'Thank you, sir. Then that's all.' For me it is, said the straight eyes, challenging and pitying; how about you?'

'Right, then, off you go. And I shouldn't worry.'

'Wouldn't you?' said the flicker of a smile again, less haughtily. Either Tom was beginning to see all sorts of shades of meaning that weren't there, or that last, long, thoughtful, level stare before the door closed had said, as plainly as in words: 'Come off it! You know as well as I do there was another fellow in the case nothing for you, nothing for me. Now tell me that doesn't hurt!'

He knew, as well as he knew his own name, that if he questioned Dominic Felse on the subject of the weekend in Wales, Dominic would go straight to Miles and report the entire conversation word for word; and yet it seemed to him that he had very little choice in the matter. Since he'd begun this probably useless enquiry, he couldn't very well leave an important witness out of it. He might be primed already, he might lie for his friend; but that was a hazard that applied to all witnesses, surely. And for some reason Tom felt sure that Miles would not yet have unburdened himself about that morning interview, he took time, when it was available, to think things out, and he had himself been considerably disturbed. He might not keep it quiet, but he wouldn't run to confide it until he knew what he wanted to say.

So Tom sent for Dominic Felse, half against his conscience and a little against his will, but already launched and incapable of stopping. Dominic confirmed that he and Miles had spent all the week-end together. Yes, they'd packed up together and left about half past five, maybe a little earlier. No, they hadn't been separated at all during the whole trip, except for half-hour periods while Miles took the scooter and went shopping, and Dominic cooked. Miles was no good as a cook. Yes, they'd come straight back to the Mallindines' for supper.

Why?

Dominic was nearly a year younger than Miles, and less impeded by his dignity and sophistication from asking the obvious questions. Moreover, he was the son of a detective-inspector, and had a consequent grasp of the rights of the interrogated which made him an awkward customer to interrogate. With sunny politeness he answered questions, and with reciprocal interest asked them. Tom got rid of him in short order, for fear of giving away more than he got.

He met the two of them in the corridor as he left when afternoon school ended. They gave him twin civilised smiles, very slight and correct, and said: 'Good-night, sir!' in restrained and decorous unison.

The sight of the two of them thus, shoulder to shoulder, with similarly closed faces and impenetrable eyes, settled one thing. They had pooled everything they knew, and were preparing to stand off the world from each other's back whenever the a.s.sault threatened.

He had seen it coming, and he didn't make the mistake of thinking that either of them would as lightly confide in a third party. All the same, he began to regret what he had set in motion. Would it really do any good to find out what had happened, and who had made it happen? Wasn't it better to creep through the next few days and weeks with fingers crossed and breath held, walking on tiptoe and praying to know nothing not to have to know anything like Beck and Mrs Beck? Thankful for every night that closed in with no trap sprung and no revelation exploding into knowledge; frightened of every contact in the street and every alarm note of the telephone, but every day a little less frightened.

Annet came and went with fewer words than ever, but with a tranquil face. Something of wonder still lingered, and something of sadness and deprivation, too, and sometimes her eyes, looking through the walls of the house and the slope of the Hallowmount into whatever underworld she had left behind there, burned into a secret, motionless excitement that never seemed quite to be able to achieve joy. She went to Cwm Hall in the morning, and Regina Blacklock's chauffeur drove her home in the evening, and n.o.body there seemed to notice anything wrong with her or her work. Thank G.o.d that was all right, anyhow! There were bushels of Regina's notes from the conference to decipher and type out, and a long report to her committee, which Annet brought home to copy on Thursday evening. On the incidence and basic causes of delinquency in deprived children!

She was working on it when Tom came through the hall after supper to go out and stable the Mini for the night. He heard the typewriter clicking away in the dingy little book-lined room Beck still called his study, though all he ever did in it was acc.u.mulate endless random text-notes of doubtful value on various obscure authors, with a view to publishing his own commentaries some day. No one believed it would ever be done, not even Beck himself; no one believed the world stood to gain or lose anything, either way.

Tom opened the door gingerly and looked in, and she was alone at the desk. It was the first time he had been alone with her, even for a moment, since her return. He went in quickly, and closed the door softly at his back.

'Annet-'

She had heard him come. She finished her sentence composedly before she looked up. He could see no hardening in her face, no wariness, no change at all. She looked at him thoughtfully, and said nothing.

'Annet, I want you to know that if there's anything I can do to help you, I will, gladly. I'd like to think you'd ask me.'

She sat and looked at him for a long moment, looked down at her own hands still poised over the keys, and back slowly to his face. He thought he caught the bleak, small shadow of a smile, at least a shade of warmth in her eyes.

