The Square Emerald · Chapter 4 (1/2)

IV

Mr. Coldwell peered down into the girl’s face.

“Let me get this right,” he said slowly. “Druze will be killed⁠—if he is killed⁠—because he does not like children?”

Leslie Maughan nodded.

“I know you hate mysteries⁠—everybody in Scotland Yard does,” she said; “and one day I will tell you just what I mean. Do you remember last August you gave me a month’s vacation?”

Chief Inspector Coldwell remembered that very well.

“I went to Cumberland just to loaf around,” she said. “I was most anxious to pretend that there wasn’t such a place in the world as Scotland Yard. But I’ve got that prowling, inquisitive spirit that would have made me the first woman inspector of the C.I.D. if the Commissioners were not such stuffy, old-fashioned gentlemen. One day I was loafing through a little village, when I found something which brought me eventually to this conclusion, that Druze doesn’t like children. And one day, when he discovers the fact, Peter Dawlish will kill him for it!”

“Mysteriouser and mysteriouser!” groaned Coldwell. “You’re probably chasing a boojum. It is the fate of all enthusiastic young officers⁠—not that you’re an officer.”

Leslie Maughan had started her police career as a very junior stenographer at Scotland Yard. Her father had been that famous Assistant-Commissioner Maughan whose exploits have formed the basis for so many stories of police work, and he had left his daughter with an income which put her above the necessity of working for her living. But police investigation was in her blood, and she had graduated through successive stages, until the authorities, reluctant to admit that any woman had an executive position at Police Headquarters, admitted her to the designation of “assistant” to the Chief of the Big Four.

“She’s brilliant⁠—there’s no other word for her,” he had told the Chief Commissioner. “And although I don’t think it’s much of a woman’s job, there never was a woman who was better fitted to hold down a high position at the Yard.”

“What are her chief qualifications?” asked the Commissioner, slightly amused.

“She thinks quickly and she’s lucky,” was the comprehensive reply.

This question of luck exercised the mind of Leslie as she walked home to her flat in the Charing Cross Road. The very fact that that apartment was hers was strong support for the theory of luck. She had taken a long lease of a floor above a cinematograph renter’s at a time when flats were going begging. She might have drawn double the rent from a sub-tenant; but the place was central, comparatively cheap, and she withstood all temptations to change her abode at a profit.

A side door led to the apartments, and she had hardly closed the door behind her when a voice hailed her from the top of the stairs.

“That you, Miss Maughan?”

“That’s me,” said Leslie.

She hung her coat in the narrow hall and went upstairs to the girl who was waiting on the landing. Lucretia Brown, her one servant, was a very tall, broad-shouldered girl, with a round and not unpleasant face. She stood now with her hands on her hips, surveying her mistress.

“I thought you were⁠—” she began.

“You thought I’d been murdered and thrown into the river,” said Leslie good-humouredly. “As you always think if I am not back on the tick.”

“I don’t trust London,” said Lucretia.

It was her real name, chosen by a misguided farm labourer, who, having heard a lecture on the Borgias, delivered at the parish hall, came away with a vague idea that the historical character who bore that name was a worthy creature.

“I never did trust London, and I never will. Have you had dinner, miss?”

“Yes, I’ve had my dinner,” said Leslie, and looked at the clock. “I am expecting a man to call here at half-past ten, so when you open the door to him please don’t tell him that I’m out and not expected back for three weeks.”

Lucretia made a little face.

“Half-past ten’s a bit late for a gentleman visitor, miss. A friend of yours?”

Leslie could never train her out of a personal interest in her affairs. In a way, Lucretia was privileged. Her first memory was of the broad-faced Lucretia pushing a perambulator in which Leslie took the air.

“Is it anybody we know, miss? Mr. Coldwell?”

Leslie shook her head.

“No,” she said; “he is a man who has just come out of prison.”

Lucretia closed her eyes and swayed.

“Good Gawd!” she said in a hushed voice, “I never thought I’d live to see the day when you’d be having a convick up to see you at half-past ten at night. What about asking a policeman to stand by the door, miss?”

“You’re much too partial to policemen,” said Leslie severely, and the big maid grew incoherent in her indignant protests.

Half-past ten was striking from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields when the door bell rang, and Lucretia came in to her, eyes big with excitement.

“That’s him!” she said melodramatically.

“Well, let him in.”

“Whatever happens,” began Lucretia, “I’m not responsible.”

Leslie pointed to the door. He came so lightly up the stairs that she did not hear his steps. The door opened and Lucretia backed in.

“The gentleman,” she said loudly, and cast an apprehensive glance at the stranger as she sidled out of the room and closed the door.

