It was too early to theorise. Deciding that his next step must be a discreet canvassing of Elsie Dilworth’s fellow-workers, Bream first assured himself of Nicholas Blundell’s absence, and then presented himself at the office, situated in Fetter Lane.
He found two male clerks and a young girl typist, the latter so singularly plain looking that he tended at once to discard a preliminary idea. He spoke with each member of the staff, explaining his reason for tracing Miss Dilworth, and receiving unhelpful answers. No one here had the faintest notion where she had gone, or why she had left her post. Even the senior clerk, who had worked side by side with her for five years, was wholly ignorant of her private life.
“It wasn’t just shyness,” he declared, scratching his ear with a pen. “It seemed a matter of what you might call a negative personality. Determined, though. Oh, dear, yes! She’d plenty of concentration and obstinacy. You could see it working inside her—but she didn’t talk about it. I couldn’t tell you who her friends were—if she had any—or what she did in her off-time. I fancy she lived a very solitary life—till lately, that is.”
“Then you did notice a change in her?”
“Did we!” The clerk smiled. “Since the middle of last summer. She got all keyed-up, rather—well, skittish, if you understand. In her clothes she was a different woman, but again not a hint as to what was causing it. And then, it ended—like that.” He snapped his fingers expressively. “She turned queerish. When? Oh, this autumn. Not all at once, you know. More and more nervy, till without a word of notice or warning off she popped. Just went. I’d never have thought it of her. Reliable as they make ’em, all these years. It seemed as though something in her had cracked under a strain. I’d never connected her with this American who’s been charged with Mrs. Somervell’s murder. Friends, were they?” he inquired with hopeful inquisitiveness.
“Just boarding-house acquaintances,” Bream replied, and led the talk round to the matter of Miss Dilworth’s private income. The clerk, Parsons by name, was astonished to learn of any. For several minutes he listened uncomprehendingly, and then he smiled again with a look of indulgent enlightment.
“I believe I can clear up that little mystery,” he said and, opening a drawer in his desk, drew out what Bream saw to be his own pass-book. “Just run through this,” he continued. “See these deposits? Forty-three, ten, six on August twenty-eighth, roughly the same on October thirty-first. And there are others, running back over a considerable period. Well, then! Those represent what Mr. Blundell chooses to call bonuses. It’s his own little system, to ensure keen interest and a high standard of work. It’s unusual, oh, decidedly! You won’t find many employers doing a thing of this kind, I dare say; but as he says, it pays him, and that it’s right we should share when he happens on a bit of luck. Gifts? Not quite. Perhaps I’d better explain more fully.”
Mr. Blundell, he said with loyal pride, was a man of rather remarkable judgment where the stock market was concerned. Through his contacts with big financiers—like Lord Limpsfield, for example—he often got on to good things. When he chanced a flutter on his own account, he would offer to do the same for his employees, assuming all risk of loss.
“Though I can assure you he doesn’t often lose,” added Parsons triumphantly. “This last bonus marks a quick getting-in-and-out with Verysharp Steel. I’d been doing a big of overtime, and this was my reward. Miss Dilworth, who never minded giving up her Sundays, must have benefited quite a lot in the way I’ve described. That’s my chief reason for thinking she must be clean off her rocker. She won’t find another berth equal to what she’s had; and yet”—he wrinkled his sallow brow meditatively—“her going was planned. Must have been. Bramshaw—that’s the junior clerk—will tell you she left everything absolutely ship-shape.”
Bream was beginning to form an unpleasant theory as to the reason for the secretary’s disappearance. The withdrawal of forty pounds fitted in with it; but he must not be hasty. He remarked that Mr. Blundell must be not only a kind-hearted but a rather quixotic man. Parsons nodded as he put up his pass-book.
“He’s Colonial,” he answered, as though accounting for much eccentricity. “What I mean is, he takes a broad, human view of things. A bit unexpected till you get used to him, but always in a good humour. Like a big schoolboy, I always say; and still, in spite of his harmless joking, I believe he can read most people, men and women too, like a book. All except Miss Dilworth,” the clerk thoughtfully amended. “Since this happened, I imagine he’s all at sea. Her conduct’s a sore subject with him. Coming as it did on top of losing an old friend like Mrs. Somervell and then all this ugly business about the death—it was bound to hurt him even more than it would at ordinary times. No doubt he’s feeling he deserved better treatment.”
“Does he do much business at his home? I understand Miss Dilworth was working at the flat a good deal just before she left.”
Parsons replied that certain clients preferred discussion under pleasanter conditions than those offered by the office. Sometimes it was a question of convenience.
“Take Lord Limpsfield—another South African, by the way, and fairly unconventional himself. Well, he always likes doing business over a good dinner and a cigar. During the day he has about a thousand calls on his time. I’d say that in the matter of income-tax alone Mr. Blundell has saved him enormous amounts—all quite properly, of course—just from a thorough knowledge of the tax laws.”
