The China Governess (20 page)

MISS AICHESON WAS
first into the room. She came striding across the black polished boards which were scattered with fine worn old rugs, and the ancient timbers shook beneath her while the dust motes in the shaft of London sunlight, streaming through diamond panes, danced wildly at her approach. She looked tired but triumphant and she turned to Alison for praise.

‘Done it!' she announced. ‘Tim is on the stairs now. Councillor Cornish is with us, and by the way, dear, I think
all
the credit ought to go to him.

‘Oh
splendid
! Quite, quite wonderful, Aich.' Alison Kinnit's emphasis was nearly generous but her glance wandered at once to the menu in her hand and she almost mentioned it, only thinking better just in time as the Councillor, with Eustace fussing behind him, appeared in the doorway.

Here in the Well House Councillor Cornish was still a vigorous personality, but this morning there was a new wariness about him and there was caution in the fierce eyes under the shock of grey hair. His astonishment on meeting Alison for the first time was slightly funny. Her thistledown quality appeared to bewilder him, and if he had actually said that he had expected to see a second version of Miss Aicheson he could hardly have made the point more clearly.

The reaction was not new to Miss Kinnit and she became more feminine than ever, twittering and smiling.

‘Thank you, thank you. We are all so very relieved.' Her intelligent eyes met his own gratefully. ‘I'm just ordering lunch. You will join us, won't you?'

‘I? No, really!' He sounded appalled. ‘Thank you very much of course, but I only want to have a word with the young man.' He was preparing to explain further when an interruption occurred.
Tim had arrived. He glanced round the room, caught sight of Julia and walked over to her, his face dark as a storm.

‘
Darling!
' he exploded. ‘I did so pray that you'd have the good sense to keep right out of this! Why didn't you do what I told you?' He was on edge and his protest was unreasonably savage.

The colour rushed into Julia's face, Eustace made a deprecating cluck, and everyone was startled by the Councillor, who turned on the speaker.

‘
Don't
shut her out when she's backing you up!' he exclaimed violently. Realizing his interference was outrageous, he tried to cover it. He smiled at Julia, rubbed his ear and shot a sidelong, slightly sheepish smile at Timothy.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘Can I meet the young lady?'

It was a direct apology, and Tim relaxed.

‘I do beg your pardon,' he said quickly. ‘Yes, of course. I'm afraid I was surprised to see her here. Julia, this is Councillor Cornish but for whom I should be in jug, I suppose.'

‘Would you? That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Is there anywhere where we could have a word on our own?'

‘Yes, of course,' Timothy looked surprised but acquiescent and the unexpected objection came from Eustace.

He came forward, smiling, so smooth in his old-fashioned way that both the Councillor and Tim appeared clumsy beside it.

‘You two mustn't shut any of us out,' he said gently. ‘We want to hear all about it. We've been sitting here completely in the dark, consumed by a most natural curiosity. I know a little about the fire because I've read the report in the
Telegraph
, but that's all. Why did you decide to keep so silent, my boy? Our solicitor was most anxious to be present at any interrogation. Why didn't you co-operate?'

Tim shrugged his shoulders. He looked tall and big-boned standing there, his face, which was still scarred, pale and stiff with fatigue. He eyed Eustace and laughed. ‘Because I was sulking, I suppose.'

‘But was that wise?' Eustace was at his mildest, innocently inquiring without a trace of malice.

‘No. It was silly. But they made me absolutely furious.'

‘You're talking about the police?'

‘Yes.'

Eustace jerked his chin up and his neat beard looked sharp.

‘They have a very fine reputation,' he said gravely and his eyes were reproachful rather than severe.

‘Well, they got my goat.' Timothy was being factual. ‘Probably I was in the wrong, but to drag me out in the middle of the night and keep me in a smelly office while two highpowered thugs told me I must know what I'd done, and would I “come clean”, for hours and hours on end seemed high-handed.'

‘But you could have told them where you'd been.'

