Arthur Carstairs was born in London in 1917, to the sound of one of those air-raids which have seemed so small an affair since, but which were so terrifying then. His mother was continuously frightened anyhow, for her husband was a subaltern in Flanders, soon to be killed. Mrs Carstairs and her baby retired to a cottage on the outskirts of the country-town of Kingsfield, and lived as best they could on what little money there was. When he was old enough, Arthur went as a day-boy to Kingsfield Grammar School. Not surprisingly he grew up a quiet, rather shy, industrious boy, with none of the vices and few of the picturesque virtues, clinging to his mother, more from a sense of duty than because he desired no other companionship. When she died on his twentieth birthday, he had never kissed a girl, nor climbed a mountain, nor swum in the sea, nor spent a night in the open, and all the adventures he had had were adventures of the mind, romantic, exciting, but, as he well knew, not for him. Mr Margate, one of Kingsfield’s three solicitors, and a good friend of his mother’s, had given him his articles, and had promised him a post in the office when he had passed his finals. It seemed to him now at twenty-one that he would remain in Kingsfield for ever, a commonplace lawyer whom the world passed by. Perhaps, he thought sometimes, it would be better if he tried for a job in London when he was qualified. In London adventure waited on the doorstep, as his reading of Stevenson assured him. In London jewelled hands beckoned to you from broughams . . . .
On his mother’s death her cottage had been sold, and he lived now in lodgings close to Mr Margate’s office. Occasionally after dinner he would go round to the Cap and Bells and have a glass of beer; not because he liked beer, nor the atmosphere of public houses, but because he felt that in this way he was seeing life. He was a nice-looking boy, with an earnest, innocent face which appealed to ageing barmaids; who called him ‘Ducks’, as if they really meant it, and made him feel a man. And a rather highly-coloured sporting gentleman called Platt, who frequented the Cap and Bells, had made friends with him one night over a double cherry-brandy, and had received, as one man of the world from another, all Arthur’s confidences. This encouraged him to think more hopefully of the future. He told himself that, when he had passed his finals, he would open out a little more, spending at least three evenings a week at the Cap and Bells. He might even learn to play billiards, which Platt had offered to teach him. His own game was chess; but an offer to teach Platt chess had been unacknowledged at the time, and not repeated. Presumably, in the noisy environment of the Public Bar Platt had not heard.
On this January evening in 1939 Arthur had just finished dinner and was sitting over his books, when his landlady put her head in at the door and said suspiciously, ‘There’s a lady to see you.’
He looked up with a start, trying to make sense of it, and then asked nervously, ‘Who is it?’ He had the absurd idea that Doris the barmaid had come to fetch him, and that Mrs Heavitree didn’t approve of her.
‘Didn’t give a name. Said she wanted to see you professionally.’
‘Oh! Oh well, you see, the office is closed, and she may have gone round to Mr Margate’s house, and he may be out, and she may have been sent——’ He broke off, thinking ashamedly, ‘Why am I such a coward, why am I apologising for what is none of her business?’ and said firmly, looking as much like a solicitor as he could, ‘Show her up, please, Mrs Heavitree.’ As she closed the door, he hurried into his bedroom and brushed his hair. A pity that the remains of a rice pudding were on the table, but if she were a nice old lady they could laugh it off together.
There was a knock at the door. He called ‘Come in!’ and she came in.
Arthur stood up to receive her. He had been preparing to say ‘Good evening, Mrs—er—won’t you sit down and tell me what I can do for you?’ What he did say was ‘Good lord!’
She was young, she was lovely, she was everything which he had hoped that a girl might be, she was the girl of his dreams. He stood gaping at her.
She had a low, deep voice, wonderfully sweet. She said, ‘Do forgive me, Mr Carstairs, for coming at this time,’ and he pulled himself together and said, ‘Not at all, sit down, won’t you?’ Apologies for the springs of the arm-chair and the death-throes of the rice pudding rose to his lips, but her pretty, ‘Thank you,’ and the smile she gave him left him speechless. He told himself that, as once or twice before, he had fallen asleep over his books, and presently would wake.
