He ran upstairs and got Mac’s letter. When he came down with it in his hand, Jenny had got up. She was sitting on the window seat and she looked very pale.
He came into the room with the letter in his hand and offered it to Miss Silver. It was indescribably dirty, creased, and stained, but it was still quite legible. Miss Silver took it, and read what Mac had written to Jenny nearly a fortnight before:
“Jenny, don’t say anything to anyone, but come out and meet me up on the heath as soon as it is quite dark.
Mac
Bring this with you.”
And up in the top left-hand corner there was a date-the date of the murder.
Chapter XL
What will you do?” said Jenny.
Miss Silver regarded her compassionately.
“I think you must know that, my dear,” she said.
They were on their way back from the cottage. Jenny felt weak and tired, and as if a very long time had passed since she had got up that morning and Richard had gone off to catch his train to town. She said,
“Yes, I know. You’ll tell the police.”
“You know that I must tell them.”
Jenny was silent for a moment. Then she said,
“It’s a dreadful thing. It’s too dreadful for one to take it in. Mac-he’s always been so-so-” She paused for a word, and then said, “dominating. And for a long time I thought that he cared for me. When I found out that he didn’t it was as if I was all alone. Do you know that feeling- as if everyone else in the world was gone away and there was nobody left but you? It’s a dreadful feeling to have-like a nightmare.”
Miss Silver looked at her very kindly.
“That is a very good comparison,” she said. “There is no truth in the nightmare, and when you wake up it has no more power over you. You came out of the nightmare when you ran away from Alington House. You are not in it any longer, you know. You are quite free of it, with Miss Danesworth to care for you and Richard Forbes to protect you. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
They came out of the side lane into the village. Jenny felt suddenly as if she had awakened from a bad dream. Up to now she had been taken up with Mac and what would happen to him, but now quite suddenly the other side of the picture came to her. There was Richard and Miss Danesworth. They were her family now. And she was safe. She wasn’t alone and unprotected any longer. The consciousness slid in among her thoughts and steadied them. The next moment she was reproaching herself and thinking of the little girls and Alan, and even of Mrs. Forbes. She said,
“What will you do?”
“I must get into touch with Chief Inspector Abbott. He will want to take a statement. I think that I will leave you here, my dear, if you are quite sure that you will be all right.”
“Yes, I’m quite sure,” said Jenny. She wanted to be alone because she wanted to think. It is really not possible to think when there are people with you. She wanted to get right away by herself.
Miss Silver had very little time to think until she was in the London train. It had been a tiring day, but she was not thinking of herself. She was concerned with her coming interview with Frank Abbott. She had wired to him as soon as she reached Langton, and she hoped that he would not have left the office. She was not, however, prepared for him to meet her train, though she was very glad to see him.
“My dear Frank, you should not have troubled.”
He smiled down at her.
“What have you been up to?”
“I will tell you, but let us get out of this first.”
When he had put her into a taxi he got in himself and gave her address in Montague Mansions. Then he turned to her.
“Now, ma’am-what have you been doing?”
She said very gravely, “I have been finding a murderer, Frank. Let me tell you about it.” And tell him she did, with all the scrupulous exactness which he had come to expect from her.
In conclusion she extracted from her bag the note which Mac had written to Jenny nearly a fortnight before, with its damning date in the top left-hand corner. He whistled as he looked at it.
“Where did you get this?” he said. And then, “It’s had some rough treatment, hasn’t it?”
“It has been in a boy’s pocket. His name is Dicky Pratt, and he is a local boy at Hazeldon. He has no father, and I gather that he manages his mother. He was given this note on the date it was written, just before seven in the evening by a man who told him to give it to Miss Jenny Hill. He, as well as the whole village, knew that that was the name Miss Jenny Forbes had borne before she came there. They knew because Mrs. Merridew who lives next door to Miss Danesworth has a cousin who lives at Alingford, which is where Jenny was brought up.”
“My dear Miss Silver!”
“You must listen, Frank. You saw Jenny Forbes, and spoke to her. What you may not have known was her history.”
He listened whilst she gave him the details. When she had done she went on,
“That letter was written by Mrs. Forbes’ eldest son. He is, I think, about twenty-four years of age, and ever since he was six years old he has considered himself the heir of Alington. When Jenny heard him planning to marry her she ran away. Poor child-the whole affair was a most terrible shock. She ran away in the night, and she met her distant cousin Richard Forbes, who brought her to his aunt Miss Danesworth. It is an extraordinary story, but it is a true one. The letter which I have just shown you is terribly damning. There is no doubt that this Mac Forbes came down to Hazeldon with the intention of murdering his cousin Jenny. The girl who was murdered came from the house in which Jenny was staying. I do not wish to say anything against her. She paid very highly for what she did. But if, as seems likely, he mistook her for Jenny, she can have done nothing to undeceive him. He killed her supposing that he was killing Jenny. What he did not know was that the boy to whom he had given the note had crept round to the back of his car and had observed the number-plate. It was covered, my dear Frank, by a loose piece of sacking which hung down from the boot. This is clear evidence that the whole thing was planned. The number of the car was 505, and the county identification letters those of his home county.” Frank was putting away the stained letter in his pocket-book. “And where is this young man to be found? Do you know that?” Miss Silver said gravely, “I have his address.” She gave it to him, and he wrote it down.
Jenny had gone home. She felt very, very tired, as if she could not think clearly. She did not know what to do, but with every moment she was realizing what she had already done. There was no future left for Mac-none at all. And it was she who had destroyed him. She stopped in the road and felt the mists close in on her again. She did not know what to do. She did not think that she could go through with it.
As she stood there it came over her that she ought to have died, then there would not have been any of this trouble. But she was strong and healthy-she had never even had a bad illness-and if she had died on the common it would have been murder. Mac was a murderer. The dreadfulness of what had happened was not hers, but his. Her mind went back to the scene in the court room, to Jimmy Mottingley’s white face. How could she hold her tongue and let him suffer? The answer was plain. She couldn’t. It just wasn’t possible. The mist cleared from her, and she went on walking.