The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham: East and West (Vol. 1 of 2))

by W. Somerset Maugham

  “Come in, ma’am.” She turned her head. “Albert, here’s Mrs Forrester to see you.”

  Mrs Forrester stepped by quickly and there was Albert sitting by the fire in a leather-covered, but rather shabby, arm-chair, with his feet in slippers, and in shirtsleeves. He was reading the evening paper and smoking a cigar. He rose to his feet as Mrs Albert Forrester came in. Mrs Bulfinch followed her visitor into the room and closed the door.

  “How are you, my dear?” said Albert cheerfully. “Keeping well, I hope.”

  “You’d better put on your coat, Albert,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “What will Mrs Forrester think of you, finding you like that? I never.”

  She took the coat, which was hanging on a peg, and helped him into it; and like a woman familiar with the peculiarities of masculine dress pulled down his waistcoat so that it should not ride over his collar.

  “I received your letter, Albert,” said Mrs Forrester.

  “I supposed you had, or you wouldn’t have known my address, would you?”

  “Won’t you sit down, ma’am?” said Mrs Bulfinch, deftly dusting a chair, part of a suite covered in plum-covered velvet, and pushing it forwards.

  Mrs Albert Forrester with a slight bow seated herself.

  “I should have preferred to see you alone, Albert,” she said.

  His eyes twinkled.

  “Since anything you have to say concerns Mrs Bulfinch as much as it concerns me I think it much better that she should be present.”

  “As you wish.”

  Mrs Bulfinch drew up a chair and sat down. Mrs Albert Forrester had never seen her but with a large apron over a print dress. She was wearing now an open-work blouse of white silk, a black skirt, and high-heeled, patent-leather shoes with silver buckles. She was a woman of about five-and-forty, with reddish hair and a reddish face, not pretty, but with a good-natured look, and buxom. She reminded Mrs Albert Forrester of a serving-wench, somewhat overblown, in a jolly picture by an old Dutch master.

  “Well, my dear, what have you to say to me?” asked Albert.

  Mrs Albert Forrester gave him her brightest and most affable smile. Her great black eyes shone with tolerant good-humour.

  “Of course you know that this is perfectly absurd, Albert. I think you must be out of your mind.”

  “Do you, my dear? Fancy that.”

  “I’m not angry with you, I’m only amused, but a joke’s a joke and should not be carried too far. I’ve come to take you home.”

  “Was my letter not quite clear?”

  “Perfectly. I ask no questions and I will make no reproaches. We will look upon this as a momentary aberration and say no more about it.”

  “Nothing will induce me ever to live with you again, my dear,” said Albert in, however, a perfectly friendly fashion.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Quite.”

  “Do you love this woman?”

  Mrs Albert Forrester still smiled with an eager and somewhat metallic brightness. She was determined to take the matter lightly. With her intimate sense of values she realized that the scene was comic. Albert looked at Mrs Bulfinch and a smile broke out on his withered face.

  “We get on very well together, don’t we, old girl?”

  “Not so bad,” said Mrs Bulfinch.

  Mrs Albert Forrester raised her eyebrows; her husband had never in all their married life called her “old girl’: nor indeed would she have wished it.

  “If Bulfinch has any regard or respect for you she must know that the thing is impossible. After the life you’ve led and the society you’ve moved in she can hardly expect to make you permanently happy in miserable furnished lodgings.”

  “They’re not furnished lodgings, ma’am,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “It’s all me own furniture. You see, I’m very independent-like and I’ve always liked to have a home of me own. So I keep these rooms on whether I’m in a situation or whether I’m not, and so I always have some place to go back to.”

  “And a very nice cosy little place it is,” said Albert.

  Mrs Albert Forrester looked about her. There was a kitchen range in the fireplace on which a kettle was simmering and on the mantelshelf was a black marble clock flanked by black marble candelabra. There was a large table covered with a red cloth, a dresser, and a sewing-machine. On the walls were photographs and framed pictures from Christmas supplements. A door at the back, covered with a red plush portiere, led into what, considering the size of the house, Mrs Albert Forrester (who in her leisure moments had made a somewhat extensive study of architecture) could not but conclude was the only bedroom. Mrs Bulfinch and Albert lived in a contiguity that allowed no doubt about their relations.

