The Narrow Corner

  “They’ve found out,” said the doctor.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose his house-boy went in to take him his tea.”

  “Isn’t there anybody who can interpret?”

  “We shall hear soon enough. Don’t forget, we neither of us know anything about it.”

  They relapsed into silence. A few minutes later the manager returned with a Dutch official, in a white uniform with brass buttons; he clicked his heels together, and mentioned an incomprehensible name. He spoke English with a very strong accent.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that a Danish trader called Christessen has shot himself.”

  “Christessen?” cried the doctor. “That tall fellow?”

  He watched Fred out of the corner of his eye.

  “He was found by his boys an hour ago. I am in charge of the inquiry. There can be no doubt that it is a case of suicide. Mr. van Ryk,” he motioned to the half-caste manager, “informs me that he was here last night to visit you.”

  “That’s quite true.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.”

  “Was he sober?”

  “Quite.”

  “I never saw him drunk myself. Did he say anything that suggested he had the intention of doing away with himself?”

  “No. He was quite cheerful. I didn’t know him very well, you know. I only arrived three days ago, and I’m waiting for the Princess Juliana.”

  “Yes, I know. Then you can give no explanation of the tragedy?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “That is all I wanted to know. If I have any need of anything more from you I will let you know. Perhaps you will not mind coming to my office.” He glanced at Fred. “And this gentleman can tell us nothing?”

  “Nothing,” said the doctor. “He was not here. I was playing cards with the skipper of the ketch in the harbour just now.”

  “I’ve seen her. I’m sorry for the poor fellow. He was very quiet and never gave any trouble. You could not help liking him. I’m afraid it’s the old story. It’s a mistake to live alone in a place like this. They brood. They get home-sick. The heat is killing. And then one day they can’t stand it any more, and they just put a bullet through their heads. I’ve seen it before, more than once. Much better to have a little girl to live with you, and it makes hardly any difference to your expenses. Well, gentlemen, I am much obliged to you. I won’t take up any more of your time. You have not been to the gesellschaft yet, I believe? We shall be very glad to see you there. You will find all the most important people of the island there from six or seven till nine. It is a jolly place. Quite a social centre. Well, good morning, gentlemen.”

  He clicked his heels, shook hands with the doctor and Fred, and stumped somewhat heavily away.

  xxviii

  IN THAT hot country not much time was permitted to pass between a person’s death and his burial, but in this case the examination had to be conducted, and it was not till latish in the afternoon that the funeral took place. It was attended by a few Dutch friends of Erik, Frith and Dr. Saunders, Fred Blake and Captain Nichols. This was an occasion after the skipper’s heart. He had managed to borrow a black suit from an acquaintance he had made on the island. It did not fit very well, since it belonged to a man both taller and stouter than he, and he was obliged to turn up the trousers and the sleeves, but in contrast with the others, clad in nondescript fashion, it produced a satisfactory note of respectability. The service was conducted in Dutch, which seemed to Captain Nichols a little out of place, and he could not take part in it, but there was much unction in his deportment; and when it was over he shook hands with the Lutheran pastor and the two or three Dutch officials present as though they had rendered him a personal service, so that they thought for a moment he must be a near relative of the deceased. Fred wept.

  The four Britishers walked back together. They came to the harbour.

  “If you gentlemen will come on board the Fenton,” said the skipper, “I’ll open a bottle of port for you. I ’appened to see it in the store this mornin’, and I always think a bottle of port’s the right thing after a funeral. I mean, it’s not like beer and whisky. There’s somethin’ serious about port.”

  “I never thought of it before,” said Frith, “but I quite see what you mean.”

  “I’m not coming,” said Fred. “I’ve got a hump. Can I go along with you, doctor?”

  “If you like.”

  “We’ve all got a ’ump,” said Captain Nichols. “That’s why I vote we ’ave a bottle of port. It won’t take the ’ump away. Not by any manner of means. It’ll make it worse if anythin’, at least that’s my experience, but it means you can enjoy it, if you follow me, you get something out of it, and it’s not wasted.”

