Anna, Where Are You? (3 page)

A couple of days had passed when Miss Silver looked up from the letter she was writing and lifted the receiver of the table telephone. Inspector Abbott’s voice greeted her by name.

“Hullo! Here we are! Marvellous and beneficent instrument the telephone—except when it wakes you in the middle of the night and you wish that the progress of science had stopped short at rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. But, as you are about to remark, that isn’t what I rang you up to talk about. ‘Hail, vain deluding joys!’ and all the rest of it. Business before pleasure.”

“My dear Frank!”

“I know—I’m getting there. In the matter of Thomasina Elliot—”

Miss Silver said,

“You are not speaking from Scotland Yard.”

A suspicion of a laugh came to her along the wire.

“How right you are! The official style is more restrained. I am in a call-box. In the matter of Thomasina we appear to have got to a dead end. To start with, there isn’t any evidence that the girl Anna really has disappeared, and no clue as to where to begin to look for her. In fact, as I said, a dead end. There were just two chances. One, that an advertisement would produce something. Well, Thomasina has advertised, and we have had a wireless appeal put out. We had to strain a point there, but a string or two was pulled and we got it done. No response. The second chance was that Mrs. Dugdale, the last employer, or someone in her household might know something. A girl who is going to a new job is practically bound to say something about it to somebody. She asks for a reference—she leaves an address for letters to be forwarded. Well, according to Mrs. Dugdale and her household Anna didn’t do any of these things. Hobson went round to see them, and he says they were most unco-operative. Mrs. Dugdale appeared to be threatened with a nervous collapse every time she was asked to remember anything. He opined that it really was nerves, and not a guilty conscience. He said he had an aunt who was just the same, and she fairly wore everyone out. Getting sense out of her was like trying to get water out of an empty well—no matter how often you sent the bucket down it would always come up dry. From which you may deduce that our Sergeant Hobson grew up in a village which still pumped its water from its native springs.”

“And Mrs. Dugdale’s household?”

“Impenetrability, as Humpty Dumpty remarked! There is a personal maid who sounds like a cross between a steel trap and an oyster. The other two—there really are two more—are both elderly, and wouldn’t demean themselves by getting mixed up with the police. Hobson opined they didn’t know anything but wouldn’t have talked if they did. And that is where you come in.”

Miss Silver said in a deprecatory manner,

“May I ask in what capacity?”

She heard him laugh.

“Oh, strictly professional. Thomasina is coming to see you. She has come in for quite a lot of money from an aunt, and no expense is to be spared. I told her that if anyone could charm an oyster into speech, it was you. Seriously, you know, someone in that Dugdale lot must know something. Thumbscrews being out of date, there doesn’t seem to be any way of making them talk. Anna left them alive and in her right mind—”

“How did she go?”

“By bus, with a single suit-case which was all she brought with her. She had only been there a month, you know. She sent a box to Thomasina in Scotland and said she would write for it later. Well, she didn’t write.”

Miss Silver asked a pertinent question.

“Where was the bus going to?”

“That’s just what nobody knows. Anna walked to the end of the road and took a bus. Six buses pass there. No one knows which one of them Anna took. Nice simple little problem, isn’t it? She could have gone to King’s Cross, Waterloo, Victoria, Baker Street, Holborn, or the Tottenham Court Road. She could have got off her bus and travelled by tube. She could have gone to Scotland by motor coach. She could have taken a taxi and driven down to the docks. Anybody’s guess is as good as anybody else’s.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

An hour or two later Thomasina Elliot sat in one of the curly walnut chairs and gazed at Miss Silver. She had been sitting there for not more than twenty-five minutes, but she had already told this dowdy little ex-governess quite a number of things which she had not seen fit to impart to Peter Brandon or to Detective Inspector Abbott.

Things about Anna Ball—“She depended on me. People oughtn’t to depend on each other like that. I did my best to stop her, but it wasn’t any use, and she just hadn’t got anyone else. That is how I am quite sure she didn’t just get bored and stop writing. She hasn’t got any family, and she hasn’t got any friends. She hasn’t got anyone except me. I’ve got to find her.”

Things about herself—“Aunt Barbara left me quite a lot of money. I’m twenty-two, and I can do anything I like with it. It really is quite a lot, because she had a frightfully rich godmother —rather queer but very kind. She was about a hundred, and she left everything to Aunt Barbara, and Aunt Barbara left half to me and half to Peter. I used to be taken to see her.” Thomasina’s gaze became one of artless interest. “She had curly chairs just like yours, and the exact twin of your bookcase. You don’t mind my saying that, do you? It made me feel as if I knew you the minute I came in.”

