The Ringer/Chapter 3

HE policeman on duty at the corner of Creek Road saw the gaunt man pass and noted him in the half light between dusk and dark as a suspicious character. Yet there was little that was suspicious about him, except his colour of emaciation. Poverty was no suspicious circumstance in Deptford; the stranger appeared to the constable to be one who had come down in the world. His thin frock coat, buttoned up to his chin though the night was warm, had a shiny and threadbare look. On his head was a soft felt hat, the brim of which was pulled down over his eyes as though he desired to keep the very afterglow of day from his toed eyes. A glimpse of a stubble-grown chin, the bristles of hair on upper lip, these and a sidelong flash from deep, suspicious eyes were all that Constable Harrap saw before the man crossed the swing-bridge and vanished in the gloom.

Slackening his pace as he came nearer to Meister's house, the gaunt stranger crossed the road the better to survey the place. The high wall would present no obstacle to an athletic man. All the windows except one were unbarred. He stood for a while taking stock of the place, and then he saw Mary Lenley come out, slam the gate behind her and walk towards High Street.

Lenley's sister. She worked late. That might complicate things a little. He rubbed his unshaven chin impatiently. From the western end of Flanders Lane came the sound of shrill voices of women talking across the street to their neighbours. The Lane would be alive now. It was Thursday night, and Thursday is a day of poverty, when no man has the price of a pint. Should he risk a walk through that bottle-neck of curiosity and suspicion? Would any of those sharp eyes recognize him? Quite a number of them had seen him years before. It was worth the test. If he was identified, that might complicate matters too.

He walked leisurely towards the sound, lifting the soft brim of his hat that his face might be better seen. Women and their shirt-sleeved men were sitting on their doorsteps—children played piercingly on the narrow road between. He kept to the sidewalk, stepping over sprawling legs.

Somebody shouted a crude jest after him and the air shook with bellowing laughter. Still he kept on.

Then, out of a black doorway, slipped a snakelike figure—a lank youth with the face of a used-up man. Ferreteyed, he had seen the stranger at a distance and now barred his progress.

"Hullo, pal—looking for anybody!"

"No.... Stranger round here."

The pouched and furrowed face was thrust closer.

"Got an idea I've seen you somewhere, son."

Deliberately he struck a match and held it so that he could see the face plainly. The gaunt man was not prepared for this ordeal, but he did not flinch. And then the match burnt out and there was darkness.

"Got an idea"

"Don't get too many ideas—Screwsman!"

The thin youth took a step back.

"All right—mate," he said huskily, and the stranger went on to return in a minute and vanish at the respectable end of Flanders Lane.

"Who's he?" somebody asked.

"Don't know," the youth answered with a catch in his voice. "Somebody—called me a name they used to call me down on the Moor."

He didn't say that in Dartmoor they called him "Screwsman" because he was a friend of warders and a teller of tales. Were that known, life would have been unendurable for him in Flanders Lane.

The gaunt man, who knew most things about the people of the Lane, went back to the house, but it was inexpedient to stop and examine the place again. A figure was standing in the doorway opposite the gate. The stranger guessed him for a police officer before he came abreast of him. It was, indeed, Sergeant Parker, C.I.D.—he recognised him as he passed.

There was nothing to do to-night. He returned to his humble lodging in Mill Lane and spent the rest of the evening thinking out likely disguises and rejecting them one by one. And he had another thought that came into and out of his mind like a wisp of thistledown blown by an errant wind. The girl Lenley. She would be a complication. Especially if she were in the habit of staying late at night.

