“How tall are you, Frank?”
He looked surprised.
“Five-foot-eleven.”
“Mr. Masterman would be a little taller?”
He said, “Yes. Oakley and Masterman are both taller-about six foot. I should give Justin Leigh another inch. Moira Lane must be all of five-foot-nine-Dorinda Brown not quite so tall. Mrs. Oakley is about your height. Tote not more than five-foot-seven.”
She said, “I was extremely pleased to observe that there was dust upon the mantelshelf-quite a considerable amount. It seemed almost too much to hope for, but the hall does not really look as if it had been dusted.”
Frank Abbott laughed.
“I don’t suppose it has. Pearson had the sense to leave everything until we came, and I told him to go on leaving it until I said-well, I’m afraid I quite forgot to say.”
Miss Silver smiled.
“A truly fortunate circumstance.”
He was sitting astride one of the upright chairs with his arms folded on the back…
“Now, what are you getting at?”
She was knitting rapidly.
“I hope that it may be possible to recover fingerprints which may prove of great importance. I should like you to ring up and ask to have someone sent out at once. Will you do so?”
He looked at her sharply.
“Blind?”
She smiled. Miss Silver’s smile had an extraordinary charm. It had before now captured hearts and converted the sceptic. Frank Abbott’s heart had been captured long ago. A young man not much given to enthusiasms, he undoubtedly had one for his “revered preceptress.” He had also a very complete confidence in her judgment. When, therefore, she said primly, “I do not think there is any time to be lost,” he got up, went over to the table, and picked up the telephone receiver.
When the ensuing short conversation had been closed by a definitive click he came back to his place and said,
“All right, ma’am. Do I get anything explained to me, or do I just wait for the explosion?”
This time she did not smile. She looked across the busy needles and the pale pink wool and said,
“I shall be very happy to explain. But before I do so, perhaps you will go into the hall and measure the distance from the ground to where the handle of the missing dagger would have been.”
“Oh-so that’s it? All right.”
He went out and came back again.
“Six foot or thereabouts. I take it fractions don’t matter.”
“No. I believe you see my point. The stone ledge which crosses the chimney breast and serves as a mantelshelf is, I should say, twelve to fourteen inches lower. It is perhaps fourteen inches deep. It has occurred to me that scarcely anyone would reach across such a ledge to remove an object hanging just above it without putting a hand upon the ledge. Of course-as you are about to say-anyone staying in the house might have rested a hand upon that shelf without having any connection with the murder. But if the prints of a suspect were found, their position and direction might prove valuable corroborative evidence.”
He nodded.
“Have you got anything else up your sleeve?”
The smile came out again.
“I think so. All the suspects are known to have been present in the hall at the time that Gregory Porlock was stabbed, with the exception of Mr. Tote, who may have been in the drawing-room or waiting behind the service-door, and Mr. Carroll, who had gone upstairs to wash and was found to be on the third step from the top of the stairs when the lights came on after the murder. If we are accepting it as an axiom-and I think we must-that it was the murderer who had turned out the lights, Mr. Carroll, if it was he, could only have done so by using the switches at the top of the stairs. And the probabilities are that Mr. Tote, if it was he, would have used the switches at the back of the hall by the service door. These probabilities appear to be so strong as almost to constitute a certainty. For everybody else there was only one set of switches which was both accessible and, owing to the shifting of the group round the fire, not too much exposed to observation. I refer to the switches on the left of the hearth. Now, my dear Frank, pray consider. Leaving Mr. Carroll and Mr. Tote on one side for the moment, let us suppose that the murderer is one of that group round the fire. He has his plan all ready. He has put his mark on Gregory Porlock’s back so as to make sure of finding a vital place in the dark. He turns out the lights. Now remember that Mr. Porlock, who had gone over in the direction of the staircase, had already turned and was coming back. That is to say, he was facing the murderer, and the bright spot of luminous paint on his back was therefore not visible. What would the murderer do? I think he would cross the hall as quickly as he could with a hand stretched out in front of him till he came up against the staircase. This would bring him behind his victim, and at no great distance. The luminous patch would be right in front of him as he turned, and he would only have to step forward and strike.”
“You think we might get a print of the murderer’s hand on the panelled side of the staircase?”
“Or on the balustrade. I am not clear as to the height reached by the stair at a point immediately opposite the switches.”
Frank Abbott said thoughtfully,
“It’s worth trying for. But if he was wearing gloves, it’s a wash-out.”
Miss Silver gave her gentle cough.
“I think it very improbable that he would have been wearing gloves. By the way, I assume that no glove has been found.”
“No.”
“It would almost certainly have been marked with paint. I do not believe that the murderer wore a glove. He would have so short a time to dispose of it. It would be much simpler and safer to wipe the hilt of the dagger. To return to a possible print on the side of the staircase. It would, I think, be likely to be a left-hand print, since the right hand would either be holding the dagger or ready to take hold of it without an instant of delay.”
The cold blue eyes held a spark of admiration. Frank Abbott said,
“Any more aces?”
“My dear Frank!”
“I should like to know. You know what the Chief is like when you pull a fast one.”
“My dear Frank!”
His eyes teased as well as admired.
“Come-as man to man, is that all?”
Miss Silver was indulgent to the young. She smiled benignly, gave her slight cough, and said,
“For the moment.”
Chapter XXIX
The evening which ensued was a curious one. If the house party had seemed strangely incompatible whilst still held together by the rich and genial personality of Gregory Porlock, there were, now that he was dead, no longer any points of contact between its various members. If the original bond had been fear, it had been camouflaged by all that social sense could suggest. To vary the metaphor-if the current ran cold below, there had been a certain glitter on the surface. There was now nothing but a collection of frightened and uncomfortable people constrained to one another’s company and dreadfully conscious that the shadow which lay across them was to deepen before it lifted, and that for one of them it would most probably never lift at all.
A little, as it were, on the edge of all this gloom, Justin could approve the manner in which Dorinda played a new and difficult part. She was the hostess, but there should be no stressing of the fact. She carried it quietly and simply-a young girl called to take some older person’s place. She showed a charming consideration to Miss Masterman, with her dark, drawn face, and to Mrs. Tote, more like a mouse than ever-a very unhappy mouse which had been crying its eyes out.
Miss Masterman had no response to make. She was now entirely given up to waiting for a reply to the letter which she had sent. All her intelligence, all her emotions, her whole consciousness, waited ardently for the moment when she would be free from the burden which she had carried for these intolerable months. Alone amongst those present she was not primarily concerned with Gregory Porlock and the manner of his death. There was not really room in her mind for anything except the release for which she waited.