Free She Came Back by Patricia Wentworth Page A

laughed.
    “You know, I don’t think this sort of thing gets us anywhere. I mean, if somebody asks me who Cousin Inez is, and I say she’s Cousin Theresa’s sister and their father was a first cousin of my grandfather’s, well, it simply doesn’t get us anywhere at all, because Philip seems to think I’m Annie Joyce and Annie would know all these things just as well as I do.”
    They all looked at her. Philip looked at her. She seemed frankness personified, her colour a little risen, her lips smiling, her left hand with the big sapphire of Anne’s engagement ring overlapping the platinum wedding-ring laid carelessly— or was it carefully?—on the dark shining board. The women’s eyes were on the rings. Inez said,
    “Perfectly right—that sort of thing is no good at all—sheer waste of time.” Her light eyes went maliciously to Emmeline. “What we want is to be practical. Why does Philip say that she isn’t Anne? Why does he think that she is Annie Joyce? That is where we should begin.”
    Impossible for common sense to take a more irritating form. The voice, the darting glances passing from Emmeline to Lyndall and back to Philip, had a singularly antagonizing quality.
    Mr. Codrington looked resigned and said,
    “Perhaps Philip will answer that.”
    Philip looked straight in front of him over the top of Anne’s head to the elegant portrait of the Philip Jocelyn who had been a page at the court of William and Mary. Tight white breeches and a lemon-coloured coat, very fair hair tossed carelessly above the brow. Eight years old. At twenty-eight he was dead in a duel over an unfaithful wife. Her portrait hung, banished, in a corner upstairs—all dark love-locks and rose-red furbelows.
    He told his story as he had told it in the parlour—the fall of France—Dunkirk—the desperate bid to get Anne away— her death in the moment of its success. His voice was throughout extremely quiet and without expression. He was very pale.
    When he had finished, Emmeline had a question ready,
    “You went over to get Anne, and you saw her and Annie Joyce together. As far as I know, no one else ever saw Annie after she was fifteen—unless Inez did?”
    Miss Jocelyn shook the platinum head with its unsuitable fly-away hat.
    “I thought Theresa’s craze for her ridiculous! I told her so, and she didn’t like it. People very seldom like the truth, but I make a point of saying what I think. I said it to Theresa, and she quarrelled with me. Nobody can say that it was my fault. We met at Anne’s wedding, but we didn’t speak. Theresa had a very resentful nature. As to Annie Joyce, I only saw her once, about ten years ago. A most gawky, unattractive child. Nothing to account for Theresa taking such a fancy. But if you ask me, she only did it to annoy the family.”
    As everyone else round the table shared this opinion, there were no comments.
    Emmeline said quickly,
    “Please let Philip answer my question, Inez. He saw Anne and Annie Joyce together—you did, didn’t you, Philip?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then how much alike were they? That is what we all want to know.”
    Philip looked at her. Milly Armitage thought, “He’s horribly strained. It’s worse than any funeral—and it’s going to go on for hours.”
    Then that expressionless voice:
    “I wasn’t thinking about likeness, I’m afraid. It was after midnight. I had to break in at the back of the house. Pierre woke up and got the girls. You say I saw them together— we were in the kitchen with a single candle. I hustled them off to get ready. I sent Pierre for the other people. The girls only came back just before we started.”
    Emmeline persisted.
    “But you did see them together—you must have noticed whether there was a likeness.”
    “Of course there was a likeness.”
    “Annie’s hair was darker than Anne’s,” said Inez Jocelyn. “Even when she was fifteen I’m sure it was darker.”
    Emmeline threw her a look.
    “Hair doesn’t always stay the same