BY THE TIME Dot and Herbert arrived home, well after midnight, the moments of high drama were over. Cynthia, knocked unconscious by two of Edith’s blue sleeping-pills on top of several of her own pale-green tranquillisers—not to mention the brandy—lay now like the dead. Darling Desmond’s putative attitude to the situation (surely one not quite up his street?) had been gone through exhaustively, and the other-worldly revelations he came up with (that what must be must be, and that these things are sent to try us) had been given due weight. Imogen’s thoughts were now revolving round more practical possibilities: like who had been forging Ivor’s handwriting, and why?
Because forgery, of course, must be the explanation.
She was ashamed, now, of having screamed. For one thing, it put her into a category wherein Edith’s ministrations became unavoidable: and for another, she hated the feeling of having lost her head and made a fool of herself.
After the first, unreasoning panic was over, she’d gone back to the study, and had examined the drawer carefully, looking for clues. The first thing she’d noticed was that the mysterious Minoan manuscript, whose scattered pages she’d gathered together yesterday into a loose pile and laid on the desk, was now neatly sorted into chapters, each clipped together with a paper-clip, and the whole secured by an elastic band. There was more of it than she’d realised at first, it made quite a solid little pile of paper lying there in the drawer; but it still wasn’t of book length—her experienced eye told her this at once.
Five chapters, that was all. Probably about a third of what had been originally intended. Curious to assess the point at which the young, long-ago Ivor had given up, she began leafing through the last few pages—and straight away got another shock, almost as great as the shock of finding the warning notice.
Since yesterday morning, alterations had been made. With a modern, blue-black biro, words had been crossed out, corrections added—intelligent corrections, so far as Imogen could judge:
“Around 1700 B.C.” had been crossed out, and “Between 1550 B.C. and 1400 B.C.” written-in over the top, the new, fresh ink standing out like dark silk against the yellowing pages. Her heart beating strangely, she turned the next page, and the next, until she came to the last one of all.
She stared. She could not believe it.
Someone was going on with the book. Since this morning, two new paragraphs had been added. Her eyes scanned incredulously the bold, familiar writing.
It seemed to be the resumption of some earlier discussion of the Cretan scripts and their decipherment; and it started off, so far as Imogen could judge, in a perfectly coherent and scholarly way. After a few sample lines of the curious, angular script (which by now was becoming almost familiar to Imogen), the text continued:
“The clue, of course, lies in the inflexional character of the language. Imagine yourself for a moment to be living in a new Dark Age, where Latin has been utterly forgotten. You are trying to decipher one of these unknown masterpieces—and the first thing you will notice is that while the words are just as varied as you would expect, the endings of the words are not. The signs ‘i’ and ‘is’ and ‘orum’ and so on recur over and over again as word-endings. You will thus conclude damn, damn, damn, all this is perfectly useless, I’m too late, it’s all in Ventris, what on earth is the point of going on? Why did I ever come back into the world of the living? Everything moves too fast, I can’t keep up, I’m used to the other world now, where things go slowly as in a dream.
But if I had to come back into the land of the living, why didn’t they at least let me come back sooner? I’ve been dead too long, my brain has begun to rot, I can’t think any more.”
By now, Imogen’s hand was shaking so much that she could scarcely hold the page.
A joke, she kept saying to herself. A cruel, ridiculous joke. Don’t look for sense in it, don’t keep reading it over and over, there won’t be any sense, why should there be? It’s only a joke, a stupid, horrible joke.
But perpetrated by whom?
Robin? Teri? These were the names that sprang naturally to mind when something outrageous was afoot; but this time it wouldn’t do. Whoever it was who had sunk to this level of tasteless spite had gone to immense trouble over it—weeks and months of gruelling practice must have gone into the achieving of so brilliant and accomplished a forgery. It was impossible to suppose that either Robin or Teri were capable of this sort of application—Robin, who got bored with everything within minutes, or Teri, who didn’t even know the word “blackmail”.
Whoever had forged the writing—and indeed the style—so perfectly was someone of very different calibre.
