“That,” he said, “was Mrs. Green, and she’s scared to death.”
“What’s she got to be scared about?”
“She says she’s got something on her mind—something she held back and didn’t tell because she was afraid to. She was talking from a call-box at Charing Cross, and you heard me tell her to come right along.”
Peter thought, “And what am I expected to say to that? You’re looking at me very hard, my good Lamb. I wonder what that dreep of a woman was bleating into your ear just now. And which would look more like a guilty conscience, a request to stay and meet the lady, or a simple manly disposition to mind my own business and leave you to get on with your job?” He decided on the latter course, was aware of the inspectorial eye upon him even to the door, and walked down a long corridor with the feeling that it was still boring into his spine.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Peter walked back to Craddock house. It took him an hour because he sat for a while in St. James’s Park and thought intensively about a number of things which had been disturbing his mind for the last hour or two. One of these things was so preposterous that it gave him a sensation of giddiness whenever he contemplated it. He therefore got up, walked on, and tried to think about getting married to Lee and taking her six thousand miles away from Scotland Yard. It was a paradisiacal prospect, but he failed to invest it with even a semblance of reality. And once more, up from the troubled waters of his mind, there bobbed the perfectly preposterous idea—fantastic and elusive as the sea-serpent and as tenacious of its mythical existence.
He got home and was met by Lee on the landing.
“Peter, I thought you were never coming. The Pet Lamb has been ringing up from Scotland Yard—twice.”
Peter felt cold about the feet. He said, “What did he want?” and Lee pulled him into the hall and shut the door. Even then she spoke in a whisper.
“He wanted to know whether Rush was at home—Rush, Peter. And when I said no, he always had Saturday afternoon and evening off—you know he goes to see Ellen and her husband, and a sort of cousin person comes in to sit with Mrs. Rush—the Lamb asked when he would be in, and I said half past ten, because he always puts Mrs. Rush to bed then. And then he wanted to know whether you had got back.”
“When was this?”
“About twenty minutes ago. And he said please would I go down and get him Ellen’s address from Mrs. Rush, so I did. And about five minutes ago he rang up again and wanted to know whether you had come in—and don’t you think you’d better ring him up?”
“No, I’m hanged if I do!” said Peter. He laughed angrily. “Let’s hope that’s not an omen. If you ask me, I think we’re going stark, staring mad, and that old Lamb will probably finish up by arresting us all.”
“What does he want?” said Lee in a frightened voice.
“I can’t imagine—I was with him an hour ago. But I know what I want, and that’s a long, cold drink. Also I want to talk to Lucinda—presently, when I feel strong enough. Oh, I suppose I had better get old Lamb over first.”
Lee stood waiting whilst he rang up and was put through. She waited for Peter to speak, but after he had given his name and said, “I hear you rang me up,” all the talk seemed to be coming from the other end of the line. She saw Peter’s eyebrows go up, and at last she heard him say, “Yes, I suppose it took me about an hour. I sat in the Park for a bit.” There was another interval. Then Peter said pleasantly, “One isn’t always thinking about an alibi, you know,” and then, after a hiatus, “I suppose you’ll arrest me on the spot if I tell you to go and boil your head.… Yes, I thought as much, so perhaps I won’t do it after all. Am I allowed a quotation instead—from Alexander and Mose? ‘Clarify yo’self, boy—clarify yo’self.’ ” He jabbed the receiver back upon its hook, turned a pale, determined countenance on Lee and said,
“Lamb really has gone off the deep end. He seems to think that (a) Rush, (b) I, or (c) Rush and I, have abducted Mrs. Green.”
Lee stared back. It must be a joke, but she began to feel frightened. She said, “Why?” and Peter came and put an arm round her waist.
“An elopement with Mrs. Green sounds grim, doesn’t it?”
“Is it a joke? I—I don’t like it very much.”
“No, it’s not a joke. He’s quite serious. You see, when I was with him just now Mrs. Green rang up from a call-box at Charing Cross. She said she’d got something to tell—about Ross’s murder—and old Lamb told her to come right along and spill the beans. I’m piecing it together from what I heard and what he told me. He kept saying that they would look after her and she needn’t be frightened, and then she said another piece, and he told her again to come right along. And then he rang off, and looked at me very hard and said, ‘That was Mrs. Green, and she’s scared to death.’ And he told me she’d got something on her mind—something she hadn’t told before because she was afraid.”
“Yes—” said Lee rather faintly, because the frightened feeling was getting worse.
“Well, now he says Mrs. Green never turned up. She was speaking from Charing Cross over an hour ago, and she never turned up. It couldn’t possibly have taken her more than ten minutes to get to Scotland Yard, but she never turned up. After about half an hour or so he sent a minion down to where she lives. The minion has just rung up, and there’s no sign of her either at the house where she lodges or at the local pub which, I gather, sees a good deal of her in her off time. Lamb says she was all set to come and see him, and if she didn’t come, why didn’t she? And he’s got an answer all ready, because she told him she was afraid of being done in. And by whom? Answer quite pat again, because she told him that too. By Rush, and by me. So if Mrs. Green has by any chance come to a sticky end, Lamb will probably do his best to hang us both.”
