The Tiger in the Well

  Harriet didn't hear the story. She was tired, and the comforting voice and Mama's lap and breast and warm arms were enough to make her content. When it was time for bed, Sally carried her up and undressed her very gently.

  "We won't wake her up just to wash her," she whispered to Sarah-Jane. "I'd sooner she slept. Morning'll do."

  She kissed Harriet's cheek, brushed the strong fair curls away from her forehead, and laid her on the little bed next to Sally's own.

  Next morning they went to church. Sally wasn't sure what she felt about that, though she always went when she stayed with them, out of politeness. It would be good to believe in something like that, but it was too easy; the world wasn't that simple. She looked around the old church, following the lines of the pulpit, reading the inscriptions on the wall, trying to make out what the figures in the stained glass were doing, and listening to Nicholas preach. More stories; no one went to sleep when Nicholas preached, but the trouble was that he couldn't repeat his sermons from year to year. People forget a plain, straightforward argument, but they don't forget stories, and they'd soon remind him if they'd heard one before.

  Then lunch, and then all the goodbyes. And the heaviness began to gather around Sally's heart, and she realized why she'd come. It was the same impulse that had led her to tidy the breakfast room and put all her old things away: the old way of things was coming to an end.

  She and Rosa embraced tightly at the station.

  "You can always send her here," Rosa whispered. "You could stay yourself, if you liked."

  Sally shook her head.

  "It's too late for that," she said. "I can't hide from it. It's going to happen, and we've got to be there. I'm going to see the QC on Wednesday. If he's as good as the solicitor says, we'll win the case anyway."

  "I mean it," Rosa said. "We'll make her a ward of court. Adopt her. Anything to put a spoke in his wheel."

  Sally smiled. "I'd better get in," she said. "The guard's looking impatient. If Nick can find out anything about Mr Beech -"

  "He's writing letters now. We'll find him. Go on, quick, get in -"

  Sally joined Sarah-Jane and Harriet, the guard blew the whistle, the train began to move. Sally waved to Rosa for a long time as they steamed away into the autumn sunshine.

  Late on Monday, after Sally had spent a difficult afternoon with two demanding clients, and then visited a house in Islington, she arrived home to find Ellie alight with impatience.

  "Miss - miss -" she whispered, as Sally came in through the door. "He's here, miss! The knife-man!"

  "The knife-man. . ." Sally, tired, couldn't remember for a second. Then it came to her, and her eyes lit up. "Good," she said. "Where is he?"

  "In the kitchen, miss - but he's nearly finished. He's just packing up. I'll go and see if I can keep him -"

  "It's all right. I'm coming now."

  She threw off her cloak and bonnet and strode quickly to the door at the back of the hall, in the darkness under the stairs, which led to the kitchen. She stopped, her hand on the handle, listening. She heard a man's voice indistinctly and whispered to Ellie:

  "Go straight in and stand by the back door. Is there a key in it?"

  Ellie nodded. Her eyes shone wide in the gloom.

  "Lock it then."

  She turned the handle and stepped in. Ellie followed at once and darted to the back door. Mrs Perkins looked up from the pastry she was making, surprised, and Sally stood blocking the other way out.

  The man was standing, case in hand, beside the kitchen table. A row of neatly cleaned and sharpened knives lay in front of him. He stopped in mid-sentence, startled, and then removed his cap.

  "Evening, ma'am," he said.

  He was moustached, dark-haired, slightly stout. His expression was amiable.

  "What's your name?" Sally said.

  "Cave, ma'am. George Cave. Anything wrong, ma'am?"

  She hesitated. "Would you come with me, please?" she said, standing aside. "I want to ask you some questions."

  "If you like, ma'am, certainly," he said.

  He put down the case he was holding and went ahead of her out into the hall. Mrs Perkins and Ellie didn't move.

  "In here," said Sally, indicating the breakfast room.

  She sat down by the dining-table, while he stood peaceably by the door.

  "Who sent you here?" she said.

  "No one, ma'am. I'm in business for meself. I do a number of houses in the town, shops too. I've taken over a lot of old Mr Pratt's business. He couldn't manage it so well, being shaky on his legs, like."

