That night, when Eddie had gone, I knew the ultimate depths of despair. About my own fate I no longer cared; but the network of lies I had invented in an attempt to save myself had enmeshed the person whom, now that Ankaret was dead, I cared for more than anyone else in the world. And what a shameful return to make to poor Johnny for all the loyalty and courage he had shown in breaking one prison and risking a long sentence in another against the remote possibility that I might still be alive in my grave.
I felt so shattered that although Eddie stayed on with me for a while I could find little to say apart from reiterating my protests that Johnny was innocent. To have jobbed backwards and admitted that it had been on Saturday night that he had rescued me would have done no good; because I should not now be believed. They had proof that he had been in the churchyard on Wednesday night, and I had built up my own version of my resurrection too securely. Besides, the basis of the case the police were bringing against him was that, as I was capable of self-inducing comas at will, he had entered into a conspiracy with me from the beginning to succour me in secret while I was presumed dead, and later to rescue me. He had rescued me, and the date on which he had done so was not an essential point in the build-up which must bring about his ruin.
There were still a few minor discrepancies between the account Johnny had given the police and what they were able to prove; but, as Eddie gloomily pointed out, that was always so in murder trials. It was the weight of evidence which governed the verdict, and the case for the prosecution was overwhelming, both against me for murder and against Johnny for having afterwards endeavoured to prevent justice from taking its course.
When Eddie left me I continued to rack my poor brains for a way to save Johnny, but no ray of light came to relieve a darkness in my mind which was worse than it had suffered while in the tomb; but by morning I had taken a decision. Even though it stood no chance of being believed, I would prepare another statement, in which I would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about this extraordinary series of events of which I have been the victim.
My hand is mending well, but it will be many weeks yet before I can write with it again. In fact, I don’t suppose I ever will, as I shall before then have been tried, convicted and hanged by the neck until dead. So the prison authorities allowed me to have a tape-recording machine sent in, and for the past eight or ten days I have been dictating steadily into it. This occupation has done a lot to keep my mind off the wretched fate that awaits me; and when I am gone I intend that a copy of it shall be sent to the Society of Psychical Reseach for they, at least, should find it interesting.
I have also been allowed to receive letters and a limited number of visitors. Many of the letters have touched me deeply. Those of Charles Toiller, Silvers, Dr. Culver, my personal secretary Jean Nicholls, and many of my employees at the works, particularly so. It is a big consolation to anyone situated like myself to know in this way that quite a lot of people will regret one’s passing, and that many little acts of kindness, long since forgotten, that one has been able to do, are remembered.
Bill, as a material witness, has not been allowed to come to see me and his letter was typical of him. He had evidently learned from Eddie the line that my defence was to take; and, although he did not actually say it, reading between the lines I could see that he thought it a bit unsporting of me to try to father Evans’s murder on Ankaret. I have no doubt that had he been in my shoes he would have kept his mouth shut, and taken his medicine with a good grace. How I wished as I read it that I had done so; for then poor Johnny might have escaped being involved. But it was too late now to do anything but continue to reproach myself about that. For the rest, Bill’s letter displayed good honest affection for me, and the heart-felt hope that I would escape the worst.
Sir Charles also wrote to me, and his letter read as follows:
My dear Hillary,
The unhappy situation in which you are makes me all the more sensible of the obligation I am under to you; particularly as it was my action which led to your arrest. Yet I feel sure you will not hold that against me, as it was a duty that I could not shirk, and neither of us can doubt that even had I refrained from doing as I did your state was such that you must have fallen into the hands of the police before very long.
I would have visited you to express in person my gratitude for the warning you brought me but as I shall be called as a witness at your trial I am debarred from doing so. This letter must, therefore, serve for that and also to acquaint you with certain facts which I feel it is right that you should know.
Your well-intentioned efforts on my behalf, disappointing as it may be for you, but happily for me, had no basis in reality. Old Maria, as I told you, has been with me for many years and, as I expected, M.I.5’s enquiries have shown her to be entirely beyond reproach. Jan Klinsky is her cousin, and he escaped from Poland only a few months ago. She had in fact told me of him, and that he had secured work on a nearby farm in order to be near her. But the welter of affairs that clutter the mind of a man in my position caused me temporarily to have forgotten his existence when you spoke of him to me.
It was, of course, culpable of her to admit him to the house clandestinely and allow him to spy upon me; but the explanation for her doing so is quite simple. Having learned from her that the distinguished guest who dined with me the night of your visit came occasionally to my cottage, Klinsky had expressed a quite natural curiosity to see the great man at close quarters. At the first opportunity, therefore, Maria telephoned him and indulged him in his wish.
