' 'But they met in a hall in Bethlehem Road? Are you sure?''
She made a momentous effort at thought, brow furrowed, fingers clenched in her lap. 'No,' she said at last. 'I dunno.'
He reached out and touched her gently. 'Never mind. You've helped very much. Thank you, Polly.'
She smiled warily, then some part of her grasped that he was pleased, and the smile widened. 'Oppression-that's wot Elsie said. Oppression . . . wickedness-terrible wickedness.' She searched his face to see if he understood.
'Thank you, Polly. Now I must go and find out about what you have told me. I'm going to Bethlehem Road. Goodbye Polly.'
She nodded. 'Good-bye, Mr. . . .' She tried to think what to call him and failed.
'Thomas Pitt,' he told her.
'Good-bye, Thomas Pitt,' she echoed.
He thanked the matron, and a junior warder showed him out, unlocking the doors and locking them behind him. He left Bethlem Royal Hospital and went out into the sun with a feeling of pity so deep he wanted to run, to leave not only the great building but all memory of it behind. And yet his feet clung leadenly to the damp pavements; the individual faces were too sharp in his mind to be left behind like anonymous facts.
He walked to Bethlehem Road; it took him less than fifteen minutes. He did not want to find Royce but to see if he could find anyone who knew of the religious order that had met in
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a hall seventeen years ago. Someone there might remember Mrs. Royce and know something about her. He had no idea what he could find. He had nothing but a simple-minded woman's recollection of a lunatic's rambling obsessions.
There was still a small hall in the road, and according to the board outside it was open to hire by the public. He noted the name and address of the caretaker, and within another ten minutes he was sitting in a small cold front parlor opposite a stocky, elderly man with pince-nez on his nose and a large pocket handkerchief in his hand against the sneezing which frequently overtook him.
'How can I help you, Mr. Pitt?' he said, and sneezed hard.
'Were you caretaker of the Bethlehem Road Hall seventeen years ago, Mr. Plunkett?'
'I was, sir, I was. Is there some trouble about it?'
' 'None that I know of. Did you lease the hall to a religious organization on a regular basis?'
'I did, sir; most assuredly. Eccentric people. Very strange beliefs, they had. Didn't baptize children, because they said children came into the world pure from God, and weren't capable of sin until they were eight years old. Can't agree with that, certainly I can't. Man is born in sin. Had my own children baptized when they were two months old, like a Christian should. But they were always civil and sober people, modestly dressed, and worked hard and helped each other.'
'Are they still meeting here?'
'Oh no sir. Don't know where they all went to, I'm sure I don't. They got less and less, about five years ago, then the last of 'em disappeared.'
'Do you remember a Mrs. Royce, some seventeen years ago?'
'Mrs. Royce? No sir, no I don't. There were a few young ladies. Handsome and nicely mannered they were, but they Ve all gone now. I don't know where, I'm sure. Maybe got
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married and settled down to a decent life-forgot all that nonsense.'
Pitt could not give up now.
'Do you remember anyone at all from seventeen years ago? It is important, Mr. Plunkett.'
