The Attic Murder Part 2

"No. Not exactly the same. But I suppose you'd want me to draw the money out a few hours later?"

The tone was non-committal, if nothing worse. He became aware that he might have to face refusal of his request. But he could not deny that his programme would involve a second call at the bank, and one that should be made very promptly after the first. He said: "You see, I haven't got a penny till I can get a cheque cashed. And I don't want to stay here longer than I'm obliged."

She turned the conversation to ask "Any special reason for that? You don't think anyone saw you come in?"

"No. It's a different reason." He hesitated a moment. Was he being as utter a fool as Tony Welch had made him before? But he had the sense to see that he had gone too far for a safe retreat: that to give her a doubt as to whether he were being entirely frank would be worse than to have said nothing at all. After that momentary hesitation, he narrated the conversation that he had overheard the evening before.

"It does make it a bit awkward," she said thoughtfully. "I was going to suggest that you might stay here safely for a few days, if you could keep out of Mr. Rabone's way, and in that time I might get you the money by other means, if you'd trust me enough for that. I don't know much about how soon they offer rewards for escaped prisoners, nor whether they do it at all, but I shouldn't think there'd be any rush to begin. But if the woman next door's got the idea, she's more likely to talk than not, and -- well, it's not raining much now, so if you'll write the note while I'm upstairs, I'll get ready to go." He had to ask for further a.s.sistance, having neither paper nor pen, but she was soon ready, and armed with a note from Francis Hammerton, headed with his private address, and requesting his bankers to provide him with a book containing twenty-four uncrossed cheques, and to charge it to his account.

"If I'm not back," she said, "in the next hour, you'll know that something's happened at the bank which makes me think it's not safe. In that case, you must trust me to come back, or find some other means of letting you know, as soon as I safely can."

"But," he protested, with the fuller realization of what he was asking her to risk and do which her words brought, "I couldn't ask you to do that. How would you -- - ?"

She interrupted him to reply: "I only said if. I don't expect there'll be any trouble at all. I just wanted you to understand that if I'm not back in an hour it won't mean that I'm forging cheques all over the place. I expect the bank will hand it out without giving me more than a look. Why shouldn't they? There doesn't seem to be anyone but this Bob Powell you mention who could connect you with your real name, and you'd have heard before now if he'd let that out, and in a different way."

She turned to go, and then hesitated, as though having something further to say. But then she thought: "I don't suppose, if I told him, that it would enable him to get clear in time."

She had a second impulse that came near to speech, but checked herself again with the thought: "Well, if that happened, he'd find out soon enough; and it would mean explaining a lot if I said it now." She repeated: "I don't suppose I shall be more than an hour," and went out.

She left him puzzled in mind, but feeling that he had been fortunate in gaining a friend at so great a need.

Chapter VIII.

FRANCIS became more nervous of the window as the rain ceased and the light improved. He would not retire to his own room, being alert by that time for the girl's return, but he sat by the fire in what he thought would be a natural pose to the eyes of anyone who might glance in, and which kept his face hidden behind the pages of the Daily Record. Doing this, he found after a time that it required an effort of will to move the paper away, lest his eyes should confront those of some suspicious officer of the law gazing in from the street upon a lodger whom Mrs. Benson had acquired during the previous day.

He told himself irritably that he was a d.a.m.nable coward, and that it would be better to give himself up at once than to allow his fears to make a purgatory of every hour of the day. But he defended himself from his own contempt with the argument that his empty pockets, and the inaction that they entailed, were responsible for these nervous fears that reason would not control. If he could be active on his own behalf -- - How soon would she be back?

He calculated the time which the journey would require. With all allowances, even to an imagined crowd at the bank counter, it should be done in an hour. He could not make it longer than that.

But the hour pa.s.sed, and a half-hour beyond, and she did not come. He must conclude, from her own a.s.surance, that this delay was a sign either that she had been detained or followed, which stirred him to a new fear.

Would she be sufficiently skilful to dodge pursuit, or would she be traced by those whom his own folly would have guided to his retreat? Or was she now being detained and questioned with a severity which she could not indefinitely sustain? Or, perhaps, herself under some charge which his own knowledge of law was not sufficient to formulate to his own fears, as having applied for a cheque-book without being able or willing to give a proper account of how she came to be sent on such an errand? Could he reasonably expect that she would sustain such an inquisition for one who had given her such casual employment, and had been a stranger to her three hours before?

