BOOK FOUR
The Whole Man
Chapter 1
JOURNEY’S END
‘Must I – and all alone.’
The Little Duke
1
THE telephone rang and rang; he could imagine the empty rooms spreading round the small vexed instrument. Perhaps the rooms of a girl who went to business in the city, or a tradesman who was now at his shop: of a man who left early to read at the British Museum: innocent rooms. He held the welcome sound of an unanswered bell to his ear. He had done his best. Let it ring.
Or were the rooms perhaps guilty rooms? The rooms of a man who had disposed in a few hours of so many human existences. What would a guilty room be like? A room, like a dog, takes on some of the characteristics of its master. A room is trained for certain ends – comfort, beauty, convenience. This room would surely be trained to anonymity. It would be a room which would reveal no secrets if the police should ever call; there would be no Tolstoys with pencilled lines imperfectly erased, no personal touches; the common mean of taste would furnish it – a wireless set, a few detective novels, a reproduction of Van Gogh’s sunflower. He imagined it all quite happily while the bell rang and rang. There would be nothing significant in the cupboards: no love-letters concealed below the handkerchiefs, no cheque-book in a drawer: would the linen be marked? There would be no presents from anyone at all – a lonely room: everything in it had been bought at a standard store.
Suddenly a voice he knew said a little breathlessly, ‘Hullo. Who’s that?’ If only, he thought, putting the receiver down, she had been quite out of hearing when the bell rang, at the bottom of the stairs, or in the street. If only he hadn’t let his fancy play so long, he need never have known that this was Anna Hilfe’s number.
He came blindly out into Bayswater; he had three choices – the sensible and the honest choice was to tell the police. The second was to say nothing. The third was to see for himself. He had no doubt at all that this was the number Cost had rung; he remembered how she had known his real name all along, how she had said – it was a curious phrase – that it was her ‘job’ to visit him at the home. And yet he didn’t doubt that there was an answer, an answer he couldn’t trust the police to find. He went back to his hotel and up to his room, carrying the telephone directory with him from the lounge – he had a long job to do. In fact, it was several hours before he reached the number. His eyes were swimming and he nearly missed it. 16, Prince Consort Mansions, Battersea – a name which meant nothing at all. He thought wryly: of course, a guilty room would be taken furnished. He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.
It was past five o’clock in the afternoon before he could bring himself to act, and then he acted mechanically. He wouldn’t think any more: what was the good of thinking before he heard her speak? A 19 bus took him to the top of Oakley Street, and a 49 to Albert Bridge. He walked across the bridge, not thinking. It was low tide and the mud lay up under the warehouses. Somebody on the Embankment was feeding the gulls; the sight obscurely distressed him and he hurried on, not thinking. The waning sunlight lay in a wash of rose over the ugly bricks, and a solitary dog went nosing and brooding into the park. A voice said, ‘Why, Arthur,’ and he stopped. A man wearing a beret on untidy grey hair and warden’s dungarees stood at the entrance to a block of flats. He said doubtfully, ‘It is Arthur, isn’t it?’
Since Rowe’s return to London many memories had slipped into place – this church and that shop, the way Piccadilly ran into Knightsbridge. He hardly noticed when they took up their places as part of the knowledge of a lifetime. But there were other memories which had to fight painfully for admission; somewhere in his mind they had an enemy who wished to keep them out and often succeeded. Cafés and street corners and shops would turn on him a suddenly familiar face, and he would look away and hurry on as though they were the scenes of a road accident. The man who spoke to him belonged to these, but you can’t hurry away from a human being as you can hurry away from a shop.
‘The last time you hadn’t got the beard. You are Arthur, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Arthur Rowe.’
The man looked puzzled and hurt. He said, ‘It was good of you to call that time.’
‘I don’t remember.’
The look of pain darkened like a bruise. ‘The day of the funeral.’
Rowe said, ‘I’m sorry. I had an accident: my memory went. It’s only beginning to come back in parts. Who are you?’
‘I’m Henry – Henry Wilcox.’
‘And I came here – to a funeral?’
‘My wife got killed. I expect you read about it in the papers. They gave her a medal. I was a bit worried afterwards because you’d wanted me to cash a cheque for you and I forgot. You know how it is at a funeral: so many things to think about. I expect I was upset too.’
‘Why did I bother you then?’
‘Oh, it must have been important. It went right out of my head – and then I thought, I’ll see him afterwards. But I never saw you.’
Rowe looked up at the flats above them. ‘Was it here?’
‘Yes.’
He looked across the road to the gate of the park: a man feeding gulls: an office worker carrying a suitcase; the road reeled a little under his feet. He said, ‘Was there a procession?’
‘The post turned out. And the police and the rescue party.’
Rowe said, ‘Yes. I couldn’t go to the bank to cash the cheque. I thought the police thought I was a murderer. But I had to find money if I was going to get away. So I came here. I didn’t know about the funeral. I thought all the time about this murder.’
‘You brood too much,’ Henry said. ‘A thing that’s done is done,’ and he looked quite brightly up the road the procession had taken.
