The inspector nodded as if the information were of little interest. “There has been violence in the past?”
Charlie nodded.
“Bad?”
“He slapped her once, and I believe he has forced himself on her,” Charlie said tightly.
The inspector kept his face impassive. “It is nothing of that nature.”
Charlie lit his cigarette and pocketed his lighter. “What, then?” he demanded briefly.
“I should like you to answer some questions first, if you please.”
Charlie nodded.
“What have your movements been today?”
“I was telephoned early this morning by someone I believed to be calling from the Palace Theatre, London. They asked me to go up to town at once for a meeting. They told me that their musical director was sick and asked if I would replace him.”
“At what time was this telephone call?”
“About quarter to nine.”
“And what did you do, Mr. Smith?”
“Leaped out of bed, dressed, called Lily to tell her I wouldn’t see her today, rushed for the train, got to London, kicked my heels while they tried to work out what had happened, and then discovered it was some kind of hoax.”
The inspector nodded slowly. “By whom?”
Charlie shrugged. “God knows,” he said. “We all went out to lunch on the strength of it, I saw a couple of chaps I know, and we had a few drinks, and then I came home on the four o’clock train and called Lily from the station, and here I am.”
There was a long thoughtful silence.
“This morning now,” the inspector said. “What time did you call Mrs. Winters?”
“This morning? At about quarter to ten.”
“A long telephone call, was it?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“I see. Did you telephone anyone else at all? Before you went to the station and caught the train?”
“No, I went straight away. I cut it a bit fine but I just caught the half past ten train to London.”
“Have you kept your ticket?”
Charlie flushed. “I have to confess,” he said, “I dashed out of the house with not a penny in my pocket. I had nothing but my cheque book. I had to run for the train anyway, and at the other end they weren’t checking tickets. I travelled up without a ticket, and I didn’t buy one. In London I went to my bank and cashed a cheque. I have my return ticket.” He reached into his pocket and put the ticket on the desk.
The inspector took it up and put it down again. “Did you speak to anyone on the train? There was no ticket collector, I take it?”
Charlie shook his head. “I was on my own in a compartment, the whole way.”
The inspector nodded. “Is there any way that you can prove that you caught that particular train? That you did not catch a later one, for instance?”
Charlie thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I can’t prove I was on it,” he said. “Does that time matter particularly?”
“Yes,” the inspector said. “It matters most particularly. Are you in love with Mrs. Winters?”
There was a stunned silence.
“I am very very fond of her,” Charlie said levelly. “There’s nothing between us. Her husband is a friend of mine also.”
“Your landlady tells us that this morning, on the telephone to someone—presumably Mrs. Winters—that you said that you wanted something to change. That you wanted to snatch her and Christopher up, and take them away.”
Charlie inhaled a deep breath and then blew out a thin plume of smoke. “I think you had better tell me what this is all about,” he said.
“Do you deny advising Mrs. Winters to leave her husband? Do you deny offering her financial support if she divorced him?”
There was a long silence. “I do think Mrs. Winters should leave her husband,” Charlie said eventually. “He has been violent to her in the past and I think he could hit her again. There has been no love affair between us, and there will be none. I would certainly do my best to support her if she decided to leave him. I love her and respect her. I am not her lover. I cannot be her husband.”
“Because of your wound?”
Charlie recoiled slightly. “You have been busy, haven’t you? I thought there were rules of confidentiality governing medical records?”
The inspector did not answer. “Because of your wound, Sir?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence. When the inspector spoke his voice was gentle. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Sir? I think we should get this straightened out as soon as possible, don’t you? It’s not worked. It’s gone wrong. Let’s get it cleared up and we can all go home.”
Charlie stubbed out the cigarette in the silver ashtray. “We’re at cross purposes,” he said briefly. “I don’t know what you’re investigating. Everything I’ve told you about Lily is true. I can’t help you any further.”
The inspector nodded. “I should like you to come to the police station with us, Mr. Smith. There are a few things I would like to discuss further.”
Charlie hesitated. “Do I have a choice?”
The inspector shook his head with a grim smile. “If you refuse to come with us I will put you under arrest.”
Charlie blinked. “What the devil is going on here? I insist on knowing what has happened!”
“I’ll tell you at the station.”
Charlie shook his head. “Actually, inspector,” he said, “I think I’d rather be charged and have a right to my lawyer, and a bit more information, than carry on chattering to you while you consult my private medical history and snoop around my landlady. Charge me, if you think you have evidence to make it stick—or I shall go to Lily now and she will tell me what’s happening.”
The inspector nodded. “Charles David Smith, I am arresting you for the kidnap of Christopher Charles Winters. You need say nothing, but anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.”
Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
The inspector was silent.
“Christopher’s been kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“Not by me!”
“That we will endeavour to discover.”
The implication of the charge suddenly hit Charlie and he leaped to his feet and steadied himself with one hand on the back of the chair. The police constable loomed silently between him and the door. The inspector said nothing.
“Can I see Lily? She must be absolutely frantic.”
