‘Don’t,’ he told her. ‘You can’t know what you’re saying.’
She laughed; it was a hard, unpleasant little laugh.
‘That’s what Sybil was always telling me,’ she said. ‘That’s why she wouldn’t let me see anyone.’
‘She was only trying to protect you.’
There was that same high-pitched laugh.
‘No, she wasn’t. She didn’t want other people to know about her! She paused. ‘Sybil was in this too, you know. She was just longing for something to happen to Gardie. She used to keep on about it all the time. Then we could go away together, she said: that’s what she was waiting for. She prayed something would happen.’
‘That didn’t mean she wanted anyone to kill Gardie.’
Lady Anne raised her eyebrows.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he? Somebody must have killed him.’
She was still standing there, pressed up against the shutters: the whole length of the room was between them.
‘It was Old Moses who killed him,’ Harold said.
He spoke very slowly so that she could hear every word he was saying: so that she could remember them.
‘They arrested him. They tried him. There was a jury. They found him guilty. Old Moses didn’t even appeal when the judge sentenced him.’
Lady Anne did not laugh this time: she just spread her hands wide open to show the sheer hopelessness of trying to convince him.
‘How could he? It was all over by then. It was all over for him as soon as it happened.’
‘He could have denied it.’
‘And let me be hanged?’
She gave that little laugh again.
‘You didn’t know Old Moses like I did. He could never have let that happen: he loved Gardie too much: Gardie was Master. Besides, he was afraid of Gardie’s spirit. He knew if he said anything it would come back and haunt him.’
‘Not if he was innocent.’
Her hands were still spread out. She was speaking quite quietly now; reasoning with him.
‘Gardie wouldn’t have wanted everyone to know that his own wife had murdered him, would he?’ she said. ‘People would have started talking: they’d have said that there must be a reason. Dying in the course of duty was quite different. Gardie wouldn’t have minded it that way.’
‘Old Moses couldn’t have know that.’
Lady Anne was silent for a moment.
‘I think he did,’ she said.
Harold passed his handkerchief across his forehead. Even though in Nucca it got quite cool, chilly even, after nightfall, he was sweating.
‘Old Moses is dead,’ he told her. ‘And Gardie’s dead, too. They’re both dead.’
There was a sudden movement from the window where Lady Anne was standing.
‘But Sybil isn’t.’
She started to come forward as she said it.
‘Ask her. She knows. She saw it all happen. I was still standing right behind Gardie when she came in. That’s when I got all that blood on me. She had to burn the housecoat. She told me so.’
She had come close to him now: he was looking full into those fine, dark eyes of hers. Only they weren’t particularly fine tonight: the whites were all bloodshot from the crying, or the tobacco smoke, or the whisky, or whatever it was.
‘And I thought you knew all the time,’ she said. ‘That’s what makes it it so funny,’ She gave that little laugh again. ‘After all I only did it for your sake. I had to stop him sending that letter.’
‘What letter?’
For a moment she stood there, not answering. Her hand was up to her forehead and she was frowning.
‘Then that’s something else you don’t know,’ she said. ‘You’d better read it. I’ve kept it just as it was when he was writing it. I don’t need it any more. It’s all yours now.’
Epilogue
Part Two
Absolution, almost
The Chief Magistrate took out his spectacle case, opened it and began wiping the lenses; in that heat, they had steamed up in his pocket while he had been sitting there talking.
‘You still think it’s necessary?’
The man opposite nodded. He didn’t say anything; just pushed the envelope closer and sat back in his chair again, waiting. He seemed composed enough.
Ever since he had asked the question, the CM. had been staring at him across the table; but he could not see his expression. All that he could make out in the semi-darkness were the black triangle of the eye-shade and the white, neatly clipped moustache.
The pressure lamp made a shrill, hissing sound as the CM. turned it up. The Governor had shifted himself round a little, sheltering his good eye from the sudden brightness.
‘It’s sealed down, y’know. I’ll have to break it,’ the CM. said.
As he inserted his finger, pieces of the red wax went scattering over the bare table-top. He brushed the larger fragments aside. It was a single sheet of paper that the envelope contained; a single sheet, folded over and discoloured.
The CM. spread it out in front of him, smoothing down the ridges with his finger-tips.
‘It’s badly stained,’ he said.
‘He was still writing the letter when it happened,’ the Governor told him.
The CM. drew his hand away rather hurriedly; he was, however, by nature difficult to convince.
‘It doesn’t look like blood.’
The Governor gave a rather weary little sigh.
‘It’s been a long time drying.’
The CM. was peering down at the paper again.
‘Some of the words are quite blotted out,’ he observed. ‘They’re indecipherable.’
‘Hold it up to the lamp. It’s easier that way.’
With the light coming through the paper, the words showed up plainly enough: it might have been only yesterday that Sir Gardnor had written them. There was no mistaking the handwriting. It was a distinctly elegant script, with something of a flourish to it: in his heyday, Sir Gardnor’s penmanship had been very much admired. The date at the top of the Government House notepaper was 14th May, 1931.
‘Read it out loud,’ Harold told him.
