CHAPTER 36

The time went very slowly by. Lyndall found, as innumerable women have found before her, that she could do nothing to hasten it. She couldn’t read, or sew, or listen to the wireless, because to do any of these things you must be in control of your own thoughts, and she was not in control of hers. Whilst she was talking to Miss Silver and Sergeant Abbott, whilst the constable had talked about his family, there had been a varying degree of constraint upon her mind, and in a varying degree it had responded. But as soon as she was alone it turned again to the point from which she now found herself unable to deflect it. There are things which are so shocking that they are believed at once, the very force of the shock pressing in past all the normal barriers. There are things so shocking that they cannot be believed at all, but you can’t forget them, you can’t get them out of your mind. Lyndall could not have said that she was in either of these two states. There had been so great an initial shock as to render her incapable of either belief or judgment, but now as time went slowly by she found herself believing something which chilled her body almost as much as it froze her mind.

She got up once and went to the telephone, but after standing for a long half-minute with her finger on the first number she would have to dial, she turned away and went back to the chair from which she had risen. She couldn’t do it. Perhaps tomorrow when her mind didn’t feel so sore and stiff and she could think again. Not tonight-not now. Once you have said a thing you can never take it back.

When about five minutes later the telephone bell rang she went to answer it with shuddering reluctance. Philip’s voice said her name.

“Lyn-is that you?”

“Yes-” The word wouldn’t sound the first time. She had to try it again.

“Are you alone? I want to see you-very badly. I’ll come straight round.”

He hung up on that, but she stayed where she was until it came to her that Philip would be arriving and she must be ready to let him in. As she passed through the hall she stopped at the half-open kitchen door to say, “My cousin is coming round to see me-Sir Philip Jocelyn.”

It was hardly said before the door bell rang. She opened it with a finger on her lips and a gesture in the direction of that half-open door.

Philip looked surprised. He took off his coat and hung it up. Then when they were in the living-room he asked,

“What was all that for? Who’s here?”

“A policeman in the kitchen.”

“Why?”

“Because I overheard something, and they don’t know if she-if Anne-”

He said, interrupting her, “She wasn’t Anne-that’s certain now. She was Annie Joyce.” Then, after a curious pause, “I’ve found Anne’s diary.”

“Her diary?”

“Yes. Of course I knew she kept one-I suppose you did too. What I didn’t know until a couple of days ago was that she put down everything-” He broke off. “Lyn, it’s quite incredible! I didn’t want to read it-I don’t intend to read it. What I’ve had to do is to see whether the things she told me-the things which convinced me against every instinct I’ve got-whether they were there. And they are. What I said when I asked her to marry me-things that happened on our honeymoon-things it seemed impossible that anybody else should know-she had written them all down. And Annie Joyce had got them by heart.”

Lyndall looked at him in a bewildered rush of feeling. The stranger who had stood between them had gone and she had never been Anne. Presently she would be able to go back to remembering that she had loved Anne very much. Just now she could only listen.

Philip was telling her about finding the diary.

“I made sure she would have it with her. However carefully she had learned it all up she would be bound to keep it handy. Well, I found it-two volumes sewn into the mattress on her bed-good long stitches so that it wouldn’t have taken a minute to rip them out if she wanted it. That’s what caught my eye-when I’d looked everywhere else. That settled the matter as far as I was concerned. She never convinced anything except my brain, and the diary lets that out. Anne’s been dead for three and a half years. You’ve got to believe that, Lyn.”

She wanted to with all her heart. But she couldn’t find words. She didn’t even know that she could find thoughts to answer him. Her mind swung back on the fixed point to which it had been held. She heard him say,

“Lyn, that’s what I meant when I came here this morning. Annie Joyce was a spy, you know-planted on me. It wasn’t just an ordinary impersonation. It was all very carefully planned. She was an enemy agent with a very definite job. She drugged me last night and went through my papers.”

“Philip!”

“They were spoof papers, and an old code-book. We’d been doing a bit of planning too. My guess is that she was working under orders, and someone came along to collect. Whoever it was knew enough to realize she’d been had. That meant she was for it from us, if not from them. At the best, she wouldn’t be of any more use-at the worst, we might get something out of her. They are quite ruthless over that sort of thing, and I think that whoever it was just shot her out of hand-possibly with my revolver, or possibly not. Anyhow it probably seemed a good idea to remove mine and hope the police would think I’d shot her-which they do.”

She said his name again.

“Philip!” And then, with a rush, “They don’t-they can’t!”

He put an arm round her.

“Wake up, Lyn! They do, and they can. Wake up and face it! I’m in a mess. Codrington says I’d better keep away from you. I will after this. But I had to see you first-I couldn’t risk your thinking it was worse than it is. They think it looks bad, my coming straight here from the War Office and saying Anne was dead when I couldn’t have known about the murder unless it had happened before I left the flat. But when I said Anne I meant my wife, Anne Jocelyn, and not Annie Joyce at all. I meant that I was convinced of Anne’s death- not that I knew Annie Joyce had been shot. Lyn-you’ve got to believe me!”

“Of course I believe you.”

She began to tell him about seeing Anne-no, Annie- going into the hairdresser’s shop, and what she had overheard in the dark passage with the line of light just showing at the edge of an unlatched door.

His manner changed abruptly.

“You heard that? You’re sure?”

“Yes-I told Miss Silver.”

“Who is she?”

She explained Miss Silver.

“And then Sergeant Abbott came, and I told him, and I think he’s gone to arrest the people at the shop.”

“Well, that’s something.” Then, “I suppose you know how important this is?”

“Yes. Philip, I told Anne-I mean Annie-about it.”

He stared.

“You didn’t!”

“Yes, I did. I felt as if I had to. I told her the day before yesterday.”

“Lyn-you little fool! Suppose she told him-this man!”

Lyndall nodded.

“That’s what Miss Silver said. So they sent me home with a policeman. He’s in the kitchen doing a cross-word.”

He had just begun to say in a tone of relief, “Well, somebody’s got some sense,” when the front door buzzer went again. Lyndall felt the sound of it go tingling through her. Perhaps it was what she had been waiting for.

Philip’s arm dropped from her shoulders. He wore a look of frowning pallor.

“I ought not to be seen here. Who is it likely to be? Get rid of them if you can!”

She nodded without speaking. The buzzer went again as she crossed the room, but she took her time-time to open Lilla’s panelled chest and let Philip’s coat down on the spare blankets, time to pull the kitchen door to so as not to show the lighted room beyond.

Then she opened the outer door and saw Pelham Trent. He came in at once, easy and friendly as he had always been.

“Are you alone, Lyn? I wanted to see you. Lilla isn’t home yet?”