‘‘Thanks very much for calling in.”
‘‘It was almost on my way. I won’t stop; I’d better push off.” He slowly got up and looked round. ‘‘Are you all right? What are you going to do for food?’’
‘‘I shall manage all right, thanks.”
‘‘Have you hurt your arm as well?’’
‘‘Yes, I caught it as I fell.”
‘‘I’d take you down to my place but you know what it’s like with Evelyn as she is, and one false alarm already.…”
‘‘I wouldn’t think of it. I’ll ring you to-morrow.”
‘‘O. K. And let me know as soon as you can about Friday. Oh, one bit of good news. Charles Highbury has reported he’ll be fit to go back to the studios to-morrow.”
‘‘Good,’’ I said, trying to sound interested.
‘‘I understand he’s made some sort of a complaint to Foster about something you said or did.”
‘‘Nothing I did.”
‘‘Anyway, it won’t affect us, because Foster’s delighted. It was a good shot on my part, you know, when I got you into the insurance world. I often think so.”
That stung. ‘‘Do you know if Moreton was badly burned?’’
‘‘Um?’’ He stared at me, his thoughts gone from it. ‘‘ Oh, I don’t really know. I don’t know at all. He wasn’t burned to death anyway. If I’d the choice I’d certainly prefer to jump, myself.”
That night I dreamed I was standing by the broken balustrade of the gallery and Tracey was breathing over my shoulder. I said to him: ‘‘Why did you light the fires and then not leave the house at once? How did you come to fall from your own, gallery?’’ And he said: ‘‘I didn’t light the fires. I didn’t fall. It was Sarah.” And I looked down and there was Sarah lying twisted on the floor with her black hair like a stain. I ran round to the head of the stairs, but the stairs had collapsed in flames. Tracey put his hand on my arm and pointed down again and the whole of the hall was wreathed in smoke. Through it I could just see the picture of the Magi, and Sarah’s dark head. She seemed to have become a part of the picture, a graven image, age-old and ageless. Then Tracey’s hand on my arm began to hurt, and I looked and saw it had turned into a flame.
I woke up in a sweat, and the pain from the burn was throbbing. I switched on the light and lay staring up at it, trying to think.
Whatever happened about the insurance, I should go to the police about Tracey’s death. I knew now what I’d thought was his hoarse breathing was a natural freak of the high wind, that there had been no one alive in the house except me. But that did not in any way relieve me of the responsibility of letting them know that he had died long before the fire reached him.
All Monday I stayed in. The newspapers made as much of it as their space would let them. Some ran pictures of Lowis Manor and two included inset photographs of Tracey and Sarah. The inquest was Tuesday; but I phoned Michael in the morning saying my ankle wasn’t good enough. I kept hoping for a phone call, some word from her. But it didn’t come.
I’d never been to an inquest since the one on my father, and I’d always sworn I’d never see another; but as the time for this one came near I got more and more restless.
An hour before I knew he was due to start I phoned Michael and said: ‘‘ I’ve just seen the doctor and he thinks I’ll come to no harm. If you called for me I could come along and drop in at the inquest while you were actually going over the ground.”
‘‘Good,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll be round about a quarter to eleven.”
I went out and bought myself a stick, and when he came I was ready with a tied up ankle and a slipper.
He dropped me off at the village school-room about ten minutes before the inquest was due to open. There were a few sightseers and a fair number waiting patiently on the back benches; but I squeezed in among them on the very back bench. It was all too light and too small to offer any cover; but at least I was out of the direct line of sight.
After a bit one or two of the officials drifted in and a policeman or two, and then Victor Moreton. He was wearing the black coat and striped trousers of his profession, and you could see he was perfectly at home in these surroundings. I wasn’t sure whether he saw me, but if so he made no sign. Then after a minute he went out again and came back with his mother. She looked pretty well all in. She walked as if she’d suddenly become ten years older. Then Clive Fisher came in with his sister, and following them was Sarah with a limping elderly thin-faced chap.
She was in grey, with a black hat and black gloves. It didn’t suit her the way colours did; but that didn’t seem to matter. There’s a point in attraction when you’re so deep in that appearance no longer counts for much. It wasn’t until they had sat down that I realized the man with her was probably her father.
Then the coroner came in and things began. There was no jury, like there had been when my father died.
I was glad now I’d come, even though it was suddenly all reminiscent. It had all been so shabby that other time, and me a clumsy kid of seventeen, and the mean, hungry, inquisitive faces peering, and the coroner with some sort of a distorted eye behind a coloured lens; and outside the rumble of traffic. I’d been bitter that day, up against it, ready to fight the world. The coroner had asked me something and I’d said: ‘‘ D’you begrudge him even the gas? It was his own shilling, wasn’t it?’’
Different to-day. A different bitterness. Yet somehow it was the same sort of personal let-down. The two people I’d most loved and trusted.…
Victor Moreton was giving evidence of identification. He got a great deal of deference. The coroner was a fat man who blew through his fists, and kept clasping them as if he was going to pray. After Victor, a fireman described the call coming through and said they were only twelve minutes from receiving the call to reaching the manor; but by that time all the centre of the house was ablaze. He told how they broke in the window of the hall and put in hosepipes and how they saw the body of Mr. Moreton lying among the flames. It was lying just below the gallery in the hall, and this also was in flames. They were only just able to drag him out before part of the roof collapsed.
