Lonelyheart 4122 f-3

by Colin Watson

  He swung round towards the earth border and in another moment Miss Teatime was heartily relieved to see the thing glimmering anonymously in the long line of its fellows.

  He brushed the knees of his trousers and sat back beside her, half turned against the side of the seat. He put out his hand.

  “Jack Trelawney. At your service.”

  “How do you do, Mr Trelawney.”

  She felt her fingers pressed gently into his palm by the big soft thumb. He did not let go of them, but gave her arm a little wag every now and again during the next five minutes as if to emphasize a point in the conversation.

  “And now, Miss Three-Four-Seven...” he paused to gild the little joke with a grin. “How am I to call you? Three for short?”

  “I’m afraid that introductions have never been the happiest moments of my life,” she said wryly. “You see, my name happens to be Teatime. It really does.”

  He looked blank, then hastily summoned an expression of kindly surprise.

  “Teatime...well, well. But how refreshingly different. I like it. I really do.” Her arm was wagged twice. “And your first name?”

  “Lucy. Lucilla, actually, but I think that’s a bit Gothic.”

  “Oh, Lucy will do very nicely indeed. Lucy Teatime. Yes. I’m so pleased to have met you, Lucy.”

  He had a way, she noticed, of lowering his head as he spoke and looking up past those biscuit coloured eyebrows of his. It gave him an air of being serious and confiding. Yet always with a certain sparkle. He was probably used to getting his own way.

  “Did you have far to come to meet me?” she asked.

  “No, not really. I say, I’m glad it’s so fine, though. Perhaps we could have a look at the river later on.”

  “That would be lovely.” (Was she ever going to get her hand back?)

  “You live in Flaxborough, do you, Lucy?”

  “I’m staying here for the time being. It does seem an altogether charming town, from what I have seen of it.”

  Her fingers were released.

  “Before we go any further, I must make a note of your address.” He was bringing out a folded envelope and a pen with a rolled-gold cap.

  Miss Teatime hesitated a second. Oh, well, why not?

  “I’ve put up at the Roebuck Hotel.”

  He pouted approvingly. “Jolly nice berth.” The cap was off the pen. “What about your own home, though? Your proper home?”

  “I suppose I haven’t one, really. The house was so huge that it seemed pointless to hang on to it when father passed away. I mean to say—imagine me trying to keep twenty-seven bedrooms aired!”

  “All those warming pans!” riposted a chuckling Mr Trelawney.

  “Yes, indeed. Anyway, with the sort of ridiculous prices that people are absolutely fighting to pay for Elizabethan manor houses in Berkshire it seemed foolish not to turn it to good account.”

  Trelawney swallowed. “You sold it, then?”

  “It’s going through,” said Miss Teatime indifferently. She gave a little laugh. “Who wants nine bathrooms, anyway?”

  “I’d rather have nine bean rows and a hive for the honey bee.” A dreamy look had entered Trelawney’s pale blue eyes.

  “Yeats!” responded Miss Teatime. She sighed happily. “Do you live in the country, Mr Trelawney?”

  “More or less. Actually, I’m rather a bird of passage at the moment. Like you.”

  “I see.”

  More people had come into the garden. Two of the nearby seats were now occupied. A gangling young clergyman came by, peering at faces. He was wearing bicycle clips and looked, Miss Teatime thought, rather like an ill nourished starling. The boy who had been carted off by his mother appeared to be at liberty once more. Bored, he lounged against the fountain and contrived by putting his thumb over the outlet to send a fine rain over them.

  “Belay there, young fellow-me-lad!” cried her companion.

  The boy glanced at him contemptuously and sauntered off.

  “What they need is a touch of the rope’s end,” opined Trelawney. He thoughtfully tugged the lobe of one of his long ears—an action which had the interesting effect of hoisting the eyebrow on the opposite side.

  “Have you...have you any children of your own?” Miss Teatime thought it might be as well to slip in some of the most important questions early. She wished, though, that this one had not sounded like: Do you keep rabbits?

  “Not to my knowledge, ma’am, as the Duke of Wellington used to say.”

  She laughed politely.

  He looked down at his long, plump thigh and flicked away a vestige of soil. “No, I’ve never been spliced. I don’t think it’s fair on a woman, being tied up in port while her husband rolls round the world. Of course, when his sailing days are over...” he raised his eyes “...that’s different, isn’t it?”

  “So you want to settle down?”

  He shrugged and stared past her into the distance.

  “A little bit of terra firma, a cottage, slippers by a real, old fashioned fire...they sound sentimental, I suppose, but you’d be surprised how often they come to mind when you’re rounding the Bight or keeping your eyes skinned for bergs away off Iceland or somewhere.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they do,” said Miss Teatime comfortably.

  He started. “But you don’t want to listen to my little romantic fancies. Tell me something about yourself.”

  He reached again for her hand, missed it, and grasped her knee instead. His calm, earnest regard was like that of a doctor impersonally checking cartilage formation.

