She was clearly taken aback. She couldn’t deny and yet she wanted to do so. Why? Because she knew that the truth lay elsewhere. Was that it? The four people in the house—one of them guilty? Did Martha want to shield that guilty party? Had the stairs creaked? Had someone come stealthily down and did Martha know who that someone was?
She herself was honest—Sir Edward was convinced of that.
He pressed his point, watching her.
‘Miss Crabtree might have done that, I suppose? The window of that room faces the street. She might have seen whoever it was she was waiting for from the window and gone out into the hall and let him—or her—in. She might even have wished that no one should see the person.’
Martha looked troubled. She said at last reluctantly:
‘Yes, you may be right, sir. I never thought of that. That she was expecting a gentleman—yes, it well might be.’
It was though she began to perceive advantages in the idea.
‘You were the last person to see her, were you not?’
‘Yes, sir. After I’d cleared away the tea. I took the receipted books to her and the change from the money she’d given me.’
‘Had she given the money to you in five-pound notes?’
‘A five-pound note, sir,’ said Martha in a shocked voice. ‘The book never came up as high as five pounds. I’m very careful.’
‘Where did she keep her money?’
‘I don’t rightly know, sir. I should say that she carried it about with her—in her black velvet bag. But of course she may have kept it in one of the drawers in her bedroom that were locked. She was very fond of locking up things, though prone to lose her keys.’
Sir Edward nodded.
‘You don’t know how much money she had—in five-pound notes, I mean?’
‘No, sir, I couldn’t say what the exact amount was.’
‘And she said nothing to you that could lead you to believe that she was expecting anybody?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re quite sure? What exactly did she say?’
‘Well,’ Martha considered, ‘she said the butcher was nothing more than a rogue and a cheat, and she said I’d had in a quarter of a pound of tea more than I ought, and she said Mrs Crabtree was full of nonsense for not liking to eat margarine, and she didn’t like one of the sixpences I’d brought her back—one of the new ones with oak leaves on it—she said it was bad, and I had a lot of trouble to convince her. And she said—oh, that the fishmonger had sent haddocks instead of whitings, and had I told him about it, and I said I had—and, really, I think that’s all, sir.’
Martha’s speech had made the deceased lady loom clear to Sir Edward as a detailed description would never have done. He said casually:
‘Rather a difficult mistress to please, eh?’
‘A bit fussy, but there, poor dear, she didn’t often get out, and staying cooped up she had to have something to amuse herself like. She was pernickety but kind hearted—never a beggar sent away from the door without something. Fussy she may have been, but a real charitable lady.’
‘I am glad, Martha, that she leaves one person to regret her.’
The old servant caught her breath.
‘You mean—oh, but they were all fond of her—really—underneath. They all had words with her now and again, but it didn’t mean anything.’
Sir Edward lifted his head. There was a creak above.
‘That’s Miss Magdalen coming down.’
‘How do you know?’ he shot at her.
The old woman flushed. ‘I know her step,’ she muttered.
Sir Edward left the kitchen rapidly. Martha had been right. Magdalen had just reached the bottom stair. She looked at him hopefully.
‘Not very far on as yet,’ said Sir Edward, answering her look, and added, ‘You don’t happen to know what letters your aunt received on the day of her death?’
‘They are all together. The police have been through them, of course.’
She led the way to the big double drawing-room, and unlocking a drawer took out a large black velvet bag with an old-fashioned silver clasp.
‘This is Aunt’s bag. Everything is in here just as it was on the day of her death. I’ve kept it like that.’
Sir Edward thanked her and proceeded to turn out the contents of the bag on the table. It was, he fancied, a fair specimen of an eccentric elderly lady’s handbag.
There was some odd silver change, two ginger nuts, three newspaper cuttings about Joanna Southcott’s box, a trashy printed poem about the unemployed, an Old Moore’s Almanack, a large piece of camphor, some spectacles and three letters. A spidery one from someone called ‘Cousin Lucy’, a bill for mending a watch, and an appeal from a charitable institution.
