Will O’ the Wisp (20 page)

“Well? What happened?” said Etta curiously.

“Happened?” said Mrs. Perrott. “Nothing happened. I left Masterson to keep the shop, and I took the letter up myself. And that's how I come to remember about it.”

“Then Mr. David got it?”

“I suppose he did,” said Mrs. Perrott, getting out of her chair.

She went on dusting until everything in the room was spotless. Then she went through into the shop, and with infinite care and pains, she wrote a letter.

CHAPTER XXIX

David reached his office at about eleven. There was a formidable amount of work waiting to be tackled; but the first thing that he did was to write a letter. He took pen and paper, dated the sheet, and wrote:

“D
EAR
M
ISS
D
OWN
—”

There he stopped, and for a moment rested his head upon his hand. Miss Down—Erica—was he writing to Erica? He said, “No,” and had the feeling that he was pushing against a cold conviction that gathered weight as he withstood it. He straightened up and went on with the letter:

“I have just returned from Fordwick. I am unable to trace any registered letter posted over four years ago, as they do not keep the records for more than two years. I wish very much to see you again. I am sending this letter by District Messenger. I shall be in office till six. If I do not hear to the contrary, I will come to Martagon Crescent at nine o'clock.

“Yours sincerely,

“D
AVID
F
ORDYCE
.”

When he had sent the letter off he addressed himself to his arrears of work.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Miss Barker opened the door and said:

“Miss March would like to see you, Mr. Fordyce.”

Folly had hardly waited to be announced. She scandalized Miss Barker a good deal by passing her in the doorway instead of waiting in the outer office to be told that Mr. Fordyce would see her. Miss Barker had, fortunately, closed the door before Folly perched herself on the corner of the table with her feet dangling.

David looked up with a very decided frown and saw her in her red hat and dress looking impishly at him.

“I say, look out! There are papers all over the place.”

“I don't mind them,” said Folly. “I like kicking my heels. I haven't got the red ones on to-day. You were quite right about my being followed in them; and I didn't want anyone to follow me here.”

“You've no business to come here,” said David.

“Why on
earth
not? An office is a frightfully proper place, and that girl out there is the real chaperony sort—I should think even the Aunts didn't mind your having her.”

“Did you come here to talk about Miss Barker?” said David gloomily.

“No-o—not specially. Are you busy?”

“I was.” David's frown had become ferocious.

Folly opened her green eyes very wide.

“What an awful temper you have got, David! Doesn't it hurt when you frown like that? I should think it would sprain your eyebrows. It would be horrid for you if you had to have them in splints. I do wish you'd be careful.”

“Folly, I really am busy. Why did you come?”

“Because I really, truly had to see you.”

“Why?”

She crossed one knee over the other.

“I thought of something. I've been thinking of it a lot, and I thought I ought to tell you about it.”

“What is it?”

Her voice arrested his attention; there was a little stammer of hesitation in it.

“David—that advertisement.”

“Which one?”

“Not yours; the one with the initials and ‘Your wife is alive.'”

“Yes?”

“Do you know who put it in?”

“I thought, of course, that it was Miss Smith or—her niece. But they didn't seem to know anything about it; they seemed surprised—really surprised.”

“'M—I expect they were. Would you like to know who put it in?”

David stared at her. She had clasped her hands about her knee and was leaning a little towards him.

“What do you know about it?”

“I know who put it in.”

“How can you possibly know?”

“I do. I can tell you who put it in—and it wasn't Miss Smith or her niece.”

“Who was it?”

“Betty,” said Folly in an odd, wavering tone.

She jumped down from the table as she said the name, and stood a yard from David watching his face. A dark anger passed across it.

“What on earth do you mean?”

Folly stood her ground.

“I mean what I said—Betty put it in.”

“Is this a joke? Do you think this is a subject to joke about?”

“I'm not joking. I came to tell you something because I thought you ought to know. But if you're going to look at me like that and go through the roof like a bomb—well, you can just find out for yourself; I won't tell you anything more!” She stamped an angry foot, and on the last word her breath caught in something uncommonly like a sob.

The anger went out of David's face.

“Folly—are you
serious?
”

He saw the glint of tears.

“I'm never serious—am I? No one ever takes me seriously.”

David got up and stood between her and the door.

“Look here, you've gone too far. You can't say things like that about Betty unless you're prepared to substantiate them.”

The tears were gone. This time it was a different kind of glint that he saw.

“Ooh! You do use long words! What does sub-what's-his-name mean? It sounds horrible!”

“Prove,” said David impatiently. “You've said a thing about Betty, and I can't let it pass. You've got to prove it.”

Folly went back to the table and leaned against it. With a little cool nod she said:

“All right. I came here to tell you, so I will. It's not because of your saying ‘must,' you know.”

“Well?”

“Betty did put it in—at least I think she did. And I came to tell you because I thought you ought to know. I didn't tell anyone else—I didn't tell Eleanor. But I thought you ought to know.”

“Go on,” said David.

“That advertisement came out on Thursday—the day I went up to town and Stingo was a beast. I looked in the paper afterwards and I saw it—after Eleanor told me, you know. I went through the old papers and looked till I found it.”

“Yes, it was Thursday.”

Folly nodded.

“On Friday night, after we came back to Ford, Eleanor took me into her room and scolded me—after we went up to bed, you know. And I lost my temper—I do lose it sometimes, but not nearly so often as you do—and I damned out of the room. And I went away into my own room, and hours afterwards I thought I'd go along and see if Eleanor was awake, because a dreadfully good feeling came over me and I didn't feel as if I could bear her to go on being dreadfully angry with me all night and perhaps have a dream about being angry with me—because I do truly love Eleanor, and when I truly love someone I can't, can't bear them to be angry with me.”

