by Joyce Porter
‘Yes, well never mind about that now!’ the Hon. Con admonished him sharply, catching him in mid-twitch. ‘Can you give me the name and address of Rodney’s employer?’
‘H’I suppose I might ’ave a note of it somewhere,’ said Mr Stark-Denoon, ‘h’if I could just think where to lay my ’ ands on it.’ He pawed half-heartedly at some papers in a wire tray on his desk. ‘’Course, with ’im ’aving passed over, I might well ’ave chucked all ’is records away.’
‘Knowing you, I should imagine that’s more than likely,’ grumbled the Hon. Con under her breath. ‘ Well, if you can’t remember, who would have the information?’
‘Strickly speaking,’ said Mr Stark-Denoon, abandoning his search, ‘jobs is the Youth h’Employment’s concern.’
‘All right’ – the Hon. Con stood up – ‘ I’ll go and have a word with them.’
‘This chap came h’in to see me, though,’ mused Mr Stark-Denoon reininiscently. ‘ H’it must’ave been just after your precious Burberry first came into my ’ ands. I could see straight off ’ee was some kind of nutcase. Something funny about his h’eyes – and nervous, too. Like a cat on ’ot bricks. Jumped a mile h’every time h’I spoke to ’im. You’ve got a right one ’ere, I said to myself – and I ’ad. ’Ee started off by spinning me some crack-pot yarn about feeling sorry for the poor underprivileged gits we ’ave on the books ’ere and ’im wanting to do something constructive for them. ‘‘You got a spare gas chamber?’’ h’I asked, and then I straightened out a few more of ’ is sloppy h’ideas for ’ im. ‘‘H’I don’t h’understand this mob?’’ I said, ‘‘H’I understand ’em a damned sight too well, mate! They’re devils h’incarnate,’’ I told ’im, ‘‘ h’and the few I wouldn’t’ave put down as soon as look at, I’d castrate! A few years of my policy h’and your juvenile delinquency’d be a thing of the past!’’ ’
The Hon. Con sat down again. She wished Mr Stark-Denoon would refrain from expressing himself so crudely but, since he seemed to be on the verge of providing more information, she would make the sacrifice and hear him out. ‘ What did this man want, precisely?’
‘You’ll never credit this, not h’in a thousand years’ chuckled Mr Stark-Denoon. ‘Do you know what the poor nit wanted to do? H’offer ’em jobs! Laugh? I nearly ruptured myself. If there’s one way to put the fear of God h’into the shower we ’ ave ’ ere, it’s to talk h’about work to ’em. They run a mile at the first sniff of h’it. What do they want work for, eh? National h’Assistance and a bit of nicking and they’re living like pigs h’in clover! Well, I h’expounded my philosophy to this fellow but ’ ee’d got a closed mind. The dead h’ignorant usually ’ave, don’t they?’’ ‘‘ H’all right,’’ I said at last, ‘‘what are you proposing to do h’about it?’’ ‘‘H’offer ’em h’employment in my business,’’ he says. More fool you, I thought, but if ’ee wanted to go bankrupt h’inside a week, h’it was no skin off my nose. So, I asked ’im what sort of work h’it was and how many young jail-birds was ’ee thinking of signing on. And that’s where we came down to h’earth with one ’ ell of a bump.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked the Hon. Con who was having the greatest difficulty in following all this.
‘Well, this joker with the bleeding ’eart ’ adn’t actually got any jobs to h’offer h’anybody. Not at the moment, that was. Seems ’ee was the representative of some h’estate h’agency and they were going to open a new branch in Totterbridge. ’ Ee was what you might call the h’advance party and h’it was ’is job to look round for proper business premises and generally spy h’out the land. ’Ee’d already got a couple of rooms down at the h’end of Cross Street for temporary h’offices and, when this firm really got going ’ee reckoned they’d be able to h’offer p’raps ’alf a dozen jobs for any young layabouts we ’ad kicking around. ‘‘What sort of jobs?’’ h’I said, ’umouring ’im sort of. And’ – Mr Stark-Denoon’s massive frame shook with mirth – ‘’ee said, ‘‘Ho, h’office work sort of jobs!’ H’office work? I ask you? ’Alf of ’ em can’t count beyond ten without taking their shoes off and, h’if you was to put a pencil in their ’ands, there’s only one place they’d think h’of sticking it!’