‘Dear Mr. Raymond,’ the CM. began.
‘That was Raymond of Raymond and Walsh,’ he said quietly. ‘They were his solicitors.’
The CM. was tilting the notepaper a trifle, so that the light could penetrate into the creases.
He pursed his lips, and went on reading; to himself, this time.
‘So he wanted a divorce, was that it?’
‘That’s what it says.’
The CM. screwed up his eyes, and bent his head down lower over the paper.
‘And you were the one he was going to cite.’
Harold nodded.
‘But I thought you said he didn’t want a scandal.’
‘Not while India was still on, he didn’t. That’s what I was explaining. It was different when he knew he’d lost. He didn’t mind after that.’
The CM. was reading to himself again. He did not look up until he had reached the end of the sentence.
‘Then Lady Anne was right about the A.D.C. He had been spying on you.’
‘All the time. He couldn’t very well have refused. H.E. knew too much about him.’
There was still a little gin left in the bottle. The CM. poured it out for both of them.
Then he went on reading.
‘There’s something about no marital relations,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t really make it out: it’s all smudged. It appears to suggest Miss Prosser as a witness.’ He paused. ‘That might have been a mistake mightn’t it i I understood she was on Lady Anne’s side.’
‘It would have come to the same thing. She wanted the marriage broken up. She was jealous.’
The CM. did not seem even to have heard the reply. He was frowning slightly.
‘If the letter had gone off, it would have ruined you, wouldn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Ruined your career, that is. You’d have had to leave the servic
e.’
‘Yes: I’d have been thrown out.’
The CM. was still frowning.
‘There is, of course, the other side. This letter would have affected Lady Anne as well. There’d have been a new will. And fresh provisions for the child, no doubt. Lady Anne would have been left far worse off. She had a powerful motive.’
Harold started forward.
‘That wasn’t why she did it.’
The CM. did not reply immediately: he was brushing the smaller fragments of sealing wax into a little heap.
‘Have you shown this to anyone else?’ he asked at last.
‘You’re the first person to have seen it.’
‘Then why show me now?’
‘I couldn’t any earlier. Not while my wife was still alive.’
The answer was clearly unsatisfactory: the CM. began tapping the table with his forefinger.
‘But your wife’s been dead for a long time, hasn’t she? Ten, twelve years it must be.’
‘There was Timothy,’ Harold reminded him. ‘It wouldn’t have been very nice for him if all this had come out.’
‘And now it doesn’t matter?’
‘Not any longer. It was there when I got back. My Times, I mean. I saw it in the Deaths. That’s why I came over.’
He broke off, and seemed to be working out some sort of calculation in his mind.
‘Forty-six, it said. That makes it about right. He was still at prep, school last time I saw him.’
He passed his hand across his face as though wiping something invisible away.
‘There’s no one else left to worry about.’
The CM. seemed rather quick to fasten on the point.
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ he said. ‘They’re all dead now.’
‘There’s one that isn’t.’
The CM. raised his eyebrows.
‘And what can he do?’
He studied Harold very carefully as he asked the question. There was a sense of urgency about him, an eagerness almost, which was unusual.
‘Make a statement,’ he replied. ‘On oath. Put it right for the record.’
‘To what purpose?’
‘Clear Old Moses. That’s one tiling.’
‘And the other?’
‘My own conscience,’ he said. ‘I’ve had to live with this.’
There was silence again. They remained there, not speaking, with the lamp, and the letter and the Gordon’s gin bottle in between them.
Then the CM. gave a little cough.
‘You retire some time next year, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘First of September.’ He paused. ‘I feel about ready for it.’
The CM. had pulled his pencil out of his pocket and thrust it sideways into his mouth with the point sticking out on one side and the stub end on the other. It was a gesture with which counsel were familiar when the CM. was pondering.
Then he flicked his nail across the letter.
‘Will you leave this with me?’ he said.
The sigh that Harold gave was a long one; there was sheer relief, almost of contentment, in it.
‘It’s all in your hands now,’ he said. ‘I’ve done my bit.’
He got up from the table as he was speaking, and laid his hand on the Chief Magistrate’s arm. The CM. was rather surprised how firmly he was gripping it.
‘You don’t blame me, do you?’ he asked. ‘Clearing out like that, I mean. But I couldn’t have gone on, could I? Not living with her on Gardie’s money. That’s why I never saw her again. I left her that same night. And that’s why I can’t forgive myself. Just when she needed me most, I walked out on her. I let her down, didn’t I? That’s what you must be thinking.’
The CM. did not go to bed when Harold had left him. He lowered the flame in the pressure lamp, and sat on there, with the letter still open on the table in front of him and his pencil stuck between his lips again.
He was getting on towards retirement age himself; had a whole lifetime’s experience of the law behind him. He had long ago ceased to be surprised by anything that was told him, in court or out of it; so long as there were human beings around, the most unexpected things were bound to go on happening.
By the time the CM. heard about them, it was always too late to do anything; what was left was to assess the consequences. On the bench there were, of course, the rules to help him: his task was not too difficult. The system worked. It was only when moral judgments were called for that he realised how hopeless, how impossible, it all was. That was why he wished that Harold had never asked him that final question.
