Pursuit of a Parcel

by Patricia Wentworth

  “She ought to be coming round.”

  He held a candle close to her face, moving it to and fro so that the light fell on her eyes. The fog brightened. Some of the wax fell on her wrist, but she did not feel it at all, though she could hear someone say “Oh!” in a gasping, frightened way. She sank down into the fog again.

  Ina Long snatched the candle out of Barend’s hand.

  “I told you she wasn’t shamming. Why can’t you believe me? Now you’ve burned her.”

  He gave an uneasy laugh.

  “A little candlegrease—what does it matter?”

  Mrs. Long blew out the candle and put it down on the chest of drawers beside the bed. The room was a small, comfortable bedroom. There was a square of blue carpet on the floor. The rather uneven boards were well polished. There were bright chintz curtains with a pattern of delphiniums and poppies.

  Delia lay on a low divan bed with her fair hair loose on the pillow. She had one hand at her throat. That was where the wax had fallen. Both arms lay bare outside the blue coverlet. The clothes which Mrs. Long had taken off her lay tossed down upon an ottoman at the foot of the bed, their blue repeating the blue of the carpet and of the delphiniums in the chintz. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and the curtains had been drawn back, but there was very little light coming in from outside. A heavy murk that was not quite a fog tinged everything with its own sallow gloom.

  Mrs. Long turned round from putting down the candle.

  “When are you going to take her away?” she said, half breathless, half accusing.

  Barend Roos frowned. “Is that a reasonable thing to ask? Do you expect me to carry her out to the car like this, in daylight?”

  “You shouldn’t have brought her here. It wasn’t in the bargain—you know it wasn’t.”

  His frown deepened. He came round the bed and stood over her, a big, angry man. Dangerous. The word went through her mind on a shuddering breath of cold. He said,

  “I am always forgetting that women are not reasonable creatures. I will say it all over again very plainly, but I will only say it once. After that you must remember. If you do not, you know who will suffer.” He saw with satisfaction that she shrank and trembled. A tiresome young woman, but amenable to a good loud crack of the whip. He went on in a cold, displeased voice. “It is not for you to talk about bargains, it is for you to do as you are told. You do not imagine that I wished to bring her here, do you—you are not as stupid as that. The house I would have taken her to was a great deal more suitable. There were empty houses on either side and over the way, but since it no longer exists, I have to make other arrangements, and meanwhile she must stay here. You will have to go and put your daily woman off. What excuse will you make?”

  She looked at him in a frightened way. He would think she ought to have told him before. She didn’t know why she had not done so, except that perhaps it had made her feel safer. If he thought Mrs. Clarke would be here by ten o’clock he would be in a hurry to get the girl away before she arrived, but now she had to tell him. She said, “She isn’t coming.”

  “Why?”

  She bit her lip to stop it trembling. “I thought I could do without her whilst Ernest was away. She’s got a daughter who’s having a baby—she wants to go to her.”

  His face relaxed. “Well, that is convenient. Now see—you must try to wake the girl. What can you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are a doctor’s wife.”

  “I don’t know anything about these things.”

  It would have given him the greatest pleasure to shake her.

  She moved away from him nearer to the bed and looked down at Delia. “Perhaps you gave her too much. She looks very white. Some people can’t take a lot—I know that.”

  “Just now you said you didn’t know anything. Do you know enough to wash her face with cold water?”

  The heavy sarcasm in his voice brought a faint flush to her cheek.

  “I had chloroform once, and I slept all the next day. They didn’t try to wake me up—I know that. If you want her to talk you had better let her sleep it off—I know that too. She won’t be much use to you with her head swimming and the room going up and down.”

  He considered what she had said. He thought the crack of the whip had had a good effect and she was talking sense. Actually, it would not be at all a bad plan to let the girl sleep on. He couldn’t risk moving her in daylight. In bed and asleep, she would be out of harm’s way. He would have to make other arrangements. To do that he must go out. The contacts he must make were personal ones. He couldn’t send Jimmy, and it wouldn’t be safe to use the telephone.