  “Have you not been happy with me, Albert?” asked Mrs Forrester in a deeper tone.

  “We’ve been married for thirty-five years, my dear. It’s too long. It’s a great deal too long. You’re a good woman in your way, but you don’t suit me. You’re literary and I’m not. You’re artistic and I’m not.”

  “I’ve always taken care to make you share in all my interests. I’ve taken great pains that you shouldn’t be overshadowed by my success. You can’t say that I’ve ever left you out of things.”

  “You’re a wonderful writer, I don’t deny it for a moment, but the truth is I don’t like the books you write.”

  “That, if I may be permitted to say so, merely shows that you have very bad taste. All the best critics admit their power and their charm.”

  “And I don’t like your friends. Let me tell you a secret, my dear. Often at your parties I’ve had an almost irresistible impulse to take off all my clothes just to see what would happen.”

  “Nothing would have happened,” said Mrs Albert Forrester with a slight frown. “I should merely have sent for the doctor.”

  “Besides you haven’t the figure for that, Albert,” said Mrs Bulfinch.

  Mr Simmons had hinted to Mrs Albert Forrester that if the need arose she must not hesitate to use the allurements of her sex in order to bring back her erring husband to the conjugal roof, but she did not in the least know how to do this. It would have been easier, she could not but reflect, had she been in evening dress.

  “Does the fidelity of five-and-thirty years count for nothing? I have never looked at another man, Albert. I’m used to you. I shall be lost without you.”

  “I’ve left all my menus with the new cook, ma’am. You’ve only got to tell her how many to luncheon and she’ll manage,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “She’s very reliable and she has as light a hand with pastry as anyone I ever knew.”

  Mrs Albert Forrester began to be discouraged. Mrs Bulfinch’s remark, well meant no doubt, made it difficult to bring the conversation on to the plane on which emotion could be natural.

  “I’m afraid you’re only wasting your time, my dear,” said Albert. “My decision is irrevocable. I’m not very young any more and I want someone to take care of me. I shall of course make you as good an allowance as I can. Corinne wants me to retire.”

  “Who is Corinne?” asked Mrs Forrester with the utmost surprise.

  “It’s my name,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “My mother was half French.”

  “That explains a great deal,” replied Mrs Forrester, pursing her lips, for though she admired the literature of our neighbours she knew that their morals left much to be desired.

  “What I say is, Albert’s worked long enough, and it’s about time he started enjoying himself. I’ve got a little bit of property at Clacton-on-Sea. It’s a very healthy neighbourhood and the air is wonderful. We could live there very comfortable. And what with the beach and the pier there’s always something to do. They’re a very nice lot of people down there. If you don’t interfere with nobody, nobody’ll interfere with you.”

  “I discussed the matter with my partners today and they’re willing to buy me out. It means a certain sacrifice. When everything is settled I shall have an income of nine hundred pounds a year. There are three of us, so it gives us just three hundred a ye
ar apiece.”

  “How am I to live on that?” cried Mrs Albert Forrester. “I have my position to keep up.”

  “You have a fluent, a fertile, and a distinguished pen, my dear.”

  Mrs Albert Forrester impatiently shrugged her shoulders.

  “You know very well that my books don’t bring me in anything but reputation. The publishers always say that they lose by them and in fact they only publish them because it gives them prestige.”

  It was then that Mrs Bulfinch had the idea that was to have consequences of such magnitude.

  “Why don’t you write a good thrilling detective story?” she asked.

  “Me?” exclaimed Mrs Albert Forrester, for the first time in her life regardless of grammar.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” said Albert. “It’s not a bad idea at all.”

  “I should have the critics down on me like a thousand bricks.”

  “I’m not so sure of that. Give the highbrow the chance of being lowbrow without demeaning himself and he’ll be so grateful to you, he won’t know what to do.”

