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“No one in Hazel Green believes in that as a possibility.”
He laughed.
“Of course they don’t! Trust a village to make up its mind to the worst! No one will actually say so, but there will be the deepest disappointment if it turns out that she has been week-ending with the odd friend or relation.”
Miss Silver looked grave.
“She has lived here for a good many years, and no one knows of any such relation or friend. But you were saying?”
“So I was. Delicate situation of the high-ups. And when the high-ups are in a delicate situation the low-downs don’t always know exactly where they are. And that goes for you and me. In the upshot, I continue my visit, and you continue yours. You, in fact, are just where you were, and you keep your eyes and your ears open and pass on anything that comes your way. I am rather more complicated than that. Scotland Yard has been asked to allow me to remain, but I’ve been given a strong hint to be as unobtrusive as I can. Just in case it all turns out to be nothing, when nobody will want to look as if they had picked up a sledgehammer to take a swipe at a midge.”
Miss Silver had opened her knitting-bag. She produced little Josephine’s cherry-coloured hood, now more than half completed. The bright wool made a pleasant contrast with the dark blue of her dress. She said,
“I understand perfectly. The whole affair calls for discretion.”
“You’ve said it! And that being that, what have you got to tell me?”
The grey needles clicked.
“Not very much, I am afraid, and probably nothing that you do not already know. I am, of course, fortunately placed here, as Mrs. Merridew knows everyone in the neighbourhood and her daily maid is a cousin of Maggie Bell who disappeared from Hazel Green a year ago. She is, in fact, the Florrie mentioned on the card received by Mr. and Mrs. Bell after Maggie’s disappearance and supposed to have been written by her.”
“Supposed?”
“Florrie says that Maggie always wrote both their names with a Y, whereas on the card the spelling is IE.”
“I thought there were no specimens of Maggie’s handwriting-”
“Maggie and Florrie were at school together. She is quite positive that Maggie did not write that card.”
“Then why didn’t she say so? She didn’t-did she?”
“Oh, no. She is the type who would never tell anything to the police. And she said the card was being a comfort to Maggie’s parents and she couldn’t take it from them. They are dead now, but she only burst out about it in the shock of Miss Holiday’s disappearance.”
“It was a shock to her?”
“A very considerable one.”
“Well, that’s that. What else?”
She was knitting rapidly, her expression serious and intent. It was a moment before she said,
“There are two households here intimately co
“Do you mean that Miss Holiday does?”
“Yes. As I told you, she has neither friends nor relations, and I gather that the midday meal is an attraction. She has just the one room at Mrs. Maple’s, and she is no cook.”
Frank laughed.
“I’ve been hearing about Mrs. Maple. I gather she routed De
Miss Silver stopped him.
“Oh, yes,” she said-“Miss Cu
“And how do you know that?”
“Because she mentioned it when she was here at tea this afternoon. Mrs. Merridew was wondering whether there had been any quarrel between Miss Holiday and the cook, and Miss Cu
“But she spilt her tea.”
“Yes, she spilt her tea. And when I recurred to the subject of Miss Holiday and again asked whether she had spoken to her, she looked vague and said in an absent-minded sort of way, ‘Oh, just a few words’.”
CHAPTER 17
Mrs. Maple sat and looked at her visitor. Naturally, she knew Miss Silver by sight-visiting Mrs. Merridew at the White Cottage, and an old school friend. Florrie Hunt spoke well of her, and it wasn’t everybody that got the soft side of Florrie’s tongue. But the gentleman with her-well, he was a bit of a puzzler. A gentleman he was and you couldn’t get from it, and none of those nasty uniforms. But if he hadn’t got something to do with the police, why was he here and wanting to know about Miss Holiday? For the matter of that, why was Mrs. Merridew’s friend here either? Questions they wanted answered. Nice clear voices they’d got-took the trouble to open their mouths and speak plain so that you could hear what they said. But she hadn’t properly made up her mind whether she’d let on that she’d heard them or not. Perhaps she would, and perhaps she wouldn’t-she was in two minds about it. She was getting a little tired of being out of whatever it was that was going on, but on the other hand she wasn’t going to make herself cheap by talking to constables and such.