Blindfold (12 page)

“Is Mrs Smith alive?”

Flossie nodded.

“Mrs Syme she is now—26 Dawnish Road, Ledlington. Her husband's verger in one of the churches there, and she lets apartments, which is a thing I wouldn't do if it was ever so.”

Miles scribbled down the address on Flossie's own pale blue envelope, little knowing that the sight, and perhaps the scent, of this ornate piece of stationery was having a highly inflammatory effect upon Mr Bowden. The paper, the scent, the winking gold forget-me-not, had been Ernie's Christmas present. The pale blue box had been tied up with a length of gold cord. He had snatched a kiss, and if Flossie had not actually returned it, she had undoubtedly turned the other cheek. And now this Mr Clayton just takes one of the envelopes out of his pocket and scribbles on it. Flossie needn't think she could play fast and loose with him, and she needn't think he wasn't going deeper into how she had come to meet Mr Clayton at all. A friend of Mrs Gilmore's, was he? Well, then she ought by rights to have told Mrs Gilmore whatever she had to tell, and not go meeting him at street corners.

“26 Dawnish Road, Ledlington. Thank you ever so much, Flossie.”

“Oh, that's nothing, Mr Miles. I brought the photograph if you'd like to see it—picked it out of Aunt's album when I was home, and let's hope she won't find out, but I thought if you saw the writing you'd know if it's the same as on the letter, because of course there's hundreds of Smiths.”

Miles looked at her admiringly.

“That was clever,” he said.

“Ernie's got it,” said Flossie. “Ernie, where's that photo?” She came up close to him, slipped a hand into his pocket, and whispered,
“Ernie!
What's the matter?
Behave, can't you!”
Then with a little push she left him and put the photograph into Miles' hand.

He looked at it under the street-lamp, seeing at first only the high-shouldered coat and heavily trimmed hat. Under the wide brim there were two eyes and a nose, and rather a round flat face. The mouth was straight and hard. He wondered whether it would have anything to tell him. He turned the photograph over and read, in the same angular handwriting which had announced Mrs Macintyre's death, the selfsame signature:

“Yours truly Agnes Smith.”

CHAPTER XVI

Miles borrowed a car from Ian Gilmore and drove himself down to Ledlington next morning. It was one of those days which is not exactly foggy, but which you feel may at any moment spring a fog upon you. The hedgerows had a limp, discouraged look, and a low mist clung about field and valley.

Ledlington looked damp and dirty. He had never been there before, and he didn't think he ever wanted to come back again. He had not, of course, seen the statue of Sir Albert Dawnish which is the pride of the town. It is a very large statue indeed. From its pedestal Sir Albert in rigid marble trousers gazes proudly upon the scene of his first triumph. Here in this very square stood the first of the long line of Quick Cash Stores which have made him famous. It has passed into the realm of history, its place knows it no more; but the statue of Sir Albert is good for some hundreds of years. Miles missed the statue because he missed the Market Square. It is the only way you can miss it.

He asked for Dawnish Road, and presently found it. It was not quite so new a street as the name would imply. Once upon a time it had been Bismarck Avenue, but in 1914 the name went into the melting-pot with a good many other things, and in due course the street had Sir Albert for a godfather. The trees which had constituted it an avenue were first lopped and then cut down altogether, and it became, and had remained, Dawnish Road. The houses are of the genteel type, high and narrow, with a small garden in front of each.

Miles rang the bell of No. 26, and presently Mrs Syme opened the door. He knew her at once from the photograph in spite of more than twenty years difference in age. The same round, flat face. The same hard mouth. The light eyes looked at him exactly as they had looked from the photograph. Miles was the most friendly of creatures, but he didn't really feel drawn to Mrs Syme. She had a pale auburn front which looked as if it had been dead for years. She had a brooch containing somebody else's hair at the collar of her black stuff dress. Her house smelt of cabbage-water.

He said, “Mrs Syme?” and when she inclined her head without speaking he continued, “My name is Clayton, but you won't know it. I wonder—”

Mrs Syme interrupted.

“Will you come in? I've my second-floor bedroom and front sitting-room vacant—twenty-five shillings a room and extras.”

