Dangerous Sea (25 page)

‘It’s true but . . .’

‘Oh no!’ Frank’s shoulders slumped and his head fell in an extravagant gesture of despair. Philly smiled sweetly at the back of his neck.

‘What did he say? That I only had a few weeks to live? He’s so absurd. I shall probably outlive you all. This treatment I’m having is working. I feel hardly any tiredness now and . . .’

‘Philly, is there anything I can do? You know I love you. I’ll do anything . . . anything.’

‘You’re so sweet.’ She put out a delicate hand and stroked his. ‘Do you really love me? I think you do.’

‘I do, I do. I swear it. Please, Philly, marry me, won’t you? Say you’ll marry me. Say it.’

He struggled out of his chair in an effort to go down on one knee but the chairs were so close together that this was impossible.

‘Of course I’ll marry you, if that’s what you want.’

Frank stopped wriggling and looked at her. ‘You will?’ He had never thought it would be so easy and it rather floored him. Unconsciously, he had been looking forward to a period of delightful melancholy ending several months later – when it was almost too late – with a ‘yes’. He had not even had to ask her twice. He would not admit it but he felt . . . cheated.

‘That’s wonderful! We’ll get married in New York or Philadelphia. Where was it you said your family lived?’

‘But what about your people? Your uncle . . . your father and mother? Hadn’t you better tell them first?’

Frank was outraged. He was not a child. If he wanted to marry a girl, he damn well would, even if it meant running away to Gretna Green. ‘Oh, they don’t matter,’ he said breezily before adding more doubtfully, as a vision of his mother’s face floated into his mind, ‘but of course I’ll tell them.’

‘They’ll say “What do you know about this girl?” ’ Philly went on sensibly. ‘For all you know, I might be penniless.’

‘What would that matter? I’ve got oodles of money.’ He waved his hands about. ‘I wouldn’t care if you were . . . Cinderella.’

‘Darling boy,’ she said dreamily. ‘We’ll be married and live in a castle, just like Cinderella. I’d like that.’ She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep.

Sam was following Verity around like a whipped dog. The self-confident young man, who had wooed and won the workers gathered round his soap box outside factory gates a couple of weeks previously, was now a rather ludicrous figure. At least, that was what Verity thought. He would come up to her metaphorically wagging his tail and maybe offering her – again metaphorically – a dead bird in tribute only to have his peace offering brushed aside. She had principles or, if not principles, rules about whom she would sleep with. The problem was that she had broken the first of these rules with the second of her two affairs. Now she had almost broken it again and slapping Sam was the only alternative to slapping herself.

In her defence, Ben Belasco, the American writer she had slept with in Spain, had infiltrated her defences when she was adrift and lonely in a country whose language she did not speak and whose politics she did not understand. Moreover, he had made it quite clear – in the way men do – that his wife, back in the States, accepted his infidelities. She hadn’t loved Belasco, in fact he had repelled her, but inexplicably the sex had been beyond her imagining. This relationship had ended before she had left Spain after the disaster of the siege of Toledo.

With Sam it was quite different. They were on a luxury liner and, in a day or two, he would be back in the arms of his wife and embracing his young son. That he should want to sleep with her was flattering and, if she were honest, when he had suggested she should go to the States with him, she had anticipated that they might end up lovers. But the condom lying on the photograph of his wife and baby had effectively doused her lust and reduced him in her eyes. He was no longer the political fighter and all-round nice guy she had thought him and it saddened her. He was just another lying, cheating man. Why had she not
sensed
that he was married? Had she just not wanted to know? He had never said he was married but, of course, a man like him
would
be married. Was she a prig and a hypocrite? Possibly, but she would not forgive herself or Sam Forrest if they had a sordid, shipboard dalliance. Or was it, she thought wryly, that he had deceived an astute, worldly-wise foreign correspondent who ought not to have been fooled so easily? How did it go? Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from making idiots of ourselves.

Having made up her mind, she summoned him and, as usual, he came to her with his tail wagging. ‘Have you forgiven me? Say you aren’t mad at me. I can’t help . . . you know . . . admiring you. We Americans don’t have women like you who go and do things without husbands and so on. We like to put them on pedestals – not make partners of them.’