‘If they'd been polite about it I should have, but they were excited because it was such a damned awful fire. They knew Ron Stalkey had been right about his beating me up, because they could see my face, and so they assumed that everything else he'd said about me setting light to his blessed office was probably true. The whole inference was so insulting and so
silly
, I'm afraid I just wouldn't play.'

Eustace was both hurt and amazed.

‘But Tim,' he said. ‘You're a civilized, intelligent young man. The police couldn't have behaved as you represent. Not the
British
police . . .'

The young man opened his mouth and shut it again and a sullen shadow settled over his eyes. At the same time there was a smothered sound from the Councillor, and as everybody turned to look at him it was discovered that he was laughing.

Eustace's glance grew cold.

‘You don't agree with me?' he said so charmingly and with such disarming diffidence that the unobservant could have been misled.

‘Of course I don't!' The Councillor checked himself. ‘I mean I'm afraid I don't. I'm inclined to think that the young man has summed up the position pretty accurately. After all, the police are men. Only a nation which can honestly believe that by putting a boy in a helmet it can turn him into something between a guardian
angel and a St. Bernard dog overnight could make the British Force what it is today, the worst used, worst paid, most sentimentalized-over body in creation.'

Eustace regarded him with frank amazement.

‘Good Heavens!' he said. ‘You consider there should be an enquiry do you?'

Something of the same sullenness which Eustace's reactions evoked in Timothy appeared in the Councillor.

‘I am not to be drawn,' he said cagily, ‘but I feel it might help if this country sometimes ceased to consider the police either through motorists' goggles or rose-coloured spectacles. As it is, ninety-nine per cent of them have chips on their shoulders. Since I don't want my affairs dealt with by chaps who feel like that if I can possibly help it, I keep away from the police as much as I can.' He paused and laughed again. ‘If one's forced to talk to them, go to the top. The chaps at the top in the police are all men with something remarkable about them. They've got to be. They're the people who've been through the process without cracking.'

‘You amaze me,' Eustace conveyed very nicely that he did not believe a word of it. ‘But at the same time I don't see why Timothy
refused to help
. That is the point which mystifies me. I should have said that Timothy was the most courteous and obliging lad in the world. Why Tim? Why didn't you tell them where you had been?'

On the other side of the room Mr. Campion, who had been standing quietly by the window effacing himself with his usual success, began to find the conversation painful. This purely mental approach to what was after all a most acutely emotional problem, at least for Timothy, was getting under his skin and he turned to Geraldine Telpher who was sitting listening, her head bent and her gaze fixed on her folded hands.

‘How is the child?' he murmured. ‘May one ask?'

He was startled by her reaction. She was taken by surprise and the grey Kinnit eyes which met his own were dilated for an instant. ‘I'm so sorry,' he said, embarrassed. ‘I shouldn't have asked you so suddenly.'

‘Not at all.' She became herself again, calm and intelligent. ‘It's very kind of you. It's only that sometimes I find I'm not quite as brave as I think I am. Then I panic. She's just the same, thank you. Still unconscious. This is the second year.'

Mr. Campion was appalled. ‘I had no idea. How old is she?'

‘Nine. It's tragic, isn't it?' Her voice was intentionally inexpressive and he felt compelled to continue the conversation until she had recovered.

‘Where is she? In hospital?'

‘Yes. In St. Joseph of Arimathaea's. In a public ward!' Her smile was very wry. ‘It's ironic but it can't be helped and she knows nothing. I was told that her only hope was to come to London to be seen by Sir Peter Phyffe. He's one of those dedicated men who won't take private patients and so there she is, poor baby.' She sighed and looked away. ‘It was a car accident, her governess was driving.'

Mr. Campion murmured his sympathy. ‘You're very convenient here for St. Joseph's,' he said consolingly.

‘I know. Isn't it wonderful. Just behind us. That's why I'm so grateful to Eustace and Alison for asking me to stay. They really are wonderful, aren't they?'

Mr. Campion felt himself to be no judge of that point. Alison was still hovering with her alarming looking menu, while on the other side of the room Eustace was quietly persisting in trying to get a rational explanation for Timothy's behaviour.

