‘Back early, aren’t you?’
‘Yes – business was slack. Somebody been to tea?’
‘Yes, young Welbeck. About the arrangements for the Drama Society.’ She spoke briefly but with an undertone of excitement.
A qualm came over Mr Mummery. Would a guest be any protection? His face must have shown his feelings, for Ethel stared at him in amazement.
‘What's the matter Harold, you look so queer.’
‘Darling,’ said Mr Mummery, ‘there’s something I want to tell you about.’ He sat down and took her hand in his. ‘Something a little unpleasant, I’m afraid—’
‘Oh, ma’am!’
The cook was in the doorway.
‘I beg your pardon, sir – I didn’t know you was in. Will you be taking tea or can I clear away? And oh, ma’am, there was a young man at the fishmonger’s and he’s just come from Grimsby and they’ve caught that dreadful woman – that Mrs Andrews. Isn’t it a good thing? It worritted me dreadful to think she was going about like that, but they’ve caught her. Taken a job as housekeeper she had to two elderly ladies and they found the wicked poison on her. Girl as spotted her will get a reward. I been keeping my eyes open for her, but it’s at Grimsby she was all the time.’
Mr Mummery clutched at the arm of his chair. It had all been a mad mistake then. He wanted to shout or cry. He wanted to apologise to this foolish, unpleasant, excited woman. All a mistake.
But there had been the cocoa. Mr Dimthorpe. Marsh’s test. Five grains of arsenic. Who, then—?
He glanced around at his wife, and in her eyes he saw something that he had never seen before . . .
THE LEOPARD LADY
‘If the boy is in your way,’ said a voice in Tressider’s ear, ‘ask at Rapallo’s for Smith & Smith.’
Tressider started and looked round. There was nobody near him – unless you counted the bookstall clerk, and the aged gentleman with crooked pince-nez half-way down his nose, who stood poring over a copy of Blackwood’s. Obviously, neither of these two could have uttered that sinister whisper. A yard or two away stood a porter, wearily explaining to a militant woman and a dejected little man that the 5.30 having now gone there was no other train before 9.15. All three were utter strangers to Tressider. He shook himself. It must have been his own subconscious wish that had externalised itself in this curious form. He must keep a hold on himself. Hidden wishes that took shape as audible promptings and whisperings were apt to lead to Colney Hatch – or Broadmoor.
But what in the world had suggested the names ‘Rapallo’s’ and ‘Smith & Smith’? Rapallo – that was a town in Italy or somewhere, he fancied. But the word had come to him as ‘Rapallo’s’ as though it were the name of a firm or person. And ‘Smith & Smith’, too. Fantastic. Then he glanced up at the bookstall. Of course, yes – ‘W. H. Smith & Son’; that must have been the point from which the suggestion had started, and his repressed desires had somehow pushed their message past his censor in that preposterous sentence.
‘If the boy is in your way, ask at Rapallo’s for Smith & Smith.’
He let his eye wander over the books and magazines spread out on the stall. Was there anything – yes, there was. A pile of little red books, of which the topmost bore the title: ‘How to ask for What you Want in ITALY.’ There was the other factor of the equation. ‘Italy’ had been the match laid to the train, and the resulting spark had been, queerly but understandably enough, ‘Rapallo’s’.
Satisfied, he handed a shilling across the stall and asked for the Strand Magazine. He tucked his purchase under his arm and then, glancing at the station clock, decided that he had just time for a quick one before his train went. He turned into the buffet, pausing on the way to buy a packet of cigarettes at the kiosk, where the militant woman was already arming herself with milk-chocolate against her wait for the 9.15. He noticed, with a certain grim satisfaction, that the dejected man had made his escape, and was not altogther surprised to encounter him again in the buffet, hurriedly absorbing something yellow out of a glass.
