Suspension of Mercy (11 page)

Sydney thought, as he was getting ready for bed, that it was very strange to be friends with an accuser who could not prove (Alex), and someone who could prove but would not accuse (Mrs. Lilybanks). It was like being punished and exonerated at the same time. He might make a story out of that. And he jotted the thought down in his notebook.

17

M
rs. Lilybanks stood at her dining-room table, slowly putting flowers into an orange and white bowl that had sockets for stems at the bottom. It was a quarter past four, and Mrs. Hawkins was upstairs cleaning the bathroom which she always did last. The house looked especially nice, as all the furniture had had a polishing today. Sydney was coming for dinner at 7:30. Mrs. Lilybanks went into the kitchen to start the tea water for Mrs. Hawkins and herself.

Mrs. Hawkins was a middle-sized, lean woman of fifty with unruly gray hair that stuck out from her black braid and bun. She had alert gray eyes, a lumpy nose, and a vaguely anxious man
ner—not a soothing person to be around, but she was extremely
dependable, and had never missed coming to Mrs. Lilybanks’ house when she said she would, though her cleaning days had to vary, because of her own family’s demands. She did not come every day now as she had when Mrs. Lilybanks had moved in, because Mrs. Lilybanks had said it wasn’t necessary. The daily visit had been an idea of Dr. Underwood in London, seconded by Mrs. Lilybanks’ granddaughter Prissie, who had spoken to Mrs. Hawkins when Mrs. Lilybanks had moved in. But Mrs. Hawkins did ring up every day between 3 and 4
P.M.
to see if she was all right. Every day since the news of Alicia’s disappearance had been in the papers, Mrs. Hawkins had asked if Mrs. Lilybanks had heard anything. And she was one of many in the neighborhood who suspected Sydney of foul play of some kind, possibly even of murder, because Mrs. Hawkins, like everyone else, had found out through the newspapers that Sydney had known for weeks that his wife wasn’t at her parents’ house, and hadn’t told even his and his wife’s best friends. “That shows he was up to something,” Mrs. Hawkins said several times to Mrs. Lilybanks, and Mrs. Lilybanks let it go by as best she could, knowing the hopelessness of explaining to someone like Mrs. Hawkins that Alicia and Sydney, being painter and writer, might enjoy a vacation from each other for a while, one not knowing where the other was. But after the carpet conversation with Sydney, Mrs. Hawkins’ “That shows he was up to something” began to eat into Mrs. Lilybanks’ defenses, and she felt exhausted with trying to protect Sydney, and felt moreover that the commonsense of simple people like Mrs. Hawkins and Mr. Fowler and Mr. Veery, the butcher, might be right and her rationalizations wrong. But Mrs. Lilybanks gave no sign to Mrs. Hawkins that she was beginning to agree with her.

They had tea in the dining room at the table where the flower bowl stood.

“No news, well, well,” Mrs. Hawkins said, shaking her head, stirring her tea.

She had found that out two hours before, when she had arrived.

Mrs. Lilybanks felt irked and also tongue-tied by the subject. Mrs. Hawkins would have a fit if she knew Sydney Bartleby was coming for dinner, and she hoped Mrs. Hawkins would not find out. But all it would take would be Rutledge driving past in his banged-up hauler, and seeing Sydney enter her house at 7:30. Mr. Fowler would know the next morning, and so would everyone else.

“He looks so pleased with himself,” Mrs. Hawkins went on. “Sort of a smile on his face whenever you see him. Not like a man who’s worried about his wife, oh, no.”

“I don’t think he is worried, Mrs. Hawkins. I knew Alicia slightly, you know.” Mrs. Lilybanks realized she had used the past tense. “She likes to go off by herself now and then.”

“Americans are violent. Everyone knows that.
I
say, when are they going to prove anything? The police should be digging around his house. Like the Christie case. Not waiting till a grave grows so old they can’t find it. Is that window too chilly on you, Mrs. Lilybanks?” she asked, meaning the kitchen window.

“No, no, thank you.”

“I raised it because I was using a good bit of ammonia in there this afternoon. Never liked the smell of ammonia.” She smiled with sudden cheer.

A few moments later, she was gone, promising to come again on Saturday, two days from now, and to telephone tomorrow as usual. “I hope you’re keeping your doors well locked at night, Mrs. Lilybanks. I don’t envy you living here and neither does anybody else.”

