The Listerdale Mystery

‘Sometimes,’ she said slowly, ‘I’m sorry Cousin Amy took me with her to Egypt last winter. Oh! I know I had fun—about the only fun I’ve ever had or am likely to have in my life. I did enjoy myself—enjoyed myself thoroughly. But it was very unsettling. I mean—coming back to this.’

She swept a hand round the room. Mrs St Vincent followed it with her eyes and winced. The room was typical of cheap furnished lodgings. A dusty aspidistra, showily ornamental furniture, a gaudy wallpaper faded in patches. There were signs that the personality of the tenants had struggled with that of the landlady; one or two pieces of good china, much cracked and mended, so that their saleable value was nil, a piece of embroidery thrown over the back of the sofa, a water colour sketch of a young girl in the fashion of twenty years ago; near enough still to Mrs St Vincent not to be mistaken.

‘It wouldn’t matter,’ continued Barbara, ‘if we’d never known anything else. But to think of Ansteys—’

She broke off, not trusting herself to speak of that dearly loved home which had belonged to the St Vincent family for centuries and which was now in the hands of strangers.

‘If only father—hadn’t speculated—and borrowed—’

‘My dear,’ said Mrs St Vincent, ‘your father was never, in any sense of the word, a business man.’

She said it with a graceful kind of finality, and Barbara came over and gave her an aimless sort of kiss, as she murmured, ‘Poor old Mums. I won’t say anything.’

Mrs St Vincent took up her pen again, and bent over her desk. Barbara went back to the window. Presently the girl said:

‘Mother. I heard from—from Jim Masterton this morning. He wants to come and see me.’

Mrs St Vincent laid down her pen and looked up sharply.

‘Here?’ she exclaimed.

‘Well, we can’t ask him to dinner at the Ritz very well,’ sneered Barbara.

Her mother looked unhappy. Again she looked round the room with innate distaste.

‘You’re right,’ said Barbara. ‘It’s a disgusting place. Genteel poverty! Sounds all right—a white-washed cottage, in the country, shabby chintzes of good design, bowls of roses, crown Derby tea service that you wash up yourself. That’s what it’s like in books. In real life, with a son starting on the bottom rung of office life, it means London. Frowsy landladies, dirty children on the stairs, fellow-lodgers who always seem to be half-castes, haddocks for breakfasts that aren’t quite—quite and so on.’

‘If only—’ began Mrs St Vincent. ‘But, really, I’m beginning to be afraid we can’t afford even this room much longer.’

‘That means a bed-sitting room—horror!—for you and me,’ said Barbara. ‘And a cupboard under the tiles for Rupert. And when Jim comes to call, I’ll receive him in that dreadful room downstairs with tabbies all round the walls knitting, and staring at us, and coughing that dreadful kind of gulping cough they have!’

There was a pause.

‘Barbara,’ said Mrs St Vincent at last. ‘Do you—I mean—would you—?’

She stopped, flushing a little.

‘You needn’t be delicate, Mother,’ said Barbara. ‘Nobody is nowadays. Marry Jim, I suppose you mean? I would like a shot if he asked me. But I’m so awfully afraid he won’t.’

‘Oh! Barbara, dear.’

‘Well, it’s one thing seeing me out there with Cousin Amy, moving (as they say in novelettes) in the best society. He did take a fancy to me. Now he’ll come here and see me in this! And he’s a funny creature, you know, fastidious and old-fashioned. I—I rather like him for that. It reminds me of Ansteys and the village—everything a hundred years behind the times, but so—so—oh! I don’t know—so fragrant. Like lavender!’

She laughed, half-ashamed of her eagerness. Mrs St Vincent spoke with a kind of earnest simplicity.

‘I should like you to marry Jim Masterton,’ she said. ‘He is—one of us. He is very well off, also, but that I don’t mind about so much.’

‘I do,’ said Barbara. ‘I’m sick of being hard up.’

‘But, Barbara, it isn’t—’

‘Only for that? No. I do really. I—oh! Mother, can’t you see I do?’

Mrs St Vincent looked very unhappy.

‘I wish he could see you in your proper setting, darling,’ she said wistfully.

‘Oh, well!’ said Barbara. ‘Why worry? We might as well try and be cheerful about things. Sorry I’ve had such a grouch. Cheer up, darling.’

She bent over her mother, kissed her forehead lightly, and went out. Mrs St Vincent, relinquishing all attempts at finance, sat down on the uncomfortable sofa. Her thoughts ran round in circles like squirrels in a cage.

‘One may say what one likes, appearances do put a man off. Not later—not if they were really engaged. He’d know then what a sweet, dear girl she is. But it’s so easy for young people to take the tone of their surroundings. Rupert, now, he’s quite different from what he used to be. Not that I want my children to be stuck up. That’s not it a bit. But I should hate it if Rupert got engaged to that dreadful girl in the tobacconist’s. I daresay she may be a very nice girl, really. But she’s not our kind. It’s all so difficult. Poor little Babs. If I could do anything—anything. But where’s the money to come from? We’ve sold everything to give Rupert his start. We really can’t even afford this.’

To distract herself Mrs St Vincent picked up the Morning Post, and glanced down the advertisements on the front page. Most of them she knew by heart. People who wanted capital, people who had capital and were anxious to dispose of it on note of hand alone, people who wanted to buy teeth (she always wondered why), people who wanted to sell furs and gowns and who had optimistic ideas on the subject of price.

Suddenly she stiffened to attention. Again and again she read the printed words.

‘To gentlepeople only. Small house in Westminster, exquisitely furnished, offered to those who would really care for it. Rent purely nominal. No agents.’

A very ordinary advertisement. She had read many the same or—well, nearly the same. Nominal rent, that was where the trap lay.

Yet, since she was restless and anxious to escape from her thoughts she put on her hat straightaway, and took a convenient bus to the address given in the advertisement.

It proved to be that of a firm of house-agents. Not a new bustling firm—a rather decrepit, old-fashioned place. Rather timidly she produced the advertisement, which she had torn out, and asked for particulars.

The white-haired old gentleman who was attending to her stroked his chin thoughtfully.

‘Perfectly. Yes, perfectly, madam. That house, the house mentioned in the advertisement is No 7 Cheviot Place. You would like an order?’

‘I should like to know the rent first?’ said Mrs St Vincent.

‘Ah! the rent. The exact figure is not settled, but I can assure you that it is purely nominal.’

‘Ideas of what is purely nominal can vary,’ said Mrs St Vincent.

The old gentleman permitted himself to chuckle a little.

‘Yes, that’s an old trick—an old trick. But you can take my word for it, it isn’t so in this case. Two or three guineas a week, perhaps, not more.’

Mrs St Vincent decided to have the order. Not, of course, that there was any real likelihood of her being able to afford the place. But, after all, she might just see it. There must be some grave disadvantage attaching to it, to be offered at such a price.

But her heart gave a little throb as she looked up at the outside of 7 Cheviot Place. A gem of a house. Queen Anne, and in perfect condition! A butler answered the door, he had grey hair and little side-whiskers, and the meditative calm of an archbishop. A kindly archbishop, Mrs St Vincent thought.

He accepted the order with a benevolent air.

‘Certainly, madam. I will show you over. The house is ready for occupation.’

He went before her, opening doors, announcing rooms.