Dead or Alive (19 page)

Beatrice Thompson took each of the leaves, looked at it, and laid it on her knee. When she came to the wedding group, she stared at it for some time. Bill watched her, and did not know what to make of her expression. It hardened. She looked less pretty. An odd fleeting likeness to Mrs Thompson showed for a moment and was gone again. He thought she was thinking, calculating, making up her mind what she was going to say. But what she did say took him most completely by surprise. She handed him back the wedding group, pointed with an ungloved forefinger at the Professor, and said,

“I've seen that old gentleman.”

“What?”
said Bill in a tone of quite ungovernable incredulity.

“That old gentleman,” said Miss Thompson, still pointing, “I've seen him.” The forefinger had been roughened by work, but the nail had been clipped to a point and stained a horrible scarlet. It pointed at the Professor, and the drawling voice said with a little more drawl than before, “I can swear to him.”

“Where?” said Bill. What he felt inclined to say was “Nonsense!”

“Coming out of Miss Delorne's flat nine o'clock in the morning, and I'd got my pail in the way, so I had to move it. And I took notice of him very particular, because I thought at his time of life he ought to know better, and whatever Miss Delorne wanted to take up with an old man like that—well!” She paused, rolled her eyes, retrieved the refined accent which had rather broken down, and said, “Disgusting, I call it.”

Bill found himself quite unable to believe a word she was saying. But then, why was she saying it? It was quite impossible that she should have seen the Professor coming out of Della Delorne's flat at nine in the morning.

“Miss Thompson,” he said, “I think you've made a mistake”—she shook her head—“but leave that on one side for a moment and tell me, are you sure you don't recognize anyone else in these photographs?”

He thought she hesitated, and he thought that it was to cover her hesitation that she said pertly,

“If you'll tell me who you want me to recognize, I might have a shot at it.”

“Look here,” he said, “that's no good. If you don't recognize anyone, say so. But if you do—and I think you do—why then—”

“What?” said Miss Thompson succinctly.

“I gave your mother five pounds,” said Bill. “That was for taking up her time, not for what she told me, because she didn't tell me anything of the very slightest value.”

“
Five pounds
—” She breathed the words in a voice that was most purely and sincerely natural—a pretty little London voice, trembling with emotion at the thought of what five pounds would buy. A string of real cultured pearls—you could get them for a guinea.… A real foxaline fur … A pair of shoes with heels like stilts … A bag—silk stockings.… Her face glowed with positive beauty as she gazed at Bill. “Coo!” she said. It was the merest involuntary breath of rapture. Then a shrewd look came into the large blue eyes. She sat up straight in her chair and prepared to drive a bargain. “You'd give me five pounds—honest?”

“Look here,” said Bill, “I'll give you ten bob for your trouble in coming here, and if you can really tell me anything that will be of use to me, you shall have your fiver. But please don't make anything up, because I shall know if you do.”

She threw him a sharp, good-humoured glance. He had wondered if she would take offence, but this was business, and the drawling would-be fine lady was in abeyance. This was a girl who could take hard knocks and give them.

She said, “I don't need to make things up. If I make up my mind to tell you, it'll be what happened—but I haven't made up my mind yet.”

“I'll give you five minutes,” said Bill, and wondered whether, after all, he was giving her time to fake a story, but he had to let the Ogilvies know that he was probably going to be late for dinner.

He got Jim Ogilvie on the telephone, and was told that they were alone and he could be as late as he liked.

He came back to Beatrice Thompson. She hadn't moved, but he thought that she had made up her mind.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, it's this way.” She lifted her chin and looked at him. “Mum don't know—that's what I'm boggling at. And what I want to know is this—is all this just a private talk between you and me, or is there any likelihoods of a police-court case, and things in the papers, and no saying where it's going to stop?”

The girl had a head on her shoulders. What she had to tell was the more likely to be of value. He said honestly,

“I don't know, Miss Thompson. I've no connection with the police. Mr O'Hara disappeared a year ago, and it is quite possible that he was murdered—but please keep that to yourself.”

