A QUESTION OF GUILT

'Oh, I know that.'

Belle carefully gathered the four bottles of stout, with a farthing returnable on each. 'Peter ain't no good to any woman. You can't blame me, can you, for looking around?'

Clara said sharply, 'I don't think that relieves a woman of her duty to her husband.' She set her load of plates on the greasy wooden draining-board, beside a sink already piled with dirty crockery-some smeared with egg, she noticed, unwashed since breakfast.

'Peter doesn't mind,' Belle said casually. 'But what's the good of a home and a husband if you've got talent? If the stage is in your blood, you don't care much for the washtub and the dustpan.'

'That's true, Belle,' Clara agreed, though sounding sad that she had to.

They found Crippen alone in the parlour, adjusting the gas-fire. 'Where's Paul?' Belle demanded.

'Gone to the smallest room.'

'What, by himself? Why didn't you take him?'

Crippen straightened, blinking. 'He knows the way. The light it always on.'

'I'm sure Paul doesn't mind,' Clara said. 'Why, this house is like our second home.'

'It's common politeness.' Belle sat in a pink armchair by the fire. 'Peter's taken to leaving the light on all night, because he has to get up,' she explained unkindly. 'Perhaps he's the same trouble as Paul? Peter, I'm cold. Fetch my shawl. And pass round the chocolates,' she commanded, as Paul slipped back to the parlour. The box was a condolence from the Martinettis. Belle took three of four, holding them in her palm and gobbling them one after the other.

They all turned, hearing Paul gasp. He had idly picked up a large book and flicked the pages.

'What is it, Paul?' Clara was puzzled.

'Things not for the eyes of ordinary men.'

'Gray's Anatomy,' Crippen remarked. He helped himself to a chocolate. 'Dr Beckett loaned it me.'

'You shouldn't leave an awful book like that lying about,' Belle complained. 'You've upset Paul.'

'No, it's interesting.' Clara had her fingers in the pages. 'Oh, what a spooky picture!' she exclaimed. 'What is it?'

Crippen leaned between the Martinetti's. 'That's your lungs and your heart, with the great blood-vessels rising beside your windpipe.'

'It looks like some ship with two billowing sails,' observed Paul more discriminatively.

'Oh, mercy! Is that my leg?' Clara cried.

'Those are the muscles,' Crippen explained. 'Separated very prettily in the picture, aren't they? Like the petals of a flower.'

Clara turned more pages. 'And that?'_

'The womb.'

'Peter!' snapped Belle. 'What language.'

Crippen took the book from the Martinettis, snapping it shut with unusual assertiveness.

'Weren't we playing whist?' Belle asked sarcastically. 'Set up the table and bring the cards, Peter.'

They played until one in the morning. To theatrical people, night is the working-man's afternoon. None needed be up in the morning-except Crippen, at seven. At half past one, Belle opened the front door. Paul was in overcoat, silk muffler and top hat, Clara wrapped in furs. 'Gee, it's freezing,' Belle announced. 'Sure you wouldn't care to pass the night?'

'We'd best get back to Shaftesbury Avenue, Belle. Paul's better sleeping at home. He's not at all well, you know.'

'Peter, fetch them a cab. There'll be one on the rank round the corner in York Road.'

'Not at this hour,' Crippen said doubtfully.

'Surely you can pick one up in the street?' Crippen hurried into the sparsely gaslit night, without overcoat or hat. The three waited in the hall, chatting until hooves clattered up the Crescent. The hansom stopped, lamps like bleary eyes over its pair of wheels, horse snorting, muffled bowler-hatted cabby with whip on his perch, breath of man and animal a cloud in the still, frosty air. The knee-doors flew open, Crippen stepped out and politely waited to help his guests in. Clara noticed him shivering.

'Goodnight, Belle.' She kissed her hostess fondly at the top of the front steps.

'I'll come down to see you off.'

'No, don't come down, Belle. You'll catch your death.'

The driver cracked his whip. The Crippens stood waving in their lighted doorway as the hansom drove towards the Camden Road, from where they could hear the lowing of cattle gathering for sale and slaughter in the Metropolitan Market.

Crippen shut the front door. Belle returned to the armchair by the fire. He reached to dim the gas-globe.

'Why are you turning the gas down?' she demanded.

'Economy. The company's left. The curtain falls.'

He remained standing in the middle of the room. She pulled her shawl round her, looking at him curiously. 'That's a strange thing for you to say.'

'Is it? But a social performance is like one on the stage. We all play our parts. We can generally tell the others' lines before they speak them. With the Martinettis, I feel like the manager of a theatre.'

'I don't play a part, not in my own home.' He said nothing. 'Aren't you getting me another glass of brandy? Or don't you want me to have a wink of sleep?'

Crippen descended the stone steps to the kitchen. The brandy was in a cupboard with the bottles of stout, all bought from the grocer's in Brecknock Road. He reappeared with a squat glass containing over an inch of dark spirit. Belle took it without a word. She sat sipping while he folded the green-baize cloth, collected the cards, and moved the square table against the wall.

'This brandy's scented, I guess.'

'It's a new bottle. I got it on my way home. It's cheaper, which accounts for the stronger taste. The grocer told me the best brandy is almost tasteless, like drinking liquid fire.'

She held the empty glass out. Crippen disappeared. She heard him knock over something in the kitchen below, which smashed on the floor. 'It was the gravy boat,' he announced, reappearing with more brandy. 'It was cracked anyway.'

'There's something funny about you. You don't usually break things.'

'If we had a housemaid, I suppose she'd break much more.' He stood facing her, back to the gas-fire, hands under the tails of his grey frock-coat. 'Why did you talk to the Martinettis tonight of engagements offered you at the Euston and Collins's? You knew they were lies.'

'Don't dare call me a liar,' she said stridently. Crippen kept his impassiveness. 'You have been lying much worse to yourself. You never had the slightest prospect of being a success on the stage. Not from the moment I first set eyes on you. When you came into my office, while I worked for Dr Jeffery in New York. When you'd just had a miscarriage.'

She opened her mouth, but instead of speaking screwed her eyes up. 'You're sort of shimmering.'

'You've drunk a lot of brandy. It's slurring your speech. I paid for your voice training. With a proper coach, right after we were married, till the hard times came in the winter of '92 and the money ran out. I paid for your gowns. I paid for your jewels. I paid for that show you were in, back in '99. As Cora Motzi in Vio and Mitzki's Bright Lights,' he derided her daringly. 'Bright lights! You never dazzled anyone in the world, except me. Last week at the Met I saw what you were worth. Nothing.'

Her only response was to say in a dreamy voice, 'Gee, I'm kind of dry. My throat's burning. Get me a glass of water, Peter.'

When he returned from the kitchen with a tumbler she was asleep. He stood staring at her. She opened her eyes suddenly. 'Where you been?'

'To fetch you a drink.'

She took the glass. Crippen resumed his stance by the fire. 'When are you going to see Bruce Miller again?'

She choked, unable to swallow. 'Shut your mouth about Bruce Miller.'

'What about Richard Ehrlich? The German student who was your lover under this very roof. Did you ever see