The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  “Bach,” Hester repeated.

  “Bach?” Joe asked. He shuddered. “I’m sorry, Hester, but I must make an early start tomorrow.”

  “So must I,” said Maurice. “But it’s hard to resist Bach. You’ll let me stay for just half-an-hour?” he asked Hester. “Perhaps you’ll post this for me, Joe, then I needn’t go through the village?”

  He held out an envelope.

  Hester went to the door with Joe and Moira, looking wistfully at the letter.

  “I am sorry I am too polite to stay. If you have trouble, Hester, don’t be too polite to telephone me,” Joe said.

  She looked at him, rejecting him, because he was leaving when he must know there would be trouble. He was too shrewd not to see that her father and Maurice had been playing a money-game. Then another thought returned to her head.

  “That letter. Uncle Joe, I’d like to know what that letter said.”

  He looked at her with the sympathy wiped off his face.

  “It’s not like you to suggest that, Hester. It wouldn’t do, to interfere in business.”

  “Even if the business is a swindle?”

  “It’s still business, until the swindle is proved.”

  “Well, good night. Have a nice trip to Ireland,” Hester said wearily.

  Joe walked down the steps.

  “Harry!” Moira called from the car.

  Harry bolted out of the house. “I’m not staying the night with them,” he said reassuringly. “Hester, you’re going to marry me, aren’t you?”

  Hester turned to look at him. The light shone down on him from above, gilding his hair, shadowing his desperate face, darkening his cheekbones, hiding his eyes. He looked wild, exalted and afraid, like a young paratrooper who has jumped and doesn’t know if his parachute will open.

  “I’m not ashamed to beg. You’ll marry me, won’t you, Hester?” he repeated in a trembling voice.

  “Harry!” Moira called again from the car. The muttering engine began to roar.

  “Wait, I’m coming,” Harry shouted. He caught her hand and held it for a second, then ran down the steps to the car. Hester stayed alone by the door, crushing down whatever emotions had arisen.

  Thursday (10)

  When Hester came into the house again, it was Maurice who decided to move in to the attack.

  “Hester has been looking at me suspiciously all evening. What’s wrong, Hester? Something about my tie? Straighten it for me.”

  He stood up, looking at her with the old, friendly, direct smile, so that her hands moved spontaneously towards his tie. Distrust was in the air all around him, but monstrous suspicions are difficult to voice to the person monstrously suspected.

  “Shall we have this Bach now?” Maurice suggested. Hester, moving towards the gramophone, became faintly doubtful. If Maurice was what she supposed him to be, surely he would be in a hurry to leave with his gains, instead of behaving as though he was reluctant to leave at all?

  “Bach,” Wade repeated in a voice of exaggerated relief. “You don’t want arias from one of those operas Hester’s always raving about.”

  “I took Hester to an opera one night in London. It wasn’t long after we first met. But I told you about that? Yes, of course I did.” He looked at her with a reminiscent smile, a man who had thrown bread upon the waters and felt justified now in asking for its return. “Yes, Bach, please. There’s no one like him for soothing the spirit,” he said gravely.

  Hester went to the record cupboard. “The Goldberg Variations?” She spoke in a tired, relaxed voice. It was impossible for her to believe that a man who liked Bach could be a criminal. Her father seemed to be equally deceived by this cultural fallacy. He smiled at Maurice in full companionship, then settled down to listen. All the doubt had fallen away from his face, and he looked like a man who had survived a period of religious persecution and emerged with his spirit strengthened.

  Maurice sat with his eyes half-closed, and an expression on his face that might have been noble content. The music had set its question and was developing its magnificent answers. Hester felt her mind rising in a spiral of hope. Then she thought of Harry, and slipped back into uncertainties. She looked at her father and Maurice, the one perhaps cheated and the other cheating, Maurice with her father’s money in his pocket and his plans for escape already complete, and both of them sitting with their eyes half-shut, looking as though their only concern was the nobility of the music.

