The Tiger in the Well, Page 27

  James Wentworth knocked at the door of the office in Bengal Court. Cicely Corrigan, who opened it tentatively, sighed with relief and let him in.

  "Miss Haddow!" she called. "It's the lawyer - Mr Wentworth - I'm sorry, sir," she said, turning back to him; "we've been upside down today. . ."

  "Come in, Mr Wentworth," said Margaret, and the lawyer limped through, leaving his hat and coat with Cicely.

  Margaret poured him some tea, without needing to ask whether he'd like any. He was pale, she thought, and he sat down as if he were aching in every limb.

  "Well, it took all day," he began, "but I've held them off for the time being. I won't go into the technicalities, but you can write cheques again, on your Number One account at least. They've agreed to honour them on your signature alone, provided that you don't exceed twenty pounds a time."

  "Then the first thing I'll do is pay your fee," she said.

  "I haven't finished the job yet."

  "If I don't pay you when we've still got money, I certainly won't be able to pay you when we haven't," she said, opening the cheque book. Besides, she thought, you need it, by the look of you. She wrote a cheque and tore it out.

  "Have you any idea where Miss Lockhart is?" he said.

  "None. I'm very worried, Mr Wentworth. You know the Shelter's been raided?"

  He raised his eyebrows. "Raided? By whom?"

  "This morning. By the police. They ransacked the place from attics to cellars. She wasn't there, of course. The woman in charge admitted nothing, but she told me afterwards she didn't know where Sally was anyway. According to the doctor, last thing yesterday Sally cropped her hair short and left. So she must have somewhere else to stay."

  "Cropped her hair? Is she hoping to disguise herself? She'll have to do a good job - I've seen an excellent photograph of her only this afternoon, on display outside a police station. She's in serious trouble, Miss Haddow, and I can't help her till she asks me to."

  "And gives herself up."

  "Just so."

  "She won't. You don't know her; she'll fight. . ."

  "I hope you don't mean that literally."

  "I do. She's got a pistol, and she's used it."

  He was silent. He looked grim.

  "I know there are better ways of solving her problems," Margaret went on, "but she's tried them, and look where they've got her. Do you realize how everything's been stacked against her?"

  "I'm beginning to. And it makes me all the more convinced that she shouldn't add to the problem by shooting anyone. Tell me - you don't know anything about this Mr Goldberg, do you?"

  She shook her head. "I've seen him once or twice. I . . . I'd trust him. . . In a sort of gallant-highwayman way. . . A musketeer or something. . . I don't know how serious he is."

  "I think I've found out enough to know that he's serious. I must say I quite admire what I've heard. But it's a dangerous business, facing a murder charge."

  He was quiet and authoritative, this ugly little limping man. Margaret, like Sally, valued competence when she saw it; it was one of the reasons they liked each other.

  She turned her head, hearing voices outside: Cicely's and another girl's. The newcomer sounded agitated.

  Margaret took a step towards the door, but it opened before she got to it. In the doorway stood a girl of eighteen or so, who looked as though she'd been crying.

  "Miss Haddow? I don't know who else to come to - I'm from Orchard House, miss, I'm Harriet's nurse -"

  "Sarah-Jane Russell. Of course I remember you. What is it? Have you seen Miss Lockhart?"

  "No, miss - but they've thrown us out -"

  She was trembling, whether from cold or distress or both. James Wentworth offered her his chair.

  "I'm a lawyer, Miss Russell, and I'm acting for this firm. What's happened? Who's thrown you out?"

  Sarah sat helplessly. "Some men came to the house today. They had papers - warrants - I don't know - they said that it belonged to Mr Parrish now, and everything in it was his as well - and they paid us a week's wages and told us all - that's me and the cook and Ellie the maid - told us all that we were dismissed and we had to leave at once. They had a locksmith with them and he's changing all the locks - I'm just . . . I don't know what to do. . . Oh, miss, what's going to happen?"

