DEAD IN A ROW

GWENDOLINE BUTLER

GEOFFREY BLESS 52 DOUGHTY STREET, LONDON

DEAD IN A ROW

Rosy’s little café, George’s flower shop, Louie’s smart hairdressing establishment, Barnabas’s secretarial school and Jay’s dress shop, these were the small but carefully nurtured businesses which their owners tended with loving care along Bartholomew Row. Yet eager as George, Barnabas and the others were to build up their business, just as eager was someone else to discredit them. It began with anonymous letters, but unpleasant as those were, they receded into the background when murder came to the Row, touching them all with its poison of suspicion and fear.

Also by GWENDOLINE BUTLER

RECEIPT FOR MURDER

TO

A. E. and A. L. W.

This book is fiction and all the characters and incidents in it are entirely imaginary

First published 1957

I

THE shadow of murder fell upon Jay in her morning rush past the gay little shops of Bartholomew Row. The shadow of her smart white hat fell upon her face, and on her’ shoulders sat the shadow of her worry, but the darkness of’ the murderer was heaviest upon her, although she did not know it yet. She waved gaily, familiarly, breathlessly to i Louie and Barnabas as she passed them opening up and I dusting their establishments.

“Can’t stop,” she gasped. “Client coming to have her dress fitted at nine-fifteen.”

They waved back and shouted greetings, but she was already gone, clutching at her hat and her paper bag with the sweet bun in it, to fumble at her own yellow front door.

“That girl will break the sound barrier one morning,” commented Barnabas Lord, looking down on Louie in a friendly manner from his window in the rooms above her. He was polishing his nails. “How she does rush. Not like you, dear.”

Louie Barker grunted and moved her large, splendid form into the shade as she watered her window-boxes. This summer she had filled them with geraniums and daisies.

“Got to get the kid off to school first, I suppose,” she answered. “Bound to make it a rush for her. Still, she’s better off without that husband of hers. Good luck he did leave her, I say.”

Jay Drury’s two-storeyed shop was at the end of the narrow cul-de-sac and it faced all the other shops at right angles. The Row was a series of converted mews called after Bartholomew House, the gaunt old mansion at the corner whose barrack-like elegance was now invaded by the Ministry of Land Disposal and Planning. There were five little shops along the Row, each inhabited by a boisterous personality; the clash of temperament which took place daily added greatly to the excitements and hazards of shopkeeping. First in the line of shops was “Rosy’s Bakery and Coffee Room”, without whose stimulating comfort the slowly-ticking-over life of the Ministry in the big house would have stopped altogether. As it was, grateful, careful little Rosy collected the sixpences and shillings for the coffee, sandwiches and sweet doughnuts which flowed next door. Rosy’s neighbour was George Williams the florist. George, too, had cause to be grateful to the Civil Servants who bought his smart, costly and distorted flowers (no roses, except the specially dwarfed or the carefully inflated, no orchids except the insectivorous) to give to their licit and illicit loves; for most had both, so attractive was propinquity, and so crowded were their working conditions. While Rosy collected her pence, George raked in the shillings, for tact and discretion were his finest flowers, and he never, ever, said anything. But the pounds were taken in by Louie, whose Hairdressing and Beauty Shop charged the very highest prices. And rightly, for in her neat little, discreet little, cubicles all things could be accomplished and anything arranged. Louie’s establishment spread over two shops, each with a different entrance and different staff, only Louie herself was apt to pop up disconcertingly in either. As she did not need all the rooms above, some were let to Barnabas, who used them for a secretarial school of a most fashionable sort. His success, based on charming manners and a happy resemblance to a débutante’s dream of an Ideal Husband, was enormous, and all day fashionable little creatures tripped up and down the Row on their way to his classes; Rosy, George and Louie took toll of them on the route, so everyone was pleased.

All the shops were gay with flowers and bright awnings. Jay’s, of which she was very proud, was the liveliest of all. But the whole district was lively; it was bursting, teeming with new rich life. It was a neighbourhood on the way up, teetering uncertainly between the smart and the slum. It contained elements of both, and even its smartest purlieus had a raffish quality. The broad main road which drew the whole district together and gave it character (and like all strong characters not all of it was pleasant) began at one end near the Tube station in the choicest possible way, with little dress shops and windows full of hats, and then dwindled away into a dusty lower road of newspaper shops and chemists, their windows stuck about with notices and postcards. But victory was to the strong, and it was these meaner shops which were disappearing. It was all very cheerful, and great fun…

Louie thought it was splendid. She was inclined to take all the credit to herself. She was not a native of the district, but had moved to it from across the main road, which in this place made her a foreigner. She had been one of the first people to rent a shop in Bartholomew Row, at a time when the plaster and paint of conversion was very new in the little shops so conveniently tucked away behind the Tube station and only a stone’s throw from the Town Hall.

Occasionally she toured her area, looking it over with a speculative and loving eye. New flats were rushing up everywhere, smart maisonettes with brick fronts were erected on the main road, and there were even, in the back streets, where appearances didn’t so much matter, a few ordinary dwelling-places.

Louie really regarded herself as the founder of the fortunes of the district. She’d said as much to Barnabas one evening as she conducted him on a tour of the building sites, both of them surveying with interest the homes of their future clients.

“They say there’s a flat built every minute,” said Louie in a respectful tone. “And I can’t help congratulating myself.”

“Why?” asked Barnabas, eyeing the bricklayers at their work. “Just look at that man’s muscles, Louie; wonderful ripples.”

“Since I moved here this place has gone up and up. Well, you can’t call it just coincidence, can you? I brought luck to this place, that’s what. Some people do, and I always was a lucky girl.” Her tone was complacent.

“You can’t take it all to yourself.”

“Oh, you clever people make me sick, not believing in things like luck and intuition and second sight.”

“I didn’t say that at all,” replied the realist. “But you can’t expect me to believe that you moving here inspired about three separate companies and combines to see this as the new West End; you were lucky, if you like.”

“Oh, I may have jogged things along a bit,” said Louie mysteriously. “I talked to people, see, and said what a good likely spot it was. And I don’t believe it’s two or three companies at work, anyway. Have you noticed the way the workmen always seem to be the same lot? They just shift round.”

“I do remember that man like a Donatello; he’s quite remarkable. But they don’t actually seem to have built much, do they? Not like on the main road. That lot work, but they’re no beauties. I should say there were two companies, Louie, one here, and another on the main road. This is more fun.”

And he leaned over the fence and watched his beauties at work. Louie, too, stood still. In her mind’s eye she saw the ground already covered with the homes of countless, bright, extravagant young customers.

“Good spenders, that’s what we want to see living here,” said Louie from the depths of her dream.

She pointed out to Barnabas a large black-board splashed with red lettering…“The Lion and Unicorn,” it said.

Underneath it went on:

On this site will be built:

The Lion and Unicorn Town in Town. It will contain cinemas, theatres, swimming-pools and games rooms, for the use of the lucky inhabitants of the Lion and Unicorn flats and maisonettes.

Further down still it said:

Garages are provided. All those who own a helicopter are advised to put in an application for hangar Immediately, as accommodation will be Limited. A Public Passenger Helicopter Service will, of course, be operating.

At the bottom a few words announced:

The Trustees of The Lion and Unicorn Estate freely open to all leaseholders the Chapel and Garden of Rest. A resting place is included in their lease without extra charge. Once a resident, always a resident.

Louie took a deep breath.

“Well, I never,” she said.,“Well, what I wonder now is whether we’re going to be good enough for the district. I reckon I’ve brought too much luck.”

“Yes,” said Barnabas uneasily. “I wouldn’t like to get in the way of one of these big concerns, would you? Stop at nothing, I should think. Supposing they don’t want our competition?”

“Oh, rubbish!” said Louie, robustly recovering her balance. “There’s enough for everybody here. Makes our little Row worth a million a foot. Why, we’re sitting on gold-mines.”

“As long as they are gold-mines, and not the sort that explode,” replied Barnabas, studying the map attached to the big red notice. “Anyway, we certainly are on the doorstep. If there is a gold rush we won’t have far to rush.”

“Klondike, here I come!” cried an enthusiastic Louie. “And it puts, me in mind of something I was going to ask you about.”

“Well, go on.”

Louie looked reflective. Should she, after all, ask Barnabas? They were walking home now and facing the setting sun. A small boy scuffled along in the gutter. He was dark and untidy. He gave Louie a side look.

“Hello, Aunty,” he said.

“Are you his aunt?” asked Barnabas, surprised. “Are you an aunt at all?”

Louie looked solemn. “I suppose I’m an aunt about fifty times over. I was one of ten, and all my brothers and sisters are married, and then there’s my husband’s lot, if you count them.”

“I didn’t know you were married either,” exclaimed Barnabas.

“Well,” said Louie, hesitating as she cast around for a formula; “well, not full time, dear, if you see what I mean. It’s all over now. He was a fair-ground attendant…I took his name; that’s why I call myself Barker.”

“Hello, Aunty,” persisted the little boy—“Aunty Louie.”

“He seems to know you all right,” said Barnabas. “Is he one of yours?”

“Oh, I expect so. Now let me see.” Louie looked at the boy. “You can’t be one of Bessy’s or Rachel’s, for they’re all as fair as fair could be, and you’re as dark as a pikestaff. So you must be one of my brother Ted’s. No, no, now I remember…they all have squints, and you see straight enough. Well, then, what about Jack? Is he your pa? What a question to ask you, come to think of it. Anyway, lameness runs in that family.” She turned her head casually to Barnabas. “Rickets was the cause…Bad feeding. My brother married a girl from Mayo, and all she could think about was potatoes (in the food line, that is<; in other directions she had a few thoughts, I can tell you. But there, these country girls are always the worst really when it comes to it).” She turned back to the pretender.

“You know, you’re really a bit too dark, nephew.” He turned his dark, bright eyes towards her, and flashed his white teeth. Absently she petted his wiry curls.

“I’m yer sister May’s boy Eddy,” he said hoarsely.

“Oh well, there you are.” She looked at Barnabas. “That accounts for it. That’s my sister May all over. What can you expect when you live down by the Docks?”

Barnabas clucked his teeth. He found himself shocked. But it was he who gave the boy sixpence while the loving aunt continued her reminiscences.

“Our old dad was an educated man, you know. Oh, he knew what was what. Never got drunk in his shirt sleeves, he didn’t, and never let us girls drink till we was fourteen…not spirits, that is.”

“Good of him,” said Barnabas.

“Oh yes, he was an optician, was Dad, and he knew what was due to the professional man.”

“I can tell.”

“So what with him and Barker I’ve got optical illusion in the blood, as you might say. That’s why I took up hairdressing and beauty work…natural, if you come to think of it. I’m a magician, I am.”

“Yes, you are, Louie,” said Barnabas, and he meant it. “But what was it you meant to ask me about?”

“There, I almost forgot. I met such a nice girl in a pub the other day. Ran across her in the George (their American bar, they call it now, but I say that a few licks of red paint don’t make a place American). I quite took to her.”

“That’ll come expensive for her,” commented Barnabas.

“She did seem to have a bit of money to splash around,” agreed Louie, not taking offence. “And she seemed to be looking for something to invest it in. Dressmaker, she said she was. But I’d thought so myself from the way she was dressed. All those little odd bits and pieces that make a dress different: a nice frill to the collar and then one to match on the gloves—that sort of thing. Smart. And I wondered…Should I introduce her to Bartholomew Row? See if she’d take the last shop there, the one the milliner had that went mad. It might do us all a bit of good. High-class clients and all that. Shall I?”

Well, she had introduced her, and now she stood watching Jay as she opened her shop in the bright heat of the morning. With a puzzled sigh Louie turned back to her own shop. She didn’t know what had come over the girl these days; she seemed so depressed.

In fact, at that moment Jay was enjoying one of her best times of the day as she paused on the threshold of her shop to admire, as she always did, its outward appearance, with its white walls, yellow paint and red window-boxes. Only yesterday she had placed a dressmaker’s dummy dashingly attired in the window as an eye-catcher.

A wave of hot, dry, scented air rose at her from the closed rooms. She could smell the acrid odour of new materials, the tang of new paint and the scents of yesterday’s customers. The sun beat down through the fanlight over the stairs which led from the fitting-room to the workroom upstairs. All of yesterday, all her history in the little house was in the smell.

“That old Rebecca isn’t here yet,” she murmured as she picked up her letters from the mat (there was one from her husband again), and advanced to fling open windows. “I must have a sweet cup of coffee. It’s bad for my figure, but I positively must.”

With a sour eye she looked at her reflection in the mirror, lit by the workroom’s cold northern fight, which showed up the lines made by worry and lack of sleep.

“Hag-like, my dear,” she said sadly to her face. “Devil take that man. And yet…if he walked into this room, wouldn’t I walk out of it with him? And the way he’s behaved, too. Even that wouldn’t stop me. But there’s Edward. He’s on my mind, too. And has my behaviour been impeccable?” She sighed; she knew it had not.

The coffee boiled over.

“You shouldn’t be eating that sweet stuff,” remarked Rebecca, her arrival modest and virtuous, although tardy. “You can’t afford to put on another ounce.”

“And I can’t afford not to sweeten my temper, what with you arriving late and Mrs. Brand arriving early.”

“Yes, you need to make a success with that one,” commented Rebecca, her eyes shining at the thought of success. She was a girl with her mind on the future, anxious in her plans to get rich quick—too anxious, perhaps, for her employer’s good.

Jay sighed and turned over in her hands the white brocade dress she was making for Mrs. Brand. Not the least of her troubles that day was to make a garment which, though fundamentally unsuited to her customer, would still become her. Not that Mrs. Brand was exacting. She offered her personable plumpness as a sacrifice, and not as a challenge. If Jay had to triumph it was over matter, not mind.

“Where she comes others will follow,” she agreed.

“You ought to bone the skirt as well as the bodice, and then it will keep our shape and not hers.”

“My dear, it’s a dress we are making her…not a chastity belt.”

“She wouldn’t know what to do with that if we showed her,” Rebecca said with a giggle. “Oh, Jay, you are awful! The things you say!”

She combed her soft, dark hair, put on her white overall and settled to her table. She was an adequate needle’ woman, a competent cutter and a talented designer. Her ambitions were boundless. Work with Jay was a step in her ladder, which she would leave whenever it suited her. Very soon now, it seemed to her, it would suit her.

The workroom was flooded with light from the roof, and from the window overlooking Bartholomew Row. Rebecca’s chair, by design—for she missed no opportunities—faced the window. She could observe everything that went on.

“There’s Dorothy going to call on Louie.”

“You’ve said that every morning this week.”

. “She’s called every morning this week.”

“You’ve said that, too. I suppose she just has to go regularly to keep up that face. Office hours, but that wouldn’t matter to Dorothy Oliver. Do you suppose she knows her own complexion by sight?”

“I think she’s just lovely.”

No one ever mentioned Miss Oliver in the Row except in terms of praise or deep dislike. You either liked her to distraction, like Rebecca (and Edward Mortimer, or so Jay suspected), or you couldn’t take her at any price. Impossible to be neutral about that slick figure.

“Too old for you to admire, Rebecca,” growled her employer.

“You do seem a bit cross this morning. Anything wrong. Had bad news?” Rebecca’s eyes wandered to the letters on the table. They were still unopened.

Jay sighed as she chalked a line on a length of fabric.

“My trouble stays with me. And it isn’t news. Anything ’ but.”

Rebecca looked severe.

“Don’t soften your face with a smile, will you? Oh, forgive me. You’re right. I am in a bad temper. Go on, like Dorothy. I suppose I do, too, in a way. Heaven knows I admire her for the way she goes on. She knows how to get what she wants. But, Rebecca, don’t copy Dorothy. It drives me mad sometimes to see you modelling yourself on her.”

“Oh, I don’t,” said Rebecca, with wide eyes, but her hand moved to pat her smart sleek hair-style, which was itself a sincere compliment offered to Dorothy.

“There’s the bell. Mrs. Brand. Go down to her. You might as well do something now you are here.”

“And give you time to brush the crumbs off your mouth. You didn’t ought to eat so much,” replied Rebecca, as she smartly trotted down the stairs. Jay followed slowly and with dignity.

In the grey-and-white fitting-room with the long, gilt mirror Rebecca was fussing round Mrs. Brand. She was putting out willing hands to assist Mrs. Brand to change from her street clothes into the new dress.

“She never learnt that manner from me,” thought Jay. “Perhaps her last employer taught her to believe that to fuss is the simplest way of seeming to do a great deal without actually doing it.”

Not for the first time, Jay speculated exactly what that last employer had taught Rebecca; it had been a liberal education.

“Or does it all come naturally to her? She may take in Mrs. Brand, but she doesn’t deceive me.”

Apparently she did not deceive Mrs. Brand, who jerked her tartan skirt smartly from the willing hands. Jay saw with fascination that she had put on tartan shoes to match so that she looked deliciously like a tub of shortbread.

Mrs. Brand was feeling the strain of an early morning appointment. She tossed her dress.

“Oh, it does suit you, Madam,” said the sycophant.

“Nothing suits me in the morning. I don’t look my best before twelve in the morning or after midnight. I suppose it matters less for a widow than anyone. I am a widow,” she affirmed wistfully, looking up into Jay’s face. “Well, a grass widow.”

Jay smiled sympathetically as she quietly let out a seam. Mrs. Brand took a welcome breath, and the faint purple on her cheeks and neck died down. She looked crossly at Rebecca’s back as the girl left the room.

“That girl doesn’t understand that it doesn’t flatter me to have my measurements skimped.”

“No, she doesn’t understand,” admitted Jay. “But she’s a good girl. Only too eager to please.”

Mrs. Brand preened in the mirror. “I like this dress. She wasn’t so wrong, really; it does suit me. I shouldn’t have got cross. The fact is, I’m not myself until I’ve had my morning glass of sherry. Only one, mind; and only sherry—the best sherry. No spirits before lunch. Just one tiny Bristol Cream.”

“Coffee for me,” said Jay.

“Ah, you are younger, and coffee still does things for you. At least, you are younger, dear, aren’t you? I should think I could give you one or two years.”

“Oh, surely not,” said Jay.

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Mrs. Brand, pleased. “But I’m not as young as I look. I daresay this dress does flatter me a bit. I’m going to wear it to a very special party. With my gentleman friend.”

“I’ll have it packed and sent to you as soon as it’s ready.”

“That’s right. Get it round early, won’t you? I like to take my time dressing these days.”

She paused at the door. “Funny name, Bartholomew Row. Reminds me of a boy I used to know. The Bart we called him.”

She stopped for a moment to laugh at her joke.

“The Rowis called after the house at the comer,”said Jay.

“Oh, of course I know. Used to be an old hospital there in the old times, you know. Wonder if it’s healthy. Germy, I should think.”

“Oh, surely not,” said Jay absently, as she gazed up the Row, where there was a good deal more coming and going than usual: Rosy popping in to see George, and now both of them popping out to see Louie.

“Oh, surely not,” she repeated. “Not after all these years.”

Mrs. Brand shrugged. “Some of these germs live for centuries in the dust, so they say. Slow-growing things they can be.”

She looked apprehensively round the room.

“There are no germs here,” said Jay. “The whole place was freshly done up when we moved in.”

Mrs. Brand eventually departed to take her midday sherry by storm. Jay sat down at her work-table, and drew her unopened letters towards her. A strong smell of damp, newly ironed cloth floated towards her from the comer where Rebecca worked.

“I suppose I couldn’t have a half-day tomorrow? My boy friend is home on leave…at least, that’s what he said,” she added doubtfully.

“Oh yes, if you want to; I suppose you’d better. I shouldn’t get any work out of you if you stayed.”

“Thanks.” Rebecca’s voice was casual.

“I hope he’s worth my sacrifice,” said Jay sharply.

“Oh, I’m giving him up. That’s why I want to see him.

This is to say good-bye.”

“Well, I hope you’re on with the new love before you’re off with the old.”

Rebecca looked satisfied.

“Oh, my new one’s sweet. Older, more mature. I know you’d like him. He’s got a sense of humour.”

“I don’t always like people with a sense of humour,” said Jay, with a tone of bitter reminiscence. Her husband had had a sense of humour. She began to open the rest of her letters. Nothing surprising was going to come out of them, she was sure.

“Oh, you do look worried, Mrs. Drury,” said Rebecca. “Is it a bad letter? Your hubby again?”

“Don’t use that word,” said Jay absently.

“I thought it was smart.”

“It isn’t.” Jay herself had used the word freely until she made her new friend, Edward Mortimer, but from him she was learning a new language.

She stared thoughtfully at her letter. It was typewritten on a sheet of plain, unheaded notepaper. The message began without preamble.

As an occupant of a shop in Bartholomew Row your attention is drawn to a Public Meeting to be held on June Seventh, at St. Nicholas’s Parish Hall in Flint Street.

The business of the meeting will be to discuss the GRAVE RISK to PUBLIC HEALTH of the continuing use of these premises erected on the site of an old LEPER HOSPITAL.

DO you know the germs of leprosy live for centuries? Are you justified in using these premises? Can you be allowed to continue?

The danger is LEPROSY. These buildings must be pulled down. The PUBLIC DEMAND it. signed,

MR. HARRIS

“If this doesn’t complete my day,” groaned Jay aloud to Rebecca. “But what about the others? Have they had letters? I shall have to find out.”

She gave Rebecca a long look as she reached for the telephone. Even in the midst of all her other thoughts, it did strike her that Rebecca had not said a word.

II

LOUIE and Barnabas turned naturally to each other to discuss this strange letter; not only were they tenant and landlord (Barnabas rented his floors from Louie—everyone else owned their lease), but this business relationship was complemented by a more personal one. They were almost friends. Louie didn’t altogether trust Barnabas, but she was used to liking people you couldn’t really trust. In her experience you only trusted people you’d known all your life, and not always then, certainly not always then. Barnabas was an enigma to her. He appeared to be in his forties and therefore her contemporary, but he puzzled her. Sound him out as she would, there were large gaps where she would have expected experiences in common. He just didn’t seem to have been living in the same world all these years. One after the other she brought forth topics which might arouse reminiscence, and so allow her to put Barnabas in his context. But no.—“What about Dr. Buck Ruxton?” she finally asked in despair, when he had rejected the story of little Bessy Harper, and the body on the Crumbles, and all the other causes celebres which had enlivened and instructed Louie’s girlhood. Barnabas looked blank. Thoughtfully she decided that he must have passed his early years in Antarctica or Australia, if he hadn’t spent them in prison. When she saw him dusting his collection of delicate china, lovingly polishing his snuffboxes or carefully brushing down his pale harmonious tweeds, she felt he was a creature from a different world. Yet with all this her sharp ears told her that he had learnt to speak in the same gutters that she had. She detected a familiar note in his fluent tones.

“Where did you go to school?” she asked casually one day.

“A Board School. Dates me, doesn’t it?”

“You don’t show it, dear,” said Louie admiringly. “But if you are worried, I could give you a splendid hormone treatment. I treat ever so many gentlemen. Worth every penny it is: of course I’d let it down a bit for you.”

“Kind of you, Louie, but I can’t afford it. I’ve just spent far too much on this little group of Meissen.”

He held it out to her, but Louie was not interested.

“Where’d you pick up about all this sort of thing?” she persisted. “You never learnt all this at a Board School.”

“Museums and libraries,” said Barnabas, carefully wrapping up his piece of china. “People are very helpful if they know you are really keen. I’ve seen some things not everyone gets a chance to see, I can tell you. I’m well known in every museum in the district.”

“Lord! are there any?” asked Louie surprised. “I’ve never seen them.”

“Oh, you never notice anything except your rivals’ shops and the best pubs.”

Louie was not cross, but she was still puzzled.

“But why didn’t you take up that sort of thing—museums or such—if you’re so interested, instead of teaching all those girls?”

“You don’t, earn the money to buy all these little things by working among them,” said Barnabas grimly. “Besides, I didn’t have the education, whereas for the work I do I have a sort of gift. I’m good at it, and my parents trust me. In a museum I’m afraid that no one would trust me once they’d seen me eyeing the goods.” He looked wistful. “You see, about such treasures I simply shouldn’t be trustworthy; if I didn’t steal them I should want to stroke them all the time. Now I never want to stroke my little girls—they simply don’t interest me at all.”

Louie folded her hands in front of her, and decided that her last guess had been right…Barnabas probably had spent those lost years in the coverts.

She remembered all this while she bent forward to talk to him on the telephone about this latest crisis in their lives. Probably his experiences with the police would come in useful now. Barnabas answered her ring at once.

“If you’d been in Aberdeen I’d have had to pick up the ’phone to speak to you,” he said fervently. “What does expense matter? I’ve had the most extraordinary letter…You’ve had one too? Well, frankly I thought you would have had…I know…. Me, too, and I feel so itchy. I’ve been and had a good strong bath in Dettol, but I can’t say I feel really happy. Should we fumigate, do you suppose?”

Louie crackled crisply into the telephone.

“But I am taking it seriously, dear,” answered Barnabas, hurt. “Better be safe than sorry.”

“If there is anything in it,” replied Louie earnestly, “it’s too late for Dettol baths…Carbolic wouldn’t do it. How long have you lived here?”

“Practically born here,” said he sadly. “Anyway, I’ve been here for years.”

“Me, too. Or not far away. Well, we must all meet and discuss it. Ring off, dear, and I’ll phone George and Rosy and Jay.”

“Wait a minute,” said Barnabas, after a quick look round at the bent heads of his pupils—“wait a minute. Tell me, have you told your staff?”

“Good Lord! no. It’s nothing to do with them. I shall keep it from them as long as I can. You haven’t told your girls, I hope?”

Louie was indignant at this selfish manifestation of public spirit.—Charity begins at home, she muttered to herself.

“Not yet,” admitted Barnabas. “But I did wonder if I ought, after all…”

“Don’t think of it for a moment.”

“Well,” said Barnabas hesitantly, “well…”

He surveyed his class; they were not so absorbed in their typing exercises as they pretended to be. A folded piece of paper was being passed rapidly but unobtrusively from girl to girl. Barnabas sighed.

“Actually, I think they know.”

“What!”

“I think they’ve had a letter too.”

Sadly Barnabas replaced the ’phone. He mopped his brow; the day was far too hot for such alarms. In the next room his assistant was giving a shorthand dictation. Her employer leaned gracefully against the open door and watched her. Then he sighed again. Here; too, his practised eye observed a note swinging rapidly from girl to girl. The school telegraph was at work.

“Little toughs,” he said to himself. “Not a scrap of sympathy for me.”

He went to the bookcase in the typing room and removed the volume of Chambers’s Encyclopaedia “La-Lep” and sat down with it. He turned over the pages. Almost at once he noticed that someone had been here before him…he could see a smear of lipstick and there was a strong smell of sweet scent. He raised accusing eyes to his class. They were unabashed.

“Well, we had to find out somewhere,” they pointed out. “And it was perfectly obvious that you weren’t going to say.”

“I was just about to,” he said with dignity.

They let this pass.

“But we aren’t worried now,” they went on. “It says that it needs years and years of contact with contagion; and we’re so young, aren’t we, that it’s bound to be all right. Also we only come to you for six-week courses. No, we aren’t alarmed.”

“And what about me?” exclaimed the outraged Barnabas. “Upon my word, you’re a selfish lot. Get back to your work.”

They regarded him sympathetically and went back to their keyboards. From their point of view it promised to be a good day.

Meanwhile Louie had contacted George in his flower shop. Receiving no answer on the telephone, she had banged her way down the Row, through his front shop crowded with blooms to where George was sitting in his back room, reading The Times and commenting angrily on the number of deaths with “No flowers by request”.

“Shabby, I call it. I don’t know what things are coming to.”

“Never mind; you’ve always got weddings to fall back on, haven’t you?”

“We don’t get many weddings round here and that’s a fact,” grumbled George. As he glowered, his thin face looked darker than ever. It was at such times that Louie was apt to comment pointedly that he had been born in Calcutta.

She picked up one of his flower arrangements—a tiny white cart, with a striped awning set with delicate summer flowers. It was light and gay and altogether very unlike George.

“Pretty,” she said, forgetting for the moment why she had come. It was always a surprise to her to see how neat George was with his fingers.—“Funny,” she said aloud without thinking.

“Why?” questioned George, rubbing his big brown hands on his white apron.

“Well…” Even Louie stopped short of saying it was because he was so remarkably clumsy himself. “Well…you’re so big, you see, George.”

George smiled; he had no objection to being thought big, especially as he was a good deal shorter then the magnificent Louie. It was one of his weaknesses to think of himself as a large, square, upright Englishman. It was true he had lived long in London, but there was something of an Eastern cast to his features, and his name was Williams.—“These Anglo-Indians,” Louie had said darkly in the past. “We all know what that means. A Welshman from Calcutta. I ask you.”

But now she wanted to be on good terms with George, and so, like Disraeli, she was prepared to lay her butter on thick.

She tapped him cheerfully on the shoulder (she found herself today revealing alternate moods of cheerfulness and sadness), and showed him her letter.

“Have you had one, too?”

George nodded. But all the same he carefully wiped his hands and took the letter from her to study it.

“I suppose we all have,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

“Nasty,” said Louie firmly.

“It is,” agreed George.

“I came to see what you made of it. I did feel I must have a man’s opinion. I’ve spoken to Barnabas, of course, but…”

“Know what you mean.”

George adjusted his spectacles with a pleased smile. He produced his own letter, then, slowly and carefully, he compared the two. He laid them upon his desk and ran his finger along each line as he read.

“Exactly the same, aren’t they?” asked Louie sharply, not prepared to humour him too far. “Do hurry.”

“Well, they are,” agreed George. “Except that mine is a carbon copy and yours seems to be the original.”

“Honoured, I’m sure,” said Louie. “But that’s not important, is it? It’s what it means that counts.”

George did not answer this at once, but looked thoughtful.

“What do you think?” persisted Louie. “Is there anything in it? Should we take it seriously? Or should we ignore it?”

Louie ought to have known better than to submit George’s slow-running wits to such a barrage of questions. As it was, she succeeded only in confusing him.

He seized on the one coherent thought which was shaping in his mind.

“Better go to the Sanitary Officer,” he said, then, remembering one of his army phrases, “or the M.O.”

Louie shut her eyes in an exasperated sort of way.

“Good Lord! George,” she said. “We don’t want to invite inspection, do we? Suppose there’s something in it? Anyway, let one of those chaps in and you never know what he’ll find.”

“It’s our duty,” said George solemnly.

“Duty be hanged! I’m thinking of us. Do you want to ruin us?”

“I don’t know what I want,” he answered, casting aside his role of strong man and comforter, and looking round for comfort himself. “I’m worried.”

He reached out for Louie’s plump, perfumed hand. She let him hold it for a second, as near unmoved as she ever could be by an attention of that sort. This was a mistake, and presently she said hastily:

“That’s enough, George. Keep your worries to yourself, if that’s the way they take you. Remember Rosy.” George looked round anxiously, as if Rosy might appear from the floor-boards. Rosy Andrews was younger than George—in fact, except for Jay she was the youngest proprietor in the Row. But she was behind no one in sharpness. Her little pink nose was always a-quiver to pick up the latest scents of gossip. She was fond of George, or pretended to be. There was no pretence, however, about her cooking. Rosy was a superb cook. Where had she learnt to cook so? that was what the Row continually asked. At her mother’s knee, Rosy claimed, but this was held along the Row to be highly unlikely, especially by Louie, who claimed to have known the mother.—“That woman’s knee never stayed still long enough for Rosy to learn anything from it except St. Vitus dance. Nor her elbow.” For the last few weeks Rosy had been hinting that an engagement, an understanding, existed between herself and George.

And in fact Rosy appeared just as Louie withdrew her hand. She looked as chubby and good-tempered as she always did.

“Thought I saw you come in here, Louie,” she said with a tinge of the suspicion that was as ready and willing as everything else about her. “Some time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Not five minutes,” said Louie, meeting her eye firmly. “And I came to talk business.”

She waved her letter.

“Oh, that,” said Rosy. “Rubbish I call it. Shan’t take any notice myself.”

“I don’t call it rubbish,” said Louie, “nor does George. Do you, George?”

He looked nervously to Rosy, who stared coldly back. George was not yet forgiven.

“If Rosy’s not worried, I’m not. I go by her,” said the sycophant. “I take a lot of notice of Rosy. Sensible woman.”

“But you’ve got to be worried,” said Louie anxiously. “You daren’t not. Leprosy. It’s a terrible word.”

“Don’t work us up,” admonished Rosy. “Anyone’d think you enjoyed it.”

The happy, colourful figure of Mrs. Brand appeared at the door on her way from her fitting with Jay. She greeted George gaily and with abandon.

“Hello, George, you gorgeous old thing. I want a lovely, lovely green orchid spray sent round to-night. Put it on my account, George. I’ll pay you for it later.”

And she winked at him.

“You arrange it yourself, now, won’t you? Don’t leave it to one of your assistants.”

She looked at Rosy’s angry face as she skipped towards the door.

“And bring it round yourself, dear…although it’s ever so brave of me, isn’t it, with all this leprosy about?”

The door banged behind her, making the flowers tremble in their pots.

“She knew who I was,” began Rosy crossly. “Assistant, indeed…”

“And that isn’t all she knows,” said Louie. “You heard what she said.”

Rosy capitulated.

“We’d better all meet and discuss these horrible letters,” she said with a sudden resolution to be nicer to Louie. “This evening. In my place. You are right, Louie, and I was wrong. This matter is serious.”

All three stood at the door of George’s shop and sombrely discussed the situation. The Row was empty until a tradesman’s van rounded the corner. Then Barnabas strolled over to join them.

“Late again. As usual,” said Rosy, watching the approach of the milkman.

“I had to wait for them to milk the cow,” declared the man as he clinked his bottles.

“Milk the cow, indeed! Milk comes in a pipe-line, for all you know about it. I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen it outside the bottle.”

“I’m practically a teetotaller,” said the milkman. He handed her half a dozen bottles. “Here.”

“Since yesterday, I suppose. Or was it milk you were going into the Tiger’s Head for? I saw you.”

“You’ll curdle the milk, miss, if you work up the temperature like that,” said the milkman pacifically. “You all seem a bit jumpy this morning.”

A gay figure in a cheerful cotton dress and white hat appeared at the end of the Row.

“Here comes Miss Oliver,” proclaimed the milkman. “Now, she’s the girl to make the cream rise to the top of the milk.”

“Dear old Dorothy,” said Barnabas. “All flags flying, as usual.”

“But what are the flags?” inquired Louie.

Dorothy Oliver herself supplied the answer.

“I’m collecting for the Civil Service Distressed Dependants Fund. We share our flag day with the R.S.P.C.A. Now, do contribute. Yes as much as you can—Oh thank you, Rosy—twopence, lovely. Have half a flag.”

Her bright eyes were on George; she had masked their beams with big sun-glasses (blue-rimmed to match her blue-and-white dress}, but they were still too much for George.

“Oh, George darling, you’re so generous!”

Hypnotised, George transferred his hand from his coin pocket to his wallet.

“A note—lovely! You must have a fleet of little flags.”

“George,” said Rosy in horror. “That’s a pound note!” She couldn’t have felt worse if she’d seen one drop down a drain.

Louie sourly handed over a little piece of silver.

“I can’t afford more. In fact I can’t hardly afford to give at all. It’s all right for you to look so cheerful, Dorothy Oliver. You look too damned cheerful.”

“Oh, I am. I’m enjoying my life. It’s a lovely life. Everything is going so well.”

Dorothy was almost dancing with joy this morning. Still delighted with herself, she returned to her own establishment. Louie and Rosy left with her. George stood at his door to watch them go. Presently Rebecca came down the Row on an errand for Jay. George pretended not to see her, but she came in all the same.

“Hello, Georgy-Porgy,” she said gaily. “Can I have a flower for tonight? Only a teeny, weeny one.”

“No, you can’t. I can’t afford to keep giving you flowers. And do go away. Rosy will see you, and she won’t like it. She’s cross with me as it is.”

“Rosy!” exclaimed Rebecca. “She’d like to chain you up. You want to watch out, Georgy. Look what that sort of thing did to my boss, Mrs. Drury. She was like Rosy is, I expect. I can tell. She thinks she hates her husband, but really she could eat up anyone who so much as looks at him. I know.”

“I daresay he’s a very attractive man,” said George complacently. “It’s not our fault if we have that effect on women.”

Rebecca plucked herself a pink carnation and held it against her shoulder, studying the effect in the glass.

“Well, do I get that flower or don’t I?” she asked, returning to business.

“No. Rosy wouldn’t care for it. And give me that carnation back.”

“You can have it,” said Rebecca, tossing it to him. “It doesn’t match my lipstick. But you gave Dorothy Oliver a flower on Friday, didn’t you? And Rosy wouldn’t like that either.”

“There’s no reason why Rosy should ever know,” said George apprehensively.

“No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“You bad girl,” gasped George. “That’s blackmail.”

But all the same he let her choose a rose, tied it, and patted her hand. Then he watched her go, thankful to see that Rosy was busy with her cooking and was not watching from her window.

He went back to his desk behind the Arum liles and took up Mr. Harris’s sinister letter.

“There’s no denying the reality of this, George,” he said to himself. “It sounds real, it looks real, it is real. Louie was alarmed, Rosy was alarmed, so will the others be alarmed Sure to be.”

And in spite of these anxious words, a smile played—well, hardly played, perhaps, there was nothing playful about George—worked upon his lips.

III

ACROSS London another telephone conversation was being held. Louie and Barnabas would have listened to it with rapt attention.

“I’ve been waiting to hear from you,” said one voice. “I expected to hear from you before this. Where I come from we do business more quickly than this.”

“We’ve got to go slow,” was the answer, in a younger, husky voice, with a faint undertone of Cockney (was it false or assumed?). “I’ve explained that it’s difficult for me to come out into the open. Likewise, I can’t hurry things too much.”

“You aren’t hurrying them at all,” said the older voice. “We’d get on better if we were to meet.”

“Now that is difficult,” replied the other regretfully; “I think it would be too difficult. Not that I wouldn’t be glad to, of course.”

“So you say.”

A faint giggle sounded across the line.

“Is that you?” asked the older voice sharply.

“No, no, just someone passing by.”

“Sounded like a woman.”

“Did it? Now don’t go worrying. I expect to have those leases in my hands very soon now. I’ve got it all planned, see?”

“Remember that the quicker the better. There’ll be nothing in it for either of us if there’s much delay.”

“I’ve explained that I have to be quiet as well as quick.”

“And I’ve said that I understand. But we want to get the Lion’s share of what’s going on, don’t we?” He laughed heartily. “Now when will you he in a position to make me a firm offer?”

A short discussion on various points of detail, followed. When it was over and the caller had run off, the business man sat frowning at his big glossy desk. He looked across the room, where his smart young secretary sat by a second telephone.

“Got a transcript of that, Miss Clark?”

“Yes, Mr. Banleuca,” she responded primly.

Her employer sat in frowning silence.

IV

BUSINESS days end in lovers’ meetings. Rosy’s coffee-shop was crowded with couples from Bartholomew House, some holding hands, and some their tempers. But the business of the day had not ended for Jay.

“No, nothing to eat or drink, thank you, Rosy. It’s about this letter.”

“Lower your voice, dear.”

“Then you’ve had one, too. I knew it.”

Rosy stopped in her work of pouring tea and buttering teacakes. She wiped her hands and addressed Jay:

“We can’t talk now, but we are all going to meet in my back parlour after I close. Refreshments on me.”

“I ought to get home…” Jay was doubtful. But she knew something had to be done.

“Got to collect the boy from school?”

“No—that is, yes—but he’ll bring himself home all right. Clever little kid he is.”

“It’s a lot for you, working and having him.” Rosy was sympathetic. “Are you as tired as you look? Why not go along to Louie’s and have a rest? Her chairs are ever so comfortable.”

“You have to pay through the nose for sitting on them, though. You know as well as I do that not even a sit-down comes free at Louie’s.”

“Pretend to have a manicure. In fact, have one; she isn’t too expensive for that. I’ve been going in a lot lately; got to get my hands nice for the day George puts the ring on, you know,” Rosy giggled. “Go on. You look as if your head aches. It really is too crowded for you here.”

Jay looked round. The room—and it was not a large one—was overcrowded. Barnabas was in one comer by himself, quickly drinking cup after cup of dark brown tea, while smoking his Cypriot cigarettes. At intervals he looked towards the door. Waiting for Roland Thurlow, thought Jay. She was not surprised to see Roland’s sturdy figure limping through the door. He nodded to her.

“Edward’s still in the office,” he said casually. “Rather a rush on, and we couldn’t both leave, so I took advantage of my seniority.”

“I wasn’t looking for him.”

“Really? Sorry. I thought you might be. He’s got Dorothy there, of course.”

He swung across to his dear Barnabas, leaving Jay glaring at him furiously. Roland never failed to irritate her, and she had never made up her mind whether he did it on purpose or not. Probably he did. She relieved her feelings by banging Rosy’s door behind her as she departed for Louie’s. Glancing back, she saw Rosy angrily replacing a shelf of cakes which had been dislodged by Jay’s violence.

Louie was personally superintending the drawing of the blinds and the closing of shutters. Inside the now shadowy shop Rebecca was having her nails painted a delicate shell-pink. Jay raised her eyebrows.

“You look comfortable.”

“I’m having a manicure.”

“So I see.”

“I’m making a blouse for Louie,” explained Rebecca, spreading out one long-fingered hand. “Done ’em beautiful, hasn’t she? Still, that blouse is tricky.”

“Somehow I thought you would be doing something in exchange.”

Rebecca looked thoughtful.

Louie bustled into the room.

“I know why you’ve come along. Rebecca told me you had a letter, too. Isn’t it awful? Rosy and me thought a meeting would be a good idea, so we can talk it over. You will come?”

“I will indeed.”

“Worrying, isn’t it?”

