There was a letter for Mr Squales. The first letter in fact that he had received for weeks. It was sudden and unexpected. Also, strange and beautiful – like sunlight penetrating into a closed room.
Mrs Vizzard looking up from the basement saw the blue and gold trousers of the postman as he mounted the front steps, and went upstairs at once to see what he had brought. She had made it a regular and rather pleasant duty for years to see what letters the other residents at No. 10 were receiving. It was her way of keeping her finger on the pulse of things. She was thus the first person in the house to touch Mr Squales’ letter. And, for some reason that she couldn’t understand, she didn’t like it. It frightened her. She wanted to tear it up. Tear it up and burn it and not say anything about it.
As soon as the thought came to her, she was ashamed of it. She recognised it for the piece of insane jealousy that it was, and it served to remind her how obsessed she had become. Really it was things like that that alarmed her about herself. It wasn’t a straightforward alarm either. Not simply concern for the way in which Mr Squales had disturbed the smoothness of her life. No, it went much deeper and farther back than that. There was guilt and conscience, and remorse and all the rest of it mixed up there. Every episode of this kind – and there were tiny instances daily – brought it back to her that she had never felt this way about Mr Vizzard. It was a new sensation, and it savoured terrifyingly of unfaithfulness.
She had put the letter face downwards on the hall‐stand because she didn’t like holding it. Now she lifted it up again and studied it closely. It was written on large expensive notepaper that bent rather than creased as she handled it. It reminded her of a five‐pound note that the bank manager had once passed to her. And it was large, expensive‐looking handwriting, with the address heavily underlined with an oblique indented slash of the pen. Obviously the hand‐writing of a woman.
With a start she realised that she must have been standing there for the better part of a minute with the letter still in her hand. Almost in a trance, in fact. Giving a little shudder, she braced herself and began to descend the dark stairs again. Now that she had quite got over this sudden fit of silliness she wondered whether she should go straight in with the letter or wait until she took Mr Squales his breakfast at 8.30.
The breakfast on a tray had been her own idea. It had been born on that day when Mr Squales had first put his arms around her. He was hungry and he was hers, and that had been sufficient.
As she got this morning’s tray ready – the small tea‐pot that she had bought specially for the purpose, the three thin slices of bread and butter, the freshly‐boiled egg under its knitted cosy like a pointed pixie cap – she recognised this for the most delicious moment in the day. Sometimes as she stood outside his door she could scarcely bear to knock and destroy the suspense. She was waiting, she realised, for the occasion when, in answer to her knock, he would throw the door open and embrace her. But up to the present it hadn’t happened that way. Usually by the time she got there Mr Squales wasn’t up. Sometimes he was sitting up in bed smoking, his dark eyes fixed on her. But almost as often he was still asleep. If anything since he had been getting his breakfast in bed in this way his hours had become rather later.
Balancing the tray one‐handed, Mrs Vizzard raised her right one to knock. As she did so the old fluttery excitement came back again. And then, staring up at her from beside the toast‐rack, she saw the letter. The horrible thing had succeeded even in ruining this moment, in coming between her and her betrothed.
It was one of Mr Squales’ more wakeful mornings. He was alert and watchful, sitting up against the pillows, a thin spire of smoke rising from the drooping cigarette between his lips. And, as soon as he saw her, he smiled – that slow melting smile of his that made Mrs Vizzard want to drop the tray that she had been carrying so carefully and rush and place her head on his bosom.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said softly, almost reproachfully. ‘Lying here, waiting.’
As he spoke, it seemed to Mrs Vizzard that they were the most beautiful words that she had ever heard. Then she happened to glance towards the clock. It showed twenty minutes to nine. Evidently the affair of the letter had taken up more of her time than she had realised.
She placed the tray on his knees and she quivered as his hand brushed against hers. When the tray was securely balanced – Mr Squales wasn’t really sitting up straight enough to be comfortable – he reached out and caught hold of her hand again. This time he raised it to his lips and kissed it, and Mrs Vizzard experienced that same shameful quiver again as she felt the rough texture of his unshaven cheek.
Then his eye caught the letter and he dropped her hand, abruptly it seemed. He picked up the envelope and examined it.
‘There’s a letter for you,’ Mrs Vizzard said foolishly.
