Out Of The Past (6 page)

Earlier that day Chief Detective Inspector Lamb looked up from his desk as the door opened. It was Detective Inspector Frank Abbott who presented himself, that very fair hair of his immaculately smooth, his tall, slim figure immaculately clad.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Lamb fixed him with a stare which had long since ceased to terrify.

“Shouldn’t have sent for you if I didn’t.”

His own appearance was solid rather than elegant. He filled his massive chair, and looked as reliable as the oak of which it was made. His strong black hair was going a little thin on the top but retained its tendency to curl over the temples. His voice carried a pleasant country accent. He might, in fact, have served as an example of the old type of police officer at his best. He said now,

“Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

“Well, sir?”

Lamb drummed on his knee.

“It’s about that fellow Cardozo.”

“Cardozo?”

“No, you don’t know about him—you were out on the Notting Hill case. Well, this chap came in with a yarn about his brother having disappeared. Philip Cardozo, only he writes it with an F and has some kind of a dago way of saying it.”

“Felipe.”

“You’ve got it—Fayleepy. Funny sort of way to say Philip. I don’t know how anyone gets their tongue round that sort of lingo. This one spells his name J.O.S.E. and calls it Hosy. Doesn’t seem much sense in it to my way of thinking, but there you are. This Hosy came in about a week ago and says his brother is missing. Says he was coming over from South America, and it might have been on the Marine Star from Rio, or it might have been some other boat, or he might have taken a plane to Lisbon and come on from there. The point is, he hasn’t turned up here, and Hosy thinks something has happened to him. Very excitable little chap. You know how these foreigners are—waving his hands about and putting in a lot of words I couldn’t make head or tail of.”

Frank Abbott felt some regret at having missed the interview. It might have brightened the official round, and would certainly have proved a good deal more entertaining than the affair of the grocer’s teeth in the Notting Hill murder case.

Lamb drummed on his desk.

“To start with, there wasn’t any evidence to show that Felipy ever set foot in this country. Hosy says he had a very particular reason for coming over, and if he didn’t come one way he’d have come another. Says he thinks he’d have come by plane. Well, if he did, it wasn’t under his own name. And I don’t mind saying I thought the whole thing was a lot of fuss about nothing. If this chap had slipped in under an alias he’d want to keep quiet. In fact Hosy might have wanted to see Felipy, but Felipy mightn’t have been so keen on seeing Hosy. People don’t always want to meet their relations.”

“They do not—and with reason.”

Lamb frowned.

“Well, that was a week ago. I told him how many people disappear every year, and that about three quarters of them turned up again.”

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

“I can’t make out why you were seeing him at all, sir.”

Lamb jerked open a drawer, looked for something that hadn’t ever been there, and shut it again with some force.

“Oh, he came along with an introduction. You know the sort of thing—Sir Somebody Something in the South American business line who wants to oblige Signor Somebody Else who doesn’t mind putting in a word for Hosy who is some kind of an agent of his. As I say, I told him his brother would probably turn up, and no call to think anything had happened to him. He waved his hands a lot and talked nineteen to the dozen about his brother being murdered, and went away.”

“Is that all, sir?”

“No, it isn’t. I shouldn’t be talking to you about it if it was. He’s been here again. This time he says he’s found his brother.”

Frank began to say something and stopped.

“Picked up out of the river.”

“Dead?”

“Quite a time. We’d passed on Felipy’s description, and he was sent for to identify the body. He says it’s his brother all right, and he swears he’s been murdered. The post mortem shows a blow on the back of the head. Well, it might have been accidental, or it mightn’t. You can go down and look into it.”

Going in through the Annings’ front door at ten o’clock that night, Alan Field encountered Darsie coming out of her office. He smiled and said,

“Punctual to the moment, you see.”

The smile met with no response. She said, “Thank you. Goodnight,” and turned back into the little room. She went across to the bookcase and appeared to be selecting a novel.

Alan’s smile deepened as he followed her, closing the door behind him.

“Don’t I get a few kind words?”

She turned round, her face quite blank.

“I haven’t got anything to say to you, and you know it. You are only here because—”

He broke in with a laugh.

“Because I pointed out that it would make a good deal of talk if you turned me away. The house isn’t full, and it would certainly give Esther and all the rest of them up at Cliff Edge something to think about if you refused a nice eligible boarder like me!”

“That is why you are here. It is the only reason. I have nothing to say to you. Goodnight.”

