Wicked Uncle

by Patricia Wentworth

  “You would, perhaps, care tor me to furnish you with proofs of my credibility as a witness. This is my business card.”

  From the shabby black bag which depended from her left wrist she produced and laid before him a small, neat pasteboard rectangle. It displayed her name in the middle-Miss Maud Silver, with, in the left-hand bottom corner, an address, 15 Montague Mansions, S.W., and in the corresponding right-hand corner, the words, Private Enquiries.

  As he absorbed this information, Miss Silver continued to address him.

  “If you will be so good as to ring up Scotland Yard, Chief Detective Inspector Lamb will tell you that he knows me well, and. that I am a person to be believed. Detective Sergeant Abbott, or in fact any of the officers on the detective side, will be able to assure you that I have the confidence of the police. If, of course, you are prepared to admit that a mistake has been made, and to offer to this young lady an unqualified apology, we need not trouble Scotland Yard.”

  The manager, thus baited, turned with ferocity upon the shopwalker. His diminished ego obtained some helpful support from having a subordinate at hand to bully.

  “Mr. Sopeley!”

  “Sir?”

  “On what evidence did you act? This lady says that one of the assistants came up and spoke to you. Who was it, and what did she say?”

  Mr. Sopeley began to see before him the unenviable role of the scapegoat. An elderly survivor of the war period, his tenure was not so secure that he could afford to have it shaken. With a feeling that his collar had suddenly become too tight for him, he stumbled into speech.

  “It-it was Miss Anderson. She said a lady had whispered to her that this-” he paused and swallowed-“this young lady was filling her pockets, and she thought she ought to mention it.”

  “Then why is she not here as a witness?”

  “She said she had a train to catch,” said Mr. Sopeley in an ebbing voice.

  The manager’s bald head became suffused with an angry flush.

  “Miss Anderson should have detained her.”

  Perceiving a possible ram in a thicket, Mr. Sopeley agreed that Miss Anderson had been very remiss, though just how she could have detained a determined customer in full flight to catch a train, neither he nor the manager was prepared to say. In a tone of virtuous indignation he remarked,

  “I spoke to her quite severely on that point, sir.”

  Miss Silver intervened.

  “It is perfectly clear that this woman who brought the accusation and then disappeared is the person who placed the stolen goods in this young lady’s pockets. I would press you now to ring up Scotland Yard. A full and unqualified apology is due to this young lady, and I shall not be satisfied until it has been offered.”

  Chief Detective Inspector Lamb lifted the receiver from the instrument on his office table. The voice of Sergeant Abbott came to him.

  “I say, Chief, here’s a lark! I’ve got the manager of the De Luxe Stores on the line, wanting to know if Maudie is a credible witness! He’s asking for you. An offensive fellow-perhaps you’d like to crush him yourself.”

  Lamb grunted.

  “What’s it all about?”

  “Case of shoplifting. Maudie says the girl was framed. Says she saw a woman put a hand into her pocket, afterwards skipping to an assistant to lay information, and then vanishing from the scene to catch a train. Shall I put you through?”

  Lamb’s grunt must have conveyed assent. It was followed by a click and the impact on his ear of a voice which he thoroughly disliked. A shrewd and experienced observer of human nature, he deduced the man who has made a bloomer and is trying to bluster his way out. He stemmed the current by announcing himself.

  “Chief Detective Inspector Lamb speaking.” Every syllable slowly and ponderously fraught with authority.

  The manager had to begin all over again, and didn’t like it. He began to wish that he had apologized to Dorinda Brown and left Scotland Yard alone.

  The Chief Inspector stopped him before he had got very far.

  “I have nothing to do with what happened in your shop. If you wish to charge anyone, it is a matter for the local station. In so far as your inquiries relate to Miss Maud Silver, I am prepared to deal with them. I know her very well and can assure you that she is an entirely credible witness. She has been of great use to the police on many occasions, and if I may say so, you would be well advised to be guided by her opinion. If she says this girl is innocent, you’d better believe her-she knows what she’s talking about. One moment-I will speak to her, just to make sure of her identity.”

