Vanishing Point (13 page)

When Frank Abbott dropped in after supper that evening he was struck with the gravity of Miss Silver’s expression. He had come to tell her the result of the post-mortem on Miss Holiday. They sat in the dining-room, and she gave him her usual strict attention whilst her busy needles clicked and little Josephine’s legging lengthened.

“Well,” he began, “she was alive when she got that bump on the head, and she was alive when she went into the water, but no one is going to swear that she didn’t hit her head on the side of the well as she went down. It could have been that way, you know, though I’ll give you this—the police surgeon doesn’t think it was. He is inclined to believe that there may have been an earlier bruise.”

“Were there any signs of a struggle?”

He paused for a moment before answering this.

“Not as far as any damage to her clothes went. But you will remember that Mrs. Selby said she was wearing a string of blue beads—”

“Yes, Frank.”

“Well, when we got her up out of the well it looked as if the string was missing, but afterwards at the mortuary it was discovered that two or three of the beads had run down inside her clothes and been caught there, which looks as if the string had broken when she was attacked.”

“That could well have happened. And quite compatible with a theory that she may have been stunned by an initial blow but not put down the well until later. You seemed to suggest this as a possibility.”

“Something like that.”

She pulled on her ball of wool.

“It is what I would expect. She must have been attacked in the short distance between the Selbys’ bungalow and the cottage. But it would be unlikely that the person or persons who attacked her would have taken the risk of carrying the body to the bottom of Mrs. Maple’s garden at an hour when she might still be supposed to be about. Florrie informs me that her bedroom looks to the back of the house, and though she is too deaf to have heard footsteps in the garden, she would certainly be able to perceive the transport of an inanimate body if she had happened to be looking out of her window at the time.”

Frank nodded.

“People do look out of the window the last thing.”

“It is an extremely common practice. I do not think that a murderer’s guilty conscience would have allowed him to take the risk. He would, I am sure, decide to wait until there was no chance that anyone would be abroad. The question would then arise as to what was to be done with the body. We know now that she was not dead. For his purpose it was important that she should go into the water alive. He could not, therefore, just finish her off and conceal the body in a ditch, and he must have been faced with a considerable problem. It is, of course, of the very highest importance to discover what his solution was. I need not ask you whether you have given particular attention to all this. The Selbys’ premises constitute the nearest shelter. They comprise the bungalow, a garage, two sheds, and a number of hen-houses. Mrs. Selby was alone in the bungalow between seven o’clock and ten. Mr. Selby is supposed to have been at the Holly Tree.”

“He was there till closing time.”

Miss Silver laid down her knitting for a moment, an occurrence so unusual as to direct particular attention to what she was about to say.

“I do not doubt that he was there at closing-time. Is there, however, any evidence that he was there continuously between the hours of seven and ten, and particularly during the quarter of an hour just before and after nine o’clock? The distance from the Holly Tree to the bungalow is a very short one. If a game of darts was going on and Mr. Selby did not happen to be playing at the time, would anyone have noticed if he had been absent for, say, fifteen minutes?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll do my best to find out. Fifteen minutes doesn’t give him very long to come and go, hit Miss Holiday over the head, and get her out of the way.”

“It would have had to be very carefully planned—but then careful planning is evident at every stage of this affair.”

Frank said in a thoughtful tone,

“Yes. But why Selby?”

“He is a stranger.”

“My dear ma’am, the countryside is littered with strangers.”

“There have been many changes since the war, but not so many in Hazel Green.”

“There are a great many in and around Melbury, which is not so far away.”

“But Mr. Selby is here. And he was here a year ago when Maggie Bell disappeared. I am puzzled to account for it.”

He sketched a shrug.

“Business men do retire. Quite a lot of them have an urge to settle down in the country and keep hens. A foul employment—”

He gave a sudden laugh. “No, no, withhold your lightnings! I swear I didn’t intend the pun—didn’t even know it was there until I heard myself say it.”

Rightly dismissing this as trivial, she said,

“It is obvious that Mrs. Selby has no leanings towards a country life. Mr. Selby, whilst professing his enjoyment, is not infrequently away for several days at a time. He makes a joke of it and says the pavements call him. During his absence the care of the hens devolves upon Mrs. Selby.”

“All this from Florrie, who I suppose had it from Miss Holiday?”

“Yes, Frank. I gather that Mrs. Selby not only dislikes the care of the hens, but that she is extremely nervous at being alone in the bungalow, especially as Mr. Selby would not hear of their having a dog.”

“Which might mean anything, or nothing at all—except that Mr. Selby doesn’t like dogs. You know, there really are people that don’t.”

