The Romance Of An Ugly Policeman - (2)

The sharp-faced woman was waiting for him at the door. He followed her into the flat.
    'What is it, ma'am?'
    'Theft! Our cook has been stealing!'
    She seemed sufficiently excited about it, but Constable Plimmer felt only depression and disappointment. A stout admirer of the sex, he hated arresting women. Moreover, to a man in the mood to tackle anarchists with bombs, to be confronted with petty theft is galling. But duty was duty. He produced his notebook.
    'She is in her room. I locked her in. I know she has taken my brooch. We have missed money. You must search her.'
    'Can't do that, ma'am. Female searcher at the station.'
    'Well, you can search her box.'
    A little, bald, nervous man in spectacles appeared as if out of a trap. As a matter of fact, he had been there all the time, standing by the bookcase; but he was one of those men you do not notice till they move and speak.
    'Er--Jane.'
    'Well, Henry?'
    The little man seemed to swallow something.
    'I--I think that you may possibly be wronging Ellen. It is just possible, as regards the money--' He smiled in a ghastly manner and turned to the policeman. 'Er--officer, I ought to tell you that my wife--ah--holds the purse-strings of our little home; and it is just possible that in an absent-minded moment I may have--'
    'Do you mean to tell me, Henry, that you have been taking my money?'
    'My dear, it is just possible that in the abs--'
    'How often?'
    He wavered perceptibly. Conscience was beginning to lose its grip.
    'Oh, not often.'
    'How often? More than once?'
    Conscience had shot its bolt. The little man gave up the Struggle.
    'No, no, not more than once. Certainly not more than once.'
    'You ought not to have done it at all. We will talk about that later. It doesn't alter the fact that Ellen is a thief. I have missed money half a dozen times. Besides that, there's the brooch. Step this way, officer.'
    Constable Plimmer stepped that way--his face a mask. He knew who was waiting for them behind the locked door at the end of the passage. But it was his duty to look as if he were stuffed, and he did so.
    *       *       *       *       *
    She was sitting on her bed, dressed for the street. It was her afternoon out, the sharp-faced woman had informed Constable Plimmer, attributing the fact that she had discovered the loss of the brooch in time to stop her a direct interposition of Providence. She was pale, and there was a hunted look in her eyes.
    'You wicked girl, where is my brooch?'
    She held it out without a word. She had been holding it in her hand.
    'You see, officer!'
    'I wasn't stealing of it. I 'adn't but borrowed it. I was going to put it back.'
    'Stuff and nonsense! Borrow it, indeed! What for?'
    'I--I wanted to look nice.'
    The woman gave a short laugh. Constable Plimmer's face was a mere block of wood, expressionless.
    'And what about the money I've been missing? I suppose you'll say you only borrowed that?'
    'I never took no money.'
    'Well, it's gone, and money doesn't go by itself. Take her to the police-station, officer.'
    Constable Plimmer raised heavy eyes.
    'You make a charge, ma'am?'
    'Bless the man! Of course I make a charge. What did you think I asked you to step in for?'
    'Will you come along, miss?' said Constable Plimmer.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Out in the street the sun shone gaily down on peaceful Battersea. It was the hour when children walk abroad with their nurses; and from the green depths of the Park came the sound of happy voices. A cat stretched itself in the sunshine and eyed the two as they passed with lazy content.
    They walked in silence. Constable Plimmer was a man with a rigid sense of what was and what was not fitting behaviour in a policeman on duty: he aimed always at a machine-like impersonality. There were times when it came hard, but he did his best. He strode on, his chin up and his eyes averted. And beside him--
    Well, she was not crying. That was something.
    Round the corner, beautiful in light flannel, gay at both ends with a new straw hat and the yellowest shoes in South-West London, scented, curled, a prince among young men, stood Alf Brooks. He was feeling piqued. When he said three o'clock, he meant three o'clock. It was now three-fifteen, and she had not appeared. Alf Brooks swore an impatient oath, and the thought crossed his mind, as it had sometimes crossed it before, that Ellen Brown was not the only girl in the world.
