Patricia Wentworth - Pilgrim’s Rest

He picked up another of the sheets which lay before him and read from it.

“Mrs. Robbins’ statement-

“ ‘She never told me who it was-she never told me nothing about it, just ran away and hid. But if it was Mr. Henry, I wouldn’t blame her. He’d make any woman feel there wasn’t anybody else. She done wrong, and she run away and hid. But Mr. Henry might have made any girl forget the way she’d been brought up.’

“And if you’ll remember, that’s where she burst out crying and it wasn’t any use going on. For the rest, she said Robbins told her Mr. Henry had gone round to see Miss Lesley, and she went on up to bed and went to sleep and didn’t wake up till the morning. She didn’t hear anything, she didn’t even know that Robbins hadn’t come up. She’d had a lot to do all day, and she was dead tired and slept like a log.”

He laid down the sheet in his hand and shuffled all the papers together.

“Well, there we are. There’s quite a case against Robbins, and none against anyone else.”

Miss Silver was looking at the door. She got up now and went to it. It opened upon a passage which almost immediately turned into the back of the hall. She went to the corner and looked round. There was no one to be seen. Away to the left a stair ran up to the bedroom floor. Other doors opened upon the passage, other doors opened upon the hall. She went back to the study, to meet looks of surprise and a question from March.

“What is it?”

She went over to her chair and gathered up the finished jumper before she answered him.

“I thought the door moved,” she said.

It was at this moment that it was borne in upon Frank Abbott that three was no longer company. All the time that they had been together in the study he had been aware of something in Miss Silver’s attitude. He couldn’t put a name to it, but she wasn’t running true to form-he couldn’t get any nearer to it than that. If she agreed with what March had been saying, why not chip in and say so with a bright quotation from the late Alfred, Lord Tennyson, or a home-made moral of her own? If she didn’t agree, she had her own polite but quite pungent ways of saying so. Why, to quote out of her own book, should Maud be “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null”?

And then all at once he got the idea. It was a case of “not before the child.” She wouldn’t disagree with Randall March or seem to criticize him in his own district in front of a junior officer from the Yard. Maudie had been very nicely brought up. She had spent a considerable portion of her adult life in bringing up the young in the way that they should go. She would rather die than display a lack of delicacy, especially if, as he suspected, she really had no solid grounds for either her delicacy or her disagreement. He thought perhaps it would be a good thing if the junior officer from the Yard were to make himself scarce. It occurred to him that he might achieve a word or two with Judy.

He said, “I’ll be around if you give me a call,” and melted from the scene.

Left alone, neither March nor Miss Silver spoke at once. He was putting his papers together, but presently he looked up from them to say,

“What is it?”

She had gone over to the fire and stood looking down into it, her knitting-bag slung on her left arm. At the sound of his voice she turned and said,

“Shall you be using this room any more, Randall? If you will, I had better make up the fire.”

“No-yes-I don’t know. You didn’t answer my question. I said, ‘What is it?’ ”

Miss Silver coughed.

“And what did you mean by that?”

“As if you didn’t know! You’re holding something back, and I’d like to know what it is.”

She stood where she was, looking at him with a grave and thoughtful expression.

“I am not happy about this case, Randall.”

He met her look with a very direct one.

“Nor am I. But I wonder if we mean the same thing. I should be glad if you would let me have your point of view.”

She said, “I do not think I have one. I will be quite frank with you now that we are alone. The death of Roger Pilgrim weighs upon me. He told the police that he believed his life to be in danger. He told me the same thing. He died. The police did not believe him-I did. I commended a certain course of action which would, I think, have afforded him some protection. I refer to the sale of the property. I begged him to inform the household that he was not proceeding with it. Instead he made a very provocative declaration’that the sale was going through.”

“Who was present?”

“Everyone-Miss Columba-Miss Janetta-myself-Judy Elliot-Miss Day-Captain Jerome Pilgrim-and Robbins. The scene took place at lunch.”

“Oh, there was a scene?”

“I think you might call it that. Miss Janetta flared up. If I remember rightly, she said that he couldn’t do it, and that there had always been Pilgrims at Pilgrim’s Rest. To which he replied with some heat that he was going to do it. I do not recollect whether he actually said ‘No matter what anyone says,’ but undoubtedly that was the impression we all received. It was, I am afraid, a very unfortunate outbreak on his part.”

“Miss Freyne was not present?”

“No.”

“But Robbins was?”

“Yes.”

“How did he take it? Did you notice?”

“Yes-he appeared horrified. That would be natural, after thirty years’ service.”

He made a non-committal sound that neither agreed nor disagreed. Then he said,

“Was the scene confined to Roger and Miss Janetta?”

“Yes. The others were, I think, shocked, but they made no protest.”

March said as if to himself,

“Miss Janetta-it’s absurd-”

Miss Silver was silent for a time. She moved to put a piece of wood upon the fire. Then she turned back and said very seriously indeed,

“Will you do something for me?”

“If I can-”

“I would like you to have Miss Janetta’s room searched.”

“Are you serious?”

“Quite, Randall.”

He looked at her with astonishment and dismay.

“This is a red herring with a vengeance! What do you expect us to find?”

“Small pellets-perhaps in capsules-perhaps made up into pills-perhaps still in the rough, in which case they would, I think, have a greenish appearance.”

A further access of surprise now ousted the dismay.

“My dear Miss Silver!”

She gave her slight cough.

“Cannabis indica, Randall.”

He said in a stupefied tone,

“That’s Indian hemp-hashish-what in the name of fortune?”

She coughed again.

“I may of course be wrong, but I do not wish you to accuse me of holding anything back. I have no evidence except that of my own impressions, and you will be quite justified in disregarding them.”

He said, “This would be a lot easier if I knew what you were talking about.”

“Jerome Pilgrim’s attacks, Randall. I was told about them before I came down here. They were said to come on after any excitement or exertion. After I had witnessed one of these attacks, Miss Day, who was very much upset, declared that it was Miss Freyne who had this exciting effect upon her patient. She said how awkward it was, and how difficult it made her position here, because the whole family was so fond of Miss Freyne. She appeared to be in genuine distress. If she was speaking the truth, her position was really a very difficult one. I made some discreet enquiries later on, and heard of three other instances where an attack had followed upon a visit from Miss Freyne.”

March said bluntly, “Are you accusing Lesley Freyne of drugging Jerome?”

“Oh, no, I am not doing that-not at all. Too many hours elapse between the visit and the attack. It is not possible to relate them as you suggest.”