Suspension of Mercy (9 page)

Sydney said nothing. He was a little annoyed by Alex’s proprietary attitude. The ideas, after all, came from him. And why should Alex have a monopoly on playwrighting? Sydney got up and said, “Let’s have a drink. Sun’s way over the yardarm and practically in the sea.”

They were all on second drinks by the time Sydney struck a match to his charcoal, on which he had poured some fuel to make it light instantly. It did light instantly, and the flaming bowl in the earth pleased him tremendously. Hittie wrapped the potatoes in foil and baked them on the coals. They were all very merry, and Sydney sang for them:

“Under the britches of Paris with you

I’ll make your screams come true . . .”

Hittie screamed with laughter, and Sydney did, too, because he was making up the words as he went along. He hoped they didn’t carry to Mrs. Lilybanks.

“You see, bachelor life suits him,” Alex said to Hittie. “I never saw him this cheerful when Alicia was around.”

“Oh, Alex,” Hittie said, ready to defend the sacred bliss of matrimony.

“Aren’t you more cheerful, Syd?” Alex asked.

“That’s right. No more hidden bananas and stuff like that. And just wait till her income starts pouring in. Boy! That plus The Whip, I’ll be rolling!” Sydney was on one knee, testing the heat of the coals with his palm.

“Hidden bananas?” Hittie asked. Her accent broadened every “a.”

Alicia liked them—likes them,” he corrected, “less ripe than I do, so to get any ripe before she eats them, I had to hide them behind books and things. Then every six months or so when Alicia would dust the books, she’d say, ‘
Eeeeeeek!
Good God! Another banana and what a
state
it’s in!’ ”

Hittie and Alex roared.

Hidden bananas!” Hittie kept saying, leaning on Alex to keep her balance.

“Hittie was saying, you can tell where Alicia is from where she told her bank to send her income, can’t you?” Alex asked.

“Yes, but as I was saying to Hittie, I don’t think Alicia wants me to know.” Hittie must have told him that, Sydney thought, and he didn’t want to go into it again. He didn’t want to talk about Alicia at all.

“You will let us know if she collects her check, won’t you, Syd?” Alex asked.

“Sure . . . If she collects it? I’m sure she’ll collect it. She’ll need it.” Unless she were staying with some friend, Sydney thought, but he couldn’t imagine who it might be. He didn’t think it was anyone in London, and she didn’t know any people well enough anywhere outside of London to stay with. A couple of married school friends, yes, but Alicia wouldn’t want to stay with them, he was certain. He got to his feet. “While there’s some light, I want to look for a grill,” he said, and went off to the toolhouse.

When he came back with a square of crisscrossed wire, just the thing, Hittie and Alex were having a murmured conversation.

“You have a joint bank account, haven’t you, Syd?” Alex asked. “You could tell from—”

“Yes, but—she wouldn’t take everything out of that and leave me flat.”

They ate indoors, but the glowing orange coals in the pit drew them out again later, and they sat long around it, Hittie sipping coffee, Sydney and Alex finishing the wine. Sydney was trying to think of a fourth story for The Whip.

14

T
he Polk-Faradays had been right to attach such importance to Alicia’s collecting her income, Sydney discovered. Alicia’s check arrived from the Westminster Bank on August 2, Tuesday, and only half an hour after its delivery, before nine o’clock, Mrs. Sneezum rang up to ask if the check had come. Sydney said it had, but that he didn’t know where to send it.

“It must mean Alicia intends to come home soon,” Mrs. Sneezum said. “I was hoping she might be back now—because I rang the Westminster Bank a couple of days ago and was told she hadn’t given any forwarding address. Have you heard from her?”

“No.”

“Neither have we. What about your bank in Ipswich? Has she been drawing money out of that?”

Sydney didn’t know, and Mrs. Sneezum seemed surprised and annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to find out. She asked if he would ring the bank and ask, and then ring her back collect, and Sydney said that he would.

Then he waited, feeling somehow like a reproached child and resenting it, until 9:30, which he thought was the earliest possible hour to call a bank. It was a boring, embarrassing chore. Never mind, he told himself, if you’d killed her, you’d have to be going through the same motions. People in your stories have to do it all the time, and this is what it feels like. He called the Ipswich bank. It took several minutes to get the right clerk to find this information, and then the news was that no checks signed by Mrs. Bartleby had come in since June 26, and that was a check dated June 24. Alicia had left on July 2. Sydney called Mrs. Sneezum back and reported.

“Really? I wonder what she’s doing for money—or if something’s actually happened to her?”

“Well, she went off with fifty pounds from her July check. It had just come in and she cashed it in Ipswich.”

“Yes, I supposed she did. But it’s not like Alicia not to want her money as soon as she can get it. Not to run out of money, either.”

Three days later, on a shopping expedition in Ipswich, he called at the bank and asked again. No checks signed by Mrs. Bartleby had come in. That was on a Friday. Who was keeping her, Sydney wondered. A man? What man? The telephone was ringing as Sydney got back home. It was Mrs. Sneezum. Sydney told her his lack of news.

