The Only Problem

version of the scriptures isn’t to hand, it’s down in my study in the cottage, or I’d quote you the precise passage. But—’

‘Mr Gotham,’ said a young Englishwoman dressed entirely in dark grey leather, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt but I have to file my story at six. Is it true that Nathan Fox is your wife’s lover?’

‘Please stick to French if you can. Anyway, I am addressing this gentleman,’ said Harvey, indicating the elderly Swede, ‘on a very important subject and —’

‘Oh, no, Mr Gotham. Oh, no.’ This was a tough pressman, indeterminately British or American, who spoke with a loud, fierce voice. ‘Oh, no, Mr Gotham. You’re here to answer our questions.’

‘Keep your voice down, please. The fact is that I am here because it is my home. You are here to listen to me. The subject is the Book of Job to which I have dedicated many years of my life. This gentleman,’ said Harvey, nodding to the grave and rather flattered Swede, ‘has asked me an interesting question on the subject. I have answered his question and I am elaborating on it. Your chance, and that of your colleagues, to put further questions will come in due course. As I was about to remark, Job’s problem was partly a lack of knowledge. He was without access to any system of study which would point to the reason for his afflictions. He said specifically, “I desire to reason with God,” and expected God to come out like a man and state his case.

‘Mr Gotham —’

‘Mr Gotham, can you state if you would side with your wife in any sense if she came up for trial? Do you yourself feel politically that the FLE have something to offer the young generation?’ — This was from a lanky French journalist with bright eyes and a wide smile.’ He was rather a sympathetic type, Harvey thought, probably new to his trade.

‘I’m really sorry to disappoint you,’ said Harvey with some charm, ‘but I’m giving you a seminar on Job without pay.’

A hubbub had now started to break out. Protests and questions came battering in on Harvey from every side.

‘Quiet!’ bawled Harvey. ‘Either you listen to me in silence or you all go. Job’s problem, as I was saying, was partly a lack of knowledge. Everybody talked but nobody told him anything about the reason for his sufferings. Not even God when he appeared. Our limitations of knowledge make us puzzle over the cause of suffering, maybe it is the cause of suffering itself. Quiet, over there! The baby’s asleep. And I said, no photographs at present. As I say, we are plonked here in the world and nobody but our own kind can tell us anything. It isn’t enough. As for the rest, God doesn’t tell. No, I’ve already told you that I don’t know where my wife is. How the Book of Job got into the holy scriptures I really do not know. That’s the greatest mystery of all. For it doesn’t —’

‘Mr Gotham,’ said the tough pressman, ‘the FLE have held up supermarkets, jewellers and banks at Gerardmer, La Bresse, Rambervillers, Mirecourt and Baccarat. Your wife is —’

‘You’ve left out Epinal,’ said Harvey. Cameras flashed. ‘Will you allow me to continue to answer the question put to me, or will you go?’

‘Your wife—’… ‘Your background, Mr Gotham —’ … ‘Your wife’s sister —’

‘Conference over,’ said Harvey.

‘Oh, no.’ — ‘No, Mr Gotham.’ — ‘Wait a minute.’

Some were swearing and cursing; some were laughing.

But Harvey got up and made for the door. Most of the reporters were on their feet, very rowdy. The wiry red- faced woman, the possible police agent, sat holding her tape-recorder modestly on her lap. The large fair man at the door had grabbed a belt as if from nowhere and was fastening it rapidly round his waist. Harvey saw that it was packed neatly with cartridges and that a revolver hung from a holster, with the man’s hand on it. He recognised him now as the sandy-haired policeman who, in uniform, had sat at the table throughout his interrogation at Epinal.

Harvey said, ‘I must tell you that there is a policeman in the room.’

‘What police? La Brigade antigang?’

‘I have no idea what variety. Kindly leave quietly and in order, and don’t wake the baby.’

They left without order or quietness.

‘Why don’t you get out while you can? Get back to Canada,’ said a girl. — ‘We’ll be seeing you in the courtroom,’ said another. Some joked as they left, some overturned chairs as they went. From everywhere came the last-minute flashes of the cameras recording the policeman, the overturned chairs, and recording Harvey standing in the middle of it, an image to be reproduced in one of next morning’s papers under the title, ‘Don’t Wake the Baby’. But at last they had gone. The wiry red-faced woman said sadly to Harvey as she passed him, ‘I’m afraid you’ll get a very bad press.’

The policeman followed them out and chivied them down the drive from his car. Before he shut the door Harvey noticed something new in the light cast from the hall: a washing-line had been slung well in evidence of the front portico. Anne-Marie had just finished taking baby clothes from it, had evidently been photographed doing so. She came towards him.

‘Not very convincing,’ Harvey said. ‘Nobody hangs washing within sight of the approach to a chateau.’

‘Nobody used to,’ Anne-Marie said. ‘They do now. We, for example, are doing it. Nobody will find it in the least suspect.’

‘Didn’t she tell you the hotel where she was going to in Paris?’ Harvey said.

‘Not me,’ said Anne-Marie. ‘I think she’ll ring you if she said she would. In any case, the inspector is sure to know where she’s staying.’

It was nine-thirty, and Anne-Marie was leaving for the night, anxious about being extraordinarily late in returning home; she lived several miles away. A car driven by a plain-clothes policeman was waiting at the door. She hurried away, banged the car door, and was off.

Stewart Cowper had arrived about an hour before, full of travel-exasperation and police-harassment; he had been frisked and questioned at the entrance to the house; he had been travelling most of the day and he was cold. At present he was having a shower.