  “You look like twin monuments to culture,” she said, so quietly that they didn’t hear. She was trying to say what Harry would have said. He would see it still as a comedy.

  She jumped up, and turned off the gramophone.

  “It’s not a comedy,” she said loudly.

  Her father turned to her, and the room, bereft of music, seemed to sway under the weight of his alarm.

  “I won’t wait for the record to finish,” Hester said. “I—I—Maurice, I want to say something…” Her voice trailed into a whisper and dissolved.

  Maurice didn’t look up. His eyelids dropped a fraction of an inch. He felt in his pocket, brought out his cigarette case, took one cigarette, and put the case back in his pocket, while Hester and her father watched, as though his actions were of tremendous importance, and that he might expose himself by his manner of holding a cigarette. Hester waited long enough to let him use his cigarette lighter, and then she tried to speak again, but her voice wouldn’t come strongly enough.

  “What is it, Hester?” her father demanded, in a threatening tone.

  “How can I say it, Father? You must know what I want to say?”

  “Hester, you’re tired. I think you ought to go to bed.”

  She ignored him. “Maurice,” she said in a frightened voice. “Maurice. I rang the Exchange. At least Harry did. You didn’t make a call to London. You didn’t telephone your broker.”

  Maurice’s cigarette finished its interrupted journey to his mouth.

  “So you trust me as little as that, Hester?” he asked.

  “I—how could you do it, Maurice?” she said miserably.

  “Do what, Hester?”

  “Well, you didn’t telephone your broker. You didn’t. You know you didn’t. But you came in here and said you did. And now you’re going to Dublin tomorrow.”

  “Why shouldn’t I go to Ireland for a couple of days?” he asked impatiently.

  “Are you coming back, Maurice? Can you look at me and tell me you’re coming back?” she demanded.

  He looked at her steadily. “I am coming back, Hester,” he said.

  Her father turned on her angrily.

  “Are you satisfied now, Hester? Have you put enough poison into our relations with Maurice?”

  “Father, are you satisfied? He didn’t telephone London.”

  Her father looked quickly at Maurice.

  “It’s perfectly simple,” Maurice said in a tired voice. “My broker—Johnson he’s called, doesn’t happen to live in London. A lot of stockbrokers don’t. You must know that. He lives in a village called Boston Tracy that happens to be in the area of this exchange. So there was no trunk call to record.”

  “You said you’d telephoned London,” Hester repeated. “I know I’m saying all the wrong things. I know I’m not doing this the right way. But, Maurice, you did say you’d telephoned London.”

  “And I wrote to my broker as well. I gave the letter to Joe to post. I assure you everything is in good order,” Maurice said patiently.

  “You said you’d telephoned London. London. Why did you say London when you knew it wasn’t true?”

  “He’ll be in London tomorrow morning, so it was true in a sense.”

  “Father, can’t you see he’s not telling the truth? And what about the Australian? The man who was in the garden last night, following you. He telephoned today to warn me against you
.”

  “The Australian?” Maurice said. His eyes flickered down. “Hester, you’re mad. I don’t know what she’s talking about.” He appealed weakly to Wade. He stood up. “I think it’s time for me to go home anyway.”

  “You’re not going home, Maurice. Father, don’t let him go home. Don’t you believe me now? Father, why don’t you go and phone this Johnson who lives in Boston Tracy? Just ring him and ask if he’s a broker.”

  “I have the number in my notebook,” Maurice said. He took the notebook from his pocket, and began to turn over the pages. “Here it is.”

  “Tell me the number, Maurice,” Hester said.

  Maurice closed the notebook.

  “He’ll have gone to bed. It’s too late. It’s nearly twelve,” he said.

  Wade turned very pale.

  “Let me have the number, Maurice.”

  “He’ll have gone to bed,” Maurice repeated stubbornly.

