Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

“I see. Don’t tell me. I’ve got it,” Prudence cried. “Maurice has to be there, in that Brickford pub I mean, every time. Because Uncle Joe didn’t say it, and if Harry said it Maurice was there, and if Morgan said it, Maurice was there, and if Maurice said it he was there too. But are you sure the three men in the Brickford pub were the three men on the plane?”

“They were waiting in the Fairway Arms, together, three of them. When they got to the plane they said they’d been waiting for someone who hadn’t turned up. It’s a certainty.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about Maurice,” Hester said miserably. Marryatt stared at her, then jabbed his cigarette in the ash-tray, and pressed on it until it disintegrated.

“Yes, Maurice,” Prudence agreed, and dismissed the thought quickly. “I think it’s terribly clever of you, Inspector Lewis. But it doesn’t prove anything more, does it? I mean it shows Maurice was on the plane, but not who was off it.”

Hester looked up. “Don’t enjoy yourself so visibly, Prudence,” she muttered.

Inspector Lewis was examining the typescript again. “I think we can work out the rest now, don’t you, Sergeant Young?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But first of all I need some more help from all of you. Which of these four men was interested in fishing?”

“Fishing?” Moira said. “Certainly not Joe.”

“Not Harry,” Hester said quickly. “He – he didn’t like anything like that. I’m sure he’d never fished in all his life – not his adult life, anyway. Maurice? I’m certain I once heard him say he hadn’t fished since he was a boy. Morgan – I can’t be so definite about Morgan, but he wasn’t the kind of man you could imagine with a fishing rod.”

Lewis scowled. “But two of these men were enthusiasts!”

“But they weren’t,” Prudence protested. “They just simply weren’t.”

Lewis looked at the typescript again. “I’m exaggerating when I say enthusiasts. One of them said he’d satisfied his curiosity and he didn’t like it, and another said he hadn’t had an opportunity until the beginning of last season. When’s the close season for fishing, Sergeant Young?”

“Well, sir, it depends on the fish, and the place. If it’s coarse fishing, it’s more or less in the spring, ending about the middle of June. Salmon close a bit earlier, owing to their habits. About December, say, and open again – is it March?”

“So two of these men had gone fishing, one of them at the beginning of Spring or Summer. I ask you all to think again.”

They thought again, but none of them could produce a word of evidence about fishing.

PRUDENCE was in the kitchen, making tea and cutting sandwiches, when Marryatt walked in. He looked disparagingly at the dishes that lay in the sink like an irregular monument.

“You haven’t been doing much dish-washing lately, have you?”

“And you haven’t been knocking on many doors, have you?” Prudence retorted. “If you’d like the information, a thing that people simply can’t stand is other people to come in their kitchens to see if the bottoms of their saucepans are shining like a domestic science department.”

Marryatt took off his coat. “I’ll wash the dishes for you,” he said. “I suppose you haven’t had much time.”

“We’ve been living on fried eggs and tea since Friday,” Prudence said. “And every time I go near the sink I begin to cry. I’m getting over that, now. I can’t spend my whole life crying for people who’ve been killed. I suppose I’m callous,” she added with a certain satisfaction, her mind already racing ahead to the time when she would move, hard-hearted, disdainful, mysterious, through a wondering world.

“The kettle’s boiling. Don’t worry about the policemen. They’ve gone to The Running Fox for a meal, in their prim way, afraid of being corrupted by a sandwich. Prudence—”

“You wouldn’t like to call me Miss Wade?” Prudence asked.

“No, I wouldn’t. You can call me Tom. Prudence, you’re getting over this. What about Hester?”

“You’d better ask her yourself. Of course, she did rather like Harry,” Prudence said cautiously.

“She was going to marry him? Do you have something for drying dishes?”

“There’s a clean tea towel somewhere. Oh, I’m sorry, it has a hole in it. She wasn’t going to marry him. It’s the kind of news people do tell their sisters. But she did in a way rather like him. Do you want cheese or some cardboard out of a tin on your sandwiches?”

“Cheese. Harry told me he was going to marry her.”

“Harry was always making plans that didn’t come off,” Prudence said scornfully. “He didn’t have real purpose in life. Only poetry, and he didn’t work at that. He told me once he didn’t want to be one of those people who choose the longest road they can find and sweat along it at top speed with their graves travelling beside them on oiled wheels. He said the brow was for laurel wreaths, not sweat.”

“But Hester liked him?” Marryatt put the last of the cups carefully on the table.

Prudence sighed. “I know absolutely what you’re getting at. Don’t be so – so oblique. If Hester’s given half a chance she’ll spend the rest of her life with his memory, bringing out hand-printed editions of his poems. People do seem to get a bit soppy when they’re twenty. But I shan’t. Anyway, she hasn’t made up her mind. She thinks he might be alive, she thinks he might be the man who didn’t fly.”

Marryatt’s brows came down. He had features that lent themselves easily to the expression of anger. “If she finds that he did fly? That he’s dead? She wouldn’t enjoy having that proved? Whether she enjoys it or not, she’s going to get it. I’m not going to have the shadow of Harry, neither dead nor alive, hanging around for the rest of my life.”

Prudence’s face darkened. “Kill him if you like, if it makes you feel happier. I’d sooner he was alive. I dare say I’m being sentimental,” she added faintly.

“Prudence, put down that tray. You’re going to help me. You know that Harry was after Morgan. He was searching for something he believed Morgan was hiding. He was doing it inefficiently and recklessly – like a boy who’s looking for gulls’ eggs only because he enjoys climbing a cliff,” he said, going back to his own experience for the metaphor. “Now, when Jackie came here, what did Morgan do? He shut himself up in his room and didn’t come down to meals. Jackie was a crook. Don’t you think there’s a chance Morgan was afraid of being recognised by Jackie – because he was a crook himself?”

“I think Morgan was just mad,” Prudence protested.

“Keep to the point. Morgan was hiding something. Harry was looking for it. For all I know, Jackie was looking for it too. If Morgan went to Ireland, Harry went too, because he was trailing Morgan.”

“They were all mad,” Prudence suggested.

“People who hide something aren’t necessarily mad. I’m not calling you mad, for instance,” Marryatt said carefully. Prudence’s pink and brown face became entirely pink. “You’ve been pretty vague about that brooch, haven’t you? Jackie went away, and the brooch isn’t mentioned any more.” Prudence’s face was so red now that it seemed possible she might cry. “It isn’t your business. None of it’s your business. You’re here only because of Maurice. We know what happened to Maurice, so now you can go away. Hester hates you anyway, and so do I, and if you won’t go out of the kitchen I will.” She began to walk to the door. He caught her roughly by the arm and swung her round. She had no brothers: she wasn’t used to physical violence: she wondered for a moment if she could kill him.