Four Days' Wonder

by A. A. Milne

  Mr. Ponsonby Wicks, the Coroner, opens the proceedings. He touches lightly upon a number of matters which have interested him during the last few weeks: the inefficiency of the League of Nations, the rising spirit of unrest among the working classes, the growing licence allowed to novelists and other so-called artists, the necessity for removing children’s tonsils as soon as they become available. ‘It is for you’, said Mr. Ponsonby Wicks to the Jury, ‘to decide how this poor lady met her death,’ and went on to denounce the corruption in American politics. ‘You will not’, said Mr. Wicks, ‘shrink from the responsibility,’ and spoke coldly of the Trade Agreement with Russia . . .

  The Jury retired and viewed what Dr. Willoughby Hatch had left of the body . . .

  Mr. George Parracot gave evidence. He was wearing the Old Felsbridgian tie and (though these were not seen) the Old Felsbridgian braces. He was, so it appeared at first, a bachelor, living at Auburn Lodge near the Brompton Road. He had been having a holiday at Eastbourne, and the house was empty. On the day in question he had left Eastbourne by an early train on his way through London to Cromer, and had looked in at Auburn Lodge in order to collect one or two things.

  ‘What sort of things?’ asked Mr. Wicks, feeling that all this would go better as a duologue.

  ‘Oh, well, as a matter of fact,’ said George carelessly, ‘just one or two things. Brilliantine —and face cream—and—er——’

  ‘Face cream?’ said Mr. Wicks, frowning.

  ‘Er—yes,’ said George guiltily, realizing suddenly what he had said, ‘as a matter of fact, yes.’

  ‘Do you use face cream?’

  Everybody looked at Mr. Parracot’s face, which was now bright-red.

  ‘Er—as a matter of fact, yes,’ said Mr. Parracot doggedly.

  ‘Why?’ asked the Coroner, and the Young Eligible Set wondered if this was a new one which they hadn’t heard about.

  ‘For the face,’ said George, after giving the matter careful thought.

  Inspector Marigold whispered in the Coroner’s ear.

  ‘Arsting if ’e can’t arrest ’im at once,’ said the cheaper seats to each other hopefully.

  ‘Ah!’ said Mr. Ponsonby Wicks. And then to George: ‘You are married, Mr. Parracot?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ admitted George reluctantly. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, yes.’

  ‘And Mrs. Parracot was with you on your holiday, and called in at Auburn Lodge with you?’

  ‘Well—er—yes,’ admitted George, still more reluctantly.

  ‘Then kindly say so. There’s no need to be ashamed of it, Mr. Parracot, not even in these days.’

  Everybody laughed; the Young Eligible Set loudly, the Young Divorced Set defiantly, the Young Married Set self-consciously.

  ‘Go on, Mr. Parracot, please.’

  Mr. Parracot went on. The cheaper seats were now distinctly hostile to him, and wondered if it would be safe to take the children to Cromer this year. The stalls looked at him admiringly. Every one knew that that fellow Parracot was well known to Scotland Yard as a drug-trafficker, and now it seemed that he was mixed up in the White Slave Traffic too. Some lad . . .

  Old Girl gave evidence. The cheaper seats felt sorry for Old Girl, married to a murderer. The stalls also felt sorry for Old Girl. I mean to say, darling, positively nude about the face, and simply too dairymaid altogether.

  ‘You were not personally acquainted with the deceased, Mrs. Parracot?’ asked the Coroner, and the stalls laughed at the idea of Toto knowing Laura . . .

  Inspector Marigold gave evidence. The cheaper seats whispered to each other that this was one of the Big Five, but, when challenged, were uncertain who the other four were. The stalls looked at him with mixed feelings. He had the reputation of being a difficult man to bribe, and the less affluent of them had found this to be true. Also he had no sense of humour, and when the famous Baby’s Bottle Party had overflowed into Merrion Place, and started playing Postman’s Knock at three o’clock in the morning, he had been extremely stolid about it. But those of them who were running Night Clubs realized that Inspector Marigold had a human side which he did not allow the ordinary public, or his superiors, to suspect . . .

