THAT journey, from the Square down Motcombe Road and Motcombe Terrace into Catford Street and to the church, was unutterably dreary. Lovejoy was soaked through, bedraggled and muddy; the bucket was so heavy that the wet rags wore and the handle hurt her hands; but all this was nothing to the desolation that filled her. She kept seeing Tip as he had been taken into that house; she seemed still to be there while her legs took her doggedly up the Street.
It had never seemed such a long way. Looking back on the times with Tip, it seemed that they had almost run with the buckets—but then he is strong, thought Lovejoy. A tear of mourning slid down her cheek.
Her breath hurt right through to her back when she carried the bucket up the church steps, and she could not lift it up onto the wall. Oh, Tip! Tip! she mourned again, pressing her head against the wall; she could not have believed she could miss anyone as much. She tried again, but the most she could do, straining and pushing and panting, was to get the rim of the bucket level with the top and tilt it so that the earth fell over the wall. If it falls with a plump, it’s all right, she thought; if it falls with a shower, it’s wasted; but the earth was so wet that it fell all together, making a resounding plump. It’ll be there, thought Lovejoy, comforted.
Now she had to climb over with the shovel and scoop the earth up. She chanced leaving the bucket on the steps and climbed down, adding soot to the mud on her hands and knees. She had to make six journeys between the earth and the garden plot, carrying a little each time; her plimsolls were greasy, the wet marble was slippery, and twice she slipped; the second time the handle of the shovel rapped her sharply on the mouth and cut her lip. Now there was blood on her as well as mud and soot.
The earth was enough to fill the wreath pot and soon it was all ready to hold Jiminy Cricket. Lovejoy forgot the whole miserable morning, forgot Lucas, the police, Sparkey, even Tip, as she knelt down and tapped the pot and loosened the tiny rose tree; carefully she spread its roots out—they were like brown lace—stood it in the flower-wreath pot, and patted the roots down, pressing earth in among their fine threads; then she brought more and more earth in handscoops till the roots were firm and the tree standing up; with the shovel she filled the wreath pot, made the earth firm all round, and there was Jiminy Cricket blooming in the garden.
How long she knelt and looked, Lovejoy did not know; then, far over her head, from behind the houses, came the sound of the Angelus. Seven o’clock. A moment later St. Botolph’s sounded it from the Square and a light snapped on here in the church; it was for the quarter-past-seven Mass. Lovejoy glanced up at the statue; there was no light by the altar and she could see only a dim blur of blue and white but she was reminded of Tip.
What will they do to him? thought Lovejoy. Will they take him away? Will he be sent to one of those schools like Maxey? Or to prison? The skin under her hair seemed to prickle and she knew, in little, some of the fears of a wife whose husband has been arrested. Fears for him, for their name, for the home they had made together, even financial fears. They’ll tell Mrs. Malone, thought Lovejoy, and quailed; all the Malones will know, the whole Street, and we haven’t finished paying for the pansies. What will Mr. Driscoll do? Will he ask for them back—as Mrs. Combie was always threatening Vincent about the refrigerator? But in one thing the pansies were different from the refrigerator: Mr. Driscoll did not know where they were.
The garden was safe here, behind the church, tucked away; no one, no Driscoll or policeman, could find it. Not even Sparkey knew just where it was. No one knew. Then a thought seemed to ripple all through Lovejoy. No one, unless Tip told.
“And why shouldn’t I have told?” Tip was to ask long afterwards. “I didn’t, but why shouldn’t I?” And he said the thought that had eaten into him all the way through that time. “Sparkey didn’t run away and leave me.”
“I didn’t run away. I took the earth to the garden.”
“All you ever think about’s yourself.”
“I didn’t think about me, it was the garden,” but for Tip it was not possible to see that. He had only made the garden for Lovejoy; though he had grown to like it, to be interested, he did not know that things were sometimes made for themselves, not for human beings.
There was no artist in Tip, and—she might have stayed with me, was all he could think or feel. That thought had filled him all the time at Number Eleven and at the station; he, a big boy, had to blink tears back from his eyes. Tears! Tip had thought, appalled; that was what girls did to you, and he said bitterly, “Girls!”
