Inside Janice’s mind something said, ‘Miss Silver.’ She began to tell Miss Sophy what Ida Mottram had said, but before she had got very far she was interrupted.

‘Miss Maud Silver? My dear, how extraordinary!’

‘Oh, Miss Sophy – why? Do you know about her?’

The three black feathers flapped as Miss Sophy nodded. She put up her hands, removed two large jet hatpins, took off the hat, and skewered it to the back of the sofa.

‘Handsome, but heavy,’ she said with a sigh of relief.

‘Mamma’s cousin, Oswald Everett, brought her the feathers from South Africa. They have worn extremely well, though not in fashion now. But Mary Anne Doncaster would take offence if I went to see her in anything but my best hat. Now what were we talking about? Oh, yes – Miss Silver.’

‘Ida says-’

Miss Sophy waved Ida Mottram away.

‘She means well, my dear, but quite between ourselves she’s a goose. Now I know all about Miss Silver.’

‘Aunt Sophy!’

‘Miss Sophy!’

Garth and Janice gazed at her.

She patted a hand of each in a very complacent manner.

‘Sophy Ferrars is a distant cousin of mine – through dear Mamma of course. An aunt of hers, Sophronisba Ferrars, married my grandfather’s brother. I am called after her, and so was she. And of course I don’t suppose you have ever heard of Sophy Ferrars, but her young cousin Laura Fane, a very charming girl, was placed in a most terrible position about eighteen months ago. It didn’t all get into the papers, but some of it did. Another cousin, Tanis Lyle, was murdered-’

Garth made a sudden exclamation.

‘The Prior’s Holt murder!’

Miss Sophy nodded in a pleased sort of way.

‘Yes, my dear. And Laura was very nearly murdered too. Sophy Ferrars wrote and told me all about it. If Miss Silver had not been staying in the house, almost anything might have happened. She was staying there just as an ordinary visitor.’ Her voice died suddenly away. Her mouth remained open, round and surprised, above three quivering chins. She fetched as deep a breath as she could and said, ‘Why shouldn’t she come here and stay with me?’

SUNDAY INTERVENED. GARTH accompanied Miss Sophy to church and listened to the new rector’s austere, academic voice with a curious feeling of unreality. Where his grandfather had boomed and thundered – a portly presence with the eagle eye which could detect a napping villager in the farthest pew – this ascetic scholar, whispering the prayers and running through the lesson in a vague, monotonous undertone, sounded unreal.

His thoughts must have communicated themselves to Miss Sophy. She turned and fooffled into his ear.

‘So different from poor Papa.’

When they stood up for the psalms he detected Cyril Bond, singing a piercing quarter of a tone sharp against the native choir who were even flatter than he remembered them. Glancing across the church, his eye lighted upon Mrs Mottram in a flibberty-gibbet hat which matched the very bright blue of her dress. On one side of her a little girl of five with a fuzz of yellow hair and a frilled pink frock. On the other Mr Everton, who looked as if the choir was hurting him quite a lot. The eye roamed farther, and discovered that Janice wasn’t there.

During a dry and practically inaudible sermon Garth searched his mind for reasons why this should be any concern of his. He came to the conclusion that it was not. After which he went on thinking about her until the service was over.

Janice was, and had been for what seemed like a very long time, sitting on the sofa beside Miss Madoc, who passed continuously from self-reproach, through protestations of her brother’s high mindedness and perfect innocence, to the despairing conclusion that everything was against him, and that he would certainly be hanged.

‘If only I hadn’t said anything to them about the key-’

‘But, dear Miss Madoc, he told them about it himself. What you said didn’t make the least bit of difference – it didn’t, truly.’

Two large tears ran down Miss Madoc’s face and dripped miserably upon a peacock-blue scarf which she had put on by accident, and which swore quite horribly at the rather bright purple of her Sunday dress. The skies might fall, Evan might be in prison, she herself far too prostrated to be able to think of going to church, but she had been brought up to wear a different dress on Sunday, and she would have felt quite desperately irreligious in her everyday green serge.

‘That’s what you say, my dear, and I’m sure it’s very kind of you, and I don’t like to feel that I’m keeping you back from church, but really when I think that it was only last Sunday that poor Mr Harsch was with us and the blackberry tart was so particularly good! It isn’t everyone who cares for cold pastry, but Evan never will have any cooking done on Sunday, so what can you do? But last Sunday it really was as light as a feather, and poor Mr Harsch enjoyed it so much, and had a second helping.’ Two more tears ran down, and she wiped them away. ‘Oh, my dear – do you believe in premonitions?’

‘I don’t know-’ said Janice.

‘Nor do I,’ said Mrs Madoc with a gulp. ‘But do you think perhaps Mr Harsch had one? He said such a curious thing to me on Monday night. He’d been over to Marbury, you remember, to get something he wanted for that last experiment, and he came in late because he missed the bus and had to walk from the Halt. And I thought he looked bad when he came in, so I said to him, “Are you very tired, Mr Harsch?” and he said, “I don’t know – I think I must be. I have just seen a ghost.” ’

Janice said, ‘What?’

Miss Madoc nodded.

‘That is what he said, my dear. And I said, “Oh, Mr Harsch!” and he smiled and said, “Did I frighten you? I wouldn’t like to do that. It is nothing for you to be afraid of.” Do you think that he really saw something?’

‘I don’t know-’

Miss Madoc wiped her eyes upon a folk-weave handkerchief which had rough yellow and green threads running across it. Even at a moment like this Janice couldn’t help thinking how uncomfortable it must be.

‘I do wonder what he saw,’ said Miss Madoc. ‘My grandfather knew a man who met himself. He was going out to do something which he ought not to have been doing – I don’t know what it was – and he met himself face to face in the bright moonlight. My grandfather said it was like Balaam and the ass, only I don’t know why, because Balaam was riding the ass, and this man was quite alone and on foot. And the moon was very bright – he could see himself quite clearly. A most dreadful terror came over him, and he turned round and ran, and never stopped running until he came to the minister’s house. And he could hear his own footsteps coming after him all the way. My grandfather said he was a changed man from that day. He had been a terrible one for drink and women, but he became a very sober, god-fearing man. Do you think Mr Harsch saw anything like that?’

Janice said, ‘I don’t know-’ She was thinking of what Mr Harsch had said to her.

Miss Madoc covered her face with the folk-weave handkerchief and burst into tears.

‘I’m a wicked woman to be telling stories, and Evan in prison waiting to be hanged! If only I hadn’t told them about the key!’

It went round like that in circles all the morning. By the time Garth came up after lunch to take her for a walk, Janice was feeling as if she had been put through a wringer. The afflicted lady was induced to go and lie down, and Mrs Williams was left in charge.

As soon as they were well away Garth said, ‘I’ve got it all taped. We catch the nine o’clock bus tomorrow morning and go up to town. I’ll go and see Sir George, and you can fix things up with Miss Silver. The sooner she gets here the better – it’s a cold scent now. She’d better come down with us and get cracking. By the way, Mrs Mottram came up after church and poured a bit of cold water – at least I thought it was meant to be cold water.’