The Wheel Spins (13 page)

An impostor stood before her, wearing Miss Froy’s oatmeal tweed suit. The face under the familiar hat was sallow—the black eyes expressionless. It looked wooden, as though it could not weep, and had never smiled.

Breaking out of her nightmare, Iris challenged her.

“You are
not
Miss Froy.”

“No,” replied the woman in English, “I have not heard that name ever before. I am Frau Kummer, as I told you, when we had our tea together.”

“That’s a lie. I never had tea with you. You’re a complete stranger to me.”

“A stranger, certainly, such as one meets on a journey. But we talked together. Only a little because your poor head ached.”

“
Ah!
”

The significance of the doctor’s exclamation was deliberately stressed. It made Iris quiver with apprehension, even while it put her on her guard.

“I mustn’t let them get me down,” she thought. Then she turned desperately to the professor.

“This is
not
Miss Froy,” she said vehemently.

“The lady has told us that herself,” remarked the professor impatiently. “In fact, with the exception of yourself, no one appears to have heard the somewhat uncommon name of ‘Froy.’”

It was obvious that he believed that Miss Froy lived at the sign of The Unicorn, in the congenial company of Mrs. Harris and the Spanish prisoner.

“But she’s wearing her clothes,” persisted Iris, trying to keep her voice from quivering. “Why?
Why?
What’s become of Miss Froy? It’s some conspiracy—and I’m afraid. She says we had tea together, but we didn’t. The waiter knows. Send for him.”

To her dismay Hare did not bound off on his mission like a Hermes in nailed boots. Instead, he twisted his lip and looked sheepish.

“Why not call it a day and get some rest?” he suggested in the soothing tone which infuriated Iris.

No one believed her—and the combined force of their incredulity made her doubt herself. The darkness seemed to be closing round her again when she remembered her supporting witness—the vicar’s wife.

“Mrs. Barnes,” she said faintly.

“I’ll fetch her,” offered the professor, who was anxious to put an end to the scene.

Although he was kind-hearted and eminently just—when he knew his bearings—he was prejudiced against Iris, because of an unfortunate incident which marred the close of his last term. One of his most brilliant pupils—a plain, sedate young person, about whose progress he had been almost enthusiastic—had suddenly gone back on him and involved him in a very unpleasant emotional scene.

When she came to his study to wish him good-bye, she had broken down completely, assuring him that she had worked solely to please him, and that she could not face the thought of their parting.

As he had insisted on keeping the door open, from motives of prudence, a version of the affair had been put into circulation, to his intense annoyance. Therefore he cursed his luck in being involved with another hysterical girl, as he passed the coupé occupied by the Misses Flood-Porter.

Through the glass he could see Mrs. Barnes, who had returned to finish her interrupted chat, so he entered.

“More trouble for you, I’m afraid,” he warned her. “That very emotional young lady now wants you to identify some one. I wonder if you would mind coming with me to her compartment?”

“Certainly,” said Edna Barnes. “Is it the kind little lady in parchment tweed, speckled with brown and a blue feather in her hat?”

“Presumably. I seem to recollect the feather.” The professor looked down at her strained brown eyes and added kindly. “You look very pale. Not ill, I hope?”

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Barnes’ voice was extra cheerful. “It’s my husband who is ill. But I’m bearing his pain for him, so that he can sleep.”

“Absent treatment?”

“Something of the kind, perhaps. When you’re married—if there is a real bond—you share more than an income.”

“Well, I call it silly,” broke in Miss Rose. “He’s far stronger than you are.”

The professor, however, looked at her sweet face with additional respect.

“I don’t like to worry you with this matter,” he said. “In my opinion, the girl is hysterical and wants to be in the limelight. She says now that the lady is not the original one, who, according to her—is still missing.”

“We’ll hope she
is
the right one, for your sake,” remarked Miss Flood-Porter placidly. “If not, she’ll keep you hanging about at Trieste, and you’ll miss your connection to Milan.”

Mrs. Barnes pressed her hand over her eyes.

“Oh, I hope not,” she cried. “My husband wants to get this wretched journey over. Still, one has to do one’s duty—whatever the cost.”

