With a sigh Bobby mounted his motor cycle and rode away in the direction of London.
At the scene of the accident things were busy.
'Shall I roll about in the road a bit,' asked Frankie, 'to get myself dusty?' 'You might as well,' said George. 'Here, give me your hat.' He took it and inflicted a terrific dent on it. Frankie gave a faint anguished cry.
'That's the concussion,' explained George. 'Now, then, lie doggo just where you are. I think I heard a bicycle bell.' Sure enough, at that moment, a boy of about seventeen came whistling round the corner. He stopped at once, delighted with the pleasurable spectacle that met his eyes.
'Ooer!' he ejaculated,' 'as there been an accident?' 'No,' said George sarcastically. 'The young lady ran her car into the wall on purpose.' Accepting, as he was meant to do, this remark as irony rather than the simple truth which it was, the boy said with relish: 'Looks bad, don't she? Is she dead?' 'Not yet,' said George. 'She must be taken somewhere at once. I'm a doctor. What's this place in here?' 'Merroway Court. Belongs to Mr Bassington-ffrench. He's a JP, he is.' 'She must be carried there at once,' said George authoritatively.
'Here, leave your bicycle and lend me a hand.' Only too willing, the boy propped his bicycle against the wall and came to assist. Between them George and the boy carried Frankie up the drive to a pleasant old-fashioned-looking manor house.
Their approach had been observed, for an elderly butler came out to meet them.
'There's been an accident,' said George curtly. 'Is there a room I can carry this lady into? She must be attended to at once.' The butler went back into the hall in a flustered way. George and the boy followed him up closely, still carrying the limp body of Frankie. The butler had gone into a room on the left and from there a woman emerged. She was tall, with red hair, and about thirty years of age. Her eyes were a light clear blue.
She dealt with the situation quickly.
'There is a spare bedroom on the ground floor,' she said.
'Will you bring her in there? Ought I to telephone for a doctor?' 'I am a doctor,' explained George. 'I was passing in my car and saw the accident occur.' 'Oh! how very fortunate. Come this way, will you?' She showed them the way into a pleasant bedroom with windows giving on the garden.
'Is she badly hurt?' she inquired.
'I can't tell yet.' Mrs Bassington-ffrench took the hint and retired. The boy accompanied her and launched out into a description of the accident as though he had been an actual witness of it.
'Run smack into the wall she did. Car's all smashed up.
There she was lying on the ground with her hat all dinted in.
The gentleman, he was passing in his car ' He proceeded ad lib till got rid of with a half-crown.
Meanwhile Frankie and George were conversing in careful whispers.
'George, darling, this won't blight your career, will it? They won't strike you off the register, or whatever it is, will they?' 'Probably,' said George gloomily. 'That is, if it ever comes out.' 'It won't,' said Frankie. 'Don't worry, George. I shan't let you down.' She added thoughtfully: 'You did it very well. I've never heard you talk so much before.' George sighed. He looked at his watch.
'I shall give my examination another three minutes,' he said.
'What about the car?' 'I'll arrange with a garage to have that cleared up.' 'Good.' George continued to study his watch. Finally he said with an air of relief: 'Time.' 'George,' said Frankie, 'you've been an angel. I don't know why you did it.' 'No more do I,' said George. 'Damn fool thing to do.' He nodded to her.
'Bye bye. Enjoy yourself.' 'I wonder if I shall,' said Frankie.
She was thinking of that cool impersonal voice with the slight American accent.
George went in search of the owner of it, whom he found waiting for him in the drawing-room.
'Well,' he said abruptly. 'I'm glad to say it's not so bad as I feared. Concussion very slight and already passing off. She ought to stay quietly where she is for a day or so, though.' He paused. 'She seems to be a Lady Frances Derwent.' 'Oh, fancy!' said Mrs Bassington-ffrench. 'Then I know some cousins of hers - the Draycotts - quite well.' 'I don't know if it's inconvenient for you to have her here,' said George. 'But if she could stay where she is for a day or two...' Here George paused.
'Oh, of course. That will be all right, Dr -?' 'Arbuthnot. By the way, I'll see to the car business. I shall be passing a garage.' 'Thank you very much, Dr Arbuthnot. How very lucky you happened to be passing. I suppose a doctor ought to see her tomorrow just to see she's getting on all right.' 'Don't think it's necessary,' said George. 'All she needs is quiet.' 'But I should feel happier. And her people ought to know.' 'I'll attend to that,' said George. 'And as to the doctoring business - well, it seems she's a Christian Scientist and won't have doctors at any price. She wasn't too pleased at finding me in attendance.' 'Oh, dear!' said Mrs Bassingtonffrench.
'But she'll be quite all right,' said George reassuringly. 'You can take my word for it.' 'If you really think so, Dr Arbuthnot,' said Mrs Bassingtonffrench rather doubtfully.
