Suspects—Nine (2 page)

It was at this moment that certain sounds from without attracted Olive's attention. Voices seemed to be raised above those usual and expected cries of ecstasy the sight of the new hat was wont to evoke. Lady Alice's gruff tones were distinctly audible. Laying down the law as usual, Olive supposed. Odd, Olive reflected, since Lady Alice and Flora Tamar were known to be deadly enemies, that it was through Lady Alice that Mrs. Tamar had heard of them. A hat Mlle Valclos had designed for Lady Alice's harsh, immobile features had attracted Flora's attention at some fashionable affair they had both attended, and she had inquired where it had come from.

“To provide that grenadier of a woman,” Flora had said, “with a hat that is almost smart and yet doesn't look ridiculous on her—well, it's a feat. I must see what they can do for Me,” said Flora with an almost royal emphasis on the Me.

The result was the superb, distinctive creation now ready for inspection in a locked compartment on a shelf in the shop, for it was not intended that any but the specially favoured and entirely trustworthy should have a glimpse of the waiting wonder. Imagine if some clever copyist obtained a surreptitious glimpse and produced something of even a remote resemblance! A thought to make the blood run cold! And if no description is here attempted it is simply because no description could convey any idea of the delicacy of its lines, the exquisite sweep of its curves, the subtle harmony of its colouring, or make clear how exquisitely it expressed, confirmed, as it were, crowned, the beauty, the perfection of face and form and feature for which it was designed.

On another it might be, Mademoiselle admitted, a shade too much, a nuance too little. For Flora Tamar— and then Mademoiselle lapsed into that silence which is so far, far more eloquent than any mere form of words.

It was, she told Olive, as though perfect hat and perfect wearer had for once come together, as we are told time and the man do never, but, as in this event had done the woman and the hat!

Olive turned uneasily in her chair. Outside, in the shop, there roared the voice of Lady Alice, as no doubt it had roared when she met and faced and tamed that crowd of armed savages of whom the story told.

A door banged—banged so that the whole place shook. A bang of doom, in fact. The door communicating with the shop opened and Mademoiselle flew in. She collapsed into a chair. Olive had a glimpse of the pale, scared face of Jenny, the junior assistant. Even the errand boy himself, who had just come in, looked scared and disturbed— a thing Olive would never have thought possible. Mademoiselle gasped out,

“She's gone off with it.”

Simple words, perhaps, but charged with fate and fear. Olive clasped her hands. She did not understand but already she was shaken.

“She's gone off with it,” said Mademoiselle once again.

“Who? what?” said Olive.

“Lady Alice. The Hat. Mrs. Tamar's hat,” said Mademoiselle.

“Vicky,” said Olive. “Oh, Vicky.”

Mademoiselle's name out of business hours was Victoria Alexandria Bates, her father having been a loyal linen draper in Camden Town. In business she was Mademoiselle Valclos, usually addressed as Mademoiselle, but in moments of emotion, such as those caused by an unexpected ‘R.D.', or a sale of a last season's model at a this season's price, known to her employer as ‘Vicky'.

This was clearly a ‘Vicky' moment, though even yet Olive did not fully understand.

“Vicky!” said Olive once again. “You don't mean...?”

“Pinched it and bunked off,” said Vicky simply.

“Not,” said Olive, hardly daring to bring out the words, “not the Flora Tamar?”

Vicky did not answer. There was no need to. One might as well, in the middle of an earthquake, have asked, ‘Is it an earthquake?'

Olive said,

“Well!”

It wasn't ‘well' at all, anything but ‘well' indeed. But then words are poor inadequate things when the depths are really plumbed.

“Well,” said Olive once more, and this time the accent, if not the word, expressed something of the emotions seething within.