She received the smile with which Miss Silver had won not only the confidence but the affection of many clients. It prompted Thomasina to discourse about Peter Brandon.

“Aunt Barbara married his uncle. He is about ten years older than I am. Aunt Barbara wanted me to marry him, but she didn’t put it in her will. He asks me every now and then, but I don’t suppose he really wants me to. You see, he knows all my faults and I know his, and it might be dull not having anything to find out about each other. Of course one would know the worst—”

Miss Silver looked at her kindly.

“There is much to be said for a steady affection as a foundation for marriage.”

Thomasina sighed.

“That is what Aunt Barbara used to say.” She sighed again. “Peter has a very domineering disposition. He writes books, you know. I suppose when you get accustomed to pushing characters about just the way you want to, it makes you think you can do the same thing with real people. Peter is being very domineering about poor Anna. He keeps saying, ‘Let her alone and she will turn up.’ ”

Miss Silver knitted in silence for a moment. Then she said,

“That last letter you spoke of—I should like to see it.”

Thomasina opened her bag.

“Inspector Abbott said you would. It’s very short. Here it is.

A folded sheet was handed over—notepaper with an embossed heading, 5 Lenister Street, S.W., and a telephone number, obviously Mrs. Dugdale’s. Under the heading a few lines in a scrawled downward-sloping hand with no set beginning:

“I shall be out of here by the time you get this, and thank goodness!” Heavy underlining. “How I have borne it! I shan’t tell you about my new job until I get there—no time— all very sudden. I’m sending you a box of things to keep for me in case I don’t stay.

Love,

Anna.”

Miss Silver handed the letter back.

“Have you seen this Mrs. Dugdale, Anna Ball’s late employer?”

Thomasina’s eyes kindled.

“If you can call it seeing!” she said in an indignant voice. “Flat on a sofa in a dressing-gown, with all the blinds down and a bottle of smelling-salts in her hand! And all she would say was, Anna didn’t leave an address and she didn’t know anything about her, and please would I go away, because her head was too bad to talk. And a most frightful prison wardress sort of maid gave me a look and told me to go. Oh, Miss Silver—you will do something about it, won’t you? Inspector Abbott said if anyone could get something out of her, it would be you.”

It was by good management and not by mere good fortune that Miss Silver penetrated the defences of 5 Lenister Street in the late afternoon of the following day. As a result of her cases she had acquired a number of useful social contacts. With the information supplied to her by Scotland Yard and a judicious employment of the telephone she arrived at a friend of a friend of Mrs. Dugdale’s. A little kindly pressure, some expressions of regard and gratitude, and the desired introduction had been achieved.

Miss Silver rang the bell, was admitted by a middle-aged maid of a most sedate and respectable appearance, and was by her conducted to a first-floor drawing-room where a single shaded lamp diffused a wan green light. Very depressing—very depressing indeed. And the temperature must be at least seventy. No wonder Mrs. Dugdale was troubled with nerves.

The well-trained maid had murmured her name and vanished. The room being crowded with small gimcrack tables and spidery chairs, there was some danger of being tripped up. Miss Silver’s advance towards a distant sofa was therefore a cautious one.

Arrived, she touched a faint extended hand, and was aware of a smothered growling note from beneath the embroidered coverlet.

“No, Chang!” said Mrs. Dugdale in an exhausted voice. “Do please sit down, Miss Silver. Mother’s Boy is a very, very naughty boy. No, Chang—no!”

The coverlet heaved, the growl passed into a snarl, and the snarl into a furious bark. Mother’s Boy emerged—a tough, belligerent Pekinese with a tawny coat and a black mask from which there glowered a pair of vindictive eyes. Mrs. Dugdale pressed the small electric bell which lay to her hand upon one of the spidery gimcrack tables. Two long rings and a short one produced, not the maid who had admitted Miss Silver, but a severe-looking female whom Miss Silver was able at once to identify as the prison wardress of Thomasina Elliot’s description. Mrs. Dugdale addressed her in a voice which she had perforce to raise in order to compete with Chang, who continued to bark.

“Oh, Postlethwaite, please take him away! My poor head! No, Mother’s Boy! Naughty—naughty! He dislikes strangers so very much.”

Watching the reluctant removal of Chang, Miss Silver reflected that the feeling was probably mutual.

“And oh, Postlethwaite—my smelling-salts. I had them just now, but I don’t seem to see… Oh, thank you—how very kind!” This to Miss Silver who had detected and restored the missing bottle.

