Chapter 14

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AT about half-past eight on the following morning Ernest Pank, looking smaller than ever in a long and somewhat shabby mackintosh, trudged up the hill from Norwich station, side-by-side with a truck containing a sample case and his own portmanteau. It was raining, with a flurry of cold wind every now and then, and he thought more than once, with a sigh of regret, of the comfortable coffee-room at the Royal or the Maid’s Head. Instead of patronising either hostelry, however, he tramped on for about three quarters of a mile and arrived before a neat little house in a long row of precisely similar residences. He knocked at the door. After a moment or two it was opened by a man in shirt and trousers, whose face was half lathered and who still held a razor in his hand.

“What might you be wanting, young man?” he demanded.

Ernest Pank grinned.

“That’s a nice way to treat your own nephew, Uncle,” he observed.

The man beckoned with his razor to a woman in the background.

“Clara,” he exclaimed, “look what the wet weather’s brought in! Step in, young man, if you’ve a fancy to. What have you got in your barrow?”

“Tell you presently,” Pank replied, taking off his mackintosh and hanging it on the diminutive rack. “Well, Aunt,” he went on, greeting a stout but pleasant-looking woman who had just made her appearance, “what were you thinking of having for breakfast this morning?”

“If it isn’t Ernest Pank!” she exclaimed. “Why, lad, I thought you were a policeman in London! What are you doing in these parts?”

She threw open the door of the kitchen, which was also the living room, beckoning to her nephew to follow her in. There was a pleasant smell of bacon frying. His uncle padded into the back kitchen, took his shaving brush out of the jug and went on lathering himself and listening.

“I tried that police job,” his nephew confided. “I didn’t do so badly at it, but it was a poor show. I had a pint or two in me one night,” he went on, feeling it very easy to slip into the old Norfolk intonation, the raised voice at the end of the sentence and the cut words, “and I ran into the Inspector. We had words and I took my leave---or rather, they gave it to me. I’m a commercial traveller now. Step up the scale, what, Auntie Clara?”

“Commercial travellers are dangerous gentlemen,” the lady remarked, turning to her frying pan. “That’s what I tell your cousin Amy. There’s no telling who you pick up with on Rampant Horse Street or London Street at night nowadays. They’re most of them commercials, and after no good. What’s brought you here at this hour of the morning?”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” he explained. “I have no particular fancy for wasting my money in hotels, and as the only cheap ones are the temperance places,” he added, with a crafty glance towards his uncle, who had paused to listen, “I wondered, as you have only Amy left at home, whether you have an odd room, and if you could put me up for two or three nights.”

His uncle went on shaving. His aunt considered the matter.

“Well, I don’t know,” she meditated.

“I’m a payer, mind,” her nephew pointed out. “I’ve saved money for the last two years and had a bit of luck too. I have a good job with these heels and I could afford an hotel, all right, but I am on my own expenses and what I say is---why chuck away the money?”

“Well, there’s sense in that,” his aunt admitted. “You are talking like old James Pank used to, and he died a warm man. You’ll have to get your dinner out. The old man don’t come home now, but if two meals---breakfast and supper---and your room for six bob a day----”

“They’re mine,” her nephew interrupted brusquely. “Show me the room and I’ll wash my hands and be down after that bacon.”

“I can’t stop to show you anything,” his aunt declared. “If I leave the bacon, it will stop sizzling. You march up the stairs and the first door on your left---that’s yours.”

Ernest Pank did as directed. The little room was almost bare of furniture except for the bed, but spotlessly neat and clean. He looked around it with keen eyes, then descended to the street, picked out his personal bag from the truck and handed half a crown to the barrow man.

“Go and get your breakfast,” he told the latter. “You can come back here in an hour.”

The man touched his hat and bundled off. Ernest Pank ascended once more to his temporary apartment, opened his bag, washed his face and hands and listened. A sleepy-looking girl with big dark eyes and a pleasantly provocative mouth looked in at the door.

“Hello!” she exclaimed. “Are you a new lodger?”

“You may call me that, if you want to,” was the prompt reply. “I’m your cousin Ernest and I’m going to kiss you.”

“What put that into your head?” the girl laughed, submitting willingly enough to the embrace. “Quite the gentleman, aren’t you? I thought you were a policeman up in London.”

“I was,” he assented, “but since I won the Calcutta Sweep, I’ve gone into the heel business. I have come down this way to sell a few, and I’m going to board here instead of in an hotel.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Glad to have you, Cousin Ernest. Come along down to breakfast. I’ve got twenty minutes exactly.”

“Still in the millinery?”

She made a little grimace.

“The same old shop. I’d better have gone into a shoe factory. It’s better money if it’s not quite so ladylike.”

“Longer hours,” her cousin reminded her.

“That’s true,” she admitted. “I don’t mind the night---it’s about the same thing---but I hate getting up in the morning.”

