The Alington Inheritance (20 page)

“It came yesterday morning, and when Richard and Caroline saw it they said that I ought to write to Mrs. Forbes. So I wrote to her—” Jenny paused, steadying herself. “I said that I had heard what Mac said to her the night I went away. I said that I didn’t mean to listen. I said I had heard everything, and when I had heard it I couldn’t get up and show myself. I said I was staying here with Richard’s aunt Miss Danesworth. And I said that Richard had gone to Somerset House in London and got a copy of my father and mother’s marriage certificate. And I signed the letter Jenny Forbes. It felt very strange, because I had never written it before, but I thought that I ought to. So you see, if everyone knew, then it wasn’t a secret any more, was it? And if Meg could write to me, then Mrs. Forbes could have written, or—or Mac. That’s what frightens me, Miss Silver. Why don’t they say anything?”

Miss Silver said, “I don’t know, my dear.”

They went together into the house.

Miss Silver had tea at Miss Danesworth’s. Richard was not there. He had gone to London, and she had a very pleasant time with Miss Danesworth and Jenny. After tea she enquired the way to Mrs. Pratt’s, and Jenny at once offered to go with her. Miss Silver thought for a while, and then accepted the offer.

It was bad luck for Dicky that things turned out as they did. On most afternoons he would not have been there at all. On this particular day he was there, because he had come in to wait for Stuffy Craddock who was going to pick him up when he had had his tea. Stuffy wouldn’t miss his tea, not if it was ever so, and Mrs. Craddock wouldn’t have let him miss it either. Dicky thought with assurance how much more fortunate he was himself. His mother never noticed whether he was in or not. And then quite suddenly he had a curious lonely feeling, and he set his chin and whistled quite loudly to keep up his spirits.

Mrs. Pratt was out. She wouldn’t be home for another hour. She wasn’t a good worker, but she managed to get enough work to keep her going. People were sorry for her, and she didn’t do too badly under strict supervision.

Miss Silver and Jenny came to the door of Mrs. Pratt’s cottage and heard Dicky whistling.

“He’s there,” said Jenny. “I was afraid he mightn’t be. They don’t have any regular times for meals.”

Miss Silver looked shocked.

“Do you think that this boy’s word is to be relied on?” she said.

“No, I don’t,” said Jenny frankly. “I think he’ll twist and lie if he can. That’s why I offered to come with you.” She knocked on the door as she spoke, and the whistling stopped instantly.

After a moment steps could be heard descending the stairs. A pause, and the door was opened. An untidy, shabby boy stood there. He smiled and his face lit up. His very blue eyes beamed on them.

“My mother’s out,” he said. “Can I take a message?”

There was nothing to show that he recognized Jenny, yet he had done so at once. She said quite directly,

“Hullo, Dicky. It’s you we want to see, not your mother. Can we come in? This is Miss Silver.”

“How do you do, Dicky?” said Miss Silver.

Dicky gave back her “How do you do?” His mind was racing. He knew who Miss Silver was, and knowing that, he could guess why she had come to see him. The question was, did he tell what he knew, or didn’t he? He wasn’t at all sure. With a sense of the fitness of things he led the way, not into the dirty, crowded, and disordered kitchen, but into the front room, never used and dreadfully neat. Four chairs stood with their backs to the wall, and a hard unyielding sofa stood with its back to the window. The curtains were neither clean nor dirty. They had hung there since James Pratt had been carried home dead—untouched and disregarded over the years that had passed since then. To Dicky the room was a very fine one. He showed an immense pride in it. The stuffy atmosphere and the film of dust over everything merely marked it out as a place apart.

Having taken them into this room, he shut the door and leaned against it, his smile subdued by the importance of the occasion and by its setting. His blue eyes were soft and pensive. He was thinking very hard, and what he thought was, “They want something, else they wouldn’t be here. What do they want? If I listen I shall find out.”

He glanced up at Miss Silver. It was a look to melt the heart of any old lady, he knew that. But the look was met by a gaze so clear and so alarming that it was all he could do to hold on to the innocence of his smile. He would have backed away a little, but he was already against the door. In his mind he was saying, “What jer want? I’ve done nothing, I haven’t. What jer want to come down on me for?” but he kept the words in.

Miss Silver spoke. She said his name.

“Dicky—”

Her tone steadied him. He smiled with an effect of shyness.

“Dicky, I have heard that you are a very intelligent boy. I wonder if you are intelligent enough to realize that it is better to keep on the right side of the law.”

Dicky swallowed and said, “Is it?”

Miss Silver smiled.

“You will find that out for yourself,” she said. “It is very easy to pull things crooked and to make an effect, and that is what starts a boy going wrong.”

“Is it?” said Dicky in a tone of limpid innocence.

