Outside, waiting on the pavement while the men hailed cabs, Ena said, ‘Priscilla, may I ask you something?’
Priscilla’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course.’
‘I’m about to close an investigation. It’s an adultery case involving two women who work at the same hotel. One woman stole money from the hotel and planted it on the other one. The money was kept in a bureau, which hadn’t been left unlocked nor had it been broken into.’
Priscilla gave Ena a sideways look and laughed. A cab pulled up and her husband called her. ‘The money had been left in a writing bureau?’ Ena nodded. ‘My dear, almost any small key will unlock a writing bureau. The key to my china cabinet and the drinks cabinet fits Charles’ bureau. Writing bureaux are not safes.’
‘Thank you.’ As Priscilla joined her husband in the back of the black cab, Ena gave her a card. ‘Telephone me to arrange where to meet.’
A second cab pulled up behind the first. Henry held the door open and Ena jumped in.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ena was late getting to the office. She parked the Sunbeam in one of the two spaces designated to Dudley Green Associates, ran across Mercer Street and into the office, taking off her coat as she entered. ‘Doreen not here?’
‘No. There’s been no sign of her.’
‘It’s unlike her to be late.’
‘Unlike you to be late too. Had a boozy night, did we?’
‘We didn’t. I did. And, my head’s throbbing. I had far too much to drink, I need coffee.’ Ena went into the kitchen and picked up the kettle. There was plenty of water in it so she switched it on.
Artie put coffee into three cups and Ena poured boiling water into two of them. She took milk from the small refrigerator, added some and while she put the milk back, Artie took their coffees through to the office.
‘When Doreen has gone, we need to sit down and work out what we should do about the art theft case.’
They drank their coffee in silence. When they had finished Artie said, ‘It’s ten o’clock, Doreen’s now an hour late.’
Ena looked up at the office clock and then at Artie. Chewing his bottom lip, his brow creased with worry, he was staring into his empty cup. ‘Something’s wrong. You think so too, don’t you?’ Ena asked.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘She doesn’t have a telephone, so we’ll have to drive over to her house.’ Ena picked up the car keys. ‘Lock up Artie, and I’ll turn the car around.’ By the time Artie had locked the office, and the outer doors, Ena was in the car and facing up Mercer Street to Acre Lane. Artie jumped into the passenger seat and Ena put her foot down on the accelerator. ‘I don’t want Arnold Hardy to get home and blurt it out that he’s leaving her for Maisie. I want to break it to her gently, it’s the least I can do.’
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’
‘Since it was you who solved the case, yes. I’ll tell her that we have evidence that Arnold and Maisie are more than friends. If she asks how we know, you can explain how you found out. Don’t go into detail. Just say you saw Maisie in the visitor’s queue at Wandsworth Prison waiting to visit Arnold.’
As they passed the Duke of Wellington, Ena said, ‘By the way, I think I know how Maisie stole the money from Mr Walter’s bureau. But it can wait. I need to check something first.’
Ena turned into Rutland Road. Most of the houses looked dilapidated with curtains or nets that hadn’t been washed in an age. The gardens on either side of the paths leading to the front doors of Doreen’s neighbours were earth with tufts of grass. One had a broken hand basin in it, another a car without wheels. Doreen’s garden was neat and tidy with a small square of lawn surrounded by flowers.
Ena knocked on the door. She turned to Artie. ‘I’m not looking forward to this.’
‘Nor am I.’
‘She’s a long time answering.’ Ena took a couple of steps to the right and peered through what she assumed was the front room window. ‘I can’t see anything because of the nets.’ She tapped the window, lightly at first and then louder.
‘No sign of life. I hope she isn’t on her way to the office.’
‘So do I.’ Ena made a fist and knocked again. ‘She might be upstairs or in the back.’
‘I’ll have a look,’ Artie said, already halfway down the path at the side of the house. ‘Ena,’ he shouted, ‘Ena, she’s here.’
Ena heard the urgency in Artie’s voice and ran like a hare to the back of the house.
‘She’s in the kitchen on the floor. She must have fallen.’ He turned the doorknob. ‘The door’s locked.’ He pushed the window. It didn’t open.
