Patricia Wentworth - She Came Back

Lamb grunted.

“You always do agree with her-that’s nothing new.”

“Oh, no, sir-not always-only when the brain is waving rather brightly.” Then, before Lamb had time to disentangle this, “Well, I’m talking from the hairdresser’s-telephone in the room across the passage described by Miss Armitage. Clarke is shepherding the staff in the shop. Proprietress, stout Frenchwoman called Dupont, very angry, very abusive-says she’s never been so insulted in her life. Says Lady Jocelyn was a client-oh, but certainly-her hair was much impoverished and needed frequent attention. Her husband M. Félix Dupont-that’s where they get the Félise from-occasionally saw special clients in the office. He had probably seen Lady Jocelyn there-she was a very special client. But she couldn’t have seen him yesterday, or any day this week, because he had been in bed very ill, very suffering-wounds of the last war. I must understand that he is an invalid, and that only occasionally can he come to the shop and give his valuable advice. For all the rest of the time it is she who has to do everything and nurse her husband as well, and a lot more on those lines, all very rapid and French. But-you remember what Maudie said about the girl who followed Annie Joyce-said she had on a brown coat and a brown and purple scarf over her head- well, one of the girls here has got a brown coat and a brown and purple scarf, so that hooks up all right. As you know, Maudie’s Emma went after the girl she saw, and lost her only just round the corner from here.” Lamb grunted.

“We’ll have to see if they can pick this girl out.”

“It won’t be necessary, sir. I’ve had her in alone, and she owned up. She’s only about sixteen, and she’s all of a doodah. Said she didn’t know she was doing anything wrong. Mr. Felix told her to put on her coat and see where Lady Jocelyn went, and he gave her half-a-crown when she got back. And when I said, ‘You mean M. Dupont, Madame’s husband?’ she said, ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t him-it was the other gentleman.’ ”

The wire vibrated with the Chief Inspector’s “What!”

“Yes, sir. Continuing our interesting conversation-I elicited the following facts. M. Félix did come down occasionally. He was a very clever hairdresser, and he only saw special clients, but he was often too ill to come at all. Mr. Felix also saw special clients. He came in by a back way, never through the shop. They had to take messages for him and make appointments. If Madame was in she answered the telephone herself. If she was out, they had to write the message down, and she would attend to it later. Now comes the pièce de résistance-”

The Chief Inspector was heard to thump his office table.

“If you don’t know enough English to speak your own language you’d better go back to school and learn how!”

“Sorry, Chief-my mistake-I should have said titbit. Anyhow, here it is. None of the girls ever saw Mr. Felix. He came and went by the back way, and he never set foot in the shop. M. Félix Dupont used the shop entrance-they all saw him whenever he came. But nobody ever saw Mr. Felix except Madame and the ladies who came by appointment.”

“What about his sending her after Lady Jocelyn?”

“Yes, I asked her that, and she said it was Madame who told her that Mr. Felix would like her to go after Lady Jocelyn, and it was Madame who gave her the half-crown and told her not to talk about it, because, she said, it wouldn’t sound very nice, but he had given her a very special treatment, and he wanted to know whether she did what he told her and went straight home. He said it wouldn’t be good for her if she didn’t.”

“Think she swallowed that?”

“I don’t suppose she bothered. All in the day’s work, so to speak. You know how it is with a girl like that-customers are just work. What really matters is who is going to take them to the pictures, or part with some coupons so that they can get another pair of alleged silk stockings.”

Chief Inspector Lamb was heard to thank God that his girls had been differently brought up to that.

“Yes, sir-they would be. But I think this kid is all right. Too scared, and talking too freely to be in on any games they’ve been up to here. I think we ought to pull Madame in. And then I thought I’ll go along and see her interesting invalid.”

The time went very slowly by. Lyndall found, as innumerable women have found before her, that she could do nothing to hasten it. She couldn’t read, or sew, or listen to the wireless, because to do any of these things you must be in control of your own thoughts, and she was not in control of hers. Whilst she was talking to Miss Silver and Sergeant Abbott, whilst the constable had talked about his family, there had been a varying degree of constraint upon her mind, and in a varying degree it had responded. But as soon as she was alone it turned again to the point from which she now found herself unable to deflect it. There are things which are so shocking that they are believed at once, the very force of the shock pressing in past all the normal barriers. There are things so shocking that they cannot be believed at all, but you can’t forget them, you can’t get them out of your mind. Lyndall could not have said that she was in either of these two states. There had been so great an initial shock as to render her incapable of either belief or judgment, but now as time went slowly by she found herself believing something which chilled her body almost as much as it froze her mind.

She got up once and went to the telephone, but after standing for a long half-minute with her finger on the first number she would have to dial, she turned away and went back to the chair from which she had risen. She couldn’t do it. Perhaps tomorrow when her mind didn’t feel so sore and stiff and she could think again. Not tonight-not now. Once you have said a thing you can never take it back.

When about five minutes later the telephone bell rang she went to answer it with shuddering reluctance. Philip’s voice said her name.

“Lyn-is that you?”

“Yes-” The word wouldn’t sound the first time. She had to try it again.

“Are you alone? I want to see you-very badly. I’ll come straight round.”

He hung up on that, but she stayed where she was until it came to her that Philip would be arriving and she must be ready to let him in. As she passed through the hall she stopped at the half-open kitchen door to say, “My cousin is coming round to see me-Sir Philip Jocelyn.”

It was hardly said before the door bell rang. She opened it with a finger on her lips and a gesture in the direction of that half-open door.

Philip looked surprised. He took off his coat and hung it up. Then when they were in the living-room he asked,

“What was all that for? Who’s here?”

“A policeman in the kitchen.”

“Why?”

“Because I overheard something, and they don’t know if she-if Anne-”

He said, interrupting her, “She wasn’t Anne-that’s certain now. She was Annie Joyce.” Then, after a curious pause, “I’ve found Anne’s diary.”

“Her diary?”

“Yes. Of course I knew she kept one-I suppose you did too. What I didn’t know until a couple of days ago was that she put down everything-” He broke off. “Lyn, it’s quite incredible! I didn’t want to read it-I don’t intend to read it. What I’ve had to do is to see whether the things she told me-the things which convinced me against every instinct I’ve got-whether they were there. And they are. What I said when I asked her to marry me-things that happened on our honeymoon-things it seemed impossible that anybody else should know-she had written them all down. And Annie Joyce had got them by heart.”