Outrageous Fortune Page 4

  With recovered confidence Min began to tell him how wonderful Tom was at almost everything—“Why, he can cook as well as I can. And every bit of paper in this house is what he hung himself.” It was a great relief to have Min’s prattle to get them through the meal. She had shy smiles for him now and no longer kept her eye on the door. So much for a shave!

  When breakfast was over, he spoke to Nesta directly.

  “Is there somewhere where we can talk?”

  With no more than a nod she led the way into the parlour, with its saddle-back suite in bright shades of red and blue, its crimson Axminster square, and its silver photograph frames. There were three pink geraniums on the window-sill between blue plush curtains, and on the mantelpiece there was a green vase and a blue vase, and a pink and blue china clock supported on either side by a cherub with pink roses in its hair, and a pink ribbon round its waist. The fireplace was full of white shavings in imitation of the white shavings in Min’s mother’s parlour at Southsea, and the lace curtains which hung together inside the plush ones where also a pious copy. Presently there would be an aspidistra. Min was saving up for one. She had already saved enough out of her housekeeping money to buy a white woolly hearth-rug, and the aspidistra was to come next. The paper so fondly hung by Tom displayed a trellis covered with very large sweet peas in shades of sky-blue, lavender and grey. They crowded in upon the little room and narrowed it to the dimensions of one of those boxes with gay linings which are sold to hold sweets or fancy stationery.

  Into this room, so new, so garish, so commonplace, there came these two angry, incongruous people; and at once its slight emptiness became charged with strain, pressure, resistance.

  Nesta waited for him to begin. She stood with her back to the window, leaning forward over one of the red and blue chairs in a would-be easy attitude. He walked to the woolly mat, turned his back on the cherubs, and said what he had planned to say.

  “This is a rotten deal for you. I want to tell you I’m awfully sorry about it.”

  Heavens! How incredibly difficult she made it! His words, his efforts to get her point of view, slipped back from the hard surface she turned towards him. It was like seeing a fly slip on a pane of glass. She was angry, hard, resentful, cold. But there was something else. He could feel the pressure of her will. Why should she be putting out her will against him like this? It got his back up. It made it too damned difficult to feel or say the decent thing. What was she to him after all, but a stranger whom he disliked? If she pressed him like this, he would let her see it. But of course he would try not to do that—only she was making it damned difficult.

  He said, “I really am sorry,” and the room filled again with her scornful silence.

  She stood there leaning over the back of the chair with bright close-set eyes and just a hint of an angry smile breaking the straight line of her lips. There was something secret about that smile, something that said, “Take care—I can be even with you if I like.” Behind his resentment he felt a creeping fear. What was there between them to make her look like that? What was there between them anyhow?

  He spoke before he knew what he was going to say.

  “Why do you look at me like that? What’s behind all this?”

  “Ah!” said Nesta very softly. “You’d like to know—wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I should.”

  “I wonder whether you’ll like it as much when you do know?”

  “I shall know more about that when you’ve told me.”

  She nodded.

  All at once the tension was less. She said in an easy, ordinary voice,

  “Sure you can’t remember anything, Jimmy?”

  “I’ve told you I can’t.”

  “Then why do you talk about the emeralds in your sleep?”

  It was exactly as if she had come towards him with a smile and then thrown a knife. He had seen knives thrown like that—a dago trick—he didn’t know where or when, but he’d seen it. All right—he’d teach her to throw knives at him.

  He looked at her with an effect of wooden surprise.

  “Do you mind saying that again?”

  She said it again, louder this time.

  “Why did you talk about the emeralds in your sleep?”

  “What emeralds?”—but in his mind there was a lighted space where eight square green stones swung from a man’s hand—eight square green stones, linked two and two with pearls.

  “‘Like a kid’s green beads—’” said Nesta with her eyes upon his face.

  A pulse hammered in his temples. Where did she get that? Someone had said that before … a voice … his voice?

  “You talked in your sleep,” she said. Then she dropped her voice. “Jimmy—where are they?”

  He wrenched away from the picture of the square green stones.

  “Will you tell me what you are talking about?”

  “Will you tell me you don’t know?”

  “Yes, I will. I haven’t an idea what you are talking about.”

  Nesta was smiling. When she smiled, she showed sharp uneven teeth, too small, too close, too pointed. Her brows still frowned, and her eyes were as cold as steel. He had never seen a woman with a sharper, colder look. And all the time she was putting out her will against his. It angered him, like being pushed in a crowd.

  “You wouldn’t know an emerald if you saw one, I suppose?” Then, with a change of voice, “Jimmy, we’ve been partners all through—you simply can’t go back on me like this. Where have you put them?”

  He stuck his chin in the air.

  “What’s the good of talking like that? I don’t remember anything. You say, where have I put them—and I keep on telling you I don’t know what you’re talking about. How much farther do you think that’s going to get us?”

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Something hung in the balance. He saw her checked, hesitating, uncertain. Then with an impatient movement she came round the chair.

  “You want me to tell you things?”

  “If there are things I ought to know.”

  She laughed then.

  “Well, we might as well sit down.”

  “Thanks—I’d rather stand.”

