The Clock Strikes Twelve (14 page)

In the course of the evening Miss Silver managed to converse with most of the members of the Paradine family. She found Mrs. Ambrose deeply interested in little Roger’s leggings, and consulted with her as to whether they should be left plain or enlivened with stripes of the emerald green. She also exchanged stories of Johnny, Derek and Roger, for anecdotes of Jimmy and little Rena. Irene became quite animated and told her all about not being able to wake Rena last night, and going out to find Dr. Horton, and how angry Frank had been—“Men are so unreasonable.”

Miss Silver replied that they could not be expected to understand a mother’s feelings. After which there was no ice left to break and she was told just how difficult Brenda was, and what a pity Lydia didn’t make up her mind to marry Dicky and settle down in Birleton—it would be so nice to have someone to leave the children with. Even a slight knowledge of Miss Pennington discouraged Miss Silver from believing that this would prove an inducement, but she took care not to say so.

With a little tactful prompting Irene’s tongue flowed on. Miss Paradine was wonderful—“Look how she’s keeping everything together. You wouldn’t think anything dreadful had happened. She has such self-control—I don’t know how she does it. I do envy people who have a lot of self-control. Aunt Grace is wonderful that way. I remember at Phyllida’s wedding, nobody would have guessed that she was simply broken-hearted, only of course she was. I don’t think she would have liked Phyllida marrying anyone, but of course if it had been anyone in Birleton it wouldn’t have been so bad. We used to think it would be so nice if she married Mark. He’s a very distant cousin really—Phyllida is adopted, you know—so it would have been quite all right. But marrying Elliot Wray meant a complete separation for poor Aunt Grace—I don’t wonder she felt dreadful about it. I don’t know what I shall feel like when Rena marries—I don’t like to think about it.”

Miss Silver was soothing on the subject of Rena.

“Of course I like Elliot,” said Irene, “and Phyllida was dreadfully in love with him. You know they are separated. I don’t know what happened—Aunt Grace didn’t talk about it. They were only just back from their honeymoon, and we all thought how happy they were, and then all of a sudden Aunt Grace said Elliot had gone and he wouldn’t be coming back. Poor Phyl looked exactly like a ghost. You can’t think how surprised everyone was when he walked in on Wednesday night just as if nothing had happened.”

“I can well imagine it,” said Miss Silver.

She conversed presently with Phyllida, who told her quite simply that she had come down to the study and talked with her uncle after the others had gone to bed.

“Elliot didn’t want me to tell anyone, but that wouldn’t have been right, would it? It hadn’t anything to do with what my uncle said at dinner. Elliot was afraid the police might think it had. I wanted to see Uncle James about something quite different.”

Miss Silver looked at her kindly.

“That was very natural, Mrs. Wray.”

Phyllida seemed startled.

“But I didn’t tell you—”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You would naturally wish to find out why Mr. Paradine had invited Mr. Wray, and why Mr. Wray had accepted his invitation.”

Phyllida’s colour brightened. She did not quite know what to say. While she hesitated, she met Miss Silver’s gaze. There was something about it which made her feel that it wasn’t any good to pretend or cover things up. She had a feeling of release. You don’t talk about your own very private feelings to strangers. What gave her the feeling of release was the sense that Miss Silver was not a stranger at all. She came in and sat down by your fire and made herself at home, and all as a matter of course. She said,

“I had to talk to someone.”

“And Mr. Paradine was able to help you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Miss Silver had stopped knitting, the needles rested for a moment upon her lap. She said gently,

“I am very glad about that. Misunderstandings should never be permitted to continue.”

“I know. It wasn’t just a misunderstanding.”

Miss Silver smiled. All at once Phyllida felt as if she and Elliot were in the nursery again. They were being told not to quarrel, and they were being encouraged to kiss and be friends. She returned the smile a little shakily, and heard Miss Silver say,

“When you came away from the study, did you see anyone?”

She was taken off her guard. She was thankful that she could say no. Plainly she was startled.

A second question came quickly,

“Or hear anything, Mrs. Wray?”

This time her colour changed. She looked down, she looked distressed. She said in a fluttering voice,

“Oh, no—there wasn’t anything—”

Miss Silver did not press her. She thought there had been something, and she thought that presently she would know what it was.

The men coming in at this moment gave Phyllida a chance of escape. She caught Dicky as he passed, and left him to be talked to, or to talk to Miss Silver. She thought he bore up very well. He rather fancied himself with elderly spinsters, who invariably spoke of him as “that charming boy.” A small cold thought like a snake moved suddenly in the shadows of her mind. A shudder went over her and she looked so white that Miss Paradine threw an anxious glance.

“Come and sit down, darling, and get warm. You’ve been too far from the fire.”

