Blindfold (7 page)

Miles, suddenly aware of her gaze, thought what a pretty girl she was. She looked quickly away, her heart thumping. He was the only person in the whole world who knew just what had happened to her at No. 16 Varley Street. He was the only person she could talk to about it. And she must talk to him—oh, she
must
. Ever since she had heard about Ivy she had had the most awful sick feeling of fear. She didn't believe that Billy had pushed Ivy into the river, and she didn't believe that Ivy had thrown herself in. Ivy wasn't the sort of girl to throw herself into a river, not if it was ever so. And she'd no reason neither, because she and Billy had made it up, and the day fixed and all. No, Ivy had been pushed. And Billy couldn't have pushed her, because he was over with his brother in Bermondsey, and lucky for him there were plenty to swear to it.

She shivered again. If she could talk to Mr Miles, she might get it out of her head that Ivy had been pushed because she, Flossie, had gone to 16 Varley Street as Ivy Hodge and seen what she hadn't been meant to see. Another glass clinked. She was glad to get out of the room.

“My! You
were
clumsy with those glasses!” said the parlour-maid. “What are you shivering for? Hot as hot, I call it. I don't know how she stands it. But there—she doesn't wear anything under those evening dresses of hers—not a stitch of any sort or kind, if you'll believe me. It's not what I call nice, myself.”

The bridge was rather inconsequent, because Lila talked all the time. She had an artless way of looking over Freddy's hand and commenting on what she saw there, and she was also very generous in imparting information about her own.

“Oh, my poor sweet—what a perfectly foul hand! Only two court cards! I
do
wish I could give you some of mine—I'm simply stiff with them! Now, if you had my ace and king of hearts—Ian
darling
, talking of hearts,
have
you heard the latest about Posh Winterbotham? He really has broken off with that Margarita woman at last, and she's bringing an action for breach of promise against him. She must have the most positively iron nerve!”

It was during the fourth rubber that Fitz cropped up again, a drop in the incessant spray of Lila's conversaversation.

“Fitz says—”

And then all of a sudden Ian Gilmore was asking rather abruptly, “What's all this, Lila?”

Miles was dealing. He and Freddy had been talking, and then Freddy had cut to him and he had started to deal. He looked up from the cards when Ian spoke and the thought went through his mind, “What's up with Gil?”

Lila looked a little hurt.

“Darling Ian!
Everybody's
talking about it! Fitz says it's what he calls a hang-over from the Vulture affair!—Miles darling, you simply
must
listen, because if you're aiming at being a sleuth, it's all in your line and really too intriguing—Fitz says the Vulture was
the
most marvellous super-crook with irons in the fire all over the place, and when he was killed it was the most
shattering
blow, but the organization's been pulling itself together again, and they
think
they've got a new head, and the American government and the French government—”

Ian Gilmore hacked his brother Freddy sharply on the left shin bone, whilst at the same moment he interrupted Lila.

“When you say the French government, which of them do you actually mean? They've had seven in the last two years.”

Freddy took his kick like a man. Without any change in his agreeable expression, he said,

“I say, are we playing bridge, or aren't we? I don't mind, but I should just like to know. I say, darling, I suppose you know that your nose is all shiny at the corners?”

Lila gave a low heart-felt cry of “Oh, Freddy—you
beast!”
, tore open a gold vanity-case, gazed earnestly into a little round mirror, and began to apply first aid to the maligned feature.

Freddy proceeded to drive the insult home.

“I can't see how you can expect not to go shiny when the room's as hot as this—and you know you made me swear to tell you.”

Lila blew him a kiss with her lipstick. Having restored her nose, she was now reinforcing the scarlet of her mouth.

“Darling sweet, you haven't any tact. Miles darling, when you do get married, you just remember this—all any girl wants is to be told she's looking perfectly marvellous at least a dozen times a day. Freddy's no good at it at all, and if I didn't love him to
distraction
, I'd divorce him to-morrow. You know, that's why the Poker-Pockington menage broke up. Sally said if she went on much longer with Poker looking at her as if she was his grandmother's chest of drawers or any other old bit of Victorian furniture, and never noticing whether she'd got her hair on or off, or whether she was red, or black, or platinum—well, she might as well
be
a bit of furniture. So she took up flying—”

“Are
we playing bridge?” said Freddy.