‘You seem to understand the boy rather better than I do, on this occasion at any rate,” he was saying to the Councillor, a touch of acidity appearing in his voice for the first time. ‘I'm very glad you do and we're all eternally grateful to you for coming forward like this – I won't say “to substantiate his story”, but anyway to give him a complete alibi.'

The Councillor looked at him without moving his head. As he had been staring at the floor it was a sharp upward glance through his fierce brows, very characteristic and effective. Eustace paused abruptly, colour in his cheeks.

‘I take it that you have?' he demanded.

‘I was wondering,' the Councillor said frankly. ‘That is why I came here to talk to the young man himself. The Police have let him go for the time being but that hardly means that they've lost interest in him. All I've done is to convince them that he was with me in Ebbfield during the period when the crime was almost certain to have been committed. “Almost” is not “quite” though, and arson is a notoriously difficult business to bring home to anybody. Do you see what I mean?'

‘No,' said Eustate testily. ‘You are simply telling us that it is a question of the time.'

‘No, I'm saying it is a question of evidence. The Police naturally want to make out a case. But if their suspect can prove where he was during the
likely
period for the crime to have been committed, they've got to think again haven't they? They've got to widen their times or find another suspect.'

Eustace sighed. ‘I can't believe the police,
our
police, work like that,' he said. ‘However, I hear what you say. May I know what you want to ask Tim?'

‘You want to know if I did it, don't you, sir?'

The young man who had been standing behind Julia's chair put the question wearily. He looked very tired, standing with his hands in his pockets, the dark smudges across his eyes emphasizing their colour. ‘Well, I didn't.' He rubbed his hand round the back of his head and pulled his ear and laughed. ‘It was such a damn
silly
thing to do!'

‘A wicked thing!' Eustace put in quickly. He was prompting openly, rather as if he were prodding a junior at a business conference when the opposition was not too intelligent.

‘But also imbecile.' Tim spoke with sudden affection, his warmth noticeable beside the older man's colder personality. ‘For one thing, they're forced by law to be fully insured and the building was patently due for an overhaul. The fire may have saved their lives. No, if I had felt that I wanted to get my own back on the Stalkey Bros., and frankly it never occurred to me, I had only to tell the story to everyone I met. “Fuddy duddy firm of detectives beat up own client in fumbling zeal.” It couldn't have done
them any good wherever I mentioned it and they could hardly sue.'

‘All right!' Councillor Cornish wiped his eyes with amusement. He appeared to be entertained out of all proportion to the joke. ‘I take the point. I'm satisfied. Now I want to hear exactly why you came to see me yesterday.'

‘I told you. I got your name from the cobbler in the Orient Road. That was before Ron Stalkey came in and we had the dustup. I was waiting there talking to him for about an hour I suppose. He's a veteran of the 1914 war – a nice legless little bloke who talks and talks with his mouth full of tacks. Do you know him? I imagine most people in Ebbfield do.'

‘Yes, I know him. His name is Tom Tray. Did you meet his sister Dora?'

‘I didn't see a soul there until Ronald Stalkey arrived. After we started belting each other there was a crowd, of course. I went back in the evening to square up for any damage we'd done in the shop, but Tray was quite happy about it and reminded me that he'd told me to go and see you. So I did.'

‘But that means you can prove that you were in Ebbfield earlier than Mr. Cornish here was able to tell the police?' Eustace deman-manded.

‘Yes, I know. I told you. I did not set light to the Stalkey Office.'

‘Nevertheless,' Eustace was persisting when the Councillor interrupted him in his own house.

‘I've got that,' he said to Tim. ‘What I want to know is
why?
How did you think I could help you?'

Miss Aicheson could bear it no longer. ‘But I explained all that to you when I was persuading you to come down to the Thurstable Inn police station this morning. Otherwise you wouldn't have come, would you?' She spoke from across the room, her voice more flutelike than ever. The Councillor coloured.