Hole and Corner (29 page)

“Where are you telephoning from?” said Anthony.

“Call-box in the hotel. I'd better ring off, because one of them might come by and see me. What's happening your end?”

If he had been sure that Bessie Wood hadn't got an ear at the crack of the door, he would have said, “I've been baiting a mouse-trap.” As it was, Shirley was infuriated by a cool

“I'll see you later. Better go back. I can't get away just now—not for a bit.”

“Who's going back?” she said. “I'm not!” and hung up the receiver with a bang.

Anthony hung up at his end, and as he did so, Possett came out of the drawing-room. She closed the door behind her and came to him with a deprecatory “If I might speak to you for a moment, sir—”

There was nothing he desired more. When he had shut the study door upon them, the astonished Possett found herself being led as far away from it as the room allowed. When they were up against the curtained windows, Anthony smiled at her and said,

“Can you watch a mouse-hole for a bit, Possett?”

“A mouse-hole, Mr Anthony?”

“No, as you were—a mouse-trap.”

“A mouse-trap?”

He nodded, laughing a little.

“Yes. Do you know who took Mrs Huddleston's emeralds, Possett?”

“There's a diamond brooch gone too, sir.”

“Do you know who took the lot?”

“Oh no, sir—and I can't believe—”

“Well?”

“I can't believe it was Miss Dale. Oh, sir, I really can't.”

Anthony looked at her in a way that made her heart beat.

“Thank you, Possett,” he said. And then, “Miss Dale and I are going to be married, you know.”

“Oh, Mr Anthony! I do wish you happy—indeed I do!”

Anthony patted her on the shoulder.

“You mustn't cry now—there isn't time. You shall bring six pocket-handkerchiefs to our wedding, but just now—brace up, Possett—just now I want you to get inside the hall cupboard and watch the hall table.”

Possett's little pink nose pointed up at him. Her eyes, suffused with emotion, gazed bewildered into his.

“The hall cupboard, sir? The hall table?”

“Only till I can get someone else to do it. Someone—
someone
, Possett, has hidden Mrs Huddleston's emeralds under the fern on the hall table.”

“Oh, Mr Anthony!”

“Bit of a facer—isn't it? I want you to watch the pot like a lynx. If anyone comes to collect what they've hidden, lie low and let them collect it. Then yell if you like, or come for me. She mustn't leave the house.”

Possett gulped helplessly.

“She, Mr Anthony? Who?”

“Wait and see,” said Anthony.

She gulped again.

“She's asking for you, sir, Mrs Huddleston is.”

“All right. Get along into that cupboard, and if her bell rings let it ring. The worst
she
can do is to give you the sack, but if you come out before I tell you,
I
shall murder you, so be very careful.”

“Oh, Mr Anthony!” said Possett with a flutter of pink eyelids.

“With a blunt instrument,” said Anthony in a bloodcurdling whisper.

He made sure the back stairs were clear, and saw the cupboard door shut on Possett before he went back into the drawing-room. If she knelt down she could keep her eye to the keyhole, and the keyhole commanded a very good view of the hall table.

He found Mrs Huddleston pale and inclined to tears. When she had cried for a time and dabbed her eyes, she showed a good deal of curiosity about William Ambrose Merewether, and assured him, at first faintly, but with growing conviction, that she had always considered Shirley a very sweet girl—“And I wouldn't have wished you to marry for money, dear boy—you know me too well for that, I'm sure—I mean, you couldn't think for a moment that I should wish such a thing, but a charming girl is not less charming because she has a little money of her own. Not, as I say, that you need consider that unduly, because of course poor Edward and Louisa left you very comfortably off, and whatever your uncle left me will go to you when I die. But still, money never comes amiss—does it? And even without it you would, I am sure, be happy with such a sweet girl as Miss Dale.”

Anthony maintained a perfect gravity.

“But you'll call her Shirley now—won't you?”

“Dear Shirley!” said Mrs Huddleston, and dabbed her eyes.

Upon this there entered Bessie to make up the fire. Anthony withdrew the hand which his aunt had been holding, wandered away from the sofa, and made a brisk diversion.

“That fern of yours in the hall is looking very droopy Aunt Agnes.”

