Out Of The Past (13 page)

You wish to consult me professionally?”

“Oh, yes, I do!”

Miss Silver gazed thoughtfully at the girl in the flowered beach-dress with its pattern of cherry and blue and the blue head-scarf which bound the lint-white hair. Pippa Maybury was all talk, all animation. The high, rippling voice carried a flood of irrelevant chatter about Charles Forrest—about Stacy—about the only too appropriately nicknamed Minx Raeburn. This girl had much the same voice and manner.

Girls all wore lipstick nowadays, but in the circumstances Miss Silver considered that something less noticeable would have been in better taste. After all, Alan Field had been stabbed to death at very close quarters to Cliff Edge, and poor Mrs. Field was actually staying in the house. Something more subdued both in dress and in make-up would have shown consideration for her feelings. She checked herself. These were outmoded standards. People no longer thought about such things, and perhaps it was all to the good. Mourning and its observances had certainly been carried to exaggerated lengths under the shadow of Queen Victoria’s widowhood. One could no longer judge by appearances: One must look below the surface.

With this in mind, Miss Silver continued to gaze. Beneath vanishing-cream and powder she was able to detect unmistakable marks of strain. But she looked deeper than this. The bright talk was too bright, the light laugh too rippling, the whole performance too taut, the tempo just a shade too quick. She was reminded of a gramophone record put on at an exaggerated rate of speed. She said, herself speaking a little more slowly than usual,

“You wish to consult me. Will you tell me why?”

Pippa bit her lip. She had thought about going to Miss Silver and asking for her help, but she hadn’t thought about what she was going to say when she got there. All that seemed to matter was that she should get out of the house and reach Miss Silver before the police arrived to stop her. Well, she had got out of the house and reached Miss Silver.

They sat facing each other in the pleasant bedroom, part of what had once been Mrs. Anning’s big spare room, and she didn’t know what to say. Miss Silver sat in the chintz-covered chair by the window, and Pippa on what had been a music-stool but now served the dressing-table. As the girl stared at her blankly, Miss Silver picked up the ball of pink wool into which her needles had been thrust and began to knit.

Perhaps it was the homely action, perhaps it was the kind yet searching look which accompanied it that prompted Pippa to a childish gesture and to a childish speech. She put out her hands in what was an oddly natural way and said in a trembling voice,

“I’m so frightened—”

Miss Silver continued to look at her. She also continued to knit.

“Will you tell me why?”

“The police—Carmona said they would come—”

“The police were coming to question you—was that what you were afraid of?”

“Because of the blood on the stairs. It must have dripped off my dress that night. You see, I knelt in it and all the front was soaked.” A quick shudder went over her. She said, “Mrs. Rogers was doing the stairs. Nobody knew it was there—but her cloth was stained and she screamed. Everyone came out of their rooms, and I said it was blood and it must have come off my dress because of its being soaked. At least I think that was what I said—I don’t really know, and I don’t know why I said it. But Carmona said the police would come. Colonel Anthony was there, and he heard me—everyone heard me— and Carmona said Colonel Anthony would go to the police.”

When she stopped Miss Silver said in her gravest voice,

“Mrs. Maybury, do you really wish to tell me all this? I think you should realize that you are making admissions of a very compromising nature, and that there might be circumstances in which I would not feel justified in keeping them to myself.”

Pippa’s eyes widened.

“What—what circumstances?”

“If someone else were accused—”

She was interrupted with vehemence.

“But that is just what I want you to do! Minx said you were so marvellous! I want you to find out who did it! Because somebody must have done it—mustn’t they? And if you find out who it was, everything will be all right, and—Bill needn’t know!” The last words came out with an anguished gasp.

Miss Silver contemplated her with new attention.

“Your husband?”

“Oh, yes!”

“There is something you do not wish him to find out?”

Pippa gazed imploringly. Two large round tears rolled slowly down her cheeks.

“You see—he thinks—I’m good.”

Miss Silver laid down her knitting for a moment.

“Before we go any further, Mrs. Maybury, will you listen very carefully to what I am going to say? There is something you are anxious to hide—something that you hope your husband need not know. I do not ask you what it is. It might very easily be something that I do not wish to know. If it concerns the death of Alan Field, I think that you should see a solicitor without delay. You have made a very serious admission in the presence of a number of witnesses, and it will not be possible to hush it up.”

