The Franchise Affair (31 page)

To Nevil, too, it seemed. And for the first time since young Bennet came to occupy the back room that used to be his, Robert thought of him as an ally; a communal spirit. To Nevil, too, it was unthinkable that Betty Kane should “get away with it.” And Robert was surprised all over again at the murderous rage that fills the pacifist-minded when their indignation is roused. Nevil had a special way of saying “Betty Kane”: as if the syllables were some poison he had put in his mouth by mistake and he was spitting it out. “Poisonous,” too, was his
favourite epithet for her. “That poisonous creature.” Robert found him very comforting.

But there was little comfort in the situation. The Sharpes had accepted the news of their probable escape from a prison sentence with the same dignity that had characterised their acceptance of everything, from Betty Kane's first accusation to the serving of a summons and an appearance in the dock. But they, too, realised that the thing would be escape but not vindication. The police case would break down, and they would get their verdict. But they would get it because in English law there was no middle course. In a Scots court the verdict would be Not Proven. And that, in fact, would be what the result of the Assizes verdict next week would amount to. Merely that the police had not had good enough evidence to prove their case. Not that the case was necessarily a bad one.

It was when the Assizes were only four days away that he confessed to Aunt Lin that the evidence did suffice to defeat the charge. The growing worry on that round pink face was too much for him. He had meant merely to give her that sop and leave the matter there; but instead he found himself pouring it all out to her as he had poured out his troubles as a small boy; in the days when Aunt Lin was an omniscient and omnipotent angel and not just kind, silly Aunt Lin. She listened to this unexpected torrent of words—so different from the normal phrases of their meal-time intercourse—in surprised silence, her jewel-blue eyes attentive and concerned.

“Don't you see, Aunt Lin, it isn't victory; it's defeat,” he finished. “It's a travesty of justice. It isn't a verdict we're fighting for; it's justice. And we have no hope of getting it. Not a ghost of a hope!”

“But why didn't you tell me all this, dear? Did you think I would not understand, or agree, or something?”

“Well, you didn't feel as I did about—”

“Just because I didn't much like the look of those people at The Franchise—and I must confess, dear, even now, that they aren't the kind of people I naturally take to—just because I didn't much like them doesn't mean that I am indifferent to seeing justice done, surely?”

“No, of course not; but you said quite frankly that you found Betty Kane's story believable, and so—”

“That,” said Aunt Lin calmly, “was before the police court.”

“The court? But you weren't at the court.”

“No, dear, but Colonel Whittaker was, and he didn't like the girl at all.”

“Didn't he, indeed.”

“No. He was quite eloquent about it. He said he had once had a—a what-do-you-call-it—a lance-corporal in his regiment, or battalion or something, who was exactly like Betty Kane. He said he was an injured innocent who set the whole battalion by the ears and was more trouble than a dozen hard-cases. Such a nice expression: hardcases, isn't it. He finished up in the greenhouse, Colonel Whittaker said.”

“The glasshouse.”

“Well, something like that. And as for the Glyn girl from Staples, he said that one glance at her and you automatically began to reckon the number of lies there would be per sentence. He didn't like the Glyn girl either. So you see, dear, you needn't have thought that I would be unsympathetic about your worry. I am just as interested in abstract justice as you are, I assure you. And I shall redouble my prayers for your success. I was going over to the Gleasons' garden party this afternoon, but I shall go along to St. Matthew's instead and spend a quiet hour there. I think it is going to rain in any case. It always does rain at the Gleasons' garden party, poor things.”

“Well, Aunt Lin, I don't deny we need your prayers. Nothing short of a miracle can save us now.”

“Well, I shall pray for the miracle.”

“A last-minute reprieve with the rope round the hero's neck? That happens only in detective stories and the last few minutes of horse-operas.”

“Not at all. It happens every day, somewhere in the world. If there was some way of finding out and adding up the times it happens you would no doubt be surprised. Providence does take a hand, you know, when other methods fail. You haven't enough faith, my dear, as I pointed out before.”

