She Came Back (19 page)

I want police protection for her,” said Miss Silver firmly.

The Chief Inspector, at the other end of the telephone, drew out a handkerchief and blew his nose with an exasperated sound.

“Now, Miss Silver—”

She coughed and proceeded.

“I consider it most desirable. I will give you the address of the hairdressing establishment. It is Félise, Charlotte Street… I beg your pardon?” An exclamation of surprise had reached her along the wire. “Is the name familiar to you?”

“I don’t know about familiar. Sir Philip says his wife had an appointment there to have her hair done yesterday afternoon. We were asking him about her movements on the previous day, and he mentioned having heard her make this appointment. Says he heard the name as he was letting himself into the flat, and she explained it was her hairdresser. Quite a good cover-up.”

“It is a genuine hairdressing establishment. It stands three doors from the corner where Emma Meadows lost sight of the girl who had been following Lady Jocelyn—or, as I think we may now call her, Annie Joyce.”

The Chief Inspector blew his nose, meditatively this time.

“Well, you’d better keep Miss Armitage. I’ll send Frank round. Just leave him to form his own conclusions, will you? He’s a bit too much inclined to take all you say for gospel, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Deprecation of his tone was evident as Miss Silver replied,

“I do not consider that Sergeant Abbott is so easily influenced—except, as we should all be, by the facts of a case.” The stress laid upon the word “facts” accentuated the reproof.

Lamb turned it off with a laugh.

“Well, we won’t quarrel about that. If Frank is satisfied, the people at the shop will be put through it. I’ll get someone on to finding out about them straight away.”

Sergeant Abbott, arriving at Montague Mansions, was duly acquainted with Miss Lyndall Armitage’s story.

“Where is she, Miss Silver?”

Miss Silver, well on the way to completing Johnny’s second pair of stockings, replied that Miss Armitage was lying down—“in my bedroom next door. She is far from strong, and it has shaken her a good deal.”

Frank regarded her with admiration.

“Tucked up under an eiderdown with a hot-water bottle, I don’t mind betting. Will you be angry if I quote Wordsworth instead of Tennyson?

‘The perfect woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, or command.’ ”

Miss Silver smiled indulgently. If she detected a faint sardonic flavour in tone and look she gave no sign of resenting it, but said soberly,

“We have not time just now to discuss the poets, my dear Frank. I have kept Miss Armitage here because I do not feel justified in allowing her to return to her flat without protection. She tells me that her cousin, Mrs. Perry Jocelyn, is unlikely to be home much before eleven, and that they have a daily maid who leaves at three o’clock. I think, in the circumstances, that it would be extremely dangerous to leave her alone and unprotected.”

“What makes you think she is in danger?”

“My dear Frank! The day before yesterday at tea-time she acquainted Annie Joyce with the fact that she had overheard part of a conversation between her and the man from whom she was taking her orders. Only two sentences, it is true, but could anything be more compromising?—‘You might as well let me write to Nellie Collins. She is quite harmless,’ and, ‘That is not for you to say.’ They supply clear evidence of a connection with Miss Collins, they imply that Annie Joyce was not permitted herself to answer the letter she had received from her, and they make it clear that she was not a principal, but an agent acting under the orders of this man whom she had come to see. Annie Joyce could have been under no illusion as to the importance of what Miss Armitage had overheard. She did, in fact, do all she could to ensure her silence. She assured her that the whole thing was a mistake, that she must have imagined having overheard the name of Nellie Collins, and she appealed to her affection and family feeling not to repeat anything which might revive the publicity from which they, and especially Sir Philip, had already suffered so much.”

“This was the day before yesterday?”

“Yes. And yesterday afternoon she kept another appointment with the man from whom she took her orders. It is, I suppose, possible, but I do not think it is at all likely that she did not acquaint him with what Miss Armitage had told her. There is some evidence that the interview disquieted him, since he had her followed when she came away from it. If she told him that a previous interview had been overheard, he may have decided that her usefulness as an agent was seriously compromised. The German secret service has never hesitated to sacrifice an agent who might prove to be more of a liability than an asset. If she told him that it was Miss Armitage who had overheard them, you will, I think, agree that she may be in very serious danger, and that until this man is under arrest she should be given the very fullest possible measure of protection.”

Frank Abbott ran his hand back over his hair.

