Pursuit of a Parcel: An Ernest Lamb Mystery
Author: Wentworth, Patricia
Date: 2016-05-09
Publisher: Dean Street Press

Patricia Wentworth
Pursuit of a Parcel

The parcel was addressed in sprawling capitals to “Antony Rossiter, Esq. By hand.” There was no more address than that.

A SEA-FARING MAN brings an unassuming brown paper parcel to the offices of a distinguished law-firm. It soon plunges intelligence operative Antony Rossiter into the lethal underground of international espionage, military intelligence and murder.

An inexplicable prowler is disturbed in a modest London villa during a lull in the great raids; young Delia Merridew meets a young man in her moonlit garden; an unobserved parachutist drops to the earth of occupied Holland. Now Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ernest Lamb and Detective Frank Abbott must unearth the truth before an implacable enemy claims more than one life in this wartime mystery.

Pursuit of a Parcel was originally published in 1942. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“When I pick up a book by Patricia Wentworth I think, now to enjoy myself—and I always do.” Mary Dell, Daily Mirror

Contents

Cover
Title Page/About the Book
Contents

Introduction by Curtis Evans

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

About the Author
Titles by Patricia Wentworth
The Blind Side – Title Page
The Blind Side – Chapter One
Copyright

Introduction

British author Patricia Wentworth published her first novel, a gripping tale of desperate love during the French Revolution entitled A Marriage under the Terror, a little over a century ago, in 1910. The book won first prize in the Melrose Novel Competition and was a popular success in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Over the next five years Wentworth published five additional novels, the majority of them historical fiction, the best-known of which today is The Devil’s Wind (1912), another sweeping period romance, this one set during the Sepoy Mutiny (1857-58) in India, a region with which the author, as we shall see, had extensive familiarity. Like A Marriage under the Terror, The Devil’s Wind received much praise from reviewers for its sheer storytelling élan. One notice, for example, pronounced the novel “an achievement of some magnitude” on account of “the extraordinary vividness…the reality of the atmosphere…the scenes that shift and move with the swiftness of a moving picture….” (The Bookman, August 1912) With her knack for spinning a yarn, it perhaps should come as no surprise that Patricia Wentworth during the early years of the Golden Age of mystery fiction (roughly from 1920 into the 1940s) launched upon her own mystery-writing career, a course charted most successfully for nearly four decades by the prolific author, right up to the year of her death in 1961.

Considering that Patricia Wentworth belongs to the select company of Golden Age mystery writers with books which have remained in print in every decade for nearly a century now (the centenary of Agatha Christie’s first mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, is in 2020; the centenary of Wentworth’s first mystery, The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith, follows merely three years later, in 2023), relatively little is known about the author herself. It appears, for example, that even the widely given year of Wentworth’s birth, 1878, is incorrect. Yet it is sufficiently clear that Wentworth lived a varied and intriguing life that provided her ample inspiration for a writing career devoted to imaginative fiction.

It is usually stated that Patricia Wentworth was born Dora Amy Elles on 10 November 1878 in Mussoorie, India, during the heyday of the British Raj; however, her Indian birth and baptismal record states that she in fact was born on 15 October 1877 and was baptized on 26 November of that same year in Gwalior. Whatever doubts surround her actual birth year, however, unquestionably the future author came from a prominent Anglo-Indian military family. Her father, Edmond Roche Elles, a son of Malcolm Jamieson Elles, a Porto, Portugal wine merchant originally from Ardrossan, Scotland, entered the British Royal Artillery in 1867, a decade before Wentworth’s birth, and first saw service in India during the Lushai Expedition of 1871-72. The next year Elles in India wed Clara Gertrude Rothney, daughter of Brigadier-General Octavius Edward Rothney, commander of the Gwalior District, and Maria (Dempster) Rothney, daughter of a surgeon in the Bengal Medical Service. Four children were born of the union of Edmond and Clara Elles, Wentworth being the only daughter.

Before his retirement from the army in 1908, Edmond Elles rose to the rank of lieutenant-general and was awarded the KCB (Knight Commander of the Order of Bath), as was the case with his elder brother, Wentworth’s uncle, Lieutenant-General Sir William Kidston Elles, of the Bengal Command. Edmond Elles also served as Military Member to the Council of the Governor-General of India from 1901 to 1905. Two of Wentworth’s brothers, Malcolm Rothney Elles and Edmond Claude Elles, served in the Indian Army as well, though both of them died young (Malcolm in 1906 drowned in the Ganges Canal while attempting to rescue his orderly, who had fallen into the water), while her youngest brother, Hugh Jamieson Elles, achieved great distinction in the British Army. During the First World War he catapulted, at the relatively youthful age of 37, to the rank of brigadier-general and the command of the British Tank Corps, at the Battle of Cambrai personally leading the advance of more than 350 tanks against the German line. Years later Hugh Elles also played a major role in British civil defense during the Second World War. In the event of a German invasion of Great Britain, something which seemed all too possible in 1940, he was tasked with leading the defense of southwestern England. Like Sir Edmond and Sir William, Hugh Elles attained the rank of lieutenant-general and was awarded the KCB.

Although she was born in India, Patricia Wentworth spent much of her childhood in England. In 1881 she with her mother and two younger brothers was at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on what appears to have been a rather extended visit in her ancestral country; while a decade later the same family group resided at Blackheath, London at Lennox House, domicile of Wentworth’s widowed maternal grandmother, Maria Rothney. (Her eldest brother, Malcolm, was in Bristol attending Clifton College.) During her years at Lennox House, Wentworth attended Blackheath High School for Girls, then only recently founded as “one of the first schools in the country to give girls a proper education” (The London Encyclopaedia, 3rd ed., p. 74). Lennox House was an ample Victorian villa with a great glassed-in conservatory running all along the back and a substantial garden--most happily, one presumes, for Wentworth, who resided there not only with her grandmother, mother and two brothers, but also five aunts (Maria Rothney’s unmarried daughters, aged 26 to 42), one adult first cousin once removed and nine first cousins, adolescents like Wentworth herself, from no less than three different families (one Barrow, three Masons and five Dempsters); their parents, like Wentworth’s father, presumably were living many miles away in various far-flung British dominions. Three servants--a cook, parlourmaid and housemaid--were tasked with serving this full score of individuals.

Sometime after graduating from Blackheath High School in the mid-1890s, Wentworth returned to India, where in a local British newspaper she is said to have published her first fiction. In 1901 the 23-year-old Wentworth married widower George Fredrick Horace Dillon, a 41-year-old lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Army with three sons from his prior marriage. Two years later Wentworth gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Clare Roche Dillon. (In some sources it is erroneously stated that Clare was the offspring of Wentworth’s second marriage.) However in 1906, after just five years of marriage, George Dillon died suddenly on a sea voyage, leaving Wentworth with sole responsibly for her three teenaged stepsons and baby daughter. A very short span of years, 1904 to 1907, saw the deaths of Wentworth’s husband, mother, grandmother and brothers Malcolm and Edmond, removing much of her support network. In 1908, however, her father, who was now sixty years old, retired from the army and returned to England, settling at Guildford, Surrey with an older unmarried sister named Dora (for whom his daughter presumably had been named). Wentworth joined this household as well, along with her daughter and her youngest stepson. Here in Surrey Wentworth, presumably with the goal of making herself financially independent for the first time in her life (she was now in her early thirties), wrote the novel that changed the course of her life, A Marriage under the Terror, for the first time we know of utilizing her famous nom de plume.

The burst of creative energy that resulted in Wentworth’s publication of six novels in six years suddenly halted after the appearance of Queen Anne Is Dead in 1915. It seems not unlikely that the Great War impinged in various ways on her writing. One tragic episode was the death on the western front of one of her stepsons, George Charles Tracey Dillon. Mining in Colorado when war was declared, young Dillon worked his passage from Galveston, Texas to Bristol, England as a shipboard muleteer (mule-tender) and joined the Gloucestershire Regiment. In 1916 he died at the Somme at the age of 29 (about the age of Wentworth’s two brothers when they had passed away in India).

A couple of years after the conflict’s cessation in 1918, a happy event occurred in Wentworth’s life when at Frimley, Surrey she wed George Oliver Turnbull, up to this time a lifelong bachelor who like the author’s first husband was a lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Army. Like his bride now forty-two years old, George Turnbull as a younger man had distinguished himself for his athletic prowess, playing forward for eight years for the Scottish rugby team and while a student at the Royal Military Academy winning the medal awarded the best athlete of his term. It seems not unlikely that Turnbull played a role in his wife’s turn toward writing mystery fiction, for he is said to have strongly supported Wentworth’s career, even assisting her in preparing manuscripts for publication. In 1936 the couple in Camberley, Surrey built Heatherglade House, a large two-story structure on substantial grounds, where they resided until Wentworth’s death a quarter of a century later. (George Turnbull survived his wife by nearly a decade, passing away in 1970 at the age of 92.) This highly successful middle-aged companionate marriage contrasts sharply with the more youthful yet rocky union of Agatha and Archie Christie, which was three years away from sundering when Wentworth published The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith (1923), the first of her sixty-five mystery novels.

Although Patricia Wentworth became best-known for her cozy tales of the criminal investigations of consulting detective Miss Maud Silver, one of the mystery genre’s most prominent spinster sleuths, in truth the Miss Silver tales account for just under half of Wentworth’s 65 mystery novels. Miss Silver did not make her debut until 1928 and she did not come to predominate in Wentworth’s fictional criminous output until the 1940s. Between 1923 and 1945 Wentworth published 33 mystery novels without Miss Silver, a handsome and substantial legacy in and of itself to vintage crime fiction fans. Many of these books are standalone tales of mystery, but nine of them have series characters. Debuting in the novel Fool Errant in 1929, a year after Miss Silver first appeared in print, was the enigmatic, nautically-named eminence grise Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith, owner of a most expressively opinionated parrot named Ananias (and quite a colorful character in his own right). Benbow Smith went on to appear in three additional Wentworth mysteries: Danger Calling (1931), Walk with Care (1933) and Down Under (1937). Working in tandem with Smith in the investigation of sinister affairs threatening the security of Great Britain in Danger Calling and Walk with Care is Frank Garrett, Head of Intelligence for the Foreign Office, who also appears solo in Dead or Alive (1936) and Rolling Stone (1940) and collaborates with additional series characters, Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ernest Lamb and Sergeant Frank Abbott, in Pursuit of a Parcel (1942). Inspector Lamb and Sergeant Abbott headlined a further pair of mysteries, The Blind Side (1939) and Who Pays the Piper? (1940), before they became absorbed, beginning with Miss Silver Deals with Death (1943), into the burgeoning Miss Silver canon. Lamb would make his farewell appearance in 1955 in The Listening Eye, while Abbott would take his final bow in mystery fiction with Wentworth’s last published novel, The Girl in the Cellar (1961), which went into print the year of the author’s death at the age of 83.

The remaining two dozen Wentworth mysteries, from the fantastical The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith in 1923 to the intense legal drama Silence in Court in 1945, are, like the author’s series novels, highly imaginative and entertaining tales of mystery and adventure, told by a writer gifted with a consummate flair for storytelling. As one confirmed Patricia Wentworth mystery fiction addict, American Golden Age mystery writer Todd Downing, admiringly declared in the 1930s, “There’s something about Miss Wentworth’s yarns that is contagious.” This attractive new series of Patricia Wentworth reissues by Dean Street Press provides modern fans of vintage mystery a splendid opportunity to catch the Wentworth fever.

Curtis Evans

Chapter One

In October 1940 two interviews took place, one in Berlin and one in London. As a result, some lives were risked and some were lost. Inconsiderable against the mass wastage of war, but of interest to the persons concerned. There were also large issues.

The first interview took place in Berlin.

Cornelius Rossiter, sometimes called Cornelis Roos, walked into the inner office and swung up his hand in the universal salute. “Heil Hitler!”

The door closed at his back.

“Heil Hitler!” said the man behind the desk—a small man hunched in his chair, thin and sallow of cheek, with deep eye-sockets under brows as symmetrically arched as a woman’s. The hands were like those of a woman too—a woman or an artist—long, and white, and finely kept. The eyes beneath the arched brows were of a dark intensity beyond belief. They were as powerful and impersonal as an arc-light, and a good deal more intelligent. They rested for a moment upon Cornelius, whilst the right hand moved amongst a pile of papers. Then a smooth voice said,

“Ah—Cornelis Roos—”

“At your orders, sir.”

He watched the moving hand. It picked up one paper and rejected another. It was as if the fingertips could see. The eyes had not left his face. The voice said, honey-smooth, “I wonder—”

Cornelius said nothing. He stood a yard inside the door. A big man, heavily built, with a large pale face, light eyes, and colourless hair. There was no grey in it yet, though his forty years had provided him with plenty of excuses for going grey. His expression of simple stolidity had served him well in the past. It served him now. He took refuge behind it, and waited for the other man to break the silence left by that “I wonder—”

The silence was a long one. Some men crack under a silence like that. The eyes which looked at Cornelius had seen many men break.

Cornelius stood there, respectful and stolid. The trouble was that if he had really been as stolid as he looked, the man behind the desk would have had no use for him, and he would not have been here to report—or to be reported on.

The voice said at last, low and quietly, entering the silence rather than breaking it, “I wonder whether you are at my orders—or at those of someone else.” On the last words there was hardly any sound at all.

Cornelius said, “I am at your orders.”

At once a liveliness leapt into the voice, the features, the hands. There was flashing gesticulation, a jerk of anger. “Two masters, and I’m one of them—is that what you are going to say? Something for each of us, and pay from both? It’s done, you know, and it’s been done with me—but not for long.” The hand with the paper was thrust forward as if it held a weapon. “Do you think I use people and don’t check up on them? This information has been tested, and it is false. Do you think you can get away with it?”

Cornelius moved for the first time. He came forward in a lounging manner and stretched out his hand for the paper. After a glance he laid it down.

“To the best of my knowledge and belief it was accurate—at the time.”

“What was your source of information?”

“Confidential of course. If I give it away I shall have killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

The white womanish hand came out and took the paper again.

“You’ve played a game with me. Nobody gets away with that. You’re done.”

The paper was dropped, as if to illustrate the point. The hand went out towards an electric bell.

Cornelius went back and stood against the door.

“Stop!” he said.

The hand remained poised, the eyes watchful. The voice said, “Why?”

“Because you’d better,” said Cornelius grimly. “No, I’m not armed. I’m not a fool, to come in here with arms on me. But I’ve got something to say, and it’s going to be worth your while to listen. I know as well as you that I can’t get out of here alive unless you say so. But it’s going to be worth your while to say so—I only want you to listen. I’ll put my hands up and keep them up if you like.”

The hand that had played with the paper now held a little pistol like a toy—small, ornate, deadly. The smooth voice said, “It will not be necessary. What have you to say?”

Cornelius squared his shoulders against the door.

“Just this. I served you well, believe it or not. That makes no difference now—you’ve wiped it off. You don’t trust anyone—do you? You never use the same man long. I’ve had a longer run than most, and not being a fool, I’ve taken my precautions. If anything happens to me, then something will happen to you. If I’m for the high jump, you’ll be for it too.”

The sallow face showed anger, not by movement, but by a sort of carved stillness. The eye-sockets appeared to be more deeply cut. The features sharpened and whitened. The eyes veiled their power.

“Very interesting. And how do you propose to bring this about?”

Cornelius looked at him across the room.

“That is just what I was going to tell you. There are people who would like to see you take that high jump—we both know that. There have been times when you haven’t been so far from it either. There’s just one thing that keeps you where you are—his belief that you’re necessary.” He waved a casual hand in the direction of a large framed photograph of the Führer hanging lonely on the cinnamon-coloured wall. “If he didn’t hold you up, how long would it be before Goering got you down? And how long would he hold you up if he knew what you said about him—let me see—eight months ago? March the fifteenth is the date—it’s just as well to be accurate. Of course know isn’t quite the right word to use, because he’ll be able to hear what you said, which will make it so much more convincing. There’s a bit where you laugh in the middle of a sentence just before you come to his name—well, it’s quite irresistible—I joined in myself the first time I heard it.”

“You—heard—it?”

Cornelius went on looking stolid. Even if he was going to die, here in this room, he was enjoying himself. This man was a quintessence of power, and he, Cornelius, at this moment was in control of this power. He held it on a leash of fear. The sensation was worth while, even if he died for it. But he did not think that he was going to die. He went on explaining quite pleasantly.

“March the fifteenth—that is where we were. You were out of favour with him,”—that casual wave of the hand again—“and things weren’t looking too rosy. You had a rendezvous—I wouldn’t dream of mentioning the lady’s name—and you drank a little too much champagne and got going about your grievances. The lady did her best to stop you, but you would talk. She was frightened, even if she didn’t know there was a dicta-phone on the premises. But you can’t ever be sure these days, and I don’t wonder she was scared stiff. Really—the things you said! I’m afraid once he’s heard that record you won’t ever be able to explain them away. Just between ourselves, I shouldn’t think you’d get the chance. There’s one bit in particular—” He paused for a moment as if ruminating, and then shook his head. “No—I shouldn’t think he’d see you after that. And—again between ourselves—he’s never really liked you. Nor has Goering.” His voice dropped to a friendly, conversational note. “You’re cleverer than he is, and that’s a thing that never gets forgiven.”

The man behind the table said, “Enough!” Just the one word, cold and acid. The smoothness was all gone from his voice. It struck with a cutting edge.

Cornelius nodded. “Yes, it’s enough—for a man of your brains.”

The eyes focussed themselves upon him, sharp and bright as a snake’s.

“And you—have you no brains? How long does a man live who talks to me as you have talked—and how does he die?”

Cornelius stood easily against the door.

“Oh, yes—I was coming to that. If I die, Goering will get that record at once—well, let us say within three days. If you think I’m bluffing you’ve only to call my bluff—kill me and see what happens. I’m afraid you won’t like it, and the game isn’t really worth the candle. The same thing applies to my disappearing into a concentration camp or anything like that—Goering will get the record. You know best whether he’ll be pleased to have it, and what he’ll set about doing with it. I may say at once that any funny business like torture or third degree to try and find out where the cylinder is and what arrangements I’ve made for it to reach Goering will defeat itself, because any doctor you like to put on to me will tell you I’m liable to buckle up at any moment. That’s really why I’m talking to you like this. I want to get away to America and lead a quiet life there. It doesn’t seem possible this side of the Atlantic. I’m good for another forty years or so if I don’t have any shocks, but I’m afraid anything like third degree would leave you with a corpse on your hands, and then Goering would get that cylinder.”

There was a pause. The man leaned forward, propping his chin with one of those white womanish hands.

“What do you want?” he said.

“To go to America.”

“And what guarantee should I have if I let you go?”

For the first time, Cornelius smiled.

“Guarantees are so difficult to arrange, besides being a bit flyblown nowadays. I was thinking of a gentleman’s agreement. As soon as I’m across the Atlantic I cable my instructions, and the cylinder will be delivered to you instead of to Goering.”

The man’s hand covered his lips for a moment. When he withdrew it they were smiling. He put a finger on the bell in front of him. The door behind Cornelius opened. He turned, and heard the voice restored to smoothness.

“Show Herr Roos out.”

The other interview took place in the study of Colonel Garrett’s flat. The name had been bequeathed by a previous tenant. The shabby furniture, consisting of one serviceable table and several worn but comfortable chairs, was Garrett’s own. There were no pictures, no ornaments, no photographs, no odds and ends, and very few books. A pipe-rack hung over the mantelpiece, and a large tobacco-jar stood upon the shelf. A seedy Brussels carpet covered the floor. It had originally presented a pattern of maroon and green upon a mustard-coloured ground, but with years of wear and London grime the colours had mercifully retreated into a general foggy drab. The curtains, of a thick tapestry trimmed with an archaic ball-fringe, were of the same date and colour.

Colonel Garrett himself looked as little like the head of an important government department as it is possible for anyone to look, but if a guess had been offered as to which that department was, it is improbable that anyone would have hit upon the Foreign Office Intelligence. He was, in fact, the opposite number of the man in Berlin, and he also was engaged in interviewing a Rossiter.

Instead of sitting behind a table with a bell within finger-reach and a guard before his door, Colonel Garrett stood in front of the fire and filled an aged pipe. The charlady who did for him had completed her ministrations by eleven A.M., and, it being now about eleven o’clock at night, there was no one else in the flat. An air raid had been going on, and another would probably be along within the next half-hour or so, but for the moment there were neither bombs, gunfire, nor the throb of hovering planes.

Colonel Garrett tamped the tobacco with a splayed thumb. He was in tweeds, baggy, hideous, comfortable. Like his curtains and his carpet, they inclined towards mustard in colour—old mustard, dried in the pot—but there was a pink over-check. Altogether one of the more painful examples of a notoriously distressing wardrobe. Even in competition with this suit, a green tie with scarlet spots, and a purplish cotton bandanna worn hanging from a bulging pocket forced themselves upon the attention.

Garrett’s sandy hair stood up like stubble all over his head. His eyes, of the sharp grey of steel, were turned suddenly upon Antony Rossiter.

“When did you see Cornelius last?”

Antony considered. He sat on the arm of the largest and shabbiest chair. He was not at all like Cornelius to look at, being of middle height, slim, and somewhere pleasantly between fair and dark in complexion. That is to say, his hair was brown, his eyes of the shade commonly called blue, and his skin as well tanned as a healthy young man’s should be. His features were pleasing, mobile, and irregular, and he had very white teeth. He displayed a lounging grace as he balanced on the arm of the chair, and had an air of being very much at his ease. He was, in fact, a distant connection of Colonel Garrett’s, and addressed him sometimes with a formal sir, and sometimes quite familiarly as Frank.

“Cornelius—” he said, “now when did I see Cornelius last?”

“I was asking you that!” snapped Garrett.

“Yes, you were—and I’m trying to think.… Oh, a long time ago—before the Boche walked into Holland. I went over and met him there.”

Garrett drew at his pipe. Ghosts of other pipes which he had smoked in this room hung in the air. He said with violent suddenness. “I think he’s double-crossing us.”

Antony swung his foot and looked at it meditatively.

“Cornelius?” His agreeable voice was unhurried.

Garrett barked at him. “That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

“Oh, yes—I was just wondering. What makes you think so?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like the feel of some of the stuff he’s sent us. How far can you trust him yourself?”

Antony said, “I don’t know.”

It has been said that he had a mobile face. The most remarkable thing about it at this moment was the complete absence of expression. There was none in his voice either.

“How well do you know him?” Garrett’s tone was easy.

Antony looked at the fire. It burned brightly—logs on a foundation of red-hot coal—a very comfortable fire. He said, “How well does one know anyone? He’s thirteen years older than I am, and that gives him a ten-year start of me in the family. He was three when my father and mother adopted him.”

Garrett drew at his pipe. “Lunatic business, adopting someone else’s child. What possessed them to do it?”

“Oh, well—they wanted a child. Some people do, you know. They’d lost one, and after five years they’d rather given up hope. It was when my father was out in the Dutch East Indies. One of the clerks was drowned, and the wife died soon afterwards. There didn’t seem to be any relations, and I gather that my mother rather grabbed at Cornelius. I didn’t come along for another ten years.”

“By which time they were repenting at leisure.”

“Not a bit of it—they were very fond of him. I don’t remember much about it all, but I do remember that. My father came back to Holland and settled down in the firm there when I was a baby, and when he died they offered Cornelius a job. I was about eight then. My mother died a year later and her people brought me up, so I didn’t see Cornelius again until I left school. Then I spent a long vacation in Holland picking up my Dutch and having a general look around. There was some idea that I might go into the firm. They thought a lot of my father.”

Garrett blew out a cloud of smoke.

“And what did they think of Cornelius?”

“I didn’t ask them.” There was a faint sparkle in Antony’s eyes.

“Don’t you know anything without asking? Don’t play the fool! How did he stand with them?”

“Quite well, I think, but really I don’t know.”

There was a pause which prolonged itself until Garrett said suddenly, “Seen much of him since?”

“A certain amount. I didn’t go into the firm, as you know, because I got red-hot about flying. Mr. Merridew made me take my degree, and then he had to let me do as I liked.”

“Some relation of your mother’s, isn’t he?”

“Umpteenth cousin—family solicitor. She made him my guardian. He was by way of being trustee for Cornelius too—they left him a little money. Anything else you’d like out of the family archives?”

Garrett looked at him sharply.

“Not at the moment. Some old stuff, and some new. Run together, it amounts to this—you haven’t lived at close quarters with Cornelius Roos since you were eight, but you did live at very close quarters with him till then. A boy of eight knows the people he lives with inside out and downside up. He knows a damn sight more about them than if he were three or four times as old. They talk in front of him, and they don’t bother to put on frills. I should think you were sharp enough to cut yourself when you were eight.”

Antony laughed. “Thank you, sir!”

Garrett reached behind him and kicked the fire with his heel. “You needn’t. That’s when I saw you first—insubordinate little ruffian, but sharp. So now I’m asking you—how did Cornelius strike you then, and how does it check up with how he strikes you now?”

Antony leaned back against the shabby red leather of the chair. He looked at the blaze of sparks which rushed up from the log Garrett had kicked. He said soberly, “I thought a lot of him. I wanted to do the sort of things he did. That’s the normal reaction of the small boy to a thirteen-year older brother. I always thought of him as my brother. He was awfully good to me.”

“I want to know if he was straight.” Garrett’s tone was brutally direct. “You’re fencing, and I haven’t got time to fence. Out with it! How much of a liar was he?”

The sparkle returned to Antony’s eyes.

“Oh, most accomplished.”

“Money?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What did he lie about?”

Antony lifted a hand and let it fall on his knee.

“Anything—everything.”

“Why?”

Antony sat up, leaned forward a little.

“I think power. I didn’t size up that way at the time of course, but looking back and checking up on it, I think that’s what it was—and is. He likes power—he wants power. He hadn’t the capital to give him any real standing in the firm. He couldn’t get higher than he got, and it isn’t enough to work his brain or satisfy his abilities. And that’s why he looked beyond it. Intelligence work is meat and drink to him. It keeps him on the stretch—gives him adventure and the sense of power. He can gather a thread here and a thread there, and when he’s got all the threads in his hand he’s got a pull, and that’s what he likes. He looks as stolid as an ox, but he’s nobody’s fool. He’s an adventurer, a gambler, and a respectable Dutch citizen. That’s the best I can do for you.”

Garrett smoked in silence. Then he said, “Meaning that he might be double-crossing us. Or the other side. Or both. Whichever way there’d be most entertainment for Mr. Cornelius Roos?”

“Something like that, sir. But it’s guesswork—I don’t know anything. I haven’t seen him since April.”

“Would you know if you did see him?”

Antony watched him. “I might—I think I should.”

Garrett bent down and knocked out his pipe against the side of the grate.

“Then we’ll get down to talking about it,” he said.

Chapter Two

Delia Merridew had been deeply, dreamlessly asleep. That was on one side of the imperceptible line which separates moment from moment. On the other side of this line she was instantly and completely awake. The change was as sudden as the change from total darkness to flooding light. She did not know where she had been—her sleep kept its secrets—but she knew exactly where she was now. She was sitting up in bed in her own room at Fourways, her uncle Philip Merridew’s house in Surrey. A hand on either side of her pressed down upon the mattress, her chin lifted, her ears strained for the sound which had waked her. It might have been a bomb, or gunfire—somewhere—not very near. You did wake like that these nights without quite knowing what sound had waked you. Sometimes it came again, and sometimes it didn’t, in which case you just went to sleep.

She shook back her hair—very thick, fair hair curling on her neck in a long bob—and in a moment the sound did come again, the patter of gravel glancing off the open casement window and rattling down upon the floor. She pushed back the clothes, jumped out of bed, and ran to look out.

There was light from the waning moon, enough to show her the windowsquare, with the sky misty and luminous. When she leaned out over the sill, there was the lawn, all hazy, and the trees about it with that underwater look which half-veiled moonlight lends. There were bushes against the house—a group of lilacs, and a tall musk rose reaching up with a spray of glimmering bloom. Someone moved, and a voice said, “Delia!”

Delia said, “Antony!” and then they both laughed.

“Romantic, isn’t it?” said Antony.

Delia laughed again.

“Not a bit. I thought you were a bomb.”

Their voices and their laughter were muted to the moonlight. The distance between his face upturned and hers looking down was no great matter. But it was too great. He said, “Delia—come down!”

“Darling, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Long past that—it’s half past three. Come down!”

“Why? I oughtn’t to.”

“I know. I’ve got to see you. Be quick! And put on everything warm you’ve got—it’s biting cold.”

A ghost of a laugh came floating down. “You’re telling me!”

She drew back into the room with a shiver running over her from head to foot. There was ice in the air, and a wind from the north. But it was not only the cold that made her shiver. Something else had touched her. She slipped into a dress—shoes for her feet—but stockings wouldn’t matter—

She came down the dark stairs, groping her way by the banisters, and put on the light in the hall. Philip Merridew was in London, and the maids would not wake. Her bedroom was over the study. She left this dark, felt her way to the window, put back the curtains, and pushed the casement wide.

“Antony!”

He was there, with his back to her, so close that she could have touched him. As he swung about, his shoulder brushed her hand.

She said, “Come in!” and he, “Come out!” and they laughed again as they had laughed before, a soft hurrying laughter with an undercurrent of emotion and mutual awareness. Their hands groped and met. Hers tugged at him.

“Come in at once! I’ll put on the fire. We’ll freeze out there.”

“All right—in for a penny, in for a pound! Let’s hope the guardian sleeps sound. This isn’t the sort of thing he’d approve of, you know.”

She stood clear whilst he scrambled in, and then latched the window and drew the curtains close before she said, “He’s in London—sleeping in a cellar, poor dear. I hope he does sleep sound. He doesn’t often get down except at week-ends now.”

She went by him in the dark. His hand just touched her dress—something soft like velvet. A switch clicked and light came on from a clouded bowl in the ceiling.

Yes, it was velvet—a deep-blue velvet house-coat, right down to her feet, long and straight and plain. It made her look incredibly tall and slim. Above the deep colour her fair hair shone like gold.

She ran over to switch the fire on, and turning, caught at his hands. “You’re frozen! Let’s go and make coffee in the kitchen.”

Antony shook his head.

“I haven’t got time. I’m due—somewhere else—in a brace of shakes. I oughtn’t to be here, but I had to come.”

That cold something touched Delia again. She said, “What is it, Antony? Is anything the matter?” The words came tumbling, catching a little with the caught breath.

She stood there, holding him, nearly as tall as he—nineteen, and only just out of the stage of being all arms and legs. Just when she had stopped being the half awkward, half graceful creature whom he had teased, bullied, and protected, Antony hardly knew. She had been like a young colt, and then, somewhere or other in the last eighteen months, the awkwardness had fallen away, leaving a kind of untamed grace instead. She had grey eyes, widely opened and widely, deeply set, the lids arched to show a black-ringed iris. They were fixed now upon his face with a mournful, agonizing question.

“Something’s happened. Tell me!”

He shook his head.

“No, it hasn’t. Delia, don’t look like that! I—”

She let go of his hands and reached up to clasp his neck. All the things which he had meant not to say came boiling to his lips.

“Delia—I love you! I couldn’t go without seeing you.”

She put up her lips. St. Anthony himself would have fallen. Antony was no saint. Delia’s hands pulled him down. He kissed her. They stood pressed close together, whispering, kissing, whispering again, whilst time flowed past and left them unaware.

The clock struck four, and brought them back. Antony lifted his head, put her a little away, and looked at her transfigured face.

“I didn’t mean to do this. I only meant to see you—and I’d no business to do that.”

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Is it for long?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

A shadow touched her eyes.

“You mean perhaps you won’t come back?”

Had he meant that? He didn’t know—it was in his mind.

He said, “No, of course not,” and saw that she didn’t believe him. They had been together too much, known each other too well. Lies wouldn’t pass—not with either of them. He said in another voice, “It’s a job, darling. Don’t worry—I’ll come back. Look here, I’ll tell you why I’ve come.”

“You said—to see me.”

“Yes. You can help me.”

“How?”

She saw a familiar sparkle in his eyes.

“Can you act a bit?”

“Of course! What do you want me to do?”

He laughed, and rubbed his cheek against hers.

“Pretend we’ve quarrelled.”

“Why?”

“Because. Will you do it?”

“I shall hate it.”

He laughed again. “No, you won’t. Women love telling lies in a good cause.”

“They don’t!”

“My child, they do—it’s engrained in them—they get no end of a kick out of it. You will, you know—everybody thinking we’ve had a row, or that you’ve thrown me over, or I’ve turned you down, and you saying to yourself, ‘Antony’s mine—every single bit of him’s mine, and every little bit of me is his.’”

He caught her hard in his arms, and she felt the beating of his heart. Presently he held her away again and said, “Will you do it?”

Her heart was beating too, but there was something in her which had to know. She couldn’t just do what Antony wanted because he was Antony and she loved him so much that it hurt. Delia would always have to know. She said, “I must know why. I can’t do things blind—I never could.”

“Not even for me?” His voice was not quite steady, teasing her.

“No.”

He shook her a little, gently. “Tiresome toad—aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you why. I shan’t be able to write, and I don’t want any chat about it. Unfortunately I’ve been the world’s prize correspondent. I should think I’d averaged about six fetters a week to you the last six months or so, and a steady one a week to the guardian. Well, there it is—letters can’t stop suddenly without a bit of chat. Household staff, guardian, kind relations, interested circle of friends. ‘How is dear Antony? I’m sure he writes to you every day’—‘I hope, my dear, that you have news of Antony. I suppose I mustn’t ask where he is, but I am sure as long as he is somewhere in England you will have frequent and delightful letters from him.’”

Delia gave a little chuckle. “Oh, Antony, they don’t!”

“They do, and you know it, and you’ve got to choke them off without letting them think there’s anything hush-hush about it.”

“I could say I’d heard from you—”

“Delia, you shock me! Would you tell a lie?”

“Well, you wanted me to just now.”

“You shock me very much. What would Mrs. Barrock say? Besides, the simple truth will do. Always tell the simple truth if you can, because unless you’re a very good liar indeed you’re apt to forget what you said last time, and then the fat tips over into the fire and there’s a nasty stink.”

“Well, what do you want me to say?”

“You simply say, ‘Antony and I are not friends any longer.’ Put across with a little moisture in the eyes, a faint tremor of the lip, and just the suspicion of a catch in the voice, it should, I think, do the trick.”

She dissolved into laughter. “Antony, you’re a devil!”

He nodded. “Mrs. Barrock always suspected it—now she’ll be sure. It will please her consumedly. I shall have spread sunshine in the Barrock’s heart—I shall not have lived in vain.”

“She’s not as bad as that,” said Delia weakly.

“Oh, isn’t she?” He pitched his voice in accurate mimicry. “‘No young man as goodlooking as Antony Rossiter is a safe companion for a girl like Delia. I wouldn’t trust him a yard.’ I heard her say that to the guardian with my own ears.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did.”

“You eavesdropped!”

“I did. If I hadn’t, I should have had to come out and talk to her. I was on the window-seat behind the curtains.”

“What did Uncle Philip say?”

He laughed a little. “Said he had every confidence in me. He was so polite that she ought to have withered up.”

“She doesn’t wither easily.”

“No—practically indestructible.”

His voice slid away. They stood looking at each other, all the gay light armour gone. Delia threw her arms round his neck with a sob.

“I must go—Delia!”

She clung to him.

“Antony—you’ll come back—you’ll come back!”

Philip Merridew said, “Come in!” and went on writing.

Emanuel Holt came in, waited a moment, and said in a deprecating voice, “A man to see you, sir.”

Still writing, Mr. Merridew said, “Has he an appointment?”

“Well, no, sir.”

“You know I don’t see anyone without an appointment, Holt.”

Emanuel coughed. He had worn a zealous air, which now became a little dashed. He said,

“Well, sir, Mr. Peterson being engaged, I took leave to trouble you. It’s about Mr. Rossiter.”

Philip Merridew lifted his pen and looked up. There was a sense of suddenly arrested interest.

“What sort of a man, Holt?”

Emanuel coughed again.

“Rough, sir. Might be a seafaring man by the look of him.”

“Show him in.”

A fat man came in with a rolling walk. He wore shabby civilian clothes which gaped on him, and a loose raincoat, with a coloured handkerchief at his bulging neck. A string bag dangled from his left hand. Between the meshes a parcel showed some kind of square box done up in brown paper.

Emanuel Holt shut the door behind him. As he did so, the sirens began to sound overhead.

The man advanced to the table, holding an old cloth cap in his right hand. His hair, rather long, fell in a lock over one eye, giving him the look of a music-hall travesty of Hitler—a Hitler swollen to the size of a balloon. He came right up to the table, dumped the cap and the string bag, and began to disentangle the parcel.

“Name of Rogers,” he said in a soft, wheezing voice. “And I take it you’re Mr. Merridew?”

“Yes.”

“Of the firm of Girding, Ramsbottom, Girding and Merridew?”

“Yes.”

“The clerk said so, but I’ve got to be careful. Not to give it to no one but Mr. Merridew himself—that’s my instructions. And do I stick to them, guvnor? I do—like glue! And that’s gospel true.” A large smile creased his face. “Po’try, that is—I’m a dab at making po’try. And this bit’s gospel true, which is more than you can say for most.”

He hauled the parcel clear of the bag and set it down upon the blotting-pad. Philip Merridew looked at it—a box done up untidily in layers of rough brown paper and tied with strong tarred twine. It was addressed in sprawling capitals to “Antony Rossiter, Esq. By hand.” There was no more address than that.

The fat man winked. “There’s no need to name any more names as I can see. What you know yourself don’t do you any harm, and a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse. Now if you was going to ask me how I come by that, I should take leave to say, ‘A pennorth of silence is worth two pennorth of gab.’”

Mr. Merridew looked up with a frown. Before he could speak the man went on.

“Someone pitches me a tale, and I come along and pitch it to you. I know my man, but you don’t know me. Natural enough you smell a rat. But it’s on the level, guvnor, so far as I know.”

Philip Merridew said sharply, “What do you mean?”

The man reached over and tapped the parcel with a corrugated finger. “Like I told you—a bloke brings it along to me, and I brings it along to you. I don’t ask him no questions—and why don’t I? Good of my health—that’s why. And if you don’t ask me none, there’ll be two of us—see? I take it you know this bloke who’s got his name on it, Antony Rossiter, Esquire?” He mouthed the words and winked again. “Pretty, isn’t it—kind of a fancy sound. I suppose he’s real? Not that it matters to me either way.” He stuffed the string bag into the pocket of his rain-coat and fumbled with his cap. “Well, guvnor, what about it?”

Philip Merridew moved the parcel to one side of the desk. He seemed to accept the responsibility.

Mr. Rogers continued to fumble with his cap.

“All the way from we won’t say where, to say nothing of getting back again. And the loss of my valyable time. What about it, guvnor?”

“A shilling?” said Philip Merridew.

Mr. Rogers’ large Hitlerian visage expressed surprise and pain. He continued to twist his cap.

“Half-a-crown then?”

“‘Will be well rewarded’—that was the expression, guvnor, so far as I can bring it to mind. It might have been ‘handsomely rewarded’ but I won’t take my Bible oath to that. What about ten bob?”

Mr. Merridew brought out two half-crowns and pushed them across the table. After a short silence Mr. Rogers pocketed them.

“Here today and gone tomorrow,” he said with gloomy philosophy. “You never know your luck, do you? Well, I’ll be getting along. Afternoon, guvnor.”

He slouched out of the room with his rolling walk. Mr. Merridew gave him a moment, and touched the bell. When Emanuel Holt came in he said,

“Just get me the papers in the Tweddle case, will you.”

“Is that you, Holt?”

The voice differed so much from Mr. Merridew’s accustomed hearty accents that Mr. Holt was a good deal affected. He replied as cheerfully as he found possible.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Really impossible to believe that Mr. Merridew had come to this—his air of conscious omnipotence so completely changed to a look which seemed to say in an almost pleading fashion, “I’m not so bad after all. They haven’t told you I’m so bad, have they, Emanuel? I’m not dying, Emanuel Holt?” Very affecting, indeed. Such a strong man, such a vigorous brain, such a grasp, so much integrity and self-control. And that it should be this superman who had been struck down, and Emanuel Holt, who really mattered to no one except of course his own family, who had been spared. For a moment Rosie and Doris were, as it were, obliterated by the magnitude of the misfortune which had befallen the firm through this its indispensable head, and Emanuel was able to say with sincerity, “I only wish it had been me.”

Mr. Merridew’s pale lips moved into a smile.

“Believe you really meant that,” he whispered.

“Oh, yes, sir!” Mr. Holt’s small neat features quivered with the earnestness of his reply.

If the bomb which had smashed its way through the offices of Girding, Ramsbottom, Girding & Merridew had by the agency of a flying splinter laid Emanuel Holt upon this stretcherlike hospital bed and Philip Merridew had gone scot free, the firm would have looked after Rosie—oh, yes, it was that sort of firm—and Emanuel would have been saved the horrible weight of responsibility which now rested upon his shoulders. Mr. Merridew would have seen to everything. Ruined premises, dislocated business, clients’ interest, the dispersal and only too certain destruction of valuable papers—none of these things would have presented any difficulty to Mr. Merridew. In the words of a striking quotation whose origin for the moment escaped Emanuel, Mr. Merridew was at all points equipped “to ride the whirlwind and command the storm.” The phrase had a scriptural flavour, and should of course be metaphorically considered—but apt, very apt. Whereas he could not possibly regard himself, nor be regarded, in the light of a storm-controller. It wasn’t even as if he were the managing clerk. Mr. Peterson had always kept things very much in his own hands—a very able managing clerk and good for another ten years if it hadn’t been for the bomb. The ways of Providence were certainly inscrutable—Mr. Peterson dead, and Mr. Merridew lying here looking as near to a ghost as anyone could who was still alive, whilst Emanuel Holt, who couldn’t really be considered to matter at all, sat on an upright chair in a hospital ward with a dreadful sense of responsibility on his mind and all his physical health and strength intact.

These thoughts took no time at all to pass through his mind. Indeed, they could hardly be said to pass through it, constituting, as they did, his whole attitude towards the horrifying calamity which had overtaken the firm.

Mr. Merridew moistened his lips and said, “Don’t waste time—they won’t let you stay. What’s been saved?”

Emanuel passed a hand over his hair. Once ashen fair, it was now of an indeterminate grey. Together with a complete absence of eyebrow or any other hair upon the face, it gave him rather the appearance of a good and serious ferret—a ferret of an affectionate disposition which would never conceivably bite anyone.

He hastened to be as reassuring as possible.

“The two safes are intact, sir, and some of the deed-boxes. Mr. Peterson’s office was, I am afraid, completely wrecked.”

“Yes—poor Peterson. But my room, Holt—what about my room?”

Emanuel leaned forward. There was a deprecating sound in his voice. “I don’t know how much you remember, sir, after such a shock, but you had just sent for the papers in the Tweddle case. I was standing on the other side of your table, and was actually about to hand them to you when the explosion occurred.”

