He thought he would walk back to the hotel. It was quite extraordinary what a lot of building seemed to be going on in every direction—blocks of flats springing up and altering once familiar streets. In another generation, he supposed, everyone would be living in a flat, in the towns at any rate. Quite a good plan—sensible, economical, labour-saving. He looked at all the blocks with interest, comparing the flats with his own. In the last twenty-four hours it had ceased to be the Hewletts’ flat and become his flat. The proprietary feeling grew as he compared it with others, mostly to their disadvantage. He had taken it in a hurry, but he hadn’t made any mistake. Quite definitely it was a good flat. Now this block that he was just passing—he wouldn’t have liked to bring Meg here. Nothing really wrong with the locality, but not attractive—rather on the grubby side.
And then he noticed the name over the entrance—Oleander Mansions. If he hadn’t been taking that special interest in flats, he wouldn’t have seen it. As it was, the name did not at first mean anything to him. It wasn’t until he had walked some dozen steps past it that it came back into his mind, linked with Garratt’s voice, and he remembered that Oleander Mansions was where Della Delome lived.
He turned round to have another look at the entrance, as if it would tell him something. But only Della Delorne could say whether Robin O’Hara had passed through that entrance with her on the night when Bill had seen them together—what was it—four days after Robin had disappeared. They were together in a taxi at midnight. Where were they bound for? He considered the position of the flat. They might easily have been coming here—yes, they might very easily have been coming here.
He stood there, frowning at the entrance, and became aware of a stout middle-aged woman who was descending the steps. She wore her hair in a bun, with a flat, discouraged-looking black hat affixed to it by a bright blue hat-pin. Her contours were draped in a Burberry which hitched up in front and dipped at the back. Her hands, gloveless and red, advertised her calling. She was a scrubber of steps, a charlady, a daily help. And what had Garratt said about the woman at Oleander Mansions? She’d been away—they hadn’t been able to get hold of her.… Yes, that was it—she’d been away. Perhaps she was still away. Perhaps this was her deputy—
Perhaps it wasn’t—
Bill was never quite able to decide why he should have felt such an imperative urge to settle this question. He was not very much given to acting on impulse, but he did its bidding now, and that without stopping to think. If he had stopped to think, he might well have blenched, for the lady looked as if she might be formidable. But he did not stop. He merely found himself politely lifting his hat and saying,
“I beg your pardon, but I wonder if I might speak to you for a moment?”
The woman stopped. She had a string bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other. She tipped her head back and stared at Bill in very much the same way that a cow disturbed at grass lifts its head to regard a stranger. She looked, and just as he was going to speak again she said in a deep, hoarse voice,
“I beg your pardon?”
It was like a belated echo, and the horrible part of it was that he had been on the point of repeating the words himself. He said instead,
“I’m afraid I don’t know your name, but I think you are employed at Oleander Mansions, are you not?”
Her bovine expression yielded a little, and she said,
“Certingly.”
It was really horribly awkward plunging into conversation with a respectable middle-aged worker who was obviously wondering what on earth he wanted with her. He thanked heaven for her middle age and her solid size. He would not at any rate be suspected of a design upon her virtue. In desperation he plunged.
“I wonder if you would mind telling me your name?”
Her stare hardened.
“Thompson,” she said—“Mrs Thompson, and no call to be ashamed of it. And might I make so bold as to ask what you’re wanting with me?”
It was easier now that he had her name.
“Mrs Thompson,” he said, “I want very much to have a talk with you, and I quite realize that you are a busy woman and that I mustn’t take up your time for nothing.”
Mrs Thompson’s red face flushed vigorously.
“If you’re from the police, you just turn right round and go back where you come from! You did ought to be ashamed of yourself, trying to drag a respectable working-woman who has brought up half a dozen children and kept herself and them and never been mixed up with nothing—”
“I’m not from the police—really I’m not—nothing to do with them.”
Mrs Thompson sniffed, the loud emphatic sniff of one who has yet to be convinced.
