by Mark Place
‘This gentleman, he say you—you drop…’
At this moment, rather fortunately, a strong smell of burning came from the kitchen. My guide uttered an exclamation of dismay.
‘Excuse, please excuse.’
‘You go along,’ I said heartily. ‘I can manage this.’
She fled with alacrity. I entered the room, shut the door behind me and came across to the couch. ‘How d’you do?’ I said.
The child said, ‘How d’you do?’ and proceeded to sum me up with a long, penetrating glance that almost unnerved me. She was rather a plain child with straight mousy hair arranged in two plaits. She had a bulging forehead, a sharp chin and a pair of very intelligent grey eyes.
‘I’m Colin Lamb,’ I said. ‘What’s your name?’
She gave me the information promptly.
‘Geraldine Mary Alexandra Brown.’
‘Dear me,’ I said, ‘that’s quite a bit of a name. What do they call you?’
‘Geraldine. Sometimes Gerry, but I don’t like that. And Daddy doesn’t approve of abbreviations.’
One of the great advantages of dealing with children is that they have their own logic. Anyone of adult years would at once have asked me what I wanted. Geraldine was quite ready to enter into conversation without resorting to foolish questions. She was alone and bored and the onset of any kind of visitor was an agreeable novelty. Until I proved myself a dull and unamusing fellow, she would be quite ready to converse.
‘Your daddy’s out, I suppose,’ I said.
She replied with the same promptness and fullness of detail which she had already shown.
‘Cartinghaven Engineering Works, Beaverbridge,’ she said. ‘It’s fourteen and three-quarter miles from here exactly.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Mummy’s dead,’ said Geraldine, with no diminution of cheerfulness. ‘She died when I was a baby two months old. She was in a plane coming from France. It crashed. Everyone was killed.’
She spoke with a certain satisfaction and I perceived that to a child, if her mother is dead, it reflects a certain kudos if she has been killed in a complete and devastating accident.
‘I see,’ I said. ‘So you have—’ I looked towards the door.
‘That’s Ingrid. She comes from Norway. She’s only been here a fortnight. She doesn’t know any English to speak of yet. I’m teaching her English.’
‘And she is teaching you Norwegian?’
‘Not very much,’ said Geraldine.
‘Do you like her?’
‘Yes. She’s all right. The things she cooks are rather odd sometimes. Do you know, she likes eating raw fish.’
‘I’ve eaten raw fish in Norway,’ I said. ‘It’s very good sometimes.’ Geraldine looked extremely doubtful about that. ‘She is trying to make a treacle tart today,’ she said.
‘That sounds good.’
‘Umm—yes, I like treacle tart.’ She added politely, ‘Have you come to lunch?’
‘Not exactly. As a matter of fact I was passing down below out there, and I think you dropped something out of the window.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’ I advanced the silver fruit knife.
Geraldine looked at it, at first suspiciously and then with signs of approval. ‘It’s rather nice,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a fruit knife.’
I opened it. ‘Oh, I see. You mean you can peel apples with it and things like that.’
‘Yes.’
Geraldine sighed. ‘It’s not mine. I didn’t drop it. What made you think I did?’
‘Well, you were looking out of the window, and…’
‘I look out of the window most of the time,’ said Geraldine. ‘I fell down and broke my leg, you see.’
‘Hard luck.’
‘Yes, wasn’t it. I didn’t break it in a very interesting way, though. I was getting out of a bus and it went on suddenly. It hurt rather at first and it ached a bit, but it doesn’t now.’
‘Must be rather dull for you,’ I said.
‘Yes, it is. But Daddy brings me things. Plasticine, you know, and books and crayons and jigsaw puzzles and things like that, but you get tired of doing things, so I spend a lot of time looking out of the window with these.’ She produced with enormous pride a small pair of opera glasses. ‘May I look?’ I said.
I took them from her, adjusted them to my eyes and looked out of the window. ‘They’re jolly good,’ I said appreciatively.
