Patricia Wentworth - Vanishing Point

“That is so. Mr. Lester and I overheard her assuring him that Maggie had gone away because she was bored, and that Miss Holiday had committed suicide. He was uneasy, but only too anxious to be convinced. A weak man, and very much under her influence.”

Frank finished his cup and set it down..

“You know, what got everyone all wrong was the original assumption that the disappearance of Maggie Bell had anything to do with the leakage of information at Dalling Grange. If Maggie hadn’t been working for the Cunninghams, and Nicholas Cunningham had not been employed upon highly confidential work at Dalling, the two things would never have got mixed up. The security people couldn’t get it out of their minds, and it coloured the whole approach. For instance, they investigated Selby and found he had retired from a perfectly respectable garage business in which he and his brother were partners. If they had found out-which they didn’t-that Mrs. Selby’s father used to have a small jeweller’s shop which he left to his daughter, it really wouldn’t have meant anything to them at all, but that is where all the funny business went on. Mrs. Selby didn’t know anything about it-I gather Selby was pretty lordly about her affairs. He picked up a very clever jewel-faker cheap- French Jewish refugee-and they got going on substituting new stones for old. What I want to know is, how did you tumble to it?”

Miss Silver reprehended the expression. A slight cough conveyed the fact. Frank blew her a kiss.

“Apologies and regrets! Evil communications corrupt good manners. My cousin has a lamentable vocabulary. After which honourable amend you will, I am sure, relent and tell me all.”

She smiled with indulgence.

“My dear Frank, you talk very extravagantly. What is it you want to know?”

“How you got on to the jewel business.”

Her needles clicked. She pulled on her cherry-coloured wool.

“It is a little difficult to say. Miss Crewe affected me in a very disagreeable manner. She was closely and curiously linked with the Cunninghams. There had been an engagement between herself and Henry Cunningham. Mrs. Merridew made it clear that he was completely dominated by her. Then a valuable piece of jewelry was missed in circumstances which threw suspicion on Mr. Cunningham, and he lent colour to it by leaving the country. After more than twenty years he returned, a quiet depressed recluse, interested only in natural history. And Lydia Crewe went out of her way to advertize the fact that there was a complete breach between them. She would cut him dead in the street. She did so on the occasion when she came here to tea. Mrs. Merridew was very much distressed about it, and told me that it was her invariable practice. The conversation at tea turned upon Lady Muriel Street having discovered that the stones in a brooch which she had always believed to be valuable were imitations. It was Mrs. Merridew who introduced the subject, but Miss Crewe pursued it in rather a curious manner, instancing a similar discovery on the part of Lady Melbury which need never have been made public if it had not been that Lord Melbury had most indiscreetly talked about it among their friends. She went on to say that if all were known, it would be found that a great deal of historic jewelry had been copied and the originals sold, and that sensible people kept these things to themselves. There was something in the way she spoke which I find difficult to describe, it left a certain impression. Her tone was disagreeably censorious, yet it evinced a kind of pleasure. The subject undoubtedly pleased her. She dwelt upon it. I fancied I could detect some personal pride-I cannot get nearer to it than that.”

He was watching her with interest from between half-closed lids, those light eyes of his intent.

“Yes-go on.”

“When Miss Holiday disappeared, and after the discovery of her body, I went back over these first impressions and found in retrospect that they were considerably intensified. For one thing, it was impossible not to connect this latest disappearance with that of Maggie Bell a year ago. But I could not accept a theory which would link the murder of Miss Holiday with a leakage of military secrets from Dalling Grange.”

“May I ask why?”

She inclined her head.

“I was becoming convinced of a sinister connection between Miss Crewe and the tragic death of Miss Holiday. Miss Cunningham met this poor woman coming away from Crewe House on Sunday evening. You informed me that the police had obtained a statement from a young woman who happened to pass them on her bicycle. She said that one of them dropped a letter and Miss Cunningham picked it up. Miss Cunningham’s explanation was that this letter was one which Miss Holiday pulled out of her overall pocket when she used her handkerchief. Seeing that the envelope had been opened and was addressed to Miss Crewe, she considered that it had been picked up by mistake, and offered, as she was going there, to take it up to Crewe House. In the brief episode the motive for the murder of Miss Holiday became plain. The letter contained something so dangerous to Miss Crewe that she would stick at nothing to ensure that it went no farther. When the murder of Miss Holiday was followed by an attempt upon Miss Cunningham, I felt convinced that Miss Crewe was engaged in something of a criminal nature, and that Miss Cunningham’s life was in serious danger. But I was not prepared to accept any theory which involved Miss Crewe in the sale of secrets to a foreign power.”

Frank Abbott opened his eyes.

“You surprise me.”

Miss Silver’s gaze rested on him in a disappointed manner.

“My dear Frank, you are not really thinking. Miss Crewe is an evil and ruthless woman, but it is never safe to neglect the motives which prompt a criminal. In the case of Lydia Crewe they are not difficult to discern. She has an implacable pride of race, a passion amounting to idolatry for her family, its traditions, its exploits, its accumulated possessions. Since the Crewes were an integral part of the county, and the county an integral part of the nation, she would no more be a party to anything of a treasonable nature than she would neglect to rise to her feet when the National Anthem was played. But in the business of robbing her neighbours she was probably well within the family tradition. History presents one with a continuous picture of the rise and fall of great families-lands lost by adherence to a losing cause-lands acquired at a neighbour’s expense through the chance of being found upon the winning side. I have no doubt that the Crewes had their ups and downs in just such ways as these, and that Miss Crewe’s depredations appeared to her in this guise. Everything fitted into this picture. The complacency which I had observed when she was talking about the jewel robberies, the touch of personal pride, her assumption that the conversion of valuable heirlooms was now widespread-all these things left me in very little doubt as to what had been going on. But it was Miss Cunningham’s danger which made the situation so urgent. After you had left me I became more and more uneasy on her account. In the end I felt impelled to go to the Dower House. I thought I would see if there was a light in her bedroom. Beyond that I had no plan. As you know, I most providentially encountered Mr. Lester, and as we were making our circuit of the house we saw Miss Crewe go in by the secret door.”

He passed a hand over hair already mirror-smooth.

“My dear ma’am, you are always in the right place at the right moment. In fact, the complete reply to that dreary fallacy- ‘Never the time, and the place, and the loved one all together’.”

“My dear Frank-”

He hastened to forestall rebuke.

“Miss Cunningham owes you her life.”