Four Strange Women (15 page)

Complications, concealments, suspicions, warnings, on every side it seemed to Bobby. Only suspicions of what, warnings of what? He felt like a man lost in the jungle, doubt and hidden danger and whispering threats on every side. Something more evil, something striking deeper than anything he had ever known before, he felt, and yet why he had this impression he did not know. Perhaps because of the very fact that for the moment the unknown evil he pursued seemed centred about a parish hall, a place used often for religion and good works, as though the wickedness he seemed dimly aware of thought itself so secure it mocked him from the very shelter of the church of God.

He put these thronging, dark ideas from him with an effort, and asked suddenly for the list of lettings of the hall. Perhaps there was something in his voice that betrayed the troubled tumult of his spirit, for Mr. Ebbutt looked startled and without a word of comment, his chattiness leaving him for the moment, he went to find the book in which such lettings were entered.

He was gone some time, and when he returned he volunteered information he had been taking pains to verify, to the effect that a curiously high proportion of the not over numerous lettings had been made by telephone and paid for by one pound notes, sometimes sent through the post, sometimes delivered by messenger, generally accompanied by a few lines in block lettering to explain their purpose. Mr. Ebbutt agreed that this had been noticed and commented upon by his staff, especially as once or twice, when it had been desired to communicate by post with the hirers of the hall, either no answer had been received or the letter had come back through the dead letter office. Indeed one of the clerks had had his curiosity so far aroused that he had gone round to the hall on the occasion of the last letting to have what he called a ‘look-see'. All he had seen was a few people arriving generally well wrapped up, some in taxis but most on foot. He had even been curious enough to ask a man who came out for a moment on some errand or another what ‘was on', and had been told curtly to mind his own business and clear out, which he had accordingly done. Mr. Ebbutt, when he heard of it, told his staff not to try to interfere with other people, nothing to do with them who hired the hall or for what purpose. A free country, wasn't it? All they had to do was to see that the agreed price was paid and duly credited to the account of the absent Mr. Glynne. Besides the hall was always left in good condition. Everything in perfect order.

Bobby suggested that he would like to see over the hall. Mr. Ebbutt said there was no difficulty about that. The caretaker had instructions to show the hall to any prospective hirer. If Mr.—or should he say, Inspector—Owen, cared to go round, the caretaker would certainly show him over. Mr. Ebbutt would give him a card to view, though, for his, Mr. Ebbutt's part, he had never noticed anything of any interest there.

Bobby had not expected any special result from his inspection of the Mountain Street hall, and was therefore not disappointed. It seemed much like any other parish hall let out occasionally for public or private use, though certainly in a very good state of repair and maintenance, and furnished exceptionally well. But then perhaps the absent Mr. Glynne, if that were his real name, had not wished the clergy of St. Jude's to find his generosity lacking in any respect whatever. Bobby congratulated the caretaker, whom he had discovered not at home but in the bar of the ‘Eagle and Serpent' at the corner of the Edgware Road. The congratulations were accepted with complacence.

“Not as Mr. Ebbutt,” admitted the caretaker, “is like some as'll let a place go to rack and ruin for lack of a ha'porth of paint. We get a very good class here,” he added; “them curtains was fitted at their own expense by one lot.”

“Really?” said Bobby, for the passing tenant is seldom so generous, and he had already noticed the dark and carefully fitted curtains, exceptional in days before ‘black outs' became necessary.

“Spiritualists,” explained the caretaker; “very special tests they were doing for a foreign lady what floated about in the air and such like. What I say is, why didn't she do it at the Coliseum? Made her fortune, so she would.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Bobby absently.

He remembered having noticed in Mr. Ebbutt's list that the Edgware Psychic Research Society had hired the hall two or three times and had also booked it for the next Friday, and he had made a note of their address and of that of the Honorary Secretary, who lived apparently in Walham Green.

“Do they want you to help while the meetings are on?” he asked abruptly. “I suppose you get something extra for yourself if your help's required?”

