‘Ascribed.’
‘Oh. She ascribed it to his terrible experiences during the War. Why did you laugh?’
‘There’s a certain irony in that,’ I said, ‘but it doesn’t matter.’
‘Well,’ said David, ‘that was her story. He was batty, and he was dangerous, so she’d removed me from the trouble zone.’
‘Did you believe it?’
‘No. I knew he wasn’t mad; I knew he hadn’t killed Uncle Tony; and of course I knew he hadn’t hit me. I also knew for certain that he hadn’t meant to crash his car and commit suicide, because he’d rung me up from London as soon as he got out of Court, and told me he was coming straight down.’
‘Did you tell her that?’
‘No.’ He looked at me. ‘I can’t quite explain it, Mrs. Selborne, but I began to get more and more strongly the feeling that I ought to keep things to myself. There was something so – well, sort of queer and wrong about the whole set-up. Some of the things she said, the way she looked at me sometimes – the very fact that she’d taken me away with her when I was certain she disliked me anyway – oh! lots of things seemed odd. And now all this talk about father: I was certain that she didn’t think he was mad, either. And of course nothing could excuse the lie she’d told about his death.’ He paused.
‘Why didn’t you write to your father? Surely that—’
‘It was the first thing I thought of, of course. But there was a catch in it, Mrs. Selborne. There were two chaps in the flat below – she said they were her cousins – and they were with us all the time. I never got a minute to myself. I couldn’t have got a letter to him without them knowing, and reading it. What’s more, she seemed to want me to write to him, and that was quite enough, at the time, to make me think twice about it.’
‘She wanted you to ask him to come and see you?’
‘Exactly.’ His tone was a quaint echo of Richard’s. ‘She said she couldn’t possibly let me go back to England till we saw how he was, and she suggested I write and ask him to come to France. She’d have read the letter; there was no question of my being able to tell him what the set-up was, and ask him what had really happened at his end. She went on and on about my writing to invite him, and in such a funny way that I got suspicious again, and just refused. I pretended that I’d believed her story about his being mad, and that I was frightened to see him.’ He gave a dry little chuckle. ‘Gosh! she was furious, being hoist in her own juice like that. Is that right? It sounds a bit odd.’
‘I rather think you mean stewing with her own petard. But let it pass. I get it. She wrote to him herself in the end, you know.’
He shot me another look. ‘Yes, I did know. I telephoned him one night.’
‘You did? But—’
‘He wasn’t there. I – I was pretty disappointed. I managed to sneak down one night and phone from the cousins’ flat while they were with her. Mrs Hutchings answered. She said Daddy’d had a letter marked Paris that morning, and he’d left straight away. I said how was he, and she told me he was all right, but just worried to death, and only just out of hospital anyway. … The cousins caught me on the way up from the phone. I spun them a lie, but they didn’t believe me, and after that I was never left alone. Next morning we all went to Lyons, and then, stage by stage, down here. It puzzled me no end, till I began to think they wanted Daddy down here, instead of in Paris. And I could only think that it was still something to do with that murder, and that they’d harm him.’
‘A trap,’ I said, ‘with you as bait.’
‘Exactly,’ he said again. ‘So I wasn’t going to get into touch with Daddy just to lure him in; I wanted to be quite sure, first, that it was safe. The queer thing was that the cousins left us at Montélimar, and when we were in Avignon, she let me go round alone …’
‘She didn’t,’ I said, thinking of Paul Véry. ‘Someone else had taken over. You were accompanied all the time.’
‘Was I? Then I was right to run away in Nîmes?’
‘Very probably.’
He spoke slowly, in an unconscious echo of his father’s own bewilderment: ‘It was pretty awful, not knowing what to do – not knowing whether people were enemies, or just ordinary people. It was as if’ – he gave a little shiver – ‘as if everything was upside down.’ He shivered again.
‘It’s over now,’ I said firmly. ‘If you’re cold, come under my coat again.’
