Pursuit of a Parcel (19 page)

Garrett gave an affirmative jerk of the head. Then he rapped out,

“Papers”—she says there were papers, does she?”

Antony leaned across the table.

“Frank,” he said, “when I had that talk with Cornelius in Anna's back sitting-room he asked me something. You know he was trying to clear out and get to the States. He wanted to know to what extent things would be made easy for him over here. Of course I said I wasn't in a position to say, but if he'd been straight with you, he could reckon on your being straight with him. Well, he turned that off, but presently he said something about paying his way, and when I didn't take any notice of that, he asked whether you wouldn't be interested in an up-to-date map showing the exact position of underground petrol tanks in Germany, because if you were, it was remotely possible that he might be able to do something about it.”

Garrett gave the grin of a terrier who sees his rat.

“And you told him to apply to M. I.? Said it wasn't my pigeon?”

“No, sir.”

“So what?”

“So nothing. He didn't say any more, and I didn't say any more. He shut down like a clam, and I thought it better not to press him. But Delia says some of the papers were maps—maps, Frank—with something marked on them in red. Looking at it all round, it would be quite like Cornelius to say what he did and never let on that he'd already got the maps and got them out of the country. You know, it would account for a lot. The parcel was addressed to me. If he didn't get away, I'd be welcome to what was inside it. But if he did get away—
and he did
—then he'd want those maps for himself, to drive the best bargain he could and get off to the States. It explains the whole thing to my mind—why he was in such a hurry to get the parcel back, and why he sheered off meeting me. He wanted to put the job through on his own. Quite likely he didn't want you to know that he'd actually got the maps. He'd go round about and find out first what you'd be prepared to do for him if he could get them.”

Garrett said, “H'm!” and then, “Looks to me as if he'd queered his own pitch. Shied off you and left the door open for the other side. Got to get up damn early to get ahead of the Gestapo.”

“Cornelius has been doing it for quite a long time now.”

Garrett banged on his blotting-pad.

“We've got to get 'em! I want those maps. Want to see James's face when I hand them over to him with something on the lines of, ‘Perhaps you'd care to have these. Seem to be down your street.'” He gave an explosive sound which practice enabled Antony to identify as a chuckle, and followed it with his most ferocious frown. “This bank business can't be left to the county police. I'll get on to the Chief Constable. They must call in Scotland Yard. London job undoubtedly. He can put it on that. This business of the papers has got to be kept quiet. But you'd better go round to the Yard—they'll want to see you. I'll give you a note to the Commissioner, and you can tell him the whole thing. I want those papers. If everyone jumps to it, we'll get them.”

“And Cornelius?” said Antony in an altered voice.

“We'll get him too. If he's alive. If he isn't—well it's no good crying about spilt milk.”

He had pulled a writing-block toward him. His pen drove furiously.

He folded the paper, crammed it into an envelope, and stuck it down. As he scribbled the address he said,

“Better get along at once. Here're your credentials. I'll give them a ring. You can leave telephoning to your Delia What-you-may-call-it till you get back. Let me know what she says about the bandage. Bound to have noticed it if he was wearing one. Get along!”

Antony took the note. When he had got to the door he looked over his shoulder.

“The name is still Merridew, sir.”

XIV

It was about half past four when Antony got back to the flat. He had seen the Commissioner and, according to instructions, told him all about everything. This task accomplished, he had now the pleasanter one of ringing up Delia. Rather amusing to be doing it to Frank's order.

The day had turned poisonously cold. He switched on an electric fire and an electric kettle, set a cup and teapot handy, and proceeded to get through to Fourways. He had luck, because he was only in his second cup and his first chunk of cake when Parker lifted the receiver and said “Hullo!” in his own peculiar tone of resigned melancholy.

“Hullo, Parker—Miss Delia anywhere about?”

Parker brightened.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Antony—having tea.”

An interval, and then Delia.

“Oh, darling, how nice! Whose bill are your calls going down on? We think ours will have to be broken very, very carefully to Uncle Philip.”

“I'm not bothering about that. Delia—”

Her laughter interrupted him.

