A Presumption of Death

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  ‘I’ve forgotten already,’ she said, spectacularly untruthfully. But what does one say to someone who has opened his heart to you, and wishes to close the door again?

  Then there was a sound of cars. Three cars drawing up to the building, men in dark overcoats getting out. Peter, Bungo, Sir Impey Biggs, an RAF officer of high degree, Superintendent Kirk, Wing-Commander Thompson: Peter’s drumhead court martial, come to try their man. Harriet gazed at them with a spasm of hostility that almost, though not quite, included Peter.

  Seventeen

  Enough, if something from our hands have power

  To live and act and serve the future hour;

  And if, as towards the silent tomb we go,

  Through love, through hope,

  and faith’s transcendent dower

  We feel that we are greater than we know.

  William Wordsworth, The River Duddon, 1820

  Quarley had to go through it all again. Each detail, each movement, each gesture and blow. Sitting at the back of the room, Harriet listened acutely, attentively for any variation in the tale, any slip that would catch him out; complete consistency is difficult for liars. But he didn’t vary his tale by one iota. He forgot to mention the knife; Peter got it out of him with a deftly placed question. He was white-faced, tensed, looking constantly across the table at his Wing-Commander, who sat head down, fiddling with a pen against a note-pad, looking, Harriet thought, black as thunder.

  When Quarley had finished, the Wing-Commander said abruptly, ‘So where does this leave us?’

  Superintendent Kirk said, ‘If this was peace-time I would arrest and charge this man, and the law would take its course. That’s what I’d prefer to do now, war or no war.’

  Sir Impey Biggs said, ‘You wouldn’t get murder, Kirk, you know. And I think if you go for manslaughter you still might not get it. If I were defending I’d have a good go at justified homicide. Self-defence. It’s nearly watertight. And if the jury knew who the deceased was, you’d never get a conviction.’

  ‘They wouldn’t know,’ said Bungo. ‘We’d make sure of that.’

  Quarley said, ‘How could I get someone like him defending me? I haven’t a penny to my name.’

  Peter said, ‘If it comes to that, I’ll retain Impey.’

  ‘Why?’ said Quarley. ‘Why should you help me? Look, who the hell was he? He was somebody special, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I think in human decency, we have got to tell him,’ said Peter quietly.

  ‘He was an enemy agent,’ said Bungo.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Pretending to be Brinklow,’ Peter said. ‘You would have known at once. Had you caught sight of him in daylight the game would have been up for him. He had to try to kill you.’

  Quarley sat silent for long seconds. ‘So when he said he hadn’t heard of Joan, he really hadn’t,’ he said at last. ‘That’s what got me so blindingly angry. And it was true.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Peter.

  ‘So is that it? Can I just go now? I killed a spy, and I’m a sort of hero?’

  ‘You’re a damn nuisance,’ said Bungo. ‘We would have caught up with him in a bit, and found out what he was up to. And if he was acting alone. What he was doing for the enemy. Vital intelligence. Then you come along.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Look, in all the circumstances,’ said Thompson, standing up, ‘can I have my man back? He’s supposed to be airborne in half an hour, and I haven’t a substitute who’s up to the job.’

  ‘If it was up to me, I’d charge him,’ said Kirk. ‘But it isn’t up to me, I suppose.’

  ‘Look, Commander, Superintendent Kirk has security clearance,’ said Peter. ‘Couldn’t you tell him enough about these missions to convince him that he ought to hold his hand?’

  ‘We need to know where the key German warships are,’ said Commander Thompson. ‘We need to know if they move out of port. They can hide them in the fjords now they have Norway in their clutches, and it’s very hard to fly over a deep fjord between high mountains. The fall of Norway is a disaster. Those ports give them mastery of the northern Atlantic. I know all eyes are on the south, and that’s where the battle to get air-cover for an invasion will be. But without supplies from across the Atlantic we’re going to be starved out. We must try to protect our shipping, and we must try to sink theirs. The bastards are attacking unarmed trawlers now, as well as neutral shipping. We’re flying Hudsons,’ he added. ‘They aren’t as fast as Spitfires, or as manoeuvrable.’

