Outrageous Fortune (26 page)

With all the pieces in place, what he made of them was this—Nesta had given the fellow all the money she'd got in the house, and was under an agreement to meet him next day with more. He might be wrong, but that was what he made of it. If he was right, Nesta would be drawing money out of the bank some time during the day. Some time after that she would meet the fellow at a place agreed upon between them, but totally unknown to Jim. And when that meeting took place, it would be greatly to his own advantage if he could contrive to make an unobtrusive third.

The immediate result of this line of thought was the conclusion that he had no time to waste. He had got to keep an eye on Nesta Riddell's movements. He had not at the moment any idea how he was going to manage this, but he would have to think out a plan of campaign. Meanwhile he was going to risk a telephone call to Caroline. From now on she had got to keep right out of the business. She had got to be told that, and that he had left Hale Place. He didn't like to think of her going up there in the dark to find an empty house.

He crossed over to the north side of the square, went into the post office, and rang up Hazelbury West.

When Caroline's voice came to him after that long strange pause, his heart jumped. He had passed from eager anticipation to a sense that there was something wrong. Then when she said “Yes,” his heart jumped and he told himself that he was a fool. He had come there to say good-bye to Caroline, and the sooner he got it over the better.

He said what he had come there to say, and heard Caroline say “Wait.” She said it twice. There was no expression in her voice, not the least shade of it. Two little stiff words in an expressionless voice, and he was wild with anxiety. What was the matter? Was it because he had said good-bye that her voice was still and dead?

He said, “I mustn't wait. Don't worry.”

He was a fool to have said that, because the thought of Caroline worrying filled him with an insensate desire to go to her.

“Where are you ringing up from?”

He told her. He said,

“I can't stop.”

His hand made a movement to replace the receiver, when quick and warm there came to his ear a rush of quite unintelligible words. He wasn't to forget that he was coming to Jenny Ross' treasure hunt. They wouldn't begin whilst it was light—“so we'd better meet about nine.”

“What are you talking about? Caroline, you've got to keep out of this.”

He heard her laugh and say, “I can't stop either—I've got a visitor. I'll be at the end of Nesta's road—I can't remember its name—at nine o'clock. Will that be all right?”

There was someone there. That was why she was speaking so oddly.

Impossible to have her cutting in now that he was definitely implicated in the affair of the emeralds.

He told her not to come. He said—and even to himself his voice sounded harsh—

“I can't be there.”

Caroline did not seem to notice anything. She answered gaily,

“Very well, I'll be there at nine—I wouldn't miss it for anything.” And before he could say another word there was a click and she was twenty miles away.

He left the post office, reached the High Street by way of Market Street, and walked out to Ledlington End.

It was all very well to say that he had got to keep an eye on Nesta Riddell, but how was it going to be done? Sandringham Drive offered about as much cover as a parade ground. All the houses were just like Happicot—neat, small, new and fully occupied; and all the gardens were practically non-existent. There was, as far as he could remember, an incipient laburnum at Balmoral, and a rudimentary lilac or two at Mon Répos and Wyshcumtru, but not even a kitten could have lurked unseen. There was the Kosy Korner Kafé at the near end of the drive. But the bother was that the beastly road had two ends. If he waited for Nesta at one end, she'd be bound to go out by the other. It all depended where she was going to meet the fellow. If it was in Ledlington, she would pass the Kosy Korner Kafé, but if it was somewhere out in the country, she would come out on to the main road at the lower end of Sandringham Drive.

He tried to think which was the most likely, but could not arrive at any conclusion. You could argue it both ways. A man who was in hiding might lie up in a wood or on a common, or he might go to ground in one of the slums down by the river. There used to be a fairly tough lot down there seven years ago, and he didn't suppose things were very different now. A man who lived by his wits probably had a bolt-hole or two.

