He was laughing now, and still crying. Maybe the whisky was taking hold, and he'd pa.s.s out. Tom put a hand on his arm and shook him gently.

'That's all right, there's nothing you need to tell me. Wait till tomorrow. There'll be new developments then, maybe they'll have found the real girl they're looking for.'

'They have found her,' said Beck with dreadful clarity, and gripped Tom's arm in his heavy, trembling hands. 'I want to tell you. It's been on my mind so long, I've got to tell someone. She isn't mine, you see. Things might have been different if she had been. I never understood her, I never had any influence over her. I was always ashamed and afraid, because she isn't even mine.'

He sagged into Tom's shoulder and lay there, as it seemed, thankfully, almost comfortably. And, my G.o.d, what do you say now? What can you say?'

'You're a little tight, you know, better come to bed and rest. You don't mean this. All parents have these doubts sooner or later, it's one of the hazards of fatherhood.'

His own voice sounded to him like the phoney effort of one privately in acute pain. He got to his feet brusquely, wild to break up this inconceivable party, and lugged Beck up after him, propping him against the arm of the chair until he could get a firm hold on him. And Beck yielded. When had anyone pulled or pushed or propelled him, that he had not yielded? But he went on talking, too, with remorseless misery, all across the room and all along the empty hall.

'You don't believe me. But it's true. My wife told me My wife told me,' he said with self-mutilating satisfaction. 'She'd waited long enough for me to give her a child. In the end she got one where she could. She never told me who. She said what was that to me? I couldn't help her. She held it against me. She still does.'

Somehow, he was never very clear how, Tom got him up the stairs and into his bedroom, and there frankly abandoned him. Sick with disgust and pity, he shut himself into the bathroom and washed the sweat and the p.r.i.c.kling of shame from his face in cold water. He felt like vomiting, but he hadn't had enough whisky. Maybe he ought to go down again and put himself out for the count. It would be one way of shutting the door on all this for a little while.

Was it true? Had she ever really told him such a thing? She might have, she was a woman who could if driven to it, and he was a man to whom it could be done, so crushable that in the end there might be nothing to be done with him but crush him once for all, and finish it. But even if she had told him that, need it necessarily be true? Or a gesture of hatred and cruelty engendered by the bitter frustration of their marriage?

Tom went over and over the bleak sentences he had tried hard not to hear and could not now forget, and for the life of him he couldn't judge what was truth and what wasn't.

But Annet herslf was the heart of the evidence. Was there anything of Beck there, in her clear-cut, self-contained, fastidious dignity? And if she was alien, and the root of their alienation, she might well be wandering, lost, trying to find her own way in a desert without asking for help from anyone. And if she knew-? How could she know? No one could be so inhuman, so insanely self-centred as to tell her? But if if she knew- she knew- And there was nothing he could do for her. Nothing to help or comfort her. Nothing, nothing to make her aware of him.

CHAPTER VI.

They came down from the Hallowmount in the fresh morning light, and separated on the road below, Tom heading for school, George for the southern end of the ridge and the straggling village of Abbot's Bale in the long, bare cleft of Middlehope.

There was an hour yet before he could call the doctor and receive his verdict on Annet; and when he went to Fairford this time he must have a sergeant and a constable with him. Meantime, he could view the escape route and its strategic possibilities, the filling stations, the natives, the chances of picking up evidence. Annet was striking in any circ.u.mstances; even flying past on the pillion of a motorbike (probably stripped of its silencer and ridden with vile technique and viler manners), she might be noticed. If they'd halted at a filling-station with healthily normal young men in the forecourt instead of girls, she certainly would be. Someone might remember.

'So Miss Myra Gibbons always reports back, does she?' said George sceptically. He had received a half-account of last night's unsought confidences, but it stopped well short of the revelation about Annet's parentage. If anyone re-told that tale, short of the most desperate emergency, it would have to be Beck himself.

'Not as fully as father supposes, I fancy. I bet I know one or two things that never got back to the parents. As, for instance, that a couple of uniformed men had to show up at the hall late one Sat.u.r.day night, to stop what promised to be a first-cla.s.s fight. Over Annet. Not her fault, unless she's to blame for looking like she does. A handful of the local ton-up club have taken to looking in at the ballroom about ten to ten, just in time to beat the no-entry or re-entry after ten rule. They know a good-looker when they see one, and they think a good-looker ought to go for their kind. Annet didn't do anything except dance with the leader of the bunch when he asked her. It was her escort who objected when he promptly asked her again. There've been other clashes, too, occasionally, less serious. Oh, yes, even among the respectable and ultra-respectable Annet can set the sparks flying.'

