Rosemary Aitken (15 page)

She raised the cup again. ‘Don’t try to talk too much, you’ll only tire yourself. I’ll be back here Thursday; we can talk longer then. Mrs Thatchell has been very good – she’s letting me have an extra afternoon this week.’ She gave a feeble grin. ‘Mind, we shall have to make the most of it – she wants me to work all day next week in lieu. Now, have another sip of this. It seems to do you good.’

He took a tiny mouthful, obediently. It soothed his throat. ‘Back to work by that time,’ he managed, with a smile.

‘Don’t be so damty stupid.’ That was Madge again. She’d been standing out of sight beside the door and he’d forgotten she was there. ‘The doctor says it’s likely to be weeks before you walk and even then your ankle may never be quite right. Don’t look so gone-out, Effie – he will have to know some time. It’s no good pretending. At least it seems he’s going to turn out all right in the head. With that great thump he’s taken on the bottom of his skull, there was a time that we weren’t even very sure of that – and Lord knows how we would have managed with him then.’

She was talking about him as if he wasn’t there and he made a feeble motion to protest. ‘Can’t expect it all to fall on you,’ he said. ‘Get me to my lodgings and I’ll make shift somehow.’

‘Walter Pengelly, you are dafter than a brush! It’s clear as rainwater you’re not going anywhere. How would you manage up two flights of stairs? I told you, you won’t be able to walk about for weeks. And Old Ma Hitchens is nearly seventy; you can’t expect her to be running after you. No!’ She gave a short affronted sniff. ‘You are my family and I know my duty, I should hope. You’ll stay here with us until you’re on your feet.’

Walter leant back on the pillow. He was going to be a burden to his sister, he could see, but all the same her offer came as a relief. He made a feeble effort to do the proper thing. ‘That’s handsome of you, Madgie, but what’s Joe going to say?’

She snorted. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll like it, but he’ll put up with it. He put up with your Effie living here for years.’ There was nothing sentimental about Madge. ‘And when you’re feeling better you can lend a hand; there’s a few shoes need mending and that sort of thing. You’re clever with your hands. Save us a few coppers and help to pay your keep. Joe can do anything with a piece of stone, but he was always helpless when it came to soling shoes.’

It was her attempt at leaving him some pride, though he could see that Effie was a little hurt at hearing that she’d been ‘put up with’ all these years. He said, ‘Well, we’ll see about all that. I’d be glad to stay a little while at least.’

‘And as for helping with your keep,’ his daughter said, ‘Crowdie says there’s sick pay for the first ten weeks, these days. And I ’spect the Miners’ Friendly will be round as well – after all, you’ve paid your dues all these years.’

Madge gave another snort. ‘Came while you were sleeping, or whatever else you were. Told them to come back tomorrow, see how you were then. Going down to see the widow and the boy that’s lost his eye. They’re the ones who’ll need it, as it seems to me.’

Walter felt a wave of grief and guilt break over him. He hadn’t thought about poor Tommy Richards and his son – almost as if his brain refused to take it in. ‘Poor soul – I don’t know how to make it up to her. I was pare-leader; she’ll hold me to blame.’

‘Don’t be so daft, Walt! Everybody knows you hit a faulty seam. The man from the Friendly even told me that they’re saying down the mine that if anyone could have avoided it, you would have been the man. Mrs Richards may be bitter against you for a while, but these things happen and in time she’ll come to see it was an accident.’ His sister came and stood beside him, looking down at him. ‘Now you’re looking tired again – I think you’ve had enough. You say goodbye to Effie and she can catch her bus, and when you’ve had a little sleep I’ll bring you up some tea, or perhaps a bit of chicken if you could fancy that?’

She was making an effort to look after him. Chicken was an expensive luxury. He tried to thank her but she had already gone downstairs. Effie was bending over him to kiss him on the cheek and he gave her a smile. ‘Thursday then!’

Suddenly, though, he felt immensely weak. Weariness swept over him and he was asleep before she closed the door.

Ever since that awful business with the corpse (who had come in asking questions the day before he died), Blanche had felt a little anxious dealing with casual clientele. She dared not mention her concern to Pearl, who would only have scoffed at her timidity, but she did try never to be left alone when there were any strangers in the shop. Of course there weren’t usually many of them in any case – a occasional miner’s wife on market day who wanted darning wool, or the servant of some visitor looking for fresh lace – but always for the haberdashery, as naturally ‘passing trade’ could not be wanting books.

