“Mr. de Winter, I want you to believe that we all feel very deeply for you in this matter. No doubt you have suffered a shock, a very severe shock, in learning that your late wife was drowned in her own cabin, and not at sea as you supposed. And I am inquiring into the matter for you. I want, for your sake, to find out exactly how and why she died. I don’t conduct this inquiry for my own amusement.”
“That’s rather obvious, isn’t it?”
“I hope that it is. James Tabb has just told us that the boat which contained the remains of the late Mrs. de Winter had three holes hammered through her bottom. And that the sea-cocks were open. Do you doubt his statement?”
“Of course not. He’s a boatbuilder, he knows what he is talking about.”
“Who looked after Mrs. de Winter’s boat?”
“She looked after it herself.”
“She employed no hand?”
“No, nobody at all.”
“The boat was moored in the private harbor belonging to Manderley?”
“Yes.”
“Any stranger who tried to tamper with the boat would be seen? There is no access to the harbor by public footpath?”
“No, none at all.”
“The harbor is quiet, is it not, and surrounded by trees?”
“Yes.”
“A trespasser might not be noticed?”
“Possibly not.”
“Yet James Tabb has told us, and we have no reason to disbelieve him, that a boat with those holes drilled in her bottom and the sea-cocks open could not float for more than ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Quite.”
“Therefore we can put aside the idea that the boat was tampered with maliciously before Mrs. de Winter went for her evening sail. Had that been the case the boat would have sunk at her moorings.”
“No doubt.”
“Therefore we must assume that whoever took the boat out that night drove in the planking and opened the sea-cocks.”
“I suppose so.”
“You have told us already that the door of the cabin was shut, the port-holes closed, and your wife’s remains were on the floor. This was in your statement, and in Doctor Phillips’， and in Captain Searle’s?”
“Yes.”
“And now added to this is the information that a spike was driven through the bottom, and the sea-cocks were open. Does not this strike you, Mr. de Winter, as being very strange?”
“Certainly.”
“You have no suggestion to make?”
“No, none at all.”
“Mr. de Winter, painful as it may be, it is my duty to ask you a very personal question.”
“Yes.”
“Were relations between you and the late Mrs. de Winter perfectly happy?”
They had to come of course, those black spots in front of my eyes, dancing, flickering, stabbing the hazy air, and it was hot, so hot, with all these people, all these faces, and no open window; the door, from being near to me, was farther away than I had thought, and all the time the ground coming up to meet me.
And then, out of the queer mist around me, Maxim’s voice, clear and strong. “Will someone take my wife outside? She is going to faint.”
23
I was sitting in the little room again. The room like a waiting room at the station. The policeman was there, bending over me, giving me a glass of water, and someone’s hand was on my arm, Frank’s hand. I sat quite still, the floor, the walls, the figures of Frank and the policeman taking solid shape before me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, “such a stupid thing to do. It was so hot in that room, so very hot.”
“It gets very airless in there,” said the policeman, “there’s been complaints about it often, but nothing’s ever done. We’ve had ladies fainting in there before.”
“Are you feeling better, Mrs. de Winter?” said Frank.
“Yes. Yes, much better. I shall be all right again. Don’t wait with me.”
“I’m going to take you back to Manderley.”
“No.”
“Yes. Maxim has asked me to.”
“No. You ought to stay with him.”
“Maxim told me to take you back to Manderley.”
He put his arm through mine and helped me to get up. “Can you walk as far as the car or shall I bring it round?”
“I can walk. But I’d much rather stay. I want to wait for Maxim.”
“Maxim may be a long time.”
Why did he say that? What did he mean? Why didn’t he look at me? He took my arm and walked with me along the passage to the door, and so down the steps into the street. Maxim may be a long time…