5
Saturday 10th September

In the Age of Faith, when religion played a major part in everybody’s life, and a belief in the powers of saints and devils was accepted as naturally as the fact of life itself, ninety-nine people out of every hundred had fixed convictions about death. They accepted without question the teaching that at the moment of dissolution their souls were either carried triumphantly away by waiting angels or dragged off to eternal torment by remorseless fiends. In consequence those who led godly lives could meet their end with complacency and sinners generally had the opportunity of making a deathbed repentance which enabled them to rely with some confidence on forgiveness and mercy.

But, apart from the few who still faithfully follow the Christian precepts, the Age of Reason has deprived us of this happy certainty of our fate in the hereafter. Even so, the idea has become pretty generally accepted that while we need no longer fear hell-fire, and that punishment for our shortcomings will probably be no more drastic than having to suffer a certain period of distressing remorse, our personalities will continue after death and we shall be received on the other side by loved ones who have preceded us.

I was, of course, brought up in the Christian faith, but from the time of leaving school had never been a regular churchgoer and, like most men of this bustling, highly competitive modern age, had given little thought to religion. In consequence, had I been told the previous morning that I was to die that night I should certainly not have expected to be wafted away either by angels or devils; but I should have expected somebody or some power to do something about me. Could I have reconciled myself to being so suddenly snatched from those I loved on earth, I think I might even have looked forward to death as a great adventure, and I should certainly have counted on meeting again friends who had gone before me.

Yet here I was, a ghost—even if an invisible one—a wraith, a spirit, utterly alone, with no means of communicating with either the living or the dead, and no indication whatever that I might shortly be taken care of.

It was a most unhappy situation and there came into my mind a frightening thought. What if the God in whom I had been taught to believe at my mother’s knee watched over only those who proved faithful to Him? As I had abandoned Him perhaps He had abandoned me, and I was condemned to wander the earth alone until some far distant day when there was a final judgement. Such a possibility was utterly appalling.

Bordering on panic, I took refuge in the Christian teaching that the Mercy of God was infinite. Although I could lay no claim to having led a saintly life mine had certainly not been an evil one. My neglect of religion was not a sin of commission but omission; so surely He would not inflict such a drastic punishment upon me.

Yet of that hope I was promptly robbed by the beliefs I had formed since becoming adult. It had seemed to me highly questionable that the Christian teaching was a reliable guide to the hereafter. What of the millions who placed their faith in Mahomet and Krishna? And to me, the impersonal philosophies of the Buddhists and Confucians appeared much more plausible. Admittedly I had never thought about the matter really seriously, but I had more or less subconsciously come to the conclusion that God in the image of Man did not exist at all, and that the affairs of mankind were directed by some remote power, who left it to each individual to create his own place in some future existence.

Again I was chilled by the possibility that I had been right; for, if so, I could not hope to be pardoned and rescued by a merciful God who was aware of all things, even to the fall of a sparrow; but must somehow work out my own salvation, despite the fact that I had not the faintest idea how to set about it.

One comforting thought came to me; there must be countless thousands of people in the same boat as myself. In Europe and America and in every part of the world in which white communities of some size were established people must be dying every minute; and a high proportion of them, although brought up as Christians, must have died with the same lack of positive faith in the Church’s teachings as I had. Therefore it could be only a matter of hours before I should meet some kindred spirit in a like state of puzzlement who, for lack of a better phrase, had also recently ‘passed over’.

That theory seemed sound and reassuring until I suddenly remembered that I had actually been present at Evans’s death. Although I had never discussed these matters with him, at odd times during general conversations he had let drop enough for me to be quite certain that he was an agnostic. That being the case, our spirits should have had enough in common to meet with more or less similar treatment in the ‘great beyond’.

Therefore it was only reasonable to suppose that as his left his body he would have been aware of my presence, and that I should have realised that he too, although now invisible, was still in the lab and also watching with the keenest interest what Ankaret would do next. The different backgrounds which had given us so little in common while alive, and even any antipathy we felt for one another owing to each of us, in a sense, having been the cause of the other’s death, should surely have been submerged in mutual concern for our futures, and an instinctive urge to get together and compare notes about our sensations.

But nothing of that kind had occurred. When Ankaret had finished with Evans I had regarded him only as a repulsive and bloody mess. Not a whisper, or even a thought, had impinged on my consciousness to suggest his spritual survival and arrival on this same ‘plane’ as myself. And that having been so in the case of a person with whom I was at least well acquainted, there did not seem any great hope that I would shortly run into some elderly person who had just died in a neighbouring village, or one of the several people who during the past twenty-four hours must have given up the ghost in so large a city as Southampton.

While I was gloomily pondering this—no doubt because certain terms used by spiritualists, such as ‘passed over’ and the ‘great beyond’, had recently drifted through my mind—another idea occurred to me. From the little I had read of such matters, most occultists were of the opinion that on leaving the body a spirit rarely sped direct to its new field of activity. Some even failed for a time to comprehend fully that they were dead, while the majority were still so deeply concerned with the people or projects and possessions that they had left behind that, for varying periods, they remained earthbound. The period, according to this belief, depended on the strength of the emotional ties, and it was only when these had weakened to a point at which the craving of the spirit for fresh interests submerged the old ones that it could move onward to a higher sphere.

Unquestionably from the moment of my own death until midnight I had been entirely absorbed by happenings connected with my past life; so there seemed fair grounds for supposing that the reason why I had so far made no contact with the spirit world was because I was still earthbound. At least such a premise had logic to recommend it, and with a slightly more optimistic outlook I began to contemplate its implications.

For Ankaret and Johnny I could do nothing; so, should I have the ability to leave their vicinity, there was really no point in remaining longer in it. On the other hand, my love for her and affection for him still filled me with deep concern for their future. Before ‘going on’ I was most anxious to know if she would escape being implicated in the crimes committed at Longshot Hall that night, and if he would succeed in persuading Admiral Waldron of his innocence concerning the leakage of those Top Secret matters to which I had been made privy by Sir Charles.

Personally, I have never believed in the old adage that ‘One cannot have one’s cake and eat it’. Like most successful men, by the tactful handling of affairs I have, on most occasions during my life, succeeded in deriving benefit and enjoyment from the things I won without having to surrender them later. Now my personality having in no way altered on account of the loss of my body, I saw no reason why I should not attempt—literally in this case—to have the best of both worlds.

Tomorrow, unless prevented by some cosmic law that was still outside my comprehension, I would return to Longshot Hall and again become a silent witness of all that took place there. But the night was still young; and during it I would do my utmost to leave earth and penetrate the higher plane of existence on which I now felt that a future of some kind must be awaiting me.

Since I was no longer subject to the physical limitations imposed by a body, my first thought was to make my way towards the stars. Willing myself to rise, I managed to force my consciousness up to the level of the roof of the house; but there the effort to ascend further proved such an intolerable strain that I had to give up and on abandoning the attempt I slowly sank back to my previous level, some six feet above the terrace.

Considerably disappointed in the result of my first experiment, I next decided to see how fast I could move, and facing in the direction of the beach I set off towards it. The sensation of progressing in long swift bounds was an extremely pleasant one, but I soon found that I was not going much faster than a fast run; and when I pulled up on the shore I was conscious of a denifite sense of fatigue. It was not breathlessness, for I had no lungs, but I knew instinctively that I could not have kept up that pace for very much longer, and several minutes elapsed before I felt up to trying anything else.

While I remained stationary, just above the tide-mark, to recover, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to find out what would happen if I advanced towards Cowes. I thought it probable that I should be able to move over water as easily as I could over dry land. It also seemed possible that I might be able to rove about under the surface as though I were wearing a diver’s helmet, and the prospect of exploring the sea-bottom at my leisure intrigued me greatly. In any case it was quite certain that I could not drown, so I once more projected myself forward.

Within two minutes of leaving the shore I found that neither of my ideas had been correct. As I crossed the shallows, bound by bound, I sank lower until the essential ‘me’ had dropped to within a little less than a foot above the water; but at that level it remained until I forced it under, and then, when the effort to keep it there was exhausted, it bobbed up again.

On metaphorically ‘plunging in’ I was not conscious of any change of temperature, or pressure from the water, but my movement was slowed down to the sort of pace I would have maintained had I been swimming, although I was not consciously using my invisible arms and legs, and my range of vision was now limited to that of a bather with his head just above water.

For a time I drifted about, then I again became aware of a sense of fatigue; so I returned to the shore and went up to the beach house. As long as it was warm enough to bathe we always left several lounge chairs out on its veranda and, instinctively, I performed the equivalent of first sitting, then lying down, in one of them.

There seemed no other experiments I could try, so my thoughts turned again to Ankaret and the shattering events of the past few hours. Gradually my mind became hazy, and before I realised what was happening my consciousness had faded out.

*          *          *          *

When I became conscious again it was morning. The sun was well up, lighting the familiar scene and sparkling on the wavelets. I heard a slight noise nearby and saw Johnny throw off his bathing robe on to one of the other chairs. It must have been his arrival that had roused me.

He was a fine figure of a man, tall and well set up, his body marred only by a long scar across the ribs where a Malayan bandit had sniped him. His resemblance to my father was much closer than my own, but his fair, slightly wavy, hair had come from the other side of his family. It was not surprising that his looks and physique, coupled with a rather reserved manner, made him very attractive to women; though as far as I knew he had never had any really serious affairs until he met Sue Waldron.

The thought that I had unwillingly been the cause of their quarrel distressed me very much. Had I only been permitted to have lived for another day I could have gone to the Admiral and given him my personal assurance that Johnny had no more to do with the proposal I put before the Board that afternoon than he had. And that was the real crux of the matter. Old Waldron was too honest a man to endeavour to prevent Johnny acting in accordance with his convictions. His resentment was due to his belief that Johnny had made an unscrupulous use of secret information in an attempt to put a fast one over on the Navy. Sue’s attitude sprang entirely from sentiment, and I felt sure that it needed only an assurance from her father that Johnny was doing his duty as he saw it to bring her round. But now there was nothing I could do about it. I could only hope that Sue’s feelings for him would get the better of her very natural championship of the Service which she had been brought up to regard as the pride and shield of Britain.

Johnny waded into the water and when up to his waist flung himself into a crawl with such powerful strokes that he was soon nearly a quarter of a mile away from me. He had just passed a miniature cape that juts out a little way from the regular curve of the beach when, somewhat to my surprise, instead of turning and coming back he swam towards the land and splashed his way ashore. For a moment he stood there bending over something, then he straightened up and set off at a run towards the house. Not having moved from the veranda I could not see what it was that he had found, but it flashed upon me that it might be my body. Moving swiftly in that direction I saw that I was right.

