“Bah!—only quoting her. She pretends to believe it. If it’s true, you tell me this—why did none of his friends know he was here? Marsden didn’t. I talked to him last night. He wouldn’t believe that Trent had had rooms here for years. Neither would the woman who was with him, Vera Thornton. Fine woman that, by the way. Plenty of her—not one of these boys in skirts like most women are nowadays. Well, neither of them would believe it about Trent. They went to dine together to discuss it.”
“And what is your explanation?” Rendell asked with simulated interest, for, actually, he was thanking destiny that Frazer had not interviewed Rosalie Vivian and knew nothing about her.
“Explanation! Obvious, my good sir. He used this house for his filthy affairs. There’s a woman, an artist’s model, who stays here sometimes, who knows more than she’ll say. A red-haired beauty, who hasn’t a farthing. But that’s by the way.
Frazer broke off abruptly. He was standing by the window.
“There she is! Mrs. Basement must have forgotten something. Bah! She looks like a servant. I’m getting out of this. I can’t stand it for another second!”
He disappeared, and almost immediately the front door banged. But as, a moment later, Mrs. Frazer knocked on Rendell’s door, it is probable that she had guessed the nature of her husband’s activities during her absence.
“Come in,” Rendell cried in response to the knock. “Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Frazer. I——”
“He’s not been troubling you, has he?” she asked tonelessly.
“Yes. He’s been in here.”
“Did he show you his room?”
“He did.”
“I thought so. Always shows someone his room: after we’ve had a row.”
She stood motionless, holding a heavily-laden shopping basket with both hands.
“Did he mention Mr. Trent?”
“Yes, I’m afraid he did.”
“Ah well!”
She put the basket on the floor with a weary movement.
“He’s going to make trouble,” she added.
“You mean that he’s discovered that Mr. Trent’s friends did not know he had rooms here, and——” Rendell hesitated
“Yes, that’s what’s worrying me. He loves to think the worst. And he’ll borrow money, if he can, from the people who call to inquire. He had some from Mr. Marsden last night.”
Rendell turned a laugh into a cough, then said sympathetically:
“I’m afraid he gives you plenty to worry about.”
“Worry!”
And then, mechanically and in a drab tone, she enumerated certain of the more quotable of her husband’s activities. Rendell learned that, should a prospective lodger call when his wife was out, he would give him or her instant possession of a vacant room, providing something was paid there and then to him on account. Also, ignoring her entreaties, he would collect a part of the rent from the less reputable lodgers, giving a receipt for the whole of it. In addition, if a bottle of whisky was left out in any of the rooms, the Captain would help himself frequently and with liberality. And, finally, that in a number of ways—some of which Mrs. Frazer preferred not to mention—he conducted underground warfare against her, and the lodgers who were loyal to her, ceaselessly and with great cunning.
When she had finished, Rendell turned to her and said emphatically:
“Now, you listen to me, Mrs. Frazer. If you drift on like this, he’ll bring you and himself to the gutter. Why don’t you allow him thirty shillings a week on the express condition that he gets out—and stays out.”
There was a long silence. Then, slowly, she raised her eyes till her glance met his. It told him that she loved her wreck of a husband.
“Good God,” he said softly, “good God.”
Then, fearing he might have embarrassed her, he added with an attempt at jocularity:
“Well, it’s fortunate you haven’t any children.”
“I have one,” she replied enigmatically, then picked up the heavy basket and went slowly out of the room. . . .
As a result of these disclosures, and a long conversation with the servant, Mary, which occurred soon after Mrs. Frazer had left him, Rendell gained an accurate knowledge of No. 77 and its lodgers.
Briefly summarised, he learned that the house contained a fixed and a floating population and that, roughly, the fixed were Mrs. Frazer’s allies, and the floating were the Captain’s. The term, fixed, was a relative one, however, as it was conferred on anyone who had been in the house for three months and had no immediate intention of departing. But this stable element was in the minority—and whether or not the palmist and clairvoyante was to be numbered among its members was a problem which would have extended a subtler brain than Rendell’s.