A Severed Head

'What's on?' I said.

'Gotterdammerung.'

I laughed.

Presently I got up and went to the cupboard to look for whisky. As I passed behind her I saw something lying upon the table. It was the Japanese sword, encased in its scabbard of lacquered wood, which usually hung in the hall. Honor Klein had evidently been continuing her dismantling activities. There was no whisky but I found a bottle of excellent brandy. I returned to the table with the bottle and two glasses. 'You'll join me?'

With a sort of effort she gave me her glance. Her face, in which I now apprehended a fugitive resemblance to Palmer, had a slumbrous look which I could not decipher. It might have been sheer weariness, it might have been resignation. She said after a moment, 'Thank you, yes, why not.' I realized, but without understanding and without curiosity, that somehow, in some way, she was in extremis. 1 poured out the brandy.

We sat in silence for a while. The room was begi

I said to Honor Klein, 'You didn't waste much time in having me brought to justice.'

She kept her eyes on the candles and smiled very slightly. 'Was it unpleasant?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I suppose so. Everything is so unpleasant nowadays it's hard to tell.' I found I could talk to her with remarkable directness. Our conversations were refreshingly lacking in formality. As I spoke I reached out automatically towards the sword, which lay with the blunt-ended scabbard towards me; but Honor Klein drew it away a little and I left my hand upon the table to fiddle with the bread crumbs.

I wondered if I should ask her why she had made Georgie confess, but found that I could not bring myself to do so. A nervous shrinking which was not exactly dislike made me hesitate to probe the motives of such a being. Therewith some vague yet powerful train of thought led me to say, 'I'm a broken reed after all.'

I was not sure why I said this, but some subterranean affinity with the thoughts of my companion must have prompted it, for she replied at once, 'Yes. It doesn't matter.'

We both sighed. My hand moved restlessly upon the table. I began to stare at the sword and to want very much to get hold of it. Honor was holding it in a possessive predatory way, her two hands on the scabbard, like a large animal holding down a small one. She faced the candles looking pale and rather haggard, her eyes screwed up as against a great light, and I tried in vain to detect what it was, other than a certain elusive air of authority, which made her resemble her brother; for the fact was that Palmer was beautiful while she was very nearly ugly. I contemplated her sallow cheek which shone dully like wax, and the black gleaming hair, oily, straight, and brutally short. She was a subject for Goya. Only the curve of her nostril and the curve of her mouth hinted, with a Jewish strength, a possible Jewish refinement. I said, 'Is the sword yours?' and as I spoke I put my hand on the end of the scabbard.

She stared a little and said, 'Yes. It's a Japanese Samurai sword, a very fine one. I used to have a great interest in Japan. I worked there for a time.' She drew the sword away again.

'You were with Palmer in Japan?'

'Yes.' She spoke as out of a deep dream.

I wanted her to know that I was present. I said, 'May I see the sword?'

I thought for a moment that she was going to ignore me. But she turned towards me as if taking thought. Then she twisted the thing about on the polished surface of the table. I expected her to offer me the hilt, but instead, as I reached for it, she took the hilt in her own hand and with a swift movement drew the sword from the scabbard. At the same time she rose to her feet.

The sword came out with a swishing clattering sound and disturbed candles flashed for a moment in the blade. She laid the scabbard on the table and let the blade descend more slowly until it lay along her thigh. Its bright surface showed against the dark material of her dress as with head bowed she gazed down along its slightly curving length.

When she spoke her voice was dry. She might have been in the lecture room. 'In Japan these swords are practically religious objects. They are forged not only with great care but with great reverence. And the use of them is not merely an art but a spiritual exercise.'

'So I have heard,' I said. I moved her chair out of the way so as to see her better and made myself comfortable, crossing one leg over the other. 'I am not attracted by the idea of decapitating people as a spiritual exercise.'

Somewhere, seeming at first to be inside my head, I heard a small sound. Then I realized it was a very distant peal of church bells; and I brought to mind that it was New Year's Eve. Some nearer bells took up the peal. We both listened for a moment in silence. Soon it would be the turn of the year.

Honor let the sword droop towards the floor. She said, 'Being a Christian, you co

'What do you co

She shrugged her shoulders. 'I am a Jew.'

'But you believe in the dark gods,' I said.

'I believe in people,' said Honor Klein. It was a rather unexpected reply.

I said, 'You sound rather like a fox saying it believes in geese.'

She laughed suddenly, and with that she laid her other hand upon the hilt and drew the sword upward with surprising swiftness to describe a great arc at the level of her head. It made a sound like a whip moving. The point came down within an inch of the arm of my chair and then descended again to the floor. I resisted an impulse to move back. I said, 'You can use it?'

'I studied it for several years in Japan, but I never got beyond the begi

'Show me something,' I said. I wanted to see her moving again.

She said, 'I am not a performer,' and turned away again towards the table. In the distance the church bells continued their mathematical jargoning.

The remnants of Palmer and Antonia's di

As I held it, looking up at her, I suddenly recalled the scene in the drawing-room when I had first seen Honor Klein confronting the other two like a young and ruthless captain. I laid the piece of linen on the table and said, 'That was a good trick.'

'It was not a trick,' said Honor. She had been standing before me, still holding the hilt in a two-handed grip, and looking down at one of the severed napkins. I saw that she was breathing deeply. Now she moved her chair back to the table and sat down. For a moment or two she lifted the sword, moving it as if it had become very heavy, and cooled her forehead on the blade, turning her head slowly against it with a caressing motion. Then she laid it down again on the table, still keeping one hand on the hilt. I looked at the corded hilt, long and dark, continuing the gentle sinister backward curve of the blade, the i