“She had heard about it,” Vicky explained with a kind of desperate calm. “She seems somehow to keep tabs on Mrs. Tamar and she asked if she might see the Tamar hat and so I let her. Then she asked if she might hold it and I let her”—at this point Vicky's voice rose almost to a wail of anguish—“and she said might she try it on, and she did. It looked silly on her. I knew it would, but we all kept straight faces. She said, ‘I'll keep it. How much is it?' I thought she was joking and I said Mrs. Tamar was paying us twenty guineas. She said she would give us twenty-five. I thought she was just trying to be funny—at least I tried to but I was beginning to feel funny myself—here.” Vicky indicated the exact spot. “I said it wasn't for sale, and she shouted that every hat in a hat shop was for sale or what was it there for? And then before I could say a word, before I could lift a finger, before I knew what she was up to, the cat—she, she bounced out.”

“With the—wearing the—Hat?” almost whispered Olive.

“Wearing the hat,” confirmed Vicky.

“Oh, Vicky,” said Olive.

“I flung her own after her,” said Vicky, “but what was the good of that? Only a gesture.”

Then she burst into tears. It was a dreadful thing to see the calm, confident superiority, so lofty, so assured, with which Vicky was accustomed to rule the shop and direct the sale, that gentle and aloof disdain by which the customer who had meant to ask for a guinea model was as it were impelled to consider only the three- and five- guinea variety, to see all that dissolve and melt away till nothing was left save a devastated young woman sitting and howling her heartiest.

“Oh, Vicky,” said Olive. “Oh, Vicky, please don't.”

“I couldn't help it, really I couldn't,” pleaded Vicky through her sobs. “I know I've let you down, but I just simply never dreamed of such a thing—she was out of the shop and in a taxi before any of us could lift a finger. If I had only known what she was up to,” said Vicky, showing menacing, crimsoned finger-nails, “I'd have had it off her, if I had had to scratch her eyes out and tear the clothes off her back to get it. And now it's gone.”

The sobs came again. Olive put an arm round her, and, after a moment's hesitation, kissed the tip of her nose as being the—comparatively—driest spot available.

“Might as well stop yelling,” Olive suggested,

Vicky's sobs diminished in violence.

“Whatever shall we do?" she asked. “Mrs. Tamar may be here for it any moment.”

Olive considered. She came to a decision.

“We'll have a cup of tea,” she said firmly.

Vicky got out her handkerchief and, as that was plainly quite inadequate, went to find a face towel. She looked at herself in the glass. She said simply,

“I must do me.”

She became busy with this operation. Olive filled the kettle and put it on the small electric stove they used. Vicky, intent before the mirror, said,

“Mrs. Tamar will never forgive us.”

“I expect we'll lose her,” agreed Olive. “It was for the Buckingham Palace garden party, wasn't it?"

“Yes,” said Vicky. She turned tragically, lip-stick and compact in hand. She said very slowly, “I thought perhaps even the Queen herself might have noticed that hat—I thought perhaps someday we might be asked to send hats to the Palace.” She sighed as the lost soul might sigh who sees the gates of paradise slowly closing. “And now—” She resumed her task. “Now most likely Lady Alice will wear it,” she said. “It'll look awful.”

“No good,” said Olive, making the tea and making it strong, “no good thinking about it.”

“It's not even,” said Vicky, “as if it were anything like Lady Alice's style. People will say we let our clients go out looking—sights. I might have found something to suit her—only nothing could except a gas mask,” added Vicky viciously. “Olive, why don't you sack me?”

“Well, that wouldn't get the hat back, would it?” asked Olive. “It's all rather awful, but I don't see how any one could possibly have helped it.”

“I might have grabbed her if I had been quicker,” sighed Vicky. “But she was out of the shop and in the taxi like lightning.”

“She's twice as big and strong as you are,” Olive pointed out. “Almost like a man.”

Jenny, the junior assistant, put a small, scared face in at the door and looked much relieved when she saw them drinking tea. She would hardly have been surprised to find them both unconscious on the floor. She said,

“Oh, please, Mr. Owen's here.”

Vicky jumped up. She spilt her tea in doing so but she didn't care. She cried,

“Oh, why ever didn't we think of him? He's a policeman and he can go and arrest her or something and make her give it back again.”

But the eager hope that had for a moment glimmered in Vicky's eyes died down again as Bobby, put in possession of the facts, shook a somewhat dubious head.

“Jolly awkward,” he said, “but I don't see quite what you can do.”

