So it was decided that they should meet at Victoria on Saturday afternoon.
Jock gave Babs ten shillings and he and Tony went home. Tony had not slept much lately. He could not prevent himself, when alone, from rehearsing over and over in his mind all that had happened since Beaver's visit to Hetton; searching for clues he had missed at the time; wondering where something he had said or done might have changed the course of events; going back further to his earliest acquaintance with Brenda to find indications that should have made him more ready to understand the change that had come over her; reliving scene after scene in the last eight years of his life. All this kept him awake.
Two
There was a general rendezvous at the first class booking office. The detectives were the first, ten minutes before their time. They had been pointed out to Tony at the solicitor's office so that he should not lose them. They were cheerful middle-aged men in soft hats and heavy overcoats. They were looking forward to their week-end, for most of their daily work consisted in standing about at street corners watching front doors and a job of this kind was eagerly competed for in the office. In more modest divorces the solicitors were content to rely on the evidence of the hotel servants. The detectives were a luxury and proposed to treat themselves as such.
There was a slight fog in London that day. The station lamps were alight prematurely.
Tony came next, with Jock at his side, loyally there to see him off. They bought the tickets and waited. The detectives, sticklers for professional etiquette, made an attempt at self-effacement, studying the posters on the walls and peering from behind a pillar.
“This is going to be hell,” said Tony.
It was ten minutes before Milly came. She emerged from the gloom with a porter in front carrying her suitcase and a child dragging back on her arm behind her. Milly's wardrobe consisted mainly of evening dresses, for during the day she usually spent her time sitting before a gas-fire in her dressing gown. She made an insignificant and rather respectable appearance. “Sorry if I'm late,” she said. “Winnie here couldn't find her shoes. I brought her along too. I knew you wouldn't really mind. She travels on a half ticket.”
Winnie was a plain child with large gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing.
“I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us.”
“Yes, that's the idea,” said Milly. “She won't be any trouble — she's got her puzzle.”
Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. “Listen,” he said. “You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?”
“No,” said Winnie. “I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy.”
Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group.
“Oh God!” said Tony, “I suppose she's got to come.” The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a pullman car. “Look,” said Milly, “we're travelling first class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea.”
“Can I have an ice?”
“I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can have some nice tea.”
“But I want an ice.”
“You shall have an ice when you get to Brighton. Now be a good girl and play with your puzzle or mother won't take you to the seaside again.”
“The Awful Child of popular fiction,” said Jock as he left Tony.
Winnie sustained the part throughout the journey to Brighton. She was not inventive but she knew the classic routine thoroughly, even to such commonplace but alarming devices as breathing heavily, grunting and complaining of nausea.
Room at the hotel had been engaged for Tony by the solicitors. It was therefore a surprise to the reception clerk when Winnie arrived. “We have reserved in your name double and single communicating rooms, bathroom and sitting room,” he said. “We did not understand you were bringing your daughter. Will you require a further room?”
“Oh Winnie can come in with me,” said Milly.
The two detectives who were standing nearby at the counter, exchanged glances of disapproval.
Tony wrote Mr. and Mrs. Last in the Visitors' Book. “And daughter,” said the clerk with his finger on the place.
Tony hesitated. “She is my niece,” he said, and inscribed her name on another line, as Miss Smith.
The detective, registering below, remarked to his colleague, “He got out of that all right. Quite smart. But I don't like the look of this case. Most irregular. Sets a nasty, respectable note bringing a kid into it. We've got the firm to consider. It doesn't do them any good to get mixed up with the King's Proctor.”
“How about a quick one?” said his colleague indifferently.
Upstairs, Winnie said, “Where's the sea?”
“Just there across the street.”
“I want to go and see it.”
“But it's dark now, pet. You shall see it tomorrow.”
“I want to see it tonight.”
“You take her to see it now,” said Tony.
“Sure you won't be lonely?”
“Quite sure.”
“We won't be long.”
“That's all right. You let her see it properly.”
Tony went down to the bar where he was pleased to find the two detectives. He felt the need of male company. “Good evening,” he said.
They looked at him askance. Everything in this case seemed to be happening as though with deliberate design to shock their professional feelings. “Good evening,” said the senior detective. “Nasty, raw evening.”
“Have a drink.”
Since Tony was paying their expenses in any case, the offer seemed superfluous but the junior detective brightened instinctively and said, “Don't mind if I do.”
“Come and sit down. I feel rather lonely.”
They took their drinks to a table out of hearing of the bar man. “Mr. Last, sir, this is all wrong,” said the senior detective. “You haven't no business to recognize us at all. I don't know what they'd say at the office.”
“Best respects,” said the junior detective.
“This is Mr. James, my colleague,” said the senior detective. “My name is Blenkinsop. James is new to this kind of work.”
“So am I,” said Tony.
“A pity we've such a nasty week-end for the job,” said Blenkinsop, “very damp and blowy. Gets me in the joints.”
“Tell me,” said Tony. “Is it usual to bring children on an expedition of this kind?”
“It is not.”
“I thought it couldn't be.”
“Since you ask me, Mr. Last, I regard it as most irregular and injudicious. It looks wrong, and cases of this kind depend very much on making the right impression. Of course as far as James and I are concerned, the matter is O.K. There won't be a word about it in our evidence. But you can't trust the servants. You might very likely happen to strike one who was new to the courts, who'd blurt it out, and then where would we be? I don't like it, Mr. Last, and that's the truth.”
“You can't feel more strongly about it than I do.”
“Fond of kids myself,” said James, who was new to this kind of work. “How about one with us.”
“Tell me,” said Tony, when they had been at their table some little time. “You must have observed numerous couples in your time, qualifying for a divorce; tell me, how do they get through their day?”
“It's easier in the summer,” said Blenkinsop, “the young ladies usually bathe and the gentlemen read the papers on the esplanade; some goes for motor drives and some just hangs around the bar. They're mostly glad when Monday comes.”