Lee pushed him away.
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that!”
“Well, Rush may have an alibi, but I haven’t. I went and mooned in the Park, and there I hatched a perfectly monstrous idea, and I want to talk to Lucinda about it, so come along.”
Lucy Craddock looked up as they came in.
“Do you know, I think I was almost asleep. Not quite, you know, but very, very nearly.”
Peter brought a footstool and sat down upon it with his arms around his knees and his head tilted a little so that he could look at her. Lee went over to the window and stood there staring out. People passing, the glint of the low sun upon the bit of the river which you could just see between the trees, the smoky blue of the sky, and a piled cloud or two that looked like thunder. It was turning very hot again, but her hands and feet were cold, and something inside her was very much afraid. There was no end to the dreadfulness, no end at all. Peter said,
“Lucinda, do you think you could come over all reminiscent and chatty?”
Lucy Craddock fluttered.
“My dear boy—of course—if there is anything you want to know—”
Peter hugged his knees.
“There is. I want to have a nice heart-to-heart gossip about Aggie Crouch—Rosalie La Fay—Ross’s wife. I want you to spread yourself.”
“But, my dear, I know so little. Mary and I were naturally most interested, but poor John was so much upset that he only told us the barest facts, and his wife refused to talk about it at all.”
“Now, Lucinda, don’t tell me that you and Mary just sat down under that. After all the lady was a public character. Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t go out into the highways and byways and—well, glean?”
Lucy Craddock bridled.
“Oh, my dear boy, that sounds as if we were two inquisitive old maids!”
“Why shouldn’t one be inquisitive? I am, desperately, about Aggie—Rosalie—Craddock. What did you find out?”
“Very little,” said Lucy in a regretful voice. “Mary thought if we went to the theatrical agencies—but we didn’t know their names of course, so we—we—well, my dear boy, we employed someone.”
Peter’s eyes
danced for a moment.
“A detective? Oh, Lucinda!”
Lucy blushed.
“Oh, no, indeed—a private inquiry agent—discretion guaranteed—really quite a gentlemanly man. And all he found out was that she had a sister married to a corn-chandler in Hoxton, and that there was nothing against either of their characters—which of course was very disappointing.”
Peter roared with laughter.
“Lucinda, you’re a jewel!”
“Oh but—my dear boy—I didn’t mean that at all. I mean—well, of course one wouldn’t have wanted her to have done anything dreadful, but of course after all that trouble and expense—well, you know what I mean.”
“Perfectly,” said Peter. “And was that all?”
“Except the photographs,” said Lucy Craddock in an abstracted voice. “Now I wonder whether dear Mary kept the photographs.”
“I should think,” said Peter out of a bitter experience, “that Mary always kept everything.”
“They were in a yellow cardboard box, tied up with the ribbon from a most beautiful box of chocolates which John gave us for Christmas that year. I remember Mary wouldn’t put them in the chocolate box because she said it was too good for pictures of Aggie Crouch, so she used it for her handkerchiefs.”
Peter’s pulses jumped.
Gosh! Suppose he had burned those photographs. He hadn’t, but just suppose he had.
A drop of cold perspiration ran down his spine. He said in a difficult, halting voice,
“The bulging yellow box—in the bottom of the wardrobe?”
Lucy nodded.
“Yes, that’s where they’ll be, if she kept them—and she always kept everything.”
Peter got up, looked at Lee’s back, looked at the door, and without a word rushed out of the room and out of the flat.
Lucy stared after him in mild surprise, but Lee never turned round. She hardly knew he had gone, so far had she withdrawn from what was going on in the room.
And then Peter came back. He had the box in his hands—an aged, battered affair with one side gaping. And he was thinking that very likely this old battered box held two people’s lives—Bobby Foster’s life and—better not think about the other—better just keep on thinking about Bobby. He came across the room with an odd eager look on his face, plumped down on his stool again, and set the cardboard box across Lucy Craddock’s knees.
Lee turned round from the window and came slowly over to them. She knelt down by Lucy’s chair and sat back upon her heels. The feeling that something was going to happen was so strong that for the moment she had neither words, nor breath to say them with.
“Yes, that is it. I felt sure that Mary would have kept it—she always kept everything.”
Peter said, “Yes, she did,” in rather too heart-felt a tone. Then he untied the ribbon and pulled the lid off the box. A mass of small photographs cascaded into Lucy’s lap. She contemplated them in a slightly bewildered manner and said,
“Oh dear me—all the other photographs seem to be in here too. I wonder when Mary did that.”
She picked up a faded carte-de-visite which showed a little, round-faced girl with straight hair taken back under a comb, a skirt with a lot of frills, and a tiny apron with two pockets.
“Dear Mary at the age of six,” she said in a tenderly reminiscent voice.
Lee got her breath.
“Oh! It’s exactly like Alice in Wonderland—even the striped stockings!”
Lucy Craddock nodded.
