Will O’ the Wisp

by Patricia Wentworth

  “What games then?”

  “Oh, parlour games. Lovely! Backgammon—and Scripture characters—and spillikins—and proverbs. I liked proverbs best of all.”

  It stirred his pity now as it had stirred it then. How could this little pitiful creature be a threat, and what link was there between her and that hostile voice?

  He went over in his own mind the fortnight between the marriage and the shipwreck. In Sydney, Erica had known no one to whom she could have confided all these details. If Mrs. O’Leary had known some of them, there were others that she could not know—the little blue ring; the initials inside the wedding ring; the hour and place of the marriage. He had taken Erica away from the woman’s house four days before, and they had not met again. There remained the second landlady and the other passengers on the boat. It was possible that Erica had told one of them all these details, and that they had been remembered for five years. It was possible; but it was supremely unlikely. Erica was timid and reserved to the last degree, and on the Bomongo she had hardly spoken to any of the other passengers. She had not spoken much, even to him.

  But over and above everything else, there was the absence of motive. Why, after five years, should all these trivialities be focussed into an unexplained and implacable resentment?

  He could find no answer to the question.

  CHAPTER XXI

  The afternoon post brought David a letter from Miss Nellie Smith. She wrote:

  “DEAR SIR,

  “I am sorry I cannot give you any information, as I am not at liberty to do so. My niece will communicate with you. It is no use asking me anything.

  “Yours truly,

  “E. SMITH.”

  David read the letter three times. From its cold formality the two words “my niece” struck him. Her niece. What niece? Erica had told him that her mother had no relations except Aunt Nellie. Yet Aunt Nellie had a niece; and the niece would communicate with him. Someone had communicated with him already.

  After a long time he took up his pen and wrote:

  “DEAR MISS SMITH,

  “I should be very grateful if you would give me your niece’s name and address. I did not know that you had any niece but Erica. I want to assure you that I have not, and never have had, any other motive than a desire to find out all that can possibly be found out with regard to Erica, and then to do whatever is right and just. I can do nothing whilst I am kept in the dark. Will you tell your niece this and ask her to treat me with confidence? I can assure you that she will not regret doing so.

  “Yours sincerely,

  “DAVID FORDYCE.”

  He dined that evening with Eleanor. She greeted him with “Oh, David, Betty’s been here! And I hope I didn’t do wrong.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, I told her Folly had seen Francis Lester.”

  David whistled.

  “Well, it was really very difficult not to—she brought the conversation round so. David, don’t be angry, but I believe she knew.”

  “Knew! Knew what?”

  “Knew that Francis was in town—knew that he’d met Folly last night.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  She lifted her clear, candid eyes.

  “It’s so hard to explain how one gets an impression. I can’t explain. I think she’d been seeing him—I think she had come up to town to see him.”

  “That’s a bit far-fetched.”

  “Perhaps it is. You’re not vexed, David?”

  “No—she’d have to know. It’s rotten his turning up like this. I can’t think what she ever saw in the fellow; but she was awfully fond of him.”

  The door opened and Folly danced into the room. She made David a bob curtsy and twirled in front of Eleanor in a short, gold frock that glittered under the lights.

  “Things being proper and improper are so funny! This morning, when I had a huge bath-towel on, it would have been frightfully improper for me to see David, though I was all covered up from my chin to my toes; and to-night, when I’m not covered up at all, anyone can see me and I’m perfectly proper.”

  “Are you?” said David dryly.

  “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” said Miss Folly March in a tone of conscious modesty.

  Folly, it appeared, was going out after dinner. She was meeting Floss, and they were going somewhere to dance; hence the new gold frock. When dinner was over Folly would not wait for coffee.

  “I’ll have coffee with Floss. I’m to pick her up at her flat. I’d have dined there, only I wanted to see if Mr. Grundy would pass my frock.”

  She danced up to Eleanor and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Bye-bye. David’s going to take me down and catch me a taxi.”

  “Am I?” said David.

  “’M—you are. If you were really nice you’d come along and dance with me. But the very least you can do is to get me a taxi.”

  Out on the landing she slipped her hand into his arm.

  “Let’s walk down. I hate lifts—they’re like a Channel crossing stood on end.”

  The flat was on the second floor. Just round the turn of the stone stair Folly stood still.

  “I told you I should probably make it up with Stingo.”

  “Did you?” His tone was indifferent.

  “Yes, I did. I danced with him. He dances divinely.”

  David said nothing. Perhaps his face spoke for him. Folly, standing one step above him, tapped with a little gold shoe.

  “Why shouldn’t I make it up with Stingo if I like?”

  “Oh, certainly—if you like.” His voice was coldly contemptuous.

  “I told you I’d probably make it up with him—and I did. Why shouldn’t I? You look down your nose at him and snoop; but he isn’t any worse than anyone else.”

  “If you don’t know a rotter when you see one—”

  Folly jerked a round white shoulder. Her anger slipped from her.

  “What’s the good of talking like that? You’re all the same, really. Any man’ll go just as far as you’ll let him.” Her tone was bleakly matter-of-fact. “Floss told me that when I was fifteen. She said any man would get you into a mess if you gave him a chance.”

