Free Miss Silver Comes To Stay by Patricia Wentworth

coming, or she’d have met the train and they’d have come out together.”
    “She might. I hope there’s nothing wrong. I was surprised to see her hurrying back like that on her evening out. Mayhew wasn’t with her.”
    Rietta frowned a little.
    “James Lessiter’s up at the House. I expect she felt she had to come back and give him something to eat. I don’t suppose he’s in the way of doing anything for himself.”
    Henry agreed.
    “I don’t suppose he is. He seems to have made a lot of money. There’s a picture of him in one of those papers. He’s just pulled off some big deal. I must see if I can get something out of him for the organ fund.”
    The door slammed after him—the banging of doors was one of Henry’s less angelic habits—and almost at the same moment the telephone bell clamoured from the dining-room. As Rietta went to answer it she saw Carr stretch out his hand to the pile of picture-papers.
    She shut both doors, picked up the receiver, and heard Catherine’s voice, blurred and shaken.
    “Rietta—is it you?”
    “Yes. What’s the matter? You sound—”
    “If it was only sounding—” She broke off on a choked breath.
    “Catherine, what is it?”
    She was beginning to be seriously alarmed. None of this was like Catherine. She had known her for more than forty years, and she had never known her like this. When things went wrong Catherine passed by on the other side. Even Edward Welby’s death had always been presented as a lack of consideration on his part rather than an occasion for heartbreak. The ensuing financial stringency had not prevented her from acquiring mourning garments of a most expensive and becoming nature. Rietta had listened to her being reproachful, complacent, plaintive. This was something different.
    “Rietta—it’s what we were talking about. He rang up— he’s found that damned memorandum. Aunt Mildred must have been out of her mind. It was written just before she died. You know how forgetful she was.”
    “Was she?” Rietta’s tone was dry.
    The line throbbed with Catherine’s indignation.
    “You know she was! She forgot simply everything!”
    “It’s no use your asking me to say that, because I can’t. What does the memorandum say?”
    “It says the things were lent. She must have been mad!”
    “Does it mention them by name?”
    “Yes, it does. It’s completely and perfectly damnable. I can’t give them back—you know I can’t. And I believe he knows too. That’s what frightens me so much—he knows, and he’s enjoying it. He’s got a down on me, I’m sure I don’t know why. Rietta, he—he said he’d rung up Mr. Holderness.”
    “Mr. Holderness won’t encourage him to make a scandal.”
    “He won’t be able to stop him. Nobody ever could stop James when he’d made up his mind—you know that as well as I do. There’s only one thing—Rietta, if you went to him— if you told him his mother really didn’t remember things from one day to another—”
    Rietta said harshly, “No.”
    “Rietta—”
    “No, Catherine, I won’t! And it wouldn’t be the least bit of good if I did—there’s Mr. Holderness, and the doctor, to say nothing of the Mayhews and Mrs. Fallow. Mrs. Lessiter knew perfectly well what she was doing, and you know it. I won’t tell lies about her.”
    There was a dead silence. After it had gone on for a long minute Catherine said,
    “Then anything that happens will be your fault. I’m desperate.”
    CHAPTER 12
    As Rietta came back into the sitting-room she saw Carr Robertson on his feet. Her mind was full of her conversation with Catherine—what she had said, what Catherine had said, what James Lessiter might be going to do. And then she saw Carr’s face, and everything went. One of the papers which Henry Ainger had brought lay open across the table. He stood over it now, his hand on it, pointing, every muscle taut, eyes blazing from a colourless face. Fancy was leaning forward, frightened, her red mouth