Sarah had wanted us to go back to her father’s house, but I jibbed at this also. Even at the speed things had moved, it would take me a month or two to get used to being Dr. Darnley’s son-in-law. So we collected Trixie from Ponting Street and stayed at a hotel. Sunday we house and flat hunted. It wasn’t quite as depressing as I’d expected: there were one or two just possible places; but we fixed on nothing. We might see something better in another week or so.
On the Monday I went down to the office. Michael was out, but the Old Man had one or two fairly coy things to say and was really quite nice about it. I determined that when we had our house warming he should get the first invitation.
During the morning I rang Henry Dane and apologized for having had to put off the other appointment.
He said: ‘‘Well, I hope your problem’s solved itself in the meantime.”
‘‘No, it hasn’t. Nor will it till I make some move. I’ve a superstitious feeling that you’re still the best person to advise me. Could we meet one day this week?’’
‘‘I shall be at the courts all to-day. How about lunch tomorrow? Red Boar at one?’’
‘‘Fine. Thank you.”
I heard Michael’s voice in the outer office and waited for him to come in to see me. But he didn’t, and I concluded they’d not told him I was back. After a bit I went into his office and found him using the phone. He raised his eyebrows at me, and I sat on a corner of his desk until he finished.
‘‘Well, old boy, welcome back. Had a good time?’’
I replied in the usual way, but his voice sounded rather odd, and after we’d talked for a minute or two I said:
‘‘Something the matter?’’
‘‘Matter? What could there be?’’
‘‘That’s what I was asking.”
He went and stood by the fireplace and hunched his shoulders till they looked squarer than ever. ‘‘No, I’ve been a bit worried about one or two jobs that have come up while you’ve been away. Did you manage on the currency all right?’’
‘‘It was a life saver. What are the jobs?’’
‘‘Oh, they’re pretty well fixed now. Nothing very important really. How’s … Sarah?’’
This too was queer, this hedging, because nobody usually was more keen to share his problems than Michael. It was a fault. However I didn’t say anything then.
At lunch he’d got an appointment, so I went to a local pub that specialized in business lunches and had it with three strangers. Charles Robinson was in the room at the other end, and he waved in a friendly way; but he didn’t come across as he went out.
I stayed in the office all afternoon picking up the threads. I had to ring several people, and at least one of them, a man called Carey, cut me short, saying he’d got an appointment. Perhaps I was expecting too much. Red carpet for returning newly-wed. I didn’t see Michael again that day because he was on a case that took him out of London, and as I was anxious to get home I left fairly early.
Sarah was waiting for me in the foyer of the hotel, and sight of her threw out the minor doubts of the day. She’d found a flat, or thought she had, and we went that night and took it for three months. It was in Hallam Street and furnished, and was fairly expensive, but we reckoned that with Sarah earning as well as myself we could manage pretty well. Afterwards we went to see her father. Meeting him was still a bit of an ordeal to me. I always felt as if my hands were too big, my collar crumpled and my aitches as undependable as a comedian’s trousers.
The next morning business took me with Michael to Lloyds. In the early days when I saw it all with new eyes I used to think you could explain quite convincingly to a man from Mars that this was the temple of a religious sect who came to worship here every day. The great glass dome, the painted ceiling, the bent heads, the hushed activity; and in the shrine in the middle the priest sat calling out the prayers and entering up the sins in the judgment book. And if by any chance the Lutine Bell rang it meant that the holy spirit was among them, and there was a great stirring and a commotion.
As it happened it was Mr. Berkeley Reckitt that we had to see, about a report I’d sent in just before I went away; and Michael was anxious to get the thing settled, otherwise, I realized afterwards, he wouldn’t have taken me. Reckitt was a thin chap with prematurely white hair and a dry cough. He’d never been a favourite of mine but his firm were our second-best friends so far as business was concerned.
Well, to-day he carried on a conversation with me, listening to what I had to say and putting the questions he wanted; but he never looked higher than my tie all through the interview. When it was over and we were outside, I said:
‘‘What on earth was the matter with him?’’
