Miss Silver said, “No.”
“But it was a man who telephoned to make the appointment-”
“Yes-for Lady Jocelyn.”
“You are quite sure Nellie Collins said that?”
“Quite sure, Frank.”
He pushed back his chair and got up.
“Then it’s a million to one that Lady Jocelyn has a completely unbreakable alibi!”
CHAPTER 20
Anne Jocelyn opened the door of her flat. She looked with surprise at the two men who had been waiting for her to do so. She saw a ponderous middle-aged man who might have been a chapel pillar, and an elegant young one who might have been more at home in a drawing-room.
Introducing himself as Chief Detective Inspector Lamb, the older man crossed the threshold, briefly indicated his companion as Detective Sergeant Abbott, and remarked in a voice which had not quite lost its original country accent,
“Perhaps you would let us have a word with you, Lady Jocelyn.”
There was a moment before she moved. The landing from which they came was almost dark, the hall of the flat lighted only from the half-open sitting-room door. If she turned round she would have to face the light. But she must turn round, or they would know that she was frightened. Frightened-how did any word express that sensation of everything having come to an end? She wrenched at her will, setting it to command her body, and it obeyed. There was really only the least possible pause before she led the way towards that half-open door.
They came into a pleasant room. Light shining from the ceiling through a Lalique bowl. Another in very heavy glass with a design of birds pecking at fruit held a sheaf of tawny chrysanthemums. The drawn curtains were of honey-coloured brocade. They gave the light in the room a faintly golden tinge. All the colouring was in the range of shades between honey and russet.
Lady Jocelyn wore a blue dress and two rows of noticeable pearls. She said,
“You wanted to see me-” then broke off.
It was no good pretending. Anyone who wasn’t a complete fool could see that she was frightened, and neither of these men were fools, not even the old one, with his heavy policeman’s figure and his stolid face. She made a disarming little gesture which old Lamb stigmatized as foreign.
“You will think me very stupid-but you frightened me so much. You know, I have been in France for more than three years under the Occupation, and when for three years the police have meant the Gestapo, it’s not always easy-” She broke off again, and said with a smile, “My nerves played me a trick. What can I do for you? Won’t you sit down?”
They sat. The light shone down on them. Frank Abbott’s eye ran over her. Pretty woman-strung up-very quick off the mark with a cover-up, but might be quite genuine. Ars est celare artem-but if it was art, he took off his hat to it. There might, of course, be nothing to conceal. That the Gestapo could get on a girl’s nerves in an occupied country needed no stressing.
Lamb had allowed the silence to settle. Now he said,
“I am sorry we startled you. I have reason to believe that you may be able to give us some assistance with regard to a case which we are investigating.”
“A case? I-of course anything I can-but I don’t know-”
Chief Detective Inspector Lamb proceeded as if she had not spoken. His eyes, which reminded his irreverent Sergeant so forcibly of bull’s-eyes, were fixed upon her very much as if she had been a chair or a sofa. They showed no appreciation of the fact that she was young, charming, pretty, and Lady Jocelyn. He just looked at her. She might have been an old scrub-woman, a doorpost, or a cat. He said in that robust country voice,
“The case was reported to us as a road death. The deceased has been identified by her lodger as Miss Nellie Collins of the Lady’s Workbox, Blackheath Vale. Did you know her?”
Frank Abbott saw the natural colour sink away from the surface skin of Lady Jocelyn’s face. It left two islands of rouge, and the scarlet shape of a mouth painted on in lipstick. Before this happened the tinting had been so skilfully done that it was hard to say where nature ended and art began. Now not even art was left. The remaining colour stood up on the blanched skin like crude daubs upon a linen mask. With this evidence of shock before his eyes, he saw the throat muscles tighten. They held her voice steady for the single word she needed.
“No.”
“You did not know Miss Collins?”
“No.”
“Never heard of her?”
Frank Abbott looked quickly down at the hands in Anne Jocelyn’s lap. Hands were the biggest giveaway of the lot. He had seen so many women’s hands tell what the face withheld. But Anne Jocelyn’s hands told nothing at all. They neither clung the one to the other, nor were clenched each upon itself. They lay at ease in her lap-at ease, or under perfect control. They did not move at all till she said,
“Yes-she wrote to me.”
