The Daffodil Affair Page 2

  Daffodil, the half-witted horse. Appleby wandered down the corridors of the Yard and seemed to see – for indeed he was tired – a host of these dubious creatures in his inward eye, tossing their heads in sprightly dance, curvetting and bowing to an equal number of Captain Somebody’s whopping valuable brutes. A policeman could not but be gay in such a jocund company…

  A half-witted horse.

  2

  In vain the soft warm air washed over Superintendent Hudspith; he marched unmollified from one investigation to the next. It was June, and for another man Piccadilly Circus might have been filled with the ghosts of flowers: violets in little bunches wafting on bus tops to distant suburbs; roses to be carried off by sheaves in limousines; carnations that slip singly down St James’s, glow duskily from tail-coats in the bow window of White’s, adorn tweeds in the rustic Boodle’s, vie with the more appropriate orchid in the Travellers’ – haunt of those hardy souls who have journeyed out of the British Islands to a distance of at least 500 m from London in a direct line. But these wraiths were nothing to Hudspith’s purpose. Fleetingly he allowed himself a glance of suspicion down Jermyn Street, as fleetingly a nod of sanction at the Athenaeum – and stumped down the steps and across to the park. The park was like green stuff spilt on a counter, shot with the sheen of a long fragment of blue–grey silk. The waterfowl were there as usual; statesmen paused in perambulations to observe their habits with attention; shadowing detectives, distantly known to Hudspith, exercised their corresponding vigilance behind. Hudspith marched on. His visual field was all inward and shadowy – no more than a floating wreath of cheated girls. Sometimes they had been drugged, hypnotized; and sometimes they had been robbed of nearly all their clothes… Hudspith marched – as if behind Queen Anne’s Mansions, beyond the Underground’s clock, somewhere near Victoria station maybe, blew and wallowed that elusive Whale.

  Rideout: it was not, Hudspith thought, what you would call a tony name. On the other hand the address – a block of service flats here on the fringes of Westminster – suggested substance; and if the Rideouts were substantial the more substantial would be Hudspith’s severity. He had received no particulars; it was his habit to disregard the first, and often confused, report that came in; he had learnt, however, that there was a mother, a Mrs Rideout – and by this he was obscurely pleased. Mothers, when there were mothers, were commonly greatly to blame. Although Mrs Rideout could scarcely be herself the Whale, she might yet be abundantly deserving of one or two preliminary harpoons. Hudspith was accustomed to limber up in this way. He quickened his pace, turned a corner, and his objective was before him.

  The Rideouts were in the humblest station: there lay something of disappointment in this. Mrs Rideout was employed as a cleaner and her daughter as a waitress, and normally they lived ‘out’. But recently their home had disappeared in the night; this had moved Mrs Rideout to announce her intention of withdrawing to her sister’s in the country; whereupon the management of the flats where she was employed, being much in need of such services as Rideouts supply, had provided restricted but sufficient living quarters on the premises. Through the basement, past the ironing-room and the two small storerooms, the temporary abode of the Rideouts would be found.

  Hudspith, having learnt so much from a melancholy porter whose own living quarters appeared to be in a lift, descended menacingly into the cold, the half-light and the gloom. It was familiar territory. Like the poet, but perhaps from a more pressing professional necessity, he was much aware of the damp souls of housemaids; he knew how easily perdition attended their despondent sprouting at area gates. And he knew – he told himself – all about Lucy Rideout, the half-witted waitress. Unsettlement, cramped quarters with an uncongenial parent, inadequate privacy, the constant sight of expensive or at least prosperous living upstairs, the drift of male guests – themselves often unsettled, uprooted: in all this – and in the pictures, the glamorized advertisements, the pulsing sexy music – the story lay. Had he not probed it a hundred times? And Hudspith marched on, confident in his abundant experience, his often-tested technique. Hudspith marched against the demons – all unaware of the curiously literal way in which, far in the distance, demons awaited him.

  Mrs Rideout had friends. Almost might she be said, in upstairs language, to be receiving – for two ladies were coming away as Hudspith reached the door; a third, approaching from some other angle through this subterraneous world, was making a ceremonious claim for admittance; and from inside there came a murmur of voices and a chink of cups. Here however was nothing to confound the experienced investigator; it would be untoward were Mrs Rideout found enjoying her sensational sorrow in solitude.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Hudspith to his fellow visitor. ‘A sad occasion this, marm; very sad indeed.’

