The Tiger in the Well (25 page)

His psychic energies corkscrewing briskly upward, his

breathing profound and diaphragmatic, Mr. Parrish faced his patron with equanimity and told him what had happened.

"She had a pistol, Mr. Lee," he explained. "It was quite clear what was going to happen. She'd've shot me first, because I was in her sights, and then if need be she'd've shot the other two, and in the panic she'd've escaped, like she did anyway. Now, I shouldn't like the inconvenience of being wounded, but the embarrassment of being dead would be far worse, especially for the court case. No possibility of claiming the child then. What we did was to smash the tea shop window and follow her. She caught an omnibus to the East End. It was crowded—streets full—busy time of day— but I got a cab and followed it and watched closely to see where she got off. Unfortunately, the traffic being thick, I lost sight of the vehicle. But I did notice it was a dark green one, and that line terminates in Whitechapel."

"Did you take her belongings away from the lodging house in Bloomsbury.?"

"The landlady—a Mrs. Parker—refused to let anything leave the house. So I don't know what she's got there. I could have it burgled, if you like, Mr. Lee."

The big man considered. The monkey finished her nut and climbed down, head first, to fetch another from the bowl of nuts the butler had shelled earlier. Mr. Lee gave a soft command, and instantly the monkey brought a walnut to his lips and thrust it between them.

When he had chewed it slowly and swallowed it all, he spoke again.

"Do not burgle the lodging house. Continue to search. However, I am not impressed with what you have done so far. You are not sufficiently self-critical. The money in her bank account you may keep; all her shares, all the property she owns in stocks and bonds, you will make over to me. If it is you who finds her, you may have it all back; if she is found by another agency, you will not see it again. Do that at once. I shall require evidence as soon as is practicable tomorrow moming that all the stocks, shares, and bonds which

were once registered in the name of Veronica Beatrice Lockhart and then claimed as his due possession by Arthur James Parrish have been transferred to my ownership."

"I understand, Mr. Lee," said Mr. Parrish, the Oriental mind control shaken badly. "You intend to call in another agency, then, sir.? May I inquire which one I shall be—as it were—competing against.-*"

"Yes," said Mr. Lee. "The Metropolitan Police. On your way out you may show in the gentleman who is waiting in the hall. He is Assistant Commissioner Bushell."

The psychic spiral sagged entirely. Mr. Parrish got up and was about to say something else, but looked at his patron's impassive face and thought better of it.

"Good night, sir," he said, endeavoring to sound positive and project an impression of vigor and efficiency. "I shall bring you that financial information tomorrow morning, sir. Good night."

Assistant Commissioner Bushell was a middle-aged man with a dry cough and a deferential manner—deferential to Mr. Lee, that is; to Mr. Parrish he was dismissive.

He sat down and listened carefully as Mr. Lee explained what he wanted.

"A woman called Lockhart—Miss Sally Lockhart—is in hiding, probably though not certainly in the East End, with a child of two years old, a girl called Harriet. I want you to find her. She is blond, pretty, in her early twenties. She has very little money, as far as I know. She is already the subject of a police hunt; the newspaper on the table to your right will explain why. Miranda, another nut ..."

The monkey sprang at once to the bowl, snatched a walnut, and thrust it into Mr. Lee's mouth while the senior policeman read the passage Sally herself had seen in The Times the day before.

Mr. Bushell finished reading and folded the paper neatly.

"I was not personally aware of this business," he said. "As a senior officer, naturally I do not concern myself with day-to-day operational matters. It would be difficult, indeed, to

do so without attracting attentions which would be perhaps a httle unwelcome. ..."

'*Do it," said Mr. Lee flatly. *'Cover it up how you like. The alternative is that I tell your superior—^and the newspapers—about your connection with the houses. I have all the details of every visit you have ever made, times, payments, money you have won or lost, all the girls you have seen. You knew there would be a price, Bushell. Here it is: put every man you can onto it, and find that woman."

Mr. Bushell, unacquainted with the mysteries of Oriental mind control, wilted visibly. Then he nodded, sighed, and rose to go.