While he tried to control these impatient doubts, and the time went by, Mrs. Benson appeared to spread a cloth for the midday meal. He thought she looked at him in a sour way, and as though she hesitated on the edge of saying things which he would not be pleased to hear, or asking questions to which it might not be easy to find reply.

It was an att.i.tude simple to understand, she thinking him to be what he was, or even something worse, and he having a.s.sured her that he was going out to draw money, which he had made no motion to do.

He could have said that Miss Jones had kindly consented to call at the bank on his behalf, but he doubted the wisdom of that till he knew what the result of her adventure was. But would his silence annoy the woman into denouncing him to the police without waiting for the precarious chance of a reward which must be weighed against the certainty that she was feeding a lodger who did not pay? Would she conclude that his talk of a bank was no more than the ready tale of one who was practised in abusing the confidence of others as his conviction indicated?

Vexed by these thoughts, to which no satisfactory answers appeared, he did not venture even to look directly at her, lest he should encourage the asking of questions to which he had no reply, and the att.i.tude of dejection and anxiety which she observed actually had a different effect on her mind from that which his fears supposed.

In fact, her vague horror of criminality, in whatever form, was not entirely proof against actual contact with one who, to the instincts by which those of undeveloped mentality are largely accustomed to rule their lives, did not appear to be of a repellent or hostile type.

When she did speak, it was only to ask, as she laid for three on the dingy cloth: "I suppose Miss Jones didn't happen to say whether she'd be coming in? She mostly does, or let's me know if she won't."

"No," he said, with some hesitation, wishing neither to show what he knew, nor to be inconsistent with anything that Miss Jones might say on her return, "she might come in any time, as far as I understood."

"There'll be Mr. Rabone, anyway," the woman went on. "He said he'd be coming in, as he doesn't do most days, not before-night." She added, in a grumbling under-tone: "I suppose my dinners aren't good enough for the likes of him." And then, in a more audible voice, but still in the tone of one who had a developed habit of muttering aloud, rather than conversing with others: "Not as she'd be more likely to come in for that."

As she spoke, there was the sound of a latchkey in the street-door, and the heavy step of the top-floor lodger sounded along the pa.s.sage, and up the thinly-carpeted stairs.

Francis Hammerton restrained a prudent or cowardly t impulse to rise and withdraw to his own room. He had to face the difficulty of securing solitude in a crowded city, which is particularly great for one whose pockets are bare. Two minutes later, the opportunity had gone. William Rabone entered the room.

Mrs. Benson, taking his appearance as a signal that the meal should be served, without longer waiting for her female lodger, had retreated to the kitchen to dish it up, and Francis was spared an introduction he did not desire.

The man who entered was dark, large, heavily built, and of professional rather than commercial aspect, in spite of the absurd toothbrush on his upper lip, which appeared to understudy either Charlie Chaplin or the German Chancellor.

He looked at Francis with unconcealed annoyance, for which there may have been sufficient reason in the fact that he had antic.i.p.ated the presence of Mary Jones, and that she would be his sole company at the meal.

But this first glance was casual in its hostility. The second was more intent.

"Good morning, Mr. Vaughan," he said, with some stress on the final word. Francis looked at him with an expression which he intended for indifferent surprise. "My name is Edwards."

"Glad to know... I expect you think it's best not to go out in this weather."

Francis was spared the necessity of reply by the arrival of Mrs. Benson with a tray bearing a boiled neck of mutton, and two dishes of vegetables; and before she retired Mary Jones had also entered, and taken her seat at the table.

Miss Jones said nothing, nor did she look at either of her fellow-guests, settling herself to her own meal as indifferently as though she were the only one there.

It appeared that it was a table at which no one presided, its etiquette being that the dishes were pa.s.sed or pushed toward each diner in turn, for the satisfaction of their own requirements. Jones accepted these services with monosyllabic thanks to those in whose existence she seemed otherwise uninterested.

Conversation was slow to commence among three people who were alike in feeling that they were one too many, though they would have differed as to the one whose presence was not required.

Mr. Rabone, who preferred better meals than Mrs. Benson provided, had come in with the sole object of indulging in the society of Miss Jones in a manner inappropriate to the presence of a third party: Francis had even more urgent, if not more important reason for wishing to talk to that lady alone: Mary Jones had a report to make which was not for Mr. Rabone's ears. She also would have preferred that Francis should have been alone when she arrived, but, as Rabone was there, she had a modified satisfaction in the fact that she was not singly with him. But she told herself that this was mere cowardice, by which she thanked fate for postponing that which she had been active to bring about.

