XV. The Evidence of the Ladylove and the Landlady

CHAPTER XV

THE EVIDENCE OF THE

LADYLOVE AND THE

LANDLADY

‘You are an adept in these chamber-passions,

And have a heart that’s Cupid’s arrow-cushion

Worn out with use.’

Death’s Jest-Book

‘What’s this? Did you not see a white convulsion

Rut through his cheek and fling his eyelids up?

There’s mischief in the paper.’

Fragment

TUESDAY, 23 JUNE

IN THE MEANTIME, HARRIET’S novel was not getting along very well. Not only was there the tiresomeness about the town-clock—or ought it to be called the Tolbooth clock?—but also she had arrived at the point where, according to the serial editor who was paying for the first rights, the heroine and the detective’s friend were expected to indulge in a spot of love-making. Now, a person whose previous experience of love has been disappointing, and who has just been through a harassing scene with another suitor and is, further, busily engaged in investigating the rather sordid love-affairs of a third party who has been brought to a violent and blood-boltered end, is in no mood to sit down and deal competently with the raptures of two innocents holding hands in a rose-garden. Harriet shook her head impatiently, and plunged into her distasteful task.

‘I say, Betty, I’m afraid you must think I’m a pretty average sort of

idiot.’

‘But I don’t think you’re an idiot at all, you idiot.’

Would even the readers of the Daily Message think that amusing? Harriet feared not. Well, better get on with it. The girl would have to say something encouraging now, or the stammering young imbecile would never come to the point.

‘I think it’s perfectly wonderful that you should be doing all this to

help me.’

Here she was, remorselessly binding this hideous load of gratitude on the unfortunate girl. But Betty and Jack were a pair of hypocrites, anyway, because they both knew perfectly well that Robert Templeton was doing all the work. However.

‘As if there was anything in the world I wouldn’t try and do for

you—Betty!’

‘Well, Jack?’

‘Betty—darling—I suppose you couldn’t possibly—‘

Harriet came to the conclusion that she couldn’t—not possibly. She picked up the telephone, got put through to Telegrams, and dictated a brief, snappy message to her long-suffering agent. ‘Tell Boode I absolutely refuse induce love-interest—Vane.’

After that she felt better, but the novel was perfectly impossible. Wasn’t there anything else she could do? Yes. She again seized the telephone and put an inquiry through to the office. Was it possible to get into touch with M. Antoine?

The management seemed quite used to putting clients in touch with M. Antoine. They had a telephone number which ought to find him. It did. Could M. Antoine put Miss Vane in touch with Miss Leila Garland and Mr da Soto? Certainly. Nothing was more simple. Mr da Soto was playing at the Winter Gardens, and the morning concert would be just finishing. Miss Garland would probably be joining him for lunch. In any case, Antoine would charge himself with all that and would, if Miss Vane desired it, call for her and accompany her to the Winter Gardens. It was most good of M. Antoine. On the contrary, it was a pleasure; in a quarter of an hour’s time, then? Parfaitement.

‘Tell me, M. Antoine,’ said Harriet, as their taxi rolled along the Esplanade. ‘You who are a person of great experience, is love, in your opinion, a matter of the first importance?’

‘It is, alas! of a great importance, mademoiselle, but of the first importance, no!’

‘What is of the first importance?’

‘Mademoiselle, I tell you frankly that to have a healthy mind in a healthy body is the greatest gift of le bon Dieu, and when I see so many people who have clean blood and strong bodies spoiling themselves and distorting their brains with drugs and drink and foolishness, it makes me angry. They should leave that to the people who cannot help themselves because to them life is without hope.’

Harriet hardly knew what to reply; the words were spoken with such personal and tragic significance. Rather fortunately, Antoine did not wait.

‘L’amour! These ladies come and dance and excite themselves and want love and think it is happiness. And they tell me about their sorrows—me— and they have no sorrows at all, only that they are silly and selfish and lazy. Their husbands are unfaithful and their lovers run away and what do they say? Do they say, I have two hands, two feet, all my faculties, I will make a life for myself? No. They say, Give me cocaine, give me the cocktail, give me the thrill, give me my gigolo, give me l’amo-o-ur! Like a mouton bleating in a field. If they knew!

