by Zenith Brown
Mr. Pinkerton winced. The only thing he could think of was that for all her own personal essential goodness. Mrs. Humpage must have had a long line of fishwives as ancestors. He had realized, of course, that she was a woman who took no nonsense, but he had not realized that she’d not take it so forcefully.
“You’ve made me forget I’m a lady,” Mrs. Humpage added bitterly.
“You didn’t lose anything by it,” Harry Ogle retorted unpleasantly. He stared contemptuously at his wife. “All right. You’ve got the two of us to support now. We’ll see how you like that. I’d have got a rise next year, and then I’d have been all right. So you see what you’ve done.”
Bull glanced at Mrs. Humpage.
“Come, love, don’t you mind him,” she said briskly. “You come and have a nice cup of tea and you’ll feel better.”
She led the girl off. Bull turned back to Ogle. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said. “Go back in there now and wait till I come.” He nodded to the parlour lounge. “And don’t try any monkeyshines or there’ll be trouble.”
He looked for Sergeant York, who was standing behind him, his eyes following the two women going through into the kitchen.
“Where’s Inspector Kirtin?”
“He went out, sir. Said to tell you he’d be along in half an hour.”
“You stand by till he comes. I’m going to see Lady Atwater.”
Mr. Pinkerton followed him, a little unsteadily, up the stairs and along the dark corridor to the sitting room. An awkward silence, that indicated a bitter wrangle cut off at their entrance, greeted them. Lady Atwater was quite pale, Pamela Atwater’s lips were unusually tight, her cheeks burning. Jeffrey Atwater, paler, too, than he had been before, his jaw harder, his eyes harder, was standing by the fireplace. Darcy Atwater alone seemed to retain an admirable, if slightly alcoholic, detachment. One thing about a Welsh wife, Mr. Pinkerton thought, she was like an oyster. A foreign body that inadvertently got under her shell developed a pearly protective coating that enabled it to stand a considerable amount of buffeting about with extraordinary composure. Even Mr. Eric Fleetwood looked the worse for wear; in fact it was on his “What in Heaven’s name is the use of my trying to keep this as quiet as possible if you won’t give me any help?” that Bull had tapped heavily on the door.
“There are a few more questions I’d like to ask, Lady Atwater,” he said, with a sort of doggedness that seemed to annoy Mrs. Darcy Atwater particularly.
“I think Lady Atwater has been through enough today,” she said tartly. “She refuses to answer any more questions until we have legal advice from London.”
Lady Atwater cast her a quiet glance. “Please go ahead, Inspector Bull. I’d like the rest of you to be quiet unless you can be helpful too.”
Pamela Atwater glanced resentfully at her husband, flushing.
“Why don’t you go somewhere and have a nice cup of tea, old girl,” he said cheerfully. “And for God’s sake quit chucking your weight about. You’re rapidly becoming a crashing bore.”
“About Kathleen, ma’am,” Bull said.
“I’m sorry about this morning, Inspector,” Lady Atwater answered, contritely. “But you see, I’m very fond of the child. Her mother was in service with us when she was born, and I’ve always been interested in her. Her father was one of the boys from our village killed in the last days of the war. His father was a tenant of ours. Kathleen came to us when her mother was disturbed because Harry Ogle, who was in the Swickley branch of the bank, became too attentive to her. But you know how young people are.”
“And Sir Lionel, ma’am?”
“Kathleen’s mother told him about it. He arranged to have Ogle transferred. Because, of course, bank employees making under three pounds a week are not permitted to marry, and we didn’t want anything to happen to Kathleen.”
She leaned her head back against the chair.
“He wasn’t as tactful as he might have been. She ran away. She wrote me then, and that’s when I sent her the letter. I knew Ogle was here. Frankly, I thought the worst had happened, and frankly I didn’t blame them. I think it’s very wrong to try to keep young people apart, especially when every other country in Europe is doing everything it can to encourage marriage and increase the birthrate. I never, of course, thought they’d be married. They couldn’t hope not to have it found out, eventually.”
“What kind of a lad is Ogle, ma’am.”
