Good Old Anna Part 41

"No," she said slowly. "No, I have said nothing of that."

He fancied there was a look of hesitation on her face. As a matter of fact we know that Anna had not betrayed Alfred Head. But that she had not done so was an accident, only caused by her unwillingness to dwell on the money she had received when telling her story to Mrs. Guthrie.

The old woman turned a mottled red and yellow colour, in the poor light of the cell.

"Please try and remember," he said sternly, "if you mentioned me at all."

"I swear I did not!" she cried.

"Did you say that you had received money?"

And Anna answered, truthfully, "Yes, Herr Head; I did say that."

"Fool! Fool indeed--when it would have been so easy for you to pretend you had done it to please your nephew!"

"But Mrs. Otway, she has forgiven me. My gracious lady does not think I did anything so very wrong," cried Anna.

"Mrs. Otway? What does she matter! They will do all they can to get out of you how you received this money. You must say---- Are you attending, Frau Bauer?"

She had sunk down again on her bench; she felt her legs turning to cotton-wool. "Yes," she muttered. "Yes, I am attending----"

"You must say," he commanded, "that you always received the money from your nephew. That since the war you have had none. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," she murmured--"quite clear, Herr Head."

"If you do not say that, if you bring me into this dirty business, then I, too, will say what _I_ know about _you_."

She looked at him uncomprehendingly. What did he mean?

"Ah, you do not know perhaps what I can tell about you!"

He came nearer to her, and in a hissing whisper went on: "I can tell how it was through you that a certain factory in Flanders was sh.e.l.led, and eighty Englishmen were killed. And if I tell that, they will hang you!"

"But that is not true," said Anna stoutly. "So you could not say that!"

"It _is_ true." He spoke with a kind of ferocious energy that carried conviction, even to her. "It is absolutely true, and easily proved. You showed a letter--a letter from Mr. Jervis Blake. In that letter was information which led directly to the killing of those eighty English soldiers, and to the injury to Mr. Jervis Blake which lost him his foot."

"What is that you say?" Anna's voice rose to a scream of horror--of incredulous, protesting horror. "Unsay, do unsay what you have just said, kind Mr. Head!"

"How can I unsay what is the fact?" he answered savagely. "Do not be a stupid fool! You ought to be glad you performed such a deed for the Fatherland."

"Not Mr. Jervis Blake," she wailed out. "Not the bridegroom of my child!"

"The bridegroom of your child was engaged in killing good Germans; and now he will never kill any Germans any more. And it is _you_, Frau Bauer, who shot off his foot. If you betray me, all that will be known, and they will not deport you, they will hang you!"

To this she said nothing, and he touched her roughly on the shoulder.

"Look up, Frau Bauer! Look up, and tell me that you understand! It is important!"

She looked up, and even he was shocked, taken aback, by the strange look on her face. It was a look of dreadful understanding, of fear, and of pain. "I do understand," she said in a low voice.

"If you do what I tell you, nothing will happen to you," he exclaimed impatiently, but more kindly than he had yet spoken. "You will only be sent home, deported, as they call it. If you are thinking of your money in the Savings Bank, that they will not allow you to take. But without doubt your ladies will take care of it for you till this cursed war is over. So you see you have nothing to fear if you do what I tell you. So now good-bye, Frau Bauer. I'll go and tell them that you know nothing, that I have been not able to get anything out of you. Is that so?"

"Yes," she answered apathetically.

Giving one more quick look at her bowed head, he went across and knocked loudly at the cell door.

There was a little pause, and then the door opened. It opened just wide enough to let him out.

And then, just for a moment, Alfred Head felt a slight tremor of discomfort, for the end of the pa.s.sage, that is, farther down, some way past Anna's cell, now seemed full of men. There stood the chief local police inspector and three or four policemen, as well as the gentleman from London.

It was the latter who first spoke. He came forward, towards Alfred Head.

"Well," he said rather sternly, "I presume that you've been able to get nothing from the old woman?"

And Mr. Head answered glibly enough, "That's quite correct, sir. There is evidently nothing to be got out of her. As you yourself said, sir, not long ago, this old woman has only been a tool."

The two policemen were now walking one each side of him, and it seemed to Alfred Head as if he were being hustled along towards the hall where there generally stood, widely open, the doors leading out on to the steps to the Market Place.

He told himself that he would be very glad to get out into the open air and collect his thoughts. He did not believe that his old fellow-countrywoman would, to use a vulgar English colloquialism, "give him away." But still, he would not feel quite at ease till she was safely deported and out of the way.

The pa.s.sage was rather a long one, and he began to feel a curious, nervous craving to reach the end of it--to be, that is, out in the hall.

But just before they reached the end of the pa.s.sage the men about him closed round Alfred Head. He felt himself seized, it seemed to him from every side, not roughly, but with a terribly strong muscular grip.

"What is this?" he cried in a loud voice. Even as he spoke, he wondered if he could be dreaming--if this was the horrible after effect of the strain he had just gone through.

For a moment only he struggled, and then, suddenly, he submitted. He knew what it was he wished to save; it was the watch chain to which were attached the two keys of the safe in his bedroom. He wore them among a bunch of old-fas.h.i.+oned Georgian seals which he had acquired in the way of business, and he had had the keys gilt, turned to a dull gold colour, to match the seals. It was possible, just possible, that they might escape the notice of these thick-witted men about him.

"What does this mean?" he demanded; and then he stopped, for there rose a distant sound of crying and screaming in the quiet place.

"What is that?" he cried, startled.

The police inspector came forward; he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to tell you, Head"--he spoke quite civilly, even kindly--"that we've had to arrest your wife, too."

"This is too much! She is a child--a mere child! Innocent as a baby unborn. An Englishwoman, too, as you know well, Mr. Watkins. They must be all mad in this town--it is quite mad to suspect my poor little Polly!"

The inspector was a kindly man, naturally humane, and he had known the prisoner for a considerable number of years. As for poor Polly, he had always been acquainted with her family, and had seen her grow up from a lovely child into a very pretty girl.

"Look here!" he said. "It's no good kicking up a row. Unluckily for her, they found the key with which they opened your safe in her possession.

D'you take my meaning?"

Alfred Head grew rather white. "That's impossible!" he said confidently.

"There are but two keys, and I have them both."

The other looked at him with a touch of pity. "There must have been a third key," he said slowly. "I've got it here myself. It was hidden away in an old-fas.h.i.+oned dressing-case. Besides, Mrs. Head didn't put up any fight. But if she can prove, as she says, that she knows no German, and that you didn't know she had a key of the safe--for that's what she says--well, that'll help her, of course."

"But there's nothing _in_ the safe," Head objected, quickly, "nothing of what might be called an incriminating nature, Mr. Watkins. Only business letters and papers, and all of them sent me before the War."

The other man looked at him, and hesitated. He had gone quite as far as old friends.h.i.+p allowed. "That's as may be," he said cautiously. "I know nothing of all that. They've been sealed up, and are going off to London. What caused you to be arrested, Mr. Head--this much I may tell you--is information which was telephoned down to that London gentleman half an hour ago. But it was just an accident that the key Mrs. Head had hidden away was found so quickly--just a bit of bad luck for her, if I may say so."