Mr. Pinkerton at the Old Angel

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Zenith Brown. Mr. Pinkerton at the Old Angel

MR. PINKERTON. AT THE OLD ANGEL

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By DAVID FROME

The little grey man standing by the south window of his room in the Old Angel dropped the casement curtains from his agitated fingers without turning round, and blinked his watery grey eyes behind their steel-rimmed spectacles. It was not the idea of blood, so much, for he had got definitely used to that, during his long association with his late wife’s number one lodger, Inspector J. Humphrey Bull of New Scotland Yard. It was rather more the idea of the steep, dismal and rainy streets of the little town of Rye being called sunny. Above all it was the sudden appearance of Mrs. Humpage herself, for Mr. Evan Pinkerton had somehow thought he had locked his door. He swallowed, moistened his dry lips, and turned round.

.....

“And is he? . . .” Mr. Pinkerton began, tentatively. He straightened his lozenge-shaped steel-rimmed spectacles nervously. He didn’t want Mrs. Humpage to think he was curious, precisely. Nevertheless. . . . Fortunately Mrs. Humpage was a woman who only wanted a conversational inch promptly to take an ell.

“Indeed, sir, you know what young men are these days.” A certain righteous indignation appeared in her tones. “She’s got him wound round her finger. He’s been coming down here all summer and autumn, sitting in there, sending first Jo and then Kathleen with notes, and her pretending she won’t see him.”

.....