Sir Edward went through everything very carefully, then repacked the bag and handed it to Magdalen with a sigh.
‘Thank you, Miss Magdalen. I’m afraid there isn’t much there.’
He rose, observed that from the window you commanded a good view of the front door steps, then took Magdalen’s hand in his.
‘You are going?’
‘Yes.’
‘But it’s—it’s going to be all right?’
‘Nobody connected with the law ever commits himself to a rash statement like that,’ said Sir Edward solemnly, and made his escape.
He walked along the street lost in thought. The puzzle was there under his hand—and he had not solved it. It needed something—some little thing. Just to point the way.
A hand fell on his shoulder and he started. It was Matthew Vaughan, somewhat out of breath.
‘I’ve been chasing you, Sir Edward. I want to apologize. For my rotten manners half an hour ago. But I’ve not got the best temper in the world, I’m afraid. It’s awfully good of you to bother about this business. Please ask me whatever you like. If there’s anything I can do to help—’
Suddenly Sir Edward stiffened. His glance was fixed—not on Matthew—but across the street. Somewhat bewildered, Matthew repeated:
‘If there’s anything I can do to help—’
‘You have already done it, my dear young man,’ said Sir Edward. ‘By stopping me at this particular spot and so fixing my attention on something I might otherwise have missed.’
He pointed across the street to a small restaurant opposite.
‘The Four and Twenty Blackbirds?’ asked Matthew in a puzzled voice.
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s an odd name—but you get quite decent food there, I believe.’
‘I shall not take the risk of experimenting,’ said Sir Edward. ‘Being further from my nursery days than you are, my friend, I probably remember my nursery rhymes better. There is a classic that runs thus, if I remember rightly:
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie
—and so on. The rest of it does not concern us.’
He wheeled round sharply.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Matthew Vaughan.
‘Back to your house, my friend.’
They walked there in silence, Matthew Vaughan shooting puzzled glances at his companion. Sir Edward entered, strode to a drawer, lifted out a velvet bag and opened it. He looked at Matthew and the young man reluctantly left the room.
Sir Edward tumbled out the silver change on the table. Then he nodded. His memory had not been at fault. He got up and rang the bell, slipping something into the palm of his hand as he did so.
Martha answered the bell.
‘You told me, Martha, if I remember rightly, that you had a slight altercation with your late mistress over one of the new sixpences.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ah! but the curious thing is, Martha, that among this loose change, there is no new sixpence. There are two sixpences, but they are both old ones.’
She stared at him in a puzzled fashion.
‘You see what that means? Someone did come to the house that evening—someone to
whom your mistress gave sixpence … I think she gave it him in exchange for this …’
With a swift movement, he shot his hand forward, holding out the doggerel verse about unemployment.
One glance at her face was enough.
‘The game is up, Martha—you see, I know. You may as well tell me everything.’
She sank down on a chair—the tears raced down her face.
‘It’s true—it’s true—the bell didn’t ring properly—I wasn’t sure, and then I thought I’d better go and see. I got to the door just as he struck her down. The roll of five-pound notes was on the table in front of her—it was the sight of them as made him do it—that and thinking she was alone in the house as she’d let him in. I couldn’t scream. I was too paralysed and then he turned—and I saw it was my boy …
‘Oh, he’s been a bad one always. I gave him all the money I could. He’s been in gaol twice. He must have come around to see me, and then Miss Crabtree, seeing as I didn’t answer the door, went to answer it herself, and he was taken aback and pulled out one of those unemployment leaflets, and the mistress being kind of charitable, told him to come in and got out a sixpence. And all the time that roll of notes was lying on the table where it had been when I was giving her the change. And the devil got into my Ben and he got behind her and struck her down.’
‘And then?’ asked Sir Edward.
