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Authors: Susanna Kearsley
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they might be of some help, if they’re still living. That can be something of a problem, when you get to Uncle Andrew’s age,’ he told me. ‘Finding people still alive. It’s like that poem by Kingsley, do you know the one I mean? “Young and Old”, I think it’s called. “When all the world is young, lad”, that’s how it begins, and how one ought to travel, have adventures, fall in love, and then it finishes quite touchingly:
‘When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down,
Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young.’
He pondered this a moment, while he finished off his drink. ‘I suppose that’s why my uncle came to live in Elderwel again, when he was done with dealing art and all his travelling. My mother was there, and myself. Although,’ he said, with faint regret, ‘the face he’d loved the most when he was young, I should imagine, would have been his wife’s. He wrote a fair bit about her in his letters to Mother.’
I looked at the envelope of letters again, and he said, ‘Those were the ones that I could find straight off; there may be more that I can let you have.’
I realised he assumed that I was taking on the story, and before I could think of a nice way to let him down gently, he said: ‘I’ll be going through my uncle’s things this next while, clearing out the house before it’s sold. If I do come across a copy of his report, shall I send it to you here, or shall I wait till you come down?’
I didn’t need more work, I thought. I had more than enough on my plate as it was, without chasing cold leads on an uncertain story that might, in the end, not be worth half the effort. But I looked at his face, at the pale blue eyes that yesterday had been so cold, and now were so expectant. And I couldn’t tell him no. It wouldn’t cost me anything to let him send the damned report, I told myself. I didn’t have to read it. ‘I’m only here till Tuesday morning,’ I relented. ‘So I likely won’t have time to make another trip to Elderwel. But if you do find something, you can always send it on to me in Canada. I’ll give you my address.’ Tearing a sheet from my notebook I wrote the address of my grandmother’s house in Toronto.
He took it, and thanked me. We stood.
We said our goodbyes in the lobby. I could have gone up to my room straight away but I stayed there to watch him walk out through the great glass revolving doors. Not that I really expected that lightning would strike twice, but after all, this was the second time a member of his family had journeyed up to London just to talk to me, and I wanted to be absolutely certain this one got away all right.
He did. There were cabs in a queue at the front of the hotel, and he got into one. I wondered if he’d taken a hotel room for himself somewhere, or if he would be going back tonight, by train. It must have been a nuisance for him, coming all this way and waiting round so long to see me. I decided that he must have loved his uncle very much, to make the effort.
I was thinking this, and walking slowly back towards the elevator, when someone who’d been sitting on a lobby sofa rose to block my way. A small man, slightly built, with a receding hairline over sharp dark eyes.
‘Miss Murray? I was wondering if I might have a word.’
M ONDAY, S EPTEMBER 18
My temper had calmed by the following morning, but the whole thing still seemed so unlikely, to me, so surreal – this stranger drawing me aside to have a seat with him among the hotel lobby’s potted palms, his patronising voice pitched low enough so people wouldn’t overhear.
He’d shown me his credentials: Sergeant Robert Metcalf, Scotland Yard. He had been very to the point. ‘I believe you are acquainted with a Mr Andrew Deacon,’ he had told me, ‘and that Mr Deacon
‘When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down,
Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young.’
He pondered this a moment, while he finished off his drink. ‘I suppose that’s why my uncle came to live in Elderwel again, when he was done with dealing art and all his travelling. My mother was there, and myself. Although,’ he said, with faint regret, ‘the face he’d loved the most when he was young, I should imagine, would have been his wife’s. He wrote a fair bit about her in his letters to Mother.’
I looked at the envelope of letters again, and he said, ‘Those were the ones that I could find straight off; there may be more that I can let you have.’
I realised he assumed that I was taking on the story, and before I could think of a nice way to let him down gently, he said: ‘I’ll be going through my uncle’s things this next while, clearing out the house before it’s sold. If I do come across a copy of his report, shall I send it to you here, or shall I wait till you come down?’
I didn’t need more work, I thought. I had more than enough on my plate as it was, without chasing cold leads on an uncertain story that might, in the end, not be worth half the effort. But I looked at his face, at the pale blue eyes that yesterday had been so cold, and now were so expectant. And I couldn’t tell him no. It wouldn’t cost me anything to let him send the damned report, I told myself. I didn’t have to read it. ‘I’m only here till Tuesday morning,’ I relented. ‘So I likely won’t have time to make another trip to Elderwel. But if you do find something, you can always send it on to me in Canada. I’ll give you my address.’ Tearing a sheet from my notebook I wrote the address of my grandmother’s house in Toronto.
He took it, and thanked me. We stood.
We said our goodbyes in the lobby. I could have gone up to my room straight away but I stayed there to watch him walk out through the great glass revolving doors. Not that I really expected that lightning would strike twice, but after all, this was the second time a member of his family had journeyed up to London just to talk to me, and I wanted to be absolutely certain this one got away all right.
He did. There were cabs in a queue at the front of the hotel, and he got into one. I wondered if he’d taken a hotel room for himself somewhere, or if he would be going back tonight, by train. It must have been a nuisance for him, coming all this way and waiting round so long to see me. I decided that he must have loved his uncle very much, to make the effort.
I was thinking this, and walking slowly back towards the elevator, when someone who’d been sitting on a lobby sofa rose to block my way. A small man, slightly built, with a receding hairline over sharp dark eyes.
‘Miss Murray? I was wondering if I might have a word.’
M ONDAY, S EPTEMBER 18
My temper had calmed by the following morning, but the whole thing still seemed so unlikely, to me, so surreal – this stranger drawing me aside to have a seat with him among the hotel lobby’s potted palms, his patronising voice pitched low enough so people wouldn’t overhear.
He’d shown me his credentials: Sergeant Robert Metcalf, Scotland Yard. He had been very to the point. ‘I believe you are acquainted with a Mr Andrew Deacon,’ he had told me, ‘and that Mr Deacon
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