  ‘What I asks,’ said the visitor, ‘is – where was the police?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Hudspith. ‘Where, indeed? But they’re here now, missis.’ With subdued drama he tapped himself on the chest. ‘Come along.’

  The woman, who had been about to open the door, paused round-eyed. ‘Toomer’s my name,’ she said. Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Would it be worse than death?’

  Hudspith frowned austerely. ‘That remains to be seen.’ And he opened the door and ushered Mrs Toomer – she was a dim-featured, almost obliterated woman – into the Rideout home.

  It was possible – or it ought to have been possible – to see at a single glance all that was to be seen, for clearly in this one room consisted all the territory that the Rideouts, mother and daughter, enjoyed. It was long, narrow and of considerable size, lit by a filter of light from windows which hovered uncertainly near the ceiling; there was a bed at each extreme end, and a table and arrangements for cooking near the middle. There was little that was remarkable in this. But Hudspith, if unaware of his own habitual surroundings, had a trained eye for domestic interiors, and that eye became positively hawk-like when scrutinizing the late environment of levanting or abducted girls. Here there looked to be plenty of evidence. The influence of Lucy Rideout was dominant in the room. Her handwriting, as it were, was not only decisive at her own end; it declared itself unmistakably far beyond any fair line of demarcation, so that one immediately discerned Mrs Rideout’s kingdom as a sort of beleaguered fortress within ever-contracting lines. Only here and there was evidence of a species of cautious sortie undertaken, no doubt, since the daughter’s departure; a pair of elastic-sided boots had found their way to the foot of Lucy’s bed; a small empty bottle of the kind in which ladies are accustomed to keep gin stood on what had served her as a dressing-table; hard by this lay a journal devoted to the celebration of the Christian Hearth and Home. All this was immediately decipherable. But there remained an element of puzzle which Hudspith at a rapid inspection was unable to resolve. And now Mrs Toomer, exalted by the fact of arriving virtually on the arm of Scotland Yard, was contriving introductions to the assembled company. ‘Mrs Rideout,’ she said, ‘this is the police.’

  Mrs Rideout was not much over forty and belonged to the inefficient type that contrives to get through life by the aid of a sort of massive unfocussed vehemence. She set down a teacup and looked from Mrs Toomer to Hudspith. ‘That’s right,’ she said, largely and vaguely. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She exuded that repetitive and dazed acquiescence that makes so considerable a part of the social communion of the folk. ‘And I’m sure they ought to do something.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Toomer – and two stout women who flanked Mrs Rideout nodded heads and bosoms in agreement. Human speech is at bottom no more than the individual’s demand for reassurance in a lonely world; the sophisticated contrive to extract comforting intimations of solidarity from disagreement, controversy and repartee; the uninstructed prefer much simpler forms of mutual support. When the ritual is in course of celebration – at such a party as was now gathered at Mrs Rideout’s – it is a solecism to break the grand affirmative flow of things. And indeed we none of us particularly care fo
r the man who qualifies our suggestion that it is a fine day, or that it looks like rain, or that it is nice to see a little bit of sunshine.

  All this the much-practised Hudspith knew. He nodded his head ponderously. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘something ought to be done. And I’m here to do it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said one of the stout women. ‘That’s what I say.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the other stout woman.

  Mrs Rideout turned in triumph to Mrs Toomer. ‘That’s what Mrs Thorr and Mrs Fiddock say,’ she said.

  Mrs Toomer, who had turned her head in quest of the teapot, nodded skilfully backwards. ‘That’s right,’ she agreed.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Fiddock and Mrs Thorr.

  Hudspith cleared his throat, preparing cautiously to intrude upon the spell. ‘Acting,’ he said, ‘on instructions received–’ The ladies all laid down their teacups, instantly impressed by this wisp of official eloquence. Hudspith slowly produced a notebook. The investigation was launched.