‘Mr Carstairs,’ she said, ‘you are a solicitor, are you not?’
‘Well—er,’ he said, ‘yes, and—er—no, I mean I shall be —I hope—in a short time, as soon as I have passed my final examination, but actually I’m not yet qualified. Does it matter?’ he added anxiously.
‘Oh dear!’ she said. ‘I thought you were a solicitor.’
‘Well, I am in a way. What it comes to is that I could give you my advice, my help, unprofessionally, I mean without payment—but then,’ he hurried on, ‘of course I shouldn’t want that anyhow, I mean——’
She smiled and said, ‘You mean I could thank you without offending your legal etiquette?’
‘Yes, of course, I mean—er—well, perhaps you had better tell me what it is. I expect it will be all right.’
‘It’s a question of a will. Must you have a qualified solicitor to write a will for you?’
This was easy.
‘Anybody can write a will. People generally employ a solicitor so as to be sure of covering all the ground, and the solicitor employs a special legal language so as to be sure of doing this. But anybody can write in plain English on a piece of paper “I leave my gold cigarette-case to John Smith,” and if it’s properly signed and witnessed, John Smith gets it.’
She smiled at him delightedly and said, ‘Then there you are! You read this will which my father has made, you assure him as a friend that it is legally correct, it is signed and witnessed, and then we thank you, we show our gratitude’—she held him for an endless moment with her wonderful eyes—‘in any way you wish. So long, of course, as it does not include six-and-eightpence.’
She laughed as she ended, and her laughter was divine music to him. Nobody had ever laughed like that.
‘That’s right,’ he said, laughing too.
‘Then you will come with me?’
‘Of course, if you really——’
‘To Norton St. Giles?’
He nearly said, ‘To the ends of the earth!’ but stopped himself just in time.
‘Norton St. Giles? I don’t think I——’
‘It’s a village about twenty-five miles from here. We’re a little way out of it. The Old Barn.’
‘Twenty-five miles! I say! But I don’t understand.’ He frowned at her, trying to remember that he was nearly a solicitor. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
She rose from the broken chair as if it were a throne, and held out her hand to him.
‘Nevertheless, because I ask you, you will come— Arthur?’
He was on his feet, taking her hand in his, saying huskily that he would come, seeing the squalid room as it would be if she left him alone in it, romance and beauty gone from his life for ever. All the same, it didn’t make sense. Perhaps that was what was so attractive about it.
She pressed his hand, thanking him with her eyes, and, surprisingly, sat down again. She smiled at him, and said, ‘I knew I could be sure of you. So now let’s make sense of it.’
He pushed his books further out of the way, and leant forward, chin on hands, watching her eagerly.
‘My name is Lydia Clyde. My father and I live alone together. I am all that he has left in the world, and I am devoted to him. He is, I am afraid, a sick man.’ She put her hand to her left breast. ‘He may die at any moment, the doctors tell us; but he and I’—she gave a confident little laugh—‘we don’t believe the doctors. And yet sometimes —do you understand?—we do believe. For weeks now he has been insisting that he must make a will, so as to leave me provided for. You know how it is; one puts off doing a tiling for years, telling oneself that there is no hurry, and then, when one suddenly decides to do it, every wasted minute seems of importance. So I arranged with a London friend of ours, a lawyer, to come down for a night. I would meet him at the junction, for we are many miles from a station. But he is not there! So I ring up my father, and I learn that our friend has telegraphed to say that he is prevented from coming. My father implores me to find some other lawyer and bring him back with me. He dare not put it off any longer. Foolish, unreasonable, I know, he may live for twenty years yet, but’—she shrugged her shoulders—‘sick men are unreasonable. And I cannot have him worrying. So——’ she broke off, and looked at him gratefully ‘—you!’
‘Yes, but how——’
‘You have met a man, Roger Platt, at—the Cap and Bells, is it?’
‘Is he a friend of yours?’ he asked, surprised.
