“Tell her, try to explain to her, that I only acted out of pity. Didn’t want her to suffer, you know.” He sighed and added: “Pity. Bad thing, pity. Much better to be normal, like you, Pete.”
“I’ll tell her,” I answered. “I’ll tell her, Barty. She’ll understand. She’s a very intelligent girl.”
He nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Very intelligent girl, Pete. Tell her what I said.”
He remained quiet for fully half a minute, then sighed again, and added: “But I doubt if she will understand. It’s a bit too much to ask.”
I saw the police officer scribbling in his notebook.
A nurse put her head round the door, and made signs that I would have to leave. I put my hand on his again.
“I must go now, Barty. You’ve got to have plenty of rest.”
He suddenly opened his eyes, then, and stared at me.
To my horror I realized that they were filled with fear, and his pallor had been transformed by a sudden rush of blood to his face. I had seen him look like that before.
There was the same wild look as I had seen when they threw the rug over his head at the picnic at the chateau; the same terrified look which Mary, the American girl, must have seen the evening when we had locked them both into a bedroom; and the same piteous, frightened expression as I had seen, in those almost forgotten schooldays, when we had pushed him under the vaulting horse in the gymnasium during the singing lessons.
But I didn’t think of all that then. I only saw the terror. I didn’t know what was the matter. I didn’t think he was afraid of dying, and I was right, but I couldn’t guess what was in his mind. I increased my pressure on his hand.
“What’s up, Barty?” I asked, softly.
“Locked doors,” he whispered.
I looked round. There were no locked doors, as far as I could see. There was only a screen round the bed, and even then there was a wide gap between the screen and the wall.
“They won’t understand,” he murmured.
“Who won’t?”
He shook his head, while the fear burned and blazed in his eyes, and I felt his hand grow damp and hot in mine.
“They’ll put me in prison, Pete.”
I saw the police officer begin to scribble again in his notebook. “Locked doors, and pitch darkness at night. I can’t stand it, Pete. I’d rather die than that.”
I saw the police officer bending nearer, anxious not to miss a word. I felt Bartels’ hand beneath my own begin to clench and twist and pull at the bedclothes. I gripped it harder still, and stared at him groping for something to say.
As I searched in my mind for some words of comfort, I heard him murmur to me to bend closer. I put my head down, and he said:
“Put your ear against my lips, Pete.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the police officer draw as close as he could. But Bartels only said five words: “Altrapeine-please, Pete. Please, Pete.”
I raised my head, and caught the police officer’s eye, and saw the question forming on his lips.
“All right,” I said in a normal, loud voice. “All right, I’ll see what I can do.”
The fear slowly seeped from Bartels’ face. Now there was only a mute, sad appeal in his eyes. I got up, and picked up my hat.
“Tomorrow?” murmured Bartels.
“I’ll come and see you tomorrow, if you’re well enough,” I replied in the soothing tones one uses to sick people. “Now get some rest, Barty.”
I went out, round the screen, and had begun to walk down the ward, when I heard footsteps behind me, and felt a hand on my arm. I looked round and saw it was the police officer.
“May I have a word with you outside, sir?”
“If you wish.”
We walked to the door, and stopped in the passage outside the ward.
“I must ask you what he said to you, sir.”
He stood in front of me, tall and solidly built, healthily red in the face. His hair was cut very short above the ears, his brown eyes were alert and restless. They were the eyes of a person who is accustomed to watch the faces of others for reactions, for the telltale flicker of the eyes, the movement of the mouth which indicates dismay; the eyes of a man accustomed to dominate; eyes which did not waver, but nevertheless moved and roamed over the face of the person to whom he was talking. They were not exactly hostile, but neither were they sympathetic or friendly.
I thought, by way of contrast, of Bartels’ eyes, so full of fear, so filled with silent appeal. I had a swift mental vision of a host of other eyes, hard, implacable eyes gazing at Bartels in the years to come. Police officers’ eyes, warders’ eyes, newspapermen’s eyes in court, warders’ eyes again, fellow convicts’ eyes. Gazing at him as he panicked in his cell, gazing at him in the dock, and again, through the years, in his cell.
I think it was at that moment that I decided to do as Bartels wished.
“It was nothing to do with your investigation,” I answered, and made as if to pass him; but he stood solidly in my way.
“I see, sir.” He tapped his teeth with the chewed end of a pencil.
He made no move. “Well?” I said.
“I take it that in that case you would have no objection to telling me what he said, sir.”
Again I was conscious of his eyes, unbelieving and unyielding, roaming over my face. I react rather brusquely to that sort of thing.
“Actually, I would,” I said abruptly.
“May I ask why, sir?” Police officers always seem to call you “sir” a great deal. It doesn’t mean a thing.
“For personal reasons.” I saw his hard mouth tighten.
“There is an offence known as obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty.”
I laughed, then, at this bluff, and saw his eyes flinch.
“Who is obstructing whom at this moment?” He ignored the question.
“I take it, sir, that you decline to say what he told you, sir?”
We looked at each other for a full ten seconds, eye to eye, in silence. I sighed.
“All right, if you really insist. Do you?”
“It would be helpful, sir.”
The expression on his face relaxed. I could read his thoughts as though he had spoken them aloud: firmness, he was thinking, firmness-that’s what counts. They always come clean.
“He asked me to pray for him,” I said. “He asked me to go into a church and pray for him.”
I went into my darkroom, and stared at the row of bottles, and in particular at the altrapeine bottle. I knew, of course, little about the case, except that it was known that something of a poisonous nature had been placed in Beatrice’s medicine bottle, and that Bartels had apparently put it there. So much the Inspector had told me, edging round the subject in the way the police do when they are not certain of the reliability of the person they are questioning.
Now I could guess what the poison was. Later, when I had become very friendly with the Inspector, and read Bartels’ statement, I learnt where and how he bought it.
It was eight o’clock in the morning when the Inspector had called. He had taken his statement from Beatrice Bartels and he had then come to me. He had asked for the names of any of Bartels’ friends, and mine had headed the list.
I told him a great deal about Bartels, but nothing about Lorna Dickson. I guessed Bartels would not have mentioned her. I saw no reason why I should. Beatrice had not died. There was no call for society to revenge itself for a murder which never took place, or for Lorna to be involved.
Maybe, I was wrong, but that is the way I thought.
I saw the Inspector inching nearer to the subject of a mistress as a motive, and mentally stood back and
