Dorothy Eden (72 page)

‘If he is,’ said Aunt Annabel, burying her face in Renoir’s fur so that her voice was almost inaudible, ‘we’re a fine lot, aren’t we. Me tampering with the Society’s funds, Saunders doing petty thieving—though how can it be thieving when it’s his own property—and Guy killing that poor old man, and now trying to take his life.’ Her eyes, when she raised them, were full of shame. ‘You’re the only decent one, Brigit. How did you come to be decent?’

‘You are, Aunt Annabel. You are,’ Brigit whispered.

‘No, I’m a weak silly old woman and I’ve lived too long with the Templars. If it weren’t for my cats—’ She dashed away her tears. ‘Oh, dear, this won’t do. Look at the time. Fergus should be there by now. We should get a ring from him at any time. Oh, I do hope he finds Guy is recovering.’

Even as she spoke Mrs Hatchett came bustling to the door.

‘The telephone, madam,’ she said. ‘It’s for Mrs Gaye. It’s a man.’

‘Fergus,’ said Brigit with relief.

‘No, it’s not your husband, madam. It’s a strange voice, sinister sort of.’

A
UNT ANNABEL MADE A MOVE
to stop Brigit picking up the telephone by her bedside, but Brigit quickly and firmly spoke into the mouthpiece.

‘Yes. Who is it?’

The voice came back, thick, slow, masculine.

‘Is that Mrs Gaye?’

‘Yes, I am Mrs Gaye.’

There was a slight pause, and a sound of heavy breathing. Then the voice came again.

‘Why haven’t you been answering my letters?’

‘Your letters! Your—
oh!’

Was that a hoarse mocking chuckle that came through the receiver? Abruptly Brigit moved it away from her ear as if it would contaminate her.

‘I see you know now who I am. I’ve been waiting for that parcel since yesterday. It’s too bad it hasn’t come, because now my price has gone up.’

‘I shall call the police!’ Brigit exclaimed involuntarily.

She was aware of Aunt Annabel giving a gasp and sitting down on the side of the bed. She must have squeezed the cats too violently, for Renoir gave a harsh protest, and the black kitten escaped from her arms and pounced playfully at the dangling telephone cord.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ came the slow thick voice. ‘You’d be sorry. Your children might suffer.’

‘My children!’ Brigit’s voice was no more than a horrified whisper.

‘I want a hundred pounds by tomorrow morning,’ said the voice inexorably. ‘Wrap it up and post it the same way. If I don’t get it you’d better watch your children.’

With a click sounding in her ears like doom, the receiver at the other end was replaced.

This was the worst of all. That, for the moment, was all that Brigit could think. When Aunt Annabel’s frightened eyes mutely asked her what had happened she could not speak.

The black kitten, leaping with outstretched claws at the swinging telephone cord, missed it and the sharp claws caught Brigit’s wrist. The sudden pain broke her icy trance. She gave a cry and began to tremble violently.

‘Aunt Annabel—we must get a hundred pounds at once. You’ll have to ask Uncle Saunders. Tell him it’s desperately important. Tell him everything. After all, there’s nothing to be gained by protecting Guy or anyone else now. Just see where it’s leading us.’

Aunt Annabel gripped her wrist. ‘What did that horrible man say about the children?’

‘He didn’t say anything, except make a threat. Oh, it’s unspeakable!’

‘You mean—kidnap them?’ Aunt Annabel whispered. ‘I suppose that’s what he meant.’

‘My dear, now we can’t delay any longer. We must get the police. Guy will go to prison, so will I, but anything, anything is better than having the children in danger.’

Aunt Annabel’s distraught state enabled Brigit to pull herself together. She spoke more calmly. ‘Tell Uncle Saunders first. We must at least send that money today. When Fergus gets back—’ She gave a dry despairing sob. It was no use trying to hide these things any longer. Fergus at last would have to know. She would have to risk him despising her and her family for ever. But first the children’s safety had to be ensured. She sent for Prissie and said as calmly as she could: ‘It’s cold out today, isn’t it, Prissie? I think perhaps we’ll keep the children in.’

Prissie gave her a quick glance. Her face seemed to have grown smaller and to have a pinched look. There was something of which it reminded Brigit, but for the moment she couldn’t think. Her mind was hazy with apprehension and fear.

‘You’ve let them go out on colder days than this,’ Prissie said sharply.

‘Have I? Then it was unwise. Nicky catches cold very easily.’

‘Has something happened?’ Prissie asked in a tight voice.

Brigit raised herself on her elbow. ‘Why should you ask that? Did you expect something to happen?’

