Four Strange Women

by E. R. Punshon

“No, they didn’t go in this way. The string I put on the side door isn’t in position now, though. Look!” A woman who had been coming briskly up the street turned in sharply as she reached the entrance to the hall. “Things beginning to move,” remarked Bobby. “That wench had a business-like air.”

  “I’ll go round to the back,” Marsh said.

  Other people began to arrive—generally on foot, one or two on bicycles, none in cars or taxis.

  “Don’t mean to run any risk of being traced by registration numbers,” Bobby reflected. “Have to inquire if taxis have been putting fares down near or if stray cars have been parked hereabouts.”

  That precautions, careful precautions, against identification were being taken was sufficiently evident. All the watchers could make out was a succession of dark and shadowy figures, so muffled up that even sex was difficult to decide, faces concealed by scarves or veils, by upturned collars and downpulled hats. Silently they came, one by one, slipping through the night, many of them betraying by their hurried and uneven footsteps their inner excitement and unease.

  Bobby, watching intently from his shadowy doorway, became more and more convinced that whatever the object of the meeting, it was one they had good reason for wishing to conceal. One thing he felt fairly sure of was that they all belonged to the prosperous classes. Their clothes seemed well cut, some of the furs the women wore looked expensive in the light of the street lamps they slipped by so furtively, the sound of their footsteps in that quiet street suggested they were well shod, their gait did not show the tired slouch that too much manual labour—or too prolonged a search for it—presently imposes.

  Bobby wished he dared stop and question one or other of them. Not difficult to invent some charge or cause for arrest on suspicion. It is a useful procedure at times. One may have to eat a big helping of humble pie afterwards, of course, to grovel in apology. A risk of the profession. There may even be public rebuke, but none the less in this way useful evidence may sometimes be obtained and would have been procurable by no other means. There was, for example, a certain share pusher who was once arrested on an entirely unjustified charge of pickpocketing, who had to be offered the most abject apologies, who even had to be paid compensation, but the examination of whose dispatch case none the less provided that address of the headquarters of the conspiracy which had been searched for so long, so earnestly, and, till then, so fruitlessly.

  But that sort of thing can only be done under authority and not in London by obscure police officers from the provinces. Nor, for that matter, was it by any means certain that identification of any of these people would reveal the full scope and purpose of whatever was here going on in such secrecy and darkness.

  Leaving his post in the doorway from time to time, Bobby ascertained that other visitors were slipping in through the side door in the fence that ran along the main road. Others, Marsh told him, were arriving by the back, but all alike, it seemed, had to go to the door at the front in order to gain admittance to the hall.

  “I’ll have a shot at getting in,” Bobby told Marsh. “Not that I’m very hopeful. There’s something jolly queer going on, though I can’t imagine what, and I don’t much fancy they’ll exactly welcome visitors.”

  They went together back to Mountain Street, and Marsh waited there, while Bobby walked through the small forecourt to the front door, trying as he did so to look as assured and purposeful as though he knew all about it.

  The door was closed, but he had been able to make out that it was not necessary to knock. All that was needed apparently was to push and enter. So Bobby did, and found himself in a small, dark lobby or porch-like entrance, closed by other doors at the further end. A harsh, metallic voice said:—

  “Please give your name and address and admission number before entry.”

  “Oh, you know my name and I never could remember numbers,” Bobby answered cheerfully, hopeful that even so crude a bluff might possibly succeed.

  Complete silence followed; and when Bobby took out his pocket torch and flashed it around he was slightly disconcerted to find himself entirely alone, though the voice had sounded quite close. Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, wondering what had become of whoever had spoken, he switched off his torch and tried the inner doors. They were securely fastened. He pushed hard, though cautiously, but without result. Something unpleasantly ominous, he thought, in this utter silence after that first brief greeting whereto his response had evidently been found inadequate. It was rather a relief when he tried the outer door to find it was still unfastened so that at least his retreat had not been cut off. Not that he had any intention of retreating, though none the less it was comforting to know that retreat was possible. He would wait developments, he decided. Only there were none, and he was wondering what to do next when he heard someone from without fumbling at the door admitting to this sort of porch or lobby where he stood. He drew back into a corner. The door opened. Someone entered. The same harsh, metallic voice that had greeted Bobby, boomed out:—

  “Please give your name and address and admission number before entry.”

