Dinny saw the cat-like smile beneath the cut moustache.
“Nothing would surprise me.”
“It did not even surprise you that she left you?”
She looked round at the questioner. So this was Instone, whom Dornford had said was “very handicapped”! He seemed to her to have one of those faces, with dominant noses, that nothing could handicap.
“Yes, that did surprise me.”
“Now, why?… Perhaps you would translate that movement into words, sir?”
“Do wives generally leave their husbands without reason given?”
“Not unless the reason is too obvious to require statement. Was that the case?”
“No.”
“What should you say, then, was the reason? You are the person best able to form an opinion.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Who then?”
“My wife herself.”
“Still you must have some suspicion. Would you mind saying what it was?”
“I should.”
“Now, sir, you are on your oath. Did you or did you not ill-treat your wife in anyway?”
“I admit one incident which I regret and for which I have apologised.”
“What was that incident?”
Dinny, sitting taut between her father and her sister, feeling in her whole being the vibration of their pride and her own, heard the slow rich voice strike in behind her.
“My Lord, I submit that my friend is not entitled to ask that question.”
“My Lord—”
“I must stop you, Mr. Instone.”
“I bow to your Lordship’s ruling… Are you a hot-tempered man, sir?”
“No.”
“There would be a certain deliberation about your actions, at all times?”
“I hope so.”
“Even when those actions were not—shall we say—benevolent?”
“Yes.”
“I see; and I am sure the jury also does. Now, sir, let me take you to another point. You suggest that your wife and Mr. Croom had met in Ceylon?”
“I have no idea whether they had or not.”
“Have you any personal knowledge that they did?”
“No.”
“We have been told by my friend that he will bring evidence to show that they had met—”
The slow rich voice interposed:
“That they had had opportunity of meeting.”
“We will take it at that. Were you aware, sir, that they had enjoyed such opportunity?”
“I was not.”
“Had you ever seen or heard of Mr. Croom in Ceylon?”
“No.”
“When did you first know of the existence of this gentleman?”
“I saw him in London in November last, coming out of a house where my wife was staying, and I asked her his name.”
“Did she make any concealment of it?”
“None.”
“Is that the only time you have seen this gentleman?”
“Yes.”
“What made you pitch on him as a possible means of securing a divorce from your wife?”
“I object to that way of putting it.”
“Very well. What drew your attention to this gentleman as a possible co-respondent?”
“What I heard on the ship by which I returned from Port Said to Ceylon in November. It was the same ship as that in which my wife and the co-respondent came to England.”
“And what DID you hear?”
“That they were always together.”
“Not unusual on board ship, is it?”
“In reason—no.”
“Even in your own experience?”
“Perhaps not.”
“What else, if anything, did you hear to make you so suspicious?”
“A stewardess told me that she had seen him coming out of my wife’s stateroom.”
“At what time of day or night was that?”
“Shortly before dinner.”
“You have travelled by sea a good deal, I suppose, in the course of your professional duties?”
“A great deal.”
“And have you noticed that people frequently go to each other’s staterooms?”
“Yes, quite a lot.”
“Does it always arouse your suspicions?”
“No.”
“May I go further and suggest that it never did before?”
“You may not.”
“Are you naturally a suspicious man?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not what would be called jealous?”
“I should say not.”
“Your wife is a good deal younger than yourself?”
“Seventeen years.”
“Still, you are not so old as to be unable to appreciate the fact that young men and women in these days treat each other with very little ceremony and consciousness of sex?”
“If you want my age, I am forty-one.”
“Practically post-war.”
“I was through the war.”
“Then you know that much which before the war might have been regarded as suspicious has long lost that character?”
“I know that things are all very free and easy.”
“Thank you. Had you ever, before she left you, had occasion to be suspicious of your wife?”
Dinny looked up.
“Never.”
“But this little incident of his coming out of her cabin was enough to cause you to have her watched?”
“That, and the fact that they were always together on the ship, and my having seen him coming out of the house in London.”
“When you were in London you told her that she must come back to you or take the consequences?”
“I don’t think I used those words.”
“What words did you use?”
“I think I said she had the misfortune to be my wife, and that she couldn’t be a perpetual grass widow.”
“Not a very elegant expression, was it?”
“Perhaps not.”
“You were, in fact, eager to seize on anybody or anything to free yourself?”
“No, I was eager for her to come back.”
“In spite of your suspicions?”
“I had no suspicions in London.”
“I suggest that you had ill-treated her, and wished to be free of an association that hurt your pride.”
The slow rich voice said:
“My Lord, I object.”
“My Lord, the petitioner having admitted—”
“Yes, but most husbands, Mr. Instone, have done something for which they have been glad to apologise.”
“As your Lordship pleases… In any case, you gave instructions to have your wife watched. When exactly did you do that?”
“When I got back to Ceylon.”
“Immediately?”
“Almost.”
“That did not show great eagerness to have her back, did it?”
“My view was entirely changed by what I was told on the ship.”
“On the ship. Not very nice, was it, listening to gossip about your wife?”
“No, but she had refused to come back, and I had to make up my mind.”
“Within two months of her leaving your house?”
“More than two months.”
“Well, not three. I suggest, you know, that you practically forced her to leave you; and then took the earliest opportunity open to you to ensure that she shouldn’t come back?”
“No.”
“So you say. Very well! These enquiry agents you employed—had you seen them before you left England to return to Ceylon?”
“No.”
“Will you swear that?”
“Yes.”
“How did you come to hit upon them?”
“I left it to my solicitors.”
“Oh! then you had seen your solicitors before you left?”
“Yes.”
“In spite of your having no suspicions?”
“A man going so far away naturally sees his solicitors before he starts.”
“You saw them in relation to your wife?”
“And other matters.”
“What did you say to them about your wife?”
Again Dinny looked up. In her was growing the distaste of one seeing even an opponent badgered.
“I think I simply said that she was staying behind with her people.”
“Only that?”
“I probably said that things were difficult.”
“Only that?”
“I remember saying: ‘I don’t quite know what’s going to happen.’”
“Will you swear you did not say: ‘I may be wanting you to have her watched’?”
“I will.”
“Will you swear that you said nothing which conveyed to them the idea that you had a divorce in your mind?”