  “For this relief much thanks,” murmured Mrs Albert Forrester reflectively.

  “My dear, the critics’ll eat it. And written in your beautiful English they won’t be afraid to call it a masterpiece.”

  “The idea is preposterous. It’s absolutely foreign to my genius. I could never hope to please the masses.”

  “Why not? The masses want to read good stuff, but they dislike being bored. They all know your name, but they don’t read you, because you bore them. The fact is, my dear, you’re dull.”

  “I don’t know how you can say that, Albert,” replied Mrs Albert Forrester, with as little resentment as the equator might feel if someone called it chilly. “Everyone knows and acknowledges that I have an exquisite sense of humour and there is nobody who can extract so much good wholesome fun from a semicolon as I can.”

  “If you can give the masses a good thrilling story and let them think at the same time that they are improving their minds you’ll make a fortune.”

  “I’ve never read a detective story in my life,” said Mrs Albert Forrester. “I once heard of a Mr Barnes of New York and I was told that he had written a book called The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. But I never read it.”

  “Of course you have to have the knack,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “The first thing to remember is that you don’t want any lovemaking, it’s out of place in a detective story, what you want is murder, and sleuth-hounds, and you don’t want to be able to guess who done it till the last page.”

  “But you must play fair with your reader, my dear,” said Albert. “It always annoys me when suspicion has been thrown on the secretary or the lady of the title and it turns out to be the second footman who’s never done more than say, ‘The carriage is at the door.’ Puzzle your reader as much as you can, but don’t make a fool of him.”

  “I love a good detective story,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “Give me a lady in evening dress, just streaming with diamonds, lying on the library floor with a dagger in her heart, and I know I’m going to have a treat.”

  “There’s no accounting for tastes,” said Albert. “Personally, I prefer a respectable family solicitor, with side-whiskers, gold watch-chain, and a benign appearance, lying dead in Hyde Park.”

  “With his throat cut?” asked Mrs Bulfinch eagerly.

  “No, stabbed in the back. There’s something peculiarly attractive to the reader in the murder of a middle-aged gentleman of spotless reputation. It is pleasant to think that the most apparently blameless of us have a mystery in our lives.”

  “I see what you mean, Albert,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “He was the repository of a fatal secret.”

  “We can give you all the tips, my dear,” said Albert, smiling mildly at Mrs Albert Forrester. “I’ve read hundreds of detective stories.”

  “You!”

  “That’s what first brought Corinne and me together. I used to pass them on to her when I’d finished them.”

  “Many’s the time I’ve heard him switch off the electric light as the dawn was creeping through the window and I couldn’t help smiling to myself as I said: ‘There, he’s finished it at last, now he can have a good sleep.’”

  Mrs Albert Forrester rose to her feet. She drew herself up.

  “Now I see what a gulf separates us,” she said, and her fine contralto shook a little. “You have been surrounded for thirty years with all that was best in English literature and you read hundreds of detective novels.”

  “Hundreds and hundreds,” interrupted Albert with a smile of satisfaction.

  “I came here willing to make any reasonable concession so that you should come back to your home, but now I wish it no longer. You have shown me that we have nothing in common and never had. There is an abyss between us.”

  “Very well, my dear,” said Albert gently, “I will submit to your decision. But you think over the detective story.”

  “I will arise and go now,” she murmured, “and go to Innisfree.”

  “I’ll just show you downstairs,” said Mrs Bulfinch. “One has to be careful of the carpet if one doesn’t exactly know where the holes are.”

  With dignity, but not without circumspection, Mrs Albert Forrester walked downstairs and when Mrs Bulfinch opened the door and asked her if she would like a taxi she shook her head.

  “I shall take the tram.”

  “You need not be afraid that I won’t take good care of Mr Forrester, ma’am,” said Mrs Bulfinch pleasantly. “He shall have every comfort. I nursed Mr Bulfinch for three years during his last illness and there’s very little I don’t know about invalids. Not that Mr Forrester isn’t very strong and active for his years. And of course he’ll have a hobby. I always think a man should have a hobby. He’s going to collect postage-stamps.”

