had to send him the money to pay his railway fare. When Cartwright arrived at Alor Lipis he hadn't ten cents in his pocket. Bronson had a little money of his own, two or three hundred a year, I think, and though his salary had been cut, he'd kept his job, so that he was better off than most planters. When Cartwright came Mrs Bronson told him that he was to look upon the place as his home and stay as long as he liked.'
'It was very nice of her, wasn't it?' I remarked.
'Very.'
Gaze lit himself another cheroot and filled his glass. It was very still and but for the occasional croak of the chik-chak the silence was intense. We seemed to be alone in the tropical night and heaven only knows how far from the habitations of men. Gaze did not speak for so long that at last I was forced to say something.
'What sort of a man was Cartwright at that time?' I asked. 'Younger, of course, and you told me rather nice-looking; but in himself?'
'Well, to tell you the truth, I never paid much attention to him. He was pleasant and unassuming. He's very quiet now, as I dare say you noticed; well, he wasn't exactly lively then. But he was perfectly inoffensive. He was fond of reading and he played the piano rather nicely. You never minded having him about, he was never in the way, but you never bothered very much about him. He danced well and the women rather liked that, but he also played billiards quite decently and he wasn't bad at tennis. He fell into our little groove very naturally. I wouldn't say that he ever became wildly popular, but everyone liked him. Of course we were sorry for him, as one is for a man who's down and out, but there was nothing we could do, and, well, we just accepted him and then forgot that he hadn't always been there. He used to come in with the Bronsons every evening and pay for his drinks like everyone else, I suppose Bronson had lent him a bit of money for current expenses, and he was always very civil. I'm rather vague about him, because really he didn't make any particular impression on me; in the East one meets such a lot of people, and he seemed very much like anybody else. He did everything he could to get something to do, but he had no luck; the fact is, there were no jobs going, and sometimes he seemed rather depressed about it. He was with the Bronsons for over a year. I remember his saying to me once:
'"After all I can't live with them for ever. They've been most awfully good to me, but there are limits."
'"I should think the Bronsons would be very glad to have you," I said. "It's not particularly gay on a rubber estate, and as far as your food and drink go, it must make precious little difference if you're there or not."'
Gaze stopped once more and looked at me with a sort of hesitation.
'What's the matter?' I asked.
'I'm afraid I'm telling you this story very badly,' he said. 'I seem to be just rambling on. I'm not a damned novelist, I'm a policeman, and I'm just telling you the facts as I saw them at the time; and from my point of view all the circumstances are important; it's important, I mean, to realize what sort of people they were.'
'Of course. Fire away.'
'I remember someone, a woman, I think it was, the doctor's wife, asking Mrs Bronson if she didn't get tired sometimes of having a stranger in the house. You know, in places like Alor Lipis there isn't very much to talk about, and if you didn't talk about your neighbours there'd be nothing to talk about at all.'
'"Oh, no," she said, "Theo's no trouble." She turned to her husband, who was sitting there mopping his face. "We like having him, don't we?"
'"He's all right," said Bronson.
'"What does he do with himself all day long?"
'"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs Bronson. "He walks round the estate with Reggie sometimes, and he shoots a bit. He talks to me."
'"He's always glad to make himself useful," said Bronson. "The other day when I had a go of fever, he took over my work and I just lay in bed and had a good time."'
'Hadn't the Bronsons any children?' I asked.
'No,' Gaze answered. 'I don't know why, they could well have afforded it.'
Gaze leant back in his chair. He took off his glasses and wiped them. They were very strong and hideously distorted his eyes. Without them he wasn't so homely. The chik-chak on the ceiling gave its strangely human cry. It was like the cackle of an idiot child.
'Bronson was killed,' said Gaze suddenly.
'Killed?'
'Yes, murdered. I shall never forget that night. We'd been playing tennis, Mrs Bronson and the doctor's wife, Theo Cartwright and I; and then we played bridge. Cartwright had been off his game and when we sat down at the bridge-table Mrs Bronson said to him: "Well, Theo, if you play bridge as rottenly as you played tennis we shall lose our shirts."
'We'd just had a drink, but she called the boy and ordered another round.
'"Put that down your throat," she said to him, "and don't call without top honours and an outside trick."
'Bronson hadn't turned up, he'd cycled in to Kabulong to get the money to pay his coolies their wages and was to come along to the club when he got back. The Bronsons' estate was nearer Alor Lipis than it was to Kabulong, but Kabulong was a more important place commercially, and Bronson banked there.
'"Reggie can cut in when he turns up," said Mrs Bronson.
'"He's late, isn't he?" said the doctor's wife.
'"Very. He said he wouldn't get back in time for tennis, but would be here for a rubber. I have a suspicion that he went to the club at Kabulong instead of coming straight home and is having drinks, the ruffian."
'"Oh, well, he can put away a good many without their having much effect on him," I laughed.
'"He's getting fat, you know. He'll have to be careful."
'We sat by ourselves in the card-room and we could hear the crowd in the billiard-room talking and laughing. They were all on the merry side. It was getting on to Christmas Day and we were all letting ourselves go a little. There was going to be a dance on Christmas Eve.
'I remembered afterwards that when we sat down the doctor's wife asked Mrs Bronson if she wasn't tired.
'"Not a bit," she said. "Why should I be?".
'I didn't know why she flushed.
'"I was afraid the tennis might have been too much for you," said the doctor's wife.
'"Oh, no," answered Mrs Bronson, a trifle abruptly, I thought, as though she didn't want to discuss the matter.
'I didn't know what they meant, and indeed it wasn't till later that I remembered the incident.
'We played three or four rubbers and still Bronson didn't turn up.
'"I wonder what's happened to him," said his wife. "I can't think why he should be so late."
'Cartwright was always silent, but this evening he had hardly opened his mouth. I thought he was tired and asked him what he'd been doing.
'"Nothing very much," he said. "I went out after tiffin to shoot pigeon."
'"Did you have any luck?" I asked.
'"Oh, I got half a dozen. They were very shy."
'But now he said: "If Reggie got back late, I dare say he thought it wasn't worth while to come here. I expect he's had a bath and when we get in we shall find him asleep in his chair."
'"It's a good long ride from Kabulong," said the doctor's wife.
'"He doesn't take the road, you know," Mrs Bronson explained. "He takes the short cut through the jungle."
'"Can he get along on his bicycle?" I asked.
'"Oh, yes, it's a very good track. It saves about a couple of miles."
'We had just started another rubber when the bar-boy came in and said there was a police-sergeant outside who wanted to speak to me.
'"What does he want?" I asked.
'The boy said he didn't know, but he had two coolies with him.
'"Curse him," I said.
'"I'll give him hell if I find he's disturbed me for nothing."
'I told the boy I'd come and I finished playing the hand. Then I got up.