But Mr Squales did not reply. He only frowned. That letter – and he recognised the writing in a flash – was a piece of his private life. About the only piece left, indeed. It was his, and his alone. And he didn’t want to have any one else butting into it. So he merely put it back on the tray again and poured himself out a cup of tea.
‘And did my dear one sleep well,’ he asked. ‘No bad dreams?’
Mrs Vizzard didn’t reply immediately. She stood there looking down at the letter.
‘Sleep?’ she said with a jerk. ‘Oh, yes, I slept well.’
Mr Squales nodded his head approvingly as though she had slept well specially to please him. He began tapping the white crown of the egg with the back of his spoon.
‘I often wonder,’ he said between the taps, ‘what I have done to deserve this? Why should I, a wanderer, suddenly find such kindness – such love – when I was by the wayside?’
The egg broke and Mr Squales hurriedly began chasing a rich yellow rivulet which was coursing down the side of the egg‐cup. Mrs Vizzard stood there watching him. She had never before seen a man crack an egg while he was smoking a cigarette.
‘You haven’t forgotten this afternoon, have you?’ she asked. ‘Forgotten this afternoon? Indeed, no!’
His mouth was full as he was speaking, and his voice was blurred and muffled. He took a sip of tea and wondered, despondently, what it was that was happening this afternoon. If anything, his days from being too empty had suddenly become too full. Mrs Vizzard was always thinking up something new for him – something for both of them. His afternoons, so far as he could see, were degenerating into a series of rather feminine birthday treats. He was only glad that there weren’t any relatives of Mrs Vizzard’s whom she might want to take him to see.
Then a happy subterfuge came into his mind, and his face fell. ‘There is only one thing about it that makes me reluctant to go. Would you understand it, I wonder, if I told it to you?’
Mrs Vizzard’s hand strayed across her bosom.
‘Tell me,’ she said faintly.
‘It is the question of money,’ he explained. ‘Your money and my pride. How can I go on letting you spend so much on me? A theatre… a cinema… they all cost money.’
‘But the Tate Gallery doesn’t cost anything. It’s a free day,’ she told him.
The Tate Gallery! Of course, now that she mentioned it, he remembered perfectly. It was the Blakers13 that she wanted to be taken to. There had been an article in The Spirit World that had said that Blaker was a man who dipped his earthly brush on to a psychic palette, drawing trance pictures that only the Inner Eye could have seen: Mrs Vizzard had made him read it and he recalled how, at the time, he had reflected that there might be an opening in Spiritualist papers for that kind of writing. But the recollection did nothing to encourage him. Mr Squales had never really cared for picture galleries.
‘Everything costs something,’ he said at last. ‘You are so good to me. How do I know that before I come back we shall not have taken food somewhere?’
There was a pause.
‘Will you come if I promise that we don’t spend a penny?’ Mrs Vizzard asked him.
Mr Squales’ heart sank as he realised what it was that he had done. Simply by being too clever, he had committed himself to the pictures and ruined any chance of tea.
But already Mrs Vizzard was speaking again.
‘Will you come if we walk there and come back to tea afterwards?’ she persisted.
She stood there on the rug – it was a rug that she had brought through from her own sitting‐room – appealing to him.
‘Do say you’ll come,’ she said.
She was ashamed of it as soon as she had said it. There she was, a responsible adult woman behaving like a schoolgirl. The sheer nakedness of her attitude appalled her.
But Mr Squales was smiling again.
‘You didn’t think that I didn’t want to go?’ he said. ‘It would make me unhappy, very unhappy, if you had actually thought that. We will go together as we said, and if ’ – here Mr Squales took another spoonful of egg – ‘we find a place where we can drink a cup of tea, and talk and forget the world, who am I to stop it? This afternoon we will see the Blakers.’
Blaker? Blaker? Was it really Blaker or was it just plain Blake? He didn’t know because he’d never heard of him before. Not that it mattered. His afternoon was done for anyway.
Now that Mrs Vizzard was happy again she could afford to go back and get on with the rest of her duties. In the anticipation of the outing she had even forgotten the letter.
Mr Squales made no attempt to stop her. He watched her go from the room, and then as soon as the door was shut after her and he had heard her footsteps die away in the passage, he snatched up the envelope and ripped it open. To his surprise he found that his fingers were trembling with excitement.
And no wonder! The letter was from Mrs Jan Byl and was written in her own imperious hand. Her blunt majestic nib had raced across the paper leaving the crosses to the t’s streaming like a comet’s tail. And in the result it was considerably more like painting than mere writing. But it was the substance of the letter more than the characters that roused Mr Squales. He drew in a deep breath and reached out for another cigarette.
