Trial and Error (12 page)

“Marie, for God's sake get me a glass of brandy, and quick. This off-stage acting's more exhausting than the real thing.”

“Yes, madam.” The maid's voice came pertly. “I thought you'd taken on a bit of a job this time, madam.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing, madam. I beg your pardon.”

“Get me that brandy.”

“Very good, madam.”

Mr Todhunter's hand, already raised to the bell push, dropped back to his side. He had not meant to listen, but there it was. He hesitated whether to ring or not.

Miss Norwood's voice came again.

“Oh, and Marie!”

“Yes, madam?”

“I'm not at home to Mr Farroway any longer, thank God! At least, not in Richmond. I suppose I'll have to be here for a bit, but . . .”

“Then we shan't be giving this place up after all, madam?”

“I think not, Marie. I think not.” Even to Mr Todhunter's inexperienced ears Miss Norwood's voice sounded almost indecently complacent.

“I thought you were getting him nice and interested, madam. And I should think he's the sort that'd stump up the rent and not even ask for a latchkey, isn't he?”

“Damn you, Marie, who do you think you're talking to?” Miss Norwood's voice was suddenly shrill with rage. “Don't you know your place yet? I'll have to teach you a lesson one of these days, my girl. I pay you to wait on me, not to try to gossip about my private affairs.”

“I beg your pardon, madam, I'm sure.” Marie's voice held the perfunctory tone of one used to making a stereotyped apology.

Mr Todhunter turned away. He was a man of little experience but he was nobody's fool. At the present moment, too, he was in a temper so vile that it was touch and go whether his aneurism could stand the strain.

4

What upset Mr Todhunter as much as anything was the vulgarity of the little scene he had just overheard. Mr Todhunter was a bit of a snob. His snobbery, however, was not of the negative kind which consists merely of refusing to know persons of a lower social stratum than one's own. He believed that class, as well as the nobility, has its obligations; and one of the attributes of a “lady” was an inability to confide in her maids. Mr Todhunter had mistaken Miss Norwood for a lady, and it upset him to find out how far he had been deceived. So curiously constituted was Mr Todhunter that this really upset him more than the revelation that Miss Norwood considered him enslaved already by her charms and was confidently expecting to shift onto him from Farroway the responsibility for the rent of her palatial flat.

Meditating wickedly upon these matters in the safe anchorage of his library once more, Mr Todhunter found it simple enough to decide to have no more to do with Miss Norwood, with Farroway or with any of the participants in this sordid tragi-comedy; but there were some matters upon which he still found himself puzzled. Why, for instance, did Miss Norwood require anyone to pay her rents for her? As an actress-manager, with long run after long run to her credit and never a failure, was she not making quite enough money to pay her own rents? And was her behaviour not quite at variance with every canon of the legitimate stage? It was indeed more like the traditional behaviour of the musical-comedy chorus girl than the great and dignified figures of the drama proper.

From this point it was only a step to wonder if it were possible that he could be on the wrong lines altogether, so that by the time his tea arrived (at fifteen minutes past four to the second) Mr Todhunter was actually wondering whether he had really heard what he had heard and if so whether he had not read all kinds of horrible meanings into what might have been a perfectly innocent conversation. It was all very bewildering.

At this point, and while actually pouring out his second cup of tea, Mr Todhunter remembered Joseph Pleydell, the dramatic critic of the
London Review,
who was reputed not only to be the best judge of a play and a performance of acting in London, but to know more about stage folks than any man living. So great was Mr Todhunter's relief that he actually jumped up with his cup of tea only half poured, rang up Pleydell that instant on the telephone and for the first time in his life proffered an invitation for dinner that same evening without at least twenty minutes anxious consultation with Mrs Greenhill first upon ways and means. It was perhaps fortunate that Mr Pleydell, having to attend a first night as usual (a possibility which Mr Todhunter had quite overlooked), was unable to come. Upon Mr Todhunter's urgent pleading, however, it was discovered that Pleydell lived in Putney, only half a mile away from Mr Todhunter's house, and would therefore come along for a half-hour's chat after his play.

Mr Todhunter had made a lucky choice. At the interview which followed at around midnight that evening he learned all he wanted to know.

