The Listening Eye

It was a little time before the door opened and Moira Herne came in. When you have heard a lot about someone, there is always a moment in a first actual meeting when it seems as if the person whom you have only met in thought is one person, and the one who confronts you in the flesh is another. Mi

She put out her hand, but since there was no answering movement she let it drop again as she said,

“I am Arthur’s aunt, my dear. His mother was my sister Gwen. I expect he has told you about me, and I have heard a great deal about you.”

There was a blue and green rug on the morning-room floor. It would be a little over six foot wide. Mi

“What do you want?”

And from her side of the gulf Mi

“I wanted to comfort you.”

It was already in the past tense, because she knew now that Moira didn’t want her comfort.

Moira stood there and stared. She said,

“Why?”

“For Arthur’s death.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know why you’ve come.”

Mi

“I brought you some things which I thought you would like to have. I thought it would comfort you to have them.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“He talked to me about you. He said you were in love with each other. He said you were going to be married.”

“I’m afraid he was telling the tale.”

All the way that she had come Mi

“There were the letters-your letters. I thought perhaps you would like to have them back.”

That light fixed look of Moira’s changed. It had been cold enough, now it became wary. She said,

“So that’s it, is it? My letters? What do you want for them?”

Mi

She had left her black handbag on the arm of the chair. She turned round to get it now. She began to open it.

“He kept them. I thought you would like to have them.”

Moira crossed the blue and green rug and came to stand beside her.

“Have you got them with you-all of them? Let me have them-they’re mine!”

The bag was a capacious one. It held the packet of letters easily enough. There were not so very many of them. The affair had been a brief madness-a quick blaze up like burning straw, a rush of hot air, and then nothing but ash. No, there were not so many of the letters, but there ought to be more than this. She said so without compromise.

“There ought to be more. Where are the rest?”

“I don’t know.”

“He said he had burned them-he promised he would. Where are they?”

She had been flicking over the letters in the packet. There were two missing-the really damning ones. And the photographs. She must have been mad to let him take them- quite, quite mad. If Lucy set eyes on them it would be all up with her. It was the sort of thing he was strict about, and not one pe

“There are two more letters, and three photographs-snapshots. He destroyed the films, but he had taken prints from them and he wouldn’t give them up. Where are they?”

Mi

“He had a very beautiful photograph of you in evening dress.”

“These were not in evening dress.”

They had not, as a matter of fact, been in any kind of dress at all. She really must have been mad. She said abruptly,

“You’ve got them of course. And if you’ve got them, you know damn well that I’ve got to have them! Stop holding out on me and come to the point! How much do you want? And you’d better be moderate, because I’m broke, and if you push me too hard, I shall just hand you over to the police. So get a move on!”

The whole fatigue of these days since Arthur’s death seemed to be pressing down on Mi

“You can be sent to prison for blackmail.”

Once long ago when she and Gwen were girls they had been chased by a bull. Down in the country it was, and Gwen had a dress with poppies on it and a red hat, and the bull had chased them. Gwen ran, but Mi

“Oh!” And then, “You oughtn’t to say a thing like that-it’s not right!”

“The letters and the photographs-where are they? Did you bring them with you?”

She remembered then. There was the packet of letters and there was an envelope, stuck down. She didn’t know what was in it because she hadn’t opened it. It was marked “Private. Keep safe. M.H.” and she had put it in her bag just in case. And because Arthur had marked it “Keep safe” she had put it in the inside pocket, which had really been made to take a piece of looking-glass, only the glass had been broken years ago. The envelope was there now. If it had Moira’s letters in it and the photographs which she didn’t want anyone to see, of course she would give them to her. But before she did that she must open the envelope and make sure of what was in it, because Arthur had marked it “Private, keep safe.” She had the bag in her two hands, her fingers clenched hard. She moved back now until she came to a table that had books on it and coloured primroses in a glass bowl. She set down the bag on the top of the books and opened it and got out the envelope. She didn’t like opening it, because it was marked private, but she had to be sure of what was in it. Her fingers fumbled with the flap of the envelope. It was gummed down very securely.