by Norrey Ford
He smiled affectionately. "You're in love with him, aren't you, child?"
"Don't you start! Mummy's incurably romantic, but I thought you had more sense, Daddy. Just because I bring a man home for a meal . . ." She caught his kind, quizzical eye on her and gave a high-pitched little laugh. "Oh—Daddy!"
"I thought as much. Well, does he love you?"
"He says so. But—I'm not sure whether he means it or whether it was just reaction. You see, he suddenly found out how horrible his girl, Brenda Worth, can be. It shocked him, and his—his saying he loved me—might have been a sort of rebound. Daddy, I love him so much I'm afraid to believe him—afraid to build too much on it. It happened so suddenly, like winning a football pool, and"—she smiled with sudden frankness—"you'd be afraid to believe that, just at first."
He nodded with understanding. "I wouldn't believe it until I had the cheque in my hand. You're a wise lass." He chuckled. "You've more sense than I thought."
"Well, could you say nothing about it, to anyone, not even Mummy? Promise, please, Daddy."
"All right." He crossed the room to her and kissed her smooth forehead. "But I think you'll find your mother has a pretty good idea already. Hello, here's Mr. Winn coming back alone."
Paul entered by the French window, and announced that Simon had gone to bed and didn't want supper.
Mr. March said quietly, "He'd had the odd beer too many, hadn't he? That isn't like Simon. Thanks for taking him off so quickly. I didn't want his mother to see."
Paul smiled. "It happens to all of us once, Mr. March."
The older man nodded. "You're right. Most of us learn by experience. I'm not worried. Simon is a good boy."
Soon afterwards, Paul said he must go, and Sally walked with him to his car. "I've said a good many thank you's today, Paul. All very sincere ones. You saved my life, you backed me up in my fib to stop my parents worrying, and you whisked Simon out of sight before Mummy noticed anything amiss." She put a hand on his sleeve and looked up at him. "You really are a very nice person, Paul Winn."
He lifted her hand and laid it to his cheek with a little pat. He wanted to take her in his arms again, to feel the small weight of her slim young body leaning on him for support, to touch with his lips her warm flower-scented skin. But he held back. He had rushed things, in the relief of finding her safe and sound. The sight of her unconscious form, the realisation of the terror she must have suffered, had set alight his love like a match applied to a great firework set-piece. To her, it must have seemed a sudden, inexplicable flare, but it was not. Over the weeks, the months, in which he had known her it had been growing in the dark; overlooked in the brittle coruscation of his silly infatuation for Brenda. He groaned, and she lifted startled eyes to his face.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing. Only a twinge of conscience." He would not say again that he loved her. Not yet. Quite rightly, she had received his sudden declaration in the car with a certain reserve. He deserved that. But in her own time she'd come around to the idea. He was not without hope, for her eyes and her smile said more than her lips. He tapped her rounded brown arm with one finger.
"Time you were in bed and getting your beauty sleep. We have a big day before us tomorrow."
She smiled in the deepening dusk. "Goodness, I'd forgotten." She expected him to kiss her, but he did not. He said goodnight with a gentle pressure on her shoulder—and that was all.
She strolled back to the house thoughtfully. Queer, how Paul had suddenly turned cool and reserved—almost as though he was already regretting his earlier outburst!
She met her mother carrying a tray with Simon's supper. "The boy must have a bite to eat, Sally." "I'll take it, Mummy."
Simon was hunched in a crimson plush chair, staring at his feet. She put the tray by him gently. "I'm frightfully sorry I made you miss the tennis."
"What? Oh, that! Don't worry, I'd have missed the match anyway. Sally, those men were detectives."
CHAPTER EIGHT
SALLY sank to the floor beside Simon, and looked up into his young, wretched face. "Simon, you haven't done anything wrong? By mistake, I mean."
"I may have. I'll probably end up in jail. That'll be nice for Father, a bank manager."
An ice-cold feather riffled Sally's skin. She shivered in the warm evening. Simon reached for a cigarette, but held it unlit between shaking fingers. "If I could lay hands on Max Shand I'd wring his fat neck. He's leaving me to hold the baby."
