The Watersplash (6 page)

The inquest was short and formal, and the verdict “Death by misadventure.” Mr. Ball read the funeral service, and the widow wept at the graveside in the old black coat and skirt which had been Miss Lucy Wayne’s second-best. Next week she would be going into service again, at the Vicarage. There was Joe Hodges and his wife wanting the cottage, and even if she felt as if she could stay there by herself, there were nearly all her savings spent, and better to work while she could and have the rent coming in to put by for a rainy day. Mrs. Ball might be a newcomer, but she was a real lady. Annie knew a real lady when she saw one, and if she had to go into service again she would rather it was up at the Vicarage than anywhere else. Only when you’ve had a home of your own— The tears ran down her ravaged face. She knew in her heart that she might not have had one for long. William had been a bad husband. He drank, he had begun to knock her about, and there was that girl in Embank. The cottage had been bought with her money, but it was in his name. She stood by the open grave and wept, and how many of her tears were for William, and how many were for her lost savings, and her lost hope, and her lost pride, she probably did not know herself.

The inquest and the funeral were still to come when Clarice Dean rang up the south lodge just after lunch on Saturday. The telephone was in Miss Ora’s room, so she waited till she had seen Miss Mildred go down the street, and then slipped out to the telephone-box by Mrs. Alexander’s shop. It was soundproof if you were careful to see that the door had really caught, only of course you had to remember that you were on a party line, and that anyone might be listening in. Not that it mattered in this case. She didn’t mind who heard her talking in an intimate and affectionate manner to Edward Random.

But it wasn’t Edward who answered from the south lodge, it was Susan Wayne. Clarice made a lively grimace. Was Edward never at home? She had tried for him last night, and as late as she dared. Of course Susan might be just officious, butting in and taking the call, when she was only a visitor in the house and it wasn’t any of her business. She said in her high, sweet voice,

“Oh, Susan, is that you? How nice! Have you started up at the Hall yet?”

“No—not till Monday. Did you want to speak to Emmeline?”

Clarice allowed herself a little silvery laugh.

“Well, no, darling. As a matter of fact Edward and I are fixing up a cinema, and I find I can get off tonight. Is he there?”

“No, he isn’t. He’s frightfully busy, you know, taking over from Mr. Barr.”

“But not on a Saturday afternoon! He simply can’t be—it isn’t civilized! When will he be back?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Darling, you’re not being a bit helpful! I suppose I couldn’t ring him up at Mr. Barr’s?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Susan, you really aren’t being any help at all! We do want this evening together so much, and it’s so frustrating not being able to get hold of him just when I’ve found I can have the time off!”

“I’m sorry, Clarice, but I don’t see what I can do. He wasn’t back last night until a quarter past ten. He might be earlier tonight, or he might not—he just didn’t say. I can tell him you rang up.”

Clarice gave that pretty, silly laugh again.

“Well, it won’t be much good if he isn’t going to be in till midnight, will it? Look here, I’ll call up again after tea. We could still go over to Embank and see the big picture and have supper afterwards. What a nuisance it is having to work! It spoils all one’s best dates, doesn’t it?”

Edward came home at half past four. Susan said,

“Clarice Dean rang up.”

“What about?”

“You and a cinema. She says she can get the evening off.”

“It’s more than I can.”

“She’ll be ringing again after tea.”

“Well, you’d better tell her—”

Susan shook her head.

“She’ll want to speak to you.”

“Say I haven’t come in.”

“Miss Ora probably saw you go by. Besides—”

“You cannot tell a lie? I remember you were really quite mentally deficient in that direction!”

Nobody likes to be accused of a virtue. Susan’s fair skin showed a decided flush.

“If people want to have lies told, I think they ought to do it themselves!”

“Well, I should do it much better than you. I’ve had more practice.”

She gave him her straight, candid look.

“Have you?”

His face darkened.

“Oh, yes—a great deal—in the best of all possible schools. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive, as the poet says! And I assure you it puts a fine edge on the practice when you know that if you do let the web get tangled it’s going to cost you your life. Atropos with the shears —and a fine clean cut across your weaving!”

