Twenty-five

COLIN LAMB’S NARRATIVE

I had to wait just a minute or two, then the door opened.

A big blonde Nordic girl with a flushed face and wearing gaycolouredclothing looked at me inquiringly. Her hands had been hastily wiped butthere were traces of flour on them and there was a slight smear of flour onher nose so it was easy for me to guess what she had been doing.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but you have a little girl here, I think. She droppedsomething out of the window.”

She smiled at me encouragingly. The English language was not as yether strong point.

“I am sorry—what you say?”

“A child here—a little girl.”

“Yes, yes.” She nodded.

“Dropped something—out of the window.”

Here I did a little gesticulation.

“I picked it up and brought it here.”

I held out an open hand. In it was a silver fruit knife. She looked at itwithout recognition.

“I do not think—I have not seen….”

“You’re busy cooking,” I said sympathetically.

“Yes, yes, I cook. That is so.” She nodded vigorously.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” I said. “If you let me just take it to her.”

“Excuse?”

My meaning seemed to come to her. She led the way across the hall andopened a door. It led into a pleasant sitting room. By the window a couchhad been drawn up and on it there was a child of about nine or ten yearsold, with a leg done up in plaster.

“This gentleman, he say you—you drop….”

At this moment, rather fortunately, a strong smell of burning came fromthe kitchen. My guide uttered an exclamation of dismay.

“Excuse, please excuse.”

“You go along,” I said heartily. “I can manage this.”

She fled with alacrity. I entered the room, shut the door behind me andcame across to the couch.

“How d’you do?” I said.

The child said, “How d’you do?” and proceeded to sum me up with along, penetrating glance that almost unnerved me. She was rather a plainchild with straight mousy hair arranged in two plaits. She had a bulgingforehead, a sharp chin and a pair of very intelligent grey eyes.

“I’m Colin Lamb,” I said. “What’s your name?”

She gave me the information promptly.

“Geraldine Mary Alexandra Brown.”

“Dear me,” I said, “that’s quite a bit of a name. What do they call you?”

“Geraldine. Sometimes Gerry, but I don’t like that. And Daddy doesn’tapprove of abbreviations.”

One of the great advantages of dealing with children is that they havetheir own logic. Anyone of adult years would at once have asked me whatI wanted. Geraldine was quite ready to enter into conversation without re-sorting to foolish questions. She was alone and bored and the onset of anykind of visitor was an agreeable novelty. Until I proved myself a dull andunamusing fellow, she would be quite ready to converse.

“Your daddy’s out, I suppose,” I said.

She replied with the same promptness and fullness of detail which shehad already shown.

“Cartinghaven Engineering Works, Beaverbridge,” she said. “It’s four-teen and three-quarter miles from here exactly.”

“And your mother?”

“Mummy’s dead,” said Geraldine, with no diminution of cheerfulness.

“She died when I was a baby two months old. She was in a plane comingfrom France. It crashed. Everyone was killed.”

She spoke with a certain satisfaction and I perceived that to a child, ifher mother is dead, it reflects a certain kudos if she has been killed in acomplete and devastating accident.

“I see,” I said. “So you have—” I looked towards the door.

“That’s Ingrid. She comes from Norway. She’s only been here a fort-night. She doesn’t know any English to speak of yet. I’m teaching her Eng-lish.”

“And she is teaching you Norwegian?”

“Not very much,” said Geraldine.

“Do you like her?”

“Yes. She’s all right. The things she cooks are rather odd sometimes. Doyou know, she likes eating raw fish.”

“I’ve eaten raw fish in Norway,” I said. “It’s very good sometimes.”

Geraldine looked extremely doubtful about that.

“She is trying to make a treacle tart today,” she said.

“That sounds good.”

“Umm—yes, I like treacle tart.” She added politely, “Have you come tolunch?”

“Not exactly. As a matter of fact I was passing down below out there,and I think you dropped something out of the window.”

“Me?”

“Yes.” I advanced the silver fruit knife.

Geraldine looked at it, at first suspiciously and then with signs of ap-proval.

“It’s rather nice,” she said. “What is it?”

“It’s a fruit knife.”

I opened it.

“Oh, I see. You mean you can peel apples with it and things like that.”

“Yes.”

Geraldine sighed.

“It’s not mine. I didn’t drop it. What made you think I did?”

“Well, you were looking out of the window, and….”

“I look out of the window most of the time,” said Geraldine. “I fell downand broke my leg, you see.”

“Hard luck.”

