‘‘Yes, I …” She stared at me with a queer, dark sort of expression. ‘‘In a way, being cross-examined like that helps you to get your mind free of a lot of—of dead-wood. It helps you to see and realize things you never have before—even if they’re unpleasant things.”
‘‘Such as?’’
She didn’t answer.
I said: ‘‘ I’m terribly sorry, Sarah. I’d no idea at all that he’d be like that.”
‘‘I know you hadn’t. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps it’s all to the good. We’ve been shutting our eyes to some things too long.”
Thursday morning I was busy because the Collandi fur case was being heard, and I didn’t get away until nearly one. It was about twenty past when I entered the Red Boar and saw Henry Dane in his usual corner.
Before I left that morning Sarah had made me promise to keep the meeting civilized, and for my own sake I was going to do my best. She had been thoughtful and restrained all through the evening and I knew she hadn’t slept well.
I said: ‘‘Sorry I’m late,’’ as I sat down at the table. Dane was an ugly man in some lights.
He put down The Times and said: ‘‘ Copper’s up again. There seems to be no end to this stockpiling. What’ll you drink?’’
I suppose I must have ordered something, because the waitress came back with a glass. There was already quite a fug in the place and I didn’t light a cigarette.
He stared at me keenly. ‘‘I hear you’ve got a date with McDonald and others on Saturday morning. I asked you along to-day because I wanted to know if possible what line you intend to take when you meet him.”
‘‘I haven’t decided yet.”
‘‘I suppose you know the whole thing’s going to come out, do you?’’
‘‘Maybe.”
‘‘I don’t think there’s very much maybe about it.”
I said: ‘‘You tell me.”
He looked at me for a second, dispassionately. ‘‘They don’t like to do things officially in the insurance world. Reputation means a lot. Black sheep are bad for business. So when one crops up he’s put away as decently and as quietly as possible.”
‘‘And that’s the blue-print for Saturday’s meeting?’’
‘‘Not necessarily, of course. Its chief purpose is to compose a quarrel and to get at the truth. But if the truth has a nasty flavour to it …”
The waitress came up and we ordered some stuff.
He said: ‘‘I suppose you know that this man from the F.L.A.A. is going to be there on Mr. Abercrombie’s insistence. I had a few words with him over the phone this morning.”
‘‘Abercrombie?’’
‘‘Yes. He has a very high standard of rectitude, you know, and I think that, although he’s very much attached to you, he feels keenly his responsibility to the F.L.A.A. as one of its senior members.”
‘‘If he thinks that’s his duty I wouldn’t dispute it.”
Although food was coming at any moment Dane began to fill his pipe. ‘‘Your wife’s told you about our talk yesterday?’’
‘‘She did,’’ I said curtly.
‘‘You did well for yourself when you married her, didn’t you?’’
‘‘What the hell d’you mean?’’
He stopped and looked at me over his pipe. ‘‘What a man you are for prickles. No wonder McDonald got in your hair.”
‘‘It’s just a funny prejudice I have against my wife being treated like a jail-bird.”
Down went the old bullet on the tobacco. ‘‘My good fellow, you can’t judge a woman by hearing about her from a man who’s in love with her. I’d got to judge for myself. I’ve known decent worthy men in love with designing little bitches, but to hear the men talk about them you’d think they were all that was pure and holy.”
‘‘And what great thoughts did you have about Sarah?’’
‘‘She’ll do.”
‘‘Thanks.”
‘‘In a way it would give me pleasure to prosecute her for something. Until she lost her temper yesterday, over some trivial thing I said about you, she was as cool as they come. Even then she stood there answering me back as sharp as whipcord. Never a hesitation. Sign of a thoroughbred.”
The waitress came just as he got his matches out. He put the pipe regretfully on the table and took up his soup spoon.
‘‘You’ve a queer way of showing your approval,’’ I said, but feeling a lot better.