  Chapter Twenty-two

  THE CELLAR

  Sally didn't have time before she was in bed to think of Goldberg, or even much of Harriet, though as soon as her head touched the hard pillow, all her anxieties returned. And it was unbearable, because her little child was crying for her.

  Sally felt such a tug of anguish that she couldn't repress a sob of her own. She lay still, clutching the pillow to her as if it were Harriet, and letting the sobs shake themselves out of her throat as quietly as she could.

  But Eliza was awake.

  "Louisa, you all right?" came a whisper from the other bed. "What's the matter, love?"

  Sally swallowed hard. "I were just . . . thinking about my mother," she whispered. It was hateful to lie; it felt like denying Harriet. But she knew she had to.

  "Mrs Wilson said summing about you and your mother earlier. . ."

  Good, thought part of Sally's mind. The deception's building up.

  "She's not well, you see," she whispered back, "and I were that desperate to get her a bit of money . . . I put it in the post this morning. . . It were the last I had."

  She sniffed. Her face was wet with tears, but the real sorrow was curiously muted now. How strange it was that by acting one kind of feeling you could subdue another!

  She reached for a handkerchief to dry her tears.

  Eliza whispered, "She's not bad, Mrs Wilson."

  "She was kind to me."

  "She can be a bit sharp, but she's all right. Mr Clegg's all right really. It's that valet I can't stand. All them others, come to that. He's real taken with you, Louisa. You know, since I bin here, it's the first time in me life I was glad I weren't pretty. It's not only him, neither. It's the master. . ."

  Sally's skin crawled. "What d'you mean?"

  "Well. . ."

  There was the sound of the bed creaking as Eliza rolled over to a more comfortable position. It was too dark to see her, and the rain lashing on the roof not far above their heads made it hard to hear whispers.

  "No one'll tell you anything about the master. If you ask, they'll warn you off. It's as if he didn't have no life at all outside whatever he wants doing at the moment. In me last place, Sir Charles Dyhouse's, we was gossiping all the time in the kitchen about how Sir Charles was doing in Parliament, or who was coming to stay, all that kind of thing. When there was a party staying one time, there was a gentleman called Mr Priestley and he used to creep along to Lady Dyhouse's room and back again first thing in the morning. We got up extra early once, three of us, just to catch him in his nightshirt. Each of us popped up round a corner with a bucket of coals or an armful of linen - he'd just got past one when he came on another of us. "Good morning, Mr Priestley!" we'd say, nice and loud and cheery-like. He went ever so red. He give us a nice tip though, so we didn't do it next time he came."

  Sally laughed and blew her nose.

  "I remember shooting parties like that," she said. "You could tell who was, you know, 'cause the mistress knew and arranged their rooms so they didn't have far to go."

  "Yeah, and you talked about it, didn't you? S'only natural. But not here. We don't say a word about him. Sort of as if we was all afraid. Anyway, what I was going to say, I ain't spoken to anyone in the kitchen about him - the master. Only Lucy, her as was here before you. She told me once she saw Mr Michelet take a girl down to the master. In the cellar. One of those sort of girls - you know. And Mr Michelet told her afterwards, and she told me, what the master does is he just looks at the girl. Just looks at her for hours on end. Then Mr Michelet pays her a bit of money and shows her out. He'd've had Lucy down there too, her being pretty, only Mr Michelet took care to keep her away from the master so he never saw her, and Mr
Michelet had her to hisself. Didn't do her any good, mind you."

  "Where did he take her? To the cellar? What's down there?"

  "I don't know. Mr Michelet does all the cleaning hisself down there, the house staff ain't allowed. They just put a new hydraulic whatnot in. They used to have to lower the master down in a sort of hand-operated one. There's all kinds of new things been put in - there's wires been brought to the house and down into the cellar, you know, telegraph wires or summing. There's probly all kinds of things down there, but we'll never see 'em."

  "Has he ever spoken to you?"

  "The master? No, nor set eyes on me. Except when I takes the tea in or fetches coals or whatever he wants. It's like an hotel, this place, this staff. Not like his own, sort of thing. He don't know our names; it don't matter to him."

