The Chinese Room

by Vivian Connell

  “Miss Coleman, is my husband writing himself those letters he gets every week?”

  Miss Coleman looked thoughtful, as if she were making up her mind. Then she said: “Why should you expect me to answer questions like that?”

  “This is not Bude’s Bank business, Miss Coleman. I am worried. It is only last night I realized that there was something very curious about all this letter business. I know, of course, that you knew about my husband’s original idea to experiment on himself with these ridiculous letters, because he told me that he was going to dictate them to you. It was a kind of joke then, but now it seems to be something more than a joke. Of course, you know what I am talking about?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “He does not dictate the letters to me.”

  Muriel took her drink as if she needed it. Miss Coleman refilled her glass without comment.

  “Then the letters he is getting are coming from somebody else. Have you noticed anything special about this business?”

  “Yes. First I noticed that he was beginning to fear getting this letter, and then, I think it was yesterday week, his nerves got out of hand, and he asked me if I knew anything about it.”. Miss Coleman looked cold and disgusted. “That is all I know.”

  Muriel paused for a long time. “Do you know what is in the letters?”

  “I do not.”

  Muriel got out her cigarette case, but Miss Coleman gave her one from the green box. Muriel said at last: “I am puzzled. Do you know of anybody connected with the bank who might write him those letters?” Miss Coleman paused for a moment. “No.”

  Muriel looked at her. “You seemed to be hesitating in your mind then, as if you were considering some person who might possibly write them?”

  “I was.” Miss Coleman paused. “But I cannot believe that person would.”

  “Well, I must trust your judgment.” Muriel paused. “As far as I can see, you can’t help me about this.”

  “Well, you haven’t told me anything I do not already know.”

  “I see. I haven’t told you what is in the letters.” Muriel looked at her for a long time and began to feel her face warm slightly under Miss Coleman’s cold, ironical gaze. “Well, the message is the same in all of them, except in the last, postmarked S. W. I.” Muriel flushed in embarrassment. “It says: ‘You have a will to death in your hands. Whose death’?” Miss Coleman tautened. “In the last letter, postmarked S. W. I., the word ‘When’ was added at the end.” Muriel paused. “It all seems very curious and unpleasant.”

  Miss Coleman, Muriel guessed, had an anxiety inside that cold, judicial exterior.

  “Yes,” Miss Coleman remarked, “and clever.” She paused. “Are the letters typewritten?”

  “Yes...Oh, I forgot. There is something else I can tell you. They are written on the Elder Bank note-paper.” Miss Coleman could not conceal her start. “Why did that give you a shock?” Miss Coleman was silent, thoughtful. “Do you know of anybody who has this paper, or who could get it?”

  “Almost anybody in the bank could get hold of that paper. How very...Do you mean that they come with the Elder Bank address on them?”

  “The address is cut off. But it is the same paper.”

  “Does Mr. Bude know?”

  “I assume he does. Yes, he must know.”

  “Why are you in doubt? From what you say, he has discussed this with you.”

  “No. I asked him, but I couldn’t get anything out of him. So, last night, when he went away, I opened his private case that he brings in every day to the bank.” Muriel paused.

  “You would have done the same thing.”

  “Yes. I understand. I wasn’t thinking anything—nasty.”

  “Well, I have told you everything I know. Do you really think this is worrying him badly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it seems to me that the letters must be coming from somebody in the bank, and from somebody who knows Nicholas well.” Muriel hesitated. “You must have noticed that his hands—well, they get in his way.”

  “I have,” Miss Coleman answered. “It looks to me as if the letters were inspired by his own idea of writing to himself.”

  “That is what I thought.”

  “Well, who knew of that idea? You, myself...Oh, and, of course, the doctor who suggested the idea.”

  “Nobody else, so far as I know,” said Muriel. “What is the doctor like?”

  Muriel felt herself under the X ray of Miss Coleman’s eyes. In some unaccountable way she feared that Miss Coleman might discover her own connection with Saluby.

  “Ahm, well, very intelligent, but—I’d say he has some kind of kink.”