But the maid had barely reached the door again when Mrs. Dugdale discovered that her handkerchief had gone astray. There was a search during which Chang made so much noise that even Miss Silver felt inclined to put her hands to her ears. When the door finally closed upon his protests she experienced a good deal of relief. Accustomed by this time to the green twilight, she was able to give her whole attention to Mrs. Dugdale, now lying back in a swooning attitude amongst a great many cushions. She saw a small fair person who had probably been extremely pretty some thirty years ago. There was still a profusion of light hair which had not been allowed to go grey, a pair of rolling blue eyes, and features which might still have been pleasing if it had not been for their fretful expression.

“He is so high-spirited,” said Mrs. Dugdale in a sighing voice. “And so devoted. He will hardly leave me.”

“I believe they are very intelligent.”

“Human,” said Mrs. Dugdale—“positively human. And so handsome—like a little lion. And of course they are as brave as lions too. You have no idea how venturesome he is.”

Miss Silver not only permitted but encouraged several anecdotes in illustration of the charm, the courage, and the fidelity of Chang. Mrs. Dugdale became quite animated as she narrated them, finishing up with,

“And he came in all covered with blood where that horrible cat had scratched him. But his spirit was as high as ever. You could tell when he was thinking about the cat, because his tail curled up and he growled, and he actually bit Postlethwaite when she was washing off the blood. She is devoted to him of course, but she really didn’t quite like it.”

Miss Silver considered that the time had come to introduce the name of Ball. She did so firmly.

“Was Miss Ball attached to him? She was with you for a short time, I believe.”

“Oh, no!” said Mrs. Dugdale. “Attached! She was quite callous! A most unfeeling girl. When she trod on him and he bit her, she was much more upset about the hole in her stocking and the mark of his poor little teeth than about anything else. Why, as I said to her, she might have lamed him for life, my precious boy—treading on his poor little foot with her great clumping one! And she was most rude, most offensive. I had one of my worst headaches after it, and my nerves were upset for days.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“A most trying experience.”

“I was thankful when she left. Postlethwaite can tell you how thankful I was. She came to me from my cousin, Lilla Dartrey. Most inconsiderate of her to recommend such an unsuitable person. I only kept her a month, and you would think once she was gone I might be allowed to have a little peace. But no— would you believe it, the police—the police have come here wanting to know about her!”

“It must have upset you very much.”

Mrs. Dugdale had opened her smelling bottle. The atmosphere became tinged with aromatic vinegar. She sniffed.

“I was prostrated. My nerves are not strong enough for that sort of thing. I told Sergeant Hobson so. ‘It is no use your asking me,’ I said, ‘I cannot help you at all. She was only here for a month, and she went away without leaving any address. I found her a most unsympathetic character, and I was thankful to see the last of her. I cannot help you in any way, and I really must decline to be mixed up in her affairs.’ Don’t you think I was right?”

“The police are so very pertinacious,” said Miss Silver in tones of regret. “I fear they may trouble you again.”

“I shall refuse to see them.”

Miss Silver let that go. She said,

“It seems strange in these days when there are so many undesirable people about that anyone should be willing to employ a young woman without taking up her reference. Miss Ball had not, I suppose, the temerity to ask you for one, though I believe you would be legally obliged to pass on the reference you had with her if she did not stay with you for longer than a month.”

Mrs. Dugdale became quite animated.

“Nothing could be more unfair, and so I told the person who rang me up. I had a very good reference from my cousin, and how she could bring herself to deceive me as she did, I really do not know. I couldn’t have done it! I told the person who rang me up that Miss Ball had been with a cousin of mine for a year or two—in Germany.” She pronounced the words as if they indicated a highly suspicious background. “I said that I had not found her congenial and could not recommend her personally, but I had no reason to suppose that she was not honest and respectable. I do not see that I could have said any more.”

Miss Silver said,

“The police could take no exception to that.”

A little colour had come into Mrs. Dugdale’s face.

“Oh, I didn’t tell the police. It had nothing to do with them one way or the other.”

“So inquisitive—” sighed Miss Silver. “I wonder how long a girl such as you describe would satisfy any employer. This person who rang up—what did you say the name was?”

Mrs. Dugdale had recourse to the smelling-salts.

“I never can remember names—I find it a strain upon the nerves.” She paused, sniffed, and added in a doubtful tone, “It wasn’t Cadbury?”

There appeared to be no reason why it should have been Cadbury.

Mrs. Dugdale continued in a musing tone, “Or Bostock—or Cadell—or Carrington… Such a curious voice too—very deep. Really, I thought it was a man speaking, but what she wanted was a nursery governess for her children. There were three of them, and I felt it my duty to tell her of Miss Ball’s callous behaviour to my precious boy, but she said her children could look after themselves, so my conscience is clear.”