  "Where does he get his money from?"

  "Gawd knows. No, it's not a bad place, all things considered." Eliza yawned. "Listen to that blooming rain. We'll have washing all over the kitchen to dry if it carries on."

  She turned over. After a minute or two Sally heard a gentle snore. She lay still, the tears dry on her face, her mind and body fully awake.

  This room, like the other servants' rooms, was on the top floor under the attics. Below this were the rooms belonging to the master's own staff, the secretary, his physician and so on, whom Sally had only glimpsed distantly. Below that was the master's own bedroom, dressing room and bathroom, with the valet's room close by. Then there was the ground floor, and below that, the kitchen - and, she now knew, the cellar.

  Well, she'd come here to find things out. There was nothing for it but to go and look.

  She slipped out of bed, put on a pair of dark stockings, and then (with second thoughts) another pair as well on top of those. Her nightdress was white, but her cloak was dark brown, and if she tucked the nightdress up and put the hood over her head, nothing light would show.

  She had some matches in her basket. She took them, and the stump of candle from the candlestick between the beds, and opened the door.

  She heard a church clock striking twelve. The house was silent, and absolutely dark. The thick clouds and heavy rain meant that there was no light from the sky, and the streetlamps below were so feeble that nothing of their glimmer came through the narrow landing window. She'd have to navigate by feeling her way.

  She set off down the back stairs. She knew them well enough by now. She didn't stop on the next floor down, but when she came to the floor where the master and his valet slept, she pushed open the baize door that separated the servants' stairs from the rest of the house. A gaslight hissed quietly on a bracket outside the double door to the master's bedroom. This was opposite the lift, which was kept open at whichever floor he happened to be on. Right next to the servants' staircase was the valet's room. Sally could see a glimmer of light under the door, and closed the baize door silently.

  She went down to the ground floor and looked briefly through. The only light came from the gaslamp on the landing above. She went down the half-flight to the kitchen, taking immense care not to make a sound. Once she'd made sure there was no one there, she came back up to the ground floor again and went out into the hall.

  She was glad of her double stockings, because the floor was cold. Dining room - drawing room - library - lift; was the lift the only way down to the cellar, then? Surely not, because there must be another way out in case it failed. Somewhere there must be a staircase. But it wasn't in the hall, and there was no way down from the kitchen.

  She went silently across to the drawing room. All the rooms had double doors, to let the wheelchair through, and they were all in good order and well oiled; none of them squeaked. She slipped in quickly and shut the door behind her with a click that sounded very loud in the silence.

  The blinds were shut, but the faintest of glimmers still came from the embers in the fireplace. When her eyes had adjusted, and when she had located the main pieces of furniture, she moved around them carefully, looking for a way down to the cellar which she might have missed before.

  There wasn't one. She turned to go, and listened intently at the door before opening it and going back into the hall.

  For a moment she thought they'd discovered her and turned the light up, because even the faint light from upstairs was bright in comparison with the firelight in the drawing room. Her heart leapt, but there was no sound, no movement, nothing; she was still alone and undiscovered.

  She felt more vulnerable than ever, though. She was frightened: she couldn't deny it. But it was no good going back.

  She opened the door to the library, slipped through, and closed it again in a moment. This was totally black: the fire had gone out. A smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air.

  Should she light a match? Well, what else was she going to do?

  She found the candle and struck a match with trembling fingers, shaking it out when the candle was alight and throwing it in the grate. A stream of hot wax instantly coated her fingers, but she took no notice, moving swiftly around the room, looking between the bookshelves and past the large glass-fronted cabinet that contained Chinese porcelain.

  And then in the corner she saw a door. It wasn't shut - in fact a wedge held it open. A narrow flight of steps led down into the darkness, and a strong smell of paint came from it. Pausing only to listen and make sure there was no one coming, she set off down the steps.

  They turned sharply at the bottom, where another door was propped open. The smell of paint was even stronger.

