Chapter Three

 

Life Goes On

 

He stayed that night, and for two nights after it, with the Elsoms. Derek – he had insisted that Arthur should call him by his Christian name – had come to The Laurels and taken him back. No sooner was he in the Elsoms’ home than a doctor arrived. He turned out to have been sent by Coverdale. He took Arthur’s pulse, listened to his heart, looked into his eyes, ordered him to bed immediately and gave him two pills which, with the accompanying glass of hot milk, sent him to sleep in five minutes. He woke next morning to find that Elsom was working in the garden – it was Saturday. Melissa brought him coffee and toast on a tray.

So began two of the most enjoyable days in his life. Melissa was prepared to treat him like an invalid, and he stayed in bed that Saturday until lunchtime. It occurred to him that he had not spent a whole morning in bed since he was a child. All sorts of people left messages of sympathy. ‘I told them you were not well enough to see anybody yet,’ Melissa chirped. The doctor returned and pronounced him much improved. When he got up he wore Elsom’s dressing-gown, which was far too big for him. In the afternoon Elsom brought a caseful of clothes from The Laurels.

‘You’re very kind,’ Arthur kept repeating.

‘Not a bit of it. You stay as long as you like, that’s the way we want it. What are friends for if they don’t rally round at a time like this?’

You’re not a friend of mine, he felt inclined to say, I hardly know you and don’t even like you. But the doggy managing quality of Elsom proved very helpful. ‘Hate to bring it up, Arthur, old chap,’ he said, ‘But there’ll be the question of the funeral. Would you like me to see Jukes, they say he’s the best local man?’ Then there was the coffin. Was it to be the finest quality oak with specially designed handles, or standard pattern? His choice of finest quality oak met with approval. The inquest was fixed for Tuesday, and Elsom had gathered that it would be more or less a formality.

‘I think Coverdale’s got a line he’s working on, though he won’t say much about it.’ He held out a small paper bag. ‘I got this for you.’

Arthur opened the bag. It contained a black tie. He saw that Elsom was wearing one.

‘Just a formality, but you have to show respect.’

‘Very thoughtful of you.’ He took off the tie he was wearing and put on the black one. ‘Thank you very much.’

That evening Melissa suggested that, if he felt up to it, they should ask one or two people in tomorrow who wanted to express their sorrow in person. He dimly perceived that the Elsoms were using the occasion to establish themselves in the community, but what did it matter? A dozen people came in before lunch on Sunday, and the occasion turned out to be something between a cocktail party and a wake. The Paynes were there, and so was the retired naval commander. A dwarfish man from the Liberal Club told Arthur what a great loss Clare would be to the whole community, and Miss Leppard, secretary of the Art Society at Weybridge, said that Clare had a real talent for painting. Miss Leppard was a tall peering woman, and she brought her face very close to Arthur’s as she said, ‘I have had a visit from the police.’ He moved back a little. ‘They were interested in your wife’s attendance at our classes. I told them that she had one of the most original approaches of anyone in the group. I’m not sure if that was really what they wanted to know.’

So they were on to the Weybridge art classes! He knew that they must be, but it was good to have this confirmation of it. Had they got on to the hotel yet? The trouble was that he felt a need to give them some direction. He wanted to go to Coverdale and tell him the name of the man he was looking for. That was obviously not possible, and he felt the pangs of the artist unable for private reasons to make public acknowledgement of his work.

‘Wonderful weather.’ That was Mrs Payne. Had she not been saying a few days ago that the weather was incalculable? ‘I shall never forget the chats poor dear Clare and I had about her garden. She loved growing things.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘You mustn’t take it too hard. George and I were very fond of you both. We always thought you were perfectly suited.’

The strange thing was, he reflected, that in many ways this was perfectly true.

The inquest was a formality as Elsom had suggested, and indeed it was rather too much of a formality to suit him. The doctor gave evidence that death had been caused by a bullet which entered the stomach and was responsible for an internal haemorrhage. The deceased had also been hit by two other bullets, one penetrating the ribs and the other grazing the left arm. Mr Lillicrapp made a brief appearance to say that he had heard glass breaking, gone round to the garden, seen the body, and telephoned the police. Nothing at all was said about the man he had seen. Coverdale popped up to say that police inquiries were continuing. The coroner adjourned the inquest sine die, which Arthur gathered meant until they had some more evidence. The funeral was interesting in its way, although it was something of a trial because certain members of the Slattery connection reappeared, among them Uncle Ratty. He was visibly older and now walked with a stick, but age had not made him less choleric. ‘Should never have left her.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Used to write, say she was lonely.’ This was a new light on Clare. Had she really been lonely? Such a possibility had never occurred to him. ‘Left her at the mercy of these damned young thugs. That’s who it was, take it from me. Army discipline, that’s what they want.’ It did not seem worth arguing the point.

After the funeral he returned to The Laurels. The Elsoms protested at his going, but not very fervently. He guessed that they had had enough of him, or to put it unkindly that there was no more publicity to be got out of him. Before he went Elsom said, ‘About that little deal, it’s still on.’

‘What deal?’ He really had forgotten.

‘Lektreks.’ Elsom showed his teeth. ‘You said Clare had objections.’

‘I can’t possibly consider it just now.’

‘I realise that, Arthur. When you’re ready GBD will still be there.’

