Dorothy Eden (34 page)

“Can I show you something, madam?”

“I just wanted to ask you a question.” The girl had a pallid skin and prominent brown eyes. She was chewing gum, although not ostentatiously. “Have you ever been upstairs next door?”

The girl looked startled.

“No, I never have. Why?”

“You don’t know what office is up there?”

“No. I’ve only just started working here. I don’t know the shops roundabout much. Were you looking for some particular place?”

“The Rose Bay Cosmetic Company,” said Abby clearly.

“That’d be in Rose Bay, wouldn’t it? Not up in the Cross.”

Abby shrugged. “That’s what everyone says. But you’ve never seen their sign in the street?”

“Don’t suppose I’ve looked much.” The girl chewed openly now.

“Can I see your employer?”

“She isn’t in yet. She doesn’t come in until late morning. She sews at home, you see.”

There was a movement in the doorway and the girl hastily tucked the chewing gum into the corner of her cheek. But it was only a customer, a middle-aged woman, who went to the rack of dresses and began examining them.

“’Scuse me, madam,” the girl said to Abby. “I’ll have to go.”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

Luke was waiting outside. He took Abby’s arm, and without a word she walked up the street beside him to where he had parked the car. She stopped a minute to stare up at the canary in its cage. A tousled gray head appeared above the massive rubber plant, and stared back, belligerently.

“You looking for vacancies? The sign says none.”

The scrolled iron balcony was very rusty, and shortly must collapse. It was a pity. It was very decorative, much more so than the severe glass and concrete erection next door. It was rather like R. B. Mitchell’s toys, reminiscent of another era.

Luke had opened the car door for her.

“I’m not coming yet, Luke. I’m going to stay up here and have some coffee and explore. It’s such a fascinating place.”

Luke looked at her. What a contradiction he was. Now his hardness and impatience had gone, and there was that unreadable look in his eyes again. It seemed to be a mixture of tolerance for her stupidity and anxiety lest she imagine herself into any more strange situations.

She would not let Luke’s concern affect her, however. She would pursue this mystery by herself.

“But darling, can’t you see—”

“I may have made a mistake in the street. I’ve got to satisfy myself.”

“Then shall I come with you?”

“No, I’d rather be alone.”

He closed the car door and went round to the driver’s side.

“All right, then.”

“I don’t mean that you didn’t help, but you get so impatient, and alone I can take my time. I want to prove to you that I wasn’t having an hallucination. Anyway,” she added evenly, “it’s better than going home to have old Jock playing games with me on the telephone.”

“Abby—”

“I’ll be all right, Luke. Don’t worry about me.”

His cool blue eyes looked out at her from the car.

“As you wish. But do be careful.”

She had to comfort herself with that last note of urgency in his voice before he drove off.

T
HE CANARY IN ITS
cage began to sing loudly. The old woman who wore a cheap, pink satin kimono leaned over the balcony again to look down at Abby. She had been watering the rubber plant, and her watering can still dripped.

“What’s wrong, lass? Had a fight with your boy friend?”

“No. We’ve been looking for a place we can’t find. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it. The Rose Bay Cosmetic Company.”

“Why don’t you look it up in the telephone book?” the woman said practically.

“Of course!” How silly not to think of that. (She had been sure she knew where to find them, but when she had failed why hadn’t Luke thought of the telephone book? It was the obvious thing.)

“If you like to wait, I’ll look it up for you.”

“Thank you. That is kind of you.”

All the time the woman was away the canary sang deliriously. The sun was growing hotter and even from this distance the scent of carnations from the flower stall was quite distinct. Abby was finding her coat too warm, and wished she had worn a suit. But not the red one. It was too conspicuous. She might have been followed again.

Except that neither Luke nor Lola really believed that had happened. Nor that the Rose Bay Cosmetic Company existed. Because if they had they would have looked up the telephone book.

“Here’s the book, ducks,” came the strident voice from the balcony. “Or what’s left of it. You ever kept lodgers? Well, don’t, is my advice. They have no respect, I’m telling you. No respect. Wait till I put my specs on. What did you say—Rose Bay? Stone the crows, there’s a whole raft of them.”

