A damnably awkward thing has happened. Lathom turned up here last night.
The girl showed him straight into my study and I was caught without hope
of escape.
He looked nervous and irritable, and came straight to the point.
“Look here,” he said, “has this fellow Harrison been round to see you?”
I hesitated, and he went on at once, “Can’t you say yes or no? What’s
the good of lying about it?”
“Yes,” I said, “he came round.”
“What did he want?”
I said you were naturally anxious to have all available details about
your father’s death.
“Yes, that’s all very well,” he cut in, angrily. “What have you been
saying to him? Have you been discussing my private affairs?”
“I don’t think,” I answered cautiously, “I told him anything that he
didn’t know already.”
“Have you been spreading scandals about Mrs. Harrison and me? Come on,
out with it!”
“Sit down,” I said, “it’s no good shouting at me like that.”
“Sit down be damned! I suppose you’ve been chattering as usual. I should
have thought you would have the decency to shut up about what wasn’t
your business. I warned you about him, didn’t I? Why couldn’t you keep
the fellow out?”
“My dear man,” I said, “if I’d refused to see him, he’d have thought
there was something very suspicious about the business.”
“So I suppose you blabbed it all out like a good, virtuous little boy.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “he seemed to know all about it.”
“Nonsense! How could he know, unless you told him?”
“Possibly,” I said, “he gathered it from your manner, or from Mrs.
Harrison. Besides,” I added, feeling that attack was my only possible
form of defence, “I thought you told me it was all over and done with.
Isn’t it? I assured Harrison that it was. I had only your word to go on.
If it wasn’t all over, what the devil did you mean by taking me down to
Devon with you? You know perfectly well that if I’d known it was still
going on, wild horses wouldn’t have taken me down there.”
This brought him up all standing.
“Yes, well,” he said, “of course it’s all over. But why did you have to
tell him anything about it at all?”
“Look here,” I said, “you’ve not been straight with me, and I don’t
believe you now. I’ve had quite enough of this. You’ve dragged me into
this business again. I’ve been your scapegoat once and I’d fed up. Do
you expect me to go on taking the blame for your idiotic love-affairs?
I’ve got my wife to consider.”
I was afraid he would go back to the very difficult question of how you
got to know about the intrigue. I didn’t want to tell him about the
letters, which you had shown me more or less in confidence, and yet I
felt a perfect cad for not warning him of his danger. It seemed
abominable to have listened to such suspicions against a man, without
giving him the chance to clear himself. Fortunately, he abandoned this
point.
“What does the fellow want?” he went on. “What’s he think he’s going to
find out? The thing’s clear enough, isn’t it?”
“Well,” I said, “to tell you the truth, Lathom, when I came to consider
the thing I couldn’t help suspecting——”
“Suspecting! My God, _you’ve_ got your beastly suspicions now. What in
the devil’s name do _you_ suspect?”
“I couldn’t help suspecting,” I went on, as steadily as I could, “that
old Harrison had found out something and committed suicide.”
“Oh!” said Lathom. “Well, what if he did? The man was a ——” (a word
which I will spare you). “The best thing he could do was to clear out
from a place where he wasn’t wanted. Damn good riddance. A good thing if
he did have the sense to see it.”
“That’s a pretty rotten thing to say, Lathom.”
“Don’t be such a damned hypocrite.”
“I mean it,” I said. “You’re behaving like an absolute swine. Harrison
was damned decent to you, and you seem to think that just because you
can paint better than he could, you are perfectly justified in seducing
his wife and then accepting his hospitality and driving him to commit
suicide.”
“I hadn’t anything to do with it,” he retorted, “he was all right when I
left him. You ask anybody down there who saw him. He was as cheery and
friendly as could be. I’m not responsible for what he did behind my
back. I was in London all the time. I can prove it.”
“I don’t see that it needs proving,” said I.
“Oh, don’t you?” he burst out violently. “Well, I do. You’ll be saying
next that I had something to do with his death.”
He stopped suddenly and I caught him looking sideways at me, as if to
see how I should take this suggestion. It turned me quite cold, and I
had a curious sensation as if my stomach had turned right over.
“Well,” I said, “if anybody heard you talking like this, they might be
excused for thinking so.”
“Oh, might they!”
“It’s dangerous to talk about wanting people out of the way, you know,”
I went on, watching him.
“Punk!” he said. “Now, I’ll tell you, Mr. Good Little Moral Boy, I’ll
tell you just exactly where I was all the time—all the time, do you
hear? And then you can come and beg my pardon.”
“I don’t want——” I began.
“No, but I do. Got that? I do. And you may as well make a note of it. On
Thursday, now—Thursday—have you got that?—I was at the dentist’s at
two o’clock, see? First thing I did when I got to town. You can verify
that, I suppose? Or do you imagine I have bribed the dentist? You’d
better write his address down. Get on with it.”
“Really, Lathom——”
“No, you won’t. Any excuse not to believe me, I suppose. Well, I’ll do
it for you. Dentist, two o’clock, name and address, here you are. Seven
o’clock—you’ll allow that I couldn’t get to Devon and back between
two-thirty and seven, I suppose—or do you imagine I chartered an
aeroplane?”
“I suppose nothing of the sort.”
“Damn it, suppose what you like. I can give you what I was doing at four
o’clock. Come now, that’s close enough, isn’t it? I had tea with
Marlowe. He’s a painter, but even you will allow he’s honest enough. Tea
with Marlowe, four o’clock. At seven, I dined at the ‘Bon Bourgeois,’
and paid by cheque—you can confirm that, you know—and went on to the
first night of Meyrick’s show. He saw me there. Is that good enough?”
He was writing all these times and places down, digging the pencil
savagely into the paper. I said:
“You seem to remember it all very clearly.”
“Yes, that’s one in the eye for you, isn’t it, my lad? Sorry and all
that, but you asked for it. I slept that night at the studio. I’m afraid
I’ve only Mrs. Cutts’ word for it, and, of course, she’d say anything.”
“Very likely,” said I.
“That gives you a gleam of hope, doesn’t it? But seeing I didn’t get
home till four ack emma, after celebrating with Meyrick’s crowd—ask
them—it doesn’t leave much margin, does it? Particularly as I was up
again at nine o’clock.”
“That’s very unusual,” I said, trying to speak lightly. “Whatever did
you get up at nine for?”
“To spite you. And incidentally, to sign for a beastly registered
letter. Providential, wasn’t it?”
“Obviously,” said I.
“At ten-thirty I went to see my agent. You know him, don’t you?” I
admitted knowing the agent.
“I lunched at Lady Tottenham’s. Went to see her about a sitting at
twelve and stayed on. Anything fishy about Lady Tottenham?”
“Nothing, except her husband’s income. Sardines, isn’t it?”
“Damned witty. You ought to put that in your next book. Then I went
round to Winsor & Newton’s and paid a bill. By cheque. And ordered some
stuff. No doubt they will be happy to show you their books.”