‘Oh, sir, what could I do? My own flesh and blood. His father was a bad one, and Ben takes after him—but he was my own son. I hustled him out, and I went back to the kitchen and I went to lay for supper at the usual time. Do you think it was very wicked of me, sir? I tried to tell you no lies when you was asking me questions.’
Sir Edward rose.
‘My poor woman,’ he said with feeling in his voice, ‘I am very sorry for you. All the same, the law will have to take its course, you know.’
‘He’s fled the country, sir. I don’t know where he is.’
‘There’s a chance, then, that he may escape the gallows, but don’t build upon it. Will you send Miss Magdalen to me.’
‘Oh, Sir Edward. How wonderful of you—how wonderful you are,’ said Magdalen when he had finished his brief recital. ‘You’ve saved us all. How can I ever thank you?’
Sir Edward smiled down at her and patted her hand gently. He was very much the great man. Little Magdalen had been very charming on the Siluric. That bloom of seventeen—wonderful! She had completely lost it now, of course.
‘Next time you need a friend—’ he said.
‘I’ll come straight to you.’
‘No, no,’ cried Sir Edward in alarm. ‘That’s just what I don’t want you to do. Go to a younger man.’
He extricated himself with dexterity from the grateful household and hailing a taxi sank into it with a sigh of relief.
Even the charm of a dewy seventeen seemed doubtful.
It could not really compare with a really well-stocked library on criminology.
The taxi turned into Queen Anne’s Close.
His cul-de-sac.
S.O.S.
‘Ah!’ said Mr Dinsmead appreciatively.
He stepped back and surveyed the round table with approval. The firelight gleamed on the coarse white tablecloth, the knives and forks, and the other table appointments.
‘Is—is everything ready?’ asked Mrs Dinsmead hesitatingly. She was a little faded woman, with colourless face, meagre hair scraped back from her forehead, and a perpetually nervous manner.
‘Everything’s ready,’ said her husband with a kind of ferocious geniality.
He was a big man, with stooping shoulders, and a broad red face. He had little pig’s eyes that twinkled under his bushy brows, and a big jowl devoid of hair.
‘Lemonade?’ suggested Mrs Dinsmead, almost in a whisper.
Her husband shook his head.
‘Tea. Much better in every way. Look at the weather, streaming and blowing. A nice cup of hot tea is what’s needed for supper on an evening like this.’
He winked facetiously, then fell to surveying the table again.
‘A good dish of eggs, cold corned beef, and bread and cheese. That’s my order for supper. So come along and get it ready, Mother. Charlotte’s in the kitchen waiting to give you a hand.’
Mrs Dinsmead rose, carefully winding up the ball of her knitting.
‘She’s grown a very good-looking girl,’ she murmured. ‘Sweetly pretty, I say.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Dinsmead. ‘The mortal image of her Ma! So go along with you, and don’t let’s waste any more time.’
He strolled about the room humming to himself for a minute or two. Once he approached the window and looked out.
‘Wild weather,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Not much likelihood of our having visitors tonight.’
Then he too left the room.
About ten minutes later Mrs Dinsmead entered bearing a dish of fried eggs. Her two daughters followed, bringing in the rest of the provisions. Mr Dinsmead and his son Johnnie brought up the rear. The former seated himself at the head of the table.
‘And for what we are to receive, etcetera,’ he remarked humorously. ‘And blessings on the man who first thought of tinned foods. What would we do, I should like to know, miles from anywhere, if we hadn’t a tin now and then to fall back upon when the butcher forgets his weekly call?’
He proceeded to carve corned beef dexterously.
‘I wonder who ever thought of building a house like this, miles from anywhere,’ said his daughter Magdalen pettishly. ‘We never see a soul.’
‘No,’ said her father. ‘Never a soul.’
‘I can’t think what made you take it, Father,’ said Charlotte.
‘Can’t you, my girl? Well, I had my reasons—I had my reasons.’
His eyes sought his wife’s furtively, but she frowned.
‘And haunted too,’ said Charlotte. ‘I wouldn’t sleep alone here for anything.’
