Ferdie Paul chuckled involuntarily, and half shamefacedly because she was heart-rendingly sincere, they joined him.
‘What a life you have!’ he said. ‘Then what?’
‘He wanted to marry me at once, of course.’ Georgia ignored the interruption. She was used to being misunderstood. ‘So I did, of course. I held him off as long as I could and then I saw it was no use, so I had to tell him everything.’
‘This was all after Portland-Smith had disappeared? You’re sure of that?’
‘Ferdie, I am not lying. My dear, can’t you see I’m not? I’m being wonderfully frank. I’m telling you the absolute, literal truth. I’m not sparing myself. This is what actually happened. It was November when I told Ray I was married to Richard, on Guy Fawkes night, as a matter of fact. I remember, because we’d had a party for little Sinclair, who was silly and didn’t like it. Ray was adorable with him, and I suddenly saw what home life could be with them both, and it was too much for me altogether. I told Ray and he was kinder than I can possibly describe. He simply laughed in that slightly devilish way he had and said I wasn’t to worry.’
She pressed her handkerchief to her lips and shook her head.
‘After that it wasn’t so frightfully easy. I loved him with all my soul, you see, and yet – and yet –’
‘And yet you do like a contract,’ said Ferdie easily. You’re a remarkable girl, aren’t you? So respectable at heart. Ray went to find him, I suppose. Did he find him?’
‘We-el . . .’ Georgia was evidently coming to the crux of her story and was considering the light in which to present it. Presently she threw out her hands in a particularly charming gesture of renunciation. ‘I’ll tell it simply,’ she said. ‘If you don’t understand you’ve never really loved. Ray was absolutely convinced that Richard was dead. He said he would never have left me for so long if he had been alive, and, of course, that was true. Besides, knowing Richard in that insane brooding mood of his, I couldn’t help feeling that it would be just like him to go off and die somewhere secretly, revenging himself on me by leaving me in doubt. He was like that in the end, all mad and tied up and mean in soul.’
‘When you got the secret door open you found it led to the junk cupboard,’ Val remarked dreamily.
‘The cellar, my dear! Old bottles and damp newspapers and frightful white crawly things.’ Georgia threw the bagatelle over her shoulder happily. She and Val were dear friends again and she was so glad. ‘Ray hurled himself into the search. He worked like a lunatic You know how energetic he was, Ferdie. You saw him, Albert, over that idiotic gun. Once he wanted a thing he wanted it more than anything in the world. He scoured the country for unidentified bodies, but he couldn’t find a trace of him until just before Christmas, and then he found Richard.’
‘Found him?’
The words were jerked from Mr Campion, who had been standing quietly by the fireplace listening to the scene with his habitual politeness.
Georgia met his eyes steadily.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He found him in a crevasse in Wales. He’d been mountaineering or something. People often go to mountains with broken hearts, they’re so comfortingly solid. Anyway, he’d fallen and been lost for months. Ray wouldn’t let me go to see him because of the filthy things that happen to bodies. He simply gave me his word of honour and I took it. We married on January the fifth, by special licence, as you know. As my marriage to Richard was secret I called myself Sinclair.’
‘In fact, as far as you knew you committed bigamy.’ Ferdie strode down the room. ‘If this comes out you’re done. It mustn’t, of course. I don’t see it need. We shall all hold our tongues for our own sakes.’
Georgia rose. She was angry and her cheeks were bright.
‘It was Richard,’ she said. ‘Ray gave me his word of honour.’
‘Don’t be silly, dear.’ For the first time Ferdie betrayed an unintentional irritation. ‘Portland-Smith was found in Kent with a bullet through his skull. His papers were found on him The Coroner decided the bones were his. You drove the poor brute off his head and he killed himself. That’s the truth of that. See a few facts now and again. Don’t let ’em cramp your style, but don’t kid yourself all the time.’
‘That is not true.’ Georgia was gentle. ‘Ferdie, you’re sadistic. You enjoy hurting me. My dear boy, Ray proved to me that the body in Wales was Richard’s.’
‘How?’
