CHAPTER X
Lalage Penrose's flat was on the second floor of a small block of flats in a narrow and grimy street. Opposite the main entrance was a fried fish shop, and next door to that a coal and greengrocery stores, with the latest price per hundredweight of what were untruthfully called the "Best Household Coals" displayed in huge numerals on each of the windows. Unwashed children from the uncleanly houses which made up the rest of the street seemed to spend the whole day, and half the night, dancing to barrel organs. Garbage and paper littered the roadway, except where there was sufficient slimy black mud to cover these; but, on the other hand, there was a large and gaudy public house at the corner, opposite a similar block of flats, and a cab rank just down the side turning.
Lalage's flat consisted of three very small rooms, for which she paid fifty pounds a year. "Inclusive of rates," the agent had said; but, as the landlord himself was on the Borough Council, his assessment was, of course, not unduly high. By trade, the owner was a butcher in Maida Vale, though his friends in Tooting did not know that; moreover, besides being a councillor, he was a German by extraction; consequently, with these two qualifications, it was quite natural that he should own flats of that kind. In Capetown, where men are crude or brutal in their ways, a judge and jury between them would probably have assessed his merits at fifty lashes and two years' hard labour; in London, on the other hand, not only was his person sacred and his property safe from police raids, but he also had reasonable grounds for expecting to be mayor in due course—which often meant a knighthood—whilst even the greatest prize of all, the chairmanship of the new Electricity Committee, a body having the giving of six-figure contracts, was not beyond his grasp. He was quite a personage in the municipal life of West London, as well as in the social life of Tooting, and, being a married man with a family, he treated his tenants with righteous severity, distraining on the slightest excuse when he suspected they possessed anything of value, knowing well that his victims would not dare seek redress in the Courts.
It was four o'clock exactly when Jimmy knocked at the door of the flat, which was opened by Lalage herself. "I've no servant," she explained, "only a woman who comes in once or twice a week." Then she led the way into the tiny slip of a sitting-room, where she had tea laid out. "I'm glad you've come," she added, "I was half afraid you wouldn't."
"Why?" he asked with a smile.
She looked at him seriously, her head a little on one side, as though she were trying to read his character. "You seemed shy, different from most men. Are you an Englishman?"
He nodded, and gave her a brief sketch of who he was. She listened with evident interest. "It must be splendid to travel and see things. I have always longed to, at least I did once, but now——" She broke off with a hopeless little sigh, and got up abruptly. "I'll fetch the tea now."
The tea things, like everything else in the place, were of the simplest, cheapest kind, yet as tasteful as was possible considering their price; but, on the other hand, the tea itself was good, and there was a plate of daintily-cut bread and butter and another of sandwiches.
"I was so glad of that tea yesterday." Lalage looked up suddenly. "I hadn't had anything since some bread and milk at breakfast time, and that horrible black man made me feel quite shaky."