The Tiger in the Well (23 page)

'*The East London Property Company, madam."

"Is that incorporated.?" said Sally.

"I beg your pardon.?"

"Is that a private company, with limited liability.? Is it registered as a company.? Does it exist as a legal entity, or doesn't it.?" Sally went on.

"I beg your pardon, miss, but I don't understand."

"Very well, what is the company's address.?"

He looked troubled. "Angel Court, just off Throgmorton Street. Look here—"

"Good day to you," said Miss Robbins, and swept out. Sally followed.

"What's this about incorporation.'' What did that mean.^*" Miss Robbins asked.

"If a company is incorporated, then it's a legal entity just as a person is, and it can be sued. If it isn't, you'd have to sue the individuals, if you could find out who they were. Do you want to find out.^"

"We'll see. We'll tackle the water board first. I haven't got money to sue people with."

Nor have /, now, thought Sally as they walked on in silence. It was a more companionable silence than before, though; she felt as if she'd passed a test.

The offices of the Metropolitan Water Board were in Bishopsgate, half a mile away. There they found themselves confronted with a smooth official called Mr. Hanbury.

"Rowley Coun . . . Rowley Court . . . East London Property Company . . . Ah, I have a note here from a Mr. Cooper concerning a report of . . . yes, we sent an acknowledgment of that information. Look, I've got a record here."

He smiled gently and showed them a letter.

"And is that all you're going to do.^ Send a letter.^' Mr. Hanbury, I think you ought to put your hat and coat on and come with us."

He looked gently puzzled. "I beg your pardon.'*"

"Have you seen the state that place is in.'"'

He spread his hands. "Madam," he said, "I don't know who you are or what your business is, but matters like that are, after all, the landlord's responsibility entirely. Besides, I'll be perfectly frank with you: decisions as to which improvements are to be effected are not mine to make. The water board has a program of improvements planned—"

"I'm not talking about improvements; I'm talking about repairs. This one is urgent. The people in Rowley Court are having to walk ankle-deep in filth. When are you going to repair it?"

He raised his eyebrows and gave a little helpless shrug. Then he looked around and lowered his voice.

"You see, the trouble is that very often these places are full of Jews—aliens—people of the lowest class. Their ideas of cleanliness are very different from ours. I can well understand your being offended by the sights and smells, but believe me, what they're used to is a great deal worse. I could take you to—^*'

**That will be enough," said Miss Robbins. "We shall note your remarks and include them in our letter to your superior, with a copy to the member of Parliament for the Tower Hamlets. Good day to you."

And once again she swept out. Before she left, Sally had time to notice the man's elaborate show of unconcern.

"What will they do.'*" she asked, as they set off back to the mission. "Will they mend it.'*"

"Yes, they will now," said Miss Robbins. "But you shall write those letters, if you please, and post them directly."

"Do they always use that excuse about the Jews.?"

"Oh, very often. Immigration has increased vastly in the past year or so; it's easy to blame incomers for bad conditions. And some of them are filthy. They've had little chance to be anything else."

That afternoon, as there was no one else to help, Sally occupied herself with supervising the five children who were sheltering temporarily at the mission. Their mothers—each in her twenties, each looking twice her real age—had fled home because of their husbands' violence. One of them was a drunkard and had found that morning enough liquor to become stupefied by noon. The other was a quiet, thin Irish woman called Bridget, who'd been given a pile of mending to do by Miss Robbins.

She sat with Sally in a big empty room at the front of the house, watching the children occupying themselves with a few building blocks and a battered doll or two. Sally was

doubtful about Harriet's playing with the others: fears of disease, of dirt, of she knew not what—of bad manners, she found herself thinking, and blushed for it—rose up like specters, to be pushed away again by the thoughts that firstly, it wouldn't be for long, and secondly, she was no longer in any position to be snobbish.

One of Bridget's children, a stunted little boy of three or so, was moving awkwardly, and Sally asked her what the matter was.

"His father beat him with a poker, ma'am," she said. "Look at his back."

