Slow Burner Page 9

  ‘Oh mother.’

  ‘Don’t be so damned middle class. He’s a clever fellow and will go far. What he has he’s earned. And he’s in love with you, that’s evident.’

  ‘But mother . . .’

  ‘Pay attention, please. I know about Robert, of course. I was as fond of him as you were. And I had a Robert of my own once. But that was forty years ago, and yours is seven. But don’t think I don’t understand, because I do.’

  Mary, though reluctantly, considered this. ‘It isn’t altogether that,’ she admitted.

  Then be sensible. He isn’t bad looking. A little dark perhaps, and personally I like them taller—it can all be terribly awkward when you’re taller than they are. But he’s excellently made. And a proper man, I’m sure of it. If I were thirty years younger . . .’

  ‘You could have him.’

  ‘And I would at that. And so should you. Do you like this life? Of course not. It was all right once—with money. As it is, what does it offer you? You’re twenty-six. Do you want to marry somebody in their bloody army?’ To Lady Mount Ennis ‘They,’ Them’ and ‘Their’ meant a State whose existence she had never recognized. ‘Or a farmer? Or a Dublin intellectual? The local farmers drink like fish, and people from Dublin are mostly pederasts.’

  ‘I don’t fancy either.’

  ‘I should have been shocked if you had. Of course there’s something about him I can’t place.’ Lady Mount Ennis moved her beautiful hands. ‘Something I don’t understand, something—something secret. It’s ideas, I expect. He’ll talk, but not beyond a certain point. But I can tell he’s a Radical. Not that I’m inimical to ideas. We could do with rather more, round here, than are available.’

  ‘It depends on the ideas.’

  ‘No doubt. That is a gamble, naturally. But marriage is a gamble. About even money, I would put it, for a girl who can pick her bets. Which you cannot. This one I would lay at about eight to three. For you that’s very reasonable odds.’

  Mary sighed. ‘I’ll think it over,’ she said.

  ‘Do so.’

  Mary had thought it over and had accepted Ellis Parton. Her instincts had said no but her intelligence yes. She had remembered that a man who could look at a fish like that . . . ‘Lovely beast,’ he had said, ‘beautiful.’ He wasn’t a clod and he could be very agreeable when he wished. It wasn’t a lot to build on, it certainly wasn’t a romance—she hadn’t expected that. But it was something. Besides, she couldn’t be sure that with a slightly different background, a slightly different accent, she wouldn’t have jumped at him; she couldn’t be sure whether her instinct was the wisdom of her sex or nothing more reliable than the conditioning of a particular member of it. She was honest with Ellis Parton; she told him she did not love him. He hadn’t seemed to mind very much, and that was puzzling; he had even laughed—not unpleasantly, not cynically, but on a note which she hadn’t recognized. But she had accepted him.

  She hadn’t been happy, but for several years she had been contented. There were advantages in being Mrs Parton. For one thing there was money, money in the bank, money she could write cheques upon in contrast to money pared from yet another piece of silver, yet another set of chairs furtively sold in Dublin. Not a fortune certainly, but ready money—more than she had ever commanded. Nor were the days intolerable; she had help in the house. Childless, they could have afforded a maid to live in, but there was a fashion in these things, a convention at Colton that wives, however senior their husbands, did something about the house. Something. Mary was not particularly fond of the other wives of the Centre; she had little in common with the brightly extrovert women of a prosperous suburbia. They would have thought it putting on airs, somehow a little wicked, to have kept a resident maid. That was very silly, Mary thought, but it would have been sillier to have affronted their prejudices. She had, after all, to live with them.

  For the mornings, then, there was the house, and on Saturdays and Sundays a proper meal at midday. The afternoons—sometimes Mary was a little ashamed of the afternoons. There could be bridge or there could be tennis—all the agreeable and, in moments of doubt she told herself, the futile commitments of a pleasant but limited community. Whatever it was the afternoon had somehow stolen away. But it wasn’t a bad life, she insisted; and it was what she had contracted for—better in many ways than she had been entitled to expect, for Ellis Parton had risen and was still rising. It should have been enough. It was enough, it was whispered, for wives without number.