They were indeed, excellent. Geraldine’s daddy, if it had been he who supplied them, had not spared expense. It was astonishing how clearly you could see No. 19, Wilbraham Crescent and its neighbouring houses. I handed them back to her.
‘They’re excellent,’ I said. ‘First-class.’
‘They’re proper ones,’ said Geraldine, with pride. ‘Not just for babies and pretending.’
‘No…I can see that.’
‘I keep a little book,’ said Geraldine.
She showed me. ‘I write down things in it and the times. It’s like train spotting,’ she added. ‘I’ve got a cousin called Dick and he does train spotting. We do motor-car numbers too. You know, you start at one and see how far you can get.’
‘It’s rather a good sport,’ I said.
‘Yes, it is. Unfortunately there aren’t many cars come down this road so I’ve rather given that up for the time being.’
‘I suppose you must know all about those houses down there, who lives in them and all that sort of thing.’
I threw it out casually enough but Geraldine was quick to respond. ‘Oh, yes. Of course I don’t know their real names, so I have to give them names of my own.’
‘That must be rather fun,’ I said.
‘That’s the Marchioness of Carrabas down there,’ said Geraldine, pointing. ‘That one with all the untidy trees. You know, like Puss In Boots. She has masses and masses of cats.’
‘I was talking to one just now,’ I said, ‘an orange one.’
‘Yes, I saw you,’ said Geraldine.
‘You must be very sharp,’ I said. ‘I don’t expect you miss much, do you?’ Geraldine smiled in a pleased way. Ingrid opened the door and came in breathless. ‘You are all right, yes?’
‘We’re quite all right,’ said Geraldine firmly. ‘You needn’t worry, Ingrid.’
She nodded violently and pantomimed with her hands.
‘You go back, you cook.’
‘Very well, I go. It is nice that you have a visitor.’
‘She gets nervous when she cooks,’ explained Geraldine, ‘when she’s trying anything new, I mean. And sometimes we have meals very late because of that. I’m glad you’ve come. It’s nice to have someone to distract you, then you don’t think about being hungry.’
‘Tell me more about the people in the houses there,’ I said, ‘and what you see. Who lives in the next house—the neat one?’
‘Oh, there’s a blind woman there. She’s quite blind and yet she walks just as well as though she could see. The porter told me that. Harry. He’s very nice, Harry is. He tells me a lot of things. He told me about the murder.’
‘The murder?’ I said, sounding suitably astonished. Geraldine nodded. Her eyes shone with importance at the information she was about to convey. ‘There was a murder in that house. I practically saw it.’
‘How very interesting.’
‘Yes, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a murder before. I mean I’ve never seen a place where a murder happened.’
‘What did you—er—see?’
‘Well, there wasn’t very much going on just then. You know, it’s rather an empty time of day. The exciting thing was when somebody came rushing out of the house screaming. And then of course I knew something must have happened.’
‘Who was screaming?’
‘Just a woman. She was quite young, rather pretty really. She came out of the door and she screamed and she screamed. There was a young man coming along the road. She came out of the gate and sort of clut
ched him—like this.’ She made a motion with her arms. She fixed me with a sudden glance. ‘He looked rather like you.’
‘I must have a double,’ I said lightly. ‘What happened next? This is very exciting.’
‘Well, he sort of plumped her down. You know, on the ground there and then he went back into the house and the Emperor—that’s the orange cat, I always call him the Emperor because he looks so proud—stopped washing himself and he looked quite surprised, and then Miss Pikestaff came out of her house—that’s the one there, Number 18—she came out and stood on the steps staring.’
‘Miss Pikestaff?’
‘I call her Miss Pikestaff because she’s so plain. She’s got a brother and she bullies him.’
‘Go on,’ I said with interest.
‘And then all sorts of things happened. The man came out of the house again—are you sure it wasn’t you?’
‘I’m a very ordinary-looking chap,’ I said modestly, ‘there are lots like me.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s true,’ said Geraldine, somewhat unflatteringly. ‘Well, anyway, this man, he went off down the road and telephoned from the call-box down there. Presently police began arriving.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘Lots of police. And they took the dead body away in a sort of ambulance thing. Of course there were lots of people by that time, staring, you know. I saw Harry there, too. That’s the porter from these flats. He told me about it afterwards.’
