Dorothy Eden (9 page)

In a short time the connection was made, and she could hear Kate Tempest’s clear but slightly alarmed voice at the other end.

“It’s just Mrs. Dix, dear,” she said reassuringly. “Calling to see if you’re all right. No more trouble, I hope.”

“No, not really trouble. Just a slight mix-up.”

“Mix-up?”

“Oh, with this Johnnie Lambert of yours, and the other man I met on the train, Lucian Cray. I got an awful crack on the head and Lucian took charge. But Johnnie was awfully sweet and understanding. It was nice of you to tell him to look after me.”

“Me! Tell him to look after you.” In spite of the warm, cushioning brandy, the fear was sweeping back, making her heart thump and the palms of her hands moist. “Who is he?”

“Johnnie Lambert. I told you. He’s just back from Beirut. You remember, the tutor.”

“The tutor,” echoed Mrs. Dix foolishly.

“I guess you can’t remember the names of all the people you get jobs for,” came the girl’s voice philosophically. “But he did say you had specially told him—I say, Mrs. Dix, didn’t you tell him at all? Weren’t you speaking to him on the phone? But in that case how did he know who I was?”

In the midst of her flurry and apprehension Mrs. Dix was sure of only one thing. Miss Squires had been wrong and she had been right. Kate Tempest had not been a suitable person to send on this job. She was too gay and ebullient, too quick to talk to strangers, and also, worst of all, too inquisitive.

“Just come home, Kate, dear,” she begged. “We can talk about it then. You have your plane ticket, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m not using it. I’m travelling by ferry. I have a hunch, stupid, I expect, that Francesca might be on it.”

“
Francesca
! What are you talking about?”

“The little girl. I don’t think she’s gone to Rome at all. I think someone has been playing a trick on me. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. Anyway, I enjoy a sea trip.
And
a spot of detective work. I can’t face Rosita without Francesca, can I? And now I’ve got to rush to catch the train. Apologize to Johnnie for me if he gets home first. I’m looking forward to seeing that gentleman again.”

The telephone clicked. The young, optimistic, ebullient voice vanished.

Mrs. Dix had one hand clutched to her bosom where she felt a sharp, strangulating pain. She wanted to reach for the brandy bottle to have another quick nip which would not only reassure her but despatch the pain and breathlessness.

But suddenly she felt incapable of moving. What had she done wrong? Surely yesterday, in a moment of mental aberration, she hadn’t told someone to call on Kate. But if she hadn’t, who was Johnnie Lambert?

I
T WAS TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTING
. Kate had walked from end to end of the train, but there was no sign of Lucian, certainly no sign of Francesca. Her hunch about Francesca, in the broad light of day, seemed fantastic and completely unreasonable, but Lucian had told her he was travelling back to England by ferry steamer. So why was he not visible?

Feeling flat and out of temper, and with her head beginning to ache again, Kate found a seat and tried to relax. Had Mrs. Dix been annoyed with her for not using the plane ticket? She couldn’t be sure, because that issue had been lost in Mrs. Dix’s perplexity about Johnnie Lambert. She had sounded so uneasy and alarmed, and she said she had not spoken to any such person on the telephone. It was possible she may have had a lapse of memory—her voice had sounded fuzzy and wandering as if she were drugged or drunk. Living in her world of unreality, neither of these things would have been unexpected. But it may well have been that it was Miss Squires to whom Johnnie Lambert had spoken. It was much more likely that Miss Squires, brisk and down to earth, would suggest that Kate be looked after.

Anyway, that was unimportant. She would discover the truth when she returned to London. She was not particularly interested in Johnnie Lambert. It was Lucian whose dark, secret face both haunted and repelled her.

She should have sent a cable to William, too. He would be hurt at her neglect. But just at the moment William, too, seemed unimportant. There were only two people in her mind, the lost little girl Francesca who may badly need rescuing, and Lucian Cray who seemed to know more than he should. Otherwise why had he told her to lock her door last night?

