The telephone began to ring.
«Go away, please,» I said, «and stay away.»
«Bradley, have a heart-«Out!»
He stood before me with that air of revolting humility. I threw open the sitting-room door and the door of the flat. I picked up the telephone in the hall.
Arnold Baffin's voice was on the wire. He spoke quietly, rather slowly. «Bradley, could you come round here, please? I think that I may have just killed Rachel.»
I said immediately, quietly too but in emotion, «Arnold, don't be silly. Don't be silly!»
«Could you come round at once, please.» His voice sounded like a recorded announcement.
I said, «Have you called a doctor?»
A moment's pause. «No.»
«Well, do so!»
«I'll-explain-Could you come round at once-«Arnold,» I said, «you can't have killed her-You're talking nonsense-You can't have-«
A moment's pause. «Maybe.» His voice was toneless as if calm. A matter doubtless of severe shock.
«What happened-?»
«Bradley, could you-«Yes,» I said, «I'll come round at once. I'll get a taxi.» I replaced the receiver.
It may be relevant to record that my first general feeling on hearing what Arnold had to say was one of curious joy. Before the reader sets me down as a monster of callousness let him look into his own heart. Such reactions are not after all so abnormal and may be said in that minimal sense at least to be almost excusable. We naturally take in the catastrophes of our friends a pleasure which genuinely does not preclude friendship. This is partly but not entirely because we enjoy being empowered as helpers. The unexpected or inappropriate catastrophe is especially piquant. I was very attached to both Arnold and Rachel. But there is a natural tribal hostility between the married and the unmarried. I cannot stand the shows so often quite instinctively put on by married people to insinuate that they are not only more fortunate but in some way more moral than you are. Moreover to help their case the unmarried person often naively assumes that all marriages are happy unless shown to be otherwise. The Baffin marriage had always seemed pretty sound. This sudden vignette of home life set the ideas in a turmoil.
Still rosy with the rush of blood which Arnold's words had occasioned, and also, I should make clear (there is no contradiction), very alarmed and upset, I turned round and saw Francis, whose existence I had forgotten.
«Anything the matter?» said Francis.
«No.»
«I heard you say something about a doctor.»
«The wife of a friend of mine has had an accident. She fell. I'm just going over.»
«Shall I come too?» said Francis. «I might be useful. After all, I am still a doctor in the eyes of God.»
I thought for a moment and said, «All right.» We got a taxi.
I pause here to say another word or two about my protege Arnold Baffin. I am anxious (this is not just a phrase, I feel anxiety) about the clarity and justice of my presentation of Arnold, since this story is, from a salient point of view, the story of my relations with Arnold and the astounding climax to which these relations led. I «discovered» Arnold, a considerably younger man, when I was already modestly established as a writer, and he, recently out of college, was just finishing his first novel. I had by then «got rid of» my wife and was experiencing