Beyond this place (17 page)

"Don't worry. I'll get along all right. Who was it wanted to see me? Someone from the police?"

"No, no," she said quickly, with a tremulous lip. "It was a queer little man. Mr. Harris was very rude to him, wouldn't take a message, or give him any information. But afterwards I managed to get a word with him. He's a Mr. Prusty, of 52 Ushaw Terrace. He wants you to call and see him tonight."

'Tonight?"

o

BEYOND THIS PLACE

"Yes. No matter how late. He said it was terribly important."

"Thank you," Paul said quietly. "You've done me a real good turn."

"It's nothing. ... I don't want to interfere . . . but if there's any way I can help. . . ."

Her sympathy, restrained yet spontaneous, swept him with an overwhelming desire to confide in her. But again he would not yield to it. Instead, he forced a conventional smile — a weak grimace that twitched his cheek.

"Haven't you enough troubles of your own?"

She glanced at him strangely, inquiringly almost, her chin pressed down upon her breast.

"If I have, won't I understand yours better?"

She waited, almost anxiously, waited for his reply. As he kept silent she compressed her lips, as though to suppress a sigh.

"At least . . . take care of yourself."

For an instant her eyes held his; then with a swift movement, she turned and was gone.

Immediately a coldness filled him, a sense of deprivation mingled with anger at his own weakness in wishing her to remain. He was tempted almost to rush to the landing and recall her. But the striking of the hour on the Ware clock deterred him. He counted: nine strokes; and at once took up his hat and coat. As he went downstairs he asked himself why should Prusty wish to see him? This sudden overture ran quite contrary to the tobacconist's cautious disposition. With knitted brows, trying to find an answer to the puzzle, he set out for Eldon at a rapid pace.

CHAPTER XXII

THE weather had changed at last and the night was cold and wintry. Beneath a leaden sky the streets lay quiet and deserted, the city seemed sealed in a frozen stillness. Presently it began to snow. The dry flakes milled around in the air, then fell, spent

BEYOND THIS PLACE

and soft, upon the pavements. With muffled footsteps Paul passed the shuttered cigar store and pushed on towards Ushaw Terrace.

The tobacconist was at home, wrapped in a thick woolen comforter. He peered at Paul across the threshold, then, with a wheeze of recognition, widened the narrow aperture of the door. Paul entered, having first kicked the snow from his boots upon the stairs. The parlour was still as dim and dusty as before, still redolent of cigar smoke, and still the gas fire sent its glow across the sheepskin rug. It was close and stuffy after the outer chill.

"Winter's come early," Prusty said, darting sharp glances over his pince-nez. "I feel it in my tubes. Sit down. I'm going to have supper."

He poured out a cup of his indispensable coffee for his visitor and gruffly insisted on sharing with him a meat pie, bought from the baker's and made hot in the oven. Despite this hospitality Paul had a strong suspicion that he was less welcome than before. The tobacconist kept examining him with surreptitious glances, and by a series of questions, roundabout, yet all bearing shrewdly towards the point, he managed to acquaint himself pretty fully with Paul's doings in the past few weeks.

When he had done so he made no immediate comment, but his air was sombre as he selected and lit a cheroot, coughed spasmodically, then bent his bushy brows upon the fire.

"So that's it." He meditated frowningly. "No wonder I felt the whole thing was waking up again. For all these years it's been buried . . . now it's like as if, when you put your ear to the ground, you heard a faint stirring in the grave."

There was a silence. The parlour, darkened by the falling snow, seemed suddenly full of shadows.

"As yet it's all under cover," Prusty went on steadily. "But there's signs and symptoms ... ay, there's omens and portents . . . for better or worse I cannot say, but I feel it in my bones, there's a resurrection coming. I feel it even in this room." He cast his eyes upwards. "And in the room above."

At the note of strange foreboding in Prusty's voice, Paul suppressed a shiver, and stared up at the ceiling.

"Is it still unoccupied?"

BEYOND THIS PLACE

The tobacconist nodded his head. "Blank empty. As I told you, since the murder it's never been occupied for long."

Paul stirred uneasily, preyed on by disturbing thoughts, by the urgent need to press forward at all costs.

