The Pawnbroker's Niece

by June Francis

  ‘It-it’s not half r-raining out there,’ she said, teeth chattering.

  Margaret came from behind the counter, turned the sign to CLOSED and took off the snick on the lock before hustling Rita through into the kitchen. She left her shivering in front of the fire while she fetched a couple of towels.

  ‘Get your hair dried and out of those wet clothes!’ She thrust the towels at Rita and went upstairs, reappearing a few minutes later with a blanket. ‘Wrap that round you while I make a hot drink. You do realise you could go down with pneumonia and cause me a lot of trouble?’ She vanished into the scullery.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Rita’s voice was husky as she took the two aspirins handed to her. She gulped them down with the hot sweet tea. ‘I was following a bloke. He’s in trouble and I wanted to see if we could help him.’

  ‘We?’ Margaret sat down, a forbidding expression on her face. ‘I hope you’re not starting to fancy the opposite sex.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Rita with a touch of defiance.

  ‘Your mother,’ said Margaret.

  Rita rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not like Mam. This fella doesn’t even like me. He’s the Jimmy that girl Alice mentioned. The one who brought the Chinese vase in! The family’s in debt and they’ve been threatened with the bailiffs.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Margaret’s attitude was still stiff.

  Rita struggled on. ‘As I said, I thought we — you might be able to help them. Maybe buy off their debt so they’d have more time to find the money to pay it off.’

  Only for a moment was Margaret speechless. Then, ‘Have you gone mad? Why should I do that? I don’t even know this girl or her family! I’m not in the business of doing favours.’

  ‘You’re in the business of making money!’ Rita flung the words at her.

  ‘Aye, but I’d have trouble getting money out of this family if their moneylender’s talking of sending in the bailiffs.’

  Rita could not dispute that and, for a moment, she could not come up with an answer to it. Then, ‘I’m sure they’ll be able to find the money eventually. They’re probably going through a bad patch like lots of people at the moment,’ she persisted. ‘It can be done, can’t it? You can take over a debt from another moneylender? You won’t miss the money. You’re rich! You could easily afford to help them out. You’ve carpet on the floor, a roof over your head, three meals a day and you don’t have to cook on the fire. You’ve several outfits in your wardrobe and you don’t have fleas or bed bugs. As well as that you have Mrs McGinty to do the housework. That’s rich!’

  Margaret made an exasperated noise in her throat. ‘You know nothing about it! There’s only me to look after me into my old age. Riches to me is not having to work for a living, and having a proper house and someone to see to my every need. The other day I saw the house of my dreams, but can I afford to take over the lease? I’m not sure.’

  Rita was distracted from her purpose. ‘What’s it like, this dream house?’

  ‘Large! And it has windows from floor to ceiling. It’s in Abercromby Square and overlooks a garden in the centre.’

  ‘I’ve seen them houses from outside. They look huge! I bet they’re nice inside.’

  ‘The one I like is more than nice but it’ll cost money to buy the lease and decorate and furnish it to my satisfaction. I’d still have to earn a living but I want to be a moneylender, pure and simple, like I said to you at Christmas. None of this having to be open all hours with the need for storage space and the worry of the shop being broken into. It would be a respectable business, of course! Not a bit like those fish-and-money women Father used to tell me about. They operated in the mean streets of the Irish Catholic area. Tough as old boots; they’d give those that didn’t pay up a beating. As well as that, the debtors had to take part of the amount lent in rotten fish.’

  ‘Yeuk!’ exclaimed Rita.

  Margaret was silent, thinking of how her father had taught her a lot about making money. ‘Charge tuppence in the shilling,’ he had advised her. She had worked out that was a sixth or approximately sixteen-and-a-half per cent. At the moment she charged fifteen per cent to encourage his old clients to continue to do business with her, but if she did what she wanted, then she would up her rates once she was really established.

  Rita leant forward and touched her aunt’s knee. ‘House or no house you could help them. I’m sure they’d find some way of paying you back.’

