He said: 'I thought I was afraid Colleoni had got you.' His fear gave away his knowledge. The Boy said nothing, watching him from the door. As if he were apologising for being alive at all he explained: 'I got away...' His words wilted out like a line of seaweed, along the edge of the Boy's silence, indifference, and purpose.
Down the passage came the voice of Mr. Drewitt: 'In the soap dish. He said it was in the soap dish,' and the clatter of china noisily moved about.
'Fin going to work on that kid every hour of the day until I get something.' She rose formidably and moved across the restaurant, like a warship going into action, a warship on the right side in a war to end wars, the signal flags proclaiming that every man would do his duty. Her big breasts, which had never suckled a child of her own, felt a merciless compassion. Rose fled at the sight of her, but Ida moved relentlessly towards the service door. Everything now was in train, she had begun to ask the questions she had wanted to ask when she had read about the inquest in Henneky's, and she was getting the answers. And Fred too had done his part, had tipped the right horse, so that now she had funds as well as friends: an infinite capacity for corruption: two hundred pounds.
'Good evening, Rose,' she said, standing in the kitchen doorway, blocking it. Rose put down a tray and turned with all the fear, obstinacy, incomprehension, of a small wild animal who will not recognise kindness.
'You again?' she said. 'I'm busy. I can't talk to you.'
'But the manageress, dear, has given me leave.'
'We can't talk here.'
'Where can we talk?'
'In my room if you'll let me out.'
Rose went ahead up the stairs behind the restaurant to the little linoleumed landing. 'They do you well here, don't they?' Ida said. 'I once lived in at a pubPARTFOUR lie, that was before I met Tom Tom's my husband,' she patiently, sweetly, implacably explained to Rose's back. 'They didn't do you so well there. Flowers on the landing!' she exclaimed, with pleasure, at the withered bunch on a deal table, pulling at the petals, when a door slammed. Rose had shut her out, and as she gently knocked she heard an obstinate whisper: 'Go away. I don't want to talk to you.'
'It's serious. Very serious.' The stout that Ida had been drinking returned a little; she put her hand up to her mouth and said mechanically: 'Pardon,' belching towards the closed door.
'I can't help you. I don't know anything.'
'Let me in, dear, and I'll explain. I can't shout things on the landing.'
'Why should you care about me?'
'I don't want the innocent to suffer.'
'As if you knew,' the soft voice accused her, 'who was innocent.'
'Open the door, dear.' She began, but only a little, to lose her patience--her patience was almost as deep as her goodwill. She felt the handle and pushed; she knew that waitresses were not allowed keys; but a chair had been wedged under the handle. She said with irritation: 'You won't escape me this way.' She put her weight against the door and the chair cracked and shifted, the door opened a slit.
'I'm going to make you listen,' Ida said. When you were life saving you must never hesitate, so they taught you, to stun the one you rescued. She put her hand in and detached the chair, then went in through the open door. Three iron bedsteads, a chest of drawers, two chairs, and a couple of cheap mirrors: she took it all in and Rose against the wall as far as she could get, watching the door with terror through her innocent and experienced eyes, as if there was nothing which mightn't come through.
'Don't be silly now,' Ida said. 'I'm your friend. I only want to save you from that boy. You're crazy about him, aren't you? But don't you understand he's wicked?' She sat down on the bed and went gently and mercilessly on.
Rose whispered: 'You don't know a thing.'
'I've got my evidence.'
'I don't mean that' the child said.
'He doesn't care for you,' Ida said. 'Listen, Fin human. You can take my word I've loved a boy or two in my time. Why, it's natural. It's like breathing.
Only you don't want to get all worked up about it.
There's not one who's worth it leave alone him. He's wicked. I'm not a Puritan, mind. I've done a thing or two in my time that's natural. Why,' she said, extending towards the child her plump and patronising paw, 'it's in my hand: the girdle of Venus. But I've always been on the side of Right. You're young.
You'll have plenty of boys before you've finished.
You'll have plenty of fun if you don't let them get a grip on you. It's natural. Like breathing. Don't take away the notion I'm against Love. I should say not.
Me. Ida Arnold. They'd laugh.' The stout came back up her throat again and she put a hand before her mouth. 'Pardon, dear. You see we can get along all right when we are together. I've never had a child of my own and somehow I've taken to you. You're a sweet little thing.' She suddenly barked: 'Come away from that wall and act sensible. He doesn't love you.'
'I don't care,' the childish voice stubbornly murmured.
'What do you mean, you don't care?'
'I love him.'
'You're acting morbid,' Ida said. 'If I was your mother I'd give you a good hiding. What'd your father and mother say if they knew?'
'They wouldn't care.'
'And how do you think it will all end?'
'I don't know.'
'You're young. That's what it is,' Ida said, 'romantic. I was like you once. You'll grow out of it. All you need is a bit of experience.' The Nelson Place eyes stared back at her without understanding; driven to her hole the small animal peered out at the bright and breezy world: in the hole were murder, copulation, extreme poverty, fidelity, and the love and fear of God; but the small animal had not the knowledge to deny that only in the glare and open world outside was something which people called experience.
The Boy looked down at the body, spreadeagled like Prometheus, at the bottom of Billy's stairs. 'Good God,' Mr. Drewitt said, 'how did it happen?'
The Boy said: 'These stairs have needed mending a long while. I've told Billy about it, but you can't make the bastard spend money.' He put his bound hand on the rail and pushed until it gave. The rotten wood lay across Spicer's body, a walnut-stained eagle couched over the kidneys.
'But that happened after he fell,' Mr. Drewitt protested--his insinuating legal voice was tremulous.
'You've got it wrong,' the Boy said. 'You were here in the passage and you saw him lean his suitcase against the rail. He shouldn't have done that. The case was too heavy.'
'My God, you can't mix me up in this,' Mr. Drewitt said. 'I saw nothing. I was looking in the soap dish, I was with Dallow.'
'You both saw it,' the Boy said. 'That's fine. It's a good thing we have a fine respectable lawyer like you on the spot. Your word will do the trick.'
'I'll deny it,' Mr. Drewitt said. 'I'm getting out of here. I'll swear I was never in the house.'
'Stay where you are,' the Boy said. 'We don't want another accident. Dallow, go and telephone for the police and a doctor, it looks well.'
'You can keep me here,' Mr. Drewitt said, 'but you can't make me say '
'I only want you to say what you want to say. But it wouldn't look good, would it, if I was taken up for killing Spicer, and you were here looking in the soap dish. It would be enough to ruin some lawyers.'
Mr. Drewitt stared over the broken gap at the turn of the stairs where the body lay. He said slowly: ' You'd better lift that body and put the wood under it.
The police would have a lot to ask if they found it that way.' He went back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. 'I've got a headache,' he said, 'I ought to be at home.' Nobody paid him any attention. Spicer's door rattled in the draught.
'I've got a splitting headache,' Mr. Drewitt said.
Dallow came lugging the suitcase down the passage; the cord of Spicer's pyjamas squeezed out of it like toothpaste. 'Where was he going?' Dallow said.