“Yes,” said Miss Silver on an assured note. “Now you, Dicky, are at the parting of the ways. You can tell the truth and be praised for it, or you can tell lies which will be found out, and which will destroy your character.”

Dicky hastened to put his best foot forward.

“I wouldn’t tell no lies,” he said. “Not if it was ever so.”

Miss Silver nodded approvingly.

“I shall know if you do,” she said.

And quite suddenly Dicky felt it in his bones that she would. It was a very alarming feeling. He had never had it with anyone before, and he didn’t like it at all. If he had been outside the house he would have yielded to his instinct and have run away. He could have kept out of sight until the old lady had gone. He could—he couldn’t do anything— not really. He was a fool to have got up against the door like he had. If he turned round to open it she’d have him, and the girl would come and help her.

All the while that he was thinking these things his smile remained limpidly innocent. It had only wavered for a moment. Miss Silver was saying,

“Now, Dicky, will you tell me truthfully about the note you had?”

“The note?” He might never have heard of such a thing.

“Yes. The note that was addressed to Miss Jenny Hill.”

“Oh, that note—”

He was playing for time, but Miss Silver gave him no time. She said, “Yes,” and then, “I want to know what you did with it. Who gave it to you and told you to give it to Miss Jenny Hill? Did you know who Miss Jenny Hill was?”

Dicky considered. If he put a foot wrong now it would be very difficult to recover. He could think of lots of lies to tell, but there was no doubt that the plain unvarnished truth would be safest. He immediately felt a strong glow of virtue.

“Course I knew!” he said in a tone of scorn. “Everyone in the village knowed as Miss Jenny Forbes had two names, and that her other name was Miss Jenny Hill. It was Mrs. Warrington as let it out. She’s a talker she is. Everything as goes on at Mrs. Merridew’s she talks about, and everyone in the village could know what she knowed.”

“Then you meant to give the note to Miss Jenny?”

“Yes, I meant to. Only—” He came out with a burst of truth. “Only Roger Barton and Stuffy Craddock came up with me, and they had a smashing scheme on, and—and I went off with them. And I forgot all about the note until after the murder.”

“And then did you not think that what you knew might be important?”

It was really astonishingly easy to tell the truth. You didn’t have to think all round what you said. You could just go ahead and say it as it came. In a glow of virtue Dicky replied,

“Not at first it didn’t.”

“And why was that?”

Dicky wriggled.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t till I got to thinking about the number-plate being covered up.”

Jenny had been standing over by the window. She felt terrified. Something was coming down on her—on all of them. She couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was like standing in the path of an oncoming train. You could hear the whistle and you could see the smoke, and you couldn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dicky’s face. She couldn’t move, or speak, or do anything. The dreadful thing that was going to happen came nearer and nearer.

Miss Silver was speaking.

“How was the number-plate covered?”

“There was some sacking in the boot. It hung down behind and covered the number-plate.”

“Then you couldn’t see it?”

Dicky hesitated, but only for a moment. It was a smashing game telling the truth. And it was safe. You didn’t have to stop and think about it, you could just go ahead. He went ahead.

“I’d some matches in my pocket. I struck one, and I looked at the number.”

Jenny couldn’t move. She had known that it was coming. Her hands were tightly clasped before her. When she looked at them afterwards she would see that her nails had cut the skin. At the time she saw nothing, felt nothing. Everything in her was keyed up to take what she knew was coming.

The questioning went on.

“Do you remember the number?”

“Acourse I do. It was 505.” He gave the county letters too.

“You are quite sure about that?”

“Acourse I’m sure. I wouldn’t make up a thing like that.”

Jenny drew a long breath. The window seat was just behind her. She felt her way to it and sat down. She put her head in her hands and time went by her. So it was Mac. And Miriam had been killed instead of Jenny. She hadn’t the slightest doubt about that. If Dicky hadn’t met his friends, if he had delivered the letter, what would she have done? Would she have gone out to meet Mac? She couldn’t tell. One moment it seemed to her as if she would have gone, and the next she recoiled with a shudder. She did not know what she would have done. She was never to know.

In upon her confusion and her hurrying thoughts there came Miss Silver’s voice.

“Drink this, my dear. No, you must try. It is only water.”

She managed a sip, and then another, and another. Her head cleared. She looked up at Miss Silver with piteous eyes.

“I’m all right.”

“Yes, my dear, you are going to be quite all right. Stay still a little while.”

Jenny opened her eyes. She had slid down from the window seat and was lying on the floor. The window above her head was wide open. It was the first time it had been open for years and years. Dicky disapproved very much. His mum never opened that window. His mum didn’t hold with suchlike, his mum didn’t. These thoughts contended with the uplifting experience of having told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He remembered the words of the oath which he had taken in the case when he had had to give evidence, and repeated them to himself with the greatest satisfaction. There were no snags about telling the truth. You hadn’t got to watch out for saying a thing one minute and contradicting yourself the next. You could just go straight on and tell it the way it happened, and nobody couldn’t do nothing to you, not if it was ever so.

