Free The Twilight Hour by Elizabeth Wilson Page A

banknote.
    â€˜Hugh might know,’ I said doubtfully, ‘we don’t have it, I know that much.’
    â€˜No, don’t ask Hugh,’ he said hurriedly. ‘What about that pub your lot go to? Someone in there might know.’
    I had such an easy time as Stan’s secretary that I didn’t like to refuse. Actually, I didn’t want to refuse. It was a challenge. It was even an adventure.
    I crossed Regent Street and walked on until I reached Rathbone Place and the Wheatsheaf. Inside the bar I glanced swiftly round, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone I knew, but in this weather the place was almost empty. I walked straight up to the bar and asked for a sherry.
    â€˜All on your own, then? Where’s that husband of yours? Letting you out on your own like Little Red Riding Hood? You never know when you might meet a wolf. Specially now Britain’s turned into Siberia.’ Gully the barman roared with laughter at this feeble joke.
    â€˜Get caught in a blizzard, more likely. Frozen to death in the snow.’ I took a gulp of the sherry. ‘Look, Gully, I wonder – the thing is, I’m looking for Titus Mavor … actually I need his address.’ I blushed as I spoke, and hoped Gully wouldn’t get the wrong idea. He raised his eyebrows and I was sure some risqué remark was on the tip of his tongue, but he restrained himself.
    â€˜This is his only fixed abode these days. He’s moving around at the moment – trouble with the bailiffs.’
    I must have looked disappointed, for he fetched a bit of paper from behind a row of bottles. ‘I’m not supposed to give this out, but he wouldn’t mind for a good-looking girl.’
    Mecklenburgh Square lay at the far side of Bloomsbury. I swallowed the rest of the Amontillado and set off eastwards. At least it wasn’t snowing, but a wind had got up, and blew the ragged clouds aside to unveil a bleak full moon. It took me nearly half an hour to reach the square. Its imposing terraces seemed both menacing and tragic, part bombed, the railings long gone, only their sockets remaining, privets growing wild, curtains shrouding the once grand windows. How gaunt and black the surviving houses looked. There were no lights in any ground floor rooms along the terrace, a few gleams here and there from an upstairs room. I walked along, peering at the numbers until I found the right door. I mounted the shallow, cracked black and white checked steps.
    The door was not quite shut. How strange. I pushed it. It was very stiff and scraped against the lintel. The wood must have swollen in the cold. It would be easy for someone to think they’d shut it when they hadn’t. I hesitated, then stepped into the soft-as-cobwebs darkness. I felt along the wall for a light switch. The little metal fitting felt cold and hard. I pressed it down and a faint orange twilight gleamed from the unshaded twenty-watt bulb that swung eerily in the wind from a cord far up in the ceiling over the stairwell.
    The stairs stretched upwards into shadows.
    I called Mavor’s name. My voice sounded hollow – and weak at the same time. I hesitated, then tried the first door on the right. It was locked.
    I moved forwards towards the long flight of stairs and peered upwards. The slender banister curved round at the top, and more flights above that wound away into endless gloom.
    A sudden sound – my heart thumped. Soot tumbling down inside the chimney stack; crumbling plaster; a cat jumping from a chair. Yet I was not seriously frightened. It was the sort of building that would attract squatters, yet I felt almost certain the place was empty, abandoned. I walked along the corridor to the back of the house, but those doors were also locked, so there was nothing for it: I began to climb upwards, stepping gingerly on each creaking tread, hoping the stairs wouldn’t actually give way, and trying for some reason not to make any noise, as though I