Inspector West Alone

“I’m a bachelor by habit,” Roger told her.

“I know all about you,” she said. “You’re eating your heart out. I can see it in your eyes. I’ve told him that it was essential for you to have—companionship. There’s nothing that helps one to forget so much as someone else to think about. Has that ever struck you? When your wife reaches the same point, she’ll get better. You think it’s a tragedy. It’s happened to millions of people, and they’ve lived happy, contented lives afterwards. This sentimental illusion about one woman for one man is just nonsense. You ought to realize that.”

“So I’m eating my heart out, and you’re going to stop me,” he said, sardonically.

“I’m going to try, because I don’t want the unpleasant things to happen. After all, you can look after your wife, if you want to.”

This was a new angle—different pressure. He stared at her, the question in his eyes.

“With money,” she said.

“I just post a package of money to her, do I?”

“The worst of men when they’re in trouble is that they get childish,” she said. “Come and sit down.” She went to a couch and smoothed her skirts and adjusted a cushion.

He moved to the couch and sat on the arm.

“Help me to grow up,” he invited.

“I want to help you. You’re an attractive man, and you’re wealthy, or on the way to being wealthy. You’re quite young. You’ve been taken up by a man who is exceptional, and who will have very great influence before he’s finished—a kind of genius.”

Did she know much about Kennedy ?

“What makes you think he’s as good as that?”

“Ray is my brother,” she said. “I’ve never known him make a serious mistake yet. One or two of his friends thought that it was a mistake to try to use you, but—it hasn’t been, and if you’re sensible, it won’t be. He’s quite merciless—that is one of the things that makes him so unusual. He will one day be the richest man in England.” She spoke without any hint of doubt.

“A remarkable man,” Roger said heavily. “He has a small army of thugs, hasn’t he?”

“Practically none,” said the woman in green. “He has a lot of influence with some, and he can always find men to do what he wants. They don’t know that their orders come from him. Some of them get caught, like Kyle, but it makes no difference to him. There’s no way of tracing those things back to him. They can only be traced back to a certain Mr. Kennedy, who doesn’t exist.”

Roger slid from the arm to the couch itself, crossed his legs and looked at her levelly. There wasn’t anything the matter with her, except her outlook.

She smiled.

“What is more, if you were to see him as he really is, you wouldn’t be able to say for sure that you know him. You’re a smart man, Charles, and you’re good. Haven’t you marvelled that he showed himself to you?”

“It had crossed my mind.”

She stretched out her hand, so that it lay near his, palm upwards, slim and white and inviting.

“I think he was right,” she said dreamily. “He felt that using you was the most important step he had ever taken. It opened a host of new possibilities, and he had to make sure that it was successful. He couldn’t trust anyone else to deal with you—not even me.” She laughed easily, at herself; and laughter came naturally to her. “He is a fine judge of character. I often think he can read what is passing through your mind. Is it silly fancy? Look at to-night. He judged your reaction to Sloan perfectly. He knows that if you can jump this hurdle, everything will be fine in the future. He’s naturally very anxious that you should jump it.”

“And you’re to help me?”

“That’s right,” she said, and leaned nearer, taking his hand. “I’m to help you. I’m to show you the real future, to make you understand what it can be. Have you ever been poor?”

“Poor enough.”

“Not really poor? Poor enough to be hungry, to wonder where the next meal is coming from, to wonder whether your clothes will hold together for another day, to wonder where you can get new ones, something to keep you from shivering? Have you ever been poor, like that?”

“No,” he said; the word came out abruptly.

“I  wish you had. If you had, you would understand so much more easily. We have. Ray thinks he’s forgotten those days, but he hasn’t. It was because of them that he turned his brilliant mind to this. We’ve touched the depths, and now we’re touching the heights. There is nothing money can’t buy, Charles. Beauty, lovely things, travel, comfort, luxury—everything but life itself, and we start with that. Ray hated the old days and loves the new. He’s very generous. You know that. Hasn’t he been generous with you? Is there anything you lack?” Roger said: “No.”

She raised his hand, held it close to her, pressed gently— so gently.

“You either have to go on doing what he wants—and what you will want eventually—or you will be killed. But the others will suffer so much, if you die. He might take your children away from their mother; that would really be cruel. She would have no idea where they were and wouldn’t have a moment’s rest. Think of it. And somehow he would make sure that she would spend the rest of her life in poverty. He can. Your friends, too—this man Lessing. Sloan—they would all be on his list, marked down, treated so cruelly. Yes, he can be cruel, and has to be in order to obtain what he wants. What happens to them is in your hands, Charles. Wouldn’t it be foolish to take risks?” Then, she added: “You have so much.”

She closed her eyes; and her lips were very close to his.

He kissed her.