Jasper experienced a feeling of relief. His heart was beating with great violence. His head swam with triumph. He had kissed her and they were both still, so to speak, here. He didn’t quite know where he expected them to be, but he had the feeling that something might have blown up. She might have been horribly angry, she might have sent him away, she might not have let him help her—all horrible things to contemplate when your twentieth birthday is still three months ahead. Hence the relief. Perhaps next time he wouldn’t miss her lips. Perhaps—
Shirley was shaking him by the arm.
“So you see, I simply must have a suit-case! Oh, Jas—you’re not listening!”
For the moment Jasper had been quite incapable of listening, but it was borne in upon him that if he didn’t pull himself together and listen now, Shirley would be annoyed. He said,
“I am listening.”
“You weren’t—but you’ve got to. Jas, do you think you could sleuth into the house, and pack a suit-case, and bring it here?”
He had no difficulty in listening now.
“Of course I could.”
Shirley very nearly kissed him. It was so difficult not to kiss people when you were fond of them and they were being angel lambs. But perhaps better not. Jas had had a kind of yearning look just now, like a dog watching the cake at tea and hoping it is going to get some. Perhaps kinder not to raise false hopes, because of course the cake belonged to Anthony, so it wasn’t any good encouraging Jas to yearn.
She said, “Angel!” and kept her arm stiff in case he tried to kiss her again. But he didn’t—only said in a tone of melancholy devotion,
“What do you want?”
“Everything,” said Shirley with an expansive gesture.
The realist in Jasper asserted himself.
“You can’t get everything into a suit-case.”
“I know, darling—isn’t it a pity?”
“Well, what do you want most?”
The realist produced a blotted piece of paper and a fountain pen and prepared to make a list. Shirley began to tick things off on her fingers.
“Must have a toothbrush. Aunt Emily would have had a fit if she’d seen me cleaning my teeth with the corner of a station hotel face-towel.”
“Toothbrush,” said Jasper, and wrote it down.
“My blue dressing-gown—it’s hanging behind the door. And a pair of pyjamas out of the left-hand corner of the first long drawer—not the blue ones, because they want mending, but there’s a pink pair underneath. And the top pair of cami-knickers—they’re in the same drawer—at least I hope the top pair’s all right, but you’d better just have a look at the shoulder-straps.”
“Why?”
“To make sure they’re all right. If the top pair’s wonky, take the next.”
Jasper gloomed at the list.
“Anything else?”
“Brush and comb—right-hand top drawer. Powder-puff and powder-box. And there are some handkerchiefs in that drawer, and stockings. If you love me, don’t take a pair with a hole.”
Jasper gloomed at her instead of at the list.
“And what happens if the Maltby comes up whilst I’m rummaging in your drawers finding shoulder-straps and testing out stockings for holes?”
Shirley stamped her foot on a paving-stone.
“Don’t be silly! How can she come up? She isn’t there.”
“Isn’t she then?”
She stamped again, with a cold shiver going over her.
“Jas, she isn’t, she isn’t—she’s at Emshot. I saw her there last night.”
“Well, you’ve come back, and so has she.”
“She’s really here? You’re not saying it to frighten me?”
He stuffed the fountain pen into his pocket and caught her by the arm.
“Shirley—what’s up? Why should you be frightened of the Maltby? She’s an old beast, but why should you be frightened of her? What’s been happening—what’s all this about? I can’t just make lists and fetch suit-cases and not know what it’s all about. You’re driving me mad. I thought I’d go off my head when you didn’t come home yesterday and the police came.” He choked, staring at her with tortured intensity, and then suddenly let go of her and turned away. “I don’t care what you’ve done. Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to. It doesn’t make any difference, only if I knew, it wouldn’t be so—so—” His voice broke off.
Shirley was in two minds as to whether she was going to cry or fly into a rage. Fortunately the rage had it. There was a good deal of bright colour in her cheeks as she jerked him by the sleeve.
“Will you look at me! What do you suppose I’ve done? I thought you were my friend. Are you going to stand there and dare to tell me you believe—you actually believe—I went into the Maltby’s pig of a room and pinched her sixpences?”
“Shirley!”
“She says I did. And of course you believe what she says!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—I never heard of her blighted sixpences. Shirley!”
He was looking at her with such a desperate appeal that the anger went out of her. She said with a little gurgle of laughter,
“What an ass you are! Did you really think I’d been stealing? I wouldn’t believe a hundred policemen about you.”
“I nearly went mad when you didn’t come back.”
She slipped her hand inside his arm again.
“Well, you can’t go mad now—there isn’t time. Now tell me, what did that policeman say?”
“He searched your room. He said things were missing at Mrs Huddleston’s—and when you didn’t come home—”
She patted his shoulder.
“I know—you nearly went mad—you keep on saying so. Now look here—this is what really happened.”
“I don’t want you to tell me unless you really want to.”
Shirley made a most hideous Woggy Doodle at him.
