Not to be Taken (23 page)

‘You know, Douglas,’ Rona said, ‘I’ve been underestimating you all these years.’ She spoke with a kind of surprise which showed me that my observations on the letter could not have been far short of the mark.

‘You didn’t really expect John to die,’ I went on. ‘And even when he did, the last thing you expected was an enquiry, considering Glen’s certainty that death was due to epidemic diarrhoea. It really was very bad luck that Cyril’s suspicions should have been aroused, out of no more than pique that Angela hadn’t notified him properly of the death. Still, if the worst came to the worst you had the letter, and to do you justice, Rona, you would have used more than the letter if Angela had been arrested; I’m sure of that. But I think you didn’t know whether to use the letter or not. I remember some questions, rather hesitant for you, that you put to Glen and me on the first day of the inquest; the letter had been posted to the War Office by then, of course, but you wanted to assure yourself that you had been right to post it. I take it that you were in Torminster on the day before the inquest? Well, it’s so obvious that I haven’t bothered even to enquire.’

‘I was, my friend,’ Rona said imperturbably.

‘You know, it’s odd that the Coroner didn’t ask you about the letter. You were nursing John. If anyone might have been expected to know about the letter, it was you. But no one seems to have thought of you. By the way, it was you, of course, who planted all the evidence which the letter mentioned: the bottle with traces of arsenic in the secret cupboard and traces of arsenic in the bathroom basin – with John’s approval, of course. And no doubt you chose the bathroom basin because it wasn’t used much, with a basin in each of the bedrooms; the arsenic would stay there longer. John can’t have expected to die. Right up to the end he must have been confident. I expect he took the concocting of the letter as a huge joke. He would have had complete faith in you to give him the proper treatment for arsenical poisoning; and, knowing John, I shouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t laughing up his pyjama sleeve all the time at Glen for being so wrong in his diagnosis.

‘As I said just now, Douglas, I’ve underestimated you,’ Rona said with a half-smile. ‘I should certainly never have given you credit for so much constructive imagination. I really feel it’s due to you to tell you that you’ve been right, I think, on every single point.’

‘Oh well, after all, there were plenty of indications, if only one grasped their significance,’ I said, unable to help feeling flattered. The situation really was quite absurd. ‘Even you gave yourself away once or twice, Rona, you know, when you were off your guard. You were so very much upset over John’s death, and you showed it far more than one would have expected from your normal control over your feelings. That convinced me that you were in love with John; and later I realised that self-blame accounted for your breaking down on Frances’ shoulder. You know, Frances said right from the beginning that you knew something was wrong; I remembered that when I was trying to puzzle out whether it was really you who had done it. Frances is pretty acute, you know.

‘Then another thing that gave you away was the way you blazed out at Glen when he mentioned that day at tea that there was nothing wrong with Angela at all. That wasn’t a bit like you, Rona. I was surprised at the time. But of course he’d given you a shock – a much bigger shock than any of us suspected. For it must have been quite a shock, after you’d based your whole plan on the certainty that Glen would give a
certificate
without question if Angela were to fade quietly out, to learn that he would have done nothing of the sort. Naturally you felt for the moment as if he had been deceiving you most unfairly’

I paused.

‘Is that all?’ Rona asked quietly.

‘Oh, I expect there are other points, but that’s enough for the moment.’ I shook my head. ‘Rona, Rona, murder’s a risky business. And the more elaborate the plan, the greater the risk. But I believe yours would have succeeded if only, by some fatal chance, a worse spasm of pain than usual hadn’t driven John to try the medicine for relief. Otherwise it might well have reached Angela, just as you calculated.’

Rona looked at me. ‘And what, my friend, do you propose to do about all this?’

‘To do?’ I repeated, taken for the moment aback. ‘Well, I suppose I shall have to…to…’

‘Well?’

‘That is, of course you’ll give yourself up. It’s pretty rotten, I know, but you’ve no alternative.’