  Dr. Willoughby Hatch was called, and the Court sat up hopefully. Dr. Hatch gave, fortunately without being too technical, the result of his researches into the more sequestered organs of the deceased, Mr. Ponsonby Wicks drawing him out with a well-placed question whenever the interests of Justice or the press-value of the organ seemed to demand it. Coming, a little reluctantly, to the external injuries, the Court learnt that these were caused by a blow on the head from a narrow sharp instrument of some nature.

  ‘Not’, said Mr. Wicks, surprised, ‘by a heavy, blunt instrument?’

  ‘No,’ said Hatch.

  Mr. Wicks hid his disappointment as well as he could, and got down to business. ‘Now, Dr. Willoughby Hatch,’ he said, ‘have you formed any opinion as to the physical characteristics of the assailant?’

  ‘I have,’ said Hatch.

  There was a tense silence. Everybody looked at Mr. Parracot, and wondered how one would describe him. Inspector Marigold whispered in the Coroner’s ear.

  ‘Well,’ said the Coroner on a different note, ‘we need not go into that. All we are concerned with to-day is the cause of death. We will keep to that if you please, Dr. Hatch. What can you tell us of the personal habits of the deceased?’ . . .

  And now Mr. Ponsonby Wicks is about to sum up. He looks through his notes, and sees that he has said nothing yet about Birth Control, Reparations, or the Sunday opening of Cinemas. He sums up . . .

  The Jury retires to consider its verdict. The stalls chatter, and those of them who have not yet caught the eye of the Marquis of Puddlehinton hasten to do so, in order that my lord’s Sunday readers shall not be defrauded. The cheaper seats look at Mr. Parracot hopefully, with their mouths open.

  The Jury delivers its verdict. To the relief of Inspector Marigold, who is now looking for a short, stout fellow with a fair moustache, and does not want to have George on his hands again, it announces that deceased was murdered by some person or persons unknown. Everybody scowls at Mr. Parracot, who fingers his tie. The Court empties slowly . . .

  INQUEST ON JANE LATOUR

  SENSATIONAL EVIDENCE

  cry the posters.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Affray at Bassetts

  I

  The gentleman who had brought back a Rabelaisian robustness to the English novel loosened the cord of his pyjamas and sipped his early morning tea. It was good to be at Ferries again—without Fanny. Ferries (without Fanny) in the Garden of England, with the smell of hops, or something, drifting in through the open windows, was his true home. Here a man could write—God, how he could write! Already the slow loveliness of the place was inspiring him. Thoughts, flashing thoughts, which clothed themselves even as they lit up his brain in beautiful words, paraded for his approval, too quick for pen to record them. If only his secretary—Miss Fairbrother—had been here, alert to take them down in shorthand, just so, and only so, he might have kept pace with them . . .

  But then if his secretary—Miss Fairbrother —Nancy—were here at this moment, in this room, would they——

  Obviously not . . .

  (Not shorthand.)

  Nancy . . .

  A new set of thoughts flashed into his mind, and were made comfortable there. Robust thoughts. Rabelaisian . . . Nancy . . .

  No. Idiot. Julia.

  Julia! That was why he felt so gay, so eager, so young this morning. After breakfast he was going to write to Julia.

  He rose. He looked at himself in the Queen Anne mirror, and found that once again it had no alternative to offer him. He shaved. He went into the sunlit bathroom and turned on both taps. Through the open casement July came in with banners, and he decided not to weigh himse
lf.

  After breakfast he wrote to Julia.

  ‘Julia, my dear, something tells me that it is your birthday to-morrow, which means that once again you are a year younger and a year more beautiful; for so it is, divinely, that you live among us poor mortals, for whom birthdays are ever-hastening, ever-lessening, milestones to the grave. To-day you are twenty-five, is it not? To-morrow, when this reaches you, you will be twenty-four. In the little token which I send you for a reminder of our friendship, I have set out these twenty-four years as one sets out candles for a child around its birthday-cake——’

  (‘Perhaps I had better count them again,’ said Mr. Fenton. He counted again the little diamonds round the face of the watch. Twenty-four.)

  ‘—birthday-cake, for it is as a beautiful and innocent child that I shall always think of you.’

  (‘An awkward approach’, said Mr. Fenton, ‘to the suggestion that she should spend the week-end with me. Also the English is a little careless, and leaves it uncertain which of us is the beautiful and innocent child.’)