‘Dear Professor Qualito,’ the letter ran, ‘I have done you an injustice. A grave injustice. The things you told me while your spirit was far away were terrible. Terrible.’ Mrs Jan Byl had underlined this word so heavily that the nib had divided itself. ‘But I know now that they were true.’ – True was also underlined. – ‘One cannot afford to be petty in Spiritualism – there is no place for littleness. Will you, therefore, consent to enter the trance state again in my house? If you come I feel that we may be on the verge of great discoveries. Important discoveries. If we could obtain proof’ – likewise underlined – ‘you would be famous. It is not in our powers to deny such an opportunity. Come to‐morrow, Tuesday, if you are not engaged. I need your help.
‘Yours inquiringly,
‘Hermione Jan Byl.’
Mr Squales drew in a deep draught of cigarette smoke and lay back holding his breath until his lungs were near bursting point. He was in ecstasy.
‘There you are,’ he told himself. ‘I knew I’d made an impression. I’m not usually wrong about women.’
Then, as the first flush of mental conquest ebbed away, he reflected in a kind of golden daze on the financial aspects of the thing.
‘She sent me away. Now she wants me back. I’ll go. But this will cost her something.’
Within reason, he could charge her anything. It wasn’t even as if he were relying on it now – that always kept the price down. Thanks to Mrs Vizzard he was independent. And he was better dressed than he had been the last time he had seen Mrs Jan Byl. He had to thank Mrs Vizzard for that, too – it was she who had made him a present of the clothes that he was wearing. In his new light grey he could look the part as well as play it. He only wished now that he had shown more confidence in himself in the choice of the suit. He ought to have chosen something darker and more professional. The only thing that comforted him was that he had stipulated a double‐breasted waistcoat at the time of ordering.
‘To‐morrow, Tuesday,’ – that meant to‐day. And he remembered Mr Blaker! It was Mr Blaker who stood between him and his five – possibly even ten – guineas. He crushed out his cigarette angrily in his saucer. Blast Mr Blaker.
‘Opportunity only knocks once,’ he told himself. ‘This is where Mr Blaker goes down the drain so far as I’m concerned. I’ll have to square it first with my intended. There may be trouble. There may be tears. But go I must. And go I’m going to.’
But Mr Squales wasn’t the only one – not even the only one in Dulcimer Street – whose afternoon had been arranged for him. Mr Josser was just such another.
There he was, all keyed up and ready to spend a couple of pleasant hours doing nothing in particular while Mrs Josser went over to the infirmary to see Mrs Boon, when the worst, the very worst, the worst possible, occurred. Mrs Josser got one of her headaches.
She had suffered from them before – the very word ‘her’ denoted this – and Mr Josser knew exactly what it meant. Knew exactly, but still did not realise how deeply he would be involved. It just didn’t seem possible that he should be asked to go over to the infirmary instead.
For one brief moment when Mrs Josser put it to him in the bedroom he very nearly refused point blank. He was fed up; fed up, he confessed inwardly, with the Boons and everything about them; fed up with Percy and the murder and with Mrs Boon too. Then the feeling passed as rapidly as it had come and he was himself again, with a fierce attack of conscience into the bargain. Of course, he’d go and see her; he couldn’t leave Mrs Boon just lying there half‐paralysed and with no one to talk to her. Besides, he was the one person she’d really want to see. He’d be able to sit at her bedside and tell her all about Percy.
‘And take her some flowers,’ Mrs Josser told him as he was leaving. ‘Take her a bunch of something bright.’
He’d got right over to Walham Green where the hospital was before he actually bought the flowers. And that irritated him. Because on his way in the bus he’d been passing barrow after barrow laden up with stocks and marguerites and sweet‐peas – just the sort of thing to brighten up a sick‐ward. And now that he wanted a flower seller there wasn’t one in sight. Walham Green might have been visited by locusts for all the blossom that was about.
