Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

“Well then, he did!” she said. “He did it. Do you hear? He got it for me. I told him to get it, and he got it. And by this time Car Fairfax has been arrested with it on him, and no one will ever trace it back to me, because it didn’t come to him from me. It came to him from Isobel-Isobel- Isobel, do you hear? And Car would go to prison a dozen times before he would give Isobel away.” She stopped, panting.

She was working herself up into one of her rages. When Anna is in a rage, she tells the truth. It’s almost the only time she does, so I was listening with a good deal of interest.

“What do you say to that?” she said, and stamped her foot.

He said, in a cold, amused sort of way,

“Well, if you’ve made a fool of yourself, you’ve made fools of the police to keep you company.”

“What do you mean?”

He laughed.

“Don’t be afraid-I’m going to tell you. It’s much too good a joke to keep to myself. Bobby sent you what you asked for, did he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Neat little packets of white powder-neat little packets of cocaine?”

“Yes,” said Anna defiantly.

“Cocaine-nix!” said Arbuthnot Markham. “Common salt, my dear-common or garden salt.”

Anna repeated the word in a perfectly flat tone:

“Salt-” she said. Then quite suddenly her voice broke and choked. I had heard that happen before in one of her rages. She had tried to scream, and not been able to get out more than a ha’porth of sound. It was beastly to listen to, and it meant she was fairly off and would only stop raging when she hadn’t the strength to go on.

Arbuthnot took her by the shoulders again and shook her-at least that was what it sounded like. When he stopped, she stood catching her breath and whispering,

“You hurt me! You hurt me!”

“I meant to. I’ve no time for hysterics. You’d better be getting home if you won’t stay here. Pack what you want, and meet me at Croydon Aerodrome at three. We’re flying to Paris.”

“You hurt me!” she said, half sobbing.

“No, I didn’t. But I will if there’s any more nonsense. Don’t forget to bring your passport.”

“Has Bobby gone to Paris?” said Anna.

“Never you mind where Bobby’s gone. The less you know about it, the better. You’ve been playing with fire, and it’ll do you good to sit still and twiddle your fingers for a bit. If Fosicker’s arrested, you may find yourself in a hotter place than you care for.”

I was getting most awfully interested, because I’d had an ideal all along that Fosicker and Arbuthnot were the same person. I was listening as hard as I could, when quite suddenly, just as he said “arrested,” I wanted to sneeze. I pinched the bridge of my nose and did everything else I’d ever heard of, but for about a minute I just hung on the edge of a crash. Then I downed the beast, and began to listen again. You can’t listen when you’re hanging on to the tail of a sneeze and wondering every moment if the thing isn’t going to get loose and do you in.

I heard Anna say in a quite a loud, surprised voice,

“Fosicker? But you are Fosicker!‘”

I forgot all about the sneeze. For once in a way Anna and I were twin hearts that beat as one, because that was just what I had been thinking.

“What?” said Arbuthnot Markham in a voice that sounded as if he’d had all the breath knocked out of him.

Anna whispered the name she had just said.

“Fosicker-I’ve always known-you were-Fosicker.”

“Are you crazy?” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“You thought I was Fosicker? Why?”

“I thought you were. I think-you are.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you. Did you really think you’d married a dope king? However, unless you want a husband in jail, I’m the better bargain. If Fosicker didn’t manage to get clear to-day, he’ll be arrested to-morrow. Personally I hope he got clear, because of Bobby-otherwise I’d be very pleased to see him go down for a five years’ stretch. Anyway the game was up-and that, my dear, was why I put a spoke in your wheel. There’s going to be a slump in dope.”

“How do you know,” said Anna, “if you’re not- Fosicker?” Her voice seemed to fade a bit when she got to the name. I thought she was frightened to say it.

“Drop it!” he said. “Fosicker’s bolted. I wasn’t in with him, and I don’t care a hang what happens to him. Bobby told me all I know, and that’s not much. He came to me to get him out of the scrape. And now you’ll go home.”

They began to move away. I could hear her saying something, and I could hear him shutting her up. And then I couldn’t hear them any more.

I’d have a very interesting time listening, but I was most awfully glad when they were gone. I’d had a bit of cypress tickling my left ear, and I didn’t dare scratch it, to say nothing of having been stuck in one position for about ten minutes without being able to move. It felt much longer than ten minutes, but I expect it was about that.

I stretched myself and stamped my feet, and felt my neck to see if there were really spiders or caterpillars crawling on it. There weren’t any.

I came out of the bushes and made my way to the gate. I’d got plenty to think about. The thing that stuck out on top was Anna being married to Arbuthnot Markham. I thought that was pretty good news for the family, but a bit rough on him. I didn’t like the man, but if I had to choose between five years’ penal servitude and being married to Anna, they’d find me beating at the prison gates and begging them to let me in. I’ll say this, Arbuthnot seemed to have her pretty well in hand. It was an eye-opener to me the way she knuckled down to him.

I began to sort out what I’d heard. I wondered if Arbuthnot had been telling the truth about the packet I’d come to retrieve. If it contained nothing worse than salt, there didn’t seem to be much point in my taking it away with me.

I got it out, opened one of the little packages, picked up a grain or two, and tasted it rather gingerly. Salt it was- decent, honest salt. It came over me how funny it was, and I backed up against the wall and shook with laughter, all by myself in the dark. Anna’s great melodramatic revenge and silly-idiot hatred, her lies, her intrigues, and her bogus telegrams, all fizzling out like this!

I took up the nice little harmless dollops of salt, and I was just going to empty them out, when I thought of something better. I put them back in their box, rummaged out a pencil, and wrote as well as I could in the dark, “A. Markham Esq.”; and under that, “A Present for a Good Boy.” I sucked the pencil to make it as black as possible, and hoped the result would be legible.

I’d just got it done, when Anna’s car came down the drive. The lights dazzled for a moment, and then were gone. It struck me it was a pity I couldn’t get her to give me a lift, when she was going to Linwood and so was I.

I went up the drive. There were no lights showing in the house. I came under the portico, mounted the steps, and pushed Arbuthnot’s present into the letterbox. I wondered what he would make of it.

I laughed again, and ran back along the drive to the gate. But when I got there, I stood still, because I hadn’t thought what I was going to do next. The laughter went out of me like the air from a pricked balloon. One minute I was as pleased as Punch and full of laughter and the spirit of adventure, and the next I was flat and cold and tired.

And right into the middle of that flat, cold moment there came two things, very suddenly. The first was a torch turned full in my face, with a policeman behind it. And the second was the recollection of the Queen Anne bow.

I had forgotten all about it.