The tide was ebbing when Evans and Ankaret threw my corpse from the pier-head; so it had drifted only a few hundred yards, then caught on the spit of sand and been left just awash in the shallows. It was lying face upwards and while I cannot say I found its appearance pleasing, it was by no means as ugly a sight as I had expected. The eyes were wide and staring, the teeth clenched and the cheeks ruddy from congestion, but so far there were no signs of decomposition having set in.

Some minutes later Johnny reappeared with old Silvers and they came hurrying down to the place where the body lay. I could see that both of them were badly shaken and they exchanged only a few gruff sentences, mainly expressing their distress and complete puzzlement about how I could have met my death and been washed up on the beach in this way. Johnny then tried artificial respiration, but on realising the futility of his attempt gave it up.

It was he who suggested that my body should be put in the beach house—anyhow for the time being—as there would be less likelihood of Ankaret seeing them while they carried it there, should she be up and chance to look out of her bedroom window, than if they carried it all the way to the house.

The water-sodden clothes made it even heavier than it had been the previous night; so after staggering about fifty yards with it they had to put it down. But Silvers produced the bright idea that if they used a lounge chair as a stretcher that would make the job much easier, and after he had fetched one from the beach house they managed the remaining distance without having to take a rest. When they had laid the body on a sofa in the main room of the little pavilion they covered it with the table-cloth, then went up to the house. I accompanied them, now once more entirely absorbed in the drama of which my body was the focal point.

Silvers gave Johnny the number of Dr. Culver, our local G.P., and he telephoned to him to come at once; then, wisely circumventing the village constable, he reported the tragedy to police headquarters at Southampton. Meanwhile Silvers had collected the morning’s post from the box and having looked through it said:

‘There is a letter here, Sir, in the master’s writing for Her Ladyship. It isn’t stamped; so he must have put it in the box himself.’

Johnny took it with a frown. ‘That’s very queer. Surely his death can’t have been anything but an accident. Yet he would hardly have left a letter for her like this unless he was going out for some special purpose and feared he might not come back. All right, Silvers, I’ll take it up with me when I break the news to her. Do you know if she is awake?’

‘I expect so, Sir.’ Silvers glanced at the grandfather clock, which showed it to be just after half-past eight. ‘Mrs. Silvers will be getting Her Ladyship’s breakfast ready now. She has it in bed at a quarter to nine, and she is usually awake when Mildred takes in her tray.’

‘You had better tell Mildred to stay put for a bit, then. I must get some clothes on, and I don’t want her to butt in with breakfast just as I am breaking the news to her Ladyship.’

‘Very good, Sir. And I’ll tell Mrs. Silvers what has happened. We were both very attached to the master and I’m sure she will be terribly upset.’

As Silvers turned away Johnny walked through to the room that he always occupied when staying with us. It was one of those on the ground floor of the old bachelors’ wing, the upper floor of which I had converted into a laboratory, for Evans. As quickly as he could he shaved and dressed, then, his face showing his reluctance to tackle the distasteful task before him, he went upstairs to Ankaret’s room. In response to his knock, she called: ‘Come in.’

She had, as usual by that hour, brushed her teeth and tidied her hair, and she was sitting up in bed with an open book on her lap. There were dark shadows under her grey eyes but otherwise she looked quite normal, and although she must have guessed that only the discovery of my death, or that of Evans’s, could have brought Johnny up there, her voice was quite steady as she greeted him.

‘Why, hello Johnny. I thought it was Mildred with my breakfast. You must be terribly steamed up about your row with Sue, if you couldn’t wait till Giff gets downstairs to ask him to try to straighten things out for you with the Admiral. But the Prof must have kept Giff up so late that to avoid waking me he slept in his dressing-room. Go in and rouse him out.’

Ignoring her gesture towards the door leading to my dressing-room Johnny replied: ‘I wish I could; but he’s not there.’

‘Not there!’ she echoed. ‘But he must be. He hasn’t come through to have his bath yet. Unless—yes—he may have gone down for an early swim.’

‘I’m afraid that’s what he has done. At least …’ Johnny hesitated, baulking unhappily at having to tell her the worst But, seeing his evident emotion, she quickly took him up:

‘Afraid! Why are you afraid?’

Johnny held out the letter to her. ‘Giff went out during the night, fully dressed except for his smoking jacket. But he left this letter for you. Perhaps it may explain things.’

Taking the letter she ripped it open and appeared to run her eye swiftly over its contents. Then she dropped it, gave a low cry and throwing herself sideways buried her face in the pillows.

Moving a step nearer to the bed, Johnny said softly: ‘My dear. It’s too frightful, I simply don’t know what to say. I shall miss him terribly too. He was much more to me than an Uncle.’

Raising herself on one elbow, but still keeping her face turned away from him, she cried: ‘It can’t be true! It can’t be true!’

‘I’m afraid it is. It was I who found him. I went down for a swim and I hadn’t been in the water more than a few minutes when I caught sight of his body. It had been washed up on that little point just below the place where the wood starts. I thought at first that he must have gone on to the landing-stage for something, then slipped and stunned himself as he fell in. But this letter …’ Johnny hesitated again. ‘His leaving it for you suggests that he knew he was going out to meet trouble. I didn’t think Giff had an enemy in the world. By God, though, if someone did him in I’ll see to it that they swing for it.’

‘No, it wasn’t that.’ Ankaret suddenly turned and faced him. ‘He took his own life. And it was my fault. I’ve been incredibly wicked and stupid. But I didn’t mean any harm. I swear I didn’t!’

While receiving the news she had put over a good act, and now she needed to act no longer. Her cry of self-accusation was genuine and it was perfectly natural that she should give free rein to her grief.

‘D’you mean he committed suicide!’ Johnny exclaimed. ‘I’d never have believed it. Giff wasn’t that sort of man.’

‘He did,’ she asserted, picking up the letter and offering it to him. ‘You had better read this. It’s all bound to come out sooner or later. Oh what can have possessed me to play the fool with Owen! Heaven knows, it was all innocent enough.’

Johnny began to read the letter but as he turned to the second page his eyes popped, and he exclaimed: ‘God alive! Then the Prof’s dead, too! Giff says here that he killed him. What a ghastly mess!’

Ankaret was now sitting up but her head was bowed and she had covered her face with her hands. ‘Serve him right,’ she muttered angrily through her fingers. ‘All this is as much his fault as it is mine; in fact more. Even if I did encourage him to flirt with me while I was bored with convalescing after my accident, I gave him no cause to boast about it. I don’t wonder Giff was furious. But he should have known me better than to believe that I’d ever fall for anyone like the Prof. Oh what am I to do?’

‘I’m afraid there is nothing you can do,’ replied Johnny a little shortly. ‘You had best stay here and let me take charge of everything.’ He had finished reading the letter, and added: ‘I think, too, that I’d better hang on to this. Showing it to the police right away may save a lot of trouble later. If we put all the cards on the table they’ll treat what we say as in confidence and be much more discreet.’

‘I won’t see the police! I couldn’t bear it,’ Ankaret declared, still speaking through her fingers. ‘I haven’t got to, have I? The thought of Giff being … being gone is enough to drive me crazy, without having to submit to an inquisition by a lot of ghoulish strangers.’

Johnny’s attitude had perceptibly hardened. As he put the letter in his pocket he said: ‘Now that murder comes into the affair as well as suicide, I think it’s pretty certain that the police will require a statement from you. But I’m sure they’ll give you a chance to recover from the shock, and not insist on seeing you today. Anyhow, I’ll do my best to head them off.’

She gave a great sigh, and murmured: ‘Thank you, Johnny. I can’t realise it yet. Please go now. I … I want to be left alone.’

Showing no reluctance, Johnny left the room, and hurried across the landing to the lab. As I entered it in his wake I saw at once that Evans had moved since I had last been there. He had managed to crawl a few feet towards the door; so he could not have been quite dead when Ankaret left him. But he was dead now. That was made clear by the way that Johnny, after kneeling for a moment to feel his heart, made an ugly grimace, stood up and walked out locking the door behind him.

As he went downstairs, Silvers was letting Dr. Culver in at the front door. Culver was a red-faced, middle-aged, rather untidy little man and far from being a shining light in his profession. But he was quite sound about simple ills, he was our nearest G.P. and he and his father before him had looked after the family, so it had never even occurred to me to make a change.

Johnny introduced himself and in a few brief sentences gave the doctor a résumé of what had occurred. Culver blinked hard behind his pince-nez, muttered: ‘Terrible; terrible!’ several times, then accompanied Johnny up to the lab. After a cursory examination of Evans’s body the doctor declared:

‘Been dead several hours I should say. Judging by the degree of rigor mortis he probably died between three and five o’clock this morning. But one can’t be at all certain without a more thorough examination, and I don’t want to disturb the body any further before the police have seen it. Dear, dear! Poor fellow! He must have suffered a lot before he died. Please take me to Sir Gifford now.’

Down at the beach house he again made only a cursory examination. ‘Heart. Could have been shock, but I suppose those tablets you tell me he swallowed killed him. Pity you’ve no idea what they were. But that is really immaterial. They must have been pretty potent and given him a heart attack within a few minutes of diving into the water. I should have thought that in his case rigor mortis would have been more advanced; it is hardly perceptible as yet. That is probably explained by the water still having the warmth it acquired during the summer.

‘Well, there is no mystery for the police to solve here. That letter he left makes the whole affair only too distressingly transparent. I don’t think they will worry you unduly. Where there is no question of bringing a criminal to justice they are generally very good about keeping private tragedies as quiet as they can. And it is not for them or us to attempt to assess Lady Ankaret’s degree of responsibility. Women cannot be judged by the same standards as men. They are much more apt to become dominated by their emotions than is the case with our sex. I think I had better see her though, if only so that I can protect her from being badgered into making a statement before she has recovered from the shock. I expect, too, she will need a sedative, so I’ll leave her a few of the pills I carry in my bag, until she can get some more made up.’

As I listened, I blessed the little man for his unquestioning acceptance of the situation at its face value, and his kindly consideration for Ankaret. Curiously enough it was not until he was walking back to the house with Johnny that I recalled once having helped him when in serious trouble.

His son, while a student at the London School of Medicine, had knocked down with his car, and killed, a child. In addition to the charge of manslaughter the police added one of dangerous driving, and as he had just left a cocktail party there was more than a suspicion that he had had one too many to drink.

For the defence it could be argued that it was twilight at the time, that the child had run out from behind a coffee stall, that the young man had a clean licence, and that he was habitually a sober type. But it was the sort of case in which if things went against the accused he was likely to get a really nasty sentence; so everything might hang on securing a tip-top barrister to defend him.

