The Leopard Lady

 

‘IF THE BOY IS in your way,’ said a voice in Tressider’s ear, ‘ask at

Rapallo’s for Smith & Smith.’

Tressider started and looked round. There was nobody near him – unless

you counted the bookstall clerk, and the aged gentleman with crooked

pince-nez half-way down his nose, who stood poring over a copy of

Blackwood. Obviously, neither of these two could have uttered that sinister

whisper. A yard or two away stood a porter, wearily explaining to a militant

woman and a dejected little man that the 5.30 having now gone there was

no other train before 9.15. All three were utter strangers to Tressider. He

shook himself. It must have been his own subconscious wish that had

externalised itself in this curious form. He must keep a hold on himself.

Hidden wishes that took shape as audible promptings and whisperings were

apt to lead to Colney Hatch – or Broadmoor.

But what in the world had suggested the names ‘Rapallo’s’ and ‘Smith

& Smith’? Rapallo – that was a town in Italy or somewhere, he fancied. But

the word had come to him as ‘Rapallo’s’ as though it were the name of a

firm or person. And ‘Smith & Smith’, too. Fantastic. Then he glanced up at

the bookstall. Of course, yes – ‘W. H. Smith & Son’; that must have been

the point from which the suggestion had started, and his repressed desires

had somehow pushed their message past his censor in that preposterous

sentence.

‘If the boy is in your way, ask at Rapallo’s for Smith & Smith.’

He let his eye wander over the books and magazines spread out on the

stall. Was there anything – yes, there was. A pile of little red books, of

which the topmost bore the title: ‘How to ask for What you Want in ITALY.’ There was the other factor of the equation. ‘Italy’ had been the

match laid to the train, and the resulting spark had been, queerly but

understandably enough, ‘Rapallo’s’.

Satisfied, he handed a shilling across the stall and asked for the Strand

Magazine. He tucked his purchase under his arm and then, glancing at the

station clock, decided that he had just time for a quick one before his train

went. He turned into the buffet, pausing on the way to buy a packet of

cigarettes at the kiosk, where the militant woman was already arming

herself with milk-chocolate against her wait for the 9.15. He noticed, with a

certain grim satisfaction, that the dejected man had made his escape, and

was not altogether surprised to encounter him again in the buffet, hurriedly

absorbing something yellow out of a glass.

He was some little time getting served, for there was quite a crowd

about the bar. But even if he did miss his train, there was another in twenty

minutes’ time, and his odd experience had shaken him. The old gentleman

with Blackwood’s had drifted up to the door by the time he left, and, indeed,

nearly collided with Tressider in his short-sighted progress. Tressider

absently apologised for what was not his fault, and made for the barrier.

Here there was again a trifling delay while he searched for his ticket, and a

porter who stood beside him with some hand-luggage eventually lost

patience and pushed past him with a brief, ‘By your leave, sir.’ Eventually,

however, he found himself in a first-class carriage with four minutes to

spare.

He threw his hat up on to the rack and himself into a corner seat, and

immediately, with an automatic anxiety to banish his own thoughts, opened

his magazine. As he did so, a card fluttered from between the leaves on to

his knee. With an exclamation of impatience directed against the advertisers who filled the pages of magazines with insets, he picked it up, intending to

throw it under the seat. A line of black capitals caught his eyes:

SMITH & SMITH

and beneath, in smaller type:

Removals.

He turned the card over. It was about the size of an ‘At Home’ card. The

other side was completely blank. There was no address; no explanation. An

impulse seized him. He snatched up his hat and made for the door. The train

was moving as he sprang out, and he staggered as his feet touched the

platform. A porter sprang to his side with a warning shout.

‘Shouldn’t do that, sir,’ said the man, reprovingly.

‘All right, all right,’ said Tressider, ‘I’ve left something behind.’

‘That’s dangerous, that is,’ said the porter. ‘Against regulations.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Tressider, fumbling for a coin. As he handed it over,

he recognised the porter as the man who had jostled him at the barrier and

had stood behind him at the bookstall talking to the militant woman and the

dejected man. He dismissed the man hastily, feeling unaccountably uneasy

under his official eye. He ran past the barrier with a hasty word to the ticket

collector who still stood there, and made his way back to the bookstall.

