She sent them away after luncheon. They departed without protest. But as she walked, engaged on her shopping that afternoon, she decided that she must rid herself of them, once and for all. It was true that it had been rather agreeable having him there; his smile, his wicked humorous remarks, the suggestion that he was a kind of malevolent gamin who preyed on the world in general but spared her because he liked her—all this had attracted her—but what really alarmed her was that during all these weeks he had made no request for money, made indeed no request for anything. He must be piling up a fine account, must have some plan in his head with which one morning he would balefully startle her! For a moment there in the bright sunlight, with the purr of the traffic, the rustle of the trees about her, she saw herself in surprising colour. She was behaving with a weakness that was astonishing. Her stout, thick-set, resolute body, her cheery rosy face, her strong white hair—all these disappeared, and in their place, there almost clinging for support to the park railings, was a timorous little old woman with frightened eyes and trembling knees. What was there to be afraid of? She had done nothing wrong. There were the police at hand. She had never been a coward before. She went home, however, with an odd impulse to leave her comfortable little house in Walpole Street and hide herself somewhere, somewhere that no one could discover.
That evening they appeared again, husband, wife and baby. She had settled herself down for a cosy evening with a book and an ‘early to bed’. There came the knock on the door.
On this occasion she was most certainly firm with them. When they were gathered in a little group she got up and addressed them.
‘Here is five pounds,’ she said, ‘and this is the end. If one of you shows his or her face inside this door again I call the police. Now go.’
The girl gave a little gasp and fell in a dead faint at her feet. It was a perfectly genuine faint. Rose was summoned. Everything possible was done.
‘She has simply not had enough to eat,’ said Henry Abbott. In the end (so determined and resolved was the faint) Ada Abbott was put to bed in the spare room and a doctor was summoned. After examining her he said that she needed rest and nourishment. This was perhaps the critical moment of the whole affair. Had Sonia Herries been at this crisis properly resolute and bundled the Abbott family, faint and all, into the cold unsympathising street, she might at this moment be a hale and hearty old woman enjoying bridge with her friends. It was, however, just here that her maternal temperament was too strong for her. The poor young thing lay exhausted, her eyes closed, her cheeks almost the colour of her pillow. The baby (surely the quietest baby ever known) lay in a cot beside the bed. Henry Abbott wrote letters to dictation downstairs. Once Sonia Herries, glancing up at the silver mask, was struck by the grin on the clown’s face. It seemed to her now a thin sharp grin—almost derisive.
Three days after Ada Abbott’s collapse there arrived her aunt and her uncle, Mr and Mrs Edwards. Mr Edwards was a large red-faced man with a hearty manner and a bright waistcoat. He looked like a publican. Mrs Edwards was a thin sharp-nosed woman with a bass voice. She was very, very thin, and wore a large old-fashioned brooch on her flat but emotional chest. They sat side by side on the sofa and explained that they had come to enquire after Ada, their favourite niece. Mrs Edwards cried, Mr Edwards was friendly and familiar. Unfortunately Mrs Weston and a friend came and called just then. They did not stay very long. They were frankly amazed at the Edwards couple and deeply startled by Henry Abbott’s familiarity. Sonia Herries could see that they drew the very worst conclusions.
A week later Ada Abbott was still in bed in the upstairs room. It seemed to be impossible to move her. The Edwardses were constant visitors. On one occasion they brought Mr and Mrs Harper and their girl Agnes. They were profusely apologetic, but Miss Herries would understand that ‘with the interest they took in Ada it was impossible to stay passive’. They all crowded into the spare bedroom and gazed at the pale figure with the closed eyes sympathetically.
Then two things happened together. Rose gave notice and Mrs Weston came and had a frank talk with her friend. She began with that most sinister opening: ‘I think you ought to know, dear, what everyone is saying—’ What everyone was saying was that Sonia Herries was living with a young ruffian from the streets, young enough to be her son.
‘You must get rid of them all and at once,’ said Mrs Weston, ‘or you won’t have a friend left in London, darling.’