‘We have known him a long time, but that is not to say that he is a man I approve of altogether. Poor Roger! He is not’—she smiled at him confidingly—‘our sort. But he has spoken to me of you. He has a great admiration for you, did you know? So, when I was so badly in need of a friend, a friend who was also a lawyer, but a friend who was young enough not to mind doing an unusual thing, I remembered suddenly what he had said of you. You will come? I have my car outside.’
‘Of course,’ said Arthur, flattered to think that he had made such an impression. But he looked at her in a puzzled way, for there was still something which didn’t make sense.
‘What is it?’ she asked, suddenly alarmed.
‘Your father——’
‘Yes?’
‘You are his only child. Then why the urgent need for a will? Everything will be yours anyhow.’
She gave him the most pathetic look which he had ever received from a human being. She turned away from him, and her lovely head drooped upon her shoulder. ‘Don’t you understand?’ she whispered.
To show that he was a man of the world and practically a qualified solicitor he said quickly that he did, of course he did, but—and stopped, hoping that she would explain.
‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ she murmured, ‘I wanted to keep my poor little secret. But I cannot have secrets from my friend. You see, Arthur, I am his daughter, but—oh, must I say it?’ She looked forlornly at him.
‘Oh!’ Now he understood. ‘You mean—he never married your mother?’
She bowed her head.
He got up, saying, ‘I’m a fool, forgive me. I’ll just get my coat.’ As he went into his bedroom she looked at her watch. It was 7.47.
They said little on the way. As they wound out of the half-lit streets into the deep blackness of the country lanes she asked him if he were ever frightened in a car, and he said ‘Not with you.’ She gave him her hand for a moment, saying simply, ‘I am a good driver and the roads will be empty.’ He was too happy to be frightened. Once or twice his heart turned over, but her reassuring smile, her little apology, brought forgetfulness. They flashed through a village and she said, ‘Barton Langley, half-way,’ and he looked at his watch to find that it was only just after eight. Twelve-and-a-half miles, that was fifty miles an hour! Fifty miles an hour on a pitch-black night with a lovely girl, this, he told himself, was life. He closed his eyes happily, and went into a dream . . .
‘There! Thirty-three minutes. That’s as good as I’ve ever done at night. Come along!’
She switched off the engine, took his hand, and drew him after her. She opened the front door into darkness, saying, ‘The lights went this evening, you must keep hold of me,’ and he was glad to be still holding her hand. They went into a room on the left.
It was a man’s room, lit now by many candles; plainly furnished with a couple of comfortable chairs and a sofa, all in green linen covers on which were brightly coloured patchwork cushions. At a gate-legged table with a check tablecloth, an elderly man was playing Patience. He rose, sweeping the cards together, as Lydia said, ‘Darling, this is Mr Carstairs, who has very kindly come to help us.’
Mr Clyde bowed low from behind the table, saying, ‘Mr Carstairs, I am your most obliged, humble servant.’ He was an oddly old-fashioned figure, thought Arthur, in his black velvet jacket and black stock, with an eyeglass, dependent from a black ribbon, now in his eye. He had a long, pale rather melancholy face in a setting of crinkly, silver hair, but his eyes shone alertly, and his hand, as he held it out, did not tremble. After all, thought Arthur, why should Lydia’s father be more than fifty? It’s only the hair which makes him seem old.
‘I’ll get the drinks,’ said Lydia. ‘Have you got the will there, Father? We mustn’t keep Mr Carstairs.’ She took a candle and went out. Arthur turned to watch her go, saw the picture on the wall, and gave a gasp of astonishment. Mr Clyde, fumbling among some papers on his table, presumably for the will, said, ‘Ah, you have seen my Corot.’
Arthur was surprised, for he did not associate Corot with nudes, and it was certainly difficult to associate him with this particular one. She sat on a rock, her crossed feet just in the water, and she was leaning back on her hands, looking up into the sunlight, her eyes bright with the joy of living. She was so real, he felt, that if he called to her she would look down and smile at him, and say, ‘Ah! there you are!’ happy to have found him; as Lydia was happy to have found him such a little while ago. For the face was the face of Lydia; alive; unmistakable.