He passed the War Memorial, and presently the Kosy Korner Kafé. If there was a point on the main road from which he could see both ends of Sandringham Drive, things were going to be a little easier. The drive wasn't very long, so he had hopes. Another minute more and the hopes were justified. For a distance of five or six yards it was possible to see both turnings. These five or six yards covered the lower gate and part of the shrubbery of one of those large out-of-date houses which have been abandoned before the encroaching tide of bungalows and villas. Its four storeys stood up with an isolated, neglected air. The ivy had begun to cross the blank windows. The drive was green with moss, the garden a mere tangle. Between it and the road ran a low brick wall topped by an undipped hedge. The whole place had a desolate, unvisited look.

Jim pushed open the gate with some difficulty and walked in. Nothing could have suited him better. There were half a dozen places where laurels, laurustinus, lilac and yew crowded up to the unkempt hedge, and where he could stand and see without being seen.

He had not to wait very long. In about half an hour Nesta Riddell walked briskly past the Kosy Korner and proceeded in the Ledlington direction. It was easy enough to follow her, since he guessed that she was bound for one of the three banks, of which two were in the High Street and one in Market Street. He had only to keep one turning behind her and follow on. In point of fact she never looked round, but walked briskly into the town, where she entered the London County and Westminster Bank.

The question was, what was she going to do next? She might be going to meet the fellow straight away. It wasn't likely, but it was possible. Jim went into a tobacconist's on the other side of the High Street, bought a paper, and, unfolding it, kept a watch upon the door of the bank.

After about five minutes Nesta came out. She stood for an instant on the pavement, and then gave him the fright of his life by crossing the road.

A newspaper held wide open makes a good screen. There was a moment's suspense, and then he saw from under the lower edge of his paper six inches of bright blue skirt and eight or nine inches of rather light stocking ending in flimsy imitation leather shoe go up the two worn steps of the pastry-cook's next door. He was so near that he could hear her rather strident voice asking for milk chocolate.

He moved farther down the street, and presently she came out and walked back along the way by which she had come, and at the same brisk pace. How women managed to walk at all in the pinched, shoddy, stilt-heeled atrocities some of them wore was a mystery to him. He watched Nesta disappear round the curve of Sandringham Drive and went back to his shrubbery.

The day passed with intolerable slowness. It did not rain, but the clouds hung low and the air was full of damp. At ten o'clock Min returned with her shopping basket full. At one Tom Williams came back to his midday meal on the motorbike which shared his heart with Min. It was inconceivable that Nesta would choose a family meal-time for her assignation, so Jim went out over to the Kosy Korner and lunched on cold sausage rolls and hot coffee. Inspired by Nesta's example, he bought a packet of chocolate and put it away in his pocket. His next meal was rather problematical.

In his own mind he felt quite sure that Nesta would not meet the man until it was dark. He judged her to be the kind of person who would never take an unnecessary risk. He did not think she was deficient in courage—far from it. She would take a necessary risk however great; but an unnecessary one, never. He could have wished that they were in December instead of August, for even on a gloomy day like this it would not be dark until after nine.

And Caroline was coming here at nine o'clock. He had tried to stop her, and she wouldn't be stopped. He fell into thoughts of Caroline which were angry, impatient, tender, and passionately self-accusing. He had had no business to let her get mixed up in this affair at all. Even if he were not Nesta Riddell's husband, he was very definitely under suspicion of attempted murder, and beyond all question he had been in possession of stolen property. He didn't believe that he was Nesta Riddell's husband; he believed it less than ever since his talk with Min. But he could not prove that he was not Jim Riddell unless and until the gap in his memory closed up and gave him back the lost weeks between the first of July and the fifteenth of August. He might during those weeks have masqueraded as Jim Riddell, and, as Jim Riddell, have married Nesta Williams, but he didn't believe it. It rested on Nesta's word, and, quite frankly, he didn't think Nesta's word was worth a tinker's damn. On the other hand, the Van Berg affair in some sort corroborated Nesta's statements. That didn't depend on Nesta's words. He himself remembered drinking with Elmer on the night that he was shot. He remembered seeing the emeralds in Elmer's hand. And, most damning of all, he had found them in his own house in a secret hiding-place known only to Caroline and himself. Men had been hanged on slighter evidence than this. There were the emeralds to provide a motive. There was the opportunity—his presence could easily be proved from his finger-prints. And, if the stolen property was traced to his possession, there was the sort of case which Public Prosecutors dream of. Caroline mustn't come within a thousand miles of it.

