Trial and Error

by Anthony Berkeley

  CHAPTER V

  Mr Todhunter had caught a glimpse of an alien world: a world of luxury and elegance, of exquisite scents, exquisite women, cocktails, flowers and musical-comedy service. To Mr Todhunter, with his Richmond outlook, this world had seemed not very attractive and definitely alarming. He looked round his own library-sitting room. Compared with Miss Norwood’s it was dingy, drab and hideous, but to Mr Todhunter it was good.

  Mr Todhunter was glad to have had a glimpse of a world of which he had often heard but never quite believed in; but he wanted no more than that glimpse.

  As for Jean Norwood, Mr Todhunter had now identified her, much to his own satisfaction. Beginning with the theory that she must be an actress, he had pursued investigations in the theatre announcements of his Times; and there sure enough was Jean Norwood, the star apparently of Fallen Petals at the Sovereign Theatre. Mr Todhunter, who had a household rule that all newspapers must be kept for three months before being disposed of, sent Edie for the Sunday Times pile and succeeded in finding the notice of the play. From it he learned, reading between the words, that Miss Norwood’s particular line was popular high-brow stuff, that she was an actress-manager and that Fallen Petals would probably keep the suburbs busy for months trooping up to the West End to see it.

  “Well, well!” said Mr Todhunter.

  It happens often that a name never heard before crops up two or three times immediately after one has first become cognisant of it, or a person never seen before is met again at once after the first introduction. It may be that one is more alert to recognise, or it may be just coincidence. In any case both these phenomena occurred to Mr Todhunter during the four days following his meeting with Farroway.

  The first person to mention Jean Norwood’s name to him was a young woman, a distant cousin, who came to take tea with Mr Todhunter on the Saturday of that week end. Mr Todhunter was not at all averse from the company of the young; especially the female young, so long as he felt quite safe and at his ease with them. He liked to listen to their artless prattle and cackle at them with a great pretence of sardonic disillusion; though to tell the truth, the young were probably a great deal more disillusioned than Mr Todhunter himself. It was therefore his custom to seek out obscure family connections and make their acquaintance. The young men often borrowed his money, which Mr Todhunter lent readily, for he had strong family feelings; the girls would come down to Richmond, pour out Mr Todhunter’s tea for him and tell him all the family gossip—much of it about people he had never heard of and most of it about people he had never met, but none the less interesting to him for that.

  Scarcely had the young third cousin of this Saturday afternoon set foot in Mr Todhunter’s trim little garden than she came out with her news.

  “Such a thrill, Lawrence. Whom do you think I met at a party last week?”

  “Really, I’ve no idea, Ethel.” Privately Mr Todhunter thought Ethel Markham a rather crude and rather foolish young suburban woman. She was secretary to a firm of dress designers in Oxford Street, and Mr Todhunter could never understand why they paid her as much money as she affirmed that they did.

  “I thought it was going to be a deadly stuffy party too. But it wasn’t. Jean Norwood came along after the theatre. And if you’ll believe it, she seemed to take quite a fancy to little me. What do you think of that?”

  “Poisonous woman,” threw out Mr Todhunter.

  “She’s not; she’s charming. Really sweet. One of the sweetest women I’ve ever met.”

  “Indeed? I thought her poisonous.” Mr Todhunter cackled wickedly.

  His cousin stared at him. “What do you know about her?”

  “Oh,” said Mr Todhunter very casually, “I was round at her flat for a cocktail the day before yesterday. There are pink bows on her piano,” he added with distaste.

  “Rot! Jean Norwood hasn’t a pink-bow mind.”

  “Well, it may only have been Chinese embroidery, but that’s just as bad. And her maid—Marie, you know—looks like something out of a musical comedy.”

  “Lawrence! You’re pulling my leg, damn you. You’ve never been in Jean’s flat in your life.”

  “I assure you I have, my dear girl. And what is more I have an invitation to lunch there next Tuesday week which, by the way, I do not intend to accept. And you will oblige me, Ethel,” added Mr Todhunter severely, “by not referring to Miss Norwood by her Christian name unless you are already on familiar terms with her. That is a practice peculiar to the more repellent types of suburban youth and to the still more repellently vulgar newspapers, and I don’t care to hear it from any relative of mine.”

