The Clock Strikes Twelve (12 page)

Miss Silver sat primly at the writing-table. An exercise-book with a bright green cover lay in front of her upon Mark’s blotting-pad. Mark himself sat facing her. Lydia lay back in the most comfortable of the chairs and looked on. The names of the Paradine family connection had been entered in the exercise-book, together with such facts as had been elicited about each. The circumstances surrounding the New Year’s Eve party and Mr. Paradine’s death had been repeated.

Mark said abruptly,

“We’re putting you to a lot of trouble. I think we should have waited until we had discussed the matter with the rest of the family. They may not feel—”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You are not committing yourself to anything, Mr. Paradine—that is understood. I should, naturally, regard anything you have said to me as confidential. At the same time I feel it my duty to point out to you that resistance to enquiry on the part of any member of the family would be a fact the significance of which could not be overlooked.”

He leaned back frowning.

“People are not necessarily criminals and murderers because they would dislike being cross-examined by a stranger.”

Miss Silver smiled indulgently.

“No, indeed, Mr. Paradine. The publicity in which murder involves a bereaved family is truly distressing, but I fear it is unavoidable. I will amplify your remark if I may, and say that it is not everyone with something to hide who is a criminal. One of the complications in a case of this kind is the fact that many people have thoughts, wishes, or actions which they would not willingly expose even to a friend, yet when police enquiries are being made these private motives and actions are brought to light. It is, in fact, a little like the Judgment Day, if I may use such a comparison without being considered profane.”

Mark said, “Yes, that’s true.”

He was in process of surprising himself. After some twenty minutes’ conversation with this curiously dowdy little person, in the course of which she had neither said nor done anything at all remarkable, he was experiencing the strangest sense of relief. He could remember nothing like it since his nursery days. Old Nanna, the tyrant and mainstay of that dim early time before his parents died—there was something about Miss Silver that revived these memories. The old-fashioned decorum, the authority which has no need of self-assertion because it is unquestioned—it was these things that he discerned, and upon which he found himself disposed to lean. Miss Silver’s shrewd, kind glance—perfectly kind, piercingly shrewd—took him back to things he had forgotten. “Not the least manner of good your standing there and telling me a lie, Master Mark. I won’t have it for one thing, and it won’t do you no good for another.”

There was that effect, but there was also a reassurance that he had not known since the time when he would wake sweating with nightmare to the light of Nanna’s candle and the sound of her, “Come, come now—what’s all this?”

He looked up and met her eyes. Something had gone from his. Miss Silver saw in them what she had seen in many eyes before, a desperate need of help. She smiled slightly, as one smiles at an anxious child, and said,

“Well, Mr. Paradine, we will leave it like that. You will go back and consult the rest of the family, and then if you wish it, I will come out to the River House and do what I can to help you.”

He said abruptly,

“I don’t want to consult them—I’m prepared to take the responsibility. I want you to take the case. I want you to come out to the River House with me now.”

She became very serious.

“Are you quite sure about that?”

He gave a brief impatient nod.

“Yes, I’m quite sure. I want you to come. Lydia’s right—we’ve got to clear this up. Someone inside, in the house, will have a better chance of doing it than the police—I can see that.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You must understand, Mr. Paradine, that my position will be quite a private one, and that I can be no party to anything to which the police could take exception. May I ask who is in charge of the case?”

“Superintendent Vyner.”

An expression of interest appeared on her face.

“Indeed? I have heard of him from an old pupil of mine, Randal March, who is Superintendent at Ledlington. He considers him a very able man.”

She got up with the air of the teacher who dismisses a class.

“Very well, then. I will just go across the landing and pack my case.”

You have brought a detective here—here?” Miss Paradine was quite white, quite controlled, but her eyes blazed and her voice had a cutting edge.

Mark, standing just inside the door of her sitting-room, contemplated his assembled family and said,

“Yes.”

They were all there except Albert Pearson, and they were all looking at him—Frank Ambrose with a heavy frown; Brenda paler than usual, her eyes bolting; Irene with her mouth hanging open; Phyllida startled; Dicky, his lips pursed for an inaudible whistle; Elliot grim; and Grace Paradine with a look of anger which he had seen once or twice before, but not for him. Only Lydia’s face held any encouragement. She met his eyes, smiled into them with hers, and then looked quickly away. She thought, “It’s going to be a dog fight. Oh, my poor Mark!”

They were all standing. Grace Paradine said,

“I don’t know what you were thinking about. You must send him away at once!”

Mark stayed where he was by the door. He said,

“No.” And then, “It’s a woman, Aunt Grace— Miss Silver.”

She said again, and with no less anger,

“You must send her away!”

