The Paying Guests (48 page)

Her mother had begun to fidget about in her chair. ‘Oh, but this is awful. Surely no one’s imagining that Mr Wismuth had anything to do with Mr Barber’s death? Mr Wismuth, who’s always so pleasant? The two of them were such great friends. Didn’t they go through the War together? No, I can’t believe it.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Playfair, ‘
someone
killed Mr Barber. And you have to allow, it does look very much as though Mr Wismuth has something to conceal.’

‘But why would he do such a thing?’

‘What did the inspector tell Frances? That the murderer might have wanted to get Mr Barber out of his way?’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘Well, I hate to play drawing-room detective, but —’ Again Mrs Playfair seemed to be carefully choosing her words. ‘Just think about it for a moment. On the one hand you have Mr Wismuth, spending a great deal of his time with Mr Barber and his wife. On the other – well, there’s the wife herself. My dear, she’s an awfully attractive woman, of a very particular sort. Haven’t you told me, more than once, that the couple didn’t get along?’

Frances felt rather than saw her mother’s horrified gaze. She couldn’t bring herself to return it. Was this what the police were thinking? Had they been thinking it all along? She began to recall moments from her interviews with Inspector Kemp, odd questions that he had asked, about Lilian, about Charlie…

She turned to Mrs Playfair. ‘Did you mention that to Mr Samson or to Patty? About Lilian and Leonard not getting along?’

Her tone made Mrs Playfair blink. ‘I – I don’t recall.’

She sat still for a second, then got to her feet. ‘Oh, this is nonsense. This is rubbish! What is it exactly that Lilian’s supposed to have done? She was here all Friday night with me.’

Mrs Playfair gazed up at her, startled. ‘No one’s accusing Mrs Barber of anything. I dare say she’s innocent of the whole affair.’

‘Oh, you dare say?’

‘Yes – yes, I do. But isn’t it possible that Mr Wismuth has been harbouring some passion —? I know that Mrs Barber is a sort of friend of yours, Frances. But, well, let’s not be unworldly. Men don’t kill each other for no reason.’

‘Don’t they? It seems to me that men do that all the time. We’ve just come out of a war in which they did nothing else! Eric and Noel and John Arthur – what were they killed for, but for nonsense, for lies! And who protested against that? Not you and my mother! And now a single man has lost his life and everyone’s leaping to these ludicrous conclusions —’

Mrs Playfair looked amazed. ‘Good heavens, Frances!’

‘This isn’t an Edgar Wallace story. If we’ve to listen to policemen’s swank, to servants’ gossip —!’

She was shaking, and couldn’t go on. Her mother said, ‘Frances, please, sit down.’ But she felt that if she sat she would only have to spring back up again. She stepped closer to the hearth, put out a steadying hand to the mantelpiece.

After an uncomfortable silence Mrs Playfair gave a bird-like twitch of her chin and shoulder.

‘Well, naturally I understand that you’re upset. This is a desperate thing for everyone concerned. But, as you say, a man’s life has been lost; that didn’t happen by itself. I don’t see what the War has to do with it at all. – No, that isn’t true.’ Her tone had sharpened. ‘I see exactly what the War has to do with it, and so, I imagine, does your mother. The War took all our best men. It isn’t considered correct to say so, but I shall say it anyhow. The War took all our best men, and with them went everything that’s decent and lawful and —’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘A
murder
, Frances!
On Champion Hill!
Would that have happened ten years ago?’

Again, Frances couldn’t answer. She stood with her hand at the mantelpiece still, not wanting to surrender the feel of the cool hard marble shelf. Looking into the mirror above it she met her own reflection and thought, Calm down! For God’s sake! You’re giving too much away!

Then her gaze shifted and refocused and, through the glass, she caught her mother’s eye. Her mother was watching her with a look of unhappy embarrassment, but there was something else in her face – Frances was almost certain – that oddness, that doubt, that fear —

Abruptly, she turned away from it, saying, ‘Forgive me, Mrs Playfair.’ She left the fireplace, crossed to the window, stood gazing out at the street.

But they were all rattled now. After a minute or two of subdued chat between Mrs Playfair and her mother she heard sounds of movement, and, turning back to the room, found them both on their feet. Mrs Playfair was shrugging on her coat, fastening the chain of her fox collar. But, ‘Don’t trouble,’ she said quietly, when Frances moved forward to walk her to the door. ‘I shall see myself out. Really, I’m sorry I came, if it was only to upset you.’