  In the manager’s office Miss Silver took up the receiver with a preliminary cough.

  “Chief Inspector Lamb? How very pleasant to hear your voice! You are well, I hope?… And Mrs. Lamb?… And the daughters?”

  When the compliments were over Lamb was pleased to relax into a chuckle.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “My dear Chief Inspector!”

  The chuckle became a laugh.

  “Had to come to the police to get you out of it-eh? Now, you know, that’s very pleasant for us-isn’t it?”

  “I am always quite certain that I can rely upon you,” said Miss Silver gravely. She handed the receiver back to the manager, whose bald head had now assumed the colour of a beetroot, and stepped back.

  Made aware of the change, Lamb said briskly and ungrammatically,

  “There’s only one Miss Silver, and that’s her all right.”

  Chapter VIII

  Justin Leigh was a little puzzled by his Dorinda. She had remembered to wear clothes which he had once commended. She appeared to be in perfect health, and she seemed to be extremely pleased to see him. But all the same, there was something. Her attention wavered, and he missed the zest which should have accompanied the selection of a furbelow at somebody else’s expense. Mrs. Oakley’s ideas on the subject of what should be paid for an evening frock seemed to be thoroughly sound.

  Dorinda, who had never scaled such giddy heights, ought to have been leaping from peak to peak with carefree enthusiasm, instead of which she remained aloof. It wasn’t until The Dress had been extracted from some inner shrine and reverentially displayed that she seemed to be taking any interest at all.

  The Dress had a compelling effect. She said “Oh!” and her colour rose. Justin remarked that she had better try it on, and she retired to do so.

  When she came out in it there were of course no doubts. It was It. It had that magic touch so impossible to describe. It moulded, and it flowed. It was dead plain. By some subtle art the unrelieved black made her hair look richer than gold. It brightened her eyes, it brightened her skin.

  Justin said in rather an odd tone,

  “That’s the ticket. Go and take it off, or there won’t be time to have any lunch.”

  When the dress had been packed up and a vast sum paid for it, they took it away with them.

  Justin had found a new place for lunch, their table pleasantly retired in a shallow recess. It being now possible to converse, he looked at her very directly and said,

  “What’s the matter?”

  He was a good deal concerned when she turned very pale and said with a shake in her voice,

  “I nearly got arrested for shoplifting.”

  Concern became something more as she poured it all out.

  “If it hadn’t been for Miss Silver, they would have arrested me. It’s given me the most frightful sort of giddy feeling-like thinking you’re on quite an ordinary path, and all of a sudden your foot goes down and there isn’t anything there. I expect you’ve done it in dreams-I have, often. But it’s never happened when I was awake-not till this morning.”

  When the waiter had come and gone he made her tell it all over again.

  “Had you ever seen any of those people before?”

  “No. Miss Silver wanted to know about that. We went and had coffee together after they had apologized. She’s a marvel. She knows everyone at Scotland Yard, so of cou
rse they had to listen to her. She simply flattened that awful manager.”

  The memory cheered her a good deal. “But, Justin, she said was there anyone who would like to get me into trouble, or get me out of the way, and of course I said no. Because it couldn’t-it simply couldn’t have anything to do with the Wicked Uncle-could it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there was a photograph of him all crumpled up in Marty’s toy-cupboard.”

  “Dorinda!”

  She nodded.

  “Well, there was. It was the twin of the one Aunt Mary had- Charles Rowbecker & Son, Norwood. And I put it on Mrs. Oakley’s writing-table, and I didn’t say anything to her, and she didn’t say anything to me. Justin-it couldn’t be that!”

  He looked handsome and remote. A dreadful feeling that perhaps she was boring him came over her. She said in a hurry,

  “We needn’t go on talking about it.”

  Still handsome but not so remote, he frowned and told her not to be silly.

  “But, Justin, you looked bored.”

