The Lodger

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Lucky for you you didn’t forget to say so,’ said Emma, and Nicholas saw the tease in her smile this time.

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Carter, and thanks again.’

  ‘Goodnight, Sergeant Chamberlain,’ said Emma, opening the door for him. The twilight had been overtaken by night. Farther down the street, a lamp cast its pale glow. Nicholas left, stepping into the shadows.

  Dear me, thought Emma, as she closed the door, what excuse will he find for his next call, I wonder?

  For Nicholas and the Yard, three matters at least had been resolved that week. The man who had applied to Mrs Buller for lodgings had come forward following newspaper reports. Yes, he had gone to Mrs Carter’s house. Receiving no answer to his knock, he had gone elsewhere and finished up getting a room above a shop in Camberwell Road. He had no difficulty in putting himself in the clear. Secondly, Mr Rodney Foster of Dartford had given Mr Jerry Bates a watertight alibi. Nicholas had not thought he would do otherwise. Thirdly, more to satisfy the Rodney Road police than Scotland Yard, a certain Mr Wally Hooper had been found lodging in Page’s Walk, off the Old Kent Road. Constable Harry Bradshaw called on him. He was certainly fat and certainly horrible, but no murderer.

  The settling of all three matters was merely in the nature of a tidying-up operation. The primary objective, the apprehension of the Southwark Strangler, as the Press called the murderer, seemed no nearer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was still Friday. Exactly a week had elapsed since the murder. The late-night tram glided to a stop by Manor Place, off the Walworth Road. A woman alighted, then a man. He crossed the road to Browning Street, and she turned into Manor Place. She walked with a healthy swing, her skirts rustling, her right hand keeping them hitched and clear of the ground. She headed towards Crampton Street. It was past eleven o’clock, and the night was dark. The patches of light offered by the street lamps were welcome to the homegoer. Between each lamp, however, there were long stretches of darkness.

  The footsteps behind her were silent. Hers clipped the pavement. The chilly April air was sharp, and she was glad of her coat. Lamplight steered her past the steps and doors of Manor Place Public Baths. She left the pale glow behind and entered darkness.

  He was on her heels then, noiseless, and far swifter than she was for all her swinging pace. With her handbag dangling from her left arm, she brought both hands up under the collar of her coat. She turned it up to cover her neck against the cold just as a cord, weighted at one end, whipped around her, under her chin. Her reflexes and her turned-up collar played their life-saving part. She screamed on the instant. The cord, encircling her neck, was also around her coat collar, and her hands were still there. As he took fast hold of the weighted end, she kicked backwards with the heel of her shoe. The cord jerked, strangling her new scream. But she struck twice more with the heel of her shoe, and each time his shin took a violent and gouging blow. He hissed, and he fumbled at the cord, giving her a brief second to issue a loud and piercing scream.

  The door of a house was pulled open. The cord ran free from her neck, and a fist knocked her savagely to the ground. A window rushed open. The assailant was away, hareing swiftly and silently into the darkness, towards Kennington. At the window, a man shouted. From the open door, another man burst forward, running to the woman lying dazed on the pavement outside. Her hat was off, her hand to her throat, her breathing painful, her hair a pale glimmer of night-subdued gold against the dark pavement.

  ‘The bugger’s going to be a pain in my backside,’ said Inspector Greaves, as he left a house in Crampton Street with Nicholas. They had had a long interview with the still shaken woman in the presence of her appalled parents.

  ‘He won’t like it that he didn’t finish her off,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Tell me another,’ growled the Inspector. ‘You’re feeling cocky, are you, that this fits in with your theories? Listen, my lad, when I was your age it was facts, method and commonsense. Somewhere along the line, theories crept in when my back was turned. I’ll give you one fact about Miss Morley. There’ll be no notebook.’

  ‘Agreed, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘she’s not on the game. She’s engaged to be married. I’m damned relieved she was lucky, she’s a sweet girl.’

  ‘Now then, now then, is something up with you, Chamberlain? We’ve already had your impressions of Mabel Shipman and Linda Jennings. And who else was there? The woman in King and Queen Street, Mrs Carter? Soft in the ’ead, are we?’

