Colin Watson - Lonelyheart 4122

Purbright looked disappointed. “Mightn’t you be able to find something, Miss Teatime? Even an odd piece or two in a wastepaper basket would be enough.”

She smiled. “In an hotel, Mr Purbright, one does not throw letters into a wastepaper basket. One tears them up and consigns them to the toilet.”

“I see. Well, will you take a careful look at this writing and tell me if you notice any resemblance to what you can remember of your friend’s.”

He waited until she had taken out her spectacles, then handed her the slip.

Miss Teatime scrutinized it for nearly a minute. She removed her glasses, replaced them in her bag, picked up the slip and gave it to the inspector.

“Quite, quite different,” she said. “Of that I am perfectly sure.”

The inspector sighed. “At least I seem to have been able to put your mind at rest.”

“Oh, but it was never anything else, Mr Purbright. Not really.”

When the inspector had gone, Miss Teatime had a nice long think. Then she left the table and sought out the young lady in the reception office, whom she asked to recommend a car hire firm that might be able to oblige her at somewhat short notice.

The girl gave her an address in St Ann’s Place. Ten minutes later, Miss Teatime was on her way there, unfollowed by policemen.

The garage manager prided himself on an ability to guess, from his first look at a customer, what kind of a vehicle was likely to be preferred.

He regarded Miss Teatime judiciously while she made her request, then nodded like a store Father Christmas and announced: “Just the very thing for you.”

He led her behind the service bay to an enclosure where about a dozen cars were standing. He went straight to a pale blue Ford Anglia and opened the door.

“Full tank. Key’s in. Just drive away. Lovely.”

He shut the door and motioned Miss Teatime to precede him back to the office where minor formalities could now be disposed of.

To his surprise, she stayed where she was.

“Is this the only car which is available?”

“Well...not exactly, but...”

She stood back, to get a view of the line.

“May I choose from these?”

He shrugged, a prophet without honour.

Miss Teatime scrutinized the row of bonnets in a single, slow-ranging inspection, then stepped forward and placed a gloved finger on the bronze paintwork of a car near the end.

“I shall have this one, if you please.”

The manager gazed dubiously at the low, clean-lined Renault, crouched in the row like some cat-napping athlete.

“I’m not sure you’d find that very suitable. It’s not English, you know.”

“I am prepared to forego the luxury of patriotism in the interests of comfort and dependability on this one occasion, Mr Hall.”

He made a last effort to redeem his own judgment.

“It’s awfully fast,” he said, in the tone wherewith a child is warned to throw away a sweet picked up in the street.

“Good,” said Miss Teatime. “I should hate to think that all those modifications to the cylinder head and manifold and valve springs and suspension had been wasted.”

The managed closed his eyes and offered a little prayer to the god of garages: O, please let her hit a lamp-post! Please let these old eyes see her being towed in!

Even after Miss Teatime had driven off—with depressing obvious proficiency—the man was still so upset that he filed away her agreement form and cheque without noticing that to the latter she had quite forgotten to add a signature.

From St Ann’s Place, Miss Teatime drove directly to the station. She parked the Renault neatly in the forecourt and went into the booking hall.

On the wall was a table of departures. Miss Teatime donned her spectacles and took out a pencil and her little memorandum book.

It was the four minutes past eight train, she recalled, on which Commander Trelawney had always left for home. She moved her pencil point down the time-table. Here it was. All stations to Chalmsbury, then Horley Bank, Stang and Brocklestone-on-Sea.

She made a list of all the stops on the route, closed the notebook and put it away.

It was nearly half-past ten.

Buying a platform ticket, she passed through the barrier and glanced up at the signals beside the footbridge. She was just in time to see one of the arms lurch to the “clear” position. A train from Brocklestone—Trelawney’s usual train, she supposed—was due.

Miss Teatime hurried to the bookstall counter.

“I should like a map of this area, if you happen to have one. From Flaxborough to the coast is what I want, actually.”

An ordnance survey section? Oh, yes, that would do admirably. There was no need to wrap it.

The rumble of the approaching train stirred a nearby knot of people into movement.

Miss Teatime took the map, told an astounded assistant to keep the change from a pound note, and hurried from the platform just as the train’s leading coach went by. Choosing a route unlikely to be taken by the commander on the way to his bank, she was out of sight of the station entrance before the first passenger off the Brocklestone train emerged.

Today’s meeting was to be half an hour later than the usual eleven o’clock. Miss Teatime debated whether she should risk taking a quick whisky or two first...(I felt so foolish, Jack, having to sit down on the stairs while this man brought me a glass of something to pull me round—I do believe it was spirits ’)...No, better not, perhaps.

When she reached the Garden of Remembrance, she walked past the gate and turned instead up the path flanked with yew and cypresses that led to the porch of St Laurence’s. She entered the church and sat down near the back. In the cool, grey solitude, she unfolded the map and supported it on the back of the chair in front of her.

She studied it for nearly half an hour.

Chapter Fifteen

The clock in the tower of St Laurence’s Church struck falteringly. It was half past eleven. Miss Teatime looked away from the drinking fountain, at which she had been watching a little girl methodically scrub out her doll’s clothes, and gazed towards the garden entrance. There was no sign of Trelawney.

She felt a twinge of anxiety. Up to now, he had shown himself an almost aggressively punctual person. Behaviour out of character was one of the very few things that made Miss Teatime nervous. It tended to upset calculations, and earning a living was difficult enough these days without one’s having to re-cast the horoscope, as it were.

However, two minutes later she saw the commander’s fair hair bobbing along beyond the hedge. He pushed open the gate and strode towards her. Even while he was still twenty yards away, she could see from the set of his head and the briskness of his step that he was in a good humour.

“A thousand apologies, dear lady. I was prepared to find you flown.”

“Nonsense, I have only just arrived myself.”

“Excellent!” He patted her thigh, as he might a gun dog. “In any case, I’ve a perfectly good excuse in my locker—or rather in ours, as it’s a joint account. The money’s paid in—five hundred nice shiny Jimmy O’Goblins!”

(Dear God! Where had she last come across that one? Sapper? Henty?) She widened her eyes commendingly. “My word! You are not one for wasting time, Mr Trelawney.”

“Hello-o-o...” Mock despair was on his face. “Who’s this talking to Mister Trelawney?”

“Commander,” she corrected mischievously.

“What! Pulling rank now, eh?”

Her glance fell. “Jack...”

“I should jolly well think so!” Again he patted her thigh, but this time his hand remained. He gazed closely into her face while his fingers contracted. She was about to draw sharply away when she saw in his eyes genuine interest and surprise.