‘Five minutes after ten, monsieur. If you would care to dress at your leisure, I will wait for you in your salon.’
I rather shakily took a bath, shaved, dressed slowly. Feeling had frozen in sleep. My mind had absolutely no emotive power. I went to the windows. The balcony was roped off. Below one could just see a corner of the star of the broken glass roof.
My knees ached as if I had climbed a high tower. I no longer felt sick: only cold, my left hand particularly which had clasped Harriet’s in the dream.
A tap on the door. The Under Manager. His face was set in a discreet, troubled gravity. ‘Good morning, monsieur. I come to tell you that the British Proconsul is here, Mr. Geoffrey Knight. He is waiting to see you in the salon. You are—feeling better?’
I made a weary gesture.
‘Of course, monsieur. I understand.’
The Proconsul was a man of about forty with a thin moustache.
‘Good morning, Mr. Scott, this is a very bad business. We are all greatly distressed. The Consul General asked me to express to you his sincere sympathy in your loss.’
I inclined my head.
‘The Commissariat Central rang the Consulate about an hour ago. I came straight here. We want to be able to help you in any way we can.’
I said: ‘This man apparently has been sitting in my room all night.’
The plain-clothes man with the foulard tie made deprecatory noises. ‘It was just a matter of precaution, monsieur. You were in distress. M. l’Adjoint Millot thought it safer that you should not be left.’
‘Where is the—your wife?’ asked Mr. Knight.
‘Some hospital. They did tell me.…’
‘The Hôtel-Dieu,’ said the policeman. ‘On Notre Dame, monsieur.’ So he could follow English.
‘Quite, quite,’ said Mr. Knight. ‘Well, Mr. Scott, we must do all we can to save you further distress. Of course once the police are satisfied—and theirs is simply the routine inquiry which would follow a sudden death in any country—they will withdraw, as it were, from the matter, but obviously the routine will have to be gone through.’
‘An inquest?’
‘Not as in England, no. It will be solely a police inquiry, and it will depend on the Commissaire as to how far he considers it ought to go. The matter might come before an examining magistrate, but I rather doubt it. Did you intend that your wife should be buried here?’
‘I—hadn’t thought …’
‘She could be buried here,’ said Mr. Knight, winding his watch, ‘in the English Cemetery, opposite the Embassy. It would be much cheaper.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Eighty or ninety pounds, as against perhaps three times that much.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I think she should—go home.’
‘Also fewer formalities, of course.’ Mr. Knight looked at me but I was fumbling in my pockets for a cigarette. The policeman guessed first what I needed and proffered a packet. I took one and nodded my thanks. ‘Do you have her passport here, Mr. Scott? If I could just check the details.’
I went across to the leather wallet in which we kept these things and unzipped it, took out the two passports and handed him both.
Mr. Knight said: ‘You, of course, are Mrs. Scott’s next of kin, so all that side of the matter is simplified. M. Millot is a very reasonable man; I have known him for five years. He will expect you to stay in France until this is cleared up, of course. But, probably by tomorrow, unless—’
‘Will there be an autopsy?’
‘Up to M. Millot. Probably not. But if there is it will delay things a few days. In any event, we can proceed with the funeral arrangements. You—er—still feel that you would like your wife taken home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you wish me to recommend an undertaker? We have two firms—’
‘Oh, God, yes, I suppose so.…’ The cigarette was a Gauloise: it tasted like brown paper. But any cigarette would have done so just then.
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Scott. You’ll appreciate I am only trying to help.’
‘Of course.’
‘There’s just one other little thing. Your wife’s personal belongings—those which have gone with her, I mean. If you want them, you should ask me to apply for them on your behalf within twenty-four hours. If once these things—personal effects, etc.—get bound up with the legalities of the affair, it may be months before you can get them returned.’
The Frenchman with the tie had gone to the window, was peering down as if interested in what he saw. I sighed. ‘It’s of no moment to me, Mr. Knight. She never wore jewellery.’
