Dark Threat (7 page)

Miss Silver coughed.

‘He may have been picked up by a car.’

Frank nodded.

‘He must have been. But no car passed through Holt St. Agnes while Lesley was waiting for him. She was on the listen and she couldn’t have missed it.’

‘No,’ Miss Silver agreed. ‘She would certainly have heard a car if one had passed then. But it might not have been then. Have you thought of that? Mr. Clayton started out to see Miss Freyne. Suppose he thought better of it and turned back. He may have gone back into the house and remained there for some time. Some mental conflict would surely precede so grave a step as an abrupt departure on the eve of his marriage—’

Frank was shaking his head.

‘He didn’t come back into the house. Robbins wasn’t easy about leaving him to lock up. He’s been there since Henry and Jerome were schoolboys, and you know how it is with an old servant like that—you never really grow up. He didn’t trust Mr. Henry, not with the wedding coming on and all and Mr. Pilgrim so particular about the locking up, so he just went through to tell Mrs. Robbins he’d be late, and then he came back to the hall and waited there.’

‘How long did he wait?’

‘He heard the clock strike twelve, and then he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew it was striking six. And Henry Clayton hadn’t come back.’

Miss Silver directed a searching look upon him.

‘Robbins had been asleep for six hours. How, then, did he know that Mr. Clayton had not returned?’

‘Because before sitting down to wait for him he had put up the chain on the door.’

‘Why did he do that?’

Frank laughed.

‘Well, he displayed a certain reticence when I put that question to him myself. I deduced that he wasn’t at all sure of being able to keep awake, and he wouldn’t have liked Henry to catch him napping, so he put up the chain. You can’t get round it—Henry didn’t come back into the house.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘He could have come back whilst Robbins was speaking to his wife, could he not?’

Frank stared.

‘I suppose he could. But why should he? He had rung Lesley up of his own free will, the suggestion to go round and see her was of his own making, and he had only just left the house. Why should he come back? Or if he did come back, when and how did he leave again? The chain was up on the front door—he couldn’t have gone out that way. There’s a door at the back of the house, and a side door from the kitchen premises to the stable yard. Robbins was pressed about these doors. They were both locked, and the keys in the locks. All the ground-floor windows have old-fashioned wooden shutters secured by an iron bar. Robbins swears they were all closed and barred when he went round to open up in the morning. I suppose Henry might have dropped from a first-floor window. But, good lord, why should he, and risk breaking a leg, when he could have walked down by the back stairs and out by the kitchen way? Even then, he’d got to get off the premises. There’s a ten-foot wall all round the place, and every single gate locked on the inside. I’m twelve years younger than Henry, and an inch taller and a couple of stone lighter, and I’d be very sorry to climb that wall. Besides, he could have got past Robbins without waking him if he’d liked, and out by the front door—only then the chain wouldn’t have been up. No, it doesn’t make sense—he never came back into the house. The door from the glazed passage into the street was just as he left it when he went out, you know—unlocked, with the key sticking on the inside.’

Miss Silver knitted for a few moments in silence. Then she said, ‘What do you think happened to him, Frank?’

‘Well, he was a rolling stone—I told you that. I think he started out to see Lesley, and then he had a come-over of some sort. Remember they’d quarrelled. If they made it up now, he’d be in for life. Perhaps he saw his last chance slipping. Perhaps he thought he was selling himself for a mess of pottage. Perhaps he thought he’d just cut and run, and did it—a last dash for freedom, so to speak. Suppose he did that without any plan—managed to thumb a lift. Remember it was bright moonlight.’

‘Yes?’ said Miss Silver in a gently interrogatory manner. ‘And what then?’

‘Well, he wouldn’t be the first man who’d pitched a tale and enlisted under somebody else’s name. I’ve been over it hundreds of times, and I think that’s what must have happened. He didn’t get away by train—that’s certain. There are two stations he might have reached by walking—Burshot and Ledlington. At Burshot he’d have been recognized, and at either place he’d have been sufficiently conspicuous to be noticed, without hat, scarf, or overcoat.’

‘And nobody saw him?’

‘He’s never been seen or heard of again.’

T
HE ROOM WAS
quiet for a time. It did not seem long to either of them. Frank Abbott broke the silence by saying, ‘I haven’t known you for seven years, have I, but if I don’t put something on this fire, it will go out.’

