Outrageous Fortune

by Patricia Wentworth

  Min looked up and then down again. Her eyes were really most uncommonly blue, and her lashes dark enough to set them off. He smiled encouragingly.

  “Out with it, Min!”

  “Mother always says married folk should stick close, because if they don’t—”

  “Yes—if they don’t?”

  “There’s room for a third between them.”

  “So there is,” said Jim.

  “So you will come back?”

  Jim got a hunch.

  “My dear Min, are you trying to warn me?”

  They had reached the corner again. Min stopped and faced him, nodding.

  “You are!”

  She nodded again solemnly.

  The hunch got stronger.

  “You’re warning me that if I don’t come back, I may find that Nesta has given me the chuck?”

  Min nodded for the third time.

  He would have liked to laugh, but refrained.

  “All right, we’d better take another turn, and you shall tell me about it. Who’s the man?”

  “I don’t know,” said Min in a low reluctant voice.

  “Unknown Rival Alienates Wife’s Affections—is that it?”

  Min looked up with brimming eyes.

  “It isn’t a thing to talk light of!”

  His voice changed.

  “My dear, I’m most horribly in earnest. Won’t you tell me what you mean?”

  Min took a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes.

  “I don’t know if I ought.”

  Jim didn’t know either. He only knew that he was bound to get it out of her if he could. He said gravely,

  “You’ve got to tell me.”

  She twisted the handle of her basket.

  “I’ve never been a tale-tatler, nor a mischief-maker.”

  “You won’t be making mischief.”

  Min’s voice became what she herself would have called all trembly.

  “I’m not saying there’s anything in it, and I’m not one to think harm where no harm’s meant, and if it had been a matter of coming home late after the pictures or anything like that, I’d not have thought anything about it—though ‘tis different when you’re married, and I wouldn’t go to the pictures with anyone but Tom, not if it was ever so—”

  Jim gathered that Nesta had fewer prejudices.

  “So Nesta’s been going to the pictures?”

  “Oh no!” said Min. “I wouldn’t mind if it was only the pictures, or if it was a friend of Tom’s or anyone we knew.”

  “Well, what was it if it wasn’t the pictures?”

  “I don’t know what I ought to say,” said Min in a shrinking voice.

  Min Williams was a dear little thing, and a pretty little thing, and a good little thing, but Jim wondered if he wouldn’t end by shaking her.

  “You’ve said too much not to go on.”

  She gave him a frightened glance curiously mingled with virtuous pride.

  “Throwing stones up at her window, and long past midnight!” she said.

  An extraordinary sense of anticipation quickened his pulses.

  “Last night?” he said.

  “And long past midnight!” said Min with a wide scandalized gaze fixed on his face.

  Jim’s thoughts began to march to a triumphant band. There was a lot of blaring brass in it. He saluted his hunch. He saluted the extra sense which had set him off on this tack.

  He turned at the top of the colonnade and proceeded to the question direct.

  “A man threw stones up at Nesta’s window last night?”

  Min gulped and nodded again.

  “What happened? Did she come down?”

  Min nodded.

  “You saw her?”

  “I heard the pebbles against the glass. I dreamt it was hailing, and I got up and went to the window, and it was quite fine. And I was just going back to bed again, when he threw some more, and I saw him under the other window—Nesta’s. And then she looked out—I could just see her face. And he said her name—just Nesta, not Mrs Riddell at all. And then he said, ‘Come down.’”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything, not that I could hear. She went back from the window, and I was wondering about waking Tom, because it didn’t seem right—one o’clock in the morning, and him calling her Nesta—only it came into my head that maybe it was you, and I didn’t want to stand in the way of your making it up together.”

  “I see. Then what happened?”

  “She went down. I never heard her come out of her room, but the third stair from the bottom will creak, no matter what you do—and I’m sure Tom’s tried all ways.”

  “Nesta went out?”

  Min nodded.

  “And I dursn’t go to bed with the door on the latch, so I put a blanket round me and waited for her to come in.”

  “Yes?”

  “I hoped it was you, and that you were making it up. Married people didn’t ought to quarrel. Mother says it’s easier begun with than done with.” The blue eyes looked up pleadingly.

  “When did you find out that it wasn’t me?”

  “When she came back. She opened the door and came in, and I was just going to get into bed, when I heard that stair again. I went back to the window, and he was outside the gate.”

  “She went in and came out again? What did she do? Was it light enough to see anything?”

  “It was beginning to get light—sort of betwixt and between. It must have been getting on for three by the look of it, and I could see enough to know that it wasn’t you.”

  “What happened?” said Jim.

  “She went to the gate and gave him something.”

  “She gave him something? You’re sure it wasn’t the other way about?”

  “I think it was money,” said Min.

  “What makes you think that?”

  She hesitated.

  “I think it was.”

  “But why?”

  He was wondering whether it was the Van Berg emeralds that had changed hands over the gate of Happicot at three o’clock in the morning. For this was what he thought his hunch had done for him—he thought it had brought him hot on the track of his burglar. The twelve-three or whatever it was, which he had missed and last night’s burglar had caught, would have reached Ledlington in very nice time to allow of Nesta being serenaded with a handful of pebbles. But in that case the man who had taken the emeralds must have known exactly what it was that he had snatched in the Blue Room. And he hadn’t come there blind. He had come there to get the emeralds. There were a good many ifs in the affair.

