The Gentleman on Pennyfield Street

by C. G Oster

  Vera was downstairs, spreading butter on a piece of bread.

  "How are you?" Dory asked.

  "My ears are still ringing, but I can hear now. I hope it stops, because it's driving me up the wall. I thought I would go over and see what the engineers say. I'm not actually sure they know about the damage yet."

  "Maybe not. I don't know if the warden would have informed them. It's good that you're heading over. I am going to speak to the police."

  "Going police wrangling?" Vera sat down and took a bite out of her slice of bread. "Betsy's gone around to her mum’s. It's lucky you weren't there last night. You would have been the one who copped it." Which was true. Dory would maybe even have been closer to the blast than Vera had been.

  "Yeah," she said with a nervous chuckle. Maybe if she hadn't stopped to fight that incendiary, she would have been on that roof. "And I saved a shop."

  It was a statement Vera chose not to pursue. "Well, good luck with your sleuthing. I doubt we'll be on duty tonight. Probably not tomorrow either, but who knows. I suspect the transformer got blown to pieces."

  "Most likely," Dory agreed. "I'll head out.” She'd get something to eat on the way. Maybe a pasty. That sounded nice. After last night, she wanted something filling and greasy.

  Down on the high street, she decided to take the bus rather than walk. Some days you were simply better off not seeing the damage around you, and on the bus, she could ignore it. At times, she needed to ignore the war and the devastation, and to focus on other things. Besides, she needed to think what to do if the police refused to help. Maybe there was some other authority she could call on. It could be that the ATS would actually help if she asked them to. Or the warden. They had some rights to interfere, Dory believed. They seemed to think so anyway.

  The door to the police station was open and Dory walked in seeing the same sergeant as before. "I'm here about the house on Byron Street," she said and smiled.

  The man looked at her wearily. "Not sure your request has been gotten to," he admitted. "Not our highest priority, you understand."

  "I think it needs to be. There is a good possibility that there is a crime involved. The body in question did not appear to be a victim of the raids."

  The man eyed her, almost as if he suspected she was lying.

  "Harley," he called, surprising her as his voice boomed. His attention turned to a man who was passing by. "This woman is concerned about a resident on your street. Byron Street."

  "I haven't gotten to it."

  Dory left the sergeant and approached this constable, who was apparently responsible for the beat covering Byron Street. "I am having difficulties locating this man, and his staff are not being helpful."

  The young man sighed and Dory stared at him hopefully. Then he sighed again. "We can head over there now, if you wish."

  "Perfect," Dory said. "It would be good to settle this."

  The man walked out, putting on his round bobby's hat. "You mentioned something about a crime."

  "Yes, a body was found on a bombing site, except, he had no indicators of being in the building when it went down. The doctor at the morgue said so. There was no identity on him, but by certain scars on his body, I was able to determine that it might be Mr. Jones. But I can't seem to get hold of him, and the staff at the firm where he is still quite involved, haven't seen him either. They send him bank drafts on a regular basis, so that would be motive, of course." Everything was pouring out of her.

  The young man stared at her as if she were unhinged. "It is a matter for the police if it's true."

  "Of course it's true," Dory said, offended. "But I had to bring something convincing to the police first, didn't I?"

  This young man didn't like her, but that was fine. He was doing what she wanted, so he could dislike her all he wanted.

  They approached the house and the young man marched straight up to the door and banged on it. "Police," he yelled.

  "There is a maid and a housekeeper. They seem to be the only people in the house."

  The door opened promptly and Dory looked up. It was the housekeeper and she stared daggers at Dory before smiling sweetly to the policeman. "How may I help you?"

  "We are here to speak to Mr. Jones. Is he here?"

  "He is unavailable."

  "Where is he?" the young man said, clearly very forceful in nature when he wanted to be. Dory was impressed.

  "Upstairs, but he is indisposed."

  The policeman pushed passed her and Dory followed.

  "This is really uncalled for," the woman said, running after them. "Mr. Jones is unwell. He does not wish to receive visitors." There was an edge of desperation in her voice, which told Dory something was definitely up.

  They walked on the carpeted stairs up to the second story. The staircase was a dark mahogany. The insurance business had obviously been very rewarding to Mr. Jones.

  A double set of doors, seemed to lead to the master bedroom and Constable Harley headed right there. He banged on the door. "Police, we are coming in," he announced.

  "Stop," the housekeeper demanded. "This is unjust."

  It was a curious choice of words in Dory's mind, but she didn't have time to consider it further as Harley continued into the doors.

  Frantic murmuring came from a disheveled figure in the bed and Dory's hopes were dashed. The room smelled of an unwashed body. But this wasn't the man who had been found on Pennyfield Street at all. He was obviously here. The murmuring sounded like help.

  "What's the matter with him?" Harley demanded. The man was staring at Harley as if his life depended on it.

  "He is unwell," the housekeeper said, much more calmly now. The maid had appeared behind her and there was fear in her eyes. These two were up to something. "As you can see. We really need to leave him to rest."

