The Third Signature

The demolition permit needed three signatures. Ellis had two.

The owner signed over breakfast. The inspector signed beside a boiler that had not worked since winter. The third resident had been dead for forty-six years.

Mrs Vale appeared when Ellis knocked on her bedroom door.

“You’re early,” she said.

“The building comes down tomorrow.”

“So they keep saying.”

Her room contained a narrow bed, a chipped basin and eleven shelves of neatly folded sheets. Through her wrist, Ellis could see the wallpaper.

“I need you to confirm you’re leaving.”

“Where am I going?”

He glanced at the form. There was no box for that.

Downstairs, the contractor offered to remove the room with her in it.

“It won’t kill her.”

Ellis took the unsigned permit home.

That evening he searched the old tenancy records. Mrs Vale had arrived as a housemaid at nineteen. Her wages included lodging. When the family moved away, she stayed to look after the empty house. Each new owner renewed the arrangement.

Under every heading marked PERMANENT ADDRESS, someone had written: Care of employer.

The next morning Ellis brought a second document.

“The owners have agreed to sell you the room.”

“I haven’t any money.”

“One pound.”

She opened a drawer. Inside lay a single brown coin.

“It was for the gas meter.”

Ellis supplied the difference.

She read the little deed twice, following each line with a transparent finger. Then she put it beneath the pillow.

“Now the other one.”

She signed the demolition permit without hesitation.

At the doorway she stopped.

“I don’t have to leave the sheets?”

“No.”

She selected one, folded it over her arm, and walked down the stairs. At the front gate, sunlight passed through her once. Then there was only sunlight.

When Ellis checked the room, the deed was gone.

For the first time, so were the sheets.