  “That’s just my unfortunate face. The brain was getting to work. Look here, Dorinda-why did you go to that shop at all?”

  “I had some things to do for Mrs. Oakley.”

  “My good child, you’re not going to tell me that Martin Oakley’s wife shops at the De Luxe Stores! Modes for the Million, and a Brighter and Better Bourgeoisie!”

  Dorinda giggled.

  “Not for herself, she doesn’t. But someone told her they’d got luminous paint, so she told me to go there and see. Because Marty’s got his old nurse back and she isn’t a bit pleased because he’s been allowed to chip all the stuff off the night-nursery clock and she can’t see what time it is when she wakes up in the dark. So I was to go there and see if I could get some.”

  “Who knew that you were going there?”

  “Well, Mrs. Oakley-and Nurse-and Doris, who is the girl who does the nurseries-and-well, I should think practically everyone else in the house, because Marty kept telling everyone I was going to buy him some shiny paint because he had been a very naughty boy and had scraped it off the clock. And every time he said it Nurse came in with how difficult it was to get, but she did hear they had some at the De Luxe Stores. But I don’t know who told her.”

  Justin’s frown deepened.

  “If that was a frame-up, it was arranged by someone who knew you were going to the damned shop. Are you sure you had never seen anyone in that crowd before?”

  Dorinda shook her head.

  “Oh, no, I hadn’t.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound as if it could have been a case of having to get rid of the stuff because the thief was under suspicion. She would never have risked speaking to the assistant if it had been like that. Look here, I don’t like it. I think you’d better clear out of this job. You can ring Mrs. Oakley up and say that an acute family crisis has arisen, and that you have been called to your Aunt Jemima’s death-bed.”

  “Justin, I couldn’t. Even if she didn’t know-and she does- that I haven’t got an aunt in the world, I couldn’t possibly. I’ve just spent twenty pounds of her money on a dress, and I’ve got to work it out.”

  Justin looked angrier than she had ever seen him.

  “You can take the damned thing back!”

  “They wouldn’t give me the money,” said Dorinda with conviction. “They’d just say they would put it to Modom’s credit, and that wouldn’t be any use at all, because Mrs. Oakley wouldn’t shop there for herself-she told me so. She said they had very nice inexpensive little frocks for girls, but of course she had to pay a great deal more for her own things. So you see, I can’t possibly.”

  Justin leaned across the table.

  “Dorinda-let me lend you the twenty pounds.”

  Gratitude made Dorinda’s eyes look exactly like peat-water with the sun on it.

  “I think that’s absolutely noble of you. But of course I can’t let you.”

  “You must.”

  “Darling, I can’t. Aunt Mary would get right up and haunt me. It was one of her very strictest things-never let a man speak to you unless he’s introduced, never let a man pay your debts, never let a man lend you money. And when you’ve had that sort of thing soaked into you for as long as you can remember, you just can’t-not even if you try.”

  “Relations are quite different,” said Justin.

  Dorinda shook her head.

  “Not when they’re men. Aunt Mary had a special thing about cousins. She said they were insidious.”

  Justin burst out laughing, which relieved the emotional strain. Just why there should have been a strain, he wasn’t clear. He had felt angrier than he could remember to have done for quite a long time, and when Dorinda began to be obstinate, an urge out of a neolithic past had suggested to him how pleasant it would be to knock her over the head and drag her to a cave by the hair. The suggestion did not, of course, arrive in words, but this was what it amounted to.

  The laughter carried it away, but Dorinda’s obstinacy remained. She wanted to keep her job, she wanted to keep her twenty-pound dress, she didn’t want to go back to the Heather Club, and she was thrilled through and through because of Justin being really angry and really interested. It wasn’t Aunt Mary who had told her that a man only scolds a woman when he is fond of her. It was Judith Crane, the girl who had annoyed the old ladies at the Heather Club by having so many baths and going out with so many young men. One way and another Dorinda had learned quite a lot from Judith Crane. Aunt Mary’s foundation-laying had been very solid and sound but the lighter touches had been wanting, and having suffered from a Wicked Uncle had, perhaps naturally, given her a poor view of men. They had to be, but the less you had to do with them the better for your peace of mind.