‘Did he tell you who was murdered?’
‘He just said it was a man. Nobody knew his name.’
‘It’s all very interesting,’ I said.
I prayed fervently that Ingrid would not choose this moment to come in again with a delectable treacle tart or other delicacy.
‘But go back a little, do. Tell me earlier. Did you see this man—the man who was murdered—did you see him arrive at the house?’
‘No, I didn’t. I suppose he must have been there all along.’
‘You mean he lived there?’
‘Oh, no, nobody lives there except Miss Pebmarsh.’
‘So you know her real name?’
‘Oh, yes, it was in the papers. About the murder. And the screaming girl was called Sheila Webb. Harry told me that the man who was murdered was called Mr Curry. That’s a funny name, isn’t it, like the thing you eat. And there was a second murder, you know. Not the same day—later—in the telephone box down the road. I can see it from here, just, but I have to get my head right out of the window and turn it round. Of course I didn’t really see it, because I mean if I’d known it was going to happen, I would have looked out. But, of course, I didn’t know it was going to happen, so I didn’t. There were a lot of people that morning just standing there in the street, looking at the house opposite. I think that’s rather stupid, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘very stupid.’
Here Ingrid made her appearance once more.
‘I come soon,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I come very soon now.’
She departed again. Geraldine said: ‘We don’t really want her. She gets worried about meals. Of course this is the only one she has to cook except breakfast. Daddy goes down to the restaurant in the evening and he has something sent up for me from there. Just fish or something. Not a real dinner.’ Her voice sounded wistful.
‘What time do you usually have your lunch, Geraldine?’
‘My dinner, you mean? This is my dinner. I don’t have dinner in the evening, it’s supper. Well, I really have my dinner at any time Ingrid happens to have cooked it. She’s rather funny about time. She has to get breakfast ready at the right time because Daddy gets so cross, but midday dinner we have any time. Sometimes we have it at twelve o’clock and sometimes I don’t get it till two. Ingrid says you don’t have meals at a particular time, you just have them when they’re ready.’
‘Well, it’s an easy idea,’ I said. ‘What time did you have your lunch—dinner, I mean—on the day of the murder?’
‘That was one of the twelve o’clock days. You see, Ingrid goes out that day. She goes to the cinema or to have her hair done and a Mrs Perry comes and keeps me company. She’s terrible, really. She pats one.’
‘Pats one?’ I said, slightly puzzled.
‘You know, on the head. Says things like “dear little girlie”. She’s not,’ said Geraldine, ‘the kind of person you can have any proper conversation with. But she brings me sweets and that sort of thing.’
‘How old are you, Geraldine?’
‘I’m ten. Ten and three months.’
‘You seem to me very good at intelligent conversation,’ I said.
‘That’s because I have to talk to Daddy a lot,’ said Geraldine seriously.
‘So you had your dinner early on that day of the murder?’
‘Yes, so Ingrid could get washed up and go off just after one.’
‘Then you were looking out of the window that morning, watching people.’
‘Oh, yes. Part of the time. Earlier, about ten o’clock, I was doing a crossword puzzle.’
‘I’ve been wondering whether you could possibly have seen Mr Curry arriving at the house?’
Geraldine shook her head.
‘No. I didn’t. It is rather odd, I agree.’
‘Well, perhaps he got there quite early.’
‘He didn’t go to the front door and ring the bell. I’d have seen him.’
‘Perhaps he came in through the garden. I mean through the other side of the house.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Geraldine. ‘It backs on other houses. They wouldn’t like anyone coming through their garden.’
‘No, no, I suppose they wouldn’t.’
‘I wish I knew what he’d looked like,’ said Geraldine.
‘Well, he was quite old. About sixty. He was clean-shaven and he had on a dark grey suit.’
Geraldine shook her head. ‘It sounds terribly ordinary,’ she said with disapprobation.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I suppose it’s difficult for you to remember one day from another when you’re lying here and always looking.’