Harriet laughed.

‘You’re right, M. Antoine. I don’t believe l’amour matters so terribly, after all.’

‘But understand me,’ said Antoine who, like most Frenchmen, was fundamentally serious and domestic, ‘I do not say that love is not important. It is no doubt agreeable to love, and to marry an amiable person who will give you fine, healthy children. This Lord Peter Wimsey, par example, who is obviously a gentleman of the most perfect integrity—’

‘Oh, never mind him!’ broke in Harriet, hastily. ‘I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking about Paul Alexis and these people we are going to see.’

‘Ah! c’est différent. Mademoiselle, I think you know very well the difference between love which is important and love which is not important. But you must remember that, one may have an important love for an unimportant person. And you must remember also that where people are sick in their minds or their bodies it does not need even love to make them do foolish things. When I kill myself, for example, it may be out of boredom, or disgust, or because I have the headache or the stomach-ache or because I am no longer able to take a first-class position and do not want to be third-rate.’

‘I hope you’re not thinking of anything of the sort’

‘Oh, I shall kill myself one of these days,’ said Antoine, cheerfully. ‘But it will not be for love. No. I am not so détraqué as all that’

The taxi drew up at the Winter Gardens. Harriet felt a certain delicacy about paying the fare, but soon realised that for Antoine the thing was a commonplace. She accompanied him to the orchestra entrance where, in a few minutes’ time, they were joined by Leila Garland and Luis da Soto— the perfect platinum blonde and the perfect lounge-lizard. Both were perfectly self-possessed and incredibly polite; the only difficulty—as Harriet found when they were seated together at a table—was to get any reliable information out of them. Leila had evidently taken up an attitude, and stuck to it. Paul Alexis was ‘a terribly nice boy,’ but ‘too romantic altogether’. Leila had been ‘terribly grieved’ to send him away, he ‘took it so terribly hard’—but, after all, her feeling for him had been no more than pity—he had been ‘so terribly timid and lonely.’ When Luis came along, she realised at once where her affections really lay. She rolled her large periwinkle eyes at Mr da Soto, who responded by a languishing droop of his fringed lids.

‘I was all the more sorry about it,’ said Leila, ‘because poor darling Paul —’

‘Not darling, honey.’

‘Of course not, Luis—only the poor thing’s dead. Anyway, I was sorry because poor Paul seemed to be so terribly worried about something. But he didn’t confide in me, and what is a girl to do when a man won’t confide in her? I sometimes used to wonder if he wasn’t being blackmailed by somebody.’

‘Why? Did he seem to be short of money?’

‘Well, yes, he did. Of course, that wouldn’t make any difference to me; I’m not that sort of girl. Still, it’s not pleasant, you know, to think that one of your gentleman friends is being blackmailed. I mean, a girl never knows she may not get mixed up in something unpleasant. I mean, it isn’t quite nice, is it?’

‘Far from it. How long ago did he start being worried?’

‘Let me see. I think it was about five months ago. Yes, it was. I mean, that was when the letters started coming.’

‘Letters?’

Yes; long letters with foreign stamps on them. I think they came from Czechoslovakia or one of those queer places. It wasn’t Russia, anyway, because I asked him and he said no. I thought it was very funny, because he said he’d never been in any foreign country except Russia when he was quite a little boy, and in America, of course.’

‘Have you told anybody else about these letters?’

‘No. You see, Paul always said it would do him harm to have them mentioned. He said the Bolsheviks would kill him if anything got out. I said to him, “I don’t know what you mean by that,” I said, “I’m not a Bolshie,” I said, “and I don’t know any people of that sort, so what harm would it do to tell me about it?” But now he’s dead it can’t do any harm, can it? Besides, if you ask me, I don’t believe it was Bolshies at all. I mean, it doesn’t seem likely, does it? I said to him, “If you expect me to swallow that story, you’re expecting a lot,” I said. But he wouldn’t tell me, and of course, that did make a little coolness between us. I mean to say, when a girl is friends with a man, like me and Paul, she does expect a little consideration.’