Peter Dawlish stood where Lucretia had left him, his soft hat in his hand, glancing from the girl to the cosy room, a half-smile on his thin face. She saw now how shabbily dressed he was; his shirt was collarless, his boots grey with mud, the old ill-fitting suit he wore stained and patched.

“I warned you I was a scarecrow,” he said, as though he read her thoughts. “They gave me a beautiful prison-made suit at Dartmoor, but it didn’t seem the right kind of equipment to face a censorious world, so I swapped it for this.”

She pushed a chair up to the fire.

“Sit down, won’t you, Mr. Dawlish?”

“ ‘Mr. Dawlish,’ ” he repeated. “That sounds terribly respectable.”

“You may smoke if you wish,” she said, as he seated himself slowly, and again he smiled.

“I wish, but I have not the wherewithal,” and, as she hastily opened a drawer and took out a tin of cigarettes: “Thank you.”

He took the cigarette in his fingers and frowned.

“That is certainly queer,” he said.

“What is certainly queer?” she asked.

“These gaspers⁠—I used to smoke them in the old days. Had ’em imported from Cairo. You can’t buy them here; at least, you couldn’t when I⁠—retired. Heigho! Am I being very sorry for myself again? That stung. I loath these self-pitiers, and it was a revelation to discover that I had gone over to the majority.”

He lit the cigarette and drew luxuriously.

“This is rather wonderful,” he said.

“Have you had any food?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I dined like a sybarite, at a small shop in the Blackfriars Road. The dinner cost sixpence; it was rather extravagant, but I felt I needed bracing for this ordeal.”

“You have no lodging?”

He shook his head.

“No, I have no lodging.”

He was twiddling his long, thin fingers. She noted with satisfaction that his hands were scrupulously clean, and again he seemed to divine her thoughts, for he looked down at them.

“I don’t exactly know what information I can give you, if it is information you require; and if you had been a male of the species policeman I should have declined your invitation rather loftily. But a woman policeman is unique; I’ve seen them, of course⁠—rather fat little bodies with squat little helmets. I suppose they’re useful.”

He noticed that she herself was not smoking, and commented upon it.

“No, I very rarely smoke,” she said. And then, in a changed tone: “Do you mind if I speak very plainly?”

“The plainer the better,” he said, and he leaned back in his chair and sent a cloud of smoke to the ceiling.

“You have no money, of course?”

He shook his head.

“Which means that you’ll walk London tonight?”

“It has become a habit,” said Peter Dawlish. “And, really, it would be rather amusing if one weren’t so horribly tired. They gave me a little money when I left prison. It lasted me the greater part of a week; I fear I was improvident. One gets quite a lot of sleep in the daytime, especially the sunny days, in odd corners of the parks. And on rainy nights I know a gardener’s tool-house, which is not perhaps to be compared with the bridal suite at the Ritz, but is cosy. I slept there last night with an ex-colonel of infantry and a lawyer who lived in the same ward at Dartmoor.”

She eyed him steadily.

“Tonight you will sleep decently,” she said, in her quiet, even tone; “and tomorrow you will buy a new suit of clothes and interview your father.”

He raised his eyebrows, amusement in his eyes.

“I didn’t realize that you had scraped down to the family skeleton,” he said. “And why am I to do this, Miss Maughan? The suit of clothes would be a waste of money; my parent would not be impressed by my appearance of affluence. Rather he would imagine that I had found another good-natured gentleman who trusted me with his chequebook. Furthermore, all this would cost money; and I think you should know, before we go any farther, that I am not taking any money from you on any pretext.”

She had the extraordinary knack of making him feel foolish. He always remembered afterwards that in the first two meetings with this strange girl, he had gone hot and cold either at her words or the inflection of her voice.

“That kind of pride which refuses to take money from a woman is very admirable.” There was a note of cold sarcasm in her voice which made him writhe. “It is the attitude of mind behind man’s subconscious sense of superiority to the female of the species⁠—not particularly flattering to a woman, but it must be immensely gratifying to a man! May I ask you another question, Mr. Peter Dawlish? Do you intend sinking down into the dregs? Is your vista of life lined on either side by common lodging-houses, with a pauper’s graveyard at the end of it?”

“I don’t exactly see what you’re driving at.”

She had made him angry, and, was secretly amused.

“I shall do my best, naturally, to find work. I had an idea of going abroad.”

“Exactly.” She nodded. “To one of the colonies. It is the most popular of all delusions that people without grit or ambition can magically acquire these qualities the moment they go ashore at Quebec or Sydney, or wherever their high spirits lead them.”

He was laughing now in spite of himself.

