Miss Silver coughed gently.
“What makes you think that Frank has these suspicions of Miss Grey?”
“ Georgina says he has. She isn’t stupid, you know-if a thing is there she can see it.”
Miss Silver gazed at her with an air of mild interrogation.
“Perhaps I did not make myself plain. If it is true that Frank suspects Miss Grey of a connection with her uncle’s death, there must be some reason why he should do so.”
“No one who knows her-”
Miss Silver put up a restraining hand.
“Calm yourself, my dear. I am not pronouncing any opinion as to whether these suspicions are justified or not, but it is a fact that Frank would not entertain them unless there was some supporting evidence. Did Miss Grey tell you what this was?”
“Yes, she did. And of course there is nothing in it, and no one who knew Georgina could think that there was. It’s just that Mr. Field was changing his will.”
“In favour of Mirrie Field?”
“Yes. You see Georgina had an anonymous letter-a really hateful one.”
“They are hateful things, my dear.”
Cicely gave a vigorous nod.
“It said everyone knew she was jealous of Mirrie because Mirrie was prettier than she was and people liked her better. And it went on with silly things like saying she had tried to humiliate Mirrie by giving her cast-off clothes. And they weren’t. They were lovely things, and Mirrie was terribly pleased with them.”
“You interest me extremely.”
Cicely sparkled up at her.
“Oh, do I? You don’t know how much I want to!”
“Pray continue. Did Miss Grey take this letter to her uncle?”
“Yes, she did! And there was the most frightful flare-up. He seemed to think it was all true about Georgina being jealous, and about the clothes and everything, and he told her he was going to change his will. And I don’t think he exactly said he was going to leave her out of it, but I think she thought that that was what he was going to do.”
Monica Abbott made a small shocked sound. Miss Silver said gravely,
“I am sure that I need not warn you against repeating such a conjecture, but I think that you would be well advised to warn your friend not to do so.”
“If people hadn’t such perfectly foul minds it wouldn’t be necessary! You know, Mr. Field was like that, he did quarrel with people. But Georgina says he had never done it with her before, and she was most frightfully upset. This was on Monday morning, and he went straight off to London and made another will, and didn’t come back till Tuesday evening in time for dinner.”
“You say he had made another will. Was that known?”
“Yes, it was-he told Mirrie. And after dinner he went into the study and Georgina went after him, and they had a talk. She says he wasn’t angry any more. She told him she was glad about his providing for Mirrie, and he told her about having been fond of Mirrie’s mother! They had a long talk, and I think it made them both very happy. And in the end he said he had been angry and unjust and he had made an unjust will. And he got it out and tore it up and burnt it.”
“In Miss Grey’s presence?”
“Oh, yes. She tried to stop him, but he said he could do what he liked with his own, and he tore it up and put it on the fire.”
“This was on Tuesday evening?”
“Yes.”
“And when did his death occur?”
“ Georgina woke up in the night and heard a door bang- or it might have been the shot. She looked out of her window and saw the glass door between the study and the terrace moving in the wind. She went down to shut it, and she found that Mr. Field had been shot.”
All this time Cecily had been sitting back on her heels.
Now, with a characteristically impulsive movement, she thrust at the floor with her hand and came up on to her knees beside Miss Silver again.
“Oh!” she said on a quick-caught breath. “You can see what it looks like-anyone can see what it looks like! She’s got to have someone to help her-she’s simply got to! Miss Silver, you will, won’t you? She must have somebody-she must! Dear, darling angel Miss Silver, say you will!”
Ruth, the parlourmaid, opened the morning-room door and announced,
“Miss Georgina Grey-”
Chapter XVIII
GEORGINA CAME into the room. She had put on a loose dark coat over her jumper and skirt and twisted a scarf about her neck. It was the first that had come to hand, a mixture of soft greys and blues. She was bare-headed and she wore no gloves. As Monica Abbott went to meet her warmth and kindness came with her.
“My dear child-we have been thinking of you so much.”
Cicely scrambled up.
“I’ve told her,” she said. Her feet were so numb from sitting on them that she had to catch at Georgina ’s arm to steady herself.
Georgina Grey had eyes only for Miss Silver. She put an arm about Cicely in a purely instinctive way, and she felt Monica Abbott’s kindness as you feel the comfort of coming into a warm room, but all her conscious thought was focussed upon the little elderly person who came a step or two to meet her with some white baby knitting in one hand and the other put out to take her own. The hand was small, the clasp firm and kind.
Georgina said, “How do you do, Miss Silver?” The glowing picture painted by Cicely had been in her thought. She was finding it difficult to relate it to this dowdy little person with her neatly netted fringe and small indeterminate features. Cicely’s enthusiastic phrases floated in her mind-“She’s too marvellous-she is really, darling… She saved my life over that Eternity Ring business, and I expect she saved Grant’s too. They were just going to arrest him, you know… She sees right through people… Frank practically eats out of her hand.” She didn’t know quite what she had expected, but Cicely’s fireworks were fading out and leaving a dull greyness behind them. She took the chair she was being offered and sat down.
Monica Abbott came up to Cicely and put a hand on her shoulder.
“If Georgina wants to consult Miss Silver, I think this is where we leave them.”
Cicely got to her feet, looked a reluctant protest, and met a perfectly plain glance of dismissal from Miss Silver. She bit her lip, followed Monica out of the room, and could be heard saying “Really, Mummy!” in the hall.
Miss Silver turned to Georgina Grey.
“You would like to talk to me?”
Quite suddenly Georgina began to feel that she would. She forgot all about Miss Silver looking like the governess in a family group of the Edwardian period. Mrs. Fabian had a store of old albums. Miss Silver might have stepped out of any one of fifty groups. She had really been a governess once – Georgina knew that-and now she was a private enquiry agent and Frank Abbott regarded her with reverence. In her own mind Georgina made a correction. There wasn’t a Frank Abbott any longer. There was only Detective Inspector Abbott with the cool, cynical gaze which had given her story the lie.
The look which Miss Silver had turned upon her was neither cool nor cynical. It was kind, but it was penetrating. She felt as if it went right through her and out at the other side. Strangely enough, it was not a disagreeable feeling. It might have been had there been anything that she wanted to hide, but since she hadn’t there was a certain relief in feeling that she wouldn’t have to explain too much-Miss Silver would understand.
The searching look melted into the smile which had won the hearts of so many of Miss Silver’s clients. A pleasant voice repeated,
“You would like to talk to me?”
Georgina talked, and found it easier than she could have supposed. Chief Detective Inspector Lamb, who had grown up in a country village not so many generations removed from a firm belief in witchcraft, has been accused of cherishing some uneasy suspicions with regard to Miss Silver’s powers. He would naturally not have admitted to this, and she would certainly have been extremely shocked. What she did possess was an uncommon faculty for producing an atmosphere strongly reminiscent of the schoolroom over which she had once held so benignant a sway.