Hue and Cry (6 page)

Paul Craddock smiled. He put down his cup and got up, all rather slowly and lazily.

“Well,” he said, “why not let it go on a bit longer?”

Mally got up too.

“No, it's got to stop. I'm really Cinderella, you know, and it's hours past twelve.”

“Only two hours. There's no hurry. Since you're so fond of dancing, when will you come and dance with me? Or”—he smiled a little more—“does Mooring not allow it?”

Mally stuck her nose in the air. She knew very well that she ought not to stay. But she stayed—to put Mr. Paul Craddock in his place.

“How sudden of you!” she said. “Really, Mr. Craddock, I think you're the suddenest person I ever met. This afternoon, when I came into the study, you wouldn't even see me, and now—
l'invitation à la valse
.” She made him a little bob curtesy.
“Sir,
your most
obliged.”

“What does that mean?” He was leaning over the back of the chair from which he had risen.

“It's a
very
polite way of saying ‘No.'”

“And why ‘No'?”

“Because—Oh, has Mrs. Craddock found her diamond?”

“No, she hasn't. Why won't you dance with me?”

“Because I won't, Mr. Craddock. Good-night.”

Paul stepped back and leaned against the door this time.

“Then Mooring does want all the dances? Selfish fellow!”

“Mr. Craddock, I want to go upstairs.”

“All in good time. What are you afraid of? That he'll break my head—or the engagement?”

“Will you let me pass, Mr. Craddock?”

Paul Craddock laughed.

“I think you'll have to pay toll, Mally.”

Mally walked straight up to him with her eyes like green fire.

“Let me pass at once! I'll scream if you don't.”

“Then I must stop your mouth,” said Mr. Craddock, still laughing; and as he laughed, he caught her by the shoulders and bent to kiss her.

Mally ducked. Mr. Craddock exclaimed. The kiss grazed the top of her head, which she instantly jerked upward, causing him to bite his tongue. He swore, felt a vicious pinch on the inside of his raised arm, and, recoiling from it, received a very hard, stinging slap in the face. The next instant the door had opened and banged again. Mally was gone.

When she had reached her own room and locked the door, she told herself with some truth that she was a perfect little fool, and that it was all her own fault. Then she reflected with a good deal of pleasure upon the hardness of the slap which she had administered. Mr. Craddock had a good sort of face to slap—the sort that feels soft.

“Ouf!” said Mally. “Slug! Pink slug!” She spread out her fingers and looked at them. Then she went to the washstand and washed them very carefully.

Downstairs Mr. Craddock had passed from incoherent soliloquy into a dangerous silence. He stood for some time with his elbow on the mantelpiece, looking down into the fire. From time to time he thrust savagely at the embers with his foot and stirred them into a blaze.

When about half an hour had gone by, he slipped his left hand into his waistcoat pocket and took out something which he laid in the palm of his other hand. The light dazzled on a heart-shaped wreath of diamond leaves from which hung pendant-wise a very large and brilliant diamond.

Mr. Craddock stared at the diamond. Then he said, “I wonder,” and slipped it back into the pocket from which he had taken it.

CHAPTER VIII

Mally overslept herself next morning, and Barbara got no story. This cast a gloom over the breakfast table, where Barbara behaved very badly indeed, becoming ruder and less tractable with each of Mrs. Craddock's rather plaintive reproofs.

After breakfast Barbara disappeared. Mally searched the house for her in vain, and arrived reluctantly at the conclusion that the naughty little thing had taken refuge in the study. To the study she therefore went, knocked, and, receiving no answer, opened the door.

Sir George was not there, but Paul Craddock was standing by Sir George's table, holding the table telephone in one hand and the receiver in the other. His own writing-table, littered with papers, was behind him. The safe beside it stood open.

Mally had begun to draw back, when something moved by the window. Barbara's head looked round the corner of the curtain, Barbara's eyes glowered at her, and Barbara's tongue shot out defiantly. Instead of running away, Mally ran into the room and pulled the curtain back.

