There was quite a thick pile of them. Mally put it on her knee and unfolded it. Her first thought was what a queer collection of different sorts and sizes of paper—foolscap; Silurian; blue linen; a piece of kitchen paper; and the shiny black-edged note-paper affected by Mrs. Craddock. Barbara must have gone about the house picking up a sheet here and a sheet there and hiding them. Little magpie!
Mally spread out the top sheet and found herself looking at a back view of Sir George Peterson—head, shoulders, hands holding a newspaper, all scrawled very rough and large on a piece of foolscap. She was amazed at the likeness, the few bold lines. “Oh, what a shame not to let her draw!” was the first thought; and then, sharp on that, “No one will ever be able to stop her.”
She picked up the next sheet, and laughed at the inscription which ran across it in big tumble-down letters: “This is Pinko, and I hate him.” It was not a favorable likeness of Mr. Craddock, but it was certainly a likeness. The long neck was made longer, the round cheeks rounder; but no one who had ever seen Mr. Paul Craddock would have had to be told who Pinko was.
Mally went on turning over the loose sheets. She found them quite amusing. Mrs. Craddock, with her knitting all in a tangle and six or seven needles sticking out of it at impossible angles. The pug, Bimbo, with his black lip lifted in a snarl. A less successful attempt at the magnificent orange Persian. Jones, like a ramrod in a tight braided dress. The young footman who had let Mally out. They were all there, on the edge of caricature, but astonishingly recognizable.
The last piece of paper was different from the others. There was no sketch on it, but a cross-word puzzle. Mally did not feel in the mood for cross-word puzzles. She folded all the drawings up and put them back in her pocket.
It was almost dark when she scrambled through the hedgerow and dropped down a bank into the road. It was worth anything to be moving again. But when she began to walk, she did just wonder how far she would be able to go. It was about twenty-six hours since she had had a proper meal; the ginger biscuits appeared to be a portion of the remote past, and even this morning’s banana seemed to be a very long way off.
When Mally got as far as this she shook her head vigorously, straightened up, and began to hum to herself as she walked. She hummed her own tune, and presently she was singing the words under her breath:
“They’re a’ gane east and west”—
It was frightfully appropriate.
“They’re a’ gane agee.”
“I should say they’d all gone mad—stark, staring, raving mad.”
“They’re a’ gane east, they’re a’ gane west,
After Mally Lee.”
She threw back her head and laughed. As she did so, the lights of a car dazzled about her and she jumped for the hedge. The car came up slowly, ran past her a yard or two, and stopped. A woman leaned out, looked back, and called to Mally:
“Am I right for Peddling Corner?”
Mally came up to the car. The woman was really only a girl. She was alone, and her voice was very plaintive:
“Oh, can you tell me?”
“You’ve passed Peddling Corner—it’s behind you. You’ll have to turn.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to go there—I want to go to Menden. And they said I must go right on through Peddling Corner, and now I don’t know where I am. And I’m simply hopeless at maps. Deane always reads the maps. I can’t do anything but drive, really.”
“I can read the map,” said Mally.
“Oh, can you? How clever!”
Mally laughed.
“Where is it?”
“I suppose it’s in one of the pockets. I really don’t know. Deane always sees to the maps.”
Mally found the map, studied it by the light of the side-lamp, and identified the long road over the down.
“It’s about eight miles to Menden. This road goes on for about four, and then you turn left, right, and left again.” She folded up the map as she spoke, and put it away.
“I shan’t remember,” said the girl at the wheel. “I suppose you’re not going that way?” Her voice brightened. “I could give you a lift if you were.”
Mally felt like Cinderella when the pumpkin turned into a coach. She said, “Oh, thank you,” and she hoped very much that her voice did not shake. She felt suddenly as though she could not have walked another hundred yards.
“Get in by me. Give the door a good bang. That’s splendid.” She started the car. “Now you can remember the turnings and look at the map. I was feeling dreadfully lost without Deane.”
“Your chauffeur?”
