“Blimey! Was it different in 1940! I’ll never forget getting into a train at Taunton. Got into a first, because the thirds were full. And there was a solitary lady—in tweeds. You know—straight from the Manor House. Surrounded by a barbed-wire entanglement of social superiority. Silence—long and loud. I read a paragraph in the Mail which said they’d ring the church bells when the Germans arrived. Then I threw the paper aside—looked out of the window—and listened for the church bells. And then I heard a voice—one of those voices which remind you of the Almighty—suddenly say: ‘Would you care to look at The Times?’ Blimey! I nearly pulled the communication cord.”
“Those months after Dunkirk were pretty good.”
“Wish to God they’d come back!”
He looked at his watch.
“Here! This won’t do! Still, what’s the hurry? It all goes in Excess Profits. To think that I—who swore all my life that I’d never have a partner—should end up in partnership with the bloody government! I’d hang myself—but you can’t get any rope.”
When he had gone, I asked the waitress for my bill, then said that the ginger-haired man didn’t seem to like his breakfast.
“What, old George? Oh, he’s all right! We don’t take no notice of him. Always comes twice a day—regular as regular. Do any one a good turn, old George would.”
I went into the street, then began to walk automatically as I had no destination in mind.
Nothing makes concentration more difficult than a sense of imminent change. And I knew that change was imminent. Soon, Carol’s murderer would be known. This certainty so possessed me that every subject unrelated to it seemed unreal. Inevitably, therefore, I began to think about Hilary Harcourt—and soon discovered new and disturbing implications in almost everything he had said. So true was this, that the account I had given Haimes of Harcourt’s midnight visit seemed totally inadequate.
Nevertheless, I recognised that most people would dismiss Harcourt as a madman and therefore discount everything he said. It is probable that many people would have hesitated before telling Haimes about Harcourt’s visit, through fear of wasting the time of a busy man—and it is possible that I should not have gone to Haimes immediately, if he had not stressed the necessity for telling him anything in the least unusual. Even as things were, it would not be very surprising if I heard in a day or two that Haimes had made inquiries which satisfied him that Harcourt was a semi-lunatic, who had not known Carol, but had become obsessed by the Chelsea murder and imagined himself implicated in it.
Nevertheless, despite these probabilities and possibilities, I felt that Harcourt was too complex to be relegated to any commonplace category. Far too complex! But what chiefly disturbed me was the fact that I loathed him as I had never loathed any one. You do not loathe a person with whom you have no liaison on any level.
Gradually, however, as I continued to walk towards the park, I realised that my last meeting with Antony had been just as remarkable, for very different reasons, as my encounter with Harcourt. Till now, Harcourt had almost obliterated everything else, with the result that the revolution in Antony’s attitude had been obscured, but now it emerged in starkly defined outline.
Perhaps the most astonishing fact was that Antony had been wholly sympathetic until he learned that I loved Carol; then, instantly, he became fiercely antagonistic. He had not intended to reveal that Carol had loved me—and he certainly had not intended to tell me that he had asked her to marry him. Anger had made him say everything he wanted to keep secret. I was convinced of this, although it had seemed that he was determined to make me realise the truth about Carol. Anger had dominated him from the moment he learned that I was in love with her.
In retrospect, I found it remarkably revealing that he had said:
“Perhaps the truth is—despite your discovery that you’re in love with her—you still hate her. Hate her, because she knew you as no one else has ever known you, or ever will. I could understand that.”
I also found it remarkably revealing that he had also said:
“You’re hearing the truth—at last. You would never have heard it, if you had not told me that you’re in love with her.”
Why not? Why shouldn’t he have told me that Carol had been in love with me? Why shouldn’t he have said that he had asked her to marry him? The reasons he had given for silence might have had some substance when Carol was alive, but, after her death, they had none. Anyhow, one thing was certain: the dead Carol had revolutionised my relations with Antony. I had not been wrong when I told him that the dead have terrible power.
A shout distracted me. I looked up—and discovered that I had reached the frozen Serpentine.
For some minutes I gazed at the static scene—at a twig half-imprisoned in the ice—at a motionless gull—at the inert sky. Then, again, I felt that I was not alone, and this sense of her nearness created a feeling of fulfilment unknown since the days of Fredrika.
At last I looked at my watch. A quarter to twelve. As I did not want to return to the flat till tea-time, I had many hours to fill in. And that wasn’t easy. If I went to the club, I should have to talk, and I didn’t want to talk. If I did not go to the club, I should get nothing to eat in expensive surroundings. Eventually, I decided to go to Knightsbridge, get a midday paper, then make up my mind what to do.
It was exhilarating to walk quickly over the rock-hard ground, breathing frosty air which seemed almost tangible. It was strange to be the only moving object in a motionless world, where winter bareness revealed the structural design of every bush and every tree.
As I approached Knightsbridge Tube Station, I noticed a knot of people round a newspaper man and was wondering whether he would have sold out, when he suddenly shouted:
“Chelsea murder! Man arrested! Read all about it!”
I stopped and stared at him.
I couldn’t understand why he didn’t bring me a paper—why he didn’t push aside the people between us and bring me a paper. What did this news mean to them? Why were they here?
When I had the paper in my hand, I couldn’t unfold it. I dropped it. Someone picked it up for me. There was nothing on the front page. Then I found a line at the top of the Stop Press column, saying it was understood that a man had been arrested yesterday morning. And then, at the bottom of the column, I read:
. . . The man’s name is Hilary Harcourt. . . . The man’s name is Hilary Harcourt. . . .
I walked away. Instinctively, I went into the tube station, then stood by the bookstall. Haimes! Yes, of course! I must see Haimes.
I found an empty telephone box—but the normally so-familiar technique of inserting tuppence, dialling the number, pressing button A, suddenly seemed an immensely complicated operation, designed solely to frustrate any attempt to speak to Haimes.
At last I got through and heard him say:
“Hallo, Arnold! Just telephoned your flat, but you were out. Plenty to tell you! Could you lunch to-day? Good! Have to be rather late, I’m afraid. A quarter to two? Fine! Meet me outside the Dominion and I’ll take you to a place where I’m known. Nothing special—but we can talk there.”
I went back to the street, then looked at my watch. Just after twelve.
A moment later I saw an empty taxi.
I hailed it, then gave the driver Antony’s address.
I hesitated outside the door of his flat, partly because a newspaper protruded from the letter-box and this made me think that he might be away, but chiefly because a sudden sense of freedom almost overwhelmed me. Eventually, however, I pressed the bell and, after a considerable interval, Antony opened the door.