“Now look here, Flossie—what’s all this about? Who is Ivy? How did she get into the river? And what in Heaven’s name has it got to do with your going to the police?”
She pressed close to him in the dark.
“Course it’s got to do with it! Put your thinking cap on! I told you about Ivy when we were talking in the fog—my girl friend, Ivy Hodge, that had a row with her fiongcey and went and took that place at 16 Varley Street to spite him—and then they made it up and fixed the day so she didn’t want to go, so I said I’d go instead of her, and I went as Ivy Hodge because of not having a parlour reference—and I s’pose I shouldn’t have done it, but it was more for a lark than anything else and to oblige Ivy, and they’d fixed it all up without seeing her, so it was quite easy and no odds to anyone, only of course I didn’t tell Aunt—she’s that pertickler.”
All this came pouring out at an extraordinary rate. When she stopped with an effect of being obliged at last to take breath, Miles patted her shoulder with his free hand.
“All right, I’ve got it now. I’d forgotten—you went to Varley Street as Ivy Hodge. Now what about the river and the police? I’m not there yet.”
“Ivy went in the river.” He could only just hear the words.
“Do you mean she’s drowned?”
“She’s in hospital. She’s awful bad. They say she must have hit her head jumping in—but, Mr Miles, she never!”
Her earnestness shook them both.
“You don’t think she did jump in?”
“Course I don’t! What’d she got to jump in the river for? Billy’s a very nice boy and he’s got a good job, and they’d made it up and the wedding all fixed for tomorrow. Girls don’t throw themselves in the river when they haven’t got nothing to throw themselves in for. Besides Ivy wouldn’t. I tell you she was pushed. And when Syd—that’s Aunt’s boy—came in and told us, it come over me that she’d been pushed in mistake for me. It wasn’t poor Ivy that was meant to be pushed—it was the girl that’d been in that drawing-room in 16 Varley Street and seen what nobody wasn’t meant to see. Ooh, Mr Miles—I’m certain sure of it—I am reelly! I went there as Ivy Hodge, and none of them had seen her, so when I ran out of the house they’d go and ask for poor Ivy at the registry. And of course they’d have her address, and all they’d got to do was to follow her in the dark next evening and push her in. Right down close by the river she lives, so it’d be easy enough, and with the fog there’s been.”
“But if you think that, you ought to go to the police, Flossie. Don’t you see?”
“Ooh!” said Flossie. “You’re the one that doesn’t see, Mr Miles. Go to the police? No, I don’t think! I mightn’t be so lucky as Ivy. They did get her out, with a bang on the head and nearly drowned, but p’raps next time there wouldn’t be no one about and they’d make sure. You’ve got to hold your tongue, or it might be you that’d go barging and banging down the river with the tide till someone picked you up with your neck broke or the side of your head bashed in. And I’ve got to hold mine, or it might be me. See here, Mr Miles—you’ve give me your promise and you got to keep it. I don’t want to get knocked on the head and pushed in the river along of something I wasn’t meant to see. I want to save a little money, and when Ernie asks me to name the day I’m going to marry him. He’s got a good job and he’s steady, and a girl expects to get married and have a nice home. I’m not going to get mixed up with a police case neither, for Aunt wouldn’t like it at all, nor Ernie wouldn’t. So you’ve got to promise me solemn you won’t go to the police.”
“All right, Flossie, I won’t.”
“You’ve got to say you promise,” said Flossie breathlessly.
Miles laughed a little impatiently.
“All right, my dear, I promise.”
“Word of honour?”
“Word of honour.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart, Flossie.”
She let go of his wrist and stood away from him. The urgency had gone out of her. She said in rather a flat little voice.
“Gladys’ll be waiting to let me in. Good night, Mr Miles.” And with that she turned and ran back along the wet pavement.
He watched her pass the lamp-post and saw her fair hair under the yellow light. She had run out bare-headed with a coat thrown over her gay uniform. A gleam of scarlet showed at the hem. Then the darkness took her and she was gone.
