The Franchise Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

former mistress used about her.”
    â€œWhen she eventually turned up at her home, after her absence, was there any evidence of the beatings she said she had been given?”
    â€œOh, yes. Very definitely. The Wynns’ own doctor saw her early next morning, and his statement is that she had been veryextensively knocked about. Indeed, some of the bruises were still visible much later when she made her statement to us.”
    â€œNo history of epilepsy?”
    â€œNo; 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.”
    â€œAnd all that remains is for me to take my end of it with the same admirable detachment,” Marion Sharpe said.
    â€œYou 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.’ ”
    â€œOh, 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.
    â€œHah!” she said, making a sound like the throaty squawk of a hen. “Three strange men!”
    â€œLet me present them, Mother,” Marion said, as the three got to their feet.
    â€œThis 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.
    â€œNeeds re-tilling,” she said.
    It did, but it was not the greeting he had expected.
    It comforted him a little that her greeting to Grant was even more unorthodox. Far from being impressed or agitated by the presence of Scotland Yard in her drawing-room of a spring afternoon, she merely said in her dry voice: “You should not be sitting in that chair; you are much too heavy for it.”
    When her daughter introduced the local Inspector she cast one glance at him, moved her head an inch, and quite obviously dismissed him from further consideration. This, Hallam, to judge by his expression, found peculiarly shattering.
    Grant looked inquiringly at Miss Sharpe.
    â€œI’ll tell you,” she said. “Mother, the Inspector wants us to see a young girl who is waiting in a car outside the gate. She was missing from her home near Aylesbury for a month, and when she turned up again—in a distressed condition—she said that she had been detained by people who wanted to make a servant of her. They kept her locked up when she refused, and beat and starved her. She described the place and the people minutely, and it so happens that you and I fit the description admirably. So does our house. The suggestion is that she was detained up in our attic with the round window.”
    â€œRemarkably interesting,” said the old lady, seating herself with deliberation on an Empire sofa. “What did we beat her with?”
    â€œA dog whip, I understand.”
    â€œHave we got a dog whip?”
    â€œWe have one of those ‘lead’ things, I think. They make a whip if necessary. But the point is, the Inspector would like us to meet this girl, so that she can say if we are the people who detained her or not.”
    â€œHave you any objections, Mrs. Sharpe?”