The Case Is Closed

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Hilary reached the outskirts of Ledlington at a little after half past six. The first street-lamp almost brought tears into her eyes, she was so glad to see it. When you have been wandering in one of those dark places of the earth which are full of cruelty, and when you have only just escaped being murdered there, omnibuses, and trams, and gas-lamps, and crowds of people really do seem almost too good to be true.

The crowds of people looked oddly at Hilary. It didn’t occur to her at first that they were looking oddly, because she was so rapturously pleased to see them, but after she had got over the first of that the oddness began to soak in, and she woke up with a start to realise that she had been slithering about on wet roads and scrambling through hedges, and that she was probably looking like a last year’s scarecrow. She gazed about her, and beheld on the other side of the road the sign of The Magpie and Parrot. The sign was a very pleasant one. The magpie and the parrot sat side by side upon a golden perch. The magpie was very black and very white, and the parrot was very green. They advertise one of Ledlington’s most respected hotels, but nobody knows how it got its name.

Hilary crossed the road, mounted half a dozen steps, and entered such a dark passage that she was instantly filled with confidence. It might appear gloomy later on when she had washed her face, but at the moment it was very comfortable. She told the pleasant elderly woman at the desk that she had had a bicycle accident, and immediately everyone in the hotel began to be kind and helpful. It was very nice of them, because really when Hilary saw herself in the glass she looked the most disreputable object it is possible to imagine. All one side of her face was plastered with mud. She remembered the grit of the road under her cheek. She had lost her hat – she didn’t remember anything about that -and the mud had got into her hair. There was a long scratch running back across her temple, and another fairly deep one on her chin. They had bled a good deal, and the blood had run into the mud. Her coat was torn, and her skirt was torn, and her hands were torn.

‘Golly – what a mess!’ she said, and proceeded to get it off.

There was lovely hot water, and lots of soap, and a large rough towel, and a little soft one produced by a very kind chambermaid – ‘because it’ll be soft on those scratches, miss.’ With these and a large bathroom to splash round in she made a good job of getting the mud off, whilst the chambermaid put in some first aid on the ripped-up coat. They brought her tea which was quite terribly good (the Magpie and Parrot pays six shillings a pound for its tea), and a time-table which was not so good, because the minute she began to look up trains it came over her that there wasn’t anything in the world that would get her into one of those trains with the prospect of travelling up to London by herself tonight. It wasn’t any use arguing or calling herself a coward. Her courage had run out and she simply couldn’t do it. Any carriage she got into would either be empty to start with, or it would go empty on her at the very first stop. And then one of them would get in, and there would be an accident on the line, and an end of Hilary Carew. Because if they had wanted to kill her an hour ago on the Lcdlington road, nothing had happened since to make them change their minds. Contrariwise, as Humpty Dumpty says. And if they wanted to kill her, they would certainly watch the station, because they would expect her to catch a train, and it would occur to them as it did to her that very few people would be taking the London train on a night like this. Nobody would if they weren’t obliged to. And that was the trouble – Hilary was obliged to. There was Marion for one thing, and there was the money question for another. Aunt Arabella’s ring had produced a fiver. Out of that, getting here and back would account for about twelve bob. She had left two pounds on deposit for the bicycle, and she would have to go and tell the shock-headed boy that it was all smashed up and pay whatever they valued it at. She couldn’t possibly risk an hotel bill on the top of that. What she could do, and what she immediately made up her mind to do, was to ring up Henry.

There was a sort of shiny office stool in the telephone-box. It was very slippery and uncomfortable, but it was better than nothing. As Hilary sat on it and waited for her call, it came over her that it wasn’t any good quarrelling with Henry -it didn’t really seem to make any difference. They had a sensational Row and broke off their engagement, and the first minute Mrs. Mercer wept at her and Mercer followed her in the street she could no more help making a bee line for Henry than she could help breathing. Well, then they had a second row, and Henry forbade her to go hunting the Mercers, and she had done it, and they hadn’t spoken for a week. Yet the minute people tried to murder her and she was frightened, here she was, ringing him up and quite sure that he would come and fetch her. He would probably say ‘I told you so’, and they were practically certain to quarrel again. They would probably quarrel all the way back to town. The prospect was a most comforting one. How nice, how safe, how exhilarating to have Henry to quarrel with in that railway carriage instead of being murdered by a person or persons unknown.

The bell went ping, and as she snatched up the receiver, Henry said ‘Hullo!’

‘Hullo!’ said Hilary brightly.

‘Who is it?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Oh, it’s you?’

‘Idiot!’ said Hilary in a soft insinuating voice.

Henry set himself to disguise his reactions. He supposed Hilary wanted something or she wouldn’t be ringing him up. There was satisfaction in the thought that she couldn’t get on without him, but he wasn’t giving anything away. He had a dark suspicion that she used that voice because she knew it did things to his feelings. Like poking up the tiger with a sugar-stick.

He said, ‘What do you want?’ in the tone of one who has been rung up by a boring aunt.

‘You,’ said Hilary, nearly forty miles away. She said it so softly that it only just reached him, and he wasn’t sure whether the little wobble in the middle was a laughing wobble or a crying one.

If she was really – but suppose she wasn’t -

He said, ‘Hilary – ’ and she blinked back some tears which she hadn’t expected, and said in a breathless kind of way,

‘Henry – will you come and fetch me – please?

‘Hilary – what’s the matter? Is anything the matter? I wish you’d speak up. I can’t hear a word you say. You’re not crying, are you? Where are you?’

‘L-l-ledlington.’

‘You sound as if you were crying. Are you crying?’

‘I th-think so.’

‘You must know.’

A bright female voice said, ‘Thrrree minutes,’ to which Henry, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t his call, replied with a firm demand for another three. After which he said,

‘Hullo!’ and, ‘Are you there?’ And then, ‘Tell me what’s the matter with you at once!’

Hilary steadied her voice. She had only meant to let it thrill a little at Henry, but it had let her down and she was really crying now, she couldn’t think why.

‘Henry, please come. I want you – badly. I can’t tell you on the telephone. I’m at the Magpie and Parrot at Ledlington. I’ve smashed a bicycle, and I don’t think I’ve got enough money to pay for it.’

‘Are you hurt?’

He said that much too quickly. Why should she be hurt? But she was crying. She wouldn’t cry because she was hurt. He was horribly frightened, and angry with Hilary because she was frightening him. Little fool! Little damned darling fool!

He heard her say, ‘No -only scratched,’ and then, ‘You can’t drive – it’s too foggy. Will you ring Marion up and tell her you’re fetching me? You needn’t say where I am.’

The girl at the exchange said ‘Six minutes.’ Hilary said, ‘Golly!’ And Henry said, ‘Another six,’ and Hilary giggled, and Captain Henry Cunningham blushed because now he really had given himself away.

‘There’s a train at seven-forty,’ said Hilary sweetly. ‘We don’t want any more minutes – it’s much too expensive. You hurry up and catch that train, darling.’

The telephone bell tinkled and the line went dead.