‘Strand Magazine,’ he demanded, curtly, and then, thinking he caught

an astonished expression in the eye of the clerk, he muttered:

‘Dropped the other.’

The clerk said nothing, but handed over the magazine and accepted

Tressider’s shilling. Only when he was turning away did Tressider realise

that he was still clutching the original copy of the Strand under his arm.

Well, let the man think what he liked.

Unable to wait, he dived into the General Waiting Room and shook the

new Strand open. Several insets flew out – one about learning new languages by gramophone, one about Insurance, one about Hire Purchase

Payments. He gathered them up and tossed them aside again. Then he

examined the magazine, page by page. There was no white card with the

name ‘Smith & Smith’.

He stood, trembling, in the dusty gas-light of the waiting-room. Had he

imagined the card? Was his brain playing tricks with him again? He could

not remember what he had done with the card. He searched both magazines

and all his pockets. It was not there. He must have left it in the train.

He must have left it in the train.

Sweat broke out upon his forehead. It was a terrible thing to go mad. If

he had not seen that card – but he had seen it. He could see the shape and

spacing of the black capitals distinctly.

After a moment or two, an idea came to him. A firm that advertised

itself must have an address, perhaps a telephone number. But, of course, not

necessarily in London. Those magazines went all over the world. What was

the good of advertising without a name or address? Still, he would look.

The words ‘Smith & Smith, Removals’, in the London Telephone Directory

would steady his nerves considerably.

He went out and sought the nearest telephone cabinet. The directory

hung there on its stout chain. Only when he opened it did he realise how

many hundred firms called ‘Smith & Smith’ there might be in London. The

small print made his eyes ache, but he persevered, and was at length

rewarded by finding an entry: ‘Smith & Smith, Frntre Removrs & Haulage

Cntrctrs’, with an address in Greenwich.

That should have satisfied him, but it did not. He could not believe that

a firm of Furniture Removers and Haulage Contractors at Greenwich would

advertise, with out address, in a magazine of world-wide circulation. Only firms whose name was a household word could do that kind of thing. And

besides, in that second Strand there had been no advertisement.

Then how had that card got there? Had the bookstall clerk slipped it in?

Or the militant woman who had stood beside him at the tobacco kiosk? Or

the dejected man sipping whisky and soda in the buffet? Or the old

gentleman who had passed him in the entrance? Or the porter who had

waited behind him at the barrier? It came suddenly into his mind that all

these five had been near him when he had heard the voice of his repressed

wish whisper so persuasively, and so objectively:

‘If the boy is in your way, ask at Rapallo’s for Smith & Smith.’

With a kind of greedy reluctance he turned the pages of the Telephone

Directory backwards to R.

There it was. There could be no mistake about it this time.

‘Rapallo’s Sandwich & Cocktail Bar,’

with an address in Conduit Street.

A minute later, Tressider was hailing a taxi outside the station. His wife

would be expecting him, but she must wait. He had often been detained in

town before.

He gave the taxi the Conduit Street address.

It was a small place, but had nothing sinister about it. Clean, white-

draped tables with individual lights and a big mahogany bar, whose wide

semi-circle took up nearly half the available floor-space. The door closed

behind Tressider with a comfortable, chuckling click. He went up to the bar,

and with an indescribable fluttering of the heart, said to the white-coated

attendant:

‘I was told to ask here for Messrs Smith & Smith.’

‘What name, sir?’ asked the man, showing neither hesitation nor

surprise.

‘Jones,’ said Tressider, uninventively.

‘Maurice, have we any message for a Mr Jones from – whom did you

say, sir? Oh yes. From Messrs Smith & Smith?’

The second barman turned round and enveloped Tressider in a brief,

searching glance.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Quite right, sir. Mr Smith is expecting you. Will you

step this way?’

He led Tressider to the back of the room, where a stoutish, middle-aged

man in a dark tweed suit was seated at a table eating an American

sandwich.

The stout man looked up, revealing small chubby features beneath an

enormous expanse of polished and dome-like skull. He smiled pleasantly.

‘You are magnificently punctual,’ he said in a clear, soft voice, with a

fluting quality which made it very delightful to listen to. ‘I hardly expected

you to get here quite so soon.’ And then, as the barman turned away, he

added:

‘Pray sit down, Mr Tressider.’

