Pursuit of a Parcel

by Patricia Wentworth

  He had his hand on the starter, when she came running up on the off side and leaned right in.

  “Mr. Antony—”

  “What is is?”

  “Mr. Antony—”

  He took hold of himself. There was something she wanted to say. Not a chance in a million that it was anything to matter, but he couldn’t afford to neglect the millionth chance.

  “What is it, Ivy? Have you thought of anything else?”

  Her giggle was a nervous one.

  “Well, I might have—I dunno. You wouldn’t get me into trouble with the police?”

  What did one say to that? He chanced it honestly.

  “It would depend on what you’d done. I’d do my best. What is it?”

  She hesitated, drew back a little, and then came out with,

  “Would there be a reward?”

  A laughter as bitter as anger swept through him. Money! Of course that was what she was after. What a damned fool he had been not to tumble to it before! He said in what he hoped was a casual voice,

  “Oh, yes, there’d be a reward.”

  “How much?” said Ivy briskly. Business was business, and a girl had to look out for herself.

  “How much do you want?”

  There was a momentary hesitation. Then she got it out.

  “Fifty pounds.”

  “What for?” He wasn’t casual now, but as businesslike as she.

  “Well—”

  “My dear girl, you don’t expect me to buy a pig in a poke, do you?”

  “I dunno what you mean.” She drew back.

  If she turned sulky, he’d lose her. He said quickly,

  “You can have your fifty pounds if you’ve got anything that’s worth it. But you must tell me what it is—I can’t just give it you blind—you must see that.”

  She said, “I dunno—” and stood fingering her bag. And then all at once she began to talk with an uneven rush of words. “I wouldn’t have let that old Hopkins have it, not if he’d gone down on his knees. But you’re different—and you’re a gentleman, Mr. Antony—and if you say I’ll get my fifty pounds—well, then you’ll see I get it. And as for what it’s worth, I can’t say—but there’s a letter, and—well, you can see for yourself.”

  The hands that were fiddling with the bag pulled it open. Out came something flat and dark. She pushed it at him. The dusk was closing in, but it was not so dark but that he could see that what she was giving him was a shabby leather wallet. His heart bounded.

  “Dropped it out of his rain-coat pocket most likely, when he was saying goodnight. I don’t say there wasn’t a kiss or two. And what’s the harm if you like it? Some do and some don’t. And some old cats—well nobody’d want to kiss them any old how, so what’s the odds?”

  It fell out of his rain-coat.… Antony thought not. He thought those predatory fingers with their scarlet nails had picked it neatly out of an inner pocket. If he had his arms round her, she would have felt it through the stuff. No human being ever carried a wallet in the outside pocket of a rain-coat.… Well, that wasn’t his business.

  She tugged at his sleeve and said in an urgent whisper,

  “You won’t let the police get nasty about it, will you? It just dropped out—I swear it did. There wasn’t any money, no more than what’s there now. You can see for yourself.”

  All at once he was in a raging hurry to be gone—to find out what she had given him. He said,

  “I’ll put it right with the police, and—thank you, Ivy—you shall have your money.”

  Five minutes later he was up in the room which had always been his, turning the wallet out on the top of the chest of drawers. There wasn’t very much in it. There was a postal order for half a crown—no name filled in. His mouth twisted. He had an idea that Ivy had left it there, as you might say for luck. He didn’t think she would have left a note. Perhaps there hadn’t been one—perhaps there had been two or three. It was not his affair.

  After the postal order a book of stamps—all torn out except two. And after the book of stamps a letter written on thin, cheap paper in a clear, rather childish hand. There was an address at the top—13 Middle Carrick Row, Putney. He read what followed without the slightest compunction:

  “Dear Jimmy,

  This is to say I can’t meet you Saturday like you said. Mum’s got one of her turns so I must stay home. I would like to come another time if you will ask me but Mum says I’m not old enough to go out with someone she don’t know anything about. She is very strict because of being brought up chapel but I don’t like to vex her because of her getting these turns which worries me a lot. She says if you want me to go out will you call and see her because that would make it all right. She says she ought to know anyone I’m going with. I hope you will not mind.

