The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey Read Free Book Online Page A

do realise, don’t you, that the girl has an enormous advantage over you. In the matter of evidence, I mean. She is free to describe almost any object she likes as being part of your household. If it happens to be there, that is strong evidence for her. If it happens not to be there, that is not evidence for you; the inference is merely that you have got rid of it. If the suitcases, for instance, had not been there, she could say that you had got rid of them because they had been in the attic and could be described.”
    â€œBut she did describe them, without ever having seen them.”
    â€œShe described two suitcases, you mean. If your four suitcases had been a matching set she would have only one chance in perhaps five of being right. But because you happened to have one of each of the common kinds her chances worked out at about even.”
    He picked up the glass of sherry that she had set down beside him, took a mouthful, and was astonished to find it admirable.
    She smiled a little at him and said: “We economise, but not on wine,” and he flushed slightly, wondering if his surprise had been as obvious as that.
    â€œBut there was the odd wheel of the car. How did she know about that? The whole set-up is extraordinary. How did she know about my mother and me, and what the house looked like? Our gates are never open. Even if she opened them—though what she could be doing on that lonely road I can’t imagine—even if she opened them and looked inside she would not know about my mother and me.”
    â€œNo chance of her having made friends with a maid? Or a gardener?”
    â€œWe have never had a gardener, because there is nothing but grass. And we have not had a maid for a year. Just a girl from the farm who comes in once a week and does the rough cleaning.”
    Robert said sympathetically that it was a big house to have on her hands unaided.
    â€œYes; but two things help. I am not a house-proud woman. And it is still so wonderful to have a home of our own that I am willing to put up with the disadvantages. Old Mr. Crowle was my father’s cousin, but we didn’t know him at all. My mother and I had always lived in a Kensington boarding-house.” One corner of her mouth moved up in a wry smile. “You can imagine how popular Mother was with the residents.” The smile faded. “My father died when I was very little. He was one of those optimists who are always going to be rich tomorrow. When he found one day that his speculations had not left even enough for a loaf of bread on the morrow, he committed suicide and left Mother to face things.”
    Robert felt that this to some extent explained Mrs. Sharpe.
    â€œI was not trained for a profession, my life has been spent in odd-jobs. Not domestic ones—I loathe domesticity—but helping in those lady-like businesses that abound in Kensington. Lampshades, or advising on holidays, or flowers, or bric-à-brac. When old Mr. Crowle died I was working in a tea-shop—one of those morning-coffee gossip shops. Yes, it is a little difficult.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œTo imagine me among the tea-cups.”
    Robert, unused to having his mind read—Aunt Lin was incapable of following anyone’s mental processes even when they were explained to her—was disconcerted. But she was not thinking of him.
    â€œWe had just begun to feel settled down, and at home, and safe, when this happened.”
    For the first time since she had asked his help Robert felt the stirring of partisanship. “And all because a slip of a girl needs an alibi,” he said. “We must find out more about Betty Kane.”
    â€œI can tell you one thing about her. She is over-sexed.”
    â€œIs that just feminine intuition?”
    â€œNo. I am not very feminine and I have no intuition. But I have never known anyone—man or woman—with that colour ofeye who wasn’t. That opaque dark blue, like a