Anna, Where Are You? (4 page)

Mrs. Harrison and me, we talked it over,” said Agnes. “And what we thought was, we didn’t see that it had got anything to do with Miss Postlethwaite.” She sat on the edge of one of Miss Silver’s more upright chairs, her hands gripping a new shiny black handbag with a gilt clasp. Her gloves were new too and of a good quality, and her black cloth coat had cost a great deal more than Miss Silver would have dreamed of paying.

As she paused, and apparently expected some comment, Miss Silver said,

“Quite so.”

Agnes opened the shiny black bag, took out a clean folded white handkerchief with an initial A lurking in a wreath of forget-me-nots, dabbed the tip of her nose with it, and having returned the handkerchief still folded to the bag, proceeded to emphasize her last remark.

“We didn’t see that it had got anything to do with her.”

Miss Silver finished a row and turned her knitting. About ten inches of the back of Ethel Burkett’s cardigan now showed upon the needles. If she had not interrupted her work upon it to knit a pair of baby’s bootees, it would have been still farther advanced. She understood perfectly that the five-pound note already received and the one which Agnes was now hopefully expecting would be shared between herself and Mrs. Harrison, and that Postlethwaite would have no part in it. She smiled in an encouraging manner, and Agnes proceeded.

“Such being the case, we thought it would be best if I came to see you, Mrs. Harrison’s feet being a trouble to her.”

“It was quite the best thing you could do.”

“That’s what we thought. Not that there’s a great deal to say, but your friend being so kind—and a reward offered—we thought it would be best if I came along.”

The encouraging smile was repeated.

“That is very frank of you. And now what have you to tell me?”

A little colour came into the long, sallow face.

“Well, it was this way. There’s the telephone in the drawing-room, but except it’s for a special friend it’s kept switched through to the front hall so that I can do the talking—Mrs. Dugdale being troubled with her nerves.”

“Yes?” said Miss Silver on an enquiring note.

Agnes took out the handkerchief and dabbed again.

“It was about a week before Miss Ball left. I was in the dining-room putting away my silver, when the telephone went. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘you can wait till I get these spoons out of my hand.’ I wasn’t a minute, but just as I got to the door, there was Miss Ball taking off the receiver, which is a thing she hadn’t any call to do. She didn’t see me, and I thought I’d find out what she was at. Regular spying, creeping ways she’d got, and I thought if I could catch her out it would give her a lesson. I wouldn’t have listened, not if it had been anyone else, but she’d no call to be answering the telephone in that way, so I did.”

“Yes?”

Agnes was warming to it. She had another dab with the handkerchief and went on.

“Well, she said at once, ‘Yes, that’s right—it’s Miss Ball speaking… Yes, yes, of course—you can speak to Mrs. Dugdale. I’ll put you through to her. She isn’t at all pleased about my leaving, you know, but she can’t help handing on the reference from Mrs. Dartrey—I do know that.’ ”

Miss Silver said thoughtfully,

“I see—she was talking to her future employer—”

“It seemed like it. She was listening for a bit, and then she said, ‘What sort of place is it? The country is all very well in the summer, but that’s a long way off still, and we don’t always get one. Sounds as if it might be the depths of the country, a name like Deep End, doesn’t it?’ And she gave a silly kind of a laugh, as if she had made a joke. There was a bit of listening again, and then she said, ‘All those houses? Sounds funny to me. What do they call themselves a colony for?’ Well, I hadn’t the patience to listen to any more of it. I come out into the hall and I said, ‘If that’s a message, I’ll take it, Miss Ball, and if it’s anyone for Mrs. Dugdale you’d better put them through.’ Of course if I’d known—”

An apposite quotation occurred to Miss Silver, but she kept it to herself—“Evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart.” She deplored the impatience which had made Agnes interrupt Anna Ball’s telephone conversation, but there was nothing to be done about it now. She said,

“You are sure the name you heard was Deep End?”

Agnes brightened.

“Oh, yes, I’m quite positive about that, because one of my sister’s children was born at a place with a name like that. Her husband was gardener to a titled gentleman.”

“And where was this place?”

“Lincolnshire—a damp part of the world, my sister used to say —Deeping St. Nicholas. And they called the baby Nick, which isn’t a naine I’d care about. Seems silly too, because the old gentleman died and they moved right down to Devonshire no more than six months after.”

“But the name mentioned by Miss Ball was not Deeping, but Deep End. You are really sure about that?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure. It just put me in mind of my sister and the baby.”

“Was there any place called Deep End in the neighbourhood? Or did your sister ever mention anything in the way of a ‘colony’ in connection with the place?”

