She turned into Cross Street, and was sheltered from the wind. Really, if she had been going to stay on the Front, she would have had to put on her scarf, but now it would not be necessary, and in any case the library was quite close. She came up the steps, passed through the outer shop devoted to picture-postcards, photograph frames, cheap editions, shrimping-nets, and other miscellaneous articles, and made her way to the rather dark cavern behind it. There were a number of people changing books. She turned to a shelf near the counter and began to scan the volumes on it. Really, people thought of the oddest titles: Four Cold Fishes in a Bath; Crimson Wormwood; The Corpse in the Refrigerator-very distasteful indeed.
She was dipping into Medley for Maurice and wondering if even the author knew what it was all about, when someone just behind her at the counter said, “Yes, a two-book subscription for three months-Mrs. Felton-Mrs. Cyril Felton. And the address is Cove House. It’s on the Ledstow road.” The name struck a chord. Helen Adrian had used it in speaking to her the very day she had received Ethel’s letter begging her to come to Farne. Neither the Christian nor the surname were common ones. Linked, it seemed impossible to suppose that they had no connection with the young man whom Miss Adrian had named as a possible blackmailer.
With Medley for Maurice in her hand Miss Silver turned to take a look at Mrs. Cyril Felton. She saw a pretty girl with a loose coat over a blue linen dress and a bright handkerchief tied over curly dark hair. She would have been prettier if she had had more colour, and if she had not had such a worried, nervous look. She took her receipt from the girl at the counter, put it away in a very new handbag, and drifted over to the far end of the room.
Replacing Medlley for Maurice upon its shelf, Miss Silver moved in the same direction. The books here were of the kind not in extensive demand. People do not come down to a seaside to read statistics on emigration, or works on what to do with the dispossessed populations of Europe. Culling a volume at random from the shelves, Miss Silver found herself with Some Considerations on the Sociological Aspects of Inflation.
Glancing at Mrs. Felton, she observed her to be making no pretence of being interested in her surroundings. Her eyes were upon the archway leading to the library. When the bell upon the outer door tinkled she changed colour and looked eager. Upon the entrance in rapid succession of a mother with a small child, a stout elderly person with a shopping-basket, and a provocative young woman with so little on that she might have been expected to die of exposure if it had not been for the oil with which she had smeared her skin, the nervous look returned to Mrs. Felton’s face. It would have been obvious to anyone much less acute than Miss Silver that she had a rendezvous, and that the person whom she was expecting to meet was a man. If it should happen to be Cyril Felton, Miss Silver felt that it would interest her to see him. She therefore moved to an even darker corner and became to all appearances completely immersed in Sociological Aspects.
She had hardly effected this manoeuvre, when Ina Felton caught her breath, ran forward, and then, checking herself, came back again, to snatch a book from the shelves, open it at random, and stand there trying not to look as if she were expecting anyone.
An attractive young man with fairish hair and a roving blue eye came through the arch from the outer shop and looked about him. The eye lit upon the dark-haired girl in the corner. As he strolled over to her, she stopped pretending to read, crammed the book back anyhow, and gazed at him with brimming eyes and changing colour.
“Oh, Cyril!”
So it was the husband. Miss Silver was deeply interested. A goodlooking young man of the type which women often found attractive. Not very steady, she feared. It did not show much yet, but to her experience the signs were unmistakable-weak, pleasure-loving, and selfish. Yes, she thought he might quite easily have turned to blackmail.
He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and said,
“Hullo, Ina!”
There had been a quarrel, and he was anxious to make it up. He was smiling at her in a manner that was meant to charm, and she was shrinking away from him. Her voice trembled as she said,
“I nearly didn’t come.”
He laughed in a pleasant manner.
“But you did come-so why worry? Look here, how’s the barometer? Marian still angry?”
“She isn’t pleased.”
“Then you’ll have to soothe her down. I’m sorry I lost my temper and all that, but you must allow it’s pretty maddening to have her holding the purse-strings. If you had had half as you ought to have done, we’d have been all right.”
He was speaking quite low, but Miss Silver had excellent hearing. In her elderly dowdy clothes, her attention apparently riveted upon the duller of the dull books, she was just one of those negligible spinsters who haunt the libraries and find a vicarious life upon their shelves. You may be Miss Blank, subsisting in a bed-sitting-room without very much to live for or many people to care whether you live or not, but for a pound or two a year you can battle for lost causes, sail beyond Ultima Thule, ascend into the stratosphere, love and be courted, adorn a glittering throng with your glamorous presence, tumble over a corpse on the mat, probe the mystery of the Poisoned Penwiper, and never have a dull moment. These reflections had occurred to Miss Silver from time to time, but she had no leisure for them at the moment. She merely felt secure in her protective colouring and continued to listen to the conversation of Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Felton.
At the sound of Helen Adrian’s name her interest was doubled. It was Cyril who introduced it.
“Helen Adrian is here, isn’t she?”
Ina said, “How did you know?” and he laughed.
“Because I’ve made it my business to know. I want to see her.”
She was looking at him doubtfully.
“Oh, Cyril-why?”
“Well, it’s just a professional matter, and there’s no need for you to ask a lot of questions about it. And I’m not making a pass at her, so you needn’t be jealous. She’s out for the big money. Means to land it whilst the going’s good, and I don’t mind giving her a helping hand-for a consideration.”
Ina said, “Oh! But she’s having an affair with Felix! I don’t mean anything wrong, of course, but you know she’s staying in the other half of our house with the Brands, and Felix is frightfully in love with her.”
“That won’t get him anywhere, poor devil. Now if your Uncle Martin had left the money to him instead of to Marian, there might have been something doing. Look here-I want to come back to my darling wife and my dear sister-in-law.”