  “What am I to believe?” Wade shouted. “Hester, what am I to believe?”

  Hester looked steadily at Maurice.

  “Please, Maurice, give the money back while you can do it decently.”

  He looked at her father. “You’re prepared to lose the chance of a fortune on the advice of an ignorant girl—you know what she wants, of course—she wants the money in her own hands so that she can spend it with her precious Harry.”

  Hester began to tremble. She stepped away from Maurice and leant back against the wall.

  “You filthy swine!” Wade shouted. He jumped forward and caught Maurice by the throat and, groaning and shouting, shook him backwards and forwards.

  “Father, don’t. Father, let him go,” Hester cried.

  She ran towards them and pulled at her father’s wrists, trying to make him loosen his grip. He flung Maurice away from him.

  Hester saw Maurice staggering back, turning, and falling, his head directed with a dreadful precision towards the projecting corner of the fireside curb. Wade’s arms were still extended, Hester still clutched in futility at his wrists, when they heard the head strike. There was no other sound, and for a moment, no other movement, then Hester dropped her hands with a sigh and turned to her father.

  He was standing with his hands held before him, as though he was preparing to defend himself against some violence from the man on the floor.

  “Have I killed him, Hester? Tell me, Hester.”

  “Quiet, Father,” she said urgently. She was bending down towards the fallen man when she heard a step on the stairs.

  She straightened, and moved quickly, like a criminal, to the door. Morgan, his face mushroom-pale, was creeping along the hall.

  “What is it, Morgan?” she asked in a voice of excessive calm.

  “I saw them from the window, Hester. I know I saw them. I’m not imagining it this time. They’re round the house, Hester. They’ve been coming since we saw them on the road yesterday. I wonder—suppose I ring the police,” he said hopelessly.

  “The police! Oh, no, Morgan. These people aren’t there. It’s only that—that you’re tired. Not the police, Morgan!”

  He was bending slightly forward, listening with the concentration of a man who believes that an effort of will can intensify his hearing.

  “What is it, Morgan? What are you listening to?” she asked in terror, thinking of her father.

  “Can’t you hear? There’s someone in the garden. They’re coming for me,” he said, looking past her to the door. “I ought to ring the police—but if I ring them…” He looked at her pathetically, and stopped, waiting for the word of advice that would resolve all his problems.

  “Morgan, it’s so easy to imagine things. Please go up to bed. Please, Morgan. In the morning…”

  “If only they’d wait till the morning. In the morning I’m going to Ireland. Only till the morning. Nine hours!” he said, shaking like a frightened traveller at the prospect of the long voyage through the night.

  “Morgan, what are you afraid of?” She looked back desperately at the room she had just left. She took his arm and tried to lead him to the stairs. “If you go back to bed I’ll give you a sleeping tablet.”

  “A sleeping tablet!” he said in consternation.

  “Then ring the police,” she said desperately.

  “You don’t mean that. You don’t want me to ring the police. You know more than you pretend. You know what will happen if I ring the police, don’t you? Have you been discussing me with Harry, Hester? Is that it?”

  “I haven’t discussed you with anyone.”

  “I know what I want. I want someone to search the garden. Perhaps you’re right. They may not be there. So if someone—your father, Maurice—could go into the garden, into the wood, even as far as the chapel,” he said, beginning to falter.

  “My father. Maurice. I’ll speak to them. Go to bed, Morgan. I’ll ask them. But go to bed. You’ll be safer upstairs.”

  “I’ll be safer upstairs,” he agreed, looking at the closed door of the sitting-room. “So I won’t ring the police. But don’t let anyone else in the house. You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” she said. She waited until he had walked heavily up the stairs, holding the rail and staring at the dimly-lit landing above as though he was examining the night sky.

  She went back to the sitting-room. Her father was leaning against the table, trying to light a cigarette. She watched the little match-flame circle jerkily around the end of the cigarette, then she turned again to Maurice.

