A Caribbean Mystery

  ‘I’ve told you twice, Mrs Fox,’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t see why you should go on accusing us of telling lies. None of us would do a silly thing like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sybil, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. But – but who else could possibly have done it?’

  ‘Perhaps she got up and walked there herself,’ said Marlene, and giggled. For some reason Sybil didn’t like the suggestion. ‘Oh, it’s all a lot of nonsense, anyway,’ she said, and went down the stairs again.

  Alicia Coombe was humming quite cheerfully. She looked round the room.

  ‘I’ve lost my spectacles again,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to see anything this moment. The trouble is, of course, when you’re as blind as I am, that when you have lost your spectacles, unless you’ve got another pair to put on and find them with, well, then you can’t find them because you can’t see to find them.’

  ‘I’ll look round for you,’ said Sybil. ‘You had them just now.’

  ‘I went into the other room when you went upstairs. I expect I took them back in there.’

  She went across to the other room. ‘It’s such a bother,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I want to get on with these accounts. How can I if I haven’t my spectacles?’

  ‘I’ll go up and get your second pair from the bedroom,’ said Sybil. ‘I haven’t a second pair at present,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Why, what’s happened to them?’

  ‘Well, I think I left them yesterday when I was out at lunch. I’ve rung up there, and I’ve rung up the two shops I went into, too.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Sybil, ‘you’ll have to get three pairs, I suppose.’

  ‘If I had three pairs of spectacles,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘I should spend my whole life looking for one or the other of them. I really think it’s best to have only one. Then you’ve got to look till you find it.’

  ‘Well, they must be somewhere,’ said Sybil. ‘You haven’t been out of these two rooms. They’re cetainly not here, so you must have laid them down in the fitting-room.’

  She went back, walking round, looking quite closely. Finally, as a last idea, she took up the doll from the sofa.

  ‘I’ve got them,’ she called. ‘Oh, where were they, Sybil?’

  ‘Under our precious doll. I suppose you must have thrown them down when you put her back on the sofa.’

  ‘I didn’t. I’m sure I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sybil with exasperation. ‘Then I suppose the doll took them and was hiding them from you!’

  ‘Really, you know,’ said Alicia, looking thoughtfully at the doll, ‘I wouldn’t put it past her. She looks very intelligent, don’t you think, Sybil?’

  ‘I don’t think I like her face,’ said Sybil. ‘She looks as though she knew something that we didn’t.’

  ‘You don’t think she looks sort of sad and sweet?’ said Alicia Coombe pleadingly, but without conviction.

  ‘I don’t think she’s in the least sweet,’ said Sybil. ‘No . . . perhaps you’re right . . . Oh, well, let’s get on with things. Lady Lee will be here in another ten minutes. I just want to get these invoices done and posted.’

  ‘Mrs Fox. Mrs Fox?’

  ‘Yes, Margaret?’ said Sybil. ‘What is it?’

  Sybil was busy leaning over a table, cutting a piece of satin material. ‘Oh, Mrs Fox, it’s that doll again. I took down the brown dress like you said, and there’s that doll sitting up at the desk again. And it wasn’t me – it wasn’t any of us. Please, Mrs Fox, we really wouldn’t do such a thing.’

  Sybil’s scissors slid a little. ‘There,’ she said angrily, ‘look what you’ve made me do. Oh, well, it’ll be all right, I suppose. Now, what’s this about the doll?’

  ‘She’s sitting at the desk again.’

  Sybil went down and walked into the fitting-room. The doll was sitting at the desk exactly as she had sat there before.

  ‘You’re very determined, aren’t you?’ said Sybil, speaking to the doll. She picked her up unceremoniously and put her back on the sofa. ‘That’s your place, my girl,’ she said. ‘You stay there.’

  She walked across to the other room. ‘Miss Coombe.’

  ‘Yes, Sybil?’

  ‘Somebody is having a game with us, you know. That doll was sitting at the desk again.’

