The Lodger

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘You wouldn’t do that on my account, would you?’ she asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t do what?’ asked Harry cautiously.

  ‘Kick ’is backside for me,’ said Maggie forthrightly.

  ‘Against the regulations,’ said Harry solemnly. He had dark brown hair the same colour as Trary’s, she noticed. ‘Well, thanks very much, Mrs Wilson, sorry I’ve had to bother you.’

  ‘It’s not been a bother,’ said Maggie. ‘You’ve been kind, specially in not saying anything in front of the younger girls. Little girls get nightmares all too easy.’

  ‘I hope yours don’t,’ he said.

  Maggie sighed. Born in Peckham, she was in service to a family in Norbury from the age of fourteen. At eighteen, she met Joe Wilson, who worked for the railways and lived in Walworth. Joe was a laughing man, a joke a minute. At nineteen, she married him, and they set up home here in Charleston Street. Two months later, her parents and her sister emigrated to Australia, selling everything they owned to sail all the way Down-Under in the hope of prospering. Maggie stayed to enjoy married life with Joe. Trary was born in 1894, Meg in 1897, Lily in 1899 and Daisy in late 1900. Joe hadn’t minded a bit that they were all girls, he spoiled them as much as he could on his limited wages. But five years ago a shunting accident had cost him his life. The railways paid her a pension as his widow, but it wasn’t very much. She had to struggle. She got temporary jobs now and again, and a year ago the local laundry took her on for four hours a day. She also took a lodger, four months ago. That was the one who was oily and disgusting, a fat drunk who thought he was God’s gift to a widow. He got behind with his rent of five bob a week, he got weeks behind with it. To make matters worse, the laundry said there wasn’t enough work for her and laid her off, six weeks ago. She tried all she could to get some back rent out of the lodger, and he said he’d pay her all of ten bob if she’d be nice to him. She got rid of him, although she was badly in debt, specially with Mr Monks, who’d loaned her a few pounds. She owed him more every week, it seemed, and she was behind with the rent. The girls were having to go short on food and decent clothes, and the workhouse was beginning to stare her in the face. She meant to fight that with every fibre of her being. The one relative she wouldn’t have been too proud to turn to for help was Uncle Henry, a favourite of hers, but he was in South Africa. And down there in Australia, her mum and dad and sister weren’t any better off yet than they’d been in England.

  She came to. The policeman was saying something about her girls being little angels. She noted how stalwart he was and not unlike Joe in his looks. Without any man of her own, her future prospects made her silently wince. Somehow, she had to get a new lodger, and a decent one this time.

  ‘Angels still need feedin’, you know,’ she said, and Harry felt her tired little smile covered a multitude of worries. He knew he ought to go on his way, but he still lingered.

  ‘Look, I know it’s none of my business,’ he said, ‘but have you got yourself into a bad fix with that moneylender?’

  ‘Some moneylender,’ said Maggie, ‘chronic bloodsucker more like.’

  ‘And you’ve not got much comin’ in?’ Harry remembered the years when his parents had had to struggle.

  ‘I’ve got a small pension from the railways,’ said Maggie, ‘and I did have a bit of a job round at the laundry, but they laid me off six weeks ago. I need another job and a decent lodger. But I don’t want to burden you with me worries, everyone’s got their share, and I manage to get parish relief now and again.’

  ‘Well, I wish you luck,’ said Harry. ‘Thanks for the tea and for being so helpful.’

  ‘Me? What’ve I done?’

  ‘Answered my questions. Goodbye, Mrs Wilson.’

  Going through the passage with him to see him out, Maggie asked, ‘Were you really a little ’orror as a boy?’

  ‘Perishin’ little ‘andful I was, missus,’ said Harry, mimicking himself as a boy. ‘’Orrible ’eadache to me suffering mum.’ Reaching the front door, he put his helmet on. The parlour door opened and three faces appeared. ‘So long, girls,’ he said.

  ‘’As he been nice to yer, Mum?’ asked Meg.

  ‘Of course he has,’ said Maggie.

  Impulsively, Harry dug a hand into his pocket and drew out three pennies. He gave the girls one each. They looked up at him in astonished bliss.

  ‘Oh, yer swell, mister,’ said Meg.

  Trary appeared, and Harry felt that if trees could grow in Brooklyn, the reputed wasteland of New York, flowers could certainly blossom in Walworth, the smoky heartland of cockney South London.

  ‘Trary, ’e’s give us a penny each,’ said Daisy excitedly.

  Trary gave the tall policeman another long look. She liked him even more. He’d be just right for her mum.

  ‘You’re not too old for one?’ said Harry, well aware his sergeant would give his ears a rollicking if he knew how much time he’d spent at this one house. He found another penny. Trary accepted it without any awkwardness, her smile flowering.

  ‘Oh, how graciously kind, thank you,’ she said, and Maggie smiled. Her eldest daughter had already developed her own kind of words.

  ‘So long now,’ said Harry. ‘So long, Mrs Wilson, many thanks.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, it’s been a pleasure,’ said Maggie, and closed the door.

  ‘Mum, what a lovely man,’ said Trary.

  ‘He’s kind,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Mum, we’re goin’ out now to spend what ’e give us,’ said Lily.

  ‘That you’re not,’ said Maggie, ‘not till you’ve all ’ad your hair combed. I’ve got time now.’

  ‘Oh, blow,’ said Meg.

  ‘Never mind oh blow,’ said Maggie, ‘and what that kind policeman thought of the three of you all lookin’ like mops that’s been out in the wind, I daren’t hardly think. Oh, I didn’t get ’is name, did any of you?’

  ‘I’ll run and ask him,’ said Trary. Her real name was Mary, but her dad had called her Contrary. Contrary quickly became Trary, and Trary had stuck. Even her teachers called her that.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ said Maggie. She knew what was instinctive with Trary. The girl still missed her dad, and was always looking for a father figure.

  ‘But, Mum, he liked you.’

  ‘He didn’t say so.’

  ‘Well, no, he wouldn’t, would he? Not when he’s only just had the pleasure of meetin’ you. But I think you could see he liked you.’ Trary longed for her hard-up mum to meet a really nice man, a man who would take her worries off her, worries she’d never had when their dad was alive. She thought the policeman was just right. Of course, he might be married, the nicest men always were. Oh, what a gloom and doom thought, that he already had a wife. She’d have to find out. He looked a real man compared to that lodger. Trary had hated him. He’d actually tried to pull her clothes up once, when her mum was out. She’d given him such a kick that it brought tears to his eyes. ‘Mum, I’ll do the kids’ hair,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Who’s a kid? I’m not,’ said Meg. ‘That’s Daisy.’

  ‘No, it ain’t,’ protested Daisy. ‘I’m a little girl, I am, and nice too.’

  ‘Well, all of you be nice and let Trary tidy your mops,’ said Maggie, ‘while I see about doin’ some toasted cheese on toasted bread for your dinner.’ She gritted her teeth that it could only be cheese on toast. They all needed some really good meals. The girls were getting thin. She’d simply got to find a job. And a new lodger. She’d put a card in the newsagent’s window yesterday, saying she had a room to let, but no-one had applied yet. The thought of the workhouse loomed again. She shuddered. Then she set her mouth firmly. No, she’d never give in, never. She’d see on Monday what she could get out of parish relief. Perhaps a couple of loaves, some marge, a tin of syrup and some sugar. She’d never let her girls starve, never. She’d put her soul in pawn first.

  In pawn, it would be redeemable.

  CHA
PTER THREE

  Harry, back at the police station in Rodney Road, submitted his notes on the streets he had covered so far. He had no leads to offer. There had been lodgers at some addresses, but they’d all been put in the clear by their landladies. And husbands or sons who might have fitted the bill had all been at home at eleven o’clock last night, according to wives and mothers. However, Harry did make a special mention of a certain Wally Hooper, the lodger of a Mrs Maggie Wilson of fourteen Charleston Street up to two days ago, when she’d thrown him out because he hadn’t paid his rent for weeks and because he’d made unpleasant advances.

  ‘That makes him a suspect, does it?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘It makes him a bit of no good, sarge,’ said Harry. ‘Nasty little fat man.’

  ‘Scotland Yard don’t happen to be lookin’ for any little fat man.’

  ‘Didn’t like the sound of him myself,’ said Harry. ‘And you never know, on a dark rainy night, a little fat man in a mackintosh might look twice as big to a scared witness.’

