Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair

“You know Inspector Hallam, then?” Marion Sharpe said. “And this is Detective-Inspector Grant, from Headquarters.”

Robert noticed the “Headquarters,” and wondered. Had she already at some time had dealings with the police, or was it that she just didn’t like the slightly sensational sound of “the Yard”?

Grant shook hands, and said:

“I’m glad you’ve come, Mr. Blair. Not only for Miss Sharpe’s sake but for my own.”

“Yours?”

“I couldn’t very well proceed until Miss Sharpe had some kind of support; friendly support if not legal, but if legal so much the better.

”

“I see. And what are you charging her with?”

“We are not charging her with anything—” Grant began, but Marion interrupted him.

“I am supposed to have kidnapped and beaten up someone.”

“Beaten up?” Robert said, staggered.

“Yes,” she said, with a kind of relish in enormity. “Beaten her black and blue.”

“Her?”

“A girl.

She is outside the gate in a car now.”

“I think we had better begin at the beginning,” Robert said, clutching after the normal.

“Perhaps I had better do the explaining,” Grant said, mildly.

“Yes,” said Miss Sharpe, “do. After all it is your story.”

Robert wondered if Grant were aware of the mockery. He wondered a little, too, at the coolness that could afford mockery with Scotland Yard sitting in one of her best chairs. She had not sounded cool over the telephone; she had sounded driven, half-desperate.

Perhaps it was the presence of an ally that had heartened her; or perhaps she had just got her second wind.

“Just before Easter,” Grant began, in succinct police-fashion, “a girl called Elisabeth Kane, who lived with her guardians near Aylesbury, went to spend a short holiday with a married aunt in Mainshill, the suburb of Larborough. She went by coach, because the London-Larborough coaches pass through Aylesbury, and also pass through Mainshill before reaching Larborough; so that she could get off the coach in Mainshill and be within a three-minute walk of her aunt’s house, instead of having to go into Larborough and come all the way out again as she would have to if she travelled by train.

At the end of a week her guardians – a Mr. and Mrs. Wynn – had a postcard from her saying that she was enjoying herself very much and was staying on.