Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

She stood quite still and looked at him, face colourless, eyes dark and wide. After a moment she said in a quivering voice,

“Why do you all hate me? Why do you want me to go?”

His hands came down on her shoulders.

“Isn’t hate a good enough reason in itself? Why, what more do you want? Isn’t hate enough? Nasty explosive stuff, you know – liable to go off and blow us all sky high. Don’t you know when you’re not wanted, my dear? Better clear out whilst you can.”

She stepped back with a blind shrinking look. His hands fell from her shoulders. She said,

“Do you hate me – like that?”

Rafe Jerningham laughed.

“Oh, like the devil, my dear,” he said, and ran down the terrace steps and across the lawn.

MISS MAUD SILVER picked up her evening paper and opened it. Her eye travelling rapidly across the headlines, was caught by the alliteration of “Body on the Beach,” and having been caught, remained fixed upon the ensuing paragraph: “Early this morning the body of a young woman was discovered at the foot of a steep cliff in the neighbourhood of Tanfield Court. She had apparently missed her footing and fallen. Tane Head, beneath which the body was found, is a bold and picturesque headland much resorted to by picnic parties and courting couples. Tanfield Court is famous for its Italian garden and a collection of statues brought from Italy and Greece in the late eighteenth century. It is the property of Mr. Dale Jerningham. The body has been identified as that of Miss Cecilia Cole, niece of the postmistress of Tanfield village.” Miss Silver read the paragraph twice before she passed to the next column. It was the name Jerningham in conjunction with Tanfield and the body of a young woman which had arrested her attention. Just for a moment she had feared – yes really feared… But Cecilia Cole – niece of the local postmistress… No, there was nothing in it. Just one of those sad occurrences which evoke a fleeting sigh of pity and are forgotten almost as the sigh is spent.

She began to read about a giant sunflower in a Cornish garden. It was said to be seventeen feet high. Miss Silver’s small, neat features expressed a mild incredulity. She reflected that Cornwall was a long way off.

The telephone bell rang sharply. She folded the newspaper, placed it on the left-hand side of her writing table, and lifted the receiver from the instrument on her right, all without hurry. She heard a voice which seemed to be speaking from a considerable distance. It was a woman’s voice. It said,

“Can I speak to Miss Silver?”

“This is Miss Silver.”

“Miss Maud Silver?”

“Yes. Who is speaking please?”

There was a pause. Then the voice, faint and hesitant.

“You gave me your card in the train – no, it was afterwards on the platform – I don’t suppose you remember.”

“Certainly I remember. What can I do for you, Mrs. Jerningham?” Miss Silver’s tone was pleasant and brisk.

Lisle Jerningham, speaking from a call-office in Ledlington, found herself steadied by it. She said,

“Could I come up and see you – tomorrow? Something has happened.”

Miss Silver gave a slight cough.

“I have just seen a paragraph in the evening paper.”

Lisle said, “Yes.” Then hurrying and tripping over the words, “I must talk to someone – I can’t go on – I don’t know what to do.”

“You had better come and see me. Shall we say half past eleven? That is not too early for you?… Very well then, I will expect you. And please remember that there is always a way out of every situation, and a trouble shared is a trouble halved. I shall expect you at half past eleven.”

Lisle came out of the telephone booth. She was very glad that she would not have to drive herself home. In the midst of the horror and the trouble of the day two things had been clear to her. She must have help and advice, and she could not go to Mr. Robson, because that would not be fair to Dale. If she went to anyone she must go to a stranger, so that the scales should be even – no more weight on one side than on the other.

Without saying anything to anyone she had gone down to the garage and told Evans to drive her into Ledlington. She couldn’t call Miss Silver up from the house, because the line went through the post office exchange, and whatever she might have to say, poor Miss Cole was the last person who ought to hear her say it.

Well, it was done now and she could go home. The police Inspector from Ledlington would be coming over to take a statement from her about Cissie. He would want to see everyone who had seen her – everyone. Well, that was only Lisle herself, and William who had let her in. And what could anyone say? Poor Cissie – she was unhappy – very unhappy. What else was there to be said? There couldn’t be anything else. The police were looking for Pell. But what was the good of that? He had made Cissie unhappy. Suppose he had made her so unhappy that she had thrown herself over the cliff – what could the police do about it now? The law doesn’t punish a man for stealing a girl’s heart or killing her happiness. Only why had the police got to look for Pell? He had his job at the aerodrome. Why wasn’t he there?

These thoughts went round Lisle’s head as Evans drove her back to Tanfield.

When she came into the hall Rafe was there. She had not seen him since he had run down the steps the night before. He came to her now without any greeting.

“Where have you been? The Inspector is here. He wants to see you.”

“I know – he telephoned. I said I would be back. Where is he?”

“In the study with Dale.”

“Dale?”

“He wants to see us all.”

“Why?”

“God knows.”

She was so pale that it was not possible for her to lose any more colour. The ash-blonde of her hair under a white fillet, the white linen of her dress, the privet whiteness of neck and cheek – all these, with something in the way she stood as if movement as well as colour had been withdrawn, made her seem a statue among the other statues.

They stood there without more words and watched the study door.

DALE JERNINGHAM sat on the far side of his own writing-table and faced the Inspector across it. They had never met before, but whereas Inspector March knew a good deal about Tanfield and Mr. Dale Jerningham, he himself was, as far as Dale was concerned, merely the new Inspector from Ledlington, and until this moment nameless. He sat with formal dignity in Dale’s writing-chair with a notebook open before him and a fountain pen in his hand. It was a well shaped, well kept hand, very strong. It went admirably with the rest of him. He was tall and well set-up – a noticeably good-looking man with clear blue eyes and fair hair burnt brown. When he spoke he used the unaccented English of the English public school.

“Well, Mr. Jerningham, I shall be very glad of your assistance. It’s a question of this man Pell. I believe he was in your employment?”

Dale said, “Yes.”

“And you dismissed him about a fortnight ago?”

“Rather over a fortnight ago.”

“Without notice?”

“He had a month’s wages.”

“May I ask why you dismissed him?”

Dale shifted in his chair. The change of position brought his left arm up over the back of it. He said with a kind of careless stiffness,

“Why does one dismiss anyone? It didn’t suit me to keep him.”

The Inspector appeared to consider this. In his own study Mr. Jerningham could give or withold information as he chose, but in a Coroner’s court he would be obliged to speak. He said gravely,

“Of course if you prefer not to make any statement until the inquest you are quite within your rights.”