“No, my maid. I can’t stick being driven, but I always take Deane. And it’s too bad of her, she’s just left me stranded—and at the last minute, too. I’ll never have a maid who’s got relations again. Don’t you call it the limit for them to go and wire for her absolutely just as I was starting? And it isn’t as if I could get any one to maid me down there. I don’t know whether you know the Holmes. That’s where I’m going. And of course Elizabeth Holmes is a perfect dear, but as for letting her maid do one’s hair, one might just as well be a chimpanzee out of the ark and have done with it. And I can’t do my own.”
There seemed to be a good many things that the damsel couldn’t do. Mally saw her by the dashboard light—very fair, very fluffy, very pretty, in a scarlet leather coat and cap. She said, “How dreadful!” and tried to keep the laugh out of her voice.
“Of course I can brush and comb it. But I can’t wave it—and you’ve no idea what I look like with it straight. I suppose you don’t know of a temporary maid? I did ring up an agency, but it was all in a hurry, and you know what they are.”
“We’re coming to the turning,” said Mally. Her heart had begun to beat a little faster.
They turned off the tarred road and ran through a patch of woodland—bare trees almost meeting overhead, high sandy banks on either side. Mally looked again at the face of the girl beside her—pretty, foolish, inconsequent.
“Agencies never seem to have jobs for the people who want them. I want one badly enough.”
“Do you? What sort of job do you want?”
“Oh, any sort.” She pushed herself on. “I’d come as your maid if you’d have me.”
“Would you? Would you really? Do you know anything about it? Hair—that’s the chief thing—I do look so awful if mine isn’t right.”
“I’m frightfully good at hair—I really am—it’s my strong suit. I did every one’s hair whenever we got up plays.”
“How enormously clever of you!”
“I haven’t any thïngs,” said Mally.
“I can lend you some, I expect. Deane packed, and she always puts in plenty. Look here, my name’s Candida Long. But I don’t know yours—and where are your things?”
“Turn to the right,” said Mally.
“How did you remember?” Miss Candida Long spoke admiringly. She negotiated the corner. “What did you say your name was?”
“Marion,” said Mally slowly—“Marion Brown.”
“Is it?” Candida looked sideways, and Mally gave a little desperate laugh.
“No, it isn’t. Miss Long, you asked me where my things were. Some of them are in London, and some of them are at Curston not very far from here, but—but I don’t want the Moorings to know where I am or what I’m doing.”
Candida looked sideways again.
“Is that why you’re Marion Brown?”
“Yes. Would you like to put me down here?”
“No, I shouldn’t. My dear girl, what does it matter to me whether you’re Brown or Jones or Montmorency? Funny your knowing the Moorings. I’m going to a dance there to-morrow. That’s really what I’ve come down for. It ought to be rather a good show. Dominos and masks to start with, and fancy dress after midnight. I’ve got a ripping black and silver domino. And my dress—you just wait till you see it! It’s really rather dinky. I won’t tell you about it—I’ll just let it burst on you. It was Paul Craddock’s idea. Have you ever
come across him? I think he knows the Moorings. He’s rather a friend of mine. As a matter of fact, he was coming down with me to-night, and he rang me up half an hour before I started and said his stuffy old chief had a job for him in town, but he’d try and get down to-morrow for the Curston show. Wasn’t it the limit? First Deane, and then Paul. I very nearly telegraphed Elizabeth to say I was dead.” She giggled. “She’s so literal she’d probably have sent me a wreath.”
“Turn to the left,” said Mally. “It’s about a hundred yards along this lane, I think.”
She remembered Menden Place, and she had seen Mrs. Holmes once in the distance. She hoped with a good deal of earnestness that Mrs. Holmes had not seen her.
CHAPTER XXI
“I say, you do look tired!” said Candida when she came up to dress. “Are you all right?”
Mally held on to the back of the chair she had been sitting in. She had unpacked Miss Long’s suitcases and laid out the contents of a very expensive dressing-case. Then she had sat down by the cheerful fire and fallen into a doze. She blinked now at the lights, and said with engaging frankness:
“It’s nothing—I’m just hungry.”
