‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘he gathered it from your manner, or from Mrs Harrison. Besides,’ I added, feeling that attack was my only possible form of defence, ‘I thought you told me it was all over and done with. Isn’t it? I assured Harrison that it was. I had only your word to go on. If it wasn’t all over, what the devil did you mean by taking me down to Devon with you? You know perfectly well that if I’d known it was still going on, wild horses wouldn’t have taken me down there.’
This brought him up all standing.
‘Yes, well,’ he said, ‘of course it’s all over. But why did you have to tell him anything about it at all?’
‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you’ve not been straight with me, and I don’t believe you now. I’ve had quite enough of this. You’ve dragged me into this business again. I’ve been your scapegoat once and I’m fed up. Do you expect me to go on taking the blame for your idiotic love-affairs? I’ve got my wife to consider.’
I was afraid he would go back to the very difficult question of how you got to know about the intrigue. I didn’t want to tell him about the letters, which you had shown me more or less in confidence, and yet I felt a perfect cad for not warning him of his danger. It seemed abominable to have listened to such suspicions against a man, without giving him the chance to clear himself. Fortunately, he abandoned this point.
‘What does the fellow want?’ he went on. ‘What’s he think he’s going to find out? The thing’s clear enough, isn’t it?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘to tell you the truth, Lathom, when I came to consider the thing I couldn’t help suspecting—’
‘Suspecting! My God, you’ve got your beastly suspicions now. What in the devil’s name do you suspect?’
‘I couldn’t help suspecting,’ I went on, as steadily as I could, ‘that old Harrison had found out something and committed suicide.’
‘Oh!’ said Lathom. ‘Well, what if he did? The man was a—’ (a word which I will spare you). ‘The best thing he could do was to clear out from a place where he wasn’t wanted. Damn good riddance. A good thing if he did have the sense to see it.’
‘That’s a pretty rotten thing to say, Lathom.’
‘Don’t be such a damned hypocrite.’
‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘You’re behaving like an absolute swine. Harrison was damned decent to you, and you seem to think that just because you can paint better than he could, you are perfectly justified in seducing his wife and then accepting his hospitality and driving him to commit suicide.’
‘I hadn’t anything to do with it,’ he retorted, ‘he was all right when I left him. You ask anybody down there who saw him. He was as cheery and friendly as could be. I’m not responsible for what he did behind my back. I was in London all the time. I can prove it.’
‘I don’t see that it needs proving,’ said I.
‘Oh, don’t you?’ he burst out violently. ‘Well, I do. You’ll be saying next that I had something to do with his death.’
He stopped suddenly and I caught him looking sideways at me, as if to see how I should take this suggestion. It turned me quite cold, and I had a curious sensation as if my stomach had turned right over.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if anybody heard you talking like this, they might be excused for thinking so.’
‘Oh, might they!’
‘It’s dangerous to talk about wanting people out of the way, you know,’ I went on, watching him.
‘Punk!’ he said. ‘Now, I’ll tell you, Mr Good Little Moral Boy, I’ll tell you just exactly where I was all the time — all the time, do you hear? And then you can come and beg my pardon.’
‘I don’t want—’ I began.
‘No, but I do. Got that? I do. And you may as well make a note of it. On Thursday, now — Thursday — have you got that? — I was at the dentist’s at two o’clock, see? First thing I did when I got to town. You can verify that, I suppose? Or do you imagine I have bribed the dentist? You’d better write his address down. Get on with it.’
‘Really, Lathom—’
‘No, you won’t. Any excuse not to believe me, I suppose. Well, I’ll do it for you. Dentist, two o’clock, name and address, here you are. Seven o’clock — you’ll allow that I couldn’t get to Devon and back between two-thirty and seven, I suppose — or do you imagine I chartered an aeroplane?’
‘I suppose nothing of the sort.’
‘Damn it, suppose what you like. I can give you what I was doing at four o’clock. Come now, that’s close enough, isn’t it? I had tea with Marlowe. He’s a painter, but even you will allow he’s honest enough. Tea with Marlowe, four o’clock. At seven, I dined at the ‘Ben Bourgeois’, and paid by cheque — you can confirm that, you know — and went on to the first night of Meyrick’s show. He saw me there. Is that good enough?’
He was writing all these times and places down, digging the pencil savagely into the paper. I said:
‘You seem to remember it all very clearly.’
‘Yes, that’s one in the eye for you, isn’t it, my lad? Sorry and all that, but you asked for it. I slept that night at the studio. I’m afraid I’ve only Mrs Cutts’s word for it, and, of course, she’d say anything.’
‘Very likely,’ said I.
‘That gives you a gleam of hope, doesn’t it? But seeing I didn’t get home till four ack emma, after celebrating with Meyrick’s crowd — ask them — it doesn’t leave much margin, does it? Particularly as I was up again at nine o’clock.’
‘That’s very unusual,’ I said, trying to speak lightly. ‘Whatever did you get up at nine for?’
‘To spite you. And incidentally, to sign for a beastly registered letter. Providential, wasn’t it?’
‘Obviously,’ said I.
‘At ten-thirty I went to see my agent. You know him, don’t you?’ I admitted knowing the agent.
‘I lunched at Lady Tottenham’s. Went to see her about a sitting at twelve and stayed on. Anything fishy about Lady Tottenham?’
‘Nothing, except her husband’s income. Sardines, isn’t it?’
‘Damned witty. You ought to put that in your next book. Then I went round to Winsor & Newton’s and paid a bill. By cheque. And ordered some stuff. No doubt they will be happy to show you their books.’
I was silent.
‘Dinner at Holtby’s. Very stately and all that. Old boy thinks of presenting a portrait to Liverpool Town Hall. Most respectable party. Went on to the Aitchbone — not so respectable, but full of people. Spent the night with the Goodman boys. Breakfasted there. Came on. Looked you up, and you had me under your own bloody inquisitive eye for the rest of the day. Now then!’
I asked him why he was so anxious to tell me all this.
‘To tell your pal Harrison,’ he snapped back. ‘He seems blasted anxious to stick his nose into my concerns. Tell him to keep out of it. I don’t like the swine.’
‘I don’t see,’ I said, ‘why you should work yourself up into this extraordinary state of mind because a man has made a few ordinary inquiries about his father. Unless, of course, you have anything special to hide.’
This seemed to sober him down. He pulled his face into something more nearly resembling amiability and then suddenly began to laugh.
‘I’m sorry. I lost my temper rather. Anything to hide? Good God, no — except that I’m sorry Harrison has got on to — that business with Margaret, you know. She must have let something out, accidentally. But I’ll swear the old man never knew a word about it. Not a damn thing. He was as right as rain — best of pals, and all that. But I don’t like that pup of his.’
I put down the pen with which I had been fidgeting all this time, got up and went and stood by him on the hearthrug.
‘Lathom,’ I said, ‘why did you come here?’