Pippa looked startled.

“But it hasn’t got anything to do with Alan, except that he was being a beast about it. I wouldn’t ever have gone to meet him if he hadn’t said he would tell Bill. I would have done anything in the world to stop him doing that. Because, you see, Bill is good, and he thinks I am, and if he found out I wasn’t it would do something to him, and nothing would ever be the same again. So what did my pearls matter, or anything!”

From these obscure and fragmentary remarks Miss Silver began to perceive the emergence of a pattern. As if her admission that she had been on the scene of the murder was not enough, Mrs. Maybury appeared to be bent upon supplying herself with a motive.

“Mr. Field was blackmailing you?”

“Oh, yes!”

Miss Silver was knitting again, but her eyes never left Pippa’s face.

“That would give you a motive for the murder.”

Pippa said, “Oh!” Her mouth remained a little open red circle, but under the lipstick all the natural colour had drained away. She leaned forward with a jerk. It was like seeing a marionette move.

“But you don’t think I did it? I wouldn’t have come to you if I had! You can’t possibly think—why, he was dead when I got there! That was what was so horrid. It was all dark, and I didn’t want to use my torch, because of anyone seeing me. I could just make out the beach hut—the door was open. I stumbled over something—and came down. It was Alan—he was dead. There was such a lot of blood. My dress was all wet—and my hands. That’s how the stain came on the stairs. It was a long dress, and it was all wet.”

Miss Silver said in her quiet voice,

“What did you do after that?”

Pippa told her.

“Carmona helped me. She came out of her room and saw me coming up the stairs. I told her about finding Alan, and we burned my dress in the kitchen fire.”

“That was a very foolish and a very wrong thing to do.”

“Carmona said we ought to call the police, but I told her I would rather kill myself. Because of Bill. You do see that, don’t you? I was meeting Alan in that beach hut in the middle of the night, and they were either going to think he was my lover, or I should have to tell them he was blackmailing me about someone else, and I should have to give evidence, and Bill would know. I simply couldn’t let her call the police.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“You should have done so. A prolonged course of deception is extremely difficult to sustain. You were ill-advised to embark upon it. We have now to consider what is best for you to do. If you wish me to be of any assistance to you, you must make up your mind to be perfectly frank.”

“You are going to help me?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I will do my best to discover the truth. I cannot go into any case with the intention of helping this or that person. I can have but one motive, the bringing of the truth to light. If you are sure that that will help you, I shall be willing to take the case.”

Pippa stared.

“But that is just what I want you to do! Somebody killed Alan, and if you can find out who it was, the police won’t bother about me any more—will they?”

Miss Silver made no reply to this. She began, instead, to ask a great many questions, to all of which Pippa replied in a perfectly open and natural manner. She hadn’t met anyone on her way to the beach hut or on her way back—not to say meet. But just when she got to the top of the path she had had a kind of frightening feeling. No, she didn’t know what she meant by that—it was just a feeling. She had come running up the steep path and she was trying to get her breath. She wouldn’t have heard if there was anyone there. All she wanted was to get back into the house—and all the more when she had that horrid feeling that there might be someone looking at her and listening.

Miss Silver put that away to think about. She said,

“Mrs. Maybury—you say when you put your torch on in the hut you saw that Alan Field had been stabbed.”

“Oh, yes, I did.”

“Will you tell me just how he was lying?”

Pippa shuddered.

“On his face—one arm flung out.”

“How did you know who it was?”

“His hair. The light shone on it.”

“And what made you sure he had been stabbed?”

“The knife—it was sticking in his back.”

“Did you touch it?”

“Oh, no!”

“You are quite sure about that?”

“Oh, no—I wouldn’t!”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“No weapon was found by the police. Are you really quite sure that you saw a knife, and that you did not touch it or take it away?”

“But of course I’m sure! I keep telling you so! The knife was there, sticking up under his shoulder, and I wouldn’t have touched it for anything—anything in the world!”

After a slight pause Miss Silver said,

“If you saw this knife you can describe it. What was it like?”

Pippa had no hesitation.

