by Nina Bawden
He was almost jovial now, the blue eyes twinkled.
I said, “He was in London. He was with me until quite late that night.”
The twinkle went. “How late?” he said.
“I caught the last train home. At about eleven forty-five. He came with me to the station.”
He muttered, not looking at me, “Well, I expect he can explain himself. We’ll want to see him, of course. Was the girl a wrong ’un, d’you know?”
I said flatly, “I can’t tell you. I don’t think so.”
Hartley said, “Mmm. It would make it a lot easier if she were. You’d better go home to bed. That’s where I’m going.”
He got up from his chair and came across to me. He looked a very old man, and tired. “They’ll be sending a man from London to see Stone. Just a routine check, you understand. It’s not in my hands, you know. Shouldn’t really have told you all this to-night. Just that the girl had been found. I’m an interfering old buffer.”
He drew his heavy eyebrows together and frowned at me. He said angrily, “Go home now and get some sleep.”
I went home for what was left of the night. I would have to see Humphrey in the morning whether Humphrey wanted to see me or not. And Mrs. Blacker. I thought of my own unwilling part in the business and I knew that I wanted to shut my mind to the rest of it. I didn’t have to be involved; it was not too late to keep out of it.
Then, knowing that I would not sleep, I thought of Rose with an uprush of pity and horror. Poor, pretty Rose.
Chapter Four
The morning was hot; the terrace in front of the house was washed white with sun. The children rolled, naked, on the warm stone; their smooth brown backs glistened with health like silk. When I came up the steps they wriggled apart and ran to me, winding themselves round my legs.
Robin shouted, “Uncle Will, we’re cannibals,” and dug his baby teeth into my calf.
I said, “Get away, little beast,” and held him off by the shoulders. His bones were small and delicate beneath my hands.
Willy said virtuously, “Mummy said we weren’t to really bite.” Robin flung himself backwards so that he was almost upside down and made a horrible face at his brother. Then he twisted himself right way up and said, “Uncle Will, I haven’t many teeth to bite with. Jus’ gums.” He opened his mouth as wide as it would go and showed the gaps where the first teeth had fallen out, the hard white ridges where the new teeth were coming.
I said, “What teeth you have are sharp enough,” and bounced him in the air. I was more fond of Robin than of Willy, my god-child, I suppose because he was so much more like Humphrey.
Willy came up to me. He said, solemn eyes large, “Uncle Piers is here.”
Robin struggled to his feet. He said, in a shrill voice,
“I don’t like Uncle Piers. He’s like a slug, all fat and slithery.”
Willy said, “Shut up. He’ll hear you. And you shouldn’t say it, anyway. He gave you half a crown for your money box.”
Robin grinned. “All right,” he said. “Come on, Willy. Daddy said we could play in the gym this morning.”
They went across the quad, their legs flying, and I watched them absently, wondering why Piers had come and feeling rather wretched at the thought of meeting him. Humphrey came out to meet me on the terrace. He looked tired, he had shaved himself badly and one cheek was cut.
He said, “Thank God you’ve come. The hounds arrived just after you rang me this morning. I must say it was a relief to be prepared. Not that they weren’t extremely polite. There was only one man, really. A nice chap, rather dull. He had a sort of underling with him who didn’t say anything, only flapped his ears.” He stopped and added awkwardly, “I’m sorry about yesterday, Will.”
It had always been an effort for Humphrey to apologise and knowing this, I was embarrassed because he felt he had to do so.
I said, “That’s all right.” I looked at the sunswept stone. “I went to see her mother,” I said. “She’s just off to identify the girl.”
It had not been an easy interview. She had been angry, as though Rose’s death were a personal insult, hysterical and genuinely stricken. Grief did not dignify her; it was impossible to feel anything for her beyond a certain conventional pity. I do not know why this should be so; that she had loved her daughter was certain, and yet I had not, at any point, been moved by her sorrow. Perhaps I had expected too much of her limited understanding; in her place I would have felt guilt-ridden and ashamed and because she did not, I blamed her for it.
