by Jean Stubbs
The only audible words in Mr Rice’s incoherent prayer for mercy were ‘purely charitable concern’.
‘And so far as you can,’ said Lintott, ‘look out for this boy here.’
He was silent, aware of inadequacy in the face of life.
‘That’ll be all,’ he said.
But Mott followed him to the door and laid a hand on his sleeve.
‘The letters, sir, were written to me. Could I not keep even one of them?’
‘You know as well as I do,’ Lintott replied steadfastly, not looking at him, ‘that he’d have it off of you. No, lad.’
The boy stood watching him descend to the street: young hands in pockets, bright head held a little to one side.
22
There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
TITUS sat for a long time with the letters in his hand, and then roused himself to act the host.
‘You are weary, Inspector. Pray join me in a glass of brandy. We shall both feel the better for it.’
‘I don’t as a rule, but a rule may be relaxed now and again, sir. And we have more important matters with which to concern ourselves than the odd glass of brandy. Thankee, I will.’
The skill of Titus’s unpaid tailor was evident even in the braid of his smoking jacket. Lintott watched him lay the letters gently down, and reach for the decanter. Apart from an unusual pallor, Titus was taking his late brother’s iniquity with admirable composure.
Then, suddenly gripped by a greater force than good manners, he cried, ‘I never knew him. Is it not strange that we should be so close, and so apart? He was my brother, and he and I were nearer than any other living soul – or so I thought – and I did not know him.’
‘Yet, in spite of the closeness and the affection, you didn’t mind seducing his wife?’
Titus nursed his brandy, and brooded.
‘He did not care for her,’ he said at length. ‘I have a code of morality. Had he cared for her I should never have approached Laura. Besides, I have a fondness for her and she was always good to me,’
‘There’s right and wrong,’ Lintott pronounced.
‘Sometimes one can hardly tell the difference. They become strangely mixed to my mind.’
‘I can tell the difference,’ said Lintott.
‘Then you are a wiser man than I. I do not doubt that you are. And a cleverer. So tell me what we are to do, for I am at a loss. Is it necessary to produce these?’ And he touched the letters.
‘Let me think a bit,’ said Lintott. ‘I must think very carefully about this.’
They had dropped the usual small courtesies: at one with each other for the first time.
‘It is not only the question of social disgrace,’ Titus pursued. ‘We shall all be marked – Edmund and Lindsey most of all. Laura will have to leave London altogether, and change her name and theirs. They will live until they die under the monstrous shadow of this evidence. I am a bachelor and likely to remain so. This revelation of my brother’s private life gives me great sorrow – and arouses some pity, I must confess – but I can live with it. Laura and the children cannot, should not.’
‘Let me think,’ Lintott repeated. ‘I must think.’
They sat, warming their balloons of brandy, sipping.
‘Besides,’ Titus mused, ‘it is a terrible thing for a wife to hear, I am sure. Laura knows nothing of this blighted form of love, and cannot fail to be doubly horrified and distressed. She will feel soiled, will feel her children to be soiled, in consequence. You, with your inflexible knowledge of right and wrong, may look upon her as an erring wife, but Laura is pure in my eyes. I pray that your justice be tempered by some mercy.’
Lintott said candidly, ‘I am not inflexible. I don’t excuse the lady’s conduct, but you were the one to blame for it. And, yes, Mrs Crozier is pure – though that sounds a contradiction, don’t it?’
Somewhere along the line he had made his peace with her: bent a law, admitted an exception.
‘You no longer have any doubt that my late brother committed suicide?’
Lintott shifted and frowned.
‘I should think it the most likely explanation. A man of strict morality, divided against himself, deeply depressed, threatened with blackmail – aye, and with further blackmail as a threat. No future, in fact, except the need for secrecy, and with the lad Mott to look out for as well. He would want to provide for him. Your late brother took all his responsibilities seriously.’
‘He trod, as he once said to me, a dark road.’