"There's something on your mind. Is what I've been doing responsible?"

"Ay, it's got around," Prusty agreed. "In whispers and in echoes. And it's penetrated to some queer places. That's the reason I asked you to visit me."

Interlocking his fingers tightly to restrain another tremor, Paul leaned forward in his chair to listen.

"Last Friday a man called to see me, here, at this flat. I was out, at my business, but Mrs. Lawson, the woman who comes in twice a week to clean up for me, was in. She's a plain, sensible woman who doesn't scare easy. But by all accounts the very sight of tins man frightened her near out of her wits." Prusty glanced towards Paul. "Do you want me to go on?"

"Yes."

"The man was of no particular age. He might have been young and he might have been old. He looked strong yet he looked sick. His clothes didn't fit him. His face was hard and dead white. His head was cropped, down to the bone. Mrs. Lawson took her oath he was a convict."

"Who could it be?" Paul's lips were dry.

"God knows ... I don't. But Til lay you odds he came from Stoneheath. He left no name. What he did leave, before he bolted, was a message."

With grave, deliberate movements Prusty took from his waistcoat pocket a tiny paper spill which he unrolled and handed over. Showing faintly brown on the yellowish tissue slip were some minute words. Paul read them again, and again.

For God's sake don't let them throw you off. Find Charles Castle in the Lanes. He'll tell you what to do.

What did it mean? Who had written this desperate message? By whom had that despairing cry been uttered? Paul sat upright in his chair, petrified by a wild conjecture. It could not be! And yet,

BEYOND THIS PLACE

by some undreamed-of chance, it might be true. What if this scrap of paper had come from his father's hands — conveyed through secret and underground channels, delivered furtively, by a fellow prisoner who had been released?

An electric thrill traversed Paul's spine. In this terrible appeal he saw a new inspiration, a command, urging him onwards. With a convulsion of his breast, he rolled the paper up, and questioned Prusty.

"Can I keep this?"

The tobacconist, disclaiming responsibility, made a resigned gesture.

"I'll be glad to be rid of it. I didn't bargain to be mixed up in that kind of business."

The room was now almost dark. The gas fire cast no more than a ruddy glow upon the hearth. Outside, the darkness had intensified, and the snow was piled thickly against the window panes. Immersed in his reflections, throbbing with fresh hope, Paul sat motionless.

Suddenly, and without warning, there came the sound of a footstep upon the floor above.

Paul stiffened, and for a moment thought he must surely be mistaken. But no, the footstep was repeated, again, yet again, with a hollow, a mournful regularity. Impinging like this, upon the present current of his thoughts, this strange manifestation took on a dire significance. He sat up, his hair bristling, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling overhead. Prusty also had drawn himself erect, and was staring upwards with equal consternation.

"You said the flat was empty," Paul whispered.

"I swear it is," Prusty answered.

With unusual agility Prusty sprang from his seat, rushed through the lobby and out of the flat. At the same time there came the slam of the door above, succeeded by footsteps descending the stairs. Paul's impulse had been to follow Prusty but now an exclamation, as of relief, from the outside landing, arrested him, half way to the hall. He stood listening, his nerves vibrating, his ears strained towards the dimness beyond. He heard first a word of greeting in an unknown voice, then Prusty's voice, now pitched

BEYOND THIS PLACE

in a normal key. Then came some quiet conversation and finally, from each, a friendly "goodnight."

A minute later Prusty returned, wiping his forehead. He shut the door, lit the gas chandelier, then turned to Paul with a slightly sheepish air.

"It was our landlord," he explained. "The top root is leaking . . . some slates blown off. He was up to see about it." Prusty drew his comforter tighter around his shoulders. "Sitting in the dark makes a man fancy things. I let my imagination run away with me."

Paul stirred slowly.

"You didn't imagine that scrap of paper."

"No," said Prusty. "And when I heard that noise, and found myself dashing upstairs . . . my God, it felt as real as it did fifteen years ago. Ah, well! Won't you have a drop more coffee?"

Paul, however, declined. He could not sit still. These faded words on the scrap of paper were burning into his skin, through the lining of his pocket, like molten metal. No longer did he concern himself with the green bicycle and the leather purse, which only a few hours ago had seemed so vital to the case. This latest clue had driven all else from his mind.