Humphrey said, “Piers is here. He came this morning. I’d forgotten we’d arranged for him to come. Celia’s fed up about it.”
“I can believe it,” I said.
Humphrey said irrelevantly, “She says he spoils the children. He gives them money and too many sweets. He doesn’t mean any harm.” I could not see Piers as a benevolent uncle and I said so. Humphrey looked at me sideways. “But he is desperately anxious for affection,” he said.
We went into the drawing-room. Piers was lying back in an armchair, his fat legs spread out in front of him, his white hands folded across his stomach. His eyes were closed but he opened them as we came in.
“Good-morning, dear boy,” he said. “You must excuse a very old gentleman. I like to cat-nap in the morning. Especially after the strain of a journey. And a policeman. Vulgar fellow.”
I saw Humphrey look at him unhappily and Piers smiled broadly back at him.
Humphrey sat down. He said, “I’d better tell you what’s happened, Will. They want to know about Rose. I told them my part of the story—I must say they were damn nice about it. They wanted to know about the night that you met me in London. I told them that I was with you until you caught the train. Then they asked me what I did after that, so I told them I took a taxi from the rank and sailed back to the flat. It took about twenty minutes. Piers told them that I got in at about ten minutes past twelve, so that was all right. They were very polite about it.” He sounded faintly surprised.
“An unshakeable alibi,” said Piers and grinned like a cat who has been at the cream. “They wouldn’t dare doubt two such reputable gentlemen.”
Humphrey said, “Oh, shut up.” He looked miserable and weary. Piers looked astonished and closed his eyes. He said, gently, “Don’t mind if I drop off, will you? I’m sure our William will be pleased to see me being as droner like as he always suspected.” He added, softly, “Such a nasty, nasty old man, never done a day’s work in his life, no sound public school values.” He opened one eye. “That’s how you think of me, isn’t it, William?”
Humphrey put his head in his hands. “Don’t listen to him, Will,” he said.
I felt savage. I said, “It’s almost impossible not to.”
Piers sat bolt upright in his chair. His stomach drooped weightily on his knees. His eyes were scornfully bright. “I shouldn’t be too nasty, dear boy. I’ve just pulled your client out of a nice little mess. Probably saved him from the hangman. A barbarous custom, hanging.”
There was an unpleasant silence. I said, to Humphrey, “What the hell is he talking about?”
Humphrey said, with helpless anger, “He should keep his silly mouth shut. It isn’t anything.”
Piers raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t anything? Come, come. Was it as little as all that?”
Humphrey glared at me. He said, “He’s just given me an alibi. A false one.” He looked defiant.
I said, “What do you mean?”
Humphrey’s eyes slid away from mine; he had a look of Robin, caught out in a fib.
“Perhaps I was a fool. But I wasn’t doing any harm, so was there any reason why I shouldn’t make it clear that I wasn’t? When Piers got here, this morning, just after you rang up, I told him about the whole thing. Then I got the wind up; we both did, a little. I took the easiest way out.”
I was thinking that this was not new. I remembered other occasions when Humphrey had taken the easiest way out. He hated people to think badly of him; it
had led him before into small deceptions, little lies. I had always thought it a harmless enough kind of vanity.
I said, “Well, what did you do after you left me?” I wondered why they should have assumed that it was the time after I had caught my train that was so important.
Humphrey sounded sullen. “Nothing much. That’s the trouble. I went for a walk. It seemed natural enough then, but after I’d talked to Piers about it it sounded dubious, somehow. I didn’t walk far. I got as far as Trafalgar Square and then my foot started to hurt like the devil and I took a taxi. I gave the man the address of the flat, but I didn’t go all the way. I knew I shouldn’t be able to sleep when I got back so I stopped the taxi in the Edgware Road and walked the rest of the way. It seemed a good thing to do at the time. I even passed by the bit of the canal where they found her. There’s a low sort of bridge at the Maida Vale end where the canal goes under the road and I leant on it and rested my foot and looked at the water. This morning it seemed a bit too much of a coincidence for the police to swallow.”