Prissie’s eyes slid away, but not before Brigit caught a glimpse of the terror in them. If Prissie were frightened of something, too, why couldn’t they talk about it? They might have been able to help each other. But it was strange the aversion Brigit felt towards doing such a thing.

‘Do you expect something to happen?’ she asked Prissie again.

Prissie began to make a denial, then suddenly she burst out, ‘Anything could happen in this house. It has a hoodoo on it.’

‘You’re worrying about Guy,’ Brigit said more gently.

Prissie brushed her hand across her eyes although they were quite dry.

‘I didn’t do anything to him!’ she said. ‘I only—’

‘Only what?’

‘Didn’t stop him falling in love with me,’ she muttered. ‘I suppose I should have done that.’

‘Then you didn’t love him?’

Prissie’s eyes were full of scorn. ‘Of course I didn’t. At least not in that way—’ And then again the mysterious fear took possession of her and she reiterated, ‘It isn’t my fault, no matter what anyone says.’

‘I don’t think anyone is blaming you, Prissie, and I’m sure Guy is going to be all right. But in the meantime we’ll concentrate on one thing at a time. Just keep the children indoors today. Can I trust you?’

‘I’d like to know why you couldn’t, Mrs Gaye,’ Prissie returned stiffly, and with her small head held high with dignity she left the room.

Now her feelings were hurt, Brigit reflected. But that really didn’t matter. It would mean that she would take especially good care of the children, and somehow the awful danger could be staved off until Fergus came home.

In the meantime that hundred pounds must be sent. It was like feeding a hungry monster who, if he were to remain unfed, would take revenge by devouring oneself. Or Nicky and Sarah…

Panic mounted in Brigit again. She rang the bell, and waited impatiently for someone to come. There was a long interval before anyone came at all. The house, all at once, was completely silent, as if there were no one in at all, and Brigit had a sudden nightmare vision of the children kidnapped, and everyone out looking for them, while she herself lay in bed, helpless and forgotten.

Frantically she rang the bell again, keeping her finger on it, and hearing its distant shrilling like the scream that she seemed to be holding back inside herself.

At last there was a scuffling in the passage as Renoir, the black kitten, and an aged tabby tom preceded Aunt Annabel into the room.

‘What is it, dear?’ Aunt Annabel asked in a high nervous voice. ‘Are you ill? Has anything—’

Brigit lay back, controlling her rapid breathing.

‘No, nothing else has happened. I’m sorry if I startled you. It’s just about that money. Have you seen Uncle Saunders?’

Aunt Annabel came closer and it was then that Brigit saw the distraught uncomprehending look in her eyes. Her hair was fantastically wild, and within the circle of it her face seemed to have shrunk, as Prissie’s had, as if they shared a mutual fear. But the thing that frightened Prissie could not be Aunt Annabel’s fear, also?

‘Darling, Saunders is in his study with the door locked.’

‘But he would let you in, surely,’ Brigit exclaimed.

‘Yes, he did.’ Aunt Annabel nodded her head slowly, almost vacantly. ‘When I left him he was crying. Crying! Can you imagine it? That big man!’

‘Not—Guy?’ Brigit whispered.

‘Guy!’ Aunt Annabel caught a flash of contempt and scorn. ‘Oh no, indeed. Saunders doesn’t weep for people!’

‘Money!’ Brigit said intuitively.

Aunt Annabel nodded.

‘He hasn’t got any, he says, none at all!’

Brigit looked at her incredulously. ‘But that’s nonsense! Surely it’s nonsense! The Templar fortune—’

‘It doesn’t exist, dear. Saunders has frittered it away. Mostly on the Stock Exchange, he says. But it’s gone. We’re paupers, he says.’

Brigit sat up vigorously. ‘Oh, that’s absolute rot. What about the famous gold plate?’

Renoir sprang on to the bed, and Aunt Annabel, gathering him into her arms, began to laugh in an hysterical way.

‘But it isn’t gold, it’s faked. Long ago Uncle Saunders sold the genuine gold plate and other things of value.’

‘All of them?’ Brigit demanded unbelievingly.

‘Most of them. There were just one or two genuine things left, like the Meissen vase and the gold angel.’

‘So he pretended they were stolen!’

‘You know how he has always enjoyed practical jokes,’ Aunt Annabel said miserably. ‘Oh, if only he had been lucky on the Stock Exchange. But he has always lost, he said. Yet he couldn’t give it up. It was a disease with him. He cried on my breast,’ she added, more to herself, and suddenly her face was young and gentle in a strange and touching way. It was a glimpse of the girl Aunt Annabel had been before Uncle Saunders with his noisy arrogant imperceptive ways had driven her into timidity and vagueness.

