Twenty-six

Mrs. Rival pushed open the door of the Peacock’s Arms and made aslightly unsteady progress towards the bar. She was murmuring underher breath. She was no stranger to this particular hostelry and wasgreeted quite affectionately by the barman.

“How do, Flo,” he said, “how’s tricks?”

“It’s not right,” said Mrs. Rival. “It’s not fair. No, it’s not right. I knowwhat I’m talking about, Fred, and I say it’s not right.”

“Of course it isn’t right,” said Fred, soothingly. “What is, I’d like toknow? Want the usual, dear?”

Mrs. Rival nodded assent. She paid and began to sip from her glass. Fredmoved away to attend to another customer. Her drink cheered Mrs. Rivalslightly. She still muttered under her breath but with a more good-hu-moured expression. When Fred was near her once more she addressedhim again with a slightly softened manner.

“All the same, I’m not going to put up with it,” she said. “No, I’m not. Ifthere’s one thing I can’t bear, it’s deceit. I don’t stand for deceit, I neverdid.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Fred.

He surveyed her with a practised eye. “Had a good few already,” hethought to himself. “Still, she can stand a couple more, I expect. Some-thing’s upset her.”

“Deceit,” said Mrs. Rival. “Prevari—prevari—well, you know the word Imean.”

“Sure I know,” said Fred.

He turned to greet another acquaintance. The unsatisfactory perform-ance of certain dogs came under review. Mrs. Rival continued to murmur.

“I don’t like it and I won’t stand for it. I shall say so. People can’t thinkthey can go around treating me like that. No, indeed they can’t. I mean, it’snot right and if you don’t stick up for yourself, who’ll stick up for you?

Give me another, dearie,” she added in a louder voice.

Fred obliged.

“I should go home after that one, if I were you,” he advised.

He wondered what had upset the old girl so much. She was usuallyfairly even-tempered. A friendly soul, always good for a laugh.

“It’ll get me in bad, Fred, you see,” she said. “When people ask you to doa thing, they should tell you all about it. They should tell you what itmeans and what they’re doing. Liars. Dirty liars, that’s what I say. And Iwon’t stand for it.”

“I should cut along home, if I were you,” said Fred, as he observed a tearabout to trickle down the mascaraed splendour. “Going to come on to rainsoon, it is, and rain hard, too. Spoil that pretty hat of yours.”

Mrs. Rival gave one faint appreciative smile.

“I always was fond of cornflowers,” she said. “Oh, dear me, I don’t knowwhat to do, I’m sure.”

“I should go home and have a nice kip,” said the barman, kindly.

“Well, perhaps, but—”

“Come on, now, you don’t want to spoil that hat.”

“That’s very true,” said Mrs. Rival. “Yes, that’s very true. That’s a veryprof—profumed—no I don’t mean that—what do I mean?”

“Profound remark of yours, Fred.”

“Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” said Fred.

Mrs. Rival slipped down from her high seat and went not too steadily to-wards the door.

“Something seems to have upset old Flo tonight,” said one of the custom-ers.

“She’s usually a cheerful bird—but we all have our ups and downs,” saidanother man, a gloomy-looking individual.

“If anyone had told me,” said the first man, “that Jerry Grainger wouldcome in fifth, way behind Queen Caroline, I wouldn’t have believed it. Ifyou ask me, there’s been hanky-panky. Racing’s not straight nowadays.

Dope the horses, they do. All of ’em.”

Mrs. Rival had come out of the Peacock’s Arms. She looked up uncer-tainly at the sky. Yes, perhaps it was going to rain. She walked along thestreet, hurrying slightly, took a turn to the left, a turn to the right andstopped before a rather dingy-looking house. As she took out a key andwent up the front steps a voice spoke from the area below, and a headpoked round a corner of the door and looked up at her.

“Gentleman waiting for you upstairs.”

“For me?”

Mrs. Rival sounded faintly surprised.

“Well, if you call him a gentleman. Well dressed and all that, but notquite Lord Algernon Vere de Vere, I would say.”

Mrs. Rival succeeded in finding the keyhole, turned the key in it andentered.

The house smelled of cabbage and fish and eucalyptus. The latter smellwas almost permanent in this particular hall. Mrs. Rival’s landlady was agreat believer in taking care of her chest in winter weather and began thegood work in mid-September. Mrs. Rival climbed the stairs, aiding herselfwith the banisters. She pushed open the door on the first floor and wentin, then she stopped dead and took a step backwards.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”

Detective Inspector Hardcastle rose from the chair where he was sitting.

“Good evening, Mrs. Rival.”

“What do you want?” asked Mrs. Rival with less finesse than she wouldnormally have shown.