He found a shop finally, a small retail corner of the cut‐flower trade, tucked away in a corner beside a tobacconist’s. The proprietress, a pale fat woman in black, was finishing off a sheaf of Arum lilies when he went in, and over her head hung a black‐edged notice that said wreaths and crosses made to order. It seemed irreverent to disturb her. And the result was disappointing when he did so. On the more frivolous side of her practice there was nothing but roses and carnations to be had – all the cottage flowers, as the woman called them, had been sold out earlier. So in the end Mr Josser chose carnations. He bought half a dozen of them and they cost him three and threepence – three shillings for the carnations and threepence for the asparagus fern that went with them. As he came out of the shop Mr Josser caught sight of himself in a long mirror by the doorway. Despite the asparagus fern, the flowers made an extraordinarily small bunch. A small, elon‐gated bunch. They might have been a bouquet for an only moderately successful concert‐singer.
The infirmary – the infirmary of the Little Sisters of Compassion – to which Mr Josser was going, was a forbidding, impregnable‐looking sort of building. As though fearing riot or assault, or possibly only the big outside world, the Little Sisters had hidden their good works away behind a high brick wall. Mr Josser had to pull out an old‐fashioned bell‐handle beside a green front door and stand on the pavement as though he were a tradesman waiting to deliver something.
The door was opened almost immediately, however, and Mr Josser found himself face to face – or rather face to what was left showing of face – with a nun wearing a gigantic overhanging headdress of black cashmere, secured by very large pins on to a starched framework as stiff as a man’s dress‐shirt. It seemed quite astonishing to hear a normal, and rather pleasant, female voice issuing from such a contraption.
‘I’ve come to see Mrs Boon, if it’s convenient,’ he said, and added rather lamely by way of explanation, ‘I… I’m a friend.’
The Sister did not seem to need any further explanation. She accepted him. Closing the door behind her, she indicated a little waiting‐room with a glass door, and a row of hard, upright chairs. Mr Josser went in and sat down rather self‐consciously underneath a highly‐coloured plaster statuette of Our Lord with the heart picked out in gilt oddly enough in the middle of the chest, and the wounds painted in very vividly in vermilion. Feeling awkward and Protestant and out of place, he looked down at his shoes and tried to avoid catching the eye of the other two visitors who were waiting with him.
Then a girl in the plain grey dress of a ward‐maid came along and told him that Sister had said that he could see Mrs Boon if he came now. Holding the flowers in front of him, Mr Josser followed.
The walk seemed in a way to be a continuation of his walk inside the Prison. Between the Prison and the Infirmary there was very little to choose. It was as though by his simple inability to manage his own affairs, young Percy had sentenced the Boons, mother and son alike, to a life of bleak walls and long, echoing corridors and barred windows. Even the Infirmary had metal grilles across the skylights.
When he actually reached the ward, Mr Josser’s embarrassment increased. The young ward‐maid handed him over to another of the nuns, and in the wake of that prodigious bonnet Mr Josser followed right down the centre of the ward as though he were a procession. There must have been twenty beds at least. And as he walked he was aware of sick womanhood all round him. Old ladies with wispy plaits of hair like bleached straw, and young buxom things in tight pink bed‐jackets, lay in two long rows; lay in two long rows and watched him. He was a thoroughly self‐conscious Mr Josser by the time he had reached Mrs Boon’s bedside in the corner.
Things were not made any easier by the way in which Mrs Boon devoured and consumed him. It was not merely that she wanted to hear about Percy. She wanted to hear everything about him – how he was looking, what he was wearing, if he had enough clean clothes, whether they were nice to him, when the… but she broke down before she got to it and could not actually utter the word ‘trial.’
The rush of questions overwhelmed Mr Josser and flurried him. And everything that he said seemed faintly wrong somehow. It all sounded callous and impersonal when it was for Mrs Boon’s ears that it was intended.
‘He’s… he’s looking fine,’ he assured her. ‘Plenty to eat and… and early to bed. I’ve never seen him looking better. He’s … he’s fine. Not worrying a bit.’
‘And are they nice to him?’ Mrs Boon persisted.
‘Couldn’t be nicer,’ he told her. ‘Real nice, that’s what they are. He’s a proper favourite.’
Mrs Boon smiled.
‘That’s my Percy all over,’ she said.
She paused, and Mr Josser saw that there were large tears trickling down her cheek. The stroke had affected only one side of her face, leaving the other untouched and even fresh‐looking. And the puckered side – it was as though under the skin there were elastic that somehow had been drawn tight – was away from him. If he kept his head low he could scarcely notice any difference.
‘Did he ask after me?’ she went on as soon as she could speak again. ‘Did he ask after you?’ Mr Josser repeated. ‘Talked about nothing else. Just his old Mum the whole time. That’s all he wanted to hear about.’