He is however quite harmless and, in fact, such a fanatical anti-communist that he braved considerable dangers in making his escape from Poland. Moreover, fearing that he might be caught he brought with him a phial of poison, which he had determined to take rather than submit to capture. It was a small dose of this poison which you saw Maria give her cat. The animal was very old and had gone blind so she felt that the kindest thing was to make away with it. Had she mentioned the matter to me I should of course have had it put down by a vet. But the frugal mind of the continental peasant is naturally averse to seeing anyone spend a guinea unnecessarily, and Klinsky having offered to do the job for nothing Maria agreed.
I must refer now to our long talk at Martin Emsworth’s and thank you again for the selfless and patriotic way in which you agreed to abet my private design for making the nation conscious of the necessity for a complete realignment of our armed forces.
That events of such a tragic nature should have prevented you from carrying out the ideas which I put to you is a matter on which I will not dwell, except to offer you my deepest sympathy. However, you will, I am sure, be pleased to learn that despite the failure of our plan, factors which I could not foresee at the time have since served much the same purpose as its success would have done.
These last few weeks matters have moved with remarkable rapidity. Early in September the public was hardly aware that any controversy existed with regard to the future of the armed forces. Now, at the end of the month, the whole question has been ventilated in the press with most satisfactory results. A special post as co-ordinating head of the Chiefs of Staff Committee is being created for Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir William Dickson, and the merging of all three Services into one Defence Force has been openly canvassed; while the Prime Minister has agreed that either myself or whoever he may appoint to succeed me as Minister of Defence, should in future exercise a much greater degree of control over the Service Ministries and the Ministry of Supply. Moreover it has been recognised that the maintenance of reserves and war potential which could not be brought into play during a five-day conflict are a waste of public money and that wherever possible they should be translated into a strong and efficient home defence emergency service. A major reorganisation of this kind is bound to take time but it can now be said with confidence that we are on the road to achieving a ‘New Look’ which will give our country a far greater measure of security.
In conclusion please believe that my thoughts are with you in your present ordeal. The country can ill afford to lose men like yourself, and it is my most earnest hope that you will succeed in proving your innocence.
Very sincerely yours.
So there it was. All I had done was to raise a mare’s-nest, and my doing so had played no inconsiderable part in landing Johnny and myself behind bars. Yet, as I saw again in my mind’s eye Maria, Klinsky and the dead cat, I felt that I had had sound grounds for the conclusion I had come to, and that it would have been despicable of me to refrain from taking the action that I had. At least I had not got Sir Charles’s death upon my conscience.
Harold also wrote to me. His was an awkward, ill-expressed letter, conveying little except the one thing he could not conceal—namely how aggrieved and uncomfortable he felt at my having placed him in such a situation. He made a half-hearted suggestion of coming to see me, but added rather pathetically that as we had never really been friends it seemed a bit late to start now.
Personally, I felt that a meeting in such exceptional circumstances was the one thing left which might possibly have brought us together; and had he been in my shoes I should certainly have made an immediate and spontaneous attempt to prove that blood was thicker than water. But he more or less implied that it was an unpleasant duty which he would not seek to avoid if I wished him to observe it; and no good could come of our meeting in that spirit.
I harboured no bitterness against him, but felt complete indifference, and the only effect his letter had was to remind me that, having returned from my grave, it was again in my power to make a new will. He had been ‘Sir’ Harold for nine days and soon enough now he would be Sir Harold again, and for good; but I would see to it that he never had Longshot.
James Compton was my first visitor, and from the hour he spent with me I derived great comfort. Dear James is one of those honest God-fearing souls who prove a tower of strength to their friends when in tribulation. It was not so much anything that either of us said but the warmth of true friendship, tried and proved over many years, which radiated from him to wrap me in a temporary contentment.
Actually we talked for most of the time about the affairs of the company. He, of course, could not know, neither could I tell him, that I had been an unseen presence at all the recent board meetings; so he gave me an account of the strife my last proposal had caused. I told him how I had obtained my information and showed him Sir Charles’s letter. In view of its contents there was now obviously no point in penalising the Company; so we decided that the E-boat contract should be accepted with apologies for our delay in giving a definite answer. Some months must elapse before even the keels could be laid down; so the contract might well be cancelled—if the ‘New Look’ included a reduction in the establishment of small fighting ships—while the Government were committed to pay no more than a few thousand compensation. That sort of thing was far from uncommon in the armaments world, and anything they had to pay us would be a flea-bite compared to the huge cost of having entirely reconditioned Vanguard before laying her up.
James is far from being a demonstrative man but on leaving he took me by the shoulders, smiled anto my eyes and said: ‘Fear nothing, Giff! Fear nothing! I know you are innocent and so does our Lord. Have faith in Him and just keep on thinking how the boys and girls in our yard will cheer you when you come back to us acquitted.’