She said, “Don’t!” and could have bitten her tongue out. He was talking to her, really talking, and she must needs cry out because it hurt.

And then all of a sudden he smiled that rather twisted smile and said,

“All right, you shan’t tell lies for me, and I won’t tell them to you. I don’t know whether it’s a compliment or not, but for what it’s worth, I think it would probably always be easier to tell you the truth.”

Clarice rang up at five o’clock, and this time she rang from the Miss Blakes’ sitting-room with Miss Ora and Miss Mildred lingering out the last cup of tea and stretching their ears to hear what was said. It was, of course, quite easy to hear what Clarice was saying. They were neither of them at all deaf. But to catch what was being said at the other end of the line in Emmeline’s little back room was another matter. An exasperating murmur in the throat of the instrument was all that they could distinguish. They would not even have known that the murmur was being contributed by Edward Random if it had not been for Clarice’s repeated use of his name.

“Edward! At last! Darling, where have you been all day? I was to ring you up, and I simply couldn’t get you! Susan kept on saying you were out and she didn’t know when you would be coming in! Quite maddening! Do you know, I began to have just a very, very faint suspicion that she didn’t really want us to fix up that cinema.”

As soon as he could stem this persistent ripple Edward said,

“It’s no good nourishing that sort of suspicion about Susan. She has never learnt how to tell a lie, and no one will ever be able to teach her. Very reposeful.”

“Edward—darling—it just couldn’t sound duller! But then she is a bit on the dull side, isn’t she? She always was. Worthy of course, but definitely boring. Now about this cinema. You told me to let you know, and I’ve got the evening off. So kind of Miss Ora! What about the six o’clock bus into Embank?”

At the other end of the line Edward said,

“Nothing doing, I’m afraid. I’m too busy, and I’m going to go on being busy for quite a long time.”

“Darling, that’s awfully sweet of you—to put it that way, I mean. But we’ve simply got to meet—haven’t we? I mean, Lord Burlingham can’t expect you to work all day and all night, can he? Would you like me to tell him so? He used to be rather sweet to me, you know.”

No one had ever called Edward Random dull. He could see as far through a brick wall as anybody else, and through this particular wall he became vividly aware that Clarice was ringing up on the Miss Blakes’ telephone, and that Miss Ora and Miss Mildred were almost certainly listening with all their ears and being suitably impressed with the idea that she was on the most affectionate terms with him. He became first angry, and then maliciously amused. All right, if she asked for it she could have it. He had meant to put in a good three hours’ work on the estate accounts, but they could wait, and, as Clarice had just remarked, you can’t work all day and all night. He said,

“Not on your life! But hold on—wait a minute, will you? I’ll just see what can be done.”

The pleased flush on Clarice’s face was noted by the Miss Blakes. She had not the least objection to their noticing it. She even added to the effect by smiling to herself.

Edward left the receiver dangling. He encountered Susan coming down the stairs and reached up over the banisters to catch her by the wrist.

“We’re all going to the cinema tonight.”

She shook her head.

“Emmeline won’t.”

“Then the Croft boy—what’s his name—Cyril. I want a chaperon. In fact I want two—one to talk to Clarice, and one to talk to me.”

He was still holding her wrist as she looked down, his face more alive than she had seen it yet. Quite suddenly she began to feel happy. She laughed a little and said,

“I’m no good at being a chaperon. Besides they’re all extinct, like the dodo.”

His grip tightened.

“You’re coming if I have to drag you by the hair—you’ve got a nice lot of it to take hold of. But I expect there’s enough local scandal about me already, so you’d better come quiet. Susan—”

She looked down at him, smiling.

“I’m to cling to you?”

“Like cobbler’s wax.” He let go of her wrist. “I must now go back and tell Clarice what a nice party I’ve arranged.”

Clarice had to make a very determined effort to maintain the sweetness of her voice.

“But, Edward darling—they really can’t push in like that! It’s just not done!”

In Emmeline’s back room Edward said cheerfully,

“Well, I couldn’t leave Susan out. And a party is always better fun, don’t you think? I’ll just ring Cyril, and we can all catch the six o’clock bus.”