  ‘Hope not,’ said Nicholas, turning his coat collar up. April was dying, but it had managed to conjure up one of its perversely chilly winds. ‘Just a question of human sympathy, inspector.’

  ‘Don’t give me that kind of a pain,’ said Inspector Greaves, ignoring his own sympathy for Linda Jennings. ‘I can get it from peelin’ onions. This man who got off the tram with Miss Morley. Find him. He’s got to be a prime suspect.’

  ‘A pity she got off first and could give no description of him,’ said Nicholas. ‘All she could tell us was that she was aware he crossed the road, away from her.’

  ‘Find out which tram it was, and which conductor. Get some information out of him. Stand ’im up against a wall if he has trouble rememberin’. Point is, my son, was the man comin’ home from Camberwell, as she was, or is he a Camberwell man who happened to spot her waitin’ at the tram stop and decided to go after her?’

  ‘He’s a Walworth man,’ said Nicholas stubbornly.

  ‘It’s not a fact, but all right, I’ll go along with it.’

  ‘That’ll help, sir.’

  ‘It better had, sergeant. If it doesn’t, I’ll have your guts for garters.’

  The rent collector came on Saturday morning. All the girls had gone to the market to shop for Maggie. Trary was in charge. She was already a shrewd market shopper, and would make the most of the small amount of money her mum had given her. Daisy, Lily and Meg, who loved the market and its boisterous atmosphere, were a sisterly encouragement to Trary’s virtuosity. Besides, some nice greengrocer might give them a speckled apple each. Or some overripe bananas. Also, Trary might see Bobby Reeves at Mrs Reeves’s second-hand clothes stall now she knew he was that lady’s son. At the mention of this from Meg, Trary became scornful and scoffing.

  At home, Mr Bates put his head round the kitchen door and asked Maggie if she’d like him to put the kettle on for her. He’d got a bottle of Camp coffee and would like the pleasure of treating her to a cup, and himself as well. His approach was friendly, not loud and brash, and Maggie could not help being responsive. He was, after all, a healthy and invigorating man, and had made the house come alive. In any event, she knew herself perfectly capable of pulling him up if he went too far or took her kitchen for granted. Her kitchen was the family retreat, open to friends and neighbours, but not necessarily to lodgers.

  ‘Yes, come in, Mr Bates, I – ’ The rent collector knocked then. Maggie knew his knock, the same as she had known the knock of the moneylender. ‘Oh, that’s the rent collector, excuse me a minute.’ She took her purse from the mantelpiece and went to the front door, leaving Mr Bates in the kitchen, his ears alert, his generous pocket ready to be touched.

  ‘Mornin’,’ said Mr Dawes, a rent collector used to hard luck stories. His face was gaunt with the strain of listening to them week in, week out.

  ‘I can pay you a full week this week,’ said Maggie, ‘and a bit off the owings.’

  ‘Much obliged, I’m sure, Mrs Wilson, but a bit off the owings ain’t what I’m here for. All off, that’s me orders. So with this week’s rent and all yer owings, I’m collecting thirty-one bob from you.’

  ‘No, come off it,’ said Maggie, ‘you can’t collect what I don’t ’ave.’

  ‘Well now, Mrs Wilson, I begs to inform yer that if you don’t cough up, the landlord’ll chuck the bailiffs at yer on Monday. Mr Randall’s got to live, and so ’ave I. We can’t live, can we, nor our fam’lies, if all the owings don’t get settled. You can’t say you ain’t been warned, Mrs
Wilson.’

  ‘You can’t put the bailiffs in,’ said Maggie palely, ‘I got four girls who need a roof over their ’eads. Look, I can manage seven an’ six against the owings.’

  Mr Dawes shook a sad head. ‘Don’t play about, Mrs Wilson, I ain’t got time for games. Listen, you’ve got a new lodger, I ’eard. Ask ’im to loan yer. Tell him that if he don’t, he won’t ’ave any lodgings come Monday and you won’t ’ave any home. Is he in?’

  ‘Yes, I’m in,’ said Mr Bates, putting in a cheerful and manly appearance. ‘Rent’s rent, I grant yer. I’ll be pleased to loan Mrs Wilson the needful, seeing she’s ’ardly had the best of luck over the years.’

