Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair

“Yes, these are the women.”

“A remarkable liar,” said old Mrs. Sharpe, in the tone in which one says: “A remarkable likeness.”

“You say that we took you into the kitchen for coffee,” Marion said.

“Yes, you did.”

“Can you describe the kitchen?”

“I didn’t pay much attention. It was a big one – with a stone floor, I think – and a row of bells.”

“What kind of stove?”

“I didn’t notice the stove, but the pan the old woman heated the coffee in was a pale blue enamel one with a dark blue edge and a lot of chips off round the bottom edge.”

“I doubt if there is any kitchen in England that hasn’t a pan exactly like that,” Marion said. “We have three of them.”

“Is the girl a virgin?” asked Mrs. Sharpe, in the mildly interested tone of a person inquiring: “Is it a Chanel?”

In the startled pause that this produced Robert was aware of Hallam’s scandalised face, the hot blood running up into the girl’s, and the fact that there was no protesting “Mother!” from the daughter as he unconsciously, but confidently, expected. He wondered whether her silence was tacit approval, or whether after a lifetime with Mrs. Sharpe she was shock-proof.

Grant said in cold reproof that the matter was irrelevant.

“You think so?” said the old lady. “If I had been missing for a month from my home it is the first thing that my mother would have wanted to know about me. However. Now that the girl has identified us, what do you propose to do? Arrest us?”

“Oh, no. Things are a long way from that at the moment. I want to take Miss Kane to the kitchen and the attic, so that her descriptions of them can be verified. If they are, I report on the case to my superior and he decides in conference what further steps to take.”

“I see. A most admirable caution, Inspector.” She rose slowly to her feet. “Ah, well, if you will excuse me I shall go back to my interrupted rest.”

“But don’t you want to be present when Miss Kane inspects – to hear the—” blurted Grant, surprised for once out of his composure.

“Oh, dear, no.” She smoothed down her black gown with a slight frown. “They split invisible atoms,” she remarked testily, “but no one so far has invented a material that does not crease. I have not the faintest doubt,” she went on, “that Miss Kane will identify the attic. Indeed I should be surprised beyond belief if she failed to.”

She began to move towards the door, and consequently towards the girl; and for the first time the girl’s eyes lit with expression. A spasm of alarm crossed her face. The police matron came forward a step, protectively. Mrs. Sharpe continued her unhurried progress and came to rest a yard or so from the girl, so that they were face to face. For a full five seconds there was silence while she examined the girl’s face with interest.

“For two people who are on beating terms, we are distressingly ill acquainted,” she said at last. “I hope to know you much better before this affair is finished, Miss Kane.” She turned to Robert and bowed. “Goodbye, Mr. Blair. I hope you will continue to find us stimulating.” And, ignoring the rest of the gathering, she walked out of the door that Hallam held open for her.

There was a distinct feeling of anti-climax now that she was no longer there, and Robert paid her the tribute of a reluctant admiration. It was no small achievement to steal the interest from an outraged heroine.

“You have no objections to letting Miss Kane see the relevant parts of the house, Miss Sharpe?” Grant asked.

“Of course not. But before we go further I should like to say what I was going to say before you brought Miss Kane in. I am glad that Miss Kane is present to hear it now. It is this. I have never to my knowledge seen this girl before. I did not give her a lift anywhere, on any occasion. She was not brought into this house either by me or by my mother, nor was she kept here. I should like that to be clearly understood.”

“Very well, Miss Sharpe. It is understood that your attitude is a complete denial of the girl’s story.”

“A complete denial from beginning to end. And now, will you come and see the kitchen?”

Chapter 3

Grant and the girl accompanied Robert and Marion Sharpe on the inspection of the house, while Hallam and the police matron waited in the drawing-room. As they reached the first-floor landing, after the girl had identified the kitchen, Robert said:

“Miss Kane said that the second flight of stairs was covered in ‘something hard,’ but the same carpet continues up from the first flight.”

“Only to the curve,” Marion said. “The bit that ‘shows.’ Round the corner it is drugget. A Victorian way of economising. Nowadays if you are poor you buy less expensive carpet and use it all the way up. But those were still the days when what the neighbours thought mattered. So the lush stuff went as far as eye could see and no further.”

The girl had been right about the third flight, too. The treads of the short flight to the attic were bare.

The all-important attic was a low square little box of a room, with the ceiling slanting abruptly down on three sides in conformity with the slate roof outside. It was lit only by the round window looking out to the front. A short stretch of slates sloped from below the window to the low white parapet. The window was divided into four panes, one of which showed a badly starred crack. It had never been made to open.

The attic was completely bare of furnishing. Unnaturally bare, Robert thought, for so convenient and accessible a store-room.

“There used to be stuff here when we first came,” Marion said, as if answering him. “But when we found that we should be without help half the time we got rid of it.”

Grant turned to the girl with a questioning air.

“The bed was in that corner,” she said, pointing to the corner away from the window. “And next it was the wooden commode. And in this corner behind the door there were three empty travelling-cases – two suitcases and a trunk with a flat top. There was a chair but she took it away after I tried to break the window.” She referred to Marion without emotion, as if she were not present. “There is where I tried to break the window.”

It seemed to Robert that the crack looked much more than a few weeks old; but there was no denying that the crack was there.

Grant crossed to the far corner and bent to examine the bare floor, but it did not need close examination. Even from where he was standing by the door Robert could see the marks of castors on the floor where the bed had stood.

“There was a bed there,” Marion said. “It was one of the things we got rid of.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Let me think. Oh, we gave it to the cowman’s wife over at Staples Farm. Her eldest boy got too big to share a room with the others any more and she put him up in their loft. We get our dairy stuff from Staples. You can’t see it from here but it is only four fields away over the rise.”

“Where do you keep your spare trunks, Miss Sharpe? Have you another box-room?”

For the first time Marion hesitated. “We do have a large square trunk with a flat top, but my mother uses it to store things in. When we inherited The Franchise there was a very valuable tallboy in the bedroom my mother has, and we sold it, and used the big trunk instead. With a chintz cover on it. My suitcases I keep in the cupboard on the first-floor landing.”

“Miss Kane, do you remember what the cases looked like?”

“Oh, yes. One was a brown leather with those sort-of caps at the corners, and the other was one of those American-looking canvas-covered ones with stripes.”

Well, that was definite enough.

Grant examined the room a little longer, studied the view from the window, and then turned to go.

“May we see the suitcases in the cupboard?” he asked Marion.

“Certainly,” Marion said, but she seemed unhappy.

On the lower landing she opened the cupboard door and stood back to let the Inspector look. As Robert moved out of their way he caught the unguarded flash of triumph on the girl’s face. It so altered her calm, rather childish, face that it shocked him. It was a savage emotion, primitive and cruel. And very startling on the face of a demure schoolgirl who was the pride of her guardians and preceptors.

The cupboard contained shelves bearing household linen, and on the floor four suitcases. Two were expanding ones, one of pressed fibre and one of rawhide; the other two were: a brown cowhide with protected corners, and a square canvas-covered hatbox with a broad band of multi-coloured stripes down the middle.

“Are these the cases?” Grant asked.