‘You look a little unnerved,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Perhaps you had a rush

from the station. Let me recommend one of Rapallo’s special cocktails.’ He

made a sign to the barman, who brought over two glasses filled with a

curious dark-coloured liqueur. ‘You will find it slightly bitter, but very

effective. You need not be alarmed, by the way. Choose whichever glass

you like and leave me the other. It is quite immaterial which.’

Tressider, a little confounded by the smiling ease with which Mr Smith

read his thoughts, took one of the glasses at random. Mr Smith immediately

took the other and drank off one-half of the contents. Tressider sipped his.

The liqueur was certainly bitter but not altogether unpleasant.

‘It will do you good,’ said Mr Smith, prosaically. ‘The boy, I take it, is

quite well?’ he went on, almost in the same breath.

‘Perfectly well,’ said Tressider, staring.

‘Of course. Your wife takes such good care of him, doesn’t she? A

thoroughly good and conscientious woman, as most women are, bless their

dear hearts. The child is six years old, I think?’

‘Rising six.’

‘Just so. A long time to go yet before he attains his majority. Fifteen

years – yes, a considerable time, in which very many things may happen.

You yourself, for instance, will be hard on sixty – the best part of your life

at an end, while his is just beginning. He is a young gentleman of great

expectations, to quote the divine Dickens. And he is starting well, despite

the sad handicap of losing both his parents at so early an age. A fine,

healthy youngster, is he not? No measles? mumps? whooping-cough? that

sort of thing?’

‘Not so far,’ muttered Tressider.

‘No. Your almost-parental care has shielded him from all the ills that

youthful flesh is heir to. How wise your brother was, Mr Tressider. Some

people might have thought it foolish of him to leave Cyril in your sole

guardianship, considering that there was only his little life between you and

the Tressider estate. Foolish – and even inconsiderate. For, after all, it is a

great responsibility, is it not? A child seems to hold its life by so frail a

tenure. But your brother was a wise man, after all. Knowing your upright,

virtuous wife and yourself so well, he did the best thing he could possibly

have done for Cyril when he left him in your care. Eh?’

‘Of course,’ said Tressider, thickly.

Mr Smith finished his liqueur.

‘You are not drinking,’ he protested.

‘Look here,’ said Tressider, gulping down the remainder of his drink,

‘you seem to know a lot about me and my affairs.’

‘Oh, but that is common knowledge, surely. The doings of so rich and

fortunate a little boy as Cyril Tressider are chronicled in every newspaper

paragraph: Perhaps the newspapers do not know quite so much about Mr

Tressider, his uncle and guardian. They may not realise quite how deeply he

was involved in the Megatherium catastrophe, nor how much he has lost in

one way or another on the turf. Still, they know, naturally, that he is an

upright English gentleman and that both he and his wife are devoted to the

boy.’

Tressider leaned his elbow on the table and, holding his head propped

on his hand, tried to read Mr Smith’s countenance. He found it difficult, for

Mr Smith and the room and everything about him seemed to advance and

recede in the oddest manner. He thought he might be in for a dose of fever.

‘Children …’ Mr Smith’s voice fluted towards him from an enormous

distance. ‘Accidents, naturally, will sometimes happen. No one can prevent

it. Childish ailments may leave distressing after effects … babyish habits,

however judiciously checked, may lead … Pardon me, I fear you are not

feeling altogether the thing.’

‘I feel damned queer,’ said Tressider. ‘I – at the station today –

hallucinations – I can’t understand –’

Suddenly, from the pit in which it had lurked, chained and growling,

Terror leapt at him. It shook his bones and cramped his stomach. It was like

a palpable enemy, suffocating and tearing him. He gripped the table. He

saw Mr Smith’s huge face loom down upon him, immense, immeasurable.

‘Dear, dear!’ The voice boomed in his ear like a great silver bell. ‘You

are really not well. Allow me. Just a sip of this.’

He drank, and the Terror, defeated, withdrew from him. A vast peace

surged over his brain. He laughed. Everything was jolly, jolly, jolly. He

wanted to sing.

Mr Smith beckoned to the barman,

‘Is the car ready?’ he asked.

