Dark Threat (14 page)

To which Mrs. Robbins replied, ‘I wish I was dead!’

Miss Silver stepped back into the passage and remained there. The sobbing went on.

Presently Lizzie Robbins said in a tone of despair,

‘I don’t know what we’re coming to—I don’t indeed!’ And then, ‘If there’s any more to come, I’ll give up, for I can’t stand it. First Mr. Henry, and then Mr. Pilgrim, and now Mr. Roger and Mr. Jack—it’s like there was a curse on the house!’

He said, ‘Don’t talk stupid, Lizzie!’ and she flared up at him, sobbing all the time.

‘It’s stupid to be fond of people, and you can throw it up at me as much as you like, for it’s no fault of yours. You’ve been a hard, cruel husband, Alfred, and you was a hard, cruel father to our poor girl that’s gone, or she wouldn’t never have run away and hid herself like she did when she was in trouble.’

He made a sharp sound at that, but she went on without giving him time to speak, ‘I suppose you’ll say you loved her, and I suppose you did in your own way, but it was all because you took a pride in her pretty looks, and her cleverness, and the credit she did you. But that’s not loving, Alfred, it’s just pride, and it comes to have a fall, the same as it says in the Proverbs. And you wouldn’t have her back here to be buried—and it’s a thing I shan’t never get over, your letting her and her baby lie among strangers because it’d hurt your pride to bring them here where they belonged.’

He said, ‘Lizzie!’ And then, ‘That’s not true, and you’ve no call to say it! Maybe I’ve done more than what you know—maybe I’ve done more than you’d have done yourself. There’s different ways of showing what you think of people.’

She said with a gush of tears, ‘You forgot her birthday!’

A door banged at the end of the passage. Footsteps could be heard coming nearer. Regretfully, Miss Silver turned back, and presently met Gloria in her outdoor things.

She advanced the cup.

‘I wonder if I could have a little boiling water. If it wouldn’t be a trouble. I don’t quite like to go into the kitchen—but if you—’

Gloria said, ‘Righty-ho!’—an expression which cost Miss Silver an inward shudder.

She took the cup, ran off with it, and brought it back full.

‘Ever such a row going on in there,’ she confided. ‘What’s the good of getting married if you’re going to quarrel like that? The p’lice in the house—that’s what’s upsetting them. He takes it out on her, and she takes it out on him. My mum’s proper upset, I can tell you. But there’s something exciting about it too, and I’d just as soon it wasn’t my afternoon off. Now if I’d wanted to get out early, ten to one I wouldn’t have been let, but just because there’s something going on everyone’s at me. Mr. Robbins, and Miss Columba, and Mrs. Robbins are all for getting me out of the way. My mum won’t half be surprised to see me so early.’

She clattered off down the passage and out by the back door, which she shut with a hearty bang.

Miss Silver, after emptying the cup down the pantry sink and leaving it on the drip-board, went across the hall to the study, where she set the door ajar and awaited developments. The time seemed long, the house was silent. Miss Janetta had declared herself quite prostrated, and Miss Day, with a much more demanding invalid than Captain Pilgrim on her hands, could be supposed to have those hands too full to allow of her coming downstairs. Where everyone else was, Miss Silver had no idea, but she had no desire for company.

When the silence was broken by the sound of tramping feet, she went out into the hall.

Randall March met her there, took her back into the study, and shut the door.

‘Well,’ he said—‘you were right.’

‘My dear Randall—how very shocking!’

It was perfectly genuine. It was not in her to feel complacency or triumph. She was most seriously and genuinely shocked.

He nodded.

‘In the far cellar, behind those piled-up chairs—there’s a door to an inner cellar. The body was there, doubled up in a tin trunk. I suppose there’s no doubt that it is Henry Clayton.’

They stood looking at each other.

‘Very shocking indeed,’ said Miss Silver.

Randall March looked grim.

