family herself, though we are all very fond of her. And my nephew Mark is not, I think, very good at expressing himself—very clever in his own way, but very reserved, and just now, of course, very upset about his uncle’s death. I feel that they may not really have given you any idea of how much my brother’s loss will be felt.”

Miss Silver looked intelligently at her hostess and continued to knit.

Miss Paradine drew a long breath.

“My brother was a very remarkable man. He liked to do things in his own way. I suppose you have been given an account of what happened at dinner last night. It is most painful to us all that the police are placing a quite unwarrantable construction on what was said. I do ask you to believe that the whole thing has been grossly exaggerated. My brother had a vigorous and dramatic way of expressing himself, even about trifles. I am. convinced that the whole thing meant very little. Something had vexed him, or rather someone, and he took this way of letting us all know about it. It was, I assure you, quite in his character. I thought so little of it myself that when the Superintendent questioned me this morning I really didn’t mention it at all.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me—”

A very faint movement of Miss Paradine’s dark brows suggested that she had controlled an incipient frown. She had a faint, sad smile as she said,

“I really made nothing of it at all. As I told Colonel Bostock this afternoon—he is the Chief Constable—it had quite gone out of my mind. The shock of my brother’s accident—I still believe that it was an accident—” She broke off, held her hands tightly clasped together for a moment, and half closed her eyes. Then she got up. “Forgive me—I should not have tried to speak of it—it is too soon. Perhaps you would like to talk to my niece Mrs. Ambrose for a little, or to Miss Ambrose.”

Miss Silver gazed at the group about the fire— Irene, Brenda, Phyllida. She coughed and said,

“I should like very much to talk to Miss Ambrose, if I may.”

When Brenda, stolidly reluctant, was seated beside her, Miss Silver smiled affably and said,

“I asked to see you, Miss Ambrose, because I want someone observant and methodical to tell me just what happened after you came into the drawing-room last night.”

Brenda stared with the light eyes which were like Clara Paradine’s only not so blue. She had, altogether, a curious look of her mother, but without the kind comeliness and contentment of the portrait.

“In here—last night?”

“If you will.”

Brenda went on staring.

“Well, I don’t know. We came in, and I said my stepfather must have gone mad. I suppose you’ve heard what he said at dinner?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, I said he must have gone mad to get us all here to a party and then say a thing like that. I said it was the limit, and my sister-in-law Irene—that’s her on the left of the fire—well, she burst out crying and said she knew Mr. Paradine was talking at her.”

“Dear me—did she say why?”

“No, she didn’t. She made an exhibition of herself and kept on saying she hadn’t done anything, and why should he think it was her. She’s a very hysterical girl—no self-control at all. I don’t know what she’d been up to, but if you ask me, I should say she’d got something on her mind—otherwise why go to bits like that? If it hadn’t been for Miss Paradine, we’d never have got her quiet. Of course, I’m no good, because she can’t stand me—wouldn’t have me in the house if it wasn’t for Frank. Look here, I’ll tell you one thing about Irene—she’s vindictive. You wouldn’t think so, because she’s got that wishy-washy look and she’ll talk about those kids of hers until everybody’s sick of them, but if she gets a down on anyone she’ll never let up on it. She’s got one on me because I used to keep my brother’s house and do it a damned sight better than she does. That’s Irene all over—if she can’t do a thing herself she hates the person who can.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“An unamiable trait, but sadly common,” she observed.

Brenda laughed angrily.

“Irene only likes the people who butter her up,” she said. “Frank doesn’t any more—he’s found her out. I’m beginning to wonder if my stepfather hadn’t too. That would account for a lot. You know, the reason she’s all over those kids is because she goes down with them—they think she’s wonderful. They’ll get a nasty shock when they’re a bit older, and then you’ll see there won’t be so much of the devoted mother. It makes me sick!”

“Dear me,” said Miss Silver, “that is very interesting.” She gazed mildly at Brenda Ambrose. “Pray continue. You were telling me what happened after dinner last night. Miss Paradine quieted your sister-in-law—”

“Oh, yes. She’s clever—knows how to manage people. She had presents for us all. She went and got them. She didn’t want Lane to notice anything when he came in with the coffee.”

As she spoke, the routine of the previous evening repeated itself. Lane came in with the great silver tray. Louisa followed with the cake-stand. Miss Silver considered these appointments very handsome, very suitable. She admired the robust Victorian decoration of the tray, the coffee-pot, the milk-jug, and deplored the absence of what would doubtless have been the equally handsome sugar-basin. The bottle of saccharine of which Lane was so much ashamed was hidden from her view, but she would in any case have considered it a poor substitute. As a patriotic citizen she was prepared to drink her coffee without sugar, but not with saccharine. Still knitting, she observed,

“That was a happy thought of Miss Paradine’s. You said she went and got the presents. Do you mean she went out of the room?”

“Of course. They were upstairs.”

“And how long was she away, Miss Ambrose?”

Brenda stared.

“Oh, no time at all. Just long enough to get the parcels.”

“Not long enough to have had a word with her brother?”

“No, of course not. He hadn’t come out of the dining-room.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Of course I am. I don’t say things unless I’m sure about them. The men were still in the dining-room. They came in after she had given us our presents. I had a torch, Phyllida had handkerchiefs, Lydia got bath-salts, and Irene had snapshots of the children. The men came in after that.”

“And did they have presents too?”

“Elliot Wray didn’t. Of course he wasn’t expected. He and Phyllida had been dead cuts for a year. I must say he had a nerve to turn up like he did. Miss Paradine was wild. She wouldn’t have given him anything anyhow—she’s always loathed him. She gave the others a pocket diary each. It’s frightfully difficult to think of anything you can give to a man, isn’t it?”

“Yes indeed, but a diary is always useful. Had Miss Paradine managed to get them in different colours?”

Brenda nodded.

“Yes, she had. She’s clever at that sort of thing— takes a lot of trouble.”

“She must do so. What colours did she manage to get?”

“Oh, brown—red—blue—purple.”

Brenda was becoming bored. She thought Miss Silver a futile old maid. She said abruptly,

“I’ll get you some coffee.”

But as she rose, Miss Silver had another question.

“Blue would be my preference. I wonder if it was Miss Paradine’s. To whom did she give the blue diary, Miss Ambrose?”

Brenda turned back. She felt she was being clever as she said,

“I’m afraid you can’t make anything of that. Mark got the blue diary. Richard is Aunt Grace’s blue-eyed boy. He got the red. Some people prefer red, you know. Miss Paradine does.”