‘He went down in the train with a woman who was also travelling to identify the body. He recognized her as the wife of an old sergeant-major of his, a perfect fiend of a hag who’d led her wretched husband such a ghastly life that the poor creature ran away from her. Ray knew because the man had been to him and borrowed some money to get to Canada and Ray had lent it to him. The woman was mad to identify this body to get a widow’s pension, and so of course Ray was in a cleft stick. Once this woman had decided that her husband was dead the man was free from her for ever. Besides, if Ray had put his foot down and insisted that it was Richard, we couldn’t very well marry immediately, could we? After all, it was only he and I who had to be satisfied. We were the only people to whom it really mattered.’
‘Except his parents and his clients,’ murmured Mr Campion tactlessly.
‘Oh? Had he got people?’ Georgia was both startled and contrite. ‘He was over thirty. I never thought of him as being someone’s child. How disgustingly selfish of me! But I was so, so terribly in love. Well, Ray saw it was Richard, and the awful woman, who was sick at the sight of the body and couldn’t look at it, insisted that it was her husband, and so Ray didn’t interfere. I think it was rather nice of him. He told me the whole story and even took me to see the woman, who had some dreadful little hovel in Hackney. She convinced me utterly.’
‘That it was her husband?’
‘No, of course not. She convinced me that she had persuaded herself that it was. She was unbelievable. I sympathized with the wretched man in Canada. Then she went into the most gruesome details and Ray had to take me away. Then, of course, since I was sure, Ray and I married.’
There was a long pause after her husky voice had died away. Ferdie sat looking at her, his chin resting on his hands and his face morose and inscrutable.
Mr Campion was shocked. There are some people to whom muddled thinking and self-deception are the two most unforgivable crimes in the world.
Val patted Georgia’s shoulder absently.
‘How did he dare?’ she demanded suddenly. ‘He had an enormous amount to lose.’
‘Oh, Ray was like that.’ Surprisingly it was Georgia herself who answered. ‘Ray was a natural adventurer. That’s why I adored him. He risked everything all the time. He didn’t care. So long as he achieved his objective he didn’t care how dangerous it was.’
She went on talking happily, sublimely unconscious of the tacit admission she was making.
‘Ray just wanted Georgia and he didn’t care what he did to get her. He was so young always, so brave, so gloriously dangerous.’
‘He was a damned four-flusher,’ said Ferdie Paul. ‘“Dangerous” is the word. What happened when Portland-Smith’s body was discovered? That tarnished his word of honour a bit, didn’t it?’
‘Oh, I was frightfully angry with Ray.’ Georgia spoke involuntarily, adding with maddening gentleness, ‘Until I realized that there’d been another mistake, and, anyway, it didn’t really matter then. I was so terribly upset about poor Richard at the time. I only remember the best in people, you know.’
Ferdie Paul rose to his feet with what appeared to be a considerable physical effort.
‘Yes, well,’ he said heavily, ‘let’s all hope she never gets into the witness-box. Now look here, you people, there’s only one thing we need all remember, and that is that this particular mess is nothing to do with us. We can be as helpful and as polite as we like. The more helpful we are the better. It looks well. But the affair is not our business. It’s quite obvious what happened to Caroline Adamson. She went around wit
h a dangerous lot, the dregs of the fur and the restaurant trade and the lower West-End mob. Heaven knows what scrap she got herself into. They’re a nasty crowd to monkey with and she was a pretty piece. We’re all all right if we don’t go and jump into it. Get that well into your head, Georgia.’
‘I have, my dear.’ There was a flicker of shrewdness in Georgia’s tweed-grey eyes, but it vanished almost at once. ‘I should probably be very good in court, you know.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ Ferdie’s brown eyes were intensely earnest. ‘Don’t, for pity’s sake, get that idea in your head. You wouldn’t. D’you remember that blank-verse play you would try one Sunday? You do? It would be like that, only a million times worse. Take my word for it.’
Georgia shrugged, but she looked chastened.
‘I see things so clearly,’ she said, and laughed at herself. ‘Even when I’m wrong.’
It was nearly two in the morning. Campion had the Lagonda in the drive and Val’s man was waiting in her famous grey Daimler with the special body. As Georgia lived in Highgate she went home with Val, while Campion dropped Ferdie at the Sovereign.
As the two women settled down in the soft grey-quilted depths of the car, which was like a powder-closet inside, shut away from the chauffeur and as exquisitely feminine as a sedan-chair, Georgia linked her arm through Val’s.
