Brazen Tongue (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Don’t touch him! It might be catching,” said Mabel, half hysterically. “Wish you’d got a torch. Shall I yell police?”

  “Better not. If we want one, better get him quietly. Let’s get this bloke into the pictures. I’ve got him under the arms. Stand clear while I try and get him up.” He struggled to lift the unconscious man, but was compelled to add, “No good. I can’t shift him by myself. He’s ever so heavy. Will you stay here with him, or would you sooner go and get the commissionaire or look for a policeman?”

  He was still crouched on his heels beside the stranger. When he spoke next his voice had an uncomfortable catch in it.

  “Tell you what, old girl. He’s bloomin’ cold!”

  • CHAPTER 3 •

  Moonlight: a landscape with buildings and figures.

  Title of a painting by Francis Oliver Finch.

  The moon was due to rise at 11.57 p.m. At 9.55, therefore, at just about the time that Sidney and Mabel were bending over the body, the rainy night was as black as stringent regulations and the A.R.P. wardens could make it.

  “Town Hall,” said the conductor. Sally Lestrange peered out from a faintly-lighted omnibus, decided that she was as near to her destination as the bus would be likely to take her, and descended hastily as the bus began to move off—this to the irritation of the conductor, who informed her that he had already suffered from two nervous breakdowns that day, and had a wife and family to consider. Sally grinned, and was immediately lost to his sight.

  The pavement was wide, and she walked uncertainly north and a point by east in an endeavour to locate the narrow alley which led by the side of one of the looming buildings to the Control Room of the local Report Centre.

  She hit, more by luck than judgment, upon the right turning, and found that a white line on the ground gave reasonable guidance to a dark doorway upon which was a thick white arrow.

  Sally, who had visited the place in daylight, stepped carefully up two wet, slippery steps which had not been whitened, and pushed open a door. A shaft of light pierced the night like a sword, and showed the slanting rain. An instant later Sally was inside, and the door had shut itself behind her.

  “You’ll have to trap that light, you know, Simmonds,” was her characteristic briskly-spoken remark to her cousin Ferdinand’s valet, who acted as one of the Control Room messengers.

  “Good evening, Miss Sally. Yes, you’re right. There had ought to be a curtain.” He released it, and it hung, like the horsehides of our remote cave-dwelling ancestors, heavily across the doorway. “You’re prompt on duty, Miss.”

  “Why, how’s the time?” She glanced at her watch. “Where do I sign on?”

  “Next room, Miss Sally. You’ll find Sir Ferdinand in there. He’s one of the plotting officers to-night.”

  “Bit of luck for me,” observed Sally, pushing open a second swing door and making her way past a group of gossiping men to a square table in the centre of a large square room. “Oh hullo, Bertie,” she continued. “Where do I sign on?”

  “Good heavens, Sally! What the devil do you think you’re doing here?”

  Ferdinand Lestrange, Mrs. Bradley’s son by her first husband, put up his eyeglass and studied his cousin closely.

  “Telephonist,” Sally replied. “It’s all right. Mother approves. She’s an air raid warden herself.”

  “Good God!” said Sir Ferdinand. “Sign the book here, my child. You are on the twenty-two hours shift.”

  “Eight hours, I thought, darling. I’m due home to breakfast to-morrow morning.”

  “Yes. We use the twenty-four-hour clock. How is Aunt Selina?”

  “Oh, mother’s fine. She loves going round and knocking up all the people in the village and telling them to cover up lights. She’s passed her anti-gas stuff, too, and I believe she sleeps in her tin hat. But, Bertie, where do I go now?”

  Ferdinand smiled slightly.

  “Through that next door,” he said. He sat down at a table on which stood four telephones on a green baize cloth, and picked up his brief-case. It was his view that the night was a good time to work. He often worked until five or six in the morning, then went to bed for two hours, and after breakfast and a brisk walk was ready in court for all comers.