“Rose Bay Cosmetic Company,” Abby repeated mechanically.

“Ca—ci—co—cob—cow—” The gray head lifted. “They’re not listed, lass.”

“Are you sure?”

“Want to look for yourself?”

“No. Do you think it would be that they’ve kept their number out of the book?”

“Hardly likely, is it, if they want to do business. What do they sell, face powder, lotions, all that muck?”

“Lipstick,” said Abby.

“Well, goodness, if I was you I’d go into the first chemist and buy yourself another make. No sense quarrelling with your boy friend over a lipstick.”

“No,” Abby agreed desperately.

She remembered to thank the woman. She wondered why she found the juxtaposition of rubber plants and a canary on a crumbling balcony so extraordinarily melancholy. It was just sad to see decay, even picturesque decay. The gray-haired woman in her shabby, pink kimono was part of the ruins.

After an hour’s search of all the surrounding streets, peering up every dark stairway and looking twice at every jeweller’s shop, she was convinced she hadn’t made a mistake. She was also convinced that she must have interrupted the Rose Bay people in the final stages of a move, a flight perhaps (they may have been wanted by too many creditors), and that the toy people had quickly moved in to cover up.

But then why had that cosy and pleasant woman lied? She must have been in the conspiracy. She had had that over-bright and excited look in her eyes. Then was Lola in the conspiracy, too? And Luke? Lola perhaps, for one didn’t know what she was up to. And she had shown no surprise at all at finding the toy people in that room.

But surely not Luke! Fiercely Abby rejected that idea, even while remembering that wink, or suspicion of a wink which the woman had given him.

Miserably she knew there was only one thing to do, and that was to go back up those stairs again, and take another look. Perhaps, alone, the woman would confide in her.

It wasn’t easy to make herself do this. Abby hated the moment of leaving the sunshine and entering the cool dark doorway. She could have saved herself the effort, for the green door with its neat sign at the top of the stairs was locked. And this time when she knocked there was no sound from within at all.

She came down the stairs slowly, and went into the dress shop. The same rather vacant-looking girl who obviously didn’t remember her came to the counter.

“I wonder if I might borrow your telephone book,” Abby asked.

“Sure.” The girl took the book from beneath the counter and handed it over.

Abby turned to the M’s and quickly skimmed the names. It didn’t surprise her too much that R. B. Mitchell, Toys, was not listed. There were plenty of Mitchells, even two other R. B.’s, but none in this street, and none called toy sellers. Abby decided that she would have been more surprised to find him in the telephone book than unlisted. She was pretty certain there hadn’t been a telephone in that room upstairs yesterday, and quickly as furniture could be shifted, a telephone could not be installed with similar speed.

She wished that she could have seen behind the partition. But it was no use wishing that now, for she couldn’t get in.

“The people upstairs go to lunch early,” she observed to the stupid girl.

“Do they? I didn’t notice.”

“Is your employer in yet?”

“No, she rang to say she’s going to work at home all day today. Say, didn’t you come in here before?”

“I did. And you’ve been very kind.”

“I just don’t remember faces,” the girl mumbled. “Miss Court is always telling me off.”

“What a pity,” said Abby.

It was, too. Because now it was no use asking the girl if she had ever noticed a man with a face like a fish.

When Abby got home in the early afternoon she found a note tucked under the door, ‘Flowers left in garage’.

Investigation in the garage revealed a florist’s box containing two dozen red carnations. The card said, “These are to welcome you home—Luke.”

Abby flew up the steps to the front door and unlocked it. Inside, she went straight to. the telephone and dialled Luke’s number.

“Oh, darling! Your flowers. They’re heaven.”

“I’m glad you got them. I’m glad you’re home. Have you just come in?”

“Yes. Can’t you hear me panting? When I found the flowers I had to rush and ring you.”

“Silly!” But he sounded pleased, and Abby blinked away her tears. “You see, I can be a thoughtful husband sometimes. I shouldn’t have gone off and left you this morning. I was sorry about it, and then I worried about you.”

“But if you didn’t believe I was threatened yesterday,” Abby said slowly, “why should you worry?”