“I simply don’t understand. Do you think we should just ignore it? Take no notice of the meeting? It seems so ridiculous.”

“No, I wouldn’t call it that…not ridiculous. Nasty, spiteful perhaps, but not ridiculous,” said Louie gravely. “But we must all talk about it.”

She sat down on a low pink chair, and crossed stout, well-nyloned legs.

“Make yourself comfortable, my dear; you look worn out.”

Jay pushed back her hair.

“It’s been an exhausting day.”

“And you didn’t sleep much last night?” asked Louie, eyeing her. “Bob again?”

“Yes.”

“You are a mug to stand it. I never would.”

“I don’t stand it very well.”

“Send him packing properly. Give him his cards. Let him know you don’t want to see or hear from him again.”

“How can I get rid of him? He seems to find out so much about me,” said Jay, her voice getting shrill. “Sometimes I think he must be watching me.”

She stopped, realising that Rebecca, and also Louie’s assistant, were all ears.

“You lie back, dear,” said Louie, turning back the pink blanket on the pink-quilted couch, “and I’ll give you a nice clean-up and massage. My, my, your face certainly needs a helping hand. You pop off now, Rebecca.”

“See you later, Louie…I suppose Dorothy didn’t say if she liked the dress design I did for her?”

“Didn’t mention anything,” answered Louie casually, whipping cold cream on to Jay’s face.

Rebecca looked disappointed.

“I’ll remind her.”

“Oh, thank you, Louie.”

Jay spoke through her mask of cream.

“Is that girl always under your feet like this? And doesn’t she drive you mad, always talking about Dorothy?”

“I don’t listen much. She’s making me a nice blouse…Wonder if she’d run me up a skirt? Oh, my dear, you have let your skin get bad.”

Jay muttered excuses while the chin-pounding went on.

“I should wear a chin-strap at night,” suggested the expert seriously.

“Perhaps I will. It’s kind of you to bother.”

“No bother. I like a bit of practice. But take my advice. And could you give me a bit of advice about my blue-and-white brocade? Such good material, I don’t like to trust it to Rebecca. It really needs a new dart or two on the bodice since I did my orange-and-lemon reducing diet.”

“Of course, I will alter it for you, Louie.”

“Thank you, dear,” and, satisfied, Louie went on with her task.

“Time we were going,” she said very soon. “There, how do you like yourself now?”

Jay looked at her pink-and-white face in the pink-and-white mirror. What a real passion Louie has for this colour scheme, she thought; even my face has to match. It must come from being deprived of ice-cream as a child, although it’s difficult to think of Louie ever being deprived of anything she wants. Aloud she said:

“Thanks, Louie; you’ve done wonders. I ought to have a facial more often.”

“Thirty-five shillings,” responded Louie briskly. “But mind you, for that you get a full hour. I didn’t give you all that time now.”

Barnabas came clattering down the stairs. His school had packed up and gone home long ago. He had spent the time getting everything in his living-room polished and in order. He lived on his premises, and so sometimes did Louie, who had fashioned for herself a sumptuous bedsitter on her ground-floor rear. Rosy also lived above her tea-rooms, but George departed each night to unknown quarters, leaving his keys with Rosy, who was reported to use them to prowl round his shop at night checking up on George. And this was thought to be the real reason George was going to marry her…if he did.

“Ready, little women,” said Barnabas gaily. “Hullo, Birdy!”

“That joke begins to pall.”

He smiled at her. “Sorry, Jay. I must think of a new one. Now tell me what you make of this letter. Rubbish I call it, but nasty-minded rubbish.”

“I wish I was sure it was rubbish,” worried Louie. “I wonder if we ought to sell and get out while the going is good.” She looked at her companions to see how they received this idea. Jay shrugged, but Barnabas burst into horrified speech:

“Louie! You alarm me. It’s not like you to be so defeatist. Besides, think of all the money you spent on decorations.”

“Yes, I must say I do resent that,” answered Louie, with a ring of real bitterness. “What a waste!”

“You don’t know yet that it will be. And it does look lovely—so gay and light.”

All this time Louie had been touching up her face in front of the mirror. Now she drew back, patting her hair in a satisfied way.

“Get my hat for me, will you, Barnabas?”

He looked round, bewildered. Hats were to Louie what snuff-boxes were to him, and she had an immense case full of her season’s bag of models. The glass case had been the property of the mad milliner, Jay’s predecessor in the Row, and had been snapped up by Louie as a bargain. She had also bought a good deal of the departed’s stock. Some of which might, she thought, in a few more years come into fashion again. At random Barnabas selected a white straw.

“No, not that one, Barny,” she said. “That one at the end.”

The air was cooler than it had been by the time they were ready to walk the short distance to the meeting-place. George came out of his shop as they approached.

“I was waiting for you,” he said. “Didn’t want to be the first one.”

They walked in silence.

“I wonder if we are being very stupid in taking any notice of this letter,” he said. “Some crank, I dare say.”

“And I dare say not,” replied Louie. “No. We’ve got to take notice. Don’t you realise what a vulnerable position we are in?”

“What about the Ministry?” asked Jay suddenly. “Did they get a letter? Surely there, of all places, they should have done?”

“They didn’t,” affirmed Barnabas. “Roland said.”

“Surely that shows,” said George. “There is something false about the letters.”

“It would,” agreed Louie, quickly but gloomily, “if it were not that Bartholomew House does not, in fact, stand on the site of the old hospital. We do, but they don’t, if you see. These little places are much older than the house. I have a horrid feeling that there is something in this scare.”

“Now, I don’t agree with Louie,” said Rosy, coming out of her kitchen and settling her guests in the back parlour. “My idea is to get advice from a doctor.”

“Doctors will say anything,” said Barnabas sadly, a knowledgeable hypochondriac. “They tell you that you are better when you feel quite frightful. You simply can’t rely on them. And what one says any other will contradict.”

“Barnabas is right,” said Louie. “I’m for keeping it as quiet as possible.”

“We can’t keep it very quiet if there is to be a public meeting, can we?” Rosy’s voice was sharp.

“I’m not at all keen on going to it,” admitted Jay.

“We must know what happens at it,” Louie told her firmly.

“Then let one of us go, and report to the rest,” suggested George.

“I will go,” said Barnabas quickly.

“Can’t trust you to give a straightforward account—not a literal report, old man,” replied George. “Better let me go.”

“I agree I wouldn’t feel happy about leaving it to Barnabas, but George, you do have a deaf ear. I suppose I must sacrifice myself.”

This was Louie.

“I wouldn’t mind going myself,” ruminated Rosy.

“It’s quite clear that we all intend to go. Better be honest.”

Barnabas enjoyed his moment of triumph. He looked round them gaily. Through a crack in the door he could see the gleam of an eye.

“There’s someone at the door, Rosy.”

His hostess looked.

“Only poor Ellen.”

“Oh God!” groaned Barny. “She’s even more moronic than my pretties…and not so pretty.”

“You don’t have to worry,” answered Ellen’s employer. “It’s Dorothy she has a passion for, and not you. You aren’t a bit like Dotty.”

Barnabas turned pale at the thought of resembling Dorothy Oliver in any way.

“And you find Ellen useful enough in running messages for you,” went on Rosy, warming to her theme.

“We all do,” said Jay, to break up the quarrel. “I feel guilty sometimes, but I really think the girl likes to do errands for us. Does she still have her paper-round as well as do the kitchen for you?”

Rosy nodded.

“Come in, Ellen,” she called.

Ellen emerged from the gloom behind the door to stand blinking in the bright little parlour. She was overjoyed at the sight of so many of her friends. Twenty years had not dimmed the mysterious wonder of the world to Ellen. She did not understand all that went on around her, she never would understand it; but it was a splendid vision to her—like being perpetually at the Pictures—and she loved every minute of it. Especially she loved people; they were all her friends; some more so than others, but all treasured. She surveyed them all with kindly, dotty affection.

“Well, Ellen?” asked Rosy.

“Mr. Roland, ma’am, wants to know if he can have a little supper sent across for him and Mr. Mortimer, as they’ve got to work late.”

“Just them two?”

“Yes, ma’am; Miss Oliver has gone home.”

Ellen’s voice dropped as she mentioned the most sacred name in her pantheon. There was a moment’s pause. Everyone present had thoughts about Dorothy Oliver. She was a person of interest to them all. She interested herself in all of them. And yet she was a comparative newcomer to the Row: she had been tripping up and down it, buying flowers from George, spending money at Louie’s, and hobnobbing with Rosy for under two years, only since she had arrived to act as secretary to Roland Thurlow, head of the important Issuing Section in the Ministry offices at the corner. She was a quiet enough girl, but there was a general impression in the Row that what Dorothy didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing.

“And I’m just taking her pretty case to the shop to be altered,” went on Ellen. “She’ll be needing it soon.”

In Ellen’s hand was a small blue-and-white striped travelling case, bearing it’s owner’s initials. Ellen held it out proudly, and Louie studied it with interest.

“Yes, pretty, you are quite right. And expensive, too.” Louie never missed anything like that.

Barnabas’s thoughts were not on the case, but on his friends at Bartholomew House. He was devoted to Edward Mortimer, who was Thurlow’s assistant, and nursed a respectful admiration of Roland himself.

“Oh, poor Rowie and Edward!” he cried. “I’ll pop out and see them afterwards. Perhaps my little typewriter might be useful, as Dorothy has gone.”

Jay sighed at this announcement. She would have liked to see Edward herself to discuss all the news and listen to his consolation.

“Tell them only soup and sandwiches,” said Rosy, gathering her forces. “Welcome to that, but I don’t do proper meals.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ellen placidly. “Shall I take it now, or after I come back from helping Miss Oliver?”

“Well, what are you going to do for her?” demanded Rosy.

“Just a bit of a hand with her laundry; she can’t do it herself.”

Jay felt savage. She’s probably more efficient than you are, my poor girl, but she doesn’t want to mess those lovely bright long nails.

An unconscious thought-transference prompted Ellen to say: “Miss Oliver’s got a lovely new red coat.” She was going on to describe it, when Rosy interrupted her with:

“You can take the food now. Excuse me, everyone,” and she bustled away to her kitchen.

“This is meant to be a business meeting. Do be quick,” called Barnabas. He lit a cigarette and offered one to Jay, who refused. She preferred to fidget irritably on her chair and brood over her future. She longed to get away. The thought of Dorothy’s new red coat seemed to cheat her of what coolness was left to her. She said as much to Louie.

“Dorothy does buy the most ridiculous clothes; although red’s a nice colour,” agreed her friend. “She’s been a bit above herself lately.”

“She can’t listen to everything you tell her,” said Ellen, who believed in defending her friends.

“Go away, Ellen,” said Louie sharply. “You shouldn’t be listening. You and Rebecca are a pair for that.”

“Don’t speak to Ellen like that,” said Rosy.

“Oh, you have to.” Louie’s voice was casual. “She does what I tell her.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“She does what I want,” said George with complacence. “Although I never nag her.” He knew that next to Dorothy it was he that Ellen loved best in the Row. He thought this natural, and made good use of it. But now he had other things to think about.

“I’ve been sitting here and quietly thinking while you’ve been fussing, and it seems to me that it’s up to me.”

“Why?” asked Barnabas.

“Not that I’m by any means the cleverest of us—not so clever as you, Barny.”

“Don’t include me,” said Barnabas, with an unpleasant inflection.

“But I work with plants, you see; I get back to the soil. That teaches you the simple logic of things. Now I suggest we go slowly, very slowly.”

George stroked his nose, and cleaned his horn-rimmed spectacles.

“I can’t see that there is anything to go slowly about,” argued Rosy, still out of temper with her friends. “The whole suggestion in the letter is so ridiculous, so wrong, that we ought to act quickly. We ought to be able to get it scientifically demonstrated that infections don’t linger on in that way. We should show that the whole idea is unsound.”

“Don’t you understand that none of this matters,”said Jay, exploding into speech. “It’s rumour and suggestion and fear that can do us down, not cold fact. Of course in the end we could get the idea shown up for what it is, shown to be a piece of malicious nonsense, but the damage to us and our trade will have been done. Who is going to want a dress which might, only might—but what a strong little might—bring infection? Or eat cakes, or learn to type, or have a face massage, and come away a leper?”

They listened in horrified silence.

“Yes, it doesn’t matter whether the story is true or not,” agreed Barnabas. “There will always be a few who believe it, however often it is disproved. We shall be the lepers all right.”

“There are already some who believe it,” said Jay, remembering Mrs. Brand. “Depend upon it, whispers have  already been passed round.”

“But we ought to investigate,” said George doggedly.

“’Oo is this ’Arris?” demanded Louie. “Why’s he got it in for us?”

“Some crank,” suggested Barnabas moodily. “I don’t . know why he thought of us…Of course lots of people knew about the old hospital.”

Louie leaned back in her chair and considered the district. It had plenty of rum characters in it, but it was difficult to decide which of them could have thought up a scheme like this.

“Do you suppose it could be that old man who goes round with a board saying ‘Beware of the wrath of God’?”

Barnabas shrugged.

“No, but seriously, he doesn’t like us. He spat at me once when I went past, and swore.”

“Is that the old chap with a long beard streaked with white, and a very red nose?” asked Rosy with interest. “It is? Well, Louie, he did the same to me once. I think there’s something in it. We ought to go and see him.”

“Oh Lord!” groaned Barnabas. “There you go, planning to make some old boy’s life a misery to him just because he happened to cough when you went past.”

“It wasn’t a cough when I went past,” said Louie grimly. “He knew what he was about all right.”

“If it is him,” said George, “it’ll be your fault, Louie. If you remember, you told him to get away when he used to come along here with his board.”

“Well, really,” said Louie. “I couldn’t have him coming down here shouting about the wages of sin, with my clients.”

“He’s got it in for us,” said Rosy. “I say we ought to go and find him.”

Louie looked at her watch.

“He’s usually coming down the High Street about this time. Regular as clockwork he is; I will say that for the old boy. Let’s go and have a word with him.”

Still arguing, they set off to find him. Barnabas was particularly reluctant to believe in the good sense of their mission.

“These letters were written by someone with at least a basic education, and perhaps more. I don’t believe the old man you saw could have written them. Besides, they were typed. Does he look the sort to type?”

“He swore very educated,” pointed out Louie. “You can’t go by appearances.”

“And you can’t go by a man’s curses,” returned Barnabas. “He might have learnt to swear above his station. Some people have a natural gift for it. And you know, Louie, I daresay you brought out the best he had in him in that line.”

They were very near to quarrelling. Jay stepped between them.

“Don’t be so silly, you two. Barnabas, there may be something in it.”

Their party turned into the main road. Louie was leading, Rosy was trotting beside her, and the other three followed more cautiously. Louie scanned the scene before them. Traffic was flowing freely up and down the High Street, and the pavements were crowded. There was no sign at all of the old man.

“Keeping out of the way, I dare say,” said the relentless Louie.

“Probably dead or ill, poor old chap!” defended Barnabas. But as the words left his mouth Rosy began to leap up and down in excitement.

“There he is, there he is! Look! By the bus!”

Across the road a bus moved on and revealed the old man waiting in the bus queue, still wearing his board, and with his beard neatly tucked into his collar like a scarf.

Anxiously they charged across the road, arriving there just as another bus drew up. Breathlessly Louie ran up the long queue to reach the old man. But she reckoned without her fellow citizens. They fell upon her with cries of fury.

“Shame, hussy!” they shouted. “Talk about queue jumping. You go right back to where you came from.”

“Ought to know better, at your age,” said a small girl, as she nudged at Louie’s knees.

“Taking a poor old blind man’s place,” said the conductor, leaning solicitously forward and helping the old man in. “Come along, Dad.”

Dad met Louie’s eyes blandly as he moved on to settle himself with comfort in the front seat.

Dismayed and ashamed, the party fell back.

“Did you hear what he said?” whispered Louie. “Blind!”

“Told you it couldn’t be him,” said Barnabas. “Poor old devil!”

“But he did know me that other time,” said Louie, still dismayed.

“And this, too, I swear.”

George rolled in his mirth. “Must have smelt you, Louie.” Rosy began to giggle too.

“Oh, you can joke,” said Louie. “But it isn’t a laughing matter. We’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

“I dare say nothing more will happen,” said Rosy. “And we shall go on as usual.”

But as day succeeded day they found that everything was not as usual. The campaign against them continued. Every post brought them leaflets on Public Health. These they ignored. Typewritten slips bearing the slogan “Cut down the diseased dwelling” were also easily passed over as a joke. But when they arrived one morning to find the gutters running with Jeyes’ fluid, then they began to weaken.

“This maniac, whoever he is, might do anything. If only we could complain to the police,” said George dolefully. “As it is, people are beginning to talk.”

By and by they began to look forward to the day of the famous meeting, in the hope that it would see the end of their persecution.

On the evening of the appointed day all the shops in the Row closed promptly. Bartholomew House seemed to empty early, too, and when the cleaners came in only one section was still at work.

“Are they still here?” asked the youngest and fiercest of them. “No business to be, getting in our way.”

“There’s only Mr. Thurlow and Mr. Mortimer,” replied her colleague, old Beatrice.

“You couldn’t expect Miss Oliver to stay, could you? She can’t spare her evenings. Out cutting a caper, no doubt.”

“Not alone neither,” commented Beatrice. “Me daughter saw her going into the River Rand Hotel.”

“And a nice place that is,” said Mrs. Drew. “I know what I used to see when I helped to do the dishes there. And if there’s goings on in the kitchen, what’ll there be upstairs? What was he like?”

“No one we know,” said Beatrice regretfully. “A real plump little man, me daughter said; wouldn’t bother with him herself, she said.”

“Got money, I daresay. Bound to have. The River Rand Hotel isn’t cheap, and I dare say the same of Miss Oliver. Got to pay for a service.”

“Someone’s given her a nice little fur wrap, anyway.”

“And here’s a nice-looking little bag.”

Beatrice held up the case proudly. They admired the blue-and-white initials and the matching stripes.

“That’s what you call a week-end bag, isn’t it?” said Beatrice, meeting her friends’ eye. They laughed heartily.

“Well, I never. She’ll need that, won’t she? She never meant to leave that behind.”

They were distracted from their joke by a noise outside. Edward Mortimer and his superior, Roland Thurlow, were leaving.

Both men were tired, and Edward, who always showed fatigue easily, looked wan. The fragility of his appearance was variously attributed by his friends up and down the Row to an unsatisfactory love affair (so said Barnabas’s young pupils, and they thought it might be that glossy Miss Oliver); to overwork (Barnabas was devoted to Edward); and to a “wasting away”, which was Rosy’s suggestion (she meant under-eating, and seemed to view it from the professional standpoint as a kind of shameful ‘se suicider’). Louie and Jay, who both found Edward enormously attractive, were, all the same, more cynical; they were inclined to think that he did it on purpose. Moodily comparing notes, they agreed that it added to his appeal.

“Brings out the mother in you; that’s what,” said Louie. “And heaven knows there’s precious little of that in me. And he looks so young.”

But perhaps Edward was older and tougher than he looked, for he had behind him a short, sharp, successful army career, a First-Class Honours degree, and a series of quick promotions in the Civil Service. He was on close, friendly terms with his boss Roland, but Roland in one of those gloomy self-questionings which Edward seemed to arouse in his friends used to ask whether the dear boy wasn’t grooming himself for his job.

He gripped Edward’s arm sympathetically. “Tired? I am myself. I’m glad the job is over, or almost. I hate these rush reports; this was a particularly tiresome one, too. For all sorts of reasons.”

“What do you really think about the ‘Lion and Unicorn’ project?” asked Edward, turning interested eyes on Roland. “What you really think—not your cautiously formed official view. Is it an important worthwhile scheme, or is it completely wildcat?”

Roland hesitated. At last he said:

“I think it’s a risky business. I’ve seen these enormous schemes fail before. They suddenly blow up…Everything looks fine, and then, before you know where you are, all is dust and ashes, and probably someone is standing in the Old Bailey.”

“You really think that?” Edward was surprised.

Roland shrugged.

“Oh well, don’t quote me. It’s early to say, but it looks a shady business, although it was impeccable enough on paper, or we shouldn’t have made the decision we did. But what’s paper? Paper won’t build houses. And I should say the Lion and Unicorn resources were not so unlimited as you’d imagine. The dividing line between splendid success and spectacular failure is pretty thin. Bound to be. Perhaps this scheme has rather overreached itself. They’ve aimed for the stars, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they were wanting permission to start an interplanetary service.” He laughed; he always enjoyed his own jokes. “Anyway, quick success is what they want, and that might come off if…”

“If?”

“Well, you know what I mean—it’s why drafting this report has been so sticky and delicate. So they want to build a large horse-race track on the land to the west of their building site…All right. It’s capital improvement—of a sort. It’s land on which they already have an option, or on most of it. In its way it’s a good idea, an idea of genius, and if it succeeds it may carry the whole scheme with it. I should say once started it probably would succeed. We have had to say yes or no. We said yes.”

“I was against it,” said Edward. “Just to start with, I was against it. But you persuaded me.”

Musingly he recalled Roland’s sudden enthusiasm for the scheme. Again he wondered if Roland had been bribed, and if so what he himself had to gain out of it. “It meant tearing down a lot of decent little houses, and I didn’t care for that, somehow. Of course there were all the other factors you pointed out.”

“Some of those houses were due for demolition as slums,” said Roland sharply.

“Yes,” admitted Edward. “But then, too, they haven’t as much room there as you’d think. And in spite of that cocksure architect of theirs, I couldn’t help wondering if they’d got enough room. And if not, then what are they going to want next?”

“I think we’ve given an honest opinion and been fair to all interests,” said Roland in an exhausted voice.

“Yes…that’s what we said in our report, isn’t it?” He went on, “In the circumstances, in the precise circumstances, don’t you think we’d better go to this ridiculous meeting that has been setting the whole Row by the ears for the past week. They think they’ve been discreet about it, poor dears, but everyone knows.”

The Row was deserted and hot. Silently—for Roland was far from anxious to come—they paced the few streets to the meeting-place. Outside stood a disconsolate group. They were all there except George.

“Like waiting for the bride, ain’t it?” said Louie grimly.

At that moment George rounded the comer, wearing his best dark blue blazer with one of his unsold blooms in his lapel.

“I don’t know why you’re all here,” he grumbled. “You should have left it to me. Here, I’ve brought a spray each. Sorry if they’re wilting. Can’t bear to see waste.”

“We don’t want to look like a wedding,” said Louie.

“Or a funeral,” said Rosy.

“You don’t wear flowers at a funeral, silly; you give them to the corpse.”

“That’s us,” said Jay sadly. All the same, she was cheered to see Edward there. It must, she thought, be on her account he had come.

“Look, here’s Rebecca.”

“Hallo. You didn’t think you could keep me away, did you? Slipping off like that. But I saw you.”

The dark, stuffy hall was empty, but preparations for a meeting had been made. Blue-and-green banners hung from the walls, a table with a glass of water had been placed upon the little platform. Along one wall was another table with white cups and saucers upon it.

“The funeral baked meats,” said Edward.

Two young men approached from the comer. Their trade was stamped upon them. The Press.

“I suppose I couldn’t take a photograph?” one of them asked Jay.

“No, you couldn’t.”

“Interesting thing, isn’t it?” he continued, unabashed. “You Mrs. Drury? Thought so. I recognised you. What do you think of this business? Going to fight it, eh? I’m just here to watch the public’s interest. That’s my paper’s line. It sells. Very interested we were to get a letter telling us about this business.” He looked around him. “Time someone came, though, isn’t it?”

The inhabitants of the threatened premises of the Row had filled one line of seats. Regarding themselves as the most important people there, they had taken the front row.

“But I shall sit at the back,” announced George. “If I’m going to make important interruptions, then it will be more effective if I shout from the back.”

“But I should let Barnabas do it,” said Louie seriously, whose mind was now deeply impressed with a conviction of Barnabas’s prison service. “He will know how far you can go without getting into trouble.”

“Don’t usually count as a course in public speaking,” grumbled George, who knew exactly what she meant.

“What are you talking about?” asked Barnabas. “1 don’t know.” But he was restless; several times he changed his seat, and at every move he, and everyone else, got more and more impatient. Suddenly he leapt to his feet.

“Listen! I can hear voices.” He trotted to the door and threw it open. “There’s a lot of people coming,” he squealed before he disappeared.

As one body the front row turned to watch the door. Through it came the sound of many voices and the sound of feet; the noise grew louder and took shape; a stream of people poured through the narrow doors. Elderly, middle-aged and young women came first, and were followed by their camp-followers—excited children loaded with cases and carrier-bags, and waving banners and streamers.

In the middle, tossed about like a cork, was Barnabas. His friends chattered and cried out in their agitation. They tried to read the words on the dancing banners.

“What is it? What does it say?” cried Louie, her mind full of stories of lynchings. “Oh, my poor little Barnabas!”

“Get him out! get him out!” screamed Rosy as she climbed up on to her seat. “Oh, I don’t like the look on their faces. They look hungry.”

“Jump for it, Barny,” advised George, without moving.

Barnabas struggled to get out of the crowd; he used his arms in a desperate breaststroke. The procession streamed on, the tail end, made up of young children and old men, was now entering the hall, but they were as ruthless as their predecessors in pushing past Barnabas, allowing him no freedom of movement and continually bearing him slightly forward in the relentless peristaltic action. At last his efforts attracted their attention.

“Here!” they said, “we don’t know this one. He isn’t one of us.”

Barnabas opened and shut his mouth in agitated speech, but now no one listened.

“Here! If you aren’t one of our crowd you can’t have tea with us. Here! Pop off.”

Contemptuously they tossed him from their midst, and then the St. Nicholas Mothers’ Union and associated Clubs returning from its annual treat at the sea went on to its tea.

Barnabas crawled back to his friends. By this time they were all standing on chairs.

“You can come down now,” he said crossly. “They’re too busy with their tea to eat you.”

The two reporters appeared and introduced a young person to the group.

“So glad you got some photographs,” he said. “Delighted to have you do it. We’re a splendid little group here, and I’d like the world to know it. Davis is my name. But you, my dear people,” he went on, turning to Louie’ and her friends, “I know nothing of the meeting I am told you came to attend, but it sounds a grave business, a grave business.”

“That chap’s mind runs on his business too much,” muttered Louie. “Graves, indeed!”

“If you would mind not standing on those chairs, please. We’ve only just paid for them.”

They crawled down. On the way home there was a good deal of anti-clericalism.

“There’s the Church for you…not really interested in anything but were the chairs paid for.”

“And those parishioners of his,” said Barnabas. “They’d have trampled me to death without noticing.”

“The Press noticed all right,” said Rosy. “Plenty of photographs in tomorrow’s paper.”

Jay nodded, “Yes, we were the suckers, weren’t we? Did just what was wanted of us. Went to the meeting, provided a story for the reporters, made sure that the whole thing gets the maximum publicity. Someone staged-managed us very nicely.” •

“Someone, someone,” snarled George. “That Mr. Harris.”

“Who is he?” said Louie. “That’s what I want to know. I don’t know anyone called Harris. What have the ’Arrises got against us?”

“My dear old thing,” said Edward, who was still with them, although Roland had silently departed. “Surely you understand. Don’t you see that our joker is a man of some humour? Did you never read Dickens at school? Remember Martin Chuzzlewit.…in the immortal phrase…’There ain’t no such person.’”

All next day there was a good deal of coming and going in the Row. Louie was especially active, threatening to show this ’Arris just what she thought of his jokes—when she caught him.

On the day after this, Jay, on her early morning rush down to the Row, this time before the milk, was able to judge the full extent of Mr. Harris’s sense of humour. He had amused himself, it seemed, in the most practical way. Propped up against the lamp-post outside Jay’s shop window was dapper Miss Dorothy Oliver. She was limp and dead.

Not having expected to see her there, Jay began to scream.

V

VERY soon the police were prowling and growling along the Row: a group of constables and nameless plain-clothes technicians, and in charge of them, menacing and polite, the tall, thickset figure of Inspector Winter. He was assisted and supported by Sergeant Llywelyn.

“Smelling us out,” said Barnabas gloomily, looking down from his window. He remembered his own little plans, both past and future, all so open to misinterpretation by unsympathetic police eyes. He thought of his charming collection of Bow china, his delicious tweedy suits, his new Fabergé box, all paid for by what he called his cleverness. Well worth while every piece, but not if there were going to be any queries. Should he get in first, or trust to luck?

“Well, there’s plenty for them to smell,” he went on, even more gloomily.

Louie bridled; she had put on a bright peasant overall to tend to Jay, so that she looked, if anything, gayer than ever. But beneath her suntan face-powder her cheeks were white.

“If there’s a thing I can’t abide, it’s fouling your own nest. You shouldn’t say such things.”

Barnabas shrugged. “You know what I mean, all the same, I notice. Anyway, what does it matter? What will be, will be.” He was not an optimist.

Jay, stretched out on the sofa, where she had been carried by Louie and Barnabas, opened her eyes to groan. Louie bustled towards her.

“Cheer up, dear. Have a cup of tea.”

“Brandy’d be more use to her,” said Barnabas, looking at Jay’s green face. “And I don’t wonder. After all she saw.”

Jay shuddered. “You were lucky.”

“I don’t feel too good, all the same,” complained Louie. “I wonder if it was that pork I had for breakfast…pork’s always risky in this weather. Perhaps you’re right about the brandy. We’ll all have some.”

Barnabas cheered up at once. “Don’t be so mean with it,” he urged, as he watched her pour out small glasses. “Here, give it to me. You can’t take it with you, you know.”

“Well, I’m not saying good-bye just yet,” answered Louie sharply, removing the bottle from his grasp. “And it won’t do for us all to be drunk when the police arrive.”

“Funny thing they haven’t been in to us, isn’t it?” wondered Jay. “You’d think I would be the first person they’d want to see.”

From outside came the mutter of voices and sound of heavy movement. A motor cycle rattled along the cobbles, there was a sinister scraping of metal upon stone, and the tread of boots up and down the narrow pavement. Noisy, boisterous life such as the quiet of the Row hardly knew. Yet all of it summoned to deal with death—Dorothy’s death.

The Inspector looked down upon her, his face puckered in thought, his body rocking backwards and forwards on his heels. By his side, silent and neat, was his Sergeant. He was a sober young man who took life seriously, and who had had the reputation as a new constable of polishing his baton with a silk handkerchief. Between him and the Inspector there was a sort of scratch-and-bark relationship. Never in his life had the Inspector polished anything with a silk handkerchief, and he wasn’t going to start now. He was a rough man.

“Rough rhymes with tough,” he used to say with satisfaction.

“But remember Bough says Bow,” the Sergeant had answered once. It was practically the first remark he ever made to the Inspector, and it set the tone of the relationship at once. This and the fact that their mothers had once been neighbours, but had attended different chapels, so that the Llywelyns for a long time had been saved, and the Winters somehow had not. The Inspector found it infuriating to have a subordinate who probably prayed for him, but he dared not forbid his salvation.

The Inspector had a note of satisfaction in his voice as if something he had been waiting for had come off.

“So they’ve had a murder in the Row at last. I thought they were brewing up for something.”

“It always seemed such a friendly place,” lamented Llywelyn.

“Friendly?”said Winter, looking up sharply. “Friendly? This place is so friendly it’d eat you as soon as look at you. And I’m not an imaginative man.”

“That’s true enough.”

“I tell you, a murder seems a healthy sort of crime to some they cultivate here. Well, you know that as well as I do.”

He looked coldly upon the dead body. Even in her mortality Dorothy revolted his puritanical soul.

“Not pretty,” he said.

“She was once,” said Sergeant Llywelyn.

“You knew her?”

The Sergeant looked absently at the twisted, limp figure. “Know is such a difficult word, isn’t it? I met her once.” He kept to himself exactly where he had met her.

“She’s been dead for some time, hasn’t she? What do the doctors say?”

Inspector Winter shrugged. He preferred to ask questions rather than answer them.

“Had two of them down here. Our usual old boy and a young one he’s training. But two heads were not better than one. Vague as usual. Dead between sixteen and twenty-four hours, they think (I believe the young one can think, too; he’s unusual, we shan’t keep him), but it depends on this and it depends on that, and they’ll have to see. Lazy devils! Laziness, that’s all it is. Ought to be hung, the whole lot.”

He took a professional interest in hanging; it was his universal remedy.

“No wonder about what she died of, though,” he said complacently, his own comment reminding him of the corpse.

“No,” agreed the Sergeant, looking at her swollen face and the thin cord cutting into the plump neck. “Garden twine.”

“No good looking for a gardener, though. Too much of this stuff about. And all the gardeners I know use bits of old string, anyway. We shall probably find she used the stuff herself to tie up her hair.”

“There’s something else, too. She wasn’t killed here. The doctors say she was propped up here some time after death…something to do with the body-fluids.”

Winter knelt down on the cobbles by the dead body. He lifted one of her thick, white hands with red-varnished nails. The bright cyclamen on the nails echoed the colour on the puffy lips. Neither was as immaculate as when Dorothy lived. The lip-colour was smudged and patchy, the nails were scratched and torn. Winter picked up her other hand…the colour on it was still bright and clear. He placed one upon the other on the still breast, right over left.

“The right one knocked about, the other untouched. What do you make of that?”

Llywelyn knew what he had to say, but he said it slowly.

“She used the right one to defend herself, I suppose.”

“Why not use both hands?”

“Perhaps she couldn’t get the other free.”

The Sergeant looked sad. Even to his mind, brought up on hellfire and hardened with horror (three dead babies in a dustbin that morning already), it was an unpleasant thought.

“How right-handed was she? Know anything about that?”

Llywelyn shook his head.

“Well, we shall have to find out. We can ask. Although they’d tell a lie as soon as look at you here.”

“I can ask my cousin Edward,” volunteered the Sergeant; he had been working out the problem. “He knew her. I met her through him. He works in the Ministry where she worked.”

“Good!” said Winter. “You are going to be a help to me.” He looked again at the torn, scratched hand. “She left her mark on someone, anyway.”

The clock on the Town Hall struck the hour. Eleven o’clock. Twelve hours or more since she had died. The Inspector remembered he had a grievance.

“What have you been doing all this time?” he demanded. “Just messing about till I got here?”

“Rounding them up, and then soothing them down. You didn’t want a bunch of hysterics on your hands, did you? These people have had a lot to put up with the last few days.”

“And I’m all in favour of their having a bit more,” answered Winter grimly, rubbing his hands. He had come up against Louie, George and Barnabas in the past, and on the whole he had not had the best of the game. Now he thought he had his chance. He prowled hopefully around, like a lion looking into the arena…Let them try to get away this time.

He had not yet encountered Rosy Andrews, but of course Rosy knew him.

“That’s him,” she said to Ellen as she peeped from her window. “That’s him. There he goes.”

“Yes, I see, ma’am,” said Ellen obediently.

“Well, I’m going out to him. Someone ought to tell him about all we’ve had to put up with.”

Rosy was not echoing the Sergeant’s words, for it was she who had impressed them upon the Sergeant’s mind. However, she despaired of the Sergeant; she wasn’t at all sure he had taken in what she meant.

“I always said we ought to tell the police, and now it’s come to murder I’m going to.”

So she advanced upon the Inspector, a wide, white figure in her stiff starched apron which she wore to impress the customers, but not to cook in, preferring for that, like an old-fashioned surgeon, a sackcloth apron.

The Inspector deliberately turned his back on her.

“Tell her I’ve gone home,” he said, shutting his eyes.

“Tell her I’ve heard all about it.”

“Just like the police to shut their eyes to the truth,” screamed Rosy, whacking away at his back with the rolling-pin she so conveniently had with her. “You!”

“It isn’t for you to complain about that,” said Winter, opening his eyes indignantly. “Very convenient for theRow it would be if we had them shut all the time.”

“Oh, you’d open them quick enough if there was anything for you in it,” said Rosy, who had inherited generations of mistrust of the police. “Trust a copper to know where the pickings are!”

“That’s slander,” said Winter stiffly, but making a l mental note to find out if there was anything against the constable who walked this beat.

“And slander’s what we had to put up with all these last few days,” screamed Rosy. “Now it’s murder, you’ve got to do something. Now this Harris man has taken to killing…”

“Oh yes,” murmured the Inspector dreamily. “The mysterious Mr. Harris…We’ll have to go into all that.”

In fact he had been following the affair with affectionate interest ever since he had heard of it. He felt drawn towards Mr. Harris; he felt they had so many reactions in common.

He brushed Rosy aside. He had finished with her for the time.

“We’d better get round to where she worked. Cover her up. The boys can take her away.”

The boys, uneasy vultures, were already perched on their neat, plain van. They came forward at the Sergeant’s nod. For him, this committal of the body was the saddest of all moments.

The hands fell limply down as the body was lifted, the red coat fell back, exposing the pink cotton dress Dorothy had worn underneath.

“Just a minute,” said Llywelyn. He stepped forward and laid the hands peacefully on the scarlet coat. He stared at them thoughtfully. “I suppose she was wearing gloves,” he said even more thoughtfully. “But we didn’t find any. And there’s still the lipstick.”

“What are you getting at?” said Winter fiercely. He hated not to know everything.

“Do you mind if I just think about it and tell you later? It may be important, it may not.”

Then, side by side, he and his companion walked down the Row. They were watched apprehensively by the inhabitants.

“There they go,” said Barnabas. “But where? Why don’t they interview us? Why don’t they come to Jay? Sinister.”

He leaned out of the window.

“They’re going right up the street…must be going to see George…no…Rosy then…no.”

He drew back.

“They are going into Bartholomew House; that’s what.

Well, I never. Roland!”

“Or Edward,” suggested Louie, with a sharp look at Jay.

The Inspector put his hand lovingly upon the Sergeant’s arm.

“Shall we visit your dear cousin Edward?” he asked sweetly. “You must introduce us. Is he like you?”

“Not very. Younger, for one thing; got different interests. Frivolous. Writes poetry, I believe.”

“Oh, he’ll go far in the Civil Service,” said the Inspector admiringly. “Nothing like writing poetry…Wish I’d thought of it in my day. Published?”

“Don’t think so.”

“No matter. So Mr. Mortimer knew Miss Oliver: well, do you suppose?”

“She did work here,” pointed out Llywelyn mildly. “I see you’ve got his name pat enough.”

“Oh, I went into one or two things before I came out,” observed the Inspector happily.

“Don’t trust anyone, do you?”

“Myself,” said his colleague, taking in his surroundings.

The square white hall was lit by a tiny glass cupola, and, decorated by a curving, uncarpeted staircase. It was empty, but not quiet. Voices and typewriters sounded behind doors, feet marched heavily overhead, and telephones rang.

The Inspector, who had expected a more formal greeting—not perhaps an eager welcome, but at least an anxious face or two—was put out.

“Don’t seem to care whether we come or not.”

“They may not have expected you yet.”

A smartly dressed lad appeared round the comer bearing a bundle of paper files.

“Do something for you?” asked the boy agreeably.

“I’m Inspector Winter.”

The boy remained unimpressed.

“Direct me to Mr. Mortimer’s office,” commanded the Inspector sternly.

“Up the stairs, first door on the right, name up…Come about the murder, have you? What about letting me have something now? I’ve got a linkup with a newspaper combine, see?”

Winter glared at him and stalked on.

“And don’t call it an office when you get inside,” said the boy, continuing undaunted by his side. “They don’t care for it. Old Rowie’s done it up proper. Got more sense of humour than you have, anyway, old gruff and grim,” he added as he turned away.

“Come in,” said Edward, staring into their faces. Here at last, the Inspector noted with satisfaction, was anxiety.

Winter looked in upon a light room. Dark red curtains hung by the window in carefully composed folds; a gilt mirror of a baroque French style hung on the pale green wall above the fireplace. Edward went back to his plain desk by the door. Across the room, at his large table faced with red Venetian leather, was Roland. The two men looked at their visitor in silence. Roland put on his spectacles.

“Good morning,” he said angrily and impatiently, greeting them as if they represented no more than an interruption to his work.

“Good morning. I’m Inspector Winter. Mr. Mortimer. and Mr. Thurlow, I presume? Right. Now I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Edward got up and offered a chair. His chair. Winter accepted it and moved into the desk as well; his hat went on one comer, he put his gloves on another and used up all the rest of the space for his bundles of notebooks and scribbling-pads. He arranged carbon paper underneath his main pad of paper—he had always found this a very good little trick with a self-possessed witness.

“Comfortable, Inspector?” asked Edward. “Hullo, Ted.”

“You both called Edward?”

“We are cousins,” said Edward apologetically, detecting a grievance in Winter’s voice.

“I know that.”

“Oh really?” Edward was interested. “Do you think we look alike?” He glanced at himself in the gilt mirror as he spoke.

“No…I believe you knew Miss Oliver?”

“I did,‘I do. One doesn’t cease to know her because she’s dead.”

“You won’t be seeing much of her, though. She worked here? For both of you.” Winter included Roland Thurlow in his glance.

“No, strictly speaking, she worked for Mr. Thurlow alone. I’m not grand enough to have a secretary.”

Roland grunted. “Don’t be silly, Edward,” he said. “This humility of yours. She worked for us both.” He put a hand to his head.

“You ill?” asked Edward quickly.

“It’s been a shock to me,” said Roland shortly. “I can’t take your light attitude to it. Good God! I saw her every day.”

He brooded silently upon this for a moment, then made an effort.

“Good morning, Inspector. Ask me any questions you like”

“I’ll just finish off Mr. Mortimer first…forgive my figure of speech.”

“Oh certainly; I’m sure it was deliberate.”

“Now, did you know Miss Oliver well?”

“Well enough.”

The Inspector looked at him with interest.

“Really now? Were you, let me see, now were you…”

“Go on, say it. Intimate is the word you want; and what a lovely word it is, especially on a policeman’s lips.”

“Edward!” said his cousin reprovingly.

“Don’t be savage,” said the Inspector. “Don’t be so savage, Mr. Mortimer.”

