"The post turned out And the police and the rescue party."
Rowe said, "Yes. I couldn't go to the bank to cash the cheque. I thought the police thought I was a murderer. But I had to find money if I was going to get away. So I came here. I didn't know about the funeral. I thought all the time about this murder."
"You brood too much," Henry said. "A thing that's done is done," and he looked quite brightly up the road the procession had taken.
"But this was never done, you see. I know that now. I'm not a murderer," he explained.
"Of course you aren't, Arthur. No friend of yours -- no proper friend -- ever believed you were."
"Was there so much talk?"
"Well, naturally. . ."
"I didn't know." He turned his mind into another track: along the Embankment wall -- the sense of misery and then the little man feeding birds, the suitcase. . . he lost the thread until he remembered the face of the hotel clerk, and then he was walking down interminable corridors, a door opened and Anna was there. They shared the danger -- he clung to that idea. There was always an explanation. He remembered how she had told him he had saved her life. He said stiffly, "Well, good-bye. I must be getting on."
"It's no use mourning someone all your life," Henry said. "That's morbid."
"Yes. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
2
The flat was on the third floor. He wished the stairs would never end, and when he rang the bell he hoped the flat would be deserted. An empty milk bottle stood outside the door on the small dark landing; there was a note stuck in it; he picked it out and read it -- "Only half a pint to-morrow, please." The door opened while he still held it in his hand, and Anna said hopelessly, "It's you."
"Yes, me."
"Every time the bell rang, I've been afraid it would be you "
"How did you think I'd find you?"
She said, "There's always the police. They are watching the office now." He followed her in.
It wasn't the way he had at one time -- under the sway of the strange adventure -- imagined that he would meet her again. There was a heavy constraint between them. When the door closed they didn't feel alone. It was as if all sorts of people they both knew were with them. They spoke in low voices so as not to intrude. He said, "I got your address by watching Cost's fingers on the dial -- he telephoned you just before he killed himself."
"It's so horrible," she said. "I didn't know you were there."
" 'I've no hope at all.' " That's what he said. " 'Personally I've no hope.' "
They stood in a little ugly crowded hall as though it wasn't worth the bother of going any farther. It was more like a parting than a reunion -- a parting too sorrowful to have any grace. She wore the same blue trousers she had worn at the hotel; he had forgotten how small she was. With the scarf knotted at her neck she looked heart-breakingly impromptu. All around them were brass trays, warming-pans, knick-knacks, an old oak chest, a Swiss cuckoo clock carved with heavy trailing creeper. He said, "Last night was not good either. I was there too. Did you know that Dr Forester was dead -- and Poole?"
"No."
He said, "Aren't you sorry -- such a massacre of your friends?"
"No," she said, "I'm glad." It was then that he began to hope. She said gently, "My dear, you have everything mixed up in your head, your poor head. You don't know who are your friends and who are your enemies. That's the way they always work, isn't it?"
"They used you to watch me, didn't they, down there at Dr Forester's, to see when my memory would begin to return? Then they'd have put me in the sick bay like poor Stone."
"You're so right and so wrong," she said wearily. "I don't suppose we'll ever get it straight now. It's true I watched you for them. I didn't want your memory to return any more than they did. I didn't want you hurt." She said with sharp anxiety, "do you remember everything now?"
"I remember a lot and I've learned a lot. Enough to know I'm not a murderer."
She said, "Thank God."
"But you knew I wasn't?"
"Yes," she said, "of course. I knew it. I just meant -- oh, that I'm glad you know." She said slowly, "I like you happy. It's how you ought to be."
He said as gently as he could, "I love you. You know that. I want to believe you are my friend. Where are the photographs? "
A painted bird burst raspingly out of the hideous carved clock case and cuckooed the half-hour. He had time to think between the cuckoos that another night would soon be on them. Would that contain horror too? The door clicked shut and she said simply, "He has them."
"He?"
"My brother." He still held the note to the milkman in his hand. She said. "You are so fond of investigation, aren't you? The first time I saw you you came to the office about a cake. You were so determined to get to the bottom of things. You've got to the bottom now."
"I remember. He seemed so helpful. He took me to that house. . ."
She took the words out of his mouth. "He staged a murder for you and helped you to escape. But afterwards he thought it safer to have you murdered. That was my fault. You told me you'd written a letter to the police, and I told him."
"Why?"
"I didn't want to get him into trouble for just frightening you. I never guessed he could be so thorough."
"But you were in that room when I came with the suitcase? " he said. He couldn't work it out. "You were nearly killed too."
"Yes. He hadn't forgotten, you see, that I telephoned to you at Mrs Bellairs. You told him that. I wasn't on his side any longer -- not against you. He told me to go and meet you -- and persuade you not to send the letter. And then he just sat back in another flat and waited."
He accused her, "But you are alive."
"Yes," she said, "I'm alive, thanks to you. I'm even on probation again -- he won't kill his sister if he doesn't feel it's necessary. He calls that family feeling. I was only a danger because of you. This isn't my country. Why should I have wanted your memory to return? You were happy without it. I don't care a damn about England. I want you to be happy, that's all. The trouble is he understands such a lot."
He said obstinately, "It doesn't make sense. Why am I alive?"
"He's economical." She said, "They are all economical. You'll never understand them if you don't understand that." She repeated wryly, like a formula, "The maximum of terror for the minimum time directed against the fewest objects."
He was bewildered: he didn't know what to do. He was learning the lesson most people learn very young, that things never work out in the expected way. This wasn't an exciting adventure, and he wasn't a hero, and it was even possible that this was not a tragedy. He became aware of the note to the milkman. "He's going away?"
"Yes."
"With the photographs, of course."