Walk with Care (13 page)

“What are you afraid of, Rosalind?” Then, in the same tone, “You needn't be. I told you it was a plant.”

He spread out the slips and looked at them. They were covered with Gilbert Denny's writing. Jeremy had handled hundreds of Gilbert Denny's letters. He could have sworn to this writing anywhere.

He read the letter through. It was a very damning letter. It had no beginning, but it was signed with Gilbert Denny's very individual and characteristic G.D. It said:

“
Quite frankly, the game isn't worth the candle. You've got to raise your offer, or there's nothing doing. After all, you're asking me to stake a perfectly good career, and I'm certainly not going to do it for nothing. I don't ask what you expect to clear, but I'm certain you can pay my price. In fact, like Clive, I'm surprised at my own moderation. Financial arrangements as I suggested
—
a thousand to my account, and the rest in cash
—
no big notes.”

The letter was dated October 1st '29.

Jeremy looked up with a decisive jerk of his head.

“Denny never wrote that.”

Rosalind said, “No,” but the sick terror was in her eyes.

“Did you think he wrote it?”

She did not answer. Every muscle in her white face strained, as if to take an unendurable blow.

“Look here, Rosalind,” said Jeremy—“we've got to get this clear.” He put his hand back over hers. “Don't look like that. It's his writing, and it's his way of writing, but he didn't write it. Have you got that? Gilbert didn't write it.”

Those strained muscles began to quiver. Jeremy's clasp tightened.

“There's some damned dirty work going on, and this is part of it. I want you to pull yourself together and listen. You can cry afterwards if you want to—there isn't time now.”

That flicked a little colour into her cheeks. She took a long choking breath, and the quivering stopped. She pulled her hand away and clenched it on itself.

“Will you listen?” he said.

And then, before she could answer, the door opened and Janet Fortescue's invaluable Perry stood on the threshold, her large buxom form heroically encased in the old-fashioned boned bodice and long full skirt of thirty years ago. She wore the embroidered apron and frilled cap of the same date. The cap had streamers. Beneath it Perry's grey hair billowed over a horsehair foundation and was braided into a sort of door-handle surrounded by plaits at the back. She said, breathing heavily,

“Is Mr Ware staying, ma'am?”

“You will, Jeremy?”

“I'm not dressed.”

“As if that mattered!”

She turned to the door, voice and manner quite natural.

“Yes, Perry. But give us a little longer—I've some business to finish.”

Perry's majestic presence was withdrawn. The door shut. Rosalind felt herself at once chaperoned and disapproved of.

Jeremy said, “That's the nearest thing to a female butler I've ever struck.” And with that they turned sanely and soberly back to the letter on Jeremy's knee.

Perry had changed the atmosphere. Hers was a world in which things followed their ordered courses—a day for turning out the drawing-room, and a day for cleaning the silver; sacred, immutable hours at which she rang the breakfast bell, the luncheon bell, the dressing bell, the dinner bell. It was all very fixed, and solid, and safe. Perry, standing at the door like that and asking whether Jeremy was staying for dinner, did more to convince Rosalind that it was impossible that Gilbert should have written that letter than any argument which she or Jeremy could have used. That sort of thing didn't happen in Perry's world.

Rosalind was not conscious of formulating these thoughts. She sat up and watched quietly whilst Jeremy took a note-case out of an inner pocket. He opened it and produced an irregular torn piece of paper which he laid upon Rosalind's lap. It lay against the soft black of her dress, and she looked down at it. Right across the middle ran Jeremy's signature, and above it again, but on a slant: “Jeremy Ware.” At the bottom of the paper, where it narrowed to a point, a “Jere” and a “remy.” And up in the top left-hand corner a broken “Ware.”

A little frown came between her eyes and she said,

“What's this?”

“I should very much like to know,” said Jeremy.

“But—” The frown deepened.

“What do you think it is?” he said.

“Your signature.”

“You'd pass it?”

“Yes, I should.”

“So should I,” said Jeremy grimly, “But I didn't write it, Rosalind, any more than Gilbert wrote this.” He touched the photographed letter, and the slips fell off his knee on to the sofa.

“You're sure?”

“I'm quite sure.”

She kept a puzzled gaze on his face for a moment, and then turned it again upon the torn scrap of paper.

“Now,” said Jeremy, “here's my signature. I could swear to it, but I know I didn't write it. This morning someone telephoned to you. You were so sure it was my voice that you were ready to believe me a blackmailer on the strength of it. I'm not, you know. I didn't telephone to you, and I didn't send you this letter. I didn't send it any more than Gilbert ever wrote it. Have you got that? Well hold on to it, because it's damned important.”

