Patricia Wentworth - Lonesome Road

Rachel got up. Her face was very pale and her eyes bright.

“No, I won’t have the police brought into it,” she said.

“Miss Treherne, the attempt was a very dangerous one. If it had not been for Mr. Brandon’s presence of mind it would have been successful, and I should now be waiting here to give evidence at an inquest. I urge you to inform the police without delay.”

Rachel walked to the window and stood there.

“I won’t do it.” After a short silence she turned round. “Miss Silver, how can I? If there were nothing else, think of the talk-local at first, then spreading until it got into the papers. Haven’t you enough imagination to see the headlines? I have. Everyone- would be brought into it, everyone’s affairs ferreted out-Cherry’s flirtations- Maurice’s crazy politics-any stupidity which any of us may have tumbled into-any debt-any folly however light, however irrelevant. You know as well as I do they’d all be whipped to a froth and served up to tickle the taste for scandal. That’s what we’d get if we called in the police. And there would be worse than that, because all those other things would come out, and they would arrest Louisa- they’d have to. You must see that I can’t possibly have the police brought into this.”

“Miss Treherne-”

Rachel was no longer pale. Her cheeks flamed.

“Miss Silver, I give you fair warning-if the police are brought in, I shall deny the whole thing! I shall say that I fell. No one will be in a position to contradict me except- except the person who pushed me over, and-and-that’s not a very likely thing to happen, is it?”

Miss Silver said “No-” in a meditative tone. After a slight pause she continued briskly. “Well, I have done my duty. I would like further to urge upon you that you should immediately protect yourself by destroying your existing will and making a new one, the provisions of which you would keep to yourself. This accomplished, and an announcement made to that effect, your life would, I think, be safe, because the person who has attempted it could not be sure of having escaped suspicion, and would be unlikely to incur a fresh risk until the terms of the new will had transpired.”

“That is what you said before-in London -when I came to see you.”

“And I say it again. It is good advice.”

Rachel crossed the room. When she came to the door which led into her bedroom she leaned against it. It was as if she could not go any farther. She kept hold of the half turned handle and breathed deeply. The she said,

“I can’t take it-I can’t. I told you why. They’re my people. They’re all I’ve got. I love some of them-very much. I owe something to all of them-because we are a family. I can’t just-save myself and leave them all- under suspicion. If I took your-good advise, there would never be any love or confidence again-there couldn’t be. I don’t feel as if I could live like that. I want to live-very much. But it’s too big a price-I can’t pay it. I must know the truth. I must know whom I can trust and whom I can love. I’ll take any risk to find that out.”

She straightened up and looked blindly and piteously at Miss Silver.

“Find out,” she said.

About a quarter of an hour later Miss Silver emerged from her own room and descended the stairs. There was no one in the hall, but just as she arrived on the bottom step Gladys ran out of the study.

“Oh, miss,” she said, “you’re wanted on the telephone. It’s a London call.”

Miss Silver did not hurry. She said, “Oh, thank you,” and then, “Will you just show me-” And when they were both in the study and she found that is was empty, she said in the voice which was so exactly that of a retired governess, “The call will not keep me for more than three minutes. There is something I want to ask you about. I wonder if you would be so kind as to go to my room and wait for me there.”

The call took its allotted three minutes and no more. Miss Silver’s remarks were few and cryptic. She said, “Speaking,” and then, “You have asked them all?” And at the end, “Yes, it is what I expected. Thank you. Goodbye.” After which she hung up the receiver and went upstairs again.

She found Gladys standing by the window, a pretty, serious-looking girl with a bright color and rather a nervous manner. She turned round now, fingering her apron.

“It’s Ivy does these upstairs rooms.”

Miss Silver smiled agreeably.

“And very nicely, I am sure. But it was you that I wanted to speak to. I have Miss Treherne’s permission to ask you one or two questions. The fact is, someone played a stupid trick on her last night-a very stupid, startling trick-and I am wondering whether you can help us to find out who it was.”

“Me, miss?”

“Yes, Gladys. Just answer me quite truthfully, and no one will blame you if you did slip out with Mr. Frith’s letter.”

The bright color became a number of shades brighter.

“Oh, miss!”

Miss Silver nodded gently.

“You did, didn’t you? Frith rang the study bell at half past five and gave you a letter for the post in case anyone was going out, and I expect you thought, ‘Now why shouldn’t I go out?’ That was it, was it not?”

“There wasn’t any harm-not when he asked me.”

“And I daresay you have a friend who comes up on the chance of your being able to slip out.”

The color faded.

“I don’t know who’s been telling tales. I’m sure I’ve done no harm.”

“I am sure you have not. You see, I want you to help me. Miss Treherne would like to know who played this trick on her, and I thought if you were out you might have noticed if there was anyone about. What time was it when you went out?”

“It was half past five when Mr. Frith rang. I just went up for my coat and slipped out through the garage so as no one would see me. Not that there was any harm, but some of them-well, they tease me about Tom.”

“How long were you out?”

“The garage clock struck six as I come in.”

“Did you see anyone-meet anyone?”

“I went down to the post-box-it’s just outside the gate-and, well, Tom happened to be there, and we were talking for a bit, and then he said he was pushed for time and couldn’t come up to the house with me, so he went off on his motor-bike. He works in a garage in Ledlington.”

“Now, Gladys, where does the cliff path come in? Because that’s what I want to know about.”

“Well, the real path comes in just a bit down the road from the gate, but anyone that was coming to the house, they wouldn’t come down on to the road at all. They’d take the garden gate up by the garage and come in that way right off the cliff.”

Miss Silver said, “I see-” And then, “You haven’t told me whether you saw anyone. Did you?”

Glayds looked down and fidgeted with her apron.

“It was a lot too dark to see anyone.”

“But you met someone?”

“Not to say met.”

Miss Silver looked at her sharply.

“You did not see anyone, and you did not meet anyone. But there was someone all the same.”

“Only Miss Caroline.”

“What was she doing?”

“Coming in off the cliff.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then how do you know it was Miss Caroline?”

Gladys stood looking down at the hands that were twisting her apron.

“Come now, it was dark-you couldn’t tell one person from another. You couldn’t be sure that it was Miss Caroline. ”

Gladys’s head came up. Her eyes were wet and angry.

“Well then, I could! It was Miss Caroline all right, because I could hear her talking.”

“Talking? To whom?”