Dorothy Eden (16 page)

There was no doubt now that it was possession of the doll that had been desired.

Who knew she had had it? Lucian Cray, Johnnie Lambert, Mrs. Dix, Miss Squires… No one else, except people who might have been informed by one of these. Nicolas Grundy, for instance, and Mrs. Mossop. The Chinese-faced man. The old woman in Rosita’s room.

Everything was still a mystery, but there was one practical thing that could be done at once. She could pay a surprise visit to the house in St. John’s Wood and see who lived there.

At the thought of doing this, a cold, heavy stone of fear settled in Kate’s heart. She tried to think of many valid reasons for not going. She had promised William not to go out again tonight—the matter of Francesca, whether it be a bitter quarrel between the divorced parents, or something more dangerous, was none of her affair—if the child were in trouble, she could not be of any help if she were lured into a strange house and knocked on the head.

But there was no use in arguing with herself. She knew she was going. With all the aplomb she could muster she was once more going to thrust herself uninvited into l’affaire Francesca. And this time, she told herself firmly, no happening, however frightening or grotesque, would induce her to run away.

After she had pressed the bell of the strange house in vain, and then rapped the heavy knocker against the door, Kate stepped back, almost in tears from disappointment. Because now that the house in St. John’s Wood seemed to be empty, she had forgotten possible danger, and was conscious only of frustration.

Was this hopeful clue only proving to be another blind alley?

One of the tall windows on the second floor shot up. A vague, stout form leaned out.

“It’s no use your knocking down there, young lady. There’s no one home.”

Kate looked up eagerly. “Do you know when they’ll be back?”

“Afraid I don’t. She took the children down into the country after her husband died. To her mother’s, I suppose. She didn’t talk much to anybody. Just passed the time of day if we met on the stairs. And that wasn’t often, because I mostly use the side entrance.” Belatedly, the old woman, for Kate could discern her halo of white hair now, asked, “Are you a friend of hers?”

“No. It was another matter.”

The cool night wind blew the unswept leaves on the steps with a melancholy rustling. Kate looked at the long, blank windows, and had a sensation, not of fear, but of intense sadness. Where were the mysterious woman and children who had lived here, and who was the husband who had died?

“Would you like to come up, dear, and have a glass of sherry?”

The garrulous voice above her may have been purely kind. But Kate was thinking illogically of another old woman, unseen but queerly menacing. Mrs. Mossop.

“That’s very kind of you, but I won’t. I’ll call again.”

“Well, I can’t say when they’ll be home, dear. Before long, I expect, as there’s the children’s schooling. Caroline was going to a school near here, and the boy—”

“Tony?” Kate broke in.

“Yes, Tony. His mother was taking him to a kindergarten each afternoon. A bright little scamp, the dead spit of his father. Gracious, when that news came—”

“Did the father die unexpectedly?”

“Very suddenly,” replied the old woman, with macabre relish. “Drowned.”

Kate drew in her breath. “How?”

“No one seems to know, dear. They say it was an accident. But those foreigners will say anything.”

“Foreigners?”

“Oh, yes, it was in a nasty foreign river. The Tiber.”

Kate grasped the iron railings. She thought that her voice, considering the difficulty with which she spoke, was very cunning.

“What did you say his name was?”

“Lor’ bless me, didn’t you know who you were calling on? It’s the Crays. Poor souls!”

Kate took two sleeping tablets that night, and as a consequence seemed to be struggling all night with the cold muddy waters of the Tiber. She awoke feeling limp and with a sensation of horror still hanging over her. It was at that psychological moment that the letter came.

It had been addressed to her care of Mrs. Dix’s office, and had been re-addressed. The postmark was “Roma.” The letter inside was written in stilted English.

“Dear Miss Tempest,

You were so kind to the little bambina Francesca. It will be of sorrow to you to hear she is in trouble. She needs a friend. There is only you of whom I know to write. Can you give help?

Gianetta.”

The voice of Kate’s stepmother at the other end of the wire was full of surprise and pleasure.

“Kate darling! Are you coming down?”

“Yes, tomorrow, if I may. But only if you can do something for me, Stella.”

