Hole and Corner (16 page)

DISAPPEARING GIRL. IMPORTANT CLUE
.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Bessie Wood might have felt surprised when she opened the door and admitted Mr Anthony Leigh, who was supposed to be away in the country for the week-end, but her face remained as passive and uninterested as usual. That was one of the things that had made her so useful to Ted—no matter what happened, she could keep a straight face and not let on that she so much as noticed there was anything to get upset about. She hung up Anthony's hat and coat, and saw him go through to the drawing-room with an indifferent eye, yet behind this appearance of calm she was both angry and frightened. Mr Leigh must have been sent for, and that Possett must have known that he had been sent for. Mrs Huddleston would never have put through a trunk call herself—a deal too much trouble for
her
. Possett must have done it for her, and Possett must have known he was coming back, and she'd kept a close mug about it, damn her!

Bessie wondered whether Mrs Huddleston suspected her. If she didn't suspect Shirley Dale, she was bound to suspect Bessie Wood. Well, if there wasn't any risk about the job, Al Phillips wouldn't be paying her a hundred pounds for doing it. It was a bit awkward Mr Anthony turning up like this. It was as plain as the nose on your face that he was in love with Miss Dale. Meant her no good most likely, but he wouldn't want her to go to prison till he was finished with her.

She stood there frowning at the drawing-room door. Things weren't going just the way they'd planned them. Mr Leigh was to have been out of the way until the girl was safe in stir. Once the police had their hands on her, it'd be too late for Mr Anthony to get his aunt to call the show off. But it wasn't going right. The girl had gone off into the blue, and here was Mr Anthony shoving his oar in. She made a small clicking sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth. And then the telephone bell rang and Shirley's call came through.

All the time the call was going on she was getting more and more sure that it was Miss Dale on the line, and if it was, she had got to find out where she was speaking from. But here again things went wrong. First Mrs Huddleston wanting to know who was calling, and sending Mr Anthony to find out. And then Cook coming half way up the back stair to ask if she'd taken in a parcel of groceries last night, because if she had, where had she put them, and if she hadn't, they were clean out of coffee, and Mr Anthony staying to lunch as like as not.

By the time she got back to the telephone and on to Trunks nobody seemed to have the least idea where the call had come from. She put the receiver gently back on its hook and went downstairs with rage in her heart and an expression of dull indifference on her face.

In the drawing-room Anthony was receiving a series of shocks. Mrs Huddleston's diamond brooch was no longer in his pocket, because at the moment of stooping over the sofa to kiss her, he had pushed it down as far as it would go between the padded back and the equally padded seat. There was a space quite six inches deep into which the loose cover was tucked, and it seemed to him an admirable way of disposing of Aunt Agnes' diamonds. Pleased and exhilarated, he drew up a chair and sat down.

Mrs Huddleston instantly prepared for the first blow by sniffing at a new and very powerful bottle of smelling salts and then dabbing at the resulting tears with one of those handkerchiefs edged with Honiton lace which used to be showered upon Victorian brides.

“Oh, my dear boy—such a shock!”

“Has anything happened, Aunt Agnes?”

“Such a terrible shock!”

“What's the matter?”

“That wicked,
wicked
girl!” said Mrs Huddleston with sudden energy.

So far the conversation reminded Anthony of one of those duets in which each of the singers has different words and a different tune and just goes on perseveringly with his own part. He had to wait for a lead, because officially he was completely in the dark.

“What wicked girl, Aunt Agnes?” he inquired with no more than a fleeting frown.

Mrs Huddleston sniffed against the handkerchief.

“It only shows that you can't trust anyone. I couldn't, couldn't have believed it.”

“What couldn't you believe?”

“I'm
forced
to,” said Mrs Huddleston with a fine gloomy stare.

“My dear, if I had the slightest idea what you were talking about—”

“I've always been far too foolishly trusting—your poor uncle always said so. And I never really liked the girl. I remember saying so to Possett right at the very beginning when she first came to me—”

“When Possett first came to you?”