“It’s what you had in your mind, isn’t it? And the answer is, of course not. She worked here.”

“So you said.”

The Sergeant met his cousin’s eyes without expression.

“You haven’t known her long, then?” went on the Inspector.

“I didn’t say that. I’ve known her since she worked here.”

“And that was how long?”

“Oh…how long, Roland?”

“About eighteen months. I could get Records to look it up.”

“Later, later, no hurry about it. Now next Mr. Mortimer…”

The Inspector continued his questioning, scoring his points and totalling them in his mind. His days were one long scorecard. He was happy in his work.

“One final question. When did you last see Miss Oliver?”

Edward was thoughtful. “Day before yesterday, I suppose. Of course I didn’t see her yesterday. She had the day off.”

The Inspector opened his mouth, but Edward got in first: “No, I don’t know why. She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Roland’s her boss.”

“Thank you so much for being so helpful,” said Winter smoothly. “Llywelyn, take Mr. Mortimer downstairs and. get all the formal particulars.”

“Fingerprints?” asked Mortimer.

“Not just yet, sir. Later, perhaps, if we need to.”

The cousins descended the stairs together.

“Hello, stool-pigeon,” said Edward.

“Police spy’s the word you want. I don’t like this any more than you do.”

“Unpleasant sort of character, your chief. Bad-tempered, too.”

“I don’t think he ever loses his temper without meaning to.”

“Then I suppose he wanted me to lose mine?”

“And didn’t you?”

“Wonder what he’s saying to Roland. Wanted us out of the way, didn’t he?”

Roland was being coaxed out of his shell by the now sympathetic Inspector. He accepted a cigarette.

“Miss Oliver has only been with you a few months, then?”

“Nearer two years.” Roland still wasn’t quite himself.

“I see. Where did she come from? Do you know? This wasn’t her first job?”

“Good Lord, no! She’d had quite a few, I should think, although she never mentioned them. She didn’t talk much. She came down here from central administration in Whitehall. She was transferred here.”

“Oh, she was? Do you happen to know why? Not much doing here for a smart young lady.”

“I suppose she might have asked to be transferred to here,” said Roland, who didn’t think so.

“What other reasons for transfer could there be?” asked the Inspector, with hope in his voice.

Roland hesitated. Then he said: “I don’t know. I did wonder…This is just my idea, but she might have gossiped. Up there, just occasionally, there are matters where it would be harmful if gossip leaked out: land disposal, planning and zoning, and so on. You could make a quick profit sometimes if you could get early information and knew how to handle it. She might have talked…Mind, this is only speculation: there can never have been anything formal against her or she wouldn’t have come here. She may just have been unwise. Or again, I may be quite wrong; she may have been sent down here for completely other reasons. You’d better ask at headquarters…if you can get them to tell you. They never tell me anything,” he added with bitterness.

“But wouldn’t it matter here if she wasn’t reliable?”

“Not much. Not in one case in a thousand. We’re small beer here. Really nothing more than a large filing office. We only deal with routine old stuff. Oh, occasionally, if it’s something local, we might be asked to help form an opinion, but not usually.”

“You found her trustworthy?”

“Completely. She was a helpful, efficient secretary. I can’t guess why she should be murdered.”

“And when did you last see her? Not yesterday, I suppose, as she didn’t come to work.”

Roland sat down heavily.

“But I think I did see her…I saw her in the afternoon.”

The Inspector looked interested. It was in the afternoon she had died.

“Early afternoon?” he inquired cautiously.

His victim squirmed nervously and frowned.

“I saw her from the window. Let me see…I sat here, just as I always do every afternoon about four, drank my tea, and looked out. And there she was.” He smiled. “I’m afraid I’m famous for sitting and looking out of my window when I take my tea, and it did strike me that if Dorothy would rather I had not seen her (after all, it was odd for her to be about just then), then she would have chosen another time.”

“We ought to confirm this question of the time,” said the Inspector, looking round, as if he expected confirmation to spring from the floor.

“Is it important,” asked Roland, looking even more nervous. “I suppose the messenger will know when he brought the tea.”

“Is the messenger the youth who let us in?” inquired Winter, getting smartly to his feet.

Roland nodded.

“He’s a dear boy. Be gentle with him…He’s really quite sensitive.”

Billikins, summoned playfully by name, confirmed that he had brought tea in at four sharp.

“I’m always punctual,” he said, eyeing the Inspector. “So what?”

The Inspector bared his teeth in a thank-you and bowed himself out. He walked heavily down the stairs.

“Here’s your boss,” said Edward, looking up. “Do you  think he’s the right man for this case? No, I can see you can’t answer. But he won’t understand Dorothy, and until you understand her, you’ll never find out who killed her.”

“And did you understand her?”

“I’m not so sure. I can tell you this. I could see that there  was more in her than the efficient secretary which was all Roland noticed. And she was more than the painted piece I can see your Inspector has written her off as. She had taste; she read things.”

He broke off as Winter approached them.

“Hullo, Mr. Mortimer,” said the Inspector, quite cheerfully for him. “Now, Sergeant, I thought we might go right to the other end of the Row. Nothing like variety.”

“Well, I knew it was the spice of life,” said Edward sourly; “but I never knew it helped with death.”

“I want to ask one quick little question all round,” went on the Inspector, taking no notice of Edward.

But Rosy in her parlour and George in his greenhouse returned hushed negatives to his one little question. They hadn’t seen Dorothy walking down the Row at four o’clock yesterday afternoon, they hadn’t seen anything, they hadn’t looked out of the window. Jay shook her head, too, and so did her girl Rebecca, although she usually saw everything. Louie primly denied all knowledge of all relevant facts and seemed prepared to forget her own name if it seemed likely to endanger her.

None of these people had seen anything of Dorothy because not one of them had been looking out at the crucial time. But Barnabas had been looking out, and he, too, had seen…nothing.

“I didn’t see her,” said Barnabas, puzzled. “I stood there watching for the Town Hall clock to strike the hour.”

“He always does,” chorused his pretties, practically standing on their desks in their excitement. “We leave at four. Anxious to be rid of us, you see.”

“Did any of you see anything?” said Winter in despair. But of course none of them had seen a thing. All the same, they were eager to help, and turned delighted eyes from him to his Sergeant and then to Edward, who had come with them.

“We’ll tell you anything we can,” exclaimed the youngest and the prettiest, smiling at Edward, who later stepped back and arranged to see her again that week…for dinner. (Something may come of it, he explained to Jay. Yes, something may, she replied tonelessly.)

Meanwhile the Inspector had become irritable: “She was there by four and not by four. Where was she, then? Where did she go?”

“Two disappearing characters you’ve got, haven’t you?” pointed out Edward with an air of triumph. “Harris—the man who doesn’t exist—and now the woman who wasn’t there.”

The Inspector stamped out.

Edward bowed to his cousin. “Lost his temper now all right, hasn’t he? Clever me.”

VI

UP and down the Row the little birds fluttered uneasily on their perches. George conferred miserably with Rosy; Jay and Rebecca discussed the murder endlessly, each eyeing the other doubtfully, each concerned with her own future; Barnabas and Roland had their first quarrel. Only Louie and Ellen kept quiet. Ellen because she could find no words to express what she wanted, and Louie because she could think of too many.

The Inspector visited each gilded cage in turn.’

In Louie’s pink-and-white salon her gaggle of girls received him with eager arms. His hat was taken from him by Belinda, who then settled his reluctant form in a slipper satin chair. She coiled herself gracefully at his feet in the attitude she adopted when doing a manicure. Maria, blonde and chirpy, dealt with the Sergeant, then hopped away to fetch Louie.

“Bring that girl back,” said the Inspector. “Here, girl, come back. I want to talk to you.”

“Better let her go,” advised Belinda, with her usual kindness. “We couldn’t possibly answer any questions without Madam.”

“And why not?”

“We’ve got our jobs to consider, haven’t we? We must consider what Madam wants.”

“And what about considering what I want?”

“Oh, Inspector, I’d love to,” and Belinda patted his hand with her own warm, pleasing paw. “You are so nice.”

Finding no resistance, she moved closer and took up his other hand as well. She felt so sorry for this cross-looking old man.

“Would you like a kiss?” she asked generously.

Winter closed his eyes in horror.

He opened them to find Maria and Louie crowding into the little room. The Sergeant rose politely, but the Inspector, who was anchored by Belinda, had to stay where he was.

“I didn’t expect to find you holding my assistant’s hand,” said Louie, quick to take advantage of the situation. “You’re worse than Barnabas.”

“Upon my word, Louie, that’s unfair,” complained Barnabas, dodging out from behind Louie where he had been hidden. “I’ve never even thought of such a thing.”

“And that’s worse. Now do go up again. I believe you are drunk. On my brandy, too.”

“No one’s ever been drunk on your brandy, Louie; a mouse couldn’t be.”

The Inspector watched them with a faint smile. Always let the suspects quarrel had been written on his teething ring. He ground his teeth reminiscently. At the right moment he asserted himself, separated them and dispatched Barnabas.

Belinda and Maria, when questioned, described their afternoon in exhaustive detail, using a kind of flow-of-consciousness technique and casting aside all reserves and inhibitions as they proceeded. Naturally talkative girls, they were normally severely repressed by Louie, so that they burst forth with exuberance. With delight they took the Inspector through their whole day. He let them talk.

“Now, in the afternoon, after lunch, when we got back, . Madam was doing a perm…about two o’clock, that would be. No, we never saw her.”

“Who would your customer have been?” inquired the Inspector of Louie.

She shrugged. “A casual. Never saw her before. I can look her up in the appointments book, but that won’t tell you much, will it? I was glad to have her, I can tell you. With all the business of the meeting and everything I’d a lot of cancelled appointments.”

“And after you’d finished with this client, what did you do then?”

“From three-thirty onwards,” answered Louie in a ringing tone, “I was doing a facial treatment.”

“Another casual?” inquired the Inspector in a silky tone.

“No, indeed, but a woman who knows me well, and you can interview her. Mrs. Brand, she’s called. And if you think I skipped away from her to attack Dorothy, then you don’t know Mrs. Brand. She’s the sort to count my breaths to see if I was giving her full value.” Louie’s manner was calm, but there was a hint of anger.

“And what does this facial treatment entail?” asked the Inspector, nagging away.

“It means an hour’s hard work, that’s what,” said Louie, breathing hard. “Ever heard of it?”

Inspector Winter made himself more comfortable in Louie’s best pink chair. Anger he regarded as a sign of fear.

“Well, let’s forget that, then. Now about Miss Oliver. She was a frequent visitor of yours?”

“She got her hair and her face done here,” admitted Louie grudgingly. “Took care of herself, she did, and I made a reduction in price for her.”

“Did you indeed?”

“Well, it was worth my while; she came so often. Besides, she was quite a friend, and if you can’t help a friend, who can you help?”

“Of course. Very generous of you. Meet outside business much?”

“Oh, we might have tea together sometimes and do a show. Nothing much. She didn’t have no family or anything, poor girl; she was an orphan, and she felt it.”

The Inspector nodded. In fact Dorothy had a mother in East Ham, but there are orphans and orphans, and perhaps the self-made ones feel it most. He nodded again and looked down at his notes.

“May I see the rest of your”—he hesitated—“your’ establishment,” he ended, falling thus far under Louie’s hypnotism. She was always using the word.

Silently Louie led him from the room, followed by Belinda and Maria. Both the policemen were really interested. Louie’s shop had figured in the imaginations of the police of the district for months now; they had a very lively idea of what went on there.

“Are those your real names?” asked the Sergeant of Belinda and Maria. “I know it’s what you keep telling me when I ask, but were you christened it?”

“No, of course not,” replied the girls, in surprise that anyone could be so innocent. “Those are our business names. We’re called Beryl and Mary. You can’t blame us for changing.”

The little party went quickly through the gilt-and-pastel rooms. Pearl-pink, blue and turquoise had been Louie’s colour sequence.

“Where were you doing this face treatment?” asked the Inspector as they came back into the entrance hall.

“In the pink room.”

Winter returned and looked once again round the pink room. The shiny silk couch was neat, its pillow unruffled, its pale blanket tidy.

“Cleared up before you went off?”

“Of course. We always do. Maria did this; didn’t you, Maria?”

The girl nodded silently.

“And where did you do this perm?”

“Those are always done in the turquoise room,” said Louie loftily.

“Why?”

“Because that’s the only room with a power-plug strong enough.”

They returned to the turquoise room and looked round. White chairs, a white wash-basin, green soap, and a lotion labelled Green Chiffon displayed themselves before him. On the back of the door hung a loose wrap with long white sleeves and tapes at the back. He prodded it.

“What’s this—a strait-jacket?”

“It’s what we put round the customer to protect her dress,” replied Louie patiently. “Don’t you ever go to the hairdresser?”

“And this got cleared up, too, when you’d finished?”

“Of course; Maria did this too; didn’t you, dear?” Maria gave two jerking nods.

In the foyer once again the Inspector retrieved his dark overcoat from the glass table where Belinda had placed it. A pile of magazines slid to the ground.

“You keep a lot of light reading.”

“For our customers while they’re waiting.” An edge was coming into Louie’s voice.

“You get it delivered in good time,” he said, reading the date.

“They always come out before the date on the cover,” explained Louie. “It’s one of the things about women’s magazines—if they say July on the cover you probably get them in mid-June. And my shop lets me have them the minute they’re in.” Why am I explaining all this? she thought wearily. Oh, well, if it keeps him off other things. “Yes, I get all my papers from Flock’s round the comer. We all do.”

“And the evening paper, I see,” said Winter, picking one up. “This is the day before yesterday’s, as well as yesterday’s.”

“We’ve been too busy to clear everything up. Now, Inspector, can we be allowed back to work?” Her voice was impatient. Winter, on the other hand, was affable.

“Nice day it’s turned out, hasn’t it?” he observed to Llywelyn as they walked down the Row. He patted the folds of his overcoat, which Belinda had slightly disarranged.

“Nice little place Madam’s got there. She’s interesting, too. I call that a well-spent visit.”

Llywelyn grunted.

“Don’t look so sad. You didn’t know the deceased so very well, did you? Did you?”

“No, not well.”

“Good, because if I thought you did I should have to take you off the case, shouldn’t I?”

And he grinned.

George appeared from the back of his shop to greet them. He looked stiff and neat in his white shirt with the sleeves pulled right down to the wrist, although the day was so hot. He pulled off his thick leather gardening gloves. George’s place had nothing in common with the painted glory of Louie’s shop, as its owner at once pointed out.

“Like a Neapolitan ice-cream she’s got it. Now, I’ve got this shop so that a man can come in and not feel uncomfortable…that’s important.”

“Men your best customers?”

“Well, yes, they are,” agreed George warily. “Women are mean about buying flowers—when they are paying—although, mind you, I cater for women.”

“No, I never supposed the men bought the flowers for themselves,” said the Inspector dryly.

“Oh, some do,” said George, watching, as he could from where he stood, Roland at his window.

His shop was green with climbing plants like ivy and pelargonium, bright with roses and orchids, and sweet - with smell of damp earth and growing things. Every plant was healthy, every flower uncurled its petals just so far open and no further, neither too little advanced nor too little open; the shelves gleamed with white paint, the brass fittings shone, not a thing was out of place. The Inspector looked with interest at the neat coils of garden twine, brown and green, suspended from wooden pegs.

“Busy day yesterday?” he remarked absently.

“So so; I’ve had better days.”

“I suppose you spend most of your time in here,” said the Inspector, looking around, although, as a gardener himself, he supposed nothing of the sort.

- “Not at all; I don’t even come in unless I hear the shop bell. To begin with, the flowers and plants do better without someone in the room with them all the time; and then I’ve no help, do everything myself. Got a big greenhouse outside, hot room, cold room—everything. You ought to see it. I always say that my shop is like an iceberg—only one-third of it shows.”

“You keep it very tidy,” said the Inspector with appreciation. It was a quality he admired.

“Must have order with plants…not orderly themselves; got to bring ’em to it.”

“Sell much of this?” asked the Inspector, pointing out the garden twine.

“A fair amount; not so much as I did. Got some stuff I like better.”

From a drawer George produced a length of white plastic cord.

“Don’t seem to upset the plants like that tarry stuff there.”

“Really?”

“Smells less; plants don’t care for smells.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t like fumes, do they? And what are smells but a sort of fume? Oil and particles and such floating in the air. Plants notice.”

“Wonder if that’s what’s the matter with my dahlias,” cried Winter, convinced in spite of himself.

“Likely enough. Here, have some of this stuff.”

“Thanks, I will.” Winter pocketed a length of plastic.

“Three shillings,” said George gently.

“Give him the money, Llywelyn.”

The Inspector fingered the cord in his pocket.

“Couldn’t get such a grip on this stuff, of course.”

“No, but you wouldn’t want to,” said George puzzled. “For tying up the plants, not throttling them—oh! I see what you mean.”

“Do you?”

“And I call it sly. Coming in here, winning my confidence, picking up tips from me, including a packet of my cord, and all the time waiting to accuse me of murder.”

The Inspector was soothing; he assured George that he had meant no harm, and please would he answer a few questions.

“Now, are you sure you didn’t see Miss Oliver walking down here yesterday?”

“Yes, I am sure, I told you that yesterday.”

Eventually the two policemen departed.

“And I suppose you found that very interesting, too?” queried Llywelyn.

“It had its points. Funny man. Good gardener, though. Like to have had a look underneath those sleeves.”

“For scratches?…None on his hands, though.”

“No, there weren’t, were there?” rejoined the Inspector, looking at him with bright eyes. “But he’s got nice strong leather gloves.”

A strong smell of coffee floated from Rosy’s door. It was locked, but Rosy appeared to open it, a dumpy little figure in her white overall, and looking rather tired, her round hausfrau face glowing with cooking. She brushed some crumbs from her mouth.

“Do come in, Inspector, I’m glad to see you and get this over.”

She accompanied them through to her kitchen at the back where she and Ellen had been sitting for their mid-morning snack of tea, sausage rolls and jam tarts. Ellen still sat there.

“Now, do sit down. I’ve plenty of tea for you.”

The big brown pot stood on the table next to the dish of raspberry tarts. Rosy took down cups from her dresser and poured them tea.

“Sugar?”

They sipped in silence. Ellen had been watching them wordlessly, but all the time anxious to talk. She was  a great gossip, dispensing the small information at her disposal with an excited and generous hand. In public Rosy pretended to disapprove of this, but in fact she enjoyed sifting Ellen’s news, on which she was often able to put a more accurate interpretation than its sponsor, who did not always see the significance of the titbit she had carried in. Rosy did not intend to let Ellen gossip now, however.

“I’m glad to find you both together—makes my job easier; I can talk to you both,” observed the Inspector. “Killing two birds with one stone, eh?” And he laughed.

But even Ellen blanched at his metaphor.

“We haven’t got anything to do with any killing,” she said carefully. “Especially Miss Oliver; I loved Miss Oliver.” And her eyes filled with tears. They were the first, so far as the Inspector knew, which had been shed for Dorothy.

“No, I understand you have nothing to do with it,” he said gently, always disarmed by an appearance of innocence. “But I must find out what you know. You would like to discover who killed Miss Oliver, wouldn’t you? So I want you to tell me what you saw.”

Ellen nodded.

“Oh, I will.”

“When did you last see her?”

She needed no thought to answer this.

“The night I helped her clear up before she went away. She was cross with me because I forgot to bring her little bag.”

“Which little bag was that?”

“Oh, a pretty little bag, to travel with; and I left it in Bartholomew House. She needed it to go away with.”

“Was she going on a holiday? Did she tell you where she was going?”

“Well, it would be a holiday, wouldn’t it?” Ellen said, puzzled. “Why else would she go away? People go away for holidays, or they go to the hospital, but she wasn’t going there. She’d packed all her pretty clothes; and you wear nasty things in hospital.” Ellen shuddered.

Rosy intervened.

“Ellen went to hospital once, Inspector,” she said gently. “And she didn’t like it. Have a jam tart, Ellen.”

“I think she was going to Brighton,” said Ellen, taking a tart.

Rosy interrupted again.

“Ellen went on a holiday to Brighton once. I don’t suppose she has any other reason for suggesting it.”

| “Well, I think it was,” said Ellen obstinately. “In this hot weather.” She gobbled her jam tart hastily.

“But you didn’t see Miss Oliver yesterday?” persevered the Inspector.

Ellen shook her head. “I wanted to, but I didn’t—I was so busy. I came here in the morning and afternoon, then I; did my papers for Mrs. Flock. It was a good day, though.! My horoscope said it would be and it was; the stars didn’t get it quite right, but I had a present…”

। With a sigh the Inspector let her go and turned to Rosy.

| “And of course, you didn’t see Miss Oliver either?”

Rosy shrugged. “Told you once. And, Inspector, yesterday afternoon Dorothy could have been walking up and down all the time, and I wouldn’t have seen or heard her…It’s the day the dustmen come, and what with the noise they make and the way they’re up and down the pavements all the time, an army could pass this way and I wouldn’t notice.”

“The dustmen!” exclaimed the Inspector. “Mr. Thurlow didn’t say anything about the dustmen.”

“Oh, him!” said Rosy scornfully. “He wouldn’t notice dustmen. Not beautiful enough, not elegant. What he don’t like he don’t see.”

“But neither did Mr. Barnabas Lord,” went on Winter grimly.

“Oh, didn’t he?” said Rosy nervously. For the first time she was disconcerted.

They eyed each other.

“Well, ask the dustmen,” was Rosy’s parting shot.

The Inspector did ask the dustmen. Or he made an attempt to do so. He walked down to the Municipal Offices, and asked the Superintendent in charge of the area when the Row had been cleared and at what time. Yes, it had been yesterday. He put his question. Had any of the men seen Miss Oliver? Could he ask them? The Superintendent stared at him in surprise.

“But fancy asking. You know my men better than that.

Or don’t you? Notice? Not they! They wouldn’t notice an elephant unless it was sitting up in the bin looking at them.

And then they wouldn’t think anything. Not they. They can’t.”

But the Inspector still wanted to make sure. He would see the men.

“Oh, you can see the men all right,” said the other, getting up. He led the way out to the back. “It’s their lunch hour.”

The men—six or eight of them—were sitting round in a ring on the floor picking over a few odds and ends.

“Pretty sight, aren’t they?” asked the Superintendent grimly. The men continued to sort out their bag. As they did so they chattered in undertones amongst themselves.

The Inspector looked at the little heap of goods. Some of it looked familiar. He thought he recognised an old hat that reminded him of Louie; there was a bit of old tweed that looked like Barnabas; there was an old pink cushion embroidered with roses…It looked too good to be thrown out, but one side of it was stained.

“I thought you said your chaps didn’t notice anything,” he asked.

“Oh, this is just reflex action. Sticks to their fingers.”

Winter returned gloomily to the Row.

“That chap Lord,” he said to the Sergeant. “Go and ask him why he didn’t see fit to mention that the Row was seething with dustmen when he was window-gazing. Don’t put it like that, but find out. God knows if it matters, but I don’t want anyone to get away with anything.”

But Barnabas got in first. He was so glad to see the Sergeant.

“Isn’t it remarkable?” he said, with a wide smile. “I completely forgot to say, but of course the men were collecting the rubbish just about then. Hundreds of them, such toughs (although one was so nice looking; quite a Renaissance face, but deaf, poor boy). Fancy me forgetting.”

“Fancy,” said the Sergeant, almost as the Inspector* might have done.

“But, then, I’ve been so busy,” said Barnabas agreeably as he waved off his visitor.

The Sergeant reported to Winter, who had set up his headquarters in a neat tent on the cobbles of the Row and felt like Wellington before Waterloo. Winter received the report with a frown. He didn’t trust Barnabas.

“As soon as we left her, that woman telephoned Lord and put him up to it. We should have got to him first. They’re up to something funny here.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

The Inspector sat at his collapsible office table in silence. He was proud of his innovation of a temporary headquarters on the very spot of the crime, and he used it constantly. It was his boast that he stopped neither to eat nor sleep for the first twenty-four hours of any investigation. His assistants maintained that his motive was not so much to promote efficiency as to give them the maximum discomfort. Llywelyn saw that there were advantages to the Inspector’s notion, so he submitted to the harsh discipline with less resentment. But even he found it tiresome to stand in the hot sun while the Inspector sat in the shade.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” he repeated.

“It seems to me that not one of them had time to spare for killing her, by their own account,” said the Inspector, thinking out aloud. “And yet one of them found opportunity between four and five yesterday. If only we knew which shop she went into.”

He looked longingly up and down the Row.

But no one in the Row found themselves able to help. They were all innocent, they pointed out. Jay had worked all through the lunch hour and then all the afternoon under Rebecca’s eye. They provided alibis for each other.

“We were working together all day,” said Rebecca nervously.

“All the time?”

“Oh yes, Jay was in the fitting-room with a dummy and what we call a toile…that’s a…”

“Yes, yes, I know all about that,” said the Inspector, who didn’t.

“All right; and then she came out and we worked hard at finishing off a dress.”

Edward had been under observation by Roland all the afternoon, and the same applied to Roland, while Barnabas had twenty-four bright eyes to bear him witness.

The Inspector was in low spirits.

“Every single one of them doing something legitimate practically every possible minute. It’s not human, it’s not true. One of them is lying.”

“But which?” asked the Sergeant.

• • • •

Someone still had to visit the rooms where Dorothy Oliver had lived, and the Inspector sent Llywelyn. As the Sergeant walked through the streets, he realised that his cousin was coming with him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said over his shoulder. “You’d better get back.”

“As the Inspector was careful to let me know where you’d gone, I took it that he meant me to follow you. For reasons of his own, of course. I couldn’t bear to disappoint him. What a jewel he is! Not a pearl, perhaps, nor a diamond; but isn’t there a stone called a carbuncle? That’s what he reminds me of.”

“That’s a ruby,” said the Sergeant absently.

“Well, I’m sure he’s above price, and virtuous too. That’s a great thing in a policeman, isn’t it now?”

“Anyway, you’ll be able to tell me if anything is altered in Miss Oliver’s,” went on the Sergeant, deep in his own thoughts.

“How do you know I’ve been here before?”

“I guessed it. And it wasn’t very difficult either. You knew her better than you admitted to the Inspector, didn’t you?”

“I suppose I did, really. But not so very well at that. She was a funny girl.” Edward’s voice was moody. “I liked her. She was gay and amusing. But I never knew where I was with her. She never let you know what she really felt. Or not me. I suppose I bored her. I wasn’t her sort.”

“Who was, I wonder? It would help to know. But she was yours?”

“In a way, very much so.”

There was no landlady in the house where Dorothy Oliver had lived alone, no one to let them in. The old brown door swung open as they touched it to give entrance to a sour, dark hall.

“A common place for Dorothy to live…but a girl on her own. I suppose it’s difficult. Perhaps it’s all she could afford. I never really took it in when I came here with her. She took your mind off things like that, with her taking ways. Although I do remember thinking that room of hers was the dreariest place on God’s earth. So unlike her, and the way she looked.”

“She spent a lot on her appearance, didn’t she?” asked Llywelyn primly.

He remembered what he had noticed. “You don’t keep up hair and teeth and skin like that on nothing a year,” he went on. He had learnt the price of such things in a hard school. “Perhaps that’s where the money went.”

“Yes, she liked luxury, did Dorothy; which makes it all the odder she should have lived here.”

“What’s the room like?” asked Llywelyn as they mounted the stairs.

“Oh…you’ll see.”

In silence the Sergeant opened the door to Dorothy’s room.

“I suppose that’s her key you’ve got?” said Edward suddenly.

“You can suppose what you like,” said the Sergeant in a non-committal way.

The room spread before them as dead as its tenant. The pale paint, the dun-coloured mats, thin as paper, the cheap oak furniture, all were as they had always been. Dorothy had not touched the room with her personality at all.

Edward threw out his hands in a gesture of despair.

“There you are. You see how it is. Heaven help me! I used to wonder if anyone lived here. Dorothy might have been a ghost, for all the impression she ever made on this room. She used to come in, put down her coat, and light a cigarette. That’s what she always did first, and that’s all she ever did. Never a look round the room to see if there were any letters, or if it was dusted, or if the flowers were dead. She might have been walking into the waiting-room at Paddington Station.”

“It looks like that,” admitted the Sergeant, having looked round the room. He was methodically opening cupboards and drawers. He turned out a few scattered pieces of clothing. He went over the veneered bureau, which contained nothing but old newspapers and some empty matchboxes. Finally he went to the wardrobe and looked at the dark raincoat hanging there. Then he sat himself down before the dressing-table and fiddled with the box of powder and the lipstick which were on the bare, dusty top.

He nodded. “I think your image of Paddington Station is a true one. She wasn’t living here at all. She was only passing through.”

“But where was she travelling to, Ted?” asked Edward sadly.

His cousin rested a hand affectionately on his shoulders. Wherever she was travelling, Dorothy Oliver had arrived.

By the door was the one thing Dorothy Oliver had added to the room: it was a small picture, a country landscape.

“What’s this?” asked the Sergeant. “Do you know?”

“Oh, Dorothy was a country girl,” answered Edward.

“She may have lived there once.”

“Yes; came from Shropshire in the first place, didn’t she?” said the Sergeant, who knew it all. “But this isn’t a Shropshire view; this is by the sea.”

A chatter of voices on the stairs interrupted them.

“Go on, for goodness sake do,” said a loud voice. It was also a familiar one.

“There’s someone up there,” responded a harsh whisper. It might have been anyone, but it sounded like George.

“Oh, let me go first,” and Louie rounded the comer of the stairs. She put her hand over her mouth when she saw the Sergeant.

“You’re here quick, aren’t you?” she asked.

“What have you come for?” asked the Sergeant seriously.

“Now what do you think? That we came to see the Decorations?” Louie spoke up. She was the voice of Bartholomew Row. “We came here to have a look round. It seems to us that Dorothy Oliver was somehow mixed up in this Mr. Harris stuff. Or why should she get killed? We didn’t do it, whatever that man Winter thinks. Oh go on; I know from the look on your face that you and him think it’s one of us. Well, you’re wrong. We’ve had enough trouble, without doing murder. And it’s in our interests to have a quick look round here to see what we could see.”

George turned tail. “Well, I think I’ll be off.”

“No, you don’t.” Louie grabbed him and swung him round to face the Sergeant again. “We’ve got a right to find out.”

“You’ve got no right to go in there,” said the Sergeant.

“Well, there’s rights and rights, isn’t there?” asked Louie grimly. “And there’s four of us and only one of you.”

Her glance scorned Edward. The Sergeant looked nonplussed and Louie looked determined. But Edward could see that her companions were eager to desert.

“Be your age, Louie,” he advised. “You know what the penalties for obstructing the police are.”

“I’m not obstructing them,” pointed out Louie.

“They’re obstructing me.”

“You going to let Louie bear-lead you?” went on Edward, looking at George and Barnabas. “She might get off being a woman, but you…”

“Whose side are you on, Edward Mortimer?” demanded Louie furiously. To her the administration of justice was a sort of rugger match with all fouls allowed. “Go on, tell me that.”

“I don’t know, Louie,” answered Edward suddenly serious—“I really don’t know.”

Louie was beaten on this issue and she knew it. Still, she ignored defeat.

“Well, you’d better come home and have a cup of tea with me. Bring him,” she said, nodding towards the Sergeant. “And I dare say we haven’t missed much. You and him were in and out so quick that I don’t believe there was anything there.”

Neither of the men answered, but Louie knew she was home. She gave a crow of excitement.

“Fancy!” she said. “She was moving out, wasn’t she? That’s why she needed that blue case. Well, I never. Dorothy was a dark one.”

VII

AN uneasy peace descended upon the Row, the days passed quietly and the police withdrew. Jay looked idly up and down the road. It was much as usual. Rosy was carrying into her shop the cartons of margarine she used for her rolls and butter, occasionally stopping to gossip with Ellen, who was polishing the brass. Barnabas appeared carrying a walking-stick; he waved it at her. From his schoolrooms floated the voices of his little debs; one of them was singing the theme song from the latest American comedy. Suddenly George appeared with Louie’s old cat Timmy slung over his arm like a fur. Both of them were very cross. George threw Timmy in smartly at Louie’s door.

“This old cat of yours! He’s been at my seedlings again. He trotted off down the Row rubbing his hands where Timmy had bitten him. But very soon Louie came out of her door with Timmy once again dangling.

“George, George!” she shouted. “You’ve done some harm to this cat. You’ve ill-treated him. He can’t eat.”

George gaped at her, but Rosy came running angrily out of her door.

“And shall I tell you why he can’t eat?” she demanded. “Because he’s just eaten all my mixture for my Cornish pasties. That’s why.”

“Lor’,” said Louie, aghast. “I’ll have to give him an emetic.”

Timmy, on whom the words were not lost, clawed at her angrily, and shot away over the wall.

The Row was quiet again. Only a solitary constable remained on duty at the comer of the main road. At intervals he cycled up and down the road. The inhabitants were both critical and grateful.

“Anything might happen,” said Louie, talking to Barnabas. “How do we know the murderer won’t come back?”

Her bright cheeks were as pale as they could be beneath their rouge.

“You’ll be all right,” answered Barnabas, watching her move the tubs and pots outside her shop. “Look at the muscles on you! You could knock anyone out by yourself.”

Rebecca, overhearing this comment, paused on her way to Jay’s. She was trim in her white pique dress, but not so perky and assured as she used to be.

“Use your imagination, Barny,” she said. “Of course, he’d creep up behind. She’d never see.”

Hastily Louie turned round to place her back protectively against the wall of her shop.

“Run away, Rebecca. Really you do say the most dreadful things. A girl of your age ought to know better.”

Rebecca tossed her head and walked off, muttering darkly:

“At least I know I’m saying them.”

Barnabas tittered, “Now you’ve annoyed her.”

“I’ve annoyed her? What about her upsetting me? And what did she mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t hear her,” he replied hastily. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

Louie looked at him grimly, but went on with her work. Her first task in the morning was always the careful arrangement of her tubs and pots. She trusted neither Belinda nor Maria with this.

“Although why I bother I can’t think,” she said. “Is it likely I’ll get a customer now?”

“Yes, it’s odd, isn’t it? I should have expected lots of notoriety hunters.”

“It’s a bit too much even for them.”

“My young women stick to me.”

“Yes, but they’re educated. Educated people don’t mind being mixed up in this sort of thing, they even enjoy it…They all read the News of the World now; whereas my customers—well, they’re a different sort. They can read, mostly; but they’ve got other interests. And the police scare them off…it’s only natural.”

“I always told you to keep a few better-class clients,” said Barnabas. “Anyway, the police have gone now.”

“Yes,” agreed Louie, reverting to her original grievance. “And what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” answered Barnabas. “I’ve got my own worries…Oh, Louie, what shall I do?”

“Go on,” she said, delighted to have her mind taken off her own troubles.

“It was such a good little scheme too…not illegal at all—not really.”

“Of course not,” said Louie generously.

“No, but do you think the police, the Inspector, will understand that? I could offer to subscribe half the profits to a police charity.”

“Don’t ever suggest that,” said Louie hurriedly, alarmed at this unworldly suggestion. “Or you’ll be in the Old Bailey straight away. It’s the sort of thing the police have a prejudice about.”

“Perhaps I could have a word with Sergeant Llywelyn. He is Eddie’s cousin.”

“They are alike, too,” he went on, momentarily diverted. “Same sort of bones, only he hasn’t got Edward’s vital look…that terrifically gloomy attraction.”

“Well, I never thought of Edward like that,” exclaimed Louie. “He always seems a nice cheerful boy…more so than his cousin, I’d have said. Now he is a bit lowering. Can’t help it, I suppose, seeing what his job is, but he always makes me think of a mute at a funeral. Anyway, I wouldn’t tell him. Never tell anyone anything, I say.”

Louie’s predictions about business in the Row were • accurate. Few came unless work made it necessary. An idle sightseer or two arrived, and a group of children scuffled in the gutter. Ellen passed up and down the Row doing her errands; the hot, shadeless cobbles were hard on her feet and she was tired. All the same, she persisted in wearing her good thick flannel coat. Merely to look at that coat made Louie want to rush out and tear it from her shoulders, but she restrained herself.

“It’s a nice coat, isn’t it?” said Ellen, seeing her face and taking the look for approval. “Mr. Mortimer said it was the classical colour for flannel.”

“He did, did he? Look, if I give you another coat—this thin old one—will you wear it? You kill me in that.”

Ellen was delighted. “Two?” she said. “I am lucky.” She returned to Rosy’s to hang up the discarded coat in the lobby. Louie felt her temperature go down. She settled down to her work again.

The policeman standing at the comer leant back and closed his eyes. Past him pushed a grubby caravan made up of a pram, a wheelbarrow and a box on wheels in charge of shouting, calling small boys, all slapping each other on the back and calling each other boss. In charge was one older, more loutish youth, who was pushing the pram. A few amazons were in attendance as camp-followers.

The procession passed noisily and slowly down the Row, making audible comments as it went. They scratched at Rosy’s window and tumbled George’s plants, but their owners tactfully preferred to take no notice. But Louie had no tact.

The pram-pusher gave a disabling kick at Louie’s cat sunning himself on a tub. Timmy promptly bit him, and Louie appeared at once round the door.

“Go away, little boy,” she said.

“Old murderer, old leper,” he screamed, rubbing his ankle.

“Shoo, hop it!” screamed Louie in turn.

For a reply he threw a stone at the window. There was a little murmur of excitement from his supporters at this first overture to violence. A furious Louie rushed at them, her arms beating the air, sharp-toed feet kicking at shins.’ So alarming a figure shattered the morale of the intruders.

Swearing and cursing, they withdrew, watched by the inhabitants of Bartholomew Row.

“We’ll be back,” yelled the leader. “You haven’t seen the last of us…stinking old thing.”

“A classic phrase.”

Barnabas spoke nervously from his upstairs window.

“But quite frankly, Louie, should you have done that?”

“Course I should,” she answered with defiance. “Devils; did you want your windows broken?”

“My windows before my nose; and really, Louie, they look capable of anything.”

“I routed ’em, didn’t I?”

Barnabas did not answer. From his eminence, which commanded a better view than might have been expected, he scanned the horizon silently, like Stout Cortez.

Jay and Rebecca, who had been standing at their door in work overalls, strolled over to Louie.

“Barnabas looks very odd,” whispered Jay.

Then they heard his voice.

“Girls, girls, take cover.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, Jay, is that you? Perhaps you can bring Louie to her senses. They’re coming back—those boys are coming back…lots of them. We must hide.”

Jay was reproachful, and slightly shocked.

“Oh, Barnabas, you’re braver than that!”

“I used to be, but I got over it during the war,” said he, • truly agitated. “I mean what I say; they are collecting at the end of the Row.”

“But there’s a policeman!”

“You don’t think they mind about that? Anyway, he’s asleep. Jolly sensible of him too. I wish Louie had been.” Like an anxious collie, he rounded up his little flock—a doubtful Jay, a frightened Rebecca and a furious Louie. With them came six bright young things, Barnabas’s delighted pupils, and Belinda and Maria, who had already begun to call for her mother. He urged the party along the street.

“Into Rosy’s; that’s the strongest, and there’s food there, too. We can’t get any further in the time. George…George…my dear fellow, follow us.”

Puzzled and inquiring, George did so. Rosy greeted her unwanted guests with dismay. She had been quietly working in the kitchen at the back and had missed the alarm.

“But what do you all want? And, Louie, you’ve got that cat! You know he hates me.”

“I couldn’t leave an innocent dumb creature behind!”

“That animal is neither dumb nor innocent, as well you know. But if you must come, then you must…Yes, Barnabas, I can hear what you are saying, and I think it all rubbish. We’d better go upstairs.”

“It would be safer,” agreed Barnabas, whose ears could hear the rumble of the tumbrils.

From the window the besieged looked down on their invaders.

“Hundreds of them,” said Barnabas, awestruck.

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“It’s a crowd, Rosy, all right.”

The boys and their followers bunched together in the gutter, shouting suggestions, sniggering, and gathering stones.

Suddenly an Amazon saw Louie’s face.

“There she is…there she is; that’s her up there!”

With crys of joy and anger they hurled their missiles at the open window. Jay hastily shut it. A large stone splintered it behind her.

In a moment of silence the shouts from below echoed through the room.

“They’re slashing at my blinds outside,” said Rosy, peeping out. “They’ve got sharp knives. Oh, my lovely things!”

“I don’t think they can do much harm” remarked Louie uncertainly. “Is your door below locked? I don’t remember anyone bolting it; I’ll just pop down.”

“No, let me go,” said Jay, the same idea occurring to her. But Louie was too quick; they heard her clattering down the stairs. In no time she was back triumphant.

Then the floor beneath them began to shake.

“Well, they’re in,” said Barnabas grimly. “You didn’t do much good with that, did you, Louie? Made it easier, as far as I can see.”

“Don’t quarrel,” interrupted Rosy. “The inner door will hold, I think. After all, they’re only little boys.”

Barnabas snorted. Demoniac sounds of cracking and breaking came up through the floor.

“What’s that policeman at the comer think he’s doing?” inquired Jay indignantly. “I’m going down to telephone the police.”

“I’ll come with you, dear,” said Louie hastily, but in this tussle Jay was the victor. She was gone some time. The little group grew nervous. Finally George got up.

“I’m going down. No…stay here, all of you; this is a man’s job. Just keep that cat back, Louie.”

He disappeared. Within a second they heard a sliding thud, George shouting in anger, and Jay’s voice raised in alarm.

“George, George, what is it?” called Rosy.

“It’s that damn cat…I fell over it. Get away, curse you!”

His voice rose.

“And now it’s bitten me.”

Jay crept back into the room, divided between laughter and alarm.

“George is doing himself up. No, he wouldn’t let me help…he’s sterilising the wound.”

“My nice clean pussy!” exclaimed Louie indignantly.