It was the ease of the thing that was so amazing. Imogen was no graphologist, but common-sense told her that deliberately forged writing, even if superbly executed, would surely bear traces of artificiality, of laboured, over-meticulous penmanship.
She bent closer to the page, holding it once more under the lamp.
Not a sign, not a suspicion, of the kind of awkwardness she was looking for. The writing ran boldly, effortlessly—sometimes even carelessly—across the page, as though the writer, whoever he was, had practised and perfected the imitation for so long that it came to him as naturally as breathing.
What other possibilities were there? Was she, perhaps, in her over-wrought state, imagining a greater degree of resemblance than was really there?
Sitting down at the desk, Imogen spread the papers before her, and set herself, quite systematically, to search for flaws in the imitation: laying the new paragraphs alongside assorted old ones, and comparing them letter by letter, and, wherever possible, word by word.
The two sets of writing were identical.
What in the world was going on? Was there someone who, for some unimaginable motive, was trying to make her believe, in the teeth of all the known and incontrovertible facts, that her husband was still alive? Or was it some mad spiritualist, trying to convince her that Ivor’s spirit still hovered around its old haunts, poking its supernatural nose into things, interfering with perfectly sensible earthly arrangements, and generally keeping its loved ones on their toes?
Just like Darling Desmond. And hot on the heels of this thought came another, unheralded and unbidden: Ivor would have loved it to be like that. He’d have loved to be a ghost, to amaze and startle, as only a ghost can; to appear and disappear at will, entirely at his own other-worldly convenience; to retain, though dead, a finger in every pie, a say in every family decision, and at the same time to enjoy his four-dimensional option of disappearing in a puff of smoke whenever anything became troublesome.
“One foot in the grave and the other in the rat-race”—that’s how he’d have described it, and he would have exploited it for all it was worth, getting the best out of both worlds and then vanishing with a gleeful rattle of chains just before the trouble started.
Soon, he would be famous. “Dead Professor Walks Again” would be the headline; and there would be meetings of the Psychical Research Society to discuss his authenticity.
The Barnicott Ghost: it would be a household word, in all the local guide-books, a tourist attraction. Sooner or later a teenage blonde would get mixed up in the thing, and her picture would be in all the Sunday papers alongside his. A book might even be written about him.
And then television, of course. Did ghosts ever appear on television?—Ivor’s ghost would. She could just hear his mellow, disembodied voice putting the interviewer right on some bit of supernatural know-how….
For a moment, she fancied she really could just hear it: “Imogen, for God’s sake, why can’t you…?” but of course it was her imagination.
*
From now on, she must expect to imagine this sort of thing; for, of course, the affair was going to escalate. Whether it was fraud or spirit-messages, they weren’t going to leave it at this.
Come to think of it, it had escalated already—had, in fact, been escalating all the time. “You’ve got a poltergeist,” Cynthia had declared, and from that moment on the sequence of events had been exactly what one might have expected if her hypothesis had been correct. Objects mysteriously out of place; minor, mischievous damage; and invariably one or other of the children involved. In poltergeist phenomena there was always a child involved—so Imogen had read; and no doubt the perpetrator of the trick had read up the subject likewise.
There had already been one Manifestation—the face floating above Vernon’s bed. Soon, there would be others.
Thank God it was only a trick.
Imogen felt a pang of guilt at this so summarily depriving Ivor of his after-life and all its attendant fun and games; especially as he had worked so hard to attain it.
Well, he must have done. She pictured how it must have been for his bewildered, recalcitrant spirit during these past four months. Fluttering and feeble it would have been at first, from the great shock of death—and no doubt looking vainly around for her, Imogen, to do something about it.
And she had done nothing. Well, what could she have done?
“And I sprinkled white meal over the strengthless dead … I made sacrifice … and many ghosts flocked together to drink the black blood and to gain strength therefrom….”
*
“Good God! Are you asleep, or something?”
Dot’s voice, fresh and strident from her evening’s outing, burst across Imogen’s consciousness, driving the disjointed quotation (from somewhere or other in Homer, wasn’t it?) right out of her mind. She blinked at Dot stupidly; then straightened up, realising that she had been slumped forward over the desk, more than half asleep, her elbows among the papers.