  "You don't go to Dr Talbot's."

  "Where's that, ma'am?"

  "In Hertford Street."

  "That's Mr Pratt's patch. He still does Hertford Street and Nelson Square. Only a step away from where he lives, you see, ma'am, it's no trouble to him. And I don't mind, I'm sure. There's plenty enough business to keep me going. The town's growing, you see. There's the new hotel, and--"

  "Do you know a man called Mr Parrish?"

  He considered.

  "Would he live in Twickenham, ma'am? Because I can't recall the name."

  "No."

  She looked at him fixedly, and found her heart beating fast. He looked honestly puzzled.

  "Do you ask my servants about my affairs?" she said.

  "Certainly not, ma'am. Have I been accused of--"

  "I know you discuss matters affecting this household. My maidservant has told me."

  "Then you'd better speak to her about it, ma'am. I'm sure I'm not so interested in other folks' affairs that I'd want to go prying, like you seem to be saying. I'm an honest man, ma'am, always have been. There's plenty of people in town as'd speak for me. Nor I don't have to come here, neither. I got more'n enough business to keep me going. If you got a complaint, let's have it out in the open. Otherwise, I'll be off, and if your cook wants her knives looking after, she'll have to get someone else."

  Sally was blushing hotly. She stood up.

  "I'm sorry, Mr Cave. I apologize. There's been some trouble here, that's all, and someone seems to know what's going on in my house. I'm just trying to find out--"

  "Enough said, ma'am. I don't care to come to a house where I'm suspected of spying. There's plenty of calls on my time."

  And ignoring her repeated apology, he turned and left. After a minute or so, she heard the back door slam.

  She sank into her chair again. Everything about this business was hateful; and she was so tired.

  Ellie's young man Sidney, Dr Talbot's groom, had made an appointment with her for eight o'clock that night. They both liked the music-hall, and there was a new bill at the Britannia. Monday wasn't the best night to go - the house was always a bit thin - but they could sit and hold hands in the warm, and have a little drink. He was a liberal man, Dr Talbot - like Miss Lockhart - nothing strict or harsh about him, very free with granting an evening off; not like some employers.

  In the interval between the two halves of the bill, Ellie told him all about the knife-man. He'd heard about the intruder the other night, and been seriously concerned; he said they ought to have a man in the house, and offered to sleep there himself. Ellie told him to give over; she wasn't falling for that one. But he was in no doubt about the knife-man.

  "He's a wrong 'un," he said. "Stands out a mile. Them smooth-talking ones, they're the blokes to watch. Got an answer for everything, I'll be bound."

  "If he was innocent, though, he would, wouldn't he?" said Ellie.

  "No. That's where you're wrong. I made a study of police-court cases, I have, and it's a proven fact that your average innocent party doesn't have his story all pat. People don't, do they? They forget things. It's only natural. Where were you on the night of the fourteenth of August? See, you can't remember. But your crook, now, he'd tell you straight out, look you right in the eye, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Worked it out beforehand, see. You can always tell. This stuff about Mr Pratt - it's a lot of old blarney. Who's this Tremble geezer you was talkin
g about?"

  "Oh, Mr Molloy. They calls him Trembler. Just in fun, really. He used to work for Mr Garland in the old days. He runs a lodging-house now, up in Islington. Miss Lockhart went up there today. . ."

  It was nice, talking to Sidney. He knew a lot, and he was always willing to listen, not like some young men she knew, all mouth and trousers. Course, he was a bit saucy, but she liked that in a man, showed he wasn't just a stuffed shirt. And he had a serious side. He'd been sympathetic about Miss Lockhart from the beginning, followed all the doings.

  As the band filed back in (wiping the beer off their whiskers, Sidney said, and a couple of them were, too), he gave her hand a squeeze.

  "You can depend on it," he said, "it's that knife-man what's behind all this. You're well rid of him, if you want my opinion. It's them smooth Johnnies every time. It's us awkward, shy, forgetful blokes as is the honest ones. . ."

  He slid his arm behind her, and she smiled.

  "You're forgetting yourself now, Sidney," she said.

  "What did I tell you? Proves I'm honest, doesn't it?"