Left to herself, Sonia Herries did what she had not done for years, she burst into tears. What had happened to her? Not only had her will and determination gone but she felt most unwell. Her heart was bad again; she could not sleep; the house, too, was tumbling to pieces. There was dust over everything. How was she ever to replace Rose? She was living in some horrible nightmare. This dreadful handsome young man seemed to have some authority over her. Yet he did not threaten her. All he did was to smile. Nor was she in the very least in love with him. This must come to an end or she would be lost.
Two days later, at tea-time, her opportunity arrived. Mr and Mrs Edwards had called to see how Ada was; Ada was downstairs at last, very weak and pale. Henry Abbott was there, also the baby. Sonia Herries, although she was feeling dreadfully unwell, addressed them all with vigour. She especially addressed the sharp-nosed Mrs Edwards.
‘You must understand,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, but I have my own life to consider. I am a very busy woman, and this has all been forced on me. I don’t want to seem brutal. I’m glad to have been of some assistance to you, but I think Mrs Abbott is well enough to go home now—and I wish you all good night.’
‘I am sure,’ said Mrs Edwards, looking up at her from the sofa, ‘that you’ve been kindness itself, Miss Herries. Ada recognises it, I’m sure. But to move her now would be to kill her, that’s all. Any movement and she’ll drop at your feet.’
‘We have nowhere to go,’ said Henry Abbott.
‘But Mrs Edwards—’ began Miss Herries, her anger rising.
‘We have only two rooms,’ said Mrs Edwards quietly. ‘I’m sorry, but just now, what with my husband coughing all night—’
‘Oh, but this is monstrous!’ Miss Herries cried. ‘I have had enough of this. I have been generous to a degree—’
‘What about my pay,’ said Henry, ‘for all these weeks?’
‘Pay! Why, of course—’ Miss Herries began. Then she stopped. She realised several things. She realised that she was alone in the house, the cook having departed that afternoon. She realised that none of them had moved. She realised that her ‘things’—the Sickert, the Utrillo, the sofa—were alive with apprehension. She was fearfully frightened of their silence, their immobility. She moved towards her desk, and her heart turned, squeezed itself dry, shot through her body the most dreadful agony.
‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘In the drawer—the little green bottle—oh, quick! Please, please!’
The last thing of which she was aware was the quiet handsome features of Henry Abbott bending over her.
When, a week later, Mrs Weston called, the girl, Ada Abbott, opened the door to her.
‘I came to enquire for Miss Herries,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen her about. I have telephoned several times and received no answer.’
‘Miss Herries is very ill.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Can I not see her?’
Ada Abbott’s quiet gentle tones were reassuring her. ‘The doctor does not wish her to see anyone at present. May I have your address? I will let you know as soon as she is well enough.’
Mrs Weston went away. She recounted the event. ‘Poor Sonia, she’s pretty bad. They seem to be looking after her. As soon as she’s better we’ll go and see her.’
The London life moves swiftly. Sonia Herries had never been of very great importance to anyone. Herries relations enquired. They received a very polite note assuring them that so soon as she was better—
Sonia Herries was in bed, but not in her own room. She was in the little attic bedroom but lately occupied by Rose the maid. She lay at first in a strange apathy. She was ill. She slept and woke and slept again. Ada Abbott, sometimes Mrs Edwards, sometimes a woman she did not know, attended to her. They were all very kind. Did she need a doctor? No, of course she did not need a doctor, they assured her. They would see that she had everything that she wanted.
Then life began to flow back into her. Why was she in this room? Where were her friends? What was this horrible food that they were bringing her? What were they doing here, these women?
She had a terrible scene with Ada Abbott. She tried to get out of bed. The girl restrained her—and easily, for all the strength seemed to have gone from her bones. She protested, she was as furious as her weakness allowed her, then she cried. She cried most bitterly. Next day she was alone and she crawled out of bed; the door was locked; she beat on it. There was no sound but her beating. Her heart was beginning again that terrible strangled throb. She crept back into bed. She lay there, weakly, feebly crying. When Ada arrived with some bread, some soup, some water, she demanded that the door should be unlocked, that she should get up, have her bath, come downstairs to her own room.
‘You are not well enough,’ Ada said gently.
‘Of course I am well enough. When I get out I will have you put in prison for this—’
‘Please don’t get excited. It is so bad for your heart.’