Lovejoy, in the garden, knew enough of Tip to know he would not tell lies. He never will, she thought in despair, and he’ll have to say something. She herself was glib—but I’m not there, she thought distracted.
“Just like a girl, always wanting to interfere,” Tip was to say. “Couldn’t you trust me?” But Lovejoy could not.
But where’ll I go? she thought. To the Square? And dare I ask? Knock and ask if Tip’s there? I’m so dirty, she thought in dismay; Number Eleven seemed a very big, important house to her—and I’ll have to take the bucket; I can’t leave it here on the steps.
She gave a great shiver, from fright and cold; then slowly got to her feet, put out a finger and touched Jiminy Cricket, and started off across the rubble to go back.
•
“You needn’t come,” said Angela to Olivia.
In a long coat and the hat with the blue wings, the avenging-angel hat, Angela was ready to go with Lucas and the doctor to the police station. Doctor Dagleish was driving them—Olivia had thought often that it was remarkable how Angela could inveigle important people, doctors, bishops, Members of Parliament, to do small tasks for her, drive her, fetch her, collect parcels, ring up; now Doctor Dagleish, on his hospital morning, had meekly come to see Lucas; the police doctor would have done just as well, thought Olivia, but no, Angela had rung up Doctor Dagleish and he was ready to drive out of his way, to take them to the station. Angela is very, very wonderful, thought Olivia. All the same she had to oppose her.
“I’m coming,” said Olivia, and with unaccustomed boldness she said, “I saw it all. I might have something to say too.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Angela. “It will only upset you.”
“Yes,” said Olivia.
“Then why?” Angela was tapping her foot.
“I believe I should be upset.”
“I ought to have stopped her then,” said Angela afterwards.
Olivia had been oddly assertive over this—“this episode,” said Angela. In the house, while they had all been busy with poor Lucas—when at last he got his breath he had been terribly exhausted, but they had been able to make him swallow a little brandy—Olivia had interrupted and asked the policeman, “Would there be any objection to my taking these boys down to the kitchen and giving them a hot drink?”
“A hot drink!” Angela had said. “After all they have done!”
“Whatever they have done they are soaking,” said Olivia, “and the little boy has a cold in the head. They must have been out very early, and it’s chilly for June. Besides, this sort of thing is a great strain,” added Olivia.
“Really, Olivia, I don’t—”
“Lucas has had brandy,” Olivia pointed out.
At the police station they had to wait a little—“For the boy’s father,” the constable said—but at last they were shown into a room that was so bare that it was a shock to Olivia. It seemed to come sharply down to reality—where things are just what they are, thought Olivia, no pretence or covering up, stark. The waiting room had had tables and chairs, a picture over the gas fire; there was a fireplace here, but it was swept and empty, as was the room, with its mustard-brown walls and high windows; there was nothing except two big old battered desks, with a chair behind one of them, and, along the whole side wall, a fixed bench, marked and blackened with use—from all the people who have sat on it, thought Olivia, been made to sit on it, lost children, pickpockets, drunks, prostitutes; now Tip and Sparkey sat there, and with them was a man, a huge man, thought Olivia.
“Sit down, please,” said the constable politely. Angela looked round for chairs, but there was none except the one at the desk and the constable did not bring that forward. Olivia would have followed Lucas to the bench, but Angela stopped her with a look. “Thank you, we would rather stand,” said Angela frostily.
An inspector came in; he was tall in his uniform with its row of ribbons, and bareheaded; Olivia noticed his smooth brown hair. How well groomed they are, she thought. Behind him was a younger, even bigger, policeman, who stood waiting. “What would he be?” Olivia whispered to Angela.
“He’s the jailer,” said Angela.
“The jailer?” Olivia shrank back.
“Don’t be silly,” said Angela. “He’s there to do what is needed, take people into custody, control anyone who is troublesome.”
“Like our boy,” said Olivia and she looked apprehensive for Tip.
