The Bachelors

  ‘You’ve been to bed this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes. He reminds me of Colin in a way. His breath——’

  ‘Have you been foolish tonight, Elsie?’

  ‘Well, you know,’ said Elsie, ‘that I don’t mind a man whose breath smells of onions. Colin’s always did.’

  ‘Makes me sick, the thought of it.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Elsie said, ‘I suppose there was something psychological in my childhood. It makes me sick too, in a way.’

  Chapter IV

  PATRICK Seton sat in his room in Paddington, about which nobody except Mr. Fergusson knew anything, and thought. Or rather, he sat and felt his thoughts.

  It was the unfortunate occurrence.

  Freda Flower: danger.

  Tomorrow morning at ten at the Magistrate’s Court. Unless Freda Flower had changed her mind again…

  Mr. Fergusson would know. Mr. Fergusson had taken his passport away from him.

  Patrick brushed his yellow-white hair with an old brush in his trembling hand and went out to see Mr. Fergusson. He walked hastily, keeping well in to the shop side of the streets. He hastened, for something about Mr. Fergusson always brought him peace. Meanwhile, he felt his thoughts, and they began to run on optimistic lines.

  A great many witnesses for the defence. They knew he was genuine. Marlene in the box.

  Freda Flower: what a gross, what a base, betrayal of all she had held sacred!

  You are acquitted, said the judge. After that: Alice. Alice must be dealt with, and her unbelievable baby. For her own sake. He loved her. And always would. Even unto her passing over. The spirit giveth life.

  He had come to the police-station. The constable at the desk looked up and nodded. ‘I’ll tell Detective-Inspector Fergusson you’re here,’ he said.

  Patrick sat and fidgeted until the policeman came to call him. Patrick dusted the lapel of his dark coat with a moth-like flicker of the fingers and followed the policeman.

  Patrick’s nerves came to rest on Detective-Inspector Fergusson, who stood sandy-haired, with his fine build, and spoke with his good Scots voice.

  ‘I’ve come to see if there has been any development, Mr. Fergusson,’ Patrick said, ‘in the unfortunate occurrence.’

  ‘Mrs. Flower has been here,’ said Mr. Fergusson. ‘You must have got at her.’

  ‘She’s changed her mind, I presume?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘But we haven’t.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Patrick said.

  Mr. Fergusson said, ‘It’s a police prosecution, you know. Witnesses can’t change their minds.’

  ‘Yes, but Mrs. Flower’s your chief witness. You’ll want the best out of her. You’d want it given willingly.’

  ‘You’re right there.’ Mr. Fergusson gave Patrick a cigarette. ‘The Chief is considering our next course of action. There will probably be a remand tomorrow.’

  ‘I won’t be sent for trial?’

  ‘The case will merely be postponed,’ said Mr. Fergusson reassuringly. ‘We’ve got your statement.’

  ‘I could always deny it,’ Patrick whispered absentmindedly. ‘I was in a dazed condition after a séance when I signed it.’

  ‘That didn’t get you very far the last time.’

  ‘It made an impression on the court.’ And Patrick waved the subject away as a wife does when reciting to a husband retorts that she has repeated on other weary occasions.

  ‘Keep in touch with me,’ Mr. Fergusson nodded.

  Patrick felt sorry the interview was over. He felt steadied-up when in the company of this policeman. One expected worldliness from Mr. Fergusson. One did not expect it from people with an interior knowledge of the spirit, like Freda Flower.

  ‘It’s a very painful occurrence,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Very,’ said Mr. Fergusson.

  ‘Is there any chance of the Chief deciding not to proceed?’ Patrick said.

  ‘A slight chance. If Mrs. Flower remains reluctant to give evidence against you there’s a chance we won’t proceed. But Mrs. Flower may change her mind again. We have to see her again and have a talk.’

  Mr. Fergusson rose and patted Patrick’s shoulder, at the same time propelling him gently towards the door. ‘Ring me every morning,’ he said, ‘or call round. I’ll keep you informed.’

  Then Patrick asked his usual question. ‘If the worst comes to the worst,’ he said, ‘how long…?’

