Chapter 42Detective Inspector Abbott stood in the dark and listened. He would not have admitted it to anyone else—he barely admitted it to himself—but he was just about as nervous as a cat on hot bricks. Miss Silver’s plan, which had sounded so simple in the cosy atmosphere of the Vicarage morning-room with lamplight and firelight and a modicum of daylight to keep the off chance from pushing in, was now, in the darkness, exposed to every kind of doubt. He ought never to have consented to it. That had been his original standpoint, and he ought to have stuck to it. And so what? If he could stick to a plan, why, so could she. And not only could, but would. He had known his Miss Silver for a good many years now, and he was perfectly well aware that when she had made up her mind to a course of
