The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey Page B

it was spread over a day or two. The outline, first. And then filling in the details as she remembered them. Things like the window in the attic being round.”
    â€œHer days of coma had not blurred her memory.”
    â€œI don’t think they would in any case. I mean, with Betty’s kind of brain. She has a photographic memory.”
    Has she indeed! thought Robert; both ears erect and wide open.
    â€œEven as a small child she could look at the page of a book—a child’s book, of course—and repeat most of the contents from the picture in her mind. And when we played the Kim game—you know? the objects on the tray—we had to put Betty out of the game because she invariably won. Oh, no, she would remember what she saw.”
    Well, there was another game in which the cry was “Growing warm!” Robert remembered.
    â€œYou say she was always a truthful child—and everyone supports you in that—but did she never indulge in romanticising her own life, as children sometimes do?”
    â€œNever,” said Mrs. Wynn firmly. The idea seemed faintly to amuse her. “She couldn’t,” she added. “Unless it was the real thing it was no use to Betty. Even playing dolls’ tea-parties, she would never imagine the things on the plates as most children are quite happy to do; there had to be a real thing there, even if it was only a little cube of bread. Usually it was something nicer, of course; it was a good way to wangle an extra and she was always a little greedy.”
    Robert admired the detachment with which she considered her longed-for and much-loved daughter. The remains of a schoolmistress’s cynicism? So much more valuable, anyhow, for a child than a blind love. It was a pity that her intelligence and devotion had been so ill-rewarded.
    â€œI don’t want to keep on at a subject that must be unpleasant for you,” Robert said. “But perhaps you could tell me something about the parents.”
    â€œHer parents?” Mrs. Wynn asked, surprised.
    â€œYes. Did you know them well? What were they like?”
    â€œWe didn’t know them at all. We never even saw them.”
    â€œBut you had Betty for—what was it?—nine months?—before her parents were killed, hadn’t you?”
    â€œYes, but her mother wrote shortly after Betty came to us and said that to come to see her would only upset the child and make her unhappy and that the best thing for everyone would be to leave her to us until such times as she could go back to London. She said would I talk to Betty about her at least once every day.”
    Robert’s heart contracted with pity for this unknown dead woman who had been willing to tear her own heart out for her only child. What treasure of love and care had been poured out in front of Betty Kane, child evacuee.
    â€œDid she settle down easily when she came? Or did she cry for her mother?”
    â€œShe cried because she didn’t like the food. I don’t remember her ever crying for her mother. She fell in love with Leslie the first night—she was just a baby, you know—and I think her interest in him blotted out any grief she might have felt. And he, being four years older, was just the right age to feel protective. He still does—that is why we are in this mess today.”
    â€œHow did this Ack-Emma affair happen? I know it was your son who went to the paper, but did you eventually come round to his—”
    â€œGood heavens, no,” Mrs. Wynn said indignantly. “It was all over before we could do anything about it. My husband and I were out when Leslie and the reporter came—they sent a man back with him and when they heard his story, to get it first-hand from Betty—and when—”
    â€œAnd Betty gave it quite willingly?”
    â€œI don’t know how willingly. I wasn’t there. My husband and I knew nothing about it until this morning, when