by Cyril Hare
Of course! Anne stopped suddenly in her stride as she came abreast of the cross-eyed nurse for the second time. Elderson’s report said distinctly that the girl was giggling while the register was being signed. That was it! The address was a joke, then. Ha, Ha! Let’s have a good laugh, even if we can’t see it just yet. Fifteen, very funny. Parbury, an absolute scream. Gardens, we all roared! It’s enough to make you drop a stitch, isn’t it, nurse?
Anne’s mind went once more to the Black Swan at Bentby, and this time conscience made no move. She tried to imagine herself in the smelly little hall there, standing behind Martin and sniggering at the name and address he was writing. The effort made her nearly sick, but she persisted. What sort of address could have made her snigger, if she had been the sniggering kind? Obviously, there was no joke in something that didn’t mean anything to you at all. If you enjoyed cheap jokes—and ex hypothesi you did—there were two possible ones that might appeal to you. First, you put down somebody else’s address, because to your dirty mind it seemed exquisitely funny that that particular person, in all probability the pink of respectability, should be in some way connected all unconsciously with your furtive goings on. Or alternatively, in a spirit of bravado you chose one that was near your own, and got a sort of kick out of the quite imaginary risk you were running. That seemed sound psychology, anyhow.
We are getting on, Anne thought, as she came round to her starting point for the third time. Now let’s see how it works out. (a.) The joke was that they knew blind Mrs. Peabody, and thought it was a real stroke of wit to put her flat, of all places, in a hotel register. If that’s the right answer, I’m sunk. I simply can’t face the prospect of rummaging into Mrs. Peabody’s private life and trying to find out which of her acquaintances might possibly play a trick like that on her. (b.) The joke was that the address was as near as possible the true one. Fifteen—Parbury—Gardens. Three ingredients. And to make a really good joke of it, two of them should be genuine and one only false. So you get—Fifteen, Parbury Place, or Terrace, or Street, or whatever it may be. Or Fifteen, Something-or-other Gardens, or finally, Umpteen, Parbury Gardens.
She pondered the alternatives gravely. Between three such crass imbecilities, which to choose? On due consideration, she struck out the second. To start with, among all the scores of “gardens” in London, it would obviously be hopeless to try to find the right one. In the second place, the name of the gardens was the really essential part of the address. Change that, and you change its identity. And with the identity, the whole feeble joke disappeared. Surely the most cretinous nit-wit could not possibly have thought it funny, or risky, to say, Fifteen, Parbury Gardens, when the real address was Fifteen, Daylesford Gardens, for instance! Remained the other two possibilities. More from laziness than from any rational motive, she preferred the theory of Fifteen, Parbury Something. There could not be more than a limited number of streets in London called after Parbury, whoever he or it might be, and there were, she had noticed, one hundred and ten flats in the gardens. Following the line of least resistance, therefore, instead of completing her third circuit of the square, she turned down a side street to where she had noticed the post office.
The lady behind the grill seemed deeply incensed when Anne asked if she could see a Directory. Such things, apparently, were unknown in post offices. From her expression it might be gathered that it was more than a little indelicate to mention them. She did, however, go so far as to admit that improprieties of this nature could be seen in the local public library; and when Anne asked where that was to be found, she ejaculated: “Turn-to-y’r-right-at-bottom-of-th’-street-’n-’s-on-y’r-left,” with a speed that showed how often she must have given the direction to other seekers after the forbidden fruit.
Five minutes later, Anne was in the public library with the directory open before her. It did not need more than a glance to explode her theory. Parbury Gardens was positively the only Parbury in London, the county suburbs included. There was, it was true, one other thoroughfare with a name that closely resembled it, Parberry Street. But Parberry Street, after inspection, proved to be in the Isle of Dogs, and she felt quite positive in her mind that wherever the Joneses came from, it was not the Isle of Dogs. So that was that! It really simplifies matters a lot, she thought, exhaustion making her positively lightheaded. The answer is simply Something, Parbury Gardens. Somewhere in those flats lives or has lived Mr. M. Jones—or Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones, I think. So-called. I don’t know why, but I’m sure the address he chose to fake was hers and not his. Positive. Woman’s instinct and all that. And only a hundred and ten numbers to choose from. Hooray!