The ferry was drearily crowded. There was the usual babel of voices, the blue-overalled French seamen begging and exhorting the pushing and struggling passengers, the dedicated rush for possession of deck-chairs, the luggage dumped where one tripped over it, the queue for the bar and the restaurant. A cold wind blew over a choppy grey sea. Even in harbour the ship was rocking noticeably, and passengers, determined to be ill, were wearing looks of stern martyrdom.

Already Kate was realizing the foolhardiness of her plan. On a crowded ferry, with its passengers constantly moving about, what chance had she of finding one small girl. Luck would need to be with her, and she didn’t at the moment feel lucky. She was remembering she had had to skip breakfast to catch the train, and now, from hunger and an aching head, and the gentle rocking, she was beginning to feel a little queasy. She decided to join the queue for coffee and sandwiches, and it was then that suddenly she saw the man with the slant-eyes and a slightly Chinese face. He was standing beside a pillar watching her. At least, his slanting eyes seemed to be fixed directly on her, because when she caught his glance it slid away. A small shock of uneasiness went through her. She didn’t like being stared at so intently. And she remembered now having seen him on the Paris train when she had strolled through it looking for Lucian. He had seemed to be watching her then, too. Could it be that he was following her on this journey?

If she had caught the plane would he have been on that, too?

Nonsense, she told herself vigorously. One frequently encountered the same faces on a long journey. And it may be that this rather unsavoury-looking person found her attractive to look at.

Nevertheless, Kate had lost her appetite. She left the stuffy saloon and made her way up on deck again. They had left harbour now and were moving into a steadily increasing sea. It was going to be impossible to walk about very much, even if one’s legs felt steady. Which hers suddenly didn’t.

How idiotic this was, to set out on a private investigation, and be overtaken by seasickness! It was a situation that would amuse only William.

Yet it would have been rather nice if his strong arm was around her now. She had to admit that. Lucian? No, she couldn’t face him at this moment…

“Kate! Kate!”

Kate started up wildly from her half doze. But among the people scattered about there was no little girl, no one had cried out. Only a seabird was circling overhead, and they were just coming into Dover harbour. The voyage was ended, and had accomplished exactly nothing but nearly two hours of misery.

Kate gritted her teeth and, gathering her possessions, forced herself into the queue so as to be one of the first ashore. From a good vantage point in the Customs shed she could make a belated watch.

Sheer determination made her succeed, and she had the satisfaction, as she stepped on to the gangway, of seeing the Chinese-looking man far down the queue. Then suddenly she saw Lucian, too. At least, it had looked like Lucian, but he was a long way back and, as Kate stared, he was lost to sight.

Kate looked helplessly at the wedged people. She hadn’t a hope of pushing her way back to where she thought she had seen him. Even now she was being swept forward by impatient people behind her. Would she see him again?

Hopefully she achieved the Customs shed, and lingered near the door. The people surged in, faces of all descriptions, young, old, eager, tired, sick. Again, as if it were fated, she caught a glimpse of the sallow-faced, slant-eyed man, and immediately behind him, as if they were following him, came two men carrying a long wooden box.

That was when Kate’s heart turned over in horror. It was a coffin. Surely it was a coffin. A child’s. Francesca’s.

A dizzy wave swept over her. She found herself blundering forward and pushing her way after the two men. They reached the desk with their burden. They put it down and waited for the Customs official. The sallow-faced man had disappeared.

Kate fought her way forward. The box had a padlock, she saw. It was really only a chest. But in horrified fascination she waited for it to be opened. The official questioned its owners. A key was produced. The lid was lifted.

It was not Francesca’s composed and stolid features that lay within. It was the round, flat, white face of a grandfather clock.

The anti-climax was too much. Kate had to stifle her giggles.

“Oh, William!” she said to herself. He was the only one with whom to share this macabre joke.

But the diversion had been fatal to her plans. Now the huge room was packed with milling people, and her chance of seeing Lucian was again negligible.

She told herself disgustedly that she was about as successful as a rabbit at private investigation.

There was still, of course, the train to Victoria, and this a familiar English train in which she would not have any nightmare feeling that people were mocking her in strange languages.

She had no difficulty in getting her own baggage through Customs. Perhaps the official noticed her wan appearance and was sorry for her. He chalked her bag and handlebag with scarcely a look at them, and at last she made her way to the train.