“People don’t get brought in here for nothing,” said Angela, who had seen the look. “It’s serious.” Olivia’s heart began to beat uncomfortably.
The inspector gave her, as well as Angela, a quick look; I suppose he spends his life summing people up, thought Olivia; for some reason that did not perturb her. She sat there, listening quietly, almost from habit letting Angela handle this. Angela had already begun. “I am Miss Angela Chesney. This is Lucas, the gardener, who was hurt.” She did not introduce Olivia but went on, “Now, Officer—”
“Inspector Russell,” said the inspector quietly. “I’m sorry we kept you waiting. As you see, Malone’s father has come now.” The man with the boys stood up.
“I guessed he was a Malone,” said Angela, speaking of Tip. “They wouldn’t give their names,” she said indignantly.
“Jack Smith, Johnny Smith, they all say that,” said the inspector. “They give them fast enough when they come here.” He has a real smile, thought Olivia, not one clicked on. The inspector turned to Mr. Malone. “Your wife’s not back from work?”
“No, sir.” Mr. Malone spoke in a thick, low, blurred voice as if he did not understand what was happening. “She does a night shift, sir.”
“And the small boy’s mother is away?”
“Just for the night, sir.”
“He is staying with you?”
“That’s right,” said Mr. Malone.
The jailer motioned Tip and Sparkey to stand in front of the desk; they were dry but very, very dirty. All the bragging had gone out of Mr. Malone; he looked as big and bewildered—as an ox, thought Olivia, an ox suddenly put under a yoke, as he stood beside Tip, his cap in his hand. “Look,” he said to the inspector, “couldn’t we wait? The missus’ll be home soon.”
“These ladies have waited nearly an hour already,” said the inspector. “You’re the father. We must carry on.” He looked at Tip and Sparkey and the constable. “Well, what is this all about?” he asked. The constable cleared his throat, but before he could speak, “We stole,” said Sparkey with pride.
“We didn’t steal,” said Tip, red-faced.
“We stole,” said Sparkey.
“We didn’t,” said Tip.
“My boy never stole,” said Mr. Malone. “He wouldn’t.”
“We stole,” said Sparkey firmly.
“Now wait. Wait,” said the inspector and motioned to the constable to begin again.
“At five forty-five this morning,” said the constable, “I was at the junction of Mortimer Street where it joins Mortimer Square—”
“It begins long, long before that!” Angela broke in. “These children . . .” and she went eloquently on.
The boys’ eyes grew round with surprise as they listened to Angela. Shears? Iris plants? They began to be shocked. It looked as if the lady were telling lies; indeed, the inspector stopped her. “You mean the shears and plants disappeared?” he said. “You say the gardener caught the children taking earth. There is no evidence they took anything else.”
“Evidence?” said Angela, nettled. “What evidence do you want? I think they are an organized gang of young thieves.”
“Let’s keep to what we can prove,” said the inspector. “They took earth.”
“Thirteen loads of it,” said Angela.
“Thirteen?” Even the experienced Inspector Russell was amazed.
It was then that Olivia made her speech about the full marks for persistence, ending with her tribute to the bucket. Tip lifted his eyes and looked at her appreciatively.
A third policeman had come in and stood waiting by the desk. “Yes?” asked the inspector.
“There’s another of them, sir. Says she belongs. A little girl.”
“Does she belong?” the inspector asked Tip.
“No,” said Tip.
“Yes,” said Sparkey.
“She’s just as wet and dirty, if that’s anything to go by, sir,” said the policeman.
The inspector asked Tip again, “You’re sure she doesn’t belong? You’re sure?”
“Yes,” said Tip.
“No,” said Sparkey.
Then Olivia spoke. “There was a little girl. I saw her.”
Tip looked at Olivia as if she were a traitor, and the inspector nodded to the policeman.
As Lovejoy came in her feet left wet marks on the floor; she might have been a bedraggled small wet sweep, except that she carried the bucket, not brushes. She had dared at last to knock at the back door at Number Eleven. “They’ve taken those boys to the police station,” said Ellen, who had answered. “They’re very naughty boys,” she had added severely.
