“MARBLE Arch!” Joan alighted from the omnibus in amazement.
Modern improvements had altered the Marble Arch she remembered almost out of recognition. She made her way across to Edgware Road, and took the turning down Connaught Street that led to the quieter squares that lay behind, parallel with Bayswater Road.
It all looked exactly the same here; she had fancied the squares larger, the streets wider, that was all. In her childish days every step of the way she was taking now had been familiar to her.
Mrs. Spencer, never unduly nervous with regard to the perils of the London Streets, had been wont to send little Polly across to Praed Street or Edgware Road half a dozen times a day on errands.
Joan found her way to the Mews without difficulty. A couple of stablemen stood in the archway; farther down a group of children were playing. It all seemed so familiar that Joan involuntarily rubbed her eyes. Surely the last ten years had been a dream. She would wake to find herself little Polly Spencer again, with fat baby Tim to carry about and look after, and one of these men would probably be Gregory. But both the red faces were strange to her.
“Can you tell me whether John Spencer, Sir Robert Brunton’s coachman, lives down here?” she asked. It was an idle question: her father had never kept his situations for any length of time.
One of the men shook his head.
“No, miss, I have never heard the name. There is nobody in Sir Robert Brunton’s employ down here now.”
“Thank you!”
Joan had no further excuse for lingering. She glanced down the Mews; there was the house that had been her father’s—they might have been the self-same boxes of mignonette and scarlet geranium in the windows; behind she caught a glimpse of the loft whence she had climbed on the leads. She turned away with a shiver.
Grove Street itself was unmistakably dingier than she remembered it. Probably the murder at No. 18 had dragged it considerably lower in the social scale.
Almost without realising where her steps were taking her, she went on up the street. No. 18 looked just like its neighbours, neither better nor worse. There were the same drab-coloured curtains in every window. Joan’s eyes strayed fearfully to the second floor. Then for the second time that day she acted on an impulse that seemed to come from without, to be altogether independent of her own will. She stepped forward and rang the bell.
It, was answered immediately by a stout woman of middle age, who had the appearance, of a respectable lodging-house-keeper. She looked at Joan with surprise.
‘“‘I heard—that is, I thought you might have rooms to let.”
“We have one set vacant, miss, but they are at the top of the house. I don’t know whether they would suit a young lady.”
“Perhaps I might look at them,” Joan suggested timidly.
“Oh, certainly, miss! Come this way, please.” She preceded Joan up the stairs. “There really ought to be a lift, I always say,” she volunteered. “But still when you are used to it, the stairs are not so bad.”
Joan glanced towards the room on the second floor, but the door was closed.
The rooms at the top certainly justified the woman’s doubts—they were small and dingy. From the windows there was a good view of the neighbouring chimney-pots. With a cursory glance at them Joan turned away and slipped a shilling into the woman’s hand.
“They would not do, thank you!”
“No, miss—thank you, miss! I was afraid they would not be suitable. Not but what I should be pleased to do my best to make a young lady like yourself comfortable.”
“You are very kind.” Joan turned to the stairs. As she reached the second floor she paused. “I wonder whether I might just look inside those rooms? I—I have heard of them.”
The woman glanced at her suspiciously.
“We do not show them, madam. They are let to Mr. Cohen.”
“I should be very glad if you could manage it.” Joan was holding her purse in her hand—there was a chink of money. “I used to live near, and remember hearing—”
She hesitated. The woman glanced covetously at the gleam of gold.
“Well, just for a moment, miss, as Mr. Cohen is out, though I do not know that I ought. But perhaps you have been told something of what happened there.”
“Yes—yes—at least I told you I have heard. My people were living near then,” Joan said incoherently as the woman opened the door and she stepped forward.
The aspect of the room was entirely altered. All the artistic disorder had given place to an array of books and desks; it had now the appearance of a business man’s office.
