Late and Cold (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  He was still studying it, and had begun to regret that he had left his field-glasses in the car, when round the bend of the river came a man and a woman. Both were bareheaded. The woman wore a trouser-suit of green tweed, the man was dressed in a monkish robe girt about with a stout leather belt. Both persons carried walking sticks and the woman had a camera. Timothy wished them good morning as they came opposite the bridge. The woman bowed, the man put the palms of his hands together, raised his fingertips almost to the level of his chin and inclined his head gracefully over them. Neither said a word. Timothy waited until they were lost to sight at another bend of the river, and then walked back across the bridge and into the woods.

  He had not gone far before he was aware that he was being followed. He turned his head, and there, not very far behind him, were the couple he had greeted. He stood aside to let them pass, but, instead of doing so, they halted.

  “Would you mind telling us,” said the woman, “what you are doing on our land?”

  “Oh, am I trespassing? I’m terribly sorry,” said Timothy, gazing at her with a smile. “I spotted the castle from the road, and, as there was a path and no warning notice, I thought I’d like to take a look at it.”

  “You must have known that it belonged to somebody.”

  “I understand that it belongs to a family by the name of Jones.”

  “Are you acquainted with the family? Have you met them?”

  “No, I have not met them.”

  “What did you make of the castle?”

  “I found it interesting, but not unusual—an original wooden motte and bailey structure, later converted to stone and, I should say, enlarged.”

  The woman turned to her silent companion.

  “Satisfactory, I think? He may come again.” Saying this, she took a key from her jacket pocket. “If ever you cross the bridge, beware of the bull,” she added. With this, she handed Timothy the key, turned about and, taking the man’s arm, led him back by the way they had come. Timothy, intrigued by the brief encounters, went back to his car and returned to Shrewsbury, where, this time, he was to spend the night at the house of Tom and Diana Parsons.

  CHAPTER TWO

  An Address in Earls Court

  Two days later Timothy went to dine with the president of Phisbe.

  “So you’ve had a look at Nanradoc Castle. Any good?” asked the president. Timothy described the ruins, and added,

  “You read the letter I sent on to you?”

  “Yes. Come to think of it, although we’ve had some rummy communications from time to time, I don’t remember that we’ve ever before been asked to house a family.”

  “It’s rummier than that. After I’d had a look at the place and met a couple of rather extraordinary people, I went for dinner and the night to Parsons’s. You know he lives in Shrewsbury. He came with me next day to cast his expert eye over the castle. He thinks it wouldn’t cost an unreasonable sum to repair enough of it to turn it into a worthwhile show-place, but that, of course, is hardly what the owner wants to make of it, and, as you indicate, it isn’t our business to house people.”

  “What’s so peculiar, then?” asked the president’s wife.

  “Well, Diana Parsons knows a bit about this fellow Jones. She says that he’s an up-and-coming painter—well, up-and-come, actually, because people are already beginning to buy his pictures. He lives near Chester with a woman sculptor named Leonie Bing. Rumour has it that they’re married, but they don’t admit it publicly because marriage, it seems, is a dirty word among their little circle. Be that as it may, Jones’s name must be pretty widely known because, as you know, before Diana told me about him I’d had some of the same information from our omniscient Coningsby. Furthermore, Coningsby claims to know the district from which the letter came, and indicates that it’s not at all the sort of set-up to appeal to this reasonably affluent painter.”

  “Apart from which, Jones lives somewhere around Chester, you say,” said the president’s wife. “Could there possibly be two men called Pembroke Pritchard Jones?”

  “It seems highly unlikely, doesn’t it, unless they’re father and son. Anyway, I’m interested enough to call at the Earls Court address in order to try to solve the little mystery.”

  “How far do you propose to commit yourself? I don’t need to point out that you certainly must not commit Phisbe.”