  Margaret blinked at her. ‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? I need all the money I can lay my hands on. I don’t have a husband to provide for me. Anyway, what’s the name of this family?’

  ‘The name of the yard is Brodie’s. The owner is Jimmy’s and Alice’s stepfather.’ Rita drained her cup and stretched out her legs, placing her cold feet on the warm brass fender.

  Margaret stiffened. It couldn’t be! Even so, curiosity compelled her to ask what kind of business this Brodie was in.

  ‘Carting. They have a yard just off Leece Street.’

  Competitive, thought Margaret instantly. There must be hundreds if not a couple of thousand carters in Liverpool transporting goods from docks to yard and businesses to shops. ‘Now if you’d said motors I might have thought of putting some of my money behind them. But no, I can’t see my way to helping them.’

  ‘But they need your help,’ insisted Rita. ‘Miss Turner says that we’re put on this earth to love God and love our neighbour and that means everyone.’

  ‘Huh!’ Margaret’s eyes glinted and her mouth set in a straight line. ‘Don’t you be quoting Scripture at me, girl! I know my Bible and I also know that nobody’s ever helped me.’

  ‘That’s because you’re so good at helping yourself.’

  ‘Don’t try and soft-soap me.’

  Rita kept her eyes on her face, smiled and kept on looking and smiling at her.

  Margaret banged her fist on the arm of her chair. ‘Don’t look like that! You’ll have to give me a better reason than Miss Turner’s Bible-bashing to convince me. Tell me more about this family!’

  Rita grimaced. ‘I don’t know that much about them. There’s Jimmy and Alice who are brother and sister and they have a stepbrother, Billy. The one who gave the vase to Alice! He’s a sailor. I think it was his father who married their mother. He doesn’t get on with the mother. She called him a thief apparently but Alice thinks that that’s a lie.’

  ‘The father?’ Margaret was watching her intently.

  ‘I honestly don’t know much about him…except he seems to be against his son. I think his name’s William.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Rita thought her aunt was looking a little pale. ‘Because I saw W. M. Brodie painted on the side of the cart…and that’s all I know…except their moneylender has his offices in Berry Street if you need to go along there.’

  Margaret was silent. In truth she was feeling dizzy and a little sick. Surely there could not be two William Brodies with a son called Billy living this end of Liverpool. She took several deep breaths before getting to her feet and, taking the girl’s empty teacup from her, she forced her legs to propel her out of the room.

  For the rest of the day Margaret was good for nothing. Rita had to ask her things twice or even three times before getting an answer to customers’ enquiries. Margaret could not get the Brodie twins out of her mind. The one lively and full of fun, reckless and with the habit of making any girl he talked to feel like she was the only one who meant anything to him in the whole wide world. He liked people — and that was the trouble. It had driven her mad to see him talking to the shy girls in the group, bringing them out of themselves. Maybe if her sister hadn’t been the glamorous one she might not have been so jealous but Margaret had been unable to help it, and Bella had been the last straw.

  No wonder she had turned from Will to his twin Alan — sensible, self-controlled, idealistic, religious almost to saintliness, with a passion to take the gospel to China.

  She ru
bbed her forehead where it ached. Could this W. M. Brodie really be Will? He had been a sailor, so what was he doing in the carting business? She had to find out. If she helped him she would have power over him. What was she to do? What her father would have recommended, she supposed. Sleep on it.

  But when Margaret went up to bed, sleep was a long time coming. She rose and, moving the rug from beside her bed, she took up the loose floorboards and dragged out the tin box in which her father had kept all his money even before Wall Street crashed. She had seen no reason to break with tradition. She unlocked the box with the key she kept on a chain about her neck, and began to count the money.

  *

  Rita could not sleep either and so heard the noise of the box being dragged across the floor. Then she heard a clinking noise. Curiosity aroused, she slipped out of bed and, not pausing to find her slippers, tiptoed out of the room. She inched her way along the landing to her aunt’s bedroom where light showed beneath the door, and bending, peered through the keyhole. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the light and a couple more for her to realise the importance of what she was seeing as Margaret placed the last of the money bags inside a tin box and locked it. Then, frustratingly, she and the tin box moved out of Rita’s range of vision. The light was extinguished and then the bed creaked.