He looked quickly away, and saw what he supposed was the Corot on the other wall. Pale, delicate fantasy, a dream world, an eggshell world which broke at a touch, insubstantial faeryland which somehow made the other picture doubly alive, filling the room with Lydia.
‘It’s lovely,’ stammered Arthur, and the old man chuckled to himself.
And now Arthur was to be startled into admiration again, for on a small table in the window a chess-board was laid out, with the most elaborately carved red and white ivory men which he had ever seen. The knights were real knights, the bishops real bishops; to sit down behind them would be to fight a battle, not to play a game. He wondered how long it would take to get used to them; whether it would upset one’s game not to have the familiar pieces under one’s hand. He longed to try.
Lydia came back with a tray. Arthur felt shy of her suddenly. He wanted to look at the picture again, and then at her. He was afraid to look at either, to look at the picture under her eyes, or to look at her with the secret of the picture showing in his own eyes.
‘I must have left it in the other room,’ said Mr Clyde, coming from behind his table. ‘No, no, Lydia,’ he cried testily, ‘I am not dying. I can walk into the other room. I am not going upstairs.’ He took a candle and went out.
She felt his uncomfortableness. She took his hand and deliberately turned him round to the picture. They looked at it together.
‘Are you shocked?’ she asked gently.
He blushed and said, ‘It’s too beautiful for that—I’ve never—it’s just beauty. Oh, Lydia!’
‘I was a model before my father found me again. It was either that or—the other tiling. You don’t despise me?’
‘No, no, no!’
‘I think it is only a few special people who recognise me. To most it is just’—she shrugged—‘Aurora or June Morning or Sea Maiden. But you are different. I knew —didn’t I say so?—that I could have no secrets from you.’ She pressed his hand and left it as the old man came back.
‘Now, Mr Carstairs, here you are. It’s quite short, as you see, and I don’t want any nonsense about messuages and hereditaments, because I haven’t got any. These ridiculous doctors order me from one place to another, and my life is lived, you might say, in short leases.’
Arthur read the will and said: ‘It seems all right. I see you just say “my daughter Lydia”. I think——’
‘Exactly. As you notice, I’ve left a space there.’
‘Well, legally—er—it’s a question of—I mean——’
‘I’ve told him, Father,’ said Lydia.
‘Then what are you stammering about, young man? Go ahead.’
‘Well, is her name Clyde?’
‘Yes. She took it by deed poll as soon as—well, some years ago.’
‘That’s good. Any other Christian name?’
‘Lydia Rosaline,’ said Lydia.——
‘Then I should say “my daughter Lydia Rosaline Clyde, who is now living with me”, and I don’t see how there could be any doubt.’
‘That’s what I want. Thank you.’ He sat down and began to write.
‘We shall need another witness, of course,’ said Arthur.
‘We only want two, don’t we?’ said Lydia. ‘You and me. Why, what’s the matter?’
It was absurd that anybody shouldn’t know what he knew so well. He smiled at her as he would have smiled at a child, and said, ‘A witness can’t benefit from a will, you know. We need some other independent person. A servant will do.’
‘Father, did you know that?’
‘I take no interest in the artificialities of the Law,’ said Mr Clyde grandly. ‘I leave them to this young man.’
‘But we have no servant here!’ cried Lydia. ‘A woman comes in, but she is ill and hasn’t been coming this week— what are we to do?’
‘One of your neighbours?’
‘We hardly know them. Father’s health—Oh, if I’d only known, we could have brought Roger with us!’
‘Then as you didn’t,’ said Mr Clyde, ‘may I suggest that the simplest thing would be to go and fetch him now?’
‘But Father!’ She looked at her watch. ‘Half past eight, I couldn’t be back before 9.40, say, and to keep Mr Carstairs waiting about all that time——’
‘You’ll keep him waiting about much longer, if you’re going round from one strange house to another trying to persuade somebody to come out on a damned cold night, and probably getting nobody in the end. Don’t you worry about Mr Carstairs, I’ll look after him. You play chess, Mr Carstairs?’