'Then this youngster who tried to corner her had a motor-bike,' said Tom hopefully. 'All the round-the-houses brigade seem to have big, powerful jobs, five hundreds mostly. What beats me is they never seem to do anything or go anywhere with them only round and round the block.'

'Oh, they do now. They go all the three-quarters of a mile between their favourite roosting-ground on the corner of the square and the Rainbow Cafe on the edge of town. And back. One or two,' admitted George on reflection, 'might have the enterprise to get as far as Birmingham. One or two, literally, might get a good deal farther and venture a good deal more, but I wouldn't put it higher than two. And one of 'em's the youngster who fancied her at the dance. And he works,' said George reflectively, sliding into the driving-seat of his almost-new MG, 'at a haulage concern in Abbot's Bale.'

'He does?' A spark of hope kindled professionally in Tom's eye at the thought that the hunt might veer so blessedly away from the school. Not one of ours! One of the black-leather lads, born scapegoats! But could so close an a.s.sociation be formed over a few dances, without a single strictly private meeting? Maybe it could, but the odds seemed against it. He'd never, for instance, taken her home afterwards. She always went home with Myra. Or did her parents merely suppose that she did?

'Of course,' he said dubiously, 'it seems more likely, on the whole, that it was someone from Birmingham, someone who came here to fetch her, and isn't necessarily known here.'

'With Annet planning the operation and telling him exactly where to wait for her and how to get there? It would well be.' It could; she had the stuff of command in her, and pa.s.sion enough for two if the partner proved deficient. 'We're checking at both ends, anyhow,' said George. 'Properly speaking it's Birmingham's case, not ours.'

He was turning the key in the ignition when Tom came loping across to ask: 'You didn't ask your boy, did you? About my questioning them both?'

He was glad to have the full story of that incident off his chest, but very reluctant indeed that it should get back to Dominic. Nothing had been published yet about Annet. Nothing would, if they could get the information they urgently needed some other way; and surely, surely she'd talk this morning, and save herself? It would be superhuman to keep silence still. Supposing she told everything, did her best to co-operate, and she herself turned out to have known nothing about the crime, then her part in the affair, even if it could not be suppressed, would be for ever toned down to its most innocent, and maybe need never erupt into the headlines at all.

'I asked him about their week-end. He told me what he told you.' George's eyes did not commit him at all as to how completely he had believed; but the ghost of a rather rueful smile showed for a moment. 'I didn't say I had any deep motives for asking, and I didn't say you'd tipped me off even inadvertently. But I suspect he already smells a sizeable rat.'

'Did he say anything to make you think so?'

George's smile lost its sourness for an instant. What Dominic had actually said, and very belligerently, was: 'What business is it of Brash 'Arry's, anyhow?' But there was no need to broadcast, that. 'My thumbs p.r.i.c.ked, that's all.' This time he did turn the key. 'So long, Tom, and thanks!'

He drove southward along the flank of the Hallowmount, past the turning to Wastfield, past the new plantations, on towards the slow, descending tail of the ridge, that took such an unconscionable time to decline far enough to permit the pa.s.sage of a road. Yes, if the boy had needed to keep a strict time-table on his return home he might very well be forced to cut that long drive round, and drop Annet where he had picked her up, to climb back over the hill. But why not simply drop her on the bus-route to the village, and let her ride the last stage home as though she'd been to a cinema? Who would have thought anything about her appearance on an evening bus? It might even have disarmed some who had been gleefully scenting a trail of fresh trouble. But half the 'why's' involved in any crime must be answered without too nice a reference to logic. At our best we are not creatures of absolute reason and consistency. Having killed, we are not at our best.

