27
We went and stood by the car. No one said anything for a few minutes. Colonel Julyan handed round his cigarette case. Favell looked gray, rather shaken. I noticed his hands were trembling as he held the match. The man with the barrel organ ceased playing for a moment and hobbled towards us, his cap in his hand. Maxim gave him two shillings. Then he went back to the barrel organ and started another tune. The church clock struck six o’clock. Favell began to speak. His voice was diffident, careless, but his face was still gray. He did not look at any of us, he kept glancing down at his cigarette and turning it over in his fingers. “This cancer business,” he said; “does anybody know if it’s contagious?”
No one answered him. Colonel Julyan shrugged his shoulders.
“I never had the remotest idea,” said Favell jerkily. “She kept it a secret from everyone, even Danny. What a Goddamned appalling thing, eh? Not the sort of thing one would ever connect with Rebecca. Do you fellows feel like a drink? I’m all out over this, and I don’t mind admitting it. Cancer! Oh, my God!”
He leaned up against the side of the car and shaded his eyes with his hands. “Tell that bloody fellow with the barrel organ to clear out,” he said. “I can’t stand that Goddamned row.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler if we went ourselves?” said Maxim. “Can you manage your own car, or do you want Julyan to drive it for you?”
“Give me a minute,” muttered Favell. “I’ll be all right. You don’t understand. This thing has been a damned unholy shock to me.”
“Pull yourself together, man, for heaven’s sake,” said Colonel Julyan. “If you want a drink go back to the house and ask Baker. He knows how to treat for shock, I dare say. Don’t make an exhibition of yourself in the street.”
“Oh, you’re all right, you’re fine,” said Favell, standing straight and looking at Colonel Julyan and Maxim. “You’ve got nothing to worry about anymore. Max is on a good wicket now, isn’t he? You’ve got your motive, and Baker will supply it in black and white free of cost, whenever you send the word. You can dine at Manderley once a week on the strength of it and feel proud of yourself. No doubt Max will ask you to be godfather to his first child.”
“Shall we get into the car and go?” said Colonel Julyan to Maxim. “We can make our plans going along.”
Maxim held open the door of the car, and Colonel Julyan climbed in. I sat down in my seat in the front. Favell still leaned against the car and did not move. “I should advise you to get straight back to your flat and go to bed,” said Colonel Julyan shortly, “and drive slowly, or you will find yourself in jail for manslaughter. I may as well warn you now, as I shall not be seeing you again, that as a magistrate I have certain powers that will prove effective if you ever turn up in Kerrith or the district. Blackmail is not much of a profession, Mr. Favell. And we know how to deal with it in our part of the world, strange though it may seem to you.”
Favell was watching Maxim. He had lost the gray color now, and the old unpleasant smile was forming on his lips. “Yes, it’s been a stroke of luck for you, Max, hasn’t it?” he said slowly; “you think you’ve won, don’t you? The law can get you yet, and so can I, in a different way…”
Maxim switched on the engine. “Have you anything else you want to say?” he said; “because if you have you had better say it now.”
“No,” said Favell. “No, I won’t keep you. You can go.” He stepped back onto the pavement, the smile still on his lips. The car slid forward. As we turned the corner I looked back and saw him standing there, watching us, and he waved his hand and he was laughing.
We drove on for a while in silence. Then Colonel Julyan spoke. “He can’t do anything,” he said. “That smile and that wave were part of his bluff. They’re all alike, those fellows. He hasn’t a thread of a case to bring now. Baker’s evidence would squash it.”
Maxim did not answer. I glanced sideways at his face but it told me nothing. “I always felt the solution would lie in Baker,” said Colonel Julyan; “the furtive business of that appointment, and the way she never even told Mrs. Danvers. She had her suspicions, you see. She knew something was wrong. A dreadful thing, of course. Very dreadful. Enough to send a young and lovely woman right off her head.”
We drove on along the straight main road. Telegraph poles, motor coaches, open sports cars, little semi-detached villas with new gardens, they flashed past making patterns in my mind I should always remember.