Mystery Villa (4 page)

‘I don't think there can be anyone there.'

‘Oh, the old party's never out in the day; only she'll never show,' Wild answered, and strolled on to where a rotting fence and some tumbledown trellis-work had once screened off the garden. ‘Lummy! Come and look here. Ever seen such a sight?'

Indeed, it was a garden that seemed now more like a bit of the primeval chaos than anything else. For nearly half a century the vegetation had grown, or not grown, at its own will, and mingled with it was a confusion of empty tins, of old rags, of ashes and cinders – for dustmen had long ceased to call – of piles of rotting paper blown here by the wind and then trapped.

‘Even a dead cat,' Wild said, pointing to one. ‘I suppose when anybody round about wants to get rid of anything, they chuck it over the fence.'

‘I am wondering about this,' Bobby said. ‘She must have food, and so on, at times, and she must pay for what she has. That means she must get money somehow, unless she has a hoard in the house, which doesn't seem very likely. I should like to see the money she pays her bills with. If it's of current date, that would prove someone must be sending or giving it to her.'

‘Yes, I daresay,' agreed Wild. ‘Only it's not police business. She's doing no harm. No Act of Parliament against living alone – at least, not yet; though very like there will be soon, when some of them up there happen to think of it.'

They went to the back of the house, and Bobby said:

‘Shall we knock?'

‘What for?' asked Wild. ‘You'll get no answer; no one ever does. If it's about the football, serve those kids right if they lose it. Teach 'em not to play in the streets any more, perhaps.'

‘Might as well try,' Bobby said, always an obstinate and persistent young man.

He went up to the front door. The bell, one of the old-fashioned wire bells, hung, in evident uselessness, on a length of broken wire. The heavy knocker, red with rust, Bobby lifted, and beat a rat-tat upon the door, and, even as he did so, it opened and swung back.

Surprised indeed was Bobby that this door, so evidently so long unused, should thus swing open instantly in response to his summons, but still more surprised was he – surprised, indeed, to the very limit of astonishment – by what he now saw. For there, upon the threshold, stood no such ancient withered, half-crazed crone as he had expected, but, instead, a young, fresh, dainty girl, smartly and fashionably dressed, her youthful elegance most strange against that dreary background of neglect and desolation.

In figure she was small and slight, very fair, with fair hair that had a tint of gold, and very clear eyes of the deepest blue. Her features were small: a tiny mouth, a small though well-shaped chin, a delicately chiselled nose – all so dainty that the big, wide-opened blue eyes above seemed enormous by comparison. Her complexion, all cream and roses, was as Heaven had given it and her own good sense had left it; and her small, gloved hands clasped to her body a crystal-handled umbrella as though she loved it.

But yet there was something strained and rigid in the attitude of, this small person of an almost Dresden-china-shepherdess beauty; and while Bobby still gaped at her in his frank bewilderment – while, behind, good Sergeant Wild gasped out almost audibly: ‘Bless my soul' – he grew aware that in her great eyes of clearest blue there showed an unimaginable terror; that through those red lips, curved like Cupid's bow, there might break at any moment a wail of terror and despair; that those small hands clasping the umbrella so closely to her were held like that in a desperate attempt to still the wild beating of her heart.

How long they would have stayed like this, watching each other – Bobby in blank and complete bewilderment; the girl paralysed, as it seemed, by the sheer extremity of the terror that held her in its grip – none can tell, but, from behind, the comfortable, untroubled voice of Sergeant Wild broke the tension.

‘Ain't the old lady in, miss?' he asked, and the commonplace, ordinary question, and the everyday tone in which it was asked, seemed alike incredible to Bobby; and yet, at the same time, served, as it were, to bring him back into touch with ordinary life.

Wild, in fact, was feeling a little pleased at Bobby's silence. He took it as indicating that this smart young Yard chap realised the lead ought to be left to the senior and more experienced man, even if that senior had happened to spend all his service in the uniform branch, and none the worse for that, either. Of course, such an attitude was only right, but some of those C.I.D. chaps were a bit pushing, and thought no one counted but themselves, so it was quite gratifying, Wild fell, to find one who understood the uniform branch mattered, too. Moreover, from where Wild stood, a little to one side and a trifle behind Bobby, he could not see the girl so plainly, nor recognise as plainly as could Bobby those signs and tokens of an awful terror that she displayed so clearly.

