She Came Back by Patricia Wentworth Page A

said Milly Armitage.
    Emmeline said “Oh—” again. Then she went on with her questions.
    “We’ve got to clear up this business about the clothes, because it’s very important. The girl who died in the boat— the one you thought was Anne—how was she dressed? You identified her, so you must have seen her next day.”
    Perry felt Lilla wince. Thomas Jocelyn was aware of an inarticulate bleak anger. Lyndall looked down at her hands, which were clenched in her lap.
    Philip said, “Yes, I saw her. But I’m afraid I don’t remember about her clothes, except that they were wet and a good deal stained—the sea kept breaking over us. I’m afraid it’s no good, Aunt Emmeline. We’ve been over this clothes question before, and it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
    “Where was Anne’s jewelry—those rings and her pearls? The pearls were real.”
    Again it was Anne who answered.
    “They were all in my handbag. I was carrying it.” She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “All except my wedding-ring. I took it off when I quarreled with Philip about going to France. When I knew he had come over to fetch me, I put it on again.”
    “Did you know she had taken it off, Philip?”
    “Yes.”
    “If I may ask something—” Inez Jocelyn’s tone was edgy. “Of course only if Emmeline has quite finished. I think we ought to know what this quarrel was about. Anne would be able to tell us, but probably Annie Joyce would not.”
    Anne gave her an unsteady smile.
    “Of course I can tell you. It was all very stupid—quarrels generally are. Cousin Theresa wrote and asked me to come over to France. She said she had made a will in my favour when she came over to the wedding, and she wanted to talk to me about personal mementoes for the family. Philip was very angry. He said she had no business to leave the money away from Annie Joyce, and he said I wasn’t to go. Of course he was perfectly right about the money, and I wouldn’t have taken it—though I didn’t tell him that, because I was angry too, and I didn’t like being dictated to. So we quarrelled, and I took off my wedding-ring and went to France without making it up.”
    Inez Jocelyn turned her pale eyes on Philip, protruded her pale chin.
    “Is that true?”
    He said, “Perfectly true,” and then looked suddenly at Anne. “Where did we have this quarrel?”
    Their eyes met, his very cold, hers very bright. Something in them eluded him.
    “Where?”
    “Yes, where? In what place, and at what time of the day?”
    She said very slowly, and as if it pleased her to dwell upon the words,
    “In the parlour—in the afternoon—after lunch.”
    That cold gaze of his held against the spark of triumph in hers. It was she who looked away.
    He said, “Perfectly correct.”
    There was a silence. Mr. Elvery wrote upon his pad.
    “Annie Joyce wouldn’t have been very likely to know that!” said Inez Jocelyn. She gave her jarring laugh. “But I suppose Anne might have told her. Not very likely of course, but girls do tattle. Only I suppose there’s a limit. Of course, you never know, but—Why don’t you ask her where you proposed to her, and what you said? I shouldn’t have expected her and Annie to be such bosom friends that she would have told her that.”
    Philip glanced across the table and spoke.
    “You heard what Cousin Inez said. Do you feel inclined to answer her?”
    She looked back at him in a softer way than she had done before.
    “We’re not to be allowed to have any privacies—are we?”
    “Is that what you are going to plead?”
    She shook her head.
    “Oh, no. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Then, turning towards Inez, “He proposed to me in the rose-garden on the seventh of July, nineteen-thirty-nine. It was a romantic setting, but I’m afraid we were not very romantic about it. We had been talking about all the things Philip would have liked to do to the house if he had had enough money. He said he wanted to pull down the bits my