“You’ll find them all in the shelter, sir—the old lady and Mrs. Rameses, and Miss Odds and ends and the gent from the first floor. He’s looking poorly, poor old chap.”
“Right. I’m going to join the shelter party myself,” said Macdonald. “The wardens will tell me if there’s any more excitement.”
“You’re going to the shelter, sir?” asked Booker, as though he couldn’t believe his ears.
“That’s it. You can go back to the Yard if you like, Booker. You’re on duty there by rights.”
“I’d like to stop and see it through here, sir,” said Booker, and Macdonald, laughed.
“As you like. If the All Clear goes come and report to the shelter.”
Macdonald turned along the pavement, with Mr. Rameses beside him.
“Pity you’re so well known, Inspector. If a Special turned his torch on us we might get run in for looting. I should enjoy that—getting run in for saving my wife’s clothes. Once a clown, always a clown. I’ve spent my sinful life enjoying the comedy of the ironic.”
“I know just what you mean,” said Macdonald, “though I couldn’t have put it so neatly myself.”
Rameses paused as they reached the shelter, as though he were assessing the distant gun flashes, away to the north.
“You want to know what Turnip Face was doing in Johnny Ward’s room,” he said. “Someone locked him in. . . . Rum business. They couldn’t have known a dud shell would gag him for good. Pity he’s a goner. It would have been interesting to hear his story. What d’you bet he’d have told you a chap called Rameses invited him to a party?”
Macdonald paused. “Anything you’d like to add to that?” he inquired. “I’m listening.”
“Nix,” said Mr. Rameses.
iii
Macdonald blinked in the bright light of the shelter: he lifted his load of clothing on to Mr. Rameses’ other shoulder and saw the big stout man waddle away towards his wife—she was having a comfortable snooze in a corner. Mrs. Maloney was a little farther away, nursing somebody’s baby. She grinned up at Macdonald when she saw him.
“Never been in one o’ these places before. I like’ome comforts,” she said. “What about me feather bed? You didn’t bring it along by any chance ?”
“Sorry—I’m afraid I didn’t: actually there wasn’t anything left to bring, not even the smell of roast feathers. We shall have to get you a new one.”
“I shan’t never fancy a new one.’Ad that one ever since I left the old’ome. Tell me—was Potato Face dead—’im as played ghosts in Mr. Ward’s flat ? “
“I’m not sure. They took him off to hospital.” Macdonald sat down beside the intrepid old lady. “How did he get up there, Mrs. Maloney?”
“Ain’t I been asking meself just that ever since I saw’im?” she replied. “ ’E wasn’t in the’ouse when I went out, that I’m certain. Quiet as the grave it was after you left. I finished me bit of work for Mrs. Rameses and made a nice cup-er-tea in her kitchen—that’s by arrangement, I’d tell you, me not bein’ given to liberties—then I went upstairs to posh meself up a bit, seein’ I was expecting to meet me boy friend as old Sam Stillman says. About ’alf past six it was when I went upstairs, but I left me door open—so’s I could ’ear if you come back again. I thought we’adn’t seen the last of you.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” said Macdonald, and she went on:
“I should ‘a been glad to see you, too. It was that quiet. No one in the’ouse at all—that was along o’ you, wasn’t it? She and me’s been’aving a nice quiet chat.”
She nodded towards Mrs. Rameses. “And nobody reckernised nobody, in spite of all your trouble,” she added sympathetically. “Potato Face—’e was the one that ‘id under the bridge, wasn’t’e? I saw’im at that Inquest. Wonder what’e did it for? Well, as I was saying, I went up to me room and changed into me black what I was given after me friend died and I’ad a bit of supper—tinned salmon. That reminds me: ’alf a tin was left and that’s on points that is. That an’ me feather bed. Can’t be’elped. Then I started worrying about me keys. I’d never worried about’em before—just popped ’em in the tea-pot and trusted to luck. This time I ’id them under me feather bed.”
“But you lock your room when you go out ?”
