“How are you going to get back to Milford?” Mrs. Sharpe asked.
“The afternoon bus from Larborough will pick me up. No word of your telephone being repaired, I suppose?”
Both women took the question as comment not interrogation. Mrs. Sharpe took leave of him in the drawing-room, but Marion walked to the gate with him. As they crossed the circle of grass enclosed by the branching driveway, he remarked: “It’s a good thing you haven’t a large family or there would be a worn track across the grass to the door.”
“There is that as it is,” she said, looking at the darker line in the rough grass. “It is more than human nature could bear to walk round that unnecessary curve.”
Small talk, he was thinking; small talk. Idle words to cover up a stark situation. He had sounded very brave and fine about the validity of Truth, but how much was mere sound? What were the odds on Ramsden’s turning up evidence in time for the court on Monday? In time for the Assizes? Long odds against, wasn’t it? And he had better grow used to the thought.
At half-past five Ramsden rang up to give him the promised report; and it was one of unqualified failure. It was the girl he was looking for, of course; having failed to identify the man as a resident at the Midland, and having therefore no information at all about him. But nowhere had he found even a trace of her. His own men had been given duplicates of the photograph and with them had made inquiries at the airports, the railway termini, travel agencies, and the more likely hotels. No one claimed to have seen her. He himself had combed Larborough, and was slightly cheered to find that the photograph he had been given was at least easily recognisable, since it had been ready identified at the places where Betty Kane had actually been. At the two main picture houses, for instance—where, according to the box-office girls’ information, she had always been alone—and at the ladies’ cloakroom of the bus-station. He had tried the garages, but had drawn blank.
“Yes,” Robert said. “He picked her up at the bus-stop on the London road through Mainshill. Where she would normally have gone to catch her coach home.” And he told Ramsden of the new developments. “So things really are urgent now. They are being brought up on Monday. If only we could prove what she did that first evening. That would bring her whole story crashing down.”
“What kind of car was it?” Ramsden asked.
Robert described it, and Ramsden sighed audibly over the telephone.
“Yes,” Robert agreed. “A rough ten thousand of them between London and Carlisle. Well, I’ll leave you to it. I want to ring up Kevin Macdermott and tell him our woes.”
Kevin was not in chambers, nor yet at the flat in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and Robert eventually ran him to earth at his home near Weybridge. He sounded relaxed and amiable, and was instantly attentive when he heard the news that the police had got their evidence. He listened without remark while Robert poured out the story to him.
“So you see, Kevin,” Robert finished, “we’re in a frightful jam.
“A schoolboy description,” Kevin said, “but exquisitely accurate. My advice to you is to ‘give’ them the police court, and concentrate on the Assizes.”
“Kevin, couldn’t you come down for the week-end, and let me talk about it to you? It’s six years, Aunt Lin was saying yesterday, since you spent a night with us so you’re overdue anyhow. Couldn’t you?”
“I promised Sean I’d take him over to Newbury on Sunday to choose a pony.”
“But couldn’t you postpone it? I’m sure Sean wouldn’t mind if he knew it was in a good cause.”
“Sean,” said his doting parent, “has never taken the slightest interest in any cause that was not to his own immediate advantage. Being a chip off the old block. If I came would you introduce me to your witches?”
“But of course.”
“And would Christina make me some butter tarts?”
“Assuredly.”
“And could I have the room with the text in wools?”
“Kevin, you’ll come?”
“Well, it’s a damned dull country, Milford, except in the winter”—this was a reference to hunting, Kevin’s only eye for country being from the back of a horse—“and I was looking forward to a Sunday riding on the downs. But a combination of witches, butter tarts, and a bedroom with a text in wools is no small draw.”
As he was about to hang up, Kevin paused and said: “Oh, I say, Rob?”
“Yes?” Robert said, and waited.
“Have you considered the possibility that the police have the right of it?”
“You mean, that the girl’s absurd tale may be true?”
“Yes. Are you keeping that in mind—as a possibility, I mean?”
“If I were I shouldn’t—” Robert began angrily, and then laughed. “Come down and see them,” he said.
“I come, I come,” Kevin assured him, and hung up.
Robert called the garage, and when Bill answered asked if Stanley was still there.
“It’s a wonder you can’t hear him from where you are,” Bill said.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’ve just been rescuing that bay pony of Matt Ellis’s from our inspection pit. Did you want Stan?”
“Not to speak to. Would you be very kind and ask him to pick up a note for Mrs. Sharpe on his way past tonight?”
“Yes, certainly. I say, Mr. Blair, is it true that there is fresh trouble coming about the Franchise affair—or should I ask that?”
Milford! thought Robert. How did they do it? A sort of information-pollen blown on the wind?
“Yes, I’m afraid there is,” he said. “I expect they’ll tell Stanley about it when he goes out tonight. Don’t let him forget about the note, will you?”
“No, that’s all right.”
He wrote to The Franchise to say that Kevin Macdermott was coming down for Saturday night and could he bring him out to see them on Sunday afternoon before he left to go back to town?
Chapter 16
Does Kevin Macdermott have to look like a tout when he comes to the country?” Nevil asked, the following evening as he and Robert waited for the guest to finish his ablutions and come down to dinner.