"One more thing," said Mr. Lee before his visitor reached the door. "Somewhere in Soho there is a man calling himself Goldberg—a journalist. It's come to my attention that he is misusing his position as a guest in this country by spying on various legitimate commercial operations. It would be an act of decency and patriotism to find out exactly where this scoundrel is hiding, and let the Home Secretary know what he's doing, so that he can be deported. He is, as a matter of fact, under sentence of death in Hungary; the authorities there would be pleased to have him back. See to it, would you.'"'

The Order of Sanctissima Sophia

Mr. Parrish had many contacts on the unsavory shores of the underworld, and it didn't take him long to set the search for Sally in motion. He did it scientifically, following the principles outlined in Abner T. Handley's capital work. The Young Man's Friend: A Guide to Business Success, which he had spent many profitable hours studying. Abner T. Handley was eloquent on the subjects of prudence and resourcefulness, and Mr. Parrish felt that he'd set new standards in those departments, because he'd offered a reward of fifty pounds for news of Sally's whereabouts—the money, of course, being Sally's own. What could be more elegantly economical than making the quarry pay for the hunt?

Simultaneously, Assistant Commissioner Bushell was instructing the superintendents of the Whitechapel, Stepney, and Thames divisions of the Metropolitan Police to divert as many men as possible to the search. They had a total of 1,235 men under their commands, and while privately each of them thought it was a quite extraordinary and unwarranted interference from the old man, who ought to stick to pushing paper around in Scotland Yard, they were nonetheless each determined to look good by catching her; so they returned to their divisions and set a good number of those 1,235 to work.

Nor did Assistant Commissioner Bushell forget Goldberg. He had his own views on foreign agitators, socialists to a man, or communists, or anarchists, or worse, and he had an agent who'd done this kind of work for him in the past; so

he summoned him to Scotland Yard and told him to look for this political scoundrel and report back as soon as he'd found him.

Sally, that morning, went out with Miss Robbins again. They went this time to visit a family of matchbox makers. Miss Robbins was compiling statistics for a report on social conditions in the East End, and Sally went with her because she wanted to see a sweatshop.

It was a family of five: father, mother, two daughters in their teens, and a sick little boy of seven all crammed into a room no bigger than twelve feet by eight. The boy lay on a mattress in the corner, scarcely breathing. The rest of them worked around a table in the dingy light from the window. The air was thick with the smells of sickness, of sweat, of fish, of glue. The family's hands moved without ceasing, pasting strips of wood to strips of magenta-colored paper, standing them on one side to dry, then folding them into matchboxes. One of the daughters, a bright; rebellious-looking girl, was tying bundles of completed boxes together. They got twopence farthing from the factory for every twelve dozen boxes they made, said the father. Sally could hardly believe it, but Miss Robbins confirmed what he said. Furthermore, they had to buy their own string and paste. By working all the hours of daylight and late into the night, they could make just enough money to keep starvation at bay.

"Not really a sweatshop," Miss Robbins said as they came away, "because they're working for themselves, in a sense, not for a small employer who owns the premises and organizes the work. But it comes to the same thing: exploitation. By the match factory, in this case. That girl, incidentally, will leave home soon. The one tying the bundles. She's being enticed away by a woman who runs a brothel in Devonshire Street. She'll earn money quickly there, and then die of disease."

"You can't know that for certain," Sally said, feeling that she had to say something on the side of hope.

"Perhaps not. Perhaps a kindhearted gentleman with five

i

hundred pounds a year will fall in love with her and marry her. Perhaps an angel will come down and take her straight to heaven. Perhaps she'll be run over by an omnibus. I can't predict the fate of an individual. But what's undeniable is that in a thousand other sweatshops there are girls as pretty as that, as lively and quick and frustrated as that, and of those a large number will end as I describe. Nothing is more certain."

Sally couldn't argue. The pity of it made her dumb, so she turned back to what she knew about—money and profits and costs; and she began to wonder how many clients she'd advised to buy shares in Bryant and May's, the match manufacturers. Why, she owned some herself.