Once she had gone, Frances returned to the sofa. Her mother remained standing, looking down at her as if she hardly recognised her.

‘How could you talk to Mrs Playfair like that about the War?’

‘Mrs Playfair knows what I think about the War. She called me a traitor to my country once, don’t you remember?’

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you. I don’t know what’s the matter with anything any more. If your father could have foreseen —’

‘Oh,’ said Frances, in her automatic way, ‘Father foresaw nothing. That was his great talent.’

‘Yes,’ said her mother, with surprising bitterness, ‘and yours is —’ She struggled, and didn’t finish.

Frances looked at her. ‘Mine is what?’

But her mother turned her head and wouldn’t answer.

Frances waited, then gave it up. She tapped her thumb against her lips. ‘The idea of the police being out there thinking all this, “keeping their eye on” Charlie. The idea of people saying these things about Lilian! It’s grotesque!’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll have to go and see her. I’ll have to warn her.’

Her mother’s head jerked back. ‘No, Frances. Let it alone.’

‘Let it alone? How can I do that?’

‘Aren’t we involved enough? The police must know their own business.’

‘The police don’t know anything.’

‘What do you mean?’

Frances took a step away from the sofa. ‘I don’t mean anything. I just —’

There was a
rat-tat-tat
at the front door, that made her jump as if she’d been hit. ‘Christ!’ she said, incautiously. ‘What now?’ She hesitated, her heart thumping. But it was less suspenseful, she had discovered, simply to go out and answer than to stand there dithering. If it was a newspaper man she would close the door in his face.

It wasn’t a newspaper man, it was a trim little military figure – a messenger boy, who handed over a telegram, addressed to her.

Her first idea was that something must have happened to Lilian. Lilian had broken down, told everything. Lilian was ill. Lilian was dead. She held the envelope without opening it, thinking, in a bleak, braced way, Is this it, then? Is this the moment when everything falls apart?

Finally she ungummed the flap, drew out and unfolded the salmon-coloured sheet.

The words made no sense, until she saw the Clipstone Street stamp.

She became aware that her mother had followed her out to the hall and was anxiously watching. ‘What is it? Who’s written? Not more bad news?’ She came and took the paper from Frances’s hand, and frowned. ‘But who’s the sender? I don’t understand. Is it your cousin, Caroline?’

Frances opened her mouth to answer, groping for one of the old untruths. But the lie seemed such a weary one suddenly. Weary, and trifling; almost quaint. She said, instead, ‘It’s from Christina.’

Her mother actually looked blank for a moment. Then her features tightened. ‘
Her
.’ She handed the telegram back. ‘Why on earth is she writing to you?’

‘She saw the case in the papers, she says.’

‘But how did she connect it with you? Have our names appeared now?’

‘She must have recognised the Barbers’.’

‘But —’

‘I’ve spoken about them to her.’

Frances saw her mother absorbing that, felt the further rapid chilling of her manner.

‘You’ve seen each other, then.’

‘A few times, this year, on my trips into Town. She lives near Oxford Street with a friend… I thought you might have guessed it.’

Her mother’s face twisted. ‘No, of course I didn’t! Why should I ever have thought of it?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, I suppose.’

‘It never occurred to me that you would be so untruthful. After giving me your word that you wouldn’t see her!’

Frances was astonished. ‘I never gave you my word.’

‘As good as, then.’

‘No, not even so much as that. We never spoke about it. You never wanted to know. And it’s down to me, isn’t it, whether I see my friends or not? Oh, what does it matter, after all!’

‘Well, evidently it does matter, since you’ve been going about it in this sneaking sort of way.’

‘Because I knew you’d react like this!’

Her mother’s tone grew even tighter. ‘I don’t wish to discuss it any further. You know my opinion of that young woman. Go ahead and see her, if you must. I don’t like your friendship with her, I don’t understand it, I don’t respect it; I never shall. But what I like and respect even less is your deceit. On top of everything that’s happened! I don’t know what to expect next! I feel I hardly know you at the moment. What else have you lied to me about?’