“What are you doing?” continued Dot; and then, without waiting for an answer, she launched into the story of her own evening.
It had been an exciting one, by hers and Herbert’s standards. They had danced as well as dined; they had seen a drug-addict leaning against some railings; and they had stood up (or rather Dot had stood Herbert up) to the taxi-driver who’d tried to charge them double because it was after midnight.
He’d succeeded, actually; but (to judge by her own account) she’d got in a lot of satisfying ripostes first, and so victory, of a sort, had been enjoyed by all. Oh, and they’d seen someone walking down the Parade carrying a nursery fire-guard. At this time of night! Whoever would be wanting to carry a …
It seemed a shame, really, to break in on such blissful reminiscences, but it had to be done. It was just possible that Dot might be able to shed some light on the mysterious happenings of this evening; and there was, in any case, the furtive selling of the house in Twickenham to be explained. While Imogen was debating in her mind which of these two uncomfortable topics to raise first, the decision was summarily taken out of her hands. Dot broke off in mid-sentence and pointed like a gun-dog:
“What’s that cat doing here?” she demanded: and for the first time since she’d entered the house, Imogen recollected the existence of Minos. How he’d got out of his basket (or got someone to get him out) she would never know—cats are like that—but anyway, here he was now, curled up fast asleep on the seat of Ivor’s big leather chair.
“Well—” she was beginning apologetically, and then, suddenly, What the hell? she thought, and moved over to the attack. After all, the selling of a house surely demands more explanations than the fetching of a cat?
*
Dot was almost aggressively off-hand. It was a good time to sell, she pointed out, the agent had said so. He had, apparently, complimented her, Dot, on the singular goodness of the time, and also on her foresight in having installed central heating in spite of the fact that Herbert enjoyed sawing up logs on Saturday afternoons. The exercise was good for him, he’d pleaded; and, “What about your fibrositis?” she’d countered, quick as a flash. And now, hey presto, she’d been proved right, to the tune of an extra £750 on the selling price, and if that didn’t cure Herbert’s fibrositis, nothing would.
And yes, well, she was sorry she hadn’t told Imogen about all these plans, but she hadn’t wanted to worry her (people never do want to worry you about issues over which you might oppose them, Imogen reflected); and besides, the house hadn’t been sold yet, had it, so there wasn’t, actually, anything to tell. Where were they moving to? Well, Dot had never believed in crossing bridges until she came to them; and all Imogen’s efforts to convince her that she had come to this one, right here in her stepmother’s home, evoked only the blank, unhearing look with which Dot habitually countered arguments which fell outside her chosen area of conflict.
Imogen had earlier decided not to tell Dot about the mysterious up-heaving of the dust-sheet until tomorrow, not wanting to upset her last thing at night; but now she changed her mind, and decided that Dot could do with all the upsetting she could get. Determined to wipe that vacant, impervious look off her stepdaughter’s face if it was the last thing she did, Imogen launched straight into her story, making it as melodramatic and unnerving as she knew how. So successful was she that Herbert gave a little “Oh!” of dismay and scurried from the room, while Edith—who was still hanging around in hopes of further morsels of disaster—gasped, and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. Though how such a narrative could have reminded her in any way of Darling Desmond, it was hard to imagine.
Only Dot seemed unperturbed.
Squatters, she asserted. Everyone has squatters these days (she made it sound like a new hair-style) if they leave their house unoccupied. And anyway, it was the agent’s business, not hers. Imogen could ring him up if she liked, his number was, what was it? She’d got it upstairs, somewhere. And talking of upstairs, she, Dot, would like to go up to bed now, if Imogen didn’t very much mind, she’d had a long day.
Even for Dot in her can’t-hear mood, this was taking imperturbability a bit far. Imogen watched, puzzled, as her stepdaughter made her exit, yawning excessively, as though to say, See if you can make me care!
But later on, as she passed their door on her way to bed, Imogen heard a sound that reassured her a little. Dot and Herbert were quarrelling. This indication that Dot had reverted to her normal self filled Imogen with relief.
