by A. A. Milne
Chapter Eighteen
Portrait of the Artist
I
Mr. Fenton stared at a patch of sunlight on the wall and began to think about Chapter Five . . .
Chapter Five . . .
To-morrow he would be getting ready for Julia. On Sunday Julia would be here, and there would be no time for anything but Julia. Yesterday, apart from getting shot, he had done nothing. Supposing Julia stayed the night, then he would do nothing (nothing, that is, literary) on Monday. Certainly, then, he must work to-day.
Chapter Five . . .
The curse of being a writer was that one was never comfortable when not writing, and the curse of being a successful writer was that one was offered so many delightful alternatives to writing. Another perfect day, and a perfect garden in which to enjoy it . . . who cared what happened to Eustace Frere?
Chapter Five . . .
The real curse of writing was that one was always looking forward to some particular scene in the book and having to hold oneself in check until one came to it. In Chapter Seven Eustace Frere was to sail for America (whence Archibald Fenton had lately returned), and never was a visit to America so eagerly anticipated by the man chiefly responsible for it. Mr. Fenton had had America docketed in his mind for months. Thus:
Chap. 8:The First Day Out
Chap. 9:The Second Day Out
Chap. 10:The Third Day Out—(it was one of those long books)—
Chap. 11:Mid-Atlantic
Chap. 12:Landfall
Chap. 13:‘Ilion like a mist rose into Towers’
Chap. 14:Settling Down
Chap. 15:‘You’re Welcome’ . . .
Once away from Southampton the book would swing him along from chapter to chapter. Frere, travelling on his cuff-links, would naturally be among the third-class passengers; but from his lordly upper deck Archibald had watched them sunning themselves, and had felt himself made free of their lives too. Even now, on the sunlit wall in front of him, he saw Eustace and the little sempstress, Stella, emerging, heads bent, from the hatchway into the morning, and sitting with their backs up against a bollard . . . bollard? . . . bollard, but Miss Fairbrother had better just make sure . . . wondering what the new world had in store for them . . .
Meanwhile—Chapter Five . . .
Of course it was idiotic to try and work in the afternoon. After lunch. After steak-and-kidney pie. After one of Mrs. Pridgeon’s steak-and-kidney pies. And a tankard of beer and one’s own new potatoes. Yet, after wasting the morning, what could he do but try? It was that damned girl’s fault for shooting him. For not shooting him. How could anybody have worked in the morning when he was in complete uncertainty as to whether he had been shot in the head or he hadn’t?
‘Well, how’s the head?’ Mrs. Pridgeon had asked, when bringing him his morning tea. ‘Kept you awake all night, I expect?’
‘No, no, I got a little sleep, thank you,’ said Archibald.
‘Better let me dress it again. You probably got a bit of gravel in it or something.’
‘It’s all right, thanks. It was washed very carefully.’
‘Sometimes a bit of gravel or something gets left in. Anything like that left in sets up mortification, and before you know where you are——’
‘Quite. But this was attended to by a hospital nurse.’
‘Oh well, you know best. Only you want to be careful not to leave a bit of anything in. Same as when I got a bit of glass left in me elbow, bit of broken ginger-beer bottle the doctor said it was when he got it out. What’s happened once can happen again, I always say, and if there’s anything like a bit of broken ginger-beer bottle left in, it’s much better out. I’ve got your marmalade for you this morning.’
‘Oh, good. Then I’ll be getting up.’
Archibald was not anxious that Mrs. Pridgeon should examine his head. The bullet, he was beginning to think, could only have grazed the scalp. He had pressed his fingers, lightly at first, then more heavily, on what he supposed was the actual wound, and felt no serious pain. Probably in Mrs. Pridgeon’s opinion, a piece of sticking-plaster was all that was now wanted. Archibald preferred a bandage. Any man about to be visited by, and make love to, a charming woman would prefer a bandage. Archibald, having seen his bandage in the mirror, had every intention of keeping his bandage on until Sunday . . . and then bravely making light of it.
He got out of bed and looked at it once more. Curiously effective, anything round the head. All the same he might just have a glance at the place. He could tie it up again afterwards just as effectively . . . perhaps more effectively.
