Patricia Wentworth - Anna, Where Are You?

Anna drew a long deep breath and said,

“He’s gone-he’s got away! He’s too clever for you! He’s always been too clever for you-he always will be!” The triumph went out of her voice. It broke halfway and dropped. “He’s gone-” she said.

Her voice whispered and stopped. She looked all round the room in a hesitating, bewildered kind of way, her hands twisting in her lap. She did not speak again.

There was coming and going. An ambulance arrived, and the body was removed. The sergeant sat at the desk and was busy with the telephone. Calls went out to all stations with a description of Augustus Remington. As to the car in which he had gone, there was no description available. Anna, questioned, did not even reply. She twisted her hands in her lap and stared at them. In the end they took her away with the policewoman who had come out from Ledlington in the ambulance.

Peter took Thomasina back to the Miss Tremletts, and Miss Silver returned to the Craddocks’ wing. The study was left with a couple of constables in charge.

Thomasina and Peter walked across the park in silence. When there is too much to say it is easier to say nothing at all. They did not speak. Thomasina was alive, and she might so very easily have been dead. There could have been two bodies in the ambulance now on its way to Ledlington. As often as Peter wrenched his mind from this thought, it swung back again.

Thomasina did not think about how narrowly she had escaped. She thought about Anna Ball. Those twisting hands, and the cold misery in her voice when she said, “He’s gone-”

Coming to the Miss Tremletts was like coming into another world. They wept, they talked, they were avid for every possible detail, they were instant with cups of tea. By the time they had reached the second brew they were beginning to be quite sure that they had always thought there was something odd about Augustus Remington.

Mr. John Verney had a word with Miss Silver before he too went back to his own wing.

“You’ll tell Emily-”

“About Mr. Craddock’s death-yes. As to your identity, Mr. Verney, I think you must be aware that she recognized you, and that that was why she fainted. Your disguise was a very good one. The loose untidy clothes, the beard, the country drawl-all these were a most efficient barrier to recognition. But when Mr. Craddock was speaking you broke into quite spontaneous and natural laughter. She recognized your laugh.”

“He was being so pompous-”

“It has been a very great shock.” Miss Silver’s tone held a note of reproof. “Mrs. Verney is not at all strong. She is going to need care.”

“I know, I know. I’ve been a deplorable husband. That was why-I wanted to be sure- You’ll do your best for her, won’t you?” He took her hand, held it very hard for a moment, and then dropped it abruptly.

They went their way to their separate wings.

It was Augustus Remington’s violet smock that gave him away, in spite of the coat with which he had covered it and the dark wig which concealed his pallid hair. He had to stop for petrol, because Anna hadn’t done what he had told her to do. She was not going far, and she had either forgotten to have the tank filled up, or she had not thought it necessary. When the gauge showed how low the petrol was, there was nothing for it but to chance the first all-night station. And when he stretched out a hand to pay, a long pointed end of violet cuff came out of the coat sleeve and hung there dangling.

Since all petrol stations had been warned, it was enough. The man in charge was a brawny fellow. He put a hand on Augustus Remington’s arm and said, “Just a moment, sir,” and the game was up. There never was a chance to use the revolver which was found in the coat pocket.

Frank Abbott dropped in to see Miss Silver a few days later.

“Of course he never intended to make a get-away, or he wouldn’t have been wearing those ridiculous clothes, and he wouldn’t have let himself run out of petrol. It was Anna Ball who was to disappear, but she wasn’t to go far, so I suppose she didn’t bother. He had to have her up at Deepe House in case he couldn’t stage a convincing suicide for Craddock. I don’t know what had passed between the two men, but there’s no doubt that Craddock had become a danger and was to be eliminated. Anna Ball’s pleasant little monologue in the garage makes that clear, and if Augustus couldn’t make it look as if Peveril had shot himself, they were going to put him in the car and run him over Quarry Hill with enough petrol to make sure that there wouldn’t be any clues. And of course Augustus couldn’t have shifted the body by himself. Anna had to be there to give a hand-she’s quite a hefty wench. And when it was all over Augustus was going to fade back into his art needlework, whilst Anna put in time somewhere not too far away. He seems to have trusted her completely. All the notes from the Ledlington robbery and about half the Enderby Green ones were stowed away in the car. There were false backs to both the cubby holes in the dashboard, as well as one in the boot. That’s where they found Anna’s golden wig. There was a red one too and a beard, which is what Augustus wore for the Enderby Green affair, and when they gave the Sandrow story a build-up by letting Miss Gwyneth see them in Ledlington. Anna drove the car at Enderby Green. She was dressed as a boy. We found the whole outfit.” Miss Silver said soberly,

“Then she did know him before she came down here.”

“Oh, yes, a long time before that. Some of it’s guesswork still, but we’re getting it straightened out. Cables to Major and Mrs. Dartrey out east-you remember she was with them in Germany. Telephone calls to the British Occupation Zone, and quite a lot of interesting stuff to hand. We’re pretty sure it’s going to link up with a couple of sensational jewel robberies in Germany. Anna Ball was on the spot-and who was going to suspect Mrs. Dartrey’s English governess? What we haven’t tracked down, and perhaps never will, is just where Augustus came in. He may have been the frail old Frenchwoman who was trying to trace a missing grandson and who took such a fancy to the Dartrey child. Or he may have been somebody else. He is certainly an adept at disguise. What is significant is that very shortly after the second robbery Mrs. Dartrey paid a short visit to France to her great-aunt, the Comtesse de Rochambeau. She took the child, and Anna went along. What would be easier than to have got that jewellery over the frontier, packed among the little girl’s things? We shall never be able to prove it, but that’s how I believe it was done. And then the Dartreys go out east, and it’s time for a change of scene. I don’t know if Augustus had worked with Craddock before, but I expect he had. You don’t fix that sort of thing up on a half hour’s acquaintance. Craddock had been doing a small business in forging notes-getting his hand in, as you may say. He had the idea of taking over a derelict country house and setting up something more ambitious there. Mrs. Verney and her money came in very handy. He made a great parade of his occult studies and the Colony he was going to found, and put in the powerful electric installation which immediately attracted your attention.”

Miss Silver was knitting a useful pair of socks for Maurice. Her needles clicked briskly as she said,

“Mrs. Verney remarked on it to me-quite innocently of course, poor thing.”

“Oh, yes, she and the children were very good camouflage. And so were the Miss Tremletts-perfectly respectable spinster ladies with a streak of the crank and a disposition to admire the egregious Peveril. Then there’s Miranda-we haven’t been quite sure about Miranda, but I don’t really think she knew anything. She’s a bit of a charlatan of course. She owned to faking a trance in order to get Thomasina off the map, but she says she only did it because Augustus said she disturbed his vibrations-and I’m afraid she is pretty fond of Augustus.”