I said, “You bloody fool. You silly, bloody fool.” My head started to ache; I could feel my sleepless night in my bones. I said, “We’ll have to see the police and tell them this. It’ll sound bad, but not as bad as if you leave them to find out on their own that you’ve lied to them.”
Humphrey said, “Will, I can’t do it. I can’t prove that what I did was innocent.”
“There’s the taxi-driver.”
“I thought of him. But it makes it worse. He put me down at the canal; he’ll remember that if they find him. I paid him the fare all the way to the flat because I thought he might not pick up anyone on the way back. He’ll remember that.”
He was sweating lightly; little beads stood out on the bridge of his nose. I spoke slowly to him as I might have spoken to a scared child.
“Look, Humphrey. You can’t get away with it. They’ll find the taxi-driver. They always do.”
Piers said, “But he might not remember the address. And even if they do find him and realise that Humphrey has been lying, it gives them time, while they aren’t thinking of Humphrey as a murderer, to find the chap who did do it.”
The words were brutal but he said them with a kind of deep earnestness that was quite out of character. Then he added, in his normal manner, “I’m only anxious that Humphrey shan’t be accused of killing a little gutter-snipe. Bad for the family. I might even be asked to resign from my club. That’s the kind of reasoning you expect from me, isn’t it, dear boy?”
He smiled at me without cordiality. “You must really give me credit for some of the finer feelings. You haven’t a monopoly of them, you know.”
I said to Humphrey, “Are you going to tell the police the truth? If you don’t, I can’t help you.”
Humphrey looked at me. He said, “Is this a bluff, Will?”
I knew it was no good. “Of course it is,” I said.
Piers was smiling gently and it gave him an oddly malignant air. I wondered what reason he could have for persuading Humphrey to put himself in such an appalling position. He was no fool. He must know what he had done.
I said, “You know what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve made it impossible for the police, once they find out the truth, to believe anything he says. They’re ordinary, fallible people. When they find out he has lied to them because he was afraid, is there any reason why they should look farther than this likely man?”
Piers said in a voice as dangerous as steel, “Do you think my brother murdered this little whore?”
I shook my head. Piers went on, the white lids drooping over his little eyes, “Who do you think murdered her, then?”
I said helplessly, “How can I know?” And then, “Why should you assume, anyway, that she was killed after I caught my train? Why not before?”
I thought, for a moment, that Piers was shaken. There was a look of uneasiness, almost of guilt, on his face. He looked at Humphrey and then at me. He laughed, and said, “Did I assume that? I don’t think so. Surely it is only natural to want to account for the way that Humphrey spent his time?”
It didn’t ring true and I wasn’t quite sure why. Then Celia came into the room and said that I was wanted on the telephone. She said, “It’s the Chief Constable. He’s been trying to get you at the office.”
“I haven’t been there,” I said. I went into the study.
Hartley said, “Is that you, Hunt? Got some news for you. They think she was hit on the head all right; there’s a fracture of the skull. Water in the lungs and all that, so the canal probably finished her off, poor creature. Oh, and she wasn’t pregnant.”
I said, “Are you sure?” and he made an irritable sound at the other end of the wire.
“Of course I’m sure. We don’t make mistakes like that. It was probably a bit of blackmail. She left her father’s flat at about eight thirty that evening. We shall probably get a bit more detail on how she spent her time. Family not very productive, though. The father’s a drunk. They don’t know who her friends were, or anything like that. Don’t seem to have taken much interest.”
I managed to thank him before I put the receiver down. I went back into the drawing-room and told them what Hartley had said. Humphrey got up from his chair and went to the window, his shoulders slumped like an old man’s.
Piers looked at me. There was surprising malice in his voice.