“Oh, Jas, do dry up! I want you to help me. Now listen—some one’s trying to get me into a mess. I don’t know who it is, and I don’t know why they’re doing it. All sorts of little things have been happening. The Maltby’s sixpences was one of them. And then yesterday when I came away from Revelston Crescent something banged against my leg, and after I’d got into the bus I found out what it was—Mrs Huddleston’s big diamond brooch. Someone had slit my pocket lining and pushed it right down into the hem of my coat.”
Jasper stared at her.
“But why?”
“I don’t know why—I keep telling you so. Well, I lost my head and ran away. I did start to go back and tell Mrs Huddleston, but when I got in sight of the house there was a policeman going in, and I funked it and bolted.”
“Where did you bolt to?”
“To Anthony Leigh—Mrs Huddleston’s nephew. I thought he’d be the best person to explain to her, and I knew where he was—he’d gone down to Emshot for the week-end. So I went after him and—Jas, the most awful thing, after he’d put me into an hotel and gone off with the diamond brooch—he had to park me somewhere, because it was getting on for one o’clock in the morning—”
The mention of Anthony Leigh had chilled Jasper to the bone. The realist came to the fore again, breaking in upon Shirley’s disjointed narrative with a stern.
“You’re getting all tied up. Where were you?”
“At the Station Hotel, Ledlington. I was telling you.”
“No, you weren’t!”
“Yes, I was!”
They glared at each other. Then Shirley broke down into a laugh.
“I was trying to, darling. You weren’t being terribly helpful. And what I was trying to tell you was that after Anthony had been gone for hours and hours I found out that the diamond brooch wasn’t the only thing that had been hidden in my coat. There were a lot of Mrs Huddleston’s emeralds there as well in the hem on the other side.”
“Mrs Huddleston’s emeralds?”
Shirley nodded.
“Napoleon gave them to Jose
phine, and Mrs Huddleston’s grandpapa gave them to Mrs. Huddleston’s grandmamma.” She gazed at him with an awful solemnity, and then began to giggle.
“Wasn’t it awful?”
Jasper’s frown was an attempt to conceal the fact that he was now completely bewildered. He said with an angry note in his voice,
“Are you making this up?”
Shirley went on giggling.
“No, darling—I’m not clever enough.”
“Then what’s Napoleon got to do with it?”
“N-nothing. He just gave them to Josephine—when he came back from Italy, you know. They’ve got N’s all over them.”
“What have?” Mr Wrenn was now scowling like a brigand.
Shirley patted him on the arm.
“The emeralds. I knew you weren’t attending. There’s a whole set of them—a headband, and earrings, and two brooches, but they only planted me with the headband and one of the brooches. Perhaps I shall find the earrings in my toothpaste when I get hold of it. Do you know, I had to wash my teeth with hotel soap on the corner of a towel this morning. It tasted revolting.”
Jasper pulled himself away with a jerk.
“Is this true?”
“Absolutely. Darling, why should I deceive you? It was bright pink soap like a sugar sweet, but it tasted of tallow.”
“I don’t mean about your teeth—I mean about the emeralds. You’re not making it up—you’ve really got them?”
“Not now,” said Shirley with modest pride.
“How do you mean not now?”
“I’ve parked them.” She was just going to say that they were in the pocket of Anthony’s pyjamas, when it occurred to her that perhaps she had better not. Perhaps better be tactful about Anthony, not, so to speak, rub it in. And the pyjamas would need explaining. She decided not to explain them, and went on hastily, “You know, darling, I had to park them, because if a policeman had arrested me red-handed, I wouldn’t have had an earthly—would I?”
“Where are they?” said Jasper very crossly indeed.
Shirley hesitated.
“Of course if you don’t trust me!” The scowl was terrific.
“Jas, I do wish you’d stop being a fool! Of course I trust you!” She dived into her handbag. “They’re in the left-luggage place. Here’s the receipt. And when you’ve collected my toothbrush I want you to go and find Anthony Leigh.”
“Why?” It was an angry and explosive monosyllable.
Shirley sighed with exaggerated patience.
“You said you wanted to help me—that’s why.”
He caught at her hand.
“I’ll do anything in the world!”
“Well, find Anthony. I’ve been a complete mutt. I lost my head and ran away instead of waiting for him in Ledlington, and now he doesn’t know where I am, and he doesn’t know about the emeralds. I want you to find him, and tell him, and give him the receipt, and fix up somewhere for me to meet him. I think he’s bound to come back to his chambers some time to-day. You could ring up to start with and then go round if he’s there. I’ll give you the address and the telephone number.”
The angry colour came into Jasper’s face. She knew the fellow’s telephone number without having to look it up. She must have used it dozens of times. She must know him awfully well. He began to say something, and gulped it down.
“You will—won’t you?” said Shirley in a coaxing voice. Then, on a note of anxious pleading, “Angel Jas.”
“Oh, all right,” said Mr Wrenn in a far from angelic tone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Jasper had departed to fetch the toothbrush and a quite considerable number of other things of which he had made a careful list upon the back of a poem entitled “Cosmos”, Shirley walked up and down the alley-way and sustained herself with the thought of a joyous reunion with, (a), her own clothes, and, (b), Anthony. Anthony should of course have been (a) both alphabetically and romantically, but in point of time the reunion with a probably bulging suit-case would come first—“And I only trust Jas won’t over-bulge it, because the hasps are on the wonky side, and if they suddenly go pop and scatter my undies all over the stairs or on the front doorstep, what fun for the Maltby!”