She set herself to read, slowly and methodically, the names of all the inhabitants of the flats as recorded in the Directory. Not one of them conveyed anything to her whatever, and there was not the smallest reason to suppose that any of them would. None the less, she ploughed grimly on, and had almost come to the end, to No. 87, to be precise, when a round-shouldered, spectacled young man approached her and said mournfully, “The library is closing now, Madame.”
Anne abandoned the book and hurried out into the sun again. She was astonished to see by the clock in the post office window that it was already six o’clock. She must have been very much longer in the library than she had imagined. She had had no tea, and was ready to drop from fatigue. All the same, her legs carried her back, seemingly of their own accord, back to Parbury Gardens, there to take up again her circumambulation of the square with the persistence and much about the enthusiasm of a convict in the exercise ground of a prison.
Fifteen, her thoughts ran. We’ve got down to that now, simply the bare numeral. Why choose fifteen, of all the numbers going? Because the proper number was five? Or twenty-five? Or for that matter, any sort of five, up to a hundred and five? Pity they didn’t go up to a hundred and fifteen. That would have been a sure guess. Think of a number and double it. That gave you thirty. She shook her head, gravely. Somehow she did not fancy thirty. Of course, there were lots of things you could do with numbers. Add, subtract, divide, transpose. . . . Transpose. Transpose! She stood still, staring across the railings at the spot where the perambulator had been and was no longer, while a wholly irrational feeling of certainty flooded in upon her. In that moment, she was convinced that she had solved the problem of the Joneses’ address in the register at Pendlebury.
Invisible trumpeters blew a triumphal march before her as she walked over to the entrance from which access was gained to number Fifty-one. Their music flagged a little when she realized that it was the top flat of all and that there was no lift. It had ceased altogether long before she had dragged herself up the long flight of stairs. The name, she had noticed before beginning her climb, was Miss Frances Fothergill. It was repeated on a rather dingy visiting card on the flat door itself. The door itself had a slightly rakish air, with its pale green paint that must have once been jaunty and was beginning to flake off where hearty Bohemian boots had kicked it. Just below the card was the knob of a bell. A decidedly violent bell. The kind that rings just inside the door and makes enough noise to wake the dead. Anne rang it three times before she gave it up.
It seemed almost more exhausting climbing down the stairs than it had been going up. It was like that in the Alps, she remembered, seeing again an endless zigzag path winding down through the woods from the hut to the valley below. She reached the ground floor at last and came out into the open air, her eyes momentarily dazzled by the sunlight. As she did so, she was aware of a strong scent of frangi-pani, a blurred vision of lipstick and silver fox, and a high-pitched voice saying: “Oo! Excuse me! But it’s Miss Dickinson, isn’t it?”
Anne prided herself on her memory for faces, but she had to blink two or three times before she recognized her. Then something familiar in the tilt of her nose and her odd, angular smile enabled her to place her. Miss Fothergill—and though Anne had never heard her name, she was quite certain she was Miss Fothergill—was the assistant who had more than once sold s
hoes to her in one of the big shops. It was not surprising that recognition was difficult, for dressed for the street and with her full war-paint on, this glamorous creature was altogether different from the quiet young woman whom she remembered flitting about the shoe department of Peter Harker’s.
“Oo, Miss Dickinson! It’s quite a surprise seeing you here, it reely is!” Miss Fothergill was saying.
“Yes,” said Anne faintly. “I was looking for a friend, but she doesn’t seem to be in.”
“It is always like that, isn’t it, when you’ve come a long way? So provoking, I always think. But won’t you come up to my place and have a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you very much.”
