The Sleeping Partner (12 page)

I opened the front door and looked under the plant pot. The key was still there. After a minute I realised that somebody was standing in the drive.

It was a middle-aged loose-jointed man in a shiny blue suit and a trilby hat with a warped brim. He had a long horse face and he walked as if he was afraid of waking someone.

‘Mr Granville?'

‘Yes?'

‘Mr Michael Henry Granville?'

I said I couldn't deny it.

‘Then, sir, it's my duty to serve you with this petition.' He put a paper into my hand. ‘Good evening to you, sir.'

He went off down the drive with his dormitory walk. I looked at the long envelope in my hand, and then stared after him until he disappeared. I opened the thing.

It was a petition filed by my wife. She claimed a divorce on the ground of my misconduct with Mrs Stella Vivien Curtis, of Raglan Cottage, Letherton, Essex.

T
HE GIRL
took the pencil out of her mouth and put it in her red-gold hair.

‘Yes, sir?'

The offices looked as if they had survived the Great Fire, but she wasn't of the same vintage.

I put the paper on the counter. ‘This petition has been served on me by your firm. I'd like an interview with whichever of your principals was concerned in issuing it.' I looked at the glass door. ‘Mr Webber – or Mr Sterne – or …'

She smiled slightly and re-stabbed with the pencil. ‘They're both dead, sir. But I think it would be … Excuse me.' She went back into the cavern and whispered with a spectacled girl. ‘Yes, sir, it would be Mr Shelley. Do you want to see him?'

‘I do.'

She went to the phone and came back with a doubtful expression on her young face.

‘What name is it, please?'

‘Granville.'

‘Yes – er – Mr Shelley's engaged. Would you wait?'

I waited. It felt about an hour before I was shown in.

Mr Shelley didn't look like a poet. He was a fat man with eyes almost closed and huge pouches under them like ladies' handbags.

‘Mr Granville? How d'you do. You wished to see me?'

I handed him the petition. ‘You are acting for my wife in this?'

‘We are.'

‘And on her authority?'

‘Naturally. On her affidavit.'

‘So she approves of this very strange document?'

He opened his eyes sufficiently to look at his fingernails. ‘Frankly, Mr Granville, I'm not really in order in seeing you at all. But I thought as you had called perhaps there was some specific point … Obviously I can't discuss the nature of the evidence with you. You should go to your own solicitor.'

‘Would you tell me one thing?'

‘If I can.'

‘How long have you been having me watched?'

He put on a pair of library spectacles and turned the petition round as if it had been in a fever hospital. ‘The first evidence is on May the 26th.'

‘That wasn't what I asked you.'

‘It's all I can tell you.'

‘I suppose this petition can still be withdrawn?'

‘Er – yes. It can be withdrawn at the instance of your wife.'

‘So the best thing is to go and see her?'

His chair creaked as he shifted his weight. ‘The courts are naturally always glad to encourage reconciliation.'

‘Where can I find her at present?'

‘It's on the petition.'

‘That's only an accommodation address.'

‘I think you can get in touch with her there.'

I stared at him for a minute. He pushed himself slowly out of the chair and walked ponderously across the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets.

‘If I may advise you on one thing, I should certainly go and consult a solicitor first. Put all the facts before him and then do what he suggests.'

‘How long have I before I must reply to this thing?'

‘You have eight days to “enter an appearance” as it's called. You file an answer denying the charge – that's if you wish to deny it. Then in three or four months the case will come into court.'

‘Are you my wife's usual solicitor? Have you ever acted for her before?'

He didn't like that. ‘We've not acted for her before. Many women don't have occasion to use a solicitor until something like this crops up in their lives.'

Grosvenor Court Mews was not quite where I'd pictured it, but I found it after a couple of false starts. It was one of those quiet backwaters that you find in Mayfair: a rectangle of cobbled and paved yard in which someone always seems to be washing down a Rolls-Royce, two or three tiny houses made up out of old servants' quarters and painted in overbright yellows and blues, a few garages and flats over.