Oh, this dreadful destroying family of hers, Brigit thought desolately. She wanted to tell Aunt Annabel not to be deceived by a few weak self-pitying tears, that Uncle Saunders would soon regain his bullying autocratic ways. Instead she found herself patting the old lady’s trembling hand and saying:

‘You’ll be happier without all that money. Really you will.’

Aunt Annabel pushed back her undisciplined hair.

‘I know we will. It isn’t the money that worries me. It’s the’—she lowered her voice to a Whisper—‘criminal aspect. Saunders has deceived the insurance company. It’s about that gold angel. It wasn’t stolen by the burglar, you know. Saunders had it all the time. The night the burglar came he saw his opportunity and hid it and said it was stolen. So of course the insurance company is going to pay, and—’

‘Yes?’ said Brigit impatiently, as Aunt Annabel hesitated and looked doubtful about making her final revelation.

‘That blackmailer knows,’ she blurted out.

‘Our
blackmailer!’ Brigit echoed, and then had an hysterical desire to laugh at her note of possessiveness.

‘Yes, dear. Somehow he knows Saunders has the gold angel, and he threatens to tell the insurance company unless Saunders pays up.’

‘How much this time?’ Brigit asked sharply.

‘It’s quite absurd, of course. He wants a thousand pounds. He thinks Saunders is wealthy. Isn’t it ironical? And in reality Saunders has mortgaged this house and furniture to the hilt.’

Brigit had a desire to chaff Aunt Annabel gently on her business jargon, anything to delay a few minutes her absorption of this new alarming news.

But there was no opportunity to say anything, serious or otherwise, for Prissie was at the door, a tray in her hands, a look of shocked astonishment on her face.

Her moment of awareness was quickly erased as the children followed her in.

Sarah galloped forward with her usual energy, her fair little face beaming with innocent trust. She had never heard dark dreadful words like kidnapping and blackmail. She was with her family, and perfectly safe. She smiled widely at her mother, shouting ‘Me horsey horsey!’ and went on her energetic way to the window where she climbed on to a chair and stood with her short fat legs firmly apart looking out into the square. Nicky followed, his hand in his pocket, his gaze abstracted.

‘What have you got in your pocket, Nicky?’ Brigit asked.

‘Only my handkerchiefs.’

‘His coloured silk ones,’ Prissie explained. ‘He adores them, either for their colour or their feel, I don’t know which. I brought your tea, Mrs Gaye.’

It was obvious that Prissie’s mind was not on what she was saying. She put the tray down, slightly slopping milk from the jug, and then looking round agitatedly for something to mop it up. The information Aunt Annabel had just imparted, and which Prissie had undoubtedly overheard, had upset her, Brigit realized. Yet why should it, for she frankly admitted that she had no emotional interest in Guy. Guy was the only means by which the Templar fortunes could concern Prissie.

‘I must go back to Saunders,’ Aunt Annabel murmured, gathering up Renoir and the black kitten. ‘But you realize the significance of what I have been telling you, Brigit. It must have been an
inside
job!’

‘Funny man! Funny man!’ Sarah chanted from the window.

Nicky joined her, and looked out the two fair heads, so like Fergus’s, close together.

‘Where’s the funny man?’ he asked in a superior voice.

Sarah pointed a chubby forefinger. Nicky gave a small cry.

‘Clementine!’ he ejaculated.

Prissie flew to the window and looked out. Then she lifted Nicky from the chair and set him on the floor. She turned to Brigit, shaking her head.

‘It’s only a street hawker,’ she said. ‘He’s wearing a large black hat. That’s the only funny thing about him. Come along, you two, you’ll only worry your mother.’

‘No, wait!’ Brigit ordered. ‘Nicky, did you see Clementine just now, truly?’

Nicky looked at her with frightened blue eyes. Then, in a disturbingly adult way, his eyelids drooped and he said airily:

‘I was just pretending for Sarah. She likes pretending.’

Sarah certainly did, for she had clambered down from the chair and was galloping her noisy way round the room. Prissie grasped her hand, saying, ‘Hush, darling! Hush! Such a noise. Come along with me. Come, Nicky.’ And before Brigit could protest further the children were whisked out of the room.

Clementine just outside the window! And she chained to the bed as surely as if there were actual chains round her legs. Brigit, angry tears in her eyes, sat up and desperately tried to move her legs. They refused to respond.