rying babies in prams stared into windows, hawkers shouted, small boys hung onto the backs of lorries. There were too many people, too much noise. The very air was irritable and exhausted and spent.
The drive through London seemed endless, and by the time we had drawn clear again and were out beyond Hampstead there was a sound in my head like the beating of a drum, and my eyes were burning.
I wondered how tired Maxim was. He was pale, and there were shadows under his eyes, but he did not say anything. Colonel Julyan kept yawning at the back. He opened his mouth very wide and yawned aloud, sighing heavily afterwards. He would do this every few minutes. I felt a senseless stupid irritation come over me, and I did not know how to prevent myself from turning round and screaming to him to stop.
Once we had passed Hampstead he drew out a large-scale map from his coat pocket and began directing Maxim to Barnet. The way was clear and there were signposts to tell us, but he kept pointing out every turn and twist in the road, and if there was any hesitation on Maxim's part Colonel Julyan would turn down the window and call for information from a passerby.
When we came to Barnet itself he made Maxim stop every few minutes. "Can you tell us where a house called Roselands is? It belongs to a Doctor Baker, who's retired, and come to live there lately," and the passerby would stand frowning a moment, obviously at sea, ignorance written plain upon his face.
"Doctor Baker? I don't know a Doctor Baker. There used to be a house called Rose Cottage near the church, but a Mrs. Wilson lives there."
"No, it's Roselands we want, Doctor Baker's house," said Colonel Julyan, and then we would go on and stop again in front of a nurse and a pram. "Can you tell us where Roselands is?"
"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've only just come to live here."
"You don't know a Doctor Baker?"
"Doctor Davidson. I know Doctor Davidson."
"No, it's Doctor Baker we want."
I glanced up at Maxim. He was looking very tired. His mouth was set hard. Behind us crawled Favell, his green car covered in dust.
It was a postman who pointed out the house in the end. A square house, ivy covered, with no name on the gate, which we had already passed twice. Mechanically I reached for my bag and dabbed my face with the end of the powder puff. Maxim drew up outside at the side of the road. He did not take the car into the short drive. We sat silently for a few minutes.
"Well, here we are," said Colonel Julyan, "and it's exactly twelve minutes past five. We shall catch them in the middle of their tea. Better wait for a bit."
Maxim lit a cigarette, and then stretched out his hand to me. He did not speak. I heard Colonel Julyan crinkling his map.
"We could have come right across without touching London," he said, "saved us forty minutes I dare say. We made good time the first two hundred miles. It was from Chiswick on we took the time."
An errand-boy passed us whistling on his bicycle. A motor-coach stopped at the corner and two women got out. Somewhere a church clock chimed the quarter. I could see Favell leaning back in his car behind us and smoking a cigarette. I seemed to have no feeling in me at all. I just sat and watched the little things that did not matter. The two women from the bus walk along the road. The errand-boy disappears round the corner. A sparrow hops about in the middle of the road pecking at dirt.
"This fellow Baker can't be much of a gardener," said Colonel Julyan. "Look at those shrubs tumbling over his wall. They ought to have been pruned right back." He folded up the map and put it back in his pocket. "Funny sort of place to choose to retire in," he said. "Close to the main road and overlooked by other houses. Shouldn't care about it myself. I dare say it was quite pretty once before they started building. No doubt there's a good golf course somewhere handy."
He was silent for a while, then he opened the door and stood out in the road. "Well, de Winter," he said, "what do you think about it?"
"I'm ready," said Maxim.
We got out of the car. Favell strolled up to meet us.
"What were you all waiting for, cold feet?" he said.
Nobody answered him. We walked up the drive to the front door, a strange incongruous little party. I caught sight of a tennis lawn beyond the house, and I heard the thud of balls. A boy's voice shouted "Forty-fifteen, not thirty all. Don't you remember hitting it out, you silly ass?"
"They must have finished tea," said Colonel Julyan.
He hesitated a moment, glancing at Maxim. Then he rang the bell.
It tinkled somewhere in the back premises. There was a long pause. A very young maid opened the door to us. She looked startled at the sight of so many of us.
