'And of course, the younger chaps have all given up the distant voice,' he went on.
There was a pause, and a sizzling sound came from the direction of the figure stretched out on the couch. It took me a moment to realise that something was happening to Monsieur Maurice's lips behind the moustache.
'Frying fish, do you see?' he said, at which the noise stopped. 'Of course the beauty of the distant voice is that one can have an act without going to the expense of buying a figure. Do you have one of your own as yet?'
'No,' I said, 'although I am putting a little away every week in hopes of getting one. I am thinking of going for one of the knee figures I must admit, simply on account of those particular ones being so much cheaper… I rather like Young Leonard, you know, Mr Henry Clarke's schoolboy figure.'
Monsieur Maurice sighed, but that's all he did.
'That doll has a good saucy face,' I said.
Monsieur Maurice glanced backwards at the blank, sleeping moonface of his own walking figure. 'Sauciness is all the fashion now,' he said. 'And the poor ventriloquist is merely the butt of the jokes made by the figure.'
'Yes'1 said, 'but of course it's the ventriloquist himself who's making the jokes.'
Monsieur Maurice was frowning at me. 'Of course it is,' he said.
'Henry Clarke's all right if you like that sort of ventriloquism,' I said.
'Yes' said Monsieur Maurice with another sigh, another sip of his strange cordial. 'Yes he is. We've been sharing bills at Blackpool, and they've lately put him top, over me.'
He looked down and looked up and there was a heaviness in his eyes.
'Henry Clarke's a pleasant fellow,' said Monsieur Maurice, 'but why do you think they would put him up to top of the bill?'
I could see that he really wanted to know.
'I couldn't say,' I said, 'I work on the railways. I'm pretty often firing trains to Blackpool…'
There was no flicker in the face of Monsieur Maurice, just a deepening sadness.
'For this reason,' I went on, 'I am pretty often in Blackpool, and I saw you on at the Seashell only a few weeks ago. All I can say is that I thought you a good deal better than Henry Clarke, who's more of a droll, as you say.'
'By Jove, did you?' said Monsieur Maurice, and he brightened a little. 'I sometimes feel,' he said, 'as I walk across the stage with the figure, that if there ever was another cry of…' He began to shake his head. 'I don't quite follow,' I said.
'Oh, at the Seashell once… There was a big fellow sitting on the front row… Blackpool's a vulgar sort of place as I expect you know, and all the vulgarity had come together in this fellow, who was with his girl because… Well, you know, they're never alone, the ones that call out.'
'What did he call?'
Monsieur Maurice looked down at his empty glass, then at the door at the back of the room, and I heard the fish frying once again; more fish this time, in hotter oil, and now with words mixed in: 'Monsieur Maurice, Monsieur Maurice…'
He turned back to me, and said: 'I am being called from that door.'
I looked at the dead figure and the door behind.
'Front-of-house business,' said Monsieur Maurice; 'I really must attend to it; I am so grateful for your interest.'
He bundled me out through the other door, and I was back in Horton Street, double-quick time, with a very choice expression on my face.
Monsieur Maurice had not put the stone on the line. The world was moving away from him at a great rate, which he knew; and he also knew there was nothing to be done about it. I was thinking of the vulgar fellow who had called out the word that Monsieur Maurice had not been able to bring himself to repeat. I doubted that it would have been anything out of the way. 'Rubbish!' – that would probably have been it. Or 'Get off!' I could imagine George Ogden giving such a cry.
And nobody went alone to Blackpool, as Monsieur Maurice had almost said.
I began to run.
Chapter Thirty-four
As I ran, I glanced back, seeing a line of people trooping steadily up Horton Street with boxes and bags in the evening sun, and I thought: it's finished. They're coming back.
On walking into the house, I saw the wife sitting on the sofa.
'Where's the bag of quicklime?' I said.
'We're shot of it,' she said.
I should have known not to ask her to leave it alone.
'What did they bring it for?' she asked, looking at the bandage on my head.
'Put the frighteners on,' I said.
'How?'
'Made out they were going to dash it into my eyes.'
'Was one of them the man you chased to Manchester?'
'No. It's all connected with Lowther, though. They visited him at the Infirmary, or tried to. Couldn't get in, but the names they gave damn near finished him off.'
'Well that's as clear as mud,' said the wife.
'Now they're after George,' I said. 'He's not been back, has he?'
'No.'
'He's flitted,' I said.
I climbed the stairs to George's room once again and opened Don Quixote. Inside it was a photograph of George. He was in his high collar and fancy waistcoat as usual, but was sitting inside a flying boat. You could tell he was off the ground, for his hair had all been knocked to one side by the wind.
The wife was looking over my shoulder. 'It's the flying machine at Blackpool,' she said.
She was looking all around the room now, saying, 'Why ever did he not water these plants?'
I turned the photograph over. On the back were the words, 'I told you there was nothing to it, silly C. Love from Big G.'
I caught up some fragments of dried flowers, which I'd scattered about the room and were on the very point of becoming nothing at all. 'What's this?' I asked the wife.
'Forget-me-not.'
'When do forget-me-nots come out?'
'I forget,' said the wife, and then she laughed, saying: 'All I know is they're Cicely Braithwaite's particular favourites.' Then she stopped laughing.
I looked at the wife, then around the room. There was something else besides the books. Curtains, damask curtains, thrown anyhow onto the floor under the window.
'They're so viewsome,' I said in an under-breath. It was the strange saying that Cicely had come out with on seeing the forget-me-nots at Hardcastle Crags.
The picture came into my mind of George running in order to get his letter posted in the box on the tram. He'd said the letter was to his best girl, and that she was out in Oldham. What better way to get rid of the whole question of a sweetheart? The young lady's out at Oldham. There's something about the word 'Oldham' that checks all questions.
'Is Cicely walking out with anyone that you know of?' I asked the wife.
'She is not,' said the wife.
'And was she keeping company at all before?'
'There was someone before I knew her. But she had to chuck him over.'
'The name was never mentioned?'
The wife shook her head. 'If you ask me she's rather sweet on Michael Hardcastle.'
"The traveller for Hind's?' I said.
The wife nodded.
Cicely had mentioned him on my first visit to the Mill, and coloured up as she did so. I thought of the man trying to keep next to Cicely in the crowd under the Blackpool Tower when the Hind's lot had come spilling out after their tea. Was that the fellow? 'Do you know where she lives, off hand?' I said.
'I don't,' said the wife. 'Somewhere over Savile Park way. The address is written down at the Mill, of course, but you'd have to wait until Monday for that.'
'There's no way round it?' I said.
'Not short of marching through the streets bawling out her name' said the wife.
'I must speak with her,' I said.
'What you're trying to make out,' said the wife, 'is that George Ogden wanted to wreck the train so as to kill Michael Hardcastle?'