Walk with Care

by Patricia Wentworth

  “I see,” said Mr Smith. “Thank you. If anyone of the name of Robinson rings you up in Marsh Street about a subscription for some charitable object, you may take it that I should like to see you as soon as you can get away.”

  “‘Johnny, come down to Hilo!’” said Ananias with emotion.

  “Ananias is sending you his love,” said Mr Smith.

  “I heard him. Thanks awfully, sir. Good-night.”

  “Good-night,” said Mr Smith. He hung up the receiver and returned to Colonel Garrett.

  He sank into his usual chair and gazed at the shelf which supported Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  “That,” he said, “was Jeremy Ware.”

  Garrett was refilling his pipe. He jammed down the tobacco with a short stubby thumb, made a hideous grimace, and said,

  “Oh, was it? And Ananias sends him his love?”

  Mr Smith continued to gaze at Gibbon’s Decline and Fall

  “Ananias has—er—formed a passionate attachment to Jeremy.”

  Garrett struck a match on the heel of his shoe and began to suck at his pipe. When he had got it going, he said,

  “And you call him Jeremy?”

  “I am not sure,” said Mr Smith. “On the other hand Ananias is quite sure about the attachment.”

  Garrett scowled at the fire. He puffed clouds of smoke and said nothing.

  Mr Smith broke the silence.

  “Jeremy rang me up to say he had just discovered an unexplained fifty pounds in his account with the Southern Counties.”

  “Just discovered it, has he?” Garrett’s tone was not a nice one.

  “Yes—he called for his pass-book this afternoon.”

  “But he can’t explain the fifty pounds?”

  “Not—er—satisfactorily.”

  “What do you mean, satisfactorily?”

  “He—er—stated that a relative had occasionally given him presents in this—er—manner.” Mr Smith’s voice was dreamy.

  Garrett slapped his knee.

  “And you can swallow that?”

  “Jeremy didn’t seem quite able to swallow it himself.”

  “Heave him by the leg in a running bowlin’!

  Heave him by the leg in a running bowlin’!

  Heave him by the leg—”

  “No, Ananias—no!” said Mr Smith with decision. Ananias said “Awk!” finished the line in a whisper, and proceeded, still whispering, to the chorus:

  “Hooray, and up she rises

  Early in the morning.”

  Mr Smith brought his gaze to bear upon Garrett. He so seldom looked directly at anyone that when he did so it had its effect. His eyes had lost their absent expression as he said,

  “When did you begin to dig up the Denny affair?”

  Garrett stayed perfectly still for an instant, because if he hadn’t taken hold of himself, he would have jumped.

  Then he growled, “What do you mean?” and blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “It was a very simple question, and I should like to have an answer. Or perhaps it would be better if I were to supply the answer myself. I cannot, of course, give you the exact date, but I should be inclined to put it in October—late October, or—yes, perhaps early November.”

  “Up she rises!” said Ananias on a loud shriek.

  “Damn that bird!” said Garrett roundly.

  Mr Smith nodded.

  “It’s no use, Frank, you had better tell me,” he said.

  Garrett sat forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees. A ferocious scowl changed suddenly into a grin.

  “All right, my hand goes down. But you’ve got to put yours down too. How did you know? You’ve got to tell me that before I say a word. Come—how did you know? I didn’t let anything slip in a moment of mental aberration, did I? I thought I’d been damned careful—but you shake one’s confidence.”

  Mr Smith removed his gaze. He smiled faintly.

  “No, you didn’t give anything away.”

  “Then how—”

  “Well, it would—er—explain what would otherwise be—er—rather inexplicable.”

  “Oh, it explains things, does it?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And now everything’s as clear as daylight?”

  “Er—not quite.”

  Garrett flung himself back and crossed his legs.

  “Do you mind explaining in words of one syllable?”

  Mr Smith smiled delightfully.

  “My dear Frank, it is surely obvious.”

  “That,” said Garrett, “is pure swank.”

  Mr Smith shook his head.

