She Died a Lady (16 page)

The pause was broken by Ferrars. Carefully taking a pair of trousers from over his arm, he held them by the braces like a whip, and brought them down violently on the ground.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is the end!’

‘What are you doin’ to my pants?’ howled an irate voice from the figure sitting very rigidly on the cliff and facing out to see. ‘You mind my pants! I can’t turn round, but I can hear you doin’ something to my pants. What are you doin’ to my pants?’

‘Nothing,’ Ferrars answered with some restraint, ‘compared with what I’d like to do to you. Listen, Appius Claudius. If you’re ruddy well determined to kill yourself, why don’t you take a gun and do it cleanly? I can’t stand this sort of thing much longer.’

‘Don’t move, sir!’ shouted Superintendent Craft in some agony. ‘Whatever you do, don’t move!’

‘Now that,’ said H.M., ‘is what I’d characterize as the irrelevant advice of a blazing fathead. What in the name of Esau do you think I’m goin’ to do – take two paces forward and float?’

‘I only meant –’

‘Chuckin’ whisky-bottles at people!’ said the irate voice, coming back with ghostly effect after being directed at the sea ‘You come round the side of the house and they up and sling whisky-bottles straight at your dial. Y’know, son, it’s not only the dogs in this place that are demented. It’s the people too. And what about a little action from you two, now that the fun’s all over? Are you going to leave me sittin’ here like King Canute, or are you going to pull me back?’

Superintendent Craft considered him dubiously.

‘I don’t know that we dare pull you back, sir.’

The figure in the toga put both hands up to its laurel-wreath, and pulled down the wreath more firmly on its head, as though H.M. were corking himself.

‘Speaking personally,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing I admire more than a sea-view. This is a very fine one, I admit. But I can’t help feelin’ that after the first forty-eight hours it’s goin’ to pall a little, and what if I have to go to the lavatory? Burn it all,
why
can’t you pull me back?’

We all went out to the stranded wheel-chair. H.M. had even lost the steering-handle, which projected straight out ahead of him over the gulf.

‘Well, sir,’ said Craft, ‘you’re bogged pretty nearly to the axles in that soil. We can’t just pull you out. We’ll have to lay hold and give you a yank. But, if we give a yank, I’m afraid it might jerk you right out over the edge.’ Craft considered deeply. ‘Couldn’t you sort of ooze round and get out yourself?’

‘“Ooze round,”’ repeated H.M. ‘That’s fine. That’s very helpful. What do you think I am: a goddam snake? Can’t you two stop drivellin’ and think up something practical for a change?’

‘After all,’ Craft consoled him, ‘it might be a whole lot worse, even if you did slip. It’s nearly high-tide now and you’d only fall in the water.’

The back of H.M.’s neck turned purple.

‘I’ll tell you something we could do, though,’ Ferrars suggested.

Very slowly, and with infinite caution, H.M. craned his neck and a part of his body round so that he could get a glimpse of us. The laurel-wreath was now inclined rakishly over one ear, and the cigar was gripped in one corner of his mouth. The look he directed at Ferrars was one of the deepest suspicion.

Despite himself, Ferrars’ lips were twitching; he had difficulty keeping a straight face. The wind blew flat his light hair, and his greenish eyes were not exactly innocent. Still holding H.M.’s trousers by the braces, he slapped idly at the ground with them.

‘I’ll tell you what we could do,’ he amplified. ‘We could get some clothes-line and tie him to the chair.’

Craft nodded. ‘That’s not a bad idea, sir!’

‘Then, of course, we could yank as much as we liked. And he wouldn’t necessarily fall over.’

‘What I like,’ said H.M., ‘is that word “necessarily.” It’s so comfortin’. Believe it or not, and strange as it may seem to you, I prefer to do my swimming when not attached to a two-hundred-pound motor wheel-chair. Y’know, you fellers can think up games that would embarrass Houdini.’

‘We won’t let you slip,’ Craft assured him. ‘If we don’t do that, what else can you suggest?’

‘I don’t know,’ yelled the noble Roman, and began to whack his fist on the arm of the chair. ‘I’m only askin’ you to use a little of the sense that the Lord gave Assyrian monkeys, and –’

‘
Look out, sir
!’ shouted Craft, as the chair tilted about two inches.

H.M. spat out the cigar, a good effort which carried it high into the air and over the brink. Then, craning cautiously round again, he caught sight of me.

