Hole and Corner (19 page)

Al Phillips sent her one of his sharp, darting glances. “You quit that kind of talk! Do you hear? Do you know what, Ettie—if you could quit talking altogether for a month, we'd be a lot safer, and I'd be a lot happier in my mind.”

“Why, I didn't say anything.” Her tone was one of innocent surprise.

Al Phillips laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

“And by the time you've said nothing, and Bessie's said nothing, and the Maltby woman's said nothing, we'll all be in the dock, I shouldn't wonder!”

Ettie blinked and winced.

“I don't know how you can say a thing like that! I don't talk, I'm sure. And if you've told me once you've told me fifty times that Bessie Wood's as close as a clam. And as for that old Maltby, she's so loony crazy with rage because Jane Rigg didn't live long enough to come in for her share and leave it to her dear friend Estella Maltby along with what she did leave her, that it's not very likely she's going to talk, or if she does, what'll anyone think except that she's got a screw loose?”

“And that's why I'm afraid of her—she
has
got a screw loose.”

“Well, she hates Shirley Dale,” said Ettie in a lazy, comfortable voice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Shirley's stray end of a plan had brought her into Redfield Terrace. Redfield Terrace led by way of a narrow paved alley at its farther end into the bottom of Findon Road, and No 14 Findon Road contained the room which she rented from Mrs Camber. The plan which had looked all right in the station now showed signs of wilting. It seemed insufficient, insubstantial, and well on the way to a complete fade-out, Shirley stood in the alley-way and looked through it at the small section of Findon Road which appeared beyond the painted posts at its lower end. She could see a piece of pavement, and the width of the road, and another piece of pavement, and bits of two houses. There was nobody on either pavement, and nothing was passing in the road.

The plan had been to walk boldly into Mrs Camber's, pack a suit-case, and walk out again. It had seemed quite a good plan, but it was perishing so rapidly that she already regarded it as a has-been. It was a pity, because, having parked Anthony's suit-case and the emeralds in the left-luggage office, she now had no luggage, and without at least a suit-case nobody would take her in. Also she yearned for her toothbrush, and something to sleep in, and her dressing-gown, and a change of clothes, and her hot-water bottle. If it hadn't been Sunday, she might have bought a toothbrush and a suit-case, but it would have been a wicked extravagance. The balance of Anthony's five pounds wouldn't last for ever, and she had no idea how long she might have to go on running away.

She made an eleventh-hour effort to revive the plan. It was now somewhere between half-past two and a quarter to three. Mrs Camber would have had her Sunday dinner and would be just slipping into her Sunday afternoon nap. The Monks were always out on Sunday. Miss Pym was still in Paris. Miss Maltby was at Emshot. It was Mabel's afternoon out, and if she had finished washing up she would be putting on her navy-blue coat and her Army bonnet in the basement bedroom with the little barred window high up in the back wall. In fact the only person there was the slightest chance of meeting was Jasper Wrenn. She had her key, and what was there to prevent her slipping noiselessly into the house and creeping upstairs? As to meeting Jasper, he didn't matter. He could help her carry the suit-case to wherever she was going to carry it. The plan hadn't got as far as that, and now it never would, because even while she tried to revive it she knew that it was dead. She just couldn't walk out between those posts into Findon Road and up the steps of No 14. Even if there wasn't a single person in sight, she would feel as if the eyes of Scotland Yard were upon her—countless eyes of countless policemen, all watching for Shirley Dale who was
wanted
. No, she couldn't do it. She could walk almost down to the posts, but she couldn't pass them. It was no use—she simply couldn't.

She was just going to turn round and walk back to Redfield Terrace, when something happened, something that seemed too good to be true, and yet was true. Jasper Wrenn came into sight on the other side of the posts.

Shirley did what she had just decided she couldn't possibly do. She darted out into Findon Road and caught him by the arm. Then before he had time even to be astonished, she had dragged him back into the alleyway and was saying a great many incoherent things without quite enough breath to say them properly.