“Darling, how lordly! Even Cousin Mervyn bothers about telephone bills. I must say Cousin Leonora would break anyone who wasn't a millionaire. Oh, Antony, Uncle Philip's better—he's much better. We rang up after lunch, and they're most awfully pleased, and if he goes on like this, I can see him in a day or two. Isn't that splendid?”

“I'm most awfully glad. But, Delia—”

“Darling, your voice does sound queer! What's the matter with it?”

Antony said, “Cake,” and washed it down with the last of the second cup of tea. “Now, darling, listen! This isn't me talking to you—this is an official interview.”

“What about?”

“Cornelius. And it's important, so think before you speak, and don't say anything you're not sure about.”

“What do you want to know?” said Delia. Her voice had changed.

“Something quite simple. When you saw Cornelius yesterday morning, had he got a bandage on his wrist?”

“A bandage?”

“Yes.”

“Why should he?”

“Never mind about that. I want to know if he had.”

At the other end of the line Delia screwed up her eyes and tried to remember everything about Cornelius coming to see her yesterday … A dark suit, with a heavy rain-coat over it—a dark felt hat which he had refused to give up to Parker—a dark blue tie with a lighter fleck in it—dark brown gloves which he kept in his hand—an edge of striped shirt-cuff beyond the rain-coat.… He held the gloves in his left hand and put his hat on a chair. When he picked it up again his wrist came out from the striped cuff—his right wrist. There wasn't any bandage on it—She said,

“Whch wrist did you want to know about?”

Antony's turn to think back.… The dark porch, the dark steps—the tiny beam of his torch—blood running from the gash on a man's wrist—his right wrist. He said the words aloud.

“It would be the right wrist.”

“Then there wasn't any bandage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, quite.”

“It's—important.”

“I'm
quite
sure. He had his gloves in his left hand, and he reached out for his hat with his right. I could see his wrist, and there wasn't any bandage. Antony, what's all this about? Why do you want to know?”

All of a sudden his voice was tired. He said,

“I can't tell you—yet. Goodbye.” He rang off.

Delia went back into the drawing-room, where Miss Simcox was enjoying Mrs. Parker's date-and-nut cake. She would have enjoyed it even more if her conscience had not been in a highly uncertain state over the question of Mr. Antony Rossiter. It was not yet five o'clock, and he had already called once in person and twice on the telephone. What did Lady Maddox expect her to do? A couple of hundred years ago Delia would have been locked into her bedroom, and there would have been no telephone, but this was 1940. Casting her mind back over the spate of instructions with which she had been inundated, she recalled that she was to be firm but on no account to antagonize Delia, who was a sweet girl but not one to be driven. She was to be very, very tactful, but not to allow this lamentable affair with young Rossiter to go any farther. She was to gain Delia's confidence, to wean her from an ill-considered engagement, and incline her thoughts in the direction of Mr. Lewis West, but she was not to drive her into rebellion by too open a show of authority. In reply to all this Miss Simcox was glad to remember that she had said no more than that she would do her best.

Afterwards she was to remember that Delia was very silent for the rest of the meal. To Miss Simcox tea really was a meal, and the pleasantest one of the day. She began to wonder what Mr. Antony Rossiter had said to induce this silence. And really what use was it for Lady Maddox to say that the affair must go no farther, when the house was positively littered with telephones and extensions—one in the study, one in the pantry, one in Mr. Merridew's bedroom, and even one in Delia's room, on the table beside her bed? How did Lady Maddox suppose that she was to be prevented from ringing up or being rung up as often as she and Antony Rossiter desired? Miss Simcox considered that she had been placed in a false position, and almost but not quite regretted having obeyed the peremptory summons which had snatched her from the Vicarage at Pudley Marten.

