The Case Is Closed by Patricia Wentworth

hearing it she became conscious that the sound was not a new one. It had been going on for quite a long time, probably ever since she had turned out of Pinman’s Lane. It had been there, but she hadn’t been listening to it. She listened now, walking a little faster. The footsteps quickened too. She looked over her shoulder and saw a man in a Burberry and a brown felt hat. He had a fawn muffler pulled well up round his throat, and between hat brim and muffler she had a glimpse of regular features, a clean-shaven upper lip, and light eyes. She looked away at once, but it was too late. He lifted his hat and came up with her.
    ‘Excuse me, Miss Carew — ’
    The sound of her name startled her so much that she forgot all the rules. If people speak to you in the street, you don’t say anything, you just walk on as if they hadn’t ever been born. If you can manage to look as if you had been brought up in a refrigerator, so much the better, and you simply mustn’t blush or look frightened. Hilary forgot all these things. A bright annoyed colour sprang to her cheeks, and she said:
    ‘What do you want? I don’t know you.’
    ‘No, miss, but if you’ll excuse me I should like a word with you. I was on the train with you the other day, and I recognised you at once, but of course you wouldn’t know me unless you happened to notice me in the train.’ His manner was that of an upper servant, civil and respectful. The ‘miss’ was reassuring.
    Hilary said, ‘In the train? Do you mean yesterday?’
    ‘Yes, miss. We were in the carriage with you, me and my wife, yesterday on the Ledlington train. I don’t suppose you noticed me, because I was out of the carriage a good part of the time, but perhaps you noticed my wife.’
    ‘Why?’ said Hilary, looking at him rather disconcertingly. Her bright no-coloured eyes had the frank stare of a child.
    The man looked past her. He said:
    ‘Well, miss, I thought you two being alone in the carriage as it were — well, I thought perhaps you might have got into conversation.’
    Hilary’s heart gave a little jump. Mercer —it was Mercer. And he thought perhaps she had talked to Mrs. Mercer in the train, and that Mrs. Mercer had talked to her. She didn’t believe for a moment that he had recognised her yesterday. Of course he might have. Mrs. Mercer had recognised her, and Mrs. Thompson had, but all the time Mercer was in the carriage she had sat looking out of the window, and when he came back she herself had gone out into the corridor and stayed there until the Ledlington stop. He had stood aside to let her pass, and of course he might have recognised her then, but she didn’t think so, because if he had, and if there was anything he wanted to say, he could have followed her down the corridor and said it there. No, he had got it out of his poor draggly wife afterwards and now he wanted to find out just what the poor thing had said. How he had found her, she just couldn’t imagine, but when she thought about it afterwards she wondered whether he had been at Solway Lodge on some business of his own or of Bertie Everton’s and had seen her looking in through the gate, or whether he had followed her all the way from the flat. Both these thoughts gave her a nasty creepy feeling down the back of her neck. She said with no perceptible pause:
    ‘Oh yes, we talked a little.’
    ‘Begging your pardon, miss, I hope my wife didn’t make herself troublesome to you in any way. She’s quiet enough as a rule or I wouldn’t have left her with a stranger, but as soon as I came back into the carriage I could see she’d been working herself up, and when I saw you turning the corner of the road just now I thought I would take the liberty of catching up with you and saying I hope she didn’t saying anything she shouldn’t or give any offence. She’s quiet enough as a rule, poor thing, but I could see she was all worked up, and I shouldn’t like to think she’d offended a young lady that