Culver’s father had left him nothing but his practice and the small family property; so he could not possibly lay his hands on the thousand pounds needed to brief a leading K.C. to fight his boy’s case. In his extremity he came to me. All he could offer as security for the loan was his practice and a promise to pay me back at the rate of two hundred a year; but knowing the modest circumstances in which he lived I felt that even that would prove a heavy burden on him. In consequence, I suggested that instead I should buy the field that adjoined his garden and a piece of woodland beyond it that he also owned. I didn’t really want them, and he had the honesty to point out that they weren’t worth the sum he needed. But his family had looked after mine for three generations, and the few hundreds capital I might drop meant no great sacrifice to me; so I eased his conscience by saying that when the Socialists were out the land might increase in value as a building site, and paid him the thousand for it.

In due course I had the satisfaction of learning that the money had not been wasted, as the boy escaped a prison sentence and later took his M.D. Having been occupied since with so many affairs the matter had slipped into the background of my mind; but now that it came back to me, I felt that if little Culver owed me anything he had, if unconsciously, now handsomely repaid it.

On reaching the house Culver went up to see Ankaret, while Johnny walked through the drawingroom to my library. Not wishing again to see Ankaret torn between the necessity to lie and her genuine grief, I followed the latter. Although it was only just half-past nine I assumed that, seeing what he had been through, he felt that he must get himself a drink; but I was wrong.

In the doorway he paused for a minute while he took a careful look round. Silvers, having been otherwise occupied, had not yet cleared up there so the glasses that Johnny and Ankaret had used were still on the bow-fronted cabinet in which the drinks were kept. Walking over to it he picked up Ankaret’s glass, sniffed at it, and ascertained what it had contained by tasting the few drops that remained in it. He then went across to the desk and finding it locked stood there staring at it thoughtfully.

I watched him with considerable anxiety as it was evident that his suspicions had been aroused by something, although on what lines his mind was working I could not guess. But at that moment both his thoughts and mine were distracted by Silvers appearing in the doorway and saying:

‘The police have just arrived, Sir.’

Hurrying out to the hall, Johnny greeted the two plainclothes officers who stood there. The taller, a dark-haired sadfaced man, introduced himself as Inspector Mallet, and his younger, brisker-looking companion as Sergeant Haines. Then he said:

‘I understand, Sir, that you reported an accidental death as having taken place here. I trust there are no grounds for supposing it to have been anything else, and that we shan’t have to trouble you with our presence for long. Perhaps you would be good enough to give me particulars.’

Johnny made a wry grimace. ‘Since I telephoned, Inspector, we have discovered that this is an even more terrible affair than I supposed. Apparently my uncle, Sir Gifford Hillary, had a quarrel with Professor Evans who was employed by him here, killed him, and then committed suicide.’

‘That certainly is a terrible business,’ the sad-faced Inspector agreed; and turning to his subordinate he added: ‘You had better telephone for the squad, Jim.’

As the Sergeant went over to the instrument in the hall, the Inspector asked: ‘Who discovered the bodies, Sir?’

‘I did,’ Johnny told him.

‘Then when the Sergeant’s done, we had better take a look at them.’

Taking matters in their proper order, Johnny first led them down to the beach house. On the way he described how he had found my body, then said that Dr. Culver had already examined it and given the opinion that I had not died by drowning but owing to a heart-attack caused by some pills that I had taken just before throwing myself into the water.

The Inspector nodded. ‘If Dr. Culver says that I don’t doubt the police surgeon will agree with him. I’ve known him since I was a youngster on the beat, and I don’t remember him ever having been proved wrong when giving evidence in a court case.’

His statement cheered me as I had feared that they might do an autopsy, in which case it would have emerged that I had not died as the result of an overdose of a dangerous drug, and the whole of Ankaret’s cleverly thought out way of explaining my death would be brought into question. But it looked now as if there was a good chance of her clearing that dangerous hurdle.

After viewing my body, they returned to the house and went up to the laboratory. About the way in which Evans had met his death there could be no doubt whatever. His battered head and face told their own story, and nearby lay the steel rod with congealed blood and a few of his dark hairs still on it.

Pointing at it the Sergeant remarked: ‘There’s the instrument, all right; and it’s probably smothered with Sir Gifford’s fingerprints. When we are faced with having to find out who done it we don’t often get a lead like that; yet here we’re given it on a plate in a case that is plain sailing.’

‘Maybe it’s plain sailing, maybe not. Can’t be certain as yet,’ replied the Inspector with the caution bred of long habit. Then turning to Johnny, he asked: ‘Have you any idea why they quarrelled, Sir?’

Johnny drew the letter from his pocket and handed it over. ‘Sir Gifford left that in the hall letter-box before he went out to his death. It was found there this morning with the rest of the post. I took it up to Lady Ankaret when I broke the news to her about her husband’s death. When she had read it, she gave it to me. That is how I learned that Professor Evans was dead too. Naturally, the family will be most anxious to avoid a scandal. But I’m sure you gentlemen would soon uncover the truth, and that my showing you this right away will save everyone a lot of unpleasantness. I should be very grateful, though, if you would treat the matter with as much discretion as possible.’

Before replying, the Inspector read the letter, then handed if on to his colleague, and said to Johnny: ‘Thank you, Sir. We always try to show our appreciation when people are frank with us, and this has saved us having to scratch our heads about a motive. In fact it seems to give us the whole unhappy story in a nutshell. I am afraid it will have to be put in as evidence at the inquest, but we can arrange to have it shown only to those concerned instead of read aloud. And, of course, your having produced it is going to make it unnecessary for the coroner to ask Lady Ankaret a number of embarrassing questions.’

On Johnny’s face I could see the relief he felt at having done the right thing. Quite unwittingly, too, he had done exactly as Ankaret had wanted him to, by establishing her own story from the outset in the minds of the police. Inspector Mallet asked him:

‘Were you, by any chance, aware, Sir, that Her Ladyship was having this affair with Professor Evans?’

Johnny promptly replied that he had not the least idea of it.

The Inspector shrugged. ‘Ah well, I don’t doubt the servants knew all about it; they are usually pretty quick at spotting anything of that sort that’s going on. We may as well get downstairs now, and I’ll take a few notes about the occupants of the household. Sorry to bother you, Sir, but we have to do that as part of the routine.’

All three of them spent the best part of the next hour in the drawing-room. There was one interruption owing to the arrival of the second police car from Southampton. It brought the police surgeon, a photographer, a finger-print man, and two constables in uniform. The Inspector told them where they would find the bodies and gave them the O.K. to go ahead; then he returned to his own business, which was asking Johnny a lot of apparently irrelevant questions while Sergeant Haines wrote down the replies.

I left them to it after the other police arrived, as I was much more concerned with what view the police surgeon might take of my body than with anything else.

Dr. Culver had waited to have a word with him; fortunately, he was both a youngish man and of the type that still shows some respect for its elders. Having invited Culver to view the two bodies with him, after making only a superficial check-up he accepted the older practitioner’s opinion about them.

Later it was agreed with Mallet that the double inquest should be held on Monday morning at eleven o’clock, and the Inspector said that he hoped Lady Ankaret would then be sufficiently recovered to give evidence if the Coroner wished her to be called.

Culver replied that she might be, but he could not guarantee it. Then when the letter was mentioned it transpired that she had told him about it and its contents, and he proceeded to urge that as she could now contribute nothing new to the enquiry, she should be spared the ordeal of having to appear at the inquest. Mallet said that he would not press for that if she was willing to make a statement to the police beforehand. Culver then promised that he would try to persuade her to do so, providing he considered her condition satisfactory.

These matters being settled, Culver told Johnny that he had given Ankaret a strong sedative and that for the next few hours she should not be disturbed. He added that when she asked for food she should be given only a light meal, and that he would come in again that evening.

What with Ankaret, Dr. Culver and the police, Johnny had not yet had a moment to attend to any other matters, let alone have any breakfast; but as soon as he had seen the doctor off, the thoughtful Silvers approached him and said:

‘I’ve put some sandwiches in the dining-room for you, Sir, and half a bottle of champagne. It’s past eleven o’clock, and with all the things you are having to attend to I felt that you really ought to have something to keep you going.’

Johnny smiled at the old boy appreciatively. ‘Jolly good of you, Silvers. This business seems to have robbed me of my appetite, but I could do with a glass of wine. First, though, I must telephone to Mr. Compton.’

Having got through to the office Johnny broke the news to James, then asked if he could tell him where Bill Wiltshire was staying for the week-end. I gathered that James did not know, but said that he would try to find out, and announced his intention of driving over to Longshot within the next hour or so. Johnny then went into the dining-room, ate some of the sandwiches and knocked back the pint of Louis Roederer ’45.

He was still sitting there when the sad-faced Mallet came in to tell him that he had finished questioning the staff. He added that it had been only a formality and that none of them had heard anything during the night or been able to tell him anything beyond what he knew already; so there would now be no objection to Johnny calling in an undertaker to lay out the bodies, subject, of course, to their not being removed to a mortuary, so that they would be available for viewing by the Coroner’s court when it met at the house on Monday.

At midday James Compton arrived. On his way he had picked up Eddie Arnold, my solicitor. Eddie was also a personal friend of mine of long standing, as we had joined the R.A.F. on the same day and done our training together. Johnny gave them particulars of what had happened, then the three of them held a gloom session during which I could not help being moved by the nice things they said of me and their sorrow that death had taken me from them.

When they got down to business it transpired that James had had notices issued cancelling the Board Meeting that had been arranged for Monday, and that his secretary had managed to trace Bill Wiltshire. The house at which Bill was staying for a week-end’s shooting was near Winchester; so he could be expected to turn up sometime during the afternoon.

Eddie then said to Johnny: ‘As you probably know, when old Hugo Wittling died last year Giff appointed you an executor and trustee in his place; the other is James here. May I take it that you are both agreeable to act?’

Their both having agreed, he went on:

‘I haven’t yet had a chance to turn up Giffs last will, but I can remember its principal provisions. He made it at the time of his marriage to Ankaret. She will have the enjoyment for life of both Longshot Hall and the income on his shares in Hillary-Comptons, after the present allowances have been paid out of it to his first wife and her children. Fortunately he had the forethought to insure against death duties, so Ankaret should still be in a position to keep the place up. It is fortunate, too, as far as the Company is concerned; for it means that the Board will not have to find a buyer for a large part of his holding, and they would have otherwise, as apart from that his estate will amount only to a few thousands. On Ankaret’s death his boy, Harold, comes into the place and the Hillary-Compton shares, subject to certain provisions for his mother and sister, if still living. He is also the principal beneficiary, and, will get such money as there is to come now after the legacies have been paid out. I can’t recall details of them for the moment, but they were the usual sort of thing to old friends and servants, and I don’t think their total was more than about fifteen hundred pounds.’