So she was horrified one day, when Pearl was in the town and she herself was kneeling by the shelves, putting the returns back where they ought to be, to hear the shop bell ring and to look up to find a strange man in the library area. She was in quite a taking as she scrambled to her feet.

They did not often have male customers at all. There were one or two subscriptions to the library held by people of what Pearl described as ‘the other gender’ – but there were not very many, and any case, Blanche knew all of them by sight. But this man she had never seen before.

He was not quite what you’d call a gentleman – a bowler hat with an open Ulster overcoat, showing a lounge suit with a double-breasted waistcoat and what was clearly a false high collar on his shirt – and besides, as she told Pearl afterwards, ‘he walked into the shop, no horse-cab waiting or anything like that.’

He was not a servant either, you could tell that at a glance (no servant ever wore a collar quite like that!) but it was clear at once that he was respectable from the way he took his hat off as soon as he came in, and from the courteous nature of his first enquiry.

‘Have I the honour of addressing a Miss Weston?’ he said good-naturedly, bowing slightly across his bowler hat and peering at her through his gold-rimmed spectacles.

She hastened to correct him. ‘That would be my elder sister, Pearl. She isn’t at present on the premises, but I am Miss Blanche Weston, if that is any use?’ His formality had transferred itself to her, and she found herself quite flustered and answering in kind. Lovely manners, she thought, approvingly, though it was not a local voice. Sounded more up-country, like their late Papa.

The stranger reached into an inner pocket and produced a silver case from which he drew a little printed card. ‘Josiah Broadbent, at your service.’ He presented it to her. It was embossed, she noticed. Pearl would be impressed.

She ran her eyes over the wording on the card. ‘J. Broadbent – discreet enquiries. Tracing defaulters and creditors a speciality.’ And an address in London, of all things. She gave him a quick, embarrassed smile. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Broadbent, I fear there’s some mistake. You’ve had a wasted journey, I’m afraid. I don’t know who might have told you otherwise, but we are not in need of the kind of service you are offering.’ She tried to speak with confidence, but her mind was in a whirl. There was a bit of money owing to them here and there. Surely Pearl had not written to this firm without mentioning the fact?

Josiah Broadbent shook his head at her. His gingery hair was thinning a little at the top, she noticed, though there was nothing thin about the rest of him. He was plump and portly, his waistcoat buttons pulling tight against the strain, while his round face was reddish, with veins around the nose. ‘On the contrary, Miss Blanche. It is I who come to you.’ His pink forehead obviously tended to be moist because he dabbed at it constantly with a pocket-handkerchief. ‘On behalf of a regular client of mine in the capital. Indeed I believe we have already written to you about this matter once – over a week ago, in fact.’

Blanche was absolutely mortified. ‘I assure you that we always pay our bills on time!’ she snapped. It wasn’t quite true, she thought guiltily – they had been a little late this month settling the account with one firm that supplied them with their knitting-wools. ‘If it’s about that batch of mismatched skeins they sent, I assure you that the dye was different . . .’

He shook his head again. ‘I assure you, Miss Blanche Weston, there’s no need for alarm. This does not concern your excellent establishment at all – or only indirectly. The fact is, I am searching for a man, whom I believe to have had dealings with you once. There is nothing to be feared. I have news to his advantage, if he can be found.’ He reached into the pocket of his overcoat and took out a folded, faded photograph. It showed a young man dressed as a Hussar, standing proudly by a potted palm, his military headgear in his hand. Mr Broadbent handed it to her, saying, ‘Is it possible you recognize the face?’

She stared at it. It was a handsome face, framed by a dark mop of curly hair and sporting a fine moustache and side-whiskers, but it bore no resemblance to anyone she knew. She shook her head. ‘Who is it, anyway?’

‘His name is Artie Royston,’ she heard Mr Broadbent say. ‘Does that ring a bell with you?’

She handed back the photo and looked up at him, confused. ‘I have never heard the name as far as I’m aware. Royston is not a common surname around here.’