  Rita could not help but be excited as well as thoughtful as she crept back to her own room. No wonder her aunt was worried about being broken into. Without that money there’d be no dream house and no capital for her business. She snuggled beneath the bedclothes. If only she had a little of that money it could save Jimmy’s family from the bailiffs. She tried to sleep, but the thought of all that cash in the house was making her nervous and her imagination went into overdrive.

  The minutes ticked by. She heard the long case clock downstairs strike midnight and then the half-hour. Every little sound caused her to start up, such as the rainwater dripping from the leaking gutter. Then she really did hear a noise that frightened her. A door squeaking on its hinges. She did not move for several minutes, straining her ears, but all she could hear was the rapid beating of her heart. Unable to bear the suspense any longer she got out of bed again.

  The linoleum felt even colder to the touch than earlier. She reached for the slippers Margaret had bought for her birthday and crept out of the room and downstairs. She paused in the kitchen to pick up the poker and then went through into the storeroom. The door to the shop was open. She heard a match being struck and immediately froze as she caught a glimpse of the bottom half of a face. Then the match went out and all was in darkness. She couldn’t prevent an intake of breath and gripped the poker tightly, sensing someone was near. Slowly she turned, raising her weapon, but it was too late. Something hit her on the head and she sank to the floor.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Aunt Margaret! Aunt Margaret!’ There was a sense of urgency in the voice. ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ The doorknob rattled.

  Margaret came up from fathoms of sleep as the voice continued to disturb. She struggled out of bed, eyes still closed, and stumbled across the floor. ‘What is it, Rita?’

  ‘Open the door!’

  Margaret forced her eyes open and fumbled for the key which was on a nail on the wall next to the door. She had never left it in the lock since reading in a crime novel how a thief had got into a bedroom by sliding a sheet of newspaper under the door and pushing the key from the other side with a length of wire. She opened the door and saw the shadowy outline of her niece slumped against the banister. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s been a break-in. I disturbed whoever it was but they hit me on the head,’ gasped Rita.

  Margaret felt for the girl’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right? Did you see who it was?’

  ‘Just a bit of a face…a chin, a nose.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘I felt sure if I’d seen only a bit more of his face I’d have recognised him.’

  ‘Did he get anything?’

  ‘I don’t know! I didn’t stop to look.’ Gingerly she felt the spot where the blow had landed and her fingers were wet. ‘I’m bleedin’!’

  ‘Assault and battery!’ Margaret’s voice quivered on the words.

  She snatched up the dressing gown flung over the foot of the bed and knotted the belt tightly about her slender waist. She lit a match and ignited the candle she used to light her way to bed. Then she inspected the cut on Rita’s head. ‘It’s a good job you’ve got a thick head of hair. You should have come for me if you heard something instead of going downstairs on your own.’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you. I thought I might be imagining things. Anyway, I did pick up the poker and took it with me but I didn’t get a chance to use it.’

  Margaret muttered, ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. You’ll need something on that. Come downstairs and I’ll see to it…have to go anyway and see if anything’s missing.’

  Rita nodded her throbbing head, then winced. She followed Margaret downstairs, feeling slightly dizzy. She wondered about the burglar’s identity. Youngish! Could he have been one of the youths who had run rings round Mr McGinty? She was convinced that had been a put-up job to enable one of them to filch something from the shop.

  Holding the candle aloft Margaret surveyed the interior of the shop, noticing that the bolts top and bottom of the door were drawn back. ‘He probably got out that way,’ said Rita. ‘But how did he get in?’

  Margaret made no answer, having noticed that the lock on the tall display cabinet which had contained jewellery, watches, a couple of enamel pillboxes and quality vases had been smashed. She knew exactly what had been in there and saw that a couple of rings, a child’s silver christening bracelet, the Chinese vase, which she had purchased only the other day, and a silver watch and fob chain had been taken. She felt extremely angry. How had he got in?