Bessie put a lump of coal on the fire with a steady hand.

“Droopy?” said Mrs Huddleston vaguely. “Have you noticed it, Bessie?”

Bessie dealt with a second lump of coal.

“It's been watered every day, but I can give it an extra lot to-night, Madam.” She had a neat, precise way of speech.

“I expect it wants re-potting,” said Anthony. “I'm a dab at re-potting things. I expect I could scratch some decent earth out of your cat-run if Cook will lend me the kitchen shovel.”

Bessie went on putting coal on the fire.

“I don't know, I'm sure,” said Mrs Huddleston. “Perhaps it would be a good thing. Did you mean now? Poor Clara Nicholson gave me the fern, and I shouldn't like to lose it.”

Bessie stood up, stood waiting. Anthony wondered what she would say if he said “Yes, I'll do it now.” He felt sure that the cook would be busy, or the shovel not forthcoming just for the moment. He came back to his seat with a casual,

“I'll do it before I go. We'll have our talk first.”

Bessie went out of the room as quietly as she had come in—no haste, no sign of fluttered nerves, a well trained maid going unobtrusively about her lawful occasions.

Anthony, with his ear cocked and his attention straining, thanked heaven for the Blessed Damozel's flow of speech. An attentive look and an occasional smile were all that were required of him. In his mind he followed Bessie into the hall. Had he got away with the tale of the drooping fern, or had he not? If she suspected anything, she wouldn't go near the pot. If she didn't, she would be across the hall by now, out of sight of the drawing-room door, looking over her shoulder to make sure that there was no one on the stairs, and then—lifting the pot—snatching the emeralds—

“… and so a rich wife may prove to be a very great blessing.”

Mrs Huddleston was concluding some anecdote of which he had heard nothing. He smiled vaguely, and in the same moment there was a confused noise in the hall, Possett screamed, and something fell with a loud crash.

Anthony leapt up, flung back the door, and raced into the hall. He saw Possett getting up from her knees, and the earth and sherds of the broken pot, and the emeralds scattered. He did not see Bessie Wood, but the cold of the January night blew in at the open door. Possett held by the corner of the table, and shook and sobbed.

“She hit me! She's gone! Oh, sir—oh, Mr Anthony!”

Anthony ran out into the street and down to the left where a gleam of white looked like Bessie's apron-strings. He saw her at the next lamp, and then she was round the corner. When he reached the corner she wasn't anywhere. There was a narrow cut between the houses—she might have gone down that. He could see no sign of her there or anywhere else. She might have a friend in one of the houses and have run down the area steps to the kitchen door. Or she might have boldly rung a bell and pretended a message—she had the nerve for it.

He felt a certain relief as he went back to the house. He had had to give chase, but he hadn't very much wanted to catch her. She had left the emeralds, and Shirley was clear. The thought of haling a dough-faced young woman through the streets was a singularly unpleasant one. He was not, after all, a policeman.

He found Possett having a very fine fit of hysterics in the hall, whilst the Blessed Damozel, for the moment played quite off the stage, was down on her hands and knees collecting the emeralds.

“Oh, Mr Anthony!” gasped Possett as he came in. “Oh, the wickedness—the double-facedness! Right in the mouth she hit me—and who'd have thought she'd be so strong? And out of the door and down the steps before I could get my breath to scream!”

“You screamed very well,” said Anthony, patting a trembling shoulder.

He helped his aunt to her feet, when she promptly dropped the emeralds and he had to pick them up again. After which he shepherded her and Possett into the drawing-room and shut the door.

“Now, Possett, that's enough—you can cry afterwards. I want you to tell us just what happened. Come along!”

Possett gave a rending sniff.

“Oh, sir—I was in the cupboard like you put me—”

Mrs Huddleston had actually forgotten that she could not stand. She stood now, looking at Anthony with a dazed expression and repeated in an incredulous tone,

“The cupboard—where you put her?”

Anthony slipped his arm round her.

“Yes, the hall cupboard. It's all right. I wanted someone to watch what Bessie would do.”

“And I did!” said Possett. “Oh, sir, I
did
—like you told me! And what did I see? Oh,
sir
!”