It wasn’t quite true. Not the sort of truth that you’d speak on Judgment Day. But it was true enough for the present occasion. Better than the truth in fact.
Mrs Boon was silent for a moment.
‘He’s very fond of you,’ she said at length. ‘He never really knew his father. That’s why he looks to you for everything. He was only little, remember, when George died.’
Mr Josser didn’t answer immediately. He was uncomfortably aware that he was being drawn deeper and still deeper into the disaster that was Percy’s life. Having had to come along to the infirmary to‐day was only another part of an expanding pattern that was steadily and remorsely enveloping him.
But already Mrs Boon was speaking again.
‘There’s something I want you to do for me,’ she said.
There was no excuse, no pleading in her voice as she said it. She simply spoke with the assumed authority of an invalid. It wasn’t even a request that she was making. It was an order. And it was obvious that she expected it to be obeyed.
‘Any… anything you say,’ he promised her.
‘I want you to go along to the solicitor,’ she said. ‘It’s important. There’s a lot depends on it. I want you to go along and fix things up for Percy.’
Mr Josser gave her hand a consoling little squeeze.
‘Don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘Everything’s being done that can be. They fixed him up with a solicitor. There’s nothing more we could do. Things have just got to… to take their course.’
‘But you don’t understand,’ Mrs Boon said wearily. ‘I want Percy to have the best solicitor he can get. I don’t want a free one.’
Mr Josser shook his head.
‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ he said. ‘It may cost a lot of money. May run into hundreds you know.’
Mrs Boon gave a sort of nod – a nod with her head still on the pillows.
‘I can pay,’ she told him.
Mr Josser looked at her in astonishment. Percy had been doing nicely at the garage. Very nicely, in fact. And Mrs Boon was the careful sort. She obviously wasn’t the kind to spend money when it could be avoided. But hundreds. It amazed him.
A Sister, half‐hidden under the towering black coif, came along to the next bed and Mrs Boon placed her finger warningly over her lips. She did not speak again until the Sister had moved away.
‘I don’t want them to know,’ she said in a whisper. ‘If they knew, I’d have to pay for being here. And I don’t want that to happen. I want it all for Percy.’
‘I understand,’ Mr Josser answered.
‘It’s two hundred pounds,’ Mrs Boon continued, still in a whisper. ‘It was George’s insurance money. And it’s all in the post office. I’ve never touched a penny of it. It’ll be more than that by now. There’s the interest.’
‘And you want to spend it all?’ Mr Josser asked.
It sounded cruel, put that way. But he had to be quite sure. He was thinking that if anything – ‘anything’ was the way he always referred to it, even to himself – happened to Percy, Mrs Boon would need that two hundred. That two hundred and a good deal more besides.
But Mrs Boon seemed surprised at him.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What else should I want it for?’
‘And you want me to give it to Mr Barks?’ Mr Josser said slowly, checking every point as he went along.
Mrs Boon inclined her head.
‘I don’t want him to spare a penny of it,’ she said. ‘I want him to get all the best people and fix things up just as though Percy was a rich man’s son. I know that it’s what George would have wanted. He was so fond of Percy when he was a little boy. He thought the world of Percy when he was a little boy.’
The tears came again and she had to stop talking for a moment. Then she recovered herself. ‘And if there’s anything over he can keep it for all his trouble,’ she continued. ‘I don’t want him to have to think of money.’
She paused. Then suddenly she reached out and grasped Mr Josser by the hand.
‘Tell me it’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘You don’t think he did it, do you? Tell me so that I can hear you saying it. I get so frightened just lying here. That’s why they give me sleeping draughts.’
‘He’ll be all right,’ Mr Josser told her, trying to make his voice sound full and convincing. ‘He’ll be all right. Just you see.’
The Sister came up the ward again placidly and efficiently telling the visitors that their time was up and that they’d have to be going. Mr Josser was relieved to see her. He got up and began pulling down his waistcoat.
As soon as she saw what was happening, Mrs Boon started fumbling with the round neck of her nightdress. A moment later she withdrew her hand again and held something out to Mr Josser. It was a thin gold chain with a cross dangling from it. On the cross was the pigmy image of a body crucified.
‘Give this to Percy,’ she said. ‘It’s mine. He’ll recognise it. It’ll… it’ll help to keep him safe.’
