“If she ever was in an attic,” Robert said.
“If, as you say, she ever was in an attic,” the Inspector agreed smoothly. And without his customary pause of courtesy went on: “She does not remember much after that. She walked a great distance in the dark, she says. It seemed a highroad but there was no traffic and she met no one. Then, on a main road, some time later, a lorry driver saw her in his headlight and stopped to give her a lift. She was so tired that she fell straight asleep. She woke as she was being set on her feet at the roadside. The lorry driver was laughing at her and saying that she was like a sawdust doll that had lost its stuffing. It seemed to be still night time. The lorry driver said this was where she said she wanted to be put off, and drove away. After a little she recognised the corner. It was less than two miles from her home. She heard a clock strike eleven. And shortly before midnight she arrived home.”
Chapter 2
There was a short silence.
“And this is the girl who is sitting in a car outside the gate of The Franchise at this moment?” said Robert.
“Yes.”
“I take it that you have reasons for bringing her here.”
“Yes. When the girl had recovered sufficiently she was induced to tell her story to the police. It was taken down in shorthand as she told it, and she read the typed version and signed it. In that statement there were two things that helped the police a lot. These are the relevant extracts:
‘When we had been going for some time we passed a bus that had MILFORD in a lighted sign on it. No, I don’t know where Milford is. No, I have never been there.’
“That is one. The other is:
‘From the window of the attic I could see a high brick wall with a big iron gate in the middle of it. There was a road on the further side of the wall, because I could see the telegraph posts. No, I couldn’t see the traffic on it because the wall was too high. Just the tops of lorry loads sometimes. You couldn’t see through the gate because it had sheets of iron on the inside. Inside the gate the carriage way went straight for a little and then divided in two into a circle up to the door. No, it wasn’t a garden, just grass. Yes, lawn, I suppose. No, I don’t remember any shrubs; just the grass and the paths.’”
Grant shut the little notebook he had been quoting from.
“As far as we know – and the search has been thorough – there is no other house between Larborough and Milford which fulfils the girl’s description except The Franchise. The Franchise, moreover, fulfils it in every particular. When the girl saw the wall and the gate today she was sure that this was the place; but she has not so far seen inside the gate, of course. I had first to explain matters to Miss Sharpe, and find out if she was willing to be confronted with the girl. She very rightly suggested that some legal witness should be present.”
“Do you wonder that I wanted help in a hurry?” Marion Sharpe said, turning to Robert. “Can you imagine a more nightmare piece of nonsense?”
“The girl’s story is certainly the oddest mixture of the factual and the absurd. I know that domestic help is scarce,” Robert said, “but would anyone hope to enlist a servant by forcibly detaining her, to say nothing of beating and starving her.”
“No normal person, of course,” Grant agreed, keeping his eye steadily fixed on Robert’s so that it had no tendency to slide over to Marion Sharpe. “But believe me in my first twelve months in the force I had come across a dozen things much more incredible. There is no end to the extravagances of human conduct.”
“I agree; but the extravagance is just as likely to be in the girl’s conduct. After all, the extravagance begins with her. She is the one who has been missing for—” He paused in question.
“A month,” Grant supplied.
“For a month; while there is no suggestion that the household at The Franchise has varied at all from its routine. Would it not be possible for Miss Sharpe to provide an alibi for the day in question?”
“No,” Marion Sharpe said. “The day, according to the Inspector, is the 28th of March. That is a long time ago, and our days here vary very little, if at all. It would be quite impossible for us to remember what we were doing on March the 28th – and most unlikely that anyone would remember for us.”
“Your maid?” Robert suggested. “Servants have ways of marking their domestic life that is often surprising.”
“We have no maid,” she said. “We find it difficult to keep one: The Franchise is so isolated.”
The moment threatened to become awkward and Robert hastened to break it.
“This girl – I don’t know her name, by the way.”
“Elisabeth Kane; known as Betty Kane.”
“Oh, yes; you did tell me. I’m sorry. This girl – may we know something about her? I take it that the police have investigated her before accepting so much of her story. Why guardians and not parents, for instance?”
“She is a war orphan. She was evacuated to the Aylesbury district as a small child. She was an only child, and was billeted with the Wynns, who had a boy four years older. About twelve months later both parents were killed, in the same ‘incident,’ and the Wynns, who had always wanted a daughter and were very fond of the child, were glad to keep her. She looks on them as her parents, since she can hardly remember the real ones.”
“I see. And her record?”
“Excellent. A very quiet girl, by every account. Good at her school work but not brilliant. Has never been in any kind of trouble, in school or out of it. ‘Transparently truthful’ was the phrase her form mistress used about her.”
“When she eventually turned up at her home, after her absence, was there any evidence of the beatings she said she had been given?”
“Oh, yes. Very definitely. The Wynns’ own doctor saw her early next morning, and his statement is that she had been very extensively knocked about. Indeed, some of the bruises were still visible much later when she made her statement to us.”
“No history of epilepsy?”
“No; we considered that very early in the inquiry. I should like to say that the Wynns are very sensible people. They have been greatly distressed, but they have not tried to dramatise the affair, or allowed the girl to be an object of interest or pity. They have taken the affair admirably.”
“And all that remains is for me to take my end of it with the same admirable detachment,” Marion Sharpe said.
“You see my position, Miss Sharpe. The girl not only describes the house in which she says she was detained; she describes the two inhabitants – and describes them very accurately. ‘A thin, elderly woman with soft white hair and no hat, dressed in black; and a much younger woman, thin and tall and dark like a gipsy, with no hat and a bright silk scarf round her neck.’”
“Oh, yes. I can think of no explanation, but I understand your position. And now I think we had better have the girl in, but before we do I should like to say—”
The door opened noiselessly, and old Mrs. Sharpe appeared on the threshold. The short pieces of white hair round her face stood up on end, as her pillow had left them, and she looked more than ever like a sibyl.
She pushed the door to behind her and surveyed the gathering with a malicious interest.
“Hah!” she said, making a sound like the throaty squawk of a hen. “Three strange men!”
“Let me present them, Mother,” Marion said, as the three got to their feet.
“This is Mr. Blair, of Blair, Hayward, and Bennet – the firm who have that lovely house at the top of the High Street.”
As Robert bowed the old woman fixed him with her seagull’s eye.
“Needs