“You’ve certainly got a knack of riling a man.”

“Haven’t I?” she smiled. “I’ll tell you what I was driving at, Mr. Dawlish. For you to refuse a loan of money now suggests that you’re perfectly satisfied in your mind that you will never earn enough to repay the loan. The only way you can justify a refusal of money is to believe that you can never pay it back; that you’re going to belong to the bread lines and the park benches and the public charities.”

She saw that her shaft had got home, and went on quickly:

“Of course, you will do nothing of the sort! You’ve come out of prison with a grievance against the world, and you’re hardly to be blamed for that. I should imagine you are one of the few innocent men who ever went to Dartmoor.”

He looked at her shrewdly.

“You believe I was innocent?”

She nodded.

“I’m pretty sure,” she said, and then: “Do you carry a gun?”

He laughed aloud.

“The price of a Browning pistol would keep me in luxury for two months,” he said. “No, I carry nothing more dangerous than a toothbrush.”

The drawer from which she had taken the cigarettes was still open, and she put in her hand and took out a small black cashbox, and jerked back the lid.

“We will do this thing in a businesslike way,” she said. “You will find a paper and pencil on the desk; sign an I.O.U. for twenty pounds. If you believe in your heart of hearts that you’ll be unable to pay me back, that a man of twenty-nine or twenty-eight, or whatever age you are, will never earn a sufficient margin above his cost of living to send back that money in a year, or two years, then you need not take a cent. And this little bit of charity, as you call it⁠—”

“I’ve called it nothing of the sort.”

“In your mind you have,” she said calmly. “It is very rude to contradict a lady! Now, Mr. Dawlish, I challenge you. If you think you are permanently down and out, the incident is finished⁠—and I think you’re finished, too.”

She looked at him through her half-closed eyes, nodding slowly.

“You mean I’m not worth salving?” he said, and got up. “I’ll accept your challenge.”

He took the pencil, scribbled a few words on the writing-pad, and, tearing it off, handed it to the girl.

“Produce your twenty pounds.”

He was amused in a sour way, but his anger was mostly directed inward to himself, that he should be angry at all. If anybody had told him, when he had walked into that room, that he would accept a loan of money from the girl who had not been absent from his thoughts since he had met her, he would have laughed at such a suggestion. Yet here he was, counting solemnly the Treasury notes as they were handed to him, and pocketing them without one single qualm of conscience.

“I think I’m beginning to know myself,” he said. “I started a weakling, and prison hasn’t improved me. No, no, I do not mean that it is a weakness to accept this money, but it would have been a weakness to have refused. I’m awfully obliged to you.”

She held out her hand.

“Where will you be staying?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But I will keep in touch with you. Please don’t bother about me any more. If I can’t get a job of some kind I’m really not worth helping. Why are you doing this? It isn’t part of the usual police procedure.”

She shook her head.

“The police help where they can; you ought to know that,” she said quietly. “But I admit that this is a purely personal action on my part. You are part of a big experiment. It isn’t my womanly heart, but my scientific brain that is dictating just now.” And then, going off at a tangent: “I wish you would shave yourself, Mr. Dawlish; you look too much like a musical genius to be thoroughly wholesome.”

He was still chuckling to himself when Lucretia closed the outer door upon him with unnecessary violence.

He knew a small temperance hotel where he could sleep that night, a place in Lambeth, near Waterloo Station. “Temperance Hotel” was rather a grand name for an establishment which was only a little superior to a common lodging-house, but he guessed it was too late to get a bed at any of the Rowton Houses.

He walked briskly down Charing Cross Road and into the Strand, crowded with cars and taxis, for the theatres were closing, and the northern sidewalk was almost impassable. And then he thought he saw his mother preceding another lady into a car, and stopped. Yes, it was Margaret Dawlish, and the lady with the dirty grey hair was Aunt Anita. He could afford to grin now, and the discovery was very pleasurable. He could well imagine that if he had seen that party earlier in the evening, the sight would have evoked a sneer and just that twinge of self-pity against which he was trying hard to guard himself.

He turned back, lest in passing they recognized him, and went down Villiers Street, mounting the stairs to Hungerford Bridge. It was not the twenty notes in his pocket, a compact, cosy little roll, that made his heart and his step lighter; he had caught something of the girl’s spirit, had been imbued with a little of her courage and sanity.

Leslie Maughan puzzled him. She was more than pretty; there was in her face a spirituality which he had not detected in the face of any woman of his acquaintance or knowledge. He realized with a start that he had always disliked clever women. He liked them soft and feminine, and, if the truth be told, a little silly. But he liked this capable and pretty young woman.