Eight Murders In the Suburbs (12 page)

Before she returned, he fixed a loan for her for five hundred pounds, and opened a banking account in her name at Shaldon-on-Thames—which helped him to overcome her scruples about accepting hospitality from a stranger. He conceded that she should pay the out-of-pocket cost of her board.

Aileen Bladlow, without prompting, picked up something of the stray-dog point of view. In a few days, she coaxed her
protégée
into a shopping expedition and helped her to choose clothes of the right kind—thereby awakening Miss Henson's dormant femininity. The couple treated her with indulgent kindness—though Cedric, their five-year-old, reserved judgment. In a month the spontaneity of Aileen Bladlow's welcome wore thin, but loyalty to her husband's business interests evoked a synthetic geniality, so that Miss Henson noticed no difference.

On the other hand, Bladlow's benevolent interest became the stronger as the personality of Miss Henson opened, flower-like, in the sunshine of normal friendliness. In three months she no longer looked skinny. Bladlow began to take a pride in her improving health. The shadow of her father was lifting from her—lifted, one might say, by James Bladlow. Her growing confidence of speech and manner he regarded as his own handiwork.

And so did Miss Henson.

In short, the rather unctuous little fairy story of the strong man stooping to help the drab old maid whom everyone despises was coming true. Even to the point where the strong man earns the undying gratitude of the beneficiary, to say nothing of her boundless admiration.

He had yet to discover that the catch in that particular fairy story is that the drab old maid, who ought to turn into a delectable princess, more often reveals herself as an Old Man Of The Sea who cannot be shaken from the shoulders of her rescuer.

He received his first warning when probate was granted and Miss Henson became a comparatively affluent woman in her own right.

It must be emphasised that Miss Henson was of normal intelligence and even of studious tastes. She knew a great deal about the history of art and literature and was something approaching an expert in her judgment of paintings. She could herself draw very competently. She was eccentric only in her ignorance of the rough-and-tumble of everyday life, and even this was unobtrusive. In casual contact she would appear an ordinary middle-aged spinster of the sheltered classes, a little more fluttery than is usual nowadays. Instructed by Aileen in the science of buying clothes, she applied her own knowledge of line and colour and now looked very presentable.

For the rest, she could sustain a drawing-room conversation, and she could buy food and domestic necessities as competently as any housewife. But the mental habit of years made her attention panic away from anything to do with business.

Bladlow tried hard to explain the nature of investment.

“Let me put it another way, Miss Henson. The bank, through myself, has sold all your father's property, paid his debts and the taxes, and so has finished the job it undertook. It won't do anything more until you tell it what you want it to do with your money. It has thirty-one thousand pounds and a few hundreds over belonging to you. If you will go and see the manager he will advise you how to invest it.”

“It seems such a lot of money.” Miss Henson was overawed and uneasy. “How do you think I ought to spend it?”

That started it all over again. Miss Henson became worried and unhappy until she struck a bright idea.

“But it's ‘business,' isn't it, Mr. Bladlow? Couldn't you do it for me? I know it's a lot to ask after all the great kindness of Mrs. Bladlow and yourself. But I am painfully aware that I am uninstructed and very stupid at this sort of thing.” And then, once again:

“Oh, do
please
help me!”

He said he would gladly do his utmost to help her and she thanked him effusively, glowing with gratitude and admiration.

She signed a power of attorney without asking what it was. He would have told her, at this stage, if there had been the remotest chance of securing her attention and understanding.

He had done well out of his commissions on the sale of the properties. Further, he paid himself a consultation fee and decided that three hundred pounds a year would be a fair retainer for managing her investments. Also, he would persuade a stockbroker to treat him as a half-commission man. Legitimate pickings.

A few nights later he gave his wife a present of one hundred pounds. Aileen was the kind of wife commonly described as ‘most suitable,' by both women and men, including her husband—a good-looking blonde of amiable temperament, cool, self-disciplined and domestically efficiet. Her affection lacked the spice of romantic adoration. She approved of him for his unadventurous ordinariness. She thanked him prettily for the cheque.