‘Yes, rather, I—er——’
‘Well, if you’d like a game——’
‘Oh, I say, I’d love it!’
‘There you are, my dear, you aren’t the only attraction in this house. Now then, don’t waste any more time, off you go.’
‘Well, if you really don’t mind—Arthur?’
‘It’s quite all right—Lydia!’
‘You’re very sweet.’ She gave him a warm loving smile, glanced up at her picture, and said in a low voice, ‘I shall be watching over you. Look at me sometimes.’ She pressed his hands. Mr Clyde busied himself with the chessmen.
It was a curious game which they played. The strangeness of the pieces; the insistent presence of Lydia; the urge to look at her which made it so difficult to concentrate on the board; a sort of nightmare feeling that he could not escape from his opponent, that every move was a foolish move to which the counter was inevitable and should have been foreseen—and then, unable to be resisted any longer, Lydia, beautiful, desirable, filling the room. The game came to an end with the noise of wheels on the gravel, so completely was it in the other man’s control.
‘9.35!’ cried Lydia gaily. ‘I beat our record, Arthur.’
‘I should say she did,’ said Platt. ‘Evening, Carstairs. I’m all of a tremble still.’
Arthur nodded to him; as the family solicitor might nod to some rather undesirable member of the family with whom he had a business appointment.
‘It’s good of you to come, my boy,’ said Mr Clyde. ‘Now then, Mr Carstairs, tell us what we have to do.’
‘Lead me to the dotted line,’ said Platt, taking out his pen, ‘and watch me spell my name. You’ll be surprised.’
The will was signed ‘Philip Clyde’, and witnessed.
‘Exhausting,’ said Platt, putting his pen away. ‘I must have a drink, Lyd.’
‘Only a small one, darling, you’re going to drive us back.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘And you’ll take forty-five minutes exactly.’
‘When they tell you, Carstairs, don’t argue, just do it.’
‘Arthur?’ She looked at him, decanter poised over glass.
‘Just a very little,’ he said nervously. He had never drunk whiskey before.
‘There! And a very small one for me. I like driving fast, but I don’t like being driven fast. We’ll sit comfortably together at the back without hitting the roof. Through Barton Langley, Roger, it’s the better way.’
‘Oh, right.’
The moon had risen, relieving the blackness a little. Arthur and Lydia sat in silence together, a rug wrapped round them, clasping hands beneath. He saw nothing but her face beside him, her picture on the wall, and a magic future in which, somewhere, somehow, they were together for always. . . .
‘The Cap and Bells,’ said Platt, as the car came to rest, ‘and that’s that, as far as I’m concerned. Lyd, you can take Carstairs home. And a very good night to you both.’
‘Thank you for everything, darling, ever so much.’
He got out of the car, waved to them, and went inside. She moved into the driver’s seat, and Arthur sat next to her. It was only a few hundred yards to his lodging. The street was empty. She turned to him, holding out her arms. He clung to her, kissing her cheeks clumsily, whispering, ‘Oh, darling! Oh, Lydia!’ She guided his mouth to her own. He had never known such ecstasy. Oh, to die like this in her arms, his soul drawn slowly through his lips to rest in hers!
He was almost suffocating when she released him. She said smilingly, ‘Better than six and eightpence?’ and then, ‘Darling, you must go.’ She reached across him and opened the door on his side. ‘Quick.’
‘I shall see you again—soon?’
‘I expect so,’ she smiled. ‘In a day or two. Goodbye, darling, and thank you a thousand times. You can’t think what a help you have been.’
He was out on the pavement; she had pulled the door shut, kissed her hand and was gone. He stumbled up the stairs to his sordid little room. It was 10.30. Just three short hours, and he had experienced a new world. He undressed. He lay in bed in the dark, seeing her picture on the wall.