  His young cousin, although her experiences included dancing all night and breakfasting off ham and eggs in a garishly-decorated basement or on sandwiches at a coffee stall, was not as much accustomed to missing sleep. She looked about her, when she had passed through the door which divided the supervisors’ and plotting officers’ room from that used by the telephonists, with undisguised and most unflattering horror.

  The two o’clock shift were in hats, coats, gloves, and gas masks, ready to depart. Some of the ten o’clock shift, like Sally herself, had arrived a few minutes before time, and several of the outgoing people, in consequence, were watching the clock, preparing to leave the moment the hands reached the hour.

  The atmosphere of the narrow, gas-proof chamber was hot and close. There was no heating laid on. The room derived its warmth from the bodies and breath of its denizens. It was occupied by at least a dozen people every hour of the twenty-four.

  “If you don’t mind the lights switched off, we can have a spot of fresh air,” said a tall red-haired girl in navy-blue slacks and sweater. She put out the two extremely powerful lamps as she spoke, and then opened the door which led to a building at the back of the Control Room. This building was about thirty yards away, and a covered-topped passage, open at both sides, led to its unlighted door.

  The red-haired girl swung the door of the Control Room slowly backwards and forwards, fanning great draughts of cold fresh air into the unwholesome little dungeon.

  “Twenty-two hours,” said a voice. “Time for the next shift. And it ain’t half raining, girls.” The red-haired girl shut the door, somebody else switched the lights on again, and Sally, who had moved to be out of the draught, sat down on a plush-covered, tubular steel chair.

  “Any tests to-night?” asked a girl in spectacles.

  “Half-past ten. In-telephones only. At least, you’ll get the messages for the Outs, but not to be transmitted,” replied the red-haired girl.

  “Gets us used to the men’s handwriting, I suppose,” suggested an extremely thin girl in a woollen suit. She took out her knitting, an example followed by most of the company.

  Sally took out a detective story, and settled herself to read. The book was not an enthralling one, however, and she wondered, not for the first time, why the masters of the craft did not produce their detective stories a good deal more frequently than was their custom. A lazy lot, she considered them, and probably indecently opulent, so that they had no need to bestir themselves more than about once in six months for the benefit of their public.

  The consideration of their wealth led to reflections upon her own indigence and she was deeply involved in the working-out of a scheme whereby she could get her mother to let her have her next quarter’s allowance two months in advance when a small untidily-moustached man, strangely reminiscent, but in the most unflattering sense, of photographs she had seen of Arnold Bennett, appeared in the Control Room doorway.

  “Any for tea?” he announced, rather than enquired, in a hoarse, conspiratorial voice. “Oh, and there’s a note next door for Miss Mort. Is she ’ere?”

  “Coffee, Budge,” said the red-haired girl sternly. “No, she isn’t here. I shouldn’t think she’s coming. She’s always on time.”

  “I suppose you can’t make it China, Budge?” said the girl in spectacles.

  “What’s the matter with beer?” said the girl in the knitted suit. The messenger patiently repeated his first wheezy assertion, and, receiving, this time, an encouraging chorus of groans, departed.

  “I had three cocktails before I came out,” said the red-haired girl. “And to think it’s not really my shift! This place is hell, anyway.”

  It seemed a very short time after the cups of tea had been drunk and the crockery colle
cted before the missing reporter turned up, but, as somebody mentioned the note, the first telephone rang, inaugurating the usual practice with the wardens, and for nearly an hour and a half the telephonists were kept busy. Dozens of reports of air-raid damage, casualties, and fires came in from the various wardens’ posts in the district. The In-telephonists took down the messages, the plotting officers made out the necessary instruction slips for the Out-telephonists, and everyone in the building was extremely busy. Gradually, however, the reports became more and more light-hearted.

  ‘Bunch of Grapes’ almost totally demolished. No survivors. Two barrels of beer salvaged. Please instruct, said one, which came to Sally; and later, with a grin and a shiver, she handed over to the Recorders: Cottage Hospital. One deceased casualty. Please collect.

  “Wardens are getting fed-up. They’ll soon knock off now, I should think,” said the girl in the knitted suit.