“And the name was?”

“Chelmsford—or Ruddock—or Radford—I really cannot say which,” said Mrs. Dugdale in a drifting voice.

Miss Silver had produced pencil and paper from a shabby black handbag. She added these names to those which she had already written down.

“I have a young friend who is anxious to find Miss Ball. It appears that she left a trunk in her keeping, and she does not know what to do about it.”

Mrs. Dugdale sniffed at her aromatic vinegar.

“Most inconsiderate,” she said, “but only what one would expect from Anna Ball. I remember my husband’s sister doing the same to me—a box of clothes, taking up room and collecting moth. But he was deplorably weak where his family was concerned.”

Miss Silver allowed herself to be told all about Miss Mary Dugdale. It was a theme upon which her sister-in-law became quite animated.

“Such a domineering person, and really terribly fatiguing. Breezy, her friends called it—‘Mary is so breezy!’ ” She shuddered. “I really don’t think my nerves have ever quite got over it. She stayed for three months, and always opened a window whenever she came into the room.”

The atmosphere was so oppressive, so heavily impregnated with aromatic vinegar, a strongly-scented face-powder, and an occasional whiff of moth-ball that Miss Silver could not help feeling some sympathy with the breezy Miss Dugdale. Not that she had any partiality for draughts—on the contrary—but an invalid’s room should be regularly aired.

When the last drop of self-pity had been distilled, and not till then, did a slight cough re-introduce the subject of Anna Ball’s employer.

“I felt sure that you would sympathize with my young friend’s predicament. Perhaps your maid—what is her name— ah, yes, Postlethwaite—perhaps she can help us.”

Mrs. Dugdale’s animation ceased. She closed her eyes and said she doubted it. But after a little tactful persuasion Miss Silver was allowed to ring the bell.

“Two long and one short. And I am really afraid that I must not talk very much more. It has been very pleasant, but I shall pay for it. My head—”

A description of the expected symptoms was still not complete when it was interrupted by the appearance of Postlethwaite, more like a wardress than ever, but mercifully not accompanied by Mother’s Boy. Even Miss Silver’s tact failed to penetrate the armour-plating. Postlethwaite made it perfectly plain that she had no intention of either remembering or attempting to remember anything to do with Miss Ball. As far as she was concerned, Anna Ball no longer existed.

Mrs. Dugdale’s attitude was hardly a helpful one.

“We don’t know Miss Ball’s address—do we, Postlethwaite?”

“No, madam.”

“Or where she has gone?”

“No, madam.”

Mrs. Dugdale closed her eyes.

“Then I am afraid I must not talk any more.”

The interview was plainly at an end. It was disappointing— very disappointing indeed. Miss Silver had perforce to take her leave.

A faint hope arose at the discovery that it was no part of Postlethwaite’s duties to speed the departing guest. A single long trill of the electric bell summoned the middle-aged parlourmaid to discharge this task, and it was whilst discoursing to Agnes with bright amiability on her young friend’s predicament with regard to Miss Ball’s trunk that Miss Silver produced a five-pound note from her shabby bag. Telling Mrs. Harrison the cook about it afterwards, Agnes could hardly get the words out fast enough.

“Well, I thought, it only just shows what I’ve always said, you never can tell. Mind you, I know a lady when I see one, and a lady she was. But old-fashioned—well, I ask you! One of those black cloth coats that don’t look as if they’d ever been anything else, and the sort of fur tie you’d expect to see in a second-hand clothes shop. Black wool stockings, and a hat the very moral of the one we saw in that film—now what was it called? You know, the one where the girl has that awful governess that wants to poison her.”

Mrs. Harrison opined that governesses were always a trouble in the house, but there weren’t so many of them nowadays, and a good thing too.

“Well, that’s what she looked like—one of those old-fashioned governesses, and when she took a five-pound note out of her bag you could have knocked me down with a feather. ‘My young friend,’ she says—that’s the one she’d been telling me about all the way down the stairs, not mentioning any names but just ‘My young friend,’ like that—‘well she’s very anxious to get rid of this trunk Miss Ball left with her, so she wants to know where she is, and if you or the cook can give her any help, there’s a reward offered, and another note like this to come.’ Well, she puts it into my hand and stands there looking at me very pleasant. So what I thought was, it wasn’t anything to do with Miss Postlethwaite, and I said we’d be very pleased to help, and I’d talk it over with you, and would she leave her address, which she wrote it down on a piece of paper, and here it is.

The five-pound note and the piece of paper lay side by side on the kitchen table. Mrs. Harrison stared at them and said,

“Well, I never!”