The Lodger

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘I hope yer won’t, Trary, I’d miss you something rotten.’ They ascended steps. ‘It’s just that I’d want the stockings to fit you decent.’

  ‘You cheeky beast,’ said Trary, ‘show you my legs? You’ve got a hope.’

  ‘It’s only legs,’ said Bobby, keeping his face straight.

  ‘Only, only?’ Trary was springing along in the cloudy May light, her pigtails darting about to keep up with her. ‘My legs aren’t only, they’re mine and they’re private. D’you go round askin’ other girls to show you their legs?’

  ‘Well, no, not often I don’t, you can get a cripplin’ answer. I’ve learned some painful lessons, I can tell you.’

  ‘You’ll learn another one if you’re not careful,’ said Trary. They dodged round oncoming people.

  ‘All right, I’ll just guess about stocking size for you,’ said Bobby. ‘I’m not a bad guesser, and it’ll ’elp me mum sort you out a nice pair that’ll fit.’

  ‘Bobby, your mum can’t keep givin’ me things.’

  ‘She wouldn’t if you weren’t special,’ said Bobby.

  ‘Oh, I just remembered,’ said Trary, ‘would you like to come to tea on Sunday?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Bobby, ‘only I can’t, not Sunday, we’re goin’ to see Aunt Ada and Uncle Joe. Aunt Ada come round this mornin’ to invite us.’

  Oh, blow, thought Trary. She should have asked him yesterday.

  Mr Amos, the pawnbroker, had wrinkles all over his face, and he had a hundred more when he broke into a smile, which he did when he handed Trary the Sunday tablecloth and Maggie’s best tea service in exchange for the sum of three shillings and ninepence, which included the due interest.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Amos,’ said Trary.

  ‘Thank you, my pretty.’ Mr Amos peered at Bobby. ‘At your age, you have a young man?’ he asked Trary.

  ‘Oh, he’s just a talkin’ friend,’ she said.

  ‘That is a new fashion, to have a talking friend?’

  ‘Well, he can carry boxes on his head as well, Mr Amos,’ said Trary, and Bobby walked her home with a stout cardboard box containing the tea service on his head. Trary had fits, but Bobby kept one hand on his burden. She said he looked daft, walking through the streets like that. Bobby said the only daft thing about it was that it was flattening his head.

  Maggie was astonished when the young couple arrived with the redeemed items. Trary said she’d used money out of savings. Maggie looked at her, then at Bobby. Bobby smiled and said, ‘Nice to see you again, Mrs Wilson.’

  ‘Bobby,’ she said, ‘what’ve you an’ Trary been up to?’

  ‘I just went with her to the pawn, Mrs Wilson, that’s all.’

  ‘Trary,’ she said, ‘you sure that money came out of savings?’

  ‘Honest, Mum, it did.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had savings.’

  ‘I fink I’ve got savings,’ said Daisy. ‘I fink I’ve got two farvings in a shoe.’

  ‘I ain’t even got one,’ said Lily.

  ‘I don’t know what money looks like meself, not even farthings,’ said Meg.

  ‘I’ve been like that more times than I like to think about,’ said Bobby, ‘but there’s a silver linin’ somewhere around for some of us. Look, ’ere’s a bit of a silver linin’, even if it is only a tiddler.’ He produced a threepenny bit from his pocket. ‘That’s a penny each. Who’s oldest?’

  ‘Me,’ said Meg.

  ‘Well, you take it, Meg, and get it changed for a penny each,’ said Bobby. ‘I’ve ’ad a lucky day meself, a new hankie from yer sister Trary.’

  Maggie thought what a nice natural boy he was, so much so that it made her forget she wanted to ask him just how the tablecloth and tea service came to be redeemed.

  And Trary felt cross with herself that she hadn’t invited him to Sunday tea when she should have.

  The gas ran out that evening, just after the younger girls had gone to bed. The kitchen and passage gas mantles failed, plunging the house into darkness. Maggie groped for the candle and matches on the mantelpiece. She lit the candle in its holder. There were pennies in a cocoa tin on the dresser. Trary took one out and went to the gas meter in the passage, her mum lighting the way for her with the candle. Trary reached up and slipped the penny in. It stuck. She pushed. The penny jammed. At which precise moment, the front door opened from a pull on the latchcord, and Mr Bates, back from a long day out, entered.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ he said, seeing candlelight. ‘In the dark, are we, Maggie?’

