Run! (15 page)

“I didn't ask you,” said Sally breathlessly. “I don't ask you anything except to leave me alone—and mind your own business—and not write, or telephone, or try and see me.”

James looked at her with a good deal of sternness and some surprise.

“And how are we going to get married if I'm not to see you, or write to you, or call you up? I do wish you'd be practical.”

A bright, becoming scarlet leapt into Sally's cheeks. She stamped with vigour upon Gertrude Lushington's best Persian carpet.

“We're not
going
to be married!”

“Oh, yes, we are.”

Sally stamped again.

“We're
not!
”

“Why?” said James.

“We c-can't,” said Sally, and burst into a flood of tears.

James experienced the most conflicting feelings of tenderness and anger. He wanted to shake Sally till her teeth chattered, and he wanted to put his arms round her and kiss away her tears and tell her not to cry any more, because everything was going to be all right. Impossible to do both these things at once, so he did neither. Instead he used an odious hectoring tone and remarked,

“Girls always cry when they've got the worst of it.”

“I
haven't
got the worst of it!” said Sally, choking partly with sobs and partly with rage. She found a flimsy scrap of handkerchief and dabbed fiercely at her eyes.

James's mood changed suddenly. This quarrel was taking them nowhere, and they hadn't got time for it. All very well to quarrel when you have plenty of time to make it up again, but what time had he and Sally? Just this little space—to talk, to plan, to know each other's mind, to touch hands, to kiss, to say goodbye. They could quarrel another time—at leisure—

He came to Sally, pulled her up close, and kissed her.

“That's enough about all that. Done—finished—dead. Come along over here and talk. Gertrude's sofa isn't much to look at, but it's comfortable. Now, let's be rational and tell each other things. It's no use your bottling up and then telling me what an oaf I am to come butting in, because, you see, if you don't tell me things, I'm bound to try and find them out myself.”

Sally faced him on the sofa wet-eyed and scarlet-cheeked.

“Even if I ask you not to?” she said.

James nodded.

“It's no good. I'm in it, and I'm staying in it. You can't get me out, and it's frightful waste of time to try. That's what I keep saying, only you don't seem to have taken it in. You'd better start by telling me what happened when I rang up.”

“How do you know anything happened?”

“I should have thought it was obvious. I ring up, you say it's the wrong number and ring off, and immediately rush round and slang me. Naturally I want to know why. What did happen?”

“It was frightful,” said Sally. “James, you
know
I asked you not to ring up or anything—and we were all in the library, and I don't know how much everyone heard.”

“There wasn't anything to hear. I only said—”

Sally beat her hands together.

“I
told
you not to ring up—and you said your name, and I said it was a wrong number. And Henri said, ‘He has the name of James this wrong number of yours. But how intriguing! And he makes an assignation?
Fi donc,
Sally, it is much too dangerous this assignation with a wrong number, even if he have the so respectable name of James. I do not advise you to keep it.' And Hildegarde looked at me between her eyelashes and said, ‘Be wise, Sally, my dear.' And Ambrose—”

“Yes?” said James with interest. “What did Ambrose say?”

“Nothing,” said Sally. She drew in her breath with a sob. “He just looked at me as if I wasn't there. And then he told Hildegarde that they'd be late if she didn't hurry, and she finished her coffee and they went off. But when we were alone Henri came over and fiddled with the telephone, and presently he said, ‘The man who invented this, he is dead,
n'est ce pas
?' and I said, ‘Of course.' And Henri said, ‘One can be dead a long time, Sally,' and then he went out of the room. And I'm supposed to be with Daphne's party at the Luxe. She'll cover me all she can, but I mustn't stay, James—I mustn't stay—because I think Henri will try and find out whether I was really at the Luxe all the time.”

“And if he finds out you weren't?”

A little shiver went over her.

“I oughtn't to have come. Henri said, ‘He has the name of James this wrong number of yours,' but if he heard that, he may have heard everything else you said.”

James grinned.

“Well, I didn't say much—you didn't give me a chance.”

Sally caught her breath.

