“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Have I put my foot in it?” Walter Fane smiled — his slow, pleasant smile. The blinds were up.
“It’s nineteen or twenty years ago, Mrs.
Reed,” he said. “One’s youthful troubles and follies don’t mean much after that space of time. So you are Halliday’s baby daughter. You know, don’t you, that your father and Helen actually lived here in Dillmouth for a while?” “Oh yes,” said Gwenda, “that’s really why we came here. I didn’t remember it properly, of course, but when we had to decide where we’d live in England, I came to Dillmouth first of all, to see what it was really like, and I thought it was such an attractive place that I decided that we’d park ourselves right here and nowhere else.
And wasn’t it luck? We’ve actually got the same house that my people lived in long ago.” cc! remember the house,” said Walter Fane. Again he gave that slow, pleasant smile. “You may not remember me, Mrs.
Reed, but I rather imagine I used to give you piggybacks once.” Gwenda laughed.
“Did you really? Then you’re quite an old friend, aren’t you? I can’t pretend I remember you—but then I was only about two and a half or three, I suppose.
… Were you back on leave from India or something like that?” “No, I’d chucked India for good. I went out to try tea-planting–but the life didn’t suit me. I was cut out to follow in my father’s footsteps and be a prosy unadventurous country solicitor. I’d passed all my law exams earlier, so I simply came back and went straight into the firm.” He paused and said, “I’ve been here ever since.” Again there was a pause and he repeated in a lower voice, “Yes — ever since…3?
But eighteen years, thought Gwenda, isn’t really such a long time as all that.
Then, with a change of manner, he shook hands with her and said, “Since we seem to be old friends, you really must bring your husband to tea with my mother one day. I’ll get her to write to you. In the meanwhile, eleven o’clock on Thursday?” Gwenda went out of the office and down the stairs. There was a cobweb in the angle of the stairway. In the middle of the web was a pale, rather nondescript spider. It didn’t look, Gwenda thought, like a real spider. Not the fat juicy kind of spider who caught flies and ate them. It was more like a ghost of a spider. Rather like Walter Fane, in fact.
II
Giles met his wife on the seafront.
“Well?” he asked.
“He was here in Dillmouth at the time,” said Gwenda. “Back from India, I mean.
Because he gave me piggybacks. But he couldn’t have murdered anyone — not possibly.
He’s much too quiet and gentle.
Very nice, really, but the kind of person you never really notice. You know, they come to parties, but you never notice when they leave. I should think he was frightfully upright and all that, and devoted to his mother, and with a lot of virtues. But from a woman’s point of view, terribly dull. I can see why he didn’t cut any ice with Helen. You know, a nice safe person to marry — but you don’t really want to.” “Poor devil,” said Giles. “And I suppose he was just crazy about her.” “Oh, I don’t know… I shouldn’t think so, really. Anyway, I’m sure he wouldn’t be our malevolent murderer. He’s not my idea of a murderer at all.” “You don’t really know a lot about murderers, though, do you, my sweet?” “What do you mean?” “Well — I was thinking about quiet Lizzie Borden—only the jury said she didn’t do it. And Wallace, a quiet man whom the jury insisted did kill his wife, though the sentence was quashed on appeal. And Armstrong who everybody said for years was such a kind unassuming fellow. I don’t believe murderers are ever a special type.” “I really can’t believe that Walter Fane — ” Gwenda stopped.
“What is it?” “Nothing.” But she was remembering Walter Fane polishing his eyeglasses and the queer blind stare of his eyes when she had first mentioned St. Catherine’s.