‘Yus.’ Lummy, he was in now!
‘What photo?’
‘’E ’as it on ’im.’
‘Who?’
‘Your ’usband. Mr George Wilby. That’s right, ain’t it?’
‘Mr Wilby is my husband. And this photo, I suppose you are going to tell me, was of—some woman?’
Her tone was getting cold again.
‘Yes, mum, it was of you,’ answered Ben. ‘That’s why I come. That and the address. ’E ’ad it on ’im, and I—well, I dunno zackly why, but seein’ the photo—corse, that’s ’ow I reckernized yer comin’ aht o’ the door—and, well, things bein’ like they was, I felt a bit sorry fer yer, like, if yer git me, so I thort “I’ll come along and tell ’er fust sort o’ quiet like,” espeshully knowin’ orl I does and thinkin’ she orter know that, too, lummy, that’s goin’ ter tike a bit o’ time, but mind yer it was a risk, in fack I nearly didn’t come, ’cos, see, if the pleece find me ’ere I’m for it, I’ll swing, doncher worry, though it’s Gawd’s truth I never done it, but jest found ’im like ’e was in that hempty ’ouse—’
He paused, breathless, as a car stopped outside. There followed a few moments of deathly silence. Mrs Wilby sat rigid, her eyes staring, her cheeks pale, the knuckles of her tightly clenched hands showing white in her lap. Then came steps, and then the front-door bell.
Neither had to look out of the window to feel convinced it was a police car.
The bell rang again, followed this time by the sound of the knocker. Mrs Wilby got up from her chair, steadied herself at a little table beside it, and then walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
‘This is the finish,’ decided Ben. ‘Well, when yer on the hend o’ the rope, it’s quick!’
He heard the front door open. Mug he’d been to take that pound note. What help was it going to be that Bushy Brows had all the others? Bushy Brows had vanished and would never be heard of again, and if Ben mentioned him to the police they’d say he’d made him up. Corse they would! That was what murderers did, wasn’t it? Made somebody up! And here were the policemen who wouldn’t believe him, here in the hall just the other side of the drawing-room door, He could hear their voices, though not their words. He was glad she had closed the door, but it wouldn’t stay closed for long. In a moment it would open, and then … Yus, he ought never to of took that note—and he ought never to of took that cab! That fair made him the mug of mugs, because of course the police would get on to the taximan, and was the taximan going to forget he’d received a clean new one-pound note from a bloke like Ben? If he didn’t have the note on him he’d know who he passed it on to, and seeing Mr Wilby probably got it from the bank where he worked you could bet it would be easy pie to trace the number …
Why didn’t the door open, and get it over? Ben’s eyes were glued on it, but it remained shut. Was they still torkin’? He listened, but now he could hear nothing. Lummy, that was queer, wasn’t it? Where’d they gone?
A minute went by. Then another. Unable to bear it any longer he tiptoed to the door. Not a sound came from the hall, and after a moment of hesitation he turned the handle and softly opened the door an inch. Peering cautiously through the crack he saw that the hall was empty, but faintly-heard voices sounded behind a door on the other side of the hall.
‘She’s took ’em in there fust,’ he decided, ‘ter ’ear wot they say, and then they’ll come along ter me, and good-bye, Ben!’
A few feet to the left of his projecting nose was the front door, and he nearly succumbed to its temptation, but two reasons dissuaded him from a dash for liberty, and as he closed the drawing-room door again and returned to his seat he could not have told you which of the reasons had been the dominant. One was the police car outside. There would probably still be the driver in it, in which case he’d be caught before he’d begun, and would be self-convicted. He had already had one example that afternoon of the trouble you could get into by running away before you were charged. Of course, there might be nobody in the car (he did not go to the window to look, lest temptation should return, or his own face be seen), but even so they’d probably catch him in the end, with all their clues, and then ask, ‘If you were innocent why did you bunk?’
The second reason that had brought him back into the room was, perhaps, less explainable—but there it was, you couldn’t get away from it. Mrs Wilby must have known that, by leaving him alone, he would have his chance. So—well, she’d sort of trusted him like not to take it. Unless—another thought suddenly intruded—she had meant him to take it? Had she led the police into the room across the hall to give him this opportunity to escape? Well, even so, he couldn’t work it. He’d got a lot more to let her know, and he couldn’t do that from five miles off.
Four or five minutes must have gone by before he heard sounds in the hall again, and at last the door opened. To his surprise, only Mrs Wilby came in, and she only stayed for an instant. She gave him a quick glance, revealing nothing by her expression, took a handkerchief from the table beside the chair she had been sitting in, and then left him once more to himself.
‘Well, I’m blowed!’ he thought. ‘Wozzat mean?’
Another period of waiting had to be endured. It lasted about as long as the first. Then the door across the hall opened, the fact revealed by the renewed audibility of the voices—one was saying, ‘Very well, Mrs Wilby—in half an hour’—footsteps moved towards the front door, and the front door opened and closed.
Ben listened in surprised relief to the sound of the departing police car, and the sound had not died away before Mrs Wilby returned to him. She looked pale, but composed.
‘Well—they’ve gone,’ she said.
‘Yus. I ’eard,’ answered Ben. ‘Why didn’t yer bring ’em in ’ere?’
‘Did you want me to?’
‘Gawd, no!’
‘Then I expect that’s why I didn’t. You’ve got some more to tell me, haven’t you?’
He nodded. ‘Tha’s a fack!’
‘I want to hear it—and of course you will want to hear what the police said. I didn’t mention you—’
‘Go on!’
‘Surely you must realise they’d have come in here if I had?’
‘Yus, only I thort p’r’aps you’d menshuned me but jest said I’d come and gorn, like?’
‘I see. Yes, I could have done that. And if you had gone I might have mentioned you. I came back in the middle of our interview to find out whether you were still here or not.’
‘Oh!