“You said Daphne's name, and why hadn't I answered your letter, and you called me darling. And Jocko is quite liable to say something about you at any moment, and it's no good telling him not to, because he always forgets and does it. And if he begins to talk about Daphne's cousin James Elliot and says he was your fag at Wellington, and then it comes out that you're at Atwells and that it was you who drove that car, how long do you think it will be before something happens? Something—”

“What?” said James in a practical, common-sense voice. The flame of Sally's anger was dead. Her cheeks were pale and cold. She said in a low, frightened voice,

“What happened to Jackson?”

James took her hands in his.

“Sally—you've got to tell me about all this. Someone shot at us at Rere Place.”

He felt her start.

“Who told you it was Rere Place?”

“J.J. did. Sally, do you know who it was who fired at us?”

“No, I don't. I don't know anything, James.”

“But you're guessing—you're suspecting—being afraid it's someone.”

“I don't know—I—”

She tried to get her hands away, but he held on to them.

“Oh, yes, you do—it's quite obvious. Was it Henri Niemeyer who fired at us?”

Her breath came in a choking sob.

“James—let me go—I don't know.”

“It might have been? Is that it? Or was it your guardian? Was it Ambrose Sylvester?”

She had stopped trying to get away. Her hands were cold in his.

“Or Mrs. Sylvester? Was it Mrs. Sylvester?” He felt a shudder go over her. “Sally, you've got to tell me. They were all on the ledge when J.J. fell, you know—Ambrose, and Mrs. Ambrose, and Henri Niemeyer. They were all there when J.J. got your Aunt Clementa's letter at breakfast, and when he fell, and when he was picked up. They were all there, but the letter wasn't.”

Sally looked at him, and looked away. She said in a hurrying voice.

“Daphne and Bonzo were there too.”

“Darling, don't be absurd! They may have been in the Tyrol, but they couldn't have been at Rere Place.”

“Oh, yes, they could,” said Sally.

“What do you mean?”

“They were staying at Goldacre. It's only about ten miles away. They motored back to town after lunch. They could have gone to Rere Place just as easily as anyone else.”

“Why on earth should they?” said James.

Sally jerked her hands away suddenly and sat back.

“Why should anyone try to kill Jocko? Because that's what it comes to. Someone pushed him over that ledge, and it was someone who knew he had had that letter—someone who wasn't sure how much of it he had read—someone who had to make sure that he didn't go on reading it—someone who stole it whilst we were all wondering whether he was dead.”

“Why?” said James in a solid, matter-of-fact voice.

“Because of what was in the letter,” said Sally, panting a little.

“Sally—what
was
in the letter?”

She beat her hands together again, an oddly effective gesture which he had never seen used by anyone else.

“I don't know—I don't know—I
don't
know—and what's the good of guessing?”

“Sally, do you know who it was—honest?”

“No, I don't. I keep telling you—and you don't believe me—and I
don't
know! It might have been Bonzo, or Daphne, or Henri, or Hildegarde, or Ambrose—or me.”

“Sally!”

She stared at him defiantly.

“I was there, wasn't I? Every one of the others has the same right to suspect me that I have to suspect them. Jocko has the same right.”

“I do wish you wouldn't talk nonsense!” said James crossly. “You're just being dramatic, and it doesn't get us anywhere. I suppose you're not going to argue that it was you who fired at us? Or are you?”

“Oh!” said Sally, on a quick angry breath. “James, I simply hate you!”

“No, you don't. Come off it! Look here—Jocko told me your Aunt Clementa had left him Rere Place and five thousand a year. Who does it go to if anything happens to him?”

“Me,” said Sally.

They looked at each other for a moment without speaking. Then he said,

“And after you, Sally?”

She looked frightened and turned her head away. James put a hand on her knee.

“And after you, Sally?”

“Ambrose,” said Sally in a whisper.