After a moment, he added: ‘The will contains one rather unusual direction, though. Giff always had a terror that he might be buried alive. He told me that it originated in his having read while still a youngster an account of the removal of several hundred bodies from the Père La Chais cemetery in Paris. They wanted to run a railway embankment or something over that corner of the cemetery. Anyhow, when they dug up the half-rotted coffins they found to their horror that a score or more of the corpses had bent knees and raised hands with broken nails, showing that they had been buried while in a coma, and on coming round had striven to force their way out. I tried to persuade Giff to be cremated but he didn’t like the idea. So he stipulated in his will that there should be no lead coffin, that the lid of the wooden one should not be screwed down, that air holes should be bored in its ends, and that the family grave, which consists of a brick vault, should not be closed down until seven days after his coffin had been lowered into it.’

Johnny gave a little shudder. ‘What ghastly thoughts the discovery of those twisted bodies in the Père La Chaise cemetery conjures up.’

‘I think most of them had been buried for over a century,’ Eddie replied, ‘and medical science has advanced so much since then that there is little chance of that sort of thing happening now. All the same, we must see to it that Giff’s wishes are carried out.’

‘The police have given us the O.K. to have the bodies prepared for burial,’ Johnny informed him, ‘but I haven’t yet done anything about it, because I don’t know the name of the family undertaker.’

‘I can give you that,’ volunteered James. ‘I’ll look up the number and ring them up myself.’

When he had done so, he and Eddie had a mournful drink with Johnny, then went out to their car to drive back to Southampton.

The next visitor was a reporter from a Southampton paper, who had somehow got on to the affair; but apart from a bare admission that Evans and I had died the previous night, Johnny refused to give him any information. In anticipation of being further importuned by the press. Johnny went into the drawing-room and had a word with Mallet, who was busily writing his report there. At his request the Inspector promised to give the uniformed constable posted on the front door orders that no press-men were to be admitted or allowed to question the servants.

As Johnny came out into the hall Silvers appeared to announce that lunch was ready and apologise that it would be cold, owing to Mrs. Silvers being too upset to cook anything. Johnny said he quite understood, and asked that trays should be sent in to the Inspector and the Sergeant; then, with his thoughts evidently on other matters, he munched his way through the food that had been set out for him. He was just finishing one of my beautiful Triomphe de Vienne pears with a most distressing lack of appreciation when Silvers came in to tell him that Mr. Fisher, the undertaker, was in the hall.

Mr. Fisher, soft-voiced and unobtrusive, agreed with Johnny that as I had no relatives living at a distance, who might be unable to attend the funeral if given less than forty-eight hours’ notice, there was no reason why it should not take place on Tuesday morning. When informed of my special directions, he said:

‘Quite so, Sir. On a number of occasions we’ve had similar instructions. You would be surprised how many people suffer from the same fear. Most of them, though, direct that the veins in their wrists shall be opened; as, of course, if the blood does not flow there can be no doubt whatever about their being dead. But perhaps Sir Gifford did not think of that. In which room do you wish the deceased gentlemen to be laid out, Sir?’

Naturally, when ringing up, James had said nothing of the circumstances in which Evans and myself were supposed to have died; so Johnny now had to take Mr. Fisher into his confidence. Thereupon the undertaker agreed that it would not be quite fitting for the two bodies to be placed side by side for the week-end, and suggested that a minimum of inconvenience would be caused to the household if each was prepared for burial where it was. Johnny saw nothing against this, so Mr. Fisher went out to his car to collect the man and woman assistants he had brought with him, and the three of them set about their gruesome business.

Having been on the go without intermission since half-past eight that morning, Johnny evidently felt that he was due for a short break, so he went through to his room and lay down on the bed. I drifted upstairs to see how Ankaret was faring. As orders had been given not to disturb her, she must have rung and ordered tea and toast, for a tray reposed on her bed table. But it looked as if she had eaten only one piece of toast, and the tea-cup, with a slice of lemon in it, was still half full. She was lying on her back and quite still, but I could see from her only partially closed eyes that she was not actually asleep, and her face looked ten years older. Apparently she was half comatose from the pills that Dr. Culver had given her; but I felt sure that she was still conscious.

Once more I was at a loose end, with nothing much to think about except my own situation. As far as I could judge, my state was exactly the same as it had become within a few moments of being murdered. I still had no feeling of being dead; my perceptions were every bit as acute as they had been then, and I was not possessed by the faintest urge to leave my present surroundings.

However, I felt no desire to remain with poor Ankaret. I know well enough that others will maintain that she had brought all this upon herself; but, even if her mind was temporarily dulled by a drug, the half-formed thoughts drifting through it must still have been torture; so I could not bear the idea of staying there and contemplating in my own mind what she must be suffering.

On glancing out of the window I saw that it was a pleasant sunny afternoon; so I thought I would take a look round the garden. Getting there called for little effort; far less than it would have done had I still been hampered by a body. I simply floated out of the window, and drifted round the corner of the house, gradually losing height until I settled at my usual six-feet-above-ground level on the little square of lawn beyond Ankaret’s rose garden.

For about half an hour I made just the same sort of round that I usually did on Sunday mornings, and sometimes on summer evenings, admiring a group of blossoms here, planning some small alteration there, or noting a dead branch on a tree or shrub that ought to be cut off. In September the weeds are always at their worst and, knowing that old Eagers now had more than his work cut out to cope with such a large garden, I took no particular notice of them till I reached the asparagus bed. The fern there was almost hidden in a jungle of unwelcome herbage which had sprung up, making the whole patch one solid mass of greenery.

Momentarily quite forgetting both that it was a Saturday and that I could no longer communicate with any human being, I decided that I must tell Eagers to do something about it. As I had not so far seen him during my tour I went straight to the potting shed. He was not there, and I was brought back to my new state with a jerk by the thought that on hearing about my death he had probably considered it fitting to cease work for the day. But the shed was still open and inside Smuts, our garden cat, was enjoying a feed of fish-heads.

Suddenly Smuts stopped eating and turned her face towards the doorway in which I was poised. Her black back arched in terror, she gave a furious hiss and next moment, in one bound, disappeared through the open window. Her action told me plainly that, although I was invisible to humans, I could be seen by creatures having extra sensory perception; so I was still, in a sense, a being of this world. I wondered how long I was meant to continue as one.

*          *          *          *

My papa-in-law arrived in time for tea. He had been sent over in a chauffeur-driven Rolls by the friend with whom he had expected to spend the week-end. Silvers carried in the heavy, expensive, but old-fashioned cases, guns, shooting-stick and other impedimenta without which His Lordship never travelled on such occasions; then went to rouse Johnny.

The Rt. Honourable the Earl had evidently been informed only of the bare facts of my sudden death. As he listened to Johnny’s account of the previous night’s happenings his face became redder, his pale blue eyes more protuberant and his exclamations of amazement and horror more frequent. When Johnny had done he said jerkily:

‘Extraordinary business! Of course, this letter of Giff’s to Ankaret leaves no loop-hole for surmise. All the same, I don’t understand it. Giff was an even-tempered chap. Not like him to go off the deep end, whatever the provocation. I’m different. If I’d learned that some feller had assaulted my wife, I might have beaten his brains in. But I can’t see Giff doing that. Another thing: Ankaret’s upbringing was very different from her mother’s. Gels are much more sophisticated these days. Even if she had the bad taste to fool around with that little Welshman I’d have thought she’d have no trouble at all in keeping him at arm’s length. She ought not to have had to call Giff in to do that. It isn’t the first time, either, that she’s had a little fun on the side. But she adored Giff, and he knew that she had a bit of a weakness for setting her cap at other fellers; so why the frenzy on this occasion? That makes it all the more extraordinary.’

‘It certainly does,’ Johnny nodded. ‘Two of his oldest friends, James Compton and Eddie Arnold, who were here this morning both said that they had never known Giff to lose his temper really badly, and we all agreed that he was the very last man we would have expected to commit suicide.’

His Lordship grunted. ‘One doesn’t expect that of anyone who is normal, and no one could question Giff’s sanity. But a man’s sanity has no bearing on a case like this. It’s courage that counts, and Giff had plenty of that. Hang it all, he had committed murder! Think what would have happened if he let himself be arrested! Weeks, months perhaps, cooped up in a cell being badgered by a lot of lawyers. The trial, an appeal, then at the end of it all Jack Ketch putting a rope round his neck. No, no; thank God he had the guts to commit hara-kiri while he had the chance.’

‘It needs still more guts to face the music,’ Johnny argued. ‘And I would have betted on Giff doing that. Arnold was saying this morning that on a plea of intense provocation Giff might have got off with a ten-year sentence. Allowing for reduction for good conduct he would have been a free man again while still under fifty. No jury could have failed to recommend him to mercy if Ankaret had gone into the box and testified to the assault mentioned in the letter; or better still have gone the whole hog and sworn that Evans had raped her.’

‘Oh, I haven’t a doubt that she would have told any lie to save Giff! But d’you think he’d have let her?’ Bill Wiltshire’s voice rang with scorn. ‘Think of the press, and all the filthy publicity that would have been given to the trial. He would never have allowed Ankaret to be dragged through the gutter for the edification of every Tom, Dick and Harry who get a cheap thrill out of cases like this. No; apart from the fact of such a well-balanced chap as Giff having suddenly gone insane with rage, everything is explained by his letter. I suppose even the mildest men are liable to that sort of black-out at times. Anyhow, once he realised that he had killed the Welshman, to my mind he did the right and proper thing.’

Johnny shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m prejudiced against the idea of taking one’s own life; and I still find it hard to believe that Giff would have taken his. But we’ll get nowhere by arguing about it further. I’m very glad you have turned up, though, and can take charge of things here now, because I’m only on forty-eight hours and must get back to London this evening. I would have telephoned for an extension if it wasn’t for a rather tricky paper that I’m devilling on which should be in by tomorrow night. But I’ll get leave so that I can come down for the inquest on Monday and stay over Tuesday for the funeral.’

On that they separated, Johnny to pack his bag and Bill going upstairs to see Ankaret. I hung about in the hall, wondering what to do with myself, till Johnny appeared with his suit-case; then I followed him out to the garage. It had just occurred to me that if I really were earth-bound I was probably tied by some law outside human comprehension to the neighbourhood in which I had met my physical end; so it would be interesting to test that out and see if I could leave it. In consequence, when Johnny got into the driver’s seat of his Standard Eight I settled myself beside him.

As he put in the clutch I metaphorically held my breath, wondering if I should be drawn out through the back of the car in the same way that I had been drawn back to earth when I had attempted to rise above the roof level of the house. But I felt no pull whatever. As the car sped forward down the drive the essential ‘I’ moved with it.