He began unwinding, gingerly. However slight the wound, there would be a nasty moment at the end, when the bandage stuck . . . Careful . . .
Nothing stuck. There was no nasty moment. Odd.
He looked at the bandage in his hand. Signs of blood, but nothing more. A very clean wound. He felt the wound; it didn’t seem to be there. He examined it in the glass . . . in several glasses held at several angles . . . it didn’t seem to be there. And yet there was blood. Most odd.
The oddity of it pursued him through his dressing, his breakfast, his first struggles with Chapter Five. A moment’s escape sent his hand to a tray of pencils in front of him; now he could begin. But he did not begin. He found himself staring at a bottle marked RED INK.
Mechanically he unwound the bandage from his head; stared at the blood-marks; stared at the bottle. Mechanically he took the cork from the bottle, and poured a little more blood on to the bandage. A detective would have seen at a glance that it was the same blood.
‘My God,’ said Archibald coldly.
Well, who could work after that? And then, to spoil the morning completely, came the telephone call.
‘Is that Mr. Archibald Fenton’s house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I speak to Mr. Fenton?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Oh.’ Silence. A dimly heard whispering. Then: ‘Will you be in about four o’clock this afternoon, Mr. Fenton?’
‘I expect so. Why?’
‘That’s all, thanks.’
‘Who is it?’
No answer. End of telephone call. Who? Why?
II
Mrs. Pridgeon came in, said ‘Oh, he’s working,’ went out, knocked and came in again.
‘Yes?’
‘There’s a lady come to see you. Calls herself Miss Fairbrother. What shall I do with her? I’ve got her in the hall.’
‘Miss Fairbrother?’ repeated Archibald, surprised.
‘Sounded like. Shall I ask her again?’
‘No, that’s right, it’s my secretary. Show her in.’
Mrs. Pridgeon came out to Nancy, said ‘In there’ with a jerk of the head and returned to the kitchen. Nancy went in and found the author hard at it.
‘Hallo, Miss Fairbrother,’ said Archibald’s back, ‘sit down, I shan’t be a moment.’ He wrote ‘CHAPTER FIVE’ slowly and thoughtfully, underlined it twice, and turned to her.
‘Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Fenton. I just——Oh, good gracious, have you hurt yourself?’
‘What? Oh! Oh no, it’s nothing.’
‘But, Mr. Fenton!’
‘It’s nothing, really. I very stupidly got knocked down by a car——’
‘Oh, but how awful!’
‘Well, it was my own fault really. I—er—
Various romantic ways of being knocked down by a car offered themselves in rehearsal for Sunday, but were firmly rejected. One mustn’t get carried away.
‘I believe’, said Nancy, looking at him with awe, ‘you were saving somebody’s life!’
Of course if the girl insisted—— ‘Well, hardly that,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Even if I hadn’t been there, I don’t suppose—— Well, never mind that. What are you doing in this part of the world? I th
ought I told you to take a holiday?’ He smiled genially, paternally.
‘Well, I am, you see, only I’m in Tunbridge Wells, you see, so I thought I’d come over in the ’bus to see if you wanted anything, and take back any letters you had for me.’
‘Well, that’s very charming of you. As it happens, there was something—I’d made a special note in my mind—— What was it? Oh, yes—what’s a bollard?’
‘A what?’
‘A bollard.’
‘Isn’t it something you do to a tree?’
‘No,’ said Archibald, ‘it isn’t anything you do to a tree.’
‘Oh, bollard!’ said Nancy. ‘How silly of me! Weren’t they followers of Wyclif?’
Archibald said that the ones he meant weren’t so much followers of Wyclif as things you hitched a rope to on a pier, and what he really wanted to know was whether they were also things you hitched a rope to on a liner, and if so, whether you could lean against them. Miss Fairbrother, frowning to herself a good deal, said she was almost certain you could.
‘Yes, you’re not really being very helpful about bollards, Miss Fairbrother.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Fenton, I’m afraid my brain all seems to go when I get away from London. I’ll find out for you, of course.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Oh, Mr. Fenton, I wanted to say how very kind it was of you—about the watch, I mean. It was kind—and such a lot. I don’t know what Joyce will say.’