Mrs Huddleston waved that away with a sweep of the hand. Three diamond rings flashed in the firelight.

“No, no, not
Possett
—Miss Dale. And I wish you would go and ask Bessie who that is ringing up. If it's the police and they've arrested her—”

Anthony went out into the hall, glad of an excuse to hide his face. He thought his Aunt Agnes the silliest woman in England, but generally speaking he had an affection for her. Just at this moment it would have given him the greatest possible pleasure to shake her till her teeth rattled in her head.

It wouldn't help Shirley if his feelings showed in his face. He came back and sat down again.

“It was only a wrong number. What's all this about Miss Dale? You haven't told me what's happened yet.”

She began to tell him in detail. Nothing so exciting had happened to her for years—a thief in her own household, her jewellery stolen, the police called in. She meant to extract the ultimate thrill from all these things. The smelling-salts were kept in action. Tears of sensibility flowed. The Honiton lace handkerchief was pressed against long dark lashes.

Anthony let her run on until she stopped for breath. Then he said firmly,

“But it couldn't possibly be Miss Dale, Aunt Agnes.”

“She put the brooch on the mantelpiece,” moaned Mrs Huddleston. “She told me it was hanging crooked, and when I gave it to her to look at she said the catch was damaged. I expect it was all part of the
plot
really. And I told her to put it on the mantelpiece, and when Possett came in it was gone.”

“It must be somewhere in the room. It's impossible that Miss Dale can have taken it. Have you looked for it? Anyone may have moved it, or it may have fallen down. Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere,” said Mrs Huddleston with a despairing gesture. “It was the first thing I said. And Possett is so thorough. She and Bessie have had the carpet up and all the covers off, and there wasn't a sign of anything at all.”

Anthony felt himself blenching.

He said, “What covers?”—just like that, quite baldly, and Mrs Huddleston explained with her usual wealth of detail.

“The sofa cover, and all the chairs. Such pretty stuff, don't you think? Possett saw it last year at Barker's sale, and she came home quite excited about it and said if I would buy the stuff she would try her hand at making the covers. And they turned out so well—quite professional.”

Anthony gazed in horror at the faint die-away pattern of the chintz which covered the sofa. He was not concerned with its æsthetic aspect. He was realizing that he had made a most horrible bloomer. If Possett had really had that cover off this morning, he wasn't going to be able to persuade Aunt Agnes that the diamond brooch had been lurking there all the time. Unfortunately it was lurking there at this moment, and he couldn't see any way of getting hold of it again. To be sure, its presence there would exonerate Shirley, but he didn't want to get Possett into trouble. He said, in a tone that he hoped was firm,

“It must be somewhere.”

“Not in this house,” said Mrs Huddleston with as much dramatic intensity as if she had been playing Lady-Macbeth. “That wicked, wicked girl took it away in her pocket, and as likely as not everything's been melted down, or broken up, or whatever it is they do with jewellery when they steal it and don't want it to be traced.”

Anthony leaned forward.

“Aunt Agnes—why are you connecting Miss Dale with all this? It's quite impossible that she can have anything to do with it.”

She stared at him with the angry tears running down her face.

“Then where is she? Can you tell me that? The police went round to her rooms at once, and they didn't know anything about her there. She hadn't come in—and she didn't come in, for I rang up the police this morning on purpose to find out. She never came in at all. And what do you think of that?”

Anthony smiled his most ingratiating smile.

“Why, that she had gone out of town for the weekend. Thousands of people do it, you know, and they haven't all been stealing diamond brooches. I do it myself.”

“But you don't go away without any luggage,” said Mrs Huddleston with an indignant sob.

“How do you know she went away without any luggage?”

“Oh, my dear boy! Of course it was the very first thing the police asked the landlady—I should have thought, being a barrister, you would have known that—and she hasn't taken so much as her toothbrush.”

“It's always possible to buy a toothbrush if you have a sudden invitation and want to catch a train. I've done that too. You know, Aunt Agnes, you've got to be careful about this—you don't want to be run in for defamation of character. Miss Dale is perfectly free to go away for the week-end when she's finished with her job here. When did she leave, by the way?”

