It occurred to Calgary with a faint shock of surprise, that this man confronting him was a happy man. Not buoyantly or zestfully happy, as is the normal way of happiness - but happy in some shadowy but satisfactory retreat of his own. This was a man on whom the outer world did not impinge and who was contented that this should be so. He did not know why he should be surprised by this - but he was.
Calgary said: "It is very kind of you to see me." The words were a mere mechanical introduction. "I thought it better to come in person than to write." He paused - then said in a sudden rush of agitation. "It is difficult - very difficult..."
"Do take your time."
Leo Argyle was still polite and remote.
He leaned forward; in his gentle way he was obviously trying to help.
Since you bring this letter from Marshall, I presume that your visit has to do with my unfortunate son Jacko - Jack, I mean - Jacko was our own name for him."
All Calgary's carefully prepared words and phrases had deserted him. He sat here, faced with the appalling reality of what he had to tell. He stammered again.
"It's so terribly difficult..."
There was a moment's silence, and then Leo said cautiously: "If it helps you -we're quite aware that Jacko was - hardly a normal personality. Nothing that you have to tell us will be likely to surprise us. Terrible as the tragedy was, I have been fully convinced all along that Jacko was not really responsible for his actions."
"Of course he wasn't." It was Hester, and Calgary started at the sound of her voice. He had momentarily forgotten about her. She had sat down on the arm of a chair just behind his left shoulder. As he turned his head, she leaned forward eagerly towards him.
"Jacko was always awful," she said confidentially. "He was just the same as a little boy - when he lost his temper, I mean. Just caught up anything he could find and - and went for you..."
"Hester - Hester - my dear." Argyle's voice was distressed.
Startled, the girl's hand flew to her lips. She flushed and spoke with the sudden awkwardness of youth.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean -1 forgot -1 -1 oughtn't to have said a thing like that - not now that he's -1 mean, now that it's all over and... and..."
"Over and done with," said Argyle. "All of this is in the past. I try - we all try - to feel that the boy must be regarded as an invalid. One of Nature's misfits. That, I think, expresses it best." He looked at Calgary. "You agree?"
"No," said Calgary.
There was a moment's silence. The sharp negative had taken both his listeners aback. It had come out with almost explosive force. Trying to mitigate its effect, he said awkwardly: "I - I'm sorry. You see, you don't understand yet."
"Oh!" Argyle seemed to consider. Then he turned his head towards his daughter.
"Hester, I think perhaps you'd better leave us..."
"I'm not going away! I've got to hear - to know what it's all about."
"It may be unpleasant..."
Hester cried out impatiently: "What does it matter what other awful things Jacko may have done? That's all over."
Calgary spoke quickly.
"Please believe me - there is no question of anything that your brother has done - quite the opposite."
"I don't see-"
The door at the far end of the room opened and the young woman whom Calgary had just glimpsed earlier came back into the room. She wore an outdoor coat now, and carried a small attache-case.
She spoke to Argyle.
"I'm going now. Is there anything else?"
There was a momentary hesitation on Argyle's part (he would always hesitate, Calgary thought) and then he laid a hand on her arm and drew her forward.
"Sit down, Gwenda," he said. "This is - er - Dr. Calgary. This is Miss Vaughan, who is - who is -"
Again he paused as though in doubt. "Who has been my secretary for some years now." He added: "Dr. Calgary has come to tell us something - or - ask us something - about Jacko -"
"To tell you something," Calgary interrupted. "And although you don't realise it, every moment you are making it more difficult for me."
They all looked at him in some surprise, but in Gwenda Vaughan's eyes he saw a flicker of something that looked like comprehension. It was as though he and she were momentarily in alliance, as though she had said: "Yes -1 know how difficult the Argyles can be."
She was an attractive young woman, he thought, though not so very young -perhaps thirty-seven or eight. A well-rounded figure, dark hair and eyes, a general air of vitality and good health. She gave the impression of being both competent and intelligent.