‘No... No.' She answered his question now. ‘There's no one here but me... no one at all... no one...'

She shuddered as she spoke, and somehow Bobby was on the instant quite certain that what she said was not true, as instinctively as he knew, also, that only most dire necessity had induced her so to lie. ‘You mean... Miss Barton?' she asked, her voice controlled by an effort so intense and violent, Bobby wondered so small and slight and frail a body could produce it.

‘Is that the party's name, miss?' Wild asked, in his most benevolent, fatherly voice, for all he saw was a pretty young girl naturally a little startled by the abrupt appearance of two strange men. ‘It's about the football, miss,' he went on, ‘some of those boys have been and kicked through your window, and a good hiding's what they want, if you ask me. Though I'm not saying liking a bit of fun isn't natural enough when you're young, as you'll know yourself, miss,' he added, in polite recognition of his listener's youth. ‘But, all the same, there's limits, and I'll see if I can't get a plain-clothes man put on here for a while, to stop the annoyance.'

He paused then, a faintly puzzled look on his broad, good-humoured face suggesting that he was beginning to be vaguely aware of something somehow out of tune somewhere in his amiable chatter, and, indeed, to Bobby it had sounded as grotesquely, almost as indecently incongruous, as jest and song would have seemed by a deathbed, so that he had wished to stop it by some word or gesture of protest. But on the girl this flow of everyday commonplace had evidently a reassuring effect, and though the terror was still in her eyes, the deathly pallor in her cheeks, her voice was better under control as she said:

‘Oh, yes... the football... yes. I'll get it for you, shall I?'

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and disappeared into the house, leaving Bobby and Wild standing there.

‘Rum start,' commented Wild. ‘Fancy a smart girl like that being here! Wonder if she's a relative or what?'

Bobby did not answer. He was staring into the dreary interior of the house, noting the dust that lay so thickly everywhere, the cobwebs that hung like a black tapestry on the walls, the hat-and umbrella-stand where busy spiders had spun great webs between hats unworn for half a century, and sticks and umbrellas untouched for as long, and asking himself how, into that drear, bizarre picture of neglect, there had come to fit itself such a picture of bright youth and beauty. He noticed that, on the right, a door was open, and that just within was piled an inconceivable confusion of bills, letters, circulars, papers of all sorts and kinds, none opened, all apparently thrown in there out of the way when their accumulation threatened to block up the hall.

‘Ever see such a sight?' Wild asked. ‘You get into some queer places sometimes in our job, but none so queer as this, as ever I've known.'

The girl came running back, flitting light and swift through the gloom. She had the football in her hands, and she held it out to them.

‘Here it is,' she said.

‘Thanky, miss,' Wild said, taking it. ‘Miss Barton all right, miss?'

‘Oh, yes,' she answered.

‘You'll excuse our asking, miss,' Wild went on, ‘but we feel a bit uneasy at times, knowing she is all alone here and anything might happen like, but that'll be all right now you're here, miss, I take it – and so much the better, too.'

She did not answer. She stood very still and silent, and Bobby had the thought that her first extremity of fear was beginning to return to her.

‘If there's anything we can do, miss,' Wild went on, without appearing to notice her silence, ‘and you'll let us know, we're always handy. Or would you like someone from the church to call round?'

‘Oh, no, no, no; not that,' she breathed, and for once Wild looked a little disconcerted, as if he did not quite know what to make of so prompt and decided a refusal of his well-meant suggestion.

‘Well, there's some as don't hold with churches,' he conceded, ‘though I've nothing against them myself. You any relation, miss?'

‘Oh, no... no... Once my father knew her,' she breathed, and shuddered as she spoke, as if with a kind of vision of what the past once was, of what might be the future.

But Wild noticed nothing, and beamed approval on her.