  ‘Who do you think it is?’

  ‘It must be one of those three upstairs,’ said Sybil. ‘Thinks it’s funny, I suppose. Of course they all swear to high heaven it wasn’t them.’

  ‘Who do you think it is – Margaret?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s Margaret. She looked quite queer when she came in and told me. I expect it’s that giggling Marlene.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s a very silly thing to do.’

  ‘Of course it is – idiotic,’ said Sybil. ‘However,’ she added grimly, ‘I’m going to put a stop to it.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Sybil.

  That night when she left, she locked the fitting-room from the outside. ‘I’m locking this door,’ she said, ‘and I’m taking the key with me.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Alicia Coombe, with a faint air of amusement. ‘You’re beginning to think it’s me, are you? You think I’m so absent-minded that I go in there and think I’ll write at the desk, but instead I pick the doll up and put her there to write for me. Is that the idea? And then I forget all about it?’

  ‘Well, it’s a possibility,’ Sybil admitted. ‘Anyway, I’m going to be quite sure that no silly practical joke is played tonight.’

  The following morning, her lips set grimly, the first thing Sybil did on arrival was to unlock the door of the fitting-room and march in. Mrs Groves, with an aggrieved expression and mop and duster in hand, had been waiting on the landing.

  ‘Now we’ll see!’ said Sybil.

  Then she drew back with a slight gasp.

  The doll was sitting at the desk. ‘Coo!’ said Mrs Groves behind her. ‘It’s uncanny! That’s what it is. Oh, there, Mrs Fox, you look quite pale, as though you’ve come over queer. You need a little drop of something. Has Miss Coombe got a drop upstairs, do you know?’

  ‘I’m quite all right,’ said Sybil.

  She walked over to the doll, lifted her carefully, and crossed the room with her.

  ‘Somebody’s been playing a trick on you again,’ said Mrs Groves. ‘I don’t see how they could have played a trick on me this time,’ said Sybil slowly. ‘I locked that door last night. You know yourself that no one could get in.’

  ‘Somebody’s got another key, maybe,’ said Mrs Groves helpfully. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Sybil. ‘We’ve never bothered to lock this door before. It’s one of those old-fashioned keys and there’s only one of them.’

  ‘Perhaps the other key fits it – the one to the door opposite.’

  In due course they tried all the keys in the shop, but none fitted the door of the fitting-room.

  ‘It is odd, Miss Coombe,’ said Sybil later, as they were having lunch together.

  Alicia Coombe was looking rather pleased. ‘My dear,’ she said. ‘I think it’s simply extraordinary. I think we ought to write to the psychical research people about it. You know, they might send an investigator – a medium or someone – to see if there’s anything peculiar about the room.’

  ‘You don’t seem to mind at all,’ said Sybil. ‘Well, I rather enjoy it in a way,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I mean, at my age, it’s rather fun when things happen! All the same – no,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I do quite like it. I mean, that doll’s getting rather above herself, isn’t she?’

  On that evening Sybil and Alicia Coombe locked the door once more on the outside.

  ‘I still think,’ said Sybil, ‘that somebody might be playing a practical joke, though, really, I don’t see why . . .’

  ‘Do you think she’ll be at the desk again tomorrow morning?’ demanded Alicia.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sybil, ‘I do
.’

  But they were wrong. The doll was not at the desk. Instead, she was on the window sill, looking out into the street. And again there was an extraordinary naturalness about her position.

  ‘It’s all frightfully silly, isn’t it?’ said Alicia Coombe, as they were snatching a quick cup of tea that afternoon. By common consent they were not having it in the fitting-room, as they usually did, but in Alicia Coombe’s own room opposite.

  ‘Silly in what way?’

  ‘Well, I mean, there’s nothing you can get hold of. Just a doll that’s always in a different place.’

