Pursuit of a Parcel by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

without any expression at all in his voice—“the sort that can blow a reputation to bits, and blow a man out of his job and land him in one of his own concentration camps. As long as that’s loose in the world, he can’t touch me without touching it off. You get home—and make sure you’re not followed when you fetch my parcel away.”
    â€œGood lord, Con—what do you want me to fetch it away for? Much better leave it in the guardian’s safe.”
    Cornelius shook his head. “At this time—when bombs fall every night in London? I don’t think so. If you could be quite sure that you were not followed, I should say take it out of London and find a safe place for it.”
    â€œI could put it in a country branch of my bank.”
    Cornelius shook his head again. “No building is safe from a bomb. I do not agree to any bank—it is these big important buildings that are hit everywhere. You must hide it, and you must be very careful. He has his agents still. You must not trust anyone at all, and if—” He dropped his voice to the lowest murmur. “Listen, Antony—”

IV
    Doris Holt came in some time after her parents had finished their tea. She had a cashier’s job in a big drapery shop within half a mile of Adelaide Terrace. Like most other shops in the neighbourhood, they closed early enough to have allowed Doris to be in an hour ago.
    Mrs. Holt looked up and said nothing, but Emanuel frowned and said in a mild, troubled voice, “You’re late, Dor.”
    Doris tossed her head. She was very small, and light, and slim. Her ash-blonde hair fell curling on her neck in a page’s bob. A ridiculous little black felt hat clung precariously to one side of her head. She slipped out of her coat and stood up in the neat black frock which she wore in the shop. She had Emanuel’s small features as well as his fair colouring, but in her nineteenth year these things bloomed together in the fragile, evanescent prettiness which is to be seen in so many London girls. When she spoke, her voice was the voice of the London shop-girl, pretty and a little affected.
    â€œOh, I just met someone, Dad.”
    Mrs. Holt had a slow smile for her.
    â€œAnd he saw you home. Better just hang your coat in the hall, ducks, and come along to your tea. There’s no saying when the sirens will go, and I like to get washed up first, especially when it’s fish.”
    Doris ate an excellent tea, and chattered all the time. The name of Mr. Miller kept bobbing up in her conversation, as a cork bobs up in a light rippling sea.
    â€œMr. Miller says we’ll all be living underground by Christmas, any of us that’s left. He says these shelters we’ve got aren’t reelly any use at all. I told him about Dad and Mr. Smithers making one out at the back between the two houses, and he said it wouldn’t be the least bit of good—not when the bombs reelly started coming. Mr. Miller says we don’t know what it’s going to be like yet. He says they haven’t hardly begun, and he says if he was us he’d go to the big public shelter round the corner and not trust to a home-made thing like ours. And when I told him as often as not we just stayed here in the kitchen, well, he was reelly shocked.” She giggled a little and rolled her pale blue eyes. A very bright pale blue they were, like the blue of some rather fragile flower. “And what do you think he said, Mum?—he’s very goodlooking, you know—well, he just sort of fixed me with his eyes—it’s a pity he’s got to wear glasses—and he said real earnest, ‘Miss Doris’—I’m sure nobody could be more respectful than he is, reelly he’s quite a gentleman—‘Miss Doris,’ he said, ‘do let me ask you as a personal favour not to lose a moment after the sirens go. What would be my feelings,’ he said, ‘if