“So I suppose I do know which side of a frock a child puts its arm through, and you may say what you like, but you’ve got them in wrong.”

Miss Sims held up the small brown garment and gazed at it.

“I don’t know what they want to make them different for,” she said. “There’s two arm-holes and two sleeves, and I suppose the child will have two arms same as other children. I don’t know what more anyone wants. And as to being a mother, Mrs. Deacon, that’s not what I call a suitable remark, not at a Vicarage work-party. Not what I’d call very refined. But of course we’ve all been brought up different, and I hope I know how to make allowances for those that haven’t had the same advantages that I’ve had myself.”

Coming out in a very deliberate manner but on a rising note, this speech could hardly have failed to induce recriminations if it had not been for Ruth Ball’s timely intervention. Arriving with a cup of tea in each hand, she asked Mrs. Deacon to be so very kind as to hand the cake, and warfare was averted. It is really not at all easy to partake of rich fruit cake and conduct a quarrel at one and the same moment. One or the other must be dispensed with, and when it came to competition the cake could be trusted to win. The fascinating topic of just what gave it that moist consistency, that inimitable flavour, superseded all others.

Old Mrs. Stone was having a very successful evening. She had not only had a second slice of cake herself, but she had managed to slide two more slices into her rather distressing work-bag. And now here was Mrs. Ball cutting her a piece for Betsey.

“And most kind, I’m sure, ma’am, but she’s a sad sufferer as you know. And I’ll be getting along if you’ll excuse me, for she don’t like being left, and that’s a fact. Nervous, that’s what she is, and no wonder, seeing as how she lays helpless there in her bed, and no one in call. So I’ll be going now, and thank you kindly, Mrs. Ball.”

“Well, whoever is nervous, she isn’t,” said Mrs. Pomfret in her decided voice. “Of course it’s only a little way, but I don’t mind saying if I hadn’t got my car I’d just as soon have company! There’s something about those two people being knocked on the head that gives me the creeps, and if I was to hear a footstep behind me in the dark I really shouldn’t like it at all.” She looked round, gave her jolly laugh, and added, “I hope I’m not frightening anyone-but the rest of you can all see each other home, can’t you?”

It was a little after this that the side door of the Vicarage was softly opened and a dark figure slipped out. The air was mild, with a south wind blowing and a sky full of cloud. It was so dark that the woman who had left the house was obliged to switch on a small electric torch before going down the drive. She walked in a slow, hesitating manner and let the torch swing aimlessly to and fro. Her head was bent, and seemed to be covered by a scarf. She went down the drive and turned out into the road.

CHAPTER XLII

Detective Inspector Abbott stood in the dark and listened. He would not have admitted it to anyone else-he barely admitted it to himself-but he was just about as nervous as a cat on hot bricks. Miss Silver’s plan, which had sounded so simple in the cosy atmosphere of the Vicarage morning-room with lamplight and firelight and a modicum of daylight to keep the off chance from pushing in, was now, in the darkness, exposed to every kind of doubt. He ought never to have consented to it. That had been his original standpoint, and he ought to have stuck to it. And so what? If he could stick to a plan, why, so could she. And not only could, but would. He had known his Miss Silver for a good many years now, and he was perfectly well aware that when she had made up her mind to a course of action she would pursue it. All that he could do was to remonstrate, which he had done this afternoon, and remonstrance having failed, take what precautions he could to ensure her safety.

He had done what he could. He hoped that he had done enough. There was a plain-clothes man in the bushes at the bottom of the Vicarage drive. Inspector Bury was on the other side of the splash. He himself stood just inside the lych gate. If anyone came down the yew tunnel, he would have ample warning. The softest-footed creature that ever walked could not come that way without the crack of a twig underfoot or the rustle of a leaf. The old dry droppings of the years were there at the roots of the immemorial yews, and for all the sexton’s sweepings, the wind drifted them across the path again. If anyone came from the Vicarage and turned towards the splash, he himself was here, not half a dozen yards from the water and to all intents and purposes invisible. If, after that, anyone came from the village and passed the Vicarage gate, Grey would follow soft-foot.

He glanced at the dial of his luminous watch, and found that the time was a quarter to ten. Only half an hour since they had taken up their positions, and speaking for himself, it might have been half the night. Long enough anyhow to think of a hundred ways in which precaution might fail. The lych gate was very old. The lych gate-the lyke gate-the corpse gate- the German leiche, a dead body… They rested the coffin here before a funeral… The thought came up in his mind, and faded under a flash of sardonic humour. What a superstitious creature man was! Civilized? The veneer was pitifully thin. He had only to be alone in a dark place, and all the old bogies would squeak and gibber from the shadows.

The church clock startled him with its three ringing strokes. He looked at his watch again. A minute past the quarter. Then the church clock was slow by just that minute. The air seemed still to vibrate under the last stroke when, lifting his eyes from the illuminated dial, he thought that something moved. It was one of those impressions without substance. He had just been looking at a bright object. He looked away from it, and his eyes dazzled against the dark. If there had been a movement, he could not have seen it then. Between the lych gate and the entrance to the Vicarage drive the road sloped upwards. It was as black as a black cat’s fur.

He stood leaning forward, every sense at its fullest stretch, and he thought someone breathed in the blackness. The wind blew, and the water ran-a light soft wind, a slowly moving stream. Impossible that he should have heard the sound of human breath. His eyes strained towards the sound. His mind strained. And he heard it again. He heard it because it was so near. Someone else’s foot took the wide, shallow step of the lych gate. If he had not been in his stocking feet he would have been heard as he stepped back. But he was not heard. It was the other who had been heard, soft and crafty as that telltale foot had been. There was no further movement, only now and again that deep betraying breath. There was no other sound, but there was a growing sense of tension, of urgency, of a purpose from which there would be no turning back.

And then, away up the rise where the Vicarage drive came out, there was a flicker of light. From where he stood it came just within his line of vision before the solid oak of the lych gate cut it off. The flicker showed and was gone, and came wavering into sight again low down upon the ground. He could see what it was now, the small weak ray of a torch whose battery had come near to petering out. The hand which held it hung down and swung lose. It was a woman’s hand. If the torch was meant to light her way it failed wretchedly, since it produced a mere confusion of sliding shadows. If it served any purpose at all, it was to make her visible, or partly visible, to those who were watching the road. She came slowly down the rise, seeming to drift rather than walk, now at one side of the road, and then on a wavering course towards the other. She gave the lych gate a wide berth and passed down beyond it to the watersplash.