Rehearsals for Murder (19 page)

“George,” said Toby, “did you hear what I said?”

“Something about not knowing something. What don't you know, Tobe?”

“I don't know who murdered Lou or why.”

George sat up. “But,” he said protestingly, “but then…”

“I know all kinds of things, but I don't know that.”

“But then,” said George, staring at Toby in dismay, “but then I reckon you're real worried about that little girl, Vanessa.”

“I am,” said Toby. “After all, the other things are over—they're done with—they can't be put right. But that…”

George whistled. Toby looked at him in surprise.

George said: “Why, I thought you was just actin' worried. I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” said Toby harshly.

“Why, that it was——”

It was just then that a knock sounded on the door.

Eve, dressed in a vividly striped wrapper of heavy silk, stood in the passage.

Though she was an arresting and, but for the strain on her face, a delightful object to look at, Toby, after the curtest of greetings, looked only at George. He looked at him in angry, puzzled concentration.

Eve glanced from one to the other and seemed puzzled herself.

“I—I wanted to talk to you,” she said hesitantly. “D'you mind if I come in?”

Toby pulled himself together. “Come in, come in,” he said, “come in and share the knowledge and understanding that are so abundant in this room. Come in and make yourself completely comfortable. Come in and ask us anything you like about anything—no doubt if one of us can't answer, the other can.”

She looked at him strangely, and Toby made an effort to shed his excitability. He turned his back on George. He said more soberly: “I'm glad you came. You can tell me some of those things you might have told me this afternoon but didn't.”

She said vaguely: “I was in such a muddle.”

She sat down.

“I hadn't had time to think,” she said.

“Let's hope at any rate,” he said, “now that you've had the time, that you've been thinking straight.”

She nodded. She clasped her hands together, looking down at them, working them nervously against one another. But she said nothing.

Suddenly a tear splashed onto her clasped hands.

Toby said: “Well then, suppose you tell me why you couldn't tell me this afternoon that it was Roger you were going away with.”

She lifted her head with a start. Her eyes were aswim. She looked down again.

“It's quite true,” she said in a low voice; “I was. But I don't know how you knew.”

“That was what Lou's letter to you was about, wasn't it?”

“Yes, I suppose she'd told someone about it. We were being very careful. You see——”

“Oh, I know you had to be careful—until this afternoon.”

She put her hands to her head. “I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you the whole thing.” But again she seemed to find it impossible to say more than that.

Toby sat down opposite her. He leant towards her, his elbows on his knees.

“Listen,” he said, “it was like this, wasn't it? You were divorced. You wanted it, I expect. You wanted to marry Potter.”

She dropped her hands. She crossed one knee over the other. One foot in a velvet slipper with a froth of plumes across the toe jigged up and down in the air.

“But,” Toby went on, “it didn't turn out quite like you'd expected. You didn't really like the feeling of it. You'd lost a sense of security, and all the things you'd taken for granted for a good many years had suddenly been changed. And Potter turned out to be a much more difficult man to live on intimate terms with than Clare. You started regretting things.”

She gave a very slight nod.

“I don't know what happened next,” said Toby. “I mean, I don't know how it came about, but one day——”

“One day,” she said, “I met Roger in Piccadilly. And then I met him once or twice more. He didn't know it, but they weren't actually chance meetings.”

“And he had his regrets too?”

“Oh yes,” she said, as if such a thing could never have been doubted. “Oh yes, it had been terrible for him.”

“But he insisted on being careful, didn't he? After all, he'd gone to the trouble of having a divorce; he didn't want to risk its being revoked. Appearances of collusion and so on—no, he wasn't going to risk that. So when you suggested——It
was
you who suggested it, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” she said rather unwillingly.

“When you suggested that the two of you should make an experiment in reconciliation he was ready to agree but insisted that it must be done in complete secrecy.”

“Oh, he was very careful, dreadfully careful,” she said with some bitterness.

“After all,” said Toby, “divorces cost a lot of money.”

“But you'd have thought,” she said, “that it was the most terrible thing on earth for a husband to be caught going away with his wife.”

