Warrant for X

by Philip MacDonald

  He passed Anthony and ran down the steps with a quick pattering. Behind him the door started to close and then, with a jerk, opened widely to show a portly manservant whose impeccable mask regarded Anthony with the prescribed blend of doubt, deference and inquiry.

  “Lady Ballister,” said Anthony. “She expects me. Mr Gethryn.”

  The man stood aside. “If you would come in, sir. . . .”

  In a spacious but cheerless hall Anthony removed his hat. It was taken from him with a correct murmuring and he followed the portly back down the length of the hallway and into a library.

  “If you would wait here, sir, I will inform her ladyship. . . .” The door shut discreetly and Anthony was alone.

  He likes strange rooms. They interest him; and this room was no exception to rule. Very much a library. A few pieces of gleaming silver. Many hundreds of books, probably unread and certainly uninteresting. A businesslike writing desk of an ugliness quite supreme. Leather chairs whose invitation was in inverse ratio to their apparent size and comfort. A small fire glowing redly in an ugly grate. A pair of curtained french windows behind which could be sensed the usual grey Kensingtonian garden. A steel engraving of moorland and cattle; a surprisingly good water colour of a brigantine before the wind; a stiff, awkward bazaar scene in oils; a Sergeantesque portrait of a woman whose original might have been beautiful; a very bad hunting scene. On the writing table a large photograph, in a silver frame, of a woman who might be the original of the portrait. On the mantel, between two pieces of Benares brass work, a photograph of three children—a lanky, bespectacled boy awkwardly posed between two round-faced and younger girls . . .

  The door opened and there came towards Anthony the original of the portrait and the photograph. She was tall and moved well, though with a certain suppression of grace. “All my people are service people/’ thought Anthony and moved forward to meet her, manoeuvring so that the light from the curtained french windows fell upon her face. It was a good face; better by far than that which artist or camera had shown him. He put her down, with an eye aided by memory of the Who’s Who entry, as in her early forties. There was no trace of grey in the dark hair but there were deep lines from the corners of the nostrils to the mouth. She was very pale, with a sort of luminous greyish pallor possibly natural but possibly impermanent and recently caused.

  She said in a voice so low that it gave the impression of determination to subdue unsteadiness:

  “Colonel Gethryn? I—I had a message from Edith Caris- brooke . .

  Anthony bowed and held out his hand. He said:

  “Sorry to bother you like this but I’m sure you’ll understand. . . .”

  His hand remained outstretched. Its insistence could not be denied, and a slim, long-fingered hand was put within its grasp; a very cold hand which seemed to be shaking a little.

  Anthony released it. It was clear to him that he was sup. posed to speak next and so he did not speak and there was a moment of silence, uncomfortably protracted.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t quite understand Edith,” said the woman at last. “She wasn’t clear what it was that you wanted.” Her mouth barely opened for the words.

  Anthony laughed. “I was afraid you might be fogged. It’s purely a domestic matter, but perhaps all the more important for that.” He was genially fatuous. “Really, my wife should be seeing you. But she’s in bed with a chill. Dreadful weather, this. . . . What I’m going to bother you about is the vitally important question of nursemaids. My son’s nurse is leaving us. She’s going to get married—awkward woman!” His laugh was a masterpiece. “And both my wife and myself, Lady Ballister, are almost morbidly careful about nurses. Now Edith Carisbrooke was talking to my wife the other day and happened to mention what an extremely good nursemaid you had for your two little girls. And so . . .”

  He allowed his sentence to dissolve. He wanted once more to force those lips to make words; to watch the lips to see whether they would not at last defeat the will behind them and obviously tremble. He waited and wondered—and she spoke and the lips did tremble. She said:

  “Oh! . . . A nursemaid? Yes, I see. Yes . . . Yes. Janet is very good.” She stopped. She seemed to think that she had answered.

