Patricia Wentworth - The Alington Inheritance

“You are in trouble, my dear. What is it?”

Kathy answered not so much the words as the kindness of her tone.

“I don’t know how to get in.”

“There is someone there in whom you are interested?”

“Oh, yes-”

“Then, my dear, you will have to take the proper steps. It is not possible to see a prisoner-”

“Not possible? Oh-but you were going in-”

“Yes, I was going in. But I have an appointment.”

The girl jerked into life.

“Could you find out what I have to do to see him? Will you? Oh, will you?”

“I will do what I can. Who is it you wish to see?”

“It’s Jimmy-Jimmy Mottingley.”

Miss Silver looked closely at the girl. She saw what she had seen already. She said gently,

“You are a friend of his?”

“Yes, I’m his friend. Do you know him?”

“Yes, my dear. I was on my way to see him.”

“Then-then can you take me in with you?”

Miss Silver’s manner became even kinder.

“I am afraid that would not be allowed. I have had to get special permission. But I will take a message from you if you would like to give me one.”

A little colour came into the pale cheeks and the eyes brightened.

“Will you tell him from Kathy that I know he didn’t do it. Please, what is your name?”

“I am Miss Maud Silver-a private investigator.”

“Oh-did Jimmy ask for you?”

“No, it was his father who came to see me and asked for my help.”

“Is his father being nice? He doesn’t think much of Jimmy, and he is terribly strict.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Do not be in too much of a hurry to judge, my dear. Mr. Mottingley is in an agony about his son. He is doing all that can be done for him.”

“He doesn’t believe it then? Oh, Miss Silver, no one who knew Jimmy could really believe it-they couldn’t! It just isn’t in Jimmy to do a thing like that. He couldn’t! He really couldn’t! Jimmy is kind, and-and- Miss Silver, if I could make you understand-”

“I understand that he has a very good friend in you, my dear.”

“No-no-it’s not that way. I forgot you don’t know me. I’ll try and tell you, or you won’t understand. I am Kathy Lingbourne. My father is a solicitor at Collingdon. My mother died when I was seventeen. That’s five years ago, and I have run the house ever since. There are four of us. Len is older than I am, and the other two are younger. Len is in Mr. Mottingley’s firm, and that is how Jimmy started coming to the house. Len got to know Jimmy and they got to be friends, and that is how it was. I know Jimmy very well indeed. He couldn’t have killed that girl. He couldn’t kill anything. The other boys teased him about it-you know how boys are. He tried very hard, but he simply couldn’t do it. That is why I know that he didn’t kill this girl. She was a horrid girl, but he didn’t kill her. He couldn’t have done it-not if he’d tried ever so! And look here, Miss Silver, they say that she was knocked down first and then -strangled. Was it like that?”

“Yes, my dear, it was.”

“Then Jimmy couldn’t have done it-he simply couldn’t. I know him so well. Even supposing he hit her-and he wouldn’t have, he wouldn’t -the minute she fell down he’d have been on his knees beside her asking her if she was hurt and doing his best to reassure her. I tell you I know Jimmy.”

Miss Silver was touched. And she found herself in agreement. She said,

“My dear, I must go in. But I shall not be long. Will you wait for me, and then I can give you an account of my visit. There’s a nice shop across the road. They make most excellent tea there. I had some when I came down before. You can say that you are waiting for someone and they will not trouble you. The woman is a nice placid creature. And now I must go.”

Kathy sat down to wait. The minute she saw the woman in the shop she knew that waiting would be restful. She seemed to have been keyed up for a very long time, and now quite suddenly it was all over. Meeting Miss Silver had begun it, and when she had seen her go through the gates into the prison, and had turned her back and gone over the road to the tea-shop, the process had gone on. The shop was called Mrs. Brown’s Teahouse, and when she lifted the latch and walked inside there was a large rolling Mrs. Brown all smiles and affability.

“Well, me dear, come along in with you! And shut the door, for it’s a nasty day outside.”

Kathy gave her a blank piteous look and said, “Is it?” And with that Mrs. Brown came bustling out from behind her counter and had Kathy by the arm.

“Now just come along with me. You’ll sit down here in the back shop by the fire. And you’ll take your gloves off and get your hands warm, for it’s an aching cold today, and if gloves keep the cold out, so they can keep it in too, that’s what I always say.” She said a good deal more, but most of it went past Kathy.

When she opened her eyes and became aware of things again, the large woman was saying, “And you’ll be as right as rain-you see if you’re not.”

It felt like a promise. Things were going to be all right. She must just wait. She opened those deeply fringed eyes of hers and fixed them on Mrs. Brown with a trusting look which went to the lady’s kind heart, and said,

“You are very good. Are you Mrs. Brown?”

The woman laughed cheerfully.

“That’s me, though to tell you the truth there’s never been a Mr. Brown. But when you come to the fifties, well, I say it sounds better to be Mrs. Brown. But Brown I was born, and Brown I’ll die when me time comes. And now, me dear, I’ll go and make you some tea, and that’ll put fresh heart into you.”

Kathy was on a little settee in the room behind the shop. There was a sort of gauze curtain between the two rooms. The settee on which she was sitting was lumpy, and yet it was comfortable. Her troubles seemed all to have dropped from her. She said in a dazed, exhausted voice,

“You are so very good. I think I had better wait a little. The lady whom I am with has gone to see someone”-she paused and caught her breath -“someone in the prison. She said they wouldn’t let me see him, so I came in here to wait for her. Is that all right?”

“Yes, of course it is, my dear. It’s not likely I’ll have anyone else in. Not a great day for visitors, Monday isn’t, and not at this time o’ day either. But are you all right to wait-that’s what I want to know. What did you have for lunch?”

“Lunch?” said Kathy as if she had never heard the word before and didn’t know what it meant.

“That’s what I said, l-u-n-c-h-lunch. And you needn’t tell me, because I know by the look of you that you never give it a thought. Gels-” said Mrs. Brown with strong reprobation, “I know ’em! I never had none of me own, but believe you me, there’s nothing about gels I don’t know. Seventeen nieces I’ve got, the darters of my five brothers, and what you can’t learn from a niece you’ll never learn from a darter-that’s what I say. Now what could you fancy? I don’t run to lunches as a rule, but a negg to your tea?”

“It’s not time for tea, is it?”

“Well, not formal like it’s not. But you can have tea any time, that’s what I always say. And I’ve got some lovely eggs. My brother Steve he brought them in yesterday afternoon-come over with his youngest, Doris. She’s got a look of you, me dear, if you don’t mind my saying so, and a real nice gel she is. Well then, I’ll do you a negg, and I’ll do it right away, because your friend she won’t be wanting more than a cuppa, I should say. I’ve seen her before. Last week it was-Thursday or Friday -and she come in for a cuppa. So you have your egg, me dear, and she’ll be only too pleased.”