Pursuit of a Parcel Read online

  He turned to the door.

  “You will accompany me to the mortuary.”

  Later on in the day Barend Roos walked in upon Mina van Eyden and her sister. They were orphans, living with an invalid aunt. Heiresses too—he would not do so badly for himself if he married Mina. Besides he was in love with her. Enough to make him dislike the errand upon which he was come and to put as good a face on it as possible. He could have wished that Letta was not there. She did not like him, and he had a feeling that he could manage Mina better alone. When they were married, his sister-in-law would not be very often in his house—he meant to see to that.

  He came into the room and stood for a moment without speaking. Then he said in a tone of concern,

  “I am afraid something very unpleasant has happened. Do you remember, Mina, at lunch the other day you said that you thought you had seen Antony Rossiter?”

  Mina turned pale. She threw a frightened look at her sister and took a step towards her. As she did so she said in a nervous voice, stumbling and hurrying over the words,

  “I don’t know—I can’t be sure—I didn’t really know him at all well—it might have been somebody else.”

  “But that’s not what you said the other day.”

  “Mina is always seeing likenesses,” said Letta.

  Barend frowned. “What has happened is this—someone else must have recognized him, because the Gestapo were informed. They went to arrest him at an eating-house kept by a woman who used to be in the Rossiters’ service, but he got away. They made after him, and there was, I believe, some shooting down by the waterside. He tried to cross on the barges and was shot down. The body wasn’t recovered at once, and now there is a question of identification.” He paused, and added in a concerned voice, “I am afraid, Mina, it is going to be necessary for you to identify him.”

  Mina gazed at him in a bewildered manner.

  “Oh, Barend, I couldn’t—I couldn’t possibly! You don’t mean that I’ve got to go and look at him!”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to. You see, there isn’t anyone else.”

  She took another step away from him, her eyes wide with horror. “There’s Cornelius.”

  “Cornelius can’t be found.”

  “How do you mean, he can’t be found? Look for him.”

  “The Gestapo are looking for him,” said Barend grimly. “If they find him, I shall lose a cousin. I’m afraid we can’t count on Cornelius. Come, my dear—I will go with you, and it will all be over very quickly.”

  All this time they had taken no notice of Letta. She might not have been there. In herself, in her mind and spirit, she was alone. In that April week which seemed so long ago she had given Antony Rossiter a quick, passionate love. It had never occurred to her that he would love her. It had never occurred to her that she would love anyone else. She was not jealous of Mina, or of any girl whom he might love. She only wanted to love him. And now he was dead—

  She came back from the thought to the sound of Mina’s hysterical tears. “Barend, I can’t! It would kill me! I have never seen a dead person! Indeed I can’t!”

  A high pride rose in Letta. At least she would see him again. She stepped forward and said, speaking slowly and clearly, “There is no need for Mina to go—she would only faint. I knew Antony just as well as she did. If someone is wanted to identify him, I will go with you, Barend.”

  On the way to the mortuary she was wondering what she would say. If it was going to get anyone else into trouble, perhaps she ought to say she wasn’t sure. No, that wouldn’t do, because then they would drag Mina into it. She never thought it strange that Mina, who didn’t love Antony and had betrayed him, should be shielded at her expense.

  She sat in the car beside Barend and felt a hatred for him that was like a burning fire. That it was he who had given Antony away to the Gestapo, she was as sure as she was of her own hatred. Never while she lived should he marry Mina—she made herself that promise. And some day she would tell him why, and tell him that the van Eydens didn’t marry traitors.

  When they came to the mortuary she went calmly in and looked at a dead, drowned face. She looked at it for a long time. There was a disfiguring wound on the temple. It was rather a horrible sight, but she looked steadily and long. She might have been meeting a lover loved and lost. She might have been taking a last farewell. Her small, dark features were icily composed. Her eyelids were cast down. Only the dead man could have seen her eyes. If there was a dangerous spark in them, only he could have told. She said at last in a clear, controlled voice, “Yes, it is Antony Rossiter.”