“I had forgotten about the papers—they’re no matter. But I’m told you saved my life—if it is saved—by pulling me down.”

Emanuel looked apologetic. “I’m afraid it was a liberty, sir, and not as successful as I could have wished, but a friend of my daughter’s, a young man in a reserved occupation who has gone in quite a lot for A.R.P. he laid great stress, if I may say so, on the necessity of throwing oneself down as soon as that rather peculiar whistling sound occurs, so I took the liberty, and I hope—”

“No harm in hoping,” said Philip Merridew with ironic faintness. Then, rather more strongly, “But the papers, man—the papers on my desk—”

“The papers in the Tweddle case, sir?”

“No, Holt—not the papers in the Tweddle case. The papers in the Tweddle case may go to blazes. The papers on my table, man—the papers on my table!”

Emanuel concentrated earnestly.

“Well, the table itself was a good deal damaged, sir. You were, if I may say so, unconscious, and portions of the ceiling continued to fall. As soon as I had dragged you to the doorway—my daughter’s friend has always assured us that a doorway was likely to afford some protection in the case of a house being wrecked—I returned to the table and hastily gathered up everything I could see or reach. I must explain that the table was more or less submerged by rubble, and had also been so to speak telescoped by the force of the explosion. The contents of the drawers will, I trust, be mainly intact.”

Philip Merridew’s eyes rested insistently on his clerk’s face. “What did you save, man—what did you save?”

“The Tweddle papers—”

“Blast the Tweddle papers! What else?”

“Well, sir, you must bear in mind that owing to the presence of such large quantities of dust and rubble, my powers of selection were very much handicapped. Bits of the ceiling were coming down all the time, and wardens who had come to our assistance were shouting to me to come away. When I reached the street I found that I had unnecessarily burdened myself with your blotting-pad, inkstand, and calendar. There was also the framed photograph of Miss Delia—”

“Nothing else?” said Philip Merridew.

“There was a package done up in brown paper addressed to Antony Rossiter, Esq.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Merridew. He seemed to relax, and closed his eyes. Presently he opened them again. He was smiling a little. “Rather a noble fellow, aren’t you, Holt?”

Emanuel looked shocked.

“Oh, no, sir.”

“I’m glad you saved Delia’s photograph,” said Philip Merridew, still with that faint smile.

Chapter Three

Emanuel Holt came home with a serious face. He was not as worried as he had been, on account of having seen Mr. Merridew and having received instructions from him which did in a way lift some part of the responsibility from his shoulders. And then Mr. Merridew had been so very kind—“Rather a noble fellow, aren’t you, Holt?” Well now, just think of Mr. Merridew saying that! It made you feel quite hot about the collar. But it would be something to tell Rosie. Rosie would be pleased.

The Holts lived in a street of small yellow brick houses which, for some reason long forgotten, had been called Adelaide Terrace. It was not an old enough street to have been named after Queen Adelaide of dim but pious memory. Perhaps the builder’s wife had been called Adelaide. Nobody knew, and certainly nobody cared. The houses were semi-detached and all exactly alike. Two steps up to the door and you were in the hall, with the stairs going up in front of you. There were three floors, and two rooms on each—sitting-room and kitchen on the ground floor, bedroom, bathroom and lavatory up the stairs, and two attics above. The front rooms looked to the street, and the back rooms to a very small yard.

Emanuel hung up his hat and coat in the hall and went through to the kitchen, where Mrs. Holt was frying herrings for tea. Twenty years they had been married, but he had never stopped having just that queer pleasurable feeling of anticipation as he walked down the passage and put out his hand to open the door. Perhaps it was because he was secretly a very romantic person. Perhaps it was because Rosie was so comfortable to come home to. Rain or shine, wet or dry, up or down, there she always was when he came home, and if things hadn’t gone just right—well, Rosie was comfortable. There was no other word for it.

He opened the door, and there she was, firm and comely, with an apron over her dark red dress, and her cheeks as red as the stuff. Twenty years ago Rosie Adams had been a village beauty—cheeks like apple-blossom, hair and eyes as black as sloes, and a waist as slim as you please. The hair and the eyes were as black as ever, but the apple-blow pink was now apple red, and the waist no longer slim.

She turned round with the frying-pan in her hand.

“You’re early, ducks.” And then, as he came over and kissed her, “Cold, too, aren’t you? More like January than October. We won’t wait for Doris—I can keep hers hot. You just sit right down and have your tea.”

Emanuel held his hands to the range.

“I didn’t feel it till I came in here.” He pulled a chair to the warmth and sat down.

Mrs. Holt began to make the tea. With the kettle in her hand, she said, “Did you see him?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Well, that’s something. Did they say how he was at all?”

“I’m afraid he’s very bad,” said Emanuel slowly.

Mrs. Holt set the teapot and a dish of herrings on the table and sat down. “Pull your chair up, ducks. You’ll feel better when you’ve got some tea inside you. If he was all that bad, they wouldn’t have let you see him.”

Emanuel pulled in his chair.

“I don’t know, Rosie—they might. You see, they might think it didn’t matter. And they told me I mustn’t stay. I think really they only let me in because he was going on so, and they thought perhaps it would quieten him down. They as good as told me that—said I was to tell him everything was all right and not to worry, and then come away quick. But I said to them, ‘If you’d worked for Mr. Merridew for twenty years like I have, you’d know better than to think he’d be put off that way. He’ll be satisfied with the truth and not one word short of it, and if he isn’t satisfied he won’t rest.’ And I didn’t like to ask then what they thought of him, but I got hold of the nurse when I was coming out, and from what she said I’m afraid he’s very bad, but she did allow that there was always a chance.”

“And so there is,” said Mrs. Holt briskly—“and Mr. Merridew’s the last one not to take it. And did you get all the business off your mind?”

“Well, I did and I didn’t. It’s a great responsibility, you know, and all come at once. Mr. Girding taken with a stroke last month—and of course you may say he’s been nothing but a figurehead for years, but as long as he was on view, well there he was, and I shouldn’t have felt quite so responsible. But there—he’s out of it. And now Peterson and Mr. Merridew as well.”

Mrs. Holt poured out his tea, put in a lump of sugar, and pushed it over to him.

“Well, you’ve seen Mr. Merridew, ducks.”

“Yes.”

He began to tell her about seeing Mr. Merridew. He always told Rosie everything, and she always listened in the same comfortable way, not saying very much, but if there was anything unpleasant, she’d somehow take the edge off it, and if there was anything pleasant, it seemed to get pleasanter as he told it.

The telling took quite a time, because he had to attend to the herrings. Herring-bones require a good deal of attention. When he came to telling her how Mr. Merridew had said, “You’re rather a noble fellow,” she got up and gave him a hug, and he very nearly choked. “And so you are, ducks!”

“Oh, no—” he choked again—“I’m not. I didn’t do anything at all—it was just his kindness.”

“Take a good drink of tea, ducks, and a bit of bread—that’ll settle the bone.”

He drank, and mopped his eyes.

“Well, there’s one thing I’m glad about. Those papers in the Tweddle case—you know the state they’re in—well, he didn’t care about them a bit. ‘Blast the Tweddle papers!’—that’s what he said, and a great relief it was to me to hear him. No, the thing he was in a taking about was that parcel for Mr. Rossiter. It’s something special, it seems, and it’s to be given him by hand—and the trouble is nobody seems to know quite where he is.”

Mrs. Holt poised a piece of herring midway to her mouth. “Not Mr. Merridew?”

Emanuel looked worried. “Well, it seems not.”

“Not Miss Delia? Oh, come, ducks—you’ll find Miss Delia will know where he is.”

Her voice had kept its easy country drawl. It was one of the things which made her so pleasant to be with. There was none of the Londoner’s hurry or quick clipped speech about Rosie. She popped the piece of herring in her mouth and enjoyed it. Not one to hurry over her food any more than over her speech.

Emanuel shook his head.

“I did take the liberty of putting it to Mr. Merridew that Miss Delia might know, and he said no, she didn’t.”

Mrs. Holt laughed. It was a very nice laugh, deep and soft. “A girl don’t always tell her uncle what she knows. I didn’t when you came courting me, and Emily didn’t neither, and I don’t suppose girls are any different to what they used to be.” A faint cloud went over her face. “Do you suppose Doris tells us everything?”

Emanuel’s mouth fell open a little.

“Doesn’t she, Rosie?”

“No, Em, she doesn’t. The girl’s not born that does. So I say, see Miss Delia for yourself and put it to her, can she get word to Mr. Antony Rossiter that you’ve got something to his advantage waiting to be handed over to him, and what about it?”

Emanuel thoughtfully removed a bone from his mouth.

“I don’t know that it’s to his advantage, Rosie.” And then, “Well, you know, I’ve an idea they’ve quarrelled.”

Mrs. Holt leaned forward with her elbows on the table and her hands clasped under her chin.

“Oh, Em—and you telling me what a nice pair they were, and how loving they looked!”

“That was after he came back from Dunkirk, when he was getting well after his wound.”

“August,” said Mrs. Holt. “I remember as well as well your coming home and telling me they’d been into the office together, and those were your very words—‘Such a nice pair.’”

Emanuel stirred his tea. With only one lump of sugar to the cup, you had to make sure that it was all dissolved. He had offered to have saccharine instead when the rationing came in, but Rosie wouldn’t hear of it. “As long as there’s sugar to be had, you’ll get it in your tea, and I don’t want any arguments about it.” But it was only one lump instead of two, and he really did like two. So he stirred hard.

“August is two months ago,” he said, “and I’ve an idea they’ve quarrelled. In fact, between you and me, Mr. Merridew as good as said so. So what am I going to do now? If it was Mr. Merridew, he might be able to find out from the War Office, but I don’t know how to set about it. You see, it’s a bit awkward asking where people are these days—there might be quite a wrong construction placed on it. And meanwhile there’s the parcel, and there’s no getting from it it’s a responsibility.”

“Why not put it in the bank?”

“Well, our branch—you know they’ve been bombed, and when I put it to Mr. Merridew he said, ‘No—better keep it yourself.’ And I said, ‘But how am I to get hold of Mr. Rossiter?’ And that’s just where he turned faint and the nurse came in and bundled me off.”

“Well, I should ask Miss Delia,” said Rosie Holt.

Antony Rossiter lay in a ditch and waited for the dawn. From one point of view the darkness would be a protection, but from another it would not. To approach the town before anyone was astir was all right as long as no one really was astir. If on the other hand you were encountered, you would naturally become an object of suspicion. Better to wait till the cocks were crowing and the countryside awake and drift in with the normal early-morning tide of traffic. He had been in the ditch since midnight, and though it was dry, or what passes for dry in a ditch, he was not anxious to remain in it any longer than he could help. He had disposed of his parachute by cutting it up and poking the bits into the sides of the ditch. As soon as there was a blink in the east he could get up and stretch his legs.

The blink was a long time coming. When at last he crawled out, he could see the country as flat as a plate. There was low cloud, and a shallow layer of fog spread out all over the fields. He began to walk through it. Sometimes it was no more than up to his knees, and sometimes it was well up over his head. Then he had to walk blind and trust to luck for his direction. The air was raw and cold, and he was stiff from his ditch.

He walked briskly, slapping his arms across his chest. With the practical side of his mind he was thinking about his job and hoping that his Dutch was good enough to see him through, but every now and then this practical side was broken in upon by thoughts of Delia. He wondered when he would see her again, and when they could be married, and where they would live and what they would do when the war was over.

Presently he could hear that he was coming to a road—the sound of wheels, the sound of a man calling to his horse. Mostly horse traffic round here, he supposed, now that petrol was so short—all commandeered for the occupation, or sent to Germany.

He made for the road and trudged along it. More than one cart passed him before he signalled for a lift. He picked a large comfortable man, and was told to jump up. The cart was full of green vegetables.

Antony had his tale ready. His name was Piet Maartens, and he had been working on a bulb farm—“but of course they’re broke like everyone else, and I haven’t had a smell of work since you know when.”

The man was gloomy enough about the chances of a job. “But of course if you’ve got friends in the town, they may be able to do something for you.”

Antony said he had an aunt there, a very good sort of a woman. “Keeps an eating-house, and she used to have very decent beer, but I suppose that’s gone where everything else goes nowadays.”

The man had a good deal to say about that. He expressed himself with freedom, and hoped that the Dutch beer would choke the Germans who had stolen it.

They went on very comfortably like this, and Antony was pleased to find that his Dutch was passing muster. He did not say more than he could help, and once he had got the man going on the beer shortage there was really no occasion for him to talk.

They came into the town with the subject still not exhausted. Antony said thank you for his lift and dropped off.

Twenty minutes later, when he came into the eating-house kept by Vrouw Brandt, there were a few people there having coffee, or what passed for coffee nowadays. Vrouw Brandt was at the back of the room—a large comely woman with red hair shining in waves all over her head, and a complexion which still bore the light of early morning. She had grown stout, and she would never see forty-five again, but she was a fine figure of a woman and she knew it.

Antony walked in in his shabby country clothes with the dirt of the ditch on his hands, slipped an arm round her waist, and bent to kiss her cheek.

“Well, Tante, here’s your Piet back like a bad penny.” He had come upon her unawares. She stood sideways to the room polishing china with a white linen cloth. He felt her stiffen, and wondered for a moment whether he was going to get his ears boxed—it wouldn’t have been for the first time. Her hand lifted with the cloth in it, but it fell again. She pulled free and stamped an angry foot.

“Good for nothing that you are, to come creeping in like a thief and scare me out of my life!”

He sat down on the edge of the serving-table and smiled the smile with which he had coaxed her for gingerbread when he was eight and she the tyrant of his mother’s kitchen. She had melted to it then, and had continued to do so ever since.

“Pleasant surprise never kills, dear Aunt.”

“Pleasant?” She tossed her head. “And what’s pleasant about you turning up, I’d like to know! Out of a job too, by the look of you.”

Antony nodded. “I’ve walked my legs off, and I’m hungry.”

And this was true enough. Even the substitute coffee smelt like a beautiful dream.

Anna Brandt took up a cup and set it upon its saucer. Her glance travelled over him with disfavour from the unshaved chin, past the dirty hands, to the muddy boots. There was a large patch on one of them—a piece of corroborative detail which he could have done without. If it hadn’t already rubbed a blister, it was going to the next time he had to walk a mile. She said in angry voice,

“No one eats food in my house with hands like that! And half the mud of the road on your feet! Get in and wash! You know the way.”

He was scrubbing his hands at the sink when she came through to him.

“Are you mad, Mijnheer?”

He looked up, grinning.

“Piet, Tante Anna, and don’t forget it.”

She made an impatient gesture.

“There’s no one here. The girl has gone to the market, and I can tell you she doesn’t hurry herself to get back. Why have you come? You are quite mad. When you did it before—well, it would pass as a joke. We hadn’t these German pigs in the country then, and the worst that could happen would be a bit of gossip among the neighbours, and some of them thinking it’s easy enough to say Aunt, but it doesn’t make every young scallywag who says it your proper lawful nephew. But now, Mijnheer, it’s not just a bit of gossip we’re risking—and God knows the neighbours will always find something to talk about unless one’s as ugly as sin. No, it’s our lives. And you mayn’t value yours, but I’ve got a use for mine.”

Antony went on washing his hands.

“If you go on calling me Mijnheer, Anna dear, I’m afraid it isn’t going to be much use to you. Piet Maartens is my name, and I’m the son of your sister Marthe, the one you used to tell us about who was weak in the head and ran away with a no-account fellow from Friesland.”

Anna threw up her hands.

“If it stopped at being weak in the head! Mad—that’s what you are, coming along here like this! What do you want?”

“I want to see Cornelius.”

“Dragging him into it too, are you? Well, they say shooting’s an easy death. But mind, you and him’ll get that. They’ll put me in one of their filthy concentration camps, I shouldn’t wonder—and by all accounts it’s better to have a bullet in you and be done with it.”

Antony took no notice. He was drying his hands.

“Can you get word to him?”

She tossed her head.

“I can, but that’s not to say I will.”

“Dear Anna!”

“Don’t you ‘dear Anna’ me! How long do you aim at staying?”

“I don’t know till I’ve seen Cornelius. Look here, if he comes along at the rush hour he can slip out to the back, and who’s going to be any the wiser?”

She stood there frowning.

“I don’t know. The girl would be here. It’s more than four hands can do as it is—I can’t send her out. There’s my own parlour—if you were there and he came in the back way, you could let him in by the window.”

“Is that the best way?” said Antony, and she jumped down his throat. He might still have been eight years old.

“There isn’t any best way, I tell you! There isn’t any good way at all. We’ll all end up in our graves more likely than not. He’ll scratch on the window, and you can let him in. But mind you latch the window after him and see there aren’t any creaks. And see that you keep your voices down, and be as quick over the whole business as you can. There’s no sense in asking for trouble.”

He laughed. “What an efficient woman you are, Anna! Lead me to the coffee substitute.…”

As soon as he heard the sound that he was waiting for, Antony turned out the light. It was the least possible tapping upon the curtained window of Anna Brandt’s parlour. The light died, the darkness swallowed up the red carpet, the brightly polished tiles, the round table with its red plush cover trimmed with crochet edging. They vanished together with the family Bible, the Delft jars, and the photographs of the late Josef Brandt and of Antony’s parents.

Antony crossed to the window and opened it, holding back the curtain. He said, “Come in, Con,” and Cornelius came in over the sill. The latch clicked to, the curtain dropped, and the light came on again. There was Anna’s room, with every bit of furniture shinning with polish, and there was Cornelius, looking as impassive as if he had come in by the front door and he and Antony had been meeting every day. He walked to the chair which had been Josef’s and sat down.

“Well?” he said. “Anna said you wanted to see me. What is it all about? I notice she hasn’t provided any refreshment.”

Antony laughed. “She’s a thrifty soul. I fancy she would say you had come here to see me, not to drink at her expense.

Cornelius nodded. “Yes—Anna is like that. But she can be trusted, and that’s more than you can say about everyone.”

Antony wondered whether it was more than could be said for Cornelius himself. He began to talk about the business that had brought him over—this and that information in the reports Cornelius had furnished—how he got them, where had he got them, and did anyone know that he had got them, and so forth.

Cornelius took out a cigar and lit it. He let Antony talk and said nothing. When Antony had finished, he let go a mouthful of smoke and enquired, “Am I to understand that I am not giving satisfaction?”

“I don’t know why you should say that. If your stuff’s correct it’s valuable—you must know that. What I’m here for is to check it over with you. There is a little vagueness about your sources of information, and they’d like it cleared up.”

Cornelius produced a slow smile.

“I saw the big little man in Berlin the other day, and allowing for the difference in phraseology, that is what he said too. I seem to be an object of suspicion to both sides.”

Antony cocked an eyebrow. “If they really suspect you in Berlin, Con, why aren’t you dead?”

“I may have been able to disarm his suspicions.” He paused, and added, “Why does Garrett suspect me?”

“I didn’t say he suspected you. I said he wanted this stuff checked up. It’s too important to take any chances over. Come along, Con, tell me how you got it!”

Cornelius said placidly, “I think I’d better tell him myself. The fact is I’m clearing out, and the sooner I clear the better for me. I suppose you didn’t get a parcel from me before you left?”

“No, I didn’t. What kind of a parcel?”

Cornelius still watched his cigar.

“Oh, a very important parcel indeed—a parcel which is practically my life, in a nice strong box done up in brown paper and addressed to ‘Antony Rossiter, Esq. By Hand.’”

Antony leaned forward. “Con—what are you talking about?”

“My parcel,” said Cornelius. “I would like you to go back to England again as quickly as you can, because as long as you stay over here on this stupid inquisitive business which Colonel Garrett has sent you to pry into you are risking my life in a very dangerous way. You see, the little man knows what is inside the parcel, and he would guess that I should not be so stupid as to keep it in any place where he can get his hands on it. He does not kill me or put me in a concentration camp, because I have told him that if he does so, my parcel will begin to make things very unpleasant for him, and though he has a very unbelieving nature, I was able to convince him that this would be the case.”

Antony looked at him quizzically. “I suppose you know what you’re talking about, Con. I don’t.”

“It is not necessary,” said Cornelius in his grandest manner. He was once more the lordly elder brother giving his orders to the little boy who had adored him. “You will get back to England as quickly as you can. Some arrangement has been made, I suppose, for getting you back. Mr. Merridew will have the parcel, and it is marked to be given to you by hand, but I am very uneasy as long as you are over here. As I said before, I am being followed wherever I go. I think I got rid of him tonight. But it is no great matter—they will think I have an assignation with Anna—she is quite a handsome creature still. I hope I got rid of him the night I handed my parcel over in a waterside tavern. I took every precaution, but one can never be quite sure. If he has found out that it has gone to England—and I am afraid I cannot regard that as impossible—then he will stick at nothing to get it back.”

“What’s inside?” Antony’s tone displayed a lively curiosity.

Cornelius drew at his cigar and let out the smoke.

“High explosive,” he said without any expression at all in his voice—“the sort that can blow a reputation to bits, and blow a man out of his job and land him in one of his own concentration camps. As long as that’s loose in the world, he can’t touch me without touching it off. You get home—and make sure you’re not followed when you fetch my parcel away.”

“Good lord, Con—what do you want me to fetch it away for? Much better leave it in the guardian’s safe.”

Cornelius shook his head. “At this time—when bombs fall every night in London? I don’t think so. If you could be quite sure that you were not followed, I should say take it out of London and find a safe place for it.”

“I could put it in a country branch of my bank.”

Cornelius shook his head again. “No building is safe from a bomb. I do not agree to any bank—it is these big important buildings that are hit everywhere. You must hide it, and you must be very careful. He has his agents still. You must not trust anyone at all, and if—” He dropped his voice to the lowest murmur. “Listen, Antony—”

Chapter Four

Doris Holt came in some time after her parents had finished their tea. She had a cashier’s job in a big drapery shop within half a mile of Adelaide Terrace. Like most other shops in the neighbourhood, they closed early enough to have allowed Doris to be in an hour ago.

Mrs. Holt looked up and said nothing, but Emanuel frowned and said in a mild, troubled voice, “You’re late, Dor.”

Doris tossed her head. She was very small, and light, and slim. Her ash-blonde hair fell curling on her neck in a page’s bob. A ridiculous little black felt hat clung precariously to one side of her head. She slipped out of her coat and stood up in the neat black frock which she wore in the shop. She had Emanuel’s small features as well as his fair colouring, but in her nineteenth year these things bloomed together in the fragile, evanescent prettiness which is to be seen in so many London girls. When she spoke, her voice was the voice of the London shop-girl, pretty and a little affected.

“Oh, I just met someone, Dad.”

Mrs. Holt had a slow smile for her.

“And he saw you home. Better just hang your coat in the hall, ducks, and come along to your tea. There’s no saying when the sirens will go, and I like to get washed up first, especially when it’s fish.”

Doris ate an excellent tea, and chattered all the time. The name of Mr. Miller kept bobbing up in her conversation, as a cork bobs up in a light rippling sea.

“Mr. Miller says we’ll all be living underground by Christmas, any of us that’s left. He says these shelters we’ve got aren’t reelly any use at all. I told him about Dad and Mr. Smithers making one out at the back between the two houses, and he said it wouldn’t be the least bit of good—not when the bombs reelly started coming. Mr. Miller says we don’t know what it’s going to be like yet. He says they haven’t hardly begun, and he says if he was us he’d go to the big public shelter round the corner and not trust to a home-made thing like ours. And when I told him as often as not we just stayed here in the kitchen, well, he was reelly shocked.” She giggled a little and rolled her pale blue eyes. A very bright pale blue they were, like the blue of some rather fragile flower. “And what do you think he said, Mum?—he’s very goodlooking, you know—well, he just sort of fixed me with his eyes—it’s a pity he’s got to wear glasses—and he said real earnest, ‘Miss Doris’—I’m sure nobody could be more respectful than he is, reelly he’s quite a gentleman—‘Miss Doris,’ he said, ‘do let me ask you as a personal favour not to lose a moment after the sirens go. What would be my feelings,’ he said, ‘if anything was to happen?’ So I said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. Miller,’ and he said, ‘There’s only one Doris Holt. Take care of her.’ Made me feel all gooey—it did reelly. So then he walked home with me.”

“Who is Mr. Miller?” said Emanuel Holt in a vexed voice.

Doris giggled. “Reelly, Dad—how you said that! Anyone would think—”

“Well, we haven’t heard of him before, ducks—have we?” said Mrs. Holt.

Doris giggled again. “Well, you couldn’t have, because I hadn’t heard of him myself, and the best girl ever can’t tell her Mum and Dad what she doesn’t know, can she?”

“You didn’t let him pick you up, Doris!”

“Reelly, Mum! As if I would! And if you want to know, it was Florrie Hicks came up to me just as we were coming out, and she said, ‘There’s a friend of mine wants to meet you.’ And there he was—ever so polite, and quite the gentleman.”

Mrs. Holt looked at her with a comfortable smile. “And what’s Tom Hale going to say to so much Mr. Miller, ducks?”

Doris coloured right up to the roots of her very fair hair. She was brilliantly pretty for a moment and her eyes shone.

“What’s it got to do with Tom Hale whom I go with? I don’t care if I never see him again! I’m sick and tired of the very sound of his name!”

Mrs. Holt continued to smile. “All right, ducks. Now what about another cup of tea?”

The raiders were a little later than usual. Mrs. Holt had finished her washing up with ten minutes to spare before the sirens went wailing overhead. The family then adjourned to the shelter which they shared with the Smithers next door. It was a close fit, but Mr. Smithers, an elderly widower “living retired” as he himself put it, had an ingenious mind and a turn for carpentry. From first to last the shelter had been his peculiar care. Emanuel had merely paid his share of the bill and lent an inefficient hand with the digging. It was Mr. Smithers who had insisted on the extra inches of depth and a corresponding increase in the defensive layer of earth piled overhead. He had also with his own hands constructed bunks, so that each person was enabled to lie down. This had necessitated some careful dovetailing.

Mr. Smithers, like all artists, was not fully satisfied with the result. He had provided five persons with the means of assuming a recumbent position, but it had not been possible to allow each of them a space of more than five-foot-six by eighteen inches in which to recline. He used to lie in his bunk and meditate upon the possibility of improving upon this arrangement.

As soon as it was quiet enough to sleep, he slept. When roused by more bombs, he would plunge again in thought. His elderly sister, after plugging her ears with pink cotton wool and tying up her head first in a woollen scarf and then in a waterproof hood, slumbered peacefully irrespective of what might be happening outside. This made them ideal shelter-companions. The only thing was, as Mrs. Holt said, that it was really quite easy to forget that they were there.

The shelter boasted a small electric bulb. It was Emanuel’s habit to pass the earlier part of the evening in improving his mind. Having perused with interest some statistics as to the limited number of words contained in the ordinary person’s vocabulary, he was now busily engaged in adding to his own. Opening a dictionary at random, he pursued the unfamiliar word with zest and interest, whilst Rosie knitted and Doris flicked over the pages of a magazine.

“Now, Rosie, here’s one you won’t know, for I didn’t myself. Astonishing where they come across the words. Grave, Rosie—a transitive verb, but not, as you might imagine, the one which means to carve, puncture, or engrave, from the Old English grafan, cognate with groove, but another which has nothing to do with grafan at all. It comes from the Old French grève, a shore, and it means to clean the ship’s bottom by burning off accretions while aground or in a graving dock.”

“Fancy that!” said Mrs. Holt.

Doris giggled. “A lot of use a word like that’s going to be to you, Dad!”

A deafening crash seemed to rock the shelter. When the noise had died away, Emanuel continued.

“Very clever at describing things, they have to be, the people who write these dictionaries. Now how would you describe green, Rosie, if you were put to it?”

Mrs. Holt looked up from the Air Force sock which she was knitting for her sister Emily’s second boy. “Green, Em?”

“Green,” said Emanuel with the air of one who has put a poser and knows the answer.

“Well, it’s just green, ducks.”

“Ah, but if you were writing a dictionary you’d have to describe it, Rosie.”

“Well, I don’t see what you’re going to say except that it’s green. And as to writing, I’m no great hand with a letter, let alone a dictionary, so I shouldn’t trouble my head.”

“Well, this is what they say—and I must say I should never have thought of it myself—that’s why a dictionary is so improving. Here we are, ‘Green—adjective and noun. Of the colour between blue and yellow in the spectrum; coloured like grass, sea water, emerald, olive, etc.’ There! What do you think of that? Clever, I call it.”

“If you know what a spectrum is.” Rosie’s tone disclaimed any desire for such knowledge.

As Emanuel was about to turn to “Greffier—a registrar or notary,” there were half a dozen crashes in rapid succession, the first terrifyingly near, the last definitely and reassuringly farther away. Mrs. Holt laid down her knitting, and a comparative silence fell.

“Em—did I turn off the gas at the meter?”

“I don’t know, Rosie.”

“You didn’t see me? Doris—did I turn off the gas?”

“I don’t know, Mum.”

“Well, I’ll just go and see.”

Emanuel dropped the dictionary and slid out of his bunk.

“You stay where you are, Rosie! It won’t take me a minute—I’ll go quicker than you.”

The searchlights were all up as he emerged from the shelter. The back door was no more than a dozen feet away. He ran across and slipped in, putting up a hand to switch on the light.

Nothing happened. He let the switch go up, and pulled it down again. Still no light. It went through his head in quite a matter-of-fact way that the power station must have been hit. He got out the little torch which always went with him to the shelter and discovered that the gas was off. Well, it wouldn’t have been like Rosie to leave it on.

He was just going to open the back door again—had in fact stretched out his hand to do so—when, faint but unmistakable, he heard a footstep overhead.

All at once he was afraid. His heart had not quickened when the bombs came crashing down. It struck now against his side with a thudding which made it difficult to breathe. It was a cold night—the lean-to scullery was cold, with its three outside walls and no room over it—but there was sweat on his temples and palms. He stood where he was and listened as well as he could for the drumming in his ears.

The step was not directly overhead. It was very faint. There was nothing over the scullery. Bathroom and lavatory came next, over the kitchen. He thought the sound came more from the front of the house, from his and Rosie’s bedroom. But that meant a thief—

He began to feel very angry indeed. Mean—that was the only word for it. It was a word which heartened him a good deal. You are angry with mean people, and you despise them. They don’t frighten you.

He still had the torch in his left hand. But he wouldn’t turn it on—not yet. He didn’t need a torch to find his way across his own kitchen, but he kept a finger ready on the catch.

The door into the kitchen was open. He skirted the table and opened the door into the passage, all without making a sound. Standing there, he listened, and heard what he had heard before, a footstep going to and fro upstairs, moving, and stopping, and going on again. Words and a picture came into Emanuel’s mind—“Looking for something”—and the picture of a man’s hand holding a torch and flicking the beam of it here and there and everywhere. In his mind he could see the bright circle of light slide from Rosie’s crimson eiderdown to the pillows of the double bed, and from there to the washstand china—poppies and cornflowers on a cream ground—Rosie liked a bit or colour. It would pick up Rosie’s Bible on the table, her side of the bed, and her bedroom candlestick—you couldn’t put all your trust in electric light these days. And then what else was there for it to go flicking over and prying at? The old bow-front chest of drawers which Rosie had brought from the farm when she married—the built-in cupboard where she hung her clothes—two old chairs which had come with the chest—a looking-glass, and that was all. And you wouldn’t have to look long to know that it was all either. The lull held. He heard a drawer slide out and presently slide home again.

His anger had gone cold on him whilst he stood there listening. He began to wish that he had clattered through the kitchen shouting. Of course he could do it still—but not so easy to clatter and shout in cold blood. And then, while he was wondering if he could screw himself up to it, the lull outside was violently broken by what sounded like three cracking claps of thunder right overhead. The ground jarred under his feet, and the house shook and rattled about him. Something in him—some force, some vehemence—was released. He flung the door he was holding back against the wall and ran towards the stairs calling out at the top of his voice, “Who’s there? Come down!”

Like the apprentice who raised the devil, Emanuel’s command produced more than he had bargained for. A bright dancing light whirled out of the upper darkness, and an extremely solid body came charging down the stairs. The impact took Emanuel off his feet. His hand was wrenched from the newel. He lost his torch and fell flat on the hall linoleum. The front door opened and banged. Amidst the roar of the London barrage, now in full swing again, he picked himself up, tripped over his torch, and having recovered it, felt his way back into the scullery. Groping, his hand touched somebody’s face.

Mrs. Holt’s scream beat the barrage. It travelled rapidly up a couple of octaves and held on to the top note.

“Rosie, it’s me!”

It was not so much Emanuel’s voice, which could hardly have reached her, as his clutch at her arm that stopped the scream. It shut off as suddenly as a policeman’s whistle.

“That you, Em?”

“Yes, Rosie.”

“Then come along back to the shelter! Whatever have you been doing?”

“There was a thief in the house. He ran downstairs and knocked me over.” They were shouting at each other through the noise of the guns. “The front door wasn’t locked. He got away by it,” said Emanuel at the top of his voice, and was left saying it in a sudden silence as the guns ceased.

Rosie recovered her ordinary voice.

“Did you lock it after him?”

“I don’t think so. He knocked me down and trod on me.”

She pushed past him in the dark. He heard her go through to the front door and lock it. Then she was back again.

“Doris must have left it open. If I’ve told her once I’ve told her twenty times. Do you suppose he’s taken anything?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s two and elevenpence in the left-hand top drawer under my stockings, and my brooch with the seed pearls and Granny’s hair in the handkerchief-case. Oh, Em—I hope he hasn’t taken it!”

As they let themselves out of the scullery door, Emanuel said, “He was looking for something.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s what it sounded like. What could he have been looking for?”

Mrs. Holt stopped and looked up at the sky. There was silence there—no searchlights, only stars. She turned and said quickly, “Where’s Mr. Antony’s parcel?”

“In the shelter,” said Emanuel.

“Whatever could he have been after? Do you suppose it was Mr. Antony’s parcel, Em?”

Mrs. Holt was on her knees, putting things back into her bottom drawer. The raiders had gone, the black-out curtains were down, and the room was full of the morning sun. The cupboard door gaped. Rosie’s best dress, her afternoon dress, two summer dresses, two overalls, and a winter coat, were tumbled on the floor. A bandbox full of summer hats lay on its edge where it had rolled beside the bed. Everything had been taken out of all the drawers and tossed upon the floor. Rosie’s cheeks were redder than ever as she picked up her insulted underclothes and folded them neatly away. Emanuel was re-hanging the dresses. He stopped with a brightly patterned artificial silk half on his arm and half on the hanger, and said in a dubious tone,

“How could anyone know I’d got it, Rosie?”

Mrs. Holt put a pair of warm knickers in at the back of the drawer and slammed it shut.

“Seems as if it was something particular,” she said. “Leastways that’s what it looks like to me. And if he wasn’t after Mr. Antony’s parcel, what was he after—can you tell me that? There’s nothing taken that I can see—everything thrown out on the floor all over the house, but nothing gone. My two and elevenpence left in the drawer, plain enough for him to see when he’d thrown the stockings out, and my brooch left where it was—if he’d been an ordinary thief he’d have taken the money—you can’t get away from it. A thief that don’t take money when it’s under his nose isn’t any ordinary thief. And what was he after, raking and ransacking the way he did? Nothing of ours, because nothing’s took. And the only thing that wasn’t ours was out in the shelter as luck would have it, and that’s Mr. Antony’s parcel.”

Emanuel disappeared into the cupboard and emerged again empty-handed.

“I don’t like having charge of it, and that’s the fact. But I don’t see how anyone can know I’ve got it.”

Mrs. Holt got up. “Seems as if they did,” she said. “Do you know what I’d do, Em? I’d take and get rid of it out of the house before I was a day older if it was me.”

“Mr. Merridew told me to keep it.”

“Well, he didn’t know thieves were after it,” said Mrs. Holt with strong good sense. “And if he did he’d got no right to say any such thing, and if you take my advice you’ll go along to the hospital and tell him so.”

Emanuel came back to his dinner considerably dashed.

“They’re not letting anyone see him, Rosie. They don’t say he’s worse, but they say now he’s got a very good chance and that’s why they’re not taking any risks with him. I did everything I could. I said it was urgent business, and they said that was just the sort of thing he oughtn’t to be bothered with. And I said would they take a message, and they said no, they wouldn’t—he’d got to be kept perfectly quiet and not encouraged to think about business at all, and it wouldn’t be any use my coming back for a week at the very least.”

His small, neat features quivered in the way they had when he was taking anything to heart. It was at these moments that he so strongly resembled a faithful and domestic ferret.

Mrs. Holt patted him comfortably on the shoulder.

“Well, ducks, I shouldn’t take on. Look on the bright side. It’s good news about Mr. Merridew.”

Emanuel said, “Yes.” Then he dropped his voice. “Rosie, where is it?”

“Ssh!” said Mrs. Holt. She brought her lips close to his ear. “In my hat-box along with my best hat.”

Then it came over her—the two of them alone in the house—in their own kitchen—whispering. Silly! She began to laugh, and all at once it wasn’t silly any more. She had the feeling of cold water running down her back. She held him by the arm and whispered again, “Em—there was a man here this morning—said he was from the water company. I kept the door on the chain and I wouldn’t let him in.”

They looked at each other.

“He might have been from the water company, Rosie.”

“Well, he wasn’t,” said Mrs. Holt. “I locked up, and I went down to Green’s and telephoned.”

“They didn’t send him?”

“They didn’t send anyone.”

“I don’t like it, Rosie.”

“No more do I.”

“How can anyone have known? That’s what I can’t understand.”

“Well, you brought it home in broad daylight, ducks. And a pretty thing, I must say, if you’ve got to watch, and creep, and hide yourself like a thief before you can get a parcel into your own house! It seems as if that’s the way it is. And there’s Doris—she’s a chatterbox. If anyone was to lead her on, she’d be ready enough to talk. I wouldn’t say anything to Doris, whatever we do with the parcel.”

“I don’t know what to do,” said Emanuel in a helpless voice.

Mrs. Holt brought her mouth so close to his ear that the movement of her lips tickled him.

“Take it along to Miss Delia,” she said.

Chapter Five

The drawing-room at Fourways was full of the buzz of voices—female voices in variety, from Cynthia Kyrle’s shrill treble to Mrs. Barrock’s bass. The Wayshot Ladies’ Work-party was in full swing. Needles and tongues moved nimbly.

Mrs. Canterbury said in a drawling voice, “I know you won’t believe me, but it is true—when we started a working party in Little Puddlington in the last war they sent us down a pattern to make nightshirts for the troops.”

Cynthia came giggling into a dramatic pause.

“Darling Mrs. Canterbury—what is a nightshirt?

Mrs. Barrock eyed her disapprovingly. “Men used to wear them, and women used not to talk about them, Cynthia.”

Cynthia giggled again, and Mrs. Canterbury said plaintively, but as if no one had interrupted her,

“It took yards and yards and yards of stuff, and little gussets, and things let in on the shoulders. And you won’t believe it, as I said, but it’s the solemn truth that it was the original pattern which Queen Victoria gave Florence Nightingale or someone for the troops in the Crimea, and down to the last gusset it was an exact reproduction of the Prince Consort’s own nightshirt.”

“Did you make any?” said Miss Murdle in a reverential tone.

She was bareheaded, a fashion very trying to a faded face. Her flaxen hair, which never seemed to turn grey, hung in limp curls as nearly as possible after the manner in which Delia Merridew wore her pretty, fair hair. She admired Delia very much indeed, and copied her as closely as she could, thus inducing the pleasant illusion that she herself was still young and pretty—in fact just what she admired in Delia. It was an illusion shared by nobody else. Her green dress was as nearly as possible a replica of the one Delia was wearing. The youthful cut showed how thin she was, and the colour, which gave Delia a dazzling fairness, only emphasized her own pallor. Her large pale eyes gazed earnestly at Mrs. Canterbury.

Lillian Canterbury shook her very pretty head. No one had ever seen it with a hair out of place. The smooth grey waves framed a delicately tinted face. Her eyes were periwinkle-blue, and her dress matched them.

“We all lay down and died when we saw the gussets.”

Cynthia giggled again. “Darling Mrs. Canterbury—what is a gusset? It sounds awfully improper.”

Miss Murdle took upon herself to explain.

Delia Merridew, on her knees cutting out, considered that Cynthia had brought it on herself. She would now have to listen to Miss Murdle for at least five minutes, and it really served her right. As she got up she heard her own name from fat old Mrs. Blake, and turned to see that lady’s wide, amiable smile directed upon her.

Mrs. Blake had a face which always reminded Delia of a well-floured scone with a couple of those small black currants stuck in it for eyes—it was so round and so soft, and she put such a lot of powder on it.

“I hope, my dear, that you have good news of Antony. I mustn’t ask where he is, I suppose. Somewhere in England, I hope.”

Delia wanted to laugh, and Delia wanted to cry. Antony mimicking what people would say, and Mrs. Blake saying it just like that. “I hope he is somewhere in England.” Antony—where are you—where are you? She lost Mrs. Blake and the work-party. She was back in the study with Antony. They had stood there in the night and kissed. He had mimicked what people would say—

Mrs. Blake’s voice flowed on, reaching her again.

“I am sure he writes to you whenever he can, my dear.”

The moisture in the eyes and the catch in the voice recommended by Antony came upon Delia without any need to feign them. She began to say something, and never knew what it was, because Cynthia struck in, tearing herself from Miss Murdle.

“I bet he doesn’t write. None of my boys do once they get away. It’s a case of findings is keepings, and somebody else always seems to find them.”

Mrs. Barrock turned an awful gaze. She had eyes uncomfortably like small bullseyes set prominently between high cheekbones and a determined brow. She had also a very determined chin. She said in her deepest voice,

“I should hardly think you would be proud of your inability to keep your friends, Cynthia.”

Cynthia giggled and tossed a head with the latest curls arranged in the latest way. She wasn’t really pretty, but she had very good ankles and a roving eye. The way in which she acquired young men was only less interesting to Wayshot than the rapidity with which she changed them. She was the doctor’s daughter, and the kinder hearts forgave her much because she had no mother, and was undeniably fond of their adored Dr. Kyrle.

Mrs. Canterbury took one of her infrequent stitches and said in the languid tone which always carried surprisingly, “I love Antony Rossiter, and if I was twenty years younger I should certainly do my best to find him and keep him.”

Mrs. Barrock fixed her with the bullseyes.

“Charming young men are never to be trusted. Mr. Rossiter is a great deal too goodlooking to be trustworthy. I gave Mr. Merridew my opinion on the subject years ago.” Under the impression that she had lowered her voice sufficiently to be confidential, she continued, “Of course he paid no attention—men never do until it is too late.”

The needle was suspended, the periwinkle eyes were lifted sympathetically.

“That is so true. But what a good thing, or we should never be able to marry them. They go into a sort of trance and don’t come round until, as you say, it is too late, and then they just have to make the best of us, poor dears.”

Mrs. Barrock blinked. “That is not what I meant at all. Delia should have some elderly relative living with her—a woman. It is extremely wrong of Mr. Merridew to leave her here by herself. Anything might happen.”

“It is certainly rather dull for her,” said Mrs. Canterbury in her most provoking voice.

