The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 15

Detective Inspector Frank Abbott looked up.

‘Well, that’s that,’ he said in a tone of heartfelt satisfaction. He was about to pack up and be off, when a card was brought to him. He looked at it, said ‘Jim Fancourt-’ half to himself, and got to his feet.

‘Where is he? Show him in. No, wait a minute-I’ll come.’

Ten minutes later he was back in his room, with Jim Fancourt saying, ‘That’s about all I can tell you. The last I saw of her was getting on board the plane. And that’s all, until I got here and went down to my aunt’s house, and there’s another girl, a complete and total stranger who has turned up instead of Anne. She’s Anne too. What do you make of it?’

‘Funny business,’ said Frank slowly.

Jim nodded.

‘This Anne’s lost her memory. The first thing she remembers is being on the cellar steps in the dark. She says she was giddy and sat down. There was this bag she speaks of, and when she got over being giddy she picked it up, and there was an electric torch inside.’

‘Did your Anne have an electric torch?’

‘I don’t know-I don’t think so. I don’t know what she had. She came out ready to go with a little bundle of things. I don’t know what was in it, but I’m sure she didn’t have the bag, because when I gave her ten pounds English money she put it in the front of her dress. She must have got the bag later, after she got home.’

‘You think it was hers?’

Jim nodded.

‘I think so. The other Anne thinks so too. She didn’t know anything about it-not about the money or anything. There was about ten pounds left-’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, this is what Anne says. She put on the light, and she saw a dead girl lying at the foot of the steps.’

‘How does she know she was dead?’

‘Head injuries-very extensive. And she was cold. She went down the steps and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t any- she’s quite clear about that-and she was quite sure the girl was dead. She began to think about getting away. She put out the torch and waited until her sight cleared. Then she came up the steps into the hall of the house. The door was ajar and she let herself out into the street and shut it behind her. Then she walked down the street until she came out on to the main thoroughfare, where she got on a bus. Two streets along Miss Silver got on to the same bus.’

Frank cocked an eyebrow.

‘Miss Silver?’

‘Miss Maud Silver. She noticed the girl. She got out with her at Victoria and spoke to her. She gave her tea, and she got in return this extraordinary story.’

‘And what does Miss Silver say to it?’

‘Miss Silver thinks it’s true. By the time they’d had tea together she had made up her mind and told Anne what to do. She was to go down to Haleycott to my aunts and wait till I arrived, or till her memory came back. I got in this morning and went down there. My aunts are’-he made a face-‘well, they’re old-maidish.’

Frank held up a hand.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said, ‘you’re going too fast. You haven’t said how she knew where to go.’

Jim bit his lip.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ’I keep thinking I’ve told you more than I have. I did say she’d got a bag, didn’t I-the bag the money was in and the torch? Well, there was a letter in it too from my aunt Lilian, inviting her down there. You see, I’d written to her. They’re old-fashioned, she and Harriet-lived at Haleycott all their lives, or most of them-and I thought it best to give them a little warning, so I sent Anne to this Mrs Birdstock, an old parlourmaid of ours. She was to post the letter I had written to Lilian as soon as she arrived and wait with Mrs Birdstock for an answer. Well, she didn’t do any of those things. That is, she must have sent my letter to Lilian, because the answer to it came there to Saltcoats Road. But she didn’t go there, and she didn’t wait there. I don’t know where she went or what she did. And someone-someone turned up on the third day at Saltcoats Road, said she was Anne, and took away the letter from Lilian. It may have been Anne, or it may have been someone else. If it was Anne, it’s the last time she appeared alive as far as we know. There’s one thing, the bag Anne-the Anne who is alive, not the poor girl who was dead in the cellar-the bag that had the money in it… No, I’m getting this all wrong, and it’ll fog you. Wait a minute. Anne-the living Anne, the girl who is down at Haleycott now-when she turned up in the bus and Miss Silver met her, she had a handbag. It’s the first appearance of a handbag, so it’s important. Anne, the one who’s alive, doesn’t think that the bag belongs to her.

‘She thinks it belonged to the dead girl. I think it was one of the things she bought when she landed. She had very little with her-I don’t know what she had, but she didn’t have a bag.’

‘You don’t know that the bag didn’t belong to the other girl?’

‘Well, I don’t know anything-but I’m guessing. It seems reasonable the way I’m telling it.’

‘Look here, what actually was there in that bag?’

‘A handkerchief, a letter from my aunt Lilian, notes to the amount of ten pounds in the middle, and a little change in the small purse at the side. There was a torch. Anne said she got it out and looked at the dead girl, then she put it away again. That’s the lot.’

Frank was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘And you found this bead in the cellar of a house in Lime Street?’

‘Yes- 37 Lime Street.’

‘And you’re sure that bead you found is from the girl’s necklace?’

Jim said, ‘Look here, I’m not sure about anything. If we were in Russia, there wouldn’t be anything to be sure about-every second girl might be wearing a necklace of that sort. As we’re in London -’ He made a gesture with his hands. ‘It tots up, doesn’t it? There’s this Russian bead on the floor of an empty house, just out of sight-doesn’t that say anything to you? And the floor had been swept and washed as far as the boards leaning up against the wall in the corner. I tell you the girl was murdered there, and I want to know who murdered her. And why’