  “I always said you ought to have been born a hundred years ago, Lawrence,” responded the young woman without rancour. “And the other sex at that. In fact what you ought to have been is a spinster aunt. I can just see you with your hair screwed up in a bun and ghastly boned stays.”

  “Tush!” said Mr Todhunter, annoyed.

  The other person to mention Miss Norwood was a neighbour, a solid, walrus-like man who occasionally escaped from a shrewish wife to drink Mr Todhunter’s whiskey and sit in companionable silence with the spare pair of earphones clamped over his head. Mr Todhunter had a passion for Bach and would interrupt any engagement or activity to sit by his wireless when Bach was on the air. But for some reason obscure to his friends, and perhaps obscure to Mr Todhunter himself, he would not have a loud speaker or anything but an old-fashioned crystal set.

  This man, after an unbroken silence of thirty-eight minutes, produced the information that he and his wife had been last week to see Jean Norwood at the Sovereign. Mr Todhunter, with a writer’s sensitiveness, noticed that it was not Fallen Petals the couple had been to see, but Jean Norwood. Probably they had never noticed the name of the play. Quite certainly they had no idea who had written it and thus given Miss Norwood her chance.

  After seven minutes more silence the visitor followed this up with the remark that he knew a man who knew Jean Norwood. Fellow of the name of Battersby. This chap said she was a delightful woman; just the same off the stage as on; do anything for anybody; always looking for young actresses and helping them; heart of gold.

  “Gold,” nodded Mr Todhunter. “Yes. . . . I’m supposed to be lunching with her next Tuesday,” he added.

  His visitor took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at him. “Good God!” he said reverently.

  Mr Todhunter was not ill pleased.

  He was, however, puzzled.

  Here were the impressions of two persons that Miss Norwood was a lady of charm and sweetness, whereas Mr Todhunter’s own conviction had been that she was a rude word. A just man, he considered the problem. Had he perhaps been prejudiced? Had he allowed the feeling of inferiority which the luxurious flat might have produced in him to sway his judgment to the detriment of its owner? But no. His feeling had not been altogether one of inferiority. He had been impressed, perhaps against his will, but he had never wavered in his opinion that 267 Lower Putney Road, Richmond, had been an infinitely better place in which to dwell; and it had not been a defiant opinion either, but a genuine one.

  No again. The woman had been unmistakably hostile, cold and rude. Then Farroway had come in and told her, almost crudely, that he, Mr Todhunter, was a man of wealth; and instantly her attitude had changed. That was not very nice. She had a reverence for money quite evidently. An unsympathetic person became at once sympathetic to her with the knowledge that he was rich; a bore would become interesting; a nondescript might become—well, might become her lover, thought Mr Todhunter uncomfortably, knowing very little about these things and disliking what he guessed. For Farroway, though he might be a writer of popular appeal, as a man was undoubtedly nondescript. Yet there he was, installed apparently in that exquisite flat, in the capacity of . . . what? He bored her, plainly; but she tolerated him. Almost ironically she had echoed his endearing names. Mr Todhunter, feeling slightly disgusted, could have no doubt that they were on “terms.” And Farroway must ha
ve been a man of wealth—positively must have been. Yet now he was almost touting for the chance to sell Mr Todhunter expensive antiques on commission; for if that had not been the object of his advances, what else could have been?

  There’s something very queer going on here, decided Mr Todhunter, remembering the wife in the north of England and the almost forgotten daughters. Very queer indeed.

  And then came the third of those coincidences which happen so often and make us wonder whether they really are coincidences at all or whether everything is part of one great Plan, including our own insignificant selves.

  An elderly cousin of Mr Todhunter (on his mother’s side) was in the habit of doing his part towards the family solidarity by sending Mr Todhunter a blue pass every year for the Royal Horticultural Society’s annual exhibition at Chelsea. Mr Todhunter knew nothing at all about horticulture outside the wild orchid, of which for some utterly disintegrated reason he was able to name and identify twenty-seven varieties, but he had a general feeling of benevolence towards all flowers and a feeling of satisfaction and repose in their presence; and so to Chelsea each year he duly went. Nor this year did he allow his aneurism to rob him of this mild pleasure but took it there for an airing, albeit walking with circumspection and sitting down whenever he found a chair vacant, which was not very often.