“It was Mrs. Field’s paper-knife. Her husband gave it to her, and she was very fond of it—one of those sort of dagger things with a lot of gilt on the handle and some little coloured stones. It was quite sharp. She had it down on the beach that day, because she was by way of reading one of old Mr. Hardwick’s books—sort of memoirs—and he couldn’t have really bothered to read it himself, because the leaves had never been cut.”

“Mrs. Maybury, will you think very carefully. Where was that dagger kept?”

Pippa didn’t need any time to think at all.

“Whenever I saw it, it was sticking in the book. Esther just took it out to show it to me, and then she stuck it back again.”

“What was the title of the book?”

This did appear to call for consideration.

“Well, I don’t know—Pages From the Lives of Great Victorians, or something like that—too dreary.”

“And was it brought up to the house on Wednesday night?”

Pippa’s lips parted on a sharp breath.

“Oh—no—it wasn’t—”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because I saw it—down there—when I put on my torch. I saw Alan—and the blood—and the knife in his back. And the book—was lying there—on the floor—close to his hand—as if he had pulled it down.”

In the morning-room at Cliff Edge, so restful, so delightfully cool, Miss Silver sat knitting. She had chosen one of those low armless chairs produced by the Victorian age in which needlework was considered a woman’s most necessary accomplishment. Miss Silver’s own needles were of a composition then undreamed of, but she found the same comfort as the ladies of that generation in the low seat, the dumpy back, and the absence of restraining arms. She had a chair of this type in her own flat, the legacy of an aunt, and she valued it highly. The heat outside was at its most extreme, but in this north room the temperature was really very pleasant, very pleasant indeed.

She was not alone. For the time being at any rate, police interviews with members of the household were over. Inspector Colt had departed. But Inspector Abbott stood with his back to the carved overmantel and addressed himself to his “revered preceptress.”

“You are actually staying in the house?”

“Mrs. Hardwick has most kindly invited me to do so.”

He exclaimed, “Well, I don’t know how you pull it off!” His tone was half affectionate, half exasperated.

Miss Silver permitted herself a slight reproving cough.

“My dear Frank! As I have already informed you, Mrs. Maybury has asked for my professional assistance. I have explained to her the terms on which it can be given, and Mrs. Hardwick has suggested that I should transfer my things from Sea View. Proximity with the members of the house-party and the opportunity which this will give for a more intimate observation than can be afforded by any casual meetings—”

He threw up his hands.

“Oh, yes—you will see them all from the inside! Which is just what we poor policemen never do. What we get is a carefully decorated outside with all the garbage tidied out of the way.”

Miss Silver allowed it to appear that she considered this metaphor to be lacking in refinement. Without a spoken word, Inspector Abbott stood rebuked. After a brief but impressive pause she said,

“There are certainly great advantages in being within the family circle. No one is always on his guard, or if he is observed to be so, it would in itself be a highly suspicious circumstance.”

He nodded.

“And that, as I said, is where you have the pull. Now will you tell me just what you make of Pippa Maybury’s story?”

Miss Silver dipped into her gaily flowered knitting-bag and produced a fresh ball of wool. She had hoped to finish this little pink coatee for her niece Dorothy’s expected baby from the one at present reposing in her lap, but since it was now reduced to a few filmy strands, she would have regretfully to break into a new ball. This would leave her with just too little for another coatee, but perhaps some small white stripes could be introduced. Her attention had not really wandered, but she now brought it fully back to the question she had been asked.

“What do you think of it yourself?”

One of the colourless eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Well, she is either such a natural born liar that she can reel it off without so much as having to stop and think, or—she is telling the truth.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“You think she is telling the truth?”

“Yes, Frank.”

“Would you mind telling me why?”

The pale grey needles clicked.

“She made no attempt to impress me. There were many points in her story where a very slight alteration of the facts would have shown her in a more favourable light, but I could detect no tendency in this direction. In the second place, she was shocked, upset, and frightened, but her chief preoccupation was not lest she should be arrested for murder, but whether her husband would come to know that she had once put herself in a very false position.”

