The Lodger

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Guesses.’

  ‘But we might not be wrong in suspecting the man might be someone’s lodger, one who could have admitted Miss Shipman without his landlady twigging. In any event, the number one suspect has got to be the man she was with on Friday night.’

  The Inspector’s bushy brows drew together. ‘Hold up,’ he said, ‘that’s not a fact. She might just as easy been jumped on by a stranger.’

  ‘I’m offering it as a reasonable conclusion,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Up in the air, sergeant, up in the air. But let’s see. You’re saying that after she spent the evening with him, the bugger was so ’ighly appreciative that he followed her and strangled her? Then pinched her handbag?’

  ‘Sounds fairly reasonable to me, inspector,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘I’m not against it.’ Inspector Greaves pondered again. ‘Listen, my lad, if that theory’s got something to it, then there’s a notebook that wants findin’.’

  ‘That’s right on the button,’ said Nicholas, ‘a notebook containing the names and addresses of certain men.’

  ‘Penny’s dropped, has it? It could mean she was on the game definite. Get busy, I’ve got to see the Assistant Commissioner myself.’

  Nicholas took Chapman with him. They gave Mrs Barker time to get home from the morgue before knocking on her door. She let them in and allowed them to make a thorough search of the murdered woman’s room, the woman she had identified at the morgue. They turned the room inside-out, although Nicholas didn’t think she would have kept the notebook hidden. She was far more likely to have carried it in her handbag. All the same, he and Chapman searched every possible place, including coat and jacket pockets. Her clothes, he noticed, were of very good quality. The exercise was fruitless. There was no notebook, nor letters of any kind. Perhaps there wasn’t a notebook, perhaps everything was in her head, or perhaps he and the Inspector had reached the wrong conclusions. If they hadn’t, he felt her handbag was the natural repository. And it led to another reasonable conclusion.

  ‘Frank,’ he said, ‘if we’re right, if she was with a client on Friday evening, a peculiar type of man, he’d have had all the time he wanted to think about how much of a sick thrill it would be to strangle her and cut off a lock of her hair as a souvenir.’

  ‘Ruddy sick,’ said Chapman.

  ‘And suppose he knew, or found out, that she had a notebook containing names and addresses, his among them?’

  ‘NBG,’ said Chapman. ‘He’d’ve had it off her before she left.’

  ‘Wake up, muttonhead,’ said Nicholas. ‘A lodger, or a married man, with ideas of murdering her, would have let her leave, then get after her. Right, he catches her up, whips a cord around her neck from behind, strangles her in quick time, cuts off a lock of her hair in a sick frenzy and makes off with that plus her handbag. He wastes no time seaching for the notebook, he does the obvious, he pinches her handbag. How’s that?’

  ‘Sounds all right,’ said Chapman.

  ‘Don’t fall over yourself, will you?’

  ‘What you after, then? Certificate?’

  ‘With your amount of chat, you’re wasted in the force,’ said Nicholas. ‘Get yourself into a debating society. But not yet. First, let’s take ourselves to Heygate Street and find out if Miss Shipman’s friend, Linda Jennings, is at home.’

  She was. A lively young woman in her mid-twenties, and attractively plump, Linda Jennings at this particular moment in her life was a grieving human being, her natural bubbliness very subdued. She’d only realized this morning that it was her best friend who’d been murdered, she said.

  ‘I’m not swallowing that,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘But I tell yer – ’ Linda bit her lip. Her eyes looked swollen. ‘Oh, all right, I knew it was ’er soon as I read all about it in Saturday’s Evening News.’

  ‘Oh, you did, did yer?’ said Chapman.

  ‘Why didn’t you come forward?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘What good could I ’ave been to ’er then? She was dead, done in, poor girl. Let ’er rest in peace nameless, I thought. She wouldn’t ’ave minded, she wouldn’t ’ave wanted questions asked about ’er, and nor did I want to answer ’em. All the same, I been thinkin’ about the swine that done it an’ maybe gettin’ away with it. That’s been makin’ me burn, I can tell yer. I’m only glad you told me Mrs Barker identified ’er. It would’ve cut me to bits meself, seein’ her dead an’ murdered.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’re not married, Miss Jennings?’

