The Blind Side: An Ernest Lamb Mystery Page 3

  Miss Lucy’s agitation became less tearful. She said in a flustered voice,

  “Oh, no, dear, you can’t—Peter’s there.”

  “Peter? Living there?”

  “Yes, dear. He is the executor. He is going through all the papers. Dear Mary never destroyed anything. There are boxes and boxes and boxes of them.”

  “Bother! Then that’s a wash-out. Well, what about your flat? That’s a bright thought, isn’t it? I’ll keep it aired and warm and beautifully clean, and I won’t let Ross so much as cross the threshold. If he tries anything on whilst you’re away, there’ll be murder done. I can’t say fairer than that—can I?”

  “My dear—”

  “Now, darling, step on it, or you won’t catch that train! Listen! I’ll be at the barrier. Is it the Folkestone train—the seven-thirty-three? It is? All right, I’ll be there. You can bring the keys along and press them into my hand. And you’d better just murmur to Rush that I’m moving in. You needn’t bother about Peter—I’ll break the news myself.”

  Miss Lucy was heard to draw a breath that was almost a gasp.

  “Oh, Lee—I don’t know if you ought—if I ought—so many people away, and no one on this floor except Ross and Peter—”

  “Darling, I’ve never had a chaperon in my life. Now hurry, hurry, hurry! And don’t forget the keys!”

  Chapter Four

  Lee paid her taxi and ran up the steps of Craddock House. It was a very hot evening and the sun fell scorching on the steps and on her back. All the trains had been hot, and the station like an oven on baking-day. She thought lovingly about getting into a large cold bath and wallowing there.

  Rush came up out of the basement with a highly disapproving air. If he was really going to disapprove of her having Cousin Lucy’s flat, life wasn’t going to be worth living. She cast hastily about for a scapegoat—or goats. Since he disapproved of nearly everyone in the house, she led off with affectionate enquiries about the occupants of the other flats.

  By the time they had got her luggage upstairs she had managed most successfully to divert his attention from herself. Most of the flat-holders were holiday-making, and Rush didn’t hold with all these goings and comings.

  “What people want to go away for when they could stay ’ome and be comfortable beats me all to blazes. Not my place to call them silly fools, but nobody can stop me thinking it. There’s Lady Trent out of number six—where’s she gone? You’ve got something mortal ’eavy in this case, Miss Lee. Abroad, that’s where she is, and seventy-five if she’s a day and seventeen stone if she’s a hounce. Why can’t she sit quiet at ’ome and see her doctor if she wants company? And Connells out of number five—gone hiking they have—next to nothing on their backs and their knees showing in them shorts. Not my idea of what’s decent in a young married lady. And Potters away out of ten and eleven—seaside for the children. And number two’s away, and number three, and your aunt—”

  “Cousin,” said Lee.

  Rush snorted.

  “Aunt’s what she looks like! Sea-voyaging she’s gone, and sick she’ll be if what she’s like in the lift’s anything to go by. Twenty-five years she’s been going up and down in it and she’s never got over saying ‘Oh!’ and a-clasping of herself. Is it bricks you’ve got in ’ere may I ask, miss?”

  “Books,” said Lee.

  Rush banged the case down at the foot of Miss Lucy’s bed.

  “They’re pretty well all away,” he said. “Mr. Ross, he’s in number eight, and Mr. Peter Renshaw’s in number nine a-tearing up of your Aunt Mary’s papers.”

  Lee murmured “Cousin,” and got a baleful glare.

  “Your Aunt Mary’s papers,” said Rush firmly. “And Miss Bingham in number twelve, she come back yesterday. And number one’s here—Mr. Pyne, he don’t go away, not much he don’t.”

  “Well, that’s nice for you,” said Lee kindly.

  Rush straightened up. He was a sturdy, square old man with a close-cut grey beard and a bright, belligerent eye.

  “Look here, Miss Lee, I don’t want none of that,” he said. “What’s in my job I’ll do, and what’s in other people’s jobs I’ll see to it that they do, or the worse for them, but that there Pyne in number one, do you know what he arst me to do no further back than yesterday? ‘Rush,’ he says, ‘your boots is that ’eavy they jar my nerves. Couldn’t you wear slippers in the ’ouse?’ he says. Laying back in his chair he was, with smelling-salts in his ’and. And I says, ‘I could, Mr. Pyne, but I ain’t going to. It ain’t part of the job,’ I says. What’s he think I am—sick-nurse or summat?” He gave a short angry laugh.