‘You thought I was just some slut who would sleep with anyone,’ Verity said unforgivingly. ‘Anyway, we’re not going to talk about that any more.’

‘But you are going to talk to me?’ he said, his eyes shining.

‘We forgot ourselves. That’s all there is to it but we stopped it in time. Our political purpose is what is important. We have to be worthy of that.’ Damn it, she was sounding like the worst sort of prig. ‘I just mean, I’ve got a job to do when we get to the States and I intend to do it.’

‘If I can be of any help . . .’

‘Thank you,’ she said grudgingly. ‘You may be able to help and, of course, I should like to meet your family.’

After a moment, Sam asked, ‘Do you think I killed Senator Day?’

Verity was momentarily taken aback but answered honestly. ‘You had motive and opportunity but . . .’ she relented, ‘since you ask me, I don’t think you did. You may be a ratbag but I don’t see you as a murderer. Who do
you
think killed him?’

Encouraged at being asked a question to which an answer was required, he replied, ‘I’d vote for that fag art dealer, Bernard Hunt. A nasty piece of work and Frank says he has a motive. He says Day stopped him getting a top job in the art world or something. He was an expert at putting spokes in wheels, that man. No wonder he was killed. Good riddance, I say.’

‘Yes, Frank told me about hearing Mr Hunt’s confession but I’m not sure. It’s true he could have done it but did he have the will? He seems a weak, shallow man to me.’

‘They’re just the sort of men who commit murder,’ Sam said eagerly. ‘Strong men can live with slights and setbacks but weak men are spiteful. And Frank says he wasn’t there when he and Corinth were racing.’

‘Nor were several prime suspects – most noticably you,’ Verity responded snarkily. ‘Still, I agree he’s in the frame. He calls himself a Communist sympathizer but I hope the Party can do without people like him sympathizing.’

Sam risked a tease. ‘That’s not very democratic of you. I’d say the Party would value a man like him – over you, I mean . . . but what would I know?’ he added hurriedly.

She found Edward propped against a rail, gazing gloomily out to sea. He was smoking a cigarette which, given the stiff breeze, was not a very worthwhile pastime.

‘There you are!’ she greeted him. ‘How’s the knee? Shouldn’t you be lying down quietly?’ He looked at her strangely, wondering if Jane Barclay was right to entrust her fate to her. ‘Stop looking at me like that. Have I got a smut on my nose or something?’

‘Come with me,’ he said, tossing his cigarette over the side and taking up his crutch.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To my cabin. I have something important to discuss with you.’

‘About the murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I think it’s time we thrashed out the whys and wherefores.’

‘I know the whys and wherefores,’ he said grimly. ‘It’s the “Does she go to the gallows?” I have to talk to you about.’

When they reached the cabin, Edward threw himself down on his bed and motioned to Verity to pour him a drink. ‘Something strong. I think there’s scotch in the cupboard.’

‘Tell!’ she commanded. ‘I know, let me guess: Jane Barclay has told you she killed Senator Day.’

He raised himself on his elbows. ‘Good Lord! How did you guess that?’

‘You mean she really has confessed? I was joking.’

Edward gave her a concise account of their conversation and ended with the comment, ‘It’s hardly fair but she’s left it to you to decide whether we tell the police or not.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She said she would abide by your decision on what I should do with her confession.’

‘Oh no! That’s
not
fair. It’s not my problem. You decide. I’m not having anything to do with it.’

‘Well, it’s not quite as cut and dried as that. If I were to tell the police, when we reach New York, that Jane Barclay has confessed to murder they would almost certainly think I was off my head. Particularly if, as seems most likely, she denied telling me anything of the sort.’

‘Have you thought of something else? Just because she confessed to murdering Day doesn’t mean she did it. She may know – or may think she knows – that Warren did it.’

‘She could be protecting him? I hadn’t got round to that. Still,’ he said ruminatively, ‘I’m almost certain her “accident” in the steam room was self-inflicted.’

‘Could she have been trying to kill herself? It’s possible.’

‘She doesn’t look the suicide type to me, and why do it in such a complicated and public way?’

Verity tried to shift the conversation away from Jane Barclay. ‘Anyway, if you think a woman did it, why not Philly Roosevelt?’

‘It’s so unlikely. She’s too weak, physically, for one thing.’