Tressider stood by Mr Smith’s side. The car had gone, and they were

alone before the tall green gates that towered into the summer twilight. Mile

upon mile they had driven through town and country; mile upon mile, with

the river rolling beside them and the scent of trees and water blown in upon

the July breeze. They had been many hours upon the journey and yet the

soft dusk was hardly deeper than when they had set out. For them, as for

Joshua, sun and stars had stood still in their courses. That this was so,

Tressider knew, for he was not drunk or dreaming. His senses had never

been more acute, his perceptions more vivid. Every leaf upon the tall

poplars that shivered above the gates was vivid to him with a particular

beauty of sound, shape and odour. The gates, which bore in great letters the

name ‘SMITH & SMITH – REMOVALS’, opened at Smith’s touch. The

long avenue of poplars stretched up to a squat grey house with a pillared

portico.

Many times in the weeks that followed, Tressider asked himself whether

he had after all dreamed that strange adventure at the House of the Poplars.

From the first whisper by the station bookstall to the journey by car down to

his own home in Essex, every episode had had a nightmare quality. Yet

surely, no nightmare had ever been so consecutive nor so clearly memorable

in waking moments. There was the room with its pale grey walls and

shining floor – a luminous pool in the soft mingling of electric light and

dying daylight from the high, unshuttered windows. There were the four

men – Mr Smith, of the restaurant; Mr Smyth, with his narrow yellow face disfigured by a scar like an acid burn; Mr Smythe, square and sullen, with

short, strong hands and hairy knuckles; and Dr Schmidt, the giggling man

with the scanty red beard and steel-rimmed spectacles. And there was the

girl with the slanting golden eyes like a cat’s, he thought. They called her

‘Miss Smith’, but her name should have been Melusine.

Nor could he have dreamed the conversation, which was businesslike

and brief.

‘It has long been evident to us,’ said Mr Smith, ‘that society is in need

of a suitable organisation for the Removal of unnecessary persons. Private

and amateur attempts at Removal are so frequently attended with

subsequent inconvenience and even danger to the Remover, who, in

addition, usually has to carry out his work with very makeshift materials. It

is our pleasure and privilege to attend to all the disagreeable details of such

Removals for our clients at a moderate – I may say, a merely nominal –

expense. Provided our terms are strictly adhered to, we can guarantee our

clients against all unpleasant repercussions, preserving, of course,

inviolable secrecy as to the whole transaction.’

Dr Schmidt sniggered faintly.

‘In the matter of young Cyril Tressider, for example,’ went on Mr

Smith, ‘I can conceive nothing more unnecessary than the existence of this

wearisome child. He is an orphan; his only relations are Mr and Mrs

Tressider who, however amiably disposed they may feel towards the boy,

are financially embarrassed by his presence in the world. If he were to be

quietly Removed, who would be the loser? Not himself, for he would be

spared the sins and troubles of life on this ill-regulated planet; not his

relations, for he has none but his uncle and aunt who would be better for his

disappearance; not his tenants and dependants, since his good uncle would

be there to take his place. I suggest, Mr Tressider, that the small sum of one thousand pounds would be profitably spent in Removing this boy to that

happy land “far, far beyond the stars”, where he might play with the young-

eyed cherubim (to quote our glorious poet), remote from the accidents of

measles or stomach-ache to which, alas! all young children are so unhappily

liable here below.’

‘A thousand?’ said Tressider, and laughed, ‘I would give five, gladly, to

be rid of the youngster.’

Dr Schmidt sniggered. ‘We should not like to be rapacious,’ he said.

‘No. One thousand pounds will amply repay the very trifling trouble.’

‘How about the risk?’ said Tressider.

‘We have abolished risk,’ replied Mr Smith. ‘For us, and for our clients,

the word does not exist. Tell me, the boy resides with you at your home in

Essex? Yes. Is he a good little boy?’

‘Decent enough kid, as far as that goes.’

‘No bad habits?’

‘He’s a bit of a liar, like lots of kids.’

‘How so, my friend?’ asked Dr Schmidt.

‘He romances. Pretends he’s had all kinds of adventures with giants and

fairies and tigers and what not. You know the kind of thing. Doesn’t seem

able to tell the truth. It worries his aunt a good deal.’

‘Ah!’ Dr Schmidt seemed to take over the interview at this point. ‘The

good Mrs Tressider, she does not encourage the romancing?’

