It was fascinating, but he had work to do. He rang off.
The telephone-box was getting stiflingly hot. He had already used up a shillingsworth of coppers; surely among these last four numbers a voice would speak and he would know. "Police Station, Mafeking Road." Back on to the rest with the receiver. Three numbers left. Against all reason he was convinced that one of these days three. . . His face was damp with sweat. He wiped it dry, and immediately the beads formed again. He felt suddenly an apprehension; the dryness of his throat, his heavily beating heart warned him that this voice might present too terrible an issue. There had been five deaths already. . . His head swam with relief when a voice said "Gas Light and Coke Company." He could still walk out and leave it to Mr Prentice. After all, how did he know that the voice he was seeking was not that of the operator at the Hygienic Baking Company -- or even Ernest's friend?
But if he went to Mr Prentice he would find it hard to explain his silence all these invaluable hours. He was not, after all, a boy: he was a middle-aged man. He had started something and he must go on. And yet he still hesitated while the sweat got into his eyes. Two numbers left: a fifty per cent chance. He would try one, and if that number conveyed nothing at all, he would walk out of the box and wash his hands of the whole business. Perhaps his eyes and his wits had deceived him in Mr Cost's shop. His finger went reluctantly through the familiar acts: BAT 271: which number now? He put his sleeve against his face and wiped, then dialled.
BOOK FOUR
The Whole Man
Chapter 1
JOURNEY'S END
"Must I -- and all alone."
The Little Duke
1
THE telephone rang and rang; he could imagine the empty rooms spreading round the small vexed instrument. Perhaps the rooms of a girl who went to business in the city, or a tradesman who was now at his shop: of a man who left early to read at the British Museum: innocent rooms. He held the welcome sound of an unanswered bell to his ear. He had done his best. Let it ring.
Or were the rooms perhaps guilty rooms? The rooms of a man who had disposed in a few hours of so many human existences. What would a guilty room be like? A room, like a dog, takes on some of the characteristics of its master. A room is trained for certain ends -- comfort, beauty, convenience. This room would surely be trained to anonymity. It would be a room which would reveal no secrets if the police should ever call; there would be no Tolstoys with pencilled lines imperfectly erased, no personal touches; the common mean of taste would furnish it -- a wireless set, a few detective novels, a reproduction of Van Gogh's sunflower. He imagined it all quite happily while the bell rang and rang. There would be nothing significant in the cupboards: no love-letters concealed below the handkerchiefs, no cheque-book in a drawer: would the linen be marked? There would be no presents from anyone at all -- a lonely room: everything in it had been bought at a standard store.
Suddenly a voice he knew said a little breathlessly, "Hullo. Who's that?" If only, he thought, putting the receiver down, she had been quite out of hearing when the bell rang, at the bottom of the stairs, or in the street. If only he hadn't let his fancy play so long, he need never have known that this was Anna Hilfe's number.
He came blindly out into Bayswater; he had three choices -- the sensible and the honest choice was to tell the police. The second was to say nothing. The third was to see for himself. He had no doubt at all that this was the number Cost had rung; he remembered how she had known his real name all along, how she had said -- it was a curious phrase -- that it was her "job" to visit him at the home. And yet he didn't doubt that there was an answer, an answer he couldn't trust the police to find. He went back to his hotel and up to his room, carrying the telephone directory with him from the lounge -- he had a long job to do. In fact, it was several hours before he reached the number. His eyes were swimming and he nearly missed it. 16, Prince Consort Mansions, Battersea -- a name which meant nothing at all. He thought wryly: of course, a guilty room would be taken furnished. He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.
It was past five o'clock in the afternoon before he could bring himself to act, and then he acted mechanically. He wouldn't think any more: what was the good of thinking before he heard her speak? A 19 bus took him to the top of Oakley Street, and a 49 to Albert Bridge. He walked across the bridge, not thinking. It was low tide and the mud lay up under the warehouses. Somebody on the Embankment was feeding the gulls; the sight obscurely distressed him and he hurried on, not thinking. The waning sunlight lay in a wash of rose over the ugly bricks, and a solitary dog went nosing and brooding into the park. A voice said, "Why, Arthur," and he stopped. A man wearing a beret on untidy grey hair and warden's dungarees stood at the entrance to a block of flats. He said doubtfully, "It is Arthur, isn't it?"
Since Rowe's return to London many memories had slipped into place -- this church and that shop, the way Piccadilly ran into Knightsbridge. He hardly noticed when they took up their places as part of the knowledge of a lifetime. But there were other memories which had to fight painfully for admission; somewhere in his mind they had an enemy who wished to keep them out and often succeeded. Cafés and street corners and shops would turn on him a suddenly familiar face, and he would look away and hurry on as though they were the scenes of a road accident. The man who spoke to him belonged to these, but you can't hurry away from a human being as you can hurry away from a shop.
"The last time you hadn't got the beard. You are Arthur, aren't you?"
"Yes. Arthur Rowe."
The man looked puzzled and hurt. He said, "It was good of you to call that time."
"I don't remember."
The look of pain darkened like a bruise. "The day of the funeral."
Rowe said, "I'm sorry. I had an accident: my memory went. It's only beginning to come back in parts. Who are you?"
"I'm Henry -- Henry Wilcox."
"And I came here -- to a funeral?"
"My wife got killed. I expect you read about it in the papers. They gave her a medal. I was a bit worried afterwards because you'd wanted me to cash a cheque for you and I forgot. You know how it is at a funeraclass="underline" so many things to think about. I expect I was upset too."
"Why did I bother you then?"
"Oh, it must have been important. It went right out of my head -- and then I thought, I'll see him afterwards. But I never saw you."
Rowe looked up at the flats above them. "Was it here?"
"Yes."
He looked across the road to the gate of the park: a man feeding gulls: an office worker carrying a suitcase; the road reeled a little under his feet. He said, "Was there a procession?"