Hole and Corner (28 page)

“He most strongly advised me to lie quite flat in a darkened room—only one pillow. Thank you, Possett, that will do. You can leave us. Mr Anthony will ring if I need you. I suppose I ought not to have got up again, but as you know, I never give way. I remember Sir Sefton Carlisle saying to me, ‘You never give way. It would be better if you did. You have too much courage, if I may say so. You force yourself when you should let nature have her way and
rest
'.”

Anthony seized on the word, and hoped that his aunt felt rested. He received a mournful shake of the head.

“I did not expect it. I obeyed orders, but I did not expect any benefit. I know my own constitution too well.” With this preamble she embarked on a very enjoyable dissertation upon her constitution, its peculiarities, its history from infancy onwards, together with the remarks, warnings, and observations uttered during that period by the most eminent members of the medical profession. All these gentlemen were quoted at great length. They had exhibited a most unusual unanimity in declaring Mrs Huddleston's case to be one of the most interesting that had ever come under their notice. With one voice they had urged her to take care of herself, to remember how fragile she was, and above all things to avoid the slightest worry or agitation.

“
Perfect calm,
” said Mrs Huddleston. “I remember Dr Blanker saying that, I thought it such a beautiful expression. He had a very sympathetic voice too. But your uncle came in one day when he was holding my hand, and he wasn't quite pleased about it afterwards, though of course there was nothing in it. He used to hold my hand and tell me to relax and think of the green depths of the ocean. Such a very, very poetic idea, and most soothing. But your uncle was really quite unreasonable and made me have Dr Robertson instead—a very
clever
man, and Scotch, but I found his manner terribly abrupt, and I could never agree with your uncle that the improvement in my health which took place just then had anything to do with his treatment, for he did not understand my case. Do you know, he once actually told me that if I had to scrub floors for a living I should find I was perfectly well. I don't know what I felt like, and I told your uncle.…”

There was a good deal of what she had told Mr Huddleston. Anthony wondered whether any of it had really ever been said at the time. He remembered his uncle as an obstinate old gentleman with a singularly violent temper, very fond of his wife, very proud of her looks, but very much master in his own house. He thought his Aunt Agnes was saying what she would have liked to have said twenty years ago if she had dared. It was obvious that she very much enjoyed saying it now. He let her talk, because nothing pleased her so much. He really had very little idea of how he was going to pull Shirley's chestnuts out of the fire, but it would be a whole lot easier if Mrs Huddleston was in a pleased instead of a fretful frame of mind.

“But you mustn't think that we quarrelled—I shouldn't like you to think that. I don't believe your uncle and I ever had a real quarrel, and that is the reason why I should be so glad to see you married. Because, you know, if you've been happily married yourself, you feel you would like other people to be happily married too, especially if they are people you are fond of—and I am very fond of you, my dear boy.”

Anthony felt touched. He really had an affection for the silly lady who had never been anything but exceedingly kind to him. He put his hand on hers for a moment and said,

“I know you are, Aunt Agnes.”

Tears sprang into her eyes. The lace-edged handkerchief came into play.

“And that is why I am so terribly upset about the emeralds, because I have always planned to give them to your wife.”

“That's most frightfully nice of you, Blessed Damozel,” said Anthony.

She was gazing at him so soulfully and looking so exactly like Rossetti's picture that the name slipped out. He remembered his bet with Shirley—and had the grace to blush.

“I—I'm awfully sorry—it slipped out. I always think of you like that.”

A soft, pleased colour came into Mrs Huddleston's cheeks.

“Do you really? My dear boy—how charming of you! I won't say people haven't said it before. Dr Blanker—but that's all past and gone—”

“Aunt Agnes,” said Anthony, “I want to talk to you very seriously.”

“Oh, my dear boy—what about? You're not in any trouble?”

“No. You said just now you wanted to see me married. Well, I've been thinking of getting married.”

Mrs Huddleston sat up and clutched the sofa back.

“My dear boy! Who is she? Tell me all about her! Oh, I do hope you have been
wise
!”

