II

It was a quarter past twelve when I rang the bell at 62, Wilbraham Cres-cent. Mrs. Ramsay opened the door. She hardly raised her eyes to look atme.

“What is it?” she said.

“Can I speak to you for a moment? I was here about ten days ago. Youmay not remember.”

She lifted her eyes to study me further. A faint frown appeared betweenher eyebrows.

“You came—you were with the police inspector, weren’t you?”

“That’s right, Mrs. Ramsay. Can I come in?”

“If you want to, I suppose. One doesn’t refuse to let the police in. They’dtake a very poor view of it if you did.”

She led the way into the sitting room, made a brusque gesture towards achair and sat down opposite me. There had been a faint acerbity in hervoice, but her manner now resumed a listlessness which I had not notedin it previously.

I said:

“It seems quiet here today … I suppose your boys have gone back toschool?”

“Yes. It does make a difference.” She went on, “I suppose you want toask some more questions, do you, about this last murder? The girl whowas killed in the telephone box.”

“No, not exactly that. I’m not really connected with the police, youknow.”

She looked faintly surprised.

“I thought you were Sergeant—Lamb, wasn’t it?”

“My name is Lamb, yes, but I work in an entirely different department.”

The listlessness vanished from Mrs. Ramsay’s manner. She gave me aquick, hard, direct stare.

“Oh,” she said, “well, what is it?”

“Your husband is still abroad?”

“Yes.”

“He’s been gone rather a long time, hasn’t he, Mrs. Ramsay? And gonerather a long way?”

“What do you know about it?”

“Well, he’s gone beyond the Iron Curtain, hasn’t he?”

She was silent for a moment or two, and then she said in a quiet, tone-less voice:

“Yes. Yes, that’s quite right.”

“Did you know he was going?”

“More or less.” She paused a minute and then said, “He wanted me tojoin him there.”

“Had he been thinking of it for some time?”

“I suppose so. He didn’t tell me until lately.”

“You are not in sympathy with his views?”

“I was once, I suppose. But you must know that already … You check uppretty thoroughly on things like that, don’t you? Go back into the past, findout who was a fellow traveller, who was a party member, all that sort ofthing.”

“You might be able to give us information that would be very useful tous,” I said.

She shook her head.

“No. I can’t do that. I don’t mean that I won’t. You see, he never told meanything definite. I didn’t want to know. I was sick and tired of the wholething! When Michael told me that he was leaving this country, clearingout, and going to Moscow, it didn’t really startle me. I had to decide then,what I wanted to do.”

“And you decided you were not sufficiently in sympathy with your hus-band’s aims?”

“No, I wouldn’t put it like that at all! My view is entirely personal. I be-lieve it always is with women in the end, unless of course one is a fanatic.

And then women can be very fanatical, but I wasn’t. I’ve never been any-thing more than mildly left-wing.”

“Was your husband mixed up in the Larkin business?”

“I don’t know. I suppose he might have been. He never told me anythingor spoke to me about it.”

She looked at me suddenly with more animation.

“We’d better get it quite clear, Mr. Lamb. Or Mr. Wolf in Lamb’s cloth-ing, or whatever you are. I loved my husband, I might have been fondenough of him to go with him to Moscow, whether I agreed with what hispolitics were or not. He wanted me to bring the boys. I didn’t want tobring the boys! It was as simple as that. And so I decided I’d have to staywith them. Whether I shall ever see Michael again or not I don’t know.

He’s got to choose his way of life and I’ve got to choose mine, but I didknow one thing quite definitely. After he talked about it to me. I wantedthe boys brought up here in their own country. They’re English. I wantthem to be brought up as ordinary English boys.”

“I see.”

“And that I think is all,” said Mrs. Ramsay, as she got up.

There was now a sudden decision in her manner.

“It must have been a hard choice,” I said gently. “I’m very sorry foryou.”

I was, too. Perhaps the real sympathy in my voice got through to her.

She smiled very slightly.

“Perhaps you really are … I suppose in your job you have to try and getmore or less under people’s skins, know what they’re feeling and thinking.

It’s been rather a knockout blow for me, but I’m over the worst of it … I’vegot to make plans now, what to do, where to go, whether to stay here or gosomewhere else. I shall have to get a job. I used to do secretarial workonce. Probably I’ll take a refresher course in shorthand and typing.”

“Well, don’t go and work for the Cavendish Bureau,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Girls who are employed there seem to have rather unfortunate thingshappen to them.”

“If you think I know anything at all about that, you’re wrong. I don’t.”

I wished her luck and went. I hadn’t learnt anything from her. I hadn’treally thought I should. But one has to tidy up the loose ends.