The Little Walls by Winston Graham

  Mme Weber said: ‘‘ Draw up your chair and talk to me. I’m a poor substitute, but Leonie will be back.’’

  ‘‘What makes you think so?’’

  ‘‘A feeling I have. Psychic. Philip, what is the mystery going on around you? Provokin’ not to know.’’

  ‘‘Did she say she’d be back?’’

  ‘‘Kick Gimbel for me, will you. He’s being exploratory. Yes, she said I was to say to you that she had to go and that she thought you’d understand. I don’t know why I permit him in the drawing-room.’’

  ‘‘She thought I’d understand.’’

  ‘‘Don’t you? Very difficult. There are some things one can’t do by remote control. Sorry.’’

  ‘‘It isn’t your fault.’’

  ‘‘I don’t know. I was reading Proust at the time, and he’s demandin’. One has to pursue him, like a coy bachelor. Philip, I wish I could help you.’’

  ‘‘I know. Thank you.’’

  ‘‘Tell me about the great world outside. Not that I don’t shudder to know. Your Martin Coxon is quite a spark, isn’t he. Those sombre dark eyes. Engulfin’.’’

  ‘‘Did she leave her address in Rome?’’

  ‘‘Should think he’s been quite a Pied Piper for the women. We women love a hint of mystery, you know. Adolescent. No, she didn’t, Philip, she said she’d write. Is that Jane and Nicolo back already?’’

  It turned out not to be Jane and Nicolo but Mile Henriot, so I refused an invitation to stay to dinner and left. This was something else I had to think out now. I felt I needed a new brain to deal with Leonie’s going (was it flight?)—a new detachment to set it in its perspective. The trouble was that all the uncertain feelings of a man properly in love for the first time in his life kept trying to crash in at this point. It shouldn’t have made any difference to the older and more recognisable loyalties—and didn’t in sum—but it set them out of focus, made me less certain of my judgment, when, if ever, I needed now to be objective and keep my hands cool.

  In the hall Sanbergh was talking into the telephone, but as I went past he hung up and said; ‘‘You are going early. Have you had a drink?’’

  ‘‘Thanks, no. I expect Coxon will be waiting for me by now.’’

  His eyes slid over me in that expert way they had. ‘‘It is a pity Leonie has gone.’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’ I didn’t want to discuss it with him.

  ‘‘She didn’t hint at it before you left?’’

  I stopped at the door. ‘‘ I don’t think I quite understand you, Sanbergh. Three or four days ago you made it rather plain that you didn’t want me around. Well, I stayed around. I was sorry about it, but I could live without your approval. Now … the hate campaign seems to have been called off. I’m not quick enough on the change.’’

  He shut the little cubby-hole where the telephone was kept and came over to the door, stood with a hand on it looking out at the evening. ‘‘I’m glad you mentioned it; I had intended to. On Tuesday Leonie told me a little about why you had come here. I don’t understand the whole of it, but I understand enough to acknowledge my misjudgement.’’

  ‘‘I still don’t know what the misjudgment was.’’

  His mouth curved, Pan-like but formidable. ‘‘ I am Charlotte Weber’s oldest friend. Twenty years ago when she was even more beautiful than she is today, I was her friend in another way. Often she has helped me. Sometimes I have been able to repay.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘But she’s a gullible creature. That’s how she married so often. Such a mistake. And she’s very much liable to be imposed upon, especially by the sham æsthete, the artistic dilettante. No doubt she has a heart big enough for all, but that isn’t the point. To see her taken in by every smooth little cheat … There are many come to Capri … and because she is rich and easy … There’s one such in her house now—to my shame an Italian like, myself——’’

  ‘‘Da Cossa?’’

  He nodded. ‘‘He has battened himself on her for twelve months. On so many things she listens to me, but if I try to pick her friends she says I’m jealous and we quarrel.’’

  I said: ‘‘And you thought I was another?’’

  ‘‘Does it surprise you? The approach could hardly have been more well-worn: the scraped acquaintance, the pretence of being able to paint, the unsubtle flattery … Then when I sent to the hotel and found you were not even using your own name here, I thought it might be a matter for the police.’’

