She left the bus, and walked on air. She was going to see Henry, and only half an hour ago she had never expected to see him again. She looked at her watch and found it was half past twelve. Suppose Henry had gone out to lunch. Well, suppose he had – ‘I can see him some other time, can’t I?’ Something that felt as heavy as a lorryload of bricks crashed down on Hilary’s spirits. Easier to bear the thought of never seeing Henry again than to feel that he might be out now, at this very minute, when she had counted on seeing him. ‘Please, please, please don’t let him be out!’
She turned the corner, and there across the roaring flood of the Fulham Road was Henry’s shop, or rather the shop which Henry’s godfather had bequeathed to him, and which Henry was in two minds whether to accept or not. Hilary’s heart gave a foolish jump when she saw it, because she and Henry had been going to live in the flat over the shop when they got married. The Fulham Road may not be everyone’s idea of the Garden of Eden, but so inveterately romantic is the human heart that when Henry kissed Hilary and asked her if she could be happy in a flat over a shop, and Hilary kissed Henry and said she could, it is a fact that to them the noisy crowded thoroughfare became a mere boundary of their own particular paradise.
Hilary reminded herself that she was now perfectly calm, perfectly detached. She crossed the road, read the legend, “Henry Eustatius, Antiques,‘ and stood looking in at the window. She did this because something odd seemed to have happened to her knees. They didn’t seem to be aware that she was being calm. They wobbled. Impossible to confront Henry with any poise while your knees were wobbling. She gazed earnestly in at the window and noticed that the Feraghan rug which they had been going to have in their dining-room was no longer to be seen. It used to hang on the left-hand wall, and they had had a joke about it, because Henry said that if anyone came in and asked the price, he would say a thousand pounds, and she had said he wouldn’t have the nerve. Something tugged at her heart. It was gone. It was their very own dining-room carpet, and it was gone. Henry had sold it away into slavery to be someone else’s carpet, and she felt most desolate, robbed, and homeless. It was her own dining-room carpet, and Henry had stolen it.
For the first time she really believed that everything was over between them. It seemed quite impossible to walk into the shop and see Henry, and be cool and dignified. It seemed equally impossible to cross the Fulham Road again. And then as she stood looking in through the window past the inlaid table with the red and white chessmen, and the Queen Anne bureau, and the set of high-backed Spanish chairs, she saw a movement in the dark corner where a screen of stamped and gilded leather hid the door, and round the edge of it came Henry and a man.
Hilary wanted to run away, but her feet wouldn’t move. She didn’t dare look at Henry, so she looked at the other man. He seemed short beside Henry, but he wasn’t really short. He was just a very ordinary height, slim, pale, irregular-featured, with greenish hazel eyes, and red hair worn negligently long. He had on a soft collar and a tie not quite like other people’s ties, a sort of floppy bow. There seemed to be something rather odd about the cut of his suit too. It reminded Hilary of a Cruikshank caricature. It was of a slaty blue colour, and the tie was mauve. Hilary didn’t think she had ever seen a man wearing a mauve tie before. Frightful with that red hair – and he had matched his handkerchief to the tie, and his socks to the handkerchief. She had begun by looking at him because she didn’t want to look at Henry, but after the first glance her interest was riveted, because this was Bertie Everton. She had only seen him once before, at Geoff’s trial, but he was the once-seen-never-forgotten sort. No one else in the world had hair like that.
Henry was talking as they came into the shop. He pointed at a tall blue-and-white jar, and both men turned to look at it. Hilary let her eye slide rapidly over them. It slipped off Bertie Everton and rested upon Henry. He was talking in quite an animated manner – laying down the law, Hilary decided, but he looked pale, paler than when she had seen him last, if you didn’t count that hurried glimpse at the station yesterday. Of course when she had seen him last – really seen him -they had been quarrelling, and colour and temper are apt to rise together. He looked pale, and he appeared to be laying down the law to Bertie Everton with a good deal of gloomy emphasis. She reflected that if he was talking about the jar, Bertie probably knew a lot more about it than he did. She wondered if he remembered that Bertie was a collector. At first she hoped he didn’t, because it would serve him right if he tripped over his own feet and took a toss. And then with a rush of angry compunction she knew just how dreadfully she would mind if Henry gave himself away. Her feet came unstuck from the pavement, and almost before she knew what she was going to do she had pushed open the glass door of the shop and walked in.
Henry had his back to her. He did not turn round. He was saying a beautiful piece which he had memorized with great care from one of his godfather’s books on ceramics. It was calculated to impress anyone except a real collector, who would probably recognise the passage and suspect that it had been learnt by heart.
When he had finished the paragraph, Bertie Everton said, ‘Oh, quite,’ and took a step towards the door, whereupon Henry turned round and saw Hilary. After which he sped the departing Bertie with an almost indecent haste. The door closed. The red-haired young man covered his red hair with a soft black hat, looked over his shoulder once at the girl who appeared to be admiring that remarkably fine set of ivory chessmen, and passed out of sight.