‘Of course she does,’ said Harriet, warmly. ‘It was very wrong of him not to be perfectly frank with you. I really think, in your place, I’d have felt justified in trying to find out who the letters were from.’

Leila played delicately with a piece of bread.

‘As a matter of fact,’ she admitted, ‘I did take a tiny peep once. I thought I owed it to myself. But they were all nonsense. You couldn’t make a word of them.’

‘Were they in a foreign language?’

‘Well, I don’t know. They were all in printing letters and some of the words hadn’t any vowels in them at all. You couldn’t possibly pronounce them.’

‘It sounds like a cipher,’ suggested Antoine.

‘Yes, that’s just what I thought. I did think it was terribly funny.’

‘But surely,’ said Harriet, ‘an ordinary blackmailer wouldn’t write letters in cipher.’

‘Oh, but why shouldn’t they? I mean, they might have been a gang, you know, like in that story, The Trail of the Purple Python. Have you read it? The Purple Python was a Turkish millionaire, and he had a secret house full of steel-lined rooms and luxurious divans and obelisks—’

‘Obelisks?’

‘Well, you know. Ladies who weren’t quite respectable. And he had agents in every country in Europe, who bought up compromising letters and he wrote to his victims in cipher and signed his missives with a squiggle in purple ink. Only the English detective’s young lady found out his secret by disguising herself as an obelisk and the detective who was really Lord Humphrey Chillingfold arrived with the police just in time to rescue her from the loathsome embrace of the Purple Python. It was a terribly exciting book. Paul read lots of books like that—I expect he was trying to pick up ideas for getting the better of the gang. He liked the talkies too. Of course, in those stories, the hero always comes out on top, only poor dear Paul wasn’t really a bit like a hero. I said to him one day, “It’s all very well,” I said, “but I can’t see you venturing into a Chinese opium den full of gangsters, with a pistol in your pocket, and being gassed and sandbagged and then throwing off your bonds and attacking the Underworld King with an electric lamp. You’d be afraid of getting hurt,” I said to him. And so he would.’

Mr da Soto snickered appreciatively.

‘You said a mouthful, honey. Poor Alexis was a friend of mine, but courage was just what he didn’t have. I told him, if he didn’t stand out of my way and let little Leila pick her own sweetie, I would give him a sock on the jaw. I give you my word, he was scared stiff.’

‘So he was,’ said Leila. ‘Of course, a girl couldn’t feel any respect for a man that didn’t stand up for himself.’

‘Remarkable!’ said Antoine. ‘And this young man, so timid, so complaisant, cuts his throat with a big, ugly gash because you turn him down. C’est inoui.’

‘I suppose you believe his Bolshie story,’ said Leila, offended.

‘I? I believe nothing. I am agnostic. But I say that your portrait of Alexis is not very logical.’

‘Antoine always talks about logic,’ said Leila, ‘but what I say is, people aren’t logical. Look at all the funny things they do. Especially men. I always think men are terribly inconsistent.’

‘You bet they are,’ said Mr da Soto. You’re just dead right, sweetest. They have to be, or they wouldn’t be bothered with naughty little girlies like you.’

‘Yes, but the letters,’ said Harriet, sticking desperately to her point. ‘How often did they come?’

‘About once a week, sometimes oftener. He kept them locked up in a little box. He used to answer them, too. Sometimes when I went round to see him, he’d have his door locked, and old Ma Lefranc said he was writing letters and wasn’t to be disturbed. Naturally, a girl doesn’t like her gentleman friend to behave like that. I mean, you do expect him to pay a little attention to you and not shut himself up writing letters when you come to see him. I mean, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could expect a girl to put up with.’

‘Of course you couldn’t baby,’ said Mr da Soto.

Antoine smiled, and murmured unexpectedly:

‘Mais si quelqu’un venoit de la part de Cassandre, Ouvre-luy tost la porte, et ne le fais attendre,

Soudain entre dans ma chambre, et me vien accoustrer.’

