Hole and Corner (30 page)

The next point to be decided was, what about Shirley Dale? Well, what
about
her? Was she going to wait meekly in a cold, draughty street until Anthony had quite finished talking to his aunt and could spare the time to come and look for her? No, she wasn't. The street was getting colder and draughtier every minute. She began to think of the warm fuggy hall of the hotel with affection.

She walked up and down, and made a plan. It came to her in a shining flash. Not a prudent, sensible, temporising plan, but a plan sudden, indiscreet, and fairly palpitating with excitement—a cap-over-the-windmill, jump-in-off-the-deep-end kind of plan. She was sick of running away, and hiding, and behaving as if she had a guilty conscience and a murky past when she hadn't. What's the good of conscious innocence if you can't confront your accusers? She felt an urge to confront somebody—or, to come from the general to the particular, to confront Pierrette. She didn't want to go to prison, but she felt a comfortable conviction that Anthony wouldn't let her go to prison. Men were exasperating but competent. They knew how to cope with policemen. She felt quite sure that Anthony was coping, and that she would not be arrested. But she wasn't quite so sure about Pierrette. The Maltby had said things about getting Ettie and Mr Phillips sent to prison, and if Ettie was Pierrette, Shirley felt very wobbly about this. However odious the behaviour of your near relations, you do not really want to see them in the dock. Shirley's imagination showed her Pierrette in a dock, her eyes bunged up with crying and every sign of glitter departed, whilst she herself stood up in a witness-box and took an oath, and kissed a Book, and deposed that the prisoner was her niece. Her mind reacted violently and her foot stamped—“I
won't
—I simply
won't
!” She fairly whisked into the hall, where she fell upon a page child and demanded Mr Phillips.

Conducted up a half flight of stairs, she stopped outside the door, pressed a shilling into a not unwilling hand, dismissed her escort with a nod, and after listening for a moment went in.

Her entrance produced a most gratifying sensation—gratifying, that is, to Shirley Dale, who after receiving a series of pulverizing shocks during the last twenty-four hours found it an uncommonly pleasant change to be in the position of shocking somebody else. She shut the door behind her, leaned lightly against it, and looked about her. She saw two very much startled people. A dog who has chased a cat into a tree not uncommonly runs away if the cat jumps down. Alfred Phillips, in the act of lighting a cigarette, stared fixedly, burnt his fingers, dropped the match, got to his feet. Ettie sat forward in her chair, her eyes bulging.

An extraordinary exhilaration possessed Shirley. She leaned against the door and said politely,

“How do you do, Pierrette?”

Mr Phillips recovered himself. He said, as if he were speaking to an intruding stranger,

“I think you have made a mistake. This is a private room.”

Shirley nodded.

“I don't think there's any mistake. Your name is Phillips—but I haven't come here to speak to you, I've come here to speak to Pierrette.”

Alfred Phillips raised his sandy eyebrows and turned to Ettie.

“Do you know this lady?”

“I'm quite sure she does,” said Shirley. “I'm Jane Lorimer's daughter Shirley Dale, and she's Jane Lorimer's grand-daughter Pierrette Meunier—only you've turned it into English, haven't you, Pierrette? What is it now? Anthony guessed it would be Ettie Miller. Is that right?”

Ettie stared, and went on staring. She caught a choked breath, threw out her hands, caught her breath again, and said,

“What do you want?”

She had no French accent. She held her voice steady. Her hands moved, catching at one another, at the chair.

“I want to talk to you,” said Shirley, still with that feeling of exhilaration.

Alfted Phillips advanced a seat,

“Won't you sit down?”

“No, I don't think so. I just want to talk to Pierrette. You do call yourself Ettie Miller, don't you, and not Pierrette Meunier?”

Ettie blundered. Like most large women she was timid at heart. Frightened and taken by surprise, she jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire.

She said, “I'm Mrs Phillips,” and looked at Alfred, to be doubly frightened by the cold repressed fury in his face.

Shirley nodded again.

“Anthony guessed he would marry you,” she said. “I think it was very clever of him. But of course he
is
very clever—you have to be to be a barrister.”