Agnes shook her head.

“I can’t call anything like that to mind. But she wasn’t there more than eight or nine months—and the best part of thirty years ago, so there’s no saying what there might be by this time.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“A great deal has come and gone in thirty years,” she said.

Agnes nodded mournfully.

“My brother-in-law for one, and that poor boy Nick for another—killed at Alamein, and a young wife at home with a twin of little girls. Nice children they are too—ever so bright. And I’ve nothing against her marrying again, but it don’t give my sister back her boy.”

The interview, having been warmed by this human touch, came to an end in a manner very satisfactory to Agnes, who went away with another five pounds to divide between herself and Mrs. Harrison.

Miss Silver also was not dissatisfied. If she had not got all she hoped for she had at least got something, which was more than the police had. She proceeded to call up Scotland Yard, and was fortunate enough to be put through to Inspector Abbott without delay. To his “Hullo, ma’am—what can I do for you?” she replied with reticence.

“In the case of the missing person to which you introduced me—”

“The elusive Anna? Yes?”

“I have some information. There is reason to believe that she went from Mrs. Dugdale to a place called Deep End. To my informant this name suggested Deeping, there being some family connection with Deeping St. Nicholas in Lincolnshire. She overheard Miss Ball in conversation on the telephone with her prospective employer. Deep End was mentioned, and she is sure that she made no mistake about the name. I thought at once of the Deeping in Ledshire where I spent such a very interesting time with Colonel and Mrs. Abbott. There is not, I suppose, any spot called Deep End in that vicinity? I know that you spent a good deal of your time there when you were a boy.”

“No, there’s no Deep End.”

“From the context it would seem to be a country place, but there is a suggestion Miss Ball was told that its solitude would be mitigated by the presence of a Colony—” She paused.

“Is that all?”

“I fear so.”

“How extremely cryptic! She is sure the place named was Deep End, but it reminded her of Deeping! Well, I suppose it might. And I suppose it might really have been Deeping, even if she thinks it wasn’t, in which case there could be a fairly wide choice. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be the one where my uncle and aunt lived, but I’ve got a sort of idea that there’s another Deeping, even in Ledshire. Of course Deep End sounds to me like the sort of name that might be given to almost any huddle of houses which has gone and got itself built in a bog. Sounds damp. Sounds as if there might be a good few of it—one per county, all over the place. I’ll see how many I can collect and come round this evening with the catch, if any. If that will be all right for you?”

The catch proved to be a small one, which, as Frank observed, was better luck than they had any right to expect. Produced over some excellent coffee, it amounted to this. Besides Deeping St. Nicholas in Lincolnshire, which was a sizable place, and the village in the north of Ledshire where Colonel and Mrs. Abbott lived, there was another Deeping in the south-west corner of the same county.

“As a matter of fact I think we’ve struck it lucky. Deeping St. Nicholas doesn’t fit into the picture, and I think we can leave it out. Also our family Deeping. But I think the other one may be what we’re looking for. I’ve been on to Randal March about it. He says this second Deeping is just on the county border and used to be called Deeping-in-the-Marshes, but after most of the land had been drained they rather dropped the end of the name. It’s just a village, with some big nursery gardens which serve the Ledlington market, and there’s a kind of off-shoot called Deep End which is just over a mile away. There was a big house there, which was bombed during the war. Grounds now a building estate. That might be your ‘Colony.’ March said he’d find out and let me know.”

Miss Silver beamed.

“It might indeed. Is your coffee sweet enough?… Whilst you are drinking it I will tell you about my interview with Mrs. Dugdale’s parlourmaid.”

Frank Abbott leaned back in one of the wide-lapped chairs and listened whilst with meticulous accuracy she repeated the account which Agnes had given of Anna Ball’s conversation on the telephone. When she had finished he said,

“And you think she can be depended upon?”

“Oh, yes—an old-fashioned type, conscientious and accurate.”

“A pity she didn’t get the employer’s name.”

Miss Silver said regretfully,

“The only person who seems to have heard it is Mrs. Dugdale, and she, I fear, can hardly be described as either accurate or conscientious. One of those vague, straying minds, and too much occupied with herself to give any but the most passing attention to the affairs of others.”

“Did you get anything out of her at all? Hobson couldn’t.”

Miss Silver handed him a half sheet of paper.

“She showed no reluctance to talk, but produced all these names one after the other, beginning with the remark that it wasn’t Cadbury.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Had you suggested that it might be Cadbury?”

“I had made no suggestion of any kind.”

He read aloud from the paper.