“I’d never seen him, Inspector. My husband of course was all for sacking him, hut the manager said he was capable and persuaded my husband to have him sent elsewhere.”
Bull thought a moment. “Sir Lionel didn’t know Kathleen had followed him here?”
“Oh no, certainly not. He thought she’d gone to town and was in service there.”
“Did he know Ogle was here, ma’am?”
“Yes,” Lady Atwater said reluctantly. “He prided himself on being a little like God, and watching out for sparrows. Though I don’t think he would have paid any attention to it except that it proved to him how right he’d been, with Kathleen happy in London and Ogle doing very well here. He used it as an example to break up Jeffrey’s infatuation for Mrs. Bruce.”
Mr. Pinkerton glanced at Jeffrey Atwater. His face was a little flushed, his mouth twisted into a sardonic grin. Mrs. Darcy Atwater raised her brows.
“And one other point, ma’am,” Bull said politely. “Did Sir Lionel, do you know, see Kathleen here?”
“No, I’m sure he didn’t know she was here. My son did, of course. I’m sure he never mentioned it. Did you, Jeffrey?”
Jeffrey Atwater shook his head. “Of course not,” he said briefly.
“And you didn’t know it, did you, Pamela?”
Pamela Atwater flushed. “I’m not interested in the love affairs of chambermaids,” she said curtly.
Her mother-in-law looked at her for an instant, and at the others. “If you will all go now, except Jeffrey, I should like to rest.”
Inspector Bull closed the door behind all of them. Mrs. Darcy Atwater’s voice came back to them angrily as she and her husband and Eric Fleetwood went into her room.
“I can’t see, Darcy, why your mother always tries to humiliate me.”
“Because you’re such an appalling ass, I’d say,” the young man said agreeably as the door closed.
Mr. Pinkerton looked at the Inspector.
“I expect it’s a relief for him to have money of his own,” he explained helpfully.
Bull nodded. He stood for a moment, then, to Mr. Pinkerton’s surprise, turned, went back to Lady Atwater’s door and knocked on it.
Jeffrey Atwater opened it. “My mother is resting, Inspector,” he said stiffly.
“I forgot to ask, sir, if you know whether your father saw Ogle here yesterday.”
Lady Atwater’s voice came through the door.
“We saw him in the street, Inspector. My husband stopped the car and asked him how he was getting on, and where the Old Angel was.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Bull started to move away, and turned back.
“Mrs. Bruce would like to go up to town tomorrow, sir,” he said. “If you see her, will you tell her I said it will be all right. If she’ll let me know where I can get in touch with her. She’s not to leave for America before the end of the next week at any event.”
Jeffrey Atwater looked at him blankly.
“Certainly, Inspector,” he said. He closed the door abruptly.
Mr. Pinkerton glanced furtively at Bull. He knew him much better than to think either of two things. One was that he’d forgot to ask Lady Atwater the question about Harry Ogle. Bull just didn’t forget things like that. And the second was that he was smoothing the path of true love by telling Jeffrey Atwater his lady was planning to go back to America. But what either of the two meant, other than not what they seemed, for the life of him he could not tell. There was one thing he could tell, however, and that was that he’d got the most frightful
headache he’d ever had before. His small grey skull was literally splitting in two. For some reason he couldn’t make out, there seemed to be an extraordinary close relation between the top of his head and the soles of his feet, so that every step he took with the latter intimately concerned the comfort of the former.
“I think, if you don’t mind. Inspector,” he said as they came down the stairs, “I’ll go to my room a little while.”
Inspector Bull gave him a mild impersonal glance.
“Right, Mr. Pinkerton,” he said. “You do look a bit seedy. Perhaps you’d like them to bring you a triple whisky. That’s the hair of the dog.”
Mr. Pinkerton’s gorge rose weakly.
Fortunately Mrs. Humpage’s comfortable voice rose from in front of them, where she was apparently just standing at the foot of the stairs. “I think it’s a nice hot cup of tea he’s wanting, sir. I’ll just see to it myself.”