She smiled faintly in reply, but instead of approaching the coffee-tray she crossed to the other side of the hearth and stood there half turned from the room in a graceful bending attitude as if she were warming herself, foot raised to the marble kerb, hand resting lightly on the cold whiteness of the marble slab.

Elliot came over to her, coffee-cup in hand.. He set it down on the mantelpiece and said,

“I want to talk to you.”

The words pushed in over the thought that had robbed her of her colour. They were like someone coming into the room and banging the door. She knew Elliot in this mood. At the moment she found it heartening. Anything is better than being left alone in the dark with a snake. Still looking into the fire, she murmured,

“I don’t see how—”

He took up his cup, drained the black coffee at a draught, and set it down again.

“What’s to stop our walking out of the room together?”

Her colour rose.

“I couldn’t.”

Elliot laughed.

“Afraid of the scandal?”

“I couldn’t. Tomorrow—I’ll find a time tomorrow.”

He said in an angry undertone,

“She’s kept you running all day. It’ll be the same tomorrow, with plenty of the family handy to make sure we don’t get a minute alone.”

Phyllida went on looking into the fire. Elliot was in a very bad temper. Unreasonable to feel a pleasant glow creeping into the cold frightened place where she had been. She didn’t say anything at all. An immemorial instinct prompted the thought that it wouldn’t do Elliot any harm to wait.

Grace Paradine’s voice called her with some insistence.

“Phyl darling?”

This time she went over, her own cup in her hand, and put it down on the massive silver tray.

“Yes, Aunt Grace?”

Miss Paradine beckoned her nearer and spoke low.

“Darling, if you could just keep Brenda with you and away from Irene. Both their nerves are in such a state, and I don’t really feel I can bear much more.”

Impossible to refuse. Impossible to do anything except comply affectionately. She settled down to an evening of innuendo mounting by sharp degrees towards open accusation. Attempts to divert the conversation were useless. Whether you talked about the North Pole, the war in the East, or the latest film, Brenda managed to drag Irene in somehow. It would have been amusing if it had not been frightening. Phyllida began to wonder why Brenda and Irene should be allowed a monopoly of nerves. There was nothing in the world she would have liked better than to slap Brenda’s face and burst into tears. Only of course she couldn’t.

She went on talking about as many different things as she could think of, and Brenda went on talking about Irene.

The drawing-room of the River House was not the only place where Irene was being discussed. Colonel Bostock, relaxing pleasantly in the society of his daughters, tossed a log onto the fire and, still leaning forward, remembered that there was something he had meant to ask them. He addressed himself to Janet, a healthy, well set-up young woman with a pleasant, sensible face.

“Remember the Pennington girls—Irene and, what’s her name, Lydia?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Old Paradine’s dead. One of them married the stepson, didn’t she? What’s his name—Ambrose?”

Alice Bostock said,

“There’ll be pots of money. I wonder if Irene comes in for any of it.”

“She wasn’t the red-headed one, was she?” said Colonel Bostock.

Both girls spoke together.

“Oh, no—that’s Lydia.”

Colonel Bostock leaned back. Contemplating his girls, he felt well content with them. They weren’t beauties, and they wouldn’t set the Thames on fire. They were just decent young women who could work hard and enjoy themselves when they got a holiday—reasonably goodlooking, reasonably intelligent, no kinks, no frills. Janet was the pick of the bunch. Very sensible girl Janet. Alice, a little fairer, a little slighter, not quite so much ballast, but a good girl too. And Milly—Milly took after him, the quickest of the three. Pity she couldn’t get home this time.

He said in rather an abstracted voice,

“Irene—now wasn’t there something about that girl Irene?”

Alice looked at Janet and then looked away again. Neither of the girls said anything.

Colonel Bostock repeated his remark rather more directly.

“There was something about that girl Irene, wasn’t there? You were at school with her, Janet. What was it?”

Janet said, “It’s a long time ago—”

Her father jerked an impatient shoulder.

“I suppose so. You’re twenty-five. She’ll be about your age. There was something about her. What was it? I want to know.”

Janet said reluctantly, “I meant it’s a long time ago—it doesn’t seem fair to rake it up.”

Colonel Bostock’s face displayed a lively interest.

“Rubbish! It either happened or it didn’t happen. If it did, there’ll be dozens of people who can tell me. Do you want me to go round asking them? I’m asking you two. That’s better, isn’t it? Make less talk.”

Janet looked at him seriously.

“It wouldn’t be fair to rake it up—it’s about twelve years ago. And it wasn’t anything really. I mean, nothing happened—Mina wasn’t any the worse.”

Colonel Bostock grunted. He fixed bright sarcastic eyes upon his daughter’s face.

“Nothing happened! Go on—tell me about it!”

“It was Irene’s kitten,” said Alice. “At least it wasn’t really hers—it was a stray. And of course we weren’t allowed to have pets at school, so Irene hid it in the tool-shed.”