The neck of mutton had been succeeded by apple-dumplings when Rabone addressed Miss Jones in a direct and serious way. His question was blunt to the edge of rudeness: "Shall you be going out this afternoon?"

Her reply hesitated, as though the question were an embarra.s.sment, and when she replied it was indirectly, and with a timidity of tone and manner very different from that in which she had conversed with Francis during the morning, and which reminded him again of the voice which he had first heard through the attic door. She said: "I expect I shall be in this evening."

Mr. Rabone considered this reply, on which he made no comment to her, but he looked at Francis to ask, in a manner which was more a direction than a request: "You will be going out after dark?"

Francis restrained himself to answer: "Perhaps I shall."

Mr. Rabone said no more until the meal ended, and Miss Jones had risen and silently left the room. Then he turned to Francis with unfriendly and somewhat contemptuous eyes. "Staying here?" he asked curtly.

"I may."

"I think not."

Francis made no answer to that. He saw that those who recognized him were now in a position to move him on, as a policeman deals with a tramp. But without money -- without having the girl's report of the errand in which she had so probably failed -- - Mr. Rabone spoke again: "Can you give me change for ten shillings?"

"Not at the moment."

"So I supposed." He pulled out a pocket-book fat with notes. Evidently it was not poverty which caused him to choose that modest, if respectable lodging.

He took out a pound-note, hesitated between that and one for half the amount, and finally selected two of ten shillings each, which he pa.s.sed across the table.

Francis looked at the money, letting it lie. The action was generous in itself, but it was evidently without good-will. Its manner made it an insult, very hard not to refuse.

But suppose that the girl had failed, as her delay in returning appeared to indicate? Suppose that she were waiting now for the opportunity to tell him quietly that he could not be too speedy to leave? There might be freedom in those two slips of coloured paper so contemptuously tossed over the cloth. There would surely be rest and food at an urgent need Anyway, he must learn to obey the orders of all men who could address him as Harold Vaughan, even though they offered no money to enforce their wills.

He picked it up with a conventional word of thanks which did attempt pretence of grat.i.tude, as for a friend's aid, nor that he was in less than an utter need. He said: "We will call it a loan. You shall have it back during the next few days."

"Call it what you will. You must be gone from here when I get back. That's at six tonight."

He rose, and went up to his room. Ten minutes later Francis heard him leave, and almost immediately after Miss Jones came down.

She had her bag in her hand, from which she drew the cheque-book that he required.

"Was it all right?" he asked. "I was afraid when you didn't get back -- - "

"I think so, but I'm not sure. I went to a cashier who was not occupied when I got to the counter, and gave him the note. He was reading it when another customer came up. The cashier looked at him, and then said to me: "Just a moment, please," and went to the back.

"I thought I should have some trouble to face, but when he returned he just gave me the book in the usual way. The man who came after me had pushed a cheque over to him for payment, and I looked back as I went out of the door, and the cashier wasn't paying it, but talking to him, with it in his hand.

"That looked as though he had gone behind to enquire something about him rather than me, when he first saw him come up, without wishing to do it so that he would be understood -- perhaps to see what his balance was -- and I felt easy; but after that I got an idea that I was being followed. It may have been only nervousness, but I went a good way round, to make sure."

"You are sure?"

"Yes. I mean I'm sure no one followed me here."

Francis noticed the quiet confidence in her voice, and that she had been sufficiently conversant with banking methods to judge what had occurred in a cool and probable way. He asked: "You won't mind going again? There'll be just about time before they close."

She did not refuse, but neither did she agree. She said: "It seems rather a needless risk, if we could do it a better way... I wonder whether you'd care to trust me with a cheque that I could get a firm I know to put through their account? We could get the money in a couple of days."

But it could be traced through another bank?

"I don't know that that would matter. You've got a right to draw cheques on your own account. They wouldn't give you away."

He was slow to answer, and there was reserve in her voice when she spoke again: "But I expect you can think of a better plan. Anyway, you've got the cheque-book now."

He saw that he must have appeared distrustful of the offer, and even ungrateful for what she had already done. He was in danger of losing the one friend he had, at a time when friends were his greatest need. He said: "It isn't that. The fact is I've just been told to clear out before six o'clock. Mr. Rabone knows who I am."

"What dit he say?"

He narrated the incident as exactly as possible.

