Free The Girl In The Cellar by Patricia Wentworth Page B

and come along, will you?’
    Lilian said in a quick waspish way, ‘You’re very sure of who you want, aren’t you? You’re very sure about everything.’
    Anne hurried to be gone. She heard Jim’s voice behind her as she went, but she couldn’t hear what he said. She fetched a scarf and her coat, and came back to find Lilian writing and Jim looking out of the window. There was a heavy feeling in the air as if there had been a quarrel between them. At the sound of her light footstep he turned and went out with her, up through the garden and out through a low wicket gate upon the green empty slopes of the hill.
    They had not spoken until they were clear of the garden. Then he turned to her and said, “This is a first-class place for confidences. Ideal. I don’t like doors and walls very much. And I don’t like bushes and trees where you can’t see—there may be nothing, or there may be anything. The best place for talking secrets is a mountain top with no trees, or a boat on the sea without anyone to overhear what you are saying. But this is good enough.’
    If he had been a little uncertain about Anne, her presence was convincing. She had walked beside him in a silence which was without constraint. It was most like the silence of intimacy, the silence into which two old friends may fall when they walk together. There was a restful quiet about it. She did not answer him now, only waited, looking not at him, but at the slopes of bare green turning rusty, and at the trees which surrounded the house which they had left. He had not been able to make up his mind what to say to her, and then all at once his mind was made up, set, and fixed. What he knew she could know—it was as simple and as easy as that. He said, ‘I went to see Miss Silver yesterday.’
    ‘Yes?’
    It was just one word, but he knew when he heard it that that was how it was to be between them.
    ‘We found the house—’
    She said ‘Oh—’ It was more a breath than a word.
    ‘The floor of the cellar had been swept and washed, but in the corner there were some boards. They hadn’t been moved. I moved them. This was lying underneath them.’ He held out his palm with the bead upon it—a small blue bead—evidence of murder—
    She met his eyes. Something seemed to pass between them. She said very low, ‘Her beads were like that.’
    ‘You saw them?’
    ‘Yes. They had been—round her neck. The string was broken—’ She was looking back into the dark cellar. The light came from the torch in her hand, the light dazzled on the beads. She said, ‘I saw them there in the cellar—I did see them—’
    He spoke insistently.
    ‘You’re sure you saw them—the beads?’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ A shudder shook her. “They were there— the beads—but the string was broken—’
    He said, ‘We were there—Miss Silver and I. The house is to let furnished. The old lady it belonged to died. Which way did you go down to the cellar from the hall—right or left?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. And then it came to her. ‘I don’t know about going down—but coming up—the door was on my right. There was the flight of steps—and then the door— it was half open—but no light in the hall. There was a table between me and the outside door—I had to go round it—the door was a little open. I went out and shut the door behind me. It was a dark road, but there were a lot of lights at the far end of it. I went along to the lights. I got into the first bus that stopped.’
    He was frowning intently.
    ‘You don’t remember going to the house—who let you in?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘I don’t remember anything like that—’ She paused. ‘If I had seen anyone—anyone at all—wouldn’t I remember them?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘I think I should. I don’t think I saw anyone in that house. I think we were alone there—the dead girl and myself. I don’t think there was anyone else. If there was, why didn’t they come and