Pomfret didn’t recognise the word.
‘It makes a sound like a typewriter. It pecks at the wood of the tree.’
‘Well, she liked the sound of it,’ said Harvey.
‘Are you saying that is why you bought the chateau?’
‘I’d already thought of buying it. And now, with Ruth and the baby, it was convenient to me.
‘Ernest L. Howe,’ said Chatelain. ‘He came to see you, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, some time last autumn. He came to see his baby daughter. He wanted Ruth to go back to London with the baby and live with him. Which, in fact, she has now done. You see, he doesn’t think of what’s best for the child; he thinks of what’s most pleasant for himself. To console his hurt pride that Effie walked out on him— and I don’t blame her — he’s persuaded her sister to go and live with him, using the child as an excuse. It’s contemptible.’
Harvey was aware that the two men were conscious of a change in his tone, that he was loosening up. Harvey didn’t care. He had nothing, Effie had nothing, to lose by his expressing himself freely on the subject of Ernie Howe. He was tired of being what was so often called civilised about his wife’s lover. He was tired of the questioning. He was tired, anyway, and wanted a night’s sleep. He deliberately gave himself and his questioners the luxury of his true opinion of Ernie.
‘Would you care for a drink?’ said Pomfret.
‘A double scotch,’ said Harvey, ‘with a glass of water on the side. I like to put in the water myself.’
Chatelain said he would have the same. Pomfret disappeared to place the orders. Chatelain put a new tape in the recording machine while Harvey talked on about Ernie.
‘He sounds like a shit,’ said Chatelain. ‘Let me tell you in confidence that even from his statement which I have in front of me here, he sounds like a shit. He stated categorically that he wasn’t at all surprised that Effie was a terrorist, and further, he says that you know it.’
‘He’s furious that Effie left him,’ Harvey said. ‘He thought she would get a huge alimony from me to keep him in comfort for the rest of his life. I’m sure she came to realise what he was up to, and that’s why she left him.’
Pomfret returned, followed by a policeman with a tray of drinks. It was quite a party. Harvey felt easier.
‘I’m convinced of it,’ he said, and for the benefit of Pomfret repeated his last remarks.
‘It’s altogether in keeping with the character of the man, but he was useful,’ said Chatelain. He said to Pomfret, ‘I have revealed to M. Gotham what Ernest Howe stated about Effie Gotham.’
And what Chatelain claimed Ernie had said was evidently true, for Pomfret quite spontaneously confirmed it: ‘Yes, I’m afraid he was hardly gallant about her. He is convinced she’s a terrorist and that you know it.’
‘When did you get these statements?’ said Harvey.
‘Recently. Ernest Howe’s came through from Scotland Yard on Sunday.’
‘You’ve got Scotland Yard to help you?’
‘To a certain degree,’ said Chatelain, waving his right hand lightly, palm-upward.
Was he softening up these men, Harvey wondered, or they him?
‘It would interest me,’ said Harvey, ‘to see the photograph of my wife that was taken of her by the police in Trieste, when she was arrested for shoplifting.’
‘You may see it, of course. But it isn’t being handed out to the newspapers. It has been useful for close identification purposes by eye-witnesses. You will see it looks too rigid — like all police photos —to be shown to the public as the girl we are actually looking for. She is quite different in terrorist action, as they all are.’ He turned to Pomfret. ‘Can you find the Trieste photograph?’
Pomfret found it. The girl in the photo was looking straight ahead of her, head uplifted, eyes staring, against a plain light background. Her hair was darker than Effie’s in real life, but that might be an effect of the flash- photography. It looked like Effie, under strain, rather frightened.
‘It looks like a young shop-lifter who’s been hauled in by the police,’ said Harvey.
‘Do you mean to say it isn’t your wife?’ said Pomfret. ‘She gave her name as Signora Effie Gotham. Isn’t it her?’
‘I think it is my wife. I don’t think it looks like the picture of a hardened killer.’
‘A lot can happen in a few months,’ said Chatelain. ‘A lot has happened to that young woman. Her battle-name isn’t Effie Gotham, naturally. It is Marion.’
In the meantime Pomfret had extracted from his papers the photograph of Effie that the police had found in Harvey’s cottage. ‘You should have this back,’ said Pomfret. ‘It is yours.’
‘Thank you. You’ve made copies. I see this photo in every newspaper I open.’
‘It is the girl we are looking for. There is movement and life in that photograph.’
‘I think you should publish the police-photo from Trieste,’ said Harvey. ‘To be perfectly fair. They are both Effie. The public might not then be prejudiced.’
‘Oh, the public is not so subtle as to make these nice distinctions.’
‘Then why don’t you publish the Trieste photograph?’
‘It is the property of the Italian police. For them, the girl in their photograph is a kleptomaniac, and in need of treatment. They had put the treatment in hand, but she skipped off, as they all do.’
‘I thought she went to prison.’
