25: A Postscript

'DEAR Mrs. Bredon,

'It was very kind of you to write and ask after me, and I hope it wasn't mere curiosity that prompted you to do it, as you suggest. I've been here, of course, in this rather delightful Belgian country town, ever since the police got news that Derek was here---the result, somebody told me, of a wireless broadcast. Anyhow, it seemed only decent to come out and see that he was being looked after. Though that, indeed, was quite unnecessary, because the nuns have made him comfortable all the time, as far as he could be made comfortable.

'To answer your question---yes, I think your husband was exactly right in every particular. One or two explanations have been forthcoming, e.g. why Derek left me so little time to commit my imaginary murder in. It turns out that I was to blame for this, because I took so much longer getting away from Millington Bridge than I was expected to. As he had worked the thing out, we ought to have arrived at Shipcote with a clear half-hour or more for me to catch the train in. As it was, I started out late from the inn; and Derek, though he was annoyed by the delay, couldn't offer to help me with the paddling, because it was part of his plan to appear very tired and sleepy. If we had been more punctual, my alibi would have been singularly imperfect. But then if we'd been more punctual Derek would have passed Farris in the lock stream, and that would have complicated things all round.

'The footprints on the bridge had, after all, a certain raison d'être. Derek meant it to be supposed that I meant it to be supposed that the murderer had come from Byworth, and had made off in the Byworth direction; that he walked backwards as a piece of obvious bluff which the police would see through. (Only a dope-fiend, I imagine, could have worked out that idea of triple bluff, and expected the police to follow two-thirds of the calculation.) You were expected to think that the films dropped from my pocket on the Shipcote bank by accident.

'There's nothing more, I think, for me to clear up except Derek's movements after he left the river. He did, of course, go via Southampton and Havre, and he travelled straight on to Paris. There he took refuge in a class of society where no questions are asked and shaving is optional. He started growing a moustache and beard, and was listening eagerly for news of my arrest. But when that didn't happen, and the papers still refused to recognize his death, he left Paris and came here, dropping the name of Wallace as he did so. He had started taking drugs again, and soon after he got here he fainted in the street. He was brought to this hospital, where the nuns had never heard the name of Burtell; and he was too sick to read the newspapers at the time when Aunt Alma died. In fact, he knew nothing more of what was going on here until the police tracked him down.

'There's one other circumstance about Derek which may not interest you, but interested me profoundly. He was engaged to some French girl, who proceeded to turn up at his bedside as soon as she heard of his whereabouts, and I'm blessed if they didn't get married. Which was all very proper and romantic; but it had the awkward consequence that D. drew up a will in favour of his wife, which he calmly asked me to witness! So Aunt Alma's legacy will not come into my branch of the family.

'However, what I wanted to tell you about was my first interview with Derek. It was almost immediately after I got here; he insisted on seeing me alone; and, though I dreaded the interview, I had to go through with it. He was frightfully broken down, poor chap, whimpering all the time and very nearly crying. He grovelled quite dreadfully about his attempt to let me in for a murder charge; said that he'd been made silly by drugs, and wasn't really responsible for his actions. He said he didn't think he'd really have let me swing---which I didn't believe. And I had to sit there like a fool, saying "Oh, shut up; don't mention it", and that sort of thing; and all the time I could see that he was leading up to something---I couldn't make out what.

'At last it came. They had cut him off, of course, from his drug, and he was simply dying to get some. There was some, apparently, hidden away in his luggage, and he hadn't dared to ask the doctor for it, or any of the nuns. He wanted me to fetch it and give it him. I said, of course, that he was far better without it; that he'd only kill himself if he took more. He said he didn't mind; he was for it anyhow; what difference could a week or two make? I was still arguing about it when the nurse came in and turned me out; said I mustn't tire him by talking to him any longer. I went straight to Derek's luggage, and found the dope just where he'd told me. I put it into my pocket, and went out for a little walk by myself.

'What Derek said was perfectly true, and I knew it better than he did. The doctor had told me that the poor chap hadn't an earthly chance. He wasn't a bit interested in life, and I honestly think he'd sooner have poisoned himself with a last dose or two than flickered out gradually. A streak of good-fellowship in my nature kept on urging me to let him have the stuff. At the same time, I knew that it would kill him off---the doctor had warned me of that; and as there was still three weeks or so to run before he turned twenty-flve, that would mean that grandpapa's fifty thousand came into my pocket, where it was needed, instead of being handed over to a beastly Insurance Company, which wouldn't even say thank you for it.

'I leant over a bridge across the river; and all the time my mind was back at the Gudgeon, with the open window and the sun streaming in, and the motors buzzing over Eaton Bridge, and that fool peacock on the lawn. I remembered exactly how you said that if I were waiting to murder a man and he fell into the river, I should find myself jumping in to rescue him. I remember what you said about sticking to the rules of the game, because it was the only thing to do. And I remembered how I' protested, and sworn that I'd do nothing of the kind; and how old-fashioned I thought you. Well, here I was, in very much the required position. Here was a man I'd always hated, and I couldn't summon up any respect for him even on his death-bed. He'd been spreading himself, only a fortnight or so before, in an attempt to get me hanged on a false charge of murder. It wasn't a question of killing him; it was only a question of providing him, at his own earnest demand, with a kind of drug which had come to be necessary to his happiness, but which, quite incidentally, would kill him if he took it. It was a kind of Philip Sidney touch; and my reward for it would be fifty thousand down---fifty thousand which poor old grandpapa never meant to go out of the family.

'And the awful thing was that I found you were right. It wasn't that your wishes in the matter had any influence with me; you hadn't expressed a wish, you'd only made a prophecy. And all my conscious reaction on that was an intense desire to prove you wrong; to be able to write and tell you that you were wrong. And yet I couldn't do it; some curious inhibition stood in my way. It can hardly have been a moral scruple, for I don't remember having any these last four or five years. It wasn't the fear of being found out, because Derek was in such a dicky state anyhow that nobody would have been surprised at his pegging out any time. It was just an absurd something. There was nothing for it but to stick to the rules---leave it to chance whether Derek lived till his birthday or not. My hand (not my mind, not my will) dropped the packet very dehberately into the river.

'Next day this French girl turned up, and that seemed to brace Derek a bit; the doctor admitted that it was a slight rally, but said there was still no hope. The days dragged on, and by the night of September the second I found myself in a curious state of equilibrium. I wasn't wanting Derek to die, or wanting him to live. I wasn't even personally interested, so it seemed to me, in the question whether he lived or died. I was simply a detached spectator, with only a spectator's excitement about the game Fate was playing with Derek and with me. I went to bed with an effort, and when I got up I found there was a priest buzzing round, which made me think for a moment that it was all over. But it wasn't; Derek died about ten o'clock on his birthday morning, looking ridiculously happy.

'Well, I hadn't cheated; and if that was virtue in me, the virtue will jolly well have to be its own reward. My stepfather has raised a job for me out in the States, a job which means "starting at the bottom", in the discouraging modern phrase. So I am going to turn into Mr. Quirk after all. The European creases of my mind will all be flattened out in that world of engaging simplicity; and if we ever meet again (which is improbable) you will find me explaining to you that two and two makes four on the other side.

'Don't for the Lord's sake condole with me, or congratulate me. The thing had got to happen; it has happened; and I'm glad I didn't interfere.

'Yours kindly, NIGEL BURTELL.'

THE END