  That was one mystery solved. Evidently opening the door set in motion mechanism operating a gramophone record on the principle adopted in, for instance, some lifts on the London tube stations. The newcomer plainly knew, as Bobby had not, what to do, and at once spoke into a mouthpiece at one side of the inner doors, a mouthpiece Bobby had failed in the darkness to notice. In a voice that was clearly feminine, and that ended in a squeak of amusement, the newcomer announced:—

  “George Bernard Shaw, The Adelphi. Number 73.”

  This was evidently regarded as satisfactory for, after only the briefest delay, the inner doors swung open. The newcomer darted through and Bobby followed into a well- lighted inner lobby.

  Luck always plays its part in all police work, and if so far fickle fortune had been distinctly on Bobby’s side, as witness the ease with which from Count de Legett’s casual remark, he had discovered Leonard’s habitation, now she failed him miserably. For bending over a small table was an exceedingly big man, apparently consulting a typed list lying there, and he looked up and said:—

  “Here, there was only one name—blimey, it’s Mr. Owen.”

  On his side, and very sadly, Bobby recognized a man named Evers, better known as Batter Evers, partly because of a reputed fondness for batter puddings, partly because he was supposed to ‘batter’ his opponents, partly again because ‘batter’ was held to be less ‘la-di-da’ than his correct name ‘Bertram’. Mr. Evers was, in fact, a former heavy-weight boxer who had been at one time put forward by hopeful backers as a pre-destined world champion. That ambition had never been realized, nor had he indeed ever actually been accepted as challenger. To-day he no longer appeared in the ring. But he was still a fit and formidable personage, and once it had been Bobby’s duty to escort him—happily in mild mood and unresisting—to an adjacent police station, there to be charged with race-course offences that had resulted in his retirement from the world for nine months in the second division, this last addition meaning nothing at all, but being added as a polite recognition of the fact that Mr. Evers had made no use of his fistic prowess to avoid arrest.

  He had indeed been very pleased by so courteous a comment on his self-restraint, and his gratitude had been further earned by certain financial assistance Bobby had helped to secure for Mrs. Evers during a nine months of some financial embarrassment for her and for a baby due to arrive during that period. Incidentally, it would surprise many people who appear to regard the police as a mere invention for the annoyance of motorists, to learn the amount of hard cash that goes out of police pockets to help the many tragic cases of distress of which under the compulsion of their duty they have been in a sense the indirect cause.

  It was as a consequence therefore of this earlier acquaintance that Bobby’s hopes of wangling a way into the meeting as an interested visitor vanished utterly, but also it was a further result that there was no hostility but only
much surprise in Evers’s expression as he turned towards Bobby.

  “Why, Mr. Owen,” he said, “this isn’t up your street, is it?”

  “Why not?” asked Bobby cautiously. “Pretty queer goings on, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right,” agreed Evers with a broad grin, “but it ain’t nothing against the law. It ain’t a raid, is it?” he asked anxiously.

  “Might be,” said Bobby. “What’s going on? What’s it all about? I’ve had my eye on this place for some time. What’s all this rot about admission numbers? why did that girl call herself Bernard Shaw?”

  He spoke with a great show of authority and more confidence than he actually felt. For he had no standing, little to go on, it might all turn out to be no more than some elaborate piece of foolery. If Evers told him to clear out and quick about it, he would have no option but to obey. Fortunately, Evers had far too great a respect for the majesty of the law in general, and for Bobby in particular, to dream of attempting any such presumptuous action. He said:—

  “Oh, the whole boiling of ’em takes fancy names. I’ve got a Neville Chamberlain, Downing Street, here.” He indicated the typed list on the table near. “And the Bishop of London, Fulham Palace, and a Sigmund Freud”—he pronounced it “Frood”—“and John Smiths and Polly Browns as well. A hot lot, they are, and unless they give a name and address on the list here and the correct number, I don’t let ’em in, and how you got in, Mr. Owen, sir, I don’t know.”