  He said, “But why?” and looked at Min, who didn’t look at him.

  “I could see it wasn’t you,” she said—“and I was frightened. Mother always said I could hear a mouse move his whiskers in the dark.”

  “You heard something?”

  Min nodded.

  “Nesta said, ‘It’s all I’ve got’—and something about keeping money in the house.”

  “Is that all you heard?”

  She shook her head.

  “No—he said—at least he said a lot more than what I’m telling you—but all mumbly like as if he’d got something in his mouth.”

  Jim restrained himself.

  “What did you hear, Min?”

  “It didn’t amount to anything.”

  “Have you ever been sworn at in Spanish?” said Jim.

  She stared at him, and the corners of his mouth twitched.

  “Well, my dear, it’s a copious language, and if you don’t want it loosed on you, you’ll get down to brass tacks and tell me exactly what Nesta’s friend did say.”

  She looked at him in alarm.

  “Maybe he didn’t mean anything.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Don’t be late,’” said Min with a gasp.

  Don’t be late..… Well, don’t be late for what—and when—and where?..… And he spoke as if he had something in
his mouth..… Perhaps it was a gap in his upper jaw—perhaps it wasn’t. Jim’s head whirled with possibilities.

  “Anything more?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “He went off, and she came in.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “Ledlington way.”

  He walked beside her in silence for a moment.

  “You could see that it wasn’t me? Now Min, how much could you see? Would you know him again?”

  “Oh no.”

  “Then how did you know it wasn’t me?”

  “He wasn’t so tall.”

  “A small man?”

  “Not to say small.”

  “Wasn’t there anything you noticed particularly?”

  She shook her head helplessly.

  “I could just see the shape of him like.”

  He got no more out of her than that.

  At the lower end of the colonnade they parted.

  He crossed the square and went into the library.

  XXVIII

  As Jim Randal entered the free library in Ledlington, a car stopped at Miss Pansy Arbuthnot’s wicket gate and a small dapper man got out. He slammed the door of the car behind him, clicked open the gate, marched up the path to the front door, and delivered a smart rat-tat. His hair and moustache were white, the former thick and the latter bristling, and his face so tanned that strangers learned with surprise that it was ten years since he had set foot outside the British Isles. He wore an air of military impatience, and after the briefest of intervals his knock was repeated, and so loudly as to bring Pansy Ann out of the scullery without waiting to dry her hands. Her consternation was considerable at finding the Chief Constable on the doorstep at such an hour—the breakfast things not cleared away; her feet—Pansy was proud of her feet—in her oldest shoes; and her hands and arms dripping with the geranium dye in which she had just immersed an aged pink sports coat. It was all very agitating, and if she hadn’t thought it might be the post and a letter from Robert, she wouldn’t have gone near the door—and what on earth Major Anderson was doing here at half past nine, heaven alone knew.

  Her colour rose. She put up a hand to her hair, left a gruesome stain on her temple, and said in an agitated voice,

  “Oh good morning, Major Anderson—I’m dyeing.”

  Major Anderson when at school had recited Macauley’s Lays of Ancient Rome. He was reminded of one of them now. He had a martinetish sense of humour which he kept under strict control. Macauley’s words bobbed up and tickled it.

  On the right side went Romulus

  With arms to the shoulder red—

  Was it shoulder, or elbow? Tut tut! He couldn’t be sure, but the bit about Remus was really more appropriate.

  On the left side went Remus

  With wrists and fingers red—

  Hang it all, the girl looked as if she had been killing a pig.

  With all this in the back of his mind, he removed his hat and said, “Good morning.”

  “I’m afraid I’m an early visitor,” he proceeded, “but I’ve come on a matter of business. Perhaps I might see Miss Leigh.”

  Pansy made a heroic effort to conceal her anguish. If she left her coat in the dye, unstirred and unprodded, it would certainly come out streaky, and if she took it out now, it would be only half done. She indicated a chair, apologised for the breakfast things, and ran upstairs in despair to inform Caroline.

  “Major Anderson is downstairs, and my coat’s only half done—and just look at me!”

  Caroline was dusting her dressing-table. She straightened up with her back to Pansy.

  “Major Anderson?”

  “Yes—the Chief Constable—on business. What can he want? He asked for you. I must just get some of this stuff off my hands. Do go down.”

  “All right,” said Caroline without moving.

  She heard Pansy go into her own room.

  The Chief Constable..… She must go down. Her legs felt weak and shaky. She looked in the glass and saw that she was as white as a sheet. If she went down looking like that, she might just as well throw up the sponge and have done with it.

  She put on a little colour and went down.

  Major Anderson was looking out of the window. He might have been admiring the dahlias. He turned as she came down the stair, said, “How do you do?” and pulled a chair away from the breakfast table for her.