“Well, they’ve been coming round, so the lift-boy tells me. I’ve been away for my ‘oliday, and first thing he says to me when I come in this morning, ‘There’s a busy been here,’ he says, meaning a plain-clothes detective. And when I says ‘Whatever for?’ he ups and sauces me, the young limb, which if he’d been one of mine I’d have put it across him and he wouldn’t have done it again in a hurry.”
Bill smiled in the manner which he had always found very efficacious with his great-aunt Annabel.
“I swear I’m not a busy. I just want to ask you a few questions about a friend of mine. He’s gone off without leaving an address. I thought if I might have a talk with you, and if you would accept five pounds to make up for the loss of your time—”
Her stare became extremely penetrating. He got the impression that if the mind behind it moved slowly it was nevertheless of a certain calibre.
She said, “Five pounds—” and stood there puckering up her lips and frowning. Then she said, “We can’t talk here,” and with that she began to walk along the pavement.
Bill moved with her.
“Nor yet walking along the road,” said Mrs Thompson.
“What about a cup of tea?” said Bill.
Mrs Thompson looked sideways at him.
“You—and me?” she said. She sniffed again. This time it was a sniff of scorn.
“Why not?”
“The kind of place where I’d have a cup would ’ardly be the kind of place for you, and the kind of place where you’d ’ave a cup wouldn’t ’ardly be the place for me, which I’ve got my pride same as other people.”
It took nearly five minutes to persuade Mrs Thompson that some kind of half-way house might be discovered. In the end she supposed that Simpson’s bakery might serve their turn, and that the hour being what it was, three o’clock in the afternoon, the place was likely enough to be empty.
They sat presently in the room behind the shop, at a small table covered with green oilcloth. There were five other similar tables, but no one else was having tea. Mrs Thompson poured out two cups, asked him if he took milk and sugar, and, remarking that she liked hers strong and sweet, dropped four lumps into a dark draught of tea and proceeded to drink it in scalding sips. Bill admired her aplomb, and wished that he could emulate it. He had an uneasy feeling that he was making a complete fool of himself and paying five pounds for the privilege—five pounds and the price of this repellent tea.
“Good hot tea takes a deal of beating,” said Mrs Thompson, “but it’s got to be hot and it’s got to be sweet, or I wouldn’t give a thank you for it.” She clasped both hands round her cup and sipped with audible enjoyment. “And what was it you wanted to ask me about? A friend of yours, you was saying—”
Bill leaned an elbow on the table.
“Mrs Thompson,” he said, “my friend’s name was O’Hara—Mr Robin O’Hara. Have you heard the name before?”
He had waited until the cup was clear of her lips. She shook her head, and sipped again. Then she put the cup down and said,
“That’s Irish, isn’t it?”
Bill nodded.
“I want you to go back to a year ago—October last year—October 4th last year.”
“What about it?” said Mrs Thompson. She looked blankly at him.
“I
think Mr O’Hara was in Oleander Mansions that night.”
“What time?”
“I think he may have come there soon after midnight.”
Mrs Thompson sniffed again very loudly indeed.
“And where do you suppose I’d be at that time of night, mister? When you done a hard day’s work like what I do you don’t go on all night long as well, thank Gawd. In my bed and asleep, that’s where I am come midnight, whether it’s October or January, and this year or last year. All the same—” She stopped, drained her cup, and picking up the teapot, began to pour herself another.
“Yes,” said Bill.
“Nothing,” said Mrs Thompson. She put four drops of milk into her tea, and four lumps of sugar.
“You were going to say something.”
“Well, I’m not going to now.” She lifted her cup and drank from it. “Oh lor—that’s ’ot!” She rummaged in the string bag and found a handkerchief with which she wiped her face. “It’s funny, so soon as I get my second cup I come over that ‘ot you wouldn’t believe it.”
Bill might have retorted that seeing was believing. He stuck to his point instead.