  ‘Now don’t come clever with me, Harry, I’m gettin’ all I want of that from the CID. Still, all right, I’ll pass the word. Wally Hooper? All right, we don’t want the Yard remindin’ us it’s our duty not to overlook anything, not even little fat men.’

  ‘With hot fat hands,’ said Harry.

  He snatched a quick meal at the station, then returned to the job of knocking on doors. He first went back to houses where occupants had been out during the morning. It took him to Charleston Street again, to number four. A Mrs Buller answered his knock. She informed him she’d been out till half-past twelve, that her husband had been at work and that he’d been at home all Friday evening. No, she didn’t have any lodger.

  ‘Thanks, sorry to have bothered you,’ said Harry.

  ‘Wait a tick, I did ’ave someone call about half-hour ago, askin’ if I had a room to let, which I don’t. But it so ’appens a friend of mine’s in the way of wanting a lodger. I told ’im to go and see her. Mrs Carter, fifteen King and Queen Street.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Harry. A man looking for lodgings. The CID would want to know about him. A man looking for lodgings might be a man who’d decided it would be safer to leave existing lodgings. ‘Could I have a description, Mrs Buller?’

  ‘Tall, he was, dressed nice and ’ealthy-lookin’. Grey suit and boater. About thirty, I’d say. Why, what’s ’e done?’

  ‘We’re just makin’ enquiries, Mrs Buller.’

  ‘Here, I’ve just thought, you said – oh, gawd ’elp us, it’s about the murder last night, isn’t it?’ Mrs Buller turned faint. ‘It wasn’t ’im, was it? Oh, when I think, me standin’ here talkin’ to ’im and near to bein’ done in on me own doorstep, it’s givin’ me the ’orrors, and I never had the ’orrors in all me previous life. I don’t know what things are comin’ to when – oh, I just thought some more, what about me friend Mrs Carter? Lord ’elp us, she might be lyin’ stricken dead and chopped up, and her a poor young widow all these years, after them Boers killed her husband in the war.’ Mrs Buller paled with agitation, while Harry thought there had to be something better to his day than troubled widows. ‘You’ve got to go round to her ’ouse straight away. Oh, when I think it was me that told the murderer to go and call on her about lodgings.’

  ‘Don’t give yourself those kind of worries, Mrs Buller,’ said Harry soothingly. ‘I’ll check.’

  ‘You better ’ad, and quick,’ said Mrs Buller. ‘I’m ’ardly able to stand upright, it’ll be the death of me if Mrs Carter’s been done for.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m on my way,’ said Harry.

  He made for King and Queen Street, going up through Turquand Street. A woman in a huge hat, short coat and voluminous skirts, noted his quick stride and spoke to him as he passed.

  ‘Goin’ after the bleeder, are yer, constable? Well, give ’im one in the eye for me before you ’ang ’im.’

  That was the way of it when a woman was murdered, a steaming need to see the murderer swing.

  Crossing Browning Street, Harry saw Detective-Sergeant Chamberlain from Scotland Yard talking to his colleague, Detective-Constable Chapman. He spoke to them. Nicholas listened with interest to the information given by Mrs Buller. There had been no real leads so far, no member of the uniformed branch had come up with anything promising. But a tall, healthy-looking man in search of lodgings? Nicholas’s reaction to that was the same as Harry’s had been.

  ‘Right, constable, thanks.’

  ‘Leave it to you, then?’ said Harry, who liked Sergeant Chamberlain.

  ‘I’ll see to it. Fifteen King and Queen Street? We’re on top of it. Right.’ Nicholas spoke to Chapman. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  Mrs Emma Carter, answering a knock on the door of her little flat-fronted house in King and Queen Street, gazed in surprise at the two men in plain clothes. One was tall and homely, with a mouth that looked ready to break into a smile, and the other, shorter, was as lean as a whippet, with a businesslike air. The tall one spoke.

  ‘Mrs Carter?’

  ‘Yes?’ said Emma.