‘I see. Well, it’s just as you say, of course—’
The telephone rang. I made a move but the policeman was nearest. He lifted the receiver and answered. ‘It is for you, Monsieur. A Mlle. Wilshere.’
Feeling stabbed at me suddenly and was gone. I moved to the telephone, put the cigarette down.
‘Morris.’ Her voice was unsteady. ‘ Is this true? Jackie heard from a friend on Le Monde that …’ She stopped.
‘It’s true. At least, I don’t know what you’ve heard.… Harriet fell from the balcony window of our bedroom. It was last night just after we got back. God knows how it happened.…’
‘Oh, darling, how terrible … How absolutely terrible for you. I hoped it was some wild rumour.’
‘I can’t believe it’s true. She was so happy about the success of the play, then—then suddenly in a flash it happened. I was in bed and just heard the cry and the crash.…’
‘Darling, tell me what I can do. Would it be any use if I came round?’
‘Not at present. You know how it is—formalities to be gone through.’
‘Shall I ring you later?’
‘I’ll ring you.’
‘Do let’s meet. I feel sure that it would help.’
‘Later, yes.’
I put the receiver back on its cradle. The two men in the room had an occupied air as if they were not listening.
I said to the Proconsul: ‘And now?’
He lifted his mournful blue eyes. ‘You’ll have to wait for the Commissaire Adjoint. No doubt some time today you will be asked to sign a full statement, a procès verbal. Would you like me to be there?’
‘Is it usual?’
‘Well, very often in cases like this I am needed as an interpreter. But even when not, yes, on the whole it is more desirable that some member of the consular staff should be present.’
I picked up the cigarette and drew on it listlessly, but it had gone out. ‘ It’s just as you like.’
‘Then we’ll be meeting later today. And I’ll also send round the director of one of the undertaking firms. He’ll be able to finalise whatever arrangements you decide on.’
It was a nasty day, wet and humid with a cloying summer rain. All through it I went unfeeling, as if I had been struck and the response of pain had not yet begun. I was capable of standing away from myself, watching myself move and talk and not yet knowing what feeling would be like when it came.
The French police were courteous but businesslike. For the most part I was able to avoid the press by staying in my room, though they rang frequently, and several of them followed Charisse up to my suite when he came to call.
When Charisse had expressed his condolences and those of the company he told me that the reception of the play had not been entirely favourable. Several of the popular papers found it slow and unfunny, and although the better press was enthusiastic there might be a testing few weeks during which the public made up its mind. Or there would have been a few weeks. Now … He paused and shrugged deprecatingly.
‘This terrible thing that has happened—however much of a personal tragedy it may be for you, it cannot do any other than focus attention on the author and therefore on his play. People will come to see it who would not otherwise have bothered. That is the way of the world. It is not a nice way.’
‘I don’t think I shall come to the theatre again,’ I
said.
‘To go away somewhere, when all this is over—I’m sure that will be best—take some friends—lie in the sun. Come back and see the play again in six months. I think it will still be running and I am sure we shall have greatly improved on the performance of last night.’
In the late afternoon the police rang and asked me to come to the Commissariat Central in the Rue Perrault. I rang the British Consulate but they had already been informed and Mr. Knight was on his way. I rang the desk and asked if I might leave by the staff entrance. They said they would get a taxi and would send a boy up.
On the way to the station I sat back and watched the traffic go by. All day things had been quietly going on. The Identité Judiciaire had taken photographs of the balcony, of the broken verandah, of the spot where the body had fallen. Inquiries no doubt had been made in the hotel. A hundred closed eyes had watched the act. Had any been open?