He finished his soup in about half a dozen mouthfuls. ‘‘You know, you’ve only yourself to blame for this mess. Your wife tried to take part of the blame but it didn’t work. You’re too hasty, Oliver. In everything. Sometimes it’s a good way to be. But not always. You jump to the conclusion that a woman like your wife would connive in arson and fraud. Then when you find out that it isn’t so, you turn on all your damned charm and rush her into marriage. You knock down a broker and nearly murder a blackmailer; and where does it get you? Why, one dip of the flag and you’d charge bull-beaded, at me this morning.”
‘‘No, I wouldn’t. Your compliments have disarmed me.”
He looked at his pipe but didn’t pick it up. He smiled slightly, without showing his teeth.
‘‘Nevertheless I’d like to help you both, because it grieves me to see a fundamentally honest person like yourself drifting on the rocks when so many cheap-jacks and shysters know just enough to get by. That’s why I’d like to know just what way you intend to behave and what you intend to say to these men on Saturday morning.”
‘‘To tell you the truth it no longer seems as important as it did.”
‘‘That’s only because you’re out of focus.”
‘‘I don’t know McDonald’s case.”
‘‘Well, I do. Or part of it.”
‘‘Have you seen him?’’
‘‘No, but I know someone who has. It was your inquiry about the insurance on Lowis just before the fire that started it.”
‘‘I thought so.”
‘‘Then apparently he met you at a dinner a day or two after the fire and noticed you walked with a limp and that your eyebrows and eyelashes were singed. He mentioned this at the time, partly as a joke, to a friend of his. After that he says he more or less forgot all about it until last month when you married Sarah Moreton. Then he went to see Reckitt and discussed the whole thing with him, and they decided to employ a private snooper, who found the man who’d seen someone get into a grey Wolseley saloon. This fellow was a poacher, who wouldn’t come forward to the police; but he didn’t object to a pound or two on the quiet. He couldn’t remember the number of the car but he remembered the letters, and when the detective took down photos of six men he picked out yours. Then the private snooper found a Mrs. Smith or Smyth who had the flat above yours and admitted she dressed a bad burn on your arm the day after the fire. At this point apparently they decided they’d done enough so they called off the snooper and handed this information to the police.”
‘‘Very public-spirited of them.”
‘‘I think it explains the visit from your friend Barnes. It’s highly probable you’ll get another after Saturday’s meeting. I shouldn’t be surprised if everything that happens there gets to Barnes’s ears. So if you haven’t made up your mind what you’re going to say on Saturday I suggest you don’t leave this pub until you have.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Friday began quietly, and I thought it was going to be the calm day before the storm—not the storm itself. Perhaps something in Sarah should have warned me.
I left the flat about nine-thirty and got to the office just before ten. At lunch I saw Charles Robinson, and he said: ‘‘ Mind if I come along in the morning?’’
‘‘Do you want to?’’
He half smiled. ‘‘Material witness.… But seriously, I’d like to be there if you’ve no objection. Moral support, you know.”
I said: ‘‘Of course I’ve no objection. Thank you.”
In the afternoon things were slack, and I had a legitimate rea
son for knocking off early. I called in to see the Old Man and arranged to meet him and the others at eleven o’clock the following day, in Reckitt’s office. I got home well before five, and let myself in. Sarah wasn’t there, and I went into our bedroom because sometimes she left a note to say what time she’d be back. The note was there all right.
‘‘Dearest Oliver,
I think I’ve been terribly slow to understand what has happened. I am going off on my own to see if I can get things straightened out, for your sake and for mine—and for everyone’s.
Darling, don’t worry if I’m not back for a night or two,
and please don’t try to follow me. This is something I’ve got
to do alone.
Your
Sarah.”
I read the note twice and turned it over and examined the back and then read it twice more. Then I looked round the room and there was no one there. She’s gone, I thought.
A tray was set for tea, but it would take too much thinking to make it. I poured myself a drink and picked up the note again. A night or two, I thought. And don’t follow me. I went to a drawer and took out a new packet of cigarettes, but didn’t light one. I stood in the middle of the room quite purposeless. I went in and washed my face and put cold water round the back of my neck. Then I came out with the towel in my hands and went to the telephone.