  Nicholas experienced unusual relief in finding that this neatly-dressed, pleasant-looking woman was visibly unhurt and intact, even though he had not really expected a possible suspect to walk here from Charleston Street with murder on his mind. A second killing so soon after the first was very unlikely. It was never like that, particularly with homicidal maniacs. There was always a more deliberate pattern. All the same, the fact that the unusual had remained the unusual, did give him a feeling of relief. Mrs Carter was quietly attractive and feminine, the kind of woman the most hardened policeman would hate to find violently murdered.

  ‘I’m Detective-Sergeant Chamberlain, Mrs Carter, and my colleague is Detective-Constable Chapman. We’re from Scotland Yard.’

  Emma, twenty-eight years old, said in a composed way, ‘And you’ve come to see me? What about?’

  ‘It concerns a certain man who may have called on you earlier today,’ said Nicholas, and made a mental note that her braided hair was as fair as that of the murdered woman.

  ‘A certain man?’ Emma regarded him with curiosity. ‘Perhaps you’d better come in,’ she said, ‘or the whole street will be gawping.’

  Saturday afternoon street kids, coming from the market or going towards it, had stopped to stare and nudge each other. Walworth kids could always recognize strangers, and two strangers at a woman’s door made them very nosy. The Scotland Yard men stepped in, removing their hats, and found themselves in the living-room. The front doors of all these little flat-fronted houses opened straight onto living-rooms. Emma’s was a reflection of her neat and pleasant look, although a bright note was struck by colourful chintzes. Married at eighteen to a long-legged soldier of a cavalry regiment, she was widowed at twenty when he fell to sharp-shooting Boer irregulars. Since then she had existed on a war widow’s pension, augmented during the last few years by a morning job behind the counter of a department in Hurlocks, the drapers near the Elephant and Castle.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Is it going to be a bother, sergeant?’ she asked, closing the door.

  ‘Not too much, I hope,’ said Nicholas, while Chapman glanced around in instinctive professional observation of the room. ‘Mrs Carter, do you know a Mrs Buller of Charleston Street?’

  ‘Yes, I know her.’

  ‘We understand that a man called on her today to ask if she had a room to let. She told him no, but recommended him to call on you. Do you have a room to let, Mrs Carter?’

  My, what a very polite policeman, thought Emma.

  ‘Oh, that,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Actually, I don’t. I did mention to Mrs Buller recently that I thought my morning job at Hurlocks might be coming to an end, and that if it did I’d have to think about taking a lodger. So many people in Walworth do. But it was really said as a joke. I’m not the kind of person to welcome a lodger, especially not in a house as small as this. I’d always prefer
to scrape along on my own. I’ve been widowed much longer than married. I lost my husband in the Boer War.’

  ‘That was damn bad luck,’ said Nicholas. ‘It always is for a woman, it leaves her very vulnerable.’

  ‘I’ve managed to manage,’ said Emma.

  ‘So it seems,’ said Nicholas, thinking the atmosphere quietly charming and very different from that of noisy cockney homes. ‘Could you tell me if the man recommended by Mrs Buller did call on you?’

  ‘He hasn’t called this afternoon. He may have done before I arrived home from my morning job at Hurlocks, the drapers. I finish at one o’clock. I did some shopping on my way home today and didn’t get in until two. So I suppose the enquiring gentleman could have called while I was out. He lost nothing by not finding me at home, as I couldn’t have helped him. Why are you asking questions about him?’

  ‘Oh, it’s part of the routine process of an investigation,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘He’s a suspect?’ said Emma, looking interested. The matter had created agitation in Mrs Buller. Emma took it very coolly. ‘I think I understand now. That poor woman last night.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, and found himself thinking about fair hair and the fact that the victim had had a strand sawn off. There was a bizarre note to that. A plain murder was always bad enough, a bizarre factor added uneasiness to one’s sense of outrage. One could become uneasy about Mrs Carter’s brightly fair hair. The man looking for lodgings, how would he have reacted to the colour of her hair? Nicholas dismissed the thought. He was being absurd. ‘Have I alarmed you, Mrs Carter?’ Nicholas did not know it, of course, but Constable Harry Bradshaw had done his best not to alarm another widow in the area.

  Emma, no more the kind of woman to reach for smelling-salts than Maggie, said, ‘Alarmed? Should I be?’

  Nicholas could have said he’d had thoughts about her fair hair and the man looking for lodgings. But he knew he might just as well worry about every woman in Southwark with fair hair.