Harriet smiled back at him and then, struck with an idea, asked Leila:

‘When did the last of these letters arrive?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t friends with him any more after I got friendly with Luis. But I expect Ma Lefranc would tell you. There isn’t much goes on that Ma Lefranc doesn’t know about.’

‘Did you and Alexis live together when you were friendly?’ demanded Harriet, bluntly.

‘Of course not; what a dreadful thing to ask a girl.’

‘I mean, in the same house.’

‘Oh, no. We used to go and see each other quite often, but of course, after Luis and me became friends, I said to Paul that it would be better if we didn’t see each other any more. You see, Paul was so fond of me, and Luis would have been imagining things—wouldn’t you, Luis?’

‘You bet your life I would, honey.’

‘Haven’t you told the police about these letters?’

‘No, I have not,’ replied Miss Garland, decidedly. ‘I don’t say I mightn’t have told them if they had asked properly, but the way that fat Umpelty went on, you’d have thought I wasn’t a respectable girl. So I said to him, “I know nothing about it,” I said, “and you’ve got nothing against me,” I said, “and you can’t make me answer your silly questions unless you take me down to your dirty old police-station and charge me,” I said.’ Miss Garland’s carefully modulated tones escaped from control and became shrill. ‘And I said, “It wouldn’t be a scrap of good if you did,” I said, “because I know nothing about Paul Alexis and I haven’t seen him for months,” I said, “and you can ask anybody you like,” I said, “and what’s more, if you get bullying a respectable girl like this,” I said, “you’ll get yourself into trouble, Mr Rumpelty-Bumpelty,” I said, “so now you know where you get off.” That’s what I said, and it’s a good thing there’s a law in this country to protect girls like I.’

‘Ain’t she the snail’s ankles?’ asked Mr da Soto admiringly.

There seemed to be no further information to be gathered from Leila Garland, whom Harriet put down in her own mind as ‘a regular little gold-digger and as vain as a monkey.’ As for da Soto, he looked harmless enough, and did not seem to have any pressing reason for doing away with Alexis. One never knew, of course, with these slinky people of confused nationality! Just as she was thinking this, da Soto drew out his watch.

You will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I have a rehearsal at two o’clock. As always, Tuesdays and Thursdays.’

He bowed and left them, with his lithe walk, between a lounge and a swagger. Had he deliberately mentioned Thursdays in order to direct attention to an alibi for Thursday, 18th? And how did he know the time for which an alibi was required? That particular detail had not been allowed to get into the papers, and it was not likely to do so until the inquest. And yet —could one attach any importance to the remark? An alibi depending on an orchestra rehearsal was so easily established or refuted. Then an explanation occurred to her: the police would already have asked da Soto about his movement last Thursday. But surely they would not have emphasised the crucial time to that extent. They had agreed that the less anybody knew about the time the better—it would be helpful in the inquiry if anyone were to come forward ostentatiously flourishing an alibi for two o’clock.

Harriet returned with Antoine, still not quite knowing what to make of da Soto. It was still only a quarter past two; she had time to carry out a new plan which she had formed. She put some clothes in a suit-case and went round to interview Paul Alexis’ landlady, Mrs Lefranc.

The door of the cheap-looking lodging-house was opened to her by an ample personage with brazen hair, who was dressed in a pink wrapper, much-laddered artificial silk stockings and green velvet mules, and wore about her heavily powdered neck a string of synthetic-amber beads like pigeon’s eggs.

‘Good morning,’ said Harriet, ‘I’m looking for a room.’

The lady eyed her shrewdly and said:

‘Professional, dearie?’

To say ‘Yes’ was tempting but unsafe. Mrs Lefranc looked as though what she did not know about professionals could have been written on a threepenny bit. Besides, Harriet was becoming well-known in Wilvercombe —she could scarcely hope to hide her identity for ever.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I write books. In fact, Mrs Lefranc, I’m the person who found poor Mr Alexis last week. I’ve been staying at the Resplendent, but it’s terribly expensive, and I thought, if your room was still vacant, I might be able to take it.’