  Lee had an entertaining vision of Rush in a starched cap. She said consolingly,

  “Well, you’ve still got Mr. Pyne, and this floor’s full—me in here, and Ross in number eight, and Peter in number nine. Quite a nice little family party, aren’t we?”

  Rush stumped out of the room into the hall.

  “I’ve not got nothing against Mr. Peter,” he said. “Mr. Ross, he’ll go too far one of these days.”

  Ross seemed to have been making himself popular. Rush grumbled at everyone, but there was something harsher than a grumble in his voice now.

  She said lightly, “Don’t start quarrelling with your bread and butter,” and saw the old man fling round with a jerk.

  “Bread and butter?” he said. “That’s all some folks think about! There’s time I feel as if Mr. Ross’s bread ’ud choke me, and I’ll be telling him so one of these days—or choking him.”

  In spite of the heat a little cold shiver ran over Lee. The outer door of the flat stood half open, and as she shivered she heard a step go by. It went past, and it stopped. A latch clicked, a door banged. Lee ran across and shut her own.

  “Oh, Rush, how stupid you are!” she said in a scolding voice. “Why do you want to say things like that at the top of your voice for everyone to hear? If that was Ross, what’s the odds he heard what you said? You’ve torn it properly!”

  The old man stood there glowering.

  “It might be Mr. Ross or it mightn’t. How do I care what he heard? Didn’t I say I’d be telling him one of these days? If he goes too far, he goes too far. And if he heard what I said, he’s welcome!”

  “Why are you so angry with him? What’s he been doing?”

  Rush elbowed her away from the door in his rudest and most determined manner.

  “Nothing I’d be likely to talk about to you!” he said, and went stumping out, and down the stairs.

  She could hear him muttering to himself all the way to the next flight. She wondered more than ever what Ross had done to offend him. Of course it was very easy to offend Rush. He had been porter there for thirty years, and considered that the place belonged to him. He remembered John Peter Craddock, and he had served John David. The present owner had never been anything more than Mr. Ross, and if he disapproved of Mr. Ross he could see no reason why he shouldn’t say so.

  Ross wouldn’t be so stupid as to take it seriously—Ross couldn’t. But Ross was turning Cousin Lucy out. If he could do that…

  Lee frowned and went to shut the door, but before she could do anything about it there was a knock and a deprecating cough. Instead of shutting the door she opened it, and beheld the limp, dejected form of Mrs. Green.

  Twenty years ago Mrs. Green would have been described as a char. Now she aspired to the title of caretaker, but after one severe trouncing from Rush at the beginning of her engagement three months previously she had had to fall back upon the useful compromise of daily help. She scrubbed the stairs and cleaned the lift, very inefficiently according to Rush, who had been heard to describe her as a snivelling hen. She also “obliged” in several of the flats. She had a lachrymose voice, a good deal of untidy grey hair, and a large port-wine mark all across the left side of her face. In spite of the heat of the day she was shrouded in an old Burberry. A black felt hat of uncertain shape was tipped well over on one side of her head. To the other she clutched a faded bl
ue crochet shawl with a border which had once been white.

  Beholding Lee, her mouth fell open.

  “Oh, Miss Fenton—”

  Lee felt as if everyone in the building was in a conspiracy to prevent her from having that nice cold bath. She prepared to be short with Mrs. Green.

  “Oh, Miss Fenton—I thought perhaps I’d just catch Miss Craddock—”

  Lee shook her head.

  “She’s gone.”

  Mrs. Green leaned against the door jamb. She groaned and shut her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I do feel that bad. I was going to ask if I might set down for a minute.”

  There was nothing for it. Lee stood back without any very hospitable feeling.

  Mrs. Green swayed limply to one of the hall chairs and sank down upon it with another groan. A glass of water was not welcomed with any enthusiasm. She touched it with a shrinking lip, and murmured in the manner of one about to swoon,

  “If Miss Craddock had a mite of brandy—”

  Lee wondered just how bad the woman was, and then scolded herself for being harsh. The brandy sounded suspicious, but under a hastily switched on light Mrs. Green really did look rather ghastly. Lee said with a catch in her breath,

  “What is it? Won’t you tell me? Shall I call Rush?”

