The Attic Murder, S. Fowler Wright [children's books read aloud .TXT] 📗

FRANCIS became more nervous of the window as the rain ceased and the light improved. He would not retire to his own room, being alert by that time for the girl’s return, but he sat by the fire in what he thought would be a natural pose to the eyes of anyone who might glance in, and which kept his face hidden behind the pages of the Daily Record. Doing this, he found after a time that it required an effort of will to move the paper away, lest his eyes should confront those of some suspicious officer of the law gazing in from the street upon a lodger whom Mrs. Benson had acquired during the previous day.

He told himself irritably that he was a damnable coward, and that it would be better to give himself up at once than to allow his fears to make a purgatory of every hour of the day. But he defended himself from his own contempt with the argument that his empty pockets, and the inaction that they entailed, were responsible for these nervous fears that reason would not control. If he could be active on his own behalf — - How soon would she be back?

He calculated the time which the journey would require. With all allowances, even to an imagined crowd at the bank counter, it should be done in an hour. He could not make it longer than that.

But the hour passed, and a half-hour beyond, and she did not come. He must conclude, from her own assurance, that this delay was a sign either that she had been detained or followed, which stirred him to a new fear.

Would she be sufficiently skilful to dodge pursuit, or would she be traced by those whom his own folly would have guided to his retreat? Or was she now being detained and questioned with a severity which she could not indefinitely sustain? Or, perhaps, herself under some charge which his own knowledge of law was not sufficient to formulate to his own fears, as having applied for a cheque-book without being able or willing to give a proper account of how she came to be sent on such an errand? Could he reasonably expect that she would sustain such an inquisition for one who had given her such casual employment, and had been a stranger to her three hours before?

While he tried to control these impatient doubts, and the time went by, Mrs. Benson appeared to spread a cloth for the midday meal. He thought she looked at him in a sour way, and as though she hesitated on the edge of saying things which he would not be pleased to hear, or asking questions to which it might not be easy to find reply.

It was an attitude simple to understand, she thinking him to be what he was, or even something worse, and he having assured her that he was going out to draw money, which he had made no motion to do.

He could have said that Miss Jones had kindly consented to call at the bank on his behalf, but he doubted the wisdom of that till he knew what the result of her adventure was. But would his silence annoy the woman into denouncing him to the police without waiting for the precarious chance of a reward which must be weighed against the certainty that she was feeding a lodger who did not pay? Would she conclude that his talk of a bank was no more than the ready tale of one who was practised in abusing the confidence of others as his conviction indicated?

Vexed by these thoughts, to which no satisfactory answers appeared, he did not venture even to look directly at her, lest he should encourage the asking of questions to which he had no reply, and the attitude of dejection and anxiety which she observed actually had a different effect on her mind from that which his fears supposed.

In fact, her vague horror of criminality, in whatever form, was not entirely proof against actual contact with one who, to the instincts by which those of undeveloped mentality are largely accustomed to rule their lives, did not appear to be of a repellent or hostile type.

When she did speak, it was only to ask, as she laid for three on the dingy cloth: “I suppose Miss Jones didn’t happen to say whether she’d be coming in? She mostly does, or let’s me know if she won’t.”

“No,” he said, with some hesitation, wishing neither to show what he knew, nor to be inconsistent with anything that Miss Jones might say on her return, “she might come in any time, as far as I understood.”

“There’ll be Mr. Rabone, anyway,” the woman went on. “He said he’d be coming in, as he doesn’t do most days, not before-night.” She added, in a grumbling under-tone: “I suppose my dinners aren’t good enough for the likes of him.” And then, in a more audible voice, but still in the tone of one who had a developed habit of muttering aloud, rather than conversing with others: “Not as she’d be more likely to come in for that.”

As she spoke, there was the sound of a latchkey in the street-door, and the heavy step of the top-floor lodger sounded along the passage, and up the thinly-carpeted stairs.

Francis Hammerton restrained a prudent or cowardly t impulse to rise and withdraw to his own room. He had to face the difficulty of securing solitude in a crowded city, which is particularly great for one whose pockets are bare. Two minutes later, the opportunity had gone. William Rabone entered the room.

