Mr. Zero

XXXII

The Chief Constable had departed. Mr. Brook had departed. The contents of the safe had been removed. Sturrock’s body had been removed. Inspector Boyce had retired from the scene. To all outward appearance it might have been any Sunday evening at Cole Lester with the butler off duty and William taking his place a thought unhandily.

“Actually,” as Algy said to Gay-“actually, my dear, the eye of the police is very much upon us. There’s a young-fellow-my-lad hanging round the place to see that I don’t take the Bentley out and forget to bring it back, and there’s a smart police pup in the lane with a motor-bike all ready to follow me if I do. And William is going around like a cat on hot bricks looking at me out of the tail of his eye. I think he’s thrilled at the idea of being at such close quarters with a murderer, but every now and then he gets an agonized feeling that I may have an urge to add him to the bag.”

Gay stamped her foot and said, “I wish you wouldn’t!”

She had come down to look for Algy and had come upon him in the study.

Algy laughed and she flashed into anger.

“I can’t think why we go on talking about it, and I can’t think why we’re in this horrible room! It simply reeks of policemen!”

Algy really laughed this time. The other had been a pretense.

“What do policemen reek of?” he enquired from the depths of the largest chair.

“Red tape and sealing-wax!” snapped Gay.

Algy looked at her between half-closed lids. The room, purged of the police force, was pleasant enough. The Inspector had well and truly tended the fire, which now glowed like a sunset and diffused a most comforting warmth. There was a pleasant light from a tall lamp behind the chair. It fell on Gay, on the bright colour which anger had brought to her cheeks, on the shadows under her eyes. He thought she had been crying. He thought perhaps her eyelashes were still wet. He thought that perhaps he would never see her again. And he had an overwhelming desire to bid this moment stay, to halt it here, between the past and the future, between today and tomorrow, between the moment that had slipped from them and the moment that might never be for them at all. His heart said “Stay,” and it took him all he knew to keep his tongue still upon the word. He thought, “I love her,” and thought how strange it was to feel this deep stab of triumph and pain. He thought, “She loves me too,” and the triumph rushed up in him like a singing flame and consumed the pain. But he hadn’t moved. The big chair held a lazy, lounging young man looking with half-closed eyes at an angry, pretty girl.

The sight exasperated Gay, who was only too eager to be exasperated. If she could be really furious with Algy, everything wouldn’t hurt so much. It was when she was sorry for him, when she wanted to put her arms round him and keep him safe, that the pain at her heart became almost unendurable. “Only you’ve got to endure it-you’ve got to-you’ve got to.” And if they sent Algy to prison, she would have to bear it for years, and years, and years. She didn’t get any farther than Algy being sent to prison. She wouldn’t get any farther than that. There are things you mustn’t look at even for a moment, because they are too dreadful to be borne. Other people had to bear them, but not you. Things like that couldn’t possibly happen to you. Don’t look. Shut your eyes. Push them away, and bang, and bolt, and bar the door upon them. Anger is a great help when you are trying to bang that sort of door.

And then all at once such a little thing betrayed them both. Gay saw Algy looking at her. He didn’t look lazy any more. His eyes were open and he was looking at her as if he loved her with all his heart, and as if he was saying goodbye-to love, to her, to everything. It was only for a moment, but that moment broke her anger and her pride, and very nearly broke her heart. She came over to the chair with a rush and went down on her knees by it, leaning to him across the arm, her hands holding it, her voice breaking on his name.

“Algy!”

It was no good. They had lost their balance, and when you have lost your balance you catch at anything or anyone. These two caught at one another, held desperately together across the arm of the chair, kissed desperately as if there were no other time but this in which to kiss, to love, to cling together-a time quick with anguish, quick with joy.

It passed, but it left them in a new country. They drew back, still holding hands, looking at one another and at this place to which they had come with stumbling, half-unwilling feet. Double pain for both, and a double load to carry, double foreboding, double fear, and a frowning barrier between them and the double joy which would have made it all worth while. Yet when Algy said, “I didn’t mean to let you know,” Gay knew just how unendurable that would have been. She said so in a rush of words,

“Horrible of you! I’d have died. I felt as if I was going to-when you said-they were going to arrest you.”

“But, darling, you must have known that I did care.”

“I couldn’t-I didn’t! How could I? You were being completely strong and silent. Oh, darling, wouldn’t it be lovely if Sylvia had never been born, and if there weren’t any police?”

Algy kissed her, and said he didn’t follow.

“Dull!” said Gay. “If Sylvia hadn’t been born she wouldn’t have married Francis Colesborough, and if she hadn’t, I shouldn’t have asked you to lend me your car, and we shouldn’t have come hurtling down here in the middle of the night and getting mixed up in Francis being murdered. There wouldn’t have been any murder, and even if there had been, it wouldn’t have mattered if there hadn’t been any police.”

After which lucid explanations she put her head down on his shoulder and found it comforting.