CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hilary gave it up. She felt as small and mean as one of the little scuttling things that you turn up under a stone in the garden, but she gave it up. The urge to follow Mrs. Mercer and find out whether she was out of her mind or not failed and faded away before the prospect of a fourteen-mile walk in the dark along a country road which she did not know in search of a cottage which might not even exist and a woman who might be anywhere else in England. She had lunched on milk and a bun and she wanted her tea. You can’t buy much tea with sevenpence halfpenny, of which twopence has to be reserved for a bus fare at the other end, but she did her best with it.

Sitting in the train which was taking her back to London, she found that her opinion of herself was rising. Perhaps it was the tea, perhaps it was merely the revival of common sense which made her feel that she had done the right thing. Silly to lose herself in dark lanes, and impossible to frighten Marion by not getting home till all hours. Tonight of all nights Marion would want someone to come home to. It always took her days to get over one of those tormenting visits to Geoff. No, she was doing perfectly right to come back. Where she had been a stupid ass was in starting to go down to Ledlington in the afternoon. The thing to do was to get down there bright and early, say not later than ten o’clock, and so have plenty of time to look for the cottage and Mrs. Mercer by daylight. Horrid beyond words to think of being benighted, and hearing perhaps a footstep following her in the dark as Mercer had followed her this morning. She hadn’t liked it very much then, but what had been just vaguely unpleasant in a Putney street by daylight took on a nightmarish quality when she thought of it happening in the black dark without a house in call.

These arguments placated her conscience easily. The cottage wouldn’t run away. If Mrs. Mercer was there, she wouldn’t run away either. Tomorrow she would pawn Aunt Arabella’s ring and go down to Ledlington on the proceeds. It was the most hideous ring Hilary had ever seen in her life – a very large, badly-cut ruby practically buried in enormous heavy masses of gold. It weighed like lead and was quite unwearable, but it could always be trusted to produce a fiver at a pinch. Hilary decided that this was definitely a pinch. She planned to hire a bicycle and so escape an interminable search on foot. And that being off her mind, she went to sleep and slept peacefully all the way to town. She had a dream about Henry -a very encouraging dream – in which he told her that he had been in the wrong, and that his only wish was to be forgiven. This agreeably improbable picture was extremely solacing, but even in a dream this contrite and humble Henry seemed a little too good to be true. She awoke with a start, and dreamed no more.

Marion Grey came home that night in a state which made Hilary feel thankful that she was there and not in Ledlington. Marion was cold, strained, and exhausted beyond belief. She fainted twice before Hilary could get her to bed, and when there just lay and stared at the ceiling in wordless misery. There was no question of going down to Ledlington next day, or for the rest of the week. Marion was ill and had to be nursed, coaxed into taking food, petted and cajoled out of the thoughts which were consuming her. She must rest, but she mustn’t be left alone. She must be talked to, read to, interested, and fed. Aunt Emmeline sent a cheque, but Hilary had to do the work – keep the flat, buy and cook the food, and look after Marion. For the time at least, Ledlington was off the map and the Mercer’s didn’t exist.

It was during this time that Henry Cunningham paid a second visit to Miss Silver. He was rung up and invited to call. The gentle, precise tones of her telephone voice gave him no clue as to whether she had any news for him, or whether she had merely sent for him in order to tell him that there was no news to be had.

She received him with the same slight inclination of the head as before, and she appeared to be knitting the same white woolly sock. When she was seated she took out a tape-measure and did some minute measuring with it. Then, as she rolled up the yard measure again, she said in a pleased, brisk voice,

‘Well, Captain Cunningham, I have some news for you.’

Henry, not so pleased, was a good deal taken aback, and showed it. What was going to be raked up now? News on a detective’s lips was unlikely to be anything pleasant. He felt a very active impatience with the Everton case, and a very decided reluctant to hear what Miss Silver’s news might be. Those indeterminate eyes of hers rested upon him mildly. She said in her ladylike voice,

‘Something rather surprising has come to light, Captain Cunningham. I felt that you should know about it at once.’

With a good deal of apprehension Henry said, ‘Yes?’ He could not for the life of him think of anything else to say – and felt a fool, and feeling a fool, felt cross.

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

‘Decidedly surprising, I thought. But you will judge for yourself. After you had left me the other day I put on my hat and went to Somerset House. You were not able to supply me with Mrs. Mercer’s maiden name, but I thought I would see if I could trace her marriage. In a case of this sort previous history is all important. Her Christian names, one unusual in itself, and the two certainly unusual in juxtaposition, encouraged me to hope for success. It was unlikely that there would be more than one Louisa Kezia who had married an Alfred Mercer.’

‘Yes?’ said Henry again.

Miss Silver paused for a moment to count her stitches.

‘Ten – twelve – fourteen,’ she murmured. ‘Knit one, slip one, knit two together – ’

The sock rotated, and a fresh needle stabbed into the wool.

‘Well, Captain Cunningham, fortune -or I should prefer to say providence – favoured me. I was able to trace the marriage. Mrs. Mercer’s maiden name appears to have been Anketell – Louisa Kezia Anketell. The uncommon surname ought to make it easy to trace her antecedents. But there is more than that. There is a circumstance connected with the marriage itself -a circumstance connected with the date of the marriage.’

‘Well?’ said Henry Cunningham. He was not cross any longer, he was excited. He did not know what he expected to hear, but he was impatient to hear it.

Miss Silver stopped knitting for a moment.

‘The date gives food for thought, Captain Cunningham. Alfred Mercer and Louisa Kezia Anketell were married on the seventeenth of July, Nineteen-thirty-five.’

‘What?’ said Henry.

‘The seventeenth of July,’ said Miss Silver – ‘the day after Mr. Everton’s death.’

‘What?’ said Henry again.

Miss Silver resumed her knitting.

Think it over, Captain Cunningham. I told you it provided food for thought.’

‘The day after James Everton’s death? But they had been with him for over a year as a married couple.’

Miss Silver primmed her lips.

‘Immorality is not confined to the upper classes,’ she said.

Henry got up from his chair and stood there looking down at her across the table.

‘The day after James Everton’s death – ’ he repeated. “What does that mean?’

‘What does it seem to you to mean, Captain Cunningham?’

Henry was no longer frowning. This was too serious an occasion. He looked most seriously perturbed as he said,

‘A wife can’t be made to give evidence against her husband – ’

Miss Silver nodded.

‘Quite correct. That is one of the occasions on which the law regards husband and wife as one, and a man cannot be forced to incriminate himself, though he may make a confession, and a wife may give evidence if she wishes to. The law, if I may say so, is extremely inequitable in its treatment of married people. It regards them as one in such a case as this, and they pay income tax as one person, thus bringing both incomes on to a higher rate of taxation, yet when it comes to death duties the spouses are regarded as two, and the survivor is mulcted.’