At precisely three minutes to three the bandaged man limped up two shallow steps and pushed open the door of the bank. A girl who was coming out held the door for him and stood aside to let him pass. Then she came down the steps, got into a small car which was standing at the kerb, and started up the engine. Rather a striking looking young person by the accounts of two or three of the people who were passing at the time and who happened to notice her. A baker’s boy was able to state the make of the car and give the first two figures of its number-a not very useful piece of observation, since it merely proved the car to have been a stolen one.
Miss Muffin, on her way to the post with old Mrs. Wotherspoon’s letters, was more helpful.
“Oh, yes, very golden hair. I mean, one couldn’t help wondering whether it was natural, though of course-girls do do such things to their hair nowadays-I mean, quite respectable girls…Oh, yes-very much made-up, Inspector. Eyebrows halfway up her forehead-so odd. And the sort of complexion that must take hours to do-if you know what I mean. But quite unnoticeable sort of clothes-just a dark coat and skirt, and a plain felt hat-black, I think, though it might have been a very dark navy-so difficult to tell in a poor light, and the sky was very much overcast at the time.”
Since it appeared that she had merely walked past the car with the letters in her hand, and that she had been hurrying because Mrs. Wotherspoon didn’t care about being left alone in the house, Inspector Jackson thought she had managed to get a considerable eyeful.
Mr. Edward Carpenter’s contribution, though less detailed, was not without value. His eye had not only observed but disapproved. When he was younger he would have known just how to place the lady, but now of course there was no telling- she might be anyone. You couldn’t be sure that your own nieces and cousins wouldn’t turn up looking as if the less said about them the better.
Young Pottinger, on the other hand, was quite appreciative.
“Some blonde! I’m telling you!-what I could see of her, that is. She’d got her hand up doing something to her hat as I passed, and you can’t just stand and gape-well, can you?”
It was not, unfortunately, possible to obtain a statement from the bank manager or from the young clerk, Hector Wayne; any evidence they might have to give being of necessity deferred to a day of final account. At the moment when the bandaged man shut the door of the bank behind him and came down the two shallow steps into the street one of them was already dead and the other drawing his last few laboured breaths.
Miss Muffin, voluble after the event, was sure that she had heard the shots. The baker’s boy had thought there was a motorbike starting up in the Square. Mr. Carpenter enquired how anyone could tell one sound from another in what he termed the damnable babel of the High Street. Young Pottinger said there was a brewer’s dray backing out of Friar’s Cut, which is immediately opposite the bank, and he didn’t suppose anyone could have heard anything. And since the bandaged man had used a silencer, it is quite probable that he was right.
However that may be, the man, with his suit-case in his hand, walked some ten feet along the pavement and got into the waiting car. The engine was running and they got off without any delay. It was not until an hour later that the car was found abandoned seven miles away in one of the lanes near Ledstow. But nobody had seen a spectacular blonde, and nobody had seen a bandaged man.
CHAPTER XIX
Miss Silver, having alighted from her bus, walked back along the approach to the station. Since all her fellow-passengers had also got down, she was by no means the only person who was doing so. One or two of the people who had been in the bus had gone into the station, but for the most part they were making for the High Street and the Market Square.
The station stands a little below the by-pass. She was about half way up the slope when she noticed the man with the bandaged head. Since he had not been one of the passengers in the bus he must have come out of the station, and since the County Hospital is very conveniently situated not more than a few hundred yards to the right, it was quite natural to suppose that he might be making his way in that direction. She had the habit of noticing anything at all out of the usual. The man excited her commiseration. It was his head that was bandaged, but he had also a pronounced limp, and he leaned upon a stick as he walked. A loose raincoat seemed to weigh him down and he was further burdened by a suit-case. Despite his feeble appearance he passed her and went on up the rise. By the time she reached the by-pass he had crossed it. And then her attention was diverted, because a car drew up a few paces away and Frank Abbott hailed her.
When she was in the front seat beside him and the door was shut, he said,
“I didn’t get out-just in case. That being the Deep End bus, I thought we’d better be on the safe side. There might be someone who saw me when I came down before, and we don’t exactly want to advertise the connection with the police. What I thought we might do was drive out to a new road-house they’ve started between this and Ledstow. It caters for courting couples, I am told, and is full of discreet corners and lights turned low. It’s not likely to be crowded so early as this.”
They slipped smoothly out along the by-pass. They did not therefore hear the shots which killed the bank manager and his clerk.
To Miss Silver’s “I am very glad to see you, Frank,” he replied,
“And I to see you-I haven’t been easy. And now what have you got to tell me?”
“Not very much, I am afraid. Mrs. Craddock is delicate and overworked. The children have been mismanaged and neglected, but they are beginning to respond to more sensible treatment. I do not, therefore, feel that I am wasting my time.”
The road being open and empty, he was able to throw her a look of mingled affection and protest.
“And so you are settling down as a nursery governess!”
Miss Silver smiled.
“Not entirely. I hope to persuade Mrs. Craddock to send Jennifer and Maurice to boarding schools. It would be better for them in every way. But that is not what you want to hear about. You know, of course, that Thomasina Elliot is here.”
“I did my best to stop her. Fine eyes, but a stubborn temper. I have decided to let her marry Peter Brandon.”
“I was at first considerably disturbed by her arrival, but she is very conveniently placed for hearing any talk there has been about Miss Ball. The Miss Tremletts delight in talk of every kind.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Has there been any talk about Miss Ball? And when you say talk, do you mean what usually goes by that name?”
“I think so. There was a man whom she used to slip out to meet in the evenings. Mrs. Craddock informed me that she had seen them together and was not at all happy about it. And Miss Elliot tells me that each of the Miss Tremletts had also seen them.”
She proceeded to describe the three incidents as they had been conveyed to her by Mrs. Craddock and by Thomasina, ending up with a description of the paper found in Anna Ball’s handbag.
“I do not know how it strikes you, but the impression I received was that Miss Ball in writing down these variants of Sandrow was either trying to recall a name imperfectly remembered, or to decide upon an alias for someone whose real name it was desirable to conceal.”
He nodded.
“I expect you are right. So there was a man after all-I ought to have been able to bank on it. When a girl goes missing there always is. And the people who ought to know better come in flocks and tell us that Mary, or Doris, or Elsie never had a boy friend in her life. It looks as if we’ve been had for mugs.”