  As day followed day it seemed a more and more apt observation. It was not only at night that the doll now moved. At any moment when they came into the fitting-room, after they had been absent even a few minutes, they might find the doll in a different place. They could have left her on the sofa and find her on a chair. Then she’d be on a different chair. Sometimes she’d be in the window seat, sometimes at the desk again.

  ‘She just moves about as she likes,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘And I think, Sybil, I think it’s amusing her.’

  The two women stood looking down at the inert sprawling figure in its limp, soft velvet, with its painted silk face.

  ‘Some old bits of velvet and silk and a lick of paint, that’s all it is,’

  said Alicia Coombe. Her voice was strained. ‘I suppose, you know, we could – er – we could dispose of her.’

  ‘What do you mean, dispose of her?’ asked Sybil. Her voice sounded almost shocked.

  ‘Well,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘we could put her in the fire, if there was a fire. Burn her, I mean, like a witch . . . Or of course,’ she added matter-of-factly, ‘we could just put her in the dustbin.’

  ‘I don’t think that would do,’ said Sybil. ‘Somebody would probably take her out of the dustbin and bring her back to us.’

  ‘Or we could send her somewhere,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘You know, to one of those societies who are always writing and asking for something – for a sale or a bazaar. I think that’s the best idea.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ said Sybil. ‘I’d be almost afraid to do that.’

  ‘Afraid?’

  ‘Well, I think she’d come back,’ said Sybil. ‘You mean, she’d come back here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like a homing pigeon?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean.’

  ‘I suppose we’re not going off our heads, are we?’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Perhaps I’ve really gone gaga and perhaps you’re just humouring me, is that it?’

  ‘No,’ said Sybil. ‘But I’ve got a nasty frightening feeling – a horrid feeling that she’s too strong for us.’

  ‘What? That mess of rags?’

  ‘Yes, that horrible limp mess of rags. Because, you see, she’s so determined.’

  ‘Determined?’

  ‘To have her own way! I mean, this is her room now!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alicia Coombe, looking round, ‘it is, isn’t it? Of course, it always was, when you come to think of it – the colours and everything . . . I thought she fitted in here, but it’s the room that fits her. I must say,’ added the dressmaker, with a touch of briskness in her voice, ‘it’s rather absurd when a doll comes and takes possession of things like this. You know, Mrs Groves won’t come in here any longer and clean.’

  ‘Does she say she’s frightened of the doll?’

  ‘No. She just makes excuses of some kind or other.’ Then Alicia added with a hint of panic, ‘What are we going to do, Sybil? It’s getting me down, you know. I haven’t been able to design anything for weeks.’

  ‘I can’t keep my mind on cutting out properly,’ Sybil confessed. ‘I make all sorts of silly mistakes. Perhaps,’ she said uncertainly, your idea of writing to the psychical research people might do some good.’

  ‘Just make us look like a couple of fools,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I didn’t seriously mean it. No, I suppose we’ll just have to go on until –’

  ‘Until what?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Alicia, and she laughed uncertainly.

  On the following day Sybil, when she arrived, found the door of the fitting-room locked.

  ‘Miss Coombe, have you got the key? Did you lock this last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘I locked it and it’s going to stay locked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I just mean I’ve given up the room. The doll can have it. We don’t need two rooms. We can fit in here.’

  ‘But it’s your own private sitting-room.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want it any more. I’ve got a very nice bedroom. I can make a bed-sitting room out of that, can’t I?’

  ‘Do you mean you’re really not going into that fitting-room ever again?’ said Sybil incredulously.

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

  ‘But – what about cleaning? It’ll get in a terrible state.’

  ‘Let it!’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘If this place is suffering from some kind of possession by a doll, all right – let her keep possession. And clean the room herself.’ And she added, ‘She hates us, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Sybil. ‘The doll hates us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alicia. ‘Didn’t you know? You must have known. You must have seen it when you looked at her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sybil thoughtfully, ‘I suppose I did. I suppose I felt that all along – that she hated us and wanted to get us out of there.’