  “Let us be serious. The matter is, I think, a serious one. It might have been tragically serious for young Ware, and he is not out of the wood yet. I should like first of all to know why you began to dig up the Denny affair in October—or was it November?”

  “October,” said Garrett. He took his pipe out of his mouth. “October.”

  “And—er—why?”

  There was rather a long pause. Then Garrett laughed his short barking laugh.

  “Can’t give you an answer, because I haven’t got one. I’d finished with Gilbert’s affairs, the estate was wound up, and I’d been trying to put the whole thing out of my mind. Well, it wouldn’t be put. I’d pitch it into a corner and boot it over the head, and next time I woke in the night or hadn’t anything special in my mind, there it was again. Well, it got to a point when just to keep the thing quiet I made up my mind I’d go over everything again. I hunted up the crew of Gilbert’s boat, the Zest. I went to the hotel he stayed in at Plymouth. I went down and saw Ellinger. I tried a side-line or two on Lemare—”

  “Yes?” said Mr Smith as he paused.

  “And I didn’t find out a single thing,” said Garrett. He got up, walked over to the fireplace, and knocked out his pipe against the hearth. When he turned round again, his eyes were bright and angry. “Not a damned thing,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you—felt I’d made a fool of myself. And yet”—he jabbed in the air with the empty pipe—“all the time—all the time, I tell you—side by side with feeling what an all-fired fool I was, I’d got the feeling that there was something to find out, and that I was on the edge of finding it.”

  Mr Smith looked dreamily past him at the fire.

  “Somebody else seems to have thought so too.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Someone,” said Mr Smith slowly, “in October—I think you said it was October—became so—er—apprehensive of what you might possibly be on the brink of finding out that he—or it might perhaps be she—proceeded to put up a rather elaborate smoke-screen. There is, proverbially, no smoke without a fire. I deduced a fire, and, not unnaturally, I wanted to know why it had been lighted. To abandon the language of metaphor, someone is undoubtedly anxious to incriminate young Ware. Now, in himself, he is a person of no importance. He is neither a politician, nor a delegate, nor anything in the world but an inconspicuous young man with his living to earn. He has no money, so he is not a subject for blackmail. Then why should anyone trouble to ruin him? It occurred to me that though there was no reason why anyone should wish to ruin Jeremy Ware, there might be a reason why someone should find it convenient to incriminate Gilbert Denny’s secretary. The reason which I postulated was a revival of the suspicions regarding Gilbert Denny’s death and the possibility of there being something which had never come to light, but which might come to light unless those suspicions were definitely focused upon some—er—suitable object. Now, my dear Frank, consider for a moment the—er—perfect suitability of Jeremy Ware. As Gilbert Denny’s secretary he might easily be connected with the affair of the Engelberg Note. Why, you yourself are not without some base suspicions. The very first minute Bernard Mannister mentioned that he had a secretar
y who had been with Gilbert Denny those suspicions began to focus themselves upon Jeremy Ware. I have believed all along that that was the purpose of Mannister’s visit. I have grown to believe lately that Jeremy Ware owes his position as Mannister’s secretary to the fact of his—er—suitability as an object for suspicion.”

  Garrett balanced his pipe in his hand and regarded it frowningly.

  “Mannister!” he said. “By gum—Mannister!”

  “Mannister may have come to you, or he may merely have been sent.”

  “Meaning you’re not sure whether he’s a knave or a fool?”

  “I am not sure about anything,” said Mr Smith. “I am going to tell you what Jeremy Ware told me, and I am going to tell you what Mrs Denny told me. You must draw your own conclusions. I saw them yesterday. I should like to say I am convinced that Mrs Denny is keeping something back—something, I think, which concerns that house in Tilt Street. I think it possible that she has—er—consulted Asphodel professionally. The affair seems to me to have a good many ramifications. At the moment I want to know how long Miss Phoebe Dart has been in Tilt Street, and where she came from, and where her money comes from. And I want to know the surname and family history of a young girl whose Christian name is Rachel—”

  “Rachel?” said Garrett sharply.