Alfred Phillips came a step nearer.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said. “This is a private sitting-room, and I must ask you to leave it.”

Shirley stood her ground. Her eyes danced as she looked away from him to Ettie.

“He's not very polite, is he, when I've come to pay a nice call? There are quite a lot of things I think we ought to talk about, Pierrette.”

Ettie recovered herself a little. She shrugged her shoulders, looked fleetingly at her husband, and said,

“I don't know what it's all about, I'm sure.”

Shirley laughed.

“Come off it! What's the good of pretending you don't know who I am? Of course it's rather embarrassing—I quite see that—because you've been trying to get me into trouble. But you'll be very silly if you won't talk things over, because I haven't got any nasty vindictive feelings, and all I want is to avoid doing the family wash in public.”

Alfred Phillips came across, pulled Shirley roughly away from the door, and opened it.

“Out you go!” he said. “We don't know what you're talking about, and we don't want to!” He had read uncertainty in Ettie's face, and he was most sharply afraid of what she might say or do.

Shirley twisted angrily away from him. Why wasn't Anthony here instead of talking to his aunt? And then, just as she was going to tell Mr Phillips what she thought about his manners, the page child came running up the stair in a state of shrill excitement.

“Telephone call—for you, sir! Long distance, sir! New York, sir!”

Mr Phillips without a word pushed past and was gone helter-skelter down the stairs to the box below. Shirley stepped back into the room and shut the door. She would have liked to lock it, but there wasn't any key.

“That's better,” she said, “Now, Pierrette—what's the stupid game? Anthony says you can be run in for conspiracy. He knows, because he's a barrister. Oh, don't go on saying you don't know what I mean, because I'm sick to death of it! You know perfectly well you've tried to get me into prison because that old William Ambrose Merewether made a silly, idiotic will. I think people who make wills like that ought to be shut up in asylums, and if there was any sense in the law they would be, instead of being allowed to make mischief in families like he has. And anyhow if there
are
all those millions, there must be plenty for both of us, and I'm sure I don't mind dividing, because a lot of money is just a lot of bother, I think, and anyhow it wouldn't be fair for me to have it all—I should feel a perfect pig. But if I were you, Pierrette, I'd get my share tied up very tight and safe, because I don't think very much of your husband, not when it comes to honesty—and if that sounds rude, well, he's just been most frightfully rude to me.”

The door opened behind Shirley and hit her in the back. She turned indignantly, to see Anthony coming into the room, whereupon she forgot that she had planned a quarrel and caught him joyfully by the arm.

“Come in, darling! You nearly broke my back just now, but it doesn't matter. Come in, and let's get into the corner, because everyone seems to burst this door open, and my spine won't stand another blow like that. And now I'd like to introduce you to Mrs Alfred Phillips, who is Pierrette Meunier, who is Ettie Miller—at least she didn't answer when I asked her about that. Are you Ettie Miller, Pierrette? Oh, and this is my
fiancé
, Anthony Leigh.”

Ettie got up out of her chair. She looked angry, she looked frightened. The anger and the fear were in conflict. The colour rose in her cheeks, her fine eyes flashed, And then once more, before she could say anything, the door opened and Alfred Phillips appeared. He looked like a man who has had a shock, and he moved stiffly. He went over to the mantelpiece and took hold of it, staring down into the glow of the gas fire. Ettie turned a terrified face upon him and put out a shaking hand to touch him.

“Al—what is it? Al—what's happened?”

Without moving, he said in a low muttering voice,

“He made another will.”

“Al! What do you mean—what are you saying?”

“He made another will.”

Shirley did not think he had noticed her, or seen Anthony. Ettie's shaking hand shook his arm.

“Who did? Who made another will?”

He said, “Old Merewether,” on a dropped note that was like a groan.

“No—no!” said Ettie. “He couldn't! He didn't!”

“He did. They've just found it.”

“Who told you?”

“Schuyler Van Leiten. Said he hoped no false hopes had been raised.”

Ettie's hand fell from his arm.

“The new will—what's in it?”

