“Your best won’t do unless it’s really honest. I’ve got to know. Are you-quite sure about me? I don’t mean just now when we’re here together like this, but have you always been quite sure-first thing in the morning, and when you wake up suddenly in the night, before you’ve had time to sort yourself out, and argue about it?”
“Yes, I’ve always been quite sure. It’s not the sort of thing I’ve got to argue about-it’s in my bones.”
She came up close again and said,
“Carr isn’t sure.”
“Rietta!”
“It’s not his fault. He wants to be sure-he wants it dreadfully.”
“He’s a young fool.”
She shook her head.
“He tries-I’ve seen him try. Sometimes he pulls it off- for a little. And then it comes over him again-‘Suppose she did it.’ He doesn’t say anything, but I know. If it was ever like that with you, I couldn’t bear it.”
“It won’t ever be like that with me-I can promise you that.”
She said again, “It isn’t Carr’s fault. I might be thinking the same sort of thing about him, only it’s been so plain that he thought it was I who had killed James. He asked me why I’d done it. And he made me wash the raincoat. I’m afraid I did it very badly.”
“You oughtn’t to have done it at all.”
She put up a hand and pushed back her hair-the familiar gesture which wrung his heart.
“I know. What I don’t know is whether I wouldn’t do it again. It was all so horrible, so sudden-and I was frightened for Carr, and he was frightened for me. Only I ought to have made a better job of it. It seemed the best thing to do at the time, but now of course it’s going to make any jury believe I did it.”
He said with a rough edge on his voice,
“Don’t talk about juries-it won’t come to that. Somebody killed Lessiter, and we’re going to find out who it was. If you get worried, go and see Miss Silver. You’ll find her very bracing.”
She said, “I like her. I don’t quite know why she impresses one, but she does. It’s a sort of mixture of being back at school again and finding yourself wandering about in the fairy story where you meet an old woman and she gives you a hazel nut with the cloak of darkness packed inside it.”
He laughed out loud.
“I wonder what Miss Silver would say if you told her that! She might just smile indulgently, or you might get a reproof for talking in what she would describe as an exaggerated manner. She’s rather a wonder, you know. I’ve heard that impudent chap Frank Abbott call her Maudie the Mascot. Not to her face, but he always says that if she comes in on a case, the police come out of it in a blaze of glory.”
“Is it true?”
“Just about. She has the most extraordinary flair. No, it’s something more than that. She knows people. All the things they hide behind-appearance, manner, the show we all put up to prevent other people knowing too much about us- she sees right through them, and judges you on what’s left. I can still remember the awful feeling we used to get when we were children and we’d been up to something she didn’t approve of. Even Isabel, who was a fairly hardy liar, used to give up and burst into tears.”
“I can’t imagine Isabel bursting into tears.”
“No-she was tough, wasn’t she? But I’ve seen her do it. As for me, I always felt it wasn’t even worth trying to hold out on Miss Silver, so I didn’t try. I don’t mind confessing that she still has very much the same effect on me.”
Rietta laughed a little unsteadily.
“Yes, she’s like that. It came over me when I was talking to her that if I’d had anything to hide, she’d have found it out. As it was, I told her things I didn’t mean to.” She stepped back. “Randal, I must go. They’ll think something has happened to me.”
CHAPTER 35
Friday slipped away into the past. Before it was quite gone Randal March received a telephone call. He had the lover’s thought that it might be Rietta, and knew this at once for the folly that it was. Miss Silver’s schoolroom French came to him along the wire.
“I am sorry to disturb you, but if you could make it convenient to call here tomorrow as early as possible, I should be glad. I have had two conversations which I should like to pass on to you.”
That was all, without either greeting or farewell.
He whistled softly as he hung up the receiver. He knew his Miss Silver. When she dispensed with observance it meant quite serious business. He made a mental note to be with her by half past nine. If Melling had to see the Chief Constable’s car turn in at Mrs. Voycey’s gate, he supposed Miss Silver would have reckoned on that and considered that the game was worth the candle. He finished what writing he had to do and took his way to bed, and to the dreamless sleep which was his fortunate portion.
There were others who were not so fortunate.
Rietta Cray, lying sleepless in the dark, saw painted upon it the cold decay of hope. The glow that had been in her died, slowly but without respite. The bleak voice of common sense set out in chill, convincing terms just how much she would damage Randal’s career if she were to marry him. There are possible things and impossible things. If the impossible seems possible and you grasp at it, you are left with only your own folly to mock you. For an hour she had believed that happiness was possible. Now she watched it withdraw.
Carr Robertson slept, and dreamed a frightful dream. He stood in a dark place with a dead man at his feet. The cold hand touched him. He woke sweating.
Up at Melling House Mrs. Mayhew called out in her sleep. She had cried until she could cry no more, and then passed into a dream in which a child wailed. The child was Cyril. He was cold, he was hungry, he was hurt, and she could not go to him. She called out in her sleep with such a lamentable voice that Mayhew sat up and lit the candle. She cried out again, and turned and went back into her dream. He sat up in bed with the flame of the candle blowing and thought how cold it was, and wondered what was going to happen to them all.
Catherine Welby was awake. Like Mayhew she was sitting up in bed, but unlike Mayhew she had taken precautions against feeling cold. A small electric fire was turned on, the window was shut, and she wore a becoming quilted jacket of the same pale blue as the eiderdown. Without any makeup her skin was pale. Her fair hair was hidden by a lace cap. She had three pillows behind her, and she sat up straight against them and read-line after line, page after page, chapter after chapter. Her will drove her, but if she had been asked what she read she might have been put to it to find an answer.
The longest night comes to an end, just as the last night comes, whether we know it is the end or not. For one of these people it was the last night.
When the dull, reluctant day returned, each one of them got up and went about his business.
Catherine Welby dressed to catch the nine-forty bus into Lenton. She made herself some coffee and a couple of slices of toast. She was no longer pale, because she had taken steps to avoid anything so unbecoming. She looked very much as she always did, except that she was wearing a hat-grey, to match her suit, with a jay’s feather stuck in the band.
She came out of the front door, locking it behind her, and saw Mrs. Fallow come down the drive, hurrying and all agog with news. Catherine said good-morning, and it all came pouring out.
“It’s my morning for Miss Cray, and I expect you’ll wonder what I’m doing, but I said to Miss Rietta how I couldn’t get that poor soul Mrs. Mayhew off my mind. It’s terrible the way she’s been carrying on. Mr. Mayhew can’t get her to eat a thing. She just sits and drinks a cup of tea and cries down into it all the time. So I said to Miss Rietta, ‘I’ve got a hen laying, and I’ve brought two of the eggs along, so what about slipping up to the house and seeing she gets one whipped up in her tea?’ And Miss Rietta she says, ‘All right,’ and off I went.”