‘Glad to know the old lady's got friends, miss,' he continued, with the same bland amiability Bobby could hardly believe he did not see was torture to the girl. ‘Didn't seem right for her to be living all alone, same as she seemed, without a soul knowing nothing about her, and anything we can do, miss, as I said before, you've only to let us know; and very glad I am there's a young lady like yourself to look in at times, for our chaps often said it was a shame the way the poor old soul lived all alone, and I'll do my best to see there's no further annoyance from the football. I suppose Miss Barton doesn't want to lodge any complaint, does she? There's her window broke, and, if we could find out what boy it was did that, she could come down on his father and make him pay up, though whether worth the trouble or not is another thing.'

‘Oh, no. Please don't,' the girl breathed. ‘She wouldn't want, I'm sure she wouldn't... You won't, will you...?'

‘Not if not wished,' Wild assured her. ‘And there's no denying accidents will happen, and losing their football will be a bit of a lesson to them to be more careful another time. We'll take it with us, shall we, miss?'

‘Oh, yes... yes, please do,' she answered, and Bobby was quite sure he heard a slow, shuffling step going up and down somewhere in the dim background.

‘Did you say Miss Barton was out?' he asked.

She threw him a quick and startled glance, as if terrified afresh that now he, too, had spoken.

‘Yes... yes... yes; she's out,' she whispered, but the shuffling, hesitating footstep was now still more plainly audible – at least to Bobby. Wild did not seem to hear or notice. ‘Oh, I must go,' she said, with a little cry. ‘Please, I must go, if you'll let me, please.'

‘That's right, miss,' Wild rambled on. ‘Much obliged, miss, and sorry to have troubled you, and if you would like a doctor or a nurse sent in, miss, just you let us know; and a very good thing, too, miss, if I may say so, the old lady's got someone–'

But this time the door shut to, and Bobby knew, as well as though his eyes could penetrate the solid wood, that on the other side the girl clung, half fainting, half unconscious, able only by leaning against it to hold herself upright. In another moment, he knew for certain, the strain would have been too much for her, and she would have broken under it.

‘Bit quick that was,' Wild commented, a trifle disconcerted again, as he surveyed the closed door. ‘Nice young lady she seemed, too; and as pretty as they make 'em – reminded me of my own old woman when we was walking out before we had our nine kids. But quick in her ways, too, with it, don't you think?'

‘A little that way,' Bobby acknowledged. ‘Did you hear anything? I thought I heard footsteps, somewhere inside, just before the door shut.'

‘Now you mention it,' agreed Wild, ‘there was a sort of sound – perhaps there's someone there with her, mother or someone. Or it might be just mice scuttling. I'll lay there's plenty in there.'

‘There is something that is frightening her to death,' Bobby said, staring at the closed door as though by sheer force of vision he could penetrate to the secret that it hid.

‘Oh, most like she was just a bit scared with us turning up so unexpected like,' Wild suggested. ‘There's some as is always scared when they see our uniform – think it's handcuffs and penal servitude, and what not, right away,' he said chuckling, for he was so kindly and soft-hearted he loved, above all things, believing that all the world shivered with terror at the mere sight of his round, smiling, good-humoured, friendly countenance.

‘It was more than that,' Bobby insisted. ‘She looked the way Con Conway did the other night. She had the same look in her eyes there was in his.'

Wild only stared; he simply could not conceive how this smart, pretty, well-dressed girl could possibly ever at any time share even a look or an expression with such a little rat as the ex-convict Con Conway. He was trying to formulate some kind of expostulation to express this feeling, as they walked down the overgrown drive towards the padlocked gate, when, through the gap at its side that everyone seemed to use, there came towards them a small, thin, elderly man in shirt-sleeves, carrying a tradesman's basket on his arm with, in it, various parcels. 

The little tradesman, with his basket of groceries on his arm, stood still as he caught sight of them, and even looked a little startled. Wild said to Bobby:

‘It's Humphreys, I think – keeps the shop near the bottom of Battenberg Prospect, I told you about, where the old party here gets what she wants.'