She Faded into Air

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Excerpt

The story of the alleged disappearance of Evelyn Cross was too fantastic for credence. According to the available evidence, she melted into thin air shortly after four o’clock on a foggy afternoon in late October. One minute, she was visible in the flesh–a fashionable blonde, nineteen years of age and weighing about eight and a half stone.

The next minute, she was gone.

The scene of this incredible fade-out was an eighteenth-century mansion in Mayfair. The Square was formerly a residential area of fashion and dignity. It had escaped a doom of complete reconstruction, but some of the houses were divided up into high-class offices and flats.

This particular residence had been renamed “Pomerania House” by its owner, Major Pomeroy. He speculated in building property and had his estate office, as well as his private flat, on the premises.

The ex-officer might be described as a business gentleman. Besides being correctly documented–Winchester, Oxford and the essential clubs–he had not blotted his financial or moral credit. In appearance he conformed to military type, being erect, spare and well dressed, with a small dark tooth-brush moustache. His voice was brisk and his eyes keen. He walked with a nonchalant manner. He had two affectations–a monocle and a fresh flower daily in his buttonhole.

Shortly after four o’clock on the afternoon of Evelyn Cross’ alleged disappearance, he was in the hall of Pomerania House, leaning against the door of his flat, when a large car stopped in the road outside. The porter recognized it as belonging to a prospective client who had called previously at the estate office to inquire about office accommodation. With the recollection of a generous tip, he hurried outside to open the door.

Before he could reach it, Raphael Cross had sprung out and was standing on the pavement. He was a striking figure, with the muscular development of a pugilist and a face expressive of a powerful personality. Its ruthless force–combined with very fair curling hair and ice-blue eyes–made him resemble a conception of some old Nordic god, although the comparison flattered him in view of his heavy chin and bull-neck.

He crashed an entrance into the hall, but his daughter, Evelyn, lingered to take a cigarette from her case. She was very young, with a streamlined figure, shoulder-length blonde hair and a round small-featured face. With a total lack of convention she chatted freely to the porter as he struck a match to light her cigarette.

“Confidentiality, we shouldn’t have brought our dumb-bell of a chauffeur over from the States. He’s put us on the spot with a traffic cop.”

“Can’t get used to our rule of the road,” suggested the porter who instinctively sided with Labour.

“It is a cockeyed rule to keep to the left,” admitted Evelyn. “We took a terrible bump in one jam. I’m sure I heard our number plate rattle. You might inspect the damage.”

To humour her, the porter strolled to the rear of the car and made a pretence of examining the casualty before he beckoned the chauffeur to the rescue. When he returned to the hall, the major had already met his visitors and was escorting them up the stairs.

The porter gazed speculatively after them, watching the drifting smoke of the girl’s cigarette and the silver-gold blur of her hair in the dusk. The skirt of her tight black suit was unusually short so that he had an unrestricted view of her shapely legs and of perilously high-heeled shoes.

As he stood there, he was joined by an attractive young lady with ginger hair and a discriminating eye. Her official title was “Miss Simpson,” but she was generally known in the building by her adopted name of “Marlene.” She was nominally private secretary to a company promoter who had his office on the second floor; but as the post was a sinecure she spent much of her time in the ladies’ cloakroom on the ground floor, improving her appearance for conquest.

“Admiring the golden calf?” she asked, appraising the quality of the silken legs herself before they disappeared around the bend of the staircase.

“She’s got nothing on you there, Marlene,” declared the porter.

He had a daughter who was a student at a commercial school and was biased in favour of typists.

“Except her stockings, Daddy. Where’s the boss taking them?”

“I was asking myself that. The gent’s a party after an office. There’s only a small let vacant, right at the top and that’s not in his class.”

“Maybe the girl’s going to Goya to get her fortune told,” suggested the ornamental typist, tapping her teeth to suppress a yawn.