Mark got up, walked over to one of the book-cases, and stood there fingering the books that faced him.
“Whoever it is?” he said. “I don’t know. That’s the sort of thing one says, but when it comes down to brass tacks and you go through the people and wonder which of them it was-well I don’t know. Say it’s murder-say someone pushed him over-say the police find out, or your Miss Silver finds out who did it-who is it to be? Aunt Grace? Frank Ambrose? Brenda? Irene? You? Me? Dicky? Albert Pearson? Elliot? Phyllida? That’s the field. One of them did it. And you say let’s find out-whoever it is. All right, the police find out-your Miss Silver finds out, and the murderer hangs.” He turned and came striding back to her. “One of those ten people hangs-Aunt Grace-Frank-Brenda-Irene-you-me-Dicky- Albert-Elliot-Phyllida. Which is it to be?”
Lydia was standing too. She was as white as a sheet, but she looked up steadily.
“That is what I want to know.”
“You’ve got no favourites? Of course we’d all rather it was Albert, because we’ve never liked him very much. But you can’t hang a man for being a bore, and unfortunately Albert and Elliot are the only people within measurable distance of having an alibi. If you want to know who the police are going to pick on, I’ll tell you-me.”
“Why should they?” Her voice was as steady as her look.
He laughed.
“Because I went back.”
“Why?”
“Why do you suppose?”
“I don’t know, Mark.”
“You’re not being very bright, my dear. You don’t seem to be able to put two and two together. But the police can-it’s the sort of thing they’re good at. They will say I went back to confess to whatever it was Uncle James was hinting about, and from there to saying I pushed him over is as near as makes no difference.”
There was a little pause before she said,
“Do they know you went back?”
His shoulder jerked.
“They will. The Chief Constable was over with Vyner this afternoon. I told them I went out for a walk. A bit of a thin story anyhow, and by this time it’s a million to one the chap who was on duty on the bridge has reported having seen me. He knows me quite well. I believe he said goodnight as I passed him. They’ll make sure I was going back to the River House.”
“You did go there?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“Oh, to murder Uncle James of course-what else?”
She caught his arm and shook it.
“Mark, stop being stupid! It’s too dangerous. Don’t you see how dangerous it is?”
He twisted away from her, walked to the end of the room, stood there a moment, and then came back.
She said earnestly,
“Call Miss Silver in. We want help-we can’t manage this alone. Mark, will you listen to me?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How is everything left? Are you an executor?”
“Yes-I and Robert Moffat.”
“And the house-who gets the house?”
“I do-the house, and his place in the firm, and the most damnable lot of money. All the motives the police can possibly want.”
She said, “Rubbish!” And then, “That is what I wanted to know. You see, if the house is yours and you’re an executor, there’s nothing to prevent your calling Miss Silver in. You can say she’s an extra secretary. Nobody need know.”
“I won’t play a trick on the family-it might do for the servants. What is she like?”
Suddenly Lydia relaxed. He was going to do it. The stiff, obstinate temper against which she was pushing had given way. It was odd that at this moment she should begin to shake. She laughed a little and said,
“She’s exactly like a governess.”
Chapter 22
Miss Silver sat primly at the writing-table. An exercise-book with a bright green cover lay in front of her upon Mark’s blotting-pad. Mark himself sat facing her. Lydia lay back in the most comfortable of the chairs and looked on. The names of the Paradine family connection had been entered in the exercise-book, together with such facts as had been elicited about each. The circumstances surrounding the New Year’s Eve party and Mr. Paradine’s death had been repeated.
Mark said abruptly,
“We’re putting you to a lot of trouble. I think we should have waited until we had discussed the matter with the rest of the family. They may not feel-”
Miss Silver coughed.
“You are not committing yourself to anything, Mr. Paradine-that is understood. I should, naturally, regard anything you have said to me as confidential. At the same time I feel it my duty to point out to you that resistance to enquiry on the part of any member of the family would be a fact the significance of which could not be overlooked.”
He leaned back frowning.
“People are not necessarily criminals and murderers because they would dislike being cross-examined by a stranger.”
Miss Silver smiled indulgently.
“No, indeed, Mr. Paradine. The publicity in which murder involves a bereaved family is truly distressing, but I fear it is unavoidable. I will amplify your remark if I may, and say that it is not everyone with something to hide who is a criminal. One of the complications in a case of this kind is the fact that many people have thoughts, wishes, or actions which they would not willingly expose even to a friend, yet when police enquiries are being made these private motives and actions are brought to light. It is, in fact, a little like the Judgment Day, if I may use such a comparison without being considered profane.”
Mark said, “Yes, that’s true.”
He was in process of surprising himself. After some twenty minutes’ conversation with this curiously dowdy little person, in the course of which she had neither said nor done anything at all remarkable, he was experiencing the strangest sense of relief. He could remember nothing like it since his nursery days. Old Nanna, the tyrant and mainstay of that dim early time before his parents died-there was something about Miss Silver that revived these memories. The old-fashioned decorum, the authority which has no need of self-assertion because it is unquestioned-it was these things that he discerned, and upon which he found himself disposed to lean. Miss Silver’s shrewd, kind glance-perfectly kind, piercingly shrewd-took him back to things he had forgotten. “Not the least manner of good your standing there and telling me a lie, Master Mark. I won’t have it for one thing, and it won’t do you no good for another.”
There was that effect, but there was also a reassurance that he had not known since the time when he would wake sweating with nightmare to the light of Nanna’s candle and the sound of her, “Come, come now-what’s all this?”
He looked up and met her eyes. Something had gone from his. Miss Silver saw in them what she had seen in many eyes before, a desperate need of help. She smiled slightly, as one smiles at an anxious child, and said,
“Well, Mr. Paradine, we will leave it like that. You will go back and consult the rest of the family, and then if you wish it, I will come out to the River House and do what I can to help you.”
He said abruptly,
“I don’t want to consult them-I’m prepared to take the responsibility. I want you to take the case. I want you to come out to the River House with me now.”
She became very serious.
“Are you quite sure about that?”
He gave a brief impatient nod.
“Yes, I’m quite sure. I want you to come. Lydia’s right-we’ve got to clear this up. Someone inside, in the house, will have a better chance of doing it than the police-I can see that.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“You must understand, Mr. Paradine, that my position will be quite a private one, and that I can be no party to anything to which the police could take exception. May I ask who is in charge of the case?”
“Superintendent Vyner.”