“What time did she call?” demanded Rollison, flatly. “At eleven-seventeen.”
“How can you be so precise?”
“Because I am a precise person by nature, and I have a watch.”
“Did Angela sound alarmed?” asked Rollison. “No.”
“How did she sound?”
“Excited,” announced Anne Miller.
“What was the name of her boy-friend?”
“Who said she had a boy-friend?” Now there was an inflection in the girl’s voice which made her answer very nearly insolent.
“Didn’t she tell you she was going to meet one?”
“She indicated it, yes.” For the first time Anne’s expression changed and it was difficult to judge whether it was in a smile or a sneer. She had small but quite beautiful lips, spoiled with pale pink lipstick which jarred against the sallow tone of her skin. “All of us indicate our romantic conquests whether they are true or not.”
“Lie about it, you mean?”
“ ‘Hint’ is a pleasanter word, don’t you think?” suggested Anne.
“From what I know, delicate hints about boy-friends are hardly necessary here,” said Rollison, bluntly. He knew that his words were crud but he had to break through this girl’s resistance somehow, and it wasn’t going to be easy.
She narrowed her oyes, but did not speak.
“Anne,” said Rollison. “Do you know what’s going on here?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Mrs. Smith that the other girls are terrified?”
“Yes.”
“Why are they terrified?”
“Do you think we should welcome having our heads smashed in?” demanded Anne, her voice rising to a cutting scorn. “Or don’t you think it matters, if such a thing happens to unmarried mothers?”
So he had hurt her, and had also loosened her tongue.
“I think it matters,” Rollison said. “But weren’t they terrified before the hammer attack on Mrs. Smith?”
“Quite possibly,” she said curtly.
“Then, what was it that frightened them?”
“Mr. Rollison,” said Anne Miller, as if suddenly overcome with weariness, “I don’t know what you’re doing here or why you came, but I can tell you you’re getting nowhere, fast.”
“What terrified the girls?” persisted Rollison, obstinately.
After a brief pause, Anne answered “All right, then. There have been telephone calls from a man threatening to kill us. He always says the same thing—- just one blow will be enough, one blow on the back of your head:” And then he rings off.” She half-closed her eyes but opened them wide again when he took a step towards her. “Wouldn’t you be scared?”
“Anyone would be,” Rollison answered gently. “When did this all begin, Anne?”
“Three days ago.”
“And you’ve each had a call in those three days?”
“More or less. There’s a telephone in each room, and we sleep three or four in a room. Whoever answered the telephone got the same message.”
“What has Mrs. Smith had to say?”
“She doesn’t know about the calls,” said Anne.
“You haven’t told the superintendent!” exclaimed Rolli-son, in astonishment mingled with disbelief.
“Can’t you see she has enough on her mind already?” demanded Anne. “We agreed we wouldn’t tell her. She’s warned us not to go out alone or come back alone. And she’s called in the police. What more can she do? Of course we haven’t told her,” she finished, in exasperation.
“If you had done so, do you think she would have gone out alone tonight?” asked Rollison, quietly.
“No one thought she was in danger,” Anne answered.
“How could you be sure she hadn’t had a threat by telephone?” demanded Rollison, and when Anne didn’t answer but looked appalled, he went on : “Anne, who is doing this? Do you know?”
“My God, if only I did!” she cried. “All I know is that we were happier than we’d been for ages. All of us. Can you imagine what it’s like to be branded? Oh, we were fools, or else we deliberately defied convention, but we are branded. Even today you can stand at the window and see old women pointing and tut-tutting as they pass, and old men leering at us, and young men—” She was almost crying as she went on and the words were sharp and clear and yet every now and again her voice broke. “Do you realise why we’re here? We’ve got good minds, some of us are brilliant at our own subjects but we’ve offended the great god, convention . . . and we haven’t even had the sense to look after ourselves. Our critics think we’re immoral and our one-time friends think we’re fools—God! And there isn’t one of us who can turn to friends or relatives. IV you know what I was doing when I came here? I was a counter assistant at Woolworth’s haberdashery department—and I was a child prodigy, they tell me there isn’t anyone at my age to touch me in higher mathematics. ‘That’s one-and-eleven, please, penny change. Nail files? On the perfumery counter, madam . . . . That’s seven-and-sixpence exactly, sir . . . .’ ”
“Stop it,” interrupted Rollison, sharply.
“I won’t stop it ! I can’t stop it ! I tell you I was nearly out of my mind when I heard from Naomi Smith. It didn’t seem possible! A chance to study under Professor Offenberger and nothing to pay except time. There’s even a creche here! We aren’t under any pressure to have our babies adopted if we don’t want to—God ! It was like heaven! And then—and then the trouble began. First we had indecent telephone calls and beastly letters, then gradually the tone changed and we were told to go away from here. The very place we’ve come to love—oh, it’s dreadful, it’s dreadful!”
Rollison said briskly : “Yes, Anne, it is. And it won’t get any better if you keep a single thing back.”
He looked at his watch. It was half-past twelve and there was no word from Jolly and no interruption from the police. Jolly would have telephoned had he seen Angela, of course—so she hadn’t gone to the Corner House. He had never really believed she had.
“I’m not keeping anything back,” Anne said, sullenly. “Did you speak to Angela in person?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it was her voice?”
“Of course I’m sure, you don’t think I could make a mistake about her, surely? She sounded excited, and very sure of herself. Has she been waiting all—”
“No,” Rollison said. “I sent someone there as soon as I heard about the call. Anne, how well did you know Winifred de Vaux?”
It was a long time before Anne answered. She began to sway. Rollison took her arm and led her towards a chair, then poured out brandy. She lifted the glass, then lowered it again as she glanced up at him.
“Not—not really well,” she said. “She wasn’t easy to know. She—she was the only one here who really was obsessed with men, I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone so over-sexed—so obviously over-sexed—and proud of it. Some would say she flaunted it, but she didn’t, she was just proud. She thought it was glorious to be a woman. She—she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“It seems a possibility,” said Rollison. “But what makes you think so?”
“The man who telephoned tonight said she was,” answered Anne Miller, her voice dead, stripped of emotion. “And soon, soon, all the sluts and whores who lived here would be dead too.”
She tried to sip her brandy but her hand began to shake, and soon her slender body, until, inevitably, the tears began to fall.
And as she cried the door opened, and Naomi Smith came in.
CHAPTER 9
The Hammer
NAOMI seemed to draw back when she heard the girl crying, then moved quickly towards her. She glanced at Rollison, and he expected to see scorn or reproach; instead she gave him a flashing smile, of thanks or congratulation. She put an arm round the girl and led her towards a chair. Rollison had not realised how tiny Anne was. He felt for the girl; he could understand her bitterness and her fear, but he feared for Angela with a kind of desperate self-blame.