  Half-formed ideas in Anthony’s mind were forced into dissolution. It was plain enough that his hostess was agitated; had received, recently, a shock. But since it was plain that her mind was not on the conversation—and therefore not upon children—that shock was foreign to Colonel Gethryn’s business. He said:

  “What I really wanted, Lady Ballister, was a few words with this excellent nurse of yours. Really, Edith Carisbrooke was so impressive about her that we wondered whether the girl could put us on to a good thing, as it were. Very odd request, I know! But I always say, you can’t be too careful!”

  From beneath thin dark brows eyes which were clouded with other thoughts regarded him. The brows bent themselves together, as if in effort at concentration, and a light came into the eyes beneath them.

  “Talk to Janet?” said Alice Ballister. “Oh! . . . I see what you mean. You wish to interview my nurse.”

  Anthony nodded. “Yes. That’s the idea. See if she’s got a sister as good as she is, what? Ha!”

  “I’m sorry,” said the woman, “but Janet has left.”

  “Oh!” said Anthony. He experienced some trouble in maintaining pose. “I see. . . He pulled himself together and achieved heartiness once more. “That’s too bad! Too bad! So Edith Carisbrooke was wrong, what?”

  “No!” said the low voice,. “Janet was an excellent nurse. Excellent!” The voice showed the straining of the mind for concentration. “I’d no fault to find with her. She gave notice herself a few days ago. She left yesterday. I tried to persuade her to stay; offered her more wages. But her mind seemed made up. . .

  The voice died away. The pallor of the face was increased, as if fatigue had been piled upon horror.

  “Too bad!” said Colonel Gethryn again. “Better job, I suppose. Or what she thought was a better job. Damn ungrateful, the servant class!” He was all sympathetic indignation.

  The woman put up a hand to her forehead and drew long fingers across her brow as if to ease pain. She said:

  “I’ve no idea.” There was a desperate under-ring to the muttered voice; it was as if she were preparing herself for one effort which must be the last. She said in a louder tone than any she had used:

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you. I haven’t even got her address.”

  “Thanks. Thanks!” Colonel Gethryn was taking his cue. He made the beginnings of a movement towards the door. “So sorry I’ve had to give you this trouble for nothing.”

  Her mouth made effort to twist itself into a smile. Murmurs came from it. She moved doorwards with Colonel Gethryn.

  They stood a moment in the hall. From recesses appeared the portly manservant, bearing Colonel Gethryn’s hat. Colonel Gethryn took it and bowed over it to his hostess. He said:

  “Thanks again! And again apologies for having bothered you.”

  The woman stared at him with clouded eyes. She said:

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more use.” And then with a last attempt at courtesy: “If it’s any use to you I know of a very good agency. Janet came to me from there.” Once more the hand went to her brow and drew long fingers across it. “It’s called the—the KJB. It’s not far from here. In Brabazon Road, behind the Naval Museum. I—I can’t remember the number but . . .” Once more the voice died away with the passing of effort.

  “Very kind of you!” said Colonel Gethryn. “Very kind!” He bowed again and through more apologies got himself to the door and out. He ran down the steps. Drawn up to the pavement, two houses away, was his car. He went to it with long strides and seated himself behind the wheel and beside Thomas Sheldon Garrett. The air was thick with the smoke of Garrett’s cigarettes.

  “Get anything?” said the smoker with eagerness. “Did you see her? Do you think . . . ?”

  A
nthony shook his head. “Check!” he said.

  2

  And “Check!” he said again, twenty-five minutes later, when the long black car stood at the curb outside the grocery shop which stands at the corner of Stockholm Lane and Iron Court.

  “Hell!” said Garrett. “Why?”

  Anthony settled himself behind the wheel. “Because Mrs Bellows, who is Martha Bellows and the aunt of our Miss Murch, is no longer in residence.”

  A frown creased Garrett’s forehead and there came back into his face something of the look which it had worn when Avis Bellingham had taken him to dine in Stukeley Gardens.

  Anthony looked at him. “I said check, not checkmate. Remember KJB.”

  Garrett shrugged. “The agency. That’s unlikely to be of much use.” He put a cigarette between his lips but forgot to light it.

