Take My Life (6 page)

Nick, thinking this none of his business, had moved to go past, but somehow the policeman got in his way.

‘Yes?' said Nick impatiently.

‘Could I trouble you a moment?' said the other man. He was polite, even casual in his manner, but underlying it was a hint of authority. Inspector Archer was glad he had decided to come on this mission, which might so easily have proved a wild-goose chase. He was certain it was not that now, for he had recognized this tall man as the man whose photograph he had just found in the murdered woman's locket.

Philippa had slept very little during the night. She had waited up until two, hoping every minute that Nick would come back. Once she thought she heard his footsteps on the landing and had gone to the door and peered down the empty stairs.

Very early on in the night she had realized that if there is to be a true honest unreserved making up of a quarrel, the only way is to forget what possible offence the other person has given you and think only how bad you've been yourself. That was not hard. Last night there had grown up inside her a devil of contrariness. Joyous at her own success, entirely in love with her husband, she had let these ugly growths run the evening into ruin. Nerves didn't quite explain it. Pride didn't explain it. Elizabeth Rusman didn't quite explain it. It was a paradox of life, she told herself, because these ill things bad grown out of her
happiness
. She would not have been so over-strung with a more moderate success, she would not have been nearly so bitter towards Nick if she had not loved him so much.

But she was clear-sighted enough to see how hard it might be to put things right. Into the pillow or outward to the empty air she could say she was sorry with all frankness and abandon. Facing him would be more difficult. The perversities would still put obstacles in her way, make her tongue hesitate, qualify the sincerity of her apology. No doubt they'd tempt some remark to his lips to try to turn all her good intentions to waste.

Well, she would see. It was a matter of pride now, pride in herself. Asolute apology there should be, and nothing should stop her.

Before lying down she had been specially careful to tidy up all signs of the quarrel; it seemed important to her. She had washed out her own things which were stained by the lotion – luckily her expensive house coat had escaped – she had brushed up the broken glass and carried it downstairs to the central heating stove, which served all the flats. It all gave her something to do, to occupy her hands if not her mind.

But he did not come. She had not imagined he would stay out the whole night like this. Perhaps he had gone to his sister's. But no, he'd never do that. It had been a principle of theirs from the start. If they ever quarrelled it was a private thing between themselves, kept to themselves. He would never tell any third person. Then where was he? At some hotel? How bad had the injury been? Glass could cut deep. He couldn't surely have fainted somewhere and have lain there unseen …? Or been taken to a hospital? They would have let her know. Perhaps he had told them not to. He had papers on him.

By six sleep was hopeless and she got up and went into the kitchen to brew some tea. She was glad she was not singing tonight. She would have a chance of relaxing before Wednesday. The triumph of last night seemed a mockery. She didn't seem to care what the papers said … If …

There was a knock on the outer door.

Startled, she hurried through the living-room, wondering what she would find. Nick had a key. But he might have lost it. Or there might be …

Two strangers were standing there. One, a heavy man in a neat dark suit, was newly-shaven and looked tired; the other was taller and younger with a sort of facile eagerness in his glance.

She stepped back.

‘Mrs Nicolas Talbot?'

‘Yes.'

‘I beg your pardon for disturbing you at this hour. I'm Divisional Inspector Archer of the Metropolitan Police.'

The floor seemed suddenly nearer to Philippa, and she took a firmer grip of the door. They did not seem to have noticed her movement.

‘Come in,' she said.

As they went past her she found she could not wait. She said to the older man:

‘What is it? Nick – has anything happened to my husband?'

‘No, no,' said Archer conventionally. ‘ Nothing at all, Mrs Talbot. We're just making a few inquiries and thought you could help us.'

She watched them stand in the middle of the room, waiting, tall and uncomfortable, for her to sit down. She found the edge of a chair, trying instinctively to hide her nightdress.

Archer cleared his throat.

‘Do you know a Miss Elizabeth Rusman, Mrs Talbot?'

She stared back at him in astonishment.

‘I met her for the first time last night. Why?'