  She could have administered no sharper restorative. At the porter’s name Mrs. Green’s drooping head came up with a jerk.

  “Him?” she said. “Why, he hasn’t got any ’uman feelings, Rush hasn’t—thinks no one can’t enjoy bad health except that lazy old lie-abed wife of his.” Her voice dropped into a sob. “Oh, miss, you won’t tell him. I’ll get the sack for sure if you do.”

  “For being ill?” said Lee.

  Mrs. Green sniffed.

  “He hasn’t got ’uman feelings. Last time I had one of me turns he carried on something shocking. And I suppose you think I do it to enjoy myself, Mr. Rush,’ I said, and he took and told me that if I did it again I could go and enjoy myself somewhere else. And all I done was arst for the loan of a mite of brandy. ‘Just you take a drop of brandy when you get one of your turns, Mrs. Green, and it may be the saving of you.’ That’s what they told me in the ’orspital. I suppose Miss Craddock hasn’t left a drop?”

  “I’m sure she hasn’t,” said Lee.

  “Then I’ll be getting along,” said Mrs. Green in a voice of gloom. “The sooner I get along and into my bed the better, because this isn’t only the beginning of it, this isn’t. Twenty-four hours my turns last, regular. There isn’t nothing you can do for them neither let alone a drop of brandy that eases the pain. Right up in the top of my head it starts, and that violent no one ’ud credit it, not if they hadn’t had it like what I have, and down it goes till it’s through and through me. Grips my heart something cruel it do, and if I don’t get home before it comes to that I’m liable to faint right off. Many’s the time I’ve been picked up and taken home for dead.” She heaved a heavy sigh and got to her feet. “I done the stairs this morning. Mr. Rush can say what he likes, but I done them. And Mr. and Mrs. Connell’s away, and I’ve cleaned up after them and no business of Mr. Rush’s, and if he’s got anything to say about my taking a day off, it’s a sinful shame, and I hope there’s some that’ll speak for me. I wouldn’t mind going to Mr. Craddock about it. It’s him that’s master here, and not that upstart of a Rush, when all’s said and done.”

  “Yes, I should,” said Lee, and opened the door.

  Mrs. Green paused on the threshold to groan and wreathe the faded shawl about her neck.

  “There’s a bus I could get if I’d some coppers for it,” she said in hollow tones.

  Lee gave her sixpence, and was glad to see her go. But when she had shut the door her heart smote her and she thought, “How horrible to be a daily help, and have turns, and go round cadging brandy and bus fares.” She wondered if the turns were real, because if they were, perhaps she ought to see Mrs. Green safely back to wherever it was she lodged. She had taken off her dress and turned on the bath, but it came over her that she had been harsh. Supposing she had been a brute to Mrs. Green. Supposing Mrs. Green was swooning on the stairs or being taken up for dead in the street.…

  Lee put on her dress again and ran down. There was no one to be seen except Rush, who was crossing the hall. He looked so bad-tempered that Lee thought she wouldn’t ask him any questions. The big front door stood open. She ran down the steps and glanced up and down the street. A bus had just gone by. With any luck Mrs. Green must have caught it.

  She turned back, relieved, to meet Rush’s glowering eye.

  “I was looking to see if Mrs. Green had gone.”

  “Want her?” said Rush.

  “Oh, no,” said Lee.

  “Snivelling hen,” said Rush.

  Lee ran upstairs with a clear conscience, and found the bath running over.

  The cold bath was delicious. When it had washed all the clammy, sticky heat away Lee ran some of it off and turned on the hot tap, because even on the most boiling day you can’t dally too long in an icy bath, and she wanted to dally. Thank goodness there was a communal hot water supply, very efficiently superintended by Rush, so she wouldn’t have to bother about lighting stoves or, what was more important, paying for fuel. She brought the water to a comfortable temperature and wallowed.

  A pity about South America, because she had always wanted to go there. Very annoying to have the relations proved perfectly right. Each, every, and all of them had warned her in the most aggravating and aggressive terms.

