"That ought to go down all right. They'll say how very kind and gush. But supposing you're not back the next day?"
"Then you'll have to do some more ringing up."
Bridget looked doubtful.
"We'll have lots of time to think up something before then," said Elvira impatiently. "What's worrying me now is money. You haven't got any, I suppose?" Elvira spoke without much hope.
"Only about two pounds."
"That's no good. I've got to buy my air ticket. I've looked up the flights. It only takes about two hours. A lot depends upon how long it takes me when I get there."
"Can't you tell me what you're going to do?"
"No, I can't. But it's terribly, terribly important."
Elvira's voice was so different that Bridget looked at her in some surprise.
"Is anything really the matter, Elvira?"
"Yes, it is."
"Is it something nobody's got to know about?"
"Yes, that's the sort of thing. It's frightfully, frightfully secret. I've got to find out if something is really true or not. It's a bore about the money. What's maddening is that I'm really quite rich. My guardian told me so. But all they give me is a measly dress allowance. And that seems to go as soon as I get it."
"Wouldn't your guardian - Colonel Thingummybob - lend you some money?"
"That wouldn't do at all. He'd ask a lot of questions and want to know what I wanted it for."
"Oh dear, I suppose he would. I can't think why everybody wants to ask so many questions. Do you know that if somebody rings me up, Mummy has to ask who it is? When it really is no business of hers!"
Elvira agreed, but her mind was on another tack.
"Have you ever pawned anything, Bridget?"
"Never. I don't think I'd know how to."
"It's quite easy, I believe," said Elvira. "You go to the sort of jeweller who has three balls over the door, isn't that right?"
"I don't think I've got anything that would be any good taking to a pawnbroker," said Bridget.
"Hasn't your mother got some jewellery somewhere?"
"I don't think we'd better ask her to help."
"No, perhaps not. But we could pinch something perhaps."
"Oh, I don't think we could do that," said Bridget, shocked.
"No? Well, perhaps you're right. But I bet she wouldn't notice. We could get it back before she missed it. I know. We'll go to Mr Bollard."
"Who's Mr Bollard?"
"Oh, he's a sort of family jeweller. I take my watch there always to have it mended. He's known me ever since I was six. Come on, Bridget, we'll go there right away. We'll just have time."
"We'd better go out the back way," said Bridget, "and then Mummy won't ask us where we're going."
Outside the old established business of Bollard and Whitley in Bond Street the two girls made their final arrangements.
"Are you sure you understand, Bridget?"
"I think so," said Bridget in a far from happy voice.
"First," said Elvira, "we synchronize our watches." Bridget brightened up a little. This familiar literary phrase had a heartening effect. They solemnly synchronized their watches, Bridget adjusting hers by one minute.
"Zero hour will be twenty-five past exactly," said Elvira. "That will give me plenty of time. Perhaps even more than I need, but it's better that way about."
"But supposing -" began Bridget.
"Supposing what?" asked Elvira.
"Well, I mean, supposing I really got run over?"
"Of course you won't get run over," said Elvira. "You know how nippy you are on your feet, and all London traffic is used to pulling up suddenly. It'll be all right."
Bridget looked far from convinced.
"You won't let me down, Bridget, will you?"
"All right," said Bridget, "I won't let you down."
"Good," said Elvira.
Bridget crossed to the other side of Bond Street and Elvira pushed open the doors of Messrs. Bollard and Whitley, old-established jewellers and watchmakers. Inside there was a beautiful and hushed atmosphere. A frock-coated nobleman came forward and asked Elvira what he could do for her.
"Could I see Mr Bollard?"
"Mr Bollard. What name shall I say?"
"Miss Elvira Blake."
The nobleman disappeared and Elvira drifted to a counter where, below plate glass, brooches, rings and bracelets showed off their jewelled proportions against suitable shades of velvet. In a very few moments Mr Bollard made his appearance. He was the senior partner of the firm, an elderly man of sixty odd. He greeted Elvira with warm friendliness.