Jean Norwood, explained Mr Pleydell in reply to his host's questioning, was a curious and interesting type. She combined an inordinate avarice and greed in money matters with an almost morbid craving for public admiration. She had some small artistic feeling, but what she lacked here she more than made up in flair; for Jean Norwood was to the theatre what a certain type of popular novelist is to literature.

“Mediocrity passionately called to mediocrity, it's been defined,” observed Mr Pleydell drily, “and it certainly pays. Jean Norwood is the mediocre mind in excelsis. She can feel precisely what the suburbs want in a play, and she can act in it precisely as they want her to. You know it's her boast that she's never had a failure.”

“Then she must be a very wealthy woman?” suggested Mr Todhunter.

“No.”

“But she must have made a great deal of money?”

“Oh yes.”

“She's extravagant, then?”

“On the contrary, I told you, she's exceedingly mean. She'll never pay herself for anything that she can get some man to buy for her; and she's quite unscrupulous as to how she'll induce him to do so.”

“Dear, dear,” lamented Mr Todhunter. “But I don't understand.”

Mr. Pleydell took a small sip of whiskey and soda and stroked his neat little pointed beard.

“That is precisely where the interest lies. Without it Jean Norwood would be a commonplace character; as it is, she is possibly unique, certainly on the English stage. The key to her complexity is her passion for the public's applause. To ensure that she stints her private expenditure to a remarkable degree—and, frankly, is willing to be the kept woman of any man who is both wealthy and discreet, for of course her public must not know anything about that. I really believe she's persuaded herself that she is sacrificing herself in this way to the public.”

“But how? I'm afraid I still don't understand.”

“Why, she uses very little of the money she makes in her theatre for private living; only the smallest sum necessary to keep up a certain position and dress her part. Out of her profits she first sets aside a sum to finance her next production, for she always puts on her own plays and up to a point she's a very sound businesswoman. The rest goes back onto the stage. That is to say, she throws away nearly all the money she makes—and there's a very great deal of it—in keeping her plays on long after they've ceased to earn money. To do that she'll sacrifice anything. I'm sure she'd live on bread and water if necessary.”

“But why?” asked Mr Todhunter, bewildered.

“Because she can't bear to have anything approaching—well, not a failure because she never has that, but even anything that can't be called a stupendous success. Haven't you noticed that the Jean Norwood runs are becoming longer and longer? All records broken time and time again, and each record has to be broken all over again next time. It's fantastic. And as I say, she'll stick at absolutely nothing to break these records. Of course the press love it, and the public cheer the roof off each time a record's broken. It's become quite a game at the Sovereign. That's what she lives for: the public's cheers.”

“How very odd,” commented Mr Todhunter.

“Very odd. I shouldn't think there's ever been another instance of an actress in a really big position behaving off the stage like a professional courtesan, but that's what she does—and is. Though I give her the credit for having genuinely persuaded herself that her position is the same as that of the old temple prostitute and that she is serving the God of Art as devoutly as you like. But of course a woman like that could persuade herself of anything.”

“Then what is your private opinion of her as a person?” asked Mr Todhunter with interest.

“A poisonous bitch,” replied Mr Pleydell succinctly. “And a disgrace to a great profession,” he added more temperately.

“Dear me. Is she,” ventured Mr Todhunter, for he was about to use a word which has fallen into considerable disrepair, “is she a lady?”

“Neither by instinct nor birth, Her father was, I believe, a small tradesman in Balham; her mother had been in service. Both admirable people and still alive. But they never see their daughter nowadays; unless, of course, they like to pay for a ticket to the pit, Jean disowned 'em long ago, bless her. I believe she's invented a colonel in the guards, killed at Mons, and a poor but proud descendant of one of the earlier English reigning families (I'm not sure it isn't a Plantagenet) to take their places. Ah well, that's how things are.”

“Has she,” asked Mr Todhunter, “a single redeeming quality?”

“Well, no one's bad all through, you know, but I should think Jean comes as near it as anyone.”

“Would you say,” pursued Mr Todhunter, “that she does a great deal of harm to a great many people?”

“Undoubtedly I would. She does. But on the other hand she does a great deal of good. I mean, she provides a great many worthy people with considerable and wholesome pleasure.”

“But anyone could do that.”

“Oh no. A Jean Norwood is just as rare as an Ethel M. Dell—and, in her way, just as great a genius.”

“Still,” demanded Mr Todhunter, lured on by a morbid fascination, “would you say that on balance it would be a great deal better if she were dead?”

