by Norrey Ford
"I didn't see her."
The ever-alert monitor in Paul's brain registered she's lying. He was astonished. Why should Brenda lie about so trivial a matter? But he felt sure he was not mistaken. Tb test his own accuracy as much as Brenda's he watched a hard rally by two Wimbledon
stars, and then said casually, "Was Sally wearing blue or grey?"
Brenda's attention was on the game. "A light grey suit."
"So you did see her?"
The girl moved impatiently. "I suppose I did, subconsciously. It didn't strike me as important enough to remember."
He said urgently, "Try. Which way did she go when she left the building?"
"I don't remember. I—I didn't see her leave. Paul, I came to watch tennis."
"So did I. Right or left?"
She screwed her eyes up against the evening sun. "She came down the stairs and turned into a darkish sort of passage."
"To the right or left?"
"I don't remember." Again the lying tone. "In heaven's name, why?"
He dropped a heavy hand on her wrist. "Brenda, pay attention. You must remember. Right or left?" he was almost shouting. She glanced around them uncomfortably. "Paul, do be quiet. Left, I think. Her left as she came down."
He dropped her wrist and stood up. Some of the spectators murmured, irritated.
"Paul, where are you going?"
"To the office." His face looked yellow under a summer tan, the nostrils pinched. He pushed his way blindly towards the exit, without apology or explanation to Brenda. She stared after him, eyes brilliant with fury.
Paul found Sally in a heap just by the safe door. The air which rushed out was nauseatingly stale. He lifted her up, his heart tight with fear.
As he carried her towards the air in the draughty passage she opened her eyes with a tiny cry like a trapped animal, and clung to him fiercely.
"It's all finished, Sally. You're safe. I'm here," he reassured her, understanding her terrified clutch.
She relaxed, and he placed her gently on her feet. "There, darling. Can you stand? Hold on to me."
She hid her face in her hands and cried, long painful sobs. "I thought no one was coming. It was so awful."
His mouth was grim. "I can imagine. Let me help you to my car. I'll drive you home."
She lifted her face to the narrow strip of sky between the buildings. "It's still day. I thought it would be the middle of the night."
"It would have been tomorrow morning but for Brenda. She remembered seeing you go along that passage as she called for me. Her remembering probably saved your life."
"Remembered? You make it sound like an effort." "It was, in a way. You see, she'd only noted you subconsciously as she passed."
"She must have the funniest subconscious in Christendom, then."
Sally began to laugh. She laughed until Paul picked her up and carried her out to the car, then she apologised and blotted her streaming eyes. "S-sorry. I sound like the parrot house."
"You're entitled to," he assured her. "What did you mean about the funniest subconscious?"
"The last time I saw Brenda Worth she was pushing at the safe door like a trained elephant. Hardly a thing one does absentmindedly." She began to laugh again. "I was pushing, too, but you know how it is with that safe door. Once it starts to move, nothing can stop it."
He stared, blankly astonished. "Pushing? You and Brenda? Why?"
She had endured as much as she could stand, and suddenly she lost her temper. "Don't be so dull-witted. How else do you suppose I got shut up in the wretched thing?"
He wagged his head feebly as if she had dealt him a knock-out blow. "Are you telling me Brenda shut you in?"
"Didn't she tell you?"
"Of course not! She couldn't have. Dash it, I locked the safe! I did it to save old Ware the trek upstairs with the keys. His lumbago's bad."
"Mr. Ware always looks inside the safe—always. I couldn't understand why he didn't this time, especially as I'd left a message with Miss Downes." She smiled. "I yelled and yelled. Didn't you hear?"
He covered his face with his hands. "Don't. I can't bear it. I might have killed you. Miss Downes didn't say a word, and"—he lifted a grim face—"Brenda stood beside me and let me turn the key. Sally, you must be mistaken. She can't have known you were inside." His voice had a pleading note, like a small boy begging for reassurance.
"I'm sorry, Paul," Sally said, with quiet determination. "But Miss Worth did know. She herself shut the door, in spite of all I could do. I admit it would have been much pleasanter all round if we could say it was an accident. It wasn't."