The four sat around the table and exchanged a little family news before the exodus began. First of all the girl, with a yawn, pushed her chair back, got up and straightened her hat before the mirror. From the door she looked back.

“What time do you finish work, Ernest?” she enquired.

“Same time as you,” he answered gallantly. “I’ll fetch you from the side door.”

“Six-thirty then. If there’s any one else there waiting---a chap named Alf---he’s no good, and you can give him a push. So long, Mummie and Dad.”

“Full of life, ain’t she?” Mrs. Pank asked proudly, as the front door slammed.

“And as good-looking as her mother,” the young man agreed. “You still at the same shop too, Uncle?”

The latter nodded.

“Foreman now,” he confided. “Get my dinner at the mess. Saves me something, that does. It’s a long way off down here, even when the buses ain’t full. See you to-night, Ern.”

“Rather,” Pank replied. “We’ll go round to some of the old places.”

Ernest was left alone with his aunt. She refused to allow him to help with the dishes and pointed to the easy-chair. He sat there, smoking a cigarette.

“What do you do with that nice room when I’m not here?” he asked.

“Let it when we can.”

“Who was your last tenant?”

“Inquisitive, ain’t you? Never you mind. No one who would ever do you any harm.”

“Kept it pretty neat for you, anyway.”

“He hadn’t much to do with that,” Mrs. Pank declared. “Any room in my house has got to be kept clean, whoever goes on her knees to do it.”

“Was he a commercial, same as me?”

“No, he was not, if you want to know. He was a chauffeur.”

“How did you happen to lose him?”

“He was only on a temporary job,” Mrs. Pank explained. “And if you take my advice. Ernie, you won’t go questioning your uncle about him. I’m not quite sure why or wherefore myself, but the old man is a bit touchy on the subject. Nice young chap he was too and paid good money.”

“I ain’t curious about him,” Ernest Pank observed. “I am only too glad he cleared out before I came along. I’ll go and get my stock book and start out to see a few customers. What time’s supper?”

“Eight o’clock, and it will be cold to-night,” his aunt announced. “Bit of ham and some boiled eggs. Cup of tea, if you want it. The old man doesn’t.”

Ernest Pank grinned.

“Still likes his pint, eh?”

“He likes it and he’ll have it, and it don’t seem to do him any harm,” his better half confided.

“I’ll stay with him,” the visitor decided. “You don’t need to bother about any tea for me.”

He ascended the stairs, rather pleased to find that they squeaked noticeably, left his door an inch or two ajar, moved his bag on to the bed and commenced a remorseless search of the apartment. After twenty minutes he acknowledged failure. There was not a sign or a relic of any sort of a previous tenant. Reluctantly he put the room out of his mind. Between the chauffeur’s neatness and his aunt’s cleanly habits, there was not even a scrap of paper left behind. He went downstairs, donned his mackintosh, bade farewell to his aunt and called his man.

“George,” he said, “this is not the sort of weather I fancy for tramping about the streets.”

“There’s no one but a fool would do it unless he had to,” was the gloomy reply.

“Well, I don’t have to. I have had two good weeks. You follow me up to the Flying Fox.”

The man touched his hat. He had not been impressed by his client’s choice of a lodging, but the half-crown had been good enough. He wheeled his trunk into the yard of the Flying Fox and waited. Presently Ernest Pank appeared, followed by the boots, with whom he had been doing a little business.

“Get the cases under shelter,” the former directed. “Now, don’t open your mouth too wide. How much for the day, whether we go out or not?”

“Eight shillings, including the barrow,” was the prompt reply.

“Here’s half a sovereign, and you can go home and keep warm,” his temporary employer enjoined. “I can do all the business I want without carting any stuff around.”

The man grinned.

“You’re the sort I likes to work for. What time to-morrow morning?”

“Here at nine-thirty. . . .”

Soon after opening hours Ernest Pank made his way to the Cat and Chickens, the small public house where he had heard that one suggestive sentence from the one person who gave point to it. He took an easy-chair by the fire in the parlour, stood a drink to his host, sent the young woman out for the morning papers and made himself comfortable. Not a customer came in, however. At one o’clock he reluctantly made his way to a small restaurant, and the afternoon he spent asleep on his bed, rather to his aunt’s disapproval. A treasury note, however, retrieved the situation.

“No need to brag about it, Aunt,” he observed, as he accepted a cup of tea a little later on, “but I have not been doing so badly. Got a good bonus when they turned me out of the force. They couldn’t stop that, because it was coming to me, and I am on a soft thing with these heels.”

“I always said that you were a smart lad, Ernest,” his aunt commented.

Ernest Pank smiled.

“Well,” he said, “when it comes to selling things, there’s not many can put it across me. But that police business was never much in my line. I was an inch under size too, and they didn’t half let me know it.”

“What’s an inch under size?” his aunt scoffed. “Why our Amy, and she’s particular enough about the boys, she only keeps company with the little ones. She won’t go with a tall chap. Clumsy she calls them. She’s right too. She’s generally right, that girl is.”