  “No further—speaking about committing myself—than to ask to see the title deeds. I rather think the whole business is some sort of impudent attempt at fraud on that couple I met, although I really can’t make out what the writer of the letter hopes to gain. He surely doesn’t think that we scatter largesse for the asking. I don’t know what to make of the set-up, but I’m determined to get it sorted out. It isn’t often one gets a mystery handed one on a plate, and I’m intrigued by this one.” He did not mention having been presented with a key to the bridge, which, in its way, was the most mysterious thing of all.

  He set off at eleven next morning, this time from the president’s house in Surrey where he had spent the night. He had not elected to start earlier, as he had a conviction, born of experience, that painters seldom rose before midday unless there was some question of their needing the early morning light by which to work.

  Enquiries answered by a policeman led him to the Earls Court address. Regarding the unsavoury house for a minute or two from the driver’s window of his car, he felt the first stirrings of sympathy for his correspondent. Dirty and partly damaged front steps led up to a door on which the paint stood in need of renewal. The curtains in the basement were drawn across the window, no doubt in order to discourage the curious. In the window of the floor above, a tired plant wilted in its pot and an empty birdcage hung above it. Everything looked poverty-stricken and lifeless. The street itself seemed asleep.

  Timothy got out of the car, locked it, and walked up the filthy steps. He rang the bell but, even as he pressed it, he had a premonition that it was out of order. Then he noticed that the door was not fastened. He hammered on it with his fist and it swung open sufficiently to disclose a wide, bare hall covered with badly-worn linoleum. A small wooden clotheshorse, which partly blocked the fairway, bore a notice. Stepping just inside the doorway, Timothy read the message. It ran:

  Basement Studd. Use lower entrance.

  First floor Ralley. One loud knock.

  Second front Carlon. Go up. Two knocks.

  Second back Jones. After five. Go up. Ring.

  Third floor to let furnished. Enquire Basement. No Coloured.

  Timothy studied this information and then mounted the stairs, realising, as he traversed the landing in search of a bell at the door of the second floor back, that, if the occupant could not be seen until after five o’clock, his present errand would be fruitless. It seemed strange that a painter should be out all day, but the explanation must be that he had a studio elsewhere. If the elsewhere were near Chester, however, he could hardly expect to be back in London by five o’clock each day. The mystery, one way and another, grew more baffling.

  Timothy found the bell and rang it. From the floor below a woman’s voice called out,

  “She ain’t in yet. Can’t you read or something?”

  Timothy descended the stairs and was confronted by a middle-aged, corpulent woman wearing hat and coat and carrying a shopping basket.

  “Who do you want?” she asked. “If it’s that Mrs. Jones, she’s not in. She’s a schoolteacher, so she says. Gets back about five.”

  “It was a Mr. Jones I wanted to see.”

  “Well, you won’t. There ain’t one. Never ’as been, if you ask me. No better than she should be—three kids an’ all, and none of ’em ain’t got the same father, I wouldn’t mind betting. Wedding ring, or no wedding ring, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. ’Course, it ain’t no business of mine, but I wonder at ’em keeping ’er on at that school, in contact of them innocent children. I’m thankful my kids never went there.”

&nbs
p; “Then I’m afraid I’ve come to the wrong address,” said Timothy, “but this is the one given in my letter, isn’t it?” He showed her the heading.

  “Oh, yes, that’s this ’ouse all right.”

  “Well, the man I’m looking for is an artist.”

  “Artist? Oh, Mrs. Studd would never ’ave that sort ’ere! This ’ouse ’as always been respectable, else Ralley and me wouldn’t live ’ere, I can tell you.”

  “Can you give me the address of the school at which Mrs. Jones teaches? Perhaps she’d be able to help me.”

  “No, I’ve never ’eard it. She don’t talk to the rest of us, except to say good morning now and then. Keeps ’erself to ’erself, and I don’t wonder at it.” She sniffed meaningly and regarded Timothy with small, suspicious eyes.

  “How long has she lived here?” Timothy enquired.

  “Matter of eighteen months or so, and won’t be ’ere much longer, if I know anything about it.”