  “Go to hell,” said Fred.

  “Come on, Frith. If you’re the man I take you for, you and me can drink a bottle of port without strainin’ ourselves.”

  “We live in degenerate days,” said Frith. “Two-bottle men, three-bottle men, they’re as extinct as the dodo.”

  “An Australian bird,” said Captain Nichols.

  “If two grown men can’t drink one bottle of port between them I despair of the human race. Babylon is fallen, is fallen.”

  “Exactly,” replied Captain Nichols.

  They got into the dinghy and a blackfellow rowed them out to the Fenton. The doctor and Fred walked slowly on. When they reached the hotel they went in.

  “Let’s go to your room,” said Fred.

  The doctor poured himself out a whisky and soda and gave one to Fred.

  “We’re sailing at dawn,” said the boy.

  “Are you? Have you seen Louise?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you going to?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Saunders shrugged his shoulders. It was no business of his. For a while they drank and smoked in silence.

  “I’ve told you so much,” the boy said at last, “I may as well tell you the rest.”

  “I’m not curious.”

  “I’ve wanted to tell someone badly. Sometimes I could hardly prevent myself from telling Nichols. Thank God, I wasn’t such a fool as that. Grand opportunity for blackmail it would have been for him.”

  “He isn’t the sort of man I’d choose to confide a secret to.”

  Fred gave a little derisive chuckle.

  “It wasn’t my fault, really. It was just rotten luck. It is bloody that your life should be ruined by an accident like that. It’s so damned unfair. My people are in a very good position. I was in one of the best firms in Sydney. Eventually, my old man was going to buy me a partnership. He’s got a lot of influence and he could have thrown business in my way. I could have made plenty of money and sooner or later of course I should have married and settled down. I expect I should have gone into politics like father did. If ever anyone had a chance I had. And look at me now. No home, no name, no prospects, a couple of hundred pounds in my belt and whatever the old man’s sent to Batavia. Not a friend in the world.”

  “You’ve got youth. You’ve got some education. And you’re not bad looking.”

  “That’s what makes me laugh. If I’d had a squint in my eye or a hump-back I’d have been all right. I’d be in Sydney now. You’re no beauty, doctor.”

  “I am conscious of the fact and resigned to it.”

  “Resigned to it! Thank your lucky stars every day of your life.”

  Dr. Saunders smiled.

  “I’m not prepared to go as far as that.”

  But the foolish boy was desperately serious.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m conceited. God knows I’ve got nothing to be conceited about. But you know, I’ve always been able to get any girl I wanted to. Oh, almost since I was a kid. I thought it rather a lark. After all, you’re only young once. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t have all the fun I could get. D’you blame me?”

  “No. The only people who would
are those who never had your opportunities.”

  “I never went out of my way to get them. But when they practically asked for it, well, I should have been a fool not to take what I could get. It used to make me laugh sometimes to see them all in a dither and often I’d pretend I didn’t notice. They’d get furious with me. Girls are funny, you know, nothing makes them so mad as a chap standing off. Of course, I never let it interfere with my work; I’m not a fool, you know, in any sense of the word, and I wanted to get on.”

  “An only child, were you?”

  “No. I’ve got a brother. He went into the business with father. He’s married. And I’ve got a married sister, too.

  “Well, one Sunday last year, a chap brought his wife to spend the day up at our house. His name was Hudson. He was a Roman Catholic, and he’d got a lot of influence with the Irish and the Italians. Father said he could make all the difference at the election, and he told mother she was to do them proud. They came up to dinner, the Premier came and brought his wife, and mother gave them enough to eat to feed a regiment. After dinner father took them into his den to talk business and the rest of us went and sat in the garden. I’d wanted to go fishing, but father said I’d got to stay and make myself civil. Mother and Mrs. Barnes had been at school together.”

  “Who was Mrs. Barnes?”