  “Yes,” said Mr Smith. “The name seems to—er—strike a chord.”

  “No,” said Garrett. “No—it’s nothing to do with it. Ridiculous! It just happened to remind me of something.”

  Mr Smith’s eyebrows rose.

  “And may I ask what it reminds you of?”

  Garrett shook his head impatiently.

  “No—it’s nothing. Get on with this story of yours.”

  “Has Mrs Denny communicated with you yet?” said Mr Smith.

  “No, she hasn’t. Was she going to?”

  “I advised her to do so very strongly.”

  Garrett’s barking laugh rang out.

  “Don’t you know better than to give a woman advice? At your age!” He laughed again. “She won’t take it—they never do.” He flung himself back into his chair. “Well, let’s have the yarn! I’m listening.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  JEREMY FELT BETTER AFTER he had rung up Mr Smith. The thin, ghostly voice of Ananias greeting him with “Johnny, come down to Hilo!” had been heartening, and Mr Smith’s comment more heartening still. He might not have felt so much encouraged if he had known of Garrett’s sardonic presence. As it was, he went home humming under his breath,

  “My hair was greased with good bay rum. I wore a red geranium”

  As he came up the stair to his room, Mrs Walker came out of the sitting-room with a note in her hand,

  “You hadn’t been gone not half an hour, and I do ’ope it’s not important. Very civil the gentleman was that brought it, and Oh, ’as he gone out?’ he says. ‘And that’s a pity,’ he says. And he asks when you’ll be in, and I says, “’Eaven knows, sir, but he ’asn’t said as how he’ll be late.’ And then he says, ‘Well, give it to him when he comes in, will you?’ And off he goes, and here it is.”

  Jeremy opened the note. It was from Mannister, and it was quite short. It ran:

  “Dear Ware,

  I am called out of town for the night. M. Brunon may be ringing up from Paris between nine and eleven. I want you to be here to take the call. Just say I’ve had his letter, and that everything is in train. Say I was called away very unexpectedly, and that I am writing. He won’t ring up after eleven-thirty. Let yourself out as before.

  “B.M.”

  Jeremy looked at the note. Then he looked at Lizzie Walker and said, “Well, well, well—”

  “Are you going out again, Mr Jeremy?”

  “Not till nine o’clock. Did you ever put salt on a bird’s tail, Lizzie?”

  Mrs Walker bridled.

  “Now, Mr Jeremy, none of your nonsense! I’ve got a nice fish pie in the oven for you—hake and shrimps, with cheese and bread-crumbs over the top—my Aunt Martha’s receipt.”

  Jeremy enjoyed the fish pie, but he didn’t enjoy the last sentence in Mannister’s note. Last time he had been told to let himself out of Mannister’s house he had had a near shave of being saddled with the theft of an important letter. What was going to happen this time? Was anything going to happen? Impossible to say. Impossible not to go. If your employer tells you to be on the spot to take a call, you’ve either got to be there or cease to be employed. All the same he didn’t like the look of it very much. Not very much—no. The curious thing was that instead of feeling depressed his spirits were rising. If Mannister hadn’t told him to go back by the front door, he might very well have found himself climbing in at the scullery window. The house drew him, and the adventure drew him, and Rachel.

  From the Evans’ room next door the not untuneful baritone of Mr Evans arose in song:

  “I was drifting on,

  Not a hope in view.

  But just when I least expected it,

  I found you.

  Clouds were all around.

  Sunny days were few.

  Then just when I least expected it,

  I found you”

  Mrs Evans’ voice cut in, high, shrill, and complaining—higher, shriller, and more complaining still. Mr Evans’ baritone dropped to a growling bass. Mrs Evans’ shrillness soared to a shriek. Something that sounded like a saucepan hit the party wall and clanged to the floor. Another thrilling instalment of the Row was in progress.