‘Ah, uncommon dark, and leading nowhere. So snuff out the candle, eh?’
‘He was a religious man. A God-fearing man. The taking of one’s own life is forbidden,’ Titus observed. ‘But even that deterrent may prove to be less strong than one supposes.’
‘Even that,’ said Lintott. ‘Why, bless you, we fetch them out of the river by the dozen. Girls mostly, in the family way. They’ll have been taught their catechism at one time or another. It made no difference when they jumped. And he must have felt cast out, in any case, mustn’t he? Set apart. He was set apart.’
‘If it is at all possible,’ Titus urged, and motioned at the letters lying beneath the lamp on the table.
‘It’s how to go about it that foxes me,’ said Lintott honestly. ‘I thought I’d found the answer in Molly Flynn, you know. Aye, Molly. I saw how he could have made a fool of himself over her. I wish he had.’
‘If my brother had felt as deeply about her, as he felt about this boy, would he not have been as desperate at the thought of losing her?’
‘It was the blackmail that set the cap on it, though. She wouldn’t wear that.’
‘Nor is there any disguising that these letters were written to a boy.’
‘No, that villain Rice kept the best to the last. But I’ve got two that could have been written to a woman,’ said Lintott, quietly pleased. And, as Titus stared at him, ‘Mrs Crozier found and read the letters that Molly brought. She burned four but kept the others. No specific names or descriptions. My forbidden love, that sort of thing.’
‘Laura never confided that to me.’
‘Ah! Mrs Crozier tends to be secretive. She didn’t confide in me, come to that. I drew it out of her. Where were we up to? And put it so that it doesn’t sound like conspiracy. I’m sensitive about conspiracy.’
His humour tickled, Titus said, ‘Then let us put it this way. If my late brother had fallen in love with Mrs Flynn, and you produced two letters of his to show the jury, which sounded as though they were written to a woman – that would be a happier conclusion than the one you have discovered.’
Lintott pursed his lips and nodded.
‘It would alter nothing,’ Titus continued. ‘It would not change the fact that my brother died by his own hand. But it would look better, and in the eyes of the world appearances are paramount.’
Appearances can be very misleading, Lintott heard himself say to Dr Padgett. That’s the difference between your work and mine. Appearances mean nothing to me, sir. I take no account of them.
‘Appearances,’ said Lintott, ‘can be very misleading. We have no evidence that Mr Crozier was being blackmailed. It would appear that some tremendous pressure was brought to bear, but we can’t prove it, only assume it, guess at it. I doubt the credibility, myself, of a man dying for love alone. So will the jury. But Molly Flynn won’t admit to blackmail, and we can’t make her, only everyone will smell it there. I’ll promise to make it my personal concern to keep an eye on Molly, in case she tries it again! Until then, they can only suspect her of it, so’s to speak. I’ll have to persuade her to play the mistress, though. I could persuade her.’
‘She has a husband, you say? A husband takes his wife’s infidelity very much to heart. He might have bullied her, threatened her.’
‘Ah! Found her out at it. Said he’d take her back if she returned the letters. Molly panics. Tries to see
Mr Crozier and finish it all off. He’s mad about her and won’t listen. It sounds,’ said Lintott, ‘like a farthing novelette. Perhaps they’ll like that?’
‘So long as they feel they know more than can be proven, and that their suspicions are correct.’
‘Mrs Crozier won’t be too pleased to have Molly Flynn set up as your brother’s one great passion, you know. She’s a proud lady, and she isn’t stupid. We can temper it a bit for her, privately. But publicly she’ll have to sit through a fair bit of humiliation, and she won’t like that! Well, we can’t have everything in this world.’
‘Better to have one’s pride hurt than one’s life ruined. Can Molly and Flynn stand up to questioning?’
‘It’s only a coroner’s case, you know,’ Lintott reminded him. ‘They aren’t being tried by Queen’s Counsel.’
