VISITORS TO THE CRESENT

by MARY HOCKING

  Mary Hocking

  VISITORS TO

  THE CRESCENT

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  To Mary

  Chapter One

  I

  It was on a rather tremulous spring evening in April that the visitors first appeared in Cedar Crescent.

  Park Road East was a hustle of late-night shoppers, stamping cabbage leaves and brown paper into grimy pavements, trailing sawdust from butchers’ shops. Impatient drivers thumped horns in protest at the sluggish progress to the main Holland Park Avenue. Outside the cluttered antique shop, a man was dismantling a fruit stall, watched by an expectant dog and a couple of small children who were waiting an opportunity to steal apples. Park Road East was stridently alive; it would not be surprised at anything that might happen to it.

  But Cedar Crescent was a different matter altogether. Here, life had stopped a long time ago. The road tunnelled off Park Road East, dark, quiet, stretching dustily and unromantically into another century. In spite of its name, it was quite straight and there were no trees, only the squat electric lamps which were of a very old design and gave a dim yellow light which created a permanent impression of fog. The tall, terraced houses had lost even the memory of their dignity; flights of stone steps led to open doors revealing halls with flaking wallpaper and giving out an odour suggestive of damp and decay. Many of the windows were uncurtained. In one basement a coloured woman could be seen ironing and there was an old man bending over a stove in a room above; these people gave the impression of figures in an artist’s sketch, part of a pattern unrelated to life. It was very quiet in the street; the quiet of something forgotten, falling to waste on a rubbish dump.

  Number 10, while sharing the general air of withdrawal from life, was rather more respectable than the other houses; the paintwork, though not fresh, was in a reasonable state of repair, the windows were well-curtained and the steps and front path had recently been scrubbed. The man who came out of the house on this particular evening in April was in keeping with his surroundings. Like the house, Edward Saneck had retained some pride in his appearance; he was clean, carefully dressed, even good-looking in a gaunt, rather foreign way. But he seemed, with his sandy hair and pale colouring, oddly indeterminate, and his face was not one that it would be easy to remember. He stood on the doorstep, hesitating, his head raised slightly, as though the early summer expectancy had caught him unawares. When finally he came down the steps, he seemed to merge into the Crescent, grateful for its grey anonymity. As he walked towards Park Road East, his face had the shuttered look of a person continually on guard, not against any specific danger, but against life itself; his eyes, rather slanting and a very light hazel, never remained fixed for long on any one object.

  At the corner of the street, he halted and began to feel in his pockets. Here, he was exposed to the raucous vulgarity of Park Road East; he reacted to it much as a troglodyte might react had he suddenly emerged in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. A fishmonger, who was sluicing down the pavement in front of his shop, watched in amusement.

  ‘Lost your keys, have you, Mr. Saneck?’

  ‘I must have done.’ It was obvious, from the curt tone, that he was not a man who liked to appear ridiculous. ‘But I daresay my partner . . .’

  ‘Mr. Vickers went out about half an hour ago.’ The fishmonger chuckled. ‘You’ll have to climb through that back window, Mr. Saneck.’

  But the keys must have been found, for Edward Saneck was already letting himself into the antique shop.

  Edward Saneck belonged to Cedar Crescent. But now, at the far end, two figures had emerged who most certainly did not belong. In their gaudy check shirts and tight black trousers, the two young men were almost startlingly inappropriate. Although they seemed to be ambling along, they covered the ground to the corner of Park Road East remarkably quickly. Here, they parted company without a word, one wandering into a café on the far side of the road, while the other strolled up to the antique shop and peered in the window.

  The showroom was dark. The young man studied the shadowy humps of furniture indifferently. There was a door at the back and a strip of light showed beneath it; he looked at the light thoughtfully and then sauntered across the road to join his friend in the café. They ordered coffee and sat smoking, their legs stretched out in front of them, their eyes staring vacantly into the darkening street.

