The inconvenience of the room contributed to their disillusionment. The brass bed was lumpy, the bath was at the wrong end of the dark corridor, the light bulbs were bald and over-brilliant, the linen had been used before. Jeremy, in pyjamas, could not hide the soft roll of fat that had enveloped his stomach; their intimacy was curt and conventional. Afterwards, neither had been able to sleep for the unfamiliar creakings of the old house and the sighing wind in the pines. But they had both feigned sleep to avoid the pitfalls of nocturnal conversation, and had lain stiff and tense listening to the other’s breathing and uncomfortably aware of the absurdity of their situation.
The truth was that Jeremy had found himself thinking more and more of Brent as the day had darkened into night, and increasingly conscious of his disloyalty to her. There had been no reason for it. He had drunk too much at lunch and felt an appetite for a woman he had once loved; but she was no longer the person he remembered fondly; she was, in fact, a stranger. He had told Brent that he would return to her that night, yet when he had visited his loft apartment to pack a bag, he had not left her a note or telephoned her. He could only guess what she would make of his behaviour. By the time he was having dinner with Dorothy, he wanted more than anything else to drive back to town, to return to Brent. But there was Dorothy to consider. He had accepted her advances and had responded to them, had acted as a lover. Now they were alone together and the scene demanded to be played out. To have declared his feelings, would have been to scorn her. So Jeremy continued to pretend ardour, although he lacked desire.
Dorothy’s attitude was more complex. She had reached out for Jeremy because she felt she had lost Philip. Jeremy was to be a test, a way of proving to herself that Philip had lost interest in his marriage for some cause other than her own inadequacy. Jeremy had wanted to marry her once, and she had chosen Philip instead; now she tried to use Jeremy to substitute for Philip, in the absence of his love, as she might have worn a charm about her wrist to substitute for him, in his physical absence. Either way Jeremy’s value to her derived from Philip: she felt that if she could win Jeremy’s affection away from Brent, then Philip’s dereliction would not be due to any fault or lack of her own; and she felt that, having lost Philip, if she could gain Jeremy, she would be choosing again as she had chosen before.
This expedition along the Hudson had been to Dorothy an unusual experience which she understood, if at all, only on the level of her emotions. She partly knew that when she looked at Jeremy she was seeing Philip, and also her father before Philip. Unconsciously, and this she did not realize, she was re-staging the rejection scene that had shaped her personality and made her life. If Jeremy, as they drove farther and farther along the Hudson at first disagreeing and then openly quarrelling as to where to stop, thought more about Brent and less about Dorothy, it was not accidental. Dorothy was that unfortunate type that must always cast experience in the same rigid mould: she forced Jeremy to think of Brent, even when she tried to attract him. There was that in her that made her circumvent her ends.
So when the night ended and there was an excuse for breakfast, Jeremy’s infatuation with Dorothy, that had lasted a number of years, was finished. They spoke to one another in monosyllables at breakfast, and on the trip back into town did not break the silence for miles at a time. They had not spoken for many minutes when Jeremy turned off Riverside Drive and headed for the midtown area, and he was the one to speak then.
‘Do you mind if I stop off at your place for a moment?’ he asked. ‘I want to make a ’phone call before I go home.’
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ Dorothy asked, shielding her eyes against the morning sun that suddenly confronted them as they drove East.
‘I thought Philip might be there.’
Dorothy considered this. She dropped her hand and stared at the sun until the glare caused her eyes to glisten. ‘Philip won’t be there,’ she said.
She spoke quietly, with resignation and sadness. Her manner disturbed Jeremy and made him turn to look at her. He saw that the lines of her beautiful face were set and her eyes stared forward blindly. He sensed that something was about to happen… that Dorothy was allowing herself to be drawn to crisis as iron is drawn to a lodestone.
After Philip left, Brent finished her breakfast unhurriedly and then passed the next hour tidying the apartment. She went to the phone and began to dial Jeremy’s number several times during this hour, but each time she broke off before the connection could be completed. When there was no more to do about the house, she curled up on the couch and tried to read. After a few minutes of this, however, she tossed the book aside and returned to the telephone. This time she waited until the sound of persistent ringing had lasted for several minutes, long enough to prove without doubt that there was either no one at home or whoever was there was not answering. Slamming the receiver down in exasperation, she took a hat and coat from the closet and left the apartment. When she reached the street, she walked to the corner, hailed a taxi and gave the driver Jeremy’s address.
She did not expect to find him home, yet after she had paid the driver off and was climbing the steep stairs to the loft she could not escape the fear that she might. If he were in, Dorothy would be with him; if he weren’t in, he might possibly have spent the night with other friends – or so Brent reasoned. She knew that this line of thought was little better than an incantation with which she attempted to ward off the catastrophe she was certain had befallen her. Nevertheless, she was relieved when she found the wide door of the loft ajar, and walked into the barn-like room to see that, in actuality, Jeremy was not there.