The words lingered unpleasantly in Mrs. Lilybanks’ ears. She went upstairs and solemnly, with a feeling of ceremoniousness, got the binoculars from the top drawer of her bureau, carried them downstairs, and put them on a corner of the sideboard in the dining room. Her eyes were drawn to an innocent-looking sparrow that alighted on the windowsill, looked her in the eye for an instant, then flew off again. Mrs. Lilybanks went upstairs to rest for a while before she came down and started her dinner.

Rap-rap-rap—rap-rap
sounded on Mrs. Lilybanks’ front door at 7:35. She went to open it.

“Greetings, Mrs. Lilybanks,” Sydney said. “I bring some coals to Newcastle. Ipswich’s best.” He handed her a bunch of long-stemmed red gladioli wrapped in tissue paper.

“Why, thank you, Sydney. How nice.”

“And this. For tonight or for the future.” He presented a bottle of red wine wrapped in purple tissue from the liquor shop.

“Well! What’s the occasion? Have you—” She couldn’t ask if he had heard from Alicia.

“Mr. Plummer of ITV likes The Whip a little more today. Hasn’t bought it yet, but he likes our first three stories and—I’m rather optimistic and so is Alex. Mrs. Lilybanks, you’ll have to get a television set to see my masterpieces of flumdubbery. I’ll buy you one.” Sydney waved a hand airily.

“No, you won’t. I have been thinking of getting one before the winter. Sydney, that’s marvelous. I do hope it works out. I know how you’ve labored over that.”

Sydney stood on tiptoe, sniffing. He was wearing his best shoes, and he had given them a shine. “What’s that celestial smell emanating from yon humble country kitchen?”

“Duck. I hope you like duck. Just let me put these in water, and I’ll make you a drink. No, you come and make yourself a drink.”

“With pleasure.” He followed her through the dining room and into the kitchen.

They stayed nearly five minutes in the kitchen while Mrs. Lilybanks put the gladioli into a tall vase and Sydney made himself a scotch and water with ice and a scotch and water without ice for Mrs. Lilybanks. They chatted, but Mrs. Lilybanks found herself a bit strained, because she couldn’t or didn’t want to say things like, “What a pity you can’t ring Alicia up somewhere and tell her about The Whip.”

They carried their drinks across the dining room toward the living room. Mrs. Lilybanks turned before she entered the living room, turned deliberately, and her right hand tightened and trembled on her glass at what she saw. Sydney had stopped with one foot extended for a step, and he was staring at the binoculars, his lips slightly parted, as they had parted when she mentioned the old carpet.

He saw her looking at him. “Oh—those binoculars—” He rubbed his forehead quickly with his fingertips.

“Yes?”

“You got them in Ipswich, didn’t you?” He advanced slowly toward her, and she went on into the living room. “At that secondhand shop.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Lilybanks said. “I bought them for bird-watching.”

“I started to buy them myself. That’s why I was looking at them . . . One day I went to the shop—I’d seen them once before—and they weren’t in the window. I was disappointed. That’s why they gave me such a turn just now. It’s like seeing something I thought I own. Owned.”

Mrs. Lilybanks sat down on the sofa. Sydney looked too restless to sit down. She did not ask him to. “I watch birds sometimes in the early morning. Around dawn.”

Again he looked at her warily, waiting for what she might say.

He’s pretending all of this, Mrs. Lilybanks thought suddenly. He’ll probably put it in one of his stories. But what had been in the carpet that made it so heavy, and why had he carried it out before dawn? Neither of the Bartlebys liked to get up very early, not that early. Alicia had once said so. Why had Sydney been up so early the very day after Alicia left?

“Did you see in the paper today that that Frenchman made it in his boat? A twelve-foot boat from Marseille to Tangier?” Sydney asked.

And they talked of other things throughout dinner.

Mrs. Lilybanks knew exactly what she ought to say, if she pursued the matter. It was only a question of courage, she felt. And why shouldn’t she show some? Suppose Sydney got suddenly angry and struck her dead? She did not know from one week to the next when she might die. If Sydney did her harm, it would at least serve the purpose of proving his guilt. If he had killed Alicia, it was horrible, and it must be brought out into the open. Mrs. Lilybanks approached the task with a weary resignation and a curious gloom, as she had approached the matter of dying, some six months before, when her doctor told her she might have only two more years in which to live.

“I saw you one morning early,” Mrs. Lilybanks began pleasantly as they were having their coffee, “through the binoculars. I think it was the morning you were disposing of your old carpet. You had something heavy over your shoulder.”

“Yes? Oh, yes,” Sydney said, and his cup clattered as he replaced it in his saucer. “That was the carpet.”