  Anthony started the car, slipping into first gear and beginning to thread careful way through the narrow and encumbered unpleasantness of Stockholm Lane.

  Garrett made a motion with his head towards the place from which they had come. “Wasn’t there anyone there? Anyone who could tell——”

  Anthony interrupted. “There were many and they could all tell. But not much. Iron Court’s what you’d call a tenement. Martha had a two-room. At the beginning of last week, on Tuesday, Martha told her neighbour, Mrs Pettigrew, that she’d ‘had a letter’ and was going away. Mrs Pettigrew says that Martha was much excited. The letter, it seems, had had money in it. The letter, Mrs Pettigrew was inclined to think, had come from relations. It certainly entailed a visit to Scotland. Martha packed her traps, put her trunk in charge of the caretaker and went off with two bags in a taxi. The taxi stuck in the Pettigrew throat: taxis are rare in Iron Court.” He fell silent, intent upon nosing the car out of Stockholm Lane and into the wider but no less grim thoroughfare of the Goldhawk Road.

  “No address?” said Garrett. “No knowledge of even the part of Scotland?”

  Anthony shook his head. “None so far. A sprinkling of ten-shilling notes and a day’s work might produce something. But I say KJB first.” He sent a sidelong glance at his passenger. “Cheer up. All good runs have a check or two.”

  Garrett smiled with noticeable effort. “I know,” he said and fell silent.

  The black car swung in and out of traffic. It reached Hammersmith Broadway; checked; swung round the circle and shot along the easier way of the broad Hammersmith Road, past St Paul’s School and Olympia; over the humpbacked bridge at Addison Road and so swiftly to the broad Kensington ways and the grey, ugly shapes of the museums. It swung left; then right; then left again and was in a narrow cul-de- sac whose eastern end was dominated by the looming bulk of the Naval Museum and whose northern and southern sides were lined with small Victorian houses of a shabby gentility.

  The car slowed. Its driver looked out of the near side window while it crept up the northern side of the street. The car stopped. It was opposite the fourth house from the end. Over the door hung a neat sign in white letters upon a black board.

  “Third hole,” said Anthony and pointed.

  Garrett, craning his neck to look out of the window, saw the board and read what was on it—KJB DOMESTIC AGENCY.

  Anthony got out of the car and went to the door beneath the sign and pressed the button on the jamb. From within the house came the sound of a bell; but no other sound followed. He pressed again and waited, looking up at the sign. After a moment he looked at his watch and went slowly back to the car. He opened the door and once more sat beside his passenger. He said briefly:

  “Sorry. Closed for the evening.”

  3

  Brabazon Street, in bright, early morning sunshine, wore its shabbiness with cheerful defiance; there was about it a this - is-the-way-I-am-and-if-you-don’t-like-it-you-can-go-to-the-devil sort of air which was not offensive but friendly. It was a place impossible to any city but London and seemed to know this. It held itself, with a kind of gamecock perkiness, secure in the protection of the grey skirts of the museum. It was clean despite dilapidation and the windows of some of the little houses were brightly curtained and on the southern side a front door had been newly painted bright red. At the end of the cul-de-sac, just beneath the museum wall, two trees amazingly lifted their grace from the roadway and beneath the brown-gold of their branches a small white dog and a large orange-hued cat gambolled in amity.

  Garrett, who had come by tube to Brompton Road station, turned into the open end of Brabazon Street as the museum clock chimed the quarter-hour before ten. He had, despite the disappointments of the day before, slept very well; the fast, short walk from the station had warmed him. He liked the morning; he liked the sunshine; he liked Brabazon Street—and he was aware of a pleasant excitement within him. Yesterday he had watched while other men worked upon this business which, after all, was his; his by right of discovery, by right of insistence, by right of anxiety and determination and devotion. But now, today, he was at work upon it while the others waited for what news he should bring them!

  He lengthened his stride and swung the stick which seemed so natural to his hand in London and began to whistle, with soft and tuneful incongruity, “The Sidewalks of New York.”