Just then Brenda's car turned into the narrow street.
Paul got out of his own car and opened Brenda's door. He moved heavily, as if dazed.
What next, Sally wondered? Her word against mine, and he in love with her.
Brenda was furious. "It wasn't enough that you broke every engagement we had for two whole weeks, but you had to walk out on me before all our friends. I was never so humiliated in my life."
"I'm sorry, Brenda. I didn't mean to humiliate you. I was anxious for Sally's life, and with good cause. She was locked in the office safe, and almost unconscious when I found her."
Brenda gave Sally a blank, unfocused stare. "She has many ways of thrusting herself before your notice, it seems, Paul." She laid a long slim hand on his arm. "Can't you see this girl is an exhibitionist? She'll stop at nothing to draw attention to herself."
Sally said furiously, "That's not true, Miss Worth."
"Sally says you shut her in the safe, Brenda."
She was evidently ready for the accusation, for she smiled and shrugged lightly. "What did I tell you, darling? She'll indulge in any fantasy to thrust herself forward."
"Do you deny it?"
"Of course I should, if I took the accusation seriously. Surely you don't, Paul?"
"You were wearing a coat," Sally told her calmly. "A short, scarlet coat, over a white dress."
Brenda, jerked out of her self-possession, glanced nervously at Paul. "That's not very clever. She can see I'm wearing white. And she's seen the red coat in my car."
"I can't see it," Paul said slowly. He strode back to Brenda's car and looked in. "It isn't here. You must have left it at the club."
Brenda stood perfectly still, her self-possession seeping from her. The sharp twitter of starlings in the ancient buildings cut into the silence which fell between the three.
"It was only a joke," the girl said at last.
"A poor joke," Paul declared. "You could have killed her, Brenda. And if you meant it as a joke, how could you stand by and watch me turn the key?"
At the savage rip in his voice Brenda paled. Her long fingers crept higher and encircled her throat, tan on cream. She moistened her lips. "How did I know the little idiot was still there? Doesn't that prove she did it for effect? Why didn't she come out?"
"The door won't open from the inside," Paul told her.
"She could have shouted."
"I did," said Sally. "I yelled and yelled. But the safe was too thick."
Brenda searched Paul's face for a look of sympathy. Finding no help there, she shrugged. "I'm sorry if my little joke fell flat. I might have known this girl would twist it to her own advantage. All right, Paul—I'll leave you, but take care. Sally March is an opportunist, and she's in love with you."
She drove away, much too competent to do it badly, in spite of her blazing temper.
Paul clambered back into the car. Sally's face was crimson.
He said coolly, "We'd better see about getting you home. That nice mother of yours will be worried."
The drive gave Sally a chance to recover her composure. She hoped Paul had not noticed Brenda's last thrust, but when they were clear of the town and approaching the suburb, he said quietly, "Is it true, Sally? Are you in love with me?"
Her mouth quickened into an amused smile. "And if I were, Mr. Paul Winn, would you expect me to say so?"
He pulled i
nto a side-road and stopped under a blossoming lime tree. The scented green flowers, the smell of cut grass, the whirr of a lawnmower and the light gleam of a new-painted pillar-box evoked her home so sharply that tears of new appreciation stood in Sally's eyes. Brenda would despise Suburbia, no doubt, but how pleasant it all was, with the bright gardens and painted villas, the happy dogs, the girls and boys off to tennis or cricket; that fatherly-looking man clipping the privet; a doll's pram on the lawn. How decent the people were! Good neighbours, not horrid to each other like the Worths and—yes, the Winns, too.
He smiled with his eyes. "Well, there's no need to cry about it. I know Brenda only meant it as a parting stab, to make us both uncomfortable. But you see, Sally—I love you."
She lifted her chin, and he caught the flash of angry pride in her clear eyes. "There's no need for that, Mr. Winn. Miss Worth meant her remark to embarrass me, not you. I suggest we both forget it."
He took her hands in his and forced her to face him. "I shall not forget it, because it's true. Isn't it, Sally?"