‘But this was never done, you see. I know that now. I’m not a murderer,’ he explained.
‘Of course you aren’t, Arthur. No friend of yours – no proper friend – ever believed you were.’
‘Was there so much talk?’
‘Well, naturally . . .’
‘I didn’t know.’ He turned his mind into another track: along the Embankment wall – the sense of misery and then the little man feeding birds, the suitcase . . . he lost the thread until he remembered the face of the hotel clerk, and then he was walking down interminable corridors, a door opened and Anna was there. They shared the danger – he clung to that idea. There was always an explanation. He remembered how she had told him he had saved her life. He said stiffly, ‘Well, good-bye. I must be getting on.’
‘It’s no use mourning someone all your life,’ Henry said. ‘That’s morbid.’
‘Yes. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye.’
2
The flat was on the third floor. He wished the stairs would never end, and when he rang the bell he hoped the flat would be deserted. An empty milk bottle stood outside the door on the small dark landing; there was a note stuck in it; he picked it out and read it – ‘Only half a pint to-morrow, please.’ The door opened while he still held it in his hand, and Anna said hopelessly, ‘It’s you.’
‘Yes, me.’
‘Every time the bell rang, I’ve been afraid it would be you.’
‘How did you think I’d find you?’
She said, ‘There’s always the police. They are watching the office now.’ He followed her in.
It wasn’t the way he had at one time – under the sway of the strange adventure – imagined that he would meet her again. There was a heavy constraint between them. When the door closed they didn’t feel alone. It was as if all sorts of people they both knew were with them. They spoke in low voices so as not to intrude. He said, ‘I got your address by watching Cost’s fingers on the dial – he telephoned you just before he killed himself.’
‘It’s so horrible,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were there.’
‘“I’ve no hope at all.” That’s what he said. “Personally I’ve no hope.”’
They stood in a li
ttle ugly crowded hall as though it wasn’t worth the bother of going any farther. It was more like a parting than a reunion – a parting too sorrowful to have any grace. She wore the same blue trousers she had worn at the hotel; he had forgotten how small she was. With the scarf knotted at her neck she looked heart-breakingly impromptu. All around them were brass trays, warming-pans, knick-knacks, an old oak chest, a Swiss cuckoo clock carved with heavy trailing creeper. He said, ‘Last night was not good either. I was there too. Did you know that Dr Forester was dead – and Poole?’
‘No.’
He said, ‘Aren’t you sorry – such a massacre of your friends?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m glad.’ It was then that he began to hope. She said gently, ‘My dear, you have everything mixed up in your head, your poor head. You don’t know who are your friends and who are your enemies. That’s the way they always work, isn’t it?’
‘They used you to watch me, didn’t they, down there at Dr Forester’s, to see when my memory would begin to return? Then they’d have put me in the sick bay like poor Stone.’
‘You’re so right and so wrong,’ she said wearily. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever get it straight now. It’s true I watched you for them. I didn’t want your memory to return any more than they did. I didn’t want you hurt.’ She said with sharp anxiety, ‘Do you remember everything now?’
‘I remember a lot and I’ve learned a lot. Enough to know I’m not a murderer.’
She said, ‘Thank God.’
‘But you knew I wasn’t?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of course. I knew it. I just meant – oh, that I’m glad you know.’ She said slowly, ‘I like you happy. It’s how you ought to be.’
He said as gently as he could, ‘I love you. You know that. I want to believe you are my friend. Where are the photographs?’
A painted bird burst raspingly out of the hideous carved clock case and cuckooed the half-hour. He had time to think between the cuckoos that another night would soon be on them. Would that contain horror too? The door clicked shut and she said simply, ‘He has them.’
‘He?’
‘My brother.’ He still held the note to the milkman in his hand. She said. ‘You are so fond of investigation, aren’t you? The first time I saw you you came to the office about a cake. You were so determined to get to the bottom of things. You’ve got to the bottom now.’
‘I remember. He seemed so helpful. He took me to that house . . .’
She took the words out of his mouth. ‘He staged a murder for you and helped you to escape. But afterwards he thought it safer to have you murdered. That was my fault. You told me you’d written a letter to the police, and I told him.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t want to get him into trouble for just frightening you. I never guessed he could be so thorough.’
‘But you were in that room when I came with the suitcase?’ he said. He couldn’t work it out. ‘You were nearly killed too.’
‘Yes. He hadn’t forgotten, you see, that I telephoned to you at Mrs Bellairs. You told him that. I wasn’t on his side any longer – not against you. He told me to go and meet you – and persuade you not to send the letter. And then he just sat back in another flat and waited.’
He accused her, ‘But you are alive.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m alive, thanks to you. I’m even on probation again – he won’t kill his sister if he doesn’t feel it’s necessary. He calls that family feeling. I was only a danger because of you. This isn’t my country. Why should I have wanted your memory to return? You were happy without it. I don’t care a damn about England. I want you to be happy, that’s all. The trouble is he understands such a lot.’
He said obstinately, ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why am I alive?’