  “Hum. Not a likely thing for a doctor to do. If it was found out, it would be the end of his career.”

  “Well, can you help me, Miss Coleman?” Muriel paused. “I wondered if I ought to call in a detective.”

  “I don’t think you can do that without letting Mr. Bude know.”

  “No. I suppose I can’t. He’d be furious, and God only knows where it might end. We might be making a fuss about nothing at all. Somehow, though, I have an uneasy feeling about the whole thing.” She looked hard at Miss Coleman. “Most people would say that Nicholas is an ordinary stolid man, I suppose, but I think he is the kind of person who might easily get—obsessed by a thing like this.” Muriel gave a kind of half smile. “We seem to be getting very frank, at the first time of meeting.”

  “Well, it’s necessary.”

  “Yes. Well, is there anything we can do?”

  “Nothing, except to wait. Perhaps the letters will stop. The one on Monday came from the doorstep, as you might say.” Miss Coleman paused. “That seems all that can be done, to wait and to watch. It is still possible that he might be writing these letters himself, but unlikely. I can’t believe they would be affecting him like this, if he were. Anyway, I’m glad you told me about the Elder Bank notepaper. It might help. You must leave that to me. I’ll let you know, if I can find out anything—unless it is something I can deal with myself. You can have my telephone number. It’s not in the book.” Miss Coleman got up and took the cocktail shaker. “Now, let us put it away for the moment and enjoy a cocktail. Are you in a hurry?”

  “No, I could have several of these cocktails.” Muriel smiled. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is to me that you turned out to be like—well, the way you are. Good heavens, Nicholas is lucky to have somebody like you.”

  Muriel looked around the flat. “You’ve got a lovely flat.

  “Yes, it is expensive, isn’t it!”

  Muriel looked up in astonishment and wondered if she saw a smile on Miss Coleman’s face as she bent over the cocktails. What a devil of a remark. Suddenly Muriel laughed, and said: “I’ll bet you haven’t got any women friends!” Again she thought Miss Coleman smiled. “You know, when you came to the bank, Nicholas was so astounded by all your what nots at Oxford that he mentioned it to me, although he’s nearly always an oyster about the bank. But I think the other kind of cleverness you have is more fun!” Muriel took the glass. “Yes, I’ll let you have it! I was thinking that you must get a very good salary to have this place. What bitches we are!”

  “Well, I get a very good salary, although I’m not supposed to tell you or anybody. But that’s not how I have this flat. An uncle who lived as if he had about a shilling a week died about five years ago and left me quite a lot of money. Until then I lived in Chelsea. I think I was happier there, in a way.”

  “You know, Nicholas told me all about your scholarships and honors, but he told me nothing about your looks. Bude’s Bank seems to be a general kind of mystery. Anyway, I didn’t expect you!” Muriel paused. “Why did I surprise you?”

  Miss Coleman had all her reserve again. “Well, you did. I suppose one always imagines the wife of somebody you see every day dull.”

  “Oh, is that because you think Nicholas dull?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “He’s bored to death, of course, with bankin
g.”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly Muriel looked hard at her. “Look here, I’m staying in London. Will you lunch with me tomorrow?”

  Miss Coleman looked very thoughtful. “I think I ought not to.”

  “Because you work at the bank?”

  “Yes.”

  “What absolute nonsense!” Muriel smiled at her. “I come here and drink your cocktails. Why shouldn’t you lunch with me?”

  “Well, if Nicholas finds out we know each other, and we don’t tell him, he will wonder why. And he will want to know how we met. He’s certain to guess that it has something to do with the letters.”

  “I see...Well, Nicholas won’t be back for some days. He can’t see us across England. Come and dine with me at the Clarendon tomorrow night.” Muriel paused. “I really lead rather a lonely kind of life. I’m afraid I don’t like women as a rule. I haven’t talked to a woman for ages until lately to Therese Waldenham.”

  “Yes. I know her.”

  “Oh, do you?”

  “Yes, I worked at the Foreign Office. When she came over from Paris the first time, when she worked at the embassy, we used to do theaters together. She hadn’t met George then.”