With a long striding step Henry arrived at the other side of the inlaid table which supported the chessmen. He said ‘Hilary!’ in a loud shaken voice, and Hilary dropped the white queen and backed into a grandfather clock, which rocked dangerously. There was a pause.
Emotion affects people in different ways. It induced in Henry a stare of frowning intensity, and in Hilary an inability to meet that stare. If she did she would either laugh or cry, and she didn’t want to do either. She wanted to be cool, calm, detached, and coldly polite. She wanted to display tact, poise, and savoir faire. And here she was, dropping chessmen and backing into grandfather clocks. And both she and Henry were in full view of everyone who happened to be walking down that part of the Fulham Road. Her cheeks were burning like fire, and if Henry was going to go on standing there and saying nothing for another five seconds, she would simply have to do something, she wasn’t sure what.
Henry broke the silence by saying in a tone of gloomy politeness,
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
Rubbish for Henry to talk like that. She looked up with a bright sparkle in her eyes and said,
‘Don’t be silly, Henry – of course there is!’
Henry’s eyebrows rose. A most annoying trick.
‘Well?’
‘I want to talk to you. We can’t talk here. Let’s go through to the Den.’
Hilary was feeling better. Her knees were still wobbling, and she wasn’t being properly aloof and cold, but she had at least got herself and Henry away from the window, where they must have been presenting a convincing tableau of The Shoplifter Detected.
Without further speech they passed round the screen and along a bit of dark passage to the Den, which had been the office of old Mr. Henry Eustatius. It was of course Captain Henry Cunningham’s office now, and it was a good deal tidier than it had been in his godfather’s day. Henry Eustatius had corresponded voluminously with collectors in every part of the world. Their letters to him lay about all over the table, all over the chairs, and all over the floor, and his replies, written in a minute spidery hand, were often very much delayed because they were apt to get engulfed in the general muddle. They probably arrived in the end, because the woman who did for Henry Eustatius was quite clever at recognising his writing. She never interfered with any of the other papers, but whenever she saw one covered with that spidery handwriting she would pick it up and put it right in front of the table where it could not help being seen. Henry Cunningham’s correspondence was not so large. He ke
pt unanswered letters in one basket and answered letters in another, and when he wrote a letter he took it to the post at once.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hilary sat down on the arm of a large leather-covered chair. She was glad to sit down, but it put her at a disadvantage, because Henry remained standing. He leaned against the mantelpiece and gazed silently over the top of her head. Enraging. Because if you wanted to stop Henry talking you couldn’t – he merely raised his voice and continued to air his views. And now, when you wanted him to talk, he went all strong and silent and looked over the top of your head. She said, in rather a breathless voice,
‘Don’t do that!’
Henry looked at her, and immediately looked away again. ‘As if I was a black beetle!’ said Hilary to herself.
He said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and Hilary forgot about her knees wobbling and jumped up.
‘Henry, I really won’t be spoken to like that! I wanted to talk to you, but if you’re going to be a perfectly polite stranger, I’m off!’
Henry continued to avert his gaze. She understood him to say in a muffled tone that he wasn’t being a polite stranger, and inside herself Hilary grinned and heard a little jigging rhyme which said,
‘Henry is never very polite,
But when he is he’s a perfect fright.’
She emerged, to hear him enquire what he could do for her, and all at once her eyes stung, and she heard herself say,
‘Nothing. I’m going.’
Henry got to the door first. He put his back against it and said,
‘You can’t go.’
‘I don’t want to go – I want to talk. But I can’t unless you’ll be rational.’
‘I’m perfectly rational,’ said Henry.
Then come and sit down. I really do want to talk, and I can’t whilst you go on being about eleven feet high.’
He subsided into a second leather chair. They were so close that if she had been sitting in the chair instead of on the arm, their knees would have touched. She had now a slight adyantage, as from this position it was she who looked down on him whilst he looked up to her. She thought it an entirely suitable arrangement, but had serious doubts as to its ever becoming permanent. Even now Henry wasn’t looking at her. Suppose he wasn’t just putting it on – suppose he really didn’t want to look at her any more… It was a most unnerving thought.
Quite suddenly she began to wish that she hadn’t come. And just at that moment Henry said rather gruffly,
‘Is anything the matter?’
A new, warm feeling rushed over Hilary. Henry only spoke like that when he really minded, and if he really minded, it was going to be all right. She nodded and said,
That’s what I want to talk to you about. Things have been happening, and I can’t talk to Marion because it upsets her, and I feel as if I must talk to someone, because of course it’s very, very, very important, so I thought we – we -well, we were friends -and I thought if I talked to you, you’d tell me what I ought to do next.’
There! Henry ought to adore that -he liked them meek and feminine. At least he did in theory, but in practice he might get bored.
‘Henry would like his wife to be meek
If he had a new one once a week.’
Henry brightened a little.
‘You’d better tell me all about it. What have you been doing?’
‘Nothing.’ Hilary shook a mournful head. ‘At least I only got into a wrong train by mistake – and that wasn’t my fault. I – I just saw someone who – who frightened me, so I got into a Ledlington train by mistake and didn’t find it out for ages.’
