Beggar’s Choice (24 page)

Anna opened the dining-room door, and was greeted by a chorus of shrieks and squawks through which Miss Willy could be heard screaming, first at her and then at the noisy parrot.

“Come in! Shut the door!
Shut the door!
Be quiet, Archibald!—
Archibald! Will
you be quiet! Shut that door, or Rollo will get out! Where is he? Rollo, where are you? Oh, come in—come
in!
And mind don't step on Augustus—he's somewhere about, but I don't know where.”

Anna's color became noticeably less decorative. She had no affection for creatures, and on any other occasion she would have fled. She cast an anxious look about the room. Archibald always bit her if he could; but he had reached the curtain pole, where he stood clapping his wings and improvising a very fair imitation of a whining dog. The macaw really terrified her; but he appeared to be engaged in a careful toilet with one wing stretched out to its fullest extent and all his brilliant blue and yellow and crimson a-dazzle in the sun which shone straight into the room. Augustus made her feel sick, but as she looked about for him, she saw him run up Miss Willy's dress and come to rest upon her shoulder. Miss Willy said, “Did'ums, the bad boy?” and Anna hastily pulled the nearest chair to a safe distance and sat down. Rollo had gone under the table, and the parakeets were climbing ceaselessly over the outside of their cage.

“I hope you don't mind my coming when you're so busy,” Anna began in a deprecating tone. “I know you are always busy in the morning, and so am I, but I thought I might just slip down for a minute whilst Isobel was talking to Corinna. I do so want to ask you about Lydia Pratt.”

“Don't talk of her!” said Miss Willy with a snort. “A bad, ungrateful girl if there ever was one! We got her a good place between us, and she's leaving at the month because she's only allowed out once a week. I can't think what girls are coming to!”

On almost any other day Lydia Pratt's enormities would have taken at least half an hour to discuss, but on this particular morning Miss Willy had no intention of wasting time on Lydia. If Anna had not come to see her, she would within the hour have been on her way to see Anna, armed as likely as not with the same excuse. However that might be, Lydia Pratt had now definitely served her turn.

With Augustus sitting up on her shoulder industriously washing his whiskers, Miss Willy turned and faced her caller.

“Never mind Lydia,” she said, “I've heard a most extraordinary rumor, and I want to know if it's true.”

“What have you heard?” asked Anna quickly.

“That you've had a burglary. Anna—you don't say it's true—not really? I couldn't believe it!”

“But how did you hear? We haven't told any one. Uncle John——”

“You haven't told the police?”

“Not the local police. Uncle John rang up Scotland Yard.”

“Who of course communicated with the local people—now didn't they?”

“Well—you won't repeat this, Miss Willy—we have had an inspector from Southerley to see us. Uncle John wasn't very pleased about it. I think he wishes now that he had waited—employed a private detective or—oh, don't take any notice of what I'm saying! It's all very, very distressing. Uncle John is quite ill. We don't want it talked about.”

“Now what's the good of saying that? You want the widest possible publicity—then every one in the community is on the look out and can help you to catch your thief. You ought to have a description of whatever has been stolen circulated to all police stations, and pawnbrokers, and—and—people of that sort.” She made a wide gesture with her hand which startled Augustus a good deal and made Cyril the macaw interrupt his toilet and fix her with a bright glassy stare.

“I believe that has been done,” said Anna. “I wish—oh, I wish it hadn't!”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Willy. “The more publicity the better—you can't have too much.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“Joskins brought the first rumor with the afternoon milk. I suppose he'd just been up to Linwood House.”

“But the servants didn't know—we didn't tell them.”

Miss Willy sniffed.

“Joskins knew. He said it was the Queen Anne bow that had gone. It is? Then he was right! Just that and nothing more. I'd have come up yesterday myself, only I had an old engagement to go out to tea at Wood End with Lady Silver, and she kept me and kept me to see her sister who was coming down by train, and in the end she never came, and I didn't get home till half-past seven, and the telephone has been out of order for two days—they'd only just got it right when Corinna rang Isobel up. It was most tantalizing, because of course I was simply dying to hear all about it. Was the house broken into? Joskins said not, but Mrs. Hoylake told me that Annie's young man—not Brent, but the new one—his name is Mullins and he drives one of the vans of those big grocery people in Southerley—what's their name—Downings—well, he told Annie that his cousin, Ernest Mullins; who's in the police, told him that the Inspector told him in confidence that he shouldn't wonder if it was an inside job.”

