The shop was empty except for Mrs. Alexander herself, who beamed on her and stretched out the buying of the marmalade to a good ten minutes.

“And how do you like sorting all those old books, Miss Susan? Doris was in last night, and she says no one wouldn’t believe what the dust is like. No one being allowed to touch the shelves except just with a feather brush, not even at spring-cleaning, when we all know what bookshelves want is everything taken out and the books clapped together and dusted thorough. With a nice bit of beeswax and turpentine on the shelves before they go back. Not that anyone makes the real old beeswax and turps like my mother did and my old Granny before her. It’s all Mansion and suchlike nowadays, and not for me to grumble about it, because that’s what I’m here to sell, and very good polish too. But it’s messy work for you, cleaning up after nobody’s done it all these years.”

Susan said,

“Oh, I don’t mind. And it’s interesting too. You never know what you’re going to find. Some of those old books are valuable, you know.”

Mrs. Alexander looked surprised.

“You don’t say! Sounded more like mucky old rubbish, from what Doris had to say, and most of them never taken off their shelves from one year’s end to another.”

As Susan turned to go, Mrs. Alexander said,

“You wouldn’t be dropping in at the Vicarage by any chance, would you now?”

“Well, I could quite easily. What was it?”

Mrs. Alexander pulled out a drawer and took out an envelope.

“That little lady that’s staying with Mrs. Ball, she dropped this when she was in this morning. Must have come out of her bag when she was getting out her handkerchief. And I don’t like having other folks’ letters lying about-it might be private -especially when it’s a lady that’s visiting at the Vicarage. Very pleasant she was, and told me she and Mrs. Ball’s mother was old friends and at school together. Well, my dear, if you really don’t mind. I was going to take it up myself when I’d shut the shop, but I’ve been on my feet all day.”

The envelope had been through the post, and had been opened. It was obvious that it contained a letter. As Susan took it, her eye was caught by the address,

Miss Maud Silver

15 Montague Mansions.

And then the London address crossed out and,

The Vicarage

Greenings near Embank,

in a clear sensible writing.

A little shutter clicked open in her mind. She stared rather hard at the envelope before she slipped it into the pocket of her coat with the jar of marmalade.

Out in the dark street again, she walked slowly in the direction of the Vicarage. Miss Maud Silver-it was the Maud which had caught her attention. And the address, 15 Montague Mansions. Ray Fortescue telling her about the Ivory Dagger and -Miss Maud Silver. “I just can’t tell you how wonderful she was. I don’t see how anyone could have thought Bill didn’t do it-I mean people who didn’t know him, like the police. But she didn’t.” It had been a very exciting story, and the newspapers were full of it. But not of Miss Maud Silver. She mightn’t have been there at all for all the notice she got. “She just goes back to her 15 Montague Mansions and keeps on knitting until another case turns up.”

Susan couldn’t think why she hadn’t tumbled to it before. Of course Silver was quite a common name. Anyhow it wasn’t until she saw the whole name and address on the envelope in Mrs. Alexander’s hand that she thought of any possible link between Mrs. Ball’s old family friend who looked so exactly like someone out of the Victorian novels she had been sorting and Ray Fortescue’s marvellous detective. A faint but eager hope sprang up in her mind.

CHAPTER XXXII

I don’t know how I didn’t think of it before, but I just didn’t. Ray and I were at school together-she told me all about you. I was one of her bridesmaids, and I saw her just before I came down here.”

Miss Silver beamed.

“They most kindly asked me to the wedding, but I was away on a case.”

“Ray said there might never have been a wedding if it hadn’t been for you. She and Bill are so happy.”

Ruth Ball had left them together in the small comfortable morning-room. Miss Silver sat in the corner of the sofa and knitted. An infant’s vest in a delicate shade of pink depended from the needles. She wore a dress of olive-green cashmere, with a high boned collar and modesty vest of cream-coloured net. An ancestral brooch of bog-oak in the form of a rose with an Irish pearl at its heart reposed upon her bosom. Her very neat ankles and feet were encased in black woollen stockings and slippers of glacé kid with beaded toes. Nobody could have looked less like a detective.

Susan said abruptly,

“Edward says the police are going to arrest him.”

Miss Silver’s eyes rested on her compassionately.

“Indeed? What makes you think so?”

Susan told her.

“You see, he says himself that the truth sounds silly. But it is the truth-it really is. He says they won’t believe he put in all that time in the woods watching a fox. But it is just exactly the sort of thing he would do. It’s the sort of thing we used to do together. I’ve known him all my life, you see. He’s got a quick temper, and when he is angry he frowns and looks like thunder and his voice goes rough. But it doesn’t mean anything-it doesn’t really. He couldn’t possibly plot against anyone or plan to kill them-he really, really couldn’t. Besides, he hadn’t got any reason to kill Clarice Dean. She was making a nuisance of herself running after him and trying to flirt, and wanting to talk to him about his uncle’s will-and that’s a thing Edward just won’t talk about. You know, it must have been pretty horrid to come back and find that everything had gone. He cared a lot for his uncle, and the Hall had always been his home. He must have felt as if there was nothing left. Arnold Random wouldn’t do anything about it, you know. Edward won’t talk about any of it, not even to Emmeline. So you can imagine what he felt about Clarice trying to butt in. And she just hadn’t got any tact at all. She went on pushing and hinting and ringing him up until it wasn’t any wonder he was angry. But you don’t kill people for that sort of thing”

Miss Silver neither agreed nor disagreed. She knew with what fatal suddenness a long strained self-control may break. She had traced the small beginnings of many a tragedy in human affairs. She turned her knitting and enquired,

“It did not occur to him that she might really know something about Mr. James Random’s will?”

Susan looked surprised. She had thrown back her coat. The light shone down upon her bright hair and the smoky blue of the jumper and skirt which she wore. She said,

“But there isn’t anything to know. How could there be? The will was proved months ago. Arnold came in for everything. James Random thought-everybody thought-that Edward was dead.”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“Suppose Mr. James Random had not believed his nephew to be dead?”

Susan stared.

“He wouldn’t have cut him out of his will.”

“If he had become convinced that he had made a mistake in supposing his nephew to be dead, what would you have expected him to do?”

“To make another will”

“If he had done so, who would be the most likely person to be aware of it?”

“Miss Silver, you don’t mean-”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked, the pale pink vest revolved.

“A nurse occupies a very privileged position. She can hardly fail to be aware of anything which affects her patient. I think it is a pity that Mr. Edward Random should have so persistently refused to see Miss Dean and hear what she had to say. If he had not done so, she might have been alive today. I will not say any more than that. If you have any influence with Mr. Edward, urge him to be perfectly frank with the police. It is only a guilty person who can afford to be silent. The investigation of a murder is always handicapped by the fact that so many people have something which they would prefer to hide.”