Death Lives Next Door

“She’s a decent sort. She was very kind to me and the wife when we lost the kiddie.”

Ezra remembered that the porter’s little daughter had died of a rare form of diphtheria.

“And we’re not the only ones, she’s always had a helping hand for people like us. And I mean a real helping hand. Have you ever noticed Dr. Manning’s hands, sir? They’re hands that work. Oh, I know you work, sir, what I mean is that Dr. Marion works with her hands. That’s the side of her people like us see. And fat gratitude she gets for it sometimes. Like that cousin or sister of hers she helped. What does she get but the woman coming here making scenes? She came here once, I wasn’t here. I was out helping Monty get Rommel.” He grinned. “But I remember my wife telling me all about it. A shocking performance it was.”

“I had noticed her hands,” agreed Ezra.

“She’s sharp though. You can’t pull the old soldier on her.”

He frowned. “Real cross with myself I was. I ought to have done better.” He looked shyly at Ezra. “You know my little hobby, sir.” Ezra did. The porter had tried very hard to get into the Police Force, and not succeeding on account of his shortness, had turned himself into an amateur policeman. He had read countless books on criminology, kept a card index of famous criminals, with pictures, in the hope that he might one day meet one (he never had yet), and kept an alert eye open for any signs of trouble in his own neighbourhood. If anyone could be relied upon to notice detail, he could.

He and Ezra swopped detective stories. Have you read Ransome’s latest? Pretty good you know. What about the new Punshon? No Daly for a long time. Is she dead? And the new Innes? Not up to standard.

But now the porter was preoccupied with Dr. Manning herself.

“There’s been a shut-up look to the house lately. Doors always closed. Windows up. Not like Dr. Manning. She’s nearly always kept them wide open. Like a country woman in that. My wife was a country girl and she always says we don’t shut doors so much in the country; me and Dr. Manning we were both brought up on farms. Did you know Dr. Manning had grown up on a farm?” Ezra nodded. He knew about Marion’s youth and how she had hated it. Cutting herself off from it had been the first of her big steps forward, the first of her revolutions in transforming herself.

“I didn’t like the look of it. Made me think perhaps Dr. Manning was getting nervous of something. I kept a look-out.”

“Well?”

“There’s been a man hanging about. There were his hands, too, sir. I noticed them. They’re wiry hands.”

Ezra nodded.

“Then last night. I was passing Dr. Manning’s house last night on my way home from the Parks and I saw this man right up inside the garden. He was trying the door, sir, and as I came running up he shook a window. He saw me, I’m afraid, and nipped round the side and off.” He paused. “I didn’t like the look of it, sir. I’m afraid he may get in. Yes, I’m afraid he may get in.”

“He’s there now,” admitted Ezra. “I’ve just seen him. And I’m just as worried as you.”

“Do you think Dr. Manning’s noticed?”

“I wish I knew.” He realised that it was important to know if Marion had noticed or not. “I’ll talk to her.” But it was not going to be so easy for him to talk to Marion; the figure of Rachel stood between them. “But I promise you I’ll look after Dr. Manning.”

Rachel came hurrying through the glass doors from the library. Ezra got up to help her with the books.

The porter watched them go away. He remained worried.

“Perhaps I ought to have told him. And yet it was only an impression. Still I did get the impression: that he was whispering to someone inside the house.”

The man walked down St. John Street, through the crowded Cornmarket, and down St. Ebbes to Pratt’s Place where he entered a house which was one of a grubby grey stone terrace. He had a key and let himself into a dark and smelly hall. There was an upright yellow oak hallstand just behind the front door on which lay a few letters and a bottle of milk. He turned the letters over, but there were none for him. He picked up the milk and listened for a few minutes to the noises of the house. He could hear a baby crying and the shriek and scream of his landlady’s voice, he could hear someone banging away as if chopping wood, not that anyone ever chopped wood in that house, but banging was a necessary part of life there. After listening for a moment, he went upstairs.

His own room was tidy, dusted and neat. His landlady, oddly enough, had her standards. In her own way she liked her lodger and regarded him as an improvement on the last man, an itinerant seller of leather bags and shoe laces, who had left a few weeks ago, without paying his rent but taking with him her youngest daughter. It was not yet clear which of them would ultimately be the loser on this transaction. To please her present tenant she put an occasional duster round the room and usually made the bed; she had plenty of time in which to work, as he was out a good deal. He had not told her what he worked at, and, tactfully, she had not asked.

The man sat down at a small table by the window and arranged various things on the table before him. He had a yellow packet of photographs, a newspaper cutting, and a carefully tied-up bundle of documents. He opened the packet of photographs and carefully set out a line of photographs almost as if starting a game of Patience. Four cards in a line and one below. They were pictures of women.

He looked at them in silence, then stuffed them back into the packet, which was already greasy and much thumbed, as were the pictures themselves. He put all the things on the table back into the inside pocket of his blue raincoat.

There was a pause while he sat on the bed and drank the bottle of milk to the bottom. Then he got up, opened the drawers of the old chest of drawers and took out a few layers of shirts and underclothings. He packed this into a small suitcase. He looked into the wardrobe, but it was empty. He was wearing his one suit.

He looked round the room, but it was now quite bare of any sign of his presence except for a book by his bed, and this he did not notice.

He went downstairs and knocked on his landlady’s door. She opened it at once. She was not pleased to see the suitcase or to hear that her visitor was leaving. She was a large lazy woman of about forty; the only swift thing about her was her temper, as each of her three successive husbands had found in turn. She emerged with a cigarette in her lips and her expensive and bad-tempered Siamese cat clinging to her shoulders. They were both slightly cross-eyed.

“Well, you’d better come in and talk it over,” she said, holding the door open. “I can’t say I’m pleased about this, as you led me to believe you’d be a permanent. I’ve let slip several good offers, one very nice undergrad” (this was a complete lie, no undergraduate would step into her house) “and one from a very well-to-do lady as would have done for herself. You’ve let me down. Well, come on in.”

Although the house was dreary enough, the landlady had created a certain comfort in her own room. Everything was placed just where it could contribute most to its owner’s comfort. The round table, perpetually covered in a white and blue check tablecloth was so placed that it caught both the warmth from the fire and a good view from the window. On the table were a newspaper, a radio, and a box of cigarettes. By the fire was a teapot and another cat.

“I’ve kept the cats out of your way, as you said you hated them. I thought you liked it here,” she said in a hurt voice.

“I’m afraid I have to leave, though,” repeated her visitor, his mouth setting in firmer lines than his usual mild expression had led her to expect. She saw this, and abandoned her hopes of getting a month’s rent from him. “It’s unfair, though,” she said, with a genuine sense of grievance. “You’ll have to pay up for this week,” and she held out a hand.

As he got out the money to pay her, his envelope of photographs fell to the floor. One picture slid out.

“Why, you’ve got a picture of Dr. Manning,” she said in surprise.

“You know her?” Her lodger sounded not too pleased.

“Not half! Used to work there. As a lady help, you know. Just to oblige. But I didn’t stick it. Couldn’t do with her. Always following me about to see if I worked properly. Looked as frail as a feather, she did, but her energy! Had me beat. All her friends used to say, ‘Oh Marion, I don’t know how you do all you do, with your health, and your headaches. You ought to rest more, dear.’ Tough as an old boot she is really. See me