Miss Silver smiled in rather an absent manner and said, ‘Pray do so.’

She watched him being dexterous with some reluctant embers and a shovelful of coal. Chief Detective Inspector Lamb had once remarked in her presence that if Frank was good for nothing else, he could always manage to get a fire going. Which was his way of counteracting what he considered to be a tendency to wind in the head.

When the fire was producing small but hopeful flames, she said, ‘There are still a few questions I should like to ask, and if you do not mind, I should like to take some notes.’

She laid down her knitting, went over to the writing-table, and opened the shiny green exercise-book which lay ready upon the blotting-pad.

Frank Abbott got up from his stool and took up a position half sitting, half leaning against the far corner of the table.

‘Well, what can I do for you?’

‘You can tell me who was in the house when Mr. Clayton disappeared.’

He gave her the names, ticking them off on his fingers.

‘Mr. Pilgrim—Miss Columba—Miss Janetta—Roger—’

She stopped him with a cough.

‘You did not mention him before.’

‘Didn’t I? Oh, well, he was there—seven days’ leave. Jack was abroad out east, so he wasn’t ... Where was I?’ He ticked off the fourth finger of his left hand—‘Roger,’ and went on to the fifth—‘Jerome—Lona Day—Henry himself—and the staff.’

She wrote down the names and looked up at him.

‘Of what did the staff consist?’

‘At that time? Let me see ... Mr. and Mrs. Robbins—two young village girls, Ivy Rush and Maggie Pell—that’s the lot. But Maggie and Ivy didn’t sleep in, so they’re a wash-out.’

Miss Silver wrote that down.

‘And who was in the house when Mr. Pilgrim met with his fatal accident?’

‘The same as before—but not Roger. He was in the Middle East being taken prisoner about then.’

‘And who is in the house now?’

He cocked an eyebrow, and thought, ‘Roger must have told her that. What’s she up to?’ Aloud he replied, ‘Same lot again plus Roger and minus the two girls, who have both been called up. Maggie’s younger sister has taken her place. Their grandfather, old Pell, is gardener at Pilgrim’s Rest—been there since the year one.’

‘And the other girl has been replaced by Miss Judy Elliot?’

Looking up to ask this question, she observed a slight change in his expression. It was so slight that with anyone else it would have passed unnoticed. It did, however, prepare Miss Silver for the fact that his voice as he answered her was also not quite as usual, the difference being hard to define.

He said, ‘Oh, yes.’ And then, ‘She’s a friend of mine, you know. But I had nothing to do with her going there—in fact, I did my best to stop her. She’s got a child tagging along—her sister’s. I don’t like their being there—I don’t like it a bit. That’s one reason why I’m so glad you’re going down.’

It wasn’t the slightest good—he was giving himself away right and left. Maudie could see through him like a pane of glass.

Whatever she saw, Miss Silver showed no consciousness of its being anything unusual. The friendly attention of her manner was unchanged as she said, ‘There should not be any risk for them.’

He leaned towards her with a hand on the table.

‘Look here, what are you driving at with these three lists? You’re not trying to make out that Henry’s disappearance has anything to do with Roger’s bonnetful of bees?’

Miss Silver gave her slight habitual cough.

‘My dear Frank, in the last three years a number of unusual things have happened at Pilgrim’s Rest. Mr. Henry Clayton disappeared on the eve of his wedding. Mr. Pilgrim met with a fatal accident which his groom and his son believe not to have been an accident at all. And this son is now convinced that two serious attempts have been made upon his own life. I do not assert that these things are connected, but so strange a series of coincidences would certainly seem to call for careful investigation. There is just one thing more I wished to ask you. When Mr. Henry Clayton disappeared, was he known to have any money with him?’

Frank straightened up.

‘Well, yes, I ought to have told you about that. It’s one of the strongest reasons for supposing that he was doing a bolt. Mr. Pilgrim had given him a cheque for fifty pounds as a wedding-present. Henry asked if he could have it in notes because he would need the cash for his honeymoon. Everyone in the family knew that old Pilgrim kept money in the house. Well, when Henry asked him if he could have the cash he took back the cheque and tore it up. Roger told me about it—he was there. Said his father went off upstairs and came back with four ten-pound notes and two fivers, and Henry got out his wallet and put them away.’