Clarice restrained an impulse to bang down the receiver, but since Edward had already hung up, there could be no possible object in doing so. She replaced it gently and said in a plaintive voice,

“Really, some people never know when they are not wanted. Poor Edward, he is so vexed—that tiresome Susan Wayne insists on coming too.”

Miss Mildred opined that Susan was headstrong, and they had a very cosy little talk about some other defects in her character.

When Clarice went to her own room to dress she could at least feel that the Miss Blakes had been impressed with the idea that if she and Edward were not actually engaged they were pretty far gone in that direction. And what the Miss Blakes knew today Greenings would certainly know tomorrow.

Miss Silver comes into the Greenings affair in the most casual manner. Nothing could have seemed less important than the fact that having undertaken to match some wool for her niece Ethel Burkett, she should, after a long and unavailing search, have turned in to the tea-shop so conveniently situated just across the road from the scene of her last failure. Ethel would be disappointed. She had come across some good pre-war wool in a box which had been in store, and there was just not enough of it to make a dress for little Josephine. Such a good quality and such a pretty colour. It really did seem a pity. It was one of those grey London days when everything looks cold and drab. A cup of tea would be most refreshing. Scone and butter too perhaps. She really was quite hungry.

The tea-shop was full, but just as she came in, two people got up from a table in the corner, and she thankfully took one of the chairs. She had just placed her handbag and umbrella on the other and was giving her order, when a girl came in and stood looking about for a vacant place. Quite a pretty girl with dark curly hair and a bright colour.

Very little ever escaped Miss Silver, and she was at once aware that the girl was dressed a little too smartly. Neither the cut nor the material was good enough to produce the effect which had obviously been aimed at. The fact that her own garments were both shabby and in a remote tradition in no way detracted from her ability to form a perfectly just estimate of another woman’s clothes. The girl, as she saw at a glance, belonged to the class, so numerous in any large town, who endeavour to satisfy their social ambitions by wearing a cheap copy of the latest mode. As she reflected upon how much nicer the young woman would have looked in a plain, durable coat and skirt, her table was approached and a rather high, pretty voice enquired,

“Please, may I sit here—or are you expecting anyone?”

Miss Silver gathered up her bag and her umbrella and said pleasantly,

“Oh, no, I am quite alone. A cup of tea is so agreeable when one has been shopping, is it not?”

The girl said yes it was. She had a little puzzled frown. She opened her handbag, extracted a powder-compact, and began to do things to her face. The frown persisted. She put away her powderpuff, gave an order to the waitress, and listened with only the most surface attention to some amiable remarks about the weather. It was not until her tea and a plate of fancy cakes had been set down and the waitress had hurried away that she leaned forward rather with the effect of a jerk and said,

“You don’t know me, but you arc Miss Silver, aren’t you— Miss Maud Silver?”

Miss Silver looked faintly surprised. If she had ever seen this girl she would have remembered her—the curly dark hair, the bright colour, the hazel eyes set a little too near together. She said,

“I do not think that we have met before, have we?”

The girl shook her head.

“No, we haven’t met. But I was nursing a case in the house opposite the block of flats where Mirabel Montague had that fake robbery. The dancer, you know. I heard all about you then, because one of the police officers—well, he was rather a friend of mine. A nice boy, just out of the Police College, and quite well connected. And he told me it was you who put them on to its being a fake. He said they all swore by you at Scotland Yard, and he pointed you out to me. It was about a year ago, but I knew you at once as soon as I looked into the tea-shop!”

A year ago—a week or two after James Random’s death—a month before she was offered the Canadian job—Dick Winnington laughing and saying, “If you want to see something out of the family album, just take a look at her! Miss Maud Silver—Maudie the Mascot, pride of the Yard!” She had liked Dick a lot, but he had faded—boys did…She bit her lip and said,

“You were wearing that coat and hat.”

The coat was the one which had reappeared every autumn for years. The black cloth of which it was made was still perfectly good, but there was that indefinable look of having been worn a good deal. The hat, a black felt with a kind of purple starfish on one side and some loops of mauve and black ribbon at the back, had been Miss Silver’s second-best for a good many years. It would continue to do its faithful duty for at least two more winters.