The Hon. Con vibrated with outrage but Mr Stark-Denoon continued to show himself impervious to all sense of decency.
‘Well,’ he went on, wiping the tears from his eyes, ‘h’I don’t reckon it’s h’any part of my job to teach grown men the facts of life, so I said, when were these marvellous positions going to be ready for my poor misunderstood yobos. And ’ ee said, not for h’a couple of months or more. But – h’and this is where I began to suspect ’ee wasn’t as potty as ’ee looked – ’ee did need one promising lad right h’away to h’assist ’im in these temporary premises ’ee acquired. Well’ – Mr Stark-Denoon gave the Hon. Con yet another of his nasty, knowing winks – ‘you can see what that was leading h’up to, can’t you? H’I’ve known some cheeky pouffs in my time but h’I reckon this took the bloody biscuit! H’imagine a blooming queer mincing in ’ere as bold as brass and expecting me to ponce a fancy boy for ’im!’
The Hon. Con was beyond words. And that didn’t happen often. There were some subjects that, even in these enlightened days, one simply did not mention in conversation between members of opposite sexes. One knew that these things existed, of course, but that was no reason for talking – much less joking – about them.
Mr Stark-Denoon, considerably calmer now that he wasn’t discussing corporal punishment and leather straps, controlled his chuckles. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘to cut a long story short, h’I sent h’along a selection of my prettier louts for ’im to give ’em the once-over.’
‘You did what? But you’ve just said you suspected him of …’
‘Ho, live and let live, h’I say,’ said Mr Stark-Denoon easily. ‘ We’ve all got our ’obbies, ’aven’t we? No point in being a spoil sport. Besides, ’ee wouldn’t ’ave got very far with any of my kids h’unless they were ready and willing.’
‘Good heavens!’ gasped the Hon. Con faintly.
‘In the h’end ’ ee chose your Rodney Burberry. Blowed h’if I could see why, but one man’s meat … Suited me, of course. Kept the stinking little ruffian h’off the streets for part of the day, h’at any rate. H’in fact, everybody must ’ave been happy with the h’arrangement because Burberry was still in the job when’ee snuffed it. A couple of months ’ ee must ’ave stayed there, and that’s pretty well a record for a ’oodlum like ’im.’
The Hon. Con could stand no more. She rose, stony faced to her feet. Duty might call but, on occasion, one had to listen to the voice of decency, propriety and clean living as well. She made an effort and asked a final question. ‘ What was this man’s name?’
‘Ho, Smith,’ said Mr Stark-Denoon and winked again ‘ H’it always h’is, h’isn’t’h’it?’
Chapter Eleven
The Hon. Con set off for Cross Street to see Mr Smith with a definite feeling of resentment. This case was full of men, apart from that charming little filly at the chemist’s and the Hon. Con had hardly been able to establish much rapport with her. She bulldozed the Mini through Totterbridge’s traffic congestion and reflected glumly on the unfairness of life. There was supposed to be a surplus of women, wasn’t there? Well, she’d just like to know where they were all blooming well hiding themselves!
As things turned out she had an encounter with one of the elusive sex in Cross Street itself. Oh well, thought the Hon. Con defiantly as she rammed her sixpence into the parking meter, it’s every man for himself these days! Besides, if the silly bitch couldn’t handle her whopping big car smarter than that, she should drive something smaller.
The Hon. Con thumped the parking meter on the off chance that she could terrorize it into showing more time than she had actually paid for and then glanced cautiously round. Oh heck, the woman with the big car was still there! Probably stalled her engine with sheer mortification. Carefully avoiding a pair of big brow
n eyes, brimming over with reproach, the Hon. Con bustled off down Cross Street.
Before leaving the probation offices the Hon. Con had finally managed to induce the dreadful Stark-Denoon man to disgorge the proper address of Rodney’s place of employment and now she found No 31 easily enough. It turned out to be a woolshop and the Hon. Con went inside to make further enquiries.