"Doctor Baker?" said Colonel Julyan.
"Yes, sir, will you come in?"
She opened the door on the left of the hall as we went in. It would be the drawing room, not used much in the summer. There was a portrait of a very plain dark woman on the wall. I wondered if it was Mrs. Baker. The chintz covers on the chairs and on the sofa were new and shiny. On the mantelpiece were photographs of two schoolboys with round, smiling faces. There was a very large wireless in the corner of the room by the window. Cords trailed from it, and bits of aerial. Favell examined the portrait on the wall. Colonel Julyan went and stood by the empty fireplace. Maxim and I looked out of the window. I could see a deck chair under a tree, and the back of a woman's head. The tennis court must be round the corner. I could hear the boys shouting to each other. A very old Scotch terrier was scratching himself in the middle of the path. We waited there for about five minutes. It was as though I was living the life of some other person and had come to this house to call for a subscription to a charity. It was unlike anything I had ever known. I had no feeling, no pain.
Then the door opened and a man came into the room. He was medium height, rather long in the face, with a keen chin. His hair was sandy, turning gray. He wore flannels, and a dark blue blazer.
"Forgive me for keeping you waiting," he said, looking a little surprised, as the maid had done, to see so many of us. "I had to run up and wash. I was playing tennis when the bell rang. Won't you sit down?" He turned to me. I sat down in the nearest chair and waited.
"You must think this a very unorthodox invasion, Doctor Baker," said Colonel Julyan, "and I apologize very humbly for disturbing you like this. My name is Julyan. This is Mr. de Winter, Mrs. de Winter, and Mr. Favell. You may have seen Mr. de Winter's name in the papers recently."
"Oh," said Doctor Baker, "yes, yes, I suppose I have. Some inquest or other, wasn't it? My wife was reading all about it."
"The jury brought in a verdict of suicide," said Favell coming forward, "which I say is absolutely out of the question. Mrs. de Winter was my cousin, I knew her intimately. She would never have done such a thing, and what's more she had no motive. What we want to know is what the devil she came to see you about the very day she died?"
"You had better leave this to Julyan and myself," said Maxim quietly. "Doctor Baker has not the faintest idea what you are driving at."
He turned to the doctor who was standing between them with a line between his brows, and his first polite smile frozen on his lips. "My late wife's cousin is not satisfied with the verdict," said Maxim, "and we've driven up to see you today because we found your name, and the telephone number of your old consulting-rooms, in my wife's engagement diary. She seems to have made an appointment with you, and kept it, at two o'clock on the last day she ever spent in London. Could you possibly verify this for us?"
Doctor Baker was listening with great interest, but when Maxim had finished he shook his head. "I'm most awfully sorry," he said, "but I think you've made a mistake. I should have remembered the name de Winter. I've never attended a Mrs. de Winter in my life."
Colonel Julyan brought out his note case and gave him the page he had torn from the engagement diary. "Here it is, written down," he said, "Baker, two o'clock. And a big cross beside it, to show that the appointment was kept. And here is the telephone address. Museum 0488."
Doctor Baker stared at the piece of paper. "That's very odd, very odd indeed. Yes, the number is quite correct as you say."
"Could she have come to see you and given a false name?" said Colonel Julyan.
"Why, yes, that's possible. She may have done that. It's rather unusual of course. I've never encouraged that sort of thing. It doesn't do us any good in the profession if people think they can treat us like that."
"Would you have any record of the visit in your files?" said Colonel Julyan. "I know it's not etiquette to ask, but the circumstances are very unusual. We do feel her appointment with you must have some bearing on the case and her subsequent--suicide."
"Murder," said Favell.
Doctor Baker raised his eyebrows, and looked inquiringly at Maxim. "I'd no idea there was any question of that," he said quietly. "Of course I understand, and I'll do anything in my power to help you. If you will excuse me a few minutes I will go and look up my files. There should be a record of every appointment booked throughout the year, and a description of the case. Please help yourself to cigarettes. It's too early to offer you sherry, I suppose?"