"Ah, Miss Blake, so you are in London. It's a great pleasure to see you. Now what can I do for you?"
Elvira produced a dainty little evening wristwatch.
"This watch doesn't go properly," said Elvira. "Could you do something to it?"
"Oh yes, of course. There's no difficulty about that." Mr Bollard took it from her. "What address shall I send it to?"
Elvira gave the address.
"And there's another thing," she said. "My guardian - Colonel Luscombe you know -"
"Yes, yes, of course."
"He asked me what I'd like for a Christmas present," said Elvira. "He suggested I should come in here and look at some different things. He said would I like him to come with me, and I said I'd rather come along first - because I always think it's rather embarrassing, don't you? I mean, prices and all that."
"Well, that's certainly one aspect," said Mr Bollard, beaming in an avuncular manner. "Now what had you in mind, Miss Blake? A brooch, bracelet - a ring?"
"I think really brooches are most useful," said Elvira. "But I wonder - could I look at a lot of things?" She looked up at him appealingly. He smiled sympathetically.
"Of course, of course. No pleasure at all if one has to make up one's mind too quickly, is it?"
The next five or six minutes were spent very agreeably. Nothing was too much trouble for Mr Bollard. He fetched things from one case and another, brooches and bracelets piled up on the piece of velvet spread in front of Elvira. Occasionally she turned aside to look at herself in a mirror, trying the effect of a brooch or a pendant. Finally, rather uncertainly, a pretty little bangle, a small diamond wristwatch and two brooches were laid aside.
"We'll make a note of these," said Mr Bollard, "and then when Colonel Luscombe is in London next, perhaps he'll come in and see what he decides himself he'd like to give you."
"I think that way will be very nice," said Elvira. "Then he'll feel more that he's chosen my present himself, won't he?" Her limpid blue gaze was raised to the jeweller's face. That same blue gaze had registered a moment earlier that the time was now exactly twenty-five minutes past the hour.
Outside there was the squealing of brakes and a girl's loud scream. Inevitably the eyes of everyone in the shop turned towards the windows of the shop giving on Bond Street. The movement of Elvira's hand on the counter in front of her and then to the pocket of her neat tailor-made coat and skirt was so rapid and unobtrusive as to be almost unnoticeable, even if anybody had been looking.
"Tcha, tcha," said Mr Bollard, turning back from where he had been peering out into the street. "Very nearly an accident. Silly girl! Rushing across the road like that."
Elvira was already moving towards the door. She looked at her wristwatch and uttered an exclamation.
"Oh dear, I've been far too long in here. I shall miss my train back to the country. Thank you so much, Mr Bollard, and you won't forget which the four things are, will you?"
In another minute she was out of the door. Turning rapidly to the left and then to the left again, she stopped in the arcade of a shoe shop until Bridget, rather breathless, rejoined her.
"Oh," said Bridget, "I was terrified. I thought I was going to be killed. And I've torn a hole in my stocking, too."
"Never mind," said Elvira and walked her friend rapidly along the street and round yet another corner to the right. "Come on."
"Is it - was it - all right?"
Elvira's hand slipped into her pocket and out again showing the diamond and sapphire bracelet in her palm.
"Oh, Elvira, how you dared!"
"Now, Bridget, you've got to get along to the pawnshop we marked down. Go in and see how much you can get for this. Ask for a hundred."
"Do you think - supposing they say - I mean - I mean, it might be on a list of stolen things -"
"Don't be silly. How could it be on a list so soon? They haven't even noticed it's gone yet."
"But Elvira, when they do notice it's gone, they'll think - perhaps they'll know - that you must have taken it."
"They might think so - if they discover it soon."
"Well, then they'll go to the police and -" She stopped as Elvira shook her head slowly, her pale yellow hair swinging to and fro and a faint enigmatic smile curving up the corners of her mouth.
"They won't go to the police, Bridget. Certainly not if they think I took it."
"Why - you mean -?"