He went on thinking about Caroline.

XXX

By nine o'clock twilight was merging into darkness. Jim had come out upon the high road and was getting the stiffness out of his limbs by walking up and down. A clock struck the hour from one of the Ledlington churches—he thought it would be St John the Baptist. A faint medley of other chimes followed from St Ethelbert's and the public clock in Market Place. Between them they made nine into something like nineteen. The air was very still, and the clouds low. Cars went by.

Jim frowned in the dusk. This dazzle of headlights, with its succeeding darkness, was going to make it most frightfully difficult to spot Nesta.

He turned at the end of his beat and walked in the Ledlington direction, and as he did so, an Austin Seven came slowly up behind him. It passed and drew up by the kerb. The lights of a big Daimler flashing past showed him Caroline at the wheel. She looked over her shoulder as the light swept them both, and in a flash she was out of the car and holding on to him.

“Oh, Jim darling!” she said, and was in his arms.

She put up her face, and he kissed her. They had always kissed one another, but this was a different kiss. They were both trembling. Caroline clung to him. After a moment he got hold of himself.

He said, “You mustn't!” and tried to put her away.

She pressed closer.

“Jim—do you love me—really?”

“I haven't got any right to.”

A little shaky laugh came from somewhere just under his chin. Her hair rubbed against his cheek.

“I never asked you that.” An arm slid round his neck. “Jim—say you love me!”

“Don't you know it?”

“Of course I do—but I want you to say it.”

“My darling, I love you with all my heart and soul..… I mustn't.”

“Silly
!” said Caroline. She stood on tiptoe, dragged his head down, and kissed him shamelessly. “Jim—
darling
!”

She was lifted, held so close that she could not breathe, and most passionately kissed. Then with her heart thumping and her head spinning, she was set down at arm's length and held there.

“Now you've got to go home,” said Jim in an odd hard voice. “No, it's no use—you've got to. If I get out of this, we'll get married, but until I do you've got to stand clear.”

“Oh!” said Caroline rather faintly. Jim's grip was hurting her. His wrists must be like iron; she couldn't move the least fraction of an inch.

He continued to hold her away from him, because when she rubbed her head against his cheek like that and said “Jim—
darling
!” he couldn't be answerable for what he might do. “Jim—
darling
!” all soft and warm against his neck—flesh and blood couldn't stand it. He held her at arms' length and breathed hard and deep.

“Caroline, you've got to go home. I'm here on a job, and you mustn't hinder me. I haven't time to tell you about it. I'm waiting to see if Nesta comes out. If she does, I've got to follow her. I think she's going to meet the man who's got the emeralds.”

“Oh!” said Caroline. This was a different “Oh”—a breath of pure surprise.

“So you must go quickly. I mustn't miss her. You see, I don't know which way she will be going—I've got to watch both ends of the drive.”

“And suppose she's got a bicycle—what will you do then?”

“She hasn't got one.”

“Isn't there one in the house?”

“Only Tom's motor-bike.”

“Suppose she takes that.”

“Then I shall be dished. But it's not likely.”

“Jim,” said Caroline in a low eager voice. “Oh, Jim darling, do let me help! You see, if you get into the car, we can stand in a good dark place between the lamp-posts in Sandringham Drive and watch the house. Look how dark it's getting. You'll miss her if you stay here. Oh, Jim, let me help! It's not as if there was any harm in what we're doing—as if I could get into trouble over it. It's all quite simple and easy and—and legal—and if you won't do it with me, I shall just go off and do it by myself.”