“Oo, but do, Miss Dickinson. You’ll excuse me saying so, but you look quite done up, you do reely. It’ll be no trouble at all to me, honest it won’t. I always have a cup meself when I come home. It does pull you together ever so. I’ve got the kettle and all ready and waiting on the ring. Do come up just a minute, Miss Dickinson, it’ll do you good.”
Anne did not feel equal to resisting. She allowed herself to be led once more up the stairs (with many apologies for their length and steepness) and through the battered green door into the flat beyond.
“I’m afraid it is in rather a pickle,” said Miss Fothergill with a giggle, as Anne sank gratefully on to the shabby divan which almost filled the untidy little room. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and get the tea. I won’t be half a jiffy. Do put your feet up, Miss Dickinson, if you’re feeling tired. And I expect you’d like to take your shoes off a bit,” she added with a professional glance at Anne’s footwear.
She disappeared into the kitchenette beyond and presently came back with a tray.
“I reely must apologize for the service,” she giggled. “But I never seem to be able to get them matched up somehow. You know how it is when a cup gets broken and you’ve only just time to pop round to Woolworth’s. Do you take sugar, Miss Dickinson?”
Anne gulped her tea gratefully. It was not Peter Harker’s best brand by a long way, but it was warm and invigorating. She refused the solitary slice of cake which Miss Fothergill pressed upon her.
“Oo, but do, Miss Dickinson,” she persisted. “I don’t want it meself, honest I don’t. I never eat anything with my tea. And it’s lucky to take the last bit, they always say, don’t they? I know a girl friend of mine told me before she was married she was sure it was all along of her—not that you need bother about that sort of luck now, need you, Miss Dickinson? Oo, perhaps I didn’t ought to have said that?”
“That’s quite all right,” Anne reassured her. “I expect it will be announced any time now.”
“I’m sure I hope you’ll be ever so happy. I’m sure you ought to be. You know one gets quite interested, if you know what I mean, when any of our customers get married. Any of our regulars, I mean. And of course, we’ve seen Mr. Johnson in with you lots of times. He’s ever so nice, I think.”
“Thank you,” said Anne. “And now I think I must be going. It was really kind of you to give me tea.”
“You’re welcome, I’m sure, Miss Dickinson. I dare say we shall be seeing you round our place again soon? There’s some lovely new autumn styles we’ve just got in, you would like them, reely you would. Well, goodbye, Miss Dickinson.”
“Goodbye.”
* * *
Throwing economy to the winds for once, Anne went home by taxi. In spite of Miss Fothergill’s tea she felt more tired than ever, but it was the exhaustion of the mind rather than of the body. She leaned back in her seat and tried not to think, but found that she might as well have tried to prevent the taximeter ticking up the fare. But unlike the figures on the meter, her thoughts remained obstinately unprogressive. I’ve got no proof, she kept saying to herself, no proof about the matter at all. All this juggling with figures seemed very clever at the time, but meeting that girl there may have been just coincidence. May have been—if only I didn’t know in my bones that it wasn’t!
I liked her, too, she reflected. I can’t imagine why, but I positively liked her. She was vulgar and overdressed but she obviously had a kind nature. She “took to me,” as she would say. Damn you, Miss Fothergill, why can’t I hate you as I should? And where am I going to go for my shoes after this?
And all the time, at the very back of her mind, remained another thought altogether, so very much more disturbing that she preferred not to examine it at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Mr. Dedman Speaks His Mind
Wednesday, August 30th
Things were moving in the office of Jelks, Jelks, Dedman and Jelks. Clerks came and went with an air of busy purposefulness, even on routine matters. Typewriters clicked and jangled at a speedier tempo. Office gossip was a thing of hurried half-sentences instead of long, delicious confidences. For Dedman, the mainspring of the firm, had returned to work, keyed up to a higher pitch of efficiency by his holiday, and was gathering into his capable hands all the strings that had been allowed to fall slack and tangled in his absence.