  Mrs Albert Forrester gave a little start of surprise. But just then a tram came in sight and, as a woman (even the greatest of them) will, she hurried at the risk of her life into the middle of the road and waved frantically. It stopped and she climbed in. She did not know how she was going to face Mr Simmons. He would be waiting for her when she got home. Clifford Boyleston would probably be there too. They would all be there and she would have to tell them that she had miserably failed. At that moment she had no warm feeling of friendship for her little group of devoted admirers. Wondering what the time was, she looked up at the man sitting opposite her to see whether he was the kind of person she could modestly ask, and suddenly started; for sitting there was a middle-aged gentleman of the most respectable appearance, with side-whiskers, a benign expression, and a gold watch-chain. It was the very man whom Albert had described lying dead in Hyde Park and she could not but jump to the conclusion that he was a family solicitor. The coincidence was extraordinary and really it looked as though the hand of fate were beckoning to her. He wore a silk hat, a black coat, and pepper-and-salt trousers, he was somewhat corpulent, of a powerful build, and by his side was a despatch-case. When the tram was half-way down the Vauxhall Bridge Road he asked the conductor to stop and she saw him go down a small, mean street. Why? Ah, why? When it reached Victoria, so deeply immersed in thought was she, until the conductor somewhat roughly told her where she was, she did not move. Edgar Allan Poe had written detective stories. She took a bus. She sat inside, buried in reflection, but when it arrived at Hyde Park Corner she suddenly made up her mind to get out. She couldn’t sit still any longer. She felt she must walk. She entered the gates, walking slowly, and looked about her with an air that was at once intent and abstracted. Yes, there was Edgar Allan Poe; no one could deny that. After all he had invented the genre, and everyone knew how great his influence had been on the Parnassians. Or was it the Symbolists? Never mind. Baudelaire and all that. As she passed the Achilles Statue she stopped for a minute and looked at it with raised eyebrows.

  At length she reached her flat and opening the door saw several hats in the hall. They were all there. She went into the drawing-room.

&nb
sp; “Here she is at last,” cried Miss Waterford.

  Mrs Albert Forrester advanced, smiling with animation, and shook the proffered hands. Mr Simmons and Clifford Boyleston were there, Harry Oakland and Oscar Charles.

  “Oh, you poor things, have you had no tea?” she cried brightly. “I haven’t an idea what the time is, but I know I’m fearfully late.”

  “Well?” they said. “Well?”

  “My dears, I’ve got something quite wonderful to tell you. I’ve had an inspiration. Why should the devil have all the best tunes?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She paused in order to give full effect to the surprise she was going to spring upon them. Then she flung it at them without preamble.

  “I’M GOING TO WRITE A DETECTIVE STORY.”

  They stared at her with open mouths. She held up her hand to prevent them from interrupting her, but indeed no one had the smallest intention of doing so.

  “I am going to raise the detective story to the dignity of Art. It came to me suddenly in Hyde Park. It’s a murder story and I shall give the solution on the very last page. I shall write it in an impeccable English, and since it’s occurred to me lately that perhaps I’ve exhausted the possibilities of the semi-colon, I am going to take up the colon. No one yet has explored its potentialities. Humour and mystery are what I aim at. I shall call it The Achilles Statue.”

  “What a title!” cried Mr Simmons, recovering himself before any of the others. “I can sell the serial rights on the title and your name alone.”

  “But what about Albert?” asked Clifford Boyleston.

  “Albert?” echoed Mrs Forrester. “Albert?”

  She looked at him as though for the life of her she could not think what he was talking about. Then she gave a little cry as if she had suddenly remembered.

  “Albert! I knew I’d gone out on some errand and it absolutely slipped my memory. I was walking through Hyde Park and I had this inspiration. What a fool you’ll all think me!”

  “Then you haven’t seen Albert?”

  “My dear, I forgot all about him.” She gave an amused laugh. “Let Albert keep his cook. I can’t bother about Albert now. Albert belongs to the semicolon period. I am going to write a detective story.”