“Cadbury—Bostock—Cadell—Carrington—Chelmsford— Ruddock—Radford—” He gave her an enquiring look. “Well?”

“What do you make of it?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid, except—” he went back to the list—“Cadbury, Cadell, Carrington, Chelmsford—there are rather a lot of C’s. Anything else? Let me see—Bostock, Ruddock—those are both unusual names. Cadbury, Cadell, Carrington, Radford—a definite similarity about the first syllables.”

“That is what occurred to me. I could not help the feeling that all these names were suggested by the one which she had heard but had not troubled herself to remember.”

“You think it began with a C?”

“I think it possible that it did. And that it ended in ford or ock. Probably the latter, since Bostock and Ruddock are both uncommon names and not very likely to occur unless there had been some strong association, whereas ford is an extremely common suffix.”

He looked at her with a quizzical smile.

“And what does that suggest to you?”

“It suggests that one of these names may really be the name of Anna Ball’s employer. I do not think so, but it is possible. Or that if we are to look for another name, it may be Craddock.”

“And how do you arrive at that—no, let’s see—ad three times —ock twice—a sprinkling of r‘s and a lot of c’s—it might be. Or”—the smile became definitely provocative—“perhaps you are just being a great deal more ingenious than Mrs. Dugdale. That kind of mind is capable of almost any degree of irrelevance, and the name may turn out to be plain Smith or Jones.”

She looked across her deep blue knitting.

“That is quite possible. Meanwhile perhaps you would make some enquiries about the Deeping in Ledshire, and its offshoot Deep End. I think we may leave Deeping St. Nicholas on one side. But Deep End with its new building estate would fit the case. What we have to look for is someone with three children who is known to have engaged a governess or a nursery-governess between four and five months ago. The one thing that Mrs. Dugdale seems to remember about Miss Ball’s prospective employer is that her voice was so deep she thought at first that it was a man who was speaking. It may really have been a man. If she had no help the mother might have been unable to leave her children. I suggest that enquiries should be made at Deep End. It would be known whether the building estate was commonly alluded to as The Colony. It would be known whether there was a family such as I have described, and whether the name has any resemblance to those we have considered. If this is so, you will agree that some enquiry should be made with regard to Miss Ball. If she took up the post for which she appears to have been in treaty, it would be known. She may be still there, or she may have left, in which case Mrs. Craddock may have her address.”

Frank Abbott laughed.

“Craddock?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Or Smith, or Jones, or Robinson.”

Frank Abbott called up next day.

“Look here, I caught the Chief in a melting mood, and he says I can run down and make some enquiries; The usual trimmings about mare’s nests and what not, but all in good part. So expect me to-morrow on my way back. Will it matter if I’m late?… All right then—we’ll say any time up to midnight.”

It was not nearly so late as that when Hannah let him in. As she opened the sitting-room door, her voice could be heard telling him that his sandwiches were waiting, and that the coffee wouldn’t be a moment.

Miss Silver smiled.

“Hannah is always sure you must be starved when you go out of town.”

“Well, I did have some ghastly kind of a meal, but I’m trying to forget about it.” He pulled a chair in to the fire and spread out his hands to the glow. “Brr—it’s cold! And I’ve had my journey for—well, not quite nothing, but about as near as makes no difference.”

He thought, not for the first time, how comfortable and restful the room was, with its out-of-date furniture and its reminders of an age untroubled by the aeroplane and the bomb. Security— that is what the Victorians had, and what perhaps they paid too high a price for. They had slums and child labour, and culture was only for the few, but at least their children were not dragged from their beds to take refuge in underground shelters, and their slums were not blasted into rubble. There were times when the blessings of education appeared a little over-rated, since it seemed only to enable the nations to quarrel with greater fluency in some modern Tower of Babel.

Miss Silver, smiling at him from the other side of the hearth, her hands busy with her knitting, remained a stable point in an unsettled world. Love God, honour the Queen; keep the law; be kind, be good; think of others before you think of yourself; serve Justice; speak the truth—by this simple creed she lived. Si sic omnes!…

His sense of humour tripped him up. Miss Silver at the council board—at the Admiralty, the War Office, the Air Ministry. An infinite procession of Miss Silvers running everything everywhere. John Knox’s Monstrous Regiment of Women. No, no, it wouldn’t do. There was only one Maudie—let her remain unique.

Hannah came in with the coffee, poured him out his first cup, fussed over him with sandwiches, and departed. Then, and not till then, Miss Silver said,

“So you had your trouble for nothing?”

“Well, not quite. To start off with, Craddock it is—and I take off my hat to you, though I suppose you will admit that it was a very long shot.”

