Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  'It would matter if they could arrest you for it,' said Peggy dispassionately. 'Of course it would. But you don't seem to think they can. Are you quite sure of that, Mark?'

  He stared at her in disbelief, and in the disorder of his thoughts the line of least resistance seemed to be to answer her question.

  'Yes, I'm sure. Cast-iron sure. Crawford might as well retire now. But that's the least of it. You know it's true, and I know you know it! And you ask if it matters?'

  'Well,' said Peggy, 'it doesn't matter to me. Possibly it should, but it doesn't. If they can't touch you - that's the important thing. As to all this nonsense about the Wild Bunch - well, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? And I heard that creature who was here just how saying - well, admitting, anyway that they couldn't prove anything about it. Anyway, I didn't marry a gunman or a crook - I married you. And it doesn't make any difference to me who you've shot, or anything - don't you see? You're not a criminal, and even if you were, you'd still be my husband. As long as you're safe, and we're all right, the rest is unimportant. It would be awful if there was a scandal, but I don't see how there can be. If this Curry business, or Logan, or whatever he's called, is a spent egg - ' the schoolgirl slang gave her words the final bizarre ring in his ears ' - then the other thing, this Western outlaw stuff, doesn't matter a bit. Even if it came out, it can't be proved. A lot of people,' she added, 'would think it was rather fun.'

  'Christ!' said Mr Franklin, and looked out of the window. Peggy continued to consider him, and then she said: 'So when you talk about things not being able to go on, and hint about leaving England - because I've discovered that you're a killer and a criminal, as you call yourself... well, if that's all that's bothering you, it needn't. It just doesn't matter - I'm sorry if you dislike my using the expression, but it just doesn't.'

  She stopped and waited, and after a moment, without looking at her, he said: 'Maybe it matters to me, though.'

  'It needn't, Mark,' she said. 'If that's all there is - and if you're not just using all this police stuff and your lawless past as a gallant excuse. Pretending that that's why it can't go on, as you put it.' She waited again and then said: 'But it isn't that, really, is it? It's Frank Lacy. And it's me, too. You've found out that I'm not what you thought I was, haven't you? Or perhaps you guessed, but tried not to see it - or to let me know that you saw it. But you're not being quite fair, Mark, are you? After all, there's Pip Delys on your side.'

  She said it in a reasonable, unreproachful voice, and he looked at her in heavy silence for a moment. Then he said:

  'No. There isn't. I was Pip Delys's lover - once - before I met you. Since then, there's been nothing. All the rest of it, since - Jeremy's gossip, and the jewels, and that sort of thing - that's what our friend Crawford would call circumstantial evidence, but it just happens to be false. Just as the other circumstantial evidence, about Curry, happens to be true. But I guess you can believe me, about Pip. After all, if I'll admit murder - legal murder - to you, I'd hardly deny adultery.'

  'Wouldn't you, though?' said Peggy sceptically. 'I should think most husbands would sooner admit murder than adultery to their wives. After all, the murder wouldn't be something done against their wives, would it?' She looked at him, searching the grey eyes. 'But I do believe you - you're not the kind to lie about it. I'm sorry.'

  'Sorry?'

  'It would be easier if she was your mistress - for you, I mean.' Peggy sounded despondent. 'You wouldn't mind - well, you couldn't, could you? - about Frank. As it is . . .' She sighed in utter weariness. 'Oh, hell, what a mess it is! I should have kept my mouth shut. Look,' she added suddenly, 'is it because it happened to be Frank? If it had been someone else, would that have made it any. . she shrugged'. .. any different?'

  'I don't know ... was there anyone else?'

  'One or two,' said Peggy frankly. 'Why not say so - since we're having all this confessional stuff? I'm the scarlet woman anyway, aren't I? Oh, I'm sorry, Mark, if it's all an additional wound to your sensibilities, but you might have known from the beginning! I suppose it's all my fault,' she went on. 'After all, I realised how different we were, when we first met - I knew it at that first dinner party, when the King was there, and we talked about Mrs Keppel, d'you remember? I realised we just didn't see things the same way.