“Didn’t they give you any tea?”
Mally shook her head.
“I came straight up here.”
“That was stupid of you—I’ll wear that emerald and silver rag. There’s some chocolate in my dressing-case. I say, when did you have a meal?”
“Lunch yesterday.” Mally laughed shakily. “There were some ginger biscuits and a banana, but——”
“How idiotic of you! Here!” Candida threw a packet of chocolate at her. “Sit down and eat as much of that as you can. And for the Lord’s sake, don’t start waving my hair till you’re sure you’re not going to fall on top of me with the tongs.”
The chocolate was a great success. So was the hair. Candida talked all the time it was being done.
“It’s quite a jolly party. And fortunately they had a man over, so that Paul not coming won’t put the table out. There’s Colonel Moulton, a priceless old dear—pays lovely compliments that take about twenty minutes each; and Janet Elliot, who’s an awfully good sort; and her brother Willie, a very cheery soul; and Ambrose Medhurst—I suppose Elizabeth’s asked him for Janet. Why did you jump? You nearly burned me.”
Mally had jumped because she knew Mr. Medhurst’s name. Jimmy’s friend—it must be the same one. Jimmy Lake had talked about him, said he was a topping chap and frightfully in love with a girl who had pots of money, so of course he couldn’t ever tell her about it. Mally remembered saying, “I don’t see why.” Now she said, “I’m so sorry,” and then, “Is Miss Elliot an heiress?”
Candida went off into a peal of laughter.
“Janet? Good Lord, no! She’s a church mouse—a ripping little church mouse. Her father’s the parson here, and there are about umpteen of them—a frightfully cheery crowd. Now I’m ready for my dress.”
She slipped it on and stood looking at herself.
Candida in green and silver was really a very pretty creature. It was quite obvious that she thought so herself. She turned from the long glass with a flirt of the short, flaring skirt.
“Not bad—am I? Now, Brown, tell the truth. Would you say that a man——” She stopped, frowned, and tapped with a silver foot. “Isn’t it beastly if a girl’s got money—the foul way people talk, I mean, as if any man who made love to her only wanted her money? What would you say about it—honestly?”
“I should say it depended on the man.”
Candida Long laughed rather consciously.
“Oh, the man’s Paul Craddock, and he hasn’t a bean. I’ve got five thousand a year, and sometimes I wish it was all at the bottom of the sea. Other times, of course, I don’t, because I have a frightfully good time. But you girls who have to earn your own living have got no end of a pull when it comes to marriage. You do know whether a man wants you for yourself or not. All right, you needn’t sit up. Eat a good supper and go to bed. I say, I haven’t told any one that I picked you up on the road. Elizabeth’s rather Victorian—she’d probably fuss. So don’t you say anything either.”
She turned for a moment by the door.
“Take a nighty and anything else you want. I don’t care for Paul, you know. But I’d like to know whether he cares for me. He’s awfully ambitious. If he married me, he’d go to the top of the tree in politics. That’s what he’d like. And sometimes I think it would be pretty good fun having a salon and all that. And sometimes I think it would be a most infernal bore. What do you think about it?”
Mally repeated her previous answer.
“I think it would all depend on the man,” she said.
When the door had shut on Candida Long, Mally busied herself with putting things away. Then she sat down by the fire again and began to think.
If only Paul Craddock were not coming to-morrow. She poked the fire and watched the flames go roaring up the chimney. Delicious warmth. She shut her eyes for a moment and called up the picture of the wet, cold wood and the black holly bush that had been her shelter only a few hours before. With a little quick shiver she opened them again and looked at the nice old-fashioned room with its low ceiling and dark, shining furniture. The carpet was old and faded, the pattern on the wall paper was dimmed to a pleasant blur; but there were new gay chintzes—the shiny white sort with parrots and roses and long-tailed birds of paradise. The curtains were lined with rose color, and there was a bedspread of thin rose-colored silk. Mally thought it was a very nice room.
