Patricia Wentworth - The Key

‘The black-out isn’t all that good in the study. I don’t say it’s bad, but there’s always places you can see if there’s a light on.’

‘Perhaps he’d gone up to his room.’

His tone was scornful again.

‘Naow! He sits up ever so late, Mr Everton does.’ He looked sideways out of the corners of his eyes.

‘You couldn’t be sure,’ said Miss Silver mildly but firmly.

‘Well then, I could!’ He made a sudden cast with his spear into the garden of Meadowcroft and slid down after it.

As she walked with Miss Fell past the intervening two houses to Pennycott Miss Silver had not a great deal to say. Miss Sophy found her a delightful listener. Scarcely drawing breath, she managed to impart a good deal of information about the Miss Doncasters in the short time at her disposal. It went back to their schooldays, and contained some particulars which interested Miss Silver very much.

‘But of course it all rather faded during the war – the last war – and for some years afterwards. And we all hoped there wouldn’t be any more of it.’

‘And was there?’ said Miss Silver in a most attentive voice.

Miss Sophy stood quite still opposite the Lilacs and said,

‘Oh, yes .’ She leaned towards Miss Silver and fooffled. ‘And when it came to such an inordinate enthusiasm for a housepainter …’

It was some minutes before they resumed their interrupted progress towards Pennycott.

They were admitted by an elderly maid and taken upstairs into what had been the best bedroom, now converted into the drawing-room for the convenience of Miss Mary Anne, who slept in the room behind and could be easily wheeled to and fro. She was there when they came in, propped up by cushions in an invalid chair with rubber tyres.

Miss Sophy made the introductions.

‘My friend Miss Silver. Miss Doncaster – Miss Mary Anne.’

Miss Silver took a seat beside the wheeled chair and remarked that Bourne was a very picturesque village, and that the weather was delightful. As she did so she was observing the two sisters and their surroundings – the overcrowded room, its walls covered with dark oil paintings in the heavy gilt frames of a bygone day, the floor space contracted by a quantity of ugly, useless furniture which must have cost a great deal some hundred years ago. Curtains of maroon velvet obscured the light. An ancient drab carpet could be seen here and there between the chairs, the cabinets, and the tables which were crowded with gimcracks – a family of wooden bears from Berne; frames carved with edelweiss; a miniature Swiss chalet engrained with dust; other frames of tarnished silver holding faded photographs; little boxes in Tunbridge ware; in filigree, in china; a snowstorm in a glass paperweight; an Indian dagger in a tarnished sheath. Family history come down to trifles.

A hideous teaset with a great deal of gilding occupied the mantelpiece, and above it a monstrous overmantel inset with mirror-glass reared itself to the ceiling and reflected a score or so of distorted views of the room.

As a background to the Miss Doncasters nothing could have been more appropriate. She had not been five minutes in their company before she understood why kind Miss Sophy could find no warmer words for either than ‘Poor Lucy Ellen’, and ‘Poor Mary Anne’. There was a strong family resemblance between the sisters, but whereas Lucy Ellen was sharp and ferrety, Mary Anne was heavy and shapeless. Both had sparse grey-white hair and deep lines of discontent.

Without effort on her part Miss Silver found the conversation turning upon Mr Harsch. It was of course the most dramatic thing which had happened in Bourne since Jedediah Pincott ran away with his cousin Ezekiel’s bride twenty-four hours before the wedding and they were both killed in a railway accident, which Bourne considered to be a very proper judgement. It was Miss Mary Anne who introduced the subject of Mr Harsch, greatly to Miss Sophy’s relief as Lucy Ellen was being what she could only call persistent in cross-examining her about Miss Brown. She hastened to join in.

‘I am sure we must all hope that the matter will be cleared up.’

Miss Doncaster gave it as her opinion that it was suicide.

‘I said so from the beginning. The jury said so at the inquest. There was never any doubt about the verdict. As I served on the jury I suppose I may be allowed to know.’

Miss Silver gave a slight cough.

‘Most distressing for all his friends,’ she observed. She inclined an attentive head towards Miss Mary Anne. ‘And is it true that he was engaged upon an invention of some value? How doubly distressing if he was not about to finish it.’

‘Oh, but he was.’

‘Really? How very interesting.’

Miss Mary Anne’s voice did not resemble her sister’s. It was thick and treacly. She said with unction.

‘He finished it that very day – some last experiment, and a complete success. He rang up a Sir George Rendal at the War Office at half-past six on Tuesday evening and arranged for him to come down next day. I heard him with my own ears.’

Miss Silver looked mildly surprised.

‘You heard him?’

Miss Doncaster said sharply,

‘We are on a party line here – you can hear everything. It is most inconvenient.’

Miss Mary Anne went on as if her sister had not spoken.

‘You would be surprised at what you hear – people are most incautious. I had lifted my receiver, and I could hear everything he said. I remember I turned to Frederick Bush who was setting up those shelves in the corner – he does all our odd jobs for us – and I said, “ There – Mr Harsch has finished his invention – isn’t that a good thing? Sir George Rendal will be coming down from the War Office about it tomorrow.” And he said, “Then I expect Mr Harsch’ll be down at the church playing tonight. Last time I saw him he said he’d be down so soon as his work was done.” ’

‘Dear me!’ said Miss Silver.

Miss Doncaster cut in with determination.

‘Which goes to show that he had planned to take his life. Suicide – that’s what I’ve said all along.’

‘Unless there’s something in this story about Mr Madoc,’ said Miss Mary Anne. ‘You know, Sophy, they say that he and Mr Harsch had a quarrel over your Miss Brown.’

Under her best hat Miss Sophy bridled.

‘People will say anything. But there is no need to repeat it, Mary Anne.’

It was perhaps as well that at this moment the door should have opened to admit Mrs Mottram attired in crimson corduroy slacks and a bright blue jumper, her fair hair encircled by a green and orange bandeau. She looked extremely pretty, and when she saw Miss Silver she uttered a scream of joy and addressed her as ‘Angel!’

‘Because she was – she really was,’ she explained. ‘You see, I’d lost – but perhaps I’d better not say what, but it belonged to my mother-in-law, and you know what mothers-in-law are – she’d never have believed I hadn’t sold it, and then there would have been the devil to pay. And this angel got it back for me and practically saved my life.’

She rolled her blue eyes and sat down beside Miss Silver, who patted her hand and said in kind but repressive tones, ‘That will do, my dear – we will say no more about it.’

Fortunately all eyes were on the slacks. Miss Doncaster’s strongly resembled those of a ferret observing a young and incautious rabbit. She said in acid tones, ‘I notice that you have gone out of mourning.’

The blue eyes opened to their fullest extent.

‘Well, I only put it on because of my mother-in-law, and it’s so long-’

‘When I was a girl,’ said Miss Doncaster, ‘the rule for a widow used to be one year of weeds and crêpe, one year of plain black, six months of grey, and black and white, and six months of grey and white, heliotrope, and purple.’