  ‘‘I’m sorry. I do paint, you know.’’

  ‘‘Oh yes, I understand that—now.’’

  He came out of the door, and we stood a minute on the steps listening to the quiet sighing of the night.

  I said: ‘‘When I first met you I thought da Cossa was a special friend of yours.’’

  ‘‘Was that why you showed a dislike of me?’’

  ‘‘No … I don’t think I can explain my mistake as easily as you have yours.’’

  ‘‘If it was no more excusable, it is no less pardonable.’’

  A liner was coming into the Bay of Naples. It glittered like a telescopic view of the Milky Way.

  I said: ‘‘You might ask da Cossa some time to do you another pastel like the one of the Faraglioni Rocks.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘Because he never painted it. He’s bogus even in that.’’

  Sanbergh was a step lower than I was, and he turned and faced me. ‘‘Are you sure? Why are you sure?’’

  ‘‘I’ve seen him at work. How would you know if a man could sail a yacht?’’

  He walked with me thoughtfully to the gate.

  He said: ‘‘You are—interested in Leonie Winter?’’

  I didn’t somehow mind the direct question now. ‘‘Yes.’’

  He opened the gate. ‘‘She hasn’t gone to Rome.’’

  ‘‘Where is she, then?’’

  ‘‘At a place called Poltano. It’s a village in the hills above Amalfi.’’

  ‘‘Why has she gone there?’’

  ‘‘I thought perhaps you might know about it. I wasn’t sure.’’

  ‘‘Did she tell you?’’

  ‘‘No. She left on the afternoon boat yesterday, and by chance the captain of the boat mentioned to me that she had got off at Sorrento. You do not get off at Sorrento for Rome. After that it was easy. You see, I know almost everyone.’’

  It occurred to me that if Sanbergh was likely to be an uncomfortable enemy, he might also be a very useful friend.

  ‘‘Does Mme Weber know?’’

  ‘‘She must. Leonie is staying in one of her villas.’’

  ‘‘One of her villas?’’

  ‘‘She owns property there. You may remember we went up on business connected with it the day you came with us to Amalfi. There are a number of small houses and flats.’’

  I didn’t speak.

  He said after a minute: ‘‘ I don’t think you should feel that this is anything Mme Weber has done against you. I can only imagine that Leonie found some need to leave the island for a few days and asked Charlotte to help her. She must have sworn Charlotte to secrecy if Charlotte has kept it even from me.’’

  I said: ‘‘ Do you know the name of the place she’s staying? How would I find it?’’

  I think he smiled in the dark. ‘‘It is number fifteen Piazza San Stefano. It is easy, for there is nothing at Poltano except the Piazzo and the Cathedral. If you find Poltano there’s nothing more to find.’’

  Coxon still wasn’t back, so I had dinner and then sat and waited for him. All I’d learned in these last few days fairly milled in my head. I kept trying to think why Leonie had gone and what I should do about it. It fitted into a pattern but not a pattern I liked. Then I got undressed and lay in bed and smoked and drank Soave and listened for footsteps in the next room.

  For a change I tried to think about Grevil, but now for some reason his image escaped me. I tried to think what he looked like, and wished I had a photo to bring the blurred lines up. A
fter a bit my mind went back to 1942 again and the meeting I had with him just before I went into the Navy. He had just thrown up his scientific job and was trying to get posted into the Commandos—a target he never made. I remember he seemed pretty elated at the time, like someone who has just got a load off his back—but also exasperated because some of his friends, knowing nothing of the scientific stuff he’d been working on, looked on his decision to go and fight as a patriotic act. He was young, twenty-eight, and so they thought he’d nobly decided that he wouldn’t accept the safety of the back-room boy any longer. I remember him saying to me: ‘‘Well, yes, of course, I’m patriotic. I’m loyal to king and country and the rest. In any case, who could help but be, with the enemy what they are? But if anything this is an act of unpatriotism—to the group—because it’s an act of loyalty to the individual— myself—and what I believe in. God knows it’s not a ‘gesture’, it’s not brave, it’s not in the very least self-sacrificing, and any attempt to label it as such is drum-thumping crazy. Nor is it noble or a ‘gesture’ for the opposite reason. I’m neither a better nor a worse man because of it. I am what I was before. If a person doesn’t know his own mind and his own conscience, he doesn’t know anything at all.’’