“Oh, a great deal,” concurred Mr Pleydell without hesitation.

Mr Todhunter sipped his barley water.

5

“Well,
I'm
not going to kill the woman,” decided Mr Todhunter as he reached out a bony arm towards the bedside lamp and snapped off the switch. “All that nonsense came to an end weeks ago, I'm exceedingly glad to say.” And, having quite made up his mind on that point, Mr Todhunter fell tranquilly asleep.

PART II

Transpontine

THE MURDER IN
THE OLD BARN

CHAPTER VII

It amused Mr Todhunter very much to reflect upon the way in which he had been vamped. His eyes were open now, and he saw just how it had been done. He also saw, not without shame, how easily and thoroughly he had fallen into the trap, with all the blithe confidence of a rabbit walking into a snare. The net had been spread in his sight, and he had positively rushed to occupy a position fairly and squarely in the middle of it. If he had not happened, just by the merest chance pricking of a punctilious conscience, to turn back into the lift. . .

Mr Todhunter was annoyed with himself. He was still more annoyed with Miss Jean Norwood. But of course he was going to do nothing about that.

It is probable that Mr Todhunter never would have done anything had it not been for a telephone call he received shortly after his lunch with Miss Norwood. It was from Farroway's younger daughter, Felicity.

“Mr Todhunter,” she began at once in tones of obvious agitation, “can you come up to my flat this evening? Mother's come up to London, and . . . oh, I can't explain on the telephone, but I'm really terribly worried. I've no possible excuse for bothering you with our troubles, except that I've simply no one else to consult. Could you possibly come?”

“My dear girl, of course I'll come,” responded Mr Todhunter stoutly.

At a quarter past eight he summoned a taxi and caused himself to be driven, reckless of expense, to Maida Vale.

Felicity Farroway was not alone. With her was a tall, dignified lady with iron-grey hair and calm eyes. Mr Todhunter recognised her type of face at once. It was of the kind which had often sat with him upon the committees to examine infant welfare, provide milk for indigent school children and organise crèches, to which Mr Todhunter's sense of public duty reluctantly drove him.

Felicity introduced the lady as her mother. Mrs Farroway briefly apologised for bothering him and in a few quiet words thanked him for his cheque, out of the proceeds of which she had bought her ticket for London. Much embarrassed, Mr Todhunter obeyed an invitation to sit down and massaged his sharp knees. He felt that he was present on false pretences, and his conscience was again worried.

“Mother's come up to see to things for herself,” Felicity Farroway explained somewhat crudely.

The elder woman nodded. “Yes. So long as it was a question of myself only I did not care to interfere. I believe in the right of every individual to choose his own course of action, provided only that he does no actual harm to others; and so I was ready to let Nicholas go his own way. But Felicity has passed on to me the information you gave her about Vincent, Mr Todhunter, having first, I may say, had it fully confirmed by Viola, and I felt that I could stand by no longer. This Miss Norwood must not be allowed to wreck Viola's life.”

Felicity nodded vigorously. “It's damnable. She ought to be shot. Viola's a pet.”

Mrs Farroway smiled faintly at her daughter's violence.

“Felicity is full of wild schemes for having the woman arrested on some trumped-up charge, and—”

“Framed, Mother. It'd be quite easy. I bet she sails pretty near the wind as it is. Father may not have sold all your jewelry. We could easily find out if he gave anything to her, and then you could take out a summons against her for theft. Or we could plant (that's what they call it) a ring or something among her things and then swear she'd stolen it. . . . We
could
!” added the girl passionately.

Mrs Farroway smiled again, at Mr Todhunter. “I think we'd better stick to less melodramatic methods. Now, Mr Todhunter, you're a friend of Nicholas's, but you can take a more or less detached view of this regrettable business. I wonder if you can suggest anything.”

Mother and daughter looked hopefully at their guest.

Mr Todhunter wriggled. He could suggest nothing; his mind was completely empty.

“I don't know,” he began feebly. “Your husband seems to be quite obsessed, Mrs Farroway, if I am to speak frankly. I—I must say that I can't see anything short of—um!—rather drastic measures proving effective.”

“I said so,” Felicity cried.