That was Tuesday. On the Thursday morning he was summoned to Mr Margate’s room. Vaguely apprehensive, feeling, as he had felt ever since, that he had done something unprofessional on that evening and was to be reprimanded, he went in. There was another man there. Mr Margate said, ‘Oh, good morning, Arthur. This is Inspector Wells. I’ll leave you to him. Answer his questions and help him in any way you can.’ Completely bewildered, a little alarmed at contact with the police, yet relieved that his conduct as a solicitor was not to be impeached, Arthur waited. The Inspector sat negligently on the corner of Mr Margate’s desk, one leg swinging. He was a stocky, pleasant-looking man with a gentle, rather tired voice.
‘Just a few questions,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing much.’ He smiled in a friendly way and added, ‘I can hardly ask you to sit down in your own office, but you’d be more comfortable.’
Arthur sat down.
‘Never mind for the moment why I’m asking these questions. If you do happen to guess, well, you’re a lawyer and can keep a confidence. That right?’
‘Of course.’
‘Know a man called Platt? Roger Platt?’
‘I’ve met him once or twice.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Tuesday night.’
‘Where? At what time?’
‘At about 10.30, going into the Cap and Bells.’
The Inspector was silent for a little, swinging his leg, and then said, ‘I’m trying to confirm his account of himself on Tuesday evening. It involves, among other people, some friends of his called Clyde, who live at Norton St. Giles, and yourself. Now give me your account.’
Arthur gave it. The Inspector smiled and said, ‘I gather that the lady is not ill-looking.’ Arthur blushed and said, ‘Yes, I mean No.’
‘All the same, if you can drive fifty miles on a dark winter’s night for a lady, you can drive fifty miles for a mere policeman on a nice sunny morning. Can’t you?’
Arthur couldn’t keep the excitement out of his eyes and voice as he asked, ‘Do you mean you want me to come with you to Norton St. Giles—now?’
‘That’s the idea. I gather that it finds favour with you.’
Arthur blushed again and said defensively, ‘Well, it’s better than stuffing in an office.’
‘No doubt. Now just a word before we start. You would, of course, vouch for the honesty and integrity of your friends the Clydes?’
‘Of course!’
‘Although you only met them on Tuesday. Well, I’m not saying you’re wrong. But would you also vouch for Mr Roger Platt?’
‘N-no,’ said Arthur. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t—and I’m not saying you’re right. You see, the police can’t come to these quick decisions. To the police every man might be a liar, and every woman is one. I don’t feel bound to accept the Clydes’ word, nor Platt’s, nor yours. But if you all agree on something, then it’s probably the truth. You’ve told me that Platt was in a certain place at 9.35 on Tuesday night in the company of yourself and Mr and Miss Clyde. If he was there, then he can’t have been thirty-five miles away at 9.15—in which case I’ve no more interest in him. So, with your permission, we’ll just make sure that you’re speaking the truth, and that that’s where you were yourself at 9.35. No offence?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Right. Then let’s go. I’ve warned them that we’re coming.’
They went out to the police-car. A constable-driver was studying a map.
‘Found the way, Lewis?’
‘There seems to be two ways, sir. I don’t know that there’s much choice.’
‘Perhaps Mr Carstairs can tell us.’
Arthur was about to explain that it was much too dark to see anything, when he remembered. ‘We go through Barton Langley,’ he said, with the assurance of one who always did.
‘That’s right,’ said Lewis. ‘I thought that looked the better way.’
‘All right, then. Step on it.’
It was like coming home to be in that room again; to see the picture, the two pictures, and the great chessmen under the window, and old Mr Clyde with his Patience spread out on the chequered table-cloth, and now, making her even dearer, Lydia in a chair before the fire busy with her needle. ‘I’ve brought a friend of yours with me,’ the Inspector had said, and her eyes had lit up, and she had cried ‘Oh, how nice!’ and held out a hand to him, and the old man had chuckled and said, ‘Hallo, boy, come for your revenge?’ The Inspector had managed it all very tactfully, leaving Lydia a little bewildered, a little anxious for Roger, and the old man cynically amused.
‘Yes, you want to keep your eye on that gentleman, Inspector. Reckless young devil. You never know what he’ll be up to next. What’s he done now? Didn’t run over anybody, did he, when he drove Mr Carstairs back?’
‘Of course he didn’t, darling. I don’t know what it’s all about.’
