‘What’s all this about last night?’ he said.

He could have asked no more terrifying question. Her face went blank with fear.

‘Last night…’

He swore under his breath.

‘You heard. When I came in just now, there was Miss Madison wanting to see me – very nicely spoken and all that, but the first and the last of it was there had been a disturbance in the night and it had waked those two women down the passage – Mrs Doyle and Miss What’s-her-name.’

‘Miss Moxon.’

‘I’m not bothering with her name – I want to know what they heard! All I could tell Miss Madison was that I slept all night, and that if there was any disturbance it must have been you! Anyone say anything to you about it?’

‘No, Sid.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘I didn’t get up.’

‘Breakfast in bed – they’ll charge extra for that!’

‘I didn’t have – breakfast. I had some coffee in the town.’

‘No one spoke to you at lunch?’

He kept staring at her, and she couldn’t look away. She was beginning to feel confused. She tried not to speak, but she heard herself say,

‘Only Miss Moxon.’

‘Did she say she had been disturbed?’

‘Something like that.’

He said, ‘I’ll have what she said, or I’ll cut it out of you!’

The knife – that was her terror. His hand moved towards the pocket where he kept it. ‘Oh, God – any way but that!’ Words were jerked out of her.

‘She only – said – someone called out – and waked her.’

‘What did you say?’

She had never found it easy to tell lies. They just don’t come to you if you haven’t been brought up that way. She stared helplessly.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said – you – called out.’

He took her by the other shoulder too, held her face right up to his, and cursed her under his breath. Even if someone had been just outside the door they wouldn’t have heard what he said, but she had to hear it. She had to hear it. What it led up to was,

‘You told her I called out?’

She was sick with fear. It was no use trying to hold anything back. She got out two words on a gasping breath.

‘She knew…’

He let go of her suddenly and stood back. Perhaps he was afraid of what his strong hands might do. He couldn’t kill her here in Miss Madison’s Pink Room. He walked away, getting as far from her as he could before he turned and said,

‘You said I called out. Was that true?’

‘Yes, Sid. You were dreaming.’

‘Did I just call out, or did I say something?’

‘You – called – out.’

He made a step towards her.

‘If you lie to me, I’ll slit your throat!’

‘No, no, I won’t – I’ll tell you.’

‘What did I say?’

He wouldn’t stop asking her until she told him. There was no strength in her to hold anything back. She told him what he had said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew what she had done. She tried to undo it.

‘She didn’t – hear what you said. She only heard you call out. Nobody heard what you said – except me.’

He repeated the words quite smoothly and quietly,

‘Nobody heard except you? But you heard me – or you say you did. How many people have you gone blabbing to?’

‘No one – no one.’

He said,

‘And you’d better not! D’you hear? And now you’d better get busy and pack! We’re off just as soon as we can be ready!’

‘Where – where are we going?’

He said, ‘You’ll know when you get there!’ and began to take his things out of the chest of drawers and throw them into a suitcase.

MISS SILVER LAID her hands down for a moment upon her knitting.

‘I believe I have told you everything that passed between us. I should like to know what you think about it.’

Frank Abbott did not reply immediately. He looked at her, neat and earnest, with the half-finished vest in her lap. He knew from experience that the description of her interview with Mrs Blount would have been a most carefully accurate one. Just what it all amounted to was another matter. He said so, adding,

‘There might be quite a simple explanation, you know.’

‘Yes, Frank?’

‘Mrs Blount may be off her head.’

She picked up her knitting again.

‘That was not my impression.’

‘It would cover your account of her behaviour.’

She coughed gently.

‘No account of anyone’s behaviour can convey more than a bare outline. Mrs Blount was very much afraid.’

‘She might be afraid and yet have no cause for it.’

‘In my opinion she was suffering from shock.’

‘Well, you saw her, and I didn’t. But, you know, it sounds a good deal like persecution mania. That “Perhaps he will kill me – I don’t know. If he thinks I heard what he was saying. I think he will” – it sounds rather that way, you know.’

Miss Silver shook her head.

‘It sounded to me as if the poor woman had overheard something which had terrified her into a breakdown. Her husband had talked in his sleep. She did not tell me what he said, and I could not press her, but it had thrown her into a condition of shock in which all the natural restraints had ceased to operate and she talked out what was on her mind. I feel sure that only a great shock would have put her into the state she was in when I met her. The Blounts are staying at a guest house half way up the hill. Whatever it was that had shocked her probably happened at some time during the night, since she spoke of her husband having talked in his sleep. I think that she herself had not slept again, and that she had eaten nothing. I think she had come out because she could no longer stay in the house. When I spoke to her she was standing aimlessly at the next bus stop with, I believe, no idea of what she would do next. I am particularly glad that you have called, because I felt that I should see you without delay. I believe that Mrs Blount may be in serious danger.’

Twenty-four hours ago he might have laughed at her. Now he was conscious of no desire to take the case of Mrs Blount too lightly. He said,

‘You know, you asked if we could dig up something about Blount and Worple…’

She raised her eyes to his and said, ‘Yes?’

‘Well, there isn’t very much for you, but there is something. If Worple isn’t the rose, he’s been near it. In other words, if he isn’t a proved criminal, he’s been mixed up with people who are. He is full of money at the moment, his own account being that he had a lucky win on an outsider – no details given as to when, where, or how. He fancies himself as a ladies’ man. He calls himself a commission agent, and he’s got a tongue as long as your arm.’

Miss Silver’s glance reproved this metaphor.

‘And Mr Blount?’

‘Oh, Blount has rather a respectable background. His father had a second-hand shop in the Edgware Road. Blount himself is supposed to have been a bit of a rolling stone. Then he came in for the business and settled down. Mrs Blount had some money of her own. Her people didn’t want her to marry him. There was a family quarrel, and they don’t speak. The parents are dead, and the brothers and sisters didn’t like the money going out of the family. She was middle-aged, and they thought they could count on it staying put. There’s been some talk about Blount. He’s away a good bit, and when he’s back she goes about looking frightened. Worple and Blount have been pretty thick for a year or two. That is the lay-out. Nothing much to go on, nothing you can take hold of. I should say offhand that both Worple and Blount are fairly shady characters. For some reason or other there is an impression that Blount is a bad man to cross. He was married before, and his wife fell under a train. It might have been an accident, it might have been suicide. He was supposed to have been miles away when it happened.’

‘Supposed, Frank?’

He said,

‘I gather that the present Mrs Blount’s family have made slanderous insinuations, but the general opinion is that whatever happened or didn’t happen, nobody was going to catch Blount out.’