“I'm afraid that is so,” agreed Mrs Farroway calmly, “though I think we must stop short of ‘framing'. But what measures? Measures on what lines? I'm afraid I know so little about this kind of situation or how to deal with it. Our life has been very quiet, in spite of Nicholas's reputation. It's a shame to drag you in like this, Mr Todhunter, but there literally is no one else. And you have probably heard,” added Mrs Farroway with a rueful smile, “that a mother will sacrifice anyone to protect her children. I'm afraid it seems to be true, so far as you're concerned.”

Mr Todhunter protested that he was only too anxious and eager to be sacrificed and did his utmost to produce a suggestion of some value. But in a matter of this kind Mr Todhunter was even more helpless than Mrs Farroway; and though a great deal of talk ensued during the next two hours, the only concrete conclusion was that Mrs Farroway had better not have a talk with her husband herself in case the interview only made him still more obstinate, or appeal to him personally in any way. And the corollary to that appeared to be that Mr Todhunter had better do so instead; for it was obvious to all three, including Felicity herself, that for Felicity to do so in her present mood would be as near disaster as made no matter.

Mr Todhunter therefore promised to do his best to probe in order to find out whether there was any weak spot in Farroway's feelings or any circumstances upon which an attack might be directed, and took his leave, feeling that he had been rather worse than useless.

This night he did not sleep so well. An exceedingly disturbing thought had occurred to him during his drive home. Mrs Farroway had said that a mother would stick at nothing in defence of her children. Mr Todhunter could not fail to remember the last occasion on which somebody had stuck at nothing. Was it possible that, just as young Bennett might have been already meditating murder during Mr Todhunter's last interview with him, the same intention had been forming behind Mrs Farroway's placid brow? Mr Todhunter could not rid his mind of the possibility, and it perturbed him exceedingly. For what, this time, was he going to do about it?

2

Mr Todhunter, having considered the matter with some care, decided that it would be useful to keep up his pose with Farroway of a wealthy dilettante; and if that was to be done, Farroway could not be asked to the modest home in Richmond. Nor did Mr Todhunter wish to conduct his promised interview again in a restaurant, where the clatter and bustle made it difficult for him to keep his thoughts fixed. Having therefore deliberated a little further, he rang up Farroway at the number which had been given him and, rather to his surprise finding Farroway at home, asked if he might call round in the morning on a matter of business. Farroway with undisguised eagerness pressed him to do so.

Somewhat shaken, for duplicity was new to him and therefore a strain, Mr Todhunter hung up the receiver, wiped his clammy brow and turned away to think up a tolerably convincing excuse for the call.

The address which Farroway had given him on the telephone proved the next morning to be that of a modest, very modest pair of rooms on a landing in a big gloomy house off the Bayswater Road; not even a flatlet, for it had no front door of its own. Marveling slightly, Mr Todhunter followed his host into a sitting room quite obviously furnished by the house owner and not by its present occupant.

Indeed Farroway seemed impelled to apologise for these dingy surroundings, for with an apologetic smile he remarked as he closed the door:

“Not much of a place, I'm afraid, but I find it convenient, you know.”

“Oh yes. You're collecting the atmosphere for a novel, no doubt,” replied Mr Todhunter politely.

“Well, in a way perhaps . . . I don't know. Yes. Er—sit down, Todhunter. Well now, what's the business?”

Mr Todhunter did not answer this question. Instead he decided to be tactless and said:

“I quite thought, you know, that the other flat Miss Norwood's—was really yours.”

Farroway blushed. “Well, it is really. That is, I've lent it to Jean. It's useful for her to have a pied-à-terre in the West End where she can rest after matinees and so on. But yes, you're quite right; it is actually my flat. I—er—reserve a room there for myself, you know, but of course I don't occupy it much. Jean has a reputation to keep up, and it's astonishing how soon scandal gets round about an actress, even when there's nothing in it. . . . Nothing,” added Farroway a little defiantly, “at all.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” soothed Mr Todhunter. The other's somewhat redundant, not to say feverish, explanations interested him. He wondered whether Miss Norwood really had kept her word, so lightly given, and denied to the unfortunate Farroway the use of his reserved room. “Have you seen Miss Norwood lately?” he asked blandly.

“Jean?” Farroway looked a little discomposed and glanced in a helpless kind of way round the room. “Oh yes. At least, not for a day or two. I've been rather busy, you know. Er—you lunched, there the other day, didn't you? How was she? Quite fit and all that? She's terribly delicate, you know. Her work is a great strain to her. I wonder sometimes that she's able to keep it up.”

