Who Pays the Piper? by Patricia Wentworth Page A

end.
    Susan came at last to the inner compartment. With her fingers on the clasp, she heard Cathy take a hard-drawn breath. Her fingers were like ice as they opened the clasp. There were two little pockets, one of silk, the other lined with white leather. In the silk pocket there was a hair-net and hair-pins, in the other a snapshot of Roger Vere. It had been stuck on a piece of card, and at the bottom there was fastened on one side a spray of white heather, and on the other a snippet of curly black hair. Oh, poor Cathy! Susan glanced round with a jab of pity and relief. Cathy’s face was hidden again.
    Susan held the card up with its back to Lucas Dale.
    â€œIt’s only a photograph. There’s nothing else.” She turned out the two little pockets as she spoke, and some dust with them. There was nothing else.
    Dale looked impassively.
    â€œWill you do the same with the rest of it?”
    It was when she took hold of the lining and pulled that the slit became visible. It ran down the side of the lining. She hadn’t noticed anything until she pulled the silk. It tore now with a small, sharp sound. She put her hand into the hole and felt the pearls.
    Dale had his eyes on her face. He had not meant to watch her, but he found himself unable to look away. Anger gave her a brilliance which fairly took his breath. Her colour glowed, her eyes shone. And then all at once everything hardened, sharpened. Her hand stayed where she had thrust it, and slowly all the colour drained away, the brightness left her eyes. It was like watching her die. There seemed to be nothing left. He leaned across the table and said in an agitated voice,
    â€œSusan—what is it? Don’t look like that!”
    She looked at him. Her hand came slowly back, holding a string of pearls knotted at either end, each pearl the size of a pea, smooth and iridescent. She moved her hand with the pearls a little towards him and dropped them down. She did not look at them. She groped for the bag and pushed it towards him.
    Lucas Dale took it up and turned it inside out. The loose pearls that were in the lining came pattering down. He swept them together, picked up a straggler here and there, and counted them.
    â€œTwenty—and twenty-five in the string. They’re all here.”
    Susan turned and went to Cathy. She felt as if she was bleeding to death. Her body was slow and stiff. Her mind had come to a standstill. Cathy and Lucas Dale’s pearls.… Lucas Dale’s pearls in Cathy’s bag.… Cathy saying, “You mustn’t open it—you mustn’t!” … But that was because of Roger’s photograph.… Was it? … The pearls were in the lining of Cathy’s bag.… These thoughts had been in her mind when it stopped. They stayed there without her having any power to change them.
    She came to Cathy and pulled her hands away from her face.
    â€œThe pearls were in your bag.”
    Cathy stared up at her. A look of blind terror crossed her face. She put out a groping hand and slipped sideways to the floor.

CHAPTER IX
    â€œAre you better, Cathy?”
    The brown eyes opened blankly and closed again. Susan felt a rush of pity and terror. Four years ago, when Cathy had been so ill, she had looked like that day after day for all those horrible weeks—just there, just on the edge of death, just living and no more. Her heart broke in her. She said softly,
    â€œWon’t you tell me about it—won’t you?”
    The eyelids lifted again. The eyes looked blankly. The eyelids fell. Susan said in an urgent voice,
    â€œI must talk to him. You’ll be all right, won’t you? Just lie still.”
    There was a sighing breath. She did not dare to wait. If he were to ring up the police, it would be out of his hands.
    They had carried Cathy into the recess where her writing-table stood and laid her down on the padded window-seat. She had come out of her faint almost at once, but she