As she said this Folly's hands came together and pressed one another and her eyes were full of light; her face was very pale. The light in her eyes hurt David with a sudden piercing pain. He looked away, and then looked back again.

“Go on,” he said.

“I opened my door,” said Folly, “and I heard someone else opening their door, away on the left. So I looked; and it was Betty's door. The door was open when I looked, and there was a light in the room, so that I could see her come through the door. I did see her, David. But she didn't see me. I didn't want her to see me, so I shut the door all but a chink, and I heard her go past my door and down the stairs. I waited for her to put the light on, but she didn't; and when I looked out her door was shut, and all the passage was dark, and all the house downstairs was dark, and—and I didn't like it a bit—I
didn't
,” said Folly. “You wouldn't have either.
Nobody
would.”

“Well?”

“Ooh! It was horrid! I didn't feel as if I could shut my door, and I didn't feel as if I could open it. And I waited a most frightful long time, and Betty didn't come back, and I began to think about people disappearing in the middle of the night, and burglars, and all the creepy-crawly stories I'd ever heard. And I got so frightened I simply had to do something, so I opened my door, and I went on tiptoe to the top of the stairs, and I listened. And it was like vaults and caverns and dark places in the sort of dream where you can't see anything; and there wasn't a sound. I wanted to go back to my room most awfully, but I thought I'd go a little way down the stairs first and see if there was a light anywhere. I thought if Betty was in her sitting-room she'd have a light and I should see it under the door. I went halfway down, and I hung over, and I looked, and there wasn't any light, but I could hear Betty talking. I couldn't hear what she said, only just her voice going up and down. Then she stopped, and a man said something.”

David exclaimed sharply:

“Folly! What are you saying?”

Folly screwed up her face.

“I nearly fell over the banisters. You needn't look so shocked—it was only Francis. But I didn't know that till afterwards.”

David came over to her and caught her arm.

“Folly, what's all this nonsense? Francis Lester at Ford—in the middle of the night?”

Folly nodded lightly and impudently.

“'M—he was—talking to Betty—in a dark room. Wasn't it shocking? And when I didn't know it was Francis—Ooh! I really did very nearly fall crash over the banisters in a deadly swoon, I was so shocked.
Betty!
”

David dropped her arm.

“Go on,” he said shortly.

“When I stopped nearly swooning I thought I'd better go away. I didn't think it was my business to chaperone Betty. It didn't seem much use either, so I began to go upstairs. I didn't go very fast, because I was feeling all tottery with the shock.” Her eyes danced wickedly. “And I'd only gone a few steps, when I heard Betty give a sort of choky cry, and I had a most dreadful thought that it might be a burglar after all, and that he was
murdering
her. So I ran right down the stairs and up to the door, and I turned the handle frightfully gently and opened the least little chink—and the room was quite pitchy dark. And just as I opened the door, Betty sniffed, and I thought he couldn't be murdering her, because I don't believe that even Betty would sniff if she were being murdered. She does sniff a lot—doesn't she?”

David frowned impatiently.

“David! What a perfectly horrible face! All right, I
am
going on. I was just going to shut the door and go away when Betty said, ‘David took
The Times
to town with him yesterday, so I didn't know for certain if it was in.' Then she said, ‘Francis, I wish we hadn't. He looks awful.' And Francis said, ‘Don't be a fool! Do you want him to get married?' And of course I felt much better as soon as I knew it was Francis, and not a burglar or a horrid scandal. And I shut the door, and I wouldn't have told anyone ever, only I thought you ought to know.”

“Folly—is this true?”

“You've got a very unbelieving mind,” said Folly. “I told you it was true before I began. But of course, at the time, I didn't know in the least bit what they were talking about. But when I read out your advertisement at breakfast—you know, the one wanting information about Erica Moore—Betty knew the name as soon as I read it, and she jumped like anything, and upset the kettle and pretended she had burnt her hand. She hadn't really burnt it, because the kettle was nearly cold. And when Eleanor told me about the other advertisement—the one that said your wife was alive—I thought and thought, and I began to feel certain that Betty was talking to Francis about it.”

“Folly—you're not making this up?”

She gave a little resigned sigh.

“What a frightfully high opinion you've got of me! You'd better let me finish telling you what happened, and then I'll go away. I've got to where I shut the door, haven't I?”

“Yes, is there any more?”

“Lots,” said Folly. “I nearly died of fright for one thing—but of course you wouldn't mind about that. Well, I started to go towards the stairs; but I hadn't gone halfway, when I heard the morning room window shut. And I felt my way back along the wall. I was only just past the door when it opened and Betty came out. She nearly touched me, and if she hadn't been crying, I expect she'd have known there was someone there. She went straight upstairs—I don't think it's the first time she's walked about the house in the dark like that. I waited till I heard her door shut, and then I went up too, and when I was nearly up—Ooh! I had such a fright! The light over my head went on like a flash of lightning, only it stayed there.”

“Who turned it on? Betty?”

“No—Eleanor. She'd heard the window shut. Her room was just over the sitting-room, you know.”

“Well?”

Folly sparkled.

“It was frightfully funny! She thought I'd been having an assignation out in a nice dank wood, and she looked at my toes and they were dry. And I told her I'd been broom-stick riding. I do love to make Eleanor's eyelashes curl! I got her so puzzled and shocked she didn't know where she was.”

David took no notice of this.

“Folly—all that about Betty is true?”

The mischief sank deep into her eyes like a stone sinking in a pool; they looked mournfully at David.

“You don't ever believe me. You won't believe me if I say it's true.”

“Yes, I will. You're sure it was Betty?”

She nodded.

“And sure of what she said?”

She nodded again.

He said, more to himself than to her: