CHAPTER XV
Miles Clayton found a batch of letters waiting for him when he got back to his hotel. They were mostly from people who wanted him to dine with them or lunch with them. There was one from each of his aunts. There was one from the girl who had refused him three years before because, as she said, you really can’t live on six hundred a year. She was now married to something a good deal nearer six thousand. Her name was Angela, and she doesn’t come into this story.
Miles laughed and frowned a little. He would certainly dine with Angela. For the last two years and nine months approximately he had thought of her with relief and gratitude. She might have accepted him.
He took up the next letter, which was pale blue and of a heady fragrance. He was about ten years too old to be getting a letter like that, he reflected. He wondered who on earth. As he tore open the envelope, a golden forget-me-not winked at him from the top right-hand corner of the sheet inside. He unfolded it and read: “Dear Mr Miles.” It was Flossie.
“Dear Mr Miles,
When we were talking I quite forgot there was something I was going to tell you. It is about yours sincerely Agnes Smith, and I would of told you only for being all upset about Ivy which put it out of my head. No more now and hoping you are well.”
From
Flossie Palmer.
P.S. I’ve got my evening out to-day Thursday and if you get this in time Ernie will be bringing me back p.m. half past nine and if I explain he won’t mind waiting by the pillar-box down at the church end of the street.”
“Flossie.”
This was Thursday. Miles looked at his watch. He and Kay had had tea and done a cinema together. She had refused to dine with him and he had just taken her back to Varley Street. It was half past eight. He could do it all right.
Then he burst out laughing. Life was becoming one giddy whirl of assignations with house-parlour-maids. But behold the rigid propriety of Flossie. A chaperone was to be provided. Ernie the boy friend would be there.
He went off to get something to eat, humming under his breath
“Then, just when I least expected it,
I met you.”
The church end of Merriton Street was easily found, because the church clock was striking the half hour as Miles approached. A street-lamp marked the corner, and under the lamp stood Flossie Palmer with her hands linked about the arm of a very large young man in a dark overcoat. She displayed complete self-possession, introduced Mr Bowden, and got down at once to business.
“I’ve told Ernie how you’re looking for a young lady, Mr Miles, and of course he says anything we can do to help he’s only too willing—aren’t you, Ernie?”
Mr Ernest Bowden did not convey the impression that he was bursting with a desire to be helpful. Flossie went on without waiting for him to speak.
“I’ve told Ernie about the letter from the lady that signed herself ‘Yours truly Agnes Smith’, and it’s being her rooms that the baby was born in, so he knows all that. And only last Saturday Aunt let me have him to tea, and there we sat looking at her old photograph album, and coo—if some of the people weren’t a scream! However they could have worn the things they did! Well, there was one I’d forgotten who it was, so I took it out and turned it round, because most of them are wrote on, and sure enough this one was. And when I saw what was wrote on it I remembered what you said, because there it was, just the same, ‘Yours truly Agnes Smith.’”
“What?” said Miles.
Flossie was enjoying herself very much indeed. Two young men were hanging on her words, Ernie just about as jealous as he could be, and Mr Miles regular worked up.
“‘Yours truly Agnes Smith,’” she repeated. “Wasn’t it, Ernie?” She pinched Mr Bowden suddenly and hard on the inside of the arm. The monosyllabic grunt which he emitted might have been taken as corroboration, but the only thing it really conveyed was that Mr Bowden was in a very bad temper.
“You’re sure?” said Miles. “What an extraordinary thing!”
“Ooh! Isn’t it?” said Flossie. “And I said to Aunt at once—she was there all the time, never left us a minute, did she, Ernie?—I said at once, ‘Aunt, who’s this?’ And she said, ‘Why, that’s your Aunt Ag.’ Didn’t she, Ernie?” She pinched his arm again and he withdrew it, this time in sulky silence.
“Your aunt?” said Miles.
“Aunt Ag,” said Flossie. “And Smith was her first husband’s name, and I s’pose I must of heard it, but it had gone clean out of my head. And she’s my mother’s own sister and a nearer relation than Aunt, who was only a sister-in-law, her and my mother being married to brothers, and my father killed in the war so Aunt brought me up.”