“I do and I don’t. The lock ain’t no good. Won’t catch, some’ow. I’d meant to get it seen to, but it’s too late now. Them locks in that’ouse is a poor set-out—done cheap. It’s like this,” she went on confidentially. “That lock on me door was all right till Johnnie Ward went and got’isself done in—I’d ’ad a bit o’ trouble with it at times, but it did. I wouldn’t’a left my door open when Mr. Ward was in the’ouse. Communist,’e was.’E’d’elp’isself to anything, I knew that—but these others they’re honest. I’ll say that for them. There’s Mr. and Mrs. R. over there—never met the like of them, but decent, I’ll say that for’em. No pokin’ their noses into what’s not theirs. Then there’s that Odette Grey as she calls’erself. Stuck up, and a face wot’d have made Jezebel die for envy, but she’d never go pinching nothing. I know her sort: come from a good’ome, she did.’Er pa’s a grocer out Waltham way. She’s mean and she’d let anybody stand’er a drink to save’er paying for it, but she’d never do no pokin’ or pinchin’. See’er sitting over there doin’’er face up—she’ll be busy doin’ that when the last trump sounds, but she’s got’er good points. Then there’s that Carrinford. See’im over there? I reckon’e was the one knocked your copper flat on the doorstep.’E always foots it when the siren goes. Blue funk. Looks shocking, don’t’e? I always say’e’ll frighten hisself into’is grave. Got a weak’eart,’e says. ‘You and yer weak’eart,’ I said to’im once when’e ran past me in the’all. ‘I know what’s weak about you—you can’t take it. Why can’t yer take it in your stride, same’s Churchill and the rest of us?’ I says—but I know’e wouldn’t demean’isself comin’ up to my room pinching keys. Besides,’e wouldn’t’ave the spunk.” She drew a deep breath and concluded “So if the key on me door wouldn’t turn proper, I didn’t worry. I knew it was O.K. with all of them—besides, who’d ‘a wanted to go into Johnnie Ward’s room?”
“In any case, I’ve got the keys of that room,” said Macdonald.
“Oh, maybe you ’ave—but Miss Willing’s key opens that door. I found it out by accident and I didn’t say nothing because Mr. Ward’s key wouldn’t open Miss Willing’s door. I wonder where she is?’Ope she’s all right. She’s one o’ the best, Miss Willing is.”
“You remember before I could open Mr. Ward’s door this evening, I had to draw back a bolt at the top of it, Mrs. Maloney? Was that bolt always there?”
“Now you’re askin’. I been wondering about that. Maybe it was, because that was only an old cupboard door done up—I told you they did things cheap in that house. I never used the bolt, and I can’t say as I’d ever seen it before—but it stands to reason it must’a been there all along. What’s the sense of putting a bolt on that door?”
“To lock someone in.”
“Jiminy . . . did someone do’im in first before . . . No, that don’t make sense. When I went up to bed, there wasn’t no one in the’ouse barring Mr. and Mrs. R., and you wiv’em”.
“How do you know?”
“If there’s a raid on, I often goes in to Miss Willing in case she likes a bit o’ company and a cup o’ tea, and I went down into Miss Grey’s room in case she’d left’er light on. She’s done that before, and’er blackout’s not all that. I just pops in to see it’s O.K. I knocks first of course—wouldn’t do to let’er know I pop in and out. I knew Mr. Carringford was out—it was ’e ’oo knocked the Bobby down. I know the way’e pants—so you see there wasn’t no one in the’ouse, and that’s why I got the jimmies when I’eard Johnnie Ward’s ghost—knocking awful,’e was. Sorry I didn’t go in now—but I don’t’old with ghosts.”
“What time was it that you went out this evening?”
“Just after eight—and there w
asn’t nobody in then, that I’ll swear. I should ’a ’eard the front door open, ’cos I was listening.” She paused and then asked suddenly, “Are yer married?”
Macdonald was surprised. “No—and not likely to be.”
“Well, you do surprise me. Good’usband wasted, that’s what you are. D’you want an’ousekeeper? Seems to me I’ve lost me job at Number 5.”
“We’ll soon fix you up for a job,” said Macdonald and she replied:
“Oh, I’m not afraid of being out of a job—they’ll queue up for me at the Labour Exchange, but I’ve taken a fancy to you, some’ow.”
