Patricia Wentworth: Miss Silver Deals With Death

Lamb cleared his throat.

“Now, Miss Silver-”

“The matter is urgent, Inspector. I shall not waste your time. Shall we say four o’clock?”

He said, “Very well.” And then, “Where are you-where are you speaking from?”

“Tunbridge Wells,” said Miss Silver, and rang off.

At a little after four she was sitting in his office, neat and dowdy in her old-fashioned black cloth coat with its faded fur collar and her felt hat with the bunch of pansies on the left-hand side. She was pale and looked tired, but there was an air of deferential obstinacy about her which caused Lamb to fear the worst. If he knew anything at all about women, she was going to try and get her own way, and it would probably end in his having to give her the rough side of his tongue.

She began by telling him about her interviews with Ivy Lord, with Mrs. Underwood, and with Ella Jackson, after which she told him all about her visit to Tunbridge Wells.

By this time Lamb was no longer cross. He was considering what a feather in his cap it would be if Miss Silver’s evidence should prove to be correct and enable him to pull in so notorious a criminal. It began to look as if she had hit on something. On the other hand, if she was wrong-well, no one liked making a fool of himself, and he wasn’t going to be pushed into doing it. Miss Silver was now propounding a plan-one of those fancy stunts which women think up. He didn’t care for them himself, but in this case, and with the possibility that the whole thing might be a mare’s nest, well, it had some points-he wouldn’t go farther than that.

Miss Silver was talking.

“-a meeting of everyone from all the flats at No. 8-that would, I think, be the most suitable locality. I am convinced, and I shall hope to prove it, that the murderer had an appointment with Miss Roland and was admitted by the sitting-room window after ascending the fire-escape. If startled and cornered, I think an attempt will be made to escape by the same way. This is not a certainty, but in view of the character of the person concerned I think it very probable that such an attempt will be made. The window of course should be open-so large a gathering would make this seem quite natural. When we are assembled you could have a search made in the direction I have indicated. If the things I have described are found where I believe they will be found, a pre-arranged message could be brought up to you. Great care must be exercised not to arouse any suspicion. We are dealing with a most cunning criminal.”

Lamb let his hand rise and fall again. It struck the blotting-pad before him and sent the pen which lay there rolling half across the desk.

“You seem to be sure that these things will be found.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“I am sure,” she said.

By ones and twos the inmates of Vandeleur House came out of their flats and took the lift or walked up the stair to the top of the house, where the door of No. 8 stood wide with Sergeant Abbott on the threshold to usher them in.

Mrs. Underwood got into the lift, which already contained the Lemmings, but Meade and Giles walked up the stairs. Meade said low in his ear, her face upturned, her grey eyes dark,

“I can’t make Agnes out. Aren’t people queer? Up to now she’s just been anyone’s slave who wanted one, and the way her mother trampled made me boil. She didn’t seem to have a life of her own at all, she just did things for other people. But now it’s all different. She’s so taken up with what is happening to her, she hardly notices that there’s been a murder and a suicide in the house.”

Giles laughed.

“This is where I ask what’s happening to her, isn’t it?”

“Wait and see,” said Meade. She slipped a hand through his arm and brought her voice down to a murmur. “Giles-what is all this about? I don’t like it very much. Why have we all got to go up to Carola’s flat? What was Miss Silver saying to you when she took you off and talked to you just now? Is anything horrid going to happen?”

“Miss Silver seems to think so,” said Giles with rather an odd inflexion.

“Oh, I do hope not!”

“I don’t know-” He bent and kissed the cheek that was nearest. “Hush-not a word!” he said, and hurried her on with an arm round her. Nobody could have heard what passed, it was all so quick and low between the two of them.

They came into Carola Roland’s sitting-room, and found that the furniture had been shifted and rearranged. The writing-table had been pushed against the right-hand wall, and Chief Inspector Lamb sat with his back to it as if he had been writing up to the last moment and had then swung round to face the window. Between him and the door there were three chairs, which were occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willard and Mr. Drake, Mr. Drake being nearest the door. Upon Lamb’s other side was a vacant chair, and then Mrs. Lemming, Agnes, and Mrs. Underwood. The couch had been moved to the hearth, where it stood with its back to the fireplace. Someone had covered the mark which stained it with an incongruous tartan rug, and here in state sat Miss Silver and Miss Crane, the former still in her outdoor clothes, the latter in her customary drab attire of raincoat and old felt hat. Both ladies wore woollen stockings and very sensible shoes. Beyond the couch stood another empty chair. The silver dancer was back upon the mantelpiece, but the photograph of Giles Armitage had disappeared. It being a mild and muggy evening, both windows stood open, the lower sash of each being raised to the fullest extent. It was half past six and daylight outside-three quarters of an hour to sunset, but a dull sky and thickening air.

The ceiling light shone down upon the blue carpet, the blue and silver upholstery, the tartan rug, and the people in the room. It showed the Inspector looking solid and serious; Mrs. Lemming, handsome and quite obviously in a very bad temper; Agnes in her new clothes, a flush on her cheeks and a dreaming light in her eyes; Mr. Drake, who looked at her and looked away; Mrs. Underwood, breathing quickly and looking as if everything she had on was too tight for her; the Willards, she flushed and untidy, her hair slipping, an inch of petticoat visible at the hem of her dark blue dress, he very much himself again, very stiff, very official; Meade between the Inspector and Agnes, small and young like a child who has got into a grown-up party by mistake-small, and young, and just a little bit afraid. Giles had been reft away from her and given the vacant chair on the farther side of the couch. Thus, starting at the door with Sergeant Abbott, the names run as follows. On the right-hand side of the room-Mr. Drake, Mrs. Willard, Mr. Willard, Chief Inspector Lamb, Meade Underwood, Agnes Lemming, Mrs. Lemming. Across the hearth-Mrs. Underwood, then the couch with Miss Silver and Miss Crane. And lastly, Giles Armitage on a gimcrack skeleton of a chair which must have been a great deal stronger than it looked, since it supported him without so much as a creak.

The first thing Meade noticed was that there were five absentees. Nobody of course would expect old Mrs. Meredith to be here, or that she should be left alone in her flat. Since Miss Crane had come, Packer would of course be obliged to stay behind. But Ivy wasn’t here either. Perhaps she was coming, or perhaps she had refused to come. She had been very queer and upset all day, bursting into tears and giving notice one minute, and relapsing into a sort of dumb misery the next. Bell wasn’t here either, or Mrs. Smollett. Bell would be glad enough to be out of any unpleasantness, but Mrs. Smollett would never get over it. Meade felt thankful she wasn’t there, but perhaps she too was coming. It looked as if somebody else was expected, because there were two chairs on the left of the door next to where Sergeant Abbott was standing. Perhaps one of them was for him. No, it wasn’t, because here was someone else arriving. Of course-this must be Carola’s sister, Mrs. Jackson.