Argyle said with a frosty touch in his manner: "I am not at all aware of making things difficult for you, Dr. Calgary. Such was certainly not my intention. If you will come to the point -"
"Yes, I know. Forgive me for saying what I did. But it is the persistence with which you - and your daughter - are continually underlining that things are over - done with - finished. They are not over. Who is it who said: 'Nothing is ever settled until -'"
'"Until it is settled right,'" Miss Vaughan finished for him. "Kipling."
She nodded at him encouragingly. He felt grateful to her.
"But I'll come to the point," Calgary went on. "When you've heard what I have to say, you'll understand my - my reluctance. More, my distress. To begin with, I must mention a few things about myself. I am a geophysicist, and have recently formed part of an Antarctic expedition. I only returned to England a few weeks ago."
"The Hayes Bentley Expedition?" asked Gwenda. He turned towards her gratefully.
"Yes. It was the Hayes Bentley Expedition. I tell you this to explain my background, and also to explain that I have been out of touch for about two years with - with current events."
She went on helping him: "You mean - with such things as murder trials -" "Yes, Miss Vaughan, that is exactly what I mean." He turned to Argyle.
"Please forgive me if this is painful, but I must just check over with you certain times and dates. On November 9th, the year before last, at about six o'clock in the evening, your son, Jack Argyle (Jacko to you), called here and had an interview with his mother, Mrs. Argyle."
"My wife, yes."
"He told her that he was in trouble and demanded money. This had happened before -"
"Many times," said Leo with a sigh.
"Mrs. Argyle refused. He became abusive, threatening. Finally he flung away and left, shouting out that he was coming back and that she had 'jolly well got to stump up.' He said, 'You don't want me to go to prison, do you?' and she replied, 'I am beginning to believe that it may be the best thing for you.'"
Leo Argyle moved uneasily.
"My wife and I had talked it over together. We were - very unhappy about the boy. Again and again we had come to his rescue, tried to give him a fresh start. It had seemed to us that perhaps the shock of a prison sentence - the training -" His voice died away. "But please go on."
Calgary went on: "Later that evening, your wife was killed. Attacked with a poker and struck down. Your son's fingerprints were on the poker, and a large sum of money was gone from the bureau drawer where your wife had placed it earlier. The police picked up your son in Drymouth. The money was found on him, most of it was in five-pound notes, one of which had a name and address written on it which enabled it to be identified by the bank as one that had been paid out to Mrs. Argyle that morning. He was charged and stood his trial." Calgary paused. "The verdict was wilful murder."
It was out - the fateful word. Murder... not an echoing word; a stifled word, a word that got absorbed into the hangings, the books, the pile carpet... The word could be stifled - but not the act...
"I have been given to understand by Mr. Marshall, the solicitor for the defence, that your son protested his innocence when arrested, in a cheery, not to say cocksure manner. He insisted that he had a perfect alibi for the time of the murder which was placed by the police at between seven and seven-thirty. At that time, Jack Argyle said, he was hitch-hiking into Drymouth, having been picked up by a car on the main road from Redmyn to Drymouth about a mile from here just before seven. He didn't know the make of the car (it was dark by then) but it was a black or dark blue saloon driven by a middle-aged man. Every effort was made to trace this car and the man who drove it, but no confirmation of his statement could be obtained, and the lawyers themselves were quite convinced that it was a story hastily fabricated by the boy and not very cleverly fabricated at that...
"At the trial the main line of defence was the evidence of psychologists who sought to prove that Jack Argyle had always been mentally unstable. The judge was somewhat scathing in his comments on this evidence and summed up dead against the prisoner. Jack Argyle was sentenced to imprisonment for life. He died of pneumonia in prison six months after he began to serve his sentence."
Calgary stopped. Three pairs of eyes were fastened on him. Interest and close attention in Gwenda Vaughan's, suspicion still in Hester's. Leo Argyle's seemed blank.
Calgary said, "You will confirm that I have stated the facts correctly?"
"You are perfectly correct," said Leo, "though I do not yet see why it has been necessary to go over painful facts which we are all trying to forget."