The inspector asked Lovejoy her name—“And don’t say Mary Smith,” but Lovejoy was too chilled and tired and alarmed to have thought of that. “Tell me your name and where you live,” said the inspector.
“Lovejoy Mason. Two-hundred-and-three Catford Street.” It was so small a whisper that the inspector could hardly hear.
“Did you say ‘Lovejoy Mason’?”
“Yes.”
He spoke in an undertone to the jailer, who went out of the room and came back with some papers. The inspector took them and nodded, then looked at Lovejoy. “I’ve heard of you,” he said. “You live with a Mr. and Mrs. Combie?”
“Yes.”
“Harris,” said the inspector. It seemed odd to Olivia that a jailer could be called Harris. “Send someone down to Catford Street to see if Mrs. Combie can come.”
The jailer went to the door, and the inspector told Lovejoy to sit down. “We can go on with the boys,” he said to Angela, and listened while the constable finished his account. When it was over the inspector sat, thoughtfully drumming his fingers on the desk. “Let’s look at the bucket,” he said. Lovejoy had put it down by the desk, and he lifted it and looked at it carefully. “What made you think you weren’t stealing?” he asked Tip.
“It was dirt,” said Tip. His voice was husky and desperate, and he cleared his throat loudly in an effort to explain. It was a rude sound, and Angela raised her eyebrows. “You can’t steal dirt,” said Tip. “It—it’s—” and he remembered something he had learned about land in history lessons. “It’s common,” he said.
“It may be,” said Angela, “but in London it’s scarce and valuable.” And she said again, “You can buy it at the Army and Navy Stores, two-and-six for fourteen pounds, packed in cartons.”
Olivia made a sudden strangled noise, and all their eyes turned on her. Is she laughing? thought Lovejoy, shocked.
“Olivia, be quiet,” said Angela. “You make me ridiculous.”
“Not you, it. It’s ridiculous,” said Olivia.
The inspector was not laughing. He was looking at Tip.
“It looks very like stealing to me.” His voice was grave. “A mean kind of stealing. The gardener said you put the smaller ones over the railings to do your work for you. That’s mean, isn’t it? Then you attacked an old man carrying out his duty. You winded him and kicked him.”
“I didn’t kick him.”
“He says you did.”
“He’s a liar.”
“He kicked Sparkey.” Lovejoy had unveiled her lids and spoke straight at the inspector. “Take off your gumboot,” she commanded Sparkey, “and pull down your sock. Show them.” Sparkey peeled down his grey cotton sock, and on his lean little shin was a great mark. He showed it to the company and beamed, but once again Lovejoy was to know the overriding power of grown-ups.
“Lucas kick a child!” said Angela. “Never.”
“Not never. This morning,” said Lovejoy.
“Never laid a hand on him,” said Lucas.
“Are you sure?” asked the inspector.
“I only nabbed him,” said Lucas. “Course he didn’t like that. Don’t you listen to them, mister. That’s a bad boy,” he said vindictively, jerking his thumb at Tip.
“He’s not,” said Mr. Malone in a bellow.
“A young devil,” said Lucas. “I’ve been arter him for weeks. He’s a rough, bad boy.”
“He isn’t,” cried Lovejoy, coming up like a jack-in-the-box. “You should have seen him taking the grit out of my eye,” and as usual the thought of herself and Tip overwhelmed her with tears. “Its all my fault,” she sobbed. “He wouldn’t have been caught if I’d jumped Sparkey up, and Tip didn’t put us over the railings—at least not like you said.”
“Better let me be the one to go in,” Tip had said the first morning. “It might be dangerous.” At that time of the morning it had been only half light in the garden, night in the bushes.
“Snakes ’n tigers ’n ghosts,” Sparkey had said, his teeth chattering. “There was a girl murdered in some bushes in a garden jus’ like this.”
“I’ll go,” said Tip with a reassuring pat to Lovejoy.
The plan had been to put his raincoat, folded, on the paling spikes and use it as a pad. “Suppose it gets torn?” Lovejoy had asked with the respect she gave to clothes, but as most of the Malone clothes were torn Tip did not think it mattered.