“I can’t do that. I’m sorry you don’t like it, but I’ve quite made up my mind. None of you will like it, but there’s been a murder. As I see it, the only person who can reasonably object is the murderer. I’m not saying it’s one of us. The police are quite sure that it is. I hope it isn’t. I’ve brought Miss Silver here because I think that’s our best chance of getting at the truth—I think we’ve got to get at the truth. At the moment we’re all under suspicion. It doesn’t seem possible to us because we’re right in the middle of it—we can’t see what it looks like from outside. The police are going to suspect everyone who hasn’t an alibi. They’re going to dig about until they can turn up a motive. Miss Silver said just now that a murder case was like the Day of Judgment. She’s absolutely right. Most people have got something they don’t want to have ferreted out. Well, it’s no good—we shan’t be able to hide anything. It’s damnable, but there’s something worse, and that is all going on suspecting one another and being suspected by everyone we know. We’ve got to find out who did it, and we’ve got to find out quickly.”

There was a dead silence, broken by a burst of tears from Irene. To her sobbed-out “How—how can you say such things?” Mark replied curtly,

“Everyone’s going to say them.”

Grace Paradine said in her voice of cold anger,

“You’re very ready to accuse your relations of murder, Mark. Perhaps you will tell us whom you suspect.”

He straightened himself up and turned a look of bitter amusement on her.

“Well, I gather that the police favour me.”

This time Dicky’s whistle was audible. Frank Ambrose said, “Why?”

“Oh, this and that. I’m not expected to give evidence against myself, am I?”

“The police will want to know the terms of the will. Do you know them?”

“Do you?”

Frank Ambrose said, “No,” and said it rather quickly. After a short pause he went on. “I suppose you do. And I suppose from the way you’ve taken over that they’re very much in your favour.”

“That’s one of the reasons why the police are going to suspect me.”

Frank went on doggedly.

“Don’t you know how you stand? I think the rest of us ought to know too.”

“Here and now?”

“I think we’re entitled to know as much as you do. I’m not asking how you know.”

Mark said, “That’s damned offensive, Frank.” Then, in a curiously abstracted voice, “He gave me a draft. I can’t remember everything. Phyllida gets five thousand—he was very fond of her. Dicky gets ten and the Crossley shares. Aunt Clara’s diamonds are to be divided between Dicky and myself—two thirds to me and a third to him. Albert gets a thousand pounds free of legacy duty. You and Brenda get two thousand each as a mark of affection. He said he’d settled money on both of you when you came of age. That’s all I can remember offhand.”

Frank looked heavily at him.

“Who gets the rest?”

“I do. I’m the residuary legatee.”

“You get the house?”

Mark nodded.

“Yes. You see why the police are going to suspect me. Let’s get back to the question of Miss Silver. She’s been extraordinarily successful in other cases. She’s easy to get on with—nothing aggressive about her. I’m asking you all to make things as easy for her as possible. I can see how it looks to you, Aunt Grace, and I’m sorry, but you must want this cleared up as much as any of us. As I said before, there’s only one person who doesn’t want it cleared up. I don’t suppose anyone wants to fit that cap on, so I take it you’ll all do what you can to help.”

Nobody answered him.

When the silence had lasted long enough to make it clear that nobody was going to answer he turned and went out of the room, almost running into Albert upon the threshold. A collision having been narrowly avoided, Albert advanced and approached Miss Paradine.

“Mr. Moffat is below. He asked whether you would see him.”

Grace Paradine waited for Robert Moffat. She had moved nearer to the fire, and stood there facing the door through which he would come. She had not been alone in a room with him for thirty years—not since the brief bitter interview in which she told him that she knew about Carrie Lintott, and gave him back his ring. Across the gap of the years it still pleased her to remember that it was he who had wept, not she. It was just a month before the day which had been set for their marriage. Her wedding dress hung, covered with a sheet, in the room which was Phyllida’s now. Her wreath and veil reposed in the top long drawer of the tallboy. But it was Robert Moffat who contributed all the emotion to that interview. He had gone down on his knees and clutched at her skirt. He had abased himself in penitence. He had begged, implored, protested. She was remembering these things now, as she had remembered them every time she had seen him in the last thirty years.

You cannot live in the same place and never meet. Robert Moffat’s father was a partner in the Paradine-Moffat Works. In due course Robert succeeded him. They were bound to meet. She went away for a time, and then she came back. They were bound to meet. The first time was at the County Ball. She had a new dress, she was looking her best. She bowed and smiled. It was he who flushed and turned away. After that, many chance meetings—in the street; coming out of church; coming out of the theatre; at balls, receptions, bazaars. He ceased to change colour, but she never ceased to remember that she had had him on his knees to her. When he married, she paid a formal call upon the bride, leaving her father’s cards. Mrs. Moffat, a pleasant rosy little person, smiled and dimpled, and made herself very agreeable. Miss Paradine was not at home when the call was returned. Meetings between the two households were few and formal. Never till this moment had there been any approach to a personal relationship.

