Ordeal by Innocence

  "So - you don't blame him?"

  "Well, of course I blamed him... I don't like all that nasty violent behaviour. And your own mother, too! No, I don't think it was a nice thing to do at all. I began to think as Joe was right in telling me I oughtn't to have had anything to do with Jackie. But, you know how it is. It's ever so difficult for a girl to make up her mind. Joe, you see, was always the steady kind. I've known him a long time. Jackie was different. He'd got education and all that. He seemed very well off, too, always splashing his money about. And of course he had a way with him, as I've been telling you. He could get round anybody. He got round me all right. 'You'll regret it, my girl,' that's what Joe said. I thought that was just sour grapes and the green-eyed monster, if you understand what I mean. But Joe turned out to be quite right in the end."

  Calgary looked at her. He wondered if she still failed to understand the full implications of his story.

  "Right in exactly what way?" he asked.

  "Well, landing me up in the proper mess he did. I mean, we've always been respectable. Mother brought us up very careful. We've always had things nice and no talk. And there was the police arresting my husband! And all the neighbours knowing. In all the papers it was. News of the World and all the rest of them. And ever so many reporters coming round and asking questions. It put me in a very nasty position altogether."

  "But, my dear child," said Arthur Calgary, "you do realise now that he didn't do it?"

  For a moment the fair, pretty face looked bewildered.

  "Of course! I was forgetting. But all the same - well, I mean, he did go there and kick up a fuss and threaten her and all that. If he hadn't done that he wouldn't have been arrested at all, would he?"

  "No," said Calgary, "no. That is quite true."

  Possibly, he thought, this pretty, silly child was more of a realist than he was.

  "Oo, it was awful," went on Maureen. "I didn't know what to do. And then Mum said better go over right away and see his people. They'd have to do something for me, she said. After all, she said, you've got your rights and you'd best show them as you know how to look after them. So off I went. It was that foreign lady help what opened the door to me and at first I couldn't make her understand. Seemed as if she couldn't believe it. 'It's impossible,' she kept saying. 'It's quite impossible that Jacko should be married to you.' Hurt my feelings a bit that did. 'Well married we are,' I said, 'and not in a registry office neither. In a church! It was the way my Mum wanted!' And she said, 'It's not true. I don't believe it' And then Mr. Argyle came and he was ever so kind. Told me not to worry more than I could help, and that everything possible would be done to defend Jackie. Asked me how I was off for money, and sent me a regular allowance every week. He keeps it up, too, even now. Joe doesn't like me taking it, but I say to him, 'Don't be silly. They can spare it, can't they?' Sent me a very nice cheque for a wedding present as well, he did, when Joe and I got married. And he said he was very glad and that he hoped this marriage would be happier than the last one. Yes, he's ever so nice, Mr. Argyle is."

  She turned her head as the door opened. "Oh. Here's Joe now."

  Joe was a thin-lipped, fair-haired young man. He received Maureen's explanations and introduction with a slight frown.

  "Hoped we'd done with all that," he said disapprovingly. "Excusing me for saying so, sir. But it does no good to go raking up the past. That's what I feel. Maureen was unlucky, that's all there is to say about..."

  "Yes," said Calgary. "I quite see your point of view."

  "Of course," said Joe Clegg, "she ought never to have taken up with a chap like that. I knew he was no good. There'd been stories about him already. He'd been under a Probation Officer twice. Once they begin like that, they go on. First it's embezzling, or swindling women out of their savings and in the end it's murder."

  "But this," said Calgary, "wasn't murder."

  "So you say, sir," said Joe Clegg. He sounded himself completely unconvinced.

  "Jack Argyle has a perfect alibi for the time the crime was committed. He was in my car being given a lift to Drymouth. So you see, Mr. Clegg, he could not possibly have committed this crime."

  "Possibly not, sir," said Clegg. "But all the same it's a pity raking it all up, if you'll excuse me. After all, he's dead now, and it can't matter to him. And it starts the neighbours talking again and making them think things."

  Calgary rose. "Well, perhaps from your point of view that is one way of looking at it. But there is such a thing as justice, you know, Mr. Clegg."

  "I've always understood," said Clegg, "that an English trial was as fair a thing as can be."

  "The finest system in the world can make a mistake," said Calgary. "Justice is, after all, in the hands of men, and men are fallible."

  After he had left them and was walking down the street he felt more disturbed in his own mind than he could have thought possible. Would it really have been better, he said to himself, if my memory of that day had never come back to me? After all, as that smug, tight-lipped fellow has just said, the boy is dead. He's gone before a judge who makes no mistake. Whether he's remembered as a murderer or merely as a petty thief, it can make no difference to him now.

  Then a sudden wave of anger rose in him. 'But it ought to make a difference to someone,' he thought. 'Someone ought to be glad. Why aren't they? This girl, well, I can understand it well enough. She may have had an infatuation for Jacko, but she never loved him. Probably isn't capable of loving anybody. But the others. His father. His sister, his nurse... They should have been glad. They should have spared a thought for him before they began to fear for themselves Yes. - someone should have cared.'

