The Tumbled House

by Winston Graham

  Don moved round the table and stumbled over a stool. “I don’t understand, if Mr Chislehurst had a fair complaint, why he didn’t make some public statement when the book was published. It would have been——”

  “He was still corresponding with your father, writing him letters of complaint at his betrayal, when he was struck down. When I reached him he was paralysed all down his right side. He couldn’t even hold a pen!”

  “I wonder if you have any of the correspondence—any of my father’s letters? That might be useful——”

  “There were some letters but I burnt them. I felt I wanted to have no more to do with it.”

  “Did you give any to Mr Shorn?”

  “I certainly did not.”

  The black marble clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at half past nine. He said: “The trouble is I can’t find any letters at my end. Whether they’ve been stolen or lost or burnt, I don’t know; but Shorn claims he has got hold of some.”

  “Well, I can’t help that, can I?”

  “No, but it’s likely to make your appearance in court more than ever necessary.”

  This was the lever. “I can’t appear in court! There’s nothing I can say.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t be left to you, Miss Chislehurst. The other side will subpoena you to confirm what you told Mr Shorn.”

  “I’ll make a statement, that’s all. They can’t force me. And now it’s time to go. I shall be late for my Working Party.” She buttoned her black cardigan carefully up to the neck. She looked him over and picked up her gloves and went to another door and took down a fawn mackintosh. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  He waited for her to go out of the room first, but suspiciously she waved him on. She took keys off a nail and put them into her bag, then saw him out and slammed the door after her. She tried it twice to make sure it was locked. Her eyes went over the bungalow to see that all the windows were shut.

  “My brother,” she said, “was inclined to blame it on that woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “He said your father changed a lot after he came under her influence, deteriorated. If it hadn’t been for her, George thinks he wouldn’t have done such a shameful thing. She was always with him, George said, influencing him for ill, turning him from the right.”

  “What woman?”

  “A Mrs Delaney. Some divorcee he picked up with. After all what else could you expect from a creature like that?”

  Mrs Norah Gibbs said: “I’m sorry, Mr Marlowe, I’ve lost touch with Narissa. The last time I heard from her was about twelve months ago when she sent me a postcard from Cairo. It was her first visit since the trouble over there.”

  “How long did you know her, Mrs Gibbs?”

  “All the time she was in Sunningdale, but that was only a little over a year. After her divorce she took the house opposite and lived there more or less alone. She was quite wealthy, of course, and she used to entertain. We had very good times.”

  “Anything you can tell me might help. What was this about Egypt?”

  “Well, her grandmother was an Egyptian. Her father was in banking there. He left her a lot of money. She travelled a good bit when she was young—then she married Bob Delaney but I gather the weather was never exactly set fair. Anyway, in the end she divorced him. That was how she met Sir John Marlowe.”

  “How?” said Don carefully.

  “Well, he was her counsel, wasn’t he? After it was over she moved here, and when the divorce became absolute she told me she was going to marry Sir John.”

  “Did he come down to see her here?”

  “Oh, yes, he was at several of the week-ends. He was always so gay and Narissa so obviously enjoyed his company.”

  “How did it go wrong?”

  “I never knew, though you could see she was broken up about it all. What with one thing on top of the other——”

  “What thing?”

  “Well, you know it was the time of the Suez crisis. One day everything was fine, then suddenly there was war and Egypt seized all British assets. All her money, all the property her father had left her was there. Then on top of that, John Marlowe broke off the engagement. It was a shattering blow.”

  “Did he break it off or did she?”

  “Oh, he did. She told me that. She was terribly upset. She said to me, I remember—in a half humorous way—‘Norah, I have been left at the post. The wedding is off, finito. John is not going on with it.’ And when I asked her why, she said, nearly breaking down, ‘Oh, forget it, it does not bear talking of. I am too knocked over to think straight.’”

  “And after that did she move away from here?”

  “Yes, she went back to London. I intended seeing her but I was away for a time and when I went up she had moved again.”