He smiled again, a reassuring smile. He had good teeth, she noticed. White and neatly matched – she wondered idly if they were his own. They did such clever things with false sets nowadays. She was suddenly conscious of her own enormous ones and pulled her mouth down firmly over them.

That seemed to convince him that she was displeased and he went on earnestly. ‘All the same I have a reason to have called on you. The police in London made enquiries about a certain shirt – apparently it was discovered on a corpse, which in turn had been discovered here.’

That terrible affair again! ‘But I understood it wasn’t his at all!’ she almost wailed. ‘There was something in the paper and my sister asked the police – seeing that we had a sort of interest in the case. They told her that the shirt-maker could offer no account – he had made it for a customer who had since gone overseas and he had no idea of how the dead man came by it.’

Josiah Broadbent twinkled. ‘That is quite true, my dear, but the shirt-maker in question mentioned it in passing to another customer – a certain Joseph Simms – because Royston had left without settling his account, and he knew that Simms had been a gambling friend of Royston’s long ago. Simms passed the information on to me when I approached him in relation to my own enquiry and he offered what may be an explanation of a sort. He tells me he remembers Royston at the races once, after losing heavily and drinking far too much, getting into conversation with a tipster at the bar, and finally staking everything he had – including a shirt of this description – on the outcome of the final race.’

Blanche swallowed, trying not to show how shocked she was. Gambling, like drinking, was the devil’s work: the very idea would have her father spinning in his grave; he would never permit playing cards or dice games in the house. But such immoral conduct brought its own reward. ‘And losing?’ she enquired, remembering that Mr Broadbent’s card suggested that he specialized in collecting debts.

Mr Broadbent smiled. ‘On the contrary, I understand he won, and after that the shirt became a kind of talisman in Royston’s eyes. But he got into betting very heavily, and took violent offence when other people tried to intervene, so he very soon lost touch with all his former friends. The last time my informant saw him, he was down at heel, separated from his wife and child and living off his wits in some dismal attic where he owed the rent. Says he gave him ten shillings for a meal – for old friendship’s sake – but could not be sure that Royston would not gamble it away. And when I called at the address there was no Royston there – he’d disappeared a few weeks afterwards, and of course he hadn’t paid the landlady. After that I lost the trail.’

Blanche nodded. ‘So you came down here? You thought the corpse was Royston?’

‘Given that he had the shirt, it did seem probable. But you don’t recognize him, so I’ll have to think again. It’s possible your corpse was indeed some sort of gambling friend who’d won the shirt from Royston in a bet – after all, we know he’d used it as a wager once before.’

‘If so, it wouldn’t help you, would it?’

‘I’m not so sure of that. Royston would not have staked his lucky talisman if he weren’t destitute. I doubt he’s really gone abroad – he wouldn’t have the money for his passage, anyway, and Simms has seen him since – I think that’s just a rumour that he put about himself, in order to escape his creditors. If I can trace the dead man’s movements in the days before he died, it might give me an indication where to look – he must have been with Royston to have won the shirt from him. I wrote down to make enquiries, both to you and to the local police, but they knew nothing and you did not answer when I wrote – so in the end I came down here myself.’

Blanche was feeling very foolish by this time. It was clear that Pearl had seen this letter and had chosen not to mention it to her – treating her, as usual, as though she were a child. The realisation made her volunteer more information than she might otherwise have done. ‘You know that he came here the afternoon before his death? Asking for a maidservant who lives in the town – though she swears she doesn’t know him.’ The moment she had said it, she regretted it. She was annoyed with Pearl, but her thoughtless words might bring down trouble on poor Effie’s head.

But Broadbent was only nodding soberly. ‘So I understand, from the butcher’s shop next door. Miss Pengelly, isn’t it? I expect that I shall have to talk to her, though I believe they didn’t meet. Do you know if he spoke to anybody else? We are trying to establish what his movements were that day.’

She was about to answer when the inner door was opened suddenly and Pearl came striding in. ‘Ah, here is my sister . . .’ Blanche said, helplessly, but attempting to be civil and to keep her manner bright. ‘I’m sure that she can be more use to you. Pearl, this is Mr Broadbent. He makes discreet enquiries, apparently. He’s got a proper card and everything.’