The evening passed as such evenings do. There was a meal prepared by Anna. There was conversation, supplied mainly by Miss Silver herself, and by Derek Burdon. Stephen had returned to Retley, Miss Silver applauding the good taste which dictated this course of action. Underhill might now have passed to Candida Sayle, but it was not for him or for her to obtrude that fact. Since Stephen had not been received there as a visitor by the Miss Benevents, both tact and breeding suggested that he should not immediately avail himself of so tragic a change in their circumstances.

Later Miss Silver had an opportunity of talking to Anna Rossi and to Derek Burdon. Both appeared to be more than willing. To Anna, her face swollen and her eyes red with weeping, it was an obvious relief to pour out everything she knew. There was no Miss Olivia there to check her, no Joseph to fix her with the look she so much resented or to say as he so often did, ‘Anna, you talk too much.’ After all, one had been given a tongue to use, and when terrible things happened, what was there to do except to let the tears spill out of your eyes and the words out of your mouth? If you did not weep, if you did not speak, the very heart dried up in you and you might as well be dead. The tears gushed afresh as she imparted these views to the little visiting lady who was so sympathetic, and who had come to take care of Miss Candida.

Derek also obliged with every appearance of frankness. Talking had never presented any difficulties to him, and like so many other people he found Miss Maud Silver quite extraordinarily easy to talk to. She listened, she made sympathetic reply, she maintained an interested and encouraging manner.

The opportunity for a conversation with Candida Sayle came when they went upstairs together at the end of the evening. To Candida it seemed as if the hours of that day had become lengthened out like shadows seen at sunset, until the time before she knew that Miss Cara was dead appeared to be indefinitely removed from this moment when she went with Miss Silver into her room and hoped that she had everything she wanted. Any hostess to any guest – But Miss Silver’s response was not quite that of any guest to any hostess. She laid a hand on Candida’s arm and said in her kindest voice,

‘Oh, yes, indeed. But I am just wondering whether you are too tired to give me the opportunity of talking to you for a little.’

Colour came into Candida’s face. She had a quick realisation that the pressure of her own thoughts was no longer to be endured. With Stephen gone, there was no one to whom she could unburden herself – unless it was to this stranger. She said,

‘No, no, of course not. It was so very good of you to come. I wouldn’t have asked you, but Stephen just did it. He said I couldn’t stay here alone – it would make talk. You see, none of us knew what Aunt Olivia was going to do until she had done it. At least Joseph and Anna must have known, but she kept Anna in her room packing up her things, and she took Joseph with her. It wasn’t until after five o’clock that we knew she had gone. Joseph took the cases down. Then he brought the car round to the side door and picked her up. Anna had been forbidden to say anything until they had gone. I didn’t know what I ought to do. If Aunt Olivia felt she couldn’t stay on in the same house as me, then I was the one who ought to have gone. I tried to get on to Stephen, but he wasn’t back. Derek said he wouldn’t stay if I went. You see, Aunt Olivia was saying all sorts of things about both of us, and there are a lot of valuable things in the house. He said we ought to ring up the police and ask them what to do about it, so we did, and the Inspector said I ought to stay. And then I got on to Stephen, and he said he would ask you to come.’

Miss Silver had seated herself. Candida took the chair on the other side of the fire and leaned forward.

‘Stephen says you know a good deal already – about my aunts, and Alan Thompson, and everything. It all seems to go a long way back.’

Miss Silver had taken up her knitting. A grey stocking depended from the needles. It was the last of the set, and it was nearly finished. She said,

‘It is always difficult to know where things begin. There are causes which lie a very long way back. There are jealousies, resentments, hatreds, which have their roots in the remote past.’

Something in Candida answered this. It was like the string of a musical instrument which trembles in response to a distant note. She said, ‘Yes,’ and found what so many had found, that it was easier to talk to Miss Silver than it was to hold things back. She told her about Barbara, about coming here to stay, about meeting Stephen again – ‘You know, he really did save my life once long ago.’ And so on, through the time of her visit down to the last few days.

Miss Silver sat there and knitted. Sometimes she asked a question, but for the most part she was silent. Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard, a devoted admirer, has said of her that ‘she knows people’. He has also observed that as far as she is concerned the human race is glass-fronted – ‘She sees right through them.’ But then it is, of course, notorious that he sometimes indulges himself in an extravagant way of speaking. Certainly it was not only Candida’s words which received attention, but every change in her expression, every inflection of her voice, every variation in the manner in which certain names were pronounced were subjected to the same clear scrutiny.

The scene outside Miss Cara’s door after the return from the Deanery party was gone over with the closest interest. Candida spoke quite steadily.

‘Anna says Aunt Olivia won’t ever let anyone talk about Aunt Cara being ill, but I didn’t know that. I really did think she was ill, and I was worried, and I said so. That was when she – struck me.’

Miss Silver had not been unaware of the slight remaining traces of that blow. She said, ‘Dear me!’

Candida went on.

‘She hates me, you know, but even so, I think she must be mad. She has told Inspector Rock that she struck me because I said Aunt Cara was old and would die soon anyhow. She must be mad to say a thing like that, even if she does hate me.’

‘Why should she hate you, my dear?’

‘Because of Underhill and the money. Aunt Cara told me about a dreadful thing she said when her sister Candida died -she was my grandmother, and I was called after her. She died about the same time as their father, and when the lawyer told Aunt Olivia that my grandmother’s children would have everything after Aunt Cara she said that Candida was dead and she hoped her children would die too, and then she would come into her own.’

‘That was a dreadful thing to say.’

‘Aunt Cara cried about it. You know, they looked so much alike, but they weren’t really. Aunt Cara was just a frightened little thing – she had been bullied all her life. But she was kind, and deep down inside her she wanted someone to be fond of. She was dreadfully unhappy about Alan Thompson. You know about him, don’t you?’

Miss Silver might have said a good deal upon this point, but she contented herself with a simple, ‘Yes.’

Candida went on telling her things – Nellie waking up with a cold hand touching her face and something that went crying through the room.

‘And she wouldn’t stay after that. She went in with Anna for the night, and she was off in the morning. But it was only poor Aunt Cara walking in her sleep – I’m sure about that. I asked Anna, but she wouldn’t really say. Sometimes she talks a lot – sometimes she won’t talk at all. When she won’t talk, it’s because there is something she is afraid about. She really is afraid of Aunt Olivia, you know, even after being with her all these years. The last thing she wanted was for Nellie to go, but she was afraid of telling her that the crying thing was just Aunt Cara wandering about in an unhappy dream.’