  Your sincere friend,

  Molly”

  Within ten minutes Antony was reading this rather touching effusion over the telephone to Detective Inspector Lamb.

  “That all, Mr. Rossiter?”

  “I’ve got a description of Jimmy from the girl who gave me the wallet. I’ve promised her she shan’t get into trouble.”

  He told Ivy’s tale, and got a “Nice bit of work, Mr. Rossiter. I’ll send Abbott along to Middle Carrick Row at once.…”

  There was, after all, no evening to be dragged through with Miss Simcox.

  Antony took the road again.

  He came into the room which Detective Sergeant Abbott had entered no more than a couple of minutes before him, and found him there with Detective Inspector Lamb. He had no idea that he looked ghastly enough to startle the two men, and took Lamb’s expression of concern to be the precursor of bad news. The muscles of his face tightened. He came forward to the table and said in a low, hard voice,

  “What is it? Better tell me and get it over.”

  Abbott said quickly, “There’s nothing bad. Here, you look all in. Better have a chair.”

  Antony blinked as if he had been hit. He got into the chair and leaned back. After a moment he fished out the wallet and handed it over. Lamb went through it methodically, Abbott standing on the other side of the table—a slim young man in clothes of a most excellent cut. At another time Antony would have wondered about him. Now he was just an image on the retina, sharp and hard and clear, like everything else in the room. The pens on the table, the blotting-pad, the buttons on old Lamb’s rather baggy coat, Abbott’s slicked-back hair, the lines at the corners of Lamb’s eyes, his short-stubby eyelashes—all these things stood out like things seen under a bright, unsparing light—limelight—the headlights of a car—the midday sun on sand in Africa—

  He pulled at his thought and heard Lamb saying,

  “Abbott’s just got back, Mr. Rossiter. I expect you’d like to hear what he’s got to say. Carry on, Abbott.”

  In the bright picture before Antony’s eyes Sergeant Abbott pulled up a chair and sat down. Then he began to speak. He had a noticeably pleasant, cultured voice.

  “Well, sir, I went to Middle Carrick Row. The people at No. 13 are a Mrs. Reade and her daughter. She’s a widow and a bit of an invalid. The girl was out when I got there, but I saw the mother. Just what you’d expect from the girl’s letter—very respectable, very worried at the idea of the girl being mixed up with anyone who wasn’t. And this is what she told me. Molly is only sixteen. She goes out as a sort of daily help to some people called Lester—Sycamore Lodge, Wood Lane, Putney. There are three or four children and she helps look after them—takes them out for walks and that sort of thing. Next door to Sycamore Lodge is The Acacias—Dr. Ernest Long. The families don’t know each other, but Molly met this Jimmy she wrote the letter to coming out of Dr. Long’s. His name is Jimmy Nash. I think he’s Blinking Jimmy. It’s the sort of job he might easily be mixed up in. One of the Lester children had fallen down and barked its knees. Nash picked it up and scraped acquaintance. That was about ten days ago. He’s been waylaying Molly and asking her to go to the pictures—Mrs. Reade’s a good deal bothe
red. She’d got as far as this when the girl came in. Nice child—friendly—pleased at Nash’s attentions—no feelings involved. Something put it into my head to ask her whether she’d ever seen Nash in a car—a dark Morris 12 for choice. She said no, he had a motorbike, but Dr. Long had a black Morris car. She didn’t know one car from another herself, but it was a black one, and the elder Lester boy, who is ten, said it was a Morris 12. And when I asked her if she had ever noticed the registration number she said she had, because she’d got a friend with the initials J.M.C., and wasn’t it funny, he was twenty-two and the car number began that way. And what do you think of that, sir?”

  Antony felt as if he had received an electric shock.

  “Did she know the rest of the number?”