Delia had edged out of the circle. She was tacking her pattern together by the window, when Cynthia perched on the arm of her chair and leaned towards her, whispering, “Look at the Murdle—she’s done it again! Don’t you simply hate to have her copying you like that?”

Delia coloured. She said quickly, “I wish she wouldn’t.”

Cynthia giggled. “I should think you did! This is the worst one yet. Why do you stand it? I wouldn’t.”

Delia was silent. She couldn’t tell Cynthia that Miss Murdle always made her feel as if she were eating cake in front of a starving person. She went on taking long stitches in her pattern and hoped that Cynthia would talk about something else. But when she did, Delia would have liked to have changed her wish. Cynthia leaned right down and said in her ear, “Have you quarrelled with Antony?”

Delia changed colour again. “Why should I?”

Cynthia giggled. “Lots of reasons. I should think he’d be rather fun to quarrel with. What was it all about—another girl?”

“Of course not!

Cynthia slid down from the arm and sat beside her.

“Well, you mayn’t think so, but there always is another girl. So if you really want him, I shouldn’t keep it up too long. They go and weep on the other girl’s shoulder if you do. I’d grab on to him if I were you. It’s awfully disinterested of me to give you this good advice, because I wouldn’t half mind Antony myself, but no one can say I don’t play fair, only if you ever really do have a complete blow-up with him, you might just let me know.”

Delia laughed. She didn’t have to try; the laugh just came bubbling up because Cynthia was so silly. She said, “I’ll be sure to let you know.”

And just then the door opened and Parker came in, looking as he always did, the picture of a respectable middle-aged manservant with something on his mind. When he first came to Mr. Merridew, Delia and Antony used to wonder what it was. He was half of a married couple, but that didn’t seem to be enough to account for it, because Mrs. Parker was a comfortable, fat woman and an angel cook. It took them nearly a year to find out that it was cross-word puzzles that were weighing upon him.

He couldn’t let them alone, and he never managed to get them out.

He came across the room now, bent down a little, and said in his superior, worried voice, “Mr. Holt would like to see you, Miss Delia, if you can spare the time. I have put him in the study.…”

Delia came into the study, long and slim in her dress of leaf-green wool. Emanuel Holt thought how pretty she was. What he would call a real lady too, with the same friendly way with her whether she was speaking to him or to the grandest of Mr. Merridew’s friends. Mr. Merridew had some very grand friends, which was of course good for the firm. The family was well connected. Miss Delia’s mother had been the Hon. Cordelia Luton, but she didn’t give herself any airs on that account. He had known her since she was a little girl, and it was a thing he had always admired in her. She shook hands with him as if he was one of Mr. Merridew’s friends now, and said he must have some tea. “And I expect you’d hate to come and have it with the work-party—I expect Parker told you they were all here this afternoon—so I’ve told him to bring it along here for you, and I needn’t go back for ten minutes or so.”

She was taller than he was. He had to tilt his face up a little to talk to her.

“Do sit down, Mr. Holt.”

The fire had been lighted and the room was cosy. Emanuel sat down in one of Mr. Merridew’s comfortable chairs. He altered the angle of it so that he could talk to Delia without losing sight of the suit-case he had brought with him. It was one of the expanding kind, and it contained a great deal of crumpled up newspaper and a parcel which was addressed to Antony Rossiter, Esq.

“What did you want to see me about, Mr. Holt?”

Emanuel reached for the suit-case and opened it. In the middle of its newspaper nest sat the square brown parcel. After allowing Delia a moment to take it in he shut the lid and snapped the catches down.

Delia looked at him with a puzzled smile.

“What is it, Mr. Holt?”

“A parcel, Miss Delia—for Mr. Antony—I should say Mr. Rossiter.”

“I like Mr. Antony so much better. It sounds much more friendly, don’t you think so? What’s inside the parcel, Mr. Holt?”

“I haven’t the very slightest idea, Miss Delia.”

The puzzled look deepened.

“Do you know who it’s from?”

“No, I don’t, Miss Delia.”

“It says ‘By hand,’” said Delia in a doubtful voice.

“That’s what I’ve come about, Miss Delia. Can you tell me where Mr. Antony is?”

She stared at him. “Oh, no—I can’t.”

Emanuel leaned forward. “Does that mean that you don’t know, Miss Delia, or that you can’t say?”

“I don’t know,” said Delia, her eyes very dark in a face that was suddenly pale.

Emanuel sat and looked at her. “I’d like to tell you about it if I may, Miss Delia. A seafaring kind of man brought this parcel into the office no more than a quarter of an hour before it was wrecked by the bomb—the man hadn’t been gone more than five minutes. You know what happened—Mr. Peterson killed and two of the other clerks, and as likely as not I’d have been killed too, only I was in with Mr. Merridew. And after I’d got him out I tried to save what I could, and one of the things I picked up off his table was this parcel for Mr. Antony. When I mentioned it to Mr. Merridew in the hospital he said to keep it by me and give it to Mr. Antony by hand.”

Delia said, “Yes, Mr. Holt?”

A kind of quiver went over him.

“Well, Miss Delia, that is what has brought me here. Mr. Merridew said to keep it by me, but it doesn’t look as if I was going to be able to, and I wondered—”

“Why don’t you think you’ll be able to keep it?” said Delia in a surprised voice.

Emanuel quivered again. “Well, Miss Delia, it looks as if someone was trying to steal it.”

“To steal it?”

“Yes, Miss Delia.” He paused, and added, “Mrs. Holt and I, that was the opinion we formed.”

“But why?”

He leaned nearer, dropped his voice so much that she could only just follow him, and told her about the house having been ransacked. “Everything all over the place, just thrown out on the floor, Miss Delia. You wouldn’t credit it—I’m sure I hardly could myself—Mrs. Holt’s clothes and mine, and the bedding torn off the beds, and the books out of the book-case, but nothing taken, though there was money in one of the drawers.”

“But if nothing was taken, Mr. Holt, then they didn’t take the parcel.”

“No, Miss Delia. But it’s my opinion and Mrs. Holt’s that they would have if they could.”

“And why couldn’t they?”

“Because the parcel was out in the shelter, Miss Delia.”

Delia said, “Oh—” Then she said, “Why should anyone want to take it? What’s inside?”

Emanuel looked worried. “I’ve no idea.”

“Does Uncle Philip know?”

“He didn’t say, Miss Delia, and they won’t let me see him again, not on any account.”

Delia propped her chin on her hand. “I know—they won’t let me see him either. But it’s because they think he’s going to get well—Dr. Kyrle said so.”

Emanuel went on looking worried. “So I thought if there was such a thing as a safe down here and you could put it away, it would relieve me of the responsibility, Miss Delia—that is, if you can’t tell me where Mr. Antony is.”

Suddenly she had a lost look. She said in a forlorn voice, “I don’t know, Mr. Holt.”

“You see, Miss Delia, if it was lost—or I might say stolen—Mr. Merridew would be bound to hold me accountable, and I’m not at all happy in my mind—thieves in the night, and a man who was pretending that he was from the water company while I was out.”

“What!”

He nodded his head with a kind of mournful triumph.

“Yes, Miss Delia—and they hadn’t sent anyone, because Mrs. Holt telephoned. And when I was waiting at the bus stop coming along to catch my bus down here, a man pushed into me from behind and I very nearly lost my balance. There was quite a little crowd, and I couldn’t see who it was. I nearly fell, but I held on to the suit-case, and it’s my belief that if I hadn’t, it’s just as likely as not that I shouldn’t have seen it again. So if there was a safe in the house here—”

Delia didn’t think much of the incident at the bus stop, but she felt sorry for Emanuel Holt, who was a nice little man and obviously worried to death about Uncle Philip and being responsible. She looked at the suit-case which contained the parcel. She couldn’t see the address with her eyes, but she saw it very plainly in her mind—Antony Rossiter Esq., By hand. The idea of taking charge of it appealed to her strongly. The “By hand” seemed to bring Antony within reach again. She didn’t think it necessary to answer Emanuel’s question about the safe. There was no safe at Fourways, but she had no intention of telling him so.

She gave a sudden wide, enchanting smile and said,

“I’d love to look after the parcel, Mr. Holt. I’m sure it will be quite safe here.”

Five minutes later she went out of the room with the parcel in her hand. A man who was standing among the lilac-bushes where Antony Rossiter had stood in the dark a week ago watched her go.

He had followed Emanuel Holt from his house to his point of departure on the country bus. He had then followed the bus on his motor-bicycle.

When Emanuel alighted he continued to follow him, and presently found a place where he could leave his motor-bicycle amongst some bushes, after which he could follow unobtrusively on foot.

It was a bit of luck for Emanuel that there had always been somebody else in sight—even in the drive there had been the baker’s cart. But it was a bit of luck for the man that the lilac-bushes were there to make a screen, and that he had been able to locate the room into which Emanuel had been shown. His first cautious peep around an ornamental holly had yielded a lively picture of the Wayshot ladies to his horrified eyes. His next attempt had shown him Mr. Holt, facing the window but fortunately not looking in that direction.

With a deep breath of relief the man got well into the lilacs and waited.

Presently the door moved and he drew back. When he dared look again, Delia was sitting with her back to the window. He could see no more of her than the top of a head of fair hair. Of her conversation with Mr. Holt he heard nothing at all upon Emanuel’s side. Fourways was a very well built house. The window frames fitted perfectly, and the glass was thick. Upon Delia’s side he heard her say “What!” in a startled tone and that was all he could have sworn to. Sometimes he caught the murmur of one voice or the other, but listen as he would, there were no more words. But when Delia got up to go he could see a little more of her. Not her face, because she never turned round towards the window, and not very much else, because the room was getting dark. There was plenty of daylight outside, and would be for an hour or two yet, but it was a cloudy afternoon and, looking in from outside, the room seemed dark. What he did see was that she was tall, that she had fair hair hanging down on her neck, that she was wearing a green dress, and that she had something in her hand as she went out of the room. He could not tell what the something was, because her body screened it from him. He saw her put up her left hand to open the door—and why would she do that unless she had something in the other hand?

She went out, shutting the door behind her, and he turned his attention to Mr. Holt. The suit-case was now, most fortunately, in his line of vision. Emanuel must have moved it, for up to now it had been quite out of sight. It stood sideways on to the window, and the lid was up. He could see the newspaper packing, and the square hole in the middle where the parcel had been. He had seen all that he wanted to see of Emanuel Holt.

Chapter Six

As soon as Delia had left the room Jimmy Nash, who had been looking in at the study window, came out from among the lilacs and made his way to a spot convenient for the observation of the front door. He had got to find out for certain whether the parcel was going to leave the house or remain there. If he had not had that glimpse of the assembled Wayshot ladies, he would have been apt to conclude that the parcel which he had virtually seen in the possession of a fair-haired woman without a hat had arrived at its—temporary—destination. He did not intend it to remain there, but he had every reason to suppose that Mr. Holt did. But recollection of the Wayshot ladies shook his confidence. He could not imagine them all to be resident at Fourways, but at least half a dozen of them had no hats. Girls didn’t wear hats nowadays, not even in weather when you’d think they’d be glad to have something on their heads. It was a cursed nuisance, but he must keep his eyes skinned and make sure that the fair-haired woman didn’t slip out and leave him guessing.

He had no difficulty in finding a vantage point. An old-fashioned shrubbery encircled the gravel sweep in front of the house. He got behind a lignum vitæ and wondered how long he would have to wait. If they stayed till after dark, he was done, but what with the black-out and the air raids, people who didn’t have to be out mostly got home by daylight, so he hoped for the best.

He had a long time to wait. The shrubbery was extraordinarily draughty. He had a constitutional dislike of spiders, and after he had brushed one off his coat sleeve imagination presented a horrid picture of every spider he had ever seen or read about lurking ready to crawl up a trouser leg, or down his neck, or to come swiftly spinning on an unseen aerial to brush against his eyes, his forehead, his lips. Green spiders that you saw running in the grass—apple green, with a body like a bag. White spiders, like a drop of milk come alive with legs to it. Yellow spiders—where had he seen a yellow spider? He didn’t know. But there was a black one he’d seen a picture of and always wished he hadn’t—big as the palm of your hand, and black hairs on it. He blinked rapidly. A little chilly sweat came out on his temples. Crime also has its martyrs.

He could almost find it in his heart to regret the long abandoned path of virtue. He had left it some fifteen years ago by way of one of those runs of bad luck which beset the impecunious when they plunge on the turf. He had taken money out of the till and gone shabbily to prison. Emerging, he looked about for a livelihood, starved, stole, and went to prison again. Next time he came out he found employment with a master who paid little and promised much. Sometimes the promises materialized, and sometimes they didn’t. There were risks to be taken, and—once in a way—a bonus to be earned. He usually had enough to eat, and so far he had managed to keep clear of prison. Sometimes he wondered whether the game was worth the candle.

The Wayshot ladies were having tea. Mrs. Parker would grumble about the rations and tell Delia that make cakes she couldn’t nor be expected to with no more than two ounces a head of butter and six of margarine. “And I never thought to come to bought cakes in this house—and there’s something else we’ve got to thank that Hitler for!”

The bought cakes were enjoyed, though not to be compared with Mrs. Parker’s own, and presently everyone had the same bright thought about getting home before the black-out. Parker was already moving round inside the house closing shutters and drawing curtains, his mind dwelling gloomily on a, to him, impenetrable clue.

Delia stood in the hall saying goodbye, and by twos and threes the ladies emerged, buttoning up their coats and being audibly thankful that it was not raining.

The man in the shrubbery watched them down the steps and across the gravel sweep. They had to pass quite close to him, which was just as well, as the dusk was falling fast. He caught scraps of conversation as they went by: “I wonder if they’ve really quarrelled?” … “Why should they?” … “People do.” … “I’ve got a cousin who never got over it.” … “Well, you can’t trust men.” … “I thought Parker looked very worried tonight. I’m sure he’s got something on his mind.” … “I wonder if we shall ever taste Mrs. Parker’s cakes again.” … “When the maroons sounded for the last armistice I got out my Aunt Selina’s old square-mark Worcester coffee-cups and we had coffee in them. I always said I would.”

There was a large woman in a large hat. There was a square woman in a battered felt. There was a white-haired woman with a scarf round her head. The long ends blew out as she went by, and she put up an ungloved hand to catch them back. Diamonds flashed from a ring. There was a young girl, quite bare-headed. Her hair blew out like the white-haired woman’s scarf, but it was dark hair.

He had begun to feel sure that the parcel was in the house, when Miss Murdle came hurrying after the others. Her pale hair showed up well in the dusk. She was trying to fasten a green scarf over it as she came, but the wind kept twitching it away. She hadn’t fastened her coat either. It hung open over the green dress which she had copied from Delia’s. Slung on her arm was a bulging work-bag of flowered cretonne. It was large enough to hold the parcel. The pointed corner of something which could quite easily have been the box which Cornelius had sent to Antony Rossiter stuck sharply out in the middle of a crimson peony.

Miss Murdle was older than he had expected, but he had not the slightest doubt that it was she whom he had seen in the study with Emanuel Holt. He recognized the green dress, and he thought that he recognized the fair hair. He did not know why he had expected her to be young. He let her get a little away, and then worked down the drive, keeping to the shrubbery, which ran the whole way to the gate. He was careful, but it was more from habit than necessity. The ladies were talking nineteen to the dozen, and would hardly have noticed an elephant behind them.

Fourways was about half a mile from the village. After about a quarter of a mile Mrs. Canterbury turned into the drive of The Grange. Just before the first house in the village a lane ran off to the right. Miss Murdle bade everyone an effusive goodnight and hurried down it. As soon as the others were well away Jimmy followed her.

It was a typical Surrey lane, with a high mixed hedge on either side and some sort of turn or twist to every dozen yards or so. He kept losing sight of her and being afraid that she would dive into a house and get away. She had a light, scurrying walk which took her along at a surprising rate. He took to running when she was out of sight, and arrived finally at the cottage which she shared with a valetudinarian aunt. It was a very picturesque cottage and quite as uncomfortable as it looked. The garden was encircled by an eight-foot holly hedge.

He came up with Miss Murdle at the point where the hedge rose another two feet to make an archway over a small wicket-gate. He had in his hand an implement known as a cosh—in this case an old brown sock with a lump of lead in it.

Miss Murdle never knew what hit her. She fell in a sprawling heap with her head against the right-hand gate-post. Jimmy stuffed the cosh in his pocket and snatched at her bag. The minute he had it in his hands he knew that he had slipped up. The bag held nothing but great rolling masses of wool. What he had taken for the sharp corner of Antony Rossiter’s parcel was no more than two knitting-needles set at an angle. He dropped the bag and took to his heels.

Delia dreamed that she and Emanuel Holt were carrying the parcel down an endless road. They were under a horrid compulsion to balance it between them, each using no more than a single finger. If they let it fall, something would happen to Antony. It was a vague and terrifying dream. She did not know where they were, or why the parcel must not fall, or what would happen to Antony if it did. There was a compelling force of fear, and a cloudy threat of terror to come.

A loud knocking came into the dream and broke it. She rose on her elbow and saw that there was daylight in the room. There was a gleam of sun on the wall by the door, and the door itself was opening to let in Ellen and the tea. Ellen was a Wayshot girl, the daughter of Mrs. Cripps who was cook at the Vicarage. She was a fat, good-natured girl with a rosy face and the thickest ankles in Surrey. She put the tray down on the table beside the bed and said with a gulp, “Oh, Miss Delia, Miss Murdle’s been murdered!”

Delia came bolt upright and said, “What!”

Ellen gulped again. She was frightened, but she was enjoying herself. It is something to be the first to bring bad news.

“Oh, yes, miss, she’s been murdered—on her own doorstep, as you might say. Must have laid there best part of an hour before they found her.”

Delia’s eyes were set in horror. Miss Murdle—why should anyone murder Miss Murdle? It was as mad as the dream from which she was newly come.

“Ellen—how do you know?”

“Miss Hollins with the milk, Miss Delia—the first house she calls at is Dr. Kyrle’s and the cook there, she told her.”

Delia sat staring at the window when Ellen was gone. Miss Murdle—there wasn’t any reason in the world why anyone should murder Miss Murdle—there couldn’t be any reason—she wasn’t going to let herself think that there could—

She pushed the clothes back with a sudden quick thrust and jumped out of bed. As soon as she was dressed she ran downstairs. That is to say that she began by running, but before she had reached the hall the impulse which had prompted her was slackening. Something dragged at her feet and slowed them to a walk. She came to the study and stood with her hand on the door for a moment before she pushed it open and went in. The sun was on the window. The chairs in which she and Emanuel had sat faced one another across the hearth. The chair with its back to the window was here.

She unlatched the casement and threw it wide. The morning air came in, fresh and a little frosty. She put her knee on the sill and climbed out.

Yes, someone had stood here amongst the lilacs. There were footprints, one very deep as if a man had leaned forward on that foot and kept his weight there, leaning forward and looking in. Someone had looked in at the study window.

Delia stared at the footprints with a kind of horrified intensity. It had rained all yesterday morning—real heavy, sluicing rain. The footprints had been made after that, or they would have been blurred and partly washed away. The ground must have had time to dry a little, because the edges were sharp and clear, but it was still soft enough to sink under a man’s weight and leave a deep impression.

If a man had stood here and looked in, what would he have seen? Emanuel Holt and Delia Merridew? He would certainly have seen Emanuel Holt. He would have seen no more of Delia Merridew than her back.… She began to shiver so much that she had to catch at the window to steady herself. He couldn’t have seen her face, because she hadn’t turned round—she was sure that she hadn’t turned round. She had taken the parcel and gone out of the room, and Miss Murdle had taken her knitting-bag and gone out of the house and been murdered. These two things couldn’t have anything to do with each other.

Delia began to feel cold and sick. They couldn’t possibly. Or could they?… With a dreadful clarity it came to her that they could. Miss Murdle hadn’t been killed because she was Miss Murdle. She had been killed because someone thought she was Delia Merridew. No, that wasn’t right either. All the things which Emanuel had told her rushed into Delia’s head—the burglary, the man who wasn’t from the water company, the fuss at the bus stop. She thought, “Miss Murdle was killed because someone believed that Mr. Holt had given her Antony’s parcel.”

She straightened up and began to walk round to the front door. Her legs were shaking. It would be easier to go in that way. But as she came to the steps she met the postman coming down, and wished she had scrambled in at the study window, because of course he would talk about Miss Murdle, and she didn’t feel as if she could bear it. Everyone she met all day long would talk about Miss Murdle, and she felt as if she would end by believing she had murdered her.

The postman began at once. “Shocking thing, this about Miss Murdle—isn’t it, miss?”

There was a stone balustrade on either side of the steps. Delia leaned against the left-hand bottom pillar and said in rather a breathless voice, “What happened?”

This was almost too good to be true. Mr. Cobbett’s bright, alert face became extremely animated. He was too humane to feel pleasure in a murderous attack, but he certainly enjoyed talking about it.

“Struck down without an eye to see, and there she might have laid all night, poor lady, if it wasn’t for Mrs. Fletcher coming by to the farm. Almost trod on her, and got such a turn she isn’t over it yet. And whether Miss Murdle gets over it or not, well, there’s no saying.”

Delia gave a gasp. “Isn’t she dead?”

Mr. Cobbett shook his head.

“Not yet she isn’t, but there’s no saying.”

Delia felt as if a cold and heavy weight had been lifted from her heart. Miss Murdle might have been her dearest friend.

“Oh, Mr. Cobbett—are you sure she’s not dead?”

Mr. Cobbett was quite sure. He had it from Barnett, Dr. Kyrle’s chauffeur-gardener, who in his capacity as a St. John’s Ambulance man had assisted in conveying Miss Murdle to the cottage hospital.

“Looked like a corpse and never so much as groaned when they shifted her, but the doctor, he says very decided, ‘Oh, no, she’s not dead,’ he says, and that’s as far as anyone knows.”

Delia went into the house. Breakfast seemed more possible since she had seen Mr. Cobbett.

Half an hour later she came downstairs wearing a warm tweed coat and carrying Antony’s parcel. She went round to the garage, took out her own little car, and drove into Wayshot with the parcel on the seat beside her. If anyone was watching her or the house, well, let them watch and see what they made of it.

Soon after she had turned out of the drive she heard the chug-chug of a motor-bicycle coming up behind her. Once odd things begin to happen, everything seems odd. She felt a passionate dislike for that motor-bicycle, and a cold drop went trickling down her spine. She was wishing she had brought Parker with her, when, large, solid and noisy the Benting bus came up behind, going a great deal faster than its legal thirty miles an hour. She let it pass her, stepped on the gas, and followed it into Wayshot.

An angel bus, a bus of deliverance—only what was there to be delivered from? She looked about for the motor-bicycle, and couldn’t see it any more. The bus had stopped in front of the Blue Lion, and she had stopped in front of the bank, so there was no reason at all why the motor-bicycle should not have stopped too. It might be parked in Parson’s Alley, or round the corner of the lych gate, or behind the grocer’s van, or it might be lurking on the far side of the bus.

She got out of the car with Antony’s parcel well in evidence and disappeared into the bank. Presently she came out without it and drove back to Fourways.

Chapter Seven

Antony, in the character of an aimless loafer, was drifting down a street towards the waterside. Presently a man whom he wanted to see would come along and pass him a word. That would be the first step towards getting home again. It was a pleasant morning with a soft air off the sea, and the sun coming and going between blue sky and a fleece of cloud. A girl in a blue coat and skirt and a little blue hat came out of one of the small houses on the opposite side of the street. She looked at Antony, and, most unfortunately, at that exact moment Antony thought about Delia and smiled. If it hadn’t been for the smile, the girl might have let him go, but the minute he smiled she was sure of him. She ran across the street and planted herself squarely in his path.

“Why—Antony!” she said in a light, surprised voice.

Antony could have murdered her with all the pleasure in life. Her name was Mina van Eyden, and she was a very pretty girl. He had met her and her sister at a dance when he was over in April. Cornelius had introduced him. They had danced, they had sat out, and he had an idea that at some point in the proceedings he had kissed Mina. The sister wasn’t so pretty, but he had liked her. They had all seen quite a lot of each other for a week. A week in April—it was a long time ago.

Really a bit of the most outrageous luck to run across her here. And what was she doing in a street like this anyway?

He made his face as blank as he could and muttered something in Dutch. Mina van Eyden tossed her head.

“What a silly man you are! Did you really think I shouldn’t know you again? I’ve been visiting my old nurse—and this is the reward of virtue!” She was speaking in English as good as his own.

He shook his head, shuffled with his feet, and muttered a clumsy excuse.

“I do not understand—I speak only Dutch.”

A shade of uncertainty crossed her pretty face. She opened her mouth and shut it again.

Antony pushed past her and left her standing. He hoped that she would have enough sense to hold her tongue.

Mina had no sense at all. She was as silly as she was pretty. She went out to a lunch party and told all her friends she was quite sure that she had met the goodlooking Englishman who was the foster brother of Cornelis Roos.

“Antony Rossiter—that was his name. Cornelis introduced him to me at a dance in April—I forget whose dance it was, but that does not matter. He danced divinely. I have never danced with anyone whose step suited mine so well. It was like a lovely dream.”

Barend Roos, who was a cousin of Cornelius, looked at her gravely. He was a big, heavy man with some resemblance to his cousin. He said, “You are talking nonsense, Mina. How could this Englishman be here now?”

She laughed her high, light laugh. Perhaps some day she would marry Barend, meanwhile it amused her to torment him. She had no intention of being taken for granted.

“Perhaps he flew,” she said, and laughed again.

Her sister Letta kicked her under the table and began immediately to tell a really funny story. Letta was little, and dark, and lively. She was not pretty, but she had brains. When they were walking home, she said,

“Sometimes I think you really are half-witted, Mina, and sometimes I think you do it on purpose.”

Mina smiled sweetly.

“And which did you think it was today, darling?”

“I don’t know. Did you really see Antony Rossiter?”

“I really did—Letta, I really did. He had on such shabby clothes too—just like those loafers you see about the docks. And he wouldn’t speak to me, or anything.” She giggled. “Letta, it was quite terribly funny—he pretended he only knew Dutch!”

Letta beat her hands together sharply.

“You shouldn’t have spoken of it—you shouldn’t have told anyone! Do you want to bring him to his death?”

Mina lost a little of her bright colour.

“Of course I don’t! I wouldn’t have said it anywhere else—we were all friends.”

Letta said low and sharply, “And Barend is a friend of the Nazis—don’t you know that? You said it in front of him.”

Mina slipped a hand inside her sister’s arm.

“Oh, Letta, don’t be angry! I didn’t think—”

“You never do!”

“I didn’t mean any harm.” Her colour began to come again. “Don’t be so gloomy about it!”

“Did Barend ask you any more questions? I saw he got you away into a corner after lunch.”

“Do you suppose he wanted to talk about another man?”

“Did he ask you where you had seen Antony?”

“Yes, he did. But it doesn’t mean anything, Letta.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to you,” said Letta van Eyden.…

Antony was in Anna Brandt’s kitchen when the men came to arrest him. Fortunately for him the door stood ajar to the front room, and the first thing he noticed was that everything had stopped dead. It was a busy time of day and there had been a rattle of cups and saucers, a jingle of knives and forks, and a great hubbub of talk. And then not a sound. Nobody moved, nobody whispered. For all he could have said to the contrary, nobody breathed. To a man on his sort of job anything out of the way spelt danger. He slipped noiselessly into Anna’s sitting-room, and heard behind him a man speaking in the front room. The voice was the voice of authority, and the accent was German. He didn’t wait to hear what it said. He got out of the window and down the yard.

There was a door which gave upon an alleyway. He was halfway to the street beyond, when he heard a shout behind him, after which he picked up his feet and ran. He had no qualms about Anna, because the faster he ran the better it would be for her. If they didn’t catch him, he didn’t see how they were going to be sure that he wasn’t her nephew Piet. Anna could be trusted to do the best for herself and him. But if they got their hands on him, the Piet story would be bound to break down, and then there would be a firing-squad for Antony Rossiter, and at the very least a concentration camp for Anna Brandt.

The devil of it was that the minute you run you give yourself away. The only thing in his favour was that the dusk was falling. He turned a corner, slowed to a walk, and looked for somewhere to take shelter. He was in the street where he had encountered Mina van Eyden. If ever in his life he wished a girl unkissed, it was Mina. If he hadn’t kissed her, she mightn’t have recognized him. He hadn’t the slightest doubt that she had given him away, not out of spite, or because she didn’t like him or the English, but in some moment of pure prattling folly. Well, he had kissed, and she had told, and that was the end of it, and perhaps of Antony Rossiter too. There was no cover in this street, and there was no turning out of it. It wasn’t very light, but it was a long way from being dark enough to hide a life-sized man in an empty street.

These things flashed on the screen of his mind without taking up any time at all. They were all there at once, and nothing to do about it except to keep on moving as fast as possible without breaking into a run.

But in the end he had to run, for the hunt came round the corner and in the forefront of it what he had most dreaded, a man on a motor-bicycle. He ran for all he was worth, heard the loud, angry voice of authority calling on him to stop, and felt a bullet go whistling past his ear. It struck with a plop against the wall of a house. There were more plops, more bullets. The man was a very bad shot. Not altogether happy on his motor-bicycle either—or perhaps that was wishful thinking. He was level with Antony now, but there was a turning at last, a narrow cut between two houses running down to the waterside, walls to the right and left high overhead, cobblestones under foot. A horrid place to be shot in, like a rat in a runway. He felt a stinging pain in his left arm, but he was through.

He came blinding out of the end of the cut, across a dozen feet of cobbled walk and over the edge of it to the deck of a barge. The place was an inlet from the harbour. It was stiff with barges. If he could get across to the other side he would be all right. A motor-bicycle has its limitations.

He scrambled across the first barge and faced a six-foot jump and, with a sickening check, the realization that the second barge was full of Germans. The language of Goethe and Wagner struck like a nightmare upon his ear. Who said German was a beautiful language? Antony Rossiter—before the men who speak it went mad.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the motor-bicycle standing on the cobblestones. The man who had ridden it was standing too—standing and taking careful aim. This time he would not miss. Well, that was that.

The automatic went off with a loud report. Antony yelled, spun round, and went down like a stone between the barges.

“And you say that this man was your nephew?”

Anna Brandt squared her shoulders. That her life hung on what she said, and on whether the men to whom she said it would believe that she was telling the truth, she knew very well. In that knowledge she lifted her head and looked at them frankly. “Oh, yes, he is my nephew Piet Maartens, my sister’s son. Anyone can tell you that. He has been here before—always comes back when he’s sick or broke, and then off again and not a word out of him till next time.”

The man in uniform looked down at his notes. It was true that there was a nephew who came and went, a ne’er-do-well. He said sharply, “If he was your nephew, why did he run away when the police entered your place?”

Anna’s glance never wavered. She said with a slight shrug of the shoulders, “Because he is a good-for-nothing and he is afraid of the police. Only that morning I caught him with his fingers in my till. I told him then that I should send for the police. You know how it is, Mijnheer, one says that kind of thing, but one does not mean it—not when it is one’s own flesh and blood. I meant to give him a fright, that is all. But when your police came in he thought I had sent for them, and he took to his heels.”

Her manner was calm and assured. He looked at her, and she met the look without a tremor.

He said harshly, “Well, you can come along and identify the body,” and watched to see how she would take it.

She took it calmly. If he was her nephew, and a rogue, that is how a decent woman would receive the news of his death.

“Is he dead, Mijnheer?” And, when he nodded, “Well, it is a good thing my poor sister did not live to see the day. I did what I could, but some people are bad from the beginning. He took after his father. Our family, thank God, have always been respected.”

He turned to the door.

“You will accompany me to the mortuary.”

Later on in the day Barend Roos walked in upon Mina van Eyden and her sister. They were orphans, living with an invalid aunt. Heiresses too—he would not do so badly for himself if he married Mina. Besides he was in love with her. Enough to make him dislike the errand upon which he was come and to put as good a face on it as possible. He could have wished that Letta was not there. She did not like him, and he had a feeling that he could manage Mina better alone. When they were married, his sister-in-law would not be very often in his house—he meant to see to that.

He came into the room and stood for a moment without speaking. Then he said in a tone of concern,

“I am afraid something very unpleasant has happened. Do you remember, Mina, at lunch the other day you said that you thought you had seen Antony Rossiter?”

Mina turned pale. She threw a frightened look at her sister and took a step towards her. As she did so she said in a nervous voice, stumbling and hurrying over the words,

“I don’t know—I can’t be sure—I didn’t really know him at all well—it might have been somebody else.”

“But that’s not what you said the other day.”

“Mina is always seeing likenesses,” said Letta.

Barend frowned. “What has happened is this—someone else must have recognized him, because the Gestapo were informed. They went to arrest him at an eating-house kept by a woman who used to be in the Rossiters’ service, but he got away. They made after him, and there was, I believe, some shooting down by the waterside. He tried to cross on the barges and was shot down. The body wasn’t recovered at once, and now there is a question of identification.” He paused, and added in a concerned voice, “I am afraid, Mina, it is going to be necessary for you to identify him.”

Mina gazed at him in a bewildered manner.

“Oh, Barend, I couldn’t—I couldn’t possibly! You don’t mean that I’ve got to go and look at him!”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to. You see, there isn’t anyone else.”

She took another step away from him, her eyes wide with horror. “There’s Cornelius.”

“Cornelius can’t be found.”

“How do you mean, he can’t be found? Look for him.”

“The Gestapo are looking for him,” said Barend grimly. “If they find him, I shall lose a cousin. I’m afraid we can’t count on Cornelius. Come, my dear—I will go with you, and it will all be over very quickly.”

All this time they had taken no notice of Letta. She might not have been there. In herself, in her mind and spirit, she was alone. In that April week which seemed so long ago she had given Antony Rossiter a quick, passionate love. It had never occurred to her that he would love her. It had never occurred to her that she would love anyone else. She was not jealous of Mina, or of any girl whom he might love. She only wanted to love him. And now he was dead—

She came back from the thought to the sound of Mina’s hysterical tears. “Barend, I can’t! It would kill me! I have never seen a dead person! Indeed I can’t!”

A high pride rose in Letta. At least she would see him again. She stepped forward and said, speaking slowly and clearly, “There is no need for Mina to go—she would only faint. I knew Antony just as well as she did. If someone is wanted to identify him, I will go with you, Barend.”

On the way to the mortuary she was wondering what she would say. If it was going to get anyone else into trouble, perhaps she ought to say she wasn’t sure. No, that wouldn’t do, because then they would drag Mina into it. She never thought it strange that Mina, who didn’t love Antony and had betrayed him, should be shielded at her expense.

She sat in the car beside Barend and felt a hatred for him that was like a burning fire. That it was he who had given Antony away to the Gestapo, she was as sure as she was of her own hatred. Never while she lived should he marry Mina—she made herself that promise. And some day she would tell him why, and tell him that the van Eydens didn’t marry traitors.

When they came to the mortuary she went calmly in and looked at a dead, drowned face. She looked at it for a long time. There was a disfiguring wound on the temple. It was rather a horrible sight, but she looked steadily and long. She might have been meeting a lover loved and lost. She might have been taking a last farewell. Her small, dark features were icily composed. Her eyelids were cast down. Only the dead man could have seen her eyes. If there was a dangerous spark in them, only he could have told. She said at last in a clear, controlled voice, “Yes, it is Antony Rossiter.”

Chapter Eight

Delia felt much happier after she had deposited the parcel at the bank. She sang all the way home, and nobody followed her, which just showed. When you have been feeling very young, inexperienced, and uncertain, it is heartening to find that you have done the right thing. She forgot about Miss Murdle for nearly a quarter of an hour, after which she had an attack of remorse and rang up the cottage hospital. It was a relief to hear that Miss Murdle really wasn’t dead.

It was after she had got this off her mind that she began to notice Parker’s gloom. He came and went like a mute at a funeral. When Delia went into the dining-room to see if the flowers would do, he was putting away spoons and forks with the air of one who is about to drop the unavailing tear. After five years of co-operation she had not the heart to leave him to it. The flowers would do, so there was really no hurry. She said, “What is it—are you stuck?”

He turned round gratefully with a tablespoon in his hand.

“Completely, Miss Delia—all hung up for one word. You don’t happen to think of one seven letters long meaning ‘a bright bridge that sounds cold’? Neither Mrs. Parker nor me can call anything of the sort to mind, and it’s not the kind of thing that a dictionary would be any help for neither.”

“A bright bridge?”

“Sounding cold. Sounding nonsense, is what Mrs. Parker says, but I say there’s always something behind these teasers when you get to the bottom of them and as it were clear them up. Of course it stands to reason there must be hundreds and thousands of bridges which me and Mrs. Parker have never so much as heard mention of—nor likely to.” His voice plumbed the depths. “That’s what makes it so disheartening, because even with a college education, which was a thing that never come my way, there ’ud still be all the bridges in a lot of foreign countries which the best education that money could buy mightn’t just happen to bring to your notice, so to speak. I can’t help feeling it’s a very disheartening circumstance, Miss Delia.”

Delia said, “’M—” and nodded. “Wait a minute—something’s hovering. Did you say it sounded cold?”

“Yes, Miss Delia.”

“And seven letters?” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Then I’ve got it—at least I hope I have! But don’t be too buoyed up, in case there’s a snag. Would Bifrost do?”

Parker looked doubtful. “Is there a bridge by that name?”

She nodded again. “A rainbow bridge. You see, that fits in with its being bright, and the frost part of it sounds cold. It was the bridge which led up to Valhalla where the old Norse gods and goddesses lived—Thor and Odin, and all that lot.”

“Indeed, miss? Now Mrs. Parker and me couldn’t have been expected to know that.”

“I had a book of stories about them when I was a little girl.”

She was going to say that Antony had given it to her, when she remembered that she wasn’t to talk about Antony. It made him seem very far away.

The day went on. Six people rang up to say wasn’t it dreadful about Miss Murdle, and what would Mrs. Felton do without her niece. Delia said perhaps she wouldn’t have to do without her, but most of the ladies who telephoned inclined to a gloomier view. Wayshot had never had anything like a murder before, and was all out to extract as much drama from the situation as possible.

The last person to ring up was Cynthia Kyrle. She giggled and said, “Suppose it had been me—”

“Why should it have been you?”

Cynthia giggled again. “But, darling, why should it have been Miss Murdle? Do you think it was a crime passionel?”

“I think you’re a perfect beast to talk like that!”

“I am rather. But she isn’t going to die, you know—the parent says so. He says she’s got a very hard skull. But why on earth should anyone try to crack it—that’s what I want to know. Now if it had been me, everyone would have said that it served me right for picking up young men I knew nothing about. They don’t think it’s safe to know anyone unless all your grandfathers and great-grandfathers were at school together. Everybody else is a homicidal lunatic, or a triple bigamist, or something like that. Nobody would have been at all surprised if I had been found weltering in a lane.”

Delia hung up. She was very glad to hear that Miss Murdle wasn’t going to die, and that being that, she didn’t want to think or talk about her any more. She had been clever and resourceful, she had done the right thing, and everything was going to be all right. Uncle Philip would get well, Antony would come back, the war would come to an end, and they would be married. She began to plan her wedding dress.

The afternoon was slipping into dusk when Parker opened the drawing-room door and announced Mr. Brown. Delia came out of her dream and got up. She saw a big, heavy man coming to meet her. Parker shut the door, and he said in very good English with just a trace of accent, “How do you do, Miss Merridew—you are Miss Merridew?”

“Yes.”

He bowed and put out his hand. Delia felt obliged to take it. It was large, and strong, and cold.

“Miss Merridew, now that your servant has gone, I must tell you that my name is not Brown. I am Cornelius Rossiter. You will, perhaps, have heard of me from my brother Antony.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You will wonder why I have called myself Brown. It is because I am over here on some very confidential business. It was thought best that I should not use my own name—you can understand that.”

“Oh, yes.”

He made her feel about six years old—big, smooth, easy, with that impassive face.

The light, expressionless eyes looked at her as if she wasn’t there. They made her wish to be anywhere else.

“Won’t you sit down, Miss Merridew? I have come to see you about Antony. I am afraid that I have not got very good news.”

Delia took a step back and sat down upon the chair from which she had risen. She had sat there and planned her wedding dress. He had come to bring her bad news about Antony.

He drew up a chair beside her and sat down, all without hurry. Delia pressed her hands together and waited for him to speak. Her eyes were fixed upon his face. He saw them dilate and darken. He said, “I am very sorry indeed to have to bring you such news. Antony was like a brother to me. His parents were the only father and mother I can remember. I have always looked upon him as a brother.”

He saw her lips part, but no words came. She looked at him. He said, “It grieves me very much to have to tell you that Antony is dead.”

Delia sat quite stiff and still. There was no motion or life left in her. She did not feel anything at all. She sat there and looked at Cornelius. Presently he said, “I think you were friends. You will want to know how it happened, and I am afraid I cannot tell you very much, because I am ignorant of what you know already.”

That was how he spoke—a little more formally than an Englishman, but quite fluent, quite easy. It was quite easy for him to tell her that Antony was dead.

He went on in that easy way.

“It is like this, Miss Merridew. Antony came over to Holland to see me. It was very dangerous for him to come—you can understand that. I was so far from expecting him that I had, a little while before, arranged for a parcel to be taken to his address in England—I should say to the address of your uncle’s firm. But by the time it arrived everything had changed. Antony was not there to receive it. He had come over to Holland to see me, and most unfortunately he was recognized. He tried to escape arrest and was shot.”

A quiver went over her at the word, but she did not feel anything yet. She had stopped thinking. If she began to think again, the word would have a dreadful meaning. She quivered under its impact, but she was too numb to feel anything. She went on looking at Cornelius with dark, dilated eyes.

He was speaking again after a slight respectful pause.

“I have been more fortunate, since I have arrived here safely. I went at once to call upon your uncle in his office, but I found that it was in ruins and he himself in hospital, permitted to see no one. After some enquiry I arrive at a clerk, a Mr. Holt, who informs me that he has delivered my parcel to your charge in Mr. Merridew’s house. It contains papers of the utmost importance. You will please believe that it distresses me to trouble you now with my affairs. The papers are very important for others as well as for myself. You will not, I hope, think me wanting in consideration if I ask that you will give me my parcel.”

Delia sat on the edge of her chair, quite still, quite straight. Her hands were in her lap. They held one another so tightly that the fingers were numb. There was no more feeling in them than there was in her heart. Antony was dead, and Cornelius was asking for his parcel. But she couldn’t give him the parcel. She had taken the box down to the bank and left it there. She must tell him that, and then he would get up and go away and leave her alone.

Her lips were stiff when she tried to speak. The sound they made wasn’t like her own voice at all. She heard it say, “I can’t give you the parcel. I put it in the bank, and the bank is shut.”

“The bank at Wayshot?”

“Yes.”

