She Came Back

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Book: Read She Came Back for Free Online
Authors: Patricia Wentworth
Tags: thriller, Crime, Mystery
said.
    She came, moving slowly, until the hand fell on her shoulder.
    “Did you think I didn’t know what you were up to? First of all, you were sure she was Anne. Then, when you weren’t so sure you thought how wicked it was—how wicked you were to have any doubts about it. And from there you got to thinking you had the doubts because you didn’t really want Anne to be alive—and after that of course you just had to do everything you could to show her and everyone else how glad you were. I don’t know how much damage you’ve done—quite a considerable amount, I should think. And I hope it’ll be a lesson to you not to try and hide things up, because you’ll never make a good liar, and I should always find you out.” He pulled her up against him and held her there, an arm about her shoulders.
    She drew a long breath.
    “Have I done a lot of harm?”
    “I expect so.”
    “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to.”
    “My child, ‘Evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart.’ ”
    “You’re being horrid.”
    “That was my intention.”
    “Philip—how much harm have I done?”
    “We shall go on finding out—or, qui vivra verra, if you’d rather have it in French. I expect you’ve probably told her quite a lot of things she ought to have known and didn’t, and wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t been there to oblige.”
    “What sort of things?”
    “Family things—but she’d have heard most of those from Theresa. Things about the neighborhood—that’s where she’d have been most likely to slip up, and I expect that’s where you came in.”
    Lyndall turned in the circle of his arm.
    “Philip, that’s not fair. You’ve got to be fair. If Anne had been away all this time and then come back, wouldn’t it be natural for her to ask about everyone—how they are, and where they are, and all that sort of thing?”
    “It depends on how it was done. I’d like you to tell me how she did it. Cleverly, I’ve no doubt. She’s a much cleverer person than Anne. Anne wasn’t clever at all. She knew what she wanted, and generally speaking she got it—if she didn’t there was a row. All quite honest and open. She had never had to be anything else. Annie Joyce had. If she wanted to get her own way she had got to be clever about it. I expect she’s had plenty of practice. Now suppose you tell me just how clever she was about the neighbors.”
    Lyndall bit her lip.
    “Philip, it’s so horrid when you put it that way. It was all quite natural—it was really. She wanted to know which of the places round were empty. Wouldn’t Anne have wanted to know that? And who had lost anyone in the war, and what everyone was doing—well, Anne would have wanted to know all those things.”
    “And then you got on to the photograph albums?”
    “Philip, that was quite natural too. She asked me why I hadn’t been called up, and I said I was a Wren, but I’d been ill and was having sick leave, and she said she’d love to see a photograph of me in uniform—did Aunt Milly still take her snapshots? And I said she did when she could get the films. And—well, you see—”
    Philip saw. The milk was spilled and couldn’t be picked up again. No good crying over it.
    She was looking up at him.
    “Philip—”
    “What is it?”
    “Philip—”
    “What else have you done?”
    “Nothing. I want to say you mustn’t think I agree with what you said. I don’t think anyone could know the things she knows unless she was Anne.”
    His brows lifted ironically.
    “But then you hadn’t the advantage of knowing my cousin Theresa. I assure you she made it her business to know everything, and Annie Joyce lived with her for seven years or so.”
    Lyndall shook her head. She looked as if she were shaking something off.
    “You’ve made up your mind. Philip, you mustn’t do that. It makes me go the other way, because somebody has got to be fair. I can’t help thinking about Anne. I loved her very much. I thought

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