“You’re a bit impulsive, my darling. And you look too beautiful to wander about the Cross alone. Tell me, what did happen? You didn’t find that mysterious place, did you?”

“No.”

“Then what did you do?” He began to sound impatient again. “Luke!”

“Yes, darling.”

“Why didn’t we think of looking them up in the telephone book?”

“I have. There isn’t such a company.”

“But at the beginning, before we left home this morning. Oh, I know I just have a fuzzy mind, but you might have thought of it. Or Lola.”

“Wasn’t our object to see the mysterious empty room with the threatening man?”

“I suppose so,” Abby admitted. “Anyway, for your information, the toys aren’t listed either. I believe this is all a cover-up for something else.”

“Abby, please!”

She had put the box of carnations on the table. Their heavy scent was reminding her of the sunny noisy street in the Cross, with the flower stall, and the innocent faces of the shops, and the open doorways leading into dimness. That strange apprehension had come home with her, and was here, in her own house. She wished now that Luke hadn’t sent carnations.

“Anyway,” he was saying in his calm sensible way, “if this were by any wild chance a cover-up for something that you’ve stumbled on, it’s nothing to do with you, and you must just forget it.”

“I’d like to tell the police,” Abby said, and wondered why that thought had just come into her head. “You never know, this might be a man they’re looking for.”

Luke answered quite seriously. “You’d find it pretty difficult to prove your story. What with the jeweller, and the woman in the toyshop who’s obviously been there for years. That was plain enough. Darling, please don’t make an ass of yourself.”

Abby took a long breath. She saw that she must put the whole strange disturbing adventure out of her mind. It was only going to have all these unhappy repercussions, arguments with Luke, and Luke almost doubting her sanity. And, as he said, what happened up in Kings Cross was nothing to do with her.

“All right, Luke. Actually, the thing is getting to be a bit of a bore. I’m exhausted, and as you say I’ve simply wasted my time. Let’s not talk of it any more.”

She was rewarded by his relieved tone. “That’s a good girl. Have a rest now. Promise. And I’ll be home early.”

So that was that. Abby arranged the carnations in a crystal bowl, and knew that she couldn’t put the episode completely out of her mind.

But she could try not to let it obsess her.

A few minutes later the telephone rang. That was when Abby knew most surely that she couldn’t forget yesterday’s happenings. For now she was absurdly apprehensive about answering the telephone.

She made herself pick it up quickly, and spoke curtly.

A girl’s voice with the flat Australian intonation came into her ear.

“Is that Mrs. Fearon?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Moffatt asked me to ring you. She’s busy with a client and can’t get to the telephone. But she wondered if you could pick up Deirdre from school this afternoon.”

Abby was so relieved that the call was so innocent that she replied willingly,

“Of course I will. But there’s nothing wrong, is there?”

“I think her sister has to take her husband to the doctor, or something. She said you’d offered if ever they were stuck.”

“I did. Tell her not to worry. I’ll get Deirdre.”

On the whole Abby was pleased to have a definite errand. In spite of her determination to be sensible, the afternoon might have seemed too long and quiet. Jock’s boat was still down there, rocking on the green water, and she didn’t want to find herself either watching that hypnotically, or looking up to see if any of the Moffatts were visible.

She would change into a lighter dress and make a cup of tea, then stroll up the road towards Deirdre’s school, taking her time. A wind had sprung up, and the scent of the gums would be fragrant and delicious. She would think of Luke’s thoughtfulness in sending the flowers, and be happy.

She waved to a dim shape which looked like Mrs. Moffatt behind an upstairs window. But there was no answering wave. For once Mrs. Moffatt must have had her head turned in another direction. It was about three-quarters of a mile to Deirdre’s school, up the hill and down the other side, crossing a busy main road where cars flashed by in a constant stream, and then along a quieter street bordered with young gum trees. As Abby approached the school she saw that the children were just coming out. In a few minutes a shouting, screaming, throng had gone by her, some of the children running, some dawdling, some indulging in high-spirited antics. Deirdre would not be among them because she had been told to wait at the gates or in the playground until someone came for her.