“Mrs Thompson, you were going to say something. Can’t you tell me what it was?”
She made an impatient movement.
“’Twasn’t nothing. But since you’re so pressing, it was just that I wasn’t working, not last October I wasn’t—not the first ten days anyhow. I’d a bit of a naccident and I was in ‘ospital, and my Beatrice she was going instead of me, to keep the place open like.”
“That’s your daughter?”
She nodded and sipped her tea.
“Me second. The eldest’s married, and a bad ’usband she’s got, but girls won’t never believe that their mothers know nothing.”
They seemed to have got to a dead end.
“Will you ask your daughter if she remembers anything about Mr O’Hara?”
“Well, what am I to ask—who did he come visiting? There’s a matter of fifteen flats on my stair.”
It had not occurred to him that there might be more than one stair. He said quickly,
“Is Miss Delorne’s flat on your stair?”
Her face became heavily unintelligent. Bill recognized the withdrawal of respectability.
“Is it?” he insisted.
She said, “Yes,” and shut her mouth hard.
“Is she there now? Living there, I mean.”
She gave him another heavy look.
“How should I know?”
“Well, you might. Is she?”
“She’s not there much. The boy says she’s away.”
“Mr O’Hara might have been visiting at Miss Delorne’s flat,” said Bill.
“And not the first,” said Mrs Thompson with dignity.
They got no further. That she should regard Della Delorne with suspicion was a foregone conclusion, but she wouldn’t talk about her. “I’ve my job to think of,” and, “Least said, soonest mended,” was as far as she would go. And upon that they parted.
Bill gave her her five pounds and a card with his address. He did not promise Beatrice another fiver, but he gave Mrs Thompson to understand that there would be a market if her daughter had anything to sell.
XIX
Bill Coverdale was just beginning to think of dressing for dinner that evening, when he was informed that a young lady had called to see him. His thoughts went rocketing to Meg with the complete lack of reason which characterizes the lover’s state. She hadn’t given any name. She was in the lounge. He was engaged to dine with old friends on the other side of London. If this was Meg—but how could it be Meg?—it didn’t matter how short of time he ran himself.
He came into the lounge quite certain that it couldn’t be Meg, but was instantly and sharply disappointed to find that he was right. The girl in the blue coat and black beret who was waiting for him did not even faintly resemble Meg. She was a pretty girl with large rolling blue eyes and yellow hair curling on her neck. Her lips were made up in a bright scarlet shade and her shoes were cheap and shabby. As Bill approached, she said in a drawling voice which would have been pretty if it had been less affected,
“Mr Coverdale? My mother said that you wanted to see me.”
Bill blinked.
“Your mother?”
“Mrs Thompson,” said the girl. “You were speaking to her this afternoon, and she said you would be glad if I would call.”
So this was Miss Beatrice Thompson.… Remembering Mrs Thompson in her shapeless Burberry and still more shapeless hat, Bill admired. How did these girls manage it? Beatrice Thompson looked very much like the girls of his own set, especially at a little distance. The beret and the coat were neat and up to date, the hair of the fashionable length, the lipstick very much as worn in Mayfair. A young man who devoted as much energy and perseverance to his profession would probably rise to the top of the tree. He took off his hat to Miss Beatrice Thompson.
All this passed in a flash whilst he was shaking hands and steering her to an empty corner of the lounge. They sat in two adjacent armchairs, and Miss Beatrice opened the ball.
“My mother said—” Beneath the painstaking drawl the London accent flowed like an under-tow, sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger, but always there.
“Yes,” said Bill—“I’m very grateful to you for calling. I want some information about a friend of mine, Mr Robin O’Hara. I think he may have been at Miss Delorne’s flat at Oleander Mansions on the night of October 4th last year. Now Mrs Thompson tells me she was in hospital for the first ten days of October, and that you were taking her place at Oleander Mansions, so I wondered whether you could give me any information that would help me.”
Beatrice rolled the blue eyes.