‘Someone frightened you? How?’
‘By glaring. It’s very unnerving for a sensitive young girl to be glared at on a public platform.’
Henry looked at her with suspicion.
‘What are you getting at?’
‘You,’ said Hilary, and only just stopped herself saying ‘Darling.’
‘You’ve no idea how you glared -at least I hope you haven’t, because it’s much worse if you meant it. But I was completely shattered, and by the time I’d picked up the bits, there I was in a lonely carriage in a Ledlington train with Mrs. Mercer having suppressed hysterics in the other corner and beginning to clutch hold of my dress and confide in me, only I didn’t know it was Mrs. Mercer or I’d have encouraged her a lot more.’
‘Mrs. Mercer?’ said Henry in a very odd tone indeed.
Hilary nodded.
‘Alfred Mercer and Mrs. Mercer. You won’t remember, because you’d gone back to Egypt before the trial, came off – Geoff’s trial – the Everton Case. The Mercers were James Everton’s married couple, and they were the spot witnesses for the prosecution – Mrs. Mercer’s evidence very nearly hanged Geoff. And when I was in the train with her she recognised me, and then she began to cry and to say the oddest things.’
‘What sort of things, Hilary?’ Henry had stopped being superior and offended. His voice was eager and the words hurried out.
‘Well, it was all about Marion and the trial, and a lot of gasping and sobbing and staring, and a funny sort of story about how she’d tried to see Marion when the trial was going on. She said she went round to the house where she was staying and tried to see her. She said, “Miss, if I never spoke another word, it’s true I tried to see her.” And she said she’d given her husband the slip. And then she said in quite a frightful sort of whisper things like “If she had seen me.” But she didn’t see her, because she was resting. Poor Marion, she was nearly dead by then -they wouldn’t have let her see anyone – but Mrs. Mercer seemed most dreadfully upset about it. And then she said her husband came and she never got another chance. She said he saw to that.’
Henry was looking straight at her for the first time.
‘It really was Mrs. Mercer?’
‘Oh yes. Marion showed me a photograph and I recognised it at once. It was Mrs. Mercer all right.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Do you want me to describe her?’
‘No – no. I want to know how she seemed. You said she was having hysterics. Did she know what she was saying?’
‘Oh yes, I should think so – oh yes, I’m sure she did. When I said hysterics, I didn’t mean she was screaming the place down. She was just awfully upset, you know – crying, and gasping, and trembling all over, and every now and then she’d pull herself together, and then she’d break down again.’
‘Something on her mind – ’ said Henry slowly. Then, with a good deal of emphasis, ‘You didn’t think of her being out of her mind, did you?’
‘No – no, I didn’t – not after the first minute or two. I did at first because of the way she stared, and because of her bursting out that she knew me, and things like “Thank God he didn’t,” and, “He’d never have gone if he had.” ’
‘He?
‘Mercer. He went along the corridor. I – I’d been looking out of the window, and when I turned round I just saw a man getting up and going along. I’d been picking up the bits, you know – the ones you shattered by scowling across the platform at me – so I hadn’t been noticing who was in the carriage, and when I’d got myself put together again, and turned round, there was the man going out into the corridor and the woman staring at me, and I did think she was mad for about a minute and a half.’
‘Why?’
‘Why did I think she was mad at first – or why didn’t I think so afterwards?’
‘Both.’
‘Well, I thought she was mad at first because of her staring and saying “Thank God” at me – anyone would. But when I found out that she really did know me because of seeing me with Marion at the trial, and that the reason she was all worked up and emoted was because she was frightfully sorry for Marion and couldn’t get her off her mind, I didn’t think she was mad any more. That sort of person gets gulpy at once if they’re fond of someone who’s in trouble, so I just thought it was that, but when I found out who she was, all the rather odd thing
s she’d been saying came up in my mind, and I wondered.’
‘You wondered whether she was mad?’
‘No – I wondered what she’d got on her mind.’
Henry leaned forward with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. ‘Well, you said yourself that her evidence nearly hanged Geoffrey Grey.’
‘Yes, it did. She’d been up to turn down Mr. Everton’s bed, you know, and she swore that when she came down again she heard voices in the study and she thought there was a quarrel going on, and she was frightened and went to the door to listen, and she swore that she recognised Geoffrey’s voice. So then she said she thought it was all right, and she was coming away, when she heard a shot, and she screamed, and Mercer came running out of his pantry where he was cleaning the silver. The study door was locked, and when they banged on it Geoff opened it from inside with the pistol in his hand. It’s frightful evidence, Henry.’
‘And Grey’s story was?’
‘His uncle rang him up at eight and asked him to come along at once. He was very much upset. Geoff went along, and he would have got there at between a quarter and twenty past eight. He went into the study through the open French window, and he said his uncle was lying across the writing-table and the pistol was on the floor in front of the window. He said he picked it up, and then he heard a scream in the hall and the Mercers came banging at the door, and when he found it was locked he unlocked it and let them in. And there were only his finger-prints on the handle and on the pistol.’
The Case Is Closed Page 9