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He looked at her hard for a moment before he said,
“May I ask who rang you up?”
She shook her head.
“I think not, Major Hardwick.”
But she had hardly gone down the road before Beeston came to him, looking grey about the corners of the mouth.
“If I might have a word with you, Mr. James-” He indicated the study, and James followed him there.
“What’s up, Beeston?”
“You may well ask, sir! There’s been another murder!”
“Who?”
“That maid of Miss A
James recalled the paper boy. Red hair and freckles, and a kind of streaked-lightning technique with a bicycle. He said,
“Trust that young devil to pick up anything that’s going!”
“Asking for it, she was, if you ask me,” said Beeston with gloomy pride. “No longer ago than yesterday I remarked on it to Mrs. Beeston. It’s my belief she knew something, and thought she was going to make money out of it. Very full of herself according to Mrs. Rogers, and talking high. And Mrs. Rogers told her she’d be getting into trouble if she didn’t watch it. And she couldn’t have spoken a truer word, as it’s turned out.”
James nodded.
“Look here,” he said, “I think we’ll get breakfast over before we tell the ladies.”
Miss Silver found the front door at Sea View open, and a constable in the hall. The ambulance was just driving away. As she stepped across the threshold, Frank Abbott came out of the dining-room to meet her. He took her back there and shut the door upon them.
“Marie Bo
Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”-that being the strongest exclamation she permitted herself.
“ ‘Dear me!’ it is, with a vengeance! Colt swears Miss A
“On what grounds?”
“Come over to the window. That’s where she was found- slumped down right under the sill. The catch of the window was drawn back, but the window itself was shut. In fact everything as it is now.”
“The curtains?”
“Open, as you see them. They had not been drawn.”
“And Inspector Colt’s theory is?”
“That Marie came down in the night-the body was found at six-thirty, and she had been dead for some hours then-she came down in the night and drew back the catch to let herself out of this window, just as she did when she joined Cardozo on Wednesday night. She got the catch drawn back, but she hadn’t time to get the window open because, according to Colt, Miss A
Miss Silver coughed.
“Who found the body?”
“According to her own statement, Miss A
“Except this one.”
“Except this one-which has Marie’s fingerprints upon the catch and upon the window-frame.”
“Not Miss A
“An old print or two-nothing relevant. Marie’s are all over the place.”
“Not anyone else’s?”
“No. Well, there it is. Officially, you are here because, if Miss A
Miss Silver inclined her head.
“Presently, Frank. There is something I have to say to you first. I have reason to believe that Marie Bo
“What makes you think so?”
“There have been a number of small indications. I overheard a conversation between the Beestons and Mrs. Rogers.” She repeated it with her usual meticulous accuracy. “Later, when I had the opportunity of warning Marie as to the danger of such a course, her ma
“She was angry?”
“No, Frank. She put on an i
Frank Abbott made a slight impatient movement.
“If you are by any chance advancing this as a defense of Miss A
“You are sure about that?”
“Oh, yes. He went back to his rooms, dined with another man at a café in Soho, went with him to a cinema, and on to a night club. Didn’t get back till three in the morning. It just couldn’t have been done.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I thought you said he went up to town on business.”
Frank Abbott laughed.
“It may have been the kind that is done at night clubs-I wouldn’t know. The one he went to has quite a South American flavour. He may have wanted to see a man about a deal, or he may have left his business till the morning. He was out by ten o’clock-went to see a solicitor and one or two other people. But wherever he went, he didn’t come down here and kill Marie. And that puts the odds on Miss A
She looked at him.
“Do you really think so?”
“It looks like it.”
“Does it?”
“You don’t think so?”
“Why should Miss A
“How do you know that it was an appointment?”
“If, as I believe, it was a question of blackmail-and that is the only conceivable motive for this murder-Marie would have to meet the person she was blackmailing in order to drive her bargain. If the person was Miss A
“But the window was shut.”
Miss Silver turned towards it.
“They have finished with the fingerprints?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then will you raise the sash from the bottom.”
He did so. When it stood about eighteen inches above the sill she stopped him.
“Now will you go round and come up on the outside.”
She stood waiting until he appeared, her face composed and rather stern. As he bent to the open space between them, she knelt down on the polished boards. Her head was now very much on a level with his.