She smiled and said,

“I am Miss Maud Silver. But I am afraid Mr. Winnington must have talked very foolishly about me. I happened to know something which was of some use to the police, and it is every citizen’s duty to do what he can to promote the cause of justice.”

Clarice Dean was a little taken aback. She had to collect herself for a moment before she could get going again. Then she said in a hurry,

“Yes, of course! I mean, that is really what I want to talk to someone about! I was just thinking I would like a cup of tea, and when I looked in and saw you sitting by yourself in this corner I thought, ‘Well, she’d be the one to ask.’ I mean, no one wants to get mixed up with the police if they can help it, but I’ve been getting that worried feeling, and instead of going off it seems to get worse. And when it comes to not getting one’s sleep—well, you do feel as if you wanted to talk to someone!”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“What is worrying you?”

As so often happens, the mere fact of having spoken of what was weighing on her had already brought relief. Clarice said,

“Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s just that I haven’t had anyone to talk to. But if you are mixed up with the police—”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I have no official connection with them.”

Clarice gave her a shrewd glance.

“Well, I don’t know about that. Not, of course, that there is anything for the police to worry about. It’s just I don’t know such a lot about the law, and the way I am placed it seems as if I might find myself in trouble if I talked, and I might find myself in trouble if I held my tongue. I mean, I’ve got my living to earn, and it doesn’t do for a nurse to get a name for repeating things, if you see what I mean.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Clarice helped herself to one of the fancy cakes.

“Yes—I think I do. But you’re not to go to the police. You see, it might be a good thing if someone else knew, and as far as I can see, I’m the only one—” She paused for quite a long time, and then said, “now. You think of awfully silly things when you wake up suddenly in the night, don’t you? And that’s when it comes over me that I’m the only one left. I’ve thought about telling Edward, but I just can’t get hold of him. He’s up to his neck in this new job, and when he isn’t, that girl Susan just sticks to him like a leech.”

Miss Silver poured herself out another cup of tea. The girl was in a state of nervous tension. She was crumbling her cake, lifting a piece of sugar icing half way to her mouth and dropping it, pulling her cup towards her and pushing it away again. It was a pity to let a good cup of tea grow cold. When she had sipped from her own she said,

“And who is Edward?”

Clarice began to tell her all about Edward Random and Greenings, and Mr. Random’s two wills, and going down to nurse Miss Ora Blake. Only she changed some of the names. Greenings became Greenways, and Random—Rivers, but for the rest she used only Christian names and let the surnames go.

“And you see, I was there when he made that will the week before he died. I don’t mean I was in the room, because I wasn’t. But the night before, he called out, and when I went in, there he was, sitting up in bed and saying he had seen Edward in a dream—that was the nephew who was supposed to be dead. He said he had seen him, and Edward had told him he wasn’t dead. ‘So I’ll have to do something about my will, ’ he said. ‘As it is, it all goes to my brother Arnold, and if Edward is alive, that isn’t right.’ Well, I told him he had been dreaming, and he said there were true dreams, and this was one of them. Next day he was pretty well able to be up and dressed and down in his study. I had the afternoon off, and when I came back he told me he had made this will and called in two of the gardeners to witness it. ‘So that’s done, ’ he said, ‘and I can die happy.’ He didn’t tell me where he had put the will, and a week later he was dead.”

“And the nephew came home?”

“Six months afterwards. I had gone to Canada with a patient, and I was there for the best part of a year. That was just after I saw you. I didn’t hear anything about what had happened until I got back again. Then I met a friend of Edward’s, and he said he had turned up all right and was doing some kind of a land agent’s course—said he’d changed a lot, and no one knew what had happened, or where he had been. And he said Edward was awfully hard up because his uncle Arnold Ran-Rivers had come in for all the money and everything. So I thought I’d go down to Greenings and find out what about it, and I wrote to the doctor there to see if he could get me a case.”

The change from Greenways to Greenings did not escape Miss Silver. The name had slipped out so easily as to convince her that it was the real one. Since it was a name with which she was familiar, her attention was naturally arrested. The daughter and son-in-law of an old friend had recently gone to live at Greenings, and she herself had been most kindly pressed to visit them.

“Yes?”