  “Oh? Why is that, then? Doesn’t she keep up with the rent?”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be that. She’s regular enough, I daresay. But Mrs. Studd don’t like them kids of hers all over the place. She’s afraid the Council’ll say she’s overcrowding. Well, she ain’t afraid of that, really, but that’s what she’s going to tell this Mrs. Jones, not to make unpleasantness chucking ’er out. She don’t like to make no unpleasantness, not Mrs. Studd don’t, and she won’t ’urt nobody’s feelings, not so long as she can ’elp it. Quite the lady, she is, in ’er own sort of way, and keeps a respectable ’ouse, and so say all of us.”

  “Perhaps I could go and talk to her. Is she in, do you know?”

  “Oh, yes, she’s in all right. You’ll ’ave to go outside and down the basement, though, if you wants to see ’er.”

  Timothy thanked her and sought the basement. The door was opened by an elderly woman wearing a cardigan over her nightdress.

  “I don’t want no vacuum cleaners nor I don’t want no encyclopaedias,” she said belligerently.

  “I called to see Mrs. Jones,” said Timothy, before she could close the door. She opened it a little wider and looked him up and down.

  “She ain’t in, this time of day. What might you want with her?” she asked.

  “This is just a personal call,” said Timothy, meeting her eyes.

  “Well, this is a decent house, I’d have you know, and I don’t encourage gentleman callers, not knowing who I’m letting in.” She eyed his Savile Row suit and gleaming shoes with considerable suspicion and disfavour.

  “My call is entirely on business,” said Timothy coldly. “You don’t know where she teaches, I suppose?”

  “None of us don’t know that. Anyway, if you want to see her, you’ll have to come back about five. But no goings-on, let me warn you, else straight out she goes, and no promises. I don’t have none of that here.”

  Timothy went back to his club and ate a solitary lunch.

  “Do you know the Earls Court district, Fred?” he asked the waiter.

  “Only the bus that takes you to the North Gate of the Zoo, sir. I live in Chiswick myself.”

  Timothy spent the afternoon in the club smoking-room, and at ten minutes to five he telephoned the garage which looked after his car when he was staying in Town and asked them to bring it round. At a quarter-past five he was ringing the bell of the second floor back in Mrs. Studd’s Earls Court residence.

  The door was opened by a thin woman wearing a blue overall. She was an ash-blonde, was not much under thirty years old, he thought, and might have been beautiful if she had not looked so haggard. He raised his hat.

  “Mrs. Jones?”

  “Miss,” she said. He handed her Phisbe’s card. “Oh, yes? Won’t you come in? I’ll have to put you in the children’s room while I give them their tea. This door.” She showed Timothy into a high-ceilinged room which contained a two-tiered bunk and a cot. The wallpaper was grimy, but the paint and the bed-coverings were clean. A home-made screen plastered over with children’s paintings and some used Christmas cards hid the fireplace, and chintz curtains, patterned with animal figures, helped to brighten the otherwise drab room. The floor was newly carpeted and the door of a built-in cupboard had been left open, disclosing toys and picture books.

  There were no chairs, but there was a large, cushioned packing-case. He supposed it held the children’s clothes. He seated himself on it and studied the room in detail. He had not seen the children, but could not help being aware of their proximity, if only because of the noise which came from the adjoining room. He waited half an hour, some of the time seated on the box and some of it in gazing down into small, unkempt back gardens and a solid row of houses beyond them in the next street. At last the haggard woman came back.

  “Would you like us to talk in the other room?” she asked. “Then the children can come in here to play.” He followed her and found himself in a slightly larger room which sported an armchair, a dining-table, four dining chairs, and a studio couch made up for its daytime appearance. A boy and a girl, obviously twins, and a much younger child, stared at him. Timothy was not at his ease with children unless he was given a lead. These gave him none.

  “Hullo,” he said.

  “Hullo,” they responded politely. Then the youngest set up a howl. The woman picked her up and carried her out. The other two children followed. After a minute or two the woman came back and closed the door behind her. She threw school exercise books out of a cheap leather bag and stacked them on the table.

  “Marking?” asked Timothy sympathetically. She nodded.

  “Got to get them done for tomorrow.”

