Directly after lunch—a strained meal, with Robert and Daphne pointedly ignoring each other—I went up to my room. I attended to a few small matters, and was about to go downstairs when I remembered that I had wanted to make a telephone call to the village. I picked up the receiver and heard a voice—Charles’—on the line.
I don’t remember that I had ever before eavesdropped on anyone’s conversation. But the whole situation was so abnormal that I, like everyone else, seemed to have departed from the ordinary canons of behaviour. Charles only said a few words, and then the voice at the other end of the wire said, “I appreciate your difficulties, old boy. But it’s difficult for us, too. You left right in the middle of everything, you know—and the thing’s at a standstill. I know you wanted to catch that plane, but it’s certainly snarled things here.”
Charles said with finality, “I’ll call you again when I know what’s happening,” and hung up. So did I. So Charles had not, as he airily told us, finished “earlier than I had expected and caught a late plane”. He had apparently left in the middle of some involved work and put his colleagues to considerable inconvenience. It was unlike Charles, who was very conscientious over his work. He must have had a very strong reason for wanting to be back that night. “I wanted to keep my father from making a public statement of his intentions.” But surely Uncle Hugh wouldn’t have done that before lunch? If Charles had caught the early plane in the morning, he would have had time enough to talk to Uncle Hugh before lunch.
I was still standing there staring stupidly at the telephone and trying not to reach any of the obvious conclusions when Mrs. Rapp knocked on the door and came in. Her opening remark was unpromising. “I’m not one to make trouble, as you know, Miss Christy,” she began. “But I know my job. And I can’t get on with it when people interfere at every turn with unwanted advice. It unsettles the staff as well—as if they weren’t upset enough about poor Sir Hugh.”
I agreed that my uncle’s death must have been a great shock to the staff and more so to her; and added cautiously that everyone else was a bit upset, too. It was not to be that easy, however.
“If it was Mr. Charles that was making the trouble, well, that wouldn’t be so bad. After all, Sir Hugh was his father, and it would be only right that he left Feathers to him. I’m sure no one would mind that. But to have that woman snooping and giving orders and her not even a relative—acting as if she was mistress here!—well, it’s past bearing. Miss Christy I do wish you’d settle something or I can’t answer for the staff. It’s fortunate they haven’t given notice already, but they’ll be doing it soon if this goes on much longer.”
“It’s all very difficult,” I agreed. I could well imagine what they had had to put up with from my aunt, and I did not envy them. “The trouble is, you see, things are very indefinite. When we know a bit more——” I stopped that sentence and started another one. “It’s only a few days, Mrs. Rapp, till it’ll all be settled. I could speak to Mr. Charles, but do you think you could keep things steady and take very little notice—for just a little longer?”
She did not reply right away. “I don’t like to add to your troubles, Miss Chris,” she said finally. “But if you’ll forgive me saying so, you’re still in charge here—until Sir Hugh’s will is read, I mean. You could talk to your aunt, maybe—though it’s not my place to give you any suggestions, I know.”
She was perfectly right, of course; and too polite to say straight out that it was my responsibility rather than Charles’. I knew that; but the thought of coping with my aunt seemed more than I could manage at that point. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “But try not to take too much notice, if you can.”
I don’t know what her answer would have been; but there was again a knock on the door and Robert came in. Mrs. Rapp excused herself and went out, and I braced myself to deal with him. He said, “So I finally tracked you down, Chris. Tell me, has everyone in this house gone mad?”
I asked what he meant.
“You heard what happened this morning—about Daphne and the money, I mean?”
I said that I had.
“And then there’s Daphne going in to see Uncle Hugh—why shouldn’t she?—why such a mystery?—and letting it be dragged out of her by that little worm, Gresham. I swear, Chris, I wouldn’t blame Burgess if he thought she had murdered Uncle Hugh. I don’t, of course. She hadn’t any reason to, and she wouldn’t, anyway. But she needed money for something, and it can’t be anything very savoury or she would have asked me for it. We’re not short of money.”
He stopped, and I said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was quite right on all counts. “And Andrew accusing Tay of giving her the money and Tay denying it. And everyone going around looking like death—including you. It isn’t just that they’re sorry about Uncle Hugh. That would be normal. But it looks to me as if you all suspect everyone else in the house of being a murderer!”
This was so close to my own feeling at the moment that I winced. But Robert was not noticing. “Well, Chris—why don’t you say something?”
