Читать книгу The Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 3

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Neither the day upon which Roger Ferrison, a tall sturdy young man of sufficiently pleasing appearance, presented himself at Mrs. Dewar’s Palace Crescent Boarding House, situated within a stone’s throw of the Hammersmith Road, nor the manner of his initiation presented any unusual incident. He stepped off a bus at the corner of the shabby but pretentious looking thoroughfare and, carrying a large kit bag in his hand, walked slowly along, scrutinising the numbers until he had found the one of which he was in search. He rang the bell of Number Fourteen, was peered at from the area below and, after a not unreasonable delay, was admitted by an elderly manservant of somewhat impressive appearance. He was thin but tall, and of athletic build. His striped jacket and carefully brushed black trousers conformed to type. He threw open the door hospitably and regarded the visitor’s bag with interest.

“You were wishing to see Mrs. Dewar, sir?” he enquired.

“I am the new boarder,” Roger Ferrison announced. “I called to see Mrs. Dewar the other day when, I understand, you were out. I should like to have a word with her before I go to my room, if she is disengaged.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The man carried the bag a few yards into the somewhat sombre and barely furnished hall, deposited it against the wall and led the way past the curtained-off apartment which seemed to be a sort of lounge, past a somewhat extensive hat-and-cloak room and through a green baize door a few yards along a much narrower passage on the left. He paused at a door on whose panel was painted the single word office, knocked in punctilious fashion and simultaneously ushered in the newcomer.

“Mr. Ferrison, Madam,” he announced. “Says he’s a new boarder. I have left his kit bag in the hall for the moment.”

The room was an epitome of uncouth untidiness and discomfort. Two hard cane chairs were set against the wall and a horsehair couch with a gaping wound in its side stood by the fireplace. Behind a cheap American roll-topped desk sat a woman who, though she lacked every form of feminine allure, seemed still in odd contrast to her unattractive surroundings. She was almost painfully thin—a defect which she accentuated by the plain black dress drawn tightly over her flat bosom. Her dark hair in which, curiously enough, there was not a streak of grey, was brushed severely back from her forehead. Her features were hard but regular, her grey eyes were almost stony in their calm. The sole adornment of her person was a singularly ugly cameo brooch. She looked at her visitor without any gleam of welcome in her face. It seemed impossible to believe, in fact, that her lips had ever been trained to smile. Nevertheless, her voice, when she spoke, startled the young man. He had seen something of several grades of life and he recognised it as what is mysteriously known as the voice of a lady.

“You are Mr. Ferrison, are you not?” she said. “You called last week and I showed you Number Sixteen which I think you agreed to take.”

“That’s right,” he assented. “It was arranged, you remember, that I should try it for a month at thirty-five shillings a week.”

“Including breakfast and dinner,” Mrs. Dewar amplified, “without coffee or any form of drink except water, and the first month to be paid in advance.”

“Quite so,” he agreed. “Here I am and here is the money.”

He produced a somewhat shabby pocketbook, came nearer to the desk and counted out seven limp-looking pound notes. The lady at the desk gathered them in, locked them in a small black cashbox and wrote out a receipt in a firm unhesitating hand. He watched her fingers as they gripped the pen. It seemed to him that they were like the talons of some bird of prey.

“I hope you will be comfortable, Mr. Ferrison,” she said. “We dine at half-past seven. My boarders generally assemble in the lounge, on the right as you came in, for a few minutes first. Apéritifs are supplied there, if you need one, at a low price. Are you in the habit of dressing for dinner?”

“I am afraid not,” Ferrison replied.

“That is of no consequence,” she continued, her tone remaining singularly monotonous. “My boarders do as they please. A place shall be allotted to you in the dining room.”

“If such a thing is possible,” he suggested, “I should like a table to myself. I drink nothing and am generally too tired at the end of the day to want to talk.”

Mrs. Dewar considered the matter.

“There is a small table just inside the door you might have,” she told him. “I will speak to Joseph about it. Joseph is our only manservant. He is not a wonderful waiter, but he is willing. You will just have time to wash your hands and look at your room once more before the gong goes. If your bag is heavy, I am afraid I must ask you to carry it up yourself.”

“I sha’n’t need any service of that sort,” Roger Ferrison assured her. “I have been in the colonies and I am quite used to doing things for myself.”

He left the room with a queer feeling that some one had been dropping cold water down his spine. Outside, Joseph was waiting. He had the air of one who has been listening.

“You will be staying here, sir?” he asked.

“I shall,” the new arrival answered. “You need not worry about my bag. I shall carry it up myself. You won’t find I shall be much trouble to you. I shave in cold water and I shall use the bathroom any time it is vacant after six o’clock.”

Joseph looked at him critically from underneath his bushy dark eyebrows—the most distinguishing feature of his face.

“Seems to me you are planning to be amongst the star boarders, sir,” he remarked.

“I don’t believe in giving trouble if I can help it,” Ferrison smiled.

“There’s one thing I’ve got to show you, sir,” the man confided, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “It’s the only thing the old lady is really cranky about. You see this cloakroom, sir?”

He opened a door by the side of the lounge and displayed a long, narrow cupboard-like apartment. Upon one side of it was a row of hooks, a number painted above each and a slit below for a card. From most of the hooks were suspended keys.

“If you happen to have a card in your pocket, sir,” Joseph suggested, “I would be glad of it.”

“I have only a business card,” Roger Ferrison said, producing one.

“I’ll trim it up, sir, and make it fit,” the man replied. “The Missus will want to see that it’s in its place before she goes to bed to-night. The rule of the house is if you go out after dinner you take your key with you and come in silent. You come right in here and hang your key up. You are not supposed to take it up to your room or anything of that sort. Then, if Madam wants to see whether any of her boarders are out what she considers too late, she can come in here with a candle or a torch and see for herself.”

“Seems an odd idea,” the new boarder commented. “However, I won’t forget. I don’t suppose I shall use my key very often.”

“Them cinemas now,” Joseph observed, “they run away with a lot of money.”

“Quite right,” the young man agreed. “I very seldom go to them, myself. A book from the library and a quiet evening is more my form. I am on my feet most of the daytime.”

The butler glanced curiously at the kit bag.

“Any more luggage, sir?”

“I have a few odds and ends down at my office,” Roger told him. “If I decide to stay here I may bring them up.”

“Well, you may like it and you may not, sir,” Joseph remarked cryptically. “I’ve got to go and brush up now and bring the vermouth before dinner.”

He took his leave. Roger watched him for a moment with a certain degree of interest. There was something curiously inhuman about his appearance, with his thin neck, his heavy eyebrows and exceptionally smooth face, which looked as though he were relieved even from the necessity of using a razor. Roger Ferrison, as he marched up the stairs carrying his bag, decided that the pair of them—his landlady and the butler, the only two he had met of his new associates—were both human beings of an unusual type.