“Yes, wasn’t it. I didn’t break it in a very interesting way, though. I wasgetting out of a bus and it went on suddenly. It hurt rather at first and itached a bit, but it doesn’t now.”

“Must be rather dull for you,” I said.

“Yes, it is. But Daddy brings me things. Plasticine, you know, and booksand crayons and jigsaw puzzles and things like that, but you get tired ofdoing things, so I spend a lot of time looking out of the window withthese.”

She produced with enormous pride a small pair of opera glasses.

“May I look?” I said.

I took them from her, adjusted them to my eyes and looked out of thewindow.

“They’re jolly good,” I said appreciatively.

They were indeed, excellent. Geraldine’s daddy, if it had been he whosupplied them, had not spared expense. It was astonishing how clearlyyou could see No. 19, Wilbraham Crescent and its neighbouring houses. Ihanded them back to her.

“They’re excellent,” I said. “First-class.”

“They’re proper ones,” said Geraldine, with pride. “Not just for babiesand pretending.”

“No … I can see that.”

“I keep a little book,” said Geraldine.

She showed me.

“I write down things in it and the times. It’s like trainspotting,” she ad-ded. “I’ve got a cousin called Dick and he does trainspotting. We do motor-car numbers too. You know, you start at one and see how far you can get.”

“It’s rather a good sport,” I said.

“Yes, it is. Unfortunately there aren’t many cars come down this road soI’ve rather given that up for the time being.”

“I suppose you must know all about those houses down there, who livesin them and all that sort of thing.”

I threw it out casually enough but Geraldine was quick to respond.

“Oh, yes. Of course I don’t know their real names, so I have to give themnames of my own.”

“That must be rather fun,” I said.

“That’s the Marchioness of Carrabas down there,” said Geraldine, point-ing. “That one with all the untidy trees. You know, like Puss In Boots. Shehas masses and masses of cats.”

“I was talking to one just now,” I said, “an orange one.”

“Yes, I saw you,” said Geraldine.

“You must be very sharp,” I said. “I don’t expect you miss much, doyou?”

Geraldine smiled in a pleased way. Ingrid opened the door and came inbreathless.

“You are all right, yes?”

“We’re quite all right,” said Geraldine firmly. “You needn’t worry, In-grid.”

She nodded violently and pantomimed with her hands.

“You go back, you cook.”

“Very well, I go. It is nice that you have a visitor.”

“She gets nervous when she cooks,” explained Geraldine, “when she’strying anything new, I mean. And sometimes we have meals very late be-cause of that. I’m glad you’ve come. It’s nice to have someone to distractyou, then you don’t think about being hungry.”

“Tell me more about the people in the houses there,” I said, “and whatyou see. Who lives in the next house—the neat one?”

“Oh, there’s a blind woman there. She’s quite blind and yet she walksjust as well as though she could see. The porter told me that. Harry. He’svery nice, Harry is. He tells me a lot of things. He told me about themurder.”

“The murder?” I said, sounding suitably astonished.

Geraldine nodded. Her eyes shone with importance at the informationshe was about to convey.

“There was a murder in that house. I practically saw it.”

“How very interesting.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a murder before. I mean I’ve never seen aplace where a murder happened.”

“What did you—er—see?”

“Well, there wasn’t very much going on just then. You know, it’s ratheran empty time of day. The exciting thing was when somebody came rush-ing out of the house screaming. And then of course I knew somethingmust have happened.”

“Who was screaming?”

“Just a woman. She was quite young, rather pretty really. She came outof the door and she screamed and she screamed. There was a young mancoming along the road. She came out of the gate and sort of clutched him—like this.” She made a motion with her arms. She fixed me with a suddenglance. “He looked rather like you.”

“I must have a double,” I said lightly. “What happened next? This is veryexciting.”

“Well, he sort of plumped her down. You know, on the ground there andthen he went back into the house and the Emperor—that’s the orange cat,I always call him the Emperor because he looks so proud—stopped wash-ing himself and he looked quite surprised, and then Miss Pikestaff cameout of her house—that’s the one there, Number 18—she came out andstood on the steps staring.”

“Miss Pikestaff?”

“I call her Miss Pikestaff because she’s so plain. She’s got a brother andshe bullies him.”

“Go on,” I said with interest.

“And then all sorts of things happened. The man came out of the houseagain—are you sure it wasn’t you?”

“I’m a very ordinary-looking chap,” I said modestly, “there are lots likeme.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” said Geraldine, somewhat unflatteringly.