Anna leaned back in her chair. The room swam for a moment. Suppose they thought—suppose they guessed. No—
no!
She dug her nails into the palm of her hand. It was Car who was going to be suspected—Car who
must
be suspected, now that things had gone so far. She was quite safe really. The jewel would be found on Car, and then Dr. Monk would remember that he had seen him in Linwood at midnight. What a blessing she had thought of Dr. Monk! He would remember quite a lot of useful things—Uncle John's sudden illness; her own agitation; the disturbed bureau; the keys lying where some one had flung them down. She recovered her self-possession.

“What's the matter?” said Miss Willy.

“It's been—such a shock,” she faltered. “I—I can't bear to talk about it. Dear Miss Willy—you're so kind—you'll understand there are—
reasons
why I can't talk about it.”

“Not one of the servants?” said Miss Willy breathlessly. “Why, they've all been with you at least five years, except Gladys Brown, and her people are so respectable that I couldn't believe—though of course where young men are concerned you never can tell—only she's walking out with that particularly nice George Alton. Don't say it's Gladys!”

“Oh, no.”

“Though of course having been with you for years doesn't really prove anything, because my cousin Wilfred Earl's mother-in-law had a butler for sixteen years and never knew that she only got half the cigars that were down in her bill—but Wilfred assured me it was a fact. But of course cigars are one thing, and an heirloom is quite another pair of shoes. Was there anything else taken?”

Anna shook her head. The telegram ought to arrive soon—Bobby was to have sent it off half an hour ago. She looked at the half-opened parcel lying on the table against the parakeet's cage.

“Has any one been sending you a present?” she asked with the forced lightness of some one who must at any cost change the subject.

“No—I don't know—I haven't opened it—I don't know what it is.” Miss Willy picked up the wrapping and turned it this way and that. “I can't make head or tail of the postmark, and I don't know the writing—though of course that's nothing to go by, because one's pen always sticks so on brown paper, and it simply ruins the nib. No—I can't think
who
it can be from.”

“Why don't you open it?” suggested Anna.

“Well,” said Miss Willy, “there's something fascinating about guessing. I always think I should have made a good detective—you may have noticed that I am very observant. The other day, when I was visiting Mrs. Pratt, I knew at once that Lydia was leaving Mrs. Greenway. I didn't wait for her to tell me. I walked in and sat down and said straight away, ‘Now what's all this, Mrs. Pratt?' And she couldn't believe that some one hadn't told me. And I said to her, ‘Well, they haven't—but when I see a letter from Lydia lying open in your work-box with things like “lots of good places” and “home Thursday week” staring me in the face, I can put two and two together without requiring any one to tell me that they make four. And if I'm to say what I think, Mrs. Pratt,' I said, ‘Lydia is a bad, ungrateful girl, and she wants a good scolding, and not to be spoilt and made much of the way you've always done, and I only hope you won't live to regret it when it's too late—and then perhaps you'll remember that I warned you, Mrs. Pratt.'”

“Won't you open your parcel?” said Anna gently. The telegram might come at any minute now.

The wrapping had slipped to the floor whilst Miss Willy discoursed. It lay against the table leg. Rollo regarded it with a cocked head and inquisitive eye.

Miss Willy took up a small box in an inner wrapping of white paper. It was tied with string and sealed on either side with red sealing-wax. The impression on the wax had been made with a threepenny bit.

“How extraordinary!” said Miss Willy. She stared at the white paper and the name that was written there. “Car! It's addressed to Car—to Car Fairfax! How extraordinary!”

Under the table, Rollo extended a cautious claw, closed it on the corner of the fallen wrapper, and began with the help of his beak to drag it away. With an eye on the shelter afforded by the coal-scuttle and a fire-screen, he emerged on Anna's side of the table, saw her, squawked, and retreated, dropping the paper.

