“It wasn’t. Some one struck a match.”
I was glad to hear her say “a match,” because I suppose first and last I had struck about three dozen. I gave myself marks for not having chucked them about. If she’d only seen one match struck-
He was speaking:
“You’ve got too much imagination. There’s no one here.”
“Some one struck a match.” She sounded positive and obstinate.
He began to flick the light to and fro. Then he walked past me. I could hear him moving towards the drive, and after a moment coming back again.
“There’s no one about. You’ve got the jumps.” Then, in a different tone, “Well, if you’re going, you ought to go.”
“I’m going,” said Anna.
“Damned nonsense, I call it,” said Arbuthnot Markham. “Why can’t you stay here and have done with it?”
“Because I haven’t finished my work.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“You’re damn funny when you talk in that high-falutin’ way! Come off it, my dear!”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Anna had the pathetic stop out.
“Oh yes, you do-and it doesn’t go down with me. You’re a very pretty woman, but that’s no reason why you should talk like a fool.”
My heart warmed to Arbuthnot. Anna knuckled down to him in the most astonishing way. She said, in quite an ordinary human voice, that it was getting late and she thought she ought to go.
Arbuthnot laughed again.
“You might as well stay here to-night as come away with me to-morrow,” he said.
Anna took him up with a sharp cry.
“To-morrow?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m afraid you must, my dear.”
“Why? What has happened?”
There was a pause. I wanted to hear the answer as badly as Anna did. What had happened?
“I’m leaving to-morrow instead of next week,” said Arbuthnot.
Anna gave a sort of gasp.
“Why?”
“My affair, my dear.”
She said, “Isn’t it mine too?” in a melting sort of voice.
Arbuthnot didn’t melt. He said,
“You can come, or you can stay behind.”
“Don’t you care which I do?”
“Oh, I’d rather you came. You’d find it more comfortable than traveling by yourself later on.”
“Do you think I’d come later on?”
“Oh, you’d come all right.”
She gave a little gasp-anger, I thought, but I wasn’t sure; it may have been fright. I could see she was afraid of him.
I could hear him make a sudden movement. I think he took hold of her by the shoulders.
“Now look here, Anna! You’ve got to drop all this play-acting. I’ve let you alone because it seemed to amuse you, and it didn’t hurt me. Now my plans are changed, and you’ve got to drop it.”
“What do you mean? Oh! You’re hurting me!”
“No, I’m not. I mean you’ve got to drop all this revenge business. It isn’t pretty, and it doesn’t amuse me any more.”
She gave an angry laugh at that.
“If I drop it, it’s because it’s done,” she said.
“Oh, it’s done, is it? What a fool you are, Anna!”
Something in the easy sarcasm of his tone must have startled her.
“What do you mean?” she said in a new breathless voice.
“What I say.”
“Arbuthnot-tell me what you mean!”
“I’m going to. I’d like it to be a warning to you. Perhaps you’ll think of it next time you try to go behind my back.”
“I-didn’t.”
“Oh yes, you did-you tried to square Bobby to get you some dope, so that you could plant it on that unlucky devil Fairfax.”
“Bobby-promised-”
“Bobby’s got himself into a nasty mess.” Arbuthnot’s voice hardened. “What the silly fool wanted to touch this dope business for, I don’t know. Fosicker got him into it, and I’ve had to get him out of it.”
“Oh!” said Anna.
Arbuthnot went on in a cold anger.
“You played it pretty low down on Bobby, promising to marry him.”
“Oh-I didn’t!”
“Bobby thought you did. Now do you really suppose I’d let him do anything so risky as plant Fairfax with dope that any detective would trace back through you as easily as falling off a log? Not much, my dear!”
I could hear Anna twist herself free and stamp her foot.
“Well then, he did!” she said. “He did it. Do you hear? He got it for me. I told him to get it, and he got it. And by this time Car Fairfax has been arrested with it on him, and no one will ever trace it back to me, because it didn’t come to him from me. It came to him from Isobel-Isobel- Isobel, do you hear? And Car would go to prison a dozen times before he would give Isobel away.” She stopped, panting.
She was working herself up into one of her rages. When Anna is in a rage, she tells the truth. It’s almost the only time she does, so I was listening with a good deal of interest.
“What do you say to that?” she said, and stamped her foot.
He said, in a cold, amused sort of way,
“Well, if you’ve made a fool of yourself, you’ve made fools of the police to keep you company.”
“What do you mean?”
He laughed.
“Don’t be afraid-I’m going to tell you. It’s much too good a joke to keep to myself. Bobby sent you what you asked for, did he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Neat little packets of white powder-neat little packets of cocaine?”
“Yes,” said Anna defiantly.
“Cocaine-nix!” said Arbuthnot Markham. “Common salt, my dear-common or garden salt.”
XXXIX
Anna repeated the word in a perfectly flat tone:
“Salt-” she said. Then quite suddenly her voice broke and choked. I had heard that happen before in one of her rages. She had tried to scream, and not been able to get out more than a ha’porth of sound. It was beastly to listen to, and it meant she was fairly off and would only stop raging when she hadn’t the strength to go on.
Arbuthnot took her by the shoulders again and shook her-at least that was what it sounded like. When he stopped, she stood catching her breath and whispering,
“You hurt me! You hurt me!”
“I meant to. I’ve no time for hysterics. You’d better be getting home if you won’t stay here. Pack what you want, and meet me at Croydon Aerodrome at three. We’re flying to Paris.”
“You hurt me!” she said, half sobbing.
“No, I didn’t. But I will if there’s any more nonsense. Don’t forget to bring your passport.”
“Has Bobby gone to Paris?” said Anna.
“Never you mind where Bobby’s gone. The less you know about it, the better. You’ve been playing with fire, and it’ll do you good to sit still and twiddle your fingers for a bit. If Fosicker’s arrested, you may find yourself in a hotter place than you care for.”
I was getting most awfully interested, because I’d had an ideal all along that Fosicker and Arbuthnot were the same person. I was listening as hard as I could, when quite suddenly, just as he said “arrested,” I wanted to sneeze. I pinched the bridge of my nose and did everything else I’d ever heard of, but for about a minute I just hung on the edge of a crash. Then I downed the beast, and began to listen again. You can’t listen when you’re hanging on to the tail of a sneeze and wondering every moment if the thing isn’t going to get loose and do you in.
I heard Anna say in a quite a loud, surprised voice,
“Fosicker? But you are Fosicker!‘”
I forgot all about the sneeze. For once in a way Anna and I were twin hearts that beat as one, because that was just what I had been thinking.
“What?” said Arbuthnot Markham in a voice that sounded as if he’d had all the breath knocked out of him.
Anna whispered the name she had just said.
“Fosicker-I’ve always known-you were-Fosicker.”
“Are you crazy?” he said.
“No, I’m not.”
“You thought I was Fosicker? Why?”