Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth Page A

And she’d run in to me and get a bit of a change without having words about it.”
    Mrs. Merridew reached behind her for the shawl which she wore when she sat up in bed.
    “I didn’t know she was coming round to you, Florrie.”
    Florrie looked angry.
    “I didn’t know it myself! She’d come when she wanted to and welcome!”
    “Did you ever tell the police about that?”
    “They didn’t ask me. Made up their minds she’d gone off to London. I could have told them better than that, but they had their own ideas. The old people were tiresome enough—I’m not saying they weren’t—but Maggie wasn’t the one to run off and leave them. I’d say that, no matter who said different. And as to that postcard that come down from London, well, I can tell you right away, Maggie never wrote it.”
    Miss Silver had been listening with the deepest interest. It was not necessary for her to speak, since without any prompting on her part Marian Merridew was asking all the right questions, and how much better that she herself should not appear to be too much concerned.
    Florrie’s last statement produced a cry of surprise from Mrs. Merridew.
    “Oh, Florrie, you’ve never said that before!”
    Florrie’s left shoulder jerked.
    “Least said, soonest mended,” she said. And then, in an accusing voice, “And what good will it do my saying anything? They didn’t ask me for one thing, and I didn’t want to get mixed up with the police for another. Nor I don’t now, so we won’t go on talking about it!”
    “But, Florrie, you must have had some reason.”
    “Reason enough and to spare, but none for talking about!”
    Mrs. Merridew’s large fair face fell into lines of indecision. Even the pressure of Miss Silver’s hand upon her arm failed to produce a further question.
    Florrie had turned to leave the room, when a slight cough stopped her. It was immediately followed by the sound of her name.
    “I mustn’t take up your time, and I can quite understand that the subject is a painful one, but if, as you say, there has been a second disappearance, then the trouble may not even stop there. There may be others who are in danger.”
    Florrie had turned. She stared, and said in an obstinate voice,
    “I’ve said enough. Maybe I’ve said too much.”
    Miss Silver said gently,
    “You have said that your Cousin Maggie did not write the postcard which came from London. You saw it of course?”
    “Yes, I saw it.”
    “It said, did it not, that she would come back as soon as she could, and that you would come in and help her parents?”
    Florrie’s face darkened.
    “Who told you that?”
    There was something in Miss Silver’s look which was asking her to speak. She resisted it. There was something in her voice which put her in mind of not knowing her answer in school and the teacher making it easy for her. She resisted this too, but with a lessening force. Before the encouraging smile which followed she no longer wanted to resist at all. She felt instead the impulse to clear her mind of the thoughts which had burdened it for so long. It became easier to speak than to hold back. When Miss Silver said, “What made you think the card was not from Maggie?” she said in a different voice,
    “It was because of the way the names were spelt. Maggie wasn’t any scholar, but we went to school together, and what she would always put on her exercise-book was Maggy—written with a Y. And the same with my name too. She hadn’t much call to write it, but if she did she’d spell it with a Y like she did her own. And the names on the card was both spelt out long with an IE at the end of them and not a Y, so I knew it wasn’t Maggie that wrote them.”
    Mrs. Merridew looked shocked. This time the pressure on her arm counselled silence. Miss Silver said quietly,
    “Maggie’s parents showed you the card. Did you point out to them that the names were not spelled as she would have spelled them?”
    Florrie said, “No.” She was