  A quarter of an hour later, Edward Saneck came out of the inner room, locked the door, crossed the showroom and let himself out of the shop. He waited for a moment on the pavement and then hailed a taxi. The taxi went off in the direction of Holland Park Avenue. A bus rumbled up and stopped just beyond the antique shop; a few men got off and went into a nearby public house. The owner of the fish shop locked up his premises and came across to the café for his evening meal.

  ‘First time in months I’ve known them two leave that shop,’ he said as he sat down at his usual table. ‘There’s nearly always one of ’em there. Anyone would think they had the crown jewels on loan.’

  The two young men in the brightly-coloured shirts paid for their coffee and slouched into the night.

  The antique shop stood on a corner; the shop faced Park Road East, but the entrance to the flat above the shop, where George Vickers lived, was in Cedar Crescent. The two young men turned into Cedar Crescent.

  II

  The next morning, Mrs. Green paused on her way out of Number 10, Cedar Crescent, and returned to the hall. She tilted her head back and gazed up the stairs to where Jessica Holt was perched on some rather precarious scaffolding.

  ‘I quite forgot. Someone telephoned for Mr. Saneck while you were out shopping. Said he would call to see him later this morning.’

  ‘Mr. Saneck won’t be back until this evening.’ Jessica frowned as she stroked the paint-brush along the picture rail. ‘Never mind, Mrs. Green; Mr. Vickers may be able to deal with him. He’s probably a customer.’

  Mrs. Green hesitated. ‘It wasn’t that kind of a voice.’ Jessica went on painting and Mrs. Green took herself off. After a while, Jessica said:

  ‘I don’t suppose it was important, Mrs. Green.’

  Receiving no reply, she peered down into the hall. ‘Gone!’ She sounded mildly exasperated. ‘And she didn’t vacuum the bedroom carpet.’ She went on painting.

  Paddy Brett, who came in a few moments later, looked up the stairs and thought that Jessica painted as though her life depended on it. And this, in fact, had an element of truth in it, for during the years of her father’s illness Jessica had developed the art of losing herself in practical activities as a necessary means of preserving her sanity. Now, four years after his death, the habit persisted. At this moment, her spirit had entered into the paint¬brush, just as, later in the day, her spirit would enter into the typewriter when she sat down to write a further chapter of her latest children’s book. Paddy understood nothing of this. But as she watched the absorbed face with its grave, grey eyes and straight, firm mouth, she thought that it was a pity Jessica looked so severe. ‘If it wasn’t for her hair,’ she said to herself, ‘she would be the proper schoolmistress type.’ Jessica’s hair was escaping, as it always did, from the coil at the nape of her neck; it was dark, thick and luxuriant, and it went its own way with a vagrant wilfulness that seemed oddly in conflict with the meditative quality of the face.

  ‘Have you ever thought of having your hair cut, Jessica?’ Paddy asked.


  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t say you need have it like mine; but I just, thought . . .’

  Paddy’s hair tumbled around her face. ‘It’s supposed to look like I just got out of bed,’ she had once explained to Jessica, and this was certainly the effect at the moment. This week it was a bright pillar-box red. Jessica watched Paddy prowling round the hall. The shapeless black pullover concealed any shape there might be in the top half of Paddy, but the skirt was very tight and the small, round behind was clearly modelled. Jessica said absently:

  ‘Are you going to work like that?’

  Paddy grinned. Her mouth was wide and painted bright scarlet, and the eyes were black-rimmed; when she smiled the effect was clownish.

  ‘I was just going to ask whether I could use the ’phone to tell the supervisor I’m ill.’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I had a heavy night.’

  Jessica thrust the paint-brush into the pot and stirred thoughtfully.

  ‘Stevie?’

  ‘No.’ Paddy began to climb the stairs. ‘I discovered Stevie was rather spiteful, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s that.’ She ducked under the scaffolding. ‘So I got me another fellow.’