“I don't believe that an angel of the Lord is going to appear in my office with an account of what Betty Kane was doing for that month, if that is what you mean,” Robert said.

“The trouble with you, dear, is that you think of an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man in a bowler hat. Anyhow, I shall pray very hard this afternoon, and tonight too, of course; and by tomorrow perhaps help will be sent.”

T
he angel of the Lord was not a scruffy little man, as it turned out; and his hat was a regrettably continental affair of felt with a tightly rolled brim turned up all round. He arrived at Blair, Hayward, and Bennet's about halfpast eleven the following morning.

“Mr. Robert,” old Mr. Heseltine said, putting his head in at Robert's door, “there's a Mr. Lange in the office to see you. He—”

Robert, who was busy, and not expecting angels of the Lord, and quite used to strangers turning up in the office and wanting to see him, said: “What does he want? I'm busy.”

“He didn't say. He just said he would like to see you if you were not too busy.”

“Well, I'm scandalously busy. Find out tactfully what he wants, will you? If it is nothing important Nevil can deal with it.”

“Yes, I'll find out; but his English is very thick, and he doesn't seem very willing to—”

“English? You mean, he has a lisp?”

“No, I mean his pronunciation of English isn't very good. He—”

“The man's a foreigner, you mean?”

“Yes. He comes from Copenhagen.”

“Copenhagen! Why didn't you tell me that before!”

“You didn't give me a chance, Mr. Robert.”

“Show him in, Timmy, show him in. Oh, merciful Heaven, do fairy-tales come true?”

Mr. Lange was rather like one of the Norman pillars of Notre Dame. Just as round, just as high, just as solid and just as dependable-looking. Far away at the top of this great round solid erect pillar his face shone with friendly rectitude.

“Mr. Blair?” he said. “My name is Lange. I apologise for bothering you”—he failed to manage the TH—“but it was important. Important to you, I mean. At least, yes I think.”

“Sit down, Mr. Lange.”

“Thank you, thank you. It is warm, is it not? This is perhaps the day you have your summer?” He smiled on Robert. “That is an idiom of the English, that joke about one-day summer. I am greatly interested in the English idiom. It is because of my interest in English idiom that I come to see you.”

Robert's heart sank to his heels with the plummet swoop of an express lift. Fairy-tales, indeed. No; fairy-tales stay fairy-tales.

“Yes?” he said encouragingly.

“I keep a hotel in Copenhagen, Mr. Blair. The hotel of the Red Shoes it is called. Not, of course, because anyone wears red shoes there but because of a tale of Andersen, which you perhaps may—”

“Yes, yes,” Robert said. “It has become one of our tales too.”

“Ah, so! Yes. A great man, Andersen. So simple a man and now so international. It is a thing to marvel at. But I waste your time, Mr. Blair, I waste your time. What was I saying?”

“About English idiom.”

“Ah, yes. To study English is my hubby.”

“Hobby,” Robert said, involuntarily.

“Hobby. Thank you. For my bread and butter I keep a hotel—and because my father and his father kept one before me—but for a hub . . . a hobby? yes; thank you—for a hobby I
study the idiomatic English. So every day the newspapers that they leave about are brought to me.”

“They?”

“The English visitors.”

“Ah, yes.”

“In the evening, when they have retired, the page collects the English papers and leaves them in my office. I am busy, often, and I do not have time to look at them, and so they go into the pile and when I have leisure I pick one up and study it. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Blair?”

“Perfectly, perfectly, Mr. Lange.” A faint hope was rising again. Newspapers?

“So it goes on. A few moments of leisure, a little reading in an English paper, a new idiom—perhaps two—all very without excitement. How do you say that?”

“Placid.”

“So. Placid. And then one day I take this paper from the pile, just as I might take any of the others, and I forget all about idiom.” He took from his capacious pocket a once-folded copy of the
Ack-Emma
, and spread it in front of Robert on the desk. It was the issue of Friday, May the 10th, with the photograph of Betty Kane occupying two-thirds of the page. “I look at this photograph. Then I look inside and read the story. Then I say to myself that this is most extraordinary. Most extraordinary it is. The paper say this is the photograph of Betty Kann. Kann?”

