Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

Miss Silver coughed in a hortatory manner.

“I stated that I saw her in the act of withdrawing her hand from this lady’s pocket. I am perfectly prepared to swear to what I saw.”

The manager raised his eyebrows.

“Very convenient for the young woman, I am sure. Quite a good idea, if you’re going shoplifting, to have someone handy to swear you couldn’t have done it.”

Miss Silver turned upon him the look before which the hardiest of her pupils had been wont to quail. It was a look which had daunted the evil-doer on many an occasion. Since then Chief Detective Inspector Lamb himself had been halted by it and brought to unwilling apology. It went straight through the manager’s self-esteem and stripped him to his bare bones. He found them chilly and uncertain of their footing. When you have been kept together by conventions and clothed with observances, it is very disintegrating to be left without them.

“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Maud Silver.

The manager found himself apologizing. She had spoken quite quietly, and he knew now that she was neither an eccentric duchess nor any lesser member of the aristocracy. But the authority behind that quiet tone had him rattled. He paused in his not very well chosen phrases and discovered that he was being addressed. He had the quite unwarranted feeling that he was being addressed from a platform. He had the unusual feeling of being something rather lowly in the scale of creation.

Miss Silver treated this frame of mind with firmness.

“You would, perhaps, care tor me to furnish you with proofs of my credibility as a witness. This is my business card.”

From the shabby black bag which depended from her left wrist she produced and laid before him a small, neat pasteboard rectangle. It displayed her name in the middle-Miss Maud Silver, with, in the left-hand bottom corner, an address, 15 Montague Mansions, S.W., and in the corresponding right-hand corner, the words, Private Enquiries.

As he absorbed this information, Miss Silver continued to address him.

“If you will be so good as to ring up Scotland Yard, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb will tell you that he knows me well, and. that I am a person to be believed. Detective Sergeant Abbott, or in fact any of the officers on the detective side, will be able to assure you that I have the confidence of the police. If, of course, you are prepared to admit that a mistake has been made, and to offer to this young lady an unqualified apology, we need not trouble Scotland Yard.”

The manager, thus baited, turned with ferocity upon the shopwalker. His diminished ego obtained some helpful support from having a subordinate at hand to bully.

“Mr. Sopeley!”

“Sir?”

“On what evidence did you act? This lady says that one of the assistants came up and spoke to you. Who was it, and what did she say?”

Mr. Sopeley began to see before him the unenviable role of the scapegoat. An elderly survivor of the war period, his tenure was not so secure that he could afford to have it shaken. With a feeling that his collar had suddenly become too tight for him, he stumbled into speech.

“It-it was Miss Anderson. She said a lady had whispered to her that this-” he paused and swallowed-“this young lady was filling her pockets, and she thought she ought to mention it.”

“Then why is she not here as a witness?”

“She said she had a train to catch,” said Mr. Sopeley in an ebbing voice.

The manager’s bald head became suffused with an angry flush.

“Miss Anderson should have detained her.”

Perceiving a possible ram in a thicket, Mr. Sopeley agreed that Miss Anderson had been very remiss, though just how she could have detained a determined customer in full flight to catch a train, neither he nor the manager was prepared to say. In a tone of virtuous indignation he remarked,

“I spoke to her quite severely on that point, sir.”

Miss Silver intervened.

“It is perfectly clear that this woman who brought the accusation and then disappeared is the person who placed the stolen goods in this young lady’s pockets. I would press you now to ring up Scotland Yard. A full and unqualified apology is due to this young lady, and I shall not be satisfied until it has been offered.”

Chief Detective Inspector Lamb lifted the receiver from the instrument on his office table. The voice of Sergeant Abbott came to him.

“I say, Chief, here’s a lark! I’ve got the manager of the De Luxe Stores on the line, wanting to know if Maudie is a credible witness! He’s asking for you. An offensive fellow-perhaps you’d like to crush him yourself.”

Lamb grunted.

“What’s it all about?”

“Case of shoplifting. Maudie says the girl was framed. Says she saw a woman put a hand into her pocket, afterwards skipping to an assistant to lay information, and then vanishing from the scene to catch a train. Shall I put you through?”

Lamb’s grunt must have conveyed assent. It was followed by a click and the impact on his ear of a voice which he thoroughly disliked. A shrewd and experienced observer of human nature, he deduced the man who has made a bloomer and is trying to bluster his way out. He stemmed the current by announcing himself.

“Chief Detective Inspector Lamb speaking.” Every syllable slowly and ponderously fraught with authority.

The manager had to begin all over again, and didn’t like it. He began to wish that he had apologized to Dorinda Brown and left Scotland Yard alone.

The Chief Inspector stopped him before he had got very far.

“I have nothing to do with what happened in your shop. If you wish to charge anyone, it is a matter for the local station. In so far as your inquiries relate to Miss Maud Silver, I am prepared to deal with them. I know her very well and can assure you that she is an entirely credible witness. She has been of great use to the police on many occasions, and if I may say so, you would be well advised to be guided by her opinion. If she says this girl is innocent, you’d better believe her-she knows what she’s talking about. One moment-I will speak to her, just to make sure of her identity.”

In the manager’s office Miss Silver took up the receiver with a preliminary cough.

“Chief Inspector Lamb? How very pleasant to hear your voice! You are well, I hope?… And Mrs. Lamb?… And the daughters?”

When the compliments were over Lamb was pleased to relax into a chuckle.

“What have you been up to?”

“My dear Chief Inspector!”

The chuckle became a laugh.

“Had to come to the police to get you out of it-eh? Now, you know, that’s very pleasant for us-isn’t it?”

“I am always quite certain that I can rely upon you,” said Miss Silver gravely. She handed the receiver back to the manager, whose bald head had now assumed the colour of a beetroot, and stepped back.

Made aware of the change, Lamb said briskly and ungrammatically,

“There’s only one Miss Silver, and that’s her all right.”

Justin Leigh was a little puzzled by his Dorinda. She had remembered to wear clothes which he had once commended. She appeared to be in perfect health, and she seemed to be extremely pleased to see him. But all the same, there was something. Her attention wavered, and he missed the zest which should have accompanied the selection of a furbelow at somebody else’s expense. Mrs. Oakley’s ideas on the subject of what should be paid for an evening frock seemed to be thoroughly sound.

Dorinda, who had never scaled such giddy heights, ought to have been leaping from peak to peak with carefree enthusiasm, instead of which she remained aloof. It wasn’t until The Dress had been extracted from some inner shrine and reverentially displayed that she seemed to be taking any interest at all.