The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 12

Miss Silver had not forgotten her encounter with the girl who might or might not be Mrs James Fancourt. It had occurred to her more than once that she would like to know what had happened, and whether her memory had come back. But she had restrained herself. She had been partly helped in this restraint by the fact that not only was she very busy with the tail end of the Lena Morrison business, but she had also been concerned about, and her thoughts a good deal taken up by, the accident to her niece Ethel Burkett’s youngest child, Josephine, who had slipped on the kerb just opposite their house and contracted so badly bruised an ankle that for three days there had been doubts as to whether it had not been broken. This was now happily a thing of the past. The Morrison affair was practically done with, and there was nothing to prevent Miss Silver from giving her full attention to a new appeal for her help.

She had just finished a letter in which she had poured out her thankfulness over the happy outcome of Josephine’s accident, when the telephone bell rang at her elbow. She picked it up, said ‘Miss Silver speaking,’ and heard a voice in reply.

‘Miss Silver, can you see me now? It’s rather important.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I’m sorry-I ought to have begun with that. I’m Jim Fancourt. We met last year. I know Frank Abbott.’

‘Of course-I remember you very well. Are you in town?’

‘Yes. I wondered if I could come and see you now.’

‘Yes, do.’

As she hung up she remembered Anne Fancourt and wondered.

When twenty minutes later the bell rang, she had reviewed her interview with Anne, and whilst she abstained from linking her with Jim Fancourt who was Frank Abbott’s friend, she was nevertheless prepared for any eventuality.

Jim Fancourt was ushered in upon a peaceful scene. The peacock-blue curtains were drawn across the windows. There was a pleasant little fire upon the hearth. Miss Silver had risen to greet him from a comfortable fireside chair. She wore a dark blue dress, and without her hat displayed a quantity of brown hair lightly tinged with grey and arranged after a fashion which reminded him vaguely of the family album which his grandfather had had lying on the big round table in the drawing-room.

Miss Silver shook hands with him, pointed him to another fireside chair, and sat down. She was knitting what appeared to be a shawl in a pale shade of pink.

He sat down, leaned forward, and said directly, ‘Miss Silver, do you mind if I ask you some questions? I know from Frank Abbott that you are absolutely to be relied upon.’

Miss Silver looked up at him. She said, ‘Yes, Mr Fancourt.’

He said at once, ‘I’ve been out in the Middle East. Part of the time I was where I wasn’t supposed to be. There was another man there called Borrowdale. I went there to meet him. He had his daughter with him. Borrowdale met with an accident-no proof as to whether it really was an accident or not-a loose stone on a hillside-’ He broke off and shrugged Borrowdale away. ‘Well, there you have it. He lived for twenty-four hours, and the one thing he wanted was to get his daughter away. She was there with him, and I think from what he said that her mother was Russian and he wasn’t too sure that the marriage would hold water when it came to a passport. He asked me to get her away, and I said I would do what I could. Well, he died. Then an American plane came down. I said the girl was my wife, and asked them to take her along and keep quiet about it. Well, they did. Meanwhile I’d finished my job, and I got over the border and took a plane home. I’d given the girl a letter to my relations at Haleycott. I have just come from there now. I expect you know why I wanted to see you.’

Miss Silver had been knitting as he spoke. Now, without stopping, she said, ‘Yes, Mr Fancourt?’ in the tone which invites a continuance.

He made a quick gesture with his hands.

‘Well, I’ve come here to ask you for every detail of your meeting with Anne.’

Miss Silver took her time. She knitted a whole row before she answered him. Then she said, ‘You are asking me about my meeting with Anne Fancourt?’

He shook his head.

‘She’s not Anne Fancourt-I know that. Since you’ve talked to her, you must know that she doesn’t say that she is Anne Fancourt, she only says she is Anne. I’d like to know what else she said. ’

Miss Silver was again silent for a moment. When she did speak it was with gravity and deliberation. She stopped knitting and rested her hands upon the half-completed pink shawl.

‘I caught my bus at 6.45. She was there already. I could not help noticing her. She had a shocked look.

