The Girl in the Cellar

CHAPTER 27

Jim went straight back to Miss Silver.

‘No one knows anything about her. She has simply vanished,’ he said.

Miss Silver picked up her knitting and sat in silence for a minute or two. Then she looked up at him standing on her hearthrug and said, ‘It would be better if you sat down, Mr Fancourt.’

‘I don’t feel as if I could.’

‘Nevertheless it will be better… Thank you. What do you think has happened?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve thought the whole way up on the train. It seems to me there are only two ways of it. Either she went off herself, or she was taken.’

‘That is reasonable.’

‘If she went off herself, why did she leave her purse?’

‘She could have been in a very great hurry’

‘What hurry?’

‘That we do not know. But you say that yesterday when you went down something had happened.’

‘Yes, that man had come down and found her in the garden. He had threatened her. But she didn’t know him, she didn’t know him at all. She had never seen him before. What he said was a complete mystery to her.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said they’d got to have a talk. He said they wouldn’t want to have it in public. He frightened her. She turned quite faint when he said it. He laughed at her and said that she knew what he might say, and she said she didn’t know-she didn’t know anything. She said, “I think that’s what frightened me. If I could have remembered, I wouldn’t have been so frightened. It’s not knowing, not being able to see. It’s like waking up in the night and not knowing where you are.” ’ He repeated the words, and they brought her close to him. He wasn’t in here with Miss Silver. He was out on the windy side of the hill. His arm was round her. He felt her tremble against him.

Miss Silver knitted. She knew very well where he was. She let him be there. Presently he began to speak again.

‘After a little she went on-telling me what he said. I don’t know whether he mistook her for somebody else, but what he said was, “Remember, we know who you are.” Then he said he’d got some orders for her. She wasn’t to tell anyone she’d seen him, or what he had said. And when she got her orders she was to do just what she was told, and at once. Then he said, “You’d better,” and turned round and went away.’

Miss Silver looked up.

‘She did not know him at all?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I see-’ She paused for thought.

Jim’s voice came in.

‘I can’t understand it-any of it. You know how it is. You’re near someone-very near. You know they’re speaking the truth. And when I say you know, I mean you really do know. There’s no guess work about it-there’s only one mind between you. Well, it was like that.’ He sat back in his chair.

Miss Silver inclined her head gently. She said, ‘I see.’

He went on.

‘And then all of a sudden there’s a complete break-you can’t get in touch with them any more. It’s plain hell. What happened-that’s what I keep on trying to get at. What could possibly have happened?’

Miss Silver knitted, in silence for a minute or two. Then she said, ‘It seems to me that there are two alternatives. One is that Anne has recovered her memory. We do not know what that memory may have shown her.’

‘Do you think that?’

‘I do not know. It is evident that something of an extremely disturbing nature occurred. Will you tell me just what happened between you?’

He told her.

She said, ‘The other alternative is that something happened after you left-something that made her decide to get away. Can you think of anything that she may possibly have learned?’

He said, ‘She went in a great hurry.’

He reminded her about the abandoned bag.

‘Then she had no money with her?’

‘None. As far as we know.’

There was another silence. Then Miss Silver said, ‘What sort of woman is your aunt?’

‘Lilian?’

‘If that is her name.’

‘There are two of them, Lilian and Harriet. Harriet is the younger. She is entirely taken up with local good works.’

‘The letter which was in Anne’s handbag was signed Lilian. What kind of woman is she?’

Jim stared.

‘I’ve never seen very much of either of them. State visits at intervals-you know the kind of thing. She’s not a brain. She is just a woman living in the country.’

In Miss Silver’s mind was a clear recollection of something which her friend at Haleycott had said about Lilian Fancourt-‘One of those women who haven’t got very much, but what they’ve got they stick to.’

‘And, if I may ask you-what is the position with regard to the house at Haleycott?’

Jim said slowly, ‘My grandfather left it to me, but-I wouldn’t have turned them out. They’d lived there always. They were the second family. It wouldn’t have been right to turn them out.’

‘Did they know that?’

‘I suppose they knew what my grandfather’s will was. Look here, Miss Silver, you can’t think-’

She fixed her eyes upon his face.

‘I think that no avenue must be unexplored.’

He got up from his chair. It was as if he pushed the whole thing away.

‘Look here, we can’t go into that. If Lilian wanted to do anything, what could she do? Besides, she isn’t like that. She’s a fussy, silly woman. I don’t mind telling you a little of her goes a long way with me. But when all’s said and done, what could she do?’

‘Mr Fancourt, did this man who came see her?’

‘See Lilian? Yes, he did. But I don’t know that he asked for her. Thomasina wasn’t sure whether he said Mrs Fancourt or Miss Fancourt.’

‘And was he with her long?’

‘Thomasina didn’t know. She went back to her pantry. She left him with Lilian.’

They went on talking, and got nowhere.