A Man of Forty (21 page)

“I only want him to be happy,” Lydia said. “ I don't mind standing aside, if it will make him happy.”

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “ I see that. It's wonderful of you, mother.”

Among several things that Lydia did not fully reveal to Eleanor was her attitude to Mary and to Adam. Resuming (in her mind) possession of David, and seeing him defeated and lorlorn, she now made his cause her own, utterly identifying herself with him in thought and feeling, so far as his thought and feeling could be surmised. Formerly she had not hated Mary for loving David. Now she hated Mary for not loving David. She more than hated her; she felt herself deeply insulted by Mary's rejection of her husband : behaviour that might, a month earlier, have been accounted wisdom or virtue in Mary, but was now the height of insolence. To decline the proposals of a married man would have been commendable; but to reject David in favour of Adam was monstrous, so monstrous that she longed to be revenged on them both, longed to punish them, the sleek young man who had trifled with Eleanor's love and broken David's heart, and the girl with her poisonous man-alluring beauty. If I can feel this, she thought, what must my David be feeling? And with that question a fantastic idea was born in her mind.

To Eleanor she said, her eyes glistening : “ I'm going to see Adam too.”

At ten o'clock, that Monday evening, Stevenage the hall porter was in a state of considerable perturbation, though only a close observer would have been aware of it. He had been five years in his job, and nothing like this commotion had ever happened before. He stood in his accustomed place in the hall, keeping one eye on the exit and one on Mr. Hortman, the manager of the flats. Mr. Hortman
had been his boss for only the last eighteen months of his five years, and Stevenage, who disliked change, often thought regretfully of his predecessor; but he was all for live and let live, and he could not have said that he had anything against the man. Bushy eyebrows and a heavy brown moustache did not, after all, provide legitimate grounds for complaint. For some minutes Hortman had been pacing to and fro between Stevenage's observation-post and the door of his own office five yards away, pausing at intervals to utter a pointless remark or an unnecessary exclamation. Stevenage, whose nerves were twitching from his recent shock, wished the fellow would shut up and not make a spectacle of himself in front of the doctor. He felt that Hortman was somehow letting the establishment down. Dr. Grove, a sleek youngish man from just round the corner, sat perfectly self-controlled in the only available chair, taking no notice of either Hortman or Stevenage. Even in his world this sort of thing did not happen every day, but it was part of his code to maintain an air of well-bred indifference. While the three men waited for the arrival of the police, it crossed Stevenage's mind that tonight was the first time he had seen a dead body since the War. And in some ways tonight's experience had been worse. More out of place, like. More what you couldn't have possibly been prepared for.

“Ah, here they come,” said Stevenage.

He spoke half to himself, but the doctor heard him and at once rose to his feet. To Stevenage's startled senses the hall of Orkney House was suddenly crowded with men, though in fact the new arrivals numbered only three : one tall, lean, and fortyish, wearing a raincoat and a soft hat; and an older, middle-sized man, very precise in his movements.

Hortman came hurrying forward. “ Good evening. You're…?”

“That's right,” said the man in the raincoat casually. He turned from Hortman to say : “ It's you we want, sir, I think. Dr. Grove?”

“Yes,” said Grove.

“My name's Spencer. This is Dr. Trewin. Shall we go along?” His glance fell on Stevenage. “ You're the hall porter, aren't you?”

“Yes, sir. Name of Stevenage.”

“It was you who let the doctor in, eh, upstairs?” He gave a jerk of the thumb to reinforce his meaning.

“Yes, sir. Name of Stevenage.”

“Good. You can come along too. No,” he said to Hortman, “ we shan't need you for the moment. Mr.… er…”

“ Hortman. I'm the manager here.”

“I see. I suppose you've made a note of everyone who has left the building since the… little discovery was made?”

Hortman looked anxiously towards Stevenage. “ I hope so, I'm sure.”

“All right, don't worry,” said Spencer, with a half a grin. “ Well, . gentlemen, let's get along.”

