“I never did trust London, and I never will. Have you had dinner, miss?”
“Yes, I’ve had my dinner,” said Leslie, and looked at the clock. “I am expecting a man to call here at half-past ten, so when you open the door to him please don’t tell him that I’m out and not expected back for three weeks.”
Lucretia made a little face.
“Half-past ten’s a bit late for a gentleman visitor, miss. A friend of yours?”
Leslie could never train her out of a personal interest in her affairs. In a way, Lucretia was privileged. Her first memory was of the broad-faced Lucretia pushing a perambulator in which Leslie took the air.
“Is it anybody we know, miss? Mr. Coldwell?”
Leslie shook her head.
“No,” she said; “he is a man who has just come out of prison.”
Lucretia closed her eyes and swayed.
“Good Gawd!” she said in a hushed voice, “I never thought I’d live to see the day when you’d be having a convick up to see you at half-past ten at night. What about asking a policeman to stand by the door, miss?”
“You’re much too partial to policemen,” said Leslie severely, and the big maid grew incoherent in her indignant protests.
Half-past ten was striking from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields when the door bell rang, and Lucretia came in to her, eyes big with excitement.
“That’s him!” she said melodramatically.
“Well, let him in.”
“Whatever happens,” began Lucretia, “I’m not responsible.”
Leslie pointed to the door. He came so lightly up the stairs that she did not hear his steps. The door opened and Lucretia backed in.
“The gentleman,” she said loudly, and cast an apprehensive glance at the stranger as she sidled out of the room and closed the door.
Peter Dawlish stood where Lucretia had left him, his soft hat in his hand, glancing from the girl to the cosy room, a half-smile on his thin face. She saw now how shabbily dressed he was; his shirt was collarless, his boots grey with mud, the old ill-fitting suit he wore stained and patched.
“I warned you I was a scarecrow,” he said, as though he read her thoughts. “They gave me a beautiful prison-made suit at Dartmoor, but it didn’t seem the right kind of equipment to face a censorious world, so I swapped it for this.”
She pushed a chair up to the fire.
“Sit down, won’t you, Mr. Dawlish?”
“ ‘Mr. Dawlish,’ ” he repeated. “That sounds terribly respectable.”
“You may smoke if you wish,” she said, as he seated himself slowly, and again he smiled.
“I wish, but I have not the wherewithal,” and, as she hastily opened a drawer and took out a tin of cigarettes: “Thank you.”
He took the cigarette in his fingers and frowned.
“That is certainly queer,” he said.
“What is certainly queer?” she asked.
“These gaspers—I used to smoke them in the old days. Had ’em imported from Cairo. You can’t buy them here; at least, you couldn’t when I—retired. Heigho! Am I being very sorry for myself again? That stung. I loath these self-pitiers, and it was a revelation to discover that I had gone over to the majority.”
He lit the cigarette and drew luxuriously.
“This is rather wonderful,” he said.
“Have you had any food?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I dined like a sybarite, at a small shop in the Blackfriars Road. The dinner cost sixpence; it was rather extravagant, but I felt I needed bracing for this ordeal.”
“You have no lodging?”
He shook his head.
“No, I have no lodging.”
He was twiddling his long, thin fingers. She noted with satisfaction that his hands were scrupulously clean, and again he seemed to divine her thoughts, for he looked down at them.
“I don’t exactly know what information I can give you, if it is information you require; and if you had been a male of the species policeman I should have declined your invitation rather loftily. But a woman policeman is unique; I’ve seen them, of course—rather fat little bodies with squat little helmets. I suppose they’re useful.”
He noticed that she herself was not smoking, and commented upon it.
“No, I very rarely smoke,” she said. And then, in a changed tone: “Do you mind if I speak very plainly?”
“The plainer the better,” he said, and he leaned back in his chair and sent a cloud of smoke to the ceiling.
“You have no money, of course?”
He shook his head.
“Which means that you’ll walk London tonight?”
“It has become a habit,” said Peter Dawlish. “And, really, it would be rather amusing if one weren’t so horribly tired. They gave me a little money when I left prison. It lasted me the greater part of a week; I fear I was improvident. One gets quite a lot of sleep in the daytime, especially the sunny days, in odd corners of the parks. And on rainy nights I know a gardener’s tool-house, which is not perhaps to be compared with the bridal suite at the Ritz, but is cosy. I slept there last night with an ex-colonel of infantry and a lawyer who lived in the same ward at Dartmoor.”
She eyed him steadily.
“Tonight you will sleep decently,” she said, in her quiet, even tone; “and tomorrow you will buy a new suit of clothes and interview your father.”
He raised his eyebrows, amusement in his eyes.
“I didn’t realize that you had scraped down to the family skeleton,” he said. “And why am I to do this, Miss Maughan? The suit of clothes would be a waste of money; my parent would not be impressed by my appearance of affluence. Rather he would imagine that I had found another good-natured gentleman who trusted me with his chequebook. Furthermore, all this would cost money; and I think you should know, before we go any farther, that I am not taking any money from you on any pretext.”
She had the extraordinary knack of making him feel foolish. He always remembered afterwards that in the first
