When she came to the door of the house and went in there was no one at home. Richard wasn’t back yet, and she remembered that Miss Danesworth had said that she would go in and see Mrs. Merridew- “I don’t want to in the least, but I think I ought to. I shan’t stay unless she wants me.”
Jenny went through to the sitting-room. She felt as if she had a great deal to think about. She sat down, and found that the telephone was straight in front of her. She changed her seat, and that was no better. She could not see it any longer, but she knew that it was there. She could give the number and ring him up. She could tell him what she had done. She could tell him that Miss Silver knew. That his dated letter was in her hands. That she had a statement from Dicky Pratt. She could tell him these things. And what was he to do when she had told him? Her mind shuddered away from that. She didn’t know.
After a minute or two she got up, went to the telephone, and asked for Mac’s number in London.
Mac was dressing. He was joining a party for Whoops-a-Daisy, the latest musical from the U.S.A. He whistled cheerfully to himself as he brushed his hair. He was quite at ease in his mind now. Whatever had happened to the note, it wouldn’t turn up at this stage. On the whole he was well out of it. As for the young fool who had been arrested, he wasn’t really likely to come to any harm, or if he did, well, it was just too bad.
The telephone bell rang, and he went into his outer room to answer it.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Jenny. I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Oh, have you?” His tone was short. What did the girl want?
She told him.
“Mac, something has happened-”
“What is it? I’m just going out.”
“Listen, Mac. That boy you gave the note to-”
A crawling finger of fear touched his heart.
“What are you talking about?”
Jenny’s voice came back strained and hurrying.
“I’m talking about you. That boy Dicky Pratt-he had your letter in his pocket.”
“Oh, that old letter. What of it?”
Jenny’s voice again. It sounded as if she was crying.
“It’s dated, Mac. You dated it as you always do. Miss Silver-she’s helping Jimmy Mottingley-Dicky gave her the letter, and she has gone up to town with it. And he can swear to the car. He came up the road and got behind it and lifted the sacking. He was just curious, but-” but her voice trailed away-“I thought I would let you know-” There was the click of the receiver as she hung it up, and that was all. That was all.
Mac stood with the receiver in his hand. He was very still, but his thoughts raced. He had time to get away. They could come and look for him, but they wouldn’t find him. He would be gone. Where? And how? He saw at once with a desperate clarity that wherever he went and however he twisted there would be a price upon his head. The very suddenness of the blow shocked him past thought. He did not think these things. They were there, as an accomplished fact is there. They were not things that were going to happen. They were part of a chain of cause and effect which went on without wavering or hesitation to an appointed end. And there was only one end. He knew that.
He became aware that he was still holding the telephone up to his ear. A voice spoke through it. It asked him whether he had finished. He said, “Yes,” and hung up. Then he opened the second drawer of his writing-table and took out the pistol.
Miss Silver was very glad to get home. It had been-she admitted it -a most tiring day. She had not ever been more glad of her comfortable room and of the thoughtful ministrations of her worthy Hannah.
It was when she was resting in front of the fire that her telephone rang. She got up and went across to it. At the first sound of Frank Abbott’s voice she knew why he had rung her up.
“Is that you, Miss Silver?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“We were too late. He had shot himself. The girl must have let him know.”
Miss Silver said, “Poor Jenny!”
Chapter XLI
Mrs. Forbes sat at her desk. She had sat there all night and had not moved. Only her thoughts moved, sliding from picture to picture, and when they had come to the end, the terrible remorseless end, they went back again and began at the beginning.
At the birth of her child-that was always how she thought of him, as her child. The little quiet man whom she had married didn’t seem to come into it at all. The other children were his. She had borne them with impatience and without joy. But Mac was hers-hers only. He was like her people, the people from whom she herself derived her good looks, her pride, her independence. There was nothing in the other children that engaged her interest. As he grew, so her pride in him grew. When the war came he was between seven and eight years old. Her mind went back to a day in that first winter. They had just finished breakfast, and she had seen their name in the paper she had been turning over-Richard Alington Forbes. Her husband’s second name was Alington. She said on a sudden impulse of curiosity, “Isn’t that a relation of yours-Richard Alington Forbes?” Her husband said, “Yes,” in his quiet absent way, and she had gone on to ask questions.
“Weren’t they relations?”
“Oh, yes-some sort of second or third cousin-” He really wasn’t sure which.
She remembered her own impatience.
“But good gracious me, one should keep up with one’s relationsl”
He was silent for a moment, and she thought he was not going to answer her, but in the end he said,
“What did you see about him?”
“Oh, nothing. I just saw his name. He was being posted to something or other. He’s in the Air Force, isn’t he?”
He said, “Yes, I believe he is.”
That was the first time his name came up between them.
Then in the summer there came the landslide in Belgium – Dunkirk and all the excitement about that. Mrs. Forbes remembered that she had looked for news-not news of the battle, but news of Richard Alington Forbes. Her husband was the next of kin-she had made it her business to find out about that. Her husband was the next of kin, and Mac was the heir. Hope rose in her. It wasn’t as if she had ever seen the man- and so many were being killed- Was it too much to expect that he wouldn’t survive? She had so entirely made up her mind that he would die that when his name came out in the papers she accepted it as a foregone conclusion. It was perhaps as well for their future relationship that her husband was out of the country. She did not see him again while the war lasted, but she moved to Alington House, and Mac had been brought up there.
Her mind travelled slowly over the years. She remembered the first time she had seen Jenny. Miss Crampton had told her the story. “A very shocking thing,” she had said. “But I feel I had better tell you about it. We all thought that Miss Garstone would get rid of the child to an orphanage or some institution of that kind. After all, it’s not as if Jennifer Hill was a relation. I believe Miss Garstone had been her governess. Not anything to be proud of in the circumstances, I must say.” The lift of Miss Crampton’s chin came back with astonishing clearness, and the ring of her stentorian voice. She had thought the matter well over, and then she had gone to see Miss Garstone. She remembered that interview with bitterness, for, say what she would, nothing had had any effect. Miss Garstone owned her cottage, and quite politely but quite firmly Miss Garstone was not going to move.
With a kind of stunned bitterness Mrs. Forbes dwelt upon the obstinacy of Miss Garstone. If she had tried harder, if she had held out greater inducements, would Miss Garstone have yielded? If she had known at the time all that was involved? The answer to that stood out clearly. If she had known a thousand times, Miss Garstone wouldn’t have given way. The house was her own. As long as she chose to stay there no one could shift her. She had been quite polite and agreeable about the whole thing, and quite adamant. There was nothing that Mrs. Forbes could do. So she had come away and left her.