“There’s nothing to say,” I said. “I know we’re all behaving abnormally. But——”
Robert interrupted me. “Do you know why Daphne needed the money?”
I said, “No. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did. That’s for her to tell you—if she wants to. But, Robert—I know you’re right, of course—but could you possibly not ask her? Let it go, I mean. She’s obviously distressed about something and she doesn’t want to talk about it. Must you know?”
He considered this unreasonable, and I could not blame him. “If my wife becomes involved in something that makes her need money so badly she’ll ask her uncle for it and not me—when I have enough—don’t you think I should be concerned?”
“Oh, of course,” I said, wearily. I wondered if it would help Daphne or Robert if I explained things—if I told him what it had been like for Daphne to grow up under the lynx-eyed watchfulness, social snobbery, and distorted values of my aunt and uncle. But, like everything else, it seemed too difficult, and I could not cope with it. Robert waited for me to say something else, but I didn’t. We went downstairs together without speaking.
I spent most of the afternoon working with Charles on various practical details: a statement to be released to the newspapers; arrangements about the funeral on Wednesday morning and for the will to be read. Uncle Hugh’s solicitor, Edward Temple, was coming down on Wednesday and would read the will that afternoon, after lunch.
We went over the newspaper statement carefully. It was a difficult thing to write, and no amount of caution or tact could make it sound good. “We’re going to have trouble with reporters,” I said. “We’d better make some arrangements so they don’t get into the grounds.”
“They’ll pick most of it up in village gossip, I suppose,” said Charles. “Well, it can’t be helped. I wonder what they’ll pick up in Redcot—I gather Giles is staying down there, or he was, over the week-end.”
I made a non-committal reply, and Charles looked at me closely. “You’re looking terrible, Christy—and it’s not just my father’s death. You look as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. What’s the matter—concealing evidence?”
Something must have shown in my face at this, and Charles was much more observant than Robert. “Yes. I thought so. I’ll take a guess that you know why Daphne needed money and who owns that lost cigarette-holder—not to mention various other details that have escaped Burgess. Why don’t you tell him?”
“Tell him what?”
“Anything,” said Charles, evenly. “Anything at all that you know. If I gather correctly from your tone that you think you know something discreditable to me, include that. Christy, let me remind you that my father was murdered. We may all get an unpleasant shock when we find out who did it, but it’ll be much better than never knowing at all. Besides, it’s very bad for anyone to get away with a murder successfully. They might be encouraged and try it again.”
“You may be right,” I said. I felt very nearly at the end of my tether. “But I’m willing to leave it up to Burgess. I just don’t want to be involved in it at all.”
“Or in anything,” said my cousin. “At least, I presume that’s why you let Aunt Mildred drive Mrs. Rapp practically to the point of leaving, when the house is really your responsibility. But what are you afraid of, Chris? Doing something wrong? It’d be much better than brooding and doing nothing at all. Burgess is no fool, you know. If I can tell you’re concealing information, so can he. He’s probably looking for it.”
I did not answer. Charles said, more gently, “You’re getting it out of focus, Chris. We’re not all murderers—just one of us is. And he—or she—will be discovered. The world won’t come to an end, any more than it did when my father was killed. But you mustn’t get into your head the idea that because one of us murdered him, any one of us is capable of murder. It’s just not true, my dear. Don’t you trust anyone?”
I wanted to say no: no one—and, least of all, myself. I did not. Charles said, his voice more gentle still, “One mistake doesn’t invalidate your judgment—and shouldn’t paralyse you for life, Christy.”
I still said nothing, and we sat in silence. It had become dim in the room, and neither of us had troubled to put on the light. For a few moments, I relaxed in the first comfort I had known since my uncle had been killed. I thought Charles had taken considerable thought and trouble over me, more than I would have expected him to do. But the possibility of his being a murderer remained.
I faced it coldly. Did I actually believe he had killed his father?
It was far from impossible. He had the three classic requirements: means, motive, and opportunity. For all that my Aunt Mildred might say, Charles was his father’s son. His father gave him what I suppose was a generous allowance; but it was nothing to what my cousin might expect now Uncle Hugh was dead. Charles had always, from an early age, said he would not go into the business. But it was bigger now than it had ever been, and the man who controlled it had a great deal of power. Who was to say what Charles might not be able to do, with his father out of the way? It was unlikely that he would be able to control the company by himself; but, by throwing his support to one or another faction, he might get a good deal for himself. This might be pure fantasy, as I did not think Charles, any more than anyone else, knew the contents of his father’s will. I did not think so; but I did not know. So whether he wanted financial independence or some voice in the business, Charles—from some points of view—had good reason to want his father dead.