Not much time to do more than run into Abbot's Bale, and take a quick look at the upland road which soon dwindled into a cart-track, plunging at last through a farm-gate to climb the first rough pasture; and then fill up at Hopton's as an excuse for a word with old man Hopton, who was sure to be the only one pottering about the forecourt at this hour. A powerful, bowed, cross-grained little elderly man with an obstinate, surly face that never took anyone in for long. It was one of the very few places where George and the probation officer had ever been able to place their most perilous problem-boys with goodwill and confidence. If they failed there, you were on your way to despairing of them. Some did fail; there was more than enough to despair about in human nature, twentieth-century style. Some, against all the odds, stuck it out and got a stout foothold on life again; there was plenty of ground for hope, too.

George asked after the latest of them, as Hopton flicked his leather squeaking across the windscreen. Hopton opined that the latest was an idle, cheeky layabout with a chip on his shoulder as big as a Yule log; he reckoned he'd shape up about average. Rightly interpreting this as a considerably more encouraging report than it sounded, George turned to the matter that was nearer his heart.

'Ever see young Geoff Westcott these days? He's still driving for Lowthers, isn't he?'

'Hear him more than I see him. Comes clattering in to fill up sometimes, week-ends. Oh, ay, he's still there. Good driver, too, on a lorry. Pity he leaves his manners in the cab when he knocks off. He's h.e.l.l on that three-fifty of his.'

'Fill up last week-end?' asked George.

'Didn't see him. Why? You got something on him?' The shrewd old eyes narrowed on George's face expectantly. 'Didn't see him since Thursday, come to think of it.'

'He's clean, as far as I know,' said George amiably. 'When on Thursday? Just a little job involving a motor-bike, nothing special on him, just eliminating the barely-possibles.'

'He was in in the middle of the afternoon. I remember young Sid asked him what he was doing romping around in working hours, and he said he had three extra days saved up from the summer holidays, and was taking 'em before the weather broke altogether.'

George digested this with a p.r.i.c.kle of satisfaction stirring his scalp. He fished out from his wallet one of the barely-dry copies the police photographer had made him from Annet's photograph.

'What poor girl's he standing up for what other poor girl, these days?'

'Mate,' said Hopton, very dryly indeed, 'you got it wrong. These days the girls ain't surplus round here like they used to be. It's the men who get stood up, even the ones with three-fifties. And if they don't like it, they know what they can do. They're relieved if they can get a girl to go steady, they lay off the tricks unless they want to be left high and dry.'

'You're not telling me young Geoff's got a steady?'

'Hasn't he, though! Wouldn't dare call Martha Blount anything but steady, would you?'

'No,' owned George freely, 'I wouldn't!' If Martha Blount meant marriage, the odds were that she wasn't wasting her time. There were still Blounts round the Hallowmount, nearly three centuries after Tabby blundered in and out of fairyland. 'How long's this been going on?'

'Few weeks now, but it's got a permanent look about it.'

'Ever seen him with this one? Before or since.' George showed the grave and daunting face, the straight, wide eyes that made it seem a desecration to mention her in such light and current terms.

'Oh, I know her her. That's the old schoolmaster's girl, from up the other valley. Used to teach my nephew, he did, they nearly drove him up the wall before he got out of it and moved to Fairford. She's a beauty, that one,' he said fondly, tilting his head appreciatively over Annet's picture. 'No, I've never seen her her with Geoff Westcott. Wouldn't expect to, neither.' with Geoff Westcott. Wouldn't expect to, neither.'

No, and of course they'd know that, whether they ever acknowledged it or not, and take care not to affront the village's notions of what was to be accepted as normal and what was not. Still, one asked.

'Now if you'd said him him,' said Hopton unexpectedly, and nodded across the street.

Outside the single hardware shop a young man in a leather jacket of working rather than display cut had just propped a heavy motor-cycle at the pavement's edge, and was striding towards the shop doorway. A tall, dark young man, perhaps twenty-five, scarcely older, possibly younger; uncovered brown hair very neatly trimmed, a vigorous, confident walk, none of the signs of convulsed adolescence about him. And a striking face, dark and reticent as a gipsy, with a proud, curled, sensitive mouth. He was in the shop only a minute, evidently collecting something which had been ordered and was ready for him, tools of some kind; a gleam of colour and of steel as he stowed the half-swathed bundle in his saddle-bag, straddled the machine with a long, leisurely movement of his whole body from head to toes, kicked it into life, and roared away from the pavement and along the single street. In a few moments he was out of sight.

