Here Lies Gloria Mundy

1

A Case in the Papers

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At school I always insisted that my first name was Colin. This is an acceptable name among boys. My baptismal name of Corin is not, although why this should be I don’t know. Can one consonant make such a difference?

The trouble is that I have a twin sister whom my father was determined should be christened Corinna. My mother wanted her called Oenone, so, to settle the matter, they agreed upon Corin and Corinna, much to my youthful discomfiture. Talk about ‘Hello, twins!’

When I got to university, however, I realised that it was no bad thing to have a name which, so far as I know, has nothing but literary connections, so I reverted to Corin and have become, in a modest way, part of the contemporary scribal scene. That is to say, I earn my living as a writer under the name of Corin Stratford. Stratford is not my patronymic, but nowadays most people use it, as I have made it clear that it is in my professional interests that my name should be publicised as much as possible.

I was determined not to tie myself down to a nine-to-five job, but neither was I prepared to do a Mr Micawber and wait for something to turn up. My father was willing to continue my small allowance — as much as he could possibly afford — for a couple of years after I left college, but after that I had to fend for myself. Fair enough, I thought. I had faith in myself and decided to make my name the appendage to a modicum of fame even if I starved while this was happening.

‘Does the road wind uphill all the way?’ asked Christina Rossetti. Well, it certainly did for me, but, after a hard slog, the way up has eased to a gentle gradient and at the beginning of this year I found myself, if not affluent, at least able to afford a small flat in Baker Street instead of being in digs, and to take a holiday when and where I chose.

I had been in the flat for only a fortnight when I read about the murder of a young woman who had been living in one room in the neighbourhood of Earls Court.

I had done some freelance work for Dawn Chorus, the paper which carried the fullest coverage of the murder, so I telephoned and was told (as I had expected) that the story was being covered by the paper’s own reporters. However, I was also told when and where the inquest was to be held, and I decided to attend it, since it seemed to me, judging by the account given in the papers, that, after a lapse of time and some artful manipulation of the facts, a lucrative bit of fiction might evolve. It was a long-term proposition, but I am a patient man and so much inured to delays, frustrations and disappointments that I have become something of a philosopher and content to bide my time.

The coroner’s court was full, for any chance of obtaining free entertainment is not to be missed. I managed to get a seat next to one of the Dawn Chorus reporters just before the coroner got to work. Compared with the luridly written-up account of the murder in the newspaper, however, the proceedings were colourless and dull. Evidence of identity and the medical evidence were dealt with and the police then asked for an adjournment.

Assisted far more by the account in Dawn Chorus than by the court proceedings, I roughed out a story as soon as I got back to my flat after a pub lunch in the Earls Court Road, and then I put my notes aside to ferment and then mature.

The story was commonplace enough. The murdered woman had spent some time in America, according to the sleazy old party who gave evidence of identity, and had been lodging in London for a matter of six years. During that time she had had visitors of both sexes, some of whom claimed to be relatives, although the landlady did not believe this.

The landlady had no rules against visitors. (This I got from the newspaper. It was not mentioned at the inquest.) They were, according to her, all of them respectable people, quiet, well-behaved, never stopping more than a couple of hours and certainly never staying the night. The reporter who recorded this had managed, with cunning skill, to query most of it without actually appearing to cast doubt on the landlady’s assertions. I am sure he was worth his pay. I knew his work, and admired it, although I could not have emulated it. Suffice to say that, however close to the wind his paper sailed, so far it had never been involved in an action for libel, although there were rumours of sums having exchanged hands out of court.

When I learned that the murdered girl had had a baby with her when she arrived and that the child had been taken into care only after the death of the mother, I discounted the Dawn Chorus innuendoes. Ladies of doubtful virtue do not discourage their clients by having to get up in the night to soothe or feed an infant, nor do they want a six-year-old sharing the bedroom. Also, as the reporter, to his credit, did not fail to point out, the child had never been neglected or ill-treated.

One item which the newspaper had got hold of was that the girl was on her way to find out more about a situation as chambermaid in a hotel near Brighton when she met death. How she had come to hear of the post remained a mystery. The landlady thought she had heard of it through a friend, not by reading an advertisement, but there was no proof of this, or of who the friend might be.

From that journey she never came back. When she did not return, the landlady took it for granted that she had been given the job and had begun work, but after a day or two, during which the girl had not come for the child, the landlady began to wonder, especially as one or two people came to enquire after the girl and she could tell them nothing. Then a young reporter somehow got hold of the landlady’s story and asked for the address of the hotel, but all that she could supply was its name. He went to the police. He knew the London to Brighton roads very well, he told them, but had never seen a hotel, pub or roadhouse with the name the landlady had given him.

A few days later the body was found washed up near Hastings. It had not drowned; there were no signs of sexual assault; death had resulted from stab wounds, one of which had penetrated the heart.

The police began their usual painstaking work and the papers soon dropped the case. Shorn of any salacious details, it made dull reading after its first impact. I myself was somewhat disappointed in it as it stood, but I set aside my notes again, with the reflection gained from Rabindranath Tagore that ‘Truth in her dress finds facts too tight. In fiction she moves with ease.’

I never wrote the story because, merely through a chance meeting with a friend I had not seen for years, I was caught up in a far better one. All the same, I did go to see the landlady.

‘You’ll have to pay me for my time and trouble,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of giving you lot something for nothing. Show me a couple of quid and I’ll show you her room, what I have not yet let, and I’ll answer your questions up to a quarter of an hour, my time being money.’

‘I’ll skip the bedroom,’ I said. ‘That ought to be worth at least another five minutes of your time.’ I gave her one pound and showed her the other, to be handed to her when our conversation was finished.

‘You might as well be one of them mean-fisted coppers,’ she grumbled; but she answered my questions and received her money well within the agreed time.

‘You say she was after a job in a hotel. Did she have a job before that?’

‘Bits of charring. I reckon, though, as she got bits of money from America, where she come from.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘She got letters regular with postal orders in ’em.’

‘How do you know that they came from America?’

‘I don’t know it. She always got to the front door before I did, to pick up the post.’

‘If you know the letters contained postal orders, I still wonder what makes you think they came from the United States. Dollar bills or something in the nature of a cheque would be more likely.’

‘That ’ud mean a bank. She never went to no bank, only to the post office.’

‘You followed her, then?’

‘No. I wanted to buy a stamp for me own letter to my boy what’s serving the Queen in Germany, didn’t I?’

‘Did she ever stay out at nights?’

‘She’d have been out of here P D Q if she had. This is a respectable house I’d have you to know.’

So that was that, and my notes remained unused.