Dark Threat (3 page)

While recounting this anecdote he looked a little happier, but the worried frown returned as he concluded,

‘He told me I’d better come and see you. He says you’re a marvel. But I don’t see what anyone can really do. You see there isn’t any evidence—Fug said so himself. He said there was nothing the police could take any notice of. You see, I put it up to him because of his being at Scotland Yard, but he said there really wasn’t anything they would do about it, and he advised me to come to you. Only I don’t suppose it’s any use.’

Miss Silver’s needles clicked briskly. She had the new pattern well in hand. She coughed and said,

‘You do not expect me to reply to that, do you? If you will tell me what you seem to have told Sergeant Abbott, I may be able to give you an opinion. Pray proceed.’

Roger Pilgrim proceeded. This was the voice of authority. He blurted out, ‘I think someone’s trying to kill me,’ and immediately thought how damfool silly it sounded.

Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’ And then, ‘What makes you thinks so?’

He stared at her. There she sat, the picture of a mild old maid, looking at him across her knitting. He might have been saying he thought it was going to rain. He kicked himself for having come. She probably thought he was a neurotic ass. Perhaps he was a neurotic ass. He frowned at the carpet and said, ‘What’s the good of my telling you? When I put it into words it sounds idiotic’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘Whatever it is, it is certainly worrying you. If there was no cause for your worry, you would be glad to have this proved to you, would you not? If, on the other hand, there is a cause, it is a matter of some importance that it should be removed. What makes you think that someone is trying to kill you?’

He looked up with an air of arrested attention.

‘Well, I thought they were.’

Miss Silver coughed and said ‘They?’ on an enquiring note. She was knitting very fast in the continental fashion, her hands low in her lap, her eyes on her visitor.

‘Oh, well—that’s just a way of speaking. I haven’t an idea who it is.’

‘I think it would be better if you were to tell me what has happened. Something must have happened.’

He nodded emphatically.

‘You’ve said it! The things happened—you can’t get away from that. Lumps of plaster aren’t just imagination, and no more is a lot of burnt ash where there used to be papers and a carpet.’

Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’ And then, ‘Pray begin at the beginning and tell me all about these incidents.’

He was sitting forward in his chair now, looking at her.

‘The bother is I don’t know where to begin.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘At the beginning, Major Pilgrim.’

The eyes behind the glasses met hers in a worried look.

‘Well, as a matter of fact that’s just what beats me—I don’t know where it begins. You see, it’s not only me, it’s my father. I was out in the Middle East when my father died—I haven’t been home very long. And of course, as Fug says, there’s no evidence. But I ask you, why should a quiet beast that he’d ridden every day for the last ten years suddenly go mad and bolt with him? She’d never done such a thing in her life. When she came back all of a lather they went out to look for him, and found him with a broken neck. The old groom says she’d a thorn under the saddle—says somebody must have put it there. The trouble is it wasn’t the only one. She hadn’t thrown him, you see—they’d come down together, and the place was just a tangle of wild roses and brambles. But what William said, and what I say is, what would make her bolt? And we both got the same answer—only it isn’t evidence.’

‘What reason had anyone to wish your father dead?’

‘Ah—there you have me! There wasn’t any reason—not any
reason
.’

The heavily accented word invited a question. Miss Silver obliged.

‘You speak as if there was something which was not a reason?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact that’s just about the size of it. Mind you, I don’t believe in that sort of thing myself, but if you were to ask William—that’s the groom I was talking about—or any of the other old people in the village, they’d say it was because he was going to sell the place.’

‘And there is a superstition about such a contingency?’

The word appeared to puzzle him. He frowned, and then got there.

‘Oh, yes—I see what you mean. Well, as a matter of fact there is. The place has been in the family donkey’s years. I don’t set a lot of store by that sort of thing myself—a bit out of date, if you know what I mean. No good trying to live in the past and hang on to all the things your ancestors grabbed—is there? I mean, what’s the good? We haven’t any money, and if I fancied an heiress, she probably wouldn’t fancy me. So when my father wrote and said he was going to sell I told him that as far as I was concerned, he could get on with it—only as a matter of fact he never got the letter. But people in villages are very superstitious.’