  VIII

  Delia felt much happier after she had deposited the parcel at the bank. She sang all the way home, and nobody followed her, which just showed. When you have been feeling very young, inexperienced, and uncertain, it is heartening to find that you have done the right thing. She forgot about Miss Murdle for nearly a quarter of an hour, after which she had an attack of remorse and rang up the cottage hospital. It was a relief to hear that Miss Murdle really wasn’t dead.

  It was after she had got this off her mind that she began to notice Parker’s gloom. He came and went like a mute at a funeral. When Delia went into the dining-room to see if the flowers would do, he was putting away spoons and forks with the air of one who is about to drop the unavailing tear. After five years of co-operation she had not the heart to leave him to it. The flowers would do, so there was really no hurry. She said, “What is it—are you stuck?”

  He turned round gratefully with a tablespoon in his hand.

  “Completely, Miss Delia—all hung up for one word. You don’t happen to think of one seven letters long meaning ‘a bright bridge that sounds cold’? Neither Mrs. Parker nor me can call anything of the sort to mind, and it’s not the kind of thing that a dictionary would be any help for neither.”

  “A bright bridge?”

  “Sounding cold. Sounding nonsense, is what Mrs. Parker says, but I say there’s always something behind these teasers when you get to the bottom of them and as it were clear them up. Of course it stands to reason there must be hundreds and thousands of bridges which me and Mrs. Parker have never so much as heard mention of—nor likely to.” His voice plumbed the depths. “That’s what makes it so disheartening, because even with a college education, which was a thing that never come my way, there ’ud still be all the bridges in a lot of foreign countries which the best education that money could buy mightn’t just happen to bring to your notice, so to speak. I can’t help feeling it’s a very disheartening circumstance, Miss Delia.”

  Delia said, “’M—” and nodded. “Wait a minute—something’s hovering. Did you say it sounded cold?”

  “Yes, Miss Delia.”

  “And seven letters?” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Then I’ve got it—at least I hope I have! But don’t be too buoyed up, in case there’s a snag. Would Bifrost do?”

  Parker looked doubtful. “Is there a bridge by that name?”

  She nodded again. “A rainbow bridge. You see, that fits in with its being bright, and the frost part of it sounds cold. It was the bridge which led up to Valhalla where the old Norse gods and goddesses lived—Thor and Odin, and all that lot.”

  “Indeed, miss? Now Mrs. Parker and me couldn’t have been expected to know that.”

  “I had a book of stories about them when I was a little girl.”

  She was going to say that Antony had given it to her, when she remembered that she wasn’t to talk about Antony. It made him seem very far away.

  The day went on. Six people rang up to say wasn’t it dreadful about Miss Murdle, and what would Mrs. Felton do without her niece. Delia said perhaps she wouldn’t have to do without her, but most of the ladies who telephoned inclined to a gloomier view. Wayshot had never had anything like a murder before, and was all out to extract as much drama from the situation as possible.

  The last person to ring up was Cynthia Kyrle. She giggled and said, “Suppose it had been me—”
/>
  “Why should it have been you?”

  Cynthia giggled again. “But, darling, why should it have been Miss Murdle? Do you think it was a crime passionel?”

  “I think you’re a perfect beast to talk like that!”

  “I am rather. But she isn’t going to die, you know—the parent says so. He says she’s got a very hard skull. But why on earth should anyone try to crack it—that’s what I want to know. Now if it had been me, everyone would have said that it served me right for picking up young men I knew nothing about. They don’t think it’s safe to know anyone unless all your grandfathers and great-grandfathers were at school together. Everybody else is a homicidal lunatic, or a triple bigamist, or something like that. Nobody would have been at all surprised if I had been found weltering in a lane.”