‘He’s economical.’ She said, ‘They are all economical. You’ll never understand them if you don’t understand that.’ She repeated wryly, like a formula, ‘The maximum of terror for the minimum time directed against the fewest objects.’
He was bewildered: he didn’t know what to do. He was learning the lesson most people learn very young, that things never work out in the expected way. This wasn’t an exciting adventure, and he wasn’t a hero, and it was even possible that this was not a tragedy. He became aware of the note to the milkman. ‘He’s going away?’
‘Yes.’
‘With the photographs, of course.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve got to stop him,’ he said. The ‘we’ like the French tu spoken for the first time conveyed everything.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he now?’
She said, ‘He’s here.’
It was like exerting a great pressure against a door and finding it ajar all the time. ‘Here?’
She jerked her head. ‘He’s asleep. He had a long day with Lady Dunwoody about woollies.’
‘But he’ll have heard us.’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘He’s out of hearing, and he sleeps so sound. That’s economy too. As deep a sleep and as little of it . . .’
‘How you hate him,’ he said with surprise.
‘He’s made such a mess,’ she said, ‘of everything. He’s so fine, so intelligent – and yet there’s only this fear. That’s all he makes.’
‘Where is he?’
She said, ‘Through there is the living-room and beyond that is his bedroom.’
‘Can I use the telephone?’
‘It’s not safe. It’s in the living-room and the bedroom door’s ajar.’
‘Where’s he going?’
‘He has permission to go to Ireland – for the Free Mothers. It wasn’t easy to get, but your friends have made such a sweep. Lady Dunwoody worked it. You see, he’s been so grateful for her woollies. He gets the train tonight.’ She said, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
He looked helplessly round. A heavy brass candlestick stood on the oak chest; it glittered with polish; no wax had ever sullied it. He picked it up. ‘He tried to kill me,’ he explained weakly.
‘He’s asleep. That’s murder.’
‘I won’t hit first.’
She said, ‘He used to be sweet to me when I cut my knees. Children always cut their knees . . . Life is horrible, wicked.’
He put the candlestick down again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Take it. You mustn’t be hurt. He’s only my brother, isn’t he?’ she asked, with obscure bitterness. ‘Take it. Please.’ When he made no move to take it, she picked it up herself; her face was stiff and schooled and childish and histrionic. It was like watching a small girl play Lady Macbeth. You wanted to shield her from the knowledge that these things were really true.
She led the way holding the candlestick upright as though it were a rehearsal: only on the night itself would the candle be lit. Everything in the flat was hideous except herself; it gave him more than ever the sense that they were both strangers here. The heavy furniture must have been put in by a company, bought by an official buyer at cut rates, or perhaps ordered by telephone – suite 56a of the autumn catalogue. Only a bunch of flowers and a few books and a newspaper and a man’s sock in holes showed that people lived here. It was the sock which made him pause; it seemed to speak of long mutual evenings, of two people knowing each other over many years. He thought for the first time, ‘It’s her brother who’s going to die.’ Spies, like murderers, were hanged, and in this case there was no distinction. He lay asleep in there and the gallows was being built outside.
They moved stealthily across the anonymous room towards a door ajar. She pushed it gently with her hand and stood back so that he might see. It was the immemorial gesture of a woman who shows to a guest after dinner her child asleep.
Hilfe lay on the bed on his back without his jacket, his shirt open at the neck. He was deeply and completely at peace, and so defenceless that he seemed to be innocent. His very pale gold hair lay in a hot streak across his face as though he had lain down a
fter a game. He looked very young; he didn’t, lying there, belong to the same world as Cost bleeding by the mirror, and Stone in the strait-jacket. One was half-impelled to believe, ‘It’s propaganda, just propaganda: he isn’t capable . . .’ The face seemed to Rowe very beautiful, more beautiful than his sister’s, which could be marred by grief or pity. Watching the sleeping man he could realize a little of the force and the grace and the attraction of nihilism – of not caring for anything, of having no rules and feeling no love. Life became simple . . . He had been reading when he fell asleep; a book lay on the bed and one hand still held the pages open. It was like the tomb of a young student; bending down you could read on the marble page the epitaph chosen for him, a verse:
‘Denn Orpheus ists. Seine Metamorphose
in dem und dem: Wir sollen uns nicht mühn
um andre Namen. Ein für alle Male
ists Orpheus, wenn est singt . . .’
The knuckles hid the rest.
It was as if he were the only violence in the world and when he slept there was peace everywhere.
They watched him and he woke. People betray themselves when they wake; sometimes they wake with a cry from an ugly dream: sometimes they turn from one side to the other and shake the head and burrow as if they are afraid to leave sleep. Hilfe just woke; his lids puckered for a moment like a child’s when the nurse draws the curtain and the light comes in; then they were wide open and he was looking at them with complete self-possession. The pale blue eyes held full knowledge of the situation; there was nothing to explain. He smiled and Rowe caught himself in the act of smiling back. It was the kind of trick a boy plays suddenly, capitulating, admitting everything, so that the whole offence seems small and the fuss absurd. There are moments of surrender when it is so much easier to love one’s enemy than to remember . . .