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“Thank you, miss, but Agnes never turned up after all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It didn’t matter to me,” said Partridge.
She was so swelling with grievance that she condescended to pour it out to us.
“It wasn’t me who thought of asking her! She rang up herself, said she’d something on her mind and could she come here, it being her day off. And I said, yes, subject to your permission which I obtained. And after that, not a sound or sign of her! And no word of apology either, though I should hope I’ll get a postcard tomorrow morning. These girls nowadays—don’t know their place—no idea of how to behave.”
Joanna attempted to soothe Partridge’s wounded feelings.
“She mayn’t have felt well. You didn’t ring up to find out?”
Partridge drew herself up again.
“No, I did not, Miss. No, indeed. If Agnes likes to behave rudely that’s her lookout, but I shall give her a piece of my mind when we meet.”
Partridge went out of the room still stiff with indignation and Joanna and I laughed.
“Probably a case of ‘Advice from Aunt Nancy’s Column,’” I said. “‘My boy is very cold in his manner to me, what shall I do about it?’ Failing Aunt Nancy, Partridge was to be applied to for advice, but instead there has been a reconciliation and I expect at this minute that Agnes and her boy are one of those speechless couples locked in each other’s arms that you come upon suddenly standing by a dark hedge. They embarrass you horribly, but you don’t embarrass them.”
Joanna laughed and said she expected that was it.
We began talking of the anonymous letters and wondered how Nash and the melancholy Graves were getting on.
“It’s a week today exactly,” said Joanna, “since Mrs. Symmington’s suicide. I should think they must have got on to something by now. Fingerprints, or handwriting, or something.”
I answered her absently. Somewhere behind my conscious mind, a queer uneasiness was growing. It was connected in some way with the phrase that Joanna had used, “a week exactly.”
I ought, I dare say, to have put two and two together earlier. Perhaps, unconsciously, my mind was already suspicious.
Anyway the leaven was working now. The uneasiness was growing—coming to a head.
Joanna noticed suddenly that I wasn’t listening to her spirited account of a village encounter.
“What’s the matter, Jerry?”
I did not answer because my mind was busy piecing things together.
Mrs. Symmington’s suicide… She was alone in the house that afternoon… Alone in the house because the maids were having their day out… A week ago exactly….
“Jerry, what—”
I interrupted.
“Joanna, maids have days out once a week, don’t they?”
“And alternate Sundays,” said Joanna. “What on—”
“Never mind Sundays. They go out the same day every week?”
“Yes. That’s the usual thing.”
Joanna was staring at me curiously. Her mind had not taken the track mine had done.
I crossed the room and rang the bell. Partridge came.
“Tell me,” I said, “this Agnes Woddell. She’s in service?”
“Yes, sir. At Mrs. Symmington’s. At Mr. Symmington’s, I should say now.”
I drew a deep breath. I glanced at the clock. It was halfpast ten.
“Would she be back now, do you think?”
Partridge was looking disapproving.
“Yes, sir. The maids have to be in by ten there. They’re old-fashioned.”
I said: “I’m going to ring up.”
I went out to the hall. Joanna and Partridge followed me. Partridge was clearly furious. Joanna was puzzled. She said, as I was trying to get the number:
“What are you going to do, Jerry?”
“I’d like to be sure that the girl has come in all right.”
Partridge sniffed. Just sniffed, nothing more. But I did not care twopence about Partridge’s sniffs.
Elsie Holland answered the telephone the other end.
“Sorry to ring you up,” I said. “This is Jerry Burton speaking. Is—has—your maid Agnes come in?”
It was not until after I had said it that I suddenly felt a bit of a fool. For if the girl had come in and it was all right, how on earth was I going to explain my ringing up and asking. It would have been better if I had let Joanna ask the question, though even that would need a bit of explaining. I foresaw a new trail of gossip started in Lymstock, with myself and the unknown Agnes Woddell at its centre.
Elsie Holland sounded, not unnaturally, very much surprised.
“Agnes? Oh, she’s sure to be in by now.”
I felt a fool, but I went on with it.
“Do you mind just seeing if she has come in, Miss Holland?”
There is one thing to be said for a nursery governess; she is used to doing things when told. Hers not to reason why! Elsie Holland put down the receiver and went off obediently.
Two minutes later I heard her voice.
“Are you there, Mr. Burton?”
“Yes.”
“Agnes isn’t in yet, as a matter of fact.”
I knew then that my hunch had been right.
/> I heard a noise of voices vaguely from the other end, then Symmington himself spoke.
“Hallo, Burton, what’s the matter?”
“Your maid Agnes isn’t back yet?”
“No. Miss Holland has just been to see. What’s the matter? There’s not been an accident, has there?”
“Not an accident,” I said.
“Do you mean you have reason to believe something has happened to the girl?”
I said grimly: “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Eight
I
I slept badly that night. I think that, even then, there were pieces of the puzzle floating about in my mind. I believe that if I had given my mind to it, I could have solved the whole thing then and there. Otherwise why did those fragments tag along so persistently?
How much do we know at anytime? Much more, or so I believe, than we know we know! But we cannot break through to that subterranean knowledge. It is there, but we cannot reach it.
I lay on my bed, tossing uneasily, and only vague bits of the puzzle came to torture me.
There was a pattern, if only I could get hold of it. I ought to know who wrote those damned letters. There was a trail somewhere if only I could follow it….
As I dropped off to sleep, words danced irritatingly through my drowsy mind.
“No smoke without fire.” No fire without smoke. Smoke… Smoke? Smoke screen… No, that was the war—a war phrase. War. Scrap of paper… Only a scrap of paper. Belgium— Germany….
I fell asleep. I dreamt that I was taking Mrs. Dane Calthrop, who had turned into a greyhound, for a walk with a collar and lead.
II
It was the ringing of the telephone that roused me. A persistent ringing.
I sat up in bed, glanced at my watch. It was half past seven. I had not yet been called. The telephone was ringing in the hall downstairs.
I jumped out of bed, pulled on a dressing-gown, and raced down. I beat Partridge coming through the back door from the kitchen by a short head. I picked up the receiver.
“Hallo?”
“Oh—” It was a sob of relief. “It’s you!” Megan’s voice. Megan’s voice indescribably forlorn and frightened. “Oh, please do come—do come. Oh, please do! Will you?”