‘And you believe that the inquiry could stop with Molly Flynn, an undertone of blackmail that cannot be proven, and a verdict of suicide while the balance of the mind was disturbed? A kind of crime passionel in reverse?’
‘Yes, it’ll stop with Molly. Rice daren’t open his mouth. I’ll nab him for everything on the books if he steps out of line. Blackmail, homosexuality, running a house of ill-fame for she-shirts, concealing evidence. I daresay I could rummage up a few more if I looked about me.’
Titus smiled and rolled the last drops of brandy.
‘Does this not involve you in some risk?’ he asked ironically.
‘Not it,’ said Lintott sturdily, setting down his empty glass, swathing himself in his plaid Inverness. ‘I work on my own. Nobody knows what I do – except those that daren’t talk.’
‘I meant,’ said Titus, with a pleasurable touch of malice, ‘in some risk of being unable to discern right from wrong?’
Lintott stared in amusement.
‘I can discern it well enough,’ he replied. ‘As you remarked earlier, sir, I’m wiser and cleverer than you. So I’ll tell you this. The truth is something we like other people to be particular about. And it’s a good servant, but a bad master. This way, we’re telling the truth, since your brother killed himself over a love affair as you might say. What we keep back is only what could hurt innocent folk and help nobody.’
‘And what of these?’ Titus asked, one well-shaped hand on the letters.
‘Those, sir, being your late brother’s property and rightly bequeathed to you along with the rest of his effects, I leave to your discretion. You may consider them as purely private papers. Don’t burn ’em before I go out of the door!’ he warned, turning back. ‘I should be forced to prevent you, in my professional capacity, owing to them being evidence. But if you choose to destroy them when I’m gone I can’t prevent you!’
‘I have never liked you before this evening, I must confess,’ Titus said truthfully, ‘but I have always respected you. I respect you even more, now, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
‘I’d rather have the respect, sir,’ Lintott replied with equal frankness. ‘Any fool can make himself liked!’
23
Man has his will – but woman has her way.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table –
Oliver Wendell Holmes
‘I REGRET that I have something of a painful situation to put before you, ma’am,’ said Lintott, ill at ease in Laura’s dark-blue drawing-room, ‘but Mr Titus Crozier and me have talked it over, and this will save a deal of unpleasantness.’
He peered at the deep frieze round the walls, where a series of semi-Greek ladies disported themselves with vases and peacocks. He wished he had his hat between his hands, since it gave him something to hold and he had always been an awkward man.
Laura had been playing on the grand piano when he was shown in, and now sat, half turned towards him, on the gilt-legged stool. The seat had been worked in bright wools by her own hands, and he found further evidence of her industry in the profusion of footstools and embroidered cushions.
‘You have discovered the lady in question, and the manner of my late husband’s death, Inspector?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I am of the opinion that Mr Crozier took his own life under the pressures of emotion and circumstance.’ He knotted his hands together, and took the first hurdle manfully. ‘Mrs Crozier, I must be frank with you, and not entirely frank, and both for your own good – and the good of your children. The woman who brought the letters was not your late husband’s mistress. She was acting as a go-between for somebody else – it don’t matter whom – and he was being blackmailed. And he could, and would, have been blackmailed again until they bled him white. That’s rough speaking, ma’am, but I don’t know how to put it any nicer.’
Pale and attentive, she motioned him to go on.
‘I have uncovered an aspect of the late Mr Crozier’s life that does not bear mentioning. I shouldn’t like my own wife to know of it, nor any lady, come to that. We’ll just say that it’s best left alone. Taking a mistress is very small beer – if you’ll excuse the expression – in comparison with what did happen. They had him in a cleft stick, ma’am, and he knew it.’
‘The love-letters? What of the love-letters?’
‘He was in love, with someone else. That, too, pushed him over the edge as it were, because there could be no proper end to such an association. Now, ma’am, Mr Titus and I are anxious to spare you shame and suffering – without, of course, being untruthful or impeding the course of justice. And I do assure you, that if it all came out, your life, and the lives of your children, would be under a shadow until you died. Are you with me, ma’am?’
