‘Oh, yes, indeed. But I am just wondering whether you are too tired to give me the opportunity of talking to you for a little.’
Colour came into Candida’s face. She had a quick realisation that the pressure of her own thoughts was no longer to be endured. With Stephen gone, there was no one to whom she could unburden herself – unless it was to this stranger. She said,
‘No, no, of course not. It was so very good of you to come. I wouldn’t have asked you, but Stephen just did it. He said I couldn’t stay here alone – it would make talk. You see, none of us knew what Aunt Olivia was going to do until she had done it. At least Joseph and Anna must have known, but she kept Anna in her room packing up her things, and she took Joseph with her. It wasn’t until after five o’clock that we knew she had gone. Joseph took the cases down. Then he brought the car round to the side door and picked her up. Anna had been forbidden to say anything until they had gone. I didn’t know what I ought to do. If Aunt Olivia felt she couldn’t stay on in the same house as me, then I was the one who ought to have gone. I tried to get on to Stephen, but he wasn’t back. Derek said he wouldn’t stay if I went. You see, Aunt Olivia was saying all sorts of things about both of us, and there are a lot of valuable things in the house. He said we ought to ring up the police and ask them what to do about it, so we did, and the Inspector said I ought to stay. And then I got on to Stephen, and he said he would ask you to come.’
Miss Silver had seated herself. Candida took the chair on the other side of the fire and leaned forward.
‘Stephen says you know a good deal already – about my aunts, and Alan Thompson, and everything. It all seems to go a long way back.’
Miss Silver had taken up her knitting. A grey stocking depended from the needles. It was the last of the set, and it was nearly finished. She said,
‘It is always difficult to know where things begin. There are causes which lie a very long way back. There are jealousies, resentments, hatreds, which have their roots in the remote past.’
Something in Candida answered this. It was like the string of a musical instrument which trembles in response to a distant note. She said, ‘Yes,’ and found what so many had found, that it was easier to talk to Miss Silver than it was to hold things back. She told her about Barbara, about coming here to stay, about meeting Stephen again – ‘You know, he really did save my life once long ago.’ And so on, through the time of her visit down to the last few days.
Miss Silver sat there and knitted. Sometimes she asked a question, but for the most part she was silent. Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard, a devoted admirer, has said of her that ‘she knows people’. He has also observed that as far as she is concerned the human race is glass-fronted – ‘She sees right through them.’ But then it is, of course, notorious that he sometimes indulges himself in an extravagant way of speaking. Certainly it was not only Candida’s words which received attention, but every change in her expression, every inflection of her voice, every variation in the manner in which certain names were pronounced were subjected to the same clear scrutiny.
The scene outside Miss Cara’s door after the return from the Deanery party was gone over with the closest interest. Candida spoke quite steadily.
‘Anna says Aunt Olivia won’t ever let anyone talk about Aunt Cara being ill, but I didn’t know that. I really did think she was ill, and I was worried, and I said so. That was when she – struck me.’
Miss Silver had not been unaware of the slight remaining traces of that blow. She said, ‘Dear me!’
Candida went on.
‘She hates me, you know, but even so, I think she must be mad. She has told Inspector Rock that she struck me because I said Aunt Cara was old and would die soon anyhow. She must be mad to say a thing like that, even if she does hate me.’
‘Why should she hate you, my dear?’
‘Because of Underhill and the money. Aunt Cara told me about a dreadful thing she said when her sister Candida died -she was my grandmother, and I was called after her. She died about the same time as their father, and when the lawyer told Aunt Olivia that my grandmother’s children would have everything after Aunt Cara she said that Candida was dead and she hoped her children would die too, and then she would come into her own.’
‘That was a dreadful thing to say.’
‘Aunt Cara cried about it. You know, they looked so much alike, but they weren’t really. Aunt Cara was just a frightened little thing – she had been bullied all her life. But she was kind, and deep down inside her she wanted someone to be fond of. She was dreadfully unhappy about Alan Thompson. You know about him, don’t you?’
Miss Silver might have said a good deal upon this point, but she contented herself with a simple, ‘Yes.’
Candida went on telling her things – Nellie waking up with a cold hand touching her face and something that went crying through the room.
‘And she wouldn’t stay after that. She went in with Anna for the night, and she was off in the morning. But it was only poor Aunt Cara walking in her sleep – I’m sure about that. I asked Anna, but she wouldn’t really say. Sometimes she talks a lot – sometimes she won’t talk at all. When she won’t talk, it’s because there is something she is afraid about. She really is afraid of Aunt Olivia, you know, even after being with her all these years. The last thing she wanted was for Nellie to go, but she was afraid of telling her that the crying thing was just Aunt Cara wandering about in an unhappy dream.’
Miss Silver’s needles moved rhythmically. She wore the dark blue crêpe-de-chine and her bog-oak brooch in the form of a rose with an Irish pearl at its heart. Her small, neat features expressed a high degree of interest. Candida no longer found it possible to think of her as a stranger. She imparted a sense of kindness, security and common sense not often to be found outside the family circle. The frankness of speech which is natural there seemed natural now. The strain which the day had brought was relaxed. It was quite easy to tell her things. She went on.
‘You know, I think the reason Anna was afraid was that she knew Nellie had locked her door, so if Aunt Cara had come in, it must have been by some other way. The walls in the old part of the house are very thick. I think there may be passages, and that Aunt Olivia would be very angry if anyone got to know about them. I know there is one in my room.’
If Miss Silver was startled she did not allow it to appear.
She went on knitting as she enquired,
‘And how do you know that?’
‘Someone came through my room in the middle of the night. I saw a crack of light where the bookcase is. There’s a door there, but I haven’t been able to find out how to open it. When I saw the light I pretended to be asleep – it was rather startling, you know – and someone came through the room and out by the door.’
‘Was it Miss Cara?’
‘I don’t know. Sometimes I think it was, and sometimes I think it couldn’t have been – because of my being so frightened. I was, you know.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘It was quite a startling occurrence.’
Candida flushed.
‘It was horrid,’ she said. ‘But if it had been Aunt Cara, I don’t think I should have minded like I did. And whoever it was wasn’t sleep-walking. It had a torch.’
Miss Silver looked a mild enquiry.
‘You do not say she.’
Candida’s colour brightened.
‘I thought about its being Joseph, and that made me so angry that I went after it. But I was too late – whoever it was had gone.’
Miss Silver said in a thoughtful voice,
‘Why should anyone who was not sleep-walking have taken the risk of passing through your room?’
‘I wondered if they knew just where the passage would come out. I thought if it was someone who was exploring – ’