“Right. Someone comes along. Mrs Bannister, say. I list as much as she’ll tell me about herself—age, hobbies, tastes, what she admires in a man...”
“Financial means?” Purbright put in.
Mrs Staunch shrugged. “If it seems relevant, yes. Anyway, all these things go down on the office record and she’s allocated a number. That number is her guarantee of remaining anonymous right up to the time when she herself decides to reveal her identity to the person she believes she can be happy with.
“The next step is for me to prepare a selection from the gentlemen’s file of clients who seem likely—in temperament, background, and so on—to match up with Mrs Bannister. This is where you have to be a bit of a psychologist, of course. And one has to bear in mind that it’s opposites that often prove to agree best.
“Once, I have let her have this selection—with numbers, not names, remember—it is up to her to write to any of them and suggest correspondence. All letters come to my office for redirection, or to be collected, just as the clients prefer. So even I don’t know who writes to whom. Sometimes people actually marry without my being any the wiser, though most are only too anxious to share their good news with me. I’ve had some very touching letters.”
Mrs Staunch paused briefly for reflection. Then she accepted the cigarette Purbright offered her and went on.
“Of course, Mrs Bannister would have what you might call a double chance. In addition to being given that list of ‘Possibles’, she would have her number and details circulated to those of my gentlemen clients I considered might be interested in her. And if any proved to be so, their letters would reach her through the office here without her being put under any obligation.”
Purbright considered a while. “There seems to be quite a lot of work entailed. For you, I mean.” He forebore from adding: And no small loot, at twenty guineas a shot.
Mrs Stauch lowered her eyes and examined the hem of her skirt. “It’s tremendously worth while. It really is.”
“I think I’m beginning to see the difficulties you mentioned,” Purbright said.
“In relation to this inquiry of yours?”
“Yes. The field’s a good deal wider than I would like. In my uninstructed optimism, I’d thought in terms of single, specific introductions. I hoped for a name and address for my pains.”
“Life is not simple, Mr Purbright.”
“No, indeed, Mrs Staunch. It takes all sorts, doesn’t it?”
She glanced at him sharply, but his face was quite expressionless.
“Perhaps,” she said, rising, “you’d better come along to my office. I want to be as helpful as I can. And if those poor women really have come to some harm...”
“I’m afraid everything points that way.”
“Then naturally we must see what can be done. Provided”—she paused on her way to the door—“you understand that anything I can tell you must be in the strictest confidence.”
Unsure of what this was supposed to mean, Purbright nodded gravely and followed her.
The office was a very small room with walls colour washed in primrose. On a wooden table were a typewriter, a letter basket and a hand operated duplicator. A dozen or so unopened letters were tucked behind tapes pinned to a board on the wall.
Mrs Staunch opened a drawer in the metal filing cabinet that stood in one corner. She took out a folder, referred to the note she had made earlier, and found after some searching a second folder.
She withdrew from each a form which she laid on the table before Purbright.
“There you are. Miss Reckitt and Mrs Bannister. I thought they would both be still on file.” She indicated hand written entries. “They fill these in themselves. Here, you see...age, address, what they like doing, various personal details...” She looked up. “Any use?”
The inspector read through the firm, well formed backhand of Martha Reckitt and then the less certain writing of the widow, spidery and laboured and with an occasional spelling mistake.
Martha claimed to be of respectable, religious family, the deaths of whose other members had left her lonely but reasonably well provided with means for setting up a home of her own if she could meet someone sincere and companionable. She was interested in welfare work and thought she would like to live in the country; parish affairs greatly appealed to her. She had a fondness for needlework and reading, liked animals (her present situation, unfortunately, did not permit her to keep pets), and sometimes took a Sunday school class. Although tolerant in most manners, she could have no admiration for a man who drank. She did not condemn smoking—not pipe smoking anyway—but cared nothing for it herself. She had been told that she cooked well and was reasonably good looking. She enjoyed good health, apart from a slight asthmatic tendency.
Mrs Bannister made no mention of family other than a loyal reference to having lately lost “one of the best”. Her consolations were the television, plays especially, and keeping her home nice. Nice, too, was her figure and often she thought she would like to see it in a dance frock again if the chance offered, which she hoped it would even now. She did lots of reading, loving books as she did and being a bit on the quiet side. Her special ambition, though, was to keep chickens and she would not hesitate to sell up her nice home for the sake of moving to a cottage in the country. What she would like in a man was attentiveness and a free and easy way, also education—that she admired very much.
When he had finished reading, Purbright put the sheets down and regarded them silently. Nothing, he thought, was so saddening as the conflict between fear and loneliness. It could be terribly dangerous, too.
“Tell me, Mrs Staunch—isn’t there a real possibility of people exploiting an agency like yours? I mean, here are two women who are obviously just asking for trouble.”
“You’re thinking of what they have put down here about their means?”
“Certainly.”
“Ah, but things like that are just for my guidance. They’re absolutely confidential. I never pass them on with introductions.”
“But there is no guarantee that these women won’t divulge details themselves once a correspondence gets started.”
“That’s true. They aren’t children, though. Neither I nor anyone else can protect them for ever. They wouldn’t want me to. No, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say that my responsibility ends with the provision of facilities—safe-guarded facilities, mind—for my clients to get in touch with one another. What friendships they form then are strictly their own affairs. Have you anything to find wrong with that, inspector?”
Purbright realized that Mrs Staunch could be voluble when she liked. And she would like if he were to let himself sound critical. “No,” he said smoothly, “that sounds fair enough.”
Apparently mollified, she waited.
“As I understand it,” Purbright said after a while, “you provided Miss Reckitt and later Mrs Bannister with a list each of gentlemen selected by you from your current clients as being potential matches for the ladies in question. Each list was in effect a set of descriptions, each description applying to a particular client and being accompanied by his code number. This number was the key to the man’s name and address, known only to him and you. By the way, they’re all three-figure numbers, aren’t they?”