  “Mr. Barnes is the Premier. He’s the biggest man in Australia.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “They always had a lot to talk about. They tried to be polite to Mrs. Hudson, but I could see they didn’t much like her. She was doing her best to be nice to them, admiring everything and buttering them up, but the more she laid it on the less they liked it. At last, mother asked me if I wouldn’t show her round the garden. We strolled off and the first thing she said was: ‘For God’s sake give me a cigarette.’ She gave me a look when I lit it for her and she said: ‘You’re a very good-looking boy.’ ‘D’you think so?’ I said. ‘I suppose you’ve been told that before?’ she said. ‘Only by mother,’ I said, ‘and I thought perhaps she was prejudiced.’ She asked me if I was fond of dancing and I said I was, so she said she was having tea at the Australia next day and if I liked to come in after the office we could have a dance together. I wasn’t keen on it, so I said I couldn’t; then she said: ‘What about Tuesday or Wednesday?’ I couldn’t very well say I was engaged both days, so I said Tuesday would suit me all right; and when they’d gone away I told father and mother. She didn’t much like the idea, but father was all for it. He said it wouldn’t suit his book at all to have us stand-offish. ‘I didn’t like the way she kept on looking at him,’ said mother, but father told her not to be silly. ‘Why, she’s old enough to be his mother,’ he said. ‘How old is she?’ Mother said: ‘She’ll never see forty again.’

  “She was nothing to look at. Thin as a rail. Her neck was absolutely scraggy. Tallish. She had a long thin face, with hollow cheeks, and a brown skin, all one colour, rather leathery if you know what I mean; and she never seemed to take any trouble with her hair, it always looked as though it would come down in a minute; and she’d have a wisp hanging down in front of her ear or over her forehead. I do like a woman to have a neat head, don’t you? It was black, rather like a gipsy’s, and she had enormous black eyes. They made her face. When you talked to her you didn’t really see anything else. She didn’t look British, she looked like a foreigner, a Hungarian or something like that. There was nothing attractive about her.

  “Well, I went on the Tuesday. She knew how to dance, you couldn’t deny that. You know, I’m rather keen on dancing. I enjoyed myself more than I expected. She had a lot to say for herself. I shouldn’t have had a bad time if there hadn’t been some of my pals there. I knew they’d rot my head off for dancing the whole afternoon with an old geyser like that. There are ways and ways of dancing. It didn’t take me long to see what she was up to. I couldn’t help laughing. Poor old cow, I thought, if it gives her any pleasure, well, let her have it. She asked me to go to the pictures with her one night when her husband had to go to a meeting. I said I didn’t mind, and we made a date. I held her hand at the pictures. I thought it’d please her and it didn’t do me any harm, and afterwards she said, Couldn’t we walk a bit. We were pretty friendly by then; she was interested in my work, and she wanted to know all about my home. We talked about racing; I told her there was nothing I’d like to do more than ride in a big race myself. In the dark she wasn’t so bad, and I kissed her. Well, the end of it was that we went to a place I knew and we had a bit of a rough and tumble. I did it more out of politeness than anything else. I thought that would be the finish. Not a bit of it. She went crazy about me. She said she’d fallen in love with me the first time she saw me. I don’t mind telling you that just at first I was a bit flattered. She had something. Those great flashing eyes, sometimes they made me feel all funny, and that gipsy look, I don’t know, it was so unusual, it seemed to take you right away and you couldn’t believe you were in good old Sydney; it was like living in a story about Nihilists and Grand Dukes and I don’t know what all. By God, she was hot stuff. I thought I knew a thing or two about all that, but when she took me in hand I found I didn’t know a thing. I’m not particular, but really, sometimes she almost disgusted me. She was proud of it. She used to say that after a chap had loved her, other women were duller than cold roast mutton.