She was knitting demurely.

“They do occasionally hit the mark. So you found Mrs. Craddock?”

“Mr. Craddock, Mrs. Craddock and young, as stated. The young have to be seen to be believed. I am not surprised that Anna didn’t stay.”

Miss Silver said, “ Oh?” and stopped knitting. “ She had been at Deep End with the Craddocks?”

“And left before the end of the second week. But I expect you would like me to begin at the beginning.”

“It would be as well. But pray do not hurry yourself. Hannah’s liver sandwiches are really very good indeed. I find them difficult to distinguish from pâté de foie gras.”

“She is a genius. I warn you that I shall probably eat them all.”

“That is what they are there for, my dear Frank. And pray do not let your coffee grow cold.”

He lay back in his chair with a feeling of being at home.

“Well, Deep End used to be three cottages and a cow, with one of those overgrown Big Houses which have started Tudor and finished up Victorian. No, it was the war that finished it— direct hit right in the middle of the Great Hall, and consequent wreckage of most of the principal rooms. Rather appropriate, because the old family that had been there for donkey’s years had just petered out. Well, after standing derelict until three years ago it was bought for a song and patched together. That is to say, the middle block where most of the damage had been was tidied up, but there has been no attempt to make it habitable.”

“Was it Mr. Craddock who bought it?”

“It was. He lives in one of the wings, and has let the other. And—prepare for a shock—he has changed the name from Deepe House to Harmony!”

Miss Silver coughed.

“The intention of such names is no doubt laudable, but in practice they attract invidious criticism.”

“Like the miserable little shrimps who get christened Gloria, and all the dark Italian girls who are called Bianca! Well, Craddock called the place Harmony and proceeded to start the Colony by letting out a lodge and the stables to assorted cranks, after which he got a permit and began to build.”

“And Miss Ball?”

“She was engaged as mother’s help to Mrs. Craddock, but she only stayed a fortnight. If you saw the children you wouldn’t be surprised. They are being brought up in a state of nature.”

“In this weather? My dear Frank!”

“No, not nudist—they just do what they like, and if they wanted to go about without any clothes on, of course no one would stop them. You just let the natural tastes develop untrammelled and unchecked. I had a long and earnest talk with Mr. Craddock about it. Children must never be thwarted, or they’ll get complexes, and they must never be punished or told anything is wrong, because of course a guilt complex is about the worst of the lot. I felt sorry for the unfortunate Anna Ball.”

“I feel sorry for the children. Fancy going out into the world under the impression that you can always have your own way! Would anything be more likely to lead to disaster? But let us return to Miss Ball. If she left Deep End at the end of a fortnight, where did she go? Did she again leave no address?”

Frank nodded.

“According to the Craddocks she just burst into tears one day and said the children were too much for her and she would like to go at once. So she packed her bag, and he drove her in to Dedham, where she took a third-class ticket for London, and that was that. She didn’t leave any address, because she said she hadn’t made up her mind what she was going to do, and she would write to her friends when she had. He said he pressed her, but she wasn’t very co-operative. From which I gather she had given him to understand it wasn’t his business. I got the impression that they hadn’t liked Anna any more than she liked them. But having seen the children, I don’t imagine they will find it at all easy to replace her.”

“Are they trying to replace her?”

“Mr. Craddock said so.”

Miss Silver knitted in silence for a moment or two.

“Had Mrs. Craddock nothing to say?”

He laughed.

“Very little. I should say that the spirit was more or less broken. One of those little tired women.”

“And Mr. Craddock?”

“An eye like Jove to threaten and command. Very Jovian altogether. A brow and a good deal of hair. Looks like a tall man till he stands up. Quite a presence. The serious crank with Views and a belted blouse. Mrs. Craddock merely wrapped in the common domestic overall.”

After a slight pause Miss Silver said,

“Life must be very hard for her, poor woman. Has she no help at all?”

“A daily was spoken of.”

“They should certainly try to get someone who would live in. You say Mr. Craddock mentioned that they were trying to do so?”

“He said they were advertising, but it was so difficult to get someone to come to the country.” He hesitated for a moment, and then went on. “As a matter of fact they seem to have had someone since Anna Ball, but she didn’t stay.”

“They would not, I imagine, advertise under their name. A box number would be more usual. Mrs. Dugdale takes the Daily Wire. If a previous advertisement appeared in that paper and was answered by Anna Ball, it is quite likely that they will use the same medium again. It would, I suppose, be possible for you to ask the Daily Wire to let you know if they receive any advertisement from the Craddocks, and to supply you with the box number allotted to it.”

His lazy gaze became a very direct one.

