Jim Telford cleared the cards and markers from the bridge-table. Ruth Jessop’s eyes ran over the cakes and sandwiches appraisingly. She barely waited for them to be offered to her, but met the extended plate half-way. Linda always had nice things, she reflected, as she took her first bite.
“Isn’t Mr. Hyson in to-night, Linda?” she inquired demurely.
Linda shook her head.
“No, he’s gone to some meeting or other, I suppose.”
Hyson, to account for his absences in the evening, had devised the convenient fiction that he belonged to a number of societies: Freemasons, Foresters, Oddfellows, political associations, and others. Linda had never troubled to discover whether he really did belong to anything of the kind. She found the story convenient when people like Ruth Jessop grew inquisitive.
“I saw him this afternoon, Linda,” Ruth continued. “I had to go to the office to cut off some coupons. I always like to do that for myself, you know. What pretty girls the typists are. I saw them as I went through to the private office. There’s one I hadn’t seen before, a fair-haired one. Rather a forward little thing, I thought.”
“I’ve never been in the office,” Linda said, hoping to stem this flood of information.
“Never been there, Linda? I’m surprised, really. Aren’t you interested in the place Mr. Hyson works in? Well, I can tell you the private office is beautifully furnished. There’s a big settee in it that four people could sit on. It looks most comfortable. I wish I had one like it in my sitting-room, to lie on.”
No one seemed interested in the settee, she noticed to her regret.
“I believe you’re interested in wireless, Mr. Telford,” Norris Barsett broke in after just the right interval of silence.
“I do a little on the short waves,” Jim Telford admitted. “I’ve had a forty-metre licence for a while and lately they’ve allowed me to transmit on the ten-metre band. It’s rather good fun.”
“So I’d suppose, from what I hear occasionally on the forty-metre band with my receiver. You pick up a lot of — what does one call them? — correspondents, don’t you?”
“A fair number. Sometimes it’s rather funny. The other week I got in touch with a fellow in South America. He knew no English, and I know no Spanish, so we compromised on pidgin-French with wild hunts through the dictionary between sentences. I understood him, more or less, and I think he got about fifty per cent of my meaning, so we really did quite well between us.”
“Have you got in touch with him again?”
“No, not yet. The fact is, I prefer to talk to British or American amateurs where one can understand the language. It’s too much like work, haranguing foreigners when you don’t understand what they mean by half their discourse. I’ve got a group of people who know the hours I’m on the air, and I can generally get hold of one or two of them when I want someone to talk to. That reminds me, Linda, I know two amateurs here. If we ever need to send you a message in a hurry, I can do it through them. It might be quicker than a wire.”
“But not quicker than the phone, Jim,” Linda reminded him. “At least, by the time your friend got the message and sent it along here the phone would have you beaten to a frazzle, even allowing for the wait for the trunk line.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” declared Jim. “This fellow Scarsdale, as it happens, lives just around the corner from here, in Vendale Road, so there wouldn’t be much time lost in sending a message round to you. The other fellow’s a bit off the track, I admit. He lives a couple of miles from here.”
“Well, I’d rather you trusted to telegrams, Jim, if there’s any special excitement.”
“No use for wireless, evidently,” said Jim, in a tone that showed he took the rebuff without offence. “But you don’t know how useful it can be, Linda. I’m going to introduce Nancy to Scarsdale and his family. It’s not supposed to be done, but he says he’ll be glad to let her talk to me over his transmitter any time she wants to, once I go up to Scotland again.”
“That will be nice,” Linda admitted. “Much nicer than talking on the phone when you’re always likely to be cut off because someone else wants the line. There’s something to be said for the thing after all, it seems. But you can’t ring up just when you want, can you?”
“No,” Nancy answered for Jim, “but it’s easy enough to fix a time beforehand and then Jim will be waiting for me to speak, you see.”
Ruth Jessop paid little attention to this talk. She was busy making a hearty meal, and the sandwiches were disappearing rapidly. Luckily, she noticed, no one else seemed to want much to eat.