‘Oh, you got that all right? Good. Joyce does understand that I sold it, not pawned it? Probably’, said Archibald, ‘it’s in somebody else’s possession by now. A good watch like that soon gets snapped up.’
‘Oh, that’s quite all right, thank you. Oh, there’s one thing I meant to ask you. Did you do anything before you left London about having The Times sent on to you? Or shall I write to have it stopped while you’re away? I thought perhaps if you didn’t get any papers down here, you might like——’
‘Yes.’ Archibald considered. ‘You might do that. Write to the newsagent and tell them to send it here until further instructions. Oh, by the way, you didn’t telephone to me this morning? Asking if I’d be in this afternoon?’
‘No,’ said Nancy, wondering.
‘I had a mysterious message. Probably some reporter or other——’
‘Somebody wanting to know about the new book.’
‘Yes. Look here, you’d better stand by. I may want to turn him on to you, if——’
‘Quite, Mr. Fenton,’ said Nancy sedately, the complete secretary again. Miss Fairbrother, obviously, was the right person to be enthusiastic about the new book.
‘Good.’ He got up. ‘You’ve never seen Ferries, have you? Come and have a look at it.’
They went out and had a look at it. Nancy, not on duty for the moment, was a charming little thing. He liked showing her Ferries.
III
It was not a reporter.
At five minutes to four Mr. Fenton returned to the house, leaving Miss Fairbrother in the garden. ‘This fellow will be here in a moment,’ he said. ‘I’ll send for you if I want you. And then we’ll have tea.’
‘Oh, but I——’ What about Derek and Jenny, wondered Nancy. He would hardly want to give them tea too, with that ridiculous bandage round his head.
‘That’s all right,’ said Archibald, and was gone . . . Five minutes later Inspector Marigold arrived.
‘Two gentlemen to see you,’ announced Mrs. Pridgeon. ‘Says they’ve rung up and it’s very important. Here you are.’
Here they were. Reporters? Reporters didn’t come in couples, as a rule. Still, one couldn’t afford to take risks. Archibald rose courteously, motioned them with an old-world gesture to a sofa, and asked what he could do for them.
The visitors remained standing. Inspector Marigold glanced swiftly round the room with the air of one whom nothing escapes. If Jenny had been there, he would probably have seen her; but she wasn’t. However, he noticed that Mr. Fenton was wearing a bandage round his head. Suspicious.
‘Yes?’ said Archibald.
‘Mr. Archibald Fenton, the author?’
‘Yes,’ said the author modestly.
The Inspector handed over his card. Sergeant Bagshaw looked stolidly out of the window. His Hyde Park days were over, and the two pigeons on the stable roof who were rendering themselves liable to summary arrest roused no emotion in him . . .
Definitely not reporters.
‘Well,’ said Archibald, with a note of reserve in his voice, ‘and what can I do for you, Inspector?’
‘You’ve had an accident, sir,’ said Marigold, deducing from the bandage that this must be so.
‘Well?’
‘May I ask how it happened?’
‘No,’ said Archibald, ‘you mayn’t.’
‘You don’t wish to make a statement on the subject?’
‘No,’ said Archibald, very naturally, ‘I don’t.’
‘Ah!’ said the Inspector. His suspicions were now certainties. Evidently there had been more of a struggle at Auburn Lodge than he had supposed. He looked across at the Sergeant, who brought out his notebook, and thumbed over the pages.
‘But I will tell you this, Inspector. I’m a very busy man.’ To indicate the nature and volume of his business Archibald gave a meaning glance at the words ‘CHAPTER FIVE’ on his desk, and added kindly: ‘If you are collecting for the Police Orphanage, my secretary will attend to it.’
‘No,’—— said Marigold, with all the sarcasm he could get into his voice, but he was not very good at it, ‘we are not collecting for the Police Orphanage.’
‘Then’, said Archibald, ‘what are you collecting for?’
