'Perhaps he wasn't,' I answered.

  'How do you mean?'

  'He may have lied to Miss Scorfield. He may have had some other girl as well.'

  'Did he tell you so?'

  'Why should he tell ME?'

  'I believe that he told you a sight more than he told most people.'

  'Well, he didn't. He never told me anything.'

  'Come on, Talbot. You know something. Let me in on it. I swear I won't tell a soul.'

  I smiled. 'You're good at that, Cheeseman.'

  He laughed. 'All right, you've won. But this time I mean it. What makes you think he had another girl?'

  'I tell you I know nothing—nothing at all. But Tunstall was a rotter in every possible way—false to his wife, to Miss Scorfield, to anybody, everybody. He probably had heaps of women—a different one for every night of the week.'

  Cheeseman sat back, drawing his two thin legs together like the closing of scissors. He patted down the tobacco in his pipe, looking at me over the top of it.

  'As a matter of fact, he hadn't. I'm quite sure he hadn't. He was in love with Bella Scorfield. It was physical, of course, but that seems all kinds of other things as well while it's on.'

  'You're quite a philosopher, Cheeseman,' I said. 'And now is there anything else I can do for you? I'm sorry, but I'm busy.' He got up, came close to me, knocked his pipe on the heel of his shoe.

  'Yes, there IS something. Tell me—it isn't cheek, I really want to know. What were YOU doing that evening—the evening he disappeared?'

  'I think it IS cheek,' I answered. 'Why do you want to know? What have I got to do with it?'

  'I'll tell you why. Don't be angry with me. My idea, Talbot, is that you and I together can solve this mystery. I'll go further than that and say that I don't think anyone can solve it WITHOUT you.'

  'Why?'

  'Because you were closer to Tunstall than anyone was. You say you hated him and he despised you. But there can be a relationship between people much deeper than hate and scorn and love. So deep that those feelings and emotions simply don't count—a relationship where two people belong to one another, have always belonged to one another, WILL always belong to one another—'

  'You don't believe in that nonsense, Cheeseman?'

  'Certainly I do. I've seen it several times. But I've never seen it as I have with you two. Now I was a friend of his. He really liked me—'

  'He didn't!' I broke out. 'He loathed the very sight of you!'

  The moment I had said those words it seemed to me as though someone else had spoken. I looked blankly about the room. How did I know that Tunstall disliked Cheeseman? I had always, in fact, thought exactly the opposite. Until this very moment of speaking I had thought that Tunstall liked Cheeseman. What—or who?—had made me cry out those words? For it had been a cry as though from the very heart—so deep–felt, so sincere that Cheeseman himself was affronted with the sincerity.

  'It's a damned lie,' he said. 'Jimmie and I were the best of pals. He showed it in a thousand ways. He said often: "Basil—if I can't trust you, old man, I can't trust anyone."' Then, more suspiciously, his white teeth shining Carker–like at me, he said:

  'How do you know, anyway? Did he ever tell you he disliked me?'

  'Never.' I was suddenly weary. All the virtue had gone out of me.

  'What made you say that, then?'

  'I don't know. Perhaps I had no right to.'

  He gave me a vicious look.

  'You'd better be careful what you go about saying—' His hand was on the door. 'Oh, and you haven't told me. Where WERE you that evening?'

  'I went to the pictures—David Copperfield.'

  'Oh, did you?'

  'Yes, if you don't believe me, ask Bob Steele. He saw me go in.'

  'Yes, and did he see you go out?'

  'Really, Cheeseman—one would think that you imagine I pushed Tunstall into the sea with my own strong arms—'

  He came back towards me.

  'No, I know you didn't do that. You haven't the physical pluck. The point is that you know more about Tunstall's death than anyone alive. You know more about Tunstall in every way. For instance—' He came quite close to me. 'You were perfectly right. Tunstall didn't like me. We were useful to one another. But he didn't like me. But no one knew that except Tunstall and me. How did YOU know?'

  But I didn't answer.

