“Those pages are not in any of the usual places. Do you suppose I haven’t looked? I believe they are somewhere in Ione’s room.”
“Why?”
“She had been fairly haunting it. It was her last new craze, and I believe she stumbled on some hiding-place. The trouble is I never really have a chance of getting down to looking there. I thought I would get one the day Ione and Allegra went into Wraydon. I came back as quickly as I could, and there was Florrie turning out the room!”
He bent a frank look upon her.
“But why don’t you tell Ione and ask her to help you?”
She broke into unsteady laughter.
“You damned, damned fool! Can’t you get it into your head that what Margot wrote on those missing pages may very well put a rope round your neck? Not the rope you told her she could have, but one that can be trusted to do its job!” She came up close to him and went down on her knees by his chair, catching him by the wrist, the arm. “Geoffrey-Geoffrey-can’t you see the danger you are in? They are raking up all that old business of Edgar’s again, and if they get only half a chance they’ll try and pin Margot’s death on you! They haven’t got anything on me, but they could be made to believe that they have quite a lot on you! You don’t seem to realize it, and you’ve got to! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you-nothing! But I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself!”
He disentangled himself from her clinging hands and got up. What an unbridled lust for emotion women had! But not Allegra. She came into his mind, passing through it as she might have passed through a room, small, and pale, and cool. He went round to the farther side of the table and stood there.
“Get up, Jackie!” he said. “Get up and take a pull on yourself! You’re seeing everything through a magnifying-glass, and at least three-quarters of what you see is in your own imagination. You and I are going to quarrel if you keep trumping up this damned story about my having told Margot she could take that rope. It is utterly and wickedly untrue, and I absolutely forbid you to bring it up again!”
She got to her feet, stumbling on the edge of her skirt, catching at the table for support. When she was up, she leaned on it shaking, her eyes ablaze in an ashy face.
“You don’t”dream about her?” The words only just reached him.
He said, “No.”
“You don’t feel as if you might meet her on one of those damned staircases-closed in, the two of you?”
“Certainly not.”
She leaned a little nearer. The slightest breath-the least sound of words-
“She doesn’t come in the night and-show you-the rope?”
He drew back a step.
“My dear Jackie, I’m not an hysterical woman. You are, and I suggest that you should go up to your room and use enough cold water to steady your nerves.”
He went over to the door, opened it, and went out, leaving her standing there by the study table.
CHAPTER 33
At half past eight that evening Frank Abbott betook himself to see Miss Silver. The two elderly ladies would have partaken of a light meal, and the sacred ritual of washing up would have been accomplished.
Miss Falconer, who opened the door to him, was a good deal fluttered. There had been a time when young men came in and out of the house laughing and talking with Robin, but it was all so long ago, and not this house. There was nothing to bring young people here any more-not since Robin went away to the war and never came back. Just for a moment the sight of Frank’s tall, light figure and the tone of his voice brought everything up. Time did take away the worst of the pain, but you could never tell when it would come upon you suddenly like this.
She showed him into the little dining-room, switched on the electric fire, and went away to find Miss Silver. He was wondering what he had done to frighten her, when Miss Maud Silver came in, knitting-bag on arm. She was wearing last year’s summer dress-art silk of a shade rather too reminiscent of boiled greens-this garment being reinforced by the now aged black velvet coatee without which she never went down into the country. Even in the height of summer she knew only too well how draughty the English cottage, the English vicarage, and above all the English country mansion could be. But with her coatee, so cosy, so comfortable, she felt secure.
When she had seated herself and extracted Derek’s last stocking from her knitting-bag she smiled and said,
“Well, Frank?”
A leaf of the dining-table had been let down, and they sat one on either side of the hearth in Windsor chairs. Miss Falconer never lost her secret regrets for the Chippendale set which she had been obliged to sacrifice, but Frank, who had an eye for such things, allowed it to rest appreciatively upon the Windsors and thought how perfectly they suited the room. He laughed and said,
“And why should it be you who say ‘Well?’ in that tone to me?”
She smiled demurely.
“You would not have come to see me if you had not had anything to say.”
He had a protest for that.
“I might have wanted to hear what you had got to say. Or I might, who knows, have had an urge to come and sit at your feet. As the late revered Tennyson has put it:
“My dear Frank, you really do talk very great nonsense.”
“Dulce desipere in loco!”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I am not familiar with Latin. It was not considered a necessary part of a girl’s education when I was in the schoolroom.”
He cocked an impudent eyebrow.
“Something you don’t know! My dear ma’am, let me make the most of it-it will probably never occur again! I was merely remarking that it is sweet to play the fool sometimes.”
She regarded him with indulgence.
“If you have anything to tell me, do you not think you had better begin?”
“Unless you would like to shoot first.”
She considered this.
“There is one point upon which you should be informed. Miss Muir has not, I believe, communicated it to Inspector Grayson.”
“But she told you.”
“And I have given no pledge of secrecy. It concerns a conversation which she overheard between Mr. Trent and Miss Delauny. I think that I had better repeat it to you.”
He listened to the careful, accurate repetition of what Ione had heard through the shaft in the wall. As soon as she had finished he said,
“She can’t keep that back, you know. She’ll have to come across with it.”
“Yes, I have told her so. She is in a painful position.”
He said in his most cynical tone,
“Murder does make it painful for the relations, doesn’t it?”
She could have nothing but reproof for this. It was expressed by a brief silence, after which she observed with some restraint,
“And now I believe that you will have something to tell me.”
He laughed, and then was as serious as she could wish.
“Well, I suppose you would like to know what Howland’s impressions are. He’s the dope expert, and we came down together bright and early this morning. He’s gone back to town to make his report whilst I linger on the scene.”
“And what does Mr. Howland think?”
He laughed again.
“Inspector-same as me. But so very, very much more like a plain John Citizen. I should like to have been a fly on the wall whilst he was talking to Trent and Miss Delauny. He manages to give the impression that he is almost too shy to ask any questions at all, and yet out they come one after the other. I believe he really is shy, you know, but he has managed to polish up his natural diffidence until it has become a very effective technique.”