“Not at the moment, Sir, I’m afraid. We’ll need to go down to the police station and take a statement from you, and so on.”
“Look,” Charlie said with rapid earnestness. “Just stop here a moment. It’s not me. You can search my lodgings. I don’t have him hidden there. I have been in London all day, you can confirm that. I’ll give you names. I wouldn’t have taken him without Lily’s consent. I would never have taken him without her consent. But don’t you see—while you’re arresting me, the baby’s somewhere else!
“For Christ’s sake don’t bother with me. I’ll come to the station, you can parole me, I’ll do anything you say—but find Christopher. It’s not me—so someone else has got him. You should be looking for someone else!”
“You’ll come to the station with us now?” the inspector asked.
Charlie nodded. “Please,” he said. “Don’t stop looking for him.”
“I take it we don’t need to handcuff you?”
“No.”
“On your honour?”
“On my honour! Will you give Lily a message for me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her to be brave. Tell her I’m sure it will be all right. Tell her I’m thinking of her all the time. Tell her that she’s in my heart, she’s always in my heart. Will you tell her that?”
“Yes.”
The inspector nodded at the constable who slipped from the room and went round the corner to fetch the car. Then with the inspecto
r on one side and the sergeant on the other, Charlie walked slowly from the room, through the hall, out of the front door and down the steps to the waiting car. The inspector closed the door on them and went back into the house.
He sat for a while in the silent study. It was growing dark and shadowy. He fiddled listlessly with the paperknife, thinking of the strange painful triangle of Stephen, Lily and Charlie—and the other people around them: the mute chauffeur, the crippled father, the cold mother. And finally—the missing baby.
If the baby was dead there would be nothing to keep the young Mrs. Winters in this loveless house. She and Charlie had talent, love and a circle of friends who would not despise a divorcée or even a couple living together without marriage. The little baby had stood between Lily and freedom. He wondered if Charlie were ruthless enough to hire someone to steal the child and toss it in the sea weighted with pebbles while he courted the mother on the telephone. There was no way of telling. Every man who had been to the Front had come home with a strange new ruthlessness, as if everything they had ever known of love and tenderness had been shelled and bombed and sniped out of them in night after night of fear and despair.
He reached for the bell and pressed it. Sally—who was regarded as sufficiently lowly to wait on the police—appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Could you ask Mr. Stephen Winters if I might see him for a moment?” he asked.
“He’s having his dinner,” she demurred.
“Even so.”
She nodded and in a moment opened the study door for Stephen to enter. He held a napkin in his hand. A gust of overcooked cabbage came into the room with him.
“I am sorry to disturb your dinner,” Inspector Walker said briefly. “I wanted to tell you that I have made an arrest and we will be continuing our inquiries from the police station. I shall keep you informed at every development.”
“You’ve made an arrest?” Stephen hesitated. “You don’t mean Charlie Smith?”
The inspector nodded.
“But that’s impossible!” Stephen said. “He’s a friend of Lily’s, he’s a friend of the family. He likes Christopher! Where would he take him? Can you get him back?”
“I don’t know where the baby is,” Inspector Walker said levelly. “I shall be trying to discover that tonight. I will keep you informed.”
“Why should Charlie do such a thing?”
“Again I am uncertain as to his motives. We are working in the dark. But I had to ensure that he was out of contact with his friends in London and Portsmouth while we corroborate his story. Now I must go.”
Stephen went with him to the front door. The police car had returned, and was waiting outside with the engine running. “But you think he did it,” Stephen asked. “You think he has Christopher hidden somewhere nearby?”
The inspector shook his head. “I hope to discover that,” he said. “I wish you good evening, Mr. Winters. I will telephone without fail tonight, to tell you of our progress. Please, try not to worry too much, and tell your wife that we are doing everything we can.”
Stephen made a small gesture of helplessness and watched the inspector walk down the steps and get into the front of the car. A sickly fat slice of moon was hanging over the pier, ghostly white.
“Call us soon,” Stephen said. He looked pale in the moonlight and his eyes were dark shadows. “I think none of us will sleep much tonight.”
The inspector nodded, then the driver put the car in gear and drove off.
• • •
Lily looked up as Stephen came back into the dining room.
“What’s happening?” she asked. Her voice was high and nervous. “Where’s Charlie?”
Stephen glanced at her plate. She had eaten none of the steak and kidney pudding; the grey wedge of suet pudding crust was congealing in the thick gravy. The vegetables, mashed and roast potatoes, and boiled cabbage, were untouched. She had drunk two glasses of wine, far more than she usually had. She was as pale as a man in a dressing station, bleeding internally. Her eyes were black from the drink and the sleeping drugs. “Where’s Charlie?” she asked.
Stephen went to her and took her small cold hand. “Something very disturbing has happened,” he said. His voice was gentle. He glanced over at his mother. “Would you get Lily a glass of brandy, Mother?” he asked.
“Why?” Lily demanded. “Stephen, please just tell me!”
“Something very odd has happened,” Stephen said again. Muriel placed a balloon glass of brandy at Lily’s right hand. “Charlie is being interviewed by the police. They suspect him of kidnapping Christopher.”
