“I don’t quite know. Carr has brought down some manuscripts to read.”
“He looks as if he needed a good long holiday. Then you’ll come to tea this afternoon? I’ll ring Catherine up and ask her too. I want Maud Silver to meet you both.” She leaned closer and said in a throaty whisper, “She’s quite a famous detective.”
Miss Silver was examining the stand of post cards. She looked so much less like a detective than anything Rietta could have imagined that she was startled into saying,
“What does she detect?”
“Crime,” said Mrs. Voycey right into her ear. She then let go of the arm she had been holding and stepped back. “I’ll expect you at half past four. I must really have a word with Mrs. Mayhew.”
Mrs. Mayhew was buying onions, and a stone of potatoes.
“I’m sure I never thought I’d come to having to get either from anywhere else except the garden, but it’s all Mr. Andrews can do to keep the place tidy, and that’s the truth, Mr. Grover-indeed he can’t, and there’s no getting from it. So if Sam can bring them up after school-” She turned, a little meek woman with a plaintive manner, and was immediately cornered by Mrs. Voycey.
“Ah, Mrs. Mayhew-I suppose you’re very busy with Mr. Lessiter back. Quite unexpected, wasn’t it? Only last week I said to the Vicar, ‘There doesn’t seem to be any word of Melling House being opened up again,’ and I said it was a pity. Well, now he’s back I hope he isn’t going to run away again.”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Voycey gave her hearty laugh.
“We must all be very nice to him, and then perhaps he’ll stay.” She came a step nearer and dropped her voice. “Good news of your son, I hope.”
Mrs. Mayhew darted a frightened glance to the right and to the left. It was no good. She was in the angle between the counter and the wall, and get past Mrs. Voycey she couldn’t. Her own tone was almost inaudible as she murmured,
“He’s doing all right.”
Mrs. Voycey patted her kindly on the shoulder.
“I was sure he would-you can tell him I said so. Things are different to what they used to be thirty or forty years ago. There wasn’t any second chance then, whether it was a boy or a girl, but it’s all quite different now. He’ll be coming down to see you, I expect.”
Mrs. Mayhew had turned dreadfully pale. Mrs. Voycey meant well-everyone in Melling knew how kind she was- but Mrs. Mayhew couldn’t bear to talk about Cyril, not right here in the shop with people listening. It made her feel as if she was in a trap and couldn’t get out. And then the little lady who looked like a governess coughed and touched Mrs. Voycey’s arm-“Pray, Cecilia, tell me something about these views. I should like to send a card to my niece, Ethel Burkett”-and she was free. Her heart was beating so hard that it confused her, and she was half-way up the drive before she remembered that she had meant to buy peppermint flavouring.
When the two ladies came out of the shop and were walking home across the Green, Mrs. Voycey said,
“That was Mrs. Mayhew. She and her husband are cook and butler at Melling House. Their son has been a sad trouble to them.”
Miss Silver coughed and said,
“She did not like your talking about him, Cecilia.”
Mrs. Voycey said in her hearty way,
“It’s no good her being so sensitive. Everyone knows, and everyone feels kindly about it and hopes that Cyril has made a fresh start. He was their only one and they spoilt him-a dreadful mistake. Of course it makes it hard for Mrs. Mayhew the Grover boy having turned out so well-that was Mrs. Grover serving Dagmar Ainger at the end of the counter. Allan and Cyril used to be friends. They both took scholarships, and Allan went into Mr. Holderness’s office-a very good opening. But Cyril took a job in London, and that’s what did the mischief. He isn’t a bad boy, but he’s weak and they spoilt him. He ought to have been where he could keep in touch with his home. It’s terribly lonely for boys like that when they first go out into the world, and the only company they can get is just the sort that isn’t likely to do them any good. You know, Maud, I used to be dreadfully disappointed about not having children, and I dare say I missed a great deal, but it’s a tremendous responsibility-isn’t it?”
Miss Silver coughed and said it was.
“Even a satisfactory boy like Allan Grover,” pursued Mrs. Voycey. “Well, I wouldn’t say it to anyone but you, and of course it’s too silly for words, to say nothing of being exceedingly presumptuous-”
“My dear Cecilia!”
“I was really shocked. And I can’t-no, I really can’t believe that she gave him any encouragement. Of course at that age they don’t need any, and she is a very pretty woman-”
“My dear Cecilia!”
Mrs. Voycey nodded.
“Yes-Catherine Welby. Quite too absurd, as I said. It began with his offering to go and put up shelves in her house, and then he said he would plant her bulbs, and she lent him books. And when she wanted to pay him he wouldn’t take a penny, so of course she couldn’t let him go on. He isn’t twenty-one yet, so she is more than old enough to be his mother.”
Miss Silver coughed indulgently.
“Oh, my dear Cecilia, what difference does that make?”
CHAPTER 8
James Lessiter sat back in his chair and looked across the table at Mr. Holderness, who appeared to be considerably perturbed. A flush had risen to the roots of the thick grey hair, deepening his florid complexion to something very near the rich plum-colour achieved by the original founder of the firm, a three-bottle man of the early Georgian period whose portrait hung on the panelling behind him. He stared back at James and said,
“You shock me.”
James Lessiter’s eyebrows rose.
“Do I really? I shouldn’t have thought anyone could practise as a solicitor for getting on for forty years and still retain a faculty for being shocked.”
There was a moment’s silence. The flush faded a little. Mr. Holderness smiled faintly.
“It is difficult to remain completely professional about people when one has known them as long as I have known your family. Your mother was a very old friend, and as to Catherine Welby, I was at her parents’ wedding-”
“And so you would expect me to allow myself to be robbed.”
“My dear James!”
James Lessiter smiled.
“How very much alike everyone is. That is exactly what Rietta said.”
“You have spoken to her about this-distressing suspicion of yours?”
“I told her there were a good many things missing, and that it wouldn’t surprise me to find that Catherine knew where they had gone, and-what they had fetched. Like you, all she could find to say was, ‘My dear James!’ ”
Mr. Holderness laid down the pencil he had been balancing and placed his fingertips together. It was a pose familiar to any client of long standing, and indicated that he was about to counsel moderation.
“I alluded just now to this idea of yours as a distressing suspicion. You cannot wish to precipitate a family scandal upon a mere suspicion.”
“Oh, no.”
“I was sure of it. Your mother was extremely fond of Catherine. If there is no evidence to the contrary, there would be a strong presumption that the furniture at the Gate House was intended to be a gift.”
James continued to smile.
“My mother left Catherine five hundred pounds. By a few strokes of the pen she could have added, ‘and the furniture of the Gate House,’ or words to that effect. Yet she did not do so. If it comes to presumptions, that would be one on the other side. The will never mentions the furniture. Did my mother ever mention it to you?”
“Not precisely.”
“What do you mean by not precisely?”
The fingertips came apart. The pencil was taken up again.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I mentioned it to her.”