  Delia hung up. She was very glad to hear that Miss Murdle wasn’t going to die, and that being that, she didn’t want to think or talk about her any more. She had been clever and resourceful, she had done the right thing, and everything was going to be all right. Uncle Philip would get well, Antony would come back, the war would come to an end, and they would be married. She began to plan her wedding dress.

  The afternoon was slipping into dusk when Parker opened the drawing-room door and announced Mr. Brown. Delia came out of her dream and got up. She saw a big, heavy man coming to meet her. Parker shut the door, and he said in very good English with just a trace of accent, “How do you do, Miss Merridew—you are Miss Merridew?”

  “Yes.”

  He bowed and put out his hand. Delia felt obliged to take it. It was large, and strong, and cold.

  “Miss Merridew, now that your servant has gone, I must tell you that my name is not Brown. I am Cornelius Rossiter. You will, perhaps, have heard of me from my brother Antony.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You will wonder why I have called myself Brown. It is because I am over here on some very confidential business. It was thought best that I should not use my own name—you can understand that.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He made her feel about six years old—big, smooth, easy, with that impassive face.

  The light, expressionless eyes looked at her as if she wasn’t there. They made her wish to be anywhere else.

  “Won’t you sit down, Miss Merridew? I have come to see you about Antony. I am afraid that I have not got very good news.”

  Delia took a step back and sat down upon the chair from which she had risen. She had sat there and planned her wedding dress. He had come to bring her bad news about Antony.

  He drew up a chair beside her and sat down, all without hurry. Delia pressed her hands together and waited for him to speak. Her eyes were fixed upon his face. He saw them dilate and darken. He said, “I am very sorry indeed to have to bring you such news. Antony was like a brother to me. His parents were the only father and mother I can remember. I have always looked upon him as a brother.”

  He saw her lips part, but no words came. She looked at him. He said, “It grieves me very much to have to tell you that Antony is dead.”

  Delia sat quite stiff and still. There was no motion or life left in her. She did not feel anything at all. She sat there and looked at Cornelius. Presently he said, “I think you were friends. You will want to know how it happened, and I am afraid I cannot tell you very much, because I am ignorant of what you know already.”

  That was how he spoke—a little more formally than an Englishman, but quite fluent, quite easy. It was quite easy for him to tell her that Antony was dead.

  He went on in that easy way.

  “It is like this, Miss Merridew. Antony came over to Holland to see me. It was very dangerous for him to come—you can understand that. I was so far from expecting him that I had, a little while before, arranged for a parcel to be taken to his address in England—I should say to the address of your uncle’s firm. But by the time it arrived everything had changed. Antony was not there to receive it. He had come over to Holland to see me, and most unfortunately he was recognized. He tried to escape arrest and was shot.”

  A quiver went over her at the word, but she did not feel anything yet. She had stopped thinking. If she began to think again, the word would have a dreadful meaning. She quivered under its impact, but she was too numb to feel anything. She went on looking at Cornelius with dark, dilated eyes.

  He was speaking again after a slight respectful pause.

  “I have been more fortunate, since I have arrived here safely. I went at once to call upon your uncle in his office, but I found that it was in ruins and he himself in hospital, permitted to see no one. After some enquiry I arrive at a clerk, a Mr. Holt, who informs me that he has delivered my parcel to your charge in Mr. Merridew’s house. It contains papers of the utmost importance. You will please believe that it distresses me to trouble you now with my affairs. The papers are very important for others as well as for myself. You will not, I hope, think me wanting in consideration if I ask that you will give me my parcel.”

  Delia sat on the edge of her chair, quite still, quite straight. Her hands were in her lap. They held one another so tightly that the fingers were numb. There was no more feeling in them than there was in her heart. Antony was dead, and Cornelius was asking for his parcel. But she couldn’t give him the parcel. She had taken the box down to the bank and left it there. She must tell him that, and then he would get up and go away and leave her alone.