She took off her hat and coat and, womanlike, began to do the same things in this place that she had been doing in her own. She swept the floors, dusted the furniture, mopped the kitchen floor, rearranged the dishes in the cupboard. Even so, she soon had exhausted the housewifely tasks the loft had to offer since most of its cavernous depth had never been properly domesticated – Jeremy lived in the corners of the great room – and there was no point in trying to straighten and clean the piles of ruck he had let accumulate in the disused portions. At last, she was reduced again to the couch and a book, albeit a different couch and –
While stretching for a novel that rested on top of the end table, Brent noticed a pile of paper that lay beside it. How did I overlook that when I was dusting? she wondered. She picked it up, instead of the novel, and began to read it. Her interest quickened when she saw that on the first page of what appeared to be a typewritten manuscript was the name and address of Philip Banter and the one word, ‘Confession’. She continued to read; by the time she had finished the first few pages her interest was consuming.
A half-hour later, a moment after she had read the last page, the doorbell rang. Laying the manuscript down on the couch, she walked to the door and pressed the buzzer button – most of her thoughts were occupied with what she had just been reading. If she thought at all about who was ringing the bell, she decided that it was Jeremy and he had lost his key again.
It was quite a shock to her when she opened the door and Philip walked into the room.
3
Miss Grey had come back into Philip’s office shortly after he had decided who was the most likely author of the ‘Confession’. She was still wearing her hat and coat and her eyes were red-rimmed. Philip had thought she had left, and he showed his surprise at seeing her.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said. She put out her hand to steady herself – she was swaying noticeably – and it came to rest on the edge of Philip’s desk. He got her a chair.
‘I lied to you this morning,’ she continued. She spoke hesitantly and in broken phrases. Her hands constantly fretted with her gloves. ‘I do know something about the manuscript you found yesterday morning… and the morning before that… I put it there.’
‘What!’ Philip exploded.
‘When I came into the office day before yesterday… there was a messenger waiting for me. He had a
package… and a note. The note was addressed to me. It was typewritten… but it wasn’t signed. With it was a hundred dollar bill.’ The girl paused. Her face was grey and contorted. She forced the next words out. ‘The note asked me to put the manuscript… that was in the package… on your desk. It said you would be expecting it… but that the contents were confidential… that I must never speak to anyone about it… not even you. Even if you asked me directly… I was to say nothing.’
Now that it was coming out, Philip was surprised at his own calm. He stared at the girl, who had caused him so much annoyance in the past, as he might have regarded a convicted murderer. ‘And you believed that?’ he asked.
The girl nodded her head. She sobbed histrionically. ‘I know I should have told you. I know it was wrong. But I’d never had a hundred dollars before in my life… and you had been bawling me out all the time. I had come to hate you!’ She said these last words not defensively, in justification of her offence, but defiantly, accusingly. Philip felt himself shrink inside.
‘So when you asked me who had been using your typewriter… I told you the truth… that you had used it yourself the night before… and hadn’t put it away. I knew what you were hinting at… but I couldn’t let you know I knew… I didn’t want to… and I had been told not to…’
‘What about yesterday morning?’ Philip asked. ‘What happened then?’
‘When I came in the messenger was waiting for me again… this time I asked who sent him… he had a uniform on and I thought he might tell me… but he had been instructed not to tell. He left another package… and another envelope with a note… and a hundred dollars. The note read, “Do as you did before.” I did. But when I saw you asleep slumped over on your desk, I was scared. At first I thought… you were dead… but then when I came closer… I saw you were all right. I put the manuscript down beside you… and then I awakened you.’
‘Do you know the name of the company for which the messenger worked? You said he wore a uniform.’
‘I noticed that particularly. It was the Zephyr Fast Delivery Service.’
Philip picked up the telephone and asked the switchboard operator to get him the messenger service Miss Grey had named. After a few minutes’ wait the connection was completed and Philip explained to the voice on the other end of the wire that he had received two packages on each of the last two days and wanted very much to know who had sent them. The voice listened as he gave his name and address, and then asked him politely to wait a few minutes longer. Philip cradled the receiver between his head and his shoulder and returned his attention to Miss Grey.
‘How did my typewriter come to be open on my desk yesterday morning, too?’ he asked. ‘I know I did not leave it open a second time.’
‘I put it there,’ the girl said. ‘While I was deciding whether or not to wake you up.’ She looked away from Philip’s steady gaze.
‘Did the note tell you to do that?’
Miss Grey shook her head.
‘Then why did you do it?’
‘I was angry at you… you had scolded me for not putting it away. I had made up my mind to quit… and I felt like being nasty. I know I shouldn’t have done it… but I don’t care. I can get another job.’
