“We want you to help us,” he commenced very quietly, and with a delicate suggestion of sympathy, “we understand your feelings thoroughly. But please do your best to control them—if you do—you will not only help us in our investigations but you will also help the poor girl who has gone. Please understand that—” he added sympathetically.
“What is it you want to know?” she asked listlessly.
“We want to know as much as you can possibly tell us,” said Bannister, “about your young mistress—about her life here with you—what friends she had in her life—you know the kind of things I mean.”
She nodded. “I’ve lived with poor Miss Sheila ever since she was born—I was with her mother when she came—my name is Agnes Kerr—my home is in Devon—I had gone there for a holiday, the address on your telegram is my home.” She stopped for a moment and pushed the buff envelope on to the edge of the table. It would have fallen but for the agility of Mr. Bathurst who gallantly retrieved it. Bannister nodded encouragingly. “We found the address here. We got it from your postcard to Miss Delaney,” he explained.
“I see,” murmured “Pinkie,” “I thought perhaps that was how it came about. When Colonel Delaney died some years ago—I stayed on with Mrs. Delaney and when Mrs. Delaney was taken too, I had to be mother and father to Miss Sheila, sort of combined. What else do you want me to tell you?” she inquired of him, plaintively.
“Who were her friends? With whom did she mix?” demanded Bannister. “Who was in the habit of visiting here?”
“Since Major Carruthers was killed—scarcely anybody,” came “Pinkie’s” answer.
“Come now,” said Bannister, gently and persuasively, “surely somebody came here sometimes?”
“A few girl friends—very occasionally—and a year or so ago young Mr. Alan Warburton was a pretty frequent visitor—up to the time, say, that the major’s accident took place. But he hasn’t been near for a long time now. Sir Matthew Fullgarney and Lady Fullgarney would come perhaps once every two or three months but latterly there was no one at all who came here anything like regularly. You can rest easy on that,” she added.
“You say Alan Warburton was a regular visitor a year or so ago. Why did he suddenly cease to come—any idea? Was there any trouble between them that you know of?”
“I don’t know about trouble exactly—Miss Sheila told me though in the early part of last year that Alan Warburton needed ‘putting in his place.’”
“Putting in his place, eh?” exclaimed Bannister with interest.
“And what did you understand by that remark?”
“I thought perhaps he had presumed on his friendship with Miss Sheila.”
“How far had this friendship extended?”
“What do you mean?” “Pinkie” looked a trifle scared.
“I mean this. Rumours have reached me from more than one source that Miss Delaney and Alan Warburton were looked upon as lovers at the time of which you speak. Would you subscribe to that opinion?”
“Pinkie” demurred—vigorously shaking her head. “No! Mr. Warburton admired her very much—it’s true—a blind man would have been able to see that. And Miss Sheila liked him a great deal, too. I can tell you that much. But I wouldn’t admit anything beyond that. Sheila, in my opinion looked upon him as a close friend—but I wouldn’t say that it was anything more than that.” She repeated her denial.
“I see,” soliloquised Bannister. “So that it would be altogether an unfair statement to say that Miss Delaney’s attitude changed towards Mr. Warburton consequent upon the Bank scandal in which his uncle—Sir Felix Warburton—was involved?”
“Utterly untrue,” responded Miss Kerr, vehemently. “A thing like that wouldn’t alter Sheila’s feelings in any way towards anybody she regarded as a friend. She would have scorned to do such a thing. Such conduct would have been completely foreign to her nature.” She began to sob again—engulfed once more in a tide of poignant memories. Her mention of Sheila had brought them all rushing home to her again.
“Please calm yourself,” entreated the Inspector, “there’s something else I want to ask you.”
She pulled herself together as the result of a supreme effort and faced him confidently. “Had your mistress a lover?”
“Pinkie” shook her head but in such a way that Bannister was quick to see it and follow up his question with another.
“No? Are you absolutely certain that there wasn’t a secret lover in her life? Would you swear to it?”
She hesitated—then framed her reply. “No one to my knowledge—but—”
Bannister pounced. “But what?”
“I am not absolutely sure.”
The admission seemed to have been wrung from her. Her reluctance was plain to behold. The Inspector looked her over keenly—obviously wondering what it was exactly that was in her mind. “What do you mean?”
“I have noticed a change in her.”
“What kind of a change?”
“She was just a little bit secretive over one or two small things—didn’t confide in me so much.”
“Give me an example.”
“Pinkie” bent her head for a moment, thinking. “Well—just this. It’s hard to explain to anybody else. She has been to London about half-a-dozen times within the last twelve months—when she has returned here—she hasn’t been so full of what she had done, like she used to be—in the past she had always confided in me and told me everything. Then she has had letters from time to time in a handwriting that was strange to me—also I can remember a few postcards. I don’t know where they came from.”
Bannister frowned, but Mr. Bathurst evidently considered the point of some importance.
“Did you ever actually see one of
