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in an inside pocket, but he didn’t know why he had had it out, and he didn’t think anything more about it.”
    “What about the notes, Frank-were any of them traced?”
    He lifted a hand and let it fall again.
    “We couldn’t get the numbers. The Pilgrims own a lot of farm property, and the old man collected the rents himself. He used to ride round, have a bit of a friendly chat, come home with the cash, and stuff it away anywhere. Didn’t think much of banks-liked to have his money where he could put his hands on it. Roger tells me they found over seven hundred pounds in the house after he died, most of it in a tin box under his bed. Lord knows how long he’d had the notes he gave Henry, or where he got them.”
    When, presently, after this, Frank Abbott took his leave he got as far as the first step into the hall and then came back. After all, what was the odds? If Maudie knew, she knew. He might just as well have the smooth with the rough. He said in his most detached manner,
    “By the way, you could trust Judy Elliot. She’s got a head on her shoulders and she’d be good at a pinch. As a matter of fact, I’ve told her about you. She knows you may be coming down.”
    Miss Silver looked right through him. That at least was his impression-a very probing glance which reproved, admonished, and, a good deal to his relief, condoned. She said,
    “My dear Frank! I trust that she will be discreet.”

chapter 10
    Miss Columba announced Miss Silver’s forthcoming arrival at the evening meal which everyone except Miss Janetta and Robbins now called supper. That is to say, in reply to Roger’s jerky “When are you expecting your friend Miss Silver?” she produced the single word “Tomorrow.”
    There was immediately a slight domestic stir. Lona Day looked up as if she were going to speak, and then down again. Miss Netta turned upon her sister with a flounce of heliotrope silk.
    “Your friend Miss Silver? I’ve never heard of her. Who is she?”
    It was Roger who supplied the answer.
    “An old schoolfellow. I met her in town. She wanted to get down into the country for a bit, so I asked her here.” He crumbled a bit of bread with a nervous hand, whilst Judy pricked up her ears, and thought what wasteful creatures men were.
    “Schoolfellow?” said Miss Netta in an exasperated voice. “My dear Roger! Collie, who is this person, and why haven’t I ever heard of her?”
    Miss Columba continued to eat fish in a perfectly collected manner. In contrast to her sister’s bright rustling silk she herself wore a voluminous garment of tobacco-coloured woollen material which had once been an afternoon dress. It was still warm, and nothing would have induced her to part with it. She said,
    “I suppose she would be about my age. She has been a governess.”
    After which she went on eating fish.
    Later, in the morning-room, used instead of the big drawing-room because it was so much easier to warm, Lona Day said to Judy what she had stopped herself saying at the table.
    “I do wish he hadn’t asked anyone else down just now. Of course I can’t say anything-or at least I don’t like to. I don’t know Roger so well as the rest of the family, but it isn’t-no, it really isn’t good for Captain Pilgrim.”
    Judy thought, “How odd-she says she doesn’t know Roger, but she calls him by his name, and she talks about Jerome as Captain Pilgrim. If there’s anyone in the world she must know inside out, it’s him. Of course he’s older than Roger, and so is she. I wonder how old she is-thirty-fivish? She ought always to wear black velvet.”
    Here she had to repress a giggle at the idea of all the things a nurse has to do. It petered out, because the likeness which had bothered her on her first evening came sharply to her mind, and this time she caught it. Lona Day in a long black velvet housecoat, with her auburn hair taken loosely back off her forehead, bore a quite undeniable resemblance to the portraits of Mary Queen