'Seen her with him him times enough,' said Hopton, as if that was perfectly to be expected. times enough,' said Hopton, as if that was perfectly to be expected.

'Have you, indeed! And who is he? I don't even know him.'

'Name of Stockwood. He's another of 'em. See him behind the wheel of the Bentley, and b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Put him astride one of them there BSAs they keep for running up and down to the plantations and the farms, and he sprouts horns. He does look after them, though, I will say that. They come in now and again to be serviced some rough rides they get, the estate being what it is and you can tell a machine that's cared for.'

'Are you telling me,' asked George intently, light dawning, 'that that's Mrs Blacklock's chauffeur? Since when? There used to be a thin, grey-haired fellow named Braidie.'

'Retired about three months ago, and this chap came. Name of Stockwood. I've seen him him driving the Beck la.s.s home often enough.' driving the Beck la.s.s home often enough.'

George stood looking thoughtfully after the faint plume of dust that lingered where the rider had vanished. So that was the reliable human machine that guarded Annet from undesirable encounters by regularly driving her home. Pure luck that he should be seen for the first time not with the car, but with one of the estate utilities, and consequently out of strict uniform. Chauffeurs are anonymous, automatic, invisible; but there went a live, feeling and very personable young man. Was it quite impossible that Annet, startled and disarmed by the change from Braidie's elderly, familiar person, should steal glances along her shoulder in the Bentley, on all those journeys home, and see the man instead of the chauffeur?

'All right,' said George, 'break off. No use going on like this, leave me alone with her.'

He got up from his chair and went to the window of the living-room, and stood staring out vaguely through a mist, as though he had been wearing gla.s.ses and steamed them opaque with the heat of his own exhaustion. Sweat ran, slowly and heavily, between his shoulder-blades. Who would have thought she had the strength in her to resist and resist and resist, fending off solicitude as implacably as reproaches? She looked so fragile that you'd have thought she could be broken in the hands; and it seemed she was indestructible and immovable.

He heard them get up obediently and leave the room, Price first with his note-book, that had nothing in it but a record of unanswered questions, then Sergeant Grocott, light-footed, closing the door gently behind him. Mrs Beck had not moved from the chair by the couch.

'Alone,' said George.

'I have a right to be present. Annet is my daughter. If she wants me-'

'Ask her,' he said without turning his head, 'if she wants you.'

'It's all right, Mother,' said Annet, breaking her silence for the third time in two hours. Once she had said: 'Good morning!' and once: 'I'm sorry!' but after that nothing more. 'Please!' she said now. 'Mr Felse has a right. And I don't mind.'

The chair shrieked offence on the polished floor. Mrs Beck withdrew; the door closed again with a frigid click, and George and Annet were alone in the room.

He went back to her, and drew a chair close to the studio couch on which she was ensconced in the protective ceremony of convalescence. Mrs Beck, surely, had arranged the tableau, to disarm, to afflict him with a sense of guilt and inhibit him from hectoring her daughter. He doubted if Annet had even noticed. Silent, pale and withdrawn, the small, painful frown fixed on her brow as though she agonised without respite at a problem no one else could help her to solve, she looked full at him while she denied him, as though she saw him from an infinite distance but with particular clarity. Bereft even of her fantasy wedding ring, she clung at least to her silence, an absolute silence now.

'Annet, listen to me. We know you were there. We've got a firm identification of you from two witnesses now. And your ring came from the dead man's stock. All this is fact. Established. n.o.body's going to shake it now. We know there was a man with you. We know you waited for him on the corner. We know the exact time, and it fits in with the medical estimate of the time the old man died. This is murder. An inoffensive old man, who'd never done anything to you, who didn't even know you. Who'd never seen his murderer before. Just a chance victim, because the time was right and the street was empty, and there was money just being checked up in the till. A quick profit, and what's a life or so in the cause? That's not you, Annet. I know society is dull and censorious and often wrong, I know its values aren't always the highest. But if you diverge from its standards, it surely isn't going to be for lower ones. There's only one thing you can do now, and only one side on which you can range yourself. Tell me what happened. Tell me the whole story.'

She shook her head, very slightly, her eyes wide and steady upon his face. She let him take her hands and hold them, tightly and warmly; her fingers even seemed to accept his clasp with more than a pa.s.sive consent. But she said nothing.