“She gave all her pocket money to the garden boy not to tell—the gardener was away ill,” said Janet. “And she saved bits for it in a handkerchief, at lunch and tea, you know.”

“Of course she couldn’t have kept it up, but she was awfully set on that kitten. It was a hideous little thing too.” This was Alice again. “And Mina Cotterell said she was going to tell Miss Graham. She was a perfectly odious girl—we all loathed her. She said she was sure the kitten had fleas.”

“Probably had.”

Alice said, “Oh, well… Anyhow Irene got perfectly wild. I don’t honestly think she knew what she was doing. And she pushed Mina into the river.”

“She wasn’t hurt,” said Janet quickly.

Alice made a face.

“Well, she might have been. It was an awfully dangerous thing to do. You know the bit of the grounds where we weren’t allowed to go—they were definitely out of bounds because of the high bank over the river—well, I don’t know how Irene got Mina to go there with her, but she did, and then she pushed her over.”

Colonel Bostock said, “God bless my soul!” And then after a minute, “Yes, yes—I remember. The Penningtons were in a dreadful way about it. The girl had a narrow escape. Couldn’t swim, could she?”

Janet said,

“No. There was a man fishing, and he got her out. There was a most fearful row. Irene would have been expelled if the Cotterells hadn’t begged her off. It seems Mina had said the kitten would be drowned. I don’t think Irene knew what she was doing. She’s like that, you know—if she’s set on a thing she can’t think about anything else. It was that wretched kitten then. Now it’s the children. She just can’t think or talk about anything else. It’s frightfully boring.”

Colonel Bostock nodded. After a moment he said,

“Well, well, who’d have thought it?” And then, “Better not talk about it. Not to anyone.”

A little later on Superintendent Vyner came up to see his Chief and was had into the study.

“Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but there are one or two points—”

“All right, Vyner, sit down. What is it?”

Vyner sat down, filling the big chair. The light struck sideways on the thick fair hair which was turning grey and the solid bony structure of forehead and chin. His very bright blue eyes had a look between hesitancy and amusement.

“Well, sir, Miss Pennington wasn’t there at the River House this afternoon, and I thought I’d just like to see whether she heard Mrs. Ambrose go out or come in last night. We want to be able to fix the time if we can, so I went to Meadowcroft, found the whole party were at the River House, and went on there.”

“Get anything?”

“Not out of Miss Pennington. But I also saw Mr. Mark Paradine, and he told me he’d called in a private detective.”

Like everyone else to whom this news had been imparted, Colonel Bostock said,

“What!”

“Yes, sir. Did you ever hear of Miss Silver?”

Colonel Bostock said, “God bless my soul! What’s she doing here?”

“You’ve heard about her, sir?”

Colonel Bostock jerked.

“Met young Abbott when he was up for Christmas. Fellow who’s a detective sergeant at the Yard. He’s a cousin of the Abbotts at Huntersgrange. Met him there. He raved about the woman. Funny thing was I’d have bet my boots he wasn’t the sort to rave about anyone. Cocksure young fellow. Cool hand. Brains.”

“Well, sir, she’s done some very remarkable work—I happen to know that. She doesn’t get into the papers, but these things go round. I heard about her first from Superintendent March at Ledlington. He was in on the Poisoned Caterpillars case, and he swears she saved his life.” Vyner laughed. “It’s a queer start, sir—she used to be his governess when he was a kid, and I believe that’s just what she looks like, a little old maid governess. March told me a lot about her. There was the Chinese Shawl business last winter. Then the other day when I was in London I was seeing Detective Inspector Lamb, and he told me about the Vandeleur House murders—that’s where they got that Mrs. Simpson, you remember. Well, he gave Miss Silver the credit for that—fairly handed it to her.”

“Mark Paradine’s called her in?”

“Yes, sir. And the point is, what are we going to do about it? I don’t mind saying that I think she might be very useful. You see, she’s there in the house—called in by Mr. Mark himself—living with the family. It stands to reason she gets an angle that we don’t get—a kind of a personal angle, if you take me, sir. And that’s just what she’s good at according to Lamb. He says people talk to her, and she’s a wonder at sizing them up. There’s no doubt people do talk freer to someone who isn’t in the police, and she’s not tied up with rules like we are either.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Well, sir, I’d suggest that we let her see the statements. Lamb says she can be trusted not to give anything away.”

“Some women can.”

“Yes, sir. March and Lamb both say she’s as safe as houses, so with your permission—”

Colonel Bostock jerked his shoulder.

“Oh, have her in, have her in! Tell you what, Vyner, it’s a damned awkward case—damned awkward. Look here, it isn’t fair to keep you in the dark. I told you there was something about that girl Irene. Well, here it is.”