“No animal is,” replied George, equally angry, returning, his arm stiff with adhesive tape to the elbow. “Why don’t you muzzle it?”

They were parted by their friends.

“I got to the Inspector,” said Jay, reminding them of essentials.

“Fine fools we shall look, escaping from a parcel of kids,” grumbled George.

He jumped back as an old loaf shot in through the broken window.

“Some kids,” said Barnabas, peeping. “My God, they’ve got my hat out there.”

“It’s you they want, Louie,” he went on, still peeping. He was getting excited. “They are yelling for you. Better let us disguise you and perhaps we could smuggle you out at the back. I’d do it with you.”

“What do you think you are?” scorned Louie. “The Scarlet Pimpernel? No, thank you; I’m staying.”

There was a patter of little buns and rolls on what was left of the window.

“They’ve got at my stock,” complained Rosy. “Oh, what a waste!”

She looked round angrily at her companions, who had forced this struggle on her.

“Give you quite a bruise, they could,” said Barnabas, picking one up and rubbing his eye. “Pity they aren’t fresher.”

“They are perfectly fresh,” exclaimed Rosy, when Jay interrupted her.

“What are they shouting now?”

She listened.

“They’ve run out of things to throw; they’re shouting for bread; they want more bread!”

“Give them cake, then,” cried Louie hysterically, and burst into tears.

Even as they comforted her the besieged looked up with increased anxiety. A tail of smoke drifted in through the window. Its flavour on the tongue was acrid and sharp.

“Fire,” said Jay, her eyes wide.

Rosy sniffed.

“Paraffin; they’ve got at my paraffin. Oh God, we shall be roasted alive!”

Rebecca screamed, and even Barnabas’s young pupils, who had hitherto been enjoying every moment, looked pale. Maria called with increased intensity for her Mum.

Barnabas looked down to the fire.

“They’re burning all the clothes from your lobby, Louie, that’s what’s smelling so bad.”

Ellen, in a fury of complete madness, rushed to the window and tipped out a pile of papers and magazines.

“Bum these! bum these!” she screamed.

They leapt upon her and pushed her back.

The Inspector stepped smartly from his car, knocking heads together as he passed, calming by his very appearance, and reducing the boys to terrified silence. Their madness left them.

He banged on the inner door.

“Come down, come down,” he shouted. “What do you think you are doing up there?”

Slowly, reluctantly, ashamed, the besieged filed downstairs. They stepped delicately over the debris of broken glass, torn garments and pieces of bread. The bonfire smouldered. The combatants looked at each other in depressed and sullen silence. A quick look of recognition crossed Louie’s face. She pointed indignantly.

“Inspector, Inspector, that boy’s my nephew. My sister May’s boy. The dark one with the cap on backwards who’s pretending he’s got toothache. I’ll give him ache.” She shook her hand at him in fury, then wobbled over on her high heels to where he stood. “You little beast! You—you parricide!”

“Oh, I hope not,” said the Inspector mildly, but he turned the offender to face his indignant relative.

“Well, Mum says you’re as bad as any of them,” said the boy sullenly. “She reckons it’s all your doing, all this murder. Can’t bear to think she’s your sister, she can’t.”

Louie gasped.

“Mum says you’d do anything. She said she can remember when you took the baby’s dummy and sold it because it had a coral handle. She was the baby, she says.”

“Oh, was she?” asked Louie furiously. “And can Mum remember what dear little baby May was doing with the dummy? She was dipping it in Dad’s whisky and sucking it. Little cat! Tell her to keep her mind on her own troubles.

If she did that more often, then there’d be a good many less like you, and a good job that’d be, and she’d know what colour you were coming out.”

“Now, now,” said the Inspector. He began to feel apprehensive. He moved back, but he was too late. Louie’s nephew had his head lowered like a young goat, and with a cry he charged his aunt. Louie gave a loud scream and held the Inspector before her like the shield of Hector.

For one moment the tableau held before the horrified, incredulous, enraptured eyes of all the spectators, then it dissolved. Louie was catapulted backwards by the force of her nephew’s descent, and as she fell she released her hold on the Inspector, who slowly slid down into the dying bonfire. Nephew and aunt regarded each other with dismay over his dust-covered head.

The Inspector rose like the Phoenix from the ashes…he opened his mouth. The horrified Sergeant clapped a prim hand over his superior’s mouth.

It was the last sensation of the day.

• • • •

“Not much harm done,” said the Sergeant soothingly as he dusted down the Inspector.

But he was wrong. A pair of quick hands had taken advantage of the confusion caused by the riot to eliminate an important piece of evidence.

VIII

“WHO’S next for the knacker?” That was now the question passed around the Row. It started with Louie, who was convinced that the riot and the murder were the work of Mr. Harris, and that someone else would go soon.

Ellen started the ball rolling. She stood on Jay’s doorstep and smiled. “Brought Rebecca’s paper,” she said.

They stared at her. Rebecca never read any paper, and certainly never bought one. Occasionally she might read the Daily Mirror over her neighbour’s shoulder on the bus, but that was all.

“What paper?” asked Rebecca.

For answer Ellen thrust one firmly into her hand; then, her own errand done, she departed.

Jay and Rebecca peered over the paper: the week’s copy of the Listener, price fourpence, and clearly marked with Rebecca’s name.

“This is nothing to do with me,” said Rebecca.- “I never ordered this. And I don’t want it.” She pushed it away from her.

“Well, that’s a funny thing, then. Perhaps someone thought there was something in it that would interest you. Someone who didn’t know you very well.”

“No. No. I don’t think so at all,” said Rebecca. She threw the paper into the waste-paper basket and ground grimly on with her work.

“That’s a dress you’re making, and not a battleship,” Jay reminded her, after watching her for a few minutes, but Rebecca only grunted. When she had gone at the end of the day, an anxious Jay retrieved the paper, put it in the little square case she always carried and departed for an evening out with Edward. She hoped he was in a good mood, she hoped he was feeling gay.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to go dancing?” said Jay in a winning tone.

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Edward promptly; “and a bit cold-blooded as well.”

Jay pouted her lips.

“A bit of fun would help, I should think. And it’s such a good advertisement for me to appear about wearing some nice clothes. No one ever sees me if all I do is eat some rolls and cheese with you. Anyone would think you were ashamed of being seen out with me.”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“Oh, go on; my feet are absolutely aching for a dance.”

Edward sighed.

“I haven’t danced since I was seventeen.”

“Goodness!” said Jay, her face serious. “Whatever do you do with yourself all the time?”

“Well, I like talking.”

“I’ve noticed that. But you could talk while we danced.

I wouldn’t mind.”

“You would after a bit, I dare say. It wouldn’t improve my dancing. And wherever should we dance? I don’t know of anywhere.”

“What do you do for eyes?” asked Jay scornfully. “Of course there are about sixty different places. But let’s go to the Bah Ballrooms, and then I could see my Mum.”

“See your Mum!” exclaimed Edward in surprise. “Don’t tell me she’s a cabaret girl.”

“Oh, they don’t have cabaret at the Bali,” said Jay; “it’s not that sort of place. Anyway, Mum wouldn’t be in it if there were…she’s not as thin as she was. No, she works in the sort of box-office there.”

“You’ve kept her very dark.”

“Oh well, sometimes we’re on good terms, and sometimes we’re not. It comes and goes. It’s all right now, though.”

“That’s a comfort. I shall look forward to seeing her.”

“Oh, she’s looking forward to seeing you,” said Jay frankly. “It’ll make her evening for her. Give her something to talk about. She’s like you—she likes to talk. Only she likes a proper subject: like, is Mr. Jackson still living at No. 19 or did he just leave his hat hanging in the hall? Or is the youngest Thomas boy more like his father or his mother’s second cousin that she saw such a lot of when he was in the Navy? Give her something like that and she can go on for hours. Now you don’t need anything; you can go on about nothing. It’s amazing, really.”

Edward scowled. “As your mother seems to be looking forward to me so hungrily, then I suppose we’d better go in.” .

The Bali Ballrooms had just opened for the evening when the two arrived. In the distance Edward could hear the sound of music, and his toes twitched in apprehension. Jay leaned happily and heavily on his arm.

“You get the tickets while I go and change my shoes. Oh, you’re going to enjoy this!”

Jay’s mother poked her head out of her little glass cage like a lizard. She was in charge of the ticket box. “Evening. Saw you come in. Well, I was watching for you, really.”

“You were certain we’d come?”

“Oh, Jay always does what she wants. There’s no flies on that girl. Takes after her father and not me, she does. He always knew where he was, and somehow I’ve never been able to get things clear.”

But all the same there was a likeness between Jay and her mother: both had little noses, large round eyes and bright complexions; both, it was obvious, got their hair cut and permed at the same hairdresser, and both would presently, perhaps, get it dyed by the same hands. Edward hoped Jay would choose a quieter colour…her mother’s hair was a lovely mahogany, with the sheen and polish of real wood. You could almost see the grain in it.

“You look alike,” said Edward. “Your hair…

“Do we?” asked Jay’s mother, looking dreamily forward. “Yes, I daresay Jay does favour me there. Her father lost his very young. Completely bald he was in the end. No, Jay don’t take after him in that. But he was lively, like she is. I was sorry to lose him.”

“Has he been dead long?” asked Edward, full of sympathy.

“Why, he’s not dead. Or I dare say not. No, I just lost him We were out shopping, and he gave me a pound note and said, ‘Pop in and buy yourself a hat and meet me outside in five minutes.’ So I popped, but he wasn’t there when I got back, and he never did come. And then I knew I’d lost him. Still, it was nice about the hat, wasn’t it? I suppose it was his way of breaking it gentle.” She mused quietly on. “But it never did suit me somehow, and in the end I gave it to my sister-in-law. It wasn’t really her colour; but, then, no colour is. But she’s never lost our Jack, so there must be something about her, mustn’t there? I wonder sometimes, I really do.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” said Edward, once more full of sympathy. “You’ll only upset yourself.”

“You do understand,” said Jay’s mother. She pushed her head outside her little box to get a good look. “You are a nice gentleman.”

“I think it’s terrible for you to be left like that. And to have to work here.”

“Oh, that! Don’t think anything of it. I’ve never been a lazy woman, and I don’t mind work. I like it here. It takes me out of myself. It’s lively, and that’s what I liked about Jay’s father—liveliness.”

Something about the way she stressed the words “Jay’s father” began to raise a question in Edward’s mind. Tactfully he phrased a question about her husband.

“Oh, himl” she said, surprised. “I’ve still got him. It’s Jay’s father I’ve been telling you about.”

She arranged the piles of coppers and shillings before her on a tray.

“Jay’s a long time, isn’t she? I’m worried about her, I don’t mind admitting. It upset me terrible when she left her Bob. Now, they really were married.”

“Oh, they were,” commented Edward, who had been wondering about this.

“Now she’ll tell you it was all his fault, but I wonder myself. She’s tougher than she looks, is my Jay…Oh, there you are, dear.”

“Hullo, Mum,” said her daughter. “Been talking to Edward?”

“She’s been telling me about your father.”

“You want to watch out with Mum,” said Jay. “Don’t believe all she tells you. More than half of it’s not true.”

“But the other half is,” said her parent mildly.

“What have you been telling him tonight? How Dad left you stranded outside the Odeon on a Saturday night?”

“No, it was a hat shop,” exclaimed Edward before he could stop.

Jay began to laugh. “Poor old Dad!” she said. “And him waiting at home with the kettle on and pine salts ready to give your feet a good soak. I don’t know how you’ve got the heart.”

Her mother bridled. “Well, a woman my age’s got to do something to make herself interesting. Technique, that’s what it’s called. I was getting on fine till you came back.

Oh, go on in to dance. What have you done with the little boy?”

“Oh, he’s got a sitter in. But I might be bringing him round to you tomorrow.” Jay’s voice held a hopeful query.

“That’s all right. It’s company for Dad. He can look after him.”

Her daughter nodded. Then she led her victim into the dance. The small dance-floor was very dark, although a summer sun still shone outside. Edward took Jay gingerly in his arms and moved her round the floor more or less in time to the music.

Behind the balloons and the coloured paper chains which hung from the ceiling he could see a few other people moving. And at the end of the hall a little man was conducting what must have been a very small orchestra tucked away in an alcove. It was making a great noise for such a small band.

Jay moved lightly and gracefully; her cheek was soft and her eyes bright. Her partner looked down on her admiringly…he was really beginning to be fond of her; if only she wouldn’t speak for a while, and if only he could forget Dorothy.

“How are you?” he asked at last. “Enjoying it?”

“Mmm,” said Jay. She cautiously moved her feet out of his way. “It’s cheering me up, anyway. I’ve felt awful all day, all the week.”

“So have we all.”

“Well, it was worse for me. And then there’s Rebecca. She’s behaving so oddly.”

But she did not add this last aloud. She thought she would not tell Edward about Rebecca.

They moved slowly round the hall. Now that his eyes were used to the dim light, Edward could take more in. It was even smaller than he had supposed—quite tiny, really—hardly larger than a big room; and when he saw the faces of the other dancers there was something worryingly familiar about them. And yet he didn’t know them. Or did he?

As they moved closer to the alcove where the band sat, j - he saw that there was no band, only a large radiogram, and the small fat man was only pretending to conduct. As he caught Edward’s eye, he winked. A feeling of moving in a dream, or perhaps a nightmare, descended upon Edward. Putting out feelers to test the atmosphere like a deepwater fish in new seas, it seemed to him that there was an atmosphere of pretence about the whole place; a distinct feeling, it came to him, of Jay’s mother and her imaginings.

The man waving the baton winked at him again, and this time Edward saw a marked resemblance to Jay and her mother. He knew now why the other people in the room had looked familiar—this was a family affair.

“Is that Dad?” he asked, nodding to the bobbing figure with the baton. All the same, he felt slightly sick.

“No, no…but it is Uncle,” admitted Jay, with amusement breaking through. “You are. clever to have noticed. Oh, I admit it. This is our place. My Uncle opened it, and we all help. And of course, when we dance—why, we come here. It’s as good a place as any. Or as bad,” she added sadly, as she rubbed her toe. “I begin to see why you haven’t danced since you were seventeen.”

Edward stopped dancing. “It’s terribly hot in here, isn’t it? I’ve had all I can take.”

“You do look pale. We’d better go, then. I don’t feel as happy as I did.”

They went out, passing Jay’s mother in her box.

“What, off already?” she asked, popping out. “I believe I’ll go, too. My feet are so bad tonight. It’s this hot weather.”

Jay and her mother kissed affectionately.

“I never know whether I’m ashamed or proud of my family,” said Jay as they walked home to where she lived.

“I should be proud,” said Edward. “So much less exhausting for you. They’re not dull, anyway.”

“Yes, I can see you’d think that.”

“Your mother pointed it out to me.”

“And we’re ambitious; we like to get on. Now, you don’t seem to be like that.”

“Perhaps I find it hard enough running to keep on the same spot.”

Jay looked puzzled.

“Never mind. Just a quotation from a book you haven’t read.”

“I like a good book. Is it a good book?”

“Depends on how you feel about that sort of thing. Might make you laugh.”

“I’d like that. I’d always thought your sort of book wouldn’t make me laugh. Like your poetry.”

“You haven’t read any?”

“Tried it,” said Jay, neatly picking her way through the gutters to the side of the street she lived on. “Wasn’t any good, though. I thought it might help me to understand you, but it didn’t. I couldn’t make any sense of it.”

“Probably hasn’t got much.” Edward was touched in spite of himself. “But didn’t it make you feel anything?’

“About you? Only that you were layers and layers deeper than I’d thought, and that perhaps I’d never find my way through all the layers. And that you were sad, and didn’t really seem to enjoy being alive.”

“Oh, I enjoy it in my way.”

“I love it all the time.”

“Even when you can’t get what you want?”

“Is that what saddened you? I see. But I mean to get what I want.”

“Then you probably will.”

At last they had arrived where Jay lived, and with the opening of her bag Jay came back from her dreams to remember the day’s events. Rebecca. The Listener. The paper tipped from her bag as she drew out the key. Edward picked it up.

“No poems from me in it this week. Don’t tell me you bought this? No, I see Rebecca’s name on it.”

Reluctantly, for she had not meant to mention it, Jay explained.

“I brought it home intending to go through it, just to see what was in it.” She paused thoughtfully. “It did upset Rebecca.”

They spread the magazine on Jay’s table and scanned each page. The week’s issue contained a long talk by an eminent scientist on atomic bombs; a shorter talk by an aged man of letters on Victorian fiction; and a criticism of contemporary French painting; there were other oddments.

“Not a thing here, I would swear,” said Edward, in a frustrated voice. He liked a mystery—better still he liked the unpicking of it. “Nothing that could really alarm the girl. Not in the way you describe. One might take fright at John Wrong on bombs, or even be terrified by the malice of the old gent on Trollope, but not in that personal sort of way.”

“And not Rebecca,” said Jay. “Her world is a very, very small one.”

“Tell me again about it,” said Edward, flipping over the pages. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Jay did.

“So Rebecca never looked inside?”

“No, she didn’t,” agreed Jay, wrinkling her forehead.

“No. Then what worried her wasn’t in the book. It’s on the outside.”

They looked at the picture on the front—a gentle, pastoral, midsummer scene.

“Could it be the sheep?”

“No, not even Rebecca.”

“Well, that only leaves her own name.”

They studied it.

“That’s Mrs. Flock’s writing,” pointed out Jay. “Rebecca’s not frightened of her. At least, I don’t think so.”

“We must find out who sent it,” said Edward, still studying the magazine. “Rebecca says she didn’t order it; and plainly, that’s true.”

They looked at the advertisement on the back—a large one for a brand of custard.

“Disheartening, isn’t it?” sighed Jay.

But Edward was looking at the cover again.

“Look, Jay! Look at the name of the paper. So obvious that we didn’t see it. Rebecca was quicker, but she knew what she’d been up to.”

The Listener. Rebecca had been the listener. What had she heard? They moved away from each other uneasily. Jay took a cigarette from the box.

“Clever Edward,” she said.

“It’s a threat,” he said slowly. “And she knew it. We must do something. Find out who sent it to her.”

“How?” While she was waiting for Edward to answer, she wandered round her room looking for some matches. Out of them, as usual.

“We must go to Flock’s, the newsagents, and ask who ordered it to be sent. And then, tomorrow, you must talk to Rebecca.”

“What you really mean is that Rebecca must talk to me; but she won’t you know. She won’t talk to me. Why should she? You might get more out of her. And by the way, what about that young woman from Barnabas’s that you took out?”

“Oh, she was pretty dull,” said Edward.

“But pretty, I see. Oh well, let’s go to Flock’s!”

The evening was still and sunny; a golden light painted the buildings.

“How nice everything could be!” said Jay as they walked.

“True,” said Edward, his hands in his pockets. “But for the murder, you mean?”

“Among other things. Everyone wants to be happy and good; only things stop them sometimes, don’t they?”

“Even murderers?”

Jay changed the subject. “You know, I don’t really want to find out any more about this thing. I don’t like it. Let’s go back.”

She dragged her feet.

Edward put his hand underneath her elbow, and hurried her on.

“Willy-nilly, dear…You can’t stop me now I’ve started.”

“That’s what I’m beginning to see,” said Jay, but she said it to herself.

Mrs. Flock was sitting in her crowded paper shop. She peered out from behind a mountain of magazines. On her lap was a box of paper lace serviettes, and another of birthday cards which she was making tidy.

“Hullo, ducks!” she said familiarly. She knew everyone in the Row. “Well, it’s a bit of luck for you that I’m still open. Cigarettes?”

Edward agreed he did want cigarettes; it was as good an excuse as any.

“Buy a nice card for your loved one?” suggested Mrs.

Flock, whose mother had been a gipsy. “Roses are red, sugar is sweet and so are you.”

“That’s not quite in my line,” said Edward, sorting them over. “No, none of them seem quite to suit. I never seem to fall in love with that sort of person.”

“Perhaps it’s you,” suggested Jay. “Perhaps you don’t summon up sweetness in a girl.”

“Miss Dotty now, she was sweet,” said the old lady, watching them with interest.

“Yes, wasn’t she?” agreed Edward, leaning back against the counter and looking at his face in Mrs. Flock’s little mirror.

“Well, I wouldn’t have called her that,” cried Jay. “What curiously different ideas of her we all have!”

“Yes, I’ve been noticing that for some time,” agreed Edward. He turned to Mrs. Flock. “Ellen delivered the Listener to Rebecca all right.”

“Yes, I thought she would,” said Mrs. Franks. She eyed him. “What are you getting at, dearies? Come on now, what are you after? A nice loving young pair like you wouldn’t be popping in here to talk to me and buy cigarettes you don’t want without some good reason. Now would you? You’d have better things to do.”

Her round, shiny eyes observed them sharply. But she was puzzled. She did not understand.

“Well, you see…Rebecca didn’t order that magazine you sent her, and so many odd things have happened here lately that we thought we ought to find out where it came from. She didn’t like it.”

“You knew it came from here,” pointed out Mrs. Flock fiercely.

“Of course, but we wondered who asked you to deliver it?”

Mrs. Flock muttered under her breath. Then she said:

“No one asked me. Someone dropped a note in, with the money, telling me to send it. Just a scrawl it was, on a little bit of blue paper.”

Her eyes swivelled round to Jay.

“And, of course, I thought it was just what it ought to be, seeing it was in your writing and in your name.”

IX

“SO you do see, Jay, now, don’t you?” asked Edward, “that it’s a good idea if we go on with our investigation.”

“Not if that’s the sort of information we turn up. I don’t like it.”

“Mrs. Flock did, though.”

“Old harpy! I just don’t know what to make of it all. I could speak to Rebecca tomorrow.”

“Don’t. I’ve changed my mind.” Edward’s voice was confident. “She won’t tell you anything straightforward. I can see that now, because I can see layers and ramifications I hadn’t thought of, can’t you?”

“If I can, then I wish I couldn’t. What a creature you are, Edward! Her lies might be revealing.”

“That’s only what people say in books. Would they reveal anything to you? No, of course not. We must move forward from what we’ve got already.”

“My dear! We aren’t an armoured column.”

“This is a sort of war, though. Now what have we got?”

“Dorothy’s murder, to begin with,” Jay reminded him bitterly.

“And Mr. Harris, the mysterious, disappearing, non-existent Mr. Harris.”

“You said he was non-existent,” pointed out Jay. “No one else did. The rest of us found him only too possible.”

“He’s a joke, I’m sure of that.”

“Some joke, and not for us.”

“Oh, he’s a joke, but I didn’t say whoever was behind him was joking.”

“Do you suppose the murder and Mr. Harris and the leprosy scare are connected?”

Edward nodded.

“That’s exactly what I do suppose,” answered Edward.

“But who among us has that sort of humour?”

“Among us?” queried Jay aghast. “Surely you don’t think that ghastly letter came from one of us?”

“I think it very likely,” said Edward, with a tight little smile. “It seems so very Bartholomew Row somehow, don’t you think?”

But what would be the points It harmed us all.”

“Yes, that’s the question. We’ve got to find out what is hidden behind all that fandango.” He frowned. “It might have been essential to Dorothy’s murder. After all, she was the one who got hurt most, wasn’t she?”

“You don’t think it could have been the work of some harmless crank? And the letter nothing to do with the murder?”

“What, our Mr. Harris harmless? No, I can’t give up his villainy. I smell it. We must find the old fellow.” .

He swung Jay’s hand happily.

“We owe it to Dorothy. We do owe her a debt, you know.”

Jay pulled her hand away. •

“I’m content to be a bad debtor. That’s not how I see Dorothy at all.”

“But how do you see Dorothy? How do any of us? How do I?”

Jay was silent. On this subject she would have liked to put a few candid questions to Edward…and administer a truth drug while he answered.

“Yes, we must find Mr. Harris,” went on Edward happily, swinging his own hand and not in the least put out.

“And how, darling, darling, darling?” asked Jay irritably.

“I’m not sure how,” said Edward seriously. “Meet me tomorrow, and I’ll let you know.”

When they did meet he was gay and full of plans.

“Mr. Harris for you and me, my popsie,” he said, glancing at Jay teetering along beside him in her high, black suede sandals with the frilly fronts. Sometimes he wished she wasn’t quite so much of a popsie.

Jay looked up at him nervously through her starry, mascara’d lashes.

“Do you put it on with a black-lead brush, love?” asked Edward. Dorothy had had more style. “What happens when you cry?”

“I never do cry.”

“What? Not even a little snivel?”

“Sometimes I hate you, Edward.”

“You got that out of a book, dear.”

Jay stopped.

“If you aren’t a bit nicer, and soon, I won’t come a step farther.”

“I’m nicer now,” said Edward hurriedly. “It’s the mean streak in me coming to the surface. You’re too good to me, Jay, and it’s always tempting to bite the hand that feeds you. Come and look in this shop window with me to avoid Barnabas, who is prowling behind us.”

They stared silently and unseeingly into the window. Then Jay giggled.

“Can you see what I can see?”

“Prams, and cots, and little teddies,” said Edward gloomily. “What ideas we shall be giving Barnabas! Can’t you just hear his eyes popping?”

They turned round to see Barnabas scuttling off in the sunshine, alarmed and intrigued by his speculations.

Edward assumed a brisk, matter-of-fact manner.

“First we must go to the newspaper office to see the letter they got from our friend.”

“I can’t risk meeting that dreadful little reporter again.”

“Nonsense! Why do you suppose I’m taking you? He liked you, took a fancy to you, I noticed at once. So you must be the one to talk to him. You must behave as if he were your best friend.”

“You’ve taught me how best friends are to be treated.”

“Now, now, Jay,” said Edward alarmed. “Be nice to him.”

The newspaper offices were tucked away down a narrow side street. Large glass windows full of shiny photographs and beyond an alley lined with shiny black vans. Jay stopped by the pictures.

“Look! One of us, all of us.”

A candid photographer had caught them all hunched together after the meeting in St. Nicholas’s Hall. There they stood, eyes wide, mouths open.

“Don’t we look scatty? Wouldn’t anyone believe we were murderers?”

“That may have been the idea,” suggested Edward seriously. “To bring you before the public eye in a bad way.”

“You think Mr. H. knew we were not photogenic? He must be one of us, then.”

Inside, the brassy splendour faded to a shabby dusk. Mugs of tea stood about on the unpolished wooden counters, paper was everywhere, and over all the smell of ink and cigarette smoke. An elegant and nylon-bloused young woman stood behind the counter regarding them without interest.

The two stood, suddenly self-conscious, not knowing how to act. They nudged their way gently to the counter.

“What shall we say?” asked Jay.

“I wish I knew.”

But they had no need to break the ice which surrounded the snow queen, for their old friend the reporter appeared through a doorway. He recognised them at once, and seemed as pleased to see Edward as Jay. Quickly, before he could get away, although he showed no signs of wishing to, they whisked him into the Duck and Dodo for a drink.

“Of course I know why you are here,” he said affably.

“Old Harris.”

“Well, that’s very clever of you,” they said, disconcerted.

“Can’t tell you anything. Never saw him. Just a letter.”

“Could we see it?” they suggested diffidently.

“You can’t actually see it,” he said, “because the police have got it.”

“They haven’t!” cried Edward, in disgust.

“That lean young man called Llywelyn. Well, perhaps he isn’t so very young…”

“I know exactly how old he is,” interrupted Edward. “He’s my cousin.”

The journalist looked alarmed.

“Oh, I didn’t mean any harm. I’d no idea you were connected with the police.”

“Only under the skin. Now you must have a copy of this letter. Oh, come, don’t tell me you haven’t. What do you keep a typist for?”

After a few more drinks he was persuaded to admit that such a copy existed, and eventually to agree that it might be found. They returned to the newspaper office, which was.now somewhat livelier.

“Now it ought to be in that file at the back of the cupboard.”

He dislodged a pile of papers. Jay sneezed, dislodging many more. She sneezed again.

“Oh, I am sorry; paper does collect the dust so.”

“What about this drawer with letters A-J on it,” she suggested.

“I might look,” he said, pulling at the drawer with a doubtful expression. Inside were a bottle, an old sock and a packet of indigestion tablets.

“No, I don’t think it’s there.” He shut the drawer, first removing the indigestion tablets and sucking one.

“Have you any idea where it is?”

“A general one. I know we kept it; anyway, we usually do.”

He pulled up a trouser leg and regarded his ankle. It was bare. Thoughtfully, he reopened the drawer and took out the sock. He sat down, removed his shoes, and, still sucking, tried on the sock. It did not fit.

“Odd,” he said, peeled it off and closed the drawer. Edward was hopping with fury.

From an inner room the smart young woman appeared again.

“Looking for anything?” she asked.

“Yes,” agreed the reporter. “My socks, I’ve looked in the files and everywhere.”

“Shame,” she said sympathetically. “Let me help.”

Edward took them both in a vice-like grip.

“Letter first,” he commanded in a stern voice. “Socks afterwards.”

“Oh that,” said the young woman, when the matter was explained to her. “Oh yes, of course I have a copy, in my steel cabinet.”

They rushed to it.

“It tells us nothing,” said Jay, very disappointed. “Nothing. It’s practically the same as the letter we got.”

“It is a disappointment,” said Edward. He turned to the young women, ignoring their older acquaintance who was, in any case, now measuring the sock against his feet with a puzzled look, and asked, “Can you remember anything about the original letter? Sort of paper and so on?”

“Not a sausage, chum,” said the girl. “Tell you one thing—local postmark; I opened it.”

“Thank you,” said Edward, and he gave her a polite bow.

“Now why couldn’t you tell me that?” he said crossly to Jay when they got outside. “Instead of us coming all this way.”

“You didn’t ask me,” she said. “And anyway I never thought.”

Edward’s bad temper melted.

“Anyway, we now know that Mr. Harris is a local man.”

“I believe about forty thousand people live in this borough,” said Jay.

“He’s somewhere in the neighbourhood,” persisted Edward obstinately.

“He might have a car, or even a bicycle, or even be a long-distance walker. I expect he deliberately posted his letter here to confuse you.”

“No,” said Edward. “He lives here. Don’t you see the significance—I ought to have done before—of the use he made of St. Nicholas’s Hall? He is someone who knew it was also going to be used by all those women and children.”

“The verger or the vicar, then?” suggested Jay, unconvinced.

Edward shrugged.

“But we are going to see the vicar. Remember we met him at the meeting.”

They turned the comer to St. Nicholas’s Hall. A row of small houses nestled about the hall, round the comer was the brick Gothic church, and across the road was the vicarage.

The Rev. Mr. Davies was a short, thin Welshman, young and eager to talk. He had just returned from a funeral, and was delighted to greet the two visitors who were looking at the grim exterior of his church.

“Mind you, it’s not a thing of beauty, St. Nicholas—no, you couldn’t call it that. But it hasn’t got deathwatch beetle and it doesn’t let the rain in, and the heating’s good, ! too. I’m glad to be here. My first parish, of course; I’m ¹ only priest in charge.”

“Quite a lively parish, I should think,” reflected Edward, thinking of Mr. Harris, the murder, and the riot.

The Rev. Mr. Davies threw up his hands.

“Lively, you call it? It was dead as the man I’ve just buried when I came here. But, mind you, I’ve done a lot…Organisation, that was what was needed. Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, Brownies, Wives’ Fellowship, Mothers’ Union, Fathers’ Guild, Old People’s Band of Friendship…”

He paused for breath.

“But do they all work?” asked Jay, fascinated.

“We haven’t had a real dustup—not proper black-eye and bruises—for three months,” he said proudly. “Mind you, we had a lot at first, especially with the Old People’s Band of Friendship; but my wife used to be a nurse, and she knew what to do.”

“Yes, she would,” agreed Jay.

“Organisation, that’s the stuff, and feeling. I’ve been able to give it feeling, and that way you get back feeling in return.

“I get the church packed, you know,” he went on. “They come to hear me. I’m a good talker; no use hiding it. I let myself out. And they like it, because they know it’s got real feeling behind—not just words. No, not just words.”

“Yes, I can tell,” agreed Edward.

“Take today at the funeral. Now you might say to me: ‘What’s the funeral of a man you’ve never seen mean to you?’”

“I really don’t think I would have said that,” protested Edward.

“And in a sense you’d be quite right,” continued the Rev. Mr. Davies, unheeding. “He wasn’t a chap who came to my church, not a parishioner, but I know the Coop. manager of the funeral parlour, and seeing we’re on the ’phone, he always sends for me if the family haven’t got their own man lined up. Ten shillings and sixpence, but I give ’em good value for their money. Not just a grave smile and a handshake, and the next bus back. I talk to them.”

“Mr. Davies,” said Edward desperately, “could you talk to us? Do you know a Mr. Harris?”

By this time he hardly knew what he was saying.

“It’s a Welsh name,” the Rev. Mr. Davies informed him. “Perhaps I know thirty Harrises, including my own Grandpa; perhaps I know more, as my cousin Amos has just had twin sons. Which would you mean?”

He seemed willing to run through the catalogue of all his relations.

“I don’t know that the man I want is really called Harris,” said Edward gloomily. “In fact I don’t believe he is.”

“Then how can I be helping you with talking about Harrises,” said the vicar, with a severe look.

Jay sighed. She was a pretty girl, and David Davies was susceptible. Moreover, he was no fool.

“Come,” he said, with a large and charming smile, “there is more in this than I understand. You must tell me.”

He took them in tow to the vicarage where they entered a large, bleak room.

“My study,” he said with pride, although there was no evidence there of such activity. “Have a cup of tea; there’s always some waiting for me after a funeral.”

When they had told their story, they found him up-to-| date on the details of it.

“Well, you do know all about it,” said Jay in surprise.

He patted her hand.

“But it happened in my parish. Of course I know all there is to know. People tell me. You wouldn’t call it gossip.”

“Your parishioners must be remarkably well informed,” said Edward.

“They know all there is to know, of course,” said the Rev. Mr. Davies, surprised in his turn. “You’re a great innocent, Mr. Mortimer (any Welsh blood in you with a name like that?), if you don’t perceive that.”

“Do you think they know the murderer?”

“I expect so, or they think they do. So far they haven’t told me.” He sighed. “I haven’t yet as much of their trust as I could wish.”

Jan was pale with horror at the thought of the omniscience of Mr. Davies’s parishioners.

“But I don’t know your Mr. Harris,” went on the vicar.

“It’s a joke, as you said. Dickens? No, I haven’t read it. I did Wordsworth and the Romantic poets at College, although they weren’t what I expected at all—no, not at all.”

“But you must have some idea how Mr. Harris, whoever he was, could have discovered the date of your Wives’ Fellowship meeting, or whatever it was. The whole confusion was deliberate; it was planned.”

The vicar rubbed his nose thoughtfully.

“I announce such things, of course, in the pulpit on Sunday. He might hear it there, but I really don’t think…”

Then he said suddenly:

“It’s in the parish magazine.”

“Can you give me a list of subscribers?” asked Edward, a new hope flowering.

“What use will that be?” asked Jay irritably. “How could we identify Harris?”

But the Rev. Davies was on his feet.

“My dears, I can do more than give you a list; I can show you a map. It’s my own idea.”

On the old red-flock wallpaper which covered his study walls hung a shiny new map of the district. His parish was roughly triangular in shape, and within his triangle all the roads and alleys were marked with different colours and symbols.

“The colours are for the circulation of the magazine, the symbols indicate church-goers, club members and so on. We won’t bother with those.”

Yellow for a road with ten to fifteen subscribers to the parish magazine, green for a road with under ten, and red for a road with under five.

“And the circulation still rising,” said Rev. Davies, with the pride of a Lord Beaverbrook.

Edward looked at the map helplessly.

“Are there any names?” he asked.

“And what good would they be if we got them?” cried Jay. “Oh, Edward, let’s go.”

Edward moved closer to the map, as close as if he were as short-sighted as Roland or as colour-blind as Barnabas.

“Oh, those streets,” said the vicar, seeing what he was looking at. “Those are the only better-class streets in my district. Built about thirty years ago by a speculative builder, I should think, out for a bit of cheap culture. Tennyson Road, Browning Crescent, Thackeray Avenue—that’s gone down a bit; nice little houses really.”

Tennyson Road, Browning Crescent, Thackeray Avenue…and Dickens Place.

“Dickens Place,” said Edward. “If you were a man with a sense of humour, not a very nice one, and a bit bookish, and if you lived in Dickens Place…”

In his big steel card-index cabinet the vicar turned up the names of the subscribers to the magazine in Dickens Place, Mr. and Mrs. Roth, Miss Scott, ’ Mr. Peebles, The Ledger family.

“It’s a bad road,” said the vicar sadly. “Bad. Must do better than that. It isn’t as if there isn’t a bit of money there. Ought to sell more than four copies.”

“It’s an ill wind,” said Edward happily. “Only four names for us to worry about, and I do believe one of them is Mr. Harris.”

X

DICKENS PLACE was close to the famous St. Nicholas’s Hall, close enough to lend colour to Edward’s conjecture. It was round the comer from the Hall, with the Public Library just round the next comer. Jay and Edward sat on the steps of the Library in the sun, ate sweets, and discussed what to do.

“We could walk up and down and look at the houses and see if any one of them looks like the house of a Mr. Harris.”

“And what should we do if one did, Jay dear? Knock on the door and ran away?”

“Or cry, ‘Wolf, Wolf, come out!’ Yes it is difficult.”

All the same, they did pace up and down the little terrace, staring at each house; but it was a neat, quiet road, and each house had a face as tidy and vacant as its neighbour. There were simply no clues at all.

“No good,” said Edward, suddenly disheartened. “We might as well go home. I thought we might get somewhere. It’s tragic to come so far and achieve so little.”

“Actually it’s only just around the comer from Bartholomew Road,” said the literal Jay.

Edward glanced up the street to where the Public Library displayed its marbled splendours.

“Jay, wait, have you got a book on you? You’re always reading something.”

He gave her a slight shake as if a book would suddenly appear. One did fall from under her arm, and he picked it up gratefully.

“Dreams and Horoscopes,” he said disapprovingly. “Oh no, Jay; really, that won’t do.”

“I believe in luck,” she replied. “I like to know what I may be getting. Anyway, won’t do for what? Haven’t you got a book on you?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” answered Edward.

Jay took it from him and looked at it.

“Songs and Sonnets, by Edward Mortimer. Eddy! You’re worse than I am.”

Edward looked ashamed.

“Anyway, what’s the idea?” she went on.

“A good one. Come with me, my carping, critical love, and we will all the murderers prove. I’m getting quite good at detection.”

With Jay at his heels, he walked boldly, bravely, into the Library. It was early evening, and the room was almost deserted. A few people were idly scanning the big noticeboard pinned with bright book-covers, fewer still were sorting over the books on the shelves. There was one assistant on duty, an aloof, Nefertiti-faced beauty in a grey-and-white print dress. She was arranging cards in an index system.

“Other way in, please,” she said, without looking up when Edward approached.

He halted awkwardly and Jay shuffled her feet. She didn’t know quite what Edward intended to do, but she wanted to play her part. When the girl did look up, and she took her time, she spoke with a disarming politeness.

“Are you a reader?”

“Oh, goodness yes,” said Edward, surprised. “I have been for years.”

“I mean are you a reader here?” said she severely.

Edward shook his head.

“Name and address on here, then,” she said, offering a card.

Edward extricated himself. His turn to smile charmingly.

“I’m afraid I want help from you rather than a book.” She looked surprised.

“Of course, I’ll do anything I can.”

Edward squared his shoulders, and avoided Jay’s sceptical and loving eye.

“The thing is, I borrowed a book from a man on a train, and I can’t remember his exact address. I wrote it down, but of course I lost the paper. It was a local train, this district, and I do remember he said something about Dickens Place.”

“And I suppose you thought as he’d read one book he might read others,” she remarked. “What was his name?”

“Ah, that’s the rub. I can’t remember. It might be Harris.”

Her look was sceptical.

“Not Harris, not here…And certainly not in Dickens Place.”

She was obviously a reader herself.

“Of course, it’s too much to expect that you should remember all your readers from Dickens Place.”

“I do, as a matter of fact. They are not many, and this is a small library.”

Edward looked up hopefully.

“He’s a bookish sort of man, my chap. Doesn’t just read Westerns or thrillers. Might read…well, the classics.”

His precious tongue boggled at the cliché.

“What book did you borrow from him?”

She regarded the book, reluctantly produced for her inspection, with:

“H’m, didn’t do very well, did it? I remember the reviews. Well, I don’t know who would read it here. It wouldn’t be old Mr. Scott. He comes in most frequently, but I believe he gets all the books for his daughter. I don’t believe he can read—he just comes for the company.”

“Love stories,” she added parenthetically.

Edward agreed that it didn’t sound like Mr. Scott was his man.

“Who else? There’s Jack Jones, but he’s too young really to read those poems. Maybe Mr. Peebles? Does that name sound likely?”

Edward and Jay hung upon her words. She rubbed her knuckles.

“No, really, not Mr. Peebles. I remember he died a few months ago.”

Her audience willed her silently to work round to the names of the Roths and the Ledgers, the only two names remaining on the list culled from the Rev. Mr. Davies.

“Oh dear,” said Jay, her voice full of feeling.

But Edward had been reading upside down.

“That book there; it’s a list of books specially asked for by readers, isn’t it? I could look through that, couldn’t I? You can tell so much about a man from what he reads, don’t you agree?”

He was convinced he could identify Mr. Harris from his reading list.

The girl smiled.

“Yes,” she said, grasping the book firmly, “If you tell me why you want to know? You’re Edward Mortimer, aren’t you? I saw you at one of your poetry readings.”

Edward was horrified, and stammered for speech, but Jay, impatiently, seized the iron from him and pushed it straight into the fire. In a rush of ill-chosen words, she told all, or nearly all, that they wanted.

Silently the girl handed over the book, and Edward and Jay fell upon it.

