“I’ll get the keys.”
There was a short delay. Then the old man returned.
“It’ll be a month in advance,” he said, a hitter, injured note in his voice. “I’ve ’ad enough of fly-by-nights. If yet want the place, it’ll be a month in advance.”
“Had trouble with the previous tenants?” George asked, taking the keys.
“Done a flit,” the old man said, and spat in the road. “Might ’ave known no good would ’ave come from those two. Wot ’e did for a living I never did find out, and she… My misses said she took men up there, but seeing’s believing. If I’d caught ’er at it, I’d ’ve ’ad ’er out, but I never did. I wish I’d got rid of ’em before.”
George nodded, and turned to the door. “Don’t bother to come up,” he said. “I’ll have a look round and then talk it over with you.”
The old man grunted. “I ain’t coming up,” he assured him. “Can’t manage them stairs. You’ll find the place in a mess. The misses’ been cleaning it up, but it ain’t quite finished. The way those two lived… like pigs.”
George’s heart was thumping as he sank the key into the lock. He pushed open the front door and entered the tiny hall. The flat had obviously been cleaned, but there was still a faint smell of sandalwood in the air. It affected George. He felt alone, miserable.
He went into the sitting-room. Now that the curtains had been washed, the carpet swept and surrounds scrubbed, it looked quite a homely little place. He went through the drawers, looked into the empty waste-paper basket, and the cupboard, but he found nothing He went into Sydney’s bedroom. He found nothing there, nor did the kitchen reveal anything. He purposely left Cora’s room to the last. When he opened the door, a vein in his temple began to pound. The room had not been touched. He could tell that by the dust on the mantelpiece, the rubbish piled in the grate, and the soiled towel with a trace of lipstick that hung over the back of the chair
He entered the room and closed the door. He remained still for a few minutes, trying to sort out the various odours that hung in the stale, stuffy atmosphere. There was sandalwood and tobacco smoke, stale perspiration and dirt. There was an elusive smell which, although scarcely perceptible, excited him It was Cora’s own intimate smell—a heady, slight smell, feminine, yet fleshly.