  David felt something; he did not know what. He said, “You’re talking nonsense,” and turned to go on down the stair.

  Folly jumped two steps and caught him up.

  “I always do talk nonsense—don’t I? David, don’t run.” She hung on his arm and pulled him round to face her. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something frightfully exciting. Prepare to be thrilled.” She caught his hand. “David, my hair’s growing ever so fast. I shan’t want my little bought curls any more. I’ve promised them to Timmy. He does love to bite them, and he shall have them all for his very own. My hair’s simply racing.”

  She was tugging at his hand and pinching it all the time.

  “Feel!” she said, and dragged his hand against her cheek.

  The dark colour rushed into David’s face. He stepped back.

  “Are you trying to see how far I’ll go?”

  The violence of his own anger surprised him.

  Folly looked up at him with green mischief between her lashes.

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Thank you,” said David. “I’m not taking any. You can play those tricks on St. Inigo.”

  Folly sighed.

  “What a nasty temper you’ve got, David Fordyce!”

  He made no answer.

  When he had got her a taxi he went back to Eleanor. He had Miss Smith’s letter in his pocket. It had been in his mind to show it to Eleanor and to tell her about his strange telephone call; but the letter remained unshown and the confidence un-given.

  Eleanor had just poured out the coffee when the click of a latch-key made them both look round. A moment later the door opened and Folly stood on the threshold. She had shed her coat in the hall. A blue gauze shawl was wrapped about her; the gold of her dres
s came sparkling through it. She was brightly flushed.

  “Folly I!” said Eleanor.

  David said nothing.

  Folly came in and shut the door behind her. She flicked a corner of her shawl at David.

  “This is really a white sheet, and I’m a good, humble penitent on my way to the shrine of Grundy.”

  “Folly, what do you mean? Why have you come back?”

  “David said he’d rather I didn’t go,” said Folly meekly.

  David lifted his eyes and looked at her. The look informed Miss Folly March with a good deal of plainness that she was a little liar.

  Miss March acknowledged the compliment by dropping her lashes so that they rested becomingly on modestly blushing cheeks.

  “He said he didn’t think Stingo was a nice companion for me, so I came back.”

  Eleanor poured her out some coffee. The situation was a little beyond her, and the air too electric for her taste. She began to talk to David about Betty.

  Folly went to the piano and played hymn tunes.

  CHAPTER XXII

  David had arranged to sleep in town all that week. He made an early start on Thursday morning and drove down into Berkshire with Mr. Wilde to see the site which he had bought for his nephew’s house. He got back in the early afternoon.

  “Mrs. Lester called,” said Miss Barker. “She said she’d look in again after lunch.”

  Betty came in half an hour later.

  “I wanted to see you,” she said in a more than usually plaintive voice.

  David recollected Francis and his affairs with a prick of the conscience. Betty would be likely to want to see him. He said, “What’s the matter?” and wished the interview well over. On every previous occasion when they had discussed Francis, Betty had wept and taken dire offence. It is not easy to combine the offices of trustee and younger brother.

  Betty sat down in a chair by the window.

  “Francis is back,” she said.

  “Yes,” said David, “I heard yesterday. I hope—” He did not say what he hoped, but he looked affectionately at Betty.

  “Why shouldn’t he come back?” she said in an accusing voice; a hard, unbecoming flush mounted to her cheeks.

  David was silent. There really were a good many reasons why Francis Lester should stay away. To have been expelled from his club for card-sharping does not assure a man a welcome.

  “Why shouldn’t he come back?” The flush rose higher. “You never liked him. If there’d been anyone to help him five years ago, he need never have gone—but there wasn’t.”

  “Betty, what’s the sense of raking things up?”

  Betty opened her bag and took out a handkerchief. With a premonitory sniff she said:

  “I’m sure I don’t want to rake things up. I only want you to be kind to poor Francis.”

  David had no fancy for the rôle.

  “Look here, Betty—”

  Betty applied the handkerchief to her eyes.

  “I do think you might try and understand. No one knows how hard it’s been for me all these years.”

  “My dear girl, I’ve been awfully sorry.”

  “What’s the good of being sorry? I want you to be kind to Francis.”

  “But hang it all—”

  “You won’t—I know you won’t.” She choked on a sob.

  “Betty, what on earth do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to be kind.”

  David lost his temper.

  “Good Lord, my dear girl, the man’s not a puppy-dog! I can’t pat him on the head.”

  Betty buried her face in her handkerchief.

  “You’re frightfully unkind!” She stopped to sniff and blow her nose. “I knew you would be—I knew it wasn’t any use asking you.”

  “You haven’t asked me anything yet.”

  “Because I knew it wouldn’t be any use.” She sniffed loudly and dabbed her eyes.

  “Betty, what do you want me to do?”

  She dropped her handkerchief into her lap and sat up straight.

  “I want you to let me have some of my capital.”

  “For Francis? Certainly not!”

  “David—if you’d only listen! A few thousands would pay his debts, and we could start fresh. Oh you don’t know what it would mean to me!” She leant forward, flushed and tremulous.

  David felt very sorry for her. He stopped being angry.