The door opened and he came in—a big, bluff man, fresh-coloured and hearty. He came up to her with an outstretched hand. He was both shocked and horrified, but he was plainly nervous too. Even a murder in the family didn’t prevent him from thinking how formidable Grace Paradine looked, and what an escape he had had. Extraordinary to think that he had once been so madly in love with her. Thought the world had come to an end when she turned him down. Something in him chuckled. He’d been much better off with his comfortable Bessie. Kind, that’s what she was—comfortable and kind. A woman ought to be kind.

Miss Paradine ignored the outstretched hand. To his “This is a terrible thing!” she replied that it was very good of him to have come. He thought how impassive she was, how controlled. He would have thought the better of her if she had broken down. And then, as she turned a little and the light from the farther window struck her face, he was shocked at her pallor and the dark marks under her eyes.

“It’s been a horrible shock. If there is anything that we can do… It’s a terrible break-up for you, Grace. I can’t think what it’s going to be like without him—I can’t realize it at all—he has always been there. And it’s worse for you—I don’t know what to say about it. I hope you’ve got Phyllida here—she’ll be a comfort. Elliot’s with you too, isn’t he? James rang me up last night and said he was staying. Threw our table out, and if it had been anyone else he’d have had the rough side of my tongue, but as it was, we were only too glad, Bessie and I. Dreadful thing for young people to separate like that. James felt it, I know—wanted to see it made up. Hope he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d brought them together again. Never could understand what went wrong myself. She’s a charming girl. I’m glad you’ve got her with you.”

Grace Paradine said in her deep, controlled voice,

“Yes, I have got Phyllida.”

Then she moved a step and rang the bell.

“You will like to see Mark, Robert.”

Mark had reached the head of the stairs, when Elliot Wray caught him up.

“Here—wait a minute.”

“What is it?”

“Where have you put this woman?”

“In the study. I’ve told Lane she’s to have the bedroom next to yours.”

Elliot said abruptly,

“I want to see her.”

“All right, come along. Do you want me to come too?” Elliot considered.

“I don’t know… No, I’ll see her alone. How much does she know?”

“Lydia saw her first—I don’t know what she said. I told her what happened last night, and told her the names of the people who were there and the way they were related—things like that.”

Elliot stood for a moment as if he were in two minds whether to say something or not. In the end he laughed grimly and said what he hadn’t thought about at all.

“Well, you seem to have inherited a bomb-throwing tendency along with the rest of it.” After which he went off down the stairs and round the corner towards the study, just missing Robert Moffat, who had emerged from the drawing-room on the other side of the hall.

Elliot’s first view of Miss Silver gave him a shock of surprise. She wasn’t in the very least like anything he had expected. Just what he had expected, he didn’t know. Something hard and efficient—a stony eye and a mouth like a trap—certainly not this mild, decorous little person in clothes which must have been out of date when he was born. He was reminded of an Edwardian period film seen recently enough to bob up at the sight of her.

He said, “Miss Silver?” and received a pleasant smile and a slight inclination of the head.

She was seated at the table with a green copybook before her. It was curious to see her there in old James’s chair. The police had occupied the room all the morning. Photographs had been taken both here and on the terrace, everything had been gone over for fingerprints. Now the room was straight and tidy again. The police had done with it. Mr. Paradine had done with it. Except for the fact that this little governessy person was sitting at his table, everything was just as it had been last night. The chairs had been put back in their accustomed places. The table, the ink-stand, the blotting-pad were just as usual, except for the green copybook in front of Miss Silver and, a little way off on the left, one of those small pocket diaries which Miss Paradine had been handing out last night. It was the blue one. He wondered how it had got there. He couldn’t remember who had had the blue one—he hadn’t been noticing. He thought it would be Mark, or Richard. He came over and picked it up. As he turned it in his hand, it fell open, as a book will do when it has been bent back to mark a place. A date sprang into view—February 1st.

With the diary still in his hand, he was aware of Miss Silver saying,

“Is it the date that interests you, or the book?”

He put it down at once.

“Oh, neither. Miss Paradine was giving these diaries as presents last night. I wondered—”

“To whom this one had been given? You think not to Mr. Paradine?”

“I don’t know.” There was some finality in his tone.

He took a chair and sat down.

