‘He would not have-’

Ray’s colour rose.

‘Well, I was going to say something, but I had better not. It wasn’t anything really-just the sort of thing boys do. I wouldn’t like him to get into trouble.’

Miss Silver coughed gently.

‘He was so worried? He did something that might get him into trouble, but it wasn’t anything serious?’

‘Oh, no.’ Ray sounded distressed. ‘I oughtn’t to have said anything. I thought I had stopped in time, but you’re so quick.’

Miss Silver looked at her gravely.

‘I really think you had better tell me what you mean. If it has nothing to do with the case in which we are both so much interested, I will regard it as a confidence. If on the other hand it has to do with that case, you would be very unwise to withhold it, and you will not expect me to do so.’

‘Oh, but it isn’t anything like that-it isn’t really. I’d better tell you, or you will be imagining all sorts of things. It’s only that Frederick slips out of the house sometimes after he has finished his work and goes down to see Gloria. I know he did it once when they had had a quarrel and he wanted to make it up, and another time when he thought she was going to run away. You won’t say anything, will you? He really was dreadfully upset, because he said Gloria is only a kid and she wouldn’t know how to look after herself. He says his aunt is quite kind and the stepfather isn’t a bad sort, but he and Gloria have rows, and then Frederick has to soothe her down and stop her from doing anything silly.’

Miss Silver gazed abstractedly at little Josephine’s vest, which was now between four and five inches in length.

‘You interest me extremely,’ she said. ‘Since Frederick has been so informative, may I ask whether he mentioned at what time he was in the habit of getting out of the house?’

Ray had a rueful expression.

‘I expect it would be pretty late.’

‘After Marsham had made his rounds?’

‘Well, I expect so.’

‘And Gloria-he could hardly expect to find her up at such an hour.’

Ray coloured high.

‘Oh, Miss Silver, I do feel such a beast, giving the poor child away like this. But I’m sure there wasn’t anything wrong-I’m really sure there wasn’t. He’s just a boy, and frightfully romantic and very fond of her. And there’s an apple tree-he gets into the crotch about a yard away from her window and they talk. The aunt and the stepfather are on the other side of the house, and anyhow nothing wakes them. But there’s no harm in it-or he wouldn’t have told me, would he?’

Miss Silver gave a thoughtful cough.

‘Did Frederick happen to mention whether he was out of this house on the night of the murder?’

The question hit Ray like a blow. Afterwards she couldn’t think why it had been left for Miss Silver to ask it. Her mind had been taken up with Bill, with Lila, with herself, and with the relation in which they stood to each other, and she to each of them. Frederick ’s artless tale had remained upon the very surface of her thought. She did not connect it with herself, with Bill, or with Lila. It was like something she had read in a book picked up to pass the time. And then all at once it was real, it linked up. She caught her breath and stammered,

‘No-no-I never thought-he didn’t say-’

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

‘I was wondering if it was he who left the door to the terrace unfastened,’ she said.

CHAPTER XXXV

As soon as the first curve in the drive took her safely out of sight of the house Ray started the kind of broken run which can be kept up for quite a long time-three steps running and two walking. It gets you along very fast indeed, without making you too much out of breath. It wouldn’t do Bill any harm to wait, as she had already reflected, but she didn’t want to miss any of their time together. They were going to have a coffee at the Boar. Mrs. Reed made marvellous coffee-at least Bill said she did. If it had been bilgewater, Ray wouldn’t really have cared, only she wasn’t going to arrive all out of breath and have Bill think she had been in a hurry. He probably only wanted to talk about Lila anyhow.

She came out of the drive and ran right into him. No car this time, just Bill on his own large feet. She really did run into him, because he stepped out suddenly from behind the gatepost and she couldn’t help it. She had a bright colour and she was out of breath. He hadn’t any business to lurk behind gateposts and catch her out when they had agreed to meet at the Boar. If he had stayed put, she could have walked the last hundred yards or so and given a satisfactory performance of the girl who always keeps men waiting. And now all she could do after blundering into him was to give a gasp like a fish and say,

‘Miss Silver kept me.’

It was a lamentable business. Any girl of sixteen could have done better than that. At sixteen she could have done better herself. What undermines you is caring, and at sixteen she didn’t give a damn.

With all this going through her mind in rather a horrid flash, she was aware of Bill gripping her by the arm as if he was holding her off or up and frowning with a good deal of intensity. He gripped, he frowned, and said in a short, angry voice,

‘You can’t come to the Boar!’

‘Why can’t I?’

‘That’s why I walked up instead of waiting for you.’

‘What’s the good of saying “That’s why”, as if you had told me something when you haven’t?’

‘But I have. You can’t come to the Boar. I told you so.’

Ray stamped her foot on a bit of loose gravel. It hurt, but she had only herself to thank for it, which naturally made her feel angrier with Bill. It was extraordinary what a relief it was to be angry. It took away the frightened feeling which she had about him all the time now.

He was still holding her by the arm. But as the sound of a car came to them from the road, he swung her about and walked her quickly in at the gate and out of sight behind a large evergreen bush. She began to say, ‘What on earth-’ when he dropped her arm and interrupted.

‘You’d better not be seen with me-either here, or at the Boar, or anywhere else. If you had any sense you would have thought of that for yourself. You don’t belong in this mess, and the sooner you get out of it the better. There’s an afternoon train at about two-thirty-you had better catch it and clear out.’

‘I like that-when you asked me to come down!’

‘I know I did, and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. I wasn’t thinking about you, I was thinking about Lila.’

All Ray’s flame died down. She said in a quiet, careful voice,

‘Lila is still here, you know. There’s just as much reason for me to be with her as there was, isn’t there?’

‘If they arrest her, you won’t be able to be with her, and you’d better clear out before it happens or you’ll be getting mixed up with it.’

She said, her voice dragging,

‘Don’t be a fool, Bill. Has anything happened?’

‘Not yet, but it’s going to. I don’t know about Lila, but I’m pretty sure I am going to be arrested before the day is out. It’s all over the village that there’s a big man coming down from Scotland Yard, and that Abbott has had it put across him for not getting on with it and arresting us.’

Ray felt as if she had come a long way and got nowhere. If they arrested Bill, there might be an endless way to go-a lonely, endless way. She had to force her voice to make it sound at all.

‘How do you know?’

‘I heard two girls talking. I was in my room, and they were down in the garden. One of them is a niece of Mrs. Reed’s. She said it was ever so dreadful, wasn’t it-and I didn’t look like a murderer, but you couldn’t always tell, could you? And the other said the piece about a Chief Inspector coming down from Scotland Yard, and she knew that was right because Lizzie Holden told her, and she had it from Mrs. Newbury only she promised she wouldn’t say a word, and she wasn’t telling anyone but me, because she knew I was safe-and so forth and so on.’