“Six o'clock,” said Mrs Huddleston, dabbing her eyes. “I remember the clock struck while she was looking up Mildred Hathaway's number, and she seemed quite impatient to get off. I thought it
very
inconsiderate of her at the time, because she
knows
how anything like a hurry upsets me. I remember it was the thing Dr Pocklington always impressed on me—‘Don't hurry—never hurry—take things quietly.'”

Anthony forgot to be tactful. This Saturday afternoon business had riled him for a long time.

“Well, most girls expect to get off at one o'clock on Saturdays,” he said crisply.

“So terribly selfish,” sighed Mrs Huddleston.

He let that pass.

“Well, if she didn't leave here till six or a little bit after, and she had any sort of date in the country, she probably had to leg it for her train and hadn't any time to go home first.”

“Date?” said Mrs Huddleston faintly, but with a gleam of curiosity.

“Appointment,” emended Anthony—“engagement—anything you like.”

Mrs Huddleston repeated the original word.

“Date,” she said—“date? Oh no, my dear boy—if she had any, what do you call it, date at all, it was with a
receiver
who was going to get rid of the jewellery for her.”

Twice during this conversation she had used a phrase which had puzzled Anthony. The word jewellery puzzled him now. Is one diamond brooch jewellery? He did not find himself anxious to investigate the puzzle. He took a mental shy at it and went on.

“Then why didn't she go home after the assignation?”

She cast her eyes to the ceiling.

“Don't ask me why that sort of girl does
anything
. She probably knew the game was up and thought she would get away whilst she could. She must have got a lot of money for the emeralds.”

The word hit Anthony right between the eyes and made him blink. Then he said, “
What?
” and his voice was a great deal louder than he meant it to be. He said it again, and this time he had hardly enough breath to finish the word.

“My dear boy—didn't you know?” said Mrs Huddleston.

“
The emeralds?
” said Anthony.

She dissolved into a fresh flood of tears.

“My lovely emeralds—the entire set—so historical! Napoleon gave them to Josephine after his campaign in Italy, and my grandfather gave them to my grandmother when they were on their wedding tour in 1848—and of course he wasn't as famous as Napoleon, but he was thought a great deal of in the County, and they made him Vice-Lieutenant at the time of the Chartist Riots. Napoleon had the set made for Josephine in Italy—a wreath, and earrings, and two brooches—and some people think there was a necklace as well, but your uncle always said no, because if you look at the pictures of the people then—Josephine, and Hortense, and Madame Récamier—they all have things round their heads, but not necklaces, so he always said he didn't believe there had ever been a necklace, and of course I'd much rather think so, because it makes the set complete as it is, and so very interesting. Josephine very nearly didn't get it after all—I expect you remember she had been flirting with somebody else, and when Napoleon came back they had a most dreadful quarrel and there was very nearly a divorce, but she got round him and they made it up, and that is when he gave her the emeralds. And now, I suppose, I shall never see them again.”

Anthony sat stunned amid the flow of tearful words. The emeralds! Oh lord! What a debacle! No question of their value. No question of their having slipped down somewhere, or being mislaid. Possett would have gone between warp and woof of everything under her charge before giving in to the shattering idea that the emeralds had been stolen. He asked a question or two for form's sake, but he already knew what the answers would be—Yes the emeralds had been hidden. She always hid her things, because burglars went straight for a jewel-case. And she changed the hiding-place every week. Last week the emeralds were in a sponge-bag in her wash-stand drawer. This week they were rolled up with her stockings. And how could anyone know where to find them if they didn't know the ways of the house? Only the stockings had been moved—Possett could sweat to that. Every other drawer was just as she had left it. The person who had taken the emeralds had known just where to put her hand on them, and if it wasn't that wicked girl Shirley Dale, perhaps Anthony would tell her who else had helped Possett put them away in that very drawer no farther back than Wednesday afternoon, when she had had them down to show to Mildred Hathaway.