A police sergeant went into the stand and said much the same thing in different words, and then the pathologist from the local hospital was called. He said he’d examined the body at 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, and he estimated that the deceased had then been dead three or four hours. There were very extensive burns, but these had occurred after death. Cause of death was a ragged split in the scalp two to three inches long. The bone underneath showed a stellate fracture extending round to the base of the skull, and the brain was bruised underneath the fracture and bruised and lacerated at a point opposite. In answer to the coroner he said it was the sort of injury which would be sustained by falling backwards upon the head.
The coroner clasped his hands for a minute and said: ‘‘This bruising, these lacerations on the opposite side of the brain.… Are they what you’d expect?’’
‘‘Yes. They’re characteristic. It’s known medically as the contra coup.”
‘‘And could these injuries be attributable to any other cause?’’
‘‘It’s never possible to be absolutely certain. But to me they very strongly suggest a fall— especially as one elbow is badly bruised and there is also a bruise on the hip.”
The coroner said: ‘‘Is it the sort of thing you’d expect to find in a man who has jumped down some ten feet, say, from a gallery?’’
‘‘It’s a reasonable supposition. Some people, of course, can jump thirty feet and get off with a sprained ankle. Others slip on a frozen pavement and die without falling any distance at all. If, as I understand, the floor of the hall where he was found was a polished one with rugs, it is reasonable to suppose that he may have jumped, landed on his heels on a mat, and the slipped from under him.”
The coroner blew on his knuckles and thought it out. ‘‘Is there anyone else who wishes to question the witness?’’
There w
as a minute’s fidgeting. Victor Moreton got up.
‘‘I think you said, Doctor, that the burns all took place after death.”
‘‘That is so. There would have been an inflammatory reaction if he had been alive at the time.”
‘‘D’you think it likely that he may have fallen, not jumped, from the gallery, having been overcome by smoke?’’
‘‘No. There was only about one per cent of carbon monoxide in his blood. If he had been overcome by smoke there would have been a great deal more than that.”
‘‘But the heat alone, I suppose, might have overcome him. Rising through the centre of the house, and my brother not being in normal health.”
‘‘Yes, he might have fainted. It’s not impossible.”
The pathologist went and then I saw Sarah get up and go into the witness box. I had the usual queer reaction, as if I’d got thrombosis or something.
You could see when she stood there how taut she was; but there was no give-way about it. The coroner was very sympathetic and said a little prayer between each question. This part, they thought, was really only a matter of form.
She said in a low but perfectly clear voice: ‘‘ My husband had been an asthmatic since the war and was very susceptible to dust. The repairs that were being done made a lot of dust and we decided to go away for a week while they were finished. As our two servants hadn’t had a holiday for some time we thought we should release them too. Mrs. Hanbury from the village was going to come in each day while the workmen were there. I left for Yorkshire on Saturday morning, and my husband said he would follow by car later in the day. When he didn’t come I began to get worried and tried to telephone him. There was no reply, so after waiting some time I phoned the police station, and they told me …”
The coroner said: ‘‘Did your husband have an attack of asthma on the Saturday before you left?’’
‘‘He doesn’t—didn’t—often have attacks of asthma, because he had things he could take to ward them off. But he was always more or less asthmatic in a chronic way, had difficulty with his breathing; and this had been getting worse for two or three days before Saturday.”
‘‘What was the purpose of your going on before him on the Saturday? I mean, why did you not travel up together?’’
She hesitated for the first time. ‘‘ He thought … he’s been having injections from a specialist in Harley Street—and he thought if he could get an extra one that afternoon it might put him right for the week’s holiday.”
‘‘Can you think of any reason why in fact he didn’t go up to London but stayed on in the house?’’
‘‘I’m afraid I can’t—unless he was ill.… We were expecting him in Scarborough about nine.”
‘‘I see. Thank you very much. I think that will be all, Mrs. Moreton.”
As she came down from the stand I knew her answer about the specialist had been a lie. I knew it as if she’d shouted it I thought I hardly heard the next witness, the foreman of the firm of builders, but afterwards I could remember his saying that part of the balustrade had been removed on the previous Thursday. It had been intended to renew the whole of that side. There was some sort of an argument between him and the coroner on the possibility that the fire had been started by a careless workman. Then Elliott the butler was called but he didn’t have much to contribute. He had left the house at three-thirty and had understood Mr. Moreton was leaving shortly afterwards. He had carried Mr. Moreton’s bag out to the car which was ready in the yard.
Anyway I didn’t want to hear any more.
Chapter Fourteen
It was raining when we drove back.
Michael said: ‘‘What was the verdict?’’
‘‘Oh, what you’d expect; death from misadventure.”
‘‘Anything special emerge?’’
‘‘No. Part of the balustrade of the gallery was taken down on the Thursday. Nobody seems to know if he fell or jumped.”
‘‘Did you see any of the Moretons afterwards?’’
‘‘Not to speak to.”
