What about Juliet?”
“I expect she’d tell you herself, if she hasn’t done so already. I suppose she hasn’t?”
“Hasn’t told me what, for heaven’s sake? How do I know?” I asked, and couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice.
It was late, and I know now that subconsciously I was beginning to worry about Juliet’s attitude.
“I can’t tell you whether she has or whether she hasn’t, unless you tell what she might or might not have told me, or be about to tell me, can I? Well, can I?”
He turned round from the mantelpiece and gawked down at me, tall and spindly, and I noticed that his tow-coloured moustache had not turned as grey as his thin hair. He looked, as he sometimes implied to other people that he was, like a former member of a crack cavalry regiment officered by rich young men, though I knew from Elaine Bristow that in fact he had been in the Pay Corps during the last war.
“Well, it’s only fair you should know, old boy-in point of fact, Juliet is not really our daughter. She’s an adopted child.”
He looked anxiously at me, swirling his whisky in his glass. He looked really worried. I could have laughed in his face.
So far from feeling dismay, I was aware of a surge of relief that Juliet was not the result of the marriage of this uninteresting couple; and mingled with the relief, piercing through it, here and there, I began to ponder certain things, such as her dark, withdrawn attractiveness, her mixture of gaiety and seriousness, the touch of mystery about her, the occasional secretive look. Were they due to her blood or to the knowledge she had of herself? Had she, in fact, suspected the truth long before they confirmed it? An overheard remark, a hastily broken off conversation, can reveal more to a child than adults realise. Children are no fools.
None of her characteristics could have stemmed from the Bristows, and I should have known it; and even if, as I had thought, she had had some more interesting ancestor, the dull Bristow blood would have thinned it beyond hope.
“My dear Stanley, what on earth does that matter?” I said lightly, and realised that in my relief that Juliet was a full-blooded non-Bristow I had for the first time called him by his Christian name.
“I hoped you’d say that, old boy. I’d have said the same myself. I’ll tell you about her parents, I’ll tell you something she doesn’t know herself.”
“You don’t need to.”
“It’s only fair, old boy.”
He went ostentatiously to the door, opened it quietly, an inch or two, as if to make sure that nobody was coming along the passage, then closed it and walked back to the fireplace.
“Actually, I’d rather not know,” I said quickly. “I’d rather not have that sort of secret between Juliet and me.”
“I think you should, old boy-you see she’s only half English.”
He spoke in a half whisper, and looked at me as if he expected me to fall down in a dead faint.
“Half English-half Italian,” he muttered. “Remember that hotel I recommended near Sorrento? Remember Signor Bardoni? That’s her father. Good fellow, eh? Don’t know her mother, old boy. English, but just a name-Smith, or Brown or something. Disappeared. Got it?”
I nodded. I’d got it all right. But I couldn’t speak.
“And she doesn’t know?”
“She knows she’s an adopted child, old boy. But she doesn’t know who her parents are, she doesn’t know Bardoni is her father. And her father doesn’t know who adopted her. That’s the way these adoptions go, of course, and quite right, too, old boy, saves a lot of trouble and heartache in later years. But I found out-through a friend of a friend. You know? Made inquiries. Can’t be too careful.”
“And you went and stayed at the hotel a couple of years ago? You and Elaine and Juliet?”
I stared at him in amazement.
“There was no danger, old boy-Elaine knew of the relationship of course, but nobody else. Wanted to go to Italy anyway. Thought it would be an interesting experiment-you know, see what happened, call of the blood and all that stuff, see if they were attracted to each other. Do you know what happened, old boy?”
I was stuck with him for years and years. It was no good showing disapproval, no good saying that in an indefinable way I felt the whole idea repellent. He wanted me to ask, “What happened?” but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to give him the satisfaction. I took a sip of whisky and fumbled for a cigarette.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked again. So I had to say something in the end.
“What happened?” I said.
“Nothing! Nothing at all, old boy! We all talked to Bardoni now and again. But they didn’t take any interest in each other at all. Fascinating, old boy.”
“How did you know he was managing the hotel?”