Miss Silver herself had a preference for cats, but she did not consider this the moment to say so. She allowed him to proceed, which he did, and in a graver voice.

“You may care to know that Selby’s antecedents are all on record. The Security lads thought of that over the question of leakages at Dalling Grange. As a newcomer, he was naturally suspect, but nothing emerged. He and his brother used to run a garage business in the Streatham Road. Perfectly decorous and respectable. Regular subscriber to the local Conservative Association. Life and soul of the party at local whist drives. In fact a perfectly blameless past.”

Miss Silver inclined her head. It was in her mind that a perfectly blameless past would be essential if a man was to be either a catspaw or an active agent in some nefarious business. Not judging that this was the moment to say so, she observed that a careful examination of the garage and outhouses attached to the bungalow would, she supposed, be a part of the routine enquiries which the police would undertake. She was assured that this would be the case.

“They shall be gone over with a toothcomb. I suppose you don’t include Mrs. Selby in your suspicions?”

Miss Silver gave a slight hortatory cough.

“I do not suspect either Mr. or Mrs. Selby. There are not, as yet, any grounds for doing so. I merely suggest that their premises may have been used, and that in view of the fact that Miss Holiday’s body must have been concealed somewhere, and that Mr. Selby’s garage or one of his outhouses stand out as the most likely if not the only possible places of concealment, there is an urgent necessity for a very careful and thorough investigation. As Lord Tennyson put its—‘And in its season bring the law… Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all’.”

He took the impact of this with fortitude. After a slightly stunned silence he remarked,

“As you say. Everything shall be gone through with the toothcomb. Well, I suppose I had better be getting along.”

Miss Silver detained him with the slightest of gestures.

“If you can spare me a few moments—”

“Of course. What is it?”

“There are some enquiries which it would not be possible for me to attend to, but which I must be very glad if you could make.”

He was able to recognize this mild and tentative approach and allow himself some irreverent amusement. There were chestnuts to be picked out of the fire, and he was for it. Recalling some other occasions, the amusement subsided and an alert attention took its place.

“Well, ma’am, what are they?”

“You will, perhaps, remember that I mentioned a Mrs. Maberly to you.”

“Did you? I believe you did—Henry Cunningham and the fatal diamond ring. She left it about, it vanished, and everyone made up their minds that Henry had taken it. After which he fled the country and didn’t come back for twenty years. It’s rather an old story, isn’t it? Who am I supposed to interrogate— Mrs. Maberly, or the submerged Henry?”

She looked some slight reproof and said,

“Neither. Mrs. Maberly left the neighbourhood and, I believe, the country not very long after the loss of the ring. I understand that she and her husband went to America. I merely wished to remind you of the occurrence.”

There was a faint sardonic gleam in his eye.

“Synopsis of the story up to date. Now read on! What is the next instalment?”

She said soberly,

“I have been struck by the fact that there seemed to have been quite a number of other incidents connected with the theft, or perhaps I should say the abstraction, of jewels. Mrs. Merridew introduced the subject on Sunday when Miss Crewe was here at tea. A Lady Muriel Street was mentioned. She and her husband live at Hoys, a large place just beyond the village. I gather that she is one of those people who run round telling everyone their family affairs down to the last detail. It seems she has just discovered that a large and handsome diamond brooch left to her by her godmother is merely an imitation. The centre stone is of considerable size, and she had always supposed the ornament to be worth a very large sum, but on attempting to sell it she was informed that the stones were paste.”

Frank said,

“Well, well. I think she would have done better to hold her tongue.”

Miss Silver turned the cherry-coloured leggings.

“That was Miss Crewe’s remark. She then capped Mrs. Merridew’s story with one about Lady Melbury, who appears to have suddenly discovered that a necklace supposed to be extremely valuable and worn by her great-grandmother at Queen Victoria’s coronation was in reality a mere imitation. Miss Crewe commented very unfavourably upon Lord Melbury’s folly in talking about the matter. Lady Melbury would, I gather, have remained silent, but her husband, who is one of those easygoing sociable men, went about telling everyone and rather openly wondering which of his ancestors had effected the substitution.”

Frank said quickly,

“The necklace would have had to be valued for probate. I’m afraid he can’t put it on the ancestors.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“That does not seem to have occurred to him. Lady Melbury is an extravagant woman, and has been a beauty. He is probably the only person in the county who does not believe that she disposed of the necklace herself. These grand jewels appear so seldom, and then only in circumstances where they are unlikely to be exposed to the eye of an expert, that a substitution could be made with very little risk of discovery.”

He laughed.