Chief Inspector Lamb sat there like an image, with a hand on either knee. He had put down his bowler hat on a chest in the hall, but had merely unbuttoned his overcoat without removing it. His eyes never left her face, but remained expressionless. He might have been having his photograph taken- one of those stolid photographs in which the father of the family stares at the camera with a blank eye and a vacant mind. He said,
“Will you tell me why she did that?”
“She wanted to see me.”
“What reason did she give for wanting to see you, Lady Jocelyn?”
She drew in a long, full breath. If she had had a shock, it was passing. Her colour was coming back. She said,
“I’m sorry-I’m being stupid-you did frighten me. It’s all very simple really. I expect you will have seen in the papers that my family thought I was dead-someone else was buried in my name-a woman called Annie Joyce. She was an illegitimate connection-as a matter of fact a first cousin-and we were very much alike. Miss Collins knew Annie when she was a little girl. She wrote and told me she had been fond of her, and asked if she could come and see me. She wanted to know all about her.”
“I see. What reply did you make?”
“Well, I’m afraid I didn’t answer the letter.”
“You didn’t answer it?”
“No. It really only came a few days ago, and I’ve been very busy over the move. We have only just got into this flat.”
“When did you move, Lady Jocelyn?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday? And you were moving from-”
“Jocelyn’s Holt-in Surrey. My husband is at the War Office. He found it took too much time going up and down.”
“Yesterday-” Lamb dwelt on the word. “Then where were you during the afternoon?”
“I saw our things off from Jocelyn’s Holt in the morning, and travelled up myself after an early lunch. I got to the flat about three, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting things straight.”
“Anyone with you?”
“I brought one of my maids up from Jocelyn’s Holt. I’m not keeping her here because she’s a young country girl, but she helped me yesterday and stayed the night. I sent her back this afternoon.”
“Will you kindly give me her name and address?”
“Ivy Fossett. She’s down at Jocelyn’s Holt.”
Frank Abbott had been writing down these questions and answers. He wrote down Ivy’s name.
Lamb went on.
“Did you leave the flat at all after you arrived at-what time did you say?”
“It was ten minutes to three. No, I didn’t go out again.”
“You didn’t go to Waterloo Station to keep an appointment with Miss Collins?”
“No, of course I didn’t-I hadn’t any appointment with her. I didn’t go out at all.”
“Can anyone besides Ivy Fossett corroborate that?”
Anne Jocelyn’s colour had risen. She had a puzzled look.
“I don’t know what you mean. My cousin, Mrs. Perry Jocelyn, came in just before four. She stayed to tea and helped me to unpack.”
“How long did
she stay?”
“Till just before seven.”
“May I have her address please?”
Abbott wrote it down.
Anne Jocelyn threw out her hands in a sudden gesture.
“Why are you asking me all these questions? What does it matter whether I went out or not? I hadn’t any appointment with Miss Collins, but why should it have mattered if I had?”
Lamb just went on looking at her.
“Miss Collins was under the impression that she had an appointment with you under the clock at Waterloo at a quarter to four yesterday afternoon.”
“But that’s nonsense-”
“She came up from Blackheath to keep that appointment, Lady Jocelyn.”
“But she couldn’t-I wasn’t there. I was here, in this flat, unpacking. I never even wrote to her. How could she have an appointment with me?”
“There are other ways of making an appointment except through the post. There is the telephone, Lady Jocelyn. Miss Collins put her telephone number at the head of the letter she wrote you, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know-she may have done-I really didn’t notice.”
“May I see that letter?”
“Well-I’m afraid I didn’t keep it.”
Still no expression on his face.
“You didn’t keep it. But you hadn’t answered it-had you?”
There was another of those gestures, slight, graceful, just a little foreign.
“Well, she had a shop, you know. I remembered the name-I could have written later. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to write. There really was nothing that I could tell her about Annie. The whole Joyce connection was-distasteful. And I thought Miss Collins was perhaps-well, a sensation-hunter. If you knew the letters we have had from people who didn’t know us at all!”