“All right, we’ll look after her. But, you know, the Chief thinks you’re trailing a red herring. He thinks Jocelyn shot the woman. There’s some evidence—no, not evidence— there’s some indication of a personal motive. Suppose he was in love with this Armitage girl. I know some people who live near Jocelyn’s Holt. They tell me everyone was expecting the engagement to be given out, when Annie Joyce bobbed up as Lady Jocelyn. Rather a nasty strain on the temper, you know, especially as local talk had it that Philip Jocelyn stuck to it for as long as he could that he didn’t recognize her, and she wasn’t his wife. Well, he seems to have been convinced in the end, and they set up house together on strictly detached lines. Then something happened which upset his conviction, and at the same time Military Intelligence suggest to him she’s an enemy agent. Pretty galling, don’t you think? Legally she’s his wife. He has accepted her as such, and he’d probably find it difficult— or impossible—to prove that she wasn’t. Not a nice situation. And then he finds her with her fingers in his papers. Don’t you think he might fly off the handle and shoot? Murder’s been done for a good deal less than that. Anyhow, the Chief thinks that’s what happened—and he doesn’t know the gossipy bits I’ve just imparted to you, which are strictly off the record and entre nous. The time question narrows it down, you see. Jocelyn went off at twenty to nine, the laundryman came and went immediately after that, the postman and the boy with the milk one after the other just before nine, and the workmen had camped down on the landing by nine o’clock.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked rapidly, the long grey stocking revolved.

“Have you traced any delivery of laundry?”

He shook his head.

“Two lots of tenants are away. The man may simply have gone up, found he couldn’t get in, and gone away again.”

Miss Silver gave a small skeptical cough.

“Oh, no, he would not do that. He would have left the basket with the porter.”

“Well, he might. But the porter says people aren’t very trusting with new tenants nowadays—they like payment on delivery.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I see you’ve set your heart on the laundryman.” He got up, looking very tall and slim. “Well, I must see Miss Armitage, and then I’ll go and deal with the hairdresser. Wish me luck!”

Lyndall was presently seen home by a large constable with a benevolent face and a slow, persevering manner of speech. In the twenty minutes or so which it took them to arrive at Lilla Jocelyn’s flat he had told her all about his wife, whose name was Daisy and who had been an upholstress before they were married, and their three children—Ernie, turned seven, who was a wonder at his lessons, Ellie aged four, and Stanley who would be six months old next week. In moments of strain, small, irrelevant things may pass quite unnoticed, but they may also become indelibly impressed upon the memory. Lyndall was never to forget that Ernie could read when he was four, or that little Ellie screamed whenever she saw a cat. The constable appeared to be rather proud of this idiosyncrasy, but informed her that his wife said it wouldn’t do to let it go on, and she was going to get a kitten and break her of being so soft.

Later, when she had ensconced him in front of the kitchen fire and provided him with the papers, she sat down by herself in the L-shaped living-room and thought what a long time it would be before Lilla came home.

It was some time after this that Frank Abbott rang up his Chief.

“Well, sir, I saw Miss Armitage. She’s quite clear about what she heard. The snag is that at the time she wasn’t at all sure whether the woman she followed into the hairdresser’s shop was the so-called Lady Jocelyn or not, because she only saw her back. In fact, what she saw was the right coloured hair, the right sort of coat, and the right coloured dress. But there aren’t so many mink coats walking round London on women with the right hair and just that shade of blue dress. They are the clothes of the Amory portrait and fairly noticeable, you know. Anyhow she wasn’t sure at the time. That’s why she followed her in—she wanted to make sure. And she won’t swear to the voice which she heard on the other side of an unlatched door, but she thought it was Lady Jocelyn’s voice. What she will swear to through thick and thin is what she heard—what the woman said, ‘You might as well let me write to Nellie Collins. She is quite harmless.’ And the man’s answer, ‘That is not for you to say.’ That is what she heard, and that is what she repeated to Annie Joyce. It would certainly make her sit up and take notice, and if she repeated it to her employer, I agree with Maudie that we’d better keep an eye on the Armitage girl.”

Lamb grunted.

“You always do agree with her—that’s nothing new.”

“Oh, no, sir—not always—only when the brain is waving rather brightly.” Then, before Lamb had time to disentangle this, “Well, I’m talking from the hairdresser’s—telephone in the room across the passage described by Miss Armitage. Clarke is shepherding the staff in the shop. Proprietress, stout Frenchwoman called Dupont, very angry, very abusive—says she’s never been so insulted in her life. Says Lady Jocelyn was a client—oh, but certainly—her hair was much impoverished and needed frequent attention. Her husband M. Félix Dupont—that’s where they get the Félise from—occasionally saw special clients in the office. He had probably seen Lady Jocelyn there—she was a very special client. But she couldn’t have seen him yesterday, or any day this week, because he had been in bed very ill, very suffering—wounds of the last war. I must understand that he is an invalid, and that only occasionally can he come to the shop and give his valuable advice. For all the rest of the time it is she who has to do everything and nurse her husband as well, and a lot more on those lines, all very rapid and French. But—you remember what Maudie said about the girl who followed Annie Joyce—said she had on a brown coat and a brown and purple scarf over her head— well, one of the girls here has got a brown coat and a brown and purple scarf, so that hooks up all right. As you know, Maudie’s Emma went after the girl she saw, and lost her only just round the corner from here.” Lamb grunted.