“Well, I had to come up to London on duty,” said Inspector Hardcastle,“and there were just one or two things I thought I’d like to take up withyou, so I came along on the chance of finding you. The—er—the womandownstairs seemed to think you might be in before long.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Rival. “Well, I don’t see—well—”

Inspector Hardcastle pushed forward a chair.

“Do sit down,” he said politely.

Their positions might have been reversed, he the host and she the guest.

Mrs. Rival sat down. She stared at him very hard.

“What did you mean by one or two things?” she said.

“Little points,” said Inspector Hardcastle, “little points that come up.”

“You mean—about Harry?”

“That’s right.”

“Now look here,” said Mrs. Rival, a slight belligerence coming into hervoice; at the same time as an aroma of spirits came clearly to InspectorHardcastle’s nostrils. “I’ve had Harry. I don’t want to think of him anymore. I came forward, didn’t I, when I saw his picture in the paper? Icame and told you about him. It’s all a long time ago and I don’t want to bereminded of it. There’s nothing more I can tell you. I’ve told youeverything I could remember and now I don’t want to hear any moreabout it.”

“It’s quite a small point,” said Inspector Hardcastle. He spoke gently andapologetically.

“Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Rival, rather ungraciously. “What is it? Let’shave it.”

“You recognized the man as your husband or the man you’d gonethrough a form of marriage with about fifteen years ago. That is right, is itnot?”

“I should have thought that by this time you would have known exactlyhow many years ago it was.”

“Sharper than I thought,” Inspector Hardcastle said to himself. He wenton.

“Yes, you’re quite right there. We looked it up. You were married onMay 15th, 1948.”

“It’s always unlucky to be a May bride, so they say,” said Mrs. Rivalgloomily. “It didn’t bring me any luck.”

“In spite of the years that have elapsed, you were able to identify yourhusband quite easily.”

Mrs. Rival moved with some slight uneasiness.

“He hadn’t aged much,” she said, “always took care of himself, Harrydid.”

“And you were able to give us some additional identification. You wroteto me, I think, about a scar.”

“That’s right. Behind his left ear it was. Here,” Mrs. Rival raised a handand pointed to the place.

“Behind his left ear?” Hardcastle stressed the word.

“Well—” she looked momentarily doubtful, “yes. Well, I think so. Yes I’msure it was. Of course one never does know one’s left from one’s right in ahurry, does one? But, yes, it was the left side of his neck. Here.” She placedher hand on the same spot again.

“And he did it shaving, you say?”

“That’s right. The dog jumped up on him. A very bouncy dog we had atthe time. He kept rushing in—affectionate dog. He jumped up on Harryand he’d got the razor in his hand, and it went in deep. It bled a lot. Ithealed up but he never lost the mark.” She was speaking now with moreassurance.

“That’s a very valuable point, Mrs. Rival. After all, one man sometimeslooks very like another man, especially when a good many years havepassed. But to find a man closely resembling your husband who has a scarin the identical place—well that makes the identification very nice andsafe, doesn’t it? It seems that we really have something to go on.”

“I’m glad you’re pleased,” said Mrs. Rival.

“And this accident with the razor happened—when?”

Mrs. Rival considered a moment.

“It must have been about—oh, about six months after we were married.

Yes, that was it. We got the dog that summer, I remember.”

“So it took place about October or November, 1948. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“And after your husband left you in 1951….”

“He didn’t so much leave me as I turned him out,” said Mrs. Rival withdignity.

“Quite so. Whichever way you like to put it. Anyway, after you turnedyour husband out in 1951 you never saw him again until you saw his pic-ture in the paper?”

“Yes. That’s what I told you.”

“And you’re quite sure about that, Mrs. Rival?”

“Of course I’m sure. I never set eyes on Harry Castleton since that dayuntil I saw him dead.”

“That’s odd, you know,” said Inspector Hardcastle, “that’s very odd.”

“Why—what do you mean?”

“Well, it’s a very curious thing, scar tissue. Of course, it wouldn’t meanmuch to you or me. A scar’s a scar. But doctors can tell a lot from it. Theycan tell roughly, you know, how long a man has had a scar.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Well, simply this, Mrs. Rival. According to our police surgeon and to an-other doctor whom we consulted, that scar tissue behind your husband’sear shows very clearly that the wound in question could not be older thanabout five to six years ago.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Rival. “I don’t believe it. I—nobody can tell. Any-way that wasn’t when….”

“So you see,” proceeded Hardcastle in a smooth voice, “if that woundmade a scar only five or six years ago, it means that if the man was yourhusband he had no scar at the time when he left you in 1951.”

“Perhaps he didn’t. But anyway it was Harry.”

“But you’ve never seen him since, Mrs. Rival. So if you’ve never seenhim since, how would you know that he had acquired a scar five or sixyears ago?”