  “Any idea why she is referred to as ‘the notorious Mrs Delaney’?”

  “She dressed well and lived well and had an expensive car and went to the races. But so do people even higher up the queue. You could say it of Mr Delaney maybe.”

  “Who else did you meet at these parties? Neighbours of yours?”

  “I was her only friend round here. She had people down from town for the week-end. I expect I can give you their names if I think a minute or two.”

  “Did she ever mention where Mr Delaney lived?”

  “In St John’s Wood—that was where she lived before they were divorced. He’s a company director.”

  “Did you ever meet Stanley Salem?”

  “No.” Mrs Gibbs was thoughtful. “My husband did once, in his business, though that was nothing to do with Mrs Delaney. Derek always says that Stanley Salem to him is the supreme example of the trickster who got to the top by playing one great name off against another. The Chancellor of the Exchequer only had to be in the same room with him at some official function, Derek says, and the next week Salem would introduce himself to the Governor of the Bank of England on the strength of his friendship with the Chancellor. In the end he built himself up into a person of wealth and importance. Derek says if it hadn’t happened he wouldn’t have believed it could happen.”

  “But he crashed in the end.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs Gibbs. “But I don’t think I ever heard how.”

  Don thought, now I know what selling vacuum cleaners is like. As for Narissa Delaney—has she slipped out of people’s lives accidentally or deliberately? And will her husband know any more? And is this her husband? Three R. Delaneys in the phone book but only one in St John’s Wood.

  The door opened. A blonde girl in a low black taffeta blouse and a straight cut skirt.

  “Is Mr Delaney in?”

  “What name is it?”

  “Marlowe.”

  “Come in, Joe!” a man’s voice called from somewhere behind her.

  She said over her shoulder: “It isn’t Joe, sugar.” She turned back and eyed Don. “What would you be wanting?”

  “I came to ask.…” The hall space behind the girl was no longer empty. A middle-aged man, with a square-jawed boyish face, a tight mouth and a lock of fair hair falling over his brow, looked at Don’s tie, at his ear, and then beyond him to see if there was anyone else there.

  “Yes?”

  “I came to see you about Narissa.”

  “There was a pause. The girl tightened the screw on her earring, and her bracelets jangled.

  “Come in,” said the man.

  Don followed him into a living-room with chocolate-coloured rugs over a parquet floor, and angular furniture in steel and light wood. There was a good strong smell of Dior and Coronas. Behind him the girl’s heels clacked in her black mules as she shut the door and followed them. Delaney pointed to a seat.

  “Well what can I do for you?”

  Don eased himself slowly into a chair with cantilever arms. “You remember my name, I expect, Mr Delaney? Two or three years ago your wife was friendly with my father, Sir John Marlowe.”

  “She
certainly was.”

  “Well, I hope that explains a lot.”

  “Hardly enough. Has Narissa sent you?”

  “Did you ever meet my father?”

  “In the divorce courts, and I never wanted to see him again.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Only that I had the pleasure of being cross-examined by him.”

  “I think my father was going to marry your—to marry Mrs Delaney. Have you any idea what went wrong?”

  “How would I know? Narissa became a poor woman for one thing. Hasn’t she told you?”

  “She won’t talk about it.”

  Delaney looked him over. “Pour a drink, Dolly. Whisky, Mr Marlowe?”

  “Thank you.”

  Dolly went across, her legs unfree but provocative in their straight skirt; she looked as if she was bruising them against each other as she walked.

  “Well what have you come about? I can hardly believe she’s sent me a message.”

  Don said: “ She thought it ought to be the other way round.”

  “How d’you mean? That a proposal ought to come from me?”

  Dolly opened the bleached wood cocktail cabinet, which stood in a corner on legs as stiff as a wooden soldier’s. “Soda, Mr Marlowe?”

  “Water, please.” Don’s eyes lingered on a large photograph of a tall dark woman in a white evening cape.

  Delaney said: “You can talk in front of Dolly; she’s one of the family.”

