Early in the evening McAlpine was in Wolgast’s bar sitting with Foley at the corner table. The bar that night was a cheerless spot. Three strangers, salesmen from out of town, who had been advised to come there and enjoy the cheerful insults they would get from Wolgast, were expressing in whispers their profound disappointment with the place, for Wolgast ignored them. His arms folded and a cigar in his mouth, he leaned against his cash register morosely.
Foley had been trying to think of a comforting observation, but as he looked up his voice trailed off. He realized that no one could console McAlpine. His sickly pallor and the nervous twitching of his hand on the table suggested that he had been drinking. He also had the aloof, untouchable unawareness of a drunk. And yet he wasn’t drunk. All afternoon he had been drinking, but his eyes showed that he was agonizingly sober and would remain so even if he lost control of his limbs. All his grief showed in the worried loneliness of his eyes.
When Bouchard came in, no one even looked up. But when he was followed by Catherine and her father McAlpine noticed them and stood up slowly. Mr. Carver looked like an aloof ambassador. Catherine, raising the collar of her beaver coat, stared blankly at McAlpine. He wore a blue suit, an inch of white cuff showing at the sleeves. He looked very clean and distinguished despite his pallor. He even smiled, for it flashed into his mind idiotically that many years ago when he had been a boy he had dreamed of the Havelocks and people like the Carvers seeking him out, and now they had come.
“Mr. McAlpine?” Bouchard said.
“Of course. You want to see me?” He came from behind the table. “I’ve been half expecting you.”
“Wait a minute,” Foley said sharply. “What’s this about?”
“About? Well,” McAlpine began, glancing at Wolgast, “you might say, in a sense, it’s about Wolgast’s white horse.”
“What? What’s this about me?” Wolgast demanded. But McAlpine was on his way to get his coat and hat.
“Take it easy, Jim,” Foley said excitedly. “Nobody’s going to push you around.”
“I know, Chuck.”
“Don’t think you’re pushing him around,” Foley said belligerently to Carver. “Nor you either, lady. I, too, own a piece of this town.”
Catherine turned her head away, and Mr. Carver made a gesture to Bouchard.
“Nobody’s pushing your friend around,” Bouchard said to Foley.
“Where are you taking him? I’ll have fifteen lawyers there. Can he phone me?”
“Of course he can phone you,” Bouchard said.
“I’ll be sitting right here by the phone. Just remember he’s got friends,” Foley said.
When McAlpine had put on his coat and his hat and had joined Bouchard, who was talking quietly at the entrance with Catherine and her father, he suddenly took off the hat. “This is your hat, sir,” he said apologetically to Mr. Carver. “I had intended to return it before.”
“Sir,” Mr. Carver said, glancing around, sure McAlpine was trying to humiliate him.
“Thanks for the loan of it.”
“As you say, sir,” Mr. Carver said coldly because Bouchard was watching him.
“I shall use the phone,” Bouchard said mildly. “I think Mr. McAlpine would like a cup of coffee.”
When they went out, Bouchard told Catherine that he would like her to come down to detective headquarters in about an hour; in the meantime, he would try to sober McAlpine up. She could identify the drawings in McAlpine’s presence. He bowed to her. But when he took McAlpine by the arm she whispered, “Jim,” and she put out her hand. Her father caught her arm sternly and she straightened and turned her head away, ashamed.
In the car McAlpine waited for Bouchard to speak. All that concerned Bouchard was that passing cars were spraying slush on the windshield.
“I’m under arrest, of course,” McAlpine said.
“Who said you were under arrest?”
“Have I made one statement calculated to deceive you, sir?”
“It is a fact. You haven’t.”
“Why then should you deceive me? I’m under arrest.”
“When you are feeling better we will have a talk.”
“I am upset,” McAlpine agreed. “But I am aware of my situation.” And then he lay back in the cab in a stupor, the lights flickering on his face. Bouchard, believing he was drunk, wondered whether he should let him sleep or keep him awake and moving until his mind cleared. He had a mild impersonal manner and was proud of having no rancour for any of the criminals he arrested; he was also proud of being a cultivated citizen with sophisticated perceptions of his own. McAlpine obviously was a cultivated man, and therefore, within a certain sphere, his intellectual comrade. It was possible McAlpine would have emotions about the girl that would be stimulating, if corrupt. Bouchard had been Chief of Detectives but had made himself too difficult; he was unforgivably impartial in his arrests. He was on the way down in the department and knew it.
“Try and keep awake, my friend,” he said, shaking McAlpine. “It will be easier. You are doing fine.”
McAlpine, raising his head, looked out the window. “I wasn’t sleeping. Where are we?” They were on their way to the Champ de Mars, Bouchard said. “Of course,” McAlpine said with great understanding, recognizing the appropriateness of a ride through the old financial district where he had had his dreams of influence. “I would not like anyone to get the impression I drink too much. I never show the effects of liquor,” he said stiffly. “I’ve been upset all day. I don’t think anyone should drink who can’t hold it. Excuse me.” And he concentrated.