  “No—quite vague. Interest obviously confined to the coincidence with the friend’s initials and age.” He turned back to the Inspector. “I tried her with the description of Barend Roos, but it was a wash-out. She said a lot of people came to see Dr. Long. Added helpfully she supposed they’d be patients. And then, just as I was going out of the door, she said it wouldn’t be any good my going to see Dr. Long, because he was in hospital. He got hurt in an air raid a week ago—‘Mrs. Long is ever so worried about him.’”

  Inspector Lamb pushed back his chair and got up.

  “Looks to me as if she’d got more to worry about than that,” he said. “I think we’ll be paying a call on Mrs. Long. I’d like to ask her who has been using Dr. Long’s car whilst he’s been away in hospital.”

  XVIII

  Delia put back the telephone receiver. It would be nice to get out of the house for an hour. Simmy was a pet, but they had already spent the whole day together, and there would be at the very least another two hours after dinner, filled up tight with anecdotes of all the pupils Simmy had ever had—dear Doris Penfold—dear Lilias—dear Mary—dear Dilys—Enid—Bronwen.… Once started, there was no end. She didn’t really mind of course, but it would be rather nice to go over to Cynthia’s for an hour and meet her new young man. She wondered what he was like. Rather an odd accent, but perhaps that was just the telephone—telephones did awfully queer things to your voice. Anyhow she gathered that it was his car and he was driving Cynthia home. They would pick her up at the bottom of the drive, and Dr. Kyrle would bring her back for dinner.

  She came out of the study and told Parker. Then she ran up for a coat and slipped out of the house without Simmy hearing her. She felt very well pleased with herself. Everything was going splendidly. She had seen Antony today, and perhaps she would see him tomorrow. Uncle Philip was getting better, and as soon as he was well enough to be bothered, they could tell him they were engaged, and that would be the end of Cousin Leonora. Because Uncle Philip would be frightfully pleased. He loved Antony, and they would put the engagement in the Times, and everyone would write and tell them how lucky they were.

  As soon as Delia got into the drive where she could not be seen from the house she began to run. She had on a blue tweed skirt, a hand-knitted jumper, and a long matching coat. She was bare-headed. The coat fell open and flapped behind her as she ran, and she could feel the wind in her hair. It was just after half past six. It was dusk everywhere in the drive and quite dark under the trees, but there was plenty of light on the road beyond the gate. When she saw the black humped shape of the car just short of the entrance she checked and came to the window, laughing.

  “Cynthia, what a life-saving angel—”

  She got as far as that and no farther. Mr. Barend Roos, who had been standing on the far side of the car, came up behind her. She felt an arm at her waist, and then before she had time to turn or cry out a heavy hand came down over her face and was held there. She hadn’t a chance to do anything. A powerful man was holding her. She was just enough out of breath to make her inhale deeply. Her nose and throat were full of the reek of chloroform. There was a moment of anger, a moment of fear. And then everything going away from her. She couldn’t see her feet or the arm at her waist. There was only the horrible sweet smell like a horrible sweet fog, floating in, flowing in, blotting her out. Nothing mattered. There wasn’t any Delia—

  She went limp. Jimmy Nash, in the driver’s seat, leaned back and opened a rear door. Barend Roos swung Delia on to the seat and got in beside her. He shut the door and said,

  “That went very well. Now we can go.”

  They drove through Lane End and over Lane Hill, after which they took two right-hand turns and ultimately came back upon the London Road with Wayshot a safe three or four miles behind them.

  Delia stayed where she had been thrown, half sitting, half lying. If she could have felt anything she would soon have been cramped and stiff, but everything that could have told her this was asleep.

  As they came towards London, there was a red glare in the sky, and against the glow, like Roman candles, an incandescence of bursting shells. Jimmy Nash blinked at them with considerable disfavour. He slowed down and said over his shoulder,

  “Not going into that, are we?”

  “Certainly we are.”

  “You couldn’t have called your friends off tonight, I suppose? What’s the idea? Who’s going to be any the better if we stop a bomb?”