  Caroline was glad to sit down, because her joints felt exactly as if they were made of melting wax. She bit the inside of her lip hard and waited for the Chief Constable to tell her that Jim had been arrested. Instead, he gave a funny little cough and, sitting very bolt upright in their best wheelback chair,

  “Miss Leigh,” he said, “I’ve called at what, I hope, is not a very inconvenient hour to make some inquiries about—well, about Jim Randal.”

  Caroline said, “Yes?” Her voice sounded deep and mournful. It did not shake; that was one comfort. It didn’t matter how mournful it sounded, because, as far as Chief Constables and people like that were concerned, Jim had better be drowned. If you are feeling horribly frightened, it is quite easy to look tragic—it is, indeed, a relief.

  “Now, Miss Leigh,” said Major Anderson—“perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me when you last heard from Jim Randal.”

  “It was the beginning of August,” said Caroline.

  “Can you give me the date?”

  “Yes—the fourth.”

  “Would you mind telling me what he said?”

  “Oh no. It was just a few lines. I was staying with Mrs Ogilvie at Craigellachie. Jim was coming there too. He wrote to say he would take a steamer up the coast.”

  “Did he say what steamer?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear again?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  Major Anderson leaned forward.

  “Had you any reason to suppose that he was on the Alice Arden?” His small, sharp grey eyes fixed Caroline.

  “We thought he must have been.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t come, and he didn’t write.”

  “I see..… You say he didn’t write. You’re sure of that?

  You’re sure he hasn’t communicated with you since the wreck of the Alice Arden?”

  “Quite sure,” said Caroline. She wondered whether this was a lie. What was “communicating”?

  “Now, Miss Leigh—I believe you went to the Elston cottage hospital in response to a broadcast message stating that they had a man there who appeared to have lost his memory. It was believed that his name was Jim Riddell, or Randal. You went there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t see the man?”

  “No—his wife had fetched him away.”

  “Yes, his wife—and left no address.”

  “She said his name was Riddell,” said Caroline. She hoped she did not say it too quickly.

  “You were satisfied that it could not have been Jim Randal?”

  “Jim isn’t married—she said it was her husband.”

  “And you’ve heard nothing from your cousin since then?”

  The telephone bell rang on the other side of the room. Caroline had never been so glad to hear anything in her life. She went over to the foot of the stair and lifted the receiver. As she did so, Pansy’s door opened and Pansy’s voice called to her.

  “I expect that’s Jenny to know whether I’m coming to the treasure hunt this evening. If it is, tell her I can’t. You can easily get someone to go with you if you want to. I’m just coming down.”

  “I’m so sorry,” aid Caroline over her shoulder to Major Anderson. Then she put the receiver to her ear, and heard Jim say,

  “Caroline—”

  It was the most paralysing shock. For one moment Caroline thought she was going to faint. The telephone was just by the stair foot. She leaned hard on the balustrade. Jim—telephoning to her—and the Chief Constable exactly three yards away, waiting for an answer to his question: “And
you’ve heard nothing from your cousin since then?”

  Jim’s voice again:

  “Caroline—”

  Pansy was coming down the stairs.

  “I’m so sorry, Major Anderson, but I was simply drenched with dye. Do forgive me for being so long. Caroline won’t be a moment. Jenny Ross has got a treasure hunt this evening, and I said perhaps I’d go, but I don’t think I will. I don’t care for them really, and after last night—Wasn’t it a frightful storm? I don’t think I ever remember anything worse than that last crack of thunder. Caroline was out, and I was dreadfully nervous.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Major Anderson—“Miss Ross’ treasure hunt—I hope it will be fine. My nephew Jack is going, I believe. I hope there will be no more thunder.”

  Caroline spoke into the telephone.

  “Yes?”

  “Caroline, I’ve just rung up to say I’ve had to go off. You mustn’t go there again. Good-bye, my dear.”

  “Wait,” said Caroline. “Wait.” Her lips were so stiff that she could hardly get them to move. How was she to find words that would mean nothing to Pansy and Major Anderson and yet stop Jim from going away where she couldn’t find him or get into touch with him? She had to give him Susie Van Berg’s message and to let him know the frightful danger he was in. If Elmer died, Susie would tell the police that she had heard him quarrelling with Jim, and that it was Jim who had shot him.

  “I mustn’t wait,” said Jim. “Don’t worry.”

  “Where are you ringing from?”

  As she waited for Jim’s answer, she heard Major Anderson say to Pansy,

  “Then you believe that your cousin was drowned?”

  Then Jim:

  “Ledlington post office. I can’t stop.”

  Caroline’s head cleared suddenly. She had got to see Jim and tell him about Susie, and about Caroline Bussell and Nesta. She bent down to the mouthpiece and spoke in quite a natural voice.

  “Wait a moment—you don’t forget you’re coming to Jenny Ross’ treasure hunt, do you? They won’t begin while it’s light, so we’d better meet about nine.”

  “What are you talking about? Caroline, you’ve got to keep out of this.”

  Caroline achieved a laugh.

  “I can’t stop either—I’ve got a visitor. I’ll be at the end of Nesta’s road—I can’t remember its name—at nine o’clock. Will that be all right?”