  "Miss Argyle? At the second desk there." Calgary stood for a moment watching her.

  Neat, small, very quiet and efficient. She was wearing a dark blue dress, with white collar and cuffs. Her blue-black hair was coiled neatly in her neck Her skin was dark, darker than an English skin could ever be. Her bones, too, were smaller. This was the half-caste child that Mrs. Argyle had taken as a daughter into the family.

  The eyes that looked up and met his were dark, quite opaque. They were eyes that told you nothing. Her voice was low and sympathetic. "Can I help you?"

  "You are Miss Argyle? Miss Christina Argyle?"

  "Yes."

  "My name is Calgary, Arthur Calgary. You may have heard -"

  "Yes. I have heard about you. My father wrote to me."

  "I would like very much to talk to you."

  She glanced up at the clock.

  "The library closes in half an hour. If you could wait until then?"

  "Certainly. Perhaps you would come and have a cup of tea with me somewhere?"

  "Thank you." She turned from him to a man who had come up behind him. "Yes. Can I help you?"

  Arthur Calgary moved away. He wandered round, examining the contents of the shelves, observant all the time of Tina Argyle. She remained the same, calm, competent, unperturbed. The half hour passed slowly for him, but at last a bell rang and she nodded to him.

  "I will meet you outside in a few minutes' time."

  She did not keep him waiting. She wore no hat, merely a thick dark coat. He asked her where they should go.

  "I do not know Redmyn very well," he explained.

  "There is a tea place near the Cathedral. It is not good, but for that reason it is less full than the others."

  Presently they were established at a small table, and a desiccated bored waitress had taken their order with a complete lack of enthusiasm.

  "It will not be a good tea," said Tina apologetically, "but I thought that perhaps you would like to be reasonably private."

  "That is so. I must explain my reasons for seeking you out. You see, I have met the other members of your family, including, I may say, your brother Jacko's wife - widow. You were the only member of the family I had not met. Oh yes, and there is your married sister, of course."

  "You feel it necessary to meet us all?"

  It was said qu
ite politely - but there was a certain detachment about her voice which made Calgary a little uncomfortable.

  "Hardly as a social necessity," he agreed dryly. "And it is not mere curiosity." (But wasn't it?) "It is just that I wanted to express, personally, to all of you, my very deep regret that I failed to establish your brother's innocence at the time of the trial."

  "I see..."

  "If you were fond of him - Were you fond of him?"

  She considered a moment, then said: "No. I was not fond of Jacko."

  "Yet I hear from all sides that he had - great charm."

  She said clearly, but without passion: "I distrusted and disliked him." "You never had - forgive me - any doubts that he had killed your mother?" "It never occurred to me that there could be any other solution."

  The waitress brought their tea. The bread and butter was stale, the jam a curious jellyfied substance, the cakes garish and unappetising. The tea was weak.

  He sipped his and then said: "It seems -1 have been made to understand - that this information I have brought, which clears your brother of the charge of murder, may have repercussions that will not be so agreeable. It may bring fresh - anxieties to you all."

  "Because the case will have to be reopened?"

  "Yes. You have already thought about that?"

  "My father seems to think it is inevitable."

  "I am sorry. I am really sorry."

  "Why are you sorry, Dr. Calgary?"

  "I hate to be the cause of bringing fresh trouble upon you."

  "But would you have been satisfied to remain silent?"

  "You are thinking in terms of justice?"

  "Yes. Weren't you?"

  "Of course. Justice seemed to me to be very important. Now -1 am beginning to wonder whether there are things that are more important."

  "Such as?"

  His thoughts flew to Hester.

  "Such as - innocence, perhaps."

  The opaqueness of her eyes increased. "What do you feel, Miss Argyle?"

  She was silent for a moment or two, then she said: "I am thinking of those words in Magna Carta. 'To no man will we refuse justice.'"

  "I see." he said. "That is your answer."

  Chapter 7

  Dr. MacMaster was an old man with bushy eyebrows, shrewd grey eyes and a pugnacious chin. He leaned back in his shabby arm-chair and studied his visitor carefully. He found that he liked what he saw.

  On Calgary's side also there was a feeling of liking. For the first time almost, since he had come back to England, he felt that he was talking to someone who appreciated his own feelings and point of view.

  "It's very good of you to see me, Dr. MacMaster," he said.

  "Not at all," said the doctor. "I'm bored to death since I retired from practice. Young men of my own profession tell me I must sit here like a dummy taking care of my groggy heart, but don't think it comes natural to me. It doesn't. I listen to the wireless, blah - blah - blah - and occasionally my housekeeper persuades me to look at television, flick, flick, flick. I've been a busy man, run off my feet all my life. I don't take kindly to sitting still. Reading tires my eyes. So don't apologise for taking up my time."

