“ Arnold is back.”

He took some time to answer. When he did so, it was to say,

“What makes you think he’s back?”

“I saw him.”

“Where?”

“Coming out of the station in Ledlington.”

“When?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“What were you doing in Ledlington a couple of hours ago?”

“I was taking Minnie Jones to catch her train.”

“Minnie Jones!”

“Yes. She is Arthur’s aunt.”

“I know that. What was she doing here?”

“You’ll have to ask Miss Silver about that. I gather she found the poor thing fainting in the park. She is quite terribly discreet, and she wouldn’t have told me that if she hadn’t been obliged to. But there was I with a car and an obliging disposition, and there was Minnie with no car and a train to catch, so Miss Silver forthcame, which she wouldn’t have done if there had been any other way of getting Minnie to the station.”

He was frowning in the manner which most people found intimidating.

“What on earth made her come here?”

“Minnie Jones? Your guess is as good as mine. Mine would be that she came to see Moira.”

The intimidating quality was in his voice as he said,

“What makes you say that?”

“I’m not saying it-I just told you it would be my guess.”

“Your reason for a guess like that?”

She gave him a fleeting look. There was anger in him. She wasn’t afraid of his anger-she would never be afraid of it. She said,

“Guessing and reason don’t go together.” And then, “Don’t you really know that there was something between her and Arthur?”

He gave a half contemptuous laugh.

“There was something on his side-any fool could see that. But on hers-I certainly never thought-”

The things that Annabel could have said remained unspoken. They burned in her, but she kept them back. What she did say was,

“Why has Arnold come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“How much did you give him this time?” He shrugged. “Twenty pounds.”

“Do you suppose he’s spent it?”

“Well, he said he only wanted it to tide him over.”

After a moment she said, “Minnie Jones recognized him.”

“She hadn’t ever seen him before!”

“Oh, yes, she had. She had seen him in London with”-her voice indicated quotation marks-“ ‘the gentleman who talked with Mr. Pegler in the gallery.’ ” Lucius Bellingdon asked sharply, “Who said that?”

“Miss Silver. Minnie saw Arnold coming out of the station, and she said, ‘That’s the one who was with the gentleman Mr. Pegler recognized.’ Miss Silver asked her if it was Arnold who talked to Mr. Pegler in the gallery, and Minnie said, ‘Oh, no, it was the other one.’ You had better hear the whole thing from Miss Silver herself. Neither she nor Minnie knew Arnold by name until I told them who he was, but Minnie and Mr. Pegler had seen him with the man whom you and the police have been looking for. Miss Silver is a perfect clam, but when we were driving back together and she found that you had told me about Miss Paine and that lip-reading business she did let out as much as that. Of course it’s the sort of thing that might mean a lot, or it might mean nothing at all. Nobody could be surprised to hear that Arnold had any number of shady acquaintances. This gallery man might just be a casual contact. Or he might not. The point is that Arnold knows him, and I should think it was up to the police to find out what else he knows.”

The door in the drawing-room behind them opened. Hilton stood there looking in. As he skirted the room in their direction, Lucius moved to meet him. He came up close and said in a lowered voice,

“It’s the London inspector, sir. He says he is sorry to disturb you, but if you could spare him a few minutes-”

Chapter 23

SALLY was dancing with Wilfrid Gaunt. He was finding it amusing to propose to her under Moira’s eye, and to speculate as to how far its resemblance to Medusa’s would be increased if she were to guess what was happening. Sally was not amused, because the last thing she wanted was the kind of devastating scene of which Moira was capable, and the last thing Wilfrid wanted was to be taken at his word. If she had had the satisfaction of feeling that there was someone in love with her, even if David wasn’t, it would have been a solace. But Wilfrid wasn’t in love with anybody but himself. Her eyes were very bright as she said,

“Really, Wilfrid, it would serve you right if I were to say yes!”

“Darling, you’re not going to?”

“I said it would serve you right if I did, and so it would!”

He shook his head.

“It would be no good anyone marrying me if she couldn’t keep her temper.”

Some of the things which Sally had been thinking came boiling up to the surface. She said in a spirited undertone,

“Well, Moira wouldn’t keep her temper.”

He sighed.

“Darling, how right you are.”

Moira was dancing with Clay Masterson. He held her very close, and they did not speak. David Moray, straightening up from changing a record, watched them with frowning intensity. In the comfortable neighbourhood of the fire Miss Silver knitted and listened to Miss Bray’s interminable account of Moira’s wedding.

“Six bridesmaids in green, and the dresses were quite terribly expensive. But I would have preferred some other colour, only of course I wasn’t consulted. Bridesmaids are really very difficult, don’t you think? There was one very lumpy girl and she looked terrible. But she was the daughter of a man with a lot of influence about motor racing, and Oliver would insist on Moira having her. Moira and he had quite a dreadful quarrel about it, but he got his own way in the end-Oliver did, you know, even with Moira. I didn’t like him, but I thought perhaps it would be good for her if she married him, because he could make her do what he said. She didn’t like it, but she used to have to give way, and I think that was a good plan-don’t you?”

Miss Silver said in a restrained tone,

“That would depend on what he wanted her to do, would it not?”

It was at this point that Annabel Scott came over to them and stood warming herself. Half turning from the fire, she said,

“Oh, Lucius asked me to say would you mind coming to him in the study.”

The message did not surprise Miss Silver-Hilton’s entrance had not surprised her. She gathered up her knitting and made her way to the study, where she greeted Frank Abbott with the formality which she always observed in the presence of strangers.

Lucius Bellingdon stood with his back to the hearth looking grim. He said curtly,

“Sit down, please. I hear you rang up the Inspector and asked him to come here tonight.”

Miss Silver took the chair which he indicated. Her manner widened the distance between them. She said,

“Something had occurred which I felt should be imparted to the police without delay. If there had been time to consult you, I should have done so. I think Mrs. Scott will have given you an account of what happened.”

“Miss Jones’s visit-yes.”

She produced one of her sudden smiles.

“Then you will know that we came very near to being late for dinner. I did not feel that you would wish this to become a matter for comment.”

“No-I shouldn’t. Will you now tell me and Inspector Abbott just what made you risk being late?”

She told the story in her carefully accurate manner. Moira Herne was mentioned only in passing.

“Miss Jones had been up to the house, where I believe she saw Mrs. Herne. On her way down the drive she felt faint and lost consciousness. It was fortunate that I came upon her, as she had stumbled in among the bushes at the edge of the drive and she might not have been found for some time.”

Having introduced what she had to say with this economy of words, she described how Minnie had recognized a man who was coming out of the station at Ledlington, and how Annabel Scott had identified him as Mr. Arnold Bray.