“They did not look stiff!”
“They looked as stiff as wood shavings, only black.”
The dimple reappeared.
“And what did they feel like?” Thomasina’s voice had that undermining lilt.
Quite suddenly Peter had the feel of those soft springing curls under his hand. She had them still. He said firmly,
“They felt like feathers. And that’s enough about that. You just brought it up to change the subject, and I’m not changing it. This is not a conversation about your hair, it’s a conversation about Anna Ball. She was one of your lame dogs when you were at school, and you’ve kept on propping her ever since. Now that she has apparently faded out, instead of thanking your lucky stars you go looking for trouble and trying to hunt her up again.”
“She hasn’t got anyone else,” said Thomasina obstinately.
Peter produced the frown which meant that he was really beginning to get angry.
“Thomasina, if you go on saying that, I shall lose my temper. The girl has made other friends, and she has faded. For heaven’s sake, let her go!”
Thomasina shook her head.
“It isn’t like that. She doesn’t make friends-that’s always been the bother. It was horrid for her in the war, you know, being half German, and she got an inferiority complex. Her mother was a morbid sort of person-Aunt Barbara knew her. So I don’t think Anna had much chance.”
“Well, she got a job, didn’t she?”
“Aunt Barbara got her one with a Major and Mrs. Dartrey, to look after their child.”
“Unfortunate child.”
“It wasn’t a frightful success, but she went to Germany with them, and stayed for more than two years. She used to write very grumbling letters, but she did stay. And then they went out east and left the little girl in a nursery school near Mrs. Dartrey’s mother, and Anna went to some kind of a cousin of theirs who wanted a companion. But she only stayed a month. The cousin was a rich nervous invalid, and of course they wouldn’t have suited a bit. Anna wrote to me and said she was leaving as soon as the month was up. She said she had got another job and she would write and tell me all about it when she got there. And she never wrote again. You see, I can’t help worrying.”
“I don’t see why.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“The woman she was with, the Dartreys’ cousin, would know.”
“She says she doesn’t. She says Anna never told her anything. She’s the vague, ineffectual sort of person who gets a headache the minute you ask her to remember things like names and addresses. I tried for half an hour, and if she had been a jellyfish she couldn’t have taken less interest in anyone except herself.”
“Do jellyfish think?”
“Mrs. Dugdale doesn’t-she just drifts. Anyhow I couldn’t get anything out of her about Anna. Peter, I really am worried. Anna has written to me at least once a week for years. I mean, she always wrote in the holidays, and all the time she was with the Dartreys.”
“To say what a poisonous time she was having, and how foul everyone was!”
“Well, it was rather like that. I was an outlet. You must have someone you can say that kind of thing to. And then all of a sudden she stops dead. It’s four months since she left Mrs. Dugdale, and she hasn’t written a line. Don’t you see there’s something odd about it?”
“She may have gone abroad.”
“That wouldn’t stop her writing. She always wrote when she was with the Dartreys, and she said she was going to write. Peter, don’t you see that there must be something wrong?”
“Well, I don’t see what you can do about it. You put that silly advertisement in the Times, and nothing came of it.”
“And why was it silly?”
“Asking for trouble,” said Peter briefly. “You don’t know when you are well off. Take my advice and leave well alone.”
Thomasina’s colour deepened.
“I wouldn’t mind leaving it alone if I knew that it was well. But suppose it isn’t. Suppose-” She stopped because she didn’t want to go on. It was like coming to a corner and being afraid of what you might find if you went any farther. The colour drained away.
Peter said stubbornly,
“Well, I don’t see what you can do.”
“I can go to the police,” said Thomasina.
CHAPTER III
It was about a week later that Detective Inspector Abbott was taking tea with Miss Maud Silver, whom he regarded with a good deal of the fondness of a nephew together with a respect not always accorded to the spinster aunt. Spinster Miss Silver certainly was and had never desired to be otherwise. With a most indulgent heart towards young lovers, and a proper regard for the holy estate of matrimony, she never regretted her own independent position. Aunt to Frank Abbott she was not, but the tie between them was a strong one. His irreverent sense of humour was continually delighted by her idiosyncrasies, the primness of her appearance, her fringe, her beaded slippers, her quotations from Lord Tennyson, the rapid play of the knitting-needles in her small competent hands, her moral maxims, and the inflexibility of her principles. But with and behind all this there was an affection, an admiration, and a respect very rarely displayed but always there to be reckoned with. From their first encounter down to this present day these feelings had continued to increase and to be the source, as he once informed her, of both pleasure and profit.
He had done full justice to the three kinds of sandwich, the scones, and the layer-cake which Hannah Meadows had produced for his benefit. Ordinary visitors did not get scone as well as sandwich, nor did Hannah produce for them the honey sent up from the country by Mrs. Randal March, but Mr. Frank would always be welcomed with the best of everything. Not that Hannah approved of the Police as a profession for a gentleman any more than she considered private detection to be a suitable occupation for a lady, though in the course of years she had become inured to the social changes which made such a state of affairs possible.
No one could have looked less like a policeman than the young man now passing his cup to be filled for the third time. From his very fair hair, slicked back and mirror-smooth, to the well-cut shoes polished to an equal brilliance, he presented a most elegant picture. The suit, the handkerchief, the socks, the tie- all had a touch of distinction. There was an effect of slender height. The pale complexion, the long nose, the pale blue eyes, imparted a fastidious air. The hand stretched out to take his cup was noticeably well kept and of the same long, thin shape as the foot in the shining shoe.
He talked discursively and enjoyed his tea. Crime, it appeared, was booming, and the criminal elusive. There were some very tricky forgeries on the market. One of the few privately owned services of gold plate had been lifted, and had apparently vanished into thin air. At the moment he was being rueful over a bank hold-up.
“There are too many of them, and that’s a fact. Small branch on the London fringes. Sort of place that has forgotten to be a village without quite managing to be a town. In fact, what Tennyson had in mind when he wrote, ‘Standing with reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet.’ ”
Miss Silver’s partiality for the Victorian poet laureate being notorious, this was a challenge. She accepted it mildly.
“It was not, as you know, intended to have that application, the subject of the poem being maidenhood, and the poet, Longfellow.”
He reached for a sandwich.
“Another good quotation wasted! Anyhow, the place is Enderby Green, and the bank manager was held up and shot dead, poor chap, just before closing time yesterday afternoon. A young clerk got a bullet through his shoulder and is lucky to be alive. There had been some big sums paid in that day-all the shops were having sales-and the chap got away with fifteen hundred pounds. Now everyone wants to know what the police are doing. Funny for us! I expect you’ve seen about it in the papers.”