The answer to it all was simple: I did not know who had killed my uncle. But it could be Charles as easily as anyone else—and more easily than some of the other possible suspects. Rational analysis made that clear enough; and it was clear that my venture into other fields had not been significantly successful.
Charles took out a cigarette and gave me one, too. He leaned forward and switched on the light. At that moment, Burgess came into the library. Charles showed him the Press release, and Burgess said he thought it would do quite well. “My men might be able to give you some help in keeping reporters at a reasonable distance.”
We talked about Wednesday’s arrangements for a few minutes, after which Charles asked Burgess if he wanted a whisky. Burgess said yes, and added that he had wanted a word with Charles in any case and this was a convenient place and time. I asked if I should go.
“No,” said Burgess. “I’d rather you stayed.”
Uncle Hugh always kept a bottle of whisky and some glasses in the wall-cupboard. Charles poured us each a drink, sat down again, and looked at Burgess.
Burgess took a swallow of his whisky and said it was very good. “It’s about that call from Paris, Mr. Mason. You had one this afternoon, I think.”
“Yes.”
“I gathered from your conversation that you’d left in a hurry, leaving a lot of work not only unfinished but badly tied up. Yet you told me yesterday you’d come back earlier than you’d intended because you’d finished your work. The two statements don’t go together very well, do they? Perhaps you’d like to explain.”
“They don’t, that’s true,” said Charles. He was, as far as I could tell, entirely unruffled. “The truth is that I decided to come back in a hurry and I left some reasonably important things rather in the air. I didn’t come back with any murderous intentions, however. I’d heard some rather alarming things—at least, I considered them alarming—about my father’s plans for the Freemen. They bothered me, and I found I wasn’t concentrating on my work. So I decided to come back and find out for myself.”
“I see,” said Burgess, politely. “I take it you succeeded in finding out everything you needed to know in the twenty-minute conversation you had with your father on Saturday night.”
“I found it out in ten minutes,” said Charles. “It took me five to learn what his plans were, and another five to learn that he wasn’t planning to be swayed. Maybe less.”
The two regarded each other for a moment. “It’s not the most plausible story I’ve ever heard,” remarked Burgess.
Charles smiled. “I could think of a more plausible one easily. But this one happens to be true.”
“Very well. Are there any other corrections you’d like to make to your story?”
“Not corrections,” said Charles. “Everything else I told you was the truth. But I’d like to make an addition. I don’t know that it’ll be very helpful, since it just confirms what you already know. My father did say to me, ‘This seems to be my evening for callers. I’ve had two already.’ From what was said yesterday, that would have been Uncle William and Tay.”
“Probably,” said Burgess. “You’ve just remembered this?”
“That’s right.”
Burgess regarded my cousin in a speculative manner. He did not say he did not believe Charles’ story. But I guessed that he was thinking just what I had thought: if anyone had the coolness required to commit a murder and get away with it, Charles had. I think Charles himself understood what was in our minds, but he only smiled amiably and poured us each another drink. Then he said to Burgess, and his eyes were mocking, “You know, I could almost find it in my heart to feel sorry for your murderer. You’ve tied him up very tight.”
Burgess’ eyes were as ironic as Charles’ own. “I have?”
My cousin was clearly enjoying himself. “You have. In fact, looked at from his own point of view, the murderer’s had damn bad luck. He’s had literally no time at all to clean up after himself—or herself, of course,” he added. “He leaves the drug in my father’s carafe and goes away. He has no time to check up on anything—to see that he’s left no loose ends. Instead, the maid finds the body early in the morning, everyone is penned up in the library, and Gresham makes his accusations and gets the Yard called in straightaway. You bring all your men in with you and we’ve all been under constant surveillance. If he had left any loose ends, it’s just too bad for him.”
Burgess did not by so much as a flicker of the eyelids offer a clue to what he was thinking. “Are you suggesting the Yard wouldn’t have been called in if Gresham hadn’t been here?”
“I’m not sure. I think you probably would have been—only not so soon. And I should think a murderer needs time. You have to be very clever and very lucky to get away with murder. But you also have to be very thorough. This was obviously a quick job—and there’s been no time for thoroughness.”
“You appear to have given the matter a great deal of thought.”