Now he would get up and go away. There was nothing for him to stay for. The parcel was in the bank. But he didn’t go. He kept that impassive look upon her and said,

“That is very unfortunate. Those papers are necessary to my business. I cannot afford delay. Every moment is of importance, but if the parcel is in the bank, there is nothing that can be done tonight—you are right about that. I suppose the bank will not open until ten o’clock tomorrow. Well, we must just make the best of it. I will come back again in the morning, with your permission at a little before ten—shall we say about twenty minutes to ten—and then I need not trouble you any more now.”

He really did go then.

Delia sat down in her chair. She went on sitting there, quite straight, quit still, quit numb.

When Parker came in to draw the curtains he said gratefully, “It fitted a treat, Miss Delia. Mrs. Parker said to thank you special from her, because she hadn’t had a wink of sleep for two nights. The fact is, miss, I don’t seem as if I could rest when I’ve got one of those things on my mind, and Mrs. Parker being a light sleeper, she says I don’t give her a chance, and she’s very grateful indeed.”

He switched on a standard lamp and drew the heavy curtains at the three long windows. They were the new curtains which she had chosen when she left school—dull rose-coloured velvet, very soft, with a bloom on it. The lamp had a shade of ivory vellum. There was a soft light all round it. Delia sat too far away for it to shine on her. The rest of the room was dim and shadowy.

Parker finished with the curtains and went away. It was dusk outside, and presently it would be dark, and then it would be light again and dark again, and light once more—endless days fading into endless nights, dawn and sunset alternating, winter and spring, summer and autumn, year in, year out, for unnumbered, unnumbered years. Not one dawn when she would wake and say, “Antony will come today.” Not one night when she would lie down to sleep and think, “Antony will come tomorrow.”

No day, no single day of all the years, when she would see him and hold him again.

She thought about these things. They did not hurt her yet. She said them, but she did not feel them. She said, “Antony is dead,” and she felt nothing. It began to frighten her that she felt nothing.

What she did feel at long last was a deathly fatigue. When she got up from her chair she was so tired that she could hardly stand. She went slowly up to her room, and told Ellen that she was going to bed. Ellen brought her a hot-water bottle and hot soup. The hot-water bottle was comforting, because she was very cold. She drank the soup because Ellen said Mrs. Parker would come up herself if she didn’t.

A little later when Mrs. Parker, soft-footed as fat women so often are, stood at the doorway looking in, Delia lay drowned in sleep, the bedside lamp, with its tilted shade, throwing a golden glow across her golden hair. Mrs. Parker didn’t hold with sleeping with a light on your face. She tiptoed across the room and turned it out.

It was a long time after this that the telephone bell rang. The sound came into the deep dreamless place where Delia was and made an echo there—the faint, far echo of a bell ringing in another world. As the stillness broke, she came up out of that drowned sleep into the place where the bell was ringing. For a moment she did not know where she was. Then the bell rang again close beside her, and she put out her hand to the switch of the bedside lamp. The golden glow of which Mrs. Parker had disapproved shone out, making a warm, comforting circle all about her.

The telephone was at the head of the bed. She lifted the receiver and brought it to her ear, acting mechanically, as you do when your body is awake but your mind not fully conscious. She said, “Hullo!” and heard the voice which she had thought she would never hear again.

“Is that you? Darling, is that you?”

She drew as deep a breath as if she had really been drowned and was coming back to life. On that deep, gasping breath she said his name, “Antony!”

It reached him, but only just. He said, “Better keep off names. I’m back.”

Delia began to shake.

She said in a voice that caught and stumbled, “He said—you were—dead.”

“I very nearly was. But who said so?”

“Cornelius.”

“What?”

The shaking had increased. Her teeth chattered as she repeated the name.

“Cornelius. He came. He said you were—dead.”

“Darling, hold up! What’s the matter?”

“I thought you were—”

“Do I sound dead? Brace up! I’ve got to get this straight, and I can’t if you jitter. Did you say Cornelius was over here?”

“Yes. He came to see me. He said—you were dead.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday. At least I suppose it was yesterday. I don’t know what time it is.”

“Just after eleven, and a good loud air raid going on. Can you hear it?”

The air raid didn’t seem to reach her. She said, more steadily, “Then it wasn’t yesterday. It was today—after tea. He told Parker his name was Brown, but as soon as we were alone he said he was Cornelius, and that he had come to tell me you were dead.”

At the other end of the line Antony whistled.

“Cornelius? Well, well! We do get about, don’t we?”

Delia’s voice came back to him, a cold, trembling ghost.

“I thought it was true.”

“My poor sweet—how hellish! Darling, do brace up—I’m awfully alive. I can’t bear it when your voice wobbles and I’m not there to kiss you. Stop it at once and tell me about Cornelius! Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mean he just blew in and said I was dead and blew out again?”

Warm waves of happiness had begun to flow over Delia. Every time Antony spoke she felt them come flooding in. They took away the numbness. They made her feel light and joyful. She gave a little unsteady laugh and said, “Not quite like that. He said he wanted his parcel.”

“His parcel?”

“He said he’d sent you one. I don’t know how. I thought you couldn’t send parcels from places where the Germans were.”

She heard him laugh too.

“You can’t take passenger tickets either, my sweet—but as I said, we do get about.”

“Well, he said he sent you a parcel to Uncle Philip’s office and it arrived just when they were bombed, but Mr. Holt saved the parcel.”

“Cornelius told you all this?”

“No, darling, Mr. Holt told me that part. He brought the parcel down to me because he thought perhaps Uncle Philip had a safe here, and he’d been burgled and hustled at a bus stop, and Mrs. Holt had had a sham man from the water company trying to get into the house, so he thought the parcel had better be in a safe. And somebody has been nearly murdered here since I had it—”

“Darling—what do you mean?”

Delia was seized with a belated discretion.

“I don’t know whether I’d better say it on the telephone.”

She heard him whistle again. He said, “Holt ought to be shot! Why didn’t he put it in the bank?”

“Uncle Philip told him to keep it.”

“So he dumped it on you! Where is it now? Have you still got it?”

Delia hesitated. “In a way. I put it in the bank after the murder—only she isn’t dead.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Well, I’d better not say. I mean it’s too long to tell you about. But Cornelius is coming back in the morning, and he’ll want me to get the parcel out of the bank and give it to him.”

There was a pause before Antony said, “Who is it addressed to?”

“‘Antony Rossiter, Esq. By hand.’”

“Then I rather think it belongs to me. And I think—” his voice faded out and then came back again strongly—“I think I’d like to have a look at it before Cornelius does another disappearing act.”

“He says he’s in an awful hurry. He says it’s full of frightfully important papers and he must have them at once.”

Antony laughed.

“Cornelius doesn’t always speak the truth.”

Delia said “No—o—” in rather an odd voice.

She heard him laugh again.

“Look here, I’ll tell you what—you get on to the quarter-to-nine bus and come along up to London. There’s still quite a lot of it left. I’ll meet you at Hyde Park Corner if I can. If I’m not there, come to the club at one, and if I haven’t been able to meet you, there’ll be a note or a message. I’m sorry to be so vague, but I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Anyhow it will get you out of the way. Cornelius can’t bully you if you’re not there. And”—his voice changed and deepened—“do I want to see you!”

Delia said, “Do you?”

He tried to tell her how much.

Chapter Nine

Antony came out of John Norton’s flat and walked along a dark street. There was a deafening noise of gunfire and a lot of very disturbing flashes. One moment it was so dark that you didn’t know whether you were coming or going, and then all at once the sky was all white fire, with a zigzag outline of roofs, houses, and spires standing black against it. Some of the houses were only one wall thick, and the light came through the empty splintered holes where the windows had been. It was strange walking, and easy to lose your way, because so often it was a corner house which had fallen in or stood there stark and changed past recognition.

He came at last to the block where Colonel Garrett had his flat, and found it intact. One of the uglier buildings in a city where the extremes of beauty and ugliness live side by side, it might, for any aesthetic value it possessed, have very easily been spared. The small, lovely church a mere stone’s throw away lay crumbling. The lightning of the guns flared through its ruined arches.

Antony ran himself up in the lift and rang Garrett’s screaming bell, the noisiest in London. He was wondering whether Cornelius would have been before him here, and what Frank’s reactions would be at receiving him from the dead.

A bolt creaked, a key turned, and the door swung in. There did not appear to be any reactions. Garrett merely said, “Oh, you’re back, are you?” banged the door behind him, and walked over to the sitting-room. The roar of the barrage had died down. The place seemed unearthly still—still, very pleasantly warm, and as usual fuggy, with a not disagreeable blend of tobacco-smoke and wood-smoke. There was a blazing log on the fire—Garrett always had very good fires—and there were drinks on the table by the window.

Garrett appeared to be drinking cocoa laced with whisky out of an immense cracked china cup with a pattern of pink rosebuds all over it.

Antony went over and helped himself. When he turned with the drink in his hand Garrett was frowning at him over the edge of his own distressing brew.

“Well—what do you call yourself, coming along at this hour and breaking up my night’s rest? I’ve got an office, haven’t I? Who do you think you are?”

Antony laughed and clinked his glass against the rim of the flowery cup.

“Well, officially I’m a corpse.”

“In whose office?” said Garrett.

“Oh, the Gestapo. They think they got me. If they didn’t think so, I shouldn’t be here now. Officially I’m a corpse, and I gather that Cornelius has been spreading the glad news over here. In fact I was prepared for a rather more enthusiastic welcome.”

Colonel Garrett took no notice of this. He took a pull at the cocoa, slammed the cup down on the mantelpiece, and said, “What’s Cornelius doing over here?”

Antony shrugged. “Cutting his losses, I imagine.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Not here. I saw him in Holland.”

“Well, what about it? Go on—you’ve got a tongue haven’t you? What’s he been up to?”

Antony approached the hearth. He set down his glass on the mantelpiece and leaned an elbow beside it. The warmth of the fire came up gratefully. He was alive, and he might so easily have been dead. He glanced up, caught Garrett’s savage stare, and began to speak.

“Well, I saw him. He was just the same as he always is—pleasant—friendly—non-committal. He told me he was clearing out, he gave me to understand that he intended to come and see you, and he said he had sent me a parcel.”

Garrett exploded. “A parcel?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll come back to it if you don’t mind. I gathered that he was clearing out because his boss in Berlin had decided that he was double-crossing him.”

Garrett drove at the fire with his heel. The log crashed down. “He owned to working for Berlin?”

“Oh, quite frankly—that’s how he got his information, he was as open as the day about it—but all pour le bon motif. He said you knew.”

Garrett nodded. “Knew he was in with them. The point was—is, for that matter—who is he really working for? Does he fob them off, or is he fobbing me off? Or is he just playing his own dirty hand and not giving a damn for either side? That’s what you were sent to find out. We might get badly let down if that last batch of stuff he sent isn’t straight.”

Antony said, “Yes.” He was frowning too, in an effort to bring all of Cornelius into focus—not just the words he used, but the way he used them, the way he looked, the impression made at the time. He went on slowly, almost haltingly, in response to a jerky prod from Garrett.

“Get on, can’t you! If they suspect him in Berlin, why isn’t he dead? Can you tell me that?”

“Yes, I can. That’s to say, I can tell you what Cornelius told me. He was had up on the mat and told he was for it. According to him he had expected something of the sort and was ready for it. He said, or he says he said, ‘All right, but if I’m for it, you’re for it too.’ He then went on to explain that he held a trump card, this being a dictograph record of some very indiscreet remarks which the little man had made about the Führer when he was out of favour in the spring. You’ll remember the story. Con says he went down to a lady friend’s, got drunk, and said a lot more than was good for him. Con told him he had the record of what he had said, and told him he had arranged for it to be forwarded to Goering if anything happened to Cornelis Roos. He also mentioned that he was liable to die suddenly if he was beaten up or anything like that. It’s quite a tale, isn’t it?”

“Do you mean to tell me that he got away with a bluff like that?”

Anthony’s shoulder jerked. “He said he did.”

“And you think he was telling the truth?”

“Well, not all the time. The bit about Goering sounded like bluff to me, but—again according to Cornelius—the little man swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I think—I thought at the time—that Con really did have an interview on something of those lines. He was pleased with himself when he was telling me about it. That’s a thing you get when you’re talking to anyone—something they can’t hide—don’t try to as a rule—and—well, it was sticking out all over him how clever he’d been, and how he’d scored them off.”

Colonel Garrett was filling his pipe.

“Sure it wasn’t because he thought he’d scored you off?”

“I don’t think it was that. I’ve known Con all my life, and I’m sure he was pleased about the bluff he’d put up. Mind you, I don’t know how much of it was bluff, but I imagine that the little man must have been very indiscreet. If he was drunk he may not have known exactly what he did say. But if any of the story is true—and I think it is—it’s quite clear to me that he isn’t going to stick at much to eliminate the evidence, and that is where we come to the parcel.”

Garrett drew at his pipe.

“Glad we’re coming to something!” he said.

“Sorry, sir—I had to lead up to it a bit. You see, Cornelius says he put the cylinder with the record of what the little man really did say into a nice strong box and had it smuggled over here addressed to me.”

Garrett snatched his pipe from his mouth and said, “What?”

Antony smiled his charming malicious smile.

“It goes on being quite a tale. The parcel arrived at Philip Merridew’s office about five minutes before it was wrecked by a bomb. It was addressed to ‘Antony Rossiter, Esq. By hand.’ One of Mr. Merridew’s clerks rescued it. Now, Frank, this is where things begin to hot up. The clerk’s name is Emanuel Holt. He lives in a dull, peaceful road called Adelaide Terrace, but the minute he gets my parcel it stops being peaceful. He gets burgled—house ransacked, nothing taken. Fortunately, being one of the ultra-conscientious kind, my parcel accompanied him and his family to their shelter—the burglary was of course during the usual air raid. Next day someone tries to get into the house while he is out, says he is from the water company, is repelled by Mrs. Holt, who rings up the company and finds they haven’t sent anybody. Emanuel then gets fussed and carts the parcel down to Wayshot.”

“Wayshot?”

“Philip Merridew lives there when he isn’t in hospital. Emanuel seems to have had some idea that there would be a safe there. There isn’t. He gave Delia the parcel and returned to Adelaide Terrace, since when there seems to have been an attempt to murder someone at Wayshot, and Delia has put the parcel into the local bank.”

Garrett drew at his pipe. Then he said in his nastiest voice, “Been busy since you got back—haven’t you! How do you know all this?”

Antony blushed. Under Garrett’s stare he could feel himself doing it. About ten years dropped from his age as he said, “Delia told me—Delia Merridew.”

Garrett withdrew his pipe slowly. The effect was that the decks were being cleared for action. He repeated Antony’s last words on a growling note.

“Delia Merridew—Delia Merridew—she told you!” The growl broke into an angry bark. “And what did you tell Delia Merridew? Can you tell me that?”

“I didn’t tell her anything.”

“Oh, I suppose she rang you up! In Holland? Or in the middle of the North Sea?”

“No, I rang her, sir—when I got back, just before I came here. We are engaged.”

Colonel Garrett made the brief explosive sound which is sometimes written “Tchah!” It expressed impatience carried to the point at which violent action may be expected.

As a matter of fact nothing happened, except Garrett’s views on matrimony and the crass, mindless folly of the young men who plunge into it, with particular application to Intelligence work and Antony Rossiter. The words in which these views were expressed were as offensive as conviction and years of practice could make them. If Antony had not heard it all before, he might have been goaded into losing his temper. As it was, he achieved a respectful silence, until with a final “Tchah!” Garrett turned to replenish his revolting cup. The cocoa gushed from its chipped brown jug, two lumps of sugar were flung rattling in, and an extra dollop of whisky tipped from the bottle.

Antony said mildly, “All the same, sir, if I hadn’t rung Delia up, we shouldn’t know that Cornelius was over here.”

Garrett drank and spluttered into the cup. Antony was left with the impression that he had just said “Tchah!” again. He waited to see if there was going to be anything more. Apparently there was. In the manner of a dictator presenting an ultimatum Garrett demanded, “What did she tell you, this Delia Thingumabob?”

Antony maintained his air of respect.

“Merridew, sir. She told me a Mr. Brown had called on her yesterday, some time in the late afternoon. As soon as they were alone he dropped the Brown and told her that he was Cornelius, that I was dead, and that he wanted the parcel he had sent me. He appeared to have tracked it from Mr. Merridew’s office to the Holts, and from the Holts to Delia.”

Garrett took another draught.

“And I suppose she gave it to him,” he growled.

“Oh, no—the bank was shut. You forget I told you she’d put it in the bank.”

“Best place for it! What’s Cornelius want it for anyhow?”

Antony relaxed against the mantelpiece.

“Well, there you have me. The whole point of sending the parcel to me was to have it out of the Gestapo’s reach whilst Con got away to America—the idea being that if anything happened to him or there was an attempt at any funny business, the parcel with the cylinder inside would be forwarded to Goering. There seemed to be an idea that he would be delighted to get his hands on it. But why Cornelius didn’t leave well alone and get on with going to America, I don’t know.”

Garrett shoved his cup on to the mantelpiece with a thrust that set it rocking.

“What’s he doing monkeying round after this damned parcel? Why hasn’t he been to see me? He’s been working for me, hasn’t he? And now he cuts me out and goes chasing about the country—” He broke off. “Here, he’s not a British subject, is he? Your father didn’t adopt him legally?”

Antony shook his head. “It wasn’t worth while. You see, they were always in some Dutch possession, and Cornelius went into the firm. He never was in England except when my mother died and he came over for the funeral.”

Garrett grinned. “Well, that simplifies things. If he’s an alien we can pull him in and ask him what he’s up to. Sounds fishy to me—the whole damn story about the parcel sounds fishy. And I’d like to have a look at it. The bank was shut yesterday, but it’ll be open again at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. What’s your young woman going to do if he comes along and asks for his parcel then?”

Antony smiled. “She won’t be there, sir. I told her she’d better catch an early bus and come up to town.”

Garrett picked up his cup, tossed off the horrid dregs, and set it down again with a clatter.

“What’s wrong with your going down to Wayshot?”

“I don’t know—I could of course—”

“Much better,” said Garrett. “Go down, see Cornelius, tell him the parcel’s addressed to you and you intend to see what’s in it. Bring him back here. If he makes any bones about it, ask him if he wants to be arrested. What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, I shall have to ring Delia up again.”

Garrett grinned maliciously. “Not from here you don’t, my lad! Cut along back to wherever you’re staying and do it from there. By the way, where are you staying?”

“John Norton lets me use his flat. He’s away, but I’ve got a key.” He scribbled on a bit of paper and laid it on the mantelpiece. “That’s the address and the telephone number. When do I rejoin?”

Garrett stooped to pitch another log on the fire.

“When you’re told to,” he growled.

Antony came out into the street and began to walk in the direction of John Norton’s flat. The distance to go was about three quarters of a mile. It was as dark as low-lying cloud and as an hour past midnight could make it. The nearer guns had been silent all this while. It had been quiet up there in Frank Garrett’s room, but here in the open the air sounded with a distant vibration and the fanning of wings a long way off. A faint flicker of light came and went on the unseen horizon, as sheet lightning comes and goes behind the hills on a summer night, making the darkness visible and fading into it again.

He found his way pretty well. It was when he turned the second corner that he became aware of the footstep behind him, and that it had been behind him for more time than he could swear to. He thought he must have been hearing it for quite a while before he began to think that it might be following him. There were fifty yards to go to the next turning. The footstep went behind him all the way. He judged it to be a matter of ten yards behind.

He took the corner, felt a railing on his left, and followed it to where it was broken by one shallow step and three deeper ones. At the top of the steps he stood pressed against the smooth paint of a door and waited for the footstep to overtake him. It stopped at the corner. Obviously the man stood there and listened—a leery fellow. He ought to be hearing Antony’s footsteps going away from him down the street. When he didn’t hear them, what was he going to think, and what was he going to do?

He stood there quite unseen, not even a darker smear on the black dark that was the corner.

There was one of those flickers of light. Antony had the momentary impression of a tall man standing there just as he had pictured him—listening. He thought there was a movement. He thought the man looked quickly right and left. And then the flicker was gone and it was all smooth dark. The footsteps had begun again. Coming this way? No—going straight on across the road. The sound flattened a little on the wood blocks of the roadway.

Antony was just about to make after them. It was in his mind to see who had followed him from Garrett’s flat. If it had not been for the telltale listening pause at the corner of the street, he might have let the whole thing go as an accident. Now he thought he had better follow it up. He came down out of the porch, and was just going to cross the road, when someone forestalled him. A man came round the corner at a surprising speed and ran right over the crossing. That is to say, Antony judged that it was a man. He could see nothing to confirm his judgment, nor hear very much either. Whoever it was, he was softly shod—gym shoes perhaps. He made hardly any noise at all. Once over the crossing, he must have checked, for the sound was entirely lost.

Antony felt a lively curiosity. He crossed over himself and heard away in the distance the footsteps of the man who had followed him and whom he now followed. Between them he thought someone else moved soft foot. A queer game. The first man had been following Antony Rossiter, but who was the second man after—Antony Rossiter, or the man who had been following Antony Rossiter? That the second man was after one of them he had no doubt. Gym shoes are not London wear, and a man doesn’t run in the dark unless he is either running after someone or running away. Since there was no sign of pursuit, Antony took the first possibility to be the more likely of the two.

He was wondering how long a dance he was going to be led, and whether the game was worth the candle, when with a roar the guns opened again. A sudden blinding flash lit everything in a white dazzle of light—the sky all fire; roofs, houses, the whole unseen mass disclosed; window glass glittering; the street open, with its pavements on either side of the brown road stretching on, stretching endlessly. And, a dozen yards in front of him on the left-hand pavement, the man who had followed him from Garrett’s. It was all over in a moment which closed with a deafening crash. The ground shook. Antony was flung into the road. As he picked himself up he could hear the rumble and rattle of falling masonry.

He stood up and got his breath. A second crash sounded from farther away. The flash was not so bright. There was no figure on the pavement. There was a smell of smoke and dust in his throat and nose. The noise of the guns was deafening. The flashes came and went. The man was gone.

But he had seen him, and he was as sure as he had ever been of anything in all his life that it was Cornelius.

The plane had passed over. The sound of the barrage died. He began to run, his fingers digging into his pocket for a torch, his mind full of that clear picture of the street flashlighted from end to end. He had seen Cornelius a dozen yards ahead of him, but he hadn’t seen anyone else. Where was the man who had passed him running, the man with the gym shoes?

He came up to the place where he had seen Cornelius, switched on the torch, and sent its little pencil of light stabbing here and there. The street, like the one he had just left, was a monotony of houses, each with its railing, its steps, its porch.

He moved the light to and fro. Four steps up. A green front door, a brass knocker, and the number 7. The door was shut. He moved on. Same thing, but blue paint—No. 9. But 11 broke the pattern. A black door stood ajar, a black figure sprawled at the threshold. The torch picked it up without detail—the shape of the head, no face showing, the hat crushed sideways, an arm flung out with the wrist dangling over the top step. The torch stiffened in Antony’s hand. The light caught on a mess of broken glass, white and staring red. He bent, held it closer, and saw the cuff shot back from the wrist, and blood running down on to the glass.

And with that the man began to stir, to groan, and to struggle up. There was a mutter of Dutch, slipshod and indistinct. Antony stuffed the torch in his pocket and went to help him.

“That you, Con?” he said. “I thought it was. Here, hold up—it’s Antony, alive and kicking. Did you think I was dead? Delia said you did.”

He had him on his feet, when the door swung widely back, striking the wall. There was no light within. Something was swung at Antony, he didn’t know what—something heavy and hard—perhaps a golf-club. It missed his head and caught him a crack on the shoulder. His arm went numb and dropped to his side. He let go of Cornelius and jumped back. There was a scuffle. Somebody swore in Dutch—he thought not Cornelius.

The beam of a torch caught him in the eyes, and as he ducked away, there was a forward rush. A fist took him on the jaw and he went backward over the steps to the pavement. The door banged, but he didn’t hear it.

Garrett had on the legs of his pyjamas and was reaching for the jacket—maroon and yellow stripes on a ground of washed-out blue. The telephone bell rang. Since the war he had an extension by his bed, a course recommended for years by all his friends and stoutly resisted. He spoke rudely to the bell, dragged the striped abomination about his shoulders, and snatched the receiver. “Who is it?”

“Antony. Sorry to bother you, but—”

“I’m going to put some clothes on.”

Antony could hear the receiver clatter down upon the table. After an interval the line crackled. Garrett barked,

“Well—what is it? If you don’t want any sleep, I do!”

“Yes—I’m sorry—but I had to let you know. When I left you I was followed.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. I think it was Cornelius.”

Garrett jerked another “Sure?” at him, and Antony said,

“No, I’m not sure—I just think it was. And I think there was someone following him. I’ll tell you what happened—”

When he had finished Garrett grunted.

“Stupid business! Any damage?”

“Lump on the jaw, and another where my head hit the pavement. When I came round there wasn’t anyone about and the house was all shut, so I thought I’d better come back here and let you know. The address is 11 Silverthorn Road. If Cornelius is there, I thought—”

Garrett said sharply, “Wait a minute!” Then, after a pause, “What do you make of it? You say someone was following Cornelius. Do you think he knocked him out?”

“I’m afraid I took it for granted that he’d been knocked out by the blast. It threw me into the road. There was loose stuff and rubble in front of the house, and a lot of broken glass. He’d bled on it from a cut on the wrist—that was the first thing I saw when I got my torch on him. I hadn’t time to sort things out whilst they were happening, but going over it afterwards, it struck me that Cornelius might have had some idea of coming to see you. He told me he was going to, you know. Well, he may have seen me as I came out. If he was in the back of the hall as I came through, he would have seen me without my seeing him. Perhaps he just thought there was something familiar about the way I walked—I don’t know. You must remember he’s been thinking I was dead. Or he may not have been following me at all. He may just have given up the idea of seeing you tonight and been on his way home. No, that won’t do, because when I cut off out of the straight and lurked in a porch and he missed me, he stood waiting at the corner for quite a time. That’s where the other fellow got a chance to catch up. I never saw him, so I can’t describe him, but he was running—he must have eyes like a cat—and I’m sure he was after Cornelius. Someone might be interested in keeping tabs on him, you know.”

“I don’t know anything!” said Garrett crossly. “Nor do you—you’re just guessing. You don’t know that it was Cornelius, you don’t know that he was following you, or that anyone was following him. I suppose I shall have to send someone to look at the house, after which we shall probably know less than we do now. If it was Cornelius, he won’t be there. He’s got an assignation with your young woman tomorrow morning, hasn’t he? Get off to bed, and mind you’re down there on time, or he’ll steal a march on you. You can ask him all what about it when you see him. And if you ring me up again tonight, I’ll have you framed for bigamy, or burglary, or something that’ll give you a good long stretch!”

Chapter Ten

There are days when everything goes right, and there are days when everything goes wrong. In the nursery Antony remembered stress being laid upon the importance of getting out of bed with the right foot first. The problem, unsolved down to what press photographers call present day, was whether the word “right” in this context should be taken to mean the right of right or left, or the right of right and wrong. He had always had a sneaking feeling that to make it mean that you should get out of bed with the right foot rather than the left was altogether too easy, but that if there was a right foot and a wrong foot, and you didn’t know which was which, it was too difficult to cope with at all.

This particular October morning was, from the start, one of the wrong-foot days. To begin with, John Norton’s alarm-clock, set to go off at 6:30, produced a delayed-action alarum at half past seven.

Antony woke with a start, took a horrified look at the time, and jumped to the telephone. He had got to stop Delia catching the 8:45 bus from Wayshot. He got through in ten minutes, which wasn’t too bad.

“Antony—what is it?” She sounded frightened.

“Nothing—I mean nothing to worry about. It’s only you needn’t come up to town, because I’m coming down.”

“Oh, Antony!”

“Yes, I’m looking forward to it myself. Now listen! I’m catching the half past eight bus—at least I hope I am—so I ought to be with you before ten. But if Cornelius turns up first, don’t you budge. Tell him I’m coming, and tell him you’re going to wait for me. After all, he did address the parcel to me, and I’m going to have a look at it. Now, have you got that? Tell him I’m coming, and don’t move an inch without me. I must fly.”

He dressed in a hurry, found shaving a painful operation, boiled himself a couple of eggs, swallowed a hasty cup of tea, and found on arrival at Victoria that the bus on which he had counted had not a seat unbooked. This meant going to Waterloo, catching a train, and hoping for the best. By this time it was as near nine o’clock as makes no difference.

The hoped-for best remained an unrealized dream. Owing to damage on the line, the train meandered by unfamiliar ways to a sticking-point where the passengers were decanted.

Antony looked at his Watch and walked grimly to a garage where, according to a helpful porter, he might be able to hire a car. He found the proprietor talkative, melancholy, and overflowing with tales of the car he might have hired if he had come this way a couple of days ago. He was a large, pale man with a large, pale hand and a reddish watery eye. He laid the hand on Antony’s arm and showed him the crater which the bomb had made. “Biggest anywhere this side of London—that’s what everyone says that’s seen it. Two Morrises—well, they were all over the place—about as much of them left as you could put on a sixpence. Direct hit, that’s what they got. Then there was the Humber limousine—a very nice job, that Humber—special body, only done five hundred miles—on commission sale for the Honourable Mrs. Pumphrey—smashed up so you wouldn’t have known her from a Ford. The old Daimler—well, I reckon she got off cheap—glass all smashed to blazes and the near front wheel buckled—”

Antony struck in firmly.

“Wouldn’t she run if you put on the spare?”

The man blinked, Antony was being sudden—he liked a leisurely client. He had yet other harrowing details to impart; the tale of dead and wounded cars was by no means told. Still business was business. He admitted reluctantly that the Daimler would probably run.

“No reason why she shouldn’t, so far as I can see. She’s old, but she goes. Proper engineering jobs, Daimlers. And as luck would have it, we didn’t lose our petrol—missed the pumps nicely. Would you be wanting to go far, sir?”

“Wayshot. I’m in a hurry.”

“Matter of fifteen, sixteen miles.” He lifted his voice and called, “Bill!”

The proceedings were leisurely. It was half past eleven before they got going. Bill was a red-headed lad just short of eighteen. He had the largest, boniest wrists, and the largest ginger-coloured freckles that Antony had ever beheld. He drove casually, brilliantly, dangerously, and never stopped talking about aeroplanes. When Antony admitted to being in the Air Force, he asked so many questions that he very nearly forgot to drive at all. A nice lad, with a cheerful spirit and nerves of iron.

It was a cold, raw morning with a mist drawing up off the low ground. Delia looked out of the dining-room window and saw it blanketing the fields on the other side of the road. The willows at the foot of the slope had only their heads showing. Mr. Canning who owned the land had had them pollarded, and they looked for all the world like enormous cabbages.

She glanced at her watch. It was nearly half past nine. If the bus was punctual, Antony might be here in less than half an hour, but if the fog was bad nearer London, the bus might very easily be late. She had decided that it was only a local mist and would soon go, when Parker came in to tell her that Mr. Brown was in the drawing-room.

She was young enough to make a face. She didn’t want Cornelius to arrive first. She wanted. Antony. Things were going cross. Cornelius was early, and Antony might be late. She put the best face she could upon it and walked into the drawing-room.

Cornelius was certainly a big man. She hadn’t really taken him in yesterday, but she looked at him now appraisingly, and decided that he was too large to be comfortable—big hands and feet, shoulders too high and square, and a face like the side of a house. He would have been a good deal astonished if he could have guessed her thoughts. Without taking an undue interest in his own looks, he had always considered that they did him credit.

He took stock of Delia as she came in, and was immediately struck by the alteration in her appearance. The girl he had seen yesterday was a pale statue cast in a mould of grief. This girl bloomed with an agreeable morning freshness. She wore a tweed skirt and knitted jumper in a smoky shade of blue. Her hair shone like pale gold. The eyes he had seen fixed in despair were as bright as happiness could make them. He was considerably taken aback, and for the moment at a loss to account for the change.

Delia herself supplied him with an answer to the puzzle. Without any preamble she came out with what was uppermost in her mind.

“Oh, Mr. Rossiter—he isn’t dead!”

Her meaning did not reach him. His mind was full of its own picture and could not at once relinquish it. He said, reacting only to her first words,

“If you do not mind, it will be better if you call me Mr. Brown.”

Delia could have shaken him. She came a step nearer and raised her voice.

“You said he was dead. But he isn’t—Antony is alive!”

A shock is a shock whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. Joy has been known to kill. Whatever this big man felt, he kept it to himself. If Delia had been watching his hand she would have seen it stiffen and clench, but she was looking at his face, which remained quite without expression. He spoke at once with some severity.

“What are you talking about?”

Delia had the feeling that she had tried to shake him and failed. She beat her hands together and said in her high, clear voice,

“Antony—your brother Antony. He isn’t dead—he’s alive.” The colour had come into her face. Just to say it made her feel radiantly alive herself.

He said, “Who told you that?” and she cut in joyfully,

“He did—Antony did. He rang me up—so you see he couldn’t be dead, could he?”

If he had any natural feeling he did not show it. His tone was hard and businesslike as he demanded,

“Are you sure that it was Antony?”

Delia laughed. She had been wanting to for some time. Laughter had been bubbling up inside her for just no reason at all but being alive—she and Antony.

She wanted to laugh, as a bird wants to sing on a sunny morning.

“Of course I’m sure! I talked to him—he rang me up. Aren’t you glad—aren’t you pleased? He’s your brother. Don’t you mind about his not being dead?”

He put up a hand as one does to a child. His accent became a little more marked as he said,

“Naturally. How can you think anything else? But I am finding it hard to believe that it is true. I think you are deceived, or that someone is trying to deceive you. You see, I saw him head.”

Delia looked at him with astonishment and a little scorn. What was the good of saying that sort of thing? But there was a ring of conviction in his voice. He really did think that Antony was dead. But how stupid—how stupid! She heard herself saying it out loud.

“But that’s stupid—it doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t have seen him dead, because he’s alive, and I’ve just been talking to him.” She broke out laughing again. “And it’s quite mad to go on arguing about it, because you’ll be able to see for yourself any time now.”

He repeated her words.

“See for myself? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean he’s coming down here.”

“Impossible!”

The word seemed to break from him.

“Why should it be impossible? It isn’t. Look at the clock—it’s a quarter to ten. He was catching the half-past-eight bus, and that means he’ll be up at the house before ten.”

She had moved him at last, but she was not to see how. He turned away from her and went to the window. Standing there with his back to her, looking out as if he was looking for Antony’s arrival, he gave her an odd impression of disturbance. There was nothing that she could take hold of, but she had a sense that the room was full of anger. It came against her like waves.

The impression passed as he turned round and came back.

“See,” he said—“you are going to think this strange, but I cannot help it. I find it difficult to believe that Antony is alive, because, as I tell you, I saw him lying dead. He had been shot—he had been in the river three days. He was certainly dead. And if there was a mistake—I tell you he had been in the river, and there was also a face wound—if Antony is really alive, I must tell you that I cannot meet him. I am here on dangerous business, and it is impossible for me to meet him. It would not be safe for either of us.”

Delia’s gaze was more critical than he cared about. A young girl should not be critical—she should believe what she is told. Delia had a most unbelieving air. Her voice was clearer than ever as she said,

“But I told him you would be here. He is coming down on purpose to see you.”

He had come up quite close now and was standing over her.

“I do not wish to see him,” he said. His voice was louder than was at all necessary. “I do not wish to see him, and I do not intend to see him. I will ask you to put on your hat and to come with me now to the bank.”

“It doesn’t really open till ten,” said Delia. She was beginning to be angry herself.

“By the time we get there it will be opening.”

“I would rather wait for Antony.”

His voice became even louder.

“I have told you that I will not wait for Antony! You will come with me now!”

Delia stepped back from him, her temper sparking. If Cornelius thought he could come into her house—well, Uncle Philip’s house, but it was all the same thing—and throw his weight about like this, he would just have to be shown. She proceeded to show him.

Her head came up, her eyes brightened. She smiled and said coldly and sweetly,

“I think we will wait for Antony.”

Just for a moment something looked out of his eyes. She thought, “He’d like to murder me,” but instead of being frightened she had a sense of exhilaration. The look passed so quickly that she might have thought she had imagined it. He said with a change of manner,

“I have offended you, and I do not want to do that. If I had more time I could explain, but time is just what I have not got. My business is very pressing indeed, and to carry it out I must have the papers which are in that box—I should have had them yesterday. If I cannot be in London with them by just after eleven, there is great danger that the whole business will fail. And that means men’s lives—my own—others whom you do not know—perhaps Antony’s. I cannot explain, but that is how it is. For God’s sake, Miss Merridew, come with me now and give me my parcel out of the bank! Antony would be the first to say, ‘Do it.’”

Delia’s eyes sparkled.

“What Antony did say was that I was to wait for him here.”

“You will take the responsibility of those lives—of Antony’s life?”

Delia stuck her chin in the air.

“I’m going to wait here for Antony,” she said in a sweet, frosty voice.

He could recognize defeat when he met it. He could not force Delia into his car, hale her to the bank, and coerce her into handing over a parcel which was addressed to somebody else. There was really nothing he could do but cut his losses and avoid disaster by clearing off before Antony turned up. He bowed correctly in the foreign style—odd to have a man bowing to you when you felt quite sure that he would like to cut your throat—reached for his hat, and then walked to the door.

Chapter Eleven

Delia stood a long time at the drawing-room window looking for Antony. It was a cold day, but she opened the casement wide and leaned out, listening for the first found of his feet on the gravel of the drive. But half an hour went by and there wasn’t any sound to catch. One of those horrible niggling whispers began in her mind—“He said he’d be here before ten o’clock. It’s half past ten. Why doesn’t he come?” She countered that firmly with “The bus is late,” and then, unable to leave well alone, ran into the study and rang up Mrs. Giles.

Mrs. Giles was the grocer’s wife. She stood behind her counter from opening time till closing time, with an hour off between one and two for a dinner cooked by Mr. Giles after he had done his rounds. Mr. Giles was a bright, breezy little man with a light hand for pastry and a profound admiration for his wife. “There’s nothing else Mrs. Giles can’t do, Miss Delia, but she can’t cook, and that’s a fact. Dreadful thin we was getting, the two of us, and the business going downhill at a gallop, because a head for figures is what I’ve never had nor never shall. So I took and put a stop to it. I’m wonderful fond of cooking, you know, and if there’s a business head in England, Mrs. Giles has got it.”

So Mrs. Giles stood behind the counter, and nothing that came and went through Wayshot escaped her eye. She knew when Mrs. Canterbury had a new hat, and when Mrs. Barrock turned her dark grey tweed as a war economy. She knew when Cynthia Kyrle had a new young man, and could tell you to within a week when the affair had reached its climax and was due to fade. She knew just by looking at them who had had letters from sons and husbands, and who hadn’t. She knew when one of the Ladies’ Guild was late for her turn at doing the altar flowers and polishing the candlesticks which had been presented by Mr. Canning in memory of his son who was killed in the last war.

She was therefore entirely the right person to ask about the bus. If it hadn’t come, she would know.

Delia rang up, and then felt a sick hesitation, because if the bus had come—if it had come—

And it had. Mrs. Giles said so at once with the bright voice in which people say devastating things when they have no idea that they are devastating.

“Punctual to the minute,” said Mrs. Giles, holding the receiver to the ear which hadn’t pink cotton wool in it, but never taking her eye off the street. Even as she spoke, she could see Gladys Parkin making eyes at Mrs. Canterbury’s new manservant, who had fallen arches and couldn’t get passed for the Army. A real fast girl, that, and she’d be thankful to anyone who got her out of the way before Tommy came home. Boys are that silly—

Having Tommy in her mind, she couldn’t let Delia go without talking about him.

“We haven’t had no more than the one postcard since he was taken prisoner, Miss Delia, and of course they can’t say nothing to set your mind at rest. Says he’s well, but Tommy ’ud say that if he was dying. And what’s on my mind, Miss Delia, is do they give him enough to eat whether or no. There’s no saying, is there?”

Delia took time from being frightened about Antony to be sorry for Mrs. Giles. Tommy had been such a fat boy, and rather a mother’s darling.

“They’re supposed to have the same as the German soldiers.”

“Supposed,” said Mrs. Giles darkly. Then, in a brisker voice, “I was wondering if you would ask Mr. Antony next time he’s down this way. Flying over Germany like they do—”

Delia saw her chance and got in.

“He’s coming down today, and of course I’ll ask him, but I’m afraid he won’t know very much. Mrs. Giles—he didn’t get off the bus, did he? Because that’s how he said he was coming.”

“Nobody got off—only Ivy Parkin, Mrs. Parkin’s daughter that’s come back home to live—the one she says got married in London.”

Delia hung up. If he hadn’t come by the bus, then he hadn’t. And in a way it was a relief, because there were quite a lot of good reasons why anyone might miss a bus. She went back to the drawing-room window.

At eleven Mrs. Barrock rang up to say all over again what a shocking thing it was about Miss Murdle. Pressed by Delia, she conceded that Dr. Kyrle had said she was getting on very well.

“Of course she remembers nothing. I hope you are very careful to be in before dark. It is exceedingly unpleasant to think that we have a homicidal maniac roaming through our lanes. Quite like Jack the Ripper—which of course you won’t remember anything about, but my father used to talk about him. And they never found out who he was. That was the really horrible part of it—he might have been anybody. As I said to the police inspector, ‘If this man isn’t traced, suspicion might fall upon anyone in Wayshot—even Colonel Barrock and the Vicar if it were not for the fortunate circumstance that they were together in the Vicarage study going through the Clothing Club accounts at the time when the outrage must have taken place.’ And do you know what the Inspector had the hardihood to say? He winked—actually winked at me—and said, ‘Well, I hope you’ve got as good an alibi, Mrs. Barrock.’”

Antony arrived at five minutes past twelve, by which time Delia had made up her mind that something had happened. When the Daimler drew up she was on the steps, and when Antony jumped out she ran down them into his arms. Bill grinned, and Ellen, at the spare-room window, goggled with all her eyes. Here was a little something to go home with this afternoon. Like as not Mrs. Parker ’ud bite her nose off if she mentioned it in the servant’s hall, but nobody can’t tell you what to talk about on your afternoon out, and it’d be a real old treat for Mum—kissing and hugging right out there in the front where anyone could see them.

Delia didn’t care who saw them. If Mrs. Barrock, and the Vicar, and Mrs. Canterbury, and Mrs. Giles, and the bank manager, and Uncle Philip, and all her snoopiest relations had been standing there in rows, she would have hugged and kissed Antony just the same, because he had been dead and he was alive again, and what did anything in the world matter except that? His arms were round her—his strong, living arms—

And then all at once the grinding of brakes. Another car drew up behind the Daimler and there alighted from it, majestic in a fur coat, Cousin Leonora Maddox.

Delia had once had a nurse who was very fond of talking about tempting Providence. You tempted Providence if you assumed that your birthday was going to be fine, or if you said, either aloud or privately in your own mind, things like, “I don’t care what happens, I’m going to do it.” Here, right on the doorstep, was one of those manifest judgments foretold by Nanna. Of all her relations Lady Maddox was the one Delia would least have desired to see. For one thing, Cousin Mervyn Maddox was her co-guardian with Uncle Philip, and though he was as mild and easy-mannered a person as you could wish to have for a co-guardian, Cousin Leonora was not. As long as she had three daughters of her own at home, the menace was remote, but after Delia had been bridesmaid to Dilys two years ago, to Enid six months later, and to Bronwen last August, it had begun to impend.