*
You couldn’t call it eavesdropping, exactly, not when they were talking so loudly. Besides, wasn’t it Imogen’s right—indeed her duty—to know what was going on in her own house? They might be talking about the mysterious writing in Ivor’s desk: that Herbert had done it, or something.
It wasn’t like listening at the keyhole. All she was doing was sitting on the stairs. And anyway, no one could possibly catch her at it, they’d all gone to bed long ago.
Her conscience finally set at rest by this last consideration, Imogen leaned forward, her forehead pressed against the banisters, trying to tune-in to the mumble and staccato of voices going on behind the closed door. Rather to her surprise, it was Herbert whom she could hear most clearly.
“I did not give her the key,” he was protesting with unusual vigour, “I didn’t even know she was back. And anyway, I haven’t got a key….”
Poor Herbert. Always weakening his case by throwing in a second reason after the first, like throwing a pike in after a goldfish. I haven’t got a key…. Dot would soon make mincemeat of that one.
She did. What about Mrs Timmins’ key? And the key at No 36? And the one with the house-agents? And the one that had always been kept under the brick by the back door….
Such a jangling plethora of keys…. Herbert must have found the clink of them terrifying, but he went gamely on:
“I didn’t! I tell you I didn’t …”
If only he could have stopped there—but on he went, like a lemming to its doom: “…and even if I had, it couldn’t have been on a Tuesday, because …”
Game, set and match to Dot. It was annoying the way Dot always let her voice drop as soon as victory was assured, but Imogen could still make out quite a bit of it: to the effect that some men consider their wives’ feelings now and again, and that if Herbert was as sorry as all that for the wretched woman, then why didn’t he something something something and be done with it?
It was annoying not to be able to hear the crucial words, but Imogen felt in no doubt as to the gist of it.
That Woman. Herbert must have been seeing her again. Or promising that he wouldn’t, and then leaving around a picture-postcard of Cheltenham Town Hall which ended up “Till Friday—Take care of yourself”, or some such inflammatory message.
Friday? Friday? No, it was Tuesday they were fighting about this time. This Tuesday. Today, in fact—or yesterday, rather, it being already long after midnight.
“I tell you I don’t know, I wasn’t there,” Herbert was affirming desperately. “And if I had been, I’d never have something something something! Have a heart, Dot, how can I help it if she takes it into her head to …”
*
Not very gallant; but then what lover is, when driven into a corner by his wife? By now, Imogen could hardly suppress her giggles as she pictured Herbert and his lady whipping that dust-sheet over themselves when they heard the unexpected sound of Imogen’s key in the door; and then lying there, growing more and more restive and uneasy, while Imogen explored the house at her leisure, made herself tea, talked to the cat…. Just like Herbert to choose, as the moment for their getaway, that very moment when Imogen had come back into the room; and getting himself hopelessly entangled in the dust-sheet in the process.
Or maybe it was his lady-love? Maybe it was a beautifully shared ineptitude that had brought them together in the first place? Two ineffectual hearts beating as one … it was touching, really, and on this occasion it would seem that luck had been on their side. While Imogen ran screaming to the neighbours, imagining goodness knows what of murder and mayhem, Herbert and That Woman could easily have slipped out into the street and got away unnoticed. They could even have slammed the front door, tripped over the scraper, and paused to exchange a few honeyed words about whose idea it had all been in the first place, and still they’d have got away with it.
After all her terror that afternoon—to have the whole thing ending in farce.
Maybe all the rest of the mysteries would turn out to be farce, too. Maybe by tomorrow they’d all be laughing their heads off. Ha ha! Ho ho! Would you credit it …?
*
And it was only after she was in bed, and on the very verge of falling asleep, that it occurred to Imogen that it couldn’t possibly have been Herbert at the Twickenham house between four-thirty and five yesterday afternoon. According to Cynthia (who knew, because she’d been baby-sitting) he and Dot had left here, all dressed up for the evening, before six-thirty. He must have arrived home, then, by six at the latest.
It couldn’t be done, all the way from Twickenham.
And it didn’t occur to her, drowsy as she by then was, that Dot, too, must have known that it couldn’t be done.