  ‘If it’s so important, why don’t they give you Spitfires?’ asked Kirk.

  ‘Spits haven’t got the range. Two hours cruising, or forty-five minutes at combat speeds at most. We’ve got a lot more in a Hudson. Hamburg and back. Quarley got to Hamburg and back last month.’

  ‘Convinced?’ asked Peter.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Kirk. He was glaring wrathfully at Bungo. ‘But I have got a body, and you tell me I shan’t have either a conviction or an acquittal.’

  ‘Well, you won’t have any grieving relatives to nag you,’ said Impey Biggs.

  ‘That’s something,’ admitted Kirk grudgingly.

  ‘What if I insist on making a written statement to this policeman?’ asked Quarley. ‘Will he arrest me?’

  Peter said quietly, ‘Everything you have done so far is dependent on your wish to go on flying. To go on fighting. Isn’t that so?’

  Quarley nodded, mutely. Then he said, ‘If I were flying solo, I could find a sort of answer . . .’

  Commander Thompson said fiercely, ‘No, you don’t, laddie. If there’s one thing we’re shorter of than pilots it’s aircraft. I’ll ground you if I think you’re a risk to your plane, and let these officers of the law take you off my patch.’

  Peter said, ‘This isn’t fair. This is a grim sort of double jeopardy. Gentlemen,’ he added, ‘we must leave this up to Quarley himself. He is risking his neck for his country day after day. If he survives, and if he chooses, he can clear things up after the war.’

  ‘You mean I really can go?’ said Quarley.

  ‘Get the hell out of here, and get on standby,’ said Commander Thompson.

  Harriet, standing at the window, saw Quarley emerge on to the street running for his motor-bike, and saw in every step he took, in the set of his shoulders, in the rake of his head as he rode away, what he really wanted, which risk he really preferred.

  Behind her Commander Thompson said, ‘I wouldn’t give much for his chances.’

  ‘What are the odds?’ asked Bungo.

  ‘He’s good. A good man lasts about eighty hours’ flying time in present circumstances. He’s done more than forty. But this will get a lot worse before it gets better.’

  ‘I think so, too,’ said Peter.

  ‘A chap is old at twenty in this game.’

  ‘Who is going to tell the family?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘Tell them what?’

  ‘What they need to know. That Alan Brinklow was not in dereliction of his duty, and that Jeff Quarley is not to be charged with murder. Surely they should know that much.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bungo. ‘Can they keep it to themselves, do you think?’

  ‘Don’t underestimate the commonalty, old man,’ said Peter. ‘You’re not in the Ministry of Instruction and Morale.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that!’ said Bungo. ‘Well, if you think so, Lady Peter. Perhaps we could leave it to your best judgement.’

  ‘It would come better from you,’ said Harriet. ‘You look properly official.’

  Let this smug and horribly distant man witness some human emotion, she thought. Why should he not see what the consequences of his dirty tricks department might be?

  Bungo stood in Mrs Quarley’s drawing-room, his immaculately cut black overcoat seeming more impressive than any uniform. Mrs Quarley faced him as though he were a firing squad.

  ‘For complicated reasons which national security forbids me to divulge,’ he told her, ‘it
is proposed that no action be taken against your son as a result of any recent events in which he may have been involved in Hertfordshire. We must ask you to keep anything you may know about this matter entirely to yourself.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh, I’ve been so frightened! When he told me what had happened . . . yes, of course.’

  Not quite satisfied, Bungo went on, ‘Should any information about the affair begin to circulate the authorities might be forced to initiate the actions which they have decided not to initiate.’

  ‘I understand you very well,’ said Mrs Quarley. ‘And thank God!’

  ‘Will you tell your daughter,’ said Peter, ‘that Alan Brinklow died a brave man, and that any impression that he survived and did not act with perfect honesty was produced by the sort of misinformation that can happen in war-time.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t have to tell her,’ said Mrs Quarley. ‘She has never doubted it.’ She turned to Peter. ‘I think I must have you to thank for this,’ she said. ‘But it’s the right thing. Jeff is a good, brave boy.’

  ‘His courage is not in doubt, Mrs Quarley,’ said Peter.