“Through this adoption society chap-indirectly. They keep in touch, you know, sometimes. Just in case. You know?”
I sat looking into my whisky glass, wondering why Juliet hadn’t told me herself that she was an adopted child. She must have known it would make no difference. I wondered again if it accounted for her withdrawn manner, her secretiveness. I was aware of a feeling of hurt. I said:
“At what age did you tell her that she was an adopted child?”
“At what age? Well, at the age of twenty-two, old boy! We told her tonight-after you dropped her here in your car. While she was changing to go out. Elaine went in and told her.”
“Just like that-a sort of ‘Welcome home’ greeting?”
I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I thought if anything was typical of this dull and unimaginative pair it was to spring this news on her just when she had arrived back tired and exhausted. I was angry, and he saw it.
He went all stiff and more snuffly than ever:
“There was no need for us to tell her-or you, old boy. I trust you realise that? In these days the birth certificate merely gives the name, date, and place of birth. But Elaine and I talked it over, old boy, and at first we were against telling her-or you-and then we said no it was not fair to you, old boy. So we told her. And very reasonable she was about the whole thing. Very reasonable.”
He sounded aggrieved.
I finished my whisky and got up. It is useless to be angry with stupid people, and pointless to argue with them.
“No wonder she looked pale at dinner. I thought she was just tired.”
“I think she really was just tired, old boy.”
He looked at me with his protruding grey eyes, leaning droopily against the mantelpiece, stroking his thin hair, a worried expression still on his face.
It was a hopeless situation. I gave up.
“Maybe she was just tired. I expect that was mostly it.”
I forced myself to smile. He brightened at once.
“Good! So now we’re all in the clear, old boy?”
“That’s right.”
“Good-o!”
“Good-o!” I repeated, and was nearly sick. “I must be off. I’ll just pop along and see if she’s asleep.”
Her bedside light was on, but she was asleep, and did not stir when I put my head round the door. Thus I knew that she did indeed realise that the evening’s revelation would make no difference to me, and was not worried.
It could also have meant that she did not care one way or the other.
The news about Juliet had driven other things from my mind. Within a quarter of an hour there occurred something which shook me considerably, because it gave a warning of the violence which lay ahead.
It has to be remembered that I was too young to have fought in the war, and that I had lived in a peaceful and well-ordered society. I was not prepared for hazards other than the normal perils of accidents or ill health.
I had read about peasants who were observed, threatened, stalked, and finally clawed down by the jungle carnivores, but it always seemed to me that if one stuck to the safer paths one could, apart from Acts of God, reckon on physical security in this twentieth century.
I had no conception, until the very end, of what I was up against.
What happened after I had finally said good night to Stanley Bristow and closed his front door can as well be told by the statement I made to the police, at about fifteen minutes past midnight, which ran approximately as follows:
My name is James Compton, of 274 Stratford Road, Kensington, London, W.8. I am an author. At about 11.50 p.m. this evening I left the house of my fiancee, Juliet Bristow, and her parents in Jameson Street to walk home.
At the corner of Jameson Street and Kensington Place, I glanced to the right to see if the road was clear and saw two men standing under some trees on the opposite side of Kensington Place. Kensington Place is not very well lighted. I paid no particular attention.
I walked along Kensington Place into Church Street. At the bottom of Church Street I crossed the road to look into a lighted shop window. When I recrossed the road by the traffic lights I saw two men who might have been those I had previously seen. They turned the corner into Kensington High Street, walking very fast, and I lost sight of them.
I proceeded along the High Street and turned left along Wright’s Lane. At the bottom of Wright’s Lane I turned right, and passed a narrow entrance which leads to a garage. About ten yards further along the road, which is very short, a man came around the corner and stopped me and asked for a light for his cigarette.
He leaned forward towards my lighter and I noticed that his right hand was in his raincoat pocket. I am aware that this sort of approach can sometimes lead to an attack. The street was deserted. I held my lighter away from me, and although I saw nothing suspicious I watched him carefully. As he leaned forward with his cigarette in his mouth, I noticed that his eyes were not watching the flame but appeared to be fixed on something behind me, and at the same time as I noted this I heard a slight noise behind me.