Lady Maddox advanced with dignity. She was tall. She had what is politely described as a presence. Her fur coat resembled those you see illustrated in catalogues and wonder why anyone had enough money to buy them. Of course Cousin Mervyn was frightfully rich—

By the time she reached them Antony and Delia had stepped apart, but it was quite hopeless to suppose that she had not seen them locked in one another’s arms. There are things you can explain away, and there are things you can’t. When you cannot possibly explain something, it is better to ignore it. Delia kissed her Cousin Leonora, who turned a frosty cheek and then put up a lorgnette and trained it on Antony. When Delia had murmured his name, Lady Maddox made a very slight inclination of her head and, linking her arm in Delia’s, walked up the steps and into the house.

“My dear child! What are you doing here all alone? I have only just heard of Philip Merridew’s accident.”

“He was bombed,” said Delia, putting up a smoke-screen.

It was disregarded.

“That doesn’t matter in the least. He is not here, and you should not be here. I shall take you back with me after lunch. Who did you say that young man was?”

“Antony Rossiter. Uncle Philip was his guardian. He’s been here always. You must have heard of him.”

The lorgnette came up again. The lenses made Cousin Leonora’s eyes look quite incredibly sharp and hard. “My dear Delia! You’re not going to tell me he’s staying here!”

Delia was aware that her colour was flaming, but she was not going to deny Antony. She said in her clearest voice,

“No, he isn’t. But we’re engaged.”

“With Philip Merridew’s consent?”

Really Cousin Leonora had a most unpleasant voice.

“It’s only just happened. He’s been too ill for us to tell him. He loves Antony. He’ll be most awfully pleased.”

Lady Maddox emitted a sound expressive of contemptuous dissent. “And your other guardian—it did not occur to you to consult your Cousin Mervyn and myself?”

It hadn’t, and Delia said so.

“I should like to go upstairs,” said Lady Maddox. Her tone suggested forcible self-control.

By the time she arrived in Delia’s bedroom a change appeared to have come over her. She removed the coat and a kind of fur turban, dabbed at her immaculate permanent wave, and turned a smiling countenance. Ginger hair, presence, and all, she was a handsome woman when she smiled.

“Well, my dear, he’s quite a nice-looking young man, but we won’t talk about getting engaged. That’s what I always said to my girls—‘Run round with all the boys you want to and have a good time, but when it comes to getting married, well, that’s a serious affair.’ And I was brought up to believe that it was a family affair, and not just a personal one. With your looks and your money, Delia, you can do a great deal better than this young Rossiter. Lewis West was immensely struck with you at Bronwen’s wedding. I thought you hardly realized it at the time—and one is so taken up at a daughter’s wedding—but I saw him last week and he asked after you in the most particular way and said if he got his leave in November, would I ask you down? He really didn’t attempt to conceal how much he was interested.”

Delia cast back her mind and tried to disentangle Lewis West from the crowd at Bronwen’s wedding.… Rather a plain, silent young man with doggy eyes and a knack of being always at one’s elbow—She must have looked blank, because Cousin Leonora was saying with an edge on her voice,

“Really, Delia! Don’t you ever notice anything? Most girls would give their eyes to have Lewis notice them, and you behave as if you didn’t even remember him!”

“I didn’t at first,” said Delia, “but I do now. There were such a lot of people at the wedding. He was nice.”

The last sentence slipped out. She bit her tongue too late. He was nice, but how fatal to tell the truth if it was going to encourage Cousin Leonora.

“Nice!” said Lady Maddox in an exasperated voice. “He’ll be Duke of Westchester when his uncle dies, and that may be at any time now! Do you mean to tell me you didn’t even realize that? I can tell you, you’re a very lucky girl. He’s never taken any notice of anyone before. And as steady as a rock—quite taken up with housing, and social welfare, and all that kind of thing until the war—and I must say the Army has brisked him up quite a lot. I can’t think of anyone who would make you a better husband.”

Delia began to laugh. She couldn’t help it. Poor Lewis West! And he’d probably never thought of her at all. She laughed, and she said,

“Why, I don’t even know him, Cousin Leonora. And I’m going to marry Antony.…”

It was not until the lunch bell rang that Lady Maddox descended or permitted Delia to descend. On any other occasion the time would have passed pleasantly enough. Lady Maddox was a fond grandmother. She had snapshots of Dilys’ boy and Enid’s twins—all three plump, pleasant babies. If it hadn’t been for the thought of Antony champing downstairs, Delia would have taken a more whole-hearted interest. There was also all manner of family gossip. What Cousin Leonora didn’t know about her relations could be put on the point of a needle. Serena Luton was engaged. George Fotheringay—very old family, but no money. Old Cousin Harcourt had been snatched from a marriage with his nurse at positively the eleventh hour—“A most determined red-haired woman. The poor old man was quite terrified of her. He is ninety-odd, but it cost the family five hundred down to get rid of her. If he’d been five years younger they’d have had to double it, but they threatened to dispute any will and bring an action for undue influence, so she caved in. Actually, I believe, nothing could have stopped her getting whatever it is widows get under the new law, but mercifully she didn’t know that.”

The tale went on. Tiger Beauchamp had got the Distinguished Flying Cross, and one of Great-aunt Harriet’s gardeners had been given the George Medal—“Something to do with removing a bomb, but Aunt Harriet says he’s such a stupid boy, she doesn’t suppose for a minute he knew that it might go off. He’s the one with freckles and a grin. Your Cousin Mervyn has taken in forty secondary schoolboys and four masters at Plas-y-Maddox. I can’t think what the carpets will be like. I must say they are very well behaved and no trouble at all. I expected the staff to give notice, but mercifully they didn’t, and then I found out that Mervyn had raised all their wages. Without one word to me, and quite obstinate when I spoke to him about it.”

Delia wanted to laugh about Cousin Mervyn being obstinate. So frightfully good for Cousin Leonora. She wondered why he didn’t do it oftener. He had put down his foot about the girls’ names. His family might spring from the soil, whilst the Lutons went back a thousand years, but his eldest girl would get his mother’s name, and the other two would be called after his grandmother and the little sister who had died when she was ten years old and whom he never forgot. If there had been a son he would have been Gwilym, but there was no son to carry on the name of the grandfather who had driven a pick in a Welsh mine and conducted a prize-winning choir. His business was sacrosanct. Once, and once only, had Leonora attempted to interfere.

No one knew quite what had happened, but she never did it again. For the rest, he was a little, dark, wiry Welshman with a fine baritone voice, and he still liked singing hymns on Sunday evening.

It was one of the nicer things about Cousin Leonora that she let him do it, except when there was a very unsuitable house-party and the girls went on strike.

Lunch was not all that Delia had fondly hoped it was going to be. Instead of talking to Antony she had to listen to Lady Maddox. So had Antony, who couldn’t be expected to feel even a remote interest in the probable condition of Plas-y-Maddox after housing evacuees in bulk. Interest or no, the subject served until it was succeeded by the full history of a dispute with the local council.

They took coffee in the drawing-room. It had been obvious to Antony from the word go that he was not going to be allowed to see Delia alone. He could, of course, have walked her out of the room, but Lady Maddox was quite capable of walking after them. There was also the impressive fact that if Philip Merridew was to die, Lord Maddox would be Delia’s sole guardian for the next two years. Besides, it is a mistake to quarrel with your wife’s relations if you can possibly help it. He exerted himself to charm Lady Maddox, and succeeded in raising the social atmosphere quite sensibly above freezing point.

At half past two he rose to go. Delia cast him a despairing look. He shook hands with Lady Maddox.

“I really came down to discuss a small business matter with Delia. It’s about a parcel which my brother sent me, and which she has very kindly been taking care of. Will you excuse me if I just ask her about it?”

Lady Maddox inclined her head.

“Certainly. It is not, I imagine, a private matter.”

The unregenerate man in Antony would have liked to say, “Yes, it is, and be damned to you!” He curbed the base instinct, murmured “Oh, no,” and turned to Delia.

“Did Cornelius come down?”

“Yes, he did.”

Delia was feeling quite sick with disappointment. Antony had only kissed her once—they had a million things to say. How could she tell him about the parcel with Cousin Leonora listening to every word? She was in despair. It just couldn’t be done.

Antony’s eyes seemed to be saying “Buck up!” but it was no use. His voice said quite cheerfully,

“Did he want you to go to the bank and get the parcel out?”

“Yes, he did. And when I said you were coming down, he said he couldn’t wait.”

“Oh, he did, did he? What time was that?”

Delia said, “A quarter to ten,” and saw his face change and become alert and interested.

“How sudden of him! After all, the bank wouldn’t be open till ten o’clock. It sounds almost as if he didn’t want to see me.”

“He didn’t—he said so.”

He paused for a moment, then said, “Well, well—” and held out his hand.

“Goodbye, my dear—take care of yourself.”

He was gone, and Delia could have cried with pure rage. Instead she had to gird herself in defence of her liberties, which, it now became plain, were being threatened in a most menacing fashion.

It was quite impossible according to Cousin Leonora that she should remain in her present unchaperoned position—“Quite out of the question.” And when Lady Maddox said “Quite out of the question,” it made the words sound as if they were spelled in capitals at least two feet high. Unfortunately, owing to the influx of secondary schoolboys—and staff—Plas-y-Maddox would really be hardly suitable. “In fact, for all I know, your Cousin Mervyn may have doubled the number by now—he is in that kind of mood. But perhaps Cousin Emilia—”

Delia shuddered to her very core. Cousin Emilia was Cousin Leonora’s eldest unmarried sister. She lived a hundred miles from anywhere, and always kept a young guest from feeling bored by setting her to darn the sheets and pillowcases of an outworn day. If she wished to escape Cousin Emilia she must fight.

The conflict was just beginning to die down, when Parker came respectfully into the room.

“If you please, Miss Delia, Mrs. Parker wished me to ask if you would see her for a moment.”

The interruption was really not unwelcome to either of the protagonists. Lady Maddox had been astonished at the quality of Delia’s defence. Having been forced to a compromise, she welcomed the break. Delia provided her with the Times, and followed Parker across the hall and through the green baize door which led to the kitchen wing.

At the end of the passage the door to the pantry stood ajar. Delia entered, heard it close behind her, and for the second time that day ran into Antony’s arms. They hugged each other like a couple of children—a radiant little girl Delia, and a mischievous schoolboy Antony. And then grown-up lovers again—and held one another and kissed, but not for long.

“Angel, we must be quick, or she’ll track you down. I say, darling, she’s grim! She’s not going to drag you away and herd you with the schoolboys, is she?”

Delia gave a soft, breathless laugh.

“She isn’t sure if there are enough beds, because there might be more coming and Cousin Mervyn won’t listen to reason. And she wanted me to go to Cousin Emilia in the wilds and darn all the ancestral linen—you have to if you go there, and if you don’t do it nicely you have to unpick it and do it again—but I’ve fought her off, and I’m to have Simmy here instead.”

“Who’s Simmy?”

“Miss Simcox. She was the girls’ governess—Dilys and Enid and Bronwen, you know—and she’s rather a pet, so I don’t mind. Anyhow, anything is better than Cousin Leonora snatching me away and worrying the life out of me about marrying Lewis.”

“What!”

Delia rubbed her cheek against his softly.

“She wants me to marry Lewis West because he’s going to be a duke.”

“My sweet, you’d make a very pretty duchess.”

“I should make a perfectly idiotic duchess.” Her voice breathed heartfelt conviction. “Look here, let me tell you about the parcel quick. Mr. Holt brought it down here and gave it to me after having his house burgled like I told you. Well, I was having the work-party, and I think somebody followed him down and looked in through the study window—I could see the mark of his boots there next morning. And I think he didn’t see my face, only the top of my head and the colour of my dress, but I think he saw me go out of the room with the parcel. And you know Miss Murdle—you know how maddening she is about copying me—well, she had on the green dress she’d made to be like mine, and—oh, darling, they found her in the lane down by her cottage with her work-bag all turned out.”

“Dead?”

She felt his hands tighten on her.

“No, she wasn’t—I mean she isn’t. I mean Dr. Kyrle says she’ll get over it, but only because she’s got such an extraordinarily thick skull. But, Antony, I did feel awful, because I’m sure the man who did it was after the parcel, and he thought he’d just seen Mr. Holt give it to her.”

Antony gave a long, low whistle.

“So what?” he said.

“So I took it down to the bank next day,” said Delia. “And a man followed me on a motor-bicycle and saw me go in. I rather dangled that parcel at anyone who might be watching to see what I did with it, because I thought it would settle their minds to know that it was safely in the bank. But—”

There was the tinkle of a bell from the row of bells overhead. With a soft flurried knock Mrs. Parker surged into the room.

“Oh, Mr. Antony—the study bell. Parker was to ring it if her ladyship came this way, and he won’t be able to hold her not more than a minute.

Delia was kissed and Antony out of the window before the words were out of her mouth.

Lady Maddox found her young cousin in a housewifely conference about ration cards. There were a few gracious words on the excellence of the lunch, after which there was a stately return to the drawing-room.

“What a high colour that poor woman has,” Lady Maddox remarked as they crossed the hall. “Really quite alarming, but I suppose it comes from bending over the kitchen fire.”

Delia supposed it did.

Chapter Twelve

Antony went back to town, dropping the Daimler en route. As soon as he got back to the flat he rang up Colonel Garrett in his office.

“Would you like me to come round and see you, sir?”

“No, I shouldn’t!” The celebrated bark was at its rudest. “I’m busy! Have you got the parcel?”

“No, sir.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“That’s what I thought I might come round and tell you about.”

“All right, all right—come along!” The thump of the receiver jarred the line.

Antony put on his hat and went out again.

He found Garrett terrifying a new typist. Girls in the office being his pet abomination, he was not attempting to restrain himself. The wretched child gave Antony a look of passionate gratitude and fled. It was now so late that with any luck she might hope for a night’s interval before she had to face any more of Colonel Garrett’s dictation.

Antony shut the door after her, observed that girls worked better when they weren’t bullied, and waited for the explosion. But Garrett only looked surprised.

“Who bullies them?”

Antony grinned.

“You do.”

Garrett made the most frightful of his repertory of faces.

“Did you see her nails—half a yard long and bright scarlet? Revolting!”

“The girl’s a nervous wreck. She’ll have hysterics on you right here if you go on shouting at her like that.”

Colonel Garrett’s eyes became fixed in a steely gaze.

“Come here to lecture me on my office manners?”

“No, sir.”

“Then sit down and tell me about this damned parcel!”

Antony told him.

“I thought it wasn’t any good having a pitched battle—attract too much attention for one thing. Lady Maddox is just the sort of woman who goes screaming all over the place about how I’d dragged her husband into some mysterious affair about a parcel and all the rest of it, and I thought I’d rather leave it over until she was gone. I can go down again tomorrow.”

Garrett gave a grunt.

“Comes of having young women mixed up with things—that’s what I say. Fatal! And they bring them into my office! Tchah!”

“Tchah it is! You don’t suppose I want Delia mixed up in this rotten show? I’ll go down tomorrow and bring the parcel back. What I can’t understand is, why wouldn’t Cornelius meet me? He went away at a quarter to ten, as soon as he heard I was coming down. Why? We parted on the most friendly terms. Why won’t he meet me?”

Garrett looked up sharply.

“Wants to get away with the parcel. Don’t want to come and see me. Not too comfortable in his mind about what he’s been up to and what we’re likely to do about it. That’s my guess. Have you got a better?”

“No, I don’t know that I have. It feels funny—that’s all. What about No. 11 Silverthorn Road—did you get anything there?”

Garrett humped a shoulder.

“What did you expect? Told you there wouldn’t be anything.”

“And there wasn’t.” There was the faintest tinge of irony in Antony’s voice.

“There was an empty house. Plenty of empty houses knocking about these days. Old crater out behind and not much back wall left. Plenty of that sort of thing too. Furniture’s been cleared out.”

Antony frowned.

“Then they weren’t living there?” Garrett shook his head. “Then what were they doing—waiting for Con to come along? It might be that. We don’t know where he was living, but it looks as if they did. Looks as if they knew he’d be passing along Silverthorn Road and they’d got someone tailing him just to make sure. Then there was that crump. I wonder what was due to happen if Jerry hadn’t dropped a couple just then. I wonder what did happen—” His voice trailed away.

Garrett looked up at him sharply.

“What’s eating you? Nothing happened to Cornelius anyhow. Turned up bright and punctual on the girl friend’s doorstep this morning, didn’t he?”

Antony nodded.

“And didn’t wait to see me—left like a streak of greased lightning as soon as he heard I was coming down. I can’t fit that in, Frank. It doesn’t feel right.”

Garrett leaned back in his chair. He sucked at his foul old pipe. Then he said out of the side of his mouth,

“Don’t want to meet me. Don’t want to meet you, because he’s afraid you’ll hale him here to see me. Wants to get off with the bit of blackmail he’s got in that parcel.”

Antony leaned both hands on the table and said,

“Why?”

Garrett stared at him.

“How do you mean, why?”

“Why should he want to get away with the parcel? It was sent to me for a reason, and the reason still holds good. He wanted someone to hang on to it whilst he made his getaway. He’s told them that if he was laid by the heels or molested in any way, the parcel would get going—and from what I’ve heard of the doings over here it looks as if they believed him. Somebody’s been trying very hard to get hold of that parcel, but I can’t see why Cornelius should want to get hold of it. It seems to me that as far as he’s concerned it’s all right where it is.”

Still out of the side of his mouth, Garrett said,

“Forgetting about being dead, aren’t you? Told the girl friend you were a corpse, didn’t he? Quite a good reason for retrieving his parcel, I should say. If you were dead, he’d want to find someone else to hold the stakes whilst he cleared out.”

The shadow passed from Antony’s face. He straightened up.

“I suppose he would. He wants to get away to America. Can it be done?”

Garrett shrugged.

“Don’t ask me. Has been done. Lots of things get done that no one knows anything about, but you needn’t say I said so. I want to see him first, that’s all I know, but up to the present you and this girl of yours are the only people who’ve seen hair, hide or hoof of him. I’d have sent someone down to Wayshot if I’d thought you were going to make such a mess of getting there.” He grinned malevolently.

“If you’d given me a nice motor-bike and some petrol, there wouldn’t have been any mess,” said Antony with his charming smile. And then, “Con oughtn’t to be difficult to find—he’s too big to be lost in a crowd.”

“How much accent has he got?”

“Oh, none—none at all. He’s not even too correct, which is where most Dutch people slip up. You see, he grew up speaking nothing but English. It’s not a language he’s ever had to learn.”

“Oh well, we’ll find him,” said Garrett easily. “I’ve been on to the Dutch about him. They say he dropped in on them from the blue—wanted a permit to stay here until he could get off to America. That was a couple of days ago. He left an address. Small hotel in Bayswater.”

“Well?”

“Not particularly. He only stayed there two nights.”

“Which nights?”

“Didn’t come back last night. Left his bag. Nothing in it. Toothbrush. Pyjamas. Change of linen. All new.”

“But, Frank—”

Garrett stared.

“Don’t be a fool! He went down to Wayshot.” He removed his pipe and banged it on the edge of the table. “Wake up, young ’un! Whatever happened or didn’t happen at 11 Silverthorn Road last night, Cornelius rolled up to see your Delia Thingumajig this morning.”

The natural colour came back to Antony’s face.

“So he did. Just for a moment—” He broke off, laughed, and said, “The name is Merridew.…”

Antony went to bed and slept the perfect dreamless sleep. His mind emptied itself of all its worries. Delia was not being snatched away to stay with antagonistic relations. Cornelius was alive and kicking. Garrett was supplying him with a car and petrol for tomorrow’s excursion. All was for the best. And so to sleep.

He did a ten-hour stretch, and woke to the sound of the telephone bell. Delia’s voice, all in a soft hurry.

“Antony, is that you? Did I wake you up? Antony, she’s come!”

“Who has?”

“Simmy. You know—Miss Simcox, Cousin Leonora’s old governess. She’s come!”

“At this hour in the morning?”

“No, last night. Darling, Cousin Leonora is a Master Mind—she is really. And what Uncle Philips’ telephone bill is going to be like just won’t bear thinking about.”

“Don’t let’s think about it,” said Antony.

He heard her laugh.

“I’m not. But, darling, you should have seen her—Cousin Leonora, I mean. She just sat there in front of the telephone, and first she rang up Bronwen for Simmy’s address, and when Bronwen hadn’t got it she rang up Dilys in Cheshire, and when she found out that poor Simmy was having a holiday with an old pupil near Oxford she rang her up and routed her out and told her to hire a car and come here straight away, and never budged till she got here, so it wouldn’t have been any good your waiting about. And oh, darling, when am I going to see you again? Wasn’t yesterday foul?”

“Damnable!” said Antony. “But I’m coming down this morning—orders—to collect my property. I suppose your Miss Simcox will allow you to accompany me to the bank?”

“She’ll probably want to come too. At least not want, but she’ll probably have to, because Cousin Leonora gave her a perfectly fierce talking to before she went away, and she’ll have to be weaned from thinking you’re the original Big Bad Wolf, so perhaps it would be a good thing to coo at her as much as you can. She really is a pet, so it won’t be too much of a strain. She’s frightfully romantic inside, you know, and she loves a love affair, but of course Cousin Leonora’s got her all tied up in a strong sense of duty—”

Antony broke in.

“That’s enough about Simmy! What were you just going to say to me when Lady Maddox came down the passage yesterday and I had to jump out of the window?”

“Was I just going to say something? We were talking about the parcel. I don’t know—oh, yes, I do—something about its being safely in the bank—”

“And then you said, ‘But’”

“Yes—” Her voice had changed.

“What were you going to say?”

There was quite a pause.

“Can’t you remember?”

“Oh, yes, I can remember.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“I—don’t—know—”

She heard him whistle softly

“Is it anything important?”

Delia said, “Yes.”

The receiver clicked and the line went dead.

He was having his breakfast, when the bell rang again. It was Delia, very breathless.

“Antony! Oh, is that you?”

“Yes. What’s up?”

“They’ve burgled the bank!”

Antony whistled.

“Who says so?”

“The postman. That’s why he was late. He was getting the letters from the post office when they found out about the bank, so of course he stopped.”

“How did they find out? It’s not opening time yet.”

“Mrs. Green looked out at her bedroom window when she took the black-out down—you know the Greens, their house is behind the bank, and you know what a perfect idiot she is. She thought how untidy it was to have a hole in their back wall and leave the bricks all lying about. And then she went and got the children up, and she began to wonder if there had been a bomb in the night and she hadn’t heard it. And when the milkman came she asked him, and he took a look out of the window and said, ‘Oh, my lord—someone’s burgled the bank!’ and ran over to the police station. And oh, Antony, I’ve got a feeling in my bones that it’s all that blighted parcel.”

“You don’t know if it’s gone?”

“I don’t know anything the postman doesn’t know. I’m just off to find out, but I thought I’d ring you first.”

“All right—I’ll be down.”

He arrived in very good time, and was introduced to Miss Simcox, a plump, pleasant lady whose hair and skin and eyes had all faded together to an agreeable nondescript brown. She wore a knitted woollen dress of the same shade, and tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. She looked over the top of them at Antony with a tolerant air.

“I’ve told Simmy that we’ve got to talk about business, and she says as long as we don’t plan an elopement she doesn’t mind what we talk about, but Cousin Leonora made her swear she wouldn’t leave us alone, so she’s going to sit this end of the drawing-room and write letters to all her relations, and we can go over to the end window-seat. She won’t hear anything we’re saying, because she’s just a little bit deaf.”

“Well, I shan’t be trying to listen,” said Miss Simcox, “and I shall have plenty to occupy me.” She resumed her seat and the writing-pad which she had laid down.

Delia and Antony went over to the window-seat.

“She can’t hear us,” said Delia, “and it’s the best we can do. I don’t suppose she’d look round—if you kissed me, I mean. She’s got a conscience, but I think she makes it do what it’s told, and I don’t believe she’d tell it to make a fuss about a kiss.”

Antony kissed her, with one eye on the back of Miss Simcox’s head. It is not a comfortable way of kissing.

Then Delia said, “It’s gone all right. I knew it would be.”

“The parcel?”

She nodded.

“That’s what they were after. I say, Antony, it must be something very important for them to burgle Mr. Holt, and murder Miss Murdle—because they couldn’t have told that she’s got an extra thick skull, and it’s no thanks to them she isn’t murdered—and break into a bank for it. I mean someone must want it most awfully badly.”

Antony cocked an eyebrow. “I think someone does.”

“What will they do with it now they’ve got it?”

“That depends—”

“On what?”

“On who’s got it.”

Delia sat up very straight.

“Who do you think has got it?”

“It might be Cornelius. I hope it isn’t.”

“Why should Cornelius steal his own parcel? You’d have given it back to him, wouldn’t you?”

Antony nodded.

“After I’d seen what was inside—and perhaps he didn’t want me to see what was inside.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. There might be papers which he didn’t want me to know about. I don’t know—I’m just guessing.”

Delia was silent for a moment. Then she said,

“Do you think it was Cornelius?”

“Well, I hope it wasn’t. And I shouldn’t think it was. I should think it was a good deal more likely to be the people he is trying to get away from.”

“What sort of people?” said Delia in a whispering voice.

“German secret service agents.”

Her eyes widened and darkened, and she drew in her breath.

“But they couldn’t be over here! They couldn’t—”

“All German secret service agents weren’t born in Germany, my sweet. Some of them were born in Holland, and some of them were born over here.”

Delia remained looking at him. She had lost all her colour.

“If people like that wanted something very badly … it does look as they wanted that parcel very badly, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, I think we may safely say that!”

Delia continued to gaze at him.

“If they wanted it as badly as all that, it wouldn’t be awfully safe to—well, to thwart them?”

Antony laughed.

“Not awfully. The game Cornelius was playing isn’t an awfully safe game. But then nor is polo, nor flying, nor mountain climbing, nor rugger. Men just will go and play these rough games.”

“I don’t call being murdered a game,” said Delia with all the rest of her colour gone.

Antony had an arm around her. She felt oddly rigid. He said, “What’s the matter?” and felt her draw ever so little away.

“I don’t like it—it frightens me.”

“I don’t like their getting away with it, but there isn’t anything to be frightened about. You see, at the moment we’re not thwarting them—unfortunately.”

Delia allowed herself to rest against his arm, but without relaxing.

“Antony—do you know what was in the parcel? I mean, how much does it matter if they get away with it?”

“I—don’t—know.” He spoke in a slow, thoughtful voice. “It mattered very much to Cornelius as long as he was where the Nazis could put their hands on him. It oughtn’t to matter so much now. That’s as far as the cylinder is concerned. There may have been papers as well. I can’t say about them—they might matter—I just don’t know.”

She had started away from him again.

“What did you say about a cylinder? I don’t understand.”

“That’s what was in the parcel—one of those wax cylinders out of a dictaphone.”

Delia beat her hands together and said, “No!”

He looked very much surprised.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean no—I mean it wasn’t in the parcel—I mean there wasn’t anything like that at all.”

Antony gazed at her. “You opened it?”

She beat her bands together again.

Miss Simcox very slightly raised her head, and then resumed the letter she was writing to her sister Fanny. She discovered afterwards that she had written “very goodlooking” in the middle of a description of Bronwen’s baby. It was not strictly true, but so many things are said about babies which are not strictly true, and she let it pass. The time had not yet come when it would be proper to give Fanny any particulars about Mr. Rossiter, to whom the epithet by rights belonged.

“Of course I opened it!” said Delia. She had flashed into a sudden brilliance. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed. A bright energy came from her. “Of course I opened it!”

Antony burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. Delia and her “of course!” He laughed, but he was angry too, because she had simply no manner of business to meddle with the damned thing.

The brightness was if anything enhanced. It dazzled him through his anger.

“Of course I opened it!” said Delia for the third time. “There might have been a bomb inside.”

Antony felt himself slipping. He cast an exorcising glare at Miss Simcox’s back.

“There might have been a bomb,” said Delia in an accusing voice.

Antony collected himself. It was no use trying to exorcise Miss Simcox.

He could neither shake Delia nor kiss her. He fell back upon irony.

“And was there?”

“You know there wasn’t.”

“Only the wax cylinder?”

She shook her head vehemently.

“There wasn’t any cylinder—I keep telling you there wasn’t!”

He had let go of her. They sat back, facing one another on the deep window-seat.

Antony said, “No cylinder?” and Delia repeated the words with a little jerk of exasperation in her voice.

“I keep saying so, and you won’t believe me!”

“You really mean it?”

“Darling, do you want me to scream? Because I shall if you go on not believing a word I say. There wasn’t any cylinder in the box. There were only a lot of papers.”

Antony said quickly, “What sort of papers?”

“They were in German, or Dutch or something. I couldn’t read them.”

“But I expect you tried.”

“Of course I tried! There was one with Luftwaffe on it, and then lists—at least that’s what they looked like, only of course I couldn’t read them. And there were maps with things marked on them in red. And there were lots of other papers. I suppose they might be important.”

“I suppose they might,” said Antony very drily indeed. He took her hands and held them in a grip that hurt. “Delia, tell me—did the box look as if it had been opened—tampered with? Was there a space where the cylinder might have been?”

“Oh, no, there wasn’t.”

He thought she sounded relieved, and wondered why.

“It didn’t look as if the cylinder had been there and someone had taken it out?”

“How big did you say it would be?”

“About four by seven.”

She shook her head. The bright hair tossed.

“Oh, no—there wouldn’t have been room. There were a lot of papers.”

Antony let go of her and brought his hand down hard upon his knee.

“Then Cornelius spoofed him! What a bluff!”

Delia wasn’t taking much notice. She had skated over some very thin ice, and she was passionately anxious to reach the shore.

She made haste in that direction.

“So I tied the parcel up again beautifully—you would never have known it had been opened—and took it right off to the bank, because I thought if they had just burgled Mr. Holt and nearly murdered Miss Murdle for the miserable thing, it wasn’t the kind of parcel I wanted to have lying about. Because it looked to me as if anyone who had those papers might be really murdered.”

Her voice made a question of the last words.

Antony said quite seriously, “I think they might.”

Delia relaxed.

“What a good thing the parcel’s been burgled,” she said in a comfortable voice.

Chapter Thirteen

When Antony had interviewed the police and gone back to town, Delia pulled out a stool and sat down at Miss Simcox’s feet.

“Don’t you think he’s nice, Simmy?”

The letter to her sister Fanny having been completed, Miss Simcox was now engaged on one to her sister Maud. Fanny was unmarried, but Maud was the wife of Mr. Henry Tulkinghorn, headmaster of Wrestleford Grammar School. Henry was earnest, zealous, and extremely modern. But Maud was a dear. She had five children of her own, and mothered three hundred boys as well, but she had always leisure and interest to spare. To her Miss Simcox had just confided that she considered Lady Maddox was being severe—“and, though I do not like to say so, worldly. Delia is a dear affectionate child, and Mr. Rossiter a very, very charming young man—”

She looked up from the words with what came very near to being a blush.

“My dear child—”

Delia was gazing at her in a beguiling manner.

“Oh, Simmy, don’t be discreet! It’s so dull! If you’re never going to say what you really think because Cousin Leonora or somebody mightn’t approve, you might just as well be dead and buried.”

“My dear—I hardly think—”

Delia nodded vehemently.

“Just as well,” she said with emphasis—“and have one of those large, square, heavy stones like a table put down on the top of you so as to make sure that you’ll never get up again.”

“Delia—dear!”

Delia tossed her head and laughed.

“Simmy, I shall burst if you won’t let me talk.”

She got an indulgent smile.

“You can talk as much as you like, dear.”

“Well then, don’t you think he’s nice? Oh, Simmy, you must!”

With a guilty consciousness of what she had just written to Maud, Miss Simcox again came near to blushing.

“He is certainly very goodlooking, but—”

“I know, darling—handsome is as handsome does, and all that kind of thing. But he’s got all that too—he really has. Uncle Philip thinks no end of him, and I know he’ll be pleased, and so will Cousin Mervyn if Cousin Leonora will only leave him alone.”

Miss Simcox screwed the cap on to her fountain pen. It did not seem at all likely that she would be able to continue her letter to Maud until after lunch. She said in a soothing voice.

“Lord Maddox is always so kind.”

Delia went on talking about Antony.

Antony Rossiter walked into Colonel Garrett’s office at a little after two o’clock. Frank being a rapid and abstemious luncher, he quite expected to find him there. He came instead upon Miss Ann Marsden, who was looking out of the window. She whisked round in a hurry, and he recognized the typist whom he had accused Garrett of reducing to a nervous wreck. She was looking considerably revived and a great deal too pretty.

At the sight of Antony she produced a very engaging smile and said, “Oh!” and then, “You’re Mr. Rossiter, aren’t you?”

Antony admitted it.

The smile took on an ecstatic character.

“Oh, Mr. Rossiter, I did want to thank you! I do think you were wonderful!”

Agreeable, but alarming. Antony said,

“What have I done?”

Miss Marsden looked at him out of very bright blue eyes.

“You told him he was bullying me,” she breathed—“Colonel Garrett, I mean.”

Antony hung his hat on the knob of a convenient chair.

“Well, he was, wasn’t he? Look here—were you listening at the door?”

“Oh, no—” her tone expressed horror—“I wasn’t! He told me himself.”

“Garrett did?”

She nodded.

“When I came in. You know, he makes me shake all over, and then everything goes out of my head, and then he thinks I’m a perfect fool. But I was picked out for him because I was good—I was really. Only when he roars—”

“I know. What did he say?”

“He began as soon as I came in. He said ‘Miss Marsden’—that’s my name, Ann Marsden—‘Miss Marsden,’ he said, ‘young Rossiter says I bully you.’ And I don’t know how I had the courage, but I said ‘Yes, sir,’ and he said ‘Tchah!’—you know the way he does. And then he said, ‘Reducing you to a nervous wreck?’ and I said ‘Yes, sir’ again, and I thought, ‘Well, I can only die once and then it’ll be over,’ but he just clattered with his chair and said, ‘Don’t take any notice—I shan’t eat you,’ and I took down three letters without making a mistake. And he’s been quite human all the morning.”

Antony burst out laughing.

“In fact I have your life! Now—do you want it to stay saved?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then listen! Do you know what you are?… You don’t? You’re a red rag, same like they flap at bull-fights to make the bull go mad. When Garrett sees you he doesn’t see a human being with nerves, or feelings, or anything of that sort—he sees a bundle of his pet abominations.”

Ann Marsden said “O-oh—” with a pursed scarlet mouth.

Antony’s eye was stern upon it.

“Lipstick—make-up—tut-tut! Eyeshadow—asking for trouble, aren’t you? Nail-polish—the new geranium, isn’t it? And your hair hanging down on your shoulders!”

“Where else can it hang?” said Miss Marsden in a faint, stunned voice.

Antony warmed to his task.

“Nowhere, my child—that is the point. Neatly pinned into a bun at the back.”

A faint moan escaped Miss Marsden’s lips.

“A bun?”

“A neat bun,” corrected Antony—“like this.” He twisted the hair deftly into a knot and holding it at the nape of her neck, stepped back to arm’s length in order to contemplate his handiwork. “It’s good!” he said.

“Is it?” Her tone was a little revived.

“Oh, definitely. Gives you a what-you-may-call-it—a cachet.”

“Does it?” The blue eyes were very appealing.

Antony became aware of danger and dropped the role of hair-dresser. He also dropped the hair, which once more fell negligently about Miss Marsden’s shoulders.

“And no lipstick?” she breathed.

“Well—perhaps just a touch of rose naturelle. But definitely no eyeshadow or mascara—he’d only think you hadn’t washed your face.”

A hand came up for his inspection.

“And no nail-polish?” This was the last word in tyranny.

“There’s one that hardly shows. You could match the lipstick. And they’re much too long, you know.

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes. He hasn’t got a civilized eye at all—you’ve got to remember that. Talons dipped in blood—that’s what they remind him of.”

Miss Marsden shuddered.

“How—how savage!”

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Antony gravely.

If there was a sparkle in his eye, she did not notice it. She put her hands behind her and looked up at him in rather a seductive manner.

“How do you know such a lot about lipsticks and things?”

“Because I’m engaged,” said Antony in a hurry.

Miss Marsden’s eyes lashes came down and covered her eyes. She murmured something that sounded like “What a pity!”

Antony walked round to the other side of the table. Even if he hadn’t been engaged to Delia, life would certainly not be worth living if Frank were to find him kissing his typist—and that Miss Marsden was all set to be kissed stuck out at least a mile.

He looked at her across the table, kissed the tips of his fingers, and remarked,

“Business as usual, I think.”

Miss Marsden said, “Oh, yes.” Her voice had a disappointed sound, but she was a reasonable girl. She said,

“I’m engaged too. But he’s in a submarine, and it’s a long time between leaves.”

“I expect it is—for him.”

She nodded.

“I expect I oughtn’t to flirt. But you know how it is—it doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

“Not a thing!” said Antony, laughing.

Her face changed. She approached the other side of the table.

“What is it?” he said.

She picked up the telephone cord and fiddled with it.

“There was something I was wondering whether I ought to tell somebody about. I’ve really been wondering about it all along, only we got talking nonsense, and—well, you know—”

He nodded with a laughing look in his eyes.

“And it might be important, or it mightn’t,” pursued Miss Marsden in a worried voice, “so I thought I’d better tell you.”

“What is it?”

She gave him a fleeting look and burst into narrative.

“Well, it was this morning—first thing after I’d got here. Colonel Garrett hadn’t come. He had to go and see someone about something, and he didn’t turn up till eleven. And I’m not supposed to answer the telephone, but Mr. Boswell’s away with influenza and Mr. Hope had to take some papers down to Sir Edward, and as soon as he was gone the wretched thing began to ring. Well, you know how they go on ringing—I simply had to answer it. And there was a man who sounded as if he had been running, and he said, ‘Colonel Garrett—is he there?’ And I said, ‘No, he hasn’t come in yet. Can I take a message? Who is speaking?’ and he said, ‘Cornelius—’”

Antony said, “What?”

Miss Marsden looked startled.

“That’s what he said.”

“Go on, go on!”

“There isn’t any more.”

Antony said “What?” again.

She nodded mournfully.

“That’s just it. There was a sort of crash and the line went dead. And I was going to tell Mr. Hope, but he came back frightfully busy and cross, and I thought perhaps he’d say I oughtn’t to have answered the telephone, so I didn’t. And there didn’t seem to be much to tell anyway—did there?”

“You didn’t tell Colonel Garrett?”

“Oh, no. Ought I to have? There wasn’t any message, and I thought, ‘Well, if he wants him he can always ring up again.’”

It was at this moment that the door opened and Garrett walked in. He wore mustard-coloured tweeds, and a bowler hat on the back of his head, but his expression was, for him, benign. It changed as Antony walked to meet him and said,

“Frank—Cornelius tried to get you this morning.”

“How do you mean, tried to get me?” said Garrett in a belligerent voice. He threw his hat on to a chair.

Antony said, “On the telephone—this morning about ten.” He turned to Miss Marsden, who had begun to look terrified. “Was that about the time?”

She said, “Y-yes.”

“Cornelius?” said Garrett. “What did he want? And why wasn’t I told?”

“You’d better tell him now,” said Antony.

When Miss Marsden had stammered through her story again the storm broke. By the time Antony managed to make himself heard they had tears to contend with. Miss Marsden cried exactly like a baby, her eyes wide open and enormous drops rolling down to the corners of her mouth. When Antony put his hand on her shoulder she turned a quivering upward gaze to his. The hand shook her slightly.

“Stop crying!”

With miraculous suddenness the drops ceased to flow. Antony said,

“That’s right. Now listen! You say the man sounded as if he had been running. I suppose you mean he was out of breath.”

She nodded.

“Sort of gaspy.”

“As if he was—ill?” Antony spoke slowly, watching her face. “Or—hurt?”

There was a faint startled reaction.

“Oh!” And then, “He might have been.”

“And when you say there was a crash and the line went dead, can you give us any idea what sort of a crash it was?”

“It was a—a crash,” said Miss Marsden helpfully. She had quite stopped crying, and there was even a gleam of interest in her eyes. From a couple of yards away Colonel Garrett surveyed her with sardonic fury.

Antony remained calm.

“Yes, but there are a lot of different kinds of crashes. Just try and think back. You answered the telephone. A man had just asked for Colonel Garrett in a panting voice—you would call it a panting voice?”

“Yes—sort of.”

“As if he was in distress?”

“Oh, yes—that’s just how it sounded.”

“Then you asked his name, and he said, ‘Cornelius.’ Was that in the same panting voice?”

“Oh, yes, it was.”

“And then there was this crash. Now think what sort of a crash it was.”

“I don’t know.”

The hand shook her again.

“Think! Oh, yes, you can. Think back! What did it sound like—like a man falling—a chair going over—someone being hit plonk—or the receiver coming down with a crack?”

Miss Marsden’s gaze was beautifully blank. Antony put some force into his grip.

“Four sorts of crash. A man would go down with a thud. A chair or any other bit of furniture would make more noise—harder, sharper. If someone knocked the man out, there’d be the plonk of bone hitting bone. And the receiver coming down would be just a sharp crack. You can’t help knowing that one anyhow. Now which of those four is the nearest to what you heard?”

Miss Marsden brightened.

“Do you think someone hit him?” she enquired with interest.

Colonel Garrett dragged a violent bandanna out of his pocket. It failed to muffle a loud derisive “Tchah!”

Antony cast him a look of reproach. He himself could have murdered the girl with pleasure, but where was that going to get them? He said,

“I’m not thinking—I’m asking you.”

For the first time, she appeared to be going through some kind of mental process.

“I suppose there were a lot of sounds really. It might have been someone coming into the room and pushing something over and the receiver falling down. I couldn’t say for certain, but I know I thought at the time what a lot of noise they were making—”

“They?”

She gazed at him.

“Did you think there was more than one person there?”

“Oh, yes, I did—at least I suppose I must have done, because I did think what a lot of noise they were making.”

Garrett blew his nose like a trumpeting elephant. Finality appeared to have been reached.

Antony took Miss Marsden to the door, put her out, and shut it on her instant flight. Then he came back and asked a single question.

“Do you think Cornelius is dead?”

Garrett stuffed the bandanna back into his pocket and grimaced horribly.

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” he said.

After a prolonged pause Antony said,

“Rather horrible, Frank. And I left him to it!”

Garrett clapped him on the shoulder.

“Damfool nonsense!”

“I ought to have got help and gone back to Silverthorn Road at once. He was being followed. They got him.”

“He was following you. Perfectly free agent, wasn’t he? And avoiding both of us.”

Antony nodded.