‘Just a matter of confirmation, Miss Clyde,’ said the Inspector vaguely. ‘You know how it is, one friend recommends a book, and you say “Really?” Another friend recommends it, and you say “Oh, I must get it”. Then a third friend recommends it, and you really do get it. Same with evidence.’
Now he was saying good-bye to Lydia. Now he was saying good-bye to the other Lydia, the Lydia of the picture—oh, Lydia, my lovely!—and then he was in the car, and perhaps would never see her again.
‘And that’s where you were at 9.35 on Tuesday night, Mr Carstairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Playing chess with Mr Clyde when Miss Clyde came back with Platt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Certain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good enough,’ said Inspector Wells regretfully, and began to talk about football.
Six years later Arthur was in Cairo. He had been half round the world; he had kissed girls of many nationalities; he had climbed mountains, swum in strange seas and spent more nights under the stars than he could count. He had seen life and he had seen death. Now he was in Cairo, having what he called a spot of leave.
A hand came on his shoulder and turned him round. He saw a pleasant-looking middle-aged man in captain’s uniform.
‘Carstairs, surely?’ said the other. ‘Though it’s a long time since we met.’
‘I’m afraid,’ began Arthur, looking at the man again, and went on, ‘Yes, but I do know your face, only—I’m sorry— I can’t for the moment——’
‘I used to be Inspector Wells. Field Security now. Same job really.’
‘Of course! Nice to meet you again. Are you dug in here? I’m just on leave.’
‘Then you must let me give you a drink. Groppi’s suit you?’
‘Anything you say. It’s your home town.’
They sat out at a little table with their drinks, each of them, because he was in the company of someone who knew his own particular corner of England, stirred by a vague feeling of happiness.
‘Did you ever see your friends the Clydes again?’ asked Wells, after they had exchanged immediate news about themselves.
‘No,’ said Arthur shortly. He could still feel ashamed of his utter surrender to that revelation of Lydia; still remember with contempt the feverish anxiety in which he had waited for some message from her, had written to her imploringly and reckoned the hours by the deliveries of a postman who never came, had hired a bicycle at last and ridden out one Sunday to find the house in possession of new tenants who could give him no forwarding address. And although five years in the Army had put her now in her right place, somewhere well below the W.A.A.F.S. and the A.T.S. and the pretty Italian girls with whom he had fallen in love since, he could still imagine himself meeting her again and discovering that nothing had changed between them.
‘I could give you news of them if you were interested.’
‘Oh? Yes, I should like to hear.’ He tried to sound indifferent, but already his heart was beating out an absurd message that she was here in Cairo—now! Was that the news?
Wells puffed at his pipe for a little, as if wondering where to begin.
‘I could have told you this five years ago or more. In fact, I went round to see you, but you’d already joined up. Funny our meeting like this. I often wondered—when I asked you all those questions, did you know what I was after?’
‘Not at first. I hardly ever bothered with the papers in those days. Afterwards, when I heard about the jewel robbery at Glendower House, I wondered if it was that.’
‘It was.’
‘And you thought Platt might have done it? I shouldn’t have put it past him.’
‘Well, yes and no. It wanted somebody quicker and neater and more active to do the actual robbery, but there was evidence to show that he had been interesting himself in the lay-out of the house—hanging around, taking her ladyship’s maid to the pictures, that sort of thing. My idea was that he prepared the ground, and somebody else nipped in and did it. Possibly there was a third person in the background who organised it all.’
‘But you never got them?’
‘Oh yes, we did. Not then, but later on when they worked it again in another part of the country, and we found some of the Glendower stuff on them. And then we got the whole story out of them, from Platt chiefly. A nasty bit of work, Platt.’
‘Platt?’ said Arthur, astonished. ‘You mean he was in the Glendower show?’
‘Oh, yes. The girl actually did it, of course, and it was Clyde who had worked it all out. A great organiser that man, and a great artist. Pity he had to go to prison, he’d have done well in the Army.’
‘The girl?’ cried Arthur. ‘What are you talking about, Wells? What girl?’
‘Lydia.’
