Hole and Corner (13 page)

He came back presently with a grave face. Would Mrs Parry think it very rude of him if he did not stay the night? She had been so very kind, and he was in fact urgently needed. He felt he had really no choice in the matter.

It was all quite easy. She was kindness itself, and so was old Parry. They wouldn't tell anyone else till he was gone. He could just slip away. And he must be sure to come another time, or they would feel cheated, because you really couldn't count this as a visit at all.

His suit-cases were packed, his car was brought round, and in an astonishingly short time he was moving slowly down the drive and keeping a sharp look-out for Shirley.

She was by the gate, just where he had told her to be. The time which had passed so quickly for him had seemed long and slow for her. There was a dead darkness broken only by the glimmer of the white tombstones in the churchyard just across the wall—a dead darkness and a dead silence. Anthony's arms round her began to feel like a dream. Perhaps he wouldn't come. Perhaps the girl in the silver dress would ask him to stay and he wouldn't come. She was very tired and very cold, and she didn't like midnight churchyards very much. It was more and more difficult to believe that Anthony would really come. And then she heard the car, and saw the headlights make a straight, bright path from him to her.

When she was in the car, he turned out of the gates and drove through the village and along the station road until they were clear of the houses. Then he drew up, shut off the engine, slipped an arm round her, and said,

“Now—what's all this nonsense?”

Shirley made herself stiff. She had only a tiny little scrap of pride left—because it is very difficult to be proud when you are feeling very tired, and very cold, and most dreadfully lost dog—but she did just manage to gather up enough to keep herself stiff in the circle of Anthony's arm.

He didn't seem to notice that she was being proud. He said,

“Go on telling me what you did. I want to know exactly what happened when you got to Emshot.”

Shirley shivered a little. It was the thought of Miss Maltby that made her shiver, because it was so really horrid to think about her being Jane, and a relation.

Anthony said at once, “Are you cold?” He said it in a new voice, as if he would hate her to be cold—or unhappy—or frightened.

She said, “No.” It wasn't true, but she wasn't thinking what she said. She was only thinking about the new sound in Anthony's voice. And then because she felt suddenly frightened she began to tell him very quickly about coming to the cottage and finding nobody there.

“But the key was under the mat. So I went in—I thought Jane would be coming back—I thought she had just gone out to supper—so I went in and had something to eat. I hadn't had anything since breakfast, and I didn't think she would mind. And then I looked to see if there was a telephone because of ringing you up, and there wasn't one, so I sat down in the kitchen to wait for Jane, and I went to sleep. And the next thing was someone opening the front door, and of course I thought it was Jane. And oh, Anthony, it
wasn't
—at least I don't know if it was or not. That's the really frightful part, because she came in as if the whole place belonged to her, but it was Miss Maltby from Mrs Camber's—the one who said I'd taken her horrible sixpences. And I don't see how I can bear it if she's Jane—but I suppose she is.”

Anthony put his other arm round her too. He found her almost unbearably funny and dear, sitting there frightened and shaky, but remembering to be proud. He said in a tender laughing voice,

“Oh, Shirley!” And then, “You won't have to bear it. The place does belong to her, but she isn't Jane.”

Shirley tried to push him away. Perhaps she didn't try very hard. Anyhow he didn't go. She went on making herself stiff. She said,

“What do you mean?”

“Jane's dead,” said Anthony. “She died six months ago, and she left everything to the friend who'd been living with her for years. The friend's name is Maltby.”

“How do you know?” said Shirley with a gasp.

“Because I asked. As soon as I got down here I asked about Jane Rigg, and that's what Mrs Parry told me. She didn't seem to like Miss Maltby very much.”

“Why did you ask?” said Shirley in a small angry voice.

“Why do you think?” said Anthony.

“I don't know.”

“She was your sister—I wanted to go and see her.
Shirley
—”

“What?”

“Must you sit up all stiff like that? What's the matter?”

She said very low, “I don't want you to hold me.”

“Why not?”

“You mustn't.”

“Why mustn't I?”

Her hands caught one another in the dark. She said in a quick, breathless whisper,

“I don't know what's happening—but you mustn't get mixed up in it. Something's happening, but I don't know what it is. I think I'd better go away and hide. It's nothing to do with you—you mustn't get mixed up in it.”

He kept his arms round her, but without trying to draw her any nearer. He said,

“But I am mixed up in it—over head and ears. I can't get out, and I don't want to. Shirley—don't you know why?”

“No—no, I don't! You can't—you mustn't!”

“I can—I do,” said Anthony. He was half laughing, but his voice shook. “And how can I propose to you properly when you keep on being as stiff as a poker?”

Shirley put up her hands and covered her face for a minute. It couldn't possibly be true that Anthony was asking her to marry him, but it was a nice dream. It was a pity to wake up, but you couldn't stay in a dream. She said in a little melting voice,

“Will you please let go of me.”

“Why?”

“Because I ask you.
Please
, Anthony.”

He let go.

She took her hands away from her face and said,

“You don't really
love
me.”

That wasn't what she meant to say at all. It was one of those undermining things that she most particularly oughtn't to have said. And the dreadful thing was that Anthony laughed and said coolly,

“You do know a lot—don't you?”

That hurt beyond all reason, because he might at least have
said
that he loved her. It would have been nice to hear him say it—once. She sat silent and forlorn, and had nothing more to say.

Anthony reached out and took her two hands in his.

“How am I going to make you believe that I love you?” he said, and all at once she did believe it. Whether it was the warm clasp of his hands, or something in his voice, or whether it was just because it was true, she didn't know, but she did believe it.

She said, “Why?” in a surprised, wondering voice, and Anthony caught her close and began to tell her why.

The car stood by the side of the road, and nobody passed it going to Emshot or going to Twing. Nobody does go to either of these places in the middle of the night.