  "The first thing I've got to make you understand," said Calgary, "is why I'm still concerning myself over all this. Logically speaking, I suppose, I've done what I came to do - told the unpalatable fact of my concussion and loss of memory, vindicated the boy's character. After that, the only sane and logical thing to do would be to go away and try to forget about it all. Eh? Isn't that right?"

  "Depends," said Dr. MacMaster. "Something worrying you?" he asked in the ensuing pause.

  "Yes," said Calgary. "Everything worries me. You see, my news was not received as I thought it would be."

  "Oh well," said Dr. MacMaster, "nothing odd in that. Happens every day. We rehearse a thing before-hand in our own minds, it doesn't matter what it is, consultation with another practitioner, proposal of marriage to a young lady, talk with your boy before going back to school - when the thing comes off, it never goes as you thought it would. You've thought it out, you see; all the things that you are going to say and you've usually made up your mind what the answers are going to be. And, of course, that's what throws you off every time. The answers never are what you think they will be. That's what's upset you, I suppose?"

  "Yes," said Calgary.

  "What did you expect? Expected them to be all over you?"

  "I expected -" he considered a moment - "blame? Perhaps. Resentment? Very likely. But also thankfulness."

  MacMaster grunted. "And there's no thankfulness, and not as much resentment as you think there ought to be?"

  "Something like that," Calgary confessed.

  "That's because you didn't know the circumstances until you got there. Why have you come to me, exactly?"

  Calgary said slowly: "Because I want to understand more about the family. I only know the acknowledged facts. A very fine and unselfish woman doing her best for her adopted children, a public-spirited woman, a fine character. Set against that, what's called, I believe, a problem child - a child that goes wrong. The young delinquent. That's all I know. I don't know anything else. I don't know anything about Mrs. Argyle herself."

  "You're quite right," said MacMaster. "You're putting your finger on the thing that matters. If you think it over, you know, that's always the interesting part of any murder. What the person was like who was murdered. Everybody's always so busy enquiring into the mind of the murderer. You've been thinking, probably, that Mrs. Argyle was the sort of woman who shouldn't have been murdered."

  "I should imagine that everyone felt that."

  "Ethically," said MacMaster, "you're quite right. But you know -" he rubbed his nose - "isn't it the Chinese who held that beneficence is to be accounted a sin rather than a virtue? They've got something there, you know. Beneficence does things to people. Ties 'em up in knots. We all know what human nature's like. Do a chap a good turn and you feel kindly towards him. You like him. But the chap who's had the good turn done to him, does he feel so kindly to you? Does he really like you? He ought to, of course, but does he?

  "Well," said the doctor, after a moment's pause. "There you are. Mrs. Argyle was what you might call a wonderful mother. But she overdid the beneficence. No doubt of that. Or wanted to. Or definitely tried to do so."

  "They weren't her own children," Calgary pointed out.

  "No," said MacMaster. "That's just where the trouble came in, I imagine. You've only got to look at any normal mother cat. She has her kittens, she's passionately protective of them, she'll scratch anyone who goes near them. And then, in a week or so, she starts resuming her own life. She goes out, hunts a bit, takes a rest from her young. She'll still protect them if anyone attacks them, but she is no longer obsessed by them, all the time. She'll play with them a bit; then when they're a bit too rough, she'll turn on them and give them a spank and tell them she wants to be let alone for a bit. She's reverting, you see, to nature. And as they grow up she cares less and less about them, and her thoughts go more and more to the attractive Toms in the neighbourhood. That's what you might call the normal pattern of female life. I've seen many girls and women, with strong maternal instincts, keen on getting married but mainly, though they mayn't quite know it themselves - because of their urge to motherhood. And the babies come; they're happy and satisfied. Life goes back into proportion for them. They can take an interest in their husbands and in the local affairs and in the gossip that's going round, and of course in their children. But it's all in proportion. The maternal instinct, in a purely physical sense, is satisfied, you see.

  "Well, with Mrs. Argyle the maternal instinct was very strong, but the physical satisfaction of bearing a child or children, never came. And so her maternal obsession never really slackened. She wanted children, lots of children. She couldn't have enough of them. Her whole mind, night and day, was on those children. Her husband didn't count any more. He was just a pleasant abstraction in the background. No, e
verything was the children. Their feeding, their clothing, their playing, everything to do with them. Far too much was done for them. The thing she didn't give them and that they needed, was a little plain, honest-to-goodness neglect. They weren't just turned out into the garden to play like ordinary children in the country. No, they had to have every kind of gadget, artificial climbing things and stepping stones, a house built in the trees, sand brought and a little beach made on the river. Their food wasn't plain, ordinary food. Why, those kids even had their vegetables sieved, up to nearly five years old, and their milk sterilised the water tested and their calories weighed and the vitamins computed! Mind you, I'm not being professional in talking to you like this. Mrs. Argyle was never my patient. If she needed a doctor she went to one in Harley Street. Not that she often went. She was very robust and healthy woman.