Thy Arm Alone: A Classic Crime Novel. John Russell Fearn

his hair and eyebrows white. Not many would have guessed he was only fifty-eight. He had reached that stage in life when he no longer watched the development of his daughter with excited interest but subdued astonishment. He never could quite imagine where the years had gone between her going to school and walking out in turn with three of Langhorn’s young bachelors. But never in her life had he raised a word of unjust protest against Betty.

      Betty’s mother was different. If she felt there was something to question, she wou1d question it—with the forthrightness that Betty herself could reveal on occasions. She had more imagination, more refinement, than her husband. She was tall and grey-haired, graceful even yet, with the kind of understanding blue eyes that brought schoolchildren to the store to buy ice cream in the summer months. At fifty-two she had come to realize with extreme clearness that life is exactly what you make it.

      “Did Tom like being dug out to go to Herby’s rescue?” Betty’s father asked.

      “Of course not, Dad! But somebody’s got to do it, and Tom has got a garage.…”

      Joseph Shapley grinned. “One rival drags another rival home, and the cause of the rivalry has her supper in comfort. Only a woman would think of a scheme like that.”

      “Only a man would see fit to create rivalry anyway, Father,” Mrs. Shapley declared, as she made a cup of tea. “Nothing wrong with good, healthy competition. Here you are, love,” she added, setting the cup at the girl’s elbow.

      Betty said: “I shan’t take long over supper. I want to watch Tom towing Herby into his garage. Just to make sure he’s safe. I wouldn’t like to go to bed not knowing what had happened to him…he’s a bit of a dear.”

      “Then why don’t you put him out of his misery and tell him so?” her father demanded.

      Betty hesitated, then: “I don’t really love him, Dad! That’s what I have been trying to make sure of. He’s too shy; he even seems half afraid to be alone with me. Can’t imagine why he should.”

      Her mother smiled faintly. “I can.”

      “Well, anyway, I think I shall tell him that I don’t really mean it. Only decent thing to do.” Betty cut a piece of pie decisively. “And I must do the same with Tom. He’s all right, but he’s too moody and takes such a long time to think things out. Besides, he’s interested in astronomy and science and stuff, as a sideline, and that to me makes him awfully boring sometimes.”

      “Which means that you have only Vincent Grey left,” Betty’s mother said.

      “He’s the one, Mum,” Betty said simply. “He’s big and cheerful and not afraid to take chances. And he’s the only one who has found a nickname for me! It’s—it’s ‘Cuddles’. And he can whistle like a bird, too.”

      “Have to do more than that to keep a wife,” Joseph Shapley remarked dryly.

      “He does, Dad. He’s doing very well in that solicitor’s office. He may talk a lot, but he’s the one I really like.”

      Betty’s father wheezed to his feet. “Well, lass, I can’t be expected to see the world through the rosy spectacles of a girl of nineteen, but what’s wrong with you staying in this business of ours for a few more years? You’d perhaps get more settled ideas by then.”

      “We’ve gone into this before. Top and bottom of the matter is I don’t like the business.” Betty shrugged. “You know I dislike routine. I want to see and do things.”

      “All right, Bet, if that’s the way you want it. Vincent seems a bit overpowering to me, though, but maybe you know him better than I do.… Well. I’m going on to bed, and you see you’re not too late, young lady.”

      Betty held up her smooth forehead for it to be kissed, then her father heaved himself clumsily to the door. He glanced back at his wife and she nodded.

      “Might as well,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Good night, love.”

      Again Betty took a kiss, then after her parents had gone upstairs, she sat finishing her supper and thinking. She was satisfied at last. Her three-man test was at an end and it was time for decisive action.

      She got up and snatched down a coat from its hook, then she hurried through the darkened shop and opened the front door. There was no sight nor sound of Tom returning with Herbert’s car. The long stretch of Langhorn’s High Street outside was deserted save for a single bicycle lamp very bright and far away.

      Betty watched it with a kind of detached interest as it moved under the widely spaced and dimly glimmering street lamps. As the cyclist came nearer she caught a vision of a white sweater.

      It looked very much like Vincent Grey’s figure, though what on earth he was doing cycling through Langhorn at this hour of night—and in the opposite direction to where he lived—she could not imagine. He occupied rooms in Lexham, a town he had left ten miles away by now.

      He was cycling hard, and fast—streaking under the lamps.

      Betty hurried to the edge of the kerb and stood waiting.

      “Vince!” she cried, as he swept past on the other side. “Vince, where are you going? What—”

      She stopped. For the briefest instant he turned his face towards her and the expression on it gave her an inward shock. It was deathly white, gleaming in the momentary lamp light from exertion or emotion, and his eyes stared fixedly, unseeingly. He looked like a man who has seen some unimaginable horror and is fleeing from it as fast as he can go.

      Then he was on his way without a word of acknowledgment, his dynamo whirring. Dumbfounded, Betty stared after him until he turned abruptly round the next corner on the right. For some reason he had gone into Riverside Avenue.…

      Why had Vince ignored her? Why was he cycling like a madman through Langhorn at ten minutes after midnight? That he was pretty irresponsible by nature Betty, knew well, but he was not crazy.

      She hesitated over walking to the corner of the avenue into which he had turned—then pride prevented her. If he wanted to ignore her, all right! So instead she looked up the high street for some sign of Tom Clayton or Herbert. She waited quite ten minutes or more, then she turned to go back into the shop. Just as she did so, she saw something that had only just come into being. It was a red glow wavering in the dark, misty sky. Hayrick on fire probably, out in the country. They often ignited in dry weather like this. The puzzle of Vincent Grey was more perplexing.…

      But Betty stood looking at that waxing and waning glow and wondering. Funny thing, it might even be about the spot where she had left Herby. Surely Clayton and he had not somehow set the old car on fire?

      Betty was feeling tired after her day in the fresh air, and in no mood to solve such a vague a problem. It would demand all her ingenuity to explain Vincent satisfactorily to herself. From what had he been fleeing?

      She went back to the shop doorway and stood waiting—but there was no sign of Tom Clayton coming back with his truck. Maybe he had decided to make a repair on the spot instead. In that case.… Betty turned inside and bolted the shop door, returned to the kitchen and hung up her overcoat. After a final glance round, she switched off the light and went up to her bedroom.

      She undressed in the dark with the curtains drawn back so she could watch that red flicker across the fields. Even when she got into bed, she could still see it as she laid her head on the pillow.… Then gradually, as the clock down in the kitchen struck half-past twelve, the glow finally expired. For another ten minutes or so she lay in the dark room listening for the noise of Tom Clayton’s returning truck, but it did not come.… Tired out, she fell asleep.

      She was awakened again while it was still dark by remote concussions. They sounded exactly like somebody banging on the shop door. She stirred lazily—then the banging came again. It was the front door of the shop!

      She sat up as her father’s heavy tread lumbered past her door in the passage outside. Tensely, she sat listening. The air seemed charged with an inexplicable