“You mix me up,” said Mrs. Rival, “you mix me up badly. Perhaps itwasn’t as long ago as 1948—You can’t remember all these things. Anyway,Harry had that scar and I know it.”

“I see,” said Inspector Hardcastle and he rose to his feet. “I think you’dbetter think over that statement of yours very carefully, Mrs. Rival. Youdon’t want to get into trouble, you know.”

“How do you mean, get into trouble?”

“Well,” Inspector Hardcastle spoke almost apologetically, “perjury.”

“Perjury. Me!”

“Yes. It’s quite a serious offence in law, you know. You could get intotrouble, even go to prison. Of course, you’ve not been on oath in a cor-oner’s court, but you may have to swear to this evidence of yours in aproper court sometime. Then—well, I’d like you to think it over very care-fully, Mrs. Rival. It may be that somebody — suggested to you that youshould tell us this story about the scar?”

Mrs. Rival got up. She drew herself to her full height, her eyes flashed.

She was at that moment almost magnificent.

“I never heard such nonsense in my life,” she said. “Absolute nonsense. Itry and do my duty. I come and help you, I tell you all I can remember. IfI’ve made a mistake I’m sure it’s natural enough. After all I meet a goodmany — well, gentlemen friends, and one may get things a little wrongsometimes. But I don’t think I did make a mistake. That man was Harryand Harry had a scar behind his left ear, I’m quite sure of it. And now,perhaps, Inspector Hardcastle, you’ll go away instead of coming here andinsinuating that I’ve been telling lies.”

Inspector Hardcastle got up promptly.

“Good night, Mrs. Rival,” he said. “Just think it over. That’s all.”

Mrs. Rival tossed her head. Hardcastle went out of the door. With his de-parture, Mrs. Rival’s attitude altered immediately. The fine defiance of herattitude collapsed. She looked frightened and worried.

“Getting me into this,” she murmured, “getting me into this. I’ll—I’ll notgo on with it. I’ll—I’ll—I’m not going to get into trouble for anybody.

Telling me things, lying to me, deceiving me. It’s monstrous. Quite mon-strous. I shall say so.”

She walked up and down unsteadily, then finally making up her mind,she took an umbrella from the corner and went out again. She walkedalong to the end of the street, hesitated at a call-box, then went on to a postoffice. She went in there, asked for change and went into one of the callboxes. She dialled Directory and asked for a number. She stood there wait-ing till the call came through.

“Go ahead please. Your party is on the line.”

She spoke.

“Hallo … oh, it’s you. Flo here. No, I know you told me not to but I’ve hadto. You’ve not been straight with me. You never told me what I was gettinginto. You just said it would be awkward for you if this man was identified.

I didn’t dream for a moment that I would get mixed up in a murder …Well, of course you’d say that, but at any rate it wasn’t what you told me …Yes, I do. I think you are mixed up in it in some way … Well, I’m not goingto stand for it, I tell you … There’s something about being an—ac—well,you know the word I mean—accessory, something like that. Though I al-ways thought that was costume jewellery. Anyway, it’s something like be-ing a something after the fact, and I’m frightened, I tell you … telling me towrite and tell them that bit about a scar. Now it seems he’d only got thatscar a year or two ago and here’s me swearing he had it when he left meyears ago … And that’s perjury and I might go to prison for it. Well, it’s nogood your trying to talk me round … No … Obliging someone is one thing… Well I know … I know you paid me for it. And not very much either …Well, all right, I’ll listen to you, but I’m not going to … All right, all right, I’llkeep quiet … What did you say? … How much? … That’s a lot of money.

How do I know that you’ve got it even … Well, yes, of course it wouldmake a difference. You swear you didn’t have anything to do with it?—Imean with killing anyone … No, well I’m sure you wouldn’t. Of course, Isee that … Sometimes you get mixed up with a crowd of people—and theygo further than you would and it’s not your fault … You always makethings sound so plausible … You always did … Well, all right, I’ll think itover but it’s got to be soon … Tomorrow? What time? … Yes … yes, I’llcome but no cheque. It might bounce … I don’t know really that I ought togo on getting myself mixed up in things even … all right. Well, if you say so… Well, I didn’t mean to be nasty about it … All right then.”

She came out of the post office weaving from side to side of the pave-ment and smiling to herself.

It was worth risking a little trouble with the police for that amount ofmoney. It would set her up nicely. And it wasn’t very much risk really.

She’d only got to say she’d forgotten or couldn’t remember. Lots of womencouldn’t remember things that had only happened a year ago. She’d sayshe got mixed up between Harry and another man. Oh, she could think uplots of things to say.

Mrs. Rival was a naturally mercurial type. Her spirits rose as much nowas they had been depressed before. She began to think seriously and in-tently of the first things she would spend the money on….