Edward thought privately that Verity was just a little bit jealous of Frank’s attachment to the girl. It wasn’t, of course, that Verity had any designs on his nephew’s virtue but only a few months before he had almost worshipped her. Since the Spanish escapade, his admiration had visibly cooled.

‘I don’t know anything except that I’m going to do absolutely nothing which might send Jane Barclay to . . . the electric chair. It’s quite barbaric and I don’t approve of capital punishment.’

‘Except for members of the aristocracy,’ he reminded her.

‘Except for them, of course.’

‘And any Nazis caught, if you will excuse the pun, red-handed.’

‘Them too,’ she agreed.

‘And . . . be honest . . . you don’t want anything to happen which might affect Warren Fairley . . . cast a shadow over his reputation.’

‘He’s a great man and a member of the Party – a leading member of the Party – but that doesn’t put him above the law. It’s quite absurd to think for a moment he would ever be involved in anything so . . . so grubby.’

‘Hmm. That sounds like me talking – a bit priggish. Of course, some people are above the law. Look at Hitler and Stalin. The law will never catch up with them.’

Verity said slowly, ‘I have never seen any evidence that Stalin has committed crimes and to bracket him with Hitler is ridiculous. Perhaps I mean justice – not the law. Justice will catch up with Hitler.’

‘I think you’ve been seeing too many Westerns. Wyatt Earp isn’t going to ride into town and, if he did, he would probably be shot down before he could unbutton his holster. You must have learnt that in Spain.’

‘It’s not like you to be so cynical,’ she said with dignity. ‘I would have thought, if we shared one belief, it was in justice.’

‘I believe in the possibility of justice but I also believe it needs a helping hand. Well, nothing’s been resolved then? I’ll have to tell Jane something.’

‘Tell her we have decided to leave it to her conscience. Tell her to discuss the rights and wrongs of murder with her husband,’ Verity said with sudden anger. ‘You remember, of course, that a wife cannot be made to testify against her husband and vice versa. At least, that’s the case in England. I assume it’s the same in the States.’

At that moment there was a knock on the door and Frank put his head in. ‘Oh, am I interrupting something?’

‘No, come in. We were just discussing the nature of justice but I think we’ve finished . . . for the moment. What can we do for you?’

‘I’ll go,’ Verity said.

‘No,’ Frank insisted, ‘I’d like you to stay. You’d know soon enough anyway.’

‘Know what?’ Edward said sharply. ‘You haven’t done something silly, have you?’

‘I don’t think so,’ the boy said, with a trace of doubt in his voice. ‘I’ve got engaged. That’s all.’

Edward looked at his nephew incredulously. ‘You’ve done what?’

‘I think I’d better go,’ Verity said once again, starting to get up from her chair.

‘No, no, please stay,’ Frank beseeched her. ‘Uncle Ned, I don’t know why you should be upset. She’s a smashing girl and she’s . . . you know . . . out of the top drawer. I mean, as far as there are top drawers in the States,’ he added with embarrassment.

‘I assume,’ Edward said frigidly, ‘that you have engaged yourself to Philly Roosevelt. Let’s get that clear, anyway.’

‘Yes, who else would it be? I don’t go around proposing to every girl I meet, dash it.’

Verity was pleased to hear the spirit come back into his voice. He had obviously decided to fight and she always approved of standing up for oneself.

‘Edward, don’t be such a . . . you sound just like the Duke,’ she ventured.

‘I’ll thank you to keep out of this.’ The truth was Edward had a vision of his elder brother asking him what he meant by allowing his son to be shot at and then to become engaged to a girl he had known just three days. The term ‘
in loco parentis
’ came into his mind and his blood chilled.

Frank, too, seemed a little disturbed by Verity’s mention of his father. The Duke had not been pleased when he had run away to Spain but, in deference to the feelings of his wife, he had shown commendable restraint, grateful that the boy had returned unscathed. He had not even preached at him when he had refused to return to school. He had been more bewildered than angry but, when he learnt that he had engaged himself to an American girl he had met on the boat . . . Frank cleared his throat nervously.

‘I don’t know why you are making such a fuss, Uncle. She’s a wonderful girl and I love her. She’s got leukaemia and I’ll have to look after her, but I’ll like that.’