  Don said: “ Do you see anything of Stanley Salem these days?”

  “I saw him in February when he came out. I saw him half a dozen times. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Buenos Aires, I expect. That’s where he said he was going, and I don’t blame him after what he’s been through. Sometimes I wish I’d gone with him. It’s good to have a final canter before you’re turned out to grass.”

  “We’re doing all right here, sugar,” said the girl. She brought the glass to Don and then took one to Delaney and perched on the narrow arm of his chair in a series of disparate curves.

  Delaney said: “ Of course she got out of it well when she hadn’t the money but she can’t pretend that any longer. There’s been this settlement. She’s lying low now. Her solicitors pretend they don’t know anything. Tell me where she is, first, and then we can talk.”

  “No,” said Don, “ you tell me where she is.”

  While he was sipping his drink no one spoke. Then Delaney murmured: “Say that again.”

  “Oh, I get it now!” Dolly exclaimed. “ You’re Don Marlowe the conductor. I heard you do a thing at Westminster Hall last year. Is it the libel action you’ve come about? I read about it in the Mirror a few weeks ago.”

  Bob Delaney took up his glass and drained it. The glass clattered slightly when he set it down. “I must be getting old. I was a fool to suppose you had come from her. Dolly, when he’s finished his whisky, show him out.”

  “Perhaps we could help each other,” said Don.

  “How?”

  “I want to find Mrs Delaney. You probably know her as well as anyone living. Tell me where to look. I’ll do the looking.”

  “What good will that do me?”

  “I might be able to answer that if I know why you wanted her.”

  “There were trust funds, settled on us when we married. When she divorced me she tried to take the lot. After the Suez crisis she said it wasn’t coming through. That was true then but it isn’t true now. She’s hock deep in money again. I’m entitled to my share.”

  “Can’t you see the trustees?”

  “They’re Egyptians. She’s a quarter Gyppo herself. D’you think they’ll listen to me?”

  “But if you found your wife?”

  “My ex-wife. I’d like to find my ex-wife.”

  “So would I.”

  “My dear chap, it’s hopeless. When a woman like that leaves the field she isn’t found till she wants to be. She changes her name and goes and lives in Bermuda or the South of France. Her money doesn’t have to come into this country. There’s no contact.”

  “How did Stanley Salem come into all this?”

  Mr Delaney looked weary. “Stanley had his faults but at one time he was a friend of mine. I’m honestly not interested in you, Mr Marlowe. Especially I’m not interested in anything that’s going to help your father—even if he is dead now.”

  “Oh, come,” said Dolly. “ Give the boy a break. Wouldn’t it help us all if we found Narissa?”

  The Under Treasurer of the Upper Temple said: “ Of course Lord Queenswood was absolutely right in his letter to The Times. So far as I know Sir John’s reputation was never in question.”

  “These articles,” said Don, “ are difficult to deny because they state that nothing was put on record, that John Marlowe was given the opportunity to resign to save a public scandal. Could that come about?”

  “Let me put it this way,” said the Under Treasurer. “If a barrister goes off the rails in his personal life—to such an extent, that is, of its becoming notorious—it could happen that he would be taken aside by the Treasurer and given a word of warning. If he persisted and if his conduct was sufficiently scandalous, it’s possible that he might then be invited to retire. In that way it would be entirely unofficial and no record would be left. But actual professional misconduct is another matter.”

  “What d’you mean by professional misconduct?”

  “Well, if he is found to be touting for business, or persistently interviewing a client without the presence of a solicitor—or arranging with a solicitor for payment of a commission—any such thing as that would automatically come through me—then I am compelled to report it to the Treasurer whose duty it is to inquire into the facts; and if there’s any grounds at all for the accusation he must put the matter before the Benchers of the Inn. Any inquiry of any sort, even the least, is put on record.” The Under Treasurer pointed to the drawers behind him. “The files are here. If there had been anything at all it would be in the records.”

  “And there is nothing?”

