Patricia Wentworth - Pilgrim’s Rest

“Oh, he did, did he? Well, well!” He looked at her with his mouth pursed up as if he was going to whistle. Perhaps he would have liked to-perhaps the click of the needles restrained him. After a moment he nodded and said, “That’s a pretty lot of rabbits to bring out of your hypothetical hat. What do you expect me to do with them?”

She shifted the mass of wool in her lap.

“I should like you to make a thorough search of the cellars under this house.”

“You said you were serious-”

“Certainly, Randall.”

“You have presented me with a hypothetical case which offers an ingenious theory. You won’t claim to have produced any evidence in support of it. Do you expect me to apply for a search-warrant in a three-year-old case which I didn’t even handle, without any evidence?”

“No search-warrant would be necessary if you had Miss Columba’s permission.”

He allowed a faint sarcasm to flavour his tone as he enquired,

“Do you suppose that she would give it?”

“I do not know.”

March laughed.

“And you consider yourself a judge of character! Even to my humble powers of observation Miss Columba appears anxious for one thing, and one thing only-‘Let the finger of discretion be placed upon the lip of silence!’ ”

Receiving no reply, he leaned back in his chair and contemplated Miss Silver and the situation. After a little while he said,

“Look here, if anyone but you had put this up to me, I shouldn’t have any difficulty in knowing what to say. As it’s you, I’m going to tell you how I’m placed, and then ask you again just how strongly you feel. Colonel Hammersley, the Chief Constable of the county, is retiring at the end of the month. I have been given some tolerably strong hints that the Committee would give my candidature a very favourable reception. I don’t pretend to be indifferent to the prospect, but if meanwhile I were to raise a groundless scandal about people like the Pilgrims who’ve been here ever since the ark unloaded on Ararat, the Committee might very well have a change of heart.”

Miss Silver quoted again, in French this time but with a very patriotic accent:

“‘Fais ce que doit, advienne que pourra.’”

He gave a short laugh.

“Do what’s right and blow the consequences! That’s admirable! But you will have to convince me of where the right lies before I reach the point of letting my professional prospects go down the drain.”

She gave a gentle cough.

“You will have to convince yourself, Randall. I have nothing more to say.”

Randall March was not called upon either to strain his conscience or to jeopardize his prospects. The truth of the homely proverb which asserts that it never rains but it pours was once more exemplified. An hour after a silent party had breakfasted next day Miss Columba was called to the telephone by Robbins.

“It is a telegram, madam. I began to take it, but I thought- perhaps you would prefer-”

She got up and went out without a word.

Ten minutes passed before she returned. With no discernible change in face or voice, she addressed the only other occupant of the morning-room, Miss Silver.

“It was a telegram from the War Office about my nephew Jack. They have proof of his death.”

Miss Silver’s condolences were all that a kind heart and good manners dictate, yet to both women they seemed only what is taken for granted on these occasions. Beneath the conventions, beneath Miss Columba’s affection and grief for a nephew so long removed that his death could hardly be felt as something new, there was a compelling urgency. It brought words to Miss Columba’s unwilling lips.

“Jerome-” she said, her eyes on Miss Silver’s face. “Did you mean what you said yesterday? Is he in danger?”

“Not immediately. Not unless he should wish to sell the house.”

Miss Columba dropped her voice to a gruff whisper.

“He will have to sell-two lots of death-duties-he hasn’t any money-”

It was easy to see where her affections centred. For the two dead nephews she felt a reasonable grief. A possible danger to Jerome brought the sweat to her forehead and a dumb anguish to her eyes.

It was with this look of distress fastened upon Miss Silver’s face that she said,

“I asked you to go. Things have changed. Now I ask you to stay.”

Miss Silver returned the look with one in which firmness and kindness were blended.

“My commission was from your nephew Roger. Are you now asking me to accept one from yourself?”

“Yes.”

“You must realize that I do not know in what direction my enquiry may lead. I cannot guarantee that the result will please you.”

Still in that gruff whisper, Miss Columba said,

“Find out what’s been happening. Keep Jerome safe.”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“I will do my best. Superintendent March is a very good man-he also will do his best. But you must help us both. He may wish to search the house. It will be pleasanter and more private if you will give him leave to do so instead of obliging him to apply for a warrant.”

Miss Columba said, “Keep Jerome safe,” and walked out of the room.

Half an hour later she was giving Randall March a free hand to go where he liked and search where he pleased. After which she disappeared into the garden, where she showed Pell such a frowning face that the customary grumble died in his throat and he allowed her for once in a way to do as she wished with the early peas. Later he told William that they would all be frosted, and they had a very comfortable heart-to-heart talk about the interferingness of women.

The search began at two o’clock. When the last of the heavy-booted men had gone clumping down the old worn cellar steps, Miss Silver came along the passage and pushed open the kitchen door. She had a cup in her hand and an expression of innocent enquiry on her face. If these were meant to provide her with an excuse for what might be considered an intrusion, they were not required, for the movement of the door and her own soft footfall went unregarded. And for a very good reason. Mrs. Robbins was standing over the range stirring something in a saucepan and sobbing convulsively, whilst her husband, with his back to her and to the room, was contemplating the flagstones of the yard upon which the kitchen window looked. Without turning his head he said harshly and in the tone of a man who is repeating what he has said before,

“Have done, Lizzie! What good do you think you’re doing?”

To which Mrs. Robbins replied, “I wish I was dead!”

Miss Silver stepped back into the passage and remained there. The sobbing went on.

Presently Lizzie Robbins said in a tone of despair,

“I don’t know what we’re coming to-I don’t indeed!” And then, “If there’s any more to come, I’ll give up, for I can’t stand it. First Mr. Henry, and then Mr. Pilgrim, and now Mr. Roger and Mr. Jack-it’s like there was a curse on the house!”

He said, “Don’t talk stupid, Lizzie!” and she flared up at him, sobbing all the time.

“It’s stupid to be fond of people, and you can throw it up at me as much as you like, for it’s no fault of yours. You’ve been a hard, cruel husband, Alfred, and you was a hard, cruel father to our poor girl that’s gone, or she wouldn’t never have run away and hid herself like she did when she was in trouble.”

He made a sharp sound at that, but she went on without giving him time to speak.

“I suppose you’ll say you loved her, and I suppose you did in your own way, but it was all because you took a pride in her pretty looks, and her cleverness, and the credit she did you. But that’s not loving, Alfred, it’s just pride, and it comes to have a fall, the same as it says in the Proverbs. And you wouldn’t have her back here to be buried-and it’s a thing I shan’t never get over, your letting her and her baby lie among strangers because it’d hurt your pride to bring them here where they belonged.”