There was a square of Axminster carpet before the fire-place. Joan’s brain quickly conjured up the black, woolly rug, the still form that had lain across it. Her eyes wandered to the window. It was there she had stood, her curly head on a level with the first pane, her eyes just peeping in. There was a door in the recess between the fireplace and the window. With a momentary return of the horrible nausea that had overwhelmed her the previous evening, she remembered how it had opened—she knew that somebody must have been watching the murderer at work. What—who would he have seen if he had looked behind in that other room?
She pointed to the door.
“Where does that lead?”
The woman watched her white face inquisitively; evidently there was more here than met the eye.
“That’s the door into Mr. Cohen’s bedroom.” She walked over and threw it open. “See!”
It was a fairly large, commodious room. Joan noted that a door on the opposite side opened on to the landing, so that anybody might have come in from there, crossed the room softly, and, finding that door into the studio ajar, have pushed it open and watched. Who had that unseen witness been, and why had he or she kept silence?
She walked back and put of the room quickly. Downstairs, in the vestibule, the pallor of her face was noticeable. The woman of the house hesitated a moment. In some curious fashion her face seemed to have caught the pallor of Joan’s.
“You look fair tired—worn out, miss,” she said tentatively, her eyes watching the girl’s face from beneath their down-dropped lids. “If you would care to come in and rest in my room, I could get you a cup of tea or anything; and any of the lodgers would tell you that Mrs. Perks knows how to make them comfortable.”
Joan had had nothing to eat since early that morning. So entirely had her supposed recognition of Warchester the previous evening possessed her, that she had lost desire for food; but now her healthy young appetite was reasserting itself, and she became conscious that there was something very attractive in Mrs. Perks’ suggestion. Besides, it would give her an opportunity of putting the questions she was longing to ask.
“Thank you very much!” she answered as Mrs. Perks opened the door and disclosed a comfortable-looking sitting-room.
Mrs. Perks pulled forward the one easy-chair the apartment boasted.
“If you will take a seat, miss, I’ll soon make a cup of tea, and there’s a wing of cold chicken, or I could get you a chop.”
“Oh, the chicken, please! You are very good. I believe I really am hungry!” Joan said with a little laugh. “I have been walking about a good deal.”
She had thrown off her hat and Mrs. Perks, as she moved backwards and forwards over her preparations for the meal, cast a good many furtive glances at her.
“It is tiring walking about looking for rooms,” she said. “But you know this neighbourhood, I think you said, miss?”
“Yes. At one time we lived behind there,” Joan answered pointing in the direction of the Mews.
“Yes, those Hinton Square houses are very large!” was Mrs. Perks’ comment, and Joan did not think it worthwhile to undeceive her. “Did you say you were there when we had that sad affair here, Miss? You must have been only a child then?”
“I was quite a child,” Joan replied as Mrs. Perks poured out a cup of tea and set it before her, still watching her in a suspicious fashion, “but I never forgot it.”
“Bless you, no, miss! One does not easy forget a thing like that, child or no child!” Mrs. Perks shuddered as she carved the chicken, and cut some thin slices of bread and butter. “I am sure it is a thing I shall never forget to my dying day myself!”
“Were you here at the time?” Joan asked. Already the warm fragrant tea was bringing a tinge of colour to her pale cheeks.
“There, miss, now, I am sure a bite will do you good!” Mrs. Perks placed the chicken before her. “Yes, indeed I was here at the time! Many is the time I have wished I wasn’t, for it was poor Perks that found her, and on account of that they asked all sorts of questions at the inquest that might have done him no end of harm if the owners had not known him and trusted him, having had the best of characters with him.”
“You knew Wingrove?” Joan ventured as the woman paused for breath.
“Knew Mr. Wingrove!” Mrs. Perks pursed her lips. “I should think I did, ma’am! He had been here a month when it happened, and though I didn’t see so much of the lodgers when poor Perks was alive, still I’d often had a word with Mr. Wingrove.”
“Do you know what became of him?” Joan’s voice trembled as she asked the question.
Mrs. Perks lifted up her hands.
“We never heard a word of him from that day to this, miss. Nor the police never found any trace, search as they would. Me and Perks often used to say it seemed as if he had vanished from the world.”
