“Nothing but this murdering business in the papers nowadays,” she said as she glanced at the headlines before putting it back on the table. “Gives me the creeps, it does. I don’t read it. It’s like Jack the Ripper all over again.”
Mr. Cust’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.
“Doncaster—that’s the place he’s going to do his next murder,” said Mrs. Marbury. “And tomorrow! Fairly makes your flesh creep, doesn’t it? If I lived in Doncaster and my name began with a D, I’d take the first train away, that I would. I’d run no risks. What did you say, Mr. Cust?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Marbury—nothing.”
“It’s the races and all. No doubt he thinks he’ll get his opportunity there. Hundreds of police, they say, they’re drafting in and—Why, Mr. Cust, you do look bad. Hadn’t you better have a little drop of something? Really, now, you oughtn’t to go travelling today.”
Mr. Cust drew himself up.
“It is necessary, Mrs. Marbury. I have always been punctual in my—engagements. People must have—must have confidence in you! When I have undertaken to do a thing, I carry it through. It is the only way to get on in—in—business.”
“But if you’re ill?”
“I am not ill, Mrs. Marbury. Just a little worried over—various personal matters. I slept badly. I am really quite all right.”
His manner was so firm that Mrs. Marbury gathered up the breakfast things and reluctantly left the room.
Mr. Cust dragged out a suitcase from under the bed and began to pack. Pyjamas, sponge bag, spare collar, leather slippers. Then unlocking a cupboard, he transferred a dozen or so flattish cardboard boxes about ten inches by seven from a shelf to the suitcase.
He just glanced at the railway guide on the table and then left the room, suitcase in hand.
Setting it down in the hall, he put on his hat and overcoat. As he did so he sighed deeply, so deeply that the girl who came out from a room at the side looked at him in concern.
“Anything the matter, Mr. Cust?”
“Nothing, Miss Lily.”
“You were sighing so!”
Mr. Cust said abruptly:
“Are you at all subject to premonitions, Miss Lily? To presentiments?”
“Well, I don’t know that I am, really…Of course, there are days when you just feel everything’s going wrong, and days when you feel everything’s going right.”
“Quite,” said Mr. Cust.
He sighed again.
“Well, goodbye, Miss Lily. Goodbye. I’m sure you’ve been very kind to me always here.”
“Well, don’t say goodbye as though you were going away for ever,” laughed Lily.
“No, no, of course not.”
“See you Friday,” laughed the girl. “Where are you going this time? Seaside again.”
“No, no—er—Cheltenham.”
“Well, that’s nice, too. But not quite as nice as Torquay. That must have been lovely. I want to go there for my holiday next year. By the way, you must have been quite near where the murder was—the A B C murder. It happened while you were down there, didn’t it?”
“Er—yes. But Churston’s six or seven miles away.”
“All the same, it must have been exciting! Why, you may have passed the murderer in the street! You may have been quite near to him!”
“Yes, I may, of course,” said Mr. Cust with such a ghastly and contorted smile that Lily Marbury noticed it.