Mr. Brading's Collection

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘Yes — Charles was telling me.’

  ‘Yes? So nice we can all be friends, and such a relief, isn’t it? It does simplify everything, don’t you think? So much more civilized. That is why I felt I could ring up like this. I do want you to see my flat and all we’ve done up here, so I wondered if you would come and have tea this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t this afternoon. I’m going out.’

  ‘With Charles? Of course — how stupid of me! Then what about Saturday? He won’t be here, I’m afraid — some tiresome business or other. But if you can put up with just me—’

  Stacy made an angry child’s face at the telephone and said,

  ‘It would be very nice.’

  ‘Then about half past four. You know where to get off the bus. There’s one every twenty minutes as long as the holidays last.’ She rang off.

  Stacy stamped her foot, looked at the receiver rather as if it were a snake in disguise, and hung it up in a despising manner. Lilias might or might not be a snake. The mere fact that she was in love with Charles didn’t make her one. Adopted sister or no adopted sister, she had always been in love with Charles. They both had flats at Saltings. And Lilias had said ‘We’. Why on earth had she said she would go there to tea? If there was a place in the world she ought to stay away from, it was Saltings. If you’ve been put to the rack, you don’t go and have tea in the torture chamber. Or do you? The plain fact was that she hadn’t had the guts to say right out, ‘I never want to see the place again — or you — or you.’ Because Lilias had looked on whilst she was tortured. Kindly? Sympathetically? Regretfully? There was a question in each of these words, and it was a question to which Stacy had never been able to find an answer. It didn’t matter now. What mattered was that Lilias had been there — she had seen her on the rack.

  And yet — and yet — she would go to Saltings tomorrow. Lilias would show her ‘what we have done’ to the place which was to have been her home with Charles. In the name of folly, why?

  The answer came out of deep places, ‘Because I’m a fool — because I can’t keep away.’

  TEN

  STACY TOOK THE quarter past two bus to Ledstow. She wore a printed linen dress in shades of grey and blue, and nothing on her head except a good deal of really pretty brown hair. Brown hair can be very pretty indeed. Stacy’s had lights in it and glints, and it curled because it was curly. It was, in fact, her one undeniable beauty. She knew as well as anyone else that she had neither Features nor a Complexion. Not in the sense in which these words constitute a claim to beauty. She had a nice skin and a pair of quite good grey eyes. Sometimes when she didn’t see them herself they had rather a charming expression — something young, sensitive, aware, and rather sweet. For the rest — forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin — there wasn’t very much to be said. They were there, just a forehead, a nose, two cheeks, and a chin. The mouth was red and not too small. When she smiled it showed nice white teeth. No, she had reason to be grateful about her hair.

  The conclusion arrived at after an unusually prolonged study of her reflection in the not very flattering club mirror went with her to Ledstow. After that it merged into a distracted feeling that she was a fool to be going to meet Charles, and the cold bedrock conviction that she couldn’t have stopped herself.

  At the first halt clear of the town she got out feeling shaky about the knees. Charles must have been following the bus. He came up with her before she had walked a dozen yards, pushed open the door of his car, and said,

  ‘Hullo, darling!’

  It wasn’t the old shabby car of their honeymoon, but a post-war Armstrong. Charles was doing well for himself, as Jack Constable had said last night. He looked right on the top of the wave. And all of a sudden she was there with him. They were on the top of the wave together and everything in the garden was lovely — warm sun, a breeze from the sea, and the two of them going off into the blue. It wouldn’t last of course. It was just an interlude in the business of living, a breakaway from the shape and substance of reality, no more responsive to the past or future, no more substantial than a dream. What they did or said wouldn’t matter, because it wouldn’t really be said or done. The burden of responsibility was gone, and the burden of decision. Everything in her softened and relaxed.

  Charles Forrest said,

  ‘We can leave the car at the top and go down into Wakewell Cove. People don’t go there much. The bathing’s dangerous, and the path looks steeper than it is.’

  It was quite steep enough. They scrambled, she slipped, Charles caught her, they laughed together and he scolded her.

  ‘You don’t look where you’re going.’

  ‘I do!’ — indignantly.

  ‘It’s those idiotic shoes.’

  ‘But I didn’t know I was coming on a beach. You said Ledlington.’

  Charles’ arm across her shoulders, shaking her lightly, teasingly.

  ‘Men were deceivers ever!’

  Then they were down on a beach of shell and shingle, with the sea a long way out and not a soul in sight, and Charles was saying,

  ‘Business first, pleasure afterwards. We’ll have a nice talk about alimony, and when that’s given you a really good appetite we’ll go and have buns at the Cat and Mouse.’

  Stacy sat on the fine ridged shingle. She ran her hands into it and brought up shells and small translucent stones. One of the shells was like a little cap of purple and mother-of-pearl. She frowned at it and said,

  ‘That’s nonsense. There’s nothing to talk about.’

  Charles sounded lazy and amused.

  ‘Think again, darling. The governing word is alimony. I think you must have missed it. There is almost no end to the avenues of conversation which it opens up.’

  Stacy went on looking at the pearly shell.

