The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  “I think, Hester,” Wade began resolutely, “I think—”

  “I think there’s nothing more we can tell you,” Hester said loudly.

  “Not if one of them was connected with the criminal classes? Not if one of them was frightened? Not if one had a peculiar background, or financial troubles?”

  “Nothing. Nothing more.”

  “There’s the question of property. That’s very serious. No legatee would be able to benefit, as things are now. Have you thought of that?” Inspector Lewis urged.

  Moira looked grimmer than before.

  “And there’s the possibility of crime,” the inspector said in a harsher voice. “The man who didn’t fly on that plane may be dead. How are we to know unless you give us the facts?” he demanded of Hester. “Do you think that’s a possibility, Miss Wade?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “If people are murdered, it’s for a reason. Was there anything in the lives of any of these four—and remember, it might have been something as simple as carrying too much money in his pocket-book—anything so out of the ordinary that it might have led him into trouble?”

  He waited. No one spoke, although the silence had an intensity that suggested everyone was about to speak.

  “You’re all reasonable people,” he said. “I’m not here to attack you. I came in the hope that with your help I might arrive at the truth.” He looked again at Hester, and saw her make her decision.

  “It’s so difficult to explain,” she said. “I don’t know how to begin.”

  “Did anything unusual happen before they left? They were all here on Thursday night. Can you tell me anything about Thursday?”

  They looked at each other, their collective memories moving slowly back into the events of Thursday, a day already buried beneath the weight of other days. They returned to it slowly, like divers exploring a submarine cave; seeing the grey form of the fish trembling in the still water; clutching at the sunken rock with both hands while their bodies streamed upwards as lightly as weed; fingering the crevices; scraping empty shells from the deep sand.

  Hester shook her head. “I can’t begin with Thursday. On Wednesday I met Marryatt first, Jackie came at night, and Harry—I think I must begin with Wednesday.”

  “Then Wednesday. Two days before the plane took off.”

  “Wednesday,” she said wistfully. “On Wednesday morning everything seemed so peaceful. Father was painting a room…”

  Wednesday (1)

  Charles Wade stood on top of a step-ladder, painting a wall with wild, frightened strokes. Harry Walters lounged against the door.

  “Is there any advice I could give you?” he asked. “If you worked more from the wrist, wouldn’t it look less like a hair-shirt?”

  “This new paint dries like glass and lasts for ever,” Wade said.

  “But the wall behind it won’t, Father. Shouldn’t you have filled in the hole first?” Hester asked.

  “It’s only a little hole. It could have paper pasted over it,” Wade said.

  Hester tapped it with her knuckles. Sand streamed out of it and down the wall. “The ruined sides of kings,” she said absently.

  Wade stared at her with baffled, parent’s eyes.

  “You’re in a destructive mood, Hester. Now I’ll have to fill it in. Be a good girl and get me the bag of plaster. It’s in the larder.”

  “Two flights of stairs,” Hester said. She looked at Harry, who sat down in a corner and lit a cigarette.

  “And bring a bucket with some water and another bucket for mixing,” her father called after her.

  “You should take longer strokes with the brush,” Harry said.

  Wade put down the brush, picked up a rag, and began to wipe the paint off his fingers.

  “Harry,” he said, “personally, I couldn’t like you more. But you’ll accept my advice—as a friend? You’d never do as a son-in-law.”

  “I’m not often taken for a marrying man. Are you warning me off the premises? I thought I’d been asked to lunch?”

  “Naturally, you must stay to lunch,” Wade said irritably.

  “Then that’s all right. Unless Maurice is coming. I can’t eat when he’s there. He takes away my appetite.”

  Wade sat down on top of the step-ladder.

  “Harry, you have insulted my closest friend.”

  “Keep your money in your socks when your closest friend is there,” Harry advised.

