Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver Comes To Stay

“Nothing about rent?”

“No.”

“Anything about furniture?”

“Yes, your mother said, ‘I’ve told her she can have the two groundfloor rooms knocked into one, and I suppose I shall have to let her have some furniture.’ ”

“That might mean anything. What I want to know is, was the furniture given or lent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Some of it’s valuable.”

“I suppose it is. The Mayhews might know.”

“They don’t. There seems to have been a sort of drift going on for years. Every now and then my mother would say, ‘I’m letting Mrs. Welby have this or that, or the other,’ or Catherine would say, ‘Mrs. Lessiter says I can have so-and-so,’ and off it would go down to the lodge-absolutely nothing to show whether the thing was being given or lent. And mind you, I don’t believe my mother would have given her some of the things she’s got down there.”

“She might have. I suppose the only person who can say whether she did or not is Catherine herself.”

He laughed.

“My dear Rietta!”

There was so much sarcasm in both voice and laugh that it really was not necessary to add anything to those three words.

They reached the lodge gate and turned again. Back out of the past came the memory of the many, many times they had walked like this-under the moon, under the stars, under the shadowing dusk, too much in love to be able to say goodnight and go in. The love was gone with their youth and those faraway hours. What was left as far as Rietta Cray was concerned was an odd haunting sense of familiarity. In Catherine’s room James Lessiter had seemed like a stranger. Here in the darkness she recaptured, not the old love, not any emotional feeling, but the old sense of a familiar presence. It prompted her into hurried speech.

“James, couldn’t you-just let it go?”

He laughed again.

“Let her get away with it?”

“Why not? You’ve done without the things all this time. You’ve made a lot of money, haven’t you? And no one can really be sure what your mother meant. Catherine will be- dreadfully upset-if there’s a row.”

“I dare say.” He sounded amused. “But you see, it isn’t so easy as you seem to think. I’ve had a very good offer for Melling House, and I’ll have to give vacant possession. That goes for the Gate House too. If it was let to Catherine as a furnished house, that’s all right-I can give her notice and she’ll have to go. But an unfurnished let would be quite a different pair of shoes. Well, here we are at your gate again. I’ll have to go back and see what I can get out of Catherine, but unless she’s changed a great deal more than I think she has, it’s not likely to be anywhere within a street or two of the truth.”

“James!”

He gave another laugh.

“You haven’t changed either. You’re still a good friend, and I’m still a bad enemy. You don’t owe Catherine much, you know. She did her level best to queer your pitch.”

“That’s all past and gone.”

“And you don’t want me to be hard on her now. Well, well! It doesn’t pay to be made your way, Rietta, but I quite see you can’t help it. You don’t try, do you, any more than I have any intention of trying to alter my own way? It’s served me quite well, you know. If there’s an uttermost farthing due, I’m out to get it.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you? Well, I’m just wondering whether Catherine’s acquisitiveness has stopped short at a mere transfer of furniture. I’ve an idea it may have carried her well over on to the wrong side of the law.”

“James!”

“I’ve an extremely good memory, and it seems to me that there are quite a lot of things missing of the small, expensive kind which would be rather easily turned into cash. Let me open the gate for you.”

“James-”

“Goodnight, my dear. As I said, you haven’t really changed at all. It’s a pity.”

On the morning following her arrival Mrs. Voycey took her friend Miss Silver shopping. Melling had a butcher, a baker who also sold buns, cake, biscuits, fruit preserved in glass bottles and sweets, and a grocer whose groceries merged by tactful degrees into the appurtenances of a general shop. You could, for example, start at the left-hand side of the counter and buy bacon, coffee and semolina, and work gradually to the right through apples, potatoes and root vegetables, till you arrived at twine, garden implements, shopping-bags, and boots and shoes hanging like strings of onions from a nail high up on the wall. Somewhere midway there was a stand of picture-post cards and a blotting-pad, the latter an advertisement of the fact that the shop was also a branch post office, and that stamps and telegraph forms could be obtained.

With so many different attractions, it was naturally a very general meeting-place. Miss Silver was introduced to Miss Ainger, the Vicar’s sister, a formidable lady with iron-grey hair, a Roman nose, and the sort of tweeds which suggest armour-plating. It might have been the size of the check, black and white upon a ground of clerical grey, or it might have been something about Miss Ainger’s figure, but the suggestion was certainly there. She was scolding Mrs. Grover about the bacon, and detached herself with difficulty.

“Yes, much too thick, and with far too much fat-Did you say a school friend? Oh, how do you do?-Don’t let it happen again or I shall have to tell the Vicar.”

Mrs. Grover’s colour rose. She pressed her lips together and restrained herself. Mrs. Voycey moved a step nearer the post cards and caught Miss Cray by the arm.

“Rietta, I want to introduce you to my friend Miss Silver. We were at school together.”

Rietta said, “Oh-” She was in a hurry, but, with twenty years’ experience, she knew that it wasn’t any use being in a hurry with Mrs. Voycey. The large, firm hand upon her arm would remain there until she had done her social duty. She said, “How do you do?” to Miss Maud Silver, and was invited to tea that afternoon.

“And it’s no use saying you can’t come, Rietta, because I know perfectly well that Carr and Miss Bell have gone up to town for the day. The baker saw them start. He mentioned it when he called, because there was a very black cloud overhead at the time and he noticed that Miss Bell hadn’t got an umbrella so he hoped she wouldn’t get wet. He said he told her she’d better take one, but she only laughed. How long are they staying with you?”

“I don’t quite know. Carr has brought down some manuscripts to read.”

“He looks as if he needed a good long holiday. Then you’ll come to tea this afternoon? I’ll ring Catherine up and ask her too. I want Maud Silver to meet you both.” She leaned closer and said in a throaty whisper, “She’s quite a famous detective.”

Miss Silver was examining the stand of post cards. She looked so much less like a detective than anything Rietta could have imagined that she was startled into saying,

“What does she detect?”

“Crime,” said Mrs. Voycey right into her ear. She then let go of the arm she had been holding and stepped back. “I’ll expect you at half past four. I must really have a word with Mrs. Mayhew.”

Mrs. Mayhew was buying onions, and a stone of potatoes.

“I’m sure I never thought I’d come to having to get either from anywhere else except the garden, but it’s all Mr. Andrews can do to keep the place tidy, and that’s the truth, Mr. Grover-indeed he can’t, and there’s no getting from it. So if Sam can bring them up after school-” She turned, a little meek woman with a plaintive manner, and was immediately cornered by Mrs. Voycey.

“Ah, Mrs. Mayhew-I suppose you’re very busy with Mr. Lessiter back. Quite unexpected, wasn’t it? Only last week I said to the Vicar, ‘There doesn’t seem to be any word of Melling House being opened up again,’ and I said it was a pity. Well, now he’s back I hope he isn’t going to run away again.”