  Eve came in. And as Eve came in Cheeseman went out. And so, as I see it now, this first period after Tunstall's death was almost closed—closed except for one visit. The visitor was Leila Tunstall. The time was the middle morning. Eve was upstairs giving Archie his lessons: I was seated in the window of our dining– room reading a selection from the poems of Thomas Hardy, for which I have a great affection.

  I remember the poem that I was reading—'The Dark–Eyed Gentleman.' The bell rang. I went, and there was Leila looking pale and young in her mourning. As I brought her into our sunlit little room I thought her almost beautiful, for the slight deformity seemed to have been smoothed away. She began oddly:

  'May I call you John?'

  'Of course.'

  'And you must call me Leila. I think Jimmie would like it.'

  I felt a movement of revulsion. Was she going to be now the sweet, idolizing–the–departed widow? I did indeed hope not.

  I need not have feared. She went on:

  'I hope you won't think that sentimental.'

  'Of course not.'

  'The fact is, Jimmie had very few real friends. I want them to be mine. Even that isn't sentimental. For the truth is that I was, and am, deeply in love with Jimmie. I don't think him any more than I did, good and fine and noble. On the contrary, he was false and greedy and lecherous. But I don't see that that has anything to do with loving him, do you?'

  'Yes, I do,' I said. 'I can't love someone I despise.'

  'Oh, can't you? Well, then, you've a lot to learn.' She laughed quite gaily. 'I despise myself for a thousand things—and yet I rather love myself. The fact is that Jimmie was Jimmie and IS Jimmie. When I saw him at Rotherston lying there covered up and his face scarcely touched I KNEW that he had escaped somewhere. Knew it as surely as I know that I'm sitting here. Tumbling into the sea wouldn't finish Jimmie!'

  She cried this out almost with pride.

  I said very seriously: 'Please, Leila. I like you too much. I want you to trust me. So you MUST believe me. I was NOT Jimmie's friend. Everyone seems to think I was. I distrusted him. It isn't too much to say I detested him. I hated the things he did and said, but it was more than that. He mocked me. He derided me. I was his butt. From our very earliest schooldays together. I must be honest with you about this.'

  She put her hand for a moment on my arm. 'You're one of the most honest men I've ever known. I'm sure you BELIEVE that about yourself and Jimmie. I know he teased you. I know you disapproved of him. But all the same—there was something between you that goes deeper than being teased or disapproving of someone's morals. You and Jimmie had that sort of relationship.'

  As she thus echoed Cheeseman's words, I could only look at her with a sort of stupid dumbness. What WAS this conspiracy to force me into union with this man? As though I hadn't, by my own act, union with him enough.

  'In any case,' she went on, 'perhaps you'll feel a little about poor Jimmie now as I do. He can't do anything wrong or foolish any more. We can think of Jimmie always at his best now.'

  'But he can!' I cried. 'If, as you said, drowning can't kill him, why shouldn't he be still here, doing wrong, teasing me, breaking your heart—'

  'Oh, I didn't mean that!' she answered. 'He's free of his body now. All his troubles came from his body, which he didn't know how to control.'

  'Perhaps not,' I answered. 'It may have been his spirit that was evil. And if so—'

  She smiled on me as though she were my mother.

  'It wasn't his spirit that was evil—he was a child. A naughty, mischievous, selfish, self–destroying little boy. Now he will begin to grow up.'

  She held in her hand a little parcel.

  'What I really came for, though, was to give you something. All his clothes—were gone. His body was badly hurt. But still on his finger, deeply embedded, was his scarab ring. You remember it, don't you? The green scarab he always wore. I want you to have it.'

  I drew back. 'Oh, no! No!'

  'Yes, please. I would like it and I know he would. He was very fond of it. He used to say that the colour changed according to the way he behaved. The green was very bright when he was doing wrong. That was one of his jokes.'

  I stammered. 'Oh, but please—I would rather not—I—' She put the little parcel into my hand.

  'Please take it. You can't be so unkind—'

  I took it. She said good–bye and left me staring at it.