The readers of Dickens Place had decided tastes. Mr. Scott, or perhaps it was his daughter, desired love-stories with a simple romantic flavour. She was Charming, and The

Moon of Delight were the first on her list. A Mr. Barnett, also of Dickens Place, but not a subscriber to the parish magazine of St. Nicholas, wanted A Village Morning, an authoritative account of the life of John Clare, the peasant poet, and The Gardener’s History of the Broad Bean, so perhaps his interests were agricultural rather than literary. Edward pored over his entry for some time, but finally dismissed him.

“Too rustic.”

Mr. Roth seemed to have no desires; and Mr. and Mrs. Ledger wanted to read The Book of the Prizefighter.

“None of these,” said Jay despondently.

“Wait a minute…this is interesting. Name of Lane: Charlotte Bronte and her Circle, Mrs. Gaskell, the new life of, Victorian Peeps and Witnesses.”

Then he added slowly:

“Dickens: the English Humorist.”

He looked up at the librarian, who was eyeing him coldly.

“Tell me about Lane. Now who’s Lane?”

“The Ledgers’ lodger,” she said shortly, snatching the book from him. “I don’t think you’ve told me all you should; you said you were looking for a man.”

• • • •

Mrs. Ledger opened the door to them herself. She was a pretty, plump, agreeable woman, dressed in a frilled gingham dress, with a little white straw hat perched on the top of her head, and wearing (she was obviously just going out) white net gloves. Under one arm was a copy of the Good Housekeeping magazine.

Jay could see beyond her to the hall behind, from which it was clear that she took the advice of her magazine seriously. There were blue walls, glossy white paint and starched yellow curtains. On a well-polished little table rested a copy of the Parish Magazine of St. Nicholas. Jay nudged Edward.

“I rather wanted to see your lodger, Lane is the name, isn’t it? This is the right house?”

“Oh yes,” answered the innocent Mrs. Ledger. “But I don’t think anyone’s home. Were you expected?”

“I said I’d call.”

“Well, I should go up, then.”

“I might leave a note.”

She smiled and took them upstairs, and then pushed them though a white-painted door. She was so willing to please, so anxious to accept their good faith, that it was embarrassing even to that hardened pair.

Ashamed, they stood in the middle of the carpet, deserted by all the propelling curiosity which had pushed them so far.

“Don’t you feel perfectly awful, having pushed your way into a complete stranger’s flat?” whispered Jay. “I know I do.”

The room was a pretty one, as was to be expected in Mrs. Ledger’s house, with a deep green fitted carpet, green-and-white ivy curtains, and green leather chairs. The windows were open. On a table by a gilt mirror stood a great round bowl of white roses, irregularly wreathed with sweet geranium. The blossoms were dropping petals on to the dark wood, the table was lightly covered with dust…over everything was a vague air of suspended living.

“Not only out, but away,” said Edward.

On the mantelpiece was a little gilt clock with a painted face, delicate and pretty. French, decided Edward, and possibly early nineteenth century in date. A few little pieces of china lay about, a frail porcelain figure of a child eating strawberries from a leaf, a curled-up cat, a painted snuffbox. But the little posy of flowers in the Worcester bowl was dead.

His eye moved on.

On a second small table stood a box of cigarettes, a holder, and a long thin roll of pipe-cleaners. In the hearth rested a pair of green leather slippers. A paper-rack contained The Times, the Sports Letter, and several evening papers—all old copies. In the one book-case detective stories rubbed against Mrs. Gaskell, Household Hints for Beauty knocked against A Child’s History of England, and the Footballer’s Year Book leaned against Humbler Antiques. A beer bottle and some sherry glasses stood on a tray next to a box of marzipan chocolates.

Edward looked again at all he had seen. He looked at the frilly curtains, the delicate china, and vague scent on the air.

“A woman lives here,” he said.

“I think we ought to go,” said Jay nervously. “This woman may come back. Whatever would we say to her? We’ve been absolutely mad, Edward. You had me hypnotised for a bit, so I thought there was something in it; but now we must go.”

They moved to the door.

“Wait a minute,” said Edward. He tried, gently, to open the drawer of the elegant rosewood desk. It moved easily…it was empty, so was the next, and the next, and the next. The whole delicate honeycomb of drawers and pigeon-holes was bare.

Boldly he penetrated to the bedroom. Here doors gaped and cupboards stood open, tissue-paper clouded the floor, and cord festooned the four marks on the soft green quilt where a heavy box had rested.

Someone had packed and gone.

“But nothing to do with us,” said Jay uneasily.

Edward shook his head.

“I’m right, you know. Unbelievably, monstrously, my ridiculous game has come off.”

He lifted the book from the bedside table.

“Look!”

The History of Martin Chuzzlewit.

“The woman in this flat is Mr. Harris.”

But Jay was staring at the dressing-table, at the gay lipstick and the bottle of perfume stamped with lilies of the valley, and the blue-and-white dressing-case slipped underneath.

“Was,” she said, “was Mr. Harris…She was Dorothy.”

XI

“YOU’R playing with fire,” said Sergeant Llywelyn sternly to Edward. “You don’t know what you’ve got your hand in.” They were sitting drinking beer, and Edward had made his confession to his cousin.

“What makes you think I’m playing?” asked Edward, remembering Dorothy.

“And just how fond of this Dorothy were you? I’ve kept the old man at bay pretty well, but I can’t keep him off you for ever, and I don’t know if I want to.”

“I hardly knew her,” said Edward, rolling an olive between his fingers.

“You keep saying that, and it’s no answer.”

“Oh, stop pestering me.”

“I’m thinking of who might get hurt,” said his cousin sombrely.

And I know who you’re thinking of, decided Edward. Another one on Jay’s side.

He moved his head irritably. “It was a shock, I can tell you, finding Dorothy’s things there, and realising that she had lived there.”

“It was a shock you brought on yourself. You didn’t have to go poking round there.”

“You went.” For the Sergeant had turned up at Mrs. Ledger’s just as Jay and Edward were leaving. He had found his way there by more orthodox routes than they had followed—the address had been scribbled in a diary in Dorothy’s purse.

“It’s my job.”

“Oh, don’t sound so patient. Yes, I do try your patience, don’t I? I can hear it in your voice. My God, did she have two homes, though? What about the other place? What was she up to?”

“If we knew that, we’d know the answer to everything,” replied the Sergeant in an expressionless voice.

“If she sent that letter—and the way I’ve worked it out’ she must have done—then she must have had something i in mind.”

“Unless it was sheer malice.”

“Not Dorothy; no, not her!” said Edward, tearing the olive apart with his nails.

“Well, you couldn’t call her a straightforward character, could you? Two homes and all.”

“No, I don’t; I never have. I always said there was more to her than the pretty painted piece Jay or Louie saw, or the smart secretary that Roland noticed.”

“But you didn’t think what lay behind was this?”

“What is this? that’s what I don’t get.”

. The Sergeant shrugged.

“Haven’t you got any ideas?”

“Not a one.”

Edward went back to tearing the hearts out of his olives. With the comer of his eye he saw Jay appear. She wasn’t a bad detective herself, that girl. She certainly always knew where to find people—if she was interested enough.

The long, low bar was crowded, although it was comparatively early in the evening. The strong yellow plastic benches, and the dark blue tables, the bowls of olives, onions and soft potato crisps displeased Edward even while he responded to their spurious gaiety. In his neat grey suit and Paisley tie he fitted into the sleek, smooth place. Nevertheless the Sergeant was at home here and Edward was not.

Jay wobbled over to them on her high sandals and platform soles.

“You took some finding,” she said crossly. “Going off: and leaving me like that.”

“Jay darling, I didn’t leave you,” answered Edward, getting up and drawing her a chair. “I just went on ahead.”

“Yes, without bothering to tell me where you were going.”

“Well, you’ve come.”

“Small thanks to you. Lager, please. Lord, I’m hot!” She moved uncomfortably in the bright chair.

“Well, what do you think of your lovely Dotty now?” she inquired triumphantly.

“I’m not thinking.”

“I’ve always thought there was something of the ostrich about you,” muttered Jay, arranging her fluttering skirts. Her neighbours eyed her with appreciation, even the Sergeant warmed a little, only Edward remained aloof.

“I prefer not to draw conclusions without some facts to go on.”

“You’ve got some facts now, though, haven’t you?” pointed out Jay. “Oh, Sergeant, it did give me a fright to see you and the Inspector walking down Dickens Place. How did you get on to it? We thought we were ever so clever.”

But the Sergeant refused to explain the police methods.

“We had the original letter, after all,” he reminded her. “And Edward isn’t the only one to be able to see from A to B.”

“He’s the only one not to like it when he gets there, though,” giggled Jay, looking at his disgruntled face. “Personally I’m glad to have found out what she was.”

“But we haven’t found out anything,” said Edward. “Don’t you see that all we’ve discovered makes the whole thing the more confusing? It deepens the mystery. Lord, what a cliché!”           .

“Oh, go on. I can understand what you’re saying, anyway, which is more than I often do.”

“What was she doing with that room, that flat? And I think of the way it looked. You know what her other place was like, Ted; you’ve been there. Jay, you know what it looked like.”

The Sergeant nodded thoughtfully.

“They are different,” agreed Jay. “You’re absolutely right. I never thought of it. The place I went to with her, well…it’s cheaper somehow, with all that pale wood and light oak. Mind you, it looks all right, because she always could do things, but the other flat…it was richer, more elegant, wasn’t it? And it looked cared for. Her other room didn’t, really. I always thought, well, Dolly’s one of those girls who’s neat herself, but not a home-maker.”

She looked at the two men.

“She was always immaculate herself: white gloves, white waistcoat (gilets we call them); they were always gleaming.”

Edward nodded absently, while Jay hastily tucked her off-white gloves into her bag, well out of Edward’s gaze.

“But her other place always looked as if she didn’t really live there,” she concluded.

“And apparently she didn’t,” observed Llywelyn.

“Goodness, I’m thirsty!” said Jay hopefully, losing interest in her theme now her speech was finished. “Oh, thank you, Ted. May I call you Ted? It seems so funny when you are a policeman, but you are, Edward’s cousin.

“But you know,” she went on, “it’s all very puzzling. Where did all the money come from? How could she afford two flats? I can hardly afford one. And why did she want them? Don’t tell me she paid for them out of what she earned typing old Roland’s letters.”

“There’s one obvious answer,” said Ted.

“And don’t I wish I could believe it,” said Jay. “But there’s more to it than sex, I swear. There’s all this Harris business. Now that was her.”

Jay sat back to sip her beer. The Sergeant’s face was expressionless. Edward began to understand that it hid more knowledge than he himself had yet come to.

“What do you know about all this letter and leprosy stuff, Ted?” he demanded.

The Sergeant shrugged. “It’s true enough that leprosy germs survive a long time, or at any rate take a long time to incubate. It may even be inherited. But the germs don’t hang about for centuries. No, there was no real cause for alarm. As the writer of the letter probably knew very well, I suppose. No, the whole thing was designed to get you all down.”

“Just for fun,” inquired Jay.

“I doubt it.” His face was grim. “Although someone may have also thought it a good joke.”

“A scare like that would bring the value of the property down, wouldn’t it?” inquired Edward, his thoughts running on.

“It certainly would,” said Jay with feeling, as she ate an onion. She had had nothing to eat except the sweets on the Library steps, and she was prepared to ignore Edward’s frown of distaste. Supposing she did smell of onions? He could keep away from her. He seemed inclined to, anyway. “It certainly would lower the value of our property,” she said between bites. “And me with a mortgage sitting on my shoulders. But we’ve heard no more about the leprosy since the murder.”

“You think Dorothy was behind it, then?” asked the Sergeant, turning his cold blue eyes on her.

“If she started the alarm, she wouldn’t have let it die down—not she,” declared Jay.

“So you all had a motive for wishing her dead?”

Jay drew a breath in horror and protest.

“But none of us knew. Until she was killed we’d no more idea than fly.”

“I wonder…so you say. But I think one of you knew.”

The atmosphere of the bar was changing, the thick stratum of regulars was being overlaid by casual evening arrivals from theatre and concert. A few long dresses and dinner-jackets graced the little tables; there was even one fat form in tails.

The Sergeant got them fresh drinks—long, cool pale ones, in which the ice was still unmelted. Jay tasted hers with gratification—there were unexpected advantages from being on good terms with the police.

Llywelyn went on with what he had to say.

“All we do know is that she was last seen walking down Bartholomew Row at four in the afternoon. From then on she disappears until she is found dead, by you, the next morning. Where did she go? How did she go? Why did no one see her?”

“If I knew I’d tell you,” said Jay earnestly.

“I’m sure of one thing—she went into one of your little shops; she went into one, and didn’t come out alive. But which?”

“What a horrible imagination you have!” said Jay, with a pale face. “But I thought that was just the sort of thing the police could always find out, what with vacuum cleaners and tests and finger-prints.”

“We can and have discovered a hundred traces of her, but she was in and out of the Row every day of her life. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for traces of her to have been found everywhere from Louie’s couches to George’s potting-shed.”

“Did you really find anything in George’s?” asked Jay, very interested. “Now, that’s very suspicious. Can’t imagine Dorothy going anywhere near a garden.”

“I’m suspicious all the time, and of all of you.”

“But why should any of us think of associating her with this horrible scheme?” asked Jay, reverting to her old point. “And what could it all have meant to her?”

“What indeed?” said Llywelyn, looking at Edward.

Edward drew patterns on the table with his finger, damp from the massacre of the olives.

“Have you had a word with Roland?” he asked. “After all, he was the last person to see her.”

“I have had a word with Roland, and he thinks what I see you are beginning to think. Now. He didn’t want to believe it at first.”

“It is incredible.”

“Not at all. She only needed to be a bit of an opportunist, which she clearly was.”

“She had her nerve, though,” said Edward reluctantly. “I suppose that’s what she must have been up to at headquarters; only they never proved it.”

“Proved what?” squeaked Jay.

“Oh, do be quiet, ducky! If you can’t be quiet, be clever. Work it out.”

“Work out what?” repeated Jay sullenly.

Edward in his turn got to his feet and returned carrying three drinks and some olives. He arranged everything on the little table.

“Sweets to the sweet,” he said, offering the bowl of olives to Jay.

“But they’re sour!” protested Jay, having obediently popped one into her mouth.

He smiled at her kindly and returned his attention to the Sergeant. The Sergeant looked anxious and got Jay a glass of water. He turned a reproachful gaze on Edward.

“Better keep all your questions for Roland. He’ll be here in a moment.”

Jay dabbed the water from her face.

“Roland, too,” she sighed. “My lovely evening.”

“Are you expecting him?” asked Edward, watching the Sergeant’s face.

“I suggested he drop in.”

The swing doors to the bar stood permanently open upon the hot summer evening. From the pavement drifted the dust and summer smells of the city, across the road someone played an aria from Tosca on the gramophone, not so far in the distance the traffic rumbled.

A party of three crowded the doorway. They were gay young things straight from a party, a man in a light summer suit, and two girls in fluttering shantung and long ear-rings. Behind them came Roland. He waved and limped across.

“Time that leg got better,” said Jay, still sour from her olive, “if there ever was anything wrong with it. Who does he think he is? Lord Byron?”

“I didn’t know there was going to be a party,” said Roland when he arrived. He was slightly resentful.

“How kind of you to call me a party!” remarked Jay.

“Oh Jay! I didn’t see you. What a pretty dress, my dear!”

Jay looked down at her once fresh, now drooping cotton.

“How I learned to like women: a lesson in three easy stages,” she muttered into her glass.

Edward kicked her ankle.

“What I like about you is the way you treat me,” she said. “Every day, in every way, you get kinder and kinder.”

The Sergeant dragged his chair round so that he was between Edward and Jay. He picked up her white bag, which was lying on the floor, and put it gently on her lap.

“It’ll get so dirty,” was all he said.

Edward felt the mute reproach. He sighed.

“We want something stronger than beer and these pallid liquids. Roland, brandy?”

Over the brandy, expensive and minute, feelings became more friendly. Jay had taken some aspirin, therefore her head ached less, and the tightness round her mouth and eyes slackened. Edward had taken her hand, therefore her spirits were higher. It was an awkward arrangement, as her Sergeant was still squeezed between them, and Roland still observed them acidly over his brandy, but it made Jay happier.

“There’s nothing official in this little talk, of course,” said the Sergeant.

“So I supposed,” said Roland, with his eyes on Jay. “And of course you haven’t mentioned anything to your Inspector.”

This Llywelyn did not answer. He put away from his mind the thoughts that were boiling there, but worry returned obstinately when he looked at his cousin and Jay together, worry for he hardly knew whom. The heat had loosened Jay’s tight curls, and made her face pale. She looked young and tired. At once, as if touched by his glance, she began to say that she must go home, because of her boy.

“And I think I’ve had enough of detection for one night.”

“I should have known better than to trust a woman,” said Roland, smoothly and suddenly, “Indeed, I hardly did. Normally there was so little to trust her with. Just this one thing, this one occasion, one opportunity…and she took it.”

Nameless thoughts were on his lips. Jay looked from one to the other with puzzled eyes.

“And back the whole thing will go to the Ministry, I suppose,” went on Roland grimly. “I’ll be lucky if I’m not sent to the provinces.”—He felt like a Russian in a Chekov play about the provinces.

Edward leaned forward. “It’s the Lion and Unicorn Scheme, isn’t it? The three hundred flats and God knows what unit? I thought so. Sharp of her to see the possibilities, but I suppose she’d done it before. We weren’t sharp were we?”

I Roland looked more worried than ever. “I’m afraid not. You know all the discussion there has been of it, and of the plan to extend it with a race-course. The Ministry have only just said yes, but Dorothy had been handing the word out. I’ve been through the files, and there are indications—indentations, copying marks, nothing much; but there if you looked for them. There are even,” he blenched, “one, or two papers missing. She’d been at them all right.”

He breathed heavily. “And this evening the Minister’s secretary himself ’phoned down to ask what was this about leakage and speculation.”

“Explain it in words we can all follow,” said Jay breathlessly.

Roland looked down at his drink.

“Dorothy was keeping someone a jump ahead with information about what the Ministry thought of all these big building projects. It meant that anyone interested could try to buy up the available land in good time before prices rose.” He paused. “I think it may have meant, too, that the speculator concerned could try to see that it was for sale, and at a low price, by using unfair pressures.”

“Like the leprosy scare,” said Llywelyn grimly. “She was bribed, I suppose?”

Roland shrugged, “Of course, she didn’t do it for love. Not Dorothy. She was bribed either by a competitor of the Lion and Unicorn Scheme, or by the Lion and Unicorn people themselves. Well, that’s for you to discover, Llywelyn. It opens a motive for her murder, though.”

“What do you mean?” said Jay.

“Dorothy was behind the scheme to drive you all out of the Row in double-quick time. From what you and Edward discovered about her, it looks as though she wrote the very Harris letters. Bartholomew Row had turned into a goldmine, and Dorothy meant to do the digging. Well, one of you found out. And that’s why she was murdered.”

“But did Dorothy write that letter?” asked Edward soberly, “I’m having second thoughts.”

“Go on,” said his cousin Llywelyn.

“It all looks so simple the way Roland describes it, B follows A, and C follows B. But there’s more to it than that, I swear. Dorothy’s dead, but there’s more to come. We’re in the middle, not at the end. What part did Dorothy really play? I wish to God I knew.”

Jay was the only person sitting where she could see out of the window; therefore she was the only one who saw the old man with the Wrath of God on his mind linger outside with his face turning this way and that. You might have said he was looking for somebody. Somebody or something.

No one else was taking any notice of the little group. The bar was still crowded, and Edward’s voice did not rise above the noise and smoke.

“I found that flat of Dorothy’s by accident. I was looking for Mr. Harris, and I was led to where she lived. That was just luck. But now you’ve been there, Ted,” he said, turning in triumph to his companion; “now you’ve been there you know it is important. It’s where she really lived.”

“We’d have found it soon enough by ourselves,” said Llywelyn patiently, answering the unspoken comment. “And perhaps it would have been better if we had. You know what Winter is. And he’s touchy enough about the whole affair. He could argue you found it because you knew where to look.”

Roland’s face was yellow. “Is that the sort of way he thinks? The Inspector would do well to remember that cuts both ways. Where are the police in this business? I can’t find their position easy to understand, I can tell you. As long as I’ve known the Row I’ve found myself wondering if someone there didn’t have a pull with the police. It would explain a lot. You’d better remember Caesar’s wife.”

“That’s an ugly suggestion,” said Llywelyn. He recalled that it had been made once before in this case.

Edward finished his drink hurriedly and got up.

“We can’t go on talking here. Especially if that is the way you are going to talk, Roland. I think you’d do better to hold your tongue. Come up to my place, all of you.”

Jay gripped her handbag tightly. So far she had not seen his flat, although she knew well enough where it was. She viewed her advancement of knowledge and intimacy with pleasure and with caution. You never knew with Edward. The prospect was slightly spoilt by the inclusion of Roland. But there was the Sergeant, for whom she was beginning to develop a taste.

“A policeman, too,” she said to herself. “You are a one, Jay. Hope he hasn’t been doing anything too silly himself. I did see him once with Dorothy, I’m sure. Poor boy!…That old Roland.”

She gave Roland a hostile stare, and then, seeing that he wasn’t going to finish his drink, put out a quick hand and drained it. She then did the same service for the Sergeant. At once she felt much stronger.

“Forward, Edward,” she said, waving her bag, and resting affectionately against the Sergeant.

Edward lived at the top of a tall house. They climbed four flights of stairs, each narrower than the last, until they were looking down on the trees in their summer bloom. They were looking down on Barnabas, too, for he suddenly appeared from the gloom of the stairs where he had been sitting. He wiped the dust from his corduroy trousers with a clean handkerchief, and gave them a nervous smile.

“Oh, here you are,” he said. “And don’t ask me if I’m waiting for you.”

“All right, then, I won’t,” said Edward, unlocking his door and removing the letters and a newspaper which were waiting for him. “But why are you waiting?”

“Because Louie and I knew you two were up to something, and we felt we ought to know what it was.”

“Why didn’t Louie come herself?”

“She’s got one or two little jobs on hand herself,” was the evasive answer. “Besides, Edward, I am your friend.”

“I’m not playing friends in this game.”

“Goodness! you do sound tough.” Barnabas came up and peered into Edward’s face. “Are you sure you haven’t been seeing too many rough American films? You look to me just like…”

“Oh, do go on in, dears,” said Jay, pushing into the room, “I’m tired of waiting. Barnabas, you’ve got dust on your face.”

She went on into the room, looking round her curiously as she walked. She wanted to take in as much as possible, and because she had that sort of memory, she thought she would. It was apparent that Edward had decorated his room—if indeed he had done it at all—and not just walked straight into it, in a blue mood. A dark blue carpet ran to the wall, white-and-blue check curtains of a sort of rough tweedy cotton ran to the floor, covering a long window which looked down to the street below. Books were piled upon a desk in the comer and neatly stacked all round the room. On the table stood a bottle and several glasses. The room had the stale wooden shut-up smell of a room long closed.

Jay wrinkled her nose, and opened the window. The noise of the street rose sharply up to her.

“My God! that window’s dangerous. It terrifies me. Why don’t you do something about it?”

“I won’t jump out of it,” answered Edward absently. “Don’t open the window.”

“Someone had to do something to clear out the dead air. If you told me you hadn’t been living here for a week I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Well, I hope you have been living here for the past week or two,” interposed the Sergeant apprehensively. “In the circumstances it would be particularly tiresome for you if you hadn’t.”

“What circumstances?” said Barnabas, bustling forward. “Something has been going on.”

“Dorothy’s been leading a double life,” said Jay. “A double-bed life,” she ended, with a gentle hiccough. “And we think she was Mr. Harris.”

Barnabas made wide eyes, and tried to look surprised. “Extraordinary.”

“Go on,” said Jay. “You thought so yourself, I expect.” Edward gave Jay a sharp look. “You don’t know that either of those two things is true.”

“Think so,” said Jay, smiling happily to herself. “Think so.”

“Sit down.” He gave her a little push so that she fell backwards into a chair. “Now tell us what it is you think and why?”

Jay looked up at the little ring of faces. Through her haze of satisfaction she felt a touch of menace. Roland stared at her in a hostile way, Barnabas with a greedy curiosity, and Edward looked implacable. She looked to the Sergeant, but he would not meet her eyes.

“You look so odd,” she said. “Like conspirators.” In spite of herself she giggled. “Can I have a drink?”

She blinked her eyes, and looked again at the ring of faces, but now it was gone. Roland was sitting down, and so was the Sergeant. Barnabas was rubbing at his face before a pocket mirror, and Edward was getting her a drink.

“So sorry,” he was saying, with contrition in his voice. “Sherry?”

“As it’s all you’ve got, yes.”

Everyone took sherry, and even Llywelyn held a glass. Edward dragged a chair up to face Jay, and then he took her hand, and spoke seriously. “I want you to think about that room of Dorothy’s. You’ve got a good visual memory, haven’t you?”

“I remember the things I see, if that’s what you mean. A dressmaker has to be like that. You can’t design originally all the time, and so sometimes you have to—well, copy.”

Edward nodded. “When we first saw that room we jumped to the conclusion that Dorothy must have written those letters just because she lived there. But perhaps we were too quick. What you said just now makes me wonder if, unconsciously, you haven’t noticed the truth about that room. Go on thinking about it.”

His victim nodded reluctantly.

“Shut your eyes and think about it. Think about the sitting-room. Tell me all there was in it.”

Jay opened her eyes. “But I’m not a camera.”

“I meant everything you can remember. Don’t get cross now, dear.”

They started.

“I can’t seem to remember anything,” announced Jay plaintively. “My mind’s a blank. It’s that aspirin on top of the brandy. All I can see is that parson, Davies. Oh, what a scream!” She began to giggle weakly.

Edward went into his little kitchen and presently returned with some coffee. It was black, sugarless, and cold. He forced it upon a still-giggling Jay.

They started again, with Jay obediently relaxed in a chair, her eyes closed.

“That’s right; lean back and take it comfortably. Now, let’s start once more. Think of that ridiculous woman who let us in. Begin with her.”

Jay was silent.

“Jay, Jay!” His voice was rising. “Jay, are you thinking?…Damn the woman! she’s gone to sleep.”

Her head fell gently forward on to his shoulder. Even in her sleep the poor girl had no taste.

This time Edward returned from the kitchen with hot coffee and a plate of buttered toast. His manner was determined.

The food revived Jay even more than the hot drink, and she started a third time upon her task with gaiety.

“Dear old Mrs. Ledger in her frilly dress; yes, she let us in. Then we went into the room. I didn’t know what to make of it at first. I didn’t like it. Then I thought, well, it’d grow on you, this style of thing. Really smart. By the door, as we came in, was a sort of bureau…dark wood it was, with a reddish glow. A bowl of flowers on the top, I think.”

“Go on.”

“Bookshelves round the wall to the window. I did glance at the books, but I can’t honestly remember much about them.”

“I noticed those—one of the few things I do notice. They were a mixed lot.”

Together they catalogued the room. The mantelpiece with the delicate china and enamelled boxes, the table with its load of papers and cigarettes, came under their observation.

Jay screwed her face up.

“Something long and white. Oh yes, pipe-cleaners. Suppose D. used them to clean her cigarette-holder. Some people do. Or perhaps she used them to curl her hair.”

“What a sordid idea!” said Edward, revolted. “Do you really think she did? It’s important now.”

“No,” replied Jay, driven to a reluctant honesty. “No, she hadn’t got that sort of hair. It curled naturally, or maybe Louie helped it a little. Dotty was close about that sort of thing.”

“What about the hearth?”

“Was there anything? Oh, a screen—an embroidered one. Looked like Marie Antoinette or something…Yes, and there was a pair of leather slippers.”

Edward leaned forward, excited now.

“Go on. What colour were they, and how big?”

“Oh green, and pretty—pretty big.” Her voice was coming slowly. “Pretty big—bigger than I should have thought…”

“Jay think; add it up. Sporting books on the shelves, together with pipe-cleaners and leather slippers.”

She looked at him uncertainly.

“Two people were living there; that’s what you mean, isn’t it? And they were a man’s slippers.”

“Yes, two people were living there, and one of them was a man…Jay, we’ve found Mr. Harris.”

Ideas were jostling for expression on Jay’s tongue…

She put out a hand to touch them. Edward took it into his own.

“Slippers, and sport, and a pipe! He sounds dreadfully like old George, doesn’t he?”

The little group of faces hanging over her received this with a strange calm. The Sergeant nodded, and Barnabas drew in a deep breath—perhaps of relief.

“You may be right,” said Edward, almost as if he were too tired to care any more.

“But there’s more than that, Edward,” whispered Jay, who was now seeing things she would have preferred not to. “In the bedroom—you don’t like that, do you? but that isn’t what I meant. In the bedroom on the dressing-table there was a little bottle of Muguet des Bois scent and a box of peppermint creams.” She said dully, “I always notice that scent, you see, because I hate it. My husband loved it.”

She paused. “Rebecca always wears it. That spells Rebecca to me. Rebecca has been there, too.”

XII

JAY muttered and turned in her sleep that night. Rebecca was on her mind. She dreamt, and woke, and slept again.

Edward lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. His thoughts were not pleasing to him, but he had not expected them to be. He had for a long time now seen where he was going, and although he had not liked the view, he had not been able to stop his progression. We must see about Rebecca, he thought.

His cousin, too, had Rebecca on his mind. That girl, he decided, would have to be watched. He recalled Roland’s remark about Caesar’s wife and flinched away from it. He switched on the light and took his Bible from the table. It fell open at the Book of Job.

Rebecca herself slept sweetly and quietly. The next day, however, was not a good one for her. It started off well enough with a brisk, satisfactory exchange between her and the conductor of the bus that brought her to work on the matter of her fare. Once in the Row her spirits dropped and she remembered what she had on her mind. She decided to go into Rosy’s and have a quick cup of coffee. She was no sooner installed than the place was filled with a flurry of Barnabas’s pupils, who were naturally spending as much time as possible in the neighbourhood in case they should miss anything. Anyway, they didn’t miss Rebecca, nor the tension in her face. They rather admired her because she dressed so well and had such a sharp tongue, but they felt no compunction in getting what they could out of her.

“You might as well tell us why you look so mumpish,” they said, sharpening their little hatchets.

“What’s the worst? Do you know something about this murder?”

“Of course I don’t.”

They clustered round her while Rosy served their coffee. Usually Rosy was glad to exploit their custom, for they ate and drank a good deal, and tipped with the lavish hand of those who had never earned a penny. But she was also not above complaining sometimes, as she poured their drinks and sugared their doughnuts, about the idle rich. They assured her that they were far from idle.—Look how hard we work every day with that old slave-driver, Barnabas, they pointed out, and in the evenings, too, there’s homework and parties. You’ve no idea, they said, how hard we debs work.

“Work’s something you get paid for,” answered Rosy, with an honest working-class reaction to labour.

Rosy was cross now and urged them to hurry up. They explained they were talking to Rebecca.

“Rebecca’s in love,” said the youngest and prettiest, with a moonstruck look. Since her dinner with Edward she had been in love herself.

“I say it’s the murder,” said another.

“You talk too much about murder,” growled Rosy. “I should think you’d have something better to do.” She boiled up the morning’s brew of coffee muttering savagely to herself. She was out of sorts this morning.

Meanwhile they buzzed like cheerful flies around Rebecca, who although, as always, too flattered by their invitations to refuse, was not comfortable and sat there in sullen silence.

“Well, then, it’s a man,” they continued, returning to their first speculation. “Is he too young for you, Rebecca?”

This was frequently so in their own circle.

Rebecca protested angrily that she did like a manly man.

“Can’t be anyone from here, then,” they said mirthfully. “You couldn’t call any one of them that, could you, except old George?”

“And Edward,” sighed the prettiest young thing, reminiscently. She had enjoyed her evening with him.

But when Rebecca had departed in a flurry of temper, it was observed that she had entered George’s shop.

Within, George was pottering among his plants, his arms held stiff, and thick with bandages.

“That cat,” he grumbled. “Teeth like needles.”

“The only sharp thing there is about him, then,” replied Rebecca. “He can’t hear very much and his eyes are bad, and he’s been lame in the back leg ever since Louie trod on him in her new spike heels. Cruel to keep him alive.”

“Except his smell,” pointed out George gloomily. “That’s sharp enough.”

Rebecca agreed.

“Terrible lot of acid he must have in him.”

“They say we all have…burn a hole in the carpet; kill us all, you’d think.”

“Yes,” said Rebecca, shifting uneasily. “Well, that’s more or less what I came about.”

“Come round the back,” said George, putting on his spectacles.

“I’d rather stay out here,” answered Rebecca, moving back.

Neither of them was aware of the eager eyes observing them.

“What do you think he is going to do?” they asked each other with delighted horror. “Will he attack her?”

“More likely the other way round; it’s poor old George who looks nervous.”

George and Rebecca faced each other with anger.

‘I’ve simply got to talk to you-about it, George. As a man…”

“Now, Rebecca, you’re above yourself; you don’t really know what you are saying. You go and have a nice cup of tea, and soothe down.”

“I’ve had a cup of coffee.”

“Tell you what, I’ll make you a cup. Shan’t be a minute.” And he darted for the door of his little back room.

Outside, eyes grew wide.

“He’s trying to get away,” was the murmur. “Goodness, who’d have thought it of Rebecca.”

Rebecca, ignorant of the audience, had seized George’s coat.

“It’s a matter of life and death, George.”

“Now, my dear, you’re hysterical. How could a matter of life and death touch me?”

“The murder could,” said Rebecca bleakly. “How stupid you are, George!”

He flapped his arms, his white coat waving.

“Go away, go away, my girl. Here, take this pot plant as a present. Don’t pay me…it’s for you.”

“Now he’s throwing things at her,” said the audience.

“And now she’s throwing them back.” They went on watching Rebecca.

But in fact it had fallen through her limp fingers.

“Oh, George,” she was saying weakly. “Please don’t fob me off. If you don’t talk to me, I shall have to go to the police…and I don’t want to do that. You don’t want me to, do you?”

But George no longer knew what he was saying.

“All right, all right; I’ll give you what you like. Have some flowers; take what you want. Money; now money would be difficult…”

With a shaking hand he pressed flowers upon her.

“But George, George,” protested his victim.

“Now he’s covering her with flowers,” said the entranced spectators.

They saw Rosy, and pounced on her gleefully.

“Look, Rosy, look,” they said, pointing. “Do come and look. George and Rebecca are practically swooning at each other.”

“What!” cried Rosy, dropping the biscuits she was carrying, but retaining a useful grip on the jug of coffee. “You be careful what you are saying, you wicked girls. George is engaged to me.”

She opened George’s door with a swing, pushing Rebecca into George’s arms, which closed convulsively around her. Above Rebecca’s flower-bedecked form rose George’s red, spectacled, anxious face.

“Rosy!” he said apprehensively.

“Yes, Rosy. You didn’t expect me, I suppose, just now? How could you carry on in this way in front of these innocent girls outside?”

George’s horrified eyes met the interested scrutiny of the ring of onlookers, now joined by a window-cleaner and one or two odd little boys.

“Witnesses,” he gasped. He had had one or two brushes with the police courts, and knew the danger of witnesses.

“Yes, witnesses, you horrible old man. Covering the girl with plants!”

She cast a look of scorn at the dazed and silent Rebecca.

“You’re a fool,” she said, “to think anything of George.” Rosy picked up one of the shattered pot plants.

“Fuchsia!” she exclaimed. “And you’ve never even given me a daisy.”

George winced from the grip on his bandaged arm.

“Hurt, you old liar? I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with your arm. You made it all up to get sympathy.

“Or if there is,” she raged on, changing her ground. “It wasn’t that poor animal’s fault. You did it yourself, I expect…Or Dorothy did,” she said, as a new idea occurred. “Dorothy! You attacked her like you did Rebecca, and she scratched you. All that stuff on your arm was just a cover-up; you knew the police would suspect anyone with a scratch.”

By now she was screaming.

“You’re a ravening beast, that’s what you are. I don’t know why I ever trusted myself to you. Give me back my Worcester tea-pot I lent you, and my aunt’s lustre jug.”

Hysterically, she burst into tears. Rebecca was already weeping quietly. George’s lips puckered, and a few tears gathered behind his spectacles.

The audience looked on in sympathetic silence. The whole scene had been conducted, as was usual in the Row, in high-pitched shouts, and they had enjoyed every word.

Everyone had heard except Ellen. She happily pushed her way through the crowd at the door.

“I’ve come, Mr. George,” she said. “You said you wanted me.”

In Rosy’s fevered mind there was only one interpretation. Her voice rose to a wail.

“You beast!” she shouted, lifting the coffee-jug to pour its contents over him. “Isn’t anyone safe from you?”

George, dripping with coffee and tears, stood dumb. Rebecca fled.

Of course, the Row simply couldn’t wait to tell Jay what had happened between Rebecca, Rosy and George. Heads were out to watch for her.

“Late this morning, isn’t she?” sighed Louie.

“Yes,” said Barnabas uneasily.

He had his own reasons for understanding that the girl might be late and tired. Perhaps they had rather gone at her last night. He, too, sighed. It was really too exhausting having a kind heart in Bartholomew Row: there were so many opportunities for it to twinge. He had told Louie all, or nearly all, about last night. She certainly knew about Dorothy’s double life and about Rebecca. And she said it didn’t surprise her at all. Barnabas sighed again. It was always depressing when Louie was in one of her holier-than-thou moods. He strolled out, anxious to be the first to tell Jay that her assistant had just left in hysterics. He wasn’t quick enough to shake off Louie, though, and she rushed up behind him, commenting breathlessly on the heat of the day. George gave them an anxious look from behind his geraniums, then strolled out to meet them. Rosy came to stand at her door. When Jay appeared they all began to talk at once. She was pale and tired, but, having Rebecca on her mind, she soon understood what they were telling her.

“And didn’t one of you go after her?” she asked at once. “What a lot you are! I shall have to go myself.”

“Not my fault,” muttered George. “The whole business is a mistake. Ellen only coming to me with a message, and Rebecca only wanted to tell me something. May have been important. Never know now.”

He was maintaining a nervous reserve on a few topics. Had Rebecca been trying to blackmail him? Regretfully he decided that he may have lost his head.

“Only got your word for that,” muttered Louie to herself. “Funny you giving her all those flowers.”

But George heard and began to comment bitterly on women; he refused to be reconciled to Rosy and sulked in his tent.

“I’ve always been devoted to you, Rosy,” he said as he went. “And this is how you repay me.”

Rosy had recovered her poise, if not her spirits. She loudly regretted the loss of George.

“I’ve lost him, Louie,” she lamented. “After all these years, I’ve lost him.”

“Well, I wonder how much you ever had him, dear,” answered Louie with a yawn. “He’s a shady character, our George.”

But Rosy, like Orpheus, preferred a shade to nothing, and her tears flowed afresh.

Louie was bored with this. Besides, she felt every one of them had troubles. She gave Rosy a few sharp little pats on the shoulder.

“Oh, dry up, dear! There’s other fish in the sea.”

She kept to herself the thought that any fish’d be happier in a deep freeze than permanently tied up with Rosy.—All she wants really is someone to take out and look at now and again to see if they’re in a good state of preservation. Don’t blame George. Must remember to go and cheer him up.

She gave Rosy another pat, then turned her attention to Jay:

“You do look a sight, dear. What have you been doing? Mustn’t let yourself go. After all, you’re getting to the crucial age. Once you’re over twenty-six (you’re about thirty, dear, aren’t you?) every day counts. I’d do your face for you.”

“Can’t spare the time. I’d better go after Rebecca. I’m really worried.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t be; she’s old enough to look after herself.”

“She may be, but will she? Oh what a nuisance it all is!”

“Yes,” Louie said, with a sharp look. “Barnabas told me about last night.”

“Did he?” Jay was abstracted. “I’m going to find that girl. I dare say she’s gone home.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Don’t want you, Louie. I can handle it better by my- . self.”

“Now, don’t be difficult; I think I’ll come.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Nonsense, Jay! Safer all round if I do. You know what that Inspector’s like. Safer all round to go everywhere in pairs.”

Louie departed to have a word with her girls. “Don’t want them to say the wrong sort of thing to any callers.”

Jay wondered if she could get away before her friend came back, but as Louie was walking backwards and keeping an eye on her all the time, this seemed doubtful. And she knew from experience that Louie could run like a hare. Wearily she sat down on her own doorstep and took out a cigarette.

George crept out from his shop, first looking round to see that no one was about, and made his way over to Jay, keeping himself flat against the wall and pretending to be invisible. Owing to his Indian ancestry, he made a good job of this, and he was unseen except by Jay, who watched fascinated. If there had been a Red Indian in his family tree she would not have felt surprised. There was no doubt that George had something of importance to tell her.

“Wanted to tell you,” he said, sidling up. “Didn’t like to say with all of them around—but I think I know why Rebecca wanted to talk to me.”

“Go on.”

“She let drop, poor girl, that she could talk to me because I was a man. You see the implication?”

“Well, there is Barnabas.”

“He wasn’t there. Besides, he doesn’t count.” There was scorn in George’s voice. “You must see what I mean. Rebecca is terrified of a woman…and she isn’t sure which.” Jay absorbed this in silence. She saw George’s point. “One of us,” she said. “Yes, I see that. But why are you telling me?”

“Seemed fair. She works for you. I’m cross with the other two. You can do as you like about telling them. I shan’t.

“Got a bit more to tell you,” he added presently. “More speculative. Rebecca’s got the wind up about some woman. All right. But why didn’t she tell the police what she had on her mind?”

“You don’t always want to tell the police things,” suggested Jay. “You ought to know that.”

George screwed up his face. “Might be that. Don’t think so. Not for a minute. She was scared white.” He leaned forward. “She’s scared of one of those policemen, too. That’s what I think. She daren’t talk to them. Poor kid!”