“Hold a stake with each hand,” said Lovejoy, “and stand on the bucket.” She turned one upside down. “Spring and kneel on the top, then you can jump down”—but Tip could not get over the railings. The Malones were big and powerful but they were not made for springing. Tip could climb, pull himself up by his arms—onto the church wall, for instance—but when Lovejoy commanded, “Jump,” he could not jump; “Spring,” and he could not get off the ground.
There was a pause, a long pause; then, “It will have to be me,” Lovejoy had said in a little voice; her legs were as strong as a cricket’s; one spring and she had been up, a second later, over, but there had been another complication. When she had filled the buckets she could not hoist them up level with the top of the railings.
“’F I could just get the handle,” said Tip, “I could lift them over.” It was no good. She could not get them up, even with Tip pulling hard on the rope. “The rope sticks,” he said. “It’s the stakes. Can’t you get it a little higher?”
“No,” said Lovejoy, panting breathlessly.
“I’ll have to put Sparkey in,” said Tip.
Sparkey had been half dead with excitement and terror as Tip lifted him up and Lovejoy lifted him down; his little legs in the shining new gumboots had kicked wildly in an effort to be helpful. Frantically he helped push up the bucket; Tip managed to grasp it and haul it higher, then brought it down heavily on the other side; some of the earth spilled out, but he managed to scoop it up from the pavement with his hands. “Now the other one,” he said, and, hoisting, stretching, and panting, Lovejoy and Sparkey had got it up.
“How’ll you get out?” whispered Tip. “You can’t get out by yourselves.”
“We’ll climb up that tree and drop down,” said Lovejoy.
“Kin Sparkey?”
“He can if I lift him.” Tip had caught Sparkey as, sternly directed by Lovejoy, he dangled from the branch; and presently, light as a cricket again, or a bird, Lovejoy had dropped down beside them.
“It was all me,” Lovejoy sobbed now, as Eve must have sobbed. “I told him what to do and he did it.” She covered her face with her hands and the tears ran out between her fingers.
“What do you say to that?” the inspector asked Tip, but Tip was furious.
“I don’t take orders from a girl,” said Tip.
“Did he?” the inspector said suddenly to Sparkey.
“No,” said Sparkey with scorn. “She wasn’t in the gang. Girls can’t be,” he said loftily to Lovejoy.
The inspector looked thoughtfully at Sparkey. “You’re too small to be in the gang, of course,” he said.
Sparkey’s ears went red. He looked as if he were going to cry. “I am in the gang, amn’t I, Tip?” he asked.
“It can’t be much of a gang,” said Inspector Russell.
“It is!” cried Sparkey furiously. “It’s the worst gang for miles.” And he flung at the inspector, “Maxey Ford was in it.”
“Maxey Ford.” Now the inspector’s face, as well as his voice, was grave. He looked at Tip. “I am sorry to hear that. You know what happened to Maxey.”
“Yes,” said Sparkey reverently, and he declared, in an access of loyalty, “It wasn’t fair. Tip’s much better at stealing than Maxey.”
“Oh, shut up, Spark,” said poor Tip, but Sparkey took this for modesty and went on, “Tip’s chief; Maxey never was.”
“I see,” said the inspector, and he said suddenly, hardly, to Tip. “Do you always get other people to do your jobs for you?”
“I—don’t,” said Tip, astounded.
“He’s not that kind of boy,” cried Mr. Malone in anguish, and to Tip, “Oh, I wish your mum would come.”
There was a moment’s pause, then Angela’s voice came, clear and imperious. “It seems quite obvious, Officer—”
“Inspector Russell,” said the inspector.
Angela makes them angry by not thinking of them, thought Olivia. She thinks it doesn’t matter, but it does.
“Inspector, then,” said Angela impatiently. “It’s obvious that this boy should be charged.”
“But on what charge?” said the inspector.
“What charge?” said Angela. “I shall charge him with stealing the earth, of course.”
“But can you?” said the inspector. “I’m not sure you can.”
