The sun was almost gone, but not quite. Here from the churchyard, sloping to the west, they could see it lie like a golden ball between two clouds on the rim of the sky. The clouds were flushed and streaked with scarlet. Standing on the edge of the grass, Annie was full in the last level ray. It struck her forehead and the side of her head as she faced Miss Silver, and there, where the hair blew back in the lightly stirring air, was the mark of a livid bruise. It had not showed as she went about her work in the house, but it showed now.

Miss Silver regarded her with grave compassion. She came a step nearer.

“I’d no call to think well of him nor to speak well of him. But murder-that’s another thing! Christopher Hale, he was a loose liver like William, he was. And Kezia to her dying day she said he was murdered, and what’s more she named the man. Wanted to put it on the stone, but the old Vicar wouldn’t let her. He was Miss Wayne’s grandfather, and he was Vicar here. And his son, Miss Lucy’s father, after him. Miss Lucy had all the papers. And murder isn’t right-it isn’t right. You can’t get from it.” A shudder went over her. She said in a changed voice, “I’m sure I beg your pardon-talking like this. I heard Mrs. Ball say you were clever at finding out such things. She said you’d done it many’s the time, and found out what was being kept secret. So it just come over me, and I’m sure I beg your pardon. You won’t mention it, I hope-not to Mrs. Ball nor to anyone. It’s easy to set people talking.”

Miss Silver said,

“I shall not mention it to Mrs. Ball, Annie.”

Annie Jackson turned and went away over the grass, making no sound at all. The light was failing now. The sun was gone. There was a greyness and a chill.

But it was some time before Miss Silver went back to the Vicarage.

CHAPTER XXV

The Balls and their guest were still at the breakfast table next morning when Annie Jackson came in to say that the Inspector from Embank was there and another gentleman, and could they see Miss Silver? Standing there facing a window, no one could help noticing how pale and cold she looked. She kept her hand on the door as if she needed its support. Miss Silver folded her table-napkin neatly and followed her into the hall. Just before she closed the dining-room door behind her she heard the Vicar say, “Really, my dear, that poor woman looks dreadfully ill.”

Coming out of the bright room, the hall seemed dark. Annie said,

“They’re in the morning-room.” Her voice shook.

She looked at Miss Silver and shivered. Then she went away down the passage which led to the back premises.

Miss Silver took her way to the morning-room.

It was Frank Abbott who came to meet her. Since he was expecting her, there was no surprise on his side. If there was any on hers, it was not allowed to be obtrusive. She smiled, expressed pleasure at seeing him, and shook hands with Inspector Bury. After which they all sat down, and she was invited to give the local Inspector an account of her interview with Miss Clarice Dean.

It was evident that it did not suit his book. He put a number of questions obviously intended to shake the accuracy of her recollection, and then said in rather an abrupt tone,

“Inspector Abbott tells me that you are to be relied upon not to repeat this story-” at which point he suddenly found himself floundering.

Without any real movement on her part she appeared to have withdrawn to a rather awful distance. Or perhaps it was he who had receded. His neck burned, and the colour mounted to his prominent ears. At Miss Silver’s gentle yet remote, “I beg your pardon, Inspector,” he found himself very earnestly begging hers, with the Inspector from Scotland Yard enjoying the scene.

But it was Frank who rescued him.

“That is all right, Bury. I have worked with Miss Silver before, and you haven’t. You can say anything you like in front of her. I propose to show her all the statements we’ve got and ask her what she thinks of them”

Miss Silver accepted both the apology and the tribute with a faint but gracious smile.

Bury’s ears resumed their natural colour.

“We’ve got to be careful, you know, and this story-well, if that is what Miss Dean was up to, it rather knocks Mr. Random’s motive on the head, doesn’t it? You say she told you she knew about a will in his favour. That being the case, he had a good deal to lose by her death.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“She had not told him that she knew about the will. She was finding it difficult to see him alone. She had made the mistake of trying to combine her proffer of information with a very determined attempt at a flirtation for which Mr. Edward Random was not inclined.”

“She was running after him?”

“Undoubtedly. She spoke quite frankly about it. She wished to be comfortably settled. She hoped to make some kind of a bargain from what she knew about the will. She hoped to secure Edward Random’s gratitude. And she intended to marry him if she decided that it would be worth her while.”

Bury looked at her with growing respect.

“A pretty cold-blooded business.”

“And a dangerous one. I warned her about that.”

He said quickly,

“What made you think it might be dangerous?”

“If her story was true, a will had been suppressed, and the surviving witness to that will had just been drowned in very suspicious circumstances. Miss Dean was, I believe, quite well aware that her position was not a very safe one. A person who has suppressed a will might kill to cover up his crime. A person who has killed once may do so again. I formed the opinion that Miss Dean was in a high state of tension. She unburdened herself to me because she felt that she would be safer if someone shared her secret.”

Inspector Bury frowned.

“I don’t see how all this is going to fit in. Inspector Abbott wanted me to come along and hear what you had to say. Well, I’ve done so, and I don’t see how it’s going to fit in. We’re handing the case over. He’s at liberty to handle it the way he thinks best. I’ve got a job out at Littleton, and I’ll be getting along.”

When the door had shut behind him Frank Abbott permitted himself to smile.

“A good chap,” he said, “and as keen as mustard. He would like to have finished the case out himself, but the Superintendent and the Chief Constable have got the wind up-Random relations on one side all over the county, and the watchful eye of Labour on the other. Which is why I am here to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them. After which lovely bag of mixed metaphors I think you had better read the statements and tell me how they strike you.”

She took the typewritten sheets and gave them grave attention. When she had finished she lifted her eyes from the last page and said,

“Mr. Edward Random’s statement merely describes the finding of Miss Dean’s body.”

“Yes, I was going to tell you about that. When Bury searched the girl’s room he found a note crumpled up under the grate. Here is a copy. The original was typewritten too. The signature consists of two typed initials so badly defaced that it is practically impossible to say what they were, though the first one seems to have had a cross bar, which would make it A, E, or F.”

She said,

“Defaced? In what manner?”

“A rubbed crease amounting to a tear-a fall of soot down the chimney. The typewriter has not been identified, and the only fingerprints are Clarice Dean’s.”

“My dear Frank!”

He nodded.

“Odd, isn’t it? It didn’t come by post, you know. Somebody typed it, put it in an envelope, stuck it down, and dropped it into the Miss Blakes’ letter-box. Miss Mildred Blake says Miss Dean went to the box when they were carrying the lunch things down, and she thinks took something out of it. Miss Ora Blake says that Edward Random went down the street and past their door at about two o’clock. Her sofa is drawn up to the window in that jutting bay, and she has an excellent view of the whole street, with the unfortunate exception of the stretch of footpath which runs under the bay and which includes her own front door. Edward Random could therefore have dropped the note into the letter-box without her seeing him, and so could two other members of the Random family -his stepmother, Mrs. Jonathan Random, and-Uncle Arnold. Miss Ora has an eye for detail, and I asked her whether any of these people were wearing gloves. Well, Edward Random wasn’t, but Mrs. Jonathan and Uncle Arnold were. Uncle Arnold always does. He plays the organ, and is finicky about his hands. But gloves or no gloves, there should be more fingerprints than Miss Dean’s on that note. Even the most finicky person doesn’t sit down to type in gloves. Which means that the prints have been deliberately removed. And that looks like premeditation.”