Hole and Corner (31 page)

Authors: Patricia Wentworth

BOOK: Hole and Corner

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Bright tears sprang to Shirley's eyes, and the outraged colour to her cheeks.

“Oh, I
wouldn't
! I'm giving it to you. I want you to have it, and it will cover your dress. How much money do you want?”

“A tenner,” said Bessie. She snatched the coat and put it on.

Shirley turned briskly to Mr Phillips.

“How frightfully slow you are! Don't you see she wants to get away quickly? Where's your pocket-book? How much have you got?” She leant forward and whispered, “If you don't pay up, I'll let Anthony send for the police. He
wants
to,”

Alfred Phillips paid up. It was a matter of considerable regret to him afterwards, but at the moment he was not feeling equal to an interview with the police. He would, in fact, have paid a good deal more than ten pounds to avoid one.

Shirley watched the notes pass with satisfaction. Then she moved, to see Anthony still with his back to the door. She pulled reproachfully at an arm which resisted her, but when she looked up there was the glint of a smile in his eyes.

“You want me to compound a felony,” he said.

“Pouf!” said Shirley. She pulled again, and this time the arm had stopped resisting.

Bessie made a dart for the door and was gone. They heard her running feet upon the stairs.

“And now,” said Shirley, “you'll have to take me somewhere in a taxi, darling.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

In the taxi she said, snuggling up,

“I don't know where we're going. Do you? It feels like elopingârather nice.”

“Women are definitely anti-social,” said Anthony. “They have no moral sense, and they are not fit to be citizens. They ate not really civilised.”

Shirley said “Pouf!” again. Then she snuggled a little closer. “All that because I'm not a horrid vindictive woman who gloats over people being punished! If you want to marry a gloating woman you can go away and do itâbut you won't like it, darling, so I shouldn't
really.
”

“Shall I like being married to you?”

“'UmâI expect so. I'm very, very nice. I think you are a very fortunate person.”

They picked up Shirley's suit-case at the Mew, endeavoured rather unsuccessfully to placate the injured Jasper, and drove off again.

“You haven't told me where we're going,” said Shirley.

“You can't go back to Mrs Camber's, because I simply won't have you under the same roof as that Maltby woman.”

“You needn't say
you
won'tâI won't either,” said Shirley with spirit. “She might say I'd stolen her family diamonds next. Perhaps she's got some that belonged to Queen Elizabeth. I'm not taking any risks. Where
are
we going?”

“I think you had better stay with the Blessed Damozel until we can be married, then there won't be any talk.”

“Ohâ” Shirley sounded rather doubtful. “Will she like that?”

“She'll love it,” said Anthony, laughing. “You are already the blue-eyed child. She will tell everyone she made the match, and what's more, she'll believe it. That's the way her mind works, if you can call it a mindâI don't think women have them really,”

Shirley pinched him so sharply that he jumped.

“Here, I sayâdon't do that! It hurts!”

“It was meant to, darling. Anthonyâ”

“Yes? You're not going to pinch me again, are you?”

“Not unless you deserve it. No, I was going to sayâ”

“All right, say it.”

Shirley put her chin in the air.

“You say women haven't got any minds, but
I
think I was cleverer than youâabout Bessieâbecause I
was
sorry for her, and I
would
have let her go anyhow, but I couldn't help seeing quite dreadfully distinctly that if the police arrested her she was just the kind of person who would give everyone else away to try and save herself. If she'd been charged with taking the emeralds she'd have said Mr Phillips put her up to it, and Pierrette would have got dragged in, and I should have had to stand up in a witness-box and say that large glittering female was my niece and that odious gingery ferret of a Phillips was my nephew-in-lawâand
honestly
I'd rather die. So I thought, âWhy not make everyone happy and let Bessie go?'”

“No moral sense,” said Anthonyâ“absolutely none. No, look here, Shirleyâif you pinch me again I'll break off our engagement, and then you won't have anyone to go and stay with.”

Shirley made an impudent face.

“And everyone will say it's because you found out I wasn't going to be an heiress after all!”

He said, “Don't rub it inâI'll have to marry you,” and put his arms round her and kissed her very hard behind the taxi-driver's back.

Mrs Huddleston took the news of William Ambrose Merewether's latest will with perfect calm and a flow of anecdote. There was one about a marriage that turned out
most
unhappily because the wife had more money than the husband and was always reminding him of the fact.

“Not that dear Shirley would do such a thing as that, I'm sure,” said the Blessed Damozel with a Pre-Raphaelite smile. She sniffed delicately at the new bottle of smelling-salts and continued. “I had nothing when I married your dear uncle, and no marriage could have been happier, although I cannot say I think it is right to raise false hopes and make wills, and then make other wills and disappoint everybody. I don't think Mr Merewether should have done it. The money was his ownâhe could have left it to charity or he could have left it to Shirley, but not first to one and then to the other, because it is very confusing and apt to lead to bad feeling in a family. And now we won't talk about wills any more. My dear boy's engagement is a much pleasanter subject, and I wish to mark my pleasure andâand the occasion by giving dear Shirley the Napoleon emeralds.”

Shirley gasped.

Anthony said, “How very, very nice of you, Aunt Agnes.”

Mrs Huddleston produced the emeralds from a pale blue satin bagâearrings, hairband, and two brooches.

“Come here, my dear,” she said. “I should like to see how you look in them.”

At any other time Shirley would have giggled. She was dusty, and she was dishevelledâher hair was wildâand she was invited to try on Josephine's
parure
âBut the emeralds had taken away her breath. She had none left for laughter. She knelt beside the couch, felt a cold circle touch her brow, and the dangle of the earrings against her neck. Mrs Huddleston pinned the two brooches on to the grey jumper. A solemn embrace followed.

“And now, my dear, go and look at yourself in the glass.”

Shirley went round to the back of the sofa. The ornate mirror which hung above the piano reflected her, reflected the emeralds. The laurels were undimmed by all the years which had passed since Lodi. They had clasped Josephine's smoothly ordered curls. They rested on Shirley's ruffled hair with the dust of Helena Pocklington's studio clinging to it. There was even a cobweb. The earrings fell gracefully beside two rosy cheeks with a good many smudges on them. The brooches winked scornfully from the front of the grey jumper.

Shirley felt a desire to laugh and a desire to cry. It had been horrid, but the horridness was over. It had been fun, and it was going to be more fun. She made the most superb Woggy Doodle of her life and turned it upon Anthonyâeyes squinting inwards, eyeballs glaring, lips curved into the true Cheshire cat grin.

Anthony gazedâstruck dumb. The emeralds shone under the light.

“Most becoming, I'm sure,” said the unconscious Mrs Huddleston.

About the Author

Patricia Wentworth (1878â1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the definitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Mauricio DÃaz

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3351-0

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10038

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