safe side. He had to go, now, without delay.
His emotions were confused, the pain caused by Lorna’s decision was anaesthetized by the fear that Beatrice might die for nothing, and the shock of Lorna’s words was deadened by the urgent need to get back to London as fast as he could.
Deep down, he was bitter and hurt, but those feelings were temporarily submerged beneath the turmoil of other emotions. He resented now every minute he had to spend in the house. He glanced at the clock. It was 9.10. An hour and a half. Less, to be safe.
He moved towards the door. He moved slowly, because the position was in one respect as it had been earlier: he could not afford to act unnaturally.
At the door, he turned. Lorna was standing in the middle of the room, looking after him.
“Let’s pretend I’m nipping down to the local to buy a bottle of gin,” he said. “Let’s make it easy, like that.”
His hand was on the door-knob when a thought occurred to him, and he paused, and came back into the room, and stood staring at the carpet, while the blood rushed into his face, as it always did when he was suffering from a sudden shock.
She had a habit of keeping his letters, and he had sent her a great many. He was trying to think quickly, to remember any phrase or phrases he may have written which, if the worst came to the worst, would sound damning in a court of law.
For a few seconds all he could think was: Thompson and Bywaters, Mrs Thompson, Frederick Bywaters, what had she written that had sounded so damning in court? Glass, it was something to do with glass. “I have tried the ground glass in his food, but it didn’t work,” something like that. Dramatizing herself, some said.
Her letters were found in his seachest, or somewhere. Both were hanged. His thoughts raced on. They put a white bag over your head, so that you felt all shut in, suffocating, worse than being in a locked room or a dark tunnel. He’d shout and struggle if they tried to do that to him, and it’d all be sordid and undignified.
A wave of claustrophobia swept over him, so that perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he had to clench his fists and breathe deeply, until, little by little, he could force his thoughts back to the letters he had written to Lorna.
Lorna Dickson stared at him. “Are you feeling all right, Barty?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m all right. Just let me think for one moment.”
She said nothing, but moved over to the side table and poured out a small glass of brandy. She brought it over to him, but he only said:
“No, no, thank you. Not that. Just let me think clearly, Lorna. Clearly, just for a minute.”
But there was nothing in his letters. He was sure of that. There was no reason why there should be. What could there be? He hardly ever mentioned Beatrice in his letters.
He sought to concentrate his mind more narrowly upon recent letters-letters from Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, the south coast.
What had he written from Manchester, where he had bought the altrapeine? There was a mention of Beatrice in that letter, a reference to a talk with Lorna about telling Beatrice the truth, asking her to release him. It was before he had made up his mind to act differently. Only he hadn’t made it as clear as that in the letter.
Then he remembered the words he had used, and the significance of them again sent the blood rushing to his face.
And now he remembered another, an earlier one, written from Cardiff. Sometime ago now; but that didn’t matter, that didn’t matter at all, that merely tended to show how long a time he had been premeditating it all:
He sat down on the arm of an easy chair and covered his face with his hands. Lorna came to his side and put her arm once more round his shoulders.
“What is it, Barty?”
He put his hands down, and got up and moved to the mantelpiece, and stood there irresolutely, still trying to think of other references, still trying to decide what to do.
There was at least one other reference, but he couldn’t exactly recall it, except to remember that he had thanked her for reassuring him that he would be justified in doing what he contemplated.
All were references to the talk which at one time he thought he would have with Beatrice; each and every one, taken in conjunction with other factors, was enough to sway the minds of a jury; enough to implicate Lorna as well as himself.
They hanged Mrs Thompson. What of Lorna? What chance does “the other woman” have in cases like this?
Counsel in court. Bewigged, hard, implacable Counsel. Hitching up his gown, smiling, self-confident.
“You have, then, members of the jury, ample evidence that the death of Mrs Bartels was calculated to further the sordid plans of both the accused.
“You have evidence that Mrs Bartels died from the effects of a poison which it is extremely difficult to detect, the symptoms of which, but for the praiseworthy vigilance of the local practitioner, might easily have been confused with those indicating coronary thrombosis.
“You have the evidence of the Manchester chemist that a man, whom he has identified as the prisoner Bartels, bought altrapeine in his shop, that he had removed his glasses to make himself less readily identified, and that he signed the poisons book using the name and address of a perfectly respectable Leeds businessman who bore no resemblance to the prisoner, and has never bought altrapeine in his life.
“And you have those highly significant remarks in his letters to the woman Lorna Dickson: ‘We shall be alone this weekend. A good opportunity to do it.’ And again: ‘from you I will draw the strength to enable me to do that which we both know has to be done sometime.’ Note the words, please: that which
The witness Miss Latimer. The hotel bartender. Agitated and distressed.
And on and on and on.
Nobody would put anything but the most sordid constructions on his love for Lorna. Nobody would believe that it was love and not sensual lust which had prompted the crime.
Bartels swung round from the fire. It was 9.20 now. He said abruptly:
“Lorna, my dear, may I have back the letters I wrote to you-now?”
Lorna said: “Of course you can have them back. But you don’t want them tonight, surely?”
“Wouldn’t it be better?”
“What do you want to do with them? Burn them, I suppose?”
“It is better for both of us to have them out of the way.”
Lorna smiled faintly. “You are being very practical, Barty.” She thought for a moment and added: “Won’t you trust me to burn them for you? Or post them to you at your office, if you wish?”
“It’s the sort of thing one can forget,” said Bartels, trying to keep his voice steady. “It might be better if you gave them to me now, Lorna. If you don’t mind, that is.”
“My dear, they are all over the place. Some in the bureau, some in the drawer of my dressing table, all over the place.”
Bartels thought: Ten minutes to collect them, or fifteen minutes, or perhaps more. And then no guarantee that he had them all, that he had the important ones. What was the good of it? Better to go now, and drive fast. Already ten minutes had gone by.
“You don’t think I’m going to blackmail you with them, do you, Barty?” Lorna spoke jestingly, trying to lift the tension which had settled in the room.
But he answered her seriously. “No.” He shook his head. “No, I know you wouldn’t do that. No, it’s not that at all.”
He couldn’t press the matter any further. Apart from the time factor, it would look peculiar. He felt that already he had gone further than he should have done.