What else was there that Harold could have done? he asked himself. It was sheer commonsense to have left her. On any showing, he was far better shot of the woman: she had been too much mixed up with Fate already.
Not that he was necessarily condemning Lady Anne. There had been pressures on her, too. In a sense, she had been driven to it. Indeed, in their separate ways, every one of them had been driven: that was what made it so difficult to disentangle.
And, come to think of it, they were all much nicer people than Harold made them sound; Harold himself included. The CM. saw quite clearly that he could make out a case for every one of them. A good case, too. And the underlying motive, even though they would have been unaware of it, was an uncommon one: it was loyalty.
Take Sir Gardnor, for instance. His loyalty had been to the Crown. Rather than allow any scandal, he had been prepared to see his wife sleeping around with anyone she could get hold of. And what had he done about it? Nothing at first; simply closed his bedroom door on her.
Admittedly, it was a rather ugly sort of ambition that had driven him; nothing less than sheer greed to reach the top. And India was the top. That was why he had stuck it out so long, with the knowledge that his whole household staff was laughing at him behind his back. To a man who, over the years, had been prepared to endure all that, even the thought of murder—and the CM. was inclined to accept Lady Anne’s version of the shooting accident that had cost Harold his eye—was quite understandable. Sir Gardnor would simply have told himself that he was doing the right thing; defeating the gossip-mongers.
And Lady Anne. She was by no means the first frustrated, highly-sexed young woman whose affairs had, in the end, come up to him. The courts were full of her sort all the time. And they were not necessarily unpleasant females. When they found someone to satisfy them, they were ready to go to any lengths to protect him. Poison was the method they usually employed; but, with the hysterical type, stabbing —or shooting—fell recognisably within the pattern. Harold would have been quite right: when she killed her husband, Lady Anne would not have been thinking about herself for a single moment.
The CM. stretched out his legs and found himself wondering what, in her prime, Lady Anne had really been like. There must have been something rather remarkable about her. Otherwise, why should anyone as solid and dependable as Harold have been ready to betray his own employer, and then ruin the rest of his life by covering up for her afterwards?
The CM. only dimly remembered the pictures of Lady Anne at the time: what was far clearer was the one they had printed with the Obituary. He recalled quite plainly the large, rather startling eyes and all that carefully-waved white hair.
About Sybil Prosser, he was not so sure: she sounded a singularly unprepossessing sort of person. Not nice, in any sense. But certainly loyal. Even ready to make the sacrifice of giving up what she had fought so hard to get: she couldn’t have liked doing it, even though she knew she’d lost.
Best of the whole lot, of course, was Old Moses. The CM. dismissed out of hand the idea of fear of Gardie’s spirit; after all, there were plenty of ways of fooling and defeating disgruntled spirits; for a fee, any good witch doctor could have seen to that.
No: there was much more to it than fear. Old Moses had really loved Sir Gardnor; had loved everything that belonged to him. Those belongings included Lady Anne, and the memory that Sir Gardnor was leaving behind him. Rathe
r than see anything go wrong with either of them, Old Moses had been prepared to offer up himself.
Admittedly, he was well over eighty at the time; nobody knew quite how old. But those last few years had presumably been precious; nobody, black or white, really likes bringing the shutters down.
Then there was Harold himself. He was, the CM. would have thought, exactly cut out for an even, uneventful sort of life. The CM. doubted very much whether he had really wanted to get mixed up with Lady Anne in the first place: it was merely one of those things that had happened. And, with a foot-loose, good-looking woman a little older than himself, he’d probably never stood a chance; wouldn’t even have suspected at first what forces he was really up against.
But it had lasted a long time. There must have been moments—hi between seeing her, for instance—when he could have seen the way things were going; the kind of chances he was taking with his life. It would have been perfectly in character if he had simply decided to cut his losses and drop out. He hadn’t done so, however. Not that there was anything particularly loyal about that; sheer weakness, rather.
The loyalty had come right at the end when it was all over; that was what made it so extraordinary. And he had certainly paid the price for it. No family; no home life; no love even. Just going on, solitary and uncaring, through all those years in the Service, being shifted from one post to another until he had finished up at last in Kubanda.
It was down somewhere at the bottom of the list of British colonial possessions, Kubanda; a second-rate, down-at-heel protectorate really, with one silted-up harbour and no hinterland. But, if it had been any bigger, the CM. reflected, Harold Stebbs would probably never have got his Governorship.
As it was, he had been left there, only halfway up the ladder, waiting; waiting, watching himself grow old, and turning eagerly to the Deaths column whenever a fresh batch of The Times arrived from home. With what object? Simply in order to make this futile, uncalled-for statement that he had set his heart on: to tell a policeman, as it were, and put his mind at rest.
The CM. got to his feet, and winced as he began to straighten himself. Flexing the toes upwards was the only cure he knew when cramp caught him; it quite often came on when he had been sitting for too long in one position. He was still hobbling when he went through to the sideboard in the dining-room and came back with the big brass tray that the boy used for bringing round the drinks.
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