‘Well, there!’ said Mrs Lefranc. She opened the door a little wider, but seemed to be divided between suspicion and curiosity. Well, there! I hardly know what to say. You ain’t one of these journalists?’

‘Oh, dear, no,’ replied Harriet

‘Because,’ said Mrs Lefranc, ‘with those fellers you never know where you are. Worried to death I’ve been with them, poking their long noses into my private affairs. But of course you can’t help but feel an interest, dearie, can you, seeing it was you that found him, poor boy. Come along in. Excuse my negleegy, won’t you? If I’m not up and down, up and down, keeping an eye on that girl, I don’t know where we’d all be. I don’t get time to posh myself up of a morning. How long would you be wanting the room for?’

‘I don’t quite know. It depends on when they have the inquest.’

‘Ah, yes—and they’ve got to find him first, poor lamb, ain’t they? You know, I’ve got such a warm heart, I can’t sleep at nights for thinking of him washing about in all that nasty sea. Mind the coal-scuttle, dearie; the times I tell that girl not to leave it on the stairs. It’s a lovely room on the first floor —quite the best in the house, and you’ll find the bed comfortable. Poor Mr Alexis always said it was like a home to him and I’m sure he was like a son to me.’

Mrs Lefranc led the way up, her green mules flapping and displaying large holes in the heels of her stockings.

‘There, dearie!’ said Mrs Lefranc, throwing open the door. ‘I’m sure you couldn’t find better in Wilvercombe, and it’s nice and quiet—you’ll be able to do your writing beautiful. I’ve had it all cleaned up and his clothes and things put away—and if you was to dislike his books and bits of things about, I could easy put them to the one side. But there! I daresay you won’t mind them. It’s not as if he’d died in this room, is it, poor soul? And I’m sure Mr Alexis was far too much the gentleman to commit a rash act on anybody’s premises. That kind of thing do give a place a bad name, there’s no denying it, and one is apt to be blamed for things as aren’t in any woman’s control, try as she may to make her visitors happy. But as to the books, well, of course, if it had been anything infectious they’d have to have been destroyed, though as to who they belong to now I don’t know, I’m sure and the police can’t tell me either, and I daresay they’ve as much right here as anywhere, with me being like a mother to him this year past and more. But anything infectious there is not, for he never was subject to any such complaint, enjoying good health as a rule, barring the pain in his joints which he had to lay up for at times, and the agony he went through was cruel. I’m sure my heart bled for him, and the amount of antipyrin he took for it would surprise you and he never would have a doctor. But there! I don’t blame him. My sister had the rheumatics something cruel and the amount she spent on doctors and electric treatment and nothing to show for it, except her knee swelled up like a pumpkin. And she lost the use of the limb altogether, which was a cruel thing for a woman in her profession. A trapeze-artist, she was; I’ve got her photograph in my room if you would like to see it one day, dearie, and the wreaths her old pals sent to her funeral was beautiful to see. Covered the hearse, they did, and they had to have an extra carriage on purpose for them. But as I was saying, if you don’t care about the books I’ll take them away. I’m not going to have that Weldon woman or Leila Garland—the little cat—coming here trying to get hold of them.’

The room was pleasant enough—large and airy and much cleaner than Harriet could have hoped from Mrs Lefranc’s appearance. The furniture was, of course, hideous, but, though shabby, solid and in good order. The books were just as Inspector Umpelty had described them: mainly novels in cheap editions, with some Russian paper-backs and a few volumes of Russian Court memoirs. The only striking relic of the former tenant was a very beautiful little ikon hung at the head of the bed—certainly old and probably valuable.

For form’s sake Harriet entered upon a long haggle with Mrs Lefranc about terms, emerging victorious with an inclusive charge of two and a half guineas per week, or twelve shillings and find yourself.

