Elizabeth George - A Moment On the Edge - 100 Years of Crime Stories By Women

It was the first time I’d heard Silver Stick’s voice at close quarters.

It was a pleasant voice, deep but clear, like the sea in a cave. He was standing there in his rough tweed jacket and cap with earflaps only a few yards away from me. Square Bear stood behind him, looking anxious, neck muffled in a woolen scarf. I considered, looked up at the roof again and down to my feet.

“Yes, it must have been about here.”

“Holmes, don’t you think we should ask this little girl’s mother?

She might…”

“My mother wasn’t there. I was.”

Perhaps I’d learnt something already about taking the center of the stage. The thought came to me that it would be a great thing if he bowed to me, as he’d bowed to her.

“Quite so.”

He didn’t bow, but he seemed pleased.

“You see, Watson, Miss Jessica isn’t in the least hysterical about it, are you?”

I saw that he meant that as a compliment, so I gave him the little inclination of the head that I’d been practicing in front of the mirror when Amanda wasn’t looking. He smiled, and there was more warmth in the smile than seemed likely from the height and sharpness of him.

“I take it that you have no objection to talking about what you saw.”

I said graciously: “Not in the very least.” Then honesty compelled me to spoil it by adding, “Only I didn’t see very much.”

“It’s not how much you saw, but how clearly you saw it. I wonder if you’d kindly tell Dr. Watson and me exactly what you saw, in as much detail as you can remember.”

The voice was gentle, but there was no gentleness in the dark eyes fixed on me. I don’t mean they were hard or cruel, simply that emotion of any sort had no more part in them than in the lens of a camera or telescope. They gave me an odd feeling, not fear exactly, but as if I’d become real in a way I hadn’t quite been before. I knew that being clear about what I’d seen that day a year ago mattered more than anything I’d ever done. I closed my eyes and thought hard.

“I was standing just here. I was waiting for Mother and Amanda because we were going out for a walk and Amanda had lost one of her fur gloves as usual. I saw him falling, then he hit the roof over the dining room and came sliding down it. The snow started moving as well, so he came down with the snow. He landed just over there, where that chair is, and all the rest of the snow came down on top of him, so you could only see his arm sticking out. The arm wasn’t moving, but I didn’t know he was dead. A lot of people came running and started pushing the snow away from him, then somebody said I shouldn’t be there so they took me away to find Mother, so I wasn’t there when they got the snow off him.”

I stopped, short of breath. Square Bear was looking ill at ease and pitying but Silver Stick’s eyes hadn’t changed.

“When you were waiting for your mother and sister, which way were you facing?”

“The rink. I was watching the skaters.”

“Quite so. That meant you were facing away from the hotel.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you saw the man falling?”

“Yes.”

“What made you turn round?”

I’d no doubt about that. It was the part of my story that everybody had been most concerned with at the time.

“He shouted.”

“Shouted what?”

“Shouted ‘No.’”

“When did he shout it?”

I hesitated. Nobody had asked me that before because the answer was obvious.

“When he fell.”

“Of course, but at what point during his fall? I take it that it was before he landed on the roof over the dining room or you wouldn’t have turned round in time to see it.”

“Yes.”

“And you turned round in time to see him in the air and falling?”

“Holmes, I don’t think you should…”

“Oh, do be quiet, Watson. Well, Miss Jessica?”

“Yes, he was in the air and falling.”

“And he’d already screamed by then. So at what point did he scream?”

I wanted to be clever and grown-up, to make him think well of me.

“I suppose it was when she pushed him out of the window.”

It was Square Bear’s face that showed most emotion. He screwed up his eyes, went red, and made little imploring signs with his fur-mittened hands, causing him to look more bear-like than ever. This time the protest was not at his friend, but at me. Silver Stick put up a hand to stop him saying anything, but his face had changed too, with a sharp V on the forehead. The voice was a shade less gentle.

“When who pushed him out of the window?”

“His wife, Mrs. McEvoy.”

I wondered whether to add, “The woman you bowed to last night,” but decided against it.

“Did you see her push him?”

“No.”

“Did you see Mrs. McEvoy at the window?”

“No.”

“And yet you tell me that Mrs. McEvoy pushed her husband out of the window. Why?”

“Everybody knows she did.”

I knew from the expression on Square Bear’s face that I’d gone badly wrong, but couldn’t see where. He, kindly man, must have guessed that because he started trying to explain to me.

“You see, my dear, after many years with my good friend Mr.

Holmes…”

Yet again he was waved into silence.

“Miss Jessica, Dr. Watson means well but I hope he will permit me to speak for myself. It’s a fallacy to believe that age in itself brings wisdom, but one thing it infallibly brings is experience. Will you permit me, from my experience if not from my wisdom, to offer you a little advice?”

I nodded, not gracious now, just awed.

“Then my advice is this: always remember that what everybody knows, nobody knows.”

He used that voice like a skater uses his weight on the blade to skim or turn.

“You say everybody knows that Mrs. McEvoy pushed her husband out of the window. As far as I know you are the only person in the world who saw Mr. McEvoy fall. And yet, as you’ve told me, you did not see Mrs. McEvoy push him. So who is this ‘everybody’ who can claim such certainty about an event which, as far as we know, nobody witnessed?”

It’s miserable not knowing answers. What is nineteen times three?

What is the past participle of the verb faire ? I wanted to live up to him, but unwittingly he’d pressed the button that brought on the panic of the schoolroom. I blurted out: “He was very rich and she didn’t love him, and now she’s very rich and can do what she likes.”

Again the bear’s fur mitts went up, scrabbling the air. Again he was disregarded.

“So Mrs. McEvoy is rich and can do what she likes? Does it strike you that she’s happy?”

“Holmes, how can a child know…?”

I thought of the gypsy music, the gleaming dark fur, the pearls in her hair. I found myself shaking my head.

“No. And yet she comes here again, exactly a year after her husband died, the very place in the world that you’d expect her to avoid at all costs. She comes here knowing what people are saying about her, making sure everybody has a chance to see her, holding her head high. Have you any idea what that must do to a woman?”

This time Square Bear really did protest and went on protesting.

How could he expect a child to know about the feelings of a mature woman? How could I be blamed for repeating the gossip of my elders? Really, Holmes, it was too much. This time too Silver Stick seemed to agree with him. He smoothed out the V shape in his forehead and apologized.

“Let us, if we may, return to the surer ground of what you actually saw. I take it that the hotel has not been rebuilt in any way since last year.”

I turned again to look at the back of the hotel. As far as I could see, it was just as it had been, the glass doors leading from the dining room and breakfast room onto the terrace, a tiled sloping roof above them. Then, joined onto the roof, the three main guest floors of the hotel. The top two floors were the ones that most people took because they had wrought-iron balconies where, on sunny days, you could stand to look at the mountains. Below them were the smaller rooms.