I jumped back and to one side, and turned round. A tall man who in my opinion had been approaching me changed direction and passed me on the edge of the pavement. He walked very fast, almost running, and disappeared round the corner. He was carrying a short object in his right hand which might have been some sort of bludgeon.
I had with me a walking stick formed from a knobkerrie, which is a stick with a heavy knob and is used by African natives as a weapon. I raised this in a defensive position when I turned round. It is possible that in the indifferent lighting he had not noticed the nature of the object I was carrying. It is possible that the sight of it deterred him.
The other man asked me whether anything was the matter. I said no but that I was a little nervy. He thanked me and walked off towards Wright’s Lane.
The tall man was about six feet in height, of normal build and had a round head with what seemed to be a crew-cut hair style, grey trousers, and a light brown knee-length mackintosh with a belt. He had turned the collar up, though it was not raining or cold. This obscured the lower part of his face. He wore no hat. His hair was brown.
The other man was about five feet seven inches tall, stockily built, and had a square face with a cleft chin. He wore a soft hat with a narrow brim. The hat had a cord round it. The tips of his striped shirt collar were fastened down with small buttons. He wore a light grey raincoat without a belt, which reached down below his knees. I think his eyes were light coloured. He had a slight foreign accent. I cannot identify the accent. Both men appeared to be in their thirties. I cannot say for certain that they were the men I had seen in Kensington Place or in Church Street. I might be able to identify them again, especially the shorter one.
“That’s about it,” I said, and signed the stilted, jerky statement. The bored young detective watched me. He stubbed out a cheap tipped cigarette, and leaned back in his chair.
I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking the same thing: when you got it down on paper it looked pretty thin on its own. And there was nothing anybody could do about it now.
The trouble was we had got off on the wrong footing. I went into the police station and said I wanted to report an incident which seemed to link up with something I had already reported to one of their sergeants, and the station sergeant said, “I see, sir,” and showed me into an interview room. Then the young detective came in, but he wouldn’t listen to me.
That was the point, he wouldn’t listen.
He said, “Well, all right, sir, but first let’s get an idea of the present trouble, and then we’ll see, we’ll see about the rest of it. Now what’s the present trouble, sir?”
The point is, it sounded thin, unless you had some idea of the build-up. But he cut me short when I tried to explain. He wanted the hard facts of my present “complaint,” as he called it.
So when he read through what I had written, I knew he was going to be niggly.
“What you saw in his hand might have been a torch,” he said.
“That’s right. It might have been.”
“You say he approached you. He might have been trying to pass between the buildings and you and the other chap-on the inside of the pavement, as it were.”
“He might have been. But we were well over on the inside. The easier way would have been to pass us on the outside.”
“People do funny things when they’re walking.”
“That’s right. But he was approaching me at quite a sharp angle from the pavement edge.”
I saw him turning the thought over in his mind, seeking some other plausible idea.
“Maybe he also wanted a light.”
“Two people without a light for their cigarettes, in the same short, deserted street, at the same time? Well, anyway, why didn’t he ask for one?”
“Maybe because you were waving this knobkerrie thing in his face.”
“Maybe,” I said patiently.
I began to wish I hadn’t gone to the police station. You have the notion that you can wander into a police station and say, “I think two chaps were going to attack me ten minutes ago, off Wright’s Lane. I thought you might like to know.” But it doesn’t work out like that. You’re lucky if you get away within the hour.
It had taken some time to hack out what he wanted me to put on paper. The little interview room, with its glaring strip lighting, was hot, stuffy and foul with the reek of stale tobacco smoke.
“I thought I’d report the incident,” I said. “We’re always being told to report unusual or suspicious things to the police. So I thought I’d mention it. Particularly as there is a bit of background which you won’t let me mention.”
“I’m not stopping you telling me anything, sir,” he said stiffly. “What else do you want to tell me?”
I was obstinate now. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve mentioned it all already to one of your people. Just put this new report in. I’m not going over the whole story again. The reports will connect up some time, provided you have some sort of carding system. Some time they’ll connect up.” I added sourly, “Sooner or later they will, I expect, tomorrow or the next day, this year or next.”
