Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

Dr. Monk turned in his chair and pointed past Anna at the tall bureau which stood between the windows.

“That top drawer was open. Some one had been rummaging in it-the papers had all been turned about, and your check-book was lying across the top of them, open.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” said Dr. Monk. “No-not quite. I pulled down the flap of the bureau, and some one had been making hay there too-everything had been turned out of the pigeon-holes, and your keys were lying straggling on the top of the pile.”

Mr. Carthew got very red in the face.

“And why wasn’t I told all this before, pray?”

Dr. Monk looked uncomfortably at Anna. She spoke for the first time, in a low, colorless voice.

“I said I would tell you.” She paused, then repeated, “I told Dr. Monk that I would tell you.”

“I thought Miss Lang had told you,” said Dr. Monk. He hesitated a little. “I didn’t think that I should refer to what might be a-a-well, a painful family matter.”

“Painful!” said Mr. Carthew angrily. “Family!”-more angrily still-“Upon my word, Monk-a painful family matter! What put it into your head that there was anything painful-what? Or that it concerned my family? I say what put such a thing into your head?”

Dr. Monk sat back in his chair. He had said his say, and was glad to get it over. He saw no reason for holding anything back now.

“Miss Lang’s distress,” he said. “When I mentioned having seen her cousin, she was-er-very much affected. It was impossible not to notice it, impossible not to draw one’s conclusions-especially when she begged me not to tell any one that I had seen Car Fairfax.”

Mr. Carthew turned towards Anna, rapping sharply on the table.

“Why was that? Why did you ask him that?”

“I don’t know,” said Anna in a whisper.

“You did ask Monk not to tell any one he had seen Car?”

“Yes.”

“Why? You must know why you did it! Come-out with it-what!”

Anna drew a long sighing breath. It seemed to send a tremor over her from head to foot.

“I was afraid.”

“What were you afraid of? Of Car?” He laughed harshly. “You won’t ask me to believe that, I hope?”

“Not of him--for him,” said Anna.

“Good Lord! Can’t you speak up?” A mounting exasperation big fair to choke his utterance.

With a sudden tragic gesture Anna hid her face in her hands.

“Oh!” she said. Her breath caught on a sob. “I was- afraid-afraid-he-” Her voice stopped.

“Out with it!” said Mr. Carthew. “Say what you were afraid of and have done with it-what!”

“I can’t,” said Anna, only just audibly.

Dr. Monk looked reproachfully across the table. Very affecting, this distress. Young scamp in a scrape. Lovely, tender-hearted girl. Old playfellow. Very distressing and affecting.

Mr. Carthew restrained himself, moderated his voice, and controlled a strong desire to take his niece by the shoulders and shake her.

“What were you afraid of?”

Anna shrank, but made no sound.

“You thought Car was a thief? Car Fairfax -your cousin- my nephew-a thief-what? You let Dr. Monk think so? You want to make me believe that he stole the Queen Anne bow? What, I say-what?”

Anna’s hands dropped from her face. Her face was wet.

Then she heard a sound from behind the heavy leather screen that masked the door. The door was opening-some one was coming in. She turned blindly to the window.

William came in with a note. She heard her uncle say,

“What’s this-what? I’m busy.” And then, with an exclamation, “No, not in here-the study!”

William’s footsteps retreated. She heard Mr. Carthew jerk himself up.

“I’ll say good morning, Monk. I’ve got business waiting for me, and you’d better be getting along-what? Leave her to find her tongue.”

He went out, taking Dr. Monk with him.

A faint wonder as to what was happening crept into her mind and disturbed it. She stood looking out, her thought clearing momentarily. She had felt a real fear under her uncle’s battering questions. A sense of having come to an end was upon her. Anna Lang was dead. She would never live here again. She would never see Car again. It was all over. Everything would go on without her after this. They would not remember her, or be troubled by anything that she had done. Car would not remember her when he had married Isobel. She couldn’t touch him, really. Burning up from the depths of her, came the desire to reach him, touch him, hurt him-force him to remember her. Like cold drops of this burning, fell the thought, “I shall never see him again.”

She heard the door open behind her, and turned from the window.

Car Fairfax was coming into the room.

Car Fairfax ’s diary:

When I found my money was gone, there was only one thing to do, and that was to get away from streets and paving-stones and houses, and find somewhere to lie down for an hour.

I was pretty well all in when I reached what I was looking for, a heathery common with clumps of trees here and there. It had kept dry, thank goodness; the damp in the air which had made the roofs wet and slippery a few hours ago had gone. The heather was dry enough. I flung myself down on it and fell into a deep pit of sleep. I didn’t dream and I didn’t move, for I woke in the very same position in which I had thrown myself down.

I opened my eyes and sat up feeling stiff, dirty, and ragingly hungry. I must have slept for a good many hours, for by the sun it was getting on for ten o’clock.

There was a sun shining over low mist. Some of the heather was still in bloom, the rest burnt red and brown. There were birches here and there, and young pines lifting out of the mist. The sky overhead was a very jolly pale blue. I glanced at my wrist watch. It was ten minutes to ten.

I did my best to clean myself up. My suit was in a frightful state. Besides the tear I knew about, there was another on the outside of my left sleeve. My hands looked as if I’d been cleaning a chimney with them. I found all that the drought had left of a pond, and got the worst of the grime off my face and hands. Then I had to find out where I was and get to Linwood.

I got there at eleven, and walked up to the front door feeling a good deal like a tramp. I wondered who would answer the bell. I was most awfully pleased when I saw William, because of course every one in the house might have changed for all I knew.

William hadn’t changed a bit-same red hair, same freckles, same crooked nose. He seemed most awfully pleased to see me.

I had looked at my watch just before I rang the bell, and I thought that if it was eleven o’clock, I had better give Anna her message from Arbuthnot Markham before I did anything else, because she’d probably be catching the twelve-fifteen, so I asked for her.

He said she was in the library, and then put in,

“Mr. Carthew’s just gone into the study, sir. Shall I tell him you’re here?”

I said, “No, wait a minute. I want to see Miss Anna first.” And then I crossed the hall and opened the library door.

Anna was over by the window. I got the impression that she had turned round in a hurry, and I’m sure I was the last person in the world she was expecting to see. She looked as if she had been crying.

I shut the door behind me and walked over to her.

“Good morning, Anna,” I said.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. She looked at me. I think she was trying to register shock, or something of that sort-or perhaps, for once in a way, she wasn’t trying.

Come to think of it, it really must have been a bit of a shock to see me walk in like that, when she’d been picturing me safely put away in a nice quiet police cell.