As it was Saturday evening, even when we had by-passed Southampton and got on to the main London road there was comparatively little traffic, so we made good going. The weather was still fine and although I was condemned to silence, the tints of autumn on the trees and the sight of the pleasant countryside enabled me to enjoy the run.

We had left Longshot soon after five and by a quarter to eight were crossing Wimbledon Common. I was just wondering how best to amuse myself in London for the evening when I got a surprise. Half-way down Putney Hill, instead of going straight on towards the High Street and the bridge, Johnny turned off to the left between two big blocks of flats and ran on through several streets of medium-sized houses. I could only assume that he meant to call on a friend; but he seemed rather uncertain of his way, as he had to stop to consult the relevant page of a large-scale book-map of the London area. Two minutes later he pulled up outside one of a row of semi-detached villas, probably built in Edward VII’s reign.

I had no intention of spying on Johnny, but when he got out I instinctively followed him up the short garden path. His ring was answered by a smartly-dressed young woman of about twenty and, to my astonishment, I recognised her as my daughter.

*          *          *          *

Evidently that morning, at some moment when my attention had been distracted, Eddie Arnold had discussed with Johnny the question of informing my first wife of my death; Eddie must have mentioned where she lived and Johnny volunteered to call in there as it was on his way up to London. Of course, I knew perfectly well that Edith and the children lived in Putney, as I had written to them there from time to time for years, but I had never been to the house and had not noticed the name of the street as Johnny turned into it. Moreover, I must confess that since having been violently ejected from my body I had not given them a thought.

Johnny had never met Christobel; so he proceeded to introduce himself. She had opened the door to him with a frown on her pretty, rather plump face but when he told her who he was she brightened and said:

‘As a matter of fact we are just in the middle of supper; but we’ll all be thrilled to meet a long-lost cousin. Do come in.’

‘Thanks, but I can only stay a moment.’ Johnny hesitated. ‘To tell the truth this isn’t a social visit. I’ve just driven up from Longshot and the family solicitor asked me to look in.’

Christobel’s expression changed to a pout. ‘How disappointing. I wondered why you were looking so serious.’

‘It is a serious matter. Perhaps, instead of springing it on all of you at once, it would be best if I told you about it; then you could break it to your mother.’

At this clear indication by Johnny that he was the bearer of bad news, her brown eyes grew as round as saucers, and she exclaimed:

‘For heaven’s sake don’t tell me that Pa has gone broke! That would be too much! But we can’t stand here on the doorstep exhibiting ourselves to the neighbours. Come into the lounge. Whatever it is I can take it.’

Leaving Johnny to shut the front door, she turned with a flurry of skirts and led him down a short passage to a room at the back of the house. It looked out on a pocket-handkerchief-sized garden, but the view was partially obscured on the hall side by a one-storied portion of the house that jutted out into it, and was evidently the kitchen quarters.

Had I entered that room in Timbuktu I think it would still have reminded me of Edith. No doubt its furnishings resembled those of countless others, also termed lounges, that had gradually evolved from the drawing-rooms of more spacious Edwardian days; but Edith had been my only intimate contact with that section of the middle classes which is utterly devoid of taste. For individual pieces, whether antique or modern, she had no use at all; her soul craved suites, the more expensive the better, as turned out by the hundred for the nouveau-riche by the big stores in Tottenham Court Road. She had no sense of space and crowded things in on the principle of ‘the more the better’, loading every piece with valueless and often hideous ornaments. The carpet swore at the curtains and on the walls hung pictures of ‘The Soul’s Awakening’ type, in wide-margined gilt frames.

I recalled the battles I had had with her in my endeavours to restrain her from making a nightmare of our first home. Although I had had to give way to her about a walnut bedroom suite, on which she had set her heart, I had managed to save face with my own friends in the furnishing of our downstairs rooms. But here she had been free to do her worst.

Turning to face Johnny, Christobel asked in a flippant tone designed to show her youthful cynicism: ‘Now, give us the works!’

No longer inclined to mince matters, he replied: ‘Your father is dead. He died quite unexpectedly last night.’

‘So that’s it.’ She did not turn a hair of her ‘urchin crop’ which I was old-fashioned enough to dislike.

‘I’m afraid there will be a lot of unpleasant publicity connected with his death,’ Johnny went on. ‘You see, he took his own life; and the reason for his doing so was because he had just killed another man who was living in the house.’

At that my hard-boiled young daughter’s eyelashes did flutter, but not on account of the imminence of tears. She simply gasped: ‘Well I’m damned. I’d never have thought it of him.’

‘Neither would I,’ replied Johnny tartly. ‘But there appears to be no disputing the fact that that is what he did. Please tell your mother and brother, and convey my sympathy to them. The inquest is on Monday and the funeral on Tuesday morning. Now, if you will excuse me, I must be on my way.’

Apparently still too overcome by surprise to ask him any questions, she accompanied him to the front door. There she flashed him a sudden smile and said: ‘Thanks for letting us know. Do come and pay us a proper visit some time.’ Then she closed the door after him and stood for a moment irresolute in the narrow hall.

Now much intrigued to learn what the reactions of my ex-wife and son would be, instead of following Johnny I remained beside Christobel. After blowing the rather pudgy nose which was the worst feature of her otherwise attractively youthful face, she opened a door at the side of the hall which gave on to a small dining-room. Edith and Harold were sitting at an oval table eating cutlets and mashed potatoes.

The years had not been very kind to Edith. In her youth she had been a voluptuous blonde, but rinses had failed to keep the colour in her hair and her face had become distinctly fleshy. Really beautiful women owe their looks to bone formation and that alone gives lasting charm to the outline of their features. Ankaret, for example, if she had lived to be ninety, could not fail to mature to the end as a most handsome old lady. But such bone structures are not often met with. The great majority of pretty girls are, alas, doomed as their age advances to fight a losing battle against the contours of their faces becoming ever more disenchanting. Edith had proved no exception, and I noted, too, that she was now wearing a hearing aid. Even in her youth she had been a little deaf, and I was sorry to see that this trouble of hers had evidently become worse.

In Harold, at eighteen, I could take little pride. He was very tall but narrow-shouldered, sallow-complexioned, and, his sight being poor, he wore heavy tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. His appearance was not improved by the untidiness of his clothes and his unbrushed hair, a big lock of which he always let hang down over his forehead. That he was my son I had no doubt whatever. He even had a slight resemblance to me physically; but mentally, we were poles apart. His two gifts, a flair for figures—which, at his own wish, had caused me earlier that year to arrange for him to be apprenticed to a good firm of chartered accountants—and an appreciation of classical music, were both interests which I lacked the ability to share; and I had long since given up as hopeless all attempts to win his affection. He had erected a barrier that I could not penetrate, based, I suppose, on resentment of the fact that I had left his mother.

But, that apart, he lacked all sense of the joy of life. At his age, without being vicious, I had been quite a scamp, whereas he had a slightly sneering attitude towards any form of riotous living. At times, when I had been with him, I had not been able to prevent filtering through my mind the old story of the Colonel asking a Subaltern who was both a teetotaller and a notorious prude about women: ‘Do you eat hay?’ Much surprised the Subaltern had replied: ‘No, Sir.’ Upon which the Colonel had retorted: ‘Then you are not a fit companion for man or beast.’ To my shame, that was the way I felt about Harold.

As Christobel entered the room her mother looked up and asked: ‘What was it, dear?’

The girl made no move to resume her place at table, and replied by another question: ‘Mummy, you’ve always told us that Pa was the one man in your life. Did you really love him very deeply?’

Edith’s slightly-sagging face took on the expression of the righteous and forgiving martyr. ‘Of course, dear. But what a funny thing to ask in the middle of dinner.’

‘Does he still mean very much to you,’ Christobel persisted.

‘Yes, child! Naturally! He was your father.’ Edith’s voice now held a faintly testy note. ‘Come and sit down and finish your cutlet.’

For the first time Christobel showed traces of emotion; then she blurted out: ‘Well, I’m sorry, darling, but Pa’s had it. That was Wing Commander Norton. He’s a sort of cousin, isn’t he? Pa’s solicitor asked him to call and tell us that there has been a frightful bust-up at Langshot. Apparently Pa killed another man last night then committed suicide.’

Edith dropped her fork with a clatter. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, her face twisting into a grimace. ‘No; no! It can’t be true!’

Harold jumped to his feet and snapped at his sister: ‘Couldn’t you have broken it a bit more gently.’ Then he ran round to his mother, who had closed her eyes, pressed one hand to her ample bosom, and looked as though she were about to faint.

The brother and sister began to speculate on the cause of the tragedy at Longshot, but were cut short by Edith’s standing up, leaning on Harold’s shoulder and murmuring: ‘Take me to my room, dear; take me to my room.’

Between them they got her upstairs, where she lay down on her bed, now weeping copiously. After providing her with aspirins, lavender water, and a supply of handkerchiefs, they made a few awkward efforts to comfort her, then drew the window curtains and went downstairs to finish their interrupted meal.

Christobel pushed aside the remains of the now cold cutlet, cut herself a large slice of treacle tart and, as she began hurriedly to eat it, remarked: ‘I must buck up, or I’ll be late meeting Archie, and he hates having to wait to go in until after the last programme’s started.’

‘I’d have thought you might have stayed in tonight.’ Harold gave a disapproving sniff. ‘After all, even if he had no time for us, he was our father.’

‘Don’t be stuffy,’ she chided him. ‘You know jolly well you’d be going out somewhere yourself if you weren’t stony-broke. Having just learnt that Pa is dead wouldn’t stop you.’

He gave a sour smile. ‘I suppose you’re right. This last month of the quarter always gets me down. I wonder how he would have liked to have to stay at home night after night for want of a few bob to go to a concert or a political meeting.’

‘You can listen to the wireless, and you’ve got your records. If you didn’t spend so much on them and drinking beer with your Left-wing friends you wouldn’t be so hard up towards the end of every quarter.’

‘Hang it all, why shouldn’t I?’ he protested, brushing the dangling lock away from over his right eye. ‘And no one could accuse me of extravagance. It’s just that in these days a hundred a year goes nowhere.’

‘You’re telling me!’ Christobel took a quick drink of water.

‘Oh you! For a girl it’s very different. There are always plenty of chaps ready to take you places and pay for your fun.’

‘Perhaps; but I have to watch every penny all the same. You’ve no idea what clothes cost, and hair-do’s and make-up stuff. I’m just as hard put to it on my hundred a year as you are on yours.’

‘Ah, but you have a hundred plus.’

‘Plus what?’

‘Plus the asset of your sex. Having spent your hundred on dolling yourself up you are all set. The plus is letting your boy-friends maul you about a bit in exchange for giving you a darned good time.’