She walked past him, turned the key in the front door lock, shot the bolt, and went on up the wide, easy stair without looking back. It gave him a good deal of amusement to reflect that he had made her take him in, and that she was hating every minute of it. How stupid women were. All this time gone by, and she couldn’t even pretend she didn’t care!

He slept soundly, and woke with pleasant anticipations. Esther would pay up, and so would Adela when it came to the pinch—he had no real doubt about it. And there was Pippa—he was going to enjoy dealing with Pippa. She didn’t like him much, and she had never been at pains to hide it. She was going to pay for that.

By ten o’clock he was asking the late Octavius Hardwick’s elderly butler for Mrs. Field and being informed that she was in the morning-room. It was the place to which she had taken him yesterday, and gloomier than ever. The mist which would presently melt into heat had not yet cleared. It hung before the windows.

Esther looked up from a small writing-table of the same black wood as the hideous overmantel. She did not refuse his affectionate kiss, but she did not respond to it. Her eyelids were pink and swollen.

He took her hand and put it to his lips.

“My dear, you’ve been crying.”

“Yes—”

“I haven’t been very happy myself. You looked wretched last night, and I felt it was all my fault. But there isn’t any need—there really isn’t. Everything can be arranged. Suppose we talk it over a little.”

He pulled up a chair and sat down, whilst she watched him between hope and doubt.

“You won’t publish those letters?”

“Darling, do you suppose I want to? It’s just that I’ve got to have the money. If there is any other way of getting it, I’ll be only too thankful. You don’t suppose I want to upset you, do you? We can have a comfortable talk and settle the whole thing provided you are willing.”

He saw the tears come up in her eyes and went on in a hurry.

“Now, my dear, I don’t want you to say anything—I just want you to listen. It was all very sketchy yesterday, and I think perhaps you got a wrong impression of what I was asking you to do. To begin with, there isn’t any question of your parting with capital—I know you’ve got strict views about that—because I’m really only asking for a loan. I’m afraid I wasn’t quite frank with you last night. The whole thing is very confidential, and if the least word of it got out, we should be sunk. So I employed a little camouflage. But thinking it over in the night—I couldn’t sleep, you know, so there was plenty of time—I realized that I had no right to keep you in the dark.”

Esther’s soft brown eyes remained fixed upon his face. He certainly had her attention. What he would have liked to know was whether he had her belief. He wasn’t so sure. He made haste to go on.

“That story I told you about Cardozo wanting to buy a horse ranch—”

“It’s not true?”

He laughed.

“Only partly. He does want to buy a ranch, and he will probably want me to come in with him, but—well, he hasn’t got the money. Or at least—look here, I’m going to tell you the whole thing, only it’s a top number one secret. You mustn’t breathe a word to a soul—you’ll see why in a minute. Here it comes. Somewhere back in the last century a relation of Cardozo’s, a great-uncle or something, came by a considerable treasure—and it’s no good asking me how, because Felipe is rather inclined to draw a veil over that part of it. There was quite a lot of stuff buried up and down the coast and islands of the Spanish Main in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and a good deal of it has never been found. My guess is that old Cardozo tumbled on a cache. He had his own reasons for keeping quiet about it. He got the stuff away anyhow, and he got it to Rio. And a week later he was picked up with a knife between his shoulders in a back street. And that was that. His affairs were in a bad way. His house was sold to pay his debts, and there wasn’t very much left. His next of kin was a young nephew. When he came of age, the family lawyer handed him a sealed envelope which had been deposited with the firm only a day or two before his uncle’s death. It told young Cardozo about the treasure and where it was hidden.”

Esther Field was remembering all the stories she had ever heard about buried treasure, from the romantic kind over which she had pored in youth, to the more sordid variety which cropped up every now and then in the police court or the newspapers, hand to hand, so to speak, with the gold brick and the confidence trick. Her feelings must have shown in her face.

Alan laughed.

“You think it sounds phoney, and so it does. But it isn’t. I’ve worked with Felipe for three years, and he’s as straight as a die. Let me go on telling you about it. Old Cardozo got away with the stuff and got it to Rio, and when he got it there he buried it again—somewhere in his house or garden. It was an old family place, and if he hadn’t been bumped off when he was, he could have cleared all his debts and revived the ancient glories. Well, he told his nephew where the stuff was, but the house had been sold—there was no way of getting at it. It has changed hands twice since then at a top price, but the Cardozos have never had enough to buy it in. Just think what a situation! An immense fortune waiting, and just having to wait because they couldn’t get a few thousand pounds together! But now the house is coming into the market again. Felipe has done everything he can— sold his ranch and scraped up every penny—but we are still about five thousand short—”

He paused there until she said,

“Even if you believe this story, how do you know that the treasure is still there, or that it is so valuable?”