  “Walked in,” said Bobby briefly. “Now then, Evers, what’s it all about?”

  “Lor’, Mr. Owen, there ain’t no harm to it, not what you could call harm. Nothing at all. Real class they are as you can tell at once, and most respectable, and if they choose to behave disgusting like—well, it ain’t against the law. I don’t say there isn’t time I wouldn’t like to take a pail of disinfectant to ’em—strong it would have to be, too. But no business of mine and good pay and nothing against the law like, and nothing you can do nothing about, Mr. Owen, sir, now is there?”

  “Why not?” persisted Bobby. “What exactly is going on?”

  “Petting party, explained Evers simply. “Mind you, I ain’t supposed to know. Told very special I was to keep my eyes in the boat. Told if I was caught peeping, it would be all the worse for me. Got a way of saying it, too, that sort of sends a chill up your back like going into the ring against a bloke a stone or two heavier than you and a better record. But there, Mr. Owen, sir, you know what human nature is, I don’t deny as I’ve had a peep or two— Lumme, talk about your lady Godivas. Ain’t in it, she ain’t.”

  “Do you mean?” began Bobby.

  “I do, said Evers. “I remember the boys took me along to a strip tease act in New York after I won my first fight there and had been matched up for a second I would have won, too, only for a bit of bad luck in not noticing a left hand swing coming along. Only the strip tease act—well, Sunday school it was along of—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the closed doors behind. “Pay’s good and nothing against the law in being like the lilies of the field, if so be your tastes is such. Mind you, down in Hoxton where I live they wouldn’t stand for it, but of course West End gentry’s different.”

  Bobby asked one or two more questions. The details he received he found sufficiently surprising, though no man can serve for long in the police forces of London without learning much of human depravity. But it did appear that Evers was very likely right in claiming that there was no actual breach of the law. The whole thing appeared to be no more than the breaking through the ordinary restraints of decency and civilization by those ancient animal instincts that lie deep hidden in man, inherited from his brute ancestry. A sink of corruption certainly, and there might be legal means of dealing with it and clearing it up, but for that greater authority than he possessed would be needed and greater knowledge, too. Perhaps the Home Office would know what to do, but he certainly did not.

  “It’s the young ’uns she wants,” Evers said suddenly. “She likes to get the young ’uns here.”

  “Who is she?”

  “There’s times,” Evers answered slowly, “I think she’s the devil himself turned woman, and a way of speaking so sometimes you feel there isn’t nothing you wouldn’t do if she asked you in that voice of hers that curls all round your innards like, and then there’s times you feel you would rather have truck with a whole bag full of vipers than her. It’s she as does it all—and it’s the young ’uns she wants, it’s the young ’uns she likes to get here.”

  “Who is she?” Bobby asked again. “What is she like?”

  “I’ve never seen her, only heard her talk,” Evers answered. “I get my orders by post—typewritten, they are —and if she is here when I get here to open up, then she talks to me through the door curtains.”

  “But you see everyone when they get here, you admit them all,” Bobby said.

  “That’s right,” Evers agreed, “but I’ve got no way of telling which of ’em is her.”

  “Can’t you tell by her voice?”

  Evers shook his head.

  “Some of ’em speak in a disguised sort of way when they give their fake names and their numbers,” he explained, “and then some of them come together and only one speaks. No, I’ve no idea which is her though sometimes I’ve thought that if I did, it would be a sort of day’s good deed to wring her neck for her. But the pay’s good and you can’t quarrel with your bread and butter, not in these days.”

  “Then you can’t give me any idea how to identify her?”

  “No, sir, honest I can’t,” Evers declared earnestly. “I don’t even know for sure it is a woman, only by going by her voice.”