“Anything, my dear. Anything. And I’ve masses of vegetables and flowers and fresh eggs for you to take back to town. I’d been going to write to you. Did you know I won the prize with the largest pumpkin? And that new chrysanthemum is a great success. Everyone wants cuttings. What a pity you can’t grow a slip in a pot. What is it you want, dear? A piece of furniture? Come and take your pick. It’s really yours, just as much as it is mine.”

“It’s not furniture, Stella. It’s money. I have to take an unexpected trip to Rome.”

“How exciting! Is it a holiday, or for that odd woman you work for?”

Her stepmother was the most incurious of people. She accepted everything, except a heavy frost that blackened her garden, with equanimity. Nevertheless, one couldn’t remotely tell her the truth—that the trip to Rome was to look for a lost child and to find out the reason for a man being drowned in the Tiber. The horror of that last was too recent to be able to talk of it at all.

“A little of each, Stella. I have twenty pounds, but I’ll need perhaps another thirty. I’ll travel second-class, and I’ll pay you back as soon as I possibly can.”

“Nonsense, darling! Don’t talk of paying back. Haven’t I always told you that everything your father left me is yours, too. Come down early tomorrow and we’ll have a long day in the garden. I want your opinion on my new rose bed.”

She had promised William to do nothing without telling him first. But already the promise was broken. For he would never have allowed her to do this. He would have said she was mad. Perhaps she was mad. Certainly she couldn’t reason intelligently. But now she knew, as her intuition had told her all along, that Francesca was in trouble. And in addition there was the tragedy of Lucian Cray. Why should he, who had merely given her friendly assistance on the train, be dragged dead from the Tiber?

She hadn’t really fallen in love with him, she told herself passionately. It had only been that his face, sombre, dark and exciting, with more than a hint of ruthlessness, had stayed persistently in her mind. She hadn’t visualized him with a wife and children. Neither had she believed he was merely putting on a very clever act when he had helped her look for Francesca.

For if he had written that letter to the child, then he was very deeply implicated. So deeply, that the dirty turgid water of the Tiber had claimed him…

She was growing as cunning as everyone else. She packed her bag, and told Mrs. Peebles she was going to stay with her stepmother in Dorset for a few days. Then, because her memory played her a trick and she was suddenly remembering that kiss of William’s the other morning, when, sore and aching and exhausted, she had had that moment of strange ecstasy, she rang William.

And found it one of the hardest things she had ever done to lie to him.

But he wouldn’t have let her go if he knew the truth. He would even lock her in her room, if necessary. She remembered his overpowering strength which was not always curbed by gentleness, and shuddered with that strange, wry pleasure.

“How are the roads of England?” she asked lightly.

“In a lamentable state. Hullo, darling, I was just going to call you. Aren’t you up early?” His deep, lazy voice hid his concern. “Has anything happened?”

“No. I’ve just decided to go down and see Stella for a day or two.”

When she heard the relief in his voice she was full of shame.

“Jolly good idea. I’d have suggested it myself if I’d thought you’d listen to my suggestions.”

“William, I always do.”

“Yes, and then kick them out the door. Well, never mind. Have a nice horticultural time. I’ll come down in a day or so, if I may.”

“Not until the weekend. Stella and I will be busy, and so will you, for that matter. I guess the magazine likes to see its editor once in a way.”

There was a brief silence. She knew he was biting on his pipe. She could see his shaggy eyebrows, and the reflective look in his eyes. She visualized his big body slumped comfortably in the leather armchair in which he always worked, his untidy hair, his square, strong hand gripping the telephone. She had a sudden, lost, dismayed feeling that all of that, too, was vulnerable, as had been Lucian’s finer, slighter body and dedicated face.

She was a low, contriving, dishonourable person, and it would be only what she deserved if she never saw William again.

But the thought made her catch her breath.

“Kate—are you all right?” With his uncanny and exasperating intuition he had caught her mood.

“Yes, I’m all right. I’m in rude health, considering everything.”

“Your wrist better?”

“I’ve taken the bandage off. It’s almost normal.”

“Get Stella to massage it for you. And don’t go trying to pull up hefty weeds, such as thistles. Or mandrake roots.”

“They’re supposed to cry out.”

“Then I promise you I’ll hear them and come to the rescue.”

