Time for Silence

Disclosures

IT WAS LIKE A bewildering dream. There were people…doctor…police…and others.

What had happened, they wanted to know. Why were we there?

“I was to meet her here,” I told them. “It was half past two. We thought she was late. We went into the house. We thought she would come….”

Someone took me home. My father came soon after. They must have sent for him.

I was lying on my bed and he was sitting beside me. The doctor had given me a sedative. He said I needed it.

So I lay there with my hazy thoughts, and I could think of nothing but Annabelinda…lying dead in that empty house.

Later there were questions. Two men had come to see me. My father explained. “They are from the police. You see, you were the who one found her…you and the house agent. The general opinion seems to be that it was some madman. Someone sheltering in the house perhaps, who did not want to be disturbed.”

“But other people must have looked at it. And how did she get in? The house agent had the key.”

“We don’t know yet,” said my father. “However, you’ll have to talk to the police. I don’t suppose they will be here long.”

“We are sorry to disturb you, Miss Greenham,” said one of them. “Just a few questions. Mrs. Merrivale was a great friend of yours, wasn’t she?”

“Oh, yes. Our families have been close all our lives.”

“And you were going to look over the house with her?”

“Yes.”

“She did not arrive at the appointed time of two-thirty.”

“That is so. I cannot understand how she got into the house. The agent was to have let us in with the key.”

“He it was who took you in.”

“Yes. We thought we might as well go in. We left the door open so that when she came she would see we were there.”

“Do you know any reason why she should have arrived before the appointed time?”

“No. And I still can’t imagine how she got into the house.”

“She was let in by someone. Possibly the murderer.”

“You mean…the murderer was in the house?”

“It may have been a trap. As a matter of fact, there was a broken window which had not been noticed before. It could have been that someone was in the house waiting for her…someone who let her in and posed as the house agent. Did Mrs. Merrivale not say anything to you about the appointment’s having been changed to an earlier time?”

“No. If she had, I should have been there earlier.”

“Naturally. Well, I don’t think there is anything further at the moment, Miss Greenham.”

I was glad when they went.

My father came into the room. He was very disturbed.

“It is so mysterious,” he said. “Poor girl! What a dreadful end…and she so young.”

“She was happy. She thought she was going to have a baby.”

“How tragic!”

“And Marcus?”

“He’s having a bad time. He’s had a grueling by the police. Heaven knows what this will do to his career.”

“Do you mean they suspect him?”

“In cases like this, the husband is always the first suspect.”

“But they were so happy together.”

“That won’t stop suspicion. Oh, Lucinda, I wish you were not involved in this!”

I felt sick and bemused.

My father said that the doctor’s opinion was that, as I had had a terrible shock, I should rest for a while in my room.

How could I rest? I could only think of Annabelinda entering that house…that strange, eerie, empty house, as it had become in my imagination, and meeting her assassin.

I wished I had been with her. How was I to know that she was going to be early? Why had she? Why had she told me to meet her there at two-thirty? What had made her go early? She must have had some message. And why? Because someone was lying in wait for her…to kill her.

The answer to that question was not long delayed. Mrs. Kelloway, Annabelinda’s housekeeper, was able to supply vital information.

Someone had called at the house during the day Annabelinda had met her death. He had seemed in a great hurry and said he came from Messrs. Partington & Pike about the house in Beconsdale Square. He had waited at the door and asked if Mrs. Kelloway would take a message to Mrs. Merrivale.

Mrs. Kelloway had invited him in, an offer which he declined.

“Excuse me,” he had said very politely. “But I am pressed for time.” He spoke in a funny way, she said. “Not quite natural. It might have been from another part of the country,” but it was not familiar to her. He had insisted on waiting at the door until she took the message, which was could Mrs. Merrivale be at the house half an hour earlier, at two o’clock. He had a quick call to make and he was going straight there. He had got a little hung up with his appointments and he was afraid he would not be able to spend as much time with Mrs. Merrivale as he would have liked to if she could not meet him at the earlier time. He just wanted to know if she could oblige.