“No. It’s her late night. She isn’t home.”
They were standing just inside the door. As he turned to shut it, she said,
“I wanted to see you too. I wanted to ask you something.”
He turned back, a little surprised.
“Well, let’s go into the drawing-room. I can’t stay, so I won’t take my coat off.”
She stood between him and the door of the room where Philip was.
“Do you know a shop called Félise?”
Surprise became astonishment.
“My dear Lyn! What is this-a guessing game? I really wanted to say something-”
She came in with a sort of quiet determination.
“I think you do know it.”
“What do you mean?”
She said in a clear, steady tone,
“I followed her, you know. Not because I thought there was anything wrong. I just didn’t want her to think-that doesn’t matter now, does it. I heard her say, ‘You might as well let me write to Nellie Collins. She is quite harmless.’ And you said, ‘That isn’t for you to say.’ ”
He stood where he was, looking at her aghast.
“Lyn-have you gone mad?”
She shook her head gently.
“I didn’t know it was you at the time-I didn’t know until this afternoon when you said the same thing again. You said it to me-in the same kind of whispering voice, ‘That is not for you to say.’ I guessed then. Afterwards I was sure. I told Miss Silver and the police about what I heard, but I didn’t tell them about you. I shall have to tell them, but I thought I would tell you first, because we have been friends.”
As soon as she had said the last word she knew that it wasn’t true. This man had never been a friend. He was a stranger, and dangerous-she was in very great danger. Through all that had happened in the last few hours thought had been fixed and rigid. Now, under the impact of danger, it swung free. She cried out, and her cry was loud enough to bring Philip Jocelyn round the corner of the L to the half-open door, and to arouse the large constable from the consideration of what a word of four letters suggesting a light could be. He got himself out of his chair and opened the door, to see a strange man in an overcoat holding Miss Armitage by the shoulder with his left hand, whilst with the other he held a revolver to her head.
The same spectacle had halted Philip Jocelyn. Pelham Trent, looking in that direction, was aware of him, but not of the constable, his attention being a good deal taken up by the emergency and the brilliant ideas which it suggested. He said harshly to Philip,
“Jocelyn, if you move, I’ll shoot her-and with your revolver! You damned fool-to think that you could lay a trap like this for me! You’ve just played into my hands, the two of you, and this is what is going to happen. I’d like you to know, because I’ve had it in for you for quite a time. You think a lot of yourself, don’t you? You think a lot of your name and your family. Well, you’re going to be a headline in every dirty rag in the country-‘Suicide Pact in a Flat-Sir Philip Jocelyn and Girl Friend.’ Perhaps you can imagine the letterpress for yourself. I must just get a little closer to you to make it really convincing. Come along, Lyn!”
He began to walk across the hall, pushing her before him. She could feel the cold muzzle of the revolver against her right temple.
This was on the outside. She knew about it, but it had very little to do with what was in her mind. There, in a very clear light, she saw and knew that she and Philip were on the edge of death, that if she moved or tried to pull away she would be dead at once. And then he would shoot Philip. But he wouldn’t shoot her first if he could help it, because the moment he fired Philip would rush him. She didn’t know what the constable was doing. She couldn’t see the kitchen door. Even if he had heard her call out, she would be dead before he reached them.
She saw all these things together in the bright light and without any passage of time. She wasn’t frightened, because it was rather like being dead already. From somewhere outside time she saw that there would be a moment when the revolver would swing away from her and aim at Philip. She held herself like a coiled spring and waited for that moment.
When it came, she caught with both her hands at Pelham Trent’s right arm, dragging it down, and in the same instant Philip sprang. There was the cracking sound of a shot, very loud in the little hall. Glass splintered somewhere, a loose rug slid under Pelham’s feet, and they were all down together. Lyndall crawled out between flailing arms and legs, stumbled up to her feet, and saw the constable kneeling on Pelham’s chest whilst Philip held his ankles. The revolver stuck out from a rolled-up corner of the rug. Lyndall went and picked it up. Her knees were dithering and her mind shook. The mirror over the blanket-chest was broken, and there were little bright bits of glass everywhere.
She went into the drawing-room and pushed the revolver down behind one of the sofa cushions. When she came back Philip looked over his shoulder and said,
“We want something to tie him up with. Those things that loop the curtains back will do. Hurry!”
CHAPTER 37
The Chief Inspector looked at Miss Silver across his office table. His manner combined modest self-satisfaction and honest pride with just a dash of official dignity. His florid complexion glowed. He said in a hearty voice,
“Well, Miss Silver, I thought you’d like to know that we’ve got it all cleared up-no untidy ends.”
Miss Silver, sitting rather primly upright with her hands in a small round muff of the same date as her fur tie, gave a slight cough and said,
“That must be extremely satisfactory to you.”
“Well, I like to get a job finished up. And I won’t say you haven’t been quite a help. I wouldn’t have liked anything to have happened to that girl-she’s a plucky little thing. And I don’t mind saying I shouldn’t have thought of giving her police protection if you hadn’t put me up to it. You see, you’ve got a pull on us poor policemen. Young ladies don’t come and cry on our shoulders and tell us all their secrets like they seem to do with you-though I have got daughters of my own.”
Sergeant Abbott, propping the mantelpiece and keeping most of the fire off the room, was understood to suggest that Miss Silver should impart her recipe. He got a frown from his Chief Inspector and a recommendation to use the good old English word receipt, if that was what he meant.
“That’s what my mother called it, and what was good enough for her is good enough for me. And what’s good enough for me is good enough for you, my lad, and don’t you forget it! Frenchified words may be all very well in France, but I won’t have them here in my office. And I’ll tell you what I’ve come to notice-that you give way to using them when you’re a bit above yourself. I don’t say you haven’t done a good job of work over this case, because you have-but no need to go up in the air and talk like a foreigner. And now, if you’ll stop interrupting, I’ll get on with telling Miss Silver what we’ve turned up.”
Miss Silver inclined her head.
“I should be most grateful, Chief Inspector.”
Solidly filling his chair, a hand on either knee, Lamb spoke.
“He’d covered his tracks very cleverly of course-these gentry do. And there must have been people helping him we haven’t got hold of, and can’t get hold of. As a matter of fact we shouldn’t have got hold of him if Miss Lyndall Armitage hadn’t recognized his voice when he used the same words to her that she’d heard him use to Annie Joyce. And that was a thing she didn’t tell you, did she?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“No-she kept that back. She has told me about it since. It was extremely unwise of her, and it very nearly cost her her life-and Sir Philip’s. But when I saw her she was, I think, still resisting her own conviction. You see, he had been a friend-a very much trusted friend. I think she had some lingering hope that when she put it to him he would be able to restore that trust. It is not easy for a girl to give a friend up to the police, but she ran a most terrible risk. I am glad that the constable was there, and that he was so prompt and helpful-though it was, I understand, Miss Armitage’s own presence of mind which saved them all. But pray continue.”