“I think they are very pretty. And this is our father and mother taken on their wedding trip. I never remember him without a beard, and of course that makes a man look so much older, but here you see he has only those little mutton-chop whiskers, and I always think they were so very becoming. And this is my great aunt Sabina. Goodness—how frightened we were of her! You can see she looks very severe. She was so stout that she hardly ever got out of her chair, but she kept a strong ebony stick with an ivory knob beside her, and we used to be dreadfully afraid if we made a noise or did something she didn’t like that one day she would come after us, all huge and angry with the black stick tapping.”
“Definitely a menace,” said Peter. “Now, Lucinda, fascinating as these reminiscences are, we haven’t time for them just now. Let us have the life histories of our relations when we are not all expecting to be arrested. The only relation I feel I can give my mind to at the moment is Aggie Crouch.”
“Oh, my dear boy—not a relation!” protested Lucy Craddock in a horrified voice.
Peter looked at her reprovingly.
“My first cousin by marriage, Lucinda. Yours and Lee’s a little farther off, but still definitely connected. Anyhow, I want you to concentrate on her and her photographs. Have we got to sort through all this lot to find them, or are they by themselves?”
Lucy Craddock looked quite shocked.
“Oh, by themselves—dear Mary would never have mixed them up with our relations. I think at the very bottom of the box, in one of those thin light-coloured envelopes.”
Peter turned the whole box over. A full-sized cabinet photograph of great-uncle Henry Albert Craddock slid unnoticed to the floor, aunts and cousins overflowed into the seat of the chair. The light, thin envelope wavered upon the top of the pile. Peter picked it up and read an endorsement in faded ink:
“Photographs of Ross’s wife under her stage name of Rosalie La Fay.”
There were three photographs inside. Peter put in his hand and took one of them out. It was rather like taking a lucky dip, but there was nothing lucky about the draw, which was a hard, highly glazed photograph of a plump young woman in tights, with an enormous feathered hat upon her head. There was a fuzz of hair under the hat, a pair of rolling eyes very much made up, and a smile which displayed a great many not very even teeth. His heart sank like lead. The monstrous idea which he had entertained flew out of the window as he handed the picture to Lee with a casual,
“Well, I don’t think much of Ross’s taste.”
“She was supposed to be a very clever actress,” said Lucy Craddock in a doubtful voice—“very versatile. She was in a repertory company somewhere up in the north, I believe, but when she came to London she couldn’t get any work there. I haven’t seen the photographs for years, but I think there’s one of her as an old woman. The one Lee has got was when she was principal boy in Puss in Boots.”
Peter fished again, and got a severe-looking person with every hair strained back from her face and a heavy pair of spectacles on her nose. The figure had an angular look. The tight lips were primmed.
Miss Lucy nodded at the picture.
“You would never think it was the same person, would you? But it is. It was some play in which she took the part of a schoolmistress. She really was very versatile. See how different she can make herself look.”
Peter took out the third photograph. As he put his hand into the envelope, Lee turned her eyes upon his face. An agonizing suspense took hold of her. It seemed to slow everything down—the beating of her heart, the movement of Peter’s hand, her power to think.
She saw Peter’s hand come out of the envelope with the third photograph. She saw him look at it. She saw his face stiffen and then suddenly, violently change. She found voice enough for his name, but he drowned it.
“It’s true!” he said. “After all—after all—it is true!”
Lee said, “What?”
He got to his feet, came round behind Lucy Craddock’s chair, and leaning over her held the photograph where all three of them could see it. It showed a scraggy-looking female in a battered hat, a down-at-heels dress, and a torn apron. There was a straggle of grey hair beneath the hat. A draggled crochet shawl was clutched about the neck with one hand, the other held a dustpan and brush.
Lucy Craddock said in rather a dazed voice,
“She took the part of a charwoman in some play whose name I have forgotten.” Then she gave a little gasp and said, “Oh, my dear boy!”
; Lee kneeled up straight. Her feet and ankles had gone to sleep. She couldn’t feel them at all, but she couldn’t feel the rest of her body either. Only her hand shook and shook as she put it up to find Peter. Her voice was quite steady and clear as she said,
“It’s Mrs. Green.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
There was a dead silence. They all looked at the picture.
Peter was the first to speak. He said, “Well, it lets Bobby out,” and with that he went through to the hall and took the telephone down from its hook.
Lee got painfully to her feet. They were quite numb. Her mind felt like that too. If Mrs. Green was Ross’s wife, Aggie Crouch, then what was she doing here pretending to be Mrs. Green? And where was she now?
She heard Peter at the telephone, and then she heard the click as he put the receiver back. He came in and picked up the photograph. It had fallen into Lucy Craddock’s lap, where it lay in that proximity to the Craddock relations which the refinement of Miss Mary Craddock’s taste had proscribed. A portion of Aunt Sabina’s crinoline obscured the dustpan and brush. The head with its battered hat had come to rest on the proud shoulder of Uncle Henry Albert. He said,
“Lamb is coming round. Well, I suppose this lets us all out. Amazing—isn’t it?”
The Blind Side: An Ernest Lamb Mystery Page 19