“But it’s so futile,” declared Miss Rose. “From your description, this missing governess is no chicken and an experienced traveller. She’s either lying low and has given the girl the slip for some good reason of her own, or else it’s all moonshine.”

“Indubitably the latter,” remarked the professor, as he accompanied Mrs. Barnes out into the corridor.

Here they met the vicar who had come in search of his wife.

“This
is
my husband,” cried Mrs. Barnes, her face lighting up. “Did you think I’d deserted you, Ken?”

While they lingered to chat, Iris sat awaiting the return of Hare with the waiter. She had no real hope of the issue, since she had begun to regard all the officials as being tools of the baroness. A mysterious power was operating on a wholesale scale, to her own confusion. In proof of this, opposite to her was the horrible changeling who wore Miss Froy’s clothing. Yet the incident was inexplicable, since she could find no motive for such a clumsy subterfuge.

Every detail of the woman’s figure corresponded so exactly with her recollection of Miss Froy, as she stared at the familiar blue bone buttons, that the first real doubt began to sap her confidence. She asked herself whether she were, in reality, the victim of some hallucination. Hare’s story about the prince proved that it was no uncommon experience.

She was feeling so limp that it seemed almost the easiest way out of her troubles. After all, she would have her work cut out to fight the constant threat of overhanging illness, without the additional worry of a problematical Miss Froy.

“I shall soon know,” she thought, as Hare returned with a waiter in tow.

“You said the chap with the fair hair,” he said to Iris. “I’ve bagged the only blond in the whole collection. By the way, he is proud of speaking English.”

Iris remembered the youth directly she saw the straw-coloured plastered hair and slanting forehead. He wore glasses, and looked more like a student or clerk.

“Do you really understand English?” she asked.

“Certainly, madame,” he replied eagerly. “I have my certificates, both for grammar and the conversational test.”

“Well, do you remember waiting on me at tea? Have you a reliable memory for faces?”

“Yes, madame.”

“Then I want you to look at this lady—” Iris pointed to Kummer and added, “Don’t look at her clothes, but look at her face. Now tell me—is that the lady who was having tea with me?”

The waiter hesitated slightly, while his pale eyes grew momentarily blank. Then he nodded with decision.

“Yes, madame.”

“You’re
sure
?”

“Yes, madame, I am positive sure.”

As Iris made no comment, Hare tipped the youth and sent him away. Although the interview had corresponded with his own forecast, he felt acutely uncomfortable. He glanced uneasily at the baroness and the doctor, but their faces only registered enforced patience, as they waited for the end of the infliction.

Suddenly a muffled cry rang out from the next carriage. Instantly, the doctor sprang up from his seat and hurried back to his patient.

The sound was so unhuman and inarticulate, with its dulled yet frantic reiteration of “M-m-m-m,” that Iris was reminded of some maimed animal, protesting against suffering it could not understand. She had forgotten about the poor broken body—trussed and helpless in the next carriage—lying in complete dependence on two callous women.

The recollection caused all her latent distrust of the doctor to flare up again. She asked herself what awaited the patient at her journey’s end? Did she guess that she was being hurried to some operation—doomed to failure, yet recommended solely as an experiment, to satisfy scientific curiosity?

Iris had still sufficient sense to know that she was indulging in neurotic and morbid speculation, so she hurriedly smashed up the sequence of her thoughts. As a characteristic voice told her of the approach of the professor, she tilted her chin defiantly.

“Mrs. Barnes remembered Miss Froy when all the rest pretended to forget her,” she said to Hare. “I know she couldn’t tell a lie. So I don’t care two hoots for all the rest. I’m banking on
her
.”

Edna Barnes advanced, her arm linked within that of her husband, as though for support. As a matter of fact, he was really leaning on her, for the shaking of the train made him feel rather giddy. Although still resolute, his face showed something of the strain of a knight approaching the end of his vigil.

“I understand you want us to identify a friend of yours,” he said to Iris, taking command of the situation as a matter of course.

Then he looked down at his wife.

“Edna, my dear” he asked, “is this the lady?”

Unlike the waiter, Mrs. Barnes did not hesitate. Her recognition was instantaneous.

“Yes,” she said.

The vicar came forward with outstretched hand.

