Free Blindfold by Patricia Wentworth

Don’t you see?”
    â€œOoh!” said Flossie. “You’re the one that doesn’t see, Mr Miles. Go to the police? No, I don’t think! I mightn’t be so lucky as Ivy. They did get her out, with a bang on the head and nearly drowned, but p’raps next time there wouldn’t be no one about and they’d make sure . You’ve got to hold your tongue, or it might be you that’d go barging and banging down the river with the tide till someone picked you up with your neck broke or the side of your head bashed in. And I’ve got to hold mine, or it might be me. See here, Mr Miles—you’ve give me your promise and you got to keep it. I don’t want to get knocked on the head and pushed in the river along of something I wasn’t meant to see. I want to save a little money, and when Ernie asks me to name the day I’m going to marry him. He’s got a good job and he’s steady, and a girl expects to get married and have a nice home. I’m not going to get mixed up with a police case neither, for Aunt wouldn’t like it at all, nor Ernie wouldn’t. So you’ve got to promise me solemn you won’t go to the police.”
    â€œAll right, Flossie, I won’t.”
    â€œYou’ve got to say you promise,” said Flossie breathlessly.
    Miles laughed a little impatiently.
    â€œAll right, my dear, I promise.”
    â€œWord of honour?”
    â€œWord of honour.”
    â€œCross your heart?”
    â€œCross my heart, Flossie.”
    She let go of his wrist and stood away from him. The urgency had gone out of her. She said in rather a flat little voice.
    â€œGladys’ll be waiting to let me in. Good night, Mr Miles.” And with that she turned and ran back along the wet pavement.
    He watched her pass the lamp-post and saw her fair hair under the yellow light. She had run out bare-headed with a coat thrown over her gay uniform. A gleam of scarlet showed at the hem. Then the darkness took her and she was gone.

CHAPTER X
    Ian Gilmore sat talking with Freddy and Lila until Freddy sent Lila to bed. When they were alone, he got up, poured himself out a drink, and turning with the tumbler in his hand, went over to the hearth and stood looking down into the fire.
    This room was all gold—the pale, dim gold of an old picture-frame. It made a very fitting frame for Lila’s beauty. When she was in it, it seemed just that, but when she was away, it lacked life. There was too much of that one flat tone.
    Ian drank from his glass and set it down upon the narrow golden ledge which crossed the chimney breast. As he did so, his brother Freddy said in his equable voice,
    â€œBetter get it off your chest, hadn’t you?”
    There was a moment’s silence. Ian Gilmore did not turn round. He frowned at the fire, where the ash had sunk to a red pit, and said,
    â€œCan you stop Lila talking, Freddy?”
    â€œIn general, no—but in particular, probably. Why do you want her stopped?”
    Ian turned round with a jerk.
    â€œDo you remember what she was saying when I kicked you?”
    Freddy nodded.
    â€œSomething about the Vulture affair—a hang-over from the Vulture affair—and his organization having a new head. And then something about the American government and the French government, at which point you did your best to break my leg.”
    â€œSorry,” said Ian. There was no smile on his face.
    Red Indian out for scalp, was Freddy’s diagnosis. He hoped the scalp was not Lila’s. A smile just touched his eyes and went away again. He loved Lila very much.
    â€œWell?” he said. “What’s it all about?”
    Ian looked past him down the room. He was seething with things which it would have relieved him a good deal to say about wasters who couldn’t hold their tongues, but as he couldn’t damn Fitz and Fitz’s set into heaps without at the same time damning Freddy’s wife,