“But she's stolen it, it's theft,” cried Vicky indignantly. “Why can't you arrest her? Police can, can't they?”

“Well, so can you for that matter,” Bobby answered, “only you've got to justify it afterwards. And so have we.”

“When somebody steals something,” protested Vicky.

“Nobody seems to know the difference between a felony and a misdemeanour,” Bobby told her, “but I expect this would be called a misdemeanour and a warrant would be necessary.”

“But you could tell her who you were and you were going to,” urged Vicky. “It would frighten her, and if she gave it back, then it would be all right. It's stealing, running off with someone else's hat.”

“I don't think,” interposed Olive, looking doubtful, “that Lady Alice would frighten very easily.”

“I'm afraid,” observed Bobby, “they wouldn't like it very much at the Yard if we went about trying to frighten people—especially if there were private friends in it. If you did prosecute, I should have to be careful to keep out. You can apply for a warrant but honestly I'm not sure you would get it. Most likely you would be told your remedy was a civil action.”

“Besides,” added Olive, “we don't want clients to think if they come here, they may be arrested.”

“We must do something,” Vicky wailed, “we must get it back or what will Mrs. Tamar say? She may think we let it go on purpose because of being paid extra.”

“It's jolly awkward,” agreed Bobby, wrinkling a puzzled forehead.

“It's ruin,” said Vicky dramatically. “Blue ruin,” she added, apparently convinced that ruin of that hue was ruin worst of all.

“You could get your lawyers to write and threaten proceedings,” observed Bobby.

“Would that be any good?” asked Olive.

“Not a scrap,” said Bobby. “Goodness knows when the case would come on. You would probably get judgment for the return of the hat or its value and costs—costs being about half your expenses, probably. Most likely Lady Alice would swear you said she could have it, and her counsel would go all out on suggesting you were only bringing the action to put yourself right with the client you had let down. If the judge' believed that you might get let in for costs yourselves.”

Vicky rose, to her feet. There were times when Olive felt that the stage had lost a great tragic actress in Vicky. With one hand clenched against her breast, one held out at length, she cried in vibrant tones,

“Do you mean there isn't a damn thing we can do?” There was a silence, a deep and solemn silence, broken only when the door from the shop opened and Jenny poked her head in.

“Were you calling?” she asked.

No one took any notice of her. Bobby said,

“That's about the size of it.”

Once more silence reigned. Jenny, more scared than ever, withdrew. A moment later she appeared again.

“Oh, please,” she said, “there's a message and I think it's from her.”

No need to ask who ‘her' meant. They all knew. Jenny produced an envelope. Olive opened it. It contained a cheque for £26 5
s
. Olive let it flutter to the ground from her nerveless fingers. Vicky picked it up.

“It isn't the hat,” she said sadly.

“Consolidating the position, that's called,” observed Bobby. “Pretty stiff price, isn't it?”

“Nine guineas and a half was the real figure, wasn't it, Vicky?” Olive asked.

“We said £10,” answered Vicky, “and then, because of Mrs. Tamar helping and being such a good client, we reduced it to nine guineas and a half. Mrs. Tamar was quite pleased. I did say twenty to Lady Alice but, of course, that was just sales talk. You have to impress people.”

“If it came into court, counsel would argue you had quoted a price,” observed Bobby.

Vicky picked up the cheque again.

“It's something,” she admitted, “and goodness knows, we want it. All the same it's just plain simple ruin. Mrs. Tamar will never forgive us. She'll tell every one. We'll be shunned like—like,” said Vicky, rising again to tragic heights, “like Lepers.”

“What shall we do with the cheque?” Olive asked Bobby.

“Well, at any rate, it's what you might call an extenuating circumstance,” he answered. “Keep it for the present. Too late to pay it in now, anyhow. What's the idea? What's she so keen on the thing for?”

“Spite,” explained Vicky. “Every one knows she hates Mrs. Tamar, though I don't suppose any one dreamed it would make her do a thing like this. Mrs. Tamar was to have worn it at the Buckingham Palace party and now she won't and Lady Alice will.”

“Doesn't seem worth twenty-six pounds five to me,” observed Bobby. “Do you know what it's all about?”