This Was Ivor Trent полностью

“He has double doors and windows in his rooms,” she replied. “The top floor is really a self-contained flat, so he’s cut off from the rest of the house.”

“I see. Well—as you asked if I’d been disturbed—I would like to know one thing. Does anyone ever answer the front door when people hammer on it?”

Mrs. Frazer made a despairing gesture.

“That front door will bring me to my grave! When I’m out—and I have to go out a lot—no one answers it. It’s a mercy I happened to be in the hall the night poor Mr. Trent arrived. The girl says she’s deaf and can’t hear the knocking—and my husband won’t open it. He’s in nearly all day, but he just won’t go to it. He’s too proud. It’s a wonder he let you in last night.”

“That’s how it is, is it? Well, it doesn’t bother me much. I’ll soon be used to it, and to the lodgers, too, I daresay—in time, of course.”

Mrs. Frazer regarded him mournfully. Then, having turned to make certain that the door was shut, she said emphatically:

“Don’t imagine that I’m satisfied with the lodgers, because I’m not. And that’s a fact. You wouldn’t believe it if you knew what I have to put up with. But what can I do? You’ve got to be thankful to get anyone nowadays. You know what things are like. They say they are better. Well, they may be—but not in Potiphar Street. And my husband, for all his fine airs and graces, is thick as thieves with the worst of them. I’m afraid you were very disturbed last night.”

“Now don’t you bother about me, Mrs. Frazer. I find it all very interesting. There’s a little noise, of course, and a few visitors, but—I’m all right. In fact, I think I shall be here some time.”

“I’m very glad to hear it. Anything you want, you let me know. And now I must go to Mr. Trent. I was a nurse myself once—though I’ve almost forgotten it—and I suppose I was the biggest fool ever born not to remain one.”

Having made this oblique reference to her marriage, Mrs. Frazer paused, then—evidently prompted by her sense of justice—added impartially:

“Still, I will say this for him: he’s made himself useful attending to people who’ve called to inquire about Mr. Trent.”

As Rendell believed that this duty had devolved wholly on himself, her statement puzzled him, but he gave no indication of this fact when he said:

“Really! And when was that?”

“The last hour or so—when you were out. Several people called.” She produced a number of visiting-cards from the pocket of her overall and handed them to Rendell for inspection. “And what with one or two of the newspapers ringing up, and I don’t know what, he’s been quite busy—for him.”

Rendell said nothing. He was turning over the cards, as if mechanically, but actually with considerable interest. He detected several well-known names in the literary and social worlds, then, finally, one appeared bearing a name which startled him.

“Marsden!” he exclaimed.

“Oh yes, the crippled gentleman! My husband told me about him because he had such a job getting up the steps. And what’s more, he was so certain that Mr. Trent would have asked to see him that he wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”

Marsden! Rendell totted up probabilities, while contracting and expanding the card between his right thumb and forefinger. Then he remembered that Marsden had told him—before they dined together on the Sunday—that he was staying in London for some weeks. Inevitably, therefore, he would call to ask about Trent. It was rather surprising he had not been earlier.

“Didn’t say when he was coming again, I suppose?” Rendell asked at last.

“Well, now you mention it, as a matter of fact, he did. Told my husband he might come at six o’clock. And he said it in a tone which was as much as to say: ‘And mind you don’t keep me waiting!’ My husband wasn’t best pleased, I can tell you. That’s why he mentioned it to me.”

After a pause, she added:

“Well, I must be getting upstairs. You’ll let me know if you want anything?”

“I certainly will—and many thanks.”

She disappeared, and Rendell stretched himself on a sofa—whose appearance and personality seemed to defy anyone to subject its age to any such indignity—in the hope that he might sleep for a couple of hours.

Destiny granted half his desire, then, at about five o’clock, a single but resonant knock on the front door roused him to consciousness.

He rose, stretched and yawned simultaneously, then felt his way through the twilight of the hall.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, but is Mr. Trent better?”

The voice was richly modulated. She stood looking up at him, and in the half-light he dimly discerned a broad powerfully-moulded face with dark eyes under black brows.

“A bit better, I think,” he replied. “Doctor won’t let him see anyone, so the nurse tells me, but I fancy he’s not as bad as he was yesterday. Will you leave your name? Then, later, I’ll see that he’s told that you called.”

She laughed pleasantly.

“Oh no, thanks all the same. I’m no one. I just wanted to know how he was. That’s all.”

But this self-effacement was too attractive for Rendell to let it go at that.