Mrs Edwards and Ada washed her. She had not enough to eat. She was always hungry.
Summer had come. Mrs Weston went to Etretat. Everyone was out of town.
‘What’s happened to Sonia Herries?’ Mabel Newmark wrote to Agatha Benson. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages.…’
But no one had time to enquire. There were so many things to do. Sonia was a good sort, but she had been nobody’s business.…
Once Henry Abbott paid her a visit. ‘I am so sorry that you are not better,’ he said smiling. ‘We are doing everything we can for you. It is lucky we were around when you were so ill. You had better sign these papers. Someone must look after your affairs until you are better. You will be downstairs in a week or two.’
Looking at him with wide-open terrified eyes, Sonia Herries signed the papers.
The first rains of autumn lashed the streets. In the sitting-room the gramophone was turned on. Ada and young Mr Jackson, Maggie Trent and stout Harry Bennett were dancing. All the furniture was flung against the walls. Mr Edwards drank his beer; Mrs Edwards was toasting her toes before the fire.
Henry Abbott came in. He had just sold the Utrillo. His arrival was greeted with cheers.
He took the silver mask from the wall and went upstairs. He climbed to the top of the house, entered, switched on the naked light.
‘Oh! Who—What—?’ A voice of terror came from the bed.
‘It’s all right,’ he said soothingly. ‘Ada will be bringing your tea in a minute.’
He had a hammer and nail and hung the silver mask on the speckled, mottled wall-paper where Miss Herries could see it.
‘I know you’re fond of it,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d like it to look at.’
She made no reply. She only stared.
‘You’ll want something to look at,’ he went on. ‘You’re too ill, I’m afraid, ever to leave this room again. So it’ll be nice for you. Something to look at.’
He went out, gently closing the door behind him.
Wind in the East
Henry Wade
Henry Wade was the name under which a member of the landed gentry Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher (1887–1969) wrote detective fiction of high calibre. In the early stages of his literary career, Wade was influenced by the work of the Irishman Freeman Wills Crofts, and novels such as The Duke of York’s Steps were accomplished but conventional.
Several of Wade’s best books featured an ambitious Scotland Yard man, Inspector John Poole. As his confidence grew, Wade took more risks with his writing, experimenting with different types of crime fiction. Mist on the Saltings (1933) offers a poignant study in character, Heir Presumptive (1935) wittily anticipates the popular film Kind Hearts and Coronets, and Lonely Magdalen (1940) is a superb example of the police procedural. His short stories are almost equally varied and appealing.
***
‘Got such a thing as tuppence on you, Poole?’ inquired Superintendent Flackett. ‘No, not for me—your bus fare to Lordship Lane Police Station. From there an intelligent constable will guide you through devious ways to No. 157, Baldwin Terrace, the residence of Messrs. Reginald and Herbert Gainly. In No. 157 you will find an open scullery window, an empty and mutilated safe, a bloodstained jemmy, and an elderly gentleman with his head caved in. Bring to bear upon this astounding mystery all your trained intelligence, your matchless powers of deduction—and report the result to me before tea. Your country needs you. Go.’
Inspector John Poole cursed the unimaginativeness of the South London criminal. Six weeks ago he had been transferred from ‘Central,’ at Scotland Yard, to the Southern Area (Headquarters, Camberwell), with the idea of broadening his experience; during that time he had had to deal with no fewer than three cases of the type described by his chief, and he was sick of them. The station-sergeant, Horridge, who, as he heard from his guide, was already on the spot, could, with his local knowledge, deal with this case as well, if not better than himself. Still, duty was duty.
Baldwin Terrace was a gloomy row of semi-detached houses in the network of ‘desirably-residential’ streets that lie between Dulwich Park and Peckham Rye. In front of No. 157 the usual group of morbid idlers was standing, feasting their imagination upon blank walls and the blanker face of a sentinel policeman. To him, Poole showed his ‘authority,’ learning in return that ‘the sergeant’ was in the kitchen, the ‘corp.’ in the living-room just to the left of the front door.
