“To tell your pal Harrison,” he snapped back. “He seems blasted anxious
to stick his nose into my concerns. Tell him to keep out of it. I don’t
like the swine.”
“I don’t see,” I said, “why you should work yourself up into this
extraordinary state of mind because a man has made a few ordinary
inquiries about his father. Unless, of course, you have anything special
to hide.”
This seem to sober him down. He pulled his face into something more
nearly resembling amiability and then suddenly began to laugh.
“I’m sorry. I lost my temper rather. Anything to hide? Good God,
no—except that I’m sorry Harrison has got on to—that business with
Margaret, you know. She must have let something out, accidentally. But
I’ll swear the old man never knew a word about it. Not a damn thing. He
was as right as rain—best of pals, and all that. But I don’t like that
pup of his.”
I put down the pen with which I had been fidgeting all this time, got up
and went and stood by him on the hearth-rug.
“Lathom,” I said, “why did you come here?”
He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was on the point of
getting something off his chest. I had a horrible fear of what it might
be. If he had spoken, I really do not know what I should have said or
done. I might—I don’t know. I was really quite horribly frightened.
But nothing came of it. He shifted his gaze and said, in a curious,
embarrassed way:
“I’ve told you. I wanted to know what you’d done with Harrison—to find
out how the matter stood. Afraid it’s been awkward for you. I didn’t
quite realise. It can’t be helped. He’d have to know sometime, anyhow.
I’d better be going.”
He held out his hand. In the state things were in, I could not take it.
Either I was being a perfect Judas Iscariot, in which case I hadn’t the
face to give him my hand, or else _he_ was, in which case I felt I would
rather be excused. It was all so involved that at the moment I was
completely incapable of deciding anything.
“Oh!” he said. “I’ve said one or two things, haven’t I? All right. Sulk
about it if you like. I’m damned if I care.”
He slammed out. After a moment I went after him. “Lathom!” I called.
I don’t know what I meant to say to him. The only answer was the hang of
the outer door.
Honestly, Harrison, I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know
whether I’ve been a skunk or a moral citizen. I don’t know whether I’ve
warned a guilty man, or betrayed an innocent one, or the other way
round. But I’m feeling like hell about it, because—well, frankly,
because I cannot believe that an innocent man would have such a
watertight alibi.
It’s perfectly obvious he came here to ram the alibi down my throat. But
it _is_ an alibi. I’m enclosing the paper with the names and addresses
he wrote down so pat. You can investigate it all, if you like, but it’s
certain to be sound. He knew it. He was perfectly confident. Besides——
Anyway, I won’t touch it. It makes me sick.
I’ve finished that statement, by the way. Here it is. I hope to God the
whole thing comes to nothing and I never hear of it again. I ask you, as
a favour, to leave me out of it if you can.
Yours very truly,
J. MUNTING