They had not Lucius Bellingdon’s luck. They were on the steepest part of the hill with a sheer drop into the old Pit quarry on the right. While the wheel which Arnold Bray had loosened went bounding on down the descending road the car lurched to the brink, hung there for a moment, and plunged to the rocks below.
The news came through in the early morning hours. Someone had seen the gap in the low bank and reported it. There was splintered glass on the edge, and a gold shoe which had belonged to Moira Herne. It must have been among the welter of things she had thrown in at the back of the car, but just how it had been flung clear when everything else went down was one of those happenings which no one can explain. The Emberley police certainly did not attempt to do so. They came out to investigate, and they found the off front wheel at the bottom of the hill, and Clay Masterson and Moira Herne at the bottom of the quarry, both of them dead and the car mere scrap. From the police station they rang up Lucius Bellingdon and told him what they had found. Moira Herne was well enough known in Emberley. She was a careless driver, and had been before the magistrates there on more than one occasion -parking on the wrong side of the road, crossing against the lights, driving without due care and attention. There would be plenty of gossip as to why the wheel of Mr. Masterson’s car should come off on Emberley Hill not much more than twenty-four hours after the same thing had happened to Mr. Bellingdon, and how it came about that Mrs. Herne was there with most of her clothes all thrown in loose as if she had left home in an almighty hurry.
Lucius Bellingdon took the news with a set face. He turned from the telephone and went to find Miss Maud Silver. She was in her room and she was packing. Their last interview had been strained in the extreme. He had set his mind upon an attempt at hushing up what had happened in the night, and she had told him that she could not be a party to it. If the attempt upon his life had stood alone it might have been possible, but so far from standing alone, this attempted crime was the fourth in a series which comprised the murders of Arthur Hughes and Paulina Paine and the previous attempt upon himself. Whether it was possible to bring these crimes, or any of them, home to Clay Masterson would be a problem for the police, but to withhold what information they possessed and thereby set so dangerous a criminal free to continue to prey upon society would not only be a moral offence, but would place each one of them in the position of being an accessory after the fact. Miss Silver’s unswerving rectitude of character forbade her to consider the possibility of such a course. The utmost concession to which she could force her conscience was to defer communicating with the police until she had left Merefields. Hence the packing interrupted by Lucius Bellingdon’s knock upon her door.
It came at the moment when she had folded her warm blue dressing-gown and was disposing it lightly but firmly at the top of her suitcase. She said, “Come in!” without turning her head, supposing that one of the daily maids had come up to do the room. Lucius came a step or two inside the door, closed it behind him, and spoke her name.
“Miss Silver-”
She had straightened the bed, her suit-case was packed, her coat and hat lay ready to put on. If he had come with the purpose of trying to induce her to change her decision, he would find her inflexible. He would have discerned as much from her composed and resolute manner if he had had any thought to spare from what was on his mind, but her own, always alert and receptive, informed her immediately that he had not come to argue or persuade.
“Mr. Bellingdon-something has happened?”
On the brink of telling her what it was he paused to say,
“Yes.”
She came towards him.
“What is it?”
His voice, his look, were stiff and steady as he said,
“They are dead-both of them-Clay and Moira. His car went over the edge on Emberley Hill.”
Miss Silver said, “How?”
“A wheel came off.”
“Mr. Bellingdon!”
He looked back at her with hard eyes.
“Someone had tampered with it. Someone had tampered with mine. I came to tell you that there is no need for you to go. You can ring Abbott up from here.”
He turned and went out of the room.
Chapter 37
INSPECTOR ABBOTT was of the opinion that the elimination of Mr. Masterson and Mrs. Herne was, to use a favourite word of Miss Silver’s, providential. His present use of it, however, drew from her a look of reproof which stimulated him to defend himself.
“A particularly cool and dangerous murderer, and one of the most callous young women I have ever encountered as his accessory before, during and after two murders and two attempted murders-and I don’t suppose it would have been possible to get up a case against either of them! We might have nailed them on this last attempt, but you can’t even be sure about that. The girl was in her own home-she had married Masterson secretly, and he was visiting her. By the way, I’m sorry the evidence about the marriage didn’t come through yesterday-not that it would have made any particular difference if it had. But what put you on to the idea that there might have been a marriage?”
“The fact that whoever was acting with Mrs. Herne must be very sure of his hold over her. I felt convinced that there must be some legal tie. It might have been that Oliver Herne had survived the wreck of his car. Or Mrs. Herne might have made a second marriage. I asked you to ascertain if there was any record of such a marriage at Somerset House because I felt the urgent necessity of discovering the identity of Mrs. Herne’s male associate.”
“Yes, it would have been useful. But the fact that they were married could have been used to cover up this last attempt at any rate. Since they are both dead, it doesn’t matter, but if it had ever come to a trial he had his excuse ready. He was in her room, they heard Bellingdon cry out, and they ran in to see what was the matter. Counsel for the defence could have made a lot of play with that, and there is no proof-absolutely none-that he shot Arthur Hughes, or that anyone pushed Paulina Paine. Of course we might have dug something up, but then again we mightn’t. After that smash there’s not much chance of an identification by Pegler. Bray, of course, comes into it somewhere as jackal, toady, what-have-you. I’ve thought all along that he was the most likely person to have tampered with Bellingdon’s wheel. It’s the sort of sneaking trick he’d be good at. No risk, no responsibility, just a few turns with a wrench and some easy money. But if he played that trick once, then he certainly played it again, and on his associates this time. Masterson probably tried to bilk him, and he wasn’t standing for it. Of course there’s no evidence there either, and never will be. An immoral suggestion, but I should say it would pay Bellingdon to give him a small allowance which would cease at his death or if Arnold ever showed up again. He’s a slimy bit of work and best kept at a distance.”
Miss Silver looked at him gravely and steadily.