Out Of The Past (11 page)

Emerging from Miss Anning’s office, Frank Abbott made his way towards the drawing-room. Manners demanded that he should say good-bye to Miss Silver, but it is not to be denied that he had an ulterior motive. He wanted to check up on Marie Bonnet’s story and to know just what Mrs. Burkett had heard when she walked in on Miss Anning and her old friend Alan Field.

There was an even more formidable concentration of elderly ladies, the party having been reinforced by a couple of visitors. From the sudden hush which greeted his entrance he deduced that they knew that he was a police officer, and that they had been discussing the murder of Alan Field.

To his suggestion that Miss Silver might care to take a stroll along the cliff path she replied that it would indeed be pleasant, and most kindly shepherded him into the hall, where he waited whilst she went upstairs to put on her hat and gloves. Returning with a pair which had been the gift of her niece Dorothy—white net with a fancy stitching, so cool, so easy to wash—and a hat of black straw with a ruching of lilac ribbon, she accompanied him into the evening air, which she described as most refreshing.

They made their way to a seat overlooking the bay, where she commented upon the pleasing effect of a sky reflected in a sea just ruffled by the breeze, and produced an apposite quotation from her favourite poet Lord Tennyson:

“The trenched waters run from sky to sky.”

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ve never heard that one before.”

She said sedately,

“It occurs in one of the early poems.”

He smiled.

“What a pity we can’t just sit here and swap quotations. The time, the place, a revered preceptress—what could be more favourable? Yet we must recur to the sordid annals of crime. It is a pity, but when duty calls—”

Miss Silver gazed at the shoaling colours in the bay. She might have known no more about crime than an occasional headline in the morning paper.

After waiting for her to speak, and discerning that it was not her intention to do so, Frank Abbott proceeded to a frontal attack.

“It’s no use, my dear ma’am. You see, I’ve got to know whether Marie Bonnet was speaking the truth. She wouldn’t unless it suited her book—I am pretty well sure about that. But she has a grudge against the Annings, and she would be pleased to do them a bad turn. At the same time there is a motive, if not for invention, at least for a little embroidery. If there’s any truth in what she says, your niece Ethel walked in on an interview between Miss Anning and Alan Field. Marie happened to be passing at the time, and she says both she and Mrs. Burkett heard Miss Anning say, ‘I could kill you for that!’ Now if anything of this sort happened, I am quite sure that Mrs. Burkett must have told you about it. Did she?”

When Miss Silver continued to say nothing, he allowed his voice to sharpen.

“It is the question of the credibility of a witness, you know.”

She turned to face him with a faint protesting movement.

“You need not tell me that. I merely wished to give the matter my full consideration before I replied. Marie Bonnet’s statement is substantially correct.”

He nodded.

“I thought so. Is she also correct when she says that Miss Anning was speaking ‘not loud, but as one speaks when one would be glad if one had a knife in one’s hand’?”

Miss Silver’s tone held a slight shade of reproof.

“I am really quite unable to say. You must remember that I was not there.”

“But your niece was. I feel sure, when she repeated Miss Anning’s words, that she also gave you some indication of how they were spoken. She would not perhaps use quite so dramatic a metaphor, but I suppose once more I may take it that Marie was substantially correct?”

“You may take it that Miss Anning had lost her temper. Just what provocation she had, none of us are in a position to know. As I said to my niece Ethel at the time, though she has it very well in control. Miss Anning’s natural temper is a hot one. If she and Mr. Field had known each other when they were boy and girl—and this was, I believe, the case— and if some attachment or engagement had existed between them, such a phrase as was overheard could mean no more than an angry impulse and the revival of an earlier, cruder way of speech. It could mean very little.”

He said in his most serious tone,

“Very little—or a good deal more. When a woman says that she would like to kill a man, and within thirtysix hours that man is discovered to have been murdered, one can’t quite discard the remark as negligible.”

“No—I see that.”

He looked at her with a curious expression.

“Do you know, I wish you would tell me why you are so much concerned about Miss Anning.”

She said sedately, “I am living in her house.”

He laughed.

“I’ll give you a nice homely quotation straight from the soil—‘Soft words butter no parsnips.’ I have known you to live in a house for whose owner you did not appear to feel any such protective passion.”

“My dear Frank—such exaggerated language! I really cannot let it pass.”

