At the end of lunch Flossie suddenly announced that she wanted Terence to work with her all the afternoon. She kept Terence hard at it, taking down letters and typing them. It was a perfectly normal routine and at first Terence noticed nothing unusual in Flossie’s manner. Presently, however, she became conscious that Flossie, from behind the table, across the room, or by the fireplace, was watching her closely. She would deny herself the uncomfortable experience of meeting this scrutiny but sooner or later she would find herself unable to resist and would look up and there, sure enough, would be that gimlet-like stare that contrived to be at once so penetrating and so expressionless. Terence began to feel that she could not support this behaviour and to wish, in acute discomfort, that Florence would speak to, or even upbraid, her. The flood of contentment that had come upon her when she knew that Rubrick loved her now receded and left in its wake a sensation of shame. She began to see herself with Flossie’s eyes as a second-rate little typist who flirted with her employer’s husband. She felt sick and humiliated and was filled with a kind of impatience for the worst to happen. There must be a climax, she thought, or she would never recover from the self-disgust that Flossie’s stare had put upon her. But there was no climax. They plodded on with their work. When at last they had finished and Terence was gathering together her papers, Flossie, as she walked to the door, said over her shoulder “I don’t think Mr. Rubrick’s at all well.” Calling him “Mr. Rubrick,” Terence felt, put her very neatly in her place. “I don’t consider,” Florence added, “that we should bother him just now with our silly old statistics. I am rather worried about him. We’ll just leave him quietly to himself, Miss Lynne. Will you remember that?” And she went out, leaving Terence to draw what conclusions she chose from this pronouncement.
“And it was after that,” Terence said, “almost immediately after — it was the same night, at dinner — when the change you all noticed appeared in her manner towards him. To me it was horrible.”
“She decided, in fact,” said Fabian, “to meet you on your own ground, Terry, and give battle.” He added awkwardly: “That doesn’t seem horrible to me; pitiful, rather, and intensely embarrassing. How like her and how futile.”
“But he was devoted to her,” Ursula protested. And as if she had made a discovery that astonished and shocked her, she cried out: “You cheated, Terry. It happened because you were young. You shouldn’t cheat in that way when you’re young. They’re all alike — men of his age. If you’d gone away he’d have forgotten.”
“No!” said Terence strongly.
To Alleyn’s discomfiture they both turned to him.
“He’d have forgotten,” Ursula repeated. “Wouldn’t he?”
“My dear child,” Alleyn said, intensely conscious of his age, “how can I possibly tell?” But when he thought of Arthur Rubrick, ill, and exhausted by his wife’s public activities, he was inclined to believe that Ursula was partly right. With Terence gone, might not the emotion that Rubrick had felt for her have faded soon into an only half-regretful memory?
“You’re all the same,” Ursula muttered, and Alleyn felt himself classed, disagreeably, with Arthur Rubrick, among the senile romantics. “You go queer.”
“Well, but damn it all,” Fabian protested. “If it comes to that, Flossie’s behaviour was pretty queer too. To flirt with your husband after twenty-five years of married life—”
“That was entirely different,” Ursula flashed at him, “and anyway, Terry, if she did, it was your fault.”
“I didn’t do it,” Terence said, for the first time defending herself. “It happened. And until she came into the room it was right. I knew it was right. I knew it completely with my reason as well as with my emotion. It was as if I had suddenly been brought into focus, as if I was, for the first time, completely Me. It couldn’t possibly be wrong.”
She appealed to Ursula and perhaps, Alleyn thought, to the two young men. She asked them for understanding and succeeded in faintly embarrassing them.
“Yes,” said Ursula uncomfortably, “but how you could! With Uncle Arthur! He was nearly fifty.”
Silence followed this statement. Alleyn, who was forty-seven, realized with amusement that Douglas and Fabian found Ursula’s argument unanswerable.
“I didn’t hurt him, Fabian,” Terence said at last. “I’m certain I didn’t. If he was hurt it was by her. She was atrociously possessive.”
“Because of you,” said Ursula.
“But we couldn’t help it. You talk as if I planned what happened. It came out of a clear sky. It wasn’t of my doing. And there wasn’t a sequel, Ursula. You needn’t think we had surreptitious scenes. We didn’t. We were both of us, I believe, a little happier in our knowledge of each other. That was all.”
“When he was ill,” said Fabian, “did you talk about it, Terry?”
“A little. Just to say we were glad we knew.”
“If he had lived,” said Ursula harshly, “would you have married him?”
“How can I tell?”
“Why shouldn’t you have married? Auntie Florence, who was such a bore to both of you, was out of the way. Wasn’t she?”
“That’s an extraordinary cruel thing to say, Ursula.”
“I agree,” said Douglas and Fabian muttered: “Pipe down, Ursy.”
“No,” said Ursula. “We undertook to finish our thoughts in this discussion. You’re all cruel to her memory. Why should any of us get off? Why not say what you all must have thought: with her death they were free to marry.”
A footfall sounded outside in the hall, accompanied by a faint jingle of glasses. It was Markins with the drinks.
CHAPTER VI
ACCORDING TO THE FILES
With Markins’ arrival the discussion ended. It was as if he had opened the door to a wave of self-consciousness. Douglas fussed over the drinks, urging Alleyn to have whisky. Alleyn, who considered himself to be on duty, refused it and wondered regretfully if it was from the same matchless company as the bottle that Cliff Johns had smashed on the diary floor. Any suggestion that the discussion might be taken up again was dispelled by the entrance of Mrs. Aceworthy, who, with the two girls, drank tea, and who had many playful remarks to make about the lateness of the hour. It was high time, she said, that all her chickens were in their nests. And she asked Alleyn pointedly if he had brought a hot-water bottle. Upon this hint he bade them all good-night. Fabian brought in candles and offered to see him to his room.
They went upstairs together, their shadows mounting gigantically beside them. On the landing Fabian said: “You will realize now, of course, that you’re in Flossie’s room. It’s the best one, really, but we all preferred to stay where we were.”
“Ah, yes.”
“It’s got no associations for you, of course.”
“None.”
Fabian led the way through Florence’s door. He lit candles on the dressing-table and the room came into being, a large white room with gay curtains, a pretty desk, a fine bed and a number of flower prints on the walls. Alleyn’s pyjamas were laid out on the bed, by Markins, he supposed, and his locked dispatch and investigation cases were displayed prominently on the desk. He grinned to himself.
“Got everything you want?” Fabian asked.
“Everything, thanks. Before we say good-night, though, I wonder if I might take a look at your workroom.”
“Why not? Come on.”
It was the second door on the left along the passage. Fabian detached the key from about his neck. “On a bootlace, you see,” he said. “No deception practised. Here we go.”
The strong electric lamp over their working bench dazzled eyes that had become accustomed to candlelight. It shone down on a rack of tools and an orderly collection of drawing materials. A small precision lathe was established on a side bench which was littered with a heterogeneous collection of pieces of metal. A large padlocked cupboard was built into the right-hand wall and beside it Alleyn saw a good modern safe with a combination lock. Three capacious drawers under the bench also were locked.