Free The Girl In The Cellar by Patricia Wentworth Page A

fast. You haven’t said how she knew where to go.’
    Jim bit his lip.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ’I keep thinking I’ve told you more than I have. I did say she’d got a bag, didn’t I—the bag the money was in and the torch? Well, there was a letter in it too from my aunt Lilian, inviting her down there. You see, I’d written to her. They’re old-fashioned, she and Harriet—lived at Haleycott all their lives, or most of them—and I thought it best to give them a little warning, so I sent Anne to this Mrs Birdstock, an old parlourmaid of ours. She was to post the letter I had written to Lilian as soon as she arrived and wait with Mrs Birdstock for an answer. Well, she didn’t do any of those things. That is, she must have sent my letter to Lilian, because the answer to it came there to Saltcoats Road. But she didn’t go there, and she didn’t wait there. I don’t know where she went or what she did. And someone—someone turned up on the third day at Saltcoats Road, said she was Anne, and took away the letter from Lilian. It may have been Anne, or it may have been someone else. If it was Anne, it’s the last time she appeared alive as far as we know. There’s one thing, the bag Anne—the Anne who is alive, not the poor girl who was dead in the cellar—the bag that had the money in it… No, I’m getting this all wrong, and it’ll fog you. Wait a minute. Anne—the living Anne, the girl who is down at Haleycott now—when she turned up in the bus and Miss Silver met her, she had a handbag. It’s the first appearance of a handbag, so it’s important. Anne, the one who’s alive, doesn’t think that the bag belongs to her.
    ‘She thinks it belonged to the dead girl. I think it was one of the things she bought when she landed. She had very little with her—I don’t know what she had, but she didn’t have a bag.’
    ‘You don’t know that the bag didn’t belong to the other girl?’
    ‘Well, I don’t know anything—but I’m guessing. It seems reasonable the way I’m telling it.’
    ‘Look here, what actually was there in that bag?’
    ‘A handkerchief, a letter from my aunt Lilian, notes to the amount of ten pounds in the middle, and a little change in the small purse at the side. There was a torch. Anne said she got it out and looked at the dead girl, then she put it away again. That’s the lot.’
    Frank was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘And you found this bead in the cellar of a house in Lime Street?’
    ‘Yes—37 Lime Street.’
    ‘And you’re sure that bead you found is from the girl’s necklace?’
    Jim said, ‘Look here, I’m not sure about anything. If we were in Russia, there wouldn’t be anything to be sure about—every second girl might be wearing a necklace of that sort. As we’re in London—’ He made a gesture with his hands. ‘It tots up, doesn’t it? There’s this Russian bead on the floor of an empty house, just out of sight—doesn’t that say anything to you? And the floor had been swept and washed as far as the boards leaning up against the wall in the corner. I tell you the girl was murdered there, and I want to know who murdered her. And why’
    CHAPTER 16
    Jim came down to Chantreys the following morning. He was received by Harriet with indifference, by Lilian with an intensification of her usual somewhat fluttered and inconsequent manner.
    Left alone with Anne for a moment, he said in a low voice, ‘I want to talk to you. Get your hat on and come out.’
    When Lilian reappeared he said, ‘We’re going out.’
    Lilian said, ‘Oh?’ and then quickly, ‘Well, it’s not very convenient, not at all convenient, but if you want—only after lunch would be much better.’
    ‘I shan’t be here after lunch. I’ve just come down for an hour to see Anne. It is Anne and I who are going out.’
    ‘Oh?’ Lilian looked cross and offended. ‘Of course, if that is what you want you must do just as you like.’
    He turned to Anne.
    ‘Put on your things