The voice that answered was a stranger’s. In response to his “Can I speak to the gentleman who is lodging with you?” it said, “I’ll see”, and faded out.

Waiting there, his nerves got the better of him again. The telephone-box became a trap, shutting him in for everyone to stare at. Why had he got himself into this damned affair at all? It had looked like easy money. Nothing to do but pass on a little information-and look where it had landed him! If he had known, he would never have touched it. It might have been better if he had come clean and told the police what they wanted to know. No, no, he couldn’t do that, but the thought was in his mind. Thirty miles away he heard a man’s step crossing a room and the crackle of the receiver as it was lifted from the table where it had been laid. The voice he was waiting for said, “Hallo!” He heard his own voice shake.

“It’s Arnold.”

“What do you want?”

“We were seen together on Friday night in the High Street. I thought I had better let you know.”

“Who saw us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who told you we’d been seen?”

“The police. They said I’d been seen talking to someone they wanted to interview.”

There was the beginning of a laugh at the other end.

“Then it was Pegler-I thought I saw him. But he doesn’t know you-I wonder how- Oh, well, I’d better avoid the neighbourhood. I had a chance of rather a good deal, and it ought to have been safe enough after dark. A bit of damned bad luck the old boy happening along. Where are you speaking from?”

“The call-box outside the station.”

“Anybody been tailing you?”

Arnold felt a rush of panic.

“No-no-of course not.”

The other man said, “I wonder-” And then, “What did you tell the police?”

“Nothing-nothing. I swear I didn’t. I said I’d been looking for a man who had a bike to sell and I couldn’t find the address-if I was seen talking to anyone, it would be whilst I was making enquiries.”

“Did they believe you?”

“Why shouldn’t they?”

“Why should they? On the other hand, they can’t prove anything. When they asked you who you were talking to, what did you tell them?”

“I said I didn’t know what they meant-I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, only asking about this man who had the bike to sell.”

“Well, that’s not too bad. Now you just listen to me! You carry on the way we settled it. Get off this line and stay off it. Don’t write, or ring up, or ask any questions. Just stay put in the bosom of your family, and if you get a chance to do what we planned, get on with it!”

“I don’t know that I can stay put.”

“You’ve got to! You’re no use to me anywhere else!”

“Suppose he won’t have me there-”

“Get Ellen to turn on the water-tap-she’s quite good at it. And now get off!”

Arnold Bray said, “Wait-”

“What is it?”

“The money-”

“What about it?”

“I want my share.”

The voice said lightly, “Oh, you’ll get it,” and the receiver went back with a click.

Arnold Bray hung up at his end. The receiver came wet from his sweating palm. The paths of crime had become very alarming to tread.

Chapter 25

HE’S not feeling at all well,” said Elaine.

Lucius Bellingdon threw her a look tinged with a certain grim humour.

“We have a National Health Service,” he said.

“Oh, Lucius-”

“Surgery twice daily. And I forget whether you have to pay anything for a prescription at the moment or not, but he ought to have enough left out of what I gave him to pay for that.”

Miss Bray got out a crumpled pocket-handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes.

“He wants care,” she said. “He has never been strong, and there are only the two of us left. I remember my poor mother used to say she had always been afraid that she wouldn’t rear him. He only weighed five pounds when he was born, and the doctor said-”

Lucius Bellingdon broke in upon these reminiscences.

“Well, whatever it was, he was wrong, and getting on for fifty years out of date. What is the matter with Arnold anyhow?”

Miss Bray removed the handkerchief from her brimming eyes and repeated her previous remark.

“He needs care.” Then, with rapid inconsequence, “I could put him in poor Arthur’s room. His things have all been cleared out of it, and it wouldn’t take long to air the bed-a couple of hot water bottles and a fire. And you really needn’t see him except at meals.”

She had the kind of clinging pertinacity which is more exasperating than heated opposition. Lily had been like that too. He said,

“Oh, he’ll be well enough to come down to meals, will he?”

The tears began to run down Elaine’s face. When she cried like that she brought Lily back to him with painful clarity. Lily had always cried when he wouldn’t do something she wanted him to do. She hadn’t wanted him to go out to the States, and she had cried almost without ceasing until the moment of his departure. And when he came back and he found that she had taken upon herself to acquire a strange baby in his absence, she had cried again and gone on crying until he had given way and said that Moira could be kept. It was all very much as if she had been a puppy or a kitten, but because Lily had done the thing behind his back, and because he had given way against his will and his judgment, a cold deep resentment had put paid to what remained of their relationship. He did not like to be reminded of these things. When Elaine cried he was reminded of them. There was no real likeness to Lily, it was just that they cried in the same way. Against all reason it made him feel that he was being a brute. He bent a portentous frown upon Lily’s cousin and said,

“For any sake stop crying! If Arnold really isn’t well he can come here for a bit, but it’s no use either of you thinking he can make a habit of it.”

The flow of tears stopped abruptly. There were sniffings, there were dabbings, there was a gush of sentiment.

“So kind-I’m sure I don’t know what we should all do without you. He will be so grateful. I’m sure if you were our own relation instead of just dear Lily’s husband we couldn’t be more grateful. In fact very few people’s relations are so generous and so kind.”

He removed himself, and she was presently talking to Arnold Bray ringing up from the station call-box. In reply to his “Is it all right?” she gave twittering assurances that it was.

“Only I think perhaps you had better keep out of his way as much as you can. He thinks you ought to have made the money go farther… Oh, you’ve got some of it left? I must tell him that. I wish I had known… Oh, you don’t want me to? Really, Arnold, I can’t see why, when it would please him… Oh, I see. But I don’t think there’s much chance of your getting any more… Oh, Arnold, I don’t think you ought to say that! I wouldn’t call him mean-I wouldn’t really. If he hadn’t been careful about money, I don’t suppose he’d have had such a lot of it. Anyhow he says you can come, and I’m putting you in Arthur’s room… Why? Because we’re really full. These week-end people seem to be staying on. David Moray is going to do a portrait of Moira, and Sally Foster has got a holiday-at least it’s not really a holiday, but the woman she works for rang her up and said she was going over to Paris for a week and Sally could have the time off. I don’t suppose she’d have said anything about it, only she was taking the call in the hall and Lucius heard her say, ‘Then you won’t be wanting me for a week,’ and he asked her to stay on. So you see, I don’t know how many of the rooms will go on being full, or for how long. And it’s all very well, but one has to consider things like sheets and towels, because there’s nothing wears them out like constant use-only men never think of things like that, and Lucius is worse than most of them through being a widower for so long.” It was at this point that Arnold Bray stopped trying to get a word in edgeways and rang off.