Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
“I should be interested to know what he thought of Mr. Trent and Miss Delauny.”
“Well, they both put up very good stories. Trent admitted frankly that he had been horrified by some of the things which had cropped up when he went out after the war to settle up his cousin Edgar’s affairs. Chap committed suicide in ’42 and there was a pretty bad mess to clear up. Trent said he hadn’t the slightest idea of there being anything wrong since then. Couldn’t understand it, and couldn’t be expected to go into business details without having access to the books. Professed himself ready to fly out to Alexandria and go into everything with the police.”
“And is he going to do that?”
“Not if I can help it, but I don’t know whether I can. You see, if there’s anything in this idea that he may be tied up with a couple of murders, Alex would be a great deal too convenient for him. Back doors and back stairs ad lib, and if his trading company has been up to any funny business, there will be plenty of keys to open those back doors. The question is, how much is there in this idea that there was some hanky-panky about his ward’s death, and that he may have stuck a knife into his butler for knowing too much about it. Grayson was telling me about what they had got, and frankly it doesn’t amount to much, does it? Grayson is a very nice chap and as honest as they come. But then he has married into the Humphreys family, and you can’t expect him to want Tom Humphreys to hang-to put it no stronger than that. So however hard he tries to be impartial, he can hardly help at least hoping that there’s something in old Humphreys’ story.”
Miss Silver coughed in a gently meditative manner.
“Do you want me to tell you what I think?”
He was quite serious now.
“Yes, I do.”
“Very well then, I will do so. Where evidence is slight, and possibly biassed, I have always felt that the best results may be obtained by going behind the evidence to what springs directly from the disposition, character, and temperament of the people concerned. In this case we have a young woman of loose morals engaged in an affair with Mr. Trent’s butler who is a married man. They are surprised by her father, and after a violent scene Tom Humphreys fires a charge of shot at Flaxman, who is by this time too far off to be dangerously affected. He staggers away. Tom Humphreys pushes his daughter into the house and goes in and beats her. Up to this point the whole scene has been witnessed by the next door neighbour, Mrs. Larkin. According to her account she calls after Flaxman to ask if he is all right, and he tells her to mind her own business. After which she would have us believe that she went into her cottage and took no further interest in the proceedings, though she has already stated that she knew Tom Humphreys was beating his daughter. Bearing in mind that she is an extremely voluble and inquisitive woman, does that strike you as credible?”
“Frankly, no. What do you think she really did?”
The busy needles clicked.
“I think she would go into her house. Tom Humphreys was in a violent state, and he had a stick in his hand. He might have adopted a threatening attitude towards an eavesdropper. But she could go into her house and look out of an upstairs window. There is hardly a woman on earth who would not have done so. She would be listening for Nellie’s screams and watching to see whether Flaxman was going away. The night was overcast, but there was a moon behind the clouds. I am told that Mrs. Larkin prides herself on her good eyesight. I think she could have commanded quite a considerable field of vision from her upper window.”
He whistled.
“You mean that she would have seen Tom Humphreys if he had left the house?”
“I believe that she must have done so. If she did not see him leave the house, it was because, having beaten his daughter, he went to bed.”
“My dear ma’am, he could have waited until he was sure that a prying neighbour had given it up, and that he would be able to slip out unobserved.”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“You are not really thinking,” she said in grave reproof. “When you have peppered a man with shot you do not expect him to hang about waiting for you to come out and stab him. And you are getting away from what we agreed to consider-the characters of the people concerned. Tom Humphreys has the reputation of being a man surly in manner but not given to violence in action. On this occasion he received very grave provocation, with a consequent lack of control which led him to fire a charge of shot at Flaxman and beat his daughter. That is, say, in the first immediate heat of anger he turns to a shotgun. The firing of the gun was not followed up. His anger turned towards Nellie, and he beat her with a stick. By this time his first violence would have expended itself. If it had not done so, he would, I feel sure, have gone out stick in hand to make sure that Flaxman had cleared off. I find it impossible to believe that at that period of the proceedings he took a pruning-knife and went out to stab a man who he could not really have supposed would still be there. And if he had done so, Mrs. Larkin would have seen him.”
Frank said,
“You’re making out a case, but I don’t know what a jury would say to it. And if Mrs. Larkin was really looking out of her window and didn’t see Tom Humphreys come out again, why doesn’t she say so and clear him?”
Miss Silver pulled on her ball of wool.
“Mrs. Larkin has been a widow for ten years. Miss Falconer tells me that she has made several very determined attempts to marry Tom Humphreys. She has had high words with Nellie, and not very long ago there was quite a violent quarrel with Tom himself. Since she talked about it all over the village, it is common knowledge that he told her to keep out of his affairs and leave him alone.”
“In fact, no fury like a woman scorned. You know, the immortal Sherlock was perfectly right when he pointed out that the English countryside fairly seethes with material for crime. I seem to remember that Dr. Watson couldn’t believe him! But I can!”
Miss Silver looked some slight reproof, and opined that human nature was very much the same wherever you found it, but that of course in the country people did know more about their next door neighbours.
Frank got up and stood in front of the fire.
“Well, Tom Humphreys couldn’t have done it, because Mrs. Larkin didn’t see him leave the cottage, and she won’t say so because he spurned her. As a matter of fact, the daughter is going to swear that her father didn’t go out again-but she would probably do that anyhow. Now where do we go from there?”
“We look for someone coming from the village,” said Miss Silver soberly. “Tom Humphreys is indoors beating Nellie. Mrs. Larkin has gone upstairs to look out of her window. Someone comes down the road from the village and meets Flaxman at or near that waste piece of ground. Let us consider Flaxman for a moment. He has been bragging to Nellie that he knows something which is going to be a gold mine to him. It is a sign of his weakness that he needs someone to whom he can figure as a bold, determined fellow. A really determined man would have held his tongue. Flaxman is weak. He feels the need of someone to bolster him up. Then observe him in the scene at the cottage. He has been found out, and his conscience has made a coward of him. He makes no attempt to stand up to Tom Humphreys or to protect Nellie. He just slinks off with his charge of shot, and there, by the waste piece of land, someone meets him. He is probably feeling extremely sorry for himself. If the person is known to him, he will be glad of an arm and of help upon his way. There would be every opportunity of administering that fatal stab.”
Frank looked at her in an enigmatic manner.
“And who do you suppose that someone to have been?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“There are four possibilities, one of them a very shadowy one, but we may as well examine it with the others. Of the four people who might have stabbed Flaxman, three would have come from within the Ladies’ House, and one from the gardener’s cottage.”