Florence said heavily,
“What if he did?”
“Mrs. Duke, is there no one in this house who might be concerned to prevent you from giving that evidence?”
“Why should they?”
“Do you not know of a reason?”
She stared down at the bath-towel she was carrying. It hung on her right arm, but she had slipped her left hand under it too. It hid both her hands. She stared at it with hidden eyes. A moment passed before she said,
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you not?”
The eyes were lifted. They were angry now.
“Let me alone, can’t you! What has it got to do with you?”
Miss Silver said very quietly and steadily,
“I am concerned for your safety, Mrs. Duke. Will you please listen to me for a moment?”
The anger flickered and died down.
“What do you want?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“You have been asked to give certain evidence. I do not know what that evidence will be, but I can think of circumstances in which it might prove dangerous to people who have already shown that they will stick at nothing. I would like you to consider whether you might not be in danger, and whether it would not be safer for you to spend the night elsewhere.”
Florence Duke looked past her.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
As if she had not spoken, Miss Silver continued.
“I would like to ask Captain Taverner to take you to Cliff House, where Inspector Abbott is staying. He would, I am sure, arrange for you to be accommodated.”
Florence Duke gave a sudden laugh as far removed from merriment as it well could be.
“Cliff House? Me-at this time of the night? I suppose you think I haven’t got a character to lose-going to stay with two young men, and one of them in the police! No, thank you!”
“Mrs. Duke-”
Florence put a hand on her shoulder.
“Look here, you mean well, I grant you that, but this isn’t your business. And I don’t know what you’re talking about neither, and if I did I wouldn’t care. Get that-I wouldn’t care! If someone was to bring me a good glass of poison this minute, I’d just as soon drink it and be done with everything! So you can stop your hinting about my being in danger! I don’t care if I am! Do you get that? I don’t give a damn!”
Miss Silver looked at her with compassion. There was a moment when their eyes met, a moment when things hung in the balance. The hand on Miss Silver’s shoulder weighed heavily. It shook a little, and then it was withdrawn. Florence Duke said with a catch in her voice,
“Oh, well, it’ll be all the same a hundred years hence.”
Then she turned and went out of the room and into her own, and shut the door.
CHAPTER 34
Miss Silver waited for what she was hoping to hear, the sound of a key being turned in the lock of the door which was next to her own. It was turned roughly and with no attempt at concealment. To all whom it might concern, Florence Duke had locked herself in for the night. Miss Silver experienced a decided feeling of relief. She had no desire to sit up all night, but if that door had not been locked, she might have felt herself obliged to do so. As it was, she felt quite sure that by setting her door ajar she would at once become aware of any attempt to tamper with the lock of Mrs. Duke’s room. The mere fact that her own door was ajar would act as a deterrent.
She undressed, put on her dressing-gown, and went across to the bathroom to wash, taking her towel with her. There was a faint pleasant scent in the passage. The light from a small wall-lamp disclosed the fact that powder had been spilled upon the carpet. The scent was agreeable and not too insistent. It suggested an expensive beauty-shop and Lady Marian. The bathroom smelled of it too. It required no great powers of deduction to assume that Marian Thorpe-Ennington had taken a bath and had spilled some of her powder as she came or went.
Her ablutions over, Miss Silver crossed the passage again, drew a blue crochet shawl about her shoulders, and sitting up in bed, reached for her old shabby Bible. It was her custom to read a portion of Scripture before she slept. As she opened the book, the yellow candlelight fell upon the psalm in which David prays to be delivered from Saul and Doeg:
“The proud have laid a snare for me and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me.”
The words appeared to her to be almost too appropriate. She turned the leaves in search of a more consoling passage.
She did not put out her light for quite a long time. With her door some six inches open, sounds came to her from the other rooms, from the well of the stairs. Footsteps crossed the landing, entered the passage on the farther side, and passed out of hearing. The murmur of voices from the Thorpe-Enningtons’ room died away. Midnight and silence were in her house. She blew out her candle and fell into a light sleep. The smallest sound would have roused her. Even without being aware of such a sound she was never far from consciousness. When the old wall-clock downstairs struck each of the hours between twelve and seven she was at once fully awake and, waking, was aware only of sleep in the house and the silence gathering.
At seven footsteps came again, a long way off in the passage on the other side of the landing-doors opening, the distant sound of voices. Eily and the Castells were up. Miss Silver got up too. She went over to the bathroom to wash, as she had done the night before, and was pleased to find that the water was still warm.
Before she came back into her own room she very gently tried the handle of Florence Duke’s door. It was still locked. She completed her dressing with a feeling of satisfaction. The night was safely over, and within the next few hours the inquest would be over too and Florence Duke’s evidence would have been placed on record. Alone in her room, she admitted to herself that it would be very pleasant indeed to get back to her comfortable flat, and to the ministrations of her devoted Hannah.
By eight o’clock others were stirring. There was some competition for the bathroom. Jane Heron came out of her room looking fresh and blooming. She ran downstairs humming a tune, and Jeremy joined her. Mildred Taverner appeared next, pale, nervous, and not sure whether she ought to wear her blue beads to an inquest. Miss Silver’s door being half open, she knocked upon it and came in to invite an opinion.
“I shall have my coat on and a scarf, so I don’t suppose they will show, but if it should be very hot-at the inquest, I mean- I should want to open my coat-I always do get hot when I’m nervous-and perhaps take the scarf off too, and then the beads would show. Of course the scarf is a coloured one, but I haven’t any black, and I couldn’t be expected to know that anyone was going to be murdered.” The tip of her long, pale nose became quite pink with agitation. “It really is so difficult, because I shouldn’t like anyone to think I was heartless, and in a sort of way I suppose you might say he was a cousin.”
Miss Silver said in a kind, firm voice,
“I am sure no one would think that you were heartless, but if it made you feel any more comfortable, you could leave the beads in a drawer and put them on again after the inquest is over.”
Mildred Taverner’s nose became a much deeper pink. Her agitation was sensibly increased.
“Oh, but I wear them always. I shouldn’t like to leave them here, not with things like murders happening. I really couldn’t bear it if-you see, they were given to me by such a very dear friend-such a very dear friend-and he is dead, and I have always worn them. We weren’t exactly engaged, but he gave me the beads.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Then I should wear them.”
The door was still open to the passage. It really was a relief that Lady Marian should come out of her room at this moment, since, without some interruption, it seemed quite possible that Mildred Taverner might continue to discuss her qualms indefinitely. Unfortunately the sight of Lady Marian in a beautifully cut black town suit had anything but a calming effect. Miss Taverner gazed at the white crepe blouse, the two rows of pearls, the small black hat, and the slimming elegance of the coat and skirt, with a feeling akin to despair. So smart, so suitable, so completely beyond her reach. She resigned herself, but the feeling of inferiority sank deep and added to the chronic uncertainty with which she contemplated the problem of living.