  “Right,” he said. “I’ll help, and then we can talk.”

  “All right, then.” She accepted his offer with indifference. “Please put S in the margin if the spelling’s wrong, and correct any very bad grammar mistakes, that’s all. Can you spell, by the way? Some people don’t seem able to.”

  “Doctor Johnson consulted me frequently when he was compiling his famous dictionary.”

  “I see,” she said, without smiling. She tossed him a marking-pencil and they worked away in silence at the pile of books.

  “Thanks,” she said at last. “That was kind of you. And now, what have you come about?”

  “Castle Nanradoc. I went to look at it.”

  “Did you? What’s it like? I’ve never seen it. Will your Society do it up for us?”

  “Before we go into that,” said Timothy, eyeing her with elder-brotherly disparagement, “don’t you think you’ve got some explaining to do?” (Yes, she was thin—much too thin, he thought.)

  “You mean about signing myself Pembroke Pritchard Jones? I thought it was rather a grand name, and your Society would have to take some notice of it. Pembroke is my cousin, you see, and it’s he who’s given me the castle.”

  “Given it to you?” He thought of the tweed-suited lady and her silent, monkish companion. “But why would he want to do that?”

  “I have no idea, but it really is a godsend, and I can do with one. I want to live there with the children. It would be much better for them than staying in this awful hole. Besides, I’ve had some pretty strong hints from my landlady that she intends to turn us out, so I’ve got to find somewhere to go, and the sooner the better.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry, but what you’re asking my Society to do isn’t possible, I’m afraid.”

  “But I’d pay you back! It would only be a sort of loan. I meant to explain that. Didn’t I put it in the letter?”

  “Have you any idea of what it would cost to make that castle habitable?” asked Timothy, ignoring the question.

  “No, I haven’t. As I told you, I haven’t seen it.”

  “Well, it would run into thousands.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would, but so will a house, if ever I can afford to buy one, which doesn’t seem very likely at the moment. I should expect to get a mortgage on a house, so I’m only asking your Society to do the same thing, that is, to lend me the m
oney.”

  “But, my dear Miss Jones, we’re not a building society.”

  “Well, you are, in a way—or so it seems to me,” she argued. “You may not do actual building, but you do a lot of rebuilding. I read your Transactions. There’s a copy in the reference department of our local library.”

  “Look,” said Timothy, on a sudden impulse, “suppose I take you to see Nanradoc and show you how impossible it is that you should live there? When could you go?”

  “I couldn’t, without the children. I wouldn’t leave them here on their own. Mrs. Studd would probably turn them out to play in the street all day, and I couldn’t have that!”

  “What are they like?—well-behaved? Guaranteed not to open the door of the car and fall out? Not to make themselves sticky? Not to drop dollops of ice-cream all over the upholstery?”

  “I couldn’t guarantee anything. You know what children are!”

  “Actually, no, except by flinching observation. What if I could get them minded for you? Could you come then?” He did not know what induced him to press the point.

  “I suppose so. But who would mind them? Bryn and Bron are eight years old, and Miranda is two. It would be no joke taking them on, even if I knew anybody who would do it.”

  “Are they,” asked Timothy, mindful of Mrs. Ralley’s insinuations, “all related to one another?”

  “Bryn and Bron, the twins, are my brother’s children. He and my sister-in-law were killed in an air-crash. There was nobody to look after them, and I couldn’t stand the thought of sending them to an orphanage. Miranda is no relation of mine. She’s the child of—of a friend who couldn’t keep her. She’s on the stage, you see, this girl, and couldn’t cart a baby about with her. The twins go to school, and I’ve found a day-nursery for Miranda. One of the women who used to look after her all day, now takes her in until I’m free to collect her. The nursery packs up at three, you see. The babies have their afternoon sleep after lunch, and when they wake up they’re supposed to be collected by their mums, only, being at school, I can’t do it, so I’m terribly grateful to this woman, but, of course, I have to pay her. One way and another, it all comes rather expensive, although, of course, my friend gives me something towards Miranda’s keep.”