By L.P. Hartley

 

(continued)

 

A little comforted, Walter went home. The talk with the po­lice had done him good. He thought it over. It was quite true what he had told them — that he had no enemies. He was not a man of strong personal feelings such feelings as he had went into his books. In bis books he had drawn some pretty nasty characters. Not of recent years, however. Of recent years he had felt a reluctance to draw a very bad man or woman: he thought it morally irresponsible and artistically unconvincing, too. There was good in everyone: Iagos were a myth. Latterly — but he had to admit that it was several weeks since he laid pen to paper, so much had this ridiculous business of the postcards

 

weighed upon his mind — if he had to draw a really wicked person he represented him as a Nazi — someone who had de­liberately put off his human characteristics. But in the past, when he was younger and more inclined to see things as black or white, he had let himself go once or twice. He did not remember his old books very well but there was a character in one, "The Outcast'’, into whom he had really got his knife. He had written about him with extreme vindictiveness, just as if he was a real person whom he was trying to show up. He had experienced a curious pleasure in attributing every kind of wickedness to this man. He never gave him the benefit of the doubt He had never felt a twinge of pity for him, even when he paid the penalty for his misdeeds on the gallows. He had so worked himself up that the idea of this dark creature, creeping about brimful of male­volence, had almost frightened him.

Odd that he couldn't remember the man's name.

He took the book down from the shelf and turned the pag­es — even now they affected him uncomfortably. Yes, here it was, William... William... he would have to look back to find the surname. William Stamsforth.

His own initials.

Walter did not think the coincidence meant anything but it coloured his mind and weakened its resistance to his obsession. So uneasy was he that when the next postcard came it came as a relief.

'I am quite close now’, he read, and involuntarily he turned the postcard over. The glorious central tower of Gloucester Cathedral met his eye. He stared at it as if it could tell him something, then with an effort went on reading. 'My move­ments, as you may have guessed, are not quite under my control, but all being well I look forward to seeing you some­time this week-end. Then we can really come to grips. I wonder if you'll recognize me! It won't be the first time you have given me hospitality. My hand feels a bit cold to-night, but my hand­shake will be just as hearty. As always, W.S.’

'P.S. Does Gloucester remind you of anything? Gloucester gaol?'

Walter took the postcard straight to the police station, and asked if he could have police protection over the week-end. The officer in charge smiled at him and said he was quite sure it was a hoax; but he would tell someone to keep an eye on the premises.

 

'You still have no idea who it could be?' he asked.

Walter shook his head.

It was Tuesday; Walter Streeter had plenty of time to think about the week-end. At first he felt he would not be able to live through the interval, but strange to say his confidence increased instead of waning. He set himself to work as though he could work, and presently he found he could — differently from before, and, he thought, better. It was as though the nervous strain he had been living under had, like an add, dissolved a layer of non-conductive thought that came between him and his subject: he was nearer to it now, and his characters, instead of obeying woodenly his stage directions, responded wholeheartedly and with all their beings to the tests he put them to. So passed the days, and the dawn of Friday seemed like any other day until something jerked him out of his self-induced trance and suddenly he asked himself, "When does a week-end begin?"

A long week-end begins on Friday. At that his panic returned. He went to the street door and looked out. It was a suburban, unfrequented street of detached Regency houses like his own. They had tall square gate-posts, some crowned with semi-circular iron brackets holding lanterns. Most of these were out of repair: only two or three were ever lit. A car went slowly down the street; some people crossed it: everything was normal.

Several times that day he went to look and saw nothing un­usual, and when Saturday came, bringing no postcard, his pan­ic had almost subsided. He nearly rang up the police station to tell them not to bother to send anyone after all.

They were as good as their word: they did send someone. Between tea and dinner, the time when week-end guests most commonly arrive, Walter went to the door and there, between two unlit gate-posts, he saw a policeman standing — the first policeman he had ever seen in Charlotte Street. At the sight, and at the relief it brought him, he realized how anxious he had been. Now he felt safer than he had ever felt in his life, and also a little ashamed at having given extra trouble to a hardworked body of men. Should he go and speak to his un­known guardian, offer him a cup of tea or a drink? It would be nice to hear him laugh at Walter's fancies. But no — somehow

 

he felt his security the greater when its source was impersonal, and anonymous. 'P.C. Smith' was somehow less impressive than 'police protection’.

