She had to repeat her question, because he just sat there, fingering the smooth wood and frowning at the pattern on the bright blue carpet which had kept its colour so well. Reflecting with satisfaction that it looked as good as new, she said,
“Will you not tell me what I can do for you?”
She saw him start, glance at her quickly, and then away again. Whether people use words to convey their thoughts or to conceal them, there is one thing very difficult to conceal from a practised observer. In that momentary glance Miss Silver had seen that thing quite plainly. It was the look you may see in the eyes of a horse about to shy. She thought this young man as reluctant to face whatever it was that had brought him here. He was not the first. A great many people had brought their fears, their faults, and their follies into this room, hoping for they hardly knew what, and then sat nervous and tongue-tied until she helped them out. She smiled encouragingly at Roger Pilgrim, and addressed him very much as if he had been ten years old.
“Something is troubling you. You will feel better when you have told me what it is. Perhaps you might begin by telling me who gave you my address.”
This undoubtedly came as a relief… He removed his gaze from the multi-coloured roses, pseonies, and acanthus leaves with which the carpet was festooned, and said,
“Oh, it was Frank-Frank Abbott.”
Miss Silver’s smile became warmer and less impersonal.
“Sergeant Abbott is a great friend of mine. Have you known him for long?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, we were at school together. He’s a bit older, but our families knew each other. He comes down to stay with some cousins near us. As a matter of fact, he was there last week-end having a spot of leave after ’flu, and I got talking to him. Frank’s a pretty sound fellow-though you wouldn’t think it to look at him, if you know what I mean.” He gave a short nervous laugh. “Seems awfully funny, somebody you’ve been at school with being a policeman. Detective Sergeant Abbott! You know, we used to call him Fug at school. He used to put on masses of hair-fug. I remember his having a lot which fairly stank of White Rose, and the maths master going round smelling us all till he found out who it was, and sending Fug to wash his head.”
While recounting this anecdote he looked a little happier, but the worried frown returned as he concluded.
“He told me I’d better come and see you. He says you’re a marvel. But I don’t see what anyone can really do. You see there isn’t any evidence-Fug said so himself. He said there was nothing the police could take any notice of. You see, I put it up to him because of his being at Scotland Yard, but he said there really wasn’t anything they would do about it, and he advised me to come to you. Only I don’t suppose it’s any use.”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked briskly. She had the new pattern well in hand. She coughed and said,
“You do not expect me to reply to that, do you? If you will tell me what you seem to have told Sergeant Abbott, I may be able to give you an opinion. Pray proceed.”
Roger Pilgrim proceeded. This was the voice of authority.
He blurted out, “I think someone’s trying to kill me,” and immediately thought how damnfool silly it sounded.
Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” And then, “What makes you think so?”
He stared at her. There she sat, the picture of a mild old maid, looking at him across her knitting. He might have been saying he thought it was going to rain. He kicked himself for having come. She probably thought he was a neurotic ass. Perhaps he was a neurotic ass. He frowned at the carpet and said,
“What’s the good of my telling you? When I put it into words it sounds idiotic.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Whatever it is, it is certainly worrying you. If there was no cause for your worry, you would be glad to have this proved to you, would you not? If, on the other hand, there is a cause, it is a matter of some importance that it should be removed. What makes you think that someone is trying to kill you?”
He looked up with an air of arrested attention.
“Well, I thought they were.”
Miss Silver coughed and said “They?” on an enquiring note. She was knitting very fast in the continental fashion, her hands low in her lap, her eyes on her visitor.
“Oh, well-that’s just a way of speaking. I haven’t an idea who it is.”
“I think it would be better if you were to tell me what has happened. Something must have happened.”
He nodded emphatically.
“You’ve said it! The things happened-you can’t get away from that. Lumps of plaster aren’t just imagination, and no more is a lot of burnt ash where there used to be papers and a carpet.”
Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” And then, “Pray begin at the beginning and tell me all about these incidents.”
He was sitting forward in his chair now, looking at her.
“The bother is I don’t know where to begin.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“At the beginning, Major Pilgrim.”
The eyes behind the glasses met hers in a worried look.
“Well, as a matter of fact that’s just what beats me-I don’t know where it begins. You see, it’s not only me, it’s my father. I was out in the Middle East when my father died-I haven’t been home very long. And of course, as Fug says, there’s no evidence. But I ask you, why should a quiet beast that he’d ridden every day for the last ten years suddenly go mad and bolt with him? She’d never done such a thing in her life. When she came back all of a lather they went out to look for him, and found him with a broken neck. The old groom says she’d a thorn under the saddle-says somebody must have put it there. The trouble is it wasn’t the only one. She hadn’t thrown him, you see-they’d come down together, and the place was just a tangle of wild roses and brambles. But what William said, and what I say is, what would make her bolt? And we both got the same answer-only it isn’t evidence.”
“What reason had anyone to wish your father dead?”
“Ah-there you have me! There wasn’t any reason-not any reason.”
The heavily accented word invited a question. Miss Silver obliged.
“You speak as if there was something which was not a reason?”
“Well, as a matter of fact that’s just about the size of it. Mind you, I don’t believe in that sort of thing myself, but if you were to ask William-that’s the groom I was talking about-or any of the other old people in the village, they’d say it was because he was going to sell the place.”
“And these is a superstition about such a contingency?”
The word appeared to puzzle him. He frowned, and then got there.
“Oh, yes-I see what you mean. Well, as a matter of fact there is. The place has been in the family donkey’s years. I don’t set a lot of store by that sort of thing myself-a bit out of date, if you know what I mean. No good trying to live in the past and hang on to all the things your ancestors grabbed-is there? I mean, what’s the good? We haven’t any money, and if I fancied an heiress, she probably wouldn’t fancy me. So when my father wrote and said he was going to sell I told him that as far as I was concerned, he could get on with it-only as a matter of fact he never got the letter. But people in villages are very superstitious.”
“What form does this superstition take, Major Pilgrim?”
“Well, as a matter of fact it’s a rhyme. Some ass had it cut into the stone over the fireplace in the hall, so it’s always there-under everyone’s nose, so to speak.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“What does it say?”
“It’s all rubbish of course-made up round our name and the name of the house. We’re Pilgrims, the house is Pilgrim’s Rest. And the rhyme says:
‘If Pilgrim fare upon the Pilgrims’ Way,
And leave his Rest, he’ll find nor rest nor stay.