  ‘I’m not interested in any of them.’

  He hummed under his breath,

  ‘ “No, I will not walk, no, I will not talk.

  No, I will not walk nor talk with thee.”

  Come, come, let the blessed word alimony persuade you.’

  He saw the blood come up into her face. She said in a quick angry voice,

  ‘There isn’t any question of alimony! You didn’t leave me— I left you.’

  ‘And you’d do it again tomorrow — a very proper spirit! You rise just like you always did. Now we laugh and start all over again. I’m doing very well out of Saltings. The flats have caught on, and people positively fight for them. All very pleasant and profitable, and a nice change from wondering where the next lot of rates and property tax are coming from. Well, that being that, and quite without prejudice, I would like you to have a look-in on it. I expect it’s slipped your memory, but I did endow you with all my worldly goods.’

  Stacy sat up glowing.

  ‘It seems to have slipped your memory that we’ve had a divorce.’

  She met a disturbing look.

  ‘Think so? Well, you always go on reminding me! Now, to come down to brass tacks — I want you to take three hundred a year.’

  ‘Charles — of course I won’t!’

  He said in quite a serious tone,

  ‘I’d feel a great deal more comfortable if you would.’

  Stacy’s right hand closed on the little shell and broke it.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly! You ought to know that without being told!’

  He was smiling.

  ‘Go on — get it off the chest! There’s a whole lot more, and I know it all by heart — “I can support myself without your help! I’d rather starve than touch your money!”’

  ‘Oh!’ It was a pure breath of rage.

  Charles continued to smile in a manner generally considered to be charming.

  ‘All quite effective in melodrama, but not really up your street. For one thing it demands the flashing eye, the classic cast of feature, and either the Grecian or Roman nose. Now with a little snub nose like yours—’

  ‘It isn’t!’

  ‘Oh, de
finitely. I’m not saying anything against it, you know — I’ve always found it pleasant. I should never, for instance, have married a classic mask. It’s what I should describe as an agreeable nose for comedy or the domestic hearth. But not calculated to carry off lines of the unhand-me-villain type.’

  Her mouth twitched, a dimple appeared. She broke into angry laughter.

  Charles said, ‘That’s better. It’s always a pity to miscast yourself. And you might, you know, without me at hand to warn, to threaten, and command. You’ll have to watch yourself.’

  ‘Really, Charles!’

  ‘Definitely, my sweet. The — we won’t call it alimony if you’d rather not — allowance sounds much less divorce court, doesn’t it? It will be paid into your account quarterly.’

  ‘No, it won’t! I’m not joking, and I can’t possibly take it!’

  Charles was sitting up hugging his knees. He said with a note of reproof in his voice,

  ‘Quite right — you should never joke about money. I wouldn’t dream of it. Nor would you if you knew how many midnight forms I had to fill up before they’d let me get down to converting Saltings into flats. All honest-to-Ministry-of-Health toil, involving enormous mental strain. You know, the people who make out government forms are really wasted in the back rooms of the Civil Service. They ought to be drawing much larger salaries making up crossword puzzles, then they’d be applauded and admired instead of being damned into heaps every time anyone fills up a form.’

  Stacy’s dimple trembled in and out again.

  ‘But I’m not going to take it, Charles.’

  He released his knees and with a sudden movement reached forward and took her by the wrists.

  ‘Now you just listen to me!’

  ‘I can listen quite well without you holding. Charles— that hurts!’

  ‘It was meant to. That money will be paid into your bank every quarter. You can go on the razzle-dazzle with it, or chuck it over Waterloo Bridge, or squander it on the undeserving poor, or you can leave it lying in the bank — I don’t care a damn. But you can’t stop me paying it in. I won’t have you exercise your pride at the expense of my peace of mind. If miniatures boom, a miserable three hundred can be properly despised. If the bottom drops out of painting — well, I’d like to feel you had a herring and a crust.’

  ‘Charles — let go!’

  He took his hands away at once, laughed, and said,

  ‘No bruises, darling. And now let’s talk about something else.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I can’t stop your paying the money in—’

  ‘Too true.’

  ‘But I shan’t touch it.’

  ‘That’s your affair. Let us abandon it and talk about me. Does it interest you at all to hear that I’m within measurable distance of being disinherited?’

  ‘How—?’

  ‘Oh, not Saltings — that’s round my neck for life. It’s my Great Expectations. I believe Lewis to be contemplating matrimony.’

  ‘At his age!’

  ‘Well, he’s only about fifty-five, you know, and he’s never been quite such a dried-up stick as he looks. He was engaged to Dossie Dale somewhere about twenty years ago. I’m told they split when he discovered that her Dossie should have been spelt with a B. One of the upper-hand-or-die brigade. Then of course there was his affair with Myra Constantine. Don’t tell me you’ve been there nearly twenty-four hours and she hasn’t told you all about it. He made strictly dishonourable proposals and suggested an unofficial honeymoon in Paris. She told him she was well over fifty, and if he was ten years younger, he was plenty old enough to know a respectable woman when he saw one. After which I believe he went the length of asking her to marry him, and she burst out laughing and said if she’d been going to marry again she could have done it twenty times a year for the past thirty years or so. They stayed good friends, and that’s a feather in Myra’s cap. Lewis is the sort that might bear malice, but she didn’t let him.’