  “I do not think we shall, but if you like, we can wait for half an hour. It would be better for us if the streets were not too bright. You never know who will see a car and notice the number. I do not mind being on the safe side.”

  Jimmy said, “Safe!” in an angry, contemptuous voice. He hadn’t liked this job from the beginning, and he was liking it less and less. It was the sort of job that looked all right when you went into it, and ended by landing you in Queer Street. He’d met that kind of job before—the man at the top got clear and left you to take the rap. And as for driving right into the middle of an air raid, that wasn’t in the bargain and he wasn’t going to do it for nobody.

  He pulled in by the side of the road under trees and watched the glow fade and flare and the shells go rocketing up. The noise was horrible. He thought, “Who knows they won’t come this way? Any minute they might. This is a fine job, this is!” He thought about that nasty dream he’d had Tuesday night after he’d coshed the old girl by mistake. He couldn’t rightly remember it now, but that only made it worse. Spiders—millions of them—coming after him—and he didn’t know whether they got him or not. He’d waked up sweating and calling out. He was sweating again now at the thought of it.

  He let down a bit of the window to get the air. Barend’s voice came from behind him, saying angrily,

  “Don’t do that! Do you want to bring her round?”

  He jerked the window up again. Who was Mr. Barend Roos? A blinking foreigner! He might call himself Brown as much as he pleased, but he didn’t take in Jimmy Nash. Jimmy knew his real name all right. Jimmy had made it his business to find out, and he’d found out more than he cared about. A blinking dangerous business and one he’d be glad to get shut of.

  In the back of the car, Delia slipped down and gave a kind of moaning sigh. Barend’s hand went into his pocket. Jimmy heard the plop of a cork. A reek of chloroform reached him. He let the window down again in a hurry.

  “Here—what are you up to—you’ll have us all off! Put the perishing stuff away; I thought you wanted the girl to talk. She won’t be able to if you smother her.”

  Barend said, “She moved. We can’t have her coming round yet. Shut that window!”

  “You won’t have her coming round at all if you don’t mind your step. And I’ll shut the window when that stuff’s blown out and not before—see? I don’t mind being bombed, and I don’t mind being copped by the police, but I’m hanged if I’ll be asphixerated in a car with a girl, like a blooming suicide pact.”

  It was a good deal more than half an hour before the noise died down. There was still that glow in the sky, but fainter now. They went in over Hammersmith Bridge. A quarter of an hour’s driving, and the smell of fire was all about them. Jimmy threw a glance over his shoulder.
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  “Running into it a bit, aren’t we?” he said, blinking.

  Barend said nothing. He was looking anxiously out of the window. They drove on slowly. Then he said,

  “Where are we? Which is our turning?”

  Jimmy dropped to a crawl.

  “First to the right and straight on into the fire by the look of it.”

  Barend said, “Stop!” and then, “Go on and see what has happened. If the house has not been touched, we must go on.”

  He sat there chafing until Jimmy came back.

  “Well?”

  “Not a bit of good, mister. They won’t let you down the street for one thing, and for another, as well as I could see, number twenty-four has copped it good and proper. First floor front’s in the cellar, and the bathroom out in the middle of the street by the look of it. And do you know what come to me?”

  “I do not want to know.”

  “Well, I’ll give it you free, gratis, and for nothing. I thought how perishing lucky we were not to be under that first floor front, which we might have been if I hadn’t made you stop the other side of the river. So now what?”

  Barend set his jaw.

  “We must go back to Mrs. Long’s. She must take us in until I can make arrangements.”

  Jimmy whistled.

  “She won’t like that,” he said.

  “It does not matter whether she likes it or not,” said Barend Roos.

  Delia began to come back. She did not know where she had been, but she was coming back. There was a fog with a funny smell—a sweet, heavy smell. Chloroform. The word came into her mind and went out of it again. For a long time there was nothing there but the fog. Then there were sounds—people moving—talking. Light coming through the fog—light, and sounds. They worried her, and she wanted them to go away. The first thing she heard distinctly was Barend Roos saying,