Colonel Bostock nodded.
“Marriage broke up. Pity. Surprised he should be staying there. Awkward-very.”
“Well, sir, he says urgent business cropped up, and Mr. Paradine insisted. Government business, I understand-confidential.”
Colonel Bostock nodded again.
“Yes, yes-he’s in with Cadogan. Bomb sights- all that kind of thing. Very able fellow, I’m told.”
“Yes, sir. He wasn’t giving much away-just said he looked in on Mr. Paradine to say goodnight. And then corroborates Pearson. But Mrs. Wray-well, sir, she admits to having had a conversation of some length with Mr. Paradine after the others had gone to bed.”
“What?”
“I don’t think there’s anything in it, sir. In point of fact she needn’t have told me. I just asked her as a matter of form whether she’d seen him again, and she said at once that she had-says she went up to her room and got thinking of something she wanted to discuss with Mr. Paradine, so she went down and had a talk with him. She says it lasted about twenty minutes. It was a very friendly talk, and it had nothing to do with what had been said at dinner. She wouldn’t say any more than that, but I got the impression that she hadn’t expected to meet her husband like that-the butler said none of them expected him-that it upset her a good bit, and that she wanted to talk to her uncle about it.”
“That’s natural enough.”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I thought-but of course you never can tell. I’ve left Manners and Cotton taking statements from the staff. I did Lane the butler myself-you’ve got his statement there. He found the body. Then there’s his wife-she’s the cook, Mrs. Lane-Louisa Holme, housemaid-she’s been there fifteen years-and two young girls, Polly Parsons, under housemaid, and Gladys Huggins, kitchen-maid. None of them in the way of knowing anything, I should say. Miss Holme was waiting at dinner with Lane, but no nearer the study than that. The others wouldn’t have any business there either. All their rooms are in the kitchen wing, on the other side of the dining-room. None of their windows open onto the terrace. The only occupied bedrooms whose windows do look out that way are Mr. Wray’s at one end of the house, more or less over the study, and Mrs. Wray’s at the other end. Mr. Wray would have been in the dining-room, which looks the other way, at the time of Mr. Paradine’s fall. But Mrs. Wray says she woke up with a feeling that she had heard someone cry out. She says she can’t be sure just what she heard because she was dreaming, but she woke up with the feeling that she had heard something. She put on the light and looked at the time, and it was just after twelve. I think there’s very little doubt that she heard Mr. Paradine cry out as he fell.”
Colonel Bostock made a very pronounced grimace.
“Good lord, Vyner, what a girl hears in a dream isn’t evidence!”
“No, sir. Well, that’s all the statements, except the one we got from Miss Brenda Ambrose. I left her to the last, and I didn’t expect to get anything out of her. And now I don’t know whether I did or not.”
Colonel Bostock pricked up his ears.
“How’s that?”
“Well, sir, you’ve got what she’s put her name to. But there’s more to it than that. She’d a kind of a manner with her every time she mentioned her sister-in-law, Mrs. Ambrose-and it’s my opinion she went out of her way to mention her.”
Colonel Bostock whistled. He rummaged out Brenda Ambrose’s statement and went through it.
“Not so much the things she says as the nasty way she says ’em.”
“You’ve got it, sir.”
Colonel Bostock whistled again, softly.
“Well, there was something about that girl Irene-” he said.
Chapter 20
Miss Maud Silver was shopping. Even in wartime, and with all the difficulty about coupons, children must be warmly clothed. She was planning to make a jersey and pull-on leggings for her niece Ethel’s youngest, who would be three next month. Ethel would provide two coupons, but that would not be enough. She would have to break in upon her own spring supply. It was of no consequence-her last summer’s dress was perfectly good, and she had plenty of stockings. Of course it was very difficult for the girls who wore those extremely thin silk stockings. Really you had only to look at them to see that they couldn’t be expected to last. Her own sensible hose were a very different matter, ribbed grey wool in winter, and good strong thread in summer. A great deal more durable.
Having settled the matter of the coupons, she had to decide upon the most suitable wool. There were very good shops in Birleton, really quite equal to London. Hornby’s was a very good shop, but of course no one had much choice in wool nowadays. You couldn’t really expect it.
The girl at the wool counter, who looked about fifteen, could only offer Miss Silver a choice between dark grey, vivid magenta, and a very bright emerald green. Miss Silver looked disapprovingly at all three of these shades, and for a time seriously considered the question of a wool substitute-very heavy and cottony, in fact not wool at all, but to be obtained in a number of most pleasing colours. It was very seldom indeed that she found it difficult to make up her mind. With the worst of the winter in front of them, warmth should come first, and yet that green was really too bright-quite blinding. And dark grey for a child of three-oh, dear me, no.
As she stood by the counter in this unwonted state of hesitation, voices reached her from the other side of a display of brightly coloured scarves. The voices were lowered to that sibilant whisper which has a carrying quality all its own.
“The most shocking affair! Mr. Paradine of all people!” That was one voice.
Another, higher and with the suspicion of a lisp, responded eagerly.
“They say it’s murder.”
“It can’t be!”
“They say it is.”
“Oh, no!”
“Well, my dear, Mrs. Curtin-you know, she works for me-”
“Yes?”
“Well, her niece Gladys is kitchenmaid at the Paradines’, and she says all of them are as sure as sure that he’d never have fallen if he hadn’t been pushed.”
“Ssh!”
“Well, I’m only telling you what she said-but of course people do gossip so-”
“Yes, don’t they? It’s dreadful.”
“Isn’t it? Ssh! There’s Lydia Pennington coming this way.”
Miss Silver made up her mind suddenly. Little Roger should have a dark grey suit with collar, cuffs and belt of the emerald green. She gave the order crisply, handed over her card to have the coupons cut off, and turned to look down the length of the department.
Lydia Pennington was coming towards her dressed in a dark grey coat and skirt. The black felt hat which she had just bought was pulled well down over her red curls. The brim threw a shadow across her small, pale face. There was no colour in her cheeks, and her lips were as little made-up as was consistent with her ideas of decency. It is possible that Miss Silver, who had only met her once, might not have known her if it had not been for those whispering voices on the other side of the scarves.
Lydia, on the other hand, would have known Miss Maud Silver anywhere. The tidy, dowdy figure in the black cloth jacket and the elderly fur; the hat with its bunch of purple pansies; the neat mousey hair; the neat, inconspicuous features; the air compounded of mildness and self-possession-these, once seen, had somehow impressed themselves and were immediately recognized.
Miss Silver heard her name, and found her hand being shaken.
“Miss Silver! Do you remember me? No, of course you don’t. But I did meet you about a month ago. You were with Laura Desborough, and she introduced us. She’s a friend of mine. I’m Lydia Pennington.”