Shirley sat up at last with a sigh.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

Everything was going to be all right now, but even in world of fantastic happiness you had to make plans.

“You'd better give me that blighted brooch,” said Anthony.

Shirley had actually forgotten about the brooch. It seemed a pity to have to remember it again. She said,

“I'd forgotten all about it.”

“Well, we can't do that, worse luck. You'd better hand it over.”

“I don't know how it got in,” said Shirley in a puzzled voice. “There isn't any hole.” She was feeling in the hem of her coat, just as she had felt it in the bus.

The coat was split up the back and lapped over. The brooch with its heavy boss was in the corner of the hem where the slit began. It was about two and a half inches across and heavy for its size. No wonder she had felt it banging against her leg as she ran. But it puzzled her to think how it could have got down into the corner of the hem like that.

Anthony said, “Try the pocket.”

And there sure enough was a slit in the lining. She had to work the brooch up between the lining and the tweed until she could get at it through the slit. She put it into Anthony's hand, and saw the big diamond in the boss catch up the faint light from the dashboard and give it back with a sparkle.

“And I'd like very much to know who handled it last,” said Anthony.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They sat and made their plans in the dark. When Shirley had had to make a plan for escaping from the police all by herself it had been so sordid and frightening that she had felt as if she wasn't ever going to be clean again—like falling into dirty water and not being able to get out, and not having any clean clothes to put on if you did get out. Making plans with Anthony was quite different. The whole thing had turned into a gay adventure, with all sorts of nice things waiting for them at the end of it. So they made their plans very cheerfully.

Anthony was going to drive her to Ledlington and leave her at the station hotel with one of his suit-cases for luggage, and she was to stay there until he came for her. Meanwhile he would go up to town, and first thing in the morning he would go round to Revelston Crescent all dutiful nephew, and of course Mrs Huddleston would pour out the whole story of the lost brooch. Then Anthony would tell her that they hadn't looked for it properly, and would proceed to find it in the fireplace, or the coalscuttle, or slipped down between the back and seat of the sofa, or in any other place that seemed suitable. After which he could fetch Shirley from Ledlington. They would have the whole afternoon and evening together, and when she turned up at Revelston Crescent on Monday morning she would have been week-ending with friends in the country and it wasn't anybody's business but her own. The same story would do for Mrs Camber. It was a beautiful plan, and it appeared to be quite watertight.

“But of course,” Anthony said, “what we've got to do is to get to the bottom of all these things that have been happening.”

Shirley made one of those murmuring sounds which may mean anything. This one meant that she was sure everything was going to be all tight, because everything
was
all right—now. It also meant that she was too happy, and too dazed, and too sleepy to bother. Her head was on Anthony's shoulder and his arm about her. But Anthony was frowning into the darkness.

“The things are all so unrelated,” he said. “That's the bother. First you find somebody's bag on your wrist when you're getting into the bus at the corner of Acland Road, and then there's somebody's purse in your bag when we're dining at the Luxe, and then Miss Maltby says she has lost two marked sixpences and they are found in your room, and then the Blessed Damozel's brooch turns up in the hem of your coat. You see, there doesn't seem to be the slightest relation between these four happenings. But they must be related. I can't believe in four totally unconnected people all trying to fix a theft on you—that's the sort of coincidence that can't happen. Darling, you're not to go to sleep—you've got to talk.”

Shirley started and blinked.

“I'm not!” she said.

“You were. You've got to keep awake. You see, there must be a connecting link, and I want you to go over every detail in your mind and try and get hold of something which does connect these things. There must be some one person behind these attempts to get you into trouble. It might be Miss Maltby. Are you sure she wasn't in the bus, or in the crowd that was waiting for it at the corner of Acland Road?”

Even on the edges of sleep Shirley was quite sure about this. She said so.

“Oh no—there wasn't anyone in the least like her.”

“And she certainly wasn't at the Luxe, and I don't see how she could have got hold of Aunt Agnes' brooch. Still I think we'll have Miss Maltby watched. Then I'll try and find out if those people who had the next table to ours are known at the Luxe. I'm not a bit hopeful—they didn't look like habitués—but we've got to try everything. The bus affair seems hopeless, but you may remember something. Now these three things, which happened first, are all concerned with some very trifling sum. They look to me like an attempt to raise an atmosphere of suspicion about you. I don't think any of them were meant to be pushed home. But the brooch—that's different—it's very valuable. I can't help thinking that the other things were only meant to lead up to the brooch, so we'd better concentrate on that. Just tell me the whole thing all over again exactly as it happened.”

Shirley lifted her head with a sigh. Her pleasant drowsiness had slipped away from her, and she was sorry to let it go. If Anthony hadn't been there, she would have been frightened. She tried to remember exactly what had happened—was it only that afternoon?

“Mrs Huddleston was going to have her rest,” she said, “and when she moved for me to take the cushions I saw the brooch hanging crooked—”

“She was wearing it?”

“Oh yes—she always wears it. So I told her it was crooked, and we found that the pin was undone. It had come undone because the catch was damaged.”

“How
damaged
?'

“It was bent. The pin wouldn't stay in it.”

“Did it look as if someone had bent it on purpose?”

“I don't know—it was bent. You can look for yourself.”

Anthony nodded.

“Yes. I just wanted to know how it had struck you. All right, go on—what happened next?”

“She told me to put it on the mantelpiece, and I leaned it up against the right-hand Dresden figure—the shepherdess.”

“How did you lean it? Were the diamonds towards her—could she see it from the sofa?”

Shirley stopped to think.

“No, I don't think she could. The shepherdess stands back, and there was a vase with some violets in it—no, she couldn't see it from the sofa. I've been wondering why she didn't miss it till I was gone. I'd forgotten the violets.”