But who?
She selected another notebook. It listed the names and telephone numbers of people in the town and locality whose professions or connections rendered them of potential use to a charitable organisation. They included chairmen of committees, bank managers, veterinary surgeons, magistrates, welfare officials and inspectors of police, income tax and slaughter-houses.
The finely tapered forefinger moved swiftly from name to name, page to page, wavering for an instant now and again, or fleetingly shifting to check a number.
About two-thirds of the way through the list, the finger hesitated, moved back one line, and halted. She made a murmur of recognition, then frowned. Phone numbers again had failed to tally. That which appeared against the name indicated by her finger was 3944.
Of course, there was a way of making sure.
Once more, she dialled 2271. The answer came not instantly but much more quickly than before. An abrupt, suspicious “Yes?”
At once she rang off and dialled 3944.
Ten, twenty, thirty seconds went by. The number was still ringing out. Three quarters of a minute...
“Good morning...” A pause for recovery of breath. “Four Foot Haven, Heston Lane. May I help you?”
Silently, delicately, Miss Teatime replaced her receiver. She smiled. It was very nice, once in a way, to have a wild guess confirmed. Perhaps luck would stay with her long enough to make a visit to Mrs Copley worth while.
Miss Teatime’s little sports car, the cost of which modest self-indulgence she managed to implant neatly amidst the managerial expenses of a charity devoted to the relief of greengrocers’ horses, was standing in Saint Anne’s Place, not many yards from her office, and close to the railings of the park. She drove out into Southgate and soon was passing the semi-villas of Gordon Road and Beatrice Avenue, where, neighbours still recalled, poor Mr Hopjoy had met his terrible end in 1962, 2 and hence into the leafy cul-de-sac of Cadwell Close.
2 Reported in Hopjoy Was Here
Number 13 was a bungalow in heavily ornate stucco, the colour of dried lavender. The front door was flanked by big bay windows. Each revealed a spread of overlapping drapes of white muslin, gathered by silk cords and tassels, which gave an impression that the house was in full sail.
Miss Teatime’s ring was answered instantly by a paroxysm of barking. Winston, Edward and Vera Lynn, no doubt. No, she reminded herself; probably not Winston.
She heard a human voice, female, raised in shrill but affectionate remonstration. The barking continued unabated.
The door opened three inches or so to reveal a pair of woolly muzzles and part of the anxiously frowning face of a woman of about sixty.
Miss Teatime delivered a brisk “Good morning, Mrs Copley,” then immediately bestowed upon the poodles a smile of almost maternal admiration and an ecstatic “Aaahh!”
A friend forthwith, Mrs Copley opened the door fully and waited patiently for her visitor to recover the power of speech.
“I do not suppose you will remember me, Mrs Copley, but we have met, I believe, on sundry occasions. Teatime is my name and I am secretary of our little family of helpful societies here in Flaxborough.”
“Oh, of course. Do please come in.”
Miss Teatime’s taking a first step past the threshold was the signal for the dogs to enter a new phase of frenzy. Barking even louder than before, they darted about in short runs, each of which culminated in a clawing leap at Miss Teatime’s elegant legs.
“Aaahh! Bless them!” exclaimed Miss Teatime, a professional to her fingertips.
Mrs Copley was talking. Miss Teatime watched the words being formed. She thought they were I’d better put the boys in the kitchen so she nodded in rueful acceptance. Mrs Copley opened a door. The dogs shot through, nearly knocking her over. Mrs Copley followed them. Smiling back at Miss Teatime, she held aloft a can and an opener. WOOF (WITH TURKEY). Her lips were moving again. They know, don’t they? They do know. Miss Teatime beamed and wagged her head in acknowledgment.
Later, in the cool, slightly musty, quietude of Mrs Copley’s sitting-room, her visitor raised a matter of delicacy. Had not the Boys numbered three at one time? Or was her memory at fault?
Mrs Copley said no, alas, she was not mistaken: there had indeed been three. But Winston now was in the Haven.
“I am so sorry,” said Miss Teatime. Softly, “You had to have him put to sleep?”
“He was our fourth Winston,” remarked Mrs Copley, as if the name in itself held the seeds of dissolution. Then she recalled herself. “Oh, no; he wasn’t put to sleep. He had a coronary, poor boy.”
“Good gracious,” exclaimed Miss Teatime.
“Oh, it’s not unusual, apparently,” said Mrs Copley. “Mr Leaper at the Haven said it happens a lot with the best breeds. They’re so highly strung, you see. I mean, take Winston. He was a fine, big boy, but never still for an instant. Never. In fact”—she laughed—“he was such a great roustabout—quite different from Edward and Vera Lynn in there—that he never was given his real name at all. Not Winston. No, we called him Rip. And not because of Rip Van Winkle, either! Oh, he was a terror, was Rip. Everybody misses him.”
Mrs Copley remained silent a moment in fond recall. Then she frowned.
“Everybody but my sister-in-law,” she amended.
“Your sister-in-law?”
“Ethel. She lives in Brocklestone and has migraines and ever since George passed over she’s insisted on coming to stay with me for a week in the summer. It’s kind of her, I suppose, but of course that is the time when Brocklestone gets so crowded with trippers. Anyway, Ethel was very queer and unreasonable about poor old Rip, so I used to board him at the Haven whenever she came. And that’s how it happened.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Rip’s coronary. It was while he was in the Haven. Last month. Mr Leaper was terribly upset. Terribly.”
“He must have been,” said Miss Teatime.
“He came over personally to tell me. I thought that was rather nice of him. You know, I could hardly believe it at first. Well, only a few days before he’d been so lively that I’d had to help hold him while they tied his identity label on his collar. That was just until he got to his proper kennel, of course—Rip always had the same one.”
“Tell me,” said Miss Teatime, “were you able to see poor Winston—Rip, that is—before they...” She left the sentence reverently incomplete.
For the first time in the interview, Mrs Copley gave sign of distress. No, she said, that had not been possible. She had asked, naturally, but only to be told that poor Rip was...was already...
“Laid to rest?” prompted her visitor.
A sniff of grief. “Cremated,” said Mrs Copley.
After a while she recovered sufficiently to suggest refreshments and a general reunion with survivors Edward and Vera Lynn.