  Mrs Rideout called God to witness that she had been a good mother. Mrs Thorr, Mrs Toomer and Mrs Fiddock responded in a sort of trinitarian chorus. Hudspith said grimly that he was glad to hear it, as in most such cases it was not so; he appeared to make a jotting on Mrs Rideout’s maternal goodness as if for subsequent scrutiny. Mrs Rideout affirmed that Lucy had always been a good daughter. But everybody knew what girls were nowadays; there was no controlling them; out they would go when they pleased. Hudspith could have written down all this out of his head; he was able to spare considerable attention for a further study of the lost girl’s possessions.

  He saw the cheap dance slippers; he saw on a nail the pathetic wisp of white rabbit that was some sort of cape. He saw the array of photographs pinned to the wall by the bed: the usual pictures, he wearily thought, cut from the usual cinema magazines. The heroes often wore bathing-trunks now; lying under beach umbrellas, they leered up at girls who sat with parted lips, entranced. Or in resplendent tails and hair grease they led their ladies through exotic restaurants while little tables crowded with ambassadors and duchesses made a modest background to the scene. Or momentarily disguised as common mortals they perched, millionaire play-boys though they were, on little stools in small-town drug-stores and scooped at sundaes nose to nose with the beloved. Hudspith ground his teeth as he looked at them. Not the celebrated William Prynne, who wrote some eight hundred thousand words on the theme that stage-plays are the very pomps of the devil, could have felt more ill disposed to this fantasy-world than did Superintendent Hudspith.

  It was a gentleman who had lived in the house, Mrs Rideout thought. A foreigner, she thought. And for some time she had known Lucy was carrying on. Lucy had taken to coming home later than she should. Whereupon she – Mrs Rideout – had said – and Mrs Toomer would witness that she had said…

  Hudspith’s pencil still traversed the paper. But his glance strayed now to the other walls. Over the fireplace hung Bubbles; that would be Mrs Rideout’s fancy. Midway between this and Lucy’s end of the room was one of those colour prints in which faintly draped figures are disposed pensively on marble terraces in a blaze of noon-tide light; behind them is a very blue lake, behind that very white mountains, with behind these again a sunset or sunrise thrown in for extra effect. Hudspith had failed to cultivate the plastic arts; nevertheless he recognized that this abomination and the magazine photographs belonged to one world. His glance ran on – and before another and smaller reproduction paused, perplexed. Momentarily disregarding Mrs Rideout’s monologue, he walked over to it. A line of print on the mount told him that this aloof and lovely person had been painted by a certain Piero della Francesca. He shook his head, obscurely disturbed.

  But Lucy had just gone on going out. In all that blackout too. And then the night before last she had gone out and not come back again. But she had left a note in the cocoa jug saying…

  Saying, thought Hudspith, that she was going to be happy and not to worry. He walked over to Lucy’s bed, where stood a little book-case. Three rows of books, all nearly new. He bent down. Sesame and Lilies, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, After London, Cowper’s Letters, The Advancement of Learning, Madam Bovary… Hudspith frowned and looked at the next shelf. Swiss Family Robinson, Little Women, Mopsie in the Fifth, Mopsie Captain of the School, Doctor Dolittle’s Voyages… The books were equally new; Mopsie’s final adventures had been published in the present year. Hudspith turned round, aware that Mrs Rideout had said something out of the ordinary. ‘Cocoa jug?’ he said. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t the teapot?’

  Mrs Rideout was emphatic; so was Mrs Toomer, who had been present at the discovery.

  ‘It’s nearly always the teapot,’ Hudspith paused, suspicious and alert. ‘When do you drink cocoa, marm?’

  In the Rideout ménage cocoa was drunk only at night. So that was it: not the breakfast teapot but the evening cocoa jug – in other words a good twenty-four hours’ start. The little piece of elementary contrivance – surprising though this may seem – placed Lucy Rideout at once among the intellectual élite of Hudspith’s young women. And yet he had been given to understand –

  The third shelf was almost on the ground; Hudspith stooped to examine it and his brow darkened. He knew those books, and it had not been his fault if the Home Secretary did not know them too. His eye went doubtfully back to the picture by the man Piero della Francesca, and it was a moment before he was aware that Mrs Rideout had stopped talking and that now the person called Mrs Fiddock held the stage.

  With an evident sense of drama Mrs Fiddock had set down her cup. ‘I seen them and I ’eard them!’ she said.

