She tried to think steadily of what had happened between her and Edward. He wasn’t in love with her-why should he be? He was fond of her in the same sort of way that you are fond of your relations, or even of a dog, or of a cat. He found her pleasant, and he liked having her about. And he was all starved inside. Loneliness and unhappiness, and all the things that had come and gone in those last years. He had just grabbed at her the way people do grab when they are starving. It wasn’t anything more than that, and as far as she was concerned, better face it and have done. If there was anything that was the slightest use or help to him-well, all she wanted was to let him have it. She wouldn’t have come to Greenings if she had not thought that she had got over loving him, but she had only to see him again, and there it was, just as bad as ever. If everything had been going all right for him, she might just have had enough decency to keep it down. But what can you do when you see someone starving? You don’t say, “I don’t care if you do,” and go decently and self-respectingly by on the other side-not if you care so much that the thing which is hurting them is like a twisting knife in your own heart. This horrid simile, which presented itself a good deal too vividly for comfort, caused Susan to rebuke herself for indulging in melodrama. She had always been considered sensible, and she wasn’t behaving sensibly.
She had by this time arrived at Mrs. Alexander’s shop. It was still open. Mrs. Alexander kept easy hours and liked to chat with people whose work was done for the day. Seeing the lighted window, Susan had the prosaic thought that it was touch and go if there would be enough marmalade for breakfast. Emmeline would certainly be grateful if she brought a pot back with her. She lifted the latch and walked in.
The shop was empty except for Mrs. Alexander herself, who beamed on her and stretched out the buying of the marmalade to a good ten minutes.
“And how do you like sorting all those old books, Miss Susan? Doris was in last night, and she says no one wouldn’t believe what the dust is like. No one being allowed to touch the shelves except just with a feather brush, not even at spring-cleaning, when we all know what bookshelves want is everything taken out and the books clapped together and dusted thorough. With a nice bit of beeswax and turpentine on the shelves before they go back. Not that anyone makes the real old beeswax and turps like my mother did and my old Granny before her. It’s all Mansion and suchlike nowadays, and not for me to grumble about it, because that’s what I’m here to sell, and very good polish too. But it’s messy work for you, cleaning up after nobody’s done it all these years.”
Susan said,
“Oh, I don’t mind. And it’s interesting too. You never know what you’re going to find. Some of those old books are valuable, you know.”
Mrs. Alexander looked surprised.
“You don’t say! Sounded more like mucky old rubbish, from what Doris had to say, and most of them never taken off their shelves from one year’s end to another.”
As Susan turned to go, Mrs. Alexander said,
“You wouldn’t be dropping in at the Vicarage by any chance, would you now?”
“Well, I could quite easily. What was it?”
Mrs. Alexander pulled out a drawer and took out an envelope.
“That little lady that’s staying with Mrs. Ball, she dropped this when she was in this morning. Must have come out of her bag when she was getting out her handkerchief. And I don’t like having other folks’ letters lying about-it might be private -especially when it’s a lady that’s visiting at the Vicarage. Very pleasant she was, and told me she and Mrs. Ball’s mother was old friends and at school together. Well, my dear, if you really don’t mind. I was going to take it up myself when I’d shut the shop, but I’ve been on my feet all day.”
The envelope had been through the post, and had been opened. It was obvious that it contained a letter. As Susan took it, her eye was caught by the address,
Miss Maud Silver
15 Montague Mansions.
And then the London address crossed out and,
The Vicarage
Greenings near Embank,
in a clear sensible writing.
A little shutter clicked open in her mind. She stared rather hard at the envelope before she slipped it into the pocket of her coat with the jar of marmalade.
Out in the dark street again, she walked slowly in the direction of the Vicarage. Miss Maud Silver-it was the Maud which had caught her attention. And the address, 15 Montague Mansions. Ray Fortescue telling her about the Ivory Dagger and -Miss Maud Silver. “I just can’t tell you how wonderful she was. I don’t see how anyone could have thought Bill didn’t do it-I mean people who didn’t know him, like the police. But she didn’t.” It had been a very exciting story, and the newspapers were full of it. But not of Miss Maud Silver. She mightn’t have been there at all for all the notice she got. “She just goes back to her 15 Montague Mansions and keeps on knitting until another case turns up.”
Susan couldn’t think why she hadn’t tumbled to it before. Of course Silver was quite a common name. Anyhow it wasn’t until she saw the whole name and address on the envelope in Mrs. Alexander’s hand that she thought of any possible link between Mrs. Ball’s old family friend who looked so exactly like someone out of the Victorian novels she had been sorting and Ray Fortescue’s marvellous detective. A faint but eager hope sprang up in her mind.
CHAPTER XXXII
I don’t know how I didn’t think of it before, but I just didn’t. Ray and I were at school together-she told me all about you. I was one of her bridesmaids, and I saw her just before I came down here.”
Miss Silver beamed.
“They most kindly asked me to the wedding, but I was away on a case.”
“Ray said there might never have been a wedding if it hadn’t been for you. She and Bill are so happy.”
Ruth Ball had left them together in the small comfortable morning-room. Miss Silver sat in the corner of the sofa and knitted. An infant’s vest in a delicate shade of pink depended from the needles. She wore a dress of olive-green cashmere, with a high boned collar and modesty vest of cream-coloured net. An ancestral brooch of bog-oak in the form of a rose with an Irish pearl at its heart reposed upon her bosom. Her very neat ankles and feet were encased in black woollen stockings and slippers of glacé kid with beaded toes. Nobody could have looked less like a detective.
Susan said abruptly,
“Edward says the police are going to arrest him.”
Miss Silver’s eyes rested on her compassionately.
“Indeed? What makes you think so?”
Susan told her.
“You see, he says himself that the truth sounds silly. But it is the truth-it really is. He says they won’t believe he put in all that time in the woods watching a fox. But it is just exactly the sort of thing he would do. It’s the sort of thing we used to do together. I’ve known him all my life, you see. He’s got a quick temper, and when he is angry he frowns and looks like thunder and his voice goes rough. But it doesn’t mean anything-it doesn’t really. He couldn’t possibly plot against anyone or plan to kill them-he really, really couldn’t. Besides, he hadn’t got any reason to kill Clarice Dean. She was making a nuisance of herself running after him and trying to flirt, and wanting to talk to him about his uncle’s will-and that’s a thing Edward just won’t talk about. You know, it must have been pretty horrid to come back and find that everything had gone. He cared a lot for his uncle, and the Hall had always been his home. He must have felt as if there was nothing left. Arnold Random wouldn’t do anything about it, you know. Edward won’t talk about any of it, not even to Emmeline. So you can imagine what he felt about Clarice trying to butt in. And she just hadn’t got any tact at all. She went on pushing and hinting and ringing him up until it wasn’t any wonder he was angry. But you don’t kill people for that sort of thing”