  He considered whether it would be safe to be away for some hours, as he very well might be. He didn’t trust Jimmy over much. He was venal, and he would think first of his own skin. He didn’t trust Ina Long at all. He had the whip hand of her, but with women you never could tell. She had every reason to come to heel, but at a pinch she might obey her nerves and break away. He couldn’t trust her a yard. What then? He must make his arrangements.… Must he?… It came to him then how much simpler and less dangerous it might be just to stay here where he could keep Jimmy and Ina and the girl under his own eye. Who was to know that Ina Long had anyone in the house? There was enough food—no one of them need go out. In the evening, when the girl had been made to speak, they could drive her away in the car. She would have to be disposed of.

  It could be made to look like a road accident.

  The car—the only real element of danger lay in the faint possibility that the car might be traced. It was so faint a chance that he did not consider it very seriously. The risk—if there was a risk—was confined to the time when they were in the immediate neighbourhood of Fourways. They had entered the drive a little before half past six, well after sunset. He remembered that they had passed a countryfied young woman not far from the gates, but otherwise the road had been empty. Coming out again, he had not noticed anyone. His attention had been taken up with Delia—he had been still holding the pad over her face. He had not noticed Tommy Oakes coming up smoothly on his bicycle from the opposite direction. There was therefore no risk at all. He decided with relief that he would stay where he was, and went downstairs to join Jimmy Nash in Dr. Long’s consulting-room, which had a very nice private outlook upon an old-fashioned garden a good deal overgrown with trees.

  XIX

  Delia lay on the divan bed. The voices ceased to trouble her. She slipped through the fog into sleep. Presently when Ina Long came to look at her she saw that she had turned on her side. Her breath came evenly and there was colour in her cheeks. A load lifted from Ina’s mind. She had been tormenting herself for hours with the thought that the anaesthetized stupor might go on until the girl was dead. And then what? Everything in her shuddered with fear. But this was sleep. She went thankfully away and busied herself about the house.

  It was not until the afternoon that Delia woke. The day had cleared, and the sun came slanting in at the window. She turned away from it and opened her eyes. She was still heavy and drowsy. What she saw meant no more to her than an image seen in a dream. A blue carpet, cream walls, a blue coverlet, a chest of drawers, a basket chair with a chintz cover, blue flowers on the chintz, her clothes thrown down on the ottoman—these things made a picture before her eyes, but they made no sense. They were like a sentence in a foreign language, or a song of which you cannot hear the words. She didn’t say I know this place, or I don’t know it. It just meant nothing at all.

  She would have closed her eyes again, but the door opened and Ina Long came in with a cup in her hand. There was strong broth in the cup, and as soon as the savoury smell reached her the whole scene came alive and was real. Because she was hungry. Nothing connects you with actuality more promptly and surely than hunger, the most primitive sensation of all.

  Delia fixed her eyes upon the steaming cup. For the moment it was more important to her than where she was and how she had got there. She rose on h
er elbow, and the room went round. The savoury smell came nearer, and then the cup was at her lips and she was gulping down the broth. It was lovely and hot. She drank it all, and the room was steady again.

  The woman who had held the cup to her lips took it away and put it down on the chest of drawers. Delia drew herself up against the pillows and looked at her.

  She saw a girl who might be five years older than herself, and who would almost certainly have been pretty if she had not given the impression of having just been put through a wringer. She had the limp, white look that wrung-out linen has. She must have been crying for hours and hours to make her eyes so red. They might have been rather a pretty blue before she started, but they looked now as if all their colour had been washed away. She had fair brown hair which hung dejectedly about her shoulders, and she wore a brightly flowered overall.

  Delia said, “Who are you?” and Ina Long said “Ssh!” and ran to shut the door. She had pushed it to when she came in. She opened it now and looked out before she latched it. Then she came back and knelt down by the bed.