‘No. She does her best. Tells Cyril that he’ll go to a bad place if he tells

her stories. But it’s wonderful how the little beggar persists. Sometimes we

have to spank him. But he’s damnably obstinate. There’s a bad streak in the

boy somewhere. Unsound. Not English, that sort of thing.’

‘Sad,’ said Dr Schmidt, sniggering, so that the word became a long

bleat. ‘Sa-a-d. It would be a pity if the poor little boy should miss the golden gates after all. That would distress me.’

‘It would be still more distressing, Schmidt, that a person with a failing

of that kind should be placed in any position of importance as the owner of

the Tressider estates. Honour and uprightness, coupled with a healthy lack

of imagination, have made this country what it is.”

‘True,’ said Dr Schmidt. ‘How beautifully you put it, my dear Smith.

No doubt, Mr Tressider, your little ward finds much scope for imaginative

adventure when playing about in the deserted grounds of Crantonbury

Place, situated so conveniently next door to your abode.’

‘You seem to know a lot,’ said Tressider.

‘Our organisation,’ explained Dr Schmidt, with a wave of the hand. ‘It

is melancholy to see these fine old country mansions thus deserted, but one

man’s loss is the gain of the little boy next door. I should encourage little

Cyril to play in the grounds of Crantonbury Hall. His little limbs will grow

strong running about among the over-grown bushes and the straggling

garden-beds where the strawberry grows underneath the nettle. I quote your

Shakespeare, my dear Smith. It is a calamity that the fountains should be

silent and the great fish-pond run dry. The nine men’s morris is filled up

with mud – Shakespeare again. Nevertheless, there are still many

possibilities in an old garden.’

He giggled and pulled at his thin beard.

If this fantastic conversation had never taken place, how was it that

Tressider could remember every word so clearly. He remembered, too,

signing a paper – the ‘Removal Order’, Smith had called it – and a cheque

for £1,000, payable to Smith & Smith, and post-dated October 1st.

‘We like to allow a margin,’ said Mr Smith. ‘We cannot at this moment

predict to a day when the Removal will be carried out. But from now to

October 1st should provide ample time. If you should change your mind before the Removal has taken place, you have only to leave word to that

effect at Rapallo’s. But after the Removal, it would be too late to make any

alterations. Indeed, in such a case, there might be – er –unpleasantness of a

kind which I should not care to specify. But, between gentlemen, such a

situation could not, naturally, arise. Are you likely to be absent from home

at any time in the near future?’

Tressider shook his head.

‘No? Forgive me, but I think you would be well advised to spend – let

us say the month of September – abroad. Or perhaps in Scotland. There is

salmon, there is trout, there is grouse, there is partridge – all agreeable

creatures to kill.’

Dr Schmidt sniggered again.

‘Just as you like, of course,’ went on Mr Smith. ‘But if you and perhaps

your wife also –’

‘My wife wouldn’t leave Cyril.’

‘Yourself, then. A holiday from domesticity is sometimes an excellent

thing.’

‘I will think about it,’ said Tressider.

He had thought often about it. He also thought frequently about the

blank counterfoil in his cheque-book. That, at least, was a fact. He was

thinking about it in Scotland on September 15th, as he tramped across the

moors, gun on shoulder. It might be a good thing to stop that cheque.

‘Auntie Edith!’

‘Yes, Cyril.’

Mrs Tressider was a thin woman with a strong, Puritan face; a woman

of narrow but fixed affections and limited outlook.

‘Auntie, I’ve had a wonderful adventure.’

Mrs Tressider pressed her pale lips together.

“ Now, Cyril. Think before hand. Don’t exaggerate, dear. You look very

hot and excited.’

‘Yes, Auntie. I met a fairy –’

‘Cyril!’

‘No, really, Auntie, I did. She lives in Crantonbury Hall – in the old

grotto. A real, live fairy. And she was all dressed in gold and lovely colours

like a rainbow, red and green and blue and yellow and all sorts of colours.

And a gold crown on her head and stars in her hair. And I wasn’t a bit

frightened, Auntie, and she said –’

‘Cyril, dear –’

‘Yes, Auntie, really. I’m not ‘zaggerating. She was ever so beautiful.