“Kane.”

“Ah. So. Betty Kane. But it is also the photograph of Mrs. Chadwick, who stay at my hotel with her husband.”

“What!”

Mr. Lange looked pleased. “You are interested? I so hoped you might be. I did so hope.”

“Go on. Tell me.”

“A fortnight they stayed with me. And it was most extraordinary,
Mr. Blair, because while that poor girl was being beaten and starved in an English attic, Mrs. Chadwick was eating like a young wolf at my hotel—the cream that girl could eat, Mr. Blair, even I, a Dane, was surprised—and enjoying herself very much.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I said to myself: It is after all a photograph. And although it is just the way she looked when she let down her hair to come to the ball—”

“Let it down!”

“Yes. She wore her hair brushed up, you see. But we had a ball with costume—”

“Costume?”

“Yes. Fancy dress.”

“Ah. So. Fancy dress. And for her fancy dress she lets her hair hang down. Just like that there.” He tapped the photograph. “So I say to myself: It is a photograph, after all. How often has one seen a photograph that does not in the least resemble the real person. And what has this girl in the paper to do, possibly, with little Mrs. Chadwick who is here with her husband during that time! So I am reasonable to myself. But I do not throw away the paper. No. I keep it. And now and then I look at it. And each time I look at it I think: But that
is
Mrs. Chadwick. So I am still puzzled, and going to sleep I think about it when I should be thinking about tomorrow's marketing. I seek explanation from myself. Twins, perhaps? But no; the Betty girl is an only child. Cousins. Coincidence. Doubles. I think of them all. At night they satisfy me, and I turn over and go to sleep. But in the morning I look at the photograph, and all comes to pieces again. I think: But certainly beyond a doubt that is Mrs. Chadwick. You see my dilemma?”

“Perfectly.”

“So when I am coming to England on business, I put the newspaper with the Arabic name—”

“Arabic? Oh, yes, I see. I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“I put it into my bag, and after dinner one night I take it out and show it to my friend where I am staying. I am staying with a compatriot of mine in Bayswater, London. And my friend is instantly very excited and say: But it is now a police affair, and these women say that never have they seen the girl before. They have been arrested for what they are supposed to have done to this girl and they are about to be tried for it. And he calls to his wife: ‘Rita! Rita! Where is the paper of a week last Tuesday?' It is the kind of household, my friend's, where there is always a paper of a week last Tuesday. And his wife come with it and he shows me the account of the trial—no, the—the—”

“Court appearance.”

“Yes. The appearance in court of the two women. And I read now the trial is to be at some place in the country in a little more than a fortnight. Well, by now, that would be in a very few days. So my friend says: How sure are you, Einar, that that girl and your Mrs. Chadwick are one? And I say: Very sure indeed I am. So he say: Here in the paper is the name of the solicitor for the women. There is no address but this Milford is a very small place and he will be easy to find. We shall have coffee early tomorrow—that is breakfast—and you will go down to this Milford and tell what you think to this Mr. Blair. So here I am, Mr. Blair. And you are interested in what I say?”

Robert sat back, took out his handkerchief, and mopped his forehead. “Do you believe in miracles, Mr. Lange?”

“But of course. I am a Christian. Indeed, although I am not yet very old I have myself seen two.”

“Well, you have just taken part in a third.”

“So?” Mr. Lange beamed. “That makes me very content.”

“You have saved our bacon.”

“Bacon?”

“An English idiom. You have not only saved our bacon. You have practically saved our lives.”

“You think, then, as I think, that they are one person, that girl and my guest at the Red Shoes?”

“I haven't a doubt of it. Tell me, have you the dates of her stay with you?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. Here they are. She and her husband arrived by air on Friday the 29th of March, and they left—again by air, I think, though of that I am not so certain—on the 15th of April, a Monday.”

“Thank you. And her ‘husband,' what did he look like?”