Dr. Darnley was in. I said: ‘‘Have you seen Sarah to-day, sir?’’
‘‘No, I haven’t. Where are you speaking from?’’
‘‘The flat. It doesn’t matter, but she said she’d be back early. I wondered if she’d taken her car.”
‘‘I don’t know. You might find out at the garage.”
‘‘Thanks, I’ll try there.”
I tried the garage but there was no reply. Then I rang up Victor Moreton at his chambers. His man said he’d just left. He was going out of town for the week-end, but I might catch him at his home in about twenty minutes. I rang Henry Dane and found him in.
I said: ‘‘ What did you tell Sarah the other day? Did you tell her my own doubts about Tracey’s death?’’
He said: ‘‘ Certainly not. Why?’’
‘‘But from your questions, could she have got a pretty good idea?’’
A pause. ‘‘Yes. Possibly that.”
‘‘I thought so. Have you seen Sarah since?’’
‘‘No. What’s the matter?’’
‘‘Nothing.” I rang off.
I rang Victor’s flat but there was no reply, so I fetched my car and went round instead. He lived in Belgrave Place and I got there as he was going up the steps. We went up together. I thought he looked a bit peculiar when he saw me, a bit on the defensive.
‘‘Have you seen Sarah to-day?’’
‘‘No.”
‘‘Or heard from her?’’
‘‘No, I haven’t, Oliver.”
He was the only one who hadn’t asked why. ‘‘Have you seen her at all this week?’’ I asked.
He let himself in, and I followed.
‘‘She called round at my chambers yesterday afternoon.”
‘‘What did she want?’’
‘‘She—wished to discuss certain problems with me. After all I’m still her brother-in-law and her trustee.”
‘‘Did she say what she was going to do to-day?’’
He toed across in his dark suit and striped trousers, and opened a glass cocktail cabinet. It was a magnificent room, a little flamboyant for him.
‘‘Drink?’’
‘‘No, thanks.”
He poured himself a whisky and water. ‘‘She came to discuss certain—problems with me. She put forward some ideas of her own which frankly I considered—monstrous, untenable. She advanced what she considered were evidences that these ideas, these fears were not unsubstantial. I gave her my views and she went home—at least I suppose so.”
‘‘And did she say what she was going to do to-day?’’
He looked at me as if the whisky didn’t taste good. ‘‘She gave me some idea.… She also expressly asked me not to tell you.”
‘‘Look, Victor, this has gone beyond a joke.”
‘‘It has for all of us. I’m sorry.”
In the light from the window I could see that he looked worried and pasty. I said: ‘‘She’s my wife. She’s gone off like this, leaving just a note. I’ve no more idea than … And you know.”
He put down his glass and met my stare. He looked bull-necked and fat. And formidable. ‘‘I can’t help it. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. I’ve given her my word, Oliver.… And even if I hadn’t I wouldn’t tell you.”
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘Because—until I hear more from her—or even then—I don’t think it’s a thing that ought to be told.”
I didn’t leave it at that, of course; I stayed and argued with him, but he gave nothing away. I felt pretty desperate, but he wasn’t a man to be trapped into some admission that he didn’t want to make. The only thing I got out of him was that he wasn’t going off for the week-end as planned, and he promised to ring me if he heard again from Sarah.
Going back to our flat it wasn’t really out of the way at all to turn up Prentiss Street, and I thought I might as well see if there was any sign of life from Vere Litchen. I didn’t really expect anything, having drawn blank so many times over so many things, and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a light in the house. I stopped suddenly, and a taxi-driver shouted at me as he passed. There was just room by the kerb between two other cars.
Nobody answered when I knocked. I wondered if it was just Dolores back, or perhaps burglars again. I knocked a second time and louder, and then a third. Almost before I’d let the knocker go the door opened and a small red-faced, fair-haired man looked out.
We stared at each other. I said: ‘‘Are you Mr. Litchen?’’
He blew out a breath of relief.
‘‘No.… I thought you were. What do you want?’’