‘‘Matter?’’ said Michael. ‘‘I don’t know. What was the matter?’’
‘‘He looked as if I was something very decomposed that his dog had found.”
Michael seemed to put on extra speed, shoving his way along. ‘‘I expect he was worried. They caught a packet over that fire in Singapore.”
‘‘Everybody’s worried about something. But they don’t need to take it out on me.” I stopped, so that after a pace or two Michael had to stop too. ‘‘What is this, Michael? Is there something wrong that you don’t want to tell me about?’’
He frowned at me. You could see the indecision behind his scowl. ‘‘No, nothing. Come on. It’s time I was back.”
‘‘Tell me what’s the matter.”
‘‘Nothing. You’re imagining things.”
‘‘If you don’t tell me I shall go back and ask Reckitt.”
‘‘A lot of good that will do you. None of it will do you any good, making mountains out of molehills.”
‘‘I think I must be the judge of that.”
He hesitated again. ‘‘ You’re asking me to repeat an unsavoury rumour that nobody at all believes in.”
‘‘Some people have a peculiar way of showing it.”
We began to walk again. ‘‘ Oh, it isn’t that. But you know enough of the insurance world to know that it’s worse than a village institute. A whisper starts—and in a few hours … People don’t believe what they hear. But it’s like being told that so-and-so is a smallpox contact. You look at him anxiously next time you see him to make sure you can see no spots. Then in a week or two you forget all about it.”
‘‘Well, tell me what particular disease I’m supposed to be suffering from.”
We crossed the road, and Michael nearly plunged under a bus. He said:
‘‘You know the Lowis Manor fire. There’s a rumour about that your car was seen outside Lowis Manor that night just before the fire started.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sarah said: ‘‘What did you say?’’
‘‘Tried to sound like a badly injured man. What else could I do?’’
‘‘What do you think Michael feels?’’
‘‘I think he’s embarrassed and annoyed. Embarrassed because he’s got to make up his mind about something, and annoyed that a situation has come about whereby anybody can point a finger at a member of his firm.”
‘‘You mean he hasn’t made up his mind whether he belives you or not?’’
‘‘Oh, he believes me. It’s not in his nature to give room to suspicion lightly. But he must remember that I did behave a bit peculiarly about the fire claim on Lowis.”
‘‘What will happen?’’
‘‘Nothing very much, I’m sure.”
‘‘No, don’t put me off. Tell me what you think.”
‘‘Well, what can anybody do? If the story’s accepted at all it will knock my good name for a bit. But there’s no proof.”
After a minute she said: ‘‘But this man who saw you get into the car. Might he have taken the number? And do you think he could recognize you?’’
‘‘Maybe. But if so, why didn’t the police follow it up?’’
Sarah got up. ‘‘I wish …” She didn’t finish.
‘‘What do you wish?’’
> She looked at me thoughtfully. ‘‘It’s a fine marriage settlement I brought you, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Any trouble is my own fault for not being willing to wait for you. If the money had been paid back first, it would have taken the curse off the thing.”
‘‘How did you put off Henry Dane?’’
‘‘Said I’d been called suddenly out of town. I confess I do feel a bit fussed about that. I don’t see how I can say anything to him now. We’re saddled with the money, Sarah; unless you decide to give it to a dogs’ home. If the negotiations had been begun with Berkeley Reckitt before this rumour broke out.… But we can’t go now and say, ‘Please, Mr. Reckitt, I know you’re suspicious of us; may we give back the money before we get arrested for fraud.’ ’’
She lit a cigarette. ‘‘What I can’t understand is how the rumour has begun now. Surely if anything were known it would have come out at the time, not now, not five months after.”
I got up too. I was too jumpy and annoyed with myself to keep up the pretence of being neither; and I told her about McDonald. ‘‘I imagined the night of the dinner that he was a bit cagey; but I was upset myself at the time—thinking you were in it—and anyway I didn’t much worry what he thought.”
‘‘But why should he think all that—just because you made an inquiry?’’