It was true enough that I was innocent. But how I wished that I had James’s simple faith to sustain me. Alas I had not, and was still uneasily endeavouring to resign myself to the worst.
My next visitor was Sir Tuke. He was as forthright as ever but he seemed to have aged quite a lot since I had last seen him. When I told him what James and I had decided about the E-boats he waved it aside and said wearily:
‘Oh to hell with that; if we hadn’t taken the blasted contract some other firm would have. Anyhow, I’d rather have had to come out of retirement to fight the Russians with my naked hands than have this happen.’
Although only a figure of speech, that told me how badly he must be feeling, and I said: ‘Your attitude was quite understandable; it was just hard luck on Johnny that I was put out of circulation before I could tell you that he had had no hand in my proposals.’
‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘I’d always liked him so it went against the grain to do what I did. Put it down to over-zealousness for my Service if you like, but I felt I had to. Still, that is all over now. I have made him my humble apologies—and that’s a thing I have never done in my life to anyone else. It is this new trouble which is driving me to distraction.’
‘Johnny is as innocent of that as he was of the other,’ I assured him.
‘Yes. I’ve just come from seeing him; and as both of you maintain that I naturally accept it. But what are the chances of his getting off? That’s what I want to know.’
‘None too good, I’m afraid. I am innocent too but I’d willingly perjure myself if that would save him. The trouble is that it wouldn’t. There is nothing I can say which would clear him or even make his case better.’
‘So I gathered from Arnold. And he says that if the jury find Johnny guilty, he’ll get ten years. Just think of it, Gifford. Ten years!’
I refrained from remarking that I did not expect to escape hanging, as he went on: ‘Even with good conduct he wouldn’t get out under seven; and seven for him means seven for Sue.’
‘She is determined to stand by him then?’ I asked, although I already knew the answer.
‘Yes. She nailed her flag to the mast the day he was arrested. Told me that if I didn’t like it I could go jump in a pond. Game little devil.’ The Admiral’s blue eyes suddenly flashed. ‘I’m proud of her, Gifford! Proud of her! Naturally I kicked at first. Couldn’t tamely welcome a chap into the family who had betrayed Official Secrets. But directly I learned that he’d been cleared of that I sailed right in behind her. What else could I do?’
I nodded, and he went on: ‘But seven years! Just think of the frustration these two youngsters must suffer in all that time. And what will he be like when he comes out, eh? There are not many men whose character could stand up to seven years with only jail-birds as their companions.’
In that I could at least offer him a little comfort, as I was able to say with conviction, ‘I believe Johnny’s would. Particularly if he has Sue to look forward to. In fact I’m sure of it. In some ways it is going to be worse for her than him.’
‘You are right there,’ he agreed. ‘She insists on being present at the trial and that will be bad enough. Of course’ I’ll be with her; though I’d rather be in Lion again with Beatty at Jutland when all our ships were blowing up behind us. But it’s the long haul afterwards, when all the excitement is over. That will be infinitely worse.’
We talked on for a while, and I did what I could to cheer him, though it was little enough. It was not until he was on the point of leaving that he said:
‘I’m a self-centred old devil, Gifford. I’ve been talking of nothing but myself and my concern for Sue. All the same I’m sure you know how deeply I feel for you. Your father was my good friend and there is nothing that he could have done for you that I wouldn’t, given the chance. The pity of it is that I know of no way to prove my willingness to help. Sue is of yet another generation so she’s hardly had a chance to get to know you well; but all the same she said: “Give him my love, and tell him I know that he was much too fond of Johnny ever to have deliberately brought him into danger.” Well; so long. We’ll both be keeping our fingers crossed for you.’
My third and last visitor was Christobel. To my shame I must confess that I had tended to couple her with Harold and, after receiving his letter, if I had thought of her at all it had been with equal indifference.
We greeted one another rather awkwardly, then she plunged at once into what she had come to say: ‘Mother meant to write to you but I decided that I’d like to come to see you; so instead I’ve brought you a message from her. We have always assumed that you are very rich, but Ankaret must have cost you a packet, and appearances are sometimes deceptive. Everyone knows that briefing the best barristers for a murder trial costs the earth. So Mother wanted me to tell you that if you are hard up for cash, she has a thousand pounds put by and that it’s yours if you need it.’
I felt utterly abashed. All I could do was to exclaim: ‘Oh my dear!’ and the tears started to my eyes.
She saw them. Next moment her arms were round me and she cried. ‘Don’t worry, Daddy. Everything will be all right.’
The ice of long years was instantly broken. What we said for a time after that, I don’t remember. I told her, of course, that I had ample funds; but that I could never be sufficiently grateful for her mother’s offer, and how greatly I appreciated her having come to bring it to me; then, before we realised it, we had settled down to talk like old friends.