  “I am not sure what I can tell you, really,” Miss Teatime said. “My life has been quite uneventful—rather too sheltered, if anything. You know this is quite a break away for me. Poor father’s accountant...well, he’s mine now, I suppose...he was most disapproving when I said I was going to leave everything to him for a while and take a little look round. I had to placate him by promising I would only draw on my personal account while I was away.” She gave her melodious little laugh. “And I shan’t get into much trouble on that, believe me!”

  Trelawney joined her amusement. Then he withdrew his hand and looked at his watch.

  “Now, then; how about some chow?”

  “Chow,” she carefully pronounced, “would be most acceptable.”

  “I thought we might try a little place I know just the other side of the station. They do awfully good scampi.”

  Deep frozen dogfish tails, Miss Teatime knowledgeably reflected, but she nodded and said: “Yes, let’s.”

  Mr Trelawney stood up briskly and with a flourish offered his arm. They left the garden.

  Seven hours later, Miss Teatime sighed and declared: “Such a pleasant day. You really have been very kind, Jack.”

  They were in the booking hall of Flaxborough Station and Trelawney was hooking a return half ticket from his waistcoat pocket. “The pleasure has been all mine,” he assured her.

  Miss Teatime still did not know where he lived. The point seemed to have been lost amidst the much more interesting matters that had cropped up during the afternoon and early evening. She had gathered, though, that it was somewhere within fairly easy reach by train and that the train, in fact, was Mr Trelawney’s habitual means of coming into Flaxborough whenever business (unspecified) or shopping required it.

  They had made arrangements for their next meeting and Trelawney had insisted that she spare herself the chilly tedium of standing on the platform until the train pulled out. Station farewells, he had observed, were even worse than embarkations, which at least had the merit of affording a whiff of good sea air. So Miss Teatime gave him a smile and a little wave as he stepped, with naval smartness, past the barrier and disappeared round the corner of the bookstall; then she turned at once and made her way to East Street.

  Entering the Roebuck lobby, she caught sight of the manager’s bald head bent over ledgers in the reception office.

  “Mr Maddox...”

  He looked up, saw her, and ra
n a great smile of the trade to his masthead (no, really, I must stop this nautical imagery nonsense, Miss Teatime snapped to herself).

  “Mr Maddox, a word in private with you, if you would be so kind.”

  Fussily he ushered her into the office.

  “I am being followed by a police officer.”

  “Surely not!”

  “There is no doubt of it. Oh, but there is no need to look so concerned. I am quite accustomed to being, as they say, shadowed by the police.”

  The manager’s frown of anxiety became a gape.

  “I thought I’d better mention it,” Miss Teatime went on smoothly. “These dear people are not invariably as unobtrusive as they—and I—would wish, and if they were to excite a little curiosity it would be only natural.”

  “Natural, yes,” echoed the bewildered Mr Maddox.

  “I’m so glad you understand. Mind you, my own view is that I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, but you will never persuade police commissioners that in England a woman can be rich and safe at the same time.” She chuckled, as though at a sudden memory. “Poor old Sir Arthur...I really think he pictures me as carrying the entire capital assets of Teatime Engineering around in my handbag!”

  At this so absurd delusion, Mr Maddox laughed outright. He looked decidedly relieved about something or other.

  As soon as Miss Teatime had bidden him goodnight and gone in search of what she termed her “bedtime unwinder”, he took from beneath the blotter the bill he had intended to present to her the following morning. He looked at it, screwed it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

  Chapter Eleven

  Purbright received Love’s account of failure far more equably than the sergeant had hoped. Not that the inspector was a choleric man—most people, including the chief constable, thought him unnaturally meek for a policeman and one in authority at that. But his mild manner contained a seam of ironic shrewdness against which many a specious or blustering argument had splintered. It was Purbright’s “sarcasm”, as those who failed to impose upon him called it, that made stupid people nervous.

  “There isn’t much you could have done about it, as far as I can see,” he told Love. “One doesn’t expect ladies of gentle breeding to go clambering about back stairs. But we shall have to remember that Miss Teatime has a much sharper eye than we had supposed.”

  “She must have a guilty conscience, as well,” said Love, darkly.

  “Not necessarily, Sid. None of us cares to be snooped after. Purely on principle, I’m very much against it myself. I think the better of the lady for giving you the slip.”

  “Well, that’s not...”

  The inspector waved aside Love’s indignation. “No, we’ll just have to be practical and decide how we can tighten things up.”

  “I can’t watch both sides of that hotel at once.”

  “Hardly.” Purbright turned and examined a town map that was pinned to the wall behind his desk. Having found the Roebuck, he kept a finger on the spot and studied the surrounding lanes. He shook his head.

  “No...I had wondered if there might be a sort of common factor—some place from which she would have to be visible, whichever way she came out. There isn’t, though.”

  “You could put someone else to watch the back,” Love suggested.

  “Laying siege to the place, you mean?”

  The sergeant looked blank.