It seemed, because of her strained and over-tired state, that she had been living on trains for months. There were the familiar piles of luggage in corridors to be climbed over, the people who impatiently let her squeeze past, the suspicious and faintly hostile look of passengers in compartments as she peered in with a murmured apology. This time she didn’t ask if anyone had seen a little girl in a white dress, because it was certain Francesca would no longer be wearing the white organdie dress. In her tweed coat she would now look like any other child.

But if Kate failed instantly to recognize her, she would recognize Kate and would cry out, as she had already done twice. Or had it been only once, at the Eiffel Tower? Or had it not been at all?

The train went smoothly and swiftly on its way, the countryside, English now, with the gentle Kentish hills and haystacks, and red-brick farmhouses, went past, the passengers chattered and dozed and consumed quantities of bread and jam and tea in the restaurant car; everyone was intent on his own business, and there was no sign of Francesca, or of Lucian, who at least should have been there.

Ironically enough, but not unexpectedly, the Chinese-looking man, with his slanted sideways glance, was the only person Kate recognized. He was not watching her now. He was standing in the corridor staring out at the passing landscape. He seemed deep in thought. He looked, Kate imagined, as if he were as disappointed as she.

Yet on the platform at Victoria Kate thought she saw Francesca. The square back of a dark-haired little girl clad in a tweed coat. Being dragged along, with apparent unwillingness, by someone Kate couldn’t see in the crowd.

She began to elbow her way urgently through the jostling mob.

Strong arms swooped around her, holding her stationary. “Hey there! What’s the hurry?” said William.

Kate could have slain him. “Let me go! You fool, let me go! Now I’ve lost her!”

“Lost who?” But William’s grip had slackened and Kate had darted away.

As was to be expected, there was a queue at the barrier. When she tried to squeeze her way ahead she was glared at ferociously. She had to content herself with standing frantically on tiptoe and seeing nothing but the heads in front of her.

“Who are you looking for?” William asked mildly.

“Francesca, of course. I saw her a moment ago. At least, I think I did.”

William took her arm quite gently. “Don’t be a clot. She’s back in Rome.”

“You’re saying that too!” Kate exclaimed furiously. “What do you know about it, anyway? No, don’t tell me now. Thank heavens we’re through the barrier at last. Wait for me at the bookstall. I’ve got to look for this child.”

Had it been Francesca she had seen? It couldn’t have been because she hadn’t been on the train. At least, she hadn’t seemed to be. And she wasn’t now in the small, depressed-looking queue waiting for taxis. Either she was nowhere or else in Rome and Kate the victim of her own foolish obsession.

Irritably she made her way back to William.

“How did you know I would be on this train?”

“Because when you thoughtfully sent me no message of any kind, not even a postcard from the Eiffel Tower, I rang Mrs. Dix. She said you would be home alone. There had been some agonized reappraisals and the child had gone home to Poppa.”

“But I don’t think she has,” said Kate intensely.

William took her arm. “My darling, you look remarkably like something the cat brought home. Come and have a cup of tea and tell me why you’re turning this into a Hitchcock thriller.”

In the café, where an overworked waitress blotted up spilt liquid from the glass-topped table, and wearily asked them what they wanted, William went on, “Mrs. Dix didn’t like me phoning. She was very cagey indeed. She said you hadn’t told her about me.”

Kate opened her eyes which had temporarily closed. She was suddenly extraordinarily tired.

“That’s true. Should I have?”

“She seemed to think so. Family background and so on.”

“Oh, I told her about my stepmother. Don’t be silly, you’re not family.” But Mrs. Dix had probed a little about friends, she remembered, and, thinking of William with whom she had just quarrelled at the time, she had dismissed the question.

“That’s another thing,” said William amiably. “Anyway, Mrs. Dix didn’t seem overjoyed to chat with me. I wonder why?”

“I suppose you wanted to know too much. After all, she’s been brought up on hush-hush stuff. Years ago her husband was in intelligence.”

“Ah, that’s the answer. Anyway, she did finally tell me your trip had come unstuck, and the child had been whisked back to Rome. You must have had quite a time.”