“You've earned it, darling!”

“I've tried to!” she admitted. “What's the next step, Jim? I mean, when is she going?”

Bladlow found himself shirking the question, unworthily wondering whether he ought to have made the cheque one hundred and fifty pounds.

“We must give her a week or two to find her feet,” he said. “Let the suggestion to move come from her. I know she's very anxious to get her furniture out of the warehouse.”

“I hope it won't be longer than a week or two!” Aileen was being wintry about it. “She isn't good for Cedric. He doesn't like her, but I'm sorry to say he lets her buy his good will with little presents. It'll make him greedy and calculating.”

Before the week or two had passed, Miss Henson burst in on them at tea time on Saturday, from one of her solitary walks.

“There's a lovely house—The Cedars—at the corner of Malvern Avenue. The agent happened to be there and he showed me over it. And Mr. Bladlow, please, I want you to buy it for me, I mean—buying a house is good business, isn't it?”

“In certain circumstances, but hardly if you mean to live in it. It's a twelve-roomed house—”

“Yes, and the top floor is self contained!” panted Miss Henson. “And the agent said I could have a door put on the top staircase so that the top floor would be a flat. And I thought you could live in the rest of the house and we could all be together, only I shouldn't be always in your pocket, as I am now. And it has a lovely garden—Cedric would love it.”

It was the suggestion of a woman wholly without social experience—of a child who cannot conceive that its company might not be desired. Aileen shrank from snubbing her, encouraged her to chatter about the house while she administered tea.

“It isn't the sort of thing one can decide quickly, Miss Henson. I would advise you to talk it over with James before you take any definite step.”

James, thought Aileen, would be easier to manage than Miss Henson.

“The kindest way,” she said that night, “would be for you to tell her that the house is a hopeless dud as an investment—invent rotten drains or bad settlement or something.”

Bladlow hedged, pleading professional probity.

“But you don't mean to say you
want
to fall in with her absurd plans!” exclaimed Aileen. “Why, we should never get rid of her!”

“I don't say I want to! But the proposition is not without some solid advantages for us. It is a very good house. At least, we might think twice before we turn it down.”

Aileen said nothing, thereby alarming him. He felt guilty, without understanding the nature of his crime. At last she spoke.

“Jim! Don't you know that the poor, pathetic old golliwog is in love with you?”

“Rot, darling! She's too old.”

“That's a very silly remark!”

“You started the silliness. For one thing, to her the idea of love is inseparable from marriage. Marriage, in her case, would involve divorce—and she's a strict churchwoman. For another—why, dammit, if a man were to kiss her, she'd scream and call the police!”

“I didn't suggest there was any danger of your kissing her. At present she only idealises you. She was bullied all her life by that horrible old father. You've been kind to her and made a fuss of her and, on top of it all, you're hopelessly good-looking. She'll soon start being a serious nuisance to you.”

Bladlow was ready to believe that at least half of it was true.

“Aileen, suppose you're right—”

“You needn't look so grim about it, old boy! We're not having an official row,” urged Aileen. “The truth is that— though you didn't mean to—you have woken her up. Don't worry! When you've got rid of her, she'll soon transfer it all to some other man.”

“Exactly! That's where we stick!” he exclaimed. “I brush her off. She takes her money with her. That childish, ignorant old dear in unrestrained possession of thirty thousand quid! A sitting certainty for the first crook who spots her. He won't even need to marry her—just tell her he understands all about ‘business', and wants to help her, and she'll hand him the lot—as she's handed it to me!”

Aileen was convinced, but remained of the same opinion regarding the proposal that they should all live in The Cedars.

“Jim, dear—I know it's a heartless thing to say—but does it matter to us if she throws her money away?”

It mattered very much to James Bladlow. A man must live up to his own moral pretentions or despise himself. The stray dog, once taken in, can never be turned out.

“I can prevent the love nonsense from becoming a nuisance,” he hedged. “And she means a good deal of business to us in commissions, don't forget.”