‘‘I don’t know what he thought. But I’ve given him reason to dislike me and the thing may have rankled—not so much as a suspicion as a hunch. Then when I suddenly married you …”
She said: ‘‘Even then …”
‘‘Perhaps I’m doing him an injustice and the rumour hasn’t come from him at all. But who else? And once there’s a suspicion there … Perhaps he thinks I not only set fire to the house but made you a widow as well.”
Her back was to me and she didn’t turn. All I could see was the hand on the cigarette. She didn’t speak.
I went on awkwardly: ‘‘What puzzles me is this rumour about the car, where it originated and what proof there is of it. Until I know what actual evidence——’’
She said: ‘‘Don’t say that again, Oliver, will you? It’s—a rather poor joke.…” I went to her and put my arm around her. ‘‘Sorry. Expunged
from the records.”
‘‘I suppose it was meant as a joke?’’
‘‘Well, of course. Even McDonald …”
She looked into my face. ‘‘But if one suspicion exists …”
I said: ‘‘The only practical thing we’ve got to worry about is this
rumour. Heaven knows it’s vague enough as Michael told it me.
The question is whether there’s sufficient presumptive evidence for
people in the insurance world to take notice of it. That’s really all
that counts.”
The next morning I went into Michael’s office and said:
‘‘I’ve been thinking all round this business. In fact I’ve thought of nothing else since you told me. There’s not a lot I can do unless I hear it, hear this story repeated myself——’’
‘‘You know what my feeling is.” He chewed the end of his pencil. ‘‘Ignore it. Carry on as if nothing had happened. I’m sorry I had to tell you. It’s a thousand pities we had to see Reckitt yesterday, otherwise you’d not have noticed.”
‘‘Oh, yes, I should. I noticed a change in most people—even in you.”
‘‘Did you?’’ He sounded startled. ‘‘Well, you can understand how I feel. It’s not because I give the thing a minute’s credence. If I showed any sign of worry it was because of its existence. You know what our job is like: we don’t carry a stock or a large capital. Our asset is reputation. It’s Caesar’s wife or you’re out of business in a week.”
‘‘And you think——?’’
‘‘No, I don’t. I think it’ll blow over. What you should try to do is keep out of people’s way as much as possible for the next few weeks. And when you do meet them, however they behave, act just as if nothing had happened. Particularly to Reckitt, since it was his firm.… The vast majority of people—if they hear it at all—will say: ‘What? Branwell? Oh, nonsense; he’s far too straightforward and decent a fellow for that.’ And so will Reckitt, if he takes time to think it over.”
I said: ‘‘ Your father doesn’t know about this yet?’’
‘‘I don’t think so. I certainly haven’t told him.”
‘‘Then keep it from him if you can, will you? I shouldn’t want to be the cause of a lot of unnecessary worry.”
Michael looked at me. ‘‘All right. I’ll do my best.”
I left then and went out on a job in Hammersmith. Of course it wasn’t entirely that I wanted to save the Old Man the worry. I wanted to be saved the unpleasant job of lying to another man I respected. That sort of thing makes you feel guilty after a time, even if in fact you’re innocent of all the larger crimes.
The job in Hammersmith was to do with some fur robberies, and I plunged into it trying to forget all the rest. I soon suspected that there was an attempt being made by the furrier, a man called Collandi, to get more compensation for his furs than he was entitled to, and I spent most of the day on it. There was some trouble over the books, which he first said had been stolen and then said were at his accountants. He promised to produce them on the following day.
Back at the office I made a preliminary report and began to get busy putting through the usual inquiries about Collandi’s past history and general reputation. I thought: this is right in my line of country; set a thief to catch a thief.
The next day no books were forthcoming, but an assessor called Abel had been engaged by Collandi to act for him. Abel was a type I didn’t like, as sharp as a needle and a good deal tougher. But by now I was armed with the knowledge that Collandi’s reputation was about as shaky as it could be and I said I wasn’t recommending any settlement until the books were produced. There was a good deal of blustering and threats of legal action; but it didn’t cut any ice; and I left them with the plain issue before them. Once again the underwriter was Berkeley Reckitt, and I wondered if Mr. Reckitt would be able to overcome his repugnance at the sight of my signature and appreciate that I wasn’t giving his money away easily.