Mr. Pinkerton could not help but look at Bull. There was the shadow of a twinkle in his blue eyes. The little man shifted his gaze hastily. It fell, as he did so, on the door of the parlour lounge. Harry Ogle was still in there, bending over the writing desk. He glanced up as they came by, and seeing Bull got up and moved out of Mr. Pinkerton’s line of vision, taking his letter with him.
CHAPTER 15
Mr. Pinkerton went shakily up the stairs, trying to maintain as much dignity as he could, and closed his door behind him. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. A scene in his far off meagre childhood came back and smote his already aching brain. It was one summer Sunday evening. His two aunts who brought him up had taken him to chapel, where a man with a white face and flowing black tie had pointed eloquently to a miserable creature huddled near the pulpit beside him. After two hours or so, the young Pinkerton, guided by his two aunts, had gone forward and signed the pledge. He had not then questioned the wisdom of it for a moment. He questioned it even less as he lay there now, on the bright rayon oriental bedcover, Satan and a thousand imps hammering away inside the little fortress of his head.
There was a sound at the door. Mrs. Humpage, of course, would have a few comforting words about how she’d dealt with the late Humpage in like circumstances. Mr. Pinkerton resigned himself wretchedly, and opened his eyes as the door opened. Then he raised his head. It was not Mrs. Humpage. It was Kathleen, with a little tray with a pot of tea and a jug of hot water on it.
“Oh, sir, I’m sorry you’re feeling badly,” she said. Her face was quite pale and her eyes still red-rimmed and bloodshot with crying. Her hands trembled still as she set the tray down and poured him a steaming fragrant cup.
“There, sir, take this. It will pick you up.”
She held it out. Mr. Pinkerton took it, sitting miserably on the side of the bed.
She stood watching him, then sat down simply on the bed beside him. “I’m sure you must think I’m a very wicked girl, sir,” she said.
Mr. Pinkerton started to shake his head, but it hurt too badly.
“No,” he said. “But you see, I saw him come down those stairs.”
He pointed to the panel. “Last night,” he added, rather unnecessarily. It seemed years ago.
She took a quick little breath.
“But I didn’t tell anybody,” he added hastily. “You see, I’m really not connected with the police at all. Inspector Bull is just a friend of mine, and sometimes he lets me go along with him on his cases.”
“Oh,” Kathleen said in a small voice.
Mr. Pinkerton took a sip of tea.
“Are you . . . are you happy with him, Kathleen?” he asked timidly.
The girl looked down. Her long black lashes brushed against her pale cheeks, her red little hands pleated and unpleated the edge of her white apron.
“Nobody can be very happy hiding about this way, sir,” she said simply. “And he’s different. At home we used to plan about when we were married. But here he doesn’t want to be seen with me. He said the other clerks would twig him if they saw him with a chambermaid, and why couldn’t I get a post as a shop assistant? Then it would be all right, because the others had girls and nobody would think anything of it if we lived together. But . . .”
She hesitated.
“I expect he was sorry we’d got married. He said my hands were too red.”
She tried to hide them under her apron.
“I expect it was different at home, where my people were respected, and . . . and all.”
She swallowed unhappily. “I expect I’m not good enough for him here, where the girls are smart and I don’t know anybody.”
Mr. Pinkerton sipped his tea cautiously.
“A girl he knows said she could get me a post in a shop in the High Street, but Mrs. Humpage gives me more, and she’s very kind to me, more like my own mother, and I . . . I didn’t want his friends to think . . . I was that kind of a girl. And Mrs. Humpage let him come here so nobody knew about it. I didn’t think we should be married, but I couldn’t come with him if we weren’t. It’s all my fault, sir. We went to Brighton when I ran away from home, and . . . well, it’s too late now, but I see it was just because at Swickley there wasn’t anybody any better than I was, and he wasn’t so smart and clever as he’d got since he’s been here. He’d rather go to Hastings with the others, weekends, and he can’t take a girl who’s in service, even if Mrs. Humpage could spare me.”
She tried to smile.
“I don’t blame him, and now he’s lost his post, and it’s all my fault. Just when he was getting on so well that he was going to get a rise. The manager said if he’d kept on being so clever some day he’d get to be an assistant manager. Now I’ve done for him.”