She called the boy over and lifted the ragged shirt and undershirt he wore. His back was raw. There were three great wounds with pus oozing from under thick scabs, a mass of red welts, and near the base of his spine a great flaring wound with bare red flesh and puckered skin.

"That one," she said, pointing to it, "he held a red-hot poker to the lad. 'Twas the drink, it wasn't him in himself. He's a good man, but when the drink gets in him he's not a man at all."

Sally could hardly find her voice.

"Have you seen Dr. Turner.? Has she seen his back.'"'

"Oh, yes, indeed. She put some ointment on, but it's best to leave them open, she says. Let them heal in the air."

The little boy toddled away stiffly. His face had been expressionless, as if he were an old man who didn't understand a word of English.

"Have you been to the police.'*" said Sally.

"About my man.? They won't interfere."

"But the child—surely, can't he be punished for that.?"

"D'you know what happened before, ma'am.? When he put the poker to him.? They took him to the police court and the magistrate fined him, if you please—fined a poor man with no money! So we all had to go hungry for weeks to pay his fine. At least he couldn't drink during that time. That was a mercy."

Sally watched the boy, Johnny, as he sat on the floor a

little away from the other children. Harriet was holding a tea party with two bemused Httle girls; a boy was off on his own with a couple of toy soldiers. In the gray afternoon the air was cold and still. There was a small fire in the grate. There were four chairs in the room, and a table, and the battered toy box, and that was all. The children were playing on the bare boards; Bridget was sewing next to her, and everything was quiet.

And Sally felt as if the world had been poisoned. Who could let these things happen.'* No wonder Dr. Turner felt that God, if there was a God, had turned his back. But she, Sally Lockhart, was here now. What was she doing.f* Was she any better.''

Awkwardly she unclasped her hands and smoothed her skirt, and then got up and clumsily knelt down beside Johnny.

"Would you like to play.'*" she said.

He looked at her. She tried to smile, but it faltered before his hard, dead eyes. She turned aside and pulled some of the building blocks toward them. There were big wooden cubes and smaller brick shapes made of some heavy composition material. They were all chipped and battered.

"Shall we build a house.?" she said.

He watched as she set out some blocks and began to build them up.

"Wouldn't you like to put some there.?" she said. "Look, that big one could go at the comer. ..."

She showed him. Slowly he joined in, but always by doing what she suggested; either he was unwilling to take the initiative, or he genuinely had no idea what to do.

Very soon, because there weren't many blocks, the house was made. There was a door but no roof, and only one window.

They knelt and looked at it.

Now what should we do? thought Sally. What can we play?

Because he didn't know what playing was. He had never played in his life before. And as Sally looked into that bleak little eternity three years long, she felt stricken with tears

that she could do so little for him: because she didn't know how to play either.

She had no more idea than he did what you could do with a pretend house.

At home it was always Sarah-Jane who played with Harriet, and Sally who looked in, smiling at the pretty sight, and went away again. Or it was Jim who took the child hunting toffees in the garden, having carefully hidden them beforehand; and it was Webster who built the swing and who gave her rides on the little camera railway. All Sally did was watch briefly and then go back to something more important, such as reading a financial journal or advising someone how to make money.

And now she couldn't show this little boy how to play.

The empty house stood primly between them. She put out a hand and pushed gently, and it all fell over.

That evening Mr. Katz came for her. ^

She had written those letters for Miss Robbins, put Harriet to bed, eaten a supper of bread and cheese, and helped Dr. Turner in the dispensary—cutting up old muslin for bandages, washing medicine bottles. She hadn't had a moment to herself, though she knew that sometime soon she'd have to think through the problem of her money, and write to Margaret, I and let Sarah-Jane know where she was, and then get back -to the mystery of why Parrish was persecuting her. For the time being, it was enough to feel safe.

At eight o'clock the maid, Susan, came to the dispensary to say that a visitor was waiting downstairs for her. Sally's heart p>ounded until Susan added that it was the same gentleman who'd brought her there yesterday. Sally dried her hands and felt the color come back to her cheeks as she saw Dr. Turner watching her.

