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She passed out on to the road. On either side of the gate there was a stretch of low stone wall. Since the village children had developed a tendency to play such games as King of the Castle upon the flat convenient top of this wall, the late Vicar had caused an iron railing to be set up on it. Mrs. Ball had been informative as to her husband’s dislike of this addition.
“It’s quite hideous, and John can’t bear it. Like those dreadful little railings you used to see in the suburbs. John is only waiting until we have been here rather longer to have it taken away. He says he doesn’t think it would be tactful until we have been here at least three years. Fortunately, the gilding is wearing off.”
Miss Silver did not share the Vicar’s repugnance. She considered the railings very neat and tasteful, the dark green of the paint harmonizing pleasantly with the grass in the churchyard beyond, and the touches of gilding really quite subdued. But it was not with its artistic merits or demerits that she was concerned as she turned the ray of her torch upon the series of arrow-heads which defended the wall. If one of these spikes was loose-
She was testing them with her free hand, when a voice said from behind her,
“Oh, no, it wasn’t one of them.”
If Miss Silver had come near to starting she showed no trace of it. She turned with her usual composure and spoke to the dark shape which stood on the grass verge between her and the road. Transferring the torch to her left hand and letting it hang down, she said,
“Was it not, A
The shape went back a little.
“Oh, no, it wasn’t one of them.”
“What makes you so sure about that?”
“What makes anyone sure about anything?”
“We can be sure of what we know.” Miss Silver’s voice was quiet.
For a moment everything was so quiet that they could hear the water moving down towards the splash. It had cut itself a cha
A
“What anyone knows is their own business.”
“Not always. When murder has been done, everyone has a duty to tell whatever they know. Two people have been murdered.”
A
Miss Silver put out a hand towards her, and she stepped back. She had been a dark shape, but now she was so little distinguishable that she might have been part of the darkness itself. Miss Silver made no attempt to follow her. She drew her hand back again and said,
“I will not touch you, A
A
“Time was I’d have been afraid. You get used to being alone.” Then, after a pause, “I heard you go, and I came after you.”
“Then we will go home together,” said Miss Silver with cheerful firmness.
Avoiding the yew tu
“You didn’t find what you were looking for-nor you won’t.”
Miss Silver let a moment go by before she said,
“How do you know that I did not find it, A
CHAPTER XXXV
A
Miss Silver stood where she was and waited until a gleam of light through the shrubbery informed her that the door had been opened to let A
Miss Silver recognized this music. It was the Dies Irae. “Day of wrath, day of mourning”-with its picture of the Last Judgment-heaven and earth consumed in the burning wrath of the Judge. But she had never heard it played like this before. If it was Arnold Random who was playing, there must be something behind that grey, controlled façade. She did not count herself to be musical, but she could recognize that here was a musician, and, what mattered a good deal more, someone in an extremity of pain.
She came forward until she was level with the curtain. It was not quite drawn. Arnold Random sat there in the light. The sweat ran down his ravaged face. He looked like a man in torment, and he played as if he was possessed. She had no plan in her mind. She just stood there and watched him. The storm of sound died down. Very high and soft, a long wailing note came stealing upon the empty silence. Words from the old Latin hymn rose in Miss Silver’s mind-“Recordare, Jesu pie.” Mercy after judgment? There were a few more of those soft mourning notes. Then Arnold Random dropped his hands from the keyboard with a groan. He spoke in a dead voice, as a man may speak to himself when he has come to a place where he can no longer go on.
“It’s too late-”
As he spoke he turned with a kind of groan and saw Miss Silver standing there. She did not speak. They looked at one another. After quite a long time she said,
“You are very unhappy, Mr. Random.”
“Yes-very-”
After another pause she spoke again.
“There is always a right thing to do, as well as a wrong one.”
His hands had fallen upon his knees. He lifted one of them now and let it fall again.
“It is too late-”
“I do not believe it. We may not see the whole of the way, but it is always possible to take the first step.”
Afterwards he was to look back upon this conversation and wonder how it had come about. He had been in extremity. His sleep had gone from him. He had thoughts which he could no longer control, and from which there was no escape. He saw himself slipping with an ever increasing velocity into an abyss of loneliness and shame. And just when the whole nightmare had reached its unendurable climax, there was, as it were, a gleam from the daylight world which he had lost. And with this gleam a sense of assurance, of calm authority, a sense of goodness. He had known the presence of evil and been tortured by it. Now he knew the presence of good. It did not matter to him that it was a stranger who laid this tranquilizing touch upon the fever of his thoughts. If you are dying of thirst, it does not matter to you that it is a stranger who holds the cup of cool water to your lips.