'Have I to tell it to you? I believe I can, and not be far out. You were coming past the shop together, maybe the old man was just putting the mesh gate across, ready to close. Your companion stopped suddenly, and told you to wait for him. Probably you were surprised, probably you wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't let you. He stood you on the corner, well out of earshot of what he intended to do, and told you he was going to buy you something, and it was to be a surprise. And you did what he wanted, because you wanted nothing else in the world but to do everything he wanted, because all your will was never to deny him anything. And maybe what he intended, then, was only robbery, if he hadn't hit too hard. Frightened boys turning violent for the first time frequently do.'

The hands imprisoned in his suddenly plunged and struggled in their confinement for an instant. Her face shook, and was still again.

'I know,' said George, sick with pity. 'I told you, none of this goes with you, nothing except your loving him. That happens, who can blame you for that? Personally, I don't think you knew a thing about either robbery or murder until I sprang it on you last night. He came back to you and gave you the ring, and so much of you was concentrated on that as a gift and a promise, as a kind of private sacrament that if he was agitated or uneasy you didn't notice it. He hurried you away, and all you knew was that he'd bought you a wedding ring, on impulse, on a sentimental impulse at that, with money he couldn't really afford. A sweet, silly thing to do. But he left Jacob Worral dead or dying in the back room, switched off the shop lights and drew the gate to across the doorway. And n.o.body saw him. n.o.body knows who he is. n.o.body but you, Annet.'

He had got so far when he saw that she was crying, with the extraordinary tranquillity of despair, her face motionless, the tears gathering heavily in her dilated eyes, and overflowing slowly down her cheeks. No convulsive struggle with her grief, she sat still and let it possess her, aware of the uselessness of all movement and all sound.

'Surely you see that the best thing you can do, ultimately, even for him, is tell me the whole story. Who is he, this young man of yours? Oh, he loved you very much I know! He wanted to be with you, to give you things, because he loved you. He wanted more than a stolen week-end, he wanted to take you away with him for good. But he had to have money to make that possible. A lot of money. And he took what he thought was a chance, when it offered. But think what his state must be now, Annet! Do you think it's enviable to be a murderer? Even the kind that gets away with it? Think about it, Annet!'

And maybe she did think about it; she sat gazing at him great-eyed, perhaps unaware of the tears that coursed slowly down her face, but she never spoke. She listened, she understood, there was a communication, of that he had no doubt; but it was still one-sided. He could not make her speak.

'If you love him,' said George, very gently and simply, 'and I think you do, you'll want to do the best for him, and save him from the worst. And being convicted, even dying, isn't necessarily the worst, you know.'

The word pa.s.sed into her with a sharp little jerk and quiver, like a poisoned dart, but it did not startle her.

'You see, I'm not lying to you. This is capital murder, and we both know it. It may not come to that extremity; but it could. But even so, Annet, if it were me, I'd rather pay than run. You can't save him now from killing, but you can spare him the remembering and hiding and running, the lying down with his dead man every night, and getting up with him every morning-'

Still she kept her silence, all she had left; but she bowed forward suddenly out of her tranced grief, felt towards George's shoulder with nuzzling cheek and brow, and let herself lie against him limp and weary, her closed eyelids hidden on his breast. He gathered both her hands into one of his, slipped the other arm round her gently, and held her as long as she cared to rest so. He made no use of the contact to persuade or move her; the compa.s.sion and respect he felt for her put it clean out of his power.

She drew away from him at last with a sigh that was dragged up from the roots of her body. She looked up, while his face was still out of focus to her, and in a soft, urgent voice she said: 'Let me go! Don't watch me! Take your man away from the house, and let me go.'

'Annet, I can't.'

'Please! Please! Take him away and leave me free. Tell them not to watch me. You could if you would.'

'No,' said George heavily, 'it's impossible.'

She took her hands from him slowly, and turned her face away, and the silence was back upon her like an invisible armour through which he could not penetrate. He got up slowly, and stood looking down at her with a shadowed face.

'You realise, Annet, that if you won't give us the information we need, we must get it elsewhere. So far we've kept you from the Press, but if you won't help us we shall have to make use of your name and photograph. There'll be people who'll remember having seen you during the week-end. There must be someone who knows where you spent those nights in Birmingham. Time is very important, and you can't be spared beyond today. You understand that?'