‘Well, she's dead,' said Archer, watching her, while the thin sharp man licked the end of his thin sharp pencil.

Philippa said: ‘But only last night …' Her mind jumped on to a suicide. ‘Was Nick …? Does Nick know about this?'

‘You think it likely that he should?'

‘Only if you've told him.'

Archer's deep-looking eyes had been taking stock of her, of her tall, slender, resilient figure, of her young fair beauty, with all its pride and grace and high-strung excellence. But this morning they meant no more to him than any other fact to be docketed in his tidy mind. The physical appeal of this young woman was, or might become, a numeral, a letter, a symbol in the formula which would one day spell out the solution of Elizabeth Rusman's murder.

‘If it's not a rude question, Mrs Talbot, how long have you been married?'

‘Twelve months.'

‘Have you been in England much of that time?'

‘No, we arrived only three weeks ago.'

Archer smiled suddenly, turning it on with the facial muscles to be reassuring. ‘I know you'll forgive me if these questions seem impertinent. As a police officer, you know, one gets so used …' He turned off the smile. ‘Are you happy in your married life?'

Philippa made a little moue of embarrassment. ‘Well, I … of course. Completely. Very happy indeed.'

‘Did you quarrel with your husband last night?'

There was a fractional hesitation while her mind weighed up the question. What
did
they want?

‘No,' she said, old instinct carrying the day. ‘Why do you ask?'

The inspector's eyes moved round the room.

‘You're a singer, aren't you, Mrs Talbot? Opera, I believe? What time did you get home last night? Can you remember?'

‘A little before ten, I think.'

‘Did your husband come home with you?'

She got to her feet. ‘What's the matter? Tell me what's the matter!'

‘I don't want you to be alarmed,' Archer said. ‘But we think Elizabeth Rusman was murdered. Certain facts link your husband with the matter and we think he may be able to help us. He's been detained at Bow Street for questioning.'

Mr Frobisher carefully looked at his clerk.

‘Mrs Talbot? Do I know her? Was she the lady waiting when I came in? Ask Mr Forbes if he'll see Mr Smith when he comes.'

Philippa was shown in.

‘Why, Miss Shelley,' said Mr Frobisher, rising. ‘ I didn't recognize you. Of course, it must be six years. You're Mrs Talbot now?'

Philippa shook hands with him. ‘I came to you, Mr Frobisher; I happened to remember your address and you were the only solicitor I knew. You see, I thought I'd prefer to talk this over with someone.'

‘Do sit down. Some trouble? Don't hurry yourself. Have you been married long?'

It took some minutes for Philippa to tell Mr Frobisher all he wanted to know about her career; he had known her as a girl of eighteen struggling to make enough money to pay for music lessons abroad. Urgency prompted her to cut him short and to tell him of last night, of Nick's meeting with Elizabeth Rusman. Shame made her try to minimize the quarrel, to make it seem half horse-play; her face flushed up as she spoke of throwing the bottle of lotion, of Nick's walking out, of the visit from the police this morning.

‘They seem to imagine Nick may know something about it! The janitor of the lodgings where Elizabeth Rusman was staying described a man he had seen coming out just before she – she was discovered, and they telephoned this description round to hospitals. He'd hurt his face or was holding a handkerchief to it or something. Well, Nick must have gone into a hospital to have his head dressed, and with this description before them they telephoned the police, and the police arrested him just as he was leaving. It's completely fantastic! I – I haven't known what to do for the best. It's seemed like half a day waiting for you to come …'

Mr Frobisher carefully smoothed back his stiff grey hair. His scholarly cautious legal mind went all round the situation, like a cat round a piece of fish, before picking it up.

‘I can understand that. Well understand it. Possibly it is just an unfortunate coincidence. The fact of his being in the neighbourhood at the time; the misfortune of his knowing the dead woman. If so, there's no doubt we shall soon be able to straighten it out. Where is your husband?'

‘Bow Street.'

‘Well, I think we should go there at once. When we get all the facts we shall be in a better position to act.'

