The Belting Inheritance

by Julian Symons

  “You say that you are David Wainwright.”

  “I am.”

  “As you know, some members of your family are doubtful about your claim. They have asked me to come down to verify it. I take it you have no objection to answering some questions.”

  David jumped up and walked quickly about the room. He ended with his back to the carved mahogany chimney-piece. “Why the hell shouldn’t I object? I’ve been badgered and harried and smelt around ever since I came here as if I were a new specimen in a zoo. Object, indeed I should think I do object.”

  “But you will answer my questions,” Foster repeated patiently, and I thought, if he is a fake he’s going to have a rough passage now, for – it struck me – Doctor Foster’s manner was really rather more like that of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, which I had recently been reading, than like that of a doctor. When David said that it depended what the questions were, he took this as assent, and began immediately. Perhaps I should set the scene. David stood throughout the interrogation warming himself at the non-existent fire like some Victorian squire, or like a Victorian warrior with his back to the wall, I suppose it might be said, shifting sometimes from one foot to another, or touching an ornament on the occasional table beside him. Foster also stood – feeling no doubt that by sitting down he would have lost a psychological advantage – his thick brown country shoes tapping the carpet at times to emphasise a point, his handsome head held erect so that he revealed to me, who sat in a chair facing sideways on to him, a profile

  of classical elegance. His manner was extremely cool and impersonal, so that he resembled a handsome Truth Machine rather than a human being. I don’t know whether some mental specialists feel it right to remove themselves emotionally from their patients in this way, but the effect is forbidding. Stephen and Arbuthnot also sat, Stephen with his white face staring at the man who called himself his brother, Arbuthnot with hands folded on his stomach. So the questioning began.

  “First of all, do you recognise me? Do you know who I am?”

  David hesitated, then spoke. “I’ll be honest and say I don’t recognise you, but I’ll make a guess. From the way you order people around I guess you must be Vivian Foster, right? I see I am. How are you, Vivian?”

  He held out his hand, which Foster touched with two fingers, then dropped. “Where did we first meet?”

  “At Oxford.”

  “Were we at the same college?”

  “Yes, Christ Church.”

  “On the same staircase?”

  “No.”

  “Who else was on your staircase?”

  David paused, shook his head. “It’s no good, I can’t remember.”

  “Did we belong to any societies?”

  “Hugh and I were in the OUDS, and so was Miles later on. I don’t think you were. I joined the Labour Club for a year or two, but again I don’t think you were a member. And of course you weren’t there during the whole of my time at Oxford, you left when you decided to become a doctor. I’ll tell you something, though, we once took out two girls in a punt and then went on to dinner, and we hadn’t got enough to pay, remember, we had to borrow from them?” Foster was going on to another question and David interrupted, with his voice raised. “I said, do you remember? Did it happen or not? Just bloody well answer.”

  “Yes, it happened. Do you remember when you were involved in a crash on my motor bicycle?”

  David took his time over answering. “No. What’s more, I don’t believe you had one. Not your style. It’s a trick question.”

  Foster’s handsome profile was impassive. “Did we meet much when we came down from Oxford?”

  “Not much. You were a medical student, I was wasting time as usual.”

  “We didn’t meet at all for two years.” Foster snapped it at him as though flashing a sword through a defensive gap. “I was in Vienna.”

  “If you say so. I’d forgotten.”

  “Queer, because you wrote me at least half a dozen letters during those two years. How did they begin?”

  Silence, then David was shaking his head. This was a real test, it seemed to me. If he was genuine, surely he must remember writing letters that began “Dear Vof”? Foster prompted him. “I’ll help you. There was a particular way you used to begin letters to me, a particular phrase you used. You can’t have forgotten it.”

  “I have.” There was a box of chessmen on a small ornamental table to the right of David. He had opened it and now he was taking one piece after another into his hands, holding it, putting it back.

  “David Wainwright wouldn’t have forgotten. My second Christian name is Oswald, and you used to begin letters ‘Dear Vof’.”

  “Did I?” He dropped a black queen on to the carpet, picked it up. While he was bending down Foster glanced at Stephen and Arbuthnot with eyebrows raised, asking without the use of words whether he should go on. Arbuthnot nodded. David straightened up.

  “When did we meet next?”

  “We met occasionally before the war. I can’t remember.” David did not look at him.

  “Do you remember meeting me at a party at Nicholas Paget’s house? And coming to my flat for dinner a couple of nights later? My introducing you to a Viennese girl named Magda?” David was shaking his head. “Odd that you shouldn’t. I was married to Magda a few months later, and you met her several times.”

  It seemed to me that this was the coup de grâce. Stephen was staring at David with an expression of pleasure on his face, like that of the boxing fan who sees a fighter he hates punch drunk, on the ropes, at the mercy of his opponent. Foster lighted a cigarette, but he still looked at David and waited for a reply. Arbuthnot opened his eyes wide, looked hard at Foster, then half-closed them. David raised his head. There was sweat on his face.