Lily’s pale face went whiter still. “It’s impossible,” she said in a whisper. “Why should they think that?”
Stephen put the glass in her hand. “Have a sip, darling,” he said. “You’re awfully pale.”
He glanced over at his mother. Her face was hard and blank. Rory watched them all, the uncontrollable muscles in his hands shaking.
Lily sipped the drink and put it down. “I wanted to see him,” she said. She sounded like a child crying for a playmate. “I wanted to tell him about it. I wanted to know what he thought.”
“They want to know as well,” Stephen said ironically. He corrected himself at once. “I’m sorry, darling, this is a shock for me too. I don’t know why they suspect him. Inspector Walker said they would call me from the police station when they had more information.”
“But where is Christopher?” Lily wailed suddenly. “If they’ve arrested Charlie they must think Christopher is somewhere! Why don’t they find Christopher first, and never mind who took him! It’s night-time. He should be in his nursery, he should be in his cot. He should have had his bath by now!”
Her voice rose higher and higher and then she burst into sobs. “What if the people who have him don’t know what he wants? What if they haven’t any milk for him? What about his supper? Who’s going to look after him?”
Stephen picked her up easily from her chair and nodded to his mother to open the door for him.
“I’ll take her upstairs,” he said.
Lily clung tightly to him, sobbing and sobbing into his shoulder. “Send up Browning with that powder the doctor left, would you, Mother? She needs calming.”
Muriel nodded and rang the bell. They could hear Lily’s high frightened crying going up and up to the top floor and then the bedroom door closed and the house was silent again.
Muriel took her place at the head of the table. Sally came to clear the plates. She served the pudding in silence: apple pie and custard. Muriel served three large portions and Sally put Rory’s plate before him, poured custard for him and left the room.
“I think Stephen is coping marvellously,” Muriel said.
Rory looked at her with his deep-set dark eyes.
“But Lily is a real difficulty. I shall ask Dr. Mobey to prescribe her something stronger when he comes tomorrow.”
“Why arrest Charlie?” Rory asked.
Muriel thought of the long low-voiced phone calls, and Charlie’s delighted play with Christopher. She thought of the faithful unswerving love between him and Lily. Charlie had taken her to hospital when Stephen was too drunk to stand, Charlie had brought her home triumphant and laughing with the baby in his arms. She thought of the drawing room filled every afternoon with ragtime music, and Lily singing so joyfully with her hand on Charlie’s shoulder and Christopher gurgling on the sofa.
“It must be some awful mistake,” she said stoutly. “As long as they find Christopher soon!”
• • •
Lily fell quickly into a drugged sleep, but she tossed and turned all night and woke at midnight screaming. They had to give her more of the drug, and this time she struggled against it, begging them not to put her to sleep. Stephen held her arms twisted behind her back while Muriel forced the glass between her lips and Lily had to swallow or choke on the drink. But at three in the morning Stephen woke and found the bed empty. He dragged on his d
ressing-gown, checked the bathroom, and then hurried downstairs. Lily was not in the drawing room, nor the study. He checked the bolt and chain on the front door, but she had not gone out into the street. He heard a noise from the dining room and hurried through.
It was the opening of the French window in the dining room which he had heard. Lily was going out on to the balcony and down the steps into the garden. She was walking slowly, as if there were something wrong with her eyesight. One hand was on the iron bannister and the other was stretched out before her. Her nightdress gleamed eerily white in the light of the setting moon. Stephen followed her out into the cool moonlight and swore at the shiver down his spine.
“Lily!” he called softly, for fear of alerting the neighbours. “Lily, for God’s sake, what d’you think you’re doing?”
He thought for a moment that she had gone quite mad. She was searching the garden. She was searching the garden for something quite small. She looked under the seat, she peered into the flower beds. She thrust her face between the rose bushes and the thorns scratched like cats at her skin and clung to her hair. And all the time he could hear her high soft wail: “Christopher! Oh, Christopher! Where are you?”
He took the final steps at a run and caught her in his arms and pulled her away. She turned her face to him and Stephen started back in superstitious fear. Her eyelids were closed. She was blind.
“Christ!” he exclaimed and abruptly let her go.
Lily staggered and her eyes flew open. She stared blankly at him and then looked all around the garden. Then her face, which had been madly serene, crumpled with grief and she opened her mouth and screamed. “Oh God! Tell me it’s a dream, Stephen! Tell me it’s a dream!”
Stephen leaped forward and clapped a hand over her mouth, nervously looking up at the sleeping houses.
“For God’s sake, Lily!” he said. “You’ll wake the whole neighbourhood! No, it’s true, dammit. Now come inside, darling.”
She resisted him, tugging his hand away from her mouth. “I dreamed Christopher was stolen,” she said. Her face was anguished, she was pleading for him to tell her she was wrong. “Christopher stolen, and Charlie arrested for taking him. And I didn’t know where he was, and I was looking for him and looking for him and looking for him. I searched the whole house, it was terribly dark but I looked in every room. Everyone was asleep or dead, I went everywhere.”