Black Ship Read Free Page A

master, madam. A foreigner. On business, he says. I told him Mr. Jessup don’t do business at home, but he said the master wouldn’t take kindly to him turning up at the shop, and it’s not my place, ’m, to tell him the master’s gone abroad. So!”
    Mrs. Jessup looked dismayed, even alarmed. “Didn’t he give his name, Enid?”
    “No’m. I ast for his card, but he didn’t have one. He’s a foreigner.” In the maid’s eyes, this fact clearly explained any and all peculiarities of conduct.
    “I suppose I’d better speak to him. Please excuse me, Mrs. Fletcher.” She stood up.
    Daisy also rose. Her curiosity aroused, she had to force herself to obey the dictates of manners. “I really must be off,” she said. “Thank you so much for tea. I’m looking forward to our being neighbours.”
    Mrs. Jessup went out. Daisy stayed chatting to Audrey for a few minutes before going into the hall, where the maid waited to usher her out.
    A door towards the front of the hall was slightly ajar. Stopping at the looking glass hanging over the hall table to straighten her hat and powder her nose, Daisy heard a man’s voice. He spoke too low to make out his words, but something about the intonation sounded to her distinctly American, rather than any more exotic incarnation of English. On the other hand, Mrs. Jessup’s voice, when she spoke, was unmistakably Irish. That brogue was what she had caught a hint of earlier, Daisy realised.
    “As it happens,” Mrs. Jessup said coldly, “my husband is travelling on the Continent. He moves about a great deal from country to country—France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, even Germany. I have no way to get in touch.”
    The visitor’s voice rose. “Aw, don’t give me that, lady! You must know when you’re expecting him home at least.”
    “I don’t. His plans often change, so he sends a telegram when he’s on his way home.”
    “OK, if you say so.” He sounded disgruntled, almost threatening. “But you better tell him I came looking for him, and tell him I’ll be back.”
    The door swung open. A short, wiry man in a blue suit strode out into the hall. In passing, his dark eyes gave Daisy a sidelong glance. Something about it made her shiver. She glimpsed black slicked-back hair before he clapped a grey-blue fedora on his head, pulling it well down over his swarthy face. A black-avised devil—the phrase surfaced from somewhere in the depths of Daisy’s memory.
    He reached the front door before the maid could open it for him. Letting himself out, he failed to shut it behind him. He ran down the steps and walked quickly away around Constable Circle.
    “Well, I never!” the maid exclaimed. “Manners!”
    “Born in a barn,” Daisy agreed with a friendly smile. “I take it he’s not a frequent visitor?”
    “Never set eyes on him before, madam, and I’m sure I hope I never do again. We get plenty of foreign visitors, the family being in the importing business, but most of ’em are polite as you please, in their foreign sort of way. Begging your pardon, ’m, but is it right what I heard, that you’re taking the house next door? If you was to be wanting a parlour maid, my sister’s looking for a new situation….”
    Daisy promised to let her know as soon as their plans were certain. Down the steps she went and started across the street, intending to cross the garden by the path.
    “Excuse me, madam!” A man came towards her, hurrying up the path. Well dressed in an unobtrusive dark grey suit and carrying a tightly rolled umbrella, he looked very respectable, a banker perhaps, in no way an alarming figure.
    Daisy paused. The man came closer, raising his hat politely. He was quite young, early thirties at a guess, though his dark hair was already greying a little at the temples.
    “I beg your pardon for accosting you, ma’am. I saw you come out of my house. I’m Aidan Jessup.”
    The staid, sensible older son? Lucy’s Gerald would have let himself be boiled in oil