CHAPTER XVIII

At nine o’clock that night Miles was knocking at the area door of No. 16 Varley Street. After his interviews with Mrs Syme and Mrs Palmer the only thing that he himself felt sure about was that he must see Kay, and the more he thought about this, the more certain he felt. He was therefore knocking at the area door and wondering what he should say if by some malevolent stroke of luck Nurse Long should answer it. This, of course, was guilty conscience. Reason informed him that nurses do not answer tradesmen’s knocks, and that a fat old cook would certainly not come to the door herself if Kay were there to send.

Kay opened the door. She had on a dark red dress with a little bit of a cream apron and a little bit of a frill which did duty for a cap. The frill was tied on with a piece of red velvet ribbon, and it was quite terribly becoming.

She said, “Oh!” and then, in a hurried whisper, “Miles, you mustn’t!”

Miles had a distinct recollection of his mother’s parlour-maid slipping out in the evening to meet the redheaded young man who delivered the fish. He and George used to chaff her about it.

He said, “Can’t you come out? I must see you.”

“Oh, Miles!”

“Kay, I really do want to see you. Isn’t your work done?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, go and ask your fat old Mrs Thingummy if you can go out to the post.” That had been Rose’s formula.

“Oh, Miles—I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Step on it, Kay!”

She shut the door, and he wondered whether she would come back. And then she was out in the dark beside him and they ran up the area steps together. Kay said “’Ssh!” in his ear, and neither of them spoke till they were three or four houses away in the direction of the Square. He had slipped his arm through hers, so they were very close together. There was a sense of escape and adventure. They kept their voices low.

He said, “Is it all right?”

And she, “Oh, Miles, she says I can stay out till ten!”

“That’s a bit of all right. I say, where are we going?”

“Into the Square. It’s nice and quiet there.”

“Kay, how are you getting on?”

“Oh, all right. Tell me about you. Why did you want to see me?”

He began to tell her all about his day—borrowing the car from Ian Gilmore—going to Ledlington—interviewing Mrs Syme—interviewing Mrs Palmer … It took quite a long time.

The Square was not very plentifully provided with lamps. There was enough mist in the air to make the lighted patches shimmery and dim. There were long stretches of darkness. The trees in the middle of the Square were black and formless.

Kay had slipped her coat and skirt over her uniform. She had taken off the bit of red ribbon and the frill and covered her dark hair with the grey cap she had worn yesterday. Whenever they came into one of those misty patches of light, he looked down at her and she looked up at him. He wasn’t in any hurry to finish his story, but in the end he came to the crux of it. Flossie Palmer was an adopted child. She had been adopted by Mrs Palmer’s sister. She had been adopted from a Mrs Moore.

“And of course I’ve been saying to myself ever since that there are thousands of Mrs Moores, but all the same it seems a bit of a coincidence. I shouldn’t have thought of it if I hadn’t just met you again, but—Kay, what sort of woman was your aunt really? You said yesterday—” He broke off.

“What did I say?”

“You said she had some horrid friends.”

“Yes, she had. I hated them. Miles, I think she hated them too. I think she was afraid, and that’s why we were always moving on.”

“Who were these friends?”

“I don’t know. It sounds stupid to say I hated them, because I never really saw them—she used to send me into the garden or up to bed. There was a man who came.”

“The man who spoke to you in the street?”

She pressed a little closer to him.

“I don’t know. I was in the garden—he looked out of the window at me. And once when I was in bed Aunt Rhoda opened the door, and she said ‘What a suspicious mind you’ve got! Look for yourself—she’s there all right.’ She had a candle—and it dazzled—and there was a strange man standing there—looking in. Then they went away. But it frightened me. I used to dream about it. I didn’t like it.”

Miles didn’t like it either. Fear went through his mind like a cold wind blowing. Who had been watching Kay? Whose concern was it to watch her? How had she come to the house of shady people like her first employers, the Marstons? And by what underground manoeuvring had she been transferred to Varley Street?

He said abruptly, “How did you come to be with the Marstons? That was the name, wasn’t it?”

To Kay the question seemed quite inconsequent. She laughed a little.

“How sudden! We were talking about Aunt Rhoda.”

“And now we’re talking about the Marstons. How did you come to go there?”

She laughed again.

“Well, it was rather funny. Someone sent me a paper with a marked advertisement, and I never knew who it was.”

So she had been shepherded there, and then moved on to Varley Street.… Why? There was a dark answer to that, but it didn’t seem to him to be the right one. He had a sense of something deeper. And yet it might be.

He said, “Kay, look here—I want you to leave this place you’re in. I don’t like the way you came here. I don’t like any of it. I want you to leave at once.”

“Miles, I couldn’t!”

“I don’t like your being there at all. I’d like to take you away to-night, but anyway you’ve got to leave tomorrow—you’ve really got to.”