  She let him keep his arm there. They watched the second half companionably.

  Chapter Nine

  THE EMINENT QC

  Wednesday morning dawned cold and blustery. Sally hadn't slept well; every time she awoke, her mind filled at once with anxiety about the meeting with the barrister, and it was hard to go to sleep again. She saw the grey light around the edge of the curtains, and heard rain lash the windows, and slipped into a fretful doze that only seemed to last a few minutes before Ellie woke her up.

  By the time she left for the City, the rain was teeming down, and the winds were tearing twigs from the bare treetops. She got to the office chilly and wet, found the fire unwilling to light because the wind was in the wrong direction, and then couldn't wash her ashy, coal-dirty hands until the kettle had heated up.

  The day didn't get much better. During the morning she discovered that she'd made a mistake in a letter she'd sent to her stockbrokers, which had resulted in a client's money being wrongly invested. Luckily no great sum was involved, and as things had turned out the investment hadn't lost money, but it was a kind of carelessness she'd thought herself above. And it was exactly the sort of thing the firm could not afford. She had a partner now to be responsible to, after all.

  She ate a hurried lunch - sandwiches made by Mrs Perkins, an apple from the orchard, coffee from the recalcitrant fire - while poring over the financial columns of The Times and the weekly Financial Chronicle. There a name caught her eye, and she had to scan the whole page in detail before she caught it again. It was that of Daniel Goldberg, and it was mentioned in a leading article urging the government to take a strong line and expel foreign agitators who abused the traditional hospitality of Britain in order to stir up hatred and dissent. It seemed that Goldberg was a well-known figure in continental socialist circles, and that he'd been exiled from Prussia and then again from Brussels. In calling for his expulsion from Britain, the journal was concerned to emphasize that of course it upheld all the traditional liberties of speech and thought for which this country had long been a beacon to others, but that, etc. . .

  Sally read it without feeling anything on one side or the other. And that was worrying; she didn't like this neutrality of feeling that coloured the world grey. She ought to feel something about socialism, because it was a vital question. She even knew what it was she ought to feel, but while she was hating and fearing what Arthur Parrish was doing to her, she had no energy left to dislike an economic theory.

  She put the paper aside, made some notes on share movements, paced up and down, made some more coffee. Finally Cicely Corrigan, the gentlest of souls, lost her patience.

  "For goodness' sake, Miss Lockhart, why don't you go out and go for a walk or something? There's nothing else to do here, and you're only fretting yourself. Go and get good and wet and cold and worn out, and then when you go home you can have a hot bath and feel a lot better. I'll clear away and lock up."

  "All right," said Sally. "Perhaps I will."

  She put her cloak and hat on, took her boots from where they'd been drying on the hearth, and without a backward glance at the papers on her desk, left.

  It was still drizzling, with a thin mean half-misty chill in it, but she took no notice and marched briskly past St Paul's, down Ludgate Hill, and then along the Embankment all the way to the Houses of Parliament. The tide was going out, exposing the far bank of the river, muddy and grey and littered with fragments of rubbish. Wharfs, timber yards, sawmills, foundries, lead-works stretched out dismally under the low sky; the steam cranes opposite Whitehall Stairs rose and fell meaninglessly. Westminster Bridge, now that the tide was low, looked awkward on its long narrow piers. Everything was wrong. The world was crazy.

  Sally shook her head as Big Ben struck three, and set out across the bridge at a smart pace. On the south bank she turned right towards Lambeth, and for the next two hours she just walked hard. She didn't know this side of the river, and before long she was lost. That suited her; if she didn't know where she was, no one else would either. Long terraces of mean little dwellings, railway bridges, a prison, a hospital, chapels, a grand square of elegant eighteenth-century houses, an engineering works, a market, a workhouse, a theatre, houses, houses, houses; a cricket ground, a gas works, a brewery, a stable, a builder's yard, a railway station, a school; grim blocks of artisans' dwellings, more houses, an asylum for the blind, a printing works. . .

