Below the Clock. David Brawn

CHAPTER III

      THE START OF THE HUNT

      MINUTES passed before Mrs Reardon returned to consciousness. She shuddered, stared round the room with haunted eyes. Watson patted her hands consolingly. Curtis waited for the widow to speak, wondering what her first thoughts would be as full consciousness returned.

      ‘Why didn’t Paling die instead of my husband?’ she inquired.

      The men tried to hide their surprise. Watson slipped another cushion under her head and said nothing.

      ‘Oh! The number of times I told Edgar, grovelled to him, begged him, not to have any more to do with the man. But it made no difference. He was always on the doorstep.’

      ‘Perhaps Edgar was fond of him,’ said Curtis.

      ‘Fond of him? I’m sure he wasn’t. He got no pleasure out of the man’s company. It wasn’t that Paling couldn’t talk. He certainly could, and he’d been everywhere. But they never had anything to talk about. While they were together it always seemed to me that some sort of a struggle—a silent struggle—was going on. I couldn’t understand it. I hated it.’ She paused to recover her breath.

      Then she rose from the chair. Every sign of her listlessness had gone. The effects of the faint had vanished. Her eyes shone with anger, her breast moved convulsively.

      ‘What was he to your husband?’ asked Curtis.

      Mrs Reardon flung up her hands and turned to face him.

      ‘What was he? Friend, secretary, factotum … anything and everything or nothing. He seemed to do mostly what he liked.’

      ‘He had no fixed appointment with Edgar?’

      ‘I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think Edgar would have tolerated the man unless he had been useful for something. I only hope that it was nothing disgraceful.’

      Curtis elevated his eyebrows, looked keenly at the widow.

      ‘Aren’t you being somewhat harsh, Mrs Reardon? Poor Edgar positively basked in affection. Do you think he might have been disturbed by the idea that you and he were drifting a little apart?’

      The woman began to tap one foot on the carpet.

      ‘I have often wondered,’ she replied softly, ‘whether Edgar loved me or whether I loved him.’

      Watson interrupted in a voice so strained that Curtis stared.

      ‘Then why did you marry him, Lola?’

      She answered and it seemed almost that she was thinking aloud:

      ‘You know that I was very young. And Edgar was Edgar. I think he could have persuaded a nightingale to sing out of his hand. But I doubt whether he would have listened to the song.’

      Watson burst into a perspiration. He drew a handkerchief and passed it to and fro across his forehead.

      ‘We’ll leave you now,’ said Curtis, ‘so that you can get to bed.’

      The men shook hands with her and left. She was gazing into the fire when the door closed after them.

      ‘I’m sorry for that little lady,’ said Curtis as they stood at the corner of Downing Street and Whitehall.

      ‘So am I. It’s a rotten shame. Poor little Lola!’

      ‘I hate to think of her being harried by Ripple and it looks as though she’s bound to be. Let’s hope that it won’t be too awkward for her. It certainly will be if she’s got a few facts she wants to hide. Those little peccadilloes can be very embarrassing.’

      ‘Don’t talk like that, Curtis. It isn’t like you to make nasty suggestions. I’ve known her ever since she was a kid, and there’s not one word that can be said against her reputation.’

      ‘Watson, you speak with the confidence of a father confessor, and with rather more than a confessor’s warmth. I could understand your tone if she were your own wife. If I were you I wouldn’t be so anxious to defend the lady’s good name before it is attacked. If the inquiry digs deep the purity of your motives might be suspected. I’ll remind you that Inspector Ripple is perhaps a coarse-minded man.’

      Colour flooded Watson’s face. Even in the blue of the street lamps it was discernible as a widening stain. He looked uncomfortable.

      ‘I … I only wanted to make it plain …’

      Curtis slapped his back and checked the sentence impatiently.

      ‘Man alive, you make it too plain! What you say to me doesn’t matter a hoot. What you say to the police might mean everything. They would fasten on your words as eagerly as leeches bite into a piece of bruised flesh. If you’re not very, very careful you’ll have the coroner asking questions that will write finis to your political career and make Mrs Reardon exceedingly uncomfortable.’

      ‘But there’s nothing for us to be uncomfortable about.’

      ‘Quite. You’ve explained that. So there can’t be anything to get excited about. But for the love of crying out loud don’t get so pink round the gills each time her name is mentioned. If you act in front of other people as you have tonight everyone will swear that there’s something in it. I’m going back to the Temple to work.’

      Watson was unwilling to leave things as they stood. He walked with his friend through the quiet streets at the back of Whitehall and along the Embankment. For some time both were silent. Then Watson spoke with startling abruptness:

      ‘Did you know that Edgar cut me out years ago with Lola?’

      ‘No, I didn’t. But after tonight, of course, I guessed it.’

      ‘I thought I had given you a false impression.’

      Curtis took a cigarette from his case, handed one to Watson and lighted the two, glancing at the miserable face of his friend in the flickering light of the match. He spoke with a tone of smooth toleration:

      ‘Look here, old man, you’d better tell me nothing. You can’t prevent me putting two and two together. What does it matter if I think they make five? But you insist on talking, tell me what I am to believe.’

      Watson winced and the cigarette glowed and glowed again.

      ‘I don’t want there to be an appearance of mystery where there is none. We were boy and girl together. When I came down from the university she floored me. I’d never thought of a woman before. Then Edgar came down for some shooting. After that I never had a chance. It was just as though he’d put a veil on her so that she could only look at him. I was nowhere. The trouble was that even now I fancy Edgar didn’t know he was cutting me out. He was infernally friendly.’

      ‘But afterwards? Was he never jealous?’

      ‘He had no cause. I saw her alone very little. Lola encircled her life with her wedding ring. Besides, I came to look on Edgar as a close friend.’

      ‘It was an impression he had a way of creating,’ said Curtis, dryly. ‘Take my advice, Watson, and tumble into bed. Your nerves are shaken. I’ll see you tomorrow. The troubles may have lifted by then.’

      A few minutes before Watson and Curtis parted company a conference was in progress in the office of the Commissioner of Police. There were three men in the room. Sir Norris Wheeler, the Commissioner, was fifty, corpulent, bald-headed and irritable. Chief Detective Inspector Ripple was tall, cadaverous and melancholic. Amos Petrie, a solicitor from the Public Prosecutor’s Department, was an odd specimen. About five feet four in height, nearer fifty than forty, he had weak eyes that blinked behind rimless spectacles, large ungainly hands, had a nasty habit of staring over a person’s shoulder while talking to them and a worse habit of rubbing his hands on a huge coloured handkerchief every two or three minutes.

      ‘I asked you to come round, Petrie,’ said Sir Norris, ‘because we want some assistance.