‘I’m not, really. I want to know what’s happened, and how you know all this. I say, do we have to stay here, Mrs. Selborne? This “transport” you mentioned—’
‘Is here now,’ I said, and got to my feet. I could hear footsteps scrambling up the further side of the bank. David jumped up, looking a little scared, and Rommel bristled.
‘Who—?’
Richard swung himself down the slope, and stood there in the moonlight, looking at his son. He hesitated a little, then put out a hand.
There was a rush of feet past me, and David hurtled into the moonlight like an arrow going into the gold. I saw his father’s arms close round him, and the dark heads close together.
I went quickly past them, and Marsden’s hand reached down to help me up the bank.
I looked a query at him.
He shook his head. ‘Not a sign,’ he said quietly.
We walked through the trees, towards the road where the van stood waiting, her nose towards Marseilles.
28
Two loves have I …
(Shakespeare)
I woke to bright sunlight and a most delectable smell of coffee. Swimming up through the billows of a deep and dreamless sleep, I found myself blinking drowsily at the white walls and red-tiled floor of a room that was vaguely familiar. The sun blazed in bright bars through a closed shutter: the other had swung open, letting in a flood of gold. From outside the cries and clangs of the city rose musically, as if muted by the light.
The door had opened softly, letting in the lovely coffee smell that had roused me. I turned my head, then sat up, fully awake.
‘Louise!’
Immaculate as ever, she was standing just inside the door, looking speculatively at me across a loaded tray.
‘So you are awake? Or did I disturb you? I thought it was high time—’
‘Oh, Louise, how nice to see you! How did it happen? And what is the time?’
She set the tray on my knees, and went to open the shutter. ‘High noon, my child.’
‘Good Lord, is it really?’ I poured coffee. ‘When did you get here?’
‘About an hour and a half ago. I got the first train.’ She added, reasonably: ‘You said you were in a jam, and I knew you hadn’t any clothes with you.’
‘My dear,’ I said gratefully, ‘don’t tell me you’ve brought my clothes! I knew you were the most wonderful woman in the world.’
She laughed. ‘No one can face a crisis unless they’re suitably clad. How do you feel?’
‘Fine – I think.’ I stretched a few muscles gingerly, and was relieved. ‘A bit stiff, and a bruise here or there, but otherwise’ – I smiled at her – ‘on top of the world.’
‘Mmmm …’ Louise eyed me as she pulled an unsteady-looking wicker chair to the bedside. ‘Ye-es. Your ghastly village seems to have been a pretty exciting place after all. What happened to you?’
I chuckled through a bite of croissant, aware of a miraculous spring-time lift of the heart, a champagne-tingling of the blood: the nightmare had gone; this fresh sun of morning rose on a different world where the last gossamer rag of fear and uncertainty must shrink and vanish in the superfluity of light. I said: ‘I was – translated.’
‘Yes. You look it. I suppose you met the Wolf of Orange?’
‘In person,’ I said happily.
‘I thought so.’ Her tone was bland. ‘He rang up about half an hour ago. If you’re feeling fit, we are to meet him for lunch at the Hôtel de la Garde. On the terrace, at one-fifteen. And now,’ said Louise, settling herself in the wicker chair and regarding me placidly,
‘I am dying by inches of curiosity, and I want to be told every single thing that has happened, including why this Richard Byron who is David Bristol’s father and who I thought was a murderer anyway should be ringing you up in Marseilles and asking you to lunch, and why he should feel it necessary to inform me that neither he nor Mr. Marsden was in jail as yet and that Rommel had bitten André in the seat of the pants and that I was to let you sleep late and then take you some coffee and see you took a taxi to lunch as if’ – finished Louise on a faintly accusing note – ‘he had known you all your life instead of – how long?’
I said, in simple surprise: ‘Three days … off and on.’
‘And rather more off than on, at that,’ said Louise. ‘A dictatorial gentleman, I’d have said, at a guess.’
‘He is a bit.’ I stirred my coffee absorbedly.
‘And you like it,’ she accused me.
‘I’m – well, I got used to it, you know. Johnny—’
‘I know. No wonder you keep getting married and I don’t,’ said Louise, without rancour.