“Oh, Jas!
Angel!
We'd better walk. Darling—if you knew how glad! Angel—tell me—are there any policemen? I mean is the coast clear—I mean could I get into the house and get a suit-case, or would somebody arrest me? Because I haven't even got a toothbrush, and I don't see how anyone is going to take me in without one, Oh, Jas, you
are
an angel to turn up like this!”

She was hanging on his arm and impelling him away from Findon Road. No windows looked into the alley. Jasper lost his head a little. The whole thing had been so very sudden. Shirley was hugging his arm and burbling in his ear. Her lips were very near, and very red. He missed them, and landed an awkward kiss somewhere between her cheek and her chin. Shirley found it rather comforting. She felt none of the fury which had boiled up in her at Anthony's careless kiss—was it really only two days ago? But then she was in love with Anthony, and when you are in love with someone a careless kiss hurts worse than any blow. And she wasn't in love with Jas, she was only very fond of him, and he was an angel, and a Godsend, and what old Aunt Emily would have called a Providential Occurrence. She didn't mind his kissing her in the least, but she did have a sort of feeling that perhaps Anthony wouldn't like it, so she said, “No, Jas,
please
—there's no time,” and got a little farther away from him.

Jasper experienced a feeling of relief. His heart was beating with great violence. His head swam with triumph. He had kissed her and they were both still, so to speak, here. He didn't quite know where he expected them to be, but he had the feeling that something might have blown up. She might have been horribly angry, she might have sent him away, she might not have let him help her—all horrible things to contemplate when your twentieth birthday is still three months ahead. Hence the relief. Perhaps next time he wouldn't miss her lips. Perhaps—

Shirley was shaking him by the arm.

“So you see, I simply
must
have a suit-case! Oh, Jas—you're not
listening
!”

For the moment Jasper had been quite incapable of listening, but it was borne in upon him that if he didn't pull himself together and listen now, Shirley would be annoyed. He said,

“I
am
listening.”

“You weren't—but you've got to. Jas, do you think you could sleuth into the house, and pack a suit-case, and bring it here?”

He had no difficulty in listening now.

“Of course I could.”

Shirley very nearly kissed him. It was so difficult not to kiss people when you were fond of them and they were being angel lambs. But perhaps better not. Jas had had a kind of yearning look just now, like a dog watching the cake at tea and hoping it is going to get some. Perhaps kinder not to raise false hopes, because of course the cake belonged to Anthony, so it wasn't any good encouraging Jas to yearn.

She said, “Angel!” and kept her arm stiff in case he tried to kiss her again. But he didn't—only said in a tone of melancholy devotion,

“What do you want?”

“Everything,” said Shirley with an expansive gesture.

The realist in Jasper asserted himself.

“You can't get everything into a suit-case.”

“I know, darling—isn't it a pity?”

“Well, what do you want most?”

The realist produced a blotted piece of paper and a fountain pen and prepared to make a list. Shirley began to tick things off on her fingers.

“
Must
have a toothbrush. Aunt Emily would have had a fit if she'd seen me cleaning my teeth with the corner of a station hotel face-towel.”

“Toothbrush,” said Jasper, and wrote it down.

“My blue dressing-gown—it's hanging behind the door. And a pair of pyjamas out of the left-hand corner of the first long drawer—not the blue ones, because they want mending, but there's a pink pair underneath. And the top pair of cami-knickers—they're in the same drawer—at least I hope the top pair's all right, but you'd better just have a look at the shoulder-straps.”

“Why?”

“To make sure they're all right. If the top pair's wonky, take the next.”

Jasper gloomed at the list.

“Anything else?”

“Brush and comb—right-hand top drawer. Powder-puff and powder-box. And there are some handkerchiefs in that drawer, and
stockings
. If you love me, don't take a pair with a hole.”

Jasper gloomed at her instead of at the list.

“And what happens if the Maltby comes up whilst I'm rummaging in your drawers finding shoulder-straps and testing out stockings for holes?”

Shirley stamped her foot on a paving-stone.

“Don't be silly! How can she come up? She isn't there.”

