The Witness on the Roof (9 page)

Joan read the account to the end. She was very pale; there were faint purple shadows beneath her eyes, new lines of pain round her mouth.

As she laid down the pager she sat back in her chair and looked straight before her for a minute. There were few people in the room; all of them were far too intent upon their own business to look at Joan, but later the girl herself could always recall the aspect of the room, the bent white head of the old man by the window, the shabby hat of the woman near her.

So it was true, she said to herself drearily: that scene in the studio into which she could see from the roofs was no figment of a disordered imagination. That motionless form on the rug had been a young girl, only a few years older than Joan herself was now, who had been foully done to death. The man whom Joan had seen moving about the room, burning photographs, placing the pistol in the dead girl's hand, was, there could be no doubt of it, the murderer, trying to conceal his work. But who was he? That was the question that had driven the colour from Joan's cheeks, that had beaten upon her brain with maddening reiteration throughout the long past night. To this the paper, as Joan read it, offered no answer.

Hastily she caught up the next day's edition. Surely there would be something more. Yes, there were two columns devoted to the Grove Street murder—evidently it had loomed somewhat large in the public imagination—but there was little further information. The inquest had been opened, the doctor's evidence, proving incontestably that the victim had not committed suicide, was taken, but no evidence of her identity was forthcoming, and the artist Wingrove did not appear.

Evidence was given as to the state in which the room was found. Many of Wingrove's personal effects were missing; apparently a quantity of papers and a number of photographs had been burned in the grate. It was curious to notice how suspicion centred round the missing man, strange to watch its growth in the terms in which he was mentioned. In the first edition he was spoken of as Mr. Wingrove, the artist; later on he became the missing man. At a further, stage Joan read, “There is still no trace of Wingrove; it is thought that he may have made his way to one of the ports, and thence out of the country.” There was a lengthy account of the inquest, which had been adjourned time after time in the hope that there might be some news of Wingrove; but as far as Joan could see there had been nothing to throw any further light upon the tragedy.

At an early stage of the proceedings there seemed to have been some little suspicion of the caretaker. He was subjected to a rigid examination and called upon to account for his movements at the time of the murder, but apparently he cleared himself, for thenceforward the search for Wingrove went on with renewed vigour. There were two curious circumstances that Joan noted—first, that when the girl had been moved, there fell out from her skirts a common tobacco-pouch worked with a circlet of flowers that had once been gaudy, but was now dirty; secondly, a man's malacca cane, silver-mounted, was found in a corner by the door. Neither of these articles, the caretaker testified in the most positive manner, had belonged to Wingrove. Finally, the verdict had been, “Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.” There was a description of Wingrove. Joan read it eagerly: “Above the average height, dark-complexioned, brown beard and moustache, light eyes. When last seen was wearing a dark grey suit and a panama hat.”

There was a leading article on the murder after the inquest, deploring the inefficiency of our police system in the usual ponderous style, advocating the use of bloodhounds in every case directly a crime was discovered, pointing out that young women who allowed themselves to be led into a clandestine friendship, to pay clandestine visits to men such as Wingrove, exposed themselves to serious danger.

Then two days later the paper gave prominence to the headline “Sensational discovery in the Grove Street Mystery.”

Wingrove's studio coat had been examined, and the pockets had been found to be empty, but later on one of the detectives engaged on the case had felt a piece of paper in the lining. It proved to be a note or part of a note, for it had been torn across and the upper portion was missing. What could be read was: “Be with you not later than four on Monday. Everything is ready. It seems to me that there can be nothing further to wait for. From your own Queenie.”

Apparently it was presumed that it was written to Wingrove by the murdered girl, but, beyond establishing the fact that her presence in the studio—if she were indeed the writer—was not an accident, it in no way helped to clear up the various points that were puzzling the detectives. The girl's identity, Wingrove's personality, his present whereabouts, the mystery surrounding them remained as impenetrable as ever.

Joan went on with the examination. The allusions to the Grove Street murder grew less frequent; there were rumours of trouble in the Far East; a General Election was impending. The papers had no more space to waste over the unknown girl who had been done to death in Grove Street.

Joan laid the papers together arid stood up. Her limbs felt cramped and stiff as she moved to the door; she had spent longer than she thought on that hard, uncomfortable chair. She felt giddy. After all, what had she learned? That that horror of her childhood was a ghastly reality certainly, but the question that had tormented her through the long hours of the night remained unanswered.

She left the Museum and walked through the quiet old Bloomsbury streets and squares, asking herself again whether it was possible that she should recognize a man whom she had only seen for a few brief seconds, under such different conditions, ten years ago. She knew that in other circumstances she would not have been inclined to place reliance on such a recognition, but in her own case the whole scene had been so imprinted upon her memory that she fancied she could recall it precisely as it happened, correct in every detail. Even the grey eyes of the man who had looked at her for a moment over the window-sill—were they the same eyes that had met hers last night in the library at the Towers? She shivered as she drew her veil more closely over her face. As she neared the noise and bustle of Oxford Street she paused, regardless of the passers-by. It was ten years since the tragedy occurred; in all those years was it not possible—nay, was it not most probable—that something had been discovered, that the murderer had been arrested even if for the time he had managed to evade justice?

She went; on again, walking with quick, uneven steps, turning along Oxford Street to the right, heedless alike of the tempting display in the shop windows, of the jostling of the passers-by.

At Tottenham Court Road she had perforce to wait while a great stream of traffic passed her. On the other side of the street there was a motor-bus waiting. Seeing her glance the conductor vociferated loudly, “Bond Street, Marble Arch, Queen's Road.” The words recalled a thousand memories. Grove Street lay not far from the Marble Arch at the back of Hinton Square. She had a fancy that if she got out at Marble Arch she could find her way to the Grove Street Mews just as she had done in her childish days. Mechanically she threaded her way across the street and seated herself in the omnibus.