  ‘—birthday-cake, and above them I have placed a “’J”——’

  (‘No,’ said Mr. Fenton. ‘Hardly necessary. She will naturally assume that “J” stands for Julia, and I really cannot keep on calling her attention to the diamonds.’)

  ‘—birthday-cake, and if I am wrong, and you are only twenty-three——’

  (‘I mustn’t overdo this,’ said Mr. Fenton. ‘Actually, I suppose she is forty, and looks thirty-two.’)

  ‘—birthday-cake, and sometimes when you——’

  (‘Damn,’ said Mr. Fenton.)

  ‘—birthday-cake.’

  July still called insistently to him. He dropped his pen, and wandered into the garden for inspiration. He walked among his roses, he blew cigarette-smoke at the greenfly, he picked a bud for his button-hole. No inspiration came . . . Birthday-cake . . . Curse . . . He went back to his room, tore the damned thing up, and began again.

  ‘Dearest Julia, All my love comes with this trifle which I have designed for you for your birthday. It is your month, the most beautiful of the year, as it should be, and I have come down here to welcome it. Walking in my garden just now I wondered what it lacked of perfection, and the answer came at once—“ Julia”. If it could but have Julia for a little! Would you not drive down on Sunday morning and have lunch, and what else you will, with me? I am alone; we could talk; I could show you my garden. “You foolish man,” I can hear you saying, “I have ten engagements for Sunday already!” Of course you have, but you will never sort them out properly, so let them go, Julia. You will? Thank you, my dear. And now give just a glance again at Julia’s new watch, and say to yourself: “He is counting the hours until I come, from now on he is counting the hours”—and Come!’

  Mr. Fenton read this through and was moderately pleased with it. Remained the signature.

  What?

  At their last meeting she had greeted him ‘Hallo, Funny-face’, but one could hardly sign a well-phrased letter of this sort ‘Funny-face’.

  Archibald? But nobody called him Archibald.

  Archie, then? She had never called him Archie; she had never called him anything distinctive (unless Funny-face was distinctive); the occasional ‘Darlings’ which she had thrown at him, he shared with a hundred others. If he signed it Archie, would it define him in her mind? Probably not. And the address meant nothing to her.

  Archibald Fenton, it must be. It lacked intimacy, but, after all, it was his signature, and in a sense made the letter more valuable.

  Come! Archibald Fenton.

  Mr. Fenton thought, and perhaps may be excused for thinking, that really, you know, ‘Come! Archibald Fenton’ ought to be good enough for anybody.

  II

  Miss Emily Gathers, aged fifty-four, popped a small piece of barley-sugar into her mouth and returned the jar to its shelf. George Alfred Hickley, aged four, went out, clinging to a larger piece. ‘Shut the door, Georgie, there’s a good boy,’ called out Miss Gathers. George Alfred Hickley shut it. He had always meant to do this, so that he could open it again and make the bell ring. ‘No, Georgie, no!’ said Miss Gathers firmly after the third ring, and George Alfred Hickley, thinking that perhaps she was right, left the door open, and came out into the sun again, with the air of a man who was having, one way and another, a good pennyworth. But there was still some small change to come. A car was rushing up, was stopping; a man was getting out, was taking a parcel into the shop. George Alfred Hickley sucked his barley-sugar and waited.

  ‘Hallo, Tommy,’ said Mr. Fenton genially.

  George Alfred Hickley said nothing.

  ‘Barley-sugar, eh?’ said Mr. Fenton, and getting no reply added, ‘Well, well,’ and patted George Alfred Hickley’s head in a kindly manner. Then, feeling that he had entered into the life of the village enough for one morning, he passed through the door, and closed it behind him. George Alfred Hickley opened it, so that Miss Gathers should know that somebody was coming . . .

  ‘Why, bless my soul,’ said Miss Gathers, hastily swallowing, ‘if it isn’t Mr. Fenton! Well, you are a stranger, Mr. Fenton.’

  ‘Good-morning,’ said Archibald gaily, for it was indeed a beautiful morning, and Julia was getting nearer every minute. ‘Registered, please.’

  He handed over his parcel, and the Postmistress became professional . . .

  ‘Quite a Gathering of the Clans,’ she said archly, as she wrote.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your brother is at Bassetts again, isn’t he, Mr. Fenton?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Archibald coldly.

  ‘And your sister, I understand.’