“Why ever not?” In Angela’s astonishment the “ever” slipped out. She isn’t handling this, it’s handling her, thought Olivia.
“The houses in Mortimer Square are leasehold, isn’t that right?” asked the inspector.
“Yes, but what has that to do with it? Why can’t I charge him?”
“I don’t think you can steal earth,” said the inspector, “and anyway it’s not your earth,” and all the faces turned to look at Angela; even the blue-winged lady, it seemed, could not have everything her own way.
“Oppose her and that’s the best way to make her go on”—both Olivia and Ellen could have told them all that. “The Garden Committee’s, then,” said Angela more impatiently still. “Why quibble?”
“It’s not even the Garden Committee’s,” said the inspector. “The earth belongs to the freeholders, whoever they are; I don’t know much about it but I can guess that even if you started a private prosecution, on a charge like that you would end up in a good old legal tangle.”
“Then I’ll charge him with trespass,” said Angela, but the inspector shook his head.
“Trespass isn’t an offence,” he said, “except on a railway.”
“Well, I can charge the boy with assaulting Lucas.”
“You can’t,” said the inspector again.
“Are you trying to be obstructive?” demanded Angela.
“I’m keeping to the law, madam,” said the inspector crisply.
“Why can’t I charge him with assaulting Lucas?” Angela’s eyes were very blue, very frosty. She’s angry, thought Olivia, but the inspector was not a Mr. Wix or a Doctor Dagleish; he was quite unperturbed. “Why can’t I charge him with assaulting Lucas?”
“Only Mr. Lucas can do that,” said the inspector.
“Lucas, then,” said Angela, and the inspector looked at him.
“Do you wish to make a charge?”
“Of course he does,” said Angela.
“Miss Chesney, will you let him answer for himself?” And the inspector asked Lucas again, “Do you want to make this charge?”
Angela made a movement, but Lucas seemed curiously unwilling to answer. He looked at the inspector, at Angela, at his hands, and was silent.
“You heard the officer,” said Angela.
“I don’t want to make no trouble, be unpleasant,” murmured Lucas to his boots.
“It’s sometimes one’s duty to be unpleasant,” said Angela. “The boy hurt you, he might hurt other people.”
“He never hurt anyone,” bellowed Mr. Malone to the skies.
“He hurt Lucas,” said Angela. “Well, Lucas?” Another silence while Lucas fidgeted. “You are acting for the Garden Committee, remember,” Angela said.
Lucas looked this way and that. How like a rat he is, thought Olivia; almost she drew her skirts aside. Angela was looking steadily at him, the cold glint still in her eyes. At last, “I’ll charge him,” said Lucas. It sounded like a groan.
The inspector was looking over their heads to the third policeman, who had come in again and was standing inside the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Combie are both out, sir,” he said.
“Out?” Lovejoy came two steps away from the bench; in the warm room she steamed as she walked. “Out? They’re never out.”
“They are both out,” said the policeman evenly. “They left a message on the door—for the little girl, I suppose—that they had gone to see a Mr. Montague.”
“Mr. Montague?” said Lovejoy, puzzled.
The policeman went away, and the inspector turned to Tip and put the charge in words that Tip could understand. “You’re charged with assaulting Mr. Lucas at approximately six o’clock this morning, the fifth of June, on the pavement of Mortimer Square. You needn’t say anything if you don’t want to; if you do say anything I shall take it down and tell it to the magistrates. Do you want to say anything?”
Tip stared dumbly at the inspector. “No reply,” said the inspector after a moment, and he wrote that down. Then he spoke to Mr. Malone. “Will you go bail for him to appear at the Juvenile Court—let’s see, it will be Chelsea Juvenile Court—next Wednesday at ten o’clock? The bail will be five pounds.”
“But—I haven’t got five pounds,” said Mr. Malone in dismay. Olivia made a movement, but Angela caught her.
“That’s all right,” said the inspector to Mr. Malone. “You don’t have to pay it if the boy appears. Now sign here, on the back of the charge sheet.”
