The kind look persisted. It seemed to go right through her.
‘You want me to prove that Mr Madoc is innocent?’
‘Yes-yes – of course I do!’
Miss Silver was knitting briskly, the sock revolved. She said, ‘I cannot take any case with such a condition attached to it. It is beyond my province to attempt the proof of either innocence or guilt. I feel obliged to make this perfectly clear. I can only take a case with the object of discovering the truth. Sometimes this truth is at variance with the client’s wishes and hopes. As Lord Tennyson so aptly says – “Oh, hard when love and duty clash!” But once I have undertaken a case I can be swayed by duty alone, and that duty must always be the discovery of the facts. They may be unexpected, they may be unwelcome. They may deepen a tragic situation instead of relieving it. I say this to every client.’
Janice’s colour rose a little more.
‘He didn’t do it – he didn’t really!’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘You are a good friend, Miss Meade. You are attached to Mr Madoc, and so you believe in him. You think him incapable of a crime.’
‘Oh, no, it isn’t like that at all – it really isn’t. I’ve worked for him for a year, and if you had asked me before all this happened, I would have said that I detested him. He is the rudest man in the world – he says the most insulting things – he has a simply dreadful temper. But he didn’t kill Mr Harsch. I want you to find out who did. I want you to come down with me this afternoon and stay with Miss Fell. She says you helped her cousin, Laura Fane, when Tanis Lyle was murdered. All the Fanes and the Ferrars are relations of hers. She is an old lady and very kind. Her nephew, Major Albany, has been down there watching the case. He got the copy of the evidence from the inquest for you. Miss Fell wants you to come down and be just an old friend who is staying with her, but I’m afraid that’s not much good because of Ida Mottram-’
‘Mrs Mottram? Dear me!’ Miss Silver coughed gently.
‘She talks such a lot. I’m afraid she’ll tell everyone how wonderful you are.’
Miss Silver knitted in silence for a moment. Then she said, ‘Gratitude is a virtue, but it is sometimes inconvenient. What train do you wish to catch, Miss Meade?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BY HALF-PAST EIGHT that evening Miss Silver might have been residing at the Rectory for years. She had placated Mable, who did not consider that visitors were at all necessary in wartime, she had shown Miss Sophy a new knitting stitch, and satisfied Garth that she could be trusted to behave with discretion and tact. What impression she had made upon the remaining member of the party, it was impossible to say. Miss Brown, it is true, appeared at dinner and joined occasionally in the conversation, but her look was so lifeless, her voice so mechanical, that it was impossible to feel that she was really there. As soon as they rose from the table she withdrew. Garth, coming last into the hall, watched her slowly mount the stairs, her hands upon the balustrade, her fine eyes fixed, her air that of a woman who walks in a haunted dream.
When he reached the drawing-room Miss Sophy was telling Miss Silver that he had weighed ten and a half pounds when he was born. It was not until the coffee had been brought, partaken of, and cleared away that she could be detached from the saga of his infancy. Aunt Sophy was indeflectable. She supported anecdote by documentary evidence. Photographs showing Garth in a vest, Garth in a bathing-suit, Garth completely au naturel, were bandied back and forth. He retired into The Times, and thanked heaven that Janice wasn’t there.
But when Mabel had carried out the tray and the door was shut, the photographs went back into their drawer and the talk got down to business. Not as crudely as this may suggest, but after a seemly fashion, and by consent of both the ladies, for if Miss Silver desired to hear, Miss Sophy was certainly anxious to talk.
Garth put down his paper, and was edified. It appeared that Miss Silver was now thoroughly conversant with the evidence given at the inquest. She touched upon it here and there, referring to Garth as well as to Miss Sophy for details as to the voice, manner, and general tone of witnesses. He became aware of a thought penetrating and illuminating whatever it touched. The prim, old-maidish manner which was its cloak began by amusing him, but before long the amusement changed to something not unlike discomfort. He felt a little as if he had picked up an old lady’s work-bag and found it to contain a bomb.
Aunt Sophy on the contrary was completely happy. It was years since she had had so appreciative an audience. She poured out information about everyone and everything – about Michael Harsch; about the Madocs; about her neighbours on the Green; about the village, about the Pincotts; about the rector, the sexton, the church, the organ; about poor dear Medora and what a terrible shock it had been to her; about the party telephone and how extremely inconvenient it was – ‘or might be if I ever had anything to say that I would really mind everybody knowing, because Mary Anne Doncaster – she is the younger of the two Miss Doncasters who live at Pennycott and a shocking invalid, poor thing – she sits and listens in by the hour when she hasn’t got anything else to do. And I daresay there are others as well, though I wouldn’t put a name to them. But I’m afraid that the only person who has interesting calls is Mrs Mottram. She is a widow, you know, and very pretty, and young men do ring her up. Mostly friends of her husband’s, I expect, but of course Mary Anne and Lucy Ellen make the most of it.’
Miss Silver coughed and said that gossip was usually ill-natured and very often untrue. After which she picked up the ball of wool which had rolled from her lap to the floor and steered the conversation back to the Tuesday night when Mr Harsch had met his death.
‘You were sitting in here with the window open, Miss Fell?’
Miss Sophy nodded. She was feeling pleased and important. If she had been a cat she would have purred.
‘Oh, yes – behind the black-out. It was such a mild evening.’
‘And you could hear the organ?’
‘Oh, yes. Mr Harsch was playing Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary – only now they say that is wasn’t by Purcell at all, but by somebody called – Clark, I think it is. So beautiful.’
‘What time would that have been?’
‘Well, I don’t know that I can say exactly, but I suppose somewhere before half-past nine, because Medora was still in the drawing-room, she had gone upstairs before the half hour.’
‘You could hear the music quite clearly?’
‘Oh, yes, quite.’
Miss Silver stopped knitting for a moment and leaned forward.
‘When did you stop hearing it?’
Miss Sophy’s blue eyes became quite round with surprise. All her sausage curls wobbled, and so did her chins.
‘I don’t know. Did I stop hearing it?’
Miss Silver smiled and went on knitting.
‘I think you must have done. Before half-past nine Miss Brown was in the room with you. Quite probably you were talking.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Yet you heard the music distinctly – you could identify the Trumpet Voluntary. But at a quarter to ten you had opened the glass door and gone down the steps to the garden because – I am quoting your evidence – you wanted to smell the night-flowering stock and to hear whether Mr Harsch was still playing the organ.’
Miss Sophy nodded again.
‘Yes – so I had.’
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
‘Will you try and remember when the music stopped. Did you hear anything after the Trumpet Voluntary?’
‘Oh, yes, I did. But I don’t know what it was. I thought he was improvising.’
‘That was after Miss Brown had left the room?’
Miss Sophy took a moment to think about this.