“Well, she will probably have rather a lot of money.”

“But you're not marrying for money? I couldn't
bear
that!”

Anthony laughed.

“Nor could I. I really wish she wasn't going to have quite so much, but she hasn't got it yet, so I'm not worrying. But it is a great deal of money.” He said the last words in a slow, measured way which fixed Mrs Huddleston's attention.

“What do you mean by a great deal?” she said, still sitting up and gazing at him.

“Well—a lot. I expect you've read about it in the paper to-day. It's William Ambrose Merewether's money.”

“
What?
” said Mrs Huddleston with a gasp.

“As far as I can make out she scoops the lot,” said Anthony.

Mrs Huddleston blinked twice rapidly. She began to feel confused and giddy. She went on clutching at the back of the sofa and said,

“Who is she?”

“The only surviving daughter of Jane Lorimer to whom old Merewether left his money.”

“She must be fifty!” said Mrs Huddleston, appalled.

“She's twenty-one,” Anthony's look was very gay and challenging.

“Who
is
she?”

“Shirley Dale,” said Anthony.

Mrs Huddleston let go of the sofa and fell back against her cushions in a perfectly genuine swoon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Possett, reproachful and competent, turned Anthony out of the drawing-room.

“Quiet—that's what she wants—and nothing to upset her, not any more than can be helped. But really it seems as if it was one thing after another. And for goodness sake, sir, don't go and leave the house, because ever since last night it's been nothing but ‘Where's Mr Anthony?' And I don't know what sent her off like this, but it's you she'll be asking for as soon as she comes round. So if you'd wait in the study—” All this whilst she held smelling-salts to Mrs Huddleston's nose.

Anthony waited in the study. He was sorry that the news of his engagement had sent the Blessed Damozel off into a swoon, but Possett didn't seem at all alarmed, and perhaps it wasn't a bad thing that there should be a break in the conversation at this point. He was rather pleased at the way he had presented Shirley as an heiress. Once get Aunt Agnes to see her in this light, and she would—at least he hoped she would—find it too absurd to imagine that she had stolen the emeralds. When she had been sufficiently revived by Possett's ministrations, he hoped to continue the conversation on these lines.

Meanwhile the emeralds were burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to get rid of them in some place where they could afterwards be discovered with a reasonable probability of their having been there all the time. To let Shirley out it must look as if they had been in the house all the time. Well, where could they have been? His aunt's bedroom would be the most convincing place. Danton's motto came into his mind: “
De l'audace, de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace
.” If he went straight up now while Possett was still fussing with smelling-salts and hand-slappings, he would with any luck at all be able to find a likely place.

He had the study door open, and had taken a step into the hall, when it came to him forcibly and unpleasantly that the plan was a wash-out because he only had half the emeralds. The whole set had been taken—Mrs Huddleston's lamentations left no doubt on this point—but he had in his pocket only the headband and one brooch. Someone, somewhere, had the other brooch and the earrings. Shirley would not be cleared by the discovery of half the set. He wondered very much where the other half was, and why it had been kept back.

Yes, why?… His mind stayed at this point, as his body stayed just clear of the study. Why had half the emeralds been kept back? He thought Bessie Wood had taken them under orders to plant them on Shirley. Well, she had only planted half of them—and kept the rest? Was that in her instructions? He thought not. He thought that Pierrette, or Mr Phillips, or whoever it was who had given her those instructions was playing for much too big a stake to take any risk over a common or garden theft. They were out for the Merewether millions and not for Mrs Huddleston's emeralds. But Bessie, with the emeralds in her hand, might have been tempted to keep half of them back. If that was the way of it, what had she done with them?

What would she be likely to do? Get them out of the house as quickly as possible. But she wouldn't have been able to get away with them last night, or for that matter to-day, because she was on duty. He had seen her here in the morning, and she had let him in just now. To ask leave to go out would be to invite suspicion, and to go out without asking leave would be to make certain that the invitation was accepted. No, the only way she could get rid of them was through the post. She could post them to a confederate, but that meant a good deal of arrangement and a confederate she could trust. She might have done it, but he somehow didn't think she had. Thieves don't trust each other much, and his theory rather rested on the idea of a sudden temptation.