With a beck and a nod, George crawled back home again. He just missed the reappearance of Louie. But she’d seen him.

“What’s George going about like a crab for?” she demanded.

Jay told her.

“Dear little pal, isn’t he?” summed up Louie. “But he may be right about the police. Which one, though? Be a joke if it was old Winter. Or that poor miserable skeleton of a copper that walks this beat. He looks as though he’d got something on his mind, but I expect it’s only his feet.”

She roared with laughter. Jay gave a strong sniff to let Louie know that she understood what had kept her. Louie had been strengthening herself for the trip.

“Medicinal,” said Louie righteously. “A small noggin of brandy.”

For all her merriment, Louie seemed put out by George’s revelations to Jay. She scowled at his door as they passed, and brooded quietly all the way to the road where Rebecca lived. Then she raised suspicious eyes.

“You been here before?”

Jay shook her head. “But I know where she lives, of course. I go past the bottom of the road every day.”

They stood in the doorway together, and took it in turns to pull one bell and push the other (there was an electric bell and also an old-fashioned pull-bell). Jay pushed and Louie pulled with energy. Even so it was some time before the door opened.

Rebecca’s mother was a romantic giantess of a woman, slow moving, dreamy, dignified. Her round, olive-skinned arms were folded gracefully across her breast. She had none of Rebecca’s sharpness, and none of her vulgarity.

Jay cleared her throat and asked, in a weak voice, to see Rebecca.

A look of surprise spread across the mother’s face.

“But, Mrs. Drury, she went to work as usual. She’s not in the house.”

“Oh,” said Jay, disappointed. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s true, she did come; but she rushed off again in a bit of a state, you see, and we took it for granted that she came straight home. She’s been a little bit upset the last few days, and I was worried.”

The door opened wider.

“I think you had better come in.”

“I’m Mrs. Barker,” said Louie, squeezing her way in eagerly.

Rebecca’s mother bowed gravely.

“You have been kind to my Becky; she has often talked of you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Louie, flustered. “She’s been a good, helpful girl herself.”

“Yes, indeed, she would be glad to do things back. Whatever was in her power.”

She led them, in a slow, stately way, into a small back room. The house was dark even on this bright day, but its gloom was punctured with some points of light. On an oval, well-polished table of some light wood shone an old-fashioned brass lamp, above it glittered the gilt frame of an oil portrait; a little posy of white country flowers lit up a dark side table. A smell of polish and oil and garlic hung faintly around the thick, dark damask curtains.

“Foreign,” thought Jay, with the instant insularity of the Cockney.

“Now we must talk about this,” said Rebecca’s mother, seating herself and her guests, while drawing the reins of the conversation into her own hands.

“I don’t know where to begin, quite,” said Jay. “It’s just that Rebecca has been so worried lately, or so I thought. And while I’m not surprised at anyone looking pale, with all we’ve been through, still she’s only a young girl, and I thought she would have shaken it off before this. In fact I’ve wondered if she wasn’t worrying over something quite different, something—fresh.”

“She is worrying for herself,” stated her mother calmly. “For no one but herself. I know my Becky. There is no one but herself who counts with her. Later maybe she will grow to it, but not yet, not yet.”

“Well, there might be a young man, dear,” said Louie.

“She has young men, yes. They interest her, but she would not worry over them.”

“I did think that one of them might be upsetting her,” admitted Jay.

Rebecca’s mother frowned.

“There has been some trouble, yes; but she has not told me how. I think only her pride will have been hurt. My mother she would have asked me, and I would have answered her. But those are old-fashioned ways and do not suit Rebecca.”

Jay sighed sympathetically, and a few crocodile tears dropped from Louie’s eyes.

“Yet I do not think this is what has upset Becky,” went on her mother. “She is worried for herself…she is frightened.”

Outside, within a moment’s silence, trundled the prams and bicycles—all the traffic of a small street.

“We have all been frightened,” said Jay slowly.

“Yes,” agreed the woman, regarding them. “I see you two are frightened. But my Rebecca, she is more frightened. And I do not know of whom,” she said, her face suddenly puckering. “My little Rebecca, and I do not know who has frightened her!”

There is one thing I must find out for certain, thought Jay. I must know before I go if I was right about the perfume of lily-of-the-valley. She asked.

Dismissing her grief, Mrs. Ray confessed she did not know.

“But we will go up to her room and look.”

She led the way up a narrow stairway to a small, crowded room. Here was the atmosphere of Rebecca, and not her mother. It was smart and tried for sophistication. A neat row of dresses hung in an open alcove, above a line of shoes, either very high, or very flat.

“All in good repair, too,” thought Jay enviously. “Not a heel run down.”

A frilled dressing-table supported a heavy burden of cosmetics; several shades of powder, and every tone of lipstick lay about, many half open; skin-food and astringent lotions were side by side. A pile of glossy magazines t lay on the side of the table near to the bed. But there was only one scent, repeated in a toilet-water with cologne—it was lily-of-the-valley. Its fragrance filled the room.

On a table by the bed was a photograph. Comprehension dawned in Jay’s eyes. She thought she saw the origin of Rebecca’s distress.

“She’s got a young man called Bob, hasn’t she?” Her eyes were still on the photograph.

“There is one called that,” admitted Mrs. Ray.

“Heard her speak of him ever so often,” said Louie, her sharp eyes taking everything in.

Jay nodded. To herself she said that it explained a lot. So that’s it. Bob. And now I come to think of it, that’s why the scent of lily-of-the-valley. I gave it up before I left him, but it was his favourite. I see now why I always noticed it on Rebecca, and why it was in that flat of Dorothy’s.

She looked again at the photograph. But he’s not called only Bob; the whole thing is just his idea of a good joke. My loving husband.

She said none of these things aloud. Aloud she only thanked Mrs. Ray and went away with Louie. She waited for Louie to remark upon her abstraction in the last few moments of the visit, but for once the all-seeing eye had missed something, and all Louie said was:

“There’s no doubt that we ought to find that girl.”

In silence they got on the bus to return. Louie, who knew everybody, recognised the conductor, and at once asked him how his rheumatism was.—“Bus conductors always have rheumatism,” she said in a swift undertone to Jay; “quite safe to ask for it.”

“Seen our Rebecca this morning?” she inquired jovially.

“If you mean the little dark girl with the shoe blacking round her eyes and the tight skirt, then I saw her this morning when she bounced me out of a twopenny-halfpenny fare.”

“That’d be Rebecca,” said Louie.

“I ain’t seen her since, and I don’t want to.”

“Go on!” But Louie’s rejoinder was automatic, just part of her general system of always having the last word. She gazed out of the window and screwed up her lips.

When they got out at the end of the Row, a familiar figure greeted them. Louie’s nephew again.

“Hello, Aunty,” he said blithely.

“You ought to be ashamed to show your face.”

“I’m a scout.”

“I don’t care if you’re a sunbeam.”

“For Barnabas,” said the boy. “He told me to stand here and keep a look-out for you.”

“Fancy trusting you.” But there was no rancour in Louie’s voice. She was accustomed to think of family life as a sort of guerilla warfare. She assumed her nephew had good reasons for being on her side now. As indeed he had…he let her see the shine of silver in his dirty hand.

“He said to say that Rebecca’s back. Come down the Row ten minutes ago and gone to work.”

Louie and Jay prepared to hurry down the Row, but the boy held out his hand.

“The Sergeant’s there, too,” he said simply. “Walking up and down. Wants to call on you, Louie. Think he’s going to arrest you?—Watch out. Here he comes.”

Louie and Jay turned to take cover in the newsagent’s shop right behind them. Mrs. Flock, who was sitting like Buddha behind her counter, greeted them without surprise.

“I hope you know what you are up to,” she said. “Don’t go dragging me into anything.”

“There’s just someone I don’t want to meet,” explained Louie.

Through the window they watched the Sergeant depart. He got on a bus and sailed out of sight.

“Poor fellow!” said Louie, sympathetic now she was j: safe. “Looks depressed, don’t he?”

The Sergeant was in low spirits. He had come to the Row this morning on his way to a conference with the Inspector; he had come to see Jay, but her door was barred.

He had turned then towards Louie’s shop, but she, too, had been denied him. Her shop was quiet, the perfumed air undisturbed by the hot whirr of the dryers or the rush of water. Maria and Belinda, who were wearing their best candy-striped overalls, were painting their finger-nails with Louie’s new polish and bickering with each other.

“Pretty slack, eh?” asked Llywelyn. “Not much doing?”

Not much, they agreed, admiring the sheen of their nails. “Madam in?”

“I believe she just popped out,” drawled Belinda, fluttering her hand.

Llywelyn pursed his lips: “Well, be a good girl, and tell her to pop back in again, will you? I know where she is.”

“That’s more than I do, then. She’s really out, I tell you.”

“Well, I don’t mind waiting till she gets back,” he said, sitting down on the satin chair.

For the first time a shade of feeling crossed the faces of the two young women.

“I don’t think you ought to do that,” said Maria. “Madam wouldn’t wish it. She don’t like people hanging about here.”

“I’m not here to consult her wishes,” said Llywelyn ponderously. “This is a police matter.”

“I know, but still…”

“You girls nervous of her?”

The girls exchanged glances.

“Well, not to say nervous, Sergeant; but of course, she’s our boss, isn’t she? And we want to keep on the right side of her, don’t we?”

“She can’t take it out of you because I stay. I’m the police. Tell her that.”

It appeared from their manner that this cut no ice with Louie.

“Yes, but she did say…”

“She told you to get rid of me?”

They nodded dumbly.

Llywelyn sighed. He looked patiently at the two childish faces before him.

“Now why don’t you girls get decent, proper jobs? Instead of staying here. There’s lots of nice things you could do.”

They smoothed their pretty gowns, and set their lips obstinately. They knew better.

“The pay’s good, and so are the tips,” said Belinda, in an off-putting way. “When everything’s going normal.”

“And what is going normal?”

Once again dumbness sealed their lips.

“Oh, very well; I gave you your chance. I’m not ready to take statements from you yet but when I am I’ll expect, and get, a square answer, my girls.”

He turned to them as he left.

“My dears, if you’re nervous, why not clear out?”

“Oh no, it’s not us that’s nervous—not really.”

“Who then?” he asked, swift to catch the stress.

“Rebecca,” they admitted, not sorry to confess. “Rebecca does seem awful scared of Madam.”

He encouraged them to tell him the story of this morning’s incident.

“Don’t seem to show it’s Mrs. Barker she’s afraid of,” he murmured.

“Well, we think so,” said the two girls. “Anyway, it could be.”

“You mean you’d like it to be,” growled the Sergeant. “Fine pair of witnesses.”

In a temper he departed, just missing the sight of Rebecca flitting into Jay’s shop, and completely oblivious to the sudden retreat of Jay and Louie into Mrs. Flock’s. Perhaps Inspector Winter was right when he complained that the Sergeant would never make a detective.

Sergeant Llywelyn’s way to the conference lay through the area where most of the building was going on. His pace became slower and slower; he was not very eager to get within the Inspector’s call. He stood where Louie and Barnabas had stood some months ago to see the sights, and looked around. The scene had changed very little. The most striking feature was still the great red board.

The Sergeant stood still. Here, on this ground, if he mistook not, was the heart of the whole affair. Here had begun what was now so dreadfully pursuing its way. On this point he and the Inspector were in agreement.

A labourer was leisurely hoeing the soil. He handled the agricultural implement as if it were a pick.

“What crop you thinking of raising?” inquired Llywelyn.

“Winkles, I should think, chum,” said the man, without looking at him.

“But winkles come from the sea,” said Llywelyn before he could stop.

“That’s right, chum.”

“Not much building going on here, is there?” The Sergeant refused to be put off.

“Couldn’t say, I’m sure.”

The Sergeant gave him a grim smile and walked on. He was late for the conference, a fact not likely to soothe Inspector Winter’s ever angry breast.

The Inspector was sitting at the head of a plain deal table. He faced his team of detective constables and sergeants, called “my boys” in public and known to him privately as The Wreckers, because they had the habit, or so he believed, of wrecking every case he erected. Because he was an impatient man and the Wreckers ran to words, he had before him a large brass bell which he would bang angrily when he thought they had had long enough. He rationed the Wreckers: two minutes to say what you’ve got to say, and then let the next man. He was not popular with his team.

He fiddled with the scrap-book by his side and glared at Llywelyn. The scrap-book was an unofficial piece of work of Winter’s. He made one for each case, and then kept it, meaning when he retired to compile his sensational and accurate memoirs. (He had noticed that memoirs are rarely both, but his would be.) He had a large pile of scrap-books at home, the fruits of twenty-five years, and at the end of every case he made a little ritual of adding the last cutting—he called it Hanging Day, in a joking way. What the Inspector did not know, however, was that for the last twenty-five years his charwoman had been quietly removing the bottom scrap-book and passing it round her home, her neighbourhood and the local hospital, before replacing it somewhere near the top of the heap. As a result the Inspector’s exciting, secret and highly inflammable materials were by now part of the culture, the folk tradition, of the district. His careful and chronological pile was also sadly out of order, like a badly excavated Iron Age kitchen midden.

“Late, Llywelyn,” he said severely. He heaved a patient sigh. “We’d better start, I suppose. We were waiting for you.”

He nodded in a sharp sort of way to the boy next to him.

“Acting in accordance with your advice,” began the young man, gabbling rather in his haste to make full use of his time. The Inspector bared his teeth in a gracious smile. “I went into the early life and background of the dead woman. Of course we already knew a certain amount, but on your advice I investigated in detail. If I may recapitulate…”

The Inspector looked thoughtfully at his bell, and the detective constable quickened his speed. What he had to say was soon said.

Dorothy Oliver had been born in Shropshire in 1923. She had stayed there for the first fifteen years of her life. She had gone to school in Ludlow, where she had showed herself to be quick, sharp and clever. When she was fifteen her family had split up, her mother taking Dorothy to South London, and her father going to Birmingham. At seventeen there had been a further division of the Oliver family, because Dorothy had left her mother, and never gone back. She never referred after this to either parent, not did they show a greater interest in her. They did not see her and seemed not to mind. Once free of her family, Dorothy had exploited her talents; she had gone to a series of evening classes, and had turned herself into an accomplished secretary. In the upsets and confusions at the end of the war, she had moved rapidly from job to job, always slightly bettering herself. And now there began to be little signs of other things, of other interests. In 1948 she had moved to a better flat, she had developed a taste for night-clubs, and the money and escorts to accompany her. She had opened an account at a large London shop, and although it had never been heavily used, she had bought expensive oddments there at intervals. This prosperity seemed to date from her first succeeding to a post of some importance and confidence in the Ministry of Land Disposal and Planning. Her departure from the head office to Bartholomew House seemed to herald a drop in her standard of living. The large flat had been vacated, and she had moved into the small room seen by Sergeant Llywelyn and his cousin. But in the months before she died, Dorothy’s way of life had picked up again. She had rented, under the name of Lane, the flat in the Ledgers’ house; she had decorated it and furnished it with some elegance. Her income from 1948 until her death had remained very much the same, and was not responsible for the fluctuations in her prosperity.

The detective constable galloped to his conclusion. Breathlessly he took a long drink of water.

“She had a picture of the sea in her room,” said Llywelyn suddenly. “No sea in Shropshire. Anything on that?”

His colleague, whose name was Forster, rustled among his papers. He nodded.

“As a matter of fact, I did notice the picture myself. And she did have a sort of feeling for the sea. She used to go down to Brighton, Folkestone and the south coast quite regularly. Always went by coach from Victoria, and booked the seats at Mrs. Flock’s beforehand.”

“Seats?”

“Yes,” Forster frowned. “She always booked two…But I can’t tell you who went with her. Took a friend, I suppose. I tried to find out, but of course contacts and so on weren’t really what I was after. Any indications I sent on to Henderson.”

The Inspector interrupted, “Then better let Henderson get on with it. Llywelyn, my dear boy, I don’t think there’s any point in pursuing red herrings to Folkestone. Henderson, what have you got?”

Henderson looked anxiously at the sombre-covered scrap-book by the Inspector’s right hand, for being in the Inspector’s black books had a definite and literal significance in both police and criminal circles and was quite as much dreaded as the black cap. He began:

“Acting on suggestions made to me by a colleague, I investigated on certain lines.” Henderson took a deep breath—there wasn’t one of Inspector Winter’s assistants who hadn’t developed the breathing techniques of a Brunhilde at Bayreuth. He showed that from 1947 onwards the dead woman’s contacts, outside of work, were mostly with men in building and contracting circles. She had started with men in a small way, and then gradually moved up the social scale.

Winter nodded. “And she was working in the Ministry which would interest such boys. Pretty obvious where her extra money came from.”

“Yes, sir. And the Ministry confirms this. They had their suspicions that she wasn’t reliable, but couldn’t prove anything. So they had her moved down here, where it seemed not to matter.”

“But, judging by the way she started to spend after a bit, she found something that did matter. Bit of luck for her, all the big building schemes opening up round here.”

Henderson shrugged. “She was the sort that would always find something. Not luck with her; just a quick eye.”

“Didn’t bring her much luck in the end. Well, who would her contacts have been round this way?”

Henderson looked gloomy. “There are three possibilities. A lot of building is being done by McNaughton and Sons, but they’re a small respectable firm. I can’t find that she knew anyone there. And, to be quite frank, I don’t think there’s the money there on the scale to attract her. Next there’s the Hopper firm, and though I think they’d try anything, I don’t think they have here, because they’ve been a bit nervous lately. And with reason. She did know young Hopper, though. But he swears he hasn’t seen her for eighteen months. That leaves us the Lion and Unicorn people; I went to see them, and of course they didn’t admit to anything. Rum place, though; no one seems to know anything about anything, and not putting much heart into it either.”

Detective Morgan spoke up. “Been a good deal of gossip in the City. Seems the Lion and Unicorn people need to buy up some more adjoining land if they are to complete all they want.”

’In other words, Bartholomew Row,” said Winter thoughtfully. “Suppose Miss Oliver had been handing over advance information to the Lion and Unicorn people all this time—on a strictly cash on delivery basis. Suppose this, then she’d be just the girl they’d get hold of if they wanted any help in putting up any dirty work to make sure of getting the extra land. Suppose she thought up the leprosy scheme and wrote those letters signing herself Harris. Suppose all this, and you’ve got a motive for murder.”

“If they knew,” pointed out the Sergeant. “And they all say that they didn’t.”

“Which of them had the best chance to find out? Henderson, who knew her best along there?”

“She knew’m all, sir. Saw most of Mrs. Barker, but really only in the way of business; she was always getting her hair done. But she sometimes went out with Mrs. Drury, and occasionally with Miss Andrews. Even Mr. Barnabas Lord was on better terms with her than he admits to. And of course there was Mr. Edward Mortimer.”

Here he gave a quick look at the Sergeant. “But of course he wouldn’t have the same motive as a shop-holder.”

“No,” said Winter. “But he might have one as strong.” Sergeant Llywelyn looked worried. “I don’t know anything about that, sir,” he said unhappily.

“Before I came here this morning I went to see this second home of Miss Oliver’s. She wasn’t living there alone, was.she? No, of course, you saw that for yourself. And Mrs. Ledger told me when I asked her, although she says Mr. Lane wasn’t there very much, and she hardly ever saw him. Doubts if she’d know him. (That didn’t surprise me—cagey birds, the Lanes.) But all the same I’d like to confront Mrs. Ledger with a few faces of people we both know.”

“What you are saying, sir,” said the helpful Henderson, “is that she may not have been killed because she invented a scheme to drive the inhabitants of the Row out, but that she may have been killed by her mysterious companion.”

“Mr. Harris again,” said the Sergeant as if to himself. “I’d like to remind you that Edward Mortimer advised you from the first to look for this mysterious figure.”

“All right, Llywelyn,” said the Inspector. “Find your Mr. Harris. And he’d better be alive and speaking.”

“Sir!” exclaimed the outraged Sergeant.

“There have been too many hints about the behaviour of the police in this case,” said Winter, banging his fist on the table. “Which of us are they pointing at? Is it me? Is it you? Is it the man on the beat?”

He was looking for a scapegoat. The Wreckers kept very quiet. But almost at once the Inspector recovered himself and tersely commanded that they get on with the session.

“Let’s get on to the biggest headache of all…the day she died.”

On this point the evidence was of two sorts: the evidence of eye-witnesses, and the scientific reports.

Roland Thurlow had seen Dorothy go down the Row at four o’clock. Barnabas, watching at the end of the Row, had not seen her at a minute past four. The pathologists agreed that she had died not earlier than midday, and not later than six o’clock. Which left two hours. Which left the Inspector puzzled.

“God knows where she was. No one remembers seeing her again. She didn’t get a ’bus or use the Tube. She can never have left the Row.”

. He growled to himself while he flipped over the pages of his notebook. The Wreckers looked at each other nervously. His bite was worse than his bark.

“Skin under her nails, under nails of left hand, I see from the pathologists’ report. Any scratches on any of the suspects?”

“George Williams is wearing bandages,” said the Sergeant. “Claims cat scratched him. They all say it did, too.”

“I’d like to see those scratches. Well, what about the laboratory reports on the cord round her neck, and the shreds of fabric on her skin, and the dust on her hair? Have they led to anything? I’ve hopes there.”

One of the youngest Wreckers spoke up: “Cord, nothing. Fabric, nothing. Dust, nothing,” he catalogued rapidly, living up to the reputation of the team and bringing a scowl to his chief’s face.

“We’ve hardly got anything left but your little clue of the lipstick that you wouldn’t talk about,” said Winter, glaring hard at Llywelyn. “I never pressed you, but now what about it?”

But as he spoke the telephone rang. He listened.

“Speaking. Yes, yes. The Row? Again? I’ll be round. Let ’em wait.”

XIII

WHEN Jay and Louie arrived back in the Row it was to find that, after all, they didn’t have their hands on Rebecca. She was gone again.

“Must have gone out the back way,” said Jay, bobbing out of her door.

“Extraordinary,” said Louie. “Here, let me look.”

“No, Louie. And I’m not chasing off again. I must do some work.”

Louie took herself off. She called back over her shoulder: “You know what today is? You won’t forget?”

This was the day of Dorothy’s funeral. The inquest, to which the whole of the Row had gone, without for once enjoying a public occasion, had ended in what Louie vulgarly called a draw and the police an open verdict. Today Dorothy was to be buried, and the Row had decided to mark the day by drawing all the blinds and shutters between the hours of one and two—the lunch-time, when no one would be about anyway. So they combined good business with propriety.

Jay followed the example of the rest and anchored her blind before departing to lunch with Edward. She had had a busy and uncomfortable morning and she was a good deal flustered. She also had on her mind the photograph of her husband she had seen in Rebecca’s room. How like him, she thought drearily, to have picked up Rebecca too! Wouldn’t he think it a good joke? Nevertheless she dressed carefully for lunch with Edward. She hoped they would go somewhere nice.

“Hope you’ll be comfortable,” said Edward, glancing down at Jay in her best clothes, as he economically produced sandwiches. They ate them in the old churchyard of St. Nicholas.

“Quieter here,” said Edward, looking at the grass and the graves.

“Seeing all our fellow-guests are dead,” said Jay tartly.

But she gave Edward a full enough account of her morning, omitting only a few points, like the photograph.

“And you think that Rebecca is not frightened by her young man?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“You are? Good! That means it must be one of us,” said Edward happily. “I always thought it was.”

Jay moved uneasily away from him on the seat.

“All we know, then, is this: Rebecca’s in a state. Her mother thinks she’s frightened for her own skin; and that’s what I think, too. You did think that she was upset about this love affair, but now you agree with me. Right?”

“Right.”

“So now we must get hold of Rebecca, and ask her what and why? Before Ted does…the police are gradually sweeping up all the stray bits, I’ve noticed. And Ted don’t tell me everything—not by a long chalk.”

“You know, you did wonder if it was George in that flat.”

“Oh that,” she said hastily—“that was a sort of joke. But come to think of it…”

“Exactly. They were just the sort of spoor-marks a chap like George would leave behind him. Your instinct may have been right. And it was George who seems to have frightened Rebecca off this morning. Wonder where she is?”

Jay shrugged.

“But I don’t know about George. He seems a kind old thing.”

“He knows what side his bread’s buttered…but, then you all do in the Row…you’re all such a lot of twisters.”

He spoke absently, only half aware he had spoken aloud, but yet aware of Jay’s reaction. He patted her hand.

“We could ask him some questions,” suggested Jay, while she licked her wounds.

Edward laughed at her.

“We could, I suppose, if you’d tell me words to put it in. George, did you live with Dorothy, cook up a get-rich-quick scheme with her, murder her? George, are you Mr. Harris? Thank you, George. Three cheers for Butcher George.

“No, dear,” he finished; “George is not the hysterical type to confess to a murder for the asking. God! can she possibly have been interested in George?”

The thought rankled.

Jay took another sandwich and kicked off her tight shoes. With a sigh of refief she leaned back against the stone.

“Well, I never noticed that he was particularly interested in her. In fact he seemed to notice her less than anyone.”

“You don’t suppose the affair was blazoned forth, do you? Whoever Mr. Harris is, and whether he did for Dorothy or not, he kept himself in the background. Now, what you say is confirmation rather than otherwise.”

“Oh, have it your own way,” answered Jay indifferently. She did not believe that George was this ridiculous Mr. Harris, nor did she believe that he had murdered Dorothy.

“I suppose you know the police are investigating you?” she asked, with a sidelong glance.

“Certainly I do,” said Edward, in a hard tone. “Roland and I are the most likely candidates, aren’t we? Who had a better chance than us to work out a deal? And for various reasons they think I’m a better bet than Roland.”

The Rev. Mr. Davies came up the path between the old neglected graves and the drooping willows. He waved his hand.

“Did you know he was coming?” asked Jay, an idea dawning on her. “Did you ask him?”

“Not quite ask; no. I didn’t know how he would feel about joining us. But I hinted.”

“He seems glad to be coming.”

“Broadminded of him.”

“Hungry, I expect.”

And in fact the vicar sat on the seat with them and joined in their picnic with enthusiasm. At the end, he patted his lips regretfully.

“A pint would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, why not?” asked Edward, standing up.

“No.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t let myself take it…I’m not one of those slap-you-on-the-back, beer-drinking parsons. And, to tell you the truth, I’ve such a weak head I can’t trust myself after half a pint. Now you are wanting me. You said you’d like a word. Would it be a spiritual matter, now?”

“That depends how you look at it,” replied Edward cautiously. “On the whole, I should say, no. What I wanted are some facts.”

“Oh, I’m the man for that.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought…I suppose you know how we found our way to the house in Dickens Place?”

“Yes, indeed; my wife told me.”

“Your wife?”

“Mrs. Davies works in the Library,” said her husband primly.

“She’s very pretty,” said Jay.

“Yes, good-looking girl, isn’t she. Ah, well, if I build up good connection with Mr. Jones of the Restlong Funeral Parlour, then she’ll be able to give up the Library.”

“What I wanted to ask,” said Edward, “was did you know anything about the people in Mrs. Ledger’s flat?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I could help you there. Confidential, that would be.”

. “Well, I’ll keep it in confidence. Come on; it’s not as if I was asking you to tell the secrets of the confessional.”

“No, indeed: I’m not a Roman. I don’t hear confession.”

“Well, then.”

“As a matter of fact I don’t know so much about it,” admitted David Davies. “I did see him once.”

“You did, did you? Would you know his face?”

“I might. But he had a big cap on. I didn’t see much of him.”

“I’ll give you a chance to see him again,” promised Edward.

As they walked back to the Row, Jay asked, “And how do you propose to give him this chance?”

“I shall find out from Ted what the police have done. Bound to be dull, unimaginative stuff; and then I shall do what they haven’t.”

“Clever you.”

“I don’t believe you want to find this man.”

“I don’t want to play games.”

“Games! Who’s talking about games? And then there’s Rebecca. It’s only since that magazine was sent to her she’s been in such a way, isn’t it?”

“She wasn’t a little ray of sunshine before.”

“Well, there’s nothing for it but a word with Rebecca. She could probably give a good guess as to who sent it to her.”

“I daresay.”

“We’ll just have to hope she’s a better guesser than Mrs. Flock in the paper shop, won’t we?”

“I believe you’d like it to be me,” said Jay bitterly.

“Well, she did say…And really it would be so simple if it was; I am afraid you wouldn’t make a clever criminal, Jay.” His tone was complacent.

“Now we must get to Rebecca before Ted does; that will be a big step forward.”

“Does this mean nothing to you except a race with your cousin?”

“First a game, and now a race. Your tongue is sharp today, dear. No, I’m taking it seriously all right.”

“I’m hot,” complained Jay.

“And I don’t wonder, in that dress with long sleeves.”

“I like it,” said Jay, unwilling to confess that she was wearing her best.—I would take my harp to a party, she thought, and then find there was no party.

The Row was quiet, in its usual lunch-time repose. The inhabitants took their meals seriously and did not hurry over them. George and Rosy usually lunched together, and Barnabas with Louie. It was a friendly and profitable arrangement all round.

Striped blinds protected George’s plants from the sun, and green Venetian shutters covered Louie’s gay windows.

Outside Bartholomew House, Edward stopped.

“I’ll see Ted tonight,” he said. “Get what I can out of him, and then tally-ho in pursuit of Mr. Harris, otherwise Lane, or whatever he really is called. You can be sure that he’s got a perfectly safe, real identity that he’s revelled to. But we will get him.”

“No really, Edward; I’d rather not. I’d really rather not.”

“What a limited vocabulary you’ve got, my girl! But I understand you.”

“I know you think I’m perfectly frightful,” said Jay, inclined to be tearful.

“No, I don’t. Such words would never come to my tongue,” replied Edward truthfully.

“All right, clever. I’m not in your class and I know it.”

But Edward perceived, as he usually did, that he had gone too far; he made it up at once.

“You are classless, darling, a non pareil. And I am only a peer among my peers, a not very good poet.”

“Walk down the Row with me, Edward,” asked Jay, seizing her advantage. “See me home like you used to.”

They strolled down the Row, past George’s striped awnings and Louie’s shades.

“There’s your dressmaker’s dummy in the window,” observed Edward. “Looks quite gay in that print dress.”

“What dummy?” said Jay absently. “I haven’t got one—I use a wire frame.”

“Well, you’ve got one now,” said Edward slowly, as they drew nearer. “And, Jay, do you usually hang it in the window?”

“Hang?” said Jay with a little scream. “Hang?”

But it was Rebecca.

This time there was no mistake—the siege was on in Bartholomew Row. Inspector Winter raged along the cobbles, his iron heels making ringing noises as he walked.

“Suicide, rubbish!” he declared as he marched. “They’ve done for her too.”

The sad ballet put on for Rebecca’s death danced itself out. The Inspector tapped his irritable pas seul up the Row, with his metal-tipped toes grinding out his feelings; he was joined by Sergeant Llywelyn, a tall, dour partner for a pas de deux. Meanwhile the corps de ballet acted their melancholy parts, photographing, drawing diagrams and taking statements.

The inhabitants of Bartholomew Row were herded into one room on Barnabas’s top floor. They were in a low state.

“Now I know how lepers felt,” said Barnabas. “Wonder how long she’s been dead?”

“She wasn’t there when I went out to lunch,” asserted Jay. “You don’t suppose I went out and left her hanging?”

“No, no, of course, I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort. I suppose it was suicide?”

“It must have been, mustn’t it?” said Jay. “She has been acting oddly lately. But I’d no idea she was as upset as that…”

“How could we have?” complained Louie, even her healthy robustness showing paler. “George, it’s all your fault.”

“Indeed it isn’t,” said Rosy as she rushed to George’s defence. She and George had come together again. “It was Rebecca that upset him this morning. Didn’t she, dear?”

“It’s true, she did worry me,” said George, wagging his head. “I don’t know what she wanted this morning, but it’s placed me in a very awkward spot, her dying like this right after.”

“Thoughtless of her,” said Barnabas.

“Wanted to talk to me, poor thing, I suppose.” George was ignoring Barnabas. “Saw she could trust me.”

“Weren’t so sure of yourself this morning, were you?” sneered Louie. “So she trusted you! Well, it didn’t look like it. Frightened, I would have said. Convenient interpretation you’ve put on it, if you ask me.”

“If it is suicide,” put in Barnabas.

“Oh, don’t keep on saying that. Of course it is suicide, poor kid! Why should it be anything else?”

“Well, the last death wasn’t,” said Barnabas simply.

“I suppose Rebecca could “have murdered Dorothy.” Louie was struck by the brilliance of the thought. “And now killed herself out of remorse.”

The friends looked at each other. Hope spread from face to face.

“It could be,” they told each other.

But the Inspector knew better. He looked at Llywelyn across Rebecca’s body.

“Hung up…but she didn’t die from hanging. It’s like the other one. She was strangled. She was dead or dying when she was lifted up there.”

He looked up at the hook which was screwed firmly into Jay’s ceiling, and from which she hung decorations and even dresses to flutter in her window. It was a small hook.

“Wouldn’t think it would bear her weight, would you? But she was very light.”

“Not been dead long, has she?”

“Hardly cold,” said Winter bitterly. “Well, we shall have to see them all. You will find they know nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing. Don’t suppose one of them will admit to having seen the girl at all today.”

“Some of them will have to. The trouble this morning was a brush with George Williams.”

He told the Inspector, who grunted.

“You can bet your boots that none of them will say they saw her during the last hour or two. And she’s not been dead longer.”

And so it proved. When reluctantly forced to believe that they were implicated in another murder, the inhabitants of the Row at once ran for cover.

Barnabas had lunched frugally with Louie.

“We’re both on the same diet: oranges on Monday, lemons on Tuesday, and today’s a milky day…”

George had enjoyed a reconciliation lunch with Rosy and eaten the fatted calf. Ellen had been in the kitchen, Barnabas’s pupils had scattered, Maria and Belinda had eaten sandwiches on duty, and Jay and Edward had been together. Roland said he had not lunched.

“Didn’t even see the poor soul hanging there. Not one of them. Told you so. This lot wouldn’t notice if their heads were cut off, not unless there was a profit in it.”

But he did not fail to point out to them that any one of them could have found an opportunity for murder during the lunch hour or before.

“This was a rush job,” he told the Sergeant. “Bodged up in a hurry. What did the girl know? What did she do to frighten her murderer into such quick action?”

“She had something to tell,” speculated the Sergeant, who had heard about the copy of The Listener.

“Was she trying to tell it to George Williams, or was she threatening him?”

“If I was a frightened young girl, I suppose I might pick on him for advice. He’s sensible enough in his way, and kind if you don’t want too much.”

“I’ve got all I can out of him,” sighed the Inspector, who had shaken George like a terrier with a rat. “Get in Mrs. Drury again. She ought to have let me know about that paper coming and all the rest.”

A miserable, untidy Jay appeared. Her face was blotchy, her hand unsteady—this was her second interview in one afternoon.

“Can you tell me why you keep finding corpses on your doorstep?” asked Winter savagely.

“I don’t know,” faltered Jay. “And I don’t think that’s a proper question.”

“You leave that to me. Want your solicitor here? No. Well, then, you admit it is an odd thing both these bodies should be landed on your doorstep?”

“It must be just coincidence,” said Jay.

“Oh, come now, you don’t believe that yourself.”

“Then for some reason it must be convenient for the murderer.”

“Yes, that’s just what I’ve been thinking.” And he eyed her severely.

“Well, it still wasn’t me,” she declared, with a revival of •spirit.

“Tell me again about the copy of The Listener the girl received.”

“I’ve done that once.”

“Pity you didn’t do it at the time. Go on.”

But she clung to the essentials of her story, and did not contradict herself.

“Now tell me again how you and Mr. Mortimer discovered the body.”

“We walked down the Row. Edward noticed first. We tried to get into the shop. But I couldn’t find my key. So Edward rushed round to the back door.”

“He was in first, then?”

“No, I’ve told you that. Because that door was locked, too, and he had to break a pane of glass. And I’d found my key after all…It wasn’t really lost: I was just flustered. So I went in.”

Her voice fell away and her hands began to shake.

“But I waited till Edward came before…I did anything.”

She did not wish to go back, even for a moment, to that dreadful point, more terrible than she had thought possible, when Edward had got a chair and stood upon it to lift Rebecca’s dead weight from the hook.

“Has anyone told Rebecca’s mother?” she asked through her noisy tears.

The Sergeant took her gently out.

“There’s something odd, you must admit,” began Winter defensively, when the Sergeant returned, “about the way that woman attracts murder.”

The Sergeant nodded gloomily; he thought so, too.

“And it isn’t the only thing she attracts either, by the look of it,” went on Winter, regarding his man.

“She’s engaged to Edward, my cousin, or as good as,” said Llywelyn in a stiff voice.

“Oho, don’t you believe it! She doesn’t. She’s got a husband, anyway. Not that that matters.”

“If you don’t trust me with all the details of the case we are both working on, then perhaps it would be better if I was removed from it.”

“Now, no high horses. If I keep things from you, it’s only that you may sleep more soundly at night, see? Anyway, I haven’t kept anything from you that you couldn’t have looked up for yourself.”

But the Sergeant was not soothed.

“Come,” urged Winter, “don’t take everything I say so seriously. I only wanted to provoke you a bit. Of course I don’t think you take Mrs. Drury seriously…You don’t, do you?” he repeated.

“She can’t have done this murder, at all events.”

“That’s what you think?”

“Well, look at it this way: she fastened the blind before she went out. Mr. Lord and Mrs. Barker admit to seeing it down.”

“So they might,” grunted Winter. “To admit a bit more wouldn’t kill them.”

“That’s not what they think. Anyway, the blind was down when she left for lunch. Therefore while she was away someone else, presumably the murderer, drew it up again.”

“To show what he’d left in the window, I suppose,” said Winter sarcastically.

He went over to the window and studied the Venetian blind. He drew it down and then let it fly back again.

“Mrs. Drury might have left it fastened, and it might have slid up again when she’d gone.”

The Sergeant experimented for himself.

“You can see that if it is not firmly attached to its little hook, it flies up immediately; and I mean immediately, and not in a little while. No, there’s no two ways about it. If she left this fastened, then someone else released it.”

“Might have been the girl herself. What did she have to come back for, anyway, silly wretch? She’d have been safe enough if she’d stayed away, I reckon.”

“I think she came back for something she valued; like the little silver powder compact in her bag. I think she just nipped in to get it, meaning to nip away again. She had got the wind up…”

“And the murderer took a quick chance to get rid of her. Quick-minded and quick-handed, the beggar.” Winter paused. “How well do you know your cousin?”

“Well, we were at school together.”

“Yes, yes, I know all that. But how much have you seen of him recently?”

“Cambridge changed him,” admitted Llywelyn. “Or something did.”

“He’s made some queer friends.”

But the trouble really, thought Llywelyn, was that Edward had made no friends.

“We might ask Roland Thurlow,” said Winter absently. “He seems to get on well with him. But he’s a puzzle himself.” Winter liked his characters well cut out. “Now I can’t find anyone there who seems to know him well. What does he do with himself? Live in a vacuum?”

“I suppose there’s someone…”

“But is there? Sometimes I think that when no one is by he just puts out the light and goes in. He isn’t a man at all.”

By now they were in Jay’s minute kitchen, where she brewed her numerous cups of tea and coffee. The Inspector leaned against the box-like refrigerator which never contained anything except the milk for the tea or coffee.

“I could do with a cup of tea,” he said. “And we might j send one up to them. Don’t want them to go quite round the bend. But they’re cracking. Especially Mrs. Drury.”

“She’s had enough to put up with.”

Winter gave him an interested look. “So she has. But she’s getting hysterical. Know what she did? Threw cold water over the dead girl to revive her. Makes your blood curdle, don’t it?”

“Yes, I saw the water.” He made the tea silently and arranged a tray.

But his old man of the sea was still getting at him. “Not becoming too fond of Mrs. Drury, I hope?”

“Even if I am, nothing’s likely to come of it.”

“But it’d be so awkward, my dear boy,” said Winter, ! alarmed. “What about those dustbin bodies?”

“I sent in my report on that this morning,” said Llywelyn.

He knew well enough that it was part of his function to act as an Aunt Jenny to the Inspector, to be the butt of his wit, to be provoked and not to reply, but sometimes the old devil’s blows were too near the bone. He returned the Inspector to the subject in hand.

“It’s a pity this second murder hasn’t turned up anything helpful,” he said, studying his notes.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that quite,” said the Inspector. “We are gradually collecting information. We know about the leakage of the Lion and Unicorn building schemes; we know this gives a strong motive for the Oliver girl’s death; and we know of the existence of her boy friend.”

“We haven’t found him yet.”

“He may be under our feet.”

“You think he’s one of the men already in the case?”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes,” said the Sergeant. “I’m afraid I do.”

“And then we now know a bit more about the murderer and his methods.”

The Sergeant looked up.

“Perhaps I didn’t draw your attention to it at the time, but the report on the first body recorded small pieces, shreds of cloth stuck to the powder and cream on the neck, and in the crook of the elbow where it is sweaty. She’d been wrapped in something…that’s why she didn’t struggle.”

“Well?”

“And now this girl…The path, boys tell me that they’ve found similar if not identical shreds stuck to her arms and neck, too. Face as well, with her.”

He frowned.

“So, you see, we have got a bit more to go on. Now we must find what they were wrapped in. Probably not the same in each case.”

“When they say linty fragments, do you mean it’s suggested they came from a blanket or a towel?”

“No. Not wool or cotton. Linen, they say. More like an overall…”

His eyes travelled as if absently to the shops where George worked among his plants in a white overall, and to the bakery where Rosy was accustomed to fuss round in her stiff, white-starched aprons.

