‘Do I put a 2 at the top?’
He swore at her.
‘You don’t put anything down but what I tell you! And don’t start too near the top. There’ll be only a sentence or two to come, and it’ll look better that way.’
She sat waiting for him to tell her what to write. He stood over her, watching everything she did, and began to dictate. It made her so nervous that her hand shook worse than ever. She wrote in stumbling letters:
‘I can’t go on with it. It’s no use. I don’t feel I can.’
He was looking over her. When he saw what she had written he pulled the block away and swore again.
‘How do you think I can send a scrawl like that! I’ll just have to try and get him on the phone!’
He tore the sheet off the block and looked at it. The writing was barely legible, and pulling the block away had made the pen run off at an angle.
He stood behind his wife’s chair and smiled approvingly. He thought that what she had written would do very well.
THIRTY-NINE
JACK HARRISON WAS in a most dazed and uncomfortable frame of mind. He was not a man of marked ability in any direction. He had entered a family business, Harrison and Leman, General Importers, at the age of eighteen, detached himself from them to serve through the first World War, and returned when it was over with a wounded shoulder which still occasionally gave him trouble, and an immense thankfulness at finding himself back in the office. He was not clever, but he was painstaking, courteous, and trustworthy. In due course he became a partner and inherited a considerable fortune from two bachelor uncles. He was universally liked, but after a slightly patronizing manner. At least one woman had cared for him deeply, but he had most unfortunately married Ella Crane. He would have been happy with Emmy Lester and he was not at all happy with Ella, but it never occurred to him that there was anything he could do about it. He did what he could to avoid rows and the occasions for them, but it was uphill work and he wasn’t very good at it.
That there should have been a row, and a major one, in front of two police officers, one of them a member of the local force, was a terribly shaming thing. The figure destroyed by Ella’s uncontrolled rage was Meissen ware and had belonged to a several times great-grandmother. He might have received a cut over the eye which could have affected his sight, and worst of all, the scene, its sound, its fury, its violence had blown upon the smouldering resentments of the last two or three years and fanned them into flame. It wasn’t right to hate your wife, to wish vainly that you hadn’t married her, and that there was any way in which you could be rid of the burden of her presence. And if this was wrong, what was to be said about the promptings of which he was now and then aware. It shocked him very much that there were moments in which he was conscious of a desire to strike Ella, to see her shrink away from him and be afraid.
Into this unhappy frame of mind there came like a catalyst a note from Nicholas Carey. It had been dropped in at the letter-box by Nicholas himself, after which he rang the bell and walked away without looking back or waiting for Mrs Ambler the daily parlourmaid to open the door. She brought the note to Jack Harrison in his study and told him she had just seen the back of the gentleman going down the drive – ‘He didn’t wait any time at all, just dropped it in and walked away.’
He opened the note and read what Nicholas had written.
Dear Jack,
I think I’m practically certain to be arrested today. It’s a stupid business, and I shouldn’t think it would come to anything, but there you are – an arrest is indicated, and I imagine that most people would vote for me as the likeliest suspect. I don’t know where they’ll put me, but you can come and see me if you like. You had better collect some dope as to who would be a good solicitor for this sort of thing. I don’t imagine that the old boy who settled up Uncle Oswald’s estate would make much hand of it. Sorry for the general upset and scandal.
Yours,
Nick
The confusion in Jack Harrison’s mind cleared. As long as there were several courses open you could turn first to one and then to another and consider following it. You could, and probably did, reject them all and just stand still and do nothing. But as he read Nick’s letter the uncertainties which had surrounded him like a fog thinned away and he could see quite clearly what he had to do. He couldn’t let Nick be arrested. Nobody in their family had ever been arrested as far as he knew. Nick was engaged to Althea Graham. They had been on the point of marrying. Althea was a nice girl and a good daughter, and she hadn’t had a fair deal. And then there was Emmy. If Nick was arrested it would hurt Emmy very much indeed. She was kind and good. She didn’t deserve to be hurt. He couldn’t allow Nick to be arrested. He put the note in his pocket, went into the hall, and considered whether he should put on a coat. No, the afternoon was a warm one, and there was no sign of rain.
He put on his hat, opened the front door, and went down the drive. If Nick expected to be arrested he would go and see Althea Graham first. It was quite probable that he would be there now. He didn’t want to butt in, but he couldn’t, no he really couldn’t let Nick be arrested.
FORTY
THE FRONT DOOR of The Lodge having been opened to him by Miss Silver, Mr Harrison found himself rather at a loss as to what his next step should be. He went into the dining-room because Miss Silver seemed to expect him to go into the dining-room. In a vague kind of way he remembered hearing that Althea Graham had someone staying with her, and he supposed the lady who admitted him to be this someone, though he did not know her name. She relieved him of this part of his embarrassment by pronouncing it clearly and firmly, to which he responded by giving her his own and explaining his presence.
‘I have no wish to intrude, I do assure you of that, but Nicholas Carey is my cousin and I am very anxious to see him – very anxious indeed. I thought perhaps he might be here.’
Miss Silver inclined her head.
‘He is in the drawing-room with Miss Graham. I do not feel that they should be disturbed.’
Jack Harrison took hold of one of the dining-room chairs. He did not know how hard he was gripping it until afterwards, when he discovered with surprise that there was a red weal across his palm. At the time he did not feel it at all. He only felt a painful increase of the confusion and distress in his mind. He heard his own voice.
‘He is saying good-bye to her. I had a note from him. He expects to be arrested.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
‘Yes – he wrote me a note. He said he thought he was certain to be arrested. I can’t let that happen, can I?’
Miss Silver observed him with care. He was in a state of considerable distress, and he had something on his mind. She was too experienced to mistake the signs, and in fact Jack Harrison was past making any effort to conceal them. He said, straining at the words,
‘I didn’t want to have to say anything. You see, my wife comes into it – but I can’t let Nicholas be arrested. He hasn’t anything to do with it, so I can’t let them arrest him, can I?’
She said, ‘No, Mr Harrison,’ and looking past him, saw through the window the gate on Belview Road swing in. Frank Abbott and Detective Inspector Sharp came through it and began to walk up the flagged path towards the house. She said, ‘Just a moment, Mr Harrison,’ and went to let them in.
After one glance over his shoulder he stood where he was, bearing down upon the chair and watching the door. Miss Silver closed it behind her. He heard a murmur of voices and thought, ‘She is telling them what I said.’ These were the police officers who had come to his house yesterday. They had come to question Ella. He would have to tell them his story. Here. Now. It was too late to go back. Miss Silver was telling them what he had said. There was no going back. In a way it was a relief. He would tell them just what had happened and be done with it.