Patricia Wentworth - Pilgrim’s Rest

Lona Day opened the study door and went in. She saw Superintendent March sitting at the writing-table with the overhead light shining down on his thick dark hair, and on the well-kept hand which was laying down a sheet of foolscap as she entered. On his right, at the short end of the table, was Sergeant Abbott, pencil poised and pad ready. He looked up at her, but he did not rise from his seat. It was a long, cold look. Away to the left, detached, remote, and prim, Miss Silver was completing the third row of a grey stocking destined for her niece Ethel’s eldest boy. The blue jumper, finished off and nicely pressed, was now in a drawer which had once held Henry Clayton’s shirts. Tomorrow, if all was well, it would be packed up and posted. In spite of current events the timing was excellent. If the post office did its part, Mrs. Burkett would receive her birthday present by the first post on the morning of that anniversary.

Miss Day cast a fleeting glance at the ball of grey wool in Miss Silver’s lap. Then she came forward and took the chair she had occupied at a previous interview. As she did so, the telephone bell rang. March picked up the receiver. The ghostly rumble of a bass voice could be heard by the other three people in the room, but only he got more than that. He said, “What does she want?” and the rumble began again.

Presently he said, “Oh, well, I’ll be here. What time did you say?… I see-then she won’t be long. I’m not through yet anyhow.”

He hung up and turned to Frank Abbott.

“Someone coming out here to see me. They don’t know what she wants.” Then, “Well, Miss Day, I have asked you to come down because I have something to show you. It has been suggested that you may be able to help us with an identification.”

She looked faintly surprised.

“I? Well, of course if there’s anything I can do-but-I really don’t know-”

“Thank you.”

He lifted the foolscap and disclosed, lying upon a second piece, the sheet of scorched notepaper. The clumsy pencilled characters caught the light. They were turned towards her so that if she would she might read them.

March said,

“Can you help us at all with this, Miss Day? Have you ever seen it before?”

She had looked down at the paper. Now she looked up, the grey-green eyes wide with what looked like surprise. Frank Abbott, on a hair-trigger of critical attention, could not suspect it of being anything else.

Miss Silver’s needles clicked, but she was watching Lona Day. There was nothing to watch. If a shock was received, it had been absorbed. The hands lay, the one against the dark stuff of her dress, the other lightly on the table edge, no muscle tensed, no bone-white knuckles shown. The small nondescript eyes which saw everything continued to watch.

Lona said,

“Am I to read this? What does it mean?”

March answered her gravely.

“It is a letter. Do you know where it was found?”

“Oh, no. How could I?”

“I don’t know. It was found lodged in the chimney of what used to be Henry Clayton’s room. Some attempt had been made to burn it, but the draught must have taken it up the chimney. Will you please read the letter?”

She said at once, “Oh, I can read it-but what does it mean?”

“The writing is disguised. The writer appears to be suggesting an assignation for the purpose of saying good-bye. Since no place is mentioned, I think we may take it that this meeting was to be the last of a series.”

She looked at him admiringly.

“How clever you are!”

Was there the faintest flavour of mockery behind the words? Frank was never sure.

What March thought he kept to himself. He disliked the whole business, and even as he proceeded with it he wondered why he had conceded so much to arguments which his reason derided. Not that he was beyond his duty if he confronted any or every person present in the house on the night of Henry Clayton’s death with a letter which might be, however remotely, connected with it. But his mind informed him with unsparing clarity that all he now said and did was tinged with theories which he neither accepted nor shared. In other words, Miss Silver was using him, and he was allowing himself to be used. The position irked him beyond measure. What he was doing was all right. The way in which he was doing it would have been all right if it had been his own way, but it wasn’t. He could neither rid himself of his task nor accomplish it to his liking. All he could do was to pursue it with increasing reluctance. Behind everything else there was a compelling determination to have done with the matter once and for all, leaving no possible avenue through which any fresh pressure could be brought to bear.

With these things present in his mind he looked straight into Miss Day’s attractive eyes and said,

“Did you write this letter?”

The eyes flashed, the hand on the table edge tightened, the voice rang clear with anger.

“Of course not!”

Well, no one could say that it hadn’t been put to her, and no one could say that her reaction was anything but what was to be expected from an innocent woman. If there had been no flash and no anger, he might have begun to believe what he didn’t believe. But if he had a right to suggest that she had been Henry Clayton’s mistress, and perhaps his murderess too, then an innocent young woman had just as much right to be angry. He said,

“You know, I have to ask these questions. You were in the house when Clayton was murdered.”

There was a bright patch of colour in either cheek. The eyes were bright too. Anger does not become everyone, but it became Miss Lona Day, who was certainly very angry. She said in a low, ringing voice,

“I was in the house with a man whose love affairs were notorious, and so-I had an affair with him! I was looking after two very sick people at the time, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep me out of mischief! I was in the house at the time he was murdered, so I suppose I murdered him!”

Miss Silver looked quietly across her clicking needles and said,

“Yes.”

Miss Day cried out sharply. She burst into hysterical sobbing.

“Oh! How dare you-how dare you?” She turned swimming eyes upon March. “Oh, she hasn’t any right to say a thing like that!”

March was very much of that opinion himself. He found the situation awkward and unprecedented.

Miss Day continued to sob with a good deal of energy. Between the sobs she could be heard demanding what Miss Silver was doing there, and who she was anyhow-saying things like that about a nurse with her living to earn.

Frank Abbott noted sardonically that a good many layers of social veneer had come off with the tears. Or were there any tears? There was a handkerchief dabbed or pressed against the eyes, and the eyes were certainly very bright, but he felt some scepticism as to their being wet. At the moment they were fixed upon March as if he were her only hope on earth.

“Superintendent-I haven’t got to listen to her, have I?”

He said in a grave, reluctant voice, “I think you had better hear what she has to say.” He turned to Miss Silver. “I think you must explain or substantiate what you have just said.”

Miss Silver had continued to knit. There were now several rows of dark grey stitches on her needles. She met his severe regard with a placid one, and replied,

“It was an expression of my personal opinion. Miss Day made a statement in sarcasm. In sober earnest I agreed with her.”

There was a short electric silence. Then Miss Silver added in the same equable tone of voice,

“Does Miss Day wish us to understand that she did not murder Mr. Clayton?”

Lona sprang to her feet. Her sobs had ceased. She looked only to March, spoke only to him.