  As they walked back down the pleasant street towards their cars, Bungo said, ‘If we ever do this again, we’ll have to start from scratch. This was too complicated.’

  ‘Start from scratch? Make somebody up out of thin air?’ asked Harriet, amazed.

  ‘Well, the real man’s only too real connections have caused a lot of bother, wouldn’t you say?’ said Bungo. ‘It would be difficult, of course . . .’

  ‘It would indeed!’ said Harriet. ‘Bungo, you can have no idea at all how difficult fiction is.’

  ‘The nearly insuperable problem would be finding an available body,’ said Peter.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t think there’ll be any shortage of bodies,’ said Bungo.

  ‘But bodies,’ said Peter, ‘as my long acquaintance with them has made very clear to me, have histories.’

  It was early afternoon before they began the long drive home. It was raining. The grey ribbon of the A1 unwound interminably in front of them. Peter drove as usual very fast, and very skilfully. Harriet had got so used to this that she no longer needed to ride with her eyes shut. So when he slowed to a modest speed and they began to move gently along a wind-swept stretch, between showers, she said, ‘What’s up, Peter?’

  ‘We’re nearing the turn-off for Peterborough.’

  ‘Are we? How does one tell, with all the signs gone?’

  ‘Long familiarity.’

  ‘A tendency to know everything. Still the wonder grew . . .’

  ‘I accept the implied mockery,’ he said.

  ‘Only admiration was implied,’ she said dryly. ‘Why are we suddenly obeying the speed limit, and the normal need for caution?’

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘whether you would consider taking a diversion, and going home via Duke’s Denver?’

  ‘Oh, Peter, let’s!’ said Harriet. ‘Your mother hasn’t seen you for ages, and she has been so worried about you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘I’d love it.’

  Peter turned immediately, having reached the corner as they had been speaking, and sped up at once.

  Harriet braced herself. Long, straight fenland roads stretched ahead. They ran like demonstrations of vanishing point into the level distances. Occasionally there was a sharp turn, a humped bridge over water, another turn, and the road resumed its set direction on the other bank of a sluice. On one of these sudden switch-backs they became aware of a dog-fight in the air above them. Some miles away a group of planes were catching the golden light of early evening, shining in the air, gleaming, twisting, soaring, diving, four or five of them on the tail of an enemy fighter. They crackled with gunfire, and scrawled vapour trails over the huge overarching dome of the sky.

  Peter stopped the car and they watched in silence. If a victory or a defeat was scored they could not decipher it. The planes were moving rapidly southwards, till they diminished to the size of the shower of sparks from a Roman candle.

  ‘Bother!’ said Peter, a mile further on.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘My favourite signpost has gone with all the rest. I wanted to show it to you.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It said on the right-hand arm “Duke’s Denver 7 miles”. And on the left-hand arm “Duke’s Denver 7 miles”. I thought they might have left it. After all, the reason for taking the signs down was to confuse the enemy!’

  In fifteen minutes they moved off the fen, and drove through a mile or two of gently rolling, wooded country, to the gates of the house. The lodge was unmanned, the wrought-iron gates had disappeared, and the car rumbled over a cattle grid into the park. Peter said, ‘I hope Gerald hasn’t sent those gates off for the war effort. They were rather fine.’

  ‘But shouldn’t he? If everyone else’s railings are to go?’

  ‘There have been a lot of wars and emergencies in the time of a house like this,’ said Peter. They had crested a rise and were looking down at the Palladian front. Dusk was gathering, but the great house stood unlit, a brooding mass of stone, and a parade of glass windows in which the last lemony remnant of sunset gleamed, streaked with grey cloud-shadow. No blackout could quench window-glass in this level, late light. Peter stopped the car.

  ‘It looks a bit gloomy like this,’ said Harriet. ‘Threatening, somehow.’

  ‘I am intolerably threatened by it,’ said Peter fiercely.

  ‘I have always supposed that if it came to the point, you would let it claim you, and do your best for it.’

  ‘Did you marry me thinking that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And prepared to do your best by it too?’

  ‘Yes, Peter. Prepared for anything that being married to you would bring.’