“My husband thinks it’s time we asked the police to look for her, and so do I. I think you’ll agree, too, Sydney,” she said in a matter-of-fact and somewhat impatient tone. “I’m sure when the police hear the story, they’ll wonder why we haven’t spoken to them weeks before.”

Sydney felt this was a direct slap at him, but only agreed politely that they should ask for police help.

“I think the police should start with Brighton and go on from there, if they have to,” Mrs. Sneezum said. “We might need a couple of photographs, if she’s doing something silly like staying somewhere under another name, you know. Perhaps you can post me some, Sydney? A couple of clear ones. You probably have some that are more up-to-date than the ones we’ve got here.”

It took him half an hour to find two snapshots that showed Alicia’s face clearly, one of her in jeans in a deckchair behind the house, the other in a summer dress, from last year, standing by the apple tree between their house and Mrs. Lilybanks’.
SUFFOLK GIRL FOUND MURDERED
, Sydney imagined the headline over it. No.
HAVE YOU SEEN HER? POLICE SUSPECT FOUL PLAY
. Oh, rot, he thought, and went into his workshop to get an envelope. Interesting that the Sneezums didn’t trust him to call in the police and get things moving properly.

Sydney drove to the Roncy Noll post office with the envelope. He needed some jam, so after dropping the envelope into the box outside the door, he went into the store. It was a combined post office and general store, not very big.

“Some orange marmalade, please, Mr. Fowler,” Sydney said, thinking that by tomorrow or the next day, Mr. Fowler wouldn’t go off for his purchase so quickly, but would stop and say, “Oh, Mr. Bartleby, I saw about your wife in the paper . . .” Sydney had told Mr. Fowler and also Edith, his daughter who helped out, and also Rutledge, the handyman, and the milkman who had asked about Alicia last week, and even Fred Hartung at the garage in Roncy Noll where he bought most of his gas—he had said to all of them that Alicia was in Kent with her mother. Now it would come out in the papers that he had known for about three weeks that Alicia wasn’t with her mother, yet he had kept on giving out that story. Mrs. Lilybanks knew, and had known since the Inez and Carpie picnic, Sydney realized. She must not have told anybody in the neighborhood, which was nice of her.

“Thick-cut, right?” Mr. Fowler asked, thunking the jar down. He was a tallish, slender man with a bushy black mustache rather like Rudyard Kipling’s.

“Right,” Sydney said, pleased that he remembered his preference.

“All right like that?” Mr. Fowler asked, meaning should he wrap it.

“Oh, certainly. Nothing else to carry.” With a wave, Sydney walked toward the door.

“I hope Mrs. Bartleby’s keeping all right,” said Mr. Fowler.

Sydney turned. “I think she’s all right. She’s not much for writing,” he said, looking Mr. Fowler in the eye, then he went on. Just what a killer would say, Sydney thought.

August 2. Tuesday. Sydney looked at the date on the calendar—contributed by their Framlingham dairy, two scottie pups in plaid collars in the picture—and he felt it would have profound significance for him. Nothing would happen today, but today was a turning point because of the entry of the police. It was also the day he intended to send off a carbon of
The Planners
to Potter and Desch in London. He had sent the original by surface mail to his agent in New York ten days ago, but because London was more immediate and personally important, he had kept his second copy and continued to look at it, though without changing anything. Just before 6
P.M.
, when the post office closed, Sydney wrote a covering letter to Potter and Desch, wrapped the manuscript, and sent it.

The next morning at ten, a young police constable knocked on Sydney’s door. He was blond, fresh-faced, and very earnest behind his smile. He pulled out a tablet and fountain pen, and Sydney offered him a chair. He sat down stiffly, and prepared to write on his knees. “It’s about your wife. Have you heard anything from her?”

“Not a thing,” Sydney said. He sat down on the sofa.

The first questions were of the kind Sydney anticipated. The date he had seen her last? July 2. Where? He had put her on the train to London at Ipswich that morning, Saturday, around 11:30
A.M.
Where did she say she was going? She said to her mother’s. What kind of mood had she been in? In quite a good mood. She was going to do some painting, and she wanted to be by herself for a while. Wasn’t it unusual that she hadn’t written a word to him or to anyone since? No, not really, because she had said she wouldn’t write to him until she wanted to come back, and she asked him not to try to communicate with her. But wasn’t it unusual that she hadn’t even written to her mother? Perhaps it was.

Sydney rubbed his palms together slowly between his knees, and waited attentively for the next questions.

“The police are looking around Brighton now, but it’s important that we get some information from you, too. Do you know any other places she might have gone?”

“I can’t think of any.”

“Did she say how long she might be away?”

“Not specifically. She said, ‘No matter how long I’m gone—’ that she didn’t want me to try to find her. I gathered it could be months. Maybe six months.”

“Really?” He wrote it down. “
She
said that?”

“She said she didn’t know.” Sydney shrugged a little, nervously. “She took two suitcases with her and some of her winter clothes. She thought—some time apart might do us both good,” Sydney said, feeling himself sliding deeper into suspicious-sounding replies, perfectly truthful replies, yet he was doing what murderers always did, say their victims had said they would be absent for an indefinite length of time.