Breathing suspiciously, glaring at them all, with the pen held like some sort of dangerous weapon in his hand, Mr. Malone signed. Olivia noticed how the pen trembled; she did not like to see that little tremble. “Now you can take him home,” said the inspector to Mr. Malone. “You too,” he said to Sparkey.
“Can’t I be charged?” said Sparkey. “Please. Please,” he said frantically.
“You go along home,” said the inspector. “In any case you’re under eight.”
“I’ll never be big,” wailed Sparkey in despair.
“And I must go,” said Angela and gathered up her things. “Olivia, you take Lucas home,” she said as she went out, but Olivia did not hear.
She was looking at Tip and Lovejoy. Mr. Malone had come to Tip and taken him by the shoulder, but Lovejoy’s hand was locked in Tip’s.
“Now be a good girl,” said Mr. Malone. Lovejoy shook her head. He tried to prise her fingers away, but he, who seemed really as big as Olivia’s ox or one of his own great dray-horses, seemed unable to loosen that small hand.
“I’ll stay with him,” said Lovejoy.
There was a noise outside as if a henhouse full of hens had broken loose in the police station. Mr. Malone swung round, his face happy with relief, and a second later Mrs. Malone burst into the room; as a policeman hastily caught and shut the swing door, Olivia caught a glimpse of five other Malones outside.
“Did you see the mother?” Olivia asked Angela afterwards.
“I did, and a whole tribe of Malones. I told you he was a Malone.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“No. She’s a real virago and I was in a hurry. Did you?”
“Yes. She called me a dirty old Judy,” said Olivia. “I liked her.”
“Liked her?”
“Yes. If I had a boy I hope I should fight for him like that.”
When she had finished with Olivia, Mrs. Malone had started on Inspector Russell.
“There’s no name I wouldn’t put on you,” she said.
The inspector nodded to the jailer, and presently he and Mr. Malone prevailed on Mrs. Malone to go. When finally she swept Tip, Mr. Malone, and Sparkey out of the room, “we were left in a sudden flat silence,” said Olivia.
“Who were left?” asked Angela.
“The inspector, the little girl,” said Olivia, “and I.” She paused. “Then a policewoman came in.”
“Lovejoy,” Inspector Russell had said, “this is Woman Police Constable Mountford. She wants to talk to you.”
The extreme gentleness of his voice made Lovejoy afraid. Vincent sometimes spoke to her like that when he was deeply sorry. The woman policeman made her more afraid. Last time—that time, thought Lovejoy, it was a woman policeman, asking those questions. Lovejoy could hear them still, and her own answers—baby answers, thought Lovejoy scornfully.
“Where do you live?”
“We don’t live anywhere.”
“You don’t know where you stayed?”
“We don’t stay. We can’t, because of the bill. They want us to pay it so we go somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?”
“Yes. That’s where we were going.” That Lovejoy had been a stupid little silly, thought Lovejoy scornfully, but this Lovejoy now had the same vision of that big hole and thousands and thousands of little ant people being swept into it. “I don’t want her to talk to me,” said Lovejoy, looking at Woman Police Constable Mountford with horror. She looked round for Tip, but Tip had gone with his mother. His mother! thought Lovejoy and quivered.
“You’re not afraid of us, are you?” said the inspector coaxingly. Lovejoy might have said, “Yes,” but instead she stood glaring and breathing hard. Then, “You say it, not her,” she said to Inspector Russell. He and the policewoman looked at each other. “All right, but stay,” he said in an undertone.
Lovejoy darted across the room and caught Olivia’s hand.
“You stay too,” she croaked.
“But—” Olivia was half dismayed, half touched. She was always to remember the clutch of Lovejoy’s hand. “They want you alone,” she said.
“Stay. Stay,” begged Lovejoy.
“Perhaps it would help if you would,” said the police-woman.
“I? Not my sister?” Olivia could not believe it.
“You, please,” said Inspector Russell.
He beckoned Lovejoy to his desk. She advanced warily and stood in front of it. “He’s going to try and make me tell,” she thought and braced herself, dropping her lids, but the inspector was speaking in this same extraordinarily gentle way.
“I have to talk to you,” he said, “about your mother.”