Usually Mary Lenley finished work early in the evening, but to-day Lewis Meister had been a busy man. Three of his pensioners arrived in the afternoon and this had interrupted the preparation of a brief on which he was engaged. One of his clients was in bad trouble, and his position was made worse because he had refused to reveal where his "stuff" was planted—he had got away with a considerable quantity of Treasury bills. To secure these it had been necessary to half kill a cashier who was carrying the money between the bank and the factory where he was employed—the money was to liquidate the payroll on the following day. Mr. Meister's client had undoubtedly taken the money. Yet when he was arrested none was found in his possession. The police searched his house with no better result. It would mean an extra two or three years' lagging for the man unless he spilt the glad tidings. But he would not squeak; Mr. Meister was sure of that. He would go to prison and his wife would come up to the house every week and Mr. Meister, in his generosity and kindness of heart, would pay her sufficient to live upon until the client came out. If by chance he died in prison, as on occasions his clients had most considerately done, then the pension would stop. The dead pay no dividends.

It was nearly ten o'clock when the old housekeeper let Mary into the street, and she was glad to smell the sweet, warm air of evening. She walked up through the Lane, and careless-speaking men, remembering perhaps the injunctions of the printed card (which appeared in most saloons as well as the Athletic Sports Club), gave up their rôle of swearing parrot and sang as sweet a note as the common sparrow.

"Lenley's sister—him that's doing seven for knockin' off jool'ry."

The loud-mouthed description came to her from the darkness, and then someone said, "S-sh shut up!" and she smiled to herself. She had heard it before. No harm was meant—the initiated were explaining her to the stranger in their midst. There was almost a hint of pride in the voice, as though credit was reflected on Flanders Lane by a convict's sister walking through. They were loud-mouthed because they could not be otherwise; millions were spent yearly to teach them the date of William the Conqueror's arrival and the past participle of the verb To Be, but nobody had spent a cent in teaching them how to talk.

Her flat in Malpas Mansions was small but sufficient. There were two bedrooms, Johnny's and her own; a sitting room, which was also drawing room and dining room, and a tiny kitchen. Johnny's room was as he had left it; the gay cotton cover was never lifted, but otherwise the room was cleaned and dusted. His little ornaments, an academician's miniature of his mother that hung over the head of the bed; his little red bag of tools, his stationery rack on the table (it still held sheets of notepaper headed "Lenley Court, Lenley, Somerset," with the Lenley crest) was on the table near the bed. His hunting crop and the mask of the fox that was killed when he was "blooded" by old Lassam, the huntsman, were above the fireplace.

She always opened the door of his room and looked in as soon as she came into the flat and had lit the gas.

"All right, Johnny?"

She told herself that this was a form of insanity, but she gained a little comfort out of the practice; it made Johnny very near—nearer than the years which separated them. Lighting the gas-stove, she put on the big kettle. There was laundry work to do; a blouse or two, handkerchiefs and collars. Ordinarily she would have looked forward to the occupation, but now she was tired.

Johnny's portrait was on the mantel-shelf of her bedroom. She picked it up when she went in to get the wash. A nice-looking man of thirty. The mouth a little weak, the eyes dour and sceptical. Near by was a smaller frame, and it held a newspaper print of a man walking down the steps of the Old Bailey. He was putting his hat on as he walked, and the newspaper photographer had been near enough to snap the frowning trouble in his face. She liked that picture of Alan Wembury; the lens had caught his mood just after Johnny's sentence. Doubt, worry, regret....

She had amused herself one evening writing down all the emotions which his face revealed.

The wash had been deposited in the scullery, the zinc bath half filled with water, when she heard a knock at the door. It was very late, and she knew few people who were likely to call, even at a more propitious hour. It might be a neighbour who had run short of some domestic supply. These crises arise in lordlier dwellings than Malpas Mansions.

The woman who stood on the landing outside when she opened the door was a stranger to her.

"May I see you for a moment?"

Mary was too surprised to return an immediate answer.

"Haven't you made a mistake?" she asked at last. "My name is Lenley."

"I know your name all right." There was a touch of impatience in her reply which the girl resented.

"Will you please come in?"

Cora Milton brushed past her, and the waft of scent that came to Mary's more sophisticated nostrils was a little overpowering.

