“Because I watched her come up myself. We made the—the appointment earlier in the evening, you understand. I came in the usual way, having told her how to come up, and that I should be waiting at the window after the church clock there struck half-past ten. We followed that out exactly, and I saw distinctly her approach from below. Incidentally there was a light coming from Martin’s window then, and, in view of what you have discovered, I suppose it still is. My friend would hardly have been likely to let herself out of a lighted window, where she would be conveniently silhouetted for anyone to see.”
“Thank you, sir. You say there was a light coming from that window at ten-thirty?”
“Yes.”
“Do you confirm that, madam?”
“Yes. I specially noticed it because it made—made it easier for me. Threw the rest of the staircase into deep shadow.”
“Yes, I see. And you neither of you heard anything suspicious from the flat overhead during the evening?”
“No,” they replied in unison, and the sergeant’s expression said as plainly as possible: “Too busy, I suppose.”
Hilma felt unhappily that she was being rapidly reduced to the level of an exceedingly disreputable person. “A Piccadilly pick-up” was how she put it to herself. But was it not better to be thought even that than to admit that she had actually been making her way, via the fire-escape, to the murdered man’s flat?
The sergeant was consulting the notes he had made, and seemed to have come to the end of his questions.
“All right, I think that’s all just now. I must ask you not to leave for another half-hour, until we’ve completed our examination.”
“Very well.” And then, as he was turning away, Hilma found the courage to enquire nervously: “Will it be necessary for—for my family to hear of this? You understand that I—it would be very awkward for me if they did.”
“Yes, of course.” The sergeant regarded her gravely. “I couldn’t really say, madam, because it naturally depends entirely on the progress of the case. But you can rest assured that we don’t stir up trouble if we can help it.”
“I see. Thank you. Of course, I do understand that the whole thing must seem very queer to you. I mean—it’s a rather odd sequence of events in view of what has happened.”
“I daresay it isn’t the only odd thing that’s happened in these flats,” was the sergeant’s final dry comment as he took his departure. And certainly, since a murder had just taken place there, his comment seemed justified.
When he had gone there was silence for a moment or two between the two he had left behind.
Then she said very softly:
“I’m terribly, terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“My dear, it was hardly your fault.”
“Oh, yes. I forced my way in here. However inadvertently, I did break into your flat and bring all this trouble on you.”
“It was I who insisted on your staying to supper.”
“Well, I didn’t need much persuading, did I?”
“Yes, Liebling.” He smiled for the first time. “I think you did, if I remember rightly. I was terribly afraid you were going to say “‘No’.”
She looked at him with troubled eyes for a moment. Then she too smiled faintly.
“It was just bad luck,” he said with the lightest shrug. “And at least this settles the problem of fetching the letter.”
“Oh!” She looked scared suddenly. “What do you suppose will happen to that?”
“I imagine the police will take over all the gentleman’s correspondence, but I think a letter like that can only be signed by your Christian name?”
“Yes. But it’s an unusual name.”
“Any address?”
“No.”
“And dated five years ago?”
She nodded. And then suddenly the most enormous relief broke over her face.
“I remember now—how silly to forget—it’s just signed with a silly nickname I had then, not my real name at all.”
He smiled.
“And yet you were afraid of your fiancé seeing it?”
“He knew the nickname, too. Besides, he would have known my writing.”
“Liebling, don’t you think you were a little foolish to give our friend the police sergeant a specimen of your writing?” She saw he had been just a little chagrined that, even in these circumstances, she had refused to disclose her identity to him.
“No. I printed the name and address.”
The quickness of that amused him, of course.
“Block capitals, for the sake of clearness, eh?”
“Exactly.” She smiled too.
“So that there’s absolutely no way in which the police could connect that unfortunate letter with you?”
“Absolutely no way at all.”
“Well then, my dear, I think you may consider yourself free from the shadow of blackmail. I only hope,” he added grimly, “that we shall not be touched by a darker shadow still.”
“You don’t think that’s—likely, do you?”
“No, not at all. It was a pity we had to use the fire-escape, that’s all.”
Hilma came closer to him then, and almost timidly put her hand on his arm.
“You didn’t think—just for one moment—that perhaps I did have something to do with it, did you?”
He very gently raised the hand to his lips.
“No, Liebling. Such an unworthy thought never entered my head.”
“It might have, you know.”
“Not if I exercised a little common sense as well as blind trust.” His dark eyes sparkled mischievously. “If you had been murdering someone in the way upstairs, you would hardly have paused on the way down to rob someone else’s desk, you know.”
She laughed. “No, I suppose not.” Then her face became deadly serious again.
“But we haven’t said anything of the most dreadful part of all,” she cried suddenly. “Was that man really your fiancée’s cousin?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, but what will he do?”
“Well, at least he’s not at all the blackmailing type.”
“No, no. But he was shocked—outraged at the discovery, you know. It was written all over his face. He may think it his duty to say something.”
“He may.” That was very dry.