Going into Headquarters, then into the detectives’ room, he was erect, and only when he sat down and leaned back with a sigh did he look around miserably.
It was a bare, shabby brown room with a long table. A stenographer, a plump dark young girl with glasses and a severe expression, brought in two cups and a quart jar of coffee. When McAlpine saw the coffee, he asked, “Would you mind, sir, if I washed my face with some very cold water?” “Not at all,” Bouchard said with equal politeness. He took him to the washroom; he waited and even handed him a towel.
They returned to their coffee. McAlpine’s hands were trembling; he drank the coffee greedily. When he was taking the third cup he saw Bouchard drop the drawing of “Madame Radio” on the table.
“If you please – if you please,” McAlpine said in a lofty tone. “Never mind the ritual. Please don’t be clever about this. I did that drawing. I also did the drawing you saw in the newspapers. I know how I’m in this. I know what I’m saying. I know it’s my fault, but didn’t want it. It shouldn’t be like this. It’s all wrong.”
“And you killed the girl?” Bouchard said doubtfully.
“The way it is, it’s my fault she’s dead.”
“And you were with her last night?”
“Of course I was.”
“And you were involved in her death?”
“I told you it’s my fault she’s dead.”
“What time did you get back to your hotel?”
“At twenty-seven minutes after two. Why is that important?” McAlpine asked impatiently. “Who’s trying to fool you?”
“No one. I like to know these things. I’m curious. Drink some more coffee. I’ll join you in a moment.”
Bouchard’s tone was sympathetic; he gave McAlpine a friendly pat on the shoulder and, his eyes bright with curiosity, he went out. Left with his coffee, McAlpine put his head in his hands and sighed. It was awful to be left there alone. All day long he had tried to avoid being alone. Bouchard, of course, was playing with him by leaving him alone. Yet there was the black coffee; but he pushed the mug away. More of it would make him sick. He felt bloated. It was better to concentrate on the scratches on the long table and realize he was to be left there endlessly shivering with the pain of his own recollections because they believed he wanted to conceal something.
When Bouchard returned, McAlpine scowled at him. “You don’t have to leave me alone. Understand?”
“Excuse me,” Bouchard said gently as he sat down. “I was merely doing some phoning. You will understand I wanted to check with your hotel. Abut the hour of your return.”
“I’ve told you it’s irrelevant.”
“You say it is your fault. I still would like to know the one who actually killed her. Unless you know. No? One of her Negro friends?”
“Who it was is – is,” McAlpine began, his voice breaking, “also unimportant.”
“I am not asking now for a statement, understand, Mr. McAlpine. Maybe you would like to tell me how you were involved.”
“How I was involved? That’s very funny. Why, I loved her. I loved her and wanted her to be sure of herself.”
“I want to know how you were involved in her death.”
“I don’t know what you’d call it,” he said so softly he could hardly be heard, for he had put his hands over his face.
Bouchard was stirred by his protesting worried tone; it was interesting. He eyed him shrewdly, helping himself to some coffee. Then he leaned forward, bright-eyed, ready to offer his understanding of those hidden impulses that had intellectual interest for him. He knew he had been right in recognizing in McAlpine an intellectual equal who could quicken his curiosity.
“You say you loved her,” he said sympathetically. “Well, it is understandable. A pretty girl. But that daughter of Mr. Carver is also handsome. Now, this Sanderson girl, they say, led a loose life, she had peculiar tastes. She hung out in strange places. You are a man of refinement and education. A professor. I must know why you went after her. Something about her piqued your curiosity, eh? Is it not so? Something elusive, strange, perhaps a discontent in your own life – boredom.” He became absorbed himself and pleased with his own insight. “Around St. Antoine,” he went on while McAlpine stared at him, drugged by the flow of words, “when the white and the black get mixed up, there is a field of many strange, perverted tastes for a white girl to develop. Of course you were interested. Something outside your own experience, eh? I myself understand that craving for novelty. You know the works of André Gide?”
“Sure. Sure.”
“Gide. The French novelist. No?” he asked as McAlpine, straightening up, glared at him. “No?”
“All this backwoods talk about Gide,” McAlpine jeered at him brutally. “It’s all talk. I don’t think anybody around here reads Gide.”
“But just the same—”
“Just the same – what?”
“I say Gide has a fine style.”
“Oh, my God, we all have a fine style! Where am I?” McAlpine looked around, then stared blankly at Bouchard, the colour draining from his stricken face. He made a desolate gesture, dropped his head on his arms, and began to weep.
It was very embarrassing for Bouchard, whose eyes had been glittering with intellectual sympathy. He didn’t like it. It was primitive to weep. He got up and walked around the end of the table.
“All right. All right,” he said roughly. He hadn’t cried publicly himself since he was a small boy. “Come on now.” But McAlpine ignored him.
The solid stenographer came in, leading the way for Catherine. “Have some dignity,” Bouchard whispered, and now he was truly annoyed.
“I’m sorry. Excuse me,” McAlpine said.
His reddened eyes and the misery in his face shocked Catherine; she backed against the wall and wounded Bouchard by looking at him reproachfully.