He began to weaken.
“You’re right to report this matter, sir. It’s good of you to call, sir. I’ll make a note of what you’ve just said.”
We got to our feet. He didn’t mean what he said, and he knew I knew he didn’t mean it, but convention was satisfied. He relaxed and smiled.
“Maybe in ten minutes time I’ll be taking a statement from a tall chap in a short raincoat saying he’s been threatened by a gentleman carrying a knobkerrie. That’s the way it goes.”
“Well, you know my address,” I said, and did not smile.
I came out of the police station. A uniformed police officer was walking slowly round my car, almost audibly sniffing, as a dog will walk around another dog.
“Is this your car, sir?”
I nodded.
“I’ve been in the police station giving some information.”
“You should have left your sidelights on, sir.”
“Well, it’s under a street lamp. I didn’t think you had to leave sidelights on in London, anyway.”
I knew what he was beating up to, but again the conventions had to be maintained.
“When a car is left on a bus route, the lights must be switched on, sir, whatever other lighting is provided in the street.”
“I didn’t know that,” I lied wearily.
“Yes, sir. Good night.”
“Good night-thank you.”
He trudged heavily into the station. Probably he, too, was tired and bored. I drove round to Stratford Road.
My flat is above an ironmonger’s shop. It suits me, for there is nobody above me, and the buildings on either side consist only of business premises. So when I type late at night I disturb nobody.
The flat is not much to look at from the outside, but it is all right inside, though I say it myself.
There is a large living-room, a large bedroom, and two smaller rooms; one of them I use as a study, and the other is the room Juliet proposed to use as a dining-room, thus leaving no spare bedroom for anybody to stay in, which suited me admirably.
There are one or two quite nice pieces of antique furniture, given me by my father when my mother died, and he decided to live in a Hampshire inn and spend his time fishing and, I suppose, dreaming of the past. But he only survived her two years.
He had also given me a few pieces of Georgian silver, and some fine eighteenth-century sporting prints; though as to the latter, I know that from the moment she saw them Juliet had secretly made up her mind to replace them, no doubt as tactfully as possible.
She also had one or two ideas for new colour schemes when she moved in, but she was discreet enough not to dwell too much on the subject.
Sporting prints or not, and colour schemes or not, it was a good home for a bride to come to.
One is tempted to amend that last sentence, and say that it was a good home for a bride to come to provided she could see it.
I arrived back from the police station at one o’clock, parked the car in an empty space some yards up the road, and walked to my front door and let myself in, thinking that soon the rooms would be alive with Juliet’s possessions as well as mine.
I hate noise, especially abrupt noise, so I always close a door quietly. I closed the street door quietly. The blue stair carpet was before me, and I went up the stairs to the flat, weary but satisfied that up to now I had done all that I could.
About four steps from the top I stopped and stared down at the carpet, and more particularly at about half-an-inch of cigarette ash which lay there.
I stood looking down at the ash.
I never leave my flat or any other building smoking a cigarette, and I never go indoors smoking one. There is a simple explanation for this: the only thing which tastes good in the open air, to my mind, is a pipe. So I stood staring down at the ash. Then I looked up at the door of the flat. I remember noting how the polished wood and the brass knocker gleamed in the light of the stairway.
I climbed the last four steps to the flat. Outside the door I gently switched off the stairs light and listened to my heart beating.
After a while I silently lifted the flap of the letter box. The flat door opened on to a very short hallway, and beyond was the living-room. Off the living-room, to the right, was the study.
I saw nobody, and pondered how much the incident earlier in the evening must have affected my nerves. I lowered the flap of the letter box, feeling rather a fool.
There was nothing left to do now but go in.
Yet I stood listening for a few seconds, regulating my breathing, glad that Juliet could not see me. Then I fumbled in the darkness for the flat key, fingering the keys on the ring, not bothering to switch on the light again, and as I did so a faint, half-stifled cough from inside the flat stilled my movements and breathing. I told myself that noises are deceptive, especially at night, and raised the letter-box flap again.