“Well, well. I wonder what went on behind that vacant, virginal mask. She wasn’t a fool, was she, though I must say she looked it? I was with Humphrey when we met her. She had another girl with her. She shed her quickly enough when she started to talk to us. Clever as a monkey, I shouldn’t wonder. She flattered the old man beautifully—buttered my paws as if she’d been doing it all her life. I told Humphrey she was a bad one, didn’t I, dear boy? He got quite indignant with me. Said I was a dirty, suspicious old man.” He chuckled with what seemed to be genuine amusement. “Well, I am a dirty, suspicious old man. But they have their uses. So have I!”
“Had you seen her at the club before?” I asked.
“Bless you, no. Not been near the place since. Not up my street at all. I should think the girl went there a lot. It’s not a bad place to pick up the youngster with money to spend. Of course she said she’d not been there before. She was quite the little lady, she didn’t think it was quite nice. She looked sadly wistful, I remember, the little prairie flower in bad company.”
He laughed and I said, “It may have been true. You’ve not much knowledge of innocence, I fancy.”
I wondered why Piers was being so talkative all of a sudden and what he was trying to hide, under his chatter.
Piers said, “All right, Lancelot. Go on thinking your sweetly pretty thoughts.” He got up and lumbered to the door; it was almost, I thought, a retreat.
Humphrey said, from the window, “Will, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she lied about the child. Why should she? If she’d wanted money out of me she’d have got it just as easily by threatening to tell Celia about us. It’s not like her, she wasn’t that kind of girl.”
I said, “I don’t understand it any more than you do. But you must go to the police. It’s the only thing you can do.”
He shook his head and there was a stubborn look to his mouth.
“It’s no good, Will. I can’t. It’s not as easy as all that.” He looked wonderingly at me. “Will, she wasn’t as bad as Piers tried to make out. She wasn’t bad at all. She was quite incredibly young and sweet and innocent. She was good, Will. It wasn’t just a pretence, I’d swear. She adored her brother and sister. Once, we took them to the Zoo together. They loved her, you could tell that they loved her.” He smiled suddenly. “They called her Rosie and she didn’t like it. She said it sounded common. She hated to be thought common.”
His eyes were indulgent. He said, “Poor Rose. Will, isn’t it awful that I shouldn’t feel more than that? Six months ago, if she had died, the world would have ended for me. Does that sound too grand to be true
? Now she is dead and I feel sorry and guilty, but no more than that.”
He walked about the room as if it were painful to keep still. “Is this my fault? Would she be dead, now, if I hadn’t fallen in love with her? We can’t know, can we? I could have sworn, when I put an end to it, that she didn’t really care; that she’d never felt anything for me that was more than a kind of flattered affection. But God knows what she really thought. Am I responsible, Will?”
I said, “I don’t think it does any good to hate yourself. She’s dead. You can’t bring her back.”
My head was aching badly and I wished I were alone. I tried to think about Rose and I wondered why she should have said she was going to have a baby if she hadn’t been going to have a baby. Could she possibly have been mistaken about it? I had been so very sure that she was telling the truth.
Piers came into the room. He said, “Humphrey, Celia wants you in the gym. Willy’s fallen off one of the bars. He hasn’t hurt himself but he’s bawling the place down.”
Humphrey went and Piers walked to the cabinet where the drinks were kept. He poured himself a whisky and drank it. He looked at the empty glass and refilled it. I saw, and it surprised me, that his hands were shaking.
I said, “I’ll have some of that whisky, Piers.”
He poured me one without speaking. I said, “Piers, you knew an awful lot about this girl from just one meeting, didn’t you?”
He put his glass down and regarded the smooth, white backs of his hands, his eyes half-closed. He felt one hand with the palm of the other as if to reassure himself that there was no stubble on the soft skin.
He said, “Dear boy, I make up my mind about people on a very brief acquaintance. It’s a gift, you know.”
There was nothing out of character in what he said. He was unbelievably vain.
Through the open window came a loud, anguished wail as Humphrey carried Willy across the quad. We could hear Humphrey’s voice, light and cheerful and soothing; he adored the children and he was good with them. He brought the boy into the house and carried him upstairs. A door banged distantly, and the screams died away.
