Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
“It is not as strange as it appears. The bedrooms which look out upon the garden are old Mr. Pilgrim’s and the one which Roger used to occupy, neither of which is in use, the one into which Roger had moved, and on the other side of the stairs an empty room and the one occupied by Captain Jerome Pilgrim. On the ground floor there are the two unused drawing-rooms and the study. Miss Day’s room and the one I am occupying, Miss Elliot’s and the two Miss Pilgrims’ rooms, all look towards the street.”
He nodded.
“Yes, I have seen the rooms. Jerome should have heard something, but I understand that he had the wireless going. Even so, you would have thought-” He broke off with a frown, looked down at the paper in his hand, and went on again. “Pell found him when he went to lock the gates just before seven. Daly says he might have been dead half an hour or three quarters when he saw him, which was at five minutes past seven, as he happened to be in and had only to walk about a hundred yards down the street when Miss Columba’s call came through. You see how fluid it leaves the time. According to Robbins, Roger was alive and talking to Miss Freyne at ten minutes past six. According to Miss Freyne, he was alive when she looked at her watch and left him at a quarter past. I pressed Daly as to whether he might have been dead before that, and he said it was a thing nobody could swear to one way or the other. He doesn’t think he’d been dead for more than three quarters of an hour, but-he might have been. If it was suicide it probably happened as soon as Miss Freyne had gone. I don’t mind telling you that’s what I’m inclined to think. Daly said he was in a very nervy state. He had screwed himself up to selling the place against a good deal of opposition from the family. What Miss Freyne said about it was the last straw. He waited until she was gone and threw himself out.”
Miss Silver coughed and said,
“No, Randall, it was not suicide.”
“You sound very sure about that.”
“I feel very sure about it.”
“Why?”
“He did not want to die. He wanted to sell this place, get away from it, and live in a small modern house. He was not engaged, but he had an attachment. He looked forward to marrying and settling down. I feel quite sure that it was not suicide.”
“Accident then. Those windows come down to within a few inches of the floor-that window-seat affair is only a low step up. It would be easy enough to over-balance if he had any kind of a turn.”
Miss Silver shook her head again and said,
“No.”
He looked at her with good-tempered exasperation.
“Then I suppose you are going to tell me just what happened.”
She rested her hands upon the now voluminous mass of Ethel’s jumper and said gravely,
“No, I cannot do that. But it was murder, Randall. Roger Pilgrim was murdered.”
chapter 18
There was one of those silences which are not noticed because thought talks so loudly. Murder is a word to which no amount of use can quite accustom us. The voice of blood calling from the earth must always be a dreadful voice, and one before which all others fall to silence.
Randall March broke this one, his voice dry and official as he said,
“What proof have you that it was murder?”
Miss Silver picked up her needles and began to knit again very composedly. She said,
“I have no proof. But I have a good many interesting things to tell you. To begin with, I am here in my professional capacity because Roger Pilgrim believed that two attempts had been made upon his life.”
“What were they?”
She told him very succinctly.
“You can go and look at the two rooms for yourself. The fallen ceiling was attributed to an overflowing sink, the burnt-out room to a spark from the wood fire setting light to the papers which Roger Pilgrim had been sorting. In the first case, the sink is twelve feet away on the other side of a passage the ceiling of which did not come down, and I shall be greatly surprised if you do not agree with me that the amount of wet still traceable under the floor of the room immediately over Roger’s points to water having been deliberately applied there. In the second case, Roger was convinced that he had been drugged. He fell heavily asleep after taking a small whisky and soda, and awoke to find the room blazing and, as he declared to me, the door locked on the outside. He said he had been keeping the key there because of having these confidential papers spread about. It was his habit, apparently, to lock the room as he went out. By the time the fire had been got under, he told me, the door had been unlocked again. But he couldn’t get out that way. He had to break a window.”
“Did you believe that his life had been attempted?”
She was knitting rapidly.
“I kept an open mind. There was no real evidence, as Frank Abbott told him.”
“Abbott?”
“They were at school together. Frank has relatives in the neighbourhood. He advised Roger to come and see me.”
Randall March said abruptly,
“What would the motive be?”
“To prevent him from selling the property.”
“What!”
“He was about to do so. In similar circumstances his father also met with a fatal accident.”
Miss Silver frowned upon an exclamation which she considered profane. In a reproving voice she informed him of what the old groom William had told Roger about the presence of a thorn under his father’s saddle.
“I cannot tell you whether it was true or not. I can only tell you that Roger believed it. I did not think it wise to question William, but you will be able to do so.”
Randall March sat forward with his elbows on the table.
“My dear Miss Silver, are you seriously asking me to believe that two people have been murdered in order to prevent the sale of this estate?”
“It is what I believe, Randall.”
“But why? Good heavens-you want a motive for that sort of thing! Who had one? The next heir is Jack Pilgrim, who has been out of the country for the last four years-and why should anyone murder Mr. Pilgrim and Roger to put Jack in?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“To prevent the estate from being sold.”
“But why-why-why?”
Miss Silver leaned towards him and said,
“In order to answer that we shall have to go back three years.”
“Three years?”
“Yes, Randall-to the disappearance of Henry Clayton.”
He looked astonished, then quite definitely on his guard.
“Are you going to explain that?”
“Yes. And I will ask you to listen to me with an open mind.”
“I hope I should always do that.”
She inclined her head in acquiescence. After which she led off briskly, sitting up straight and knitting extremely fast.
“I must remind you of the statements made at the time by Robbins and Miss Lesley Freyne. They were, in that order and on their own showing, the last two people to see Henry Clayton. He was staying at Pilgrim’s Rest, being, as you probably know, a nephew of Mr. Pilgrim, and therefore a first cousin to Roger and Captain Jerome, who were also in the house. It was about seven months after Dunkirk where Captain Pilgrim had been wounded, and about three months after he had been allowed to leave the military hospital where he had been treated and come here under the charge of Miss Lona Day, who was already at Pilgrim’s Rest, having nursed Miss Janetta through a tolerably severe illness. Henry Clayton, as you know, was employed in the Ministry of Information in London. He had come down to be married to Miss Freyne, and the wedding was only three days off. On the day of his disappearance he received fifty pounds as a wedding present from his uncle. He asked to have it in cash as he intended to use it for his honeymoon. Mr. Pilgrim was in the habit of keeping fairly large sums in the house-he collected his own rents, and did not bank them. There was no record of the numbers of the notes given to Mr. Clayton.”