  ‘Mr Bates,’ said Maggie, suffering embarrassment again, ‘I really – ’

  ‘Let’s settle this first, shall we?’ said Mr Bates kindly. He took out his wallet, extracted a pound note and a ten-shilling note, and handed them to the collector.

  ‘Much obliged, but I’m due for another bob,’ said the gaunt Mr Dawes.

  ‘Right.’ Mr Bates produced a shilling, new and shiny. Mr Dawes took it, bit it and put it away.

  ‘Highly pleasin’ transaction,’ he said. He eyed Mr Bates shrewdly. Mr Bates smiled handsomely. ‘The gent’s yer new lodger, Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maggie shortly, and Mr Dawes noted the faint rings around her eyes had departed, and that her hollows were not so obvious. He filled in her rent book and gave it back to her. ‘I’m happy for yer, Mrs Wilson,’ he said, and departed.

  Maggie closed the door. ‘Mr Bates, now you’ve put me more in your debt,’ she said.

  ‘Well, that’s how it seems, Mrs Wilson, and I can’t say otherwise. Yes, that’s how it seems. But it don’t quite mean that, not to me. I see it as offering you a mite of ’elp, and enjoyin’ the pleasure of ’aving you accept. You’ve got pride, that’s a fact, and pride’s something to like in a woman who’s had your kind of ups and downs. I know you’ll pay me back, because you’re that kind of a woman, but like I’ve said before, just a bit at a time ’ow and when you can afford it will suit me fine.’

  ‘I don’t like owin’ you so much,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s six pounds, plus thirty-one shillings now, and the laundry cost too. You must take some of it now.’ She opened her purse. Mr Bates shook his head.

  ‘Can’t take it, Maggie, not yet I can’t,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Bates – ’

  ‘Did I slip up there, callin’ you Maggie? Apologies. Look, wait till you’re more flush. It’s a fact, yer know, that givin’ and receivin’ is sometimes right. I can’t ’elp thinkin’ life’s still a bit hard on you, specially with four girls, so it’s right in my book to make a friendly gesture now an’ again. You can put a little bit aside each week, say a bob or two, till it’s all there. Then I’ll take it, out of respect for you. Right, then, ’ow about that cup of Camp?’

  Maggie yielded, feeling she had been gently steamrollered again. But that did not affect her determination to put something aside every week in order to clear her debt.

  At the South London tram depot, it did not take Chamberlain and Chapman long to find out which tram had carried Miss Morley from Camberwell Green to Manor Place. The superintendent required only the time the tram stopped at Manor Place to come up with the required information; a number eighteen, its conductor Albert Roach. A look at the duty roster provided the superintendent with his name.

  Mr Roach was at home. He lived in Newington Butts with his family, and was on late duty again today. He received the CID men in his shirt, braces, trousers and slippers. A perky cockney in his forties, he was a typically chatty tram conductor. When informed of what had befallen Miss Morley, one of his passengers last night, he looked as if he wanted to spit.

  ‘Bleeder,’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember her, do you remember her getting off at Manor Place?’ asked Nicholas.

  Mr Roach rolled spit around his tongue, swallowed it and did his best to be helpful. Yes, he remembered the young lady. And the man as well. They both got off together at Manor Place. Well, not exactly together. She got off first, and the man followed a couple of seconds later. She looked a nice young lady, the man looked fairly ordinary. Let’s see, what was he wearing? Mr Roach said he wasn’t an expert on men’s or women’s clobber. He thought the man wasn’t wearing a coat, though.

  A mackintosh, perhaps?

  No, said Mr Roach, more like a jacket and jersey, like seamen wore. With a cap, yes, he could remember a cap, just an ordinary cap. The young lady went down Manor Place, the man went across the road to Browning Street, and then, said Mr Roach, the tram went on its way again. If he’d known what was to happen to the young lady, he’d have taken a lot more notice of things. But he didn’t give her or the man any real thought at all, except as passengers getting off.

  Was the man tall and well-built?

  No, just average. Well, perhaps just a bit taller than average.

  About what age?

  Well, said Mr Roach, he couldn’t say for sure, but thirty-odd, perhaps.