CHAPTER X
Ian Gilmore sat talking with Freddy and Lila until Freddy sent Lila to bed. When they were alone, he got up, poured himself out a drink, and turning with the tumbler in his hand, went over to the hearth and stood looking down into the fire.
This room was all gold—the pale, dim gold of an old picture-frame. It made a very fitting frame for Lila’s beauty. When she was in it, it seemed just that, but when she was away, it lacked life. There was too much of that one flat tone.
Ian drank from his glass and set it down upon the narrow golden ledge which crossed the chimney breast. As he did so, his brother Freddy said in his equable voice,
“Better get it off your chest, hadn’t you?”
There was a moment’s silence. Ian Gilmore did not turn round. He frowned at the fire, where the ash had sunk to a red pit, and said,
“Can you stop Lila talking, Freddy?”
“In general, no—but in particular, probably. Why do you want her stopped?”
Ian turned round with a jerk.
“Do you remember what she was saying when I kicked you?”
Freddy nodded.
“Something about the Vulture affair—a hang-over from the Vulture affair—and his organization having a new head. And then something about the American government and the French government, at which point you did your best to break my leg.”
“Sorry,” said Ian. There was no smile on his face.
Red Indian out for scalp, was Freddy’s diagnosis. He hoped the scalp was not Lila’s. A smile just touched his eyes and went away again. He loved Lila very much.
“Well?” he said. “What’s it all about?”
Ian looked past him down the room. He was seething with things which it would have relieved him a good deal to say about wasters who couldn’t hold their tongues, but as he couldn’t damn Fitz and Fitz’s set into heaps without at the same time damning Freddy’s wife, he restrained himself. After a moment he said,
“The Vulture affair was four years ago. He ran the most extraordinary international blackmail business. The branch in the States also concerned itself with kidnapping.”
“I remember,” said Freddy. “A man called Lindsay Trevor ran him down.* Very nice chap. I met him once.”
“It was an extraordinary fine bit of work. The Vulture committed suicide and the organization appeared to collapse. Then last year there was the Gilbert Denny affair.† I can’t give you the details, but there was a woman mixed up with that who was one of the Vulture’s lot. There were indications of a recrudescence of the organization then. The woman got away. All this year odds and ends of information have been trickling in. The Americans are determined to put a stop to their kidnapping cases. I can’t go into details, as I said before, but two separate lines have led to London, and it’s true that a man was sent over from Washington and another from Paris.” He frowned and took another drink from his glass.
“And you don’t want Lila to talk about it?” said Freddy.
Ian laughed harshly.
“If you can stop her!”
“Well, if Fitz and his crowd have got hold of it, what Lila says or doesn’t say will be only a drop in the ocean, you know.”
Ian banged down his glass again.
“I wish somebody would tell me how things get out!” he said. “But look here, Freddy, this is how it stands. I’m in this business. I’ve been told things. I know things I can’t even tell you. It’s all frightfully hush-hush at the moment. Well then, if young Fitz and his crowd talk it’s one thing, but if your wife talks it’s another. Everyone’
ll think I told you and you told her. See?”
Freddy saw.
“All right,” he said—“I’ll pick up the bits.”
Ian frowned.
“How many people do you suppose Lila’s talked to already?”
“Well,” said Freddy, “as a matter of fact I think you’ve got in in time, because Fitz has been away. Lila hadn’t seen him for at least ten days till this evening, when she ran into him and the whole pack at a sherry party. She probably picked this story up there, but she hasn’t had time to pass it on. Do you want me to find out just what she has heard—or doesn’t that matter?”
Ian laughed. His face had relaxed a little.
“It’s probably well mixed—Rumour, by Conjecture out of Gossip. What a life! Well, I’ll be getting along.”