‘Was anyone else present?’

‘Robbins came in with some wood for the fire whilst Henry was putting the notes away. He said he saw Mr. Henry putting his wallet away in an inside pocket, but he didn’t know why he had had it out, and he didn’t think anything more about it.’

‘What about the notes, Frank? Were any of them traced?’

He lifted a hand and let it fall again.

‘We couldn’t get the numbers. The Pilgrims own a lot of farm property, and the old man collected the rents himself. He used to ride round, have a bit of a friendly chat, come home with the cash, and stuff it away anywhere. Didn’t think much of banks—liked to have his money where he could put his hands on it. Roger tells me they found over seven hundred pounds in the house after he died, most of it in a tin box under his bed. Lord knows how long he’d had the notes he gave Henry, or where he got them.’

When presently after this, Frank Abbott took his leave he got as far as the first step into the hall and then came back. After all, what were the odds? If Maudie knew, she knew. He might just as well have the smooth with the rough. He said in his most detached manner, ‘By the way, you could trust Judy Elliot. She’s got a head on her shoulders and she’d be good at a pinch. As a matter of fact, I’ve told her about you. She knows you may be coming down.’

Miss Silver looked right through him. That at least was his impression—a very probing glance which reproved, admonished, and, a good deal to his relief, condoned. She said, ‘My dear Frank! I trust that she will be discreet.’

M
ISS
C
OLUMBA ANNOUNCED
Miss Silver’s forthcoming arrival at the evening meal which everyone except Miss Janetta and Robbins now called supper. That is to say, in reply to Roger’s jerky ‘When are you expecting your friend Miss Silver?’ she produced the single word ‘Tomorrow’.

There was immediately a slight domestic stir. Lona Day looked up as if she was going to speak, and then down again.

Miss Netta turned upon her sister with a flounce of heliotrope silk.

‘Your friend Miss Silver? I’ve never heard of her. Who is she?’

It was Roger who supplied the answer.

‘An old school-fellow. I met her in town. She wanted to get down into the country for a bit, so I asked her here.’ He crumbled a bit of bread with a nervous hand, whilst Judy pricked up her ears, and thought what wasteful creatures men were.

‘School-fellow?’ said Miss Netta in an exasperated voice. ‘My dear Roger! Collie, who is this person, and why haven’t I ever heard of her?’

Miss Columba continued to eat fish in a perfectly collected manner. In contrast to her sister’s bright rustling silk she herself wore a voluminous garment of tobacco-coloured woollen material which had once been an afternoon dress. It was still warm, and nothing would have induced her to part with it. She said, ‘I suppose she would be about my age. She has been a governess.’

After which she went on eating fish.

Later, in the morning-room, used instead of the big drawing-room because it was so much easier to warm, Lona Day said to Judy what she had stopped herself saying at the table.

‘I do wish he hadn’t asked anyone else down just now. Of course I can’t say anything—or at least I don’t like to. I don’t know Roger so well as the rest of the family, but it isn’t—no, it really isn’t good for Captain Pilgrim.’

Judy thought, ‘How odd—she says she doesn’t know Roger, but she calls him by his name, and she talks about Jerome as Captain Pilgrim. If there’s anyone in the world she must know inside out, it’s
him.
Of course he’s older than Roger, and so is she. I wonder how old she is—thirty-fivish? She ought always to wear black velvet.’

Here she had to repress a giggle at the idea of all the things a nurse has to do. It petered out, because the likeness which had bothered her on her first evening came sharply to her mind, and this time she caught it. Lona Day in a long black velvet house-coat, with her auburn hair taken loosely back off her forehead, bore a quite undeniable resemblance to the portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. There was the look in the eyes, the look that charmed. There was the warm and winning way. Of course, she ought to have had a ruff, and one of those entrancing little caps, or a Scots bonnet with a feather at the side. Judy found the idea so beguiling that she lost everything except Lona’s voice flowing on in a rich undertone.

When she came to, Miss Day was saying, ‘I know he likes to have her, and I hate to deprive him of the least pleasure, but I can’t help feeling anxious. You do understand, don’t you?’