Back at The Laurels again his first sensation was a feeling of freedom. There were certain things about the house that he had always wanted to change and now – how extraordinary it was – he could do whatever he wished. He put Mr Slattery up in the attic and brought down one of his mother’s old pictures of the Sussex downs. To his surprise Susan was enthusiastic about the change, and revealed that she had always thought the portrait very gloomy. Her attitude towards him was one of protective flirtatiousness. ‘I expect you’ll like me to come in a bit more. I could cook lunch and then leave something for the evening.’

‘That’s very kind.’ He hesitated before asking her to help him change round the furniture in the living-room, but about this too she was approving. The bloodstained sofa cover had been sent to the cleaners.

‘You’ll be staying here, then?’ she asked after he had been back three or four days.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind.’

‘After all, it’s your home.’

‘It’s a big decision, Susan.’ He found it easy to call her Susan now, where before it had been difficult. ‘I have to try and adjust to a new life.’ He longed to ask whether she had talked to the Inspector about the man she had seen in the garden, but appreciated the need for restraint.

‘I can see that. Must be lonely.’

He agreed, but in fact found that he did not miss Clare at all. He seemed to be busy from morning to night, shopping, doing little things about the house and in the garden (he chopped down a vine that darkened the living-room which Clare had always refused to remove), answering the telephone, accepting and refusing invitations from people he knew only slightly. He realised that some of these people asked him as a social obligation owed to the bereaved and that others were eager to hear the unpleasant details of the act, but still the invitations pleased him and he accepted a few of them, although he was careful of what he said and careful also not to drink more than one glass of spirits or three of wine. He was even asked to a Liberal Club social, but this was one of the invitations he declined.

At two or three of these functions he saw George Payne, and the bank manager invited him in for a chat. Payne began by asking him about the crime. Were the police any nearer to finding the murderer? Arthur said he didn’t know. He hadn’t spoken to Coverdale since the inquest.

Payne lighted his pipe and sat back behind his fumed oak desk. ‘I tell you what, the police aren’t all they used to be. I don’t believe all the tales I hear, but I can tell you this, if they spent their time looking for criminals instead of giving motorists tickets for doing five miles over the speed limit, we’d all be better off.’ It seemed safe to agree. ‘And how are things going, Arthur? How are you keeping in yourself?’

He was used to being questioned as if he had just recovered from a serious operation, and had even come to like it. The question, in any case, was a formal approach to the production of an array of papers Clare had lodged with the bank. A solicitor could handle some of these things if Arthur wished it, but otherwise Mr Payne would take the whole burden of them upon his shoulders. He murmured that that would be very kind, and Mr Payne said with a brisk smile, ‘That’s what we’re here for, to help. I wish more people understood that. Now, you might like to have a look at these. If you come round this side of the desk I can explain.’

He explained and Arthur listened, although without full comprehension. There were stocks and Defence Bonds and things which should have been sold but hadn’t been, and other things which if he took George’s advice he would hang on to. There was the pass-book in which he noted, but did not mention, that large withdrawal from Clare’s private account. The private account in any case contained only a small fraction of the sum that would be coming to him. With a flash of indignation he realised that Clare had had a good deal more money than he had known. He would not be a rich man, but there was enough to provide a tidy income, which indeed she had been enjoying throughout their marriage. No wonder she had been comparatively unconcerned about his earnings.

The little chat lasted more than an hour, and ended by Arthur expressing his complete faith in his friend George. ‘He’s really still in a state of shock, poor little chap,’ the bank manager said to his wife afterwards. ‘It’s a good job he’s got us to look after his money. I’ll tell you what he is, he’s unworldly.’ And as a mild parting jest he said to Arthur, ‘No more investments like that car cream, you know.’ Little Brownjohn looked quite startled for a moment.

During these days Arthur did not once go up to London. He knew in a way that he ought to put in an appearance at the Lektreks office, but there seemed to be no hurry. If orders had come in they could wait. That was what he told himself, but the truth was that London represented to him things that he wanted to forget. There was the suitcase in the Left Luggage office, there was the Matrimonial Assistance office which was now forbidden territory, there was Joan. He had a vision of the Matrimonial Assistance office with the letters inside the door piling up and up, until at last the postman was unable to get them through the box. Or had Coverdale got there first, were his men even now going through the files? He felt that he had to know, yet there was no possible safe way of finding out. In case he should be tempted to do so, he stayed in Fraycut.

One day he saw an interesting item in the paper:

 

BLACKMAIL CHARGE.

COUPLE ARRESTED

Patricia Parker, 26, a secretary, and John Termaxian, said to have posed as her husband, appeared at Bow St. yesterday on a charge of attempting to obtain money by blackmail from Mr X, a businessman. Mr X said that he was in a hotel room with Parker when Termaxian, whom he believed to be her husband, burst in and demanded money. Mr X has an invalid wife, and according to him threats were made to send her photographs of him with Miss Parker.

A meeting was arranged after Mr X had informed the police, at which £200 in notes was handed over to Termaxian, who was then arrested. Det. Sgt. Rose said Termaxian stated on arrest: ‘I only did it to put the wind up him.’ Termaxian and Parker committed for trial. Bail was refused.

 

So they had come unstuck, probably with one of the people on his list. He couldn’t help feeling pleased. He worried for half an hour over their connection with Easonby Mellon, but there seemed no danger to him in their arrest. It was unlikely that they would admit to any connection with Matrimonial Assistance – why should they? No, it was a matter of blackmailers getting their just deserts.

A couple of days after reading this newspaper item he had his second conversation with Inspector Coverdale.