“You are quite wrong,” she said. “He wouldn’t have done that.”
“He would have done anything for you,” I cried angrily, “anything. Even
to laying down his life to set you free——”
“Even to sacrificing his reputation as a connoisseur of fungi?” she
interrupted, with an unpleasant smile.
“Even that,” I answered. “It’s all very well for you to sneer—you never
cared for his interests—you didn’t understand them—you understand
nothing at all, and you care for nothing except your twopenny ha’penny
emotions.”
“I do know this,” she said steadily, “that if your father had thought
that I wanted to be free of him—which he didn’t, because he had too
good an opinion of himself—but if he had, he would have taken care I
didn’t get rid of him without a row. He loved making rows. He wouldn’t
have made things easy for me. He wouldn’t have missed the opportunity of
rubbing it in.”
Her expression was as ugly and common as her words. I felt that I could
not control myself much longer and had much better go.
“I repeat,” said I, “that you never understood my father, and you never
will. It isn’t in you. I don’t think it’s any good prolonging this
discussion. I had better be going. Can you give me Mr. Munting’s
address?”
I hoped to have frightened her by the sudden question, but she only
looked mildly astonished.
“Mr. Munting? I’m sure I don’t know. I’ve only seen him once since he
was married, and that was at the Royal Academy. And at the—the inquest,
of course. I think he lives in Bloomsbury somewhere. I expect he’s in
the telephone-book.”
I thanked her, and took my leave. Married! My father had never thought
to mention that. It upset all my ideas. Because, if Munting was married,
then what object could there have been in my father’s suicide—or
murder, whichever it was? His death would have left Margaret no nearer
to marrying Munting. And any other relation could have been carried on
perfectly well, whether my father was alive or not. Certainly, he might
simply have destroyed himself in sheer despair and misery, unable to
bear the dishonour. But it did not seem so likely.
This news made me alter my plans. I determined not to go and see Munting
at once. It would be better, I thought, to get hold of Lathom, and see
if I could obtain any light on the question from him.
A little inquiry among the dealers produced Lathom’s address. He was
living in a studio in Chelsea. I presented myself at the place the next
morning, and was received by a vinegary-looking elderly woman in a man’s
cap, who informed me that Mr. Lathom was still in bed.
As it was already eleven o’clock, I handed her my card and said I would
wait. She ushered me into an extremely untidy studio, full of oil-paint
tubes and half-finished canvases, and waddled away with the card towards
an inner door.
Before reaching it, however, she turned back, sidled up to me and said
in a glutinous whisper:
“Begging your pardon, Mr. ’Arrison, but was you any relation to the pore
gentleman wot died so mysterious?”
“What business is that of yours?” I snapped. She nodded with ghoulish
enjoyment.
“Oh, no offence, sir, no offence. There ain’t no need to take a person
up so sharp. That was a funny thing, sir, wasn’t it? You’d be ’is son,
per’aps?”
“Never you mind who I am,” I said. “Take my card to Mr. Lathom and say I
should be glad if he could spare me a few minutes.”
“Oh, ’e’ll spare you a few minutes, sir, I shouldn’t wonder. Look funny
if ’e didn’t, sir, wouldn’t it? There’s lots of things as ’ud look
funny, I daresay, if we knew the rights on ’em.”
“What are you getting at?” I said, uneasily.
“Ho, nothink, sir! Nothink! If you ain’t a relation it ain’t nothink to
you, is it, sir? People do go off sudden-like, sometimes, and nobody to
blame. There’s lots of things ’appens every day more than ever gets into
the papers. But there! That ain’t nothink to you, sir.”
She sidled away again, grinning unpleasantly. I heard her talking and a
man’s voice replying, and presently she shuffled back again.
“Mr. Lathom says ’e’ll be with you in five minutes, sir, if you will be
so good as to wait. ’E’ll come fast enough, sir, don’t you be afraid. A
very agreeable gentleman is Mr. Lathom, sir. I been doin’ for ’im over
three months, now, ever since ’e come over from France. Some time in
October that would be, sir, before this ’ere sad accident ’appened. Mr.
Lathom was very much upset about it, sir. You’d ’ardly ’ave known ’im
for the same gentleman w’en ’e came back after the inquest. Looked as if
’e’d been seein’ a ghost—that white and strange ’e was. A terrible
sight the pore gentleman must ’a’ been. A crool way to die. But there!
We must all die once, sir, mustn’t we? And if it ain’t one way it’s
another, and if it ain’t sooner it’s later. Only some folks is
misfortunit more than others. Would you care for a cup of tea, sir,
while you’re waitin’?”
I accepted the tea, to get rid of her. The stove, however, turned out to
be in a corner of the studio, and having lit the gas and put the kettle
on, she returned. All the time she was speaking, she rubbed one skinny
hand over the other with a curious, greedy action.
“Very strange ’ow things turns out, ain’t it, sir? There was a gentleman
lived down our street, a cats’-meat man ’e was, and the best cats’-meat
in the neighbourhood—thought very ’ighly of by all, ’e was. ’E married
a girl out of one of them shops w’ere they sells costooms on ’ire
purchase. They ain’t no good to nobody, them places, if you asks me.
Well, ’e died sudden.”
“Did he?”
“Ho, yes! very sudden, ’e died. A very ’ot summer it was, and they
brought it in ’e’d got the dissenter, with eating somethink as didn’t
agree with ’im. So it may ’a’ bin, far be it from me to say otherwise.
But afore the year was up _she’d_ gone and married the young man wot was
manager of the clothes-shop. A good marriage it was for ’er, too. Ho,
yes! _She_ didn’t lost nothink by ’er ’usband dyin’ w’en ’e did, if you
understand me, sir.”