He was some little time getting served, for there was quite a crowd about the bar. But even if he did miss his train, there was another in twenty minutes’ time, and his odd experience had shaken him. The old gentleman with Blackwood’s had drifted up to the door by the time he left, and, indeed, nearly collided with Tressider in his short-sighted progress. Tressider absently apologised for what was not his fault, and made for the barrier. Here there was again a trifling delay while he searched for his ticket, and a porter who stood beside him with some hand-luggage eventually lost patience and pushed past him with a brief, ‘By your leave, sir.’ Eventually, however, he found himself in a first-class carriage with four minutes to spare.
He threw his hat up on to the rack and himself into a corner seat, and immediately, with an automatic anxiety to banish his own thoughts, opened his magazine. As he did so, a card fluttered from between the leaves on to his knee. With an exclamation of impatience directed against the advertisers who filled the pages of magazines with insets, he picked it up, intending to throw it under the seat. A line of black capitals caught his eyes:
SMITH & SMITH
and beneath, in smaller type:
Removals.
He turned the card over. It was about the size of an ‘At Home’ card. The other side was completely blank. There was no address; no explanation. An impulse seized him. He snatched up his hat and made for the door. The train was moving as he sprang out, and he staggered as his feet touched the platform. A porter sprang to his side with a warning shout.
‘Shouldn’t do that, sir,’ said the man, reprovingly.
‘All right, all right,’ said Tressider, ‘I’ve left something behind.’
‘That’s dangerous, that is,’ said the porter. ‘Against regulations.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Tressider, fumbling for a coin. As he handed it over, he recognised the porter as the man who had jostled him at the barrier and had stood behind him at the bookstall talking to the militant woman and the dejected man. He dismissed the man hastily, feeling unaccountably uneasy under his official eye. He ran past the barrier with a hasty word to the ticket collector who still stood there, and made his way back to the bookstall.
‘Strand Magazine,’ he demanded, curtly, and then, thinking he caught an astonished expression in the eye of the clerk, he muttered:
‘Dropped the other.’
The clerk said nothing, but handed over the magazine and accepted Tressider’s shilling. Only when he was turning away did Tressider realise that he was still clutching the original copy of the Strand under his arm. Well, let the man think what he liked.
Unable to wait, he dived into the General Waiting Room and shook the new Strand open. Several insets flew out – one about learning new languages by gramophone, one about Insurance, one about Hire Purchase Payments. He gathered them up and tossed them aside again. Then he examined the magazine, page by page. There was no white card with the name ‘Smith & Smith’.
He stood, trembling, in the dusty gas-light of the waiting room. Had he imagined the card? Was his brain playing tricks with him again? He could not remember what he had done with the card. He searched both magazines and all his pockets. It was not there. He must have left it in the train.
He must have left it in the train.
Sweat broke out upon his forehead. It was a terrible thing to go mad. If he had not seen that card – but he had seen it. He could see the shape and spacing of the black capitals distinctly.
After a moment or two, an idea came to him. A firm that advertised itself must have an address, perhaps a telephone number. But, of course, not necessarily in London. Those magazines went all over the world. What was the good of advertising without a name or address? Still, he would look. The words ‘Smith & Smith, Removals’, in the London Telephone Directory would steady his nerves considerably.
He went out and sought the nearest telephone cabinet. The directory hung there on its stout chain. Only when he
opened it did he realise how many hundred firms called ‘Smith & Smith’ there might be in London. The small print made his eyes ache, but he persevered, and was at length rewarded by finding an entry: ‘Smith & Smith, Frntre Removrs & Haulage Cntrctrs’, with an address in Greenwich.
That should have satisfied him, but it did not. He could not believe that a firm of Furniture Removers and Haulage Contractors at Greenwich would advertise, without address, in a magazine of world-wide circulation. Only firms whose name was a household word could do that kind of thing. And besides, in that second Strand there had been no advertisement.
Then how had that card got there? Had the bookstall clerk slipped it in? Or the militant woman who had stood beside him at the tobacco kiosk? Or the dejected man sipping whisky and soda in the buffet? Or the old gentleman who had passed him in the entrance? Or the porter who had waited behind him at the barrier? It came suddenly into his mind that all these five had been near him when he had heard the voice of his repressed wish whisper so persuasively, and so objectively:
‘If the boy is in your way, ask at Rapallo’s for Smith & Smith.’