“We’ll have to see if they can pick this girl out.”

“It won’t be necessary, sir. I’ve had her in alone, and she owned up. She’s only about sixteen, and she’s all of a doodah. Said she didn’t know she was doing anything wrong. Mr. Felix told her to put on her coat and see where Lady Jocelyn went, and he gave her half-a-crown when she got back. And when I said, ‘You mean M. Dupont, Madame’s husband?’ she said, ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t him—it was the other gentleman.’ ”

The wire vibrated with the Chief Inspector’s “What!”

“Yes, sir. Continuing our interesting conversation—I elicited the following facts. M. Félix did come down occasionally. He was a very clever hairdresser, and he only saw special clients, but he was often too ill to come at all. Mr. Felix also saw special clients. He came in by a back way, never through the shop. They had to take messages for him and make appointments. If Madame was in she answered the telephone herself. If she was out, they had to write the message down, and she would attend to it later. Now comes the pièce de résistance—”

The Chief Inspector was heard to thump his office table.

“If you don’t know enough English to speak your own language you’d better go back to school and learn how!”

“Sorry, Chief—my mistake—I should have said titbit. Anyhow, here it is. None of the girls ever saw Mr. Felix. He came and went by the back way, and he never set foot in the shop. M. Félix Dupont used the shop entrance—they all saw him whenever he came. But nobody ever saw Mr. Felix except Madame and the ladies who came by appointment.”

“What about his sending her after Lady Jocelyn?”

“Yes, I asked her that, and she said it was Madame who told her that Mr. Felix would like her to go after Lady Jocelyn, and it was Madame who gave her the half-crown and told her not to talk about it, because, she said, it wouldn’t sound very nice, but he had given her a very special treatment, and he wanted to know whether she did what he told her and went straight home. He said it wouldn’t be good for her if she didn’t.”

“Think she swallowed that?”

“I don’t suppose she bothered. All in the day’s work, so to speak. You know how it is with a girl like that—customers are just work. What really matters is who is going to take them to the pictures, or part with some coupons so that they can get another pair of alleged silk stockings.”

Chief Inspector Lamb was heard to thank God that his girls had been differently brought up to that.

“Yes, sir—they would be. But I think this kid is all right. Too scared, and talking too freely to be in on any games they’ve been up to here. I think we ought to pull Madame in. And then I thought I’ll go along and see her interesting invalid.”

The time went very slowly by. Lyndall found, as innumerable women have found before her, that she could do nothing to hasten it. She couldn’t read, or sew, or listen to the wireless, because to do any of these things you must be in control of your own thoughts, and she was not in control of hers. Whilst she was talking to Miss Silver and Sergeant Abbott, whilst the constable had talked about his family, there had been a varying degree of constraint upon her mind, and in a varying degree it had responded. But as soon as she was alone it turned again to the point from which she now found herself unable to deflect it. There are things which are so shocking that they are believed at once, the very force of the shock pressing in past all the normal barriers. There are things so shocking that they cannot be believed at all, but you can’t forget them, you can’t get them out of your mind. Lyndall could not have said that she was in either of these two states. There had been so great an initial shock as to render her incapable of either belief or judgment, but now as time went slowly by she found herself believing something which chilled her body almost as much as it froze her mind.

She got up once and went to the telephone, but after standing for a long half-minute with her finger on the first number she would have to dial, she turned away and went back to the chair from which she had risen. She couldn’t do it. Perhaps tomorrow when her mind didn’t feel so sore and stiff and she could think again. Not tonight—not now. Once you have said a thing you can never take it back.

When about five minutes later the telephone bell rang she went to answer it with shuddering reluctance. Philip’s voice said her name.

“Lyn—is that you?”

“Yes—” The word wouldn’t sound the first time. She had to try it again.

“Are you alone? I want to see you—very badly. I’ll come straight round.”

He hung up on that, but she stayed where she was until it came to her that Philip would be arriving and she must be ready to let him in. As she passed through the hall she stopped at the half-open kitchen door to say, “My cousin is coming round to see me—Sir Philip Jocelyn.”

It was hardly said before the door bell rang. She opened it with a finger on her lips and a gesture in the direction of that half-open door.

