Elk 02 The Joker (8 page)

It had not got there by accident, he saw, when he carried the bag to the light, for it was carefully sewn into the lining. He took out his pocket knife and, picking the stitches, extracted what he thought was one sheet of paper, lightly folded. When he opened the paper out he found there were two sheets.

The landlady ducked her head sideways in an effort to catch a glimpse of the writing, but Jim was aware of this manoeuvre.

‘Do you mind going downstairs,’ he asked politely, ‘and seeing if you can find in your ash-can - ’

‘Dustbin,’ corrected the lady.

‘Whatever it is, the envelope of any letter addressed to Mrs Gibbins?’

By the time she returned from her profitless task the papers had disappeared, and Jim Carlton was sitting on the narrow window ledge, a cigar between his teeth and he was examining the threadbare carpet with such intentness that the landlady was certain that he had discovered some blood-stains.

‘Eh?’ He woke from his dream with a start. ‘You can’t find it? I’m sorry. What was it I asked you to get? Oh, yes, an envelope. Thank you. I found it in the bag.’

He relocked the drawer, and with another glance round the apartment came down the treacherous stairs.

‘You don’t think she’s drownded herself, sir?’ asked the landlady tremulously.

‘No. Why? Did she ever threaten to commit suicide?’

‘She’s been pretty miserable for some time, poor dear!’ The woman wiped a tear from her cheek, and the fascinated Jim observed that the spot where the apron had been rubbed was perceptibly cleaner.

‘No, I don’t think she has - committed suicide,’ he said. ‘She may turn up. If she does, will you send me a telegram?’

He scribbled his name and address on a blank that he found in his pocket and gave her the money for its dispatch.

‘I know there’s something wrong,’ insisted the tearful lady. ‘Foul play or something. She bought some stuff to make up into a dress; I’ve got it in my kitchen - it only came the night before last.’

She showed him the package, which was unopened.

‘My niece was coming in yesterday morning to show her how to cut it out,’ continued the woman, ‘but, of course, Mrs Gibbins didn’t come home, and my niece lives over in Peckham, and it’s a long drag here - ’

‘Yes. I suppose so,’ said Jim absently.

He walked down the noisome street, got into the car that was waiting at the end, and went slowly back across Westminster Bridge to his room.

Elk was not in and, even if he had been, Jim was not in the mood for consultation. He spread out on the table the papers he had taken from Mrs Gibbins’s bag and read them carefully, jotted down a few particulars and, refolding them, put them in his pocket-book. He passed the next hour dictating letters to the last people in the world one would have imagined would be interested in the disappearance of a charwoman.

Aileen did not expect to see him again that day and was surprised, almost pleasurably, when he walked into the outer office and sent in his name. She was on the point of leaving and the office boy, impatient to be gone, misinterpreted the colour that came to her cheeks.

‘You’ll be getting me a very bad name, Mr Carlton,’ she said as they went into the street together.

‘Did I tell you that my front name was Jim, or James, as the case may be?’ he asked. ‘Shall we try something more snappy in the restaurant line? I know a place in Soho - ’

‘No, I think I’ll go home now.’

‘I wanted to talk to you about our Mrs Gibbins,’ he said flippantly, though he was not feeling at all flippant. ‘And I told our people that I can be found there if I am wanted.’

‘Have you had any news?’ she asked; and he guessed by her penitent tone that she had altogether forgotten the existence of the charwoman. At any rate she did not demur when he handed her into the car and she accepted his restaurant, dingy though it was, without protest.

They were passing from the street when Jim heard his name called and, looking round, saw a headquarters man.

‘Came through just after you left, sir.’

Jim read the hastily-written phone message.

‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ he said, and followed the girl who was waiting for him in the vestibule.

When they were seated: ‘I want to ask you: was Mrs Gibbins in the flat that night your uncle’s safe was burgled?’

She considered. ‘No, she wasn’t there; at least, she oughtn’t to have been there. She came later, you remember. I opened the door to her.’

‘Oh!’ he said, and she smiled.

‘What does “Oh!” mean?’ And then quickly: ‘You don’t think she was the burglar, do you?’

