“I’m sorry if I’ve misled you in some way,” he said. Do keep your eyes on the road, she thought. Was he pitying her? He’d better not be. He frowned as if in exquisite pain and said, “A sin of omission, not commission.”
“Pah. Sophistry.”
“My wife,” he said, “my marriage…” He stuttered to a halt.
“Inspector, I have no desire to know the details of your marital arrangements. There is nothing for you to explain as nothing has been said between us. As you said earlier, I am ‘police business.’ If there were implications that were misinterpreted, they are already forgotten. Let’s not talk about it again.”
“Gwendolen—”
“No.” Her heart was closed against him. Was there a bigger fool on earth than herself?
After a painfully long silence he said, “I presume you will be returning to York soon. The Library must miss you.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she snapped, “I’m not a librarian.”
“Not a librarian?” he puzzled. “What are you, then?”
A woman, she thought crossly.
“I used to be a librarian until very recently,” she conceded. “But I inherited money.”
He made to say something but she held up her hand and said, “That’s the end of the subject. And if you don’t mind, I would rather you didn’t say anything else to me for the rest of the journey.”
* * *
—
Frobisher did indeed get her home before midnight and for the sake of secrecy he dropped her off two streets away—the Crystal Cup was busy at this hour and it would be an unpleasant ending to an unpleasant drive if she was spotted in his company. “Don’t open the door for me,” she said, “you may be seen by someone.”
She looked back after a few yards. The dog was peering wistfully at her out of the rear window of the car. It was his wife’s dog, she thought.
She greeted the Crystal Cup’s doormen as she passed them on her way to the flat. “Busy tonight?” she enquired, as if nothing was wrong. “Very,” they assured. “Did you have a nice day off, Miss Kelling?” one of them asked. He was a bit of a brute and seemed to be rather soft on her. She enjoyed imagining him in the ring with Frobisher. Frobisher did not come out of the bout well.
“Very nice, thank you,” she said.
* * *
—
As soon as she was through the door of her flat, Gwendolen flung off her hat and shoes and coat. She could feel the dirt of the road on her, she must have a bath. She was sullying the hitherto unsullied pink, not just with dirt but with the whole humiliating to-do with Frobisher. He was right, of course, which made her even more angry with herself—he had said nothing, done nothing that could be truly construed as courtship. They had misinterpreted each other.
She opened the cocktail cabinet, glad now that it wasn’t a wireless, and poured herself a brandy, the usual remedy in the face of calamity.
There was a knock at the door. She was sure she had locked the street door, how had someone accessed her flat? And it was gone midnight, who on earth could it be at this hour? It must be Frobisher, who else? He had probably come to beg her forgiveness, to explain his behaviour. To explain his wife.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have sympathy for people—of both sexes—who were stuck in loveless marriages. Divorce was nigh impossible and adultery was inevitable sometimes and not always to be so frowned on. She had occasionally thought that she would herself be willing to be a man’s mistress but not his wife, but one should be open and honest about such things, not sweep the poor wife under the carpet as if she didn’t exist. Perhaps she was sick? Or mad. Like Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre. But that was still no excuse for erasing her. No, Gwendolen thought, she was not going to look to romantic novels for a solution. They dispensed the worst kind of advice （love）。 She poured another brandy, on the generous side, and took a big gulp.
The knock came again. Why couldn’t he leave her alone, she fumed, and yanked open the door, ready for battle.
A surprised Niven stood there. He tipped his hat and laughed and said, “You look fit to murder.”
“I believe I am.”
“Not me, I hope,” he said.
“No, not you. Why don’t you come in?”
He removed his hat and followed her down the narrow hallway. It felt like letting in a tiger.
When they reached the living room he made a face and said, “I see my mother wasn’t exaggerating when she said everything was pink up here.”