The Tiger in the Well, Page 21

  "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 morning that all the stocks, shares, 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.

  "Goodnight, sir," he said, endeavouring to sound positive and project an impression of vigour and efficiency. "I shall bring you that financial information tomorrow morning, sir. Goodnight."

  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 blonde, 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 day before's The Times.

  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 little 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 on to it, and find that woman."

  Mr Bushell, unacquainted with the mysteries of Oriental Mind Control, wilted visibly. Then he nodded and 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?"

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE ORDER OF SANCTISSIMA SOPHIA

  Mr Parrish had many contacts on the unsavoury 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 none the less each determined to look well 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-coloured 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 kind-hearted gentleman with five 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 c
lients 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 true. He took away a lot of papers and things. I tried to stop him, but he said his warrant empowered 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 appears to have taken him to St Anselm's for a cure makes it only too likely, I'm afraid, that I'm not. But perhaps 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, and 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 of the Blessed and Holy Sanctissima Sophia.

  The house was well looked after, and the garden was tidy, if rather austere. She rang the doorbell, and after a minute the door was opened by a thin man dressed as a Catholic priest.

  "Good afternoon," she said. "I've come to see Mr Beech."

  He looked a little pained.

  "Mr Beech is. . . Well, he is in the house. . . Is he expecting you?"

  "No, but he'll know who I am when he sees me," she said. "My name is Lockhart."

  She spoke as pleasantly as she could. There was something narrow and fastidious about this man, with his slightly preposterous gold medallion on its chain around his neck, and his amethyst ring. She didn't want to have the door shut in her face. He made his mind up, and stepped aside.

  "Well, you'd better wait in the hall," he said.

  Dark, oppressive furniture, meticulously cleaned and polished; a scent of incense in the air; a feeling of impersonality. The priest awkwardly gestured to a chair for her, and vanished up the stairs. She sat and waited. Apart from the incense and the oddly institutional feeling, there was nothing to mark this house out as being the headquarters of the Order of the Most Holy Sophia's Emanation, whatever that was.

  Five minutes went past, and then she heard someone coming downstairs. He reached the bottom and turned: a thin, sallow, elderly-looking man, dressed like the one who'd let her in, and with the same golden device on a chain around his neck.

  "Mr Beech?" she said.

  "I am," he replied. "I am afraid I don't know who you are, Miss Lockhart. I am not sure how I can help you."

  "Were you once the Rector of St Thomas's in Portsmouth?"

  "I was, but for some time now I have. . ."

  His voice sagged. She looked at him in alarm, for he looked as if he were going to faint. He'd suddenly realized who she was.

  She wasn't going to help him. She watched as he struggled to a chair. He looked as though he wanted to sink on to it, but he held the back and stayed upright.

  "You had better come into the library," he said in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.

  He opened the door for her. The library was not much of one; a few shelves of books, a table, some chairs, and over the mantelpiece a painting in the symbolist manner, full of people with haloes, and golden rays, and ecstatic expressions.

  She sat down and he shut the door.

  "You know why I've come," she said.

  "Yes."

  "You falsified a marriage register to make it look as if I'd married a Mr Parrish."

  "I. . . Yes."

  He was standing brokenly by the table, twisting the golden medallion between his fingers. In the clearer light in here, Sally could see that it wasn't gold at all, but brass. It consisted of a vaguely female shape surrounded by rays, as if she were giving off light.

  "What is that?" she said, after a few moments' silence.

  "The symbol of Sanctissima Sophia, the Most Holy Wisdom."

  "And what is this . . . Order of yours?"

  "A group, a band of . . . of initiates devoted to the understanding, the propagation, so to speak, of the Holy Wisdom."

  "The Holy Wisdom? Is t
hat different from the everyday kind?"

  "It. . . Naturally, there is an esoteric aspect which I cannot. . . Degrees of initiation. . . It is a complex system, based ultimately on the idea of salvation through, through, through knowledge. . .Avery ancient doctrine. . . Gnostic. . ."

  "So if you know the right things you go to Heaven. Yes, well, I can understand that. The opposite is not knowing things, and that's pretty hellish, Mr Beech. I didn't know for three years that I was married to Mr Parrish, for instance. Is that an example of the secret knowledge you're so devoted to?"

  "Miss Lockhart, I beg you to allow me to explain. . ."

  "That's exactly what I've come for."

  He pulled out a chair and sat down across the table. His skin was loose, papery and yellow; he looked as if he'd been profoundly ill. Nicholas's Crockford's Clerical Directory had revealed that he was in his early fifties, but he looked eighty. His eyes were watery and bloodshot. She had never seen such guilt, such weakness, such misery, such - what? There was a cunning stubbornness in his face, too, which she did not like.

  "Well?" she said.

  "It was something which occurred when I was not altogether in my full health," he said. His eyes would look at her a moment, and then flick away again. "Since I was a young man, as a missionary in the tropics, I have been subject to a . . . a . . . an affliction which renders me, from time to time, perhaps . . . ah . . . less sure in my judgement than I should be. This incident. . . To my intense regret, my profound embarrassment. . . It fell in one of those periods."

  "Why did you do it?"

  "I have explained. I cannot be sure of my actions at such times. . . It was a deplorable lapse, truly deplorable. I admit it freely."

  "I asked why. Why did you do it? Did he make you?"

  "He?"

  "Parrish, of course."

  "It is hard to be sure, at this distance. . . Please believe me, I was not acting from malice; I had no idea that there was really anyone of your name. . . It was of the nature of a jest, a sportive essay in. . ."