Clarice had warmed to her story. This dowdy little person in her family album clothes was surprisingly easy to talk to. She poured it all out—getting to Greenways—she had very nearly said Greenings—and finding that Edward was just coming down to take up a job he had been offered. “And of course I want to talk to him—after all, it is in his own interest. But I simply never see him alone. That girl Susan I told you about, she just clings! She is in love with him of course—it simply sticks out all over her! But men never see that sort of thing. Edward doesn’t think about anyone but me—at least he wouldn’t if I ever got a chance.”

Miss Silver gave a slight hortatory cough.

“You are not asking my advice on how to secure this young man’s affections?”

Clarice’s colour brightened.

“Oh, no—no—of course not! There isn’t any need for that!” She gave her pretty, silly laugh. “It’s just Susan being so aggravating! Why, the other evening when Edward and I were going to the cinema she positively insisted on coming too! Do you know, she simply never let us have a word together, and I had to talk to that awful gawky boy of the doctor’s! And you see, I’ve simply got to have it all out with Edward, only I’d like to know a little more about how I stand before I tell him his uncle made another will.”

“He does not know?”

“He hasn’t an idea.” She paused and looked about her.

It was not very early, and the tea-shop was emptying. They were in one of the far corners, Miss Silver facing the room, and she with her back to it. The tables on either side of them had been cleared, and for all practical purposes they were as much alone as if they had been in a private room. She looked at Miss Silver.

“That’s where I don’t know how I stand. He’ll be very grateful and all that—bound to be, don’t you think? It’s an old place, and there’s a lot of money. I mean, I would be practically giving them to him, wouldn’t I? But I would rather want to know where I was before I did anything about it. A girl has to think of herself, hasn’t she? Of course it mightn’t be such a bad thing anyhow, with this new job of his. There’s quite a good house—only the old agent wants to stay on in it, so I really don’t know.”

Miss Silver looked at her across the table. She was accustomed to confidences, and she had listened to some strange ones. A pretty girl—without family or backing—brought up to think that she must fight for her own hand—self-centred and more than a little ill-bred—anxious to marry and be settled, anxious to secure her future—ready to use the knowledge she had acquired in any way which would contribute to this end. She said gravely,

“You say that the uncle did make a second will?”

“Oh, yes—he told me he had.”

“And that it was not proved?”

“Oh, no—his brother Arnold came in for everything.”

“And he has done nothing for his nephew?”

“Nothing at all. Everyone says what a shame it is.”

“Then I think you have a plain duty. You should see the family solicitor, tell him what you know, and furnish him with the names of the witnesses. I think you mentioned that they were gardeners on the estate.”

Clarice’s colour changed.

“That’s just it! That’s why I wanted to talk to someone! Billy Stokes—he was one of them. Well, he went to sea and was drowned—washed overboard in a storm.”

“And the other?”

She had not eaten more than half of her sugar cake. She looked down at it now. Crumbling the pink and white icing. Frowning.

“William—he was still there. I spoke to him about the will. He remembered signing it. I said not to talk to anyone until I had made up my mind what was the best thing to do. He wasn’t drunk but he had been drinking—he does—I mean, he did. He said there might be money in it—for both of us. And I said, ”Now don’t you do anything silly!‘ That was last Thursday, and on Saturday morning the daily woman where I am came running in and said he had been found drowned in the watersplash just beyond the village”

Miss Silver said,

“A watersplash would not be deep enough to drown a man unless he fell or was pushed. Even then he should be able to get up again.”

“He was probably drunk—he very often was.” Her voice was casual to the point of indifference, but her hand shook.

“There was an inquest of course. What was the verdict?”

“Death by misadventure.”

“There was no suspicion of foul play?”

Clarice shook her head.

“Even my old ladies never thought of it, and they are the worst gossips in the place.”

But she did not look at Miss Silver. After a moment she said,

“You see what I mean—the witnesses are both dead. I never saw the will—I only know he said that he had made one. I don’t see it would be much good my going to the lawyer and saying that. I mean, would it? And a nurse has to be careful. If she gets a name for making mischief she’s finished. I can’t afford to run the risk of that.”

Miss Silver said, “No—” in a meditative voice.