‘Old Martineau did us proud,’ he said. I nodded.
‘You’re lucky to have known him,’ he said with a warm, friendly smile. ‘He’s the sort of man who sometimes makes me want to do something different. You can understand my wanting that, can’t you?’ He was speaking with great eagerness.
‘I knew you would,’ Getliffe said. We took up our cases and walked through the empty hall. Suddenly Getliffe took my arm. ‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said. ‘You pretend not to be religious, I know that, of course. But you can’t get away from your own nature, whatever you like to call it. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. It’s something we’ve got in common, isn’t it?
‘I don’t mean we’re better people in one way,’ he went on. ‘You know I’m not. You’ve seen enough of me. I can do — things I’m ashamed of afterwards. You can too, can’t you? I expect we can both do more bad things than people who’ve not got the sense of — “religion”. In many ways I’m a worse man than they are. But somehow I think there are times when I get a bit further than they manage to. Because I want to, that’s all, L S.’
He laughed. ‘Take Porson, for instance. I know what they say about his morals; I’m not taking any notice of them. If you rule that out, he’s a better man than I am. He’s more honest, he wouldn’t have to watch himself as I do. Yet there isn’t a scrap of anything deep in him. I’ll swear there isn’t. He’s never prayed. He’s never wept at night.’
As we walked on through the street, crowded with the first rush of the evening, Getliffe said: ‘What happened to old Martineau, anyway? Did he lie to Passant or did he think of that later?’
‘I think he lied to Passant,’ I said. I told him of the entry in George’s diary: and of that inexplicable chicanery over Morcom’s flat years ago — when George had protested, angrily and loyally, that Martineau could never do a dishonest act.
Getliffe said: ‘I don’t know. He’s not got much to lose now, of course — and Passant might gain a good deal. He liked Passant, I could tell that. Anyway, it’s given us a chance. With our friend Porson going all out after that set of figures on paper. He never ought to have made so much of it. But as for Martineau — you know, he might have invented it for Passant’s sake.’
‘It’s difficult to believe,’ I said. ‘He was always fond of George Passant — but personal affections mattered less to him than anyone I’ve ever met. His own story—’
‘What about it?’
‘You believed him last night?’
‘I fancy I did,’ said Getliffe. ‘It went just as I told you. It was all a long time ago, he said. He did just remember talking to Passant, but he hadn’t any recollection of what they said. He never knew much about the agency or the paper. He had forgotten the little he ever knew. He obviously wasn’t going to make any effort to remember, either.’
‘Was that all?’
‘That was all I got him to say. Once or twice I did wonder whether he really had forgotten. He seemed to be making it too vague altogether. But I tell you, L S, I’m certain of one thing. Last night he hadn’t the slightest intention of saying what he did today. I don’t believe he had any intention of doing it — until he got into the box. It just came to him on the spur of the moment. I should like to know whether he invented it.’
‘I’m certain he lied to Passant,’ I said. ‘Of course, if he did, Passant would believe him. He would never be suspicious of a friend, particularly of Martineau—’
‘I don’t think I should have been,’ said Getliffe. He smiled at me. Because of these last hours, we were on better terms than we had ever been.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You might have believed him for the moment, but as soon as he went away you’d have taken care to find out.’
‘We’ve got to remember,’ said Getliffe, ‘that Passant himself must have had his suspicions. He’s too able a man not to have seen some snags and — they must all have known for certain there was something wrong. Very soon—’
‘When?’
‘We can both make our own guess, can’t we?’
Before the money was borrowed, he was thinking. But his imagination had been caught by Martineau.
‘The old chap must have gone through a good deal,’ he said, ‘getting no one to believe in his faith, at that time. I know you will say this is all too cut and dried, L S — but I fancy there is one thing he held on to longer than most. That’s his self-respect. And I fancy his performance today had something to do with that.’
‘You mean, he might have been trying to free himself — even from self-respect?’
‘At times — I can imagine doing it myself.’
‘But still,’ I thought aloud, ‘it’s stronger with him than most men — even after today. There’s part of it he never will lose. He would be the last man to be able to get free.’
Getliffe laughed affectionately.
‘Anyhow, he got rid of a dash of it today.’
At Eden’s Olive and Jack were waiting: their solicitor had sent for them, to have a last word before their examination the next day. Olive told me that Martineau was leaving the town within the hour.
Soon I left them, and took a taxi to the omnibus station. George, his father and Roy were standing close to a notice of the services to the North.
Martineau was on the steps by the conductor, and as I hurried towards them he went inside. The engine burred, they lurched off; Martineau was still standing up, waving.
‘It’s a pity he had to go away tonight,’ Mr Passant said. Then he burst out: ‘He never ought to go without an overcoat, going right up there in this weather. He ought to know it isn’t doing any good—’
We were all sad that he could leave so casually, before the end of the trial. They were angry that he was free of their sorrows. Mr Passant said several times on the way to the Passants’ house: ‘I should have thought he might have stayed another day or two.’
He repeated it to Mrs Passant, who was waiting in her front room. ‘I didn’t expect much of him,’ she said.
‘He used to flatter you very nicely, though,’ said Roy, who had replaced Jack in her favour. For one instant her face softened in a pleased, girlish smile.
‘He couldn’t have made any difference—’ Mr Passant began.
‘If he had been a decent, sensible man everything would have been different. I shall always say it was his fault. He ought to have looked after you properly,’ she said to George. She got up and put a kettle on the fire; since I last saw her, her movements had grown stiff, although her face had aged less than her husband’s.
‘But he wasn’t worried by them this afternoon,’ said Mr Passant. ‘They couldn’t get him to say anything he didn’t mean.’
Mrs Passant was saying something in an undertone to George. Mr Passant looked at them, then said to me: ‘I couldn’t follow what Mr Martineau had been doing himself. I’m not pretending I could help him because I haven’t fallen into the same mistakes or misunderstandings. It isn’t that, Lewis.’
‘No one followed what he’d been doing,’ said Roy. ‘Believe me. That is so.’
‘The main thing is, we ought to be grateful to him,’ said Mr Passant. ‘When I heard them getting at him this afternoon—’
‘I suppose we ought to be grateful to him,’ George broke in.
‘Of course we ought,’ said Mr Passant. ‘It’s contradicted all they were saying.’
‘It’s very easy to exaggerate the effect of that.’ George turned round to face his father. ‘You mustn’t let it raise false hopes. There are a great many things you must take into account. First of all, even if they believe him, this is only one part of the case. It isn’t the chief part, and if they hadn’t been wanting to raise every insinuation against me, they could have missed it out altogether.’