“And by the time it came to valuation for probate Lady Melbury wouldn’t have to worry! Just between you and me, I wonder how often it has been done. Most of the great families are broke, and why keep capital locked up in jewels which only the expert can tell from a copy? Well, all this is very interesting, but where does it get us?”

Miss Silver extracted a new ball from her knitting-bag. The joining of the strands of wool took up her attention for a moment. Her reply when it came was in her most persuasive voice.

“If you could see your way to making some enquiries of Lady Melbury and Lady Muriel Street—”

“My dear ma’am—on what grounds!”

She said,

“I supposed you would raise that point.”

“What have you got at the back of your mind—a hunch?”

“My dear Frank!”

“It will do just as well by any other name. Shall we say a suspicion?”

“It is hardly that.”

“What is it then?”

She stopped knitting and looked at him with a kind of earnest diffidence.

“I do not know quite how to put it. I have a feeling that when a number of curious things have been happening they may be connected with one another. I cannot at the moment bring any evidence to support this feeling, but I have wondered whether an interview with Lady Melbury and Lady Muriel might not produce some. The substitution of a copy for the original must have been made by someone able to obtain a drawing or photograph of sufficient accuracy to enable that copy to be made. There must also have been an opportunity of effecting the change. This opens up three possibilities. A member of the family. A confidential servant! A friend or a relative with the requisite access. All these possibilities should be tested. The one which occurs to me is the last of them. I may be wrong—I don’t know. There is a name that comes to my mind. I would like some enquiries to be made.”

He said in a doubtful voice,

“What name?”

“I would rather not say. The person of whom I am thinking is related to many people in the county. As a young woman she amused herself with sketching. She worships her house and her ancestry, and has been put to it to maintain the family tradition. One of the missing women was in her employment.”

Frank Abbott said,

“Miss Cunningham? Miss Crewe? The official eye has been rather fixed upon the Dower House. Henry was off the map for more than twenty years, Nicholas works at Dalling Grange, and Miss Cunningham was the employer of Maggie Bell—whom I suppose we may now regard as the late Maggie Bell.”

Miss Silver was knitting again, and quite briskly. She said in a decided tone,

“Something of a very disturbing nature occurred here last night. I think I had better tell you about it.”

“I think you had. When you say here—”

“I do not mean in this house.”

He felt some relief, and showed it.

“Thank goodness for that! Who was disturbed, and in what way?”

She said, “Miss Cunningham,” and proceeded to give him a very clear and succinct account of what Mrs. Hubbard had observed and deduced. It raised a frown, and some scepticism.

“What it amounts to is that Miss Cunningham burned some string—probably after tripping over it somewhere—and that Mrs. Hubbard found the bit that got away.”

He was instantly aware of being a pupil who had not given the right answer. Her glance rested on him in mild rebuke.

“Not string, Frank—garden twine.” She stopped knitting for long enough to produce a gummed-down envelope from her chintz bag and hand it over to him. “Here are the fragments found by Mrs. Hubbard. You will observe that the twine has been treated with tar, doubtless as a preservative, and that this would make it unsuitable for normal use inside the house. If, however, it was to be used as a trip-cord on the stairs, the dark colour would render it extremely inconspicuous. In the second case, Mrs. Hubbard reported that the balusters about six steps down from the landing were marked as if something had been tied tightly between them, and that some of the paint had flaked off.”

He said more soberly,

“This is third-hand evidence.”

She was knitting with a certain briskness to which he was no stranger.

“Not quite, Frank. Mrs. Merridew took me to call at the Dower House this afternoon, and Miss Cunningham was kind enough to take us over it. There are many points of historical interest, in addition to which I had the opportunity of checking Mrs. Hubbard’s story. The stair runs up to the bedroom floor, and there is a balustrade on either side. The woodwork has been painted a dark chocolate brown. Miss Cunningham said what a pity it was, but it was like that when they came, and the stair being not oak but some much softer wood, they had never liked to risk injuring it by having it stripped. Whilst this conversation was going on I was able to observe the balusters, and to verify Mrs. Hubbard’s story. There had been a recent flaking of paint from the two balusters she had mentioned and the square corners distinctly showed the marks of the twine. Furthermore, I could see for myself that there was some swelling above Miss Cunningham’s right ankle, and a weal which could be plainly discerned through her rayon stocking. It was also quite obvious that she had had a shock of some kind. She had tea with Mrs. Merridew yesterday, and there was no sign of it then. This afternoon she looked as if she had not slept all night, and it was plain that there was something on her mind. She was most kind in showing us over the house. I think she may even have been glad of something that would distract her thoughts, but she had difficulty in keeping them to the point, and on more than one occasion corrected herself in what she was saying.”

“You think an attempt was made to injure her?”

