Patricia Wentworth - Out of the Past

She had reached this cheerful point and was slipping her nightgown over her head, when there was a soft knocking on the door. It was followed immediately by the entrance of Pippa in pale yellow pyjamas. She shut the door behind her and said in an energetic whisper,

“If Alan gets himself murdered he’ll only have himself to thank for it! I thought you had better know!”

She then sat down on the edge of the vast Victorian bed and burst into tears.

“Pippa!”

She tossed back her hair.

“Can’t people be put in prison for blackmail?”

“Yes, they can.”

“And what is the good of that? They know damn well you would rather die than go into court and say what it was all about!”

Carmona had come over to stand beside her.

“What is it all about, Pippa? Do you want to tell me?”

The blue eyes were full of angry tears.

“I’ve got to tell someone, or I shall blow up! Spontaneous combustion! People used to believe in it like anything! You just go up in smoke-poof! And all that’s left of you is a horrid smell of burning and some amusing tales about your having been carried off by the devil!”

“Pippa!”

There was another vigorous toss of the head.

“And you needn’t think I’m joking, because I’m not! It’s that swine Alan, and-”

Carmona broke in.

“He’s blackmailing you-”

She found that she wasn’t surprised-that nothing Alan did could surprise her. She had a deep sense of shame.

Pippa said,

“If Bill knew, he would kill him! But if Bill knew, then it would kill me, so what is the good of that? There just isn’t a thing I can do about it, and Alan knows it!”

Carmona sat down on the bed beside her.

“Do you want to tell me?”

“I’ve always told you things, haven’t I?”

“Sometimes people tell you things, and then they wish they hadn’t.”

Pippa shook her head.

“I shan’t do that. You make me feel safe.” She looked piteously at Carmona. “You know, that’s why I married Bill-I always did feel safe with him. People like that aren’t awfully exciting, so you go off and have a bit of fun with somebody else, but somewhere inside you deep down you know perfectly well that you can’t do without them.”

“Yes, I know. The bother is you might go too far and not be able to get back. Is that what Alan is holding over you?”

Pippa nodded.

“I went off for a week-end with Cyril Maynard. Bill said people were talking. We had a row and I thought I’d give them something to talk about. I didn’t care what I did. You don’t, you know, when you’re angry-you only want to score the other person off. Bill had to be away that week-end-some stupid manoeuvres or something-and I went off with Cyril. I hadn’t ever done anything like that before-I swear I hadn’t- but I just didn’t care. We went to Trenton, and we had dinner on the way and danced afterwards, so we didn’t get down there till late. I don’t know why Alan was there, but he was. We didn’t see him, but he saw us arrive, and he went and looked in the hotel register and saw that we were down as Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Smith. And afterwards he saw Cyril go into my room.”

“Oh, Pippa!”

There was a violent shake of the head.

“No-no-it isn’t what you think! The minute he came in I knew I couldn’t do it. I’d been getting cold feet all the evening, and the way Cyril looked at me was the end. I felt as if I should kill him if he touched me, and I told him to get out. First he pretended to think I was joking, and then he got really frightfully angry, and in the end it turned into the most ghastly sort of melodrama. Because I got hold of the bell-pull-it was one of those old-fashioned places where they have a thing like a long woolly rope hanging down from the ceiling-and I said I would pull it and scream the place down if he didn’t go away at once. So he went, and I bolted the door. And I got up frightfully early and had a taxi to the station.”

Carmona felt a good deal of relief.

“Why don’t you just tell Bill and have done with it? He would believe you, wouldn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, he’d believe me. It’s not that. It’s just-Carmona, I couldn’t tell him! I really couldn’t! It would hurt him- dreadfully, and he would never, never, never think quite the same way about me again. He doesn’t dance, but he knows I adore it, and he likes me to have fun, and go about, and do the things I want to. And he thinks he can trust me. If he thought he couldn’t-”

Carmona was silent for a moment. Then she said,

“You had better tell him, you know.”

“I’d rather die! And that isn’t just a way of talking-I mean it. I’m not a good person-I never have been, and I probably never shall be. But Bill actually thinks I am. Idiotic, isn’t it? But I don’t think I could go on if he stopped. You know what a toy balloon looks like when you prick it-well, that would be me.” She dragged the back of her hand across her eyes like a child. “I shall just have to do what Alan wants.”

“What does he want?”

Pippa said, “My pearls.” She put up her hand to where the double row dripped down over the filmy yellow of her pyjama top. “He knows I haven’t any money except my allowance from Bill, but I’ve got these, and they are worth quite a lot. He’ll be kind enough to take them and call quits. He says he can get them copied for me so that no one will ever know, damn him!”

Carmona said out of depths of bitter certainty,

“Money always did run through Alan’s fingers. He would only spend what he got and come back for more.”

Pippa stared at her.

“There wouldn’t be any more.”

“That wouldn’t stop him. He would go on holding it over you-pushing you to get what he wanted-from Bill-from anyone. They say a blackmailer never leaves go. You would find yourself being pushed until you were ready to do almost anything to get the money. For God’s sake, make up your mind to tell Bill!”

Pippa sprang to her feet.

“I’d rather kill myself!” she said. “Or him!”

Earlier that day Chief Detective Inspector Lamb looked up from his desk as the door opened. It was Detective Inspector Frank Abbott who presented himself, that very fair hair of his immaculately smooth, his tall, slim figure immaculately clad.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Lamb fixed him with a stare which had long since ceased to terrify.

“Shouldn’t have sent for you if I didn’t.”

His own appearance was solid rather than elegant. He filled his massive chair, and looked as reliable as the oak of which it was made. His strong black hair was going a little thin on the top but retained its tendency to curl over the temples. His voice carried a pleasant country accent. He might, in fact, have served as an example of the old type of police officer at his best. He said now,

“Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

“Well, sir?”

Lamb drummed on his knee.

“It’s about that fellow Cardozo.”

“Cardozo?”

“No, you don’t know about him-you were out on the Notting Hill case. Well, this chap came in with a yarn about his brother having disappeared. Philip Cardozo, only he writes it with an F and has some kind of a dago way of saying it.”

“Felipe.”

“You’ve got it-Fayleepy. Funny sort of way to say Philip. I don’t know how anyone gets their tongue round that sort of lingo. This one spells his name J.O.S.E. and calls it Hosy. Doesn’t seem much sense in it to my way of thinking, but there you are. This Hosy came in about a week ago and says his brother is missing. Says he was coming over from South America, and it might have been on the Marine Star from Rio, or it might have been some other boat, or he might have taken a plane to Lisbon and come on from there. The point is, he hasn’t turned up here, and Hosy thinks something has happened to him. Very excitable little chap. You know how these foreigners are-waving his hands about and putting in a lot of words I couldn’t make head or tail of.”