Anna, Where Are You? (12 page)

As they turned in at the road-house, a small car passed them, heading for Ledstow. There were two people in it. Frank Abbott noticed a couple of the figures on the number-plate. Miss Silver was aware that the driver was a woman. There was no reason why either of them should have noticed more than that. It was only a good deal later when the car had been found deserted in Miller’s Lane that they realized it was the Ledlington bank murderer and his accomplice who had passed them. The car was going very fast indeed.

Inside the café they drank tea and went on talking. The place, as Frank Abbott had said, was well adapted for private conversation. There were nooks, there were alcoves, there were comfortable chairs, and discreetly shaded lights. Having listened to all that Miss Silver had to tell him, he had a contribution of his own to make.

“You haven’t asked me how I come to be here.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Yes, I am. Do you remember my talking to you about a bank robbery at Enderby Green a month ago?”

“A very shocking affair. The bank manager was shot dead. But there was a clerk—I hope he recovered.”

Frank nodded.

“He was lucky—the bullet just missed everything that mattered. I think I told you he had been rather clever. He was making entries in red ink at the time, and he managed to get some of it on to a bundle of notes they made him hand over. Well, of course everyone has been warned to look out for those notes. The murderer naturally wouldn’t try to pass anything that was badly marked, but what the clerk did was to get a finger in the ink and smear the edge of the packet. If the colour didn’t run in beyond the edge, it might have been just possible to shave it off, so all banks were told to be on the look out for this. Well, two notes have turned up this week. A young chap called Wayne in the County Bank here spotted them. It was bright of him, because the shaving had been very carefully done. I can’t say I’d have noticed it myself if I hadn’t been on the look out for it, but under a magnifying glass you can see that the edge has been tampered with, and there is even a trace of the red ink. The Chief sent me down, and we’ve been in a huddle over it most of the morning.”

“And have you been able to trace the notes?”

“Up to a point, yes. Or at any rate one of them. They were paid in separately, and when this fellow Wayne noticed one of them he reported it to the manager and they went through all the lot and found another. Only of course by that time no one could say where it had come from, so except as an indication that someone in the district is passing these notes, the second one is a wash-out.”

“And the first?”

“Well, that was paid in by a Miss Weekes who has a fancy-work shop at Dedham. Jackson and I went over to see her about it. She hasn’t any regular day for banking her takings, because she has relations in Ledlington and when she comes over she likes to spend the day with them, so it’s a matter of mutual convenience. There’s a friend who looks after the shop when she isn’t there.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Fancy-work shops are often run in quite an easy-going way. It is considered a refined occupation by those who have had no business training.”

He laughed. “Miss Weekes is nothing if not refined. I think you’ve met her?”

“She has wool of a very good quality. I bought some two days ago.”

“And you paid—how?”

She said soberly,

“With a pound note. My dear Frank, you are not going to tell me—”

“I don’t know—I wish I did. Miss Weekes banked four pound notes yesterday. Of those four she herself took three—one from you. She described you as the lady who is staying at Deepe House, and added that you did a lot of knitting.”

“Oh, yes, I was recommended to go to her by Mr. Hawkes, the postman. She is, I believe, a connection of his.”

His very fair eyebrows rose.

“Whoever it was who said that one half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives obviously had no experience of an English village. Talk about the fierce light that beats upon a throne—it simply isn’t in it with the light that beats on rural England.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I have often thought so. But let us return to Miss Weekes and the four pound notes. One of them came from me. What about the others?”

“She says Mr. Augustus Remington came in for embroidery silks. He is a frequent customer and she knows him well. He came in the same day that you did. His bill amounted to thirty-two and sixpence, and he paid it with a pound note, a ten shilling note, and a half-crown. Later on in the afternoon Miss Gwyneth Tremlett came in for canvas and raffia. She also paid with a pound note. So there are three of them accounted for. But no one seems to know anything about number four. Miss Weekes became quite tearful over it and said her friend must have taken it on Tuesday morning whilst she was out doing the shopping. The friend’s name is Hill, and she is a dreep. She has nervous prostration if more than two people come into the shop together. On Tuesday morning there was apparently an avalanche of six, and she became completely disorganized. By the time Jackson and I had finished with her the only thing she was sure about was that she had put all the money in the till, and if there was an extra pound note there someone must have given it to her, but if it was her last dying breath she couldn’t say more than that, and if we were going to take her to prison, she was ready to go, and all she wanted was to be allowed to die quietly of the disgrace and not have to face the neighbours. You know the kind of thing.”