  She was not married. She had two rooms in this house, and she worked for a bookie. She picked up the bets for him from punters on street corners. Chapman said she could get run in for that.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that to me now, would you?’ she said.

  ‘Watch yourself,’ said Chapman. ‘Someone might.’

  ‘Why are you living in lodgings?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Because me fam’ly ’ome’s in the East End,’ said Linda, ‘and it ’appens to suit me better livin’ in Walworth. Me fam’ly wouldn’t be partial to me bein’ a bookie’s runner, not seein’ I’m female.’

  ‘I think you’re telling me fairy stories,’ said Nicholas, but quite gently.

  ‘Me?’ Linda looked very upset. ‘I been cryin’ me eyes out all weekend. Oh, that bleeder, doin’ Mabel in like that, when she never did no ’arm to anyone ’erself. If yer don’t catch ’im and ’ang ’im, I’ll go sick to me own grave when me time comes. I feel I wouldn’t care if it was now. Mabel was a lovely girl, but lost ’er parents one after the other when she was twenty, and then ’er fiance as well, when ’e fell off some high scaffolding up Brixton way. She ’ad to make ’er own way then. An’ look what life’s done to ’er now.’

  Nicholas’s mouth tightened, and he felt the unprofessional rise of white-hot anger at the man who had murdered Mabel Shipman. If she’d gone on the game out of bitterness, that was regrettable but her own business. It did not give any man the right to murder her.

  ‘Life doesn’t give some people much of a chance, Miss Jennings,’ he said, and Linda gave him a long look.

  ‘You got feelings, mister?’ she said. ‘I never ’eard coppers got as much as ord’n’ry people.’

  ‘Coppers get hardened by people who aren’t ordinary,’ said Nicholas. ‘Tell me about Miss Shipman’s men friends.’

  Linda stiffened and she cast agitated glances around her little living-room. Nicholas thought it cosy and homely. She obviously made what she could of it, and there were several quite pretty ornaments. It was sadly clear, of course, why she lived away from her family in the East End.

  ‘What men friends?’ she asked.

  ‘Now come on,’ said Chapman.

  ‘I don’t know about any men friends, I just know I was ’er best friend.’

  ‘Then you probably know how she made her living,’ said Nicholas. ‘She had no regular job, so how did she make do?’ There was a smile of encouragement on his face, a smile that was welcome to Linda.

  ‘Well, she did bits of work.’

  ‘What sort?’ asked Chapman.

  ‘What a question,’ she said. ‘I mean, I don’t know ’ow you can ask questions like that when there’s a bloke out there who done ’er in and ain’t been caught yet.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Nicholas, ‘but don’t you see, Miss Jennings, if we don’t ask questions, or if people won’t answer them, we’ll never catch him. I’ve an idea you could be a great help, and I promise we’ll do what we can to keep everything confidential except that which might relate directly to the one man concerned.’

  ‘What d’yer mean, everything?’ asked Linda nervously.

  ‘Well, to start with, we’ll forget you said you’re a bookie’s runner. We’ll put you down as assistant to a course bookie. Then there’s the question of exactly how Miss Shipman kept body and soul together, paid her rent promptly and bought very good clothes. I’m afraid bits of work won’t add up.’

  ‘I don�
�t see why,’ said Linda defensively.

  ‘And then there was her notebook,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Oh, gawd ’elp ’er soul, poor love,’ breathed Linda.

  ‘It’s really all there, you know,’ said Nicholas, ‘why she could pay the rent promptly, why she could buy good clothes, and why she was out late most evenings.’

  ‘Oh, yer bugger,’ said Linda, mentally pain-racked. ‘I forgot about ’er notebook.’

  Chapman’s mouth twitched. His sergeant had pulled a fast one and got away with it.

  ‘The point is,’ said Nicholas, ‘the man responsible may be in that notebook. You might be able to lead us to him. For instance, did you know where she was going on Friday evening, and if she had a certain man in mind?’

  Linda wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself as if she was cold. ‘No, honest, Mabel never told me anytime where she was goin’, an’ she never mentioned names, either. We . . . she met gentlemen in theatre bars mostly, she always knew how to get into a theatre bar at the interval, without ’aving a ticket for the show. Well, yer can do it easy when yer know ’ow, and if yer dressed nice. She always dressed to look like a real lady. Quiet clothes, like, not loud an’ flashy. Some gentlemen would start talkin’ to us – I mean Mabel – ’ Linda faltered. She hadn’t expected the police. She was unprepared, and her normally facile tongue was letting her down. She was a shocked and wounded young woman grieving for another young woman, her best friend, whose name she wanted to protect but couldn’t now, because of the notebook.

