He said, “Just give me as much as you can,” and listened attentively to the repetition of Paulina Paine’s story about a taxi which had waited just beyond the Square and been lost sight of in the traffic.
“She was sufficiently alarmed to go back into the house and take a taxi herself instead of walking as she had intended. She left no doubt in my mind that her experience in the gallery had been a very severe shock. She undoubtedly believed that she had become cognizant of a plot which involved robbery and murder, and the fact that one of the persons concerned in this plot had subsequently become aware of her deafness and her proficiency in lip-reading could not fail to intensify that shock. She began to fear that she might be traced and followed. Such a course would have been perfectly possible if this man had really believed her to be in possession of the highly incriminating remarks which he had made in the gallery. Do you suppose he would have hesitated over silencing her or lost any time in doing so?”
“I don’t suppose he would.”
Miss Silver continued to knit and to speak.
“When Miss Paine came to see me she was a badly shaken woman, but she was, I believe, of a very courageous and resolute disposition and she possessed a strong vein of common sense. As soon as she had relieved her mind by telling me of her experience she returned to her normal condition. She was able to dismiss the fear that she might have been followed, and to consider the impulse which had brought her to me as a trick of the nerves. She would not allow me to send for a taxi, and I am sure that when she left this room she had no idea of the possibility that her life might be in danger.”
“And you think it was?”
She gave him a very direct look.
“What do you think yourself, Mr. Bellingdon?”
He lifted a hand and let it fall again.
“No proof-probably never will be. One has one’s own ideas-” Then, with a change of manner, “And now to business.”
She was loosening some strands of the pale blue wool. Her “Yes?” held a question.
With the change in his manner there had come also a change of position. He sat up straight and said,
“I am informed that you undertake private enquiries, and that you are extremely efficient and discreet. Chief Inspector Lamb tells me that you have often been of considerable help to the police.”
He received an impression that the distance between them had somehow been increased. She gave a slight formal cough and said,
“The Chief Inspector is very kind.”
In the midst of his serious preoccupation Bellingdon experienced a twinge of amusement. He had not got where he was without certain powers of discernment. He was aware that he had been tactless, and that the Chief Inspector was considered to have presumed. He allowed his voice to become a little warmer than it would have been over an ordinary business deal.
“I should think myself very fortunate if I could persuade you to give me your professional help in this matter. You see, there are aspects to which I do not really wish to invite the attention of the police. There are, in fact, points which they couldn’t possibly handle.”
Miss Silver said primly, “I could not undertake to keep anything from the police in a case of so much gravity.”
“Quite so. Perhaps you will let me explain what is in my mind. I think you are too acute an observer not to have been struck by the stress which the murderer placed upon the danger of his being recognized. He said he wasn’t taking any chances of it, and he was prepared to do murder rather than run any risk in that direction. Well, nobody wants to be recognized when he is committing an armed robbery, but a turned-up collar and a turned-down hat with a muffler over the lower part of the fact would mess up any casual description. Now did Miss Paine describe him to you?”
“She did. But I am afraid there is not very much to be made of the description. She was a plain, downright person, and her mind was taken up with the shock she had received and the knowledge which she believed herself to have acquired. In these circumstances, her description did not go beyond the fact that the man wore a drab raincoat, that he was somewhere about thirty, and that he was of average height and complexion. The caretaker at the gallery does not seem able to add anything to this, though he appears to have had some conversation with him-and, significantly enough, upon the subject of Miss Paine’s portrait, which I understand you have purchased. He recognized it, and most unfortunately the caretaker mentioned both her deafness and her proficiency in lip-reading.”
“He recognized Miss Paine?”
“As the woman who had been looking in his direction when he made what he must have remembered as some highly compromising remarks. They could not have been overheard at the distance, but Miss Paine’s lip-reading must have suggested a dangerous possibility. We do not know, and can only surmise, the lengths to which such a conclusion might have carried him. Inspector Abbott did go round to the gallery to see whether anything could be added to Miss Paine’s description of the man she had watched.”
Bellingdon said,
“Yes, I believe he did. As a matter of fact, I went round myself. Pegler is a nice old boy. I had met him, and I thought I’d like a word or two with him direct. He remembers seeing two men on the seat, and he didn’t think they had anything to do with one another-says they came separately and left separately. That is all he does seem to have noticed about the one in the dark raincoat, but he remembers the other one stopping and talking about Miss Paine’s portrait. By the way, Pegler says she came back afterwards and he told her how interested this man had been about her picture and her being deaf, and the lip-reading. And he said she looked as if he had said something that upset her, and he hoped she didn’t think he had taken a liberty.”
Miss Silver said, “She had reason to be upset.”
Bellingdon nodded.
“Well, to get back to this man and his description. I don’t think Pegler is any help. He said he was quite a pleasant gentleman- and that was about all there was to it. Height? ‘A bit taller than me, sir. At least that is what I should say.’ Fair or dark? ‘Nothing that you would notice either way.’ Colour of his eyes? ‘Well, I couldn’t really say, sir.’ And when you put all that together you’ve got something that would fit any man that wasn’t extra tall or extra short, or that hadn’t got red hair, or a beard, or a moustache, or something that stuck out so that you couldn’t miss it.”
Miss Silver agreed. Bellingdon went on.
“So we get back to the murderer. Why was he so much afraid of being identified that he must do murder? As the Chief Inspector has suggested, a motor-cyclist’s cap and goggles would flummox anyone who wasn’t an intimate. There you have it, Miss Silver-he wouldn’t trust any disguise to shield him from the man he was going to rob. Perhaps it was his voice that would have given him away-voices are very individual. I don’t know, but there must have been some reason why he preferred what he called a certainty and was perfectly prepared to shoot two people if there had been two in the car. There is another reason why I am forced to believe him to have been in close touch with my family circle. It was only in that circle that anyone knew when the bank would be handing over the necklace. I suppose you have heard about the necklace?”
She turned the soft mass of wool upon her lap. The delicate fern pattern displayed its fronds for a moment and then fell lightly together again.
“Yes, Mr. Bellingdon, I have read about the necklace. An interesting and well-written account of a beautiful and valuable piece.”