These thoughts were in his mind like quick pictures. He stood for perhaps half a minute and then turned to go back into the study. But he did not cross the threshold, for as he turned he looked down towards the front door and an impression already in his mind became apparent.

He turned back again, looking down the hall and considering this impression. It concerned the hall table and the fern which stood there in a hideous ornamental pot, a really horrible piece of majolica. But the impression did not concern the pot. It was the fern, something about the fern, which he had noticed without noticing when he came in. That is to say, his eye had seen it, but his mind had not regarded it—till now. He now regarded it with a fixed attention rather out of keeping with what might have been considered a trifle. The fern had a drooped and fading look. It had never been a very robust specimen, but it now looked very bad indeed. Anthony gave himself a shake. Ferns wanted a lot of water. If they were not watered they drooped at once. The fern had not been watered—that was all. The house was upset, and the person who ought to have watered the fern hadn't watered it.

Something went click in Anthony's mind. It would be Bessie's job to water the fern. If she hadn't watered it, why hadn't she watered it? Not because of being all upset and flustered. If he had ever seen a cold, apathetic fish of a girl in his life it was Bessie Wood. Efficient and methodical withal. Shirley had said so, Aunt Agnes had said so. Then why was the fern denied its daily drink? He thought he would go and see.

He walked over to the hall table, lifted out the fern in its earthenware pot, and looked down into the ornamental abomination. Something had clinked as he lifted the pot. Something sent up a green spark under the electric light. He put in his hand and pulled out Josephine's emerald earrings—and, for the matter of that, great-grandmamma Robinson's emerald earrings. The other brooch was down there too. He pricked his finger on it and dropped it back.

His thoughts tumbled over one another racing, laughing, triumphing. He was going to get Shirley clear, and Miss Bessie Wood was going to have the surprise of her life. Out of his trouser pocket came the diamond brooch and the rest of the emeralds. Into the ornamental pot they went, and back on top of them went the drooping fern.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It was at this moment that the telephone bell rang. Anthony crossed the hall, lifted the receiver, and heard Shirley's voice. She said “Hullo!” rather breathlessly, and he said,

“What is it?”

“Anthony, is that you?”

“It is. What's happened? Why are you ringing up?”

As he spoke, the door which led to the basement was pushed open. Bessie Wood looked out at him and was gone again. The door closed. It was Bessie's job to answer the telephone. The bell having rung, she arrived. Seeing Mr Leigh, she withdrew. The question was, how far had she withdrawn.

Anthony cursed inwardly. His Aunt Agnes belonged to the generation which invariably put the telephone in the most public place in the house. There was an extension in the drawing-room, but he couldn't very well ask to use it. Besides, extensions were traps—anyone could listen in on you at the main fixture.

Shirley said, “Anthony—are you there?”

He said, “Yes.” What he would have liked to say was, “Yes—and I think Bessie Wood is on the back stairs with her ear to the crack of the door listening to every word I'm saying.”

Shirley was excited, and exasperated.

“How funny you sound! Listen—things have been happening. Pierrette and the Phillips man came and banged at the door—”

“What door?” If Bessie was listening she couldn't make anything of that.

“The Mews door. So I told Jas to keep them talking—”

“How do you know it was them?” This wasn't so safe, but he had to chance it.

“Darling, I
told
you she was the glittering woman. Of course I knew her at once. Are you in a trance?
Do
wake up! Well, I left Jas to cope and got out the back way, and when they went, which wasn't for simply ages, I followed them. Shirley the Sleuth! I think they must have insisted on
searching
the Mew, they were so long. Or else the glittering female fell for Jas and couldn't be torn away. I thought they were never coming, but when they did I sleuthed, and I sleuthed them to a private hotel, 18 Mandell Street—rather grim but awfully respectable. He's staying there, registered as Alfred Phillips. I said I wasn't sure whether someone I knew had been there, so they let me look at the register.”