‘Bless my soul,’ said Dr Lovell Wilverton, ‘is Saul also among the Prophets? You seem to be an observant man, Mr Egg.’
‘I try to be,’ replied Mr Egg. ‘Never miss a chance of learning for that word spells “£” plus “earning”. – You’ll find that in The Salesman’s Handbook. Very neat, sir, don’t you think?’
THE MILK-BOTTLES
Mr Hector Puncheon, of the Morning Star, concluded his interview with the gentleman who had won the £5,000 Football Crossword and walked rapidly away along the street. Not so rapidly, however, that he failed to note a pair of pint bottles, filled with milk, standing at the head of some area-steps. Having a deductive turn of mind, he half-consciously summed up to himself the various possibilities suggested by this phenomenon; a new baby; a houseful of young children; a houseful of cats; a week-end absence from home.
Hector was still young and enthusiastic enough to look for a ‘story’ in almost anything. There might be one in milk-bottles. Tragedies in lonely houses, first brought to light by accumulated milk-bottles. Queer, solitary spinsters living in shuttered gloom. The Sauchiehall Street murder, and old James Fleming taking in the milk while the servant’s corpse lay in the back room. What the milkman knows. Something might be made of it: why not?
He mulled the matter over in his mind, went back to the office and, having turned in his Crossword story sat down to spin out a breezy half-column about milk-bottles.
The Editor of the Literary Page, who always had more material than he could use, glanced at it, sniffed at it, endorsed it in blue pencil and sent it down to the Home Page Editor. The latter skimmed through it carelessly and tossed it into a basket labelled ‘Waiting’, where it remained for three months. Hector Puncheon, who had never had very much hope of it, forgot it and carried on with his usual duties.
One day in August, however, the lady who usually did the little Special Article for the Home Page was struck down by a motor-bus and taken to hospital, leaving her ‘copy’ unwritten. The Home Page Editor, at a loss for 400 words, tossed out the contents of ‘Waiting’ on his desk, picked out Hector Puncheon’s article at random and pushed it to the Sub-editor, saying, ‘Cut this down and shove it in.’
The Sub-editor looked rapidly through it, struck out the first and last paragraphs, removed Hector’s more literary passages, ran three sentences into one, gratuitously introducing two syntactical errors in the process, re-cast the story from the third person into the first, headed it ‘By a Milk-Roundsman’, and sent it down to the printers. In this form it appeared the next morning, and Hector Puncheon, not recognising his mutilated offspring, muttered bitterly that somebody had pinched his idea.
Two days later, the Editor of the Morning Star received a letter:
‘Dear Sir,
‘Being interested to read a piece by a milk-roundsman in your paper would wish to state that there is something queer on my round and would be pleased to give any information. I as not been to the police as they do not pay attention to a working man and do not pay for same but sir I see as you printed an article by a milk-roundsman and your great paper would be fair to one as earns his living. Sir there are five milk bottles starting last Sunday morning and a couple as not been seen since. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me,
‘Yours respectfully,
‘J. Higgins.’
In any other month of the year, Mr Higgins’s letter would probably have received no attention, but in August all news is good news. The editor passed the letter to the News Editor, who rang a bell and sent for a subordinate, who rang a bell for another subordinate, who consulted the files of the paper. Thus, by devious methods, the matter was referred back to Hector Puncheon, who was sent to look for Mr Higgins and get his story at the price of a few shillings if it seemed promising.
Mr Higgins had a milk round in and about the Clerkenwell Road. He welcomed Hector Puncheon, and gladly undertook to show him for a consideration the mysterious milk-bottles. He accordingly conducted him to an obscure street and there plunged into a dark entrance beside a greengrocer’s shop. They made their way up a dark and rickety staircase, smelling of cats. At the top was a gloomy little door, with a dirty visiting-card tacked on to it which bore the name: ‘Hugh Wilbraham’. On the threshold stood five half-pint bottles filled with milk. Hector thought he had never seen anything so utterly desolate.
There was a window on the landing, through which he could see a wide vista of roofs and chimneys, scorching in the hot sun. The window was not open and apparently not made to open. Up the narrow staircase – well, the sour and fetid air seemed to press upward intolerably, like the fumes from a gas-stove.
‘Who is this man, Wilbraham?’ demanded Hector, trying to control his disgust at the place.
‘I dunno,’ said the milkman. ‘They been living here three months. Milk-bill paid regular every Saturday by the young woman. Shabby-looking lot, but speak decent. Come down in the world, if you ask me.’
‘Just the two of them?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you see them last?’
‘Saturday morning, when she paid up. Been crying, she had. What I want to know is, have they ’opped it? Because if so, what about this week’s milk?’
‘I see,’ said Hector.
‘I’m responsible, in a manner of speaking,’ said Mr Higgins, ‘but the parties having paid regular and my orders being to deliver milk, I’d like to know what I ought to do about it – see?’
‘Don’t the neighbours know anything about it?’ suggested Hector.