  Her lips were stiff when she tried to speak. The sound they made wasn’t like her own voice at all. She heard it say, “I can’t give you the parcel. I put it in the bank, and the bank is shut.”

  “The bank at Wayshot?”

  “Yes.”

  Now he would get up and go away. There was nothing for him to stay for. The parcel was in the bank. But he didn’t go. He kept that impassive look upon her and said,

  “That is very unfortunate. Those papers are necessary to my business. I cannot afford delay. Every moment is of importance, but if the parcel is in the bank, there is nothing that can be done tonight—you are right about that. I suppose the bank will not open until ten o’clock tomorrow. Well, we must just make the best of it. I will come back again in the morning, with your permission at a little before ten—shall we say about twenty minutes to ten—and then I need not trouble you any more now.”

  He really did go then.

  Delia sat down in her chair. She went on sitting there, quite straight, quit still, quit numb.

  When Parker came in to draw the curtains he said gratefully, “It fitted a treat, Miss Delia. Mrs. Parker said to thank you special from her, because she hadn’t had a wink of sleep for two nights. The fact is, miss, I don’t seem as if I could rest when I’ve got one of those things on my mind, and Mrs. Parker being a light sleeper, she says I don’t give her a chance, and she’s very grateful indeed.”

  He switched on a standard lamp and drew the heavy curtains at the three long windows. They were the new curtains which she had chosen when she left school—dull rose-coloured velvet, very soft, with a bloom on it. The lamp had a shade of ivory vellum. There was a soft light all round it. Delia sat too far away for it to shine on her. The rest of the room was dim and shadowy.

  Parker finished with the curtains and went away. It was dusk outside, and presently it would be dark, and then it would be light again and dark again, and light once more—endless days fading into endless nights, dawn and sunset alternating, winter and spring, summer and autumn, year in, year out, for unnumbered, unnumbered years. Not one dawn when she would wake and say, “Antony will come today.” Not one night when she would lie down to sleep and think, “Antony will come tomorrow.”

  No day, no single day of all the years, when she would see him and hold him again.

  She thought about these things. They did not hurt her yet. She said them, but she did not feel them. She said, “Antony is dead,” and she felt nothing. It began to frighten her that she felt nothing.

  What she did feel at long last was a deathly f
atigue. When she got up from her chair she was so tired that she could hardly stand. She went slowly up to her room, and told Ellen that she was going to bed. Ellen brought her a hot-water bottle and hot soup. The hot-water bottle was comforting, because she was very cold. She drank the soup because Ellen said Mrs. Parker would come up herself if she didn’t.

  A little later when Mrs. Parker, soft-footed as fat women so often are, stood at the doorway looking in, Delia lay drowned in sleep, the bedside lamp, with its tilted shade, throwing a golden glow across her golden hair. Mrs. Parker didn’t hold with sleeping with a light on your face. She tiptoed across the room and turned it out.

  It was a long time after this that the telephone bell rang. The sound came into the deep dreamless place where Delia was and made an echo there—the faint, far echo of a bell ringing in another world. As the stillness broke, she came up out of that drowned sleep into the place where the bell was ringing. For a moment she did not know where she was. Then the bell rang again close beside her, and she put out her hand to the switch of the bedside lamp. The golden glow of which Mrs. Parker had disapproved shone out, making a warm, comforting circle all about her.

  The telephone was at the head of the bed. She lifted the receiver and brought it to her ear, acting mechanically, as you do when your body is awake but your mind not fully conscious. She said, “Hullo!” and heard the voice which she had thought she would never hear again.

  “Is that you? Darling, is that you?”

  She drew as deep a breath as if she had really been drowned and was coming back to life. On that deep, gasping breath she said his name, “Antony!”

  It reached him, but only just. He said, “Better keep off names. I’m back.”

  Delia began to shake.

  She said in a voice that caught and stumbled, “He said—you were—dead.”

  “I very nearly was. But who said so?”

  “Cornelius.”