They finished the rubber, and the party broke up.

Ian Gilmore came down the stairs with Miles, but just short of the hall he said abruptly,

“There's something I want to see Freddy about. I'll say good night.” After which he let Miles out and went upstairs again.

CHAPTER IX

Miles came out upon a dark, damp street. It had been raining, and it was probably going to rain again, but at the moment no actual rain was falling. The air was still, and it was much warmer than it had been some hours ago.

The Gilmore's house was about half way between two lamp-posts. Miles turned to the left and walked towards the pool of yellow light which surrounded the next lamp. He had reached and crossed it, when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. They were light, hurrying footsteps. They came up behind him, and as they drew level, a voice called his name—a breathless voice which matched the hurrying steps.

“Mr Miles—”

Miles stopped dead. It was a girl's voice—and, by gum, it was
the
girl's voice! The girl in the fog. The girl who had sobbed on his shoulder and pitched him a tale about a head, and a hole in the wall. He said “Well, well,” and turned round to have a look at her. He hadn't seen her at all in the fog, and he couldn't see much more of her now—just a dark blur, and something that looked like a raincoat. She stopped about a yard away, and he said,

“Hullo, Flossie!”

“Oh, Mr
Miles!”
said Flossie in a breathless voice.

“We do seem to meet—don't we?” said Miles cheerfully.

“Oh, Mr Miles—I just had to come after you! Did you reckernize me?”

“I knew your voice. I'm very good at knowing voices. But I don't see how you knew me.”

Flossie giggled.

“It was when she said ‘Miles darling.'” She giggled again.

Miles clasped his brow.

“I say, do you mind telling me what you're talking about?”

“Coo!” said Flossie. “Then you didn't reckernize me. I thought you didn't. Of course you was talking and I wasn't, so I had a better chance, as you may say.”

“You know, you're right up over my head. You've got to make it easier. I'm no earthly good at cross-words.”

Flossie gave another giggle.

“Coo, Mr Miles! And I saw you looking at me too!”

“Where? Hand out the clues.”

“At Mrs Gilmore's where you've just come away from. I got a place there—housemaid, and help in the dining-room when there's company.”

Light flowed in on Miles.

“Were you the pretty one?”

“Ooh—Mr Miles! You'd better not let Gladys hear that! She's not a bad sort, but she does fancy herself, and of course it isn't everybody likes fair hair best.”

She
was
the pretty one. He said aloud,

“All right, I've got you placed. And now what can I do for you?”

“Well—” Flossie hesitated. “Mr Miles, I don't want you to think bad of me. I'm not the sort of girl that runs after young men, and I've got my boy friend I told you about, Ernie Bowden, and next door to being engaged, so I don't want you to think—” There was a ring of honest distress in her voice.

Miles felt a good deal relieved and just a little disappointed.

“I'm not thinking anything, Flossie—honest I'm not.”

She came a little nearer.

“Mr Miles, I'm frightened.”

An odd sort of thrill went through him at the words. It was as if they roused an echo in him. It was a quite momentary but very odd feeling. He said,

“What are you frightened of?”

“I didn't tell Aunt nor anyone,” said Flossie in a low hurrying voice. “You know—what I told you down on the Embankment. I don't know why I told you, but I just had to tell someone, and I never thought I'd come acrost you again. And then when I got home, it took me the other way. It didn't seem as if I could tell Aunt, or Ernie, or anyone. For one thing, Aunt'd never have let me hear the last of my being out all night, and for another, she'd have gone round straight away to 16 Varley Street and wanted to know all about it, so I
dursn't.”

He got the thrill of her fear again. There was no manner of doubt about it, she
was
frightened.

“Well, if you feel like that—I mean if you think there's something really wrong about the house—why don't you go to the police and tell them just what you told me?”

Flossie caught at his wrist with both hands.

“Mr Miles, for Gawd's sake don't you go bringing the police into it! You got to give me your word of honour you won't—
reelly!”