‘Your hypothetical case has materialized. I take it your reconstruction just about fits the facts. Someone called Clayton back, invented a reason for getting him into the lift passage, and murdered him there. Subsequent proceedings as outlined by you. I’m collecting the knives out of those trophies and having the lift floor scraped—there may be some traces. The floor is, fortunately, bare board, but three years—’ He threw up a hand, and then went on in a different tone. ‘I shall suggest to the Chief Constable that the Yard be asked to send Abbott down to represent them. They’ll want to be in at the death, and he was on the original enquiry into Clayton’s disappearance. There shouldn’t be any difficulty about fixing it up. And now I must get going on the telephone.’

J
UDY
E
LLIOT HEARD
the trampling feet and stood a moment on the back stair by the bathroom door. A word came up to her here and there, and her hair rose on her head. Something had happened—something more. The words told her that, but they didn’t tell her what it was. She was left with a sense of horror and apprehension much greater than would have been produced by actual knowledge. Because as soon as you know a thing you can bring your reason to bear upon it, but the unknown takes you back to the cowering savage terrified by all the things he cannot understand.

The trampling ceased. She went down a few steps, and met Mrs. Robbins on the last of the stairs with a face as white as lard. They had hardly spoken before—no more than a good-morning here and there. The Robbins hadn’t wanted her, and they made it felt. But now, with Mrs. Robbins holding to the rail and staring as if she had seen a ghost, Judy ran to her.

‘What’s the matter—has anything happened?’

A hand came out and clutched her. She could feel the cold of it right through her overall.

‘Mrs. Robbins—what is it? You’re ill!’

There was a faint movement of the head that said, ‘No.’ The cold clutch persisted. The white lips moved.

‘They’ve found Mr. Henry—’

Something like a small piece of ice slid down Judy’s spine. She hadn’t been a week at Pilgrim’s Rest without hearing from Gloria how Henry Clayton had walked out of this house on the eve of his wedding and never been heard of again. But that was three years ago. She couldn’t get her voice to work. When she forced it, it didn’t sound like hers at all. It said, ‘He went away—’

Mrs. Robbins made that movement with her head again. She said in a whisper which Judy could only just hear, ‘He were in the cellar all the time—he were dead and buried in an old tin trunk. And Alfred says it fare to serve him right. But I don’t care what he done, I wouldn’t want him buried thataway, not him nor no one, I don’t care what they done. But Alfred says it fare to serve him right.’

Judy was shocked through and through. The woman’s look, the terrible whispering voice, conveyed a sense of horror. The country accent, the turn of words, the manner of their delivery, all took her back to something simple, primitive, and dreadful. She didn’t know what to say.

Mrs. Robbins let go of her arm with a shudder and went on up the stairs. Judy heard the slow fall of her climbing feet, the heavy clap of a door on the attic floor. Her own knees were shaking when she came out on the corridor by her room. It was in her mind to go in there and pull herself together. People were murdered every day—you read about them in the papers. It wasn’t sense to go cold and sick inside and feel as if your legs were dangling loose like one of those jointed dolls which are threaded up on elastic and go limp when it begins to wear, just because Henry Clayton had been murdered three years ago.

As she stood there outside her own door, something twanged in her mind like a string being plucked on a fiddle, and something said in a small, clear voice with an edge to it, ‘Henry Clayton three years ago—and Roger Pilgrim yesterday. So the murderer is still in the house—and who will it be tomorrow?’

The red carpet down the middle of the corridor went all fuzzy at the edges and seemed to tilt. She put out her hand and caught at the doorpost to stop herself sliding down the tilt which would land her in Jerome Pilgrim’s bathroom. And just as she thought about that, and how surprised Lona Day would be, his bedroom door opened and he stood there beckoning to her.

She remembered that she was a housemaid, and the floor got back into the straight. He had his finger on his lips, so she didn’t speak, only walked rather carefully down the middle of the red carpet until she reached him, when he put a hand on her arm, pulled her in, and shut the door.

‘What’s going on?’

What was a poor housemaid to do? If she’d known that telling lies to a nervous invalid was part of the job she’d have seen everyone at Jericho before she took it, because she never had been and never would be the slightest use at telling lies. Something in her got up and screamed with rage. Why should she have to tell lies? And what good did they do anyhow? Jerome would have to know.

