Miss Silver knitted for a few moments in silence. Then she said,
“What do you think happened to him, Frank?”
“Well, he was a rolling stone-I told you that. I think he started out to see Lesley, and then he had a come-over of some sort. Remember they’d quarrelled. If they made it up now, he’d be in for life. Perhaps he saw his last chance slipping. Perhaps he thought he was selling himself for a mess of pottage. Perhaps he thought he’d just cut and run, and did it-a last dash for freedom, so to speak. Suppose he did that without any plan-managed to thumb a lift. Remember it was bright moonlight.”
“Yes?” said Miss Silver in a gently interrogatory manner. “And what then?”
“Well, he wouldn’t be the first man who’d pitched a tale and enlisted under somebody else’s name. I’ve been over it hundreds of times, and I think that’s what must have happened. He didn’t get away by train-that’s certain. There are two stations he might have reached by walking-Burshot and Ledlington. At Burshot he’d have been recognized, and at either place he’d have been sufficiently conspicuous to be noticed-without hat, scarf, or overcoat.”
“And nobody saw him?”
“He’s never been seen or heard of again.”
chapter 9
The room was quiet for a time. It did not seem long to either of them. Frank Abbott broke the silence by saying,
“I haven’t known you for seven years, have I? But if I don’t put something on this fire, it will go out.”
Miss Silver smiled in rather an absent manner and said,
“Pray do so.”
She watched him being dexterous with some reluctant embers and a shovelful of coal. Chief Detective Inspector Lamb had once remarked in her presence that if Frank was good for nothing else, he could always manage to get a fire going. Which was his way of counteracting what he considered to be a tendency to wind in the head.
When the fire was producing small but hopeful flames, she said,
“There are still a few questions I should like to ask, and if you do not mind, I should like to take some notes.”
She laid down her knitting, went over to the writing-table, and opened the shiny green exercise-book which lay ready upon the blotting-pad.
Frank Abbott got up from his stool and took up a position half sitting, half leaning, against the far corner of the table.
“Well, what can I do for you?”
“You can tell me who was in the house when Mr. Clayton disappeared.”
He gave her the names, ticking them off on his fingers.
“Mr. Pilgrim-Miss Columba-Miss Janetta-Roger-”
She stopped him with a cough.
“You did not mention him before.”
“Didn’t I? Oh, well, he was there-seven days’ leave. Jack was abroad out east, so he wasn’t… Where was I?” He ticked off the fourth finger of his left hand-“Roger,” and went on to the fifth-“Jerome-Lona Day-Henry himself-and the staff.”
She wrote down the names and looked up at him.
“Of what did the staff consist?”
“At that time? Let me see… Mr. and Mrs. Robbins-two young village girls, Ivy Rush and Maggie Pell-that’s the lot. But Maggie and Ivy didn’t sleep in, so they’re a wash-out.”
Miss Silver wrote that down.
“And who were in the house when Mr. Pilgrim met with his fatal accident?”
“The same as before-but not Roger. He was in the Middle East being taken prisoner about then.”
“And who is in the house now?”
He cocked an eyebrow, and thought, “Roger must have told her that. What’s she up to?” Aloud he replied,
“Same lot again plus Roger and minus the two girls, who have both been called up. Maggie’s younger sister has taken her place. Their grandfather, old Pell, is gardener at Pilgrim’s Rest-been there since the year one.”
“And the other girl has been replaced by Miss Judy Elliot?”
Looking up to ask this question, she observed a slight change in his expression. It was so slight that with anyone else it would have passed unnoticed. It did, however, prepare Miss Silver for the fact that his voice as he answered her was also not quite as usual, the difference being hard to define.
He said, “Oh, yes.” And then, “She’s a friend of mine, you know. But I had nothing to do with her going there-in fact, I did my best to stop her. She’s got a child tagging along-her sister’s. I don’t like their being there-I don’t like it a bit. That’s one reason why I’m so glad you’re going down.”
It wasn’t the slightest good-he was giving himself away right and left. Maudie could see through him like a pane of glass.
Whatever she saw, Miss Silver showed no consciousness of its being anything unusual. The friendly attention of her manner was unchanged as she said,
“There should not be any risk for them.”
He leaned towards her with a hand on the table.
“Look here, what are you driving at with these three lists? You’re not trying to make out that Henry’s disappearance has anything to do with Roger’s bonnetful of bees?”
Miss Silver gave her slight habitual cough.
“My dear Frank, in the last three years a number of unusual things have happened at Pilgrim’s Rest. Mr. Henry Clayton disappeared on the eve of his wedding. Mr. Pilgrim met with a fatal accident which his groom and his son believe not to have been an accident at all. And this son is now convinced that two serious attempts have been made upon his own life. I do not assert that these things are connected, but so strange a series of coincidences would certainly seem to call for careful investigation. There is just one thing more I wished to ask you. When Mr. Henry Clayton disappeared, was he known to have any money with him?”
Frank straightened up.
“Well, yes, I ought to have told you about that. It’s one of the strongest reasons for supposing that he was doing a bolt. Mr. Pilgrim had given him a cheque for fifty pounds as a wedding-present. Henry asked if he could have it in notes because he would need the cash for his honeymoon. Everyone in the family knew that old Pilgrim kept money in the house. Well, when Henry asked him if he could have the cash he took back the cheque and tore it up. Roger told me about it-he was there. Said his father went off upstairs and came back with four ten-pound notes and two fivers, and Henry got out his wallet and put them away.”
“Was anyone else present?”
“Robbins came in with some wood for the fire whilst Henry was putting the notes away. He said he saw Mr. Henry putting his wallet away in an inside pocket, but he didn’t know why he had had it out, and he didn’t think anything more about it.”
“What about the notes, Frank-were any of them traced?”
He lifted a hand and let it fall again.
“We couldn’t get the numbers. The Pilgrims own a lot of farm property, and the old man collected the rents himself. He used to ride round, have a bit of a friendly chat, come home with the cash, and stuff it away anywhere. Didn’t think much of banks-liked to have his money where he could put his hands on it. Roger tells me they found over seven hundred pounds in the house after he died, most of it in a tin box under his bed. Lord knows how long he’d had the notes he gave Henry, or where he got them.”