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to get away with such a conspiracy ' Another harsh and humourless laugh and then, 'Yes, Judi, you have him to thank. I asked him to change me a pound note and in my change I later found a foreign coin ... a Greek coin.' A couple of steps reduced the distance between her and Judi who, white and trembling, tried to move backwards, but found her legs refused to function. 'Of course, your father might himself have had the coin passed on to him, but somehow I didn't think so. He'd been away for ten days, Mother had told me, ten days during which she had received not a line from him, not a postcard saying he'd arrived or that he was enjoying his visit to his daughter ... in the north of England.' A slanting, invidious look and another advancing step towards Judi, who was standing frozen to the spot, appalled yet fascinated by Hannah's expression and even in this dire situation sparing herself a moment of thankfulness that her beloved Vidas was not married to this woman. 'Your father had acquired a tan one doesn't associate with our climate, a fine tan - in a mere ten days. Added to this was the incident of my mother having a little grumble, saying your father prowled around when she was out. She said he'd been in the drawer where she kept my letters; she knew this because a couple of bills which she had dropped on top of my letters had been pushed to one side. All these incidents added up to something significant, and I suddenly realized that there was also something phoney about the letter I had received from Vidas. Fortunately I had kept it and I brought it out again. Typed. Would Vidas type a letter to the girl to whom he had expressed such gratitude over the rescuing of his nephew from drowning? Only when I gave the matter a great deal more thought did it occur to me that to type a letter was completely out of character - judging that character by the previous letters I had received. Then the wording ' She stopped and her mouth twisted in a sneer. 'Yes, you might well tremble, but what you're going through now is nothing to what's coming to you when I see Vidas and tell him how he's been fooled, by both you and your father. How much is Bill getting out of it, by the way? A commission or a percentage?' Judi flinched, but no words passed through her quivering lips and Hannah continued, 'As I was saying about the wording of that letter but you remember it, don't you, Judi, because you wrote it?' Still the silence on Judi's part. Without the least difficulty she recaptured the contents of the letter she had sent, deliberately inserting a curtness into it in order to put Hannah off once and for all, but now realizing her mistake. 'I want to talk to you about Vidas,' she began at last, but was immediately interrupted as Hannah herself spoke of the contents of the letter. 'Vidas was now married, and I would understand that further correspondence between him and me was both impossible and unnecessary. Married! How very strange, I suddenly thought. Married already. .. .' Hannah took yet another step which this time brought her sufficiently close for her to put her face right up to that of her stepsister. 'Married so quickly ... to whom, I began to wonder, having been fobbed off by your father when I asked him for your address in the north of England. There was also in the letter another thank you for what I had done, but the whole thing was too abrupt, too offhand for a man who had several times expressed his gratitude. In a flash I saw it all - saw that Vidas must have come to England, that your father had come over here to warn you because he could scarcely put it all in a letter which Vidas might read. I made it my business to find out if you were married ' She broke off and fury blazed from her eyes. 'I knew you wouldn't go to Bridport to be married, so I made my inquiries further afield. But I didn't tell your father what I had discovered - oh, no. I wasn't having you warned a second time! I expect you forged the signature on that letter, as you must have done when you got married.' Dazedly Judi shook her head, not troubling to explain about the signature when so much else was occupying her mind. Hannah had put the pieces together with amazing accuracy - and all from the unconscious action of Bill in passing her a Greek coin. Undoubtedly Hannah was clever, far more clever than either Judi or her father. 'Where is he?' The soft inquiry cut into Judi's thoughts and she gave a slight start. 'You say he's working and can't be disturbed, but if you don't fetch him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |