Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair. Джозефина Тэй
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of it, on the protective quality of school coats. Protective in both senses: armour and camouflage. Now that the coat was no longer there, she was feminine instead of merely female.
But it was still a pathetically young face, immature and appealing. The candid brow, the wide-set eyes, the bee-stung lip that gave her mouth the expression of a disappointed child – it made a formidable whole. It would not be only the Bishop of Larborough who would believe a story told by that face.
“May I borrow this paper?” he asked Stanley.
“Take it,” Stanley said. “We had it for our elevenses. There’s nothing in it.”
Robert was surprised. “Didn’t you find this interesting?” he asked, indicating the front page.
Stanley cast a glance at the pictured face. “Not except that she reminded me of that bint in Egypt, lies and all.”
“So you didn’t believe that story she told?”
“What do you think!” Stanley said, contemptuous.
“Where do you think the girl was, then, all that time?”
“If I remember what I think I remember about the Red Sea sadie, I’d say very definitely – oh, but definitely – on the tiles,” Stanley said, and went out to attend to a customer.
Robert picked up the paper and went soberly away. At least one man-in-the-street had not believed the story; but that seemed to be due as much to an old memory as to present cynicism.
And although Stanley had quite obviously read the story without reading the names of the characters concerned, or even the place-names, only ten per cent of readers did that (according to the best Mass Observation); the other ninety per cent would have read every word, and would now be discussing the affair with varying degrees of relish.
At his own office he found that Hallam had been trying to reach him by telephone.
“Shut the door and come in, will you,” he said to old Mr. Heseltine, who had caught him with the news on his arrival and was now standing in the door of his room. “And have a look at that.”
He reached for the receiver with one hand, and laid the paper under Mr. Heseltine’s nose with the other.
The old man touched it with his small-boned fastidious hand, as one seeing a strange exhibit for the first time. “This is the publication one hears so much about,” he said. And gave his attention to it, as he would to any strange document.
“We are both in a spot, aren’t we!” Hallam said, when they were connected. And raked his vocabulary for some epithets suitable to the Ack-Emma. “As if the police hadn’t enough to do without having that rag on their tails!” he finished, being naturally absorbed in the police point of view.
“Have you heard from the Yard?”
“Grant was burning the wires at nine this morning. But there’s nothing they can do. Just grin and bear it. The police are always fair game. Nothing you can do, either, if it comes to that.”
“Not a thing,” Robert said. “We have a fine free press.”
Hallam said a few more things about the press. “Do your people know?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t think so. I’m quite sure they would never normally see the Ack-Emma, and there hasn’t been time for some kind soul to send it to them. But they are due here in about ten minutes, and I’ll show it to them then.”
“If it was ever possible for me to be sorry for that old battle-axe,” Hallam said, “it would be at this minute.”
“How did the Ack-Emma get the story? I thought the parents – the girl’s guardians, I mean – were very strongly against that kind of publicity.”
“Grant says the girl’s brother went off the deep end about the police taking no action and went to the Ack-Emma off his own bat. They are strong on the champion act. ‘The Ack-Emma will see right done!’ I once knew one of their crusades run into a third day.”
When he hung up Robert thought that if it was a bad break for both sides, it was at least an even break. The police would without doubt redouble their efforts to find corroborative evidence; on the other hand the publication of the girl’s photograph meant for the Sharpes a faint hope that somebody, somewhere, would recognise it and say: “This girl could not have been in The Franchise on the date in question because she was at such-and-such a place.”
“A shocking story, Mr. Robert,” Mr. Heseltine said. “And if I may say so a quite shocking publication. Most offensive.”
“That house,” Robert said, “is The Franchise, where old Mrs. Sharpe and her daughter live; and where I went the other day, if you remember, to give them some legal advice.”
“You mean that these people are our clients?”
“Yes.”
“But, Mr. Robert, that is not at all in our line.” Robert winced at the dismay in his voice. “That is quite outside our usual – indeed quite beyond our normal – we are not competent—”
“We are competent, I hope, to defend any client against a publication like the Ack-Emma,” Robert said, coldly.
Mr. Heseltine eyed the screaming rag on the table. He was obviously facing the difficult choice between a criminal clientèle and a disgraceful journal.
“Did you believe the girl’s story when you read it?” Robert asked.
“I don’t see how she could have made it up,” Mr. Heseltine said simply. “It is such a very circumstantial story, isn’t it?”
“It is, indeed. But I saw the girl when she was brought to The Franchise to identify it last week – that was the day I went out so hurriedly just after tea – and I don’t believe a word she says. Not a word,” he added, glad to be able to say it loudly and distinctly to himself and to be sure at last that he believed it.
“But how could she have thought of The Franchise at all, or known all those things, if she wasn’t there?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t the least idea.”
“It is a most unlikely place to pick on, surely; a remote, invisible house like that, on a lonely road, in country that people don’t visit very much.”
“I know. I don’t know how the job was worked, but that it is a job I am certain. It is a choice not between stories, but between human beings. I am quite certain that the two Sharpes are incapable of insane conduct like that. Whereas I don’t believe the girl incapable of telling a story like that. That is what it amounts to.” He paused a moment. “And you’ll just have to trust my judgment about it, Timmy,” he added, using his childhood’s name for the old clerk.
Whether it was the “Timmy” or the argument, it was apparent that Mr. Heseltine had no further protest to make.
“You’ll be able to see the criminals for yourself,” Robert said, “because I hear their voices in the hall now. You might bring them in, will you.”
Mr. Heseltine went dumbly out on his mission, and Robert turned the newspaper over so that the comparatively innocuous GIRL SMUGGLED ABOARD was all that would meet the visitors’ eye.
Mrs. Sharpe, moved by some belated instinct for convention, had donned a hat in honour of the occasion. It was a flattish affair of black satin, and the general effect was that of a doctor of learning. That the effect had not been wasted was obvious by the relieved look on Mr. Heseltine’s face. This was quite obviously not the kind of client he had expected; it was, on the other hand, the kind of client he was used to.
“Don’t go away,” Robert said to him, as he greeted the visitors; and to the others: “I want you to meet the oldest member of the firm, Mr. Heseltine.”
It suited Mrs. Sharpe to be gracious; and exceedingly Victoria Regina was old Mrs. Sharpe when she was being gracious. Mr. Heseltine was more than relieved; he capitulated. Robert’s first battle was over.
When