“Are you hurt?”
“No—no, I’m not.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Delia gave an irrepressible sob.
“Because I want to.”
“And you’re not hurt? You swear they didn’t hurt you?”
She said with a sudden steadying of her voice,
“I think he was going to murder me—I really do. He knew I’d opened the parcel, but he wouldn’t believe there wasn’t any cylinder inside it.”
Antony gave a rather shaky laugh.
“There never was a cylinder—I’m sure of it. Con was spoofing them.”
She pulled away to look into his face.
“Cornelius—but he said—he talked—as if the cylinder had really been there.”
“Who did?”
She made a motion towards the consulting-room.
“Cornelius.”
Antony said, “Cornelius is dead.”
“Oh!”
“They got him. And when they thought they’d got the parcel with the cylinder they shot him. And when they found out that the cylinder wasn’t there they thought you’d taken it out.”
Delia shook her head.
“I didn’t.” She put her lips close up against Antony’s ear and whispered, “I only took out the papers.”
“What!”
“Ssh!” She went on whispering. “You know—the ones I told you about—maps—with funny marks on them. You see, after Miss Murdle, I didn’t think that parcel was a bit safe, so I opened it, and when I saw there were maps I thought they might be frightfully important, and I thought I’d better take them out. And I thought if I put the parcel in the bank everyone would think they were still inside it, so I did it in rather a public sort of way, and they burgled the bank. So, you see, it took them in. But I can’t understand about Cornelius. He said he was Cornelius. Isn’t he?”
Antony said again, “Con’s dead. I told you. That’s a cousin—Barend Roos, one of their Fifth Column. But he’ll be for it now.”
Inspector Lamb came out of the room.
“I’d like to have your statement, Miss Merridew. We can go into one of the front rooms.”
As they came through the hall they saw Ina Long. Through all the noise and disturbance she had not moved. She stood against the wall by the front door with her arms hanging and the tears running down her face. The constable stood beside her. Delia ran to her—put an arm round her—made her sit down.
Shepherded into the drawing-room, she rushed to her defence.
“You mustn’t do anything to her! You won’t—will you? They were frightening her sick. You don’t know how dreadful they were. And she’s got a perfectly good husband in hospital, and she doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive her, and it’s smashing her up. And there’s his practice, you know—she’s afraid he’ll be ruined if it gets into the papers.”
The Inspector was very nice to Delia. He liked a girl to have what he called a feeling heart. A lot of girls didn’t seem to have any feelings at all. He was sympathetic, but he got her to the point and kept her there till she had made her statement and signed it. Then he went and telephoned a description of Jimmy Nash, after which he and Sergeant Abbott went off in a police car with Barend Roos and Ina Long.
Delia and Antony drove away in the Hillman, but when they had gone about a quarter of a mile Antony stopped the car. The street was quiet as far as in it lay—houses all decorously blacked out, and the minimum of traffic. Guns were booming away to the east. Sometimes a shell rose like a star and burst above the black irregular line of the housetops. Neither Antony nor Delia had the slightest idea whether there was, officially speaking, a raid in progress or not. They were not thinking about raids—they were thinking about each other.
Presently Antony said,
“What am I going to do with you, my sweet?”
She rubbed her cheek against his.
“Perhaps we ought to tell Simmy I’m not dead. I expect she’s been in an awful flap.”
“I expect she has, and I expect I really ought to drive you down there. It’ll be the third time today. Fortunately Frank Garrett seems to be able to get petrol, and if you’ve really got those maps, he won’t mind how much I use to get them. Only, darling, why didn’t you give them to me before? When I was down there and you told me you’d opened the parcel—why on earth didn’t you give them to me then?”
“I didn’t want you to be murdered.”
“Murdered?”
She nodded.
“There was a very murdering feeling about them. I could feel it oozing out at me.”
Antony said “Idiot!” in an affectionate voice.
Delia snuggled up to him.
“No—I think it was clever, because look what’s happened. And if anyone was going to get murdered, I couldn’t bear it to be you when you’d just come back after being dead and—” She burrowed into his shoulder and choked there. “Why do you make me say it? I’d finished crying, and now you’ve made me start all over again. Look at me!”
“It’s too dark.” He kissed her instead.
After a minute or two he shook her a little and demanded briskly,
“What did you do with those papers, and where are they?”
“I hid them,” said Delia. Then she gave a small, unsteady laugh. “I hid them very, very cleverly.”
Antony’s blood ran cold. Suppose they had got a man into the house at night—last night—and found those maps. Impossible that Delia should have hit on any hiding-place which would defy a really expert search. These people didn’t leave anything to chance. He thought they were bound to have been through the house. He said sharp and quick,
“Where did you put them?”
Delia pulled away.
“I won’t tell you—no, wait—I won’t tell you unless there are going to be policemen and people. I simply won’t have you going off all by yourself with those maps and getting murdered. And if you’re going to bully me like the man I thought was Cornelius—what did you say his name was?”
“Roos—Barend Roos.”
“Well then, I shall faint like I did with him.”
“Delia, don’t be a fool!”
She came back and flung her arms round his neck.
“Darling, I’m not really—I’ve been clever. But I don’t want you to be murdered.”
Antony began to laugh.
“All right, we’ll have old Hopkins, and Sam Gaunt, and Parker. Will that do?”
Delia said “’M” against his cheek.
“And now—where did you put them? I only hope they’re still there.”
“Nobody could find them, not if they looked for a year. Do you know what I did?”
“I want to know.”
“I put them into one of Mrs. Parker’s glass preserving jars—you know, they have screw-on tops. And I put one of the kitchen weights in with them—the two-pound one. And I dropped the jar into the cold water cistern. And nobody, nobody, nobody would ever think of that—would they?”
“I don’t think they would, but I think we’d better go and see.”
“Don’t you think it was clever of me? I do!”
Antony was starting up the car. He said in a firm, practical voice,
“I hope you screwed the top on tight.”
“Of course I did! Aren’t you going to say I was clever?”
The car began to move. Antony said.
“You’ve got wind in the head, my sweet—that’s what’s the matter with you.”
About the Author
Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961) was one of the masters of classic English mystery writing. Born in India as Dora Amy Elles, she began writing after the death of her first husband, publishing her first novel in 1910. In the 1920s, she introduced the character who would make her famous: Miss Maud Silver, the former governess whose stout figure, fondness for Tennyson, and passion for knitting served to disguise a keen intellect. Along with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is the defi
nitive embodiment of the English style of cozy mysteries.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1942 by Patricia Wentworth
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3327-5
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
EARLY BIRD BOOKS
FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY
BE THE FIRST TO KNOW—
NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!
The Web’s Creepiest Newsletter
Delivered to Your Inbox
Get chilling stories of
true crime, mystery, horror,
and the paranormal,
twice a week.
THE ERNEST LAMB MYSTERIES
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Pursuit of a Parcel Page 22