The regret would have been unqualified if it had not been for the fact that she had really been finding the Rectory so very cold—twenty bedrooms, a quarter of a mile of passage, and of course no central heating. Mr. Pottinger was all that was kind, but so very energetic, and dear Doris—she had been Doris Penfold—quite as bad, so it must be confessed that a natural inclination to oblige had been powerfully reinforced by the feeling that it would be pleasant to escape from ten-mile walks, alfresco meals—in October—and perpetual conversation about the parish. If this was self-indulgence, Miss Simcox was about to be punished for it. Fourways was very, very comfortable. Every room was beautifully warm. She was not obliged to walk any farther than she wished. And after the Pottingers' simple life Mrs. Parker's cooking was a dream. But responsibility had begun to weigh, and was shortly to become quite crushing. Searching her conscience, Miss Simcox suspected a judgment. Within the next few hours she would be writing—her letter of the morning only just posted—a poignant epistle to her sister Maud: “I cannot say that I am to blame—one must be just to oneself as well as to others—but if I had not felt the cold so much at Pudley Marten I might have remained there, and I should not then have become involved in this distressing affair. Difficult as it would have been to disregard the appeal Lady Maddox made to me, I cannot help fearing that I was tempted to accede to it from selfish and unworthy motives, and if that is the case, I have done something to deserve my present painful position.…”

But all this was mercifully veiled by the future. Only the merest shadow of what impended touched her mood as she sat comfortably by the fire and made a really excellent tea. When Delia presently slipped out of the room she picked up the book which she had taken from the study shelves and read with great enjoyment the account of an intrepid traveller whose experiences included escapes from gorillas, alligators, man-eating lions, and serpents of every kind. Nothing is more delightful than to look upon danger from a place of perfect safety.

The heroic virtues can be enjoyed by proxy and there is no risk. In fact the best of two worlds.

With her body reclining in a cushioned chair, Miss Simcox eluded a mamba, and sprang with miraculous agility into a tree to avoid the charge of an infuriated rhinoceros. The entrance of Parker to remove the tea things would almost have passed unnoticed if he had not attracted her attention by a slight melancholy cough. He had to repeat it before she transferred her focus from the African jungle to his tall, stooping person. He stood before her, holding the silver tray, his head inclined.

“If you please, miss, Miss Delia asked me to say that she has gone over to Miss Kyrle's for an hour.”

“To Miss Kyrle's?”

“Dr. Kyrle's daughter—a friend of Miss Delia's. She was going to pick her up in the car, and Miss Delia asked me to say it would be quite all right about her coming home, because Dr. Kyrle would be passing and he would set her down at the gate.”

“She hasn't taken her own car then? I thought you said—”

“No, miss. It was Miss Kyrle who was picking Miss Delia up. Miss Delia asked me to tell you.”

He went out with the tray, and Miss Simcox returned to her tree, from which she was presently privileged to behold a pride of lions disporting themselves upon the open rolling ground beyond. Time slipped away unnoticed. After some indefinite lapse the light began to fade and she switched on the standard lamp.

Presently Parker came in and drew the curtains. Later still the dressing-bell rang.

Trained to the utmost punctuality, Miss Simcox closed her book and returned to Surrey.

Encountering Ellen on the upper landing, she enquired whether Miss Delia had come in, and was startled to hear that she had not. She looked at her watch. Seven o'clock. But perhaps Dr. Kyrle had been kept—a doctor's time is never his own—

She changed into last year's summer foulard, converted to evening wear by being lengthened with a broad strip of black satin and having the sleeves cut off at the elbow, where they were finished with a black satin turnover. Her evening brooch, amethyst surrounded by pearls, repeated the predominant colour of the floral pattern and replaced the ribbed gold bar, also set with pearls, which she habitually wore in the day. By the time this modest toilet had been completed it was nearly half past seven.

Ellen came knocking at the door to enquire whether Miss Delia was to be waited for. This was the first real moment of apprehension. Miss Simcox found herself startled and alert. The telephone, from being a menace, became a providential institution. She went down into the study and asked for Dr. Kyrle's number. A girlish voice replied. She enquired whether Delia had left, and received the most staggering reply. The girlish voice asserted that Delia had not been there at all—had not been telephoned to or communicated with all day. Yes, it was Miss Kyrle speaking—Cynthia Kyrle.