Stevenage, by no means enjoying his privilege, led the party up the first flight of stairs and along the stone corridor till they came to Flat No. 47. Stevenage produced a key from his pocket and opened the front door.

“You needn't come inside, if you don't want to,” said Spencer.

Stevenage made a half-humorous grimace to hide his embarrassment. “ Well, I can't say I fancy it, sir.”

“You have kept your hands off everything, I suppose? Right you are. By the way, who lives next door?”

That question disposed of, the party went into No. 47 to make their investigations, leaving Stevenage to his own devices for a while. After a glance of distaste at the now shut door, he turned away and went thoughtfully back to his duties, wondering how much it would be safe to tell this Mr. Spencer, when the time for being questioned arrived. Stevenage had never liked young Mr. Swinford since that funny business with the girl that Sunday; and though it made you feel a bit different towards anyone when you saw them lying dead, because after all we're all human and everyone has their faults, Stevenage still had his reasons for wanting to keep out of it. If it was suicide, all well and good : least said soonest mended, especially for Orkney House. But if it
wasn't
suicide, and it didn't look as though it was, then Orkney House was in for a bad time; and so was Stevenage himself; and so were some other people. Stevenage, with wry humour, looked forward to seeing the place festooned with policemen, and to having the distracted Mr. Hortman accost him twenty times a day with the news that this was a very serious matter, a very serious matter indeed. It'll give the place a bad name sure enough, conceded Stevenage : the old fusspot will be right so far. And the more they find out the worse it will be for all concerned, except the police, nosey old parkers, though of course you couldn't hardly expect them to shut their eyes to a thing like that : have some common sense, Stevenage admonished himself. All the same, it was true, wasn't it, that this poking and prying would do nobody any good? The young fellow had treated a girl wrong, and now he had got what was coming to him. You couldn't help
him
by
making a fuss; you could only bring it all out into the open and ruin people's lives that were still left.

The problem of what should and what shouldn't be told was still unsolved when Spencer and the two medical men came downstairs : but there was no doubt that he must answer whatever questions were put to him, and answer them truthfully. He had not long to wait. Mr. Hortman gratified himself by putting his office at the disposal of the police, and was then deprived of his reward by being excluded from the subsequent conference. He would be so much more usefully employed, Spencer gently explained, if he stayed outside with the sergeant and told him who the people were who came in or went out. Poor old top, thought Stevenage : this isn't his lucky day. He followed Spencer and the doctors into Hortman's office and carefully closed the door behind him.

“Well, gentlemen, there's no doubt as to the cause of death, I take it?”

“None whatever,” said Trewin. “ My opinion is precisely Dr. Grove's.”

Dr. Grove, being new to this kind of thing, tried not to look gratified.

“The wound couldn't have been self-inflicted,” said Spencer, consulting his notes. “ You're agreed on that too.”

“Yes,” said Grove.

“Ask yourself, man,” said Trewin. “ Here's a cadaver with a nice little neat hole——”

“All right,” said Spencer. “ I know. I know. And how long dead, do you say?”

“Ee, well,” said Trewin, “ not less than one hour. Eh, doctor?”

“I agree,” said Dr. Grove. “ And not more than, say, three.”

“Fine,” said Trewin.

The two nodded at each other with an air of quiet self-satisfaction.

“Now, Dr. Grove,” said Spencer, “ let me see that I've got your story right. You were rung up at your house at about nine-thirty-five and asked to go at once to 47 Orkney House, where you would find a Mr. Adam Swinford in desperate need of attention. Were those the exact words?”

“That phrase was used. I was struck by it. It seemed curiously stilted in the circumstances.”

“Quite. Like a prepared speech,” said Spencer. “ You said it was a woman's voice. I suppose there's no doubt of that?”

“I had no doubt at the time. The voice was natural enough, even though the phrasing wasn't. She said,' Please go at once, or you
may be too late. He's in desperate need of attention.' I asked her to give me some idea of what was the matter, so that I could go properly equipped,” he explained in parenthesis. “ To that she answered :
⁴
He's had an accident, a bad fall. He's unconscious.' Then she repeated the name and address.”