  The man tried to speak, but it sounded garbled. His hair was messy and gray stubble covered his sunken cheeks. Lips were white and cracked. He looked awful. This was certainly not a man who had been groomed anytime lately. That he was unwell was clear to see.

  "What is wrong with him?" Dory asked.

  The man turned his attention to her. He was trying to reach for her. He clearly wanted help.

  "He has fits," the woman said. "He is quite unwell."

  "Is a doctor attending to him?"

  "Of course."

  The man viciously disagreed. He was pointing accusingly at the woman.

  "He needs to go to the hospital," Dory said, trying to understand what was going on.

  "There is nothing they can do according to the doctor."

  "Liar," the man accused through his garbled speech.

  "There is a telephone," Dory said. "I will call the ambulance. You better stay here." She had the feeling they should not leave Mr. Jones alone. There was a terrified, desperate look in his eyes.

  The housekeeper's mouth had drawn so tight, it looked like a pouch drawn together.

  "Where's the telephone?" Dory barked at the younger maid, who pointed downstairs.

  "We didn't do anything," the girl said, which again indicated that they very much had done something.

  Dory located the phone in the hallway and spoke to the operator, who agreed to send the ambulance over to the address.

  Taking a moment, Dory tried to understand what was going on. A purse which looked new stood on the table in the entranceway—an unusual object for a widow, but then the widow was upstairs, confined to his bed. There was also a coat hanging over a chair, which was definitely not where staff should be leaving their things. Dory realized what was happening. His staff were receiving his bank drafts and had run over the house while the master was languishing upstairs, unable to move. They'd neglected to get him medical assistance so they could keep him as an invalid, and enjoyed living well beyond their means. If Dory cared to look, she was sure they had moved their belongings down into the bedrooms of the second story and had taken over the house.

  By the time Dory had returned upstairs, the housekeeper
and maid were handcuffed together. Constable Harley stood with his arms crossed, staring narrowly at them. The girl was sobbing and repeating that they hadn't done anything.

  "The ambulance is on the way," Dory said quietly. There was definitely a crime here. It just wasn't her crime.

  Chapter 27

  DORY HAD A HEADACHE when she returned home. The maid and the housekeeper were carted off by the police, and Mr. Jones was taken by ambulance to the Royal London Hospital. Breaking their way in through that door had opened a hornet's nest that Dory still couldn't wrap her head around.

  The callousness was just beyond belief. To simply ignore that man's suffering for a chance to live in the comfort of his house and to spend his bank draft. It was unfathomable.

  On a level, she could understand that staff were not always the greatest admirers of the people they worked for. Dory had herself struggled to admire quite a few of the people at Wallisford Hall, but she would never stand by when one of them was suffering. The truth was that she couldn't understand crime. DI Ridley seemed more accepting that it regularly happened, but it always took her by surprise. It was a curious trait for someone as driven to investigate as she was. Perhaps she wanted to prove to herself that there was an innocent explanation. How could she look at any of the people around her and expect that one of them would be so heartless as to take another person's life—and for such trivial reasons. She couldn't.

  Sadly, in her quest to believe there were innocent reasons behind the bad things that happened, she was proven wrong most of the time.

  The other truth was that Mr. Jones was not the man who had been found in Pennyfield Street. He could most certainly be crossed off the list. This left a few more to confirm, but it also meant she had to return to Mr. Dellow, who simply couldn't be reached.

  On the way home, she detoured to his street and knocked on his door. Yet again, there was no answer and the house was dark inside. That didn't necessarily mean anything suspicious. There was no sign that the bombings wouldn't come that night. He could have retreated to an air shelter, or he could simply be staying elsewhere. There was nothing overtly suspicious.

  As she reached her own street, the air raid sirens started whining. Picking up speed, she ran the rest of the way. Their house didn't have a basement, where many people set up their own shelters. There was nothing to protect them if a bomb fell.

  Neither Vera nor Betsy were at home. Betsy was likely with her mum. Vera was probably out dancing, particularly if her boyfriend, Kevin, had the night off. As rarely as they got time off, Kevin would likely try to swing a free night to join her.

  The school down the road had a public shelter in its basement, and after last night, she didn't want to tempt fate by staying out in the open. Making herself a sandwich, she packed it away into her bag and locked up the house.

  Some people were running, while others calmly walked. The planes couldn't even be heard yet, so there wasn't the utmost urgency. The nearby railway arches were also shelters, but Dory walked to the school, which was closer.

  'Air raid shelter' was painted on the wall with white paint, an arrow pointing to a set of stairs down the side of the building. Sandbags surrounded the entranceway and the side of the building. It was the first time Dory had been to this one. It had a musty smell. A single electric bulb hung in every room. The place was a series of small rooms.

  By the look of it, it would likely have been some kind of storage area before, but now it was cleared out of everything but benches, mattresses and blankets.

  "This way, to the back," a warden said, urging people to get out of the main thoroughfare. "Make room and settle down."

  It took time to get through the main thoroughfare, which was a bottleneck for getting into the room. For a shelter, it didn't have the ideal design. Eventually Dory found herself in one of the rooms with about two dozen other people.

  She spotted Mrs. Mellison, their neighbor, sitting on one of the benches, knitting something with yellow yarn.