Mr. Katz was waiting in Miss Robbins's office. He stood up when Sally entered. In the light she saw him more clearly than she'd done the previous night, and noticed his threadbare cuffs and scratched boots. But the deep rumbling voice

was reassuring, and the look in his eyes was courteous and friendly. They shook hands.

"Mr. Katz, I owe you many thanks," she said. "But I hope you can tell me who you are, and how you know about me."

"I am going to take you to a man who needs your help," he said. "He will tell you what you need to know."

"My help.'' I'm hardly in a position to help anyone!"

"You'll give him your help when you hear what he has to say. You have a cloak and a hat.'' As I remember yours from last night, they are distinctive—can you borrow some others.? We won't be spotted, but it does no harm to take precautions."

"Borrow mine," said Dr. Turner, coming in breezily. "Dull old things. No one'll spot you in my togs. Don't worry about Harriet; we'll keep her safe."

She tugged a rusty brown cloak off a peg by the door and tossed it over to Sally, who put it on. The hat followed—a little big for Sally, but it shadowed her face. Then she fetched her basket from the bedroom, and she was ready.

"Where are we going.?" she said.

"Soho," said Katz.

He said little on the omnibus, little on the crowded pavement of Oxford Street where they got off, little on the way down Dean Street, and only when they were outside the lodging house would he tell her who they were going to see.

"His name is Jacob Adler," he said, "though he's got other names besides. You see, he's wanted by the police in some countries—not for what you would consider a crime, I think. In this house, in this country, and for now, he's known as Goldberg. Daniel Goldberg."

"The journalist.?"

She'd been about to climb the steps. Now she paused.

"You've heard of him. Then you'll know why he's not popular."

"I'm not going to speak to a journalist. Especially . . ."

"Especially a socialist one.?"

She didn't reply. She felt caught: whatever she did now would be foolish. But having come out, it would be wrong not to see him; and as for the socialism, what she'd seen today had made her uncomfortable about many things, and that was one.

"Very well," she said.

"Have you enough money to get back to Whitechapel.^ I shall not come in: I have other calls to make."

"Yes. But why—.?"

"You'll find him in the room at the top of the second flight of stairs. That's his window there." He pointed up to a small window which was lit; she could see a shadow moving across the ceiling. "Just go in. This is a meeting place; people are always going in and out. No one will take any notice. Good night to you."

And before she could say anything, he had vanished into the crowd outside the little theater next-door.

She turned back to the house. The door was open, and as Katz had said, people seemed to be coming and going. A placard by the steps announced a lecture in English and in a language whose letters she didn't recognize—not Russian; Hebrew.?

She climbed the steps and pushed through the crowd outside a room where a short, bearded man in a plum-colored jacket was addressing a packed meeting. His voice was rich, his gestures operatic, his eyes magnetic, and the audience was applauding, cheering, whistling, hooting with laughter— and eating and drinking and smoking and arguing with the speaker, with each other, with those outside who couldn't get in.

On the first floor Sally saw a room with a number of men and women sitting at tables reading newspapers, or writing, or playing chess. It seemed more like a club than a lodging house. She heard three languages she recognized and several she didn't; and no one took the least notice of her.

She climbed the second flight of stairs. It was darker here, and quieter. She felt her heart beating fast: suppose it was a

trick? They'd duped her—Katz had lured her here and then gone back to Whitechapel and taken Harriet—

What had possessed her to come here? What a fool! Would she never learn?

Her fingers sought the pistol under the shawl in her basket. It was there, firm and heavy and loaded. She took it in her hand, rested the handle of the basket on her wrist so that she could shoot freely, and knocked at the door with the line of light underneath it.

*7<2," came a voice. "Yes. Come in.*'

She opened the door and slowly went in.

Just a Man Working

Goldberg looked up. She stood in the exx)rway, trembling, intent as a tigress, an electric nervousness in every line of her. Her clear eyes glittered; her fair hair shone. She was extraordinary: desperate, frightened, but undaunted. And, he saw at once, so pretty. No, far too weak a word: she was magnificent.