Hilary’s heart banged against her side. Was it true? Was it? Was it? She said, very slow, and afraid, and like a child,

‘Are you mad, Mrs. Mercer?’

The woman broke into a flood of tears.

‘I’m not, I’m not! Not without he sends me mad with all his wickedness! Oh, miss, I wish I was dead – I wish I was dead!’

Hilary stopped feeling afraid. She managed to pat the heaving shoulder, and felt it pitifully sharp and thin.

‘Mrs. Mercer, do stop crying. If you said what wasn’t true at the trial – and I think you did, because I know Geoff never killed anyone, I really know it – if you did a wicked thing like that, don’t you see your only chance is to tell the truth now and put it right? I don’t wonder you feel like that about hell, with Geoff in prison and Marion so unhappy. But just think how awful it would have been for you if he’d been hanged and there wasn’t anything you could do that would bring him back and put things right again. Doesn’t that make you feel a bit better? Because you can put it right now. You don’t want to go on being miserable like this – do you?’

Mrs. Mercer wrenched sharply away.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she said. “You get along out of here, or something’ll happen!’

The tears stung Hilary’s eyes. She had thought – she had been sure -the wildest hopes had dazzled her – and then suddenly everything was gone.

Mrs. Mercer had retreated into the doorway. She stood there leaning against the jamb. There was a wretched triumph in her voice.

‘You go back on to the road and turn to the left, and you’ll get to Ledlington! Where’s your bicycle?’

Hilary straightened herself. She was stiff from leaning over the sill.

‘Smashed.’ And then, ‘They tried to kill me.’

Mrs. Mercer put up a hand, touched her lips, and let it fall again. The lips parted and said,

‘Who?’

‘Don’t you know?’ said Hilary with a little scorn in her voice.

Mrs. Mercer backed away from her into the kitchen. When she was clear of the door she thrust at it with her hands and with her knee. The door fell to with a clap. Hilary was alone in the foggy dark.

She felt her way back round the house and out at the gate. Then she followed the ruts again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Marion Grey was showing a dress called Moonlight. There was very little of it, but what there was was quite well named. The time was five o’clock in the afternoon. Harriet St. Just’s showroom was full of women, some of whom had come there to amuse themselves and not to buy. Most of them called her Harry, or darling. She charged incredible prices for her clothes, and had contrived a quite astonishing success in the three years of her venture. She and Marion had been at school together, but she recognised no friendships during business hours. From ten to six Marion was simply Vania, and one of the best mannequins in London.

A dark, stooping woman, lined and haggard, called across half a dozen people.

‘Harry, that’s divine! I’ll have it just as it is. Ask her to turn round and let me see the back again.’

Marion turned slowly, gracefully, looked over a shadowy shoulder, and held the pose. Her dark hair was knotted on her neck. She was made up to a smooth, even pallor. The shadows under her eyes made them look unnaturally large, unnaturally dark. She did not look as if she were really there at all. The dress followed the lovely lines of her figure, softening them like a mist.

Harriet St. Just said, ‘That will do. You can show the black velvet next.’

Marion went out trailing her blue-grey moonlight. A girl called Celia who had been showing a bright green sports suit giggled as the showroom door closed behind them.

‘Old Katie’s got a nerve! “I’ll have that”!’ She mimicked the dark woman’s voice. ‘Gosh – what a hag she’ll look in it! I call it a shame – a lovely dress like that!’

Marion said nothing. With the skill of long practice she was slipping the dress off over her head. She managed it without ruffling a single hair. Then she took down a black velvet dress with a matching cloak and began to put it on.

A short, fair woman with thick fluffy eyebrows put her head round the door.

‘Someone wants you on the ’phone, Vania.’

Celia giggled again.

‘Well, I wouldn’t be you if old Harry gets to know about it! In the middle of a dress show! I say, Flora, have I really got to show that ghastly pink rag? It’s not my style a bit. I wouldn’t be seen dead in it in the Tottenham Court Road – and I can’t say fairer than that.’

‘You just hurry!’ said Flora and shut the door on her.

Marion lifted the receiver from the office telephone. Flora ought to have said she was engaged. She couldn’t imagine who could possibly be ringing her up here. They had no business to do it. Flora was much too good-natured – a sort of cousin of Harriet’s who did about six people’s work and was never out of temper, but she couldn’t say no. She put the receiver to her ear, and heard a man’s voice say rather faintly,

‘Mrs. Grey?’

‘Yes.’

The black velvet was slipping from her shoulder. She shifted her hand and pulled it up.

‘ Marion, is that you?’ And all at once she knew who was speaking. Her face changed. She said in a low, hard voice,

‘Who are you? Who is speaking?’ But she knew very well.

‘Bertie Everton,’ said the voice. ‘Look here, don’t ring off – it’s important.’

‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’

‘I know, I know – you feel like that. It’s my misfortune. I wouldn’t trouble you, but it’s something about Geoffrey I thought you ought to know. Just a chance, but there it is. I thought I’d tell you.’

She leaned with her free hand on Harriet’s writing-table, leaned hard, and said,

‘I can’t see you. If you’ve anything – to say – you can see my solicitor.’ Her lips were so stiff that they shaped the words with difficulty. After a confused moment she wondered whether they had shaped them at all, because he was saying,

‘Then I’ll call for you at six.’

That broke the stiffness anyway. She said with a rush of anger,

‘You can’t come here – you must know that.’

‘Then I’ll be at your flat at half past six. You’ll be home by then?’

‘I can’t see you. There’s a dress show. I shall be late.’

‘I’ll wait,’ said Bertie Everton, and with a click the line was dead.

Marion went back to show the black velvet gown, which was called Lucrezia Borgia. It had a stiff full skirt and a tight bodice embroidered with pearls after the Renaissance fashion. The heavy sleeves were slashed from shoulder to wrist over deep-toned ivory satin. She saw herself in a mirror as she opened the showroom door, but it was not the dress she saw reflected there, it was the anger in her eyes.

The dress had a great success. It was bought by a wispy fair-haired woman who sniffed and dabbed continually the tip of her nose with a small square of magenta chiffon. She was somebody’s friend from the country, and if she fancied herself as Lucrezia Borgia, it was nobody’s business but her own.