Hilary stood quite still, and heard no sound at all. It was very frightening to be touched like that in the dark and hear no sound. It needed an effort to go back to her own room and put on the light. She could see then that Marion ’s door was ajar, but the crack showed no light there. She took a candle, pushed the door softly, and looked in. Marion was in bed with the clothes pulled round her and only her dark head showing against the pillow.

Hilary shut the door and went back to bed shaking with cold. As soon as she got warm she went to sleep, and as soon as she was asleep she began to dream. She dreamt that she was talking to Mrs. Mercer in a railway carriage, only instead of being an ordinary railway carriage it had a counter down one side of it. Mrs. Mercer stood behind the counter measuring something on one of those fixed yard measures which they have in draper’s shops. Hilary stood on the other side of the counter and wondered what she was doing. She could see everything else in the dream quite plainly, but the stuff in Mrs. Mercer’s hands kept slipping, and changing, and dazzling so that she couldn’t see what it was, so she asked – and her own voice frightened her because it boomed like a bell – ‘What are you measuring?’ And Mrs. Mercer said, with the stuff slipping, and sliding, and shimmering between her hands, ‘That’s just my evidence, Miss Hilary Carew.’

In her dream Hilary said, ‘Do you sell evidence? I didn’t know it was allowed.’ And Mrs. Mercer answered and said, ‘I sold mine.’ Then Hilary said, ‘What did you sell it for?’ And Mrs. Mercer said, ‘For something I’d have given my soul to get.’ And then she began to sob and cry, and to say, ‘It wasn’t worth it – it wasn’t worth it, Miss Hilary Carew.’ And all at once Alfred Mercer came along dressed like a ticket-collector, only somehow he was the shop-walker as well. And he took a breadknife out of his trouser pocket and said in a loud fierce voice, ‘Goods once paid for cannot be returned.’ And Hilary was so frightened about the bread-knife that she ran the whole way down the train and all up the Fulham Road. And just as she got to Henry’s shop a car ran over her and she woke up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Henry rang up at a quarter past nine, a time nicely calculated to ensure that Marion would have left the flat. Hilary stopped in the middle of making her bed, put the receiver to her ear, and stuck out her tongue at the mouthpiece.

‘Hilary – ’ said Henry at the other end of the line.

‘Thank goodness it’s you!’ said Hilary.

‘Why shouldn’t it be me? Who did you expect it to be?’

Hilary giggled.

‘Darling, you don’t know how nice it was to hear your voice – I mean a man’s voice. The telephone has been too, too exclusively female and completely incessant this morning.’

‘What about?’

‘First of all Aunt Emmeline’s Eliza rang up to say she was in bed with a chill – Aunt Emmeline, not Eliza, she doesn’t hold with chills – and she was selling at a stall for the Infant Bib Society, or something of that sort this afternoon – still Aunt Emmeline – Eliza doesn’t hold with infants, or bibs, or bazaars – ’

‘Hilary, what are you talking about?’

‘Darling, it was grim! Aunt Emmeline wanted me – me, Henry – to take her place – to go and help at a bazaar for Infant Bibs! I said to Eliza, “As woman to woman, would you do it?” And she coughed and said she didn’t hold with bazaars and well Miss Carew knew it, so I said “Nothing doing,” and rang off. And about half a minute later the secretary of the Bib Society rang up and said Miss Carew had told her I was kindly taking her place, and about two minutes after that a girl with an earnest voice said that as we were going to work together at the basket stall – ’

‘Hilary, dry up! I want to talk to you.’

‘I told them all there was nothing doing, but they didn’t seem to take it in. People with the bazaar habit are like that, and once they get bold of you you never get out alive. I’d love to talk to you, darling. What did you particularly want to say?’

‘I want you to come round at once to 15, Montague Mansions, West Leaham Street.’

‘If it’s a bazaar, I’ll never speak to you again.’

‘It’s not. Don’t be an ass! I’ll meet you there. And you’d better take a taxi – I’ll pay for it.’

Hilary was very pleasantly intrigued. It didn’t very often run to taxis, and she liked them. She liked the way they whisked in and out of traffic and cut corners as if they didn’t exist. She looked out of the window and found it a pleasant day – just enough sun to gild the fog, and just enough fog to give the bricks and mortar, and stone, and stucco the insubstantial glamour which Turner loved and painted. Nice to be going to meet Henry. Nice to be off on an adventure without knowing where she was going – because Montague Mansions was only an address to her, and not a place. She got quite a thrill out of thinking that if this was happening in a book and not in real life, the voice on the telephone would turn out not to be Henry’s voice at all, and the minute she entered No. 15 she would be gagged, and drugged, and hypodermicked. She immediately made up her mind that she wasn’t entering any house or any flat without Henry. She had always thought how unpleasant it would be to be gagged. So if Henry wasn’t on the doorstep, there wasn’t going to be anything doing here either. Better an Infant Bib bazaar than a Lair of Villains complete with drugs and lethal hypodermics. Besides, Henry had promised to pay the taxi.

Henry was on the doorstep. They went up in a lift to No. 15 and both talked all the time, because Henry was trying to explain Miss Maud Silver, and Hilary was telling him what she would have done if it had been a Den of Murderers.

‘I didn’t want to go to a woman, but Charles Moray says – ’

‘I’d absolutely made up my mind – ’

‘There’s something about her that impresses you. She found out – ’

‘Suppose it hadn’t been you – ’

‘That the Mercers weren’t married – ’

‘But someone imitating your voice – ’

‘Until the day after James Everton’s death.’ The superior resonance of Henry’s voice got through with this.

Hilary pinched him hard and said,

‘What?’

‘If you’d been listening instead of talking all the time – ’

‘Henry, I like that! You’ve never stopped – I haven’t been able to get in a word!’

‘Then why didn’t you hear what I said?’

‘I did.’

‘Then why did you say “What?” ’

Hilary extricated herself nimbly.

‘Well, darling, what did you expect me to say? I mean – Mrs. Mercer! Say it again!’

‘The Mercers weren’t married till the day after James Everton’s death.’

The lift had been stationary for some time. Hilary opened the door and walked out on to the landing.

Mrs. Mercer -how incredible! Respectable, middle-aged Mrs. Mercer! There was something quite horrifying about it. She felt shocked and a little frightened. Her dream, which she had forgotten, came vividly up in her mind. It came up so vividly that it made Henry, and the lift-shaft, and the bare, cold landing outside Miss Silver’s flat all seem rather unreal. She heard her own voice say in the dream, ‘What did you sell it for?’ And she heard Mrs. Mercer say, ‘Something I’d have given my soul to get.’ They were talking about Mrs. Mercer’s evidence – the evidence which she had sold – and what she had sold it for -

Henry’s hand fell on her shoulder, and she blinked up at him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. I remembered something.’

He put his arm round her for a moment. Then he rang the bell and they went in.

Miss Silver sat at her desk with the file of the Everton Case open before her. An infant’s pale blue coatee had been relegated to the edge of the table, and the ball of wool attached to it had fallen unnoticed on to the floor and rolled away. Hilary picked it up as she came in.