“Yes,” said my cousin. “You see, it happened to my father—and among my relatives. So I’ve been spending the last few days thinking about it—the last two, I mean. Seems longer, somehow.”
“And have you worked out,” asked Burgess, “what slip the murderer could have made? Or, if you prefer, what he had to tie up?” His tone was cold and expressionless. I felt very chilly and very much alone. They were clearly conducting some kind of battle of wits, and had forgotten me for the moment. I could not make out what Charles was doing: whether he was coldly taunting Burgess, telling him to find some evidence that he, Charles, was the murderer—if he could; or whether he was trying obliquely to give Burgess some information which he was for some reason unwilling to give openly and plainly.
“I can think of only one thing,” said my cousin, slowly. “I don’t think there’s a way around just one piece of evidence—one that couldn’t be explained away, I mean. But, of course”—he deliberately broke the mood—“it’s nothing I know much about.”
The tension dropped by a good many points, and Burgess smiled at me. “Your cousin might make a good detective, Mrs. Fane.”
“Only fair,” said Charles. “I can’t find out why Christy was wandering about this morning, for instance—or where she went.”
I started to say he had not asked me, and stopped. Burgess said, “I can tell you that. She went to Redcot, to call on her cousin, Giles. Why she went there is another matter. I could ask her, of course, but I’m not entirely sure I’ll get a truthful answer.”
“Now there,” said Charles, “I agree with you. She’ll probably say she just went to talk about old times and assorted subjects. And I don’t suppose you could prove otherwise.”
“I couldn’t,” said Burgess. “But, like you, I wouldn’t care for the story. Somehow, I don’t think anyone would rush down in that way to see a cousin like Giles Randall under these circumstances unless there was a pressing motive. Care to tell me what it was, Mrs. Fane?”
“I went,” I said, clearly, “to talk about old times and assorted subjects.”
Burgess got up. “All right,” he said. “I’ll find out soon anyway, you know. By the way, Mrs. Fane, don’t go for any more walks on your own, will you? Just till we get this thing cleared up.”
Left alone, Charles and I regarded each other with some interest. “He will, you know,” said Charles. “He’s brainy enough. Christy, what on earth are you playing at?”
“That’s just what I was going to ask you,” I said.
Burgess dined with us that night. Later, while we were having coffee, I saw him talking to Andrew and Tay in one corner of the room. Anne and Daphne were sitting together on a sofa, somewhat removed from the rest of us, and conversing in low tones. I heard Andrew give an exclamation and then say something urgently to Tay. Tay shrugged his shoulders and Burgess nodded. He said, addressing all of us, “I’ve been telling Mr. Mason and Mr. Tay one or two of the things we’ve learned so far. Some matters take longer than others to check. But I see no objection to telling all of you the results of our investigations in one field—to date.”
Daphne and Anne stopped talking abruptly and I stopped my desultory chat with Robert. Charles, who had been politely resisting all my aunt’s revisions of Wednesday’s programme, turned sharply and looked at Tay, Andrew and Burgess. Burgess said, “It has to do with what I had considered to be two previous attempts on Sir Hugh’s life.”
In a moment, any warmth in the room had disappeared. In its place were shock—and fear. But no one said anything. Burgess went on smoothly, “I refer, of course, to the motor-car accident in which Sir Hugh, Mrs. Fane, and the chauffeur, Raikes, were involved; and to an illness which Sir Hugh had, following the taking of a digestive pill, in Birmingham. You all knew about the accident, I believe, though perhaps none of you considered that it might have been an attempt at murder. I think only you, Mrs. Fane, knew about Sir Hugh’s indisposition in Birmingham.”
Everyone stared at me. The faces looked unfriendly. My Aunt Mildred said, frostily, “Really, Chris, you might have mentioned it to someone.”
“Raikes,” said Burgess, “was concerned about the accident and thought it must have been deliberately caused. He made some investigations on his own and worked out a method by which he thought it might have been done. We are, of course, looking into it thoroughly. He did not know about the episode in Birmingham. Mrs. Fane, however, did suggest to Sir Hugh himself that these two accidents might have been contrived deliberately. Sir Hugh—not entirely to her surprise—made light of it.”
“Chris,” said Andrew, “you must have known he wouldn’t take it seriously. Why didn’t you talk to one of us about it? We might even have prevented what happened.”