He ran upstairs and got Mac’s letter. When he came down with it in his hand, Jenny had got up. She was sitting on the window seat and she looked very pale.

He came into the room with the letter in his hand and offered it to Miss Silver. It was indescribably dirty, creased, and stained, but it was still quite legible. Miss Silver took it, and read what Mac had written to Jenny nearly a fortnight before:

“Jenny, don’t say anything to anyone, but come out and meet me up on the heath as soon as it is quite dark.

Mac

Bring this with you.”

And up in the top left-hand corner there was a date—the date of the murder.

What will you do?” said Jenny.

Miss Silver regarded her compassionately.

“I think you must know that, my dear,” she said.

They were on their way back from the cottage. Jenny felt weak and tired, and as if a very long time had passed since she had got up that morning and Richard had gone off to catch his train to town. She said,

“Yes, I know. You’ll tell the police.”

“You know that I must tell them.”

Jenny was silent for a moment. Then she said,

“It’s a dreadful thing. It’s too dreadful for one to take it in. Mac—he’s always been so—so—” She paused for a word, and then said, “dominating. And for a long time I thought that he cared for me. When I found out that he didn’t it was as if I was all alone. Do you know that feeling— as if everyone else in the world was gone away and there was nobody left but you? It’s a dreadful feeling to have—like a nightmare.”

Miss Silver looked at her very kindly.

“That is a very good comparison,” she said. “There is no truth in the nightmare, and when you wake up it has no more power over you. You came out of the nightmare when you ran away from Alington House. You are not in it any longer, you know. You are quite free of it, with Miss Danesworth to care for you and Richard Forbes to protect you. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

They came out of the side lane into the village. Jenny felt suddenly as if she had awakened from a bad dream. Up to now she had been taken up with Mac and what would happen to him, but now quite suddenly the other side of the picture came to her. There was Richard and Miss Danesworth. They were her family now. And she was safe. She wasn’t alone and unprotected any longer. The consciousness slid in among her thoughts and steadied them. The next moment she was reproaching herself and thinking of the little girls and Alan, and even of Mrs. Forbes. She said,

“What will you do?”

“I must get into touch with Chief Inspector Abbott. He will want to take a statement. I think that I will leave you here, my dear, if you are quite sure that you will be all right.”

“Yes, I’m quite sure,” said Jenny. She wanted to be alone because she wanted to think. It is really not possible to think when there are people with you. She wanted to get right away by herself.

Miss Silver had very little time to think until she was in the London train. It had been a tiring day, but she was not thinking of herself. She was concerned with her coming interview with Frank Abbott. She had wired to him as soon as she reached Langton, and she hoped that he would not have left the office. She was not, however, prepared for him to meet her train, though she was very glad to see him.

“My dear Frank, you should not have troubled.”

He smiled down at her.

“What have you been up to?”

“I will tell you, but let us get out of this first.”

When he had put her into a taxi he got in himself and gave her address in Montague Mansions. Then he turned to her.

“Now, ma’am—what have you been doing?”

She said very gravely, “I have been finding a murderer, Frank. Let me tell you about it.” And tell him she did, with all the scrupulous exactness which he had come to expect from her.

In conclusion she extracted from her bag the note which Mac had written to Jenny nearly a fortnight before, with its damning date in the top left-hand corner. He whistled as he looked at it.

“Where did you get this?” he said. And then, “It’s had some rough treatment, hasn’t it?”

“It has been in a boy’s pocket. His name is Dicky Pratt, and he is a local boy at Hazeldon. He has no father, and I gather that he manages his mother. He was given this note on the date it was written, just before seven in the evening by a man who told him to give it to Miss Jenny Hill. He, as well as the whole village, knew that that was the name Miss Jenny Forbes had borne before she came there. They knew because Mrs. Merridew who lives next door to Miss Danesworth has a cousin who lives at Alingford, which is where Jenny was brought up.”

“My dear Miss Silver!”

“You must listen, Frank. You saw Jenny Forbes, and spoke to her. What you may not have known was her history.”