“Then I couldn't do it for five pounds.” The blue eyes were as hard as marbles.

He offered her ten, and she raised him to fifteen, and then stuck out for a bonus if it should come to a case in court.

“Not that there's any harm, but Mum's old-fashioned—well, there, you've seen her for yourself. It's going to upset her because I didn't tell her at the time, but I don't want to upset her for nothing.”

Bill reflected that twenty pounds between them ought to have a soothing effect on Mrs Thompson's feelings. And then he felt rather ashamed of himself because the girl said half defiantly,

“She's been a jolly good mother to us. She's worked her fingers to the bone ever since Dad died, and it takes some doing with six, and none of them earning. You needn't think it's because I'm afraid of her, because I'm not.”

“All right,” said Bill. “And now let's have it, whatever it is.”

She sat forward a little with her elbows on her knees and dropped her voice to a confidential tone.

“Well, it was like this, Mr Coverdale. Mother was in hospital like she told you, and I was out of a job just men, and she asked me would I keep her place open, so I did, though I didn't like spoiling my hands—I'm a waitress by rights.”

“Yes?” said Bill encouragingly.

“It was the fourth of October you wanted to hear about?”

“Yes.”

She gave a little laugh.

“That's an easy date for me to remember, because it's my birthday. Well, I'd been doing Mum's job for three or four days, and I'd got friendly with a girl in one of the flats—Mabel her name was. She worked in the flat just opposite that Miss Delorne. Well, come the day before my birthday—that's October 3rd a year ago—we got talking, and I said it was my birthday next day and my friend wanted to take me out for a treat—he's a real nice boy, and he's got a good job and doing well in it. And Mabel told me her people were going away for two nights. She said, why not make up a party, her and me, and her boy friend and mine, and go to the new Palais de Danse which is just round the corner from Oleander Mansions, and me come back and sleep with her for company. She said her people had offered her to have her sister if she liked, but she said she'd rather have me, because her sister was one of those girls that can't keep their hands off another girl's boy, so she didn't want to have her butting in.”

Bill said, “I see—”

“Mean, I call it!” said Miss Thompson with energy. “Mum ‘d have slapped any of us, and a good job too—that sort want smacking. Well, we fixed it up, and I don't know when I enjoyed a party more. But I didn't tell Mum because of her being in hospital, and I knew she'd just lie there and worry, and make sure I was on the road to ruin—as if a girl couldn't get into trouble without ever going out of our street, if she wanted to. But it's no good arguing with Mum—it's the way she's made.”

“Well, you had your party. And then?”

“George and Ernie took us home—back to Oleander Mansions, that is—and I won't say we weren't larking about a bit down in the entrance. Mabel had got her key and she let us in, and the boys said good-night, and there was some joking and larking going on, but all very quiet so as not to disturb anyone. There's a night porter, but he don't come unless you ring for him, and there's nobody working the lift, but those that want to can work it themselves—anyhow the staff's not supposed to. So Mabel and me walked up the stairs. Her flat's on the third floor, and she'd just got the door open when I found I'd dropped my bag. ‘Coo!” I said. ‘That's young Ernie and his nonsense. And I'm not going to lose that bag,' I said, ‘with my new lipstick in it and all.' And Mabel, she said she wasn't going down all those stairs again, not for anybody. ‘And you won't find it if you go,' she said, ‘for as like as not you dropped it in the street.' Well, I knew I hadn't, so I ran down, and there it was, right by the door where Ernie had been carrying on. So I picked it up and back up the stairs with it, and when I come to the landing Mabel had gone in and left the door on the jar. I was just going to push it, when the door across the landing opened and a gentleman came out.”

She picked up the wedding group and pointed with her scarlet finger-nail at Robin O'Hara.

“That gentleman,” she said, and sat back.

Bill's heart beat quicker.

“Sure?” he said.

She took up the other two sheets, and pointed out Robin O'Hara in each of the photographs.

