The five-pound note and the piece of paper lay side by side on the kitchen table. Mrs. Harrison stared at them and said,

“Well, I never!”

CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Harrison and me, we talked it over,” said Agnes. “And what we thought was, we didn’t see that it had got anything to do with Miss Postlethwaite.” She sat on the edge of one of Miss Silver’s more upright chairs, her hands gripping a new shiny black handbag with a gilt clasp. Her gloves were new too and of a good quality, and her black cloth coat had cost a great deal more than Miss Silver would have dreamed of paying.

As she paused, and apparently expected some comment, Miss Silver said,

“Quite so.”

Agnes opened the shiny black bag, took out a clean folded white handkerchief with an initial A lurking in a wreath of forget-me-nots, dabbed the tip of her nose with it, and having returned the handkerchief still folded to the bag, proceeded to emphasize her last remark.

“We didn’t see that it had got anything to do with her.”

Miss Silver finished a row and turned her knitting. About ten inches of the back of Ethel Burkett’s cardigan now showed upon the needles. If she had not interrupted her work upon it to knit a pair of baby’s bootees, it would have been still farther advanced. She understood perfectly that the five-pound note already received and the one which Agnes was now hopefully expecting would be shared between herself and Mrs. Harrison, and that Postlethwaite would have no part in it. She smiled in an encouraging manner, and Agnes proceeded.

“Such being the case, we thought it would be best if I came to see you, Mrs. Harrison’s feet being a trouble to her.”

“It was quite the best thing you could do.”

“That’s what we thought. Not that there’s a great deal to say, but your friend being so kind-and a reward offered-we thought it would be best if I came along.”

The encouraging smile was repeated.

“That is very frank of you. And now what have you to tell me?”

A little colour came into the long, sallow face.

“Well, it was this way. There’s the telephone in the drawing-room, but except it’s for a special friend it’s kept switched through to the front hall so that I can do the talking-Mrs. Dugdale being troubled with her nerves.”

“Yes?” said Miss Silver on an enquiring note.

Agnes took out the handkerchief and dabbed again.

“It was about a week before Miss Ball left. I was in the dining-room putting away my silver, when the telephone went. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘you can wait till I get these spoons out of my hand.’ I wasn’t a minute, but just as I got to the door, there was Miss Ball taking off the receiver, which is a thing she hadn’t any call to do. She didn’t see me, and I thought I’d find out what she was at. Regular spying, creeping ways she’d got, and I thought if I could catch her out it would give her a lesson. I wouldn’t have listened, not if it had been anyone else, but she’d no call to be answering the telephone in that way, so I did.”

“Yes?”

Agnes was warming to it. She had another dab with the handkerchief and went on.

“Well, she said at once, ‘Yes, that’s right-it’s Miss Ball speaking… Yes, yes, of course-you can speak to Mrs. Dugdale. I’ll put you through to her. She isn’t at all pleased about my leaving, you know, but she can’t help handing on the reference from Mrs. Dartrey-I do know that.’ ”

Miss Silver said thoughtfully,

“I see-she was talking to her future employer-”

“It seemed like it. She was listening for a bit, and then she said, ‘What sort of place is it? The country is all very well in the summer, but that’s a long way off still, and we don’t always get one. Sounds as if it might be the depths of the country, a name like Deep End, doesn’t it?’ And she gave a silly kind of a laugh, as if she had made a joke. There was a bit of listening again, and then she said, ‘All those houses? Sounds funny to me. What do they call themselves a colony for?’ Well, I hadn’t the patience to listen to any more of it. I come out into the hall and I said, ‘If that’s a message, I’ll take it, Miss Ball, and if it’s anyone for Mrs. Dugdale you’d better put them through.’ Of course if I’d known-”

An apposite quotation occurred to Miss Silver, but she kept it to herself-“Evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart.” She deplored the impatience which had made Agnes interrupt Anna Ball’s telephone conversation, but there was nothing to be done about it now. She said,

“You are sure the name you heard was Deep End?”

Agnes brightened.

“Oh, yes, I’m quite positive about that, because one of my sister’s children was born at a place with a name like that. Her husband was gardener to a titled gentleman.”

“And where was this place?”

“ Lincolnshire -a damp part of the world, my sister used to say -Deeping St. Nicholas. And they called the baby Nick, which isn’t a naine I’d care about. Seems silly too, because the old gentleman died and they moved right down to Devonshire no more than six months after.”

“But the name mentioned by Miss Ball was not Deeping, but Deep End. You are really sure about that?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure. It just put me in mind of my sister and the baby.”

“Was there any place called Deep End in the neighbourhood? Or did your sister ever mention anything in the way of a ‘colony’ in connection with the place?”

Agnes shook her head.

“I can’t call anything like that to mind. But she wasn’t there more than eight or nine months-and the best part of thirty years ago, so there’s no saying what there might be by this time.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“A great deal has come and gone in thirty years,” she said.

Agnes nodded mournfully.

“My brother-in-law for one, and that poor boy Nick for another-killed at Alamein, and a young wife at home with a twin of little girls. Nice children they are too-ever so bright. And I’ve nothing against her marrying again, but it don’t give my sister back her boy.”

The interview, having been warmed by this human touch, came to an end in a manner very satisfactory to Agnes, who went away with another five pounds to divide between herself and Mrs. Harrison.

Miss Silver also was not dissatisfied. If she had not got all she hoped for she had at least got something, which was more than the police had. She proceeded to call up Scotland Yard, and was fortunate enough to be put through to Inspector Abbott without delay. To his “Hullo, ma’am-what can I do for you?” she replied with reticence.

“In the case of the missing person to which you introduced me-”

“The elusive Anna? Yes?”

“I have some information. There is reason to believe that she went from Mrs. Dugdale to a place called Deep End. To my informant this name suggested Deeping, there being some family connection with Deeping St. Nicholas in Lincolnshire. She overheard Miss Ball in conversation on the telephone with her prospective employer. Deep End was mentioned, and she is sure that she made no mistake about the name. I thought at once of the Deeping in Ledshire where I spent such a very interesting time with Colonel and Mrs. Abbott. There is not, I suppose, any spot called Deep End in that vicinity? I know that you spent a good deal of your time there when you were a boy.”

“No, there’s no Deep End.”

“From the context it would seem to be a country place, but there is a suggestion Miss Ball was told that its solitude would be mitigated by the presence of a Colony-” She paused.

“Is that all?”

“I fear so.”

“How extremely cryptic! She is sure the place named was Deep End, but it reminded her of Deeping! Well, I suppose it might. And I suppose it might really have been Deeping, even if she thinks it wasn’t, in which case there could be a fairly wide choice. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be the one where my uncle and aunt lived, but I’ve got a sort of idea that there’s another Deeping, even in Ledshire. Of course Deep End sounds to me like the sort of name that might be given to almost any huddle of houses which has gone and got itself built in a bog. Sounds damp. Sounds as if there might be a good few of it-one per county, all over the place. I’ll see how many I can collect and come round this evening with the catch, if any. If that will be all right for you?”