'You'd much better just go on thinking me a liar,' she said without reproach or bitterness. 'It's nice of you, but I really don't need any help.'

'I hope you won't, Annet. Only I'm afraid you may. I know, I feel, it isn't over. And I don't want you to be hurt.'

'Oh, that that doesn't matter!' said Annet, startled into a rush of generous words. 'Not at all! You mustn't worry about me.' doesn't matter!' said Annet, startled into a rush of generous words. 'Not at all! You mustn't worry about me.'

She smiled at him, the first real, unguarded smile he had ever had from her. If she had asked him to believe in fairyland then, he would have done it; any prodigy he would have managed for her. But the moment was over before it was well begun; for it was at that instant that the knocker thudded at the front door.

He shivered and froze at the sound. Annet's smile had grown suddenly, mockingly bright. 'It'll be Myra, coming for me,' she said, quite gently. 'What are you afraid of?'

But it wasn't Myra. They heard Mrs Beck cross the hall, quick, nervous steps, running to ward off disaster. They heard the low exchange of words; a man's voice, quiet and deep-pitched, and Mrs Beck's fluttering tones between. He was in the hall now; only a few steps, then he was still, waiting.

The door opened upon Mrs Beck's white, paralysed face and scared eyes.

'Annet there's someone here who wishes to speak to you.'

He came into the doorway at her shoulder, a tall, lean man with a long, contemplative face and deceptively placid eyes that didn't miss either Tom's instinctively stiffening back or Annet's blank surprise.

'I'm sorry to interrupt your work, Miss Beck,' said Detective-Inspector George Felse gently, 'but there's a matter on which I'm obliged to ask you some questions. And I think, in the circ.u.mstances, it should be in your parents' presence.'

CHAPTER IV.

From the very first she seemed startled and bewildered, but not afraid; a little uneasy, naturally, for after all, George Felse was the police, and clearly on business, but not at all in trouble with her own conscience.

'Of course!' she said, and slid the bar of her typewriter into its locked position, and stood up. 'Shouldn't we go into the living-room? It's more comfortable there.'

'But Mr Kenyon-' began Mrs Beck helplessly, and let the words trail vaguely away. An old, cold house, where was the paying guest to sit in peace if they appropriated the living-room?

'That's all right,' said Tom, torn between haste and unwillingness, 'I'll get out of the way.'

But he didn't want to! He had to know what he had let loose upon her, for he was sure this was his work. He should have let well alone. Why had he had to question Mallindine, and then go on to confirm what he well knew might still be lies by dragging in Dominic Felse? They'd compared notes almost before his back was turned; and young Felse had promptly gone home and let slip the whole affair, with all its implications, to his father. How else could you account for this?

But no, that wouldn't do; as soon as he paused to consider he could see that clearly. If Dominic had informed on Annet, it was because something else had happened during that lost week-end, something that could be linked to a strayed girl and an improbable fairy-story. Something of interest to the police, whose sole interest in a pair of eighteen-year-old runaways would be to restore them to their agitated parents, and let the two families settle it between them as best they could; and even that only if their aid had been sought in the affair. No, there must be something else, something that had frightened Dominic with its implications, and caused him either to blurt out what he knew unintentionally, or driven him to deliver it up as a burden too heavy and a responsibility too great to be borne.

'It's just possible,' said George Felse, eyeing him amiably but distantly from beyond the rampart of his official status, all the overtones of friendship carefully excised from a voice which remained gentle, courteous and low-pitched, 'that I may need to see you for a few moments, too, Mr Kenyon, if you wouldn't mind being somewhere available, in case?'

He said he wouldn't, numbly and reluctantly, and turned to go up to his own room. He didn't hurry, because he wanted to be called back, not to be excluded. In a way he would have given anything to escape, but since there wasn't going to be any escape, anyhow, and he had already been dragged into the full intimacy of the family secret, what point was there in putting off the event? And before he had reached the stairs Beck was there, framed in the doorway of the living-room, wispy and grey and frightened, and looking desperately for an ally.

'What is it? Did I hear you say you want to talk to Annet, Mr Felse?' His eyes wandered sidelong to Tom, who had looked back. 'No, no, don't go, Kenyon, this can't be anything so grave that you can't hear it. Please, I should be glad if you'd stay. One of the household, you know. That's if you have no objection to being present?'