  Trary felt she didn’t like that familiarity. Maggie said, ‘The gas ran out, and the penny’s got stuck.’

  ‘Let’s ’ave a look,’ said Mr Bates with masculine cheer and self-confidence. Trary moved out of his way, Maggie lifted the candle higher, and he inspected the meter. Only a little of the jammed penny was showing. He tried to ease it out. It remained obdurate. ‘A thin knife, that’ll shift it,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know we’ve got a thin one, just kitchen knives,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said, ‘this’ll do.’ He took a penknife from his pocket, a handsome one. He pulled open the main blade. In the light of the candle the thin steel gleamed sharply. He inserted it down beside the penny and gently probed. The coin came free. He took it out, slipped it in again and it dropped.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ said Maggie, and lit the passage mantle with the flame of the candle, then hurried to light the kitchen one.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ smiled Mr Bates, following Trary into the kitchen. ‘That’s more like home from home, eh, Trary?’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘I won’t say no,’ said Mr Bates, ‘I’ve been talkin’ meself hoarse with certain business coves all day and evenin’, yer know. Never been out of the country, most of ’em. They don’t see things the way I do, you ’ave to talk ’em into it. Yes, a cup of tea would be revivin’, Maggie.’

  Trary inwardly groaned, and not without justification, because Mr Bates sat at the kitchen table with them for the rest of the evening, and not sounding at all as if his voice had been under strain all day. His warm, friendly cheerfulness brought smiles from her mum. Trary felt Mr Bradshaw was being undermined. She wasn’t a bit pleased. For all that Mr Bates was helpful and entertaining, she just liked Mr Bradshaw more, a lot more.

  Saturday morning.

  Emma was at work, Nicholas was in a state of frustration, Inspector Greaves had the Assistant Commissioner, the Press and the public on his back, and Trary and her sisters were in East Street market.

  The second-hand clothes stall was piled high. The stallholder was a woman in her late-thirties. The May day was fine, so she wore a light straw hat, a white blouse and only one petticoat beneath her navy blue skirt. Her face was round and rosy, and her hatpin had a round and rosy knob to it. Her eyes were sharp and quick, but her expression was good-natured. Her sharpness of eye was necessary on account of women who sometimes managed in a miraculous way to tuck an unpaid-for garment under their skirts and walk off stiff-legged with it. Her good nature was inherent. She had two cheeky young daughters whom she fussed and spoiled, but the true apple of her eye was her son Bobby, lately doing his best to keep her erring husband from landing himself in a pack of trouble.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Reeves,’ said Trary, with Daisy, Lily and Meg agog with interest behind her.

  ‘Oh, ’ello, ducks.’ Mrs Reeves showed an interest of her own as she eyed the pretty girl. ‘I know you, don’t I? Ain’t I seen you ’ere with yer mum Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Yes, only we’ve never properly met,’ said Trary, ‘and as I was passin’ by, I thought I’d stop and say thanks ever so much for the frock. I never had a more expensive-lookin’ frock.’

  ‘The frock? Oh, yes.’ Mrs Reeves beamed a smile. ‘You’re Bobby’s new friend. My, I can see that lad of mine ’as got good taste. ’E’s got a good eye for clothes too.’

  ‘He can talk as well,’ said Trary.

&nb
sp; ‘Talks me dizzy sometimes,’ said Mrs Reeves, and swivelled an eye in the direction of a large woman who had begun to turn over garments. ‘Nice, that frock was, it come from a lot we got from a lady in Norwood that was sellin’ up. I got yer little note, ducky, but it was more Bobby’s doin’ than mine. ’E said ’e wanted it for Lady ’Ortense.’

  ‘Beg your pardon, Mrs Reeves?’ said Trary.

  ‘That’s what Bobby calls yer, ’is Lady ’Ortense,’ smiled Mrs Reeves, and Trary’s sisters giggled.

  ‘I’m goin’ to have to speak to him,’ said Trary. ‘You don’t mind if I do, Mrs Reeves?’

  ‘Not a bit.’ Mrs Reeves laughed. ‘Won’t do you much good, though. I been speakin’ to ’im all ’is life. ’E just comes back with things like, “How’s yer grandma, Mum?” ’E’s been lookin’ at stockings this mornin’. We sell good seconds in stockings sometimes.’ Mrs Reeves took her eye off the large woman to peer over the stall at Trary. ‘’E’ll find yer a nice pair, love. Says ’e reckons you got pretty legs.’