‘What form does this superstition take, Major Pilgrim?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact it’s a rhyme. Some ass had it cut into the stone over the fireplace in the hall, so it’s always there—under everyone’s nose, so to speak.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘What does it say?’

‘It’s all rubbish of course—made up round our name and the name of the house. We’re Pilgrims, the house is Pilgrim’s Rest. And the rhyme says:

“If Pilgrim fare upon the Pilgrims’ Way,

And leave his Rest, he’ll find nor rest nor stay.

Stay Pilgrim in thy Rest, or thou shalt find

Ill luck before, Death but one pace behind.” ’

He gave a short nervous laugh.

‘A lot of nonsense, but I should think everyone in the village believes that’s why the mare bolted and my father broke his neck.’

Miss Silver continued to knit.

‘Superstitions are extremely tenacious. After your father’s death, Major Pilgrim, were the negotiations for the sale carried on?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact they weren’t. You see, by that time I’d managed to get taken prisoner. I was in a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy, and nothing more happened. Then when Musso got the sack, I escaped. I was in hospital for a bit, and then I got home. The chap who wanted to buy the place bobbed up again, and I thought I’d play. That’s when the ceiling came down on me.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘Literally—or metaphorically?’

Seeing that he was a little out of his depth, she amended her question.

‘Do you mean that the ceiling really came down?’

That emphatic nod again.

‘I should just about think it did! Rather a spot ceiling too—nymphs, and garlands, and all that sort of thing. It’s not the best bedroom—that’s next door—but the eighteenth-century chap who put in the ceiling there had it carried on into his dressing-room. He cribbed it from some Italian palace, and it’s the sort of thing people come and look at. Well, about a month ago my particular lot came down all over where I’d have been if I had been in bed, which I would have been if I hadn’t gone to sleep over a poisonously dull book in the study.’

‘Dear me! Why did it come down?’

‘Because there was a leak from one of the water-pipes and the nymphs and whatnots had all got wringing wet. They weighed quite enough to start with, and the water brought them down like a cartload of bricks. If I’d been in that bed I’d have been dead—there isn’t any doubt about that.’

‘A very providential escape. I think you mentioned another incident?’

He nodded.

‘A week ago. There’s a sort of small room my father used to keep his papers in. Odd sort of place. Pigeon-holes right up to the ceiling, all crammed with papers. Well, I’d been getting on with going through them a bit at a time, and last Tuesday afternoon I’d had a good old worry at them. Round about half past six I had a drink, and the next thing I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I sat down in a chair by the fire and went to sleep. I must have been dead to the world, because I didn’t wake up till the whole place was in a blaze. I don’t know what started it. It could have been a spark from the fire—wood throws them out—and there was a pretty fair litter of papers, one of them might have caught. But what made me go off to sleep like that, and why didn’t I wake up? I’m a pretty light sleeper, you know.’

Miss Silver said, ‘What do you mean?’

The frowning gaze met hers.

‘I think someone doped me and set light to the papers,’ said Roger Pilgrim.

M
ISS
S
ILVER LAID
down her knitting, balancing it carefully on the arm of her chair, after which she got up and, crossing over to the writing-table, seated herself there, all without hurry. When she had opened a drawer and taken out an exercise-book with a bright green cover she addressed herself to Roger Pilgrim.

‘Perhaps you will come over here—it will be more convenient. I should like to take some notes.’

By the time he had settled himself in an upright chair which faced her across the table she was waiting for him, the exercise-book laid open before her and a neatly pointed pencil in her hand. Her manner, though perfectly kind, was brisk and businesslike as she said,

‘If these two incidents were deliberate attempts upon your life, you are certainly in need of advice and protection. But I would like to know a little more. You spoke of a leaky pipe. I suppose that you had it examined. Was there any sign of its having been tampered with?’

He had an embarrassed look.