‘Harold!’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Don’t be disgusting! How dare you speak of me as though I were a tart.’

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t intend to imply that you would go the whole hog for money. But I’ll bet all your kisses aren’t given for love. Don’t think I’m blaming you, either. I’d do the same if I were in your place. What is more, if you had met some really rich playboy and gone to bed with him for what you could get out of it, to my mind that would have been Pa’s fault. There he was, always beefing about his super tax and allowing his daughter less than half the wages earned by a shop girl. Still, now the mean old so-and-so is dead, things should be a lot better for us.’

‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Christobel shook her head. ‘You know how crazy he was about the bitch. I’ll bet that she and her noble relatives have got their claws on everything, including the kitchen sink.’

Harold’s mouth drew into a snarl. ‘By God, if he has left the bitch everything I’ll fight her in the courts.’

‘Will you?’ His sister gave him an amused look. ‘And where is the money to pay the lawyers to come from, eh? Besides, you are only eighteen, so still a minor. Mummy is the only person who could start an action on our behalf; and you know how spineless she is. We’d never be able to persuade her to, even if there’s a case; and I don’t suppose there is one. It’s hardly likely that Pa would have failed to make provision for her allowance, and ours, to be continued; and I shouldn’t think we’d be legally entitled to demand more.’

‘But hang it all!’ Dismay mingled with the anger on Harold’s sallow face. ‘Even if you are right about yourself and Mother, I must come into something. I’m the new Baronet. Surely I’ll get some cash with the title.’

At that Christobel began to laugh. ‘Of course,’ she giggled ‘You are Sir Harold now. Somehow that part of it hadn’t struck me, and it will take quite a bit of getting used to.’

‘I don’t see what’s so funny about it,’ he said sullenly.

‘You wouldn’t; and apart from being able to swank, I doubt if it will do you much good.’ Standing up she added: ‘I must beat it. And while I am on my way to sell myself to my rich admirer, Sir Harold Hillary, Bart., can do the washing up.’

For that crack, I must say, I liked my daughter quite a bit better; but it was followed by a sordid little incident.

‘Hi!’ he called as she made to leave the room. ‘I did it last Saturday. It’s your turn; and you haven’t paid me yet for doing it the Saturday before that.’

After fumbling in her bag she fished out a half-crown and threw it on the table. ‘Here you are, then. At a bob a night that puts me sixpence in credit.’

As he picked it up, she turned in the doorway. ‘I may be pretty late. Archie said he might take me somewhere to dance for a bit after the flick. If he does I’ll probably bring him in for a cup of coffee when I get home; so if you hear us don’t come blundering downstairs thinking it’s burglars. Night-night.’

When she had gone, he walked round the table to the fire-place and gave his reflection in the mirror of the overmantel a long, appraising look; then, his tone expressing evident self-satisfaction, he said several times: ‘Sir Harold Hillary. Sir Harold Hillary.’

Leaving him to it, I moved upstairs to Edith’s room. She was no longer lying down, but kneeling beside her bed praying; or rather murmuring a sort of soliloquy addressed to God the words of which were quite loud enough to hear. I suppose I ought not to have listened, but her half-hysterical spate of pleas, excuses and lamentations was such an indictment of myself that I remained there for quite a long time, almost as a form of penance. There were frequent repetitions in what she said, but the gist of it ran something like this:

‘Oh Lord, do let everything be all right. Don’t let Giff have forgotten us, or have killed himself owing to financial troubles. I did my best to be a good wife to him. I know I haven’t brought up the children very well; but I did the best I could for them on the money. Oh Lord please let there be a will and us be in it. I know Giff would have meant to provide for us. He wasn’t a bad man, only selfish; and he couldn’t help being a snob. That was his father’s fault. Perhaps I ought not to have married him. I know he was above my class, but I loved him and I thought he loved me. Oh Lord, don’t let our allowances be cut off. Even as things are it’s a constant struggle. Ever since Giff left us I’ve had to scrape and save. If the allowances are cut off I don’t know what we’ll do. My own little bit won’t be nearly enough to keep this house going. If it were only myself it wouldn’t matter so much. I could just manage in a tiny flat. But there are the children. Please help me to look after them and continue to give them a home. Harold is too young to go out into the world, and I couldn’t help it that he and his father never got on together. He is a good boy really, and it was only his not being able to understand that Giff had so many important things to see to that he couldn’t give much time to us. Giff would have been different if it hadn’t been for Lady A. But I bear her no malice. Please believe that. He had left me before he met her, so I really have no cause to complain. It’s all my fault for not having been clever enough to hold him. If I had, Harold would soon be going up to Cambridge, and Christobel would have been presented at Court two years ago. But I’m not complaining about that. I only ask that we will be able to go on as we are. Oh please Lord let things be all right, so that we get the allowances just the same.’

On and on she went, poor woman, showing no particular sorrow about my death but generously seeking to excuse me having left her, and my lack of interest in the children, and desperately concerned about their future. That her worst fears were groundless, as she would soon learn from my will, did not make her present distress any the less harrowing. At length, feeling that I could bear the sound of it no longer, I drifted from the room.

Outside on the landing faint strains of classical music came down to me by a steep little stairway leading to the upper floor of the house; so it was evident that under the gables there ‘Sir Harold’ had his quarters, and was consoling himself for being confined to his home through lack of funds by playing his gramophone. That hardship did not seem to me a very great one, but all the same, having moved down to the lounge I settled myself for a really serious think.

The children’s attitude to my death and Edith’s gabbled prayers had weighed me down with an appalling sense of guilt. It was vain for me to argue with myself that I was not responsible for the characters of my son and daughter; for had I brought them up they might have become very different people. On the other hand, that did not apply to Edith, and by going back to the beginning I tried to assess how far I was really responsible for her broken and, since we had separated, dreary, financially-harassed existence.

We had met in the early thirties and, such are the trivialities upon which our fates hang, it is most unlikely that we should ever have met at all had I not when at Cambridge taken up tennis in preference to any other sport. Her brother Tom was also a keen tennis man. Apart from that we had little in common and I did not even have any particular liking for him. But we had both made up our minds to see Wimbledon week that year and he invited me to stay for it at his home in South London. As, for me, the alternative would have been an hotel, I accepted.

The Wilks—that was their name—lived in one of those large Victorian houses, each having its own short carriage drive and two acres or more of garden behind it, that used to abound in the wealthier suburbs of London. Most of them have since been pulled down, to make way for blocks of flats, or turned into small schools, nursing homes and boarding houses, but in the thirties quite a number of them were still serving their original purpose. That of the Wilks was on Tulse Hill, and unexpectedly pleasant I found it.

The family consisted of father, mother, three sons and three daughters. Mr. Wilks was the London agent for a Lancashire cotton firm, but we did not see much of him; perhaps because he was already beginning to feel the effects of the cancer that carried him, and a good part of his income, off not long afterwards. The mother was one of those fat, good-natured women who believed in piling people’s plates high with food and did not seem to mind in the least if her children turned the house upside down in the process of enjoying themselves. The sons and daughters were much of an age, ranging from eighteen to twenty-six, Edith being the middle of the three girls, and three years older than myself. They had a host of friends who were always rushing in and out, or staying at a moment’s notice to lunch or dinner, both of which were movable feasts depending on the convenience of the majority. In fact the place was a cheerful Bedlam.

That, of course, was why I liked it. At Longshot I had been brought up as an only child, and although I had been allowed to have a friend to stay now and then in the holidays, life in my father’s house never varied in its decorous routine. I, my school-friends, and the children of our few scattered neighbours could get as dirty as we liked in garden, fields and ponds, but we always had to appear clean, tidy and punctually at meals. No shouting indoors or practical jokes were permitted, much less riotous games of hide-and-seek during which young men and women squeezed themselves under the beds or into the wardrobes of their elders.

The fact that the Wilks did not normally change for dinner, had numerous customs that seemed strange to me, and spoke with a slightly Cockney accent did not in the least detract from my enjoyment, and during the hectic fortnight I spent with them it was not at all surprising that I should have more or less fallen for Edith.

I say ‘more or less’ because it was no question of a grand passion—anyhow on my part. It was simply a case of propinquity. Attracted by her blue eyes, golden hair, abundant health and ready laughter, I attached myself to her from the first evening. How large a part the fact that I was the heir to a Baronetcy and a considerable fortune played with her, I shall never know; but she was certainly not a clever and designing woman by nature, so I think it only fair to assume that she was equally attracted to me physically. Anyhow, she accepted me as her special cavalier with unconcealed pleasure, and we were soon seeking opportunities to be alone together. It was that which led to my undoing.

On the afternoon of my last Sunday at the Wilks’s she took me up to an old play-room at the top of the house. We both knew that to see her collection of stuffed animals was only an excuse, as we had already indulged in several bouts of kissing and cuddling in secluded corners of the garden. The door was hardly closed behind us before we were two veryover-heated young people clasped tightly in each other’s arms.

I did not actually seduce her, but during the hour that followed things did not stop far short of that. Anyway, when I left on the Monday morning, although not a word had been said about marriage, I felt that I had definitely committed myself.

That, of course, was before World War II had practically eliminated class distinctions as far as the sexes were concerned. In those days the traditions of behaviour current before World War I still governed most decently-brought-up young men. It was accepted that any young woman with whom one could scrape acquaintance in a park, a dance hall or any public place was fair game, and that if she allowed herself to be seduced a ‘gentleman’ was under no obligation to marry her. But any unmarried girl to whom one had been formally introduced was definitely taboo. In Victorian times many a man was caught by the sister of a friend allowing him to do no more than kiss her in a conservatory, and while by my young days things had to go a lot further than that before there was any talk of putting up the banns, it was still recognised that playing such games as I had with Edith in the old play-room could be taken by the girl as a clear indication that the young man wanted to marry her.

Now, thank goodness, girls and boys of all classes have been educated to speak out to one another frankly about these matters and, both parties being willing, can indulge in such pastimes without necessarily being committed for life to a partner with whom they have nothing in common but a sexual attraction that may burn itself out in a few months.

I have since learned that even in my day many of my contemporaries did not abide by the current rules; so perhaps, owing to lack of experience, I behaved as a simpleton and could have wriggled out of it had I wished at the price of some twinges of conscience; but the fact is it never occurred to me to do so. I should add I have not the least reason to suppose that Edith deliberately trapped me, and such a thought never even crossed my mind. I accepted the situation as quite natural and assumed similar ones determined the futures of most young men of my kind.

This may all sound as if I was not the least in love with Edith, but that was far from being the case. I am now simply reviewing the affair in retrospect; but, at the time, my overheated imagination was rarely free from visions of my lovely blonde divinity and my arms felt a positive physical ache to hold her once more in one of those embraces to which she responded so passionately. In consequence, when the Wilks invited me down later that summer to stay at a house they had taken at Paignton, I accepted with alacrity. Down there in Devonshire we found more opportunities for hectic love-making, and from my visit I returned engaged.