  “Harry, you say these things without meaning them. You say them in a casual way that is very annoying. You haven’t any respect for people. Society…”

  “Ah, yes, society,” Harry said. He settled down comfortably to listen. In five minutes Wade would be far away from the subject of sons-in-law.

  Hester went downstairs and into the big, square kitchen where her sister Prudence, surrounded by utensils, was muttering over a cookery book.

  “I’ve got an absolutely wonderful idea for dinner, tomorrow’s dinner, I mean, because it takes twenty-four hours to make. I’ve counted up, and it has nineteen different things in it. Listen, I need a bay leaf and some Cointreau. Cooking Cointreau, do you suppose? Will the pub have it? And where do I get a bay leaf?”

  “Plant a tree and wait,” Hester said. “It won’t make dinner later than usual.”

  “And some thick cream,” Prudence said. “Absolutely everything in this book needs thick cream. Do you think we could put in a permanent order to the farm for a pint of cream?”

  “Cream’s terribly expensive. Couldn’t you leave it out?”

  “It’s not worth trying to cook for this family,” Prudence said angrily. “It won’t taste like anything without the bay leaf or the Cointreau or the cream.”

  “Harry’s staying to lunch. What could we have?”

  “Something out of a tin’s good enough for him.”

  “Prudence, don’t be rude, and do find something we can eat today. I wish Mrs Parsons hadn’t gone.”

  “All that lovely boiled fish,” Prudence said. “Cooking is an art,” she informed her sister. “You wouldn’t like to grate some onions for me?”

  “I’m fetching some plaster for Father. Another bit of the house is falling down.”

  She went upstairs again. Wade was sitting on top of the ladder with the paint bucket, talking to Harry about Society and bees.

  “Most bees are freelances, anyway,” Harry said. “They don’t join in all this hive nonsense. They live alone and choose their own flowers.”

  “How do you think the room will look, Hester?” Wade asked heavily. He picked up the brush again and began to wave it. “We must have the floor white as well. Light walls, white floor—yes, Hester, white—white furniture, white floor, dark green rugs, then the drama of red chairs. Do me a favour, Harry. Get me another tin of paint. It’s in the larder downstairs.”

  “Prudence is in the kitchen. She’s longing to see you,” Hester said.

  “Knife in hand?” Harry asked.

  Hester waited until he had gone.

  “What are you going to use this room for, Father?”

  “Guests.”

  “Father, we don’t want any more guests.”

  “We make ten pounds a week out of the one we have. Now, I don’t want to be corrected, Hester. It’s gross profit, not net. I know the difference.”

  “I don’t think you know all the difference. I’m going back to medical school in the autumn. So you’ll have to hire some staff.”

  “There’s Prudence.”

  “Prudence is only sixteen. She should stay at school. But if she doesn’t—she wants to go to the Academy of Dramatic Art.”

  “My dear daughters. Harley Street and—and the Old Vic. How proud you make me! But there’s no problem here. When I get four more bedrooms into action—all double—I’ll have an income of
eighty pounds a week. Then I’ll be able to afford cooks, butlers, anything. I wonder when Harry’s coming back with that paint.”

  At the mention of Harry’s name, Hester’s expression changed. Her father looked at her in time to see the small, secret smile.

  “Hester,” he said sharply. “Don’t have anything to do with Harry. I warn you. He’s no good.” He climbed down from the ladder and began to mix plaster with water. “At his age—he must be about thirty.”

  “Twenty-nine, Father.”

  “And he has no job.”

  “He’s a poet.”

  “I’d like to hear some of his poetry.”

  “I don’t think you would, Father. It’s not your kind of poetry.”

  “Then I wouldn’t. But poet or not, he’s no good. He looks like the kind of man who’s been spoilt by his mother and kicked out by his father. Hester, it’s an old-fashioned word, but—”

  “Please don’t let’s have any old-fashioned words. Is that all the plaster you need?”

  “A piece about the size of my thumb will do.”