‘No, I don’t think that,’ he said; his tone was very grave - she wondered why. ‘Tell me something about her; was she well educated?’

Aileen shook her head.

‘No, she was rather illiterate. I’ve had many of her notes, and they were scarcely decipherable. The spelling was - well, very original.’

‘Oh!’ he said again, and she could have boxed his ears.

‘Well, that’s that!’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think that even your uncle, with his well-known passion for humanity, will so much as shed a silent tear. She was just nothing, nobody - a wisp of straw caught up in the wind and deposited God knows where! Stale fruit under the dustman’s broom. Horrible, isn’t it? Think of it! All the theatres will soon be crowded and people will be screaming with laughter at the antics and clowning of the comedians! There will be a State ball at the Palace and tonight happy men and women will I be dancing on a hundred floors. Who cares about Mrs Gibbins?’

He was very serious, and a minute before he had been almost gay.

‘The passing of a friendless woman is a small thing.’ He rubbed his nose irritably. ‘And now it is a big thing!’ he said, raising a warning finger and looking at her. ‘Mrs Gibbins is stirring the minds of eighteen thousand London policemen, who if need be would have the support of the whole Brigade of Guards and every one of these dancers, diners and theatregoers would move with one accord and not rest day or night till they found the man who struck her down and dropped her poor, wasted body in the waters of the Regent’s Canal!’ She half rose, but he motioned her down. ‘I’ve spoilt your dinner and I’ve spoilt my own, too,’ he said.

‘Dead?’ she whispered. He nodded. ‘Murdered?’

‘Yes…I think so. They took her out of the canal a few minutes before I left the office, and there were marks to show that she’d been bludgeoned. I had the news just before I came in. What was she doing near the Edgware Road - in Regent’s Park, let us say? Give her two days to drift as far.’

The waiter came and stood at his elbow in an attitude of expectancy. The girl shook her head. ‘I can’t eat.’

‘Omelettes,’ said Jim. ‘That isn’t eating; it’s just nourishment.’

Arthur Ingle had the discomfort of a police visitation, but he knew nothing of Mrs Gibbins, knew much less indeed than his niece.

‘I have seen the woman, but I shouldn’t recognise her.’

This accorded with the information already in their possession, and the two detectives who called had a whisky-and-soda with him and departed.

The landlady of the Rents could say no more than she had said on the previous afternoon to Sub-Inspector Carlton.

Jim went down himself to see this worthy soul; and he had a particular reason, because on that morning, ‘regular as clockwork,’ came the envelope which contained Mrs Gibbins’s quarterly allowance; and that lady was rather in a fluster, because the letter had not arrived.

‘No, sir, it was never registered, that’s why I feel so awkward about it. People might think…but you can ask the postman yourself, sir.’

‘I’ve asked him,’ smiled Jim. ‘Tell me, where were those letters posted? You must have seen the date-stamp at some time or other.’

But she swore she hadn’t; she was not inquisitive, indeed regarded inquisitiveness as one of the vices which had come into existence with reading newspapers. She did not explain the connection between the popular press and the inquiring mind, though it was there plain to be seen.

The local police inspector had cleared the wardrobe and drawers of all portable articles, including the bag.

‘I told him you found a paper in the bag, but he couldn’t see it, sir, though he searched high and low for it.’

‘There wasn’t a paper to find,’ said Jim untruthfully.

His position was a delicate one. He had withdrawn important evidence from what might perhaps be a very serious case. There was only one course to take and this he followed.

Returning to Scotland Yard, he requested an interview with the Commissioners, explained what he had done, told them frankly his suspicions and asked for the suppression of the evidence he held. The consultation was postponed for the attendance of a representative of the Public Prosecutor, but in the end he had his way, and when the inquest was held on Annie Maud Gibbins the jury returned an open verdict, which meant that they were content with the statement that the deceased woman had been ‘found dead’, and expressed no opinion as to how she met her fate - a laudable verdict, since no member of the jury, not even the coroner, nor the doctors who testified with so many reservations, had the slightest idea how the life of Mrs Gibbins, the charlady, had gone out.