  “If I were to say that I can’t remember every bloody thing – ” he began, and then stopped. “Oh hell, what’s the use? I just don’t remember anything about Nicholas Paget or what’s her name, Magda. The thing is that not one of you bastards understands what I’ve been through, and what it can do to a man.” It was not an adequate answer, but Foster was continuing to ask questions, and somehow I felt the knockout blow had not been delivered.

  “Let’s come to the war. What unit was I in?”

  “We were together for a while. We did our basic training at – ” He looked up at the ceiling. “– at Greyswell, right? I’ll tell you something about that you won’t like remembering, you had a girl friend there and we used to call her the Sex Express, right? I may have forgotten about Magda but I remember the Sex Express. She existed, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.” From where I sat Foster’s features had not changed their expression. “What pubs did we use when we were training?”

  “That’s not easy. I can only remember one, the Goat and Compasses, right?”

  “Where did – ”

  David interrupted. “Damn you, is that right or not?”

  “We used a pub of that name, yes.”

  “Then just have the goodness to say so, you sanctimonious bastard.”

  Foster was imperturbable. “What happened after that?”

  “We were commissioned about the same time, and a couple of months later we parted company. I was Number Five Bomber Group, you were in fighters.”

  “Nineteen forty-four, did we meet then?” Foster waited for a reply and when it did not come, continued. “Did we meet in London on your last leave, the last one before you were shot down?” Still the other did not reply. “Come on, man, if we met it would be then. You’d just given evidence in the Sullivan affair, remember? It isn’t something you’d forget. Did we meet?”

  David glared at him. “Yes, we met. The news of Hugh’s death had come through. We had a night out. I was trying to forget it.”

  “All right,” Foster said suddenly. The tension of his body relaxed, I could see even sideways that he was smiling, he put out his hand. David took it. Stephen’s eyes were popping out of his head in surprise.
>
  “What – ” he began, stopped, and began again. “Do you mean to say – ”

  Foster turned to him, a solemn specialist giving his opinion. “I can’t be absolutely certain, but I’m prepared to accept that this is my friend David Wainwright.”

  “Accept him.” I thought Stephen would choke.

  “At first I was very doubtful. He’s changed a lot, but then after his experiences that’s not surprising. But his answers to the questions have pretty well convinced me.”

  “Your wife – Magda. He didn’t know about her.”

  Foster laughed. “I haven’t got a wife, let alone one named Magda. If this were not David, wouldn’t he have said yes, he remembered her, and even invented a detail or two? That was one trap, and the motor bicycle was another. He came through them both.”

  Arbuthnot interrupted. “There is a technique that intelligent criminals use. When you’re in doubt, keep silent or say you don’t know. Fortunately there aren’t too many intelligent criminals.”

  “Of course, of course.” Foster waved one well-shaped hand. “That’s why I say I can’t be positive. I am offering an opinion, not stating a fact.”

  “The letters,” Stephen said desperately. “He didn’t remember how he wrote to you.”

  “A good point,” Foster conceded, lecturer to student. “But after all, it’s been a long time, and he’s been through the mill.” David looked down at his hands, each of which contained a chessman. He put them back into the box as Foster said casually, “By the way, there’s one other thing. That old appendicitis scar, you won’t mind if I have a look at that?”

  David stopped, his body rigid with some kind of excitement. “Appendicitis scar.”

  “Just a matter of form, old man.”

  “Why the hell should I let you see it?” I had the impression that if the chessmen had been still in David’s hand he would have thrown them at Foster. “You come down and put questions to me as if I were in the dock, trick questions at that – and there’s a policeman ready to take a note of anything I say that’s out of line – and then you say ‘Come on, David, get your trousers down and show us your scar’. I’m not bloody well having any, I can tell you that.”

  “I’m very sorry.” Foster magisterially waved aside the remarks that Stephen was itching to make. “Of course you’re perfectly within your rights – ”

  “Thank you.”

  “There is no need for sarcasm. I was going to add that this is bound to affect my feelings.”

  “Why? Why should I consent to being humiliated?”

  “It’s up to you,” Foster said, and Arbuthnot spoke at the same time.

  “This seems to be a chance of clearing things up once and for all. I should have thought you’d like to take it.”

  A muscle in David’s cheek was twitching. “Let me tell you, my body’s all scars, not just appendicitis.”

  Foster said nothing more. His face was a handsome mask. Stephen could not restrain himself. “Don’t you understand, Foster, he’s got no scar, you’ve called his bluff, that’s all you had to do, he wouldn’t dare – ”

  He stopped, for David had nodded to Foster. They began to move out of the room. Stephen stood with his mouth open. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve decided to let Vivian examine me. But I’m not having the rest of you there.”

  “But why shouldn’t I – ” Stephen began, and then faltered. He was leaving a great many sentences unfinished. Foster spoke, as always with that air of saying the last word on the subject.

  “It seems to me entirely reasonable that David should want this examination to take place in private. If I may say so, Wainwright, I am here at your request, or at the request of your ambassador Barrington. If you don’t trust me to perform the examination, then say so.” Stephen was silenced. “You have no objection, Inspector?”

  “Why should I object?” It seemed to me that Arbuthnot was enjoying himself. They were not away more than five minutes. When they came back a look at David’s smiling face was enough to tell me what had happened, but Stephen had to know the worst. “Well?” he said. “Well?”