‘Not a lot, they don’t,’ said Mr Higgins, ‘but there ain’t no furniture gone out, and that’s something. You better have a word with Mrs Bowles.’
Mrs Bowles lived on the floor below and took in washing. She did not know much about the Wilbrahams, she explained, punctuating her remarks with thumps of the iron. Kept themselves to themselves. Thought they were too good for the likes of her, she supposed, though she had always kept herself respectable, which was more than you could say of some. They had taken the top room unfurnished, beginning of last June. She had seen their furniture go up. Nothing to write home about, it wasn’t. Now Mrs Bowles’s double-bedstead, that was good, it was – real brass, and as good a feather-bed as you could wish to see. The Wilbrahams hadn’t so much as a decent chair or table. Rubbishing stuff. No class – not worth a couple of pounds, the whole lot of it. She thought the young man did writing or something of that, because he had once complained that the noise made by the young Bowleses disturbed his work. If he was so high and mighty, why did he come to live here? About thirty, he might be, with a nasty, sulky, spiteful look about him. She’d heard Mrs Wilbraham – if she was Mrs Wilbraham – crying time and time again, and him going on at her ever so.
When, asked Hector, had she seen them last?
Mrs Bowles straightened her lean back, put her iron down to the fire, and took off another, which she held close to her perspiring cheek. The close room swam in heat.
‘Well now,’ she said, ‘’er – I can’t call to mind when I seen ’er last. Saturday dinner-time ’e came in and run upstairs and I ’ears them talking ’ammer and tongs. An’ Saturday evening I meets ’im coming downstairs with a suitcase. ’Bout six o’clock that ’ud be – jest as I was coming in from taking Mrs Jepson’s washing ’ome. Funny in ’is manner ’e was, too, and in an awful ’urry. Nearly knocked me down, ’e did, and not so much as said “pardon”. That’s the last time I seen ’im, and he ain’t been back, nor ’er either, or I’d ’ave ’eard them over me ceiling. Cruel it was, the way ’e useter tramp up and down at nights when we was trying to get to sleep, and then to complain of my boys on top of it!’
‘Then you don’t know when Mrs Wilbraham left?’
‘I do not, but gone they is, and if you ask me, they don’t intend to come back. I says to young ’Iggins, if you go on leaving the milk there, I says, that’s your look-out. I daresay if their sticks was to be sold up it ’ud pay a week’s milk, I says, but that’s abo
ut all if you ask me.’
Hector thanked Mrs Bowles, adding a small present of money, and made his way down to the floor below. This was inhabited by an aged man who seemed to have seen better days. He shook his head at Hector’s inquiry.
‘No, sir,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you anything. It seems strange to me, sometimes, to think how lost a man may be in this great wilderness of London. That’s what Charles Dickens called it, and, by heavens, sir, he was right. If I was to die tomorrow, and my health is not what it was, who could be the wiser? I buy my own little bits of food and such, you see, and pick up a bit of a living where I can with fetching taxis and such. It’s hard to think I used to have a nice little shop of my own. I was well-respected, sir, where I came from, but if I was to go out now, there’s nobody would miss me.’
‘The rent-collector, perhaps?’ said Hector.
‘Well, yes, to be sure. But if he came once or twice and found I was out, he wouldn’t press me for a week or two. He isn’t a hard man, and he knows I pay when I can. After two or three weeks he might make inquiries. Oh, yes. He’d make inquiries, to be sure. And the gas-company, when they came to empty the slot-meter, but that mightn’t be for a long time.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Hector, rather struck. He had not realised the casualness of life in London.
‘Then you really know nothing about these Wilbrahams?’
‘Very little, sir. Not since I took it upon me to speak to the young man about the way he treated his wife.’
‘Oh?’ said Hector.
‘A young man shouldn’t speak harsh to a woman,’ said the old man, ‘for she has a lot to put up with at the best of times. And men are thoughtless. I know that – oh, yes, I know that. And she was fond of him, you could see that by her face. But they were in difficulties, I think, and often when a man doesn’t know which way to turn to make ends meet, he’s apt to speak sharp and quick, not meaning to hurt.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘About a month ago. Not here. In St Pancras Churchyard – that’s where they were sitting. It’s a pleasant place on a summer’s day, with the grass and the children playing about. “It’s a pity you ever married me, isn’t it?” he said, with an ugly look on his face. It upset her, poor thing. They didn’t know it was me sitting next them till I spoke to him.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Told me to mind my own business. And I daresay he was right, too. It’s a mistake to interfere between married people, but I was sorry for her.’
Hector nodded.
‘You didn’t see anything of them last Saturday?’
‘No, sir, but then I was out all day.’