  She went into the back premises followed by Rita. Margaret gazed about the kitchen by the light of the flickering candle but could see no sign of it having been disturbed. Even so, she crossed to the window and drew back one of the curtains to find as she expected that the snick was in place. She hurried into the scullery and found the door and window securely locked. The cat, obviously not accustomed to such activity at this hour, mewed and stropped her leg but she ignored it. A terrible suspicion was dawning on her.

  ‘Are you sure you actually saw someone?’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t dream it,’ said Rita.

  ‘Then it’s a mystery to me how he got in unless he can walk through walls, and I don’t think burglars can, do you?’ She turned away from the door to stare at her niece, holding the candle aloft so she could see Rita’s face.

  ‘D’you really expect me to answer that?’ said Rita, annoyed. ‘It’s a stupid question! You know they can’t, so it can only be that you’re accusing me of-of being in cahoots with the thief. Have you forgotten I was hit over the head?’

  ‘That could have been done to make you look innocent.’

  Rita gasped. ‘I don’t bloody believe this!’

  ‘Don’t you swear at me, girl!’

  ‘You’re giving me cause to swear! Accusing me of being a bloody burglar! I’m nothing of the sort and I don’t know how you could think that of me.’

  ‘You’ve stolen before and Mrs McGinty told me you were entertaining that Sam, who works at Fitzgerald’s, in the shop here, giving him tea and jam bread.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that? Aren’t I allowed to have friends?’

  ‘He’s a young man who’s hard up.’

  Rita bristled. ‘He’s no thief! And there’s no way that he would hit me over the head. She’s probably protecting that husband of hers and…and perhaps one of her sons. Mr McGinty’s been in prison, remember?’

  The reminder brought her up short for a moment and then she remembered what her niece had said about seeing part of the burglar’s face. ‘Do you think it was the son?’

  ‘I can’t say!’ Rita’s voice was stiff with
disappointment and hurt. ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘Then you’re best keeping your thoughts about them to yourself. Don’t get me wrong, Rita, I don’t want to believe the worst of you. I’ve been pleased with the way you’ve worked and fitted in, but what am I to think? Can you explain to me how he got in?’

  Rita was not the least bit mollified by her aunt’s words and said tartly, ‘I’d have to be in cahoots with him to know that, wouldn’t I? Although maybe you left a window open upstairs! Maybe the burglar didn’t go out the door here but even now is up there. Maybe in your room — because you didn’t lock it behind you — looking for something else to steal.’

  The girl got a swifter reaction than she expected. Without a word Margaret hurried out of the scullery which was immediately plunged into darkness. Rita swore and waited a few moments until her eyes became accustomed to the dark, then she made her way out of the room, considering herself lucky not to fall over the cat.

  When she arrived upstairs it was to discover her aunt’s bedroom door firmly locked against her. That did it! Rita lost her temper completely and kicked the door. ‘I’m not a thief and I know you’ve got money in there so there’s no point in trying to hide it from me.’

  Margaret ignored her, too busy making sure her nest egg was safe. It was a relief to discover its hiding place undisturbed. She came out of her bedroom and locked it behind her. ‘I’m going to make a cup of tea.’ She headed for the stairs.

  ‘I want an apology,’ said Rita, racing after her. ‘I’m really upset that you could even think for a moment I’d steal from you. I’ll prove I’m innocent if it’s the last thing I do!’ She flounced back upstairs, having no idea exactly how she was to prove herself innocent, but one thing was for sure: she wouldn’t speak to her aunt until she did.

  The following morning Rita realised that not talking to Margaret was going to be extremely difficult, although neither she nor her aunt had much to say over the breakfast table. On the woman’s side it was mainly because she was thinking of what to say to the local bobby. She knew exactly what time he passed her shop and planned on reporting the burglary to him.