Potterism Part 20

'There's one thing,' he said. 'Does Jane know what is being said? Do you suppose her parents have talked about it to her?'

I said I didn't know, and he went on frowning. Then he murdered a wasp with his knife--a horrible habit at meals, but one practised by many returned soldiers, who kill all too readily. I suppose after killing all those Germans, and possibly Oliver Hobart, a wasp seems nothing.

'Well,' he said absently, when he was through with the wasp, 'I don't know. I don't know,' and he seemed, somehow, helpless and desperate, as if he had come to the end of his tether.

'I must think it over,' he said. And then he suddenly began to talk about something else.

8

Arthur's manner, troubled rather than indignant, had been against him. He had dismissed the idea of a libel action, and not proposed to confront his libellers in a personal interview. Every circ.u.mstance seemed against him. I knew that, as I walked back to the laboratory after lunch.

And yet--and yet.

Well, perhaps, as Jukie would say, it wasn't my business. My business at the moment was to carry on investigations into the action of carbohydrates. Arthur Gideon had nothing to do with this, nor I with his private slayings, if any.

I wrote to Jukie that evening and told him I had warned Arthur, who apparently knew already what was being said, but didn't seem to be contemplating taking any steps about it.

So that was that.

Or so I thought at the time. But it wasn't. Because, when I had posted my letter to Jukie, and sat alone in my room, smoking and thinking, at last with leisure to open my mind to all the impressions and implications of the day (I haven't time for this in the laboratory), I began to fumble for and find a new clue to Arthur's recent oddness. For twenty-four hours I had believed that he had perhaps killed Oliver Hobart. Now, suddenly I didn't. But I was clear that there was something about Oliver Hobart's death which concerned him, touched him nearly, and after a moment it occurred to me what it might be.

'He suspects that Jane did it,' I said, slowly and aloud. 'He's trying to s.h.i.+eld her.'

With that, everything that had seemed odd about the business became suddenly clear--Arthur's troubled strangeness, Jane's dread of meeting him, her determined avoidance of any reference to that night, her sudden fit of crying, Arthur's shrinking from the idea of giving the talk against him publicity by a libel action, his question, 'Does Jane know?'

his remark, to himself, that there was only one way of stopping it. That one way, of course, would be to make Jane tell her parents the truth, so that they would be silenced for ever. As it was, the talk might go on, and at last official investigations might be started, which would lead somehow to the exposure of the whole affair. The exposure would probably take the form of a public admission by Jane; I didn't think she would stand by and see Arthur accused without speaking out.

So I formed my theory. It was the merest speculation, of course. But it was obvious that there was something in the manner of Oliver Hobart's death which badly troubled and disturbed both Arthur and Jane. That being so, and taking into account their estrangement from one another, it was difficult not to be forced to the conclusion that one of them knew, or anyhow guessed, the other to have caused the accident. And, knowing them both as I did, I believed that if Arthur had done it he would have owned to it. Wouldn't one own to it, if one had knocked a man downstairs in a quarrel and killed him? To keep it dark would seem somehow cheap and timid, not in Arthur's line.

Unless Jane had asked him to; unless it was for her sake.

It occurred to me that the thing to do was to go straight to Jane and tell her what was being said. If she didn't choose to do anything about it, that was her business, but I was determined she should know.

9

An hour later I was in Jane's drawing-room. Jane was sitting at her writing-table, and the room was dim except for the light from the reading-lamp that made a soft bright circle round her head and shoulders.

She turned round when I came in and said, 'Hallo, K. What an unusual hour. You must have something very important to say, old thing.'

'I have rather,' I said, and sat down by her. 'It's this, Jane. Do you know that people are saying--spreading it about--that Arthur killed your husband?'

It was very quiet in the room. For a moment I heard nothing but the ticking of a small silver clock on the writing-table. Jane sat quite still, and stared at me, not surprised, not angry, not shocked, but with a queer, dazed, blind look that reminded me of Arthur's own.

Then I started, because some one in the farther shadows of the room drew a long, quivering breath and said 'Oh,' on a soft, long-drawn note.

Looking round, I saw Clare Potter. She had just got up from a chair, and was standing clutching its back with one hand, looking pale and sick, as if she was going to faint.

I hadn't, of course, known Clare was there, or I wouldn't have said anything. But I was rather irritated; after all, it wasn't her business, and I thought it rather absurd the way she kept up her att.i.tude of not being able to bear to hear Oliver Hobart's death mentioned.

I got up to go. After all, I had nothing more to say. I didn't want to stop and pry, only to let Jane know.

But as I turned to go, I remembered that I had one more thing to say.

'It was Lady Pinkerton who started it and who is keeping it up,' I told Jane. 'Can you--somehow--stop her?'