Whoever it was, he was not in the living-room. But I could see the reflected flashes of his torch as he moved about the study.
I do not think I am more cowardly than the next man, but I may be more cautious and calculating, and possibly more imaginative. I assumed that only one man was inside the flat, and I was tempted, now that the uncertainty was over, to rush in and tackle him. But what if there were two?
Perhaps subconsciously the deciding factor was the thought of my marriage, and common prudence. I tiptoed down the stairs, softly closed the street door, and walked quickly to the telephone booths in Marloes Road. As so often, the first one I entered was out of order, the box refusing to accept a coin. The floor was littered with refuse. I do not know why these booths are so often filthy and out of order.
I swore, flung myself out of the booth and into the other one. This one was filthy, too, but when I lifted the receiver I heard the dialling tone, and thanked heaven that I had four pennies, and that the box would receive them.
I put them in, then realised that you do not need coins to dial “999.” Fearful that the coins might upset the routine, I pressed button “B,” recovered the coins, and then dialled “999,” and got through to Scotland Yard. An impersonal voice said:
“Scotland Yard-can I help you?”
“I want to report-”
“Where are you calling from, please, sir?”
“From the ’phone booths in Marloes Road. My name is James Compton, 274 Stratford Road, Kensington.”
“One minute, please, sir.”
There was a pause of a few seconds. Then he said quietly, almost soothingly: “What is the trouble, sir?”
“There are intruders in my flat. Perhaps you could send somebody round,” I said succinctly.
“One minute, sir.”
I waited. After a short pause, the voice returned.
“We will send a police car round, sir. It should be round in about three or four minutes. Right?”
“Right.”
“Now if you’ll go back to your flat, and wait outside, I expect the police car will be there as soon as you are. Right?”
He spoke soothingly. He was good at his job. Nor was he far out in his calculation. The car was not there when I got back, but it arrived about two minutes later; not with a jangling of bells, as in a chase, but almost noiselessly. It must have free-wheeled the last ten or fifteen yards. It drew up at the edge of the pavement with no more sound than a faint crunch.
There were two uniformed officers, and one plain-clothes detective. They climbed quietly out and stood in a bunch for a moment, looking up at my flat windows. Then they came over to where I stood near the doorway. The sergeant spoke quietly.
“He won’t want to jump from the windows, sir. Too high. Any other way of escape round the back?”
I shook my head.
“Then we should be all right, sir. Perhaps you’ll let us in.”
I let them in through the street door, and switched on the light, and we all trooped up the thick blue carpet. Even though there was no way of escape, save down the stairs past us, we still moved quietly. I do not know why.
I can imagine the sort of report they wrote later:
A thorough search of the flat revealed no trace of an intruder, nor was there any sign of a forcible entry. Occupant stated that nothing appeared to have been stolen or disturbed. In the light of these facts, it seems possible that occupant mistook a cough in the street for that of an intruder. It was noted that the curtains in the room used as a study had not been drawn. It seems therefore possible that occupant mistook the lights of a passing car for those of an electric torch. The police car returned to headquarters at 02–35 hours.
It may be worth noting that the occupant had called at the station an hour or so earlier, with a complaint about two men whose actions he had considered menacing. A written statement was taken and is attached.
Mr. Compton appeared sober on both occasions.
When they had gone, I stood by the window gazing out into the night. The windows of the houses on the opposite side of the road were dark, and the street was deserted, and I knew that neither of those factors meant a thing. Somebody or something was there.
I wondered what would have happened if I had not dialled “999,” if I had risked it and gone into the flat. I still wonder. I drew the curtains. Now all they had to watch was the front door. I was deadly tired, and went to bed, and fell asleep in a short while. But previous to going to bed I minutely examined my typewriter and typing paper and envelopes. I had set them in a special way.
They had not been disturbed. That was quite certain.
At four-thirty in the morning the telephone rang by my bedside, and I thought I knew what to expect. But when I lifted the receiver nobody would speak to me.
After a while there was a click, and the dialling tone was renewed.