“Well, I noticed that myself. We didn’t press her as to just what she had done, but it was plain that it had given Alan Field a hold over her. And that supplies her with a pretty strong motive for the murder.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“On the surface, yes. But actually I do not think so. She told me the whole story, which she need not have done, and the preoccupation of which I spoke was very noticeable. It was her husband of whom she was thinking. She really did not seem to notice that she was furnishing evidence which might deepen the suspicion against her. I should like to say that she did not carry her foolish behaviour to its logical conclusion— her real feelings for her husband stopped her in time. But she had placed herself in a position which could have been exploited by Alan Field.”

Frank whistled.

“He really had something on her then, and he was blackmailing her! She was terrified that he was going to tell her husband. She had an assignation with him at twenty past twelve in the beach hut where he was murdered, and she comes in some time after that with her dress soaked and drips blood all up the stairs. You know, my dear ma’am, it’s quite a formidable case.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I do not need to point out to you that it would be extremely difficult to prove the blackmail.”

He laughed.

“As always, you touch the spot! Now let us for the moment adopt your view of the engaging Pippa and review the alternatives. This evidence about Mrs. Field’s paper-knife, which at first sight appears to fasten the crime upon someone in this house, quite fails to do so if we are to accept Pippa Maybury’s further evidence—and I’m afraid we’ve got to accept it, because it has quite a lot of backing. She says the dagger was sticking in the book Mrs. Field had down on the beach on Wednesday, Pages From the Lives of Great Victorians. This is corroborated by Mrs. Hardwick, Lady Castleton, Mrs. Trevor and by Mrs. Field herself.”

“As far as the morning is concerned, I can add my own testimony.”

“When it comes to the late afternoon, Mrs. Hardwick says the book was still there, and so does Mrs. Field. They left all their things there and locked the hut. Pippa Maybury says she saw the dagger there after midnight when she stumbled over Field’s body, and she also says that the book was there on the floor beside his outstretched hand. Which is perfectly true, because that is where it was when Colt arrived on the scene after being rung up by Colonel Anthony. So I think we have got to accept her evidence as to the dagger and the book. Which means that the dagger was there in the hut and could have been used by absolutely anyone who came along. Let us now see who that someone might have been.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You are not, I suppose, forgetting Mr. Cardozo?”

“Certainly not. He shall be Provisional Suspect Number One. He could have done it of course. There was plenty of time between his leaving the Jolly Fishermen and midnight. He says, and Marie Bonnet says, that he spent the time in her company, but I don’t think it would be at all difficult to persuade Marie to say anything that was made really worth her while. The weak part of the alibi is, of course, that it places him entirely in her power. If she thinks she is running too much risk, or that he isn’t paying her enough, she has only to go to the police and his number will be up. He might have stumbled into such a situation, but I doubt whether he would have planned it.”

Miss Silver gazed at him in a meditative manner.

“It would have been quite possible for him to be aware of Alan Field’s presence at the hut. He states that Marie returned to Sea View, remained there long enough for Miss Anning to lock up, and then slipped out again. I think it is very probable that Mr. Field followed the same course. Miss Anning says he came in, and that she did not know he had gone out again. But he did go. Marie could have seen him, and so could Mr. Cardozo, who on his own statement was waiting for her. There would have been no difficulty about following him to the hut. He may not have intended the use of violence.”

“Yes, that’s possible. But how are we going to prove it if the girl sticks to her story?”

“I do not know.”

“Nor I. Let me offer you another suspect. What do you say to James Hardwick?”

“Dear me—you surprise me!”