'I do,' said George. 'Goodbye. Dear me. I left one of my instruments in the bedroom.' He came rapidly into the room and up to the bedside.
Trankie,' he said in a quick whisper. 'You're a Christian Scientist. Don't forget.' 'But why?' 'I had to do it. Only way.' 'All right,' said Frankie. 'I won't forget."
CHAPTER 12 In the Enemy's Camp
'Well, here I am,' thought Frankie. 'Safely in the enemy's camp. Now, it's up to me.' There was a tap on the door and Mrs BassingtonfFrench entered.
Frankie raised herself a little on her pillows.
'I'm so frightfully sorry,' she said in a faint voice. 'Causing you all this bother.' 'Nonsense,' said Mrs Bassington-ffrench. Frankie heard anew that cool attractive drawling voice with a slight American accent, and remembered that Lord Marchington had said that one of the Hampshire Bassington-ffrenches had married an American heiress. 'Dr Arbuthnot says you will be quite all right in a day or two if you just keep quiet.' Frankie felt that she ought at this point to say something about 'error' or 'mortal mind', but was frightened of saying the wrong thing.
'He seems nice,' she said. 'He was very kind.' 'He seemed a most capable young man,' said Mrs Bassington-ffrench. 'It was very fortunate that he just happened to be passing.' 'Yes, wasn't it? Not, of course, that I really needed him.' 'But you mustn't talk,' continued her hostess. 'I'll send my maid along with some things for you and then she can get you properly into bed.' 'It's frightfully kind of you.' 'Not at all.' Frankie felt a momentary qualm as the other woman withdrew.
'A nice kind creature,' she said to herself. 'And beautifully unsuspecting.' For the first time she felt that she was playing a mean trick on her hostess. Her mind had been so taken up with the vision of a murderous Bassington-ffrench pushing an unsuspecting victim over a precipice that lesser characters in the drama had not entered her imagination.
'Oh, well,' thought Frankie, 'I've got to go through with it now. But I wish she hadn't been so nice about it.' She spent a dull afternoon and evening lying in her darkened room. Mrs Bassington-ffrench looked in once or twice to see how she was but did not stay.
The next day, however, Frankie admitted the daylight and expressed a desire for company and her hostess came and sat `with her for some time. They discovered many mutual acquaintances and friends and by the end of the day, Frankie felt, with a guilty qualm, that they had become friends.
Mrs Bassington-ffrench referred several times to her husband and to her small boy. Tommy. She seemed a simple woman, deeply attached to her home, and yet, for some reason or other, Frankie fancied that she was not quite happy. There was an `anxious expression in her eyes sometimes that did not agree with a mind at peace with itself.
On the third day Frankie got up and was introduced to the master of the house.
He was a big man, heavy jowled, with a kindly but rather abstracted air. He seemed to spend a good deal of his time shut up in his study. Yet Frankie judged him to be very fond of his wife, though interesting himself very little in her concerns.
Tommy, the small boy, was seven, and a healthy, mischievous child. Sylvia Bassington-ffrench obviously adored him.
'It's so nice down here,' said Frankie with a sigh.
She was lying out on a long chair in the garden.
'I don't know whether it's the bang on the head, or what it is, but I just don't feel I want to move. I'd like to lie here for days and days.' 'Well, do,' said Sylvia Bassington-ffrench in her calm, incurious tones. 'No, really, I mean it. Don't hurry back to town. You see,' she went on, 'it's a great pleasure to me to have you here. You're so bright and amusing. It quite cheers me up.' 'So she needs cheering up,' flashed across Frankie's mind.
At the same time she felt ashamed of herself.
'I feel we really have become friends,' continued the other woman.
Frankie felt still more ashamed.
It was a mean thing she was doing - mean - mean - mean.
She would give it up! Go back to town Her hostess went on: 'It won't be too dull here. Tomorrow my brother-in-law is coming back. You'll like him, I'm sure. Everyone likes Roger.' 'He lives with you?' 'Off and on. He's a restless creature. He calls himself the ne'er-do-weel of the family, and perhaps it's true in a way. He never sticks to a job for long - in fact I don't believe he's ever done any real work in his life. But some people just are like that - especially in old families. And they're usually people with a great charm of manner. Roger is wonderfully sympathetic. I don't know what I should have done without him this spring when Tommy was ill.' 'What was the matter with Tommy?' 'He had a bad fall from the swing. It must have been tied on to a rotten branch and the branch gave way. Roger was very upset because he was swinging the child at the time - you know, giving him high ones, such as children love. We thought at first Tommy's spine was hurt, but it turned out to be a very slight injury and he's quite all right now.' 'He certainly looks it,' said Frankie, smiling, as she heard faint yells and whoops in the distance.
'I know. He seems in perfect condition. It's such a relief.
He's had bad luck in accidents. He was nearly drowned last winter.' 'Was he really?' said Frankie thoughtfully.