  Jessica made no comment.

  ‘Someone you would approve of,’ Paddy said.

  When Jessica turned, Paddy was already disappearing up the stairs to her attic room; Jessica could hear her laughing. She wondered what Paddy had meant by that last remark, or whether she had meant anything in particular. She went on with her painting. Paddy had been with her for three months now, and on the whole it had worked quite well. Paddy liked to be left alone, and Jessica liked to leave people alone. Of course, they were utterly different in many ways – Jessica was extremely sensitive and very reticent whereas Paddy would have been quite prepared to live her life in a shop-window – but Paddy was incurious and undemanding and this suited Jessica. Also, she found Paddy stimulating, but too good-natured to be disturbing. The girl opened up a part of life which had hitherto been unknown to Jessica; through her eyes the older woman had a glimpse of a life that was so chaotic and undisciplined as to be almost complete fantasy. And she could study this fantasy in the way that she enjoyed most, as a spectator in the wings, herself in shadow, uninvolved. Yes, on the whole, Paddy’s tenancy was proving a success.

  Jessica leant forward to reach a particularly inaccessible spot and became aware of two men standing in the hall looking up at her. The idea that Edward’s visitor might be a customer received a jolt. She could see only the first man clearly, and she knew in that moment that he was not interested in antiques.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ he said, and something in his tone had a familiar ring so that she was unsurprised when he went on: ‘But we are police officers. I wonder whether I could have a word with you?’ He had come up the stairs and had put his hand on the plank which was becoming unsteady. ‘When you’ve finished that corner, of course.’

  He had a deep voice with a trace of a north-country accent; he spoke pleasantly and she was sure that he meant to be reassuring. She found, however, that her hand was shaking and the brush¬strokes were lamentably uneven. Nevertheless, she persisted for a moment or two because she was experiencing an odd reluctance to climb down from her perch. She took a quick glance at her visitor.

  He was a big, dark man in a heavy overcoat; he made the stairway look very small. His face was striking, deeply tanned with a strong jaw, blue about the chin; there was something very definite about the hooked nose and the blue eyes were uncomfortably shrewd. The mouth was kinder, though, wide and good-humoured. Not a man to be hustled or harried, Jessica thought; not a man to be argued with, either, unless one were very sure of one’s facts. She looked away and began to collect her paint-pots together. The front door had been left open and a keen, spiteful wind had whipped up. She could see a bit of newspaper flapping about on the porch steps, and somewhere in the house a door creaked against the wind’s insistence.

  The big policeman was asking questions in an offhand, conversational manner.

  ‘Having a general turn-out?’

  ‘No. I’m just redecorating the hall and landing and my own rooms.’

  ‘The house is divided into three flats?’

  ‘Yes. Mine is the first floor. Mr. Saneck has the ground floor, and Miss Brett is in the attic’

  ‘What about the basement?’

  ‘I store some of my furniture there.’

  ‘Mr. Saneck doesn’t use it for storage purposes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing belonging to Mr. Saneck there at all?’

  She paused suddenly, hands full of paint-brushes and pots, and looked down at him.

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘Suppose you come down first? More comfortable.’

  He helped her down and she dropped an unopened tin of paint which was fielded by his companion, a glowering young man who looked as though he might be deficient in humour.

  ‘You are Miss Holt, the owner of the house?’ the big man said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am Superintendent Harper and this is Inspector MacLeish.’ Jessica saw the inspector’s sombre eyes flick over her once. She sensed that whatever opinion he had formed would not be changed: judgement had been passed and was final. Now he looked away, his eyes probing the dark recesses of the passage beyond her. He stood quite still while she talked to the superintendent, but there was a rigidity in his attitude as though he were trying to master a smouldering impatience. Impatience with what? she wondered. The niceties of police procedure?

  ‘Perhaps you would like to come into my study and tell me what this is all about?’

