Miss Silver took hold of the door-knob and turned it gently until the catch released itself, after which she drew in her hand until the door stood a finger’s breadth from the jamb. As a gentlewoman, eavesdropping was naturally repugnant, but as a detective she was prepared to engage in it without flinching. She now heard Castell shout,
“Leave me? You would leave me?”
A string of words in the French language followed.
Miss Silver had never heard any of them before, and she had no difficulty in concluding that in this case ignorance was scarcely to be deplored. She hoped that Annie Castell did not understand them either. But Castell’s voice, expression, and manner required no translating. An angry man who is swearing at his wife sounds very much the same in any language. Miss Silver could not see into the kitchen, but she could hear well enough. She could hear Annie Castell take a long breath and steady it when Castell stopped swearing, and she heard her say,
“I can’t stand anything more.”
Castell stamped his feet, first one and then the other.
“You will stand what I tell you to stand, and you will do what I tell you to do! Are you not my wife?”
She said,
“Not any more. I’ll cook the dinner tonight, and I’ll cook breakfast tomorrow, and then I’ll take Eily and go.”
“Go? Where will you go?”
“I can get a place-any day-at once.”
Castell roared at her suddenly-a French word culled from the Marseilles slums where he had played as a child. And then, like someone checked in a spring, his voice dropped to a horrid whisper.
“The door-who opened the door?”
Miss Silver did not wait for anyone to answer that question. She was light on her feet, and she could move very quickly indeed when she wanted to. She moved so quickly now that by the time Fogarty Castell looked out into the passage the faint lamplight showed it empty. She had not risked trying to reach the baize door, but had taken the cross passage and gone quickly through the office to the lounge. When presently the door opened and Castell looked in, she was making good progress with little Josephine’s knickers and encouraging Mildred Taverner in what, it must be confessed, was a sadly bungling effort.
At six o’clock Frank Abbott returned and once more walked through the lounge, but this time in a reverse direction. He left the door of Castell’s office ajar, and Miss Silver immediately joined him there. As she came in and shut the door behind her, he was turning up the old-fashioned wall-lamp. The light struck upon his face and showed him with rather more than the usual dash of sarcasm in his expression. At her sober, “Well, Frank, you have something to tell me?” he smiled provokingly.
“Have I? I wonder. You see, you always know the answers already.”
“My dear Frank!”
He laughed again.
“Oh, you were quite right of course. You always are.”
She shook her head in a reproving manner.
“Exaggeration is a bad fault in a detective. An attempt to improve upon facts may be fatal.”
As she spoke she seated herself and resumed her knitting.
With a brief murmur of “Facts!” Frank took a chair and stretched out his long legs.
“Mrs. Wilton delivered the goods,” he said. “She had bathed Albert when a baby and nursed him with a broken collarbone. She deposes to a large mole on the left shoulderblade, and has identified the corpse in the mortuary as that of Albert Miller. That being that, the police are naturally anxious to interview Luke White. Alibi or no alibi, the change-over must have been with his consent. Of course he may have been bumped off since.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I do not think so.” After a slight pause she continued. “You will, perhaps, agree that he would have a strong motive for preventing Florence Duke from seeing the body which Castell had identified.”
Frank said,
“He and Castell would both have a motive.”
“Yes. That was why I made such a particular point of her not being told until just before the inquest that she would have to identify the body. As soon as Inspector Crisp rang her up I knew that she would be in danger, and I did my best to persuade her to place herself under your protection at Cliff House. Captain Taverner would have driven her there, but she would not hear of it. There is no doubt that someone was listening to that call on the extension. Did it never strike you as peculiar that the extension should have been in the butler’s pantry, and not in this room which was in use as an office? There could be but one reason for so odd an arrangement, and that was the greater privacy of the pantry. No one could approach it without being seen by Annie Castell. But this room, with its two doors, one opening upon a passage and the other on the lounge-”
Frank nodded.
“Yes, I agree. Well, that’s that-so much for the identity question. You were right about the other thing too. Willis and I got to work on the carpet in here, and there’s been blood spilt on it. Wiped off the surface, but some of it had soaked through. It wasn’t quite dry. Miller was killed in this room, just as you said.”
“Yes, I was sure of it.”
“Crisp is a bit shaken, but still clinging to the idea that Florence Duke committed suicide.”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“Oh, no, she didn’t do that. When it was known that she would be asked to identify the body it became too dangerous to let her live. I do not think that the substitution had ever taken her in. I think she knew very well that the body in the hall was not that of Luke White. I think she lifted it sufficiently to see the face-she was a strongly built woman-and that she was not deceived. She must, therefore, have known that her husband was implicated in the murder, and she had to decide at once what she should do. She decided to screen him. A very disastrous decision, but it is hard to blame a wife for shielding her husband. But the people who had murdered Albert Miller would not know whether she had recognized him or not. They would not dare to take the risk of her being confronted with the body and asked to make a formal identification. We have no means of knowing whether it was then and there decided to remove her in such a manner as to make it appear that she had committed suicide, or whether there was an intermediate stage during which they or Luke White entered into negotiations with her. As I said, we shall probably never know, but I incline to the belief that she received some kind of communication. It may have been something directly from her husband, or something purporting to furnish her with information about him. Whatever it was, it decided her to leave her room and meet her murderer.”
Frank nodded.
“I expect you’re right. But we shan’t be able to prove anything-unless somebody turns King’s evidence.”
It was at this moment that there was the sound of running feet. They came from the direction of the lounge. The communicating door was thrown open and Jane Heron appeared, her eyes startled, her colour coming and going. She checked on the threshold with an “Oh, Miss Silver!” and then came out with,
“I can’t find Eily!”
CHAPTER 39
Miss Silver knew then what she had been afraid of. She rose to her feet and put her knitting down upon the table.
Jeremy had come up behind Jane. Mildred Taverner was straying towards them across the lounge. There was a horrid similarity to the scene before the door of Florence Duke’s room that very morning. Mildred said in a trembling whisper,
“Things always happen in threes-first Luke, and then Florence, and now Eily. Oh, why did I come to this horrible house!”
Miss Silver said, “Hush!” And then, to Jane, “Was she not with you?”
“We went out just for a little-really only up and down on the cliff. Eily said she was going to help Cousin Annie. When we came in she wasn’t there. She isn’t anywhere-we’ve been all over the house.”