Colin Watson - Lonelyheart 4122

“Not Mr Leaper?”

“That’s him. He hangs out in some tin-pot place in Northgate. I remember him as a kid in Chalmsbury—queer lad with a nose like a carrot.”

So did Purbright. Seven years before, Leonard Leaper had been the junior reporter on the Chalmsbury Chronicle , a vocation he relinquished on account of nerve trouble (the editor’s mainly, but in part his own) after his discovery of the bomb-shattered corpse of the dreadful Mr Stanley Biggadyke. 1The incident had not exactly unhinged Leonard (“He never had a lid in the first place,” averred the editor, Mr Kebble) but it had certainly aggravated an already morbid disposition and sent him, eager for fasts and flagellation, to a crash course in theology offered by an organization called Oxmove—the proprietors, if that was the word, of Northgate Mission among others, and publishers of the Preachers’ Digest .

“The Reverend Leaper,” murmured Purbright ruminatively. He recalled having seen Mr Leaper only the previous day, emerging from the building that held Mrs Staunch’s agency.

“I wouldn’t place too much reliance on what Len says, mind,” said Miss Huddlestone. “That is, if you were thinking of...”

“No, I was merely wondering whether there might be some connection. We’re still very much at the exploratory stage, I’m afraid.”

“It’s this Giles person you want to be looking for,” said Miss Huddlestone firmly. “And that’s for certain.”

“You may well be right.”

Purbright reopened the door and gave a little bow, then watched her trotting down the corridor.

“You’ll not forget,” he called after her, “about catching crabs, will you?”

Without turning, she raised and wiggled one hand.

1See Bump in the Night .

Chapter Twelve

Detective Constable Pook stood four square in the lane opposite the trade entrance of the Roebuck Hotel and inhaled appreciatively the breakfast smells that drifted from its kitchen. His orders were to make himself obvious and official-looking, and he was carrying them out to the letter.

Shortly before ten o’clock, Constable Pook saw movement in the open doorway of the kitchen. A woman in coat and hat was saying something to two members of the hotel staff. They laughed and made remarks in return. One of them moved aside and the woman came through the door, smiling.

Pook saw that she fitted the description with which he had been provided by Sergeant Love. He braced himself, standing well away from shadows.

Miss Teatime reached the entrance to the small yard and stood still, adjusting her glove.

Pook rocked slightly on the balls of his feet and thrust his hands into the pockets of his raincoat.

Miss Teatime glanced at him indifferently, then turned her attention to the other glove.

Pook rocked some more, hunched his shoulders once or twice, and peered with quite villainous furtiveness up and down the lane. When he looked back at Miss Teatime, she gave him a friendly little smile before looking down to see that all was well with her shoes.

With a flourish, Pook drew a card from his pocket and proceeded to glare at it and at Miss Teatime’s face in turns, as if checking a likeness. At the same time, he gave his jaw a twist suggestive of tough resolution and knowledge of a thing or two, and raised one eyebrow so high that the back of his neck began to tingle.

Miss Teatime regarded this performance with every appearance of sympathetic approval for several seconds and then stepped lightly away up the lane. Pook, appalled, stared at her retreating back. So far as he could remember, no provision had been made in his briefing for this situation. The woman was supposed to have seen him, guessed immediately his dread profession, and bolted straight back again into the approved area of Love’s vigil. But what now?

His first inclination was to plunge through the hotel and seek out the sergeant. But the lane was short and ran into another that offered half a dozen alternative routes of escape. It was essential to keep the woman in sight and that would be past hoping for once he tangled with porters and kitchen maids and the other obstructionists who were sure to be waiting inside the Roebuck. There was nothing he could do. He was stuck with her. Oh, gawd...

Miss Teatime smiled when she heard the heavy tread of her pursuer. But what, she wondered, had happened to the nice pink one? Perhaps it was his day off.

She turned the corner and walked the whole length of Priory Lane before cutting through an alley into East Street, at least three hundred yards farther down from the Roebuck. For twenty minutes or so, she did some leisurely window shopping, gradually making her way towards the big store of Brown and Derehams.

Pook saw her enter the store and he hastened to reduce the distance between them. Inside the doorway he paused to look round the sales floor. The now familiar pink hat caught his attention from about three counters away. He moved closer in.

Miss Teatime led him to the very centre of a large yet somewhat sequestered department before Pook realized that it was given over entirely to corsetry.

He looked about him for some item of merchandise in which his pretended interest might seem even remotely legitimate. There was nothing. Nothing but great cocooned breasts and bellies and bottoms. Had Pook possessed a more poetic consciousness, he might have seen himself as being in the midst of a monstrous chrysalis collection that the central heating would eventually hatch into truncated amazons. But no such intriguing fancy arose to modify his embarrassment.

He was soon looking so guilt ridden that a supervisor went up to him and asked meaningfully if she could help him. Pook merely scowled at her.

As the supervisor passed close by Miss Teatime, she raised her brows.

“They call them fetishists, you know,” Miss Teatime said sweetly.

After a while, Miss Teatime wandered over to the lift and stood by the gates. Pook prepared to follow, but strategically allowed several women to precede him.

The gates opened. Miss Teatime got in, then the women, and finally Pook. He had to squeeze close beside the operator—a sallow, resentful girl who accused him with her eyes all the way to the fourth floor of having designs on her soft furnishings.

At the top, they alighted in reverse order and Pook was swept for some yards before he could turn and see what Miss Teatime was doing. She was still in the lift. He pushed back towards her and was just in time to hear her say something about having left an umbrella behind when the gates shut and the lift began to descend. Pook leaped for the stairs.

“Oh, silly me!” exclaimed Miss Teatime two seconds later. “I didn’t bring it today after all.”

The girl viciously threw the lever to “Stop” and then to “Up”. “I wish you’d make up your flippin’ mind!”

“I’m really terribly sorry,” said Miss Teatime.

Back on the fourth floor, she left the lift and walked briskly through the bedroom furniture department, past the cafeteria and curtainings and down another staircase to the Peel Street exit.

In the Garden of Remembrance, Miss Teatime found Commander Trelawney (he had reluctantly divulged his rank during their first meeting, but only when he saw how truly interested she was) slewed round in the seat so that he could look at the flowers in the border.

“It’s funny,” he said, “but already I’m thinking of that one as Our Plant.”

He nodded towards the clump of polyanthus that he had pushed back in the soil. It was distinguishable by the shrunken, droopy appearance of its blooms.

“I think it’ll pick up all right.”

“Oh, I do hope so,” said Miss Teatime. “I’m not late, am I?”