All the while that he was thinking these things his smile remained limpidly innocent. It had only wavered for a moment. Miss Silver was saying,

“Now, Dicky, will you tell me truthfully about the note you had?”

“The note?” He might never have heard of such a thing.

“Yes. The note that was addressed to Miss Jenny Hill.”

“Oh, that note-”

He was playing for time, but Miss Silver gave him no time. She said, “Yes,” and then, “I want to know what you did with it. Who gave it to you and told you to give it to Miss Jenny Hill? Did you know who Miss Jenny Hill was?”

Dicky considered. If he put a foot wrong now it would be very difficult to recover. He could think of lots of lies to tell, but there was no doubt that the plain unvarnished truth would be safest. He immediately felt a strong glow of virtue.

“Course I knew!” he said in a tone of scorn. “Everyone in the village knowed as Miss Jenny Forbes had two names, and that her other name was Miss Jenny Hill. It was Mrs. Warrington as let it out. She’s a talker she is. Everything as goes on at Mrs. Merridew’s she talks about, and everyone in the village could know what she knowed.”

“Then you meant to give the note to Miss Jenny?”

“Yes, I meant to. Only-” He came out with a burst of truth. “Only Roger Barton and Stuffy Craddock came up with me, and they had a smashing scheme on, and-and I went off with them. And I forgot all about the note until after the murder.”

“And then did you not think that what you knew might be important?”

It was really astonishingly easy to tell the truth. You didn’t have to think all round what you said. You could just go ahead and say it as it came. In a glow of virtue Dicky replied,

“Not at first it didn’t.”

“And why was that?”

Dicky wriggled.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t till I got to thinking about the number-plate being covered up.”

Jenny had been standing over by the window. She felt terrified. Something was coming down on her-on all of them. She couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was like standing in the path of an oncoming train. You could hear the whistle and you could see the smoke, and you couldn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dicky’s face. She couldn’t move, or speak, or do anything. The dreadful thing that was going to happen came nearer and nearer.

Miss Silver was speaking.

“How was the number-plate covered?”

“There was some sacking in the boot. It hung down behind and covered the number-plate.”

“Then you couldn’t see it?”

Dicky hesitated, but only for a moment. It was a smashing game telling the truth. And it was safe. You didn’t have to stop and think about it, you could just go ahead. He went ahead.

“I’d some matches in my pocket. I struck one, and I looked at the number.”

Jenny couldn’t move. She had known that it was coming. Her hands were tightly clasped before her. When she looked at them afterwards she would see that her nails had cut the skin. At the time she saw nothing, felt nothing. Everything in her was keyed up to take what she knew was coming.

The questioning went on.

“Do you remember the number?”

“Acourse I do. It was 505.” He gave the county letters too.

“You are quite sure about that?”

“Acourse I’m sure. I wouldn’t make up a thing like that.”

Jenny drew a long breath. The window seat was just behind her. She felt her way to it and sat down. She put her head in her hands and time went by her. So it was Mac. And Miriam had been killed instead of Jenny. She hadn’t the slightest doubt about that. If Dicky hadn’t met his friends, if he had delivered the letter, what would she have done? Would she have gone out to meet Mac? She couldn’t tell. One moment it seemed to her as if she would have gone, and the next she recoiled with a shudder. She did not know what she would have done. She was never to know.

In upon her confusion and her hurrying thoughts there came Miss Silver’s voice.

“Drink this, my dear. No, you must try. It is only water.”

She managed a sip, and then another, and another. Her head cleared. She looked up at Miss Silver with piteous eyes.

“I’m all right.”

“Yes, my dear, you are going to be quite all right. Stay still a little while.”

Jenny opened her eyes. She had slid down from the window seat and was lying on the floor. The window above her head was wide open. It was the first time it had been open for years and years. Dicky disapproved very much. His mum never opened that window. His mum didn’t hold with suchlike, his mum didn’t. These thoughts contended with the uplifting experience of having told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He remembered the words of the oath which he had taken in the case when he had had to give evidence, and repeated them to himself with the greatest satisfaction. There were no snags about telling the truth. You hadn’t got to watch out for saying a thing one minute and contradicting yourself the next. You could just go straight on and tell it the way it happened, and nobody couldn’t do nothing to you, not if it was ever so.

He ran upstairs and got Mac’s letter. When he came down with it in his hand, Jenny had got up. She was sitting on the window seat and she looked very pale.

He came into the room with the letter in his hand and offered it to Miss Silver. It was indescribably dirty, creased, and stained, but it was still quite legible. Miss Silver took it, and read what Mac had written to Jenny nearly a fortnight before:

“Jenny, don’t say anything to anyone, but come out and meet me up on the heath as soon as it is quite dark.

Mac

Bring this with you.”

And up in the top left-hand corner there was a date-the date of the murder.

What will you do?” said Jenny.

Miss Silver regarded her compassionately.

“I think you must know that, my dear,” she said.

They were on their way back from the cottage. Jenny felt weak and tired, and as if a very long time had passed since she had got up that morning and Richard had gone off to catch his train to town. She said,

“Yes, I know. You’ll tell the police.”

“You know that I must tell them.”

Jenny was silent for a moment. Then she said,

“It’s a dreadful thing. It’s too dreadful for one to take it in. Mac-he’s always been so-so-” She paused for a word, and then said, “dominating. And for a long time I thought that he cared for me. When I found out that he didn’t it was as if I was all alone. Do you know that feeling- as if everyone else in the world was gone away and there was nobody left but you? It’s a dreadful feeling to have-like a nightmare.”

Miss Silver looked at her very kindly.

“That is a very good comparison,” she said. “There is no truth in the nightmare, and when you wake up it has no more power over you. You came out of the nightmare when you ran away from Alington House. You are not in it any longer, you know. You are quite free of it, with Miss Danesworth to care for you and Richard Forbes to protect you. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

They came out of the side lane into the village. Jenny felt suddenly as if she had awakened from a bad dream. Up to now she had been taken up with Mac and what would happen to him, but now quite suddenly the other side of the picture came to her. There was Richard and Miss Danesworth. They were her family now. And she was safe. She wasn’t alone and unprotected any longer. The consciousness slid in among her thoughts and steadied them. The next moment she was reproaching herself and thinking of the little girls and Alan, and even of Mrs. Forbes. She said,

“What will you do?”

“I must get into touch with Chief Inspector Abbott. He will want to take a statement. I think that I will leave you here, my dear, if you are quite sure that you will be all right.”