‘‘I wanted to see Mrs. Litchen.”
‘‘Well, she …”
‘‘It’s very urgent.”
‘‘What name is it?’’
I told him and he went doubtfully in, leaving the door ajar. I pushed it open far enough to step into the little grained oak and chromium hall. I thought, I’m always pushing my way into people’s houses: it’s becoming a technique. And what good does it do me, as Henry would say. Music came from the living-room; it sounded like jive; I heard Vere Litchen’s voice.
He came out, and his face twitched when he saw me in the hall. ‘‘Sorry. Mrs. Litchen can’t see anyone to-night.”
‘‘I’m sorry,’’ I said, and went past him into the living-room.
She was in a sort of green thing, long and soft and flowing, like a house coat only more so; it didn’t leave a lot to be puzzled out. She had her back to the door, was turning over the record.
‘‘Has he gone?’’ she asked.
‘‘No,’’ I said.
‘‘Look,’’ said the man nervously, ‘‘what’s the big idea? I told you she wasn’t seeing anyone.…”
She turned, and her painted little face was as hard as wood.
‘‘The man from the Prudential. I’m sorry, we’re not interested in insurance to-night.”
‘‘Nor am I especially. I want to know if you can do me a favour.”
She stared at me, turned back to the radiogram. In a second or two a piano, artificially deepened in the bass, began to beat out a jungle rhythm.
‘‘I told you she wasn’t seeing anyone,’’ said the man, fingering his collar.
I went over to her. ‘‘This is pretty important to me. Do you think we could possibly skip the old grudges?’’
‘‘What do you want?’’
‘‘I want to get in touch with Clive Fisher.”
She leaned back against the gramophone and whistled soundlessly. ‘‘Why should I know? I’m not his keeper.”
‘‘You’re a friend of his. I’m very—anxiou
s to find him.”
‘‘You’re spoiling this piece. Roger, show the—gentleman out.”
Roger put a hand on my arm. ‘‘ Come along, old man. She’s told you she doesn’t know.…”
I looked at him. ‘‘Go away.”
He went away.
I said: ‘‘Where can I find Clive?’’
‘‘Try the lost property office. Or the seamen’s home.”
‘‘When did you see him last?’’
She yawned. ‘‘About a month ago, if you must know. We saw each other at a party. Roger was there, weren’t you, Roger?’’
‘‘Yes.”
‘‘You’ve seen him since then.…”
‘‘What makes you think that?’’
‘‘There was a book of yours at his cottage last Friday. It’s only been published two weeks.”
‘‘That doesn’t tell you where you can find him now, does it?’’
Something began to go queer inside me. I said: ‘‘I’ve only one advantage in this argument, and that is I wasn’t brought up the nice way.”
Red spots began to burn in her cheeks. ‘‘Roger, my little mouse, have you any guts at all?’’
‘‘None that would help you,’’ I said.
The record came to a stop and clicked off.
‘‘Why don’t you tell him and have done with it?’’ Roger snapped. ‘‘I’m not a prize fighter.”
‘‘If you touch me,’’ she said, ‘‘I’ll scratch the skin off your face.”
I said: ‘‘I’m about at the end of my tether. I’ve got to force this out of one of you. I don’t want to break up your room.…”
Roger blurted out: ‘‘He’s at the Fin de Siècle nearly every night.”
‘‘You fool.…”
‘‘Well, I’m not getting in a rough house just to cover up for Clive. You told me you’d finished with him—months ago—— And all the time, I suppose——’’
‘‘You fool, d’you believe everything he tells you——?’’
‘‘What’s the Fin de Siècle?’’ I said.
‘‘It’s an artists’ club in Chelsea. It’s a sort of dining club where people meet.”
She said: ‘‘So you got away with your clumsy bluff.…”
I didn’t answer, but went to the phone in the corner and opened a book beside it. The number of the Fin de Siècle was there, and I dialled it. Roger plucked at his bottom lip, and stared with doubtful jealous eyes at Vere, who took a cigarette out of a jade box and lit it. I watched them as I waited.