Mrs. Bridling was mixing cocoa in a cup and being very careful about it, because Mr. Bridling was most particular in the matter of lumps and grit, and if there was one thing that roused her, it was for him to tell her that she couldn’t make cocoa like his mother did.
“That’s right,” she said. “Well, this Mr. Abbott-Inspector Abbott-he goes off, and the other Inspector. And Captain Taverner and Miss Heron, they go off in his car, and not back till just on seven. And that’s the lot of them, except for Eily.”
“What about Eily?”
Mrs. Bridling began pouring boiling water very carefully and stirring all the time.
“By the look of her she’d been crying her eyes out. ‘I can’t leave Aunt Annie,’ she says. And John Higgins wanting her to marry him right away.”
Mr. Bridling had his eye on the cocoa.
“Marriages and murders don’t agree,” he said sententiously. “That’s enough hot water, Emily. Don’t drown it.”
CHAPTER 24
On Monday morning Jeremy drove Jane up to town. At half past nine she was going in at the side door of Clarissa Harlowe’s dress shop. Jeremy was about to drive off again, when he noticed that his off-side front tyre was flatter than it ought to be. He discovered that he had picked up a nail, and set to work to change the wheel.
He had just about finished, when Clarissa Harlowe’s side door opened again and Jane came out. She had a bright colour and she was walking fast. She got into the car, sat down, and said crisply,
“I’ve got the sack.”
Jeremy whistled and said, “Why?”
Jane looked at him angrily.
“Murder is quite the wrong sort of publicity,” she said.
He whistled again.
“Why did you tell her?”
“There’s going to be an inquest, isn’t there, and I’ve got to go down for it-and there are newspapers and reporters and things. Of course I had to tell her. And for goodness’ sake let’s get away! I never want to see the place again!”
Jeremy got in, banged the door, and said cheerfully,
“Let’s go round to the flat and get something to eat. You’ll feel a lot better after a cup of something hot.”
This, though infuriating, was true. At the time it merely brightened Jane’s eyes and made her colour rise alarmingly, but after her second cup of coffee she relaxed sufficiently to discuss the future.
“I’ll take the week off and get through with this blasted inquest, and then I’ll hunt another job. I did hold my tongue, so she may give me a reference.”
“She’s bound to, isn’t she?”
Jane looked coldly at him.
“There are references and references. How many jobs do you suppose I should get if she were to say, ‘Jane Heron? Oh, no, I’ve nothing against her. It’s just rather a pity she got mixed up in that murder case’?”
“She wouldn’t play a dirty trick like that.”
Jane laughed without amusement.
“Let’s say, ‘I hope she won’t.’ That’s about as far as it will stretch.”
There was a pause. Then he said,
“I want to go back to the Catherine-Wheel.”
Her answer was unexpected.
“So do I.”
“All right then-we’ll go.”
“There’s the inquest, and Eily, and-well, it’s horrid, but it’s interesting.”
Jeremy laughed.
“You needn’t give your reasons. I’m not giving mine.”
“Have you got any?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What are they?”
“I’m not giving them.”
Down at the Catherine-Wheel Inspector Crisp was acquainting Miss Silver with the police surgeon’s report.
“You see he says that the man had taken a considerable quantity of alcohol. Now you had the opportunity of observing Luke White-he was in the lounge, wasn’t he, most of the time that you were?”
They were in the office. A nice snug fire was burning, Frank Abbott, who had a way with fires, having coaxed it from a reluctant smoulder to its present cheerful state. That he had done so without in any way impairing his customary air of having just emerged from a glass case had an irritating effect upon Inspector Crisp. It sharpened his voice a little as he enquired,
“You were in the lounge with him for about an hour and a half. Did he appear to have been drinking then?”
Miss Silver gazed thoughtfully down at the wide blue flounce to which little Josephine’s woolly dress had now been advanced. Another two inches, and she would be able to make the sharp decrease which would impart a gathered effect to the skirt before beginning upon the tight plain bodice. She might have been considering how many more rows it would take to finish the skirt, or she might not. She kept Inspector Crisp waiting long enough to start him tapping on the table with his pencil. Then she raised her eyes to his face and gave him a quiet,
“No.”
Crisp tapped. She could speak plenty when she liked. Now, when he could have done with a few more words, she seemed to have run out of them.
“He let you in, didn’t he? Did he smell of drink then?”
Miss Silver repeated the irritating monosyllable.
“No.”
“When did you see him last?”
She seemed to consider this too.
“It would be just before half past ten, when I went up to my room.”
“He didn’t seem to have been drinking then?”
Miss Silver produced another “No.”
Crisp tapped.
“Well, some time between then and the time he was killed he must have put away quite a lot. Castell ought to know something about that. We’ll have him in.”
He went out through the door on the kitchen side.
Frank Abbott, who had been standing in a lounging attitude beside the fire looking down into it as if admiring his own handiwork, now shifted his cool gaze to Miss Silver and said,
“What are you up to?”
“My dear Frank!”
“Yes, I know, I know, but you can’t put it across with me.”
Without attempting any further reproof she said very composedly,
“There are some interesting points about this case.”
“As what?”
“The attempt to implicate John Higgins.”
“Attempt?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Do you believe that he returned nearly two hours after he had said good-night to Eily, and that having drawn attention to himself by whistling his customary tune under Miss Heron’s window, he induced Eily to let him in, that he then deliberately selected a knife from the trophy in the dining-room and killed Luke White in the most public place in the house?”
Frank’s fair eyebrows rose.
“Is that how it strikes you?”
“Undoubtedly.”
He said, “Well, well-” And then, “You said, ‘under Miss Heron’s window.’ Did you mean anything by that?”
Her needles clicked.
“Oh, yes. The person who whistled under Miss Heron’s window knew that Eily was there.”
“If you say that to Crisp, it will go down to John Higgins’ account. He’s pretty sure he did it, you know.”
“My dear Frank!”
“You’re quite sure he didn’t?”
She smiled.
“He was telling the truth.”
“Then-”
“Someone in the house must have known that Eily had left her own room and gone to Miss Heron’s. If we can find that person we shall, I think, have found the murderer-or, at the very least, someone deeply implicated in the murder.”
“And who, do you suppose, could have known that Eily was in Jane Heron’s room?”
She said thoughtfully,
“Almost anyone. Her room, as you know, looks out at the back, and is on the opposite side of the house from Miss Heron’s. It is, in fact, the corner room at the end of the opposite corridor. There is only one other bedroom opening on to the back from that corridor. It is next to the landing, and is occupied by Mr. Jacob Taverner, the intervening space being taken up by the back stairs, linen-room, and lavatory. On the same corridor, looking to the front, are the rooms occupied by the Castells and Mr. Geoffrey Taverner. There is also a bathroom, and a large housemaid’s cupboard. Mr. Taverner might possibly have overheard Eily’s conversation with John Higgins if he had opened his window and leaned right out, but I do not regard this as at all likely. The linen-room window is not conveniently accessible, nor is that which lights the back stairs, but the lavatory window, which is next to Eily’s room, would be very convenient indeed. Castell says in his statement that he did in fact hear someone come along the road and go round to the back, and that he went across to the lavatory and looked out of the window. He says he heard someone come along whistling Greenland’s Icy Mountains, and that he then went back to bed because he knew it was only John Higgins come to have a few words with Eily. Castell was, I think, a little too anxious to inform the police that John Higgins had been out to the Catherine-Wheel that night. We have only his own word for it that he went back to bed without listening to the conversation between him and Eily. He could very easily have done so. On the other hand, Mr. Jacob Taverner or Mr. Geoffrey Taverner might also have done so.”