As he hurried back to Poole Street his thoughts were feverish and confused. Were his own actions in any way responsible for this heart-breaking message? Or had Birlev's abortive effort sent faint whisperings filtering mysteriously to the fastness of the prison? Paul heaved a short, sharp sigh — this suspense was more than he could bear. But now at least he had a direct and powerful lead — he would follow it to the end.

CHAPTER XXMI

"I'M sorry, but you re a week overdue with your rent."

It was Paul's landlady, as he finished dressing early the following morning.

BEYOND THIS PLACE

"I'm a bit short, Mrs. Coppin. Will you let it wait till next Saturday?"

Standing in the doorway, her soiled wrapper clutched across her flat bosom, she scrutinized him doubtfully. She realized that he had lost his job, and although she was not heartless, the struggle for existence had made sympathy a luxury she could not well afford.

"I can't be put upon," she said finally. "I'll give you till tomorrow evening. If you haven't got work by then, I'm afraid you must go. And I'll be obliged to keep your things."

He had no intention of seeking regular work, and not more than ten shillings in his pocket. Yet he did not wish to victimize her. When she had gone he opened his suitcase, considered his few possessions, including his silver watch and chain. If she sold them they would perhaps pay what he owed her. Beyond what he was wearing, he took only his papers relating to the case, stowing them carefully in the inside pocket of his overcoat. Then, with a last look round the room, he went out.

The Lanes, which he reached towards ten o'clock, was the name given to one of the oldest parts of Wortley, an abbreviation of Fairhall Lanes, the site, in mediaeval times, of an encampment and tilt yard, which had later degenerated to a fair ground. In the late nineteenth century the process of deterioration had been continued by the erection of cheap workers' tenements — a manifestation of the Victorian industrial era. The result, today, was a slum, the worst section of the city, a network of narrow, twisted streets, hemmed in by tall dilapidated buildings. And all that day Paul combed these streets trying, without success, to locate the man named Castles. When evening came a soft rain began to fall. Resolved to stop at nothing, he made his way to the heart of the district, where for ninepence he was admitted to a "one-night" workmen's lodging-house.

It was an even poorer place than the Hart house which he had once visited, consisting merely of a long upstairs room, with bare boards, approached by a broken wooden staircase. The beds were strips of sacking, stretched out like low hammocks on two long master ropes which ran the entire length of the dormitory. At one end was a dirty kitchen where, clustered round the stove, a crowd

BEYOND THIS PLACE

of ragged men armed with trying pans and "billies" were pushing and elbowing in a cloud or rancid steam tor places to cook their supper.

With a glance towards this crowd Paul stretched himself, fully dressed, on his hammock, and pulled up the thin worn grey blanket.

"Don't you want no dinner, mate?"

Paul turned. In the adjoining hammock an undersized man with a shrunken, humorous face was lying on his elbow with two soiled paper bags before him. He wore a torn overcoat, burst canvas tennis shoes, mudstained and stuffed with brown paper, and a jaunty check muffler. While his bright beady eyes remained on Paul his bony fingers dipped into one bag, took out a cigarette end, split it, and shook and shredded the tobacco into the second bag with practiced rapidity.

"I'll cook for both, mate, if you happen to have a bit of grub about you."

"Sorry," Paul said. "I had something before I came in."

"Ah, you're lucky, mate. Me, I could eat an ox," he added, with his death's head grin. "Homs and all."

When he had finished he closed the full bag and carefully tucked it away next his skin under the shirt. From the shreds that remained he rolled a cigarette and stuck it behind his ear. Then he rose, a little human weazel, and with a knowing glance at Paul and a nod towards the notice which said no smoking, shuffled briskly towards the latrine.

When he returned Paul leaned towards him.

"I'm looking for a man called Castles. Have you ever heard of him?"

"Charlie Castles? I've heard of him. Who ain't?"

"Where can I find him?"

"Pie's away for the present. Like enough on a job. Should be back in a few days. If he ain't lagged again. Hang around and I'll give you a knock down." He paused oddly. "You know who he is, don't you?"

Paul shook his head.