Faintley Speaking

‘A code, ma’am? Yes, we had something of the same idea ourselves, but – well, I don’t know, I’m sure.’

‘Well, what else can you suggest?’

‘Nothing, until we get the whole truth out of Tomson, and that isn’t going to be easy. Though, of course, he did confess he broke a statue Miss Faintley had once collected.’

‘Asplenium Ceterach – the Scaly Spleenwort,’ repeated Mrs Bradley thoughtfully. She took out a pocket mirror, glanced at her reflexion, and chuckled. ‘Extraordinary. Do you suppose it was the same parcel as the one which the zealous station official refused to allow Miss Menzies to collect? I should like to believe that. Although he did not let her have it, for us the result is the same as though he had yielded it up, it seems to me.’

‘A substitute parcel, ma’am? No, I hadn’t thought of that!’

‘Miss Menzies has very sharp eyes. The parcel she saw was a flat one. You think that your brains have not received their due meed of appreciation from the enemy? I feel certain, you know, that they have, and it seems to me that the common-sense thing for the gang to do would be to make certain that the police were not presented with the right bit of the code. What is more, their leader has a grim sense of humour. The Scaly Spleenwort! Quite the raspberry, Inspector, in other words.’

‘Are you going to have a talk with Tomson, ma’am?’ asked Darling, after a pause during which he had appeared to cogitate.

‘It can do no harm. In fact, I must do it, although not much is likely to come of it. Tomson, I daresay, has been carefully briefed. But first I’ll go and see your Mr Mandsell.’

Mandsell was out when she called. Mrs Deaks suggested that she should wait.

‘He won’t be long, madam. Just gone to look up the library, so he said. The trouble with him is that he goes to look up one thing and finishes up with half a dozen things quite different – or so he says. Still, he ain’t a mite of trouble, even if he don’t pay up, but I think his intentions is honourable, and I wouldn’t turn him into the street no more, whatever my husband may say. If you’d seen the way that poor boy came in sopping wet the time we give him his notice – well, you wouldn’t treat a dog like it, let alone a young fellow what is on his beam ends and acts to you like a gentleman, not for Deaks nor for nobody do I do it, not never no more.’

‘You’re a kind woman, Mrs Deaks. It is not everybody who would feel like that. He is greatly in your debt.’

‘Well, not so much as you might think,’ replied the literal-minded landlady. ‘He give me four pound the next day, although goodness’ knows where he got it, and then he’ve got twenty pounds since then for some story or other he wrote, so I’m very pleased to think we should keep him on, for anybody less trouble as a lodger you couldn’t find, and that I’ll maintain to my dying day.’

‘In other words, you like Mr Mandsell. Does he have friends here to visit him?’

‘No, he don’t. Not one extra meal have I ever been asked to provide, and that’s something in these days. Mrs Froud, down the street, she’s got two young ladies in her top front, shorthand typists – one at Mr Fuller’s, the lawyers’, and the other at the shoe factory office – and they’re always having people in to tea. She charges, of course, but that don’t make up for the trouble, and dirty shoes in and out, and the getting ready and the washing-up and that, not to speak of all hours and a lot of stale tobacco smoke and the wear and tear on the carpet and furniture, and face powder over the dressing-table and cigarette ash on the floor. I tell her to tell ’em to go, but it ain’t all that easy to get double money with two young ladies sharing, and they will sometimes do a hand’s turn for theirselves, which is more than my young gentleman does. Still, I’d rather have a man. It don’t seem natural in a woman of my years to wait on bits of girls.’

‘I suppose a young man can be a trial in other ways, though. Late hours, perhaps one drink too many, staying away the night without letting you know —’

‘Not Mr Mandsell,’ said Mrs Deaks decisively. ‘He don’t understand what housework is, and he will climb in through the window instead of coming in at the door – but that’s usually because, being a writer, he’s an absent-minded young gentleman and often forgets his key. But, apart from that, and the money not always being there when it oughter – though I will say it always turns up later, and sometimes, p’raps, a bunch of flowers or some sweets with it as well if he’s kept me waiting more than a couple of weeks – well, I haven’t no complaints. Of course, he do make a proper old mess in the bathroom and no idea of cleaning the bath down after hisself, but I suppose that comes of being a gentleman born.’

Mrs Bradley could obtain no more precise information and knew better than to fish with too many leading questions. She had gathered what she wanted, however. It seemed unreasonable to suppose that Mandsell had had any previous connexion with Miss Faintley or her murderers.

He was chronically hard up, kept reasonable hours, and made no uncharted voyages into the world at large. Mentally Mrs Bradley dismissed him from the case.

Left to herself, she settled down in the stuffy little parlour to wait for him, and then, finding the atmosphere oppressive, she ventured to open the window. Shortly afterwards Mandsell, who once again had forgotten his key, climbed through it to meet her black-eyed, gimlet gaze.

‘Oh, hullo,’ he said. ‘Awfully sorry. Didn’t know anyone was here. I usually get in through the kitchen. This one isn’t very often open.’

He began to retreat towards the door but Mrs Bradley stopped him.

‘I represent the Home Office,’ she said. ‘I take it that you are Geoffrey Mandsell. I should very much like a short talk with you, Mr Mandsell.’

‘Oh, I say, though! I’ve had the police already! You don’t mean you’re connected with Miss Faintley?’

‘In a sense, yes, and I may add that the police know I’m here. There are one or two points, Mr Mandsell, which I think we can resolve right away, if you will co-operate with me.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, you know. The police have cleaned me right out. If you’ve heard what I’ve told them, you’ve heard all.’

‘So you suppose. Sit down and answer my questions.’ Mandsell hesitated. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ she added, ‘have you?’

‘No, of course, I haven’t – only – well, I did take five pounds off that rat of a little shopkeeper. I was completely broke, and I knew I had money coming to me, so —’