Patricia Wentworth - Anna, Where Are You?

Anna Ball laughed angrily.

“If you’re going to take that line, I’m through! ‘Is that Miss Ball?’ indeed!”

He stared at her and said, “Are you mad?”

She laughed again.

“Mad? No, I’ve come to my senses! You’d throw me off, would you-pretend you’ve never had anything to do with me- pretend we haven’t been lovers!”

“My good girl!”

“Listen to him!” She whirled round on Jackson. “Innocent, isn’t he! Who had a motive for killing Peveril Craddock if he hadn’t? Think of having to give up Emily- and her money! And he may be John Verney-I don’t say he isn’t-but he’s my Mr. Sandrow too, and you’d better ask him where he was yesterday afternoon! Doing some quiet nature-study in a wood? Or bandaged up and robbing the County Bank!”

It was in the minds of both Inspectors that Mr. Robinson had had no pretence of an alibi for yesterday afternoon. According to his own statement he had meant to go up into the Rowbury Woods, but turned off when he found that someone was shooting there, and fetched up in Ledlington, where he spent some time in the County Museum looking at the Hedlow collection of birds. Well, he might have been there, or he might have been rolled up in bandages shooting the bank manager and his clerk. Only if he were the bank murderer, it did seem an odd thing that he should choose this moment to allow his feelings as a dispossessed husband to get the better of him. There had been months when he could have murdered Peveril Craddock with so very much less risk to himself. And actually, why murder him at all? He had only to declare himself and walk off with his wife and her fortune. If his book was really a best-seller, even the money motive didn’t count, and that apart, would anyone in their senses do murder for poor Emily Craddock’s sake?

John Verney appeared to be very completely in his senses. He might have been following their thoughts-perhaps he was. He indicated Anna, and said bluntly,

“She’s talking through the back of her neck. Emily and I were a pretty detached couple. She needed someone who would look after her, and if Craddock was making a good job of it, I hadn’t any grudge against him. But I had to find out. The toadstools could easily have been a mistake. Then one of the children mentioned an escape from drowning. That might have been an accident too. I only saw Emily in the distance- she looked ill. The boys were all right, but Jennifer wasn’t. I had just made up my mind to come out into the open, when Miss Silver arrived on the scene. She was so obviously competent and trustworthy that I thought I would wait a little longer. Now I wish I hadn’t. But all that stuff about my robbing the bank is just damned nonsense.”

Anna’s eyes taunted him.

“Then who did rob it? I’m the only one who knows, you see, and I say it was you.”

“Just now you said it was Mr. Peter Brandon,” said Inspector Jackson.

She jerked her head round and stared at him.

“Oh, that was just my fun. I owed him something for the way he used to look at me when I went out with him and Thomasina-as if I wasn’t good enough to be looked at-as if I was something that ought to have been drowned when I was a baby! Pity nobody thought of doing it, isn’t it?”

Frank Abbott gave her a long hard look.

“And what have you got against Mr. Verney? Did he look at you in a way you didn’t like, or-didn’t he look at you at all?”

A dull red colour ran up to the very roots of her hair, swamping the lavish make-up. She almost screamed back at him.

“Of course he looked at me! I tell you he was my lover! I tell you he was Mr. Sandrow! I tell you he robbed the bank! I tell you he shot Peveril Craddock! I’m the only one who knows, and I tell you he did it-Mr. Sandrow-Mr. Verney Robinson Sandrow! If it wasn’t him, who was it? Who-” She stopped on the word, because the door was opening again.

And this time it was Augustus Remington who came in, shepherded by one of the Ledshire constables. He had a fretful expression on his face, and was wrapped in a large shawl-like cape which he immediately discarded. Under it he wore a violet smock and a pair of black velveteen slacks. He gazed about him, shuddered at the body of Peveril Craddock, and recoiled with a hand before his eyes.

“No-really-this is too much! What has happened? Is he dead? How extremely shocking! I should have been warned. I am entirely allergic to violence of any kind-the vibrations are alarmingly disturbed. Perhaps a glass of water-” He sank down upon the nearest chair and closed his eyes.

Jackson said sharply,

“I’m afraid we have none here. Pull yourself together, Mr. Remington! Are you sure that this is a shock to you?”

A murmured “Terrible!” came from the parted lips. The violet smock heaved in a succession of painful gasps…

The constable advanced to the table and laid something down upon it.

“Burning them, he was,” he said briefly, and fell back.

On the green leather which covered the table there lay a pair of soiled wash-leather gloves. The two Inspectors bent an enquiring gaze upon them. Everyone looked in the same direction. Anna sat dumb and staring, her mouth half open as it had been when she checked on her last word.

Frank Abbott took hold of the left-hand glove and spread it out. It smelt of the fire, and there were marks of singeing. Part of the little finger was burned away. There was a small triangular tear between the first finger and the one next to it. The seam had come undone, and an end of the broken thread stood up beyond the gap.

He said, “Miss Silver-” and she came forward to stand between him and Inspector Jackson.

“Anything here that you recognize?”

Looking down at the glove, she said,

“Yes.”

“Could you swear to it?”

She said, “Yes,” again. She turned to go back to her seat. The moment of tension was over-the moment when everyone had been looking at her and at the wash-leather glove and no one had been looking at anything else. At anything or at anyone. Now that the strained attention had been released it turned inevitably to the man who had tried to burn the glove.

And he wasn’t there.

Only a moment before he had been gasping for breath in his chair beside the door. Now he wasn’t there any longer. The violet smock was gone, and so was Augustus Remington, and no one had seen him go. The door beside him may have been ajar, or it may not. It was ajar now, and he was gone.

Miss Silver did not join in the search. She remained in the study with Thomasina and the sergeant who had been put in charge of Anna Ball. Another of those dreadful times of waiting.

Anna had not moved at all. Looking at her rigid face, Miss Silver felt a stern compassion. So thwarted, so twisted a creature, and now in so much pain. And at the root of it all the dreadful poisons of jealousy and envy. How necessary to guard against them in the child, to correct them in the developing thought. For how much unhappiness, how much crime, were they not responsible?

Thomasina had her thoughts too. She remembered so many things. She had tried to be kind to Anna. The kindness that has to try isn’t enough. It doesn’t reach people. She felt humble and ashamed. She had been pleased with herself. She had thought pretty well of Thomasina Elliot. If she ever felt like that again she would remember Anna Ball.

The time passed. It was not really very long. Frank Abbott and Peter Brandon came back. Frank said,

“He’s got away. The girl had a car. We got out through the garage in time to see his tail-light go off down the north drive. Jackson and Thomas have gone after him in Craddock’s car. It would have taken too long to go round the house for one of ours, and they would have lost him.”