“It is extremely difficult to deal with.”

“That’s putting it mildly. Jackson says he has an aunt like it, and there’s nothing you can do. As he put it, by the time they’ve finished working themselves up they don’t know black from white, nor chalk from cheese. So there we are—one pound note from you, one from Augustus Remington, one from Miss Gwyneth, and one from wherever you please. Where did yours come from?”

She said in an expressionless voice,

“Mrs. Craddock pays my salary weekly.”

“Oh, she does, does she? And that pound note was part of it—you’re sure about that?”

“I am perfectly sure.”

“Then three out of the four notes come from the Colony.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“It is more than a month since the robbery at Enderby Green, and there has therefore been a good deal of time for the notes to circulate. The one paid over the counter to Miss Weekes may have passed through a number of hands before it reached her. Since I myself cannot be sure that I did not handle it, the same may be the case with regard to Mr. Remington and Miss Gwyneth Tremlett. Any of us could have passed one of the stolen notes in complete innocence.”

“But the chances are still three to one that it came from the Colony.”

There was a hint of reproof in her voice as she said,

“I think it would be fairer to say through instead of from.”

As Miss Silver walked down towards the station to wait for her bus she reflected gravely upon the conversation which she had just had with Frank Abbott. It had not clarified anything, it had not led them anywhere, but it had certainly added to the apprehension with which the whole situation inspired her. She had the unpleasant sensation of trying to find her way in a fog. No sooner did a clue present itself than it petered out, any attempt to follow it resulting in confusion. Having started out to discover what had happened to Anna Ball, she found herself involved with Mrs. Craddock’s fears for the safety of her children.

And now, superimposed upon everything else, there was this business of the notes taken from the bank at Enderby Green. When she referred to what might be called the Craddock problem Frank had not given it very much attention. Three unruly children were enough to upset any boat, and as for the mushrooms—well, there was that close copy of the real thing, and anyone might be taken in by it. He remembered a correspondence about it in the Times, and the last word of the experts was that there was no certain test, but if you found the things growing near pine trees they were not mushrooms, and that was that. In the matter of the stolen notes, as she pointed out to him, once in circulation, any one of them might pass through a dozen hands before it was paid over Miss Weekes’ counter. But whether she regarded the problem of the Craddocks or the problem of the notes, a feeling of apprehension not only persisted but increased.

She was half way down the slope, when she heard footsteps behind her and a whispering voice said,

“Whither away, fair lady?”

Since she knew only one person capable of such a form of address, it was no surprise to find Augustus Remington at her elbow, looking a good deal less peculiar than usual. It could not be said that his clothes were like those of other people, but he no longer wore the blouse and corduroy trousers which he affected in the Colony, and beyond a certain flowing line and the fact that he wore a low-necked shirt, his garments approximated to those of the ordinary man. He was bare-headed, and his long lint-white hair lifted in the breeze.

Miss Silver said soberly,

“I am catching the five o’clock bus.”

The slender hands gestured.

“I also. A deplorable necessity. These mechanical inventions defile the purity of country life.”

It had never occurred to Miss Silver that life in the country was particularly pure, but she refrained from saying so.

“The smell—” said Augustus Remington, his whisper becoming fainter. “The noise—I am quite terribly susceptible to noise. The ruthless, inexorable grinding of the—ah, gears. I am entirely ignorant of these hideous mechanical contrivances, but I believe I am right in supposing that there are such things. As I have just said, a painful convenience, an outrage upon every artistic sense, but a present necessity. You have been shopping?”

“I have been having tea with a friend.”

