Hue and Cry (8 page)

“I don't know what you mean.”

It was true. She didn't know. She only knew one thing—that some dreadful unseen net was closing down upon her. They would search her. And they would find the Mogul Diamond. And she would go to prison. Why these things were happening she could make no guess; she only knew that they were happening and that she could not possibly escape from them.

“Come, come, Miss Lee, be rational. I'm asking you not to ruin yourself. Give me the paper, and you go scot-free. Come!”

Mally did not speak. There was nothing to say. No, nothing that she said would make any difference. If they meant to ruin her, they would ruin her. There was nothing she could do.

Sir George turned and went out. The door fell to behind him with a heavy, jarring slam that shook the room.

“What a fool you are!” said Paul Craddock. “He'd have struck you if he'd stayed. But it would have been better for you if he had. He's going to have you searched, all most properly and respectably. And when the diamond's been found on you, you'll wish you hadn't been quite such a fool, Mally, my dear—you really will. Look here, suppose we do a deal. That paper's of value to Sir George, and I happen to know that he'd give a very considerable sum for its recovery. Hand it over, and you shall go away with a couple of hundred pounds in your pocket, and no harm done. You'll give back the diamond, of course, but—” He laughed maliciously—“We won't be too particular about asking how you came by it.”

Mally did not say a single word. She put back her head against the wooden panel of the door and fixed her eyes upon Paul Craddock's face. She went on looking at him quite silently and steadily. Paul had expected anger, fear, perhaps—most pleasing thought of all—a terrified plea for help. Instead, Mally's greenish-hazel eyes just rested on him in a look that passed from surprise into bleak, withering contempt; and under their gaze Paul Craddock felt a discomfort that surprised himself. He looked away, and then looked back again.

Mally's face was quite pale and expressionless, but her eyes judged him.

CHAPTER X

The door opened, and there came in, Mrs. Craddock, who was trembling very much, and Mrs. Craddock's maid, a tall and most stiffly respectable person of the name of Jones. Sir George followed them a little way into the room and beckoned to Paul Craddock.

“We shall wait outside. Now, Jones, you quite understand? You will search Miss Lee thoroughly in Mrs. Craddock's presence. If she makes any difficulty, just let me know and I will send for the police. Take any letters or papers which you find, and let me see them. If you don't find the diamond ornament on her, her room must be searched.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Craddock. She sank limply into a chair beside the table and dabbed at the tears which were rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, Miss Lee, how dreadful! Oh, George, I can't believe it.”

“My dear Lena, I don't ask you to believe anything; I merely request that you will remain in this room whilst Jones carries out my instructions.” He passed into the corridor as he spoke, and shut the door.

Mally had not moved. She stood with her head thrown back against the panel of the bedroom door, her fingers clenched upon the handle. She heard Mrs. Craddock sniff and sob.

Jones touched her on the arm.

“Now, miss, come along.”

It was Jones's touch that roused her effectually. She sprang away from it, stamped her foot, and said:

“What does it all mean? I think you're mad—I think you're all quite mad! Mrs. Craddock!”

“Now look here, miss—”

“Mrs. Craddock!”

Jones stepped between Mally and the weeping lady.

“What's the sense of upsetting her more than she's upset already? What's the sense of any of it? If you're innocent, you're innocent, and no harm done. And if you've forgot yourself and taken things that don't belong to you—well, isn't it better for me to find 'em than to be taken off by the police and searched at the station? Which is what'll happen if you're foolish. You take and be sensible, and don't go upsetting Mrs. Craddock, that wouldn't hurt a fly.”

Mally looked at the large, impassive woman, and her anger died. What was the good of being angry? The thought of the police station chilled her. Jones noted the change. She became the maid, brisk and business-like.

“Let me have your jumper and skirt to start with. It won't take long if you're sensible. Come along.”

Mally slipped off her dark-blue jumper and stepped out of the short skirt that matched it. It was cold without them. Jones felt the jumper all over and hung it over a chair. Then she ran her hands down the skirt, turning it this way and that, whilst Mrs. Craddock cried continually and Mally stood watching her.

