‘Are you going to tell me what they were?’
For his side of the conversation Frank considered that he might reasonably adhere to his native tongue. Miss Silver’s French delighted him, his own did not. If he could not do a thing to perfection he would rather not do it at all. Except for an occasional quotation, he therefore preferred to leave French alone. ‘Wind in the head-that’s what you’ve got, Frank my boy,’ as his respected superior, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb, was wont to say.
In the Blue Room Miss Silver gave a gentle cough. She said in English, ‘I think I had better do so,’ and then reverted to French. ‘The first is the last letter of the alphabet. The second is R. I felt that you should know without delay.’
Frank Abbott gave a long soft whistle.
‘Oh, it is, is it? Well, we shall just have to find out whose godparents searched the Scriptures for a name. It sounds as if one of the minor prophets might be involved.’
‘My dear Frank!’
She heard him laugh.
‘I had to learn the whole list of them at school. It finished up with a most suggestive jingle.’
She said, ‘That is all. I will now join the others. Shall I see you in the morning?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
Returning to the drawing-room. Miss Silver seated herself at a little distance from the fire. The chair which she had chosen stood at a companionable angle to that from which Adrian Grey had risen at her approach. He put down the paper which he had been reading and said,
‘Let me get you a cup of coffee.’
Thanking him graciously, she awaited his return. From where she sat she could observe the little group about the hearth. Lady Dryden had finished her coffee. She had a book in her hand, and occasionally she turned a page, but Miss Silver received the impression that she was not really reading. She had, perhaps, produced as much social small talk as she felt necessary.
Eric Haile stood with his back to the fire with a cigarette between his fingers. Every now and then he put it to his lips and let out a faint cloud of smoke. Every now and then he addressed a smiling remark to Ray Fortescue in the sofa corner. When he did this she would look up from the magazine whose leaves she was turning and make some brief reply. Then she went back again, not to the magazine, but to her own private dream.
Miss Whitaker was not in the room.
Adrian Grey came back with the coffee-cup in his hand.
‘I noticed you took half milk after lunch, and one lump of sugar. I hope that is all right.’
So he did notice things, in spite of that air of being somewhere vaguely in another world. She gave him the smile which had won the hearts of so many of her clients and said,
‘How kind. Pray sit down, Mr. Grey. I should be so glad to have a little talk with you.’
As he took the chair beside her he had the feeling that it was a comfortable and familiar place. If he had been in some private world it suffered no intrusion, neither was he being asked to leave it. He had encountered a friendly presence. There was a sense of security.
She sipped her coffee in a thoughtful manner and said,
‘I think you can help me if you will. You must have known Sir Herbert very well. Will you tell me about him?’
It was simply phrased and simply spoken. Adrian felt no disposition to resist. He spoke with perfect frankness and implicity.
‘I don’t know what to tell you.’
She smiled again.
‘Whatever you choose. I am wondering a little how you came to be associated with him.’
‘Oh, that is easy. I was rather at a loose end. I had known him casually for some years, and when he asked me whether I would care to undertake the alterations he wanted made at Vineyards I jumped at it.’
‘He gave you a free hand?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. I would put up my suggestions, and as a rule he took them. But not always. For instance, he would hang on to that horrible staircase.’
Miss Silver, set down her coffee-cup on a small occasional table.
‘Thank you-no more.’ She opened her flowered knitting-bag, disposed the pink ball in such a manner that it would not roll, and resumed little Josephine’s second vest.
‘You say you knew him casually. But in such a close association as you imply you must have learned to know him better.’
Their distance from the group at the fire and the low tone in which they were speaking gave the conversation as much privacy as if they had been alone. He hesitated for a moment, and then said,
‘Oh, yes-a great deal better. We came together on some surface similarity in our tastes. We both fell for Vineyards, for instance. He could appreciate a beautiful thing when he saw it-he did appreciate beautiful things in his own way. What I discovered when I got to know him better was that there was something rather abnormal about this appreciation.’
Miss Silver gave her gentle cough.
‘In what way?’
He looked at her with candid hazel eyes.
‘If he admired a thing he wanted to possess it.’
‘That seems abnormal to you?’
‘It does a little. But I have put it badly. He could hardly admire what belonged to someone else. Or if he admired it he must strain every nerve to get it for himself.’
The thought of Lila Dryden rose between them as clearly as if she had come into the room and was standing there-lovely, fragile-something to be desired and possessed by Herbert Whitall.
Adrian said quickly,
‘He was quite ruthless about it. He would rather have seen anything he wanted smashed than let it go to somebody else.’
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
‘You did not find it altogether easy to work with him?’
‘Not altogether. But as far as Vineyards was concerned it wasn’t too bad-I didn’t see so much of him. He came and went of course, generally at the week-end, but for the most part I was here on my own.’
Miss Silver put down her knitting for a moment and looked at him across the pale pink wool.
‘I am going to ask you a very frank question. You may not care to answer it, but I hope that you will do so. Did you like Sir Herbert Whitall?’
He showed no hesitation in answering.
‘I don’t think he wanted to be liked.’
‘Had you any feeling of affection or friendship for him?’
He shook his head.
‘That’s the wrong way to put it. He didn’t want those things -he had no use for them.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Beautiful things that would belong to him-things other people wanted and couldn’t get. He valued a thing much more if other people wanted it. And he liked power. His money gave him a lot of that, but it wasn’t enough. He liked to have people on a string, so that they couldn’t get away if they wanted to. He liked to know something about them which wasn’t usually known-something they wouldn’t like anyone to know. He mightn’t ever use that knowledge, but he liked to feel that he had got it there to use.’
Miss Silver had been listening with an air of absorbed attention. She said,
‘Such a person as you describe would be liable to arouse feelings of acute resentment and even hatred. Quite a number of people might have been tempted to wish for his death.’
The hazel eyes looked straight into her own. Adrian Grey said,
‘Oh, yes, quite a number.’
CHAPTER XXVII
At ten o’clock next morning Miss Silver was informed by Frederick that Inspector Abbott was in the study and would like to see her there. Not being as yet quite perfect in his part although a willing learner, this was Frederick ’s version of a much more politely phrased request. Miss Silver, however, took no exception to it. She had been about to embark upon a truly thankless task. Her niece Gladys Robinson a selfish and flighty young woman, so different, so very different from her sister dear Ethel Burkett, had written to ask for a loan and to pour out a string of complaints about her husband, a most worthy man though perhaps a little dull and a good deal older than Gladys. He had been considerably better off at the time of their marriage, but he had been just as many years older, just as dull, and just as worthy. Miss Silver had long ago decided with regret that Gladys had married him for his income and not for his moral worth. She wrote with increasing fretfulness of having to do her own housework. She complained that Andrew was mean. She so far forgot herself as to say, in terms whose vulgarity shocked Miss Silver profoundly, that there were other and far better fish in the sea. On the last page of this latest letter she had actually mentioned the word divorce.