still have your mother’s ashes?”
“Of course.”
“Because they want to see them. They may even want to analyse them.”
“But Aunt Augusta… you must tell me exactly what happened.”
“I am trying to, but you continually interrupt with unhelpful exclamations. It was midnight and Wordsworth and I had gone to bed. Luckily I was wearing my best nightdress. They rang the bell down below and told us through the microphone that they were police officers and had a warrant to search the flat. ‘What for?’ I asked. Do you know, for a moment I thought it might be something racial. There are so many rules now for races and against races that you don’t know where you stand.”
“Are you sure they were police officers?”
“Of course, I asked to see their warrant, but do you know what a warrant looks like? For all I know it might have been a reader’s ticket to the British Museum library. I let them in, though, because they were polite, and one of them, the one in uniform, was tall and good-looking. They were rather surprised by Wordsworth – or perhaps it was the colour of his pyjamas. They said, ‘Is this your husband, ma’am?’ I said, ‘No, this is Wordsworth.’ The name seemed to ring a bell[34] with one of them – the young man in uniform – who kept on glancing at him surreptitiously, as though he were trying to remember.”
“But what were they looking for?”
“They said they had reliable information that drugs were kept on the premises.”
“Oh, Aunt Augusta, you don’t think Wordsworth…”
“Of course not. They took away all the fluff from the seams of his pockets, and then the truth came out. They asked him what was in the brown-paper package which he was seen handing to a man who had been loitering in the street. Poor Wordsworth said he didn’t know, so I chipped in and said it was my sister’s ashes. I don’t know why, but they became suspicious of me at once. The elder, who was in plain clothes[35], said, ‘Please don’t be flippant, ma’am. It doesn’t exactly help.’ I said, ‘As far as my sense of humour goes, there is nothing whatever flippant in my dead sister’s ashes.’ ‘A sort of powder, ma’am?’ the younger policeman asked – he was the sharper of the two, the one who thought he knew the name of Wordsworth. ‘You can call it that if you like,’ I said, ‘grey powder, human powder,’ and they looked as though they had won a point. ‘And who was the man who received this powder?’ the man in plain clothes asked. ‘My nephew,’ I said. ‘My sister’s son.’ I saw no reason to go into that old story which I told you yesterday with members of the Metropolitan Police. Then they asked for your address and I gave it to them. The sharp one said, ‘Was the powder for his private use?’ ‘He wants to put it amongst his dahlias,’ I said. They made a very thorough search, especially in Wordsworth’s room, and they took away samples of all the cigarettes they could find, and some aspirins I had left in a cachet box. Then they said, ‘Good night, ma’am,’ very politely and left. Wordsworth had to go downstairs and open the door for them, and just before he left the sharp one said to him, ‘What’s your first name?’ ‘Zachary,’ Wordsworth told him and he went out looking puzzled.”
“What a very strange thing to have happened,” I said.
“They even read some letters and asked who Abdul was.”
“Who was he?”
“Someone I knew a very long time ago. Luckily I had kept the envelope and it was marked Tunis, February, 1924. Otherwise they would have read all sorts of things into it about the present.”
“I am sorry, Aunt Augusta. It must have been a terrifying experience.”
“It was amusing in a way. But it did give me a guilty feeling…”
There was a ring from the front door and I said, “Hold on a moment, Aunt Augusta.” I looked through the dining-room window and saw a policeman’s helmet. I returned and said, “Your friends are here.”
“Already?”
“I’ll ring you back when they’ve gone.”
It was the first time I had ever been called on by the police. There was a short middle-aged man in a soft hat with a rough but kindly face and a broken nose and the tall good-looking young man in uniform.
“Mr. Pulling?” the detective asked.
“Yes.”
“May we come in for a few moments?”
“Have you a warrant?” I asked.
“Oh no, no, it hasn’t come to that. We just want to have a word or two with you.”
I wanted to say something about the Gestapo, but I thought it wiser not. I led them into the dining-room, but I didn’t ask them to sit down. The detective showed me an identity card and I read on it that he was Detective-Sergeant Sparrow, John.
“You know a man called Wordsworth, Mr. Pulling?”
“Yes, he’s a friend of my aunt’s.”
“Did you receive a package from him in the street yesterday?”
“I certainly did.”
“Would you have any objection to our examining the package, Mr. Pulling?”
“I most certainly would.”
“You know, sir, we could easily have obtained a search warrant, but we wanted to do things delicately. Have you known this man Wordsworth a long time?”
“I met him for the first time yesterday.”
“Perhaps, sir, he asked you as a favour to deliver that package and you, seeing no harm at all in that and him being an employee of your aunt…”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. The package is mine. I had accidentally left it in the kitchen.”
“The package is yours, sir? You admit that.”
“You know very well what’s in the package. My aunt told you. It’s an urn with my mother’s ashes.”
“Your aunt has been in communication with you, has she?”
“Yes, she has. What do you expect? Waking up an old lady in the middle of the night.”
“It had only just gone twelve, sir. And so those ashes… They are Mrs. Pulling’s?”
“There they are. You can see for yourself. On the bookcase.” I had put the urn there temporarily, until I was ready to bed it, above a complete set of Sir Walter Scott[36] which I had inherited from my father. In his lazy way my father was a great reader, though not an adventurous one. He was satisfied with possessing a very few favourite authors. By the time he had read the set of Scott through he had forgotten the earlier volumes and was content to begin again with Guy Mannering. He had a complete set too of Marion Crawford, and he had a love of nineteenth-century poetry which I have inherited – Tennyson[37] and Wordsworth and Browning
seemed to ring a bell – (
in plain clothes – (
a complete set of Sir Walter Scott – (
Tennyson – Альфред Теннисон (1809–1892), английский поэт