  “And I’d rather sit—and I’m hanged if I’ll get a crick in the neck talking up to you.”

  She dropped into one of the blue and red chairs, and rather unwillingly he took the other. Nesta threw herself back, lit a cigarette, and smoked for a minute in silence. He was determined not to speak to her. At last she said, with an edge to her voice.

  “If you’re playing a game with me, you’ll be sorry for it.”

  He lifted his hand from the arm of the chair and let it fall again.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to that. I thought you were going to explain what you were talking about.”

  She said, “Explain!” on an acrid note of scorn.

  “If you’re not going to explain—” He made as if to rise.

  “Oh, I’ll explain. I hope you’ll like the explanation! Do you really need one? If you do, it may come as a bit of a shock to you.”

  “Do you mind coming to the point?”

  Nesta laughed.

  “Have you never heard of the Van Berg emeralds?”

  He shook his head.

  “Sure? Because you’ve got them somewhere. You took them, you know.”

  He experienced a horrible sliding sensation. It was as if the room had tilted. The chair in which he was sitting tilted. His thoughts slid, but only for a moment. Then he was looking fixedly at a point a little to the left of Nesta’s head and saying quite quietly,

  “Hadn’t you better begin at the beginning?”

  She drew at her cigarette and blew out the smoke.

  “The beginning? That’s before my time. I can’t go any farther back than March.”

  “Then perhaps you’ll begin there.”

  She hesitated again, bent a suspicious glance upon him, and s
aid angrily.

  “If you’re making game of me—”

  He leaned back and closed his eyes. This was the sort of woman who might very easily get herself brained. She exasperated him as much as she repelled him. And he had married her! In heaven’s name—why?

  “All right, I’ll begin. And don’t blame me if I’m telling you what you know already. Every heard of a place called Packham?”

  He shook his head, and then was aware of the name playing hide-and-seek with his thoughts.

  “Well, that’s funny—because that’s where we ran into each other. You don’t remember that?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Well, we did. Mr Entwhistle was abroad, and the Hall was let to Mr Van Berg—Mr and Mrs Elmer Van Berg. That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  “No.” The hide-and-seek went on.

  “Mr Van Berg had just given her the emeralds. His uncle, old Peter Van Berg, left them to him. He was the second richest man in America, and he’d spent half his life collecting emeralds. His nephews got the lot, and he took Packham Hall and gave them to his wife, and she was going to be presented in them and splash about London with the most valuable set of emeralds in the world. She was crazy about them.” She stopped, tilted up her chin, blew out a cloud of smoke, and added, “So were you.”

  He did not allow himself to move.

  “Well?” he said.

  Nesta laughed.

  “Well, that’s where I came in. You tried pretty hard to make me believe you were crazy about me, but you needn’t imagine I was such a fool as to believe you. You were crazy about the emeralds, and you needn’t have troubled to make love to me, because I’d taken the length of your foot in the first five minutes.”

  “But you married me.”

  “Did you think I was going to trust you? I married you because I meant to get my share.”

  “And why did I marry you?” said Jim Riddell pleasantly.

  Nesta coloured high.

  “For what you could get out of me,” she said. “You wanted my help, and you thought it was safer.”

  “It’s very interesting,” said Jim. “Won’t you go on?”

  “Interesting!” She struck her cigarette against the arm of the chair and sent the ash flying.

  “Very. Do you mind telling me how you helped?”

  “I was staying with old Caroline Bussell. I’ve known her all my life—she’s some sort of twenty-eighth cousin. She’s been housekeeper at the Hall since the year one, and she does what she likes with Mr Entwhistle. When you spoke to me that day in the drive—”

  “Yes?”

  “I was going to go next day, because the Van Bergs were coming. I will say you had a nerve.”

  “What did I do?”

  She stared at him resentfully.

  “Why you got me to work it so that I stayed on. It was quite easy for old Caroline. She said I was her cousin and the Van Bergs didn’t care. And then—”

  “And then?”

  She reached out for another cigarette, struck a match, and looked at him over the little yellow flame.

  “Are you trying to make me believe I’m telling you something you don’t know?”

  “I can’t make you believe anything,” said Jim.

  She threw the match into the grate just short of the spangled shavings.

  “Oh, have it your own way! Do you want me to tell you how you pinched the emeralds?”

  He had himself well in hand. He said coolly,

  “I stole them?”

  Nesta laughed.

  “You make me tired, Jimmy Riddell! I stole them!” She tried to mimic his voice. “Do you think you can act the innocent with me like that after the way I’ve heard you talk in your sleep? Why, you’ve never stopped talking, and if I hadn’t got you out of that hospital in double quick time, we should all have been inside.” She laughed again at his blank look and flung out, “Jug—quod—stir! Haven’t ever done time, I suppose? Well you will over this if you don’t cure yourself of talking at night.”

  He leaned forward with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand.

  “You say I took these emeralds?”

  “I say you did—and I’ll say it was a pretty nippy bit of work. Pity you shot him, though.”

  He jerked away from the word.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You shouldn’t have carried a gun,” said Nesta maliciously. “I said so all along.”

  He got up. His spine had gone cold. He felt the sweat break out upon his temples.