Mrs. Benson, taking his appearance as a signal that the meal should be served, without longer waiting for her female lodger, had retreated to the kitchen to dish it up, and Francis was spared an introduction he did not desire.

The man who entered was dark, large, heavily built, and of professional rather than commercial aspect, in spite of the absurd toothbrush on his upper lip, which appeared to understudy either Charlie Chaplin or the German Chancellor.

He looked at Francis with unconcealed annoyance, for which there may have been sufficient reason in the fact that he had anticipated the presence of Mary Jones, and that she would be his sole company at the meal.

But this first glance was casual in its hostility. The second was more intent.

“Good morning, Mr. Vaughan,” he said, with some stress on the final word. Francis looked at him with an expression which he intended for indifferent surprise. “My name is Edwards.”

“Glad to know… I expect you think it’s best not to go out in this weather.”

Francis was spared the necessity of reply by the arrival of Mrs. Benson with a tray bearing a boiled neck of mutton, and two dishes of vegetables; and before she retired Mary Jones had also entered, and taken her seat at the table.

Miss Jones said nothing, nor did she look at either of her fellow-guests, settling herself to her own meal as indifferently as though she were the only one there.

It appeared that it was a table at which no one presided, its etiquette being that the dishes were passed or pushed toward each diner in turn, for the satisfaction of their own requirements. Jones accepted these services with monosyllabic thanks to those in whose existence she seemed otherwise uninterested.

Conversation was slow to commence among three people who were alike in feeling that they were one too many, though they would have differed as to the one whose presence was not required.

Mr. Rabone, who preferred better meals than Mrs. Benson provided, had come in with the sole object of indulging in the society of Miss Jones in a manner inappropriate to the presence of a third party: Francis had even more urgent, if not more important reason for wishing to talk to that lady alone: Mary Jones had a report to make which was not for Mr. Rabone’s ears. She also would have preferred that Francis should have been alone when she arrived, but, as Rabone was there, she had a modified satisfaction in the fact that she was not singly with him. But she told herself that this was mere cowardice, by which she thanked fate for postponing that which she had been active to bring about.

The neck of mutton had been succeeded by apple-dumplings when Rabone addressed Miss Jones in a direct and serious way. His question was blunt to the edge of rudeness: “Shall you be going out this afternoon?”

Her reply hesitated, as though the question were an embarrassment, and when she replied it was indirectly, and with a timidity of tone and manner very different from that in which she had conversed with Francis during the morning, and which reminded him again of the voice which he had first heard through the attic door. She said: “I expect I shall be in this evening.”

Mr. Rabone considered this reply, on which he made no comment to her, but he looked at Francis to ask, in a manner which was more a direction than a request: “You will be going out after dark?”

Francis restrained himself to answer: “Perhaps I shall.”

Mr. Rabone said no more until the meal ended, and Miss Jones had risen and silently left the room. Then he turned to Francis with unfriendly and somewhat contemptuous eyes. “Staying here?” he asked curtly.

“I may.”

“I think not.”

Francis made no answer to that. He saw that those who recognized him were now in a position to move him on, as a policeman deals with a tramp. But without money — without having the girl’s report of the errand in which she had so probably failed — -

Mr. Rabone spoke again: “Can you give me change for ten shillings?”

“Not at the moment.”

“So I supposed.” He pulled out a pocket-book fat with notes. Evidently it was not poverty which caused him to choose that modest, if respectable lodging.

He took out a pound-note, hesitated between that and one for half the amount, and finally selected two of ten shillings each, which he passed across the table.

Francis looked at the money, letting it lie. The action was generous in itself, but it was evidently without goodwill. Its manner made it an insult, very hard not to refuse.

But suppose that the girl had failed, as her delay in returning appeared to indicate? Suppose that she were waiting now for the opportunity to tell him quietly that he could not be too speedy to leave? There might be freedom in those two slips of coloured paper so contemptuously tossed over the cloth. There would surely be rest and food at an urgent need

Anyway, he must learn to obey the orders of all men who could address him as Harold Vaughan, even though they offered no money to enforce their wills.

He picked it up with a conventional word of thanks which did attempt pretence of gratitude, as for a friend’s aid, nor that he was in less than an utter need. He said: “We will call it a