There was nothing sinister to the question, Frances was almost sure. But it caught her off guard, and again she felt herself colour, in that scalding, incriminating way… And suddenly it might have been Friday night again, she might have just come down the stairs with Leonard’s body in her arms. She felt it all, more vivid than in ordinary memory or even in dream: the tearing weight of him, the bulk of his padded head against her shoulder, even the clownish pressure of his bowler hat. Her heart had begun racing like an engine with no connection to the rest of her. She went to one of her father’s chairs, leaned heavily against the back of it. And when, a moment later, she looked up, her mother was staring at her – and there it was, that fear, that suspicion, showing again in her expression.

She returned the telegram to its envelope, doing it badly, stuffing it in. ‘Please don’t let’s quarrel,’ she said, with an effort. ‘Whatever you’re thinking about Christina, about – about anything, it isn’t like that. It isn’t worth it. Come back into the warm, will you?’ And she made to step past her mother to the drawing-room.

But with an odd, darting movement her mother caught hold of her arm. ‘Frances.’ She had the air of someone who must speak quickly or not at all. ‘Frances, the night that Mr Barber died, I came home with Mr Lamb, and you – you didn’t seem yourself. Tell me truthfully, had something happened?’

Frances tried to draw her arm away. ‘No.’

Her mother kept hold of her. ‘With Mrs Barber, I mean. There hadn’t been some sort of a quarrel between her and Mr Barber?’

‘No. How could there have been? Leonard wasn’t even here. We never saw him.’

‘She hasn’t confided anything to you? Nothing about Mr Wismuth, or any other man? There’s nothing you’re keeping from the police?’

‘No.’

‘I want to believe you, Frances. But all your life you’ve had these – these queer enthusiasms. If I were to think, even for an instant, that that woman had involved you —’

‘There’s nothing, Mother.’

‘Do you promise me? Do you swear it? On your honour?’

Frances wouldn’t answer that. For a moment they pulled against each other, both of them frightened as much by the oddness and tension of their pose as by anything that had or hadn’t been admitted.

Then Frances gave a twist to her wrist and her arm came free; and in the process her mother was tugged off balance and nearly stumbled. With Frances’s help she righted herself, but then she quickly moved away. They stood breathless, face to face on the black-and-white tiles.

Frances said again, in a steadying way, ‘There’s nothing. All right? Look, come back to the drawing-room.’ She held out her hand.

But her mother wouldn’t come. Her manner had changed, grown guarded. Still breathless, she answered, ‘No. I – I shan’t. My head is hurting. I think I’ll lie down for an hour or so.’

And without meeting Frances’s gaze, but keeping a wary eye on her, almost as if she were afraid of her, she crossed the hall to her bedroom and softly closed its door.

Suddenly weak at the knees, Frances tottered back to the stiff black chair. The thoughts, as she sat, came in a panicky rush. What ought she to do? Her mother knew. Her mother had guessed! Or at any rate, she had guessed a part of it. But how long before she worked out more? How long before the whole thing knitted itself together, like one of her wretched acrostics? And if
she
could see the design of it, then how soon would Inspector Kemp and Sergeant Heath, and Patty’s niece’s boy, and Mr Samson the coroner – how soon would they – how soon —

She couldn’t frame the words to herself. She pressed her hands to her eyes. More than anything else, she wanted to see Lilian. But how would it look to her mother if she went dashing off to Walworth? And suppose something should happen while she was away from the house? Suppose Sergeant Heath should arrive, wanting to put together another of his mysterious bundles? Suppose he should speak to her mother while her mother was like this? She simply couldn’t risk it. She felt an uneasiness – a terror – at the prospect of leaving things so unguarded.

She could write to Lilian, of course! That thought made her twitch into life. She went upstairs to her bedroom, got out paper, pen, ink, started to put down, in a hasty, intimate way, everything that Mrs Playfair had told her. And she had actually filled three-quarters of a page before she was struck by the recklessness of what she was doing.
You need to be extra careful, Lily. Don’t for God’s sake do or say anything that might give the police the impression
– What was she thinking? In horror she screwed the letter up, took it over to the empty grate and held the flame of a match to it. The bare idea that she had come so close to doing something so incriminating made her begin to doubt everything she had done so far. She’d supposed herself in control of the whole affair. She didn’t have a clue! Her own mother suspected her of having some part in a murder! All the confidence of the previous day was shattered. She rolled a cigarette, doing it so ineptly that half the tobacco fell to the floor. She smoked it at the window, peering out at the garden, the door in the wall – wondering how on earth she’d ever thought any of it could work.