On the last word her voice sank to a whisper, but the stagey horror with which she was trying to invest the story did not detract from the real gruesomeness of the tale. Rather it added to it, making the scene down in the lamplit panelled room seem suddenly clear and very near to them.
Meggie shuddered and her voice was subdued and oddly breathless when she spoke.
“What happened then?”
Mrs. Meade drew herself up, and her little black eyes burned with the fire of righteousness.
“Then I could hold my tongue no longer,” she said, “and I spoke out. ‘Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses,’ I said, and stepped out from behind the screen.”
Abbershaw’s eyes widened as the scene rose up in his mind—the fanatical old woman, her harsh voice breaking in upon the three crooks in that first moment of their bewilderment.
“They were terrified, I suppose,” he said.
Mrs. Meade nodded, and an expression of grim satisfaction spread over her wrinkled old face.
“They was,” she said. “Mr. Gideon went pale as a sheet, and shrank away from me like an actor on the stage—Dr. Whitby stood there stupid like, his eyes gone all fishy and his mouth hanging open …” She shook her head. “You could see there was guilt there,” she said, “if not in deed, in the heart—the German gentleman was the only one to stay his natural colour.”
“And then?” Meggie hardly recognized her own voice, so toneless was it.
“Then he come up to me,” the old woman continued, with a return of indignation in her voice. “Slowly he come and put his great heavy face close to mine. ‘You be off,’ said I, but that didn’t stop him. ‘How much have you heard?’ said he. ‘All of it,’ says I, ‘and what’s more I’m going to bear witness.’ ”
Mrs. Meade took a deep breath.
“That did it,” she said. “He put his hand over my mouth and the next moment Dr. Whitby had jumped forward and opened the cupboard by the fireplace. ‘Put her in here,’ said he: ‘we can see to her after we’ve got him upstairs.’ ”
“You struggled, of course,” said Abbershaw. “It’s extraordinary someone in the house didn’t hear you.”
Mrs. Meade regarded him with concentrated scorn.
“Me struggle, young man?” she said. “Not me. If there’s going to be any scrabbling about, I said to myself, better leave it to my son who knows something about fighting, so as soon as I knew where I was I hurried up the stairs and shut myself in here. ‘You can do what you like,’ I said to the German gentleman through the door, ‘but I’m staying here until Wednesday if needs be, when my son’ll come for me—then there’ll be summat to pay, I can tell you!’ ”
She paused, her pale checks flushing with the fire of battle, as she remembered the incident. “He soon went away after that,” she went on, wagging her head. “He turned the key on me, but that didn’t worry me—I had the bolts on my side.”
“But you couldn’t get out?” interrupted Meggie, whose brain failed before this somewhat peculiar reasoning.
“O’ course I couldn’t get out,” said Mrs. Meade vigorously. “No more’n could he come in. As long as my tongue’s in my head someone’ll swing for murder, and I’m quite willing to wait for my son on Wednesday. They won’t get in to me to kill me, I reckon,” she continued, with a flicker of pleasure in her eyes, “and so when my son comes along there’ll be someone to help cast out the wicked. I ain’t a-holding my tongue, not for nobody.”
“And that’s all you know, then?” said Meggie.
“All?” Mrs. Meade’s tone was eloquent. “Some people’ll find it’s quite enough. Those three didn’t actually do the murder, but there’s someone in the house who did, and—” She broke off sharply and glanced from one to the other. “Why’re you two lookin’ at one ’nother so?” she demanded.
But she got no reply to her question. Meggie and Abbershaw were regarding each other fixedly, the same phrase in the old woman’s remark had struck both of them, and to each it bore the same terrible significance. “Those three didn’t actually do the murder, but there’s someone in the house who did.” Dawlish, Gideon, Whitby were cleared of the actual crime in one word; the servants were all confined in their own quarters—Albert Campion insisted that he locked the door upon them. Who then could be responsible? Albert Campion himself—or one of their own party? Neither spoke—the question was too terrifying to put into words.
XVII
In the Evening
The disturbing discovery which Meggie and Abbershaw had made in Mrs. Meade’s story silenced them for some time. Until the old woman’s extraordinary announcement ten minutes before, the division between the sheep and the goats had been very sharply defined. But now the horrible charge of murder was brought into their own camp. On the face of it, either Albert Campion or one of the young people in the house-party must be the guilty person.
Of course there was always the saving hope that in his haste Campion had locked one of the servants out instead of confining them all to their quarters as he had intended. But even so, neither Abbershaw nor the girl could blind themselves to the fact that in the light of present circumstances the odds were against the murderer lying in that quarter.
The entire staff of the house was employed by von Faber or his agents, that is to say that they were actually of the gang themselves. Coombe was an asset to them—it was not in their interests to kill him.
And yet, on the other hand,