Panic gleamed behind the thick lenses of his gla.s.ses; not for anything would he be left alone with Annet and his wife and the threat George Felse represented. His wife would expect him to spread a male protective barrier between his womenfolk and harm; or she would not expect it, but watch his helplessness with a bitter, contemptuous smile, and that would be worse. And Annet would act as though he was not there, knowing she had to fend for herself. No, he couldn't do without Tom. He laid a trembling hand on his arm, and held him convulsively.

'It's rather if Felse has no objection,' said Tom, watching the CID man's face doubtfully.

'No, this is not official yet. Later I may have to ask you to make a formal statement. That will depend on what you have to tell me.'

He was looking Annet in the eyes, without a smile, but with the deliberate, emphatic gentleness of one breaking heavy matters to a child. He had known her since she was a small girl with pigtails; not intimately, but as an observant man knows the young creatures who grow up round him in his own village, the contemporaries of his own sons and daughters. He'd had to pay similar visits to not a few of their homes in his time, he knew all the pitfalls crumbling under their uncertain feet.

'I'll tell you what I can,' said Annet, brows drawn close in a frown of bewilderment. 'But I don't know what you can want to ask me.'

'So much the better, then,' he said equably, and followed her into the living-room, and turned a chair to the light for her. She understood that quite open manoeuvre, and smiled faintly, but acquiesced without apparent reluctance. The parents hovered, quivering and silent. Tom closed the door, and sat down un.o.btrusively apart from them.

'Now Annet, I want you to tell me, if you will, how you spent last week-end.'

George Felse sat down facing her, quite close, watching her attentively but very gently. If he felt the despairing contraction of the tension within the room he gave no sign, and neither did she. She tilted back her head, shaking away the winged shadow of her hair, as if to show him the muted tranquillity of her face more clearly.

'I can't tell you that,' she said.

'I think you can, if you will.' And when she had nothing to say, and her mother only turned her head aside with a helpless, savage sigh, he pursued levelly: 'Were you here at home, for instance?'

'They say not,' said Annet in a small, still voice.

'Let them tell me that. I'm asking you what you say.'

'I can only tell you what I told them,' said Annet, 'but you won't believe me.'

'Try me,' he said patiently.

She looked him unwaveringly in the eyes, and took him at his word. Again, in the same clipped, bare terms she retold that fantastic story of hers.

'Mrs Blacklock gave me practically a whole week off, from Thursday morning, because she was going to the child care conference at Gloucester. She asked me to come in again on Wednesday yesterday and clear up any routine correspondence, and then she came home in the evening. So I had five free days. I hadn't made any plans to do anything special. I meant to go to choir practice on Friday night, as usual. Maybe to the dance on Sat.u.r.day, but I hadn't decided, because Myra was going with a party to the theatre in Wolverhampton, so I hadn't anyone to go with. They must have missed me at choir practice, and at church on Sunday. If I'd intended not to be there, shouldn't I have let them know?'

'He rang up on Friday night,' said Mrs Beck, a little huskily. 'Mr Blacklock, I mean after choir practice. He was worried because she didn't turn up, wondered if she wasn't well. I told him she had a bit of a cold. He was quite alarmed, and I had to put him off, or he'd have been round to see her. I said it was nothing much, but she was in bed early, and asleep, so he couldn't disturb her, of course. He rang again on Sunday morning, after church, to ask how she was.'

'He only has four altos,' put in Beck with pathetic eagerness. 'And she never lets them down. Mr Blacklock knows he can always rely on Annet for his alto solos.'

Annet's clenched lips quivered in a brief and wry smile. It was all a part of the well-meaning communal effort to keep Annet busy and amused, everyone knew that. The Blacklocks had been taken into Mrs Beck's embittered and indignant confidence, after that abortive affair with Miles Mallindine, and with her usual competence Regina had stemmed every gap in the fence of watchful care that surrounded the girl, and poured new commitments into every empty corner of her days. Probably the choir was one of the things she'd enjoyed most. Regina couldn't sing a note; it was Peter, with his patient, fastidious kindness, who manipulated the casual material at his disposal into a very fair music for a village church. No wonder he rejoiced in Annet's deep, l.u.s.trous, boy's voice. And as charged by his wife, he always brought or sent her home in the car; that was a part of his responsibility. If Annet ever defected again, it mustn't be while she was in their charge.

'So from Thursday morning you were free,' said George mildly, undistracted by these digressions. 'What did you do with your freedom?'