AILEEN RIVERS was annoyed, and since the object of her annoyance lived in the same room, and to use a vulgar idiom, under the same hat as herself, a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs was produced. She was annoyed because she had not seen Mr James Carlton for a week. But she was furious with herself that she was annoyed at all. Mr Stebbings, that stout lawyer, had reached an age when he was no longer susceptible to atmosphere, yet even he was conscious that his favourite employee had departed in some degree from the normal. He asked her if she was not well; and suggested that she should take a week off and go to Margate. The suggestion of Margate was purely mechanical; he invariably prescribed Margate for all disorders of body and mind, having been once in the remote past cured of the whooping cough in that delightful town. It was not Margate weather, and Aileen was not Margate-minded.

‘I remember’ - Mr Stebbings unfolded several of his heavy chins to gaze meditatively at the ceiling - ‘many years ago suggesting to Miss Mercy Harlow - ahem! - ’

It occurred to him that the girl would not know Miss Mercy Harlow and that the name would be without significance; for the great heights to which the living Harlow had risen were outside his comprehension.

‘You used to act for the Harlows once, didn’t you; Mr Stebbings?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Stebbings carefully. ‘It was - er - a great responsibility. I was not sorry when young Mr Stratford went elsewhere.’

He said no more than this, which was quite a lot for Mr Stebbings, but by one of those coincidences which are a daily feature of life she came again into contact with the Harlow family.

Mr Stebbings was dealing with a probate case. A will had been propounded in the court, and was being opposed by a distant relative of the legator. The question turned on whether, in the spring of a certain year the legator had advanced certain money to one of the numerous beneficiaries under the will with the object of taking him out of the country.

Aileen was sent to inspect the cash book, since it was alleged the money had been paid through the lawyers. She found the entry without a great deal of difficulty, and, running down the index to discover if she had missed any further reference, her finger stopped at the words:

‘Harlow - Mercy Mildred. Harlow-Stratford Selwyn Mortimer.’

She would not have been human if she had not turned up the pages. For a quarter of an hour she pored over the accounts of the dead and gone Miss Mercy, that stern and eccentric woman, and then she saw an item ‘To L. Edwins, PS125.’ An entry occurred four months later: ‘To L. Edwins, PS183 17s. 4d.’ She knew of Mrs Edwins, and had seen a copy of Miss Mercy Harlow’s will - she had looked it up after the Dartmoor meeting, being momentarily interested in the millionaire.

She turned to Stratford’s account, which was a very small one. Evidently, Mr Harlow made no payments through his lawyers. If an opportunity had occurred she would have asked Mr Stebbings for further information about the family, though she was fairly sure that such a request would have produced no satisfactory result.

Deprived of this interest, Aileen was thrown back upon the dominating occupation of life - her amazement and disapproval of Aileen Rivers in relation to Mr James Carlton.

He knew her address: she had particularly told him the number. Equally true it was that she had asked him only to write on official business. By some miracle she had not been called to give evidence at the inquest and she might, and did, trace his influence here. But even that could not be set against a week’s neglect.

‘Ridiculous’ (said the saner part other, in tones of reprobation). ‘You hardly know the man! Just because he’s been civil to you and has taken you out to dinner twice (and they were both more or less business occasions), you’re expecting him to behave as though he were engaged to you!’

The unregenerate Aileen Rivers merely tossed her head at this and was unashamed.

She could, of course, have written to him: there was excuse enough; and she actually did begin a letter, until the scandalous character of her behaviour grew apparent even to Aileen II.

Saturday passed and Sunday; she stayed at home both days in case -

He called on Sunday night, when she had given up - well, if not hope, at any rate expectation.

‘I’ve been down to the country,’ he said.

She interviewed him in the sitting room, which her landlady set aside for formal calls.

‘Couldn’t you come out somewhere? Have you dined?’

She had dined.

‘Come along and walk; it’s rather a nice night. We can have coffee somewhere.’

Her duty was to tell him that he was taking much for granted, but she didn’t. She went upstairs, got her coat and in the shortest space of time was walking with him through Bloomsbury Square.