  ‘My sister?’

  ‘Miss Naomi. She was in here telephoning. Quite romantic. Her friend spraining her ankle, I mean, and then finding that her brother was quite close.’

  Miss Gathers held a sensible view of her responsibilities as a postmistress. She was the last person to betray a trust; but if she accidentally overheard a telephone conversation or glanced at a post card, or when, as was inevitable, she was taken into the confidence of a telegram, she looked at the matter all round in a broadminded way. For example: when Mrs. Trevor from the Round House went up to the nursing home in London (and not a moment too soon), and the telegram came: ‘Diana Mary arrived safely this morning all well’, and when, five years later, Diana Mary came in with her nurse and asked for a pennyworth of bulls’-eyes, one couldn’t refuse to serve the child on the ground that one had heard of her existence officially, and under the pledge of secrecy. Pursuing this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, one realized that if Miss Naomi Fenton, or anybody else, telephoned to Mrs. Bassett, or anybody else, and if Mrs. Bassett, or whoever it might be, was one’s intimate friend (as she was) and quite certain to reveal every detail of the conversation at their next meeting, whenever this should happen to take place, then for practical purposes, and looking at the matter all round in a broadminded way, this could not be regarded as knowledge which had come to one in an official capacity, but as knowledge which would naturally come to one as a friend of Mrs. Bassett’s, and of course if it had been two strangers telephoning it would have been different.

  ‘Quite romantic,’ said Miss Gathers again. ‘But I expect you’ve heard all about it from them by now. That will be eightpence exactly, Mr. Fenton.’

  Mr. Fenton had not heard anything about it. He had not even seen the original telegram ‘Gloria Naomi arrived safely this morning all well’ which should have told him that he had a little sister. He was interested.

  ‘No, I hadn’t heard,’ he said. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Yesterday. About lunch-time.’

  ‘And she’s staying there?’

  ‘So I understand, Mr. Fenton. So,’ said Miss Gathers, anticipating a little, ‘Mrs. Bassett informs me.’

  ‘I must go over and see t
hem,’ said Archibald firmly.

  ‘Well, I’m sure that would give them great pleasure, Mr. Fenton.’

  Archibald was not so sure. Indeed, he hoped it would give them no pleasure at all. Sister! Ha! And this was the moral Derek! He would go over this afternoon and see them . . . and watch the moral Derek trying to carry it off. Sister!

  ‘Thanks,’ said Archibald, receiving his change. ‘Well, good-morning, Miss—er——’ What was the damned woman’s name?

  ‘Good-morning, Mr. Fenton.’

  As Mr. Fenton came out, his electric motor-horn, which had been silent too long, gave a sudden welcoming cry. Removing George Alfred Hickley at the very peak of endeavour from the off side running-board, Mr. Fenton climbed into the car and drove off. What seemed to be the greater part of George Alfred Hickley’s barley-sugar went with him.

  III

  It was summer afternoon at Bassetts, but rain was coming. ‘P’raps not Friday, p’raps not Sat’day, but ’tis coming.’ Farmer Bassett felt it in his bones, and in the autocracy over which he ruled the authority of his bones was acknowledged. To the last man, woman and child his subjects were in the fields, making hay while the sun still shone.

  Jenny, an opened book on her lap, sat alone in the cool of the little parlour, delightfully postponing sleep. She felt restful, at ease, well cared for. Derek would be coming back to her soon, but she was in no hurry for him. When he came back, they would have to talk things over again, make some new plan together. That would be fun, making plans with Derek; but the lazy content which enveloped her, the consciousness of being wholly and perfectly herself, was a happiness which no other could share, or by his presence intensify. She was Jenny. Jenny was good, Jenny was beautiful, Jenny was clever. Now Jenny was going to sleep . . .

  There was a sudden knock on the door, sudden and alarming to one who seemed to have the quiet afternoon so completely to herself. Jenny was on to her feet, her heart ridiculously beating. She tried to say that it was a friend of Mrs. Bassett’s, a tradesman, a passerby in quest of something, but absurd little fears were creeping into her mind, and growing there, and taking well-recognized shapes: Tramps at Lonely Farms, Policemen Effecting Arrests: Law and Violence now equally her enemies. Jenny, Jenny, pull yourself together! This is childish, and you are so brave.