We drove on for a bit.
Michael said: ‘‘ The loss isn’t quite so total as I thought The old hall is intact because, except for the roof, it was entirely of stone; the stables were too far away and in the wrong direction, and part of the kitchens were saved by the wind. You could make a small house of the kitchens if they were restored.”
‘‘And the gatehouse?’’
‘‘Oh, that’s all right, of course.”
‘‘Was it occupied?’’
‘‘No, unfortunately they were just changing tenants. The new people were due in last week, but young Mrs. Moreton put them off until they came back from their holiday.”
Did she? ‘‘What about the contents of the house?’’
‘‘Everything of value is gone. A few sticks of furniture, nothing more. These timbered places, if they once catch on fire, go up like a bunch of sticks. I think in your report you should say——’’
‘‘Look, Michael,’’ I said, ‘‘I’d like this to be your report. D’you mind?’’
Michael looked at me.
I said: ‘‘ You’ve done the work so far. And in a way it’s better that you should go on with it. I’ve been friendly with them and I wouldn’t want anyone to think the report was unduly favourable to them.”
‘‘Damn it, they’re not claiming for a new hearthrug on the strength of a cigarette burn. The damage isn’t exactly unapparent. But I should have said our report, meaning of course the firm’s report. It doesn’t matter two pins who draws it up. What I was going to say was …”
He went into some matter of insurance policy that I didn’t listen to. Now was the time to say, ‘‘Look, Michael, I’ve something to say to you.” By shamming ill I’d got away from the responsibility of a snap decision. But there was no excuse for any more delay.
But Sarah might still make some move.… Even though she’d lied to-day. Even though she had lied to me.…
Michael broke off. ‘‘I don’t believe you’ve been listening, have you?’’
‘‘No. Sorry.”
‘‘Well, it’s not important.”
‘‘Yes, go on.”
But he wouldn’t. As we halted at the first traffic block I said: ‘‘Michael …”
‘‘Yes?’’
And there I stopped. Because at the last minute I knew it was no good. On Saturday night I’d postponed a decision. without realizing that the postponement was in fact the decision and mere could be no going back on it.
‘‘What were you going to say?’’
I said: ‘‘ I wonder what they’ll do now.”
‘‘Who? The Mrs. Moretons? Pay through the nose for a villa in Tunbridge Wells, I suppose. It’s not much fun being deprived of your home these days. Anyway, I imagine they’d be a good deal better off for the change, if it were only the house they had lost.”
‘‘I suppose it all goes to his wife,’’ I said.
Michael frowned at a motor car which was misbehaving itself in front. ‘‘No, in this case the house was entailed—by the father. In his will he left it to Tracey in trust for his children; failing issue, to his younger son Victor. The insurance will go to the trustees who will invest it and pay the interest to Victor.”
‘‘You mean Tracey couldn’t have sold the house if he’d wanted to?’’
‘‘No, he couldn’t have sold it. Of course the insurance on the contents will be the wife’s absolutely; in this case much the larger part of the settlement.”
‘‘Yes,’’ I agreed quietly. ‘‘Much the larger part.… Who would pay the premium on the insurance of the building?’’
‘‘Oh, the occupier has to. That’s his doubtful privilege.”
We drove on without speaking. That seemed to explain most things. After a long time Michael said:
‘‘Anyway, I shouldn’t think young Mrs. Moreton will stay a widow for long.”
‘‘What makes you say that?’’
He looked a bit
surprised at my tone. ‘‘That’s unless she chooses to, I mean. I don’t know if Moreton was a wealthy man, but he must have been comfortably off. What with her looks and a tidy fortune …”
‘‘Yes, I expect you’re right,’’ I agreed, turning the knife.
That evening I wrote a letter to Tracey’s mother. I wrote to her because I could do it honestly: everything I said to her I meant. A couple of days later the reply came thanking me; not a printed card but a letter. For a minute when I saw the postmark I thought it might have been from Sarah. Now I was beginning to give it up.
The dinner Michael had mentioned was the annual one of the association. It was the first I’d been to, and feeling as I did feel, I’d have been glad to slide out of it. The thing was held at a Park Lane hotel, and the Abercrombies had taken a table for twelve, our guests being two brokers and an underwriter and their wives and the general manager of an insurance company. The idea was that each firm of adjusters made up a table and invited their best clients as guests. At the head of the room a long table had been arranged where the big pots sat, such as the Chairman of Lloyds, the Chairman of the British Insurance Association, and the Chief of the London Salvage Corps.
Charles Robinson, the young good-looking underwriter whom I’d consulted on the Highbury case, was at our table, and Fred McDonald was one of the brokers. I could have done without McDonald for a few weeks.
The President of the Adjusters made a speech about Insurance being founded on Trust; without trust the whole edifice would crumble like a pack of cards. Our motto, he said, was Truth and Equity. We were the youngest and smallest professional body in the United Kingdom, but this nucleus of two hundred members must be looked on as a corps élite from whom would spring the spirit and leadership of the I future. For this reason every member, he knew, was keen to set a standard of professional integrity which would be recognized as a hallmark of the association.
Fortune Is a Woman Page 11