“Ooh!” she said. “There are fifteen flats on that stair, and people always coming and going. I couldn’t say I knew any of them unless it was some of the residents. That Miss Delorne now—I’d know her again anywhere. Lovely clothes she had—and I don’t know why everyone wants to think there’s something wrong just because a girl makes something of herself and knows how to make herself look smart.”
Bill discerned a personal grievance. He could readily imagine that Mrs Thompson might not find herself in entire agreement with her daughter about such vanities as lipstick. He said pleasantly,
“Well, it’s just possible you might have noticed my friend. I’ve got some photographs upstairs. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll get them.”
He came back with the photographs, to find her sitting in a carefully arranged attitude, copied probably from the latest drama she had seen. He hoped she wasn’t going to be so taken up with playing her part that she wouldn’t be able to attend to business.
He produced three leaves which he had detached from his photograph album and gave them to her one by one. The first was a group taken at a school dinner about two years ago. He was in it, and so was Robin O’Hara. The second displayed several snapshots taken at Way’s End in the August before Meg’s marriage. Robin appeared in two of them. The third was Meg’s wedding group, with a line of bridesmaids, and the Professor gazing absently out of the picture, and a radiant Meg, and Robin O’Hara as a bridegroom.
Beatrice Thompson took each of the leaves, looked at it, and laid it on her knee. When she came to the wedding group, she stared at it for some time. Bill watched her, and did not know what to make of her expression. It hardened. She looked less pretty. An odd fleeting likeness to Mrs Thompson showed for a moment and was gone again. He thought she was thinking, calculating, making up her mind what she was going to say. But what she did say took him most completely by surprise. She handed him back the wedding group, pointed with an ungloved forefinger at the Professor, and said,
“I’ve seen that old gentleman.”
“What?” said Bill in a tone of quite ungovernable incredulity.
“That old gentleman,” said Miss Thompson, still pointing, “I’ve seen him.” The forefinger had been roughened by work,
but the nail had been clipped to a point and stained a horrible scarlet. It pointed at the Professor, and the drawling voice said with a little more drawl than before, “I can swear to him.”
“Where?” said Bill. What he felt inclined to say was “Nonsense!”
“Coming out of Miss Delorne’s flat nine o’clock in the morning, and I’d got my pail in the way, so I had to move it. And I took notice of him very particular, because I thought at his time of life he ought to know better, and whatever Miss Delorne wanted to take up with an old man like that—well!” She paused, rolled her eyes, retrieved the refined accent which had rather broken down, and said, “Disgusting, I call it.”
Bill found himself quite unable to believe a word she was saying. But then, why was she saying it? It was quite impossible that she should have seen the Professor coming out of Della Delorne’s flat at nine in the morning.
“Miss Thompson,” he said, “I think you’ve made a mistake”—she shook her head—“but leave that on one side for a moment and tell me, are you sure you don’t recognize anyone else in these photographs?”
He thought she hesitated, and he thought that it was to cover her hesitation that she said pertly,
“If you’ll tell me who you want me to recognize, I might have a shot at it.”
“Look here,” he said, “that’s no good. If you don’t recognize anyone, say so. But if you do—and I think you do—why then—”
“What?” said Miss Thompson succinctly.
“I gave your mother five pounds,” said Bill. “That was for taking up her time, not for what she told me, because she didn’t tell me anything of the very slightest value.”
“Five pounds—” She breathed the words in a voice that was most purely and sincerely natural—a pretty little London voice, trembling with emotion at the thought of what five pounds would buy. A string of real cultured pearls—you could get them for a guinea.… A real foxaline fur … A pair of shoes with heels like stilts … A bag—silk stockings.… Her face glowed with positive beauty as she gazed at Bill. “Coo!” she said. It was the merest involuntary breath of rapture. Then a shrewd look came into the large blue eyes. She sat up straight in her chair and prepared to drive a bargain. “You’d give me five pounds—honest?”
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