  The first room was bare. A freshly laid wooden floor, bare white-painted walls, and nothing else. A door led from that into a much larger room, which was furnished, though dustsheets covered the chairs and table to keep them from the paint. The great iron cage of the lift occupied the very centre of the room, with its pipework from the London Hydraulic Company and its iron grille both newly painted.

  There was one other room beyond, again with an open door. She was moving towards that when she felt rather than heard a faint, very distant rumbling, like the sensation of a great engine running some way off, or like water rushing over a weir. It seemed to come from the brickwork itself, and she was tempted to put a hand on the wall to see - but remembered the wet paint in time. Instead she knelt and put her hand to the floor, and yes, it was trembling ever so slightly.

  What did that mean? Was there some engine further below? Impossible to guess.

  Then the lift moved behind her.

  She gasped, and her hand shook so suddenly that the candle fell from her grasp and went out at once.

  Simultaneously, she saw a light at the top of the stairs - so she couldn't go out that way. Desperate with fear, she swept her hand across the floor for the candle - couldn't leave it there - found it, and the pool of wax that had spilled from it - got up, felt for the other door (never mind the paint now) and was in the next room just as the lift reached the bottom and sighed to a halt.

  She stood behind the open door, next to the wall, and held her breath, conscious of the sharp hot smell of the snuffed candle. In the silence, the lift doors clattered open, and someone stepped out into the room.

  Earlier that evening, a meeting had taken place in the hall of the Whitechapel Ethical and Temperance League. This was a body so high-minded that it believed censorship was abhorrent, and would hire out its premises to anyone, even if they wanted to advocate the force-feeding of infants with stolen whisky.

  The Ethical and Temperance League had done a lot of deploring in their time - taking their visitors' money while wringing their hands over the regrettable things they were saying - but they had their work cut out that night, for Mr Arnold Fox was on the platform.

  He was addressing a meeting on the subject of alien immigration, as if he ever spoke on anything else. The audience knew what they were going to get, but no one minds having a prejudice confirmed, and he was in good form: his high rich voice throbbing with sincerity as it told them how noble they were, how rich and pure was their English stoc
k.

  But they liked it best when he got on to how low and verminous were those outside, how filthy their habits, how rotten their bodies with every sort of disease. That was what the audience had come for, and the loathsome subhuman life-forms seemed to throng and gibber in the air as he described them: those red-rimmed eyes, those rotten teeth, those greasy locks, those fleshy noses, that foul stench. . . The audience sighed and shivered with delicious horror.

  Then he excited them even more.

  "Purity!" he throbbed. "Purity. . . An English girl's birthright, an English rose's most precious possession, the holy temple of her womanhood, her most sacred jewel - ravished! Torn asunder! Plundered and defiled by these bestial monsters of lust and every kind of depravity. . ."

  There's nothing like sex for steaming people up. It always works.

  At the back of the crowded hall, a dark-eyed man with a cloth cap and a grey muffler stood and watched. Not the speaker - he'd seen him plenty of times before; he was watching the audience, and he didn't like the craziness Fox was summoning up. He turned to the man beside him and said softly, "Call 'em off, Dick. Breaking up an ordinary meeting's one thing, but these people are going mad. Best thing tonight is find out all we can. Watch him - listen - trail him. See who's paying. But no violence."

  "The boys are ready for it, Mr Goldberg," said the other man.

  "Then unready them," said Goldberg, his dark eyes cold. "Can't you see the stewards? Didn't you see the coppers outside? Which would you rather - be reckless and lose, or be clever and win? Don't bother to answer; you'd get it wrong. Just do as I say. I'll fix him, you'll see."

  The other man nodded mournfully, and slipped away to pass on Goldberg's message. Goldberg turned back to the platform - only to feel his sleeve tugged on the other side. He looked round to find the slight, anxious figure of a young man in spectacles.

  "Reuben Singer?" he said quietly, under the rant of Fox and the ugly clamour from the audience. "You're Katz's apprentice, aren't you? What are you doing here? This is dangerous!"

  "You're here, Mr Goldberg, and there's a price on your head. . ."