She clutched his shoulders. "Darling, darling Simon, no one shall put you in prison, least of all Max. He's a beast and a swine. Tell me everything."
"I don't know everything I told you that business about the new cars was queer." He smiled bitterly. "I should have told the police. It seems to have been a scheme for dodging tax, a matter of juggling with invoices, and—dash it, I'm no financial genius. I only know about cars. I suppose that's why they picked on me to work their dirty racket for them."
Sally sat back on her heels, scowling. She felt sick, shaken, as if her heart had turned to ice, brittle and cold. "But Mr. Winn—Paul's father—said he'd looked into Max's affairs and was satisfied that his business was thoroughly sound."
"It would be. All correct and above-board. Trust Maxie. It's only little brother Simon's business that isn't above-board. Muggins sold the cars. Muggins delivered them to the customers. And Muggins took his rake-off."
"Rake-off? Simon, you didn't?"
"Oh yes, I did. Only it was called commission, and I thought I was an up-and-coming young salesman. Instead, I'm simply a nasty crook."
"You're not a crook. When it's all investigated, they'll see you are innocent."
"I sincerely hope so! Otherwise I shall get a long stretch of prison. As I'm a respectable type they'll send me to one of those prisons without bars—that'll be charming. Father won't be too pleased, though. A bank manager with a son behind locked doors."
"Stop talking like that! It doesn't help. We must do something. You must see a solicitor."
"I doubt if that would help. Someone has to hold the baby, and that someone will be me. You may be sure it's all been fixed very cleverly. But if you like, I'll talk to your Paul Winn. He's a decent chap and he'll probably understand. But, Sally . . ." He put head in hands and groaned. "I've been such a fool. How can I make anyone understand I didn't know all about this?"
"You did suspect. You told me things looked fishy."
"But I let them go on. That was criminally idiotic."
She drew his hands from his face. "Simon, I'm sure it will be all right. No one who is innocent can be sent to prison. Go to bed now, and we'll talk again tomorrow."
Sally could not sleep. She sat up in bed, hands clasped round her knees, staring unhappily into the half-dark of the warm night. Two thoughts chased each other round her brain with monotonous regularity.
Paul said he loved her.
Simon might go to prison.
She had spoken confidently to her brother, but in her own mind she was not confident at all. Maybe Simon was too deeply involved to be extricated by any lawyer, however clever. Maybe Max and his partners would come out of it all with clean records, while Simon paid for their frauds in jail.
And what about little Caro? She loved and trusted Max, expected to marry him. And Caro's father was quite satisfied about Max's credentials. Suppose they all believed Simon guilty, believed he was trying to involve Max to save his own skin?
She slid out of bed and padded to the window, letting the scented night air play on her hot face. It couldn't be true that Paul loved her. Perhaps this very minute he was lying awake at Lawnside, regretting his impulsive words. More than anything in the world, she wanted it to be true that Paul loved her, but deep in her heart she was afraid he might have spoken on the rebound, that most dangerous and unpredictable of emotional states. It wasn't the decent thing to catch a man on the rebound, even if you loved him. He had to have his chance of going back on what he had said, in case—just in case—his t
ongue had run away with him and he hadn't meant all of it.
She went back to bed and lay flat, staring at the shadowy ceiling. Tears trickled across her temples and over her ears into the roots of her hair.
If Paul knew about Simon he'd never go back on last night, even if he wanted to. He'd be trapped by his own chivalry. He'd stand by her. She pressed her hands over her mouth to smother a sob. Bad enough to involve Paul in the Simon affair if he truly loved her. But if he didn't?
Yesterday, she could have taken Simon to Paul on a proper solicitor-and-client footing. But everything had been changed.
If her whirling thoughts meant anything, they meant that Paul mustn't know about Simon. And she must say no to him even if he truly loved her and asked her to marry him.
Until the Simon affair was settled, Paul must be kept at arm's length, for his own sake and for the sake of his career. A reputable solicitor mustn't have a brother-in-law in the dock or in prison. She couldn't do that to Paul.