'I was home all Thursday afternoon. I washed some things, and played a few records, and wrote one letter. And my mother had two more to post, so about half past three I said I'd go and post them, and then go for a walk. I said I'd be back to tea. I met Mr Kenyon just at the gate, and he offered to post the letters for me, but I told him I wanted some air and was going for a walk. It was just beginning to rain, but I didn't mind that, I like walking in the rain. I posted the letters in the box by the farm, and then I went on up the lane and over the stile on to the Hallowmount. I climbed right over the hill and went down into the valley by the brook, on the other side. I remember coming to the path there, this side of the brook. I can't remember how much farther I walked. I can't remember noticing which way I went, or when it stopped raining. But suddenly I realised it was dark, and I turned back. It wasn't raining then. I thought I'd better get home the shortest way, so I climbed over the hill again, and there the gra.s.s was quite dry, and so were my shoes, and the moon was out. And just below the rocks there I met Mr Kenyon and my father, coming to look for me. They said said they were looking for me. It seemed silly to me. I thought I was only a couple of hours late. But they said it was Tuesday,' she said, eyes wide and distant and grave confronting George Felse's straight regard. 'They said I'd been gone five days. I didn't believe it until we got home, and there was a letter for me, an answer to the one I'd posted. But I couldn't tell them any more than I've told you now, and I know they don't believe me. All the week-end, they say, they've been trying to find me, and covering up the fact that I wasn't here.' they were looking for me. It seemed silly to me. I thought I was only a couple of hours late. But they said it was Tuesday,' she said, eyes wide and distant and grave confronting George Felse's straight regard. 'They said I'd been gone five days. I didn't believe it until we got home, and there was a letter for me, an answer to the one I'd posted. But I couldn't tell them any more than I've told you now, and I know they don't believe me. All the week-end, they say, they've been trying to find me, and covering up the fact that I wasn't here.'

George sat silent, studying her thoughtfully for a moment. Nothing of belief or disbelief, wonder or suspicion, showed in his face; he might have been listening to a morning's trivialities from Mrs Dale. Annet knew how to be silent, too. She looked back at him and added nothing; she waited, her hands quite still in her lap.

'You met no one on the hill? Or along by the brook?' It was hardly likely on a rainy Thursday afternoon, but there was always the possibility.

'No.'

'Mr Kenyon saw her,' said Mr Beck quickly.

'I was driving back along the lane about four,' confirmed Tom, 'on my way home for the week-end, and I happened to look up at the Hallowmount just as the sun came out on it. I saw her climbing towards the crest, just as she says.'

'Could you be sure it was Annet, at that distance?'

'I'd seen her go out, I knew just what she was wearing.' Carefully he suppressed the aching truth that he would have known her in whatever clothes, by the gait, by the carriage of her head, by all the shape and movement that made her Annet, and no other person. 'I was sure. Then, when I got back here on Tuesday evening, and found she's been missing all that time, I told Mr and Mrs Beck about it, and we went there on the off-chance of picking up any traces. We didn't expect anything. But we found her.'

'She was surprised to see us,' said Beck eagerly. 'She asked what we were doing there, and if anything was the matter. She said she knew she was very late, but surely we didn't have to send out a search party.'

'She was particularly surprised to see me,' added Tom. 'She said she thought I should have been home by then, and surely I didn't stay behind because we were worried about her.'

They were all joining in now, anxiously proffering details of the search for her, of her return, of the terrible consistency of her att.i.tude since, which had never wavered. George listened with unshakable patience, but it was Annet he watched. And when he had everything, all but those tyre-tracks of which her parents knew nothing, and which Tom must mention only privately if he mentioned them at all, it was still to Annet that he spoke.

'So you went up the Hallowmount,' he said, 'and vanished out of time and place, like Tabitha Blount in the seventeenth century. And came back, also like Tabby, sure you'd been there no more than an hour or two, and never strayed out of this world. She never could give any account of her fairyland. Can you do any better?'

'I know I was happy,' said Annet, disregarding all but what she wished to hear; and suddenly the blue eyes deepened and warmed into such a pa.s.sion of triumph and anguished joy that George was startled and moved. 'Happy' was a large word, but not too large for the blaze that lit her for a moment.

'There's nothing more you wish to tell me? And nothing you want to amend? It's up to you, Annet.'

'There's nothing else I can tell you,' she said. 'I told you that before I began. Ask them if I've changed anything. I told you they didn't believe me. I can't help it if you don't believe me, either.'

'I don't,' said George simply. 'Nor do I believe that your parents or Kenyon here have accepted it, never for a moment. Your missing five days were spent somewhere. As you very well know. I think, though I may be wrong, that you also know very well where, in every detail. I strongly advise you to think again, and tell me the truth, as in the end you'll have to.'

Her father was at her side by this time, feebly fumbling her cold hand. Her mother was close on her left, gripping the arm of the chair.