“It was that gentleman.”

“How was he dressed?” said Bill.

Beatrice sat forward again.

“He'd taken his coat off. He'd a fancy striped shirt on, and a collar to match, and some kind of tie with a stripe in it, and dark trousers—navy blue, I think. He'd taken his waistcoat off, and he'd got his shoes in his hand putting them out. The porter does them for the gentlemen if they make an arrangement.”

“Then he'd been there before?”

“Looked like it,” said Miss Thompson. “And Mabel said—”

“Well?”

“I described him, and she said he passed for Miss Delorne's brother, only nobody believed it.”

“Go on,” said Bill. “Or is that all?”

“Not by half it isn't,” said Miss Thompson with vigour.

“Well, what happened?”

“He pulled the door to behind him, and he put down his boots and come across very soft on his stocking feet. I'd my hand on the door and Mabel in call, so I wasn't frightened, and he didn't try to touch me. He stood a yard away and said very soft, ‘Will you take a message for me? It's important.' And I said, ‘What—
now?
' and he said ‘Tomorrow will do.' And whilst he was saying it he was writing on a bit of paper with a pencil he'd taken out of his trouser pocket, and he put the paper in my hand with a ten-shilling note, and back across the landing and in at Miss Delorne's flat without another word.”

What an odd story. If she wasn't making it up, what had happened to the message? He said that out loud.

“What happened to the message? Did you take it?”

Miss Thompson blinked. She opened her mouth to speak and shut it again.

“Well?” said Bill impatiently.

“Well, that's just where it's a bit awkward,” said Miss Thompson. “I put it in my bag and I went into the flat, and Mabel wanted to know what had kept me, so I told her, and she said she didn't believe me, teasing like. So I said, ‘Seeing's believing,' and I showed her the note. Well then, she wanted to read it, and I said she shouldn't, and she said she was going to, and she made a snatch and it got torn between us. ‘Now see what you've done!' I said. And she said ‘Well, you can't go taking a note like that,' and before I could stop her she'd put it on the kitchen fire.”

An extraordinary sensation swept over Bill. Robin O'Hara creeping out of Della Delorne's flat and seizing a desperate eleventh hour chance of sending a message—two girls playing, and the message gone up in smoke—Robin's life gone too.… What was the message? To whom was it written? And why was it written? Yes, that above all—why was it written? Had he just learned something vital? Had he already embarked upon a hazardous course, attempted at the last moment to safeguard himself by a message to Garratt or to Meg?

He looked up, to find Beatrice Thompson's eyes fixed on him with a curious expression. He guessed at an impulse held in check by doubt or prudence. An illuminating flash passed through his mind. He leaned forward with an abrupt movement and said,

“You wouldn't let Mabel read the note, but did you read it yourself?”

A blush rose becomingly in Miss Beatrice Thompson's cheeks. She blinked again and said,

“Well, Mr Coverdale, I did.”

XX

Bill was conscious of triumph, suspense, anticipation. He leaned forward and said insistently,

“You
did
. I thought so. What was in it?”

“It was only a line, Mr Coverdale.” She was leaning towards him in voluble explanation. “It was only a line, and I suppose I oughtn't to have looked, but it wasn't like an ordinary note, him being a stranger and coming out of that Miss Delorne's flat like that in the middle of the night. I thought I'd just see what kind of a message it was he was asking me to take, because Mum's got a story about a girl that was given a note in the street and five shillings to take it, and the envelope came unstuck and she looked inside, and it said, ‘Keep the bearer till I come,' and no name at the end, only initials. Whiteslavers, that was. So I thought I'd have a look just in case. But it was only one line, and all it said was, ‘Going down to some place or other,' and initials signed to it. And I can't remember what the first one was, but there was an O, and an H after that, tight up to each other with a sort of a comma between them.”

Was she making it up? No, he was sure she wasn't. But the message—he must get the message straightened out. He said,

“Please, Miss Thompson, think carefully. That message may be most awfully important. Where did he say he was going?”