The Silent Speaker

by Noel Streatfeild

  “You say ‘upset,’ is that word descriptive?”

  Barbara thought a moment.

  “Yes, it’s the only word. I offered to give him her address in Wales so that he could write, but he said: ‘It’s no writing matter,’ so then I said what was his name and could I give her a message; he said there wasn’t a message. Then he said again, ‘I made sure I could see her.’ Then he went away.”

  “Did you tell Helen you’d seen him?”

  “Yes. In a letter I said a warden had wanted to see her. She didn’t answer. Then when I stayed with her I remembered him suddenly and started to tell her about him, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She’d changed a lot, she had been a good listening type and calm, but when I saw her in Wales she wasn’t still a minute, always jumping from subject to subject. She jumped at once away from hearing about the warden, it could have been on purpose I thought, afterwards I knew that it was.”

  “How?”

  “It was after the war, I saw in the paper Helen was engaged so I wrote to congratulate her. She asked me to meet her at the place where her wedding dress was being made and we’d have lunch afterwards. We went to a restaurant near her dressmaker’s, she used to go there, she said, before the war. We were talking as we walked to it and suddenly she stopped and gripped my arm so hard that afterwards I found I was bruised. She had turned very white and I looked to see what had upset her. It was the commissionaire outside the restaurant, he was her warden. Then she turned and hurried in the opposite direction saying she had remembered a nicer place.”

  “Didn’t she mention the man?”

  “No, but I did. I was curious, I’m afraid. I said ‘that commissionaire was the warden who came to see you after you’d left for Wales.’ She said she hadn’t noticed the commissionaire. I think it was because I mentioned him that she stopped being friends, I was asked to the wedding but after that I never heard from her again.”

  Edward thought of Celia.

  “Not even at Christmas?”

  “No, I sent cards for a couple of years but I got none back so I stopped sending them.”

  “So that’s all you know?”

  Barbara turned round to give him a half smile.

  “I told you I was curious. I felt sure somehow Helen would return to see the commissionaire. So after lunch, meanly I streaked back and took cover in a doorway opposite the restaurant where he worked. I was right. She came and had quite a talk with him. Before she left they seemed to exchange addresses.”

  “Which restaurant does he work at?”

  “It’s now The Edelweiss but he isn’t there. I went there with friends of Theo’s when we were engaged, it was about a year after Helen’s marriage, he was gone.”

  Edward took an envelope out of his pocket and wrote on the back “Edelweiss.”

  “Did the warden tell you his name?”

  Barbara’s forehead creased.

  “He did, and I’ve been trying to remember what it was, something like Dunkel or Dinkel I think. But it’s so long ago.”

  “Of course.” Edward got up. “You’ve been very helpful. I expect through The Edelweiss I can run the fellow to earth. What puzzles me is why, if Helen ran away from the man, she went back to the restaurant to talk to him.”

  Barbara too got up.

  “We must rescue Celia, she’ll have had more than enough of Bob.” She looked at him. “You will be careful, won’t you, Mr. Cale? I can understand you think you are going to help Mr. Blair by digging up Helen’s past, but it is possible he will prefer to blame himself than know the truth, whatever that may be.”

  Edward laid a hand on her arm.

  “Trust me. Because I learn the truth, that is not to say I shall necessarily pass it on.”

  * * *

  The Heart of Oak was “the local” for the majority of the tenants of the flats in Dunkirk Buildings. Field had intended to get down to Dunkirk Buildings to seek out the nearest pub before opening time, but he miscalculated the length of the journey so by the time he arrived the pub was filling up. Saturday evenings, after the pools’ coupons were corrected, was one of the busiest periods for “The Oaks,” as it was known locally so Field found the public bar crowded. He made for the saloon, where he might get a chance to speak to the landlord. It was not, however, from the landlord that he picked up his first piece of information, but from a man with a drooping ginger moustache who was leaning against the bar. The saloon bar was full of tables and ginger-moustache, chatting with the husband and wife sitting at the nearest, said suddenly:

  “I ’ear old Ma Bird is creatin’ something’ shockin’ because the p’lice ’av’nt found ’er telly.”

