“It was posted on the Sunday.”
His tone was one of displeasure. It was by no means Miss Silver’s first experience of being invited to an investigation which subsequently proved very little to the taste of the person who had invited her. She looked steadily at Lucius Bellingdon and said,
“This is not pleasant for you, is it? Before we go any farther I should like to say that I appreciate your position. It is still for you to choose whether you really wish me to go on with the case. The police have it in hand, and there is no need for you to retain my services. It is still open to me to return to town and relieve you of the embarrassment of having introduced an enquiry agent into your private family circle. But what I must make quite clear to you is this. The course I have proposed is possible now, but it may not be possible tomorrow. It could, in fact, become impossible at any moment.”
He was frowning deeply.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that at present I feel myself at liberty to withdraw, but if I continue on the case I am not, and could not be, prepared to hush anything up. The case is one of murder. Anything that throws light upon the murderer’s identity will be, and must be, at the disposal of the police. I am saying to you what I feel it my duty to say to any client. I cannot go into an investigation with the object of proving anyone guilty or anyone innocent. I can only go into it with the object of discovering the truth and serving the ends of justice.”
He walked a little way from her, looked fixedly at a lowering seascape, and so remained for a slow minute or two. When he came back, she saw that he had made up his mind. He said,
“Well, I like to do business with someone who doesn’t beat about the bush, and you don’t do that. If there has been a leakage, I’m bound to trace it. It could have occurred through nothing worse than a tongue too loosely hung-I suppose you realize that.”
She inclined her head.
“You wish me to remain here?”
He said “Yes-” in a considering tone. Then, more firmly, “Yes, I do. There is such a thing as any sort of certainty being better than not knowing where you are. If there’s a worm in a board I like to know it and have it out before it lets me through and I break my ankle-or my neck. And that being that, what do you want to know about last week-end?”
“Just who were the guests, and something about them.”
“The question is, what did Elaine tell you? She can generally be trusted to talk.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I should prefer you to assume that Miss Bray did not say anything at all.”
He gave a short laugh.
“That’s a pretty tall order, but I’ll do my best! To begin with you have to understand that there are very few week-ends when we don’t have people here. Moira is young and she asks anyone she likes. I have people down on the sort of business that goes better when it isn’t done in an office. Well, last week-end there was this young chap Wilfrid Gaunt who is coming down tonight-he’s by way of fluttering round Moira. And another young chap called Masterson. And some people for me of the name of Rennick-Americans, a very nice couple. And Elaine’s brother Arnold Bray. And that’s the lot.”
She asked him questions eliciting very much the same information as had been imparted by Miss Bray. Clay Masterson was a clever chap, keen to get on, but there wouldn’t be a lot of money in running round the country looking for antiques-not at this time of the day.
“Everything worth having must have been pretty well combed out by now, and you have got to have all your wits about you not to be taken in. He’s a friend of Moira’s too. But she isn’t serious about any of them. That’s the worst of all this running about together-it’s all very nice and easy, but it doesn’t get a girl anywhere. What Moira wants is a home of her own, but all she does is to play around. It’s ‘Darling’ here and ‘Darling’ there, but I wish I thought she cared a snap of her fingers for any of them.”
“You would like your daughter to marry again?”
“I’d like to see her settled.”
It was said with emphasis. Miss Silver did not pursue the subject. She turned instead to Mr. Arnold Bray.
“He is Miss Bray’s brother?”
“He is. Didn’t she mention him?”
“Only in passing.”
He gave a short angry laugh.
“Well, one wouldn’t feel tempted to dwell on Arnold! To be honest, he’s a liability. I suppose most families have something of the sort knocking about. He comes when he’s short of money, and he goes when he’s got enough to make it worth his while. I can only stand him for just so long, and he trades on it. But if you are thinking of him for your murderer you’ll have to think again. He simply hasn’t got the guts.”
Miss Silver asked a practical question.
“What does he do?”
Lucius Bellingdon was at his most overpowering as he replied,
“As little as he can help.”
Observing the jut of his chin, the formidable curve of his nose, the characteristic air of command, it occurred to her that it might be possible that he had undervalued Arnold Bray in respect of what he had rather coarsely referred to as “guts”. The expression offended her, but she did not allow herself to dwell upon that. What presented itself with some force was the fact that it would certainly require courage of some sort to obtrude oneself upon Mr. Bellingdon as an uninvited and unwanted guest, to say nothing of dunning him for money which he was under no obligation to supply.
Lucius said,
“If you asked him, I suppose he would describe himself as a commission agent. Goes round trying to get people to buy things they don’t want and could get much better in a shop.”
Miss Silver considered that Arnold Bray sounded very much like the sort of person who might pass on any information he had the good fortune to pick up. With Elaine Bray aware that the necklace was to be fetched from the bank on Tuesday and her brother Arnold in the house for the week-end, she did not feel that the source of the leakage was very far to seek. She gave a slight preliminary cough and said,
“I do not wish to impute any wrong motive to Miss Bray, but she talks a good deal, and usually about the people round her and the things that are happening to them from day to day. Do you find it difficult to suppose that she may have mentioned your arrangements about the necklace to her brother, and that he may have repeated what she had told him? It could in either case have been done through inadvertence.”
He was at his most abrupt as he said,
“That’s out. She didn’t know what my arrangements were. She knew I was getting the necklace. I suppose she knew that I was getting it on the Tuesday. She didn’t know the time, or who would be fetching it.”
“Who did know those things?”
“The bank manager because I wrote to him, Hubert Garratt who was supposed to be fetching the necklace, and later, but not until the Tuesday morning, Arthur Hughes who had to take Hubert’s place.”
Miss Silver looked up at him.
“When you came to see me in town and I asked you how many people knew of your arrangements for withdrawing the necklace your reply included the bank manager, Mr. Garratt and Mr. Hughes, your daughter, and Miss Bray and Mrs. Scott.”
He said with impatience,
“They knew I was getting it out of the bank. I told Moira that Hubert would fetch it on Tuesday.”
“Did she regard it as a confidential communication, or as one which it would be natural to speak of amongst her friends and relations?”
He gave her a chagrined glance.
“Oh, well, I don’t suppose she considered that it was a top-level secret. I suppose she may have spoken of it here in the house. I can’t blame her if she did. One doesn’t exactly go about expecting people to be murdered.”