CHAPTER IX

Miles came out upon a dark, damp street. It had been raining, and it was probably going to rain again, but at the moment no actual rain was falling. The air was still, and it was much warmer than it had been some hours ago.

The Gilmore’s house was about half way between two lamp-posts. Miles turned to the left and walked towards the pool of yellow light which surrounded the next lamp. He had reached and crossed it, when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. They were light, hurrying footsteps. They came up behind him, and as they drew level, a voice called his name—a breathless voice which matched the hurrying steps.

“Mr Miles—”

Miles stopped dead. It was a girl’s voice—and, by gum, it was the girl’s voice! The girl in the fog. The girl who had sobbed on his shoulder and pitched him a tale about a head, and a hole in the wall. He said “Well, well,” and turned round to have a look at her. He hadn’t seen her at all in the fog, and he couldn’t see much more of her now—just a dark blur, and something that looked like a raincoat. She stopped about a yard away, and he said,

“Hullo, Flossie!”

“Oh, Mr Miles!” said Flossie in a breathless voice.

“We do seem to meet—don’t we?” said Miles cheerfully.

“Oh, Mr Miles—I just had to come after you! Did you reckernize me?”

“I knew your voice. I’m very good at knowing voices. But I don’t see how you knew me.”

Flossie giggled.

“It was when she said ‘Miles darling.’” She giggled again.

Miles clasped his brow.

“I say, do you mind telling me what you’re talking about?”

“Coo!” said Flossie. “Then you didn’t reckernize me. I thought you didn’t. Of course you was talking and I wasn’t, so I had a better chance, as you may say.”

“You know, you’re right up over my head. You’ve got to make it easier. I’m no earthly good at cross-words.”

Flossie gave another giggle.

“Coo, Mr Miles! And I saw you looking at me too!”

“Where? Hand out the clues.”

“At Mrs Gilmore’s where you’ve just come away from. I got a place there—housemaid, and help in the dining-room when there’s company.”

Light flowed in on Miles.

“Were you the pretty one?”

“Ooh—Mr Miles! You’d better not let Gladys hear that! She’s not a bad sort, but she does fancy herself, and of course it isn’t everybody likes fair hair best.”

She was the pretty one. He said aloud,

“All right, I’ve got you placed. And now what can I do for you?”

“Well—” Flossie hesitated. “Mr Miles, I don’t want you to think bad of me. I’m not the sort of girl that runs after young men, and I’ve got my boy friend I told you about, Ernie Bowden, and next door to being engaged, so I don’t want you to think—” There was a ring of honest distress in her voice.

Miles felt a good deal relieved and just a little disappointed.

“I’m not thinking anything, Flossie—honest I’m not.”

She came a little nearer.

“Mr Miles, I’m frightened.”

An odd sort of thrill went through him at the words. It was as if they roused an echo in him. It was a quite momentary but very odd feeling. He said,

“What are you frightened of?”

“I didn’t tell Aunt nor anyone,” said Flossie in a low hurrying voice. “You know—what I told you down on the Embankment. I don’t know why I told you, but I just had to tell someone, and I never thought I’d come acrost you again. And then when I got home, it took me the other way. It didn’t seem as if I could tell Aunt, or Ernie, or anyone. For one thing, Aunt’d never have let me hear the last of my being out all night, and for another, she’d have gone round straight away to 16 Varley Street and wanted to know all about it, so I dursn’t.”

He got the thrill of her fear again. There was no manner of doubt about it, she was frightened.

“Well, if you feel like that—I mean if you think there’s something really wrong about the house—why don’t you go to the police and tell them just what you told me?”

Flossie caught at his wrist with both hands.

“Mr Miles, for Gawd’s sake don’t you go bringing the police into it! You got to give me your word of honour you won’t—reelly!”

“All right, all right, there’s no need to get in such a flap over it. I’m not going to do anything. All the same—look here, why are you so afraid of going to the police?”

There was a cool, detached moment in which he considered the possibility that she was afraid of going to the police because she had been romancing and he had called her bluff. It was such an unbelievable tale.

Flossie had very strong little hands. They closed on his wrist and shook it.

“You’re not to do it! You’re not to go to the police, and you’re not to try and make me go neither!”

“All right, easy on—I said I wouldn’t. I’m only asking why.”

