Then at last he was taken upstairs and along a corridor, and Miss Harrison knocked at a door and stood aside, and motioned to him to go in to what was evidently the Holy of Holies-Miss Franklin’s private office.
She was sitting behind a desk, and she looked frail and very tired.
He stared at her in awe and amazement as she got up and came towards him.
He said, just under his breath: “You…”
A faint, puzzled frown came between her brows, those delicately marked brows that he knew so well. It was the same face-pale, delicate, the wide sad mouth, the unusual setting of the dark eyes, the hair that sprang back from the temples, triumphantly, like wings. A tragic face, he thought, yet that generous mouth was made for laughter, that severe, proud face might be transformed by tenderness.
She said gently: “Dr. Llewellyn? My brother-in-law wrote to me that you would be coming. It’s very good of you.”
“I’m afraid the news of your sister’s death must have been a great shock to you.”
“Oh, it was. She was so young.”
Her voice faltered for one moment, but she had herself well under control. He thought to himself: “She is disciplined, has disciplined herself.”
There was something nun-like about her clothes. She wore plain black with a little white at the throat.
She said quietly:
“I wish it could have been I who died-not her. But perhaps one always wishes that.”
“Not always. Only-if one cares very much-or if one’s own life has some quality of the unbearable about it.”
The dark eyes opened wider. She looked at him questioningly, she said:
“You’re really Llewellyn Knox, aren’t you?”
“I was. I call myself Dr. Murray Llewellyn. It saves the endless repetition of condolences, makes it less embarrassing for other people and for me.”
“I’ve seen pictures of you in the papers, but I don’t think I would have recognised you.”
“No. Most people don’t, now. There are other faces in the news-and perhaps, too, I’ve shrunk”
“Shrunk?”
He smiled.
“Not physically, but in importance.”
He went on:
“You know that I’ve brought your sister’s small personal possessions. Your brother-in-law thought you would like to have them. They are at my hotel. Perhaps you will dine with me there, or if you prefer, I will deliver them to you here?”
“I shall be glad to have them. I want to hear all you can tell me about-about Shirley. It is so long since I saw her last. Nearly three years. I still can’t believe-that she’s dead.”
“I know how you feel.”
“I want to hear all you can tell me about her, but-but-don’t say consoling things to me. You still believe in God, I suppose. Well, I don’t? I’m sorry if that seems a crude thing to say, but you’d better understand what I feel. If there is a God, He is cruel and unjust.”
“Because He let your sister die?”
“There’s no need to discuss it. Please don’t talk religion to me. Tell me about Shirley. Even now I don’t understand how the accident happened.”
“She was crossing the street and a heavy lorry knocked her down and ran over her. She was killed instantly. She did not suffer any pain.”
“That’s what Richard wrote me. But I thought-perhaps he was trying to be kind, to spare me. He is like that.”
“Yes, he is like that. But I am not. You can take it as the truth that your sister was killed outright, and did not suffer.”
“How did it happen?”
“It was late at night. Your sister had been sitting in one of the open-air caf?s facing the harbour. She left the cafe, crossed the road without looking, and the lorry came round the corner and caught her.”
“Was she alone?”
“Quite alone.”
“But where was Richard? Why wasn’t he with her? It seems so extraordinary. I shouldn’t have thought Richard would have let her go off by herself at night to a caf?. I should have thought he would have looked after her, taken care of her.”
“You mustn’t blame him. He adored her. He watched over her in every way possible. On this occasion he didn’t know she had left the house.”