Читать книгу Unlawful Occasions - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 9

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Morgan Cattermole was gathering up the cards for his second deal, when the telephone bell rang. Though there was only one fixture—in Wilson’s study—though a bell rang on every floor.

Sarah pushed back her chair.

“Hi! What’s wrong with the servants answering it?” said Morgan. “Or let the darned thing ring—ten to one it’ll be some of Wilson’s clap-trap, and no loss to him or anyone else—eh, Jo? What’s the odds it’s some nobody from nowhere ringing up to tell our eminent brother that there’s a spook walking in his back garden, and will he please come along and interview it?”

Sarah had reached the door. She looked over her shoulder and said,

“I am afraid, that is why I must go. You see, it happens to be my job.”

She ran downstairs to the study and picked up the receiver. A voice she did not know said,

“Is that Miss Marlowe?”

As soon as she had said “Yes”, she heard it say, “She’s on the line, Mr. Cattermole,” and at once there was Wilson, speaking.

“Miss Marlowe, I am so sorry to trouble you, but I have had a good deal on my mind, and I am not quite sure whether I asked you to post the letters I dictated this afternoon. If they are posted, never mind. But if by any chance I forgot, perhaps you would send Thompson to the post with them. I am afraid I can’t wait just now, but if you will just see to it, that will be quite all right. I am sorry to have troubled you. Good-night.”

There was a click as the receiver was hung up at the other end. Sarah put back hers and looked about her. The letters.... No—they were in the post. He had given them to her and she had pushed them through the slit in their own corner letter-box with a feeling of good riddance. Joseph Cassidy, Esq., and the Rev. Peter Brown—a pair of bores who would be certain to reply at length and in the most tedious manner. It would be pleasant to think that their letters had gone astray. But no such luck—the perfect secretary had posted them with her own methodical hands.

She thought, “He was worried enough to ring up, but he didn’t wait for an answer. Fancy worrying over Joseph and Peter!” And on that the telephone bell rang again and brought her back from the door. She banged it behind her and groped without waiting to put on the light. It would probably be Wilson again, to ask whether she had remembered to shut the inkpot, or put his address-book away.

She got hold of the receiver, and it wasn’t Wilson, it was Henry Templar.

“Sarah—is that you?”

Sarah said “ ’M——” and added in a resigned voice, “It always is. But all the same you’d do better to make sure before you come out with your Sarahs like that.”

Henry sounded impatient. Not that that was anything new.

“Look here, I want to talk to you. But before I start I want to know whether there are any extensions your end.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want anyone listening in—that’s why. Are there any?”

“No—only for the bell.”

“That’s all right. Did you listen to the nine o’clock news?”

“No. We were interviewing Miss Cattermole’s smuggler with planchette—all eighteenth-century. Why—was there anything special?”

“Not in the news. Sarah, what train did you come up by last night?”

“Last night? Well, it was supposed to be the 5.17, but it was about three quarters of an hour late because of the fog.”

“5.17 from Craylea?” Henry sounded relieved.

“No—from the junction. All the trains were behind, and I thought I was going to be late for dinner—a frightful crime.”

“When you say ‘the junction’, you mean Cray Bridge?”

“Yes, of course. What is all this about?”

Henry said in what she stigmatized as a stuffy voice,

“What did you do while you were waiting for your train?”

A little warning bell rang in Sarah’s mind. She spoke lightly and at once.

“Darling, what does one do? I got frightfully bored, and my feet froze solid.”

It wasn’t any good. Henry was thorough both by nature and by training. He just went on.

“Were you on the platform, or in the waiting-room?”

Well, she wasn’t prepared to lie—not to Henry. She said in an exasperated voice,

“My good Henry, I’m not quite cracked. Why should I wait on the platform in a fog with the temperature heading for zero?”

“You were in the waiting-room?”

“I was in one of them.”

She oughtn’t to have said that. It would sound as if she knew what he was driving at. But it didn’t matter, because he just drove on.

“What platform did your train go from?”

“How should I know?”

“You must know—and I mean to.”

Well, they could quarrel about that. But even a quarrel wasn’t going to stop Henry if he was really set. She said,

“A bit totalitarian, aren’t you? As a matter of fact I believe it was number four—it generally is.”

“Then your waiting-room was between number four and number five—is that right?”

“Henry, what’s all this about?”

“Sarah, listen! Was there anyone in the waiting-room with you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe her?”

“I didn’t say it was a her.”

“But it was, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

This conversation was going all wrong. She was letting him drag it out of her bit by bit. She ought to have kept the talk in her own hands. She ought.... What was the good of saying what she ought to have done? She hadn’t done it.

“There was a woman there when I went in—the sort of person you do find in waiting-rooms. I can’t imagine why you want to know.”

“Can’t you? Didn’t you read your paper this morning?”

“Of course.”

“Didn’t you see that a woman had been murdered in the train between Cray Bridge and Ledlington? That train left number five platform at five minutes past six. The woman was a Miss Case, and she had been waiting for her train at Cray Bridge for the best part of an hour. The porter says there was another lady there with her most of the time—a young lady in a brown fur coat. He knows her quite well by sight, but he doesn’t know her name. The initials on her suitcases are S.M. He put her into the London train at six o’clock.”

Sarah said in a dry, shaky voice which didn’t sound at all like her own,

“Well, thank heaven for that, or I suppose they’d be saying I murdered her.”

Henry went on implacably.

“It was you.”

“You knew that all the time! How did you know?”

“There was a police message in the nine o’clock news—that’s why I asked you if you had been listening to it. You’ll have to ring up the police at once—Ledlington 3412.”

“Henry, I can’t!”

“My dear girl, you’ve got to. Don’t be silly!”

“It isn’t—you don’t understand—if I get mixed up in a police case I shall lose my job. And I can’t—because of Tinkler.”

Henry attempted to be soothing. It was not his happiest manner.

“My dear, there’s really nothing to be afraid of.”

“I am not afraid!”

“There is no reason why you should be. You have only to ring up the police and answer a few simple questions. I don’t suppose they will call you at the inquest. It is really only that you must have been one of the last people to see the poor woman. There is no question of your getting mixed up in a police case.”

Sarah’s temper boiled over suddenly and fiercely.

“That’s all you know about it!” she said, and banged the receiver back.