Rona smiled scornfully. ‘Come, Douglas, I wasn’t at a public school, you know.’

‘Eh?’

‘Your code of ethics isn’t mine. In other words I certainly have an alternative. I shall do nothing at all; and if you approach the authorities with the story you’ve just told me, I shall deny every word of it. I shall deny that it was the antidotes for arsenic that I rang up for; what Alice wrote down at this end of the telephone has already been destroyed, and she certainly won’t remember; I shall deny every other fact for which you can’t produce corroborative evidence.’

‘But…you can’t do that, Rona. I mean, they are facts.’

‘Possibly. But how are you going to prove them? How are you going to prove, for instance, that it was I who “planted” the arsenic in the secret cupboard? Inference is one thing, my friend, proof another.’

‘But, dash it all, you’ve admitted it.’

‘Between ourselves, and for this one occasion only, perhaps. But really, Douglas: you’ve been exceedingly intelligent so far; don’t spoil it all now. What may convince in a drawing-room won’t satisfy a court of law. You’d never get a conviction on that story. You wouldn’t even get an arrest. As you said yourself, there’s no evidence, as the law understands it. I saw to that, at all events. If you take this tale to the authorities, you’ll only create a great deal of unpleasantness and achieve precisely nothing.’

‘But, Rona, you can’t intend to do
nothing
?’

‘But why should I do anything? I admit that a mistake – a blunder, if you like – is a crime; but to my way of thinking that’s the only crime I’ve committed. I consider it a beneficial act to rid the world of a parasite and an incubus, which is what I intended to do. You may cling to the law if you like, with all your public-school mind; I admit no judge or jury but my own conscience. And my conscience clears me. Except, of course, for the blunder. That was unpardonable.’

I was speechless, simply speechless. I had known that Rona’s ideas were revolutionary, but this sounded to me like sheer Bolshevism.

Rona smiled at me in a pitying way.

‘You’re thinking I ought to be punished. That’s in accordance with your code, isn’t it? Well, my code doesn’t approve of punishment. Punishment does more harm than good. It’s barbarous. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, eh? I’m afraid you’re terribly Old Testament, Douglas. Still, if it’s any consolation to you, I have been punished, and shall continue being punished all the days of my life – unbearably. Don’t you think that’s worse than being hanged by the neck?’

‘But…but that’s different,’ was all I could find to say.

‘Different, yes. And worse. No, Douglas, I can’t see that, because I attempted to rid society of a useless member, a member who can still be useful should be exterminated, as your code demands. Nevertheless I’m prepared to make a concession to you. I’ll undertake that my life shall be more useful to the community than it has been. There are plenty of openings. Yes, this decides me. I’ll leave Glen and these petty activities here and go back to London. I need work anyhow now, real work. I’ll let you know later what I intend to do.’ Rona smiled at me derisively. ‘You shall be my warder and watch that I’m working out my sentence properly.’

‘But, Rona –’

‘That’s enough, my friend.’ Rona cut me short with a firmness that took my breath away. ‘You may do what you like, I’ve told you what I shall do. We’ll discuss it no further.’

There was in any case no chance to discuss it further at the moment, for just then Glen appeared.

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Been sticking on in the hopes of being offered a glass of sherry?’

‘That’s right,’ I said, pulling myself together. ‘And with the intention of asking for one if not offered. I feel I need one.’

3

Well, that was eight days ago.

I have not seen Rona since, I have done nothing, I have not said a word to anyone, not even to Frances. And the reason is simple: for the life of me I can’t decide what to do.

This morning Harold informed me, with much excitement, that Rona was going to leave Anneypenny for London again. He said she was taking up a post in a big charity organisation for helping destitute children – an unpaid post, added Harold, his eyes bulging. No doubt Harold’s information is correct; it usually is.

But things can’t be left like that. I must do something, mere justice demands it – though Rona is, of course, right, and justice would never be done. But that does not shift my responsibility.

I feel I really ought to do something.

But what ought I to do?