“I believe it may have been more serious than that. The stair is a steep one, and the hall is paved with stone. If she had lost her balance on the sixth step she would have had another fourteen steps to fall, and she would have pitched down them headfirst on to stone flags.”

“Who was in the house?”

“Her brother, Henry Cunningham, and her nephew Nicholas.”

“No one else?”

“No one else.”

After a pause he said,

“What makes you think it was Miss Cunningham who was aimed at? What about Henry wanting to get rid of Nicholas, or Nicholas wanting to get rid of Henry? That sort of thing has been known to happen.”

“Because I am convinced that Miss Cunningham herself believes it was she who was intended to fall, and her distress is occasioned by the conviction that either her brother or her nephew is attempting her life. There is the question of how she was to be induced to run down those stairs in such a hurry as to trip over the cord without noticing it. I do not think that a summons from below would have been risked. The next possibility which presents itself is a telephone call. The fixture is in the hall. Henry Cunningham will not speak on the telephone, so Mrs. Merridew informs me, and Nicholas only when the call is for him. It is, therefore, always Miss Cunningham who hastens to it in the first place. But to suppose a prearranged telephone call would be to assume an outside accomplice, a thing which would greatly increase the risks. How much easier and safer to place an ordinary alarm clock in the hall. It could be set to any hour of the night, and the bell would be indistinguishable from that of the telephone.”

He said with a faintly sardonic inflection,

“You think of everything, don’t you?” And then, “Perhaps you can tell me why anyone should want to disable or kill Miss Cunningham.”

She said very gravely indeed,

“What was the motive for the removal of Maggie Bell and of Miss Holiday? Miss Cunningham knows too much. I believe that to be the explanation in all these cases. Each of them had, or stumbled upon, a piece of knowledge which was dangerous to someone else. It is possible, perhaps even probable in the cases of Maggie Bell and Miss Holiday, that they were not aware, or at any rate not fully aware, of the implications of what they knew. In each case swift and ruthless action was taken to ensure silence. In the case of Miss Cunningham, she was one of the last people to see Miss Holiday alive. She met her coming away from Crewe House on Sunday evening, and she had a few words with her. She did not respond when I asked her what Miss Holiday had said, but passed the question off with a vague repetitive phrase. I did not say more at the time—she was having tea with Mrs. Merridew—but I feel that she should be pressed upon the subject.”

“But, my dear ma’am, she has been pressed. Didn’t I tell you?”

“I think not, Frank.”

He said in an apologetic tone,

“I’ve been run off my feet. But here it is. Denning has been combing the place for anyone who might have met or seen Miss Holiday after she left Crewe House. Well, he turned up a girl called Mary Tufton who was bicycling back to Melbury after a visit to some people on a farm the other side of Hazel Green. She says that somewhere about half past five she saw Miss Cunningham near the drive of Crewe House. She knows her quite well by sight, because Mrs. Tufton used to do a little odd dressmaking for her. Anyhow, she says a woman in a raincoat came out of the gate at Crewe House and Miss Cunningham stopped and spoke to her. One of them dropped what looked like a letter and Miss Cunningham picked it up. The other woman had her handkerchief out and was blowing her nose. She saw all this as she came up to them—there’s a long straight piece of road there, as you know—and as she went by, Miss Cunningham turned in at the drive and the other woman went on in the direction of the village. Mary says it all passed in no time at all. They met, Miss Cunningham picked up the letter, and went on. Denning asked Miss Cunningham about it, and she said yes, that was just what happened. Miss Holiday dropped a letter when she used her handkerchief, and she picked it up again. She had just stopped to have a word with her. And as the letter was open and had been addressed to Miss Crewe, she offered to take it up to Crewe House.”

“She did not say what the word was about?”

He laughed.

“I don’t suppose it was about anything. Denning did his job all right, you know. He asked her if Miss Holiday seemed to be upset about anything, and she said oh no, she was just as usual. By the way, he went on and saw the cook at Crewe House— what’s her name, Mrs. Bolder—and she said the same. I gather he came away rather the worse for wear. She wanted to know what he thought she would be doing upsetting anyone. Umbrage was taken, and he wasn’t sorry to get away from her. A lady with a tongue!”

Miss Silver was not knitting at quite her usual speed. After a moment she said,

“Thank you, Frank. I cannot say that I am satisfied. If Miss Holiday was murdered, there must have been a motive for her murder. Someone who was in contact with her must have decided that she had become, or was becoming, dangerous and must be got rid of. It seems as if the danger may have arisen suddenly. In which case every contact with her during those last few hours of her life must be regarded as important and very carefully considered. Miss Cunningham may be aware of something which she has not seen fit to pass on to the police.”