The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth

covered with a bright flowery paper and a number of pictures in old-fashioned frames of yellow maple. The pictures were all reproductions of the more famous works of the great Victorian artists—The Huguenots; Hope, drooping over her darkened world; The Black Brunswicker; The Stag at Bay. Oddly shaped but very comfortable chairs with carved walnut frames, bow legs, and spreading laps. Curtains of the bright shade formerly known as peacock-blue. Upholstery of the same material. And a new carpet with a blue ground and wreaths of flowers which had cost so much that Miss Silver’s conscience was not always quite at ease about it. Yet what was she to do? The old blue carpet, nursed through the war, patched and darned in the post-war years, had actually become unsafe. Signs of complete disintegration had appeared—Emma had caught her foot in a hole and had just escaped a heavy fall. Carpets were a wicked price, but the affair of the Urtingham pearls had proved very remunerative. So she told her conscience to be sensible and put her hand in her pocket. Even now, before breakfast and coming into the room with a client, she could not help thinking how well it looked. So cosy, and the colours blended in such a pleasing manner.
    A small fire had been lighted on the hearth. As Ray took the curly chair on one side of it and watched Miss Silver settle herself on the other, she was wondering what Sybil Dryden imagined this mousy little person was going to be able to do to help Lila and Bill and all of them. She might have stepped out of any of those photographic groups which cluttered up the family albums of the Victorian and Edwardian periods. And in every case you would have picked her out as the governess. Ray’s eyes strayed from the bog-oak brooch to the black woollen stockings and the rather shabby slippers with the beaded toes. But Lady Dryden usually knew what she was doing. You didn’t always like it, but you could see why she did it.
    She had sent her to Miss Silver. She had said that she was fond of young people. This certainly seemed to be true. Lifting her eyes from the beaded slippers, Ray realized that the room was full of photographs of young men and women, young mothers and babies. Some of the photographs were getting old, but nearly all the people in them were young. And they were all over the place—on the mantelpiece, on the bookshelves, on a couple of small tables. Everywhere in fact except on the big plain writing-table.
    Her eyes came back again to Miss Silver’s face. The small capable hands were engaged with some soft knitting. She was being looked at in the firm encouraging way which had induced so many clients to open their hearts.
    ‘What can I do for you, Miss Fortescue?’
    ‘Lady Dryden sent me.’
    ‘Yes, you told me that.’
    ‘Something dreadful has happened.’
    In spite of herself her voice shook. She had meant to be quite terribly controlled and businesslike, and her wretched voice had gone back on her right at the start.
    Miss Silver said, ‘Yes, my dear?’ very kindly indeed, and Ray bit her lip and burst into tears.
    She hadn’t been so ashamed of herself for years. Angry too. The anger helped. She dabbed fiercely at her eyes with her glove—because you never can find a handkerchief when you want one. And then Miss Silver was offering her a neat folded square and saying,
    ‘Pray do not mind about crying. It is sometimes a great relief.’
    Ray stopped wanting to cry. She said,
    ‘No—no—there isn’t time—I’ve got to tell you.’
    It wasn’t crying that was going to be a relief, it was telling Miss Silver. She couldn’t get it out fast enough.
    ‘We’re in dreadful trouble. Lila Dryden is my cousin—our mothers were sisters. Sir John Dryden adopted her. He was only a very distant relation, and Lady Dryden isn’t a relation at all.’
    Miss Silver coughed.
    ‘She is a cousin of Lady Urtingham’s. I have met her there.’
    Ray went on.
    ‘Sir John was a dear. He died four