  Delia was looking at her in a puzzled way.

  “Why am I here?”

  “They brought you.”

  “Who?”

  “They’ll tell you—I can’t. But oh, whatever they want to know, you’ll tell them, won’t you?”

  It sounded quite incredible. Delia went on looking at her. Perhaps she hadn’t quite waked up. It was a comforting thought. She said,

  “I don’t know what you mean—I really don’t.”

  And then all at once she did. With a jolt which made her feel as if she had fallen downstairs, she remembered the telephone message, and running down the drive, and the chloroform pad pressing down on her nose and mouth. When you have had a fall you have to pick yourself up again and go on.… She shut her eyes and took a minute.

  She emerged from the confusion with the solid conviction that she had been made a fool of. Cynthia hadn’t telephoned. The man with the accent hadn’t been one of Cynthia’s young men at all. The people who had stolen the parcel had discovered that there wasn’t anything in it, and they had carried her off because they thought she knew where the contents were. It was really quite simple. Well, they wouldn’t get them. That was quite simple too.

  She opened her eyes, saw Ina looking at her in a frightened way, and said,

  “All right—I’ve got there—they want to know something. What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Delia smiled suddenly.

  “Nor do I. They won’t get a lot forrader on that, will they?”

  “Ssh!” Ina leant close to whisper. “You’ll have to tell them. It won’t be safe for you if you don’t. You don’t know what they’re like. Do you think I’d be doing this if I could help it?”

  “Why are you doing it?” said Delia pròmptly.

  “Because I’ve got to. And Ernest will never forgive me if he finds out—he’ll never forgive me!”

  Her eyes were wet again. Delia caught her by the wrist.

  “Don’t cry! You’ve got to tell me things. Who is Ernest?”

  “My husband. We’ve only been married a year. He’s got a practice here, and he was called out in an air raid last week and he got hurt. He’s in hospital—I can’t tell him anything. I couldn’t if he was here—but of course then they wouldn’t have dared. They’ve been using his car—they’ve got ways of getting petrol—they said he would never know. But he will—he’ll find out—and he’ll never, never forgive me.”

  Delia tugged at her wrist.

  “You’re not to cry! Why are you doing it?”

  “Because I can’t help myself. I’ll tell you, because you’ve got to see it’s no good fighting them. My people were Germans. They came over before I was born, so I’m British. But my sister isn’t—she’s a German subject, and she married over there. I’ve only been over on visits, but she lives there. She’s there now. And they said if I didn’t help them, they’d get her put in a concentration camp. She isn’t strong, and it would kill her—they would see that it did—they said so. They haven’t got any heart or conscience. The only thing you can do is to give in. But they never told me they were going to bring you here. They only said they must have the car, and if anyone heard it going out or coming in, I was to say that I had taken it.” Her voice faded out on the last word.

  She snatched her wrist away and sprang up. It was the third stair from the top that creaked when you stepped on it. It had creaked then—just then when she was speaking. She had picked up the cup and was half way across the room, when the door opened.

  Delia saw it open, and then she saw the man who had called himself Mr. Brown and Cornelius Rossiter standing upon the threshold. She still believed him to be Cornelius Rossiter, and because of this she was not really afraid, because Cornelius was in some sort Antony’s brother, and it was impossible to be really afraid of Antony’s brother.

  He held the door with formal politeness for Ina Long. When she had gone out he shut it behind her. Then he pushed the basket chair beside the bed and sat down.

  “Well, Miss Merridew—I hope you are feeling better.”

  Delia said, “Yes, thank you.” She became aware that her shoulders and arms were bare. She shivered a little and said, “Will you please give me my jumper? It’s just there, at the foot of the bed.”

  He gave it to her, and she huddled it round her, making a scarf of the sleeves. It went through her mind that this was an excessively odd way of beginning a conversation with a man who had chloroformed and abducted you.