  It was, then, in the space of that triangle formed by the rock gardens, the formal gardens and the ladies’ cloakroom, and actually behind the largest potted rhododendron that he had ever seen, that Mr Todhunter caught sight of a woman whose face seemed somehow familiar to him, flirting with a man whom he was sure he had seen before. The woman was slender and very elegant, and she wore her white fox fur with an air; the man was young and quite indecently handsome. That they were flirting was evident, for the lady’s French-gloved hand rested on that of her companion, and even while Mr Todhunter stared at them, wondering where he had seen them before if ever, the young man tried to kiss her. Moreover the way she repulsed him showed even Mr Todhunter that it was opportunity which she considered lacking and not inclination.

  Really, thought Mr Todhunter with exasperation, I don’t believe my memory’s as good as it was. I’m sure I’ve seen those two before.

  “I say—look!” obligingly remarked an eager feminine voice behind him. “That’s Jean Norwood, surely. Yes, it is. Isn’t she lovely?”

  Mr Todhunter resisted a strong impulse to turn round and reply: “No, madam. She is not lovely, for that implies that she is lovesome; and she is, in point of cold fact, a perdition cat. And what is more, I am going to lunch with her next Tuesday, just to find out what her dirty little game is and why she is flirting thus blatantly with her silly, middle-aged lover’s handsome son-in-law.”

  2

  That was on a Wednesday. Mr. Todhunter, having thus made up his mind to interfere, proceeded to utilise the days at his disposal before the appointment.

  His first move was to ring up Farroway at the flat, the telephone number of which had been pressed upon him, and offer him lunch on Friday; an offer that was instantly, not to say eagerly, accepted.

  “What a pity Jean isn’t here,” remarked Farroway before ringing off amid effusive thanks. “She’d have liked a word with you. But she’s down in Richmond.”

  “Richmond?”

  “Oh yes. That’s where she lives, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Mr Todhunter.

  At lunch Farroway wanted to talk about antiques and some of the remarkably good things, going dirt cheap, onto which he could put his host; but Mr Todhunter kept the conversation steadily on Miss Norwood and/or the Farroway family. The lunch lasted a long time, for Mr Todhunter had reluctantly decided upon an exceedingly expensive restaurant to suit his role of wealthy dilettante, which he considered it convenient to maintain, and he was at least determined to get some small portion of his money’s worth by spinning the meal out as long as possible, to the visible annoyance of the high priest in charge of this temple of food and his acolytes; an annoyance which was by no means allayed by the parsimonious tip with which Mr Todhunter, frightened of being frightened into over-tipping, finally rewarded their mostly unnecessary services.

  In the course of these two and a quarter hours, then, Mr Todhunter learned many new and significant facts.

  He learned that Miss Norwood lived for the most part in a small mansion on the riverbank at Richmond, using the flat only as a pied-à-terre for resting in the afternoons or when feeling too exhausted after her performance to face the drive back to Richmond.

  “Poor girl, she works so damned hard,” remarked her admirer in what Mr Todhunter thought was the most unctuously fatuous voice he had ever heard. “The theatre’s a damned hard life, Todhunter, I can tell you. And the nearer the top you are, the harder it is. I had no idea, before I met Jean, how these women work. At it all day long, one thing and another, from morning to night.”

  “Indeed yes,” nodded Mr Todhunter with sympathy. “When not giving interviews to the newspapers about the loss of their pearls, I understand, they are writing testimonials for toothpaste and face-cream firms. It must be a very exacting life. . . By the way,” added Mr Todhunter politely, “does Miss Norwood find the competition in the testimonial business from professional peeresses nowadays rather trying?”

  “It’s musical-comedy stars who do that sort of thing, not serious actresses like Jean,” replied Farroway, hurt.