  She'd had no idea of the vastness of London, despite having lived in the city for so long. After all, she usually passed through it on a train while reading a newspaper or making notes; she knew London as an idea, not as a reality. In each of those houses, there were real people. In each of those businesses, there were decisions being made. Behind that door people were falling in love, or dying, or giving birth, or freezing into years of married hatred. That little boy limping: why was he limping? He didn't look well, he was poorly dressed; had someone beaten him? Or had he been born lame? Or had he suffered from rickets? That old woman with her tray of matches - that old Jew in the bazaar there, turning over the books at a second-hand stall - that woman who might be Sally's own age, who had lost all her teeth, whose face was marked all down one side with a burn scar - Sally felt something stirring in her heart for these poor, anonymous people. They were only anonymous because of her own ignorance; they each had a life inside them, just as she did.

  So she wandered, looking and absorbing and feeling, until a church clock somewhere near St George's Circus told her it was five o'clock. There was a cab-rank near by. She found a hansom waiting and told the driver to go to the Temple.

  Blackfriars Bridge was crowded, and it was after twenty-past five when Sally paid off the cab-driver at the bottom of Middle Temple Lane and hurried up towards Pump Court, where Mr Coleman, QC, had his chambers. It was dark, and the windows overlooking the little court glowed yellow in the heavy mist. She hesitated, wondering which door to enter, and a figure detached itself from the darkness on her right and hastened towards her.

  "Miss Lockhart! I was becoming distinctly anxious -"

  It was the solicitor, Mr Adcock. He was bareheaded, so he'd left his hat inside, and he was agitated.

  "I am on time, aren't I? Wasn't our appointment for half-past five?"

  "It is nearly that now. It would be extremely unfortunate if we were late - Mr Coleman is so very busy -"

  He opened the door for her, and she went up the step and into a corridor, where a porter was waiting to show them into a warm office. Three clerks were working in silence, scratching with steel pens under bright gaslight.

  A clerk took them through another office and knocked deferentially at a door. There was no reply. He opened it carefully and stood aside for them to go in.

  "Mr Coleman will arrive in just a minute or two," he said in a soft voice, a voice with slippers on. "Please be good enough to wait in here."

  Sally went in, conscious now in the
luxurious warmth of how wet she was, how bedraggled she must look. Her boots left puddles on the polished floor. Mr Adcock had acquired his hat from the porter, and was twisting its brim between nervous fingers.

  The clerk withdrew. Sally saw no reason why she shouldn't sit down, so she sat.

  "I've discovered something about Mr Beech," she said. "Are you not going to sit down, Mr Adcock?"

  "Beech? Beech?" he said, sitting in the other upright chair which faced the desk.

  "The clergyman who signed the marriage register," she said.

  "To be sure. What have you discovered?"

  "That he was resident for some time in--"

  But Sally got no further, for the door was thrown open and a large man, gown flying half-off one shoulder, entered briskly and dumped a fat pile of papers on the desk. Coarse black hair was trained over a bald crown; coarse reddish whiskers grew down his cheeks. His fleshy nose, puffy eyes and heavy brutal mouth were fit for carrying no expression at all except harsh, bullying scorn.

  Mr Adcock was on his feet in a moment, bobbing forward automatically, hands pressed together as if in supplication.

  "Mr Coleman - your clerk showed us in - we took the liberty of waiting for you -"

  The barrister grunted. He took no notice whatsoever of Sally, but sat down and began turning over his papers.

  "Well?" he said after a moment or two, without looking up.

  "Er - my client, Miss Lockhart, was desirous of an interview, Mr Coleman, if you recall. It was her feeling that - er - it might possibly clarify one or two minor--"

  "Waste of time," said Mr Coleman.

  "I beg your pardon?" said Sally, startled.

  He looked at her as if surprised. His small eyes radiated scorn.

  "I said it's a waste of time. I've read all the papers; there's nothing to be gained from a meeting. Still, here you are."

  He looked back at the papers in front of him and scanned the next one before making a note with a pencil. Sally could see that they concerned some commercial case - not hers at all.

  "I was about to tell Mr Adcock of a discovery I've made concerning the clergyman who--"

  "Too late for that. You're not going to win this case by going around grubbing up so-called evidence."

  "It may be important."

  "It will only be important if it makes a difference, and it won't."