  It was a sensation. Mrs Fiddock looked slowly round, enjoying her triumph. Then slowly she wagged a finger at the amorphously vehement Mrs Rideout.

  ‘I seen and I ’eard what it’s my duty to diwulge in the presence of this ’igh officer of the police.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Toomer and Mrs Thorr.

  And Mrs Rideout nodded her own vaster acquiescence. ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  3

  Hudspith licked his pencil and congratulated himself on the irregularity of his own methods. It was contrary to correct procedure to slip in on Mrs Rideout’s tea party in this way, but what signifies a little latitude when it is Leviathan himself that one pursues? Hudspith took a final look at the very bad books on Lucy Rideout’s lowest shelf and turned expectantly to Mrs Fiddock. ‘Quite right, marm,’ he said. ‘You must out with anything you know about this poor girl.’

  Mrs Rideout began to sob – energetically and very rapidly, as if bent on repairing an oversight which had only just occurred to her. Mrs Toomer, having looked round vainly for a handkerchief, handed a tea towel. Mrs Thorr said ‘There, there!’ and ‘There then!’ and ‘There now!’ to everybody in turn. The tempo of Mrs Rideout’s grief changed; she was really weeping; presently the discovery of this so surprised her that she fell abruptly silent. The room waited expectantly.

  ‘This,’ announced Mrs Fiddock, ‘is a very painful occasion for me.’

  ‘There now!’ said Mrs Thorr.

  ‘And I hope that none here will say I did anything I didn’t ought. For I only done my duty.’ Mrs Fiddock paused. ‘As a citizen.’ She paused again to admire this linguistic triumph. ‘It was in the lounge of the Crown.’

  ‘The lounge!’ said Mrs Thorr and Mrs Toomer and Mrs Rideout.

  ‘It was more than a week back,’ pursued Mrs Fiddock with dignity, ‘that I had occasion to enter the bottle and jug. Now as everyone knows – or everyone except this gentleman here – there’s an ’atch in the bottle and jug that gives on the private. And the private has a door into the lounge. And sometimes you sees right through.’

  There was an interruption while the ladies went into committee to verify these topographical statements. Depraved old wretches, though Hudspith. Liquor, he thought. Come out on a case like this and always there’s liquor round the corner. But he nodded with a la
rge and false approval at Mrs Fiddock. ‘Very observant, missus,’ he said; ‘very observant indeed.’

  Mrs Fiddock gave a gratified bow. ‘And there, Mrs Rideout, was your Lucy with that flashy furrein-looking man that was in number nine. Bold as brass, he was, and I didn’t think there was any good in it.’ She hesitated, momentarily confused. ‘It seemed to me I had a duty to do.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Mrs Rideout suspiciously, ‘as how you ever said anything about it afterwards.’

  ‘I had my duty to do,’ reiterated Mrs Fiddock more firmly. ‘I walked round to the lounge, dispoged myself behind the haspidistra and ordered a glass of port.’

  ‘There then!’ said Mrs. Thorr. Her admiration might have been directed either to the shameless curiosity of Mrs Fiddock or to the financial solidity and social confidence which this proceeding revealed.

  ‘And I ’eard what I ’eard. “Did you ever ’ear,” ’e says, “of the isle of Capri? I got an island just like that.” That’s what I ’eard ’im say.’

  Mrs Toomer raised her hands, instantly credulous. ‘Lord!’ she said; ‘fancy having an island all your own.’

  ‘“Where is it?” says your Lucy – which was the first words I ’eard ’er say. “Where is it?” “It’s difficult to describe,” ’e says. “But you go to South America first.”

  Hudspith’s pencil snapped at the point. Rage filled him – against these awful women, against the imbecile Lucy, against the unspeakably threadbare simplicity of this professional seducer’s patter. ‘Mrs Fiddock,’ he said benevolently, ‘this is very valuable information.’

  ‘And then neither of them said anythink, and I thought I’d best take a peep round the haspidistra. ’E was smiling at her confident like. And your Lucy she didn’t say nothink. She just ’itched her skirt another hinch above the knee.’

  Hudspith compressed his lips. Mrs Toomer made a shocked noise on the front of her palate. Mrs Rideout again sobbed.