She went over her first meeting with Emily Craddock, a simple and pathetic case of a woman dominated to the point of will and judgment being completely in abeyance. Or almost so. There were moments when the hypnotized creature stirred and half woke up to unimaginable misery and fear.
Jennifer was not hypnotized. She had adored Peveril Craddock. She now hated and feared him-a dumb hatred, and a dumb fear. Something had happened to cause these things, and to drive them down into the darkest and most secret places of her thought. Miss Silver had not handled children for twenty years without discovering that if a child is very badly frightened it will never speak of what has frightened it.
The Miss Tremletts, Miranda, Augustus Remington, Mr. John Robinson-there had been a first meeting with each one of them, and in every case a definite and distinct impression had been made. The pictures came into her mind and passed out of it again.
When she had done with them she made room for the one which she had reserved to the last, her brief passing contact with the bank murderer. She saw herself moving along the gangway of the bus and stepping down to the ground. Only two people went towards the station, elderly women with shopping-baskets. The other seven or eight passengers made off in the direction of the High Street. She had let them get away before making any move herself, since she had no desire that anyone should notice that she had come to meet a goodlooking young man with a car. She had occupied herself with opening her handbag and scrutinizing what might very well have passed for a shopping-list. It was not until the last of the passengers was clear of the station yard that she began to walk up the incline towards the entrance, and it was when she was about half way that the bandaged man had passed her. The scene came back distinctly- the limping step, the gloved hand upon the stick. There was a very small triangular tear between the index finger and the one next to it. She had not remembered it till now, but it was there in the picture. A few stitches of the seam had come undone, to leave a triangular gap. There were three loosened stitches to the left of it, and a little end of thread. It was the left hand which leaned upon the stick. The head had a caplike bandage covering all the hair and most of the right side of the face. The collar of the old loose raincoat was turned up. Since he passed to her left, it was only the right side of his face which presented itself. The right side of his face-a mass of bandages-the collar of the raincoat hiding the neck and the line of the chin-a loose sleeve, and a bandaged hand. The hand held a small suit-case. So much for the side that was turned towards her-the right-hand side. And on the left, folds of the bandage passing about the head and out of sight, the collar of the raincoat standing up about the neck, the sleeve hanging loose, and a gloved hand resting upon a stick. She had seen no more, she could recall no more. The picture was there in her mind, but it gave up no further detail.
She began to consider the stick. It was of the commonest type -a plain crook for the gloved hand to rest on-a plain dark stick. Only nowadays very few men carried a stick at all. But since the murderer was posing as an injured man, the stick went very well with his disguise. Yet for that stick to be available it must have been, and probably still was, in his possession. Because it was an old stick, worn and rubbed about the ferrule. It had not been bought for the occasion, it was a possession. Then he probably had it still. Anyone might have such a stick. It was of too common a type to be a danger. It was of too common a type to offer any certain means of identification. At the very most it could add some slight reinforcement to other and stronger evidence.
What evidence? She went on looking at the picture in her mind, and all at once there came to her an echo from no more than a couple of days ago-Maurice and Jennifer squabbling.
“He always wears gloves.”
“He’s afraid of spoiling his hands.”
And Benjy, “I’m not afraid of spoiling my hands.” With Maurice bursting into a loud rude laugh and a “You haven’t got anything to spoil!”
It was quite irrelevant. A fragment heard by chance and no name mentioned. Just someone who wore gloves. A man. The glove in her picture of the bandaged man, the glove upon the left hand which rested on the crook of the stick-an old wash-leather glove, worn and old like the stick itself-stretched with use until the stitches parted between the two first fingers. The thread which curled up from the small triangular tear was worn and dirty. The glove was an old, worn glove. If such a glove and such a stick were to be found in anyone’s possession-”
She had reached this point, when the picture and the silence broke together to the muffled sound of a shot.
CHAPTER XXXIV
In the country it is no uncommon thing to hear a shot, even in the middle of the night. If Miss Silver had been country born and country bred she might have thought very little of that muffled sound. She might not have thought about it at all. But it came near enough to the subject of her thoughts to be arresting. She was a town-dweller, but she had often stayed in the country, and while not accepting a shot with the indifference born of custom, her ear was fine enough to prompt the thought that this shot had not been fired in the open. It had lacked sharpness and clarity. She thought that it had been fired within the four walls of one of the rooms of Deepe House. She opened her door and stood there listening.
A faint light burned on the landing at the head of the stair. Beyond it the passage which led to the main block was deeply shadowed. And there was silence over all.
And then the second shot.
This time there was no doubt of its direction. It came from beyond the dividing wall between this wing and the deserted house. There was a movement behind her, and Jennifer’s hand on her arm. She said in a quiet, firm voice,
“Go back to bed, my dear. Your mother is asleep.”
The hand gripped hard.
“That was a shot.”
“I expect it was Mr. Robinson. He is often out at night, is he not?”
“He doesn’t shoot.” There was scorn in the whispering voice. “He doesn’t kill things, he watches them. That shot came from the house. What are you going to do?”
“I am going to see whether anything is wrong.”
Jennifer said with a sort of hushed vehemence,
“You can’t get in. He locks the door. He keeps it locked. I’ve got a key. I found it. He left it sticking in the lock. He never knew where it had gone. I went in-once.”
The hand that gripped Miss Silver’s arm was as hard and cold as ice. It was too rigid to shake. Very slow and chill, Jennifer’s voice said,
“I-saw-the-hand.” And then again, “Clarice’s hand- the one that was cut off-I saw it.”
“If you have a key, will you get it for me, my dear? Quickly.”
In the same strained tone Jennifer said,
“He thought he must have dropped it out of his pocket. He asked me if I had seen it, and I told a lie.”
“My dear, the key! And I said quickly! You must not delay me now!”
The grip on her arm relaxed. Without a sound Jennifer was gone, and without a sound she was back again. She held out the key and said,
“You can’t go in!”
Miss Silver took it from her.
“Oh yes, I can, my dear. And I want you to help me. Will you slip into your mother’s room and just stay with her until I come back. It would not be at all good for her to be disturbed. Pray do not leave her alone. And take an eiderdown to wrap round you, so that you will not be cold.”
She fetched the eiderdown herself, opened Mrs. Craddock’s door, and saw Jennifer inside. There was a night-light on the washstand, and a small electric fire. The room was warm and quiet. Mrs. Craddock slept her exhausted sleep. Miss Silver shut the door, crossed the landing, and went down the dusky passage to the door which led into the deserted house. She had in the pocket of her dressing-gown the excellent torch which she always took with her when she went into the country. In these old places the current sometimes failed at such extremely inconvenient moments. She would certainly take no risk of meeting with an accident in a bomb-damaged house.