Paul Craddock scowled at her entrance and then rather ostentatiously turned his back.

“Ah yes, Jenkinson,” he was saying. “Well, Sir George would like a reply. Yes, that's the message he left with me—he would like a reply by the end of the week without fail. No, I don't think it would be any use your ringing up again. No, he's not in the house—I can't say when he'll be back. He left a very definite message, and nothing would be gained by your calling up again.”

“Barbara!” said Mally while this was going on. “How could you? Come quick, before he stops telephoning.” She had her lips against Barbara's ear, and spoke in an almost soundless whisper.

Barbara twisted away, put out her tongue again, freed herself with a jerk from the folds of the curtain, and ran across the room and out at the door. Her feet made no sound on the thick carpet. Paul Craddock had not seen or heard her go.

Mally straightened the curtain and followed Barbara out of the room. By the time she reached the foot of the stair, Barbara was already out of sight. As Mally took the marble steps three at a time, she thought of quite a number of pungent things to say to the little wretch later on.

She was running along the corridor, when the door of Mrs. Craddock's sitting-room was opened and Mrs. Craddock's worried face looked out.

“Have you found her? Where was she?”

“Yes. She's run upstairs. She was in the study.”

Mrs. Craddock came out of the door and caught her by the arm.

“Oh, don't talk so loud! Oh, my dear Miss Lee! Oh,
please
come in here.”

“But Barbara——”

“Hush. Oh, please hush. Come in here and I'll explain.”

Mally followed Mrs. Craddock into the sitting-room.

“What is it? What's the matter?”

“Oh, my dear Miss Lee! Oh, please shut the door. Are you sure it's shut? Did you say she was in the study?”

“Yes—hiding behind a curtain. And now she's run upstairs. I really ought to go to her, Mrs. Craddock.”

“In the study?” Mrs. Craddock actually wrung her hands. “Was any one there? Did any one see her?”

“Why? Does it matter?”

“Yes, yes, it matters. Tell me, did any one see her?”

Mally had been considering.

“Mr. Craddock was in the room, but I don't believe he knew she was there.”

Mrs. Craddock looked terrified.

“If Paul saw her—”

“I don't think he did. She was behind the curtain, and when I opened the door, she looked out at me and made a face. But he had his back to her, telephoning.”

“And then?”

“I went across and pulled the curtain back. He didn't look round, and—no, he couldn't have heard anything either. She pulled away from me and ran out of the room. And he was very busy, talking all the time and giving a message from Sir George; and I don't believe he knew anything about Barbara being there. But—but why does it matter? Mrs. Craddock, I
really
ought to go.”

Mrs. Craddock clutched her arm. Mally saw with surprise that she was trembling.

“No, wait—I must tell you. My brother mustn't know about Barbara being in the study.” She dropped her voice so much as to be scarcely audible. “If Paul knows, he'll tell him. But you won't—will you?”

“But why?”

“Because—Oh, my dear Miss Lee, you don't know my brother. He spoils Barbara in most things; but he has a terribly violent temper, and he has forbidden her to go into the study. She took some paper once to draw on, and he—he caned her for it. It seems too dreadful, but he did. He won't have her draw, you know. And—and—he mustn't know, he really mustn't know.” Mrs. Craddock dropped her voice still further and shook quite dreadfully. “Miss Lee, she
screamed.
It was—oh, terrible! I couldn't bear it again. He mustn't know.”

“Well, I shan't tell him,” said Mally briskly. “Dear Mrs. Craddock, do sit down and compose yourself. You'll see it'll be quite all right. And now I really must go and find that little demon and scold her.”

Mally found her little demon miraculously transformed into the Angel Child of romance. With neatly brushed hair and an expression of seraphic calm, Miss Barbara Peterson sat bolt upright at the schoolroom table doing sums.

Mally's lecture slid smoothly from a shield of impenetrable virtue. When told how bad she had been, Barbara sighed, glanced at the cornice, and observed:

“Yes, Mally darling, but I
do
want to get on with this sum, and you're interrupting me dreadfully.”