  But I suppose I forgot, later, or thought that it didn't matter. I still don't think it does, but you do. And that's that. You're a bit of a Puritan, in your way, aren't you? In spite of having been a desperado, and robbing trains, and holding people up, which you seem to think I ought to find shocking.' She gave her weary, crooked little smile. 'I don't - I can imagine you shouting "Stand and deliver!" without any difficulty. But you can't understand me nearly as easily. I suppose it's ... backwoods morality, or something. What you think is important. That's the difference between us. I want a drink,' she added. 'A large hot toddy, and then bed. God, what a rotten night! I must look like a survivor from the Titanic! Would you mind ringing, Mark?'

  Automatically he went to the bell, while Peggy surveyed herself with murmurs of dismay in her handbag mirror and effected running repairs. Samson came and Mr Franklin gave him the order mechanically - only when the butler had gone did he recall that other urgent matter and left the room quickly, overtaking Samson in the kitchen passage and motioning him in silence out to the sunlit back lawn, under the trees. There, face to face, Mr Franklin spoke rapidly in a low voice that would not carry to the house.

  'They found Curry's body. Those two men were from the Yard. They know all about it - they accused me of murder, and I told 'em to go to hell. And they went.' He was in complete control of himself; he was master of this situation, he felt, if not of anything else. 'They can't prove a thing, Samson - not one solitary dam' thing, and they know it. They'll be back, though - they won't let up, not until they realise it's hopeless, which it is, as long as we clam up and don't say a thing.'

  The butler was nodding. He had gone white at Mr Franklin's first words, and glanced automatically towards the house, but he was obviously not going to panic.

  'That's the thing to remember. They can prove nothing as long as we keep quiet. They don't know you were in it - they don't even suspect it. And they won't, as long as you keep your mouth shut. They'll come back, though - and they're bound to question you. All right - the last time you saw Curry - the only time - was in the hall at Oxton. To you he was a man called Logan - nothing else. You gathered he was an American acquaintance of mine, but that's all. I never mentioned him to you again, and you never saw or heard of him again. Understand?' He stared intently into Samson's eyes. 'Get that - nothing ever happened at Lancing Manor. And don't get any foolish ideas about sharing the blame with me, because that's the worst thing

  you could do. If you stick your head in the noose, you stick mine along with it. Remember that. Silence - and no one can ever touch either of us.'

  Samson's colour had returned. 'Very good, sir. May I ask - how much does Mrs Franklin know?'

  `She knows I did it. I told her, after they'd gone. Hell, it was as plain as a pikestaff. But she doesn't know where, or when, or anything like that. And she doesn't know about you. Nobody does. So let's get the hell out of here before someone looks out of a window.'

  They went back to the house, and Mr Franklin returned to the morning-room. Peggy was sitting by the table, apparently calm; nothing was said until Samson had brought the hot toddy, made with milk and honey. If anything were needed to reassure Mr Franklin about his servant's steadiness, it was the calm voice in which Samson suggested to Peggy that he could take the toddy to her bedroom if she wished, and his polite smile when she said: 'No, thank you, Samson, I'll have it here.' At the same time, Samson was appraising her, too; he was probably relieved to see that her hand and voice were steady, and to conclude that there was no danger of indiscretion where she was concerned.

  Mr Franklin's toddy stood untasted on the table; Peggy sipped hers quietly for a few moments and then said: 'Is it no go, Mark?'
She lowered the glass between her hands and looked at him. 'Am I too far beyond the pale, with my wicked ways and lack of morals and heartless indifference to principles? Is that it?'

  Oddly enough, he realised, she was not being sarcastic. She was asking a plain question, and it was not easy to return a plain answer.