‘Ferdie’s quite right,’ she said with a return to the more truthful mood which she kept for the few women she recognized as her equals. ‘If we simply smile and do all we can for everyone without actually doing anything it may be all all right. I do hope so. It’ll all pass. We’ll laugh about it when we’re old women.’
‘I hope so,’ said Val soberly.
‘Oh, we shall.’ After her ordeal Georgia’s spirits were reviving and she was dangerously optimistic. ‘I’m so glad all that about Ray and Richard has come out at last. It’s been half on my conscience. I hate secrets. It was dangerous, but it didn’t matter, as it happened. I simply didn’t care at the time. You don’t, do you?’ Nothing else seems to matter. That’s why Ray and I got on so well together. In that respect he was feminine, too. He was the only man I ever met who really understood how my mind worked. His own was the same. Oh, my dear, it’s going to be hell without him.’
She was speaking quite sincerely and Val glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. Georgia was aware of the scrutiny in spite of the shifting darkness.
‘I’ve got rid of Alan,’ she said, adding in a burst of truthfulness which was more than half pure generosity, ‘In a way he got rid of me. We had a dreadful row the day after the memorial service, of all indecent moments. He simply abused me, Val. Not noisily in a way you could forgive, but quietly, almost as though he meant it. It was about that cachet story, as a matter of fact. It had come round to him again, fifteenth hand. Someone got tight and tried to tell it as a joke. I said that I was sorry and that you did understand, but he was just quietly unreasonable, and suddenly, while he was talking, I came to my senses. I saw him objectively. He’s not my type, Val. He’s too “all on one plane”. Then, of course, I realized what I’d done I ought to have looked after Ray. He was the only may I ever loved and I let him die. It’s terribly tragic, isn’t it?’
‘It has its disastrous aspects.’ There was humour in Val’s dry little comment, which robbed it of much of its bitterness. ‘There’s a word for you, Georgia my pet. You’re a proper cough-drop, aren’t you?’
‘Darling, how vulgar! I thought you were going to say “bitch”.’
Georgia was laughing but broke off to sigh.
‘Isn’t it odd?’ she said presently. ‘Have you noticed that women like me who have dozens of men in love with them spend such an astounding amount of time alone? Here am I, under thirty-two, a pathetic, broken-hearted widow, utterly deserted, and yet God knows I’ve had enough men hysterical about me. I like your brother, Val. He doesn’t approve of me. Men who don’t approve of me always intrigue me. I can never understand why it is and that keeps me interested in them.’
‘Albert?’ said Val dubiously. ‘What about Amanda?’
‘Oh yes. The pretty little red-haired child.’ Georgia was thoughtful. ‘Isn’t it tragic when you think what all these babies have got to go through?’ she added, sighing. ‘All the hurts, the heartaches, the wretched emotional agonies which make one mature.’
‘Darling, I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s nearly half-past two. Don’t you live somewhere along here?’
‘No, it’s miles further yet.’ Georgia peered out into the darkness. ‘I love my little house,’ she remarked. ‘Ray and I adored each other there. When I get sentimental I think of it as a little shrine. Don’t be angry with me, Val. After all, I’ve given up Alan. You can have him now if you want to.’
Val was silent. The car sped on down the faintly lit street and only now and again, when they passed a street-lamp, was her face visible.
‘Don’t look like that.’ There was a note of panic in the childish phrase. ‘Val, don’t look like that. You’re grim. You’re frightening me. Say something.’
‘Can you see that you’ve put that man out of my life for ever?’
The words were spoken unemotionally and Georgia considered them.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘No, honestly I don’t see that, darling. Not if you love him. Nothing in love is “for ever”, is it? Be reasonable.’
They were two fine ladies of a fine modern world, in which their status had been raised until they stood as equals with their former protectors. Their several responsibilities were far heavier than most men’s and their abilities greater. Their freedom was limitless. There they were at two o’clock in the morning, driving back in their fine carriage to lonely little houses, bought, made lovely and maintained by the proceeds of their own labours. They were both mistress and master, little Liliths, fragile but powerful in their way, since the livelihood of a great number of their fellow beings depended directly upon them, and yet, since they had not relinquished their femininity, within them, touching the very core and fountain of their strength, was the dreadful primitive weakness of the female of any species. Byron, who knew something about ladies if little enough about poetry, once threw off the whole shameful truth about the sex, and, like most staggeringly enlightening remarks, it degenerated into a truism and became discountenanced when it was no longer witty.