“But he mustn’t! You must let me explain to him.”
“What would you explain? That you broke into my flat by mistake because you were going to retrieve a blackmailing letter from the man who has been murdered? Oh, no, my dear, you couldn’t tell that story.”
“No, perhaps not exactly that, but—”
“Listen, You’ll not say anything at all. As a matter of fact, he’s supposed to be going to America on the V.C.I0 in the morning. If this wretched business doesn’t prevent his going, then the danger of anything being said to Ev—to anyone is almost non-existent.”
“You are sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“But he could write,” she protested, the concern still not leaving her face.
He shook his head.
“Oh, no. I know him moderately well. He’s the kind of man to let anything slip out in the way of casual gossip, but not the kind to sit down and deliberately write a circumstantial account of anything.”
She did look less agitated then. And when he lightly covered the hand which rested again on his arm, she gave a little gasp and the air of strain left her.
“Then you think we can really feel safe?” She passed her other hand over her forehead. “It seems too much to dare to assume after all this. One feels—”
But before he could reply, another knock at the door announced the return of the sergeant.
“Stay here. I’ll go.”
She stood there in the middle of the lighted room, staring round—a little stupidly, she felt, from sheer fatigue.
In front of her was the desk with the splintere
d lock, where she had made her first clumsy attempt at burgling. In that room beyond stood the remains of the supper she had eaten in such unconventional—even romantic—circumstances. From the hall came the sound of the police sergeant’s voice speaking to her unknown host.
Except for these actual facts, she would have been tempted to think she had dreamt the incredible events of this night. But there had been no dream about it. The whole strange tangle had existed—and she still might be caught in it.
She heard the sergeant say, “Well, good-night, sir”—and then the front door closed, and, weary though she was, she ran eagerly into the hall.
“Well?” She spoke sharply.
He smiled.
“I think this is the answer to your question about whether we could feel really safe. The sergeant says you may go home now. The doctor has been, and according to him there’s no question but that Martin has been dead at least twenty-four hours. That rather lets you out of the case, doesn’t it? The police aren’t likely to have to look you up as a witness or anything else.”
“Oh!” She gave a great gasp of relief and leant against the side of the door. There was silence for a moment, then she said, almost timidly: “I can go home, then?”
“Yes, Liebling, you can go home.”
She noticed at that moment that his eyes, too, looked strangely tired. Well, he also had had a sufficiently exhausting evening, she supposed.
He fetched her cloak and put it round her, fastening it for her as though she were a child.
“This is the end,” thought Hilma, with the utmost sense of desolation in her heart. She could not make herself realise that it was also the end of danger, of fear, of the shadow which had threatened her for so long. She could only think of this as the end of what he had called their “short and lovely and faintly melancholy moment.”
“You need not be frightened any longer,” he said gently, perhaps misreading the shadow in her eyes.
“No. I know.”
“May I take you down and find you a taxi?”
But she shook her head.
“No, the hall porter will do that.”
“But I should like to.” There was something oddly like pain in the little frown of protest.
“Much better not, you know. Let’s say good-bye here—and leave it at that.”
He made a slight gesture to indicate that he yielded.
She looked up at him, her hands nervously clasping and unclasping.
“You know how much I want to thank you, don’t you?”
“My dear, whatever for?” He smiled down at her. “In the end, I didn’t even fetch the letter.”
“But you would have done. You were willing to do that—for me.”
“Quite willing.”
“I suppose,” Hilma said a little breathlessly, “it would be very wrong and foolish of me to kiss you at this moment?”
“And I suppose,” he retorted softly, “that we’ve done so many wrong and foolish things this evening that one more could hardly matter.”
Very gently he took her face between his hands.
“Good-bye, Liebling,” he said, and kissed her with extraordinary simplicity.
“Oh!” With a lack of poise that was foreign to her, Hilma flung her arms spontaneously round his neck. “Good-bye,” she said. “Good-bye, my charming unknown.”
Then she pulled herself away, jerked open the door of the flat, pulled it shut after her, and ran down the passage to the lift.
Downstairs the hall porter summoned a taxi for her by telephone, and then, as she stood there waiting for a moment or two, he remarked with melancholy relish:
“Dreadful business, this murder, madam, isn’t it?”
Hilma agreed absently and then looked at him curiously.
Oddly enough, this was his great night, too, she realised suddenly. There he was—night porter at a block of flats where a real, first-class murder had been committed. His photograph might even appear in the Sunday newspapers. Certainly he would be questioned respectfully by many. And to as many more he would be able to remark with important casualness, “Dreadful business, this murder, isn’t it?”
Happy man! For his little flame of pleasure and excitement would burn some days longer. Hers had flickered and died away, and the world was a colder place.
For a moment she was sorely tempted to say carelessly:
“What’s the name of the gentleman living at 411?”
But, of course, she could not. He had no possible way of finding out anything about her. It was not for her to use the unfair advantage which she had.
Besides, what was the good? It was over. As completely over as a song that had been sung.