"Forgive me. I had to do so. You do not, I gather, dissent from the verdict?"
"I admit that the facts were as stated - that is, if you do not go behind the facts, it was, crudely, murder. But if you do go behind the facts, there is much to be said in mitigation. The boy was mentally unstable, though unfortunately not in the legal sense of the term.
The McNaughten rules are narrow and unsatisfactory. I assure you, Dr. Calgary, that Rachel herself, my late wife, I mean - would have been the first to forgive and excuse that unfortunate boy for his rash act. She was a most advanced and humane thinker and had a profound knowledge of psychological factors. She would not have condemned."
"She knew just how violent Jacko could be," said Hester. "He always was - he just didn't seem able to help it."
"So you all," said Calgary slowly, "had no doubts? No doubts of his guilt, I mean."
Hester stared.
"How could we? Of course he was guilty."
"Not really guilty," Leo dissented. "I don't like that word."
"It isn't a true word, either." Calgary took a deep breath. "Jack Argyle was -innocent!"
Chapter 2
It should have been a sensational announcement.
Instead, it fell flat. Calgary had expected bewilderment, incredulous gladness struggling with incomprehension, eager questions... There was none of that. There seemed only wariness and suspicion. Gwenda Vaughan was frowning. Hester stared at him with dilated eyes. Well, perhaps it was natural - such an announcement was hard to take in all at once.
Leo Argyle said hesitantly: "You mean, Dr. Calgary, that you agree with my attitude? You don't feel he was responsible for his actions?"
"I mean he didn't do it! Can't you take it in, man? He didn't do it. He couldn't have done it. But for the most extraordinary and unfortunate combination of circumstances he could have proved that he was innocent. I could have proved that he was innocent."
"You?"
"I was the man in the car."
He said it so simply that for the moment they did not take it in. Before they could recover themselves, there was an interruption. The door opened and the woman with the homely face marched in. She spoke directly and to the point.
"I hear as I am passing the door outside. This man is saying that Jacko did not kill Mrs. Argyle. Why does he say this? How does he know?"
Her face, which had been militant and fierce, suddenly seemed to pucker. "I must hear too," she said piteously. "I cannot stay outside and not know."
"Of course not, Kirsty. You're one of the family." Leo Argyle introduced her. "Miss Lindstrom, Dr. Calgary. Dr. Calgary is saying the most incredible things."
Calgary was puzzled by the Scottish name of Kirsty. Her English was excellent but a faint foreign intonation remained.
She spoke accusingly to him.
"You should not come here and say things like that - upsetting people. They have accepted tribulation. Now you upset them by what you tell. What happened was the will of God."
He was repelled by the glib complacence of her statement. Possibly, he thought, she was one of those ghoulish people who positively welcome disaster. Well, she was going to be deprived of all that.
He spoke in a quick, dry voice.
"At five minutes to seven on that evening, I picked up a young man on the main Redmyn to Drymouth road who was thumbing for a lift. I drove him into Drymouth. We talked. He was, I thought, an engaging and likeable young man."
"Jacko had great charm," said Gwenda. "Everyone found him attractive. It was his temper let him down. And he was crooked, of course," she added thoughtfully. "But people didn't find that out for some time."
Miss Lindstrom turned on her.
"You should not speak so when he is dead."
Leo Argyle said with a faint asperity: "Please go on, Dr. Calgary. Why didn't you come forward at the time?"
"Yes." Hester's voice sounded breathless. "Why did you skulk away from it all? There were appeals in the paper - advertisements. How could you be so selfish, so wicked -"
"Hester - Hester!" her father checked her. "Dr. Calgary is still telling us his story."
Calgary addressed the girl direct.
"I know only too well how you feel. I know what I feel myself - what I shall always feel -" He pulled himself together and went on: "To continue with my story: There was a lot of traffic on the roads that evening. It was well after half past seven when I dropped the young man, whose name I did not know, in the middle of Drymouth. That, I understand, clears him completely, since the police are quite definite that the crime was committed between seven and half past."