  I wondered if Grevil had so surely known his own mind in those last minutes of his life in Amsterdam.

  Something Count Louis Joachim had said at our meeting kept recurring, but I couldn’t get it right. Then suddenly I remembered. ‘‘Always he was one to set himself the almost impossible task. How would he, I wonder, tolerate failure from whatever source it came? The ordinary person does not risk as much to begin or feel as much to finish. Whereas the man of high ideas sometimes has not the spiritual ambiguity to compromise. He cannot or he will not. They must conquer or die who have no retreat.’’

  Had Louis Joachim understood Grevil better than any of us, after all?

  While I was wondering, I heard the man who—whatever the full explanation—was directly responsible for Grevil’s death come into the room next to mine.

  Seeing him standing in my own doorway a couple of minutes later you could forget for a minute or two he was not at heart a sailor; the blue jersey, the quick-footed easy standing, the subdued air of being used to command; you could forget it until you saw the tight-skinned pallor of a face that never seemed to catch the sun, the long elegant cheek-bones that would have pleased a twelfth-dynasty Egyptian, the handsome wild eyes. He’d been drinking, and for once it showed in his eyes.

  ‘‘Well?’’ he said.

  ‘‘You’ve been out late,’’ I said. ‘‘ Had a good day?’’

  ‘‘Fairish. I didn’t really expect you till tomorrow. What’s the news, good or bad?’’

  I stared into his eyes. It was a good effort on his part, and I could tell the interest was pretended only because it was overdone. ‘‘I don’t know which you’d call it.’’

  Perhaps something in my own voice wasn’t as easy as usual. He went to the french window and began to light a cigar.

  ‘‘They’ve found somebody else who saw Grevil jump into the canal. It’s genuine enough: I met the witness. That was the chief item. Then there was some story about dope smuggling.’’ I went on to tell him the details. I thought, the longer I can speak the truth to him the longer I’ll be able to keep up the pretence.

  He said when I’d finished: ‘‘So—he did do it after all …’’

  ‘‘Yes. My—our hunch was wrong.’’

  He threw his match away, stood with his hands in his pockets for a minute or so. His shoulders were broad in the doorway. I watched him and waited.

  He said: ‘‘ What do you feel about it?’’

  ‘‘Blind angry.’’

  ‘‘Who with?’’

  ‘‘Chiefly myself. I’ve been clinging to something as to an absolute article of faith. Well, that’s gone up the chimney. It seems to me that if Grevil wasn’t murdered, there isn’t much worth-while left to discover.’’

  ‘‘So what are you going to do?’’

  ‘‘Drop the whole thing. It’s finished, Martin. Done with. Over.’’

  He turned. ‘‘Some feelings go sour on you, go rotten if you plug them too long.’’

  ‘‘Help me finish this bottle.’’

  He shook his head tautly. ‘‘Are you going, to give up the search for Buckingham?’’

  ‘‘What chance is there of finding him? Next to none.’’

  ‘‘You’ve been up to the Villa Atrani?’’

  ‘‘Yes. They say Leonie has left for Rome.’’

  ‘‘She went yesterday. I didn’t know about it until she had gone. I couldn’t have stopped her but I might have followed her.’’ He looked at the end of his cigar, his mouth pulled down, apparently bitter. ‘‘I doubt if we shall see her again.’’

  ‘‘You think she’s gone to join Buckingham?’’

  ‘‘… Yes.’’

  I drank some more wine. He stood irresolutely in the middle of the room.

  ‘‘I’m sorry about Grevil,’’ he said abruptly. ‘‘Damned sorry. You know that. Because I know how much it meant to you.’’

  Perhaps it was what he had drunk, but again it seemed he was overplaying his hand. The sham sympathy was like poison to me.’’

  I said: ‘‘What have you been doing today? Catch any decent fish?’’

  ‘‘I gave most of the catch to the boatman and saved just a few of the best for the signora downstairs. We shall get it for breakfast, don’t worry.’’