  The man nodded.

  “That’s right, cock, carryin’ on alarmin’. But you can’t rightly blame the p’lice. What I say is ’ow are they to find them, one telly is like another.”

  His wife, genteelly sipping gin, put down her glass with a click.

  “It’s a cruel shame, that’s what I say. Ought to be given the cat those that took ’em. They’d be quick enough to say where they’d sold ’em if they thought they was gettin’ a second dose of that.”

  There was a murmur of agreement, during which Field moved up the bar so that he was standing next to ginger-moustache.

  “It was round here, wasn’t it, those lads let on they had come from the hire purchase?”

  Ginger-moustache turned to Field.

  “That’s right, mate.”

  The couple had heard Field’s question. The woman said:

  “One of ’em was a local boy, that’s ’ow they knew Mrs. Bird was be’ind in ’er payments.”

  Her husband joined in.

  “When you say local boy I ’eard that Jim Slicer wasn’t born ’ere, moved ’ere recent from Greenwich way, the Slicers did.”

  “Ought to get the cat wherever ’e come from,” the woman insisted.

  Moustache nodded to the man.

  “I ’eard the same. No one seems to know ’em ’ereabouts.”

  “Were some of the sets taken from this neighbourhood?” Field asked.

  “That’s right,” moustache agreed. “Two of ’em from the Buildings opposite. Made friends with the kids, so they say. That’s why they called ’em the men who loved children. I daresay that Ma Bird let out to someone she was be’ind paying and a kid ’eard ’er. It’s easy to pick thin’s up if you know what you want to ’ear.”

  Field felt embarrassed. He too knew what he wanted to hear and was picking things up.

  “Funny though, if that Jim Slicer didn’t live hereabouts how he would pick up news like that. You’d think he’d be spotted hanging round the local kids if he didn’t belong.”

  Moustache dug Field in the chest with one finger.

  “Funny nothin’. Look at the banks and businesses what’s robbed every pay day. None of ’em what takes the money works in the banks or that, you can take your oath on it.”

  Field was beginning to despair of ever learning where Jim Slicer lived when the woman told him.

  “The local paper said that the Slicers live in The Grove, which is a good step from ’ere, but I suppose ’e’d been ’anging about givin’ the kids sweets so long they’d got used to seein’ ’im.”

  The conversation drifted to the pools, and while moustache was explaining to the couple the difference one more draw in the second division would have meant to him, Field ordered another brown ale. The landlord served him and since, for the moment, he seemed less rushed Field decided to ask him openly about the boy found starving on Dartmoor.

  “Did you read about that boy from a foster home found on Dartmoor?”

  The landlord accepted Field’s money.

  “Can’t say I did. What was that?”

  Again the woman helped.

&nbs
p; “Wricked, that’s what it is. Somebody did ought to look at those foster ’omes. I read ’is foster mother said she couldn’t do nothin’ with ’im. Never tried, more like. Terrible to think ’e might ’ave died starvin’ if the p’lice ’adn’t found him.”

  “The home’s hereabouts, isn’t it?” Field asked the company generally.

  “Never ’eard that,” said the landlord over his shoulder as he moved into the public bar.

  Moustache looked thoughtfully at Field, a look which Field felt sure meant he was wondering if he was a plain clothes policeman. He decided to tell the near truth.

  “My wife thought it might be a boy a lady she knew was interested in. The lady’s dead—died quite recently. There was no reason why it should be the boy she knew but you know what some women are, so I said I’d enquire.”

  Moustache seemed satisfied.

  “No good looking in these parts, mate. Ask at the Station, they’ll know where ’e came from.”

  Field decided he had done all the enquiring that he could and he was just finishing his beer before going home when the saloon bar, which was only separated from the public bar by a partition and open hatches, was silenced by a noise. A woman’s voice was singing a hymn in the slurred tones of a drunk: “Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us.”