“That’s it, Frank—that’s why I didn’t like to butt in. The fact is, I’ve been afraid of what I might walk into. There’s something I don’t understand—this business about my being dead. Cornelius went down day before yesterday and told Delia I was dead. He repeated this yesterday and pitched her a highly circumstantial tale which came quite near the truth except for the fact that a Gestapo bullet cut my arm instead of getting me in a lethal place. But the night before he was following me back from your flat. If he thought I was dead, whom did he suppose he was following, and why was he doing it? I just can’t make it fit in.”

Garrett walked round the table and sat down. His eyes were like points of steel, his manner that of a terrier at a rat hole.

“Sure it was Cornelius?” he said.

Antony looked startled.

“No, I’m not sure. I thought it was. That’s all I’m really sure about—I thought it was Cornelius.”

“When he was following you—or when you found him in the porch?”

“I never thought about it being Cornelius when he was following me. There was simply nothing to go on. It was later, when I was following him, that I saw him in one of those flashes and thought it was Cornelius.”

“You didn’t see his face?”

“No.”

Garrett banged the table.

“Then what made you think it was Cornelius?”

Antony had been holding himself in. His control broke, and he said in a voice of sharp exasperation,

“How on earth do I know? Height, figure, walk—whatever goes to make up that sort of impression. I did think so.”

“But you never saw his face?”

“No.”

“And in the porch—you still thought it was Cornelius?”

“I called him Con when I pulled him up.”

“Did he answer?”

“No—I don’t think so. The door was open by then. Someone swore in Dutch. It wasn’t Cornelius.”

Garrett had one of his ferocious frowns.

“Meaning it wasn’t Cornelius—or it wasn’t the man you’d pulled up?”

“It wasn’t the man I had just pulled up, whether he was Cornelius or not—at least that was my very strong impression.”

“But you won’t swear to it?”

“I won’t swear to any of it.”

“A lot of use you are as a witness!” said Garrett in a vindictive tone.

“I know. I’m sorry about it, but there it is. The only things I can be sure of are my own impressions. And this is one of them. When I took hold of him and pulled him up I was quite sure it was Cornelius. It felt like him.”

Garrett gave a grunt.

“You said he had a cut on his wrist. Did you ask your Delia What’s-her-name about that? She saw Cornelius next day—she’d have noticed if he’d a bandage, wouldn’t she?”

“She might—I didn’t ask her. I can ring her up about it. But look here, sir, the parcel’s gone.”

Garrett threw himself back in his chair and glowered.

“What!” he said.

“The bank was burgled in the night. Hole in the wall—oxyacetylene flame used on the safe. Very expert job. Net haul about five hundred pounds, the late Mrs. Canning’s jewellery—some quite good pearls, and a diamond necklace. And the parcel. And, Frank, here’s something. You know the yarn Cornelius put up about a wax cylinder full of blazing indiscretions—well, as far as I can make out he was leading everybody on—de l’audace, de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace.”

Garrett stared.

“What’s this?

“Delia opened the parcel,” said Antony with an agreeable smile.

“She opened it? Why?” The last word had the force of an explosion.

“She wanted to see what was inside. Might have been a bomb.”

Garrett said, “Tchah!”

“Undoubtedly. But the fact remains that she opened it and there wasn’t any cylinder. And from what she said, it hadn’t been taken out, because the box was full of papers. My own belief is that Cornelius got away with a most almighty bluff, and the people who took the parcel will have the devil to pay. Do you think they’re going to be able to persuade the little man whom Cornelius has bluffed that there really wasn’t any record in that parcel, or do you think he’ll have some nasty suspicions about them and wonder whether they’re not holding it up on him? Quite a lot of possibilities, don’t you think?”

Garrett gave an affirmative jerk of the head. Then he rapped out,

“Papers”—she says there were papers, does she?”

Antony leaned across the table.

“Frank,” he said, “when I had that talk with Cornelius in Anna’s back sitting-room he asked me something. You know he was trying to clear out and get to the States. He wanted to know to what extent things would be made easy for him over here. Of course I said I wasn’t in a position to say, but if he’d been straight with you, he could reckon on your being straight with him. Well, he turned that off, but presently he said something about paying his way, and when I didn’t take any notice of that, he asked whether you wouldn’t be interested in an up-to-date map showing the exact position of underground petrol tanks in Germany, because if you were, it was remotely possible that he might be able to do something about it.”

Garrett gave the grin of a terrier who sees his rat.

“And you told him to apply to M. I.? Said it wasn’t my pigeon?”

“No, sir.”

“So what?”

“So nothing. He didn’t say any more, and I didn’t say any more. He shut down like a clam, and I thought it better not to press him. But Delia says some of the papers were maps—maps, Frank—with something marked on them in red. Looking at it all round, it would be quite like Cornelius to say what he did and never let on that he’d already got the maps and got them out of the country. You know, it would account for a lot. The parcel was addressed to me. If he didn’t get away, I’d be welcome to what was inside it. But if he did get away—and he did—then he’d want those maps for himself, to drive the best bargain he could and get off to the States. It explains the whole thing to my mind—why he was in such a hurry to get the parcel back, and why he sheered off meeting me. He wanted to put the job through on his own. Quite likely he didn’t want you to know that he’d actually got the maps. He’d go round about and find out first what you’d be prepared to do for him if he could get them.”

Garrett said, “H’m!” and then, “Looks to me as if he’d queered his own pitch. Shied off you and left the door open for the other side. Got to get up damn early to get ahead of the Gestapo.”

“Cornelius has been doing it for quite a long time now.”

Garrett banged on his blotting-pad.

“We’ve got to get ’em! I want those maps. Want to see James’s face when I hand them over to him with something on the lines of, ‘Perhaps you’d care to have these. Seem to be down your street.’” He gave an explosive sound which practice enabled Antony to identify as a chuckle, and followed it with his most ferocious frown. “This bank business can’t be left to the county police. I’ll get on to the Chief Constable. They must call in Scotland Yard. London job undoubtedly. He can put it on that. This business of the papers has got to be kept quiet. But you’d better go round to the Yard—they’ll want to see you. I’ll give you a note to the Commissioner, and you can tell him the whole thing. I want those papers. If everyone jumps to it, we’ll get them.”

“And Cornelius?” said Antony in an altered voice.

“We’ll get him too. If he’s alive. If he isn’t—well it’s no good crying about spilt milk.”

He had pulled a writing-block toward him. His pen drove furiously.

He folded the paper, crammed it into an envelope, and stuck it down. As he scribbled the address he said,

“Better get along at once. Here’re your credentials. I’ll give them a ring. You can leave telephoning to your Delia What-you-may-call-it till you get back. Let me know what she says about the bandage. Bound to have noticed it if he was wearing one. Get along!”

Antony took the note. When he had got to the door he looked over his shoulder.

“The name is still Merridew, sir.”

Chapter Fourteen

It was about half past four when Antony got back to the flat. He had seen the Commissioner and, according to instructions, told him all about everything. This task accomplished, he had now the pleasanter one of ringing up Delia. Rather amusing to be doing it to Frank’s order.

The day had turned poisonously cold. He switched on an electric fire and an electric kettle, set a cup and teapot handy, and proceeded to get through to Fourways. He had luck, because he was only in his second cup and his first chunk of cake when Parker lifted the receiver and said “Hullo!” in his own peculiar tone of resigned melancholy.

“Hullo, Parker—Miss Delia anywhere about?”

Parker brightened.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Antony—having tea.”

An interval, and then Delia.

“Oh, darling, how nice! Whose bill are your calls going down on? We think ours will have to be broken very, very carefully to Uncle Philip.”

“I’m not bothering about that. Delia—”

Her laughter interrupted him.

“Darling, how lordly! Even Cousin Mervyn bothers about telephone bills. I must say Cousin Leonora would break anyone who wasn’t a millionaire. Oh, Antony, Uncle Philip’s better—he’s much better. We rang up after lunch, and they’re most awfully pleased, and if he goes on like this, I can see him in a day or two. Isn’t that splendid?”

“I’m most awfully glad. But, Delia—”

“Darling, your voice does sound queer! What’s the matter with it?”

Antony said, “Cake,” and washed it down with the last of the second cup of tea. “Now, darling, listen! This isn’t me talking to you—this is an official interview.”

“What about?”

“Cornelius. And it’s important, so think before you speak, and don’t say anything you’re not sure about.”

“What do you want to know?” said Delia. Her voice had changed.

“Something quite simple. When you saw Cornelius yesterday morning, had he got a bandage on his wrist?”

“A bandage?”

“Yes.”

“Why should he?”

“Never mind about that. I want to know if he had.”

At the other end of the line Delia screwed up her eyes and tried to remember everything about Cornelius coming to see her yesterday … A dark suit, with a heavy rain-coat over it—a dark felt hat which he had refused to give up to Parker—a dark blue tie with a lighter fleck in it—dark brown gloves which he kept in his hand—an edge of striped shirt-cuff beyond the rain-coat.… He held the gloves in his left hand and put his hat on a chair. When he picked it up again his wrist came out from the striped cuff—his right wrist. There wasn’t any bandage on it—She said,

“Which wrist did you want to know about?”

Antony’s turn to think back.… The dark porch, the dark steps—the tiny beam of his torch—blood running from the gash on a man’s wrist—his right wrist. He said the words aloud.

“It would be the right wrist.”

“Then there wasn’t any bandage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, quite.”

“It’s—important.”

“I’m quite sure. He had his gloves in his left hand, and he reached out for his hat with his right. I could see his wrist, and there wasn’t any bandage. Antony, what’s all this about? Why do you want to know?”

All of a sudden his voice was tired. He said,

“I can’t tell you—yet. Goodbye.” He rang off.

Delia went back into the drawing-room, where Miss Simcox was enjoying Mrs. Parker’s date-and-nut cake. She would have enjoyed it even more if her conscience had not been in a highly uncertain state over the question of Mr. Antony Rossiter. It was not yet five o’clock, and he had already called once in person and twice on the telephone. What did Lady Maddox expect her to do? A couple of hundred years ago Delia would have been locked into her bedroom, and there would have been no telephone, but this was 1940. Casting her mind back over the spate of instructions with which she had been inundated, she recalled that she was to be firm but on no account to antagonize Delia, who was a sweet girl but not one to be driven. She was to be very, very tactful, but not to allow this lamentable affair with young Rossiter to go any farther. She was to gain Delia’s confidence, to wean her from an ill-considered engagement, and incline her thoughts in the direction of Mr. Lewis West, but she was not to drive her into rebellion by too open a show of authority. In reply to all this Miss Simcox was glad to remember that she had said no more than that she would do her best.

Afterwards she was to remember that Delia was very silent for the rest of the meal. To Miss Simcox tea really was a meal, and the pleasantest one of the day. She began to wonder what Mr. Antony Rossiter had said to induce this silence. And really what use was it for Lady Maddox to say that the affair must go no farther, when the house was positively littered with telephones and extensions—one in the study, one in the pantry, one in Mr. Merridew’s bedroom, and even one in Delia’s room, on the table beside her bed? How did Lady Maddox suppose that she was to be prevented from ringing up or being rung up as often as she and Antony Rossiter desired? Miss Simcox considered that she had been placed in a false position, and almost but not quite regretted having obeyed the peremptory summons which had snatched her from the Vicarage at Pudley Marten.

The regret would have been unqualified if it had not been for the fact that she had really been finding the Rectory so very cold—twenty bedrooms, a quarter of a mile of passage, and of course no central heating. Mr. Pottinger was all that was kind, but so very energetic, and dear Doris—she had been Doris Penfold—quite as bad, so it must be confessed that a natural inclination to oblige had been powerfully reinforced by the feeling that it would be pleasant to escape from ten-mile walks, alfresco meals—in October—and perpetual conversation about the parish. If this was self-indulgence, Miss Simcox was about to be punished for it. Fourways was very, very comfortable. Every room was beautifully warm. She was not obliged to walk any farther than she wished. And after the Pottingers’ simple life Mrs. Parker’s cooking was a dream. But responsibility had begun to weigh, and was shortly to become quite crushing. Searching her conscience, Miss Simcox suspected a judgment. Within the next few hours she would be writing—her letter of the morning only just posted—a poignant epistle to her sister Maud: “I cannot say that I am to blame—one must be just to oneself as well as to others—but if I had not felt the cold so much at Pudley Marten I might have remained there, and I should not then have become involved in this distressing affair. Difficult as it would have been to disregard the appeal Lady Maddox made to me, I cannot help fearing that I was tempted to accede to it from selfish and unworthy motives, and if that is the case, I have done something to deserve my present painful position.…”

But all this was mercifully veiled by the future. Only the merest shadow of what impended touched her mood as she sat comfortably by the fire and made a really excellent tea. When Delia presently slipped out of the room she picked up the book which she had taken from the study shelves and read with great enjoyment the account of an intrepid traveller whose experiences included escapes from gorillas, alligators, man-eating lions, and serpents of every kind. Nothing is more delightful than to look upon danger from a place of perfect safety.

The heroic virtues can be enjoyed by proxy and there is no risk. In fact the best of two worlds.

With her body reclining in a cushioned chair, Miss Simcox eluded a mamba, and sprang with miraculous agility into a tree to avoid the charge of an infuriated rhinoceros. The entrance of Parker to remove the tea things would almost have passed unnoticed if he had not attracted her attention by a slight melancholy cough. He had to repeat it before she transferred her focus from the African jungle to his tall, stooping person. He stood before her, holding the silver tray, his head inclined.

“If you please, miss, Miss Delia asked me to say that she has gone over to Miss Kyrle’s for an hour.”

“To Miss Kyrle’s?”

“Dr. Kyrle’s daughter—a friend of Miss Delia’s. She was going to pick her up in the car, and Miss Delia asked me to say it would be quite all right about her coming home, because Dr. Kyrle would be passing and he would set her down at the gate.”

“She hasn’t taken her own car then? I thought you said—”

“No, miss. It was Miss Kyrle who was picking Miss Delia up. Miss Delia asked me to tell you.”

He went out with the tray, and Miss Simcox returned to her tree, from which she was presently privileged to behold a pride of lions disporting themselves upon the open rolling ground beyond. Time slipped away unnoticed. After some indefinite lapse the light began to fade and she switched on the standard lamp.

Presently Parker came in and drew the curtains. Later still the dressing-bell rang.

Trained to the utmost punctuality, Miss Simcox closed her book and returned to Surrey.

Encountering Ellen on the upper landing, she enquired whether Miss Delia had come in, and was startled to hear that she had not. She looked at her watch. Seven o’clock. But perhaps Dr. Kyrle had been kept—a doctor’s time is never his own—

She changed into last year’s summer foulard, converted to evening wear by being lengthened with a broad strip of black satin and having the sleeves cut off at the elbow, where they were finished with a black satin turnover. Her evening brooch, amethyst surrounded by pearls, repeated the predominant colour of the floral pattern and replaced the ribbed gold bar, also set with pearls, which she habitually wore in the day. By the time this modest toilet had been completed it was nearly half past seven.

Ellen came knocking at the door to enquire whether Miss Delia was to be waited for. This was the first real moment of apprehension. Miss Simcox found herself startled and alert. The telephone, from being a menace, became a providential institution. She went down into the study and asked for Dr. Kyrle’s number. A girlish voice replied. She enquired whether Delia had left, and received the most staggering reply. The girlish voice asserted that Delia had not been there at all—had not been telephoned to or communicated with all day. Yes, it was Miss Kyrle speaking—Cynthia Kyrle.

“Oh, no, she hasn’t been here.… Oh, yes, I’m quite sure.… Oh, no, I didn’t ring her up. There must be some mistake.”

Some mistake. Through the numbness which had invaded her Miss Simcox was conscious of these saving words. She said in her accustomed ladylike manner,

“Oh, yes, of course—I must have misunderstood—it must have been some other friend. I suppose you can’t tell me who would have been likely … No, of course not. I am so sorry to have troubled you.”

She hung up the receiver, and rang for Parker.

“Miss Delia does not seem to be at Dr. Kyrle’s.”

Parker’s thoughts were with an elusive clue.

“Indeed, miss?”

“You are quite sure she said she was going there? Could there be any other name you might have mistaken for Kyrle?”

“Oh, no, miss. And Miss Delia didn’t say Miss Kyrle. She wouldn’t—not speaking to me. It was Miss Cynthia she said, the same as she always does.”

The numbness was dissolving into fear. Miss Simcox commanded her voice with an effort.

“And she said Miss Cynthia would be picking her up at the gate?”

“That’s right, miss.”

Miss Simcox felt herself confronted by possibilities of the most dreadful description. They were so dreadful that she was able to repel them. Things like that did not happen to oneself or to the people that one knew. It was quite inconceivable that they should happen to a relative of Lady Maddox. Groping for escape, she clutched at a hopeful alternative—Delia had eloped with Antony Rossiter. Very wrong of her, very regrettable, and most inconsiderate towards Miss Simcox, but no irretrievable tragedy. Perhaps Lady Maddox had been too harsh—she had a certain commanding way with her. The young people were very much in love. Of course it was wrong of them to elope, very wrong indeed.

Her own position was a most difficult one. Why, oh, why, had she ever left Pudley Marten? What was the good of a comfortable chair and a warm fire when you were being crushed beneath a load of responsibility? She looked back with remorse to the Pottingers’ draughty Vicarage and the Pottingers’ Spartan meals. Her conscience accused her, and with no uncertain voice. She had hankered after the fleshpots, and in the manner of the best Moral Tracts they had brought her nothing but trouble and vexation of spirit.

In the kitchen a loudly partisan Mrs. Parker proclaimed her own conviction that Miss Delia had run away to Mr. Antony. “And why couldn’t they leave us alone? Doing very nicely we were without her ladyship, but no, she’s got to come pushing in, upsetting Miss Delia—bringing in a governess to look after her! And Mr. Antony that’s been here as if it was his own home—and so it is, to be sure—he’s to be pushed out, and put off, and sent away without so much as a bite of lunch and nowhere to say a word to Miss Delia but the pantry. Well, I say if they did make it up to run away together, it wasn’t any more than they’d a right to do, the way her ladyship was treating them.”

Miss Simcox had something on a tray in the drawing-room. The evening lagged and dragged. A little soft-footed man slipped back the catch of the study window and stood listening in the dark for five full minutes with the door ajar before he crossed the hall and risked the stair. There was not really so very much risk.

At this hour in every well regulated household the domestic staff would be in their own premises, and the family in the drawing-room.

When he reached the bedroom floor he was pleased to observe that the beds had already been turned down. He went through the rooms methodically, locking each door on the inside before he began his search. He was very quick and very thorough. There are, after all, a limited number of places in which you can hide a wax cylinder measuring four inches by seven. Papers now, that was a trickier job, but a dictaphone cylinder would have been mere child’s play to find—if it had been there.

By the time he had been over all the upstairs rooms he was prepared to swear that it was not there. He then stepped inside the comfortable roomy cupboard in Philip Merridew’s room and waited for the household to go to bed.

Ellen came up first. He could hear her running up the back stairs—going into Miss Simcox’s room with a hot-water bottle—going into Miss Delia Merridew’s room—going off down the passage to her own room.

Voices next. Miss Simcox high and plaintive: “I think we had better leave the light on in the hall, just in case,” and Parker murmuring something in reply.

He waited for an hour after that, and then went through the downstairs rooms with the same care and thoroughness that he had used on the bedroom floor. But there was no wax cylinder. If it wasn’t there, he couldn’t find it, could he? And that it certainly wasn’t there, he was prepared to maintain to his employers or to anyone else concerned. “I can’t make cylinders, can I? And if you don’t believe me you can go and look for yourself.” He rehearsed these and other kindred remarks as he let himself out of the study window, leaving behind him a house as orderly and composed as if no stranger had just ransacked it on an unlawful errand. There was not a book crooked in any bookcase, no shelf or drawer in disarray, no piece of furniture moved from its accustomed place. Mr. Merridew’s shirts, vests and pants, Miss Simcox’s modest underwear, Delia’s frills and fancies, showed no trace of an intruding hand.

When Parker descended in the morning and found the study window unlatched he thought no more than that he must have let it slip. He had shut up the house before Miss Delia’s disappearance had come home to them, so he could not put it on that. But he had been a good deal preoccupied with the possibilities of a clue describing “a bird of peace once used as an engine of war,” and he couldn’t really say that he had been putting his mind into what he was doing. His conscience reproved him, but he had no intention of exposing himself to any further reproof. He did not, therefore, mention the matter to Mrs. Parker. The clandestine visit remained one of those things to which the nursery proverb applies, “What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve over.”

Chapter Fifteen

It was at seven o’clock the next morning that Antony felt an urge to talk to Delia. He restrained himself until half past seven, and then got through. It was Parker who replied, his voice tuned to a funereal note.

“Oh, Parker—just put me through to Miss Delia, please.”

There was the sort of silence which generally means you have been cut off, and then a kind of gasp from Parker.

“Miss Delia?”

“Miss Delia,” said Antony in an impatient voice.

There was another pause. Then words came tumbling out.

“Oh, Mr. Antony—Miss Delia—she went out last night, and when she didn’t come back we thought, Miss Simcox and all of us—well, Mr. Antony, we thought she’d run away to you.”

With the feeling that he had stepped suddenly into a nightmare, Antony heard himself repeating,

“She went out and she didn’t come back—”

“Yes, Mr. Antony.”

“What do you mean? Get on with it, man! What are you saying?”

“She isn’t with you, Mr. Antony?”

“Of course she isn’t! Get on with it—tell me what’s happened!”

He could hear Parker clear his throat and shift his grip on the receiver.

“It was like this, Mr. Antony. I was coming across the hall, and Miss Delia, she was coming out of the study—between six and a quarter past it would be—and she said, ‘I’m going down to Dr. Kyrle’s for a bit. Miss Cynthia will pick me up at the gate, and Dr. Kyrle will drop me when he goes out—he’s got a call to pay at Lane Hill. And don’t tell Miss Simcox till I’ve gone.’ That’s what she said. And when it came to half past seven and she wasn’t back, Miss Simcox rang Miss Cynthia up, and she hadn’t seen Miss Delia nor telephoned, and Miss Simcox took it into her head that Miss Delia had run away.”

Antony asked three more questions, slammed down the receiver, and rang up Colonel Garrett.

“Frank, they’ve got her!”

“Got who?” Garrett’s tone was unamiable to a degree.

“Delia. Frank—for God’s sake!”

Garrett said, “Hold on!” and then, “What’s all this?”

Antony told him.

“She went out, and she didn’t come back. The message was a fake. Someone must have known a bit to put that across. What damned fools we’ve been! We ought to have guessed they’d come down on her. Don’t you see, their orders are to get that cylinder. They believe it exists, and they’ve got to get it. They haven’t tumbled to it that Cornelius was bluffing. They can probably see that the parcel has been opened—I told you Delia opened it. Well, they’ve guessed that too—it’s easy enough. And they think she took the cylinder out. Frank, don’t you see, they’ll try and make her say where it is. And she can’t. I don’t believe it ever existed, but as long as they think so, she—she’s in the most frightful danger. Don’t you see?”

Garrett’s voice barked back at him.

“I’m not blind! Have they been to the police?”

“No. Fools—they thought we’d eloped!”

“All right, you’d better go down. Take the car. Get the local people going. The fake call. Any strangers asking questions. Any strange car. If she was picked up at the bottom of her own drive, the car would be standing there—perhaps five minutes. Difficult to hit off the time exactly. Someone may have seen it. Sun doesn’t set till 6:15. Local people very good for all this. Get them going. Scotland Yard can be got on to it by the afternoon—with luck. Meanwhile lots for you to do. Get along on with it!”

Antony got on with it. At half past nine he walked in at the front door of Fourways, and encountered Miss Simcox emerging from the study. She was as neat as ever, but the colour in her cheeks had gone dead and purplish, and it was quite obvious that she had not slept. She came straight up to him and laid a hand on his arm.

“Mr. Rossiter—thank God you’ve come! Have you any news?”

“I? None.”

“She did not go with you?”

“Of course she didn’t!”

She gave a long sigh and stepped back.

“I’ve been telephoning to the police.”

“You should have done that last night—when she didn’t come home.” His voice was bitter. Too respectable to make a scandal—too conventional to take the steps which might have saved Delia’s life! He knew her kind.

She kept her dignity.

“Do you think I have not said that to myself? I thought she was with you, and—it is so easy to make talk in a village.”

He said abruptly, “I must see Parker. And then I’ll go down to the police station.”

The morning resolved itself into a series of interviews. Parker, Mrs. Parker, Ellen—in case some faintest trace of a clue might be latent amongst their recollections and impressions. Then the police station, and Sergeant Hopkins whom he had known since he was nine years old. He knew him too well too think that it was possible to hurry him now—a man of girth, a man of beef and beer—old yeoman stock, slow as growing wheat and as sound, with a shrewd streak in him. But he had to take his time, and if you tried to hustle him, he’d go back to the beginning and start all over again with his favourite “Wait a bit now—let’s just get this clear.” And before ever you came to the beginning there would be a ritual of greetings, enquiries.

They worked through them. Philip Merridew. His escape—“providential, I’d call it, Mr. Antony.” The improvement to his condition—“which I was very pleased indeed to hear about.” And, at what seemed like long last though it really was not so long, “And now what’s all this about Miss Delia going out last night and not coming home? I hope there’s no reason to suppose she’s met with an accident.”

Antony said his piece, and Sergeant Hopkins listened in a slow, cogitating manner. At the finish he had quite clearly in his mind the facts that Mr. Antony had left papers of great importance at Fourways in Miss Delia Merridew’s care, that Miss Delia had very sensibly put them in the bank for safe keeping, and that in Mr. Antony’s opinion the bank had been broken into for the sake of these papers, and Miss Delia kidnapped because some of them were missing and it might be supposed that she knew where they were. He wrote down in his notebook in the clear hand of the man who does not overwork the art:

1. Important papers in Miss D. Merridew’s possession, and enquired,

“Would they be government papers?”

Even in the midst of heart-racking anxiety Antony could feel a quirk of humour at this description. He said,

“Yes, you might call them that.”

In a painstaking manner Sergeant Hopkins inserted the word government. He then wrote down:

2. Papers as above deposited in local bank.

“And what date would that be?”

He added the date, and passed to another line.

3. Bank broken into some time that night. Parcel containing papers taken.

“But there was all manner of things taken as well as that parcel,” he said. “I suppose you know that.”

Antony’s shoulder jerked.

“You wouldn’t expect them to leave diamonds and pearls lying about when they could have them for the picking up, would you?”

Sergeant Hopkins said he supposed not, and wrote further.

4. Miss Merridew left home between 6:15 and 6:30 P. M., stating she had received telephone call from Miss Kyrle. Miss Kyrle states no such call made.

He then read these four items aloud, and fell into a state of meditation. The cud was obviously being chewed.

Antony contained himself as best he could and let him be.

After what seemed to be an eternity, but was probably no more than seven or eight minutes, results appeared. They were very sound results. What Sergeant Hopkins proposed to set in hand coincided in a surprising manner with the suggestions of Colonel Garrett. Any strange individual, any strange car—“Well, it stands to reason there’s someone notices them. It ’ud be very bad luck if a car was to stand five minutes or so at the bottom of the Fourways drive and we couldn’t find someone that took notice of it. Same as it was with the attack on Miss Murdle. There was a little fellow come through on a motor-bike, and Lily Holliday saw the bike pushed in between two furze-bushes round about the time the lady must have been knocked down. Getting on for dusk, but she says she could see it all right. Well, there you are—it just shows, doesn’t it?”

Miss Murdle—Antony took an impatient breath and plunged.

“Look here, Sergeant, to the best of my belief the attack on Miss Murdle was an attempt to get hold of those papers. It wasn’t meant for Miss Murdle at all. It was meant for Delia.”

Sergeant Hopkins stared.

“What’s all this?”

“I’ll tell you—”

Half way through he began to wish that he had held his tongue. Mental agility was being called for, and there was quite definitely no response. He ploughed through to the end beneath a stolid and disapproving stare, and when he had done received a portentous shake of the head.

Sergeant Hopkins cleared his throat and spoke.

“Now, now, Mr. Antony—what’s all this? You go too fast for me. Wait a minute—let’s go back to the beginning and get this clear.”

The police station at Wayshot stands no more than fifty yards down the street from the bank, on the opposite side, a fact which Sergeant Hopkins was inclined to consider as adding insult to injury. It was bad enough to burgle a bank at any time, but to burgle a bank right across the road from the police station—well, take it as you will, it’s impudence, and when criminals get impudent with the police it’s time there was something done about it.

Antony came out of the police station, walked thirty-five yards on the same side of the street, and entered Mr. Giles’s grocery store. It was the largest of the row of small shops which faced the bank, and its window displayed no more of the stock than three flat bowls containing respectively lentils, sago, and rice. Mrs. Giles behind the counter was thus afforded an uninterrupted view of the street.

She stood there now and greeted Antony with an air of condolence which he found hard to bear. For a wonder, the shop was empty. There was only himself and Mrs. Giles in her dark grey dress and white apron, with her hair all tight curls across the top of her head and done up in a twist behind—real sandy hair. Her lashes were sandy too, and her eyes like bits of grey glass, hard and sharp and clear between them.

Antony said, “Good-morning,” and had the words snatched from him.

“It may be for some, but a bad morning for those that think as much of Miss Delia as you and me, Mr. Antony. And a pretty pass we’re coming to when people can’t go outside their own doors without being knocked on the head, or disappearing into thin air, as you might say. It was only yesterday I passed the remark to Mr. Giles. ‘I don’t know what we’re coming to,’ I said—‘poor Miss Murdle, and the bank.’ And now there’s Miss Delia as well.”

Antony came up to the counter and leaned on it.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I am sure you will help us if you can. You see, everyone passes here, and I want to know whether you noticed anything—any stranger—any strange car—”

“Yesterday?” said Mrs. Giles sharply.

“Not only yesterday—right back from the day that Miss Murdle was attacked.”

“That would be Monday—” She beat a little rat-tat on the counter with her fingers.

Antony could remember her doing that any time this twenty years. As a little boy it had frightened him, because her fingers were so bony and bloodless and when she beat her rat-tat the knuckles stood up white and nubbly. He could remember Delia puckering up her face to cry, and Mrs. Giles giving her an acid drop out of the tall jar of mixed sweets which used to stand on the counter.

“Monday—” said Mrs. Giles in a tone of fierce concentration.—“Monday … There was a man on a motor-bike come along round about half past three in the afternoon—pulled right up behind the bus and started fiddling with something or other. There wasn’t only one got off the bus, and that was Mrs. Rudge from Alridge, come down to see her sister Martha Pratt that was—she’s not long for this world, poor soul. Those afternoon buses, they run pretty well empty, but I took notice of there being a gentleman inside—might have been a clerk by his bowler hat.”

Antony pricked up his ears. That would be Holt—he would have got out at the next stop. And the man on the motor-bike—He said quickly,

“What was the man like—the one on the motor-bike?”

Mrs. Giles stopped beating out her bony, inaudible tune.

“Not over big, and that’s all you can say. Overalls and goggles, and one of those tight caps on his head. There’s nothing left to go by if it isn’t what size they are—and I put him a good inch less than my Tommy, and he stands five foot six in his stockings, if they haven’t taken him down with their prison-camps over there.”

“I don’t think you need worry about that.”

Mrs. Giles gave her head an odd little jerky toss.

“It’s my belief that Hitler ’ud do anything! Why, there was a bit in the paper only yesterday—”

Antony headed her firmly.

“Let’s get back to the bus, Mrs. Giles. What did the man with the motor-bike do when it went on?”

“Oh, he went on too.”

“Did you see him again?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t say I did, but Lily Holliday—”

“Yes, I know—the sergeant told me.”

Mrs. Giles looked disappointed.

“Tuesday there wasn’t anything to take notice of, unless you count Miss Delia coming in to the bank—stopped right in front of it and went in with a parcel in her hand and come out without it. And, come to think of it, there was a man on a motor-bike came in behind her. Mind you, I don’t say it was the same one as Monday, but it might have been. I’d a three or four people in the shop, and I can’t say more than that. And Wednesday—well, you may say there’s half the day gone with the early-closing. Mr. Giles and me, we took the bus to Lane End to see my cousin Mrs. Rigg that’s got a married niece and three children evacuated from Croydon, and we had a cup of tea there and come home. And a very nice quiet young woman she is, and not like some I could name.” She dropped her voice to an edgy whisper. “Those Parkins, Mr. Antony—well, what I say is, girls don’t turn out that way if they’re brought up right. And I’m sure that Gladys Parkin is bad enough, with her perms, and her lipstick, and her nails for all the world as if she’d got them in the red ink by mistake, and the way she carries on after respectable young men that don’t give her a thought, or wouldn’t if she didn’t put it into their heads—and that’s some comfort to me about Tommy, for I’d rather he was in a German camp than mixed up with such as Gladys. Well, as I say, she’s bad enough, but when it comes to Ivy that’s married, or so Mrs. Parkins makes out—well, I know what I’d do to a daughter of mine, carrying on as bold as brass where anyone could see her, standing up on her tiptoes with her arms round a man’s neck, kissing and hugging. Thank goodness it wasn’t none of the boys round here!”

A profound lack of interest in the Parkin family became suddenly relieved by a spark. It flared, perhaps only to fade, but Antony followed the beam. “Who was it?” he said.

Mrs. Giles gave her head a negative jerk.

“I didn’t know him from Adam, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t either. Picked him up on the road as like as not, and if she gets herself knocked on the head like Miss Murdle she’ll only have herself to thank.”

Antony said quickly, “You mean he was a stranger?” and saw her hand go up to her mouth.

She kept it there, the knuckles pressing against her teeth, whilst her eyes met his. He saw them sharpen. Her hand dropped. She said, hard and quick,

“A stranger—of course—that’s just what he was! Oh, my goodness me—who’d have thought of that?”

Antony took his gleanings back to the police station, and was not received with any enthusiasm. Sergeant Hopkins mounted a high horse and rode it ponderously. It appeared that he had his own opinion about amateur detectives who went round being clever and interfering with the police. “And what I say is this, if a man’s a baker, you let him get on with his baking, and if a man’s a farmer, you let him get on with his farming. But if a man’s a policeman, then every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he can do his job better than what he can himself, and wants to put a meddling finger in the pie. Too many of these detective stories—that’s what’s the matter with them. And all of them thinking they’re Sherlock Holmes, or Mr. Fortune, or Mounseer Poyrott.”

“Well, you see, Sergeant, you read them yourself.”

Hopkins came off his horse with a jolly laugh.

“Well, they won’t hurt me,” he said. “It’s those that don’t know the routine of the job that get it into their heads you don’t need no training nor any hard work. But I can tell you that it takes a lot of both, some as it does for every job that’s worth doing at all. Where did you say Mrs. Giles saw this girl with a stranger?”

“Wednesday evening, about a hundred yards the Lane Hill side of Fourways. She and Giles were coming back from Lane End, and they were walking because they had missed the bus. She says it was dusk, but not too dark for her to be sure of Ivy Parkin—you know, she’s the red-haired one. And she says the man was a weasley little fellow, and he’d got his face down kissing Ivy, so she never really got a look at it, but he’d dark hair and a cap pushed back off it, and he might have been the man she saw on the motor-bike, or he mightn’t. You know, the people behind all this aren’t local—not possibly—so they must have got their local information somehow. That telephone call to Delia—someone knew enough to have Dr. Kyrle and his daughter all pat. Well, if you wanted local information in a strange place, how would you set about getting it? I know how I would. I’d look out for the girl that’s an easy pick-up and let her kiss and tell. And you wouldn’t have to look far with those Parkin girls about. Quick workers—especially Ivy.

“She’s been away in London these two years. Her mother says she’s married, but it isn’t credited much. Mrs. Miller she calls herself, and no law against it, as I’ve told more than one, but Ivy Parkin is what she goes by here. Brought up bad, both those girls.”

Antony got up.

“Well, I don’t say she knew she was doing any harm, but I think Ivy Parkin is where the local information came from. If you squeeze her you may get something. That sort of girl is apt to be scared of the police.”

He drove back to Fourways, his heart a little heavier with every revolution of the wheels. He had done all he could. He knew as well as old Hopkins did that he couldn’t go round interviewing people without getting in the way of the police. They were local men, and as far as the local routine work went they would be very good at it. It was the other end of the tangle that was outside their scope, and at any moment now Scotland Yard would be attending to that. Garrett would give them what he knew. That they would unravel the snarls, he did not doubt.

But unravelling may mean time and patience, and how much time had they got?

That was just what nobody could tell. Delia had been gone for seventeen hours. It did not bear thinking about, but the thought came back to him unbearably every time he forced it away. They had her in their hands. If they believed in this damned spoof cylinder—and he thought it was obvious that they did—then they’d got to try and get hold of it. There were no two ways about that. They had broken into the bank, and they had got away with the parcel. Fine and cock-a-hoop they must have felt. And then when they opened the thing—well, you could just imagine the bump. And now they’d got Delia.

What would they do? Try and persuade her—frighten her? He thought so. He thought they wouldn’t go beyond that at first, unless they were outrageously pressed for time. They would count on fear doing their work for them.

But if it didn’t—if she didn’t tell them where the cylinder was—then—then—

A cold sweat came out on him. Because Delia couldn’t tell what she didn’t know. In his own mind he felt a certainty that the dictaphone cylinder with which Cornelius had threatened the little man in Berlin had existed only in his bold imagination. It had served its turn, and it now had no existence at all. Delia could not buy her life with it, or relief from pressure which would hour by hour be becoming more intolerable.

He wrenched his mind from that, to be confronted by the picture of his own uselessness.

There was nothing he could do.

Whilst he was telephoning Frank—coming down here—interviewing Miss Simcox, the Parkers, Ellen, old Hopkins, Mrs. Giles, he had seemed to himself to be doing something, but now there was no more that he could do. He had been rushing round in circles because he didn’t dare to stop and think what might be happening to Delia. Now he had to stop, and he had to think. There was nothing else that he could do.

He came into the hall at Fourways, opening the door and walking in as he had always done. Like a cold draught blowing through his mind, it came to him that the door stood like that for anyone to open from eight in the morning till half past ten at night, as thousands of doors stand in country places. He saw Parker come out of the study, and called to him, speaking out his thought.

“Anyone could walk in at that door. You’d better keep it locked.”

Parker said, “Yes, Mr. Antony—that’s what I was saying not half an hour ago to Mrs. Parker—and in two minds whether to take it on myself without any words about it, only Mrs. Parker she wasn’t what you might call encouraging.”

“Why?”

Parker looked gloomy.

“She said there’d have been some sense in it if we’d done it yesterday, but doing it today wouldn’t bring Miss Delia back, so I left it.”

“Lock it now!” said Antony.

Parker went past him. He heard the key turn, and thought that Mrs. Parker was right. It was too late.

“If you please, Mr. Antony, there was a call for you—only just rung off. A Colonel Garrett, sir, and he said when you came in to tell you he wanted to see you very urgent, and would you please come back to town.”

Antony swung round.

“I’m quite sure he didn’t say please. What did he say?”

Parker coughed.

“He sounded like a gentleman in a hurry. I couldn’t be certain of the identical words, but it was more like ‘Tell him to come back here at once!’ than what I repeated. I hope it doesn’t mean bad news, Mr. Antony.”

Antony hoped so too. He considered ringing Garrett up, but it was just on one o’clock. He might miss him and waste time which could be precious. He turned towards the door, and heard Parker in shocked expostulation.

“Not without anything inside you—you mustn’t really Mr. Antony! There’s no sense in it. If you won’t stay for lunch—and I could have it on the table in ten minutes—there’s sandwiches Mrs. Parker cut on purpose, and coffee she’s keeping hot just in case. It won’t take me any time to fill up one of the vacuums, and the sandwiches are all ready.”

Antony stopped with his hand on the door. Without turning round he said,

“All right. Thank her for thinking about it, will you.”

“And a lot of use he’d be, looking for Miss Delia on an empty stomach!” said Mrs. Parker in an angry voice which expressed her determination not to cry into the coffee she was pouring into a vacuum flask.

“Hand me the sugar, Ellen.… Yes, I said the sugar! Wake up, can’t you, my girl! Rations or no rations, and if it was the last bite in the house, Mr. Antony’ll get this coffee sweet the way he likes it. Put those sandwiches in that tin! There—he can’t say we’ve kept him. And you can’t get from it, there’s nothing a man don’t stand up to the better for getting some food inside him, and no one’s going to throw it up at me that I let him go off with a sore heart, which I can’t help, as well as an empty stomach, which I can.”

Ellen put down the sugar bowl and came back red-eyed and sniffing.

“Oh, Mrs. Parker, do you think they’ll find Miss Delia? Where ever do you suppose she is?”

Mrs. Parker bit her head right off.

“Lord ha’ mercy, girl—do you think I’d be waiting for you to ask me that if I knew? If you can’t talk sense you’ve no need to talk at all that I can see! And if you can’t stop sniffing you can get out of my kitchen and do it somewhere else!”

Chapter Sixteen

Colonel Garrett looked up sharply as the door opened and Antony Rossiter came in. He was expecting him, but not as soon as this. He must have fairly bucketed the insides out of the Hillman.

The door banged. Antony said,

“What is it, Frank?” And Garrett came out with,

“They’ve found a body.”

He might have been going to say more, or he might not. The greenish pallor of Antony’s face halted him. He said on a furious growl,

“Damned young fool! It’s not your Delia Thingumy. What the hell—if you’d let me finish!”

Antony came up to the chair on the other side of the desk and sat down. He moved like a man who has been hit pretty hard and doesn’t quite know what he is doing. He put his head in his hands and sat there leaning forward. Presently he looked up and found Garrett glaring at him.

“Sorry, sir—you knocked me out. You said they’d found someone.”

“Might be Cornelius.”

Antony felt nothing at all. Thought, feeling, imagination were all numb. They would be normal again presently, but for the moment this was just question and answer, with nothing to touch himself. Cornelius was just a name. He said,

“What makes you think so?”

“Not me—secretary from the Dutch Ministry. Says he thinks it’s Cornelius. They want you to identify him.” He pushed back his chair. “You’d better have a drink.”

“Thanks.”

“Had anything to eat?”

Antony nodded.

“Sandwiches and coffee pressed on me by the Parkers—housekeeper and butler at Fourways. Frank—do you think it’s Cornelius? Where was he found?”

“River,” said Garrett.

He set down a glass at Antony’s hand.

“Drowned?”

“Knocked on the head first. That would be the crash that halfwitted Marsden girl heard over the telephone. He was trying to get on to me. They caught him at it and coshed him. Yesterday morning.”

Antony drank, and set down the glass.

“About a quarter to ten, she said.”

“Put him in the river as soon as it was dark. Medical evidence quite compatible.”

Antony still had no feeling, but his brain was working furiously.