‘If that’s Dr Croxley, will you just tell the old man why that feller was chuckin’ bottles at me? Hey? If I remember rightly, it’s the same chap I gave ten bob to yesterday. Oh, my eye. You give a man ten bob, and he goes and buys whisky with it, and then comes back and slings the bottle straight in your face. If that’s not gratitude, son, I never heard of it.’

‘Johnson must have thought you were the Emperor Nero.’

‘He thought I was who?’

‘He saw a film last night, “Quo Vadis?” or something of the sort, and he’s got Nero on the brain. You must admit you were fairly paralysing when you came tearing round that corner.’

To my astonishment, H.M. looked considerably mollified.

‘Well … now. Maybe there is some resemblance, at that,’ he conceded. ‘I told you, didn’t I, that Ferrars here was painting my picture as a Roman Senator?

‘Yes,’ said Ferrars, ‘and that’s another thing. If we get you out of this –’

‘
If
you get me out of this?’

‘That’s what I said. If we get you out of this, you’re going to promise to put on your clothes like a civilized human being. You’re also going to get out of that infernal wheel-chair for good. Otherwise, so help me, we’ll leave you stuck just where you are until you turn into a statue.’

‘How in Satan’s name can I get out of my chair? I’m an invalid.’

‘Nonsense,’ retorted Ferrars. ‘The doctor took off that splint this morning. He said it was quite all right to walk on it if you went gently.’

Again H.M. laid violent hands on his laurel-wreath.

‘Some people,’ he observed off-handedly, ‘might think that the proper place to hold elegant and witty converse was the edge of a nice cosy cliff while stickin’ half-way over. Maybe you might. Maybe G. B. Shaw might. But burn me if
I
do. I tell you straight, son: I feel more like the third episode of the
Perils of Pauline
, and it’s underminin’ the old man’s composure. Are you goin’ to drag me away from here, or aren’t you?’

‘Will you promise to put on your clothes?’

‘All right! All right! Only –’

‘Look out. sir!’
shouted Craft.

‘What we need now,’ said H.M., ‘is a good spectacular landslide. I feel this thing movin’ under me, I tell you! People who could do what you’re doin’ to me would poison babies’ milk and steal the pennies from a blind man.’

Ferrars nodded as though satisfied. He took one last slap at the ground with H.M.’s trousers, dislodging some money and a key-ring. Then he piled all the clothes on the ground, and turned to me.

‘Come along, Doctor,’ he said. ‘There ought to be some clothes-line in the kitchen.’

Though Martha was not there, we found the clothes-line in one of the lower cupboards. We bound H.M.’s body securely to the back of the chair. Then, with infinite care, we yanked and dragged while a flood of vituperation and obscenity directed us. There was one bad moment when the chair lurched. But we got him back safely. We were all feeling a little queasy when we untied him.

The only one unaffected now was the noble Roman himself. Majestically, he arose from his chair. Exaggerating the limp in his right foot, he took a few turns up and down. He made a striking figure against the skyline, his toga stirred by the breeze, and had an electrifying effect on two fishermen passing in a boat below. He was just gathering up his clothes, after an evil glance at Ferrars, when Martha came down from the back door.

Nothing, I think, could ever startle Martha. Even H.M.’s appearance failed to shake her. But there was awe in her voice when she delivered her message.

‘If you please,’ she said. ‘Scotland Yard is calling Superintendent Craft on the telephone.’

There was dead silence on the sunlit cliff. Your skin seemed to crawl with it. I spoke merely from lack of something to say.

‘The telephone’s been repaired, then?’

‘Oh, yes,’ growled H.M. ‘And now maybe we’re goin’ to get some news about the little joker who cut it. Come along, all of you.’

Ferrars handed him his crutch, and we went to the house. We went through kitchen and dining-room, and into the sitting-room. There, not far from the radio round which four persons had listened to
Romeo and Juliet
on Saturday night, was the telephone. The sun was on the opposite side of the bungalow, and this room remained gloomy. While we all sat down – I had almost said crouched – Craft picked up the receiver.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Speaking.’ The telephone seemed to be chortling in deep amusement. Craft’s good eye moved over towards H.M. ‘Yes. Yes, he’s here now. Sitting beside me.’

H.M. sat up with some violence. ‘Who’s that speaking?’ he demanded.

‘Chief Inspector Masters.’ Craft put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘Have you got any message for him?’

‘Yes. Tell the dirty dog I hope he chokes.’

‘Sir Henry says to give you his kindest regards, Chief Inspector … What’s that? Yes, certainly I’m sober! … Yes, his toe is much better … Well, no. No, I can’t say he’s enjoying himself.’