Palmer—Palmer.… Light broke in on Miles. Miss Collins, the little dressmaker, had mentioned a sister of Mrs Smith’s called Flo Palmer. He said the name out loud.
“Flo Palmer—Is that your mother’s name, Flossie?”
“Ooh—yes, Mr Miles! I’m Flossie after her. Short for Florence, you know, same as Flo. Only I think Flossie’s prettier—don’t you?”
If Ernie was going to make a show of himself and forget his manners, she’d give him something to be jealous for. She giggled a little consciously and raised her large blue eyes to Miles’ face. It was perhaps fortunate that he was at the moment much more interested in a previous generation. He asked quickly,
“Is Mrs Smith alive?”
Flossie nodded.
“Mrs Syme she is now—26 Dawnish Road, Ledlington. Her husband’s verger in one of the churches there, and she lets apartments, which is a thing I wouldn’t do if it was ever so.”
Miles scribbled down the address on Flossie’s own pale blue envelope, little knowing that the sight, and perhaps the scent, of this ornate piece of stationery was having a highly inflammatory effect upon Mr Bowden. The paper, the scent, the winking gold forget-me-not, had been Ernie’s Christmas present. The pale blue box had been tied up with a length of gold cord. He had snatched a kiss, and if Flossie had not actually returned it, she had undoubtedly turned the other cheek. And now this Mr Clayton just takes one of the envelopes out of his pocket and scribbles on it. Flossie needn’t think she could play fast and loose with him, and she needn’t think he wasn’t going deeper into how she had come to meet Mr Clayton at all. A friend of Mrs Gilmore’s, was he? Well, then she ought by rights to have told Mrs Gilmore whatever she had to tell, and not go meeting him at street corners.
“26 Dawnish Road, Ledlington. Thank you ever so much, Flossie.”
“Oh, that’s nothing, Mr Miles. I brought the photograph if you’d like to see it—picked it out of Aunt’s album when I was home, and let’s hope she won’t find out, but I thought if you saw the writing you’d know if it’s the same as on the letter, because of course there’s hundreds of Smiths.”
Miles looked at her admiringly.
“That was clever,” he said.
“Ernie’s got it,” said Flossie. “Ernie, where’s that photo?” She came up close to him, slipped a hand into his pocket, and whispered, “Ernie! What’s the matter? Behave, can’t you!” Then with a little push she left him and put the photograph into Miles’ hand.
He looked at it under the street-lamp, seeing at first only the high-shouldered coat and heavily trimmed hat. Under the wide brim there were two eyes and a nose, and rather a round flat face. The mouth was straight and hard. He wondered whether it would have anything to tell him. He turned the photograph over and read, in the same angular handwriting which had announced Mrs Macintyre’s death, the selfsame signature:
“Yours truly Agnes Smith.”
CHAPTER XVI
Miles borrowed a car from Ian Gilmore and drove himself down to Ledlington next morning. It was one of those days which is not exactly foggy, but which you feel may at any moment spring a fog upon you. The hedgerows had a limp, discouraged look, and a low mist clung about field and valley.
Ledlington looked damp and dirty. He had never been there before, and he didn’t think he ever w
anted to come back again. He had not, of course, seen the statue of Sir Albert Dawnish which is the pride of the town. It is a very large statue indeed. From its pedestal Sir Albert in rigid marble trousers gazes proudly upon the scene of his first triumph. Here in this very square stood the first of the long line of Quick Cash Stores which have made him famous. It has passed into the realm of history, its place knows it no more; but the statue of Sir Albert is good for some hundreds of years. Miles missed the statue because he missed the Market Square. It is the only way you can miss it.
He asked for Dawnish Road, and presently found it. It was not quite so new a street as the name would imply. Once upon a time it had been Bismarck Avenue, but in 1914 the name went into the melting-pot with a good many other things, and in due course the street had Sir Albert for a godfather. The trees which had constituted it an avenue were first lopped and then cut down altogether, and it became, and had remained, Dawnish Road. The houses are of the genteel type, high and narrow, with a small garden in front of each.