“And I in pursuit of beauty.” He gave a little giggling laugh. “But you must not misunderstand me. I refer to that abstract beauty which is the guiding star of art, and in this case it led me to what I have been seeking vainly for many weary weeks. I have been impeded, obstructed, frustrated, but today my struggles have been crowned with success. Without any volition of my own I found myself entering a little shop in the Square. The old beams exuded an aroma of the past—there were strange whisperings in the walls. A young girl served me, blooming and unimaginative as a cabbage rose. She had a hideous accent—she had been eating peppermints. She laid a tray of embroidery silks before me, and there, at last, was the shade I had been seeking—one of those fainting hues which resemble the haunting of a rose that has died in the bud.”

They had by this time reached the bus. Since it was not due to start for another five minutes, there was still plenty of room inside, and it was therefore quite impossible to avoid sitting next to Mr. Remington, who continued to discourse in a manner which Miss Silver found very trying to her patience. A little before five o’clock Miss Gwyneth Tremlett got in, and quite at the last minute a large young man with a suit-case stepped on board and, making his way to a vacant seat at the very front of the bus, sat down and stared gloomily at the driver’s back.

Miss Silver recognized him at once, and she may be forgiven for an exasperated feeling that he was, in his own person, the proverbial last straw. There was, however, nothing she could do about it. The engine started, the bus quivered and leapt forward. Augustus Remington gave her a running commentary on the sensations which this induced. His voice fell, now fading into inaudibility, and now recurring to a full-blown whisper. Miss Silver had no attention to spare for him. Her eyes were fixed on the back of Peter Brandon’s head, and her mind was quite taken up with annoyance that he should have followed Thomasina to Deep End and speculations as to how soon he could be induced to go away.

As they continued their progress in the direction of Deeping, the passengers thinned out, the largest number getting off at Ledhill, once a country village but rapidly becoming industrialized. There being now a vacant seat just across the gangway, Miss Gwyneth Tremlett took the opportunity of moving into it, and was affectionately greeted by Mr. Remington.

“Ah, now—how much better this is! I have been asking myself what have we done that we should be ostracized.”

Miss Gwyneth bridled in a pleased sort of way.

“Really, Augustus—don’t be so absurd! You can’t have been noticing, or you would have seen that I took almost the only seat which happened to be empty.”

He heaved an ostentatious sigh.

“I have a very sensitive soul. The least breath of coldness from a friend, and I am not well. Last week when you were vexed with me I had to take three aspirins. And then today I was already suffering. I yield to no one in admiration for our Peveril, and I know that you and Elaine do not like to hear a word against him, but I cannot pretend that I do not feel hurt when he drives his car into Ledlington and drives it back again without so much as thinking of offering any one of us a lift.”

Miss Gwyneth sat up rather straight. She wore a shapeless green coat and a great many scarves, one in orange and purple stripes over her head, and two or three others in varying shades about her neck and shoulders. As she talked, the ends kept poking out and having to be tucked in again. She said rather abruptly,

“But Peveril wasn’t in Ledlington.”

Augustus Remington’s whisper took on a purring note.

“My very dear Gwyneth, of course he was. He had parked his car in the Market Square—I saw it at once when I came out of my little dark shop. But you don’t know about that. It was Miss Silver that I was confiding in. My dear, at last I have attained the object of my search—the exquisite shade which had eluded me for so long that I had begun to despair of finding it. It glowed like a jewel in the little dark place! And when I came out, there was Peveril’s car. Remembering that I had confided my intention of visiting Ledlington this afternoon, I could hardly fail to be wounded. Or do you think I could?”

Miss Gwyneth, aware that she also had told Peveril that she was going into Ledlington, could do no better than to say with some bluntness,

“If he had wanted us to come with him, I suppose he would have suggested it.”

“Dear Gwyneth! How well you put it! If he had wanted us he would have asked us. So simple, so direct, so entirely to the point! Since he did not ask us, he did not want us. An inescapable inference. The whole wounding truth packed into the fewest possible words. Only those endowed with the supreme wisdom of common sense have courage enough to achieve such clarity. For myself, I am a creature of emotion. I cannot analyse, I can only feel. When a cold wind passes over me I shrink and I am silent.”

Miss Gwyneth’s colour had risen. She seemed about to speak, but it was some time before he afforded her any opportunity of doing so.