‘When we reached Victoria I waited a little. I was concerned for her. She appeared to me to have sustained a shock. I wished to be sure that she knew where she was and what she was going to do. Almost at once I was sure that she did not know, and I ventured to speak to her. It at once became obvious that she did not know either where she was or where she was going. I took her to the refreshment-room and ordered tea. It was obvious that she had been gently reared. She was at the same time faint with hunger and carefully observant of the delicacies of her social behaviour. I formed the opinion that it was some time since she had tasted food, and I put her exhausted condition down to this fact.’

‘Why should she have been without food?’

‘I cannot tell you. She had with her a bag, black lined with grey and with a centre partition. There was a small purse high up on the right-hand side. It contained a little change, but in the inner compartment there was ten pounds in notes.’

Jim Fancourt nodded.

‘I gave her ten pounds in English money,’ he said. ‘She hadn’t any bag when I saw her.’

‘Then she had bought one. It was quite new. There was a handkerchief in it, and a mirror. The handkerchief was also new. It had not been washed, and there was no name on it. She took out a letter. She read it and gave it to me to read. It was from Miss Fancourt, and it said that it was very difficult to know how to write, but that they had had your letter and would do what you asked and take her in. It went on to say that it was all very worrying, that your letter was very short and did not really tell them anything except that you had married her, and that she would be arriving. And it finished up by saying that it all seemed very strange but of course they would do what they could, and that they did not at all understand why you had not come over with her. When she gave me the letter she said, “I don’t know what it means.” When I said, “How did this reach you?” she said she did not know. I told her that she ought to go to the address at the head of the letter. I said she was expected, and that if she did not come, there would be anxiety. I added that she might wake up in the morning and find that everything was clear again. I have known of such cases. Am I to understand that her memory has not cleared up?’

He said, ‘No, it hasn’t. She can’t remember who she is. She’s not the girl to whom Lilian wrote that letter. She’s not Anne Fancourt at all. I’ve never seen her until this afternoon, but the letter in her bag was Anne’s-I mean the girl I was looking for.’

‘Your wife?’

‘I don’t know if she was my wife or not. Borrowdale-her father-he made us promise-he was dying-’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘It all sounds positively lunatic now.’

Miss Silver had picked up her knitting again. She said, ‘Things that sound very strange in one set of circumstances may appear perfectly reasonable in another.’

He gave a short laugh.

‘You’ve said it! Well, an American plane came down- they’d got a hundred miles off their route. I told the pilot my wife had had a shock and I wanted to get her out of there. He was a light-hearted fellow, and they took her along. I had a bit of luck and got across-well, I won’t say where. When I got down to Haleycott, there was Anne, and she wasn’t the right Anne. I’d never seen her before in my life, and she’d lost her memory.’ He leaned forward and said, ‘How much did she tell you?’

‘What I have just told you.’

He leaned back again.

‘She told me more than that. She said the first thing she remembered was being on some steps. She said it was all dark up to a point-quite, quite dark-and that she thought she was going to faint, so she sat down. She was on steps, and she was faint. She said she knew she was on the steps and that she had dropped her bag. It was on the steps beside her-she thought it was hers. She must have taken up the bag and opened it, because presently she had a torch. She switched it on and saw a girl lying on the floor at the bottom of the steps. I asked her, “How did you know she was dead? Did you kill her?” She said in a surprised sort of way, “Oh, no, I didn’t-I’m quite sure I didn’t! Why should I?” And then she said, as if it explained everything, “I couldn’t have done it-there wasn’t anything to do it with.” ’ He broke off, looked at Miss Silver, and said, ‘It was very convincing. I found I was believing her. It wasn’t what she said, it was something about her.’

Miss Silver looked at him and smiled. She said, ‘I know.’

He went on to tell her the rest of it.

‘She said the other girl had been shot from behind. She had been shot in the head. She was quite sure she was dead. And she was quite sure she hadn’t shot her. She said, “I couldn’t have done it-there wasn’t anything there to do it with.” She said she went down the steps, and the other girl was there, and she was dead.’ He stopped and ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’m telling it very badly. I don’t know-I can’t see how it hangs together. She said she went down the steps with the torch she took out of the bag, and there was this girl in the cellar, and she was quite dead. I don’t know whether it was Anne or not. It seems as if it must have been, but the only thing that makes it seem like that is the letter-Lilian’s letter to Anne. That’s really the only clue.’

‘And you haven’t seen it’

‘No, I’ve only got your account of it.’ He gave a short impatient laugh. ‘It’s the sort of letter Lilian would write!’