Rebecca

Doctor Baker was listening with great interest, but when Maxim had finished he shook his head. 'I'm most awfully sorry,' he said, 'but I think you've made a mistake. I should have remembered the name de Winter. I've never attended a Mrs de Winter in my life.'

Colonel Julyan brought out his note case and gave him the page he had torn from the engagement diary. 'Here it is, written down,' he said, 'Baker, two o'clock. And a big cross beside it, to show that the appointment was kept. And here is the telephone address. Museum 0488.'
Doctor Baker stared at the piece of paper. "That's very odd, very odd indeed. Yes, the number is quite correct as you say.'
'Could she have come to see you and given a false name?' said Colonel Julyan.

'Why, yes, that's possible. She may have done that. It's rather unusual of course. I've never encouraged that sort of thing. It doesn't do us any good in the profession if people think they can treat us like that.'
'Would you have any record of the visit in your files?' said Colonel Julyan. 'I know it's not etiquette to ask, but the circumstances are very unusual. We do feel her appointment with you must have some bearing on the case and her subsequent — suicide.'
'Murder,' said Favell.

Doctor Baker raised his eyebrows, and looked inquiringly at Maxim. 'I'd no idea there was any question of that,' he said quietly. 'Of course I understand, and I'll do anything in my power to help you. If you will excuse me a few minutes I will go and look up my files. There should be a record of every appointment booked throughout the year, and a description of the case. Please help yourself to cigarettes. It's too early to offer you sherry, I suppose?'

Colonel Julyan and Maxim shook their heads. I thought Favell was going to say something but Doctor Baker had left the room before he had a chance.
'Seems a decent sort of fellow,' said Colonel Julyan.
'Why didn't he offer us whisky and soda?' said Favell. 'Keeps it locked up, I suppose. I didn't think much of him. I don't believe he's going to help us now.'

Maxim did not say anything. I could hear the sound of the tennis balls from the court. The Scotch terrier was barking. A woman's voice shouted to him to be quiet. The summer holidays. Baker playing with his boys. We had interrupted their routine. A high-pitched, gold clock in a glass case ticked very fast on the mantelpiece. There was a postcard of the Lake of Geneva leaning against it. The Bakers had friends in Switzerland.

Doctor Baker came back into the room with a large book and a file-case in his hands. He carried them over to the table. I've brought the collection for last year,' he said. 'I haven't been through them yet since we moved. I only gave up practice six months ago you know.' He opened the book and began turning the pages. I watched him fascinated. He would find it of course. It was only a question of moments now, of seconds. 'The seventh, eighth, tenth,' he murmured, 'nothing here. The twelfth did you say? At two o'clock? Ah!'

We none of us moved. We all watched his face.
'I saw a Mrs Danvers on the twelfth at two o'clock,' he said.
'Danny? What on earth…" began Favell, but Maxim cut him short.
'She gave a wrong name, of course,' he said. "That was obvious from the first. Do you remember the visit now, Doctor Baker?'

But Doctor Baker was already searching his files. I saw his fingers delve into the pocket marked with D. He found it almost at once. He glanced down rapidly at his handwriting. 'Yes,' he said slowly. 'Yes, Mrs Danvers. I remember now.'
'Tall, slim, dark, very handsome?' said Colonel Julyan quietly.
'Yes,' said Doctor Baker. 'Yes.'

He read through the files, and then replaced them in the case. 'Of course,' he said, glancing at Maxim, 'this is unprofessional you know? We treat patients as though they were in the confessional. But your wife is dead, and I quite understand the circumstances are exceptional. You want to know if I can suggest any motive why your wife should have taken her life? I think I can. The woman who called herself Mrs Danvers was very seriously ill.'
He paused. He looked at every one of us in turn.

