He wrote it on a slip of paper, then said:
“I’ll let her know you’re coming.”
“Will she know who I am?”
“She’ll know.”
There was a long silence.
Eventually I began to wander about the room, as if I were alone, waiting for someone.
Some conversations are overshadowed by what is not said—and this was one of them. I do not know how long I continued to wander about the room, but suddenly everything became blurred. I began to grope my way to the arm-chair, then the room seemed to dissolve, and I knew nothing till I found myself lying on a sofa.
“You’re ill, Max! I don’t believe in saying that to people, but I say it to you, because you haven’t any limits. You never have had. You keep rending yourself to pieces.”
“It’s nothing. I get a kind of mental black-out sometimes. I’ve had it, off and on, since the war. It doesn’t last long—and it doesn’t mean a thing. Still, I’ll have a drink, if you’ve got one.”
He mixed a whisky and soda, then said:
“You’ll have to pull up. You’re on the edge.”
“When haven’t I been?”
“Listen, Max! More than any one I’ve ever known, you have always gone through the world with naked nerves. Well, it can’t be done—not with a world war raging. You can’t be exposed nowadays! Surely you, of all people, know that.”
After a pause, he went on:
“You’re too susceptible to psychic environment. I’ve not forgotten our stay at Laleham on my first leave. Boyd was living in a cottage down the lane. He was ill, but the doctor did not think he was in any danger. One night you came into my room at about three o’clock and said you were certain Boyd was dead. A few hours later, we heard that Boyd had died in his sleep. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Well, all that gets me to a question I want to ask.”
“It will be the first.”
“Did you want me to ask questions?”
“No.”
“Tell me this: You say you had a letter from Carol, on the night she was murdered, asking you to go round and——”
“I didn’t go.”
“I wasn’t going to ask that. What I want to know is: Did you feel peculiar in any way on that Tuesday night?”
As I did not reply, he added:
“Perhaps you don’t remember.”
“Yes, I did feel odd.”
Then, as he said nothing, I asked:
“Are you—certain—there’s nothing else you want to know?”
“I don’t want to know anything else, Max.”
I was about to speak when the front-door bell rang.
“That’s Mervyn. Now, do listen, Max! He’s very excited—very curious. Do you really think you’re up to seeing him?”
“It’s got to happen sometime, so it may as well be now.”
“All right. I’ll let him in.”
Directly he had gone, there was a whirring in the clock on the mantelpiece, the bird’s head darted out, then emitted “Cuckoo” six times.
When they came into the room, I was still staring at the arm-chair in which Carol had sat, a week ago, waiting for the cuckoo-clock to strike six.
“Good Lord, Max, so you’re still alive! I thought you must have committed suicide, as I couldn’t find you anywhere and no one had seen you.”
He stared at me as if I were an apparition. He was still wearing a heavy overcoat and therefore looked even larger than usual.
“I tell you straight, Max, the whole thing is so damned extraordinary that I half-thought you were the murderer. Damn it all, there we were at the club, talking about the Carol Norton murder, and you never said that you knew her!”
“I wasn’t well. You mentioned, more than once, that I looked simply ghastly.”
“So you did, God knows! But you didn’t say one word about her! And when I telephoned you, in the small hours, you still didn’t say that you knew her! Then I see in the papers that you’ve known her for years—and that she was the model for your most famous picture! I telephone your flat—you’re not there. I go to the club—you’re not there. Damn it, if you had murdered her, you couldn’t have behaved more oddly!”
Before I could speak, Antony said:
“Listen, Mervyn, Max is ill. He practically fainted just before you came in. He really isn’t——”
“Everyone’s talking about you! Look at this.” Mervyn pulled an illustrated weekly from a capacious pocket.
They’ve reproduced Enigma in colour. And, I tell you, it’s a rage.”
He handed it to me, then went on:
“I’m only showing it to you. You can’t keep it.”
“I don’t want it,” I said, as I gave it back to him.
“I’ll get out of this coat, then I’ll tell you some things that will thaw you.”
He took off his overcoat, folded it carefully, then sat in the arm-chair opposite mine. It was very evident that excitement, or some sudden enthusiasm, had altered Mervyn, because the features had lost their former fixity, and the pale blue eyes under their bushy brows now had an ardour which was a remarkable change from their former apathy.
“This murder is going to make you more famous than ever, Max. Reproductions of Enigma will soon be in every shop. I’ve seen the bloke who prints ’em and he says the demand is terrific. Apparently he can get good quality paper, despite the shortage, so there will soon be thousands on sale.”
Again Antony tried to speak, but Mervyn raced on:
“I lunched with a squadron leader to-day. He told me that he put up a reproduction of Enigma in the mess—and it was a sensation. So much so, that they decided to take down all the pin-up girls. He said Enigma made those half-dressed hussies seem damn silly. But that’s by the way. Wait a minute—and I’ll tell you something really most peculiar.”
He took out his cigarette case, dropped it, picked it up, took out a cigarette, visited various pockets in search of a match—then threw the cigarette aside.
“Now, this really is peculiar.”
He remained silent for some moments, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.
“It’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened. But, first, I must tell you something I’ve never told any one. I’m incurably romantic. Yes, I know!” he exclaimed, as if to prevent interruptions. “I know it’s perfectly preposterous for a person like me—at my age and with my figure—to be romantic, but that does not alter the fact that I am and always have been romantic. My trouble has been to find any one to be romantic about. It’s a difficulty which is familiar to married people. You must have someone to dream about—someone to be unhappy about—someone you’ll never meet. That’s why people fall in love with film stars. Everything is so drab nowadays that you must have a dream. It’s absolutely essential. It’s a kind of psychic chewing-gum.”
Pause.
“Well—would you believe it?—directly I saw Enigma, I knew this was it. Most peculiar! I felt I’d found something which I did not know I’d lost.”
“Look here, Mervyn! Max really isn’t well enough to——”
“It was damned peculiar! I’d look at Enigma—and then I’d find that I was thinking about all sorts of things which I’d forgotten ages ago. Things which happened when I was a boy: a children’s Christmas party; a snow-shrouded garden; an unknown girl who waved from the window of an old house—thirty-five years ago!”
The telephone bell rang in the next room. Directly Antony had gone to answer it, Mervyn exclaimed:
“You understand, Max! You understand, because you must have seen more in Carol than any one else—miles more—or you couldn’t have painted that picture. But tell me this: Why did you call it Enigma?”