  'I don't think you've come to the right shop for morals, have you?' he said, with a faint stirring of the old, gently sardonic Mr Franklin. 'And I'm not exactly an authority on principles, either.' He shook his head. 'I can't judge anybody, Peggy, least of all you - '

  'You're doing it, though, aren't you?' she broke in. 'By gum, aren't you just! The only commandment that matters is whichever one it is - I can't remember the numbers-about thou shalt not commit adultery. Talk about damning sins you have no mind to - '

  'Who said I didn't have a mind to?' asked Mr Franklin. 'I only said I didn't in fact. If Pip had been what you think she is - '

  'Well, that's better,' said Peggy. 'I was beginning to think I was married to Praise-God Barebones. And it was only her spotless virtue that saved you? D'you know,' she went on, 'I'm beginning to conceive a poisonous dislike of Miss Pip Bloody Delys. She's just too good to be true.' She sipped at her toddy. 'Posturing little slut.'

  `I doubt if she'd make much claim to virtue,' said Mr Franklin.

  `Well, that makes two of us,' said Peggy. 'You don't seem to be too fortunate in the women you associate with, do you? You should have made a bid for Lady Helen Cessford when you had the chance. Now, there's a woman of principle for you.' She finished her toddy and stood up. 'Well, at long last I am going to bed. Coming?'

  He took the words at no more than their conventional face value until he realised that she was looking at him very steadily, with that mocking expression in her eyes and the little curl to her lip that had never failed to excite him, even when it repelled. He shook his head.

  'Not just now. There are some things I ought to do.'

  'Oh, come on, Mark!' She held out a hand towards him. 'It doesn't matter. None of it matters!'

  'Doesn't it?' He came slowly round the table, looking down at her, considering that remarkable beauty, and what he knew went with it. 'Peggy, tell me something. What does matter to you?'

  At his tone she dropped her hand, but her expression did not change for more than a second. When she spoke her voice was matter-of-fact.

  'All right, Mark, I'll tell you,' she said. 'Precious little. Enjoying my life, minding my own business, and not being a bore. On those terms, I'm prepared to be pleasant, and helpful, and cheerful and all the rest of it. What I said in the car was absolutely true. I like you, Mark, and always have. You're a damned attractive man, and great fun when you want to be. Thanks to you I have a marvellous time - most of it, anyway - and I couldn't have had it without you. Oh, well, I could, I daresay, because I'm not exactly plain Jane, but not with anyone I liked as well as you. I won't be a hypocrite and say I'd have married you if you'd been penniless, because you know darned well I wouldn't. I'd have made love with you, though, because I like you. But I don't like you enough to change, and I never shall. I'm what I am, and perfectly content - and if that's good enough for you, I think we can go on having a very happy and comfortable life, separately and together, as the mood takes us. If it's not good enough for you - well, it's just too bad. And now I'm going to bed.'

  She turned abruptly and walked gracefully to the door, the great embroidered skirt seeming to glide across the carpet. There she stopped and turned, as though on an afterthought.

  'Another thing you ought to know. I've done very well out of you, and so has my family. In return for that you've got me - as I am, no better, no worse. I may not measure up to your notions of morality and principle, but if Inspector Crawford were to come stamping in this minute with his warrant, and enough evidence to hang you ten times over, I'd be exactly where I was when I thought he was liable to do just that. So there you have it. And if, after all this, you're prepared to accept things as they are, no one will be more delighted than I. But if you don't...' she put her hand on the door-knob '. . . then you ought to know that I shan't mind in the least. I really don't care one way or the other whether you go or stay. To coin a phrase, it just doesn't matter.'

  She went out and closed the door behind her.

  25

  In the next few days the fashionable topic of the hour was the splendid Venetian Masque held in Hyde Park, with gondolas on the water of the Serpentine, elaborate mock-ups of the Bridge of Sighs, music by Scarlatti, and all that was best in Mayfair and Belgravia re-living the splendours of the Serene Republic on an evening which was stubbornly foggy, unromantic, and English. However, the guests were made of that stern stuff which had been tempered in the windy chill of Henley, the torrential downpours of Ascot, and innumerable hunt balls; the masked ladies in their dominoes clung with stoic languor to the arms of their Casanovas, many of whom were thankful for the long woollen underwear beneath their thin silk breeches, and the evening was voted a huge success.