  She knelt beside him, opened his coat, put one hand against his chest, then touched the side of his head with reluctant fingers. Her father, waiting, struck another match, then held it to his cigarette and stared at Maurice’s head through it, so that the patch of blood on the temple was lost in the little flame.

  “I think it’s only concussion,” she said. Still kneeling, she turned and rested her head on the chair beside her. “Concussion, Father,” she said into the cushion. “I—should we ring for the doctor? Or perhaps he’s all right. I’ll bathe his head.”

  She went to the kitchen for warm water, rehearsing the words. ‘He stumbled and fell, Dr Nelson.’ ‘He tripped over the rug and fell quite suddenly, I can’t understand how it happened.’ Or: ‘He and Father were having a discussion. Father pushed him in self-defence.’ She wondered if there were marks on Maurice’s throat.

  She went back and bathed the thick blood from the side of his head, and cleaned the wound: it was only a small, triangular hole in the temple. She thought that he was beginning to stir, and then that he was dead. She stood up. There was a black pressure inside her brain, struggling to compress every part of her mind to the point of explosion. Sweat was being crushed out of her on to her forehead.

  “Feel his heart, Father,” she said. She dropped into a chair, and freed herself from the intolerable strain of balancing.

  Her father was sitting with his face in his hands.

  “Am I a murderer?” he asked in a whisper. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “He’s very still,” she said, shaking.

  “It would have been better to let him keep the money,” Wade muttered.

  “The money,” Hester repeated in surprise. She had forgotten that money was part of the affair. “We must get a doctor, Father. But before we do, listen. If they don’t know about the money, they won’t know about anything. No one would suppose you’d any reason for quarrelling with Maurice.”

  “It was only a cheque. That was all. Only a cheque.”

  “I’ll look in his pocket-book. A minute, perhaps half-a-minute, then we can telephone the doctor.”

  She knelt again, and put her hand slowly into the breast-pocket of his coat, trying to reach the pocket-book without letting her hand rest near his heart. She took out the pocket-book and looked quickly through it. Money, driving-licence, pa
ssport, cheque-book, stamps. She flicked the pound notes, shook the cheque-book, opened the pages of the passport. Her father’s cheque was not in the pocket-book. She slipped the wallet back again.

  “It must be in another pocket,” she whispered.

  She began to feel in all his pockets, turning out the contents wildly and ramming them back again: pencils, notebook, cigarette case, lighter, handkerchief, small change. To reach the pockets on his left side she had to turn him a little. She drew back sharply as she saw the rosebud she had put in his button-hole that morning; felt quickly in the pockets, and found keys, and the gun Harry had sold him. She dropped the gun, and stood up.

  “Oh, I can’t find it,” she said. She wondered when she was going to scream.

  “It’s of no importance. I can stop the cheque,” her father muttered.

  “Oh, won’t you understand. The cheque must have been in that letter he gave to Uncle Joe. You can’t stop it if he’s dead. They’d know at once you’d killed him for the money. Father, it’s not the money. It’s the cheque. It mustn’t be found. Stopping it doesn’t help. Can’t you see?” Her voice was rising. All that she could see was her father accused of murder, perhaps sent to prison, perhaps… She tried to imagine herself disposing of the body, taking it to the woods. She shook her head wildly.

  “Hester, if I’ve killed him I’ll tell the truth.”

  “Father, leave this to me. I must find that cheque.”

  Her father looked up.

  “There’s someone outside,” he said.

  She ran to the door and switched off the light. She waited, hearing the step on the path outside, not hearing her own heart, but feeling it rise and fall like the water inside a sea-cave in rough weather.

  When the door-bell rang she thought she would not answer it, but Morgan was upstairs, and might come down.

  “Stay there, Father,” she whispered back into the darkened room, and went along the hall to the door.

  She turned the handle, and stood in the half-light, looking in terror at the hatless man on the doorstep, having only the impression of someone dark and aggressive.