She sat up, and saw Dale coming across the lawn with an impatient step. He was bare-headed and very good to look at. All at once the foolish things which she had been thinking seemed morbid and foolish. She felt sharply ashamed, and the colour rose to her cheeks.

Dale flung himself into a chair and said in a voice as impatient as his step,

“Where do you get to these days? I want to talk to you.”

“I went into Ledlington with Rafe.”

He frowned.

“Why Rafe? I would have driven you. Never mind, we’ll talk about that another time. Look here – I’ve heard from Tatham, and it’s take it or leave it. He’s got to have an answer by the end of the month, yes or no, and if Robson won’t be reasonable” – he lifted a hand and let it fall again – “well, it’ll just have to be yes.”

Her heart contracted. She said gently,

“I’m sorry, Dale.”

“Are you?” He sat up, leaning towards her eagerly. “Are you really? I believe you are. Lisle – what about having one more go at Robson? Will you? He might relent – you never know – and I should feel we’ve done everything we could. Don’t you see what I mean? I don’t want to look back afterwards and think, ‘Why didn’t we do this?’ or ‘Why didn’t we do that?’ or, ‘Perhaps Robson would have given in if we’d had one more shot.’ Darling, don’t you see?”

She nodded. It was easier than speaking. When he looked at her like that, it brought back all the times when the same look had said, or she thought that it had said, “I love you.” Now it seemed to her that it only meant, “This is something I want. Give it to me.” She had always tried to give him what he wanted. She must go on trying.

He sprang up and pulled her to her feet.

“You will? Oh, darling! Come along and we’ll see what we can do in the heart-melting line! We’ve got plenty of time before lunch. Everyone else seems to be out. Come along to the study and draft a letter!”

Lisle was to look back on the next half hour with a bewildered sense of strain. What she could not remember was how many drafts she made for a letter which was never to be despatched. Odd phrases, telling arguments, appeals, dispassionate reasoning – Dale swung from one to the other, suggesting, dictating, adding and altering.

“Take another piece of paper! Now try this! No, no, no – that won’t do! Take a fresh piece – that’s written on! How does this sound? Take it down!”

“I think it sounds a little exaggerated.”

Dale was pacing the room. She remembered how he wheeled round on her when she said that.

“Exaggerated – exaggerated? How do you think I’m feeling about Tanfield? What sort of tepid milk-and-water stuff do you think I’m made of?”

“I only meant – it’s supposed to be from me, isn’t it? Mr. Robson won’t think so if I write it like that. Oh, Dale, please-”

He came over to her and stood there behind her, leaning down to kiss her hair.

“Darling, I’m sorry. It means so much to me. If we can only get this damned letter right… That bit’s no good! Let’s try again. Take another sheet!”

It always came back to that in the end. The table was littered with discarded sheets, some closely written, some with no more than a single sentence. In the end when the lunch bell rang Dale swept them all up with a groan.

“No good going on now. We’ll give it a rest. I’ll keep these and sort them through. We’ve gone on at it too long – you look worn out.” He put an arm round her and laid his cheek against hers. “Poor tired child – I’m a brute to you, aren’t I?” She said, “No-” in an uncertain voice and slipped away. But his hand dropped on her shoulder, holding her.

“Lisle – don’t tell anyone we’re having another shot at Robson. I don’t want the others to know – I just don’t feel like going over it all. You know how it is – I’m very fond of Lal, but – she jars sometimes. I don’t want to talk about it to anyone but you.”

Chapter 39

INSPECTOR MARCH came back to his office, to be told that a lady had been ringing him up – “Wouldn’t leave a message, only said she wanted to see you and she’d ring again – a Miss Silver.”

March’s eyebrows went up.

Ten minutes later the telephone went. A familiar cough came to him on the line.

“Oh, you are back. I am so glad. I think I had better see you for a moment. Would it suit you if I came round now?”

March said, “Yes,” and hung up.

A constable presently ushered in Miss Maud Silver, neatly dressed in a grey washing silk printed with a design of small mauve and black flowers. Being her last summer’s dress, it was quite good enough for Ledlington in the morning. Her hat was of the same date, a rather wilted black straw with a small bunch of mauve and white lilac on the left-hand side. A brooch of bog-oak carved into the shape of a rose fastened her collar. She wore black cotton gloves and black shoes and stockings. Her manner was one of extreme gravity. She took the chair that was offered her, listened to the constable’s heavy receding step and then said without any preliminaries,

“Mr. Rafe Jerningham is beneficiary under Mrs. Jerningham’s will.”

March swung his chair round to face her.

“Oh, is he?”

“To the extent of twenty thousand pounds.”

He whistled.

“Well – well – and what do you know about that, as they say across the water?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I am not entirely up to date in American slang, but if, as I suppose, you would like to know the source of my information, well, that is one of the things I came here to tell you. It came from Mrs. Jerningham herself.”

“She told you she had left Rafe Jerningham twenty thousand pounds?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Silver. “You see, when we met in the train and she was so very much upset, she spoke about her will, and I got the impression that she had left everything to her husband. So this morning when I met her in Ashley’s I asked her if this was so.”

An expression of incredulity appeared upon the well cut features of Inspector March.

“You asked her about her will in Ashley’s?” His voice was as incredulous as his expression.

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Silver brightly. “She was buying a bathing-dress, and there was no one else at the counter. A shop is really quite a safe place to talk in, because people are thinking about their own affairs – shopping lists, and whether they can match the ribbon they got two months ago – all that kind of thing. We had quite a private talk while the saleswoman was serving someone at the next counter.”

March leaned back and contemplated his late preceptress. He was thinking how thoroughly she looked the part – so thoroughly that no matter what she talked about or where she talked about it, no one would dream that her conversation could have the slightest interest for anyone at all. He gave a half exasperated smile and said,

“Go on – tell me all about it.”

Miss Silver folded her black gloved hands over a shabby black handbag.

“Well, I think that was really all. I asked her if there were any substantial legacies, and she mentioned Mr. Rafe. That was really all, except that I urged her most strongly to ring up her solicitor and instruct him to destroy her will.”

March made a movement.

“He would be very unlikely to act on instructions given over the telephone.”

Miss Silver coughed in a slightly reproving manner.

“That would be no matter. What I urged Mrs. Jerningham to do was to go home and tell the whole family that she had instructed her solicitor to destroy the will. If anyone was contemplating another attempt upon her life, he would naturally hold his hand until he was sure that the will under which he would benefit was still in existence. He could not afford to run the risk of committing murder only to find that the money was now irrevocably beyond his reach.”