Ena grabbed a towel from the washing line wrapped it around her fist and punched the glass panel in the door nearest the lock. The glass shattered leaving a hole big enough for Ena to put her hand in. She crouched down and found the key, turned it, and recoiled. ‘Gas. I can smell gas.’ She dropped the towel, pulled open the door and, with her hand over her mouth and nose, ran into the kitchen and turned off the gas in the oven and on the top of the cooker while Artie opened the window.
‘Help me get her outside,’ Ena gasped, choking from the fumes.
Coughing, Artie took hold of Doreen’s shoulders and Ena her feet and together they carried the unconscious woman out of the kitchen and laid her on the concrete slabs in the back yard. Artie took off his jacket and put it under her head.
‘Doreen?’ Ena laid the flat of her hand on Doreen’s chest and put her ear to Doreen’s mouth. ‘She’s breathing,’ Ena said with relief. ‘Doreen, can you hear me?’ Ena pushed her hair away from her face. ‘Doreen, it’s Ena. Wake up for me, Doreen. Come on, love, wake up.’
A sharp rasping sound escaped Doreen’s lips. Her thin body convulsed and she gulped air. Thrashing from side to side, she struggled for breath.
Ena took hold of her arms. ‘Be careful, Doreen, you’ll hurt yourself.’
From kneeling at her head, Artie moved to Doreen’s side and the next time she rolled to the left, he put out his arms and held onto her. Coughing and choking she pushed him away and tried to sit up but she had no strength. Artie helped her into a sitting position holding her hands in front of her while Ena put her arms around her shoulders to comfort her.
‘What happened?’ she whispered in a hoarse voice.
Artie looked at Ena and raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘what do we tell her?’
Doreen obviously didn’t remember and Ena didn’t want to frighten her. ‘You fell in the kitchen.’
‘Did I? Oh…’ Doreen lifted her hand to the back of her head, touched it and winced. ‘I must have hit the floor hard.’
Ena parted Doreen’s hair where her hand had been. ‘You’ve cut your head and it’s swollen. Do you feel dizzy?’ Doreen shook her head.
Ena lifted her hand level with Doreen’s face and put up her forefinger. ‘How many fingers can you see?’
‘One.’
‘And now?’ Ena said, putting up three fingers of her right hand.
‘Three.’
Ena looked at Artie and lifter her shoulders. ‘Do you feel sick at all, Doreen?’
‘No. My head hurts. I must have bumped it on something when I fell.’
‘I’m wondering if we should take you to the hospital, get you checked over. You might be concussed.’
‘I’m not going to the hospital, Mrs Green. I don’t feel dizzy or anything, I’m fine. Besides, they’ll ask me all sorts of questions and…’ She looked around and took in her surroundings. ‘Why am I sitting out here? I thought you said I fell in the kitchen.’
‘You did. Artie and I brought you out here for some air.’
Doreen frowned and cleared her throat. ‘I should like to go into the house.’ Letting go of Artie’s hands, she looked up at the bedroom windows of her neighbour. ‘I want to go inside before anyone sees me. Goodness knows what they’ll make of me sitting out here in the back yard.’
Artie helped Doreen to her feet and Ena took his coat. ‘Thank you, Mr Mallor
y, I can manage now,’ she said, with a shy, embarrassed smile. Then, as she turned towards the kitchen door, she lost her balance and reached out to him. ‘Perhaps I can’t manage as well as I thought,’ she whispered.
Artie on one side and Ena on the other, they helped Doreen into her house. Although a table and four chairs stood against the wall opposite the cooker, Ena nodded to the door at the far end of the kitchen. ‘You’ll be more comfortable in the front room, Doreen. Through here, is it?’ Ena pulled open the door.