“Thank you very much—very kindly put,” said Macdonald. “Now while I’ve got the chance I’d better go and have a word with Miss Grey and Mr. Carringford.”
“Rightey oh. See you later,” she replied cheerfully.
iv
Miss Odette Grey was feeling distrait. Although the noise of the guns was dulled by the shelter walls, it was evident enough that the second wave of bombers prophesied by the Special Constable had come over, and Miss Grey felt she’d had as much as she could stand.
“I wish I hadn’t come into this place: I ought to’ve stayed in the tube,” she complained.
“What time did you get home? Before the sirens went, I expect,” said Macdonald.
“Of course—or I shouldn’t be here,” she replied querulously. “I got in at ten o’clock. I’d just got into bed when the sirens went and I got up and dressed as I always do, though I hoped it’d be over quickly. Then when it got so awful I came out here. I do hope Miss Willing’s all right. She got in before I did and she was just going out again to see a friend who’s ill . . . oh goodness, I do wish they’d leave off. I’m fed up with it. . . .”
Macdonald persisted tactfully: “People feel better if they talk, you know. It’s sitting listening that’s so upsetting. When you got home this evening, do you think there was anybody else in the house? Did you hear anybody moving about?”
“I know the Rameses were in,” she replied. “I told you—just as I opened the front door Miss Willing came out. I couldn’t see her because the light in the hall had gone and my torch had given out, but she said ‘Who’s that?’ and I told her . . . I’m sure they’re coming nearer. . . .”
“Only our guns,” said Macdonald patiently. “I want to find out if there were anybody in the house when you came in because somebody got up into Mr. Ward’s flat this evening.”
“Goodness! Whatever for? I’m going to move away from that house, I can’t stand it any longer . . . (That one was farther away, wasn’t it?) If you want to know if anybody else was in the house, ask Mr. Rameses. Someone came to see him just before I came in.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because Miss Willing told me. She let him in. She was in a hurry to get to see her friend and she said to me ‘I’ve just let a fellow in who wants Mr. Rameses. If he’s still in the hall, show him the right door. I’ve got to rush.’ I said ‘Let me have your torch then. Mine’s died on me and the light’s gone in the hall.’ I didn’t fancy going into the house all in the dark with a strange man in the hall. She gave me her torch, but there was no one in the hall when I went through. I knew the Rameses were in because I could see the light under their door and I could hear them moving about—making an awful row.”
“What sort of row?”
“Oh I don’t know—pushing things about. They’re awful people—really common.”
“I shouldn’t call Mr. Rameses common,” murmured Macdonald. “I think he’s the most uncommon person I’ve ever met. Tell me—did you stand in the hall for a minute or two, wondering what the noise was?”
“Yes, I did,” she admitted. “So’d you have, if you’d been me. It’s enough to give a girl the shivers to go into that dark house those days. I hate going upstairs by myself. I wanted someone to talk to,” she went on in a burst of confidence. “I thought of knocking at the Rameses’ door to ask what the time was—anything rather than be all by myself. I never used to be nervous, but these days I’m all of a jitter. When I first went to that house, Mirette Duncan was in the flat next to mine, but she’s gone touring with Ensa. Miss Willing’s all right—but I knew she was out, so there was only the Rameses in, and that Mr, Carringford—he’s about as cheerful as the British Museum.”
“Are you sure he was in the house?” asked Macdonald and she retorted tartly:
“No, of course I wasn’t, but anyway he didn’t count. Mrs. Rameses may be common, but at least she’s cheerful, and if I’d said I was nervous she’d have come upstairs with me. But I went up by myself and turned the wireless on. I felt better once I’d got my light on—it was that dark hall made me nervous.”
“Did you hear anything as you went upstairs, or was it quite quiet?”
“Apart from the row in the Rameses’ flat it was quiet, and once I’d turned the wireless on I didn’t hear anything till the sirens went. Who was it in Mr. Ward’s flat?”
“Someone who’d no business to be there,” replied Macdonald.
“Is the house all right?” she asked.
“The top floor’s burnt out and I’m afraid your flat’s damaged a good deal—but it’s not so bad as it might have been.”