  Jeremy arrived on the doorstep of No. 29 Marsh Street at ten minutes to nine. The night was black dark and the air heavy with a rising fog. As he came along Tilt Street, the lamps were being submerged. Someone knocked against him at the corner of the mews and stood for a moment clutching him and coughing a thin, old man’s cough before starting off again with an unsteady limping step. Jeremy didn’t care about being clutched in the dark. He wondered why a half crippled invalid couldn’t stay peaceably at home. He was glad not to have far to go.

  James admitted him, made up the fire in the library, and set out drinks on a small table. While he was bending over the hearth, Jeremy slipped back the section of bookcase which masked the safe and made sure that the door was fast. If anyone had had the bright idea of leaving it open a second time, he was going to have his trouble for nothing. If the safe wasn’t locked, he would call James’ attention to the fact, and between them they would have to seal the thing up in such a way that Jeremy couldn’t be accused of tampering with the contents.

  The safe was locked.

  Jeremy withdrew his hand and pushed the book-shelf to.

  “Anything else I can do, sir?”

  “No, thanks, James.”

  “Mr Mannister said you would be letting yourself out, sir.”

  “Yes, that’s all right.”

  “Then I’ll be getting off to bed, sir. I let the staff go at eight, Mr Mannister being away. A good early night is a thing I do appreciate—once in a way, as it might be. So if there’s nothing more I can do for you, sir—”

  “Not a thing,” said Jeremy. “Get off to bed. Pleasant dreams. By the way, do you dream?”

  James turned by the table which held the drinks. He looked more like an ant than ever. Two little wisps of grey hair stood out like antennæ on either side of a melancholy bald expanse of forehead.

  “Dream, sir?” There was a faint brightening of his eye.

  “Dream, James.”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh yes, sir—every night and all night long, sir.”

  “And what do you dream about?”

  James’ thin figure took on an eager forward stoop.

  “You wouldn’t believe the things I dream, sir! Why, last night I dreamt I was burning at the stake and someone came along and choked me with my own h’ash
es. And last Friday week I was the Czar of Russia afore any of these Bolshevists had got going, and I’d only to sit down to my table with my gold pen and ink and write as many death warrants as I felt inclined to.” He coughed and smoothed his chin. “It gives one a feeling of power, if you understand what I mean, sir. I’d only got to write my name as it were, and the man was dead.”

  “That’s why you want to get off to bed early? But it’s a bit of a toss-up, isn’t it? I mean you might dream you were the poor devil the warrant had been signed for.”

  “Yes, sir—that has happened, sir. Not very pleasant at the time, but it don’t go on for h’ever. Nothing goes on for h’ever—not in a dream.” He smoothed his chin again. “Good-night, sir.”

  The door shut upon him, and Jeremy sat down to wait for M. Brunon. It was pleasantly warm in the library, and most pleasantly and gratefully still. That evening’s instalment of the Evans’ nightly row had been longer than usual, and even after the actual hostilities had ceased, the uncontrolled and passionate sobbing of Mrs Evans had gone on and on and on. It was a decidedly agreeable change to be in this wide, warm room and hear the faint occasional sound of traffic just touch the silence and fade again. Jeremy got himself a book and a drink, and brought the most comfortable chair to exactly the right angle.

  The time slipped smoothly by. When the clock struck ten, it took him by surprise. He went back to his book, but before he could really lose himself again the telephone bell was ringing. He sat down to his own table and put the receiver to his ear. He hoped to goodness that the line was going to be good. Brunon would probably be annoyed at Mannister’s absence, and as a rule people who were annoyed either sputtered or fuffled.

  He said, “Hullo!” and heard nothing but a crackling sound. After three more hullos a refined female voice inquired what his number was. Having been supplied with the information, she faded off the wire and the crackling began again.

  Jeremy continued to say “Hullo!” At about the sixth repetition someone said, “Here you are!” and suddenly Mannister’s voice beat on the drum of his ear.

  “Hullo! Is that you, Ware?”

  Jeremy held the receiver away. Mannister always spoke into a telephone as if he were trying to fill the Albert Hall. He said,