The lady who ran the woolshop proved to be extremely pleasant and helpful. The Hon. Con warmed to her immediately. Such a joy to be dealing with somebody who spoke one’s own language and spoke it so respectfully, too. The woolshop lady was visibly impressed with the Hon. Con’s title and the Hon. Con beamed graciously at her as she explained what she wanted.
The woolshop lady was so intrigued that she didn’t seem to mind at all that she wasn’t going to make a sale. Well, one could see with half a glance that the Hon. Con wasn’t the sort of lady who knitted her own socks, couldn’t one? The woolshop lady wasn’t in the least surprised, either, that somebody should come enquiring for Mr Smith. She had had a premonition, she confided excitedly, that there was more to him than met the eye – and had told her sister so at the time. Her sister, of course, had pooh-poohed the idea but would now – the woolshop lady smiled sweetly – be forced, for once, to eat her words.
‘Tell me all!’ commanded the Hon. Con, twirling the customer’s chair round and straddling it in a way that would have horrified the woolshop lady if anybody else had done it.
Well, it turned out to be all because of this cottage in the country that the woolshop lady and her sister had bought in anticipation of their coming retirement from the strains and stresses of running a business. Forty-two years it was since they’d first opened this shop and she couldn’t begin to tell the Hon. Con of the changes they’d seen in that time. And none of them for the better, in her judgement. Well, enough was enough, wasn’t it? They had both come to the conclusion that they owed themselves the chance of taking things easy and, what with the old-age pension and the bit they’d managed to save, they should be able to spend their declining years in modest comfort. Well, the location of their new home had given rise to a considerable amount of argument. The woolshop lady’s sister was all for going out Winterleigh way but the woolshop lady hadn’t fancied that at all. It was too damp down there, what with the river and everything. Frankly, she would have preferred somewhere like Murray Hill herself – such a nice type of person seemed to live at Murray Hill, she always thought – but her sister (ever one to be awkward) hadn’t cared for any of the bungalows that were available. In the end, of course, they’d compromised and had bought quite a nice little place just outside Bryley. Very handy for the village shops and the buses into town but quiet and not overlooked. Neither the woolshop lady nor her sister had fancied being overlooked.
Well, having finally bought this cottage – and that wasn’t by any means as straightforward as it sounded just saying it – the woolshop lady and her sister had decided that it would be a good idea to start living in it right away. Nothing deteriorated so quickly as unoccupied property, what with vandals and everything, and it wasn’t more than half-an-hour’s ride by bus into Totterbridge and summer was coming, too, which made such a difference. Well, since business in the woolshop was not nowadays what you might call over-brisk – people being too lazy to knit their own jumpers and cardigans and practically nobody doing any embroidery – they had decided that one sister might as well stay at home and start getting the cottage in order while the other sister came into town to run the shop. Turn and turn about was what they’d decided on – which had its drawbacks, there was no denying, but it was the only fair way and really saved a lot of arguments in the end.
Well, that left the problem of the flat upstairs. Oh, hadn’t she told the Hon. Con about that? Oh, yes, they’d always lived over the shop. They wouldn’t have felt happy, all those years, not living over the shop. Quite a nice flat, it was, and, of course, when they finally retired, they would dispose of the whole property, which was freehold incidentally, as one lot because they would naturally get a better price for the shop with living accommodation than they would for the shop by itself and the flat separately. That’s actually what the agents had advised and they should know if anybody should. So, there was no question of letting the flat on any but a strictly temporary basis and, really, they had been very doubtful about allowing anybody to live there at all because tenants had all sorts of rights and legal protection these days and it might prove quite impossible to regain vacant possession when the time came. On the other hand, it seemed a pity to have such valuable accommodation right in the centre of the town going to waste or very nearly so and, when prices were rising almost in front of your very eyes, there was no denying that the money from the rent would come in very handy.
The woolshop lady got her second wind. Well, it was the agent who had suggested that they might do better to try and let the flat as office accommodation and, sure enough, a week or so after they’d advertised in the local paper and displayed this notice in the shop window, this gentleman had come along. He had inspected the flat, pronounced that it was just what he was looking for and had taken it on the spot – paying four weeks’ rent in advance as a token of good faith.
