‘Then will you please begin at the beginning and take things in their right order.’
Mrs Smith said, ‘Oh, the first thing was my accident – five – no, six months ago.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was one of those dark afternoons just before you put the lights on, and I was going down the stairs. And the bother is I can’t swear to anything, because you know how it is when you have a fall, you don’t really remember a lot about it. The first thing I knew I was down in the hall with a broken leg – and I can’t swear I was pushed, but I’ve got my own ideas about it.’
‘You think that someone pushed you?’
‘Pushed or tripped me – it doesn’t much matter which. And it’s no use you asking me who could have done it, because it might have been anyone in the house, or it mightn’t have been anyone at all. Only no one is going to get me to believe that I just went crashing down those stairs on my own.’
Miss Silver said, ‘I see-’And then, ‘And the next thing?’
‘The soup, like I told you.’
‘And after that?’
Mrs Smith frowned.
‘There were the sleeping-tablets. That was what made me feel I had better come and see you. The doctor gave me some when I broke my leg, but I don’t like those sort of things. They’ve got a way of getting hold of you, and I’ve seen too much of that. So I’ve never taken one except when the pain was pretty bad. There was about a half bottle of them, and I suppose I might have had six or seven in the six months. And then just the other day I thought I’d take one. Well, you know how one does, I tipped the bottle up on to my palm and quite a lot of tablets came out. I was just looking at them and not thinking anything, when all at once it seemed to me there was one that was different from the others. If it had come out by itself, I don’t know that I should have taken any notice – sometimes I wake up in the night and think about that – but seeing it there among the others, it seemed to me it was bigger than it ought to be, and that someone had been messing it up. I took a magnifying-glass and I looked at it, and you could see where it had been cut open and stuck together again. It gave me the cold shivers and I couldn’t throw it out of the window quick enough.’
Miss Silver gave a short hortatory cough.
‘If you will allow me to say so, that was extremely foolish.’
Mrs Smith said heartily,
‘Of course it was, but I didn’t stop to think, any more than if I’d got a wasp on my hand and was shaking it off.’
‘This happened recently?’
‘Monday night.’
Miss Silver put down her knitting, went over to the writing-table, and came back with an exercise-book in a shiny blue cover. Propping it on her knee, she wrote in it in pencil, heading the page with the name of Smith followed by a query. This done, she looked up with the bright expectancy of a bird on the alert for a suitable worm.
‘Before we go any farther I should like to have the names and some description of the other members of your household. Their real names, if you please.’
Mrs Smith was observed to hesitate. Then she said with a shade of defiance in her voice,
‘And what makes you say that?’
Miss Silver gave her the smile which had won the confidence of so many clients and said,
‘I find some difficulty in believing that your own name is really Smith.’
‘And why?’
Miss Silver’s pencil remained poised.
‘Because ever since you came into this room you have been acting a part. You did not wish to be recognized, and you presented an extremely convincing portrait of someone very different from yourself.’
There was a faint mocking inflection in Mrs Smith’s voice as she said,
‘If it was convincing, in what way did it fail to convince you?’
Miss Silver looked at her gravely.
‘Handwriting,’ she observed, ‘is often quite a reliable guide to character. Yours, if I may say so, did not lead me to expect a Mrs Smith. Also the paper on which your letter was written was not what she would have employed.’
‘That was stupid of me.’ The deep voice now had no trace of a London accent. ‘Anything else?’
‘Oh, yes. Mrs Smith would not, I think, have troubled to put an eye-veil on to so old a hat. She would not have worn an eye-veil at all. It occurred to me at once that you did not wish me to have too good a view of your eyes. You were, in fact, afraid that you might be recognized.’
‘And did you recognize me?’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘Your eyes are not easily forgotten. You kept them down as much as possible, but you needed to look at me, because that was why you had come here – to look at me and to make up your mind about consulting me. You disguised your voice very well – the slight accent and the jerky way of speaking. But it was by one slight, almost involuntary movement that you really gave yourself away. It is, I imagine, one which is habitual to you, but I had seen you employ it in the character of Mrs Alving in Ghosts. Your left hand just rose and fell again. It was the simplest thing, but there was something about it which was very effective, very moving. It has remained in my memory as part of a very notable performance. When you made that same movement just now I felt quite sure that you were Adriana Ford.’
Adriana broke into deep melodious laughter.
‘I knew as soon as I had done it that I had slipped up over that hand business. It was out of character. But I thought the rest of it was pretty good. The coat is a treasured relic of Meeson’s – she’s my maid – used to be my dresser. And the hat is one she was going to throw away. Frankly, I thought it was a masterpiece, veiling and all. Anyhow it was my eyes I was afraid about. My photographs have always rather featured them.’ She pulled off the hat as she spoke. The fuzzy grey wig came too. Her own hair appeared, short, thick, and beautifully tinted to a deep Titian red. She said in a laughing voice, ‘Well, that’s better, isn’t it? Of course the hair is all wrong with these clothes and no proper make-up, but we can at least see each other now. I hated having to peer at you through that damned veil.’
She tossed hat and wig on to the nearest chair and straightened herself. The stoop was no more hers than the rabbit coat. Adriana Ford’s back was straight enough.
This was no longer Mrs Smith nor was it the tragic Mrs Alving, the terrifying and heart-shaking Lady Macbeth of a decade ago, or the warm and exquisite Juliet of thirty years back. Stripped of her disguise, here was a woman who had lived for a long time and crowded that time with triumphs. There was an air of vigour, there was an air of authority. There was humour, there was a capacity for emotion. The dark eyes were still beautiful and the brows above them finely arched.
Miss Silver saw these things and the something else for which she looked. It was there in the eyes and in the set of the mouth. There had been wakeful nights and days of indecision and strain before Adriana Ford had brought herself to play the part of Mrs Smith and bring her troubles to a stranger. She said, ‘Perhaps you will now give me the particulars for which I asked you.’
Chapter Three
Adriana Ford laughed.
‘Persistent – aren’t you?’ she said. The laughter passed. She went on in her deep voice, ‘You want to know who was in the house, and what they were doing, and whether I think any one of them has been trying to kill me – don’t you? Well, I can give you a list of names, but it isn’t going to help you any more than it has helped me. Sometimes I think I’m imagining the whole thing. I came to see you because quite suddenly I felt I couldn’t just sit and wait for the next thing to happen. Quite a lot of people come and go at Ford House. I’ll give you their names and tell you who they are, but I want it to be clearly understood that I’m not suspecting anyone or accusing anyone, and that if I say the word, you will tear up any notes you may have taken and forget everything I’ve told you.’