“I believe you have a list of all our names. I am Elliot Wray. Mark Paradine said I could come and talk to you.”

“Oh, certainly.”

Her voice was the voice of a gentlewoman, pleasant in tone, a little prim. As he was thinking this, she said,

“What do you want to talk to me about, Mr. Wray?”

Something prompted him to say,

“I am wondering how much you know.”

Miss Silver smiled. Rather a rugged-looking young man—intelligent—not so obviously under a strain as Mr. Mark Paradine. Her excellent memory provided her with the reflection that he was one of the two members of the family circle fortunate enough to have an alibi for the time of the murder. She smiled at him.

“Not so much as I should like to know, Mr. Wray. Perhaps you will add to my knowledge. I may say that I am very glad to see you. Will you mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Not at all.”

“Well then, Mr. Wray—you do not live in Birleton?”

“No.”

“And you are engaged on confidential work in connection with aeroplane construction?”

“Yes.”

“These things are common knowledge? And so is the fact that your present visit to Birleton was connected with work being done for the government at the Paradine-Moffat Works?”

“I shouldn’t say that it was common knowledge.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Will you agree that this knowledge was common to the party dining here last night?”

He gave her a glance of quick surprise.

“Yes, I would agree to that—at least to this extent that they could all have known as much, if they had been interested. I don’t suppose any of the women would have bothered about it.”

Miss Silver coughed again.

“Suppositions are not always reliable, Mr. Wray. But let us continue. You stayed here last night, I believe, but not the night before. Had you expected to stay here at all?”

She saw his fair brows draw together in a frown as he said,

“No.”

“Had you expected to dine here last night?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me what occasioned the change in your plans?”

He said with an assumption of carelessness, “Mr. Paradine rang me up at seven o’clock. He said he wanted to see me on a matter of business.”

“And when you came out here he insisted on your remaining for dinner and staying the night. May I ask how you had intended to spend the evening?”

He gave her a curious look.

“I was dining with Mr. Moffat, Mr. Paradine’s partner.”

“And you broke the engagement?”

“Mr. Paradine broke it for me.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me—” and then, “I am going to ask you a question which you may not wish to answer. Miss Pennington and Mr. Mark Paradine have given me an account of what took place at the dinner table last night. It must have been a very trying experience, especially for the guilty person. I understand that Mr. Paradine actually used that expression, ‘the guilty person,’ but beyond stating that the family interests had been betrayed he gave no indication of the nature of this betrayal. The police will, of course, have made enquiries on this point. I have no means of knowing what information they may have obtained, or what conclusions, if any, they may have arrived at. I should just like to ask you whether you brought any papers or plans with you on this visit. I feel sure that you must have done so.”

“Naturally.”

“You had entrusted these papers to Mr. Paradine?”

“What makes you think that?”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I feel sure of it, Mr. Wray. I also feel sure that when Mr. Paradine summoned you at seven o’clock last night it was in order to inform you that these papers, or some of them, were missing.”

Elliot jerked back his chair and sprang up.

“Who told you that? Was it Mark?”

Miss Silver regarded him with intelligent interest. Then she said primly,

“I do not imagine that Mr. Mark Paradine knows.”

Elliot was leaning towards her across the table.

“Then it was Lydia—Lydia told you.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I am quite sure that Miss Pennington does not know either.”

“Then how the devil do you know?”

Miss Silver gazed at him in reproof. To his extreme astonishment he found himself flushing beneath this gaze.

“I beg your pardon! But would you mind telling me who did tell you?”

Her look became one of forbearance. He felt himself the backward boy to whom a teacher patiently explains the obvious.

“The evidence told me, Mr. Wray. You will forgive me if I touch on what may be painful. There had been a breach between you and Mr. Paradine’s family for a year. Your dining and spending the night here could only mean one of two things—a reconciliation, or an emergency of such gravity as to cause all other considerations to be set on one side. There was no evidence of a reconciliation. Your appearance in the drawing-room just before dinner startled everyone. It was obviously quite unexpected even by Miss Paradine—even, pardon me, by Mrs. Wray. I had therefore to consider the other alternative, an emergency so sudden and urgent that Mr. Paradine himself cancelled your dinner engagement and was able to induce you to co-operate in a plan which necessitated your joining the party at dinner and staying the night. Taken in conjunction with his remark about betrayal and his statement that he knew who the guilty person was, this led me to the conclusion that Mr. Paradine had missed some important paper or papers, that he knew who had taken them, and that he believed he could put sufficient pressure on this person to secure their return. On this assumption your acquiescence and the scene at the dinner table fall naturally into place. A very serious motive is also supplied for the murder of the person who possessed such damaging information.”