  Could Mr Roach remember what stop the man asked for when he got on? And where he got on?

  Camberwell Green was where he got on, and where the young lady got on too. The young lady asked for the Manor Place stop. The man asked for Browning Street. Both the same, actually, being opposite each other.

  Could he identify the man if he saw him again?

  Mr Roach wasn’t sure he could.

  Nicholas went through it all again with the tram conductor, but without getting any more out of him.

  The Saturday evening papers issued details, and pointed out that the police were asking for the man on the tram to come forward to assist them with their enquiries. They were also asking for the assistance of any person who might have information that was relevant, particularly information from other passengers on the tram at the time.

  Nicholas took a needed break from his headaches on Saturday evening.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was a rainy evening, but that did not discourage the suffragettes. Very little discouraged them. They were women who had the bit between their teeth, and their unrestrained charge towards emancipation had some parliamentarians shaking in their shoes.

  The public hall in Chelsea was packed with a thousand of them. A number of supportive men were also present. It was a rallying evening for the Women’s Social and Political Union, which was the brainchild of its formidable leader, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, a woman of courage and intellectual brilliance. Diehard politicians, of course, thought all her talents and intentions added up to a great nuisance. For her part, Mrs Pankhurst thought all their heads needed cracking. Suffragettes carried brollies in the hope of getting near enough to those heads.

  With Mrs Pankhurst on the platform this Saturday evening were a number of her ablest lieutenants, including her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. Christabel, as gifted as her mother, promised to be even more formidable. Cracking the heads of certain politicians was not enough for Christabel. She was in favour of knocking them off.

  Emma Carter felt that in some moods, Christabel was more of a liability than an asset to the movement. If Mrs Pankhurst was militant, Christabel was ready to draw a sword or throw a bomb. Nevertheless, Emma was looking forward to the evening’s rally. Rallies invigorated and exhilarated her and her sister suffragettes. Sparks flew and lightning flashed.

  The men in the audience were firm supporters, although at open-air rallies they became the butt of other men and even of some women.

  ‘Been measured for yer petticoats yet, ’ave yer, Cecil?’ That was a frequent sally.

  Some newspaper reporters were also present, although the Pankhursts, not without justification, regarded the Press generally as being on the side of the enemy.

  The gallery was as crowded as the floor. Seated up there near an exit door and overlooking the platform, was Nicholas Chamberlain, present as an unofficial observer. One knew what the suffragettes were up to, of course, but there was the chance that M
rs Emma Carter might be present. His view of the ladies on the platform was somewhat restricted by the largeness of their hats. His view of the suffragettes in the body of the hall was that of a thousand hats.

  The speakers, in turn, addressed the rally from the rostrum. Nicholas grimaced at their warlike outlook, and more especially at the ferocious nature of Christabel Pankhurst, the tigress of the movement. Lloyd George thought her quite mad. Emma, listening with a frown, thought she was heading the WSPU into self-destruction.

  Mrs Pankhurst, the last speaker, was herself fiery, but more logical and more believable. She brought the suffragettes and supportive men to their feet. Nicholas had never witnessed such fervent devotion. It was some minutes before the cheering suffragettes resumed their seats, at which point the chairwoman invited questions from the floor. A score of hands went up. The chairwoman singled them out. Questions were put, most of which, Nicholas thought, merely invited a repetition of statements and intentions that had already been mentioned in speeches from the platform. A young man was singled out. He asked his question. Wasn’t it possible to storm the Houses of Parliament and occupy the Commons?

  ‘Would you be in the vanguard of our troops?’ asked Mrs Pankhurst, who often used military terms.

  ‘I would,’ declared the young man.

  ‘You’d be prepared to face arrest and a long term of imprisonment? Perhaps even the gallows?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘How gratifying,’ said Christabel, who plainly did not believe him.

  ‘Thank you for your question,’ said Mrs Pankhurst. ‘It’s the kind that does provide food for thought.’

  The chairwoman surveyed the next uprising of hands. With a smile and a gesture, she invited a woman of quiet elegance to come to her feet. Nicholas discovered Emma, then, amid the mushrooming forest of hats. She was wearing a light grey raincoat and a dark grey hat.

  ‘Your name?’ asked the chairwoman.