Freddy got up. While Ian finished his drink, he stood looking at him. Then he said,
“I think I can fix it.” And then, after a short pause, “Lila’s got a damn silly mother, Ian.”
Ian nodded.
Lady Latimer was most undoubtedly a Family Affliction. At forty-five, and a widow for the second time, she was still girlish, still gushing, still the creature of every wayward whim. Freddy endured, sometimes with philosophy and sometimes not.
He let Ian out and went to Lila’s room. He had, as always, the half amused, half irritated feeling that he ought to take off his shoes and leave them outside—that he ought, in fact, to get into something very exotic in the way of a dressing-gown in order not to strike too jarring a note. For Lila had insisted on a white bedroom. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were white. The deep piled carpet was white. There was a white bearskin in front of the fire, and a couch covered with white brocade drawn up at right angles to it. The same brocade curtained the windows and made a canopy and covering for the low bed with its golden foot-rail.
Lila was sitting curled up on the couch gazing into the fire. She had washed the make-up from her face, and in her thin filmy night-gown with a white velvet wrap thrown round her she looked much younger than she had done at dinner. She might have been even less than her nineteen and a half years.
Freddy came over and sat down on the couch.
“Well, darling?” he said.
She leaned towards him and put up her lips to be kissed.
“What did Ian want, Freddy?”
“How do you know he wanted anything?”
She slipped her hand into his and swung it to and fro.
“You think I’m stupid, but I’m not. What did he want?”
“He didn’t want you to talk about the Vulture.”
The blue eyes opened to their fullest extent.
“But, my sweet, everybody’s talking about him. And besides, it wasn’t the Vulture we were talking about. Ian and his old Foreign Office can’t simply muzzle everyone—can they? And Fitz says—Freddy, you’re not angry?”
“No, darling—not a bit. You just go ahead. What did Fitz say?”
“Well, I don’t know that it was Fitz. I just said Fitz because—well, of course he was there. Does it matter?”
“Not if you can’t remember. What did he say?”
Lila gazed pensively at a pretty bare foot. She curled and uncurled the toes. The foot was very white, and the toe-nails tinted a deep shell pink.
“Freddy, should you like me in sandals?”
“No, darling.”
“Oh, my sweet—gold ones—and my feet bare of course—and perhaps a ring on one of the toes!”
“No, darling,” said Freddy firmly. “I should hate it. Like poison. Lila, what did Fitz say?”
“But, my sweet, I’m not sure that it was Fitz—I told you so.”
Freddy was fortunately so constituted that the workings of Lila’s mind entertained instead of irritating him. He laughed and said,
“Well, whoever did say it.”
“I can’t really remember. It might have been Dinks.”
“Let’s say it was what’s-his-name. Now, darling, what did what’s-his-name say?”
Lila continued to gaze at her foot. She said in a murmuring voice,
“I think sandals would be marvellous.”
Freddy took her by the shoulders and turned her round to face him.
“Darling, you’re not attending. It doesn’t matter whether Fitz said it, or Dinks, or anyone else. The point is—what did they say?”
“Well, my sweet, I was beginning to tell you about it at bridge, only Ian interrupted. It’s never the same the second time—is it? But of course if you want me to—well, I told you the bit about the Vulture, and his gang or whatever it is getting together again, and the French and American governments.”
“Yes,” said Freddy—“that’s where you’d got to. What about the French and American governments?”
“Well, that’s the exciting part,” said Lila. “Darling, you have got such nice strong hands. I do like it when you hold me like this—as if you could break me quite easily.”
Freddy shook her a little.
“I shall if you don’t get a move on, darling. What about the French and American governments?”
“I’m telling you, my sweet. Have the French really had seven governments in two years?”
“I expect so—I haven’t counted.”
“Why?”
“I expect they know—I don’t. Now, darling, get on with it.”
“Well, they each sent a man over. Sleuths, you know—at least not ordinary sleuths, but more sort of Secret Service people—a French one and an American one. But Fitz says, or perhaps it was Dinks, I really don’t remember which—”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Freddy firmly, “Go on!”
