CHAPTER TWENTY-NINELater on that evening Miss Silver had a conversation with Detective Inspector Frank Abbott. It took place, as their former interviews had done, in the study, but in what appeared to be a rather less formal atmosphere. The first sense of shock and strain had lifted a little. Miss Silver’s knitting-bag lay open on a corner of Jonathan Field’s writing-table, the bright paeonies and larkspur of the chintz contrasting in a most pleasing manner with a lining of primrose silk. Her hands were occupied with a pair of pale blue knitting-needles from which there depended a cloudlike pattern in a very fine white wool. A soft towel across her knees protected what was destined to be a baby shawl from contact with the stuff of her skirt. There were always babies who needed shawls, and