“Ah, madame,” he said, bowing. “Very good of you to get here. Do sit down. Here at the table. Thank you,” he added as she approached the table.
“Mr. McAlpine,” he said genially, “I did some phoning – really for you. That Mrs. Agnew helped you anyway with her story about the man she heard after you left. I have phoned your hotel, and the night clerk remembers you coming in. He looked at the clock. It was a late hour for a man to be out without a hat or coat. The time checks right – for you…” Then he turned to Catherine. “But Mr. McAlpine admits he was involved, and you, madame, think so, too.”
“I don’t know,” she said nervously. “I only said—”
“I was involved,” McAlpine said. “Catherine, you have a right to know how I was involved.”
“If you didn’t do it – I mean—” She was so troubled she couldn’t speak for a moment. “If – if you had called me – if only you had explained—”
“Wait,” he pleaded.
“Let him talk,” Bouchard said impatiently. “I want to know how long he has been mixed up with this girl.”
“Ever since I came here,” McAlpine said.
“Oh, no, Jim!” Catherine whispered.
“That’s the truth,” he insisted. Trying to keep his voice steady, he concentrated intently on one table leg. Their presence didn’t embarrass him. He only hoped they would understand his anguished protest. He wanted to get it all straight for them.
He began with his first meeting with Peggy and the growth of his curiosity, how she had troubled him, and the growth of his own insight into her nature and the growth of his faith in his insight. All he wanted was that she should be herself. He loved her. Yet everyone he knew wanted to destroy her. They had resented her. He knew their resentment meant trouble, and he could feel it coming as you listen in the dark and hear someone creeping after you. His own faith, he said, couldn’t be broken by his friends, nor by the appearance of things, or the fact that she courted destruction. He had known that he was drawing her away from a life that did not become her, and he had waited patiently for her to realize she could love him.
Sometimes he faltered, forgetting they were listening to him, the words coming slowly. He would pause, searching his memory for an illuminating incident, then begin again. His voice choked as he spoke of the hours he had passed alone in her room dreaming of seeing her in other places, in other clothes, with other people; he spoke of the pleasure he had got watching her being affectionate and laughing. He looked up, wondering if Catherine understood his suffering. The compassion in her face gave him a melancholy eloquence.
She was fumbling in her purse for her handkerchief, because the story of his devotion had filled her with sad regret that she herself had never stirred him, and yet she understood with generosity. A feverish glow was in her eyes as she listened. He’s what I thought he was, she told herself. Loving and passionate and reckless and impulsive and faithful. No wonder I loved him. It could have been me. Over and over again she kept thinking painfully, it could have been me; and she waited, hearing the words she had always wanted to hear from him, hearing them about another, but glowing ardently as she identified herself with the other girl. When he described the trouble in the café and his struggle to be with the girl she could feel him struggling to be with herself, and when he told of rushing wildly up the street to get to the room, and of what had happened in the room, she was breathless with a strange, painful, yielding ardour, waiting for him to possess her.
“I could have stayed with her all night,” he said. “She was mine. There and then she was mine. But when I looked back on the way it had been – the others – all the others – I could not believe she wanted only me. She was alone, rejected by everybody. I happened to be there. She was feeling grateful. I wanted to be fair to her. I wanted to give her a chance to be sure. To make staying with her a part of that awful night – it wasn’t right, was it? She needed respect above all, didn’t she? Wasn’t I right in wanting to be fair to her?”
For an apprehensive, silent moment Catherine and Bouchard dwelt on that night and what it could have meant.
“And so you left her?” Bouchard asked.
“Until the morning. Only till the morning when she could feel free, understand,” he said, longing for absolution from the silence of their profound disappointment, and from the look in Catherine’s eyes. But Catherine stood up slowly. “I see,” she said. In her thoughts she was left in the girl’s room, left there without that gesture of reckless, ruthless devotion she could understand and forgive because it would be worthy of him. And she stared at him resentfully. “Catherine,” he said, coming around the table toward her apologetically, “I know I was unfair to you.”
“What?” she asked, all her disappointment showing in her face. “Unfair?” She was confused by what had happened to her and what hadn’t happened, and what she had wanted and what she hadn’t wanted.
“I know how you must have felt.” Longing to make a friendly gesture, he took her by the arm.
“Oh, don’t touch me now,” she said fiercely, and she slapped him across the face.
Bewildered, he backed against the table. His hand went up to his face. Catherine waited tensely, expecting Bouchard to interfere with her. She tried to smile disdainfully, but she was shaken by her own violence and its meaning, and what it might have revealed of her.
“Do you need me anymore, Mr. Bouchard?” she asked nervously.
“No, madame. Not anymore.”
“Thank you,” she said in her clipped cool tone, and she walked swiftly to the door.
He still felt the blow on his face, but it was the expression he had seen in her eyes that tore at his heart; and he wanted to cry out.
“Why did she slap me? Why?”
“Women have odd impulsive resentments,” Bouchard said philosophically. “I don’t think you quite lived up to her expectations.”