She looked down at their clasped hands. "I am grateful for the rescue," she told him demurely.
"All right. Hit a man when he's down. Sally, you must know I've loved you ever since that first ridiculous supper we had together."
"You have a queer way of showing it."
He brushed that aside impatiently. "I know. You see, I was so het up about Brenda I didn't know what had happened to me. I couldn't get you out of my mind. Your funny little smile, the way your eyes twinkle with mischief, your gallant swinging walk. Dash it, woman," he was shouting angrily. "You've haunted me for weeks! When I saw you crumpled in a heap on the safe floor, I thought for a horrible moment you were dead—and I knew the sun had fallen out of the sky for me."
Sally groped for sanity. She'd loved Paul for ages—all her life, it seemed. She had dreamed of this very thing, that he should tell her he loved her. And now all she felt was a consuming rage.
She wrenched her hands free. "It isn't true," she gasped. "I don't love you at all and you don't love me. You've been perfectly h-horrid to me." Her lips trembled and she closed them firmly.
"Horrid?"
"About Caro and that awful Max. You believed him and you wouldn't listen to me."
"My poor angel, I'm so sorry. Later, of course, I knew you must be right, but I couldn't tell you so. You ran away."
"You could have told me later, at the office."
"You were so stand-offish and prickly. Besides, you didn't really need to be told in so many words, did you?"
"Women always need to be told in so many words. And if I was stand-offish, I had every reason to be."
"You are cross with me, aren't you? I've a good mind to pop you back in the safe." He put an arm round her shoulder, and discovered she was trembling.
"Don't be too cross," he whispered, close to her ear. "Remember, I thought all the time you were in love with him."
She was so surprised that she chuckled, her ill-temper melting like hoar frost in sunshine. "Oh, Paul, don't be so silly. How could I possibly go on loving Max when . . ." She stopped, covering her laughing red mouth with her fingers, and blushing so rosily that Paul roared with delight.
"When you loved me!" he finished for her. He pulled her close to him and kissed her, a long hard kiss that bruised her lips and set her pulses pounding. As long as the kiss lasted they were lost in time and space.
He released her suddenly, conscious that they were in a suburban avenue, with who-knew-howmany curious eyes watching from behind the frilled curtains. Remembering, too, that she had had a bad shock and it was his duty to take her home.
"Time you were home, young Sally," he announced. He started the car, and drove sedately all the rest of the way to her home, feeling remarkably responsible and protective, as a man should who has just come to his senses and discovered himself in love with the right girl and rid forever of an obsession about the wrong one.
Sally leaned back on the leather seat, watching his profile as he drove. She hardly believed what had happened. Had Paul really said he loved her? And if so—if the whole thing wasn't a dream come to torment her during her imprisonment—might it not be merely reaction after the shock of discovering Brenda's true nature? Perhaps tomorrow he would regret his impulsiveness.
But whatever Paul's feelings, she knew she loved him. She had felt his arms round her, felt his hard kisses burning her mouth, and now she would love him forever and always, and never love anyone else as long as she lived.
When they reached her home, Sally ran in and hugged her father and mother until they protested mildly.
"Hey, hey!" said Mr. March, unwinding her arms from his neck. "You're crumpling my best tie. Anybody would think you'd just come back from a trip round the world. You've messed up your mother's hair, too. What's the excitement? Did your pet player win? I thought the match would last much longer than this."
"I haven't been, after all. I had—er—urgent work to do at the office." Her eyes begged Paul to support her in this considerate fib. "Where's poor old Simon? I was sorry to let him down."
Mr. and Mrs. March exchanged glances. "Didn't you meet him?"
Sally shook her head. Paul, not knowing how much she wished to keep from her parents, kept silent and aloof.
"Two chaps called for him," Mr. March said. "They wanted to see him urgently, so we told them where he'd gone. They said they'd pick him up at the club. I wonder if they did."
"Customers or friends?"
"Nobody your mother or I knew, so I suppose customers. He's working hard, is Simon. Down at that place all hours, and asking me all the questions there are about financial matters, from hire-purchase to income tax."
