‘Have you been in Ledshire before, Miss Silver?’

She smiled.

‘Yes, Superintendent.’

‘Then I think I have heard of you. Inspector Crisp and Inspector Drake have both mentioned your name. I think you met Crisp over the affairs of the Catherine-Wheel and the Brading Collection. And Drake – yes, Drake was on the Brading case too. Your name was mentioned, but it had slipped my memory.’ He was remembering what he had heard. Crisp had been angry and jealous, but she had been right, and he had been wrong. And Crisp was no fool. ‘If I may say so, no one would suspect you of being a detective.’

Miss Silver began to put her knitting away.

‘I have often found that a considerable help,’ she said.

Chapter Thirty-four

Ellie Page lay in a state of dazed wretchedness. She made no effort to rouse herself. As long as she did not move, perhaps they would leave her alone. She took the bread-and-milk which Mary brought her in the morning, the bowl of soup and the custard pudding at lunch-time. Mary held them to her lips spoonful by spoonful and she swallowed them. If she had refused, they would have sent for the doctor. So she took them, and turned her face into the pillow again. And at tea-time when she had swallowed a cup of hot milk Mary brought water to wash her face, and then sat down by the bedside.

‘Ellie, I’ve got to talk to you.’

She looked with imploring eyes.

‘If I don’t, John will.’

She had to say it, because it was the truth. There had to be an explanation between her and Ellie, or John would come up and force one on his own account. It seemed dreadful with Ellie lying there as white as the bed linen, but they couldn’t go on like this, and if there was anything to be told it had better be told to her. She said,

‘Ellie, it’s no use – you’ll have to tell me what you have been doing. John came home very much upset last night. Someone had told him you were meeting Geoffrey Ford at night. That was why I came up to your room. He said I must ask you about it, or he would. Then, when I came up, the door was locked and you weren’t there.’

‘How did you get in?’

The trembling words were the first she had spoken, and Mary was thankful to hear them. There is nothing so frustrating as a dumb resistance, and nothing that is harder to break.

‘The spare room key fits your lock. When I found the room was empty I had to wait till you came back. And then you fainted.’

‘You frightened me. Dreadfully.’

Mary could only just catch the words, but at least they were being spoken. She steeled herself.

‘Ellie, is it true that you have been meeting Geoffrey Ford?’

There was a faint affirmative movement of the head. Ellie’s frightened eyes looked, and looked away. Tears brimmed up in them and began to run slowly down over the pale cheeks.

‘Oh, Ellie!’

With sudden energy Ellie pushed the bedclothes away from her chin.

‘We loved each other!’

Mary Lenton said,

‘He had no right to tell you so. He has a wife.’

‘He doesn’t love her! He couldn’t! Nobody could!’

‘He married her.’

‘He didn’t want to – her father and mother made him!’

‘Because he had made love to her and wanted to back out. Suppose it had been you. Suppose he hadn’t a wife now and John made him marry you. Would you feel it was quite all right for him to run after the next girl he fancied?’

Ellie choked on a sob.

‘You’re cruel!’

‘I’ve got to be. I’ve got to know. Ellie, how far has this gone? You’re not – you’re not – you didn’t faint because-’

A pale blush ran up to the roots of Ellie’s hair.

‘I wouldn’t – I didn’t! It wasn’t like that at all! We cared, and when you feel like that, you’ve got to meet somehow, and it was too difficult in the day – people talk so in a village, and Edna is so jealous.’

Mary felt an immense relief. It was bad enough, but it might have been worse. She said,

‘Oh, Ellie! What would you feel like if it was your husband who was meeting silly girls in the middle of the night?’

Ellie pulled herself up in the bed.

‘It wasn’t – it wasn’t like that at all! You simply don’t understand! It was all tied up with Adriana! Geoffrey hasn’t any money, and she would have cut off his allowance if he had left Edna. He was only waiting – we were waiting – until – until – he got the money she has always promised him.’

‘You mean in her will?’

Ellie nodded.

‘And then he would be able to get Edna to give him his freedom, and we could be married.’

There was a silence. Ellie fidgeted with the sheet. Even as she spoke, the words were bitter in her mouth. The thought of marriage with Geoffrey Ford brought no glow with it. There had been a time when it would have warmed and quickened her. It did not warm her now. When she said, ‘We loved each other,’ the words had no strength in them. They did not drive away the cold, sick feeling at her heart. The defiant stare which she had fixed upon Mary began to waver. She looked away.

Mary Lenton said,

‘Adriana might live for twenty years. Were you going to wait all that time and wish for her to die? It’s not very nice is it? And do you suppose that Geoffrey would stick to you for twenty years? Don’t you know that he isn’t sticking to you now? Don’t you know perfectly well what anyone else can see? He is just a philanderer who will flirt with any woman who lets him. Why, it’s the talk of the village that he is having an affair with Esmé Trent!’

The tears were pouring down Ellie’s face.

‘She is wicked-’

‘She is doing what you were willing to do – she is taking another woman’s husband. Here, you had better have my handkerchief… Ellie, I’m not saying this to be unkind, but I’ve got to make you see. Where did you go last night?’

Ellie said in a choking voice,

‘He was – with her – I went to see-’

‘Oh, Ellie dear!’

‘They were there – together. I was – outside – in the cold-’

Mary leaned forward and caught her wrist.

‘Then how – how did you get your skirt and jumper wet?’

She got a terrified stare and a gasped ‘I didn’t!’

‘They were soaked through.’

Ellie said, ‘No – no-’

She slid down against the pillows and fainted.

Chapter Thirty-five

Ninian followed Janet into the nursery and shut the door.

‘Janet, I want you to go away.’

‘Adriana wants me to stay until after the inquest.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I said I would.’

‘I don’t want you to be here. You had to come back to see the police, but there’s no earthly need for you to stay. I’ll drive you into Ledbury, and you can get up to town by daylight.’

She shook her head.

‘I said I’d stay.’

‘And I say I don’t want you to. For all we know, we’ve got a homicidal maniac on the premises, and I want you off them before anything else happens.’

She said, ‘That’s nonsense!’

‘Is it? That’s just you keeping up your character for being sensible, and you ought to know that it won’t go down with me! Are you going to tell me you didn’t get the wind up when the Superintendent was talking about niblicks? If you didn’t, why did you go hiding your face on my shoulder and quivering like an aspen?’

‘I didn’t!’

‘My child, you did. Quite the best imitation of an aspen in my long and varied experience. If I hadn’t put my arm round you, you would probably have swooned.’

‘I don’t swoon!’

‘You don’t know what you can do until you’ve done it.’ He put his arms round her and said in a melting voice, ‘Darling, please go away. I do love you so.’

She gave a little shaky laugh.

‘You don’t really.’

‘Really – absolutely – finally. My jo Janet!’

‘Ninian, I can’t.’

‘Why can’t you?’