He laughed.

“Darling, you’re just not thinking. If anyone who owned that house had suddenly burst into wealth, the Cardozos would have known about it. They have naturally always kept an eye upon the place, and so far from anyone getting rich, each time the house has been sold it has been because the owner found it too expensive to keep up. It’s a regular mansion.”

She went on looking at him.

“You know, Alan, it does all sound—”

“Fishy? Well, of course it does. There have been no end of phoney yarns about buried treasure, but don’t you see, there wouldn’t have been those yarns if there hadn’t been something to tell them about. Treasure really was buried, and some of it was found. Of course if a fellow blows in out of nowhere and says he’s got a map showing where Blackbeard buried his pieces of eight, you tell him to go and show it to the marines. But this is different. It’s the real thing—no funny business. You know me, and I know the Cardozos. I can trust Felipe as if he was my own brother. You’ve only to put up the money, and you’ll get it back inside a year with anything you like to name in the way of interest.”

She said quickly,

“I’m not a money lender, Alan.”

He was aware of having made a false step.

“No—no—of course—I shouldn’t have said that. You are all that is kind and generous, and don’t I know it? Now just think over what I’ve told you. I give you my word it’s all on the level, and no possible risk. You’ll get your money back, and you shall burn those letters yourself.”

As he spoke, the door opened and Carmona came in.

He could not be unaware of Esther’s relief. She said in a hurry,

“We were going down to the beach, weren’t we? If the sun is coming through, I had better go and put on my hat.”

As the door closed behind her, Alan broke into a laugh.

“The eye of faith!” he observed.

Carmona said,

“Not entirely. This is the dark side of the house. It really is clearing on the other side. Alan, you are worrying Esther. Why?”

He said lightly,

“Do you know, you haven’t changed in the least. You are still beautiful—and devastatingly frank.”

She did not smile.

“Alan, I’m serious.”

“You always were.”

“I want to know what is going on.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

“Esther will.”

“I wonder.”

“I suppose it’s the old story—you want money.”

“How right you are! I always did, didn’t I? Only this time it’s really a final demand.”

“Wasn’t that what Hitler used to say?”

She would have to pay for that. He said smoothly,

“A bit old-fashioned, darling, aren’t you? If you go back to before the war you might just as well go back to before the Flood. Too dating!” He laughed suddenly. “This is the first time I’ve really seen you since our own particular crash, and we’re talking about Hitler! Who’d have believed it!”

She looked steadily back across the three years’ gap. What she couldn’t believe was that she had ever come within an hour or two of marrying this stranger. He looked like Alan, he spoke like Alan. There was a horrible duality of the familiar and the strange. It must always have been present, but she had kept her eyes to the surface charm. Familiarity had bred not contempt but tolerance. There had been the long-cherished illusion that he loved her, and that she could help him. He had had a bad childhood until he came under Esther’s care. He was not too steady, not too truthful. Money ran through his fingers. But he had the loving ways which could only spring from a loving heart. She saw the illusion now for what it was. There was no love in him, and no kindness. There never had been. There was only one person who mattered, and that was Alan Field. She had a passionate wonder as to why it had suited him to come so near to marrying her. Why up to that very last day had it been to his interest—and then all at once not to his interest? She said,

“It’s all a long time ago.”

He burst out laughing.

“Hitler—or us? In either case, how true!”

“Alan, why did you do it? I’ve always wanted to know.”

“Oh, didn’t he tell you?”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t? But how very amusing!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“But you shall, darling—you shall. It’s much too good a joke to be wasted. I had no idea he wouldn’t have told you— made the most of such a romantic situation. Or perhaps he was afraid you wouldn’t think it so romantic. Now I wonder whether you will.”

Her heart had begun to beat rather hard. He was going to hurt her, and he was going to enjoy doing it. She didn’t quite know why, but she knew that she was going to be hurt. There was cruelty under the laughter in his eyes. She said,

“I don’t—want—to know.”

“But you are going to, my sweet. Husbands and wives should know everything about each other, don’t you think? Of course he wasn’t your husband then, but it didn’t take him very long to console you, did it? I really need not have had any qualms about taking the money.”

“What money?”

“Oh, that is the joke. The great James Hardwick in his original role of Sultan! He sees you, you take his fancy, and he offers me five thousand pounds to clear out!”

The room shook about her. She said,

“It’s not true—”

His voice was hard with contempt.

