Beware of the Trains by Edmund Crispin Page B

used to say to me, ‘I just can’t abide these little rat-traps of houses. A gentleman,’ ’e’d say, ‘’as to ’ave space to move about.’ Well, sir, I ask you, what a line to take, with the servant situation being what it is. It wa’n’t so bad then , mind. ’E started off all right, with three or four. But then there was the war, and by the time that was ‘alf over ’e’d only got one left, and ’alf the rooms ’ad ’ad to be shut up. Foolishness, I call it. Arrogance. And that one maid, even she left when ’e died, a couple o’ years ago, and the niece, Mrs. Danvers, ’oo’d come to ’ouse-keep for ’im, ’ad to do everything ’erself, and there was more rooms shut up, and it’s small wonder she’s trying to get shot of it.”
    “What about the daughter, though?”
    “Ah, Betty ’elped, o’ course. Only she wasn’t really the practical sort, and then when it came to the tragedy—”
    Fen stiffened slightly. “The tragedy?”
    “Didn’t you never ’ear of that? But I dessay you wouldn’t, being a stranger ’ere. Real shocking, it was.” And here the landlord addressed himself to the bar’s only other occupant, a quiet, well-dressed, middle-aged man who was drinking a double whisky in a corner. “None of us’ll forget that in a ’urry, Doctor, shall we?”
    “It was atrocious.” The doctor spoke in a low voice, but with unexpected vehemence. “And when you think that there are still a lot of damned vociferous fools who go around saying children oughtn’t to be taught about sex…” He checked himself, shrugging and smiling; finished his drink and ordered another. “But you’d better not get me on to that subject.”
    “What happened?” Fen asked.
    The doctor studied him, and appeared to decide, by some process of intuition, that the question was prompted by some better motive than mere sensation-seeking. “There was this girl, you see,” he said.
    “This girl Betty—Ridgeon’s daughter, Mrs. Danvers’s cousin. A nice girl. Very pale ginger hair, and brown eyes with it. But nervous—highly strung. About a year after her father died she met a chap called Venables, Maurice Venables, and fell for him in a really big way.”
    “Fair daft about ’im,” confirmed the landlord. “Fair daft about ’im, she was.”
    The doctor grimaced. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I rather liked Betty myself. But after she met Venables, there just wasn’t a chance for anyone else. He was a good chap, too, I've got to hand it to him…
    “Well, they got engaged, and the wedding was all set for a day last June. And then, on the actual morning of her wedding day, Betty disappeared.”
    Fen’s eyebrows lifted; and if the doctor had been less engrossed in his story, he might have seen an odd look, almost like satisfaction, flicker across the stranger’s face. “Disappeared?” Fen echoed.
    “Vanished. Went. Some time in the very early morning, they thought. She took some cash with her, but they never traced where she went during the fonnight that followed.”
    “But what reason—”
    “Well, she was frightened, it seems—frightened about the physical side of the marriage. Mrs. Danvers knew that, and there were one or two girl-friends who confirmed it. She wasn’t cold, mind you, not that sort at all; just scared.” The doctor’s brow darkened. “Why they don’t teach these girls something about it… However. Oh, and by the way, I’m sure it wasn’t Venables’s fault. He’s a nice gentle chap. No, it’s just that the girl was both ignorant and highly-strung, and the combination turned out fatal. In spite of being so much in love with him, she funked it at the last moment. Poor kid…”
    He brooded while Fen ordered fresh drinks for himself and for the landlord. Then, resuming:
    “Anyway, for a whole fortnight she vanished,” he said. “And then, one night, she came back. No one saw her, and she didn’t go to the house. Instead, she seems to have slept