“Suppose it was this way. The people who were out to get that parcel get hold of Cornelius. They daren’t do anything to him, till they’ve got their hands on the cylinder. They just hold him. Then they burgle the bank. They get the parcel. They think they’ve got the cylinder. It’s just guesswork, but I should say that the people who did the burglary wouldn’t open the parcel themselves. They’d be working for a bigger man, and they’d bring it to him, but they might let him know they’d got it—ring him up, or send a wire with a prearranged message. They wouldn’t necessarily bring it straight to him—probably not—but they’d be bound to let him know. Don’t you see how it might have been? He’d think the cylinder was safe. They were on to that parcel from the start, and sure that the cylinder was inside it. I suspect Con laid them a trail. He was deep, you know, and he liked a dangerous game for its own sake. I can imagine how he’d enjoy getting those maps out of the country and then playing up the Gestapo with a hint here and a whisper there—you know the kind of thing. They’d swallow it all right. He’d started the cylinder myth with a bang, and it would be as easy as mud to keep it going. The parcel was just the right size—he’d seen to that. When they got it they’d be quite sure they’d got the cylinder. Well then, Cornelius didn’t matter any more. They’d have to get rid of him—he knew too much. The minute he lost his hold over them his number was up. I don’t know how he managed to ring you up. He’s crafty. He must have tricked them somehow, but they caught him, and that finished it. And how they must have cursed when they found they hadn’t got the cylinder after all!”

He picked up his glass and took off what remained of his drink at a draught. Then he set it down again—rather hard—and said,

“That’s my guess at it. Nobody’ll ever know—not if Con’s really dead.” He got up. “Well, I expect we’d better be going.”

Twenty minutes later he stood in the police mortuary and stared with hard composure at the dead man lying there. Curious how little the dead resemble the living. What a bad copy death makes of life when everything that stands for man has gone. This heavy marble was no one he had ever known. It was eternally strange—on the other side of the great gulf which lies between intelligence and non-intelligence. He was here to identify this inert flesh with a man whom he had known as you know your own kin. But what he had known was here no longer. He had a sense of repulsion, but no sense of loss. What he shared with Cornelius was intact, in the old bright days of his boyhood. He could look back and find it there. What he had lost he had lost long ago, in later years, but not by death.

He drew down the sheet and looked at the dead man’s wrists. The left was unmarked. The right showed an unhealed gash.

He stepped back from the body and said in an even voice,

“It is Cornelius.”

Presently they were in a room together—Garrett and Antony—Detective Inspector Lamb and Detective Sergeant Abbott—Mr. Van der Pol of the Dutch Ministry. He was bowing politely and offering condolences to Antony in his smooth and perfect English.

“Your adopted brother, I understand, Mr. Rossiter, but he kept him own name of Roos, did he not?”

Antony came back from a long way off. It was all over and the chapter closed. Curiously enough, the wrench he felt was the old wrench of his parents’ death. Cornelius had been the sole remaining link with them. He said,

“My parents adopted him when they had no child of their own. He used their name as long as my father lived, but, as you well know, he kept his Dutch nationality.”

Mr. Van der Pol nodded.

“I did not know him personally—none of us over here did. But I chanced to see him when he came in a few days ago. He wished for a permit to remain here until he could get a passage to the United States. As I say, I saw him then, but today I could not have identified him with any certainty, though I feared that it was he. I have heard of him as a very able man.”

Detective Inspector Lamb came into the conversation. Too bulky a man to be overlooked—black hair, growing thin on the top but with no grey in it—very strong black hair that would have curled if it had ever been allowed to get that length. For the rest, he had a heavy jowl and a small, shrewd grey eye. He said, “Excuse me, Mr. Rossiter—I take it that you have no doubt at all about this identification?”

Antony said, “None.”

The shrewd grey eye dwelt on him.

“I saw you look at that cut on his wrist. I take it that connects up with your statement about seeing him in Silverthorn Road on Tuesday night. I think you mentioned a cut on his wrist, but you were not really prepared to swear to his identity then.”

“No—I only thought it was Cornelius. I couldn’t go farther than that. I never saw his face. When Miss Merridew told me that he had been to see her next morning, and that she was positive he had neither cut nor bandage on his right wrist, I thought I must have been mistaken. It would have been quite easy for me to have made a mistake. I saw him only when the street was lit up by flashes from the explosions that were going on—I never saw his face at all. But I did see that cut wrist when I turned my torch on him, and I’m prepared to swear to it.”

Inspector Lamb looked over his shoulder. He gave a kind of nod to his subordinate, whom Antony now noticed for the first time—a thin young man with an air of surprising elegance. He had colourless fair hair slicked back from a pale, high brow. Elegance and pallor were in fact the keynotes of his appearance. At the Inspector’s look he produced a notebook.

Lamb had turned back to Antony.

“You are now prepared to swear that the man in Silverthorn Road was Cornelius Rossiter, alias Cornelis Roos?”

Antony flared up suddenly.

“I won’t pass that alias! You’ve just heard me say that my parents adopted him. His legal name was, and remains, Cornelis Roos. Cornelius is the English for Cornelis—”

Lamb stopped him.

“Now, Mr. Rossiter, there’s no need for you to take me up like that. The ‘alias’ was just a technical expression. It wasn’t meant to reflect on Mr. Roos in any way. I’ve been put on to this case, and what we want to do is to find Miss Merridew as quick as it can be done. I take it that’s what you want too. And now perhaps you’ll answer my question. Are you prepared to swear that the man you saw with a cut on his wrist in Silverthorn Road on Tuesday night was Mr. Cornelis Roos?”

“Yes, I am.”

“On the strength of that cut on his wrist?”

“Yes—it is the same cut. I shone my torch on it.”

“You’re quite sure of that?”

“I’m quite sure.”

“And Miss Merridew was quite sure that the gentleman who came to see her on Wednesday morning had no cut on his wrist?”

“Yes, she was quite sure. She said he put his hat down on a chair. When he was leaving he had his gloves in his left hand, and he reached out for his hat with his right. She said his wrist came clear of the cuff, and she was quite positive that there was no cut on it.”

Detective Sergeant Abbott wrote. He had a pale, slim hand with noticeably well kept nails—well kept, and well shaped.

“Very observant young lady,” said the Inspector without any expression in his voice at all. “Then, Mr. Rossiter, there are just three possibilities. Either you are wrong, or she is wrong, or the gentleman who visited her on Wednesday morning was not Mr. Cornelis Roos.”

Colonel Garrett, who had been standing with his back to the fire surveying the scene in a sardonic silence, now broke in with a barking laugh.

“Been wondering when someone was going to tumble to that!” he said.

Lamb’s gaze dwelt on him with a mixture of respect and reproof.

Garrett laughed again and kicked at the fire.

“All right, all right—I won’t butt in. It’s not my show—you don’t need to tell me that.”

Lamb resumed.

“Had that possibility occurred to you, Mr. Rossiter?”

Antony said, “Yes.”

“Miss Merridew had never met Mr. Roos?”

“No.”

“Or seen a photograph of him?”

“I don’t suppose so. There are some old groups with my parents—she might have seen those. But he would have been a boy in his teens—they wouldn’t really help very much.”

“Did she say what he looked like?”

“Yes—I asked her. The description would pass. She said he was a big man, heavily built, with a large, pale face. That was after she told me there was no cut on his wrist, but I didn’t give it very much weight. I was more inclined to think I must have been mistaken about the man in Silverthorn Road. You see, I never saw him—only a silhouette against one of those flashes.”

The Inspector nodded.

“It didn’t really occur to you at the time, that someone might have been impersonating Mr. Roos?”

“Not seriously. The thought just passed through my mind.”

“But it occurs to you now?”

“I am sure of it.”

Inspector Lamb nodded again slightly.

“And can you make any suggestion as to who this someone might be?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Or you, sir?” The Inspector turned to Colonel Garrett, who shook his head impatiently and kicked the fire again. The sparks rushed up.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Mr. Van der Pol spoke.

“It is with diffidence that I intrude, but it is just possible that I can help you. I have, first, a little general information—what we may perhaps call a background, and against that I can pose one small thing which has come to my knowledge. It may have nothing to do with your case, or it may have a great deal.”

The Inspector considered this fanciful and, what he regarded with almost equal disapproval, foreign. Foreign countries existed, more was the pity, because look at it how you would, they were making a pretty mess of the world. But since they were there and had to be put up with whether they were fighting against you or in an aggravating state of non-belligerency, foreigners must be recognized as existing too. Some of them, he was willing to allow, were good enough people in their own way. The Dutch—he had nothing whatever against the Dutch. They were not English, and they had their own way of doing things. Not their fault of course, and a fair-minded man wouldn’t hold it up against them. These sentiments undoubtedly tinged the Inspector’s manner as he turned in the Secretary’s direction.

“If you have any evidence of this person’s identity—”

Sergeant Abbott controlled a very faint twitch of the lip. The opinions of his superior officer were known to him. He frequently enjoyed them very much. His pale blue eyes narrowed for a moment to take in the scene—old Lamb, a little on his dignity—the slim middle-aged diplomat, who looked more French than Dutch with his charming manner of the man who knows his world and keeps the savour of it even though its pomp and circumstance have crumbled.

“Evidence?” Mr. Van der Pol made a slight disclaiming gesture. “It is scarcely that. I will, if you please, begin with the background. I do not know if you, Mr. Rossiter, have any acquaintance with the Roos family.”

Antony looked at him sharply and said, “None.” Then, as if he felt that he had been too abrupt, he added, “I left Holland when I was eight, after my father’s death. I have been over occasionally since I grew up, but I never met any of the Roos connection. I don’t think Cornelius hit it off with them.”

Mr. Van der Pol made another slight gesture, this time of acquiescence.

“There is a cousin who is quite a well known person. His name is Barend Roos. He was known before the German occupation as an enthusiastic supporter of Nazi principles. Since the occupation I have heard that he has made himself very prominent as a pro-German. There you have the background of which I spoke. Against this, just one little thing which may very easily be a mistake. My daughter came home the other day—it was, I think, on Tuesday afternoon—and said she had seen Barend Roos. I told her that she must have made a mistake, and that the person she had seen was probably his cousin Cornelis, but she declared that this was absurd. I said that I had seen Cornelis Roos myself that morning when he had called at the Ministry, and I reminded her that there was a certain likeness between them. She replied that I was talking nonsense, and that she had seen Barend Roos.”

“What does this likeness amount to?” said Antony quickly.

Mr. Van der Pol shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, not so very much. What you might call a family resemblance—a matter of height, build, general characteristics. I might put it this way—a description of either man would fit the other, but anyone who knew Barend would not be likely to take him for Cornelis, or Cornelis for him.”

Inspector Lamb said, “And I take it that Miss Van der Pol does know this Mr. Barend Roos?”

Mr. Van der Pol became slightly withdrawn in manner.

“My daughter has met him socially. He was an acquaintance, not a friend. Some months have passed since she saw him last, and it is possible that she was mistaken, though she will not admit this herself.” He stepped back a pace. “Perhaps you would like to ring her up. I believe she is at home.”

Inspector Lamb said, “Thank you, sir—it would be more satisfactory.”

He sat down to the table and dialled the number Mr. Van der Pol gave him.

“I do not know if you would care to have me explain to my daughter—”

The Inspector’s eyes dwelt on him. Their gaze betrayed none of the intelligence at work behind them. He said in an expressionless voice, “Thank you, sir—I don’t think so,” and proceeded patiently and perseveringly to get into touch with Miss Van der Pol.

Having been assured in a clear girlish voice that he had achieved his object, he introduced himself without any flowers of speech.

“Detective Inspector Lamb speaking. I would be glad if you would answer a few questions. Mr. Van der Pol informs me that you believe yourself to have recognized a certain Mr. Barend Roos here in London on Tuesday last.”

Clara Van der Pol said, “Oh!” She was a little frightened, and immensely curious. She said “Oh!” again. And then, “Is my father there?”

The Inspector said, “Yes.” He turned to the Secretary.

“Perhaps you would just let Miss Van der Pol hear you speak, sir.”

A faint smile appeared for an instant on Mr. Van der Pol’s face as he replied.

“Certainly, Inspector. I imagine that she can hear me from where I am standing.” He used a tone a little raised above its ordinary level.

Lamb said into the mouthpiece, “Is that all right, Miss Van der Pol?” and caught her quick reply, “Oh, yes. What is it that you want to know?”

“About this Mr. Barend Roos. You think you saw him on—Monday was it, or Tuesday?”

“Tuesday.” The girlish voice was quite definite. “And I am quite sure that I saw him.”

“What time was it?”

“About three o’clock. I had been out to lunch, and I was coming back. I was walking, and he passed me in a car—a Morris 10—12—I do not know. He was not driving. There was a small man at the wheel. Barend was at the side nearest me. I saw him very well, and I am quite sure that it was he. I came home and told my father—” She stopped suddenly, as if she might have said too much.

Lamb took her up.

“And your father told you that you had probably made a mistake, and that it was Mr. Cornelis Roos you had seen, and not Mr. Barend.”

He heard her catch her breath.

“Oh! How do you know that?”

“Your father told me, Miss Van der Pol. Did you know Mr. Cornelis Roos?”

“No.”

“Never seen him?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know that you didn’t see him on Tuesday and take him for his cousin Mr. Barend?”

If he expected to shake her he was disappointed. She said at once,

“Oh, no, no—it was Barend.”

Lamb said, “I see.” And then, “You know him as well as that?”

There was displeasure in the voice that came back to him along the line.

“If you mean that he is a friend, that is not true. But he is a friend of friends of mine, and I have met him at their house. I have met him too often to make a mistake.”

“I see. Now will you tell me where it was that this car passed you?”

“Oh, yes. I had been to lunch in Chelsea. I was walking along the King’s Road towards Sloane Square. The car passed me, coming from the Square.”

“And went on down the King’s Road?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Miss Van der Pol.” He hung up the receiver.

“Well, that doesn’t take us very much farther. She says she is sure that it was Barend Roos.”

He gave the particulars of time and place to Sergeant Abbott, who wrote them down. Then he pushed back his chair and got up.

“Tuesday—that was the first time he went down to see Miss Merridew. Can you tell me when he reached Wayshot, Mr. Rossiter?”

Antony started slightly. It was as if the sound of his own name had recalled him.

“He reached Fourways some time between tea and dinner, I think. The butler would know.”

“And the distance from town is?”

“Round about thirty miles.”

“Then he wasn’t on his way there when Miss Van der Pol saw him—a bit too early. I wonder what name he was going under.”

“Brown was what he gave Parker—but of course that mightn’t mean anything.”

“It mightn’t, or then again it might,” said Inspector Lamb. “Well, I think we’ve finished here. What are your plans, Mr. Rossiter?”

“I’m going back to Wayshot,” said Antony.

Chapter Seventeen

Antony went back to Wayshot, driving the Hillman as if he had some desperate appointment failing which he would be failing Delia and all his hopes. A man in trouble must have movement or stifle. A woman falls upon her bed or the bare earth and calls upon darkness and silence to cover her. Antony, being a man, pushed his car to its limit. Coming to Wayshot, he wondered what he was going to do there. Spend the evening with Miss Simcox? It was a paralyzing thought. He made for the police station and Hopkins.

The Sergeant was pleased with himself. He had found two people who had seen a car near the entrance to Fourways on Thursday evening. Mary Porter, house parlourmaid at Mrs. Blake’s, said she was passing there just before half past six o’clock after having been out to tea with an aunt at Lane End. It was a dark car—might have been black or a very dark green—and it backed into the entrance. She thought it was going to turn and she didn’t take any more notice, and she didn’t see who was driving—not to say see.

“Not much to go on, but this one’s better. Grimshaw’s boy, going out that way to deliver fish at Colonel Pilbeam’s—smart lad, name of Oakes—Tommy Oakes—well, he came along a matter of five minutes later, because he passed Mary Porter by the gate of the Grange and it would take her about that time to get there from Fourways. He saw the car turn out of the drive and go off in the direction of Lane Hill, and he says it was a black Morris 12—JMC and the number began with a double two. Boys always notice that kind of thing, and it’s not often they make a mistake. That’ll be a London number, so I rang up the Yard at once and let them have it. Seems they’ve got a Morris car connected with the case their end, so they were pleased as Punch.”

“Anything else?” said Antony.

Hopkins cleared his throat. His good news told, he had now to admit to something not very far removed from a set-back at the hands of Ivy Parkin. Ivy, it appeared, had behaved with scandalous levity—“Giggled and carried on,” was Hopkins’s description—and when asked whether she had met a young man on Wednesday afternoon as described by Mrs. Giles, had laughed fit to choke herself and said oh, no—how could he say such a thing? “‘Hasn’t anyone told you I’m a married woman? What was I doing Wednesday afternoon? Why, setting at home and saying my prayers same as I do regular.’ And off she goes again, and her mother Mrs. Parkin chips in and calls me a scandalmongering old turkey-cock!”

“Would it be any good if I saw her?” said Antony.

Hopkins cleared his throat portentously.

“Well, I wouldn’t advise it. You see, by my way of thinking it’s bound to be one of two things. To start with, the man that was with Ivy Parkin on Wednesday evening—and I’m willing, to take Mrs. Giles’s word for it that she did see Ivy Parkin with a man just short of Fourways, because there isn’t much she misses, and that’s a fact—sharp as a jill ferret—” He passed his hand over his mouth and chin. “Well, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that, and I’d be glad if you’d keep it to yourself, Mr. Antony. But there’s times it gets your back up when a woman’s as sharp as some we won’t name, and I’d be glad if you’d forget it. I’ve nothing against women, and I’ve nothing against their being clever in their own way, but there’s a difference between cleverness and sharpness, and when I see one that’s a bit too sharp I can’t help hoping she’ll cut herself. Now where had we got to? We’d better get back and make a fresh start. That man that was with Ivy Parkin, he’s either a stranger to her—she being the kind of young woman as ’ud be ready to pick up with a stranger—or else she’s known him before. And if he was a stranger, there wouldn’t be much she could tell us, and if he wasn’t, she’d be likely to hold her tongue. So I wouldn’t advise your seeing her. You’d only get a lot of back-chat same as I did, and talk in the village into the bargain.”

Antony jerked that away. If there was anything that Ivy Parkin knew and he could get it out of her, the village was welcome to talk itself black in the face.

He drove away, and wondered again how the endless, dragging time was to be got through. Incredibly, it was not yet twelve hours since he had known that Delia was gone. They seemed to have been wrenched right out of time and to stretch as far back as he could remember. Before him lay the prospect of other hours as dreadfully prolonged. A craving for speed came on him like the craving for a drug—to race across the sky at three hundred miles an hour, to pass from land to sea, to cross the continents, to leave himself behind—and crash at last—

He dropped back to sanity. Three hundred miles and an aeroplane were as remote as yesterday, and as little to be commanded. He had to be practical. This day—this hour—and Garrett’s car which could with difficulty be pushed to fifty-five—

He slowed to take the entrance to Fourways, and saw a girl scuttle out of the way. The evening was dull but not yet dusk. There was plenty of light to see her by. He stopped the car with a jerk that tore at the brakes, jumped out, and ran after her. As he came up she looked back over her shoulder and giggled. He thought, “She’s nervous. What’s she doing here?” And then he was up with her, and she had stopped, and stood there making eyes and fiddling with the handle of her bag. It was two years since he had set eyes on her, but it was Ivy Parkin all right. There was no mistaking that bush of red hair. She had a bright green bandeau round it, and she was made up to the nines. The colour of her lipstick fairly blazed. She said, “Oh, Mr. Antony!” and giggled again. And again he thought, “She’s nervous.”

There were no preliminaries. He said at once,

“What are you doing here? Were you coming to see me?”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“I might have been. Would you have been pleased to see me?”

He said, “Yes, I should.”

“That starched Parker wouldn’t! Looks down his nose at anyone as if they were something he didn’t ought to see, and I don’t see that a girl’s got any call to put up with that! So I might have been coming to see you, and then again I mightn’t. You wouldn’t like to take me a nice drive in your car, would you?”

He said, “That’s a good idea,” and was enraged when she gave herself the air of hanging back.

“Not if you don’t want to of course, Mr. Antony.”

“There is nothing I should like better.”

He drove over Lane Hill and up on to the common. Ivy looked about her, giggled, and remarked that it was a nice quiet place—“but as for anywhere near the village, I’m sure you can’t so much as kiss a friend goodnight but what some old cat goes tattling all over the place about it.”

“Why were you coming to see me?” said Antony.

She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, I dunno. Don’t you ever have a girl to see you?”

“Was it about Delia?”

“It might have been.”

He turned round to face her.

“Ivy, if you know anything, for God’s sake tell me!”

She looked startled. He saw her draw away.

“How could I know anything? I haven’t said I know anything.”

“Then why were you coming to see me?”

There was a pause. She said, “Oh, well—” and he had the feeling that she was enjoying herself, but rather frightened too. She broke into a giggle.

“You should have seen old Hopkins when Mum called him a turkey-cock! I thought he’d choke!” She tossed her head. “What’s it got to do with the police who I’m friends with? And what’s it got to do with that interfering old cat Mrs. Giles who I go with or who I kiss goodnight to? Her precious Tommy’s safe enough that she always thought Gladys was after. Him! Glad wouldn’t have him, not if he went down on his knees, nor would any other girl that didn’t want poison for a mother-in-law! Maybe he’ll come home with a German frawline, and see how she’ll like that—scandalmongering after Glad and me like she does! Pity she hasn’t got something else to think about! I’m a married woman, aren’t I? How does she know it wasn’t my husband I was saying goodnight to?”

“Was it?” said Antony.

There was something underneath this uneasy stream.

“Why should it be? A girl can have a friend, can’t she?”

“Ivy—was it your husband?”

She flared up.

“Do you think I’d give him away if it was?”

Something under the stream—something that might be given away—

He said, “No, I don’t think so. Who was it?”

The flare died down again.

“I don’t know from Adam.”

He heard himself laugh. It struck him with a kind of wonder.

“Then you can give him away with a perfectly clear conscience.”

“I suppose I can. But I wouldn’t for everyone, and that’s the gospel truth. Miss Delia, she’s never been nasty to me and Glad, and I wouldn’t be nasty to her. She always spoke nice to Mum, and she’d look and smile the same as if we were anyone else. So that’s why I’m telling you.”

Antony said, “Go on.” His throat was tight. Delia in the village street—moving with her quick, light step—giving her enchanting smile to Mrs. Giles, to old Hopkins, to the brazen Parkin girls. It wrenched at his heart.

He must have made some sound, because all in a moment Ivy was crying and telling him not to.

“Don’t, Mr. Antony—don’t! It can’t be all that bad. They wouldn’t hurt her—nobody wouldn’t hurt Miss Delia. And I wouldn’t have told him nothing if I’d known what he was up to, the nasty little ferret.”

Antony caught her wrist.

“What did you tell him? No, don’t cry—that’s no good. Tell me!”

“I didn’t know a thing, Mr. Antony.” She dragged out a handkerchief reeking of cheap scent and dabbed her eyes. “Never seen him before and never want to see him again. Come up to me when I was walking out this way Wednesday. On a motor-bike he was, and got off and passed the time of day and asked if I hadn’t got a friend with me—you know.” A giggle and a sob came out together. “Well, I hadn’t, and I said so. Then we got talking, and he said wasn’t it very dull down here for a girl like me, and I said it was. By and by he got talking about who lived in all the houses. We were round about where you picked me up, and he pointed to Fourways and asked who lived there, so I told him Mr. Merridew and his niece Miss Delia Merridew, and he said it would be very dull for her, but he supposed she’d got her friends. And I said oh, yes, there was you and there was Miss Cynthia Kyrle, Dr. Kyrle’s daughter. Mr. Antony, I didn’t mean any harm nor think any. It was just talk, and him making up to me all the time the way a fellow does when he wants a girl to think he’s keen on her. I didn’t take a lot of notice of what he said, not till afterwards. I thought it was all just something to talk about whilst we got going, and that’s the honest truth.”

He thought it was. His grasp tightened on her wrist.

“You never saw him before?”

“No, I never.” She was half crying still.

“Would you know him again?”

“I might.”

“Can you describe him?”

“I dunno. He’d on overalls and a mac—they kind of cover you up—and a cap and goggles, only he pushed the goggles up when he came across to speak to me. There isn’t much to see when a fellow’s got all that on. He was small, that’s one thing—wouldn’t hardly have come up to your ear. And a kind of fidgety way with him—he’d blink his eyes when he asked a question—and a London way of speaking. And I couldn’t see his hair—it was all hid up under the cap. I should think it’d be light, because he hadn’t any eyebrows to speak of, nor eyelashes neither. Kind of pinched-looking, if you know what I mean, but plenty of talk. There’s one thing he was right about if he never spoke another word—about Wayshot being dull. It’s all right when you don’t know anything different, but after London—” she tossed her head and rolled her eyes—“well, there’s times I’ve been so fed up I’d have had a shot at getting off with old Hopkins!”

She jerked at her wrist to get it away, and Antony let her go. He had got as much as he expected and a little more. The description she had given him had possibilities. It might say something to the London police. Anyhow they should have it, and at once.

He started up the car and drove back along the way he had come, Ivy beside him busy with her horrible handkerchief, compact, lipstick. The car fairly stank of chypre. He thought ironically of Garrett—but in a contest of reeks the old foul pipe should hold its own. Under the surface hope pulled frantically against despair.

As they approached the entrance to the drive, Ivy giggled and put a hand on his arm.

“If you’ll put me down here, that’ll be all right. And thank you for the drive.”

It had been a jaunt—a break in the dullness of Wayshot. A bitter anger came up in him. Delia and he were the sport of a trivial fate! Because Ivy Parkin hankered after London and found Wayshot dull, Delia had been thrown to the wolves. She had doubtless been bored this afternoon. His agony would be a godsend to her. There was a horrible moment when he felt like murder. And then Ivy was getting out of the car. He slammed the door and let both windows down to clear the chypre.

He had his hand on the starter, when she came running up on the off side and leaned right in.

“Mr. Antony—”

“What is it?”

“Mr. Antony—”

He took hold of himself. There was something she wanted to say. Not a chance in a million that it was anything to matter, but he couldn’t afford to neglect the millionth chance.

“What is it, Ivy? Have you thought of anything else?”

Her giggle was a nervous one.

“Well, I might have—I dunno. You wouldn’t get me into trouble with the police?”

What did one say to that? He chanced it honestly.

“It would depend on what you’d done. I’d do my best. What is it?”

She hesitated, drew back a little, and then came out with,

“Would there be a reward?”

A laughter as bitter as anger swept through him. Money! Of course that was what she was after. What a damned fool he had been not to tumble to it before! He said in what he hoped was a casual voice,

“Oh, yes, there’d be a reward.”

“How much?” said Ivy briskly. Business was business, and a girl had to look out for herself.

“How much do you want?”

There was a momentary hesitation. Then she got it out.

“Fifty pounds.”

“What for?” He wasn’t casual now, but as businesslike as she.

“Well—”

“My dear girl, you don’t expect me to buy a pig in a poke, do you?”

“I dunno what you mean.” She drew back.

If she turned sulky, he’d lose her. He said quickly,

“You can have your fifty pounds if you’ve got anything that’s worth it. But you must tell me what it is—I can’t just give it you blind—you must see that.”

She said, “I dunno—” and stood fingering her bag. And then all at once she began to talk with an uneven rush of words. “I wouldn’t have let that old Hopkins have it, not if he’d gone down on his knees. But you’re different—and you’re a gentleman, Mr. Antony—and if you say I’ll get my fifty pounds—well, then you’ll see I get it. And as for what it’s worth, I can’t say—but there’s a letter, and—well, you can see for yourself.”

The hands that were fiddling with the bag pulled it open. Out came something flat and dark. She pushed it at him. The dusk was closing in, but it was not so dark but that he could see that what she was giving him was a shabby leather wallet. His heart bounded.

“Dropped it out of his rain-coat pocket most likely, when he was saying goodnight. I don’t say there wasn’t a kiss or two. And what’s the harm if you like it? Some do and some don’t. And some old cats—well nobody’d want to kiss them any old how, so what’s the odds?”

It fell out of his rain-coat.… Antony thought not. He thought those predatory fingers with their scarlet nails had picked it neatly out of an inner pocket. If he had his arms round her, she would have felt it through the stuff. No human being ever carried a wallet in the outside pocket of a rain-coat.… Well, that wasn’t his business.

She tugged at his sleeve and said in an urgent whisper,

“You won’t let the police get nasty about it, will you? It just dropped out—I swear it did. There wasn’t any money, no more than what’s there now. You can see for yourself.”

All at once he was in a raging hurry to be gone—to find out what she had given him. He said,

“I’ll put it right with the police, and—thank you, Ivy—you shall have your money.”

Five minutes later he was up in the room which had always been his, turning the wallet out on the top of the chest of drawers. There wasn’t very much in it. There was a postal order for half a crown—no name filled in. His mouth twisted. He had an idea that Ivy had left it there, as you might say for luck. He didn’t think she would have left a note. Perhaps there hadn’t been one—perhaps there had been two or three. It was not his affair.

After the postal order a book of stamps—all torn out except two. And after the book of stamps a letter written on thin, cheap paper in a clear, rather childish hand. There was an address at the top—13 Middle Carrick Row, Putney. He read what followed without the slightest compunction:

“DEAR JIMMY,

This is to say I can’t meet you Saturday like you said. Mum’s got one of her turns so I must stay home. I would like to come another time if you will ask me but Mum says I’m not old enough to go out with someone she don’t know anything about. She is very strict because of being brought up chapel but I don’t like to vex her because of her getting these turns which worries me a lot. She says if you want me to go out will you call and see her because that would make it all right. She says she ought to know anyone I’m going with. I hope you will not mind.

Your sincere friend,

MOLLY”

Within ten minutes Antony was reading this rather touching effusion over the telephone to Detective Inspector Lamb.

“That all, Mr. Rossiter?”

“I’ve got a description of Jimmy from the girl who gave me the wallet. I’ve promised her she shan’t get into trouble.”

He told Ivy’s tale, and got a “Nice bit of work, Mr. Rossiter. I’ll send Abbott along to Middle Carrick Row at once.…”

There was, after all, no evening to be dragged through with Miss Simcox.

Antony took the road again.

He came into the room which Detective Sergeant Abbott had entered no more than a couple of minutes before him, and found him there with Detective Inspector Lamb. He had no idea that he looked ghastly enough to startle the two men, and took Lamb’s expression of concern to be the precursor of bad news. The muscles of his face tightened. He came forward to the table and said in a low, hard voice,

“What is it? Better tell me and get it over.”

Abbott said quickly, “There’s nothing bad. Here, you look all in. Better have a chair.”

Antony blinked as if he had been hit. He got into the chair and leaned back. After a moment he fished out the wallet and handed it over. Lamb went through it methodically, Abbott standing on the other side of the table—a slim young man in clothes of a most excellent cut. At another time Antony would have wondered about him. Now he was just an image on the retina, sharp and hard and clear, like everything else in the room. The pens on the table, the blotting-pad, the buttons on old Lamb’s rather baggy coat, Abbott’s slicked-back hair, the lines at the corners of Lamb’s eyes, his short-stubby eyelashes—all these things stood out like things seen under a bright, unsparing light—limelight—the headlights of a car—the midday sun on sand in Africa—

He pulled at his thought and heard Lamb saying,

“Abbott’s just got back, Mr. Rossiter. I expect you’d like to hear what he’s got to say. Carry on, Abbott.”

In the bright picture before Antony’s eyes Sergeant Abbott pulled up a chair and sat down. Then he began to speak. He had a noticeably pleasant, cultured voice.

“Well, sir, I went to Middle Carrick Row. The people at No. 13 are a Mrs. Reade and her daughter. She’s a widow and a bit of an invalid. The girl was out when I got there, but I saw the mother. Just what you’d expect from the girl’s letter—very respectable, very worried at the idea of the girl being mixed up with anyone who wasn’t. And this is what she told me. Molly is only sixteen. She goes out as a sort of daily help to some people called Lester—Sycamore Lodge, Wood Lane, Putney. There are three or four children and she helps look after them—takes them out for walks and that sort of thing. Next door to Sycamore Lodge is The Acacias—Dr. Ernest Long. The families don’t know each other, but Molly met this Jimmy she wrote the letter to coming out of Dr. Long’s. His name is Jimmy Nash. I think he’s Blinking Jimmy. It’s the sort of job he might easily be mixed up in. One of the Lester children had fallen down and barked its knees. Nash picked it up and scraped acquaintance. That was about ten days ago. He’s been waylaying Molly and asking her to go to the pictures—Mrs. Reade’s a good deal bothered. She’d got as far as this when the girl came in. Nice child—friendly—pleased at Nash’s attentions—no feelings involved. Something put it into my head to ask her whether she’d ever seen Nash in a car—a dark Morris 12 for choice. She said no, he had a motorbike, but Dr. Long had a black Morris car. She didn’t know one car from another herself, but it was a black one, and the elder Lester boy, who is ten, said it was a Morris 12. And when I asked her if she had ever noticed the registration number she said she had, because she’d got a friend with the initials J.M.C., and wasn’t it funny, he was twenty-two and the car number began that way. And what do you think of that, sir?”

Antony felt as if he had received an electric shock.

“Did she know the rest of the number?”

“No—quite vague. Interest obviously confined to the coincidence with the friend’s initials and age.” He turned back to the Inspector. “I tried her with the description of Barend Roos, but it was a wash-out. She said a lot of people came to see Dr. Long. Added helpfully she supposed they’d be patients. And then, just as I was going out of the door, she said it wouldn’t be any good my going to see Dr. Long, because he was in hospital. He got hurt in an air raid a week ago—‘Mrs. Long is ever so worried about him.’”

Inspector Lamb pushed back his chair and got up.

“Looks to me as if she’d got more to worry about than that,” he said. “I think we’ll be paying a call on Mrs. Long. I’d like to ask her who has been using Dr. Long’s car whilst he’s been away in hospital.”

Chapter Eighteen

Delia put back the telephone receiver. It would be nice to get out of the house for an hour. Simmy was a pet, but they had already spent the whole day together, and there would be at the very least another two hours after dinner, filled up tight with anecdotes of all the pupils Simmy had ever had—dear Doris Penfold—dear Lilias—dear Mary—dear Dilys—Enid—Bronwen.… Once started, there was no end. She didn’t really mind of course, but it would be rather nice to go over to Cynthia’s for an hour and meet her new young man. She wondered what he was like. Rather an odd accent, but perhaps that was just the telephone—telephones did awfully queer things to your voice. Anyhow she gathered that it was his car and he was driving Cynthia home. They would pick her up at the bottom of the drive, and Dr. Kyrle would bring her back for dinner.

She came out of the study and told Parker. Then she ran up for a coat and slipped out of the house without Simmy hearing her. She felt very well pleased with herself. Everything was going splendidly. She had seen Antony today, and perhaps she would see him tomorrow. Uncle Philip was getting better, and as soon as he was well enough to be bothered, they could tell him they were engaged, and that would be the end of Cousin Leonora. Because Uncle Philip would be frightfully pleased. He loved Antony, and they would put the engagement in the Times, and everyone would write and tell them how lucky they were.

As soon as Delia got into the drive where she could not be seen from the house she began to run. She had on a blue tweed skirt, a hand-knitted jumper, and a long matching coat. She was bare-headed. The coat fell open and flapped behind her as she ran, and she could feel the wind in her hair. It was just after half past six. It was dusk everywhere in the drive and quite dark under the trees, but there was plenty of light on the road beyond the gate. When she saw the black humped shape of the car just short of the entrance she checked and came to the window, laughing.

“Cynthia, what a life-saving angel—”

She got as far as that and no farther. Mr. Barend Roos, who had been standing on the far side of the car, came up behind her. She felt an arm at her waist, and then before she had time to turn or cry out a heavy hand came down over her face and was held there. She hadn’t a chance to do anything. A powerful man was holding her. She was just enough out of breath to make her inhale deeply. Her nose and throat were full of the reek of chloroform. There was a moment of anger, a moment of fear. And then everything going away from her. She couldn’t see her feet or the arm at her waist. There was only the horrible sweet smell like a horrible sweet fog, floating in, flowing in, blotting her out. Nothing mattered. There wasn’t any Delia—

She went limp. Jimmy Nash, in the driver’s seat, leaned back and opened a rear door. Barend Roos swung Delia on to the seat and got in beside her. He shut the door and said,

“That went very well. Now we can go.”

They drove through Lane End and over Lane Hill, after which they took two right-hand turns and ultimately came back upon the London Road with Wayshot a safe three or four miles behind them.

Delia stayed where she had been thrown, half sitting, half lying. If she could have felt anything she would soon have been cramped and stiff, but everything that could have told her this was asleep.

As they came towards London, there was a red glare in the sky, and against the glow, like Roman candles, an incandescence of bursting shells. Jimmy Nash blinked at them with considerable disfavour. He slowed down and said over his shoulder,

“Not going into that, are we?”

“Certainly we are.”

“You couldn’t have called your friends off tonight, I suppose? What’s the idea? Who’s going to be any the better if we stop a bomb?”

“I do not think we shall, but if you like, we can wait for half an hour. It would be better for us if the streets were not too bright. You never know who will see a car and notice the number. I do not mind being on the safe side.”

Jimmy said, “Safe!” in an angry, contemptuous voice. He hadn’t liked this job from the beginning, and he was liking it less and less. It was the sort of job that looked all right when you went into it, and ended by landing you in Queer Street. He’d met that kind of job before—the man at the top got clear and left you to take the rap. And as for driving right into the middle of an air raid, that wasn’t in the bargain and he wasn’t going to do it for nobody.

He pulled in by the side of the road under trees and watched the glow fade and flare and the shells go rocketing up. The noise was horrible. He thought, “Who knows they won’t come this way? Any minute they might. This is a fine job, this is!” He thought about that nasty dream he’d had Tuesday night after he’d coshed the old girl by mistake. He couldn’t rightly remember it now, but that only made it worse. Spiders—millions of them—coming after him—and he didn’t know whether they got him or not. He’d waked up sweating and calling out. He was sweating again now at the thought of it.

He let down a bit of the window to get the air. Barend’s voice came from behind him, saying angrily,

“Don’t do that! Do you want to bring her round?”

He jerked the window up again. Who was Mr. Barend Roos? A blinking foreigner! He might call himself Brown as much as he pleased, but he didn’t take in Jimmy Nash. Jimmy knew his real name all right. Jimmy had made it his business to find out, and he’d found out more than he cared about. A blinking dangerous business and one he’d be glad to get shut of.

In the back of the car, Delia slipped down and gave a kind of moaning sigh. Barend’s hand went into his pocket. Jimmy heard the plop of a cork. A reek of chloroform reached him. He let the window down again in a hurry.

“Here—what are you up to—you’ll have us all off! Put the perishing stuff away; I thought you wanted the girl to talk. She won’t be able to if you smother her.”

Barend said, “She moved. We can’t have her coming round yet. Shut that window!”

“You won’t have her coming round at all if you don’t mind your step. And I’ll shut the window when that stuff’s blown out and not before—see? I don’t mind being bombed, and I don’t mind being copped by the police, but I’m hanged if I’ll be asphixerated in a car with a girl, like a blooming suicide pact.”

It was a good deal more than half an hour before the noise died down. There was still that glow in the sky, but fainter now. They went in over Hammersmith Bridge. A quarter of an hour’s driving, and the smell of fire was all about them. Jimmy threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Running into it a bit, aren’t we?” he said, blinking.

Barend said nothing. He was looking anxiously out of the window. They drove on slowly. Then he said,

“Where are we? Which is our turning?”

Jimmy dropped to a crawl.

“First to the right and straight on into the fire by the look of it.”

Barend said, “Stop!” and then, “Go on and see what has happened. If the house has not been touched, we must go on.”

He sat there chafing until Jimmy came back.

“Well?”

“Not a bit of good, mister. They won’t let you down the street for one thing, and for another, as well as I could see, number twenty-four has copped it good and proper. First floor front’s in the cellar, and the bathroom out in the middle of the street by the look of it. And do you know what come to me?”

“I do not want to know.”

“Well, I’ll give it you free, gratis, and for nothing. I thought how perishing lucky we were not to be under that first floor front, which we might have been if I hadn’t made you stop the other side of the river. So now what?”

Barend set his jaw.

“We must go back to Mrs. Long’s. She must take us in until I can make arrangements.”

Jimmy whistled.

“She won’t like that,” he said.

“It does not matter whether she likes it or not,” said Barend Roos.

Delia began to come back. She did not know where she had been, but she was coming back. There was a fog with a funny smell—a sweet, heavy smell. Chloroform. The word came into her mind and went out of it again. For a long time there was nothing there but the fog. Then there were sounds—people moving—talking. Light coming through the fog—light, and sounds. They worried her, and she wanted them to go away. The first thing she heard distinctly was Barend Roos saying,

“She ought to be coming round.”

He held a candle close to her face, moving it to and fro so that the light fell on her eyes. The fog brightened. Some of the wax fell on her wrist, but she did not feel it at all, though she could hear someone say “Oh!” in a gasping, frightened way. She sank down into the fog again.

Ina Long snatched the candle out of Barend’s hand.

“I told you she wasn’t shamming. Why can’t you believe me? Now you’ve burned her.”

He gave an uneasy laugh.

“A little candlegrease—what does it matter?”

Mrs. Long blew out the candle and put it down on the chest of drawers beside the bed. The room was a small, comfortable bedroom. There was a square of blue carpet on the floor. The rather uneven boards were well polished. There were bright chintz curtains with a pattern of delphiniums and poppies.

Delia lay on a low divan bed with her fair hair loose on the pillow. She had one hand at her throat. That was where the wax had fallen. Both arms lay bare outside the blue coverlet. The clothes which Mrs. Long had taken off her lay tossed down upon an ottoman at the foot of the bed, their blue repeating the blue of the carpet and of the delphiniums in the chintz. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and the curtains had been drawn back, but there was very little light coming in from outside. A heavy murk that was not quite a fog tinged everything with its own sallow gloom.

Mrs. Long turned round from putting down the candle.

“When are you going to take her away?” she said, half breathless, half accusing.

Barend Roos frowned. “Is that a reasonable thing to ask? Do you expect me to carry her out to the car like this, in daylight?”

“You shouldn’t have brought her here. It wasn’t in the bargain—you know it wasn’t.”

His frown deepened. He came round the bed and stood over her, a big, angry man. Dangerous. The word went through her mind on a shuddering breath of cold. He said,

“I am always forgetting that women are not reasonable creatures. I will say it all over again very plainly, but I will only say it once. After that you must remember. If you do not, you know who will suffer.” He saw with satisfaction that she shrank and trembled. A tiresome young woman, but amenable to a good loud crack of the whip. He went on in a cold, displeased voice. “It is not for you to talk about bargains, it is for you to do as you are told. You do not imagine that I wished to bring her here, do you—you are not as stupid as that. The house I would have taken her to was a great deal more suitable. There were empty houses on either side and over the way, but since it no longer exists, I have to make other arrangements, and meanwhile she must stay here. You will have to go and put your daily woman off. What excuse will you make?”

She looked at him in a frightened way. He would think she ought to have told him before. She didn’t know why she had not done so, except that perhaps it had made her feel safer. If he thought Mrs. Clarke would be here by ten o’clock he would be in a hurry to get the girl away before she arrived, but now she had to tell him. She said, “She isn’t coming.”

“Why?”

She bit her lip to stop it trembling. “I thought I could do without her whilst Ernest was away. She’s got a daughter who’s having a baby—she wants to go to her.”