The pearly light of dawn was creeping into the room before she slept.
When Sally arrived at the Magistrates' Court, Paul was already there, marshalling his clients. He smiled and nodded in her direction. She pushed her way to his side.
"Can I help?"
He grinned humorously. "Not now. When you see the last case is finishing, go back to the office. Tell Ware I want to see all the staff together before they go home."
It was almost five when Paul arrived at the office. He looked exhausted after a day of hard fighting in the stuffy court-room. Briefly, he explained to the assembled staff that Sally had been locked in the big safe and had only been rescued by a lucky chance.
"I always said it would happen!" Miss Moffat whispered audibly. "Nasty old-fashioned thing."
Paul paralysed her tongue with a cold stare. "Miss Downes, you were asked to tell Mr. Ware that Miss March had gone to the safe. Why didn't you?"
Miss Downes paled to a mottled yellow. "But I did."
Paul turned to the old Chief Clerk. "Well, Mr. Ware?"
Ware tugged his lower lip. "I hate to get anyone into trouble, but this is a vital issue. Miss Downes never gave me any such message. Naturally, I'd have passed it on to you, sir, with the keys."
Miss Downes wiped her lips nervously. Sally pitied the woman with all her fresh young heart; even if her carelessness had had such a disastrous result, she was not the only one to blame. Paul had never looked so cold, implacable. She wished he would stop this inquisition.
"Well, Miss Downes?"
The woman looked wildly from one to another. "Alice," she appealed to Miss Moffat. "You remember my going in to Mr. Ware?"
Miss Moffat turned dull red, then sallow. She said, in a high cracked voice, "Oh, Edie, she might have died, poor little thing! I'm ever so sorry, dear, but I just don't remember. You only went to the cloakroom." She began to cry. "I'm ever so sorry."
Paul said firmly, "You'll leave our employment at the end of the week, Miss Downes. Carelessness of this order I cannot and will not overlook."
Sally said quickly, "Please don't. She'd find it hard to get another job."
Miss Downes sprang up, face working with temper. "Because I'm not young and blue-eyed, and don't suck up to the boss. I'm not attractive enough to work for Mr. Paul, to be kept late working every evening. Working! Miss Worth knew what to believe when she heard where her precious Mr. Winn had been all these evenings."
Sally cried out in startled surprise, "You wrote that letter?"
Paul snapped, "What letter?" but Miss Downes ignored him. She swept on in a torrent of words. "Yes, I did. I thought it was time she knew a thing or two. You took the job I should have had—I was senior. You took the summer holiday I wanted, the s-second half of August . . ." She choked with angry sobs. Miss Moffat put an arm round her and led her out to the cloakroom.
"Can't you let her off, Paul?" Sally begged. "She's middle-aged and not very speedy now."
Mr.' Ware coughed. "She is reliable on routine work. I agree with Mr. Paul, she must go, but I'll put in a word here and there for her. She was upset about the holidays—thought it beneath her to go Bank Holiday time. Trivial, but not to her. It's a matter of prestige, and women like Miss Downes build a lot on prestige. They haven't anything else, you see. Leave it to me, Mr. Paul."
In his own room, Paul said, "It was sweet and Sally-ish of you to stick up for poor old Downes. I'm sorry for her in a way. No"—he held up a warning hand—"nothing you say will induce me to change my mind and keep her. What was that about a letter? Tell me the truth."
"Brenda said someone told her about"—she blushed hotly, turning away from him—"our 'goings-
on' in the office at nights. I wondered who could have such a grudge against me—or you."
He looked grave a moment. "Now we know. Brenda and that poor old thing out there are the same at heart. Jealous, ready to resent an imagined slight, revengeful." He sighed. "We ought to pity them, Sally. It's their nature—they live with a devil inside. All the same. . . ." He shook his head as if emerging from deep water, and her heart contracted with sympathy. All this trouble, on top of such a hectic day in Court!
"Brenda will have to understand that everything is finished between us, forever. She can't talk herself out of this situation. When that final reckoning is over"—he moved towards her and his voice dropped to a deep note—"I shall try to prove to you that you are the one I really love."