‘I’ll give it to him,’ Mr Josser told her.
He took the rosary. It was still warm.
Then Mrs Boon tried to shift herself towards him again.
‘You haven’t told me what his room’s like,’ she reminded him. ‘Are you sure they’re looking after him properly?’
‘Couldn’t be more comfortable,’ Mr Josser told her for the second time. ‘And he’s got one of the biggest cells there is…’
The Sister touched him on the elbow and he said good‐bye to Mrs Boon. Said it hurriedly and awkwardly, and escaped. ‘Cells!’ Why had he used the word? He’d been trying all the time to avoid any mention of where Percy really was. And then at the last moment it had slipped out just like that. Mr Josser wanted to kick himself.
But how was he to know that Mrs Boon was going to talk about Percy as though he were in a convalescent home somewhere?
Mr Squales had been less wise than Mr Josser: he had attempted to argue about this afternoon. And, in the result, he had been quite right about the tears. Mrs Vizzard was so upset about the sudden cancellation of her little outing that she had broken down and told him that he didn’t really love her. But it was all over now, and she was nestling in his arms again on the straight‐back horsehair sofa. She had forgiven him. And he had forgiven her. Forgiven her, but made it plain that he was still terribly, terribly hurt by what she had said about not caring.
‘So my little kitten is happy, is she?’ he asked tenderly. ‘First we go together to the Tate to see the Blakers, and then I go on to my appointment – alone. You mustn’t be a selfish little kitten, remember.’
‘You won’t be late, will you? Not later than supper?’
She regretted the words as she said them. They were fatal, silly words. They showed how absolutely, how disastrously, she relied on him.
‘I shall be only as late as I have to be,’ he told her severely.
And that was all the promise that she could get from him. He was still a trifle cold and aloof in his manner. And remembering how unforgivably she herself had behaved she could not press him. She was lucky, she told herself, that he was even on speaking terms with her at all. Her feeling of contriteness – and gratitude – remained. And, when they finally set out arm‐in‐arm, Mrs Vizzard kept wishing every time she glanced at Mr Squales that she were a brighter and more dashing companion for such a man. But he still hadn’t told her where he was going afterwards.
The Tate Gallery was not really a success. Not so far as Mr Squales was concerned, that is. All the time he was in it, he kept wondering what he would do with it if it were his. There were obviously possibilities in those magnificent halls if only one could think of a purpose for them. The position of the gallery, of course, was against it. It was situated on the Embankment just where Westminster stopped and Chelsea hadn’t yet begun. Unless there was a collision on the river, or something, you could never collect a crowd in a place like that. Could never make a popular success of a place on a site like that.
On the other hand, it clearly need not remain the obvious failure that it was now. And no wonder it was a failure. It was the pictures themselves that were at fault – that much was apparent at a glance – and Mr Squales suspected that something had gone wrong on the buying side. There was nothing that you could rightly call an Old Master in the whole place. And a picture gallery without Old Masters was just absurd – rather like a circus without elephants. No: in the race for Rembrandts and Landseers, the Tate Gallery had simply been scooped.
There were some Turners admittedly, but Mr Squales after one look at them decided that they couldn’t be his best. He even wondered if they were genuine. Scooped again, in fact. And the stuff that they had bought up to fill the space was a positive disgrace. Somebody ought to have lost his job over it. ‘The Resurrection,’ for instance. And the portrait of Lytton Strachey. You had only to ask yourself the simple question of how they’d look in a room if you actually had to live with them to see where they came in the scale of art.
And it wasn’t simply a matter of age. The Blakes – Blake, it was:
Blaker, he remembered, had been a tobacconist in Brighton – weren’t new by any means. But they were bad, too. Shockingly bad. The man obviously couldn’t even draw. And the colours! And the number of exhibits. So far as he could judge almost everything that Blake had ever painted was there. Putting two and two together it looked to Mr Squales as though someone, the widow probably, had pulled a pretty fast one.
Tea was better, except for the decorations on the walls of the tea‐room. Now there, Mr Squales spotted at once, was an opportunity. Nicely arranged, with period furniture and the waitresses in costume and one or two good pictures – hired if necessary – on the walls, the room could have been made attractive. But Mr Squales did not bother about it unduly: he was too much preoccupied. Time was getting on and though he didn’t want to be early for Mrs Jan Byl – that would look gauche and flustered – he certainly didn’t want to be late either.