“Of course it’s true! I was broke. The best I could do was to get myself married to you. Well, it wasn’t too good a best. You couldn’t touch your capital, and the interest didn’t amount to such a lot. Five thousand down wasn’t to be sneezed at. I didn’t sneeze. Hardwick put down the cash, and I cleared out.”

Her “No—” came faintly from stiff lips. She had to get out of the room—somehow, anyhow.

She never really knew how she did it. The stairs were misty, the landing unsteady to her feet. Voices came from the open door of her room—Mrs. Beeston and the daily help making up the great cumbersome bed in which Octavius Hardwick had slept in solitary state—in which she and James would have to sleep tonight. There was to be no privacy—either now—or then. She found that she did not want it now. What would she do if she was alone? Sit down and think—that James had bought her. A shudder went over her heart. For as long as she could she would keep that thought at bay.

She went into the room, opened a drawer, and took out the shady hat which she had worn yesterday. The mist was lifting. It was going to be hot.

Mrs. Beeston was a big woman with a plain sensible face. She said, “A little more of that sheet, Mrs. Rogers,” and turned it down over the yellowing blankets. Then, to Carmona,

“Mr. James will be coming today?”

Carmona said, “Yes.”

“If he will be here for dinner, ma’am, we couldn’t do better than a nice salmon mayonnaise. Always very partial to it, Mr. James is.”

“Yes, it would be nice.”

“Going to be hot again, and I thought if you could see your way to it, ma’am, it would be a good thing if you could call in at Mr. Bolding’s, for the sooner I have that fish cooked and in the fridge the better pleased I’ll be.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Beeston, I’ll do that.”

“And a nice cucumber and anything you can see for the salad. I’ve got some of my own bottled strawberries for an iced sweet, and I’ve saved the top of the milk for cream.”

“That will be lovely.”

She went into the dressing-room and shut the door. Her hat swung from her hand. As she stood at the mirror putting it on she could see the dark reflection of the room behind her—marble-topped washstand, mahogany chest of drawers, and the single bed against the wall. She would have given anything she possessed to tell Mrs. Beeston to make up that bed for James tonight, but she just couldn’t do it. Mrs. Beeston mightn’t talk—she was the old dependable sort—but Mrs. Rogers had a small persistent trickle of gossip full of “I said to her,” and “She said to me,” and “Only fancy anyone doing a thing like that.” It wasn’t any good, she couldn’t face it. If it really came to the point, it would be easier to face James and have it out with him. There would at, least be the lash of anger to drive her.

She did not feel it yet. She thought how strange it was that she should feel nothing but this sick dismay. It would be easier to be angry, but you cannot be angry at will.

She came out of the house, and saw that the sun had broken through and the mist was rolling up across the sea. She walked down to the shops and bought the things Mrs. Beeston wanted. Mr. Bolding had a fine cut of salmon for her and hoped that they would all enjoy it. He remembered her from the time when she was twelve years old and they used to come down for the holidays.

She took her basket back to the house and went down to the beach to join Esther Field.

It was a long, hot day. Alan had gone away and did not come back again. Having planted a thorn, he believed in leaving it to fester. The more you let a woman alone, the more frightened she became. Meanwhile he was going to bathe. He swam out to the point, lazed about there until the tide came up, and then swam back again. After which he made an excellent lunch and slept away the hot hours of the afternoon.

Miss Silver saw her niece Ethel off by an early train, and later strolled down on to the beach. Passing the hut which belonged to Cliff Edge, she stopped to speak to Mrs. Field and enquire how she was getting on with her knitting.

“Very badly indeed, I’m afraid.”

Miss Silver became aware that there was something wrong. Those swollen eyelids, that tremor in the voice. She sat down beside Esther Field, discovered a number of dropped stitches in the red woolly shawl, and began to pick them up. Presently her kind voice and the cheerful ordinariness of her conversation had their effect. Alan couldn’t really mean to publish his father’s private letters—you didn’t do things like that. And you didn’t hand over large sums of money to a wild extravagant young man who had dissipated far too much already. He wasn’t a boy any longer, and it was time he turned to some sensible employment and settled down. Perhaps a small share in the ranch he had mentioned—he had always been very fond of horses…

She began to take an interest in the new way of holding her needles. It would certainly help her not to drop stitches, but she was afraid she would never be able to remember about looping the wool over her left forefinger instead of her right. She said so, and was assured that it would all come with practice.

Mrs. Field shook her head doubtfully.

