Hasty Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

grinned. ‘It’s a long story.’
    ‘Tell you what,’ said Billy. ‘I got this little flat at the top of the theatre. I’m not on till this evening. Let’s you and me go up there and have a glass of hot
gin.’
    Daisy hesitated only a moment. Telling herself that she’d never had any trouble from Billy before, she let him lead her round the side, through the stage door and up through the inner
recesses of the theatre.
    She could hear someone on stage singing ‘When Father Papered the Parlour’ and the audience joining in the chorus.
    Slapping it here, slapping it there, paste and paper everywhere,
    Mother was stuck to the ceiling, the kids were stuck to the floor.
    I’ve never seen such a bloomin’ family so stuck up before!
    ‘Here we are,’ said Billy, panting a little as he came to a halt before a door at the top. He swung it open and ushered Daisy in.
    She found herself in a frowsty little room. There was a bed against one wall with the blankets spilling over onto the floor. A table against the window was covered with the remains of breakfast.
It was flanked by two kitchen chairs and a dead aspidistra in a brass bowl on the window-ledge. The walls were covered in music-hall posters.
    Billy cleared the table by lifting up the four corners of the cloth, bundling everything up and putting it in a corner. There was a coal fire spilling ash onto the grate. ‘Soon get a fire
going.’ Billy raked out the ashes, giving Daisy a view of his large plaid-covered backside. Billy was a thickset middle-aged man with a large walrus moustache. His hair was dyed black and his
face was red from too much drinking.
    When the fire was lit, he thrust a kettle full of water on it, and then opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of gin and two glasses.
    ‘We’ll have some hot water for the gin in a trice,’ said Billy. ‘Now, let me look at you. What you been and gone and done to yourself?’
    He was a good listener. Daisy would not confess to herself that she still found Rose’s company rather intimidating. The class lines were strictly drawn. To want to move out of your station
was flying in the face of Providence. Everyone knew that God put you in your appointed station.
    So it was a relief to be back with what she naïvely thought of as ‘her own kind’. Mellowed by hot gin – several glasses of it – she told Billy everything, only
forgetting to say that Rose’s parents had gone abroad.
    ‘So this earl’s daughter’s living in this hostel! Where did you say it was?’
    ‘It’s at Number Twenty-two Bryant Court in Bloomsbury. Fact is, I’m amazed she can stand it after all she’s been used to.’
    ‘Here, have another gin.’
    ‘Shouldn’t really. Still, it’s a cold day.’
    ‘Run out o’ gin. Be back in a mo’.’
    Billy raced down the stairs and round to the pub with the empty bottle, which he got filled with gin. Then he went into the chemist’s next door to it and bought a bottle of laudanum. His
brain was racing. Here was his passport to freedom. No more shows, day in and day out. He was getting on in life.
    That evening, Rose was feeling tired. She was also hungry, but there was no sign of Daisy and she wondered whether she should start eating without her.
    At nine o’ clock, there was a knock on her door. Rose opened it. Miss Harringey stood there. ‘There is a person downstairs to see you.’
    Rose arched her eyebrows. ‘I do not see persons, Miss Harringey. What does he want?’
    ‘I do not approve of gentlemen callers. Would you be so good as to descend and send him on his way.’
    Rose followed her down the stairs. ‘He is in my sanctum,’ said Miss Harringey, throwing open the door.
    Rose stared at Billy, from his dyed greased hair down over his plaid suit with the brown velvet lapels to his brown boots, and then her eyes travelled back up again to his face.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I am Mr Billy Gardon. You may have heard of me.’
    ‘No. State your business.’
    ‘It’s a