Jane still stared at me, stupidly. After a moment she half whispered, slowly, 'I--don't--know.'

I stood looking at her for a second, then I went, without any more words.

All the way home I saw those two white faces staring at me, and heard Jane's whisper 'I--don't--know....'

I didn't know, either.

I only knew, that evening, one thing--that I hated Jane, who had got Arthur into this mess, and 'didn't know' whether she could get him out of it or not.

And I may as well end what I have got to tell by saying something which may or may not have been apparent to other people, but which, anyhow, it would be Potterish humbug on my part to try to hide. For the last five years I had cared for Arthur Gideon more than for any one else in the world. I saw no reason why I shouldn't, if I liked. It has never damaged any one but myself. It has damaged me in two ways--it has made it sometimes difficult to give my mind to my work, and it has made me, often, rather degradingly jealous of Jane. However, you would hardly (I hope) notice it, and anyhow it can't be helped.

PART V:

TOLD BY JUKE (IN HIS PRIVATE JOURNAL)

GIVING ADVICE

1

It is always rather amusing dining at Aylesbury House, with my stimulating family. Especially since Chloe, my present stepmother, entered it, three years ago. Chloe is great fun; much more entertaining than most variety artists. I know plenty of these, because Wycombe, my eldest brother, introduces them to me. As a cla.s.s they seem pleasant and good-humoured, but a little crude, and lacking in the subtler forms of wit or understanding. After an hour or so of their company I want to yawn. But Chloe keeps me going. She is vulgar, but racy. She is also very kind to me, and insists on coming down to help with theatrical entertainments in the parish. It is so decent of her that I can't say no, though she doesn't really fit in awfully well with the O.U.D.S. people, and the Marlowe Society people, and the others whom I get down for theatricals. In fact, Elizabethan drama isn't really her touch. However, the parish prefers Chloe, I need hardly say.

I dined there on Chloe's birthday, October 15th, when we always have a family gathering. Family and other. But the family is heterogeneous enough to make quite a good party in itself. It was represented on that particular evening by my father and Chloe, my young sister Diana, my brothers Wycombe and Tony, Tony's wife, myself, my uncle Monsignor Juke, my aunt the Marchesa Centurione and a daughter, and my Aunt Cynthia, who had recently, on her own fiftieth birthday, come out of a convent in which she had spent twenty-five years and was preparing to see Life.

Besides the family, there were two or three theatrical friends of Chloe's, and two friends of my father's--a youngish literary man called Bryan, and the cabinet minister to whom Tony was secretary, but whom I will not name, because he might not care for it to be generally known that he was an inmate of so fast a household.

My Aunt Cynthia, having renounced her vows, and having only a comparatively short time in which to enjoy the world, the flesh and the devil, is making the most of it. She has only been out of her convent a year, but is already a spring of invaluable personal information about men and manners. She knows everything that is being said of everybody else, and quite a lot that hasn't even got as far as that. Her Church interests (undiminished in keenness) provide a store of tales inaccessible to most of my family and their set (except my Uncle Ferdinand, of course, and his are mostly Roman not Anglican). Aunt Cynthia has a string of wonderful stories about Cowley Fathers biting Nestorian Bishops, and Athelstan Riley pinching Hensley Henson, and so forth. She is as good as Ronnie Knox at producing or inventing them. I'm not bad myself, when I like, but Aunt Cynthia leaves me out of sight.

This evening she was full of vim. She usually talks at the top of a very high and strident voice (I don't know what they did with it at the convent), and I suddenly heard her screaming to the cabinet minister, 'Haven't you heard _that_? Oh, everybody's quoting it in Fleet Street, aren't they, Mr. Bryan? But I suppose you never go to Fleet Street, Mr.

Blank; it's so important, isn't it, for the government not to get mixed up with the press. Well, I'll tell it you.

'There was a young journalist Yid, Of his foes of the press he got rid In ways brief and bright, For, at dead of the night, He threw them downstairs, so he did.

It's about the late editor of the _Daily Haste_ and Mr. Gideon of the _Weekly Fact_. No, I don't know who's responsible for it, but I believe it's perfectly true. They're saying so everywhere now. I believe that awful Pinkerton woman is going about saying she has conclusive evidence; it's been revealed from the Beyond, I believe; I expect by poor Mr.

Hobart himself. No, I'm sure she didn't make the limerick; she's not a poet, only a novelist. Perhaps it came from the Beyond, through planchette. Anyhow, they say Mr. Gideon will be arrested on a murder charge very shortly, and that there's no doubt he's guilty.'

I leant across the table.

'_Who's_ saying so, Aunt Cynthia?' I asked her.