Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

March’s smile had gone. He put his coffee-cup back on the tray and said gravely,

“No – you are perfectly right. But look here – this isn’t to be talked of.”

Miss Silver drew herself up.

“My dear Randal!”

“No, no – I beg your pardon – I didn’t mean that. You can know about it – you do know about it – but it’s confidential between you and me. I’ve been with the Chief Constable, and he’s most anxious that there shouldn’t be a scandal. There’s more in it than just the wish to avoid stirring up mud about a well known county family. Rafe Jerningham – look here, this is very hush-hush – is having a couple of inventions taken up by the government. I’m told they are very hot stuff, and that he is considered a valuable asset. He is being given a job under Macclesfield. The last thing on earth that anyone desires is that he should be mixed up with anything that invites publicity. Of course Pell will have to be got out of the mess. The facts will go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the case against him will be dropped. Jerningham’s dead, and there’s nothing to be gained by washing a lot of dirty linen in public.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“It is always a very unpleasant proceeding,” she observed. “In fact, my dear Randal, there are times when I consider the freedom of the Press a somewhat overrated blessing. But I am interrupting you. I feel sure you were going to continue your narrative. Pray do so.”

He eyed her with the suspicion of a twinkle.

“If there is really anything that I can tell you. Well, this is what happened. Rafe Jerningham rang up at seven o’clock this morning and asked me to go out there. He looked like death, poor chap, and he told me the whole thing. He found that poor girl out beyond the Shepstone Rocks in a regular trap of a pool. Her husband had pushed her into it and left her there for the tide to finish. I’ve seen the place, and how on earth Rafe got her out of it and back amongst those rocks in the dark beats me.”

“A providential escape indeed,” said Miss Silver earnestly.

“He got her home, and rang up the aerodrome. As soon as Dale Jerningham heard that his wife was alive he would know that the game was up. Pell was the rock he struck on – they might have held their tongues if it hadn’t been for him. But even Dale Jerningham must have seen that he couldn’t very well expect them to stand aside and let Pell hang, so he took that dive into the sea.”

“Did you see Mrs. Jerningham?”

“Yes, I saw her. She made a statement, quite clear and simple. He pushed her in. He’s besotted about the place, and her money was tied up so that she couldn’t get it. But she had a power of appointment under her father’s will, and she had exercised it in his favour. Rafe got twenty thousand, and Dale got the rest. I gather that the rest is a thumping big sum – enough to have kept Tanfield in the family for another generation or two anyhow. Poor girl – I was desperately sorry for her. She didn’t attempt to keep anything back. I expect you’ve noticed that people don’t when they have had a really bad shock. It all came out in a gentle, tired voice – no emotion or anything like that. After he had pushed her into the pool he stood there and told her why he’d done it. He complained about her luck – the drowning episode, and the car smash. You were quite right about those. He boasted about how clever he had been. And he admitted to the murder of Cissie Cole, but I don’t think he boasted about that. I think that hit him pretty hard. Curious, isn’t it – he could kill his wife without a qualm, but I think he was squeamish over having killed Cissie Cole by mistake. The Coles were part of Tanfield, and Tanfield was sacrosanct. I believe he really hated that poor girl his wife, because she had given Cissie Cole her coat and let him in for killing her.”

Miss Silver nodded.

“I should think that extremely likely. A most shocking story, but of great interest. Did you get a statement from Lady Steyne? It seems to me that she has something to explain. She testified that she and Mr. Jerningham were together during the time they were up on Tane Head, did she not?”

“Well, she didn’t quite say that. She hedged a little. When I took her original statement I wondered why she was at so much pains to suggest that she and Dale Jerningham were having an affair. It seemed just a little – unnecessary. I remember that when I asked whether they had been together the whole time she laughed in a conscious sort of way and said she wouldn’t swear that she had never taken her eyes off him, but – well, what did I suppose they had gone up there for – or words to that effect.”

Miss Silver gave a little cough.

“And what does she say now?”

“No more than she can help. It has hit her hard. She says they were together up there, but she missed a diamond and emerald clip she was wearing and they were trying to find it. I ran into her on Tane Head yesterday morning with Rafe Jerningham, and she told us then she had dropped this clip and was looking for it. To go back to Wednesday night – she says they hunted for it for a long time, but the light was bad and they didn’t find it. From time to time they were out of sight of one another. It’s quite plausible, you know – in fact it’s quite likely to be the truth – a little stretched perhaps, but near enough. Dale Jerningham would hardly have pushed that girl over the cliff in the presence of a third person unless she was an accomplice. But an accomplice would mean premeditation, and the whole circumstances at this point make premeditation impossible. No – he must have come on the Cole girl unexpectedly. He would see the tall figure, the fair hair, his wife’s coat, and he must have acted at once under the first shock of an unforseen opportunity. With time to think, the improbability of Mrs. Jerningham being there must have struck him, and the recollection of Pell rushing from the scene would have suggested his mistake. But I don’t believe he had time to think. He had the will to kill his wife. He thought he had the opportunity, and he took it. It was probably all over in a moment. He need not have been out of Lady Steyne’s sight for any longer than she says. What she may have thought or guessed about it all afterwards is another matter.”

“A very shocking story,” said Miss Silver.

DALE JERNINGHAM’s body came ashore on the ridge below the Shepstone Rocks. An inquest was held, and a verdict of death resulting from a flying accident was duly returned. Mrs. Jerningham was not present. She was said to be prostrated with grief. When she had recovered she went away to stay with friends in Devonshire. Devonshire is a long way off.

Mr. Tatham renewed his offer for Tanfield Court and the estate which went with it. Rafe Jerningham, who succeeded to the property, accepted the offer. Completion of the purchase would naturally have to be deferred until probate had been granted.

Miss Maud Silver returned to London, where her whole attention became immediately concentrated upon the case of Mr. Waley and the Russian ikon – Waley was of course not his real name. The storm-clouds began to pile up higher and higher on the European horizon. July slipped into August, and August slipped into war. The deaths of Cissie Cole and Dale Jerningham were left behind upon the farther side of world-shaking events. Nobody thought about them any more.

On a day when winter had begun to turn towards the spring Rafe Jerningham came into a room in a London flat. He was there to see Lisle, whom he had not seen since she left Tanfield. As has already been remarked, Devonshire is a long way off. And Lisle was a long way off, removed from him by tragedy, by kinship, by all the things which at once emphasise distance and obliterate it. He had written to her, and she had written to him. He knew what drives she had taken, when she first began to walk abroad again, how kind the Pearses were to her, and how there were violets in bloom against the south wall on New Year’s day. Such things do not stay the hunger of a man’s heart, and presently even these would be gone, because Lisle herself would be gone. It was natural and inevitable that she should go back to America. Once there, she would stay. She would marry again. Her letters would drop off, dwindling to a few lines at Christmas, and presently not even that – a card perhaps, with her new signature slanting across it.