A Fragment of Fear

something?

Myself: That’s what I am-a detective or something, as you call it. I am a writer. I am going to record her case. I need to know about her. I can’t just write, “Mrs. Dawson was murdered at Pompeii on September 11th and the Italian police have so far made no noticeable headway.” Presumably the Stepping Stones, whoever they are, knew her well, since they sent a wreath-the only wreath, incidentally “in memory of happier times,” as they put it.

Mrs. G.: Well, I cannot help you further, I must go indoors, I said I must go indoors now.›

Myself: You have helped me already, thank you. You have told me she suffered twice at the hands of criminals. Now she had suffered a third time. It is a remarkable story.

Mrs. G.: No good is served by recalling tragedy. Why not let poor Mrs. Dawson rest in peace? I said, why not-

Myself: I know what you said. Two people have said the same thing already.

Mrs. G.: Then why not have the decency to heed them, Mr. Compton?

Myself: I am not convinced that she is resting in peace. On the other hand I am conscious of deliberate obstruction. I do not know why, and I cannot describe it, but I feel it. I am an old newspaper man, and senseless obstruction makes me obstinate. I am going to do a most exhaustive study of her and her past life, the tragedies in it, and her own awful end.

(N.B. I thought, mistakenly, that I had nothing to lose by being outspoken; nor had I any scruples. The hard insulting voice issuing from the pale muffiny face made me feel that this dumpy old bag merited no more courtesy than she gave, which was little or none.)

Mrs. G.: I shall now go indoors and rest for an hour before dinner, Mr. Compton, since your mind seems made up.

Myself: Two points before you go. Had she any special interests? How did she spend her days?

Mrs. G.: She spent her time like most of us do-going for short walks, talking, looking at television, and reading.

Myself: Had she many friends outside those in this hotel?

Mrs. G.: Hardly any. Probably none.

She got up and crossed the lawn to the hotel side entrance. Slow, deliberate steps. Thick ankles. Slightly bandylegged.

Illness is an operational hazard when seeking information in these hotels. I had to wait two days before a stomach upset which had befallen Mrs. Dacey allowed her to come down from her room. She was a very elegant old doll indeed. She looked about eighty, to judge from the texture of her skin. But she was slim, beautifully dressed in a plain black dress, with a simple patent leather belt, and wore elegant shoes, probably Italian. Her hair was dyed blonde, yet this, so blatantly artificial, looked decorative rather than incongruous.

She was the widow of a minor diplomat, and in the course of our conversation she told me quite frankly that she spent her time reading biographies and historical works, playing patience, and waiting for death. She was coolly philosophical.

I enjoyed talking to her, and in this sense the delay was worthwhile. It is always pleasing to meet somebody who is determined to be elegant, intelligent, and unperturbed, right to the end of the road. Such people think they are no longer of use to the world. They are wrong. They are no longer leaders, they are no longer even tillers of the soil, but they provide nourishment for those who come within their range, and thus, so long as their spirit holds firm, their life is worthwhile.

In all other ways, except one, Mrs. Dacey was a disappointment. She could fill in very little of the picture of Mrs. Dawson which I was trying to visualise. But she gave me four snippets of information which I noted as of possible use.

First, she said that, as in Italy, so at the Bower Hotel, Mrs. Dawson paid her hotel bill direct to the hotel manageress, an eccentricity which neither Miss Brett nor Mrs. Gray had mentioned.

Secondly, she said that Mrs. Dawson always spent a holiday abroad: not always in Italy, occasionally in France or Switzerland, or Holland, or some other country.

Third, her life, though aimless as described by Mrs. Gray, was not entirely so, since she was interested in the International Seamen’s Widows and Orphans Fund; in connection with this she wrote and received a fair amount of mail, and made occasional trips to London. She knew this because Mrs. Dawson had said so herself, though reluctantly, not wishing her charitable activities to be widely known.

Four, Mrs. Dawson’s friendship with Mrs. Gray was such that Mrs. Gray was to all intents and purposes her devoted slave. She helped her to undress at night, and dress in the morning, she brushed her hair, packed when Mrs. Dawson went away, unpacked when she returned, and waited on her hand and foot.

This I found extraordinary.

This fascinated me more than anything I had yet heard.

Caroline Gray was an unpleasant old bag, physically and mentally tough, unsentimental, unyielding, and self- sufficient.

If Mrs. Gray was like that, and Lucy Dawson could dominate her, what did that make Lucy Dawson beneath her gentle frail exterior?

I could find no answer to the question before I left the Bower Hotel.

CHAPTER 3

On the evening of October 10th, I caught the 8.25 p.m. train back to London. It was cold, it had been bitterly cold all day. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the first touch of winter had descended, and with it a thick mist.

Either the heating on the train had gone wrong, or they had forgotten to switch it on, and I sat huddled in a corner of the carriage, sometimes thinking, sometimes trying to doze, waiting for the train to gather speed, which it never did.

Opposite me a woman sat, large and ungainly, her figure shrouded in a thick jersey and a short coat, topped off with a white mackintosh. She looked about fifty, and had a round face encased in a layer of wool, a cross between a skiing hat and a blue child’s bonnet, which tied under the chin. Myopic, naive eyes looked through large horn-rimmed spectacles; mostly at the mist-covered night, sometimes at me.

I guessed she wanted to talk, and took no notice. I dislike talking on trains. And I was thinking about the Bower Hotel.

The visit had not been an entire success, but at least I had seen the place where Lucy Dawson had lived. I could write:

Old Mrs. Dawson, who was murdered in Pompeii, was a woman in her late seventies. A tall, thin, frail woman, she lived most of the year at the Bower Hotel, Burlington-on-Sea, a good class residential hotel. She liked to spend a few weeks on the continent each year.

For the rest of the time, her life appeared to be uneventful, mostly whiling away the days in the manner usual in such hotels, though she took some interest in a seamen’s charity.

Tragedy, however, was already known in her family. Apart from the fact that her father lost most of his money as a result of a business transaction with crooks, her husband had been murdered after only two years of marriage when he disturbed a burglar; and now she herself was destined to die a tragic death behind the sunbaked walls of an ancient Roman city.

I leaned my head against the train upholstery, eyes closed, forming the dull, uninspired sentences in my mind as the train ground its way through the mist.

As a background picture it was terribly thin, but it was the best I could do at the moment.

As to the Stepping Stones, who had sent a wreath, I was beginning to lose interest in them. The wording, “In memory of happier times,” was old fashioned and pedantic. They were possibly some amateur entertainment group with whom Lucy Dawson had once been associated, two or three of whom still survived in London or some