  He waited until she had settled herself against the pillows. Then he said,

  “I am glad that you are feeling better, because I want to have a talk with you. You have been a long time coming round, and my business is very pressing. I told you that the other day. It is a pity you did not tell me the truth then—it would have saved us both a great deal of trouble.”

  Delia looked at him with innocent candour.

  “Why do you think I haven’t told you the truth?”

  And all at once she was frightened, not because of anything he said or did, but because of the look in his eyes. It might have been there all the time—perhaps it had been—she didn’t know, but quite suddenly it frightened her. It was a relief when he spoke.

  “Miss Merridew, you are not now in your house at Fourways. You are in a house where I give the orders. It would be better if you remember that. There will be no more lies and pretendings, because I have not time for them. Last Monday afternoon one of your uncle’s clerks handed you for safe keeping a parcel which I had sent to Antony from Holland. I did not know when I sent it that I should so soon have to come away myself. The contents of the parcel were very important. It was a matter of life and death for me that I should have them as soon as I arrived in England. I found out that you had the parcel, and I came to you expecting that for Antony’s sake you would help me. Instead you deceive me, you obstruct, you make difficulties, you withhold my property. Because it is a matter of life and death and I must have it, I am obliged to take it from the bank by force. But when it is opened the cylinder is no longer there. What have you done with it?”

  Delia continued to regard him. Her eyes widened. A puzzled expression came into them. Antony had said that Cornelius was leading them on. He didn’t believe that there was or ever had been a cylinder. Yet here was Cornelius demanding his cylinder with the most striking appearance of believing that it existed and believing that she knew where it was. It made her head go round. She said,

  “But I don’t know. Antony said—”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said there wasn’t any cylinder.”

  “What are you talking about? Do you think you can put me off like that? You had better not try. You opened the parcel.”

  “Why should I open it?”

  “Because someone did—that was plain enough. And it would not be the clerk. I know his type—serious, conscientious—he would not meddle with his em
ployer’s property. It is useless to deny that you opened it.”

  Delia began to feel very confused. She had had nothing but a cup of broth for twenty-four hours, and now that she had slept off the effects of the chloroform she was dreadfully empty. She didn’t know what she ought to do. It was very confusing indeed. She stuck to the one thing she was sure about and said,

  “There wasn’t any cylinder.”

  Barend Roos said, “That is a lie.”

  The colour came up into her cheeks, hot and angry. No one had ever spoken to her like that before. But he did not give her time to speak.

  “What is the use of telling lies? You opened the parcel.”

  “There wasn’t any cylinder.”

  He made an angry sound of triumph.

  “Ah! One lie is gone at least! You admit that you opened the parcel.”

  “There wasn’t any cylinder,” said Delia in a childish whispering voice.

  He got no farther than that with her. She went on saying it, and when he came to shouting his questions and thrusting his big white face to hers, she stopped answering at all and slipped into a faint.

  Her pallor frightened him, and he called Ina Long.

  “Get her round! Give her brandy—anything you’ve got!”

  Ina looked at him sideways like an animal that would snap if it dared.

  “She doesn’t want brandy—she wants food, and to be let alone till she’s got over the shock. What are you in such a hurry for? You can’t do anything until it’s dark.…”

  The afternoon was of an interminable length. Jimmy Nash found a bottle of whisky and drank a good deal of it. A remonstrance evoked a Jimmy whom Barend did not know, a Jimmy fed to the teeth and ripe for mutiny and desertion. Threats fell off him like water off a duck’s back. He wanted whisky and he was going to have it, and if he couldn’t get it he’d just as soon be dead. All this ornamented with some very fancy language. He got his whisky, because the one thing Barend could not afford was a row. People had the most extraordinarily quick ears for a row. A shout, a scream, a bit of furniture knocked over, and some miserable errand-boy, some meddling old woman, would go away with the story that there was something wrong at The Acacias.