I coloured, and laughed a little. ‘He hasn’t asked me, as it happens.’
She merely raised a beautifully groomed eyebrow and handed me a cigarette.
‘Well, come along, my girl. Tell me all about it.’
‘It’s a long story—’
‘We’ve got an hour before we meet the Wolf. Go on: begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop.’
‘– and an utterly fantastic one.’
‘I am all ears,’ said Louise contentedly, and leaned back in her chair.
So I told her, lying back on the pillows in my little hotel room at the Belle Auberge, with the peaceful sunlight slanting across the coverlet, and the smoke from our cigarettes winding in placid spirals between us. I told her everything just as it had happened, and, like Paul Véry, she listened silently, only staring at me with a kind of shocked disbelief.
‘We–ell,’ she said at length, on a long note of amazement. ‘What an extraordinary tale! Not, of course, that I believe a word of it, only—’
‘You’d better ask the others,’ I told her. ‘Mr. Marsden said—’
Louise sat up. ‘Yes! Now that I don’t follow at all. What the dickens is John Marsden doing in this galère at all?’
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘John?’
‘After you left for Les Boos,’ she said calmly, ‘we got acquainted.’
‘Well I’ll be dashed,’ I said. ‘If I’d known that I’d have stopped suspecting him at once.’
‘On the principle that all my men friends turn out to be Boy Scouts or curates on holiday,’ agreed Louise. ‘It certainly shook me to hear he’s a great detective. Marsden of the C.I.D. Well, well. And he’s very nice, even if he does read poetry. Go on. Did he tell you how he got to this awful place on the cliff?’
‘Yes. He made it sound awfully simple. Apparently he was helping at first, this spring, in the investigation of Tony Baxter’s murder. Richard, it turns out, had actually met him a couple of times, but didn’t remember the name when I described Marsden to him. Well, Marsden was taken off to work on another big case, but he was interested in the Baxter murder, and the man in charge of it, Inspector Brooke, wasn’t at all satisfied with the way the case finished. He came at length to believe, himself, that Richard hadn’t done it; the murderer, therefore, must be still at large, possibly active, and the motive undiscovered. Richard’s so-called car-accident shook him a good bit. Richard was safe in hospital, but Brooke began to wonder about Loraine, and to worry quite a lot about David.’
‘Good for him.’
‘Yes indeed. Well, Marsden was due for leave, and offered to do a spot of unofficial guardianship. He has friends at the Sûreté, and they said right, go ahead, so he came over to France to locate David.’
‘Well, well,’ said Louise. ‘Then that’s why he disappeared from the Tistet-Védène when David did.’
‘Quite. I’d noticed him hanging round where David was, and imputed sinister motives to him. Well, to cut it short, he managed, with a good deal of difficulty, to get on to David’s tail south to Marseilles. Apparently it took the poor child nearly all day to get here, as he felt obliged to hide at sight of every car, and the lorries were slow, and few and far between. But he got here, with Marsden faint but pursuing, and eventually landed in Kramer’s beastly little shop.’
I glanced at my watch. ‘I must get up soon … Well, poor David was chloroformed – pretty heavily, too – while Marsden skulked about outside not knowing what had happened. I imagine that Kramer got busy on the telephone, then, to Avignon, and told Loraine to get onto the next train. Paul Véry must have left long before—’
‘He did,’ said Louise. ‘He took his car out soon after lunch, ostensibly to look for David. The American couple did the same, and so did those two Germans. But Paul Véry didn’t come back for dinner.’
‘I’ve no doubt he did look for David,’ I said, ‘and probably passed him hiding in a ditch. He must either have telephoned Kramer later, and heard of David’s capture, or have driven straight down here for orders; at any rate, Marsden says, he got here a good hour or so before Loraine. I saw him myself in the office when she landed in a taxi. Marsden was still hanging about waiting for David to leave the shop, when Paul Véry arrived, and turned into the garage opposite, just as if he’d lived there all his life. Marsden recognized him, and began to wonder just what was going on, so, when Paul Véry walked into the shop, and straight through into the office, Marsden, like me, found his way through to the back, and listened under the window. It must have been just about then,’ I said meditatively, ‘that Richard and I were sitting talking about four streets away …’
‘There seems to have been quite a procession into Kramer’s parlour,’ remarked Louise.
