‘Well, then I got to know that Alfred was seeing Mr. Bertie on the quiet. We met him once when we was out together, and he stopped and spoke, and called me Louie same as he used to when he was a boy and come into my kitchen coaxing for titbits. I thought to myself “He wants something now,” but I didn’t know what it was. I said so to Alfred, and he told me to shut my mouth.

‘Mr. James Everton didn’t like Mr. Bertie. He was all for his other nephew Mr. Geoffrey Grey that was in the business – chartered accountants they called themselves. I don’t know how it come about, but Mr. Bertie found out something his uncle done wrong in the way of his business. I don’t know the ins and outs, but from what Alfred told me he’d obliged a friend over his accounts, and it would have got him into trouble with the law if so be it had come out. Mr. Geoffrey didn’t know nothing about it, and his uncle was mortal afraid in case he’d get to know, because he thought the world of Mr. Geoff.

‘It came so that Mr. Everton agreed to see Mr. Bertie and talk it over. Mr. Bertie come down from Scotland on purpose. That was the fifteenth of July, the day before Mr. Everton was killed. Mr. Bertie come to dinner, and afterwards they went into the study and talked. I knew there was something up, but I didn’t know what it was, not then. I went upstairs, and when I come across the hall I could hear Mr. Everton shouting as if he was clean out of his senses. And all Alfred would say was that we’d be made for life, and he kissed me, which he hadn’t done for a long time, and said he’d given in our notice to be married, and told me to buy a new bonnet and make myself smart. I didn’t know nothing then – I swear I didn’t.’

‘Blackmail!’ said Henry suddenly. ‘By gum! That’s why he altered his will! He was in the soup, and Bertie blackmailed him into making a will in his favour!’

‘Let her go on,’ said Hilary in a whisper – ‘let her go on.’

Miss Silver nodded, and went on reading.

‘Next day Mr. Everton wasn’t well. Alfred told me he’d gone to alter his will, and he was to let Mr. Bertie know as soon as it was done. “And that’s a bit of luck for us all,” he said. And then he told me he’d asked Mrs. Thompson in to supper that night. It was the sixteenth of July and a hot sunny day. Mr. Everton stayed shut up in the study. There was to be cold supper in the dining-room, and he’d go in when he wanted to. At a quarter to seven Alfred had me up into our room and told me Mr. Everton had shot himself. He said nobody mustn’t know till after Mrs. Thompson had been in the house long enough to clear us of having a hand in it. He said they’d put it on us if we were alone in the house when he done it. He said Mrs. Thompson being deaf wouldn’t know whether there was a shot or not, and he told me what I was to do and what I was to say. He swore if I went from it he’d cut my heart out, and he took out his knife and showed it to me, and said all the police in the world couldn’t save me, and he made me go down on my knees and swear. And I was to tell Mrs. Thompson I’d got the toothache to cover up the way I was -after what he’d said. Mrs. Thompson come in at half-past seven. I don’t know how I got through. Alfred told her I was near off my head with the pain, and she never doubted nothing. At eight o’clock I went through with some plates. I put them in the dining-room and come back. Half-way across the hall I could have dropped, for I heard Mr. Everton talking in the study. He was talking on the telephone – and I’d been thinking him dead this hour past! I didn’t seem I could move. He said, “Come as soon as you can, Geoff,” and he rang off.

‘The door was the least thing ajar, and I could hear quite plain. I heard him go across the room, and I heard him scrape his chair like he always done pulling it up to the desk. And then he called out sharp, “Who are you? What do you want?” And so true as I’m a sinful woman I heard Mr. Bertie say, “Well, you see I’ve come back,” and Mr. Everton said, “What are you doing in those clothes, you mountebank?” Mr. Bertie laughed and said, “Private business,” and Mr. Everton said, “What business?” I was right by the door, and I looked through the crack. Mr. Everton was sitting at his desk very pale and angry, and Mr. Bertie was over by the window. He’d got overalls on like they wear on their motor-bikes, and a leather cap, and the goggles pushed up out of the way. I wouldn’t hardly have known him if it hadn’t been for his voice, but it was him all right. Mr. Everton he said, “What business?” and Mr. Bertie put his hand in his pocket and said “This”. I didn’t see what was in his hand, but it was Mr. Geoffrey’s pistol that he left here when he got married, like he swore at the trial. I couldn’t see what it was, but Mr. Everton seen it, and he started to get up, and he called out loud and said, “My own nephew!” and Mr. Bertie shot him.

‘I didn’t seem I could move. Mr. Bertie come over and shut the door and I heard the key turn in the lock, and then there was a kind of a soft sound that was him wiping the handle and wiping the key. And he must have wiped the pistol, too, because they didn’t find any fingermarks on it, only poor Mr. Geoffrey’s later on.

‘I come over so frightened I couldn’t stay no longer. I got back to the kitchen and sat down by the table and put my head in my hands. I hadn’t been gone no time to speak of. Alfred was there with Mrs. Thompson. He’d heard the shot, but she hadn’t heard nothing along of being so deaf. He shouted in her ear that I was pretty near off my head with the toothache, and then he come over to me and we spoke together quiet. I said, “He’s killed him -Mr. Bertie’s killed him.” And he said, “That’s where you’re wrong, Louie. It’s Mr. Geoffrey that’s a-going to kill him in a quarter of an hour’s time from now, and don’t you forget it.” ’

Miss Silver looked up from the neatly typed copy of Mrs. Mercer’s scrappy, blotted confession.

‘You will notice the discrepancies in the poor creature’s statement. She says Mercer led her to believe that Mr. Everton had committed suicide, but it is obvious that she had been primed beforehand with the evidence which she gave to the police on their arrival. Two such careful conspirators as Bertie Everton and Alfred Mercer would never have risked taking her by surprise in the manner she describes here. It is quite certain that she must have known that Mr. Everton was to be murdered, and that she had been well rehearsed in the part she was to play – she admits it with one breath and denies it with the next. There is of course no doubt that she acted under extreme intimidation.

‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘What I don’t see is how they would have got Geoffrey Grey there if Mr. Everton hadn’t telephoned for him.’

Miss Silver nodded.

‘An interesting point, Captain Cunningham. I think it is clear that Mr. Everton was beginning to repent of having given way to blackmail. He intended to confide in Mr. Grey and enlist his help. He had been thrown off his balance by a sudden shock, but he was making a struggle to regain it.’

‘Yes, I suppose it was like that. But that’s not what I meant. The plan was to implicate Geoffrey Grey. Mr. Everton played into their hands by telephoning for him, but how did they know he had telephoned, and what would they have done if he hadn’t sent for Geoffrey?’

‘Exactly,’ said Miss Silver. ‘The Superintendent raised those very points. Mrs. Mercer says that Bertie Everton overheard his uncle’s conversation on the telephone. It was a piece of luck for them and reduced the risks they were running. Bertie Everton, who is an excellent mimic, had intended to ring Mr. Grey up after the murder. He would have imitated his uncle’s voice and have said very much what his uncle did actually say. It was essential to the plot that Geoffrey Grey should find the body and handle the pistol.’

‘They couldn’t be sure that he would pick it up,’ said Hilary. (Poor Geoff -walking into a trap! Poor Geoff! Poor Marion!)