Downstairs in the study Sir George Peterson sat with his chair pushed back from the writing-table, staring incredulously at his secretary.

“Craddock! Craddock, what are you saying?”

The bright pink color in Paul Craddock's cheeks had changed and hardened till it looked like clumsy daubs of paint.

“It's gone,” he said. “It's gone!”

“What are you saying? Pull yourself together.”

“It's gone,” said Paul Craddock in an odd, breathless voice that sounded as if he had been running very fast uphill. He stood on the farther side of the table, his two hands holding the edge of it, his big shoulders stooped forward. His whole frame shook a little as things seem to shake in a heat haze.

“How? And when?” Sir George spoke sharply.

“Just now. She must have taken it.”

“Who?”

“That girl, Miss Lee—she came in. It's gone.”

Sir George fixed him with an icy look.

“May I suggest, for the second time, that you should pull yourself together and tell me quickly and exactly what you suppose to have happened. Whine about it afterwards in prison, which is where you'll certainly find yourself if you lose your nerve.
Now!
Drop your hysterics and tell me what happened.”

Paul Craddock drew a deep breath, put his hand to his long throat, and swallowed once or twice.

“I beg your pardon, sir. It was so sudden—I got rattled. I'm all right now.”

Sir George nodded.

“Tell me exactly what happened. So far you've merely been incoherent.”

“It knocked me over. You know, sir, I always thought I ought to lock the door when I was decoding anything. But you said ‘No.'”

“Of course I said ‘No.' You might just as well advertise a criminal conspiracy, and have done with it. Get on and tell me what happened?”

“I took Varney's last code message out of the safe and sat down to decode it. It was the one that came last night—I told you. When I'd nearly done, Jenkinson rang up. I went over to your table and gave him the message you left. He kept me on the line whilst he went and saw Magnay. And when he came back, he went on about wanting to talk to you personally. Whilst I was in the thick of it, the door opened and Miss Lee looked in. I thought she was going away again, but she didn't. She went across the room to the window first. Then she went out. When I went back to my table, Varney's message was gone. She must have taken it.”

Sir George got up.

“Come round to the telephone and show me how you were standing. Like that? Sure?” He went over to the door. “And Miss Lee came in here? And went across to the window?” He began to walk in the direction indicated. “Stop me where you lost sight of her.”

Paul Craddock stopped him midway between door and window.

“And then?”

“I don't know. Jenkinson was being very pressing—I was attending to him—I didn't look round.”

“Ah! You left a decoded message from Varney lying on your table, and you didn't look round. How long was Miss Lee in the room?”

“Not more than a minute. I can't say for certain. I think she walked to the window and back again—but I was talking—I didn't notice.”

“You didn't hear the rustle of paper?”

“I should have looked round quick enough if I had. I just saw her come in, and then—I didn't really see her go out because I'd turned a little more this way. But I heard the door shut. Jenkinson kept me another five minutes gassing about nothing, and I'd just got back to my table when you came in. She must have taken it.”

“How long had you been here before she came to the door?”

“I don't know—quarter of an hour, twenty minutes perhaps.”

“And you haven't left the room since?”

“No. Why?”

Sir George walked to the nearest window without replying. Heavy curtains of maroon velvet hung from ceiling to floor, looped back with tasselled cords as thick as a man's wrist. He looked behind each curtain, passed to the other window, and lifted the curtain that had screened Barbara. It would not have hidden a grown-up person, but the child, kneeling on the floor, had been able to pull the ample folds about her below the looping. Paul Craddock's writing-table, making an angle with the window-frame, had helped to screen her.

Sir George crossed to the last curtain, lifted it, and let it fall again. Then, turning, he surveyed the room. It afforded no other possible hiding-place.

“Yes,” he said grimly, “it looks as if she had taken it. But why?
Why?”

Craddock threw him a glance full of fear. He moistened his lips and said:

“No one would have taken it unless they had known what they were taking. She hadn't a minute to think. If she hadn't come here as a spy——”

Sir George interrupted him.

“You think that?” He spoke curiously.