  But it hadn’t been enough; and this evening, travelling back to Colton, almost on an impulse, Mary was uncertain of herself, uncertain what to say to her husband. She knew that he wouldn’t be complaisant; he was proud and hurt still, and, in some way which his wife couldn’t find altogether despicable, resentful. He would feel no obligation and had said that none existed. Twice already.

  Mary had decided upon a final try. She drove from Colton station in a taxi. She had wondered whether Ellis would meet her, and he had not. She hadn’t really expected it, but she had hoped. His absence was something more than an ungallantry: it was an omen.

  She paid her taxi and rang the bell. Ellis Parton opened it promptly. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Welcome home.’ His manner wasn’t openly offensive, but it belied his words. Mary followed him into the sitting-room. She noticed that the housekeeper was evidently competent. ‘Sit down,’ her husband said.

  Mary sat down. She had decided that to be direct was her only hope. Ellis Parton was an impatient man. ‘I think you can guess what I have come about,’ she said.

  ‘I can. I’m not a fool.’

  ‘It isn’t a lot to ask. I don’t want money and . . .’

  ‘A court wouldn’t give you any.’

  Mary let this pass. ‘It isn’t as though I were asking you to do the conventional thing. I’m not asking you to arrange a divorce—nothing under the counter. I’m not entitled to divorce you, and I’m not suggesting it. I’m asking you to divorce me.’

  ‘I don’t deny that I’ve thought about it. I’ve even been to a lawyer. “You’re in desertion,” he said, “and have been for the necessary time.” He said I could do it.’

  Then why won’t you?’

  ‘Why should I?’ ’

  Mary suppressed a sigh. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said. She was conscious that it sounded anything but convincing. But Ellis Parton was considering. ‘What’s in it for me?’ he asked finally.

  ‘You might want to marry again.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Plenty of men have said that.’

  ‘I know it. And they’ve broken on something I shan’t break on. For I don’t need to.’

  Mary examined her husband through her lashes. She knew that he prided himself that he was a realist; she decided to chance it. ‘I might find out,’ she said.

  ‘God help you if you try.’

  Mary, now, sighed openly. ‘You wouldn’t even consider it,’ she asked, ‘in the future? If I found somebody . . .’

  Ellis Parton looked at her sharply. ‘Which means you have,’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ve found another man and you want me to free you.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘I just don’t feel like it.’

  ‘You’re very bitter, Ellis.’

  ‘I have reason to be.’

  Mary rose wearily; she put on her hat and gloves again. ‘You wouldn’t even consider it,’ she asked flatly, for it cost her an effort, ‘as a—a favour?’

  ‘No.’

  Ellis Parton rose in turn. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll be staying the night,’ he said. ‘I’ll telephone for a taxi.’

  Mary Parton wasn’t alone in travelling on Monday evening, for Percival-Smith was on his way to Dipley again. He took a taxi to Waterloo and was disappointed that his train had no First Class. He had plenty of money—Major Mortimer had seen to that; he had insisted. This time Percival-Smith hadn’t protested. He had spent an
inconsiderable part of it on a bottle of champagne and a dozen roses from an expensive florist, but he still had more currency upon him than he had ever had in his life. He began to smile happily, a little slyly. He had more than a suspicion that he wasn’t going to need it.

  He was feeling excited and a little worldly. Lord Ludleigh, he thought—a banker, a second generation peer. Johnny Koch? Another banker, he supposed. It sounded rich and scarcely English. And Bobby Peel—well, Bobby Peel had been in the Seventh/Seventeenth, and he hadn’t been much good. A peer of the realm, though rather a dim one; a banker; and a rich young Regular—they had to put their hands in their pockets. They had to pay, they did. Whereas Charlie . . .

  Charlie Percival-Smith laughed aloud. Very nicely, quite innocently he was savouring success. He wasn’t bitter or resentful; he wasn’t reflecting upon the injustices of a social system which on the whole he didn’t consider unjust.

  He was simply in tremendous form.