As he was drinking his second cup of tea he noticed that Mrs Vizzard was looking at him. It seemed somehow that she was always looking at him. It made him feel uncomfortable. And then he remembered that he hadn’t spoken to her since they’d entered the tea‐room. To be honest with himself he’d got so much on his mind that he’d entirely forgotten her. Leaning forward, he pushed the hot‐water jug a little to one side and inserted his forefinger into the open V at the wrist of Mrs Vizzard’s glove.
‘A penny for your thoughts,’ he said at random. ‘My own were on having to leave you.’
‘I was wondering if you had eaten enough,’ she said simply.
Then she pushed a florin towards him. And, after Mr Squales had paid, they walked along together as far as the Vauxhall Bridge Road.
‘You’ve got enough money on you? You’re sure you’re all right?’ she asked diffidently.
Mr Squales squeezed her arm.
‘There goes my kitten again,’ he told her. ‘You lent me five shillings last Thursday. You aren’t going to have a spendthrift for a husband.’
A tram was coming over Vauxhall Bridge and Mr Squales stepped into the gutter to be ready for it. Mrs Vizzard summoned all her courage in this final moment.
‘You haven’t told me where you’re going,’ she reminded him reproachfully.
He bent forward and taking hold of her hand he kissed it.
‘Right across London. Into terro incognito,’ he told her. ‘My tram.’ And with a final pressure of his lips on to the stitching of her glove, he had left her.
Then a mood of madness took possession of Mrs Vizzard. A second tram, following close on the heels of Mr Squales’, drew up in front of her. And, mounting it, she followed him.
The impulse was sudden and irresistible. But, in the result, a fit of violent shivering attacked her.
‘Why am I doing this?’ she asked herself. ‘Why? Don’t I trust him?’
She slumped down into the first available seat and remained there, her two hands clasped together to restrain their trembling. When she held out the penny for the fare her fingers quivered ridiculously.
But, absorbed in the importance of her purpose, she overcame her agitation. She had work to do, serious engrossing work. There was Mr Squales, in the tram in front blissful, unsuspecting, unalarmed. Here she was, in the tram behind, alert, suspicious, implacable. And the appreciation of the situation gave her a gratifying, God‐like sensation. For the first time in her life she felt superior to Mr Squales. And for the first time in her life she realised how agreeable the life of private detectives must be.
For the next few minutes at least there was very little that she could do. The tram was trundling down the Vauxhall Bridge Road and it did not seem in the least likely that her quarry would be getting off before he reached Victoria. Mrs Vizzard, therefore, sat back and tried to compose herself. There were moments of anxiety, however. At one moment, for instance, a brewer’s dray came across the track and the tram had to slow down for it while Mr Squales’ tram went dwindling dizzily into the distance. But it was all right. By the time they had got to Victoria they were almost on top of each other again. The two trams, in fact, were so close to each other than Mrs Vizzard was quite nervous as she got off hers. She wondered what Mr Squales would have to say if in the crush around the Clock Tower she should suddenly bump into him.
Mr Squales, however, was oblivious of his pursuer. A conspicuous figure in his light grey suit, he made his way through the crowd, moving with that easy, slightly swaying movement that seemed to make his walk different from other men’s. Like… like an Indian, she told herself, not being quite clear in her own mind what it was that she meant.
And he certainly moved quickly.
She had the utmost difficulty in keeping up with him. Round the corner by the Windsor Castle he went and across the station yard like a man hurrying to catch a train. Mrs Vizzard was about fifty yards behind him and, for a moment, her heart started beating louder from a fresh anxiety. She feared that he was going off by train somewhere. Going off! Never coming back again …
The fear proved groundless, however. Mr Squales passed the station without even glancing at it and went straight on to the bus stop in Grosvenor Gardens. It was open country here with no natural cover and Mrs Vizzard dared not go any further. She remained up against the Grosvenor Hotel watching him. And then as a stream of buses, released suddenly by the traffic lights, surged round in front of her, she realised that she would have to act rapidly if she were to avoid losing him altogether. Darting in and out of the traffic like a whippet she crossed the road. And it was fortunate that she did so. Mr Squales was already getting on to a No. 19 that was moving. Without waiting to see the number of the bus behind she leapt on to it.
This part of the ride was agony to Mrs Vizzard. In her haste there had been no time to notice where her bus was going. For all she knew Mr Squales might be swept off to Cricklewood while she was being carried away to South Kensington. She took a twopenny ticket and remained on her toes.
