Hue and Cry (26 page)

“My dear boy, but I think I do understand. I—I wanted to kiss her myself. I—I did kiss her. There's something extraordinarily engaging about the way she looks at you. Don't you think so?”

Ethan thought there was; but he didn't say so. He was wondering whether he had kissed Mally because she looked at him through her eyelashes, or because of the way in which the corners of her mouth turned up. He told his Aunt Angela that it was time they were both in bed.

Mally slept till ten o'clock next day. She awoke with a start to the unfamiliar room, with its old bow-fronted chest of drawers, heavy mahogany wardrobe, and dark-blue curtains. For a moment she wondered where she was. And then she remembered. It was like remembering a dream. She had slept very deeply, and everything that had happened to her on the farther side of that deep sleep felt strange and unreal. She had wandered in the snow. She had been most dreadfully frightened. She had come to a fairy-tale house in the dark. Ethan Messenger had kissed her.

Mally sat up and tossed the hair out of her eyes. She was awake; she was quite awake. She ought to be boiling with rage. Why wasn't she? When Paul Craddock kissed her—or tried to kiss her—she had boiled furiously. Why wasn't she boiling now? “How dared he? I
will
be angry—I
am
angry—I—I'm furious,” said Mally. “I
am.”

She began to think of what she ought to have said. “Only there wasn't time to say anything. And anyhow, I was too sleepy. That's why it was so awfully mean of him—the wretch!”

At this moment the door was opened very softly and slowly. Miss Angela peeped round it.

“Oh, my dear—you're awake!”

Mally nodded.

“I've had such a lovely, lovely sleep.”

Miss Angela ran away.

“Grace! Grace! Miss Lee's ready for her breakfast!”

Then she came running back.

“You slept so peacefully that I couldn't wake you. Do you like eggs? Grace is boiling you an egg. And I thought tea, not coffee—and some toast and marmalade, and a banana.”

Mally blew her three kisses very quickly and lightly.

“Scrumptious!” she said.

“And when you've had your breakfast”—Miss Angela was a little flustered by the kisses—“Ethan wants to see you—I mean when you're dressed. And Grace is lighting the drawing-room fire, and—in fact—I told him I'd give you his message and say he wanted to see you most particularly.”

Mally reminded herself that she was very angry indeed with Ethan Messenger.

Miss Angela went on talking.

“This is my sister Serena's room, and I just wanted to say how pleased I should be if you could stay until to-morrow. Of course I don't know what your plans are; but Serena has just telephoned to say she won't be back to-day. She missed her train last night, and as she had to stay the night in town, she thought she would make it two nights and go to a lecture on—let me see—is there such a word as incidence, my dear?”

“I expect so.”

“Well, then, that was it—the incidence of taxation in—in—well, my dear, I'm not quite sure where. One of those new countries. Yugo-Slovakia? No, that doesn't sound quite right. I got a geography prize when I was at school, but none of it seems to be any good to one now. So restless! I mean one had hardly got accustomed to saying Petrograd instead of St. Petersburg, when they started calling it something else. None of the names seem to be the same as they were when I was a girl.”

Mally had her breakfast to the accompaniment of a pleasantly continuous ripple of conversation. By the time she had reached the banana, Miss Angela was earnestly asking her advice as to shingling. She had brushed out the gray curls—“I don't know if you noticed them last night, my dear. No, of course not”—and wore her hair in its accustomed tight but straggly braid.

“Oh, I did notice them—of course I did—I
loved
them. You
must
have darling little corkscrews. I adore them.”

Miss Angela looked swiftly at her nose, and found it pale. She decided that Mally was a very engaging girl—very, very engaging—and that
of course
the dear boy was in love with her.

Mally came into the drawing-room and found Mr. Ethan Messenger picking out the tune of “Sing Me to Sleep” with one finger. He was frowning horribly at the old yellow piano-keys, and the whole effect was mournful in the extreme.

“So he ought to be mournful,” said Mally to herself. “I'm frightfully angry with him.”

She advanced with cold dignity, and Ethan sprang up.

“Oh, I say, are you all right? Did you sleep all right?”

She inclined her head very slightly.

“Yes, thank you.” The ice in her voice very sensibly reduced the temperature of the room.

Ethan gazed at her in dismay. She was angry, she was horribly angry. He had put his foot into it like anything. She would probably never forgive him. Oh, Lord! How funny she looked when she stuck her chin in the air and wrinkled her little nose like that—how funny, and how dear! A curious warm feeling blotted out his dismay. And, quite suddenly, an odd thing happened.

We go through the world with an impalpable something which separates us one from the other. Once in a while this unseen wall of separation melts and is not; thought, feeling, consciousness, can pass unhindered, can pass and blend.

Ethan looked at Mally playing at icy dignity—and this strange thing happened to him. The barrier went down, and nothing would ever put it up again. She wasn't some one whom he had offended, some one on whom he would like to make a good impression; she was just his funny little dear—his little Mally—his. The most extraordinary part of the whole thing was that it all felt quite natural. There was no shock, no disturbance; it was as easy and natural as breathing.

With commendable self-control Ethan kept his new and astonishing feelings to himself. He said, “Er,” and then stuck, whereupon Mally felt a most dreadful desire to laugh. He saw her eyelashes flicker, and pulled himself together with what was really a very creditable effort. He pushed forward a chair and said in quite a natural voice:

“Let's sit down and talk. Do you mind? I think we ought to get things straightened out a bit.”

CHAPTER XXXII

Mally looked at the chair and shook her head.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“You,” said Ethan.

“Why?”