  ‘What we heard about Quarley has a terrible relevance to Jerry.’

  ‘I know. I thought of that too. Did I tell you that Helen wants us to put the boys’ names down for some posh boarding school?’

  ‘She would,’ he said. ‘Harriet, whatever happens to us, we must try to keep the boys out of it. Of course they need a good school, but I would like them to be brought up plainly labelled “Middle class of Paggleham”, like “Indignant of Tunbridge Wells”. Just look at this! How can this be justified? And it will be even harder in the world after the war. Every living person in these islands will have shared risks and hardship; how will it seem to be claiming privilege? Can we keep the boys modest and ordinary as far as possible?’

  ‘You hate it, Peter, don’t you? And I held it against you all those years.’

  ‘It’s a quagmire,’ he said. ‘Because I love it too. All this glory has a lethal charm and majesty. But I do prefer myself now. Peter-after-Harriet is easier to live with than Peter-before-Harriet. That Peter makes me squirm whenever I think of him.’

  ‘Well, don’t think of him. He’s over and gone. Take me down to the Dower House before we both freeze to the car seats.’

  The dowager Duchess flung herself into her son’s arms, with cries of delight, while her notorious cat Ahasuerus sunk his claws into Harriet’s ankles. Harriet could not remember any arrival at Denver that was not accompanied by the application of Germalene to some part of someone.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry! Darling Harriet! Ahasuerus isn’t at all himself!’ cried the Duchess. ‘He simply cannot understand why there are so few scraps – and of course I can’t explain, although of course I do keep telling him about rationing.’

  ‘That dratted cat is actually entirely himself,’ said Peter sternly. ‘He always scratches someone, rationing or no rationing. We came on impulse, Mother; do we have ration-books, Harriet?’

  ‘Oh, rubbish, Peter, we shall kill the fatted calf and let Hitler choke on it. As a matter of fact you chose just the day; Gerald is coming to supper, and we have a pheasant pie, thanks to Mr Lanson. He’s been potting game for us when he isn’t teaching the Home Guard how to use firea
rms. I gather they profit from his teaching by poaching more ruthlessly than ever. Now, come upstairs, dears, and sit by the fire while I get Franklin to make up your room for you.’

  ‘How’s the family firm?’ asked Peter, when they were settled at the fireside. The Duchess was knitting – she declared it was the only form of war work she was fit for – some remarkably knobbly socks. Ahasuerus kept batting the ball of wool across the floor with a lifted paw, and then flattening himself against the shining parquetry and stalking it into far corners. Harriet kept getting up and retrieving it. She put it back in the Duchess’s knitting-bag, from which it would be jerked out as the knitting reached the end of each row, and Ahasuerus would send it rolling away again.

  ‘Rather well, dear, I’m almost afraid to say. It does seem awful when other people are being so discombobulated. Helen was complaining bitterly the other day about the servants and groundsmen all leaving for the forces or war work, or taking leave of absence to fire-watch and train in first-aid. I said to her, “Helen, they are actually doing something about the war, and you should be glad to let them.” She said she was doing plenty herself, working in London, but I think she’s glad of the excuse to be away. Gerald seems a lot more resilient without her. He wouldn’t get away with some of the things he’s doing if she were around, I think.’

  ‘Like what, Mother?’ said Peter.

  ‘Well, he lets our evacuees have the run of the place. I ran into an art lesson the other day, with all of them sitting around that copy of Apollo Belvedere that we have in the Long Gallery, and making drawings of it. Our version hasn’t even got a fig leaf, you know, Harriet, and you should see some of the works of art those London little ones were making! The girls, too.’

  ‘Shocking,’ said Gerald, arriving and bestowing a minimal kiss on his mother’s cheek. ‘Hallo, Harriet. Peter. Good to see you. How’s Hertfordshire?’

  ‘Very nice indeed, after abroad, thank you, Gerald,’ said Peter. ‘How’s Dukedom?’

  ‘Harder than ever,’ said Gerald cheerfully. ‘I’m letting most of the garden go for pasture. I’ve only two men left, and they are both getting on. Can’t be helped.’