“Do you . . . still love him?” Mr. Pinkerton asked. He knew he’d got no right to, and it was none of his business.
“I ought not to say it,” the girl replied miserably, “but I got so I was glad when he went to Hastings with others. He was so short with me, and made fun of me for not being smart like the girls he knows, and for my . . . my hands. He said lots of times he was a fool for hanging a country millstone about his neck and he was sorry he’d married me. It’s hard to keep on loving anybody that doesn’t want you, who’s so much cleverer than you are.”
She got up and poured Mr. Pinkerton another cup of tea.
“I don’t mean to be hateful,” she said, sitting down by him again. “But I wouldn’t have told. Mrs. Humpage said they couldn’t make me tesify against him if they knew I was his wife. But I wouldn’t have, even then—he made me promise I wouldn’t tell he’d seen Sir Lionel. I burned up the letter like he said I was to. He didn’t think Sir Lionel would know who he was.”
Mr. Pinkerton gulped down his hot tea too hastily and choked. Then he looked at the girl in dismay. When he could speak he said, “Did . . . did Sir Lionel Atwater know you were here?”
She nodded.
“Harry said I mustn’t tell that he’d been in the passage, listening to what they’d said, either.”
“What . . . did they say?” Mr. Pinkerton asked, rather in dismay.
“They were talking about me, Harry said, and if I made him lose his job he’d get even with me. He wrote that to me. But I burned up the letter, like he said. He said nobody, me or Sir Lionel Atwater, was going to . . .”
She stopped quickly as the sound of heavy feet came from the hall, turned paler and got to her feet.
“I can depend on you, sir, can’t I?” she asked quickly, taking his cup.
Mr. Pinkerton nodded. His head was much sounder now. He straightened his steel-rimmed spectacles, and waited for the heavy tap on the door. When it came he said, “Come in, Inspector.”
The door opened. It was not Bull, however, it was Detective-Sergeant York. He started to speak, saw Kathleen and stopped, flushing a little. She looked at him, and at Mr. Pinkerton. Mr. Pinkerton looked from one to the other of them.
“I don’t expect you remember me, Kathleen,” Sergeant York said. “I’m Richard York—your brother Will . . .”
She giggled suddenly.
“You got flour all over your new uniform trying to get the shilling in the cake.”
Sergeant York’s face was redder still.
“I remember it was such fun having a real London bobby taking us home,” Kathleen said. Then the laughter went out of her eyes. “What . . . where’s your uniform?”
“I’m in the C. I. D., now,” Sergeant York said, not without a kind of sheepish pride.
“Oh,” Kathleen said. She pushed back her black curls with trembling fingers. “Then you . . . you were at the inquest?”
Sergeant York nodded soberly.
“Oh . . . don’t . . . don’t tell my brother, will you, please?”
“You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Kathleen,” Sergeant York said.
Mrs. Humpage’s voice came up the stairs. “Kathleen! Kathleen! Whatever can be keeping that child!”
The girl picked up the tray. Sergeant York held the door open, and watched her go out hurriedly.
He turned to Mr. Pinkerton. “Inspector Bull says if you’re feeling fit again, sir, will you go along to the police station? He’s there now.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll go straight along,” Mr. Pinkerton said. He spoke, or hoped he did, with a good deal more assurance and confidence than he felt. Bull did not usually invite people to the police station without a jolly good reason for doing it.
Sergeant York stood holding the door for him. “And if you don’t mind, sir . . . would you not mention the flour?”
Inspector Bull was at the police station; so was Inspector Kirtin. More important, from Mr. Pinkerton’s point of view, Mr. Jeffrey Atwater was there too. Mr. Pinkerton blinked, and edged into a chair by the door.
“I talked to my mother a few moments in her room, after I came back from seeing Mrs. Bruce home,” he was saying. “I then went to my room and went to bed.”
“You didn’t see your father again?—I shall have to ask you to think carefully before you reply,” Bull said with dogged politeness. “This is all very important.”