Bill said roughly,

‘You won’t face facts. Women never will.’

‘I’m not women-I’m myself. I’m facing the fact that Lila didn’t do it. I don’t care how much evidence there is-she didn’t do it. If you cared for her you’d know that.’

There was a long and rather horrid silence. Ray had the same feeling which had overwhelmed her when in a fit of rage she had thrown a stone through the drawing-room window. She was seven years old again, with that dreadful sense of irrevocability. When you break something, it’s broken, and you can’t put it together again.

In the end Bill said in rather a surprised voice,

‘I suppose I don’t. I suppose I never did.’

Ray couldn’t get her words steady.

‘What-do-you-mean?’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. If we’re talking, let’s talk. Lila was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen, and I went in off the deep end. I didn’t know a thing about her-I didn’t care if there was anything to know. If I’d married her, we’d have been damned unhappy. I’ve been realizing that bit by bit ever since I got home.’

Ray said with shaking lips,

‘Then why did you come down here and start all this?’

‘How do you mean, start all this? I wasn’t going to have her pushed into marrying Whitall if she didn’t want to, and I wasn’t going to be dropped in Lady Dryden’s tactful accidental sort of way as if I was something that hadn’t really happened, or if it had it wasn’t the kind of thing you would talk about in a drawing-room.’

A gust of silent laughter swept Ray’s anger away. She went on shaking, but it was the laughter that was shaking her now.

‘Bill-darling!’

‘Well, that’s how I felt. I was going to bring her to you if she wanted to get away. And if she didn’t want to get away she had got to break off our engagement properly.’

‘And is that what you want her to do now?’

A movement in the darkness, told her that he was shaking his head.

‘No-there’s no need. It’s broken off all right. She doesn’t want me any more than I want her now. She made that quite plain when she turned back on me and flung herself into Adrian ’s arms. He’s a good chap, and he’ll look after her. I should say it was going to be a whole-time job!’ He gave, an odd half-angry laugh. ‘Marian Hardy told me it would be, months ago. I don’t think I’m cut out for being a nursemaid.’

Ray was struggling with the feeling that everything was going to be all right now. It was completely irrational. It was like having balloons under your feet and being floated up into the clouds. Presently the balloons would go off with a bang and let you down. Just at the moment she couldn’t make herself care. She did manage to say that she thought she ought to go in.

Bill acquiesced.

‘My police spy will be getting bored. He might even come along and arrest me just to relieve the monotony.’

‘Bill-you don’t really think-’

‘Well, to tell you the truth, I can’t imagine why they haven’t arrested me already. If Adrian is such a good liar that they really believe it wasn’t Lila who did it because she wasn’t long enough out of his sight, then I don’t see how they could help believing it was me. In any case I don’t see why they haven’t arrested one of us. It looks as if they had got their eye on someone else. Let’s hope they have.’

Ray got out of the car, and they walked up the drive together. Just short of the gravel sweep he put an arm round her and said out of the blue,

‘It makes a lot of difference having you here.’

‘Does it?’

‘Yes. Why are you shaking?’

‘I’m not.’

He said, ‘Liar!’, kissed her somewhere between her cheekbone and her ear, and went off down the drive at a run.

Ray went into the house with stars in her eyes.

CHAPTER XXVI

A deep concern about the case in which she found herself involved and the moral reprobation with which it was natural to her to regard the crime of murder did not prevent Miss Silver from bestowing grateful appreciation upon the comfort with which she was surrounded at Vineyards. She would not have cared to live in so much luxury for any length of time, but she could appreciate and enjoy it for the moment. The newest kind of spring mattress on her bed, the pretty eiderdown, so light, so soft. The warm, even temperature, so different from that of so many country houses where old heating systems and new taxation made even the most modest degree of warmth impossible.

Only too well aware of this, she never came down into the country without due provision. It was her habit to change for the evening into the silk dress worn for best during the previous summer, and silk being no protection against draughts, to reinforce it by the addition of a black velvet coatee with a fur collar. This garment, most warm, most comfortable, was declared by Frank Abbott in his more irreverent moods to be of an origin so obscured by the mists of antiquity as to give it a kind of legendary character. Tonight, having arrayed herself in navy blue with a pattern of little yellow and green objects which resembled tadpoles, she fastened it at the neck with her bog-oak rose and added a string of small gold filigree beads. The coatee hung in a spacious mahogany wardrobe upon a plump hanger covered with pink satin, but she would not require it. Not only was there this delightfully even temperature everywhere, but there would also be a log fire in the drawing-room, and the brocaded curtains, lined and interlined, could be trusted to exclude the least suspicion of a draught.

To some the thought of such an evening as lay before her might have been daunting, but Miss Silver was able to look forward to it with interest. Here was none of that deep personal grief which would at once have aroused her sympathy. Her mind would be free to deal with the many interesting aspects which the case presented. Whilst regretting that she had as yet had no opportunity of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Considine, Professor Richardson, and Mr. Waring, she was sure of ample food for thought in the opportunities which this evening would provide for a closer study of the household at Vineyards.

Lady Dryden, cold, proud, dominant, yet so unexpectedly communicative. A contradiction of type is always of interest. Mr. Haile, with his air of being so very much at home. Lila Dryden, lovely and helpless. The dark girl, Ray Fortescue, quick with feeling and impulse, yet under steady control. Miss Whitaker-she thought a good deal about Miss Whitaker. People do not shutter every window and bolt every door if they have nothing to hide. Mr. Grey-it required no great degree of perception to discover his devotion to Lila Dryden. She thought it was no new thing. Since he had known her from a child, it would be natural for him to have loved her with an increasing steadiness and warmth. She had not spent an hour in their company without discerning that the link between them was a strong one.

The domestic staff-two girls from the village and Mary Good from Emsworth. None of the three in the house at the time of the murder, since they all went off duty at nine. Of course people were not always where they were supposed to be, nor did they always remain there, but the police would at least have made certain that the two girls had reached their homes, and that Mary had caught the Emsworth bus.

She passed from them to the Marshams-butler and cook. Mrs. Marsham she had not seen. She knew nothing about her. She might be fair or dark, large or small, temperamental or calm. Beyond the fact that she was Marsham’s wife and an extremely good cook, her personality was a blank. Of Marsham, observed during lunch and occasionally encountered since, she did not feel that she knew much more. He had the face and port which would have gone very well with episcopal robes. A mitre would have suited him. The pastoral crook would have been held with dignity by that large and carefully tended hand. His step, like that of so many heavy men, was light. His voice was soft, his manner irreproachable. But when you had observed these things there appeared to be no more to observe. The attributes of his office wrapped him about like the fabled cloak of darkness. Behind it the man, as distinct from the butler, walked invisible.