Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver Deals With Death

As she spoke, Lamb sat with an elbow on the arm of his chair, a big hand propping his chin, his face heavy and expressionless.

Miss Crane said “Dear me!” in a very interested manner. Then she heaved a sigh and got to her feet. “You make it so very interesting-you do indeed,” she said in the husky voice which always seemed a little short of breath.“You must come and have tea with me and tell me all about it. But I must go now. Packer will be busy with the evening meal, and we do not like to leave Mrs. Meredith alone.”

“Just a moment,” said Miss Silver. “I was going to ask you a question about Tunbridge Wells. Mrs. Meredith used to live there, did she not?”

Miss Crane had her foolish smile.

“Now who could have told you that?”

“She used to talk about the Pantiles and the Toad Rock when she first came here, did she not-and about her house on Mount Pleasant? To anyone who has ever been in Tunbridge Wells-”

Miss Crane laughed her giggling laugh.

“Oh dear-how clever you are! I should never have thought of that!”

“No,” said Miss Silver. “You were not with Mrs. Meredith then, I think? You have not in fact been with her for very long, have you?”

Miss Crane stopped laughing. She looked puzzled and concerned.

“I don’t understand. No, really. There is no secret about it all. Oh, none at all. A very dear cousin of mine was with Mrs. Meredith for many, many years. When she died I was only too pleased to take her place. I am sure I have tried to make up for her loss in every way. You will not ask me to neglect her now, will you? I really must be going.”

She began to move towards the door. She still had the large white handkerchief in her hand. Giles Armitage, who had risen when she did, walked beside her. She lifted the handkerchief to her eyes for a moment, and then, still holding it, her hand went down into the pocket of the drab raincoat and there remained, gripped and held by Giles.

In a flash she twisted to free herself, and with such a sudden trick of the muscles that she was almost out of his grip.

It was Miss Silver who caught the other wrist and held on to it till Frank Abbott got there. There were some horrible moments. Meade sickened and shut her eyes. A woman struggling with men-three of them trying to hold her. Horrible!

Fierce panting breath. The men’s feet scuffing on Carola’s blue carpet. And then the sound of a shot.

Meade opened terrified eyes, got to her feet, and felt the floor tilt under them. Giles-the shot- Giles ! And then what had been a swaying, struggling group resolved itself, and she saw him. He was still holding Miss Crane by the wrist, but she was falling back, limp and pale, between Sergeant Abbott and the Chief Inspector. A small automatic pistol lay where it had fallen at Giles’ feet. As Meade looked, he hooked it dexterously and kicked it away. Mrs. Underwood screamed on a high, shrill note, but whether this came first or next, Meade never was quite sure, because at the time everything seemed to happen together- Mr. Willard saying in a horrified voice, “She has shot herself”; Miss Crane sagging against the two men, her head hanging, her eyes fixed, her pale mouth horribly open; Mabel Underwood’s scream; and then Miss Crane suddenly, galvanically in action again. There was a yelp from Lamb as the hand which was holding her was bitten almost to the bone. With a violent twist she was free and with a single spring had reached the open window.

Giles and Sergeant Abbott reached it too, but not in time. Desperate haste had taken her over the sill to the ledge beneath, and from there on to the fire-escape. They could see her a yard or two below, going down at a speed which spoke of practice. As Giles threw a leg over the sill to follow her, Frank Abbott caught his arm.

“No need,” he said. “They’re waiting for her down there.”

They watched her drop the last few feet and turn to find herself surrounded.

This time there was no break-away.

Miss Silver gave a tea-party a few days later. She was back in her own flat with Bubbles, The Soul’s Awakening, The Black Brunswicker , and The Monarch of the Glen gazing from their maple frames upon the scene. Bubbles and the damsel in The Soul’s Awakening could not truthfully be said to enjoy a view of anything but the ceiling, but that was the fault of the upturned gaze with which the artist had endowed them. The Black Brunswicker’s lady and the Monarch had been more kindly treated. They looked down upon Nicholas and Agnes Drake, Meade Underwood and Giles Armitage, and upon Frank Abbott, off duty and very much at his ease.

Miss Silver’s tea was of the excellent blend and making dreamed of but seldom achieved. There was enough milk, there was real sugar, there was even a little cream in a small antique silver jug. There were scones and buns of the valuable Emma’s best. There was raspberry jam. It was like the pleasantest kind of schoolroom tea.

Miss Silver beamed kindly upon her guests. She was delighted at the happiness which radiated from the Drakes, and delighted to hear that Meade and Giles were to be married without delay. She received with pleasure the admiring attentions of Sergeant Abbott. Altogether a very pleasant party.

But the dark background against which they had played their parts so short a time before could hardly be ignored. Behind the happiness and the agreeable talk it was still there, like a shadow which has been left behind but cannot be forgotten. At first they did not speak of it at all. The Drakes were leaving Vandeleur House. The lease of his flat was up, and they were looking for something in the country.

“It doesn’t really matter where I live, you know,” said Nicholas Drake.

Frank Abbott, with his lazy, impudent smile, now put the question which everyone wanted to ask.

“Are you really a pork butcher?”

“Selwood’s Celebrated Sausages,” said Mr. Drake, looking more romantic than ever.

“Lucrative?” said Frank.

“Oh, very. I’ll tell you about it if you like. I was going to the other day, but the roof fell in. I’d like to, because it’s a story about some very nice people and some very good friends. I was reading for the Bar when the last war started. I hadn’t any near relations, and I had quite a reasonable income. By the time I got out of the army in 1919 I hadn’t any income at all. My gratuity went west, and by 1921 I hadn’t the price of a meal. Then I bumped into Mrs. Selwood. She’d been our cook, and she married Selwood from our house when he had a little shop in a little country town. By the time I met her he had three shops, and the sausages were beginning to take on. She made me go home with her, and they gave me a job. After three years they made me manager of one of the shops. Business boomed-the three shops increased and multiplied many times-the sausages became celebrated. When Selwood died two years ago I was stupefied to find he’d left the whole concern to me. He said I’d been like a son to them, and Mrs. Selwood wouldn’t want to be bothered with the business. He’d settled enough to make her comfortable, and he knew I’d look after her.”

Miss Silver smiled her kindest smile.

“That is a very nice story, Mr. Drake. It is indeed pleasant to realise how many kind and generous people there are in the world. It is particularly salutary when one has been brought into unwilling contact with crime.”

Frank Abbott looked at her with a malicious gleam in his pale blue eyes.

“It was our duty and we did,” he murmured. “Now you’re going to reward us, aren’t you-let us ask questions and tell us all the answers?”

He received an indulgent smile.

“I think, Mr. Abbott, you know the answers already.”