I felt an awful brute.
“I haven’t got it, Mrs. Bell.”
“Well, you’d give it me if you had-I know that.”
I thought I had better know the worst, so I asked her if she wanted me to go, but she flared up all over again, and said she wasn’t a bloodsucker nor a thief, and folks that misjudged other folks would live to be sorry for it. And then she began to cry and talk about her son that was killed at Mons, and I patted her on the shoulder, and she said I was his living image-which I hope to goodness I’m not, because the photograph she’s so proud of is pretty awful. And then she got to calling me “my dear,” and I escaped. She’s an awfully good old soul.
On the way upstairs I met Fay. Her door opened just as I passed. She had on the green lace frock she was making yesterday, and I should think she’d used the best part of a box of make-up on her face. I can’t think why. Her skin’s good enough when she leaves it alone. She came out looking at me as if she wanted me to flirt with her. It didn’t improve my temper. Women always seem to think they’ve only to look at you through their eyelashes, to get anything out of you that they want. It makes me wild. So I was going on; but then I thought of something, so I turned back.
“Did you come up to my room for anything whilst I was out?”
She began to put a sort of scarf thing over her head.
“Why should I?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
She looked over her shoulder.
“Would you have been sorry if you’d missed me?”
I suppose it was rude of me, but I said “No.” Fay wants whipping.
She whirled round in a rage.
“Thank you! How polite you are! Do you really flatter yourself that I should come running after you into your beastly attic?”
I said, “I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense. I can’t think why you can’t answer a plain question. I’ve lost an important letter, and if you’d been up to my room-”
She stamped her foot.
“Why should I come up to your room?”
“You might have wanted me-and you might have noticed the letter if I’d left it on the table.” Of course I knew I hadn’t left Isobel’s letter on the table. I knew I had put it in the right-hand top drawer of the chest of drawers.
Fay dropped being angry.
“Would you like me to come and pay you a visit?”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
“Perhaps I will some day.”
It’s no good talking to her when she’s in that mood. I turned my back and went upstairs, and when I was about half way up I heard her run down into the hall so fast that I was afraid she’d break her neck. She didn’t. She went out and banged the door as hard as she could.
I went back to my room, and when I opened the door something rustled. I bent down to look. There was a scrap of paper dragging along with the door-I could just see the edge of it. I got it out with a match and looked at it under the gas. It was a scrap of writing-paper with one word on it. The word was, “hide.” Isobel had written it. The piece of paper had been torn from her letter. I looked everywhere, but there were no more pieces. Some one had come into my room whilst I was out and torn up Isobel’s letter. I didn’t believe it was Mrs. Bell.
VII
September l7th; morning-I’ve got a lot to write, but I’ll begin at the beginning.
I got an answer from Box Z.10 by the first post. It was typed, and there was no address at the top of the paper, only Box Z.10, and underneath that: “Your letter received. Ring up Victoria 00087 and ask for Mr. Smith between eleven and eleven-fifteen.” There was no signature.
I thought that was an odd way of doing business, and I began to feel sure that there was something fishy about the whole thing-no address, no signature, only Mr. Smith and a telephone number. I pretty soon found out that the number belonged to a shop. The name was Levens, and it was a stationer’s. Lots of shops of that sort have a telephone that their customers can use, and I thought that Mr. Z.10 Smith was going to stroll in at eleven o’clock and take my call. It would be the easiest thing in the world-he’d go in and say he was expecting to be rung up, and it would be no odds to anybody so long as he was willing to pay for his use of the telephone; and if any one came along and asked questions, I was ready to bet that nobody in the shop would know anything about him. What I thought the fishiest part was having his letters sent to one place, and getting himself rung up at another. Falcon Road is N. W., and Victoria 00087 is S. W. I thought it was damned fishy.
I waited till five minutes past eleven, and then I rang up. A woman answered me at first. She had one of those die-away voices that you can’t really hear. I kept on saying “Mr. Smith-I want to speak to Mr. Smith”; and she kept blowing into the telephone and making sounds like a swooning mosquito. And then, just as I was wondering whether the whole thing was a plant, she faded out altogether, and I heard a door shut. Then somebody else said “Hullo!” and I said “Hullo!” And then he-I thought it was a man-said, “Mr. Smith speaking. Who are you?” And I said, “Carthew Fairfax.” The voice had called itself Mr. Smith, but I couldn’t have been sure that it was a man who was speaking.
As soon as I had said my name he said,
“I’m here in answer to your letter.”
I said, “Yes?”
“Am I to understant you wish to proceed?”
“I would like to have particulars-I said so in my letter.”
“Yes-certainly-but this is a confidential matter.”
“You’re either prepared to tell me what you want, or else I don’t see how I can be of any use to you.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Smith-“exactly. But the matter is confidential, and my client would wish to be assured of your discretion.”
“Your client?”
“I am acting for a client.”
I wondered if he was. I said,
“I don’t see how you can be assured of my discretion. In fact, I’m not prepared to give any assurances. I want to know what it’s all about.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Smith-“exactly. Will you be outside the corner house of Churt Row and Olding Crescent to-night at ten o’clock?”
I wondered whether I would. I waited for a moment, and Mr. Smith said,
“Will you be there?”
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t let his voice get eager, but I could tell he was keeping himself in. He said,
“You don’t know whether you want the money?”
I didn’t want him to think I was suspicious, so I rose to the bait. I said I’d come. He sounded quite chirpy after that, and began to boss me.
“Mind you’re not late. And please remember to bring the advertisement with you, together with the letter you received this morning. These will be your credentials, and it will be useless to present yourself without them. Good-morning.” He rang off.
I walked home in two minds whether I would go or not. If it hadn’t been for Fay, I don’t think I’d have touched it. No-I don’t know whether that’s true-the mere fact of the thing being so fishy intrigued me-I wanted to know why I had been picked out to have a spoof advertisement palmed on me, and why Mr. Smith was being so careful to cover his tracks. Letters to Falcon Street, N. W. An accommodation telephone somewhere in Victoria. A rendezvous somewhere else. I hadn’t the remotest idea where Churt Row and Olding Crescent might be. And, most unpleasantly suspicious of all, I was to bring my “credentials.” I wasn’t under any illusion as to what that meant. Mr. Smith was going to make sure that neither the advertisement nor his careful typewritten letter remained in my hands. When I had presented my “credentials” they would vanish-at least that’s what I thought. And just because I thought all that, I wanted to go. I believe the worst part of the sort of life I’ve been living for the last three years is its dull, grinding monotony. You go on and on, just keeping alive. You get jobs, and you lose them. If you don’t get them, you go under. Nothing happens.