Philip nodded his head and listened for a moment to the crackling sounds that came out of the telephone. ‘Then what happened this morning? Did you find a messenger waiting for you when you came to work?’
The girl shook her head again.
Philip leaned forward. ‘I put the manuscripts contained in those packages in the bottom drawer of my desk, Miss Grey. And I locked that drawer. When I opened it this morning, they were gone. Do you know anything about that?’
Miss Grey reached into her purse for her handkerchief and began to dab at her eyes. At the same time she nodded her head violently. ‘When I came in this morning, your chair was pushed way over to the window. The drawers of your desk were pulled out. The papers in the bottom drawer were in a mess. I was afraid… I thought you’d accuse me of being careless. I rearranged the papers in the bottom drawer to make them look as if nothing had been disturbed. When I did this I saw that the lock had been forced. It still works… but it will unlock if you pull hard on the drawer. There are scratches on the varnish… as if somebody had used a knife on it.’
Philip glanced down at the bottom drawer. There were scratches around the lock all right. Why hadn’t he noticed them before? He was reaching for his key to try it in the lock, when the phone that he had been cradling next to his ear came to life. ‘Mr Banter?’ the voice said. ‘So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Banter. I have the information you requested on those two deliveries. You sent us a letter earlier this week enclosing two one hundred dollar bills and accompanying a package containing a manuscript. Your letter instructed us to deliver the manuscript and the note with one of the bills to your secretary, a Miss Grey, at your office on the morning of the first of December. Your letter also stated that another manuscript, together with another note, would be sent to us the next day. You asked us to follow the same procedure then, enclosing the second bill with the note and delivering the manuscript to Miss Grey. Both deliveries were completed as requested and I have a record of Miss Grey’s signature on the receipts. Is there anything wrong, Mr Banter?’
‘No,’ said Philip, ‘everything is quite satisfactory. I just wanted a check-up. Thank you.’ He hung up. He looked at Miss Grey and wondered if she could possibly have heard. If she had, she was not letting him know. She had her purse open and was fumbling in it. As he watched, she withdrew two crumpled one hundred dollar bills. She laid them on his desk.
‘I know I shouldn’t have taken them, Mr Banter.’ She gulped and looked away. Her voice had fallen to a whisper. ‘But I had never seen that much money before…’
Philip stared at her pimply face, her straggly, mouse-coloured hair that was always either all over her face or tightly curled in disgusting little spiral knots. ‘You can keep it,’ he said. ‘And you can forget about everything that has happened this week. It was all a mistake.’
Miss Grey stood up. She picked the bills from the desk hesitantly, and looked at Philip and tried to smile. Slowly, she put the bills into her purse and snapped it shut. She waited a moment longer – plainly expecting Philip to change his mind – then began to inch towards the door.
Philip turned his back on her and went to the window. He stood looking out at the buildings across the street, his mind blank and purposeless. When he heard the door shut behind him and knew that the girl had left the room, he went back and sat in his chair. For a long time he did nothing at all.
And then, he decided to visit Jeremy.
4
Dr Matthews arrived promptly at ten o’clock at the offices of Brown and Foster, and he was shown in at once to Steven Foster’s office. ‘Mr Foster will be with you in a few minutes, doctor,’ the receptionist said, and went out closing the door softly behind her. Matthews was annoyed at this. He had cancelled several appointments to make this call because he had felt it important to talk to a member of Philip’s family about his illness. But he had not expected to be kept waiting.
Steven Foster’s office was large and luxuriously appointed. A broad mahogany desk commanded the room, but there were also several comfortable leather chairs, an imitation fireplace, books and paintings along the walls. Most of the books dealt with advertising and business, but one brightly-jacketed volume caught his eye: William Seabrook’s Witchcraft. Matthews pulled it off the shelf, riffled its pages and then put it back – shrugging his shoulders. He had just finished lighting his pipe when Steven Foster belatedly entered the room.
He came forward and shook hands cordially with Matthews, but his eyes reflected no warmth and the lines of his face were as tense as before. ‘I had not expected to see you so soon,’ he said. ‘Is it about Philip?’ He waited until Matthews had sat down in one of the leather armchairs before he took his place behind his desk.
‘Philip had lunch with me yesterday,’ Matthews said. ‘He is concerned about himself. He has some unusual symptoms.’ And he went on to tell Foster everything Philip had told him about the ‘Confession’, the voice he heard and his other delusions.
Foster listened expressionlessly. He sat rigidly in his chair, his gaze fixed coldly on the doctor. When Matthews had finished, he said, ‘What is your diagnosis?’
Matthews waved his hand. ‘Philip is an alcoholic. Like any alcoholic his chronic drinking is a symptom of his disorder and not the disorder itself. However, it should be treated first. If Philip could visit a sanatorium I know in the Catskills, where he would be able to rest and get the best of care, we might be able to prevent a subsequent breakdown.’
The Last of Philip Banter Page 17