'I remember her perfectly well,' he said, and he turned back to the files again. 'She came to me for the first time a week previously to the date you mentioned. She complained of certain symptoms, and I took some X-rays of her. The second visit was to find out the result of those X-rays. The photographs are not here, but I have the details written down. I remember her standing in my consulting-room and holding out her hand for the photographs. "I want to know the truth," she said; "I don't want soft words and a bedside manner. If I'm for it, you can tell me right away." ' He paused, he glanced down at the files once again.

I waited, waited. Why couldn't he get done with it and finish and let us go? Why must we sit there, waiting, our eyes upon his face.

'Well,' he said, 'she asked for the truth, and I let her have it. Some patients are better for it. Shirking the point does them no good. This Mrs Danvers, or Mrs de Winter rather, was not the type to accept a lie. You must have known that. She stood it very well. She did not flinch. She said she had suspected it for some time. Then she paid my fee and went out. I never saw her again.'

He shut up the box with a snap, and closed the book. 'The pain was slight as yet, but the growth was deep-rooted,' he said, 'and in three or four months' time she would have been under morphia. An operation would have been no earthly use at all. I told her that. The thing had got too firm a hold. There is nothing anyone can do in a case like that, except give morphia, and wait.'

No one said a word. The little clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and the boys played tennis in the garden. An aeroplane hummed overhead.

'Outwardly of course she was a perfectly healthy woman,' he said — 'rather too thin, I remember, rather pale; but then that's the fashion nowadays, pity though it is. It's nothing to go upon with a patient. No, the pain would increase week by week, and as I told you, in four or five months' time she would have had to be kept under morphia. The X-rays showed a certain malformation of the uterus, I remember, which meant she could never have had a child; but that was quite apart, it had nothing to do with the disease.'

I remember hearing Colonel July an speak, saying something about Doctor Baker being very kind to have taken so much trouble. 'You have told us all we want to know,' he said, 'and if we could possibly have a copy of the memoranda in your file it might be very useful.'
'Of course,' said Doctor Baker. 'Of course.'

Everyone was standing up. I got up from my chair too, I shook hands with Doctor Baker. We all shook hands with him. We followed him out into the hall. A woman looked out of the room on the other side of the hall and darted back when she saw us. Someone was running a bath upstairs, the water ran loudly. The Scotch terrier came in from the garden and began sniffing at my heels.
'Shall I send the report to you or to Mr de Winter?' said Doctor Baker.

'We may not need it at all,' said Colonel Julyan. 'I rather think it won't be necessary. Either de Winter or I will write. Here is my card.'
'I'm so glad to have been of use,' said Doctor Baker; 'it never entered my head for a moment that Mrs de Winter and Mrs Danvers could be the same person.'
'No, naturally,' said Colonel Julyan.
'You'll be returning to London, I suppose?'
'Yes. Yes, I imagine so.'

'Your best way then is to turn sharp left by that pillar-box, and then right by the church. After that it's a straight road.'
'Thank you. Thank you very much.'
We came out on to the drive and went towards the cars. Doctor Baker pulled the Scotch terrier inside the house. I heard the door shut. A man with one leg and a barrel-organ began playing 'Roses in Picardy', at the end of the road.
Chapter twenty-seven

We went and stood by the car. No one said anything for a few minutes. Colonel Julyan handed round his cigarette case. Favell looked grey, rather shaken. I noticed his hands were trembling as he held the match. The man with the barrel-organ ceased playing for a moment and hobbled towards us, his cap in his hand. Maxim gave him two shillings. Then he went back to the barrel-organ and started another tune. The church clock struck six o'clock. Favell. began to speak. His voice was diffident, careless, but his face was still grey. He did not look at any of us, he kept glancing down at his cigarette and turning it over in his fingers. "This cancer business,' he said; 'does anybody know if it's contagious?'

No one answered him. Colonel Julyan shrugged his shoulders.
'I never had the remotest idea,' said Favell jerkily. 'She kept it a secret from everyone, even Danny. What a God-damned appalling thing, eh? Not the sort of thing one would ever connect with Rebecca. Do you fellows feel like a drink? I'm all out over this, and I don't mind admitting it. Cancer! Oh, my God!'