  He took another taxi to Number Twenty-Seven. Mrs Tarbat opened the door. Percival-Smith gave her the roses. He did it without words, but rather gracefully. ‘Darling,’ said Mrs Tarbat.

  They went into the living-room and sat on the sofa. The room was furnished in surprisingly good taste. The bureau was of ancient oak, lovingly polished, almost black. Silver candlesticks glowed discreetly. The carpets and curtains were excellent, and a fire burned in a basket grate which the builder of the house had certainly not supplied with it. Mrs Tarbat rose to put the flowers in water and Percival-Smith opened the champagne. ‘Darling,’ Mrs Tarbat said again.

  They sat in cosy intimacy for a while, drinking the champagne. Presently Mrs Tarbat rose again. ‘It’s terribly hot in here, I think I’ll get into something thinner.’

  Percival-Smith did not detain her. He took the opportunity to examine the instrument which Colton had provided. It was an ingenious affair, a needle on a universal bearing. It was lying, at the moment, supine. Below it was a dial calibrated from zero to a hundred. It was reading nought.

  He put it away as he heard Mrs Tarbat returning. He was at once aware that she had kept her promise to change into something thinner. He was seized by a moment of doubt, but he put it behind him. He was a decent man, a gentleman according to his lights, and his conscience was clear. For he had made a little arrangement about Mrs Tarbat with the Security Executive. Not to put a point on it he had blackmailed them. If he was going back to Number Twenty-Seven, he had explained, and if Mrs Tarbat—well, if Mrs Tarbat turned out to be somehow on the wrong side of the law, then it must be the minimum sentence. The absolute minimum. Otherwise he wasn’t going back—otherwise no dice. Major Mortimer had hemmed and dithered. Percival-Smith had insisted. Finally Mortimer had taken him to Colonel Russell. Russell had given him a glass of sherry and immediate agreement.

  Percival-Smith went upstairs with Mrs Tarbat.

  Chapter 5

  The telephone woke William Nichol very early next morning. He looked at the clock by his bedside as he reached for the receiver. It was barely six. ‘Nichol,’ he said sleepily.

  ‘William? Charles Russell here.’ Colonel Russell sounded excited.

  ‘Oh . . . Good morning to you.’ Nichol shook sleep from him.

  ‘I’m sorry to wake you, but there have been developments. Much as we expected, as it happens. There was something in the attic all right.’

  ‘Was there indeed. And what?’

  ‘That’s what we want to be sure about. The short of the story is that Percival-Smith has been to Mrs Tarbat’s again and he somehow got sight of the attic. He poked about with a torch and noticed a couple of wires leading, apparently, to a hat box. He turned on the light to get a better look and—and your instrument went crazy. The box is full of coils and valves and so on. That’s all we know for the moment.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Nichol said.

  ‘Can you send somebody?’

  ‘I’ll come myself. At once. Where is this Dipley, by the way?’

  ‘You go through Sutton and Banstead . . .’

  ‘I doubt it—not from here, that is. Give me the reference.’ There was a moment’s pause and the rustle of a map being spread. ‘National Grid One Sefen Zero,’ Russell announced professionally, ‘half Three Fower Zero.’ There followed a precise map reference. ‘Twenty-Seven Chatsworth Road,’ Russell concluded.

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

  ‘And could you possibly call here afterwards?’

  ‘Of course. Let me see . . . five to six. Half an hour to shave and get some coffee. I can be in Dipley by nine. And with you at, say, eleven or perhaps half past.’

  ‘It’s very good of you.’

  ‘Not at all. To tell you the truth I can’t wait.’

  But it was nearer noon when Nichol arrived at the Security Executive, for his investigations in Mrs Tarbat’s attic had taken him a little longer than he had expected. Now he walked quickly into Russell’s office and came without preamble to the point. ‘It was much as you told us, a most ingenious apparatus. I haven’t had time to discover exactly how it does it, but unquestionably it produces epsilon rays. Negative rays, too—safe ones. It’s wired to the light switch in the attic—turn it on and it works, turn it off and it stops. Most ingenious, And beautifully made. Naturally I want another look at it. A very careful look.’

