Leslie must be safeguarded whatever happened to her, Leslie who wouldn’t many her, thank God, the stupid fool, Leslie with whom she was still so crazily, desolately in love that she couldn’t see anyone else for him. Dominic sat down slowly and carefully at the table, braced his sweating palms upon its glossy surface before him, and said loudly and hoarsely: “She knew because I told her.”
He was glad he’d sat down, however it diminished his dignity, he felt safer that way; his knees would never have held him up, standing. George had lurched forward in his chair and come heavily to his feet. He spread his hands upon the table and leaned over his son, and in spite of himself Dominic wilted. He wanted to close his eyes, but he wouldn’t, because whatever was coming to him, he’d asked for it, he couldn’t complain.
“You what?” said George.
“I told her. I told her because I thought then she wouldn’t have to tell you about being there at all. She was going to tell you she’d killed him, and yet she didn’t know anything about him being battered to death, she just thought he’d cracked his skull when he fell down the stairs. So I knew she hadn’t, and how could I let her go on thinking she had? I had to tell her. I couldn’t not tell her.” Resolute in his desperation, he said with an altogether inaccurate suggestion of defiance: “I’d do the same again.”
George said, after a blank and awful pause: “I’ve a good mind to tan the hide off you.”
With all his sore heart Dominic almost wished he would, but with all his lively senses he knew he wouldn’t. There was no getting out of things that way any more, the bolt-hole had been stopped at least two years now. Paying this debt was going to be a whole lot more complicated than that, a whole lot more long-drawn-out and painful. The compensations of being under juvenile discipline had never presented themselves to him before.
“I know,” he said drearily, “but I had to do it. There wasn’t anything else to do. And now I’ve made everything worse for her instead of better.”
“Whether you’ve done that or not, you’ve certainly made it impossible for us to judge how far she’s telling the truth. And you know what else you’ve done, don’t you?” said George remorselessly.
Yes, he knew. He’d undermined the foundations of the house, and shaken the pillars that held up the roof. He wouldn’t have believed himself that he could do such a thing; for a moment half of his heart was with George, astonished and reproachful, half of it with Kitty, injured and imprisoned. Between the two of them he wished he could die.
“I shall have to report this to the chief, of course,” said George. “I blame myself more than you. There’s nothing to be done but tell him that I’ve been consistently indiscreet. I’d no right to allow you such easy access to information in the first place, it was thoroughly unconstitutional behaviour, and I should have known better. It was unreasonable to expect that you could refrain for ever from shooting off your mouth, I suppose.” But he had expected it; he’d been so sure of it, in fact, that it had never occurred to him to question his discretion at all. Only now that he’d lost that absolute trust did Dominic know how to value it.
“I didn’t do it lightly,” he said, flinching. “I never have before.”
“Once is all it takes. I shall have to see Superintendent Duckett in the morning and take the responsibility for this myself. That’s putting it squarely where it belongs.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dominic abjectly. “Do you have to?”
“Yes, I have to, in fairness to you as well as to Kitty. If he asks for my resignation he’ll be within his rights.” That was cruel, because he was virtually sure that Duckett, things being as they were, the case as good as closed, and this particular item of evidence now so much less vital than Dominic supposed, would hardly even bother to listen to him, and quite certainly be unable to muster more than a token reprimand. “In future, of course,” he said, “I shall have to make sure I don’t talk about a case when you’re within earshot. I’ll take good care this doesn’t happen again. And you’ll give me your word here and now not to meddle in this affair any more. You’ve done damage enough.”
“I can’t! I won’t! I tell you Kitty didn’t know until I told her. You’ve got to believe me. Don’t you see there isn’t really any evidence against her apart from that? Dad, you’ve got to let her go now, don’t you see that? You’ve no right to hold her now that I’ve told you about it. She’s innocent, and if you won’t prove it, I’ll damn’ well do it myself.”
George had had more than enough. He opened his mouth to say something for which he would quite certainly have been sorry next moment, and which would have cost Bunty days of patient, cunning negotiations to put right again between them; and then the violent young voice that was shouting at him cracked ominously, and stopped him in his tracks, and he was saved. He looked again, and more closely, at the pale, raging face and the anguished eyes that didn’t avoid his searching stare, because the case was too desperate for considerations of dignity to have any further validity.
Understanding hit George like a steam hammer. Someone you’re used to thinking of as a child, someone who sounds like a hysterical boy, suddenly looks at you with the profound, solemn, staggering grief of a man, and knocks the breath out of you. It won’t last, of course, it isn’t a constant yet, he’ll be back and forth between maturity and childishness a hundred times before he loses the ability to commute. But it’s the first plain prophecy of things to come, and it’s hit him deadly hard. Oh, God, thought George, utterly dismayed, and I teased him about her! How dim can you get about your own kid?
Treading with wincing care, as though even a loud noise might start them both jangling again like shaken glasses George went and sat down at the table opposite his son. In a soft, reasonable voice he said: “All right, boy, you owed me that. I haven’t been fair to you. This is the first time you ever let me down, and that’s not a bad record, all things considered. I don’t really think you did it lightly, I don’t really under-value your reasons. I don’t blame you for not being willing to contract out. Probably in your place I should do exactly the same as you’ve done. And since I’m the person who’s to blame for breaking all the rules in the first place, and I’ve been doing it for years, I may just as well do it just once more, and tell you how the case really stands now. It won’t make you any happier,” he said ruefully, “but it may settle your mind. Since Kitty Norris told us her story tonight we’ve been working hard at the details. We’ve questioned all the tenants of the block of flats where she lives, and we’ve found a couple on the ground floor who heard and saw her come in that night, not at half past ten, as she said at first, nor at ten past eleven, as she says now, but just after midnight. She declines to account for that missing time.”
“They could be mistaken, , , ” began Dominic strenuously.
“I didn’t say she denied it, I said she wouldn’t account for it.” The voice was gender and gentler. “And that’s not all, Dom. We also brought in the clothes Kitty wore that night. I saw her, she had on a black silk dress with a full skirt, I didn’t have any trouble picking it out. She had an Indian scarf, too, a shot red and blue gauze affair with gold embroidery. To tell you the one thing that fits in nowhere, since I’m telling you the things that do fit, only too well, the end of the scarf has a corner torn off, and we haven’t been able to find a trace of it so far. The left side of the skirt of the dress has several smears along the hem, not easily visible because of the black colour, but enough to react to tests. They’re blood. The same group as Armiger’s. Her shoes I didn’t notice, but we found them, by one spot of brown on the toe of the left one. That’s blood, too, Dom. The same group. Armiger’s group, but not Kitty’s.
