The Clock Strikes Twelve (23 page)

Late that evening three people sat with Miss Silver in Phyllida’s sitting room—Mark Paradine, Lydia, and Elliot Wray. Phyllida was not there. She lay on her bed in the room beyond, her tears all cried away, her thoughts not taking hold of anything yet, but knowing that Elliot was there just on the other side of the door, and that he wouldn’t leave her again. She could hear his voice, and Mark’s, and Lydia’s, and Miss Silver’s—not as words but as sound. She liked hearing the sound, but she didn’t want to hear the words. Presently she would be able to think about going away with Elliot, and about Lydia and Mark. She loved Elliot, she loved Lydia and Mark. Presently she would be able to think about loving them. Just now she could only lie there and let the sound of their voices go by.

On the other side of the door Mark said, “I’ve been with Colonel Bostock and Vyner. They’ve fairly had the wires humming. It’s like you said, Elliot—the Ministry want everything soft-pedalled as much as possible. The blue-prints are not to be mentioned. Everything is to be done to avoid publicity. They’ll try for death by misadventure for Uncle James, and suicide whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed for her. There’ll be a lot of talk, but it will go by.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I suppose she was insane.”

Miss Silver coughed. Little Roger’s leggings were almost completed. They dangled oddly from her needles by the last remaining toe.

“Not in the usual sense of the word. She knew what she was doing, and she was in control of her actions. But she had, I think, for many years allowed herself to be governed by a most fatal and inordinate desire to absorb the feelings and emotions of anyone she cared for. Her engagement to Mr. Moffat was broken off not because of a moral recoil, but because of that desire to be the first, in fact the only one, in his affections. From what your wife told you of their last interview, Mr. Wray, I think this is quite clear. A symptom of this is the terrible fact that she made that last effort to attract Mrs. Wray’s attention. She knew that she had lost her, but she still wanted to be a dominant factor in her life. She made that dreadful attempt.”

Elliot said harshly, “Don’t talk about it—it’s damnable.”

Miss Silver looked at him with kind, bright eyes and continued as if he had not spoken.

“Fortunately it did not succeed. You were very prompt, Mr. Wray.”

Lydia was in one of the big chairs, her hair bright under the light, her face paler than anyone had ever been allowed to see it—dark shadows smudged in under the green eyes with their shading of dusky lashes. But for all its pallor the small pointed face was relaxed. There was a tremulous sweetness about the mouth.

Mark sat on the arm of the chair and kept a hand upon her shoulder. You could not look at them without seeing how much they were aware of one another, how deeply they were at peace between themselves. Mark said in a difficult voice,

“I went on and saw Frank. He’s terribly cut-up. He told me all about it. I said that I should tell you three. No one else. It was like this. When he went back the first time—he says he told the police about that—”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Yes, Mr. Paradine—I was there.”

“He didn’t tell them very much, I gather—only that he went back, and that they talked. Actually, Uncle James told him all about it. He thought a lot of Frank, and Frank thought a lot of him. He told him who had taken the blue-prints. He saw her from Aunt Clara’s room—he was just opening the door to go back into the study when she came in. He stood where he was because he didn’t want to meet her. They’d had words some time earlier in the day— about Elliot—and he didn’t want to start it all over again, so he just stood where he was. His attaché case was on the table. The cylinder with the blue-prints was in it, right on the top. She went straight to the table, opened the case, took the cylinder, and was out of the room again in a flash. He let her go. Then he sat down and thought out how he could score her off. It was the climax of a long time of strain. He told Frank just what he thought about her—said she had separated Elliot and Phyllida and was doing her best to smash up his marriage with Irene. He said he had stood out of the ring for a year because he was afraid of making things worse, but he wasn’t standing out any longer. He told Frank she had taken the blueprints because she thought that would make a final breach between Elliot and the firm, and so keep him away from Birleton. And he said he was going to show her just where she got off. He said he’d had enough of it. Frank was awfully shocked and upset. He tried to soothe him down. The thing he was most anxious about was to prevent an interview between them that night whilst they were both worked up. In the end he got Uncle James to write to her giving his terms. He said he thought anything was better than letting them meet. Uncle James gave him a copy of the letter, and he handed it on to me. Here it is. I’m going to read it, and then we’ll put it on the fire. The police have taken a copy, but they won’t use it.”