‘Enjoying myself,’ said H.M. ‘Twice on successive days I nearly get killed, and then they ask if I’m enjoying myself. Here, let
me
talk to the blighter!’

Again Craft put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

‘You’re too mad, sir,’ he insisted. ‘And besides – they’ve got it.’

The telephone talked at great length, though we could distinguish no word. Nobody else spoke. Ferrars was leaning back in a padded chair, his legs crossed in their paint-stained flannels, and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a grey sweater. His shirt was open at the neck, so that you could see his Adam’s apple move. His eyes rested on his own portrait of Rita, above the fireplace; there was pity in his look, I thought, and also regret. Then he closed his eyes.

Superintendent Craft’s whole expression grew as fixed as the one glass eye. Fumblingly, he reached into his inside pocket, manipulating notebook and pencil with one hand while he listened. He dropped the notebook on the telephone table and started to write rapidly. At length he drew a deep breath, said a word of thanks – and – and replaced the receiver. His face was even more sepulchrally gloomy when he swung round.

‘Well, sir,’ he admitted, with another deep breath, ‘it seems you were right after all.’

‘Sure I was right, son.’

‘And maybe’ – Craft looked at me – ‘the doctor was right too.’

‘Right about what?’ inquired Ferrars, opening his eyes.

‘Go on, son!’ H.M. urged impatiently. ‘I’m staying at that feller’s house. I know him. He won’t blab.’

Craft consulted his notebook.

‘Have you ever heard,’ he asked, ‘of a theatrical publication called
Spotlight
?’

‘Sure. It’s a kind of advertising medium for actors. What about it?’

‘They couldn’t find a photograph of Barry Sullivan anywhere else. But they eventually ran one down at the
Spotlight
office: an old one. This morning they took it round to the American Consulate in Grosvenor Square.’

Craft examined the point of his pencil. His mouth was worried and grim. It was only after a long pause that he continued.

‘There’s no “Barry Sullivan” on the records at the Consulate. But, when they saw the photograph, one of the girls in the American passport department recognized it like a shot. They’ve got both his photograph and his right thumbprint there – it’s a new war-time measure – so we can check it easily enough.

‘“Barry Sullivan’s” real name was Jacob McNutt. He was born in 1915 at Little Rock, Arkansas. I’ve got all the details.’ Craft tapped the notebook. Then he raised his eyes. ‘Maybe you saw in the papers recently that the American liner
Washington
would be calling at Galway this week?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Alec Wainright mentioned it.’

‘To take Americans and their families who wanted to get back to the United States?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jacob McNutt, alias Barry Sullivan,’ Craft spoke slowly, ‘together with his wife, booked passage to sail aboard the
Washington
some time ago.’

A dim glimmering of the truth, a foreshadowing that came gradually into focus, stirred at the back of my head.

‘His wife?’ Ferrars echoed.

Craft made a slow and portentous nod.

‘We couldn’t get a photograph of Mrs Wainright,’ the superintendent explained. ‘But one of the gentlemen at the American Consulate recognized her from the description. The “wife” was Rita Wainright. And he ought to know, because he gave her a visa for the United States.’

I got up from my chair, but sat down again.

‘She carried a British passport, made out in the name of Rita Dulane McNutt. Across the bottom was the official notation, “wife of an American citizen.” That’s the law, you see. An Englishwoman who marries an American doesn’t – by American law – assume her husband’s nationality. She carries her own passport.’

‘But Rita,’ I protested, ‘didn’t
marry
Sullivan?’

Craft snorted.

‘She went through a form of marriage with him, though. Because she had to have that passport.’

‘Rita’s got a passport! I saw it upstairs in the dressing-table drawer!’

‘Which,’ said Craft, ‘would have been no earthly good to her. You see, Doctor, this ship was sent to take
only
Americans and their dependants. Also, if she meant to disappear and start a new life, she had to have a new identity. So she had to get a new passport under false pretences.’

It was H.M., twiddling his thumbs, who explained.

‘Looky here, Doctor,’ he said patiently. ‘You saw the whole thing unroll in front of you. But you never noticed what was happening. These two, Rita Wainright and Barry Sullivan, never had the least idea of killin’ themselves. The whole “suicide-pact” was a fake, carefully planned, carefully designed; and acted out, burn me, in a way that rouses my admiration! It was intended to deceive not only Alec Wainright, but the rest of England too.