No. 9a was one of the flats over. I went up the stairs and rang the bell. No answer. From what Ray had said I had hardly expected it. Yet she might have come back.

I lifted a gnome's head on the door and let it fall. There was no outside handle to the door but I pressed it just in case. It was locked. At a branch in the stairs just below was a door marked 9, so I went down and put a finger on that bell.

A dog yapped sharply, and after a bit there were footsteps and the door was opened by a small elderly spectacled woman with grey shingled hair and a black velvet headband. She was carrying a toy dog so overgrown with hair that it seemed to have no face at all.

I said: ‘I beg your pardon. Does Mrs Granville live here?'

‘No, she lives at 9a, at the top of the stairs, but she's not at home.' The voice wasn't a bit friendly.

‘Do you know when she'll be back?'

The woman shook her head emphatically. ‘ No idea at all. She's changed her habits these last weeks. Pepe, darling, don't go sleep. Just when Mother's cooked something 'licious for you.'

I stared at the dog. Now it had stopped yapping you could practically only tell which was the front end by the tip of red tongue that occasionally came out and licked what your sense of decency presumed to be its nose.

I said suddenly: ‘These last weeks? But surely Mrs Granville has only had this flat a very short time?'

‘Not by my way of reckoning. She's had it since March Quarter Day, and she rents it from me.'

I stared at her and she blinked back at me.

‘Thank you.'

‘You're welcome.' Muttering to the dog, she'd already turned away, and the door was closing.

I said: ‘ Do you happen to remember when Mrs Granville was here last?'

‘Remember?' The woman didn't raise her head, and, staring at the grey hair, I suddenly saw a likeness between her and her dog. ‘No, I don't remember. I'm in and out myself all day and I don't keep watch on my tenants.'

‘No, of course not—'

‘She was upstairs last Thursday night, but she came in so late I didn't see her. She's always here Thursday to pay the rent. She a friend of yours?'

I hesitated. ‘Yes.'

It was the wrong answer. ‘ Well, then, you'll know.'

I said: ‘ Is it usually late on a Thursday when she comes in?'

She closed the door another inch. ‘ Yes. Too late. That is since the time when she used to be here in the afternoons. I've got to go now. My kettle's boiling.'

‘Thank you for helping,' I said, ‘Mrs – er—'

‘Miss,' she said. ‘Miss Lord.' And shut the door.

There was a phone box in the corner of the mews, and I rang Simon Heppelwhite for Hazel Boylon's address. He gave it me and I went out to Swiss Cottage. Simon said Hazel was working for a film company, so it wasn't likely I should find her in. But I thought there was a reasonable prospect of catching Lynn. As I climbed to the third floor of the Victorian house where the flat was, my heart was beating with more than the effort of climbing fifty-four stairs.

There was no bell, and no one answered the knocker. Then after a second try I could hear someone moving in the flat.

It was three weeks tomorrow. I wondered in what way she would have changed – whether sight of her would sweep away Stella and the thing of Sunday, whether—

The door opened. It was Hazel Boylon, in a flowered green house-coat. Her hair was tied back in a horse's tail with a piece of green lace, and there was lipstick on her teeth.

‘Yes?' she said, and then: ‘Oh, it's Mike.'

‘How are you? Is Lynn here?'

‘Lynn? No, dear. Did you expect her to be?'

I followed her in. It was a big high bed-sitting-room, done in ivory and peach, both rather faded. The bed wasn't yet pushed up into the wall.

‘Sorry, dear. I was washing some nylons. Hence the shambles. There are cigarettes somewhere – oh, here. Can you find a landing strip – shift those magazines.'

I shifted the magazines. ‘I hoped I might catch Lynn. I wasn't dead sure whether she was still with you.'

She was looking at her fingertips. ‘Washing plays hell with one's varnish. What d'you mean, still with me?'

‘Well, she's been staying here, hasn't she? I understood so.'

‘No, dear. Not since that weekend in January. I haven't seen much of Lynn for a long time. She's had other fish to fry … No, thanks, I've got a lighter here – if the damn thing'll work … You having squaw trouble, Mike?'