  The policeman said, as usual, ‘It depends on the judge. Eighteen months, two years…

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘They go by the antecedents,’ said Mr. Fergusson. ‘Cheer up, you’re lucky you’re a bachelor. It’s worse for a married man. Look on the bright side, Patrick.’

  At the street entrance Patrick looked out on to the bleak pavements and immediately felt unhappy again. He stood for a moment under the protective porch, then took the plunge up the street. He felt within him a decision to go and see the doctor.

  ‘He can look you in the eyes,’ said Freda Flower to Mike Garland, ‘and make you believe it’s you that’s telling the lie.’

  ‘You don’t be a fool,’ Mike said. ‘You go back to Inspector Fergusson and tell him you’re going on with it, as you said in the first place. The whole of your savings gone. Remember that.’

  ‘Oh, Mike, I was so good to him. You should have seen how he got round me with his interior decorations and his odd jobs round the house.’

  Pink-checked Mike looked round the walls which were done with a pink wash. ‘Didn’t make much of a job of it.’

  ‘He didn’t do this room. He did the paint. And he did the kitchen. But I was good to him.’

  ‘He’s a fraud,’ Mike said, ‘and he ought to be exposed. For the sake of the Movement.’

  ‘I can’t believe it, Mike. I still can’t believe, inside me, when I think of him that he’s a fraud. He’s given me such good advice from the chair, Mike, and last Saturday night—’

  ‘That was a fake-up, clear enough,’ Mike said. ‘He wanted to frighten you.’

  ‘No, Mike. He was really gone on Saturday night. You could see it.’

  ‘Think of your money,’ Mike said. ‘What’s happened to your two thousand?’

  ‘I still can’t believe it, Mike.’

  ‘You know what Fergusson told you.’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Mike.’

  ‘There have been other cases in the past. There are two other women over the last two years.’

  ‘I always feel somehow,’ she said, ‘that there’s some explanation. I was the only woman for Patrick.’ She saw in her mind’s eye the grave thin face and blue eyes of Patrick as it were superimposed on the curtain.

  She said, ‘You don’t realise how nicely he could talk. There was something about him lifted you up. He’s a poet at heart.’

  ‘And he lifted up your cash as well.’

  ‘Perhaps there was some mistake.’

  ‘He admitted it,’ Mike said. ‘And there’s your handwriting he’s forged.’

  ‘Perhaps I did write the letter. I don’t know. It could be my own signature, after all, if I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought the money was for bonds, but perhaps the bonds were a dream, I don’t know—’

  ‘He frightened you by his warnings,’ Mike said. ‘Well, let me tell you, there’s nothing in them. I’m a clairvoyant and I can see he’s a fraud.’

  She looked at Mike’s pink face and his large frame. He failed to move her as much as Patrick had done.

  ‘Two thousand,’ Mike said. ‘Come, put your hat on and I’ll take you back to Inspector Fergusson. You were a fool to part with the cheque.’

  ‘I think he said he’d buy the bonds, I don’t know.’ Desperately she looked at the white blossom on the green carpet, and at the curtains, fawn with a touch of pink to match the walls, and her fawn and green suite.

  ‘Two thousand, your life savings,’ Mike said.

  ‘I’ve got the rooms
all let,’ she said. ‘Thanks to you, Mike.’

  ‘But nothing in the bank. Come on, let’s go. Two thousand, remember. He should get five years imprisonment.’

  She said, ‘It was worth the money.’

  But she got ready, and accompanied Mike Garland all the way back to Detective-Inspector Fergusson, who had been so severe when she had called previously to withdraw her statement. When he spoke to her on this second occasion he was even more severe, for she was so very full of tears and doubts.

  Patrick spoke to the receptionist from the telephone kiosk with a courteous smile, as if she could see him.

  ‘If at all possible,’ Patrick said.

  ‘His appointment book is very full all day,’ the receptionist said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Patrick, ‘you could have a word with him and he’ll slip me in. You remember me, don’t you? A private patient — Mr. Seton.’

  ‘Oh, Mr. Seton.’ She went away and returned.

