'No.'
'You're not perfect yourself, even though you like to think so.'
'Give it a rest, Jenny,' I said.
She walked abruptly away into the drawing room, and I more slowly followed. She would use me, I thought, and discard me again, and because of Charles I would let her. I was surprised that I felt no tremendous desire to offer comfort. It seemed that irritation was still well in the ascendancy over compassion.
She and Charles were not alone. When I went in she had crossed the room to stand at the side of a tall blond man whom I'd met before; and beside Charles stood a stranger, a stocky young-old man whose austere eyes were disconcertingly surrounded by a rosy country face.
Charles said in his most ultra-civilised voice, 'You know Toby, don't you, Sid?', and Jenny's shield and supporter and I nodded to each other and gave the faint smiles of an acquaintanceship we would each have been happier without. 'And this, Sid, is my solicitor, Oliver Quayle. Gave up his golf to be here. Very good of him.'
'So you're Sid Halley,' the young-old man said, shaking hands. There was nothing in his voice either way, but his gaze slid down and sideways, seeking to see the half-hidden hand that he wouldn't have looked at if he hadn't known. It often happened that way. He brought his gaze back to my face and saw that I knew what he'd been doing. There was the smallest flicker in his lower eyelids, but no other remark. Judgement suspended, I thought, on either side.
Charles's mouth twitched, and he said smoothly, 'I warned you, Oliver. If you don't want him to read your thoughts, you mustn't move your eyes.'
'Yours don't move,' I said to him.
'I learned that lesson years ago.'
He made courteous sit-down motions with his hands, and the five of us sank into comfort and pale gold brocade.
'I've told Oliver,' Charles said, 'that if anyone can find this Nicholas Ashe person, you will.'
'Frightfully useful, don't you know,' drawled Toby, 'having a plumber in the family, when the pipes burst.'
It was a fraction short of offensiveness. I gave him the benefit of a doubt I didn't have, and asked nobody in particular whether the police wouldn't do the job more quickly.
'The trouble is,' Quayle said, 'that technically it is Jenny alone who is guilty of obtaining money by false pretences. The police have listened to her, of course, and the man in charge seems to be remarkably sympathetic, but…' He slowly shrugged the heavy shoulders in a way that skilfully combined sympathy and resignation,'… one feels they might choose to settle for the case they have.'
'But I say,' protested Toby, 'it was that Ashe's idea, all of it.' 'Can you prove it?' Quayle said. 'Jenny says so,' Toby said, as if that were proof enough. Quayle shook his head. 'As I've told Charles, it would appear from all documents that she signed that she did know the scheme was fraudulent. And ignorance, even if genuine, is always a poor, if not impossible, defence.'
I said, 'If there's no evidence against him, what would you do, even if I did find him?'
Quayle looked my way attentively. 'I'm hoping that if you find him, you'll find evidence as well.'
Jenny sat up exceedingly straight and spoke in a voice sharp with perhaps anxiety but certainly anger.
'This is all rubbish, Sid. Why don't you say straight out that the job's beyond you?'
'I don't know if it is.'
'It's pathetic,' she said to Quayle, 'how he longs to prove he's clever, now he's disabled.'
The flicking sneer in her voice shocked Quayle and Charles into visible discomfort, and I thought dejectedly that this was what I'd caused in her, this compulsive need to hurt. I didn't just mind what she'd said, I minded bitterly that because of me she was not showing to Quayle the sunny-tempered person she would still be if I wasn't there.
'If I find Nicholas Ashe,' I said grimly, 'I'll give him to Jenny. Poor fellow.'
None of the men liked it. Quayle looked disillusioned, Toby showed he despised me, and Charles sorrowfully shook his head. Jenny alone, behind her anger, looked secretly pleased. She seldom managed nowadays to goad me into a reply to her insults, and counted it a victory that I'd done it and earned such general disapproval. My own silly fault. There was only one way not to let her see when her barbs went it, and that was to smile… and the matter in hand was not very funny.
I said, more moderately, 'There might be ways… if I can find him. At any rate, I'll do my best. If there's anything I can do… I'll do it.'
Jenny looked unplacated, and no one else said anything. I sighed internally. 'What did he look like?' I said.
After a pause Charles said, 'I saw him once only, for about thirty minutes, four months ago. I have a general impression, but that's all. Young, personable, dark haired, clean-shaven. Something too ingratiating in his manner to me. I would not have welcomed him as a junior officer aboard my ship.'
Jenny compressed her lips and looked away from him, but could not protest against this judgement. I felt the first faint stirrings of sympathy for her and tried to stamp on them: they would only make me more vulnerable, which was something I could do without.
I said to Toby, 'Did you meet him?'
'No,' he said loftily. 'Actually, I didn't.'
'Toby has been in Australia,' Charles said, explaining. They all waited. It couldn't be shirked. I said directly to her, neutrally, 'Jenny?'
'He was fun,' she said vehemently, unexpectedly. 'My God, he was fun. And after you…' She stopped. Her head swung round my way with bitter eyes. 'He was full of life and jokes. He made me laugh. He was terrific. He lit things up. It was like… it was like…' She suddenly faltered and stopped, and I knew she was thinking, like us when we first met. Jenny, I thought desperately, don't say it, please don't.
Perhaps it was too much, even for her. How could people, I wondered for the ten thousandth useless time, how could people who had loved so dearly come to such a wilderness; and yet the change in us was irreversible, and neither of us would even search for a way back. It was impossible. The fire was out. Only a few live coals lurked in the ashes, searing unexpectedly at the incautious touch.
I swallowed. 'How tall was he?' I said.
'Taller than you.'
'Age?' 'Twenty-nine.'
The same age as Jenny. Two years younger than I. If he had told the truth, that was. A confidence trickster might lie about absolutely everything as a matter of prudence.
'Where did he stay, while he was… er… operating?'
Jenny looked unhelpful, and it was Charles who answered. 'He told Jenny he was staying with an aunt, but after he had gone, Oliver and I checked up. The aunt, unfortunately, proved to be a landlady who lets rooms to students in north Oxford. And in any case…' he cleared his throat, '… it seems that fairly soon he left the lodgings and moved into the flat Jenny is sharing in Oxford with another girl.'
'He lived in your flat?' I said to Jenny. 'So what of it?' She was defiant. And something else…
'So when he left, did he leave anything behind?'
'No.'
'Nothing at all?'
'No.'
'Do you want him found?' I said.
To Charles and Quayle and Toby the answer to that question was an automatic yes, but Jenny didn't answer, and the blush that started at her throat rose fast to two bright spots on her cheekbones.
'He's done you great harm,' I said.
With stubbornness stiffening her neck, she said, 'Oliver says I won't go to prison.'
'Jenny!' I was exasperated. 'A conviction for fraud will affect your whole life in all sorts of horrible ways. I see that you liked him. Maybe you even loved him. But he's not just a naughty boy who pinched the jampot for a lark. He has callously arranged for you to be punished in his stead. That's the crime for which I'll catch him if I damned well can, even if you don't want me to.'
Charles protested vigorously, 'Sid, that's ridiculous. Of course she wants to see him punished. She agreed that you should try to find him. She wants you to, of course she does.'