‘Pack of nonsense,’ said her father. ‘Never seen anything, have you? Come now.’
‘Not seen anything perhaps, but—’
‘But what?’
Charlotte did not reply, but she shivered a little. A great surge of rain came driving against the window-pane, and Mrs Dinsmead dropped a spoon with a tinkle on the tray.
‘Not nervous are you, Mother?’ said Mr Dinsmead. ‘It’s a wild night, that’s all. Don’t you worry, we’re safe here by our fireside, and not a soul from outside likely to disturb us. Why, it would be a miracle if anyone did. And miracles don’t happen. No,’ he added as though to himself, with a kind of peculiar satisfaction. ‘Miracles don’t happen.’
As the words left his lips there came a sudden knocking at the door. Mr Dinsmead stayed as though petrified.
‘Whatever’s that?’ he muttered. His jaw fell.
Mrs Dinsmead gave a little whimpering cry and pulled her shawl up round her. The colour came into Magdalen’s face and she leant forward and spoke to her father.
‘The miracle has happened,’ she said. ‘You’d better go and let whoever it is in.’
Twenty minutes earlier Mortimer Cleveland had stood in the driving rain and mist surveying his car. It was really cursed bad luck. Two punctures within ten minutes of each other, and here he was, stranded miles from anywhere, in the midst of these bare Wiltshire downs with night coming on, and no prospect of shelter. Serve him right for trying to take a shortcut. If only he had stuck to the main road! Now he was lost on what seemed a mere cart-track, and no idea if there were even a village anywhere near.
He looked round him perplexedly, and his eye was caught by a gleam of light on the hillside above him. A second later the mist obscured it once more, but, waiting patiently, he presently got a second glimpse of it. After a moment’s cogitation, he left the car and struck up the side of the hill.
Soon he was out of the mist, and he recognized the light as shining from the lighted window of a small cottage. Here, at any rate, was shelter. Mortimer Cleveland quickened his pace, be
nding his head to meet the furious onslaught of wind and rain which seemed to be trying its best to drive him back.
Cleveland was in his own way something of a celebrity though doubtless the majority of folks would have displayed complete ignorance of his name and achievements. He was an authority on mental science and had written two excellent text books on the subconscious. He was also a member of the Psychical Research Society and a student of the occult in so far as it affected his own conclusions and line of research.
He was by nature peculiarly susceptible to atmosphere, and by deliberate training he had increased his own natural gift. When he had at last reached the cottage and rapped at the door, he was conscious of an excitement, a quickening of interest, as though all his faculties had suddenly been sharpened.
The murmur of voices within had been plainly audible to him. Upon his knock there came a sudden silence, then the sound of a chair being pushed back along the floor. In another minute the door was flung open by a boy of about fifteen. Cleveland could look straight over his shoulder upon the scene within.
It reminded him of an interior by some Dutch Master. A round table spread for a meal, a family party sitting round it, one or two flickering candles and the firelight’s glow over all. The father, a big man, sat one side of the table, a little grey woman with a frightened face sat opposite him. Facing the door, looking straight at Cleveland, was a girl. Her startled eyes looked straight into his, her hand with a cup in it was arrested halfway to her lips.
She was, Cleveland saw at once, a beautiful girl of an extremely uncommon type. Her hair, red gold, stood out round her face like a mist, her eyes, very far apart, were a pure grey. She had the mouth and chin of an early Italian Madonna.
There was a moment’s dead silence. Then Cleveland stepped into the room and explained his predicament. He brought his trite story to a close, and there was another pause harder to understand. At last, as though with an effort, the father rose.
‘Come in, sir—Mr Cleveland, did you say?’
‘That is my name,’ said Mortimer, smiling.
‘Ah! yes. Come in, Mr Cleveland. Not weather for a dog outside, is it? Come in by the fire. Shut the door, can’t you, Johnnie? Don’t stand there half the night.’