  “About time, too, considering we’ve apparently sent out the whole of the fire-fighting units three times in eight minutes already,” said the red-haired girl, making up her lips.

  At midnight, except for one or two calls from wardens who seemed in no hurry to go home and go to bed, the exercises ceased. The telephonists relaxed, took up their knitting again, ate sandwiches, chocolate, and apples, laughed, smoked, and chatted. One or two went into the next room to play cards with the men.

  By this time Sally had managed to separate the permanent paid from the temporary volunteer staff. There were six of each present that evening. The red-haired girl, the girl in spectacles, the girl in the knitted suit, two others in slacks, and another, somewhat older woman, in tweeds, were all permanent. Of the volunteers, who undertook the work once a fortnight on a rota, four were teachers, the fifth (who had come in late) was a reporter on the local paper, and the sixth was Sally herself. She and the young reporter, whom she had met at one of her mother’s charitable functions, gravitated towards one another, and began to talk in low tones.

  At about half-past twelve two of the girls, after a short conference, took down the torch labelled ‘For Emergency Only’ and went out by the back door over to the next building.

  “Auntie,” said the reporter, in response to a question from Sally. “We generally go across in couples.” She settled herself with her back against the table on which was the private telephone connecting the local Report Centre with the main centre for the district, put her feet up, picked up a copy of the great daily newspaper whose editorial chair she desired, one day, to occupy, and pursued her usual evening amusement of recasting the policy of the paper and then of re-writing the leading article.

  A few minutes later the two girls who had gone outside came back again, reporting that the rain had stopped. The one who was holding it replaced the torch, and both settled themselves uncomfortably on chairs and closed their eyes. Sally felt wide awake. She picked up her book again, but rejected it after five minutes. She looked at the clock, glanced round at her silent companions, and was suddenly reminded, for no particular reason, of the note for the reporter. She leaned over and mentioned that she had heard it was in the next room. The reporter muttered, sleepily, that she supposed it was from her editor and couldn’t matter much. Sally closed her eyes. Slowly the hands of the clock crawled round to a quarter to one, twelve minutes to one, ten past one, and then…she must have dozed, she thought…twenty-five past one.

  Dispirited, she took out a cigarette, lighted it and smoked it slowly, reflecting that it was probably very selfish to smoke at all in a gas-proof room. There was a slight clatter as the red-haired girl got up and set an electric fan in motion. Sally noticed that she could reach it easily. The moving air was slightly more tolerable than the same heavy mixture motionless and Sally could almost fancy that it came more freshly into the lungs.

  She was beginning to doze again when a hatchway between the men’s and the women’s room opened, and the hoarse voice of Messenger Budge enquired how many for tea.

  “Coffee,” said the red-haired girl automatically.

  “Weak,” said somebody else.

  “Oh, blow you, Budge! I’d just dropped off,” said a third. These were all permanent staff. The four teachers, accustomed to the horrors of staff-room beverages prepared with tepid water by the eldest girls, smiled faintly, but made no remark.

  Taking the general atmosphere for one of fervent thankfulness and joy, the obliging Budge closed the hatch and went off to achieve the hell-brew for which, said the red-haired girl bitterly, he would expect to be thanked when it arrived.

  Three minutes later there was a loud rapping on the wooden hatchway between the rooms; an arm came through the aperture as one of the girls drew back the shutter, and a young man began handing in cups filled with very dark liquid.

  “Compliments of the management. Will somebody sample the brew prepared by our Mr. Budge in person? Canteen under entirely new management. Coffee, per cup, fourpence. Per pot eightpence, served on tray.”

  The girl who had opened the hatch took the cups of coffee and handed them over. She was at the end table in charge of the telephones which connected the Control Room directly with the police and with the district A.R.P. headquarters in the neighbouring town of Winborough.

  “Better say your prayers, Fletcher. It’s obviously a gift from heaven,” she said, as the cups passed from hand to hand. She peered at the black liquid in her short-sighted way before she relinquished the last saucer but one. She retained the last for herself.