The summer evening drew in. One by one the inhabitants of the Row went home. George clung to Rosy with the enthusiasm of a man going down for the third time. It was now or never, he understood, if he was to impress on her, and even more important, on the Inspector that he was not, and never had been, the man for Dorothy. The gossip had spread along the Row, and everyone knew that Inspector Winter had the noose ready for Mr. Harris. Barnabas departed for his flat taking Roland and Edward with him. Jay started off home alone, too tired to care, too miserable to be nervous. Even Louie, who most often j stayed in her shop, packed up and went.

“I’m staying the night with my sister,” she told the Sergeant who was taking addresses. “I shouldn’t feel safe here.”

“What, Alfy’s mother?” said Jay as she passed.

“I haven’t seen her for ten years, but blood’s thicker than water, and she’ll have to put me up.”

“You can stay with me if you like. I’d be glad of company.”

Louie looked at her cautiously. “Well, I don’t want to be unkind; but frankly, dear, I don’t think I’d be happy with anyone from here. I’d wake up and start wondering.”

Jay gave her a stiff smile. Perhaps the night would be more peaceful without Louie. But Louie was still with her, trotting by her side.

“Where’s your boy?”

“I’ve sent him to his granny in the country.” Well, it was Shoreditch, but it had been country once, she’d heard.

“Lucky little devil!” said Louie with envy. “I feel like I did when the bombs were coming down.”

Ellen came paddling behind them. The despairs of the rest had hardly touched the girl: Dorothy and Rebecca had disappeared. She had missed them, but not for long. The gossip and the excitement suited her, giving her a fact or two more to turn slowly in her mind. Out of it all a present or two more might come her way.

“I’m early tonight,” she said to Jay.

“Are you?”

“It’s been exciting lately, hasn’t it?”

“You could call it that, I suppose. Don’t tell me you’ve enjoyed it?”

“Oh no, because of losing Miss Dorothy, and my new coat getting spoiled. And Rebecca, too.” Ellen’s face clouded. “But Rebecca wasn’t as nice to me as you and Mrs. Barker and Miss Dorothy. She said bad things to me. She was bad. I’m not sorry for her.”

“But you are about Dorothy?” asked Jay.

“Yes, I am now. She said I could have that little case of hers if she died. I liked it so, and she said, ‘You can have it when I die, I’ll leave it to you in my will’.”

Jay could almost hear Dorothy’s quick, light, casual speech.

“But I didn’t get it,” went on Ellen. “I haven’t had it yet. You don’t know where it is, I suppose?”

Jay shook her head.

Ellen left Jay and Louie at the bus stop. On it they encountered the conductor they had asked about Rebecca that morning. He recognised them.

“What, you again? Always on the hop, aren’t you?”

“We lead busy lives,” said Louie with dignity.

“Here, talk about dignity. Aren’t you the one I had to talk to about that poor old blind man? Poor old boy! you nearly did for him.”

“Old codger.”

“You ought to be more kind-hearted. We’re put into the world to help each other, I reckon—Here, hold on.” He darted off to cuff off the bus platform a small boy who was staggering on with a large parcel. “Little perisher! That wasn’t a proper bus stop. Where was I? Oh yes. Well, you ought to be a more kind sort of person, I think.”

Louie got off at the next stop to go to her sister’s, and Jay travelled on alone. She thought Louie looked very hag-ridden.

“And, when you come to think of it, I’ve got more reason to be in a state than she has. In fact Louie’s more worked up than me. Funny.”

She repeated this to herself as she lay in a hot bath, soaking off the horrors of the day. She was proud of herself for her strength of mind.

“Considering the circumstances,” she said to herself, splashing her legs with soap-suds—“considering the circumstances, I’ve got a right to be in any state I please.” She giggled weakly. “I wonder if that last glass of sherry was a mistake? No, Jay. You needed it.”

She lay back in her bath and closed her eyes. She dreamt. Suddenly a shiver ran through her; the water was cold.

Then the door-bell rang.

“Edward,” she said aloud.

Unsteadily she wrapped a bath-towel round her and started for the door.

Louie was there on the doorstep, bags, coats and umbrella.

“Well! Come in,” said Jay, dropping the towel, and throwing the door wide open. “I thought you were Edward.”

Louie clucked her tongue and picked up the towel.

“Did you indeed?” she said. “You want to be careful, dear.”

“I am careful,” said Jay proudly.

Louie peered into her face.

“You’re drunk,” she said.

“No, I’m not. Why are you here? Sister moved?” Louie’s face fell.

“She wouldn’t have me. Turned me out. Well, I never even got in. She said she wouldn’t feel safe with me there. Me! Her own sister.”

“Shame,” answered Jay sympathetically. “Come on in.” Louie, who had already taken her coat oft and sat down, removed her shoes at this invitation.

“I think Ellen’s pretty funny, don’t you?” asked Jay. “I’m frightened of her.”

“Oh no; she’s all right if you know how to handle her.”

“I told her a lie.”

“If that’s all that’s worrying you! I’ve told her several. Wherever would you be with a girl like Ellen if you, didn’t?”

“I have seen that little case.”

: “What case?”

“Oh, Grandma, what big eyes you’ve got!”

Jay, who hitherto had obeyed Edward’s instructions to, say nothing of what she knew, now saw no reason why she should not tell Louie. So she told Louie as much as she could remember about the flat she and Edward had found, and about the way in which they had found it. Of course, Louie had heard a good bit about it already from Barnabas, who had picked it up from Edward, but she made an admiring audience.

“Really?” she kept saying. “Really?”

And at the end she announced: “Well, you are a clever girl.”

“Oh, it was Edward.”

“Then Edward’s a clever boy.” She added thoughtfully.

’Too clever by half.”

By this time there was very little sherry left in the bottle, Jay had cast away the towel and was wearing a grey-and-white seersucker robe. Louie had unpacked her bag and was wearing her favourite pink feather slippers.

She picked up the bottle and shook it angrily. “All gone. Or nearly. That’s always the way with sherry. That’s the worst of it. Now, you do get your money’s worth with gin. Why ever did you get sherry, dear?”

“Took Edward’s advice.”

“What did I tell you? Too clever to live.” She dipped her hand into her zip bag. “But I’ve always got my iron rations.”

Still smiling, she drew out a large medicine bottle labelled Tron Tonic’.

“Good stuff! Just a little joke to keep it in here. Of course, I’m not ashamed of it. Well, it is medicine, after all, isn’t it? But when you are in public life (I think you could say I was in public life, couldn’t you?), you’ve got to consider all opinions.”

“I shouldn’t think most of your customers would mind.”

Louie ignored this. “And then you’ve got to think: Are people reliable? I don’t say any of my girls would take a nip; but there, I ought not to put temptation in their way. Have a nip?”

Jay had some, and so did Louie, and then they both had some more.

“You don’t believe it was one of us?” asked Jay suddenly.

“I’d believe anything of anyone,” replied Louie with conviction.

Jay took a long drink. “Supposing I said it was me that did it.”

Louie moved the medicine bottle nearer to herself.

“Go on,” she said incredulously, but her voice was frightened.

“I found her, didn’t I? The police set a lot of store by that. And then the Inspector thinks she was killed in the Row.”

“So do I,” said Louie, edging for the door, but taking the medicine bottle with her.

“Leave me the bottle, love,” said Jay, going on with her saga. “And if she was killed in the Row, wouldn’t someone strong enough—a man—have moved her further away? So the Inspector thinks it must be a woman—least, that’s what Edward says he thinks.” Jay paused. “I wonder if Edward was telling me the truth,” she added thoughtfully.

“God knows.”

“But supposing I did it in a sort of black-out and don’t remember,” said Jay, leaning forward to Louie in a daze of candour and sherry. “Strangled her with a bit of my own bias binding.”

“It wasn’t bias binding,” said Louie shortly. “She was done in with a bit of gardening twine.”

“I’m sure someone told me it was tape,” murmured Jay. “That’s what started me off. Now who was it? Was it Barnabas or George?”

“Perhaps it was Edward.”

Jay gazed blankly into her drink.

“I can’t remember; but I will remember. Let’s have another drink.”

“I must make up your bed,” said Jay dreamily after a while.

“Oh, don’t worry,” replied Louie. “Can’t I bunk in with you? I expect you’ve got a double bed.”

“No. You can have the boy’s bed. Sure you feel safe here?” she asked, remembering how very unsafe Louie had appeared to feel a moment ago.

“Oh yes, I worked it out. You’d never kill me in your own flat, would you? Even if you wanted to. No, I reckon I’m as safe here as anywhere.”

“More likely the other way about.”

“What d’you mean?” Louie’s voice was high.

“You and Dorothy were pretty close. And you and Rebecca, too.”

“That’s no reason for accusing me of murdering them.”

“They knew a lot about you, you bet.”

“Are you trying to quarrel with me?”

“I’ve never really liked you,” said Jay simply.

“You’re drunk.”

“And so are you.”

The fact was irrefutable on either side. As Louie was bending towards her, full of her own virtue, Jay gave her a hard push, then slowly subsided backwards.

The walls of the room swayed outward from her, then disappeared into space. The light from the lamp was heavy on her eyes, her heavy head became light. She closed her eyes and saw Edward retreating down long corridors; she opened them and Louie was standing at the door.

Louie had on her hat and coat; her bag was packed and she was weeping.

“I’ve put up with enough. First my sister, now you. I’m going.”

“You’ve still got your bedroom slippers on,” said Jay, blinking. “And that’s not your hat,” she went on, giving it a closer look. “Or if it is, then it’s on back to front.”

She began to giggle. After a moment’s doubt, Louie joined in.

“Sorry, dear. We’re both in a state, that’s what…And perhaps you are a little, well—” and she paused delicately. “Had any tea?”

Jay shook her head.

“Nothing since lunch, and then only a few old sandwiches.”

“And all I had was a glass of milk and a rusk. Tell you what. I’ll blow my diet and just pop round the comer to the fish-and-chip shop. What we need is a proper meal. You put the kettle on.”

While Louie was gone, Jay splashed water on her face and used more lipstick. The world, which she had escaped Tom for a space, was creeping back behind her.

She spread a check cloth on the table, got out the vinegar and sat down to wait.

Louie bustled in.

“Only fresh haddock left…not got the taste of skate, but I’m so hungry I could eat a whale. Lord! it’s ages since I had fried fish. Keeping up appearances; is it worth it?”

After the meal they went to bed. They were the last up of all their little group of friends. George and Rosy, Barnabas, Edward and Roland had long since said good-night and gone to bed. Ellen was in bed, but not asleep; she was thinking about her case.

The Inspector was not in bed; the lights were out in Bartholomew Row, but they were still burning in his office, where the sounds of the river reached.

He had open before him a manila folder. The papers inside it were the result of patient plodding work; men had dusted tables, handles and doors for finger-prints, had taken photographs and written down statements; in the pathology laboratories men in white coats had taken other photographs and made slides; outside workers had travelled on buses and trains to check times and whereabouts. The result was not an answer to anything.

Beneath the Inspector’s hands two moments lay fossilised; they were the times when Rebecca and Dorothy had died.

The pathologist’s report on Dorothy was simple. It reported bleakly that it was the body of a woman of about thirty, that she had been in good health, and that she had no scars or easily identified marks. She had died from a cord drawn tightly round her throat. She had been dead between twelve and twenty-four hours when she was . found…On her arms and stuck to her neck had been found minute particles of white linen. To the report on the body was added one on her clothes: the dress she was wearing and the bright jacket were crumpled but not torn; they had been damp, and she had probably been lying where she was found since nightfall or early morning.

The report on Rebecca’s body followed. Rebecca was undernourished and probably anaemic, said the report in a detached way. She, too, had been strangled with a cord. She had been dead only a short time, perhaps only an hour,. when discovered. On her face, neck and arms were traces of some blue-and-white linen. Her clothes had been examined, but had little information to offer. A large wrinkled area, slightly bleached looking, had been discovered on the back of her cotton dress. It had been soaked in benzine.

“Dry cleaner,” muttered the Inspector. “Don’t know that that means anything.”

He read on. Sometimes as he read the Wreckers’ reports he reached out automatically to sound his bell, banging it angrily to himself. At length he pushed the papers from him. Never had so many statements from people concerned in the case been so bare of facts. The varied experiences of the inhabitants of the Row had at least taught them how to say nothing and go on saying it. They could be, and had been, badgered as far as custom and the law allowed, but victory was theirs. They had retired behind their sandbags whenever threatened.

“Hello,” said Winter without looking up as soon as Sergeant Llywelyn came in. “Thought you’d gone home long ago.”

“Round and round we go, but we don’t get any closer to the killer, do we?” said Llywelyn. He was very tired.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Winter took out a cigarette. “These are highly individual murders—nothing common or garden about them, so that in itself marks out the murderer. He, or she, is an unusual person.”

“All the same, what have we got to go on? Not a scrap of direct evidence. No one saw anything, no one knows anything, and we haven’t found anything not to count.”

“But I’m beginning to get things clear,” said Winter. “There are certain similarities in the two murders: both girls were killed in the same way—both strangled and both with a bit of old garden twine. The twine isn’t traceable to any particular source in the Row, but they all had some.”

“Well?”

“That in itself is not so important, perhaps, but it’s worth taking into account. Especially when the pattern goes on to repeat itself. Both of them were tied up at some point, wrapped tight like bundles, as far as the pathologist can tell. Why were they wrapped up like that, and where? And if they were not already dead, why did they allow it to happen?”

“No trace yet of what was used, I see,” said Llywelyn, looking at the papers.

“We shall get that, though. We’re going all out. Miss Oliver was wrapped in a plain white linen, and the girl Rebecca in something made of blue and white.”

“That ought to stand out.”

“If it’s still in existence. May have been destroyed. The scientists say it may have been a foreign dye—perhaps Swiss or Italian and good quality, so it’s not a dish cloth or an old duster that we’re to look for.

“I think it’s obvious,” went on the Inspector, “that the murderer is a person in close contact with both victims. It’s someone who knew the ways and habits of the whole Row. That means it’s one of them…Or someone close to them. Well, you know that as well as I do.”

“From the beginning we have looked at that little group. Mr. Lord, Mrs. Barker, Miss Andrews, and Mr. Williams…”

“You’re missing out one or two names, I notice. Never mind, I don’t forget them. Let me get to my next point.

“We know the murderer is strong: there was no real struggle in either case. Only Dorothy Oliver managed any sort of resistance at all.”

“That may not be strength, but cunning. Got them into a position where they couldn’t struggle…Tied them up in this cloth we know about.”

The Inspector nodded. “Quite likely. But even so there would come a moment when the least unsuspecting person would struggle to get free. And yet they were easily overpowered. That suggests a man, I think.”

Sergeant Llywelyn nodded.

“And we have only three names on the list of possibilities,” went on Winter. “Four if we count Mr. Thurlow. I do include your cousin Edward Mortimer.”

“There could be a fifth,” suggested the Sergeant. “I think we ought to consider seriously the man in Dorothy’s flat.”

“Mr. Harris?” sneered Winter. “Shall I tell you something? There are no masculine finger-prints to be found in that place, except yours and your cousin Edward’s…”

There was a long moment of silence between them.

“Make arrangements for an identification parade tomorrow,” said Winter, standing up. “We’ll see what Mrs. Ledger can do. And, Sergeant,” he added nastily, “be there yourself.”

XIV

IN his well-furnished office Mr. Banleuca was playing with his toy. It was a large-scale plaster model of the whole Lion and Unicorn Estate. He had had it painted in just the colours he planned to use. It was all in the best of taste. Everything was complete to a puppet doorman at the front door and a toy lift-girl standing in the lift. Mr. Banleuca had even provided minute helicopters in the hangars and, final and most ravishing touch of all, tiny wreaths in the Garden of the Dear Dead Inhabitants.

Sucking his thumb with pleasure, Mr. Banleuca rearranged his toys. He took out the lift-girl and replaced the lipstick on her lips, he dusted down the commissionaire and flipped a few more dewdrops on the wreaths.

“Lovely,” he said to himself.

His secretary banged the door behind her; she looked with irritation at the happy scene before her. She tightened her lips.

“Tell me,” she said “have you got anything of this stately pleasure dome built except this bauble?”

Mr. Banleuca sighed. “No,” he admitted. “But I’ve had men turning over the ground for some time now.”

“Well, it won’t grow like com. Are you planning to do anything more?”

Her employer’s eyes brightened. He drew her attention to the stacks of manila folders.

“My dear, you typed all the plans in these folders yourself. You know what I have in mind.”

“Yes, I typed it and you dictated it. But does it mean anything?”

“I’ve got the Ministry’s permission,” her employer reminded her in a hurt voice.

“But would the Ministry have given it if they’d known as much as they should, as much as I do? Do they guess that there’s no one in the whole scheme but you?”

“I’ve advertised,” pointed out Mr. Banleuca. “I’ve put up big boards.” He tapped his teeth. “Everything depends now on getting just that little bit of extra land, in that dear little Row.”

From a drawer he drew forth another model, still wrapped in cellophane. With anxious, trembling fingers he displayed the glories of his racetrack and super-stadium to Miss Clark.

“Think of it…the Derby by the Thames, Ascot on the Inner Circle.” He looked up at her for praise.

“Do you know, if I can get this last bit of land, I believe I’ll be able to get on with the whole thing. Won’t that be wonderful?”

“Wonderful.” Her voice was terse.

But Mr. Banleuca was worried. “Do you think those three will be able to get the leases I want in the time? Time is so short now. Will they?” He asked hopefully.

“No.”

“But they promised…I let them have a lot of money.”

“No…And you must tell the police.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Besides, I couldn’t afford to lose all that money.”

“Better be bankrupt than in the Central Criminal Court. This is murder.”

She picked up the telephone. Mr. Banleuca sat over his model. Sadly he moved the furniture out of the sun-lounge and dusted it.

Tears fell from his bright, round eyes.

XV

BUT Edward had arranged his own identification parade. He had planned it as he sat quietly reading “The Ring and the Book”, which he felt to be the only suitable reading matter for him at the moment, and drank his morning coffee. The motive for his ardent pursuit of Mr. Harris, in whom he had persuaded himself to believe, had been whittled down to one, and that simple.

“It’s him or me,” said Edward. “And, as Dorothy plainly thought, all’s fair in love or war.”

About Jay his thoughts ran their usual sad ambivalent track. Jay was dear, but Dorothy had been dearer. Too dear, perhaps? He considered the price. He was not yet entirely sure whether he intended to pay the bill or bilk, but he had an uneasy suspicion that this bill was one for which final payment would be exacted.

He sipped his coffee. It was early morning, with the sun still palely tipping the treetops on which he looked down. He sat by the window, which in this heat was wide open to the floor. Browning was presently replaced by the newspapers newly arrived.

Edward surveyed the headlines and saw without satisfaction that the Bartholomew Row murders continued to win prominence. It gave him little comfort to learn that Inspector Winter was a capable and efficient officer. Another headline caught his eye and gave him something else to think about.

He went to his telephone to talk to Jay; she had no telephone, so it would mean disturbing her landlady. But it was now after seven, and she was probably up. In a little while he heard Jay’s sleepy voice.

“Hullo?” she said inquiringly, by no means as pleased to hear Edward’s voice as she would have been last night. Now sober, she was worried.

“Can I come and have a talk to you?”

“It’s very early.”

“Never mind. Your landlady will know I’m coming in and not staying in.”

“But Louie’s here.”

“I want to talk to you.” His voice was persistent.

“Well, don’t act so severe. All right. Louie’s a sound sleeper. Come to breakfast.”

“Right. And if Louie shows any sign of waking, bang her on the head.”

But Louie was still breathing deeply and equably when he got there. Jay, who had in fact settled her guest in a camp bed in the sitting-room, pushed it into one corner of the room, out of the way of the breakfast table.

“Don’t look at the poor thing,” she said. “It isn’t fair.”

“I won’t,” he agreed. “But. I can hear.”

“Have some coffee and toast?”

“Yes,” he looked at it. “Not burnt, is it?”

“I’ve scraped it off. Bacon?”

Sunlight was bursting heartily into the room, lighting up the shadows, lines and tiny puffiness in the faces of those two who had slept uneasily. The radio was chanting in a neglected undertone.

“Do you mind if I turn that off while I talk to you?”

“Oh, is it still on?” exclaimed Jay, in surprise. “Yes, do. And I want to be told what this is all about.”

“Yes, of course, you do,” said Edward, buttering his toast. “First go on about last night while I finish eating.”

Jay told him about the evening she and Louie had passed.

“But now what do you want of me?” she asked.

“I want you to describe that flat again to me. I’ve thought of something, and want to be sure if it is really so.”

Jay put down her cup.

“Edward, I couldn’t. I’m beginning to feel sick at the thought of that room. I believe I shall be sick.”

“Now don’t be, my dear, good girl.”

His long face lengthened with his worry; for a moment he looked remarkably like his cousin Ted.

“Well, I’ve forgotten.”

“You know that’s not true. I know I’m being intolerable, but this is serious; it really is.”

“Oh, very well.”

“Run over some of the little things in the sitting-room. I’ve got an idea I saw something which might help—if I’m right, that is. Did you notice the newspapers on the table and in the rack at all?”

“No, not really; they wouldn’t interest me, you see.” She screwed her face up in the effort to recall. “One or two of them were in a different colour, I think, because I remember saying to myself they looked like a Neapolitan icecream.”

“Wonderful girl! Pistachio, you mean? Pale green, in other words. You know what that means? Sporting papers! Thought so. Go on.”

“I don’t know where to start, really. The mantelpiece…the flowers were dead in the bowl, there were some nice little pieces of china—a pretty box: snuff, I suppose.” She frowned. “There was a bit of rubbish up there, too; you know how people stuff things there without thinking? Funny I’d forgotten that till now.”

“What was it?” Edward leaned forward. He was getting what he wanted.

“Something with blue-and-white stripes,” said Jay.

“‘Sort of rosette with streamers—like we used to wear at school on Empire Day. Suppose that’s why I noticed.”

“A football favour,” said Edward with satisfaction. “You’re a good, brave girl. This’ll do us both good.”

“I don’t see how,” said Jay, who felt no certainty that what was good for Edward was necessarily good for her.

“Get dressed and I’ll explain.”

“I am dressed!”

“No, are you?” asked Edward in genuine surprise.

“It’s a sun dress.”

“Oh, well then, if you are ready, shall we go?”

“What about Louie?”

The sleeper had turned her face towards the room, and lay relaxed and comfortable, her mouth slightly open.

“Looks as though she wouldn’t hurt a fly, doesn’t she?” said Jay. “But flies—you watch out!”

“Leave her a note to explain we’ve gone.”

So Jay wrote, GONE, in large letters on the back of an envelope, and tucked it under Louie’s hand.

“She’ll notice that,” she said happily.

But, as if to refute this, Louie’s hand came out and brushed the note to the ground. This time Jay pinned it to her pillow. Then she and Edward closed the door quietly behind them.

“What you told me, Jay,” he began, “about the papers and the sporting favours confirms all I’ve been thinking. We know more about the man who lived there, and what we know will help us to find him. He’s a sporting sort.”

“If that’s what we are doing,” declared Jay, stopping still, “I’m not going any further. Not one step further. You promised to leave me out of this chase.”

“Look, Jay, I’m not playing and I’m not hunting. If we don’t find this bedfellow of Dorothy’s (and the Inspector won’t, because he doesn’t believe in him), then you or I are one step nearer the dock.”

“Oh, I couldn’t be,” protested Jay, pulling her arm away.

“Well, you and everyone else in the Row, I mean,” said Edward. “If you prefer me to put it that way.”

“I do prefer, and if you’d added the rest of London, then I’d have preferred it still more.”

“You can go home, if you like, of course; but I warned you. What I want you to do is to call on the Rev. Davies, and Mrs. Ledger, and George,” he added as an afterthought.

“And then,” he went on, “we shall go to a football match.”

“A what? In midsummer?”

Edward got out his newspaper and pointed to a paragraph.

“That’s the whole point. Look. Today, although it’s so killing hot, there is a special charity football match—two famous teams, and one of them the team with the colour favours you remember. And they are playing in this district. Anyone who takes any interest in football will be there; it’s a sort of vintage occasion. We shall be there, too.

“Us and ten thousand others. I can see why you want  Mrs. Ledger and the Rev. to come, as they have seen this man; but why me? Why me?”

Edward looked abashed.

“Well, you’re my second line of attack, or you could be if you would.”

“Oh, really?”

“Now, be open-minded. You are about the same size as Dorothy, aren’t you? And a bit like her physically?”

“I suppose so.”

“You are. I thought if you put on a red coat like hers (I know where to get hold of one), it would give the man a shock, and probably help us to identify him.”

“It’d give me a shock, too. What a horrible, horrible suggestion! I’d feel like I was getting into her coffin with her.”

She shivered, and Edward, touched by her fear, shivered too.

“Perhaps it is a bad idea.”

“I know it is. It takes someone like you, all so sensitive, to think up an idea like that; it’d upset an elephant.”

“Yes, I can see you’re frightened,” said Edward gently, and ashamed. “Very well, no coat.”

He looked at her with compassion.

A gay waltz tune floated out of a window as they passed; the next-door house was tuned into the news.

“It’s still terribly early,” said Jay, looking at her watch.

“Yes, I know; but I do want to be sure of catching them all at home. Now, are you going to come or not? It is Saturday. You don’t open?”

“I wouldn’t today, anyway,” she answered, thinking of Rebecca. The thought of the dead girl had haunted her all night.

Edward nodded.

“In that case, I think we go to George first.” He took Jay’s tacit consent as understood; he had never seriously doubted that she would accompany him.

“Yes, I thought we’d trot him along to see our other friends. After all, we must be realistic; there’s no denying things look pretty black for George. He certainly seems to fit the bill in all sorts of ways. No good us all rushing off to a football match if we’ve got the man we want under our nose. I’m going to give the old thing a chance to get himself recognised.”

“And will you get that horse to water? Will he come?”

“I shan’t tell him, dear; I shall put it in quite another way. Not sporting of me, I know. Shame, when he’s such a sportsman too.”

“He wears a sports jacket,” said Jay tartly. “I’ve never seen any other sign of it.”

George was at home, and was wearing his sports jacket…He made it clear that his guests were unwelcome.

“I was looking forward to that football match,” he said bitterly. “Why should I go with you and your friends when I don’t know them?”

Nevertheless he accompanied them. He was not prepared to alienate anyone at the moment, especially Ed-; ward, a blood relation of the police.

With George making a reluctant third, they went round to the Vicarage. Breakfast was over here also, for Mrs. Davies had to start work early at the Library, and the Vicar was digging in his garden.

“Getting your hand in for all aspects of your job?” inquired Edward. Then he introduced George. No sign of recognition crossed either face. But when George put his cap on to depart, a puzzled look appeared on Mr. Davies’s face.

“Do you recognise him?” asked Edward on the side.

“I did wonder…it’s hard to tell. Anyone with a square sort of figure looks like that, and then with that cap—well, really, I don’t know. I don’t seem to recall that moustache.”

“Oh, well, Mrs. Ledger can have a go. And then there is this football match. You understand what I want you to do?”

His friend nodded.

Mrs. Ledger was not surprised to see them. She popped brightly out of her door.

“A football match with you three men? Well, I don’t know what my husband would think, alone with you three men.”

“There’s me, too,” Jay reminded her.

But Mrs. Ledger had seen George, and she exclaimed loudly, “Why, George, dear old George. It’s years since I saw you.”

“Oh, you know each other?” asked Edward.

“We were at school together. You didn’t have that moustache then, George.”

“It was nursery school,” said George sourly.

“And you haven’t met since then?”

“Oh no,” said Mrs. Ledger brightly. “Quite strangers, aren’t we, George?”

George agreed that they were, but behind his dark glasses his eyes were suspicious.

“Why do you keep on asking people if they know me? Or when we last met? There’s something going on.”

He looked angrily at Mrs. Ledger, the house and the road; then the truth appeared to him. He denounced them freely.

“First Louie accusing me, and now you. My friends. Let me tell you there’s some have more on their minds than me.” He looked at Jay. “Ask her what she’s keeping quiet about.”

Jay continued to keep quiet about it, although her eyes spoke a few sharp sentences to George.

“Are you keeping something from me?” asked Edward.

“If I am, then I’m going right on keeping it.”

Edward and his party set off to the football match in a bad temper. Edward and Jay walked together, George and Mrs. Ledger followed, and the Rev. Mr. Davies hovered like an anxious Welsh collie between the two. Somewhere behind them was another follower of the party who was walking slowly and carefully with a heavy board on his neck and a severe look on his face. It was the old blind man who was not blind at all and who had long been in the pay of the police. When they passed a telephone box he intended to call the Inspector.

“And what do you want me to do when we get there?” asked the Vicar, hopping back to Edward.

The group clustered round their commander.

“There are several gates, I see. That makes it more difficult.”

“According to price,” George pointed out.

“Yes, I see that…I’ve been considering this matter pretty carefully, and I can see that the man we are after did himself well, with good slippers, expensive tobacco and probably the best seats wherever he goes. Therefore we stand there.” And he pointed to the gate before the dearest seats.

In spite of the heat, and the unseasonableness of the game, crowds were already arriving. Buses drew up at the comer every few minutes, emptied, and sped on. From one of these stepped Inspector Winter and Sergeant Llywelyn. They stood at the comer pretending to read the afternoon edition, but really observing the observers.

At the other end of the road there was a small commotion unnoticed by the casual onlooker, but very apparent to those who had been hoping for it.

Mrs. Ledger darted forward and clutched the arm of a large man in loud tweeds. He had a fair, guileless face and a general air of being well pleased with himself.

The outer group of watchers moved in to within earshot.

“Mr. Harris, I presume,” said Edward, stepping after Mrs. Ledger.

The man in the tweeds gazed in bewilderment from one to the other.

“Here, lay off,” he said. “What’s all this about?” He caught Jay’s eye.

“Jay,” said Edward, dragging her forward. “Jay, meet Mr. Harris.”

For some time now she had known what was coming; she was prepared.

“Oh, we’ve met,” she said, in a tired voice. “We’ve met. We’ve even been married.”

“Oh, Jay!” cried Edward.

“You needn’t have mentioned it,” said her husband.

“I suppose I ought to be glad you killed Dorothy, and not me.”

“Killed Dorothy? I never did,” he shouted.

The Inspector and his helpers closed in upon them. Before they knew what was happening they were inside a small room lent to the Inspector by the dazed and puzzled manager of the football ground.

“You won’t go arresting anyone on the premises, will you?” he kept on saying.

“I’m interviewing them,” said the Inspector tersely.

Edward leaned back in his chair. He was anxious when he saw Jay’s white face, but he was satisfied, too. He had won this round, he had found Mr. Harris, and surely in finding him he had won the whole game, too? It was to be hoped that Inspector Winter wasn’t going to be difficult. Also it was a pity about Jay.

He squeezed her hand sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Jay. I had no idea it would turn out this way.”

At this moment Sergeant Llywelyn came through the door with Jay’s husband.

Edward stood up.

“Look here, Ted,” he said. “Why can’t we go home? You’ve got your man, haven’t you? Thanks to us. Isn’t the Inspector satisfied? Why keep us hanging about?”

“Now, don’t worry, Edward,” answered his cousin evasively. “The Inspector wants to talk to you.”

Edward turned belligerently to the Inspector.

“Why can’t we go home? I found your man for you, didn’t I? The man who wrote the letter, the man in Dorothy Oliver’s too full life. I proved it, didn’t I?”

The Inspector looked surprised. “Proved? Proved what, Mr. Mortimer? You haven’t proved anything about this . man,” he went on grimly. “I may have had my eye on him for some time for some other little matters.” And he smiled affably at his victim, who swore angrily back. “But I can’t say that there’s more to it than that. He turns out to be Mrs. Drury’s husband. Well, that’s their affair.”

He settled himself comfortably.

“What you don’t understand, Mr. Mortimer, is that I’m interested in you. What did you give this man to let himself be part of your little dance today? Or did Mrs. Drury fix it?” He swivelled round to observe her. The colour flashed back into her face.

“I didn’t mix myself up in nothing,” interrupted her husband virtuously. “It was done to me. I wouldn’t have gone near that match if I’d known.”

Edward controlled himself. He pointed out to the Inspector that the man had been identified by Mr. Davies and Mrs. Ledger.

Mrs. Ledger fidgeted uneasily in her chair. She would not meet Edward’s eye.

“It’s so difficult now. Such a nice young man; and then, when it’s a question of hanging, you think twice, don’t you?”

The Rev. Davies was equally put about.

“It’s difficult to do my sincere duty. At first, I did think the young man over there did look like Mr. Lane, but now I confess…” His voice trailed away.

“See how your proof would survive in court,” said the Inspector to Edward.

“But it’s the truth,” persisted Edward. He was puzzled by the Inspector, who had something of the air of acting a part.

Jay got up. “Ask him why his picture was in Rebecca’s room,” she said in a tired voice. “Ask him.”

Winter smiled.

“So you saw that picture, did you, Mrs. Drury? You’ve got sharp eyes. And a good memory.”

She stared at him, too dulled by fatigue to comprehend. But Edward was quicker and his eye narrowed.

“So you knew it was him all the time; you believed me, but you chose to act as if you didn’t, you old…”

“Be careful, Edward,” said his cousin. “That tongue of yours…”

“Oh, all right,” said Bob Drury, suddenly capitulating. “I’ll say it. Dorothy and I were hitched up. I didn’t want to admit it in front of Jay, see? But if she knows, anyway…Not Rebecca, though; I didn’t have nothing to do with that girl, photo or not.”

He eyed his wife cautiously.

“Kind of you,” she said.

“There’s no need to be sarcastic. Whatever you may say of me, I’ve never been mean to you. I gave you a lot of thought, Jay.”

“Yes, and lovely thoughts they were, too. Well, I hope it gave you some fun, you and Dorothy. And Rebecca, too.”

“She didn’t know—not at first. Anyway, what do you think I am?—a young girl like that.”

Jay told him.

“You always did have a temper,” he said sadly. “Spiteful little cat.”

Jay approached him vindictively, hands outstretched.

“Now, now,” said the Inspector as he held her back. “We mustn’t have this. Come and sit down.”

The Inspector’s air of brisk efficiency had been replaced by a bland indulgence which was faintly terrifying. He fussed round offering them cigarettes and ashtrays. When Jay looked round from his attentions she found that Mrs. Ledger and the Rev. Mr. Davies had been quietly ushered out. She understood…the Inspector was thinning them out.

Only Edward and her husband now remained in the room with her.

“Now I know what you want,” said Winter, placing his hands together in front of him. “A nice cup of tea.”

Jay licked her dry lips; she admitted that a cup of tea would help.

“Pop down to the canteen,” he ordered the Sergeant—“there’s bound to be one here—and bring back a tray of tea.”

“I don’t drink tea,” said Jay’s husband hastily.

“Get some ginger beer, too, then, Ted,” said Winter genially.

When the tea came he made himself a cup of thick, dark, sweet tea, and he offered the same to Jay. She drank it thirstily.

“Take a biscuit,” he said to Jay, offering her a plate of digestive biscuits. “Tea is always indigestible alone.”

“Where have Mrs. Ledger and the Vicar gone?” she asked uneasily.

“I sent them home, my dear; they were tired.”

“I’m tired, too. Can’t I go?”

“In a moment. In a very short while I’ll get a car to run you home.”

“I don’t fancy going home in a Black Maria; that’d be an eyeful for my landlady and her pals.” Jay spoke sourly.

“My dear, a nice plain car!”

“With plain-clothes police written all over it. Do you suppose my neighbours wouldn’t recognise it? They’ll have periscopes out.”

“I’ll take you home, Jay,” said Edward. Then he met the Inspector’s interested eye. “Well, I will if I get out myself.”

“We’ll see,” said Winter cheerfully. “Now, just one or two little things to get clear. Of course this is all informal, you understand, or, dear me, I shouldn’t be seeing you all in one room like this.”

Nevertheless he looked at Llywelyn, who went to his table by the window and picked up a pencil.

“Now…perhaps we’d better get your full name,” he said, looking at Mr. Drury, who, through his vicissitudes, retained his debonair appearance, and who was at that moment patting his brown suede shoes. He dropped his handkerchief hastily and sat up.

“My full name?” he repeated with an uneasy look. “How full?”

“As full as you’ve got. Come on.”

“Robert Drury, that’s what I was christened.”

“So you said before. Now, your full name, please.”

“Robert Harry Drury Lane,” he said, glancing defiantly at Jay. “My mum was in the chorus at Drury Lane at the time.”

“When you were born?” inquired the Inspector affably. “A theatrical family?”

“Not born exactly. The run was over by then; it was only a short one.”

“It lasted long enough,” said Jay. “Inspector, he married me under the name Drury. Bob Drury, that’s what we all called him. Does that mean we’re not married?”

“He may have hoped so, but in fact such a marriage is perfectly binding.”

“But—” began Bob, then stopped.

“Exactly,” said Winter. “As you were going to point out, the real bar to a legal marriage was the Indian girl you married in Bombay during the war.”

“She was a very little one,” said Bob, but he looked anxiously at Jay. “I didn’t know it would count.”

“It’ll count for a few years in the first division, I should think,” said Winter briskly.—If you live to do it, said his expression.

Bob interpreted his look correctly.

“I didn’t murder anyone,” he said loudly. “Let alone Dorothy or that poor kid Rebecca.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“It’s for you to prove, isn’t it? And you can’t. Praise the Lord, I was with my mum the whole day Dorothy was taken, and we weren’t alone. She was giving a bit of a party for me…”

He fell silent at the thought of the party, and the reason for it.

“Your mum’d say anything,” said Jay. “And well I know it.”

“She warned me against you, anyway. Hard, she said, hard, that girl is; you be careful.”

“Pity she wasn’t harder herself,” sneered Jay.

But the Inspector cut across this family interchange.

“Why didn’t you come forward to give evidence at the time that you knew something of Miss Oliver? You must have known we were looking for you.”

“I was upset. I keep telling you I was fond of Dorothy. It cut me up when I heard about her. Read it in the evening paper I did. How would you like to come across a thing like that with your pint of beer? So I thought I’d just keep quietly out of the way, saying nothing to nobody, keeping my sorrows to myself.”

“Make him explain about Rebecca,” said Jay.

“I didn’t have nothing to do with Rebecca,” repeated Bob. “I can’t help it if the kid took to me. I didn’t encourage it. She was always round Dorothy, but I hardly noticed her. Quite a shock to me when I discovered how serious she was.”

“You gave her a photograph,” pointed out the Inspector.; “Are you sure you didn’t encourage her? I can understand; Miss Oliver wouldn’t have been pleased if she had found out.”

“You don’t put that rope round my neck…I tell you I didn’t have anything to do with the girl. You prove it. What’s a photograph among friends? Or an occasional; visit to the pictures? Not my fault if she read more into it than there was.” Bob was aggrieved.

“Rebecca got to know you were my husband, though,” said Jay. “And that’s why she was so upset.”

“Suppose she did? Rebecca trusted me. She trusted me a lot more than she trusted all you lot.”

The Inspector intervened: “Let’s go into this a bit more. Are you sure there had been no quarrel between you and Miss Oliver?”

“No, there hadn’t been. Why should there? D. was good to me.”

“Yes, surprisingly enough, she was. Did you see her constantly? Right up to the day of her death?”

“Yes, I did; we met as much as we could manage.”

“Then how do you explain that there are none of your finger-prints there?” And Winter leaned forward. “Doesn’t look as though she let you in very freely, does it? Or did she make you wear gloves?”

Drury swore. “I was there, I tell you. Dorothy was a proper good little housewife—always dusting and polishing—not like some.” He gave Jay a look. “She polished them off one day I wasn’t there, I suppose.”

“Anyway, you admit that you hadn’t been round there at least the day or so before she died?”

“I don’t know what you mean by admit; you’ve got such a funny way of putting things. Perhaps I didn’t pop in the day or so before. We had to keep up appearances. We were both busy; we were…”

“Go on.”

“Never you mind.” The mouth apparently so loose and gentle set in a thin, hard line.

“Oh, but I do mind. It’s my job to mind. There’s this matter of the Lion and Unicorn scheme, the buying of the building sites and the letters signed Harris. Harry, Harris…Couldn’t be you?”

“No. Not my sort of joke.”

“Oh, you knew it was a kind of joke. Not a very good one, perhaps. Did Miss Oliver think of it?”

He was still silent.

“Come on, we know you were used as a front. She used you as an agent, didn’t she? It was you that kept in touch with Banleuca, that nice Maltese businessman.”

“I never heard of Banleuca,” said Bob or Harry solidly.

“Oh, come, when he’s such a nice man. He’d be quite hurt. He regards you as a friend. Or he did. He’s been in to see us, you know. Now, he’s no fool. He didn’t want to get mixed up in anything nasty. And when the big fish decide to swim with us, then the little ones like you are apt to get eaten up.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I still say you’ve got a nasty way of putting things.”

“So you keep saying. It puzzles me that you don’t know anything. With you and Miss Oliver so close, it’s odd that you shouldn’t know all about her plans. She was in with Banleuca all right.”

“She never met him.”

“That touched you, did it? But she had met him all right. The charwoman at Bartholomew House saw them out together. Are you sure you hadn’t quarrelled? I can see you wouldn’t care for her going out with a fat old man like Banleuca.”

“I tell you we didn’t quarrel.” Bob was getting sulky.

“Not over business? And yet she was going away, wasn’t she? Was she running away from you? With Banleuca?”

“How do you know she was going away?” questioned Bob, with a revival of spirit. “And I’m not admitting anything, mind.”

Winter raised his voice; he had been talking to Bob in a quiet tone. “Llywelyn, ask Mrs. Weaver to step in here.”

The old cleaner from Bartholomew House came into the room and gave a bright look round. She smiled at Edward.

“Oh, Edie,” he said. “Fancy it being you.”

“Hullo, Mr. Mortimer,” she said happily. She was easily the happiest person in the room.

“Mrs. Weaver,” said the Inspector, “tell us about the case you saw under Miss Oliver’s desk.”