“You mean we might send someone down there?”

“I mean that I might go myself.”

No one who knew Frank Abbott would have suspected him capable of the vehemence with which he said,

“No!”

“My dear Frank!”

The vehemence persisted.

“Why on earth should you? The whole thing is dead and done with. Anna Ball went there in November, and stayed less than a fortnight. She didn’t leave an address, and she hasn’t written to Thomasina. Repetition of her conduct when she left Mrs. Dugdale.”

“She meant to write to Thomasina Elliot. She left a trunk with her. Miss Elliot informs me that it contains all her winter clothes. She had only a suit-case with her, and we are now in the third week of January. I should like to satisfy myself that she really did leave Deep End.”

Frank made an impatient gesture.

“Oh, she left all right. I didn’t only see the Craddocks, you know. I went the round of the Colony, just in case Anna had told anyone what she was going to do. They had all seen her, but it doesn’t seem to have got much farther than that. The Miss Tremletts, who do folk-dancing and handicraft, said she was very unresponsive. Miss Gwyneth Tremlett, who has a hand-loom, offered to teach her weaving, but she would have none of it. One Augustus Remington, a piece of whimsy who embroiders pictures on satin, stigmatized her as aloof. A florid and exuberant lady who calls herself Miranda—only that and nothing more—assured me that Anna had one of the gloomiest auras she had ever encountered, which, I imagine, was her way of saying the same thing. They seem to have taken a kindly interest. Rather a matey crowd. And they took it as a sign of grace when she drove over to Ledlington with the Craddocks and came back with a red hat. They thought the colour a little crude, but definitely a step in the direction of expressing joy, which the Miss Tremletts are tremendously keen about.”

Miss Silver said,

“Why did she buy a red hat?”

“The Craddocks gave it to her. ‘Dear Mrs. Craddock, always so kind, so overburdened. And Mr. Craddock—’ I really can’t do justice to the spate of words about Craddock.”

Miss Silver had a very thoughtful expression. She said,

“Why did they give Miss Ball a red hat?”

“A desire to spread sweetness and light.”

“And why are you telling me about it?”

He was watching her between narrowed lids.

“Because it is proof positive that Anna went away. Both the Miss Tremletts saw her go by with Craddock. So did Miranda and Augustus, who were having a cosy little confab over their mutual fence. You remember he drove her to Dedham, where she took a London ticket. And she really did, because I went to Dedham, and the stationmaster remembers Craddock seeing her oft—a dark young woman in a red hat. He says she seemed a good deal upset, and Mr. Craddock told him she had been having trouble with her nerves and they were glad to be quit of her. So you see!”

In a tone as firm as it was mild Miss Silver said,

“I think I will go down to Deep End.”

He sat up with a jerk.

“As mother’s help to Mrs. Craddock?”

“I think so.”

“You will do nothing of the sort!”

“Why should I not?”

“Because it’s absurd—because I won’t have it! Because—”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“And since when have you dictated my movements, Frank?”

“You can’t do it without me! The Wire won’t let you have that box number.”

He had the sensation of being looked through and through.

“You are very heated, my dear Frank. What is behind it?”

“There isn’t anything behind it. I just don’t want you to go there.”

“And pray why not?”

“It’s quite irrational—I just don’t want you to go.”

After a moment she said in her temperate way,

“Either there is nothing behind Anna Ball’s disappearance, or there is something which requires investigation. In the former case, I should take an early opportunity of terminating the engagement. In the latter, I have undertaken an obligation towards Thomasina Elliot and I shall endeavour to discharge it. You cannot prevent me from going to Deep End. You can merely withhold the assistance which would make my task easier and safer.”

He threw out a hand.

“All right—you win—you always do. But there’s something —I didn’t mean to tell you. On the face of it, it’s quite irrelevant, but—”

“Yes, Frank?”

“Eighteen months ago a young woman was found drowned between Deep End and Deeping. I told you the road flooded. Well, there’s a boggy bit of ground on either side of it. It was a very wet night, and the girl must have got off the road in the dark. There are some sizable pot-holes. She was found lying face downwards in one of them. Not the slightest indication of anything but a purely accidental death. She was mired up to her knees, and she had slipped and fallen forward into the pot-hole. You see, it’s all purely irrelevant.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“But she was employed by the Craddocks? Is that what you were trying not to say?”

He gave her an exasperated look.

“She came over by the day from Deeping. She had been doing it for some months. There was no suggestion of anything wrong. I didn’t think it would be fair to mention it.”

“But you have mentioned it now.”

He said in a shame-faced way,

“I don’t want you to go there.”