  “Two kisses, Fletcher,” observed one of the permanent staff to the red-haired girl.

  “Oh, damn!” said the red-haired girl, in response to this. “I do hope the fools haven’t sugared it! Wonder whose idea it was, anyway? I suppose we shall have to sub up again. Haven’t had coffee for a week.” She tasted the coffee, then took a second sip.

  “If they have, I can’t taste it,” she said.

  “It’ll be all in the bottom of the cup if you don’t stir it up, so be careful when you get to the dregs,” suggested one of the girls in slacks.

  “What’s it like?” asked the very thin girl, before tasting hers.

  “Oh, not bad. Bitter, that’s all, but I don’t mind that. They hadn’t sugared it,” she added, when she had finished it. She put down her cup and glanced at the clock.

  “Nothing more to-night, I suppose?” she said.

  She took out a small mirror, tidied her hair, put on her coat, picked up the torch, and made for the door through which the other torch-bearers had recently passed.

  “Want an escort?” enquired one of the damsels in slacks. There was a chorus of giggles from the permanent staff as though a joke had been made.

  “I know my way, I think,” she responded, arousing more mirth. “Thanks, all the same, for the offer.”

  Out she went, and about ten minutes later the cups were collected by Budge.

  “’Allo,” he observed, gazing around. “What ’appened to Lady Godiva?”

  As this was a query not easily answered in the circumstances, the other young ladies remained silent but one of them glanced towards the door.

  “Oh? Sorry I spoke,” observed the retailer of ambrosia and nectar. “Sugar? In the cup without the ’andle. Didn’t see it, didn’t you? Better luck next time, then. Sorry there isn’t many spoons. That’s on account of the gents having a sweepstake on who can get ’Itler’s photograph on the nose with flicking dabs of jam out of a tin of plum and apple. Mr. Aitcheston brought it in with ’im. A relic, ’e says, of the War that was a War. No sugar for you, Miss?” he added approaching Sally. “I see you ’asn’t guzzled yours like the rest of ’em in ’ere.”

  “No, thanks,” Sally replied. “I say…” she glanced at the clock when the little man had collected the other cups and had gone. “I don’t know whether there’s another way in, or something, but that girl who went out with the torch has been gone a quarter of an hour. Do you think she’s all right?”

  (“Shades of mother,” she thought, “why on earth do I w
ant to interfere?”)

  “Shouldn’t worry,” said the girl in the knitted suit. “She may have gone round to see the auxiliary firemen. They’ve got a depot at the back just across the road. I believe she’s engaged to one of them. That’s why we laughed when she went out.”

  She spread a blanket on the coconut matting which covered the concrete floor, lay down, scientifically rolled herself up, and very soon was asleep.

  At last four o’clock came, and even half-past four. Sally had dozed once or twice, but was far too uncomfortable to be able to abandon herself to sleep. The four teachers all had their heads on the table, the two armchairs had long been occupied, and even the tall reporter, her newspaper fallen to the floor, her young, fair-skinned countenance babyishly flushed, and one arm hanging nearly to the ground, was deeply, unequivocally asleep.

  Sally got up very quietly, and opened the door between the room she was in and that where Ferdinand was. Her black-haired, black-browed cousin was apparently absorbed in his work. One or two men looked up indifferently as she entered, another smiled at her. She went straight up to Ferdinand and said:

  “I’m so bored, Bertie. Talk to me for a bit.”

  Ferdinand Lestrange looked up. He was a self-centered, strangely self-sufficient man, but he was fond of his young cousin in his cold but unexacting fashion. He put down his finely-pointed pen.

  “What’s up, Sally? Can’t you go to sleep? There are beds of a sort in that building behind your room, you know. At least, I believe they’re stretchers, but I don’t suppose they’re uncomfortable. The blankets may be very rough. Didn’t you bring your own rug?”

  “Another building, did you say? Oh, well, that’s a weight off my mind. That’s where the girl with the red hair went, I suppose. I was feeling a bit worried about her. She went out at three and hasn’t come back.”

  “Oh? Did she say she was going to bed?”