What Kevin in country clothes actually looked like, Robert considered, was a rather disreputable trainer of jumpers for the smaller meetings; but he refrained from saying that to Nevil. Remembering the clothes that Nevil had startled the countryside with for the last few years, he felt that Nevil was in no position to criticise anyone’s taste. Nevil had turned up to dinner in a chaste dark grey suit of the most irreproachable orthodoxy, and seemed to think that his new conformity made him free to forget the experimentalism of his immediate past.
“I suppose Christina is in the usual lather of sentiment?”
“A lather of white of egg, as far as I have been able to judge.”
Christina regarded Kevin as “Satan in person,” and adored him. His Satanic qualities came not from his looks—though Kevin did indeed look a little like Satan—but from the fact that he “defended the wicked for the sake of worldly gain.” And she adored him because he was good-looking, and a possibly reclaimable sinner, and because he praised her baking.
“I hope it’s a soufflé, then, and not that meringue stuff. Do you think that Macdermott could be lured into coming down to defend them at Norton Assizes?”
“I think he is much too busy for that, even if he were interested. But I’m hoping that one of his dogs-bodies will come.”
“Primed by Macdermott.”
“That’s the idea.”
“I really don’t see why Marion should have to slave to provide Macdermott with lunch. Does he realise that she has to prepare and clear away and wash up every single thing, to say nothing of carting them to and fro a day’s journey to that antediluvian kitchen?”
“It was Marion’s own idea that he should come to lunch with them. I take it that she considers the extra trouble worth while.”
“Oh, you were always crazy about Kevin; and you simply don’t kno
w how to begin to appreciate a woman like Marion. It’s—it’s obscene that she should be wasting her vitality on household drudgery, a woman like that. She should be hacking her way through jungles, or scaling precipices, or ruling a barbarous race, or measuring the planets. Ten thousand nit-wit blondes dripping with mink have nothing to do but sit back and have the polish on their predatory nails changed, and Marion carts coal. Coal! Marion! And I suppose by the time this case is finished they won’t have a penny to pay a maid even if they could get one.”
“Let us hope that by the time this case is finished they are not doing hard labour by order.”
“Robert, it couldn’t come to that! It’s unthinkable.”
“Yes, it’s unthinkable. I suppose it is always unbelievable that anyone one knows should go to prison.”
“It’s bad enough that they should go into the dock. Marion. Who never did a cruel, or underhand, or shabby thing in her life. And just because a—Do you know, I had a lovely time the other night. I found a book on torture, and I stayed awake till two o’clock choosing which one I would use on the Kane.”
“You should get together with Marion. That is her ambition too.”
“And what would yours be?” There was a faint hint of scorn in the tone, as though it was understood that the mild Robert would have no strong feelings on the subject. “Or haven’t you considered it?”
“I don’t need to consider it,” Robert said slowly. “I’m going to undress her in public.”
“What!”
“Not that way. I’m going to strip her of every rag of pretence, in open court, so that everyone will see her for what she is.”
Nevil looked curiously at him for a moment. “Amen,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know you felt like that about it, Robert.” He was going to add something, but the door opened and Macdermott came in, and the evening had begun.
Eating solidly through Aunt Lin’s superb dinner, Robert hoped that it was not going to be a mistake to take Kevin to Sunday lunch at The Franchise. He was desperately anxious that the Sharpes should make a success with Kevin; and there was no denying that Kevin was temperamental and the Sharpes not everyone’s cup of tea. Was lunch at The Franchise likely to be an asset to their cause? A lunch cooked by Marion? For Kevin who was a gourmet? When he had first read the invitation—handed in by Stanley this morning—he was glad that they had made the gesture, but misgiving was slowly growing in him. And as one perfection succeeded the other in unhurried procession across Aunt Lin’s shining mahogany, with Christina’s large face hovering in eager benevolence beyond the candlelight, the misgiving swelled until it took entire possession of him. “Shapes that did not stand up” might fill his breast with a warm, protective affection; but they could hardly be expected to have the same effect on Kevin.
At least Kevin seemed glad to be here, he thought, listening to Macdermott making open love to Aunt Lin, with a word thrown to Christina every now and then to keep her happy and faithful. Dear Heaven, the Irish! Nevil was on his best behaviour, full of earnest attention, with a discreet “sir” thrown in now and again; often enough to make Kevin feel superior but not often enough to make him feel old. The subtler English form of flattery, in fact. Aunt Lin was like a girl, pink-cheeked and radiant; absorbing flattery like a sponge, subjecting it to some chemical process, and pouring it out again as charm. Listening to her talk Robert was amused to find that the Sharpes had suffered a sea-change in her mind. By the mere fact of being in danger of imprisonment, they had been promoted from “these people” to “poor things.” This had nothing to do with Kevin’s presence; it was a combination of native kindness and woolly thinking.
It was odd, Robert thought, looking round the table, that this family party—so gay, so warm, so secure—should be occasioned by the dire need of two helpless women in that dark silent house set down among the endless fields.
