The third occupant of the room was Miss Maud Silver, who had also been up all night, and showed it as little. Her hair with its Alexandra fringe in front, its coils behind, and its controlling net, was the last word in neatness. Her olive-green dress was fastened by a cherished ornament in the shape of a rose carved in bog-oak with an Irish pearl at the centre, a legacy from her aunt Editha Blake, who had departed from a sedate family tradition by marrying a wild Irishman and breaking her neck in the hunting field. Editha’s rose had come a long way and changed a pretty harum-scarum mistress for a prim and practical one. It remained one of Miss Silver’s most valued possessions.
She sat on a low upright chair of the kind produced in the early years of Queen Victoria ’s reign. A capacious knitting-bag lay open on her lap, and she was knitting rapidly without once glancing at the busy needles. About four inches of bright china-blue wool depended from them like a frill. When completed, the garment would be a warm woolly dress for her niece Ethel Burkett’s youngest, little Josephine, now just two years old. Since she was a fair child with rosy cheeks and round blue eyes, Miss Silver considered this bright blue wool a very happy choice.
Inspector Crisp was speaking.
“Inspector Abbott suggests that we should run over the statements with you and see whether there is any point which strikes you. The position, as I understand it, is that you are here unofficially at Chief Inspector Lamb’s suggestion.”
Miss Silver inclined her head.
“That is the position.”
“He also tells me that you have worked confidentially with the police on previous occasions.”
Miss Silver made a slight verbal correction.
“I have worked confidentially upon cases with which the police were connected.”
A faint sardonic smile appeared for a moment on Frank Abbott’s face. Inspector Crisp put his head on one side and looked alert. He didn’t get the point, but he thought there was one, and that it had got away. He didn’t like things to get away. He pounced on one of the papers in front of him and turned to get the light on it.
“Now here’s Castell’s statement-a lot about it and about. What it boils down to is this. He’s been manager here for five years, first under a Mr. Smith, and then under Mr. Jacob Taverner whose father had granted the lease of the Catherine-Wheel to Mr. Smith’s father. The original lease ran out a good many years ago, after which Mr. Smith had a yearly tenancy. On his death Jacob Taverner took over the control. Castell’s wife is his cousin. Castell identifies the dead man as Luke White-barman, waiter, general handy-man at the hotel. Says he’s been here three years and he has found him satisfactory. But he belongs to a family with quite a bad name in the neighbourhood-and they are illegitimate connections of the Taverner family. Everyone in this case is a connection of the Taverner family.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“They are all grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Jeremiah Taverner who kept this inn until his death in eighteen-eighty-eight.”
The Inspector’s eyebrows twitched.
“I’ve got a list of them-a kind of a family tree. But I suppose you don’t need to see it.” His tone was sharp.
Miss Silver smiled disarmingly.
“I have had some time to get it by heart. And then I have met the people, which makes it so much easier.”
The paper in Crisp’s hand rustled as he turned it.
“Well, all this party came down yesterday. You arrived at about nine o’clock, and the party broke up some time after ten. One of the guests, Albert Miller, was not staying in the house. He left in an intoxicated condition at half past ten. Did you notice his condition?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“It would have been difficult not to do so. He behaved in a very noisy and illbred manner. Mr. Castell was doing his best to keep him quiet.”
“Were there any words between him and Luke White-any quarrel?”
“I did not see any quarrel. He was calling out for Mr. Castell’s niece, Eily.”
“And Luke White was sweet on her, wasn’t he? There might have been a quarrel over that.”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“Luke White did not seem to be taking any notice. He was standing by the coffee-tray attending to the guests.”
Crisp tapped with his pencil.
“Well, Castell says Miller left the hotel just before half past ten. Captain Taverner confirms this-says Castell drew his attention to the state Miller was in. They were in the lounge at the time, and Captain Taverner says they looked out of the window and watched Miller go off down the road. He says he was walking unsteadily and singing some song about a girl called Eileen.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“ ‘Eileen alannah.’ He was singing it in the lounge.”
Crisp said shortly,
“I don’t know one song from another. But it seems Albert Miller’s out of it. He left here before half past ten, and his landlady, Mrs. Wilton, 6, Thread Street, Ledlington, she says, and her husband corroborates, that Al Miller came in drunk just before half past eleven. They say he made a lot of noise and kept singing this song. The Wiltons are respectable people. Mr. Wilton called up to him to say they’d had enough and he could find himself another lodging in the morning. And Miller said he was clearing out anyhow-used language and said he was fed up with the place and his job and everything-said he was getting out and wouldn’t be back in a hurry. This was on the stairs, him at the top and Mr. Wilton at the bottom. Then he went into his room and banged the door, and Mr. Wilton went down and locked the front door and took away the key because he didn’t want any moonlight flirtings. Seven o’clock in the morning Miller came down, paid a week’s money, and said he wouldn’t be coming back. Said he’d send for his things when he got a job. Mrs. Wilton wasn’t dressed. Mr. Wilton opened the bedroom door a bit and took the money. When he saw it was all right he gave Miller the key to let himself out. Miller went up to the station, where he was supposed to be on duty for the seven-thirty. He walks in as bold as brass in his plain clothes and says he’s had enough-says what he thinks about the stationmaster and the whole bag of tricks and walks out. Nobody’s seen him since. We’ll pick him up of course, but there doesn’t seem to be any chance of his being mixed up in the stabbing, because-to get back to Castell-he says he and Luke White were together for some time after Miller left. He says he went up to his room at about ten to eleven and left White alive and well. White had a downstairs bedroom opposite the kitchen. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why Castell should give Miller an alibi if it isn’t true.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“At such an early stage motives may be very obscure.”
Crisp came back sharply.
“Does that mean you have any reason for suspecting Castell?”
She appeared mildly surprised.
“Oh dear no, Inspector.”
He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, and turned again to the paper in his hand.
“Castell says he didn’t get to sleep at once. He was lying awake, when he heard footsteps coming from the direction of Cliff-that’s the next village along the road. He has a window that looks out at the front. He says the footsteps turned off and went down the other side of the house and round to the back. He says he got up and went along to the lavatory window, which looks out that way. He heard someone come along whistling a hymn tune-Greenland’s Icy Mountains, he says. So then he went back to his bed, because he knew who it was. It seems John Higgins, who is another of these Taverner relations, is courting this girl Eileen Fogarty, and once in a way he’ll come along like that and whistle under her window and they’ll have a word or two. Seems he always whistles the same tune. Castell says he doesn’t approve-says the girl has been in two minds between Higgins and Luke White. But he says she’s of age and can please herself, and he isn’t prepared to have a row about it. He goes back to bed, and he can’t fix the time any nearer than that it must have been well after eleven.”