Doreen, with Artie holding onto her arm, walked dreamlike out of the kitchen and across the hall to a small, neat sitting room at the front of the house. In its day the three-piece-suite would have been fashionable. Faded now, it was still good quality. There were loose cushions in a cotton fabric with a floral design on each chair and two on the settee – one at each end – and cream antimacassars with embroidered roses at the corners on the backs and arms of the settee and armchairs. A wooden lampstand stood in the corner of the room next to the sideboard, which was the same wood as the kitchen table and chairs. By its plain design, Ena could see it was utility furniture made during the war – as was the kitchen table and chairs. On the sideboard small place mats in the same fabric and design as the antimacassars had been placed beneath photographs of Doreen’s boys. The carpet by the door was worn, which with three growing lads traipsing in and out was not surprising.
‘Sit down,’ Artie said, lowering Doreen onto the settee under the window.
‘I’ll make a cup of tea. You stay with her, Artie,’ Ena instructed, returning to the kitchen.
She filled the kettle from the cold water tap and set it down on the draining board. As a precaution, she checked the knobs that turned on the gas in the oven and hob were switched off. She then opened the oven door and sniffed. Burnt fat filled her nostrils but there was no smell of gas. Satisfied that lighting a gas jet to boil the kettle would not blow up the house, she closed the oven door and looked in the drawers for matches. She smiled. Doreen Hardy wouldn’t put matches where her boys could reach them. She looked up. There was a box of Swan Vesta on top of the kitchen cabinet.
Doreen was a good mother. So why did she try to kill herself? She would know without her the two youngest boys would be taken to a children’s home and Alfred, who must be fourteen now, would be sent to a hostel for young men. Could she have thought the boys would be better off living with their father? ‘No!’ Ena said aloud. Doreen loved her boys too much to condemn them to a life with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ena took down the matches, struck one and held her breath. She watched the flame turn from yellow to blue, before turning the knob on the nearest gas jet. Placing the kettle above the gas, she exhaled with relief.
While the kettle boiled, she looked around the spotlessly clean kitchen, opened the cupboard under the sink and took out a brush and pan. She then pulled out what remained of the broken glass in the small square in the door and swept up what had fallen onto the lino. Emptying the shards of glass into the dustbin, Ena spotted a thick cardboard box. She reached in and pulled it out. As a temporary measure, cut into shape it would replace the pane of glass that she had smashed in order to unlock the door. She put the box by the door, and when the kettle boiled made the tea. Milk she took from the thrawl in the pantry and sugar from the highest shelf in the kitchen cabinet. Again, out of the reach of small boys.
‘I’ve come to see if I can help you,’ Artie said, loudly from the door. He came into the kitchen, closed the door and whispered, ‘I asked Doreen if the boys were at school and she said that because Maisie knew she was coming into the office today, she had taken the two youngest to school and her neighbour had taken Alfred to work with him. He’s a painter and decorator and his apprentice is off work sick, so he’s given Alfred a few day’s work.’
‘I wonder what could have happened to stop Doreen coming to the office?’ Ena looked from Artie to the oven. ‘What happened that was so awful, so terrible, that the poor woman tried to gas herself?’
‘Perhaps Maisie told Doreen that Arnold was leaving her?’
‘Would she put her head in the gas oven because a useless lump like Arnold Hardy was going to leave her?’
‘Maybe if Maisie told her that Arnold was going to start a new life with her.’
Ena considered both possibilities. ‘I don’t think either of those scenarios would make her want to kill herself. Not with the boys to look after. She loves those boys. I think she only put up with Arnold for their sake. And Maisie couldn’t have told her. Doreen wouldn’t have let her take the boys to school if she had.’
‘Well, something made Doreen put her head in the gas oven.’
‘Yes, but what? We need to find out what Maisie said to her, how far she pushed her.’
Artie opened the door. ‘One of us should be in the office. If I go back when I’ve had my tea, she might confide in you.’
‘She might,’ Ena agreed. Putting the sugar bowl and milk on the tray with the teapot, cups and saucers she followed Artie out of the kitchen.
When they had finished their tea, Ena suggested Artie returned to the office. ‘Ask one of the builders to come over and replace the pane of glass in the back door.’
Artie, in agreement, jumped up and crossed the room to Doreen. Crouching down beside her, he looked into her face. ‘Now, you take it easy,’ he said, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
‘I shall, Mr Mallory.’ She put her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob. ‘Goodness knows how long I’d have laid there if you and Mrs Green hadn’t found me.’
