“No, I’m hanged if I do!” said Peter. He laughed angrily. “Let’s hope that’s not an omen. If you ask me, I think we’re going stark, staring mad, and that old Lamb will probably finish up by arresting us all.”
“What does he want?” said Lee in a frightened voice.
“I can’t imagine-I was with him an hour ago. But I know what I want, and that’s a long, cold drink. Also I want to talk to Lucinda-presently, when I feel strong enough. Oh, I suppose I had better get old Lamb over first.”
Lee stood waiting whilst he rang up and was put through. She waited for Peter to speak, but after he had given his name and said, “I hear you rang me up,” all the talk seemed to be coming from the other end of the line. She saw Peter’s eyebrows go up, and at last she heard him say, “Yes, I suppose it took me about an hour. I sat in the Park for a bit.” There was another interval. Then Peter said pleasantly, “One isn’t always thinking about an alibi, you know,” and then, after a hiatus, “I suppose you’ll arrest me on the spot if I tell you to go and boil your head… Yes, I thought as much, so perhaps I won’t do it after all. Am I allowed a quotation instead-from Alexander and Mose? ‘Clarify yo’self, boy-clarify yo’self.’ ” He jabbed the receiver back upon its hook, turned a pale, determined countenance on Lee and said,
“Lamb really has gone off the deep end. He seems to think that (a) Rush, (b) I, or (c) Rush and I, have abducted Mrs. Green.”
Lee stared back. It must be a joke, but she began to feel frightened. She said, “Why?” and Peter came and put an arm round her waist.
“An elopement with Mrs. Green sounds grim, doesn’t it?”
“Is it a joke? I-I don’t like it very much.”
“No, it’s not a joke. He’s quite serious. You see, when I was with him just now Mrs. Green rang up from a call-box at Charing Cross. She said she’d got something to tell-about Ross’s murder-and old Lamb told her to come right along and spill the beans. I’m piecing it together from what I heard and what he told me. He kept saying that they would look after her and she needn’t be frightened, and then she said another piece, and he told her again to come right along. And then he rang off, and looked at me very hard and said, ‘That was Mrs. Green, and she’s scared to death.’ And he told me she’d got something on her mind-something she hadn’t told before because she was afraid.”
“Yes-” said Lee rather faintly, because the frightened feeling was getting worse.
“Well, now he says Mrs. Green never turned up. She was speaking from Charing Cross over an hour ago, and she never turned up. It couldn’t possibly have taken her more than ten minutes to get to Scotland Yard, but she never turned up. After about half an hour or so he sent a minion down to where she lives. The minion has just rung up, and there’s no sign of her either at the house where she lodges or at the local pub which, I gather, sees a good deal of her in her off time. Lamb says she was all set to come and see him, and if she didn’t come, why didn’t she? And he’s got an answer all ready, because she told him she was afraid of being done in. And by whom? Answer quite pat again, because she told him that too. By Rush, and by me. So if Mrs. Green has by any chance come to a sticky end, Lamb will probably do his best to hang us both.”
Lee, pushed him away.
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that!”
“Well, Rush may have an alibi, but I haven’t. I went and mooned in the Park, and there I hatched a perfectly monstrous idea, and I want to talk to Lucinda about it, so come along.”
Lucy Craddock looked up as they came in.
“Do you know, I think I was almost asleep. Not quite, you know, but very, very nearly.”
Peter brought a footstool and sat down upon it with his arms around his knees and his head tilted a little so that he could look at her. Lee went over to the window and stood there staring out. People passing, the glint of the low sun upon the bit of the river which you could just see between the trees, the smoky blue of the sky, and a piled cloud or two that looked like thunder. It was turning very hot again, but her hands and feet were cold, and something inside her was very much afraid. There was no end to the dreadfulness, no end at all. Peter said,
“Lucinda, do you think you could come over all reminiscent and chatty?”
Lucy Craddock fluttered.
“My dear boy-of course-if there is anything you want to know-”
Peter hugged his knees.
“There is. I want to have a nice heart-to-heart gossip about Aggie Crouch-Rosalie La Fay -Ross’s wife. I want you to spread yourself.”
“But, my dear, I know so little. Mary and I were naturally most interested, but poor John was so much upset that he only told us the barest facts, and his wife refused to talk about it at all.”
“Now, Lucinda, don’t tell me that you and Mary just sat down under that. After all the lady was a public character. Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t go out into the highways and byways and-well, glean?”
Lucy Craddock bridled.
“Oh, my dear boy, that sounds as if we were two inquisitive old maids!”
“Why shouldn’t one be inquisitive? I am, desperately, about Aggie-Rosalie-Craddock. What did you find out?”
“Very little,” said Lucy in a regretful voice. “Mary thought if we went to the theatrical agencies;-but we didn’t know their names of course, so we-we-well, my dear boy, we employed someone.”
Peter’s eyes danced for a moment.
“A detective? Oh, Lucinda!”
Lucy blushed.
“Oh, no, indeed-a private inquiry agent-discretion guaranteed-really quite a gentlemanly man. And all he found out was that she had a sister married to a corn-chandler in Hoxton, and that there was nothing against either of their characters-which of course was very disappointing.”
Peter roared with laughter.
“Lucinda, you’re a jewel!”
“Oh but-my dear boy-I didn’t mean that at all. I mean-well, of course one wouldn’t have wanted her to have done anything dreadful, but of course after all that trouble and expense-well, you know what I mean.”
“Perfectly,” said Peter. “And was that all?”
“Except the photographs,” said Lucy Craddock in an abstracted voice. “Now I wonder whether dear Mary kept the photographs.”
“I should think,” said Peter out of a bitter experience, “that Mary always kept everything.”
“They were in a yellow cardboard box, tied up with the ribbon from a most beautiful box of chocolates which John gave us for Christmas that year. I remember Mary wouldn’t put them in the chocolate box because she said it was too good for pictures of Aggie Crouch, so she used it for her handkerchiefs.”
Peter’s pulses jumped.
Gosh! Suppose he had burned those photographs. He hadn’t, but just suppose he had.
A drop of cold perspiration ran down his spine. He said in a difficult, halting voice,
“The bulging yellow box-in the bottom of the wardrobe?”
Lucy nodded.
“Yes, that’s where they’ll be, if she kept them-and she always kept everything.”
Peter got up, looked at Lee’s back, looked at the door, and without a word rushed out of the room and out of the flat.
Lucy stared after him in mild surprise, but Lee never turned round. She hardly knew he had gone, so far had she withdrawn from what was going on in the room.
And then Peter came back. He had the box in his hands-an aged, battered affair with one side gaping. And he was thinking that very likely this old battered box held two people’s lives-Bobby Foster’s life and-better not think about the other-better just keep on thinking about Bobby. He came across the room with an odd eager look on his face, plumped down on his stool again, and set the cardboard box across Lucy Craddock’s knees.