CHAPTER XXVI

Mrs Gossington wrote out her statement and signed it, and Miles took it back with him to town. He drove fast, but his thoughts ran faster. He had got to get back, have something to eat, and be at 16 Varley Street by half past two to fetch Kay. Round this definite purpose those racing thoughts of his whirled like the grains in a sandstorm—hard, pelting, stinging thoughts over which he had no control. He had come over here to find Miss Macintvre. He had found Kay. They had found each other. They loved each other. He had come over here to find an heiress for old Boss Macintyre. He had found Kay. He had lost Kay. She was Kay Macintyre. She was Boss Macintyre’s heiress. She was his employer’s niece. He had lost her. “No, I’m damned if I have! You’ve lost her. You’re bound to lose her. You can’t in common decency hold her to it. She won’t need holding. Boss Macintyre’s heiress. What’s it going to look like, you coming back and saying you’re engaged to her? Mud—that’s what your name will be—common, dirty mud. And no one in the world is going to believe that you got engaged to Kay when you didn’t know who she was.” The thoughts went on, stinging, pelting, burning.

By and by the storm of them died away. He could order his thinking again. He would have to write a new report for to-morrow’s mail. Flo Palmer had adopted Rhoda Moore’s niece, and not the Macintyre baby. Therefore Kay was not Rhoda Moore’s niece at all. She must be Kay Macintyre. Rhoda. Moore’s references to Kay having plenty of money were now explained. It seemed clear that the woman who had posed as Mrs Macintyre’s sister had only taken the baby because she could hardly leave it behind. She was after the jewels, and having planted the baby on Rhoda Moore, she had vanished into the blue.

Or had she? He wasn’t sure. Rhoda Moore had told Ada Gossington that she didn’t dare get rid of the child—it was as much as her life was worth. He wondered whether Ada had invented the phrase. She had stuck to it when she made her statement. And there was Kay’s story of the man who had looked out on her in the garden and looked in on her when she was supposed to be asleep, and Rhoda Moore’s “What a suspicious mind you’ve got!” And then the odd way Kay had come to London and to Varley Street, and the episode of Mr Harris. It all looked as if someone had been keeping an eye on her, never quite losing touch, shepherding her, and just at the moment when she was on the edge of being declared an heiress getting ready to close in. It looked like that to him, and he didn’t like the look of it. Now, whatever happened, Kay must leave Varley Street this afternoon. He would take the car round and fetch her away bag and baggage. If necessary he would interview Miss Rowland or the nurse himself. In the circumstances, he felt equal to bearding his stiffest aunt and demanding her hospitality for Kay.

Afterwards? He set his jaw and looked grimmer than one would have supposed possible. They must break off their engagement—but he meant to marry Kay in the end. It would mean getting another job, but it would mean getting another job without any help from Boss Macintyre. He couldn’t have married as a secretary anyhow, but it had certainly been at the back of his mind that old Macintyre could very easily help him to a job which would make marriage possible. Well, he couldn’t take advantage of that now. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t get a job. He intended to get one. And he intended to get Kay.

He snatched a hasty lunch, drove the car round to Varley Street, descended the area steps, and rang the bell. In a minute Kay would be there at the door and he would tell her that he had come to fetch her away. He wasn’t going to stand any nonsense about it either. Ten minutes to pack, and perhaps ten minutes for the necessary explanations, and they would be driving away together in Ian Gilmore’s car.

He woke up out of this to realize that no one was coming to the door at all. In a mood of angry impatience he put his thumb on the bell and kept it there. A faint distant tinkling encouraged him. Of course Kay might be upstairs.… The tinkling continued. He wondered if Kay would hear it if she were a couple of stories up. Well, if somebody didn’t come soon, he would go up the steps to the front door and see what he could do with the knocker.

He took his thumb off the bell, and at the same moment the door opened. As soon as he saw it move he knew that he had been afraid. His anger and his impatience had been fear—fear of what might have happened to Kay in this house to which she had been shepherded.

He said “Kay!” in rather a breathless voice, and then the door opened about half way and he saw that it was not Kay who stood behind it, but a very fat old woman in a flowered overall. She had untidy grey hair, and she bulged in every direction. There was a black smudge over one eye, and her hands looked as if she had just been putting coal on the fire. Undoubtedly Mrs Green. Kay must be upstairs.

He smiled pleasantly and said, “Good afternoon. I’ve come to call for Miss Moore.”

Kay was upstairs—she must be upstairs. Once again he knew that he had been frightened, because when Mrs Green said “She’s upstairs,” his heart gave a jump and it came to him that he had not known what she might be going to say. Suppose she had said that Kay had gone away, or that she was ill, or that she was—dead. Why should he have a horrible thought like that? He felt the sweat break out on his temples as he said,

“Will you tell her—I’m here. She’s—expecting me.”

Mrs Green looked at him with interest. As nice a young fellow as she’d seen this twelve-month, and quite the gentleman. Some girls had all the luck. She said in her soft, wheezing voice,

“Well there—she can’t come out, and that’s all there is about it.”

Miles was angry again. It wasn’t like him to be angry, but he was hard put to it to hold on to his temper. Mrs Green, describing the scene afterwards, declared that he right down flashed his eyes at her.

“She can’t come out?” said Miles. “Why can’t she? It’s her afternoon out, isn’t it?”

“Well,” said Mrs Green, “she’s to get every other Sunday—but there’s nothing to say when it starts.”

“But she told me—”

“She come last Sunday, and if she took it into her head she’d get her afternoon off to-day, well, she was mistook, and that’s all about it. You come back next Sunday and maybe you’ll ’ave better luck.”

Next Sunday! He controlled himself with an effort.

“Mrs Green, can’t I see her for a minute? I’ve got something most awfully important to say to her.”

A faint sly smile played about Mrs Green’s chins.

“Save it up,” she said. “’Twon’t hurt with keeping.”

“Look here, Mrs Green—I must see her.”

Mrs Green shook her head.

“Not now you can’t. She’s up with Miss Rowland. Nurse is out, and she’s to sit there till she comes back in case of ’er wanting anything.”

Miles’ heart went down into his boots.

“Mrs Green—couldn’t you send her down just for a minute? I mean, couldn’t you stay with the old lady?”

Mrs Green leaned against the doorpost and shook with silent laughter. All her chins shook too.

“Oh lor’!” she said when she got her breath. “You and your ‘Send ’er down’! How am I going to get ’er, do you suppose? Why, young man, I been here five years and I never been up that basement stair but once, and then I stuck at the turn. You and your ‘Send ’er down’! Oh lor’!”

“And what happens if anyone comes to the front door?”

“Nobody do,” said Mrs Green, still shaking.

“Well, suppose I do—suppose I go and bang with the knocker? What happens then? She’d have to come down, wouldn’t she?”

Mrs Green stopped laughing rather suddenly and shook her head.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“She’d have to come down,” said Miles.

Mrs Green shook her head again.

“She can’t leave the old lady, not if it was ever so. Look here, you don’t want to make trouble—do you? The old lady’s resting. If you’re all that keen on seeing the girl, you come along back about nine o’clock or so like you done last night. And now you’d best be off or you’ll be getting ’er into a row.”

She stepped back a great deal more quickly than he could have supposed possible and shut the door.