Colin Watson - Lonelyheart 4122

“Certainly.”

“Ah, but things like that are just for my guidance. They’re absolutely confidential. I never pass them on with introductions.”

“But there is no guarantee that these women won’t divulge details themselves once a correspondence gets started.”

“That’s true. They aren’t children, though. Neither I nor anyone else can protect them for ever. They wouldn’t want me to. No, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say that my responsibility ends with the provision of facilities—safe-guarded facilities, mind—for my clients to get in touch with one another. What friendships they form then are strictly their own affairs. Have you anything to find wrong with that, inspector?”

Purbright realized that Mrs Staunch could be voluble when she liked. And she would like if he were to let himself sound critical. “No,” he said smoothly, “that sounds fair enough.”

Apparently mollified, she waited.

“As I understand it,” Purbright said after a while, “you provided Miss Reckitt and later Mrs Bannister with a list each of gentlemen selected by you from your current clients as being potential matches for the ladies in question. Each list was in effect a set of descriptions, each description applying to a particular client and being accompanied by his code number. This number was the key to the man’s name and address, known only to him and you. By the way, they’re all three-figure numbers, aren’t they?”

Mrs Staunch nodded. “Even for the gentlemen, odd one’s for the ladies.”

“Very well,” said Purbright. “What you did not know, and cannot now tell me, is the identity of those clients who did in fact get in touch with Miss Reckitt and Mrs Bannister.”

“I’m afraid that is so.”

“Then have you a record of the lists which Miss Reckitt and Mrs Bannister received? You see what I am after—the names of men from whom these women had a choice. If a record exists, it would simplify my job tremendously.”

For the first time in the interview, Mrs Staunch looked bewildered.

“Record? No, I’ve no record of that kind. In any case, I can’t compromise my clients. There’s mutual trust involved here, inspector.”

“There may well be murder involved, Mrs Staunch,”

“We can’t know for certain at the moment.”

“You must see the possibility, though. It’s a rather more serious matter, surely, than professional etiquette.”

“That is too light a word, inspector, if you don’t mind my saying so. My pledges to people who come here are not just points of etiquette.”

“No, I’m sorry...”

She raised a hand and remained a moment in thought.

“I suppose,” she said, “that in the circumstances you could be fairly insistent. You know—a search warrant or something?”

“I’d much rather that question didn’t arise.”

After another pause she said: “Look—as I told you, I’ve no record of those particular lists. But what I will do is this. I’ll go through the file straight away, this evening, and try to reconstruct the one I sent Mrs Bannister. I know my own system and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work out the same twice.”

“And Miss Reckitt?”

“No. That was too far back. Two months ago I tidied the files up quite a bit and a lot of the names won’t be there any more.”

“Shall I send someone round in the morning?”

Mrs Staunch smiled. “I’d rather you didn’t, if you don’t mind, inspector. I’ll see that you get it as soon as possible.”

She showed him out by yet another of Handclasp House’s many doors. This one led into a back lane. It was growing dark. A woman going by with a child glowered at him suspiciously.

Chapter Six

The next morning Mrs Staunch called at the police station and left a white foolscap envelope marked “Highly Confidential” which she requested the duty sergeant to place immediately into the hands of Detective Inspector Purbright.

She then drove on through the town to Northgate and parked her car against the railings of the Radical Club. She saw, but paid no particular attention to, a trim and cheerful looking woman of doubtful age who was gazing up towards the building’s balustraded roof. The woman held before her in the manner of tourists and singers of hymns, an open book. Yes, indeed, Miss Teatime was saying silently to herself, quite, quite lovely. So it is..

Eventually Miss Teatime closed the book and ascended the steps. She noticed the illuminated sign at the end of the hall, knocked gently on the waiting-room door and entered. After reading the two invitations, she responded to that on the left.

The room in which she found herself was subtly different from the scene of Inspector Purbright’s interview.

It was smaller and furnished in the style of a country parlour, with flowery wallpaper, Welsh dresser and a pair of diminutive armchairs that looked, in their loose covers, as if they were curtseying beside the roughstone fireplace set with fir cones on pink tissue paper. A copper warming pan gleamed on the wall. Before a low, demurely curtained window, was an earthenware bowl containing hyacinths in bloom. Their perfume drifted through the room where it became veined with the smell of freshly unpacketed tobacco. It was while Miss Teatime was delightedly savouring this combination that she noticed, propped casually against the low brass fender, a pair of well worn leather slippers.

Mrs Staunch entered. Over her costume and quite hiding her jewellery was a fawn linen housecoat. She extended her hand.

“I am Sylvia Staunch.”

Miss Teatime looked very pleased to hear it. She grasped her bag and guidebook tightly and gave a little bob. Her smile came partly from good natured habit, partly from the sudden temptation to say Good morning, Mrs Tourniquet! They sat facing each other in the armchairs. “And do I take it,” opened Mrs Staunch in a creamy contralto, “that you are thinking of joining our little circle?”

“Well,” said Miss Teatime, gazing at the slippers, “I did happen to see your advertisement and I thought no harm would be done by coming along for a little talk.”

Mrs Staunch beamed. “Exactly. Now just ask me whatever you would like to know.”

“I’ve only just arrived in Flaxborough, you see, and I think it is an altogether charming little town; I really do. Of course, London has been my home for many years, but I have not been fully happy there...”

“The big city can be a very lonely place,” said Mrs Staunch.

“Indeed it can. And in recent years London has become so intimidating, somehow. The rushing about, the overcrowding...one simply has no time to stand and stare, as they say.”

“Are you a Londoner by birth, Miss...?” Mrs Staunch had already glanced at her prospective client’s left hand.

“Teatime. Lucilla Teatime. No, as a matter of fact I was born in Lincolnshire. There are Teatimes in the Caistor area, you know. Perhaps that is why I had this urge to seek more rural surroundings. And I do like the sea, of course. Do you not find that Flaxborough smells of the sea?”

“We have a tidal river.”

“Tidal? Oh, how nice.”

“And there are the docks.”

“I am very fond of docks. Not,” she added dreamily, “that I have ever been in one, you understand.”

Mrs Staunch thought the pun a trifle odd, but she smiled just the same.

“So now here you are in our little community and you feel you would like someone to share in the adventure. Is that how it is?”

“You could put it like that. A guide and comforter true,” twinkled Miss Teatime, “is perhaps what I need.”

“No, seriously, I think you may have the right idea. I know how difficult it is to adapt to a new environment, and two heads are always better than one, are they not?”