“Well, if I were in your shoes, the first thing I’d use the thing for would be to ask Jim to be careful in his boxing-class each time you ring up, or call up, or whatever the right word is,” said Linda. “Do you really enjoy knocking these unfortunate newsboys about, Jim? Or, rather, do they enjoy it? I’m all for good works and that sort of thing, but making mites’ noses bleed hardly fits in with my ideas of charity, somehow.”
“But, dash it, Linda, the little cubs enjoy it. It’s good for them. It makes them keen to get fit, you know. They do all sorts of exercises, just to improve their physique and make a better show. You should just see them; they’re as keen as mustard. And if that isn’t good works, what is? It knocks ideas of fair-play and sportsmanship into them, and it makes them fitter to look after themselves if they get into a scrap. There now, it improves them physically and morally; and after all, they don’t get punched on the nose every round, at least not enough to make it bleed. You’ve got gruesome ideas, that’s what’s wrong.”
“Something in what you say, perhaps, Jim,” agreed Linda. “I hadn’t looked at it in that way.”
“It’s better for them than playing pitch-and-toss at street corners or spending the evening over a shove-ha’-penny board,” Nancy put in. “Jim’s quite right, Linda. I’ve seen some of his protégés when he took them in hand and I’ve seen the finished article, and there’s no denying the improvement he makes.”
Inwardly she was reflecting that if Linda’s husband spent his spare time as profitably as Jim, he would be of more use in the world.
“Don’t you think there’s far too much done for the working-class nowadays, Mr. Barsett?” Ruth Jessop intervened.
All the plates were empty now but for a solitary cake, and she had time for conversation.
“I can’t say, really,” Norris replied with the air of one weighing the question but unable to come to a conclusion.
“Well, I do, Mr. Barsett. Look at this thing of Mr. Telford’s. Why should these ragamuffins get all this instruction for nothing, when people of our class would have to pay for it, Mr. Barsett?”
“They don’t get it for nothing,” Jim interrupted. “They pay a copper or two — it’s as much as they can raise — towards the hire of the hall.”
He was evidently put out by Ruth’s criticism of his youngsters and though his tone was even, it was clear that he was annoyed.
“Oh, in that case, of course, Mr. Telford, it’s all right, quite all right,” Ruth hastened to assure him. “Still, I do think that the working-class are pampered nowadays. And we do have to pay for it. People don’t value a thing when they get it for nothing, I always think, Mr. Telford.”
She hurriedly took the last remaining cake from the plate.
“I shan’t keep you a moment, Linda,” she assured her hostess, “if you want to clear away the tray. I suppose you’ll want to get back to your bridge, won’t you? I mustn’t ask to be allowed to cut in. I get so little bridge, nowadays, somehow, that I’m quite out of practice.”
After this, it was impossible to avoid suggesting that she should cut in and overbearing her effusive protests.
“I’ll take the tray, Linda, if you’ll tell me where to put it,” Jim Telford volunteered. “In the scullery? I know my way, don’t you bother to come.”
Again Ruth saw that Linda Hyson would never learn how things “ought” to be done. Fancy letting Jim Telf
ord invade the scullery with a tray! Linda, however, never seemed to understand such matters. She allowed Telford to remove the tray without protest.
In a few moments he returned.
“Nothing smashed,” he announced with a grin. “I thought it was a goner, though, when I lifted my elbow to switch on the light. By the way, Linda, I see you’ve still got the gas-cooker. I thought you were talking about putting in an electric one.”
“So I did,” Linda explained. “But Cissie knows the ways of the old cooker and didn’t seem over-keen on learning about an electric one, so I dropped the notion. She’d have been peevish for weeks if I’d gone against her ideas. One has to humor these old family retainers, you know. They’re not easy to replace, nowadays. I don’t want to lose Cissie.”
“I think it’s dreadful,” Ruth commented, “the way people are going and committing suicide with gas-ovens nowadays. One sees it in the papers almost every day. And motor-cars, too, Mr. Barsett. I’m sure half these accidents in closed garages are really suicides if one could only get the whole truth about them.”
“Don’t be so gruesome, Ruth,” said Nancy, with a touch of irritation. “I hate people talking about death, and graves, and suicides. Think of something more amusing.”
