“Mrs Denny, I don’t think you’re well. Won’t you sit down and tell me what’s the matter? What makes you think I rang you up?”
He felt her shudder. Then she moved away from him with a sort of resolute self-control.
“Very well, we will sit down.” She took the corner seat of the sofa. She had sat there to pour out coffee after lunch on Sunday. “I will sit here, and you can sit there.” She pointed to the opposite corner. “And now I am going to ask you again whether you rang me up this morning.”
Jeremy bent a look of frowning distress upon her.
“I have told you that I did not ring you up. You haven’t told me what makes you think I did.”
“No, but I’m going to tell you,” said Rosalind. She sat up very straight and tall. “Please don’t say anything till I’ve finished. Someone rang me up this morning. The line was very bad—I could hardly hear what they said. Perhaps it wasn’t the line—perhaps they spoke like that on purpose. I don’t know why I’m saying they. It was a man. I wasn’t sure at first while the voice was so faint, but afterwards I was sure. He was careless once or twice, and he spoke louder.”
Jeremy leaned forward, one hand resting on the sofa.
“What is all this about?”
“Don’t you know?”
He shook his head.
“Has someone been annoying you?” His voice changed. “What are you imagining? That I rang you up and said something that annoyed you?”
She made a movement. Her hands, which were clasped in her lap parted, went out towards Jeremy, and then drew back again. The bright spots of colour paled, and for a moment she closed her eyes. Her voice came low and uncertain.
“Wasn’t it you?”
Jeremy was angry now.
“I don’t know what you mean! I’ve told you half a dozen times that I didn’t ring you up! I think you must tell me why you should have thought I did.”
Rosalind’s eyes opened. The hard clarity was gone. They had a look of distress that went to his heart.
“You’d better tell me what he said.”
Rosalind clenched her hands.
“He said he had a letter of Gilbert’s. He said if it was published—”
“Blackmail?” said Jeremy sharply.
Rosalind stared at him through a mist. Then the mist cleared.
Jeremy got to his feet and stood there. His face frightened her. He said,
“And you thought it was me. Thank you, Mrs Denny!”
“Jeremy!” said Rosalind.
Jeremy controlled himself. Behind his furious anger he had a sense that their relationship was being violently wrenched. It had been a very pleasant relationship, of the kind which it is difficult to define and which has all the more charm for being indefinable. He had had romantic feelings about her without ever fancying himself in love. She had treated him almost as a younger brother. But when a man and woman are not really brother and sister there is always just a hint of uncertainty, a chance of latent romance. Now the whole thing was twisted. Blackmail. … The blood sang in his ears. And she could look at him piteously and say “Jeremy!” in a voice that reproached him. If he had set her on a pedestal, she had certainly stepped off it now.
Rosalind did not get up. She put out her hand a little way and said,
“Jeremy, I’m frightened.”
Jeremy stood looking down on her, his brows in a straight black line, his whole face heavy with anger. He said,
“What made you think it was me?”
“It was your voice.”
“How do you mean it was my voice?”
“I don’t know. At first I could hardly hear what he said. Then he spoke louder. It was like your voice. Then at the end it wasn’t like any more—it was your voice.”
“I see—” said Jeremy. “And what did I say?”
She winced at his tone.
“He said he had a letter—he said he would send a photograph.”
“And it was my voice?”
“Yes, it was”
Jeremy walked away across the room. The hot anger went out of him. His mind felt cold and clear. He walked to the end of the room and back. There was in his mind the sharp-cut picture of an irregular scrap of paper with his signature, or bits of his signature, scrawled across it—bits of his signature in his own writing—bits of his signature that he hadn’t written. If someone had practised forging his signature, why shouldn’t someone practise forging his voice?
He came towards Rosalind. He saw how ravaged she looked. The marks under her eyes were like bruises, and even her lips were pale. He came to a standstill about a yard away. He wasn’t angry with her any more. He was most awfully sorry for her.
“How much do you believe that it was me?”
She said in a low, exhausted voice,
“I don’t really—I didn’t really—even at first. It was—a shock. I didn’t believe, but I had to ask you—I had to see you. If I’d believed it was you, I wouldn’t have sent for you—would I, Jeremy?”
“I don’t know—you might.”
She shook her head.
“I wouldn’t. I only wanted you to say—it wasn’t you. And you didn’t come. It’s been so—many—hours——” Her voice trailed away. She leaned back against the cushion behind her. Through her closed lashes one tear after another began to run down her face.
Jeremy sat down beside her and took her hand. It shocked him to feel how cold it was. He held it in a warm, firm clasp.
“Mrs Denny, don’t cry. You make me feel such a brute. I didn’t mean to go off the deep end like that. Look here, won’t you pull yourself together? This is a plant, and I want to talk to you about it, but I can’t if you’re going to faint or anything like that.”
“I won’t faint,” said Rosalind. The tears ran faster. “Oh, Jeremy, you’re kind!”
Jeremy produced a clean handkerchief.