  ‘That can be arranged, of course.’ Charles Russell considered. ‘And you met Mrs Tarbat?’ he inquired.

  ‘I did. I liked her. She maintained to me, as no doubt she will to you, that she knew nothing about it. That can hardly be the whole of the truth, but it might be a part. My impression was that she’s something of an actress.’

  ‘As it happens she has been. We don’t yet know as much about her as we should like—she hadn’t interested us before now. Not like Parton, for instance. But we know she’s been on the stage. She told us so. You will have gathered that she wasn’t particularly successful.’ Charles Russell smiled. ‘She told Mortimer that she’d never been a Principal.’

  Nichol considered this. ‘Though I want another and much more careful look at this apparatus,’ he said, ‘on what I’ve seen already it’s inconceivable that Mrs Tarbat could have made it. To use her own language what we are after is her Principal.’

  The two men fell into a considerable silence. ‘We are a little further forward,’ Russell said at length, ‘but not very much. As you say, the man behind her is what matters. There is something very unusual in Mrs Tarbat’s attic. We have still to discover who put it there and why.’

  William Nichol reflected. ‘My surmise as to why,’ he said, ‘and if you will forgive me poaching on what is your own ground professionally—my guess is that it is a blind. Somebody with sufficient knowledge of Slow Burner to take that knowledge elsewhere wishes to distract attention. From himself, I mean. From his possible movements.’

  That is my own conclusion,’ Russell agreed.

  ‘But nobody on your suspects’ list has tried to leave the country?’

  ‘No . . .’ Charles Russell lit his pipe; he seemed to be a little embarrassed. ‘Did you know that Ellis Parton had gone sick?’ he inquired.

  ‘As it happens I did. I was told this morning, though in fact it was late last night that he went down. Your information about my staff, Charles, seems to be better than my own.’ Nichol’s tone was carefully impersonal.

  ‘It has to be, I’m afraid. I hear it’s jaundice.’

  Nichol permitted himself a slightly sour smile. ‘It would be,’ he said. ‘Parton’s the sort of man who does get jaundice.’

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else rather than have you find it out. He’s been taken to your hospital. And if you should be thinking of paying a visit of courtesy, don’t press the doctor too closely about the malady of the man in the next bed.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Nichol said miserably.

  Russell shrugged. ‘It’s necessary,’ he explained. He tapped a substantial pile of papers upon his desk. ‘This is Parton’s dossier,’ he sai
d. ‘You have one yourself, if that’s of any comfort. We had the usual things about him—every stupid society he’s ever belonged to, every dubious contact. He hasn’t been discreet you know. And nothing—nothing positive, that is, until today. And it’s still very little.’

  William Nichol waited and Russell sighed. ‘Security,’ he said, ‘is mostly good office work. Naturally we’ve been through these papers again and again—followed every lead, checked everything. And we got nothing until Mrs Tarbat came up.

  I Then we went to work on her, of course. Nothing again: she seems to be just what she says she is, a highly respectable keep. And her three young men—nothing yet again. They’re rich, raffish and a little stupid. But one of them had met Ellis Parton. Years ago—in the war.’

  ‘Indeed?’ William Nichol was interested.

  ‘So we had another line to follow for what it was worth, and we followed it. It was the drinking young man, as it happened. We had nothing about him, naturally, but we began to collect. And what we collected was that he had seen Parton several times since the war. They had been drinking together, at week-ends. Did you know Parton drank, by the way?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. He isn’t a regular soak, and that might be significant. But he drank at week-ends, and with one of Mrs Tarbat’s young men. I shouldn’t have thought they would have much in common. Drunks will drink with anybody, but Parton isn’t a drunk.’

  ‘I see,’ Nichol said slowly.

  ‘So that Parton could have known of Mrs Tarbat’s existence.’

  ‘As could a score of other young sparks, friends of Mrs Tarbat’s protectors.’

  ‘And which of this score of young sparks could have simulated Slow Burner?’

  William Nichol considered this carefully. ‘It takes us,’ he said finally, ‘a little deeper into the slime. And that is all. Have you told Bates?’ he inquired. ‘About Parton, I mean, as distinct from about the apparatus?’