I was late home that night and Sarah wasn’t in the foyer as she had been before. It was her day for being at Delahayes, and I thought she might not be back; but I found her upstairs.
Her face always changed, lit up when she saw me. Perhaps it did that for everyone she liked and not specially for me—but it was already becoming the best moment of my day.
To-night, although the same thing happened, I could tell as soon as I kissed her that there was something wrong.
‘‘You’re late,’’ she said. ‘‘Anything new?’’
‘‘No, thank God. I’ve hardly seen Michael, and the other people I’ve had dealings with behaved normally enough. Hello, old girl …” I bent to return Trixie’s welcome. ‘‘Is she settling down?’’
‘‘Grudgingly, yes. She’s country bred, though, and doesn’t approve of the town. It was the same at Pouting Street, except that she had the run of the house.”
After a minute I said: ‘‘Was she really your dog, or was she Tracey’s?’’
‘‘Mine. Tracey gave her to me as a birthday present. But I always used to feel—in a queer way—that her first allegiance was to him …”
As she spoke, Sarah had gone to a cupboard and taken out a couple of bottles. I watched her carefully. I said: ‘‘ I can’t help feeling that Trixie isn’t the worst thing on your mind.”
She turned and gave me a very searching look: ‘‘Am I such a give-away?’’
‘‘Pretty well. Yes.”
‘‘It wouldn’t be any use trying to hide something from you, would it?’’
‘‘Not much.”
‘‘No.…” She turned back to the bottles. ‘‘Well, would you like a Gin and French or a Gin and French? We have every known variety. Don’t you think we might get really foxed to-night? Let’s
have a hang-over from drink instead of a hang-over from my first marriage. Then you won’t have time to regret you haven’t married a really nice girl with no past.…”
I toot the glass out of her hand. ‘‘You know the answers to all. that. So don’t say it, will you? Don’t ever talk that way.”
She said in the same queer voice: ‘‘I got home at five. It’s nice living so near. There was a man waiting for me in the lounge. Said he was a solicitor, called Mr. Jerome. Said he had business with me, so I ordered tea and we sat talking among the old ladies, sipping tea and talking blackmail.…”
‘‘Look,’’ I said. ‘‘Is this——?’’
She pulled some wrapping paper off the vermouth bottle, screwed it carefully into a ball.
‘‘Mr. Jerome said he was acting for his client—wouldn’t give him a name. His client, he said, was interested in the fate of certain monies—Mr. Jerome had the usual lovely way of putting things—of certain monies that had come to me as a result of the unfortunate fire in which my unfortunate husband met his death. Mr. Jerome said the fire was supposed to have happened accidentally; but of course ‘ among friends’that story just wouldn’t wash. ‘Among friends’ one knew very well what it was all about. Forty thousand pounds after all was quite a fair sum of money, and his client realized I would like to keep it all. But that unfortunately wasn’t possible. Even twenty thousand——’’
‘‘Don’t tell it me that way,’’ I said. ‘‘I don’t like it. What did he want and what did you say?’’
She dropped the wrapping into a waste-paper basket. ‘‘ He wanted twenty thousand to keep quiet. Like someone saying that an investment in—in wool was a good thing. Stirring his tea and fiddling with his spectacles. And the old lady on the next settee complaining that her toast was burnt. He said he wouldn’t have anything to eat because he was a diabetic. He said he had proof of the swindle, and if the police got it I should end in jail. He said the thing had been in preparation by Tracey for three years, and his client could show that it had, and his client could prove that I must have been in it as well. He said that this was a nice hotel and rather expensive, he supposed. He said that his client didn’t want to be hard on me and that he’d undertaken to leave me in ‘undisturbed enjoyment’ of the other half.… Mr. Jerome went in about half an hour, after thanking me very courteously for the tea.…”