Anna stooped, picked it up deftly, and slipped it into her bag before Miss Willy had finished exclaiming,

“My dear Anna, isn't it a most extraordinary thing that any one should send a parcel for Car Fairfax here—to
me?
Why, I don't even know his address. Do you?”

“No, I don't. It's—it's been a complete separation.”

Miss Willy looked up, brightly alert.

“Why, my dear? Why? I've always wanted to ask you that. I did ask John—and very rude he was, I consider. Whilst we're on the subject—what did Car do?”

Anna looked away. The hand she put to her cheek did not hide her evident distress.

“Don't ask me—
please
, Miss Willy. We try to forget about it.”

Miss Willy tossed her head.

“If you ask me, John doesn't have to try very hard. He wants Car back, doesn't he? Well, I won't ask any questions if I'm not to be told anything, though I must say such an old friend——” She tossed her head again, and Augustus backed away until he over-balanced and fell scrambling to the floor.

Anna tucked her feet up on the rail of her chair. She had a horror of rats.

“There, Gussy—
there!”
Miss Willy's apology was rather perfunctory. She returned to the little white box. “What in the world am I to do with this, when I don't know where he is?”

“I thought you wrote to him the other day.”

“Who told you that?” said Miss Willy sharply.

“You told me yourself. You said you were asking him to stay.”

Miss Willy's florid color deepened unbecomingly. She was wearing a tight jumper of faded pink wool and an old red Cashmire skirt. Her hair was wild. At some time after getting up she had poked a pencil through it; it now stuck out at a rakish angle over her left ear. She wore about her neck a cerise ribbon tied in a bow, a thin steel chain holding a pair of scissors and small brass key, and another chain, of gold with an occasional pearl, from which depended a pair of tortoise shell-rimmed pince-nez. Her short, ugly fingers were covered to the knuckles with old-fashioned and very dirty rings.

“Yes, I asked him,” she said angrily. “Isobel made me ask him. And all the thanks I got for it was a refusal.”

“Then you've got his address?!”

“Isobel has it,” said Miss Willy—“or I suppose so. I never remember addresses myself.”

Anna clenched her hand. How much longer was she to sit here and talk about Car? What was Bobby doing? Why didn't that telegram come?

“If John Carthew had taken my advice——” said Miss Willy.

The telephone bell rang a yard away in the window.

Miss Willy jerked around, took up the receiver, and stood with her back to the room. Over her head on the curtain pole Archibald imitated the bell and the click, and then proceeded to say “Hullo-ullo-ullo-ullo-
ullo!
” The sound pleased him; he pursued it through various keys.

“Ssh!” said Miss Willy. Then, to the telephone, “What did you say?… Yes, this is two-one-six.… Yes, I said so before—Archibald,
hush!
… Yes, I keep telling you I am. If you've got a telegram for me, will you kindly let me have it!”

Anna drew a breath of relief. Now that the telegram had come, there could be no going back. It was curious how this thought kept recurring. She listened with strained attention whilst Miss Willy bickered with the exchange.

“My good woman, if you've got a telegram, let me have it!… No, I can't hear you. Kindly remember that you're three miles away and raise your voice a little—Archibald,
will
you be quiet!”

She turned at last, looking red and determined.

“Talk of the old gentleman! Here's Car wiring to Isobel to meet him in town this evening!”

Anna's heart jumped. If the telegram had really been from Car, she would hardly have felt her jealously flame up more fiercely.

Miss Willy had taken pencil and paper and was writing the message down, saying each word aloud as she wrote it:

“Meet—me—Olding—Crescent—Putney—eight-thirty—to-night—very—urgent—indeed—Car.”

She jabbed her pencil down on the stop at the end and broke the point.

“Oh,” said Anna, “you won't let her go?”

“Let?” said Miss Willy in a loud offended voice. “Let?”

“Isobel wouldn't go if you didn't want her to!” Anna was gently shocked. “Oh, Miss Willy—surely you won't let her go!”