“I d-did read it to you.”
“Not all of it, I think. And anyhow what you told me was that you were writing to Miss Ethel Brown who had been your schoolmistress. You told quite a lot of lies about that. First Miss Ethel Brown was your schoolmistress, and then you remembered that wouldn’t do because you went to the Grammar School. And then you said Miss Brown and her sister didn’t exactly keep a school-they had a few pupils, and you had promised to write and tell them how you were getting on at Field End. What you wrote in the part you read out to me was that Uncle Jonathan was so kind and he was going to leave you a lot of money in his will. I don’t know what was in the bits you didn’t read me, but what I do know is that none of it was written to Miss Ethel Brown. Because when you dropped the letter and I picked it up, it was addressed to Mr. E. C. Brown, 10, Marracott Street, Pigeon Hill, S.E. You pretended that he was Miss Brown’s brother, and that she was staying with him. And you might as well have saved your breath. You were just making it up as you went along, and you couldn’t have been doing it worse. So now I’m going to have the truth. The letter was to Sid Turner, wasn’t it?”
She gave a miserable little nod and two of the brimming drops ran down to the corners of her mouth.
“Did he tell you to write and let him know if Jonathan had settled any money on you?”
She nodded again.
“Oh, yes, he d-did.”
“And you always do everything he tells you? Nice obedient little girl, aren’t you! Come along-just what have you been up to with Sid?”
Mirrie burst into tears.
“Johnny, I haven’t-I didn’t-oh, Johnny!”
He went on in the hard new voice which was making her cry.
“It’s not the least use your crying. You’ve got to tell me just how far you’ve gone with him.”
“Oh, Johnny, it was only to the pictures. Aunt Grace never let me go anywhere except to tea with girls she thought it was nice for me to know. I just went to the pictures with Sid, and told her I was with Hilda Lambton or Mary Dean. That’s all-it really is.”
He was watching her, his eyes as hard as his voice.
“He made love to you?”
“Only a l-little.”
“And just what do you mean by that?”
“Oh, Johnny-”
“Out with it!”
“T-treading on my foot and holding hands in the pictures, and k-kissing me good-night. Oh, Johnny, I didn’t like it- I didn’t really!”
He continued to hold her at arm’s length and to watch her. She couldn’t ever tell him about the time when Sid had really frightened her. And right on the top of her thinking about it Johnny was saying,
“What did he do to scare you like this? You’re frightened to death of him, and I’m going to know why!”
She couldn’t tell him why. It had frightened her too much -the little dark alley between the houses and no windows looking that way, and Sid with his knife out and the point sharp against her throat. If she moved, it would go right in and she would be dead. It tickled against her skin, and he was telling her what he would do to her if she split on him. “Near or far, I’d get at you and I’d do you in. You wouldn’t know when it was coming. You’d be walking along feeling safe, and all at once the knife would be in your back and you’d be dead. Dead girls tell no tales.” That was what he had said. And then he had laughed and put the knife in his pocket and kissed her the way she didn’t like to be kissed, holding her right close up against him and almost stopping her breath. She could never tell Johnny about that. And it was all because she had asked a question. There had been a policeman shot and Sid had been going on about it, saying the police were too nosey by half and a good job if one of them got what was coming to him. There was a jeweller’s shop that had been broken into and she and Sid were larking-just a bit of a joke it was, him saying she was to give him a kiss, and her saying she wouldn’t and pushing him away, and just for fun she put her hand in his inside pocket. It was his wallet she meant to snatch, but her hand came back with a little parcel in it instead, and when he tried to get it away from her the paper tore and something fell down between them. Too dark for either of them to see where it was, but Mirrie found it. Her hand came right down on it when she stooped, and she didn’t need a light to tell her what it was! A ring with three big stones, and she slipped it on her finger and wished she could see what it looked like there. That was when she asked that question, pleased and laughing in the dark alley with the ring on her hand. And not thinking anything until the words were out, not thinking anything at all until she heard herself say, “Ooh-that’s a nice ring, and it fits me!” And then she said, “Where did you get it, Sid, and is it for me?” That was when he reached out and caught her in that hard grip and set the knife against her throat. She couldn’t ever tell Johnny about that.
She leaned away from him as far as she could, and he saw the terror in her eyes. He couldn’t go on-not when she looked at him like that. He had always had a soft spot for anything that was frightened or hurt. He let go of Mirrie’s hands and pulled her into his arms.
“Don’t look at me like that, silly little thing! I’m not going to hurt you, I’m going to look after you. I don’t care what anyone has made you do. Do you hear-I don’t care. If this chap has been frightening you, I’ll knock his block off. If he’s blackmailing you you’d better tell me all about it. If you’re in a jam we are in it together. And I’ll get you out- I promise I’ll get you out.”
When he held her like that Mirrie felt it was really true. All the time she was remembering about Sid and the knife she had been getting colder and colder, and stiffer and stiffer. She couldn’t feel her feet and she couldn’t feel her hands. She could only feel Sid’s knife against her throat. But now, with Johnny holding her close, the stiffness and the coldness were going out of her. She was warm again, and she was safe. Sid and the knife were a long way off. Johnny would keep her safe. She pressed her face down into the hollow of his shoulder and told him about the dark alley, and the ring, and the knife that had pricked her throat.
Chapter XXXII
WHEN MISS SILVER got back to Field End she was in some doubt as to what she should do next. She was, as a rule, a person of quick decisions, but at this moment she was aware of two opposing impulses, and she felt obliged to give each of them her most serious attention before complying with either. On the one hand, she could not minimize the importance of what she had heard from Maggie Bell, and she felt that no time should be lost in passing this information on to Frank Abbott. On the other, it might be desirable for her to check over with Mirrie the two telephone conversations which Maggie had overheard. The third conversation, the one in which Jonathan Field had been a participant, must rest upon Maggie’s word alone, but the talk before the dance and the call made by Mirrie herself at a quarter past eight on Tuesday evening, might, and probably would, confirm the fact that the other person on the line was Sid Turner. If Mirrie were to be unexpectedly confronted with these two calls, Miss Silver did not believe that she would be able to persist in a denial of her part in them, or of Sid Turner’s identity. She had reached this point and had almost determined to seek an interview with Mirrie, when it became clear to her that she would not be justified in doing so. Frank Abbott was in charge of the case, and if Mirrie were to be questioned he had a right to be present.
She knew that he intended to drop in for tea at Deepside with his cousin Cicely and her husband, and she felt reluctant to disturb this brief family reunion. She would not even have known about it if Monica Abbott had not mentioned that she and Colonel Abbott had been invited, yet the more she thought about the matter the greater was her sense of urgency. In the end she drew the study telephone towards her and asked for Deeping 3.