The trembling was real, Mrs. Lilybanks saw. No one could pretend this well, and Sydney was obviously trying to control himself. A start of fear tingled along Mrs. Lilybanks’ spine, then disappeared, the kind of tingle that might come from seeing a ghost. “I was surprised to see you up that early. I often am, though . . . It was the morning after Alicia left, because I remember looking around for Alicia, too, then remembering she’d left the day before.”

“Oh, that day,” Sydney said.

She saw his underlip come out—in stubbornness, or was it a sign of defeat, that the game was up?—and he stared at the center of the table. She wished desperately that he would say something. “What did you do with the carpet?” she asked, still in a pleasant tone.

“Oh, I got rid of it—completely,” Sydney said just as pleasantly.

“You buried it,” Mrs. Lilybanks said with a try at a smile.

“Yes.” Now there was a glint in his eyes like madness, as if he meant to reach across the table and strike her. Then just as suddenly, it went away. “Yes, I thought the thing had some moths in it—so it was just as well to bury it. Or burn it, but I didn’t want people to think the forest was on fire.”

“You buried it in a forest?”

“No, just out in the country.” He waved a hand vaguely.

“Is that why you got up so early? So you wouldn’t be seen?” Mrs. Lilybanks sat stiffly now. Her heart had stepped up its beats. She put out her half-finished cigarette, and decided to have not a drop more coffee.

“I suppose so,” Sydney said, watching her.

“What was in the carpet?”

Sydney’s right hand was clenched beside his cup and saucer, his thumb tucked into his fist. He was going to break out in a cold sweat in a moment, she thought. Or burst out in a fury and strike her.

“You seem to be accusing me. Like Alex and Mrs. Hawkins and Mr. Fowler and all the rest. Like the police.” His voice was not loud, but it shook.

“I’m not accusing you of anything. Really. I am asking.”

“You think I killed Alicia and carried her body out in the carpet and buried her. You’re trying to prove it.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything.”

“Yes, you are. Testing me . . . Offering to buy the old carpet, when you’d seen me carrying it out of the house.”

She didn’t need to test him, she thought. Here was proof enough. She felt anything but triumphant. She could have collapsed gratefully on the table, laid her head down, disappeared. “If you tell me there was nothing in the carpet, then I’ll believe you. And I do not intend to tell anyone that I saw you with the carpet—not the neighbors and not the police.”

He still looked at her in a frightened way. “I’m not sure I believe that.”

“You should. I could have told the police this week—last week—that I saw you carrying a carpet to your car, driving away with it. But I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Lilybanks didn’t want to say, because she hadn’t been sure it was important until now. “If you are guilty of anything, it will come out. I leave it to you, Sydney, entirely.” Now she saw the perspiration on his forehead. He continued to stare at her. “I have some brandy in the house. Would you like some?”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

She was relieved that he accepted it, that he had answered politely. It was the brandy she kept for herself, as medicine, but she had not taken any since she had moved into the cottage. She brought a large stemmed glass and gave Sydney a good measure. He began to sip it, leaning a little over the table.

“Some more coffee,” Mrs. Lilybanks said, pouring some from the silver pot into Sydney’s cup.

“This can’t go on—like this,” Sydney said, as if to himself.

“What can’t?”

“Your not saying—that you saw anything.”

She tried to look at him calmly. “You don’t know me well, perhaps. I can keep my promises. This is a promise to myself, not to you. It’s not my business to bring suspicion against anyone, Sydney. Especially suspicion that may be false.”

He was calming down. Perhaps the brandy was helping. He even started talking about television sets, about Suffolk being good for reception because it was flat. But he was ill at ease, and he looked at her with a different eye.

“Prissie’s coming down this weekend.” Mrs. Lilybanks said. “You must meet her this time. I’m sorry you missed her the last time.” She had been waiting for an opportunity to say that, the most mitigating thing she could possibly say, she thought, for what person would introduce a young granddaughter to someone she thought was a murderer?

“I’d like to,” Sydney replied.

He smoked only part of a cigarette in the living room, and then took his leave, without offering to help her with the dishes as he had on other occasions. Mrs. Lilybanks sat on the sofa for several minutes, trying to collect herself. She had endangered herself, certainly, but perhaps the danger point was past now. Sydney knew now he was open to serious suspicion, and if he were guilty, Mrs. Lilybanks thought, his nervousness would be the thing that would betray him. That and the pressure of guilt in which she strongly believed. Most murderers had a great compulsion to confess, to be caught. She had started the ball rolling, as Sydney might say, so all in all she did not think she had done badly that evening. Furthermore, she had discovered something: she really believed Sydney had done away with Alicia.