The Silent Speaker Read online

  There was a shocked pause before anyone spoke, then Selina asked.

  “What happened to the man?”

  Dunkel shook his head.

  “What we was afraid of. We were still trying to find someone small enough to crawl in when he kicked the rest of the place down on him. I think he was killed outright.”

  It was an unpleasant story. Edward said:

  “Did Miss Lomax, as she was then, come back?”

  Dunkel nodded.

  “The raid finished early-ish. Sunday morning it was. I was just getting ready to be relieved when a woman turns up. It was the soldier’s wife, she had been out somewhere and couldn’t get back. She asked for her husband and we had to tell her. They took it all ways but I never saw one more pitiful than that woman. Sat on what was left of a step and rocked herself to and fro like the pain was more than she could take. Blamed herself too for not getting back. Seems the husband was on leave and never would go in a shelter. ‘But we could have been together,’ she kept saying. I didn’t tell her—no good making things worse—but if she’d been around she could have got through that hole, she was small, like Miss Lomax.”

  Selina was beginning to understand.

  “Then Helen—Miss Lomax I mean—came back?”

  Dunkel nodded again.

  “That was it. She wanted to know what had happened. I had to tell her. Then she saw the wife and asked who she was, so I explained. She stood there just looking at that poor woman swaying to and fro moaning like. Then she said: ‘It’s my fault. He died because I was a coward. I’ll never forgive myself. Never.’ Then she walks away.”

  Edward turned to Selina.

  “Celia, who is not given to being shrewd, said that Helen would only kill herself for something she had done to someone else.”

  Selina looked questioningly at Dunkel.

  “But she couldn’t have gone on minding all those years.”

  Dunkel knew the facts.

  “She did, madam. I couldn’t get her face and what she said out of my mind. We all did what we could but it was no good carrying on when maybe you hadn’t done all you might. There was ninety-six of those raids and we were getting tired. You make mistakes when you are tired. So one day I decided to go and see her, just to talk like, but she had left the ambulance service. They gave me her address but she had gone. Wales, her friend said. But I did see her again, it was at The Edelweiss where I was filling in as doorman for a friend, just after the war it was. I was busy calling taxis and that and didn’t see her at first. Then I heard her say: ‘It is warden Dunkel, isn’t it?’ By then I knew quite a lot for I’d a friend in the police had told me. The widow of that poor soldier, she didn’t seem able to get over him dying like that, never sober since, from one day’s end to the other, twice she’d been in the cells. There was plenty had tried to help, had a wonderful Dad, I heard, who was working to save just her sort, but she wouldn’t let him help her.”

  “Did you tell Mrs. Blair all this?” Selina asked.

  “I didn’t want to, but she kept on asking if I knew anything, and she could see I was keeping something back, so in the end I told her, hoping to put her off trying to meet the widow, for there wasn’t anything she could do.”

  Edward and Selina could see Helen in their mind’s eye. If she was already blaming herself that story must have been hard to take.

  “Go on,” Selina whispered.

  “She made me promise to get the address, for I said I didn’t know it, though, mind you, I did, I only said it to keep her quiet like. She gave me her address so I could send it on to her, which of course I never did. Then a week or so later she came back to The Edelweiss and got it out of me. ‘Please give me that address,’ she said, ‘I know you’ve got it, Mr. Dunkel. You see, your conscience will never keep quiet when you have done what I did, but it may help if I try to help her.’ ‘It’s no good, Miss Lomax,’ I said. ‘What can you do? All she wants is money to spend on drink.’ Such a look she gave me, proper tragic it was. ‘You don’t have to live with my conscience, Mr. Dunkel,’ she said. ‘If drinking is her answer I’m in no position to argue.’”

  “And did she help the woman?” Edward asked.

  “Went on seeing her and giving her money right to the end, so I heard. Mrs. Manning her name was. She was pulled out of the river a couple of days or so before Mrs. Blair killed herself. I reckon she must have read what had happened. It was in the News of the World.”

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  Noel Streafeild

  Mary Noel Streatfeild was born in Sussex in 1895. She was one of five children born to the Anglican Bishop of Lewes and found vicarage life very restricting. During World War One, Noel and her siblings volunteered in hospital kitchens and put on plays to support war charities, which is where she discovered her talent on stage. She studied at RADA to pursue a career in the theatre and after ten years as an actress turned her attention to writing adult and children’s fiction. Her experiences in the arts heavily influenced her writing, most notably her famous children’s story Ballet Shoes which won a Carnegie Medal and was awarded an OBE in 1983. Noel Streatfeild died in 1986.

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  Bello

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital-only imprint of Pan Macmillan,established to breathe new life into previously published, classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of a good story, narrative and entertainment, and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and print-on-demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  www.panmacmillan.com/imprint-publishers/bello

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  First published 1961 by Collins

  This edition first published 2018 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5098-7684-6 EPUB

  Copyright © Noel Streatfeild 1961

  The right of Noel Streatfeild to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset by Ellipsis, Glasgow

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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