  Then the blasts started. People didn't even react. They were so used to it. There were blasts far away and ones closer. The close ones caused dust to dislodge from the beams above, but no one seemed to react to this either. They really should clean that dust off, so it didn't sprinkle on them every time there was a bomb close enough, but no one had bothered.

  The walls were brick and the cold of the space soon warmed with the number of bodies in the room. The electric bulb flickered with one of the blasts and then extinguished leaving them utterly in the dark. Grumbles and groans spread through the gathered crowd until someone lit a lamp.

  "Must have hit one of the transformers again," an elderly man said.

  "Tea?" a woman said at the door, carrying four cups in her hands.

  "Yes, please," a man said and reached a coin out to the woman, who gave him a cup in return.

  "How much?" Dory asked.

  "Sixpence," she replied and Dory pulled out her small leather purse and rifled through her coins until she found a sixpence. A cup of tea sounded like a lovely idea. "Any buns?"

  "I'll send Florrie over this way," the woman said and took Dory's coin. The enamel cup was warm, the tea steaming hot.

  Dory pulled out her notebook and shifted off the bench to sit on the floor, where she could use the bench as a writing desk. Between sips of the tea, she started composing a letter to Lady Pettifer, to inform her of the day's strange events.

  Another blast shook the structure and Dory quickly covered her teacup with her palm to stop the dust from floating down into it. A baby started crying in the room next door. A nearby man was already snoring.

  When she was done, people were starting to arrange mattresses, getting ready to bed down for the night. It was strange bedding down with lots of people who Dory barely knew. Most of the people around here seemed to know each other, but she'd only come into this neighborhood a few months back.

  Florrie never came with the buns, so Dory had to make due with her sandwich, before accepting a spot on a mattress next to a young girl who looked about sixteen. It took some time to get to sleep. The sounds of other people snoring and shifting were something Dory wasn't used to. Well, not since she'd lived at home with her brothers. It felt a lifetime ago, even if it was only three years back.

  As she closed her eyes, Dory's thoughts returned to Mr. Jones, and hoped he was alright. Poor man had been trapped in his own body, knowing he had fallen prey to these women who cared nothing about his wellbeing. It was a scary thought, and it made her feel a little claustrophobic for a moment, before she told herself to get a grip on her panic.

  Mr. Jones was free of his predicament and it was because of her. That was something to feel proud of. She'd made a monumental difference in someone's life. That had never happened to her before.

  Now if she could just locate Mr. Dellow. He liked to spend time in the library, someone had said. Flipping over her notebook, she looked back at what she'd written. That would be her plan for tomorrow, to check for him in the library, perhaps talk to the staff if he wasn't there.

  Another bomb shook the building. Seething anger rose in Dory. When was this going to stop? It was that anger that made them so stubborn that they refused to relent to it. They certainly weren't going to cower. Sadly, they heard so little about what was happening with the war. It felt a little like they weren't trusted with that knowledge. Hopefully that was because of spies rather than the idea that things weren't going well.

  A dog barked somewhere in the shelter. Someone had brought their dog with them, which was perhaps understandable.

  It was a heavy night of bombing that night and Dory was glad she had chosen to come here. It wasn't comfortable, but she wouldn't be sleeping much in her own bed that night either. Didn't seem to bother some, who snored uninterrupted all night, lying in the uncomfortable closeness of other sleeping bodies, and the faint smell of urine from the latrine. There wasn't much dignity in this, but they had to make do. They would make do—out of sheer spite.


  Perhaps it was that same stubbornness with which she refused to give up on her investigation into the man found of Pennyfield Street. People who did horrible things had to be stood up to and defied.

  Chapter 28

  LOOKING UP, DORY took in the Victorian brick building that was the Watney Market library. It was a pleasant surprise to find it intact. It wasn't something that could be taken for granted these days.

  Inside were wooden shelves and old, bound books. It wasn't large, but it had a decent enough selection. Dory looked longingly at the books. How long had it been since she'd read a book? There simply wasn't the time to lay in bed and read. And sadly, she didn't suspect there would be time until this infernal war was over.

  A creak stole her attention away and she saw an elderly man dressed a little out of fashion, dressed in a dark suit with a fob watch, standing behind the issuance desk. "Excuse me," Dory said as she approached and the man slowly looked up. "I am looking for Mr. Frank Dellow. I believe he visits here quite often."

  "Comes to read the paper," the man said.

  Looking around, Dory tried to see anyone doing so, or even where one would do so. "He's not here by any chance?"

  "No, he's not. He hasn't been in quite some time. I've grown quite worried for him. I hope he hasn't met with misfortune. One of those who refuses to shelter in the evenings."

  "His house is still intact. I was there yesterday, but I haven't been able to find him. Do you know where he might be?"

  "Can't pretend I knew him that well. He came here most days. Reads the paper. I would have no idea beyond that what he does with himself."

  "Which really means I have gotten no further. He doesn't work anywhere?" That wasn't entirely true, because she now knew that he wasn't doing his usual routine and there was someone worried about him. It was the first real piece of evidence that something was not right with Mr. Dellow.