With a kind of greedy reluctance he turned the pages of the Telephone Directory backwards to R.
There is was. There could be no mistake about it this time.
‘Rapallo’s Sandwich & Cocktail Bar,
with an address in Conduit Street.
A minute later, Tressider was hailing a taxi outside the station. His wife would be expecting him, but she must wait. He had often been detained in town before.
He gave the taxi the Conduit Street address.
It was a small place, but had nothing sinister about it. Clean, white-draped tables with individual lights and a big mahogany bar, whose wide semi-circle took up nearly half the available floor-space. The door closed behind Tressider with a comfortable, chuckling click. He went up to the bar, and with an indescribable fluttering of the heart, said to the white-coated attendant:
‘I was told to ask here for Messrs Smith & Smith.’
‘What name, sir?’ asked the man, showing neither hesitation nor surprise.
‘Jones,’ said Tressider, uninventively.
‘Maurice, have we any message for a Mr Jones from – whom did you say, sir? Oh yes. From Messrs Smith & Smith?’
The second barman turned round and enveloped Tressider in a brief, searching glance.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Quite right, sir. Mr Smith is expecting you. Will you step this way?’
He led Tressider to the back of the room, where a stoutish, middle-aged man in a dark tweed suit was seated at a table eating an American sandwich.
The stout man looked up, revealing small chubby features beneath an enormous expanse of polished and dome-like skull. He smiled pleasantly.
‘You are magnificently punctual,’ he said in a clear, soft voice, with a fluting quality which made it very delightful to listen to. ‘I hardly expected you to get here quite so soon.’ And then, as the barman turned away, he added:
‘Pray sit down, Mr Tressider.’
‘You look a little unnerved,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Perhaps you had a rush from the station. Let me recommend one of Rapallo’s special cocktails.’ He made a sign to the barman, who brought over two glasses filled with a curious dark-coloured liqueur. ‘You will find it slightly bitter, but very effective. You need not be alarmed, by the way. Choose whichever glass you like and leave me the other. It is quite immaterial which.’
Tressider, a little confounded by the smiling ease with which Mr Smith read his thoughts, took one of the glasses at random. Mr Smith immediately took the other and drunk off one-half of the contents. Tressider sipped his. The liqueur was certainly bitter but not altogether unpleasant.
‘It will do you good,’ said Mr Smith, prosaically. ‘The boy, I take it, is quite well?’ he went on, almost in the same breath.
‘Perfectly well,’ said Tressider, staring.
‘Of course. Your wife takes such good care of him, doesn’t she? A thoroughly good and conscientious woman, as most women are, bless their dear hearts. The child is six years old, I think?’
‘Rising six.’
‘Just so. A long time to go yet before he attains his majority. Fifteen years – yes, a considerable time, in which very many things may happen. You yourself, for instance, will be hard on sixty – the best part of your life at an end, while his is just beginning. He is a young gentleman of great expectations, to quote the divine Dickens. And he is starting well, despite the sad handicap of losing both his parents at so early an age. A fine, healthy youngster, is he not? No measles? mumps? whooping-cough? that sort of thing?’
‘Not so far,’ muttered Tressider.
‘No. Your almost-parental care has shielded him from all the ills that youthful flesh is heir to. How wise your brother was, Mr Tressider. Some people might have thought it foolish of him to leave Cyril in your sole guardianship, considering that there was only his little life between you and the Tressider estate. Foolish – and even inconsiderate. For, after all, it is a great responsibility, is it not? A child seems to hold its life by so frail a tenure. But your brother was a wise man, after all. Knowing your upright, virtuous wife and yourself so well, he did the best thing he could possibly have done for Cyril when he left him in your care. Eh?’
‘Of course,’ said Tressider, thickly.
Mr Smith finished his liqueur.
‘You are not drinking,’ he protested.
‘Look here,’ said Tressider, gulping down the remainder of his drink, ‘you seem to know a lot about me and my affairs.’