Philip looked surprised. He took off his coat and hung it up. Then when they were in the living-room he asked,

“What was all that for? Who’s here?”

“A policeman in the kitchen.”

“Why?”

“Because I overheard something, and they don’t know if she—if Anne—”

He said, interrupting her, “She wasn’t Anne—that’s certain now. She was Annie Joyce.” Then, after a curious pause, “I’ve found Anne’s diary.”

“Her diary?”

“Yes. Of course I knew she kept one—I suppose you did too. What I didn’t know until a couple of days ago was that she put down everything—” He broke off. “Lyn, it’s quite incredible! I didn’t want to read it—I don’t intend to read it. What I’ve had to do is to see whether the things she told me—the things which convinced me against every instinct I’ve got—whether they were there. And they are. What I said when I asked her to marry me—things that happened on our honeymoon—things it seemed impossible that anybody else should know—she had written them all down. And Annie Joyce had got them by heart.”

Lyndall looked at him in a bewildered rush of feeling. The stranger who had stood between them had gone and she had never been Anne. Presently she would be able to go back to remembering that she had loved Anne very much. Just now she could only listen.

Philip was telling her about finding the diary.

“I made sure she would have it with her. However carefully she had learned it all up she would be bound to keep it handy. Well, I found it—two volumes sewn into the mattress on her bed—good long stitches so that it wouldn’t have taken a minute to rip them out if she wanted it. That’s what caught my eye—when I’d looked everywhere else. That settled the matter as far as I was concerned. She never convinced anything except my brain, and the diary lets that out. Anne’s been dead for three and a half years. You’ve got to believe that, Lyn.”

She wanted to with all her heart. But she couldn’t find words. She didn’t even know that she could find thoughts to answer him. Her mind swung back on the fixed point to which it had been held. She heard him say,

“Lyn, that’s what I meant when I came here this morning. Annie Joyce was a spy, you know—planted on me. It wasn’t just an ordinary impersonation. It was all very carefully planned. She was an enemy agent with a very definite job. She drugged me last night and went through my papers.”

“Philip!”

“They were spoof papers, and an old code-book. We’d been doing a bit of planning too. My guess is that she was working under orders, and someone came along to collect. Whoever it was knew enough to realize she’d been had. That meant she was for it from us, if not from them. At the best, she wouldn’t be of any more use—at the worst, we might get something out of her. They are quite ruthless over that sort of thing, and I think that whoever it was just shot her out of hand—possibly with my revolver, or possibly not. Anyhow it probably seemed a good idea to remove mine and hope the police would think I’d shot her—which they do.”

She said his name again.

“Philip!” And then, with a rush, “They don’t—they can’t!”

He put an arm round her.

“Wake up, Lyn! They do, and they can. Wake up and face it! I’m in a mess. Codrington says I’d better keep away from you. I will after this. But I had to see you first—I couldn’t risk your thinking it was worse than it is. They think it looks bad, my coming straight here from the War Office and saying Anne was dead when I couldn’t have known about the murder unless it had happened before I left the flat. But when I said Anne I meant my wife, Anne Jocelyn, and not Annie Joyce at all. I meant that I was convinced of Anne’s death— not that I knew Annie Joyce had been shot. Lyn—you’ve got to believe me!”

“Of course I believe you.”

She began to tell him about seeing Anne—no, Annie— going into the hairdresser’s shop, and what she had overheard in the dark passage with the line of light just showing at the edge of an unlatched door.

His manner changed abruptly.

“You heard that? You’re sure?”

“Yes—I told Miss Silver.”

“Who is she?”

She explained Miss Silver.

“And then Sergeant Abbott came, and I told him, and I think he’s gone to arrest the people at the shop.”

“Well, that’s something.” Then, “I suppose you know how important this is?”

“Yes. Philip, I told Anne—I mean Annie—about it.”

He stared.

“You didn’t!”

“Yes, I did. I felt as if I had to. I told her the day before yesterday.”

“Lyn—you little fool! Suppose she told him—this man!”

Lyndall nodded.

“That’s what Miss Silver said. So they sent me home with a policeman. He’s in the kitchen doing a cross-word.”

He had just begun to say in a tone of relief, “Well, somebody’s got some sense,” when the front door buzzer went again. Lyndall felt the sound of it go tingling through her. Perhaps it was what she had been waiting for.

Philip’s arm dropped from her shoulders. He wore a look of frowning pallor.

“I ought not to be seen here. Who is it likely to be? Get rid of them if you can!”