“That's just what we want you to tell us.”

Possett sniffed again.

“There I was, all in the dark and my eye to the keyhole like you said, which is what I've never done in my life, Mother having brought us all up most strict not to be tale-tellers nor eaves-droppers nor nothing of the sort, and I wouldn't have done it, not for anyone else, not if it had been ever so—I wouldn't indeed, sir!”

Mrs Huddleston looked completely bewildered. Anthony said soothingly,

“I'm sure you wouldn't. You behaved like a heroine. Now come along and tell us what you saw. You had your eye to the keyhole—”

“And I heard the drawing-room door open, and I saw that Bessie come over to the hall table and stand there, and I thought to myself, ‘She's going to water that fern, and not before it wants it neither.' But she
wasn't
. Oh, ma'am, I don't know what I felt like—she took hold of the fern by its leaves as rough as rough and pulled it out pot and all. And then she puts her hand down into the china pot and brings up something and crams it into the pocket of her dress. And she puts her hand back into the pot and brings it up, and starts, and looks at it as if there was an adder fastened on it. And I see what she'd got hold of, and it was Madam's emerald hairband, and I took and pushed open the door and screamed, and she threw it in my face and hit me and out of the front door before I could stop her, the wicked thieving hussy!”

“What about the things in her pocket? Is anything missing, Aunt Agnes?”

“She took and threw them down,” said Possett, trembling violently—“as if they was so many pebbles—and hit me right in the mouth and ran! And everything's all there, sir, if you'll look—two brooches, and a hairband, and earrings, and Madam's diamond brooch—they're all there.”

At this point Mrs Huddleston remembered her spine, her palpitations, and her nerves. She closed her eyes and swayed a little, gracefully.

“My dear boy—I feel—so strange—perhaps—Possett, my smelling-salts—”

Anthony put her on the sofa and went to telephone to the police.

Shirley stood in the telephone-box and hung up the receiver, as already recorded, with a bang. Her temper did a short, sharp flare, her foot did a short, sharp stamp. The constant efforts of old Aunt Emily had achieved very little success in eliminating either the temper or the tendency to stamp. Even being teased about it at school had not broken her of a habit which she found a great relief in moments of stress. She felt exceedingly angry with Anthony, who had just been talking to her as if she was a policeman, or a registry office, or someone who had written him a begging letter. “I'll see you later—” Perhaps he would, and perhaps he wouldn't. “Better go back—” Well, she just wasn't going to. What with Jas wanting to make love to her and morbing because she didn't want him to, and Maltbys and people turning up every five minutes or so, she had had as much as she wanted of Helena Pocklington's Mew. Helena could have it, Jas could have it, anybody could have it, and Anthony could say “You'd better go back” until he was blue in the face.
Nothing
would induce her to go near the place again. If Anthony couldn't get away when she wanted him, he could stay where he was. Of course she knew very well that he was talking from the hall, and probably everyone in the house was eavesdropping. That only made it worse for Anthony, because it was his idiotic aunt's idiotic obstinate fad to have her blighted telephone in her blighted hall, and if you don't bring an aunt up better than that, whose fault
is
it? So much for Anthony Leigh.

What about Shirley Dale? If she wasn't going back, what
was
she going to do?

She really hadn't any idea. The only thing she felt quite sure about was that nothing on earth would induce her to go back to Helena Pocklington's Mew and a damp, despairing Jasper. It seemed hard on Jas to leave him to it, but there it was—her toes were dug in and she wasn't going back.

You can't stay in a telephone-box for ever without attracting attention. She emerged cautiously, found the hall empty, and reached the street. Fortunately 18 Mandell Street was not the sort of hotel that has more than one entrance. If she walked up and down out here she could make a plan, and at the same time feel sure that Pierrette and Mr Phillips were not eluding her. She really did want a little time to sort things out.

First of all there was Anthony. She would certainly have to have a quarrel with Anthony. She spent a pleasant ten minutes or so planning it in every detail, from the first blow-up to the final embrace. It was all very stimulating and amusing, the only drawback being that by the time she had finished with it she wasn't really feeling angry enough to quarrel with Anthony at all. However, that could probably be managed when the time came.