Anna, Where Are You? (11 page)

Ledlington has a good many points in common with other county towns. Some of it is old and picturesque, and some of it is not. In the years between the two world wars its approaches have been cluttered up with small houses of every type and shape. When these have been passed there are the tall, ugly houses of the late Victorian period with their basements, their attics, their dismal outlook upon the shrubberies which screen them from the road. Still farther on a beautiful Georgian house or two, or older still, the mellow red brick and hooded porch of Queen Anne’s time—comfortable houses in their day, converted now for the most part to offices and flats. Here the road narrows to the High Street, winding amongst houses which were built in Elizabethan days. New fronts have been added to some, incongruous plate-glass windows front the street. A turning on one side, very competently blocked by the quite hideous monument erected under William IV to a former mayor, leads to the station. Nothing more inconvenient could possibly have been devised, but the answer of course is that nobody devised it. Like nearly everything else in England it just happened that way. Every few years some iconoclast on the council proposes that tne monument should be removed, but nothing is ever done about it. A little farther on, upon the opposite side of the High Street, an even narrower turning conducts to the Market Square, which has a colonnaded walk on two sides, the George Inn on a third, and some really beautiful old houses on the fourth.

Upon this picturesque scene the much more than life-size statue of Sir Albert Dawnish looks down. It has been named by some as the most frightful statue in the British Isles, but the competition is, of course, very strong. Ledlington owes a good deal to Sir Albert, the originator of the Dawnish Quick Cash Stores. His original shop, the cradle of the enormous Dawnish fortune, was for many years a well-known eyesore at the corner of the Square. It was pulled down in 1935 and re-erected where the High Street widens out, but the statue of Sir Albert most unfortunately remains. Of the some twenty bombs which fell in and around the town, not one inflicted so much as a scratch upon his marble trousers.

The bus from Deep End, coming in by the new by-pass, drew up in front of the station at seven minutes to three—an advance on the scheduled time which enabled the driver and conductor to adjourn for refreshment to an adjacent snack-bar. Miss Silver alighted.

At precisely the same moment a man came out of the station. He was of a noticeable and somewhat pitiful appearance, since his head and all one side of his face was heavily bandaged and he leaned upon a stick with a gloved right hand. In spite of his disability and the fact that he was burdened with a small suitcase he got along surprisingly fast and took his way past the Mayor’s monument into the High Street, where he turned to the left, emerging from the bottleneck upon the good wide road of Regency times. One of the large houses fronting upon the street is now the County Bank.

At precisely three minutes to three the bandaged man limped up two shallow steps and pushed open the door of the bank. A girl who was coming out held the door for him and stood aside to let him pass. Then she came down the steps, got into a small car which was standing at the kerb, and started up the engine. Rather a striking looking young person by the accounts of two or three of the people who were passing at the time and who happened to notice her. A baker’s boy was able to state the make of the car and give the first two figures of its number—a not very useful piece of observation, since it merely proved the car to have been a stolen one.

Miss Muffin, on her way to the post with old Mrs. Wotherspoon’s letters, was more helpful.

“Oh, yes, very golden hair. I mean, one couldn’t help wondering whether it was natural, though of course—girls do do such things to their hair nowadays—I mean, quite respectable girls…Oh, yes—very much made-up, Inspector. Eyebrows halfway up her forehead—so odd. And the sort of complexion that must take hours to do—if you know what I mean. But quite unnoticeable sort of clothes—just a dark coat and skirt, and a plain felt hat—black, I think, though it might have been a very dark navy—so difficult to tell in a poor light, and the sky was very much overcast at the time.”

Since it appeared that she had merely walked past the car with the letters in her hand, and that she had been hurrying because Mrs. Wotherspoon didn’t care about being left alone in the house, Inspector Jackson thought she had managed to get a considerable eyeful.

Mr. Edward Carpenter’s contribution, though less detailed, was not without value. His eye had not only observed but disapproved. When he was younger he would have known just how to place the lady, but now of course there was no telling— she might be anyone. You couldn’t be sure that your own nieces and cousins wouldn’t turn up looking as if the less said about them the better.

Young Pottinger, on the other hand, was quite appreciative.

“Some blonde! I’m telling you!—what I could see of her, that is. She’d got her hand up doing something to her hat as I passed, and you can’t just stand and gape—well, can you?”

It was not, unfortunately, possible to obtain a statement from the bank manager or from the young clerk, Hector Wayne; any evidence they might have to give being of necessity deferred to a day of final account. At the moment when the bandaged man shut the door of the bank behind him and came down the two shallow steps into the street one of them was already dead and the other drawing his last few laboured breaths.

Miss Muffin, voluble after the event, was sure that she had heard the shots. The baker’s boy had thought there was a motorbike starting up in the Square. Mr. Carpenter enquired how anyone could tell one sound from another in what he termed the damnable babel of the High Street. Young Pottinger said there was a brewer’s dray backing out of Friar’s Cut, which is immediately opposite the bank, and he didn’t suppose anyone could have heard anything. And since the bandaged man had used a silencer, it is quite probable that he was right.