And she said I was a brave boy, just like Jack-and-the-Beanstalk, and I was

to marry her when I grew up, and live in Fairyland. Only I’m not big

enough yet. And she had lions and tigers and leopards all round her with

gold collars and diamonds on them. And she took me into her fairy palace

–’

‘Cyril!’

‘And we ate fairy fruit off gold plates and she’s going to teach me the

language of the birds and give me a pair of seven-league boots all for

myself, so that I can go all over the world and be a hero.’

‘That’s a very exciting story you’ve made up, darling, but of course it’s

only a story, isn’t it?’

‘No, ’tisn’t only a story. It’s quite true. You see if it isn’t.’

‘Darling, even in fun you mustn’t say it’s true. There couldn’t be lions

and tigers and leopards at Crantonbury Hall.’

‘Well …’ the child paused. ‘Well, pr’aps I was ‘zaggerating just a teeny,

weeny bit. But there was two leopards.’

‘Oh, Cyril! Two leopards?’

‘Yes, with golden collars and chains. And the fairy was ever so tall and

beautiful, with lovely goldeny eyes just like the leopards’. She said she was

the fairy of the leopards, and they were fairies too, and after we’d had the

fairy feast the leopards grew wings and she got on their backs – on one of

them’s back, I mean – and flew right away over the roof.’

Mrs Tressider sighed.

‘I don’t think Nanny ought to tell you so many fairy tales. You know

there aren’t any fairies, really.’

‘That’s all you know about it,’ said Cyril, rather rudely. ‘There is fairies,

and I’ve seen one, and I’m to be the King of the Fairies when I’m bigger.’

‘You mustn’t contradict me like that, Cyril. And it’s very naughty to say

what isn’t true,’

‘But it is true, Auntie.’

‘You mustn’t say that, darling. I’ve told you ever so many times that it’s

very nice to make up stories, but we mustn’t ever forget that it’s all make-

believe.’

‘But I did see the fairy.’

‘If you say that any more, Auntie will be very cross with you –’

‘But I did, I did. I swear I did.’

‘Cyril!’ Mrs Tressider was definitely shocked. ‘That is a very wicked

word to use. You must go straight to bed without your supper, and Auntie

doesn’t want to see you again till you have apologised for being so rude and

telling such naughty stories.’

‘But, Auntie –’

‘That will do,’ said Mrs Tressider, and rang the bell. Cyril was led away

in tears.

‘If you please, ma’am,’ said Nannie, catching Mrs Tressider as she rose

from the dinner-table, ‘Master Cyril don’t seem very well, ma’am. He says he has a bad stomach-ache.’

Cyril did seem feverish and queer when his aunt went up to him. He

was flushed and feverish, and his eyes were unnaturally bright and

frightened. He complained of a dreadful pain under his pyjama-girdle.

‘That’s what happens to naughty little boys who tell stories, said Mrs

Tressider, who had old-fashioned ideas about improving the occasion. ‘Now

Nannie will have to give you some nasty medicine.’

Nannie, advancing, armed with a horrid tumblerful of greeny-grey

liquorice powder, had her own moral to draw.

‘I expect you’ve been eating them nasty old crab-apples out of the old

garden,’ she remarked. ‘I’m sure I’ve told you time and again, Master Cyril,

to leave them things alone.’

‘I didn’t eat nothing,’ said Cyril, ‘’cept the fairy feast in the palace with

the leopard lady.’

‘We don’t want to hear about the leopard-lady any more,’ said Mrs

Tressider. ‘Now, own up darling, that was all imagination and nonsense,

wasn’t it? He does look feverish,’ she added in an aside to Nannie. ‘Perhaps

we’d better send for Dr Simmonds. With Mr Tressider away, one feels

rather anxious. Now, Cyril, drink up your medicine and say you’re sorry …’

When Dr Simmonds arrived an hour later (for he had been out when

summoned) he found his patient delirious and Mrs Tressider thoroughly

alarmed. Dr Simmonds wasted no time with liquorice powder, but used the

stomach pump. His face was grave.

‘What has he been eating?’ he asked, and shook his head at Nannie’s

suggestion of green apples. Mrs Tressider, white and anxious, went into

details about the child’s story of the leopard lady.

‘He looked feverish when he came in,’ she said, ‘but I thought he was

just excited with his make-believe games.’