“Oh!” said Jones suddenly. It was a very sharp exclamation. She dropped a fold of the skirt, then picked it up again and stared accusingly. “A pin ran right into my finger!”

Mally stood with her bare arms crossed. She held a cold elbow in either hand and saw Jones turn back her blue serge skirt at the hem and feel it gingerly. Just by the seam the stitching had come undone.

“Oh!” said Jones again. She pinched the hem and slipped a finger and thumb into the hole.

Mrs. Craddock's handkerchief dropped from her eyes. She looked, Jones looked, and Mally looked at what the finger and thumb brought out—a bright something that flashed, a wreath of diamond leaves woven heart-wise about a central, gleaming drop, which caught the light of the dull wintry afternoon. Mrs. Craddock's mouth fell slowly open; she looked as if she were screaming, but she did not make any sound. Mally heard herself say “No!” in a sort of piercing whisper. Jones dropped the skirt in a heap.

“Well, I never!” She spoke slowly, almost abstractedly; and when she had spoken, she went over to the table and laid the Mogul Diamond down on Barbara's blue copy-book.

Standing there, with her back to Mally, she said roughly, “Put on your clothes. I'll have to call Sir George.”

Mally bent and picked up her skirt. How did a thing like this happen? It didn't. It couldn't. It was simply bound to be a dream. She fastened the hooks at her waist and slipped the jumper over her head. And then Sir George was back in the room, and she heard him talking to Jones, and Jones answering:

“No, sir—only this, sir.”

“You searched thoroughly? There are important papers missing.”

Mally's mind took hold of the word papers. It puzzled her; she looked at the word and didn't know what to do with it.

Sir George went out of the room again and shut the door. Jones came back to her.

“What's all this about papers? What's the sense of taking other folks' papers? You hand 'em over. Hand 'em over, and you save yourself and me a heap of trouble.”

“I haven't got them,” said Mally.

She looked into Jones's plain, respectable face with some faint hope that the woman might believe her, might even help her. It was a very faint hope, because Mally did not really see how any one could help her. The Mogul's Diamond had been found hidden in the hem of her dress, and what could any one do or say that would blot out this damning fact?

The second search was a good deal more thorough than the first. When Mally had dressed herself again, Jones went to the door and stood just outside it. Mally could hear her voice, but not what she was saying. After a moment she returned and touched Mrs. Craddock on the arm.

“Now, now, ma'am.” Her voice was suddenly soft. “Don't you take on so. You come along with me and have a bit of a lay-down, and don't upset yourself any more. Sir George don't want us now, so you just come along.”

“Oh, it's so dreadful!” Mrs. Craddock had a fresh access of sobbing. “So dreadful! So very dreadful!”

She held on to Jones and stood up, shaking and weeping. But before she had been piloted more than half-way to the door she stopped, turned back, and lifted her streaming eyes to Mally's face.

“Miss Lee, how could you,
could
you do it?”

“I didn't.” Mally's answer came with a ring and vigor which surprised herself. She didn't know what was going to happen to her; but her shocked apathy had passed, and whatever came, she meant to meet it fighting.

Sir George, coming in, was aware of a change, and put it down to the fact that the paper had not been found. He stood over her with a flushed face and threatening manner.

“What have you done with the paper? Where is it?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Oh, don't you? You'd better think, Miss Mally Lee, or you'll find yourself in Queer Street. Why, you little fool, what's going to save you from going to prison? Nothing, if you persist in being obstinate.”

Mally stood her ground, looked straight up into the furious face, and said in a small, cool voice, “How did Mrs. Craddock's pendant get into the hem of my skirt?”

“I think a jury would say that you had hid it there.”

“I wonder.”

“Are you going to give me the paper?”

“I don't know anything at all about any paper.”

“You took a paper off Mr. Craddock's table this morning. I want it. If you give it up, I won't prosecute.”

A little spurt of anger warmed Mally and loosened her tongue.