However that may be, the man, with his suit-case in his hand, walked some ten feet along the pavement and got into the waiting car. The engine was running and they got off without any delay. It was not until an hour later that the car was found abandoned seven miles away in one of the lanes near Ledstow. But nobody had seen a spectacular blonde, and nobody had seen a bandaged man.

Miss Silver, having alighted from her bus, walked back along the approach to the station. Since all her fellow-passengers had also got down, she was by no means the only person who was doing so. One or two of the people who had been in the bus had gone into the station, but for the most part they were making for the High Street and the Market Square.

The station stands a little below the by-pass. She was about half way up the slope when she noticed the man with the bandaged head. Since he had not been one of the passengers in the bus he must have come out of the station, and since the County Hospital is very conveniently situated not more than a few hundred yards to the right, it was quite natural to suppose that he might be making his way in that direction. She had the habit of noticing anything at all out of the usual. The man excited her commiseration. It was his head that was bandaged, but he had also a pronounced limp, and he leaned upon a stick as he walked. A loose raincoat seemed to weigh him down and he was further burdened by a suit-case. Despite his feeble appearance he passed her and went on up the rise. By the time she reached the by-pass he had crossed it. And then her attention was diverted, because a car drew up a few paces away and Frank Abbott hailed her.

When she was in the front seat beside him and the door was shut, he said,

“I didn’t get out—just in case. That being the Deep End bus, I thought we’d better be on the safe side. There might be someone who saw me when I came down before, and we don’t exactly want to advertise the connection with the police. What I thought we might do was drive out to a new road-house they’ve started between this and Ledstow. It caters for courting couples, I am told, and is full of discreet corners and lights turned low. It’s not likely to be crowded so early as this.”

They slipped smoothly out along the by-pass. They did not therefore hear the shots which killed the bank manager and his clerk.

To Miss Silver’s “I am very glad to see you, Frank,” he replied,

“And I to see you—I haven’t been easy. And now what have you got to tell me?”

“Not very much, I am afraid. Mrs. Craddock is delicate and overworked. The children have been mismanaged and neglected, but they are beginning to respond to more sensible treatment. I do not, therefore, feel that I am wasting my time.”

The road being open and empty, he was able to throw her a look of mingled affection and protest.

“And so you are settling down as a nursery governess!”

Miss Silver smiled.

“Not entirely. I hope to persuade Mrs. Craddock to send Jennifer and Maurice to boarding schools. It would be better for them in every way. But that is not what you want to hear about. You know, of course, that Thomasina Elliot is here.”

“I did my best to stop her. Fine eyes, but a stubborn temper. I have decided to let her marry Peter Brandon.”

“I was at first considerably disturbed by her arrival, but she is very conveniently placed for hearing any talk there has been about Miss Ball. The Miss Tremletts delight in talk of every kind.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Has there been any talk about Miss Ball? And when you say talk, do you mean what usually goes by that name?”

“I think so. There was a man whom she used to slip out to meet in the evenings. Mrs. Craddock informed me that she had seen them together and was not at all happy about it. And Miss Elliot tells me that each of the Miss Tremletts had also seen them.”

She proceeded to describe the three incidents as they had been conveyed to her by Mrs. Craddock and by Thomasina, ending up with a description of the paper found in Anna Ball’s handbag.

“I do not know how it strikes you, but the impression I received was that Miss Ball in writing down these variants of Sandrow was either trying to recall a name imperfectly remembered, or to decide upon an alias for someone whose real name it was desirable to conceal.”

He nodded.

“I expect you are right. So there was a man after all—I ought to have been able to bank on it. When a girl goes missing there always is. And the people who ought to know better come in flocks and tell us that Mary, or Doris, or Elsie never had a boy friend in her life. It looks as if we’ve been had for mugs.”

“My dear Frank!” Miss Silver’s tone reproved him.

“Let us say we have been misled. Well, that rather lets the Colony out, doesn’t it? She went out meeting Mr. Sandrow at nights, and she left the Craddocks in a hurry before her month was up. It doesn’t look to me as if there was much mystery about it, you know. Lonely girl with an inferiority complex meets beguiling stranger and goes off with him. I think we may rely upon it that his intentions were strictly dishonourable, because if they had married she would have tumbled over herself to let Thomasina know.”

Miss Silver did not answer immediately. Then she said,

“It might be so. But there are two points which are not explained. In the first place, there is a singular combination of secrecy and frankness. She conceals her meetings with this man at one moment and obtrudes them at another. She slips out after dark without saying anything, but she allows Miss Gwyneth Tremlett to see her driving with him in Ledlington by daylight.”

“Well, Anna couldn’t have known that she would run into Miss Gwyneth.”

“My dear Frank! I can assure you that if one of the Miss Tremletts goes into Dedham or Ledlington, everyone in the Colony will know by what bus she goes in, and by what bus she intends to return.”

“Oh, it’s that way, is it?”

“Indeed it is. They delight in imparting information about everything they do. I have no doubt at all that Anna Ball was aware that Miss Gwyneth would be waiting for her bus at the time she drove by with Mr. Sandrow.”

“You think she wanted to be seen with him?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Why?”

