Murder by Matchlight by Edith Caroline Rivett

Macdonald read through the statement which Bruce Mallaig had signed, and then studied Wright’s brief but admirably legible notes giving the gist of Claydon’s statement: this latter document he handed to an attendant constable to be typed. Just then a sergeant came in to report. He had been sent to the address on the dead man’s Identity Card, and had returned with what information he had been able to collect. John Ward had lived at 5a Belfort Grove, Notting Hill Gate. This house was divided up into six self-contained single-room flatlets, of which John Ward had rented the topmost—and cheapest. On the same floor lived the resident caretaker, a talkative and ancient charlady whose erstwhile occupation had been that of lavatory attendant. This body, who gave her name as Mrs. Maloney and her age as sixty-five (the sergeant guessed that eighty was nearer the mark) said that she was employed as “house-keeper,” her duties including answering the front door, cleaning the stairs and landings and the bathrooms shared by the tenants, as well as rendering such “service” as her other duties permitted to those tenants who wished to employ her. She had identified the dead man as Mr. John Ward of 5a Belfort Grove. He had lived at this address for six months, occupying the room of a Mr. Claude d’Alvarley, an actor, now in His Majesty’s Forces. Mr. d’Alvarley still paid the rent of the flat, and Mr. Ward occupied it on a basis of friendly agreement.

Concerning Mr. Ward himself, Mrs. Maloney could—or would—give no information. “ ’E was a gentleman—which is more’n I’d say of some,” she volunteered, “and ’e kep’ ’isself to ’isself and caused no bother.”