THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson
wondered how the diplomacy of the detective would have got over the difficulty if the girl had refused. That she had consented showed nerve, for she had not known that he would not identify her. He was curious, too, as to what would have happened if he had picked her out. Would she have been arrested on suspicion?
"If it had been Miss Greye-Stratton she would hardly have sought you out," he remarked.
"No, no, of course not," said Menzies soothingly. "I never thought for a moment that she was the woman.
One likes to save anything in the nature of scandal, though. I remember a case where two elderly ladies sisters living in a country house were attacked by someone with a hammer. One was found dead, the other unconscious she remained unconscious for weeks. The hammer was found in an outhouse a hundred yards away. Now there was a considerable amount of gossip and the theory was firmly held by dozens of people that the living sister had attacked the dead one. They overlooked the fact that to have done so she must have walked to the place where the hammer was found after her own injuries had been inflicted. That's an example of what I mean."
The girl nodded. "I am quite sure you only meant to save me possible future unpleasantness. Is there anything else? You have my address."
"There is no other way at the moment in which you can help. As matters develop I may call on you. It has been very good of you--"
She stretched out her slim gloved hand to Hallett. But he was not inclined to let her escape so easily. She owed him something, if only an explanation. "I am going your way," he said unblushingly. "Perhaps if you don't mind--"
"You are very kind, Mr. Hallett," she said formally.
Menzies stroked his moustache and his eyes roved sideways to his aide-de-camp, Royal, who, after an absence of two or three minutes, had now returned. Royal nodded almost imperceptibly, and the inspector said good-bye.
"By the way, you had better be at the police court at two, Mr. Hallett. We shall charge this man Smith today. I don't expect you'll be kept long. It will be purely formal. We shall apply for a remand."
Hallett and the girl went down the steps to the street. He was conscious that though she appeared to be gazing serenely in front of her that she occasionally scrutinised him with curious eyes.
Not till they were a hundred yards away from the police station did either of them speak again. Then Jimmie ventured on the ice.
"Perhaps now you will tell me what it's all about?"
"Oh!" she stopped and turned full on him with the wide-open, innocent blue eyes of a child. "So you knew all the time. I wasn't sure."
"Wasn't sure that I knew you as the girl in the fog?
"Yes. Shall we walk on? We might attract attention standing here. Why did you do it? Why didn't you denounce me?"
Jimmie twiddled his walking-stick. "Hanged if I know," he confessed. Her self-possession rather daunted him. "I thought that is if you wanted to you would have explained the incident yourself."
"That's no reason. You didn't know me. There was no earthly motive. All the same I am grateful to you, Mr. Hallett sincerely grateful." She sighed.
A porter with a parcel under his arm loitered three yards behind them. Ten yards behind him a. "nut," scrupulously dressed and seemingly conscious of nothing but the beauty of his attire, swaggered aimlessly. Menzies, as has been said, was not a man who took anything for granted. His arrangements for "covering "Peggy Greye-Stratton in the event of Hallett not recognising her had been completed long before he had confronted them in the charge room.
Hallett might have guessed if he had thought about it at all. The girl certainly did not. Jimmie caught at her last words.
"You can prove that. Although we have only been formally introduced in the last five minutes, we are not exactly strangers. Come and lunch with me. Then we can talk. There are several things I want to know."
She assented, it seemed to him somewhat indifferently. He hailed a taxi-cab and gave the name of a famous restaurant. As she sank back in the cushions it was as though a mask had dropped from her face. It had suddenly become utterly weary. She gasped once or twice as if for breath. Only for an instant had the mask dropped, but Hallett had seen and understood. The girl was strained to breaking point, supporting her part only by strength of will.
What that part was, and why she was playing it, he was fixed in the resolution to learn. He spoke on indifferent subjects till lunch was over and coffee was brought. Then he leaned a little forward across the table.
"I shall be glad if I can be of any help to you, Miss Greye-Stratton," he said.
A smile, palpably forced, appeared on the girl's face. She twisted a ring on her finger absently. "That is a polite way of bringing me to the point, Mr. Hallett. You have a right to ask."
A sigh trembled on her lips, and her eyes became absent. The man said nothing, but waited. Very dainty and desirable did Peggy Greye-Stratton seem to him then. Yet he would not have been human if he had not had misgivings. Her. very reluctance to speak aroused a little spark of suspicion which he deliberately trampled under foot. A beautiful face, a high intelligence, and courage and all these he knew she possessed are not necessarily guarantees against crime.
She appeared to come to a resolve. "I will tell you what I told Mr. Menzies," she said looking up. "Knowing what you know it will seem incomplete to you, but you "she looked him full in the face "are a gentleman. I trust you not to question me too far. There are other people."
He, too, had come to a resolve. "Tell me," he said levelly, "before you say anything else. Did you have act or part in. the murder of your father?"
She stared at him whitely and half rose. Her shapely throat was working strangely. "Do you think--" she began. And then tensely : "No! no! no!" Her voice fell to a strained whisper. "Why do you ask me that if I had known if I could have prevented--"
She was rapidly becoming distraught.
He felt himself a cur, but he pressed home the question relentlessly. "Do you know who it was that murdered your father?"
Her fair head fell to her arms on the table. Had Hallett known, he could not have put his questions at a time more likely to wring an answer from her. All that morning she had borne herself before the keen eyes of Menzies and his assistants, conscious that the slightest falter might betray what she did not wish known. Her nerves were now paying the penalty. She raised a face torn with emotion towards Hallett.
"God help me," she moaned. "I believe I do."
Chapter VII
He had expected the answer, and yet it came to him as a shock. She was regarding him with an expression, half defiant, half appealing. His eyes wandered roundi the room. He had engaged a table that stood in a recess behind one of the marbled pillars and they were thus separated from the general company in the room. Their voices had been low, but he was afraid they might have attracted attention. But no one seemed to have observed them and he turned once more to her.
Somehow she had repressed her weakness. He signalled to the waiter and ordered a liqueur. As she took it he observed that her hand was perfectly steady. And yet but a moment before she had been on the verge of hysterics.
"Tell me just what you like," he said simply. "Just as much or as little as you like. You can trust me."
"Thank you," she said; "you are very good. Let me think.... To begin with, you must know my father was a very strange man. When I was quite a baby he quarrelled with my mother and I was sent down into the country, where I lived with an old gentleman farmer and his wife named Dinward. I always understood that I was their child until a few years ago they never spoke of either my father or my mother. Once just before I went to school he came to see me. I, of course, did not know who he was.
"I