The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 21

Jim Fancourt went to Scotland Yard as soon as he got up to town. He walked in on Frank Abbott, who was writing, and said with hardly a preliminary, ‘She doesn’t know anything.’

Frank laid down his pen and lifted his eyebrows.

‘She?’ he said.

Jim frowned.

‘Anne-the other girl-the one who found her dead. I told you all about it.’

Frank’s brows went a little higher.

‘All?’ he said.

‘All I knew. I’ve got a little more, but not much.’

‘What have you got?’

‘I went down and saw Anne. She identified the bead I showed you. It was one of a string round Anne Borrowdale’s neck. She said the string was broken. She says she saw the beads there in the cellar-she did see them. I told her about going to the house with Miss Silver, and it all fits. She doesn’t remember going down to the cellar. Her recollection begins half-way down the stairs like I told you. She went down, and made sure that the girl she saw was dead. I told you all that, didn’t I? And when she was sure, she wanted to get away, and I don’t blame her. Do you?’

‘No.’

‘When she was sure the girl was dead she put out the torch and came up the stairs. I told you about all that-her walking along the street, and getting on the bus, and meeting Miss Silver. Well, I went down yesterday and saw her. I told her that I’d been to look for the house, and I showed her the bead. She turned awfully pale when she saw it, and she said the beads that had been round the girl’s neck were like that. I pressed her, and she stuck to it. She said she was sure she had seen them. She shuddered violently when she said it-it evidently brought the whole thing back. She said, “They were there- but the string was broken!” I pressed her about going to the house. She couldn’t remember anything-anything at all- before the moment when she found herself on the cellar stairs with the consciousness that something dreadful had happened. It was after that that she sat down on the steps and waited for her head to clear. She found the bag, got out the torch, and saw the dead girl at the foot of the steps.’ He made an impatient gesture. ‘I told you all that! What’s the good of going over and over it! But it was then that she saw the beads that had been round the girl’s neck. And the string was broken-this one had rolled away and got behind some boards that were leaning up against the wall. Everything else had been cleaned up-washed-tidied away. There was just this one bead behind the boards, and it proves the whole story, doesn’t it?’

‘Well-we’d like to see the girl. Anything more?’

Jim frowned.

‘No-not really. She says that she thinks the house was empty when she was in it.’

‘Why?’

‘She says why didn’t they kill her too if they were there?’

‘How did she get into the house?’

‘She doesn’t know. Everything’s a blank up to the moment she came to in the dark on those steps-’ He paused, and then said, ‘I think she’d seen the dead girl and dropped her own torch-she thinks she had a torch. There was a broken one on the ground by the dead girl. The one she used afterwards was in the bag-the black bag which she thinks must have belonged to the dead Anne. It was lying on the steps beside her. She put out her hand and felt it there when she was sitting down and trying not to faint. She picked it up and opened it, and there was a torch inside, besides some loose change and ten pounds in notes in the inside pocket. I told you all that. She says she doesn’t think the bag was hers, or the money, or the torch. As far as she is concerned she starts from scratch-there on the cellar steps without a penny.’

Frank Abbott frowned.

‘Give me her description.’

‘Whose-the dead Anne’s, or the living?’

‘Both.’

Jim said, ‘This Anne, the living one, she’s tall and slim. She’s anything between twenty and twenty-five-I should say nearer twenty-say twenty-two, twenty-three. Brown hair-dark brown-curly-’

Frank Abbott said, ‘That’s nothing to go by. Very few girls let themselves have straight hair nowadays. Any distinguishing marks?’

‘No. How do you suppose I should know? There aren’t any that show.’

‘And the dead girl?’

Jim stared at him.

‘What’s the good of describing anyone? What’s the good of a description? The dead Anne was a little thicker set and not so tall-about the same age. She had curly hair-it would be naturally curly, I should think, because there wouldn’t be permanent-waving machines out where we were, and she’d been there more than a year with her father.’

Frank Abbott looked up sharply and said, ‘Were you married to her-this girl who is dead?’

‘Not really-there was some kind of a ceremony.’

Frank’s hand lifted and fell again.

‘You told the Americans that she was your wife.’

‘Only way I could get them to take her.’

Frank remarked dispassionately, “There’ll be a row about that.’

‘Can’t be helped. If she’d been alive-but she isn’t, poor girl, she’s dead. It’s the other one, the living Anne, who’s got to be considered now. There’s something going on, I don’t know what, but yesterday a man turned up to see her. I’ve just come up from there, and she told me about it. Now listen-this is what she said. She was planting bulbs, and he came up the garden by himself. She thought he had mistaken the way. When she was telling me about it she was frightened-so frightened that she nearly fainted. We were out on the hillside above the house. I took her out there because I didn’t want anyone eavesdropping.’ He paused.

Frank said, ‘Go on.’

‘I said, “He’s frightened you-what did he say?” And she said-’ He paused.

For a moment he was back on the hillside. He was alone with Anne and she was speaking-‘He said we’ve got to have a talk, and I wouldn’t want to have it in public. I-I turned faint like I did just now, I don’t know why.’ He came back to the office with the voice dying away in his ears-‘It frightened me-it frightened me-’

Frank was looking at him. Jim went on speaking. He repeated her words, the description of the man, and his last words.

‘He said, “I’ll go for now. You’ll remember that we know where you are. And here are some orders for you. You’ll not tell anyone you’ve seen me, or what I’ve said. And when you get your orders you’ll do what you’re told right away, and no nonsense about it! Do you understand?” Then he said, “You’d better!” and he went away. And that was all.’

Frank Abbott said, ‘Very peremptory.’

Jim frowned and said, ‘Yes.’