Miles rang the bell of No. 26, and presently Mrs Syme opened the door. He knew her at once from the photograph in spite of more than twenty years difference in age. The same round, flat face. The same hard mouth. The light eyes looked at him exactly as they had looked from the photograph. Miles was the most friendly of creatures, but he didn’t really feel drawn to Mrs Syme. She had a pale auburn front which looked as if it had been dead for years. She had a brooch containing somebody else’s hair at the collar of her black stuff dress. Her house smelt of cabbage-water.
He said, “Mrs Syme?” and when she inclined her head without speaking he continued, “My name is Clayton, but you won’t know it. I wonder—”
Mrs Syme interrupted.
“Will you come in? I’ve my second-floor bedroom and front sitting-room vacant—twenty-five shillings a room and extras.”
She threw open a door on the right and followed him into a dark narrow room encumbered with heavy mahogany furniture. Over a black marble mantelpiece there hung one of Doré’s gloomier illustrations to Paradise Lost. Upon the shelf stood two cheap Italian vases in imitation bronze which imparted a funerary air. As much of the wall-paper as could be seen was olive-green.
“And would you be wanting the rooms immediately?” said Mrs Syme.
With an inward shudder Miles explained that he would not be wanting them at all. He would not have lodged at No. 26 Dawnish Road for anything in the world. Or would he? All the time he was explaining to Mrs Syme, a quirky imp was firing off questions in the back of his mind: “Come, come, you’d do it for double your salary.”—“I wouldn’t!” “Three times—four times—five times?”—“I tell you I wouldn’t!” “I put it to you that you’d do it for five thousand a year.” “Oh, shut up!” said Miles to the imp. And high time too. Mrs Syme was looking at him very coldly indeed.
“I must explain. Your niece, Miss Palmer, gave me your address.”
Mrs Syme did not sniff; Miles could have sworn to that. Yet he received the impression that she might have sniffed if she had not been brought up to know her manners and behave like a perfect lady.
“Perhaps if we could sit down—” he said.
Mrs Syme drew one of the chairs an inch or two away from the wall and sat down on the edge of it. It was an imitation Hepplewhite chair with a shield-shaped back and an imitation leather seat in rather a bright shade of brown mottled with black. Miles took another of the set and sat down too. The width of the room, and of a mutual dislike at first sight, separated them.
Miles made a manful effort.
“Mrs Syme, I’ve come down here to ask you to help me.” He saw her mouth tighten, but he went on. “Your niece thought you would be willing to help me. I’ve been trying to find you, but the only address I had was under your old name of Smith, at Laburnum Vale, Hampstead.”
She was looking at him now with attention. She did not speak. He went on.
“I think you let rooms there?”
“High-class apartments,” said Mrs Syme, looking past him at one of the funerary bronzes.
“Damn this woman!” said Miles to himself. “Well, Mrs Syme,” he said aloud, “the fact is, I want to ask you some questions about a Mrs Macintyre who, I believe, lived in your house for some months in 1914. You remember her, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Syme.
“She died in your house a week after her baby was born—”
“And had every attention,” said Mrs Syme.
“I’m sure she did. Well, she died, and you wrote to her husband in America. That was at the end of July.”
He opened a letter-case, took out and unfolded a sheet of cheap white paper, and brought it over to her. Her eyes rested indifferently upon the words written nearly twenty years ago. Miles watched her as she read them, and thought that she had not changed. He had always wondered what kind of woman had written that letter. Now he knew.
“Dear Sir,
Your wife died this morning. Please send money for funeral expenses and my account enclosed and oblige
Yours truly
Agnes Smith.”
“That was what you wrote?”
She said “Yes,” and gave him back the sheet with a look which dismissed him to the other side of the room again.
“Mrs Syme, did you ever hear from the husband?”
“No.”
“Then your account wasn’t paid?”
“Her sister paid it.”
“Whose sister?”
“Mrs Macintyre’s sister.”
“Mrs Syme, Mrs Macintyre had no sister.”
“She said she was her sister. It was no business of mine. She settled my account.”
“Yes,” said Miles—“and I want to know why. She settled your account, and she paid for the funeral, and she took away the baby, didn’t she? And I want to know why.”
Mrs Syme said nothing. She had said that it was not her business. Now, without a word, she conveyed to Miles that it was not his business either. He reacted vigorously.