Probably until your sons came home from school and found you dead from carbon monoxide poison, Ena thought but didn’t say. Now was not the time to tell Doreen.
‘I’ll be back for you at about two, Ena,’ Artie said as he left.
‘Oh, there’s something I want Artie to do at the office. Artie?’ she called. He didn’t reply, nor did he return. Ena jumped up. ‘I’ll try to catch him. I won’t be a minute, Doreen.’
When she entered the kitchen, Artie was waiting for her. ‘Get whoever’s coming to replace the glass to call at a hardware store and buy two locks – one for the back.’ She pulled open the kitchen door. ‘I expect they’re standard for this type of semi-detached council house – and one for the front door. Have a look at it as you pass so you can describe it to the builder and give him the money out of petty cash.’
The car keys were on the kitchen windowsill. Artie picked them up, looked again at the lock, nodded and said, ‘I’ll be back for you later,’ before disappearing around the corner of the house.
Returning to the sitting room, Ena picked up the tray of dirty cups and saucers. ‘Would you like another cup of tea, Doreen?’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll pop these into the kitchen and put the milk in the larder before it goes off.’
After returning the milk and sugar to their respective places, Ena put the cups and saucers in the washing-up bowl alongside two that were already there. She had noticed them when she and Artie first entered the house and had wondered then if Doreen had had a visitor that morning. She must have made Maisie a cup of tea. Ena quickly washed up, put the crockery in the cupboard and returned to the sitting room.
‘That didn’t take long,’ she said. Seeing tears in Doreen’s eyes, Ena went over to her and sat next to her. ‘Have you remembered something about this morning? What was it that made you—?’
Doreen’s face was ashen, her eyes staring across the room as if she had seen a ghost. ‘Maisie!’ was all she said.
‘Maisie? What did Maisie say or do that made you want to kill yourself, Doreen?’
Doreen recoiled. ‘Kill myself?’ She began to shake. She looked searchingly into Ena’s face. ‘I don’t want to kill myself! What do you mean?’
Ena reached out and covered Doreen’s hands with hers. ‘When Artie and I found you, you were lying on the floor.’
‘I know. You said I’d fallen.’
‘We didn’t want to alar
m you, so we told you that you’d fallen, but you hadn’t, Doreen. You were lying on the floor with your head… next to the gas oven.’
Doreen looked at Ena and shook her head. ‘No, that can’t be right.’ Deep frown lines appeared on her forehead then, as if a light had been switched on in the darkness, she said again, ‘Maisie!’
‘What about Maisie?’ Ena asked in a calm voice.
‘Well.’ Doreen cast her gaze around the room, finally settling on the door to the hall. ‘Alfred had already gone to work with my neighbour by the time Gerald and Billy came down. They’d had their breakfast and were dressed and ready for school when Maisie arrived. She said she’d take my boys to school with hers. They were playing out the front and Maisie said we had time for a quick cup of tea, so we went to the kitchen.’
Doreen got up and Ena followed her out of the sitting room and into the kitchen.
‘She was early, you see.’ Doreen closed her eyes and exhaled, as if to clear her mind of everything except what had happened next. ‘Maisie made us a cup of tea and we sat at the table to drink it. When we’d finished, I put the cups and saucers in the bowl and…’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the yard with you and Mr Mallory.’
‘So, Maisie didn’t give you any bad news, or say anything that made you want to take your own life?’
‘Of course not!’ Doreen looked outraged by the suggestion. ‘Why would she?’
Ena knew that she needed to tell Doreen the truth about finding her. She also knew she needed to be sensitive because what she was about to tell her would break her heart. She cleared her throat, ‘Doreen, you know I told you that when Artie and I found you, you were lying on the floor next to the oven.’
‘Of course, I know!’ she said, her tone a mixture of resentment and exasperation. ‘Why do you keep—?’ A look of horror swept over her face as the realisation of what Ena was saying registered. ‘Are you saying the gas oven was on while I was lying there?’
Old Cases New Colours (A Dudley Green Investigation) (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 9) Page 12