After a while she said: ‘Isn’t life strange? Just to think, Daddy, that you had to be accused of murder before I could look on you as anything but almost a stranger, and one I didn’t care for much at that.’
‘I’m afraid I’m the one to blame,’ I admitted. ‘I was too wrapped up in my own concerns to give much time to you when you were young; so naturally you grew away from me.’
She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t all your fault. You did make an effort now and then; but I resented your leaving us for Ankaret. And she was so lovely; so much everything I would have liked to be but knew I couldn’t, that I was desperately jealous of her. That’s why I made such a little bitch of myself when you asked Harold and me down to Longshot.’
‘All the same, as I was older, I should have understood and made allowances. Anyway, there must have been some career that you would have liked to have taken up. I ought to have found out about that and done something for you instead of just leaving you to drift.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she shrugged again. ‘I don’t think I was cut out for a career girl; any brains I have don’t seem to run in that direction.’
Recalling the situation in which I had last seen her, I had to make a conscious effort to keep a trace of grimness out of my voice as I asked: ‘In which direction do they run?’
‘To having a good time,’ she replied with unexpected frankness. ‘I know I’m not a real smasher like Ankaret; but I’ve never had any difficulty about collecting men.’
‘If that is your sole occupation don’t you get a bit tired of it?’ I enquired.
‘To tell the truth I am.’ Her eyes were shrewd and much older than they should have been as she admitted it, and went on: ‘The trouble is that those who can afford to take a girl to the right sort of places all seem to be either middle-aged or boring; the nicest ones have no money, and drinking beer in pubs has never struck me as much fun.’
After a moment I asked: ‘Isn’t there something else you would like to try for a change. If you don’t fancy office work, what about taking a job as a librarian or in a smart hat shop?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m not at all that fond of books, and nothing would induce me to wear myself out all day, fetching and carrying hats for other women to try on. If I did do anything, I’d like it to be in the country.’
‘Really!’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘I had no idea you were that sort of girl.’
‘If you are thinking of me as a land-girl, I’m not,’ she replied promptly. ‘And if I had to look after horses I’d go cuckoo in a week. It’s really that I’m utterly sick of London. I’ve had my fill of night-clubs, anyway as a regular amusement, and I’d love to get some good fresh air.’
‘But if you don’t care about the land or animals what could you do in the country?’
She hesitated a moment, then she laughed. ‘It’s silly to tell you about it really. It’s only a sort of pipe dream that a girl friend and I have been amusing ourselves with for the past few months. We had the idea of running a mobile grocery store. With all these new housing estates on the edges of towns and a long way from the shops, I’m sure that if the stuff could be brought to the door one would do a roaring trade. One would have no rent to pay and could move from place to place with the seasons. We’d do Scotland in the summer, the East Coast in the autumn, then from Cornwall right along to Kent in the winter and the spring. With a little planning one could arrange things so as to spend the week-end in cathedral cities, or at seaside places; and so combine business with having lots of fun. Of course the snag is that we’d need two caravans, one for our mobile shop and one to sleep in, and two cars to draw them. So it’s completely off the map, and one might just as well wish for a magic carpet right away.’
‘But it’s not off the map!’ I exclaimed. ‘Far from it. You shall have your caravans and cars. You can go out and buy them tomorrow if you like.’
Her eyes grew round as saucers. ‘Daddy! You don’t …’ you can’t possibly mean it!’
‘Of course I do. The fact that I’ve got to stay here for a while does not prevent me from signing cheques.’
‘But it would cost goodness knows how much. Three thousand at least, and several hundred more to stock the shop.’
‘You won’t do it on that,’ I told her. ‘Not if you buy new cars, and it is no good starting off with old crocks. But that doesn’t matter. You can spend up to five thousand and send the bills to me.’
‘Oh, Daddy darling!’ she burst into tears and again threw her arms round my neck.
When she had gone I felt happier than I had for years. All that evening a warm glow ran through me at the thought that even if I had to die I had first given someone else a break.
But I have got to die. There is no escaping that. I have now come to the end of recording my strange and terrifying experiences during these past weeks. Eddie has been having a typescript made from the tape daily, and tomorrow I shall give him this last section. But it won’t do Johnny or myself any good.
It is so utterly fantastic that no one will believe it. The fact that every single details fits will not weigh with them. They will regard it as a brilliant tour de force in imaginative fiction—or as the outpourings of a madman. But not of a madman mad enough to be sent to Broadmoor. While Sue eats her heart out Johnny has got to rot in prison. And I’ve got to swing. The case for the prosecution is unshakable, and nothing short of a miracle can save us now.