  “The scar is there.”

  “You remember it, do you? It’s in the same place?”

  “The scar is there,” Foster repeated.

  I had no reason to like Stephen, but I felt sorry for him then. He looked about him, ran a hand through his hair, and went out of the room as though he could not bear any more.

  “And never called me brother,” David murmured. The phrase jarred me by what seemed its callousness. I did not approve of Stephen’s attitude, but was this all that David could say in his moment of victory? It seemed to me that there was a lack of warmth in the goodbyes exchanged between David and Foster, although I hope I have made it clear that Foster’s emotional temperature seemed to me at all times sub-normal. It was not surprising that there were no emotional farewells, but it did seem to me a little strange that they made no arrangements for meeting in London, and that there seemed more constraint in Foster’s manner than there had been before the examination. It was Arbuthnot who walked out with him to the courtyard, and they stood there talking for a minute or two beside Foster’s car. David watched them through the window, his hands picking up little knick-knacks and putting them down again. He spoke, and his voice was high-pitched.

  “I can’t take much more of this. I’ve had enough of it, I’m not going to answer any more questions from anybody.”

  He went out of the drawing-room, and after a minute I followed him, reaching the courtyard in time to see the Austin Princess going out of the drive.

  Arbuthnot had his pipe going again, and its blue smoke drifted upwards into the air, yet he looked nervously defiant about it even out here, as though afraid that Lady W might pop out at any moment and rebuke a member of the lower orders for smoking near the premises. He said with some satisfaction, “Quite an afternoon for the Wainwright clan. David is really David, or is he? His lady friend says no, his doctor friend says a doubtful yes, so who do we believe?”

  His lady friend! I had forgotten Betty Urquhart in the stress of Foster’s examination and its result, but now I caught hold of the inspector’s last phrase. What made him think Foster’s identification was doubtful?

  “Because it was. You saw his manner afterwards, and I asked him what he had found. There’s an appendicitis scar, and it’s much in the place he remembers, but it seemed to him that it was too recent. And the man’s body is a mass of scars, he was telling the truth about that, and a couple of them partly cover the appendicitis scar. So really the verdict is not proven, as you might put it.”

  “Why didn’t he say so?”

  He chuckled. “That’s the sort of man he is, d’you see. He can recognise a nasty mess, and he wants to keep away from it. He pretty well told me as much out here, said he didn’t want to be involved any further. That’s the upper class for you all over.” I was not flattered by the fact that he seemed to identify me with his own class, whatever he considered that to be. “I think I might have another word with Master David.”

  “He said he’d had enough, he wouldn’t answer any more questions.”

  “Ah well, time enough. I must be getting along, they’ll be looking for me at the station. I might get corrupted here, might get to envying all these smart cars.” He patted his old but well-preserved vehicle.

  “Why did you talk about the – the Sullivan affair – in that threatening way, when you told me David had nothing to do with it?”

  “I didn’t exactly say that, did I?” He got into the car, looked at me consideringly. “Here’s a bit of information you can pass on. We’ve heard from the Paris police. They’ve checked at the address from which that original letter to Lady Wainwright was written, and a man resembling your David Wainwright had been living there all right, under the name of Stiver. But be hadn’t been there for a year as he said, only for a few weeks. What d’you make of that?”

  I made nothing of it. The car starte
d first time, and he was away. The setting sun in the blue sky was red as blood.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Last Time

  I remember dinner that night very well, for it was the last meal David ate in the house, and the last time I saw Lady W alive. She came down leaning on David’s arm, and it was noticeable that ever since his return she had become weaker. She drank only a mouthful of soup, and refused the roast chicken, but she dominated the dinner-table – that is to say, the family – as she had done ever since I had known her.

  “I had Humphries here today,” she said, as though we might have been unaware of it. “And you know what he came for, I told you, I’ve changed my will.” David was sitting next to her as before, and she patted his hand. He looked as if the meat in his mouth might choke him. “At the same time, I don’t want you to think, any of you, that your names have been left out. You are all mentioned. I still have a sense of justice.” She paused, crumbled bread which she did not eat. “That policeman was here, I saw you talking to him in the courtyard, Christopher. He was smoking. I trust that he didn’t do so indoors. A jumped-up little man,” she said severely, although it was not accurate to call Arbuthnot little. “The post-war generation,” she added with equal inaccuracy.

  There was silence, broken by Uncle Miles. His bald pate had been made rosy by the sun. “A very lively afternoon’s cricket,” he said. “A beautiful innings by Phebey.”

  Lady W turned upon him her still-devastating eye, and as she spoke I realised that although she might be in bed all day the intelligence service provided by Peterson was a good one. “You missed your former wife this afternoon. She came here, drunk of course, accompanied by a Negro. Was it at your invitation?”

  Uncle Miles managed to observe the truth, although not the whole truth. “No, certainly I didn’t invite her.”

  “I am glad to hear it. She came uninvited.” Her glance moved from one to the other of us. “Peterson tells me that one of your dogs attacked her companion, Clarissa. I always thought that those dogs had a use.”