His face relaxed. “Well, that is convenient. Now see—you must try to wake the girl. What can you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are a doctor’s wife.”

“I don’t know anything about these things.”

It would have given him the greatest pleasure to shake her.

She moved away from him nearer to the bed and looked down at Delia. “Perhaps you gave her too much. She looks very white. Some people can’t take a lot—I know that.”

“Just now you said you didn’t know anything. Do you know enough to wash her face with cold water?”

The heavy sarcasm in his voice brought a faint flush to her cheek.

“I had chloroform once, and I slept all the next day. They didn’t try to wake me up—I know that. If you want her to talk you had better let her sleep it off—I know that too. She won’t be much use to you with her head swimming and the room going up and down.”

He considered what she had said. He thought the crack of the whip had had a good effect and she was talking sense. Actually, it would not be at all a bad plan to let the girl sleep on. He couldn’t risk moving her in daylight. In bed and asleep, she would be out of harm’s way. He would have to make other arrangements. To do that he must go out. The contacts he must make were personal ones. He couldn’t send Jimmy, and it wouldn’t be safe to use the telephone.

He considered whether it would be safe to be away for some hours, as he very well might be. He didn’t trust Jimmy over much. He was venal, and he would think first of his own skin. He didn’t trust Ina Long at all. He had the whip hand of her, but with women you never could tell. She had every reason to come to heel, but at a pinch she might obey her nerves and break away. He couldn’t trust her a yard. What then? He must make his arrangements.… Must he?… It came to him then how much simpler and less dangerous it might be just to stay here where he could keep Jimmy and Ina and the girl under his own eye. Who was to know that Ina Long had anyone in the house? There was enough food—no one of them need go out. In the evening, when the girl had been made to speak, they could drive her away in the car. She would have to be disposed of.

It could be made to look like a road accident.

The car—the only real element of danger lay in the faint possibility that the car might be traced. It was so faint a chance that he did not consider it very seriously. The risk—if there was a risk—was confined to the time when they were in the immediate neighbourhood of Fourways. They had entered the drive a little before half past six, well after sunset. He remembered that they had passed a countryfied young woman not far from the gates, but otherwise the road had been empty. Coming out again, he had not noticed anyone. His attention had been taken up with Delia—he had been still holding the pad over her face. He had not noticed Tommy Oakes coming up smoothly on his bicycle from the opposite direction. There was therefore no risk at all. He decided with relief that he would stay where he was, and went downstairs to join Jimmy Nash in Dr. Long’s consulting-room, which had a very nice private outlook upon an old-fashioned garden a good deal overgrown with trees.

Chapter Nineteen

Delia lay on the divan bed. The voices ceased to trouble her. She slipped through the fog into sleep. Presently when Ina Long came to look at her she saw that she had turned on her side. Her breath came evenly and there was colour in her cheeks. A load lifted from Ina’s mind. She had been tormenting herself for hours with the thought that the anaesthetized stupor might go on until the girl was dead. And then what? Everything in her shuddered with fear. But this was sleep. She went thankfully away and busied herself about the house.

It was not until the afternoon that Delia woke. The day had cleared, and the sun came slanting in at the window. She turned away from it and opened her eyes. She was still heavy and drowsy. What she saw meant no more to her than an image seen in a dream. A blue carpet, cream walls, a blue coverlet, a chest of drawers, a basket chair with a chintz cover, blue flowers on the chintz, her clothes thrown down on the ottoman—these things made a picture before her eyes, but they made no sense. They were like a sentence in a foreign language, or a song of which you cannot hear the words. She didn’t say I know this place, or I don’t know it. It just meant nothing at all.

She would have closed her eyes again, but the door opened and Ina Long came in with a cup in her hand. There was strong broth in the cup, and as soon as the savoury smell reached her the whole scene came alive and was real. Because she was hungry. Nothing connects you with actuality more promptly and surely than hunger, the most primitive sensation of all.

Delia fixed her eyes upon the steaming cup. For the moment it was more important to her than where she was and how she had got there. She rose on her elbow, and the room went round. The savoury smell came nearer, and then the cup was at her lips and she was gulping down the broth. It was lovely and hot. She drank it all, and the room was steady again.

The woman who had held the cup to her lips took it away and put it down on the chest of drawers. Delia drew herself up against the pillows and looked at her.

She saw a girl who might be five years older than herself, and who would almost certainly have been pretty if she had not given the impression of having just been put through a wringer. She had the limp, white look that wrung-out linen has. She must have been crying for hours and hours to make her eyes so red. They might have been rather a pretty blue before she started, but they looked now as if all their colour had been washed away. She had fair brown hair which hung dejectedly about her shoulders, and she wore a brightly flowered overall.

Delia said, “Who are you?” and Ina Long said “Ssh!” and ran to shut the door. She had pushed it to when she came in. She opened it now and looked out before she latched it. Then she came back and knelt down by the bed.

Delia was looking at her in a puzzled way.

“Why am I here?”

“They brought you.”

“Who?”

“They’ll tell you—I can’t. But oh, whatever they want to know, you’ll tell them, won’t you?”

It sounded quite incredible. Delia went on looking at her. Perhaps she hadn’t quite waked up. It was a comforting thought. She said,

“I don’t know what you mean—I really don’t.”

And then all at once she did. With a jolt which made her feel as if she had fallen downstairs, she remembered the telephone message, and running down the drive, and the chloroform pad pressing down on her nose and mouth. When you have had a fall you have to pick yourself up again and go on.… She shut her eyes and took a minute.

She emerged from the confusion with the solid conviction that she had been made a fool of. Cynthia hadn’t telephoned. The man with the accent hadn’t been one of Cynthia’s young men at all. The people who had stolen the parcel had discovered that there wasn’t anything in it, and they had carried her off because they thought she knew where the contents were. It was really quite simple. Well, they wouldn’t get them. That was quite simple too.

She opened her eyes, saw Ina looking at her in a frightened way, and said,

“All right—I’ve got there—they want to know something. What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Delia smiled suddenly.

“Nor do I. They won’t get a lot forrader on that, will they?”

“Ssh!” Ina leant close to whisper. “You’ll have to tell them. It won’t be safe for you if you don’t. You don’t know what they’re like. Do you think I’d be doing this if I could help it?”

“Why are you doing it?” said Delia promptly.

“Because I’ve got to. And Ernest will never forgive me if he finds out—he’ll never forgive me!”

Her eyes were wet again. Delia caught her by the wrist.

“Don’t cry! You’ve got to tell me things. Who is Ernest?”

“My husband. We’ve only been married a year. He’s got a practice here, and he was called out in an air raid last week and he got hurt. He’s in hospital—I can’t tell him anything. I couldn’t if he was here—but of course then they wouldn’t have dared. They’ve been using his car—they’ve got ways of getting petrol—they said he would never know. But he will—he’ll find out—and he’ll never, never forgive me.”

Delia tugged at her wrist.

“You’re not to cry! Why are you doing it?”

“Because I can’t help myself. I’ll tell you, because you’ve got to see it’s no good fighting them. My people were Germans. They came over before I was born, so I’m British. But my sister isn’t—she’s a German subject, and she married over there. I’ve only been over on visits, but she lives there. She’s there now. And they said if I didn’t help them, they’d get her put in a concentration camp. She isn’t strong, and it would kill her—they would see that it did—they said so. They haven’t got any heart or conscience. The only thing you can do is to give in. But they never told me they were going to bring you here. They only said they must have the car, and if anyone heard it going out or coming in, I was to say that I had taken it.” Her voice faded out on the last word.

She snatched her wrist away and sprang up. It was the third stair from the top that creaked when you stepped on it. It had creaked then—just then when she was speaking. She had picked up the cup and was half way across the room, when the door opened.

Delia saw it open, and then she saw the man who had called himself Mr. Brown and Cornelius Rossiter standing upon the threshold. She still believed him to be Cornelius Rossiter, and because of this she was not really afraid, because Cornelius was in some sort Antony’s brother, and it was impossible to be really afraid of Antony’s brother.

He held the door with formal politeness for Ina Long. When she had gone out he shut it behind her. Then he pushed the basket chair beside the bed and sat down.

“Well, Miss Merridew—I hope you are feeling better.”

Delia said, “Yes, thank you.” She became aware that her shoulders and arms were bare. She shivered a little and said, “Will you please give me my jumper? It’s just there, at the foot of the bed.”

He gave it to her, and she huddled it round her, making a scarf of the sleeves. It went through her mind that this was an excessively odd way of beginning a conversation with a man who had chloroformed and abducted you.

He waited until she had settled herself against the pillows. Then he said,

“I am glad that you are feeling better, because I want to have a talk with you. You have been a long time coming round, and my business is very pressing. I told you that the other day. It is a pity you did not tell me the truth then—it would have saved us both a great deal of trouble.”

Delia looked at him with innocent candour.

“Why do you think I haven’t told you the truth?”

And all at once she was frightened, not because of anything he said or did, but because of the look in his eyes. It might have been there all the time—perhaps it had been—she didn’t know, but quite suddenly it frightened her. It was a relief when he spoke.

“Miss Merridew, you are not now in your house at Fourways. You are in a house where I give the orders. It would be better if you remember that. There will be no more lies and pretendings, because I have not time for them. Last Monday afternoon one of your uncle’s clerks handed you for safe keeping a parcel which I had sent to Antony from Holland. I did not know when I sent it that I should so soon have to come away myself. The contents of the parcel were very important. It was a matter of life and death for me that I should have them as soon as I arrived in England. I found out that you had the parcel, and I came to you expecting that for Antony’s sake you would help me. Instead you deceive me, you obstruct, you make difficulties, you withhold my property. Because it is a matter of life and death and I must have it, I am obliged to take it from the bank by force. But when it is opened the cylinder is no longer there. What have you done with it?”

Delia continued to regard him. Her eyes widened. A puzzled expression came into them. Antony had said that Cornelius was leading them on. He didn’t believe that there was or ever had been a cylinder. Yet here was Cornelius demanding his cylinder with the most striking appearance of believing that it existed and believing that she knew where it was. It made her head go round. She said,

“But I don’t know. Antony said—”

“What did he say?”

“He said there wasn’t any cylinder.”

“What are you talking about? Do you think you can put me off like that? You had better not try. You opened the parcel.”

“Why should I open it?”

“Because someone did—that was plain enough. And it would not be the clerk. I know his type—serious, conscientious—he would not meddle with his employer’s property. It is useless to deny that you opened it.”

Delia began to feel very confused. She had had nothing but a cup of broth for twenty-four hours, and now that she had slept off the effects of the chloroform she was dreadfully empty. She didn’t know what she ought to do. It was very confusing indeed. She stuck to the one thing she was sure about and said,

“There wasn’t any cylinder.”

Barend Roos said, “That is a lie.”

The colour came up into her cheeks, hot and angry. No one had ever spoken to her like that before. But he did not give her time to speak.

“What is the use of telling lies? You opened the parcel.”

“There wasn’t any cylinder.”

He made an angry sound of triumph.

“Ah! One lie is gone at least! You admit that you opened the parcel.”

“There wasn’t any cylinder,” said Delia in a childish whispering voice.

He got no farther than that with her. She went on saying it, and when he came to shouting his questions and thrusting his big white face to hers, she stopped answering at all and slipped into a faint.

Her pallor frightened him, and he called Ina Long.

“Get her round! Give her brandy—anything you’ve got!”

Ina looked at him sideways like an animal that would snap if it dared.

“She doesn’t want brandy—she wants food, and to be let alone till she’s got over the shock. What are you in such a hurry for? You can’t do anything until it’s dark.…”

The afternoon was of an interminable length. Jimmy Nash found a bottle of whisky and drank a good deal of it. A remonstrance evoked a Jimmy whom Barend did not know, a Jimmy fed to the teeth and ripe for mutiny and desertion. Threats fell off him like water off a duck’s back. He wanted whisky and he was going to have it, and if he couldn’t get it he’d just as soon be dead. All this ornamented with some very fancy language. He got his whisky, because the one thing Barend could not afford was a row. People had the most extraordinarily quick ears for a row. A shout, a scream, a bit of furniture knocked over, and some miserable errand-boy, some meddling old woman, would go away with the story that there was something wrong at The Acacias.

The telephone bell rang a good deal. Barend made Ina Long answer it. By standing at her elbow he could catch what was said. He could even feel a faint amusement at her nervous discomfort.

The calls were monotonously alike. Dr. Long appeared to be a popular young man. Everyone wanted to know how he was. “I’m sure he’s been quite a hero,” and, “He’s getting on well? You must have been terribly worried. Don’t overdo it. He will want you when he gets out of hospital.”

There had been three like that, but when the bell rang for the fourth time there was a man’s voice asking, “Can you take a message for my friend Mr. Brown? Is he perhaps at your house?”

Barend snatched the receiver from Ina’s hand. He nodded towards the door, and she went out, shutting it behind her, and then stood against it listening. What were they going to do now? First the car, then the house, and now the telephone. Ernest would be ruined, and it would be she who had ruined him. There wasn’t anything she could do—that was the dreadful part. If she slipped out of the house now, it wouldn’t save him. She could run in next door and telephone to the police. It would save the girl upstairs, but it wouldn’t save Ernest. It would all come out about her helping them, and about the car, and there would be headlines in the papers. Ernest would be ruined, and she would have killed Clara.

She leaned against the door in an agony and listened. Barend was saying,

“The house was bombed. You know that of course—such terrible destruction. Can you perhaps tell me whether the occupants escaped?… Yes, two of them … What—killed? That is very unfortunate. It makes my plans very difficult. I do not like to be a burden to my friends, but I must have somewhere to go.” His voice left off.

He heard the man at the other end of the line suppress a vexed exclamation.

“Yes, very unfortunate. Can’t you stay where you are until you’ve finished your business?”

“Not very well.”

“Going all right?”

Barend repeated the same phrase.

“Not very well.”

“You’d better hurry things up. Quite definitely there’s nothing in the house. A thorough search has been made without any result.… Yes, of course I’m sure. I don’t employ bunglers. If he says there isn’t anything there, there isn’t, and that’s that.”

Barend said, “What do you suggest?”

“Well—let’s see—We’d better meet. Same place as last time—say nine o’clock. I shall be alone, but with three of you we shall be just right for a pleasant party.”

“I am to bring the others?”

“Of course, my dear fellow! I wouldn’t leave them out for the world. Au revoir.”

As the receiver clicked, Ina ran noiselessly back to the stairs. The opening door showed her on the third step from the bottom, apparently coming down. Barend came out, looking at his watch. A quarter to seven.… No use starting for more than an hour yet—say an hour and a half. He had made up his mind to leave Delia alone until then. Get her away from houses, and people, and a sentimental fool like Ina Long, and she could be made to talk easily enough. But not here where you couldn’t risk a scream.

“Well, how is she? Have you given her something to eat?”

She gave him that sidelong look again.

“She’ll be all right if you leave her alone.”

“Well, I am going to. There is good news for you! And soon after eight o’clock I shall take her away and you will not be troubled any more. Are you not pleased?”

She came right up to him and said in a terrified whisper,

“What are you going to do with her?”

She wasn’t looking at him, or she might have been still more terrified. There was the look in his eyes which had frightened Delia, but hers were cast down and half blinded with tears. His hand came down on her shoulder.

“That has nothing to do with you—do you hear? I shall take her away and we shall be gone. You will not see us again—you will not hear of us. You will be quite safe, quite free—as long as you hold your tongue. You can say to yourself that it was a bad dream from which you have waked up. Your husband will come home and all will be well. Unless you are such a foolish woman that you talk. Then you will ruin your sister, who will go to a concentration camp, and your husband, who will lose his practice, and yourself because he will separate himself from you, and you are so fond of him that that will break you up. You do not wish all this ruin, do you? Then you have only to hold your tongue. One word to your husband, to your best friend, and the ruin is there. Do not cry about it afterwards when it is too late. No one will be able to help you then, but now you can help yourself. You can keep back the words that would ruin you. You can be silent, and you can begin by not asking questions. It is your business to feed Miss Merridew and get her strong enough to go with me. I cannot drug her again, so I shall be obliged to put a gag in her mouth. You will tell her this beforehand and advise her not to resist. I do not want her to struggle and perhaps to faint again. Tell her it is just a precaution, and that she must tell us what we want to know and then she will be quite safe.”

Ina jerked up her head and stared at him. Her tears had ceased. She said with a kind of desperate courage,

“Would that be true?”

His face did not change at all. He stared back at her contemptuously. “Why shouldn’t it be true?” he said.

Ina Long did as she was told. She went upstairs looking like a ghost. She sat down on the end of the bed and showed Delia a white, frightened face.

“They’re going to take you away,” she said in a whisper.

Delia said, “When?”

She had put on her skirt and jumper, and her shoes and stockings. Her big coat lay in a heap on the ottoman. Anyone might think that the other things were still there, concealed by its folds. She had had a good meal and she was feeling a good deal more equal to coping with Barend Roos, and quite, quite determined not to tell him anything that he wanted to know. She looked at Ina with young impatience. Gosh—what a dreep! Why didn’t she do something instead of going down the drain?

Ina sniffed miserably and said,

“Some time after eight. It’s nearly seven now.”

Delia frowned. There was at least an hour. You could do a lot in an hour. She said,

“What is this place? Are there other houses near?”

Ina looked down at her hands. She had long, pale fingers which moved continually, weaving in and out, twisting. She said in a choked voice, “I can’t tell you.”

“Because if there are—”

Ina interrupted her passionately.

“It’s no good—I can’t do anything!”

“I don’t want you to do anything. I only want a chance to get away. You can help me to do that.”

“I can’t—I can’t!”

Delia leaned right forward and caught at the twisting fingers.

“Do stop saying ‘I can’t’! Just think what you’ll feel like when they’ve murdered me and you wake up in the night and you think you might have stopped them. You’ll feel like a murderess—anyone would—and when your husband comes home there’ll be an awful secret between you always. Do you think you’ll be able to stand it?”

Ina shook her head. “No—it would kill me.”

“Then let’s have a stab at getting away. You go down and talk to them about something—anything. Get up an argument. Let them think they’ve got to persuade you. I’ll come down after you and get out of a window in front of the house. They’re at the back, aren’t they? Give me five minutes, and then let them think you’ve given in. Say you must go back to me. But you won’t go upstairs—you’ll get out of the window, and we’ll get away. See if we don’t!”

“No—no—” The words were just a broken murmur. The hands pulled away from Delia. Then in a sharp whisper she said, “He’s going to gag you.”

Delia’s spine crept. She said, “Nonsense!”

Ina stared at her with pale, miserable eyes.

“He said I was to tell you. He said you mustn’t resist, and you must tell them whatever it is they want to know. And then you will be all right.”

“I should be dead,” said Delia in a scornful voice. “The very minute they got what they wanted they’d want to get rid of me. You must see that.”

Ina got up off the bed and backed away from her. When she got to the door she stood there for a moment staring. Then she said, “No—no—they’ll let you go. He said they would,” and ran out of the room.

“I might as well expect help from a jellyfish,” Delia told herself. For the moment she was more exasperated than frightened. Before the daylight went she had found out as much about her surroundings and the position of the house as the view from the windows could afford. This room looked upon the garden, a rambling old-fashioned place with a great many trees in it. There was no sign of any other house, and no possibility of climbing out of the window. When she leaned out she could hear the men’s voices from the room below.

She slipped into a front bedroom and looked out from there. If there was a road, the house stood back from it and it could not be seen. There was a gravelled drive, more trees, and a great many shrubs. The window was much too high from the ground to make her feel that she would have any chance of reaching it without a broken limb. As to the time-honoured expedient of tearing a sheet into strips and making a knotted rope of the pieces, it was entirely impracticable without Ina Long’s connivance, since she was never out of the room for more than five minutes at a time. If Ina did connive, it was quite unnecessary, and it would be so much simpler to walk downstairs and get out of a window on the ground floor.

But now what? Ina was a wash-out. The one and only person she could rely on was Delia Merridew. It was up to Delia Merridew not to get murdered. In the first place because it would be so rotten for Antony, and secondly because—well, because—She put Antony first, but she was prepared to risk Antony and herself for the other reason. But she wasn’t prepared just to sit here in bed for seventy crawling minutes until Cornelius came and put a gag in her mouth, and took her away to goodness knew where, and tried to make her tell him something she didn’t know. It was a most revolting thought. The only alternative that presented itself was to carry out the plan she had proposed to Ina, but with Ina left out of it.

There wasn’t much chance of its succeeding. She faced that. With Ina to shut the consulting-room door and hold the men’s attention for five minutes, it would have been a certainty, but without Ina it was about three to one against it coming off. All the same she was bound to try. If Cornelius was planning to start soon after eight, he would be planning to have some sort of meal before he started. The best time for her to try and get away would be as soon as they had gone into the dining-room to have their meal. But that meant she would have to get out at the back. She wouldn’t dare risk the other front room just across the hall. The window might creak—

The next half hour was dreadfully long. She kept thinking, “Perhaps I’d better go now,” and, “Why didn’t I try it before?” She got as far as the door once and stood there listening. And heard one of the men cross the hall. Ina Long came up every few minutes. The last time she brought a cup of soup. Her face was flushed as if she had been cooking. She said something about men making a lot of work in the house and went out again. Delia thought, “Now they’ll be having their supper. She’s been cooking it.”

She drank the soup. Then she put on her coat and went to the door again. She opened it and listened. In about five minutes she heard Ina go through to the front of the house. Then she heard her come back and call out to the men, and she heard them all go back across the hall.

She thought, “I’ll count a hundred, and then I’ll go.” All the time she was counting, her feet and her hands were getting colder and colder. When she said ninety-nine, a stab of fear went through her like a knife. She said one hundred, and came out on the landing in her stocking feet with her shoes in her left hand. The really frightful think was that one of the stairs creaked and she wasn’t sure which it was. It was quite near the top, because she had heard it every time anyone went up or down. It might be the second step, the third, or the fourth, or even a little farther down, but not much.

She sat down on the top step and lowered herself sitting to the next. Things don’t creak so much if you can spread the weight. The second step was all right. She came down on to the third, and heard it give a muffled creak. The stab went through her again. Had anyone heard it? They couldn’t. It was only a ghost of a squeak, and her coat had smothered it.

She moved to the fourth step, and then got to her feet. The stair turned half way, and as soon as she got round the curve she could see into the hall. It was of a good size, square, with the front door facing her and two other doors opening off to right and left of it. An octagonal lantern hung from the ceiling. Its glass panels had been covered with green paper, but it gave enough light to see by.

Delia came down the rest of the way. Just before she reached the bottom she saw that the dining-room door was ajar. She could see a bright crack running all the way down from the top to the bottom of the jamb. No, not a crack. It was wider than that—two inches—a hands-breadth—

The door wasn’t ajar, it was opening. She jumped the last step and ran to the back of the house. It wasn’t any good—she knew that. But you have to try. If the consulting-room door had been open—But it wasn’t. They had shut it. Even as she wrenched at it, Barend’s hand came down on her shoulder. It held her, turned her round, kept her there pressed back against the door to face him. Then, before either of them could speak, the sharp sound of an electric bell came rasping through the house.

Chapter Twenty

The sound was repeated. Barend Roos brought his hand down hard over Delia’s mouth. He must have turned the knob of the door, for she felt it give way behind her. Next moment they were inside the room in the dark with the door ajar, and she was being held so tightly that she could neither move nor make a sound.

In the dining-room Ina Long had got to her feet, but Jimmy Nash was before her at the door. He had drunk a lot of whisky, but it would have taken a good deal more to have drugged his sense of danger. He caught Ina by the arm, his face pale and his eyes blinking.

“What’s at the bottom of the garden?”

She stared at him stupidly. The bell rang again.

“What’s at the bottom of the garden, out there at the back?”

She said, “A kind of lane. It’s a right of way.”

He gave her a push towards the hall.

“Call out and say you’re coming! I’m off. Make a bit of time for me!”

He ran past her and was gone. She heard him on the stair going down to the basement. Then she called out,

“I’m coming. Just a minute.”

Her hands fumbled with the chain, and the bolt at the bottom of the door. It was stiff. Even if Jimmy had not told her to make time, she could not have been very quick over it. It was stiff, and it hurt her fingers. She got it back and stood up with a little exclamation of pain. Someone was using the knocker now. She said, “It’s all right. The bolt’s stiff.” And then she was turning the key and the door swung in. The porch was full of men. Before any of them spoke she knew that they were the police, and that meant it was all over. Clara, Ernest, Delia, herself—nothing that she could do would either help them or hurt them now. It was out of her hands. For the moment she was past feeling anything but relief. She stood there looking at them with her tear-reddened eyes, and Inspector Lamb walked into the hall and said,

“Mrs. Long?”

“Yes.”

The other men had come in too—Sergeant Abbott, Antony Rossiter, and a constable.

“I have some enquiries to make.”

In the consulting-room Delia was holding on to herself. If she couldn’t see or make a sound, she could hear. She heard Jimmy’s steps go down into the basement, she heard a door pulled open and left to swing on its hinges, she heard him go down the garden. She heard Ina Long at the front door, and Inspector Lamb speaking with the measured voice of authority. The man who was holding her heard it too. She could feel him stiffen. She did the only thing she could think of. She drew in her breath in a long sigh, her head fell back, and she went limp and heavy in his grasp. And insensibly that grasp became less strenuous. His arms still held her, but for a moment the pressure on her mouth was relaxed. In that moment she bit, and bit hard. The hand flinched away, and Delia screamed.

It was a good scream. She had filled her lungs so as to be ready for it, and it was a superlatively good scream.

She was flung violently to the ground. If she hadn’t let herself go limp, it would have hurt more. She bumped her shoulder and her head. There was a moment of confusion, a hurry of men going past her. Someone called out. There was a smash of breaking glass, and a voice that cursed furiously in a foreign tongue. As she struggled up, Detective Inspector Lamb came over the threshold and switched on the light. Three men heaved and strained over by the window. They reminded Delia vaguely of the Laocoön. Her head was feeling like that. It took in surface impressions like pictures.

Inspector Lamb didn’t think anything about the struggling group at all. He plunged in and became part of it. After a few vigorous and noisy moments a handcuffed figure emerged, Lamb’s hand upon its shoulder. Lamb’s voice, stolid and unhurried, rehearsed the ritual of arrest. Sergeant Abbott smoothed back his unruffled hair and straightened a tie which might have been a quarter of an inch out of line.

Antony came over to Delia and caught her in his arms, and Delia disgraced herself by bursting into tears.

He pulled her into the passage and kissed her as vehemently as if there hadn’t been a policeman in the house. He managed to talk all the time as well, but so incoherently that he never dared to remember what he had said. The only comfort was that Delia was in no case to remember it either, and everyone else’s attention was urgently taken up with other things—or at least he devoutly hoped so.

“Are you hurt?”

“No—no, I’m not.”

“Then why are you crying?”

Delia gave an irrepressible sob.

“Because I want to.”

“And you’re not hurt? You swear they didn’t hurt you?”

She said with a sudden steadying of her voice,

“I think he was going to murder me—I really do. He knew I’d opened the parcel, but he wouldn’t believe there wasn’t any cylinder inside it.”

Antony gave a rather shaky laugh.

“There never was a cylinder—I’m sure of it. Con was spoofing them.”

She pulled away to look into his face.

“Cornelius—but he said—he talked—as if the cylinder had really been there.”

“Who did?”

She made a motion towards the consulting-room.

“Cornelius.”

Antony said, “Cornelius is dead.”

“Oh!”

“They got him. And when they thought they’d got the parcel with the cylinder they shot him. And when they found out that the cylinder wasn’t there they thought you’d taken it out.”

Delia shook her head.

“I didn’t.” She put her lips close up against Antony’s ear and whispered, “I only took out the papers.”

“What!”

“Ssh!” She went on whispering. “You know—the ones I told you about—maps—with funny marks on them. You see, after Miss Murdle, I didn’t think that parcel was a bit safe, so I opened it, and when I saw there were maps I thought they might be frightfully important, and I thought I’d better take them out. And I thought if I put the parcel in the bank everyone would think they were still inside it, so I did it in rather a public sort of way, and they burgled the bank. So, you see, it took them in. But I can’t understand about Cornelius. He said he was Cornelius. Isn’t he?”

Antony said again, “Con’s dead. I told you. That’s a cousin—Barend Roos, one of their Fifth Column. But he’ll be for it now.”

Inspector Lamb came out of the room.

“I’d like to have your statement, Miss Merridew. We can go into one of the front rooms.”

As they came through the hall they saw Ina Long. Through all the noise and disturbance she had not moved. She stood against the wall by the front door with her arms hanging and the tears running down her face. The constable stood beside her. Delia ran to her—put an arm round her—made her sit down.

Shepherded into the drawing-room, she rushed to her defence.

“You mustn’t do anything to her! You won’t—will you? They were frightening her sick. You don’t know how dreadful they were. And she’s got a perfectly good husband in hospital, and she doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive her, and it’s smashing her up. And there’s his practice, you know—she’s afraid he’ll be ruined if it gets into the papers.”

The Inspector was very nice to Delia. He liked a girl to have what he called a feeling heart. A lot of girls didn’t seem to have any feelings at all. He was sympathetic, but he got her to the point and kept her there till she had made her statement and signed it. Then he went and telephoned a description of Jimmy Nash, after which he and Sergeant Abbott went off in a police car with Barend Roos and Ina Long.

Delia and Antony drove away in the Hillman, but when they had gone about a quarter of a mile Antony stopped the car. The street was quiet as far as in it lay—houses all decorously blacked out, and the minimum of traffic. Guns were booming away to the east. Sometimes a shell rose like a star and burst above the black irregular line of the housetops. Neither Antony nor Delia had the slightest idea whether there was, officially speaking, a raid in progress or not. They were not thinking about raids—they were thinking about each other.

Presently Antony said,

“What am I going to do with you, my sweet?”

She rubbed her cheek against his.

“Perhaps we ought to tell Simmy I’m not dead. I expect she’s been in an awful flap.”

“I expect she has, and I expect I really ought to drive you down there. It’ll be the third time today. Fortunately Frank Garrett seems to be able to get petrol, and if you’ve really got those maps, he won’t mind how much I use to get them. Only, darling, why didn’t you give them to me before? When I was down there and you told me you’d opened the parcel—why on earth didn’t you give them to me then?”

“I didn’t want you to be murdered.”

“Murdered?”

She nodded.

“There was a very murdering feeling about them. I could feel it oozing out at me.”

Antony said “Idiot!” in an affectionate voice.

Delia snuggled up to him.

“No—I think it was clever, because look what’s happened. And if anyone was going to get murdered, I couldn’t bear it to be you when you’d just come back after being dead and—” She burrowed into his shoulder and choked there. “Why do you make me say it? I’d finished crying, and now you’ve made me start all over again. Look at me!”

“It’s too dark.” He kissed her instead.

After a minute or two he shook her a little and demanded briskly,

“What did you do with those papers, and where are they?”

“I hid them,” said Delia. Then she gave a small, unsteady laugh. “I hid them very, very cleverly.”

Antony’s blood ran cold. Suppose they had got a man into the house at night—last night—and found those maps. Impossible that Delia should have hit on any hiding-place which would defy a really expert search. These people didn’t leave anything to chance. He thought they were bound to have been through the house. He said sharp and quick,

“Where did you put them?”

Delia pulled away.

“I won’t tell you—no, wait—I won’t tell you unless there are going to be policemen and people. I simply won’t have you going off all by yourself with those maps and getting murdered. And if you’re going to bully me like the man I thought was Cornelius—what did you say his name was?”

“Roos—Barend Roos.”

“Well then, I shall faint like I did with him.”

“Delia, don’t be a fool!”

She came back and flung her arms round his neck.

“Darling, I’m not really—I’ve been clever. But I don’t want you to be murdered.”

Antony began to laugh.

“All right, we’ll have old Hopkins, and Sam Gaunt, and Parker. Will that do?”

Delia said “’M” against his cheek.

“And now—where did you put them? I only hope they’re still there.”

“Nobody could find them, not if they looked for a year. Do you know what I did?”

“I want to know.”

“I put them into one of Mrs. Parker’s glass preserving jars—you know, they have screw-on tops. And I put one of the kitchen weights in with them—the two-pound one. And I dropped the jar into the cold water cistern. And nobody, nobody, nobody would ever think of that—would they?”

“I don’t think they would, but I think we’d better go and see.”

“Don’t you think it was clever of me? I do!”

Antony was starting up the car. He said in a firm, practical voice,

“I hope you screwed the top on tight.”

“Of course I did! Aren’t you going to say I was clever?”

The car began to move. Antony said.

“You’ve got wind in the head, my sweet—that’s what’s the matter with you.”

THE END

About The Author

PATRICIA WENTWORTH was born Dora Amy Elles in India in 1877 (not 1878 as has sometimes been stated). She was first educated privately in India, and later at Blackheath School for Girls. Her first husband was George Dillon, with whom she had her only child, a daughter. She also had two stepsons from her first marriage, one of whom died in the Somme during World War I.

Her first novel was published in 1910, but it wasn’t until the 1920’s that she embarked on her long career as a writer of mysteries. Her most famous creation was Miss Maud Silver, who appeared in 32 novels, though there were a further 33 full-length mysteries not featuring Miss Silver—the entire run of these is now reissued by Dean Street Press.

Patricia Wentworth died in 1961. She is recognized today as one of the pre-eminent exponents of the classic British golden age mystery novel.

By Patricia Wentworth
and available from Dean Street Press

The Benbow Smith Mysteries

Fool Errant

Danger Calling

Walk with Care

Down Under

The Frank Garrett Mysteries

Dead or Alive

Rolling Stone

The Ernest Lamb Mysteries

The Blind Side

Who Pays the Piper?

Pursuit of a Parcel

Standalones

The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith

The Red Lacquer Case

The Annam Jewel

The Black Cabinet

The Dower House Mystery

The Amazing Chance

Hue and Cry

Anne Belinda

Will-o’-the-Wisp

Beggar’s Choice

The Coldstone

Kingdom Lost

Nothing Venture

Red Shadow

Outrageous Fortune

Touch and Go

Fear by Night

Red Stefan

Blindfold

Hole and Corner

Mr. Zero

Run!

Weekend with Death

Silence in Court

Patricia Wentworth
The Blind Side

“Anybody could have told you what Ross was like.”

“They did tell me,” said Mavis tearfully. “That’s why I did it.”

ROSS CRADDOCK was just the type to be murdered. The new landlord of Craddock house, he begins by giving eviction notice to his aunt Lucy. He threatens the doorman with dismissal. He makes a violent and unwelcome pass to his cousin Mavis. He is vindictive and spiteful and ends up dead. The suspects include Lee who may have walked in her sleep and killed him out of unconscious fear. Or Peter who may have found Ross’ advances to Mavis unbearable. Or aunt Lucy who unexpectedly came back. Or possibly Bobby who was still in love with Mavis and furious that she was seen with Ross. The answer will be yet another Wentworth twist.

The Blind Side was originally published in 1939. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“When I pick up a book by Patricia Wentworth I think, now to enjoy myself—and I always do.” Mary Dell, Daily Mirror

The Blind Side—Chapter One

Craddock House stands at the end of one of those streets which run between the Kings Road and the Embankment. From the third and fourth floor windows you can see the trees which fringe the river, and the river beyond the trees. David Craddock built it with the money he made in railways just over ninety years ago. His son John Peter and his daughters Mary and Elinor were young and gay there. They danced in the big drawing-room, supped under glittering chandeliers in the enormous dining-room, and slept in those rooms whose windows looked to the river. Mary married her cousin Andrew Craddock and went away with him to Birmingham, and in due course she had three daughters. The others married too. John Peter’s wife brought a good deal more money into the family. Elinor ran away with an impecunious young artist called John Lee, and was cut off without a shilling. Their daughter Ann made an equally penniless match with one James Fenton, a schoolmaster, and both, dying young, left their daughter Lee to fight for a place in the world without any inheritance except a gay heart. John Peter had a son and daughter by his plain, rich wife—the son John David, and the daughter another Mary. John, marrying Miss Marian Ross, became the father of Ross Craddock, and Mary, marrying James Renshaw, produced also an only son, Peter Craddock Renshaw.

It was Ross Craddock’s father who had turned Craddock House into flats. His wife Marian said that Chelsea was damp, and they moved away to Highgate. The big rooms cut up well, a lift was installed, and the flats brought in an excellent return for the money John David had spent on them. He retained the middle flat on the third floor for his own use, and installed his Aunt Mary’s daughters, Lucy and Mary Craddock, in the flats on either side. People laughed a good deal, his brother-in-law James Renshaw going so far as to speak about John’s harem. But John David had never cared in the least what anybody said about anything. Lucy and Mary were his first cousins, and he felt responsible for them. They had neither looks, cash, nor common sense. They were alone in the world, and Mary was in poor health. He put them into separate flats because, though sincerely attached to one another, they could not help quarrelling. He considered it an admirable arrangement and as fixed as any natural ordinance. It never occurred to him to mind the cackle of fools or to dream that his son Ross would turn poor Lucy adrift as soon as the breath was out of Mary’s body.

Nobody could have dreamed it, least of all Miss Lucy Craddock herself. She had read the wicked, unbelievable letter fifty times and still she couldn’t believe it, because they had lived here for thirty years, she in No. 7 and Mary in No. 9, and John David had meant them to live here always. And now Mary was dead and Ross had written this dreadful letter. She read it at breakfast, and ran incredulously to knock at the door of Ross Craddock’s flat. Ross couldn’t possibly mean what he had written—he couldn’t. But there was no answer to her knocking on the door of No. 8, and no answer when she rang the bell.

She ran across the landing to No. 9. Peter Renshaw would tell her that it was all nonsense. Ross couldn’t possibly turn her out. But she could get no answer there either, and then remembered that Peter was away for the night, gone down to stay with a friend in the country. Of course it was very tiresome for him being poor Mary’s executor and having all those papers to sort through, but she did wish he wasn’t away just now. Perhaps he would be back before she had to start on her journey. Perhaps she ought not to start—not if Ross really meant what he said. But perhaps he didn’t mean it—perhaps there was some mistake—perhaps there wasn’t. Oh, dear, dear, dear—how could she possibly go away if she was going to be turned out of her flat? But she had promised dear Mary. She had promised to go away as soon as possible after the funeral. She had promised faithfully. Oh dear, dear, dear!

She went back to her own flat and packed her little cane trunk, and then went trotting over to No. 8 in case Ross had returned, and to No. 9 to see if Peter had come back. She kept on doing this for hours. Sometimes she packed her things, and sometimes she unpacked them. At intervals she read the cruel letter again, and about once in every half hour she rang the bells of No. 8 and 9.

“Like a cat on hot bricks!” Rush, the porter, told his bedridden wife in the basement. “What’s she want to go away for?”

“Everyone wants to get away some time,” said Mrs. Rush mildly. She sat up against four pillows and knitted baby socks for her daughter Ellen’s youngest, who was expecting in a month’s time. She was pale, and plump, and clean, with very little thin white hair screwed up into a pigtail, and a white flannelette nightgown trimmed with tatting.

“I don’t,” said Rush, “and no more do you. A lot of blasted nonsense I call it!”

Mrs. Rush opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. She hadn’t been out of her basement room for fifteen years, but that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t have liked to go. Men were all the same—if they didn’t fancy a thing themselves, then no one else wasn’t to fancy it neither. She began to turn the heel of the little woolly sock.

Ross Craddock came home just before three o’clock in the afternoon. He took himself up in the lift, and as soon as Miss Lucy heard the clang of the gate she opened her front door a crack and looked out. It was really Ross at last. Her heart bumped against her side and her breath caught in her throat. He looked as he always did, so very handsome and so masterful. It was ridiculous to feel afraid of someone she had seen christened, but there was something about Ross that made you feel as if you didn’t matter at all.

She stood behind the door and gathered up her courage, a little roundabout woman with a straight grey bob and a full pale face. She wore a dyed black dress which had been navy blue and her best all the summer, and low-heeled strap shoes over thick grey stockings. When she heard Ross Craddock put his key into the lock she popped out of her door and ran after him. If he had seen her, she would not have caught him up. But Miss Lucy was not without cunning. She timed her trembling rush so that it took her through the half open door and into the little hall beyond.

Ross Craddock, removing his key, was aware that he had been caught. He said suavely, “You want to see me, do you?” and opened the sitting-room door.

Miss Lucy walked in and stood there trembling with his letter in her hand. She saw him come in after her, remove his hat, and sit down at the writing-table half turned away. When she said “Yes” in a loud, angry voice, he swung his chair round a little and surveyed her with a faint smile upon his face.

Miss Lucy came a step nearer. She pushed the letter towards him as if it could speak for her. It was a hot August day and her skin was beaded with moisture. She said, her voice fallen to a whisper,

“You didn’t mean it—you didn’t.”

“And what makes you think that, Lucy?”

He was smiling more broadly now. Such a good-looking man, so tall, and strong, and handsome. It didn’t seem possible that he could really mean to be so unkind. She said,

“But, Ross—”

“A month’s notice,” said Ross Craddock exactly as if she had been a kitchenmaid.

Miss Lucy stopped trembling. She was too angry to tremble now.

“Your father put us here—he gave us the flats—he said he would never turn us out!”

“It isn’t my father who is turning you out, Lucy.”

Miss Lucy looked at him. There was a big photograph of Mavis on the table at his elbow. Mavis was her own niece—Mavis Grey. It was a new photograph, one that she had never seen before, and she was ashamed to see it now. It looked like one of those shameless pictures sent in for beauty competitions, only instead of being an enlarged snapshot as most of them were, it was beautifully posed, beautifully taken—Mavis in what she supposed was some sort of fancy dress—tights, and a sort of feather frill, and a bodice cut so low that it wasn’t really a bodice at all. A dull, ugly red came into her face.

Ross Craddock laughed.

“Good photograph, isn’t it?” he said.

“Did Mavis give it to you?”

“Had it taken for me, Lucy.”

“It’s a scandalous picture!” said Lucy Craddock. “She’s my niece—she’s my own niece. And she’s your cousin too, because my father and mother were cousins. And you ought to leave her alone—you know you ought. Why, what would anyone think who saw that picture?”

“That Mavis has a very good figure,” said Ross Craddock. He fixed those dark eyes of his upon the photograph, and Miss Lucy’s colour deepened.

“I asked you to leave her alone! I begged and prayed you to before Mary got so ill.”

He said, “Exactly,” and turned his eyes upon the letter, which she still held clasped in her hand.

“And that’s why you’re turning me out?”

“My dear Lucy—what penetration!”

She went back a step. Her colour faded.

“How wicked!” she said.

Ross Craddock got up. He took her lightly by the arm and led her to the door.

“Old maid cousins should be seen and not heard,” he said, and put her out.

Published by Dean Street Press 2016

Copyright © 1942 Patricia Wentworth

Introduction copyright © 2016 Curtis Evans

All Rights Reserved

The right of Patricia Wentworth to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 1942 by Hodder & Stoughton

Cover by DSP

ISBN 978 1 911413 04 2

www.deanstreetpress.co.uk