“The law thinks it is, in certain circumstances,” said Toby. “Well then, you made the arrangements between you—he bought the tickets to Nice and booked a room in a hotel; you bought a lot of new summer dresses and had your passport renewed. You packed. You were all ready to go away—next Tuesday, wasn't it?—and no one knew what was happening except you, Clare, Max Potter and——”

“No,” she said swiftly, “Max didn't know.”

“Hell,” said Toby, “I was giving you credit for having told him. Very well, no one knew but you, your husband and Lou.”

“Yes,” she said, and suddenly she began to tremble, “Lou knew.”

Toby tossed a cigarette into her lap. She snatched it up, stuck it in her mouth, holding it with a shaking hand as Toby set a match to it.

“You see,” she said, “when I discovered Lou was going to have a baby and I—I thought it was Roger's I told her that Roger and I were going away to—to—— I mean, Lou was so loyal, she'd never have—never have interfered once she knew a thing like that.”

Toby said nothing.

Eve blew frantic puffs of smoke before her. “I suppose she told someone. I didn't really understand that letter, but when she wrote about having betrayed my confidence that was the only thing I could think of. When you and that policeman were asking me about it I didn't know what to say. I didn't really see why you shouldn't know. But Roger was there. So I dithered until he showed me how he wanted me to answer. And he made it quite clear he didn't want our plan given away. So I said I didn't know anything. I'd have gone on saying I didn't know anything only—only now it doesn't matter.”

Toby remarked: “You must have wanted him badly. Strange for a man to be wanted so badly for every reason but himself.”

But she chewed at her cigarette, scarcely attending.

He went on: “When Lou was murdered you were simply angry.”

“I don't understand,” she said.

“Angry,” he said, “that your plan couldn't go through, that you weren't going to be able to get away on Tuesday. Were you afraid of delay? Were you afraid that Roger might change his mind?” As she said nothing, he added: “I wonder how much the money had to do with it.”

“Money?” she said. She made the word sound as if it were simply two meaningless syllables.

“You thought Lou's child was Roger's. You thought if there was delay that Roger might take it into his head to marry Lou. And if that happened Roger's will might have been changed, mightn't it? Perhaps even the allowance he's been making you all this time might have been reduced.” He studied her. “Perhaps that had nothing to do with it. Perhaps it had.”

She said with unusual simplicity: “I don't know. I don't know why I do things or feel things.”

After a pause Toby went on: “But you've been so anxious all along, so desperate.”

“It's my nerves,” she answered. “They're in a terrible condition. I've gone through too much.”

“And drunk too much.”

“Oh yes,” she said with a quick, high laugh, “and smoked too much—and known too much.”

“What d'you mean?” he asked quickly.

She laughed again.

Toby gripped her hands. “What d'you know? What d'you you think you know?”

“Too much, too much.” Then she looked at him slyly. “Why,” she said, “do you think I asked you to stay?”

Toby let go her hands. He sat back. He looked bored and irritated. “That's one of the things I don't know,” he said.

Her smile was faintly triumphant. “Because you're large,” she said, “and look ever so strong—and active.”

“A bodyguard!”

She inclined her head.

“A bodyguard, a strong arm!” Indignation made Toby's face ferocious. “And I thought you wanted…”

“Oh, I did want to get to know you, too—I couldn't help wanting that, could I?”

His scowl discouraged her. “I thought you wanted me to straighten this thing up for you. I thought you believed in my abilities. I thought you were trusting me to keep the police from making a blunder that might implicate you. I thought you wanted me to find out who'd done this foul thing in your house and set you free to go on making whatever sort of damned mess of your life you felt like making. I thought you recognized——”

“Oh, please,” she interrupted urgently, “please—you do look so strong, so sure of yourself, so quick, so——”

Toby shouted: “I thought you wanted
this!”
With whitened knuckles he pounded against his forehead.

Just behind Toby a gentle cough might have reminded them that in the room with them was a third person. But neither Eve who was sitting there breathing fast, her light blue eyes intent and serious, nor Toby who had folded his arms and was glaring at her with bitterness and disillusionment took any notice.