  “I couldn’t help liking it in a way, but you know I didn’t feel easy about it. You don’t like a woman to be absolutely shameless. There was no satisfying her either. She made me see her every day, and she’d ring me up at the office and ring me up at home. I told her for God’s sake to be careful, after all she had a husband to think of, and there was father and mother, father was quite capable of packing me off to a sheep-station for a year if he had the smallest suspicion that things weren’t going right, but she said she didn’t care. She said if I was packed off to a sheep-station she’d come with me. She didn’t seem to mind what risks she took, and if it hadn’t been for me it would have been all over Sydney in a week. She’d telephone to mother and ask if I couldn’t go to supper at her place and make a four at bridge, and when I was there she’d make love to me under her husband’s nose. When she saw I was scared she laughed her head off. It excited her. Pat Hudson just treated me like a boy, he never took much notice of me, he fancied himself at bridge, and got a lot of fun out of telling me all about it. I didn’t dislike him. He was a bit of a rough-neck, and he could put his liquor away rather, but he was a smart fellow in his way. He was ambitious, and he liked having me there because I was father’s son. He was quite ready to come in with father, but he wanted to get something pretty substantial for himself out of it.

  “I was getting a bit fed up with it all. I couldn’t call my soul my own. And she was as jealous as hell. If we were anywhere and I happened to look at a girl it would be: ‘Who’s that? Why d’you look at her like that? Have you had her?’ And if I said I hadn’t ever spoken to her even, she’d say I was a damned liar. I thought I’d slack off a bit. I didn’t want to chuck her too suddenly in case she got her knife in me. She could turn Hudson round her little finger, and I knew father wouldn’t be very pleased if he did the dirty on us at the election. I began to say I was busy at the office or had to stay at home, when she wanted me to go out with her. I told her mother was getting suspicious and that we must be careful. She was as sharp as a knife. She wouldn’t believe a word I said. She made me the most awful scenes. To tell you the truth I began to get rather scared. I’d never known anyone like that. With most of the girls I’d played about with, well, they’d known it was just a lark, same as I did, and it just ended naturally, without any fuss or bother. You’d have thought, when she guessed I’d had enough, her pride would prevent her from clinging on to me. But no. Quite the contrary. D’you know, she actually wanted me to run away with her, to America or somewhere, so that we could get married. It never seemed to occur to her that she was twenty years older than me. I mean, it was too ridiculo
us. I had to pretend that it was out of the question, on account of the election, you know, and because we shouldn’t have anything to live on. She was absolutely unreasonable. She said, what did we care about the election, and anyone could make a living in America, she said, she’d been on the stage and she was sure she could get a part. She seemed to think she was a girl. She asked me if I’d marry her if it wasn’t for her husband and I had to say I would. The scenes she made got me so nervous I was ready to say anything. You don’t know what a life she led me. I wished to God I’d never set eyes on her. I was so worried I didn’t know what to do. I had half a mind to tell mother, but I knew it would upset her so frightfully. She never left me alone for a minute. She came up to the office once. I had to be polite to her and pretend it was all right, because I knew she was capable of making a scene before everybody, but afterwards I told her if she ever did it again I wouldn’t have anything more to do with her. Then she started waiting for me in the street outside. My God, I could have wrung her neck. Father used to go home in a car and I always walked to his office to fetch him, and she insisted on walking there with me. At last things got to such a pitch that I just couldn’t stick it any more; I didn’t care what happened. I told her I was sick and tired of the whole thing and it had got to stop.

  “I made up my mind that I was going to say it and I did. My God, it was awful. It was at her place, they had a little jerry-built house, overlooking the harbour, on a cliff, rather far out, and I’d got off from the office in the middle of the afternoon on purpose. She screamed and she cried. She said she loved me and she couldn’t live without me and I don’t know what all. She said she’d do anything I liked and she wouldn’t bother me in future and she’d be quite different. She promised every sort of thing. God knows what she didn’t say. Then she flew into a rage and cursed me and swore at me and called me every name under the sun. She went for me, and I had to hold her hands to prevent her from scratching my eyes out. She was like a mad woman. Then she said she was going to commit suicide, and tried to run out of the house. I thought she’d throw herself over the cliff or something, and I held her back by main force.