Declining P.C. Lorerley’s offer of a personal introduction to the latter, Poole made his way through into the back regions, and soon unearthed Sergeant Horridge, who was combining pleasure with duty by drinking a bowl of steaming tea, evidently provided by the elderly dame he was questioning. Introductions being effected, the detective was soon in possession of the facts as far as Sergeant Horridge had ascertained them.
At 7 a.m. that morning, Mrs Gubb—the lady who came in daily to ‘do’ for the brothers Gainly—had, after getting the kitchen fire lighted, gone into the living-room to tidy up. There, crumpled up in an arm-chair by the fire, she had found the body of one of her employers—the younger, Mr Herbert Gainly; a terrible gash in the top of the head was enough in itself, without the added testimony of glazed eyes and ice-cold flesh, to show that the unfortunate man was dead.
Mrs Gubb had at once summoned a passer-by, and sent him in search of doctor and police—there was no telephone in the house; she had then gone up and awakened Mr Reginald. Gainly, the elder brother. Police-constable Lorerley had arrived before Mr Reginald had dressed and come down, and had taken charge of the situation, rightly excluding everybody from the room until the arrival of Dr Blonahay, who had made a superficial examination of the body, pronounced life extinct, and departed.
‘Right,’ said Poole, rising to his feet. ‘That’ll do to go on with. Now we’ll have a look at the room.’
Sergeant Horridge led the way back into the front hall and, opening the door already indicated by P.C. Lorerley, ushered Poole into the living-room. Without even glancing at the body, the detective turned to his subordinate.
‘Where’s the brother?’ he asked.
‘In the parlour, sir—across the passage. Proper stew he’s in—gutless little rotter, I should call him—not worth half of Mrs Gubb.’
‘Talked to him?’
‘Not much, sir—thought I might as well leave that for the specialists.’ Sergeant Horridge, who had quickly realised his superior officer to be
human, grinned at his little joke.
‘Who are these Gainlys, anyway?’
‘Stationers, sir, in Lewisham High Road—nice little business, I believe—but it’s out of my area. I’ve never met either of the brothers before, sir, but I’ve heard a fair amount about them. It’s a case of the fat kine and the lean, sir; morally and physically too, from what I’ve seen to-day. Mr Herbert the younger, was the strong man of the show, the brains and the brawn, too, from all accounts. Mr Reginald the elder, was a shadow of his brother—small in body and small in character—played second fiddle all along—in the shop and at home. That reminds me, sir; he’s panting to be off to the shop—there’s only a boy to mind it; at least, he’s half-panting to go, and half afraid to move out of the parlour.’
‘Well, he’ll have to wait till I’ve been through him,’ said Poole. ‘Now, let’s have a look round.’
Standing with his back to the door, Poole took a mental photograph of the room, as it appeared to anyone entering from the hall. On his left was the bow-window looking on to Baldwin Terrace; opposite him was the outer wall of the ‘detached’ side of the house, with a window looking on to the small space that earned it that distinction; on his right was the fireplace, in the wall that evidently backed on to the kitchen; behind him was the fourth wall, containing the door into the hall.
On the far side of the fireplace—the left, as Poole looked at it—pushed up close against the wall, was a small, timid-looking arm-chair; obviously, this was the chair allotted to Reginald, the meek elder brother. Almost directly in front of the fire—just enough to the right to be in a direct line between the fire and the door—was a large, leather arm-chair, dominating the whole room, as its accustomed occupant had dominated the life of the Gainly family.
The dominion of Herbert Gainly, however, was no longer of this world; over the back of the chair Poole could just see the top of a man’s head, clotted with blood.
Poole stepped round to the front of the chair and gazed down at the dead man. Someone—the doctor probably—had closed the eyes, allowing himself that much of ‘interference’ with the exact status quo on which the police set such store; by that much he had reduced the horror of the dead man’s appearance and Poole was able to realise that in life Herbert Gainly must have been a fine-looking man—tall, rather heavy perhaps, with large head, firm jaw, and well-shaped nose—all eloquent of the character to which his very chair bore witness. A small black moustache was the only feature of the man which was not in the major key—it gave just a touch of meanness to the whole; Poole wished that he had seen the eyes in life—for there alone does the soul of a man lie open to those who know how to read. Now, death had laid his hand upon them too long—their secret was hidden.
Capital Crimes: London Mysteries Page 27