Several times from an upper window (he didn't like to open the door and stare) he made sure that his guardian was still there: and once, for added proof, he asked his house-keeper to verify the strange phenomenon. Disappointingly, she came back saying she had seen no policeman; but she was not very good at seeing things, and when Walter Went a few minutes later he saw him plain enough. The man must walk about, of course, perhaps he had been taking a-stroli when Mrs. Kendal looked.

It was contrary to his routine to work after dinner but to­night he did, he felt so much in the vein. Indeed, a sort of exalta­tion possessed him; the words ran off his pen; it would be fool­ish to check the creative impulse for the sakeof a little extra sleep. On, on. They were right who said the small hours were the time to work. When his housekeeper came in to say good night he scarcely raised his eyes.

In the warm, snug little room the silence purred around him like a kettle. He did not even hear the door bell till it had been ringing for some time..

A visitor at this hour?

His knees trembling, he went to the door, scarcely knowing what he expected to find; so what was his relief on opening it, to see the doorway filled by the tall figure of a policeman: Without waiting for the man to speak —

'Come in, come in, my deaf fellow,' he exclaimed. He held his hand out, but the policeman did not take it. 'You must have been very cold standing out there. I didn't know that it was snowing, though,' he added, seeing the snowflakes on the policeman's cape and helmet. 'Come in and warm yourself:'

'Thanks,' said the policeman. 'I don't mind if I do.'

Walter knew enough of the phrases used by men of the policeman's stamp not to take this for a grudging acceptance. 'This way,' he prattled on. 'I was writing in my study. By Jove, it is cold, I'll turn the gas on more. Now won't you take your traps off, and make yourself at home?'

'I can't stay long,' the policeman said, 'I've got a job to do, as you know.'

 

 

'Oh yes,' said Walter, 'such a silly job, a sinecure.' He stopped, woadering if the policeman would know what a sine­cure was. 'I suppose you know what it's about — the post­cards?'

The policeman nodded.

'But nothing can happen to me as long as you are here,' said Walter. 'I shall be as

safe... as safe as houses. Stay as long as you can, and have a drink.'

'I never drink on duty,' said the policeman. Still in his cape and helmet, he looked round. 'So this is where you work,' he said,

'Yes, I was writing when you rang.'

'Some poor devil's for it, I expect,' the policeman said.

'Oh, why?' Walter was hurt by his unfriendly tone, and noticed how hard his gooseberry eyes were.

'I'll tell you in a minute,' said the policeman, and then the telephone bell rang. Walter excused himself and hurried from the room.

'This is the police station,' said a voice. 'Is that Mr, Streeter?'

Walter said it was.

'Well, Mr. Streeter, how is everything at your place? All right, I hope? I'll tell you why I ask. I'm sorry to say we quite forgot about that little job we were going to do for you. Bad co-ordination, I'm afraid.'

'But,' said Walter, 'you did send someone.'

'No, Mr. Streeter, I'm afraid we didn't.'

'But there's a policeman here, here in this very house.'

There was a pause, then his interlocutor said, in a less casu­al voice:

'He can't be one of our chaps. Did you see his number by any chance?'

'No.'

A longer pause and then the voice said:

'Would you like us to send somebody now?'

'Yes, p... please.'

'All right then, we'll be with you in a jiffy.'

Walter put back the receiver. What now? he asked himself. Should he barricade the door? Should he run out into the street? Should he try to rouse his housekeeper? A policeman of any sort was a formidable proposition, but a rogue policeman! How

 

 

long would it take the real police to come? A jiffy, they had said. What was a jiffy in terms of minutes? While he was de­bating the door opened and his guest came in.

'No room's private when the street door's once passed,' he said. 'Hadyou forgotten I was a policeman?'

'Was?' said Walter, edging away from him. 'You are a policeman.'

