One

One night in midsummer, at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, Arthur Fane murdered a nineteen-year-old girl named Polly Allen. That was the admitted fact.

The girl was only an incident in his life; but she had fallen for him, and was threatening to make trouble with his wife. She even mentioned marriage. In Cheltenham, everybody has to be respectable. Arthur Fane, as head of the firm of Fane, Fane & Randall, family solicitors, had to be particularly respectable.

So, one night when Vicky Fane, Uncle Hubert, and the two servants were away, he invited this girl to his house. She came there secretly, expecting a party, and was strangled with her own imitation-silk scarf. During the dark hours of the night Arthur Fane put her body into his car, drove up Leckhampton Hill, and buried her near the old quarry there.

Polly Allen was a girl of doubtful origins, who drifted from town to town, reasonably respectable but with no family or particular friends; it seemed unlikely that anybody would inquire after her. And, in fact, nobody ever did. Her murder remains unproved and in general even unsuspected to the present day.

But two persons found out about it — Hubert Fane, Arthur's uncle, when it happened; and Vicky Fane, his wife, a little later.

To Vicky the realization came with slowly growing horror. She was a pretty, likeable, pleasant girl of twenty-five years as opposed to Arthur's thirty-eight. She had been married to him for two years, and was beginning quietly, strongly to dislike him even before this happened.

Realization came in patches. On the day following the murder, Vicky found Polly Allen's handkerchief, with Polly's name stitched in it, pushed down out of sight behind the cushion of an easy chair in the drawing room. She burned the handkerchief in case the servants should find it. After a time she made discreet inquiries, and discovered that Polly seemed to have left town. That meant only casual infidelity, of course. But then, during the hot nights with the moon shining on him, Arthur Fane began to talk in his sleep.

Vicky listened, white-faced in the dark. She had to know, and she guessed who else knew, by his altered position in the household since the night of July fifteenth.

Hubert Fane.

Uncle Hubert Fane had come to stay with them in April. "Just a brief visit, my boy, while I look round." He arrived back in England vaguely from "the colonies." He was supposed to have money, and was greeted by Arthur with expansive hospitality. But by the end of May he was still there, without giving any sign of getting a place for himself or even of standing his round of drinks when they dropped in at The Plough.

On the contrary, he began borrowing a pound or two, here and there: "until I can cash a check, dear boy." By June, Arthur was fed up. By July he was on the point of bluntly giving Uncle Hubert his walking papers, when the night of July fifteenth changed all that.

Uncle Hubert was then moved to a sunnier bedroom on the side of the house facing the front lawn. His borrowings became more frequent. If he expressed preferences to Arthur in the matter of a dish for dinner, Vicky was curtly told to get it.

Now this makes out Hubert Fane to be a common variety of blackmailer, which he was not. Vicky liked him; everybody liked him. Hubert Fane, fiftyish, was a lean, distinguished-looking man with gray-white hair. Vicky knew him for an old rogue; but a modest, unassuming, almost kind-hearted rogue. He always dressed well, in shadings of gray; he was widely traveled, well-read, and of irreproachable manners. Though he talked in somewhat elaborate, flowery sentences, he talked entertainingly and not without wit.

Even the retired army officers of Cheltenham liked him. These he treated with a sort of grave deference: as, say, a subaltern would treat his colonel. Without mentioning his rank or regiment, he contrived to suggest that he too was experienced in campaigns — not as much as they, of course; but still enough to listen to their stories with appreciation. "Not a bad chap," was the verdict; "not a bad chap at all."

So Uncle Hubert knew; and, under pressure from Vicky, admitted it, though not in such a way as could compromise him.

Vicky never forgot the afternoon when all this came out. It was a hot afternoon towards the end of August, when all the windows were set open and not a breath of air stirred. She sat with Hubert in the back drawing room (where Polly Allen had been strangled), looking out over a scarlet rose garden.

Uncle Hubert sat opposite her, smiling an agreeable smile under his large nose.

"But— murder!" Vicky whispered.

"Sh-h!" urged Uncle Hubert, not at all easy about this himself. "It was indiscreet," he conceded. "I cannot help feeling it was indiscreet. Still, there it is. These things happen."