  With all this at the back of her thought, Dorinda continued to glow with gratitude and to say no to the twenty pounds. She also ate a very good lunch and recurred at intervals to the subject of Miss Maud Silver.

  “She gave me her card, and she said if I had any more trouble to let her know at once. I told her I couldn’t pay a fee or anything like that, and she said it didn’t matter-just to let her know. Justin, she’s rather a pet. She patted my hand, and she said, ‘My dear, there was a time when I was a young girl earning my living in other people’s houses. I have so much to be grateful for that I like to pay a little of the debt when I can.’ ”

  In the end Justin gave up. He had something to give Dorinda, and if he wrangled with her up to the last moment, the atmosphere would be all wrong. Not that there was any wrangling on Dorinda’s side. She just glowed, and called him darling, and went on saying no. He began to feel that he must be making a fool of himself. What he wanted for his little presentation was the attitude of the kind, indulgent cousin, but he didn’t find it easy to come by.

  Dorinda gave him an opening by opining that she would just have time to shop her rolled-gold safety-pin before she had to meet Mr. Oakley at his office. Justin dived into his pocket and produced something in an envelope.

  “This will look nicer than a safety-pin-at least I hope you’ll think so. It belonged to my mother.”

  “Oh, Justin!” Her colour changed brightly.

  Inside the envelope was a shabby little brown leather case, and inside the case, on a background of ivory velvet which had turned as yellow as the keys of an old piano, there was a shining brooch. Dorinda gazed at it and felt quite unable to speak. The interlaced double circle of small bright diamonds caught the light. She lifted swimming eyes to Justin’s face.

  “You like it?”

  She took a long breath.

  “It’s much too lovely!”

  “Put it on.”

  Half way to her throat her hands remained suspended.

  “Justin-you oughtn’t to-I mean I oughtn’t to take it. If it was your mother’s, oughtn’t you to keep it? Because when you get married-” She stopped there, because the idea of Justin getting married hurt so frightfully that she couldn’t go
on.

  There was a curious emotional moment. Justin looked at her rather gravely and said,

  “What sort of girl do you think I ought to marry?”

  It was of course quite easy to answer this, though it hurt like knives and daggers. Dorinda had always known exactly the sort of girl that Justin would marry, and within the last few months, from being a type, this girl had become someone with a name. Dorinda had seen her photograph in a gossipy weekly- “Mr. Justin Leigh and Miss Moira Lane.” She cut out the picture and kept it, and one day when she was feeling extra brave she asked Justin, “Who is Moira Lane?” and got a frown and a casual “Oh, just a girl I know.” After that she saw them together once or twice-at lunch when she was out with Tip, and at the theatre with Buzzer. Moira Lane always looked just the same-as if she knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

  She was very, very decorative of course, but she might have been that and yet all wrong for Justin. It was that look of being dead right and dead sure of being right which ran the splinter of ice into Dorinda’s heart. She laid the brooch back on its ivory bed and began to draw strokes on the tablecloth with the tip of her finger.

  “Tall, and of course very, very slim, only not thin-you don’t like thin girls, do you? And perhaps very fair hair-only I don’t know that that matters very much as long as it’s beautifully done. And very, very smart, with all the right clothes, and knowing just where to get them. And what you do and what you don’t do, and just the right kind of make-up, and when a thing’s dead and you just can’t be seen with it any more. Because, you know, all that sort of thing is very difficult unless you’ve been brought up to it, only even then some people are much better at it than others-and you’d have to have someone who was really good at it.”

  “Would I?”

  “Oh, yes, Justin. Because you notice everything, and you can’t bear it if there’s the least thing wrong. You like everything to be perfect, so you would have to marry a girl who would never, never make a mistake.”

  She pushed the little brown leather case across the table, not looking at it, because her eyes never left his face. He picked it up and put it down in front of her.