“Isn't she then?”

She stamped again, with a cold shiver going over her.

“Jas, she isn't, she
isn't
—she's at Emshot. I saw her there last night.”

“Well, you've come back, and so has she.”

“She's really here? You're not saying it to frighten me?”

He stuffed the fountain pen into his pocket and caught her by the arm.

“Shirley—what's up? Why should you be frightened of the Maltby? She's an old beast, but why should you be frightened of her? What's been happening—what's all this about? I can't just make lists and fetch suit-cases and not know what it's all about. You're driving me mad. I thought I'd go off my head when you didn't come home yesterday and the police came.” He choked, staring at her with tortured intensity, and then suddenly let go of her and turned away. “I don't care what you've done. Don't tell me anything you don't want to. It doesn't make any difference, only if I
knew
, it wouldn't be so—so—” His voice broke off.

Shirley was in two minds as to whether she was going to cry or fly into a rage. Fortunately the rage had it. There was a good deal of bright colour in her cheeks as she jerked him by the sleeve.

“Will you look at me! What do you suppose I've done? I thought you were my friend. Are you going to stand there and dare to tell me you believe—you actually believe—I went into the Maltby's pig of a room and pinched her sixpences?”

“Shirley!”

“She says I did. And of course you believe what she says!”

“I don't know what you're talking about—I never heard of her blighted sixpences.
Shirley!
”

He was looking at her with such a desperate appeal that the anger went out of her. She said with a little gurgle of laughter,

“What an ass you are! Did you really think I'd been stealing? I wouldn't believe a hundred policemen about you.”

“I nearly went mad when you didn't come back.”

She slipped her hand inside his arm again.

“Well, you can't go mad now—there isn't time. Now tell me, what did that policeman say?”

“He searched your room. He said things were missing at Mrs Huddleston's—and when you didn't come home—”

She patted his shoulder.

“I know—you nearly went mad—you keep on saying so. Now look here—this is what really happened.”

“I don't want you to tell me unless you really want to.”

Shirley made a most hideous Woggy Doodle at him.

“Oh, Jas, do dry up! I want you to
help
me. Now listen—some one's trying to get me into a mess. I don't know who it is, and I don't know why they're doing it. All sorts of little things have been happening. The Maltby's sixpences was one of them. And then yesterday when I came away from Revelston Crescent something banged against my leg, and after I'd got into the bus I found out what it was—Mrs Huddleston's big diamond brooch. Someone had slit my pocket lining and pushed it right down into the hem of my coat.”

Jasper stared at her.

“But why?”

“I don't
know
why—I keep telling you so. Well, I lost my head and ran away. I did start to go back and tell Mrs Huddleston, but when I got in sight of the house there was a policeman going in, and I funked it and bolted.”

“Where did you bolt to?”

“To Anthony Leigh—Mrs Huddleston's nephew. I thought he'd be the best person to explain to her, and I knew where he was—he'd gone down to Emshot for the week-end. So I went after him and—Jas, the most awful thing, after he'd put me into an hotel and gone off with the diamond brooch—he had to park me somewhere, because it was getting on for one o'clock in the morning—”

The mention of Anthony Leigh had chilled Jasper to the bone. The realist came to the fore again, breaking in upon Shirley's disjointed narrative with a stern.

“You're getting all tied up. Where were you?”

“At the Station Hotel, Ledlington. I was telling you.”

“No, you weren't!”

“Yes, I was!”

They glared at each other. Then Shirley broke down into a laugh.

“I was trying to, darling. You weren't being terribly helpful. And what I was trying to tell you was that after Anthony had been gone for hours and hours I found out that the diamond brooch wasn't the only thing that had been hidden in my coat. There were a lot of Mrs Huddleston's emeralds there as well in the hem on the other side.”

“Mrs Huddleston's emeralds?”

Shirley nodded.

“Napoleon gave them to Josephine, and Mrs Huddleston's grandpapa gave them to Mrs. Huddleston's grandmamma.” She gazed at him with an awful solemnity, and then began to giggle.