Rolling Stone_A Frank Garrett Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

Author:Patricia Wentworth [Wentworth, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2016-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Terry felt what a great many other people have felt in their time, a passionate desire to skip the next two days and arrive at Wednesday morning, when either James Cresswell would have got his picture back or she would have been to the police and told them what she had seen. You can always turn over the pages of a book and avoid what is tedious or painful, but the dull and ugly days have to be lived through, one slow minute at a time.

A quarter of an hour after she got home Norah Margesson rang up.

“Is that Terry Clive?”

Terry said it was, and wondered what Norah had got to say to her.

“I wanted to speak to you.” Miss Margesson’s voice had an aggressive note.

“Well, I’m here,” said Terry.

“I suppose you didn’t really mean what you said yesterday—all that about going to the police?”

“Of course I meant it.”

Norah gave a hard, angry laugh.

“My dear girl, you can’t do a thing like that.”

Terry’s temper got the better of her. She said,

“Watch me!”

There was a brief pause. Then a changed voice said,

“You can’t do a thing like that—you really can’t.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to.”

There was another and a longer pause. And then,

“Terry, you’re not going to tell them I went out on the terrace! Because it’s got nothing—nothing to do—” The voice stopped on a sort of gasp.

Terry thought for a minute.

“I shan’t say anything about it unless I have to.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It might come out.”

She heard Norah draw in her breath sharply. Then, with another change of manner,

“My dear, there’s nothing to come out. I’m sure I don’t know what you thought you saw, but the whole thing is really very simple. A friend of mine wanted to see me rather specially on his way back to town, and I promised to slip out for a moment. And as I had broken the string of my pearls, I thought I would let him take them up to town and get them restrung for me. And when I got to the bottom of the steps, there was a perfectly strange man, and I was so frightened I ran away. And I do wish I hadn’t, because of course he must have been waiting there to steal the picture.”

Terry’s anger died down and a cold feeling of shame took its place. She said,

“It’s no good, Norah—they were Emily’s pearls. You came out of her room and went down the stairs. I saw you. And I saw the pearls under the hall light. It’s no use saying they were yours. I saw the clasp.”

There was another of those gasps.

“What are you going to do?”

“I told you. I shan’t say anything unless I have to—Emily would hate it. It’s no use our going on talking about it—is it? Goodbye.”

Well, that was that. She wondered if anyone else would ring her up—Pearla Yorke, or Mr. Applegarth. She put the wireless on rather loud and hoped she wouldn’t hear the telephone bell.

Basil Ridgefield got back for tea.

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