“That's frightfully kind of you. Do I say ‘Thank you very much'?”

Sir George set his jaw.

“You give me the paper, or you go to jail.”

Mally stepped back from him with a little laugh. Now that she was angry, she could laugh.

“How can I give you what I haven't got?”

“Where is it? What have you done with it?”

“How do I know?” She laughed again. “I think you know more about the diamond than I do, and about this stupid paper which seems to upset you so much.”

As soon as she had said the words, she felt a stab of fear. Sir George's face changed; there was a black, bleak silence. After a moment he turned stiffly and went to the window. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and there was a touch of dusk upon the January air. The fire had gone out because no one had thought to make it up.

After the silence had lasted an interminable time, Sir George came away from the window and switched on the light. Then he called in a loud, harsh voice to Paul Craddock.

CHAPTER XI

Mally sat on a hard chair in a small bedroom high up on the fourth floor of the big hostile house. A single unshaded electric light showed a neat hard bed, the square of Turkey carpet, and furniture painted white.

She had just decided to her own satisfaction that the carpet must belong to Mrs. Craddock and had graced her dining-room; it was so exactly the sort of carpet that Mrs. Craddock would have in a dining-room. The furniture was probably Mrs. Craddock's, too—the furniture of a servant's bedroom, not considered good enough for Jones's use. That nobody used this room was plain enough; it had the neat, cold, unlived-in feeling which clings about empty houses. It was an hour since the door had been locked on Mally, and two hours since Sir George had called to Paul Craddock. Mally had never heard of the third degree, but she had been put through it with merciless efficiency. The fact that she had no knowledge of the missing paper helped her to weather the long, battering cross-examination to which she had been subjected. In the end it was Sir George who lost his self-control, suddenly, terribly, shockingly, and Paul Craddock who had stood between her and actual physical violence. It was Paul who had marched her upstairs, told her to take the night to think it over, and locked her in.

Mally got up from her chair, went to the window, and pulled up the blind. She looked out over the square, with its soft central darkness of trees to the rows of lighted windows that marked the houses square, with its soft central darkness of trees, to the left of the hall door. The light made an odd, shiny circle on the wet road and damp pavement. The far edge of the circle touched the iron railings which shut in the garden, where the trees and shrubs lived like prisoners behind bars.

Mally looked at the railings and began to wonder what being in prison was like. She would soon know, because she did not see how there could be any way out of her going to prison.

She was able to think quite clearly now. She had gone over every minute of the day since breakfast. She was quite sure in her own mind that some one had drugged her coffee, and that Paul Craddock had put the diamond pendant inside the hem of her skirt. It would have been easy, because she had been very deeply asleep; he had only to open an inch of the hem with those very neat fingers of his, and to push the diamond in. It was quite easy. But she could never, never prove that he had done it, any more than she could prove that she had not hidden the diamond there herself.

She was quite sure that it was Paul Craddock who had put the Mogul's Diamond into the hem of her skirt. But why had he done it? She had slapped his face of course; but it didn't really seem an adequate reason. If you kissed a girl, or tried to kiss a girl who didn't want you to kiss her—well, you deserved all you got. “And if he hadn't ever been slapped before, I expect he often will be again. And anyhow he asked for it—
absolutely,”
was Mally's conclusion. No, that there was something more in it than Paul Craddock's slapped face and Paul Craddock's injured feelings, Mally was sure. But further than that she could not get. This talk about a missing paper—was it a blind? Or had they really lost something which they needed at all costs to recover?

Mally stared thoughtfully out of the window. She was up against something that she did not understand. She felt as if she were trying to walk in a dark, slippery place, where a step in any direction might be dreadfully dangerous. Slippery—yes, that was the word; wherever she turned, she had a sense of the ground sliding from under her feet.

She pressed closer to the window. The night, the trees, and the wet roadway were more friendly than this house. If she could only get out and get away. She watched a cat stroll across the wet road. It came out of the shadows like a shadow, stood for a moment in the lighted circle cast by the street lamp, and then slipped like a black streak into the shadows again.