“I do hope you won’t mind, but I know why you are here.”

Whilst she was settling herself Miss Silver had reached for her knitting-bag. Taking out the almost completed shawl, she disposed its pale blue fluffiness upon her lap and began to knit. In reply to Annabel Scott’s “I know why you are here” she looked at her with grave enquiry and said,

“Mr. Bellingdon has told you?”

There was a half shake of the head with its smooth dark hair. A half laugh was immediately checked, and Annabel was saying,

“Well, he did. But I knew already.”

“Did you?”

Annabel smiled and nodded.

“Well, yes, I did. You see, I know Stacy Forrest [see The Brading Collection.] -in fact she’s a kind of distant cousin. She did a miniature of me in the autumn. I wanted to give it to Lucius for Christmas, and he was quite terribly pleased with it. She does paint beautifully, doesn’t she?”

Miss Silver acquiesced but did not enlarge upon the theme. She did not really imagine that Mrs. Scott had come here to talk about Stacy Forrest, who had been Stacy Mainwaring.

Annabel went on talking about her.

“Lucius is so critical, but he was delighted. She told me all about that affair of the Brading Collection and how marvellous you were, and when you came down here you were exactly the way she had described you, and of course I knew why you had come-I simply couldn’t help it! So then I taxed Lucius with getting you down here professionally, and he had to own up. You won’t be cross with him, will you?”

Miss Silver said, “No-” in a meditative tone, to which she presently added, “And how many people have you told about your discovery, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel laughed.

“Now you’re cross with me! I did so hope you wouldn’t be, because I really want to talk to you. And I haven’t, I really haven’t, breathed a word to anyone. I promised Lucius I wouldn’t. And of course you don’t know me enough to trust me, but I don’t break promises.”

Miss Silver smiled. There was something very attractive about Annabel Scott, a warmth in the dark eyes, a natural charm. She pulled on her ball of pale blue wool and said,

“What did you want to talk to me about, Mrs. Scott?”

It was as if something had passed over a bright landscape, the glow and the brightness were less bright, less glowing. Annabel said,

“Well, I don’t want to make too much of it, and I don’t want to say anything to Lucius. And of course it may not have anything to do with it, but just in case it has I thought somebody ought to know.“ She paused, bit her lip, and then said in a hurry, ”That Hughes boy was only twenty-two!”

Miss Silver said, “Yes,” and waited for more.

Annabel went on.

“I didn’t know him very well, I didn’t even like him very much, but there he was, just a boy, and one minute he was all right, and the next someone had shot him dead for the sake of that wretched necklace!”

Miss Silver stopped knitting for a moment and made a quotation which she considered to be apposite.

“ ‘The lust of gain in the spirit of Cain,’ as Lord Tennyson so aptly puts it.”

If Annabel was taken aback she did not show it. She murmured, “Oh, yes,” and Miss Silver turned the blue shawl and began to knit again. She said,

“Murder is indeed a terrible crime. If you know of anything which could throw any light upon the theft of the necklace and the death of Mr. Hughes you certainly should not keep it to yourself.”

“That is what I thought. Of course, as I said, it may not have anything to do with Arthur Hughes being shot, but I can’t seem to get it off my mind, so I thought if you would let me tell you about the snuffbox-”

“The snuffbox?”

“It’s supposed to have belonged to Louis XVI-a really beautiful piece of enamel. Lucius was showing it to us last week-end. He bought it at a sale in Paris about a month ago, so it’s still something new to show people, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well, he opened it to show the inside of the lid, and there it was, half full of snuff. Someone made a joke about the King’s snuff, and Mr. Rennick was explaining that of course if it was, it wouldn’t have any flavour left in it, and just as he was saying that Mrs. Rennick and I began to sneeze. Honestly, it was fierce! I can’t imagine how anyone can touch the stuff, but of course everyone used it in those days. As a matter of fact, I believe lots of people do now. Too silly, isn’t it?”

“A foolish habit.”

“It must have made a horrid mess of all those silks and satins they used to wear, but if everybody did it, I suppose nobody minded. Anyhow the minute we began to sneeze Hubert Garratt absolutely covered his face with his handkerchief and made a bee line for the door, and Lucius shut up the snuffbox and said he ought to have remembered about Hubert getting asthma, and he hoped he hadn’t been near enough for the snuff to have reached him. I was still sneezing, but someone asked would it do him any harm, and someone else-I think it was Clay Masterson-laughed and said, ‘Well, he seems to think so, the way he bolted!’ And Lucius put the box away and said it had better be cleaned out some time.” She paused, and added, “It doesn’t seem very much when you tell it.”

Miss Silver was looking at her in a brightly interrogative manner.

“That is not all?”

“No-” her voice had a reluctant sound- “not quite. Something made me look inside the box last night. It’s in that big cabinet between the windows. I was alone in the drawing-room before the others came down, and I took it out and opened it-”

“Yes, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel’s bright colouring was one of her charms. The pure deep carnation was heightened momentarily. She said,

“Nearly all the snuff was gone.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Annabel nodded.

“That’s what I thought. And I remembered something-” She paused with the half startled look of someone who has taken a step not fully realized or intended.

“Yes, Mrs. Scott?”

Annabel shook her head. Then, with a burst of confidence, “Oh, I don’t know-I must tell someone. Perhaps it isn’t anything at all! It keeps coming niggling into my mind in a stupid kind of a whisper. You know the way things do-when you listen and try and make sense of them they aren’t there any more, and when you say, ‘Oh, well,’ and get on with what you were doing, there they are again!”

Miss Silver said in her temperate voice,

“If you would like to tell me what is troubling you-”

Annabel sat up straight.

“Yes, I’m going to. I meant to all along, but you know how it is when it comes to taking the plunge.”

She received an encouraging smile.

“It is something to do with the snuffbox?”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. I mean, it looks as if it might be, but I don’t know whether it is. I expect Lucius has told you all about Tuesday?”

Miss Silver released some strands of wool from her pale blue ball.

“It would be better if you were to assume that I know nothing except what was in the papers.”

Annabel gave a quick laugh.

“Well, I don’t know what was in the papers and what wasn’t-it’s all mixed up. But you know Lucius was getting the necklace out of the bank. Hubert Garratt was driving over-he was to be there at twelve. And then when it came to Tuesday morning, he hadn’t come over to breakfast. Mrs. Croft who comes up from the village looks after the East Lodge. She goes in on her way to the house, and as a rule Hubert is up and she can do his room, but when Lucius asked her if he was all right she said oh, no, he wasn’t, he’d got a bad attack of his asthma. So Lucius went off to see him, and he really was bad. It didn’t seem as if it was going to be possible for him to drive in to Ledlington and get the necklace. Lucius gave it as long as he could, and then he rang up the bank and said Arthur Hughes would go instead. But before that I took a thermos and coffee and went down to the East Lodge to see how Hubert was getting on. I didn’t suppose he’d want to see me or anyone else, but it seemed so brutal just to leave him on his own, and I thought he might like the coffee. Well, actually, he was pretty bad, and he was quite grateful. I put his bed straight and shook up the pillows and all that. He’d got everything into the most frightful mess-men do, don’t they? And when he had had some of the coffee he staggered along to the bathroom for a wash. That’s when I did the bed, and it was whilst I was doing it-” She stopped, leaned nearer, and dropped her voice. “It dropped off the pillows-he’d got them all piled up. I didn’t know what it was at first, not until I picked up some of the grains and began to sneeze-” She broke off again, and then came out with, “You’re not believing me-I can’t see why you should. I couldn’t believe it myself-not at first.”