Vanishing Point

Mrs. Merridew sipped from her cup. There were tears in her eyes, and the tea was certainly not hot enough to account for them. She said,

“Oh dear!”

The two ladies were both dressed and downstairs, when Frank Abbott walked up the path to the front door and used the knocker. Miss Silver, meeting him on the threshold, took it upon herself to conduct him into the drawing-room, Mrs. Merridew being already in the dining-room and about to make the tea. As he shut the door behind them Frank said,

“Well, she was there all right.”

Miss Silver made no comment. She looked gravely at him and waited for more. He continued.

“There is an injury to the head, but it could have been done as she fell. The post-mortem will show whether she went into the water alive. On the face of it, I should say she did, because either it was suicide, or it was murder, the only point in putting her there would be to make it look as if it was suicide. I don’t know how it seems to you, and we should not, of course, be too much prejudiced by the fact that we were sent down here to look out for anything fishy that was going on, but I do get the impression that there is a whole lot more in this than meets the eye. Two women of no importance disappear-dull elderly people without sentimental entanglements. Nobody could possibly be supposed to want either of them out of the way. Yet Maggie Bell has never been traced, and Miss Holiday turns up at the bottom of a well. I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that what we’re looking at is just a few of the bits out of a jigsaw puzzle. They don’t make sense on their own, but if we had the rest of the pieces they might add up to quite a picture.”

Still with that grave look fixed upon her face, Miss Silver said,

“Not a very pretty one, I am afraid.”

He went away, and Miss Silver joined Mrs. Merridew at the breakfast table.

Later on when the meal was over and Florrie had cleared it away Miss Silver followed her to the kitchen. She had been waiting for just such an opportunity, and it seemed to her that the time for it had now arrived. Mrs. Merridew had settled down to write a letter, and Florrie would be occupied in washing up the breakfast things.

It ca

It was not until Miss Silver was drying the last plate that she said,

“I wonder, Florrie, whether you would tell me a little more about your cousin Maggie Bell.”

Florrie jerked a shoulder.

“There’s nothing more to tell.”

She met a grave, steady look and turned from it.

“I don’t know what you think there is to tell.”

Miss Silver said,

“I am not asking from curiosity-I think you know that. But I would be glad to check over one or two points with you. Maggie went every day to the Cu

Florrie looked sideways. No harm in answering that. She said,

“Yes.”

“What time did she leave?”

“That would depend. Mostly she would get away by half past two.”

“Do you know what time she got away on the day she disappeared?”

There was rather a noticeable pause before the answer came.

“It would be the same as usual.”

“Did she go straight home?”

“Mrs. Bell said she was in before three.”

“What did she do after she came in?”

Florrie emptied the washing-up bowl with a swish.

“How do I know what she did? There was always plenty to do-her mother saw to that. Maggie hadn’t any time to have idle hands. There’d be the tea to get, and after she’d washed up she would get on with her ironing.”

“You say that she would sometimes come down to you in the evening. Was that one of the evenings you were expecting her?”

“What if it was?”

Miss Silver’s look was kind but searching.

“Was it?”

“It might have been.”

Rightly interpreting this as an affirmative, Miss Silver repeated it in a more definite form.

“You were expecting her. But she did not come.”

Florrie’s face twitched painfully.

“No, she never.”

“What time did you expect her?”

She turned the washing-bowl over and spread the dishcloth on it to dry.

“Eight o’clock it would be, unless she was kept.”

“Do you know when she actually left her parents’ house?”

“Eight o’clock was what my aunt said.”

Miss Silver said in a meditative tone,

“She left at eight to come to you. It would be quite dark. Can you remember at all what sort of a night it was-whether there was a moon?”

Florrie shook her head.

“It was a dark night and a drizzle of rain.”

Miss Silver said,

“Florrie, was there anyone who knew that Maggie would be coming in to see you that evening?”

Florrie turned from the sink with an abrupt movement.

“She’d come when she could.”

“I asked you if anyone knew that Maggie would be coming to see you.”

“Most things get known in a village. Maggie’s father and mother would know, but they wouldn’t talk about it. They didn’t like her to come and see me-she’d have to pretend she was slipping out for a breath of air. But they’d know all right.”

“Florrie, did anyone else know?”

She turned a haggard face.

“I’m not saying who knew, or who didn’t know. There’s been too much said already, and I’m not putting anything to it. And that’s my last word.”

Miss Silver said, “Thank you, Florrie,” in a very thoughtful voice.

CHAPTER 21

Walking with Mrs. Merridew that afternoon, Miss Silver saw Miss Cu

“I suppose Lydia has been bullying her again. Poor Lucy, I can’t think why she puts up with it.”

Lucy Cu

Henry was late. He was very often late, but of course, with his tastes, that was to be expected. You can’t tramp about looking for things like chrysalises and hibernating dormice and get home punctually for your meals, and it was no good anyone expecting it. If she sometimes felt a little ruffled, she had only to remind herself of the years when she hadn’t known whether Henry was alive or dead to feel an instant remorse. Of course, after such a long time you couldn’t expect things to be just the same as they used to be. To be sure, Lydia wasn’t so young even then, and she herself was rising thirty, but when you looked back on it across all those years thirty did seem quite young. And Henry had been only twenty-five. Rather sweet too, with that sudden smile he had when things went right, and the way he turned to you for help when they went wrong. He had changed a lot- people did in twenty-five years. Henry Cu