‘Lying aside of where he’d been sitting on the organ stool.’
‘On the stool?’
‘That’s where he’d put it. He’d let himself in and come along with the key in his hand and put it down on the stool. I’ve seen him do it, and I’d say, “You’ll be losing that key one of these days, Mr Harsch”, and he’d shake his head and say “No”, and slip it back into his waistcoat pocket. So when I saw it lie there, that’s what I done – I picked it up and put it back in his pocket.’
Lamb came in quick and sharp.
‘Then why hadn’t it got your prints on it?’
Bush looked mildly surprised.
‘I took hold of it with my handkerchief.’
Both men stared.
‘What made you do that?’
‘Seemed as if it was the right thing to do.’
‘Why?’ The word came back as sharp as a pistol shot.
Bush put up his hand to his chin again.
‘I’d no call to leave my prints on it.’
‘You thought about that?’
‘It come to me.’ He dropped his hand.
Lamb said, ‘All right, go on. What did you do next?’
‘I put out the light, and I come out and locked the door and off round the church like I said.’
‘What time was it?’
‘Struck ten just as I come to the gate.’
‘Was the church door locked or unlocked when you came to it?’ The Chief Inspector’s eyes were intent and shrewd.
Bush made his undisturbed reply.
‘It was open. Mr Harsch didn’t use to lock it, not once in a blue moon.’
Sergeant Abbott thought, ‘And there goes our case against Madoc!’ He wrote the answer down.
Lamb sat forward in his chair, his jaw hard under heavy muscle and firm flesh.
‘You should have said all this before. Holding your tongue like this, you’ve thrown suspicion on others. When did you see Ezra Pincott last?’
With undiminished calm Bush thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Last night – in the Bull.’
‘Did you leave together?’
‘No.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘Seven minutes to ten.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I went my round.’
‘Did you go into the church?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sure you didn’t take Ezra in with you?’
For the first time Bush looked disturbed. He said, ‘What would I do that for?’
‘You know he had been boasting that he knew something about Mr Harsch’s death, and that it would put money in his pocket?’
‘Anyone could know that. He was there in the Bull, saying it for all to hear.’
The next question came very sharply.
‘You keep brandy in your house?’
Bush moved his chair. A slight frown creased his forehead.
‘There’s nothing wrong about that. Mrs Bush’s aunt, she takes it for her spasms.’
‘So I’ve been told. Did you give Ezra some of it last night?’
The frown straightened out. The grave lips moved into a smile.
‘Ezra never needed for no one to offer him drink. What makes you think I’d give him my good brandy?’
Lamb brought down his fist on the table.
‘Someone gave him brandy, and someone knocked him out and put him in the water to drown.’
Bush stared.
‘You don’t say!’
‘Yes, I do.’
Bush went on staring. ‘Whatever for?’
Lamb gave him back look for look.
‘To stop him opening his mouth about who killed Mr Harsch.’
Bush dropped his cap on the floor. It seemed as if it just slipped from his hand and fell. He stooped to pick it up.
‘Whoever ’ud do a thing like that?‘ he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THEY WOULD NEVER forgive me if I did not take a visitor to call,’ said Miss Sophy. ‘I have known them all my life, and Mary Anne is such a sad invalid.’
Miss Silver smiled, and spoke the simple truth.
‘I shall be delighted to call on the Miss Doncasters.’
‘Then I will just finish the letter I was writing to my cousin Sophy Ferrars. It will not take me long, and it will give them time to finish their tea.’
The afternoon was mild and fair. Miss Silver put on her hat, her gloves, and a light summer coat, and strolled in the garden, where the trees made a shady pattern across Miss Sophy’s lawn. It was very agreeable – very agreeable indeed. If her mind had been at rest, she would have been enjoying her visit very much. But her mind was very far from being at rest – oh, very far indeed. She walked up and down upon the grass and considered the unsatisfactory details of the Harsch case.
From nowhere on her left a voice of peculiar shrillness spoke her name. No one who had heard that voice could possibly mistake it. She had made it her business to encounter Cyril Bond that morning. She turned now to see him astride the wall between the Rectory and Meadowcroft, one hand holding an overhanging branch, the other flourishing a stick in a manner which suggested that he regarded it as a spear.
‘What is it, Cyril?’
‘D’you reckon you know what “Spricken see Dutch?” means?’
Miss Silver smiled benignly.
‘You are not pronouncimg it correctly. It should be, “Sprechen sie Deutsch?” It means, “Do you speak German?” ’
Cyril flourished his spear.
‘I arst Mr Everton, and he said he didn’t know any German. There’s a boy at our school, his father’s a refugee. He’s a Jew. He knows a lot of German – he can talk it ever so fast.’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘You are a great climber, are you not? I hope you are quite safe upon that wall. Which was the window you climbed out of?’
Cyril drooped.
‘I won’t ’arf get in a row if Mr Everton knows.’
Miss Silver continued to smile.
‘I shall not tell him. Which window was it?’
Cyril reduced his piercing tones to a hissing whisper.
‘That one there’ – he pointed with the spear – ‘over the libery. That’s how I got down.’
‘Were you not afraid that Mr Everton would hear you?’
Cyril cast her a look of scorn.
‘Naow,’ he said, making two Cockney syllables out of the word and lingering on them. ‘I don’t do it except when he’s out.’
‘And he was out on Tuesday night?’
‘Acourse he was! Up at Mrs Mottram’s fixing something for her. She can’t do nothing by herself.’
‘How do you know he was there?’
‘Cos I heard him say so. Called right out in the hall he did. “I’m just going up to Mrs Mottram’s,” he says, “to fix her wireless set.” Cook and the other lady didn’t ’arf laugh when he’d gone.’
‘When did he come back?’
‘I dunno – I went to sleep. Oh, boy! When I think I might have heard the shot!’
‘How do you know Mr Everton was not in when you got back?’
Cyril dropped his voice.
‘The black-out isn’t all that good in the study. I don’t say it’s bad, but there’s always places you can see if there’s a light on.’
‘Perhaps he’d gone up to his room.’
His tone was scornful again.
‘Naow! He sits up ever so late, Mr Everton does.’ He looked sideways out of the corners of his eyes.
‘You couldn’t be sure,’ said Miss Silver mildly but firmly.
‘Well then, I could!’ He made a sudden cast with his spear into the garden of Meadowcroft and slid down after it.
As she walked with Miss Fell past the intervening two houses to Pennycott Miss Silver had not a great deal to say. Miss Sophy found her a delightful listener. Scarcely drawing breath, she managed to impart a good deal of information about the Miss Doncasters in the short time at her disposal. It went back to their schooldays, and contained some particulars which interested Miss Silver very much.
‘But of course it all rather faded during the war – the last war – and for some years afterwards. And we all hoped there wouldn’t be any more of it.’
‘And was there?’ said Miss Silver in a most attentive voice.
Miss Sophy stood quite still opposite the Lilacs and said,
‘Oh, yes.’ She leaned towards Miss Silver and fooffled. ‘And when it came to such an inordinate enthusiasm for a housepainter…’