Pilgrim’s Rest by Patricia Wentworth

below. But not immediately below. Miss Silver was able to confirm Roger Pilgrim’s statement on this point when she had been taken into the empty attic over the room with the fallen ceiling. The water would have had quite a distance to travel-ten or twelve feet. The boards which had been taken up were still loose. Miss Silver lifted them and observed what lay beneath. There had been water there. It had dried out, but the marks remained. The water had run in a narrow channel between the sink and the middle of the attic floor. Water had run and left its mark plainly to be traced on the joists and plaster under the floor. But what had made it spread out and form a pool when it came to the middle of the attic? At this point the narrow track became a wide, dark patch smelling of dust and mould, and still extremely wet. All the boards in the middle of the floor had been lifted here, and the window set open, but the damp had not dried out.
    Miss Columba stood by in silence until her guest turned away.
    When Miss Silver spoke, it was of Mrs. Robbins.
    “Thirty years is a long time to be in the same family. She looks ill-”
    “It is just her look.”
    “And unhappy-”
    “She has looked like that for a long time.”
    Miss Silver coughed.
    “May I enquire since when?”
    “They had trouble. It was before the war.”
    “What kind of trouble? Pray do not think me intrusive.”
    “It has nothing to do with what has happened since. They lost their daughter, a pretty, clever girl.”
    “She died?”
    Miss Columba was frowning.
    “No-she got into trouble and ran away. They couldn’t trace her. They felt it very much.”
    “Who was the man?”
    “They never knew.”
    Miss Columba led the way resolutely to the next floor, where she unlocked the door of what had been Roger’s room and displayed a great mass of fallen plaster.
    The geography of the house was extremely confusing. Besides the main staircase there were three others, steep, narrow, and winding. By one of these they presently descended to a stone-floored passage which led back into the hall by a door beneath the stairs.
    Miss Silver looked up at the massive stone chimney-breast.
    Everywhere else the walls were panelled, but the great chimney stood out in bare grey stone. Across it, deeply carved, ran the lettering of the verse which Roger Pilgrim had repeated:
    “If Pilgrim fare upon the Pilgrims’ Way,
    And leave his Rest, he’ll find nor rest nor stay.
    Stay Pilgrim in thy Rest, or thou shalt find
    Ill luck before, Death but one pace behind.”
    Miss Columba said gruffly,
    “Superstitious stuff. Some people believe in it.”
    Then, turning abruptly, she walked towards the entrance and threw open the door nearest to it on the right. It was the dining-room, the same gloomy apartment in which they took their meals-door masked by a heavy screen, furniture all in the heavy Victorian style, two windows with an excellent view of a dark shrubbery and the high wall which screened the street, and two more at the end of the room more or less blocked by creepers but affording an occasional glimpse of huge old cypresses. Not an inspiriting room, and certainly not of any historical interest. Such of the walls as were not obscured by the towering furniture had been covered by a wall-paper once dark red but now almost indistinguishable from the surrounding wood. Upon this background two large trophies of arms were displayed, comprising pistols, rapiers, and daggers in variety.
    Miss Columba opened a door which lurked in the shadow of an immense mahogany sideboard. Here they were in a stone passage again. Miss Columba pursued it until she came to a locked door. Diving into the pocket of her slacks, she produced the key and opened it. As soon as she did so the smell of burnt wood came out to mingle with the smell of damp which had caused Miss Silver to reflect upon the unfortunate fact that old houses really were deplorably unhygienic.
    “This is where the fire was,” said Miss