Tonight she came to the door to meet him. He was prepared for her to speak of the child and her anxieties and her loneliness, and he was ready with the gentle words and the tenderness which would come so easily to him after an hour in bed with her but which now his excitement must make strained and abrupt. She said nothing. He kissed her experimentally, unable to guess her mood from those large blank eyes.
She took his hands and put them against her waist which was naked when she lifted the shirt she wore. Her skin was hot and dry, quivering against his own trembling hands. Then he knew that the need she had spoken of on the phone was not for words or re assurance or searching of the heart but the same need as his own.
If Mr. Casaubon had been capable of inspiring the slightest sentimentality, Wexford reflected, it would have been impossible to witness Monkey’s extravagant care of him without disgust. But the old man - his real name would have to be ferreted out from some file or other - was so obviously a villain and a parasite who took every advantage of his age and an infirmity that was probably assumed that Wexford could only chuckle sardonically to himself as he watched Monkey settle him into one of Ruby Branch’s armchairs and place a cushion behind his head. No doubt it was obvious to the receiver of these attentions as it was to the chief inspector that Monkey was merely cosseting the goose that would lay a golden egg. Presumably Mr. Casaubon had already come to some financial agreement with his partner of impresario and knew there was no question of affection or reverence for old age in all this fussing with cushions. Humming with contentment in the fashion of an aged purring cat, he allowed Monkey to pour him a treble whisky, but when the water jug appeared the hum rose a semitone and a gnarled purple hand was placed over the glass.
Monkey drew the curtains and placed a table lamp on the end of the mantelpiece so that its radiance fell like a spotlight on the bunchy rag-bag figure of Mr. Casaubon, and Wexford was aware of the dramatic effect It was almost as if Monkey’s protégé was one of those character actors who delight to appear solo on the London stage and for two hours or more entertain an audience to a monologue or to readings from some great novelist or diarist. And Mr. Casaubon’s repetitive nodding and humming rather enhanced this impression. Wexford felt that at any moment the play would begin, a witticism would issue from those claret-coloured lips or the humming would give place to a speech from Our Mutual Friend. But because he knew that this was all fantasy, deliberately achieved by that crafty little con-man Monkey Matthews, he said sharply: “Get on with it, can’t you?”
Mr. Casaubon broke the silence he had maintained since leaving the Piebald Pony. “Monk can do the talking,” he said. “He’s got more the gift of the gab than me.”
Monkey smiled appreciatively at this flattery and lit a cigarette. “Me and Mr. Casaubon,” he began, “made each other’s acquaintance up north about twelve months back.” In Walton jail, Wexford thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. “So when Mr. Casaubon was glancing through his morning paper the other day and saw about Mr. Ivor Swan and him living in Kingsmarkham and all that, his thoughts naturally flew to me.”
“Yes, yes, I get all that. In plain English he saw the chance to make a little packet and thought you could help him to it. God knows why he didn’t come straight to us instead of getting involved with a shark like you. Your gift of the gab, I suppose.” A thought struck Wexford. “Knowing you, I wonder you didn’t try putting the black on Swan first.”
“If you’re going to insult me,” said Monkey, snorting out smoke indignantly, “we may as well have done, and me and my friend’ll go to Mr. Griswold. I’m doing this as a favour to you, like to advance you in your profession.”
Mr. Casaubon nodded sagely and made a noise like a bluebottle drowsing over a joint of beef. But Monkey was seriously put out. Temporarily forgetting the respect due to age and golden geese, he snapped in the tone usually reserved for Mrs. Branch, “Give over that buzzing, will you? You’re getting senile. Now you can see,” he said to Wexford, “why the silly old git needs me to prop him up.”
“Go on, Monkey. I won’t interrupt again.”
“To get to the guts of the business,” said Monkey, “Mr. Casaubon told me - and showed me his paper to prove it - that fourteen years back your Ivor Bloody Swan - listening, are you? Ready for a shock? - your Ivor Swan killed a kid. Or, to put it more accurate, caused her death by drowning her in a lake. There, I thought that’d make you sit up.”
Rather than sitting up, Wexford had slumped into his chair. “Sorry, Monkey,” he said, “but that’s not possible. Mr. Swan hasn’t a stain on his character.”
“Hasn’t paid the penalty, you mean. I’m telling you, this is fact, it’s gospel. Mr. Casaubon’s own niece, his sister’s girl, was a witness. Swan drowned the kid and he was up in court, but the judge acquitted him for lack of evidence.”
“He can’t have been more than nineteen or twenty,” Wexford said ruminatively. “Look here, I’ll have to know more than that. What’s this paper you keep on about?”
“Give it here, mate,” said Monkey.
Mr. Casaubon fumbled among his layers of clothing, finally bringing out from some deep recess beneath mackintosh, coat and matted wool a very dirty envelope inside which was a single sheet of paper. He held it lovingly for a moment and then handed it to his go-between who passed it on to Wexford.
The paper was a letter with neither address nor date.
“Before you read it,” said Monkey, “you’d best know that this young lady as wrote it was chambermaid in this hotel in the Lake District. She had a very good position, lot of girls under her. I don’t know exactly what she was but she was the head one.”
“You make her sound like the madame in a brothel,” said Wexford nastily, and cut short Monkey’s expostulation with a quick, “Shut up and let me read.”
The letter had been written by a semi-literate person. It was ill-spelt, almost totally lacking in punctuation. While Mr. Casaubon hummed with the complacency of a man showing off to an acquaintance the prize-winning essay of some young relative, Wexford read the following.
“Dear Uncle Charley.
“We have had a fine old fuss up hear that you will want to know of there is a young Colledge feller staying in the Hotel and what do you think he as done he as drowned a little girl swimmin in the Lake in the morning befor her Mum and Dad was up and they have had him up in Court for it Lily that you have herd me speak of had to go to the Court and tell what she new and she tell me the Judge give it to him hot and strong but could not put him away on account of Nobody saw him do the deed the young fellers name is IVOR LIONEL FAIRFAX SWAN i got it down on paper when Lily said it gettin it from the Judge on account i new you would wish to know it in ful.
“Well Uncle that it all for now i will keep in touch as ever hoping the news may be of use and that your Leg is better Your Affect Niece
“Elsie”
The pair of them were staring eagerly at him now. Wexford read the letter again - the lack of commas and stops made it difficult to follow - and then he said to Mr. Casaubon, “What made you keep this for fourteen years? You didn’t know Swan, did you? Why keep this letter in particular?”