Colonel Julyan and Maxim shook their heads. I thought Favell was going to say something but Doctor Baker had left the room before he had a chance.
"Seems a decent sort of fellow," said Colonel Julyan.
"Why didn't he offer us whiskey and soda?" said Favell. "Keeps it locked up, I suppose. I didn't think much of him. I don't believe he's going to help us now."
Maxim did not say anything. I could hear the sound of the tennis balls from the court. The Scotch terrier was barking. A woman's voice shouted to him to be quiet. The summer holidays. Baker playing with his boys. We had interrupted their routine. A high-pitched, gold clock in a glass case ticked very fast on the mantelpiece. There was a postcard of the Lake of Geneva leaning against it. The Bakers had friends in Switzerland.
Doctor Baker came back into the room with a large book and a file-case in his hands. He carried them over to the table. "I've brought the collection for last year," he said. "I haven't been through them yet since we moved. I only gave up practice six months ago you know." He opened the book and began turning the pages. I watched him fascinated. He would find it of course. It was only a question of moments now, of seconds. "The seventh, eighth, tenth," he murmured, "nothing here. The twelfth did you say? At two o'clock? Ah!"
We none of us moved. We all watched his face.
"I saw a Mrs. Danvers on the twelfth at two o'clock," he said.
"Danny? What on earth..." began Favell, but Maxim cut him short.
"She gave a wrong name, of course," he said. "That was obvious from the first. Do you remember the visit now, Doctor Baker?"
But Doctor Baker was already searching his files. I saw his fingers delve into the pocket marked with D. He found it almost at once. He glanced down rapidly at his handwriting. "Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, Mrs. Danvers. I remember now."
"Tall, slim, dark, very handsome?" said Colonel Julyan quietly.
"Yes," said Doctor Baker. "Yes."
He read through the files, and then replaced them in the case. "Of course," he said, glancing at Maxim, "this is unprofessional you know? We treat patients as though they were in the confessional. But your wife is dead, and I quite understand the circumstances are exceptional. You want to know if I can suggest any motive why your wife should have taken her life? I think I can. The woman who called herself Mrs. Danvers was very seriously ill."
He paused. He looked at every one of us in turn.
"I remember her perfectly well," he said, and he turned back to the files again. "She came to me for the first time a week previously to the date you mentioned. She complained of certain symptoms, and I took some X-rays of her. The second visit was to find out the result of those X-rays. The photographs are not here, but I have the details written down. I remember her standing in my consulting-room and holding out her hand for the photographs. 'I want to know the truth,' she said; 'I don't want soft words and a bedside manner. If I'm for it, you can tell me right away.' " He paused, he glanced down at the files once again.
I waited, waited. Why couldn't he get done with it and finish and let us go? Why must we sit there, waiting, our eyes upon his face.
"Well," he said, "she asked for the truth, and I let her have it. Some patients are better for it. Shirking the point does them no good. This Mrs. Danvers, or Mrs. de Winter rather, was not the type to accept a lie. You must have known that. She stood it very well. She did not flinch. She said she had suspected it for sometime. Then she paid my fee and went out. I never saw her again."
He shut up the box with a snap, and closed the book. "The pain was slight as yet, but the growth was deep-rooted," he said, "and in three or four months' time she would have been under morphia. An operation would have been no earthly use at all. I told her that. The thing had got too firm a hold. There is nothing anyone can do in a case like that, except give morphia, and wait."
No one said a word. The little clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and the boys played tennis in the garden. An airplane hummed overhead.
"Outwardly of course she was a perfectly healthy woman," he said--"rather too thin, I remember, rather pale; but then that's the fashion nowadays, pity though it is. It's nothing to go upon with a patient. No, the pain would increase week by week, and as I told you, in four or five months' time she would have had to be kept under morphia. The X-rays showed a certain malformation of the uterus, I remember, which meant she could never have had a child; but that was quite apart, it had nothing to do with the disease."
I remember hearing Colonel Julyan speak, saying something about Doctor Baker being very kind to have taken so much trouble. "You have told us all we want to know," he said, "and if we could possibly have a copy of the memoranda in your file it might be very useful."