‘Yes indeed.’ I shuddered. ‘Well, Marsden heard quite a bit under his window. He could tell that there were at least three men – Kramer and Jean-Paul and André – in the office, so, even when he learned what had happened to David, he couldn’t do very much about it. His French was just good enough for him to realize they were planning to move David’s body, so he didn’t dare risk losing track of him by going to the police. He simply stuck around and hoped for a chance to grab David.’
‘Poor John,’ said Louise.
‘He said it was hell,’ I told her. ‘He waited and waited, and they talked and talked, and then the door opened, and Richard walked in.’
‘That must have been quite a moment.’
‘Mustn’t it? Richard, of course, remembers nothing but the sight of David lying on a sofa. He started for him, and the three of them set on him straight away. Marsden, under the window, didn’t see a thing, but he heard Richard say “David!” in English, and then the hullabaloo. Then Kramer said something about “putting them both in the van”, so Marsden slipped across to the garage. He says he imagined they’d all three go with the van, and since his one thought was not to be left behind, he got inside it and hid under some sacks. But they dumped Richard and David in, locked the door on them, and Kramer told André to get out to that place on the coast, park under cover, and wait for him. Then he and Paul Véry went back to wait for Loraine. Marsden was furious. If he hadn’t been locked in, he could have dealt with André then and there, and driven Richard and David straight off to the police-station. But he was stuck, so he lay low, untied Richard, and set about bringing him round.’
Louise sighed with satisfaction. ‘So when poor André stopped the van and went to get the bodies—’
‘Exactly. They knocked him cold, tied him up, and took his gun. They even took his coat to wrap David in. On the whole,’ I said, ‘I’m a little sorry for André. Kramer said he was a bit of a fool.’
Louise laughed. ‘And now Rommel’s bit him. Poor André.’
I pushed back the coverlet and got out of bed. ‘Poor Rommel, you mean. He’s had a lot to bear. David left him outside the shop, and the poor dog must have waited for centuries
. He found his way round to the back streets in the end, and that’s where I picked him up. Did you say something about bringing me some clothes?’
‘They’re in my room. I’ll get them; I didn’t want to wake you before.’ She smiled at me as she rose. ‘What a good thing I brought your very nicest dress!’
‘Not the Mexican print?’ I said gratefully. ‘Dear Louise, you shall be my bridesmaid again.’
‘Not on your life,’ said Louise. ‘It’s unlucky, and anyway, I’m too old. I’ll wait and be godmother.’
‘You’re a little premature,’ I said.
‘So I should hope,’ said Louise, making for the door. She turned, and her sleek brows mocked me again. ‘So are you, aren’t you?’
‘I?’
‘Yes. He hasn’t even asked you.’
The door shut gently behind her.
* * *
As I lifted my dress from the case Louise had brought, I saw the silver photograph-frame underneath. Johnny’s eyes smiled up at me.
I picked up the photograph, and was looking down at the pictured face, when the fading bruise on my wrist caught, as it were, at the edge of my vision.
I smiled back at Johnny. Then I held my wrist very lightly against my cheek. Any hesitations I had had, all the doubts that my intellect had been placing in front of my heart, seemed, with the rest of the nightmare adventure, to resolve themselves and fade away. Past and future dovetailed into this moment, and together made the pattern of my life. I would never again miss Johnny, with that deep dull aching, as if part of me had been wrenched away, and the scar left wincing with the cold; but, paradoxically enough, now that I was whole again, Johnny was nearer to me than he had ever been since the last time that we had been together, the night before he went away. I was whole again, and Johnny was there for ever, part of me always. Because I had found Richard, I would never lose Johnny. Whatever I knew of life and loving had been Johnny’s gift, and without it Richard and I would be the poorer. We were both his debtors, now and for ever.