What was it he had said? That on either side lay their prosaic life. They had come from it. They must go back to it.
The taxi drew up, and with a “Good-night” to the porter she went out to it.
She gave the driver the address and got in. As she sat down the taxi started with a jerk—back to the prosaic life once more.
CHAPTER THREE
“Hilma! Hilma!”
“Yes, Mother, what is it?”
Slowly Hilma struggled up from heavy layers of sleep. But even before she actually opened her eyes, she instinctively gave the answer that would silence that querulous repetition of her name.
“One thing is that it’s very late.” Her mother appeared in the doorway of her bedroom. “And the other is that that girl hasn’t come.”
“That girl” was Mrs. Arnall’s way of referring to any one of the procession of cheap, slatternly, inefficient women who happened to be acting reluctantly as her daily help for the moment.
“Oh, dear!” Hilma sat up and pushed back her hair. “I’m sorry, Mother. How sickening for you. But perhaps she’s only missed her bus.”
“Oh, no.” Mrs. Arnall—pretty and faded and entirely ineffectual—fretfully pulled her pink negligé more closely round her. “No, it isn’t anything to do with buses. She meant to leave me in the lurch. I could see it, the way she tossed her head yesterday when I told her—heaven knows for the thousandth time!—about handing the vegetables at the right side.”
“The left, surely?” murmured Hilma absently.
“Don’t be silly!” Her mother sank down on the side of Hilma’s bed and looked almost tearful. “You know what I mean. The right as opposed to the wrong.”
“Oh, yes, I see. I wasn’t thinking. I was only half awake, I’m afraid.”
“Well, it’s late enough, I’m sure, and there’s your father saying he must get away to the City early. Something about an important appointment—though, goodness knows, none of his appointments are important nowadays—but, anyway, he wants his breakfast, and there isn’t even the kettle boiling, and I feel—”
“That’s all right, Mother, I’ll get breakfast. Tell Father he shall have it in a quarter of an hour.” Hilma was already getting out of bed.
“Thank you, dear. I think I’ve got one of my heads coming on. It’s all this worry about help. I’d better go back to bed. It’s no good my getting really ill. We’ve enough expense without doctors’ bills.”
“Yes, you go back to bed.” Hilma’s voice was soothing. She knew the “heads” were as regularly recurring as the domestic crises in their family life. “I’ll bring you your breakfast on a tray as soon as I’ve got Father off.”
“Not that I really feel like eating anything. But one must keep going somehow.” And Mrs. Arnall drifted gracefully out of the room.
Hilma was not actually dressed when she set her father’s breakfast before him a quarter of an hour later, but her trim housecoat was a very different matter from her mother’s trailing draperies.
“Good morning.” She dropped a kiss on the top of her father’s head as he sat down. “What’s this I hear about an important appointment?”
“Eh? Well, well, it’s too early to say much yet, of course.” Her father’s face lit up as Hilma sat down opposite him, leant her e
lbows on the table and smiled. There was something so much more heartening about a smile like that than about the really very monotonous recital of domestic woes to which he had been listening for the last half-hour. “I shouldn’t be greatly surprised, though”—he buttered his toast with deliberation—”if something ve-ry, ve-ry interesting came out of this meeting.”
“No? Really? How exciting! And I’m sure you will be able to handle it if anyone can.”
Her father smiled. He thought so, too. No amount of failures or rebuffs of fortune had had the power to dim his certainty that “this time” everything would be well.
Hilma had seen him go off to countless “important meetings” of this sort, brushed his coat for him, watched him cock his hat at a jaunty angle. He always came back just a little dashed and puzzled for the moment. But, once he had had his tea and read the evening paper, he was able to see perfectly where things had gone wrong, and he was equally able to see why they could not fail to go right another time.
Sometimes Hilma thought it was all very pathetic. Then she used to wonder if it were possible to be pathetic if one had no realisation whatever of the disaster of things.
Mr. Arnall was a contented—even a cheerful—failure. He would never succeed at anything, but he had no idea of that. Once he had been a very rich man—through inheritance. But disastrous speculation had swept all that away some years ago. It had been a great shock at the time, but he had recovered with remarkable resilience. He realised that, inevitably, he would make his fortune again, and he had been pursuing it confidently, if unsuccessfully, ever since.
Poor Mrs. Arnall had nothing of this cheerful armour against Fate. She had been a very pretty woman, and was quite used to being petted and the centre of things. In the days of her prosperity she had been kindly and sociable and honestly wished everyone to be as happy as she was. But adversity was something she could neither understand nor cope with. She didn’t really see why she should have to.
Other people were still happy and prosperous and gay. They had nice clothes, nice houses and no nightmares about quarter-day. She didn’t know why her world should have changed like this, but she did know that, somehow, it was a shame.
She would have asked nothing better than to be able to be gay and sweet-tempered again, but how could one be with no pleasant little bridge parties, no nice theatre suppers any more, no possibility of entertaining in the really charming way she had always been used to do?
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