'Mr Felse, you must allow for the possibility of of- More things in heaven and earth, you know- How can we presume to know everything?' Beck was tearing sentences to shreds in his nervousness, and dropping the tatters wherever they fell.

'She's been utterly consistent,' Tom pointed out, trampling the pieces ruthlessly. Someone had to sound sane, and put the more possible theories. 'I don't argue that you should believe in fairies but you'll notice that Annet hasn't asked you to. She's made no claim at all that anything supernatural ever happened to her. She says she doesn't remember anything between going over the crest of the Hallowmount and coming to herself to realise it had grown dark, and then hurrying towards home. There's nothing fantastic about that. It doesn't happen often, but it happens, you know of cases as well as I do. Of course those five days were spent somewhere, we know that. But it may very well be true that Annet doesn't know where.'

'Amnesia,' said Mrs Beck, too strenuously, and recoiled from the theatrical impact of the word, and said no more.

Why were they arguing like this, what was it they were trying to ward off? What did the police care about a truant week-end, provided no laws had been broken?'

'It was a fine, dry week-end,' said George reasonably, 'About ten per cent of the Black Country must have been roaming the border hills on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, and the odds are pretty good that a fair porportion of them were on the Hallowmount. They couldn't all miss a wandering, distressed girl. If any locals had seen her they'd have spoken to her. Everyone knows her. And did she reappear tired, hungry, anxious or grimy? Apparently not. She came down to you completely self-possessed, neat, tidy and fresh, asking pertinent questions. From fairyland, yes, perhaps. From amnesia one's return would, I fancy, be less coherent and coordinated.'

He hitched his chair a little nearer to Annet, he reached and took her hands, compelling her attention.

'I don't doubt the happiness, Annet,' he said gently. 'In a way I think you've told me a kind of truth, a partial truth. Now tell me the rest while you can. You were no nearer the underworld than, say Birmingham. Were you?'

Hard on the heels of the brief, blank silence Beck said, in a high, hysterical voice: 'But what does it mean? What if she actually was in Birmingham? That's not a crime, however wrong it may be to lie to one's family. What are all these questions about about? I think you should tell us.'

'Perhaps I should. Unless Annet wants to alter her story first?'

'I can't,' said Annet. Braced and intent, she watched him, and whether it was incomprehension he saw in her face or the impenetrable resolution to cover and contain what she understood all too well, he still could not determine.

'Very well. You want to know what the questions are about. Last Sat.u.r.day night, around shop-closing time,' said George, 'a young girl was seen, by two witnesses independently, standing on the corner of a minor and at that hour an almost deserted street in Birmingham. She was idling about as though waiting for someone, about forty yards from a small jeweller's shop. The first witness, an old woman who lives in the street, gave a fair description of a girl who answers very well to Annet's general appearance. The second one, a young man, gave a much more detailed account. He spoke to her, you see, wasted five minutes or so trying to pick her up. He described her minutely. Girls like Annet can't, I suppose, hope to escape the notice of young men.'

'But however good a description you had,' protested Tom, 'why a girl from Comerford, of all places, when this was in Birmingham?'

'A good question, I'm coming to that.'

'I suppose your son told you Annet was missing during the week-end,' said Tom, bitterly and unwisely.

George gave him a long, thoughtful glance from under raised brows.

'No, Dominic's told me nothing but thanks for the tip. No, the Birmingham police came to us because this girl, according to her unwelcome cavalier, was filling in the time while she waited, as one does, by fishing the forgotten bits out of her pockets. Everyone has an end of pencil, or a loose lucky farthing, or a hair-grip, or something, lost in the fluff at the seam. This girl had a bus ticket. She was playing with it when he accosted her, and she was nervous. That amused him. He paid particular attention to the way she was folding it up into a tiny fan - you know? - narrow folds across in alternate directions, then fold the whole thing in the middle. When he was too pressing though of course he doesn't admit that she drew back from him hastily, twisted the fan in her fingers and threw it down. He says he left her alone then. If she didn't want him, he could do without her. But when they took him back to the corner next day he knew where the ticket had lodged, close under the wall, in a cranny of the paving stones. And sure enough, they found it there, and he identified it positively.

'It turned out,' said George flatly, 'to be a one-and-fourpenny by Egertons' service between Comerbourne and Comerford. With that and the description it wasn't so hard to settle upon Annet, once they came to us. Unfortunately no one saw the person for whom she was waiting. She told the youngster who accosted her she was waiting for her boyfriend, and he was an amateur boxer. So he didn't hang around to put it to the test.'