  ‘She’s a malicious little thing,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘Anyway, she ought to be satisfied now.’

  Things went on rather more peacefully after that. Alicia Coombe announced to her staff that she was giving up the use of the fitting-room for the present – it made too many rooms to dust and clean, she explained.

  But it hardly helped her to overhear one of the work girls saying to another on the evening of the same day, ‘She really is batty, Miss Coombe is now. I always thought she was a bit queer – the way she lost things and forgot things. But it’s really beyond anything now, isn’t it? She’s got a sort of thing about that doll downstairs.’

  ‘Ooo, you don’t think she’ll go really bats, do you?’ said the other girl. ‘That she might knife us or something?’

  They passed, chattering, and Alicia sat up indignantly in her chair. Going bats indeed! Then she added ruefully, to herself, ‘I suppose, if it wasn’t for Sybil, I should think myself that I was going bats. But with me and Sybil and Mrs Groves too, well, it does look as though there was something in it. But what I don’t see is, how is it going to end?’

  Three weeks later, Sybil said to Alicia Coombe, ‘We’ve got to go into that room sometimes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I mean, it must be in a filthy state. Moths will be getting into things, and all that. We ought just to dust and sweep it and then lock it up again.’

  ‘I’d much rather keep it shut up and not go back in there,’ said Alicia Coombe.

  Sybil said, ‘Really, you know, you’re even more superstitious than I am.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘I was much more ready to believe in all this than you were, but to begin with, you know – I – well, I found it exciting in an odd sort of way. I don’t know. I’m just scared, and I’d rather not go into that room again.’

  ‘Well, I want to,’ said Sybil, ‘and I’m going to.’

  ‘You know what’s the matter with you?’ said Alicia Coombe. ‘You’re simply curious, that’s all.’

  ‘All right, then I’m curious. I want to see what the doll’s done.’

  ‘I still think it’s much better to leave her alone,’ said Alicia. ‘Now we’ve got out of that room, she’s satisfied. You’d better leave her satisfied.’ She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘What nonsense we are talking!’

  ‘Yes. I know we’re talking nonsense, but if you tell me of any way of not talking nonsense – come on, now, give me the key.’

  ‘All right, al
l right.’

  ‘I believe you’re afraid I’ll let her out or something. I should think she was the kind that could pass through doors or windows.’

  Sybil unlocked the door and went in. ‘How terribly odd,’ she said. ‘What’s odd?’ said Alicia Coombe, peering over her shoulder. ‘The room hardly seems dusty at all, does it? You’d think, after being shut up all this time –’

  ‘Yes, it is odd.’

  ‘There she is,’ said Sybil.

  The doll was on the sofa. She was not lying in her usual limp position. She was sitting upright, a cushion behind her back. She had the air of the mistress of the house, waiting to receive people.

  ‘Well,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘she seems at home all right, doesn’t she? I almost feel I ought to apologize for coming in.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Sybil.

  She backed out; pulling the door to, and locked it again.

  The two women gazed at each other. ‘I wish I knew,’ said Alicia Coombe, ‘why it scares us so much . . .’

  ‘My goodness, who wouldn’t be scared?’

  ‘Well, I mean, what happens, after all? It’s nothing really – just a kind of puppet that gets moved around the room. I expect it isn’t the puppet itself – it’s a poltergeist.’

  ‘Now that is a good idea.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t really believe it. I think it’s – it’s that doll.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know where she really came from?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Alicia. ‘And the more I think of it the more I’m perfectly certain that I didn’t buy her, and that nobody gave her to me. I think she – well, she just came.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll – ever go?’

  ‘Really,’ said Alicia, ‘I don’t see why she should . . . She’s got all she wants.’

  But it seemed that the doll had not got all she wanted. The next day, when Sybil went into the showroom, she drew in her breath with a sudden gasp. Then she called up the stairs.

  ‘Miss Coombe, Miss Coombe, come down here.’