He turned round on her in a spasm of fury.

“You're not! She's not either, if that's any comfort! Everything to charities! Every darned cent! It's in his own writing, and there isn't a hole in it anywhere!”

Anthony's voice cut in clear and cool.

“In fact, Mr Phillips, you've had a good deal of trouble for nothing.” Then as Alfred Phillips started round and stared at him, he went on, “Trouble—and expense. I should be interested to know what you were going to pay Bessie Wood, and whether you had to give her anything on account. Miss Maltby, I gather, was to get a share when you had actually got away with the swag.”

Alfred Phillips looked ghastly. He clenched and unclenched his hands, took a step forward, and managed to speak. He said,

“I don't know what you're talking about.” He touched his tongue to his dry lips and forced his voice to a kind of steadiness. “I think you're under a mistake of some kind. I shouldn't like you to get a mistaken notion, Mr Leigh. I am employed by the firm of Van Leiten of New York, a very well known firm. They—” he stumbled for a moment—“they have done all Mr Merewether's business for years. When he went down with a stroke only twenty-four hours after signing what Mr Van Leiten naturally took to be his last will, the firm—” He stopped, groped for his handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. He wiped it twice, breathed deeply, and went on again. “The firm took advantage of my coming over here on a holiday. I was instructed to trace the beneficiaries under Mr Merewether's will—in an unobtrusive manner. He was not expected to recover, and his death might have taken place at any time. I have been engaged on my firm's business—in a perfectly regular and proper manner—” His voice stopped suddenly. It was as if a gramophone record had been running and had been suddenly arrested.

Anthony said, “Was it in the interests of your firm that you induced one of the possible beneficiaries to marry you?”

“And what's that got to do with you?” said Ettie in a loud angry voice. “What's it got to do with you who I marry or who I don't marry? I haven't got to ask your leave! I'm of age, aren't I?”

Anthony smiled agreeably.

“Oh, without any shadow of doubt,” he said.

And what Ettie would have said to that is unknown, since the door was once again flung open and into the room, white and panting, ran Bessie Wood. She had got rid of her cap and apron. She was bareheaded in her dark red uniform dress. She had run nearly all the way from Revelston Crescent, and she now saw no one but Alfred Phillips whom she had come to find—Alfred Phillips who was her one chance of getting clear of the police. Ettie meant nothing to her. The open door hid Anthony and Shirley.

She said, “Al—they're after me!” and ran to him.

Anthony stepped behind her, shut the door, and stood against it.

“Al,” said Bessie—“Al! You've got to help me—I've got to have money! They found me with the stuff! I chucked it down and ran—just as I was! You've got to help me!”

“Go away!” said Alfred Phillips. “You're mad! Go away!” His voice was hoarse and weak. Then suddenly he rallied. “You needn't try and blackmail me!” he said in such a tone of fury that Bessie went back a step.

“I haven't got a penny! I haven't got a dog's chance—like this—with no money! You promised me a hundred—”

Shirley was pulling at Anthony's sleeve, whispering in his ear, but when he answered her he spoke loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room. He said,

“Not my job, my dear. I think Mr Phillips can pay for his own dirty work.” Then he looked at him directly. “She would be a very inconvenient witness. I really think you'd, better pay up, Phillips.”

Shirley whispered again, tickling his ear, his neck, with a flood of soft, urgent words.

“What happened? Tell me what happened. Where are the emeralds?”

“My aunt has got them back.”

“Then, Anthony, please,
please
, you'll let her go. Oh, darling,
yes
! If Mrs Huddleston's got her things back—oh, Anthony, I don't want to send her to prison! She—she's frightened.”

“She tried to send
you
there,” said Anthony.

Shirley pinched him very hard.

“Please,
please
—I don't want her to go to prison for that.”

She ran up to Bessie.

“You can't go through the streets like this—they'd get you at once. And it's much too cold. Here, take my coat.” She slipped it off and held it out.

Bessie threw her a pale, sharp look.

“And have you describe it to the police as soon as I'm out of the door?” she said. “Not much! Say I'd stolen it, as likely as not!”