“You aren't thinking of the commissions.”

He let that go, but Aileen followed it up.

“What exactly
are
you thinking about, Jim?”

What indeed! Of a cruel old beast of a father, who made James Bladlow feel so happily superior. Of thirty thousand pounds. Of a stray dog, befriended, deemed to adore him for the rest of its life. Of the moral stature gained by chivalrously protecting an utterly unattractive woman. And again of thirty thousand pounds.

“She's had a raw deal, Aileen. The money is no compensation because there's not enough of her left to use it.”

In the late autumn of 1932, they moved into The Cedars. When Miss Henson had distributed her furniture in her quarters on the top floor, known as the flat, she invited the Bladlows to dinner. There was only one picture on the wall of the sitting-room—an oil painting of a girl of about ten, vivacious, interesting, though the style of the artist was a bit beyond the experience of the Bladlows.

“That's the Merthyr—obviously,” remarked Bladlow. Aileen gave him a warning glance, and he played for safety. “Charming!”

Miss Henson simpered. She was standing by the painting.

“I recognised you as soon as I saw it, Miss Henson,” said Aileen quickly. Bladlow took his cue.

“You're more like yourself as a child than most people are, Miss Henson.”

She was delighted. She told them the story of the sitting and a great deal about Merthyr's subsequent work, to which they listened with polite boredom. Towards the end of the evening, Miss Henson made them a little speech, extolling their kindness to her.

“And so I want you to accept the Merthyr—
please
—as a little token—”

Miss Henson was overcome and Bladlow himself was not unaffected because he knew that this decent little old thing was giving something which she prized very highly. Art, of course, was art—but in this case the picture was worth at least one hundred pounds—possibly a good deal more.

The Merthyr was hung in a prominent position in the Bladlow's drawing-room, to Aileen's secret disgruntlement. When Miss Henson visited them—midday dinner on Sundays and tea on Wednesdays—she would sit where her glance fell easily on the picture. In three months they had settled into a regime. From the start, it worked better than might have been expected, helped by Aileen's forbearance. There were small daily contacts which she found irksome. Bladlow noticed a loss of sweetness in her temper but assured himself that she would soon get over it.

The thirty-one thousand pounds had been transferred to an account in his own name. He bought gilt-edged securities while he deliberated over Miss Henson's financial future. She was obviously unfit to have control of her capital. For some months, he contemplated creating a trust. Then he thought he would rid her and himself of all further anxiety by using the whole sum for purchase of a life annuity.

Miss Henson smiled and nodded, but was not very receptive, while he tried to explain the nature of an insurance company and a life annuity. Some weeks later, he was on the point of deciding to sell the gilt-edged securities and buy her the annuity, when Miss Henson herself torpedoed the whole idea.

She had read, it appeared, a ‘piece in the paper' anent the folly of not making a will. For sixpence she had bought a will form, with printed instructions on the back, which she had imperfectly assimiliated.

“There are only two persons in the world who are dear to me, in any personal sense,” she told him, “Mrs. Bladlow and yourself! So of course I shall leave to you all I don't spend.” (He could never make her understand that she was not ‘spending' her capital). “I would not have told you, only it says a will has to have two witnesses.”

Bladlow kept his head, though his philosophy had been turned inside out, for he had never contemplated profiting from her otherwise than through legitimate fees and perquisites, and even these had begun to seem illegitimate. He explained the law concerning witnesses and called in the cook and the gardener to sign.

When he told Aileen, she was not as impressed as he had expected.

“Don't kid yourself, Jim, that it's any more than a ticket in a sweepstake. You might win a big prize. But you might forget to pass the salt one day, and then she'd make another will.”

A pity Aileen was getting like that, he thought. Miss Henson would
not
make another will. Outside art, she was a simple, childlike creature who trusted him absolutely. In the normal course of nature the thirty-one thousand pounds—increased by his careful management—would be his before many years had passed. He shivered with horror as he remembered how nearly he had defeated Miss Henson's generous intention by buying her an annuity.