Hole and Corner (18 page)

“Did any gentleman arrive for lunch and ask for a lady who had been staying the night?”

It sounded very odd, but of course it didn't matter about a disembodied voice being odd.

The porter went away again. He said he would inquire, and faded out. A much nearer and more business-like voice asked Shirley whether she would like another three minutes, and invited her to drop more coins into the slot on her right. She dropped them, and there was the hall porter again.

“Are you there, madam?”

Shirley said that she was there. She began to feel as if she had been there for weeks.

“There was a gentleman that was asking for Miss Lester about one o'clock.”

“Yes?” said Shirley, “Yes, yes—can I speak to him?”

“He asked for Miss Lester, and when he found she was gone he had some lunch and went off again.”

“He's gone?”

Shirley's voice was so despairing that the hall porter was moved out of his official telephone manner.

“Not above a quarter of an hour ago. Asked about the trains both ways, and had his lunch and a fill-up of petrol at the garridge at the corner, and off he went.”

“Do you know which way he went?”

“Turned to the right by the garridge—but he'd be bound to do that unless he was going to Trayle or Little-cote Green, which wouldn't be very likely.”

It sounded very unlikely indeed. Shirley said “Thank you,” and hung up the receiver. If she hadn't behaved like a complete nit-wit and a blithering, brainless chump, she would have caught Anthony easily at the Station Hotel. At this very moment he would be on his way to her, or she would be on her way to him and she would be within measurable distance of handing over Mrs Huddleston's emeralds to Mrs Huddleston's nephew. As it was, she hadn't the slightest chance of getting rid of them of the slightest idea what to do next. Anthony was probably blinding into the blue, and getting farther and farther away from her every moment.

Of course he might come to London, or he might go back to Emshot. He might reason that having rushed away from London in a panic, she wasn't likely to return there, or he might guess that something had frightened her and sent her flying into the first train that came along. She didn't find this last theory very convincing, because Anthony wouldn't know about the disappearing girl and that really terrifying placard. On the other hand, if he had no idea where she had gone, wouldn't he be quite likely to come back to his own chambers? Shirley hoped he would.

Odds and ends of plans began to shape themselves in her mind. The very first thing she must do was to get rid of the emeralds. Trail round with them any longer she simply wouldn't. The mere feeling that they were there inside the suit-case in the pocket of Anthony's pyjamas made her knees shake and her head swim. She went straight to the Left Luggage office, pushed the suit-case across the counter and received a check for it. She would have liked to post the check to Anthony, but she had neither paper, envelope, nor stamps. She was about to give up the idea, when she remembered that the railway hotel would provide her with all three if she had the nerve to walk in and behave as if she were staying there. She could order a cup of coffee at a pinch. But the nearer she came to the hotel entrance, the weaker she felt about it. She wasn't the disappearing girl of the placard, but she
was
Mrs Huddleston's companion, or secretary, or whatever you liked to call it, and she
had
run away with Mrs Huddleston's diamond brooch and Mrs Huddleston's Napoleonic emeralds. Mrs Huddleston's screams were probably still rending the roof of No 15 and Mrs Huddleston's moans were certainly penetrating by telephone to every police-station in the neighbourhood. It behoved Shirley Dale to be as inconspicuous as possible. It didn't behove her to get into the limelight by pinching hotel notepaper. She recoiled from the hotel entrance, picked up the loose end of a plan almost haphazard, and walked out of the station.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Alfred Phillips paid for the lunch which he and Miss Ettie Miller had just eaten. He looked at her with one of his sharp, darting glances.

“We'll go out,” he said.

Ettie's eyebrows went up.

“Out where?”

“The Park for choice. We've got to talk.”

She didn't look at all pleased. The Park in the middle of winter, with a wind fit to cut you in two, when you might be sitting comfortable over a good hot fire! It wasn't her idea of a pleasant Sunday afternoon. She told Mr Phillips so with a good deal of vigour.

“And why can't we talk here?”