‘It’s not at all difficult.’ She rose to the challenge. ‘I can tell you everything about that morning. I know when Mrs Crab came and when she left.’
‘That’s the daily cleaning woman, is it?’
‘Yes. She scuttles, just like a crab. She’s got a little boy. Sometimes she brings him with her, but she didn’t that day. And then Miss Pebmarsh goes out about ten o’clock. She goes to teach children at a blind school. Mrs Crab goes away about twelve. Sometimes she has a parcel with her that she didn’t have when she came. Bits of butter, I expect, and cheese, because Miss Pebmarsh can’t see. I know particularly well what happened that day because you see Ingrid and I were having a little quarrel so she wouldn’t talk to me. I’m teaching her English and she wanted to know how to say “until we meet again”.
She had to tell it me in German. Auf Wiedersehen . I know that because I once went to Switzerland and people said that there. And they said Grüss Gott , too. That’s rude if you say it in English.’
‘So what did you tell Ingrid to say?’
Geraldine began to laugh a deep malicious chuckle. She started to speak but her chuckles prevented her, but at last she got it out.
‘I told her to say “Get the hell out of here”! So she said it to Miss Bulstrode next door and Miss Bulstrode was furious . So Ingrid found out and was very cross with me and we didn’t make friends until nearly tea-time the next day.’ I digested this information.
‘So you concentrated on your opera glasses.’
Geraldine nodded. ‘So that’s how I know Mr Curry didn’t go in by the front door. I think perhaps he got in somehow in the night and hid in an attic. Do you think that’s likely?’
‘I suppose anything really is possible,’ I said, ‘but it doesn’t seem to me very probable.’
‘No,’ said Geraldine, ‘he would have got hungry, wouldn’t he? And he couldn’t have asked Miss Pebmarsh for breakfast, not if he was hidin
g from her.’
‘And nobody came to the house?’ I said. ‘Nobody at all? Nobody in a car—a tradesman—callers?’
‘The grocer comes Mondays and Thursdays,’ said Geraldine, ‘and the milk comes at half past eight in the morning.’
The child was a positive encyclopaedia.
‘The cauliflowers and things Miss Pebmarsh buys herself. Nobody called at all except the laundry. It was a new laundry,’ she added.
‘A new laundry?’
‘Yes. It’s usually the Southern Downs Laundry. Most people have the Southern Downs. It was a new laundry that day—the Snowflake Laundry. I’ve never seen the Snowflake Laundry. They must have just started.’
I fought hard to keep any undue interest out of my voice. I didn’t want to start her romancing.
‘Did it deliver laundry or call for it?’ I asked.
‘Deliver it,’ said Geraldine. ‘In a great big basket, too. Much bigger than the usual one.’
‘Did Miss Pebmarsh take it in?’
‘No, of course not, she’d gone out again.’
‘What time was this, Geraldine?’
‘1.35 exactly,’ said Geraldine. ‘I wrote it down,’ she added proudly. She motioned towards a small note-book and opening it pointed with a rather dirty forefinger to an entry. 1.35 laundry came. No. 19.’
‘You ought to be at Scotland Yard,’ I said. ‘Do they have women detectives? I’d quite like that. I don’t mean police women. I think police women are silly.’
‘You haven’t told me exactly what happened when the laundry came.’
‘Nothing happened,’ said Geraldine. ‘The driver got down, opened the van, took out this basket and staggered along round the side of the house to the back door. I expect he couldn’t get in. Miss Pebmarsh probably locks it, so he probably left it there and came back.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Just ordinary,’ said Geraldine.
‘Like me?’ I asked.
‘Oh, no, much older than you,’ said Geraldine, ‘but I didn’t really see him properly because he drove up to the house—this way.’ She pointed to the right. ‘He drew up in front of 19 although he was on the wrong side of the road. But it doesn’t matter in a street like this. And then he went in through the gate bent over the basket. I could only see the back of his head and when he came out again he was rubbing his face. I expect he found it a bit hot and trying, carrying that basket.’