There was more than a hint of sarcasm in the smile with which he met this rebuke.

“You defend her as if she were a favourite niece.”

She said with gravity,

“I hope that even in such a case as that I should not allow myself to be swayed by personal bias.”

“Then will you tell me just why you take Miss Anning’s part? If Marie had not told me what she and Mrs. Burkett had overheard, you would not have spoken of it—now would you?”

“Not perhaps at this stage, Frank.”

“And I should like to know why.”

After a minute she said,

“I am not obliged to answer that question, but I will do so because I do not wish you to mistake the motive for my silence. I have none, except a natural feeling of compassion for a woman who has been hardly done by, and who now finds herself in a position which must be painful to her. I think it probable that she suffered considerably when her engagement to Mr. Field was broken off. His return would revive these painful impressions, and it was impossible that his murder should not accentuate them to an almost unbearable degree. I did not wish to contribute anything to her distress.”

He said,

“You do not take into account the possibility that it was she who stabbed him?”

Miss Silver made no direct reply. Instead she asked a question of her own.

“Is it true that though Mr. Field was stabbed, no weapon has been found?”

“Perfectly true. If the murderer had his wits about him he probably threw it into the sea.”

“If he did so, it may quite easily be washed up again. A strong current sets into the bay.”

He gave a short laugh.

“I notice we both say he! But I must point out that you haven’t answered what I asked you.”

“Which was?”

“Whether you have not taken into account the possibility that it was Miss Anning who did the stabbing.”

“Is there any evidence to support such a theory?”

“There is quite a strong motive.”

“I imagine that might be the case with quite a number of people. There is, for instance, Mr. Cardozo.”

“Oh, yes. I’m not really suggesting that Miss Anning has the stronger claim. I just wondered why you are being so careful not to suggest that she had a claim at all.”

Miss Silver watched the gradual dimming of the light upon the sea. After a little while she said,

“I met Mr. Field very briefly. He had great good looks and a great deal of personal charm. I received the impression that he was entirely taken up with himself and his own affairs. The charm was being rather deliberately used. When I began to hear him discussed, this impression was confirmed. He was considered to have behaved very badly both to Miss Anning and to Mrs. Hardwick. From what Mrs. Field said about him it was plain that he was making extravagant demands upon her for money, and that not for the first time. She was, in fact, so deeply troubled that it came into my mind to wonder whether he might not be bringing some kind of pressure to bear.”

Frank whistled.

“What do you mean by pressure?”

She made no reply.

“Do you mean blackmail?”

“I think he was the type who might have had recourse to it, in which case there may be quite a number of people who had a motive for wishing him out of the way.”

Frank Abbott went up to Cliff Edge in the morning, where he talked with Mrs. Field, Major and Mrs. Hardwick, the Trevors, Lady Castleton, Mrs. Maybury, and the domestic staff, which consisted of the butler Beeston and his wife, and Mrs. Rogers who came in by the day.

Running through these names later on with Inspector Colt, he had some comments to make.

“I suppose it’s natural to be agitated by a murder in your own beach hut, especially when the murderee is to some extent a connection of the family.”

Inspector Colt opined that it would be liable to shake you up a bit. “Mrs. Field now—she is said to have been very fond of him. Spoilt him by all accounts.”

“Oh, I’m not thinking of her. She’s normal enough. Nice woman—fond of a troublesome stepson, shocked at his death, but with just that hint of relief which people don’t always realize themselves.”

“I’m told she was very well thought of when they used to be down here a lot some years ago.”

“The Trevors, on the other hand, are not afflicted at all— at least Colonel Trevor isn’t. He makes no bones about it. Shocking thing of course, but the fellow was a waster and no great loss to anyone. Mrs. Trevor kept telling me how handsome dear Alan was, and how all the girls fell in love with him—but it was just blah! She hasn’t got any real feelings on the subject. People who have are Mrs. Field, Major and Mrs. Hardwick—their house of course, and she had been engaged to him—and, less understandably, Lady Castleton and Mrs. Maybury. They are the two who intrigue me, you know, because I can’t see why. Like everybody else they hadn’t seen him for three years, and as far as comes to light, they knew in the sort of way you know a mass of people who live more or less in the same set, but with whom you are not really intimate. Take Lady Castleton. Rather a hard type. Looks— she was quite a famous beauty—money, position—she has always had everything. And quite a place of her own in the philanthropic world—makes speeches, broadcasts, takes part in public discussions. I can’t for the life of me see why she should be all strung up about this Field affair.”