“Did you ask where she was speaking from?”

“No. I assumed she was speaking from here.”

“Naturally,” conceded Spencer. “ You knew this place, I suppose, since you live so near?”

“Yes. At least I knew it was what it is, a block of flats. I've passed it scores of times.”

“Quite. You assumed she was speaking from here,” said Spencer, scratching his chin with a blunt forefinger. “ And was she?” he suddenly asked, turning on Stevenage.

“Me, sir? I don't know. Not from the office she wasn't. Nor yet from the call-box on the first floor landing, because it's still out of order. I've just been to see. But lots of the tenants are on the telephone, naturally.”

“They, of course, connect straight to the exchange. Don't come through you, I mean?”

“That's right, sir.”

“If she'd been speaking from this building,” suggested Dr. Grove, “ it would have been natural for her to say ‘ Please come at once,' not ‘ Please go at once,' don't you think?”

“Yes,” said Spencer. “ But naturalness doesn't seem to be the lady's strong point, by your own account.”

“That's true,” admitted Grove.

“Your name's Stevenage, didn't you say?”

“That's right, sir.”

“Been here long?”

“Five years.”

“Good. Are you the only hall porter here?”

“No, sir. There's Jackson and there's Gregg. We work in shifts, right round the clock, sir.”

“When you're on duty do you see everybody that comes in and goes out?”

“Pretty well everybody, but not——”

“But not everybody. Quite. You're not always on the spot. Naturally. But this evening now. From half-past six, say, to the moment when Dr. Grove arrived. Where were you then?”

“I was there all right. On the job, I mean. Well, except for five minutes or so, down in the basement.”

“ Oh? What were you doing in the basement?”

“At the fuse-box. Putting in a bit of fuse-wire.”

“Where was the fuse?” Spencer asked.

“On the second floor.”

“Was it reported to you, or did you find it for yourself?”

“They got through on the phone and complained.”

“Who was using the electric light in broad daylight, I wonder?”

“It was a power circuit. Not light. Young lady name of Graham wanting to boil an egg.”

“And on the second floor. The first floor flats wouldn't be affected?”

“No, sir.”

“I see. So you were in the basement for five or ten minutes. Except for that you were in your usual place and saw people coming and going.”

“Yes and no, sir.”

Spencer gazed at him blandly. “ How's that?”

“Well, it's like this, sir. There I am, ready to speak when spoken to, answering the telephone, taking messages, and so on and so
forth”
said Stevenage persuasively. “ But that's not to say I've got to see every mortal man or woman that comes in or goes out. Nine out of ten, yes. But half-past six to half-past seven, you may say that's the busiest time of the day, barring morning times. That's when the folks are coming back from their offices. And if you was to put me in the box and ask me to swear on me Bible oath that never a single soul could have slipped past me, well, I just couldn't do it.”

Spencer frowned ; then switched over from the frown to a smile. “ Yes, I appreciate that, Stevenage. You're a hall porter, not a policeman. You knew the deceased gentleman, of course. Naturally you did. Do you happen to know anything about his movements, his habits, people who visited him?”

“Can't say I do, sir.”

“Think a bit, Stevenage. By the way, is there a telephone in No. 47?” Spencer asked innocently.

You know very well there isn't, you old fox, thought Stevenage. Well, here goes. “ Meaning I must have had telephone messages for him sometimes,” he said, with a half-truculent grin. “ True enough. So I have. As a matter of fact,” he went on, beginning to enjoy his sudden importance, “ there was a call for him today, about tea-time.”

Can't be any harm in mentioning that, thought Stevenage. And he'll find out, whether I do or not, and then
I
shall be for it. But he
suddenly remembered that there was, or might be, just conceivably might be, a reason why he shouldn't have mentioned that.

“Who from?”

But no!—couldn't possibly be anything in that, thought Stevenage. He's not the murdering sort, though they do say you never can tell. Still, I'd stake my life on that Mr. Brome being all right.