  “All you have against Harry is that he’s wandered about the world getting experience instead of going to work in an insurance office. Don’t talk about him. I’m not in love with him,” she said thoughtfully. “Shall I begin to clean the floor?”

  “When you were a little girl you used to put your hands over your ears when I tried to tell you anything. Now you talk about plaster and floors. You simply won’t take advice.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry to get the room ready for more guests. Though I should have thought the one we have was a warning. Morgan gives me shivers.”

  “Morgan is a beginning. I’m going to work this place up into an hotel. Only thing is, I need a hostess. What would you say to a stepmother?”

  “I’m too old to worry. I’m twenty. I’d be out of her grasp.”

  “But I don’t know anyone I want to marry. Why don’t you stay, Hester?” he asked shyly. “Drop this idea of a career. Stay here and help me run the place. Wouldn’t that be better than medical school?”

  Hester maintained her pleasant smile. Inside her head, alarms sounded; pilots leapt to the fighter planes; and softer thoughts were rushed out of the battle area.

  “No, Father, it wouldn’t be better than medical school. I dislike housekeeping. We’d end by quarrelling, and I can’t endure a good quarrel.”

  “Nor can I,” said her father. “So you mean to desert me, Hester. When it comes to the point, family affection simply doesn’t exist. You are determined to cut me out of your life, Hester, and in due course Prudence will do the same. I’ll advertise for a good general maid.”

  “Help wanted, fourteen in family,” Hester suggested. “Father, I don’t want to interfere, but I’m sure this isn’t a good idea about the hotel. It will be like the fruit farm and the antique shop. Couldn’t we stop trying to make money before we’ve lost all we have?”

  Wade took a little ball of plaster and spread it neatly over the hole; where it at once disappeared. “If I’m not to have your help, Hester, I don’t need your advice.”

  “You need some more plaster, anyway,” she murmured.

  “There’s a space behind,” he said angrily. He took a handful of plaster and forced it into the hole. “It will be all right when I’ve filled it up.”

  “The wall’s beginning to bulge,” Hester pointed out.

  “It will be all right when it’s dry.”

  Hester walked to the window and looked across the tops of the quivering green trees down into the valley; and along the road which passed through the solemn little village; dipped to the green fields where the distant cattle seemed like black-and-white wooden toys; then twisted up through woods to the top of Furlong Hill. She wanted to tell her father how much she loved home, and Furlong Hill, and all the Cotswolds; she wanted to tell him how often she had dreamt of floating in a boat across the slow green waves of the treetops; she wanted to make some gesture of friendship that would wipe away all resentment.

  “Don’t worry too much about money,” her father said.

  “Money? I wasn’t thinking about money,” she said sadly.

  “Someone has to think about it. We’re not rich, you know, Hester. We haven’t much. I shouldn’t be doing all this work myself if we had. But at last I see light ahead. I have a plan—at least Maurice has a plan.”

  “Oh, Maurice,” Hester said in a voice of relief.

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve had to put a lot of work in with Maurice. He obviously knows the tree the money grows on—these people who work at something mysterious in the City usually do. I’ve asked his advice often enough. But he’s said to me quite frankly that one rocket looks like another until it bursts, and he doesn’t want me to risk my capital on a dud.”

  “Father, he’s right. Don’t gamble on the Stock Exchange. Take Maurice’s advice and keep what capital is left.”

  “At four per cent? You know we don’t get enough to pay the grocer’s bill.”

  “But Maurice knows better than you, Father.”

  “Maurice has been very excited for the last week or two. I’m convinced he’s on to something big.” Wade hesitated, and looked shyly at Hester.

  “I’ve cashed some securities already,” he said. “What are they worth? Four hundred a year. What am I risking? Nothing.”

  “I know we live in hard times,” Hester said. “Even so, four hundred a year isn’t exactly nothing.”