He leant up against the side of the car and shaded his eyes with his hands. 'Tell that bloody fellow with the barrel-organ to clear out,' he said. 'I can't stand that God-damned row.'
'Wouldn't it be simpler if we went ourselves?' said Maxim.
'Can you manage your own car, or do you want Julyan to drive it for you?'
'Give me a minute,' muttered Favell. 'I'll be all right. You don't understand. This thing has been a damned unholy shock to me.'

'Pull yourself together, man, for heaven's sake,' said Colonel Julyan. 'If you want a drink go back to the house and ask Baker. He knows how to treat for shock, I dare say. Don't make an exhibition of yourself in the street.'

'Oh, you're all right, you're fine,' said Favell, standing straight and looking at Colonel Julyan and Maxim. 'You've got nothing to worry about any more. Max is on a good wicket now, isn't he? You've got your motive, and Baker will supply it in black and white free of cost, whenever you send the word. You can dine at Manderley once a week on the strength of it and feel proud of yourself. No doubt Max will ask you to be godfather to his first child.'

'Shall we get into the car and go?' said Colonel Julyan to Maxim. 'We can make our plans going along.'

Maxim held open the door of the car, and Colonel Julyan climbed in. I sat down in my seat in the front. Favell still leant against the car and did not move. 'I should advise you to get straight back to your flat and go to bed,' said Colonel Julyan shortly, 'and drive slowly, or you will find yourself in jail for manslaughter. I may as well warn you now, as I shall not be seeing you again, that as a magistrate I have certain powers that will prove effective if you ever turn up in Kerrith or the district. Blackmail is not much of a profession, Mr Favell. And we know how to deal with it in our part of the world, strange though it may seem to you.'

Favell was watching Maxim. He had lost the grey colour now, and the old unpleasant smile was forming on his lips. 'Yes, it's been a stroke of luck for you, Max, hasn't it?' he said slowly; 'you think you've won, don't you? The law can get you yet, and so can I, in a different way Maxim switched on the engine. 'Have you anything else you want to say?' he said; 'because if you have you had better say it now.'

'No,' said Favell. 'No, I won't keep you. You can go.' He stepped back on to the pavement, the smile still on his lips. The car slid forward. As we turned the corner I looked back and saw him standing there, watching us, and he waved his hand and he was laughing.

We drove on for a while in silence. Then Colonel Julyan spoke. 'He can't do anything,' he said. 'That smile and that wave were part of his bluff. They're all alike, those fellows. He hasn't a thread of a case to bring now. Baker's evidence would squash it.'

Maxim did not answer. I glanced sideways at his face but it told me nothing. 'I always felt the solution would lie in Baker,' said Colonel Julyan; 'the furtive business of that appointment, and the way she never even told Mrs Danvers. She had her suspicions, you see. She knew something was wrong. A dreadful thing, of course. Very dreadful. Enough to send a young and lovely woman right off her head.'

We drove on along the straight main road. Telegraph poles, motor coaches, open sports cars, little semi-detached villas with new gardens, they flashed past making patterns in my mind I should always remember.
'I suppose you never had any idea of this, de Winter?' said Colonel Julyan.
'No,' said Maxim. 'No.'

'Of course some people have a morbid dread of it,' said Colonel Julyan. 'Women especially. That must have been the case with your wife. She had courage for every other thing but that. She could not face pain. Well, she was spared that at any rate.'
'Yes,' said Maxim.

'I don't think it would do any harm if I quietly let it be known down in Kerrith and in the county that a London doctor has supplied us with a motive,' said Colonel Julyan. 'Just in case there should be any gossip. You never can tell, you know. People are odd, sometimes. If they knew about Mrs de Winter it might make it a lot easier for you.'
'Yes,' said Maxim, 'yes, I understand.'