“Well, I don’t often do that, so I had better make the most of it. Just take a look at him. Mrs. Hardwick was brought up with Field, and they were going to be married. He walked out on what was to have been their wedding day and went off in a hurry to South America, leaving quite a dust behind him. When Cardozo told me the name of the man he was after, I had heard it before. A couple of drinks with the biggest gossip of my acquaintance, and I knew a lot more. He was full of information about Alan Field. Had actually run into him on the eve of his departure. Said he was jingling with money and standing drinks all round. As the evening wore on, he got very chatty indeed and practically told my friend that it was being made well worth his while to clear out. George inferred that someone thought Carmona Leigh would be better off without him, and when she married James Hardwick three months later he came to the conclusion that he knew who that someone was. Now, do you see, if all that is true—and George really has got a knack of picking things up—Hardwick might not be altogether pleased to find that the prodigal had returned. He comes back on the Wednesday and finds Field actually in the house. There are indications that he was, well, let us say restrained in his greeting, and that Field left almost at once. The butler’s evidence is that Mrs. Hardwick had quite a colour, but was quiet at dinner. Mrs. Trevor, who is a silly chatterbox of a woman, said she thought Carmona had a headache—such a pity when James had just come home, but such a hot sun, quite like India, and Lady Castleton had felt it too. Everyone else very firm about dear Carmona being just as usual. Well, we don’t know what may have taken place between the Hardwicks, but you will admit that there was quite a situation, and that there may have been words. I think there are definite indications that the reunion wasn’t being a great success. Beyond that we can’t really go, but it is fascinating to speculate. Suppose Field had been upsetting Carmona by (a) making love to her, (b) trying on a spot of blackmail, or (c) letting cats out of bags, there would be all the material for a tense connubial scene. Leaving the first two on one side, and speaking as one to whom girls are an open book, what would you say Carmona’s reactions would have been to hearing that she was the subject of a financial transaction, and that Field had in effect been bought off marrying her?”

The pink coatee revolved. Miss Silver said,

“She would be deeply humiliated, and in all probability extremely angry.”

Frank nodded.

“Exactly. And in any of the three cases James might easily be left in a fairly maddened state and quite under the impression that she was regretting her precious Alan. Now suppose he saw Pippa Maybury go down the garden and took her for Carmona—he could have done, you know—his dressing-room windows look that way. I don’t suppose the difference in the colour of the hair would show. It was after midnight, and anyhow a jealous man doesn’t always stop to think. Well, he could have followed her—no, that won’t do, because he would have had to get there first, and a good bit first, in order to have a row and leave Field stabbed before Pippa arrived. A pity, because it was coming out rather well that way.”

Miss Silver looked meditatively at a particular hideous piece of Indian brass which cumbered the mantelpiece to Frank Abbott’s right. She might have been thinking how distressingly it went with the black marble clock in the middle and the bronze horses on either side, but she was not. She was, as a matter of fact, debating in her mind whether or not to put forward a speculation of her own. In the end she considered that she might as well do so. Turning towards him, and with a slight introductory cough, she said,

“Has it not occurred to you that Alan Field could have had an earlier appointment than the one with Mrs. Maybury? If her story is true—and I believe that it is—someone had been there before her. This person, whom we must suppose to be the murderer, may or may not have had such an appointment. He, or she, may have noticed a light in the hut and gone down to see who was there, or Mr. Field may have been followed.”

Frank gave her a quick look;

“Have you any reason to suppose that he was? Because that brings me to the third of my suspects, Miss Darsie Anning. When we were talking about Cardozo it emerged that Alan Field must have slipped out of the house in some such way as Marie Bonnet did, since Miss Anning had locked the front door and was under the impression that all her guests were in. If she had been looking out of her window she could have seen him leave, and she could have decided to follow him. I wonder whether she did, and whether anyone saw her. You know, Marie Bonnet said a curious thing when we were questioning her. Colt had been pressing her about this alibi which she was giving Cardozo. Did she really come out and rejoin him after she had gone into Sea View? Had he offered her any inducement to say that she did? Didn’t she risk losing her place by admitting to it? Well, she was all innocence. Was it not her duty to be frank with the police? And besides, her services were valuable—Miss Anning would not be in a hurry to dispense with them. Oh, no, she wasn’t afraid that she would lose her place. It doesn’t sound anything when you repeat it, but she had a sort of look—assured, sly, confident— I can’t get the right word for it, but it was something like that. I didn’t think so much of it at the time—the girl is always putting on an act of some kind—but whenever it comes back to me I find myself wondering whether she thinks she has some kind of a hold over Miss Anning—something over and above what she told us before about hearing her say to Field, ‘I could kill you for that!’ I should rather have expected her to bring the incident up, but she didn’t, and I thought it odd.”

Miss Silver made no comment. She continued to knit. After a slight pause she remarked that he had now presented a choice of four suspects, and all that seemed to be lacking was the evidence necessary for an arrest.

Frank Abbott gave her a shrewd look.

“Do you really consider that there is such a lack of evidence in Pippa Maybury’s case?”