“Sit down, Jim,” Linda broke in, anxious to smooth things over. “Suppose we cut, now? Oh, yes, of course you’re coming in, Ruth. Don’t be silly.”
The cut excluded Barsett, and he rose to leave his chair free. He glanced round and selected a seat which allowed him a view of Linda’s profile, so that he could look at her without attracting attention. At the end of the round, Ruth Jessop had thought of a fresh subject of conversation.
“Isn’t it dreadful that they can’t find out who’s sending these awful anonymous letters?” she demanded. “It’s a disgusting thing, Mr. Telford, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t listening,” Jim Telford apologised. “What did you say?”
“Oh, of course, you won’t know about it since you’ve only been here a day or two, Mr. Telford. It’s really dreadful. Somebody has been writing the most awful anonymous letters and posting them to people round about here. You’ve no idea what dreadful things are in them.”
“Do people show them around, then, after they’ve got them?” asked Jim Telford in a tone of faint surprise. “If I got anything of that sort, I think I’d bum it and say nothing to anyone.”
“But that would never do at all, Mr. Telford,” Ruth protested. “If everybody did that, how would the authorities ever catch the creature that’s doing it, Mr. Telford? I tell all my friends it’s their plain duty to help the Post Office people to detect the person who’s doing it. You don’t know all the harm that’s being done by these things. It’s . . . it’s dreadful, Mr. Telford.”
She stuttered with emotion as she concluded, and Jim Telford wondered why she seemed to be so affected by a thing of that sort. She caught his glance and continued, with an expression of violated modesty on her face.
“It’s easy enough to say you’d burn one if you got it, Mr. Telford,” she said heatedly. “But if you saw the kind of thing that’s in these letters, you’d want the writer caught and put in gaol, I know you would, no matter what you say. They’re . . . they’re obscene. I mean it. They’re . . . Well, if you ask me, I think they must be written by a lunatic.”
“You’ve seen some, then?” asked Jim.
“Yes, I have!” Ruth declared, pursing her lips. “I got the very first one, Mr. Telford. At least, I was the first person to take one to the Post Office people and complain. There may have been other people who got them before that and burned them,” she said with an obvious sneer. “They say the most dreadful things, I can assure you. It’s not just abuse. They take hold of something and twist it . . . . Oh, I can’t tell you about it. Linda, you had one, hadn’t you? Jennie Mason told me you’d said something to her about it.”
“Yes, I had one,” Linda admitted. “I handed it over to the Post Office. It wasn’t pretty. Don’t let’s talk about it.”
“And John Anderton had one,” Ruth continued, disregarding the hint. “I believe that was what broke off his engagement, though perhaps that wasn’t altogether a bad thing for they didn’t really suit each other. And Mollie Keston got one, so I heard. A whole lot of people have had them.”
“I had one myself,” Norris Barsett confessed. “So had Sam Camplin and a man called Allardyce, I happen to know. There’s certainly a perfect epidemic of them, Mr. Telford, and from what I’ve seen of them I’m inclined to agree with Miss Jessop. The only thing one can do is to give the authorities all the evidence one can, so as to get the writer run down before more damage is done. There’s no saying how much harm might come of it if this sort of thing’s let alone.”
Linda Hyson tapped the table impatiently.
“They’re your cards, Jim. Let’s get on with our game.”
In Linda’s circle, by tacit consent, bridge was allowed to end about midnight; and on this evening they finished a rubber a quarter of an hour before twelve o’clock struck.
“Not worth beginning another?” Jim Telford suggested, with a glance at his watch. “We’d better be moving on, Nancy.”
Linda made no effort to detain them. She had enjoyed her evening, but she wished that Ruth Jessop had not come in to make a fifth. Still, if it gave the poor thing any pleasure, one shouldn’t grudge that.
“Well, it’s been quite a nice game,” she said, adding with a gesture to the two men, “Have some more whiskey? I don’t know what the motor-equivalent of a stirrup-cup is. You won’t? Then you might tot up the score, Jim, and let me pay my debts.”