  ‘‘Have you been out all day?’’

  ‘‘Since about eleven. There seemed nothing else to do, since I was wasting your money and time. About Grevil——’’

  ‘‘I was thinking of taking a boat tomorrow. What did you do for food all that time?’’

  He hesitated a second. ‘‘Oh, we landed at Amalfi. I had a meal there and then walked about a bit. It’s pleasant enough. Have you been?’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ I said, my skin prickling. Because at that moment looking at him and seeing something in his face, I knew with absolute certaintly that he had spent the day with Leonie. I knew it just as if he had told me, and I knew that Leonie had gone back to him.

  After he’d left, I went back and sat on the bed. Some ash from his agar made a white pyramid in the ash-tray. The smell of the smoke still hung in the room. I went and tipped the ash out into the garden. I came back and lit a cigarette. My hands weren’t quite steady. I knew now what I was going to do.

  I slid out of the room and went down the passage, and so to the foyer of the hotel. There was a telephone box in the corner. I called the Villa Atrani. I wasn’t too late. Sanbergh was still there.

  I said: ‘‘I’m very sorry to trouble you at this time, but do you remember offering to lend me your outboard motor-boat if I ever wanted it?’’

  ‘‘Of course. When would you like it?’’

  ‘‘Tomorrow perhaps—tomorrow morning. I’d like to have a day’s fishing. That’s if you’re not using it yourself.’’

  ‘‘It exists for the convenience of my friends. Ernesto will be on the yacht. If you should be there before me in the morning tell him you have my permission.’’

  ‘‘Thank you very much … I hope to catch at least one fish.’’

  ‘‘That’s not very ambitious.’’

  ‘‘It could be.’’

  There was a pause. ‘‘Well, that’s your business, isn’t it?’’

  ‘‘Thank you for being so incurious.’’

  ‘‘I’m not incurious … only discreet. Oh, I mentioned the picture to da Cossa when he came in tonight’’

  ‘‘Yes?’’

  ‘‘I think I have a stick and shall use it carefully. It will give me great pleasure.’’

  ‘‘Good luck.’’ ‘‘Good luck to you,’’ he said.

  I went back to my room and dressed again in a sweater and a pair of denim slacks and old tennis shoes. Then I sat and waited until his light clicked out. After that I gave him half an hour.
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  It wasn’t necessary to go out by the stairs again. The other morning when going to the Grotto I’d simply shinned over the balcony and made a way out through the forecourt I did the same tonight.

  It was nearly two when I got down to the Piccola Marina, and the moon had set, but there was enough light to see the yacht riding at anchor, in the bay. I’d been prepared for a swim but it was not necessary. The little boat was moored alongside the stone quay and was apparently open for anyone to steal. As Mme Weber said, that wasn’t the sort of crime they went in for on Capri.

  There was no light on the yacht, and it took only ten minutes to check things up and do what I wanted to do.

  Then I went home to bed. I didn’t sleep well, but at least I dozed fitfully through the rest of the night and don’t remember having a single nightmare. Perhaps the nightmares were reserving themselves for the coming day.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We had breakfast together on his balcony. He seemed in a strange mood, over-taut but quiet, his eyes shadowed.

  When we had nearly finished I said: ‘‘Sanbergh has offered me his motor-boat for today. I think I shall see if I can get ashore on the outer Faraglioni.’’

  ‘‘It’s only another rock, isn’t it?’’

  ‘‘Well, there’s this tale about the blue lizards.’’

  ‘‘Any proprietary brand of Scotch would give a better yield.’’

  I said: ‘‘Well, we’ve nothing else to do until we decide to go home, and I don’t propose to do that for a day or two in case Leonie does return. Coming?’’

  He ate in silence for a minute, staring rather blankly at the blue line of the sea. It was a perfect day but hazy. ‘‘ I don’t think so, Philip.’’

  ‘‘What’s the matter?’’

  ‘‘Matter? Nothing.’’

  ‘‘You seem quiet.’’

  ‘‘I’m all right.’’

  ‘‘You feel you’ve wasted your time?’’

  ‘‘No, why should I?’’

  I said: ‘‘ I don’t feel excessively sunny myself.’’