For a girl who had missed a longed-for treat, Sally was in high spirits. Her laughter bubbled joyously. She sang snatches of song as she helped her mother lay the supper table. Paul, gravely discussing income-tax with Mr. March, watched her covertly. This was a new Sally; not the efficient Miss March, not even the Sally he had known at his own home, for she had been subdued by her illness. This Sally radiated health, vitality, pure happiness.
Her father said, "Our little daughter finds it good to be alive today, Mr. Winn," and Paul smiled
agreement, thinking his host had hit the nail bang on the head. Sally was remarkably lucky to be alive—and no one knew that better than Sally.
He felt pretty pleased with life himself. The conflict which had raged in his mind for weeks was now resolved. Brenda had held him so long; enthralled by her beauty, her grace and breeding, he had blinded himself to her faults of character. Sally had first appeared in his life during one of his lucid intervals, when his uneasy relationship with Brenda had been temporarily disrupted by a quarrel. What a prize fool he'd been to let her go then—to allow Brenda's cool beauty to reassert its sway! But, of course, he'd believed Sally in love with another man. Up to today he'd believed Max held her heart—so what could he do but steel himself against her?
He returned from his musings to find Mr. March studying him rather anxiously. "Sorry—did you say something? I was day-dreaming."
His host looked relieved. "Was that it? You looked as though something had disagreed with you."
Paul grimaced ruefully. "I was thinking I'm the world's prize idiot, Mr. March."
"Ah, yes. That discovery takes a bit of digesting. I remember thinking it about myself once." He chuckled richly. "And wasn't I glad to get rid of her."
"Her!"
"The girl. Don't tell me there isn't a girl in your case, because I know better. Only a woman can make a man feel as foolish as that."
"All right, I admit it. There is a very lovely girl. In fact—two."
Sally came in then with the coffee, and both men turned to look at her. She was worth it. She had made time to change from the neat grey office suit to a stiffened cotton in pink, with a pattern of moss rosebuds. Her young, firmly moulded neck rose from the crisp white organdie collar like a proud flower. Both men's hearts were mov
ed by her youthful innocence and charm. Paul had a quickly stifled impulse to throw himself at her feet, and rather wished
he'd been born in an age when no one would have been much surprised at such behaviour. And Mr. March noticed at last that his daughter was grown up and desirable, and though he didn't wish her to be plain, he wished she wasn't quite so—so marriageable, because the house would be desolate indeed when her light presence was gone. If he was not mistaken, this young solicitor had his eye on little Sally; suddenly he knew what was making the girl so happy and full of fun tonight, and was so pleased with his discovery that he had to bumble out to the kitchen to tell his wife.
She laughed at him affectionately. "You silly old man. I knew that an hour ago."
He glanced over his shoulder like a conspirator. "Has anything been said?"
"I don't think so. Sally is a clam. But I'll stake my best hat something has happened. George, who were those men, the ones who came for Simon? To me, they looked sort of—sinister."
He put a husbandly arm of great comfort round her shoulder. "Don't be a goose. You've been seeing too much TV, that's your trouble." He gave his rich chuckle. "Sinister? Bless my cotton socks, what next?"
Simon came in at the end of a Kathleen Ferrier record, and stood listening to the glorious voice without disturbing anyone. Only Paul noticed that he rocked slowly on his feet.
Sally took off the record, her eyes starry with delight in the music. Simon said, "What happened to you?" His voice was slurred, his eyes not quite focused.
His mother said anxiously, "Oh, Simon—did those two men find you?"
"Yes. We've been—talking. Sally, where . . ."
Paul took his elbow. "Show me your flat, Simon. Sally's been telling me about it." Smoothly he led the boy out of the French window and into the garden.
Mrs. March trotted out to the kitchen muttering something about supper. Sally and her father exchanged a troubled look.
"That boy's bothered about something. I wish I knew what it was, Sally. He hasn't been himself."
"I know. I think the work is too much for him sometimes; Max leaves all the responsibility to him, and he gets worried. Leave it to Paul, Daddy. Perhaps he'll find out. No one can have secrets when Paul is around. He winkles the truth out of you."