  “The trouble is,” said Purbright, “that there’s only Pook to spare.”

  In the way the inspector said it, “only Pook” sounded like a formula in physics expressive of the nearest thing to non-existence.

  “You could put him at the back. As a kind of stopper. I mean, if he looked obvious she might think he was the only one and nip back again to the front. So to speak,” Love concluded, doubtfully.

  Purbright sighed. “We can but try. Mind you, there’s one bit of encouragement to be drawn. She must have had some good reason to dodge you on this particuar occasion. It does look as if somebody’s taken the bait.”

  “I only hope he’s used to walking.”

  There was a knock and the duty sergeant’s head appeared round the door.

  “A lady’s asking if she can see someone about that Miss Reckitt. Will you have a word with her, sir?”

  Love departed after holding the door for the entry of a very plump woman in a short yellow coat and thinking that she looked rather like a pot of mustard. Purbright rose and arranged a chair for her.

  “You are...?”

  “My name is Huddlestone. Miss Huddlestone. There was something in the paper about a friend...I thought you might tell me what they think has...I mean it’s something about being missing. Is that right?”

  The round, flushed bespectacled face showed strain. Purbright realized that barrel-shaped women had necks too short for looking up in comfort. He went back to his chair and sat down.

  “You are a friend of Martha Reckitt, are you, Miss Huddlestone?”

  “That’s right, yes. I’ve known her, oh, for years.”

  “And you live here in Flaxborough?”

  “No, Derby. But I saw about her in the paper.” She was opening a crocodile skin handbag.

  “And you’re anxious.”

  “Well, of course. I didn’t know what to think when...” She passed him a cutting without looking up from the bag, in which she continued to search. “Oh, yes. Here it is.”

  Purbright saw she was holding a letter. He glanced at the cutting and handed it back.

  “You see, Martha and I don’t get together very often nowadays—not like we used to—but we do write to each other every now and then and keep each other up to date with the news. She tells me everything that’s been going on. Well, as I say, we’re ever such old friends, so that’s only natural. But the very last letter she wrote...”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, a couple of months ago, I should think.” She looked at all three of the sheets in her hand. “It isn’t dated, actually. January, perhaps...Anyway, as I was saying, this last letter of hers was quite a big surprise. Knowing Martha, I mean. You see, she’d met this man. Wait a minute...yes, Giles something-or-other. She doesn’t give his other name. And she’s actually talking about marrying him...”

  “That surprised you?”

  “Certainly it did. I mean, I hadn’t an inkling that Martha had any ideas in that line. Yet here she is talking about an engagement ring and some cottage this Giles man hopes to take her to. There’s just one thing that didn’t surprise me—he’s a clergyman, apparently. Martha was always dead soft on curates. She was mixed up in a lot of church work, too—Sunday school and that sort of thing...”

  “Does she say where this man’s church was supposed to be?” asked Purbright.

  Miss Huddlestone shook her head. “I’ll let you read this in a minute, but there’s nothing in it about that.”

  “I ask because inquiries do happen to have been made of the local church authorities and there is no unmarried clergyman in any of the parishes round about who admits even to having heard of Miss Reckitt.”

  Miss Huddlestone, whose expression had been growing more animated, suddenly stiffened and looked grave.

  “You’ve been taking this...this disappearance business seriously, then?”

  “Very seriously, Miss Huddlestone, I assure you.”

  She was silent for a few moments. Then she leaned forward and handed Purbright the letter.

  “You’d better see if there’s anything there that’ll help. I warn you—some of it’s a bit sick-making...No, no—that’s very wrong of me. It’s just that she’s never written that sort of thing before. Oh, Lord! Poor old Martha...”

  Miss Reckitt had left her most important news until last:

  ...and now I must reveal my great secret. If you were here, of course, you would see it for yourself—or rather the shining outward evidence of it. Five little diamonds, all in a row. And on the third finger of this very hand, lying beside the paper as I wr
ite. What do they spell, these five pretty stones? G-I-L-E-S. Oh, Elsie, he is such an admirable figure of a man. Strong and gentle at the same time, as befits a man of the church, and with the merriest of humours when the occasion suits. The countryside is his greatest love (next to me, that is, and truly I do not think I flatter myself) and he has shown me the quite breathtaking little cottage that he plans to be ours. (From a distance—it is not yet unoccupied.) And guess where it is, Elsie. No, I am not going to tell you, but I wonder how good your memory is nowadays—suppose I were just to say “Catch a Crab”, where would you think of? There now—if you are any good at clues, you will know exactly where Giles and I are going to live. Talking of the cottage, how glad I am now not to have touched any of Uncle Dan’s money that time when I had a fancy for a motor car. If we had to wait for the grant that has been approved by the Church Commissioners, I am sure someone else would beat us to such a wonderful “snip”, as Giles calls it (most unclerically, I’m afraid!—but I do understand what he means). Well, Elsie, so much for my great announcement, and I do hope and pray it pleases you. Now I must close as I have an important appointment with a certain gentleman.