    'Give her another five min--'
    Ellen Brown, with escort, at that moment turned the corner.
    Rage was the first emotion which the spectacle aroused in Alf Brooks. Girls who kept a fellow waiting about while they fooled around with policemen were no girls for him. They could understand once and for all that he was a man who could pick and choose.
    And then an electric shock set the world dancing mistily before his eyes. This policeman was wearing his belt; he was on duty. And Ellen's face was not the face of a girl strolling with the Force for pleasure.
    His heart stopped, and then began to race. His cheeks flushed a dusky crimson. His jaw fell, and a prickly warmth glowed in the parts about his spine.
    'Goo'!'
    His fingers sought his collar.
    'Crumbs!'
    He was hot all over.
    'Goo' Lor'! She's been pinched!'
    He tugged at his collar. It was choking him.
    Alf Brooks did not show up well in the first real crisis which life had forced upon him. That must be admitted. Later, when it was over, and he had leisure for self-examination, he admitted it to himself. But even then he excused himself by asking Space in a blustering manner what else he could ha' done. And if the question did not bring much balm to his soul at the first time of asking, it proved wonderfully soothing on constant repetition. He repeated it at intervals for the next two days, and by the end of that time his cure was complete. On the third morning his 'Milk--oo--oo' had regained its customary carefree ring, and he was feeling that he had acted in difficult circumstances in the only possible manner.
    Consider. He was Alf Brooks, well known and respected in the neighbourhood; a singer in the choir on Sundays; owner of a milk-walk in the most fashionable part of Battersea; to all practical purposes a public man. Was he to recognize, in broad daylight and in open street, a girl who walked with a policeman because she had to, a malefactor, a girl who had been pinched?
    Ellen, Constable Plimmer woodenly at her side, came towards him. She was ten yards off--seven--five--three--Alf Brooks tilted his hat over his eyes and walked past her, unseeing, a stranger.
    He hurried on. He was conscious of a curious feeling that somebody was just going to kick him, but he dared not look round.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Constable Plimmer eyed the middle distance with an earnest gaze. His face was redder than ever. Beneath his blue tunic strange emotions were at work. Something seemed to be filling his throat. He tried to swallow it.
    He stopped in his stride. The girl glanced up at him in a kind of dull, questioning way. Their eyes met for the first time that afternoon, and it seemed to Constable Plimmer that whatever it was that was interfering with the inside of his throat had grown larger, and more unmanageable.
    There was the misery of the stricken animal in her gaze. He had seen women look like that in Whitechapel. The woman to whom, indirectly, he owed his broken nose had looked like that. As his hand had fallen on the collar of the man who was kicking her to death, he had seen her eyes. They were Ellen's eyes, as she stood there now--tortured, crushed, yet uncomplaining.
    Constable Plimmer looked at Ellen, and Ellen looked at Constable Plimmer. Down the street some children were playing with a dog. In one of the flats a woman began to sing.
    'Hop it,' said Constable Plimmer.
    He spoke gruffly. He found speech difficult.
    The girl started.
    'What say?'
    'Hop it. Get along. Run away.'
    'What do you mean?'
    Constable Plimmer scowled. His face was scarlet. His jaw protruded like a granite break-water.
    'Go on,' he growled. 'Hop it. Tell him it was all a joke. I'll explain at the station.'
    Understanding seemed to come to her slowly.
    'Do you mean I'm to go?'
    'Yes.'
    'What do you mean? You aren't going to take me to the station?'
    'No.'
    She stared at him. Then, suddenly, she broke down,
    'He wouldn't look at me. He was ashamed of me. He pretended not to see me.'
    She leaned against the wall, her back shaking.
    'Well, run after him, and tell him it was all--'
    'No, no, no.'
    Constable Plimmer looked morosely at the side-walk. He kicked it.