“I’ll tell you all I know, although there isn’t much to it, really. I wouldn’t mind telling you fifty times if I thought it would help. I’d even tell it in court, although my mother said to me, ‘Never be a witness Edie; you don’t know where it will lead you.’ She’d been a maid in good service, so she knew what she was talking about. Still, times are better now, aren’t they?”

“You go on, Mrs. Weaver; tell us what you want. We’ll see about court; it may not be necessary.”

“She had this lovely little case, striped in blue and white, very chick. Splashing money about, she was—a real beautiful fur cape she had, too.”

“About the case, Mrs. Weaver.”

“Oh yes. Well, it was pale blue and white—off white it was, really—and the other stripes were pale blue. The whole thing was pale blue and off white.” She paused, enjoying her memories.

“That’s quite clear, Mrs. Weaver.”

“Then there were initials on it. There always had been her initials on it. D.O. it used to be. Dolly Oliver, you see. And then when Ellen brought it back from the shop it came back with only one initial, one big L. Course, Ellen wouldn’t see what that meant (a fair state she’d have been in if she had—I don’t know what she liked more—Miss Oliver or her clothes—she wouldn’t like to think either of them were going off). For I see what it must mean. She: was going away. And she was changing her name.”

Winter cocked his head at Mr. Drury.

“There you are. She was going away all right.”

“She was going with me, you old fool!” shouted Bob, getting to his feet. “If you’re so clever, surely you can see this? L. for Lane.”

Winter smiled.

“Oh yes, I did see that. I’m quite clear about things, really. But I was waiting for you to tell me. You have been rather difficult to persuade. I’m so glad you’ve decided to be frank with me.”

“Oh, all right, we were going away. Why shouldn’t we go away for a little holiday?”

“Why not? Except it seems a funny thing in the middle of your business deal.”

“I don’t know anything about this business you keep on about.”

“I can confront you with Mr. Banleuca.”

“He never saw me,” said Bob triumphantly.

“Thank you. No, he never did. But what an interesting way of putting it! He never saw you, but he heard you on the telephone and you wrote him letters. You didn’t bother about wearing gloves, and we’ve had your prints, my boy, since you first came our way in the war.”

At last the fight was over. Bob told Winter what he wanted to know.

“All right. We were in this thing together, Dorothy and me. It looked like a good profit; so why not? But Dorothy got fed up. She said she couldn’t go on. We were going to skip out and leave the whole thing.”

“What, leaving all the money you expected to get from Banleuca?”

“Oh, we’d got that. We got that first. Old Banleuca gave us a lump sum down—for expenses and so on. And we were going to buy up the leases of Bartholomew Row as they came into the market—under different names, of course. Only we hadn’t bought anything yet. We thought we’d just take what we’d got and go.”

“I can understand that,” said Winter grimly. “I wonder old Banleuca didn’t do for you himself.”

A hush followed his words. Then Bob began to speak in an excited way:

“It wasn’t just us. There was a third party—the person who put Dotty on to old Banleuca in the first place. Someone I never met who was going shares with us. Only I don’t think Dorothy meant to share…she said she did all the dirty, and why should she share? But I think she was nervous. I think that’s why we were going away. She was nervous.”

“You think I’m mug enough to believe in this Chinese puzzle you keep setting me,” said Winter savagely. “As soon as I get my hands on one of you, you squeal and say ‘I’m not guilty; it’s not me; there’s someone behind me.’ Well, get on with it. Have a look for your missing partner. Meanwhile you can go, all of you. But don’t go far, because when I want you I’ll come and get you, and I don’t want to have to stretch my legs.”

They filed out in silence. Even Bob was chastened.

“Just one moment, Mrs. Drury,” said Winter, putting a hand on her arm. “I want you to answer one last question. Don’t worry if it seems a frivolous one. Will you tell me why you are wearing that shade of lipstick and nail varnish?”

“Because it matches my dress,” said Jay wearily. “Want to see?”

“No, good-bye. Remember to stay within call.”

When she had gone he turned back to Llywelyn. “So you were right, boy. The Oliver woman never meant to wear that nail varnish with that coat. Either someone else painted her nails or someone helped her into the coat. And I’m betting on the coat. She was dead when it was put on her. And you know what that means?”

Llywelyn nodded. “Yes, I think so. Or what it could mean. It wasn’t her that went down the road at four o’clock in the afternoon. She never wore a red coat when she was alive.”

“It wasn’t her. Just a woman in a red coat that the shortsighted Mr. Thurlow (noticed the way he screws up his eyes?) mistook for Miss Oliver. He didn’t know any better. But we do. She was already dead then. And the woman in the red coat was the murderer’s alibi.”

XVI

IGNORANT that she had helped explode an alibi, Jay went home with her husband and Edward. They were joined by exhaustion and nerves into an uneasy fellowship. In a curious way neither of them suspected Bob of murder any longer. But they were not happy.

“We’re in this together,” Edward reminded them sombrely. “The Inspector is going round with a noose to fill, and he isn’t going to worry which one of us he pops in it.”

“He wants it both ways with me,” said Bob. “Wants me to confess I did the killings and then hints I might be next on the killer’s list.”

Absently he took Jay’s arm, leaning against her affectionately, as of old; she did not move away, but with an inward sigh reviewed her situation. She was not, after all, married to Bob, and she thought there might have been a joke in that if she had known how to make it. But there was something else, too: Dorothy was dead; and Bob at a loose end was Bob on the way back to her; she knew the signs and could see it coming. The previous scenes and quarrels between them, the anger, the insults, the suspicions would count for nothing; as it had never been mutual trust and respect which had drawn them together, so they would hardly feel the loss of it. If he said the word she would go. And yet…was there a chance of something better with Edward?

The three of them stood in a silent, exhausted group. But Edward had come to a decision.

“Still got the key to the flat in Dickens Place?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. I forgot to give it to Mrs. Ledger.” It had never been his intention to part with it, but to use it discreetly to take away his more valuable possessions there.

“We will visit there, then. I have an idea. An idea about the room.”

“That room is becoming an obsession with you,” complained Jay, who had no desire to go there again.

All the same, she accompanied them as they walked the ’ few hundred yards to where the Ledgers lived. The row of houses was quiet in the moonlight, all the downstairs rooms were dark, but here and there a light burned in the window above. Dickens Place went early to bed. In the Ledger house no light shone from the upstairs rooms where Bob and Dorothy had lived, but from the hall an inner lamp could be seen.

“Wonder if old Ledger’s up?” said Bob uneasily, as he put his key in the door.

As they crowded into the hall they heard a slight scream of surprise. Mrs. Ledger looked at the invaders with wide eyes.

“Oh! You’ve never come here?”

“Why not?” said Bob defiantly. “Rent’s paid, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but all the same…”

“I can’t help it if my wife got killed, can I?”

Albert Ledger appeared from the back of the hall. He was a small, thick-set man, like a retired jockey.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” His voice was aggressive. “I don’t want you in here. I’m surprised you dared.”

Bob repeated again that it was not his fault if his wife had been killed.

“Which wife?” asked Ledger with emphasis (thus proving that Mrs. Ledger had not wasted her opportunities). “You’ve got three, as far as I can make out…and probably more.”

“It’s the first step that counts,” pointed out Bob.

Mr. Ledger was angry.

“It wouldn’t do to get violent now, would it?” he asked, pointing his toes like a ballet dancer.

“No,” agreed Bob, backing away. “Especially with your lovely furniture and everything…you’ve got such a nice polish on it too,” he added, glancing at Mrs. Ledger.

She responded to his beseeching eyes.

“That’s right, Albert,” she said hastily. “We don’t want no harm to come to the chiffonier with Aunt Polly’s bowl on it.”

“Move it, then,” directed her husband, without taking his eyes off Bob.

“It’s too heavy.”

“You help her, then.” He nodded at his prospective victim.

“Not likely.” Bob was not minded to make a hole to knock himself into.

“I asked you to help the wife,” said Ledger with heavy politeness, taking his hands out of his pockets.

Hypnotised by his steady, beady eye, Bob gave the chiffonier a half-hearted shove.

The cupboard rocked, and from the top dropped Aunt Polly’s bowl, neatly capping Albert Ledger’s head. He slid to the ground. Mrs. Ledger cried out in alarm.

“Aunt Polly’s pot,” she wailed. “You’ve cracked it.”

“Never mind my head!” said her husband, staggering to his feet.

Bob was concerned. He put out a helping hand.

“I never meant to do that, you know,” he said. “It was quite an accident.”

“I know that, old man,” grunted Ledger. “Took me by surprise, that’s all. I suppose I was a bit hasty. Accept my apologies.”

The trio marched up the low flight of stairs. Bob was inclined to be pleased with himself.

“Of course I didn’t do that deliberately,” he said. “But there’s no denying it settled him. We won’t have any more trouble with him. It always pays to take a firm line. You two weren’t much help, I must say.”

“Oh, I’d have stepped in if he’d been really troublesome,” said Edward.

“I dare say.” But Bob’s good humour disarmed his criticism. His luck was in.

He bustled round, opening the door and drawing the curtains. Jay noticed that the room had been dusted and the dead flowers emptied since their last visit.

“Here’s our little place. Not bad, eh?”

“Better than what we had, you mean?” said Jay.

He looked hurt. He regarded this as bad taste.

“Well, it looks more like Dotty than you,” she went on, turning round.

“She fixed it all,” admitted Bob.

“And I suppose it was her idea to call yourself Harris when you wrote that letter?”

It was Edward who spoke.

“Now why bring that up?” Bob was injured again.

“Because we really must have a little talk about it.”

“You sound like the Inspector. I’m fed up with little talks. I’ve had too many with him as it is.”

Edward shrugged. “Jay, go and make some coffee in that little pantry place, will you?”

“Now listen to me,” he went on to Bob. “We shall all be having a little talk with the chaplain in the condemned cell, if we don’t watch out. Don’t you understand that we’ve been tied up and all but sewn into our shrouds by a neat, nasty-minded planner? And on the whole, from where I sit, I should say that it’s you the murderer is shaping up as his first understudy.”

Edward watched the other’s expression carefully as he spoke.

“No one could think I murdered Dotty,” protested Bob. “I was fond of her.”

“You’ve been fond of too many for that to help you much.”

“I didn’t kill her, and I don’t know who did. Here, why did I let you come here?”

Edward ignored this and lowered his voice.

“You do see that the main motive for these murders may have been jealousy?”

“There’s only one person who’s got call to be jealous,” said Bob slowly. “And that’s Jay.”

Edward nodded.

The other man gathered himself together.

“No. No, you don’t get me on that game. Jay and I don’t see eye to eye, but I’m not accusing the girl of murder.”

She came in then with a pot of black coffee.

“Not very good,” she said. “But what can you expect with stale coffee? It may taste better than it smells, but I doubt it.”

Bob was wandering round the room methodically collecting his possessions; he opened the bedroom door, still talking.

“We had some nice things…it seems a pity to leave them behind. I’ll just take what I can carry.”

He could carry quite a lot. He filled his pockets with odds and ends: a small clock, a silver ashtray, a cut-glass jug. Longingly he fingered a small rug.

“Don’t suppose I could get away with it,” he decided regretfully.

“It’s your rug.”

“In a way, yes; looked at properly, it is; but the police have probably got all this catalogued, and the creditors will want to know where it is,” said Bob the experienced. “A few odds and ends—well, who’s to say? I can chance  them.”

He folded several silk handkerchiefs into his pocket.

“There are debts, then?” said Edward slightly surprised.

“Bound to be, old boy. Although I nearly always paid cash with what Dotty gave me. Still, I couldn’t always, if I was a bit short. Didn’t do her any harm, old boy. She got the goods, and of course I would have paid in the end.”

He mopped up a few more oddments.

“Any of that perfume and stuff in the bedroom any good to you?” he asked Jay.

“No,” she shuddered. “What do you think I am?”

“Oh, all right. Just thought you might be able to use it. Seems a shame to leave too much behind. We planned to take as much as possible with us.”

“You planned to clear out with all you’d rooked?” said Edward. “You’d got a nerve.”

“Why not?” asked Bob. “We’d earned it, hadn’t we? We were going to take all the ready (she always asked for it in one-pound notes; said it was the only way to do the sort of deal she had in mind; so it was, too). We had a little bit of it put by. We were tired of this sort of life; we wanted to settle down and be respectable. Buy a nice little business by the sea (we’d been going off every week to look at likely spots), and make it pay. But we had to have a bit of capital to start off with.”

“Did you think you’d get away with it?”

“Well, we knew it would be difficult for the old codger Banleuca to do much, but Dorothy did get a bit worried about her partner.”

“Bob, are you sure you have no idea who it could have been?”

“Oh no!” Bob looked innocent.

“Let’s go through everything you can remember. That’s why I wanted you to come here. I thought there might be something which reminded you.”

“But Dorothy never said much.” Bob’s lovely blue eyes were a blank.

“Well, do you think it was a man or a woman?”

“It must have been a man, mustn’t it? They used to go out together, dinner and theatres. Does sound like a man, doesn’t it?”

Edward agreed, but he had plenty more questions to put. While they talked, Jay lay back with half-closed eyes. She thought Edward was behaving very oddly. Some of his questions she didn’t like at all. What did he really want from Bob?

She picked up the newspaper which was lying beside her. It was an old one—one old enough to have a crossword puzzle partly filled in by Dorothy before she died. Jay studied it with interest.

Then the voices of the two men began to penetrate again.

“You aren’t being very helpful.” Edward sounded exasperated. He was playing with one of the little ornaments on the mantelshelf. “I can’t believe you don’t know more than you say.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“I suppose Dorothy thought it best not to confide in you. And I’m really beginning to sympathise with her.” Was there a note of grim satisfaction in Edward’s voice?

He dropped the little enamel box on to the marble, where it made a small ringing sound.

“Wait a minute,” said Bob. “That box. She used to joke about it. I wanted to sell it once when we were a bit short, but she wouldn’t. She said she liked it because it reminded her of her partner in the Row.”

Edward grabbed the box to take it over to the light. His face was sharp. He held it before him, studying the little oval shape, which was painted in soft blue, green and red.

“God knows what she meant then. Probably one of those jokes we shall never find out about. It’s French, isn’t it? Probably eighteenth century, and might be valuable.”

He turned it over and over in his hands. On one side was a hunting scene in miniature, with deer, men on horseback and a grove of trees, with a background of peasants leaning on spades. On the other side was a picture of a large bright bird.

Jay looked down at the crossword on her lap. She read once again the clue that had caught her eye, the clue that Dorothy had filled in with such a heavy pencil and which now had such appositeness.

“It’s a hunt, isn’t it?” she asked. “There’s a man with a horn and a stag.”

She regarded the clue of the crossword: a lament for a stag? it asked. She regarded the answer: A Mort. Was that what Dorothy had meant? Had she made a little punning joke upon Edward’s name? A Mort, a Mortimer.

“Yes, it’s a hunt,” said Edward, as if he couldn’t see the strange look upon Jay’s face. “But can that help? I don’t know. We might ask Barnabas about this box, I suppose. He’s the one in the Row I associate with such things; let’s tap his expert knowledge.”

“What, now?” asked Bob.

“The sooner the better.”

Bob rose cheerfully. He had established a kind of domination over them. He felt that his star had been rising since the moment Aunt Polly’s pot had capped Mr. Ledger’s head. Stuffing his pockets with a few more oddments, he led the party downstairs.

“I’d be glad to get a look at Bartholomew Row,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about it one way and another, but I’ve never had a chance to have a good look round.”

He did not meet the Row at a happy time. Late Saturday was usually a time for peace there, but today there was a scene of some confusion. Girls were rushing in and out of Barnabas’s carrying typewriters and piles of books. Several were in tears. Barnabas’s school was breaking up. He was frank about this motives.

“I’m breaking up,” he said, “before the whole thing breaks down. Even my highly educated, broad-minded parents won’t stand much more of this. Another murder will finish me. This way, if anything happens it will be in the vacation.”

His debs were desolate. They pointed out that they were still in the middle of the most hectic season London had known for years, that Ascot and the Academy were over, but that Lords and Eton were still to come. They wailed that they needed their hours with Barney to steady their nerves.

“Try aspirin instead,” advised their teacher heartlessly.

The youngest and prettiest—she who was nursing a passion for Edward and was practically engaged to the wayward eldest son of a peer—burst into tears.

“You can’t turn me out,” she cried. “I’m clinging to the Row.”

“My dear pretty child, you can’t cling to me.”

Through the thin floor Barnabas could hear the steady tramp of Louie’s feet and the mutter of her voice as she talked to herself.

“Oh, do shut up!” he shouted down by means of the open window. “Do stop behaving like a walky-talky. You’re giving me the creeps.”

“Go on; I’m being as quiet as a mouse.” Louie was in excellent spirits. “I had a ’phone call from a friend. He says that he’s heard that there was a big scene outside the New Hall Football Ground this afternoon and that they’ve caught that Harris creature. He turns out to be Jay’s husband; but there, we’ve all got our troubles, haven’t we? And I feel so cheerful. I feel I’ve got some luck coming my way.”

“Your friend was well informed,” said Barnabas.

“Yes, wasn’t he? But there, he’s got connections.” Louie’s friends always had connections—or they wouldn’t have been her friends.

Louie staggered out from her shop with a great pile of papers, magazines and rubbish.

“You aren’t the only one to be clearing up,” she said. “These dustmen will have some work to do when they come.”

But Barnabas was looking at the newspapers with no very pleasant expression.

“You get the paper delivered every day, don’t you?” he said. “Morning and afternoon?”

“Well, so do you. We all do. Ellen does it.”

“That’s right. And we got them as usual the day Dorothy was killed, didn’t we? And we get the afternoon paper around tea-time, don’t we?”

“Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?” said Louie impatiently. “Supposing you did see the girl coming round with them; it’s Dorothy the police asked you about.”

“But I said I didn’t see a soul,” went on Barnabas. “Not a soul, I said. I believed it, too. But I did see Ellen. I saw her without noticing her, but I remember now.”

But Louie interrupted him. “Look who’s here! Jay and Edward, and someone else with them.”

She went down the Row to meet them. She liked what she saw, and quickened her steps. “Well,” she said, getting in a long look at Bob. “They say everyone’s got a ticket somewhere with their number on it, and I reckon I’ve just found mine.”

“Love’s a lottery, I’ve heard,” answered Bob, stretching out his hand. “But I think it’s more like a lucky dip.”

“I always was a lucky girl. I’ve said so before.”

“You know you need looking after. You’re too generous-hearted.”

Jay interrupted their duet. “Wouldn’t it be nice for you to know each other’s name?”

“Oh, we don’t need it,” said Louie blissfully.

“Which name would you like me to use?” Jay asked her husband bleakly.

“I might have a new one for this,” he said cheerfully. “But my Christian names are Bob and Harry.”

“Well, I never,” said Louie, taking in all the impersonations, but quite unabashed. “You don’t look a bit like I expected. I shall call you Bob; the name’s a favourite with me.”

“Don’t let me get in your way,” said Edward. “But we did come on business. Barnabas, can we have a word with you?”

All this time Barnabas had been standing in the background watching Louie with Bob and clicking his teeth in a shocked manner. Now he nodded and came forward.

“We means all of us,” said Louie firmly. “If there’s anything going on, I want to know about it. We’re a group here.”

Edward explained about the box and showed it to Barnabas. There was a pause while Barnabas studied it, but he handed it back with a puzzled air.

“It’s just an ordinary piece of work, as far as I can tell,” he said. “I don’t see anything special about it. But I’m not an expert, of course.”

“Well, who is?”

“I can take us to a museum near here, and a good shop,” suggested Barnabas. But he added nervously, “I’m known there, so be careful how you behave. I’d like to be able to go back.”

He looked at Bob, who ostentatiously put his hands in his pockets.

“All right, boy,” he said. “I won’t win anything this trip.”

Louie cried out crossly: “What a nasty mind you have, Barnabas! Anyway, what about the box? What will the police say about making off with the evidence? I’m not keen to get in bad with them.”

“Oh, it’s not evidence yet,” said Edward. “Anyway, it’s Bob’s box.”

“That’s right,” agreed Bob. “It’s more or less my box. Don’t worry, little girl.”

Slowly the party assembled and set out. It ambled along in a kind of crocodile. In the far distance it was followed by another crocodile, this time in single file, composed of all the policemen the Inspector had commissioned to follow each suspect. The Row followed Edward, and the Police followed the Row.

The contingents halted first outside a big jewellers and antique shop in the main road near the Town Hall. One of the detectives slid off to telephone the boss. He had a feeling the old man was going to be cross.

Edward looked round at his friends. He looked doubtfully at Jay in her big hat and Bob in his hairy bright tweeds.

“It might be best if we don’t crowd in,” he said. “We don’t want to put these people off. You two hang back a bit.”

But Jay was cross. “Having forced me to come, the least you can do is to let me hear the news from the horse’s mouth.”

And she elbowed her way through the door.

“Allow me,” said Bob blithely. “After all, it is my box.”

He, too, pushed through the door.

The shop was dim and hushed. One elegant customer was toying delicately with a tray of rings, helped by a subdued assistant. The arrival of Edward and his party was like the arrival of a circus in a cathedral; they brought with them the rough and tumble, noise and dust of the world. After a shocked pause, from the back of the shop came a young man with a dark lock of hair falling on his forehead.

The box was produced. At some stage of the proceedings it had been wrapped in tissue paper and placed inside a cardboard box with holly leaves on it. The assistant was unimpressed.

“We don’t buy.”

“I’m not selling. I just wanted to know about this; I wondered if you could help…”

Across the shop, Jay, staring into a show case of delicate china figures, heard the words newspaper—interesting story—your expert opinion—sprinkled with magic effect.

Mollified the assistant picked up the box.

“I wouldn’t want to be mentioned in connection with this, of course,” he said hopefully.

“I thought I’d just say, ’the well-known connoisseur’,” murmured his flatterer.

“Expert sounds better,” said the man. “Just say expert.”

He screwed a round glass in his eye, and studied the box.

“Usual sort of enamel work, you know. English? No, not English…probably French, although it could be German. Quite delicate work. But not of great interest, and not of great value.”

“Here,” said Bob; “worth quite a lot, that box is.”

“About thirty or forty pounds,” said the assistant in an off-hand way.

“Hark at him,” said Bob. “As if he pays for his bus fare with a five-pound note. What do they pay you for standing behind that counter, old chap?”

“Is that all you can tell us?” said Edward hastily.

The man shrugged. “That’s all there is to tell. I can’t make it up for you, can I? The picture is quite nicely done; so’s the bird. Drawn from life, too, I should think, which they aren’t usually. Pretty colours, though, with that Prussian blue and the pale Georgian green.”

“Georgian green?” asked Edward.

“That’s what we call it in the trade.”

“I see,” Edward was thoughtful. He and his party withdrew.

“That’s one point,” he said. “But somehow I don’t think it is what Dorothy had in mind. She meant something more direct than a play on old George’s name. Where’s the tissue paper? Left it behind? Bob, give me that silk handkerchief.”

He whipped the square of silk from Bob’s top pocket. A fitter of bright rings fell out. Edward looked reproachfully at Bob.

“It’s all right,” said Bob, bursting into laughter. “Not valuable, only about thirty or forty pounds each.”

“You take them right back and say they just happened to fall into your pocket.”

They waited while Bob crept back and hurriedly thrust the rings under the horrified assistant’s nose. “You ought to look after your stuff better,” he said as he did so. “You might have lost these for good.”

Once again they set off, this time to the museum. It was housed in small, unpretentious quarters and was a good deal less daunting than the shop. They stood in the square hall and tried to get their bearings. It was now late on a Saturday evening, and the place was on the point of closing.

“I know this place a bit,” said Barnabas. “It only runs to a Curator and a hall porter. The porter, from what I know of him, is probably in the pub next door. The Curator must be somewhere about.”

“We must just work through the rooms,” he went on. “Each is arranged according to period. Tudor, Anglo-Saxon and so on.”

The first room on the left was the Anglo-Saxon room; they looked in, but found no one in the bare, dark gloom, which was furnished only with a few rough benches and a long wooden table.

“Not in here,” said Edward.

“No one would be from choice,” said Jay with disfavour. “Lived like pigs then, didn’t they?”

But no one was in the Tudor room, or the Queen Anne room, or among the gilt-and-white Wedgwood medallions of the Regency room.

Bob was lovingly fingering one or two little movables when he was startled by a loud voice.

“I’m here if you want me,” it sang.

They poured into the Victorian room to find the Curator sitting before a large upright piano She was delicately darning the soft green silk stretched across the front. She was a fat, brisk young women in a blouse and skirt.

“Thought I heard voices,” she admitted. “Hoped you’d go away. Want anything. Forgive me if I go on with this.”

Her large fingers continued to pick neatly away at her task.

“Not reporters, are you?” she said, looking at Edward. “Saw you at a party somewhere. Could do with a bit of publicity here, especially if it brought us in some money. Going to give it us?”

“I did think of doing a little article,” lied Edward. “I might describe the work you do here.”

The girl got to her feet, reeling up her silks as she did so.

“That won’t interest anyone very much. No good describing what I do here. Clearing up and mending; that’s all it amounts to. What every woman does every day of her life. Make up something better than that; get me some money; then I might be able to have a proper museum and get rid of all this bric-a-brac.” She waved a contemptuous hand.

“It’s quite nice bric-a-brac,” said Edward.

“Not all journalists come to write me up, are you? Can’t be. Quite a Press conference. Oh, hallo, Barnabas. Didn’t see you before.”

She was not surprised when a little box was produced for her inspection.

“I’ll help if I can. People are always bringing me things,” she said patiently. “I’m an archaeologist really. I don’t know much about this modern stuff.”

Bob was fascinated, sufficiently fascinated to put down the silver bowl he had been weighing in his hand.

“Call this furniture modem? Wonder what she’d think of the Ideal Home Exhibition?”

The curator was turning the snuffbox over with large, careful fingers.

“Nothing much here,” she said. “Pretty, but quite ordinary. The product of its day. Good little bird study—Garrulus glandarius, that is.”

“And what was its day?” asked Edward.

“Oh, eighteenth century. Louis Quinze, I should guess.”

“Louis Quinze?” said Edward. “I see.”

He looked round for Louie, only to see her fat legs carrying her for the door as fast as she could go.

XVII

THEY were all under the Inspector’s eye. Louie’s legs had carried her no farther than Inspector Winter’s arms; they had met at the door.

“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,” she was repeating. “I saw which way they were heading; that’s why I run for it. But I never did it, I tell you.”

No one listened to her. They had their own troubles. The room was heavy with virtuous indignation. The Inspector was indignant because of the gambolling escapades of his flock of suspects, all of whom seemed to regard themselves as detectives; the inhabitants of the Row (Rosy and George had been rounded up, too) were indignant because they had been helping the police only to be all but arrested; and Louie was bursting with indignation and fear. Bob felt virtuous but not particularly indignant, and he occupied himself with rehearsing, entirely for his own pleasure, a method of relieving the Inspector of his heavy gold watch and chain. With itching fingers he put his hands into his pocket, where he felt a small china object which he knew at once was one of the more precious pieces from the Museum. Planted on him. He gave Barnabas a reproachful glance; now he, too, was indignant. Of the room of people, only Edward felt neither virtue nor indignation; he knew it was no good.

It was a heavy, sultry evening with a promise of thunder and rain. Many days since Dorothy had died and Rebecca had followed her. The inquest and the investigations lay behind them. The Inspector had patiently or not so patiently, according to his mood, followed the twisting and shifting stories. He could now put his hand on the murderer. He looked at them with a meagre pity for the innocent, or the comparatively innocent, for he did not acquit any of them of guilt.

Jay shifted uncomfortably on her hard seat. She offered the Sergeant a hopeful smile, but he looked soberly back. In fact he had been angry when summoned by Winter to the meeting.

“I don’t care for these melodramatic last acts,” he said.

“They’re a dramatic lot themselves,” the Inspector had responded. “Why not play up to it?”

Now the Inspector surveyed his audience; they in their turn raised expectant eyes. Only Louie still shouted her innocence.

“For some time,” said Winter in a tired voice, “I have understood that the murderer of these two girls is to be found among you.”

He put on his spectacles to get a better look. No one challenged his gaze or his comment; they knew the truth of it better than he did.

“You understand now that the letters you all got telling you about the danger of infection from leprosy (a danger which I may say does not exist), the meeting you went to, the publicity you received, were all parts of a cleverly arranged scheme to lower the value of your property and to drive you to sell out cheaply. It might easily have succeeded, as you had a fifth columnist among you to lower morale.”

“Yes, of course; we understand that now,” said George irritably. “Why keep going on about it?”

“One of the authors of this scheme was Miss Oliver. The other was Mr. Lane.”

Bob gave everyone a slight bow.

“But he was more in the nature of a sleeping partner,” went on Winter smoothly.

Bob scowled at him.

“The real moving spirit behind the plan, the person who first contacted Mr. Banleuca, was a third person, one of you.”

No one stood up to say: Yes, please, it was me. George dropped his chin on his chest, Rosy fiddled with her beads, and Louie stared defiantly at the Inspector. Jay and Edward sat still…waiting.

“Unluckily for this third party, he, or she, had caught a tartar in the net. All the money which came into Miss Oliver’s hands went, not to promote the scheme, but to provide the comforts which Miss Oliver and Mr. Lane liked to enjoy. In addition, they had a nice comfortable little pile tucked away under an assumed name in a bank at Brighton. Miss Oliver used to go down to pay the money in…she liked the coastline, had a picture of it.”

Bob had looked up sharply at the mention of the money.

“Yes, I’m afraid we found that money,” said Winter almost sorrowfully. “Your last cache gone.”

“I said they were going to Brighton,” said Ellen with satisfaction (she had been sitting unnoticed at the back of the room). “I’m cleverer than you think.”

“Oh, come off it,” said Bob. “What’s all this boiling up to? Who are you going to charge? I know something about police procedure. You can’t keep us all sitting here.”

He looked round for support. Barnabas, not wishing to offend the man who was nursing his little bit of china from the Museum, spoke up in support:

“I must say I agree. Inspector, which of us do you accuse?”

Inspector Winter was a simple man, and he spoke from his heart.

“I accuse all of you.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I think you all realised very soon that only Miss Oliver could be behind the letters. I’ve felt from the beginning that the one thing which marked the case was that you were acting as a group and carefully collating your statements. You decided to deal with Miss Oliver.”

Rosy leaned forward. She dropped her umbrella.

“But not by murder,” she squeaked.

“She’s mad,” said Louie hastily. “Hysterical. Don’t know what she’s talking about.”

The Inspector ignored her and devoted himself to Rosy. “I think it only fair to tell you that in law the people who conspire to commit a felony which results in murder are equally guilty with the actual killer.”

“I shall turn Queen’s Evidence,” said Rosy, looking wildly round the room.

Amid the resulting hubbub Barnabas’s voice made itself heard.

“I daresay we had better talk. We did conspire, but not even to commit a felony, Inspector.”

He paused. “All we were going to do was to—well, persuade her to stop what she was up to.”

“You left it to the right person to do the persuading,” said Winter. “The person who was really in the scheme with Miss Oliver, the person who had just discovered through Ellen’s idle gossip about a travelling case that Miss Oliver was going to skip out. Yes, you left it to the right hands. You’re really quite a cruel person, are you not, Mrs. Barker? What did you plan? A little torture? Those curling tongs? And then did your hands slip? Or did you always plan to kill her?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Louie.

“I have this proof, you see,” said Winter, leaning forward. “That you faked an alibi after she was dead—after. She was already dead, wasn’t she, when Mr. Thurlow saw her walking down the Row at four in the afternoon? He’s as short-sighted as he can stare; you knew that—you, an optician’s daughter. What he saw was a red coat that he recognised and automatically labelled Dorothy Oliver. But he didn’t see Miss Oliver; what he saw was the only other person who came down the Row that afternoon—Ellen delivering the papers. Ellen appreciated you giving her that red coat, although she didn’t know you’d made a special journey out to Miss Oliver’s to find it for her. You had a busy afternoon.”

“I didn’t mind wearing it for you that afternoon,” said Ellen. “It was ever so kind of you to give it me. I loved it.”

Louie looked at her savagely.

“I wouldn’t have said nothing about it,” said Ellen, pouting. “I know you asked me not to; I’d have kept quiet like you said, only you shouldn’t have tried to get it burned that day. Not even though you did give me another. It wasn’t fair. Ellen didn’t like that.”

“You can’t prove Dorothy Oliver came anywhere near me that afternoon,” scorned Louie. “If Roland didn’t see her, where was she?”

“She was sitting in your back cubicle, strung up in one of the white wrappers you use for your customers…she was tied up, dead. The conspiracy was that you should get her tied up and threaten her. You knew you could rely on the whole Row to keep quiet about whether she was seen at two o’clock on the way to your shop. But I’d like to know how they all felt about you when she was discovered dead. Did they like your addition to the scheme?”

“You’re making this up as you go along,” said Louie with spirit.

Winter banged his brass bell. The door swung open and a cowed-looking Belinda and Maria were supported into the room by a group of the Wreckers.

“Well, girls,” said Winter. “Memories working yet?”

The two girls nodded, sneaking pale glances at Louie. She glared at them.

“Now you remember the day before Miss Oliver’s body was found, the day she actually died? Right. Now do you remember the early afternoon client Mrs. Barker had that day?”

“They never saw her.” Louie’s voice was triumphant.

“No, of course they never saw her. The whole conspiracy centred round the fact that she was to be got to come while the girls were at lunch. No, they never saw her, but…”

He turned to Belinda and Maria.

“You two cleaned out the cubicles, didn’t you?”

The girls nodded like puppets.

“And you gave a pretty good guess about who had been in the end cubicle.”

“Those girls are liars,” snapped Louie. “And they didn’t clean out the cubicle until next morning, anyway.”

“That makes it even more remarkable.”

“It was the smell, you see,” said Belinda. “Ever such a strong smell of lily of the valley…Miss Oliver and Rebecca always used it; and we knew Rebecca hadn’t been there.”

“No, her turn was coming. You see, Mrs. Barker? Not proof we could take to court, perhaps.”

“They were all in it,” said Louie, suddenly breaking. “We did agree that I should threaten her like you said. And I tied her up and left her, and when I came back she was dead. That’s all I know, I tell you. I wasn’t her partner and I didn’t kill her. It was one of them.”

And she looked suspiciously round the room. “Which of you did it? Only one of you could have known she was there.”

She turned to Winter. “I moved her body that night, I don’t say I didn’t, but I didn’t kill her. Nor Rebecca.”

“It’s no good, Mrs. Barker,” said Winter in a tired sort of way. “Somehow you left your finger-prints on Miss Oliver’s neck. You didn’t know, I suppose, that her cooling flesh would retain your prints. The other girl died in exactly the same way—same method of strangulation, same way of tying up. If you did one you did the other. It’s a fair presumption.”

He looked at the Wreckers. “If you will take Mrs. Barker into the other room, I will formally charge her. The rest can go.”

• • • •

When the room was cleared, Llywelyn returned to where the Inspector sat with his head on his hands.

“Well,” he said bitterly to Winter, “did you enjoy the last act of the drama?”

The Inspector raised his head.

“That wasn’t the last act,” he said sadly. “We’ve still got that to come…I begin to feel sorry for you, boy.”

XVIII

EDWARD and Jay walked home together, drained of energy and very silent. All the same, Edward was going about looking as if he were finished with something; Jay wondered if she was one of the things. A light summer rain was falling.

Wordlessly they mounted the stairs to Edward’s flat. His sitting-room was still and dark. He lit one lamp and threw open one window to its very limits. Far down below they could see the glimmer of the pavements through the wet trees.

“Fancy it being Louie,” said Jay in an exhausted voice. “Who’d have thought it? She seemed so nice.”

“She was mean under the surface, and a bit too clever.”

“That’s just what she always said about you,” said Jay, with the faintest hint of a giggle.

“She didn’t like me. I always felt she had a knife ready to stick in one’s back.” Edward was abstracted.

“What happened to Bob?” asked Jay nervously.

“I got rid of him,” said Edward. Then he added, “On purpose.”

Alarm settled in Jay’s eyes. She reached for a cigarette, but, once holding it, she clutched it helplessly without seeking for a light.

“I can’t stand much more this evening,” was all she said.

“I know that. I don’t want you to. That’s why I brought you here.”

“Your voice, Edward…” Her own trailed off before the threat she recognised, the threat which she had recognised for a long time now without admitting it.

She made one last effort. She put assurance into her voice.

“Why worry, Edward? It’s all over, bar the shouting. The Inspector is satisfied. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

“Is he? And does it? Do you really think so?” asked Edward sombrely. “I wish I thought so. But he isn’t a fool.”

Jay fit her cigarette and looked helplessly at the door. She was beginning to be afraid. Edward was still talking.

“Didn’t it strike you that he said some funny things? Dorothy was dead when Louie cooked up that alibi—Winter knew that.”

Jay shuddered.

“And if Louie meant to take advantage of that stupid conspiracy to kill Dorothy, then why didn’t she plan an alibi in advance?”

“I suppose she killed her without meaning to,” whispered Jay. “She didn’t mean to do it—people often don’t (Edward, don’t look at me like that), and then she went too far.”

“There’s no sign she ever began. I think she got those finger-prints on the neck when she moved the body. Louie faked that alibi, but not the murder. She was never in any partnership with Dorothy. The snuffbox didn’t point to Louie; it meant something quite else. The Inspector guesses…”

“Only guesses,” said Jay. “If he only guesses, then there is time to get away, Edward, dear.”

But he did not try to move. He sat there heavily in his chair and he ignored her offer of affection.

“I’m not mad, am I? You can understand what I am saying? I am making a coherent picture?”

Jay nodded.

“I’m very much afraid that Winter got on to the whole thing from the pathologist’s report on Rebecca. She’d been tied up, too, you see. She had to be. You can see that?”

He raised dull eyes to hers.

“Rebecca hadn’t been tied up by Louie in one of her little smocks, but in a length of blue-and-white cloth. He knew where to look for that all right. Do you know why? I guessed it from something he told me.”

Jay shook her head. She was trying to edge towards the door; only Edward wouldn’t take his eyes off her.

“The poor child had rested in a pool of liquid dress cleaner. It had made a patch on her dress. Winter knew what sort of establishment would keep a bottle of that in hand.”

“She’d been tied up and left in my shop,” said Jay, shaking partly with fear and partly with rage. “And I let you get in to her.”

“Yes,” said Edward simply. “The Inspector saw the implications, like you are beginning to. She was lying trussed and strangled on your fitting-room floor (I wonder if she was quite dead?); she hadn’t died from hanging on that conspicuous hook—it was much too weak to bear her weight for long. It didn’t. That really was a dummy that you and I saw hung up there?”

“What about the blind? Who touched that?”

“Ah, there’s a little idea I had. I thought that a piece of ice, a large piece from your refrigerator, might weight down the window-blind, and not till it melted would the blind move up. It gave a sort of alibi to someone who had been away all the lunch time. What do you think of that?”

“That was clever of you, Edward.”

There was a long hush. Finally Edward said, “I couldn’t help it. Jay.”

“No, I suppose not. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? This isn’t me, they say, this is bigger than me.”

“I couldn’t help it, Jay,” he repeated. “Did you think you could get away with it?…You told the Inspector you were the first in the shop. You moved the body then from the cupboard to the hook, and threw away the dummy. And that water; of course he wondered if you hadn’t thrown all that water round to cover up something. He saw the point. I’ve suspected you since you took to wearing long sleeves, before the scratches Dorothy gave you healed. She got one arm free, didn’t she? But Rebecca didn’t even manage that, poor child! Why did you kill her? She wasn’t much of a threat to you, when all is said and done.”

“Why ever should I kill either of them?” she said blankly.

“Because you were Dorothy’s partner in this famous plot with Banleuca, and because she was bilking you and taking Bob. That stung, didn’t it? So you crept in when you knew Louie had tied her up and left her to feel frightened. Louie meant to soften her up, but you killed her.”

Jay sat still.

“You did, didn’t you? I’ve been quite sure ever since I understood what Dorothy meant by the joke about the snuffbox. It was the bird, my dear, the bird. The Garr ulus glandarius—the common jay, the noisy stupid jay. And you are stupid, my poor shallow Jay. How could you get away with murder?”

“All this is your fault,” said Jay petulantly. “If you had been kinder to me, loved me, I’d have forgotten about Bob and the money. I wouldn’t have bothered. I didn’t want to hurt people.”

“Yes, I’ll shoulder that part of the blame for you.”

“It isn’t what I like. It’s what’s true.”

Outside they could hear voices and heavy feet.

“That’s the Inspector,” said Edward. “He must have followed us here. I knew he would.”

They looked at each other in silence. The soft, damp night air blew through the window.

Jay stood up. “Oh well,” she said with her last attempt at jauntiness—“one drop’s as good as another.”

And she walked towards the window.

XIX

MR. BANLEUCA’S secretary looked round the room for her employer. He seemed to be absent, but there were uneasy sounds, somewhere between a growling and a whinnying, from beneath the desk. She peeped, and Mr. Banleuca lifted his head from the piece of paper he was worrying to show her his teeth.

She put the tea-tray down on the nearest clear space. Mr. Banleuca popped his head out.

“You can take that away,” he said. “I don’t like bread; I especially don’t like brown bread. And cake is worse.”

“Yes,” said his secretary, looking at the tray, which contained nothing but a cup of tea and a plain biscuit.

Mr. Banleuca began to growl again. With a sigh Miss Clark picked up the telephone.

“Get me the Zoo,” she said in a worried voice. “The big game department.”

A voice from under the desk interrupted her.

“Not the Zoo, Miss Clatk,” it said. “Not the Zoo. The Victoria and Albert, or the College of Heralds, if you like, but not the Zoo.” Mr. Banleuca shivered delicately. “Why, I’d be eaten alive…I’m not a Lion, but a Unicorn.”