“I am glad of this opportunity to thank you for your kindness,” he said.

Miss Kummer stolidly accepted the tribute paid to Miss Froy. Or—was she really Miss Froy? Iris felt a frantic beating, as though of wings inside her head, as she slipped down into a roaring darkness.

The immediate effect of Iris’ faint was to steady her nerves. When she recovered consciousness, to find some one forcing her head down below the level of her knees, she felt thoroughly ashamed of her weakness. There was not a trace of hysteria in her voice as she apologised.

“Sorry to be such a crashing bore. I’m quite all right now.”

“Don’t you think you had better lie down?” asked Mr. Barnes. “I’m sure the Miss Flood-Porters would be only too glad to lend you their reserved compartment.”

Iris was by no means so sure that the ladies measured up to the vicar’s own standard of charity; yet she felt a great need of some quiet place, where she could straighten out the tangle in her brain.

“I want to talk to you,” she said to Hare, leaving him to do the rest.

As she anticipated, he jumped at the opportunity.

“Sorry to eject you, professor,” he said, “but our bunny-hutch is booked for the next half-hour.”

“Delighted,” murmured the professor grimly.

After swallowing some brandy from the vicar’s flask, Iris staggered up from her seat. Her knees felt shaky and her temples were still cold; but the brief period of unconsciousness had relieved the pressure on her heart, so that she was actually better.

As she and Hare—linked together, to the general inconvenience—lurched down the corridor, she noticed that the lights were now turned on. This arbitrary change from day to night, seemed to mark a distinct stage in the journey. Time was speeding up with the train. The rushing landscape was dark as a blurred charcoal-drawing, while a sprinkle of lights showed that they had reached a civilised zone, of which the wretched little town was the first outpost.

Now that the outside world was shut out, the express seemed hotter and smokier. At first the confined space of the coupé affected Iris with a sense of claustrophobia.

“Open the window wide,” she gasped.

“There’s plenty of air coming in through the top,” grumbled Hare, as he obeyed. “You’ll be so smothered in smuts that your own mother wouldn’t know you.”

“I haven’t one,” said Iris, suddenly feeling very sorry for herself. “But I’m not here to be pathetic. There’s something too real and serious at stake. I want to remind you of something you said this morning at the railway station. You were having an argument with the professor, and I overheard it.
You
said trial by jury was unfair, because it depended on the evidence of witnesses.”

“I did,” said Hare. “And I stick to every word.”

“And then,” went on Iris, “the professor talked about reliable evidence, and he compared two women. One was English and county—the sort that collect fir-cones and things when she goes for a walk. The other had bought her eyelashes and was dark.”

“I remember
her
. Pretty woman, like a juicy black cherry.”

“But the professor damned her. And that’s exactly what has happened now. I’d damned as a tainted witness, while he is prejudiced in favour of all those British matrons and Sunday school teachers.”

“That’s only because they’re plain Janes, while you’ve quite a different face—and thank heaven for it.”

Hare’s attempt to soothe Iris was a failure, for she flared up.

“I hate my face. It’s silly and it means nothing. Besides, why should I be judged on face value if it goes against me? It’s not fair.
You
said it wasn’t fair. You told the professor it would lead to a bloody mix-up. You can’t blow hot and cold. Unless you’re a weather-cock, you’ve simply got to stand by me.”

“All right, I’ll stand by. What do you want me to do?”

Iris laid her hot palms on the sticky old-gold plush seat and leaned forward, so that her eyes looked into his.

“I say there
is
a Miss Froy,” she told him. “You’ve got to believe
me
. But my head feels like a three-ring circus, and I’ve grown confused. Will you go over it with me, so that I can get it clear?”

“I’d like to hear your version,” Hare told her.

He smoked thoughtfully as she went over the story of her meeting with the alleged Miss Froy, up to the time of her disappearance.

“Well, you’ve got one definite fact,” he told her. “What the—the lady told you about the big boss is right. I can make an accurate guess as to her employer. At this moment a certain noble Johnny is in the local limelight over charges of bribery, tampering with contracts, and funny little things like that. The latest is he’s accused of bumping off the editor of the revolutionary rag which brought the charges.”