  “What about her letters? aren’t they signed?”

  “Oh, yes, but only in typing same as any one could do. Jinnie Reynolds the name is, and an address in Cardiff, only they don’t come from there, being always posted in London.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  WARNINGS

  Plainly the former heavy-weight boxer knew no more and plainly, too, a fear had been put upon him that smothered in him any desire to investigate further. Then, too, when Bobby hinted that he would like a chance to see for himself what was going on behind the closed door leading into the main hall, a door screened further by heavy curtains in black, entangling velvet, Evers protested that he had been paid to carry out a duty he must perform to the best of his ability.

  “My job is to stop any one as isn’t their own lot,” he said. “You wouldn’t ask me to go against my job, Mr. Owen, sir, now would you? I’ve never double-crossed any one yet, once I’ve took their money, not even when I was in the boxing game, I never did. You wouldn’t want me to start now, sir, would you?”

  It was quite a pathetic appeal and as a matter of fact Bobby did know that Evers even if his ethical ideas were slightly confused on some points, had always shown himself loyal to his employers.

  “Oh, well, that’s all right,” he said, "if that’s how you feel about it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Owen, sir,” Evers said gratefully. “I know you run straight, and I knew you wouldn’t want another bloke to go crooked. Besides,” he added, as an afterthought, “you wouldn’t see nothing except a mixed bathing show without the bathing—or nothing.”

  “Especially nothing, apparently,” said Bobby, and after ascertaining from Evers that he had never thought of keeping any of the typed notes he received and extracting from him a promise that for the future he would preserve them for inspection, Bobby retired.

  Outside, by the open gates admitting to the forecourt, he found Inspector Marsh looking very worried indeed.

  “You were right enough,” he said, “though I didn’t believe you at first, but dynamite this job is sure enough. Dynamite. You can handle it on your own from now on as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Why? what’s happened? what do you mean?” Bobby asked.

  Marsh leaned nearer. In a hoarse and cautious whisper, as though he feared even the night might
overhear and tell, he said:—

  “Hannay.”

  “Hannay,” repeated Bobby, puzzled.

  “I saw him plain,” Marsh insisted in the same hoarse and careful whisper. “He stopped to light a cigarette and I saw him plain, plain as I see you. If I hadn’t dodged quick as I knew how, he would have spotted me, like as not.”

  “What did you dodge for?” Bobby asked. “Why didn’t you ask him what he was up to?”

  “Me?” gasped Marsh, quite overwhelmed at the idea of a mere inspector asking General Sir Harold Hannay, with half the alphabet after his name, chairman, too, of the Wychshire Watch Committee, ‘what he was up to?’

  It was, however, less Sir Harold of whom Bobby was thinking than of his daughter, Hazel, tall, dark and haughty, with those searching, passionate eyes that told of her southern ancestry. Was it to seek his daughter, was it because he knew or suspected something concerning her, that Sir Harold was here? could it be that Hazel was the unknown ‘she’ whose identity Bobby desired above all things to discover, of whom Evers had spoken with such strange terror in his voice? Abruptly Bobby asked:—

  “Did Sir Harold go inside the hall?”

  “He came along immediately after you had gone in,” Marsh explained. “He stood looking at the front door and then he went round to the back along that narrow passage between the hall and the fence, and I lost him. I couldn’t follow too closely or he would have spotted me. When I got round the corner into the back yard, there wasn’t a sign of him. He might have gone through into the street or he might have gone in by the back door. I tried it but it was locked. Of course, he might have had a key. I don’t know. No one came when I knocked. What’s it all about, anyhow? what did you find out?”

  “Nothing much,” Bobby answered. “Unluckily ‘Batter’ Evers was on guard. You know—the old heavy-weight boxer. He spotted me at once and that did for my chance of getting inside. He sticks to it there’s nothing going on but a specially hot ‘petting party’, as he calls it. According to him it’s nothing but a lot of young Mayfair decadents amusing themselves in their own fashion.”