The hasps were holding nobly when Jas came hurrying between the posts. He was running as he came up to her and without a word caught her by the arm and started her running too.
She looked back when they came to the posts at the other end of the alley. There was no one in sight. They turned right, and dropped into a fast walk.
“What happened? Did anyone see you?” She was a little breathless from the sudden run.
“I don’t know,” said Jas. His voice sounded startled.
“How do you mean you don’t know? What happened?”
“A door banged. We’d better hurry.”
“I’m not going to run—it attracts attention. How do you mean a door banged?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was rather sulky.
He wouldn’t have minded dying for Shirley, the details of the decease being veiled in a mist heavily charged with romance, but he did bar being scolded by her. Here he had just been crawling up the stairs, and rummaging noiselessly for all the things she wanted—and nobody who hasn’t tried to rummage noiselessly has any idea how difficult it is—and then creeping down those flights of stairs again thinking what a fool he’d look if anyone came out of a room and wanted to know what he was doing with Shirley’s suit-case—well, after all this, instead of glowing with gratitude she kept saying things like “How do you mean you don’t know?” And he didn’t know. A door had banged when he was nearly down. A door had shut—shut with a sudden bang, as if the wind had caught it, as if someone had come out of a room to look down over the stairs and see what he was doing and a draught had caught the door and banged it to. That was what it had sounded like. He told Shirley so.
She pursed up her lips, emitting a faint whistle.
“Whose door was it?”
“I tell you I don’t know.”
Shirley laughed.
“Oh well, if there was a door, there’s only one door it could be. If anyone was snooping and spying, it would be the Maltby. So we needn’t hurry—I don’t see her sprinting after us.”
“She might take a taxi.”
“She wouldn’t—she’s too mean. And you can’t get a taxi like that all in a hurry on a Sunday afternoon, and she doesn’t know where we’re going.”
“Where are we going?” said Jasper.
Shirley’s eyes danced at him.
“I don’t know either.”
Jasper the realist was shocked and exasperated.
“You must know.”
“Darling, I don’t. I wish I did. It would be lovely to feel that there was a gas fire waiting for me somewhere, and crumpets for tea. It’s been Sunday for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I’ve been running away all the time, and the last meal was about a week and a half ago in a railway refreshment-room—and I think it was a bun and a cup of tea, but it’s so definitely a has-been that I can’t be sure—it may have been coffee and a sandwich. I could do a plate of crumpets very nicely, and the sort of tea Aunt Emily never let me have, very hot and very strong with the sugar sticking out of the top of the cup.”
“It sounds foul,” said Jasper gloomily.
They turned out of Redfield Terrace and came into what on a week-day would have been a crowded thoroughfare. With the shops all blind and shuttered, it had a deserted look.
“But if you don’t know where you’re going, why are you going this way?”
“Must go some way, darling. Perhaps I shall meet a crumpet and follow it home.”
He grabbed her by the arm and brought her to a standstill outside a hairdresser’s shop. The lower part of the window was covered by a half blind of green shaded silk over the top of which there appeared the heads of three wax ladies.
“Look here, Shirley—talk sense! I’ve got to take you somewhere before I can go off and l
ook for your Anthony Leigh, haven’t I?”
He waited for her to say, “He isn’t my Anthony Leigh,” but she didn’t say it. His throat went dry. He waited a little longer. She only said in a thoughtful tone,
“Well, there’s something in that. But where can I go?”
“A friend—”
She shook her head.
“There’s no one I can go to like this. But I’ve got some money—I could take a room if I knew where to go.”
She gazed at the wax ladies as if for inspiration. The one in the middle had auburn hair slicked sideways in a series of flat waves, and a parting which bristled with diamond triangles. Shirley was wondering how on earth you would keep them on, when Jasper’s voice broke in,
“We can’t just stand here, you know.”
She turned round regretfully. Running away by yourself was depressing and rather frightening, but running away with someone else whom you could tease and provoke, and who would carry your suit-case, was fun. She didn’t want to go back to the lonely sort of running away a bit, but she supposed she’d got to. She said in a resigned voice,
“All right—you push off and find Anthony.”
“I can’t just leave you here.”
“I know.… What shall I do? I suppose I could go and sit in a station. They don’t turn you out till about one in the morning, do they?—and you’re bound to have found Anthony by then.”
“You can’t do that,” said Jasper crossly.
She contemplated saying “Why can’t I?” but abandoned the idea. The prospect of spending nearly eleven hours in a railway waiting-room, and then perhaps having to stagger forth with a heavy suit-case and sleep on the Embankment, or wherever you did sleep when they turned you out, was not one which inspired her to battle. She gazed at Jasper with comparative meekness and said,
“All right, suggest something. It’s your turn.”
Jasper brightened a little.
“I’ve got a cousin—”
“Male or female?”
“Female—name of Helena Pocklington. She’s only a sort of a cousin really.”
Hole and Corner Page 15
