He took another piece of buttered toast and said,

‘You’ve got something on your mind.’

Mrs. Salt’s fair, fresh-complexioned face remained impassive. The blue eyes which were so much like Abel’s maintained their quiet gaze. She lifted her cup, drank from it, and set it down before she answered him.

‘Well, I won’t say I’m not glad to find you alone.’

Abel wagged his head. He could do it quite comfortably now that the stiffness was gone.

‘You knew very well I was going to be alone. Mrs. Bastable has gone to see her sister-in-law at Ealing. She will come home in very low spirits because Miss Bastable always treats her as if she ought to be in the infants’ class. What have you got on your mind?’ Then, without waiting for a reply, ‘I suppose it’s Emily.’

‘Well, yes, it is.’

Abel grunted.

‘What’s she been doing?’

‘She has been having influenza. On Tuesday night she was very feverish. She wandered in her mind and talked a lot of nonsense. I was glad there wasn’t anyone there to hear her.’

‘What did she say?’

Abigail hesitated.

‘She was out of her head. You can’t take notice of what anyone says when they are in a fever.’

Abel’s bushy eyebrows twitched. Women – look at them! Look at Abby! Had she come here on purpose to tell him what Emily had said, or hadn’t she? Could she get it out without a lot of sticking and fussing? Not a bit of it! He said crossly,

‘Are you going to tell me what she said?’

There was an answering spark in the eyes that were so much like his own.

‘Yes, I am, but I won’t be bustled. I came here on purpose, but it isn’t an easy thing to say, and you’ve never liked poor Emily. I’ve had a duty to her and I’ve done my best. It hasn’t always been easy, and now I’ve come to the place where I’ve got to think about my duty to others, and that isn’t easy either – not after all these years of thinking about Emily first. I’ve come to where I’ve got to speak to someone, and you’re my brother and you’re mixed up with it.’

Abel Tattlecombe finished his piece of toast and reached for another. He wasn’t going to let Emily Salt put him off his tea. If the toast wasn’t eaten hot it would be spoiled, and it was much too good to spoil.

‘What did Emily say?’

Abby wasn’t eating at all. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at him.

‘I’m going to tell you. But you’ve got to make up your mind to look at it the way you would if it wasn’t Emily. You’ve got to judge righteous judgment, Abel, and not just think the way you want to. You’ve never liked Emily, but you’re a just man, and you’ve not got to let it weigh with you. You’ve got to judge the way you would if I was telling you this about somebody else.’

Abel wagged his head.

‘That’s not possible, Abby. You’ve got to judge people according to what you know about them. There’s things I know about Emily. If I’ve got to use my judgment about her, it’s no use telling me I’ve got to put those things out of my head, because I don’t believe the Lord means us to do that, and anyhow it can’t be done. But I’ll do my best to be fair.’

Abigail gave a quiet sigh. Abel always had been set in his ways. She said,

‘Well, I’ll tell you. And you mustn’t make too much of it, for she was clean out of her head. She woke up crying out, and when I went to her she didn’t know me – only stared and said, “I did it – I did it.” So I said, “I’ll get you a drink, my dear.” But when I came back with it she was talking nineteen to the dozen. All a lot of rubbish it sounded like.’

The picture came up in her mind as she spoke – Emily wild enough to frighten you, with her eyes fixed and burning, and a hot, shaking hand. She hadn’t been frightened at the time – she had known too many sick people for that – but when she looked back it frightened her a little more each time.

‘What did she say, Abby?’

She could give the words, but she could never give the horrid way they had come – sometimes in a cold whisper that chilled your blood, sometimes, and quite suddenly, in a scream which made you feel thankful there wasn’t anyone else in the house. Under that habitual look of calm Abigail Salt was deeply perturbed. She said in her quiet voice,

‘She was angry about your will.’

‘She had no call to know anything about it.’

Abigail nodded.

‘She heard you telling me. I couldn’t get her to see, that it was all right for me, and nothing to do with her. She’s got the kind of mind that takes hold of things and can’t let go. She got worked up to feel that William Smith was doing me an injury – and her.’

Abel continued to eat buttered toast. He said with angry contempt,

‘She’s crazy! You’re not telling me what she said.’

Abigail sighed again.

‘I’m trying to make you understand.’

He pushed over his cup, and she filled it. Even with the trouble she was in, she took care that it should be just to his liking. If it came to that, she wasn’t in any hurry to tell him what Emily had said. She wouldn’t be telling him at all if it wasn’t that her conscience wouldn’t let her hold it back.

He sipped from his newly filled cup, fixed his eyes upon her severely, and said,

‘Now, Abby.’

Miss Silver had had a busy two days. On Saturday morning, after a short telephone conversation, she put on her hat and coat and went round to New Scotland Yard, where she was received by Sergeant Abbott and presently conducted by him into the presence of Chief Detective Inspector Lamb.

Frank Abbott, as always, derived a sardonic amusement from the ensuing ritual. Having met as old friends, with a hearty handshake on one side and a ladylike one on the other, Miss Silver hoped that the Chief Inspector was well, and enquired after his family.

‘And Mrs. Lamb? I trust she is in very good health… And your daughters? Lily’s little boy must be at a most delightful age.’

His daughters were the Chief Inspector’s weakness. He permitted himself to expatiate on the infant talents of little Ernie.

‘They would call him after me, and they say he looks like me too, poor little beggar.’

Miss Silver beamed.

‘He could not, I am sure, have a worthier ambition. And your second daughter, Violet? Her engagement – ’

Lamb shook his head.

‘Broken off-and just as well, if you ask me. Naval officer and a nice enough chap, but when he’d been away two years and come back they didn’t want to go on with it. She’s got a good confidential job at the Admiralty, and too many friends to want to make up her mind again in a hurry.’

‘And Myrtle?’

His youngest daughter was the core of Lamb’s heart.

‘Wants to train as a nurse,’ he said. ‘Her mother worries over it. Thinks she’ll catch something, but I tell her nurses don’t.’

Miss Silver opined that it was a noble profession. They came to business with a ‘Well now, what can we do for you?’ and one of her delicate coughs.

Seated in an upright chair, her own back as straight, her neatly shod feet in black woollen stockings and Oxford shoes planted side by side upon the office carpet, her hands in their black knitted gloves folded in the lap of a well worn cloth coat, a little tippet of elderly yellowish fur about her neck, and a hat of several years’ standing enlivened by a bunch of purple pansies on her head, Miss Silver gave her whole attention to the case of William Smith.

‘I find myself in a difficult situation,’ she said.

‘Well, what can we do to help you?’

This was Lamb at his most accessible. There had been times in the past when it was he who had been the recipient of help which, however tactfully proffered, had slightly ruffled his temper and their relations. It was not disagreeable to have Miss Silver asking for assistance.

She said, ‘You are so kind,’ and then got briskly to her case.