  “What’s that you’re saying?”

  Nesta got up too.

  “I’m saying that you shot Mr Van Berg.”

  He went over to the mantelpiece, leaning on it with his two hands, his head bent between them, his eyes staring blankly at the spangled shavings in the grate. What damned nightmare was this? He had broken into a house, stolen property, shot a man for a handful of green stones..… eight square green stones—chained two by two with pearls—swinging from a man’s hand. Whose hand? Van Berg’s hand? He could see it under the light. It was as plain as anything he had seen in all his life—a powerful hand, with spatulate fingers and an old healed scar running from the lower knuckle of the first finger to the root of the thumb. He didn’t see Min’s carefully polished grate with the dazzle of shavings and the small bright blue tiles; he saw Van Berg’s hand with the scar on it, and he knew how the scar had come there. Out of all the things that he had forgotten he remembered this one—that Van Berg had got that scar playing with a pet monkey. No, it wasn’t a bite. The monkey had got fooling with a razor. It was a clean cut. He had forgotten everything in the world, but he hadn’t forgotten Van Berg’s monkey.

  His head swam for a moment. Then he straightened up and half turned, still leaning on the mantelpiece. He caught a curious look on Nesta’s face, a watching look, but it went past him.

  “Is Van Berg dead?” he said.

  “Not yet,” said Nesta.

  “Is he bad?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “If he doesn’t die for a year and a day they can’t hang you.”

  His voice came at her with an angry leap.

  “Is he bad?”

  “So so.” And then, “It’s not your fault he’s not dead. You let him have it all right.”

  He went over to the window and threw it up. He had to push past the pink geraniums; one of the bright blooms snapped off. The room had suddenly seemed crowded with used air. Outside, a light wet wind blew veeringly. There was rain in the wind, but it would not fall yet awhile. It struck damp and cool against his face, and he was glad of it.

  Nesta’s voice came from close behind him.

  “Where did you put the emeralds, Jimmy?”

  He turned blindly, pushed past her, and went blundering through the door and out into the street.

  VII

  Caroline drove to Marley, which, as the day sister had told her, was only eight miles from Elston. She found a charming little village with stone walls and thatched roofs. The cottage gardens were full of white and crimson phloxes, and bergamots, and marigolds, and home-painted signs with the word tea printed on them in tall straggly letters. The thatched roofs were doubtless a refuge for earwigs, but though Marley contained some six hundred inhabitants, with the usual allowance of cows, cats, pigs, hens and children, it did not, so far as Caroline could ascertain, conceal Mr and Mrs James Riddell.

  At first this made Caroline angry. A very bright colour bloomed in her cheeks, and she thought of several things which she would have liked to say to Mrs Riddell. Later on, whilst she was having tea in the prettiest of the cottage gardens, she had what she called a brain-wave. There were earwigs in the thatch. She had just fished the third out of her tea, when the brain waved and she wanted to know why Mrs Riddell had said she was coming to Marley when she wasn’t coming to Marley.

  Caroline had, of course, taken the greatest possible dislike to what she described as that snatching woman. But e
ven people whom you dislike very much don’t as a rule tell entirely purposeless lies; so why had the Snatcher said she was coming to Marley?

  Caroline drank some of her tea hastily, because she was very thirsty and she wanted to get in before the next earwig. She had a feeling that there were going to be more earwigs, and sure enough when she put down her cup there was one in the saucer. She never killed anything, so she just said, “Shush!” and tipped it on to rather a moth-eaten marigold. Then she thought very seriously about Mrs James Riddell. And the more she thought, the less she could think of any reason why she should have told that lie—unless—

  The “unless” was so exciting that Caroline felt quite dazzled by it. Why does anyone give a false address? Because they don’t want to give a real one—and they only don’t want to give a real one because they’ve something they’re ashamed of or something they’ve got to hide. Mrs Riddell had come and fetched him away from the Elston cottage hospital. She had said that he was Jim Riddell, and she had said that she was going to Marley. Well, she hadn’t told the truth about going to Marley, so why should she have told the truth about Jim being Jim Riddell? There may be people whose minds do not work like this, but Caroline’s mind worked this way.

  She deflected a spider from the milk-jug, drank the rest of her cup of tea, and was quite, quite sure that Mrs Riddell was not only a Snatcher but a Lying Snatcher, and that for some irrelevant reason of her own she had disappeared into the blue with Jim Randal—“Because if it wasn’t Jim, how did he have a bit of my letter in his pocket? You can’t get away from that—nobody can.” She could see the twirl with which she had written Caroline—quite an extra one because she was so thrilled about Jim. When you’ve got one man in your family, and have made rather a special hero of him, and haven’t seen him for seven years, it just naturally runs to twirls. Why should anyone but Jim Randal have the torn-off end of a letter with Caroline on it? She ought to have asked the day sister whether it was Caroline with a twirl, because that would have settled it—not that it needed settling, because she felt quite, quite sure. On the strength of which she drank another cup of tea, and was glad that her name was Caroline, and not a name that just anyone might have. She had, of course, never heard of old Caroline Bussell who was housekeeper at Packham Hall.