He spread out a sheet of the firm’s paper and read aloud what old James Paradine had written on New Year’s Eve:

“My dear Grace,

I saw you take the cylinder with Elliot’s blueprints. I note that you have found an opportunity of replacing them, but that does not close the account between us. I think perhaps it is best that we should not meet tonight. I am therefore letting you have my terms in writing.

(i) You will cease to stand between Elliot and Phyllida. Whatever their differences have been, they are deeply attached to each other and should be allowed to settle their own affairs without further interference from you.

(ii) Within a reasonable time—not more than a couple of months—you will discover a desire to have a flat or a small house of your own. I shall offer this house as a hospital for the duration, and move into a flat in Birleton.

If you still wish to see me, I shall be in the study until twelve. But the terms are quite irrevocable. I advise you to sleep on them.”

Lydia drew in her breath sharply.

“He sent her that letter? How?”

“Frank took it up and slipped it under her door. Then he went away. I was coming in as he went out. We passed each other in the drive.”

Lydia took another of those quick breaths.

“Oh! You never said—”

He had a curious fleeting smile for that.

“Nor did Frank, darling.”

He got up, went over to the fire, dropped the sheet of paper on to a tilted log, and watched it blacken and burn. Standing there looking down at the curling ash with the sparks running to and fro, he said,

“I wonder what she was doing when Elliot heard her door shut at half past eleven.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“She may have intended to go down and see Mr. Paradine then. Hearing the front door close after you, Mr. Mark, and becoming aware that Mr. Wray and Mr. Pearson were crossing the hall, she would naturally go back to her room.”

Mark bent forward and pushed the log with his foot. The ash crumbled, the sparks flew up, the letter was gone. He said,

“That’s what I can’t get off my mind, you know. If she had come down and seen him then, it might have been different—she might not have done it.”

The needles clicked again.

“That is not for us, Mr. Mark. We must not think about what might have happened. We cannot recall the past, but we can prevent its poisoning the future.”

He said “Yes,” and came back to the arm of Lydia’s chair.

Elliot said abruptly, “That’s that. What about Albert?”

Mark lifted a hand and let it fall again upon his knee.

“I’ve been wrestling with the police about him. I said I wouldn’t prosecute, and Vyner got a piece off his chest about compounding a felony. I pointed out we had no evidence to show that there had been a felony. Albert is perfectly right—Uncle James might have had the work done himself. We know he didn’t of course, but we know that there isn’t any proof of that, and you bet Albert will have covered his tracks. Anyhow, suppose we did get the evidence—where should we be? Right in the middle of the sort of stink we’re all doing our best to avoid. Old Bostock chipped in and said I was right and it was a damned awkward case, which struck me as a bit of an understatement. Anyhow he’s called Vyner off, and Albert is for the army.”

Elliot gave a short laugh.

“The war is as good as won!”

Mark said,

“When I’d got that squared I came back and saw Albert. I told him he’d better come clean, and.he did. I don’t know how much he was lying. Not much, I think, but of course he was doing the best for himself. It makes quite a story, but I dare say it’s true, or as near as makes no difference. His mother was ill, and they were awfully poor. He was working for a firm with a good solid connection. They got a lot of valuable stuff in for alterations and repairs. He began by picking out a stone here and a stone there and substituting something not quite so good—not paste but the real thing—lighter stones—inferior quality. He’d sell the stone he’d picked out and pocket the difference between that and the replacement. He says there’s quite a lot of that sort of thing done. That’s how he got to know the ropes. Then his mother died, and he came here. He says nothing was farther from his thoughts than to try any monkey business. He was going to be industrious and respectable, because he hoped it was going to pay a lot better than balancing on the edge of crime. Unfortunately the past bobbed up—his friend Izzy in fact. Albert says that Izzy blackmailed him. I don’t think I believe that part. I think Izzy suggested a deal over Aunt Clara’s diamonds and Albert fell for it. There was quite a brisk market for stones just about then. Our leading moneygrubbers were feeling nervous about the prospects of a capital levy after the war, and were putting the stuff into diamonds. Aunt Clara’s had just been valued, so the chances of a revaluation, even for probate, were remote. He fixed it all up with Izzy, and waited for an opportunity. Well, he got it when Uncle James was laid up last year. He was actually sent to get the cases out of the safe. It was as easy as falling off a log. He photographed everything, took careful measurements, Izzy supplied the imitations, and Albert substituted them for the real stones. He dwelt with pride on the fact that he is a very skilled workman—I had to head him off giving me a lecture on the subject.” Miss Silver coughed.