They squared their accounts and her guests rose to leave. Nancy Telford, after a moment’s hesitation, turned to Ruth.
“It’s a beastly wet night. Can we give you a lift?”
Ruth had seen two cars on the drive as she came in. In her turn she glanced at Norris Barsett, hoping for an invitation from him. It would be more exciting to go home with a man alone, instead of with the Telfords. Ruth, despite disappointments, had never given up hope of securing a husband. One never can tell, she reflected optimistically. Norris Barsett, however, ignored her glance and she had to accept Nancy’s invitation.
“Oh, it’s so good of you,” she declared, effusively. “It’s not taking you out of your way, that’s one thing. Thanks so much.”
The Telfords showed no inclination to linger, and before Ruth could start a fresh subject of conversation and thus delay her departure, she found Jim helping her into her coat in the hall. And almost immediately she was in the Telfords’ car, passing out of the gate.
Linda closed the door and turned back into the room where Norris stood waiting for her. She had wanted him to stay behind, and yet, in a way, she was sorry she had let him do so. Things were very difficult, she reflected. Norris was a dear, but the whole affair was simply a blind alley. There was no solution ahead, according to the rules of her game.
As she re-entered the room, Norris stepped forward eagerly to meet her and, putting his arm around her, he drew her down beside him on the chesterfield. She submitted, but reluctantly as though under protest.
“It’s really no good, Norris,” she said, rather sadly as he bent over to kiss her. “I shouldn’t let you do this kind of thing. If I didn’t care for you so much, it would be safe enough; but it’s just playing with fire, as things are. It can’t come to anything, you know, dear.”
He drew her closer and for a few moments she clung to him. Then with an effort she freed herself.
“No, that’s enough,” she panted. “We mustn’t.”
Norris made a gesture, half-angry, half-despairing.
“It makes me rage to think of your being tied to that fellow. Listen, Linda. Can’t you divorce him and let us be happy? Why should we be kept like this, snatching kisses on the sly when we might be married? He’s making you miserable, although you keep a stiff upper lip. And it’s making me miserable to see you treated like tha
t. Can’t you change your ideas? You know I’d do everything to make it up to you. Can’t you bring yourself to it? For me, if not for yourself.”
Linda shivered slightly and drew completely out of his grasp.
“I can’t,” she said with a break in her voice. “I wish I could. I do wish I could, dear. But it’s the way I’m made, and I’d be no good to anyone if I broke through that. I know it. You’re not able to understand how I feel, Norris. You were brought up in a different atmosphere altogether and you simply can’t see what I feel like about it. You look on divorce as a civil-court affair, nothing more. I can’t see it that way, and I couldn’t see it that way no matter how long I thought over it. You don’t suppose I haven’t thought hard enough about it from all sides? I’d give anything to see it as you do. But I can’t, and that’s all there is about it. I’m not happy now, except for what I get from you, dear. But I’d be more unhappy if I did as you want me to do. It would spoil everything between us. I’d lose even the tiny bit of happiness I have now. It would always be between us, keeping us apart. Please, please don’t ask it, Norris. You see how even just talking about it spoils things for us. You can’t understand, and you feel bitter because I can’t see it your way. And before we know where we are, we’re on the edge of a quarrel. Oh, I wish things weren’t so hard!”
She choked down a sob, then put her chin on her hands and stared blankly before her, a picture of misery. Norris put his arm about her again, despite her faint movement of revolt.
“Very well, darling, we’ll say no more about it just now,” he agreed, gently. “Kiss and forget about it, shall we?”
He drew her back to him and kissed her again and again.
“We shouldn’t do this,” she protested, even as she submitted to his caresses. “It isn’t right. But it’s no good my saying this must be the last time, for I know I’ll give in again as soon as you ask me. I’ve got to do penance for every kiss you give me, Norris; but I simply can’t do without them now and there’s no use pretending, even to myself. You’re all I’ve got, on that side of life. But I hate myself for it, afterwards, every time. I know I ought to send you away, and I know I haven’t the grit to do it. Oh, what a muddle I’ve made of things! I should never have let myself care for you at all.”
Murder Will Speak Page 6