She looked at him admiringly.
“How clever you are!”
Was there the faintest flavour of mockery behind the words? Frank was never sure.
What March thought he kept to himself. He disliked the whole business, and even as he proceeded with it he wondered why he had conceded so much to arguments which his reason derided. Not that he was beyond his duty if he confronted any or every person present in the house on the night of Henry Clayton’s death with a letter which might be, however remotely, connected with it. But his mind informed him with unsparing clarity that all he now said and did was tinged with theories which he neither accepted nor shared. In other words, Miss Silver was using him, and he was allowing himself to be used. The position irked him beyond measure. What he was doing was all right. The way in which he was doing it would have been all right if it had been his own way, but it wasn’t. He could neither rid himself of his task nor accomplish it to his liking. All he could do was to pursue it with increasing reluctance. Behind everything else there was a compelling determination to have done with the matter once and for all, leaving no possible avenue through which any fresh pressure could be brought to bear.
With these things present in his mind he looked straight into Miss Day’s attractive eyes and said,
“Did you write this letter?”
The eyes flashed, the hand on the table edge tightened, the voice rang clear with anger.
“Of course not!”
Well, no one could say that it hadn’t been put to her, and no one could say that her reaction was anything but what was to be expected from an innocent woman. If there had been no flash and no anger, he might have begun to believe what he didn’t believe. But if he had a right to suggest that she had been Henry Clayton’s mistress, and perhaps his murderess too, then an innocent young woman had just as much right to be angry. He said,
“You know, I have to ask these questions. You were in the house when Clayton was murdered.”
There was a bright patch of colour in either cheek. The eyes were bright too. Anger does not become everyone, but it became Miss Lona Day, who was certainly very angry. She said in a low, ringing voice,
“I was in the house with a man whose love affairs were notorious, and so-I had an affair with him! I was looking after two very sick people at the time, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep me out of mischief! I was in the house at the time he was murdered, so I suppose I murdered him!”
Miss Silver looked quietly across her clicking needles and said,
“Yes.”
Miss Day cried out sharply. She burst into hysterical sobbing.
“Oh! How dare you-how dare you?” She turned swimming eyes upon March. “Oh, she hasn’t any right to say a thing like that!”
March was very much of that opinion himself. He found the situation awkward and unprecedented.
Miss Day continued to sob with a good deal of energy. Between the sobs she could be heard demanding what Miss Silver was doing there, and who she was anyhow-saying things like that about a nurse with her living to earn.
Frank Abbott noted sardonically that a good many layers of social veneer had come off with the tears. Or were there any tears? There was a handkerchief dabbed or pressed against the eyes, and the eyes were certainly very bright, but he felt some scepticism as to their being wet. At the moment they were fixed upon March as if he were her only hope on earth.
“Superintendent-I haven’t got to listen to her, have I?”
He said in a grave, reluctant voice, “I think you had better hear what she has to say.” He turned to Miss Silver. “I think you must explain or substantiate what you have just said.”
Miss Silver had continued to knit. There were now several rows of dark grey stitches on her needles. She met his severe regard with a placid one, and replied,
“It was an expression of my personal opinion. Miss Day made a statement in sarcasm. In sober earnest I agreed with her.”
There was a short electric silence. Then Miss Silver added in the same equable tone of voice,
“Does Miss Day wish us to understand that she did not murder Mr. Clayton?”
Lona sprang to her feet. Her sobs had ceased. She looked only to March, spoke only to him.
“I have never been so insulted in my life! I came to this house more than three years ago to nurse a sick old woman and a badly wounded man. I have done the best for them that I could. I think I may say that I have earned the respect and affection of everyone in this house. I hardly knew Mr. Clayton. It is wicked to suggest that I had anything to do with his death. She has no right to accuse me and to leave it at that. I could bring an action against her for taking away my character. She ought to be made to prove what she says, and if she can’t do it she ought to give me a written apology. My character is my living, and I have a right to protect it.”
March considered that the proceedings had now reached the border-line of nightmare. Miss Day was in her rights, and Miss Silver as badly in the wrong as if she had been tattling sixteen instead of sober sixty. That she could not substantiate her accusation he knew. That she should make an accusation which she could not substantiate staggered him.
Whilst Frank Abbott leaned back in his chair and put his money on Maudie, March said,
“Miss Silver-”
She gave her slight cough.
“Do I understand that Miss Day proposes to sue me for slander? It should prove a most interesting case.”
March regarded her sternly, but she looked, not at him, but at Miss Lona Day, and just for a moment she saw what she was looking for-not anger, for that had been most patently displayed-not fear, for she had never expected fear-but something which it is difficult to put into words. Hate comes nearest-with the driving power of a formidable will behind it. It was like the momentary flash of steel from a velvet sheath, and it was instantly controlled.
Miss Silver continued to look, and saw now only what the other two could see, a pale insulted woman defending herself.
Lona Day stepped back from the table.
“If she has anything to say, why doesn’t she say it? If she hasn’t, I should like to go to my room. And I shall ask Captain Pilgrim if he wishes me to be insulted like this in his house.”
March addressed Miss Silver.
“Have you anything to say?”
Over the clicking needles she gave him a faint, restrained smile.
“No, thank you, Superintendent.”
Lona Day walked to the door and made an exit which was not without dignity.
Miss Silver got to her feet with no haste. She appeared to be unaware of the disapproval which now filled the room like a fog. She met her former pupil’s gloomy gaze with unruffled mien, and said cheerfully.
“Do you think she will bring an action, Randall? I do not. But it would be extremely interesting if she did.”
Frank Abbott put up a hand to cover his mouth. He heard March say, “What on earth possessed you?” and Miss Silver answer, “A desire to experiment, my dear Randall.”
“You can’t bring charges of that sort without a shred of evidence!”
Miss Silver smiled.
“She does not know whether I have any evidence or not. The more she thinks about it, the less secure she will feel. It takes a clear conscience to support an accusation of murder.”
March said with real anger,
“You cannot accuse a woman of murder without one shred of evidence, and in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against another person! There is only one murderer in this case, and that is Alfred Robbins.”
As he spoke, the door opened, disclosing Judy Elliot. She had a bright patch of colour on either cheek. Her voice hurried and shook. She said,
“Please, will you see Miss Mabel Robbins?”
chapter 41
There was one of those crowded silences. Four people’s thoughts, shocked into immediate and vital activity, met and clashed there. Then Judy moved, and there came past her into the room a tall, dark girl in a fur coat with a small black hat tilted at a becoming angle. The coat was squirrel, the hat undeniably smart, and the girl would have been very pretty indeed if she had not been so dreadfully pale. She came straight up to Frank Abbott, put out both hands to him, and said,