Archer looked at Talbot across the table. He gazed at him without animosity but without favour. Not at all the usual type to be brought in here: the trickster, the petty burglar, the drunk, the disorderly, the pickpocket or the pimp. (The small crimes were so much more numerous than the big, and even the big were usually committed by the small man getting above himself.) Educated men there were in here, but usually they were down-at-heel, suavely apologetic, or arrogant, overfed, uneasy, blustering. Public schoolboys were not a type Archer really approved of. Having worked his way up from nothing with laborious, intelligent application, he did not appreciate the man who started half-way up the ladder for other reasons than pure merit. He found himself at a disadvantage with them in his own profession, and although twenty years of varied experience had given him all the confidence he could need in dealing with a lawbreaker of any class, he was conscious deep down inside him that he was ever so slightly at a disadvantage with this cool self-contained man who was neither shabby nor suave, nor in any degree apologetic.

For this reason he was conscious of a faint antagonism towards Talbot. And because of this feeling it was necessary that he should treat him with more than ordinary consideration.

‘Look, Captain Talbot. This statement you made last night. Here it is; read it over again; I don't wish to take any unfair advantage of you. You'd had a trying evening, to say the least. Now you're rested, no doubt you'd like to add to it, or to amend it.'

‘I've no wish to do anything of the sort,' Talbot said, his voice sounding unlike his own in the tiny high room with its cheap magazines and its smell of Jeyes.

‘Well, help us to straighten out these contradictory stories then. When you went to the hospital you told them you'd had an accident in a taxi and had been cut by the breaking glass. When we came along you stuck to that story, gave us all sorts of circumstantial details. It was only when we pressed you further that you completely changed your story, said you'd cut your head in a quarrel with your wife. Well, you obviously can't expect us to believe both stories. Which one do you prefer this morning?'

Nick said: ‘Are you married yourself, Inspector?'

‘Yes.' Archer spoke reluctantly, a little irritated by a question which brought his own personality into it.

‘Then surely you must realize the sort of instinct that exists in us all to – to keep our dirty linen for private washing. My wife threw something at me, not really meaning to hit me, but it did. It's only natural I shouldn't want to brag about a thing like that.'

‘When we called on your wife this morning she denied ever having had such a quarrel.'

‘Well, I'm glad the same instinct was working in her. But when you told her –'

‘Nor,' said Archer patiently, ‘ were there any signs of a quarrel in your flat.'

‘What did she say?'

‘When we went into further details she then changed her story, supporting your statement and saying that she had cleared everything up. There was no trace of any broken glass and she claimed that during the night she had brushed up this glass and carried it down to the incinerator in the kitchens. There can of course be no proof of this, but naturally every effort will be made to check up on her statement.'

Archer paused and blew out his cheeks.

‘And in the meantime?' said Nick.

‘In the meantime I'm afraid we shall have to detain you a little longer. Now, you know, we had to go through the formality of examining your pockets when you came here. This programme was among the effects. ‘‘A performance of
Madame Butterfly
on Monday the –'' '

‘Yes. That's mine.'

Archer turned it over. ‘On the back we find written ‘‘Elizabeth, 46, Loften Street, W. 1.'' Is that your writing?'

Nick shifted on his hard chair. ‘No. Miss Rusman wrote that when we happened to meet at the opera last night.'

‘I see. And I suppose she wrote the rest, did she?'

The younger man looked up in surprise. ‘ What do you mean?'

‘This.' Archer pointed. ‘ ‘‘Don't fail to come. Alas, the love of women!'' '

‘Good God.' Talbot frowned. ‘Did she put that? I never looked.'

Archer pursed his lips. ‘You mean you didn't know it was there?'

Nick was lost for a moment in his own memories. ‘ Poor little beggar … No, I merely stuffed the programme in my pocket. I didn't know she'd written anything else.'

Archer grunted. He was very tired, and for a moment his mind wandered to his own home in Streatham; a new patch of grass where the vegetables had been, and yesterday morning the first green sprouting.