Colin Watson - Lonelyheart 4122

With a pencil Miss Teatime ringed three advertisements under Situations. All were for companions.

Next she took from one of her cases the Flaxborough Street Directory and Gazetteer which she had received by post a fortnight before. She looked up three names and addresses and turned three times to the town map. What she inferred from these references did not, apparently, impress her. She scribbled through the pencilled rings and began to explore the Personal column.

It was not promising.

Most of the entries were purely commercial advertisements, couched in pert or whimsical terms. Thus: “A.D.—Meet me at the Flaxborough Pram Mart, Tuesday, and we’ll choose our Bargain together. They have fabulous easy terms.—Daisy.”

Or: “Don’t beef, come to Hambles, West Row, where they have the finest meat in town.”

The blandishments of money lenders were much in evidence. “From ten to ten thousand pounds” was to be had at the drop of a postcard, and with no security. Miss Teatime smiled to herself. She knew that the “no security” was intended to qualify the borrower’s legal position, not the loan.

Here, too, was the hunting ground of the hawkers of such curious boons as foolproof chimney cowls, denture fixatives (“spare yourself shame”), cures for stuttering and means to learn the mandolin in a week.

She was admonished in turn to learn the secrets of the Rosicrucians, provide herself with the powers of Joan the Wad and avoid furs got by torture.

Then came a wide selection of addresses from which, under plain cover, unspecificed artifacts in rubber would be promptly dispatched. “Good old thousand per cent and no overheads,” murmured Miss Teatime to herself.

Her eye travelled down.

“Unparalleled opportunity for lovers of unusual art...”

Good God! Maisie and Ted were still at it. The same, exactly. Real old troupers.

“A business opening exists...” Oh, no. Not that one.

“Gentleman who has written novel about exciting war experiences would appreciate advice as to having same published.” Better. But still only as a last resort. Alas, those gentlemen from the war...

Ah!

Right at the bottom of the column, it was. Something for which she had not dared to hope. Not in remote, prosperous, hard headed Flaxborough.

A matrimonial bureau.

Well, what else could be meant by “Handclasp House: Are you weary of the solitary path?”

Miss Teatime read the whole advertisement through carefully. Clients from all walks of life...introductions arranged...view to permanent association...countless instances of happiness...small initial fee...There was no doubt about it.

She took from her handbag a little lavender-coloured memorandum book. As she jotted down the address of Handclasp House, a smile spread over her face, illuminating charmingly its lineaments of good breeding.

Then she put the book away, folded the Flaxborough Citizen and resumed her contemplation of the waterside and the circling gulls.

Chapter Four

“Teashops, Sid,” Inspector Purgright had said. “I’ve a feeling that Miss Reckitt and Mrs Bannister would have chosen to be courted in teashops. Try taking their pictures round.”

There were eight establishments in Flaxborough that the sergeant felt he could reasonably include in his list, although two were in fact self service cafeterias and a third brashly advertised itself as a “Shake ’n’ Donut Bar”. These three he was able to eliminate within half an hour, but as he began to slog round the others he saw that he was in for a long and daunting quest.

In “Penny’s Pantry”, next to the Guildhall, he waited for what seemed hours, wedged amidst elbows and enormous shopping baskets, while the sole attendant—Penny herself, he presumed—served customers who constantly replaced themselves like Hydra’s heads. Each of these women appeared to have been forewarned of a long siege: she indicated cake after cake, which Penny loaded with gloomy fastidiousness into cardboard boxes.

When at last Love found himself within gesturing distance of the woman behind the counter and had managed to catch her eye, he raised his brows invitingly and jabbed a finger in the direction of a doorway through which he had noticed a number of unoccupied tables.

Not open , the woman mimed. Eleven . She turned to forklift an Almond Dainty out of the window.

I want a word with you , Love silently but urgently mouthed as soon as she glanced again in his direction.

She frowned. What about? her mouth framed.

It was like a conversation between two acute laryngitis patients.

I’m a po-lice off-i-cer , went Love’s lips.

He saw the woman consider, nod brusquely, then disappear. He pushed his way to the side of the shop and went through into the tearoom. The woman was already there. She looked offended.

“We’re very busy, you know.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, but I’ll not keep you.” He took out his two photographs.

“I just want to know if you’ve seen either of these ladies here in the café at any time. In the last two or three months, anyway.”

She took a long, grave look.

“What have they done?”

“Nothing,” said Love, blandly. His blue eyes met her glance of disbelief and remained steady.

She held Mrs Bannister’s picture. “It might have been this one who was in the other week. I’m not sure, mind.”

“How long ago?”

“A fairish while. Two or three weeks. If it was her.” She started. “Look, I’ll have to get back to the shop.”

“All right. But can you remember who she was with?”

“Oh, but really...” She thrust the photograph back into his hand and turned.

“It’s important. Honestly.”

Relenting, she paused and stared at a table in the far corner. She seemed to seek there some left-behind impression. Love watched her face cloud with the effort of recollection, then saw a small smile.

“Dicky bow,” she said suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“He was wearing one of those dicky bow ties. You don’t often see them nowadays. That’s all I remember, though.”

“Nothing else?”

She shook her head, but her gaze did not leave the corner table.

“How old was he?” Love asked.

“So-so. Middle aged, I suppose. Like her.”

“Hair?”

She shrugged.

“Dark? Fair?”

“Fair. He was...”

“Yes?”

“Well, I’m not sure how to describe it. Rather gall ant .” She stressed the second syllable. Purbright would have diagnosed from this slight flippancy a desire to be thought more level-headed than she really was. Love suffered from no such devious process of thought.

“What, a bit of a fancy lad, you mean?”

“Sort of,” she said, and departed.

The sergeant drew no results at all from “The Pewter Kettle”, a fearsomely hag-ridden chintzery in St Ann’s Place, or from the Church Tower Restaurant. At “The Honey Pot”, he had to contend with a good deal of indignation from a maiden proprietress who was unshakeably convinced that he had come to accuse her of peddling purple hearts. The Clock Tea Rooms, in Market Street, he found to be closed for redecoration.

It was his last call, at an unnamed first-floor café near the bus station, that produced the only response to the photograph of Martha Reckitt. A plump Italian girl, whose pneumatic occupancy of her waitress’s frock gave her the appearance of the maid in a stage farce, recognized the picture at once.

“She come the day I start. Maybe the first, second customer.”

“That’s why you remember her?”

“Sure.”

“Was she with anyone?”

“Yes. A man. I think a priest.”