When I got to the police station, Mr. Knight was already there, along with M. Millot, the detective with the foulard tie, and another man, an officier principal. The fact that Knight and Millot knew each other made the atmosphere easier, and I found the questioning unexceptionable and much along the same lines as this morning. But M. le Commissaire was very interested in all Harriet’s pills and tablets which, unnoticed by me, they had taken from our bathroom. What were these pink ones? And the brown capsules? Were any of them barbiturates? Sleeping pills? These? … Ah, yes. Did she take them regularly? Did you ever prescribe for your wife, monsieur? Ah, no. Quite so. Your wife was not worried about her health? Or anything else?
But it did not really take very long; there was not a lot to say; and when it was said I read the statement through and signed it.
M. Millot sighed and rubbed his long thin cheek. ‘ I have been talking to M. le Proconsul and telling him that we feel in all the circumstances it would be advisable to hold an autopsy. I trust you have no objection, Monsieur Scott?’
‘If—if you think it—really necessary.’
‘… In the case of a sudden death such as this.’
‘How long will that take?’
Mr. Knight said: ‘Three or four days, I expect. But all the arrangements can be put in train.’ His hand went to his cuff and he wound his watch. He looked at Millot: ‘Before the end of the week?’
‘Yes, certainly, before the end of the week.’
Returning to the hotel, the taxi driver stopped at the main entrance, and I was seen before I got to the lift.
‘Mr. Scott, can you please tell me …’
‘On behalf of Paris-Presse—our sympathy, and a request …’
‘Mr. Scott, on behalf of Télévision Française …’
‘If you please, a word about your play. Has comedy always been, in your view, the other face of tragedy …?’
‘The editor of Le Figaro has asked me …’
Lights flickered and cameras clicked. With the help of the lift boy I got the lift gates closed. As we moved off I saw one or two running up the stairs.
The lift just beat them; I pulled my key out as the first footsteps sounded, slid it in; some confusion as to the number of my suite gave ten seconds grace; I was inside, breathing hard, the bolt across.
Someone knocked now but I took no notice. The telephone was ringing and I went across and lifted it off and put it down.
I was alone.
Chapter Two
I was alone. I looked for a cigarette but did not see one.
The telephone was muttering but I let it mutter. The room looked exactly as it had done last night, discreet lights, heavy velvet curtains, gold carpet, fine furniture. Only there was no Harriet, that was all.
I had for a moment a curious exalted, amoralistic sense of freedom. I was like a boat from which some ballast had just been jettisoned. Morris Scott, playwright, successful playwright, writer, human being, man on his own. Man on his own.
The telephone had at last stopped muttering. I went to the table and poured myself a whisky, a very good stiff one and drank it right down. Some of the headache had worn away during the day, some of the weakness of the limbs. I had to sleep tonight, but tonight no policeman would keep me company. Now it was specially necessary to relax. I put more whisky in the glass and drank it slowly as I undressed.
I had no weak head. It would take time and perseverance to take effect. The curtains were drawn. I had not even taken the trouble to see if the balcony was still roped off. I put off half the lights and lay back on the pillow waiting for the whisky to take effect.
When it did not I drank more of it—by now more than a third of a bottle had gone. I put out all but one light beside the bed.
I realised I believed in nothing and in no one. I was my own man, prepared to do battle with a hostile but defeatable world. I was thirty-two, youth scarcely past, middle age not yet begun.
I put down the empty glass, put out the last light and turned over and went instantly to sleep.
I woke up in the dead of night sweating in terror. For a moment Harriet had been standing beside the bed wiping the blood from her lips. But it was not terror of the dead that made me sweat. It was terror of the living. And the living was myself. Feeling was coming back, normal natural feeling, blood flowing into the frost-bitten limb. I could have shouted in terror and pain.
This was not something happening in my mind, some projection of the creative impulse. This was real. This had happened. It had happened yesterday, twenty-four hours ago. I had killed someone. I had killed Harriet Scott, née Quigley, a woman of thirty-nine, whom I had loved and with whom I had lived in companionship and some amity for nearly eight years. What manner of a man was I? An ogre? A criminal? A lunatic?