  “But it’s safe. Maurice won’t let me put money in unless it’s safe. Hester, we might be rich—rich enough to live on capital again. What would my little medical student say to a year in Paris—or Vienna?”

  “That’s not the way I see it,” Hester said shortly. “Please try to keep your head, Father. You know you’re not good about money.”

  “And what do you know about money?” Wade demanded angrily. “You’re only a child, Hester. It’s not my habit to take advice from children.”

  “Nor from anyone else. Oh, this is much worse than your idea about the hotel. I can’t let you risk the little capital you have. When you lose it, what shall we do?” Hester asked in agitation. “It’s three years before I qualify—and there’s Prudence. I’ll speak to Maurice.”

  “Hester, I forbid it. Maurice is reluctant enough, as it is. I absolutely forbid you to say one word to Maurice. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Father, the wall!” Hester said.

  Wade turned round. The wall into which he had been ramming plaster was bulging dangerously. There was a noise like a rifle shot, then about two square yards of wall, borne outwards by the weight of the new plaster, crashed into the room and was buried under the sand that poured from above.

  Hester looked at the ruins. “The home decorator,” she said, impelled by the bitter force that nature provides to intensify the war between generations. “Oh, Father, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, anxious for peace.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing. Only more money to be spent.”

  “Don’t work any more now. Come down to lunch,” she said uneasily.

  “Lunch!” he looked at her sorrowfully, like a man who could no longer afford to eat. “Lunch. Yes, that reminds me. Be a good girl, Hester. Don’t ask Harry to stay to lunch.”

  “He’s already been asked.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t issue these invitations without consulting me.”

  “But I didn’t ask him. You did.”

  “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe anyone asked him. This kind of thing is always happening with him. Tell him he can’t stay to lunch after all.”

  Hester looked at him angrily, then suddenly she saw the disappointment and weariness on his face. He stood beside the ruins of the wall, the inefficient man confronted once again with the wreck of his hopes. She went to him quickly and squeezed his h
and.

  “Father, even if it’s falling down it’s lovely to be home again. The view from this window is better—better than a week in Paris. Come and look out of the window with me. I’m so happy when I look over the treetops. Most people only see trees from underneath.”

  He went with her to the window.

  “It’s you I’m thinking of—and Prudence,” he said.

  “I know, Father. I’ll leave you with the view and go and speak to Harry.”

  Harry was sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

  She sat down beside him.

  “Harry, I don’t think it would be tactful to stay to lunch.”

  His face became strained and infinitely sad. He looked at her with his melancholy, appealing eyes, until she was filled with a conviction of his helplessness, and so was all the more touched when he spoke, not of himself, but of her.

  “Hester, you’re tired. You’re trying to carry the house on your back. It’s a thing that only snails can do. If you’re not a snail, the house will flatten you hard as a sixpence. Give up all this snaili-ness. Come butterflying to the pub with me.”

  “I thought you had no money.”

  “I could borrow some from Uncle Joe.” His face became serious. “Well, perhaps I couldn’t. Not today.” He leant back, thinking.

  “Your father might be willing to lend me a pound,” he suggested.

  “I don’t think I want a drink,” Hester said brusquely. She stood up. She wasn’t entirely in sympathy with Harry’s ideas about money. Most of her conversations with him left her in a confusion of tenderness and disapproval.

  “If you don’t want a drink, I do. If I’m not to have lunch, I’ll wait in the drawing-room and have a sip of your father’s sherry.”

  “No, Harry, he wouldn’t like it. Oh, I do wish you had some normal conventional feelings,” she said in despair.

  Wednesday (2)

  “Has Harry gone?” Morgan asked.

  “He hasn’t stayed to lunch,” Hester said, looking quickly across the table at her father.

  Morgan’s flat, usually expressionless face, registered a brief smile, and he began to talk rapidly. He was like a clock that after days of standing unwound on a mantelpiece has suddenly been jolted enough to make it tick again. Everyone always felt relieved when Morgan spoke.