  A babble of “shut up”—and “give over, do” rose above the voice, and this was topped by the landlord.

  “Now, dear, run along home. You know I can’t serve you.”

  The drunk broke off her singing to shout invective at the landlord.

  “Gives you the creeps, don’t it?” said the woman at the table. “Might be that Mrs. Manning back. Always sang ‘ymns when she ’ad too much she did.”

  They listened to the landlord cajoling the drunk into the street.

  Moustache took a gulp of beer.

  “Well, it can’t be Mrs. Manning. They buried ’er Tuesday.”

  “Poor thin’,” said the man at the table. “Terrible drunkard she was, but I see a piece in the paper where it said she died of a broken ’eart. Never know, do you?”

  “Local, was she?” Field asked.

  “That’s right,” the woman agreed. “They took ’er out of the river at East Lane stairs but she lived just along ’ere, number ten. I can’t think why Mrs. Smith let ’er go on livin’ there, but I suppose she paid well, must ’ave ’ad money to get in the state she did, costs a pretty penny to get stupid drunk on gin.”

  “Old, was she?” Field asked.

  The woman shrugged her shoulders.

  “Forty-ish I’d reckon. It’s ’ard to say when a woman’s pickled the way she always was.”

  “Funny ’ow they sing ‘ymns,” said moustache. “Mrs. Mannin’ wasn’t a church-goin’ type, nor’s that one,” he jerked a thumb in the direction of the departed drunk, “shouldn’t wonder.”

  “It’s the Army, I reckon,” said the man at the table. “Services in the street the way they ’ave. I suppose they pick the tunes up. Oh well, poor Kate Mannin’, she’s not singin’ ‘ymns no more. Well, ’o’s for a drink?”

  Field did not want to get involved in standing rounds, two half-pints was his limit. Besides he had fulfilled his mission. There was nothing for Mrs. Simpson here. Whoever Mrs. Blair had called on it was not Jim Slicer, who lived in some place called The Grove, nor the foster home of the boy found on Dartmoor. It could have been Mrs. Manning but it was impossible to connect Mrs. Blair with a gin-sodden, hymn-singing wreck. Politely he said:

  “Good-night, all,” and walked out.

  CHAPTER 11

  At “Andy’s” night club Olivia, Anthony and Bernard ordered supper. The club was well known and fairly exclusive but Olivia had never become a member because night clubs bored her. They were, she considered, the greatest fun for a year or two when you were young, but they belonged to being young, like measles. So it was Bernard as “Press” who got a table.

  The band was a vaguely South American looking group, in that they wore tight black trousers and scarlet cummerbunds.

  “Do you know any of them?” Olivia asked Bernard.

  “I seem to think I’ve seen the one making that filthy row with the poppy heads somewhere, but that’s not enough to get any news out of him.”

  Anthony was only one of the party because he was not allowing Olivia to go out without him. But he had been against the expedition from the start.

  “Hanging round a band to pick up news,” he growled. “Why can’t you leave the poor woman in peace—she’s dead, let her rest.”

  Olivia looked at Anthony admiringly.

  “Isn’t he gloriously true to type? You’re the only perfect suburbanite in captivity, darling.”

  Anthony hated Olivia laughing at him in front of Bernard, so he swung away from her, which forced him to look at the band. Immediately he recognized a friend and waved.

  Bernard had looked upon taking Anthony with them as a necessary evil, like somebody’s dog being brought on a picnic. He no more expected help from Anthony than he would from someone else’s dog.

  “Olivia darling, he knows one of them! Isn’t he marvellous!”

  Olivia looked like a proud parent whose backward child has shown intelligence. She tucked a hand through Anthony’s arm and pulled him towards her.

  “Aren’t you the smart one! Who is he?”

  Though Anthony had no intention of helping Olivia and Bernard he could not but feel smug because it was he, the last person they would expect, who had a contact in the band.