XX

James got up and went over to the window. He jerked back the curtain and threw up the sash. A cold, damp air came in. He stood staring out into the dark. The backs of the tall houses in Hinton Street rose up like cliffs, with a twinkle of light here and there. He was thinking, Jocko first—Sally next.… How long for Sally when Jocko was gone? Or would Sally be done in in a different way—quite legally, morally, and religiously done in by way of marriage with Henri Niemeyer?… Probably. One accident might pass, but two would be rather conspicuous, especially if they left Ambrose Sylvester heir to Rere Place and five thousand a year.

His frown deepened. Was that the objective? If it was, where did Aunt Clementa's letter come in, and the shooting at Rere Place, and Jackson's death?… They didn't come in at all. And if they didn't come in, then there must be something more. The money and Rere Place were not sufficient motive. They were, in fact, no motive at all when it came to the shooting, and poor Jackson. He remembered something, turned round, and went back to Sally.

She had thrown back her cloak. The dress under it was black velvet too. She was all black and white—black hair, black dress, black cloak; white skin, white pearls, white face, white hands clenched in her lap; black lashes veiling her eyes.

James knelt down beside her and put his hand over hers. The cold air from the window blew upon them. Sally shivered in it, but she did not move or pull her cloak about her.

“Sally,” said James, “you've got to tell me everything you know—you've
got
to.”

She said, “I don't know anything,” and felt James's hand very hard, and heavy, and unbelieving.

“You've got to tell me what you know. I won't go on in the dark like this. It isn't safe—for any of us. It really isn't. You've got to be sensible.”

His own tone was full of common sense, but it wasn't cross any more. It was very kind, and Sally had to blink, and discourage the idea that it would be immensely comforting to put her head down on his shoulder and cry there.

James went on speaking. He said,

“Let's go back to your Aunt Clementa, and the day you went to see her and she gave you the letter for her old maid.”

Sally's lashes rose. Her green eyes looked at him.

“Jocko's letter was inside it. I'm sure it was.”

“Yes. We'll have to find out about that from Annie. Where does she live?”

“London—somewhere out in the Ealing direction.”

“All right, I'll see her. Well, after she'd given you the letter and you'd got the nurse out of the room, you said your aunt began to whisper, and you said she told she'd hidden something, and you said it was better to go on calling it a diamond necklace. Now, Sally, I want to know what it was she had hidden.”

“I don't know. I never found it. That's what I went there for that afternoon, to try and find it.”

“You say you don't know what it was, but you know what she told you. I want to know as much as you know. I want to know just what she said.”

“James, I do really think she may have been wandering. She
was
very old and wandery.”

“Tell me what she said.”

“Yes, I'll tell you—I must—I can't go on. She began to whisper like I told you, and she said, ‘All the names—I've hidden them—they don't know—wicked, wicked people. I took the book, and I hid it.'”

“The book—you're sure she said the book?”

“I'm telling you just exactly what she said. It was all in bits, you know, and I thought she'd been dreaming, so I said, ‘Don't worry, darling—it's a dream. You know you can't get out of bed.' And she squeezed my hand, and gave a funny little laugh, and said, “They all think I can't, but I can. Even Annie—but I can. I walk about in the night and I hear things—
wicked
people. But I got the book—they don't know.' Then there was something about finding it, but I didn't get that because the smarmy nurse came in. That's all, James—it really is.”

“A book—” said James in a puzzled voice. It all sounded quite mad. “Have you any idea what she meant?”

Sally shook her head.

“You say you went over that day to look for this book. Why did you wait so long? She's been dead for more than a year, hasn't she?”

Sally blinked.

“I didn't think about it before. I thought she was wandering. We stayed abroad till the spring, and by then it all seemed finished and done with. Jocko was in India.”

“And what made it seem not finished and done with? Because in the end you did go to Rere Place to look for—this book.”

“I know. It was Jocko. He wrote and said he was coming home, and he said something about getting on with Aunt Clementa's treasure-hunt, and another time something about looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and then lots about opening the house and living there and all that sort of thing. So then I thought”—she looked at him pleadingly—“I couldn't help thinking—it might be better—for Jocko—not to stir things up—so I thought if I could find—whatever there was to find—before Jocko came—it wouldn't be so—dangerous—for him.”