  Trary went pink. Her sisters’ giggles became hysterical. ‘Mrs Reeves, I’m happy you don’t mind me speakin’ to Bobby. Will you mind if I hit him as well, with me mum’s umbrella?’

  Mrs Reeves laughed. ‘I’d like to be there,’ she said. Another customer arrived.

  ‘I won’t keep you, Mrs Reeves,’ said Trary, ‘thanks ever so much again.’

  ‘Pleasure, I’m sure,’ said Bobby’s mother.

  Inspector Greaves slid a list across his desk to Nicholas.

  ‘Bring those men in for questioning,’ he said. Nicholas picked up the list and ran an eye over it.

  ‘Bring them in, all five of them?’ he asked.

  ‘Here, to the Yard. We’re getting nowhere on doorsteps. They’re all Walworth men, and the only possibles I’ve found on your reports this week. They all live close enough to Steedman Street. Never mind the alibis their wives have given ’em. There’s a common factor about all of ’em. They were all out on the two Friday evenings in question. Let’s have ’em in.’

  ‘No luck in the West End?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Needles in haystacks,’ said Inspector Greaves, ‘and Linda Jennings is worn out. What about that job for her, by the way?’

  ‘She starts on Monday, at Laverys’ head office in Wardour Street. It’ll give her a chance to live a – ’

  ‘Don’t tell me any more,’ said Inspector Greaves.

  Nicholas looked at the list of five names again. The Inspector, he thought, was snatching at straws in the wind.

  Trary thought Sunday tea was turning out lovely. To begin with, her mum had done up the parlour. She’d given the furniture a good shine and everything else a good dusting. The Sunday tablecloth had been washed and ironed, and she’d laid the table with the redeemed tea service. She’d also baked a fruit cake, and bought twopennyworth of Kennedy’s salmon and shrimp paste to make nice sandwiches, using sliced cucumber as well for the filling.

  And Mr Bradshaw had arrived looking quite posh in a Norfolk jacket and brown trousers. Most Walworth men who had Sunday suits looked very stiff in them. Mr Bradshaw proved ever such good company, without drowning anyone with hearty laughter like Mr Bates did. Mum had said she thought they ought to invite their lodger to join them, but much to Trary’s relief she finally said no, perhaps not. In any case, Mr Bates had put his head into the kitchen while they were having dinner to tell them he was going out to see an old friend, and wouldn’t be back till evening.

  Trary felt the tea was a happy occasion. Her sisters had already taken to the man they called their nice policeman, and he kept them very amused with stories of his days as a street kid, a Walworth ragamuffin. He didn’t say things to ingratiate himself with their mum, he just spoke nicely to her. But he did ask if he could have another slice of her fruit cake, which was a compliment to her.

  ‘Pleasure, I’m sure,’ said Maggie. ‘We couldn’t not give another slice of cake to someone who saved our Trary’s life and tells stories to little girls, could we, pets?’

  ‘I’m gettin’ on a bit meself,’ said eleven-year-old Meg, and saw the smile on the policeman’s face as her mum gave him his second slice of cake. Crikey, he likes our mum, she thought. Mr Bates likes her too. Fancy our mum being popular like that.

  After tea, Harry played Snap at the table with them. Maggie took his presence nicely in her stride. She thought him a worthy man, really. Glancing at Trary once, she saw that her eldest daughter was giving him a fond look. Maggie sighed a little, and put down a card.

  ‘Snap,’ said Harry.

  Trary laughed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nicholas and Chapman were back in the neighbourhood west of the Walworth Road again on Monday. On Saturday, during the afternoon and evening, they had managed to bring five men and their wives to Scotland Yard at different times, where Inspector Greaves had conducted exhaustive interviews with them. In each case alibis could not be broken, and cockney umbrage was loud and blistering. Helping the police with their enquiries was all right for some, it wasn’t for people who were as bleeding innocent as babes in cradles.

  They were straws in the wind all right, thought Nicholas. But Inspector Greaves had his back to the wall and had to clutch at something. Nicholas accepted that.

  Today, he and Chapman were asking residents if they had noticed Mabel Shipman on the night she was murdered. They produced a photograph of her. Had she been seen either coming from or going towards Steedman Street during the hours of darkness up to eleven o’clock? Nicholas hoped for answers that would help him pinpoint the street in which the suspect lived. The cockneys were a close-knit community, not given to being too informative to outsiders or the police, except where murder was concerned, especially the murder of a woman. No-one, however, claimed to have seen Mabel Shipman. And by eleven o’clock, anyway, most respectable people were in their beds.

