Hole and Corner by Patricia Wentworth

want you to be polite.”
    â€œI’m not being polite.”
    She did not move her eyes, but she lifted her right hand and brought it down upon her knee with a sort of despairing effort.
    â€œIt’s no good saying the sort of things you think I want you to say. I want what you really think, because you see, it’s happened twice in a few days, and I don’t know how that woman’s bag got on to my arm when I was waiting for the bus, and I don’t know how this woman’s bag got inside mine.” She repeated the gesture with her hand. “Anthony, I don’t know. ”
    â€œWhat do you think?” said Anthony Leigh.
    She drew in her breath sharply before she answered him. There was a look in her face as if she were trying not to wince away from a blow.
    â€œIt’s not what I think. It’s what you think, or what anyone would think.”
    He said, “Well?”
    She was still looking at him. She was very pale.
    â€œAnthony—either someone put that bag on my wrist and put this one into my bag, or else I’m a thief and took them deliberately, or else I’ve got a screw loose and I took them without knowing what I was doing. You don’t think I’m a thief—but do you think I’m a kleptomaniac? Because why should anyone try and plant bags on me like that? It’s too utterly balmy.”
    Anthony leaned forward and took the hand which lay upon her knee. It felt cold and stiff as he covered it with his own.
    â€œShirley—one minute—has anything of this sort ever happened to you before?”
    â€œNo, it hasn’t.” She paused, and added with a little catch in her voice, “It hasn’t— really. ”
    â€œThose people at the next table—have you ever seen either of them before?”
    â€œNo, never.”
    â€œYou’re sure neither of them was in the bus the other day?”
    â€œQuite sure.”
    The hand in his was warmer, and it had begun to shake a little. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked at him again, but without the same fixity.
    â€œNo, they weren’t in the bus, either of them—I’m quite sure. But everybody didn’t get on.” She shut her eyes again, screwing them up tight. “There were people left behind—quite a lot. They might have been there—either of them. I don’t know—I wasn’t noticing. I was thinking about the bag and how it could possibly have got on to my arm, and trying not to catch the eye of the vinegary woman it belonged to—and of course every time I looked up I did.” She gave him the faintest of fleeting smiles. “You know how it is. And she had the horridest sort of eye to catch—like a half-cooked gooseberry—” She pulled her hand away suddenly and sat back. “Anthony, I’m not a kleptomaniac!”
    â€œI didn’t think you were,” said Anthony.
    â€œI don’t know why you didn’t—I very nearly did myself. I suppose it was the shock or something, but I had the most horrible giddy feeling that I might have done it. And then when you were holding my hand I sort of knew you didn’t think so, and then the giddy feeling went away and I didn’t think so either. For one thing, if I was going to steal, I’d take something that was worth having, and not a nasty little jingly bag with the best part of five shillings in it.”
    Anthony was sitting there frowning. She had said there were three possible explanations, and they had just disposed of two of them. There remained the third and most improbable of the three. But why should anyone plant alien bags upon Shirley Dale? There didn’t seem to be any answer to that.
    â€œIt’s difficult—isn’t it?” said Shirley.

CHAPTER SIX
    Alfred Phillips caught a waiter’s eye and ordered coffee. He had resumed his chair, and sat with his shoulder turned to the length of the room down which