'I have been other things as well,' the policeman said. 'Thief, pimp, blackmailer, not to mention murderer. Youshould know.'

The policeman, if such he was, seemed to be moving to­wards him and Walter suddenly became alive to the impor­tance of small distances — the distance from the sideboard to the table, the distance from one chair to another.

'I don't know what you mean,' he said. "Why do you speak like that? I've never done you any harm. I've never set eyes on you before.'

'Oh, haven't you?' the man said. 'But you've thought about me and' — his voice rose — 'and you've written about me. You got some fun out of me, didn't you? Now I'm going to get some fun out of you. You made me just as nasty as you could. Wasn't that doing me harm? You didn't think what it would feel like to be me, did you? You didn't put yourself in my place, did you? You hadn't any pity for me, had you? Well, I'm not going to have any pity for you.'

'But I tell you,' cried Walter, clutching the table's edge, 'I don't know you!'

'And now you say you don't know me! You did all that to me and then forgot me!' His voice became a whine, charged with self-pity. 'You forgot William Stainsforth.'

'William Stainsforth!'

'Yes. I was your scapegoat, wasn't I? You unloaded all your self-dislike on me. You felt pretty good while you were writing about me. You thought, what a noble, upright fellow you were, writing about this rotter. Now, as one W.S. to another, what shall I do, if I behave in character?'

'I... I don't know,' muttered Walter.

'You don't know?' Stainsforth sneered. 'You ought to know, you fathered me. What would William Stainsforth do if he met his old dad in a quiet place, his kind old dad who made him swing?'

 

 

Walter could only stare at him.

'You know what he'd do as well as I,' said Stainsforth. Then his face changed and he said abruptly,'No, you don't, because you never really understood me, I'm not so black as you painted me.' He paused, and a flicker of hope started in Walter's breast. 'You never gave me a chance, did you? Well, I'm going to give you one. That shows you never understood me, doesn't if?'

Walter nodded.:

"And there's another thing you have forgotten.'

'What is that?'

'I was a kid once,' the ex-policeman said.

Walter said nothing.

'You admit that?' said William Stainsforth grimly. 'Well, if you can tell me of one virtue you ever credited me with — just one kind thought — just one redeeming

feature —'

'Yes?' said Walter, trembling.

'Well, then I'll let you off.'

'And if I can't?' whispered Walter.

'Well, then, that's just too bad. We'll have to come to grips and you know what that means. You took off one of my arms but I've still got the other. "Stainsforth of the iron hand" you called me.'

Walter began to pant.

‘I’ll give you two minutes to remember,' Stainsforth said. They both looked at the clock. At first the stealthy movement of the hand paralysed Walter's thought. He stared at William Stainsforth's face, his cruel, crafty face, which seemed to be always in shadow, as if it was something the light could not touch. Desperately he searched his memory for the one fact that would save him; but his memory, clenched like a fist, would give up nothing. 'I must invent something,' he thought, and suddenly his mind relaxed and he saw, printed on it like a photograph, the last page of the book. Then, with the speed and magic of a dream, each page appeared before him in per­fect clarity until the first was reached, and he realized with over­whelming force that what he looked for w&s not thererln all that evil there was not one hint of good. And he felt, compul­sively and with a kind of exaltation, that unless he testified to this the cause of goodness everywhere would be betrayed.

 

"There's nothing to be said for you!' he shouted. 'And you know it! Of all your dirty tricks this is the dirtiest! You want me to whitewash you, do you? The very snowflakes on you are turning black! How dare you ask me for a character? I've given you one already! God forbid that I should ever say a good word for you! I'd rather die!'

Stainsforth's one arm shot out. "Then die!' he said.

 

The police found Walter StreelEer slumped acrbss the din-ing-table. His/body was still warm, but he was dead. It was easy to tell how he died; for it was not his^ijnand.that his visitor had shaken, but his throat. Walter Streeter had been strangled. Of his assailant there was no trace. On the table and on his clothes were flakes of melting snow. But how it came there remained a mystery, for no snow was reported from any district on the day he died.