“In what way can I help you, Miss Adrian?”
She was startled into honesty.
“I don’t know that you can.”
“But you came here to find out, did you not?”
“Well-”
Miss Silver smiled gravely.
“We shall not get very much farther unless you tell me what has brought you here.”
The blue eyes looked away, looked down. The lashes which screened them were of really phenomenal length, and had been left to what appeared to be their natural shade, a very beautiful golden brown. The lips pouted for a moment, then took a line of resolve. Helen Adrian said,
“I’m being blackmailed. What do you advise me to do about it?”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked briskly.
“The best advice that I or any other responsible person can give you is to go to the police.”
“Did you ever know anyone who would take it?”
Miss Silver gave a regretful sigh.
“It is always extremely difficult to induce anyone to accept good advice.”
Helen Adrian gave a short hard laugh.
“It’s so easy, isn’t it? People don’t blackmail you unless there’s something you don’t want everyone to know. It mayn’t be anything much, it mayn’t be-anything at all. Everyone’s got things they’d rather keep to themselves, I suppose. After all, if you’re quite well known to the public you have got a private life, and it’s none of their business, is it? Easy enough to say go to the police. But how can you? Once you’ve done it you can’t go back. If it means bringing a case, you’ve got to go through with it, and a case means standing up and having mud thrown at you, and whatever you do, and however little there is in it, some of it’s going to stick. I can’t go to the police, and that’s that.”
Miss Silver coughed mildly.
“Since that is the case, perhaps you will tell me a little more. You must have had some idea that I should be able to help you, or you would not have come. I think you would do well to make up your mind to be frank with regard to the blackmailing attempt to which you have referred.”
The blue eyes dwelt on her in an appraising fashion.
“Well-I don’t know. I suppose it would all be-quite in confidence? My friend said I could rely on that.”
Miss Silver drew herself up a little. The distance between her and Miss Adrian appeared to have widened. She spoke across it.
“Certainly you may rely upon that.”
“Oh, well, one has to be sure.”
Miss Silver was knitting at a high rate of speed.
“If you cannot make up your mind to trust me, I can be of no possible assistance to you.” She had recourse to a Victorian poet whom she revered. “ ‘Trust me not at all or all in all,’ as the late Lord Tennyson says.”
Helen Adrian stared. She really was a scream! The thought drifted away. Something else took its place-an odd touch of fear-the underlying pressure of necessity.
Miss Silver looked at her very steadily and said,
“It is for you to choose, Miss Adrian.”
Helen Adrian made her choice. She had been leaning a little forward. Now she sat back.
“Well, I suppose you’re right. Not that there’s anything very much to tell-it’s just the use that might be made of it. I expect you know my name. Most people do now, and I’ve worked pretty hard for it. Perhaps you have heard me sing?”
“No, I have not had that pleasure.”
“Well, I did a good bit with concert parties at the end of the war-and of course broadcasting. I’ve had offers to go on the stage-musicals and revues-but-well, the fact is, I’m not much good at the acting part of it. There-you said to be frank, and if that isn’t frank, I don’t know what is.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“You are doubtless wise to confine yourself to what you are sure of doing well.”
Miss Adrian nodded in a casual manner.
“Yes-there’s that. And then-you wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I’m not out of the way strong. I get cold rather easily. I was near having pneumonia in the autumn, and they say I’ve got to be careful-I’ve had to rest my voice as it is. So now we come to what’s really at the bottom of the whole thing. I’ve had to think very seriously of whether it wouldn’t be better to play safe. At the best of it, my sort of voice doesn’t go on for ever, and why should I knock myself up travelling all over the place in goodness knows what sort of weather, when I could make a comfortable marriage, and have my own car, and nothing to worry about for the rest of my life?”
Miss Silver knitted thoughtfully.
“You have the opportunity of making such a marriage?”
Helen Adrian laughed a little scornfully.
“Any time the last two years. He’s a big business man up in the north. He heard me sing and went in off the deep end. Any amount of money, and I’ve only got to say yes. Well, ever since I was ill I’ve been thinking about it. Chances like that don’t go begging-if you don’t pick them up, somebody else will. So I made up my mind I would. And that’s where the blackmail comes in.”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked, the grey stocking revolved. Helen Adrian leaned forward and opened her bag. She extracted from it a rather creased envelope which she passed across to Miss Silver, who put down her knitting and opened it. There was a half sheet of cheap white notepaper inside. On it was printed in rough capitals:
WHAT ABOUT BRIGHTON LAST MAY?
WOULDN’T MOUNT LIKE TO KNOW!
“That’s the man I’m thinking of marrying-Fred Mount.”
Miss Silver read aloud with a touch of primness in her voice,
“What about Brighton last May?”
Helen Adrian’s colour had risen a little. It did not amount to a blush, but the tint in her cheeks was certainly deeper. She said quickly,
“There wasn’t anything in it at all. I was singing at a concert, and naturally my accompanist went down with me.”
“A man?”
“Of course-Felix Brand. He’s a marvellous accompanist, and such a good contrast-the dark tragic type. It all helps, you know-throws me up.”