“So you destroyed the letter. Can you remember the contents?”
“I think so. It was rather a rigmarole-all about how fond she had been of Annie, and could she come and see me, because she wanted to hear all about her sad death-that sort of thing.”
“Did the letter suggest any special knowledge about Annie Joyce?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did it suggest that the writer would be able to identify Annie Joyce?”
She let her eyes meet his for a moment, cold under the raised brows.
“No-of course not. What an extraordinary thing to say! How could she identify Annie Joyce? She is dead.”
Lamb said, “Do you mean that Annie Joyce is dead? Or do you mean that Nellie Collins, who might have identified her, is dead?”
She caught her breath.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I would like to know, Lady Jocelyn.”
She said, her voice lower than it had been at all,
“Annie Joyce is dead.”
Lamb said gravely,
“And so is Nellie Collins.”
CHAPTER 21
I told you she would have a cast-iron alibi.”
Frank Abbott sat back in his chair and waited for Miss Silver’s reaction. It was hardly noticeable. She had begun Johnny’s second stocking and almost finished the ribbing at the top. Her needles did not check nor did her expression change as she replied,
“You are naturally in a hurry to let me know that you were perfectly right.”
He spread out his hands with a laughing gesture.
“Revered preceptress!”
Miss Silver permitted a very faint smile to relax her lips.
“When you have finished talking nonsense, Frank, perhaps you will go on telling me about Lady Jocelyn. It is all very interesting.”
“Well, when we came away from the flat the Chief asked me what I made of her. He has a way of doing that, and when you’ve told him, he doesn’t utter. He may think it’s tripe, or he may think it’s the cat’s whiskers, but he won’t let on-just sticks it away behind that poker face and takes the next opportunity of snubbing you good and hard. I’ve got an idea that the snub is in inverse ratio to the value he sets on your opinion-in fact the bigger the snub, the bigger the compliment. I got Remarks from a Superior Officer to a Subordinate on the Dangers of Swollen Head, all the way down the stairs.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“And pray, what did you make of Lady Jocelyn?”
“Ah-now that is very interesting. I think the Chief thought so too-hence the homily. She opened the door to us herself, and if we’d been Gestapo with death-warrants spilling out of all our pockets, she couldn’t have been more taken aback.”
Miss Silver coughed again.
“She has, after all, been living under the Gestapo for more than three years.”
“So she took occasion to remind us. Grasped the nettle with great firmness and presence of mind, said we’d frightened her dreadfully, and led the way to the drawing-room, where she very nearly passed out when the Chief mentioned that we’d come to ask questions about Miss Nellie Collins, who was dead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come so near fainting and not do it. And the only reason she didn’t do it was because she wouldn’t. She made the sort of effort that is painful to watch-it was like seeing a steel spring being coiled up. And she pulled it off. But the really extraordinary thing was the isolation and concentration of the effort-the throat muscles were perfectly tense, but the hands lying in her lap remained quite lax. Odd, you know, and pointing to great powers of control. Only what was it all about? She was horribly frightened when she first saw us, but she was pulling out of that. Then the Chief told her Nellie Collins was dead, and it very nearly knocked her out. I’ll swear she didn’t know it till he told her, and it came as a quite terrific shock. Why? She was frightened before she knew that Nellie Collins was dead-horribly frightened. She hears of the death and nearly faints. I want to know why. If she hadn’t any guilty knowledge, why the initial fright? If she had, why the subsequent shock? What does it matter to her that Nellie Collins should be a road casualty? What’s Hecuba to her, or she to Hecuba?”
Miss Silver gazed at him silently.
“Annie Joyce might have two excellent reasons for shock. Relief, the effects of which are often quite overwhelming, or affection-she may have been really fond of Nellie Collins.”
He said, “Annie Joyce-”
The needles clicked.