Vicky looked at him helplessly.

Brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a sturdy body and a taste for outdoor exercise, she might have been any young upper-middle-class wife. She was a good wife; she managed Arthur's home efficiently, and had a way with servants. Everything seemed normal except this one black image.

Uncle Hubert cleared his throat.

"I am sure," he pursued, "that if you talk the matter over with Arthur, quietly—"

"Talk it over? I couldn't even go near him with a story like that!"

Uncle Hubert regarded her anxiously.

"Then I hope, my dear, that you are not meditating any such regrettable step as — er — going near the authorities? There is the family honor to consider."

"Family honor!" said Vicky. Her sick rage blinded her. "Family honor! All you're thinking about is your meal-ticket. You've been blackmailing Arthur and you know it."

Uncle Hubert looked genuinely shocked and hurt. His distress was, in fact, so evident that at any other time Vicky would have comforted him.

"Now there, my dear," he pointed out, "you wrong me. You really do wrong me. Candor compels me to admit that I may have mentioned the matter to the boy, and expressed my sympathy for him in his awkward predicament. That is all. No transaction of a sordid financial nature, I give you my word, has ever been so much as mentioned between us."

"No," said Vicky thoughtfully. "You wouldn't need to. Either of you."

"Thank you, my dear. If I seem to sense some latent irony in your tone, I trust I am well-bred enough to overlook it. Thank you."

"How did you learn about it?"

"I was curious. That Arthur should send you overnight to visit your mother was reasonable enough. That he should give the servants the night off was still plausible. But that he should provide me with a ticket to hear Gigli sing at the Colston Hall in Bristol and offer to pay both my railway fare and my hotel bill there, was simply incredible.

"Nor did I like his extra remark that he would be working very late at the office. Unsuspicious as I am by nature, I still felt that something must be up. So I did not go to Bristol. I returned here, feeling that in justice to you I ought to keep an eye on him."

"And you sow—?"

"Well…"

"Yet you didn't interfere?"

The old villain had at least the grace to look uncomfortable here. But his tone was persuasive.

"My dear, what could I do? I could not know what was in Arthur's mind. I anticipated something of a merely vulgar nature; and was looking forward to it, I must confess, with considerable interest. The unfortunate incident occurred before anybody could have interfered. It was on that sofa there, where you are sitting now…."

Vicky leaped up from it, feeling as though someone had squeezed her heart.

"Afterwards I could hardly embarrass the boy by betraying my presence. There is such a thing as decency, my dear."

This wasn't real, Vicky told herself.

She folded her arms, cradling them as though she were cold, and began to walk up and down the room.

It was the same pleasant room, with the overstuffed chairs covered in white cretonne, the polished hardwood floor, with rugs scattered on it, which was badly sprung in places and had a tendency to creak near the windows at the back. Vicky looked round the cream-painted walls; at the red-brick fireplace, swept and scrubbed; at the flowers on the grand piano. It was all the same, yet it was all changed.

Because Arthur, Arthur had strangled a girl here. Odd. That was her first thought: the oddness of it. Yet was it so odd? She thought of Arthur: the thick-set figure, the dark complexion, the rare laugh. Pleasant enough, unless you got him out of his intellectual depths. The soul of neatness, and not very liberal with money.

As a lover, she could not get on with him. He was both violent and unskilled. And this prompted dangerous thoughts. In two years of marriage, he had awakened Vicky Fane just enough so that she realized several things. In the proper hands, she realized, she might be…

Frank Sharpless's, for instance.

A word to the police—

Vicky shut the thought from her mind. She hated herself for the disloyalty of these thoughts. Arthur was her husband. You could not share the same life, the same house, the same room with a person for two years, twenty-four months, heaven knew how many hours, without conceiving some sort of tolerant liking for him. You had to protect him, whatever happened.

For the life of her, she could not remember now why she had married him. That was all unreal, an engulfed past. At the time he had seemed rather a smoldering, Byronic sort of person; and, as her mother had pointed out, a girl must get married. Dangerous thoughts again, moving through her mind like satyrs.