  As though I had no free will I tried it on my finger. The gold ring was too large. I went to Bettany's and had it fitted. As though I had no free will I wore it from that time.

  X

  I count the giving to me of that ring by Leila Tunstall as the end of the first development in this terrible affair.

  I may say that up to the moment of putting that ring on my finger in the jeweller's shop I had known neither fear nor compunction. My main feeling had been one of relief. Now the next stage begins and I pray to God (if I dare pray to Him) that everything I now write may be true and may prove the sanity of my brain and the clear accuracy of my memory.

  I stood in Bettany's shop, and Mr. Bettany himself, a tall naked– faced man with wide–open staring owl's eyes, attended me.

  'I think you will find, Mr. Talbot, that the ring fits you exactly.'

  'Thank you, Mr. Bettany,' I said, putting it on.

  'I know, of course, whose ring it was,' he said, in a soft, unctuous voice.

  'Yes,' I said gravely. 'Mrs. Tunstall wished me to have it and to wear it.'

  'A sad and strange business. We all thought so much of Mr. Tunstall.'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'Most mysterious his death was. However, there's no doubt, after the finding at the inquest, that in some way his foot slipped on that wet night and he fell over.'

  'Yes,' I said again.

  'Might happen to any of us, of course.'

  But I could not attend to him. I was looking at the ring with a kind of stupid amaze—for I felt that I had had it on my finger before. The gold circlet had been strangely little damaged and the scarab itself not at all. The green of the scarab was astonishingly fresh and bright when you realized that the ring was two or three thousand years old. The carving on the inside of the ring was broken, as Tunstall had once shown me, and I remembered how difficult it was for him to get it off his finger. The horrid sensation that I now had was that I had pulled it with difficulty off my finger to show to somebody! I remember that I thought of the absurdity of this and that my thinking it was a proof that my nerves were anything but what they ought to be. But more than that. As I looked at the thing I both hated it and was proud of it. I hated it seeing it on my finger for the first time and I was proud of it as an old treasured possession. Well, it wasn't an old treasured possession! But what a thing to do! To wear the ring of the man I had killed, to wear it flauntingly in the face of all the world. I remembered that old murder case when Ethel Le Neve had worn the jewellery of Crippen's wife a week or two after the murder. I had always thought it a curious and reckless thing to do. But Leila had herself given me this ring so that it was in a way a confirmation of my innocence. Then a great emotion of loathing the thing with its green and white squatness came over me. It was almost as though it were alive. I had to muster all my energies not to tear it off and throw it down there on the shop floor.

  Bettany was looking at me, so I thanked him and paid him and went away. By this time I was altogether accustomed to my hallucination of Tunstall's continual presence. I took it that this was probably the experience of most murderers during the weeks immediately following the deed. But now, walking home through the rain from Bettany's, I was aware of this new sense of fear. It was perhaps the rain. I had noticed already that I was more uncomfortable when it was raining than when it was fine, especially if the rain was thin and misty. I talked to myself INSIDE myself. I had fallen into the habit of doing this and my anxiety was lest I should sometimes speak aloud.

  'You know that this is all nonsense. Tunstall is dead and no one in the world has the slightest suspicion of you. Even Cheeseman is sure that you have nothing to do with it. Clear your brain of all supposition. Think only of facts. There is nothing to be afraid of—nothing whatever. The fact that you feel obliged to wear this ring is simply because you wish to please Leila Tunstall, whom you like. After a while you can put it away. She will not notice that you are not wearing it.'

  But there was something stranger still. I was not SURE that I had killed Tunstall.

  When I write that, it looks like complete nonsense. Of course I KNEW that I had killed Tunstall. I knew that I had pushed Tunstall over the cliff and that his body had been found, there had been an inquest and the body had been buried. The proof that I had killed Tunstall was in this scarab ring that I was wearing.

  Nevertheless, beneath these undoubted facts was another layer of consciousness, the consciousness that I had NOT killed him and that he was still alive. I was, indeed, now entering into that world known to many perfectly sane and normal people, that world in which material facts are no more facts than non–material facts. I could, for instance, finger my ring and know that it was a fact: I could also THINK about Tunstall and feel that he was not dead.