‘Imaginative children are often unable to distinguish between fact and

fancy,’ said the doctor. ‘I think he very probably did eat something that he

shouldn’t have done; it would be all part of the game he was playing with

himself.’

‘I made him confess in the end that he was making it all up,’ said Mrs

Tressider.

‘H’m,’ said Dr Simmonds. ‘Well, I don’t think you’d better worry him

about it any more. He’s a highly-strung child and he’ll need all his strength

–’

‘You don’t mean he’s in any danger, Doctor?’

‘Oh, I hope not, I hope not. But children are rather kittle little cattle and

something has upset him badly. Is Mr Tressider at home?’

‘Ought I to send for him?’

‘It might be as well. By the way, could you let me have a clean bottle? I

should like to take away some of the contents of the stomach for

examination. Just to be on the safe side, you know. I don’t want to alarm

you – it’s just that, in a case of this kind, it is as well to know what one has

to deal with.’

Before morning, Cyril was collapsed, blue in the face and cold, and

another doctor had been called in. Tressider, when he hurriedly arrived by

the midnight train, was greeted by the news that there was very little hope.

‘I am afraid, Mr Tressider, that the boy has managed to pick up

something poisonous. We are having an analysis made. The symptoms are

suggestive of poisoning by solanine, or some alkali of that group.

Nightshade – is there any garden nightshade at Crantonbury Hall?’ Thus Dr

Pratt, a specialist and expensive.

Mr Tressider did not know, but said he thought they might go and see

next day. The search-party was accordingly sent out in the morning. They discovered no nightshade, but Dr Pratt, prowling about the weed-grown

kitchen garden made a discovery.

‘Look!’ he said. ‘These old potato-plants have got potato-apples on

them. The potato belongs to the genus Solanum, and the apples, and

sometimes even the tubers themselves, have occasionally given rise to

poisonous symptoms. If the boy had happened to pluck and eat some of

these berries –’

‘He did, then,’ said Dr Simmonds. ‘See here.’

He lifted a plant on which a number of short stalks still remained to

show where the potato-apples had been.

‘I had no idea,’ said Tressider, ‘that the things were as poisonous as

that.’

‘They are not as a rule,’ said Dr Pratt. ‘But here and there one finds a

plant which is particularly rich in the poisonous principle, solanine. There

was a classical case, in 1885 or thereabouts –’

He prosed on. Mrs Tressider could not bear it. She left them and went

upstairs to sit by Cyril’s bedside.

‘I want to see the lovely leopard lady,’ said Cyril, faintly.

‘Yes, yes – she’s coming, darling,’ said Mrs Tressider.

‘With her leopards?’

‘Yes, darling. And lions and tigers.’

‘Because I’ve got to be King of the Fairies when I grow up.’

‘Of course you have, darling.’

On the third day, Cyril died.

The expert’s analysis confirmed Dr Pratt’s diagnosis. Seeds and skin of

the potato-apple had been identified in the contents of the stomach. Death

was from solanine poisoning, a remarkable quantity of the alkali having

been present in the potato-apples. An examination of other berries taken from the same plants showed that the potatoes in question were,

undoubtedly, particularly rich in solanine. Verdict: Death by misadventure.

Children, said the coroner, were very apt to chew and eat strange plants and

berries, and the potato-apple undoubtedly had an attractive appearance –

like a little green tomato – the jury had no doubt often seen it in their own

gardens. It was, however, very seldom that the effects were so tragic as in

the present sad case. No blame could possibly attach to Mr and Mrs

Tressider, who had repeatedly warned the child not to eat anything he did

not know the name of, and had usually found him an obedient child in this

respect.

Tressider, to whom nobody had thought to mention the story of the

leopard lady, showed a becoming grief at the death of his little ward. He

purchased a handsome suit of black and ordered a new saloon car. In this he

went about a good deal by himself in the days that followed the inquest,

driving, on one occasion, as far as Greenwich.

He had looked up the address in the telephone-book and presently found

himself rolling down a quiet riverside lane. Yes – there they were, on the

right, two shabby green gates across which, in faded white lettering, ran the

words:

SMITH & SMITH

REMOVALS

He got out of the car and stood, hesitating a little. The autumn had come

early that year, and as he stood, a yellow poplar leaf, shaken from its hold

by the wind, fluttered delicately to his feet.