By midday he had already cleared away the mass of arrears which had accumulated on his desk and had, in addition, put straight half a dozen minor matters which the junior Jelks, now on his holiday, had left in a state of happy confusion. As the clock struck twelve he finished dictating a letter, nodded dismissal to the typist and pressed the bell on his desk.
To the clerk who answered it he said, “Is Mr. Dickinson here yet?”
“Just arrived, Mr. Dedman. Miss Dickinson is with him, and another gentleman—Mr. Johnson, I think it is.”
“Humph! I only wanted to see Mr. Dickinson. You’d better show them all in, though.”
Stephen, Anne, and Martin, ushered into the presence, found themselves confronted by a short, compact man of early middle age, with a pugnacious jaw and a round head covered with close-cropped black hair. He acknowledged their appearance with an awkward bow, plumped back into his chair and plunged immediately into business.
“Unusual, I know, for a solicitor to summon his client in this way,” he began, addressing Stephen. “For that matter, you’re not my client. Your father’s estate is. But you are one of the executors, and I want to get to the bottom of this. While I’ve been away things have been allowed to slide.”
“On the contrary,” said Stephen stiffly. “We have all been doing a very considerable amount of work.”
“The position now is,” went on Mr. Dedman, disregarding the interruption, “you have just four days in which to accept or refuse the Insurance Company’s offer. Actually, the time expires on Sunday. Mr. Jelks overlooked that fact when he made the arrangement. Sunday being a dies non, I have claimed that it should be extended to the close of business hours on Monday. I have put that to the Company and made them agree it. After Monday it will be a case of suing on the policy if you’re going to get anything. Well?”
“Of course we don’t accept,” said Stephen.
“Very good. What’s your case?”
“What it always has been. That Father was murdered.”
“Precisely. Who by?”
“Perhaps,” said Stephen, “I had better explain what we have been doing.”
“Perhaps you had.”
“In the first place, I obtained a report from an inquiry agent—”
“Have you brought it with you?”
“Yes.”
Stephen handed it across the desk into Mr. Dedman’s strong, hairy hands. It seemed to take him rather less than a minute to read it. When he had done so, he leaned back in his chair, nodded thoughtfully and said, “I presume that you have treated all the people mentioned in this as possible suspects?”
“Yes.”
“Have you found any reason to connect any one of them with this alleged crime?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Which?”
“Parsons.”
“Tell me.”
Stephen handed it across the desk into Mr. Dedman’s and, with some assistance from M
artin, went through with it to the end. Mr. Dedman heard him out without interruption. Towards the end of the recital he closed his eyes, but the impatient drumming of his fingers on the desk proved that he was far from being asleep. When Stephen had finished, he opened his eyes again, and said, “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Dedman made no further observation for a full half-minute. Then he picked up Elderson’s report again, glanced at it and said:
“These other people here—have you any suspicions against any of them?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“Which?”
“To begin with, Mr. Carstairs and his wife. Mrs. Carstairs and her husband, I should say, because she is the one that counts. Actually, he is a parson, though he hasn’t a parish.” He described his experiences at Brighton and went on: “They are not too well off, I should say, and she works as secretary to a charitable concern called the Society for the Relief of Distress amongst the Widows of Professional Men. Now it’s an odd coincidence, but that Society happens to be the one—”
“The one that your Uncle Arthur’s money goes to on your father’s death. I know the terms of the will—naturally. Well?”
“Well,” Stephen went on. It was somehow difficult to put very much conviction into his theory under Mr. Dedman’s cold gaze. “Well, it’s a fact that the Society is, or was, rather, in very low water. From what I can gather, Mrs. Carstairs’ job was in great jeopardy. If she knew the terms of the will, and after all as secretary she would be almost certain to, she had the strongest possible motive to secure this very large sum of money for the Society.”