Kay pulled her arm away and set her hand on his sleeve.

“Miles, I couldn’t really. I haven’t any money.”

“I want you to let me lend you some.”

“Oh no—I couldn’t! And it’s not at all a bad place—really it isn’t.”

He could not shake her. She stuck to it that the place was all right. He elicited that she slept in the basement, and that Mrs Green slept there too. Mrs Green sounded respectable and good-natured. The house, as described by Kay, sounded as dull and respectable as any house in London. An invalid old lady—a hospital nurse—a cook who had been there for years—the ordinary routine of such a household. But it was from this house that Flossie Palmer had run out into the fog shaken with terror because she had seen a hole in the wall, and the head of a wounded man, and cruel eyes watching her.

Kay slipped her arm through his again.

“You know, Miles, we really were talking about Aunt Rhoda. I don’t know how we got off on to me, and it’s no use, so let’s go back. I was just going to tell you something when you switched off like that—something—well, something very odd, Miles.”

“About Mrs Moore?”

“Yes, about Aunt Rhoda. But I want to ask you something first.”

Miles gave up for the moment. He wasn’t going to give up altogether and she needn’t think it, but just for the moment he didn’t mind talking about Aunt Rhoda again, especially if Kay had something to tell him. He said,

“Go ahead.”

“Well, this girl Flossie—what did you say her surname was?”

“Palmer.”

“I thought so. And her mother? I mean the woman who adopted her. Do you know what her name was—her Christian name?”

“Florence. She was called Flo—Flo Palmer.”

He felt her squeeze his arm.

“Oh, Miles!”

“What is it? You don’t mean to say—”

“Yes, I do—Miles, I do! Aunt Rhoda said it.”

“Said Flo Palmer’s name? To you?”

They stood still in the dark between the lamps. She clasped his arm tightly.

“Not to me—not to anyone. It was when she was ill, before she died. I don’t think she knew what she was saying.”

“And she talked about Flo Palmer? Will you tell me just what she said? The exact words, if you can remember them.”

“Yes, I can. It’s very little. You see, she was talking all the time, only you couldn’t make out the words. And then all at once she said quite clearly, ‘Tell Flo Palmer.’ And then she seemed to wake up. I was sitting there, and she looked at me and asked for something to drink, and while I was getting it she said, ‘What did I say just now?’ So I told her, and she said, ‘Flo’s dead. I don’t know what’s happened to the child. It doesn’t matter—I’ve got you.’ Then she drank some milk, and she asked me to promise not to leave her.”

“Kay, you’re sure she said that?”

“Quite sure.”

He felt her tremble a little against him.

“Because if you’re sure, it means that Flo Palmer did get Flossie from your aunt. It means—Kay, I don’t know what it might mean. I must go home and try and sort it all out.”

The clock in the church tower of St Barnabas’ struck with three heavy strokes. Kay started.

“That’s a quarter to ten!”

“Well, you needn’t be in till ten—you said so.”

“I’ve got to put my cap and apron on again and be ready to take up the old lady’s Benger. Oh, Miles, listen! What’s that?”

It was a faint mewing sound somewhere in the darkness. Kay called “Kitty—Kitty!” and in a moment something warm and soft brushed against her ankles. She stooped and picked up a small wailing kitten.

“Miles—look! No, you can’t look here. Come down to the lamp. It’s the dearest little soft thing. Feel it! And the milkman was telling us about it this morning. The people at No. 10 have just turned it out. Isn’t it a shame? And Mrs Green said if it came to us, she’d take it in because the mice are dreadful. But the milkman said it was so wild it wouldn’t let anyone catch it. But it came to me at once—didn’t you, Kitty? Look—isn’t it a darling?”

She stopped under the lamp and showed him a little grey ball of fur cuddled up against her cheek.

“Miles, it’s purring. Listen! Will you come home with me, Kitty, and have bread and milk and a lovely smell of mouse? Oh, Miles, you don’t know how our basement smells of mice! And Mrs Green says there are rats in the cellar, but I hope it’s not true. She never goes down there, and she says they don’t come up, so I don’t see how she can possibly know—do you? Miles, I must run!”

He held her. Under the misty light with the kitten against her cheek she was the sweetest thing in the world. It was monstrous to have to let her go back to that house again.

“Kay—meet me to-morrow!”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve got a most damnable habit of saying you can’t. You said you couldn’t to-night, but you did. I’ll be up at the corner of the Square at nine o’clock, and if you’re more than five minutes late, I shall come and fetch you.”

“Oh, Miles!”

“Oh, Kay!” said Miles. Then he put his arm round her shoulders and gave her something between a hug and a shake.

She laughed, a little soft, shaky laugh, and ran away. The lamp under which they had been standing was the next one beyond the corner of Varley Street. He watched her cross the patch of light at the corner still holding the kitten with both hands. Then he lost her in the shadows.