“I haven’t explained why I’m asking you these questions, but I’m going to. Mrs Macintyre’s husband is dead. I am his brother’s secretary, and he has sent me over here to try and find his niece—the baby who was born in your house. We don’t know anything at all about the person who called herself Mrs Macintyre’s sister, and we don’t know what happened to the baby after she took it away. We want to find out.”
“It was no business of mine,” said Mrs Syme.
Miles lost his temper a little.
“It might be,” he said. “Mrs Macintyre had some very valuable jewellery.”
“And what there was her sister took away, and I can’t be held responsible,” said Mrs Syme, and shut her mouth tight.
All the same he had made her speak. He went on quickly.
“Had Mrs Macintyre ever spoken of this sister?”
Her eyes rested on him for a cold second.
“She wasn’t one for gossip, and no more am I.”
“Nice and matey, aren’t you, darling?” said Miles to himself. Then aloud, “Meaning she didn’t mention any sister?”
That went by default.
It would have given him the greatest pleasure to throw one of the sham Italian bronzes at her. He wrenched himself away from the idea and ploughed on.
“Can you tell me what this ‘sister’ was like?”
“I can’t say that I can.”
“Tall? Short? Dark? Fair?”
“Not so that you’d notice,” said Mrs Syme.
“What was her name?”
“I don’t call it to mind.”
“Won’t you try?”
She sat there. It was quite evident that she hadn’t the least intention of trying. Her face was exactly like a flat, well floured scone. Miles had never disliked anyone more.
“Mrs Syme, can’t you tell me anything?” he said.
“It’s twenty years ago,” she said with a flat finality, and with that she got to her feet and opened
the dining-room door. “I’ve a pie in the oven spoiling, so I’ll wish you good morning, Mr Clayton.”
Miles got up too. There was a pause while he put away his letter-case and collected his hat, and as he did these things he was thinking, “Why is she like this? Why won’t she talk? Why is she in such a hurry to get rid of me? Is it just plain natural disagreeableness, or is there a nigger in the wood-pile?” He cast back in his mind, and thought he had pricked her twice—once over the jewellery and once when he mentioned Flossie. He didn’t want to stress the jewellery, because he hadn’t a leg to stand on there, and she knew it. But why had the mention of Flossie produced that I-could-sniff-if-I-would atmosphere? Why should, she sniff at Flossie? He thought he would see if he could prick her again.
“Well,” he said, “I am sorry to have taken up your time. Your niece Miss Flossie Palmer thought you might be able to help me. Have you seen her lately? She’s your sister’s daughter, isn’t she?”
Mrs Syme’s cold anger got the better of her. She opened her mouth and said what she had never intended to say. She said, “No, she isn’t!” and shut her mouth again, but too late, because the words were out.
Miles felt a little tingling shock of surprise.
“I thought Florence Palmer was your sister.”
Mrs Syme stood silent.
“Isn’t Flossie her daughter?”
“No, she isn’t! And what business it is of yours, I don’t know, Mr Clayton!”
The wildest suspicion flashed into Miles’ mind. Suppose the story of this supposititious sister of Mrs Macintyre’s was an invention. Suppose Mrs Syme and Florence Palmer had themselves disposed of the jewels and the baby. But no, if Mrs Syme had any criminal knowledge she wouldn’t have let out that Flossie was not her sister’s child. He judged it a commonplace piece of spite and no more. But he meant to find out all he could.
“If Flossie wasn’t your sister’s child, who was she?”
“Adopted,” said Mrs Syme, and held the door a little wider. “And I’ll say good morning, Mr Clayton. This way, if you please.”
He got no more out of her than that. What a woman! And she had had two husbands. Over beef and bread and cheese at “The George,” Miles wondered at his sex. Imagine swearing to love, honour and obey Mrs Syme! No, it was the other way round, but he was prepared to bet his boots that that was the size of it. He drank confusion to all scone-faced women with auburn fronts, and proceeded to try and get Flossie on the telephone. It was rather a ticklish business and almost certainly one of the things that isn’t done. He didn’t know quite what he was going to say if Lila Gilmore answered the telephone, but on the other hand he did want “Aunt’s” address, and with any luck he might get Flossie herself straight away.
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