“Did you stay at the same hotel?”
“A friend asked me to stay. Look here, I’ll tell you the whole thing. There wasn’t anything in it, but it could be made to look funny. My friend asked us to stay, and when we got there one of her children was ill at school and she was just off. What were we to do?”
“What did you do?”
“We stayed for the week-end. What else was there to do? The place was packed. I couldn’t put Felix out into the street.”
“Is this young man, your accompanist, in love with you?”
“What do you think! He’s crazy about me. That’s what makes it awkward.” She took another letter out of her bag and tossed it over. “Here’s number two.”
In the same scrawled capitals Miss Silver read:
F. BRAND MIGHT PROVE A FIREBRAND IF FRED KNEW ALL. IF YOU WANT THE WEDDING BELLS TO RING YOU HAD BETTER COME TO TERMS. WHAT ABOUT MAY LAST YEAR?
She said, “Dear me!”
Miss Adrian nodded.
“That was only the beginning. A day or two later I was rung up on the telephone. It was from a call-box-you can always tell-and someone said, ‘You’ve had my two letters about F. Brand and F. Mount. If you want those wedding-bells to ring you’ll have to shut my mouth. I want fifty pounds down, and you can buy your wedding-dress. One pound notes, please, and you’ll put them in an envelope and address them to Mr. Friend, 24 Blakeston Road, S.E. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.’ I said, ‘What’s the good of talking to me like that? Once I was fool enough to pay you, what’s going to stop you going right on?’ He said, ‘What indeed! Fred has got a lot of money, hasn’t he? You’re not going to tell me you won’t be able to get some of it out of him once you’re safely married!’”
Miss Silver coughed.
“And what did you say to that?”
“I lost my temper,” said Miss Adrian fr
ankly. “I said, ‘Go to hell!’ and hung up.”
“And then?”
“There was an ‘And then’ all right. Here it is.”
Another of those sheets of writing-paper came out of the bag. The capitals said:
NASTY TEMPER. IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN FRED WILL KNOW ALL. WHAT ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF LAST JUNE?
Helen Adrian stared defiantly across the table.
“That’s as far as we’ve got.”
“When did this come?”
“This morning. That’s when I rang you up.”
Miss Silver continued to knit.
“Miss Adrian, do you know who is blackmailing you?”
“How should I?”
“I cannot tell you that. The address would, of course, be an accommodation address. If you went to the police, they would advise you to send a letter as requested. They would then watch the place and endeavour to trap the blackmailer.”
“I won’t go to the police.”
Miss Silver looked at her shrewdly.
“I think you may have some idea of the blackmailer’s identity. Did you, for instance, recognize the voice which spoke to you on the telephone.”
“No. He was making it all squeaky-like a Punch and Judy show.”
“It was a man?”
“Oh, yes.”
Helen Adrian said,
“Well, there was someone down at Brighton last year-we were in a concert party together a couple of years ago. He was doing a sketch with Althea Paine. He was rotten, but she’d got a crush on him. Women fell for him-he was that sort. Cyril Felton is the name. It was just the sort of thing he might do. Of course-” The words came out in a hesitating manner.
Miss Silver said,
“I think you have someone else in mind, Miss Adrian.”
“Well, I don’t know… Yes, I suppose I’d better tell you. I won’t say I haven’t thought it might be Felix himself-Felix Brand, my accompanist. He’s crazy about me, and jealous of Fred-that’s my fiancé, Mr. Mount-and he might think it was a way of getting it all broken off.”
“Would he ask you for money?”
“I don’t know-that might be just a blind, and to get me deeper in. I shouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t got a revengeful nature, and though there isn’t anything in it of course, there’s Fred. He’s jealous, and all his people are Chapel-you know the sort of thing. The first time he heard me sing I was having a big hit with a number about a child saying its prayers and the father and mother making it up- the God bless Mummy and Daddy touch. ‘God bless our Home’ it was called, and that was the refrain-
‘God bless Mummy and Daddy,
God bless our home.’
Real hot sob-stuff. Felix said it made him sick, but it went over big and Fred fairly lapped it up. I’ll say this for him, he doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet-the next thing I knew, he was asking me down to meet the family. There’s an old maid sister that keeps house for him, and a lot of married brothers. Well, that meant business, so I had to sit up and take notice. They were all very friendly, and I sang for them at a Chapel sociable. ‘God bless our Home’ went down like hot cakes. Fred told me I was his idea of an angel, and that’s the way he’s thought about me ever since. All very well, you know, but it means you have to mind your p’s and q’s. If he’d even half an idea there’s ever been anyone else- week-ends, you know, and that sort of thing-well, there wouldn’t be any wedding-bells, that’s all. There isn’t anything modern about Fred. There are good women and bad women. If you’re a good woman you get the wedding-bells, if you’re a bad woman you don’t. Nice, simple, easy way of looking at things, isn’t it?”
After a thoughtful silence Miss Silver said,
“I cannot take up your case, Miss Adrian, but I will give you some advice. You ought to take these letters to the police. But if you will not do so you would, I think, be well advised to tell your fiancé that an attempt is being made to blackmail you. You would, no doubt, be able to put the whole thing in such a way as to convince him that you are being subjected to an unscrupulous persecution. You should not, I think, find it difficult to convince him of your complete innocence.”
