Free Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth

with the nephew.” Tone and phrasing removed Craig to a distance quite beyond her own circle.
    “Well, it was really Mrs. Stubbs—”
    Miss Crewe’s eyebrows rose.
    “Village gossip? My dear Marian!”
    Mrs. Merridew flushed.
    “I was so glad to have news of him. Mr. Lester is most attentive to his uncle. It is not every young man who would take so much trouble. He tells Mrs. Stubbs that Dr. Lester is really wonderful— asking after everyone at Hazel Green and most interested.”
    Miss Crewe pushed back her chair with a jerk and got up.
    “I always thought him a very disagreeable and sarcastic old man,” she said, and made her farewells.
    When she had gone out under the arching yews, Mrs. Merridew told Miss Silver all about the engagement to Henry Cunningham and the breach which now existed.
    “Nobody really does know quite what happened, but he went away in a hurry and poor Lydia changed very much. There is no doubt that she was very fond of him, but I have always wondered how it would have turned out—if they hadn’t quarrelled, I mean, or whatever it was that happened. Because he was really very young. She must have been quite ten years older than he was, and not at all an adaptable person, if you know what I mean.”
    Miss Silver said that she knew perfectly.
    Mrs. Merridew gave a reminiscent sigh.
    “Well, there it was. She was quite handsome in those days, but never what you would call attractive to men—too much inclined to lay down the law, and always wanting her own way, and of course they don’t like that, do they? But she and Lucy Cunningham were the greatest friends, and she saw a lot of Henry. I don’t want to say anything unkind, but it always seemed to me that he didn’t have much chance. He was only just down from Cambridge and rather at a loose end—and then there was this silly scandal—”
    Miss Silver was brightly attentive.
    “I don’t think you told me about that, Marian.”
    Mrs. Merridew hesitated.
    “No—no—I don’t suppose I did. It was a very stupid affair. The Maberlys have left the neighbourhood, and it’s better forgotten—only of course these things never are—not really.”
    Miss Silver had added several inches to little Josephine’s hood. She looked across the bright wool with her head very slightly on one side and said,
    “You interest me extremely.”
    After being snubbed by Lydia Crewe this was balm to the feelings. Mrs. Merridew relaxed and gave herself up to what a rather startling poet has described as “the rapture of the tongue’s prolonged employ.”
    “Well, it doesn’t matter with you, for you don’t know any of the people. The Maberlys were immensely rich. He was a company promoter or something like that, and they rather threw their money about. It was all a little ostentatious, but I think they meant to be kind. She certainly did, but you know how it is. Her clothes were much too new and too expensive, and she wore too much jewelry. And then she lost a very valuable diamond ring, and somehow it began to be put about that Henry Cunningham had taken it. I can’t remember all the ins and outs, and one never does know how that kind of rumour starts, but there it was. I didn’t believe it myself, because—well, one doesn’t, not about people you know, and Mrs. Maberly was the sort of woman who couldn’t even go out to tea without leaving her bag or a scarf, and she might have taken off the ring and left it simply anywhere. I remember they dined with us at the Grange, and she was showing us a very handsome bracelet which her husband had given her for Christmas. Well, after they had gone the butler found it behind the cushion in her chair. It had slipped down where the loose cover was tucked in, and really it might not have been found for a day or two, because we were short-handed even then—and as Lucas said at the time, it wouldn’t have been at all pleasant. So you see, Mrs. Maberly might have done anything with that ring.”
    “It was never