“Well, they came over because they thought they’d got a clue. And they both dined with one of our Secret Service sleuths, and they kept it up till fairly late, and then they all went home. But they didn’t get there—at least the Frenchman and the American didn’t. The Englishman said good night to them, and they said ‘See you to-morrow’ and all that sort of thing, and they went off. But he didn’t see them to-morrow—no one did. They weren’t in their hotel—they weren’t anywhere. They say one of them’s been found in the river, but Fitz didn’t really know whether that was true. He thought it was the Frenchman. And our people are most dreadfully fussed about it, and they’re keeping it most fearfully quiet. And Fitz says—or perhaps it really was Dinks, I’m not sure—anyhow he says no one’s supposed to know anything about it, so of course everyone does.”
“I see,” said Freddy. “That all?”
She nodded.
“And as everyone does know, why mustn’t I talk about it?”
Freddy explained.
“It might get Ian into trouble. You see, his chief might think he’d been talking.”
“But Ian never talks.”
Freddy laughed.
“Copy him, darling!”
He let his hands fall from her shoulders, but she did not move. She looked down into her lap, and then suddenly lifted her eyes to his face.
“Freddy—do I talk too much?”
Freddy nodded.
“About people,” he said.
“But, my sweety, what else is there to talk about?”
He picked up one of her hands and held it lightly.
“Horses,” he said—“cars—books—theatres—rabbits—gardens—shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, and cabbages, and kings—”
Lila’s eyes opened very wide.
“Freddy, I couldn’t!”
“You could try, darling.”
Something showed in her eyes. It was as if the colour deepened, as if there was a stirring of the blue waters.
“Would it please you if I tried, Freddy?”
“Very much, darling.”
Her lips quivered a little like a child’s.
“I’ll try. I do like to please you, Freddy.”
He lifted her hand and held it against his cheek.
*See Danger Calling.
† See Walk with Ca
re.
CHAPTER XI
Flossie Palmer was still awake. She and Gladys shared a room, and Gladys had gone to sleep as soon as she got into bed. But Flossie couldn’t go to sleep. She kept thinking about Ivy, and Mr Miles, and 16 Varley Street. It wasn’t the least use counting sheep jumping over a stile, because she couldn’t keep her mind on them. She could begin, but before she knew where she was, there was the wall in the Varley Street drawing-room with a gilt frame which hadn’t any glass in it, but only a black hole. And then she’d see the man’s head with the blood running down, and the hand that clawed at the frame. And then she’d see the man with the cruel eyes looking at her out of the darkness. And then she would feel as if she must scream as she had screamed then, and run as she had run out into the fog.
Well, that wouldn’t do.
She began to think about the dinner. She had never really waited at a dinner-party before, but she hadn’t made any mistakes. There had only been four people, but everything had been done just as if it was a real dinner-party. Flossie admired Lila Gilmore very much. “Coo! She doesn’t half dress!” she said to herself. “Wonder what I’d look like in some of her things.” She began to go over the talk at the dinner-table. What was it Mrs Gilmore had said about a rope of black pearls?… Pearls ought to be white.… She couldn’t think what black pearls would look like. She pictured them rather like bits of coal. Funny Mrs Gilmore should want to have black pearls.… And Mr Miles was looking for some. He was looking for a girl and a string of black pearls.… Three hundred pearls in the string.… Coo! That seems an awful lot! She wondered how long a string three hundred pearls would make. Well, she could tell that easy enough by counting her old grey beads. Better to count beads than sheep.
She got out of bed, rummaged in her drawer, and got back again with the beads in her hand. She began to count from the clasp, slipping her fingers from one smooth bead to another in the dark. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two … fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two … a hundred … two hundred and fifty … two hundred and ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight—it was much better than counting sheep—ninety-nine … two hundred and ninety-nine … three hundred.…
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