Miss Silver stood grave and prim beside the door whilst they waited for Abbott and Bell. The Inspector leaned his big shoulder up against the jamb, his face heavy and stern.
Two or three minutes can seem a very long time. A cold draught came up the well of the stairs, bringing with it a smell of cellar-damp and mist. Then the lift shot up and the two men emerged from it, Bell first, with the key, his face puckered, and his hand not quite as steady as usual, because if they couldn’t get an answer out of No. 4 there must be something very badly wrong. Miss Garside, she’d never go out at this time in the evening with a fog coming up like it was.
They opened the door and went in.
Two doors faced them. The sitting-room door on the right was open, the bedroom door on the left closed but not latched. They went into the sitting-room and found it empty and full of shadows. It was not dark outside yet, but with the mist hanging like a curtain at the windows there was very little light to see by.
The Inspector pulled down the switch and a ceiling light came on. There was no sign of the tea-tray which had been set two and a half hours before. The tray was back in the kitchen, the teapot washed and put away, the cup and saucer clean and in its place. The biscuits, which had been laid out upon a plate, were back in their airtight tin. Everything was in order, and there was no one in the room.
It was Miss Silver whose eyes picked up a single crumb upon the hearth-rug. She pointed it out to the Inspector. He looked round with some impatience.
“A crumb? Well, I daresay! What of it?”
Miss Silver gave her slight cough.
“She had had her tea. It is a biscuit crumb, and you can see that a stool has stood just here on the hearth-rug. That stool over there by the wall, I should say.”
He looked at her sharply, grunted, and went through the hall to the bedroom door. After knocking on it he pushed it open and went in, switching on the light. Abbott and Miss Silver followed him, but old Bell stayed in the hall and said his prayers. He didn’t know what things were coming to-he didn’t indeed. It wasn’t what he was accustomed to, and he didn’t know what to do.
Inside the light shone down upon a clean, bare room. What furniture there was stood stiffly in place. The bed with its old-fashioned brass knobs and rails faced the door. The counterpane had been neatly folded back and the faded eiderdown pulled up to cover Miss Garside to the waist. She lay there fully dressed in an attitude of profound repose, her left arm bent with the hand lying across her breast, the right arm stretched out straight.
Lamb stood over her, frowning, and spoke her name.
“Miss Garside-”
His deep voice filled the room but did not touch the stillness on the bed. With a sudden ejaculation his big hand went out to the left wrist. His fingers felt for a pulse, and did not find it.
He laid the hand back again, rapped out an order to Abbott, and began to look about him. On a table beside the bed there was a tumbler with a little water in it. Between the tumbler and the edge of the table a small glass bottle with one or two white tablets.
Lamb stooped to read the label and spoke over his shoulder to Miss Silver.
“Foreign stuff,” he said-“more in your line than mine. German, isn’t it?”
She stooped as he had done.
“Yes, German-morphia tablets. You could get them in Germany up to a few years ago.”
“Had she been in Germany, do you happen to know?”
“Yes. I believe she used to travel a good deal. Mrs. Lemming will be able to tell you about that. They were friendly.”
The pause which followed left the air so still that Frank Abbott’s voice came to them from the next room-no words, but just his quiet, unhurried voice speaking to Scotland Yard.
After minute Lamb said,
“The police surgeon will be along, but there isn’t anything he can do-she’s dead all right. Well, Miss Silver, there’s our case, finished and done with.”
“You think so?”
He humped a massive shoulder.
“What else is there to think? It happened the way I said, and this proves it. She was on the rocks, didn’t know where to turn for money, and went up to No. 8 when she thought Miss Roland was out. She’d seen her go down in the lift with her sister, you’ll remember. Well, she went to the basement for the key which that old fool Bell had hanging up where anyone could get at it. Miss Crane saw her coming back.”
Miss Silver said in a slow, reluctant voice,
“Mrs. Smollett says that Mrs. Lemming tried to get Miss Garside on the telephone three times between five-and-twenty to nine and some time after the quarter.”
Lamb nodded.
“Well, there you are-that’s when she went up to No. 8. There’s no way of knowing just what happened, but we know that Miss Roland had come back to the flat at half past seven after seeing her sister off. She catches Miss Garside, there’s a row, she turns round to go to the telephone and call up the police, and Miss Garside snatches the statuette off the mantelpiece and lays her out. After that she’s got to get away, and get away quick. She drops the weapon on the couch, changes the rings-she’d reckoned nobody would spot that-and she makes off, leaving the door ajar behind her, either because she’s in a panic or because she’s clever enough to see that with the door open it might be anybody’s job. First thing this morning she goes out as bold as brass and sells the ring. I don’t know when she begins to find out that she hasn’t brought it off. Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Smollett had both tumbled to the fact that the ring found in Miss Roland’s bathroom wasn’t the right one. Mrs. Smollett recognised it as Miss Garside’s. Well, you couldn’t keep that woman from talking if you gagged her. I suppose she let on, and here we are. Miss Garside would know very well that she hadn’t a chance once we’d spotted the exchange of the rings. It’s as clear a case as you want.”
Miss Silver’s small neat features were set in an obstinate gravity. She gave a very slight cough and said,
“You have not thought that she may have been murdered?”
Lamb stared at her.
“No, I haven’t,” he said bluntly.
“Will you think about it, Inspector? I should like to urge you to do so.”
He met her earnest look with a frown.
“On what grounds?”
She began to speak in a steady, quiet voice, and in a manner at once firm and deferential.
“I do not feel that the central fact of the case is explained by the theory you have put forward, Inspector. I have all along felt that this central fact was not robbery but blackmail. Your theory leaves this quite untouched. Mrs. Underwood was being blackmailed.”
Lamb nodded.
“By Carola Roland.”
Miss Silver looked at him.
“I am not entirely sure of that.”
“Why, Mrs. Underwood’s letter was in her possession. We found it in her bag.”
“Where she had allowed Mrs. Underwood to see it on Monday evening whilst they were playing bridge in the Willards’ flat. To my mind that makes it impossible that Miss Roland herself was the blackmailer. We have to look deeper than that. If she had been blackmailing Mrs. Underwood, everything would depend on her keeping her identity a secret, yet she carried the letter carelessly in her bag and allowed it to be seen. This would be in keeping with the spiteful trait in her character which led her to pay off an old score against Major Armitage by a pretence that she was his wife. She knew very well that such a claim could not cause more than a few hours’ annoyance, but she seems to have thought it worth while. In the same way she may have enjoyed upsetting Mrs. Underwood, who had shown rather plainly that she did not wish for more than a casual acquaintance.”
Lamb wore a good-tempered smile.
“You should write one of these detective novels, Miss Silver. I’m a plain policeman, and facts are good enough for me. Mrs. Underwood wrote a letter in reply to a demand for blackmail, and that letter was found in Miss Roland’s bag. That’s enough for me, and I think it would be enough for a jury. You know, what’s wrong with you amateurs is that you can’t believe in the plain facts of a plain case-they’re not good enough for you. You’ve got to have a case all tangled up with fancy trimmings before you can believe in it.”