“Well, anyway, this man, he went off down the road and telephoned fromthe call box down there. Presently police began arriving.” Her eyessparkled. “Lots of police. And they took the dead body away in a sort ofambulance thing. Of course there were lots of people by that time, staring,you know. I saw Harry there, too. That’s the porter from these flats. Hetold me about it afterwards.”

“Did he tell you who was murdered?”

“He just said it was a man. Nobody knew his name.”

“It’s all very interesting,” I said.

I prayed fervently that Ingrid would not choose this moment to come inagain with a delectable treacle tart or other delicacy.

“But go back a little, do. Tell me earlier. Did you see this man—the manwho was murdered—did you see him arrive at the house?”

“No, I didn’t. I suppose he must have been there all along.”

“You mean he lived there?”

“Oh, no, nobody lives there except Miss Pebmarsh.”

“So you know her real name?”

“Oh, yes, it was in the papers. About the murder. And the screaming girlwas called Sheila Webb. Harry told me that the man who was murderedwas called Mr. Curry. That’s a funny name, isn’t it, like the thing you eat.

And there was a second murder, you know. Not the same day—later—inthe telephone box down the road. I can see it from here, just, but I have toget my head right out of the window and turn it round. Of course I didn’treally see it, because I mean if I’d known it was going to happen, I wouldhave looked out. But, of course, I didn’t know it was going to happen, so Ididn’t. There were a lot of people that morning just standing there in thestreet, looking at the house opposite. I think that’s rather stupid, don’tyou?”

“Yes,” I said, “very stupid.”

Here Ingrid made her appearance once more.

“I come soon,” she said reassuringly. “I come very soon now.”

She departed again. Geraldine said:

“We don’t really want her. She gets worried about meals. Of course thisis the only one she has to cook except breakfast. Daddy goes down to therestaurant in the evening and he has something sent up for me fromthere. Just fish or something. Not a real dinner.” Her voice sounded wist-ful.

“What time do you usually have your lunch, Geraldine?”

“My dinner, you mean? This is my dinner. I don’t have dinner in theevening, it’s supper. Well, I really have my dinner at any time Ingrid hap-pens to have cooked it. She’s rather funny about time. She has to getbreakfast ready at the right time because Daddy gets so cross, but middaydinner we have anytime. Sometimes we have it at twelve o’clock andsometimes I don’t get it till two. Ingrid says you don’t have meals at a par-ticular time, you just have them when they’re ready.”

“Well, it’s an easy idea,” I said. “What time did you have your lunch—dinner, I mean—on the day of the murder?”

“That was one of the twelve o’clock days. You see, Ingrid goes out thatday. She goes to the cinema or to have her hair done and a Mrs. Perrycomes and keeps me company. She’s terrible, really. She pats one.”

“Pats one?” I said, slightly puzzled.

“You know, on the head. Says things like ‘dear little girlie.’ She’s not,”

said Geraldine, “the kind of person you can have any proper conversationwith. But she brings me sweets and that sort of thing.”

“How old are you, Geraldine?”

“I’m ten. Ten and three months.”

“You seem to me very good at intelligent conversation,” I said.

“That’s because I have to talk to Daddy a lot,” said Geraldine seriously.

“So you had your dinner early on that day of the murder?”

“Yes, so Ingrid could get washed up and go off just after one.”

“Then you were looking out of the window that morning, watchingpeople.”

“Oh, yes. Part of the time. Earlier, about ten o’clock, I was doing a cross-word puzzle.”

“I’ve been wondering whether you could possibly have seen Mr. Curryarriving at the house?”

Geraldine shook her head.

“No. I didn’t. It is rather odd, I agree.”

“Well, perhaps he got there quite early.”

“He didn’t go to the front door and ring the bell. I’d have seen him.”

“Perhaps he came in through the garden. I mean through the other sideof the house.”

“Oh, no,” said Geraldine. “It backs on other houses. They wouldn’t likeanyone coming through their garden.”

“No, no, I suppose they wouldn’t.”

“I wish I knew what he’d looked like,” said Geraldine.

“Well, he was quite old. About sixty. He was clean-shaven and he had ona dark grey suit.”

Geraldine shook her head.

“It sounds terribly ordinary,” she said with disapprobation.

“Anyway,” I said, “I suppose it’s difficult for you to remember one dayfrom another when you’re lying here and always looking.”

“It’s not at all difficult.” She rose to the challenge. “I can tell youeverything about that morning. I know when Mrs. Crab came and whenshe left.”

“That’s the daily cleaning woman, is it?”

“Yes. She scuttles, just like a crab. She’s got a little boy. Sometimes shebrings him with her, but she didn’t that day. And then Miss Pebmarsh goesout about ten o’clock. She goes to teach children at a blind school. Mrs.