‘And it’s not everybody I’d do that for,’ said Mrs Lefranc. ‘Only I can see you’re one of the quiet sort. If there’s a thing I don’t want in my house it’s trouble. Though I’m sure all this dreadful business is trouble enough for anybody. The cruel shock it was to me,’ said Mrs Lefranc, gasping a little and sitting down on the bed, as though to demonstrate that the shock had not yet spent its force. ‘I was that fond of poor Mr Alexis.’

‘I’m sure you must have been.’

‘Such a thoughtful boy,’ pursued Mrs Lefranc, ‘and the manners of a prince, he had. I’m sure, many’s the time when I was run off my feet with the girl and the lodgers and all, he’d say, “Cheer up, ma”—they all call me that, “cheer up, ma. Have a little cocktail with me and here’s to better days.” Just like a son he was to me, I’m sure.’

Whatever Harriet may have thought of this touching reminiscence, which sounded quite unlike anything she had heard of Paul Alexis, she did not ignore the hint.

‘How about a spot of something now?’ she suggested.

‘I’m sure,’ said Mrs Lefranc, ‘I wasn’t meaning—well, there! It’s no end sweet of you, dearie but I couldn’t touch anything this time in the day. Not but what there’s the jug-and-bottle at the Dragon just round the corner, which comes very convenient, and there’s no doubt as a drop of gin do help your dinner to settle.’

Harriet bent her energies to overcoming the resistance of Mrs Lefranc, who presently put her head over the staircase and called to ‘the girl’ to slip round to the Dragon for a suitable quantity of gin.

‘They know me,’ she added, with a wink. ‘What with these ridiculous laws about bottles and half-bottles, if they don’t know you, they’d get you all locked-up before you knew where you were. You’d think they wanted to make folks drunk by Act of Parliament, wouldn’t you? What with one thing and another and the police sticking their noses in and asking questions—as though my house wasn’t always as well-conducted as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s—and they know it too, for I’ve been here twenty years and never a complaint—it’s hard for a decent woman to keep her head above water these days. And one thing I can say—I’ve never stinted anybody. My house’ is just like home to ’em, and so you’ll find it, dearie.’

Under the influence of gin-and-water, Mrs Lefranc became less and less guarded. She had her own version of the Leila Garland complication.

‘What there might be between those two,’ she observed, ‘I couldn’t tell you, dearie. It’s not my business, so long as my visitors conducts themselves quietly. I always say to my girls, “I’m not against ladies seeing their gentlemen-friends and contrariwise, provided there’s no trouble caused. We’ve all been young once,” I say to them, “but you will please to remember we want no trouble here.” That’s what I say, and there’s never been a mite of trouble in this house till now. But I must say I wasn’t sorry when that little cat took herself off. No, I wasn’t. Nor I didn’t like that dago of hers, either. I hope she’s making him pay through the nose. You couldn’t give that girl enough. Not but what she didn’t make herself pleasant enough, and bring me a bunch of flowers or a little present when she came to see Mr Alexis, though where the money came from I was not asking. But when poor Mr Alexis told me that she had taken up with this da Soto fellow, I said, “You’re well rid of her.” That’s what I said, and if you ask me, he knew it well enough.’

‘You don’t think he killed himself on her account, then?’

‘I do not,’ said Mrs Lefranc. ‘And I’m sure I’ve puzzled my head often enough wondering why he did it. It wasn’t on account of the old lady he was engaged to—I know that. To tell you the truth, dearie, he never expected that to come off. Of course, a young man in his position has to humour his ladies, but her family never would have stood it. Mr Alexis as good as told me that would never come off—and not so long ago either. “You see, ma,” he said to me no longer ago than last Sunday week, “one of these days I may do still better for myself.” “Oh, yes,” I says to him, “you will be marrying the Princess of China, you will, like Aladdin in the Panto.” No. I’ve thought about it over and over again, and I’ll tell you what I think. I think it was his speculations went wrong.’

‘Speculations?’