Mr Todhunter, repressing a wish to beat his host over the head with some blunt instrument, replied that when he saw her last Miss Norwood appeared perfectly fit and bearing up remarkably under the strain. He then prepared to burst his little bombshell; for, having spent a couple of hours in steady deliberation on the point, Mr Todhunter had at last made up his mind that a bombshell was after all the most effective weapon with which to open his attack.

“I saw your wife yesterday too,” he said as casually as possible. “She seemed to be bearing up equally well, if I may say so.”

There was no doubt of the bombshell's effect. Farroway went quite white.

“My w-wife?” he stammered.

Mr Todhunter suddenly felt that he had complete command of the situation. Farroway's nervousness had given him confidence. He marched straight forward without disguise or subterfuge.

“Yes. And that's the business I've come to see you about, Farroway. I am the bearer of an olive branch from your wife. She wants you to go back home with her and finish this wretched business once and for all; and I think you can rely on her to make no trouble if you do. She seems to me a very fine woman, and you've treated her abominably.”

There was a long silence after Mr Todhunter had spoken. Farroway, who had looked for a moment almost dazed, slowly pulled out his case and lit a cigarette. Then he leaned back in his chair and seemed to brood. Mr Todhunter discreetly examined an engraving of a stag with a little girl caressing one of its horns which hung on the wall opposite him, and distracted himself by trying to guess what its title could be.

At last Farroway said in a dreary voice:

“You probably think I'm a cad, Todhunter?”

“I do,” agreed Mr Todhunter, who had an unfortunate passion for the truth and could rarely refrain from speaking it.

Farroway nodded. “Yes. Almost everyone would. And yet . . . oh, I don't know, and I'm not excusing myself, but to judge an action one must know it inside out—know its volume, so to speak. You can only see the surface of this case. You ought not to draw conclusions until you can see it in the round.”

Mr Todhunter, a little surprised, took refuge in a platitude. “There are always two sides to a question, if that's what you mean.”

“It is, in a way. Look here, I'm going to tell you all about it. It'll be a relief for one thing. Self-analysis is dull work unless you can discuss your conclusions with another person. And secondly, if you're really the bearer of an official olive branch, I think you ought to know.”

He reached mechanically for a box of matches and then, noticing that his cigarette was still burning, put it down again.

“First, let me say that Grace (my wife) has been splendid. Really magnificent. I don't think she actually understood the business from my point of view, but she's acted as if she had. Grace,” added Farroway wistfully, “always has been an exceptionally fine woman.” He paused. “Jean, on the other hand, is a common little bitch, as no doubt you've realised for yourself.”

Mr Todhunter was startled. Farroway had spoken without emotion, in a dull, flat tone, and his words had been the last that Mr Todhunter had expected to hear.

Farroway smiled. “I see you have. You needn't mind agreeing with me. I've known exactly what Jean is for a long time now. Infatuation doesn't make you blind, as the popular novelists of my type pretend. The extraordinary thing is that it persists after one's eyes are wide open.

“Well, this is how the whole damned thing began.

“I was in London on business, about a year ago, and I called, quite casually, at the Princess to pick up Felicity one evening after the show. I thought I'd give her supper. Well, Jean happened to come into the dressing room just by chance, and Felicity introduced us. Rather pleasantly ironical, wasn't it? Daughter introduces father to his future mistress. That sort of thing doesn't tickle you? Oh, I always had an eye for irony. The trouble was, I could use it so seldom. The popular public doesn't care for irony, you know.

“Well, we chatted a little, and then I left with Felicity. Jean, I must honestly say, had made no impression on me. I realised that she was a striking woman, but I had seen other women of her type before and on the whole it didn't appeal to me. So I forgot all about her.

“Then, a fortnight later, I called at the Princess again, this time in the afternoon, after a rehearsal. Felicity, however, had left already, and instead I saw Jean. She was very amiable. Talked about my books and all that kind of thing. And not vaguely. She really had read 'em. I was flattered naturally. So when she asked if I wouldn't go round to her flat in Brunton Street (yes, she had a flat in Brunton Street then) and have a cocktail, of course I said I'd be delighted. I was delighted too. I stayed an hour or so, and we made friends. She—”