John Brown's Body by A. L. Barker Page B

so.”
    “Are you a bigamist as well?”
    “As well as what?”
    “Where did you find them and when did you marry them?”
    “We met on a boat, crossing from the Isle of Wight. There was a storm and they thought the boat would sink. I found them on deck, waiting beside the life-boats.”
    “What did you think about them?”
    “It was pouring with rain. I made them go down into the saloon –”
    Still more she wanted to know, “What do you think about me?”
    She was watching him closely for his unspeakable thoughts, but after one glare of dismay his face turned wooden.
    “I think you’re very kind.”
    “You’re a nice one to keep talking about kindness,” she said crossly. “I don’t call that a long story. What were you doing on the Isle of Wight.”
    “I went for a day trip. I like the sea, I wanted to go to sea as a boy, in the Merchant Navy. But things turned out otherwise – and I think for the best. The last five years have been the best for me.”
    “Not before? Ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen years ago, wasn’t it nice for you then?” Fifteen years ago he should have been dead.
    “I’ve only known Bertha about five years. It was Bertha you wanted to hear about.”
    “Five years?” So that was it, and if the woman had married him and stayed married without knowing what he was she must be even stupider than Marise had supposed. Perhaps she had found out too late, perhaps he wouldn’t let her go. What kind of private fun had he had in the last five years, the best years for him?
    “So it all happened before Bertha. And this is the best you can expect now.” Marise nodded, any time was better than none, any living was better than hanging. “You can tell me if you like. And if you like I’ll promise not to tell anyone else. If,” she added scrupulously, “there’s anything you don’t want anyone else to know. I would never break my promise without your permission. You’d have to come to me and say, ‘Marise Tomelty, I release you from your vow, you may talk without fear or favour about me and anything I told you’.”
    “I didn’t come here to talk about myself.”
    “You came to talk to me and what I want to hear about is yourself.”
    He sighed, the sigh provoked her, she hated people standing away and sighing at her. “I have been the receiver of confidences from very important people. Like my uncle. If I mentioned his name you’d get a shock.”
    “I’ve nothing to confide.”
    “I could surprise you.”
    “You do surprise me,” he said.
    “But while I’m under a vow of silence wild horses can’t drag anything out of me. I shan’t tell you what I know about my uncle.”
    “I wouldn’t want you to break a promise – to me or to anyone.”
    “My Uncle Fred Macey –” Marise threw at him and waited.
    “I ought to be going.” He lifted the cracked cup from its pool of tea. “I’m afraid I’ve made a mess.”
    “He was at Scotland Yard until he retired. Detective-Inspector Macey. He was constantly in the Sunday papers.”
    Wiping his fingers with his handkerchief he seemed about to wipe the table with it as well. The tea was seeping steadily out of the cup, overwhelming a grain in the wood it rolled to the edge of the table, caramel-coloured. “Hadn’t we better mop it up?”
    “It’s shaped like a camel,” said Marise.
    He dropped his handkerchief into the puddle. The initials in one corner stood out white a moment longer, then ‘R.S.’ turned fawn with the rest. “The tea will take the polish off.”
    “My uncle was at Scotland Yard,” Marise said again, not so much a reminder for him as a launching point for herself.
    “That must have been interesting.” He was mopping and fussing with the handkerchief. “If we had a saucer it would save further leakage.”
    “There isn’t a saucer.” The veins on the backs of his hands intrigued her. Why were they green? In butchers’ shops the meat was red, purple and yellow, not green. Was he different from