“I do not know. That is my first point—Mr. Sandrow is first concealed, and then obtruded. And one of the things that is obtruded is his name. She gave it to Mrs. Craddock and she gave it to Miss Elaine, and she gave it without solicitation or pressure. It looks as if she wished the name to be known. But nothing more. In each case a most natural enquiry is checked by downright rudeness. And now for my second point. If, as you conjecture, she left the Craddocks to join a lover, why was she overcome by distress?”

“Distress?”

“You told me so yourself. When you came down to make enquiries the Miss Tremletts and Miranda informed you that they had seen Miss Ball drive away with Mr. Craddock. She was wearing a red hat which the Craddocks had given her. The station-master at Dedham, where she took a ticket for London—”

“Yes, I remember—he said Craddock saw her off—a dark young woman in a red hat. And a bit about her being a good deal upset, and Mr. Craddock telling him she had been having trouble with her nerves and they were glad to be rid of her.”

“Yes. Do you remember he said that she was crying?”

“I don’t know—I think I got that impression. Let me see… No, I don’t seem to get farther than ‘a good bit upset.’ What is the point?”

Miss Silver said slowly, “If she was crying she would probably have had her handkerchief up to her face. ‘A good deal upset’ and Mr. Craddock’s explanation about nerves does to my mind suggest tears and a necessity to account for them. If she was really crying, what was the reason for those tears? But suppose she was not crying at all. Suppose they were only a pretext for the handkerchief.”

Frank whistled. “You mean?”

“I have wondered whether it was Anna Ball who got into the London train that day.”

Frank Abbott swerved to avoid a motor-bicycle emerging with great suddenness from a particularly narrow lane. After a moment he said,

“What makes you think it wasn’t?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I do not go as far as that. I merely wonder whether the young woman who got into that train was really Anna Ball.”

“And what has set you wondering?”

“The red hat.”

He repeated the words in a tone of surprise.

“The red hat!”

“Yes. From the first I have thought a good deal about that red hat. Anna Ball was not satisfied with the Craddocks, nor they with her. She was slipping out at night to meet a man about whom she told them nothing but his bare name. She had been extremely rude to Mrs. Craddock, her demeamour was reserved and sullen. Why should they go out of their way to give her a red hat? There might, of course, be other reasons, but there is one which has kept on coming into my mind. If for some reason it was desired to create the impression that Miss Ball had gone away by train when she had in fact not gone away at all, or not gone away in that manner and at that time, then the red hat would be of great assistance in producing that impression. When the Miss Tremletts say that they saw Mr. Craddock go by with Anna Ball—when Miranda and Mr. Remington corroborate this—what do you suppose these four people did actually see? They would hear the car coming, and they would look to see who was in it. They would see Mr. Craddock and a girl in a red hat. I doubt very much if they would see more than that. They would all know about the gift of the hat. Do you suppose it would occur to them that the person wearing it was not Miss Ball? If a deliberate deception had been planned, it would be easy enough for the person who was wearing the hat to turn towards Mr. Craddock as if talking to him, in which case all that would be seen by the Miss Tremletts, or by Miranda and Mr. Remington, would be a passing impression of dark hair under a red hat. As to the stationmaster at Dedham, it is most improbable that he knew Anna Ball by sight, but just in case there should be anyone in the station who had seen her at Deep End the girl in the red hat is upset. She uses her handkerchief to dab her eyes and, incidentally, to hide her face. Mr. Craddock impresses it on the stationmaster that Miss Ball has been having trouble with her nerves, and that they are glad to be getting rid of her. This would serve the double purpose of focussing the stationmaster’s attention upon the fact that Anna Ball had left Deep End and returned to London, whilst at the same time accounting for the fact that she avoided observation and kept her handkerchief up to her face.”

Frank Abbott turned a quizzical eye upon his Miss Silver.

“We do not really know that she did either.”

Her reply was in her mildest manner.

“I believe, my dear Frank, that I prefaced my remarks by the word ‘If.’ ‘If for some reason it was desired to create an impression that Miss Ball had left by train for London—if a deliberate deception had been planned.’ I certainly did not commit myself to the opinion that this had been the case. I merely wished to point out that had there been such a desire and such a plan, there would not have been any great difficulty in carrying it out.”

“Why should there have been a plan of that kind? To put it bluntly, why should Mr. Craddock desire to make away with Miss Ball? You see, this theory of yours would implicate him up to the hilt. The Miss Tremletts, Miranda, and Augustus Remington and the stationmaster are one thing—Craddock is quite another. Whoever was deceived, he couldn’t have been. If the girl he saw off at Dedham wasn’t Anna Ball, he must have known that she wasn’t.”

“Certainly he must have known it.”

“Well then, we’re back at the question of motive. Why the play-acting? Why any of it?”

“Yes—that is what I have been asking myself. And more particularly, why the gift of the red hat? I do not say there is not a satisfactory answer to these questions, but up to now none has presented itself.”

Frank Abbott said with half a laugh,

“The best answer would come from the girl herself. Pity she hasn’t been traced.”

Miss Silver answered him gravely.

“And that takes us back to the point from which we started. Where is Anna Ball?”