“M
ARBLE
Arch!” Joan alighted from the omnibus in amazement.

Modern improvements had altered the Marble Arch she remembered almost out of recognition. She made her way across to Edgware Road, and took the turning down Connaught Street that led to the quieter squares that lay behind, parallel with Bayswater Road.

It all looked exactly the same here; she had fancied the squares larger, the streets wider, that was all. In her childish days every step of the way she was taking now had been familiar to her.

Mrs. Spencer, never unduly nervous with regard to the perils of the London Streets, had been wont to send little Polly across to Praed Street or Edgware Road half a dozen times a day on errands.

Joan found her way to the Mews without difficulty. A couple of stablemen stood in the archway; farther down a group of children were playing. It all seemed so familiar that Joan involuntarily rubbed her eyes. Surely the last ten years had been a dream. She would wake to find herself little Polly Spencer again, with fat baby Tim to carry about and look after, and one of these men would probably be Gregory. But both the red faces were strange to her.

“Can you tell me whether John Spencer, Sir Robert Brunton's coachman, lives down here?” she asked. It was an idle question: her father had never kept his situations for any length of time.

One of the men shook his head.

“No, miss, I have never heard the name. There is nobody in Sir Robert Brunton's employ down here now.”

“Thank you!”

Joan had no further excuse for lingering. She glanced down the Mews; there was the house that had been her father's—they might have been the self-same boxes of mignonette and scarlet geranium in the windows; behind she caught a glimpse of the loft whence she had climbed on the leads. She turned away with a shiver.

Grove Street itself was unmistakably dingier than she remembered it. Probably the murder at No. 18 had dragged it considerably lower in the social scale.

Almost without realising where her steps were taking her, she went on up the street. No. 18 looked just like its neighbours, neither better nor worse. There were the same drab-coloured curtains in every window. Joan's eyes strayed fearfully to the second floor. Then for the second time that day she acted on an impulse that seemed to come from without, to be altogether independent of her own will. She stepped forward and rang the bell.

It, was answered immediately by a stout woman of middle age, who had the appearance, of a respectable lodging-house-keeper. She looked at Joan with surprise.

‘“‘I heard—that is, I thought you might have rooms to let.”

“We have one set vacant, miss, but they are at the top of the house. I don't know whether they would suit a young lady.”

“Perhaps I might look at them,” Joan suggested timidly.

“Oh, certainly, miss! Come this way, please.” She preceded Joan up the stairs. “There really ought to be a lift, I always say,” she volunteered. “But still when you are used to it, the stairs are not so bad.”

Joan glanced towards the room on the second floor, but the door was closed.

The rooms at the top certainly justified the woman's doubts—they were small and dingy. From the windows there was a good view of the neighbouring chimney-pots. With a cursory glance at them Joan turned away and slipped a shilling into the woman's hand.

“They would not do, thank you!”

“No, miss—thank you, miss! I was afraid they would not be suitable. Not but what I should be pleased to do my best to make a young lady like yourself comfortable.”

“You are very kind.” Joan turned to the stairs. As she reached the second floor she paused. “I wonder whether I might just look inside those rooms? I—I have heard of them.”

The woman glanced at her suspiciously.

“We do not show them, madam. They are let to Mr. Cohen.”

“I should be very glad if you could manage it.” Joan was holding her purse in her hand—there was a chink of money. “I used to live near, and remember hearing—”

She hesitated. The woman glanced covetously at the gleam of gold. 

“Well, just for a moment, miss, as Mr. Cohen is out, though I do not know that I ought. But perhaps you have been told something of what happened there.”

“Yes—yes—at least I told you I have heard. My people were living near then,” Joan said incoherently as the woman opened the door and she stepped forward.

The aspect of the room was entirely altered. All the artistic disorder had given place to an array of books and desks; it had now the appearance of a business man's office.

There was a square of Axminster carpet before the fire-place. Joan's brain quickly conjured up the black, woolly rug, the still form that had lain across it. Her eyes wandered to the window. It was there she had stood, her curly head on a level with the first pane, her eyes just peeping in. There was a door in the recess between the fireplace and the window. With a momentary return of the horrible nausea that had overwhelmed her the previous evening, she remembered how it had opened—she knew that somebody must have been watching the murderer at work. What—who would he have seen if he had looked behind in that other room?

She pointed to the door.

“Where does that lead?”

The woman watched her white face inquisitively; evidently there was more here than met the eye.

“That's the door into Mr. Cohen's bedroom.” She walked over and threw it open. “See!”

It was a fairly large, commodious room. Joan noted that a door on the opposite side opened on to the landing, so that anybody might have come in from there, crossed the room softly, and, finding that door into the studio ajar, have pushed it open and watched. Who had that unseen witness been, and why had he or she kept silence?

She walked back and put of the room quickly. Downstairs, in the vestibule, the pallor of her face was noticeable. The woman of the house hesitated a moment. In some curious fashion her face seemed to have caught the pallor of Joan's.

“You look fair tired—worn out, miss,” she said tentatively, her eyes watching the girl's face from beneath their down-dropped lids. “If you would care to come in and rest in my room, I could get you a cup of tea or anything; and any of the lodgers would tell you that Mrs. Perks knows how to make them comfortable.”

Joan had had nothing to eat since early that morning. So entirely had her supposed recognition of Warchester the previous evening possessed her, that she had lost desire for food; but now her healthy young appetite was reasserting itself, and she became conscious that there was something very attractive in Mrs. Perks' suggestion. Besides, it would give her an opportunity of putting the questions she was longing to ask.