Patricia Wentworth - The Fingerprint

He blew her a kiss.

“Calm down, darling. I agree with every word you say. I was just wondering how deep it all went. Alfred’s fault for putting in the word ‘shallows’! Now you can tell me- how do she and Georgina get on?”

Monica said warmly, “ Georgina is the kindest girl in the world.” And with that there were footsteps in the hall and Cicely Hathaway came running into the room. She said, “Mummy!” in a protesting childish voice, and then she saw Frank and turned on him.

“Oh, you’re here! Well, I’m glad-” But she didn’t sound anything except angry.

“Cicely darling, you haven’t seen Miss Silver.”

The colour was high under Cicely’s brown skin, the sherry-coloured eyes were blazing. She swung round, holding out both her hands.

“No, I haven’t, have I? I’m frightfully rude, but I’m much too furious to be polite to anyone. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?” She bent, kissed Miss Silver rapidly on the cheek, a mere snatch of a kiss, and straightened up to storm at Frank again.

“I don’t know how you can stand there and look at me-I really don’t!”

He looked back with an infuriating indulgence.

“Actually at the moment you are quite easy on the eye. Being in a temper suits you, but perhaps a little strenuous so soon after lunch. And what is it all about anyway?”

“As if you didn’t know!”

Monica said, “ Cicely -”

Cicely stamped her foot.

“If it were anyone else in the whole world! But Georgina! It’s the sheer stupid, ignorant, blind idiocy of it!”

“There was a glint of angry amusement in his pale, cool stare as he said in a leisurely voice,

“One day you’ll run out of adjectives if you squander them like that.”

“Well, I haven’t run out of them now!”

“That, darling, is obvious.”

“And you’re not to call me darling!”

Monica Abbott said, “ Cicely -” again. She hadn’t seen Cicely lose her temper like this for years, and under his cool manner Frank was getting angry too. She made a faint helpless gesture and went over to the hearth, where she stood half turned away with the water-colour drawing of a five-year-old Cicely looking down at her. She reflected that people who lost their tempers were never much more than five years old. In the picture Cis wore a white frock and a very determined expression. She hadn’t been easy to manage even then. From behind her she heard Frank say,

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what I have done, or what I am supposed to have done to Georgina.”

Cicely blazed back at him.

“You think she shot her uncle!”

“Who says so?”

“She does!”

“My child, you can hardly hold me responsible for that.”

“She wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true!”

“You mean that like George Washington she cannot tell a lie? Perhaps I had better remind you that the story is now considered to be apocryphal.”

She threw an exasperated “Oh!” at him, and then melted into a sudden change of mood.

“Frank, you can’t really think it-not about Georgina! Even if you’d only met her once you couldn’t! You couldn’t really ! She simply hasn’t got it in her-not that sort of thing!”

Monica Abbott looked over her shoulder. Cicely was holding on to Frank’s coat and looking up at him. Her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes brimmed over. Miss Silver had picked up her knitting-something white and fluffy. Frank said quietly,

“What sort of thing, Cis?”

The answer came in a voice that had dropped to a whisper.

“Envy-hatred-malice-and all uncharitableness-”

The words of the Litany stilled the anger that had been between them. Old, beautiful words-“ From envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness - Good Lord deliver us .” How many of the people who make a glib response have really turned away from the evil in their thoughts before it breaks into word or open deed?

Frank said,

“You’re a good friend, Cis.” He stepped back from her and went over to Monica.

“Well, I must get back to my job. My love to Uncle Reg. I expect I’ll be seeing him, but at the moment I’m up to my eyes. I’m running out to Lenton now, but I’ll be back again.”

“It’s no use offering you a bed?”

“I think perhaps not. I may have to go up to town.”

Cicely came between him and the door.

“Frank-”

He said, “No use, Cis, I can’t discuss it with you,” and was gone.

Cicely ran to Miss Silver and dropped on her knees beside her.

“You will-you will go and help Georgina, won’t you?”

Miss Silver looked at her kindly.

“You are very much concerned for your friend, my dear.”

“Yes, I am. You see-” She choked on the word-“if you’re going to go by evidence , there is quite a lot that would make anyone with a horrid mind like a policeman-” She choked again.

Miss Silver put her knitting down in her lap. It was a white shawl for the baby expected by Valentine Leigh in a month’s time. The pattern was a new and delicate one, the wool very soft and fine. A silk handkerchief protected it from contact with the stuff of her dress. As it got larger it would require a pillow-case, but for the moment a handkerchief served. She said,

“Won’t you sit down, my dear, and tell me a little more about all this? Evidence which appears very compromising at the outset of a case is sometimes susceptible of quite a natural explanation. Perhaps you would like to tell me what makes you think that Frank suspects your friend.”

Cicely sat back on her heels.

“Well, I suppose anyone would-or at least anyone might if they didn’t know Georgina. You see, she was brought up to be Mr. Field’s heiress-everyone simply took it for granted. And then all of a sudden about six weeks ago he went up to town and came back with Mirrie Field. Her father was a cousin of his, a fairly distant one, and I’ve got a sort of idea that he had been in love with her mother-I seem to remember Gran saying something about it ages ago. Anyhow there was Mirrie like a kitten with a saucer of cream, and Mr. Field getting fonder of her every day. And Georgina was an angel to her-she really was. Mirrie hadn’t anything, and Georgina had some things of her own altered for her- charming things. And it wasn’t Georgina who told me about giving them to her, it was Maggie Bell. I expect you remember her. She’s a cripple, and her mother does dressmaking, which is how Maggie knew about the clothes, because Mrs. Bell had them to alter for Mirrie. Though I expect Maggie would have known anyhow, because she listens in on the party line and she always does know everything.”

Monica Abbott stooped down and put a log on the fire. She said,

“Everyone knows she does it, and nobody thinks about it until something happens, and then we all say we must be careful because of Maggie, but actually no one can be bothered and we go on just the same.” She gave Miss Silver her charming smile and added, “It’s such a pleasure to her, and after all what does it matter?”

“It would matter if you had just been committing a murder,” said Cicely.

“Cis!”

Cicely gave a vehement nod.

“Well, it would, wouldn’t it? That’s why I think Maggie could be useful, you know. I shall go in and see her. I’ve got a lovely smarmy book about a poor persecuted girl with a cruel stepmother and a frightful stepsister straight out of Cinderella, and wedding bells and golden slippers in the last chapter. Quite a shameless copy really, but Maggie will adore it.”

“I really rather like Cinderella stories myself,” said Monica Abbott, “but I like them well done, and of course sometimes they are just sloppy. But anyhow I think they are better for you than the sort of gloomy book which goes on for about six hundred pages and ends up with someone committing suicide or facing a hopeless dawn. Because really, whatever you feel like, in real life you just have to get on with your job.”