seriously.”
She focused a curiously sharp look on him. She hesitated about what she was going to say. Then she obviously said something else.
“Well,” she said, “we’ll see.”
Mr. Hinckleigh, coated again and with gloves and cane, was holding open the bronze door. On the pavement, the girl said: “We’re going this way, Dr. Maclaren. Are you coming with us?”
“No. I go the other way.”
He was not sure whither it led. He turned one corner and another, and perhaps two more. Corners were of no account. He was without a destination. He might have been a blind man tapping along for all he saw of the streets he traversed. His bitter preoccupation with Ruth Meriden left no chink for another thought, and it was only through her that he again approached the outside world. He had dismissed anxiety in his relief at seeing her. Now it wormed a way into his mind again, but he resisted it, bitterly now. He had been harried by groundless fears in the night. Were they any less groundless this morning? He looked about him and found he was in Oxford Street, approaching Marble Arch. He had nothing to do at Marble Arch, so he decided on the opposite direction.
Turning, he remembered the tall man in the flapping raincoat, and kept a lookout for him. As he walked on, that long grey coat became a symbol for him. It was, in absence, the groundless fear. If he encountered it again, then the fear would be real. He was confident, very confident, and it was not through the glaucoma of wishful thinking that he failed to see the coat. He went through the old tricks to prove it to himself. He invented new ones. He tried side streets and unpeopled back ways. He explored the mews and mazes of Mayfair. He dawdled over small purchases in obscure shops. No one followed him, yet he no longer found comfort in this certainty. He was too distracted about the mere existence of Miss Meriden to find comfort.
The walking had left him rather tired. He found a restaurant and lunched. When he was out in the street again, he thought of going home, but could not face an afternoon alone in the flat. Next he thought of looking up some of his neglected friends, but this idea had even less appeal for him.
He passed a cinema, hesitated, turned back and bought a ticket. There was a comedy that reminded him of the tall man’s coat. It was much too long and it flapped badly; also it was very unfunny. He waited for the second film, and that wasn’t funny either. It was about a young girl who lived with a strange family in a lonely country house full of long dark passages, winding staircases, and terrifying furniture. There were three brothers, an elderly housekeeper, and something that lived at the top of the house. One of the brothers was murdered, and then a hand came out of the darkness, seized the girl, and drew her behind a heavy curtain.
Andrew didn’t wait for any more. He could not leave Ruth Meriden alone in that isolated house; he must insist that she stay in town till there was no longer any danger. If she objected, he would go to Stock or to someone else at Scotland Yard and insist that she be given protection.
The time was nearly four when he left the cinema. Possibly she would still be entertaining the American dealer and Mr. Hinckleigh at Walden House, but, if luck favoured him, the guests would be gone by the time he reached Cheriton Shawe.
He was in time to catch the four o’clock coach. When he got down at Wyminden Lane it was nearly five. He crossed the road and rang the bell of the first house he came to. He asked if there was any garage close by where he could hire a car. There was. He telephoned from a box at the next corner, and in less than five minutes he was speeding towards Cheriton Shawe.
When they came to the gateway, he asked the driver to wait for him. He stepped over the chain and took the short cut to the house across the lawn of the statues. He rang the bell. There seemed to be nobody at home. He rang again, and, after a further delay, the maid opened the door.
“You been ringing long, sir?” she asked. “I was just making ready to go home.”
“I want to see Miss Meriden,” he announced. “Is she in her studio?”
“No, sir. She’s not here at all, sir.”
“You mean she went back to London with the guests?”
“There’s been no guests, sir. That’s been put off like. Was she expecting to see you?”
“No, not exactly. Have you heard from her?”
“She rung up the Swan, sir, and the landlord sent my brother along with the message to say that nobody was coming and the mistress wouldn’t be home.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’ll be staying in town tonight.”
“At her Chelsea flat?”
“I suppose so, sir. She always stays at her flat.”
“What time did she ring up?”
“Must have been about three, sir.”
Andrew was worried. He had a feeling that something had gone wrong, that she was in trouble. “Listen, Gert,” he said, “I came all the way from town to see her. It’s important. Can you give me the address of the Chelsea flat?”
“Well, I don’t know, sir.”
“You mean you don’t know where it is?”
“Yes. I go in to help Miss Meriden with the cleaning sometimes. I know where it is all right, but she’s a bit particular.”
He deliberated whether he would produce a pound note or not, and decided that it might be fatal. Gert gave an overwhelming impression of incorruptibility.
“It’s very important, Gert,” he urged. “You know I’m a friend. I was out here yesterday, remember?”
“I remember all right.” Gert was dubious on only one point. “Are you sure Miss Meriden would like me to give you the address?”
“I’m sure she won’t blame you. I’ll guarantee it.”
Somehow Andrew got the worried frown off his face and turned on one of his confident smiles. It always worked with patients. It worked with Gert.
“Oh, well,” she said, “you did stay to lunch, so I suppose it’s all right. The flat’s at 18 Palgrave Street, top floor. The way I usually go, I take the tube to Sloane Square.”
“Thanks. I know the street. I must hurry back to town.”
He hurried. The coach from Wyminden Lane sped through gathering dusk, and lights were on along the route. At Oxford Circus he took to the tube and got out at Sloane Square. He found the house in Palgrave Street and rang Ruth Meriden’s bell. No one came down the stairs to admit him. The house door was locked. He rang the bell again and worried whether it worked or not. It was an old house, and the bell buttons looked as if they had been there in the days when Franklin flew kites. The name plate opposite the button had been rubbed almost flat with much polishing so that you had to take an oblique view to read it in the flame of a match.
Once more he tried the bell. Then he went down the steps from the porch and out onto the roadway, and looked up. There were lights behind the blinds or curtains of all the windows except those on the top floor.
He fought down a feeling of panic. It was all right. He had come here merely to check the maid’s story, but there was really no need to doubt its accuracy. She had gone to dinner with that American dealer. Or she was spending the evening with Hinckleigh. Probably she had stayed in town to spend the evening with Hinckleigh, and that was all there was to it. Why anyone should bother about a woman who could bring herself to spend an evening with Hinckleigh…
The door of the house opened as he teetered in indecision. A white-haired old lady, dressed for an Edwardian night out, came down the steps and was turning in the direction of King’s Road when she saw him.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Have you been making all that infernal racket with the top-floor bell? Enough noise to wake the dead. What’s the matter? Are the duns working overtime?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was anxious to get hold of Miss Meriden.”
“High time somebody was.” Her sweet little laugh made him want to strangle her. “That young girl is too serious; much too serious. It’s no use your ringing that bell again. She isn’t home.”
“Do you know if it’s long since she went out, madam?” Andrew’s tone of high courtesy was marred by a slight tremor.
“About six weeks, I should say.” The old lady laughed gleefully.
“Hasn’t she been at the flat this evening?”