“As it happens,” said Burgess, before I could reply, “I now have decided that the illness in Birmingham was just that, and not an attempt at murder. I spoke to the doctor in Birmingham and your London doctor, Barker, did, too. Barker assures me that Sir Hugh’s symptoms were merely those of a serious digestive upset. He does not think any other conclusions reasonable—and I now agree with him. I should add”—he surveyed us in a leisurely manner—“that Dr. Barker confirmed the fact that he had a large stock of hexamethonium bromide on hand. He doesn’t keep a very careful check on it. So it would be quite easy for anyone to remove some of his supply without his noticing it.”
No one missed the implications of that. Burgess said, “Well, I think that’s all I have to say.”
“But you didn’t answer Andrew’s question, Chris,” said my Uncle William. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you say something to one of us?”
I said, “Well, I wasn’t sure that——” But Charles interrupted me. He had not missed the motive Burgess had in appearing to give out information so freely. Burgess obviously wanted to rattle all of us, especially the murderer, and to set us all against each other. (I rather thought the latter was unnecessary.) Charles, for his own reasons, decided to help. “Chris was in a delicate position,” he said. “You remember there was a family dinner the night before the three of them left for Birmingham. So she reasoned that any one of us could have tampered with the tyre.”
If my family’s faces had looked unfriendly before, they now showed positive dislike. Uncle William said, “Chris—did you really think that one of us—tampered with Hugh’s car? You must have been mad.”
“Of course, one of us seems to have murdered him with hexamethonium bromide,” said Charles. “I don’t see why tampering with a car comes into a different category.”
Everyone started to talk at once. I don’t know what might have been said, but Tay got the floor. “May I ask a question, Inspector? I understood you to say that you were investigating the car smash. But surely there’s very little left to investigate. Presumably, the old tyre has long since been sent to scrap—if there was enough of it left even for that. I should imagine it would be impossible to trace. So I don’t see what further investigation could be expected to reveal.”
The Inspector had too much self-control to show the annoyance he must have felt. Everyone—with the possible exception of Aunt Mildred—grasped Tay’s point, and there was a noticeable easing of tension. Others besides myself must have grasped the point Tay did not make aloud: that even if Burgess could work out exactly how the tyre had been tampered with, all proof had been destroyed. I wondered who or what Tay had been trying to save or to protect by his well-timed intervention. I am sure Burgess wondered, too.
General conversation more or less ceased after that. Tay’s intervention had lowered the general tension, but had not eliminated it. Charles’ comments on my reluctance to trust any of my relatives plus Burgess’ evident certainty that he would sooner or later unmask the murderer among us had again brought us all up against the facts which we tried to evade. This was an investigation for murder; and no amount of tactful behaviour by the police, comfort in physical surroundings, and an attempt at normal behaviour could in the end disguise it. I was again overcome by the feeling of apprehension I had been fighting all day, and the others must have felt the same. We were all acutely uncomfortable in each other’s company, and everyone went to bed early.
Anne came up with me, and stopped by for a cigarette in my room. She sat there in an arm-chair, looking very calm and normal. I thought she was the only one of us who seemed unaffected by the tension of the past two days; yet on Saturday at lunch I had thought for a moment that she looked a bit strained. She said, “That was quite a scene, wasn’t it? I imagine Burgess was annoyed.”
“I suppose so.”
“He seems very thorough, of course. I don’t think he’ll stop trying to find out who tampered with the car—if anyone did—just because he wouldn’t get a case that would stand up in court. He probably thinks that if he’s certain who did wreck the tyre, it’ll make it much easier for him to solve this case—assuming the same person made both attempts.”
“Probably.” It did not sound so serious when she spoke of it—more like a problem in chess than a murder investigation.
Anne changed the subject. “You know, Daphne’s behaving very oddly.”
I agreed.
“You don’t think she’s unbalanced enough to commit a murder, do you?”
She asked the question as easily as if she had asked me to pass the marmalade. “I shouldn’t have thought so,” I said, wearily, “though I’ll admit I’m not sure of anything at the moment.”
Anne ignored the second half of my sentence. “I don’t know why she wanted money or who gave it to her or why she went in to see Uncle Hugh. But I do know that with murder involved, it’s foolish of her not to tell the truth—and get suspected of something worse than the mess she’s probably in.”
“Who suspects her?”
“The policeman, for one. He suspects everyone. And I, for another.”
“You? You can’t possibly.”