“Oh dear . . . I do hope I haven’t lost all my clothes,” she said mournfully. “I’d got some lovely things and you can’t get anything now. . . .”
Macdonald left her to brood over her lost possessions between spasms of fear when the guns swelled to a crescendo—silk stockings and high explosive, an oddly assorted pair of thoughts. He went and joined Mr. Carringford, who was hunched up in a corner, his white head sunk between his shoulders.
v
“I’m sorry to bother you with questions: you’re feeling pretty cheap, Mr. Carringford.”
The other looked at him with sunken eyes. “D’you think the raid’s going over? I can’t stand much of this sort of thing. What about the house? Anything left of it?”
“Most of it was standing when I came away,” replied Macdonald. “A few incendiaries got going—they went through the top floor and brought down the ceiling and beams, so it was difficult to deal with them. The top floor is burnt out. I’m afraid Miss Willing and Mrs. Maloney have lost everything.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“The only casualty was a man who had got into John Ward’s flat. He was hurt when the roof came down.”
“John Ward’s flat? Who the devil was in there—and how did he get there ?”
“That’s just what I want to know myself, and I’m trying to collect all the information I can. What time did you get in this evening?”
“Just before the sirens went. I opened my front door and went into the passage—and then that damned alert sounded. I came straight out here . . . that old house isn’t safe. It’d tumble down as easy as a pack of cards. I can’t stand the thought of being buried.”
“I expect you passed me on the doorstep then: you knocked a police constable down the front steps as you ran. Did you realise that?”
Carringford shook his head. “No . . . I think you’re mistaken. I didn’t meet anybody on the steps. Were you in a car? It drove up just as I slipped out. There was someone behind me—I heard their footsteps on the stairs, running. Afraid I didn’t wait to see who it was . . . My God, what’s that. . . .?”
“That” was the last effort of a German bomber that night. The bomb fell in the roadway, halfway between number five Belfort Grove and the shelter. The blastproof walls stood up to the shock, but three old houses swayed, rumbled and fell: a clatter and uproar of falling bricks, cracking timber, breaking glass . . . clouds of dust and a reek of fumes: an Air Raid Warden poked his nose cautiously out of his sandbagged post: “That’s that. Might have been worse. No one left in those houses . . . got’em all out. . . .”
A few minutes later the All Clear screamed its message of relief to London’s dauntless millions.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
i
MACDONALD
woke up unwillingly the next morning: he had had four hours of sleep and felt that he could have done with fourteen. He yawned and had an uncomfortable feeling that his lungs were still full of smoke: the reek of last night’s fire seemed to hang about him. Then he realised that a thick fog brooded over London and he wished for a moment that he was anywhere else in the world—anywhere, away from fog and bombs and barrage and shelters and demolitions and all the rest of it. Then, as his brain cleared of sleep he found himself getting interested again. There was Mr. Rameses and his Commando son . . .; there was Stanley Claydon. still precariously alive: there were Mr. and Mrs. Ross Lane and there was Bruce Mallaig, Mr. Carringford and Rosie Willing—and Mrs. Maloney. Sitting up in bed and stretching, Macdonald began to laugh. He had done some odd jobs in his time, but finding a job for Mrs. Maloney was going to be funnier than most.
There had been some lively moments after the All Clear had gone last night: those who had been bombed-out of their homes were recommended to the Rest Centre—and a lively argument had developed. Odette Grey said she wasn’t going to any Rest Centre.
“I’m going down the tube: I don’t care if the All Clear’s gone or if it hasn’t . . . I’ve lived through this and I’m not going to get done in . . . I’ll go and get a job in the country somewhere to-morrow where there aren’t any sirens. I’m going to get out of London if I have to walk. . . .”
Mrs. Maloney also declined a Rest Centre. “Not me. I’m going to me friend Mrs. Stillman, she’ll be glad of me—and I don’t want no ’elp from no one. I never did like this’ere ‘community’ stuff.”
Mr. and Mrs. Rameses said they could go to their son and his wife. “He’s got a nice little house out Sudbury way, and if the Bakerloo’s not running, we’ll just wait on the platform until the first train,” she assured Macdonald. “I don’t like the idea of these Rest Centres, I like to be independent and so does my Birdie.”
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