Now she had three clear days. Stella, at the weekend, would tell William where she was. But by then she hoped she would be cabling that Francesca was found and that all her alarms had signified nothing.

M
RS. PEEBLES WAS DISTRUSTFUL
by nature. Until she was proved definitely wrong, she regarded all strangers with suspicion. One had to, living in London, and having all and sundry coming to one’s door. Besides, strange things had been happening lately. More than once she had had the feeling that the house was being watched, though not again by that slinky little foreigner with the yellow face. It was just a feeling, one might say, with nothing to substantiate it but the rather odd way Miss Tempest had been behaving, the dreadful accident that had happened to her employer, not to mention cats scrabbling at the window in the night, and yesterday that smug little man who had said, as cool as could be, that he had been instructed to come and value Miss Tempest’s furniture. Her suspicious nature had served her well then, for if she had left him alone in the flat what would have been missing one couldn’t guess. As it was, there had been an uncanny moment when he had glared at her with his little, hard, black eyes.

The queer thing about that was that Miss Tempest didn’t have valuables. She was a nice girl, obviously well brought up, but she was as poor as a church mouse. So what she could have that would interest a burglar, goodness only knew.

With these events behind her, it was natural that Mrs. Peebles should look with even greater suspicion at the little square woman with the large round glasses who rang her doorbell soon after Miss Tempest had left for the country.

Glasses. A disguise, of course. Though this was no bold person inveigling her way in, but a strangely timid and frightened-looking woman who got out of a taxi and who carried a wicker cat basket.

Mrs. Peebles had no fear of being unable to cope with this caller.

“What do you want?” she asked uncompromisingly.

“Is Miss Tempest in? She does live here, doesn’t she?”

“She does, but she’s away. Left yesterday.” (And no doubt you know it already, my good woman!)

“Oh dear! What shall I do now? Where has she gone, do you mind telling me?”

Mrs. Peebles was beginning to change her mind about this visitor. She seemed to be genuinely upset about something, and she also looked dead beat, standing there holding that basket that contained a now vociferous animal. No one with felonious intent would be fool enough to hamper herself with a cat while on the way to do the dark deed.

So she saw no reason for concealing Miss Tempest’s whereabouts.

“She’s gone down to her stepmother in Dorset for a few days. She needed a rest, poor dear. Looking downright peaky, she was.”

The person on the doorstep came closer, thrusting her spectacled face up at Mrs. Peebles appealingly.

“Are you sure? Are you really sure that’s where she’s gone?”

“I didn’t follow her to the train,” Mrs. Peebles said tartly. “But I don’t see why she should make it up? Why should she?”

“That’s another thing,” the woman muttered. “Oh dear. It’s terribly important that I should see her. And it would take me so long to get to Dorset. Besides, Tom hates travelling.”

Mrs. Peebles didn’t quite know what to do. She said the first thing that came into her head.

“Why don’t you go and see Mr. Howard. That’s Miss Tempest’s boyfriend. He’ll know more than me, most likely. And anyway, he’s a man.” Mrs. Peebles looked wistful as she paid this tribute to the opposite sex. If her husband had been alive he would have known how to deal with these strange callers. It pleased her to forget that in his lifetime he had let most decisions rest on her own tough little shoulders.

“His office is in Fleet Street,” she said. “Wait and I’ll get the number for you.”

So that was how Miss Squires came to be sitting in William’s office, occupying the big, low, leather armchair, while Tom squawked grumblingly in the cat basket at her feet, and William, unable for once to relax, walked up and down, frowning thoughtfully.

“What makes you think Kate isn’t at her stepmother’s at all?”

“Because I’m afraid they’ll get her away. Probably back to Rome.”

“Rome!”

“That’s the most likely place. That’s where she thinks the child is.”

“But why, Miss Squires?”

“I tell you, I don’t know. I don’t really know anything except that I know too much, if you understand what I mean.”

William nodded. The incomprehensible sentence made sense to him. He understood that much. Miss Squires was the inadvertent possessor of a little dangerous knowledge. Hence the threat she had received by telephone that if she should divulge anything at all, or make any suspicious moves, she would receive due punishment. The first thing that would happen would be that her cat would have a mysterious accident, or disappear.