"Nice little place you've got here, my dear. But that old gas belongs to the Mayflower period."

She took a chair before Mary could invite her, and turned her blue eyes upon the girl in a critical examination.

"You're certainly a good looker—for a brunette. I'm prejudiced in favour of the blonde type, but that's only natural."

Mary laughed.

"I'm sure you haven't called to pay compliments," she said good-naturedly, "Miss"

"Mrs.—Mrs. Milton; married at Saint Paul's Church, Deptford. This is kind of a home town to me. Next to an ash pit I don't know any place I'd hate worse to be found dead in. Folks over home talk about Limehouse and Whitechapel—they're garden cities compared with this hell-shoot! You know Wembury, don't you?"

The question was fired so unexpectedly that Mary could only stare at the woman in amazement.

"Inspector Wembury? Yes, I know him."

"Pinched your brother? He must be a real nice little fellow!"

Mary Lenley looked at her visitor in speechless astonishment. The woman lolled back in the one comfortable chair, and she was lighting a cigarette with the cool assurance of an old friend. Cora blew out the match and pitched it short of the fireplace.

"He's your sweetie, they tell me?"

The colour came and went in the girl's face.

"How absurd!" she said indignantly. "My sweetheart, you mean? I know Mr. Wembury—that is all. And really, Mrs. Milton, I haven't the time to discuss either my brother or Mr. Wembury. If you will tell me what is your business I shall be glad."

A cone of smoke went up from the red lips. Cora's eyes were examining the ceiling as though she were more interested in the cracked plaster than in John Lenley or the detective.

"He doesn't matter," she said, "and he's your trouble, anyway. You work for Meister—that's why I'm here. Meister has certainly a mean taste." (Mary gathered that this was a compliment and that the "mean" was employed in an ironic sense.) "Do you see all his visitors, young lady?"

The girl's patience was now exhausted.

"I absolutely refuse to discuss Mr. Meister's business either," she said. "A woman of your intelligence should have better taste than to question an employee"

"Listen!" Mrs. Milton jerked her lithe body upright. "I guess I'd better tell you something. I know all about the 'taste' of it. But I've got too much at stake to worry about my good manners. I'm looking for a man. You say you haven't got a sweetie, and that may be true. I hoped you had, and then you'd have understood me better. I've got a husband, and likely as not he'll be calling on Meister—yes, ma'am. He'll not start anything right away, because that's not Arthur's system. I want to get him before he gets Meister. And I can only do that if I've got a friend in the office who can keep tag on the callers and describe 'em to me day by day. See what I mean, kid? I've got money—Arthur's a gentleman and wouldn't take a cent from a lady—and I'll pay."

"For what?" asked the astonished Mary.

"Information. I'm not asking you to tell me anything about his other business—I get all my knowledge of crooks and shysters first hand. I want you to see me every night and just tell me who's been calling. If you know them you can leave 'em out; it's the unknowns I want to classify."

Mary nodded, and her unwelcome guest evidently accepted this as a sign of agreement with her suggestion, for she got up.

"That's that," she said, and opened her bag. "I'll give you ten pounds on account"

"I understand what you want," said Mary quietly, "and of course I shall do nothing so dishonest. You had better employ a detective to watch the house if you're anxious to find your husband."

Cora's brows met.

"Is that so?" she asked softly. "Nothing so dishonest, eh? Say, do you want to see Meister in the morgue? Because that's where he's going if you don't help me. And listen,honey: maybe I'm a little too abrupt with you, and I've got you mad. The man I want to keep track of is a sick-looking fellow with"

Mary shook her head.

"I can't help you," she said definitely, and Cora Milton was silent.

She walked to the door and stood holding the handle, her eyes examining the pattern of the floor-cloth.

"Maybe he'll get Wembury too," she said at last; and long after she had gone Mary Lenley stood by the table repeating the words to herself.