  Mr Todhunter apologised and resumed the questioning which, in his own mind, he considered to be not a little adroit.

  He learned a great deal more about Miss Norwood. He learned the name of her manager at the Sovereign; he learned that she was the lessee of the theatre herself; he learned that she would have had no difficulty in finding the money for any new play, so anxious were the playboys of the City to finance her, but that she always financed her own; he learned that out of her own sweet kindness of heart she had given Farroway’s youngest daughter, Felicity, a part in no fewer than three consecutive plays, until it became so patent that the poor girl couldn’t act for little green apples that not even Jean could risk the reputation of her casts by continuing to include Felicity.

  “Dear, dear, how sad for the poor girl.” Mr Todhunter seemed quite distressed over Felicity’s failure.

  “Yes, the child was thoroughly upset. In fact she said some exceedingly foolish and ungrateful things, considering the chances she’d been given. The artistic temperament, I suppose; and all the worse when there’s nothing to warrant it. If indeed there is such a thing at all as the artistic temperament. I’ve never been bothered with one myself, thank heaven,” said Farroway, not without complacence. “And in my opinion it’s only a high-sounding name for infernal selfishness—a name and an excuse.”

  But Mr Todhunter had no intention of being led aside into a discussion of the artistic temperament. He wanted to know what kind of foolish, ungrateful things Felicity Farroway had said, and asked her father as much.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Farroway pulled his neat little beard and looked vague. Mr Todhunter noticed his hands. They were as white and small and fine as a woman’s, with long, sensitive fingers. A real artist’s hand, thought Mr Todhunter, and yet he only writes popular romances.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No—well, you know, the usual sort of thing. Abuse of the benefactor, biting the hand that fed her, anybody’s fault but her own; and chiefly, of course, that she was a great actress but was being kept out of her rightful place by jealousy. You know. All the hackneyed complaints of disgruntled failure. Poor girl, I’m afraid we had rather a quarrel over it. My fault, I expect. I shouldn’t have taken her seriously.”

  “So she’s left the stage?”

  “Oh yes. She wouldn’t get another job after Jean had had to get rid of her from the company for incompetence. These things get around, you know.”

  “I suppose she’s gone back home?”

  “Well . . . no.” Farroway hesitated. “As a matter of fact I believe
she’s got another sort of job. Though to tell you the truth, I haven’t seen her since our little tiff.”

  “What sort of a job could a girl like that get, I wonder?” enquired Mr Todhunter artlessly, toying with the baked custard he had ordered to the undisguised horror of the high priest. Incidentally, Mr Todhunter did not consider it cooked nearly so well as Mrs Greenhill cooked it at home.

  Farroway, however, had drunk far too many of the cocktails which Mr Todhunter had cunningly pressed upon him, and far too much champagne later, to resent this curiosity about his private affairs. Indeed he seemed quite eager to talk about them now that the antique hurdle had been safely leaped.

  “Well, Viola (that’s my elder daughter) told me that the silly girl has got a job in a shop . Quite unnecessary. Her mother would have been very pleased to have her at home. She wouldn’t accept an allowance from me either. Positively refused. Felicity always was very independent,” said Farroway indifferently. He did not seem to care much what had happened to his daugher or why. “I say, this is really an excellent champagne, Todhunter.”

  “I’m glad to hear you like it. Let me offer you another bottle.” Mr Todhunter himself was drinking barley water (for the kidneys).

  “No, no, I couldn’t manage another alone, really.” Mr Todhunter with calculated recklessness summoned the high priest and ordered another bottle. “And don’t ice it this time,” he added, emboldened perhaps by the barley water. “This gentleman likes his champagne served properly: cooled, but not iced.”

  The high priest, who like most of his kind knew a little about wines but not enough, departed champing with rage. Mr. Todhunter felt better.

  With the second bottle of champagne Mr Todhunter made more discoveries. He learned the name and address, in Bromley, of Farroway’s married daughter; he learned that Mrs Farroway had never understood Farroway; he learned that Farroway had not seen Mrs Farroway for seven months; and he learned that Farroway had not written a novel for over a year and had no immediate hope of beginning one.