She nodded without speaking. The buzzer went again as she crossed the room, but she took her time—time to open Lilla’s panelled chest and let Philip’s coat down on the spare blankets, time to pull the kitchen door to so as not to show the lighted room beyond.

Then she opened the outer door and saw Pelham Trent. He came in at once, easy and friendly as he had always been.

“Are you alone, Lyn? I wanted to see you. Lilla isn’t home yet?”

“No. It’s her late night. She isn’t home.”

They were standing just inside the door. As he turned to shut it, she said,

“I wanted to see you too. I wanted to ask you something.”

He turned back, a little surprised.

“Well, let’s go into the drawing-room. I can’t stay, so I won’t take my coat off.”

She stood between him and the door of the room where Philip was.

“Do you know a shop called Félise?”

Surprise became astonishment.

“My dear Lyn! What is this—a guessing game? I really wanted to say something—”

She came in with a sort of quiet determination.

“I think you do know it.”

“What do you mean?”

She said in a clear, steady tone,

“I followed her, you know. Not because I thought there was anything wrong. I just didn’t want her to think—that doesn’t matter now, does it. I heard her say, ‘You might as well let me write to Nellie Collins. She is quite harmless.’ And you said, ‘That isn’t for you to say.’ ”

He stood where he was, looking at her aghast.

“Lyn—have you gone mad?”

She shook her head gently.

“I didn’t know it was you at the time—I didn’t know until this afternoon when you said the same thing again. You said it to me—in the same kind of whispering voice, ‘That is not for you to say.’ I guessed then. Afterwards I was sure. I told Miss Silver and the police about what I heard, but I didn’t tell them about you. I shall have to tell them, but I thought I would tell you first, because we have been friends.”

As soon as she had said the last word she knew that it wasn’t true. This man had never been a friend. He was a stranger, and dangerous—she was in very great danger. Through all that had happened in the last few hours thought had been fixed and rigid. Now, under the impact of danger, it swung free. She cried out, and her cry was loud enough to bring Philip Jocelyn round the corner of the L to the half-open door, and to arouse the large constable from the consideration of what a word of four letters suggesting a light could be. He got himself out of his chair and opened the door, to see a strange man in an overcoat holding Miss Armitage by the shoulder with his left hand, whilst with the other he held a revolver to her head.

The same spectacle had halted Philip Jocelyn. Pelham Trent, looking in that direction, was aware of him, but not of the constable, his attention being a good deal taken up by the emergency and the brilliant ideas which it suggested. He said harshly to Philip,

“Jocelyn, if you move, I’ll shoot her—and with your revolver! You damned fool—to think that you could lay a trap like this for me! You’ve just played into my hands, the two of you, and this is what is going to happen. I’d like you to know, because I’ve had it in for you for quite a time. You think a lot of yourself, don’t you? You think a lot of your name and your family. Well, you’re going to be a headline in every dirty rag in the country—‘Suicide Pact in a Flat—Sir Philip Jocelyn and Girl Friend.’ Perhaps you can imagine the letterpress for yourself. I must just get a little closer to you to make it really convincing. Come along, Lyn!”

He began to walk across the hall, pushing her before him. She could feel the cold muzzle of the revolver against her right temple.

This was on the outside. She knew about it, but it had very little to do with what was in her mind. There, in a very clear light, she saw and knew that she and Philip were on the edge of death, that if she moved or tried to pull away she would be dead at once. And then he would shoot Philip. But he wouldn’t shoot her first if he could help it, because the moment he fired Philip would rush him. She didn’t know what the constable was doing. She couldn’t see the kitchen door. Even if he had heard her call out, she would be dead before he reached them.

She saw all these things together in the bright light and without any passage of time. She wasn’t frightened, because it was rather like being dead already. From somewhere outside time she saw that there would be a moment when the revolver would swing away from her and aim at Philip. She held herself like a coiled spring and waited for that moment.

When it came, she caught with both her hands at Pelham Trent’s right arm, dragging it down, and in the same instant Philip sprang. There was the cracking sound of a shot, very loud in the little hall. Glass splintered somewhere, a loose rug slid under Pelham’s feet, and they were all down together. Lyndall crawled out between flailing arms and legs, stumbled up to her feet, and saw the constable kneeling on Pelham’s chest whilst Philip held his ankles. The revolver stuck out from a rolled-up corner of the rug. Lyndall went and picked it up. Her knees were dithering and her mind shook. The mirror over the blanket-chest was broken, and there were little bright bits of glass everywhere.

She went into the drawing-room and pushed the revolver down behind one of the sofa cushions. When she came back Philip looked over his shoulder and said,

“We want something to tie him up with. Those things that loop the curtains back will do. Hurry!”