‘Well, as a matter of fact it wasn’t a pipe—it was a tap.’

Her look reproved him.

‘Accuracy is of the very first importance, Major Pilgrim.’

He pulled off his glasses and began to polish them with a dark blue handkerchief. Without them his eyes had a defenceless look. They avoided hers.

‘Yes—that’s just it. We thought it must be a pipe, but there wasn’t anything wrong with the pipes. As a matter of fact there wasn’t any water laid on upstairs until my father put it in, so the plumbing is fairly modern. On the attic floor they turned a dressing-room into a bathroom and cut a bit off to make a housemaid’s cupboard with a sink. When the ceiling came down, the tap over this sink was found running. Someone had left the plug in, so of course it had overflowed. The trouble is, I don’t think that would account for my ceiling coming down. The cupboard is not directly over it, for one thing, and I don’t think there’d have been enough water, for another. I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s a loose board in the room right over mine. The room hasn’t been used for years. Suppose someone bunged up the sink and left the tap running to make it look as if the water came from there, and then helped out by sloshing a few buckets of water under that board—it would have brought the ceiling down all right. What do you think about that?’

Miss Silver nodded slowly.

‘What is the distance from the sink to the edge of your ceiling?’

‘Something like eight or nine feet.’

‘Was there water under the boards all that way?’

‘Well, that’s just it—there was. Some, you know, but not an awful lot. The passage ceiling underneath didn’t come down. And mind you, the ceiling that did—the one in my room—would sop up quite a lot of water—all those heavy mouldings, and the nymphs and things.’

‘Quite so.’ She coughed. ‘Of what does the staff at Pilgrim’s Rest consist?’

‘Well, there’s only Robbins and his wife that sleep in. They’ve been there ever since I can remember. There’s a village girl of about fifteen who comes in by the day. She might have left the tap running. But she goes away at six, and Mrs. Robbins says she drew water from it at ten o’clock herself when she and Robbins went up to bed. And she says she’s never left a tap running in her life, and would she be likely to begin now?’

Miss Silver made a note—‘Robbins to bed at ten o’clock.’ Then she asked,

‘What time did the ceiling come down?’

‘About one o’clock. It made no end of a row—woke me up.’

Miss Silver repeated a remark she had already made.

‘You had a most providential escape. You believe that your life was attempted. I can see that you are quite sincere in this belief. May I ask who it is that you suspect?’

He replaced his glasses and looked her straight in the face.

‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

‘Have you any enemies?’

‘Not that I know about.’

‘What motive do you suggest?’

He looked away again.

‘Well, there’s that business about selling the house. My father starts to sell it, and a quiet old mare he’d ridden for years bolts with him and breaks his neck. I start to sell it, and a ceiling that’s been there for a hundred and sixty years or so comes down across my bed, and a room where I’m sorting papers is burned out whilst I’m too dead asleep to do anything about it.’

Miss Silver looked at him gravely.

‘You were indeed fortunate to escape. You have not told me how you did so.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact it was my trouser-leg catching that brought me round. I had come in from outside, and my old waterproof was hanging over the back of a chair. I put it over my head and got to the door. You couldn’t see across the room for smoke—all the wooden pigeon-holing had caught. And when I got to the door I couldn’t get it open. You know, I’ve an idea that it was locked. The key was there quite handy on the outside, so that I could just leave the papers and lock up when I got through.’

‘Dear me! What did you do?’

‘I broke the window and got out that way. I got William and his grandson from the stables, and we put the fire out. Most of the papers were burned—which was a pity, but it might have been worse. The room is in the oldest part of the house, and the walls behind the pigeon-holing are stone, so the fire wouldn’t spread.’

‘A most fortunate circumstance. Major Pilgrim—you say that to the best of your belief the door was locked. I presume that you verified this.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact by the time the fire was out it wasn’t. But there it is—I couldn’t open it when it wanted opening, and in the end I don’t know who did open it, because by that time practically everyone in the house was rallying round. Anyone might have unlocked it, but no one seems to remember whether they did or not.’