Homicide House: A Mr. Pinkerton Mystery. Zenith Brown
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sixpence it cost failing signally to disguise the fact that it was either rook or starling, call it what they would—he wished very much that he had kept his mouth shut. That not having been effected, he wished very much he had asked Dan McGrath where he was stopping. He would have liked to explain his own part in the unfortunate turn of events, and as quickly as possible. He also wanted to warn the young American. Plainly, for one reason or another, the situation ruled out any polite inquiries about Mary Winship’s father. And on the other hand . . .
Mr. Pinkerton was not entirely without some portion of the native Welsh caution, and as he sat there thinking it all over, he came to two sound conclusions. The first was that Dan McGrath was undoubtedly far more capable of managing his own affairs than Mr. Evan Pinkerton was of doing it for him. The second was that whatever family skeleton Mr. Scott Winship, dead or alive, represented, it was clearly the Winships’ business, not his. The wisest thing for him to do was to go home and mind his own affairs. It was a resolution that Mr. Pinkerton had made many times before, and kept at least as long—in this case, until he opened the front door of Number 4 Godolphin Square.
3
APILE of battered luggage stood by the lift. The top piece was a green fabric Army kit with large black initials stencilled on it: “D. J. McG.”; and below them in smaller letters was “Baltimore, Maryland, U. S. A.” Mr. Pinkerton stopped and blinked, his heart beating a little faster. D. J. McG. Big as the United States were, it was still unlikely that two people with Dan McGrath’s initials could show up from them on the same day. In London, perhaps, but not both of them in Godolphin Square.
Mason, the night porter, was coming along from the lighted window of the small office off which, on the right, was Miss Myrtle Grimstead’s apartment. He opened the lift door and put the florist’s box he was carrying on the leather seat.
“More ruddy flowers for ’er. Bring on another one of ’er attacks, poor lady. ’Ay fever’s what it is if you ahsk me.”
Mr. Pinkerton looked at the long green box. “Guillaume’s,” it had painted in flourishing gold script on the cover, and he could see “Mrs. Scott Winship” written on the white envelope tied with orchid ribbon to the orchid ribbon round the box.
“You’ll ’ave to walk up,” Mason said. He picked up the fabric kit and dumped it onto the floor of the lift. “It’s ’er that’s the trouble. I’ve been ’ere twenty-two years and never ’ad no trouble till she came.”
Mr. Pinkerton blinked for an instant, then understood from Mason’s morose glance back at the office. All the servants complained about Miss Myrtle Grimstead, and she about them. That did not matter. And as Mr. Pinkerton always walked up anyway, that made no difference either. But where Dan McGrath, if it was Dan McGrath, was going to sleep did worry him. He knew the flats were all full.
Mason gave the third piece of luggage a heave into the lift. “No vacancies . . .” He raised his voice to imitate Miss Grimstead’s coyly ingratiating approach. “Just give me and Betty a ’and ’ere, Mason. We’ll just move out all the trunks and the ’ousekeeper’s paraphinalia, and make ’im up a bed ’ere in the box room. I’m sure ’e’ll be quite comfy till we can do summat better for ’im Monday—and where, Miss Grimstead? I ask— and where I’m still asking.”
Where indeed? Mr. Pinkerton wondered. But not for long. Miss Myrtle Grimstead was smiling happily at him through the narrow office window that guarded the approach to the carpeted stairway like a sentry box in an armed camp. Her bright blonde curls under the overhead light were as brassy but not as toothy as her smile.
“Oh, Mr. Pinkerton! A perfectly charming young American, a Mr. Daniel McGrath, has just arrived—he’s gone out for a few hours but he’ll be back tonight. He simply wouldn’t take No for an answer.”
Her smile fixed itself intently on the little man.
“You aren’t taking holiday beginning Monday morning, are you, Mr. Pinkerton? You have looked so seedy lately, the sea air would do wonders for you. I was telling Mrs. Winship just yesterday you look far sicker than she does. I’ve got a sister in Bournemouth that I could arrange to make you very comfy indeed. I can just transfer your account and you’ll be fit again in no time.”
Miss Grimstead waggled her curls at him, and became at once brisk and efficient. “Monday’ll do very nicely. I wouldn’t want to hurry you at all. Mr. McGrath can manage very comfortably in the box room till Monday, I’m sure.”
“—I’m not going on holiday.”
Miss Grimstead turned back with a startled jerk of her blonde curls. She was no more startled than Mr. Pinkerton. He stood gaping at her just as she stood gaping at him, at the idea of hearing himself come out and say what was in his mind.
“I mean—I mean Mr. McGrath’s a very good friend of mine, and I’m sure—I’m sure he wouldn’t like . . .”
“Oh,” Miss Grimstead said. “Oh,” she repeated. Her pale managerial eyes bored skeptically into his. “He said he had a friend here he wanted to be near. I must say it never occurred to me it was you.”
Mr. Pinkerton swallowed. He could see her opinion of Dan McGrath take an abysmal dive. He backed toward the door and hurried up.
“Oh, dear,” he thought. “When she stops to think she’ll know I’m not telling the truth.”
In the middle of the second flight, well out of Miss Grimstead’s visual range, he stopped to catch his breath, and caught it in fact quite literally. The door of Eric Dalrymple-Hughes’s small rear flat on the first floor had opened, and a girl’s voice came up the stairs.
“. . . be ready, Eric, won’t you?” she was saying. “And stop grousing, darling. I promise you I had nothing at all to do with it. I’m just lucky for once, that’s all. And please don’t try to spoil it.”
It was Mary Winship. At the sound of her voice the basilisk-eyed Miss Grimstead vanished from Mr. Pinkerton’s mind as promptly as if she had never existed, and his face brightened. Mary Winship was the one person at Number 4 Godolphin Street, except of course Betty the little Welsh maid, who ever gave him a friendly smile, or spoke to him as though it was a pleasure and not a duty. He listened to her speaking back through the door to her insufferable cousin. She sounded so gay and excited that Mr. Pinkerton did not for an instant doubt the reason.
“She knows he’s here,” he thought, himself almost as excited because she did sound so happy about it. He could not have been happier himself, even when he heard her cousin’s petulant affected voice answer her.
“I’m not grousing. And don’t misunderstand me, Mary. It’s not Aunt Caroline personally that I’m objecting to. It’s the tyranny of the very old.”
“I doubt if she’d like that very much, dear. She’s not that old, and if it’s tyranny at least you don’t have to put up with it. There are jobs, you know. You don’t have to stick here.”
Mr. Pinkerton had started down the stairs again. If he pretended he was going out instead of coming in, he could meet her quite casually. Even if all she said was “Good evening,” he would still have the satisfaction of seeing her violet-blue eyes light up—even if Dan McGrath’s name was not spoken. But he hesitated now. His device, transparent at best, had become slightly awkward in view of the turn the situation had taken.
“I know you’d like to have me out of the field, even if I am only a soi-disant nephew that’s got to sing nicely for his supper if he’s to get any. It’s not my fault my mother was a cousin instead of a step-daughter like yours. And maybe I shall get out. I’m fed up with fiddling for every kipper I get. I’m on to something that would surprise you, Mary Winship. All I want is a bit of ready cash.”
“And all I hope is it’s nothing that’ll get you in trouble again,” Mary Winship retorted cheerfully. “But let’s not quarrel. I’m much too excited to quarrel with you now. And do be ready. I don’t want this spoiled.”
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