Inspector Colt suggested that great ladies sometimes took a fancy to a good-looking young man.

Frank Abbott shook his head.

“Oh, no, she’s not that sort. Besides, I don’t get at all the impression that she’s plunged in grief, or that there is any reason why she should be. It is just a general feeling of tension. Of course being mixed up in a murder would get her quite the wrong kind of publicity—it might be that. Or she might have something else on her mind. She seems to have been having headaches and taking something to get her off to sleep. Well, then there’s Mrs. Maybury—pretty, flighty creature, and apt to take things very much as they come. I’ve got a cousin married into the same regiment as Bill Maybury, and I’ve heard quite a lot of chat about Pippa. She’s a good-time girl with a solid husband who lets her have her head. She looks as if she has had a pretty bad shock. May not be anything in it, but I shouldn’t expect her to be a sensitive plant. Now Mrs. Hardwick is, and she was brought up with Alan Field and came within an ace of marrying him, but she doesn’t look as strained as Pippa Maybury.”

When they had finished discussing the people at Cliff Edge, Inspector Colt had a contribution to make.

“We’ve got some evidence about the number of that car,” he said—“the one the foreigner got into at the Jolly Fishermen. The fellow who saw him was with a girl. He didn’t say so at first, but I got hold of him last night and he gave me her address. She says the man was certainly a foreigner, because she heard him speak, and the girl he had with him looked like one, but she didn’t hear her say anything. They went past close to her to get into their car, and she noticed the number. There were three threes in a row, and another figure she wasn’t sure about because of being taken up with the threes. And she isn’t sure of the letters, but she thinks one of them was an O. I thought you would get your people to find out whether this chap Cardozo has a car, and what the number is.”

Frank considered for a moment. Quite possible that Ernest Pearson might know whether José Cardozo ran to a car. He had the type of mind which would automatically register a number, and it was possible that he might be available at his agency.

The luck was in, for the call came through quickly and a girl’s voice informed him that she was speaking from Blake’s agency, and that she believed that Mr. Pearson was on the premises. With the slightest of delays Pearson’s rather deprecating voice announced his presence.

“Hullo, Pearson—Inspector Abbott speaking. Look here, can you tell me, has Cardozo got a car?”

“Oh, yes, sir, a small Ford. It was parked outside when I went to take his instructions.”

“I suppose you didn’t happen to notice the number?”

“Oh, yes, Inspector. A dark green car with a narrow black line—OX.3339.”

Frank said, “Thank you very much, Pearson,” and rang off.

He repeated the information to Inspector Colt.

“Well, that’s that. Did your girl say anything about the colour of the car she saw?”

“She and the chap both say it was a small dark car. They don’t go beyond that, and they don’t specify the make. But it looks as if Cardozo would have something to explain.”

“We can get him down and see whether these two people identify him. Who are they, by the way?”

“The man is a young chap—porter on the railway—keen on darts. Name of Hosken. And the girl is Doris Hale—works in the Sea Bleach Laundry.”

Frank glanced at his wrist-watch.

“When is the next train to town? I’d better take it. As you say, José Cardozo will have quite a lot to explain.”

José Cardozo in the Superintendent’s office at Cliffton threw up his hands in protest. He had been brought down here upon an accusation that was no accusation at all. If they did not accuse him, then why did they bring him here? And if they accused him, where in the name of all the saints was their evidence?

Superintendent Phelps said weightily,

“Miss Doris Hale and the young chap Hosken have both identified you as the foreigner they saw come out of the Jolly Fishermen on Wednesday night at ten o’clock. The girl gave us practically the whole number of your car. I have now to tell you that the girl who was with you has also been identified. As Marie Bonnet. Domestic help at the boarding-house where Mr. Field was staying. She has made a statement.”

Cardozo sprang to his feet. Then he sat down again.

“But if she has made a statement, it will prove that I am innocent! She will say that she was with me! Is there any harm in that?” The greenish grey of his skin was giving way to a more natural colour. “Look, I will tell you the whole truth. I did not wish to do so, because I could see that the affair would be an embarrassment, and why should one plunge oneself into embarrassments? You have a proverb, ‘Silence is gold.’ It is a good one. I have the idea that I will keep my golden silence. But if I cannot do so, then I will keep nothing back— I will tell all the truth.”