The greengrocer on the ground floor knew nothing. He had occasionally sold a few vegetables to Mrs Wilbraham, but he did not live on the premises and had no information about the movements of the couple. After a little more research, which led to nothing, Hector gave the matter up. It did not seem to him that there was much in it – however, he had expended some time and a few shillings on the business and must have something to show for it. Accordingly, he concocted a brief paragraph:
FIVE MYSTERY MILK-BOTTLES
What has become of Mr and Mrs Hugh Wilbraham of 14b Buttercup Road, Clerkenwell? The fact that the milk had not been taken in for five days attracted the attention of Mr J. Higgins, a roundsman, who had read the article ‘Milk-bottle Mysteries’ published in our Home Page on Tuesday. Mr Wilbraham, who is said to be a literary man, was seen to leave the house with a suitcase last Saturday; neither he nor his wife, with whom he is alleged to be on bad terms, has been seen since.
The News-Editor, who happened to want half a dozen lines to fill up the foot of a column, handed this to the Sub-editor, who dexterously boiled the first two sentences into one, altered the heading to ‘Mystery 5 Milk-Bottles’ and sent it to press.
On Friday evening, the Evening Wire, which had obviously been doing a little investigation of its own, came out with an expanded version of the story, occupying half a column on the news-page.
MILK-BOTTLE MYSTERY
WILD-EYED MAN WITH SUITCASE
TAXI-DRIVER'S STORY
Six unopened milk-bottles outside the door of a room in a tenement house in Clerkenwell, present today a mystery which has several disquieting features. The room, which was taken three months ago by a man, said to be a novelist, and his wife, giving the names of Mr and Mrs Hugh Wilbraham, is situated on the top floor of No. 14b Buttercup Road, and has remained locked for six days, while nothing has been seen of the tenants since last Saturday night, when Wilbraham was seen by Mrs Bowles, the resident on the floor below, leaving the house in a suspicious manner with a suitcase.
A taxi-driver named Hodges, remembers that on Saturday night about 6 o’clock his taxi was standing outside the adjacent public-house, the Star & Crown, when he was hailed by a man, carrying a suitcase, and corresponding to the description of Wilbraham. The man’s eyes had a wild appearance, and he seemed to be under the influence of drink or violent excitement. He directed Hodges to drive him as fast as possible to Liverpool Street Station, and seemed urgently anxious to catch the train.
It is alleged by the other residents in the house that Mr and Mrs Wilbraham were frequently seen and heard quarrelling and that the man had been heard to say it was a pity they had ever got married. The woman was last seen, crying bitterly, when the milkman called on Saturday morning.
A strange and sinister feature of the case is the gradual spread of a heavy and unpleasant odour proceeding from behind the locked door. It is understood that the police have been communicated with.
The news-editor of the Morning Star sent for Hector Puncheon.
‘Here, this is your story, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The Wire seems to have got ahead of you. Go round and get on to it.’
Hector Puncheon, trudging through the sultry squalor of the August evening, felt a strong repugnance to plunging into the dark entry and up those sickly stairs. Dusty newspapers blew about his feet as he passed the greengrocer’s stall. Round the entry, half a dozen loiterers had gathered.
‘’Orrible, it is,’ said Mrs Bowles, ‘wuss than when they took up the old cat from under the boards what the gas-fitter’s men ’ad nailed down. I ’ad to come out to get a breath of air.’
‘Why don’t the police do something, that’s what I’d like to know?’ asked a slatternly girl with a made-up face.
‘’As to get a warrant, dear, afore they can break in. Damaging property, that’s what it is, and the landlord—’
‘Well, ’e ought to do something ’imself. Wot ’e ever want to let to such as them for—’
‘It’s easy to talk. One person’s money is as good as another’s.’
‘All very well, but you could see by that fellow’s face ’e was up to no good.’
‘Well, wot I say is, I’m sorry for ’er.’
Hector pushed his way through them and boldly tackled the climb to the top floor. The air, stewed and thickened in the dark chimney of the staircase, caught him by the throat. It grew worse as he ascended.
The smell was perceptible on the first floor, mingled with the familiar odours of cats and cabbage. On the second floor it was stronger; on the top floor it was overpowering. The six bottles of milk stood, sour and dusty, outside the locked door. There was a letter-slit, Hector noticed. Lifting it, he tried to peer through. At once the stench seemed to pour out at him, nauseating, unbearable. He retreated, feeling sick. He was not sure whether it was his own head that was buzzing. No – it was not. A couple of fat black flies had come heavily through the slit. They clung to the woodwork, and crawled with satiated slowness over the blistered paint.
‘Fit to turn you up, ain’t it?’ said a voice behind him. A man had followed him up.
‘It’s ghastly,’ said Hector.
Suddenly the squalid place seemed to heave about him. He turned and ran hurriedly down the stairs out into the street. To his horror he found a great fly, somnolently clin
ging to his collar.
Hector went home. He had had enough of the place. But early the next morning he remembered his duty to his newspaper. Come what might, he must get that story. He returned to Buttercup Road.
Andrews of the Wire was already there. He grinned when he saw Puncheon.
‘Come to be in at the death,’ he said.
Hector nodded, and lit a cigarette.
‘Copper’s just coming along,’ said Andrews.