“You mustn’t cry either,” he said firmly. “Do you mind using my handkerchief? I don’t suppose you’ve got one—or if you have, you won’t be able to find it. You never can, can you? Now look here—we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
Rosalind dried her eyes and sat up.
“Can we?”
“We’re going to have a jolly good try.”
She looked down at the crumpled handkerchief in her lap and said in an almost inaudible voice,
“I’m—afraid.”
He had a flash of insight.
“Of what you may find at the bottom?”
She bent her head without speaking.
Jeremy had another flash. The telephone call had been between eleven and twelve. It was seven o’clock when he reached the flat. A letter posted in London by twelve would have had plenty of time to arrive.
He asked sharply, “Did you get that photograph?” and at her startled look he held out his hand. “Will you show it to me?”
There was just a moment’s hesitation before she put her hand behind the cushion and brought out an envelope. Jeremy took it and turned it over. He looked at the postmark … 12.30. And the district. … Whoever had made the call and posted the letter had known his movements very accurately. He had been within a couple of hundred yards of this post-office round about twelve o’clock.
He took out the contents of the envelope. There were three slips. They were photographs of three sides of a letter, natural size. They were folded across the middle as you fold a letter. He was opening them, when Rosalind caught his hand.
“Jeremy—don’t!”
He looked up, to see a sick terror in her eyes. He felt at once much older than she. He said in a tone of authority,
“What are you afraid of, Rosalind?” Then, in the same tone, “You needn’t be. I told you it was a plant.”
He spread out the slips and looked at them. They were covered wi
th Gilbert Denny’s writing. Jeremy had handled hundreds of Gilbert Denny’s letters. He could have sworn to this writing anywhere.
He read the letter through. It was a very damning letter. It had no beginning, but it was signed with Gilbert Denny’s very individual and characteristic G.D. It said:
“Quite frankly, the game isn’t worth the candle. You’ve got to raise your offer, or there’s nothing doing. After all, you’re asking me to stake a perfectly good career, and I’m certainly not going to do it for nothing. I don’t ask what you expect to clear, but I’m certain you can pay my price. In fact, like Clive, I’m surprised at my own moderation. Financial arrangements as I suggested—a thousand to my account, and the rest in cash—no big notes.”
The letter was dated October 1st ’29.
Jeremy looked up with a decisive jerk of his head.
“Denny never wrote that.”
Rosalind said, “No,” but the sick terror was in her eyes.
“Did you think he wrote it?”
She did not answer. Every muscle in her white face strained, as if to take an unendurable blow.
“Look here, Rosalind,” said Jeremy—“we’ve got to get this clear.” He put his hand back over hers. “Don’t look like that. It’s his writing, and it’s his way of writing, but he didn’t write it. Have you got that? Gilbert didn’t write it.”
Those strained muscles began to quiver. Jeremy’s clasp tightened.
“There’s some damned dirty work going on, and this is part of it. I want you to pull yourself together and listen. You can cry afterwards if you want to—there isn’t time now.”
That flicked a little colour into her cheeks. She took a long choking breath, and the quivering stopped. She pulled her hand away and clenched it on itself.
“Will you listen?” he said.
And then, before she could answer, the door opened and Janet Fortescue’s invaluable Perry stood on the threshold, her large buxom form heroically encased in the old-fashioned boned bodice and long full skirt of thirty years ago. She wore the embroidered apron and frilled cap of the same date. The cap had streamers. Beneath it Perry’s grey hair billowed over a horsehair foundation and was braided into a sort of door-handle surrounded by plaits at the back. She said, breathing heavily,
“Is Mr Ware staying, ma’am?”
“You will, Jeremy?”
“I’m not dressed.”
“As if that mattered!”
She turned to the door, voice and manner quite natural.
“Yes, Perry. But give us a little longer—I’ve some business to finish.”
Perry’s majestic presence was withdrawn. The door shut. Rosalind felt herself at once chaperoned and disapproved of.
Jeremy said, “That’s the nearest thing to a female butler I’ve ever struck.” And with that they turned sanely and soberly back to the letter on Jeremy’s knee.
Perry had changed the atmosphere. Hers was a world in which things followed their ordered courses—a day for turning out the drawing-room, and a day for cleaning the silver; sacred, immutable hours at which she rang the breakfast bell, the luncheon bell, the dressing bell, the dinner bell. It was all very fixed, and solid, and safe. Perry, standing at the door like that and asking whether Jeremy was staying for dinner, did more to convince Rosalind that it was impossible that Gilbert should have written that letter than any argument which she or Jeremy could have used. That sort of thing didn’t happen in Perry’s world.
Rosalind was not conscious of formulating these thoughts. She sat up and watched quietly whilst Jeremy took a note-case out of an inner pocket. He opened it and produced an irregular torn piece of paper which he laid upon Rosalind’s lap. It lay against the soft black of her dress, and she looked down at it. Right across the middle ran Jeremy’s signature, and above it again, but on a slant: “Jeremy Ware.” At the bottom of the paper, where it narrowed to a point, a “Jere” and a “remy.” And up in the top left-hand corner a broken “Ware.”
A little frown came between her eyes and she said,
“What’s this?”