The Superintendent remarked that it would be just as well if he did.

Inspector Colt looked down at the papers in front of him— statement of Doris Hale—statement of S. Hosken—statement of Marie Bonnet.

Inspector Abbott’s pose was an easier one. He regarded José Cardozo with a steady meditative gaze. If José were contemplating any departure from the truth, it was the sort of gaze that might cause him discomfort.

Cardozo went on with his story. He had done his duty as a brother and as a citizen. Felipe had disappeared. Had he not done all he could to trace him? Had he not been to Scotland Yard? When he was shown a body which resembled that of his brother, was he not to say what he most truly thought? And when he afterwards remembered a thing which put the identification in doubt, was he not to go to the police and tell them that he must now have his doubts? Where in all this was there anything wrong?

This being taken as a rhetorical question, he received no answer to it. Frank Abbott said,

“Better get on to why you came down here. We know that you had suspicions that Field had something to do with your brother’s disappearance, and that you had put Pearson on to trace him. We know that Pearson was able to furnish you with his address down here by lunch-time on Wednesday. You therefore had plenty of time to reach Cliffton by Wednesday evening. I take it you now admit that this is what you did. Suppose you go on from there. What time did you get here?”

“It was a little after nine. I leave my car at the end of the road. I walk along and look for the address I have been given. There is a girl who has come out of one of the houses. I ask her if she knows which is Sea View, and she points to the house from which she has come. I ask about Alan Field, and she says he has gone out. I ask when he will be back, and she says, ‘Who knows?’ Then I ask will she take a note to make an appointment for the morning, and she says yes, when she is ready to go in, but that will not be just yet. So I say what about a little friendly drink together, and she says it will be nice, so we go down to the Jolly Fishermen. And that is how your Miss Hale and Mr. Hosken see us there!” He beamed and spread out his hands. “Not a very criminal affair, I think!”

Frank Abbott leaned sideways and picked up Marie Bonnet’s statement.

“Not so far,” he said, “but the night is young. Alan Field would still be alive, both according to the medical evidence and the probabilities. Even though the stretch of beach below the cliff walk is a fairly sheltered one, it does not seem very likely that anyone would stab him there in daylight, but by the time you came out of the Fishermen it would be dark enough. Where did you go from there?”

José’s alarm returned. He had been getting along so well. He had a sanguine nature, and he had begun to feel that he was well on the way to being out of the wood. But now there was the question of this girl’s statement. What had she said? If she had been foolish enough to lie, to say that he had driven her back to Sea View and she had said goodnight to him and gone in, then he would be left without an alibi—his position would be dangerous indeed. But if she had told the truth, or at any rate part of it, how was he to know how much or what part she had told? He must play for safety. But which way did safety lie? He said in a jerky voice,

“How do I know if this girl has told the truth? I can tell you what we did, but I cannot make you believe me.”

Frank Abbott went on looking at him in that cool, rather quizzical way.

“Well, and what did you do?”

“We drove back to the end of the road where the house is, and we went for a walk along the cliff—and that is the truth.”

Frank Abbott glanced at the sheet in his hand.

“So Marie Bonnet says.”

José‘s confidence came again with a rush.

“It is the truth, as I told you. But sometimes a girl is afraid she will get into trouble.”

“For taking a walk?”

Cardozo threw up his hands.

“Her employer is strict—she has told me so. She must be in before eleven.”

“And wasn’t she?”

José looked knowing.

“There is a trick about that. She is not the only girl to use it. Before we go for our walk she returns to the house. Miss Anning lets her in and locks the door.”

“And what does Marie do?”

“She goes to her room and she waits until Miss Anning comes upstairs. Then she gets out of the dining-room window.”

“I see. And you go for your walk. What time does she really get in?”

Cardozo smiled.

“That I do not know. We are not in a hurry. It is fine, it is warm, we are pleased with one another’s company. One does not keep the eye upon the clock.”

Frank Abbott looked at the end of Marie Bonnet’s statement—“It was fine, it was warm. I do not know what time it was when we came back. Why should one always trouble oneself about the time?”