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Miss Silver sat silent and thoughtful. News flies fast in the country. The case was a sensational one. The arrested persons had been taken to Melbury to be charged. There might already be talk in an hotel, where the staff would be coming to work. The Melbury rubies would set tongues wagging. She hoped indeed that Rosamond Maxwell would remain in her room.
At Craig’s knock on the door Rosamond opened it. If he too had had misgivings, they were swept away. She was wearing the blue jumper in which she had come to tea with Mrs. Merridew. It wasn’t new, but it deepened the sapphire blue of her eyes. When she looked at Craig they were full of light.
He said, “Miss Silver has come to see us married,” and she turned at once and put out both her hands.
“How kind of you-how very, very kind!”
Je
They went down to the Register Office in Craig’s car. Je
Craig and Rosamond didn’t kiss. They looked at each other. There was something in the way they looked which gave Je
CHAPTER 45
She never stops talking,” said Frank Abbott. “It’s pretty grim. They’ve got her in the Infirmary-she just goes on and on and on. Detailed accounts of everything for the last twenty years.”
Miss Silver sighed.
“An extremely shocking case,” she said.
It was the evening of a crowded day. They sat in the drawing-room at the White Cottage, Frank stretched out in the largest chair, Miss Silver primly upright with her knitting in her lap. Mrs. Merridew was still with Lucy Cu
“The Chief Constable wouldn’t believe it, you know. Said she had gone off her head, and the whole thing was just a painful delusion. Even the sight of the Melbury rubies didn’t shake him. There had been Crewes at Crewe House for three hundred years, and so forth and so on. If there was a villain in the piece it would be Henry Cu
Little Josephine’s leggings were very nearly completed. There had been just enough of the cherry-coloured wool. She said,
“And pray, how did you convince him?”
Frank poured himself out another cup of coffee. He sugared it extravagantly.
“Well, you know, when she said that Maggie Bell’s body was in the old sand pit just off the road down the second lane to the left on the way to Melbury and it was there under a tangle of nettle and bramble, he had either got to credit her with second sight or come round to the idea that she had helped to put it there just as she said. She told us with a good deal of pride how she had intercepted Maggie on her way to the Hunts’s and got her into Selby’s car by saying there was something she wanted her to explain to Florrie’s mother. After which it was quite easy for Selby to knock her on the head, and so to the sand pit. Exit Maggie who, like the unfortunate Miss Holiday, had seen too much. Very regrettable, and a lot of trouble for Lydia Crewe. Henry had been careless enough to leave stolen diamonds lying about on his table when he went out of the room and returned to find Maggie looking at them. Naturally, after that there was only one thing to be done, and Selby and Lydia did it. I gather they didn’t tell Henry. All he did was to pack the stuff in his specimens.”
“That is so. Mr. Lester and I overheard her assuring him that Maggie had gone away because she was bored, and that Miss Holiday had committed suicide. He was uneasy, but only too anxious to be convinced. A weak man, and very much under her influence.”
Frank finished his cup and set it down..
“You know, what got everyone all wrong was the original assumption that the disappearance of Maggie Bell had anything to do with the leakage of information at Dalling Grange. If Maggie hadn’t been working for the Cu
Miss Silver reprehended the expression. A slight cough conveyed the fact. Frank blew her a kiss.
“Apologies and regrets! Evil communications corrupt good ma
She smiled with indulgence.
“My dear Frank, you talk very extravagantly. What is it you want to know?”
“How you got on to the jewel business.”
Her needles clicked. She pulled on her cherry-coloured wool.
“It is a little difficult to say. Miss Crewe affected me in a very disagreeable ma