Naturally the next step was for Edith to come and stay at Longshot Hall. It was then that the first shadow fell on our romance. She simply did not fit and, even blinded by passion as I was, I could not help being aware of it. My father received her most kindly and as long as she was with us showed not the least trace of his disappointment at my choice. But the night after she had gone, he tackled me about it.

Without beating about the bush he told me that he considered Edith entirely unsuitable as a wife for me, and begged me to break off our engagement. Then he said the sort of thing that so many parents before and since must have said to their children in similar circumstances—that even in the best of marriages the honeymoon relationship cannot be retained indefinitely, and that for lasting happiness, putting all question of class apart, common interests and a similarity of outlook are absolutely essential. He added that, regrettable as it might be to have to break one’s word, it was far better to do so than to condemn oneself to years of bickering that ended in the squalor of the divorce court.

He put it to me, too, that although it requires much more courage to jilt a girl than tamely to allow oneself to drift into a marriage the outcome of which is foredoomed, it was, in such circumstances, up to a man to face the music, not only for his own future happiness but because he was also responsible for that of the weaker partner—the girl who had temporarily aroused his passion and, in the nature of things, was probably even more blinded by passion than he was himself.

How right my father was all older people know, and the really awful thing is that after Edith’s stay at Longshot, at such times as I forced myself to think of my engagement dispassionately I knew that he was right. Yet, partly owning to a continuance of the physical bewitchment she exercised over me, and partly because I could not screw up the moral courage required to inflict such an abominable hurt upon her, I refused to do as he wished, and pushed these doubts about the future into the back of my mind. At the end of the following term I came down from Cambridge, and we were married a few weeks after Christmas.

It had always been intended that I should go into the family business and this necessitated living near Southampton. Edith had never been allowed to know of my father’s opposition to the match and once he had withdrawn it—stipulating only that after the marriage I must not expect him to have anything to do with the Wilks—he behaved very generously towards us. He bought me a pleasant little property not far from Longshot and gave me a thousand pounds towards furnishing the house. The excitement of getting ready our home, the wedding, and the honeymoon occupied my mind to the exclusion of all pessimistic thoughts during those winter months, and Edith and I were as happy together as any pair of newly-weds could be when we took possession of Monksfield Grange in the early spring.

But that state of things did not last long. Edith had never hunted, nor shot, nor fished and she set her face firmly against taking up any of these pastimes. She did play about for a while in the garden, but the only kind of flowers she really liked were the sort that arrive wrapped in Cellophane from a florist’s shop, and after the first summer she abandoned even the pretence that she enjoyed growing things. The Wilks were not uncharitable people but their idea of benevolence began and ended with sending cheques annually to certain London hospitals and taking a stall at the local Church Bazaar. Helping to run the Women’s Institute, visiting sick cottagers, reading to the elderly bedridden poor, and other such good works to which most women of any position in the country consider it incumbent on them to devote a certain amount of time, were entirely foreign to Edith. By way of defence she declared that she thought it wrong to go poking one’s nose into other people’s private lives; but the fact of the matter was that not having been brought up to talk to labouring people as fellow human beings it embarrassed her horribly, apart from giving them orders, to have anything to do with them at all.

Our neighbours, of course, all came to call, and welcomed Edith among them as my wife. But they soon took her measure and, while it never reached a point where they omitted to ask us occasionally to dinner or consistently refused our invitations, she proved incapable of making a single woman friend among them, and to the end they never came to regard her as one of themselves. They could not be blamed for that; neither could she. It was simply that she was a fish out of water, and lacked the ability to adapt herself to new surroundings.

The sort of life she really hankered after was a flat in Kensington, plenty of afternoon bridge, frequent meals out at restaurants, theatres, cinemas, and an occasional day at the races. It is greatly to her credit that she rarely grumbled and never attempted to nag me into changing our way of life. And, of course, the coming of the children provided her with a new, enthralling interest. But, despite the consolation she found in them, with every year that passed it became increasingly apparent that she loathed the country, and everything connected with it, more and more.

As I have stated earlier, very soon after the war broke out I joined the R.A.F. I must now admit that this eagerness to get into uniform was not solely inspired by a red-hot patriotism. Had I been forced to give a reason for my action at the time, I would have said it was, and honestly believed that to be so. But later I realised that subconsciously I had in part at least been impelled by the desire to get away from Edith.

My escape to freedom brought to a head the sore of discontent with my marriage that had long been secretly festering at the back of my mind. In 1940 I was only twenty-seven; so the best part of my life still lay before me. I decided without haste but absolutely definitely that I would not waste another day longer than I had to on Edith and I wrote asking her to give me a divorce.

At first she refused, but when she found that I was adamant in my determination not to return to her, and perhaps influenced a little by the lure of being able to live once again, after the war, in her beloved London, she gave in. It took some time to arrange but I gave her grounds, agreed to allow her five hundred a year free of tax, to give her custody of the children and to pay for their education. Well before I returned from India everything had been settled. She had left the Grange, which lay uncomfortably close to Southampton’s bomb alley, and taken the children down to furnished lodgings in Torquay. I had never seen her again until this evening. Now, as I thought of these things in the lounge below her bedroom, I felt compelled to face the awful question: had I been justified in leaving her?

It was now pitch dark in there, as I knew from the distinct change in the appearance of my surroundings; for I had already learned that although in my new state I could see in the dark, the effect of darkness was in the nature of a dimming, which limited my range of vision and made nearby things seem as though seen only by twilight. Again my glance roved over the collection of gaudy, tasteless knick-knacks that so perfectly expressed Edith’s personality, and here and there I noticed one which by recalling fresh memories of our past together gave me a fresh tweak of conscience.

Unquestionably I should have followed my father’s advice, and broken with her before it was too late. But the fact was that I hadn’t. I had in all solemnity, on oath in church, taken her for better or worse till death us should part. After that what right had I to repudiate her? She, although forced by me to live in uncongenial surroundings, had kept her part of the bargain, and without undue complaint. Had I allowed my material welfare and personal preference for life in the country to weigh more with me than her happiness? It seemed that I had; for by some sacrifice of income I could have got a job in London, and still retained my seat on the Board of the firm. Should we then have been drawn closer together and achieved contentment? When in my twenties and thirties I had been far from averse to theatres, parties and night-clubs; and, as making friends came very easily to me, although I should have seen much less of some of my old ones I should probably have made new ones among Edith’s acquaintances; so a move to London might have turned our marriage into a success. Yet I had been too selfish for the idea of tearing up my own roots even to cross my mind.

Against that it could be argued that the marital doctrines of the Christian Church are entirely contrary to human nature. Man is by habit a polygamous animal. Every other religion and every people of whom we have any historical knowledge have freely recognised that, and no contortions of reasoning have ever produced a convincing argument that he was meant to be anything else. Nearly all non-Christian women, and a vast number of Christian ones as well, are still the playthings of many men or get only a share in one. So why should we accept the arbitrary ruling that a woman like Edith is entitled to the sole rights over one man for the whole of his adult life.

Again, it cannot be denied that while women are restricted in their sexual lives by the urge to make a home and secure a permanent protector for their children, they are by nature also polyandrous. Edith was only a little over thirty when we agreed that she should divorce me, and still good-looking. She could easily have found a second husband had she cared to look out for one. That she had not done so was no fault of mine.

Yet the fact remained that she hadn’t; so both by the law of the land, and by the moral precepts in which we had both been reared, I still remained responsible for her. The question was had I fulfilled my obligations?

Legally I had; for after deducting tax, the allowance I made her and the cost of the children’s education had taken a good third of my net income during the years before my father died. But morally I hadn’t; for while I had since enjoyed a life of comparative luxury myself I had left her to battle on her own against the increased cost of living, and a constant prey to anxiety about how to make both ends meet. True, I had not realised the straits to which she had been put until an hour or so ago; but I ought to have done so, and should have had I not been too occupied with my own affairs to give the matter a thought. I knew that she had about three hundred a year of her own, and when I had agreed to allow her five hundred, I had felt that eight hundred should be ample for her to keep herself and the children in reasonable comfort. But that had been thirteen years ago. My income had more than trebled since, but hers had not, although its purchasing power had shrunk to far less than its original value.

That she had never asked me to increase her allowance now seemed like heaping coals of fire upon my head; and in one matter I felt particularly guilty. When the children had left school, no longer having to pay their fees, but giving them a hundred a year apiece instead, had made me several hundred a year better off. Instead of cheerfully pocketing that surplus I ought to have turned it over to Edith.

This matter of school fees having brought my thoughts to the children, I began to consider my treatment of them. When I rushed into the war, and left home for an R.A.F. training camp, they were aged only four and two respectively. On my return from India I wrote to Edith saying that I would like to see them. She replied that she had no objection, but they were still too young to travel alone, and our divorce having been so recent it would cause her too much pain to meet me with them; moreover, even if she could find someone to send in her place she was not prepared to let them go to either Southampton or London as long as the war and danger from air raids continued.

The obvious answer was that I should have gone down to Torquay.

Of course I meant to, but I was up to my eyes picking up all the threads again at Hillary-Comptons. So I put it off until I should be a little less busy. Soon afterwards we were asked to double our output of craft in preparation for the Normandy landings; then my father fell ill and I had to take on much of his work as well as my own. What with one thing and another I never got down to Torquay.

In consequence I did not see the children again until 1946, after Edith had leased this house and moved with them up to London. By that time Christobel was ten and Harold eight—about as difficult an age as could be for a father to meet again two children who had forgotten even what he looked like. Edith had decided that the meeting would be less awkward if she did not appear; so they were duly delivered to me at the Berkeley, where I gave them lunch, and afterwards I took them to the circus.

They were pop-eyed with curiosity at seeing me and maintained a disconcerting stare throughout the meal. I did my best to initiate conversation but I fear there must have been a horribly false ring about my hearty jollity. Their replies were mostly whispered monosyllables and during the afternoon the only spontaneous remark by either came from Harold, who asked me just before the time came for them to be collected:

‘Why don’t you come home and live with Mummy?’

I replied that when he was older he would understand; and after their departure almost collapsed with relief that the ordeal was over.

Nevertheless, during the next three years I screwed myself up from time to time to repeat the operation, with theatres or cinemas in lieu of the circus, as a blessed escape from having to make stilted conversation with them for the greater part of our meetings.

