“I realize that. But this has nothing to do with her. Mrs. Ball tells me that you were at a sewing-party in the Vicarage on Friday week.”
“Certainly. I am most regular in my attendance.”
“Mrs. Ball says that the party broke up soon after ten o’clock, but that you had left rather earlier as you wanted to have a word with Mr. Arnold Random, who was in the church playing the organ.”
“Yes. He always practises on Friday evenings.”
“You went over to the church to speak to him. I suppose you took the direct path from the Vicarage?”
“Of course.”
“When you reached the church, was he still playing?”
“No. He was beginning to put the music away.”
“He was alone?”
“Naturally. The organ has been supplied with electricity from the Hall-there is no need for a blower now. It used to be most inconvenient. Fanny Stubbs was the last one we had, and she was most unreliable.”
“I see. Then you are quite sure that Mr. Random was alone in the church?”
She gave him her hard black stare.
“Of course I am sure!”
“How long did you stay, Miss Blake?”
“A few minutes. Mr. Random was putting things away. Then he locked up and we went home.”
“Together?”
“As far as this house-yes.”
“Did you fall in with any of the ladies who were coming away from the work-party?”
“No-it was too early.”
He said, “Past ten o’clock?”
She had a grim smile for that.
“You have never watched a church work-party break up. Mrs. Ball provides tea and cake, and there is a lot of chatter. As far as I am concerned, I pack up my work and go, but she is lucky if she gets rid of most of them by a quarter past ten, and I have seen Miss Sims come home after the half hour. The smaller the village, the more there is to say, you know.”
Miss Ora fingered the pink edge of her shawl.
“Very interesting things can happen in a village,” she said. “And you get to know about them, which of course is what makes them so interesting. Now, in a big town you can live next door to someone and never know a thing about them. I remember poor Papa used to say that if you could take the roof off every house in Embank, a lot of people would have to leave the place and change their names. You know, Inspector, even when someone is living in the same house like Clarice Dean you don’t really know what is going on-do you? Why, we didn’t even know she was out of the house the night she was drowned-but girls always do slip out. It wasn’t the first time, I suppose, and of course she didn’t know it was going to be the last.”
“You think she had been slipping out at night?”
Miss Ora’s blue eyes widened.
“Oh, I expect so. She was crazy about Edward Random, you know.”
Miss Mildred said, “Ora-” in a repressive tone. A frown drew her brows together until they made a straight black line above the jutting nose. She looked Frank Abbott in the face and said,
“Since you insist on asking all these questions, you may as well have the truth. What my sister says is true-Miss Dean was making a dead set at Edward Random. I do not pretend to know when the affair began, or how far it had gone, but I believe he was already sick of it, and it would have been better if she had been warned in time. But that sort of girl never is, and they haven’t the sense to see that it really isn’t safe to go on. I have known Edward Random since he was a child. His temper has always been a difficult one, and since his mysterious and unexplained absence, which I suppose you have heard about, he has really been what I can only call morose. In fact the last man to play tricks with. But her pursuit of him was shameless. And now, Inspector Abbott, I must really ask you to go.”
Frank went.
As soon as he had left the house Miss Mildred rang up Mr. Arnold Random. To his rather weary “Hullo?” she responded briskly.
“It is I, Arnold. The Inspector from Scotland Yard has just been here to ask about my coming over to speak to you in the church on Friday week. He wanted to know whether you were alone there. Such an extraordinary idea! I can’t think what can have put it into his head. Of course I told him just what happened-that you had finished playing and were putting away the music-that we talked for a minute or two and then locked up and came away together. You remember the work-party at the Vicarage had not broken up, so we did not see anyone as we came along the street. You are, of course, in a position to confirm all this. Really, police officers are most intrusive, but I suppose they have their duty to do, and of course we all wish the whole matter to be satisfactorily cleared up.”
At the other end of the line Arnold Random stared blankly at the opposite wall and said,
“Of course.”
CHAPTER XXIX
Mrs. Ball and Miss Silver took tea with the Miss Blakes, following a most pressing invitation from Miss Ora.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Ruth said in an apologetic voice, “but she rings up and makes it practically impossible to say no. If we hadn’t been able to go today, it would have been the next day, or the next, or the next, so I thought it would be better to get it over. Once she knows anyone has a visitor she can’t rest until she has had them to tea-and she really does have a very dull life, poor thing.”
Miss Silver said she would be delighted to have tea with the Miss Blakes.
“An invalid is deprived of so much.”
They found Miss Ora in her best shawl-quite a new one of a delicate shade of blue, the price of which had filled Miss Mildred with gloom. Her hair was disposed in very becoming curls, and she was wearing her mother’s rings, a diamond half hoop and a diamond and sapphire cluster on one hand, and a pearl and turquoise on the other. She received her guests with smiling amiability.
“My sister will not be long. She is just making the tea. Mrs. Deacon goes away after lunch, you know, and my health quite prevents me doing anything. I am really helpless without a nurse. Miss Dean’s death has been a sad deprivation. Such a shocking affair! You will have heard of it of course from Mrs. Ball. Even the Vicar, who is so strict about gossip, would hardly expect her not to talk about a murder which took place, as you may say, at his own doorstep.”
Miss Silver agreed that it was all very shocking, adding that they must hope that it would prove to be an accident.
It needed no more than this to set Miss Ora off. Edward Random and his strange disappearance-“For disappear he did, and everyone thought he was dead. And no explanation- not even to his stepmother or his uncle, for I asked Emmeline Random myself, and all she did was to look vague-really sometimes one would think she wasn’t quite all there-and to say she wouldn’t dream of asking. A girl is very foolish to embark on a flirtation with a young man who has a background like that. I am sure you will agree? And his temper-simply shocking! You know, I called to him out of this window on the very first day he was back. There he was, striding down the street as if the whole place belonged to him and looking- well, arrogant is the only word I can find to describe it. And when I called out to him and said how glad he must be to be back, and when was he going to come up to see me and tell us all about where he had been and what he had been doing, what do you think he said?”
“Young men can be very impatient,” said Miss Silver.
Miss Ora fluttered the white curls with a very decided toss of the head.
“Impatient? He looked as if he would like to murder me! And he said, ‘I’m afraid you wouldn’t be interested’-just like that, and he walked on. I could believe anything of him after that!”
Ruth Ball felt her colour rising. John would certainly disapprove of this conversation, and Miss Silver was encouraging it-it was no good pretending that she wasn’t. And how was it to be checked? John always said, “Your presence should be enough, my dear,” and in his case, of course, it was. But she wasn’t nearly so good-all she could do was to be uncomfortable and feel herself getting red.