“Ah, yes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Well, that is very helpfull.” She turned another page. “We now come to the very curious affair of the snakes.” She gazed with an air of prim intelligence. “What put such an idea into your head, Louisa?”
There was just a moment when nothing happened. Then a faintly startled look touched Louisa Barnet’s eyes, to be immediately displaced by a flash of almost insane anger. She said on a rising note,
“What’s that you said?”
Miss Silver did not raise her voice at all.
“I asked you what made you think of putting those snakes in your mistress’s bed.”
Louisa half got up out of her chair and dropped back again with a hand at her side. She choked and said thickly,
“Me? Why, I’d die for Miss Rachel. She knows it, and you know it!”
“But you put the snakes in her bed, didn’t you? Please don’t think you can lie to me, because I know you did. I can even tell you why. You wanted to make Miss Treherne believe that one of the relations was trying to injure her. You would like to make her believe that it was Miss Caroline, so when you heard that a lot of adders had been found in Mr. Tollage’s hedge you took Miss Caroline’s green scarf out of her room and you went off up in the dusk to see whether you could get hold of one of those snakes. And you had very good luck, because you were able to buy two live ones in a shrimping-net from some boys who didn’t know you. You paid them half-a-crown, and they remembered the green scarf, as you hoped they would. It was very foolish of you to keep the shrimping-net in your room. I found it in the wardrobe, hanging behind your coat. People who are trying to commit murder have to be a great deal more careful than that, Louisa Barnet-if they don’t want to be found out.”
Louisa gave a dreadful gasp. Her head went back against the wall and her eyes stared. For a moment Miss Silver thought that she was going to faint, but she recovered herself. She said in a high, shaking voice,
“You come here prying, and you think you’ve found something out, and you think how clever you’ve been, but it’s not you nor no one else’ll make my Miss Rachel believe I’d harm her! She knows right enough I’d die for her and willing Miss Rachel does! So you’re not so clever after all!”
There was the slightest of taps upon the door, so faint a sound that it was strange to see how it halted Louisa.
Miss Silver said, “Come in,” and the door was opened. It was Rachel Treherne who stood on the threshold in her maize-colored dressing-gown. She stood looking gravely in upon them. Then, as Louisa got to her feet, she came forward and shut the door.
“What is happening?” she said in a cool and quiet voice.
Louisa began to sob.
“What’s brought you here out of your bed, which is where you ought to be? And you’ll only hear lies about me if you listen to her. Are you going to stand there and take a stranger’s word against me that’s loved you these twenty years?”
“What does this mean?” said Rachel. She looked at Miss Silver, and it was Miss Silver who answered.
“It is true that you ought to be in bed. Is it too late to suggest that you go back to your room and allow me to give you an explanation in the morning?”
Rachel shook her head.
“Much too late. There was something I wanted to say to you, but it doesn’t matter. I am afraid I must ask for your explanation now.”
Miss Silver looked at her kindly.
“I would rather have waited, but I see that you must know. Will you not sit down? I will be brief, but I feel obliged to explain myself.”
“Are you going to listen to her lies?” said Louisa roughly.
Rachel rested her hand on the back of the proffered chair.
“I am certainly going to listen,” she said. “You will please not interrupt, Louisa.” She drew her wrap about her and sat down. “Now, Miss Silver.”
Miss Silver sat down too. Louisa put out a hand and took hold of the brass rail at the head of the bed. She was a little behind Rachel and facing Miss Silver, at whom she stared with hard and angry eyes.
Miss Silver addressed herself to Rachel sitting very composed and upright with her hands folded in her lap.
“When you came to see me in London, Miss Treherne, I derived certain very definite impressions from what you told me. I could see that you believed yourself to have been the victim of three murderous attempts, but I did not feel entirely able to take that view myself-not on the evidence you then laid before me. To me it pointed, not necessarily to attempted murder, but rather to the presence in your household of some neurotic person who wished to make you believe that you were in danger, or who was actuated by what, I understand, is now termed exhibitionism. It used to be called showing off.”
“The Lord’s my witness!” Louisa Barnet’s voice shook passionately.
Rachel put up a hand without looking round.
“If you want to stay, Louie, you must be quiet.”
Miss Silver went on as if there had been no interruption.
“It was the second attempt which made me suspect that we had a neurotic to deal with. I do not know why nervously disturbed persons should so commonly set fire to window curtains, but it is quite a constant occurrence. It makes a lot of show and does very little harm. When I discovered from Louisa herself that the fire in this instance occurred at a time when any member of the household would know that it was bound to be discovered by your maid, who would naturally be in attendance to help you dress for dinner-well, if I had needed convincing I should then have been convinced. But I had already made up my mind. I arrived down here to find in Louisa Barnet the very type I was looking for.”
Louisa flung up her hand.
“Miss Rachel-are you going to listen to this?”
“I think we will both listen,” said Rachel.
Miss Silver went on speaking.
“After I had left you, Miss Treherne, I went to Louisa Barnet’s room, and there I found two things which I had expected to find. One of them was a shrimping-net.”
Rachel became so pale that there was no color left in her face at all. She put out a hand is if to ward something off, and said in a whisper,
“Oh, no, no-not Louie!”
“Miss Rachel-”
“It was Louisa Barnet who put the snakes in your bed, Miss Treherne.”
Rachel turned. She moved her chair, and turned in it so that she could see Louisa’s face. She said,
“Did you, Louie?”
Louisa came with a rush and fell at her knees.
“It wasn’t to do you no harm-oh, my dear, it wasn’t! They’ll make you think it was, but it wasn’t. No, she won’t make you think it, because you know my heart. You know-oh, my dear, you know!”
“Why did you do it, Louie?”
Louisa sat back on her heels with the tears running down her face.
“You wouldn’t listen to nothing, and you wouldn’t believe nothing. What could I do?”
“So you put adders in my bed. Get up, Louie, and sit down!” She turned to Miss Silver. “Did she do the other things too?”
“Yes, Miss Treherne, but I do not think she meant you to be hurt. She wanted to frighten you-about your relations, to make you believe they were trying to injure you. She began by writing you anonymous letters. Then she made the stairs slippery, but she was there to warn you not to step on them. She set your curtains on fire, but she put them out again. She made you believe that your chocolates had been poisoned, but I think it was only ammoniated quinine-I found the bottle on the washstand. It is a great pity that you did not have the chocolates analysed, but she was, of course, quite sure that you would not do so.”
“Ammoniated quinine-was that the second thing you found?”
“Yes, Miss Treherne. I had expected it. A very bitter taste, and quite harmless. Louisa did not wish to poison your body-she merely wished to poison your mind. Against your relations. Chiefly, I think, against Miss Caroline, of whom she is jealous.”