She threw open a door on the right and followed him into a dark narrow room encumbered with heavy mahogany furniture. Over a black marble mantelpiece there hung one of Doré's gloomier illustrations to
Paradise Lost
. Upon the shelf stood two cheap Italian vases in imitation bronze which imparted a funerary air. As much of the wall-paper as could be seen was olive-green.

“And would you be wanting the rooms immediately?” said Mrs Syme.

With an inward shudder Miles explained that he would not be wanting them at all. He would not have lodged at No. 26 Dawnish Road for anything in the world. Or would he? All the time he was explaining to Mrs Syme, a quirky imp was firing off questions in the back of his mind: “Come, come, you'd do it for double your salary.”—“I wouldn't!” “Three times—four times—five times?”—“I tell you I wouldn't!” “I put it to you that you'd do it for five thousand a year.” “Oh, shut up!” said Miles to the imp. And high time too. Mrs Syme was looking at him very coldly indeed.

“I must explain. Your niece, Miss Palmer, gave me your address.”

Mrs Syme did not sniff; Miles could have sworn to that. Yet he received the impression that she might have sniffed if she had not been brought up to know her manners and behave like a perfect lady.

“Perhaps if we could sit down—” he said.

Mrs Syme drew one of the chairs an inch or two away from the wall and sat down on the edge of it. It was an imitation Hepplewhite chair with a shield-shaped back and an imitation leather seat in rather a bright shade of brown mottled with black. Miles took another of the set and sat down too. The width of the room, and of a mutual dislike at first sight, separated them.

Miles made a manful effort.

“Mrs Syme, I've come down here to ask you to help me.” He saw her mouth tighten, but he went on. “Your niece thought you would be willing to help me. I've been trying to find you, but the only address I had was under your old name of Smith, at Laburnum Vale, Hampstead.”

She was looking at him now with attention. She did not speak. He went on.

“I think you let rooms there?”

“High-class apartments,” said Mrs Syme, looking past him at one of the funerary bronzes.

“Damn this woman!” said Miles to himself. “Well, Mrs Syme,” he said aloud, “the fact is, I want to ask you some questions about a Mrs Macintyre who, I believe, lived in your house for some months in 1914. You remember her, don't you?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Syme.

“She died in your house a week after her baby was born—”

“And had every attention,” said Mrs Syme.

“I'm sure she did. Well, she died, and you wrote to her husband in America. That was at the end of July.”

He opened a letter-case, took out and unfolded a sheet of cheap white paper, and brought it over to her. Her eyes rested indifferently upon the words written nearly twenty years ago. Miles watched her as she read them, and thought that she had not changed. He had always wondered what kind of woman had written that letter. Now he knew.

“Dear Sir,

Your wife died this morning. Please send money for funeral expenses and my account enclosed and oblige

Yours truly

Agnes Smith.”

“That was what you wrote?”

She said “Yes,” and gave him back the sheet with a look which dismissed him to the other side of the room again.

“Mrs Syme, did you ever hear from the husband?”

“No.”

“Then your account wasn't paid?”

“Her sister paid it.”

“Whose sister?”

“Mrs Macintyre's sister.”

“Mrs Syme, Mrs Macintyre had no sister.”

“She said she was her sister. It was no business of mine. She settled my account.”

“Yes,” said Miles—“and I want to know why. She settled your account, and she paid for the funeral, and she took away the baby, didn't she? And I want to know why.”

Mrs Syme said nothing. She had said that it was not her business. Now, without a word, she conveyed to Miles that it was not his business either. He reacted vigorously.

“I haven't explained why I'm asking you these questions, but I'm going to. Mrs Macintyre's husband is dead. I am his brother's secretary, and he has sent me over here to try and find his niece—the baby who was born in your house. We don't know anything at all about the person who called herself Mrs Macintyre's sister, and we don't know what happened to the baby after she took it away. We want to find out.”

“It was no business of mine,” said Mrs Syme.

Miles lost his temper a little.

“It might be,” he said. “Mrs Macintyre had some very valuable jewellery.”

“And what there was her sister took away, and I can't be held responsible,” said Mrs Syme, and shut her mouth tight.

All the same he had made her speak. He went on quickly.

