The Paying Guests(163)
‘I’m with you there,’ said Lloyd grimly.
Uncle Ted said, ‘At least they’re keeping him in prison for the week. Not that that will bother him, mind.’
‘Bother him?’ answered Douglas. ‘He’ll probably have the time of his life in there! You know he was in the waiting-room this morning, bragging to all the other men about how his crime was the finest on the charge-sheet? Constable Evans told us, earlier. No, there’s no morality in him. You only have to look at his face to see that.’
‘I did wonder,’ said Mrs Viney, ‘whether he’s quite all there.’
‘Oh, he’s all there, all right.’
Frances gazed at them in frustration. Couldn’t they see that the boy’s manner was all bravado, all pose? She said, ‘I don’t think he’s taken it in yet. I don’t think he understands his situation.’
Douglas snorted. ‘He understood his situation when he went after my brother in July, Miss Wray. He hasn’t denied that, has he? Yes, he understood his way from Soho to Champion Hill!’
‘Didn’t he just,’ said Vera, as the others nodded. ‘Mind, he wouldn’t have had to understand it, if Len hadn’t been in Soho in the first place.’
That shut Douglas up. There was an uncomfortable silence. People lowered their heads and looked furtively at Lilian, who all this time had been standing just behind Frances’s shoulder, staring at the floor.
Finally Mr Barber, tucking away his handkerchief, said, ‘I hope Lilian knows how sorry I am that she had to hear those things read out from Charlie’s statement like that. If I hadn’t heard them myself, I should never have believed them. To think of Leonard carrying on in such a way – well, it’s upset me almost more than anything.’
And, ‘Yes,’ said Douglas stiffly. ‘Yes, that was very shabby. I can’t think what Len thought he was playing at.’
Mrs Viney said, ‘Well, neither can I! It didn’t even sound like Lenny, did it? It didn’t sound like Charlie, either. I said to Lil, “Do you think it’s all true?” I wonder if the inspector hasn’t made it out to be worse than what it was – put words in Charlie’s mouth, I mean. The police can be very artful, you know. And those two girls —’
‘Them!’ said Douglas, suddenly back on surer ground. ‘I’d like to get my hands on them! That Billie, or Mabel, or whatever the hell she calls herself. I’ve a few choice names for her! Her, and that sister of hers. If they know nothing about the murder, then I’m a Dutchman!’
Mrs Viney looked shocked. ‘You don’t say so!’
‘I do. You just wait. It’ll all come out. You notice they didn’t turn up today? Didn’t want to look us in the eye, I suppose. No, I bet they damn well didn’t…’
And he was off again, railing against the two girls now, his colour higher than ever, his brother’s infidelities forgotten.
Frances felt Lilian change her pose. She turned, and found her with her head raised, her eyes on Douglas and the men. As Lloyd repeated his call for a horse-whip, she spoke to Frances softly.
‘They’ve all got someone else to hate now, haven’t they?’
But then that shadow of apprehension came across her face again; and Frances grew sick. For this, of course, was the moment – the moment they had put off confronting on Monday. Here they were, face to face. They had to talk, they had to plan, come to some sort of a decision… While Douglas ranted on they moved away from the others. There was no privacy to be had; the lobby was filled with men and women wanting admission to the cases still to be heard in the courtroom. In the midst of so many individual emergencies, however, it was possible to stand and murmur. They found a spot near a ragged woman with a grotesquely beaten face, who kept starting forward every time the doors to the street were opened, only to fall back, dashed, when the wrong person appeared.
Lilian spoke with an effort. ‘What do you want us to do, Frances?’
Frances answered after a pause. ‘Nothing’s changed, has it? I thought everything would be different. I had no idea that the hearing would be so one-sided. I thought it would all have become clear. But nothing’s clear. I feel badly for the boy’s mother. I feel very badly for her. As for him —’
‘He isn’t at all how I thought he’d be.’
‘No.’
‘He seemed almost to – to like it.’
Their gazes met, then slid apart. Frances said, ‘Seven more days in prison, though… But then, he’ll get himself a solicitor. His alibi will be proved. There’s nothing against him save hearsay and boasts.’
She could feel Lilian looking at her, wanting it to be true. ‘Do you think so?’
‘I just can’t believe it’ll go all the way to a trial.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Don’t you?’
Lilian said miserably, ‘I don’t know what I think any more. I don’t trust myself. This morning I was all ready for it to be the worst it could be. I was really, truly ready. But now that I’ve seen him… I know it isn’t fair. But he did hurt Len that other time. And the girl said he’d knocked her teeth out, didn’t she? Nobody’s mentioned that.’ Here the doors to the street were pushed open and she fell silent, watching the beaten woman dart forward then slink back in fresh disappointment.