I sat up and put on the light. My hands were trembling and my mouth dry.
Harriet had been a trouble to me; that was clear enough. She had been a trial, she had been no longer necessary; indeed the contrary: she had been in my way. But face up to it: she had not been so much in my way that no other action was possible. Divorce is common. It is usually preferable to murder. Why did I do this thing then? On the sudden ungovernable impulse of the moment? It didn’t wash. People don’t give way to that sort of ungovernable impulse—or people like me don’t. I was not the type to plead ajminished responsibility even to myself. Then why kill? Am I a criminal or a lunatic?
I blobbed some whisky into the glass and drank it neat. It tasted like meths. I found a cigarette at last—in the pocket of Harriet’s dressing gown—and struck a match.
Keep it cool. This was something that had to be thought out carefully. My subconscious—or my unfeeling self, or whatever part of me had taken charge of behaviour yesterday—had done all right, not a step out all day. So it was important not to blunder during this first reaction. If I had acted like a psychopath in committing the crime I had not behaved like one since. I had behaved like a calculating criminal.
And whatever any ultimate conclusions might lead to, I was clear on one thing at this point: I did not wish to be arrested for murder.
It was four o’clock. Some while yet to daylight. But I could not put out the light again and try to sleep. I burned the tip of one finger stubbing out the cigarette. Where was that feeling with which I had begun the night? Freedom. Conscienceless freedom; that was what it had been. Nothing had changed with sleep—only myself. And what happened within my heart or within my soul was no one else’s concern.
No one else’s? Well, there was still one other person to consider.
Now just let me put it down in so many simple and direct thoughts. Harriet was sitting on the balcony. I went out to her. She was drunk. She was also preparing to be quarrelsome over Alexandra. She was sitting on the balcony and I put out my hands and—Christ!
I got out of bed and went to the window, pulled back the curtains. The rope had gone. The balcony was exactly as it had been before we came to stay in this room—unstained, unscratched. Any fingerprints on it had been recorded and filed. Only a dim light burned in the foyer of the hotel, bu
t by it you could see the great black irregular star in the glass roof. It should have been in the shape of a human body but instead it was more like a blood-stain.
I had run downstairs last night, half demented, acting perfectly the horrified husband because in fact I had been the horrified husband. She had fallen fairly flat, one arm bent at an angle and her head flung back. There had been a lot of blood, but death had clearly been instantaneous and that had checked the flow. The glass had cut her beautiful St. Honoré gown and it had of course lacerated her face and arms. Two pieces—small jagged splinters—were still sticking in her face when I got down. One shoe had come off, and the heel was broken. There was a terrible cut on her knee.…
The porter and the lift boy had reached her before me, but the noise had been so great that before long there was a crowd.…
I turned back from the window and let the curtain fall. Pyjamas soaked with sweat. I sat in a chair and tried to control my hands. Take it cool. The first day—what should have been the worst day—was over. Whatever I had done was done. Whatever I might do now would not by a hairbreadth affect the past. There were really just two courses open to me: one, I collapsed and confessed and they led me away; two, I brazened it out and gave myself time to think.
Well, I had four hours now before even the waiters came with early tea. I had time to think.
I put in the jeton. It was just like the first time I had rung her.
‘Mlle. Wilshere?’
‘Speaking. Who’s—is that you, Morris?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, thank God. I’ve been worried to death about you.’
‘About me? Why?’
‘Well, the shock it must have been to you. And you sounded so strained when I rang—and now there’s been silence for twenty-four hours. You promised to ring me back.’
‘It hasn’t been easy, Alexandra. There’s been so much to see to, and all the time it’s just as if I’d been hit on the head.’
‘Darling, I am so very sorry. Are you telephoning from the hotel?’
‘No, I felt I had to get away for a bit. I ducked out by a side entrance. There are still reporters about.’
After the Act Page 12