Crab goes away about twelve. Sometimes she has a parcel with her thatshe didn’t have when she came. Bits of butter, I expect, and cheese, be-cause Miss Pebmarsh can’t see. I know particularly well what happenedthat day because you see Ingrid and I were having a little quarrel so shewouldn’t talk to me. I’m teaching her English and she wanted to knowhow to say ‘until we meet again.’ She had to tell it me in German. AufWiedersehen. I know that because I once went to Switzerland and peoplesaid that there. And they said Grüss Gott, too. That’s rude if you say it inEnglish.”

“So what did you tell Ingrid to say?”

Geraldine began to laugh a deep malicious chuckle. She started to speakbut her chuckles prevented her, but at last she got it out.

“I told her to say ‘Get the hell out of here!’ So she said it to Miss Bul-strode next door and Miss Bulstrode was furious. So Ingrid found out andwas very cross with me and we didn’t make friends until nearly teatimethe next day.”

I digested this information.

“So you concentrated on your opera glasses.”

Geraldine nodded.

“So that’s how I know Mr. Curry didn’t go in by the front door. I thinkperhaps he got in somehow in the night and hid in an attic. Do you thinkthat’s likely?”

“I suppose anything really is possible,” I said, “but it doesn’t seem to mevery probable.”

“No,” said Geraldine, “he would have got hungry, wouldn’t he? And hecouldn’t have asked Miss Pebmarsh for breakfast, not if he was hidingfrom her.”

“And nobody came to the house?” I said. “Nobody at all? Nobody in a car—a tradesman—callers?”

“The grocer comes Mondays and Thursdays,” said Geraldine, “and themilk comes at half past eight in the morning.”

The child was a positive encyclopaedia.

“The cauliflowers and things Miss Pebmarsh buys herself. Nobodycalled at all except the laundry. It was a new laundry,” she added.

“A new laundry?”

“Yes. It’s usually the Southern Downs Laundry. Most people have theSouthern Downs. It was a new laundry that day—the Snowflake Laundry.

I’ve never seen the Snowflake Laundry. They must have just started.”

I fought hard to keep any undue interest out of my voice. I didn’t wantto start her romancing.

“Did it deliver laundry or call for it?” I asked.

“Deliver it,” said Geraldine. “In a great big basket, too. Much bigger thanthe usual one.”

“Did Miss Pebmarsh take it in?”

“No, of course not, she’d gone out again.”

“What time was this, Geraldine?”

“1:35 exactly,” said Geraldine. “I wrote it down,” she added proudly.

She motioned towards a small notebook and opening it pointed with arather dirty forefinger to an entry. 1:35 laundry came. No. 19.

“You ought to be at Scotland Yard,” I said.

“Do they have women detectives? I’d quite like that. I don’t mean police-women. I think policewomen are silly.”

“You haven’t told me exactly what happened when the laundry came.”

“Nothing happened,” said Geraldine. “The driver got down, opened thevan, took out this basket and staggered along round the side of the houseto the back door. I expect he couldn’t get in. Miss Pebmarsh probably locksit, so he probably left it there and came back.”

“What did he look like?”

“Just ordinary,” said Geraldine.

“Like me?” I asked.

“Oh, no, much older than you,” said Geraldine, “but I didn’t really seehim properly because he drove up to the house—this way.” She pointed tothe right. “He drew up in front of 19 although he was on the wrong side ofthe road. But it doesn’t matter in a street like this. And then he went inthrough the gate bent over the basket. I could only see the back of his headand when he came out again he was rubbing his face. I expect he found ita bit hot and trying, carrying that basket.”

“And then he drove off again?”

“Yes. Why do you think it so interesting?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “I thought perhaps he might have seensomething interesting.”

Ingrid flung the door open. She was wheeling a trolley.

“We eat dinner now,” she said, nodding brightly.

“Goody,” said Geraldine, “I’m starving.”

I got up.

“I must be going now,” I said. “Good-bye, Geraldine.”

“Good-bye. What about this thing?” She picked up the fruit knife. “It’snot mine.” Her voice became wistful. “I wish it were.”

“It looks as though it’s nobody’s in particular, doesn’t it?”

“Would that make it treasure trove, or whatever it is?”

“Something of the kind,” I said. “I think you’d better hang on to it. Thatis, hang on to it until someone else claims it. But I don’t think,” I said truth-fully, “that anybody will.”

“Get me an apple, Ingrid,” said Geraldine.

“Apple?”

“Pomme! Apfel!”

She did her linguistic best. I left them to it.