She nodded.
‘So we propose to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, up to a point. Mrs Flynn – the woman who carried the letters – is prepared to testify that they were written to her. The question of blackmail will come up, and of course she’ll deny it. Nor have we any evidence. We have only Mr Titus’s report of his brother’s conversation, and no money passed hands. They must still have been arguing the toss between them. Your late husband was a gentleman of strong character. He wouldn’t go under without a fight, even though it was a losing one.’
‘Why should she go free?’ Laura cried.
‘Look here, ma’am, Molly – Mrs Flynn – is doing us a favour. We want her to go free. If she doesn’t she’ll blow the gaff and then we’re all in the soup. It could take a few lids off London that had best remain covered, as yet. Now, if you aren’t prepared to go along with us, say so. I’ll fetch the whole lot out in court, name names, state facts. It’s your choice, ma’am, and nobody else’s. I’d just say one thing to you. Make sure you have some good friends in the country that’ll take you in for a few months. Put this here establishment up for sale. Take your sons away from Rugby, before you’re asked to take them. And send a prayer up for Mr Titus, because he’ll have to face the music and try to keep his sales level. Do you understand me, ma’am?’
She made a gesture of resignation, or acceptance, and bowed her head.
‘Now you’ll have to sit through an awkward hour or so in the courtroom. Those letters will be read out. Molly Flynn will be acting like Lady Hamilton. And you’ll have to bear it, ma’am. Nobody minds if you cry a bit, or faint, or anything of that sort. But if you stand up, halfway through, and start saying it’s all lies, I may as well hand in my resignation now!’
‘I shall not go back on my word,’ said Laura with dignity. ‘And that word I give you most wholeheartedly, Inspector.’
He wondered what wild imaginings passed through that subdued head, and tried to set a few of them at rest.
‘It wasn’t forgery, ma’am, or anything like that. I should have had to bring that up. He was mostly a danger to himself, so’s to speak.’
He was attempting to rob the courtroom of its sharpest humiliation, preparing for what must come.
‘I shall do as you suggest, Inspector,’ she said quietly. ‘After all, I need not look at Mrs Flynn, and I shall be heavily veiled. Mourning has its uses.’
She could s
ay so with conviction, for it became her. This was the third ensemble Lintott had admired, and he wondered how long the money would last.
‘I was about to drink coffee,’ she said, in a different tone, ‘I should be truly obliged if you would join me, Inspector. Perhaps Mrs Hill has baked some biscuits. I understand you admire her skill, and with good reason.’
He caught a demure and vanishing smile on her face, and was glad she took his news so calmly.
‘Well, that’s uncommonly kind of you, ma’am. I wouldn’t object.’
Kate appeared to have adopted her mistress’s air of serenity, and though she did not respond to Lintott’s covert wink she tossed her head as she passed him, and set down the silver tray with its complement of Theodore’s fine china.
‘I’ve always been an interfering sort of fellow,’ said Lintott, friendly, ‘so will you forgive me if I ask – not out of curiosity, but interest – whether Mr Titus has got himself any sort of manager?’
She glanced at him quickly, and he was suddenly aware of her intelligence. It had never struck him before.
‘I am only too pleased to discuss such a matter with a man of understanding,’ Laura replied simply, ‘because my brother-in-law is the head of the family, and as such his opinion is paramount. Rightly so. But I should be so much obliged if you could render me a small service. That is, if you approve of my purpose.’
Lintott blossomed over the hot coffee, with a biscuit in his square hand.
‘Anything I can do, within reason, ma’am.’
She looked at him a little shyly.
‘I am afraid you do not think as well of me as I could wish, Inspector. I fear you have cause for your opinion. Yet I should like to think that you do not entirely condemn me.’
‘Let’s say,’ Lintott ventured, ‘that one deplores the sin but does not hate the sinner.’
He felt rather pleased with the success of this remark, which brought radiance as well as relief to her.