If she could only tide over the next two days. Perhaps Paul Craddock wouldn’t come. She put her chin in her hand and stared at the fire. Even if he came, why should he see her? A guest arriving for a dance and going away next day—why should he come across Miss Long’s maid? If he came at all, it would only be for the masked ball at Curston; and next day Candida Long was going abroad for a month. It was really a splendid chance.
By the time the housemaid came to call her to supper, Mally was quite sure that Paul would not come, or, alternatively, that if he came, she would be able to dodge him. In either case she would go abroad with Candida Long and they would have a simply ripping time.
Paul Craddock came down next day. Mr. Alfred Dawson’s clue had led him on a wild-goose chase. He found Sir George Peterson very much in favor of his going to Curston; there was an off-chance of picking up information there, and it was just as well to keep up appearances and not to seem over-anxious about Miss Lee and the papers she had gone off with.
He arrived in time to dress. Mally, coming round a corner, almost ran into him. She drew back quickly, and he passed without looking at her. The corner was dark, her dress was dark; he had gone straight on.
Mally put the lights on in Miss Long’s room, and told herself that she was a perfect fool to be so frightened.
Paul Craddock, meanwhile, went to the end of the passage, turned the corner, waited a minute, and then retraced his steps and went downstairs again. He knew the house, and was pretty sure of getting the study to himself at this hour. He closed the door, went straight to the telephone, and gave Sir George Peterson’s London number. The call came through almost at once and, to his relief, it was Sir George himself who said “Hallo!”
Paul Craddock began to speak in Portuguese. Post-office employees do not as a rule know Portuguese, and he found it a useful medium for private conversations with his chief.
“She is here.”
“Where?” Sir George was sharply incredulous.
“Here in this house. I’ve just seen her.”
“Does she know you’ve seen her?”
“No, I should say not. She came round the corner in a dark passage, and I walked straight on.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We daren’t let her go again; and we can’t touch her without a warrant. I think you ought to apply for one.”
“Your reasons?”
“I’ve been thinking. I’m sure we were wrong
in suspecting that she had any purpose—I mean I feel sure she wasn’t planted in the house, as we thought at first.”
“Go on.”
“If she’d known what she was taking, or if she’d been sent to take it, she’d never have left London. She’d have gone straight to a certain quarter. I think it’s safe enough to have her arrested. If she’s got any papers on her, you claim them—they’re your private affair. If she hasn’t any papers, she does time for taking the diamond and is sufficiently discredited to be negligible in future. If she knows anything, she doesn’t know where to take her information. But it’s my belief that she doesn’t know anything.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Sir George said, “Yes, I think you’re right. I feel that way myself. I’ll get the warrant and have some one sent down as soon as possible. I don’t know if they’ll do anything to-night.”
“All right.”
Mr. Craddock rang off and went to dress.
“Brown,” said Miss Candida Long, “I’ve had an absolutely splendid brain-wave.”
“Oh!” said Mally. “Don’t twist like that! I very nearly burned you.” She was waving Candida’s thick, fair hair.
“All right—no harm done. Listen, my good girl, and for Heaven’s sake don’t singe me.”
“I won’t if you keep still.”
“You’re not listening. Didn’t you say you’d left some things at Curston?”
“Yes, I did.”
Mally began to wish she had held her tongue; even a very short acquaintance with Candida made her view with suspicion anything that she described as a brain-wave.
“Well, listen. Are you listening? It’s an idea—it really is. I’ll take you over with me, and you shall fetch your things. I was rather thinking of taking you anyhow, because I do simply hate driving alone.”
“But you wouldn’t be alone. There’s the rest of the house-party and—Mr. Craddock.”
“Brown, you’re not being intelligent. I want to be an absolutely deadly secret. That’s why I told you not to open the box with my domino. I want to be quite, quite, quite sure that nobody knows me until I unmask—and especially I don’t want Paul Craddock to know. I shall just take you along, and you can get your things. I’m going to slip away from here as soon as dinner’s over. So you’ll be all ready—won’t you? And now we’ll open that box. Prepare to have your breath taken away.”
Hue and Cry Page 13