After a long minute she said,

“Why, Jeremy?
Why?”

“That's what we've got to find out,” said Jeremy.

CHAPTER XX

THERE WAS A LITTLE
silence. Jeremy put the torn piece of paper scrawled with his signature back into the note-case. Then he picked up the photographed letter and folded it.

“I'd like this too, just for the moment, if you don't mind.” He put it away with the bit of paper.

A thin, remote voice said in Rosalind's brain, “If he'd sent it, he'd want to get it back—he'd want me to see it—he wouldn't want me to keep it.” Another voice said, “I do trust you, Jeremy—I do.” This voice spoke in her heart. For a moment everything rocked. Then her own voice said,

“Why do you want it?”

Jeremy leaned back, tucking the note-case away in his pocket. He laughed a little.

“I'm not one of those people who go about saying things are impossible, that coincidences don't happen, and all that sort of thing. I can take one coincidence in my stride so to speak, but—was it the Red Queen or the White Queen who said she could believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast?”

“I think it was the White Queen,” said Rosalind.

She and Jeremy couldn't be sitting here talking about
Alice through the Looking-glass
if he were someone out of a nightmare and not the dear familiar Jeremy she loved.

“Well, I'm not like that,” he said. “I can believe one impossible thing all right, but I boggle at two, and after two I'm done. Now we've got three—a letter Gilbert didn't write, and a signature I didn't sign, and my voice calling you when I didn't call you at all. I can't believe any of these, because I'd had my whack already. If I told you some of the things that have been happening this week, you'd probably call me a liar.”

Rosalind didn't feel so sure of that. She tried to get her thought into words.

“I don't think I should, Jeremy. I'm different from you—I think it takes me the other way. One very strange thing stands out, but if you put another one by it, well, it doesn't seem so strange any more, and if there were a crowd of them, I think I should stop finding them strange at all.” She paused, and then added, “Will you please tell me about the other things?”

Jeremy was leaning back. He frowned, but not at her.

“I don't know,” he said. “I don't want to bring you any farther into it.”

“I'm in already.”

Jeremy nodded.

“I think we're both too far in to be much use to each other. We want an outside point of view.” He saw her shrink, and said quickly, “Have you ever heard of Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith?”

“What extraordinary names!”

“A whole blessed Admiralty! Have you heard them before?”

“Yes—yes, I have. … Yes, I remember.”

“Just what have you heard?”

She put her hand up against her cheek, which had some colour in it now.

“He wrote a book?”

Jeremy nodded.

“Something else …” said Rosalind. “Frank—yes, Frank Garrett—he and Gilbert were talking—I wasn't really paying attention very much, but the name stuck—and isn't it strange how things come back?”

“Yes—go on. What did they say?”

Her hand pressed her cheek. Her colour rose.

“I'm trying to think. … It's like wind blowing—I can't get hold of it. … Yes—Frank said something about his book being wonderful. … And then Gilbert said—” Her brows drew together and her eyes looked up half startled into his. “Gilbert said he'd got a wonderful flair—‘the inspired looker-on who sees most of the game.' And Frank said, ‘We'd have been beat without him half a dozen times lately.' What did he mean, Jeremy?”

Jeremy was thinking what Colonel Garrett might have meant by that. “We'd have been beat half a dozen times without Aim”—meaning Benbow Collingwood Horatio. And “we” on Garrett's lips would mean the Foreign Office Intelligence. That brought you up with a pretty sharp jerk.

“Jeremy—what did he mean?” said Rosalind.

Jeremy laughed. A sudden gust of confidence swept over him. It made his blood tingle as if he had been running. It made him feel as if he could take on anything and come out on top. He said,

“It means I bumped into the biggest coincidence of the lot when I struck up an acquaintance with Mr Smith in Regent's Park.” He got up. “May I use your telephone?”

“What for, Jeremy?” Her eyes were alarmed.

“To ring up Mr Smith.” He was half-way across the room.

“No—wait! What are you going to say?”

He came back to her.

“Don't be frightened—it's going to be all right. I'm going to tell him the whole thing. He doesn't say a lot, but he's a pretty wise old bird. He's the sort you can talk to.”

Rosalind caught at his sleeve.

“Jeremy, give me back that letter! You mustn't show him that,”

“Why not?”

“I don't think you ought to see him at all.” Her hand dragged on his arm. “Jeremy, don't! Don't go off in a hurry like this!”

He said, “Why not?” again. Then, when she did not answer, “Have you got a reason? If you have, don't you think you'd better tell me what it is?”

She let go of him suddenly and sat down again, leaning on the end of the sofa. He heard her murmur,

“Wait—wait! You're in such a hurry.”

