seldom, parties were held in it, and every Friday evening she sat in state there to collect her weekly dues from her tenants. Except for the short time that the rent-collecting covered, Pythias had enjoyed the privilege of having the ground floor to himself.
The first floor was shared by two tenants in adjoining rooms. One of these was a bird of passage. His name was Durswell and he travelled for a firm which specialised in labour-saving gadgets for the housewife. He returned to his lodgings only intermittently, therefore, since he was often ‘on the road’. Routh knew a little more about him than Mrs Buxton did. He was paying alimony to a divorced wife living elsewhere in the country and he had been county-courted for non-payment. He also contributed to the support of a woman and two children who lived in Wigan.
In the room next door lived a younger man named Cummings. He worked as a meter reader for the Electricity Board and supplemented his wages by working on Friday and Saturday evenings as a barman at the local pub. He was saving up to get married and he wanted to put down the deposit for a mortgage on a bungalow.
On the second floor were two very different characters. Both were bachelors, Peters from choice, Murch because he had his eye on the bank manager’s daughter and knew that he stood little chance until he could contrive, in the old-fashioned phrase, to ‘better himself’. He was a plumber in the employment of a local firm of builders who were putting up small bungalows on an estate outside the town, and his ambition was to get free of the tie of a weekly wage which, in any case, he thought inadequate, considering what his employer charged the customers who called in a plumber, and set up in business for himself. Meanwhile he entertained the bank manager’s daughter in the style to which he supposed she was accustomed and was often hard put to it to pay even the second-floor rent demanded by Mrs Buxton.
Peters came into a different category. He had taken a second-floor room on the understanding that, if a better apartment became vacant, he should be given the first refusal of it. He was employed at the town hall as assistant to the town clerk and most of his spare time was spent in a study of the law, as, although he had no ambition to succeed his chief, he liked to be called into consultation and to air his views.
He had said once to Cummings, when he learned one evening at the communal supper table that the latter was saving with a building society for the money to put down on a bungalow, ‘Why don’t you put your name on our housing list for a council flat? I daresay I could get you preferential treatment, my position being what it is.’
‘Nice of you to offer,’ said Cummings, ‘but my young lady has her heart set on one of the bungalows we’re building out on the Thorne Estate. Says she knows the taps will run and the chain pull if Murch here has a hand in the doings.’ The two young men exchanged grins.
‘Oh, just as you like,’ said Peters somewhat huffily. ‘If you change your mind my offer is still open, of course.’
When Pythias’s disappearance was confirmed, Peters approached Mrs Buxton. She had thrown out hints in his direction to the effect that she was ready and willing for him to change his second-floor room for the vastly superior bedsitter on the ground floor, but Peters had thought it better to defer the change until it was certain that Pythias was not coming back.
‘Oh, well, perhaps you’re right,’ said Mrs Buxton, who regarded him as the most superior of her tenants and treated him accordingly. ‘I can’t afford to leave the room empty for long, though, Mr Peters. When the time comes, I’ll offer it on a weekly basis, one week’s notice to be given on either side. Would that suit you?’
‘Oh, admirably, Mrs Buxton. It is only that I should not relish having to move out of the room if Mr Pythias resumed his option on it. I take it that his lease has not run out.’
‘Not so long as he pays the rent he will owe me if he
Routh’s questions were much the same to each tenant. He took the answers back with him to the police station and consulted with his chief.
‘They’ve all got much the same story, sir. Only one of them claims to have been at home when Pythias would have got back from school. The landlady gave me the time for that because he was a bit later than usual and she was cooking him something for his tea, so she kept her eye on the clock. After tea they had their little argy-bargy about the money in his briefcase and he paid his week’s rent and took himself off.’
‘Which one was at home when Pythias got in?’
‘The landlady’s nephew. He’s a bit of a down-and-out, I fancy. Lives in the attic for a peppercorn rent and says he
‘What sort of things did you ask the others?’
‘Oh, only routine stuff at this stage. “When did you last see Pythias? Was he friendly, standoffish, easy to get on with? Do you know of any problems he had — marital, financial, difficulties at his school? How well would you say you knew him? Were you surprised when you heard he had left his digs without notice?” — those sort of obvious questions.’
‘What about them as individuals? We’ve never had any complaints, either from them or from the landlady.’
Routh produced his notebook.
‘I didn’t fancy Rattock overmuch and we know that Durswell was brought to court for non-payment of alimony and collected an attachment order. No further complaints from the ex-wife, so far as I know, but he may be a bit stretched for money because I believe he has to subsidise another little nest in Wigan. The others seem all right, although one of them is keen to buy a house and get married and another has ambitions to start his own plumbing business. Either of them might be glad of Pythias’s suitcase hoard, and so might Rattock, of course.
‘As to reactions to Pythias himself, the general opinion is that he was quiet and inoffensive, but kept himself very much to himself. He met the others at supper on the first four evenings of the working week, but supper isn’t provided on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so there is no getting-together on those evenings.’
‘Mrs Buxton seems to have her own way of doing things and is maybe a bit of a martinet. Still, it’s probably better that way.’
‘Her rules are strict. If they want companionship or entertainment, they get it outside her premises. There certainly don’t seem to be any one-to-one friendships among her lodgers, but no disagreements, either. As to a lurid
