'So you've a train with almost as many engines as carriages?' said Fielding, blowing smoke, and tipping his head to one side. He was full of little cracks like that. He moved his little glass from one hand to another, as though practising receiving a glass daintily with both hands. I wondered whether he'd worn that ring of his in York gaol. He'd have been asking for trouble if he had done. I was bursting to ask him whether he really had been lagged, because I could scarcely believe it.
'Vaughan's money came today, of course,' I said, after an interval of silence.
'Yes,' said Fielding. 'It's just enough to keep him idle. Some people might say that a modest allowance has promoted lethargy in my case as well, but I think I'm a little more industrious than friend Vaughan.'
'You've carried on various businesses,' I said.
'Yes,' said Fielding, exhaling smoke, 'but who was it said that the key to success is consistency to purpose?'
And he tipped his head, as though really expecting me to supply the answer.
'I don't know,' I said.
'Disraeli?' he said, and he smiled, adding, 'I should have stuck at my original plan.'
'Oh. What was that?'
'In my youth, I trained as a lawyer.'
'A solicitor?
He nodded again.
'I have it in mind to take articles myself,' I said, and he tipped his head. He did not believe me for a minute, or did not credit that it was possible.
'It's a hard road,' he said, and he left too long a silence before adding,'… but the work ought to be well within the capacities of a man like yourself.'
Fielding set out to be mannerly at all times, but occasionally he did not come up to the mark. I glanced over to see Amanda Rickerby in the doorway. She stood swaying somewhat, and said, 'There's a person to see you downstairs, Mr Fielding.'
He rose, half bowed at her, and went off through the open door of the ship room.
'Who was it?' I enquired of the landlady. But she walked to one of the two windows without replying.
'What a day,' she said, after a space. And then, remembering my question, 'It was someone from the gramophone society.'
She continued to stare out at the German Sea. Here was another of her silent goes; there'd been one during breakfast, and one in the kitchen not half an hour since. Was it the same thought every time that kept her silent? A ship putting out black smoke was stationary on the horizon. It might as well have been a factory at sea. Miss Rickerby turned and saw the decanter of Spanish sherry.
'Do you want a glass?' she said, moving fast towards it. 'Not that it's mine to offer.'
'Better not,' I said. 'I've just had two.'
She returned to the window with her glass, looking out to sea again. I stood by the next window, so that we were about three feet apart. I did not know what would happen, or what I would do. I was in fact paralysed by indecision, and so it was strange to see, down on the Prom, a tall, thin man moving with great purpose. He wore a Macintosh and a bowler, and was running at the top of his speed through the rain. He skidded up to the beach steps, half stumbled down them in his haste, and continued running over the black beach, going full pelt, heading straight for the waves, where he came to a sudden halt. Amanda Rickerby turned to me and smiled sadly.
'Well, I thought he was going to do… something,' she said.
We faced each other now, and she took a step towards me, with face downturned. She was a head smaller than me, and I could see the top of her curls, and then, when she tilted her face upwards, the powder on her cheekbones, the blueness and greyness that made the overall greenness of her wide-set eyes.
'I am quite drunk, Mr Stringer,' she said.
She appeared to be looking at my North Eastern Railway badge again, really concentrating on it. She took my right hand in hers. Her hand was dry, and she moved it about over mine in a way that was somehow not restless but very calming – the right thing. I could hear footsteps on the stairs.
'You had better lock your room tonight,' she said, quickly.
'Why?'
'Probably no reason,' she said, withdrawing her hand, and giving me a smile that was natural, quick, charming, and just about the most mysterious thing I've ever seen.
Adam Rickerby stood in the doorway.
'Gas 'as run out,' he said. 'Meter wants feeding.'
Amanda Rickerby smiled brightly and much more straightforwardly at me. 'Do you have sixpence, Mr Stringer? I'll pay you back later.'
Chapter Thirty-Six
Amanda Rickerby went downstairs in the company of her brother.
Events were now rushing on faster than my thoughts and faster also than my morals. What had she meant by advising me to lock my room? Did she mean that otherwise she would come to visit me in the night, and that she needed to be saved from herself? What was Vaughan up to? Mysterious and glooming in the seafront pub… in better spirits during luncheon… but now making off again. And for what purpose had Fielding taken me up to the ship room? But as I stepped out of that room, one thing was certain: I was alone on the first floor of the house, and both Fielding's and Miss Rickerby's bedroom doors stood open.
I walked into Fielding's first; I hardly cared if I was discovered. In fact being discovered might save me from myself. It was a big room, papered in plain green with a red border, better kept than the rest of the house, and very calm and neat, and made more so by the sight of the lashing rain and wild dark sea beyond the two windows. There were red rugs on wide black boards of the kind seen in inns, bookshelves in alcoves. You had to look hard to see the blisters in the wallpaper and the fraying in the carpet, for the gas was not lit, nor was the fire. There were two closets, a tall chest of drawers, a folded table and a smaller table by the bed head with a little drawer set into it. Over the fancy ironwork of the fireplace was a painting of a ship foundering. I fixed my eye on the chest of drawers, and I marched over the carpet towards it, feeling sure they must have heard the drumming of my boot heels on the floor below.
On the top of the chest of drawers lay an ebony tray with hair brushes and a shoe horn. I reached out with two hands, and pulled open the top drawer to its fullest extent. A smell of coal tar soap came up. The drawer contained a quantity of Howard Fielding's under-clothes neatly folded, and many little boxes. With Fielding, it seemed that almost everything came in boxes. There were several round collar boxes, and I quickly lifted the lids of two. They contained collars. I then lifted the lid of a green velvet-lined one. The inside of the lid was white silk, and the words 'Best Quality' were written there. It held solitaires and cuff links. A tortoiseshell one held more cuff links and Fielding's collection of stick pins and tie clips.
I shut the drawer and opened the next one down: comforters, socks, under-shirts, ties… and more boxes. I opened the biggest box, made of wood. It held candles and matches. Another wooden one held a tangle of alberts. Next to this was a felt bag with a drawstring. I pulled at the string with two hands, and looked down on half a dozen straight razors with pearl handles. The biggest box was leather covered. I opened it and saw a vanity set, with scissors, nail-shaper, toothbrush all held in place on red velvet – and two twenty pound notes folded in half on top. I shut the drawer, and stood still, listening to the house. Did I hear a door slam downstairs?
I marched up to the sea picture: 'Wreck of a Brig off Whitby', it was called. It showed a ship being rolled over in high seas; two men looked at the brig from the beach, and they were evidently a gormless pair. Why didn't they do something about it?
But I felt the same. I had discovered nothing. Well, nothing except the money, and what did that signify? It was a good amount, but a fellow was entitled to keep forty pounds cash in his bedroom after all. I was still half drunk, and my head was pounding as I inspected the rest of the room. I threw open the first of the closets, releasing a smell of mothballs. Fielding hung his coats up all right – Adam Rickerby would have approved. The two had neatness in common, although they'd hardly exchanged a word since I'd been in the house. I moved over to the