But her fears proved to be groundless. Both buses, Mr Squales’ and hers, turned west at Hyde Park Corner and went along past Knightsbridge Barracks. Then things began to go wrong. Her bus began to race Mr Squales’. Nosing out more quickly from the stopping place it got away well ahead. Soon Mrs Vizzard was looking out of the back window to keep the other bus in sight. And this, of course, meant that she had no idea where she should get out. She was well and truly trapped. Buses, she realised, were less reliable than trams for shadowing.
Then, fortunately, as though sensing the competition, Mr Squales’ driver put on a spurt and caught up with them again. For a moment they ran side by side. And through the window in that agonising instant, Mrs Vizzard saw the back of a very light grey suit making its way towards the exit. At the next stop she got off and hid in a doorway.
Then Mr Squales did an astonishing thing. He signalled to a taxi. He was too far away for Mrs Vizzard to hear what he said to the taximan. All she could do was to stand there watching her plan and strategy collapse before her eyes. But she had come a long way to be beaten. She was – apart from this abominable infatuation – a woman of determined will. And without hesitation she did something equally astonishing. She hailed another taxi.
‘It’s my friend,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He’s gone off in that taxi. Please keep up with him – I’ve… I’ve forgotten the address.’
The taxi swung round and began the chase. The driver entered into the spirit of it from the very start. He might have been pursuing other taxis all his life. Round the corner of Kensington Palace Gardens he went like a racing motorist. The taxi, squat and unathletic like all London taxis, creaked and rattled. The driver was just letting her out on the straight when Mrs Vizzard saw Mr Squales’ taxi already drawing up. She tapped frantically on the glass.
‘Stop here,’ she said. ‘You needn’t go any further.’
The driver braked hard and they jerked to a standstill.
‘Didn’t go far, did he?’ he asked pleasantly.
There was only ninepence on the clock. But because he had helped her, had rallied to her cause, in fact, Mrs Vizzard gave him a shilling and told him to keep the change. The driver did not thank her.
It was late now, very late.
Supper time was long past and the supper that she had prepared was cleared away again. Only the second chair still drawn up at the table indicated that, earlier, there had been a meal in readiness for two. Not that she could have waited any longer. By the time she had sat down by herself and begun eating, the food was already dried up and ruined. After a few mouthfuls, she had pushed the plate away from her and remained there looking at the clock that she had been watching ever since seven. It was now twenty minutes past nine; and in her imagination she saw the clock hand moving on to half‐past, to quarter‐to, to ten o’clock. Ten o’clock and still no sign of Mr Squales.
Even so, she had not yet made the tea. The tea‐things stood on a little tray beside the fireplace. Like Mrs Vizzard, they were waiting. And, though she wanted her tea, she hadn’t the heart to pour on the boiling water. Somehow, without Mr Squales there to drink it with her, it wouldn’t seem like having tea at all.
‘I’ll give him ten more minutes,’ she told herself. ‘Ten more minutes exactly. And if he isn’t here by half‐past I’ll have it without him.’
Having made this resolve she felt better for it. It made her feel strong and independent again. She was just congratulating herself on the victory over her weakness, just enjoying the sensation of being a sensible woman once more, when she heard footsteps on the pavement outside. They were not heavy footsteps. They were, in fact, the kind of footsteps that are made by rather light‐soled shoes. Faint, flickering footsteps. But Mrs Vizzard recognised them at once. And, as she recognised them, she realised what nonsense it was to pretend that she was either strong or independent. At the mere awareness of his presence near her, she was trembling almost as much as she had been on the tram. But even in her excitement, her presence of mind didn’t entirely forsake her. She poured the boiling water hurriedly into the pot and sat back again. Her pride made it impossible for her to run up to the front door to greet him. That would cheapen her even more than she had cheapened herself already. But at least his tea would be there ready for him.
She didn’t doubt for a moment that he would come straight in to her as soon as he had got down the stairs. And she was right. She heard those thin‐soled shoes on the front steps, heard the key in the lock and the door closing after him, heard him descending the flight of stairs to the basement. Then, without even knocking, he had thrown the door open and was standing there in front of her. He was pale and his hair was a little dishevelled. His dark eyes seemed darker and more penetrating than she had ever known them.
‘Why did you follow me?’ he asked.