If Miss Silver’s tone was unusually dry, Miss Adrian did not notice it. She said with all the emphasis at her command,
“You don’t know Fred.”
Chapter 10
Helen Adrian arrived at Cove House on the following day. In some extraordinary way her presence immediately pervaded it. A scent of violets came and went, clashing a little with the naphthalene which was Mrs. Brand’s specific against moth. It even came over into Marian’s side of the house, which was mercifully free from moth-ball, Martin Brand having disliked the smell, maintaining that there had been no moths in his mother’s time, and that she used nothing but lavender to ward them off. To which Eliza Cotton had been wont to respond that some people drawed them.
The violet scent was only one manifestation of Miss Adrian’s presence. The shutters were open and the curtains drawn back in the drawing-room. The sound of the piano could be heard continually, and the notes of a high and lovely voice went floating up, and up, and up, and then down, and down, and down, as she practiced scales, and runs, and trills, never really letting her voice out, but keeping to the enchanting half-voice which tests the breath-control and imposes no strain on the throat. Felix, plunged head over ears in his dream, was like someone moving on another plane.
Eliza, ejecting a queen wasp from a honeypot, remarked with a rasp in her voice that, insects or men, it was all one when there was honey about, they were bound to trap themselves no matter what came of it.
“And no use your looking like that, Penny my dear. If he knew what was good for him he’d do different, but men don’t and never will.”
Penny said in a small dejected voice,
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She stood looking out of the old kitchen window, one hand absently stroking Mactavish, who was sunning himself on the window ledge. Through the half-open casement Miss Adrian could be heard trilling melodiously.
Eliza looked grimly at Penny’s back. It would have given her a good deal of pleasure to have started a barrel-organ in opposition. She would also have liked to tell Felix what she thought of the silly way he was acting-black as a May thunderstorm and sour enough to curdle the milk one minute, and grinning like a Cheshire cat the next. “And what I’ve always said, and always will say, is, being in love is all very well in reason, but no need to make a show of yourself!” This last bit came out aloud to the accompaniment of a vigorous rattling of pots and pans.
Penny said in a still smaller voice,
“I suppose he’s in love with her.” Then, after a pause, “I said that to him one day, I said it right out-‘I suppose you are in love with her.’ And what do you think he said?”
Eliza snorted.
“Something soft!”
Penny didn’t turn around. She went on stroking Mactavish.
“He looked at me. You know the way he can look-black, like you said just now-and he said, ‘Sometimes I think I hate her!’ and he went out of the room and banged the door.”
Eliza said harshly,
“She’s the tormenting sort. Maybe she’ll do it once too often. Hatred’s like muck-it breeds things.”
Penny nodded.
“He didn’t mean it-not really-at least-” Her voice trailed away.
“Better say it.”
“It’s wicked to hate. I suppose I’m wicked. I do very nearly hate her-when she-makes Felix-look like that.” Then, with sudden energy, “And when that scent of hers comes crawling up into my attic, I’d rather it was moth-ball, and that shows!”
Mactavish, who had been on the edge of purring, uttered a sharp protest. The stroking fingers had become quite hard. They had pressed upon a tender spot, they had actually hurt. It was not his habit to suffer in silence. Since the fingers were Penny’s, he refrained from biting them. Instead he rose to his majestic height, dazzled her for a moment
with an orange glare, and leaped out of the window.
Penny said, “Oh!” and Eliza scolded.
“Now look what you’ve done-put him right out of temper!”
The sound of Miss Adrian’s voice came in at the open window, floating down from its high trill. Penny jerked round, stamped her foot hard on the stone floor, and ran out of the room.
In the study the telephone bell was ringing. Marian Brand, who had been going through the writing-table drawers, pushed a pile of papers out of the way and pulled the standing instrument towards her. A man said “Hullo!” and all in a minute time and distance had slipped aside and a hand was holding hers in the dark under the rubble of a wrecked train.
She said, “Marian Brand speaking,” and was pleased because her voice was full and steady. Something in her shook. She had thought that he was still in America. Perhaps he was… That was nonsense. He might have been in the room. These thoughts were all there together at the same time.
And he was speaking again.
“How are you? Did you know my voice? I should have known yours anywhere.”
Ina opened the door. When she saw that Marian was at the telephone she went away again. She had the air of an intruding ghost, unwanted and forlorn. Marian had not even seen her. She was saying, “I thought you were in America.”
“I was-I’m not any longer. One flies. Did you get my letters?”
“Yes. They were very interesting.”
“How did you know we were here?”
“Your Mrs. Deane. I missed you by a couple of days. May I come over and see you?”
“Where are you?”
“Practically next door, in the hotel at Farne. When may I come and see you?”
“Would you like to come to lunch?”
“Do you mean today?…I’d love to.”
“We’re about a mile along the coast road. You can’t really miss us. The house is white, and there are twin front doors painted blue.”
She hung up and went to interview Eliza.
Through The Wall Page 7