“But what about your knowledge when I showed you the writ and my defense? You didn’t believe that I had been her lover?”
“No, of course not! Naturally, I put it to Valerie. And she refused to budge an inch. Said it was entirely her affair, and that I could take what attitude I pleased. What could I do? Telling you about it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“Yet you married her! Built your marriage on the ruin of mine!”
“Ruin of my grandmother’s aunt!” exploded Henshawk. Both were standing, glaring at each other across the table. “Can’t you see you’re pulling your own leg? Ever asked yourself why Ruth didn’t believe you? Of course she believed you! Your marriage had crashed. D’you think I didn’t know that much? Ruth couldn’t stick you any longer, and she jumped at the chance of release which Valerie had given her.”
To Ledlaw the words brought horrifying self-suspicion, the glimpse of an utterly unbearable truth. As Henshawk turned his back, Ledlaw snatched up the object nearest his hand and struck. He struck at the image of a self-pitying poltroon, at himself posing and strutting for eighteen years in order to hide from himself the truth that his wife had been unable to endure his affection — that she had been driven to a mean escape.
But what he had actually done was to kill Henshawk.
Returning clarity brought, not remorse, but renewed self-pity.
“Just my luck! I lost my head for half a second and now I shall be hanged.”
Not death, but the dreadful ritual of trial and execution, awakened self-preservation. He remembered the danger of fingerprints. When he had washed his hands, he refilled the basin and put the statuette in it. With Henshawk’s sponge he wiped the ashtray and the arms of the chair.
“That secretary may have heard him blithering to me about the cottage. I shall be hanged! Steady! I shall just have to bet she didn’t hear — or that he hasn’t told anybody where it is.”
He stood over the model, wondering whether there would be any safety in smashing it.
“That damned cow!” Taut nerves and muscles suddenly relaxed, and he giggled like a schoolgirl. A moment later he had sobered and turned to the charcoal drawing on the wall.
“It looks more realistic without the hand. And the damned cow isn’t so pronounced.” About to pass on, he turned back on impulse, dipped his hands in the basin and removed the drawing from its frame.
“The outer office would be better — more people turn the handles.” With hands still wet he opened the communicating door. In the outer office he caught up a piece of tissue paper and wrapped it loosely round the drawing.
Downstairs the porter was loafing about the hall. If he were to try to slink past, the fellow might think he had stolen the drawing. What was the most ordinary and natural thing to do?
“Get me a taxi, please.”
In the taxi he checked his first impulse to leave the drawing under the mat. That drawing must be burned — the mill board was too stiff to be torn in small pieces. He re-wrapped it in the tissue paper.
At Westminster he traveled by Underground to Earl’s Court. He was staying at the Teneriffe Hotel, near the station. He emptied a dispatch case and put the drawing in it. He would take it out to the countryside and burn it tomorrow. He had the illusion of forgetting Henshawk and his own peril. Active thought was suspended. He dined in the hotel, and afterwards went back to the West End to a music hall.
The next morning the London editions carried the photograph of the model. When Ledlaw opened a paper over breakfast he instantly accepted failure.
With a certain coolness he worked out how arrest would come. Ruth would see the picture and the police appeal. As a respectable citizen, she would write to Scotland Yard. A detective would call, would learn from her that she had passed her childhood in the cottage, that her father had been compelled to sell it, that some years later, on her marriage, her husband had bought it and made it over to her, that they had lived in it for a short time. Then the divorce and his departure to Canada. They would hardly need to trace him through the bank. The shipping lists would show that he had arrived six days ago and put up at the Teneriffe Hotel.
At a guess, he would have about forty-eight hours — at worst, twenty-four, unless Ruth telephoned, which was improbable.
Before he died, he wanted to see his daughter. Even more than that, he wanted to know whether Henshawk’s taunt had any foundation. In short, he would go at once to the cottage and see Ruth, whether she wanted to see him or not.
In his baggage were some things he had left her in his will — a photograph album of snapshots he had taken during their first year, a packet of her letters to him before marriage, a rare edition of Canterbury Tales which her father had given him. In half an hour he had sorted them out.
He put them in the dispatch case on top of the drawing, which no longer had any importance. In his sense of defeat, he thought only that he had been a fool for his pains in bringing it away. He had forgotten that Ruth would be sure to recognize the photograph of the model at once. And she would remember Henshawk’s name.
He would take no further precautions against arrest. He would not even shave his mustache.
By the middle of the morning, he was in the train for Hallery-on-Thames. There was no taxi at the little station and no car to be hired in the village, so he had to walk the half mile along the towpath and then tackle the stiff climb up the hillside.
He was hot when he arrived at Whiddon Cottage, and stopped to rest a minute by the oaks. While he was getting his breath, he reflected, with the self-conscious wistfulness of one who believes that his days are numbered, that the beauty of Whiddon was even greater than his memory of it. Set high on a hill on the edge of the Berkshire Downs, there was a clear view of undulating country for fifteen miles. To the rear of the cottage the downland sloped half a mile in a green carpet to the Thames. And now for Ruth.
She opened the door to him. She was a tall woman who had once been pretty and was now handsome, but with an air of masterfulness that was not romantically attractive. Yet at sight of him, he thought, she had looked afraid.
“Harold! Why have you come?” Her tone was reproachful, but not unfriendly.
“I want to see Aileen. I imagine you will not raise objections.”
“Of course not! But she’s away for a few days with friends.”
“I also wanted to see you. May I?”
It was ridiculously formal, not in the least as he had planned. It chilled them both into small talk. She offered him lunch, and he said he had already lunched, which was untrue. They chattered about Canada and London. He congratulated her on her success as an author.
“Well, of course, only students read my books and only a few of those, though I get good reviews. Harold, is that man who has been murdered the Henshawk you used to know?”
“Yes. You’ve seen the paper, I gather. I rather took it for granted that you had already notified Scotland Yard. I knew you must recognize the picture, in spite of the pigs and hens and that preposterous cow.”
“Harold?”
“Yes, Ruth — I killed him.” She had guessed before he said it. He added. “Did you know that he married Valerie Carmaen?”
She winced at the name. “No. But that was no reason for killing him.”
“He knew that woman had borne false witness against me. I accused him of building his marriage on the ruin of mine. And I lost my temper when he said that you, too, knew it was false — that you had jumped at the chance of getting rid of me. Did you, Ruth?”
She was long in answering. His own tension had vanished. It was as if he were no longer interested in her answer.
“I believed her evidence at the time. But after a few years I began to suspect I was wrong. It would be meaningless to say that I am sorry. As young lovers — well, we were not successful, Harold. In our maturity, I can feel deep friendship as well as gratitude for your generosity.”