Lonesome Road by Patricia Wentworth Page A

color went out of Rachel’s face.
    “My two young cousins, Cherry Wadlow and Caroline Ponsonby. That is what upset me—but it’s quite, quite impossible.”
    “And they were both here at the time?”
    “Cherry went away this morning.” The restraint she had put upon her voice broke suddenly. “Miss Silver—”
    Miss Silver looked at her very kindly.
    “My dear Miss Treherne, I do beg that you will not distress yourself. You are very fond of Miss Caroline, are you not?”
    Rachel closed her eyes.
    “It is quite, quite impossible,” she said in a tone of intense feeling.
    Miss Silver picked up her knitting.
    “Let us revert to the events of this afternoon. You did not take your clever little dog with you?”
    “No. Nanny doesn’t like him, and I’m afraid he doesn’t like her. He sits on the other side of the room and growls. In fact they’re better apart.”
    “Ah—a pity. And that would be known too, I suppose. A great pity. He would probably have given you some warning—but it cannot be helped. Miss Treherne, are you sure that you were pushed?”
    Rachel lifted steady eyes.
    “Quite sure, Miss Silver.”
    “Was it a man or a woman who pushed you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Try and think. A man’s hand is larger, harder—there would be more force. Try and remember what sort of a blow it was. Were you struck with a hard impact? Was there much weight behind it? Or was it more of a push? You said that you were pushed.”
    A faint shudder passed over Rachel.
    “It was a very hard push.”
    “So that it might have been a man or a woman.”
    “I think so.”
    “It wasn’t the kind of blow that a very strong man would strike—Mr. Brandon for instance?”
    Rachel began to laugh.
    “How do you know that Mr. Brandon is so strong?”
    “Only a very strong man could have pulled you up.”
    Rachel went on laughing. It was a relief to laugh.
    “My dear Miss Silver, if Mr. Brandon had knocked me over the cliff, I should never have had a chance to catch hold of my bush. I should have gone flying right out to sea.”
    Miss Silver’s eyes twinkled pleasantly.
    “And that is just what I wanted to know,” she said. “It comes to this, you see—the person who pushed you over did not use any very great force. You were taken unawares, and you were thrown off your balance. It may quite easily have been a woman.”
    Rachel winced sharply. All the laughter went out of her.
    Miss Silver leaned forward.
    “I am sorry to pain you, but I am bound to ask these questions. However, for the present I have done. I spent quite a profitable time before coming up to you. I had some conversation with all your relatives. I find that the manner in which people behave to someone whom they consider quite unimportant is often highly illuminating.”
    Rachel had no illusions about her family. She quailed a little. She hoped for the best as she said,
    “And were you illuminated?”
    Miss Silver stabbed her pale blue wool with a yellow needle like a long, thin stick of barley-sugar. She said in a dry little voice,
    “Oh, considerably.”
    Rachel said, “Well?”
    “Each of them has something on his or her mind. With most of them it is, I think, money.”
    “Yes?”
    “Mrs. Wadlow talks very freely. It does not matter to her whether the person she talks to is a stranger or not. All that matters is that she should be able to talk about her dearest Maurice, and her fears for his health if he should go to Russia, and her hopes that you will make it possible for him to engage in some much safer enterprise in this country. She also talks, but with less feeling, about her daughter, whom she seems to suspect of being financially embarrassed and possibly on the brink of an elopement.”
    “Mabel said all that?”
    Miss Silver nodded.
    “In about twenty minutes—on the sofa—after dinner. I had not much talk with Miss Caroline, but I observed her. She is deeply troubled, and uncertain what she ought to do. Mr. Richard is, of