  Nicholas felt for her. Chapman spoke.

  ‘We know,’ he said.

  ‘What d’yer know?’ she asked.

  ‘We know what you mean.’ Chapman was not unkind.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Linda resignedly, ‘I did go with ’er. Sometimes. The gentlemen we’d met in the bar would meet us when they come out of the theatre an’ take us to supper. Mabel could act so posh, really put on the style.’ Linda’s mouth quivered. Chapman was taking notes, licking the point of his pencil. Nicholas made a gesture, which Chapman correctly interpreted as a suggestion not to be too hard on this young woman. ‘She wouldn’t ever bring any of ’em back to ’er lodgings, she said that would muck up the ideas her gents ’ad that she was genuine posh. She said it was more excitin’ to them to think she wasn’t ord’n’ry or common. She’d make an appointment to visit them somewhere of an evenin’. Listen, I did say I was only with ’er sometimes, to keep ’er company, like. Only he’s writin’ things down.’

  ‘Linda,’ said Nicholas, ‘we want the man responsible, we don’t want you.’

  ‘Well, I did go an’ meet one or two of the gentlemen meself, but – ’ Linda floundered to a stop.

  ‘Don’t put that down, Frank,’ said Nicholas, ‘she’s not herself, she’s forgettin’ she just works for a bookie.’

  Linda cast him a look of gratitude.

  ‘Could yer keep it like that?’ she begged. ‘Only me mum an’ dad – oh, gawd, if you catch the rotten sod would I ’ave to go to court? I’d get me name in the papers.’

  ‘Only as Miss Shipman’s friend,’ said Nicholas. ‘We don’t want to know about any gents you might have brought back here, you only need tell us about Miss Shipman and her acquaintances. You’d have to tell the court from the witness box, Linda, so stick to what you’ll say then. You talked a lot with her when you were with her some Sundays, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Good. I’m hoping you can remember if she said anything about a man who didn’t live too far away from her, a man she might have met in the West End but who wasn’t her usual kind of gentleman.’

  ‘She just talked about all of them in a jokin’ way,’ said Linda.

  ‘What about the times you were with her and had supper with her and the gentlemen you’d met?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘They was just faces,’ said Linda. ‘No-one asked for names. Well, Mabel always said she was Clarice, and I’d say I was Bubbles. Mabel said that suited me. She’d always speak private to the gents that fancied ’er. I know she ’ad fun with ’em when she – well, you know. She’d got fed up with life chuckin’ bricks at ’er, she said she was goin’ to ’ave a short life and a merry one. Oh, the poor girl, it was short, wasn’t it? But she was savin’ up, all the same, for ’er old age, she ’ad money in the Post Office.’

  ‘Didn’t see one,’ said Chapman.

  ‘One what?’

  ‘Post Office Savings book. Not in her room.’

  ‘No, well, I got it,’ said Linda.

  ‘Why?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Because she asked me to keep it for ’er, she didn’t mind me knowin’ about ’er savings, an’ she trusted me. She didn’t want to lose it or get it pinched, she knew too much about ’ard luck.’

  ‘We’ll have to have it, I’m afraid,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘I suppose so. Only there was another reason why she give it to me to mind for ’er. She said . . .’ Linda was weteyed, ‘she said if anything ’appened to ’er, it was mine, that if I ’ad it here I wouldn’t ’ave to fight no solicitor for it. There’s a note in it, yer see. It says that, it says if anything mortal ’appens to ’er, the savings is mine. I didn’t want ’er to do that, I said it might be unlucky – and it was. Oh, that poor love, real ’ard luck was always just be’ind ’er, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You’ll get the book back if that piece of paper is signed and dated,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Well, it is,’ said Linda, ‘but I’d rather ’ave her walkin’ in through that door than that book.’

  ‘Listen, Linda,’ said Nicholas, ‘when she talked about her friends, her gentlemen friends, in a joking way, what sort of things did she say?’