  “Well, then, we’re old friends. You must come and dine with me. Come early and we’ll have a cocktail first.”

  “Very well.” Miss Coleman hesitated. “I seldom go out now.”

  “I’d ask you to dine this evening, but I’ve really had a hectic day and I’m going to retire early.”

  “Yes, I guessed that.”

  “You know, I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t know why I haven’t met you before. You could come down and stay.”

  “It’s awfully nice of you.”

  “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow about seven. Come up to my room, if I’m not downstairs.”

  “Yes.”

  “And thank you for the cocktails.”

  When she got into the street, Muriel thought to herself: “My God, what a surprise!” She stopped dead. “Is it possible? Is it possible?”

  She had never been so astonished in her life, as every instinct told her that Miss Coleman knew Nicholas well outside the bank. Was that what he did on Monday nights? Good heavens, Nicholas must be interesting! That girl, she knew, was like a volcano inside an iceberg. She was as proud and independent as the devil. She would not dream of having an affair with a man for any other reason than a fondness or passion for him.

  Muriel called a taxi to take her to the Clarendon. She could do with another drink. She had an unpleasant feeling that Miss Coleman could get something out of Nicholas that she could not. Lord, perhaps he was in love with her! Why not? She was as beautiful as they were made, with exquisite taste, and that indefinable air of the complete sophisticated woman in the elegant world. She was, in fact, a gentlewoman, and, a great deal rarer, an educated one. What an extraordinary person to be a bank secretary. Why on earth did she stay on there? Good heavens, was she in love with Nicholas? Anyway, she called him Nicholas in conversation about him. She could easily not have done that, but, Muriel knew, Miss Coleman would despise the use of her mind for petty concealments. Muriel felt herself flushing. Was it possible that Nicholas felt his own wife a fool compared to this woman? Why had Miss Coleman been surprised to find she herself was attractive? Obviously because she was having an affair with Nicholas and had thought his wife must be dull. She remembered now how attractive Nicholas was. She thought of his hairy black chest and his big hands...and she knew that she wanted her own husband. Muriel discovered that she was forgetting about the letters.

  THIRTY

  Nicholas arrived back in London on Friday morning at twenty minutes past eleven in a black humor. He stepped out of the hired car at the bank and was so tired that the hot pavement came up with a jolt through his exhausted nerves and seemed to bang against the ceiling of his head. The driver looked done in after the long journey in the sun, and Nicholas gave him a very large tip and thanked him and shook hands.

  “You look dead beat, sir.”

  “Christ,” thought Nicholas to himself as he looked up at the smoldering sky, “if I only had time for a bath!”

  He put his hand into his pocket to get his handkerchief, and the deer’s hoof came out with the handkerchief and rolled from the pavement into the road, and the bank porter nearly got run over by a car as he bent to retrieve it for Nicholas.

  “Blimey, that was a narrow shave, sir!”

  “Why the hell didn’t you look before you stepped out...Nicholas took the shell of hoof from him and regretted his ingratitude. “Thank you, Roberts.” He laughed nervously. “I got a bit of a fright when I saw that car coming at you.”

  Nicholas put the hoof into his inner coat pocket and swore as he hurried into the bank. It was this damned hoof that had caused his terrible journey by whistle stop and junction trains and hired cars down from the North. At the local station in Northumberland he had thrown away the hoof, as if throwing away all that it symbolized, into the waste bin on the platform, and, then, because he could not help it, he had got out from the train at the second-next station and gone back to recover that damned hoof. He knew that it was ridiculous, and that it would cause him to lose the night sleeper. Since then it had been a nightmare journey through a sleepless, sweating night and under a morning sky with the sun looking out through the smoked blind of yellow dust that gathered for the harvest thunderstorm. The fields of grass scorched almost the same color as the stubble reeled past his eyes, as the car hummed along with tires squealing on the melting tar of the road by the early harvesters that were racing the approaching storm. He had taken the wheel for about twenty-five miles to rest the driver, and his eyes had burned in the solid opaque glare of light, and now he had a headache that clanged on each step of the marble stairway on the bank.

