Mr Everton said, ‘Miss Meade-’ and Janice turned. He saw something in her face. He said softly, ‘What is it, Miss Meade? Won’t you tell me?’

She put up her hand to her head and said in a faint, steady voice, ‘It’s so hot in here. Please turn the fire out. I think it would be nice in the garden.’

Ida dropped the catalogue.

‘Jan – aren’t you feeling well?’

‘Not very. I’d like – some air.’ She couldn’t think of anything else, but it wasn’t going to be any good.

Mr Everton did not move.

And then, whilst Ida Mottram’s eyes went round and surprised, something else moved beyond him in the garden. The head of Cyril Bond emerged from a lilac bush. He held a small bow and arrow and his eyes were fixed upon imaginary Indians.

Janice felt a warmth rise up in her. It wasn’t true that she was hot – she was deadly cold. She hadn’t known how cold she was until that warmth touched her, and she knew that it was hope. She began to pray with all her might. The cold was the cold of thinking that she would never see Garth again. It began to go away.

Cyril Bond, glaring at the enemy he meant to scalp, was suddenly aware that he was closer than he had meant to be to Mrs Mottram’s drawing-room windows. He wasn’t really supposed to be there at all, but when you are tracking an enemy you have to follow him. All the same he was too near the window, and – jeepers! – there was Mr Everton no more than a yard inside it. Lucky he wasn’t looking this way, but he might turn round. Cyril prepared for flight.

And then something stopped him. He could see Mr Everton’s back, and Miss Meade standing up in the middle of the room, and Mrs Mottram down by the fire. Miss Meade looked funny somehow. Mr Everton had his hand in his pocket, and then it came out with a pistol in it. Oh, boy! Just for a moment. Cyril felt excited, and then something began to heave inside him and he wondered if he was going to be sick, because Mr Everton was pointing the gun at Miss Meade, and Cyril heard him say, not loud but very distinctly, ‘Don’t move, either of you!’

He must have crawled clear of the lilacs, but he didn’t remember doing it. He was running, sobbing whilst he ran. He thought he was going to be sick, but he kept on running. He barged into Major Albany and gasped through chattering teeth, ‘He’s shooting them! Mr Everton’s shooting them – in Mrs Mottram’s drawing-room! Ow, Major!’

Garth Albany dropped him and ran.

Mr Everton stood with his pistol levelled and considered his plan. If he shot one of them, the other girl would scream. You couldn’t stop a woman screaming unless you gagged her. He couldn’t risk a scream.

He said quite pleasantly, ‘My dear lady, nobody is going to hurt you, but I want a little time to get away.’ Then, as Ida blinked bewildered blue eyes at him, ‘Miss Meade, you’ve got a head on your shoulders. I don’t want to hurt either of you, but you must see that I can’t risk your giving the alarm. If you will do what you are told you will be quite safe. I don’t think Mrs Mottram has as much self-control as you have, and I want you to gag her. There is some nice pink silk in her work-basket there which will do very well. Hurry, please!’

Hurry – She had seen Cyril’s horrified face. She had seen him crawl away. Hurry – He wouldn’t go on crawling – he would run. Hurry – How long to reach Garth? How long for Garth to come? She had got to make time. And Mr Everton had the pistol. He mustn’t have a chance to shoot at Garth.

The scent of the roses came up from the heavy glass bowl.

‘Hurry!’ There was a dangerous urgency in Mr Everton’s voice.

Her head felt stiff. She turned it a little, and saw Ida Mottram kneeling up on the hearth-rug and staring blankly at the pistol. She said in a surprised voice, ‘I don’t understand-’ and Mr Everton said, ‘I’m afraid you will have to be gagged, but nobody is going to hurt you.’

That wasn’t true. Janice looked back at him. For a moment that had nothing to do with time, it was just as if she was looking through a window into his mind. He would make her gag Ida, and then he would kill them both – her first, before she could scream, and then Ida, who couldn’t scream because she would be gagged.

Something in her said ‘No!’ and her mind went cold and clear. She said in a slow, considering voice, ‘I’m sorry – would you mind saying it again? What do you want me to do?’

He began to tell her all over again, but before he had said more than half a dozen words she saw Garth come round the corner of the house. He was running. She picked up the heavy glass bowl with the roses and pitched it at Mr Everton as hard as she could. It wasn’t for nothing that Garth had taught her to throw. It took him full in the face with a scatter of roses and water, and the bowl smashing home. His glasses broke, and he cried out with a horrible animal sound of pain. Ida Mottram screamed at the top of her voice, and for half a split second Janice wondered whether the glass door to the garden was locked, because if it was, Mr Everton was going to kill them all. And then, before she had time to remember that Ida never locked it in the daytime, Garth turned the handle without any sound at all and stepped into the room.

He made a long reach over Mr Everton’s drenched shoulder, took him by the wrist, and jerked his right hand up. The pistol went off, and a little plaster came pattering down on to the table where the bowl had stood.

The next thing she knew, she was at the telephone calling up the police. Mr Everton was on the ground with Garth sitting on him, and Ida was saying between her sobs, ‘Oh, you’ve broken my bowl! And it’s cut his face – it’s bleeding! Oh, poor Mr Everton!’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

A DAY OR two later there was a gathering at the Rectory to bid Miss Silver good-bye – Miss Sophy, Garth, Janice, Sergeant Abbott, Ida Mottram, and Miss Medora Brown who was really Mrs Madoc.

This disclosure had so gone to the Miss Doncasters’ heads that, forgetting their ancient grudge, they were as one woman in saying that they had always felt that there was something strange about her, and as for Mr Everton, if any one had cared to ask their opinion, they would have said at once that the shape of his head was German.

Frank Abbott, who appeared to be off duty, and was sitting reverentially on a fat Victorian stool at Miss Silver’s feet, said in a coaxing voice, ‘Come along – tell us all. You suspected Everton from the first – didn’t you? Why?’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘My dear Frank, you are so impulsive. I did not begin to suspect Mr Everton until Wednesday – the day before we made our expedition to Marbury.’

Frank pricked up his ears.

‘What happened on Wednesday?’

Miss Silver regarded him with complacence.

‘Very little – very little indeed. If I had mentioned it, you would have thought that I was exaggerating the importance of a trifle. When I was waiting in the garden for Miss Fell, who was very kindly taking me to call on the Miss Doncasters, the evacuee child, Cyril Bond, was up on the wall. As you may have observed, he has a considerable thirst for knowledge. He leaned suddenly out between the overhanging branches and enquired, “What does Sprechen sie Deutsch mean?” – mispronouncing the words in a most afflicting manner. However, the sense was clear, and I told him it meant “Do you speak German?” He had apparently picked up the phrase from another evacuee, of Austrian-Jewish extraction.’

Ida Mottram said in a puzzled voice, ‘But why?’

Miss Silver smiled, patted her hand, and continued.

‘Cyril informed me that he had approached Mr Everton before asking me, and that Mr Everton had said he did not know any German. It seemed incredible to me that an educated man who was aware that the language in question was German should have been unacquainted with the meaning of so common a phrase. And I wondered why he should have been at so much pains. After that the circle kept narrowing. I had never been able to believe in Mr Madoc’s guilt, and his testimony cleared Bush. Everything else apart, Mr Madoc could not have killed Ezra Pincott, since he was then in Marbury jail. And Bush could not have killed Mr Harsch if Mr Madoc’s statement was correct.’