She frowned in thought over this, and then said: "It's bad luck that he's guessed, but I don't think he'll be in any hurry to let the police know. You needn't worry much about that."

He asked with surprise: "You'd advise me to risk it, and stay on""

"I didn't say that. It's not easy to see what's the safest way. But you might leave here and go somewhere that I could reach, if we thought out a plan."

"But you don't think he'll inform the police? You feel sure that he's not that sort?

She answered dryly: "No. He's not that sort."

He attacked the position irritably from another angle: "I suppose he wanted to have you alone here this evening. That's really why he wants me to clear."

She listened to this, and amus.e.m.e.nt came to her eyes. "I should call that a good guess... But it isn't that, all the same. Or not that alone. He thinks you've come to the wrong place."

"If you'd only say what you mean!"

"That's what I've been trying to do."

He checked an impatient reply, and made the effort necessary to control a nervous impatience born of the precarious position in which he stood, and remained silent, waiting for her to say more. He was rewarded with: "You told me a good deal. I wonder whether it wouldn't save trouble if I were to pay you back in the same coin."

He became conscious of the boorishness of his previous mood. What obligation had she to him? He said: "Don't tell me anything you're not sure I should know. There's no reason you should. I'd rather trust you than that."

Indeed, if she were not worthy of trust, what hope could he have? He was in her hands, in more ways than one. If she sought to rob or betray him, it would be easy for her to tell a tale that he could not test. In his position, he must trust entirely, or not at all, and his choice was already made.

But she had formed her own resolution, and his words did not change it, but rather confirmed her judgement that she could give a confidence which he would not betray.

"Trust's all right," she said, "but it's simpler to understand. I don't think you'll give me away to Mr. Rabone, and still less that you'll set the police on him, though I shouldn't care if you did, so long as my name wasn't anywhere in the bill...

"Mr. Rabone is a bank inspector. He's on the staff of the London & Northern. Bank inspectors have to be men of good character. If they haven't got private means, the bank expects them to live within their salaries, which are substantial, but nothing more.

"Mr. Rabone is a man against whose financial record nothing is known. He is separated from his wife, but that's understood not to be his fault. She's said to drink like a fish. He has to contribute to her support.

"He lives simply, in such lodgings as these. He takes expensive holidays, but not more so than his salary may possibly cover, particularly if he was careful in earlier years which report says that he was.

"But he gives the impression of having money under control. There was an occasion when he avoided scandal by paying what must have been a large sum, though we haven't been able to find out yet what the figure was.

"No one would have worried themselves to enquire into these matters but for the fact that the London & Northern Bank has been the victim of a succession of forgeries of such a character that there has been a growing suspicion that they could not have been carried out successfully without the a.s.sistance, if not the actual direction, of someone with inside knowledge, particularly of the balances lying in the accounts on which the forged cheques were drawn.

"The Texall Enquiry Agency, of which I am one of the humbler members, was instructed, about a year ago, to make the most searching investigation into the records and occupations of about twenty of the bank staff, each of which could have a.s.sisted one or other of the robberies at different branches.

"The trouble was that no one man could have been in touch with them all, and when we'd failed to discover anything to connect any of them with the incidents in question, though we'd stirred up some unexpected mud in one or two cases, we received instructions to investigate the private life and connections of some of the higher officials, who had been regarded as above such suspicion before."

"With Mr. Rabone top of the list? Well, I hope you'll prove he's in it up to the neck, as no doubt he is."

Miss Jones smiled. "You don't love him. It's easy to see that. Neither do I... But we haven't found anything yet, beyond that, if he's really in with a criminal gang, as I think he is, he's an exceptionally circ.u.mspect man.

"The only really unpleasant thing that we should be able to prove as yet is that he has a habit of making friends with lonely girls in his lodgings, or when he goes on holidays, and in some other ways, and seducing them without telling them that he has a wife very much alive.

"It was in connection with one of these incidents some years ago that he found it prudent to pay a sufficient sum to a girl, who had a baby coming, to go out to New Zealand with her mother without making a fuss... And when I tell you that you'll understand why I'm here."

"I should have thought it would have been a better reason for keeping a good distance away."

"Then you didn't listen when I told you what my profession is... I'm a poor girl who's out of a job, and her money down to about ten shillings. I'm rather timid, and more frightened than attracted as yet, but he's very patient and kind, and, in the end, when my money's gone, and -- well, what can a poor girl be expected to do?... He's trying hard now to get me a job at the bank, but it's a sure bet that he'll fail in that."