  Warning No. 1—Danger of South America as a destination.

  Warning No. 2—Danger of unknown and unpedigreed foreigners as an escort.

  And both warnings most lamentably and indubitably justified.

  She had got away all right, but there had been one or two horrid moments when she had wondered whether she was going to get away.

  Don’t be a fool. Stop thinking about it. It’s done, finished, dead. And it was Madeleine Deshenka’s fault. Of course the relations would rub it in. Relations always did.

  She achieved a philosophic calm. Whatever you did they talked, and however it turned out they said “I told you so.” Why worry? All the same, Peter Renshaw had better mind his step. The violence of their last quarrel still lingered excitingly in the mental atmosphere. In this very flat, in Cousin Lucy’s sitting-room, but during Cousin Lucy’s absence, the battle had raged. Lee recalled her own part in it with legitimate pride. She considered that she hurled a very pretty insult. She thought that she had put Peter in his place. If he was going to get uppish just because the Merville man had turned out to be a pig, there would be another really blazing row.

  Anyhow Peter would keep. She wasn’t going to see him or anyone else tonight. If the telephone bell rang, it could ring itself silly. If anyone came knocking on the door, they could go on knocking until they got bored and went away. Nobody was going to get a chance of saying “I told you so” tonight. Least of all Peter Renshaw. First she would have a long, long, lingering bath, and then she would fry eggs and bacon on the gas stove in the kitchenette, and make toast and tea—she had provisioned herself on the way from the station—and then she would ransack the flat for a really exciting novel and read in bed. Lucy had a taste for thrillers, and with any luck there ought to be something she hadn’t read before.

  It was over the eggs and bacon that she had a moment of weakness. Bacon and eggs for two are more amusing than bacon and eggs for one, and Peter was only just across the landing. If she were to ring him up.… “Idiot!” said Lee. “Do you want to hand yourself over nicely wrapped up in a parcel for him to glory over? And rub it in. And say I told you so. All military and superior. No, you don’t, my girl!”

  She didn’t. She followed out her programme. If she hadn’t had so much proper pride, a good many things would have happened differently. Some of them might never have happened at all. But Lee wasn’t to know this. She admired her proper pride a good deal, and
having eaten her supper sat up against three pillows and read an exciting work entitled The Corpse with the Clarionet.

  Chapter Five

  Peter Renshaw came into the Ducks and Drakes and looked about him for the party he had promised to join. If it was stuffy and hot outside in the London streets, it was a great deal hotter and stuffier here. He told himself that it was an act of complete lunacy to go to a night-club in the middle of an August heat-wave. No collar on earth would stand the strain.

  He looked across the dancing-floor and saw no sign of the Nelsons. What he did see was Mavis Grey sitting alone at one of the small tables. She had on an extravagantly cut dress cut of some silver stuff. A ridiculous little bag of the same stuff lay on the table beside her. Mavis was looking down at it, playing with the linked handle, snapping the clasp first shut, then open, and then shut again. She had not seen him, and he had no desire to be seen by her. If the Nelsons didn’t turn up in five minutes, he meant to be off. In fact the more he thought about it the weaker he felt about giving them as much as five minutes.

  Pat on the thought the party arrived—three Nelsons, a sister of Paula’s, a brother of Tony’s, and a red-haired girl, all hot, all hearty, all game for a couple of hours dancing. His fate was sealed, the collar must take its chance.

  He took the floor, first with Paula, and then with the red-haired girl, an artless creature on her first visit to London. She had been sight-seeing hard all day and was full of information about St. Paul’s, the National Gallery, and the Houses of Parliament. Peter was able to dance quite peacefully without having to supply any conversation. A vague encouraging sound at remote intervals was all that was required to keep the ball rolling.

  Mavis passed them in Ross Craddock’s arms—very literally in his arms. His head was bent over hers, and it was he who was doing the talking. Mavis, with her eyes cast down, seemed neither to speak nor to listen. She floated on as if she were in a dream, dark lashes against lovely tinted cheeks, dark hair in a mass of curls caught up with a silver flower. They passed again before the music stopped. This time she lifted her eyes and looked at Peter without surprise, as if she had known all along that he was there. But there was something more in the look than that. It said, “Please, Peter.”