The Unexpected Guest

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Miss Bennett beckoned to Jan, then stepped back into the room and stood to one side of the french windows. Jan suddenly appeared from the terrace, looking half mutinous and half flushed with triumph. He was carrying a gun.

'Now, Jan, how on earth did you get hold of that?' Miss Bennett asked him.

Jan came into the room. 'Thought you were so clever, didn't you, Benny?' he said, quite belligerently. 'Very clever, locking up all Richard's guns in there.' He nodded in the direction of the hallway. 'But I found a key that fitted the gun cupboard. I've got a gun now, just like Richard. I'm going to have lots of guns and pistols. I'm going to shoot things.' He suddenly raised the gun and pointed it at Miss Bennett, who flinched. 'Be careful, Benny,' he went on with a chuckle, 'I might shoot you.'

Miss Bennett tried not to look too alarmed as she said, in as soothing a tone as she could muster, 'Why, you wouldn't do a thing like that, Jan, I know you wouldn't.'

Jan continued to point the gun at Miss Bennett, but after a few moments he lowered it.

Miss Bennett relaxed slightly, and after a pause Jan exclaimed, sweetly and rather eagerly, 'No, I wouldn't. Of course I wouldn't.'

'After all, it's not as though you were just a careless boy,' Miss Bennett told him, reassuringly. 'You're a man now, aren't you?'

Jan beamed. He walked over to the desk and sat in the chair. 'Yes, I'm a man,' he agreed. 'Now that Richard's dead, I'm the only man in the house.'

'That's why I know you wouldn't shoot me,' Miss Bennett said. 'You'd only shoot an enemy.'

'That's right,' Jan exclaimed with delight.

Sounding as though she were choosing her words very carefully, Miss Bennett said, 'During the war, if you were in the Resistance, when you killed an enemy you put a notch on your gun.'

'Is that true?' Jan responded, examining his gun. 'Did they really?' He looked eagerly at Miss Bennett. 'Did some people have a lot of notches?'

'Yes,' she replied, 'some people had quite a lot of notches.'

Jan chortled with glee. 'What fun!' he exclaimed.

'Of course,' Miss Bennett continued, 'some people don't like killing anything – but other people do.'

'Richard did,' Jan reminded her.

'Yes, Richard liked killing things,' Miss Bennett admitted. She turned away from him casually, as she added, 'You like killing things, too, don't you, Jan?'

Unseen by her, Jan took a penknife from his pocket and began to make a notch on his gun. 'It's exciting to kill things,' he observed, a trifle petulantly.

Miss Bennett turned back to face him. 'You didn't want Richard to have you sent away, did you, Jan?' she asked him quietly.

'He said he would,' Jan retorted with feeling. 'He was a beast!'

Miss Bennett walked around behind the desk chair in which Jan was still sitting. 'You said to Richard once,' she reminded him, 'that you'd kill him if he was going to send you away.'

'Did I?' Jan responded. He sounded nonchalantly offhand.

'But you didn't kill him?' Miss Bennett asked, her intonation making her words into only a half-question.

'Oh, no, I didn't kill him.' Again, Jan sounded unconcerned.

'That was rather weak of you,' Miss Bennett observed.

There was a crafty look in Jan's eyes as he responded, 'Was it?'

'Yes, I think so. To say you'd kill him, and then not to do it.' Miss Bennett moved around the desk, but looked towards the door. 'If anyone was threatening to shut me up, Fd want to kill him, and Fd do it, too.'

'Who says someone else did?' Jan retorted swiftly. 'Perhaps it was me.'

'Oh, no, it wouldn't be you,' Miss Bennett said, dismissively. 'You were only a boy. You wouldn't have dared.'

Jan jumped up and backed away from her. 'You think I wouldn't have dared?' His voice was almost a squeal. 'Is that what you think?'

'Of course it's what I think.' She seemed now deliberately to be taunting him. 'Of course you wouldn't have dared to kill Richard. You'd have to be very brave and grown-up to do that.'

Jan turned his back on her, and walked away. 'You don't know everything, Benny,' he said, sounding hurt. 'Oh no, old Benny. You don't know everything.'

Is there something I don't know?' Miss Bennett asked him. 'Are you laughing at me, Jan?' Seizing her opportunity, she opened the door a little way. Jan stood near the french windows, whence a shaft of light from the setting sun shone across the room.

'Yes, yes, I'm laughing,' Jan suddenly shouted at her. 'I'm laughing because I'm so much cleverer than you are.'

He turned back into the room. Miss Bennett involuntarily gave a start and clutched the door frame. Jan took a step towards her. 'I know things you don't know,' Jan added, speaking more soberly.

'What do you know that I don't know?' Miss Bennett asked. She tried not to sound too anxious.

Jan made no reply, but merely smiled mysteriously. Miss Bennett approached him. 'Aren't you going to tell me?' she asked again, coaxingly. 'Won't you trust me with your secret?'

Jan drew away from her. 'I don't trust anybody,' he said, bitterly.

Miss Bennett changed her tone to one of puzzlement. 'I wonder, now,' she murmured. 'I wonder if perhaps you've been very clever.'

Jan giggled. 'You're beginning to see how clever I can be,' he told her.

She regarded him speculatively. 'Perhaps there are a lot of things I don't know about you,' she agreed.

'Oh, lots and lots,' Jan assured her. 'And I know a lot of things about everybody else, but I don't always tell. I get up sometimes in the night and I creep about the house. I see a lot of things, and I find out a lot of things, but I don't tell.'

Adopting a conspiratorial air, Miss Bennett asked, 'Have you got some big secret now?'

Jan swung one leg over the stool, sitting astride it. 'Big secret! Big secret!' he squealed delightedly. 'You'd be frightened if you knew,' he added, laughing almost hysterically.

Miss Bennett came closer to him. 'Would I? Would I be frightened?' she asked. 'Would I be frightened of you, Jan?' Placing herself squarely in front of Jan, she stared intently at him.

Jan looked up at her. The expression of delight left his face, and his voice was very serious as he replied, 'Yes, you'd be very frightened of me.'

She continued to regard him closely. 'I haven't known what you were really like,' she admitted. 'I'm just beginning to understand what you're like, Jan.'

Jan's mood changes were becoming more pronounced. Sounding more and more wild, he exclaimed, 'Nobody knows anything about me really, or the things I can do.' He swung round on the stool, and sat with his back to her. 'Silly old Richard, sitting there and shooting at silly old birds.' He turned back to Miss Bennett, adding intensely, 'He didn't think anyone would shoot him , did he?'

'No,' she replied. 'No, that was his mistake.'

Jan rose. 'Yes, that was his mistake,' he agreed. 'He thought he could send me away, didn't he? I showed him.'

'Did you?' asked Miss Bennett quickly. 'How did you show him?'

Jan looked at her craftily. He paused, then finally said, 'Shan't tell you.'

'Oh, do tell me, Jan,' she pleaded.

'No,' he retorted, moving away from her. He went to the armchair and climbed into it, nestling the gun against his cheek. 'No, I shan't tell anyone.'

Miss Bennett went across to him. 'Perhaps you're right,' she told him. 'Perhaps I can guess what you did, but I won't say. It will be just your secret, won't it?'