‘You knew of it?'

‘No, but when men come searching for their wives at midday with that needled look …'

‘A man said Lynn had phoned him from your flat. Perhaps I misunderstood him.'

‘You must have.'

‘You haven't seen anything of her recently, then?'

‘Not a sight. Oh, use anything for an ash-tray. Actually I've been busy myself until two weeks ago. I'm stand-in for Jennifer Kaplan, you know; but she's finished her picture, and when she rests I rest.'

‘It must be an interesting life.'

‘It's all right. But there's too much having the tip of your nose measured. Mike—'

‘Yes?'

‘Oh, nothing.' I said: ‘What did you mean by saying Lynn had other fish to

fry?'
‘It was just a saying. Don't you really know where she's gone?'
I said: ‘ I haven't an idea now.'

From the end of the street I telephoned Ray French. There was no reply from his flat but I caught him at the music publishers.

He said: ‘No, I didn't actually speak to Lynn, old boy. In fact I didn't know she'd rung me till the following day when she dropped me the briefest note. It was about the gramophone records, telling me to cancel them. That was all.'

‘Can you remember just what she said?'

‘I think I still have the card somewhere, but it's at home. It simply said: “Tried to get you on the phone yesterday, but no luck.” Something like that. Then it went on about the records and it ended: “Am staying a few days with Hazel.” '

‘She actually put that?'

‘Yes. Of course I don't remember
au pied.
The address was something like Scarsdale Mansions. Or was it Scarisbrook?'

‘Scarsdale,' I said. ‘Thanks.'

He said: ‘ Mike.'

‘Yes?'

‘W. Day has been brought forward a week.'

‘What has?'

‘Our wedding. It's fixed for the ninth, next Sunday, so we can catch the
Otrantes
which is leaving for a cruise on the tenth. As I said, it's not going to be a mammoth wedding, but we'd like you and Lynn.'

‘Thank you. If you really want us both it might be a good idea to send separate invitations.'

‘Oh? … Oh, I'm sorry if it's that way, Mike.'

‘It's that way.'

‘I'm sorry. What made you – but I suppose that isn't my business.'

‘I didn't. She did.'

‘Grave mistake on her part, I think … Where do I find her?'

‘I'll try to let you know.'

Whitehouse, of Tranter, Page and Whitehouse of Chancery Lane, was a big blond man in his early forties, round-faced, shock-haired, with nicotine stains on his fingers. I handed him the petition and he said: ‘Oh, dear, I'm sorry about this,' and began to read it through. I thought, everybody seems to be sorry.

When he'd finished he flipped the thing with his finger and glanced at me. ‘ What's the answer? A denial?'

‘Complete. The whole thing is nonsense.'

He drew a pad towards him and, tearing off a half scribbled sheet, began to make hieroglyphics on the new one.

‘With an adultery charge the actual occasions need not be specified on the petition – unlike cruelty where every detail goes down. “And on numerous other occasions between 27th May and 13th July.” Can you remember what you were doing on those dates?'

‘For the last two months I've been working very hard, so that one day has been much like another. My secretary might help.'

‘This – er – Mrs Curtis, who is in your laboratory – you were with her on those dates?'

‘Probably. We were on a rush job and it meant long hours together.'

‘And after hours?'

‘Oh, yes. Often we worked late – and twice we had dinner sent in to us and went on afterwards, once until midnight.'

‘You were quite alone in the factory then?'

‘Yes – except for the two detectives who keep watch on the place during the night; and in that case I told them we were there and not to disturb us.'

‘Did you work behind locked doors?'

‘No.'

‘Or with curtains drawn?'

‘There are no curtains – but the windows of the laboratory are of reeded glass.'

‘Did your wife complain to you of the association?'

‘She complained about my working late – but not about Stella Curtis.'

‘How did Mrs Curtis go home afterwards? Had she a car?'

‘No, I took her in mine.'

‘Did you ever stop on the way?'

‘Not as far as I can remember. Certainly not in any dark lanes.'

‘And when she got home? Did you ever go in?'