Dark Threat Read Online Free Page B

it examined. Was there any sign of its having been tampered with?’
    He had an embarrassed look.
    ‘Well, as a matter of fact it wasn’t a pipe—it was a tap.’
    Her look reproved him.
    ‘Accuracy is of the very first importance, Major Pilgrim.’
    He pulled off his glasses and began to polish them with a dark blue handkerchief. Without them his eyes had a defenceless look. They avoided hers.
    ‘Yes—that’s just it. We thought it must be a pipe, but there wasn’t anything wrong with the pipes. As a matter of fact there wasn’t any water laid on upstairs until my father put it in, so the plumbing is fairly modern. On the attic floor they turned a dressing-room into a bathroom and cut a bit off to make a housemaid’s cupboard with a sink. When the ceiling came down, the tap over this sink was found running. Someone had left the plug in, so of course it had overflowed. The trouble is, I don’t think that would account for my ceiling coming down. The cupboard is not directly over it, for one thing, and I don’t think there’d have been enough water, for another. I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s a loose board in the room right over mine. The room hasn’t been used for years. Suppose someone bunged up the sink and left the tap running to make it look as if the water came from there, and then helped out by sloshing a few buckets of water under that board—it would have brought the ceiling down all right. What do you think about that?’
    Miss Silver nodded slowly.
    ‘What is the distance from the sink to the edge of your ceiling?’
    ‘Something like eight or nine feet.’
    ‘Was there water under the boards all that way?’
    ‘Well, that’s just it—there was. Some, you know, but not an awful lot. The passage ceiling underneath didn’t come down. And mind you, the ceiling that did—the one in my room—would sop up quite a lot of water—all those heavy mouldings, and the nymphs and things.’
    ‘Quite so.’ She coughed. ‘Of what does the staff at Pilgrim’s Rest consist?’
    ‘Well, there’s only Robbins and his wife that sleep in. They’ve been there ever since I can remember. There’s a village girl of about fifteen who comes in by the day. She might have left the tap running. But she goes away at six, and Mrs. Robbins says she drew water from it at ten o’clock herself when she and Robbins went up to bed. And she says she’s never left a tap running in her life, and would she be likely to begin now?’
    Miss Silver made a note—‘Robbins to bed at ten o’clock.’ Then she asked,
    ‘What time did the ceiling come down?’
    ‘About one o’clock. It made no end of a row—woke me up.’
    Miss Silver repeated a remark she had already made.
    ‘You had a most providential escape. You believe that your life was attempted. I can see that you are quite sincere in this belief. May I ask who it is that you suspect?’
    He replaced his glasses and looked her straight in the face.
    ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’
    ‘Have you any enemies?’
    ‘Not that I know about.’
    ‘What motive do you suggest?’
    He looked away again.
    ‘Well, there’s that business about selling the house. My father starts to sell it, and a quiet old mare he’d ridden for years bolts with him and breaks his neck. I start to sell it, and a ceiling that’s been there for a hundred and sixty years or so comes down across my bed, and a room where I’m sorting papers is burned out whilst I’m too dead asleep to do anything about it.’
    Miss Silver looked at him gravely.
    ‘You were indeed fortunate to escape. You have not told me how you did so.’
    ‘Well, as a matter of fact it was my trouser-leg catching that brought me round. I had come in from outside, and my old waterproof was hanging over the back of a chair. I put it over my head and got to the door. You couldn’t see across the room for smoke—all the wooden pigeon-holing had caught. And when I got to the door I couldn’t get it open. You