Arthur gave a loud mocking laugh. Wells raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and said nothing. A little disconcerted, Arthur said, ‘Perhaps I’m getting it all wrong. When did the robbery take place?’
‘Everybody was at dinner, all the bedrooms empty. It was the night of the Hunt Ball, but the women didn’t really plaster themselves with the stuff until they were ready to start. So she made a pretty good haul. Accidentally, as we thought at first, she knocked over the ladder as she came down. It crashed on to the terrace, and brought everybody out. The moon had just risen, and they saw a figure running, sex unknown. Time, definite and fixed, 9.15.’
‘And twenty minutes later she was thirty-five miles away! Ha-ha!’
Wells didn’t say anything, and Arthur asked a little anxiously, ‘Glendower is thirty-five miles from Norton St. Giles, isn’t it?’
‘Ten miles due south of Kingsfield, and another twenty-five north. That’s right.’
‘Well, then!’
‘This is the ingenious part.’ He put a hand for a moment on Arthur’s knee, and said, ‘Don’t think that you have anything to reproach yourself with. I was taken in just as badly, and I was a policeman.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Well, you see, Carstairs, you never were at Norton St. Giles. You were never more than a mile from Kingsfield—and ten miles from Glendower House.’
‘But—but, my good man, I went there with you!’
‘Oh, next morning, yes.’
‘To the same house.’
‘No.’
‘But I could swear——’
‘You couldn’t swear it was the same house, because you never saw the house that night. You saw one room.’
‘All right, then, the same room.’
‘No.’
‘Really, Wells, I know I was an innocent young fool in those days, but I wasn’t blind.’
‘Everyone is blind to the things at which he isn’t looking. What did you see in that room? That picture. What else? Go on, describe the room to me.’
‘The other picture, the Corot. The chessmen on the table by the window. The big table with a check table-cloth—er—dammit, it was six years ago—oh yes, there were some patchwork cushions, and—er——’ He tried to think, but all he could see was Lydia.
‘You see? Everything you remember was movable. It could all have been put in a car, and taken from one house to another; from Clyde’s house in Norton St. Giles to Platt’s house outside Kingsfield. Oh, he knew his stuff, that man Clyde. He knew that a young bachelor living in lodgings doesn’t take in a room as a woman does, or even as a married man might. Give him something to fix his eyes on, and the rest goes by. So he gave you the portrait of Lydia and the chessmen—your two loves, so to speak— and they furnished the room for you.’
‘But she drove me there——’
‘In the dark, to Barton Langley and back, same as when Platt drove you home. When Lydia left you and Clyde playing chess, she drove straight to Glendower House, ten miles, did the job, and drove back to Platt’s house where you were just finishing your game. Platt, who was in the pub until nine, walked over and met her outside. Then they burst in together, straight from their supposed twenty-five mile drive, and full of it. Easy.’
Arthur sat there, trying to take it in, trying in the light of this revelation to remember all that she had said to him, all the lies which she had told him.
‘Was he really her father?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes, undoubtedly.’
Well, at least she had told the truth about that.
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Wells, ‘I see what you mean. No, no, Clyde was her husband.’
‘Her husband?’
‘Yes, he’s quite a young man. It was Platt who was her father.’
Lies, lies, nothing but lies! All lies!
‘I daresay it didn’t give the girl much chance, having a father like that. Just a common crook. Clyde was the genius, an artist in every sense of the word. He painted that picture, you know.’
‘Oh?’ He didn’t want to think of the picture now.
‘Typical of him.’ Wells laughed gently. ‘It wasn’t the girl at all. Just a professional model for Dawn or Summer, or whatever he called it. He painted in his wife’s face specially for the occasion. Thought that it would occupy your attention more. He thought of everything.’
All of it lies, and this the crowning lie of all! He could forgive her everything but this, this outrage on his modesty. Damn her! And who the hell cared? Edna was having dinner with him to-night. A really good sort. And quite pretty.
‘Oh well,’ he said indifferently, ‘that was a long time ago. I was a bit younger then. What about another drink? It’s my turn this time.’