He went to bed with the warm aura of the party still round him, but in his heart a chill anxiety and an ache. Were they asleep out there at The Franchise? How much sleep had they had lately?
He lay long awake, and wakened early; listening to the Sunday morning silence. Hoping that it would be a good day—The Franchise looked its worst in rain, when its dirty-white became almost grey—and that whatever Marion made for lunch would “stand up.” Just before eight o’clock a car came in from the country and stopped below the window, and someone whistled a soft bugle call. A company call, it was. B Company. Stanley, presumably. He got up and put his head out of the window.
Stanley, hatless as usual—he had never seen Stanley in any kind of head covering—was sitting in the car regarding him with tolerant benevolence.
“You Sunday snoozers,” said Stanley.
“Did you get me up just to sneer at me?”
“No. I have a message from Miss Sharpe. She says when you come out you’re to take Betty Kane’s statement with you, and you’re on no account to forget it because it’s of the first importance. I’ll say it’s important! She’s going round looking as if she had unearthed a million.”
“Looking happy!” Robert said, unbelieving.
“Like a bride. Indeed I haven’t seen a woman look like that since my cousin Beulah married her Pole. A face like a scone, Beulah has; and believe me that day she looked like Venus, Cleopatra, and Helen of Troy rolled into one.”
“Do you know what it is that Miss Sharpe is so happy about?”
“No. I did cast out a few feelers, but she’s saving it up, it seems. Anyhow, don’t forget the copy of the statement, or the responses won’t come right, or something. The password’s in the statement.”
Stanley proceeded on his way up the street towards Sin Lane, and Robert took his towel and went to the bathroom greatly puzzled. While he waited for breakfast he looked out the statement from among the papers in his despatch case, and read it through again with a new attention. What had Marion remembered or discovered that was making her so happy? Betty Kane had slipped somewhere, that was obvious. Marion was radiant, and Marion wanted him to bring the Kane statement when he came. That could only mean that somewhere in the statement was proof that Betty Kane was lying.
He reached the end of the statement without finding any likely sentence and began to hunt through it again. What could it be? That she had said it was raining, and that it—perhaps—had not been raining? But that would not have been vital, or even important to the credibility of her story. The Milford bus, then? The one she said she had passed, when being driven in the Sharpes’ car. Were the times wrong? But they had checked the times long ago, and they fitted nearly enough. The “lighted sign” on the bus? Was the time too early for a sign to be lighted? But that would have been merely a slip of memory, not a discrediting factor in her statement.
He hoped passionately that Marion in her anxiety to obtain that “one small piece of evidence” on their side was not exaggerating some trifling discrepancy into proof of dishonesty. The descent from hope would be worse than no hope at all.
This real worry almost obliterated the social worry of the lunch from his mind, and he ceased to care greatly whether Kevin enjoyed his meal at The Franchise or not. When Aunt Lin said to him, covertly, as she set off for church: “What do you think they’ll give you for lunch, dear? I’m quite sure they live on those toasted flake things out of packets, poor things,” he said shortly: “They know good wine when they taste it; that should please Kevin.”
“What has happened to young Bennet?” Kevin asked as they drove out to The Franchise.
“He wasn’t asked to lunch,” Robert said.
“I didn’t mean that. What has happened to the strident suits and the superiority and the Watchman aggressiveness?”
“Oh, he has fallen out with the Watchman over this case.”
“Ah!”
“For the first time he is in a position to have actual personal knowledge of a case the Watchman is pontificating about, and it has been a bit of a shock to him, I think.”
“Is the reformation goi
ng to last?”
“Well, do you know, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it did. Apart from the fact that he has got to an age when they normally give up childish things, and was due for a change, I think he has been doing some revision and wondering if any of the other Watchman white-headed boys were any more worthy of championing than Betty Kane. Kotovich, for instance.”
“Hah! The patriot!” Kevin said expressively.
“Yes. Only last week he was holding forth on our duty to Kotovich; our duty to protect and cherish him—and eventually provide him with a British passport, I suppose. I doubt if today he would be quite so simple. He has grown up wonderfully in the last few days. I didn’t know he even possessed a suit like the one he was wearing last night. It must be one he got to go to his school prize-giving in, for he certainly has worn nothing so sober since.”
“I hope for your sake it lasts. He has brains, the boy; and once he got rid of his circus tricks would be an asset to the firm.”
“Aunt Lin is distressed because he has split with Rosemary over the Franchise affair, and she is afraid he won’t marry a bishop’s daughter after all.”
“Hooray! More power to him. I begin to like the boy. You put a few wedges into that split, Rob—casual-like—and see that he marries some nice stupid English girl who will give him five children and give the rest of the neighbourhood tennis parties between showers on Saturday afternoons. It’s a much nicer kind of stupidity than standing up on platforms and holding forth on subjects you don’t know the first thing about. Is this the place?”
“Yes, this is The Franchise.”
“A perfect ‘mystery house.’ ”
“It wasn’t a mystery house when it was built. The gates, as you can see, were scroll work—rather nice work, too—so that the whole place was visible from the road. It was the simple operation of backing the gate with the iron sheeting that converted the house from something quite ordinary to something rather secret.”