‘Ah yes, ah yes, I remember now. Yes, I believe Mrs -‘ glanced down at Tommy’s card lying on his desk – ‘Bereslot° rang up and had a few words with me. I advised her to get intc touch with the Southern Counties Bank, Hnmmersmit branch.
This is the only address I myself know. Letter addressed to the bank’s address, care of Mrs Richard Johnsot would be forwarded. Mrs Johnson is, I believe, a niece 141 distant cousin of Mrs Lancaster’s and it was Mrs Johnson who made all the arrangements with me for Mrs Lancaster’s reception at Sunny Ridge. She asked me to make full inquiries about the establishment, since she had only heard about it casually from a friend. We did so, I can assure you, most carefully. It was said to be an excellent establishment and I believe Mrs Johnson’s relative, Mrs Lancaster, spent several years there quite happily.’
‘She left there, though, rather suddenly,’ Tommy suggested.
‘Yes. Yes, I believe she did. Mrs Johnson, it seems, returned rather unexpectedly recently from East Africa – so many people have done so! She and her husband had, I believe resided in Kenya for many years. They were making various new arrangements and felt able to assume personal care of their elderly relative. I am afraid I have no knowledge of Mrs Johnson’s present whereabouts. I had a letter from her thanking me and settling accounts she owed, and directing that if there was any necessity for communicating with her I should address my letters care of the bank as she was undecided as yet where she and her husband would actually be residing. I am afraid, Mr Beresford, that that is all I know.’
His manner was gentle but pounds -m. It displayed no embarrass-ment of any kind nor disturbance. But the pounds ality of his voice was very de pounds ite. Then he unbent and his manner softened a little.
‘I shouldn’t really worry, you know, Mr Beresford,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Or rather, I shouldn’t let your wife worry. Mrs Lancaster, I believe, is quite an old lady and inclined m be forgetful. She’s probably forgotten all about this picture that she gave away. She is, I believe, seventy-five or seventy-six years of age. One forgets very easily at that age, you know.’ ‘Did you know her personally?’ ‘No, I never actually met her.’ ‘But you knew Mrs Johnson?’
‘I met her when she came here occasionally to consult me as to arrangements. She seemed a pleasant, businesslike woman.
Quite competent in the arrangements she was making.’ He rose and said, ‘I am so sorry I can’t help you, Mr Beresford.’ It was a gentle but firm dismissal.
Tommy came out on to the Bloomsbury street and looked about him for a taxi. The parcel he was carrying, though not heavy, was of a fairly awkward size. He looked up for a moment at the building he had just left. Eminently respectable, long established. Nothing you could fault there, nothing apparently wrong with Messrs. Parringdale, Harris, Lockeridge and Partingdale, nothing wrong with Mr Eccles, no signs of alarm or despondency, no shiftiness or uneasiness. In books, Tommy thought gloomily, a mention of Mrs Lancaster or Mrs Johnson should have brought a guilty start or a shifty glance. Something to show that the names registered, that all was not well. Things didn’t seem to happen like that in real life. All Mr Eccles had looked like was a man who was too polite to resent having his time wasted by such an inquiry as Tommy had just made.
But all the same, thought Tommy to himself, I don’t like Mr Eccles. He recalled to himself vague memories of the past, of other peoltle that he had for some reason not liked. Very often those hunches – for hunches is all they were – had been right.
But perhaps it was simpler than that. If you had had a good many dealings in your time with personalities, you had a sort of feeling about them, just as an expert antique dealer knows instinctively the taste and look and feel of a forgery before getting down to expert tests and examinations. The thing just is wrong. The same with pictures. The same presumably with a cashier in a bank who is offered a first-class spurious banknote.