The Daffodil Affair Read Free Page B

have been possible – to see at a single glance all that was to be seen, for clearly in this one room consisted all the territory that the Rideouts, mother and daughter, enjoyed. It was long, narrow and of considerable size, lit by a filter of light from windows which hovered uncertainly near the ceiling; there was a bed at each extreme end, and a table and arrangements for cooking near the middle. There was little that was remarkable in this. But Hudspith, if unaware of his own habitual surroundings, had a trained eye for domestic interiors, and that eye became positively hawk-like when scrutinizing the late environment of levanting or abducted girls. Here there looked to be plenty of evidence. The influence of Lucy Rideout was dominant in the room. Her handwriting, as it were, was not only decisive at her own end; it declared itself unmistakably far beyond any fair line of demarcation, so that one immediately discerned Mrs Rideout’s kingdom as a sort of beleaguered fortress within ever-contracting lines. Only here and there was evidence of a species of cautious sortie undertaken, no doubt, since the daughter’s departure; a pair of elastic-sided boots had found their way to the foot of Lucy’s bed; a small empty bottle of the kind in which ladies are accustomed to keep gin stood on what had served her as a dressing-table; hard by this lay a journal devoted to the celebration of the Christian Hearth and Home. All this was immediately decipherable. But there remained an element of puzzle which Hudspith at a rapid inspection was unable to resolve. And now Mrs Toomer, exalted by the fact of arriving virtually on the arm of Scotland Yard, was contriving introductions to the assembled company. ‘Mrs Rideout,’ she said, ‘this is the police.’
    Mrs Rideout was not much over forty and belonged to the inefficient type that contrives to get through life by the aid of a sort of massive unfocussed vehemence. She set down a teacup and looked from Mrs Toomer to Hudspith. ‘That’s right,’ she said, largely and vaguely. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She exuded that repetitive and dazed acquiescence that makes so considerable a part of the social communion of the folk. ‘And I’m sure they ought to do something.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Toomer – and two stout women who flanked Mrs Rideout nodded heads and bosoms in agreement. Human speech is at bottom no more than the individual’s demand for reassurance in a lonely world; the sophisticated contrive to extract comforting intimations of solidarity from disagreement, controversy and repartee; the uninstructed prefer much simpler forms of mutual support. When the ritual is in course of celebration – at such a party as was now gathered at Mrs Rideout’s – it is a solecism to break the grand affirmative flow of things. And indeed we none of us particularly care for the man who qualifies our suggestion that it is a fine day, or that it looks like rain, or that it is nice to see a little bit of sunshine.
    All this the much-practised Hudspith knew. He nodded his head ponderously. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘something ought to be done. And I’m here to do it.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said one of the stout women. ‘That’s what I say.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said the other stout woman.
    Mrs Rideout turned in triumph to Mrs Toomer. ‘That’s what Mrs Thorr and Mrs Fiddock say,’ she said.
    Mrs Toomer, who had turned her head in quest of the teapot, nodded skilfully backwards. ‘That’s right,’ she agreed.
    ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Fiddock and Mrs Thorr.
    Hudspith cleared his throat, preparing cautiously to intrude upon the spell. ‘Acting,’ he said, ‘on instructions received–’ The ladies all laid down their teacups, instantly impressed by this wisp of official eloquence. Hudspith slowly produced a notebook. The investigation was launched.
    Mrs Rideout called God to witness that she had been a good mother. Mrs Thorr, Mrs Toomer and Mrs Fiddock