There were three letters waiting for her at the mission, but she didn't have time to look at them until after she'd helped in the kitchen, giving out soup and bread to the women and children sheltering there. A dark gentleman had brought the letters; that was all the maid could tell her. Sally put them into her pocket to read later, but she felt her heart leap at the sight of the bold, black writing on one of them.

After Harriet had eaten, and they'd cleared up and washed the dishes, Sally took her up to rest. She was clinging and a little flushed and fretful, and Sally fussed over her, cuddling her to sleep before laying her gently in the bed and covering her up.

Then in the thin afternoon light she took out the letters. She recognized Sarah-Jane Russell's handwriting, and opened hers and read:

Dear Miss Lockhart,

I do hope you are safely hidden. There have been three men watching the house since yesterday, and a policeman called with a warrant to search it. I had to let him in. He says there is a warrant to arrest you. I could not believe it; it sounds dreadful, but if he said it it must be tme. He took away a lot of papers and things. I tried to stop him, but he said his warrant empow-

ered him to do it. I do so wish they would come back from South America, but there is no news.

Mrs. Molloy came today to see what news there was; she is dreadfully worried. I do not wish to make things more difficult, but the cook and Ellie will need paying tomorrow, and I have no money.

I send on the letter from Oxford with Mr. Goldberg. He came before, but I did not know who he was and could not tell him anything.

I will do whatever I can to help. Please kiss darling Harriet for me and give her my love. I hope so much that this will all soon be over.

With all my love, Sarah-Jane.

The letter from Oxford was in Nicholas Bedwell's handwriting.

My dear Sally,

I think I've found your elusive Mr. Beech. A chum of mine who used to be the chaplain of Exeter College is now—^well, it's a long story, but the gist of it is that there's an establishment in Hampstead (Rolfe Road) known as the Order of Saint Sophia. The full name's longer than that, but I'm in a hurry to catch the post, and you'll find it.

It seems to be a brotherhood of priests or monks or something. Sophia means "wisdom"; it's a precious-scented sort of flummery that I haven't any time for myself. There's a lot of it in Oxford; aesthetic undergraduates giving each other extravagant titles and performing fanciful rites. It's Roman Catholic, not Anglican, but my chum Reggie Routledge tells me that it includes a number of converts; and one of them is a Gervase Davidson Beech, who spent some time convalescing, for want of a better word, in the community of St. Anselm's, Norwich.

If I might suggest it, a frontal attack (just go there and come straight out with it) might be the best bet. Don't give him time to think of an excuse. I hope I'm not misjudging the man; but

the nature of the affliction which took him to St. Anselm's for a cure makes it only too likely, Fm afraid, that I'm not. But p)er-haps you would like me as a man of the cloth to see what I can find out from him.**

I have seen nothing in the papers regarding your court case. I need hardly say that you and dear Harriet are in our prayers. Let me know what you would like me to do.

Most affectionately yours,

Nicholas.

She put it down simultaneously elated, touched, and exasperated: because if Nicholas knew what this affliction of Mr. Beech's was, and if it had a bearing on the case, why on earth didn't he name it?

However, in an hour or so she could ask the man himself. Thank you, Nick, she thought, and resolved to write to him as soon as she came back.

Then she opened Goldberg's letter, observing that her hands were shaking.

Dear Miss Lockhart,

I was sorry not to find you here when I arrived, but the excellent Dr. Turner was kind enough to agree to pass these letters on to you. I hope they contain news which will cheer you.

I'm going now to visit Miss Haddow. I hope to call again at the mission this evening.

In haste, Daniel Goldberg.

She felt deflated, for some reason, and foolish for feeling so. She made arrangements for Susan to look after Harriet, and hurried out.

A DARK GREEN omnibus to Tottenham Court Road, then a yellow one to Haverstock Hill; sixpence altogether, and three quarters of an hour after she left the mission, she was walking down Rolfe Road looking for the Order of Saint Sophia.

It was a quiet suburban road with secluded houses sheltered by trees, and large gardens. She had no idea what to look for, but it wasn't long before she saw a painted sign on a wooden gate. It said in small red gothic letters:

THE MOST NOBLE AND SACRED ORDER

OF THE EMANATION