“Why? Because I think it's about time some one did talk about you. I think it's about time something was done. You can't go on running away, and not having anything to eat, and losing yourself in the snow.”

“Why can't I?”

“Well, you can if you like. But do you really want to? Do you?”

Mally looked at Ethan, and her lashes flickered again. There was something different about him, something high-handed and impenitent. Quite suddenly her mood changed, melted. He was
friendly.
She wanted some one to be friendly—she
did.
She gave a little nod and said, in tones of modest pride.

“There's a warrant out for my arrest.”

“Nonsense!”

“There is. That horrible Paul Craddock told Candida Long.”

“What on earth for? Look here, Mally, you must tell me all about it. That is, you must tell some one, and—and——”

“I don't mind telling you.” She sat on the arm of the chair and swung her legs. “I don't mind telling any one.”

She darted a repressive glance, and then, for no reason at all, changed color a little.

“Begin at the beginning.”

Mally began. It wasn't really very easy to know where to begin. She skipped Roger Mooring, and landed in the middle of the Peterson household.

“I thought they were nice—all except that loathsome Paul. I thought they were just nice, ordinary people. I danced with Sir George, and he was ever so nice to me. And then all of a sudden he began to behave like a nightmare—they all did—and—and—drug my coffee—and hide diamond brooches in the hem of my skirt—and swear I'd taken frightfully valuable papers—and please would I give them back, and then they wouldn't say any more about the diamonds.”

Ethan came and sat on the arm of the other chair.

“Look here, Mally,” he said in a new voice, “I can't get the hang of it this way. You must be serious and tell me about it properly.”

Mally jerked her head up.

“What's the good? I think they're mad—I think they must be mad. But you'll only think
I'm
mad, or else you'll think I took the diamonds.”

“Shall I?”

Mally looked at him defiantly. Then she looked away.

“I'll tell you. Only I don't see why any one should believe me.” She began to speak quickly and quite seriously: “Mrs. Craddock lost her brooch, and we all looked for it. And next day, when Barbara was hiding in the study, I went in to get her; and Mr. Craddock was there telephoning. He saw me come in, and I went and got Barbara; but he didn't see us come out, because he'd turned round a bit. And I don't think he knew Barbara was there at all. I think now—I do think—that Barbara took the paper that they missed. She was always wanting to draw, and they wouldn't let her. I didn't think of it at the time, because I was so taken by surprise. But now I'm sure that Barbara took a paper off Mr. Craddock's table. It—it's
queer
—a sort of cross-word puzzle thing. I don't know why they should make such a fuss about it.”

“What sort of fuss did they make?”

“They drugged my coffee. Oh, yes, they
did.
And whilst I was asleep they put the diamond pendant—it wasn't a brooch really—into the hem of my skirt.” Mally clasped her hands very tightly and turned rather pale. “It's horrible. That's what they did—I've had lots of time to think it out. Then they brought in Mrs. Craddock and her maid.” Mally's breath caught; she stopped and dashed away an angry tear. “I don't want to talk about it—I
don't
!” she cried in a breaking voice.

Ethan caught her hands in his.

“My poor little dear! It's only me—it's only Ethan. Tell me.”

Mally pinched him very hard indeed.

“The maid found the diamond,” she said in a thread of a voice. “And they said they wouldn't send me to prison if I would give them back the paper. They really thought I'd taken it—I can see that now, but at the time, I hadn't the least, faintest scrap of an idea of what they were driving at.”

“Go on.”

Mally went on talking. She also went on pinching him.

“They shut me up in a room, and I climbed out of the window and got in on the next floor, and got my hat and things, and got away. And Barbara gave me all her drawings because she thought they'd tear them up. And I found the cross-word puzzle thing in the middle of the drawings. Only I don't believe it's a real cross-word puzzle at all. Look at it.”

She pulled away her right hand, dived into a jumper pocket, and thrust a folded paper at Ethan. He unfolded it, and saw what Mally had seen in the empty house.

The paper was a half-sheet of foolscap. Right across the top of it ran an odd statement:

“Heliogabalus was never emperor in Constantinople.”

Below this, on the left, was the square of a cross-word puzzle, and all the rest of the paper was taken up with the clues. There appeared to be twenty-eight of them. Thus:

ACROSS.

  1. Lady Bird.

  4. A Swift Curler Of Old Times.

  6. New Child s Holiday Invention.

  9. Old Hats for New.

15. Hard Amber.

16. A House of Archaic Outline In Highgate.

17. Imperial Tokay Bought New.

19. Army Architecture turned Awry on the Nevsky.

21. Half Shoes of Antique Type Non-inflammable.

23. New Solid Light Tractor.

25. Seven Old Indians.

28. A New Army Invention.

DOWN.

  4. An Elephant's Height In Nowgong.

  5. A Nest of Owls New Caught.

  7. Name Old Light Balloon About Sixteenth Century.

  8. Olive Oil.

10. The Next High Tree (South Africa or Nigeria).

12. Old Obvious Things Invented New.

13. Obsidian Never Twisted.

14. London News Circulation Carefully Improved On A Liberal Hypothesis.

18. Try Our Oatmeal And Then Buy.

20. Corners Of An Oval Octagonal Oolite.

22. Amber Satin Hose of Innate Novelty.

24. High Arbors Of Orange Leafery.

Ethan looked at the paper, and Mally looked at Ethan.

“It's odd, isn't it? When I first looked at it, I thought it was odd. But I was much, much too hungry and too cold to care. I looked at it again this morning, just for a moment, and it seemed odder than ever. Do you think it's really a cross-word puzzle? If it is, why should they make such a fuss about it? Do you think it is? Do you?” Mally's voice thrilled and her eyes sparkled.