Yes—those speculations of his in foreign countries. The letters he used to get! All stuck over with foreign stamps and addressed in funny handwriting. I used to chaff him about them. Reports, he said they were, and if they came right, he’d be one of the biggest men in the world. He used to say, “Ma, when my ship comes in, I’ll give you a tiara stuck full of diamonds and make you housekeeper to royalty.” Oh, dear, many’s the laugh we’ve had together over it. Not but what there was a time when I could have had tiaras and necklaces if I’d wanted ’em. One of these days I’ll show you my newspaper critiques. Airy-fairy-Lilian they used to call me when I was principal boy in old Rosenbaum’s shows, though you mightn’t think it to look at me now, dearie, for my figure’s spread a bit, there ain’t no denying.’

Harriet admired and sympathised, and led Mrs Lefranc gently back to the subject of the foreign letters.

‘Well, dearie, there was one of them come two days before this dreadful thing happened. It must have been a long one, for he was shut up hours and hours with it. Working out his position, he used to call it. Well I think there must have been bad news in it, though he didn’t let on. But he was queer all that day and the next. Seemed as though he didn’t see you or hear you when you spoke to him. And laughing—hysterical, I should call it, if he’d been a girl. He kissed me on the Wednesday night when he went up to his bed. Joking he was and talking wild, but I didn’t pay attention. That was rather his way, you know. “One of these days,” he said, “you’ll find I’ve opened my wings and gone.” Little did I think—oh, dear me! Poor boy! I can see now that was just his way of breaking it to me. I heard him about in his room all night. Burning his papers, he was, poor dear lad. He’d had a dreadful disappointment and he didn’t want anybody to know. And in the morning he gave me his week’s money. “I know it’s a bit early,” he said— because, of course, it wasn’t due till Saturday, “but if I give it to you now, it’ll be safe,” he said. “If I took it out with me, I might spend it.” Of course I know what was in his mind, poor dear. He knew he was going out and he didn’t want me to suffer; he always was considerate. But when I think now that a word might have saved him—’

Mrs Lefranc burst into tears.

‘I did think he might have been going away sudden to see after his speculations, but he didn’t pack up anything, so of course I put that out of my mind. And as for him doing what he did do—how could I have thought it? He seemed in such high spirits. But there! I might have guessed, if my mind hadn’t been full of other things—only what with the girl giving notice as she did that morning and one thing and another, I didn’t pay attention. But they often do seem to be in high spirits before they put an end to themselves. There was poor Billy Camaby—he was just the same. Gave an oyster-and-champagne party to the whole cast on his last night with his last penny and him the life and soul of it, making us split our sides—and then went off and blew his brains out in the gentlemen’s lavatory.’

Mrs Lefranc cried bitterly for a few moments.

‘But there!’ she exclaimed, suddenly pulling herself together and blowing her nose, ‘life’s a funny thing and you can’t account for it, can you? Let’s be happy while we can. We’ll all be having a little white stone over us before long and it don’t matter so much how or when. When was you wanting to take the room, dearie?’

‘I’ll be coming in tonight,’ said Harriet. ‘I don’t know whether I’ll want my board or not, but if I leave my suitcase and pay you the twelve shillings for the room in advance, that’ll be all right, won’t it?’

‘That’s O.K., dearie,’ said Mrs Lefranc, obviously cheered. ‘Just you come when you like, you’ll be happy with Ma Lefranc. There, now, you’ll think I’ve been talking enough to fetch the hind leg off a donkey, but what I say is, a good cry now and again does you good when the world ain’t using you well. All my young people brings their troubles to me. I only wish poor Mr Alexis had told me all his worries and he’d be here now. But he was a foreigner, when all’s said and done and they aren’t like us, are they? Mind that dustpan, dearie. Time and again I tell them not to leave things on the stairs, but you might as well talk to the cat. Five mice she left on my door-mat yesterday morning, if you’ll believe me, not that they ever come upstairs, dearie, and don’t you think it, but the cellars is overrun with them, the dirty little beasts. Well, so long, dearie, and by the way, here’s your latch-key. It’s lucky I had a new one cut; poor Mr Alexis took his away with him when he went and goodness knows where it is now. I let my visitors come in when and how they like; you’ll find yourself comfortable here.’