"As I told you, I'm going to have a lot of money when I'm twenty-one. I shall be able to buy lots of jewels from them. They won't make a scandal. Go on and get the money quick. Then go to Aer Lingus and book the ticket - I must take a taxi to Prunier's. I'm already ten minutes late. I'll be with you tomorrow morning by half-past ten."
"Oh Elvira, I wish you wouldn't take such frightful risks," moaned Bridget.
But Elvira had hailed a taxi.
II
Miss Marple had a very enjoyable time at Robinson and Cleaver's. Besides purchasing expensive but delicious sheets - she loved linen sheets with their texture and their coolness - she also indulged in a purchase of good quality red-bordered dish cloths. Really the difficulty in getting proper dish cloths nowadays! Instead, you were offered things that might as well have been ornamental tablecloths, decorated with radishes or lobsters or the Tour Eiffel or Trafalgar Square, or else littered with lemons and oranges. Having given her address in St Mary Mead, Miss Marple found a convenient bus which took her to the Army and Navy Stores.
The Army and Navy Stores had been a haunt of Miss Marple's aunt in days long gone. It was not, of course, quite the same nowadays. Miss Marple cast her thoughts back to Aunt Helen seeking out her own special man in the grocery department, settling herself comfortably in a chair, wearing a bonnet and what she always called her "black poplin" mantle. Then there would ensue a long hour with nobody in a hurry and Aunt Helen thinking of every conceivable grocery that could be purchased and stored up for future use. Christmas was provided for, and there was even a far-off look towards Easter. The young Jane had fidgeted somewhat, and had been told to go and look at the glass department by way of amusement.
Having finished her purchases, Aunt Helen would then proceed to lengthy inquiries about her chosen shop-assistant's mother, wife, second boy, and crippled sister-in-law. Having had a thoroughly pleasant morning, Aunt Helen would say in the playful manner of those times, "And how would a little girl feel about some luncheon?" Whereupon they went up in the lift to the fourth floor and had luncheon which always finished with a strawberry ice. After that, they bought half a pound of coffee chocolate creams and went to a matinée in a four-wheeler.
Of course, the Army and Navy Stores had had a good many face-lifts since those days. In fact, it was now quite unrecognizable from the old times. It was gayer and much brighter. Miss Marple, though throwing a kindly and indulgent smile at the past, did not object to the amenities of the present. There was still a restaurant, and there she repaired to order her lunch.
As she was looking carefully down the menu and deciding what to have, she looked across the room and her eyebrows went up a little. How extraordinary coincidence was! Here was a woman she had never seen till the day before, though she had seen plenty of newspaper photographs of her - at race meetings, in Bermuda, or standing by her own plane or car. Yesterday, for the first time, she had seen her in the flesh. And now, as was so often the case, there was the coincidence of running into her again in a most unlikely place. For somehow she did not connect lunch at the Army and Navy Stores with Bess Sedgwick. She would not have been surprised to see Bess Sedgwick emerging from a den in Soho, or stepping out of Covent Garden Opera House in evening dress with a diamond tiara on her head. But somehow, not in the Army and Navy Stores which in Miss Marple's mind was, and always would be, connected with the armed forces, their wives, daughters, aunts and grandmothers. Still, there Bess Sedgwick was, looking as usual very smart, in her dark suit and her emerald shirt, lunching at a table with a man. A young man with a lean hawk-like face, wearing a black leather jacket. They were leaning forward talking earnestly together, forking in mouthfuls of food as though they were quite unaware what they were eating.
An assignation, perhaps? Yes, probably an assignation. The man must be fifteen or twenty years younger than she was - but Bess Sedgwick was a magnetically attractive woman.
Miss Marple looked at the young man consideringly and decided that he was what she called a "handsome fellow." She also decided that she didn't like him very much. "Just like Harry Russell," said Miss Marple to herself, dredging up a prototype as usual from the past. "Never up to any good. Never did any woman who had anything to do with him any good either."
She wouldn't take advice from me, thought Miss Marple, but I could give her some. However, other people's love affairs were no concern of hers, and Bess Sedgwick, by all accounts, could take care of herself very well when it came to love affairs.
