“Well, the boy seems to have turned up at his lodgings in pretty bad shape. He said he missed the last train and had to thumb a lift. He’s been in bed with a temperature ever since. The gold figures are certainly not in his room, and he doesn’t seem to have any opportunity of disposing of them. The only time he could have done it would be between leaving Melling and arriving at his lodgings, and that’s out, because we’ve traced the man who gave him the lift-a doctor called out of town to a consultation. He says the boy seemed ill when he picked him up in Lenton, so he went a mile out of his road and took him all the way home.”
Miss Silver knitted briskly. The sleeve of little Josephine’s jacket lengthened.
“What does Cyril Mayhew say himself?”
“Oh, he admits going down to see his mother, and admits that it was because he wanted money, but he says his mother gave it to him. When he was pressed he broke down and said it was his father’s money and his father didn’t know. Well, that’s a family matter-unless Mayhew makes a charge, which he won’t. But it accounts for Mrs. Mayhew getting so hot and bothered. I suspect she has been strictly forbidden to go on providing the prodigal with pocket-money, and she’s been doing it behind Mayhew’s back.”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
“You did not find the gold figures at the Gate House?”
“No, we didn’t.”
She said in a thoughtful tone,
“They must be somewhere.”
He laughed.
“Too true! But we haven’t found them yet.”
She continued in the same manner.
“A woman in Mrs. Welby’s position would find it extremely difficult to dispose of that kind of stolen property.”
He made a gesture of protest.
“She disposed of other things.”
“They were not known to be stolen. I do not suppose for a moment that she regarded them as stolen. She had probably quite persuaded herself that Mrs. Lessiter had given them to her, and she had no reason to suppose that her actions would ever be called in question. There is a vast difference between that and the disposal of these four gold figures, taken at the time of a murder and in the very presence of the murdered man.”
“She may have hidden them somewhere.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Why should she take them at all? For a woman of her type to kill by violence she must have been very highly wrought. Mr. Lessiter was threatening her with prosecution. If she was so beside herself with fear as to have recourse to an unnatural degree of violence, would she choose that moment for a theft which must involve her in a fresh series of risks and would, if traced, convict her of the murder? That is one thing I find difficult to believe. But there is another. Miss Cray left Mr. Lessiter at a quarter past nine. We know that Mrs. Welby stood behind the lilacs, and we have drawn the deduction that she was waiting for Miss Cray to go. We know that she ascended the step, and it is fair to conclude that she listened at the door. Miss Cray broke off her interview in anger, and she admits that the anger was on behalf of a friend. Can you doubt that the friend was Mrs. Welby, and that Miss Cray’s generous anger arose from his obstinate determination to prosecute?”
“Yes, I admit all that.”
“Then, Randal, can you explain why Mrs. Welby should have allowed more than half an hour to go by before entering the study?”
“Where do you get your half hour?”
She said very composedly,
“From Mrs. Mayhew’s statements. You will remember that she opened the study door at a quarter to ten and saw Miss Cray’s raincoat hanging over a chair. She described the cuff as being stained with blood. When she was later pressed on this point, it appeared that the stain was no more than could be accounted for by the scratch on Miss Cray’s wrist. But when Mr. Carr Robertson brought the raincoat home more than an hour later the sleeve was quite soaked with blood. If this soaking occurred whilst the coat was being worn by Mrs. Welby, then it happened after Mrs. Mayhew opened the door at a quarter to ten. From what Miss Cray has told me, I believe that it must have happened considerably later than that. Miss Cray says the blood was still quite wet. Blood dries quickly, and she says it was very hot in the study. If Mrs. Welby stained that coat in the act of murdering Mr. Lessiter, then she must have deferred her interview with him for something between half an hour and an hour and a quarter. Why should she have done so?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor do I, Randal.”
He said in an exasperated voice,
“My dear Miss Silver, what are you trying to prove? The case is solved, the murderer has committed suicide-two and two have made four. What more do you want?”
She coughed in a deprecating manner.
“You say that two and two have made four. I regret to say that at the moment they appear to me to be making five.”
CHAPTER 40
Miss Silver knocked at the kitchen door and went in. She found Mrs. Crook sitting in front of the fire listening to the B.B.C. light programme.
“Pray do not disturb yourself. I will not detain you for more than a moment.”
Mrs. Crook reached out sideways and reduced the volume of an accordion band.
“Thank you, Mrs. Crook. It is wonderful how faithfully your set reproduces the tone-but just a little difficult when one is talking. I only came in to ask whether you would by any chance be going out this evening.”
“Well, I thought I might look in on Mrs. Grover.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I wondered if you would be doing that, and whether you would mind taking a note for me to her son.”
“He’ll be in a dreadful way,” said Mrs. Crook.
“I am afraid so.”
“Thought the world of Mrs. Welby. I don’t want to say anything about them that are gone, but she shouldn’t have encouraged him the way she did-a boy like that! Where was her pride?”
“I expect she just looked upon him as a boy, Mrs. Crook.”
Bessie Crook bridled.
“Well, he’s got his feelings, hasn’t he? She might have thought of that. And so has my niece Gladys. Mrs. Welby didn’t think about her, did she? Come between two loving hearts, that’s what she did. Gladys and Allan, they’d been going together ever since they were in their cradles, as you might say. Living or dead, you can’t get from it-it’s not what a lady ought to do.”
This was a very long speech for Mrs. Crook. Her colour had deepened. She looked accusingly at Miss Silver.
“Let young people alone is what I say. But she couldn’t. Only yesterday morning she was off into Lenton and in Mr. Holderness’s office. Gladys had the morning off, and they went in on the same bus, so she thinks to herself, ‘I’ll see where she goes.’ And she hasn’t got to see far-straight through Friar’s Cut and into Mr. Holderness’s office! And nothing’ll make Gladys believe she didn’t go there after Allan. Quite downhearted she was when I saw her for a minute outside the Stores.”
Miss Silver’s note was a very short one. It ran:
Dear Mr. Grover,
I should very much like to see you if you can make it convenient.
Yours sincerely,
MAUD SILVER .
Having dispatched it by the hand of Mrs. Crook, she decided that she would not accompany Cecilia Voycey to evening service. She was therefore alone in the house when in response to a hesitating knock upon the front door she went to open it and saw the same tall, dark figure which had accompanied her across the Green.
She took him into the comfortable warmth of the drawing-room, and was able for the first time to receive an impression of him beyond that conveyed by his voice and his height. He was a goodlooking boy, even with his eyes red and swollen from weeping. He had a certain charm of youth, sincerity, and ardour. He took the chair she indicated, stared at her in a grief-stricken way, and said,