'Agnes? Oh, she's sure to be in by now.'
I felt a fool, but I went on with it:
'Do you mind just seeing if she has turned in, Miss Holland?'
There is one thing to be said for a nursery governess; she is used to do when told. Hers not to reason why! Elsie Holland put down the receiver and went off obediently.
Two minutes later I heard her voice: 'Are you there, Mr. Burton?'
'Yes.'
'Agnes isn't in yet, as a matter of fact.'
I knew then that my hunch had been right.
I heard a sound of voices vaguely from the other end, then Symmington himself spoke:
'Hullo Burton, what's the matter?'
'Your maid Agnes isn't back yet.'
'No. Mrs. Holland has just been to see. What's the matter? There's not been an accident, has there?'
'Not an accident, properly.'
'Do you have reason to believe something has happened?'
I said grimly:
'I shouldn't be surprised.'
I slept badly that night.
I think that even then, there were pieces of the puzzle floating about in my mind. I believe that if I had given my mind to it, I would have solved the whole thing then and there. Otherwise why did those fragments tag along so persistently?
How much do we know at any time? Much more, or so I believe, than we know we know! But we cannot break through to that subterranean knowledge. It's there, but we cannot reach it.
I lay on my bed, tossing uneasily, and only vague bits of the puzzle came to torture me.
There was a pattern, if only I could get hold of it. I ought to know who wrote those damned letters. There was a trail somewhere if only I could follow it…
As I dropped off to sleep, words danced irritatingly through my drowsy mind:
'No smoke without fire. No fire without smoke. Smoke… Smoke? Smoke screen… No, that was the war – a war phrase. War. Scrap of paper… Only a scrap of paper. Belgium – Germany… '
I fell asleep. I dreamed that I was taking Mrs. Dane Calthrop, who had turned into a greyhound, for a walk with a collar and lead.
It was the ringing of the telephone that roused me. A persistent ringing.
I sat up in bed, glanced at my watch. It was half past seven. I had not yet been called. The telephone was ringing in the hall downstairs.
I jumped out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown, and raced down. I beat Partridge coming through the back door from the kitchen by a short head. I picked up the receiver.
'Hullo?'
'Oh -' It was a sob of relief. 'It's you!' Megan's voice. Megan's voice indescribably forlorn and frightened. 'Oh, please do come – do come. Oh, please do! Will you?'
'I'm coming at once,' I said. 'Do you hear? At once.'
I took the stairs two at a time and burst in on Joanna.
'Look here, Jo, I'm going off to the Symmingtons'.'
Joanna lifted a curly blond head from the pillow and rubbed her eyes like a small child.
'Why – what's happened?'
'I don't know. It was the child – Megan. She sounded all in.'
'What do you think it is?'
'The girl Agnes, unless I'm very much mistaken.'
As I went out of the door, Joanna called after me, 'Wait. I'll get up and drive you down.'
'No need. I'll drive myself.'
'You can't drive the car.'
'Yes, I can.'
I did, too. It hurt, but not too much. I'd washed, shaved, dressed, got the car out and driven to the Symmingtons' in half an hour. Not bad going.
Megan must have been watching for me. She came out of the house at a run and clutched me. Her poor little face was white and twitching.
'Oh, you've come – you've come!'
'Hold up, funny-face,' I said. 'Yes, I've come. Now what is it?'
She began to shake. I put my arm around her.
'I – I found her.'
'You found Agnes? Where?'
The trembling grew.
'Under the stairs. There's a cupboard there. It has fishing rods and golf clubs and things. You know.'
I nodded. It was the usual cupboard.
Megan went on:
'She was there – all huddled up – and – and cold – horribly cold. She was – she was dead, you know!'
I asked curiously, 'What made you look there?'
'I – I don't know. You telephoned last night. And we all began wondering where Agnes was. We waited up some time, but she didn't come in, and at last we went to bed. I didn't sleep very well and I got up early. There was only Rose (the cook, you know) about. She was very cross about Agnes not having come back. She said she'd been before somewhere when a girl did a flit like that. I had some milk and bread and butter in the kitchen – and then suddenly Rose came in looking queer and she said that Agnes' outdoor things were still in her room. Her best ones that she goes out in. And I began to wonder if – if she'd ever left the house, and I started looking around, and I opened the cupboard under the stairs and – and she was there…'
'Somebody's rung up the police, I suppose?'
'Yes, they're here now. My stepfather rang them up straightaway. And then I – I felt I couldn't bear it, and I rang you up. You don't mind?'
'No,' said. 'I don't mind.'
I looked at her curiously.
'Did anybody give you some brandy, or some coffee, or some tea after – after you found her?'
Megan shook her head.
I cursed the whole Symmington menage. That stuffed shirt, Symmington, thought of nothing but the police. Neither Elsie Holland nor the cook seemed to have thought of the effect on the sensitive child who had made that gruesome discovery.
'Come on, slabface,' I said. 'We'll go to the kitchen.'
We went around the house to the back door and into the kitchen. Rose, a plump pudding-faced woman of forty, was drinking strong tea by the kitchen fire. She greeted us with a flow of talk and her hand to her heart.
She'd come all over queer, she told me, awful the palpitations were! Just think of it, it might have been her, it might have been any of them, murdered in their beds they might have been.
'Dish out a good strong cup of that tea for Miss Megan,' I said. 'She's had a shock, you know. Remember it was she who found the body.'
The mere mention of a body nearly sent Rose off again, but I quelled her with a stern eye and she poured out a cup of inky fluid.
'There you are, young woman,' I said to Megan. 'you drink that down. You haven't got any brandy, I suppose, Rose?'
Rose said rather doubtfully that there was a drop of cooking brandy left over from the Christmas puddings.
'That'll do,' I said, and put a dollop of it into Megan's cap.
I saw by Rose's eye that she thought it a good idea.
I told Megan to stay with Rose.