"Of course," said Doctor Baker. "Of course."
Everyone was standing up. I got up from my chair too, I shook hands with Doctor Baker. We all shook hands with him. We followed him out into the hall. A woman looked out of the room on the other side of the hall and darted back when she saw us. Someone was running a bath upstairs, the water ran loudly. The Scotch terrier came in from the garden and began sniffing at my heels.
"Shall I send the report to you or to Mr. de Winter?" said Doctor Baker.
"We may not need it at all," said Colonel Julyan. "I rather think it won't be necessary. Either de Winter or I will write. Here is my card."
"I'm so glad to have been of use," said Doctor Baker; "it never entered my head for a moment that Mrs. de Winter and Mrs. Danvers could be the same person."
"No, naturally," said Colonel Julyan.
"You'll be returning to London, I suppose?"
"Yes. Yes, I imagine so."
"Your best way then is to turn sharp left by that pillar-box, and then right by the church. After that it's a straight road."
"Thank you. Thank you very much."
We came out onto the drive and went towards the cars. Doctor Baker pulled the Scotch terrier inside the house. I heard the door shut. A man with one leg and a barrel organ began playing "Roses in Picardy," at the end of the road.
27
We went and stood by the car. No one said anything for a few minutes. Colonel Julyan handed round his cigarette case. Favell looked gray, rather shaken. I noticed his hands were trembling as he held the match. The man with the barrel organ ceased playing for a moment and hobbled towards us, his cap in his hand. Maxim gave him two shillings. Then he went back to the barrel organ and started another tune. The church clock struck six o'clock. Favell began to speak. His voice was diffident, careless, but his face was still gray. He did not look at any of us, he kept glancing down at his cigarette and turning it over in his fingers. "This cancer business," he said; "does anybody know if it's contagious?"
No one answered him. Colonel Julyan shrugged his shoulders.
"I never had the remotest idea," said Favell jerkily. "She kept it a secret from everyone, even Danny. What a Goddamned appalling thing, eh? Not the sort of thing one would ever connect with Rebecca. Do you fellows feel like a drink? I'm all out over this, and I don't mind admitting it. Cancer! Oh, my God!"
He leaned up against the side of the car and shaded his eyes with his hands. "Tell that bloody fellow with the barrel organ to clear out," he said. "I can't stand that Goddamned row."
"Wouldn't it be simpler if we went ourselves?" said Maxim. "Can you manage your own car, or do you want Julyan to drive it for you?"
"Give me a minute," muttered Favell. "I'll be all right. You don't understand. This thing has been a damned unholy shock to me."
"Pull yourself together, man, for heaven's sake," said Colonel Julyan. "If you want a drink go back to the house and ask Baker. He knows how to treat for shock, I dare say. Don't make an exhibition of yourself in the street."
"Oh, you're all right, you're fine," said Favell, standing straight and looking at Colonel Julyan and Maxim. "You've got nothing to worry about anymore. Max is on a good wicket now, isn't he? You've got your motive, and Baker will supply it in black and white free of cost, whenever you send the word. You can dine at Manderley once a week on the strength of it and feel proud of yourself. No doubt Max will ask you to be godfather to his first child."
"Shall we get into the car and go?" said Colonel Julyan to Maxim. "We can make our plans going along."
Maxim held open the door of the car, and Colonel Julyan climbed in. I sat down in my seat in the front. Favell still leaned against the car and did not move. "I should advise you to get straight back to your flat and go to bed," said Colonel Julyan shortly, "and drive slowly, or you will find yourself in jail for manslaughter. I may as well warn you now, as I shall not be seeing you again, that as a magistrate I have certain powers that will prove effective if you ever turn up in Kerrith or the district. Blackmail is not much of a profession, Mr. Favell. And we know how to deal with it in our part of the world, strange though it may seem to you."
Favell was watching Maxim. He had lost the gray color now, and the old unpleasant smile was forming on his lips. "Yes, it's been a stroke of luck for you, Max, hasn't it?" he said slowly; "you think you've won, don't you? The law can get you yet, and so can I, in a di