“Ar r9 said Jim Kimble.
“It’s a piece in the paper. Will anyone with any knowledge of Helen Spenlove Halliday, nee Kennedy, communicate with Messrs. Reed and Hardy, Southampton Row! Seems to me they might be meaning Mrs. Halliday as I was in service with at St. Catherine’s. Took it from Mrs. Findeyson, they did, she and ‘er ‘usband. Her name was Helen right enough– Yes, and she was sister to Dr. Kennedy, him as always said I ought to have had my adenoids out.” There was a momentary pause as Mrs.
Kimble adjusted the frying chips with an expert touch. Jim Kimble was snorting into the roller towel as he dried his face.
“Course, it’s an old paper, this,” resumed Mrs. Kimble. She studied its date. “Nigh on a week or more old. Wonder what it’s all about? Think as there’s any money in it, Jim?” Mr. Kimble said, “Ar,” noncommittally.
“Might be a will or something,” speculated his wife. “Powerful lot of time ago.” “Ar.” “Eighteen years or more, I shouldn’t wonder…. Wonder what they’re raking it all up for now? You don’t think it could be police, do you, Jim?” “Whatever?” asked Mr. Kimble.
“Well, you know what I always thought,” said Mrs. Kimble mysteriously. “Told you at the time, I did, when we was walking out. Pretending that she’d gone off with a feller. That’s what they say, husbands, when they do their wives in. Depend upon it, it was murder. That’s what I said to you and what I said to Edie, but Edie she wouldn’t have it at any price. Never no imagination, Edie hadn’t. Those clothes she was supposed to have took away with her — well, they weren’t right, if you know what I mean. There was a suitcase gone and a bag, and enough clothes to fill ’em, but they wasn’t right, those clothes.
And that’s when I said to Edie, ‘Depend upon it,’ I said, ‘the master’s murdered her and put her in the cellar.’ Only not really the cellar, because that Layonee, the Swiss nurse, she saw something. Out of the window. Come to the cinema along of me, she did, though she wasn’t supposed to leave the nursery — but there, I said, the child never wakes up — good as gold she was, always, in her bed at night. ‘And madam never comes up to the nursery in the evening,’ I says. ‘Nobody will know if you slip out with me.’ So she did. And when we got in there was ever such a schemozzle going on. Doctor was there and the master ill and sleeping in the dressing-room, and the doctor looking after him, and it was then he asked me about the clothes, and it seemed all right at the time.
I thought she’d gone off all right with that fellow she was so keen on — and him a married man, too — and Edie said she did hope and pray we wouldn’t be mixed up in any divorce case. What was his name now? I can’t remember. Began with an M—or was it an R? Bless us, your memory does go.” Mr. Kimble came in from the scullery and ignoring all matters of lesser moment demanded if his supper was ready.
“I’ll just drain the chips…. Wait, I’ll get another paper. Better keep this one.
‘Twouldn’t be likely to be police — not after all this time. Maybe it’s lawyers — and money in it. It doesn’t say something to your advantage… but it might be all the same…. Wish I knew who I could ask about it. It says write to some address in London — but I’m not sure I’d like to do a thing like that… not to a lot of people in London…. What do you say, Jim?” “Ar,” said Mr. Kimble, hungrily eyeing the fish and chips.
The discussion was postponed.
13 WALTER FANE
WENDA looked across the broad mahogany desk at Mr. Walter Fane.
She saw a rather tired-looking man of about fifty, with a gentle, nondescript face. The sort of man, Gwenda thought, that you would find it a little difficult to recollect if you had just met him casually…. A man who, in modern phrase, lacked personality. His voice, when he spoke, was slow and careful and pleasant.