  ‘And who is he proposing to now?’

  ‘You saw that red-haired girl last night?’

  ‘Of course I saw her. You don’t mean to say—’

  He nodded.

  ‘Her name is Maida Robinson. Her hair, as you have observed, is red. She has a very pronounced “Come hither” in her eye, and she has more or less got Lewis where she wants him. Up to last night the status of Robinson was in doubt, but during our third dance she confided artlessly that she had divorced him a year ago. There is therefore no just cause or impediment to her annexing Lewis.’

  ‘But they weren’t taking any notice of each other last night.’

  ‘Lovers’ quarrel, darling. You may have seen her look at me affectionately.’

  ‘Why should she?’

  ‘Lewis was being shown that there were other good fish in the sea. Maida knows her stuff all right. Lewis was all ready to eat out of her hand by the time she let him have a dance. He’s getting to know his place. He can adore her, and she can adore the Collection. I only hope he will have enough strength of mind to restrain her from wearing the Marsden rubies. She’ll want to of course — red-haired women always hanker after crimson. And Dossie had them — someone is bound to have told her that. She wore them at the ball he gave for her when they were engaged. They were supposed to be unlucky. Some dancer was stabbed when she was wearing them — a girl called Lisa Canaletti — in Paris under the second Empire. George Marsden bought them a dozen years later. His wife wore them for twenty years before she was killed in a carriage accident, and then her daughter had them, and she was killed in an air raid. After which the necklace sat in a bank until Lewis bought it. The middle ruby is very fine, and the story appealed to him.’

  ‘Charles what is that Collection worth?’

  He laughed.

  ‘Quite a lot! But it won’t come our way.’

  When he said our like that, she felt as if she had been touched upon the heart. And he didn’t mean anything — he didn’t mean anything at all. She heard him say,

  ‘Just the stones themselves have a considerable market value. And then there are other morbid blokes besides Lewis who will pay a fancy price for a thing with a story pinned to it.’

  Something knocked at the door of Stacy’s mind. She said,

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous having all that stuff?’

  Charles had a fleeting frown.

  ‘Everybody’s been saying that for years, but nothing happens. Of course the stuff wasn’t there during the war, but he got it back again as soon as he could. The whole annexe is really a strongroom, and the special things are in a safe over and above that. No windows, only one way in, and a light burning all night long in the passage from the house. It ought to be safe enough.’

  Stacy said quickly, ‘The light went out last night.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘Charles, it did.’

  She told him about hearing the door click.

  ‘I heard it, and I looked out of the window, and the passage was all dark.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. And then whilst I was looking the light came on again, and I’m practically certain the door of the annexe was just being shut. It was still moving.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I don’t know — late — very late — I’d been asleep a long time.’

  Charles broke out laughing.

  ‘James Moberly was coming home after a night on the tiles! He would have to come through the house, because there’s no other way to the annexe, and he left the light off to avoid a snooping eye.’

  ‘I haven’t got a snooping eye! I was just looking out. And — Charles — he couldn’t have come through the house, because the door is bolted after the last guest has gone. I know, because I asked this morning in case of dining out. I said could I have a key, and they said I could, only you have to warn in or the door would be bolted.’

  ‘Perhaps he did warn in.’

  ‘No, he didn’t, because I
asked if anyone was out last night, and they said no, and that everyone had gone home by twelve o’clock.’

  Charles looked at her curiously.

  ‘Bit of a nosey parker, weren’t you, my sweet?’

  She flushed.

  ‘It wasn’t like that. I though I’d just find out about having a key.’

  ‘In case I asked you out! How provident!’

  ‘In case I wanted to go out, and — well, then everything just came along of itself. Charles, I didn’t think it was anyone coming out of the house and going through the glass passage to the annexe — I didn’t really.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘It’s all vague, you know — just an impression. But I thought — I really did think it was someone coming from the passage into the house.’

  ‘But you said you saw the annexe door move when the light came on.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Yes, I know. But I thought there was someone there with the door open, waiting for the person in the passage to get into the house and then shutting their own door and putting on the light.’

  Charles was looking at her hard.

  ‘But you didn’t see anyone doing those things?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And it might have been the other way round — someone coming out of the house, going into the annexe, and turning on the light when they got in?’

  Her voice dragged and hesitated as she said,

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘In which case it was probably James Moberly or Lewis himself.’

  ‘Then why was the passage dark? If there wasn’t anything wrong, I mean.’

  ‘It was broad daylight when they came over to the house and they forgot to switch it on. Even Lewis is human. It doesn’t switch on from the house, you know. It used to, but when Lewis turned the place over he had it changed. The switches are all on the annexe side.’

  Stacy put her hand up to her cheek. The colour had brightened there.

  ‘Then it was the way I said, because the light was on all right when I got into bed. It wasn’t quite dark outside, but the passage was lighted from end to end. Only someone in the annexe could have turned it out after that.’

  Charles frowned and looked away.