He pushed at the gates, which opened slowly, with a rusty creaking.

There was no avenue of poplars and no squat grey house with a pillared

portico. An untidy yard met his gaze. At the back was a tumble-down

warehouse, and on either side of the gate a sickly poplar whispered fretfully. A ruddy-faced man, engaged in harnessing a cart-horse to an open lorry,

came forward to greet him.

‘Could I speak to Mr Smith,’ asked Tressider.

‘It’s Mr Benton you’ll be wanting,’ replied the man. ‘There ain’t no Mr

Smith.’

‘Oh!’ said Tressider. ‘Then which of the gentlemen is it that has a very

high, bald forehead – a rather stoutish gentleman. I thought –’

‘Nobody like that here,’ said the man. ‘You’ve made a mistake, mister.

There’s only Mr Benton – he’s tall, with grey ’air and specs, and Mr

Tinworth, the young gentleman, him that’s a bit lame. Was you wanting a

Removal by any chance?’

‘No, no,’ said Tressider, rather hastily. ‘I thought I knew Mr Smith,

that’s all. Has he retired lately?’

‘Lord, no.’ The man laughed heartily. ‘There ain’t been a Mr Smith

here, not in donkey’s years. Come to think of it, they’re all dead, I believe.

Jim! What’s happened to old Mr Smith and his brother what used to run this

show?’

A little elderly man came out of the warehouse, wiping his hands on his

apron.

‘Dead these ten years,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

‘Gent here thought he knowed the parties.’

‘Well, they’re dead,’ repeated Jim.

‘Thank you,’ said Tressider.

He went back to the car. For the hundredth time he asked himself

whether he should stop the cheque. The death of Cyril could only be a

coincidence. It was now or never, for this was the 30th September. He

vacillated, and put the matter off till next day. At ten o’clock in the morning

he rang up the bank.

‘A cheque’ – he gave the number – ‘for £1,000, payable to Smith &

Smith. Has it been cashed?’

‘Yes, Mr Tressider. Nine-thirty this morning. Hope there’s nothing

wrong about it.’

‘Nothing whatever, thanks. I just wanted to know.’

Then he had drawn it. And somebody had cashed it.

Next day there was a letter. It was typewritten and bore no address of

origin; only the printed heading SMITH & SMITH and the date, 1 October.

‘DEAR SIR,

‘With reference to your esteemed order of the 12th July for a Removal

from your residence in Essex, we trust that this commission has been

carried out to your satisfaction. We beg to acknowledge your obliging

favour of One Thousand Pounds (£1,000), and return here with the Order of

Removal which you were good enough to hand to us. Assuring you of our

best attention at all times,

‘Faithfully yours,

‘SMITH & SMITH.’

The enclosure ran as follows:

‘I, Arthur Tressider of (here followed his address in Essex) hereby

confess that I murdered my ward and nephew, Cyril Tressider, in the

following manner. Knowing that the child was in the habit of playing in the

garden of Crantonbury Hall, adjoining my own residence, and vacant for

the last twelve months, I searched this garden carefully and discovered

there a number of old potato-plants, some of them bearing potato-apples.

Into these potato-apples I injected with a small syringe a powerful solution

of the poisonous alkali solanine, of which a certain quantity is always

present in these plants. I prepared this solution from plants of solanum

which I had already secretly gathered. I had no difficulty in doing this, having paid some attention as a young man to the study of chemistry. I felt

sure that the child would be tempted to eat these berries, but had he failed to

do so I had various other schemes of a similar nature in reserve, on which I

should have fallen back if necessary. I committed this abominable crime in

order to secure the Tressider estates, entailed upon me as next heir. I now

make this confession, being troubled in my conscience.

‘ARTHUR TRESSIDER.

‘1 October, 193–’

The sweat stood on Tressideŕs forehead.

‘How did they know I had studied chemistry?’

He seemed to hear the sniggering voice of Dr Schmidt: ‘Our

organisation –’

He burned the papers and went out without saying his customary

farewell to his wife. It was not until some time later that he heard the story

of the leopard lady, and he thought of Miss Smith, the girl with the yellow

eyes like cat’s eyes, who should have been called Melusine.