‘Did he say what he wanted it for?’ asked the Hon. Con, as much to exercise her vocal chords as anything else. The woolshop lady was going to tell all, whether or not she was prompted by shrewd and penetrating questioning.
Oh, yes, he’d said what he wanted the flat for. In fact, he’d been perfectly frank and above-board – suspiciously so, when you come to think about it. Con men – the woolshop lady savoured the expression – were notoriously plausible, weren’t they? However, it seemed that some large firm of estate agents was going to open a branch in Totterbridge and Mr Smith – about whom the Hon. Con was so graciously making enquiries – had been sent along to get things started. The woolshop lady’s sister, who (whatever else you might say about her) really had a very good head for business and plenty of cheek to go with it, had immediately suggested that these estate agents might be interested in acquiring the woolshop itself for their new premises. Mr Smith, who was always very polite and soft spoken, had sort of pursed his lips and said that of course he would carefully consider the proposition but that he didn’t think it was quite what his principals had in mind and that, in any case, he would have to explore all the other possibilities first.
Well, really, that was all there was to it, except for this niggling suspicion (now fully vindicated by the Hon. Con’s extremely kind interest) that he – Mr Smith – was just a bit too good to be true. He’d been absolutely no trouble at all, she would say that for him.
He’d always paid the rent a week in advance and, before he’d left, he’d duly given the stipulated seven days’ notice.
‘Before he left?’ the Hon. Con came to life with a jerk ‘You mean he’s gone?’
Well, of course he’d gone. Hadn’t the woolshop lady made that clear? Surely – the woolshop lady smiled reprovingly at the Hon. Con – surely the Hon. Con didn’t think the woolshop lady would be talking like this about her tenant if he were still there? Yes, he’d left as quietly and unobtrusively as he’d come. Just walked out, practically. He’d not had any furniture or anything to dispose of, having used the few sticks which had been left in the flat as not worth carting down to the cottage. His gas and electricity bills had been settled and that was that.
‘Damn!’ said the Hon. Con. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
The woolshop lady sympathized with the Hon. Con’s disappointment but, really, she didn’t see how she could possibly have detained him. After all, he’d never given either her or her sister (who had a pretty low opinion of human nature and was always inclined to suspect the worst) an uneasy moment. Well, apart that is from the office boy he’d engaged. Neither she nor her sister had cared much for the look of him. A scruffy boy, he was, and the sort that look as though they’d be insolent if you gave them half a chance.
‘Ah,�
�� said the Hon. Con. ‘Rodney Burberry! I was waiting for us to get round to him.’
Rodney Burberry? the woolshop lady shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t know whether that was his name or not. She and her sister, on the rare occasions when they had ever discussed him, had always spoken of him as the office boy.
‘But didn’t you see his name in the paper when he died?’
Died? The woolshop lady was astonished. Was the boy dead, then? It was the first she’d heard about it. It must have been very sudden. What had he died of?
‘Poison,’ said the Hon. Con. ‘He was murdered, as a matter fact, though the papers said suicide just to sort of put people off the scent.’ Well, she hadn’t time to go into a lot of explanations and the woolshop lady looked as though she would believe anything.
Good heavens! Murder? Suicide? Poison? Whatever next? The woolshop lady was speechless with surprise. She would have taken a much greater interest in the office boy if she had known all this was going to happen to him, really she would. There – and that just showed you, didn’t it? If only her sister hadn’t been so pig-headed about taking the local paper, they’d have seen all about it, wouldn’t they? Maybe it was always full of stupid stuff about church bazaars and coffee mornings but it did keep you in touch with what was going on in the town, didn’t it?
‘Here, hang on a bit,’ protested the Hon. Con. ‘ Didn’t this Smith wallah tell you the lad was dead?’
He’d never said a word! The woolshop lady couldn’t understand it. Mind you, he wasn’t much of a one for gossiping, kept himself very much to himself but – even so!
The Hon. Con realized that the time had come for her to assert herself, otherwise the woolshop lady would be rambling on until the cows came home. ‘Let’s just get a few facts straight, shall we?’ she asked. ‘Now, when did this Smith man fold up his tent and disappear into the night? Can you give me the date?’