As there seemed no more to be gleaned in this quarter, Bream quitted the office, and on his way to Floyd’s Square, Islington, took stock of his very meagre results. So far as he could at present see, Elsie Dilworth was an unattractive, repressed woman who had been emotionally bowled over by an unfortunate love-episode. Through revenge or other motives she had given information calculated to ruin Somervell, instantly regretted her rash act, and, foreseeing an arrest, made a stupid effort to save him by suggesting an elopement. In this she had failed, whereupon she had become frightened and made off. Either she wished to avoid giving evidence against Somervell, or, herself guilty, she dreaded personal consequences; or—it was certainly a possibility—she had gone into retirement because she was “in trouble.” Three alternatives. Which was the right one?
“Finding her may only complicate the issue,” Bream reflected. “And yet I’ve got to find her. No way out of it.”
The tenant of the tiny two-story-and-basement house he now visited proved to be a worn, red-haired woman in the middle thirties, whose name—ascertained from a neighbouring ironmonger—was Mrs. Gladys Eales. She had one large room to let. It occupied the whole of the upper floor, and when Bream applied for it she gave him a sharply curious glance.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “How things do get about! Whoever told you that room was empty?”
“Then it is available?”
“Well—in a manner of speaking, it isn’t. I mean, it’s paid for till the end of next week, by the lady who’s just left. Some of her things are still in it, so I expect she may be planning to come back. She was ill, you see, and went of a sudden, while I was out the night before last. I found a note with the money. All she said was she was off to the seaside where an old doctor of hers was living, and she wouldn’t know till she’d seen him whether she’d be keeping this room on or not. I’ve not yet had a line from her, so you understand how I’m placed.”
“Now I’m here, do you think I might have a look at the room?”
“Well, there’s no harm in that,” agreed the landlady, slightly hesitant. “I could let you have a definite answer later.”
Bream followed her up a flight of narrow, linoleum-covered stairs to an irregularly-shaped room overlooking the dingy square. It contained a divan-bed, a gate-legged table, a chest of drawers, and several chairs, one a large basket one. Two shallow recesses flanked the fireplace, in which was a gas-fire. One was a cupboard, the other was filled by shelves on which stood cups and saucers, a teapot, and, at the bottom, a pile of old newspapers. Opening the cupboard door, Bream saw a few coat-hangers, a pair of metal shoe-trees, and a bag of golf clubs.
“Pity you don’t know if the lady’s coming back,” he murmured. “I could just leave you my address, though, and then when you hear you can drop me a line.” He searched his pockets. “I don’t seem to have a scrap of paper to write on,” he said. “Shall I just tear off a corner of one of these?” And he moved towards the newspapers, the top one of which he saw to be a fortnight old.
“Wait, I’ll fetch you something.”
Left to himself, Bream lost no time. Swiftly he removed the golf clubs from the bag, and, taking an envelope from his pocket, carefully shook the bag over it. A little dried mud fell out, and this he folded up and placed in his pocket. He was just turning his eye on the worn cabin-trunk in the corner when Mrs. Eales returned. As he scribbled the fictitious name he reserved for similar occasions, he asked if it would be possible to have an answer in ten days.
“I—I really couldn’t say.” Her manner struck him as perplexed and vaguely embarrassed. “The trouble may be that Mrs. Dixon herself won’t know as soon as that. The way she worded her note—I’ve thrown it away, or I’d show it to you—she might find there was nothing much wrong with her, and again it might mean a long treatment.”
Mrs. Dixon! So the secretary was posing as a married woman. His suspicions deepened—and then it occurred to him that it might be a case of a mistaken house number.
No, hardly that, for there were Miss Dilworth’s initials—“E.K.D.”—plainly stamped on the trunk. He picked a used Remington type-ribbon from the waste-basket and twirled it between his fingers.
“Mrs. Dixon!” he repeated. “Can she be the Mrs. Edith Dixon who does authors’ copying? I heard she lived in this direction. Is she a stout, jolly woman with a black Eton crop?”
Mrs. Eales stared.
“Oh, dear no! I can’t tell you her first name, but my Mrs. Dixon’s as thin as a rake. She stoops, and you couldn’t call her jolly. What she does I’ve never heard her say, but it was owing to feeling so run-down she gave up her last post. That was the second week she was here, and really I don’t wonder at it, for in her state she couldn’t have carried on any work. I sleep just under here, and I’m sure I was kept awake half the night, what with her roaming round and opening and shutting windows. She’d groan too. Oh, something awful! It was nerves, I think. Did you say black hair? Hers is a sort of red. Touched up, you know.”
The various drawers, casually opened, revealed only a few stray pins. With a final wistful glance at the trunk he was preparing to go; Mrs. Eales arrested him with further remarks.
“Neighbours do seem to notice a lot. Why, yesterday, even, I’d another applicant after this room, though how he knew it was empty Heaven alone knows!”
“And what did you tell him?” inquired Bream genially.
“Oh, I made it ‘No’ straight off, for all he tried to wheedle me into showing it to him. Yes, got his foot wedged in the door, and flourished a brand-new pocket-book just to tempt me. Stuffed full of pound notes it was. And he was dressed up to the nines, as you may say; but I suppose I’m prejudiced against these dark-skinned natives. I just wouldn’t like one in the house.”
Dark-skinned? Dressed to the nines? A pleasant prickle ran over Bream’s face, and his pulse skipped a beat.