Miss Silver coughed and said primly,

“There can, of course, be only one answer to that.”

“Uncle Arnold?”

“Mr. Arnold Random.”

CHAPTER XXIII

So they’ve asked us to take over the case.”

Chief Detective Inspector Lamb sat back in the chair which he filled with so much solid worth and looked across the intervening writing-table at Inspector Abbott, who was at the moment engaged in expert ministrations to a sulky fire. He stood up now, dusting his hands with one of those handkerchiefs which his Chief derided as “posh.”

“Yes, sir?”

Lamb frowned.

“I used to know Nayler pretty well. He’s the Superintendent at Embank, and he’s a bit of a Mr. Facing-both-ways. Not that you’ll be any the wiser for that. Children aren’t brought up on the Pilgrim’s Progress these days like they used to be, and more’s the pity.”

“Well, sir, I was. Anyhow the name speaks for itself. Which two ways does Nayler face?”

“He don’t want to upset the county people, and more especially he don’t want to upset Lord Burlingham.”

Frank allowed himself a disrespectful whistle.

“Oh, he’s in it, is he? Rather the heavy armoured car type and all that.”

“This young chap they suspect is his agent. Old county family and relations all over the place. Just the kind of thing that Nayler wouldn’t like. On the other hand he don’t want the Labour people to have any handle for saying there’s one law for the rich and another for the poor, and all that kind of thing. The Chief Constable is in pretty much the same mind-he don’t want to offend anyone. So between them they’re tumbling over each other to hand the bomb over to us before it goes off.”

Frank put his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. Then he said in a meditative tone,

“The Greenings case-girl drowned in a watersplash. Sounds quite a feat, doesn’t it? Name of Clarice Dean. Not an indigenous product. Down there nursing a Miss Ora Blake.”

Lamb fixed him with a suspicious eye.

“Got it all pat, haven’t you?”

“I read the papers, sir. The case made good headlines. Also” -his tone was negligent in the extreme-“I had tea with Maudie yesterday.”

The November light striking through a tall window disclosed the thinning patch on the Chief Inspector’s crown. Strong dark hair with a tendency to curl surrounded it, but just at the top there was a definite thinning. When his colour deepened as it did now from crimson to plum the patch glowed too. Frank Abbott from his standing position was able to observe this danger signal and to be inwardly amused by it. His Chief’s rather protuberant eyes stared at him.

“Miss Silver? You’re not going to tell me she’s mixed up with this!”

“The girl met her in a tea-shop a couple of days before the drowning and told her a very odd story.”

“In a tea-shop?” Lamb’s tone was both angry and incredulous.

“Well, it appears she did know her by sight. Some ass had pointed her out as a famous detective, and the girl just sat down at her table and proceeded to spill the beans.”

“What did she say?”

Frank repeated the outpourings of Miss Clarice Dean.

When he had finished, Lamb banged the table with the flat of his hand and said,

“It don’t make sense!”

“In what way, sir?”

Lamb’s eyes bulged.

“If that Miss Silver of yours was to tell you black was white, you’d believe it! And what’s more, you’d come here and expect me to swallow it too! Here’s Nayler putting up this Edward Random as his suspect, and then you come along with a story that gives Edward Random the best motive in the world for keeping the girl alive. He’s been done out of his uncle’s property, and she says there was a will made which would give it back to him. What possible motive can he have had for killing her? Seems to me you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick somewhere. You’d better give Miss Silver a ring and ask her to step round and see me. All this second and third-hand stuff-well, I ask you, what’s the good of it? It’s not evidence, and it can’t be used as evidence!”

“It sometimes puts you in the way of something that is evidence.”

“And I don’t need you to tell me that, my lad! Put that call through and tell her to put her best foot forward!”

Mentally translating his Chief Inspector’s message into something a good deal more deferential, Frank addressed himself to the telephone.

But it was Emma Meadows who lifted the receiver at the other end, and her voice which said,

“Oh, no, Mr. Frank-she’s not in. Gone away down into the country-packed her things overnight and off this morning as soon as she’d finished her breakfast. Will you be wanting the address?”

He said, “Thank you, Emma, I think I know it-The Vicarage, Greenings, near Embank. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

He turned from the surprise in her voice to meet Lamb’s fixed and angry stare.

“Gone down there, has she?”

Frank found himself echoing Emma.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what does she want to do that for?”

“I believe she has a most pressing invitation to stay with the Vicar’s wife.”

Chief Detective Inspector Lamb said, “Tchah!”

CHAPTER XXIV

Miss Silver’s reception at the Vicarage was in every sense of the word a warm one. She was given a room which looked south, her things were unpacked for her by the pale middle-aged parlourmaid, and she was made to feel herself a valued and most welcome guest.

There was time for a little walk before lunch, and Mrs. Ball took her down to see the watersplash and along the village street, pointing out such objects of interest as the yew tunnel leading up to the church-“It is said to be eight hundred years old”-and the Miss Blakes’ house with its jutting bay and the pillars which supported it. They walked as far as the south lodge, and saw Susan Wayne coming down from the Hall. Mrs. Ball exclaiming that it must be later than she had thought, Susan explained that she had come away earlier than usual because Mr. Random’s housekeeper was out of baking-powder and she had promised to get her some at Mrs. Alexander’s and take it back with her when she went up in the afternoon.

Miss Silver considered this a pleasing instance of the give and take of country life. She regarded Susan with approbation. Such pretty hair, such a lovely skin, such agreeable manners. Susan walked back with them as far as the shop, and when they had left her there Miss Silver expressed herself with warmth.

“Really a very charming girl. Does she live here?”

“She was brought up here by an aunt, but she is only on a visit just now. She is making a catalogue of the books at the Hall and staying with Mrs. Random. Her aunt, Miss Lucy Wayne, was the daughter and granddaughter of two former vicars, but she died before we came here. I have only met Susan quite lately. You know, Miss Silver, it may be wrong of me -John says it is-but I do feel that we shall have to be here till we are about a hundred before anyone stops thinking of us as strangers. By the way, my house-parlourmaid, Annie Jackson, was with Miss Lucy Wayne for twenty-four years, I believe.” She turned round blue eyes upon Miss Silver. “You see what I mean-there-there is something dwarfing about it.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Did you not mention in your letter that your new house-parlourmaid was the widow of the unfortunate man who was drowned in the watersplash?”

“Oh, yes, I did. It was so foolish of her to marry him. She was much older than he was, and Miss Wayne had left her a little money. At least that is what everybody says-” She broke off, colouring deeply. “John is always telling me not to fall in with the uncharitable judgments of the crowd. He says villages are terribly censorious. But don’t you think sometimes they know?”