He had his stick in his hand, but he wasn’t leaning on it. A faint smile moved his lips. He said in an encouraging voice, ‘Stop thinking up a good convincing lie and tell me the truth—it’s much more your line. Lona will give me all the soothing syrup I need, so get on with it before she comes in and throws you out on your ear. Why this influx of policemen?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I looked out of my Aunt Columba’s window and saw them arrive. What did they want?’

Judy gave up.

‘They’ve been searching the house.’

‘Not this part of it.’ He limped over to his chair and sat on the arm. ‘Did March produce a search-warrant—or did Aunt Columba give him leave?’

‘I think Miss Columba said he could.’

‘Well, where did they search?’

When Judy said, ‘The cellars,’ she had that sick feeling again. She got to the other chair and sat down on the edge of it.

Jerome Pilgrim looked at her white face and said, ‘Find anything?’

Judy nodded, because she had a horrid feeling that if she tried to speak she would probably begin to cry. She saw Jerome’s hand clench on the stick.

‘I suppose they found Henry.’

She nodded again.

He did not speak for what seemed like quite a long time. Then he got up and began to take off his dressing-gown.

Judy got up too.

‘What are you going to do?’

He was dressed except for the jacket of his suit. He reached for it now.

‘I’m going down to see March, and I don’t want to have any argument with Lona about it. Give me a hand—there’s a good child. You’ll find a coat and a cap and muffler in the wardrobe. Just take them along down to the hall, and see that no one gets them whilst I’m talking to March. I may have to go out.’

She said
‘Out?’
in such a tone of surprise that he almost smiled again.

‘I’m not dead and buried,’ he said. And then, ‘Someone has got to tell Lesley Freyne, and I think it’s my job.’

R
ANDALL
M
ARCH HUNG
up the telephone receiver and looked up as Jerome Pilgrim came into the room. When he saw who it was he pushed back his chair and went to meet him. For a moment the official manner fell away. He said, ‘My dear fellow!’ And then, ‘Look here, are you sure you’re up to this?’

‘Yes—but I’ll have a chair.’

He got down on to it and took a moment.

March said, ‘Do you object to Miss Silver being present? I don’t know if you know that she is a private detective, and that Roger—’

Jerome put up a hand.

‘Yes—he told me. She had better stay. I hear you’ve been searching the cellars.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well—I hear you’ve found Henry.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you tell me about it?’

March told him.

Jerome said, ‘Then it was murder. He was murdered.’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘We’ll know more about that after the postmortem. The indications are that he was stabbed in the back. There’s a slit in the stuff of the coat. The clothes are pretty well preserved. There’s no weapon present. Now may I ask who told you we had found him?’

Jerome was sitting forward in the chair, his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand. He said, ‘Judy Elliot.’

‘And who told her?’

‘I don’t know. You’d better ask her. She’s in the hall.’

March went to the door, opened it, and called, ‘Miss Elliot!’ She came in holding Jerome’s outdoor things. March took them away from her and went and sat down at the table. A little to his left, in the prim Victorian chair which might have come out of her own flat, Miss Silver was knitting.

Judy didn’t know what to make of it. She supposed there was something she oughtn’t to have done. She stood waiting to find out what it was. The nice-looking policeman had offered her a chair, but she didn’t feel like sitting down. You are taller and more important when you are standing.

‘Miss Elliot—Captain Pilgrim says you told him that Mr. Clayton’s body had been discovered in the cellars. How did you know?’

She told them about meeting Mrs. Robbins on the back stairs—‘And she said, “They’ve found Mr. Henry.” ’

‘Was that all she said?’

They were all looking at her. The sick feeling had begun to come back. She shook her head because it was easier than talking.

‘Will you tell me just what she said?’

Now she would have to speak. She found Mrs. Robbins’ words, one, and two, and three at a time. It was dreadfully difficult to say them.

‘ “Buried in an old tin trunk. And Alfred says it fare to serve him right.” ’

‘Are you sure she said that?’

Judy nodded.

‘Yes—she said it again at the end. She said she didn’t care what he’d done, she wouldn’t want him buried like that. She went on saying it, and at the end she said again, “But Alfred says it fare to serve him right.” ’ She looked at March, her eyes suddenly dark and distressed. ‘I went on upstairs. I was feeling—very upset. Captain Pilgrim saw me. He asked me—what was going on.’

Jerome lifted his head.