  ‘Half-past twelve, Mr. Seton. He can give you some time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Patrick said. ‘I am so much obliged.’ Patrick was unaware what precisely was the deep secret in Dr. Lyte’s career, to which he had given unconscious utterance one night in the séance room, the only occasion on which Dr. Lyte had attended a spiritualist meeting. Patrick, on coming round from his trance, had perceived the shaken stranger and had moved with fluttering obliquity towards him as a moth to the lamp.

  The stranger was Dr. Lyte. Patrick rapidly appreciated that he had said something in his trance which had truly got its mark. ‘How exactly did you know?’ Dr. Lyte said in a way which was very different from his nice clothes.

  Patrick bashfully screwed his head to the side and smiled.

  When Patrick called on him the next day, Dr. Lyte had pulled himself together.

  ‘I only went there as an experiment,’ he explained.

  ‘By whom recommended?’ Patrick said quietly.

  ‘Chap called Ewart Thornton. A friend of—’

  ‘That is correct,’ Patrick said. ‘Mr. Thornton recommended you. You are speaking the truth.’

  ‘I have no faith in spiritualism,’ Dr. Lyte said.

  Patrick nodded like a man of the world.

  ‘And what you described,’ Dr. Lyte said, ‘in your so-called trance, was inaccurate.’

  ‘No,’ Patrick said, ‘Dr. Lyte, it was not inaccurate.’

  ‘Where did you get this information?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Patrick said with mendacious truth. ‘I’d rather not discuss the details.’

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  Patrick closed his eyes reprovingly.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ said Dr. Lyte.

  And so he never refused Patrick an appointment, or a piece of advice, or a drug to alleviate the effects of a trance. Patrick was not unduly troublesome. Dr. Lyte even went so far as voluntarily to obtain the new drug which had been employed, for experimental purposes, to induce epileptic convulsions in rats, and which, taken in certain minor quantities, greatly improved both the spectacular quality of Patrick’s trances and his actual psychic powers.

  ‘What can I do for you, Patrick?’ said Dr. Lyte when Patrick was shown in at half-past twelve sharp. Dr. Lyte was untroubled: he had got used to Patrick, as one does get used to things.

  ‘It’s about Alice. She won’t think of doing away with it. Not by an operation. I mentioned the address—’

  ‘Well, she can get it adopted. Much easier if you don’t marry her till afterwards. The State has arrangements for these girls.’

  ‘Yes’ Patrick said. ‘Alice,’ he said, ‘isn’t too well.’

  ‘Send her along.’

  ‘I think perhaps she isn’t taking her injections properly,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Oh, she’s got to take her two injections every morning before breakfast. They need the regular insulin. Tell her she’ll die if she doesn’t take it.’

  ‘How long does it take,’ Patrick said, ‘for a diabetic person to die if they deprive themselves of insulin?’

  ‘She’s not trying to take her life, is she?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Patrick said, his fingers interlacing each other in agitated jerks. ‘But don’t you think she might try to get rid of the baby by reducing the insulin and making herself really ill?’

  ‘That would be foolish,’ said Dr. Lyte. ‘Surely she knows — but why don’t you see to the injections yourself until this trouble’s over?’

  ‘Oh, she won’t let me touch them. She won’t ever let me use the needle on her.’

  ‘Do you watch her taking it?’

  ‘No. You see, she won’t let me see her doing it.’

  ‘I’ll have a talk with her. I’d better come along.’

  ‘Well,’ Patrick said, ‘I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll tell her she’ll die if she doesn’t take her insulin. I’ll say you said so. How long would it take?’

  ‘It varies,’ said the doctor. ‘My goodness, if Alice really did get negligent she might die within a few days. But she knows—’

  ‘Perhaps, on the other hand, she is taking too much insulin,’ Patrick said. ‘Would that account for her symptoms?’

  ‘What are the symptoms? Exhausted? Hungry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really, you know, I’ll have to see her. What makes you think she isn’t following her proper routine in the mornings?’

  ‘Oh, it’s only an idea I had,’ Patrick said. ‘I may be quite wrong.’

  ‘Is she testing her urine every morning?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Patrick said. ‘It’s all just a stupid idea in my mind that she may be neglecting her insulin treatment. She’s probably just off colour, with the baby and so forth…. It’s a worry for me. Tell me, if she took too much insulin, what might happen?’