“In that case, maybe there’s not so much reason for Mrs. Bartleby’s parents to be worried,” said the constable.

“No, and I suppose something’s in the papers this morning. I only saw the
Times
. If my wife knows her family’s so concerned, she’ll communicate. Probably today.”

“It’s in the papers this morning with a photograph. It’s in the
Express
. Mrs. Bartleby’s parents don’t know she might stay away as long as six months?” the young constable asked with a frown.

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell her mother that for fear she might be more worried. Also because I wasn’t sure Alicia really would stay away that long. But now that her mother’s already upset, I—” Sydney stopped, floundering. Another gaffe, another boner, he thought. Why hadn’t he told Mrs. Sneezum? Because he was lying, because he had made up the whole story and hadn’t planned carefully enough to tell everyone the same story.

The constable stood up. “I think that’s all we have to ask you at the moment, Mr. Bartleby. Let’s hope today, with the publicity, she’ll answer from somewhere.”

Sydney went back upstairs to his study, then on an impulse, went into the bedroom and looked out its front window. The young constable was on the road’s edge, by his bicycle, looking at his notes. Then he turned his bicycle, mounted it, and pedaled off toward Mrs. Lilybanks’ house, where he dismounted, parked his bicycle, and approached her front door.

And had the neighbors seen anything suspicious lately around the Bartleby house?

Sydney did not stand at the window waiting to see when the officer came out, but when he looked again ten minutes later, the bicycle was still leaning against the front gate post. Mrs. Lilybanks might have seen him carrying out the carpet, of course. Sydney had thought of that before. But he hadn’t really thought that the police would be called in. Not really. Alicia might have had enough consideration to write her parents, he thought. She could have told them not to tell him where she was, if she wanted to keep it a secret.

Sydney felt vaguely guilty and ashamed of himself. It was neither a pleasant nor an interesting sensation.

M
RS.
L
ILYBANKS WAS GLAD
to talk to someone about Alicia, but she hadn’t known that anything was in the newspapers that day, that people were alarmed because Alicia was missing, and when she heard that, Mrs. Lilybanks thought she should be careful about saying how surprised she was at not hearing anything from her. There was no use in adding to the alarm.

“Would you say you know the Bartlebys pretty well?” the young officer asked after he had finished with some preliminary questions.

“No, just as neighbors. I’ve been here only since the end of May. Alicia and I did a little painting together.”

The officer glanced at the green smock she wore over her dress. “You’ve seen Mr. Bartleby a few times since his wife’s been gone?”

“Oh, yes. He’s been here for dinner, and I went over to his house for a picnic one afternoon.” She could have said more about that afternoon, that it was the afternoon she learned that Alicia wasn’t at her parents’, about three weeks ago, and that her London friends had been surprised by that fact, but Mrs. Lilybanks thought it best not to prattle.

“Did he seem worried about her?”

“Not a bit. She did want to stay away for a while, she said.”

“She said or Mr. Bartleby said?”

“She said it. Alicia came by to see me the Thursday or Friday before the Saturday she left. I suppose it was Friday. She said she wanted to be by herself for a while and paint, and she thought a little solitude might do her husband good, too.”

The officer nodded. “She was in good spirits?”

“Quite good, yes.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“Oh, no. I’d have told Mr. Bartleby, if I had.”

“Did you expect to hear from her?”

“I did—really,” said Mrs. Lilybanks carefully. “But—she may not be able to write easily, even a postcard, and she may really want to cut everything off for a while.”

“Do you think they were getting along all right? The Bartlebys? It might be a help as to what Mrs. Bartleby decided to do with herself, take a job under another name or go to another country, like . . . I didn’t ask Mr. Bartleby that, because I could see he meant to say they were getting along very well, just decided to separate for six months.”

“Six months?” Mrs. Lilybanks asked.

“That’s what Mr. Bartleby said. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was six months she was gone, he said. Mrs. Bartleby didn’t say that to you?”

“No, I’m sure she didn’t or I’d have remembered. I got the idea she’d be away a few weeks, perhaps about a month.” Mrs. Lilybanks was sitting up alertly on her sofa, with her hands crossed in her lap.

“Well—” He made a short note in his tablet. He was perched on a hassock with his long legs pressed together to make a writing place. “Do you mind telling me how they were getting on, you think?”

Mrs. Lilybanks chose her words. “I think well enough. I saw them together with other people—as I said.” And she had seen Sydney’s temper in the kitchen that evening, too, a shocking flare of temper, but was it logical to attach great importance to that?

“You noticed nothing unusual around the time Mrs. Bartleby left?”

Mrs. Lilybanks jumped slightly and resettled herself. She had a vision of Sydney carrying something heavy over his shoulder in the garden the morning after the day Alicia had left—or was supposed to have left. Very early it had been, still hardly daylight. She had been trying to bird-watch with her binoculars, but since it was still not light enough, though the birds were singing, she had gone downstairs to start her tea water. When she had looked out the upstairs window again, Sydney’s car had been moving off down the road. “No,” she said, “nothing unusual.”

“Mrs. Bartleby didn’t say anything unusual to you, like she was going to meet anybody?”

“No,” said Mrs. Lilybanks.