“I’m afraid I’m really rather a stupid person,” she said. “I can do the kind of things I learned when I was young, but I don’t seem to be any good at new ones. Do you think that might make one not really able to understand someone else’s point of view?”

Miss Silver said in a meditative voice,

“I suppose it might—”

Esther had an impulse towards confidence. She said,

“There is my stepson—I don’t know if you have met him. He is staying with Darsie Anning.”

“A tall young man with fair hair—very good-looking?”

Esther Field nodded.

“He is—isn’t he? He is like my husband, you know, and he has the same kind of charm. But he doesn’t settle down to anything.”

She told Miss Silver a good deal about Alan Field, finishing up with,

“He wants me to advance quite a large sum of money for something which I’m afraid I don’t think at all sensible. But of course he thinks it very unkind of me to refuse.”

Miss Silver looked shocked.

“My dear Mrs. Field!”

The tears rushed into Esther’s eyes.

“I know, I know—I oughtn’t to do it—I mustn’t do it. But if I don’t—”

Carmona was coming towards them across the sands. Esther felt an odd relief. She didn’t know what she might have said if she had been able to go on talking to Miss Silver. It was so easy to talk to her. But she might have said too much. She hoped that she had not done so already.

The next moment she was thinking that Carmona looked pale. There were shadows under her eyes. Her voice had a lifeless sound as she greeted Miss Silver and asked,

“Where is Pippa? Have you seen her?”

“I think she has gone out.”

“Out?”

“She called something down over the cliff. I think she said she was taking that horrid little red car. I only hope it’s safe.”

Carmona sat down in the patch of shade.

“Oh, I expect so.”

Embarked on the topic, Esther found it easy to go on.

“You know, she does fly about too much. I thought she really didn’t look very well this morning. Of course, with all the stuff girls put on their faces, you can’t tell, can you?”

Miss Silver said, “No, indeed,” but opined that the general effect was often pleasing.

They continued to talk about make-up, a subject upon which one would not have supposed them to possess any particular knowledge, but which appeared to interest them in no small degree.

By the time they had finished their chat Esther was feeling a great deal better. The world about her had again become the world she knew—one in which pretty girls made up their faces, young people fell in love and got married, and no one really wanted to do wrong or to act unkindly. When sorrow visited this world it was endured with courage and with the consolations of a simple faith. Friends were kind, and in due time cheerfulness returned. She became more and more persuaded that Alan could not possibly have meant what he said.

To Carmona their talk was like something on a radio programme which you hear, but to which you do not listen. It went by, but never once broke in upon the closed circle of her mind. She lay on the beach and let the small hot pebbles run through her fingers.

Miss Silver took her way home in rather a thoughtful mood. That very good-looking Mr. Field appeared to have had a disturbing effect not only on the Annings’ household, but also on Cliff Edge. Very good-looking young men were rather apt to produce this effect upon a distinctively feminine household. There was obviously some link with a younger and perhaps gayer Darsie. Mrs. Anning’s words could really bear no other construction. And now here was this nice Mrs. Field who had certainly been upset to the point of prolonged weeping, to say nothing of Carmona Hardwick whose thoughts appeared to be quite painfully turned in upon themselves. She showed no traces of tears, but if Miss Silver was not very much mistaken, she was at this moment suffering from some kind of shock. There was, further, the rather strange conduct of Mrs. Maybury, an exceedingly pretty young woman of whom she had caught only a glimpse upon the previous evening. She had then appeared to be very far removed from the type which prefers solitude to company. To come down for so short a visit and then go off by herself in this way might have nothing at all to do with Alan Field, but it was obviously causing Mrs. Field some anxiety.

As she walked along the hot cliff path with her knitting-bag on her arm she reflected that human nature was of all studies the most absorbing. The knitting-bag was a new one presented by her niece Ethel upon the occasion of her birthday. The remnant of chintz from which it had been made was most tasteful, the pattern embracing a great number of flowers all blooming together in a profusion seldom conceded by nature, and the lining an agreeable shade of green. A much appreciated feature was the addition of a row of useful pockets to hold everything from pattern-books to spare needles and balls of wool. Her thoughts followed Ethel Burkett on her journey with affection, picturing with pleasure her prospective reunion with the family from whom she was never willingly parted.

It being by now close on one o’clock, Darsie Anning would be engaged in superintending the dishing-up of lunch. Even with a good refrigerator, food must be a problem in such weather as this, and with a foreign staff you really could not be too particular. Miss Silver was therefore surprised as she crossed the upper landing to see Miss Anning come a little way out of her mother’s bedroom and then turn back again.