    She turned. Her eyes were red, but she was no longer crying. Her chin had a brave tilt.
    'I couldn't--not after what he did. Let's go along. I--I don't care.'
    She looked at him curiously.
    'Were you really going to have let me go?'
    Constable Plimmer nodded. He was aware of her eyes searching his face, but he did not meet them.
    'Why?'
    He did not answer.
    'What would have happened to you, if you had have done?'
    Constable Plimmer's scowl was of the stuff of which nightmares are made. He kicked the unoffending side-walk with an increased viciousness.
    'Dismissed the Force,' he said curtly.
    'And sent to prison, too, I shouldn't wonder.'
    'Maybe.'
    He heard her draw a deep breath, and silence fell upon them again. The dog down the road had stopped barking. The woman in the flat had stopped singing. They were curiously alone.
    'Would you have done all that for me?' she said.
    'Yes.'
    'Why?'
    'Because I don't think you ever did it. Stole that money, I mean. Nor the brooch, neither.'
    'Was that all?'
    'What do you mean--all?'
    'Was that the only reason?'
    He swung round on her, almost threateningly.
    'No,' he said hoarsely. 'No, it wasn't, and you know it wasn't. Well, if you want it, you can have it. It was because I love you. There! Now I've said it, and now you can go on and laugh at me as much as you want.'
    'I'm not laughing,' she said soberly.
    'You think I'm a fool!'
    'No, I don't.'
    'I'm nothing to you. He's the fellow you're stuck on.'
    She gave a little shudder.
    'No.'
    'What do you mean?'
    'I've changed.' She paused. 'I think I shall have changed more by the time I come out.'
    'Come out?'
    'Come out of prison.'
    'You're not going to prison.'
    'Yes, I am.'
    'I won't take you.'
    'Yes, you will. Think I'm going to let you get yourself in trouble like that, to get me out of a fix? Not much.'
    'You hop it, like a good girl.'
    'Not me.'
    He stood looking at her like a puzzled bear.
    'They can't eat me.'
    'They'll cut off all of your hair.'
    'D'you like my hair?'
    'Yes.'
    'Well, it'll grow again.'
    'Don't stand talking. Hop it.'
    'I won't. Where's the station?'
    'Next street.'
    'Well, come along, then.'
    *       *       *       *       *
    The blue glass lamp of the police-station came into sight, and for an instant she stopped. Then she was walking on again, her chin tilted. But her voice shook a little as she spoke.
    'Nearly there. Next stop, Battersea. All change! I say, mister--I don't know your name.'
    'Plimmer's my name, miss. Edward Plimmer.'
    'I wonder if--I mean it'll be pretty lonely where I'm going--I wonder if--What I mean is, it would be rather a lark, when I come out, if I was to find a pal waiting for me to say "Hallo".'
    Constable Plimmer braced his ample feet against the stones, and turned purple.
    'Miss,' he said, 'I'll be there, if I have to sit up all night. The first thing you'll see when they open the doors is a great, ugly, red-faced copper with big feet and a broken nose. And if you'll say "Hallo" to him when he says "Hallo" to you, he'll be as pleased as Punch and as proud as a duke. And, miss'--he clenched his hands till the nails hurt the leathern flesh--'and, miss, there's just one thing more I'd like to say. You'll be having a good deal of time to yourself for awhile; you'll be able to do a good bit of thinking without anyone to disturb you; and what I'd like you to give your mind to, if you don't object, is just to think whether you can't forget that narrow-chested, God-forsaken blighter who treated you so mean, and get half-way fond of someone who knows jolly well you're the only girl there is.'
    She looked past him at the lamp which hung, blue and forbidding, over the station door.
    'How long'll I get?' she said. 'What will they give me? Thirty days?'
    He nodded.
    'It won't take me as long as that,' she said. 'I say, what do people call you?--people who are fond of you, I mean?--Eddie or Ted?'