He was beginning to enjoy this. After all, he was Archibald Fenton. He knew the Home Secretary, the Public Prosecutor, the Editor of the Sunday Sentinel, three Judges of the High Court, five Police Court magistrates and, as it seemed to him sometimes at the Club, the whole of the Bar. He met them frequently. He had also met, but not so frequently, one of the Princes. An ordinary man, faced suddenly with an Inspector who was not collecting for the Police Orphanage, would have been vaguely apprehensive, wondering if he had run over some silent old lady at the cross-roads last week, or left the bath-tap running. Even if his conscience was clear on these and all other matters, he would still wonder if they had found out about his Income Tax. But Archibald Fenton was not an ordinary man. He was the Archibald Fenton, whom only reviewers frightened. Inspector Marigold meant nothing to him. He was much more concerned with Sergeant Bagshaw, who, from the way he was licking his pencil, looked as if he might be the Literary Critic of the Police Gazette.
‘I am not’, said Marigold with extraordinary dignity, ‘collecting for any charity.’
‘Then why’, asked Archibald reproachfully, ‘are we talking about them?’
The Inspector had no idea. All this came, he felt, from being mixed up with literary people. He decided to get down to what he thought of as brass tacks.
‘Have you ever seen this before?’ he said.
Archibald took Jenny’s watch from him, and stared at it.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked sharply.
‘Never mind that, sir, I’m asking you have you seen it before?’
‘Never mind that,’ said Archibald, ‘I’m asking you where did you get it?’
The Inspector wanted to say ‘I asked you first,’ but thought it would be undignified.
‘That watch’, he said, ‘was handed to me this morning by Miss Julia Treherne, who informed me that you had sent it to her.’
It is annoying to send a birthday present to a lady, and find that she has immediately handed it to a rival in the police force. Archibald was annoyed.
‘If Miss Treherne says I gave it to her, I did.’
‘Ah! You notice th
at there is a “J” on it in diamonds?’
‘As I put it there, naturally I notice it.’
‘You put it there?’
‘Had it put.’
‘And what, may I ask, does “J” stand for?’
‘It was meant to stand for Julia. Apparently Miss Treherne thought it stood for James.’
‘Would it surprise you to hear that “J” stands for Jenny?’
‘Not at all. It could stand for almost anything beginning with J.’
‘And that this is Jenny’s watch?’
‘I gathered that it was yours.’
‘That it has been identified as Jenny’s?’
‘Indeed? And who is Jenny?’
It was the question which the whole of England had been asking two days ago, but now it seemed to the Inspector an unnecessary one. ‘Jenny Windell, of course,’ he said sharply.
‘And who is Jenny Windell?’
‘Come, come, Mr. Fenton, don’t play with me.’
‘My dear Inspector, do we look as if we were playing together? I appeal to your literary friend. Am I’, he said to Sergeant Bagshaw, ‘playing with the Inspector? And if so, what? On the contrary, I am trying to work, and being continually interrupted.’ He turned to his manuscript and drew another line under CHAPTER FIVE.
‘Now I warn you, Mr. Fenton. This will only get you into trouble.’
Archibald Fenton gave a sigh of exasperation.
‘Can you begin from the very beginning and tell me what you’re talking about? All we have arrived at so far is this: You deny that you are collecting for the Police Orphanage Bazaar, and yet you tell me that Miss Treherne has just given you a diamond-studded watch for it. As one man of letters to another,’ he said, turning to Sergeant Bagshaw, ‘I ask you, does not this call for explanation?’
The Inspector knew what it called for, and what in any other country it would get. Denied the natural expression of a policeman’s feelings, he said in a cold official voice:
‘On the 29th ult. the woman Jane Latour was found murdered in the drawing-room of Auburn Lodge. Incontrovertible evidence proves that her niece Jenny Windell was present at the scene of the crime. This young woman has since completely disappeared. On the 30th ult. a watch belonging to the said Jenny Windell is pawned, and subsequently re-purchased, by a man giving the assumed name of William Makepeace Thackeray, and answering to your own description. On the 1st inst. this watch is sent to Miss Julia Treherne, admittedly by yourself. I am now asking you if you wish to give any explanation of these facts.’