“All right, all right, there's no need to get in such a flap over it. I'm not going to do anything. All the same—look here, why are you so afraid of going to the police?”

There was a cool, detached moment in which he considered the possibility that she was afraid of going to the police because she had been romancing and he had called her bluff. It was such an unbelievable tale.

Flossie had very strong little hands. They closed on his wrist and shook it.

“You're not to do it! You're not to go to the police, and you're not to try and make me go neither!”

“All right, easy on—I said I wouldn't. I'm only asking why.”

Flossie stopped shaking him, but she still held his wrist. She held it very tight indeed, and her hands were very cold. She said in a different voice, low and shivery,

“Because I don't want to go in the river like Ivy.”

The shiver ran down his back.

“Flossie, what on earth do you mean?”

She said still lower, “Ivy went in the river. Ooh, Mr Miles—she did!”

“Now look here, Flossie—what's all this about? Who is Ivy? How did she get into the river? And what in Heaven's name has it got to do with your going to the police?”

She pressed close to him in the dark.

“Course it's got to do with it! Put your thinking cap on! I told you about Ivy when we were talking in the fog—my girl friend, Ivy Hodge, that had a row with her fiongcey and went and took that place at 16 Varley Street to spite him—and then they made it up and fixed the day so she didn't want to go, so I said I'd go instead of her, and I went as Ivy Hodge because of not having a parlour reference—and I s'pose I shouldn't have done it, but it was more for a lark than anything else and to oblige Ivy, and they'd fixed it all up without seeing her, so it was quite easy and no odds to anyone, only of course I didn't tell Aunt—she's that pertickler.”

All this came pouring out at an extraordinary rate. When she stopped with an effect of being obliged at last to take breath, Miles patted her shoulder with his free hand.

“All right, I've got it now. I'd forgotten—you went to Varley Street as Ivy Hodge. Now what about the river and the police? I'm not there yet.”

“Ivy went in the river.” He could only just hear the words.

“Do you mean she's drowned?”

“She's in hospital. She's awful bad. They say she must have hit her head jumping in—but, Mr Miles, she
never!”

Her earnestness shook them both.

“You don't think she did jump in?”

“Course I don't! What'd she got to jump in the river for? Billy's a very nice boy and he's got a good job, and they'd made it up and the wedding all fixed for tomorrow. Girls don't throw themselves in the river when they haven't got nothing to throw themselves in for. Besides Ivy
wouldn't
. I tell you she was pushed. And when Syd—that's Aunt's boy—came in and told us, it come over me that she'd been pushed in mistake for me. It wasn't poor Ivy that was meant to be pushed—it was the girl that'd been in that drawing-room in 16 Varley Street and seen what nobody wasn't meant to see. Ooh, Mr Miles—I'm certain sure of it—I am
reelly!
I went there as Ivy Hodge, and none of them had seen her, so when I ran out of the house they'd go and ask for poor Ivy at the registry. And of course they'd have her address, and all they'd got to do was to follow her in the dark next evening and push her in. Right down close by the river she lives, so it'd be easy enough, and with the fog there's been.”

“But if you think that, you ought to go to the police, Flossie. Don't you see?”

“Ooh!” said Flossie. “You're the one that doesn't see, Mr Miles. Go to the police? No, I
don't
think! I mightn't be so lucky as Ivy. They did get her out, with a bang on the head and nearly drowned, but p'raps next time there wouldn't be no one about and they'd make
sure
. You've got to hold your tongue, or it might be you that'd go barging and banging down the river with the tide till someone picked you up with your neck broke or the side of your head bashed in. And I've got to hold mine, or it might be me. See here, Mr Miles—you've give me your promise and you got to keep it. I don't want to get knocked on the head and pushed in the river along of something I wasn't meant to see. I want to save a little money, and when Ernie asks me to name the day I'm going to marry him. He's got a good job and he's steady, and a girl expects to get married and have a nice home. I'm not going to get mixed up with a police case neither, for Aunt wouldn't like it at all, nor Ernie wouldn't. So you've got to promise me solemn you won't go to the police.”