I would have liked to have them down to Longshot, in the hope that being with them for several days at a stretch, and in different surroundings, would enable me to break through their reserve; but I didn’t, because I was afraid of upsetting our staff. That sounds a poor reason, I suppose; but from the war onwards it has been extremely difficult to find servants who are prepared to live in such isolated spots. Up till 1949 my father—with whom I had gone back to live after my return from India—and I had had to make do with his old valet, who was then in his seventies, and an elderly, cantankerous cook named Mrs. Beagle. As our two women helps from the village worked only till midday most of the extra work entailed by two children coming to stay would have fallen on her; and, as it was, whenever she was asked to do anything at all out of the ordinary she always complained that she was being ‘put upon’. I disliked her so much that if she had given notice I would not personally have minded, but for the last few years of his life my father was a semi-invalid, and for his sake I did not feel that I dared take the risk of our being left cookless.

The year of 1949/50 was a more than usually busy one for me. My father’s death entailed a great deal of extra work winding up his estate; then I met and became engaged to Ankaret, which led to my leaving Longshot for a time while it was thoroughly done up. As I was divorced we were married at a registry office, then after lunch with a few intimate friends we went straight off on our honeymoon. To have asked the children to such a wedding would, I felt, have been a great mistake, but I had, of course, told Ankaret all about them, and after she had had ample time to settle in at Longshot I asked her if she would mind if we had them to stay.

She agreed at once and I am sure had every intention of trying to make friends with them; but they proved impossible. Christobel, then fifteen, looked older than her years and was a precocious piece. On the second night of their stay Ankaret and I had a long-standing date for drinks before dinner with one of our neighbours, but when we arrived we learned that our host had suddenly been taken ill so the party was off. In consequence we were back at Longshot an hour before the children expected us, and a pretty scene we found there.

My well-grown young daughter was in our bedroom with a good part of Ankaret’s trousseau scattered about her. At the moment of our entry she was parading herself before the mirror in an evening dress by Balmain that Ankaret particularly cherished, and when sharply reprimanded by me she had the effrontery to say that as she and her school-friends often swapped clothes she had been hoping that Ankaret would lend her some of hers during her stay, and was trying on a few to see which would suit her.

Ankaret kept her temper very well, but she was not unnaturally annoyed, particularly as when bringing up the children Edith had, apparently, slipped back into the Wilks’s tradition that a bath once or twice a week was quite enough for anyone; so all the clothes that Christobel had tried on had to be sent to the cleaners.

Between ourselves we excused this piece of licence as a manifestation of adolescence; but worse was to follow. A few days after the children left Ankaret discovered that a bottle of her most expensive scent and four pairs of nylons were missing. I did not take the matter up with Edith because I knew how greatly it would upset her, but there was little margin for doubt about where these aids to glamour had gone.

Harold made himself an equally unwelcome guest in an even more unpleasant way. Although only thirteen he was already a budding intellectual—of the type that I find particularly repulsive. The Wilks, like most people of their class, were True Blue Conservatives so, presumably from sheer contrariness, Harold was in the process of becoming a Red Hot Communist. His conversation was still stilted, but he lost no opportunity of showing his disapproval of all that Longshot stood for; and now and again, with the callowness of extreme youth, burst into long diatribes, lifted almost verbatim from the books he was reading, on what a much better place the world would be when all sources of production and distribution were controlled by the workers. Bored as we were with his ill-digested cant, we put up with it and even paid him the compliment of trying to reason seriously with him until the night before he left. During dinner he launched an attack on British aristocracy, stigmatising them en bloc as worthless parasites, and it was perfectly clear that he was gunning for Ankaret. I shut him up by saying that the sooner he looked up the lists of the sons of peers who had given their lives fighting in the last two wars, and started to read the history of his country instead of a lot of subversive lies by the enemies of it, the sooner he would deserve the food that he was eating.

By tacit agreement we never asked the children to Longshot again, and I certainly cannot blame Ankaret for not having suggested that we should do so. I dropped back into my previous routine of sacrificing one of my evenings every three or four months when I happened to be in London to taking them out, and so matters had continued until I had, so unexpectedly, met my death.

Of the two of them I preferred the girl. She was hard as nails, her mind was mediocre, and her pert manners grated on me; but she at least showed a zest for living. Harold’s one redeeming feature seemed to be his attachment to his mother; and no doubt it was his long-nurtured grievance that it was she who should have been the mistress of Longshot Hall, and in due course have become Lady Hillary, which had led to his antagonism to the upper classes—as represented in his mind by my father and myself—and to his hatred of Ankaret. But by any standard he was a poor fish, and I marvelled that even with a woman of Edith’s limitations I could have begotten such a son.

But the question I now had to face was would they have been two quite different people had I carried out my full responsibilities as a parent to them?

Undoubtedly they would have if I had continued to make a home for them with Edith as, when I first asked her for a divorce, she had begged me to do. It was incontestable that their outlook and manners would have been coloured to some extent by my own, and those of the country gentry who would have continued to form our social circle. The talk they would have heard and the books I should have given them to read while their minds were forming could not have failed to prove a life-long influence. They might not have turned out to be good or kindly people, but at least they would have possessed the asset of some culture; Christobel would have developed a better sense of moral values, and Harold not become an embryo traitor to his country.

Even had I not gone back to Edith I could still have exerted a considerable influence on the formation of their characters, had I kept in closer touch with them. War or no war, on my return from India I ought to have gone down to Torquay every few weeks for a couple of nights. When they came to live in London, instead of giving them only a few hours of my time I ought to have had them to stay with me every holiday for a few nights in an hotel. Again, had I bothered to exert myself I could have had them with me at Longshot by arranging to put them up at the village inn, bought them fishing rods and ponies and taught them to enjoy the countryside. They would then have accepted Ankaret much more readily. She would, I am sure, have smoothed away Christobel’s gaucheries and later presented her at Court. And, of course, instead of jumping at the chance to get Harold into a firm of accountants shortly after his eighteenth birthday, I should have sent him to follow in the steps of several generations of Hillarys at Cambridge.

Instead I had left them to grow up as best they could, with no one to guide them other than their well-meaning but weak and sadly limited mother. Still worse, although I could well have afforded to be more generous, I had deprived them of many of the joys of youth by condemning them to make do on a pittance.

When I had fixed a hundred a year each as their allowance, I had been thinking in terms of my own youth, but I now recalled what one of my friend’s sons had told me not long ago. He had assured me that if one took a girl out for the evening in London these days there was little change out of a tenner, and that if it was to be a real celebration with champagne for dinner and at a night-club afterwards, it could easily run one into twenty pounds. That the thought of Harold had not crossed my mind in this connection was hardly surprising, but all the same it was an indication how the cost of even more modest pleasures must have gone up.

That, too, must apply to the expenses of a girl who made any pretence of maintaining a smart appearance, and I wondered now how Christobel could look so well turned out as she did on her money. She, of course, could have been earning money for herself by now, but it was much my fault as anyone’s that she was not. I ought to have insisted two or three years ago that she should train for some career, but I had never bothered to do so; and as, like her mother, she was lazy by nature, she had never done anything about it for herself.

So there it was. Partly through a mean instinct to keep as much of my income as I reasonably could for my own enjoyment, and even more from lack of thought for them, I had allowed three people for whom I was responsible to be harassed for years by financial worries, and deprived them of much happiness.

As I sat there, filled with shame at these thoughts, it occurred to me that perhaps it was by no mere chance that Johnny had brought me to Edith’s house that night. Although I had now been dead for over twenty-four hours, there was still no indication that I was about to enter another sphere of consciousness. Quite possibly, then, what I was now experiencing could be explained by the old belief in Purgatory. Perhaps, before I could be allowed to pass on, I should see myself as others to whom I had done harm had seen me, and be harrowed by contrition for all my faults.

With that unhappy surmise in mind my thoughts again became vague and wandering until they ceased to flow. But, as a result of my past indifference of my family’s welfare, before the night was out I was to suffer still deeper shame.

*          *          *          *

I was roused by the opening of the door, and Christobel’s voice saying: ‘Stay where you are for a minute, while I put on the fire.’

By the light from the hall-way she crossed the room, switched on the three bars of the electric fire, and when it was glowing fully called softly over her shoulder: ‘You can come in now. This will give enough light to save you from tripping over anything.’

Closing the door behind him a man came into the room—presumably Archie. He was considerably older than I should have expected, and much nearer to my age than to hers. As he took off his overcoat I saw that he was wearing a dinner jacket; so it looked as though Christobel’s story to Harold that she was going to a cinema was because she did not trust him and wished for reasons of her own to mislead her mother, and that actually she had gone straight up to the West End to dance and sup. It had struck me that she looked very smartly turned out for the pictures and possibly a visit to some local night-spot afterwards. A glance at the clock showed me that it was a quarter to four, and no local place would have kept open till near that hour.

Archie was a tallish man, rather red in the face and with thinning hair. Christobel seemed to be carrying her drink pretty well but it was obvious that he had knocked back quite a bit more than was good for him and, slurring his words a little, he said rather peevishly:

‘I do wish you’d have let me take you to … to the flat.’

‘No thanks,’ she replied with a shake of her head. ‘Not at this time of night, and have the porter recognise me coming out. Besides, I loathe having to get up and dress again.’

He gave an anxious glance at the ceiling. ‘You’re quite sure no one’ll hear us?’

‘No, darling, not a chance of it.’ She threw herself down on the chesterfield at full length, and added: ‘Even if Mother is awake, without her hearing aid she is as deaf as a post; and my kid brother is right at the top of the house.’

She had not taken her feet from the floor; so as she lay there invitingly her knees were on a level with her chin. Swaying slightly he stood looking down on her with an appreciative leer.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘What are you waiting for?’

At that, he plumped down beside her, took her in his arms and gave her a long rich kiss. But after a moment she pushed him away and asked:

‘How about that hat in Josette’s window that you were going to buy me?’

‘Oh, come on,’ he protested. ‘It’s only … only the other day I paid your hairdresser’s bill for you.’

‘I know that.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the nose. ‘But you like me to dress well, and it’s over a fortnight since you gave me a present. Please don’t be a meanie.’

Sitting up he got out his pocket book and with fumbling fingers extracted some pound notes. ‘Here you are, then. It was a fiver, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Thank you, my poppet.’ Taking the notes she performed the age-old gesture of pulling up her skirt and stuffing them into the top of her stocking.

Again he bent over her, then said in a tone that implied no insult: ‘You know the truth is that you’re a … a damned expensive gol … gold-digging little bitch.’

‘Am I?’ she laughed up at him. ‘Anyway you’ve no cause to complain. You know that I always give you jolly good value for your money.’

I slunk away then, out through the passage and the front door to the street. It was the final humiliation, and that Harold should have foreseen the possibility of just such a situation added to its bitterness. Through my neglect of her, I had been brought to witness my daughter in the act of prostituting herself to a drunken man.