“It ain't often,” answered the caretaker with a touch of regret in his voice. “Most on 'em seem to think I go with the hall like. My job is to see as everything's ready, and next morning clear up like, and if more's wanted—well, that's for arrangement. Of course, I keep an eye open to see it's all locked up proper and no lights left burning or nothing.”

“Yes, I suppose that's necessary,” agreed Bobby.

The building included a main hall, a smaller one, what are described as ‘the usual offices'. There was also a basement where was a furnace to provide heat, a coal cellar and so on, and under the main hall a large cellar-like apartment, chiefly used, the caretaker explained, for the boy scouts and girl guides from St. Jude's. That explained, Bobby supposed, some ancient looking gymnastic apparatus in one corner and iron hooks overhead from which no doubt ropes could be hung for climbing exercises.

It was a dark, chill, gloomy place, though, no doubt, cheerful enough when filled with the bustling activities of scouts and guides. Not cheerful now, though, and Bobby found himself aware of a curious sensation of discomfort. In the corners, for the caretaker, economical, had turned on only one light, shadows hung heavily, and Bobby could have well believed that some hostile, evil presence lurked there, hiding in the shadows, dodging behind that ancient gymnastic apparatus. The caretaker said suddenly, as if aware of Bobby's discomfort:—

“Fair gives you the creeps, don't it?” He glanced up at the iron hooks beneath which Bobby was standing. “All set and ready for any bloke as wanted to hang himself,” he said, and chuckled as if he found the thought amusing.

“No windows, are there?” Bobby asked, ignoring this. “How about ventilation?”

“There's shafts,” the caretaker said. “It's a bit deep down for windows.” He shivered again. “Creepy like, ain't it?” he repeated; “and there's some of the St. Jude young ladies as won't come down here at no price. Say it makes 'em go all queer like all over. Bad air most like, which,” confessed the caretaker in a burst of confidence, “it mostly is down here, shafts or no shafts.” Once more he shivered. “Cold as death,” he said, and moved towards the door.

“One moment,” Bobby said.

He had noticed in one corner, the corner furthest away, the corner where the shadows lay the heaviest, a closed door. He asked where it led. The caretaker, who by now had reached the foot of the stone steps that led to the upper regions, called back that it led nowhere. It admitted to a small room the owner of the hall kept for his own use for storing purposes. It contained various boxes, a case or two of books, a large safe—too much to ask a bank to take care of and yet of insufficient value to make hiring accommodation elsewhere worth while.

Bobby noticed that the door was strong and secured by two locks, a yale and a mortice. Evidently intrusion had been carefully guarded against. Bobby had a vague feeling that a peep within that locked chamber might be interesting and might give some information concerning the identity of the somewhat elusive proprietor. But he had no authority to push his inquiries further, no real reason to suspect anything, the explanation given by the caretaker was reasonable enough. So far as the caretaker knew the room had never been opened since first secured some two or three years ago.

They returned upstairs, neither of them sorry to leave those gloomy vaults behind. Bobby had another look round, noted that in addition to the front entrance there was a back way in from the street behind, whereby, the caretaker informed him, provisions or extra furnishings required could be brought into the hall without the vans entering Mountain Street.

“Saves blocking it up with vans and such like when there's a do,” explained the caretaker.

There was also a path running round the hall from Mountain Street to the back, between the building and the busy road into which ran both Mountain Street and those parallel with it. The path was separated from this road by a high fence, in it one gate opposite a side door admitting to the hall. 

It followed, therefore, that the hall could be entered and left in three different ways—by the front entrance in Mountain Street, by the back door in the street behind, and by this side door and the gate in the fence into the busy cross road.

Bobby looked a little thoughtful over an arrangement that seemed to him almost too convenient, and as the caretaker was showing him this side entrance and pointing out how handy it was to be able to slip in and out unnoticed as and when desired, a policeman's helmet appeared over the fence and the light of a policeman's lantern shone upon them.