He frowned and shook his head.

“You never know who's listening in this sort of place.”

“This sort of place,” was one of those small hotels which exist shabbily in the cheaper parts of London. They are dirty, respectable, and extremely depressing, but they do not suffer from overcrowding.

Miss Miller said, “Rats!” And then, “You can say what you like Al, I'm not going out. That little tinpot writing-room half way up the stairs is dead certain to be empty, and nobody's going to listen to us there. We can have the gas fire and be comfortable. I'm not going to get pneumonia sitting about in the Park this weather, and that's flat.”

Al Phillips gave way. The room was safe enough—nobody ever went there. He watched Ettie light the fire and then turn round with a satisfied smile.

“You haven't said whether you like my new rig-out,” she said, preening herself.

Mr Phillips frowned.

“It's all right,” he said shortly.

“Is that all you've got to say? I thought you liked me in red.”

She was conscious that she was looking well, and she meant Al to be conscious of it too. She was very pleased with the dark wine-red three-piece suit and the smart little hat which matched it. The three-quarter length coat was becoming, and the colour set off eyes and hair. She had used a more discreet shade of lipstick. Al always said that scarlet was too bright, and the least he could do now was to tell her he had noticed the change. He might pay her a compliment or two whilst he was about it. Funny how quickly men went off telling you they liked your looks, and yet they expected you to go on telling them how clever they were, day in day out. She didn't mind that, but she did think Al might oblige a bit too.

It was borne in on Mr Phillips that there would be no serious conversation until he had obliged. That was the worst of having to do business with women—they always wanted it mixed up with love-making. He had no objection to making love to Ettie at the right time and when he felt like it, but it put his back up having to do it to order, and when he wanted to talk business. However—

He put an arm round her waist, tipped up her chin, and kissed her.

“You look fine.”

“Think so? The fur collar suits me.”

“The whole thing suits you. Now come along—we mustn't waste time.”

“You didn't always think it was waste of time making love to me.”

Gosh—what an insatiable appetite she had! A furious impatience sprang up in him, but he controlled it.

“I don't now. But look here, my dear, we've got to talk.”

Ettie gave a regretful sigh.

“All right.” She pulled up a dingy chair and settled herself. “What's the matter, Al? Anything wrong?”

Al Phillips went to the door and opened it. The dark stair ran empty down into the hall, and empty on to the landing above. A haunting odour of lunch came in to mingle with the gassy fumes of the long untended fire. He shut the door again, came back, pulled a chair close to Ettie, and sat down.

“The will's in the papers this morning.”

“What—the whole thing?”

“The gist of it. It's darned awkward.”

Ettie shrugged her shoulders. No Englishwoman born could have shrugged them just like that, yet nothing could have been more English than voice and accent. Both were of London and no other place—the London of shops, and offices, and the hundred ramifications of the business world.

“I don't see it matters,” she said. “It was bound to come out anyway.”

His long, sharp nose twitched with impatience.

“It wasn't bound to come out now! The girl ought to have been out of the way first! I didn't think they'd cable it. They wouldn't in the ordinary way. It's because the legatees are English, I suppose.”

Ettie nodded.

“That's right—but I don't see it matters.”

“Then you don't see very far! I've told you all along we've got to be careful or it'll look like a conspiracy.”

Ettie Miller shrugged again.

“Rats!” she said.

“You wouldn't say ‘Rats!' if you found yourself in the dock.”

She laughed good-humouredly.

“Well, you'd be there too. And I don't see it matters a bit about the papers. If Shirley Dale's a thief, well then she is, and that's all there is about it. She's got the things on her, and if you've told me once you've told me a dozen times since yesterday that she has as much chance of getting away with them as she has of flying over the moon. I expect they've arrested her by now, and if they haven't they're bound to by to-morrow. She hasn't any money, and there isn't anyone who'd take her in. So there you are—why worry? They're bound to get her, and when they do, there's a perfectly straight case and an absolute cert of a conviction. Then out goes Shirley Dale, and we're on velvet for the rest of our lives.”

