Patricia Wentworth: The Girl in the Cellar

Miss Silver, descending from the car without haste, was aware of the noise. She heard the fall-the shot, and she had reached the broken window, when she became aware of Ross Cranston edging round the house. She did not know him, but he had a guilty look. She turned and spoke.

‘What are you doing here?’

He swore, and ran away. Into the wood, tearing his clothes on the brambles, thinking of nothing but how he might get away.

Miss Silver watched him out of sight and turned back to the house. From what she could near, the fight was over. Listening at the broken window, she discerned Jim’s voice speaking to Anne. It was a voice broken with emotion no doubt perfectly satisfactory to its recipient. Frank Abbott’s voice was also audible. It was addressing remarks of a hostile nature to Mr Maxton.

Miss Silver considered it highly unnecessary that she should either remain outside or take the risk of cutting herself upon the broken glass of the window. She advanced to the door and rapped upon it with the knocker.

It did not take long to find Ross Cranston. He had fallen and sprained an ankle in the wood and there was no fight in him. They put him handcuffed into the car with Frank Abbott between him and Maxton and drove to the nearest place with a secure lock-up, Swan Eaton having nothing to boast about in that respect. The three who remained behind were left to the realisation of their deliverance.

Anne got up from the stair on which she had sunk during the struggle. Miss Silver, coming into the hall, saw her halfway down, her hands in Jim’s hands, her eyes seeing no one but him. She withdrew into the kitchen, but having assembled the meal, she returned to say briskly and firmly that lunch was ready and they had better have it. It was a quarter to two, and it was not to be supposed that any of them had made a good breakfast.

It was a strange meal. Anne had the feeling that she had died and come back to life again-a new life, a very happy life. She had her memory back, and after all this lonely time she had Jim. Everything settled into its place. She knew now the motive behind the attack upon her. She told Jim and Miss Silver what she now remembered.

‘I got a letter just before Mavis was married. She was the friend I went round the world with, and she fell headlong in love and married an American. I would have stayed over there a little, but just before the wedding there was a letter from my solicitors, Thompson & Grant, to say that my old great-uncle William Forest had died, and had left all he had between me and my cousin Anne Forest Borrowdale. So you see, she was my cousin.’ She turned to Jim. ‘Poor Anne! Her father’s mother was Anne Serena Forest, and she was a sister of old Mr William Forest. My father was his nephew, and Ross Cranston’s father was another nephew. But Ross blotted his copybook rather badly and Great-Uncle William cut him out of everything. He left his fortune between Anne and me. I’d always known about it, but I don’t think she had. Her father quarrelled with his relations over here. I don’t know what it was all about now, and Anne didn’t know. Her father never wrote to anyone or had any letters from England, she said. And I don’t suppose Leonard Borrowdale ever thought about William Forest, or that there might be money coming to his daughter from him.’

‘He never said anything about it to me,’ said Jim.

‘Well, there it is. I shall have to see the solicitors. There was quite a lot of money, I believe.’

Miss Silver looked from one to the other. She said, “This Mr Cranston is a relation of yours?’

Anne flushed. She said, ‘Yes, he was the same relation to old William Forest that I was. He has never been-’ she hesitated, and finished very low, ‘satisfactory. I’m afraid he thought that if he could marry me it would be all right-for him. I think they must have known that I would come to the Hood. I think when Anne turned up there that they must have felt desperate. I don’t know what she said to them. If she said she was married, they would want to get her out of the way. You see, if she-wasn’t there-everything came to me. I’m afraid that’s what they thought of. So they made a plan-to kill her.’

Tears were in her eyes. They ran down before she could stop them. Poor Anne-poor, poor Anne-

Miss Silver leaned forward and patted her hand.

‘My dear,’ she said very kindly, ‘I do not think that you have anything to reproach yourself with.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Sit still and rest for a little. Inspector Abbott will be returning, and he will expect to find us ready to go back to town with him… No, I can manage very well, Mr Fancourt. I would rather that you kept Anne company. I do not think that she should be left alone just now.’

Jim threw her a grateful glance. He insisted on carrying out the plates and dishes. Then he returned to Anne.

She had dried her eyes, and she was gazing out of the window at the dark trees which surrounded the house. He came to her and put his arms about her. They stood there together and looked out, not at the dark trees, but at the bright misty future. It was all over, the trouble and the tragedy. They could not see their way clearly, but they would find it together. They stood there and faced it.

Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.

Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.