“Oh, it's you, is it?” he said, recognizing the caretaker. “I heard someone and I just wondered, as it's a bit late.”

“Showing a gent, round,” explained the caretaker. “It ain't Reynolds this time.”

“Think you're funny, don't you?” growled the constable and walked off.

The caretaker, who evidently did think he was funny, indulged in a loud guffaw. Bobby asked what the joke was and why Reynolds. It appeared that two or three years ago a man named Reynolds, a chauffeur, had disappeared with his employer's jewellery—especially with two wonderful diamond ear-rings and a diamond pendant valued at a very large sum—‘thousands hand thousands,' said the caretaker in parenthesis, adding an extra aspirate for emphasis. A large reward had been offered and the policeman they had just seen had been very excited because he was certain he had noticed a man answering to the description of the fugitive hiding behind the Mountain Street hall fence. ‘In the exact very spot where we was', explained the caretaker in another parenthesis. But in spite of instant and careful search no trace of Reynolds had been found. It had got to be quite a local joke, more especially because the constable stuck to his story in spite of official disbelief and a snub from a worried D.D.I., aware that Reynolds had been seen simultaneously in a score of widely separated localities. None the less the constable, still persistent, spent a good deal of his own time for the next two or three weeks, prowling about in the firm belief that the missing man was hiding somewhere in the district.

“Got it on the brain like,” said the caretaker, chuckling again. “Everyone was laughing about it.”

A local joke evidently. Bobby remembered the case well enough, though he had never been called upon to do any work in connection with it. It had presented no unusual features. The dishonest servant decamping with his employer's jewellery is fortunately rare but by no means unknown. Bobby did remember vaguely some story about the man's wife having protested very violently her husband's innocence when the police called to question her, so violently indeed that she had had to be arrested on a charge of assault—something to do with a rolling-pin, Bobby believed, or had it been a frying pan?—though the assault charge had not been pressed and she had been let off with a warning by a bench evidently sorry for her and ready to make allowances. Bobby felt quite sympathetic towards the constable who plainly thought that his information had been unduly neglected by his superiors and that so he had missed a chance of bringing off a valuable arrest. Then he dismissed the matter from his mind, said good-bye to the caretaker, and went off to eat a solitary and meditative meal.

That there was something odd about the Mountain Street hall he was fully convinced, but what it could be he was quite unable to imagine. These are strange, unsettled times and Bobby's thoughts ranged far. Irish, for example, plotting murder in the name of that liberty in whose name it is indeed true that so many crimes have been and are committed. Then, too, Bobby knew that some of the extreme supporters of fascist and allied movements were trying to get possession of stocks of arms. He wondered if there were arms hidden behind that carefully locked door in the basement of the hall and if perhaps secret drilling was going on there?

He could not think it very likely. Possible perhaps, for there is no folly such extremists may not commit, and already there was a smell of war in the air to make hot heads hotter still. Gambling perhaps! More likely in a way. But generally an empty house or flat is used. Cock fighting? 

But that is an affair of the open air and the north country. Prize fighting with the bare fist? Plenty of possibilities, no doubt, for many queer things go on in London, some merely foolish—Bobby had heard tales of meetings held to raise the devil as though that ever-present personage needed any raising—some comparatively innocent, some mildly criminal, like gambling or cock fighting. He even thought of the Nazis, but in tolerant England the Nazis had no need for such elaborate precautions. They could assemble anywhere and plot to their heart's content, probably with a British policeman stationed at the door to see they were not interrupted, though also very likely with two or three emissaries of the Special Branch among them, since tolerance and watchfulness are riot mutually exclusive, as is often believed.

By the time he had finished his meal Bobby had thought himself into complete mental confusion. He decided to forget the Mountain Street hall for the time, but to try to be present at the next meeting of the Edgware Psychic Research Society, of whom he had not been much surprised to find no trace in the directory, as also Walham Green appeared ignorant either of the society's honorary secretary or even of the street which he had given as his address. Fortunately the directory had been more helpful in giving the address of Lord Henry Darmoor.