The room was not dark and my hand hesitated on the electric-light switch. Candles were burning still in the silver candlesticks on the long table, making the room a cave of warm dim luminosity to which my eyes became in a moment accustomed. I stood still, a little surprised, and closed the door behind me. Then I saw that there was someone sitting alone at the far end of the table.
It was Honor Klein. As I saw her the consciousness returned to me, but without being distressing, that I was somewhat tipsy; and I stood there for a moment longer leaning against the door. I could not see her clearly. But I apprehended at once, and it struck me as a trifle strange, that she was not particularly concerned about my arrival. It was like an arrival at the shrine of some remote and self absorbed deity. She was plunged in thoughts of her own.
I came slowly down the length of the table. I saw as I came that Palmer and Antonia had dined. Again there were the two places set, and the bottle, this time of Lynch-Gibbon Chateau Malmaison 1953, almost emptied. Two table napkins lay in disarray beside the places and there was a wide scattering of crumbs upon the polished surface beneath which the light of the candles seemed to burn again. As I approached Honor Klein I saw that without moving her head she was following me with her eyes. It was like the animation of a corpse. I looked down at her with a sort of fastidious surprise and then found that [ had sat down beside her.
I said, 'Excuse me, I was looking for Palmer's whisky. Where are they anyway?'
'At the opera,' said Honor. She spoke in an abstracted tone, as if I had only a smaller corner of her attention. She stared ahead of her now toward the candles. I wondered for a moment if she was drunk, but decided probably it was only I who was drunk.
'At the opera,' I said. It occurred to me as scandalous that Palmer and Antonia, after the scene in which I had taken part in the drawing-room, should have gone out to the opera. Antonia ought to have been waiting for me to come back. I resented this indifference to the tempo of my own drama.
'What's on?' I said.
'Gotterdammerung.'
I laughed.
Presently I got up and went to the cupboard to look for whisky. As I passed behind her I saw something lying upon the table. It was the Japanese sword, encased in its scabbard of lacquered wood, which usually hung in the hall. Honor Klein had evidently been continuing her dismantling activities. There was no whisky but I found a bottle of excellent brandy. I returned to the table with the bottle and two glasses. 'You'll join me?'
With a sort of effort she gave me her glance. Her face, in which I now apprehended a fugitive resemblance to Palmer, had a slumbrous look which I could not decipher. It might have been sheer weariness, it might have been resignation. She said after a moment, 'Thank you, yes, why not.' I realized, but without understanding and without curiosity, that somehow, in some way, she was in extremis. 1 poured out the brandy.
We sat in silence for a while. The room was beginning to seem abnormally dark. Perhaps some of the fog had drifted in from outside. One of the candles began to flicker, and its flame foundered sizzling in a sea of melted wax. As I saw it go I felt frightened and then wondered if I had rightly identified the thing which clutched at my heart.
I said to Honor Klein, 'You didn't waste much time in having me brought to justice.'
She kept her eyes on the candles and smiled very slightly. 'Was it unpleasant?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'I suppose so. Everything is so unpleasant nowadays it's hard to tell.' I found I could talk to her with remarkable directness. Our conversations were refreshingly lacking in formality. As I spoke I reached out automatically towards the sword, which lay with the blunt-ended scabbard towards me; but Honor Klein drew it away a little and I left my hand upon the table to fiddle with the bread crumbs.
I wondered if I should ask her why she had made Georgie confess, but found that I could not bring myself to do so. A nervous shrinking which was not exactly dislike made me hesitate to probe the motives of such a being. Therewith some vague yet powerful train of thought led me to say, 'I'm a broken reed after all.'
I was not sure why I said this, but some subterranean affinity with the thoughts of my companion must have prompted it, for she replied at once, 'Yes. It doesn't matter.'
We both sighed. My hand moved restlessly upon the table. I began to stare at the sword and to want very much to get hold of it. Honor was holding it in a possessive predatory way, her two hands on the scabbard, like a large animal holding down a small one. She faced the candles looking pale and rather haggard, her eyes screwed up as against a great light, and I tried in vain to detect what it was, other than a certain elusive air of authority, which made her resemble her brother; for the fact was that Palmer was beautiful while she was very nearly ugly. I contemplated her sallow cheek which shone dully like wax, and the black gleaming hair, oily, straight, and brutally short. She was a subject for Goya. Only the curve of her nostril and the curve of her mouth hinted, with a Jewish strength, a possible Jewish refinement. I said, 'Is the sword yours?' and as I spoke I put my hand on the end of the scabbard.
She stared a little and said, 'Yes. It's a Japanese Samurai sword, a very fine one. I used to have a great interest in Japan. I worked there for a time.' She drew the sword away again.
'You were with Palmer in Japan?'
'Yes.' She spoke as out of a deep dream.
I wanted her to know that I was present. I said, 'May I see the sword?'
I thought for a moment that she was going to ignore me. But she turned towards me as if taking thought. Then she twisted the thing about on the polished surface of the table. I expected her to offer me the hilt, but instead, as I reached for it, she took the hilt in her own hand and with a swift movement drew the sword from the scabbard. At the same time she rose to her feet.
The sword came out with a swishing clattering sound and disturbed candles flashed for a moment in the blade. She laid the scabbard on the table and let the blade descend more slowly until it lay along her thigh. Its bright surface showed against the dark material of her dress as with head bowed she gazed down along its slightly curving length.
When she spoke her voice was dry. She might have been in the lecture room. 'In Japan these swords are practically religious objects. They are forged not only with great care but with great reverence. And the use of them is not merely an art but a spiritual exercise.'
'So I have heard,' I said. I moved her chair out of the way so as to see her better and made myself comfortable, crossing one leg over the other. 'I am not attracted by the idea of decapitating people as a spiritual exercise.'
Somewhere, seeming at first to be inside my head, I heard a small sound. Then I realized it was a very distant peal of church bells; and I brought to mind that it was New Year's Eve. Some nearer bells took up the peal. We both listened for a moment in silence. Soon it would be the turn of the year.
Honor let the sword droop towards the floor. She said, 'Being a Christian, you connect spirit with love. These people connect it with control, with power.'
'What do you connect it with?'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'I am a Jew.'
'But you believe in the dark gods,' I said.
'I believe in people,' said Honor Klein. It was a rather unexpected reply.
I said, 'You sound rather like a fox saying it believes in geese.'
She laughed suddenly, and with that she laid her other hand upon the hilt and drew the sword upward with surprising swiftness to describe a great arc at the level of her head. It made a sound like a whip moving. The point came down within an inch of the arm of my chair and then descended again to the floor. I resisted an impulse to move back. I said, 'You can use it?'
'I studied it for several years in Japan, but I never got beyond the beginning.'
'Show me something,' I said. I wanted to see her moving again.
She said, 'I am not a performer,' and turned away again towards the table. In the distance the church bells continued their mathematical jargoning.
The remnants of Palmer and Antonia's dinner lay derelict under the falling candles. She drew towards her their two crumpled table napkins and looked at them thoughtfully. Then with one hand she tossed one of the napkins high in the air into the darkness of the high-ceilinged room. As it descended the sword was already moving with immense speed. The two halves of the napkin fluttered to the floor. She threw up the other napkin and decapitated it. I picked up one of the pieces. It was cleanly cut.
As I held it, looking up at her, I suddenly recalled the scene in the drawing-room when I had first seen Honor Klein confronting the other two like a young and ruthless captain. I laid the piece of linen on the table and said, 'That was a good trick.'