‘Unless they counted on his being so regular and waited till he was gone, Mrs Bush. People can be sadly deceitful when they are doing wrong.’
Mrs Bush nodded condescendingly. She had put Miss Silver down in her own mind as one of those humble dependents, neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring – a governess or some such that Miss Sophy had got down to stay by way of a kindness. That sort was in the way of knowing things, but you didn’t have to mind your p’s and q’s with them.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Never five minutes out, Mr Bush isn’t. Ten o’clock he takes his key from the hook on the dresser and out he goes on his round, wet or fine.’
Miss Silver coughed in a deprecating manner.
‘Why does he take his key?’ she enquired.
Mrs Bush looked important.
‘Because he’s responsible for the church as well as for the churchyard – verger and sexton, same as his father before him. And if there was to be a window left open or suchlike, he’d go in and shut it. Of course they’re too high up for anyone to get in, but if it was to come on to blow there’d be the rain, and if it was a gale, broken glass on the top of that. It’s the Rector opens them – that’s just between you and me. Says the church is damp. He’s one of those learned gentlemen that can’t see past what they’ve read in a book. Now it stands to reason no place won’t keep dry with the windows open to the rain, but he goes on opening them, and Mr Bush, he has to watch his chance to get them shut. Quite worries him, but as I say, what’s none of your doing it’s no use worrying after. But you know what men are – it’s no good talking, they just go their own way.’ Miss Silver gazed.
‘He does his round at ten o’clock every night?’
‘Regular as clockwork,’ said Mrs Bush.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MISS SILVER CAME out of the shop with six postcards in her handbag. A hundred yards down the road she was overtaken by Sergeant Abbott. He had hurried to catch her up. He now contemplated her with a mixture of surprise, affection, and awe.
‘Miss Silver!’
She had a charming smile for him.
‘Dear me, what a pleasant meeting.’ She shook hands.
Sergeant Abbott’s expression became modified. It took on a shade of sardonic humour. He had met Miss Silver on a case before, and the experience had left him her devoted admirer. He wondered very much what she was doing in Bourne, and whether she would tell him, or leave him to find out for himself.
She was graciously pleased to inform him that she was staying at the Rectory, to which he replied that he was on his way there to see Miss Brown. After a slight pause Miss Silver coughed and came to the point.
Later in the day Sergeant Abbott was reporting to Chief Inspector Lamb. The word report is perhaps too formal an expression. Sergeant Abbott was sometimes informal to an almost impudent degree. He cocked an eyebrow now and said sweetly, ‘Maudie has turned up, sir.’
Lamb said, ‘What!’
‘Miss Maud Silver, sir – Maudie the Mascot.’
Lamb was a good Methodist. He didn’t swear, but he turned purple.
‘At Bourne? What’s she up to this time?’
Sergeant Abbott declaimed musically, ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude.’
‘Stop playing the fool and let’s have a bit of sense, Frank! We’ve got our case, haven’t we? We’ve got our man? We could do with a bit more evidence, but you can’t expect murders to be done before witnesses. I say it’s a good enough case. He had motive and opportunity. And he recognised the weapon – that came out quite clear at the inquest – said he was familiar with the type. Well, I say that’s good enough. You’ll never get me to believe he put that key in his pocket and went home like he says. He took it because he meant to have things out with Harsch then and there. And he shot him. That’s what I say, and I think a jury will say it too. Well then, what does Miss Silver want? Who’s called her in?’
‘Miss Fell.’
Lamb stared angrily.
‘Well, of all the-! Look here, Frank, what does it mean? Miss Fell – she’s a nice old lady – what’s it got to do with her, unless she’s doing it on account of this Miss Brown? Did you see her?’
‘Oh, yes, I saw her. And I might just as well have stayed at home. She had nothing to add to her statement, she had no comment to make on what Mr Madoc might have said, and that was that. All very petrified, very haughty – the Great Ice Age – and what is a policeman that I should tell him anything? In fact, as our Maudie would say, “Icily regular, splendidly null”. Quotation from the late Lord Tennyson.’
Lamb growled, ‘Quit fooling!’ and rapped the table with his knuckles.
‘What did she say to you – Miss Silver, not Miss Brown. What has she got in her head?’
‘I don’t know – she didn’t let on. It’s clear she is being retained by Madoc’s friends. I won’t say in Madoc’s interest, because, as she’s always so careful to point out, she’s out for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But she wants to see Madoc.’
‘Oh, she does, does she?’
‘Alone,’ said Abbott with some emphasis.
‘Now look here, Frank-’
Abbott’s mouth twisted.
‘I said I would lay the matter before you, sir.’
Lamb gazed at him with suspicion.
‘Very correct – aren’t you? When you start saying sir every time you open your mouth, I begin to look out for what you’ve been up to. And you needn’t go out of your way to tell me I’m ungrateful like you did just now, because I’m not saying, and never will, that Miss Silver didn’t do us a good turn over the Vandeleur House murders. I don’t mind admitting that we were on the wrong line and she put us on the right one, and that we both got some good marks out of it. And I’ll admit she’s not one to make a fuss of herself, or to get into the papers.’
Frank Abbott had his faint sardonic smile.
‘Strange, isn’t it?’ he said in an easy conversational voice. ‘She’s known to the police, but not to the Press, and whenever she comes into a case, we come out of it in a blaze of glory. And she just fades away quoting Tennyson and saying “Bless you my children”. What about her seeing Madoc, sir?’
Lamb relaxed.
‘Oh, she can see him if she’s got a mind to. But I’d like to know what she’s got up her sleeve.’
Frank Abbott came and sat on the corner of the writing-table.
‘Well, here’s something she gave me. That man Bush, the sexton – it never came out at the inquest that he makes a round of the church and the churchyard every night at ten o’clock because the Rector goes on leaving windows open and he doesn’t hold with it.’
Lamb stared.
‘There wasn’t anything about that. If it’s true, why wasn’t it brought out? The local constable would know – everyone in the village would know.’
Abbott laughed.
‘Village people don’t exactly rush to the police with information. Mrs Bush was a Pincott, and as far as I can make out every other soul in Bourne is either a Pincott or has married one. Very prolific family. The constable is a nephew – Jim Pincott. I suppose he would have said if he’d been asked – I suppose any of them would. But nobody asked them whether Bush went round the church at night, so they held their tongues in the fine old English way. Maudie suggests that we have Bush on the mat and ask him what about it.’