recognise Effie when I see her. She was naked, with her hair hanging down her shoulders, and laughing, and then pulling her consort after her out of the extramarital bag, without shame; I am truly sorry, Harvey, to be the bearer of this news. To a Gotham. Better she killed a policeman. It’s a question of honour. Mind you; I always suspected she was unvirtuous.’
‘You always suspected?’
‘Yes, I did. All along I feared the worst.’
‘Are you sure,’ said Harvey, very carefully, ‘that perhaps your suspicions have not disposed you to imagine that the girl you saw on the television was Effie, when in fact it was someone who resembled her?’
‘Effie is not like anybody else,’ said Auntie Pet.
‘She resembles her sister,’ said Harvey.
‘How could it be Ruth? Ruth is not missing, is she?’
‘No. I don’t say it could have been Ruth. I only say that there is one case where Effie looks like somebody else. I know of another.’
‘Who is that?’
‘Job’s wife, in a painting.’
‘Job’s wife it could not be. She was a foolish woman but she never committed adultery in a sack. You should read your Bible, Harvey, before you presume to criticise it.’
Harvey poured himself a drink.
‘Don’t get over-excited,’ said Auntie Pet. ‘I know this is a blow.’
‘Look, Auntie Pet, I must know the details, every detail. I have to know if you’re absolutely sure, if you’re right. Would you mind describing the man to me?’
‘I hope you’re not going to cite him as co-respondent, Harvey. You would have to re-play that news item in court. It would bring ridicule on our heads. You’ve had enough publicity.’
‘Just describe the young man she was with, please.’
‘Well, this seems like an interrogation. The young man looked like a Latin-Mediterranean type, maybe Spanish, young, thin. I didn’t look closely, I was looking at Effie. She had nothing on.
Auntie Pet had not improved with the years. Harvey had never known her so awful. He thought, She is mistaken but at least, sincere. He said, ‘I must tell the police.’
‘Why?’ said Auntie Pet.
‘For many reasons. Not the least of which is that, if Effie and her friend are in California and decide to leave, — they might come here, for instance, here to France, or here to see me; if they do that, they could be shot at sight.’
‘That’s out of the question. Effie wouldn’t dare come to your house, now. But if you tell the police how I saw them, the story will go round the world. And the television picture, too. Think of your name.
Harvey got through to the commissariat. ‘My wife has been seen in California within the last few days.’
‘Who saw her?’ ‘My aunt.’
‘Ah, the aunt,’ said the police inspector.
‘She says she saw her in a youth-documentary on the television.’ ‘We had better come and talk to your aunt.’
‘It isn’t necessary.
‘Do you believe your aunt?’
‘She’s truthful. But she might be mistaken. That’s all I have to say.
‘I would like to have a word with her.’
‘All right,’ said Harvey. ‘You’ll find her alone because I’m going down to my cottage to work.’
He then rang Stewart Cowper in London but found he was out of the office. ‘Tell him,’ said Harvey to the secretary, ‘that I might want him to go to the United States for me.’
He had been in his cottage half-an-hour when he saw the police car going up the drive, with the two security men from Paris. He wished them well of Auntie Pet.
Harvey had brought his mail with him, including Edward’s letter.
In his old environment, almost smiling to himself with relief at being alone again, he sat for a while sorting out his thoughts.
Effie and Nathan in a commune in California: it was quite likely. Effie and Nathan in Paris, part of a band of killers: not unlikely.
He began to feel uneasy about Auntie Pet, up there at the house, being questioned by the security men. He was just getting ready to go and join them, and give his aunt a show of support, when the police car with the two men inside returned, passed his cottage, and made off. Either they had made short work of Auntie Pet or she of them. Harvey suspected the latter. Auntie Pet had been separated from Uncle Joe for as long as Harvey could remember. They lived in separate houses. There was no question of a divorce, no third parties, no lovers and mistresses. ‘I had to make a separate arrangement, Uncle Joe had once confided to Harvey. ‘She would have made short work of me if I’d stayed.’
Harvey himself had never felt in danger of being made short work of by his aunt. Probably there was something in his nature, a self-sufficiency, that matched her own.