‘Love really can rot any woman up,’ Georgia observed contentedly. ‘Isn’t it funny?’
‘Dear God, isn’t it dangerous!’ said Val.
They drove on in silence, both of them thinking of a very different thing from the common disaster which they had met to discuss and which, had they been less preoccupied, must have terrified them by its imminence and its tremendous risk.
Chapter Eighteen
MR CAMPION, ARRIVING home a little before three in the morning full of the deepest misgivings and secretly uneasy because the police had not called upon him to identify anyone whom the amorous lorry-driver might have described found, instead of the expected detective, Lugg and Amanda in the kitchenette eating bacon and eggs.
‘The poor kid’s got to get to work at the factory by seven-thirty termorrow.’ Lugg’s greeting was reproachful. ‘I thought at least I’d give ’er a bit of breakfast. What will you ’ave yourself? Eggs or a mite of ’erring? I’ve got a lovely little tin ’asn’t been opened above a couple of days. I was savin’ it for when I fancied it.’
The kitchen was warm and odorous, and Mr Campion, who suddenly felt he had been too long among the sophists, sat down on the other side of the enamel-topped table and glanced at his lieutenant with satisfaction. She was rosy with sleep but bright-eyed and very interested.
‘I’ve been here since ten, sleeping in a chair. I thought I’d better wait in case you needed any help. What happened?’
He gave her the rough outline of the momentous interview, while Lugg sizzled contempt and bacon fat in the background.
‘So you see,’ he said at last, ‘Portland-Smi
th was being blackmailed. That emerged with a blinding flash and a smell of damp fireworks. No one who heard Georgia’s story of the six months before he vanished – heard it with anything beside his ears, I mean – could possibly have missed that.’
‘Who blackmailed him? Miss Adamson?’
Amanda’s untroubled logic was comforting after the tortuous mental fancy-work of the past three hours.
‘She was in it; I think that’s certain.’ He spoke decisively and paused, a shadow of embarrassment passing over his face. She caught his expression and grinned.
‘I’m getting a big girl now,’ she said. ‘You can mention it in front of me. It was the usual story, but “she had her Auntie Jessie underneath the kitchen sink”, I suppose? When and where did all this happen?’
‘I don’t know, of course.’ Mr Campion sighed and his lean face looked less weary. Amanda was easy to talk to. ‘He went off on a walking tour in October and came back all peculiar. He seems to have been batty about his wife at this time and she evidently loathed him, so I take it that a solicitous Caroline who resembled the Dear Unkind might easily have had a walk-over. That angle is a job for Blest. I’ll get hold of Portland-Smith’s itinerary and Blest must go round all the pubs he might have stayed in. That should put us on to it. But we must be prepared for it only leading us to the girl, and I’m more than certain she didn’t do it alone. It was too opportune. The whole thing has a curious organized flavour, like everything else. Portland-Smith was caught and bled until he took the shortest way out, poor beast. All this evening I’ve been quaggly in the middle at the thought of that fellow. He must have had hell’s delight.’
‘Very nice dick work, but it’s unsatisfactory,’ remarked Mr Lugg, flopping another egg on to the plate before his keeper. ‘There’s no fear of blackmail nowadays. It’s Mr A and Miss X and three years, yes yer Lordship, thankyer very much. You don’t even read the papers.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, you with your mammy’s eyes, poor hideous woman.’ Mr Campion spoke without resentment. ‘It’s because of the anonymity rule that I’m certain the whole thing was a more subtle affair than would at first appear. Miss Adamson’s own methods were just plain abominable. I gathered that much when she phoned me. There usually is a third, negotiating party in this sort of case and it’s pretty obvious that this particular third was the brains of the act. You see, Portland-Smith was a barrister, i.e. he had the one kind of job which makes the anonymity rule a trifle less than useless. He couldn’t go into the Central Court at the Old Bailey calling himself Mr X, at least not with any marked success, unless of course he wore a false beard or a cagoulard hood, either of which might so easily have been misunderstood.’
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