  Did anyone know of a lodger in the area who had recently moved out? Oh, he was the bugger, was he, someone’s lodger? He could be. Residents said they’d ask around, and let Nicholas know.

  Nicholas thought again about a rather nice woman in Charleston Street, a Mrs Maggie Wilson, who had taken in a new lodger on the Sunday after the murder. A Mr Bates, whose friend Rodney Foster of Dartford had given him an alibi. Mr Bates was almost too good to be true. A breezy, hearty innocence shone out from all over him. A mining engineer lodging in Walworth? That was a point to debate.

  ‘Frank, let’s go to Charleston Street and see what Mrs Wilson’s lodger has been up to.’

  ‘Bloody barmy,’ said Chapman.

  ‘It’s just occurred to me that he might be too good to be true, so might his alibi.’

  ‘Bleedin’ blind alley,’ said Chapman.

  ‘All the same, let’s find out what he was doing on the night Miss Morley was attacked.’

  Mr Bates was in, taking the day off. He was enjoying an early afternoon cup of tea with Maggie, who was coming to think him progressively more acceptable. Answering a knock on her front door, she recognized the two CID men.

  ‘Or, lor’, not again,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Wilson,’ said Nicholas, ‘but was your lodger Mr Bates with you on the Friday evening before last?’

  ‘With me?’ Maggie grew a little frosty. ‘What d’ you mean, with me?’

  ‘Yes, I could have put that better, couldn’t I?’ Nicholas’s smile was apologetic. ‘I meant was he in?’

  ‘No, he was out. Most of the day and all evening.’

  ‘Is that a fact? Is he in now?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know he’s goin’ to like you askin’ him more questions. And what was special about last Friday week?’

  ‘There was an incident in Manor Place.’

  ‘Oh!’ Maggie remembered hearing about a young woman being attacked. ‘If you’re suspectin’ Mr Bates, I never heard anything more silly. But I’ll call ’im.’

  Nicholas and Chapman interviewed the cheerful lodger in the parlour again, with M
aggie present. Mr Bates, not at all put out by this second inquisition, informed Nicholas that he had spent Friday evening with his old cully, Rodney Foster, and that they’d been to the Holborn Empire.

  ‘What time did you get back here, sir?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘Call me Jerry,’ said the gregarious Mr Bates. ‘I feel out of place when anyone calls me sir. What time did I get back? No idea. Late, of course. Mrs Wilson was in bed, I know that.’

  ‘What time did you go to bed, Mrs Wilson?’ asked Nicholas.

  ‘You an’ your questions,’ said Maggie, put out by all the implications. ‘About half-ten.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me askin’,’ said Mr Bates, ‘what’s it all about this time?’

  ‘A young lady was attacked in Manor Place just after eleven o’clock,’ said Nicholas, going along with the feeling that Jerry Bates was too good to be true. ‘A man attempted to strangle her.’

  ‘Nasty,’ said Mr Bates, ‘I read about it. I can see what yer after, sergeant. I’m new here. You could say my arrival practically coincided with that murder.’ Maggie winced. ‘Well, me friend Roddy told me he confirmed he ’ad the pleasure of me company that partic’lar night. And he’ll tell yer another thing, that the last turn at the ’Olborn Empire last Friday week was Nellie Wallace. Brought the ’ouse down. That was ten-thirty. You ask Roddy.’

  ‘Ten-thirty,’ said Nicholas thoughtfully. He was clutching at straws himself, and knew it.

  ‘Like to search me room, would yer?’ suggested Mr Bates amiably.

  ‘What for?’ asked Chapman.

  ‘Clues?’ grinned Mr Bates. ‘Like a lock of hair? I can read newspapers, yer know.’

  ‘You’re very helpful, Mr Bates,’ said Nicholas, ‘but we don’t have a search warrant and – ’

  ‘You’re still welcome,’ said Mr Bates.

  ‘I don’t think we could justify a search.’

  ‘I should think you couldn’t,’ said Maggie, ‘and I’m goin’ to get cross any minute.’ Mr Bates, she thought, was a man you couldn’t miss about the house, not with his boisterousness. A man like that never hid anything. All his thoughts and his feelings came out through his cheerful mouth. He liked to be friends with everyone. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d lay violent hands on young women. The girls liked him, which was a lot in his favour. Well, Trary was a bit reserved, but Trary always took her time with new faces. It was surprising she’d become thick with Bobby in just a few days.