“It was the fact that, whilst full of information upon every other subject and unusually eager to impart what he knew, Mr. Pearson appeared unable or unwilling to converse upon anything connected with his former profession that first turned my attention in the direction of the diamonds.”

“It was frightfully clever of you,” said Lydia.

Miss Silver shook her head in a modest and deprecatory manner.

“Oh, no,” she said. “You see, Mr. Pearson’s alibi was naturally a very suspicious circumstance, and yet in a young man so obviously determined to advance himself it really was capable of an innocent interpretation. What he said to Mr. Wray is quite true. He is not an attractive person. He is not liked, and nobody would have been sorry to assume that it was he who had incurred Mr. Paradine’s displeasure. So then, it all came down to this—if he had a motive for murdering Mr. Paradine, the alibi was compromising, and if it could be proved to be false, quite conclusive. Looking about for a possible motive, I naturally thought about the diamonds, and suggested that a valuer should be present when the safe was opened.”

“It was very, very clever of you,” said Lydia. “We thought Mark was going to be arrested every minute. It was like standing on the edge of a most dreadful precipice and waiting for the fall to begin. I didn’t think anything could be so frightful. And you saved us.”

Mark put his hand on her shoulder again.

Miss Silver beamed upon them.

“Praise is gratifying even when exaggerated. I do not think that Mr. Mark was really in much danger. You see, he was innocent—that was quite plain to me from the beginning. He was shocked, and he was in grief. There was no trace of guilt or remorse. But my first evening in this house showed me two things very plainly. Mr. Pearson was in a nervous state, and declined any approach to the subject of jewelry. Miss Paradine was in a highly charged condition of antagonism towards Mr. Wray and possessive feeling for Mrs. Wray. I am sensitive to such currents of feeling, and have found this very useful in my work. Strong emotions of this nature point towards a motive for murder even more conclusively than concrete evidence. I considered Miss Paradine, but I also considered Mr. Pearson. Mr. Paradine, having omitted to name the person he accused, left the way open for anyone who had been at fault in some other direction to accuse himself. I soon discovered that it was Miss Paradine who had taken the blue-prints, but I still thought it possible that not she but Mr. Pearson had committed the murder. The more I thought about his alibi, the more incriminating it appeared. After Polly’s evidence it seemed very difficult to believe that he was innocent, and when Mr. Jones declared that the diamonds had been tampered with it became impossible.”

All this time Elliot Wray had been silent. He said now,

“And yet he didn’t do it. Or did he?”

Mark started. Lydia said, “Oh!”

Miss Silver gave him a bright attention.

“That is a very interesting remark, Mr. Wray. May I ask what prompted it?”

Elliot leaned forward.

“What was Albert doing in the bathroom?” he said.

Miss Silver coughed.

“I have asked myself that question.”

“He’d got no conceivable reason for being there, you know—unless he was waiting for Mr. Paradine to go out on the terrace. He must have been there for at least five minutes. If he wasn’t waiting for that, what was he waiting for? If he wanted to see Mr. Paradine he had only to open the study door and go in. But he didn’t do that—he hung out of the bathroom window and waited. I say there was only one thing that he could have been waiting for.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“That is so. But you are forgetting the direct evidence of Mr. Frank Ambrose. He saw Miss Paradine come out of her sister-in-law’s room, and he saw her push her brother over the parapet. That he did so is an extremely fortunate circumstance for Mr. Pearson, whose presence in the bathroom had already been established by the discovery of one of his prints upon the window frame.”