Death Lives Next Door. Gwendoline Butler

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      Ezra sighed. “That’s exactly you all over. Silliness doesn’t rule out wickedness. Rather the reverse. Someone silly and wicked could be very dangerous.”

      “Do you think this man is dangerous?” Rachel was surprised.

      Ezra nodded. He was convinced there was danger for Marion, and what was more he felt sure Marion knew it, too, in her heart.

      They threaded their way through the crowds of undergraduates on bicycles and approached the School of Anthropology, which was housed in a large sunny building.

      “I have to leave a note,” explained Rachel, although she had no need to offer any explanations to her companion, who would have trotted along happily beside her to the moon if she had happened to suggest it. “And I’ve a book to pick up in the library. Do wait for me.”

      Ezra tucked his feet under a chair and sat down to wait. He was thoroughly happy in this atmosphere of leisurely learning. He realised anew how unsuited he was to leave it.

      A few students drifted in and out, exchanging a word with the porter in his little cubby-hole as they did so. He was a round fat agreeable man and an old friend of Ezra’s, who had waited here many times for Rachel. He came out now to talk to Ezra.

      The porter and his wife knew both Marion and Ezra well.

      (“I suppose she feels sort of maternal to him,” the wife had suggested.

      “Oh no,” said the porter.

      “Not … anything else?” queried his wife doubtfully. She didn’t want to think badly of Marion.

      “Oh no, mother, you’ve got it all wrong. People like them have interests in common. That’s how they put it. Things in common. Age doesn’t count. It’s their minds.”

      “Well I can’t help thinking it’s all a bit—” She hesitated: “Comic”)

      “I’d be glad to have a word with you, sir.”

      “Do,” said Ezra, looking up in surprise.

      “I live in Little Clarendon Street, sir, as you know, just around the way from Chancellor Hyde Street, I’m often up and down the road, I usually go that way to the Parks to exercise my little dog. You’ve seen us perhaps, sir?”

      Briefly Ezra let his mind rest on the dog; the ‘little dog’ was a great loutish retriever with teeth like a tiger’s fangs and a temper notorious among even the ill-tempered dogs of North Oxford.

      “Yes, I know him.”

      “And you being a particular friend of Dr. Manning’s, sir, I thought I’d mention it.”

      “Mention what?” There was something coming.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