Her body tautened with fear. She took a step or two away from him. "No, Paul."
He knew he had some headway to make, but was not prepared for the sharp fear in her voice. It puzzled him.
"Am I so repulsive to you?"
She loved him with her whole soul. She felt confused and unhappy, longing above all things to lay her head on his shoulder and tell him candidly all her worries about Simon. But for his own sake she must not. To turn him away now was the hard way 'but, she was convinced, the right way.
"Of course you're not repulsive. We're friends, I hope. But"—her voice shook in spite of her every effort—"we shall never be anything more than friends, Paul." She did not know where she found the strength to say the words. She only knew that in some strange way her love for him was greater than her longing.
The skin about Paul's nostrils whitened. She had struck him a blow over the heart. She had never seemed more desirable than at this moment. There were smudged shadows under her wide-set eyes, her soft mouth trembled. Paul understood how it had
troubled her kind heart to hurt him—to make him realise he had had his chance and lost it. She had told him he had been unkind to her, and how true that was! The Shand affair, for instance! What stupidity made him take everyone's word, everyone's part, except hers? Jealousy —the sin for which he now condemned Brenda. The searing anger which burned away common sense and kindness, which made him crave the satisfaction of hurting her, was nothing but green jealousy. Very well, so—if he had sinned he must take his punishment, bite on the bullet and say nothing.
He bent his head. "Very well, Sally. If you will have it so." Perhaps some day, far away in the future, he might try again, but for the moment he could only acknowledge his shortcomings and accept his lady's decision.
Sally was, in a way, relieved that he did not argue. She knew she had not strength to resist him; she was weak with longing for the strength and comfort of his arms. If he had refused to listen to her, swept her close to him, kissed her and assured her of his love! But he did not. She straightened, holding her aching head high. Just a scrap more courage was needed, just one more effort, to get herself out of his room and away from the office.
"I must go, Paul. It's late and we have both had a trying day. Especially you. You were marvellous in Court."
His back was towards her. He stared at a mahogany bookcase stuffed with leather-bound volumes. `Not so good. There were two I ought to have got off. That thin little woman and the old man."
His professional pride was hurt when he lost a case, however much of a "lost
cause" it might have been. He hated failure for himself. She dared not allow herself the luxury of even a word of consolation. She was too near tears. Without another word, she stole out of the room.
The outer office staff had left. Alone in the cloakroom she cooled her hot face with eau-de-cologne, powdered, and tidied her hair. When she felt able to face the street with reasonable poise, she picked up her handbag and made for the outer door. Then she remembered a thing she must do, for Simon's sake. Paul was still in his room, and there was a question she must ask. It meant pocketing her pride, but when someone one loves is in trouble, pride cannot help them and must be pushed aside in favour of more practical aid.
She returned. He was stuffing papers into his briefcase, a shabby bulging case she had seen so often that it was almost part of him. Oddly, the well-worn leather case moved her more deeply, at this moment, than Paul himself; it was familiar, friendly, eloquent of the many hours they had spent together in the close companionship of hard work; it had been the faithful, inseparable third in almost everything they'd done, and it alone had not changed. It remained its old, scuffed, misshapen self, bulging even when empty. It had not changed with the events of the last few days. It would stay with Paul even after she had gone out of his life and been forgotten. She blinked a tear away.
"I meant to ask you—do you know where Max is? I—I have to get in touch with him."
He was plainly astonished. "In touch with Max? Why?"
She could not tell him why, and seeing her obvious embarrassment, he apologised at once. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business. Or—is it, Sally?"
"It doesn't concern Caro, if that's what you mean. But it is awfully important. I must speak to him and I don't know how to get in touch with him. There's no answer from his London office."
His eyebrows shot upwards. "You've written to London?"
"Simon has. They simply say he's gone away. I thought Caro might knew."
He sat at his desk and stared at her. "Let me get this straight. You want to talk to Max so urgently that your brother writes to London, and now—in spite of the fact that it's a sore subject between us—you want me to ask Caro where he is? You must want him pretty desperately, Sally. Is it a thing in which I can help you?"