  People live in one's imagination. If they continue to live there after their physical death, then in a sense they are not dead. But I must write more of this later.

  I was also now deeply concerned with three women—my wife, Leila Tunstall, and Bella Scorfield.

  My wife's attitude to me had changed. I could see, although she at present said nothing, that she was greatly puzzled by me. Puzzled rather than suspicious.

  She seemed physically closer. I had seen myself that I was now more masterful with her—a thing that I had always wanted to be— and that she liked this. I was altogether more masterful at home. I had taken a strange and quite unreasoning dislike to her telling me that this morning, or this afternoon, I would not be needed in the shop.

  'You can keep away, John,' she used to say. 'I shan't need you.'

  And now I would say:

  'Who does the shop belong to? You or me or both of us?'

  'Both of us, of course.'

  'Well, then—we'll both run it.'

  'But what about your writing?'

  'That's my business.'

  She was always good–tempered. She would look at me, smiling and puzzled.

  'I'm glad to see you're putting on flesh, John.'

  I looked at myself in the glass. It was true. My cheeks were fattening out. There was sometimes a new, almost audacious look in my eyes.

  Another little thing was that I was taking a new, almost excited interest in Archie's passion for drawing and painting. I sat beside him at the table, watching him and encouraging him. One day I pulled a piece of paper towards me and drew quite a little picture—some hills, a house, and some fields.

  'Why, Daddy can draw!' Archie cried. I looked at my drawing rather sheepishly—the first of my life. It wasn't very good, of course. But it wasn't very bad either. Then I tried to draw Archie sitting at the table. I made something of it. It was recognizably Archie.

  'Well I'm damned!' I cried, and showed it to Eve.

  'You don't mean to say YOU did that!'

  'I did,' I said, laughing.

  'But I didn't know you could draw.'

  'I didn't myself. You never know what you can do till you try.'

  Leila Tunstall had gone to London. Her house was up for sale. She was staying with relations in Surbiton. I found that I missed her quite absurdly. It wasn't that I was in love with her. I had no physical feeling about her at all, but she seemed to me now the one really GOOD human being, besides my mother, I had ever known. It was her GOODNESS I wanted—near to me, so that I could realize it and feel reassured by it. I felt as though I could confess everything to her, pour everything out to her, my loneliness, unhappiness. I wanted to talk to her and say to myself: 'You have gone far from goodness. If it weren't for Leila you would doubt perhaps that there is any goodness in the world. But look at her, listen to her voice, touch her hand, and you will know that one good person in the world is enough to convince you that goodness exists.'

  Yes, I missed her quite desperately.

  I was aware that Bella Scorfield was very unhappy and found some strange companionship in me. I have said that I disliked her very much. So, on one side of my nature, I still did. The Puritan in me shrank violently from the sensuality in her. She couldn't help it: she was animal in all her being. Tunstall had supplied her with what she needed and now that he was gone she was unsatisfied and lonely. On the other side I began to find that her physical presence had a kind of excitement for me. It was, I suppose, because I knew so intimately of her behaviour with Tunstall.

  We had tea together one afternoon at the 'Paradise,' a tea–shop in the High Street.

  'It was nice of you to come,' she said.

  'Why shouldn't I?'

  'Because you dislike me and everything about me. But I don't care. When I am with you Jimmie seems closer to me. Perhaps it's that ring.'

  'Do you mind my wearing it? I only do because Leila Tunstall asked me to.'

  'No, of course I don't. I like to see it. It reminds me of so many things. And I'll tell you another thing. You may dislike me very much, but not so much as you did. Before Jimmie died you would never have dreamed of having tea with me. Now would you?'

  'Perhaps not.'

  'You don't like me, but you like to be with me sometimes because you want to be reminded of Jimmie.'

  'But I don't want to be reminded of Jimmie.'

  'Oh, yes, you do. You were so close together, you two. Why, sometimes now the way you say things makes me think of Jimmie. Almost the same intonation.'

 

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