He let her have a moment. Then he said,

“I
am
waiting—for your reason.”

She spoke from behind a screening hand.

“Jeremy, I'm so tired—I can't think clearly—but I don't think it's safe—”

“Why?”

She said, “Frank—” and then stopped in distress.

“Well?”

“He—he thinks—you—”

A bright angry look came into Jeremy's eyes.

“He's been warning you against me. Is that it?”

Rosalind's hand dropped. She really looked worn out.

“Don't be angry, Jeremy—I don't think I can bear it.”

“But he did warn you against me? Was that why you were being a polite stranger on Sunday?” He turned. “I'd better go.”

Oddly in Rosalind's mind there rose the feeling that if he left her, she would be desolate indeed. And she had told Perry that he would stay. She had no strength in her to meet Perry's disapproval. She called him faintly.

“Oh, Jeremy, don't go!”

He came back. He was still angry. He still felt a great deal older than Rosalind. He stood there and lectured her in a way that would have surprised him yesterday.

“What's the matter with you is that you don't trust people. You've known me pretty well for the last three years, but you're ready to believe I'm the lowest sort of a swine of a blackmailer, and—” he checked for a moment, but his anger carried him through—“you funked my showing that letter to Benbow Smith because you were not really sure that Gilbert didn't write it.”

When he had said it, he was afraid. He expected her to be angry. He wouldn't have minded if she had been angry. Instead, she turned a beaten, heart-sick look upon him and said,

“Yes.”

All Jeremy's anger went out of him. He felt as if he had struck someone who was too badly hurt to hit back. He knelt by her and kissed her hand.

“Rosalind—don't!”

“It's true. I'm like that. You know, Gilbert was being blackmailed. I heard something one day when he was telephoning. Frank Garrett asked me about it the other day—he said didn't I notice Gilbert was worried. I said yes, and I told him that he was being blackmailed. He said didn't I ask him about it, and I made up an answer, but the
real
reason—Jeremy, the
real
reason was because I was afraid. If Gilbert had done anything, I didn't
want
to know. I was sick with terror lest he should tell me—I wouldn't be alone with him if I could help it. I filled the house with people—we hardly ever saw each other—because I was afraid. If I had let him tell me—perhaps—he wouldn't have died.”

Jeremy did not kiss her hand again, but he held it very hard. She went on speaking in a soft heart-broken voice.

“Frank said not to trust you, and that medium woman said so too. I don't believe them, but I kept hearing what they said in my mind. I've been just as fond of you as if you were my brother, but I began to—wonder—” She threw up her head and dragged her hand away. “You see, you were right—I can't—trust properly.” Her voice became quite quiet and steady. She said, “I killed Gilbert. If I'd trusted him, he'd be alive.”

Jeremy got up.

“You don't know that. He'd hate you to say it. We've got to do the best we can now. I'm sorry I said what I did.”

Rosalind smiled at him faintly.

“Don't be sorry, Jeremy—it's done me good.”

He crossed the room with a purposeful air.

“Then I'll just ring up Mr Smith.”

Rosalind's lips parted and closed again. Her hand went out in a nervous gesture and fell as if by its own weight. She was too tired to struggle any more. She felt ineffectual and ashamed. She had failed Gilbert once. If she were to call Jeremy back, perhaps she would be failing him again. She leaned back in the sofa corner and listened to Jeremy speaking.

“Hullo!” And then, “Can I speak to Mr Smith? … Yes, just for a moment … Mr Ware …”

There was a pause. Her heart began to beat with fear. Why had she let him telephone? Why hadn't she called to him? Was it too late? The old sickening doubts came whispering back. Then he was speaking again.

“I'm awfully sorry to bother you, sir. I'm afraid you were having dinner. I wanted to ask if I might come and see you. I hope you won't think I'm taking advantage of your kindness—” A pause. … “That's most awfully good of you, sir—” Another pause. … “Yes, it is rather urgent. May I bring Mrs Denny with me? … Yes, Gilbert Denny's wife. You spoke of him the other day. We're both concerned. I'd like her to be there if you don't mind. … Thank you, sir, that's very good of you. In an hour from now.”

At the first mention of her name Rosalind sat up, her cheeks burning. Then, with his next words, everything changed. It was the strangest thing that three words should make such a difference. When Jeremy said “Gilbert Denny's wife,” it was just as if he had opened a door and pushed her gently through it into the old happy time before things began to go wrong. There wasn't anyone in the world except Jeremy who would have called her Gilbert's wife; to everyone else she was Gilbert's widow. For the first time since her conversation with Garrett she felt sure about Jeremy.

He hung up the receiver, and in the hall Perry rang the dinner bell.