Once again Hubert Fane cleared his throat.

"My dear," he said with solicitude, "you are not well. This heat is too much for you."

Vicky stopped by the fireplace, and began to laugh hysterically. Hubert shushed her.

"However, since we must pursue this matter, do you mind if I touch on a rather delicate subject?"

"Can you think of any subject more delicate," said Vicky, "than the one we've been talking about?"

"I see no reason," said Hubert, "why this regrettable affair should mar our lives—"

"When every ring at the door-bell may mean—"

Uncle Hubert considered this.

"No, I do not think so. The boy planned with his usual care and thoroughness. But as I was saying. The older you grow, my dear, the more you will come to realize that the secret of a successful life lies in compromise."

"I wish the police thought that."

Hubert was unruffled.

"Now, Arthur appreciates this," he said, not without satisfaction. "And it leads me to my point. I cannot have failed to observe, as a paternal uncle, that your married life with Arthur, though outwardly happy and well-thought-of by the neighbors, has been not without its difficulties."

Vicky did not comment.

"As a young woman, you are, of course, fond of male society." He paused. "Captain Sharpless, for instance."

Vicky stopped short. Her back was towards him, and she was glad of it, for he could not see the color that crept into her face. It was not guilt; it was mortification that this old crook should notice everything. But her wits whirled as well. Was he, she wondered, trying blackmail tactics on her now?

"And the same, with regard to the opposite sex," pursued Hubert, "applies to Arthur himself. Have you observed that he appears to find Miss Ann Browning extremely attractive?"

Again Vicky did not comment.

"Well!" said Hubert, twinkling like a benevolent deity. "As the platitude has it, live and let live. With the proper show of discretion on all sides, I see no reason why you should not all be happy without troubling your heads about Polly Allen: a matter which is, after all, best left to the theological authorities. The thing is done. To brood over it now would be both morbid and unprofitable. In fact, I am not sure I cannot find Scriptural authority for this." Vicky felt rather sick.

"You could find Scriptural authority for anything," she blazed at him, holding to the edge of the mantelpiece and turning round, "you blackm…!"

"My dear," said Hubert, genuinely concerned, "you must not upset yourself like this. It will be bad for you. And above all things you must look your best, and go on as though nothing had happened. Captain Sharpless and Miss Browning are coming to dinner tonight, I think." He stopped suddenly, reflecting. "Now that I remember it, I took the liberty of inviting a guest of my own."

"Oh, God!"

"Yes. A doctor. A psychiatrist, whose opinion should be of interest to you. Dr. Rich, his name is: Richard Rich. I knew him many years ago, and ran into him this morning in the bar at The Fleece. He has never been a great success in this world. I thought a good dinner might cheer him up." Hubert's eyes were anxious, like those of a well-trained dog. "You don't mind?"

Vicky thought that she was past minding anything.

She walked to the two windows at the back of the room, stopping by one of them to tap her fingers on the sill and stare out into the hot, bright garden. The floor squeaked sharply under her feet there, reminding her that it ought to be seen to; but how did you see to such things?

Her mind hovered round such trifles. An extra guest for dinner meant rearrangement, and Arthur was a murderer, and at any minute a large policeman might come tapping at the door. Sturdy, well-shaped in her brown jumper and black skirt, with tan stockings and shoes, Vicky stood at the bright window with her head lowered, nagging at herself for disloyal thoughts. Her mind was a bright blank of doubt and misery.

"Uncle Hubert," she said abruptly, "what was she like?"

"Who, my dear?"

"This girl. Polly Allen."

"Now, my dear, I repeat that you must not—"

"What was she like?"

"To tell you the truth," Hubert replied, after some hesitation, "she reminded me a little of Ann Browning. Not of Miss Browning's social class, of course; a few years younger, eighteen or nineteen, perhaps; dark hair instead of fair. But with something of the same air about her. Pretty, I should say; though when I saw her last she was no longer pretty."

Vicky clenched her fists. Her thoughts ran round and round again, the same scratchy groove like a caught phonograph needle.

What a situation! What a situation! What a situation!