“Had Mrs Macintyre ever spoken of this sister?”

Her eyes rested on him for a cold second.

“She wasn't one for gossip, and no more am I.”

“Nice and matey, aren't you, darling?” said Miles to himself. Then aloud, “Meaning she didn't mention any sister?”

That went by default.

It would have given him the greatest pleasure to throw one of the sham Italian bronzes at her. He wrenched himself away from the idea and ploughed on.

“Can you tell me what this ‘sister' was like?”

“I can't say that I can.”

“Tall? Short? Dark? Fair?”

“Not so that you'd notice,” said Mrs Syme.

“What was her name?”

“I don't call it to mind.”

“Won't you try?”

She sat there. It was quite evident that she hadn't the least intention of trying. Her face was exactly like a flat, well floured scone. Miles had never disliked anyone more.

“Mrs Syme, can't you tell me
anything?”
he said.

“It's twenty years ago,” she said with a flat finality, and with that she got to her feet and opened the dining-room door. “I've a pie in the oven spoiling, so I'll wish you good morning, Mr Clayton.”

Miles got up too. There was a pause while he put away his letter-case and collected his hat, and as he did these things he was thinking, “Why is she like this? Why won't she talk? Why is she in such a hurry to get rid of me? Is it just plain natural disagreeableness, or is there a nigger in the wood-pile?” He cast back in his mind, and thought he had pricked her twice—once over the jewellery and once when he mentioned Flossie. He didn't want to stress the jewellery, because he hadn't a leg to stand on there, and she knew it. But why had the mention of Flossie produced that I-could-sniff-if-I-would atmosphere? Why should, she sniff at Flossie? He thought he would see if he could prick her again.

“Well,” he said, “I am sorry to have taken up your time. Your niece Miss Flossie Palmer thought you might be able to help me. Have you seen her lately? She's your sister's daughter, isn't she?”

Mrs Syme's cold anger got the better of her. She opened her mouth and said what she had never intended to say. She said, “No, she isn't!” and shut her mouth again, but too late, because the words were out.

Miles felt a little tingling shock of surprise.

“I thought Florence Palmer was your sister.”

Mrs Syme stood silent.

“Isn't Flossie her daughter?”

“No, she isn't! And what business it is of yours, I don't know, Mr Clayton!”

The wildest suspicion flashed into Miles' mind. Suppose the story of this supposititious sister of Mrs Macintyre's was an invention. Suppose Mrs Syme and Florence Palmer had themselves disposed of the jewels and the baby. But no, if Mrs Syme had any criminal knowledge she wouldn't have let out that Flossie was not her sister's child. He judged it a commonplace piece of spite and no more. But he meant to find out all he could.

“If Flossie wasn't your sister's child, who was she?”

“Adopted,” said Mrs Syme, and held the door a little wider. “And I'll say good morning, Mr Clayton. This way, if you please.”

He got no more out of her than that. What a woman! And she had had two husbands. Over beef and bread and cheese at “The George,” Miles wondered at his sex. Imagine swearing to love, honour and obey Mrs Syme! No, it was the other way round, but he was prepared to bet his boots that that was the size of it. He drank confusion to all scone-faced women with auburn fronts, and proceeded to try and get Flossie on the telephone. It was rather a ticklish business and almost certainly one of the things that isn't done. He didn't know quite what he was going to say if Lila Gilmore answered the telephone, but on the other hand he did want “Aunt's” address, and with any luck he might get Flossie herself straight away.

Luck was in. He recognized her voice at once, and her “ooh!” told him that she had recognized his.

“Look here, Flossie,” he said, “I want your aunt's address—the one you lived with. There's something I want to ask her. Mrs Syme's a wash-out.”

“Then she's nothing to what Aunt'll be!” said Flossie with a giggle. “Not half she isn't!”

“Have a heart, Flossie!”

She giggled again.

“Ooh—I'm sorry for you—I am reelly. She's a terror Aunt is, and she don't like men. You should have heard her with Ernie when she let him come to tea. Ooh, Mr Miles—Ernie isn't half wild! Wants to know how we met and all that. You should have
heard
him go on! I didn't know he
could!
What do you think I'd better do?”