Latter End

CHAPTER 16

Antony left Latter End before anyone was up. His step rang as hollow in the hall as if the house were empty. When he drew back the bolts and turned the key in the lock it seemed as if someone must wake. He came out into the early morning-dew on the grass, and a light breeze blowing. He got out his car and took the road with a sense of escape.

During the next two days he was kept extremely busy. He lunched with Latimer, got on better than he expected, and was dragged off by him to his cottage on the Thames. Latimer would take no denial. His manuscript was there, they could go through it together-“Your partners are damned old women, but I can’t be bothered to fight them.” And, most unexpected of all, “It’s no good saying no-you must come down and meet my wife.”

Latimer the married man! Antony could hardly stretch his mind to take it in. He felt the most lively curiosity as to Mrs. Latimer. In the event, he found her a comfortable, placid housewife, comely in a country fashion and an inspired cook. In fact just what Latimer ought to have married. Being Latimer, it was quite unbelievable that he should have done so. Yet there she was, and there was Latimer, very much the husband and as pleased as Punch.

Leave of absence having been granted with alacrity by the firm, it was six o’clock next evening before he returned to his hotel. Just time in hand to change and get out to Hampstead to dine with the Mathiesons, where he spent a very pleasant evening. In the back of his mind the sense of escape persisted.

He came back to the hotel after midnight to find a slip in his room-“Miss Vane has rung up twice. She says will you please ring her when you come in.” Antony stood frowning at the words. They forced the doors of his mind and brought a sense of catastrophe with them. Nonsense of course, utter ludicrous nonsense. She might have a dozen good reasons for ringing up… “Miss Vane has rung up twice. She says will you please ring her when you come in.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted the receiver of the table instrument. When he had given the number he stayed there waiting. It was ten minutes past twelve. The only upstairs telephone extension at Latter End was in Lois’ bedroom. If Julia was expecting a call from him she must be waiting for it in the study. He had the strangest, strongest impression of her waiting for him to call her up-the instrument on Jimmy’s table-Julia in the writing-chair, waiting in a fixed silence which went on, and on, and on.

It was nearly half an hour before the call came through. At the first sound of the bell he lifted the receiver and heard her say,

“ Antony?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“Something has happened.”

“What is it?”

She went on in French-the French she had learned in the schoolroom with Miss Smithers, its familiar British ring just making what she had to say incredible.

“It’s something dreadful, Antony. It’s Lois-she’s dead.”

He made some exclamation, he didn’t know what.

“How?”

“I don’t know. It was something in her coffee.”

“Julia!”

He heard her take a shuddering breath.

“The police have been here. They’ll be coming back in the morning.”

“When did it happen?”

“After dinner-as soon as she drank her coffee. Will you come down?”

“Of course.”

“Early?”

“I’ll be down by eight.”

“Make it half past seven. I’ll meet you at the first milestone beyond the village. I want to talk to you.”

Something ran like a taut string between them. He said, “All right,” and hard on the last word there came a click and they were thirty miles apart.

He hung up at his end, and found his hand stiff and numb from the grip in which he had been holding the receiver.