“I’m going to fetch her at half-past six,” her cousin confided. “I expect I’ll take her for a little walk. We’ll be in to supper at eight, though.”

“That’s good,” Mrs. Pank declared, with a broad smile. “I’m telling you the truth, Ernest, when I say that I’m glad to see you again. What I say is, relatives are relatives, and if cousins don’t count for anything much, still it’s nice to see that you don’t forget.”

---

At half-past six promptly Amy appeared in the back street behind the important millinery shop where she spent her days. The rain had ceased and Ernest, in his well-brushed blue serge suit and well-assorted linen, was a very much smarter person than the young man who had descended from the clouds in a mackintosh. She took his arm proudly.

“Let’s go for a little walk,” he suggested.

“I’d love to,” she assented.

“Shall we have a look at the cathedral?”

“It’s always nice down that way,” she agreed.

He bought her some chocolates and watched with amazement the speed with which she devoured them.

“Don’t they make you thirsty?” he asked.

“Terribly.”

“What about a glass of wine?”

“I don’t often go into those places,” she hesitated. “But with you,” she tugged at his arm, “with you it would be all right.”

They made their way to the Cat and Chickens. More disappointment. The man who had been the central figure in all Pank’s thoughts lately again failed to make his appearance. Pank, however, who was now welcomed as an old customer, ordered a glass of port for his companion, sherry for himself, whisky for his host, and made himself comfortable in the large easy-chair. Amy sat on the arm and took his hand.

“You may kiss me if you like, Ernest,” she invited, as soon as the landlord had disappeared.

“Of course I like,” he answered, accepting the invitation. “Aren’t I glad I came and looked Uncle and Aunt up this morning? Jolly nice room I’ve got too.”

“Hope you’ll stay a long time,” she said, cuddling up a little closer.

“If I don’t, I shall come again,” he assured her. “How long did the last lodger stay?”

“Him—oh, only a fortnight.”

“Chauffeur, wasn’t he?”

The girl nodded.

“Queer chap,” she went on. “I didn’t like him. He seemed so nervous all the time; afraid to open his mouth for fear something would drop out. First of all, he spoke as though he was some one’s chauffeur in the neighbourhood, and then we found out that he had got a job at Preston & Sons, the big garage. He went away all in a hurry. I always thought there was something rather queer about it. Not that he didn’t pay---he paid all right.”

“What was his name?” her cousin enquired artlessly.

“Bowhill. Tom Bowhill. Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly, sitting up with a start.

“What’s the matter?”

“Mummie and Dad both made me swear I’d never tell any one who asked what his name was,” she confided. “They said that he was on a special job, that there might be enquiries about him and that no one was to ever answer them. He paid them, I believe, a lot of money for their promise. Now I’ve done it! But it doesn’t matter telling you, does it, Ernest?”

“Of course it doesn’t,” he scoffed. “What do I care about the young man? Besides, aren’t we cousins? You can tell me anything. Tell me the name of your steady, if you like.”

“I haven’t got one,” she assured him confidentially. “There’s lots of chaps always around, but there’s no one I fancy. The millinery is very genteel, you know, Ernest, and I can’t stand these rough fellows after it. I always say if I can’t get some one who can act and look like a gentleman, I’d sooner stay as I am. Don’t you think I’m right?”

“I do, dear.”

“Then kiss me again.”

He obeyed with enthusiasm. She rested her head upon his shoulder.

“Talking about that lodger---I’ve forgotten already what you said his name was---” Pank remarked---“where did he come from, or rather where did he go to when he left?”

She looked up at him, not exactly with suspicion but with a mild wonder in her eyes.

“Why are you so curious about him?”

“I’m not really,” he answered, “but, if you want to know, the only chap I have met from Norwich for a long time said something about your walking out with a lodger.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” the girl exclaimed indignantly. “I take a walk sometimes with one or two young gentlemen friends, but I never went out with him---not a yard.”

“And I hear,” Ernest Pank persisted, “that he left Norwich to go up to London to arrange to get married.”

“He didn’t go to London at all, not to stay, at any rate,” Amy contradicted hotly. “He went back to his own home and job somewhere Fakenham way.”

“Well, I beg pardon, I’m sure,” Pank said earnestly. “I don’t care a fig what his name was or where he went to. I was just a bit jealous. Don’t let’s mention his name again.”

“Don’t let’s,” the girl acquiesced. “I have broken my sworn word---two or three times over, if it comes to that,” she added, with a little laugh. “But I know it doesn’t matter with you, does it? You’re in the family, aren’t you, Ern?”

“Am I, dear?”

She sighed.

“I’m afraid you’re too used to talking to young ladies. You have a kind of glib way.”

“No one else ever told me so,” he assured her.

Just then a bulky-looking man, in a grey suit with a patch of white paint near the waistline, opened the door and lounged into the room.