Miss Silver continued to listen to what was being said, and to watch Mr. Peter Brandon. Once in a while a trick of the light would show her his reflection in the glass which faced him. It was not a very clear reflection, depending as it did upon the dark backing of the driver’s coat and the angle at which the light struck the pane, but it confirmed her impression that Mr. Brandon was in a very bad temper, a fact which greatly increased the likelihood of his committing some fatal imprudence.

The bus jogged on, and ultimately arrived at Deeping, leaving the passengers for Deep End a walk of about three-quarters of a mile. It was at this point that Peter Brandon addressed himself to Augustus Remington. He asked to be directed to Deep End and enquired whether it would be possible to find accommodation there for the night.

“I have come down to see a relation of mine who is staying here. A matter of business. My name is Brandon.”

As these remarks were made in quite a loud, abrupt voice, neither Miss Gwyneth nor Miss Silver could avoid hearing them.

It was, in fact, quite apparent to Miss Silver that Mr. Brandon was at one and the same moment issuing a challenge and fishing for an invitation.

Miss Gwyneth’s response was immediate.

“Mr. Brandon—I really must introduce myself. Your aunt was our very dear friend, and as you know, your dear little cousin is our guest—mine and my sister’s. My name is Tremlett —Miss Gwyneth Tremlett. I do hope there is nothing wrong. We are enjoying Ina’s visit so much.”

That he boggled at the “Ina” was plain. Miss Silver thought that he would have had a very good face for a silent film—what she would herself have called a speaking countenance. But Miss Gwyneth, whose scarves were being blown all about her, was too much taken up with retrieving them and buttoning them inside her coat to notice anything. As soon as she had dealt with the scarves she was deploring the fact that they had no second spare room and wondering whether Mrs. Masters would take Mr. Brandon in.

“She has quite a nice room, and everything most beautifully kept. And I know that it is empty, because young Goddard who has lodged there for the last eighteen months has managed to get one of the new Council houses at Deeping, so of course he decided to get married at once. He and Mabel Wellstead have only been waiting for somewhere to live. Mrs. Masters was quite adamant about not taking a married couple, and of course Deeping is much more convenient for them, as he works in the Nurseries there. But I don’t really know about you, Mr. Brandon. You see, she goes to the Craddocks at Harmony for three hours every morning, and of course she gave Jim Goddard a wrapped lunch, and he had breakfast and supper with her and her father-in-law, who is our oldest inhabitant.”

If Miss Gwyneth had been obliged to sit silent in the bus, she made up for it now. Peter felt himself in danger of being submerged. Snatching at the one essential point, he said firmly that he didn’t care where he took his meals, and that the room at Mrs. Masters’ sounded as if it was just what he was looking for.

He .had to say it all over again when he reached the cottage, where he found it extremely difficult to get in a word edgeways,

Miss Gwyneth being quite extraordinarily informative and diffuse, and Mrs. Masters using the slightest pause to repeat that she didn’t know that she wanted to take another lodger, and that she didn’t reckon to let to the gentry.

It was Mr. Masters who finally settled the matter. From behind his daughter-in-law’s back he crooked a finger and beckoned Peter in. The kitchen was warm with firelight and lamplight, the table was spread for a meal. There was a mingled smell of paraffin and kippers, there was a singing kettle and a purring cat. Old Mr. Masters pointed to a chair and said, “Set down.” Then he opened the door a chink and bellowed through it into the darkness.

“You come right in, Maria, and dish up! It’s my house, and he’s staying!”

It was a good deal earlier than this, not in fact more than ten minutes after the bus had left Ledlington, that Frank Abbott was being ushered into the closed and shuttered County Bank. Inspector Jackson accompanied him, and the Superintendent of the Ledlington police and the Chief Constable of the county were waiting for them. Outside, darkness was closing in upon the winter dusk. Here there were bright lights and hard dark shadows. The lights shone down upon two dead men, men who had been alive and in their full strength when he had talked with them only that morning. They could give no evidence now but the mute accusing testimony of their blood. The manager was a married man with two children still of school age. The clerk was Hector Wayne, who had been so quick to detect that one of the pound notes paid in by Miss Weekes had been tampered with. A cold anger came up in Frank as he looked at them. He had nothing to say, and he said nothing. It was the Chief Constable who spoke.

“It’s a bad business,” he said.