Charles Snow - The Affair

So he was lashing out at the Court, at Howard, and, somehow, projecting all his irritation, at me.

“I can’t credit that you haven’t got it wrong,” he cried.

“I wish I had,” I said.

“They can’t help giving him his rights. Anything else — it’s dead out.”

“Listen,” I said, “this is the time that you must believe me.”

Francis said: “We do.”

Martin nodded his head, so did Tom. I was sitting at the end of the semicircle, watching them as they faced the glowing cyclorama of the sky — Francis fine-featured and deep-orbited, Tom like a harvest moon, Martin composed, his eyes screwed up and hard. I looked at Skeffington, his head rearing handsomely above the others.

“You must believe me—” I said.

He said: “Well, you’ve been in there all day.” It was an acquiescence, it occurred to me, about as graceful as one of Howard’s.

Martin intervened: “Right, then. Where do we go next?”

He knew that I had come with something to propose. What it was, he had not guessed.

Then I started. I wanted to shock them. It was no use going in for finesse. I said that the only question which might make the Court think twice was a question we had all thought about and kept to ourselves. That is, how had the photograph got removed from the old man’s notebook? Could it have been removed deliberately? If so, by whom?

“The answer to that is simple,” I said. “If it was removed deliberately, then it was by Nightingale.”

I looked at Martin and reminded him that we had asked ourselves those questions. I believed that, even to stand a chance of getting Howard off, it had to be asked in Court. I could not guarantee that it would work. It was risky, distasteful, and at the best would leave rancour behind for a long time. Nevertheless, for the short-term purpose of justice for Howard, I had to tell them that there was no alternative move at all.

The point was, were we justified in making it? It might do Nightingale harm — no, it was bound to do him harm, innocent or guilty. How certain were we of our own ground in suspecting him? Were we going to take the responsibility of harming a man who might be innocent?

The room was hushed. Martin looked at me, brilliant-eyed, without expression. Francis’ face was dark.

It was Julian Skeffington who broke the silence.

“I’ve never been able to see how that photograph came unstuck,” he said, without his loftiness or confidence. “I don’t know what could make a chap do a thing like that. It’s not a thing I expected to think of a chap doing. Especially when he’s your senior and you’re used to seeing him at dinner.”

“Well?” I asked him.

“I don’t pretend to like it. I wish there was another way.”

“There’s no other way of giving Howard a chance. Well?”

“If you put it to me like that,” said Skeffington, reluctant but straightforward, “then I say we’ve got to go ahead.”

“So do I,” said Tom Orbell. “The trouble is, we’ve been too scrupulous all along!”

Francis cleared his throat. He disregarded Tom, and spoke straight to me.

“You were asking if we were justified, Lewis? I should like to say we weren’t. But I can’t do that.”

This startled me.

“You really think we’re right to do it?” I said.

“I’m afraid I’ve had a suspicion, from very early days.”

“Since when?”

“I’m afraid — since the three of you came to see me in the lab. last Christmas.”

That was a shock. Then, an instant later, I had another, when Martin remarked: “I’m sorry, but I disagree with you all.”

“Have you altered your mind?” I broke out.

“No, I thought about it when we last talked, but I came down on the other side.”

Mixed with my irritation, I was moved by sarcasm at my own expense. I had felt telepathically certain that we had agreed. It hadn’t been necessary to say the words. It seemed bizarre to have been so wrong, about someone one knew so well. In the whole course of the affair, this was the first occasion when Martin and I had not been at one.

“What are you holding back for?” said Tom.

“I don’t believe we’re entitled to do it.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that Nightingale pulled that photograph out—?” Skeffington’s voice was raised.

“Don’t you remember that it was Nightingale who had it in most for Howard?” Tom joined in.

“Yes, I think it’s possible,” Martin replied to Skeffington. “But I’m not convinced it happened.”

“I’m afraid I think it’s ninety per cent probable,” said Francis.

“I don’t,” said Martin. “You’ve always distrusted Nightingale, I know. So have you, even more so,” he turned to me. “From what you’ve told me, it would have been remarkable if you hadn’t. But you don’t really believe in people trying to make a better job of their lives, do you? I know Nightingale isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, let alone yours. He’s close, he’s narrow, he’s not very fond of anyone except himself and his wife. Still, I should have thought he’d tried to become a decent member of society. I’m not prepared to kick him downstairs again unless I’m absolutely sure.”

Of these four, I was thinking, Martin was by a long way the most realistic. Yet it was the men of high principle, Skeffington and Francis, whom no one could imagine doing a shady act, who could themselves imagine Nightingale doing this. While Martin, who had rubbed about the world and been no better than his brother men, could not believe it. Was it that realistic men sometimes got lost when they met the sensational — as though they had seen a giraffe and found that they couldn’t believe it? Or was it more personal? In being willing to defend Nightingale’s change of heart, in showing a heat of feeling which came oddly from him, and which had surprised us all, was Martin really being tender to himself? For he, too, of course, had tried to make something different out of his life.

“I think there’s substance in what Martin says,” said Francis, “but still—”

“Look here,” cried Tom, eyes flat, face thrust forward, with the touch of cheerful hypomania which sometimes changed trigger-quick into temper, “from what old Lewis tells us, you’ve got this choice. Either you raise a doubt about Nightingale — which I must say seems to me a perfectly legitimate one, and it ought to have been brought out long ago — or else you leave Howard to be done down. What do you say, Martin? Is that all right?”

“It’s a hard choice,” said Martin.

“Well, you’ve got to make it.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Martin replied, without any cover at all, “Howard’s case will have to take its chance.”

“I can’t and won’t sit down under that,” said Skeffington.

“So that’s what you’d let happen, is it?” said Tom.

“No,” said Francis, “I’m afraid I’ve got to choose the other way. What about you, Lewis?”

“I’m with you,” I said.

So we settled it. Then I came to the harder part. Who was going to “raise the doubt”? I told them that it would be useless for me to do it: I gave them the reasons I had thought over to myself the night before. And also, Nightingale and I had once been enemies. Though it was years ago, men like Brown would not have forgotten that. Did they agree?

There were frowns and heavy faces as they nodded. They had all seen where this must lead. “So it’s got to be one of us,” Tom said.

“Yes,” I replied: the doubt would have to come out in Court next day, while I examined one of them.

Tom Orbell said the one word: “Who?”

There was a long pause. The sky in the west was a luminous apple-green shading into cobalt blue above the college.