have not time to notice what my artists wear.'
After Madame Joliet, they interviewed the girls whose names she had given them.
One or two of them had known Anna fairly well, but they all said that she had not been one to talk much about herself, and that when she did, it was, so one girl said, mostly lies.
'She liked to pretend things – stories about having been the mistress of a Grand Duke – or of a great English financier – or how she worked for the Resistance in the war. Even a story about being a film star in Hollywood .'
Another girl said:
'I think that really she had had a very tame bourgeois existence. She liked to be in ballet because she thought it was romantic, but she was not a good dancer. You understand that if she were to say, 'My father was a draper in Amiens ,' that would not be romantic! So instead she made up things.'
'Even in London ,' said the first girl, 'she threw out hints about a very rich man who was going to take her on a cruise round the world, because she reminded him of his dead daughter who had died in a car accident. Quelle blague!'
'She told me she was going to stay with a rich lord in Scotland ,' said the second girl. 'She said she would shoot the deer there.'
None of this was helpful. All that seemed to emerge from it was that Anna Stravinska was a proficient liar. She was certainly not shooting deer with a peer in Scotland , and it seemed equally unlikely that she was on the sun deck of a liner cruising round the world. But neither was there any real reason to believe that her body had been found in a sarcophagus at Rutherford Hall. The identification by the girls and Madame Joliet was very uncertain and hesitating. It looked something like Anna, they all agreed. But really! All swollen up – it might be anybody!
The only fact that was established was that on the 19th of December Anna Stravinska had decided not to return to France , and that on the 20th December a woman resembling her in appearance had travelled to Brackhampton by the 4:33 train and had been strangled.
If the woman in the sarcophagus was not Anna Stravinska, where was Anna now?
To that, Madame Joliet's answer was simple and inevitable.
'With a man!'
And it was probably the correct answer, Craddock reflected ruefully.
One other possibility had to be considered – raised by the casual remark that Anna had once referred to having an English husband.
Had that husband been Edmund Crackenthorpe?
It seemed unlikely, considering the word picture of Anna that had been given him by those who knew her. What was much more probable was that Anna had at one time known the girl Martine sufficiently intimately to be acquainted with the necessary details. It might have been Anna who wrote that letter to Emma Crackenthorpe and, if so, Anna would have been quite likely to have taken fright at any question of an investigation.
Perhaps she had even thought it prudent to sever her connection with the Ballet Maritski. Again, where was she now?
And again, inevitably, Madame Joliet's answer seemed the most likely.
With a man…
II
Before leaving Paris , Craddock discussed with Dessin the question of the woman named Martine. Dessin was inclined to agree with his English colleague that the matter had probably no connection with the woman found in the sarcophagus.
All the same, he agreed, the matter ought to be investigated.
He assured Craddock that the Surete would do their best to discover if there actually was any record of a marriage between Lieutenant Edmund Crackenthorpe of the 4th Southshire Regiment and a French girl whose Christian name was Martine. Time – just prior to the fall of Dunkirk .
He warned Craddock, however, that a definite answer was doubtful. The area in question had not only been occupied by the Germans at almost exactly that time, but subsequently that part of France had suffered severe war damage at the time of the invasion. Many buildings and records had been destroyed.
'But rest assured, my dear colleague, we shall do our best.'
With this, he and Craddock took leave of each other.
III
On Craddock's return Sergeant Wetherall was waiting to report with gloomy relish:
'Accommodation address, sir – that's what 126 Elvers Crescent is. Quite respectable and all that.'
'Any identifications?'
'No, nobody could recognise the photograph as that of a woman who had called for letters, but I don't think they would anyway – it's a month ago, very near, and a good many people use the place. It's actually a boarding- house for students.'
'She might have stayed there under another name.'
'If so, they didn't recognise her as the original of the photograph.'
He added:
'We circularised the hotels – nobody registering as Martine Crackenthorpe anywhere. On receipt of your call from Paris , we checked up on Anna Stravinska. She was registered with other members of the company in a cheap hotel off Brook Green. Mostly theatricals there. She cleared out on the night of Thursday 19th after the show. No further record.'
Craddock nodded. He suggested a line of further inquiries – though he had little hope of success from them.
After some thought, he rang up Wimborne, Henderson and Carstairs and asked for an appointment with Mr. Wimborne. In due course, he was ushered into a particularly airless room where Mr. Wimborne was sitting behind a large old-fashioned desk covered with bundles of dusty-looking papers. Various deed boxes labelled Sir John ffoulkes, dec. Lady Derrin, George Rowbotham, Esq., ornamented the walls; whether as relics of a bygone era or as part of present-day legal affairs, the inspector did not know.
Mr. Wimborne eyed his visitor with the polite wariness characteristic of a family lawyer towards the police.
'What can I do for you, Inspector?'
'This letter…' Craddock pushed Martinets letter across the table. Mr. Wimborne touched it with a distasteful finger but did not pick it up. His colour rose very slightly and his lips tightened.
'Quite so,' he said; 'quite so! I received a letter from Miss Emma Crackenthorpe yesterday morning, informing me of her visit to Scotland Yard and of – ah – all the circumstances. I may say that I am at a loss to understand – quite at a loss – why I was not consulted about this letter at the time of its arrival! Most extraordinary! I should have been informed immediately…'
Inspector Craddock repeated soothingly such platitudes as seemed best calculated to reduce Mr. Wimborne to an amenable frame of mind.
'I'd no idea that there was ever any question of Edmund's having married,' said Mr. Wimborne in an injured voice.
Inspector Craddock said that he supposed – in war time – and left it to trail away vaguely.
'War time!' snapped Mr. Wimborne with waspish acerbity. 'Yes, indeed, we were in Lincoln 's Inn Fields at the outbreak of war and there was a direct hit on the house next door, and a great number of our records were destroyed. Not the really important documents, of course; they had been removed to the country for safety. But it caused a great deal of confusion. Of course, the Crackenthorpe business was in my father's hands at that time. He