Flossie stopped shaking him, but she still held his wrist. She held it very tight indeed, and her hands were very cold. She said in a different voice, low and shivery,

“Because I don’t want to go in the river like Ivy.”

The shiver ran down his back.

“Flossie, what on earth do you mean?”

She said still lower, “Ivy went in the river. Ooh, Mr Miles—she did!”

“Now look here, Flossie—what’s all this about? Who is Ivy? How did she get into the river? And what in Heaven’s name has it got to do with your going to the police?”

She pressed close to him in the dark.

“Course it’s got to do with it! Put your thinking cap on! I told you about Ivy when we were talking in the fog—my girl friend, Ivy Hodge, that had a row with her fiongcey and went and took that place at 16 Varley Street to spite him—and then they made it up and fixed the day so she didn’t want to go, so I said I’d go instead of her, and I went as Ivy Hodge because of not having a parlour reference—and I s’pose I shouldn’t have done it, but it was more for a lark than anything else and to oblige Ivy, and they’d fixed it all up without seeing her, so it was quite easy and no odds to anyone, only of course I didn’t tell Aunt—she’s that pertickler.”

All this came pouring out at an extraordinary rate. When she stopped with an effect of being obliged at last to take breath, Miles patted her shoulder with his free hand.

“All right, I’ve got it now. I’d forgotten—you went to Varley Street as Ivy Hodge. Now what about the river and the police? I’m not there yet.”

“Ivy went in the river.” He could only just hear the words.

“Do you mean she’s drowned?”

“She’s in hospital. She’s awful bad. They say she must have hit her head jumping in—but, Mr Miles, she never!”

Her earnestness shook them both.

“You don’t think she did jump in?”

“Course I don’t! What’d she got to jump in the river for? Billy’s a very nice boy and he’s got a good job, and they’d made it up and the wedding all fixed for tomorrow. Girls don’t throw themselves in the river when they haven’t got nothing to throw themselves in for. Besides Ivy wouldn’t. I tell you she was pushed. And when Syd—that’s Aunt’s boy—came in and told us, it come over me that she’d been pushed in mistake for me. It wasn’t poor Ivy that was meant to be pushed—it was the girl that’d been in that drawing-room in 16 Varley Street and seen what nobody wasn’t meant to see. Ooh, Mr Miles—I’m certain sure of it—I am reelly! I went there as Ivy Hodge, and none of them had seen her, so when I ran out of the house they’d go and ask for poor Ivy at the registry. And of course they’d have her address, and all they’d got to do was to follow her in the dark next evening and push her in. Right down close by the river she lives, so it’d be easy enough, and with the fog there’s been.”

“But if you think that, you ought to go to the police, Flossie. Don’t you see?”

“Ooh!” said Flossie. “You’re the one that doesn’t see, Mr Miles. Go to the police? No, I don’t think! I mightn’t be so lucky as Ivy. They did get her out, with a bang on the head and nearly drowned, but p’raps next time there wouldn’t be no one about and they’d make sure. You’ve got to hold your tongue, or it might be you that’d go barging and banging down the river with the tide till someone picked you up with your neck broke or the side of your head bashed in. And I’ve got to hold mine, or it might be me. See here, Mr Miles—you’ve give me your promise and you got to keep it. I don’t want to get knocked on the head and pushed in the river along of something I wasn’t meant to see. I want to save a little money, and when Ernie asks me to name the day I’m going to marry him. He’s got a good job and he’s steady, and a girl expects to get married and have a nice home. I’m not going to get mixed up with a police case neither, for Aunt wouldn’t like it at all, nor Ernie wouldn’t. So you’ve got to promise me solemn you won’t go to the police.”

“All right, Flossie, I won’t.”

“You’ve got to say you promise,” said Flossie breathlessly.

Miles laughed a little impatiently.

“All right, my dear, I promise.”

“Word of honour?”

“Word of honour.”

“Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart, Flossie.”

She let go of his wrist and stood away from him. The urgency had gone out of her. She said in rather a flat little voice.

“Gladys’ll be waiting to let me in. Good night, Mr Miles.” And with that she turned and ran back along the wet pavement.

He watched her pass the lamp-post and saw her fair hair under the yellow light. She had run out bare-headed with a coat thrown over her gay uniform. A gleam of scarlet showed at the hem. Then the darkness took her and she was gone.