  The same could hardly be said of the next event which drew Society by the hundreds to the great stadium at Olympia for the world title fight between Gunboat Smith of Britain and the dashing idol of the boulevards, M. Carpentier. It was estimated that never before had so many ladies, resplendent in evening finery, graced a prize-fight; Mrs Peggy Franklin was admired by many, and only the uncharitable among her friends drew attention to the fact that her escort was not her husband - not that there was anything unusual in that on past performance, but his absence from her side had gained an added significance for the gossips since the widely-whispered contretemps with that Delys woman at the Savoy Ball. However, Peggy's gaity and high spirits were undiminished; like every female there, she hoped to see the handsome Frenchman exercise his undoubted grace and brilliance at the expense of the stolid Smith, and was bitterly disappointed when the contest ended in the sixth round, the hapless Gunboat inadvertently hitting his opponent when he was down, and being ignominiously disqualified. A sad anti-climax, not only for the ladies but for their escorts, who had privately hoped that the gorgeous Georges would get his flashing Gallic grin wiped off his face in no uncertain manner.

  But disappointing though these social events might be, they were still infinitely more interesting topics of conversation than the pictures which had come through of the arrest in Sarajevo of Prinzip, the young fanatic who had, by a ridiculous freak of chance, been able to murder the Austrian archduke and his wife; few people did more than glance at the photographs of the bare-headed youth being hustled away by police and troops in kilts and fezzes. Austria might be making threatening noises towards Serbia, but Mr Lloyd George had publicly announced Britain's preoccupation with home affairs (especially Ireland), re-emphasised her desire not to be embroiled in foreign disputes, and called for disarmament.

  Mr Franklin was faced with a similar call on a more personal level. Inspector Crawford had returned to Wilton Crescent, with a request to be allowed to examine the Remington revolvers, which was promptly refused. There was talk of warrants, and while the inspector retired to consider his next move, Mr Franklin took himself off to his solicitor, and laid before him those facts which were known to the police. Counsel's opinion was sought, and Mr Franklin found it highly reassuring.

  There was not, counsel decided, a case to answer - no witnesses, no positive identification, no motive, and nothing concrete to link Mr Franklin to the crime, however extraordinary the circumstances might appear. As to the revolvers, counsel was advised (by a military friend at his club, in fact) that forensic science had still not devised a reliable method of identifying soft metal bullets with the weapon which fired them; even so, Mr Franklin should only surrender his weapons on production of a search warrant. `And if Crawford tries for a warrant on this evidence,' counsel remarked privately to Mr Franklin's solicitor, 'he won't get it. If he doesn't try, he's throwing in the towel, like a sensible bobby, and your American can sleep peacefully at nights.' No warrant was forthcoming
, but whether Mr Franklin slept peacefully or not no one in London could have said, for he was no longer there.

  He had gone back to Castle Lancing, alone, to try to think, or rather to try to rediscover his bearings after the traumatic upheavals of the few hours following the Savoy Ball. He left without seeing Peggy; Samson understood that his master would probably be down in Norfolk for a week or two, but no definite date had been fixed for his return. This conformed to the pattern of the past few years, and Mrs Franklin continued with her round of social engagements as usual.

  Castle Lancing noted that the squire was back, but paid even less attention than usual, having other exciting matters on its collective mind. The redevelopment work which had started and then been mysteriously halted in the Lye Cottage area had recommenced; a new gang of Irish navvies was encamped beyond the thicket, and the laying of foundations of the model cottages was proceeding apace. The more nervous villagers locked their doors at night, sharing as they did Inspector Crawford's prejudice where Irishmen were concerned, but in fact the labourers proved to be inoffensive guests; they were quiet and respectful in their dealings with the local people, showed no inclination to rob hen-roosts or sleep in the horse-trough, and in their resorts to the Apple Tree were affable and reasonably sober. And since they and the bricklayers from Thetford brought additional trade in their wake, and an invigorating bustle to the village, many of whose inhabitants were looking forward to occupying the new cottages, it could be said that Castle Lancing generally considered itself blessed in the change. The vicar, who was stubbornly Low Church, might have reservations about the temporary influx of Roman Catholics, and Thornhill might inveigh at the motor lorries which brought what he called their insufferable stench to the main street, but they were eccentric exceptions.