“I should very much like to know,” said Jeremy.
“But—” The frown deepened.
“What do you think it is?” he said.
“Your signature.”
“You’d pass it?”
“Yes, I should.”
“So should I,” said Jeremy grimly, “But I didn’t write it, Rosalind, any more than Gilbert wrote this.” He touched the photographed letter, and the slips fell off his knee on to the sofa.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m quite sure.”
She kept a puzzled gaze on his face for a moment, and then turned it again upon the torn scrap of paper.
“Now,” said Jeremy, “here’s my signature. I could swear to it, but I know I didn’t write it. This morning someone telephoned to you. You were so sure it was my voice that you were ready to believe me a blackmailer on the strength of it. I’m not, you know. I didn’t telephone to you, and I didn’t send you this letter. I didn’t send it any more than Gilbert ever wrote it. Have you got that? Well hold on to it, because it’s damned important.”
After a long minute she said,
“Why, Jeremy? Why?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” said Jeremy.
CHAPTER XX
THERE WAS A LITTLE silence. Jeremy put the torn piece of paper scrawled with his signature back into the note-case. Then he picked up the photographed letter and folded it.
“I’d like this too, just for the moment, if you don’t mind.” He put it away with the bit of paper.
A thin, remote voice said in Rosalind’s brain, “If he’d sent it, he’d want to get it back—he’d want me to see it—he wouldn’t want me to keep it.” Another voice said, “I do trust you, Jeremy—I do.” This voice spoke in her heart. For a moment everything rocked. Then her own voice said,
“Why do you want it?”
Jeremy leaned back, tucking the note-case away in his pocket. He laughed a little.
“I’m not one of those people who go about saying things are impossible, that coincidences don’t happen, and all that sort of thing. I can take one coincidence in my stride so to speak, but—was it the Red Queen or the White Queen who said she could believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast?”
“I think it was the White Queen,” said Rosalind.
She and Jeremy couldn’t be sitting here talking about Alice through the Looking-glass if he were someone out of a nightmare and not the dear familiar Jeremy she loved.
“Well, I’m not like that,” he said. “I can believe one impossible thing all right, but I boggle at two, and after two I’m done. Now we’ve got three—a letter Gilbert didn’t write, and a signature I didn’t sign, and my voice calling you when I didn’t call you at all. I can’t believe any of these, because I’d had my whack already. If I told you some of the things that have been happening this week, you’d probably call me a liar.”
Rosalind didn’t feel so sure of that. She tried to get her thought into words.
“I don’t think I should, Jeremy. I’m different from you—I think it takes me the other way. One very strange thing stands out, but if you put another one by it, well, it doesn’t seem so strange any more, and if there were a crowd of them, I think I should stop finding them strange at all.” She paused, and then added, “Will you please tell me about the other things?”
Jeremy was leaning back. He frowned, but not at her.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t want to bring you any farther into it.”
“I’m in already.”
Jeremy nodded.
“I think we’re both too far in to be much use to each other. We want an outside point of view.” He saw her shrink, and said quickly, “Have you ever heard of Mr Benbow Collingwood Hora
tio Smith?”
“What extraordinary names!”
“A whole blessed Admiralty! Have you heard them before?”
“Yes—yes, I have. … Yes, I remember.”
“Just what have you heard?”
She put her hand up against her cheek, which had some colour in it now.
“He wrote a book?”
Jeremy nodded.
“Something else …” said Rosalind. “Frank—yes, Frank Garrett—he and Gilbert were talking—I wasn’t really paying attention very much, but the name stuck—and isn’t it strange how things come back?”
“Yes—go on. What did they say?”
Her hand pressed her cheek. Her colour rose.
“I’m trying to think. … It’s like wind blowing—I can’t get hold of it. … Yes—Frank said something about his book being wonderful. … And then Gilbert said—” Her brows drew together and her eyes looked up half startled into his. “Gilbert said he’d got a wonderful flair—‘the inspired looker-on who sees most of the game.’ And Frank said, ‘We’d have been beat without him half a dozen times lately.’ What did he mean, Jeremy?”
Jeremy was thinking what Colonel Garrett might have meant by that. “We’d have been beat half a dozen times without Aim”—meaning Benbow Collingwood Horatio. And “we” on Garrett’s lips would mean the Foreign Office Intelligence. That brought you up with a pretty sharp jerk.
“Jeremy—what did he mean?” said Rosalind.
Jeremy laughed. A sudden gust of confidence swept over him. It made his blood tingle as if he had been running. It made him feel as if he could take on anything and come out on top. He said,
“It means I bumped into the biggest coincidence of the lot when I struck up an acquaintance with Mr Smith in Regent’s Park.” He got up. “May I use your telephone?”
“What for, Jeremy?” Her eyes were alarmed.
“To ring up Mr Smith.” He was half-way across the room.
“No—wait! What are you going to say?”
He came back to her.
“Don’t be frightened—it’s going to be all right. I’m going to tell him the whole thing. He doesn’t say a lot, but he’s a pretty wise old bird. He’s the sort you can talk to.”
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