He listened whilst she gave him the details. When she had done she went on,

“That letter was written by Mrs. Forbes’ eldest son. He is, I think, about twenty-four years of age, and ever since he was six years old he has considered himself the heir of Alington. When Jenny heard him planning to marry her she ran away. Poor child—the whole affair was a most terrible shock. She ran away in the night, and she met her distant cousin Richard Forbes, who brought her to his aunt Miss Danesworth. It is an extraordinary story, but it is a true one. The letter which I have just shown you is terribly damning. There is no doubt that this Mac Forbes came down to Hazeldon with the intention of murdering his cousin Jenny. The girl who was murdered came from the house in which Jenny was staying. I do not wish to say anything against her. She paid very highly for what she did. But if, as seems likely, he mistook her for Jenny, she can have done nothing to undeceive him. He killed her supposing that he was killing Jenny. What he did not know was that the boy to whom he had given the note had crept round to the back of his car and had observed the number-plate. It was covered, my dear Frank, by a loose piece of sacking which hung down from the boot. This is clear evidence that the whole thing was planned. The number of the car was 505, and the county identification letters those of his home county.” Frank was putting away the stained letter in his pocket-book. “And where is this young man to be found? Do you know that?” Miss Silver said gravely, “I have his address.” She gave it to him, and he wrote it down.

Jenny had gone home. She felt very, very tired, as if she could not think clearly. She did not know what to do, but with every moment she was realizing what she had already done. There was no future left for Mac—none at all. And it was she who had destroyed him. She stopped in the road and felt the mists close in on her again. She did not know what to do. She did not think that she could go through with it.

As she stood there it came over her that she ought to have died, then there would not have been any of this trouble. But she was strong and healthy—she had never even had a bad illness—and if she had died on the common it would have been murder. Mac was a murderer. The dreadfulness of what had happened was not hers, but his. Her mind went back to the scene in the court room, to Jimmy Mottingley’s white face. How could she hold her tongue and let him suffer? The answer was plain. She couldn’t. It just wasn’t possible. The mist cleared from her, and she went on walking.

When she came to the door of the house and went in there was no one at home. Richard wasn’t back yet, and she remembered that Miss Danesworth had said that she would go in and see Mrs. Merridew— “I don’t want to in the least, but I think I ought to. I shan’t stay unless she wants me.”

Jenny went through to the sitting-room. She felt as if she had a great deal to think about. She sat down, and found that the telephone was straight in front of her. She changed her seat, and that was no better. She could not see it any longer, but she knew that it was there. She could give the number and ring him up. She could tell him what she had done. She could tell him that Miss Silver knew. That his dated letter was in her hands. That she had a statement from Dicky Pratt. She could tell him these things. And what was he to do when she had told him? Her mind shuddered away from that. She didn’t know.

After a minute or two she got up, went to the telephone, and asked for Mac’s number in London.

Mac was dressing. He was joining a party for Whoops-a-Daisy, the latest musical from the U.S.A. He whistled cheerfully to himself as he brushed his hair. He was quite at ease in his mind now. Whatever had happened to the note, it wouldn’t turn up at this stage. On the whole he was well out of it. As for the young fool who had been arrested, he wasn’t really likely to come to any harm, or if he did, well, it was just too bad.

The telephone bell rang, and he went into his outer room to answer it.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Jenny. I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Oh, have you?” His tone was short. What did the girl want?

She told him.

“Mac, something has happened—”

“What is it? I’m just going out.”

“Listen, Mac. That boy you gave the note to—”

A crawling finger of fear touched his heart.

“What are you talking about?”

Jenny’s voice came back strained and hurrying.

“I’m talking about you. That boy Dicky Pratt—he had your letter in his pocket.”

“Oh, that old letter. What of it?”

Jenny’s voice again. It sounded as if she was crying.

“It’s dated, Mac. You dated it as you always do. Miss Silver—she’s helping Jimmy Mottingley—Dicky gave her the letter, and she has gone up to town with it. And he can swear to the car. He came up the road and got behind it and lifted the sacking. He was just curious, but—” but her voice trailed away—“I thought I would let you know—” There was the click of the receiver as she hung it up, and that was all. That was all.

Mac stood with the receiver in his hand. He was very still, but his thoughts raced. He had time to get away. They could come and look for him, but they wouldn’t find him. He would be gone. Where? And how? He saw at once with a desperate clarity that wherever he went and however he twisted there would be a price upon his head. The very suddenness of the blow shocked him past thought. He did not think these things. They were there, as an accomplished fact is there. They were not things that were going to happen. They were part of a chain of cause and effect which went on without wavering or hesitation to an appointed end. And there was only one end. He knew that.

He became aware that he was still holding the telephone up to his ear. A voice spoke through it. It asked him whether he had finished. He said, “Yes,” and hung up. Then he opened the second drawer of his writing-table and took out the pistol.

Miss Silver was very glad to get home. It had been—she admitted it —a most tiring day. She had not ever been more glad of her comfortable room and of the thoughtful ministrations of her worthy Hannah.

It was when she was resting in front of the fire that her telephone rang. She got up and went across to it. At the first sound of Frank Abbott’s voice she knew why he had rung her up.

“Is that you, Miss Silver?”

“Yes, Frank.”

“We were too late. He had shot himself. The girl must have let him know.”

Miss Silver said, “Poor Jenny!”