Al Phillips did not reply. He leaned forward, frowning at the fire. When Ettie put out a hand and tweaked his ear he could have struck her. She attracted him—sometimes she attracted him very much—but she was too hearty, too demonstrative. There were times when she irritated him to such a point that he wondered whether it was worth it. He dealt sharply with himself on these occasions. When you had as much money as they were going to have, you didn't need to see enough of a woman to get her on your nerves—you had a big house where you didn't need to be right on top of each other all the time, Worth it? Of course it was worth it, Al Phillips!

“What's the matter, dearie?” There was a sugary, cooing tone in. Ettie's voice which made him jerk away from her.

He moved his chair, swinging it round so as to face her.

“A bit of darned bad luck the will getting into the papers like that.”

“Fidgety, aren't you?” Ettie's voice was still good-tempered. “I can't see what you're bothering about myself.”

“It's not safe,” said Al Phillips—“that's what I'm bothering about. And there are too many people mixed up in it—Bessie, and the Maltby woman, and you, and me.”

She stared at him.

“Well, what's the matter with us?”

“Three too many of you—that's all.”

Her shoulders went up again in that foreign shrug.

“Well, you couldn't have done without us—could you? And if you don't trust the others, I suppose you trust me. Nice sort of a husband I've got if you don't.”

He said, “Shut your mouth!” in a tone of such cold fury that she sat back staring and without a word to say. Leaning forward and touching her on the knee, he dropped his voice to an edgy whisper and went on, “You say that word again, and you won't have one of any sort. Do you hear? You say ‘wife', or ‘husband', or ‘married', and I'm through!”

Ettie's fine dark eyes opened to their fullest extent. When Al spoke like that it sent a shiver down her back. She admired him a good deal, the way he'd flare out at her, and the way his eyes seemed to go boring into her, and the way his voice gave her that shiver down the back. If he'd been a bit taller, and his hair had been black instead of that funny pale red, he'd have been the very one for a Sheikh.

“Well, I never!”

“Now you just listen!” He was tapping her knee again with a very hard bony finger. “If it gets out that we're married, we'll be in Queer Street. And if it gets out through you, you'll have done the worst bit of work you ever did in your life.”

“That's all very well, but where do I come in? That's what I want to know. What's the good of being married when you don't even treat me as if we were engaged half the time? And I mustn't wear my wedding-ring—and I mustn't tell anyone—and not so much as a kiss or a kind word from one week-end to another—” She broke off with a sob.

“Come, come, Ettie—it's not so bad as all that.” He pulled her forward and kissed her. “And it's only for a bit. Just so soon as this girl's out of the way and the will's proved, we can go and get married all over again, and nobody'll be a penny the wiser. Now, now—you don't want to spoil your eyes crying. There's a good time coming. You be a good girl and do as I say, and we'll be the happiest couple in the world. But we've got to be careful, my dear, we've got to be careful. Now just suppose she saw me in the crowd at the bus-stop when she got that bag which didn't belong to her on her arm. I mean just suppose she saw me to notice so that she'd know me again. And then suppose she connected that up with you and me dining at the next table to her and Mr Leigh at the Luxe, and you missing your purse and it being found in her bag. Well, that would be a bit awkward, wouldn't it—awkward and dangerous? ought never to have given way to you over that purse business, and that's a fact. It wasn't safe.”

“Oh, put it on me! It wasn't you that thought about it, and planned it, and was full of how Mr Leigh was going to remember about it afterwards when his aunt's things had gone missing! But there, I don't mind—put it on me if you want to. You know, Al, I've been thinking if more than a hundred people get killed on the roads every week—and I'm sure it's enough to give you the creeps the way they keep giving it out on the wireless—well, I was thinking if all those people are going to be killed, it does seem a pity one of them couldn't be Shirley Dale.” She paused, looked at him with narrowed eyes, and added, “It
does
seem a pity—doesn't it?”