“But you think it was he who murdered the poor girl?” Joan questioned doubtfully.
Mrs. Perks shook her head. She looked white and scared.
“That isn’t for me to say, miss. But she had come to see him two or three times. I had seen her, so had Perks, and the last time she come I know they had words. Who else could it have been? That is what me and Perks always said. Folks always thought the verdict would have been against him at the inquest, only nobody really saw him come here that day at all.”
“But how could the girl who was murdered get in if Mr. Wingrove was away?” inquired Joan. “Did he leave the door unfastened?”
“No, miss. But that poor young thing, she had a key that would let her into Mr. Wingrove’s rooms. I found it myself in her pocket when the police were there.”
“Oh!” Joan drew a long breath. “Was she Mr. Wingrove’s wife, do you think, Mrs. Perks?”
“I couldn’t say, miss, I’m sure. They seemed to know one another very well. I couldn’t say more than that.”
There was one question that Joan was longing to put; she felt her heartbeat faster:
“What—what was he like?”
“Well, miss, he was a big tall figure of a man, with a pair of grey eyes that always seemed to have a smile in them, and brown, curly hair and a short, crisp beard, and he always had a laugh and a word for everybody.”
“Oh!” Joan paused. The description was certainly that of the man she had seen, as far as outward appearances went; allowing for the passage of time, it seemed to her that it would apply equally well to Warchester. And yet there was a certain reserve about Warchester. The very fact that he did not get on with everybody had been in his favour in Joan’s eyes; it had added a touch of subtle flattery to the marked preference he had shown for her society from the first. She could not imagine him with a laugh and a word for every one. Insensibly her heart lightened; her supposed recognition of Warchester must have been imaginary; a chance likeness must have misled her.
Mrs. Perks cast a quick look at her.
“You take quite an interest in Mr. Wingrove, miss. Maybe you have come across him?”
Something in the tone grated on Joan; she drew up her head.
“That is scarcely likely, I think.”
“Well, miss, it would not surprise me. Me and Perks always knew Mr. Wingrove was a real gentleman. Once I saw a little crown—a coronet they call it—on one of his handkerchiefs, and I’ve always had it in my mind that he come of a high family.”
“But in that case surely he would have spoken. I—I don’t think he would have run away!” Joan said impulsively.
“Well, miss, there is wheels within wheels,” Mrs. Perks said oracularly. “Maybe he will come forward again when he can prove as he was not the murderer. My husband told me one day that he made sure he saw Mr. Wingrove driving down Regent Street in a carriage with another gentleman.”
“What?” Joan put on her hat with a trembling hand and went over to the little glass in the overmantel to adjust it. “How long ago was this? I think your husband must have been mistaken. Surely he—Mr. Wingrove—would not come to London?”
“That’s what I say, miss. But poor Perks, he would have his way. It would be about a month before he was took. ‘’Twas Mr. Wingrove, sure enough,’ he said, ‘though he was looking older and his beard was shaved off, but I should know him among a thousand!’ Men are always like that if they get a notion in their heads—obstinate isn’t the word for them.”
“I think he must have been mistaken,” Joan said steadily as she laid some silver on the table. “Thank you very much for the lunch, Mrs. Perks; it has done me good.”
“I am sure I hope you will soon find something to suit you, thanking you kindly, miss!” Mrs. Perks responded, her eyes wandering restlessly from her young visitor’s face to the rings on her hand. “If you don’t meet with anything else there is a Mrs. Gower, 28 Ladbroke Crescent, I’m sure would be pleased to give you every satisfaction, and, being a bit farther out, would do it very reasonable.”
“Thank you very much; I will think of it!” Joan said eagerly. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Perks! It was very good of you to give me lunch.”
“Not at all, miss!”
Mrs. Perks accompanied her to the door. Her face had resumed its ruddy hue now, but her eyes looked troubled. She watched Joan’s departing figure to the end of the street; then she turned back with a deep sigh.
“What does that mean?” she murmured. “It—it can’t be that it is going to be opened up again? And did she think I shouldn’t notice—shouldn’t see—”