  Jessica was startled to hear herself sounding so much like a character in a detective story. It was absurd, the way one’s speech began to form into a conventional pattern when confronted with the police. Now he would say that he hoped he would not have to inconvenience her for long. He did; and as they entered the study he added smoothly:

  ‘You knew that Mr. Saneck’s shop was broken into last night?’

  In the tiny pause that followed, she heard the wind stir in the chimney and a shower of grit fall in the hearth. She was conscious of a faint relief; her imagination must have been working too hard, she had expected something more sinister. To compensate for her lack of feeling, she said, rather vehemently:

  ‘Oh dear! I hope they didn’t get away with anything valuable!’

  The remark did not ring true and the lean young inspector glanced at her sharply. The superintendent appeared not to notice anything amiss.

  ‘I’ve seen Mr. Vickers,’ he said. Jessica had the impression that he had not liked Mr. Vickers. ‘But he couldn’t tell me much about the stuff in the shop.’

  ‘Mr. Saneck deals with the antiques, such as they are.’

  ‘I see. What does Mr. Vickers do?’

  Jessica frowned. ‘I really have no idea.’

  A floor-board in the hall creaked and this time it did not sound like the wind. Both men glanced towards the door. Jessica said nothing. Paddy, she suspected, was doing a little eavesdropping. She hoped she would let it rest at that. Paddy rebelled against discipline and order of any kind and she had a quite alarming hatred for those whom she described as ‘the shouldn’ts’. The personification of a ‘shouldn’t’ was the policeman.

  ‘Mr. Vickers looks after the financial side, perhaps?’ the superintendent suggested.

  ‘I imagine so.’

  Jessica had never wondered what George Vickers did, but now, listening to herself fumbling over these questions, she was rather surprised by her own lack of knowledge.

  ‘Are you familiar with the shop, Miss Holt?’

  ‘No. I . . . I hardly ever go inside it.’

  ‘Not very interested in antiques, eh?’

  ‘Well, yes, I am. At least . . .’

  She stopped, puzzled.

  ‘I don’t expect you know your lodgers all that well.’ The superinte
ndent sounded sympathetic. ‘No reason why you should, after all.’

  Jessica, who was Edward Saneck’s mistress, did not reply, but a little flush crept up her neck and Harper noticed this. He paused for rather a long time, but the intended effect was spoilt by Paddy who appeared in the doorway flourishing a morning paper.

  ‘They’re going to hang that boy, Tod Evans,’ she said. ‘Poor little sod!’ She turned to stare at the two men with exaggerated surprise. ‘I didn’t know you had visitors.’

  ‘He did murder, didn’t he, the Evans boy?’ the inspector snapped.

  Paddy screwed up her face as though deprecating such a strong term.

  ‘He killed a policeman.’

  ‘You don’t think that should count as murder?’ The superintendent sounded mildly interested.

  ‘A man knows what he’s doing when he joins the Force, doesn’t he? If he goes in for that kind of racket, he has to take the consequences.’

  The inspector drew in his breath, and the superintendent said pleasantly:

  ‘That’s a point of view, certainly.’

  ‘Have you made that call to your boss yet, Paddy?’ Jessica asked.

  Paddy went out, watched malevolently by the inspector. There was an uneasy silence in the room. The curtains billowed out, blue sails filled with the wind’s sudden turbulence. Jessica went across to close the window.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said.

  The superintendent sat down. The inspector remained in the doorway, looking down the corridor; after a time, Jessica was no longer aware of him, but whether he remained there throughout her interview with Harper, or whether he went away, she could never afterwards be sure.

  ‘Mr. Saneck is away?’ Harper began.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He has to go away quite often, I suppose? Business trips?’

  ‘No. It is usually Mr. Vickers who travels about.’

  ‘Goes abroad quite a bit, so he was telling me.’

  ‘I believe he does.’

  ‘Mr. Saneck go abroad much?’

  ‘Never since I have known him.’