Eve said: “I don't want you to find out anything. The things have happened. I don't understand why one always has to think of punishment. You can't undo anything. I want to feel safe, but——”

“Ah,” cried Toby, “you don't want me to find out anything unless you're in danger yourself! But d'you think that's all I'm thinking about? And don't you realize that if you know anything you
are
in danger?”

The cough was repeated. This time, as it once more met with no response, George crossed quietly to the door. They noticed him then and saw it when he raised a finger for silence. He put a hand on the door. He put an ear close to the crack. Suddenly he flung the door open.

Outside, in flannel pyjamas and a dressing gown, stood Adolphus Fry.

They saw how the sudden opening of the door made him leap backwards as if he were dodging a blow.

Eve got shakily to her feet. She held onto the back of the chair, looking white and startled.

Mr Fry said: “Forgive me. I was just going to knock. I heard voices and knew you hadn't gone to bed. May I come in, Mr Dyke? There's a matter of the utmost importance I should like to discuss with you.”

Toby's gesture invited him in. They all watched curiously as he came into the room. His manner was perfectly calm. Both the abject depression and the exaltation of the afternoon were absent from it. Yet he looked like a man who is controlled by some clearly realized purpose. There was purpose in his deliberate walk, in the way he sat down in the chair from which Eve had risen, in the way he folded his hands, lifted his head slightly and looked Toby in the eye. Purpose simplified and yet put significance into every movement; it was not quite normal.

Toby sat down opposite him. Eve stayed with her hand on the back of the chair, her usual grace destroyed by a rigidity of the head and shoulders.

Toby said: “I'll be delighted to discuss anything with you, Mr Fry.”

“I want to discuss the problem of sin,” said Mr Fry.

“Oh,” said Toby.

“It's an immense subject, an immense subject.”

“I bet it is,” said Toby.

“Uncle Dolphie,” said Eve, “don't you think it'd be a better idea to go to bed now and talk about sin in the morning?”

He took no notice of her. “I've been trying to define sin,” he said. “I want to understand the nature of guilt. I've never thought about these matters very much, but it seems to me that at the outset I must somehow define sin. The Bible begins with sin. Sin is at the very foundation of consciousness. And yet one can live for years and years without any consciousness of sin—of sin in the deeper sense.”

“Uncle Dolphie,” said Eve, and her hand shifted from the back of the chair to his shoulder, “I'm sure it'd be much easier to think about this in the morning.”

“Sin, Mr Dyke, is, I believe——”

“Uncle Dolphie, you ought to be in bed—and so ought Mr Dyke. You're being very selfish, trying to keep him up talking.”

“You know, Mr Fry,” said Toby, “I don't understand anything at all about these matters. Though, of course, they're extremely interesting.”

“Interesting!” said the old man. “They're vital! I came to you because, as one who has specialized in many kinds of inquiry, you would, I felt sure, have a natural understanding. I've many things to explain to you, many things.”

“But in the morning,” said Eve. “I'll fetch Aunt Nelia. She'll tell you you ought to be in bed.”

“No, no, Eve.” He looked round at her at once. “You mustn't do that. It—it wouldn't be right.”

“Well, will you go to bed?”

“You mustn't disturb your aunt, Eve. She's sleeping. She deserves to sleep. She's so tired.”

“We're all tired, Uncle Dolphie. So please be good and——”

“Very well, very well, I'll go to bed, though I shan't sleep. I've decided, Mr Dyke, to try doing without sleep in the future. Knowledge ceases while we sleep, and I know such astonishing things, such astonishing things. You know, I shouldn't be surprised if I'm the only man living who really knows the nature of truth. So how can I possibly afford sleep? But Eve's quite right; I ought not to impose such travail on others—that would be dogmatic, it would indeed.” His voice dropped. “It's my travail … my atonement. … But,” he ended briskly, “I'll tell you all about it in the morning.” Taking Eve's arm, he let himself be led to the door.