  He came to the door, halfway down the northern side of the street, over which hung the black-and-white signboard. Beneath this he paused for a moment, making unostentatious parade of reading what it might say and in his mind running over the lines which his side of any coming interview must take.

  He turned to the door and found that this morning it stood open. The word ENTER, neatly lettered in ink upon a square of white card, was tacked upon the right of the doorway. He obeyed it, to find himself in a dark, narrow hallway which smelt, not unpleasantly, of soap and linoleum and floor polish. Facing him and the front door, past the foot of stairs which ran up to his left, was another door, having an upper half of ground glass upon which, in black letters, were the words: INQUIRIES: PLEASE STEP IN.

  Again he obeyed. As he pushed open the glass door a bell tinkled above his head. He closed the door and looked about him and found himself in a thin room which stretched the width of the little house. It had a french window at the back, through which came sunlight and suggestions of a tidy little gravelled garden. It was barely furnished with filing cabinets, two typewriting tables and a few chairs. It was very clean Upon one of the cabinets stood a vase of bright flowers. The walls were distempered a clear, primrose yellow and in a bright-barred grate a small fire blazed gaily. In the back wall of the room, at the opposite end from the french window, was another glass-topped door bearing in black letters the word MANAGER. At the typewriting table nearer to this door sat a neat and round-faced girl. She looked up as Garrett came in and flashed up at him a friendly but well-modulated smile.

  Garrett cleared his throat. “Nursemaids,” he said. “I—er—wanted to inquire . . .”

  She rose and came out from behind her table and shifted the position of one of the chairs by half an inch. She said:

  “If you’d sit down? I’ll see if Mr Hines is free.”

  Garrett sat looking about him at the bare, cheerful little room. To his American eye it was so little like an office—and yet so very definitely an office—that he found it of interest. The girl had disappeared through the door marked MANAGER. From behind it came a murmur of voices and then, through it, the girl again. She held the door open and looked across the room at Garrett.

  He rose and crossed the room and found himself in another. It was smaller but by contrast almost luxurious. From behind a flat-topped mahogany table a little man rose and bobbed his head jerkily in greeting. He might have served as a model for one of the Cheeryble brothers. He waved to a chair with courteous gestures.

  “Nursemaids,” said Garrett. “I wanted to inquire about one.” He warmed to his work. “You see, I’m an American staying in London. My wife and small daughter are joining me next week and I have strict orders to get the best nursemaid procurable.”

  “Exactly!
Exactly!” said the little man behind the table. “If I may say so, Mr—Mr——” Through the glittering spectacles a pair of bright brown eyes regarded Garrett with inquiry.

  “Schumacher,” said Garrett easily. “Leslie Schumacher.

  “And you want a nursemaid, Mr Schumacher?” The little man rubbed his hands. “If I may say so you couldn’t have come to a better place. . . . Now let me see! Let me see!” He reached out a neat white hand and pulled towards him a fat black ledger and opened it and began to turn its pages. From his lips there came a cheerful little humming sound. “Just a moment,” said Garrett. “I should explain . . .” The eyes behind the glasses twinkled at him. “I’m sure, Mr Schumacher, that we shall be able to satisfy you.”

  Garrett smiled. He liked the little creature. He said:

  “It’s like this, Mr Hines. I’m not after any nursemaid. I want a particular nursemaid—if you follow me.”

  “You mean . . . ?” The small round head was cocked to one side.

  “Just what I say,” said Garrett. “You have on your books a particular young woman whom I’m very anxious to get. Her name’s Murch. Janet Murch.”

  The mouth of Mr Hines pursed itself and a frown of concentration creased his smooth brow. “Murch?” said Mr Hines as if to himself. “Murch?”

  “Janet Murch,” said Garrett firmly.

  “The name is familiar, Mr Schumacher. Definitely familiar.” The head was nodded decisively and a white thumb ran down the indented index letters of the ledger and flipped it open again.