“Yes, it’s all right. If we need you, we shall know where to find you. Take care of yourself, and good luck. Better luck,” he said gently, “than you’ve had so far.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind.” He saw her glance stray involuntarily towards the glass over the hearth. “You did mean what you said, didn’t you? You do really think I’m going to be… pretty?”
“No,” said George firmly, “you’ve never going to be pretty, and that isn’t what I said.”
“I was afraid to say the other word,” Felicity admitted simply. “But you did mean it, didn’t you?”
“I meant it. You’ll see for yourself, before very long.”
“It’s not that it makes any difference to what’s happened,” she explained punctiliously. “But it’s something to start from – like having capital. You know!” She picked up her case sturdily. “Good-bye, then, and thanks!”
“Good-bye, Felicity! You’ll be all right?”
She understood that in its fullest meaning, and she said: “I’ll be all right.”
The station wagon taking Felicity away to catch her train left the courtyard and circled the house to the front drive just two minutes before Price drove in by the farm road. The tower clock, which was several minutes fast, was just chiming five. In one and a half hours the students would be dispersing, by car, by bus, by the house transport and the local trains, to homes scattered over the whole of the Midlands, and some even farther afield. Let them, at all costs, get off in peace. An extra car suddenly appearing at Follymead was nothing to wonder about at normal times, but better to take no chances now. Price parked carefully in the obscurity under the archway, where they could not be seen from the windows.
Lucien awoke from a wretched and uneasy doze with the exaggerated alarm of nightmare, and stared round wildly to find the familiar and unwelcome apparition of Follymead enclosing him. He could face what he had to face, but he shied at the idea of added ordeals.
“Why have you brought me here?” he demanded, roused and resentful. “I thought we were going to the police station at Comerbourne.”
“I don’t remember that we mentioned exactly where we were going. Inspector Felse has been working from here, and this is where we shall find him.” Rapier got out of the back seat, and locked the car upon the two who remained; not that he thought the boy would try to make a break for it now, but, there was no point in leaving him even the meagre opportunity. The sergeant climbed the back stairs, and let himself into the warden’s office.
George looked up from the report he was compiling, short as yet of a few details, a date or two, a name, but by this time essentially complete. “Well, how did it go?”
“No trouble,” said Rapier complacently. “He’s below in the car.” He laid his notebook on the desk, and flicked through the close pages of shorthand. “There you are! He insisted on making a statement, didn’t seem able to rest until he had in all in order. I’ll send it up to you as soon as I can get it typed. He’s made a full confession.”
“Ah,” said George, with a faint smile that Rapier found, in retrospect, more than a little puzzling. “Yes, I thought he might.”
“He says Arundale attacked him, and he killed him in self-defence. You won’t have any trouble, he’s filled in all the details, and they all fit.”
“Oh, yes, I quite thought he’d make a good job of it.” The smile was still present, wry, private and sad, and yet understandably touched with the pride and satisfaction of a man whose judgement has been vindicated by events. “And what about Mrs. Arundale?”
“She has nothing to do with it. I will say that for him, he went out of his way to make that clear. He hardly knew her. He says he used her name to shock the kid, because he knew she was jealous of her, anyhow, and the kid must have gone and told her uncle. Oh, he’s made your case for you.”
“All right,” said George, “bring him up.”
Rapier went back down the staircase and unlocked the car, dropping the keys into Price’s hand. “Ready for you now, Mr. Galt. Up the stairs, that’s right.”
Lucien heard the distant, starling clamour from the great drawing-room, and reared his head in a wild gesture of mingled ardour and revulsion. “But they… do they know about this?” He climbed the tight spiral flight, tensed and suspicious, his ears stretched. They surely couldn’t know. The high-pitched din was eager and innocent, untouched by death.
“You’d better ask the inspector that. In here.”
Lucien entered the warden’s office, and the door was closed quietly behind him.
George rose from behind the desk. “Sit down, Mr. Galt. You must have made very good time. I was reckoning on this final concert being over, or nearly over, by the time you arrived.”
It was like coming into a familiar room which had been emptied of its furniture, and was no longer familiar. All the echoes were wrong, all the tones distorted so acutely that Lucien felt his balance affected, and spread his feet aggressively to grip reality more firmly. Even in the car he had this feeling of disorientation, but now it went over him as acutely as panic, and left him sick and frightened. He had made a detailed statement admitting his responsibility for the death of Arundale, why wasn’t he under arrest? Even if his escorts from London had been instructed only to deliver him safely to the man in charge, here, presumably, was the man in charge, and still nothing seemed to be about to happen. He gripped the back of the chair that was offered him, and stood taut and distrustful, his eyes roving the room.
“I don’t understand. Why did I have to come back here? Was that fair? I haven’t made any trouble for your men, I’ve co-operated as well as I can, I’m not disputing anything I’ve done. So why…?”
“Sit down,” said George.
It wasn’t worth arguing about; Lucien sat. George came round the desk and sat on the front corner, looking his capture over with interest. Black as a gypsy, strung fine as a violin, a slender, dark, wild creature, with arrogant eyes shadowed now by grief and fear, and a hypersensitive, proud mouth that was ready to curl even at this moment. Like his picture, but even more like the picture his friends and enemies had built up of him for the man who had never set eyes on him until now.
“I’ve made a statement,” said Lucien. “It should clear up everything for you. I suppose he has to transcribe it, or whatever. I don’t know what more you want.”
“Then I’ll tell you. I want another hour and a half of apparent normality here. After that we can be as businesslike as you please.” He saw the tired eyes question doubtfully, and smiled. “Mr. Galt, I believe you’ll have a certain sympathy with our concern for this place. It may not be perfect, what it does may not go very far, or be very profound. But with all that, it is a pretty remarkable institution. It brings music, and what’s more, knowledge and desire of music, to people who’ve perhaps never really experienced it before. If its appeal fell off as the result of a scandal and a notorious case, or if its enemies – oh, yes, anything that can be called cultural has always more than enough enemies – if its enemies got an effective weapon to use against it, it might be killed for good, and that would be a real loss. There’s going to be publicity, inquest and trial can’t be avoided. There’s going to be a bad period; but if we can minimise the effect as much as possible, Follymead may survive. That’s why I want to take no action whatever until this course has dispersed. The next can be called off without too much backwash. So let’s at least wait until the house is empty to-night, before we start talking in terms of guilt and arrests.”
After a brief and dubious silence Lucien said slowly: “I’m not sure what it is you want of me.”
“I want you to give me your word not to try to get away, just to wait and behave normally until the party has left.”