  “On, no, there is nothing.”

  “Who was Treasurer that year?”

  “Sir Frank Bles. He’s retired now and lives in Devonshire, but I can give you his address if you want to see him.”

  Don said: “I called on the solicitor who acted for Mrs Delaney in her divorce, but he was pretty close as she was his client. I gather he doesn’t have her address now. The only other information I got was that she didn’t know my father before the action or specially ask for him to represent her.… Then there’s this veiled nonsense about his misconduct as Recorder. I was thinking of going to Cheltenham when I can spare the time and making a few inquiries. Whom would you recommend me to see?”

  The Under Treasurer rubbed a pencil up and down his cheek. “I don’t think you would discover much to help you there, Mr Marlowe. It all works from London. If there were any sort of scandal or dissatisfaction in the Circuit over the Recorder’s conduct at the Borough Sessions, it would find its way to the Lord Chancellor, who would be very quick to act. I would say that if you have any influence and could arrange a meeting with the Lord Chancellor, he would know everything there was to know.”

  The Rt. Hon. Henry Arthur Babington-Allen, Viscount Aldershot, G. C.V.O., said: “I got Queenswood’s note and I’m glad to have this opportunity of seeing you, Marlowe, if only to confirm what you must already be sure of in your own mind. I knew your father well, of course, though he was my junior by six years.”

  “What I want to know, sir, is what reason he gave you for his retirement.”

  “That he had been overworking, that he was tired, that he wanted to devote more time to his writing.”

  “Was that why he gave up the Recordership?”

  “When he wrote to me I replied to point out that this was not an onerous appointment, entailing as it did only a few days’ attendance each quarter, that if he retained it it would keep him
in touch with the law.’ Lord Aldershot frowned. “I was under the impression that I had persuaded him not to resign this appointment. But he wrote a few days later and said he felt he would be happier to cut right away.”

  “For the same reason?”

  “Mainly, yes.”

  “But there was some other reason, sir?”

  His Lordship clasped his hands behind him and gazed out over his garden to the yellow rhododendrons at the end. “ I’m not sure of the exact sequence of events at this distance of time, but I believe it was in September of that year that your father tried a criminal charge brought against a man called Salem. After evidence for the Crown had been heard Salem’s counsel submitted that there was no case to answer, and John Marlowe ruled in his favour. Salem was discharged. Afterwards for a number of reasons Marlowe seemed much concerned about the principles on which he had acted. When he wrote me saying that on due consideration he had decided to resign the Recordership after all, I felt that this case was still exercising his mind. It worried him, and I think it just tipped the scale.”

  “You don’t think it should have done?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “I’m glad of that. But can you tell me what it was about the case that worried him?”

  “Partly a matter of law. But there was one other point.” Don waited.

  “He did at the time write me a personal letter of explanation—between friends, as it were. As it was not in any way an official communication, I don’t see why you should not read it—provided I can find it after all this time. I’ll look when we go indoors.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  They strolled again across the lawn, but His Lordship turned back when they came within reach of the wind as it blew through the trees. “Treacherous month. The Borgias should have been born in May. Your father might well have been a judge in another twelve months.…”

  “A pity.”

  “Yes, a great pity. A great waste.”

  There was silence for a few moments. “Do you know anything about grafting azaleas?” asked Lord Aldershot. “ I’ll show you in the greenhouse an experiment I’ve been trying.” He frowned again, as at a long memory. “ It must be twenty years since I first saw J.M., as we used to call him. He was addressing the Court of Appeal, appealing against a judgement in the County Court in which his client, a farmer, had lost an action for trespass against a riding school which it was alleged had done damage to his property. One of the judges; Bartram I think it was, interrupted him to say: ‘Nevertheless, Mr Marlowe, it must be admitted that your client behaved towards these ladies on horseback with a singular lack of courtesy and gallantry’. Marlowe at once replied, ‘My Lord, with due respect I submit that, as this was the third infringement, my client was entitled to consider that the age of cavalry was past’.”