“She’s behaving very oddly,” said Anne again. “And I’ve never thought her very stable. She clearly hasn’t got much common sense. If she hasn’t done the murder and is making Burgess suspicious of her, it’s surely very unwise. Besides, she hasn’t got much point to her life, has she? If she breaks up her marriage, she’ll have none at all. Yet she seems to be going out of her way to do it. Robert suspects all kinds of things, and he’ll make it his business to find out. If it is something like that, she’d be far wiser to tell him herself. On the other hand, if she did do the murder, she’s certainly going about things in a very stupid way—not admitting she’d been to see Uncle Hugh, getting excited about being caught with the money—everything.”
It was a long speech for Anne, who was normally not very talkative. I looked at her with respect. “You’re less upset by this murder than anyone else. Of course, he wasn’t really your uncle—I realize that. But I don’t believe you care whether the murderer gets caught or not.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry about the murder, of course. I liked your uncle. But since he is dead, I can’t see what end would be served by finding the murderer. It would only mean unpleasant publicity—and we’re going to have enough of that as it is.”
“Well, it’s a point of view,” I said. “And it’s cool enough.”
Anne smiled. “It’s also sensible. I’m a realist, Chris, not a romantic. You get that way if you come from a family that’s been rich and influential for a long time.”
She paused to light a cigarette. I said, half jokingly, “Have you had any murders in your family?”
“Not recently. But there were some dubious episodes early on. Any old family has a lot of blots in its collective copy-book. They don’t matter, Chris—any more than some of the things your uncle must have done in building up his fortune matter. Well, I’m now going to bed. But, Christy—see if you can talk a little sense to Daphne. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”
I said that I would try, and Anne went off. I remained sitting in front of the fire, thinking. I was not especially surprised by Anne’s remarks; they were entirely in character. She was an ideal wife for Andrew, I reflected. They agreed on so many things—chiefly on being unsentimental. I imagined that she and Andrew had agreed entirely on the affair of Apex Springs. I wondered whether Burgess knew about that business—or what he would think of it if he did.
There was a small company in the north of England called Apex Springs Limited. It belonged to some people called Larkin, and had been in the family for three generations. For about twenty years Apex had supplied Uncle Hugh’s business with a particular kind of spring. Originally, they had had a large number of customers, but gradually they came to sell most of these special springs—by far the largest part of their output—to Uncle Hugh’s firm. In the years after the war, these springs came to be more in demand, and Andrew, whose responsibility this was, decided to arrange for Uncle Hugh’s firm to manufacture the springs itself. This, after some manœuvring, he did.
It was not until his new arrangements were complete that Andrew told Larkin about them. Their contracts were subject to cancellation with three months’ notice on either side; and Andrew correctly gave this notice. This sudden action naturally meant great difficulties for Apex Springs and even included the possibility of bankruptcy. When pressed by Larkin, however, to put off cancelling his contracts for a year, or at least to continue to buy small quantities while the firm rebuilt its buyers’ list, Andrew refused. He did not do so out of any especial coldness or dislike for Larkin. In fact, if anything, he probably rather liked the man. But his arrangements had been very precisely made, and he intended to have them stand. They did stand.
Andrew at no time saw anything at all unusual in what he had done. If he had informed the man of his intentions in advance, Larkin would quite naturally have started looking for other customers immediately and no doubt supplying them. This might have inconvenienced Uncle Hugh’s firm and this, Andrew, who liked efficiency, would not have. Andrew was not unaware of the difficulties Larkin and the Apex Company would face. He simply did not recognize that it had anything to do with him.
“Andrew will go a long way,” Charles had said, in speaking of the episode. “I’m afraid Tay might see the other side’s case against him, even if he did nothing about it. Andrew’s great strength is that he doesn’t see it.”
“Would you have done it?” I asked.
“The question doesn’t arise,” Charles had said. “I’m not in the business—nor likely to be. But that’s the kind of man who’ll stay afloat when his rivals go down. It’s a point worth remembering.”
Even at the time, I had wondered if Charles was being quite candid, or whether his attitude had concealed a certain admiration not unmixed with envy. I know that now I envied both Andrew and Anne one thing: they were realists. Some might think that this made them logical suspects as murderers. But I did not think this necessarily true. There was this to be said for a realistic approach to life: if you had it, you acted. You did not dither around, never taking any decisive action until it was too late, and thus allow yourself to be pushed into a situation where you had to take desperate measures.
I realized that the fire had gone out and that I was cold. I threw my cigarette into the grate and went to bed.