Elliot dropped slowly back again into his chair. His hands still gripped the edge of the table. They continued to grip it. After a moment he said,

“You’ve been about a quarter of an hour in the house. Are you telling me that you’ve found this out for yourself? I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it. I want to know what Mark and Lydia have been telling you. I don’t want to be offensive, but you must see that if either of them knew that my blue-prints had been taken, well, it points to one of them as the thief. Only three people knew that the prints were missing—the person who took them, Mr. Paradine, and myself. If Mark or Lydia knew—”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Very well put, Mr. Wray. It is a pleasure to deal with anyone who can take a point so quickly. I can, however, assure you that neither Mr. Mark nor Miss Lydia so much as hinted at the possibility that Mr. Paradine’s accusation had anything to do with your papers. Miss Lydia merely informed me that there had been a serious breach between you and the Paradine family, but that your business relations were not affected. Mr. Mark added that your present visit was on government business of a confidential nature. My deductions were drawn from these and a number of other small facts. I gather from what you have said that they are correct.”

He let go of the table and leaned back.

“Oh, yes, they are correct.”

Miss Silver opened the green copybook and wrote in it. Then she said,

“Mr. Paradine told you that he knew who had taken the papers?”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you any indication of who that person was?”

“No, he didn’t.”

She looked up at him, pencil in hand.

“Mr. Wray, you can help me here. You are shrewd and observant. I want to know the impression made on you at the time by his voice, his look, his manner. To what extent did they betray feeling—emotion— shock?”

Elliot gave a short laugh.

“It wasn’t Mr. Paradine’s way to show his feelings.”

“Still, you might have received some impression, and you must subsequently have gone over that impression in your own mind. The discovery of the loss must have been a shock to Mr. Paradine. Did you think then, or do you think now, that this shock was a personal one?”

Elliot looked at her, first with surprise and then with attention.

“He was in very good spirits. If you ask me, I should say that he was enjoying himself. He told me I’d got to stay, and told me I should have my papers back in the morning. Since you know so much, I may as well tell you that he was perfectly right—I did get them back. They were here on his table.” He leaned over to indicate the corner on her left. “I took them, but I didn’t mean to say anything about it. I thought that Mr. Paradine’s death was an accident—we all did at first. When it seemed that it was murder, I had to consider my position. As a result I didn’t feel justified in holding my tongue, and when the Chief Constable came out here this afternoon I told him what you’ve just been telling me.” On the last words his lips twisted into an odd one-sided smile.

Miss Silver said,

“Thank you, Mr. Wray. You did quite rightly. Let us return to Mr. Paradine. He was not, you think, emotionally affected by his knowledge of the thief’s identity?”

Elliot grinned suddenly and said,

“Mr. Paradine didn’t have emotions.”

It seemed to Miss Silver that he was evading the issue.

“I will put it another way,” she said. “Mr. Paradine had ten guests last night. From your own observation, for which of those ten people had he most affection?”

Elliot said bluntly,

“I’m not really stupid, you know—I can see what you’re getting at. You want to know whether the person who took the papers was someone he was fond of, and whether he was upset about it on that account. Well, offhand, I should say he wasn’t. I’m not saying this to the police, and I’m not swearing to it in any conceivable circumstances, but if you want that impression you were talking about just now, I don’t mind giving it to you. I thought he’d caught someone out and he was going to enjoy scoring him off. But that may have been a put-up show. I don’t think it was, but that’s just my opinion. I’ve known one other person who could look as pleased as Punch and be in a perfectly foul temper underneath. I don’t think Mr. Paradine would have given himself away whatever he felt. He didn’t show his feelings—you wouldn’t even know whether he’d got any. He had a very detached, sarcastic manner. But if you want my own personal impressions about him and the family, here they are. I think he was fond of my wife. And I suppose he was fond of his sister—she’d kept house for him for twenty years. But that’s supposition, not impression. I believe he thought a lot of Mark. He’s in the research department, and he’s done very good work. He wanted to go off to the R.A.F. a couple of years ago, and Mr. Paradine went right through the roof. I wasn’t here at the time, but I believe there was an absolutely first-class row. I don’t know what he felt about Dick Paradine. Everyone in the family is rather fond of him, so there’s no reason to suppose Mr. Paradine wasn’t. Then there are Frank and Brenda Ambrose. They’re steps—his wife’s children. He thought a lot of her, and I suppose he thought a lot of them. He settled money on them when they came of age. Frank’s in the business—solid, useful kind of chap, very thorough and methodical. Brenda is a bit odd-man-out in the family—a bit on the downright side.” His laugh informed Miss Silver that this was an understatement.