She nodded. The averted face shivered once, but she made no protest.

'I ask you again to make that unnecessary. Tell me, and we shan't have to put you in the pillory.'

'No,' said Annet absolutely; and a moment later, in indifferent rea.s.surance: 'It doesn't matter.' He understood that she was disclaiming any consideration for herself, and acknowledging his right and duty to expend her if he must. More, after her fashion she was comforting him.

He turned his back on her wearily, and went out without a word more. He could get tears from her, he could get warmth from her, but he could not get words. What was the use of persisting in this impossible siege? But he knew he'd be back before the day was out. How could he leave her to destroy herself?

'I'm leaving a man on guard,' he said to Beck in the hall. 'And I want you to let me place a policewoman in the house with Annet, as an additional precaution. It's for her protection, you surely realise that. Make sure that somebody's always with her, don't let her out of your sight. And don't let anyone in to her but the police.'

He wasn't going to lose Annet if he could help it, however wantonly she was offering herself as a sacrificial victim. Let me go, indeed! George shrugged his way morosely into his coat, and went to report total failure to the Chief of the County CID.

'Do you want her arrested, or don't you?' demanded Detective-Superintendent Duckett, before the tale was finished. 'Seems to me you don't know your own mind. If she was my girl, I'd hustle her behind bars and heave a sigh of relief. And I'd make sure of putting her out of reach before the evening paper rolls out on the streets at one o'clock. We've done it now.'

'Had to,' said George grimly. 'There's nothing to be got out of her, and we can't afford to lose today. I warned her. She knows the odds. Not that that lets us out.'

'Well, if you've put the brightest girl we've got in the house with her, and left Lockyer on guard outside, I don't see what harm she can come to.'

All the same, they had crossed a Rubicon there was no re-crossing, and they knew it. Once the regional Evening News Evening News. .h.i.t the streets all the world would know that Annet Beck was 'expected to be able to help the police' in their enquiries into the Bloome Street murder; that she had been identified by witnesses as having been in the district at the time; and that further witnesses to her movements in Birmingham were being sought, with a photograph of Annet to remind them in case they were in doubt of the face that went with the name. hit the streets all the world would know that Annet Beck was 'expected to be able to help the police' in their enquiries into the Bloome Street murder; that she had been identified by witnesses as having been in the district at the time; and that further witnesses to her movements in Birmingham were being sought, with a photograph of Annet to remind them in case they were in doubt of the face that went with the name.

'No,' said George, 'I don't want to arrest her. I admit I was tempted to do it the easy way, and put her clean out of his reach. He may not have much faith in her silence; and however surely he committed the crime for her in a sense in the first place, his terror now is liable to be all for himself, and all-consuming. He must have been wildly uneasy already; he'll be frightened to death when he sees the paper. But there it is I don't want to bring her in, because I'm convinced she's absolutely innocent apart from this d.a.m.ned mistaken loyalty of hers after the event.'

'Well, let's hope the photograph will bring in somebody who saw and remembers them in Birmingham. Somebody who can give us a good description of the boy. Up to now, what do we really know about him? No one's admitted to seeing him, he left no distinguishable prints on the gla.s.s cases or the latch of the door or the candlestick soft leather gloves, apparently. Trouble is, they all know the ropes by now. He's still totally invisible and anonymous, to everybody but the Beck girl. He may be from anywhere, he may be anyone. All we can say with reasonable certainty is that he must be someone young enough and attractive enough to engage a girl's attention. And what does that mean? Most of the young ones you see about, these days, you wouldn't expect a smart girl to want to be seen dead with, but they break their hearts over 'em just the same. And what else do we know about him? That he's got no money. He has to get it the quick, modern way in order to be able to take his girl about in style. But which of 'em have got money? They make what most of us used to keep a family on, but they're always broke before the end of the week. And that's it. A blank.'

'Except that he may may have a motor-bike,' said George, and stuffed his notes sombrely back into his pocket. ' have a motor-bike,' said George, and stuffed his notes sombrely back into his pocket. 'If we accept that the tracks down in Middlehope are relevant. Nothing positive from London yet on our friend's week-end?' we accept that the tracks down in Middlehope are relevant. Nothing positive from London yet on our friend's week-end?'