‘Oh, but that is common knowledge, surely. The doings of so rich and fortunate a little boy as Cyril Tressider are chronicled in every newspaper paragraph. Perhaps the newspapers do not know quite so much about Mr Tressider, his uncle and guardian. They may not realise quite how deeply he was involved in the Megatherium catastrophe, nor how much he has lost in one way or another on the turf. Still, they know, naturally, that he is an upright English gentleman and that both he and his wife are devoted to the boy.’
Tressider leaned his elbow on the table and, holding his head propped on his hand, tried to read Mr Smith’s countenance. He found it difficult, for Mr Smith and the room and everything about him seemed to advance and recede in the oddest manner. He thought he might be in for a dose of fever.
‘Children . . .’ Mr Smith’s voice fluted towards him from an enormous distance. ‘Accidents, naturally, will sometimes happen. No one can prevent it. Childish ailments may leave distressing after effects . . . babyish habits, however judiciously checked, may lead . . . Pardon me, I fear you are not feeling altogether the thing.’
‘I feel damned queer,’ said Tressider. ‘I – at the station today – hallucinations – I can’t understand—’
Suddenly, from the pit in which it had lurked, chained and growling, Terror leapt at him. It shook his bones and cramped his stomach. It was like a palpable enemy, suffocating and tearing him. He gripped the table. He saw Mr Smith’s huge face loom down upon him, immense, immeasurable.
‘Dear, dear!’ The voice boomed in his ear like a great silver bell. ‘You are really not well. Allow me. Just a sip of this.’
He drank, and the Terror, defeated, withdrew from him. A vast peace surged over his brain. He laughed. Everything was jolly, jolly, jolly. He wanted to sing.
Mr Smith beckoned to the barman.
‘Is the car ready?’ he asked.
Tressider stood by Mr Smith’s side. The car had gone, and they were alone before the tall green gates that towered into the summer twilight. Mile upon mile they had driven through town and country; mile upon mile, with the river rolling beside them and the scent of trees and water blown in upon the July breeze. They had been many hours upon the journey and yet the soft dusk was hardly deeper than when they had set out. For them, as for Joshua, sun and stars had stood still in their courses. That this was so, Tressider knew, for he was not drunk or dreaming. His senses had never been more acut
e, his perceptions more vivid. Every leaf upon the tall poplars that shivered above the gates was vivid to him with a particular beauty of sound, shape and odour. The gates, which bore in great letters the name ‘SMITH & SMITH – REMOVALS’, opened at Smith’s touch. The long avenue of poplars stretched up to a squat grey house with a pillared portico.
Many times in the weeks that followed, Tressider asked himself whether he had after all dreamed that strange adventure at the House of the Poplars. From the first whisper by the station bookstall to the journey by car down to his own home in Essex, every episode had had a nightmare quality. Yet surely, no nightmare had ever been so consecutive nor so clearly memorable in waking moments. There was the room with its pale grey walls and shining floor – a luminous pool in the soft mingling of electric light and dying daylight from the high, unshuttered windows. There were the four men – Mr Smith, of the restaurant; Mr Smyth, with his narrow yellow face disfigured by a scar like an acid burn; Mr Smythe, square and sullen, with short, strong hands and hairy knuckles; and Dr Schmidt, the giggling man with the scanty red beard and steel-rimmed spectacles. And there was the girl with the slanting golden eyes like a cat’s, he thought. They called her ‘Miss Smith’, but her name should have been Melusine.
Nor could he have dreamed the conversation, which was businesslike and brief.
‘It has long been evident to us,’ said Mr Smith, ‘that society is in need of a suitable organisation for the Removal of unnecessary persons. Private and amateur attempts at Removal are so frequently attended with subsequent inconvenience and even danger to the Remover, who, in addition, usually has to carry out his work with very makeshift materials. It is our pleasure and privilege to attend to all the disagreeable details of such Removals for our clients at a moderate – I may say, a merely nominal – expense. Provided our terms are strictly adhered to, we can guarantee our clients against all unpleasant repercussions, preserving, of course, inviolable secrecy as to the whole transaction.’