  ‘Oh, yer keepin’ on at me, ain’t yer?’ said Linda. ‘Look, I can’t remember ’er sayin’ anything about where any of ’em lived, if that’s what yer after, only I do know she ’ad the notebook. Well, you’ve got it now, you’ve got all the names in it, an’ the addresses too. So you can call on all of ’em till you get to the bleeder who done it.’

  ‘Yes, but you could still cut the field down a bit, there could be a pointer in some of the things she said.’

  ‘Oh, she said things like there was one that liked ’er to dress up as a French maid, she said that was real fun. An’ she said one of ’em always ’ad a new black corset and black silk stockings ready for ’er to wear, she said ’e was a lovely man, ever so saucy but ever so kind. I remember she talked about another one who liked to sit an’ watch ’er dress an’ undress. Oh, and another one that told ’er she’d got lovely hair an’ liked ’er to undo it and let it ’ang down ’er front – well, over her – well, ’er bare bosom. We’d both be laughin’ all the time about – ’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Nicholas. ‘Think about the man who liked her hair, Linda, and exactly what she said about him. Didn’t you read that the murderer cut off a strand?’

  ‘Oh, ’oly Jesus, so ’e did,’ gasped Linda, turning pale. ‘I didn’t think about it, I just thought ’e ought to ’ave ’is hands cut off before you ’anged ’im. And Mabel only said what I just told yer, that was all.’

  ‘That he said her hair was lovely and liked her to undo it to cover her bosom?’

  ‘I can’t remember she said anything else, not anything special. I wish there was something. She’d just go from one gent to another, quick like, but I think she was careful about not givin’ any of ’em away, even to me.’

  ‘Protective, was she?’ asked Chapman.

  ‘What of?’

  ‘Her bread and butter?’ said Chapman.

  ‘That ain’t a nice thing to say,’ said Linda.

  ‘It wasn’t meant in that way,’ said Nicholas. ‘Linda, you’ve been a tremendous help, you’ve given us our best lead yet.’ He gave her a smile. She was in need of a belief, a belief that life wasn’t wholly rotten. He could imagine how tough it had been for her, growing up in the teeming streets of the East End, with its smoking chimneys, its fac
tories and its sweatshops. She was on the game, he didn’t doubt, but not as a street-walker. She had copied her best friend, Mabel Shipman, and opted for discretion. Perhaps she had a notebook too. And she probably had a heart of gold. ‘Many thanks for all your help, Linda, you’re a peach of a girl.’

  ‘No, I ain’t,’ said Linda sadly, ‘you know I ain’t, only if you could keep it from me mum an’ dad?’

  ‘We’ll do our very best,’ said Nicholas, ‘there’s more to life than respectability. Now, can you let me have that Post Office Savings book?’

  She went to her bedroom and returned with the book. Nicholas checked it. There were regular deposits and only one withdrawal, not long after Miss Shipman had opened the account, two years ago. Currently, it was in credit to the amount of two hundred and nine pounds. The written bequest, on a small sheet of writing paper, was inside the book. It was well put together and quite clear, and it was signed and dated. In the event of her death, her savings were to pass to her friend, Miss Linda Jennings of Heygate Street, Walworth.

  ‘I’d sooner ’ave Mabel than ’er savings,’ said Linda, ‘she was a lovely friend, honest she was.’

  ‘It’s a rough world,’ said Nicholas. ‘Meanwhile, we’ll need to see you again. Good luck.’

  ‘Good luck?’ Linda was bitter. ‘You bein’ funny?’

  ‘No, Linda, I’m not. So long for the moment.’

  Leaving the house, Chapman said, ‘Poor tart.’

  ‘I’d like it if we could go easy on her,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Mister?’

  They turned. Linda was at the open door. Nicholas retraced his steps.

  ‘There’s something else?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s important, but it’s just come to me,’ she said. ‘You think you can’t remember, then you do. It’s about ’er hair. It looked like real gold sometimes, yer know. Well, ’e told ’er that women with hair that colour was like afternoon glory.’

  ‘Afternoon glory? Not morning glory?’

  ‘’E said afternoon. Mabel an’ me laughed about it. ’E said it was like ’aving the afternoon sun in ’is eyes. I don’t know why I didn’t remember it till now. Is it any ’elp, any more ’elp, I mean?’