“Certainly, my dear Frank. Abnormal interest in Nellie Collins suggests very strongly that it was Annie Joyce who survived, and not Anne Jocelyn. Lady Jocelyn would have no reason to be afraid of any special knowledge which Miss Collins might possess. Annie Joyce impersonating Lady Jocelyn would have every reason to fear it. I can think of no possible reason why Nellie Collins’ death on the road should inflict any shock upon Lady Jocelyn. The news of it would be no more to her than the death of a person just heard of but never encountered. Such things happen every day, and are dismissed with a casual expression of sympathy. We say, ‘How sad!’ and do not think of the incident again. If the death of Nellie Collins inflicted so severe a shock as you have described, I am forced to the conclusion that this shock was inflicted upon Annie Joyce.”
He looked at her keenly. The basis of their relation was the fact that each admired and stimulated the other. In her presence all the mental processes were quickened and intensified, thoughts stood out sharply. He said,
“If that is so, your second reason doesn’t apply, I’m afraid. She certainly wasn’t shocked at Nellie Collins’ death because she was fond of her. That stuck out about a mile-it’s the sort of thing you can’t miss. The Chief went on talking about her, and there wasn’t a trace of affection in Lady Jocelyn’s replies. Of course if she is Annie Joyce, she wouldn’t be wanting to show any particular feeling, but if there had been anything there, I think I’d have got it. All I did get was- well, it isn’t easy to put it into words, but indifference comes near-genuine indifference to Nellie Collins as a person, combined with knock-out shock on hearing of her death. Now just how do those two things combine? They w
ere there- I’ll swear to that.”
Miss Silver nodded gently.
“Yes-that is very interesting,” she said. “Assuming that Lady Jocelyn is Annie Joyce, the logical deduction would be that she considered herself to be threatened by Nellie Collins. I told you that I feared the poor thing might have laid herself open to misconstruction. Certainly her conversation on the telephone with the unknown man who represented himself as acting for Lady Jocelyn may have given him reason to fear an attempt at blackmail. There is nothing more dangerous than the attempt of an amateur to blackmail an experienced criminal. I am quite sure that Miss Collins had no such intention, but I fear she gave the impression-the very strong impression-that her continued existence would be dangerous. I must direct your attention to this unknown man. It is clear that he knew of Miss Collins’ letter to Lady Jocelyn- she probably handed it on to him. This would explain the behaviour which puzzles you. Still assuming that she is Annie Joyce, the appearance of the police would naturally be very alarming. When to this general alarm there is added the sudden intelligence that Nellie Collins has been murdered-and in the circumstances there could be no doubt that it was murder-the shock would naturally be very great. It is quite possible, in fact extremely probable, that she did not know what was intended. She may have thought that Nellie Collins was to be dealt with in some other way-dissuaded from coming to see her, convinced that she had nothing to gain, discouraged in any attempt to pursue an unprofitable connection. The shock of finding herself involved in a murder might well produce the effect which you described so vividly.”
He nodded.
“Yes-it might be like that. I think it’s clear that she wasn’t in at the death, so to speak.”
Miss Silver primmed her mouth.
“A distasteful metaphor, Frank.”
“Apologies-you know what I mean. The girl at Jocelyn’s Holt, Ivy What’s-her-name, says she came up to town with Lady Jocelyn and was never out of sight or sound of her for more than a minute or two until they all went to bed just short of eleven. All the doors of the flat were open, and they were going to and fro from one room to the other, unpacking and arranging things. Mrs. Perry Jocelyn arrived just before four, and they all three carried on. She stayed till seven o’clock, when Lady Jocelyn went into the kitchen and began to prepare the evening meal. Ivy says she’s a lovely cook, but I think she considered it a bit infra dig. Sir Philip got in at half past seven. After dinner he was working in the study, and Ivy and Lady Jocelyn went on clearing up. Mrs. Perry Jocelyn corroborates-says she was there from just before four until just before seven. She and Ivy both say that Lady Jocelyn never left the flat. Well, as far as active participation in the crime is concerned, that washes her out. She is accounted for right through the afternoon and evening and up to just before eleven at night, when the three people in the flat went to bed. The medical evidence comes down heavily on Nellie Collins having been dead well before then. As First Murderer, Lady Jocelyn, or if you prefer it, Annie Joyce, is out of it. But of course it’s too easy-the First Murderer is undoubtedly the agreeable gentleman who Miss Collins hoped was a baronet. We have only to find him.”
She Came Back Page 12