  “Johnnie Fisher. He was always good on drums. I heard he was playing in a band.”

  Olivia turned to glance at Johnnie Fisher.

  “That funny-looking boy with the side-burns? How do you know him?”

  “At my boys’ club. He belonged since he was a kiddie.”

  “Nobody is ever a kiddie, Anthony darling.” Olivia turned to Bernard. She spoke as if Anthony’s interests were unique and inexplicable. “He helps at a boys’ club.”

  Bernard knew about Anthony’s boys’ club, it had been part of his given background when he had married Olivia.

  “I suppose they stop playing sometime. Would you like to ask your Johnnie to the table for a drink or would you do better with him on your own?”

  Anthony was delighted to slap down on any idea of Bernard’s.

  “I’ll have a word with Johnnie, of course, but I’m not asking your questions. As I told you, I think it’s disgusting prying into the poor woman’s past.”

  Olivia was not disturbed, that was the sort of thing she expected Anthony to say. But Bernard hated to be thought poorly of. He touched Olivia’s arm.

  “I think he ought to be put in the picture.”

  Olivia’s mournful-monkey’s eyes looked into Bernard’s. What picture? Already she had used her charm and her guile to persuade Anthony that she and Bernard were only trying to help by finding out why Helen killed herself. It would be much better for Tom to know than not to know had been her argument. Anthony had not budged an inch. If she insisted on going to a night club with Bernard he was certainly coming with her, but he was having nothing to do with their detective work.

  “He knows the picture, sweetie. But tell him again if you like.”

  Explaining that neither he nor Olivia believed it to be the reason for Helen’s death, Bernard told Anthony how they had learned that Tom blamed himself. That there could be another woman involved.

  “Olivia believes that the woman is Selina Grierson.”

  Selina’s name appeared to Bernard and Olivia—who did not know that Celia had, alter the inquest, asked Anthony to help—to have a strange effect on Anthony. With what sounded like pleasure he said:

  “Selina Grierson! Well, that’s different. I am sure the poor woman has nothing to do with the business, but certainly she has something on her mind. If I can help he
r I should be glad.”

  Olivia’s face puckered with amusement.

  “How would you know whether Selina has got anything on her mind or not?”

  Anthony saw again Selina’s hunched, tweedy figure scurrying up the road. He had opened the taxi window meaning to offer her a lift, but when the taxi had stopped he had seen her face and it had changed his plans. With eyes dimmed by tears and a brain slowed down by suffering the poor woman was likely enough to stumble under a bus. He got out and propelled Selina into the taxi. He remembered hearing Olivia say she was staying in an hotel, but he had supposed that now perhaps she had moved to St. John’s Wood, for Tom Blair, from the looks of him, needed care.

  “I’m to drive you home. What’s the address?”

  Selina, though she had believed all she wanted was to be alone, had found herself glad of the taxi, and in a way glad of Anthony, about whom she knew so little it was like travelling with a stranger. She had given the address, then looked unseeingly out of one window while Anthony had stared out of the other. Poor woman, he had thought. He was not surprised that she was so unhappy for, in so far as he knew, she had been a close friend of Helen Blair’s. Anthony was not quick-minded, working on his trade paper was just about right for his capacities. Olivia loved him for his physical attractions and his middle-class solidity; she had not discovered—for she had no interest in the subject—that Anthony was kind. His kindness had reached out to comfort Selina.

  “Sometimes it helps to talk. I’m rather a dull type, I’m afraid, but if it would help . . .”

  Kindness, real kindness with no strings attached, is rare. Except from the night porter it had not been given to Selina since Helen had died, for she had not seen Tom, from whom it had flowed to her almost all her life, while the others to whom she had spoken had no kindness in their make-up. Now, because Anthony honestly wanted to be kind, the tears she had held back throughout the inquest trickled down her face. She had found her handkerchief and sobbed into it. Anthony had let her cry, withdrawing as far from her as the cab allowed, until presently Selina’s tears had stopped.