  Miss Coleman looked up as he came into her room, and he spoke without wasting time on a good morning.

  “Get Dorman. Tell him I’ll be round in ten minutes.”

  Miss Coleman pushed in a connection and said: “Have a pot of strong tea up here in five minutes.”

  “I wish you’d stop being a bloody nurse!”

  Miss Coleman took no notice but asked for the treasury and made the connection and said: “Tell Mr. Dorman that Mr. Bude will be in the Council Room at eleven forty-five.”

  Nicholas looked at the clock. “Christ, can’t you obey orders?”

  She got up in silence and went into his room and got a glass of water and found two aspirin tablets in her handbag and handed them to him without a comment.

  He gave in. “I know. I’m all in.” He sat on her desk. “I missed a bloody train, and I’ve been tangled up all night in milk trains and hired cars and God knows what. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Can’t you manage to have a bath?”

  “No...Oh, here’s the tea.”

  She nodded to the page. “I’ll let it draw a moment.”

  “Anything much?”

  “Yes, a heavy afternoon. The delegation about Egypt.”

  “Good Christ! Can’t it wait?”

  “No. Whitehall has been giving me its confidences. They want to get it out to forestall anything in the Sunday papers. I’ve made all the appointments. I’ve given you until three to lunch and have a rest.”

  “In the bank itself?”

  “Routine.” She poured out the tea and put in four lumps of sugar as he made a face. “It’s a pick-me-up.” She remarked in a cold way: “Strood is an inconsequential fool. He fusses like a bitch monkey in a heat wave over nothing at all.”

  Nicholas suddenly relieved his tension in a roar of laughter. The pompous manager would have been surprised to hear this conversation. He sipped the tea and said: “I must have a holiday.” He looked at her. “It’s you who ought to run this bloody bank when I’m away. Old Dorman won’t even talk in person to Strood, and he’ll let you sit in his lap.” He paused. “You’d better come over with me now.”

  “Very well. Let’s walk. I’ll sta
y for ten minutes in case you want me to take notes. Then I’d better get back and do something on the Egypt for this afternoon.” They had waited for him in the Royal Flush, and old Dorman ceased to be in any hurry at all when he settled down into a chat with Miss Coleman in the anteroom. The great man was going to have the perquisites of office, and he was pretending to bribe her to leave Nicholas and work for him. Nicholas was almost normal again as he took his seat in one of the comfortable chairs in which the Advisory Council sat and strolled into business by easy roads. But this morning Colonel Bogey, as Lord Cluricawn was nicknamed, began to make his ethical apology for this business at length, and Nicholas lost his temper.

  “Good God, Cluricawn, can’t you keep this for your Saturday-afternoon speech in the constituency? Let’s get down to figures and forget La Fontaine or whomever you’re talking about!”

  After this,, business proceeded in a not very genial mood, and Nicholas tried to soak his evil humor out of him in a long hot bath at the club and to brace himself with a cold shower. He drank too much brandy at lunch, and his head had a slight noise in it as he walked to the bank. He wondered why in God’s name he had rushed down in this headlong manner to the Advisory Council. For nearly three months now they had dawdled over a business that he and Miss Coleman could settle in less than an hour. He thought angrily: “The whole of this bloody country has its backside anchored to an armchair. Christ help us, if there’s a war around the corner.”

  Mr. Strood, also returning to the bank, joined him and began to fret about somebody’s overdraft.

  Nicholas stopped dead and looked angrily at his bank manager. “For God’s sake, Mr. Strood, don’t bother me with this. Take it up to Miss Coleman, and she’ll decide the whole damned thing in one minute.”

  Mr. Strood went pale, raised his hat, and walked on. Nicholas knew that he had done wrong. He looked up at the smoldering tawny clouds in the sky. This damned thunder! It always clogged his blood and made the nerves in his legs twitch. My God, what an afternoon to tackle these bloody rogues from Cairo! If he told Whitehall that he knew this money was going to be reinvested in a hostile country, they would never forgive him for revealing them as fools. What the hell could he do with them?