The Only Problem

work on Job, all interrupted and neglected, probed into and interfered with: that is experience, too; real experience, not vicarious, as is often assumed. To study, to think, is to live and suffer painfully.

Did Effie really kill or help to kill the policeman in Paris whose wife was shopping in the suburbs at the time? Since he had left the police station on Saturday night he had recurrently put himself to imagine the scene. An irruption at a department store. The police arrive. Shots fired. Effie and her men friends fighting their way back to their waiting car (with Nathan at the wheel?). Effie, lithe and long-legged, a most desirable girl, and quick-witted, unmoved, aiming her gun with a good aim. She pulls the trigger and is away all in one moment. Yes, he could imagine Effie in the scene; she was capable of that, capable of anything.

‘Will you come this way, please, Mr Gotham?’

There was a stack of files on Chatelain’s desk.

The rest of that night Harvey remembered as a sort of roll-call of his visitors over the past months; it seemed to him like the effect of an old-fashioned village policeman going his rounds, shining his torch on name-plates and door-knobs; one by one, each name surrounded by a nimbus of agitated suspicion as his friends’ simple actions, their ordinary comings and goings came up for questioning. It was strange how guilty everything looked under the policeman’s torch, how it sounded here in the police headquarters. Chatelain asked Harvey if he would object to the conversation being tape-recorded.

‘No, it’s a good thing. I was going to suggest it. Then you won’t have to waste time asking me the same questions over and over again.’

Chatelain smiled sadly. ‘We have to check.’ Then he selected one of the files and placed it before him.

‘Edward Jansen,’ he said, ‘came to visit you.

‘Yes, he’s the husband of my wife’s sister, Ruth, now separated. He came to see me last April.’

Chatelain gave a weak smile and said, ‘Your neighbours seem to remember a suspicious-looking character who visited you last spring.’

‘Yes, I daresay that was Edward Jansen. He has red hair down to his shoulders. Or had. He’s an actor and he’s now famous. He is my brother-in-law through his marriage to my wife’s sister, but he’s now separated from his wife. A lot can happen in less than a year.

‘He asked you why there were baby clothes on the line?’

‘I don’t remember if he actually asked, but he made some remark about them because I answered, as you know, “The police won’t shoot if there’s a baby in the house.”‘

‘Why did you say that?’

‘I can’t answer precisely. I didn’t foresee any involvement with the police, or I wouldn’t have said it.’

‘It was a joke?’

‘That sort of thing.’

‘Do you still hear from Edward Jansen?’ Chatelain opened one of the files.

‘I haven’t heard for some time.’

Chatelain flicked through the file.    ‘

‘There’s a letter from him waiting for you at your house.’

‘Thanks. I expect you can tell me the contents.       ‘

‘No, we can’t.’

‘That could be taken in two senses,’ Harvey said.

‘Well, you can take it in one sense: we haven’t opened it. The name and address of the sender is on the outside of the envelope. As it happens, we know quite a lot about Mr Jansen, and he doesn’t interest us at the moment. He’s also been questioned.’ Chatelain closed the file, evidently Edward’s dossier; it was rather thin compared with some of the others. Chatelain took up another and opened it, as if starting on a new subject. Then, ‘What did you discuss with Edward Jansen last April?’

‘I can’t recall. I know his wife, Ruth, was anxious for me to make a settlement on her sister and facilitate a divorce. I am sure we didn’t discuss that very much, for I had no intention of co-operating with my wife to that end. I know we discussed the Book of Job.’

‘And about Ruth Jansen. Did you invite her to stay?’

‘No, she came unexpectedly with her sister’s baby, about the end of August.’

‘Why did she do that?’

‘August is a very boring month for everybody.’

‘You really must be serious, Mr Gotham.’

‘It’s as good a reason as any. I can’t analyse the motives of a woman who probably can’t analyse them herself.’

Chatelain tapped the file. ‘She says here that she brought the baby, hoping to win you over to her view that the child would benefit if you made over a substantial sum of money to its mother, that is, to your wife Effie.’

‘If that’s what Ruth says, I suppose it is so.’

‘She greatly resembles your wife.’

‘Yes, feature by feature. But of course, to anyone who knows them they are very different. Effie is more beautiful, really. Less practical than Ruth.’

Pomfret came in and sat down. He was less free of manner in the presence of the other officer. He peered at