Miss Silver coughed in a tentative manner.
“Mr. Carroll’s bedroom windows look out that way.”
Lamb grunted.
“Yes, but they were shut and the curtains drawn.”
Her needles clicked above the pale pink vest.
“If someone had desired to attract Mr. Carroll’s attention, a handful of gravel might have been thrown up at one of the closed windows. Mr. Carroll would then have looked out. That he was persuaded to a meeting with his murderer is certain. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that he may have closed the window again and drawn the curtains.”
Frank Abbott broke in with “How did Oakley know which was Carroll’s window? He’d never been to the house until he dined here on Saturday night, and he hadn’t been here since. That is to say, he’d never been here by daylight. Yet we’re asked to believe that he made a bee line for Carroll’s window and got it with the first shot. I can’t swallow it myself.”
His Chief had a frown for this.
“A bit free with your opinions, aren’t you, my lad? I’ll ask for them when I want them. I don’t say there isn’t a point there, but I’m quite able to see it myself. And here’s an answer. Who says Oakley didn’t know the house? Who says he’d only been here once? Who says he didn’t fix it up with Carroll on the telephone to come round under his window?” He hit his knee with the flat of his hand. “Oakley-Oakley-Oakley every time!”
Frank Abbott had an impenitent frown.
“I just can’t see why, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t see why Oakley should have chosen such a place for a private conversation. At that hour everyone would be upstairs. Five of the upstair windows look down on to that court, two in each of the small wings, and one in the middle of the side wall of the house, all double casements. The two on the left belong to Carroll’s room, the two on the right to the bedroom shared by Mr. and Mrs. Tote. The one in the end wall lights the passage. Now, would Oakley, who had every reason to desire privacy, choose a place like this for the sort of conversation he was going to have with Carroll? To my thinking it’s all wrong. How could he know that the Totes wouldn’t have their windows open? If they had, they could have listened to everything that was said. Oakley was obviously in a fever about his wife-he’d have wanted to talk privately between four walls-”
This time Lamb hit the table.
“What makes you think he wanted to talk? If he’d got his mind made up for the murder he wouldn’t come into the house -he’d get Carroll to come out!”
“And take him round under the Totes’ windows? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Look here,” said Lamb-“suppose it was this way. He throws his gravel up at the window-I’ll have that looked for-or makes some other signal, and Carroll comes down. Well, suppose he gets out of one of those ground-floor windows-no, that won’t do, because they were all fastened on the inside, and Oakley couldn’t have fastened them.”
“Suppose it wasn’t Oakley, Chief.”
“Well?”
“Suppose it was someone in the house. He could have got back by the open window and shut it after him, couldn’t he?”
Lamb’s colour had deepened.
“And what would he be doing, meeting Carroll out there? And why should Carroll go outside to meet anyone who was living in the house? They could pick any room they liked to talk in, couldn’t they? Everyone had gone to bed. Now you look here-facts are what we’ve got to stick to. Carroll left the house and went to that court. It’s no good asking why he did it, or saying it’s not the sort of thing he would have done-he did it. The same applies to Oakley. It’s no good saying, ‘Why should he choose a place like that to meet Carroll?’ He went there, and he left Carroll lying dead. There’s no evidence to show whether he found him alive. He says no. That’ll be for a jury to decide- unless any of these people we’ve got boxed up in the drawing-room has got something useful to say. I’m going to start with Mrs. Tote.”
During the first part of this conversation Miss Silver had appeared very much abstracted. Those rapid needles of hers slowed down and came to a standstill, her hands resting upon the pale pink wool. Towards the end she was giving her attention to what was being said, but with the air of one who has something to say and is waiting for the first opportunity of saying it. She now coughed in a very definite manner and said,
“Just a moment, Chief Inspector-”
It was almost as if he had forgotten she was there. Or perhaps the surprise in his look was intended to remind her that her presence was so very far from being official that the less said about it the better. He would not have used the word sufferance, but it may have been in his mind. It is certain that there was a graceful feminine deference in voice and manner as she said,
“I wonder if you would be so very good as to allow me to put a question to Mr. Pearson in your presence. It may prove to be of no importance at all, in which case I shall have to apologize for taking up your time. Or it may prove to be very important indeed.”
She had all his attention now. It had a quality of frowning displeasure.
“I’m seeing Mrs. Tote next-if you don’t mind.”
Frank Abbott pressed his lips together. The Chief being sarcastic was not the Chief at his best. The simile of the hippopotamus presented itself to an irreverent mind. Miss Silver, on the contrary, evoked admiration. She appeared to have withdrawn to so considerable a distance that one might almost imagine her to have retreated into the Victorian age. From this distance she smiled and addressed the Chief Inspector.
“Then you will perhaps permit me to be your messenger. I will inform Mrs. Tote that you are ready to see her.”
When the door had closed behind her Lamb rustled the papers on the blotting-pad. Frank’s eyes travelled to the fluff of pale pink wool poised amongst its needles upon the arm of a just vacated chair. He had an idea that Maudie had turned the tables, and that it was his respected Chief who was feeling snubbed. He looked at the infant’s vest, the ball of pink wool, and the knitting-needles, and was comfortably assured that Maudie meant to come back. He allowed himself a very faint smile, and had his head bitten off for an idle, insubordinate young pup.
“And I tell you what, my lad, if you don’t watch your step you’ll be getting into trouble one of these days-sniggering and sneering when you think I don’t see you! Answering back too, and in French as likely as not! And perhaps just as well!”
Frank bowed to the storm in his most respectful manner. It would blow itself out.
Chapter XXXIII
Miss Silver did her errand. The hall was empty as she came through. If there had been anyone there, she might have been observed to go over to the hearth and, standing there, give some moments of close attention to what remained of the fire. The logs of which it had been composed were sunk together upon a deep bed of ash. They were not wholly consumed, but so charred and eaten away as to be mere frail shells, almost as light and insubstantial as the ash upon which they lay. They still looked like logs, but at a touch they would crumble and fall apart-with one exception. Tossed in upon the back of the burned-out fire was just such a log as might have served for the sign of one of those old inns which take their name from the Crooked Billet-a roughly L-shaped faggot, heavy and gnarled. It lay tilted against a pile of banked-up ash.