  “My dear girl, I can’t possibly let you part with any of your capital. I’m responsible for it. As a matter of fact, I haven’t even got the legal right to let you play ducks and drakes with it.”

  She locked her hands together.

  “I knew it was no good. You don’t care—Francis might starve, and you wouldn’t care. If you cared at all, I’d ask you to lend me the money. But it wouldn’t be any good.” She paused, and then added, breathlessly and quickly: “Would it?”

  “No,” said David, “it wouldn’t. Betty, for the Lord’s sake, don’t begin to cry again! Miss Barker’s in the next room and she’ll think I’m murdering you. Now look here, it’s no use my beating about the bush. Francis behaved very badly five years ago. I don’t know where he’s been or what he’s been doing since then. If he’s pulled up and means to go straight, I don’t want to stand in his way. I’d help him to a moderate extent if it was a question of his making a start somewhere abroad. Quite frankly, England’s not possible. I’d help him to start abroad if there was anything to show that he really meant to pull up. But I can’t touch your capital; and I’m not going to break into my own.”

  Betty stopped crying. She pressed her lips tightly together and looked bitterly offended.

  “Thank you very much for your kind offer,” she said in withering tones. “I suppose you expect me to be grateful!” She walked to the door and opened it, sniffing. “I suppose you expect me to say thank you!”

  David shrugged his shoulders. He had a certain unwilling sympathy for Betty’s husband. Behind him the door banged.

  Ten minutes later the telephone bell rang.

  David said: “Hullo!”

  The voice that answered him was the voice that had given him all those details about himself and Erica yesterday. It said:

  “Hullo! You are David Fordyce, aren’t you, and not a clerk?”

  “Yes, I’m David Fordyce.”

  “I thought so. Well, I just rang up to ask whether you’ve been thinking over my credentials?”

  “You haven’t given me any credentials. I’m very glad you’ve rung up, because I want to ask you some questions. I had a letter yesterday from Miss Smith—Miss Nellie Smith, Erica’s aunt. It you will hold on for a moment, I will read you what she says.” He took the letter from his pocket-book, unfolded it, and read it aloud. “You see, Miss Smith says, ‘My niece will communicate with you.’ Am I to understand that you are Miss Smith’s niece?”

  There was no answer, but the line was still active. David repeated his question.

  “Silence doesn’t always give consent,” said the voice.

  “Are you Miss Smith’s niece?”

  “Has Miss Smith got a niece?” replied the voice.

  “That was what I was going to ask you,” said David. “I do not understand Miss Smith’s reference to her niece, because Erica distinctly told me she was an only child, and that her mother had no relations except Miss Smith.”

  “That does make it difficult,” said the voice. “Of course, some people would say, if a person only had one niece and then wrote a letter and said their niece would communicate with you, that they might mean the only niece they’d got. Some people might take it that way, you know.”

  “I put Erica into the Bomongo’s second boat myself,” said David steadily. “Neither the boat nor anyone in her was ever heard of again.”

  There was no answer. After a moment the voice said:

  “How certain you are about things! Now that’s settled, perhaps you’d like me to go on where I left off yesterday? I’ve got a lot more interesting t
hings to tell you.”

  “I should like to hear anything you can tell me. But before you begin, I’d like to say that up to the present you’ve told me nothing that Erica might not have repeated to someone in Sydney, or to someone on the Bomongo who survived.”

  “Very well—hearing’s believing—I’ll go on. Erica was in a cabin with three other women on the Bomongo. Perhaps she told one of them the things I’m telling you. She was the sort of girl who’d rush and confide in the first stranger she came across—wasn’t she?”

  “No, she wasn’t,” said David.

  “Perhaps she told Mrs. Manners. She was one of the people in the cabin—a big, domineering woman with a fretful invalid daughter. Then there was a Miss Baker, a girl of Erica’s age, who was so sea-sick that she never left her berth. Perhaps she told her.”

  David was silent. Erica had been terrified of Mrs. Manners; she had disliked Miss Manners and the Baker girl. It was in the highest degree improbable that she had ever told them anything about herself.

  “Well, I’ll go on,” said the voice. “On the ninth day out a bad storm got up. On the tenth night the passengers in the Bomongo were ordered into the boats. You went along to Erica’s cabin about ten o’clock, and you stayed there because the women were all so frightened. Some time later there was a crash and the boat heeled over. A man ran along the passage shouting for everyone to come on deck. You got Erica and the Baker girl up the companion and out on to the deck; and there Eva Baker got separated from you. One of the officers told you to put Erica into the second boat. She cried and clung to you, and didn’t want to go; the noise was frightful; she was beside herself with terror. One of the other passengers helped you to get her into the boat. Shall I tell you the last thing she said to you? When I’ve told you, you can think it over. It was just before you put her into the boat. And everyone in the boat was drowned; so you can think out which of those drowned people could have told me what Erica said to you. She said, ‘Oh, David, don’t, don’t make me go! Oh, David, I’m so frightened! David, let me stay with you! I’d rather be drowned with you than go in that dreadful boat!’” The voice stopped speaking; there was a little click at the further end of the line, and then silence.