  ‘She’d die. I’ll look in this afternoon,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Very well,’ Patrick said. ‘Good of you,’ he said; and the doctor was vaguely disturbed by his docility. Patrick was saying, his voice trailing off, ‘But my suspicions may be quite unfounded, and how am I to know what she does with the needle and so forth…?’

  ‘Feeling better?’ said Patrick.

  ‘Heaps better,’ she said. ‘I’m going to work tonight.’

  ‘Did you miss me the last two days?’ Patrick said.

  ‘You know I did, darling.’

  ‘I was worried about you all the time,’ he said. ‘I asked Dr. Lyte to come and see you.’

  ‘Oh! He hasn’t been.’

  ‘He’s coming this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, you can put him off. It’s too late. I’m better.’

  ‘He’s anxious in case you’ve been forgetting to take your insulin.’

  ‘I never forget my insulin. But I’ve missed you giving me the injection.’ She took his hand. ‘I’ve missed that little touch the last two mornings, Patrick.’

  ‘Dr. Lyte,’ Patrick said, ‘wondered if perhaps you were taking too much.’

  ‘I never take too much. Does he think I’m an imbecile? I’ve been taking injections for six years.’

  ‘Well, I’ll ring and put him off,’ Patrick said.

  ‘I’ll ring and tell him what I think of him,’ she said. ‘Suggesting that I’m negligent’

  ‘Now, Dr. Lyte is a good friend. Better leave him to me. I’ll tell him you’re all right now.’

  ‘And then we’ll go out and celebrate,’ she said, ‘the collapse of the court case.’

  ‘Well, it’s only in abeyance. Of course Freda Flower hasn’t a leg to stand on. But she’s a dangerous woman, and she could change her mind.’ His voice faded away out of the window where he was looking.

  ‘Hasn’t she got a heart?’ said Alice. ‘Hasn’t she got a heart?’

  ‘The police want to proceed,’ Martin Bowles told Ronald in the book-lined banisters’ chambers. ‘But the widow won’t stand by her evidence satisfactorily. Seton has scared the pants off her with m
essages from beyond the grave.’

  ‘Is it forgery, then? I thought you said fraudulent conversion,’ Ronald said.

  ‘Fraudulent conversion on one count. But Seton has now produced a letter by which he hopes to prove that the widow gave him the money. Of course, it’s a forgery.’

  Ronald looked at the letters and the sad second-hand-looking cheque with the bank’s mark stamped on it.

  ‘She wants them back,’ Martin said. ‘But the police are hanging on to them. We’ve got photostats.’

  ‘I can’t work from photostats,’ Ronald said, locking the documents away in his brief-case. ‘The widow will have to wait.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home,’ Martin said. ‘I’m going along to Isobel’s.’

  They walked through the Temple courtyard to Martin’s car.

  ‘What do you think,’ Martin said, ‘goes on in a man like Patrick Seton’s mind when he looks back on his life?’

  People frequently asked this sort of question of Ronald. It was as if they held some ancient superstition about his epilepsy: ‘the falling sickness’, ‘the sacred disease’, ‘the evil spirit’. Ronald felt he was regarded by his friends as a sacred cow or a wise monkey. He was, perhaps, touchy on the point. Sometimes he thought, after all, they would have come to him with their deep troubles, consulted him on the nature of things, listened to his wise old words, even if he wasn’t an afflicted man. If he had been a priest, people would have consulted him in the same way.

  ‘What goes on at the back of his mind?’ Martin enquired of the oracle. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I should think,’ Ronald replied after a meet pause, ‘that when he considers his past life he suffers from a rush of blood to the head, giddiness and bells in the ears. And therefore he does not consider his life at all.’ And having thus described his own symptoms when a fit was approaching, Ronald fell silent.

  Martin negotiated the traffic all along the Strand to Trafalgar Square. ‘I think,’ he said then to Ronald, ‘that’s a terrifically good piece of observation. Do you feel like coming along and cheering Isobel up?’

  ‘All right,’ Ronald said.

  ‘Got your pills?’ said Martin.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got them on me.’