'It's curious and very irritating,' said Colonel Julyan slowly, 'how long stories spread in country districts. I never know why they should, but unfortunately they do. Not that I anticipate any trouble over this, but it's as well to be prepared. People are inclined to say the wildest things if they are given half a chance.'
'Yes,' said Maxim.

'You and Crawley of course can squash any nonsense in Manderley or the estate, and I can deal with it effectively in Kerrith. I shall say a word to my girl too. She sees a lot of the younger people, who very often are the worst offenders in story-telling. I don't suppose the newspapers will worry you any more, that's one good thing. You'll find they will drop the whole affair in a day or two.'
'Yes,' said Maxim.

We drove on through the northern suburbs and came once more to Finchley and Hampstead.
'Half past six,' said Colonel Julyan; 'what do you propose doing? I've got a sister living in St John's Wood, and feel inclined to take her unawares and ask for dinner, and then catch the last train from Paddington. I know she doesn't go away for another week. I'm sure she would be delighted to see you both as well.'

Maxim hesitated, and glanced at me. 'It's very kind of you,' he said, 'but I think we had better be independent. I must ring up Frank, and one thing and another. I dare say we shall have a quiet meal somewhere and start off again afterwards, spending the night at a pub on the way, I rather think that's what we shall do.'
'Of course,' said Colonel Julyan, 'I quite understand. Could you throw me out at my sister's? It's one of those turnings off the Avenue Road.'

When we came to the house Maxim drew up a little way ahead of the gate. 'It's impossible to thank you,' he said, 'for all you've done today. You know what I feel about it without my telling you.'

'My dear fellow,' said Colonel Julyan, 'I've been only too glad. If only we'd known what Baker knew of course there would have been none of this at all. However, never mind about that now. You must put the whole thing behind you as a very unpleasant and unfortunate episode. I'm pretty sure you won't have any more trouble from Favell. If you do, I count on you to tell me at once. I shall know how to deal with him.' He climbed out of the car, collecting his coat and his map. 'I should feel inclined,' he said, not looking directly at us, 'to get away for a bit. Take a short holiday. Go abroad, perhaps.'

We did not say anything. Colonel Julyan was fumbling with his map. 'Switzerland is very nice this time of year,' he said. 'I remember we went once for the girl's holidays, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The walks are delightful.' He hesitated, cleared his throat. 'It is just faintly possible certain little difficulties might arise,' he said, 'not from Favell, but from one or two people in the district. One never knows quite what Tabb has been saying, and repeating, and so on. Absurd of course. But you know the old saying? Out of sight, out of mind. If people aren't there to be talked about the talk dies. It's the way of the world.'

He stood for a moment, counting his belongings. 'I've got everything, I think. Map, glasses, stick, coat. Everything complete. Well, goodbye, both of you. Don't get over-tired. It's been a long day.'

He turned in at the gate and went up the steps. I saw a woman come to the window and smile and wave her hand. We drove away down the road and turned the corner. I leant back in my seat and closed my eyes. Now that we were alone again and the strain was over, the sensation was one of almost unbearable relief. It was like the bursting of an abscess. Maxim did not speak. I felt his hand cover mine. We drove on through the traffic and I saw none of it. I heard the rumble of the buses, the hooting of taxis, that inevitable, tireless London roar, but I was not part of it. I rested in some other place that was cool and quiet and still. Nothing could touch us any more. We had come through our crisis.

When Maxim stopped the car I opened my eyes and sat up. We were opposite one of those numerous little restaurants in a narrow street in Soho. I looked about me, dazed and stupid.
'You're tired,' said Maxim briefly. 'Empty and tired and fit for nothing. You'll be better when you've had something to eat. So shall I. We'll go in here and order dinner right away. I can telephone to Frank too.'

We got out of the car. There was no one in the restaurant but the maitre d'hotel and a waiter and a girl behind a desk. It was dark and cool. We went to a table right in the corner. Maxim began ordering the food. 'Favell was right about wanting a drink,' he said. 'I want one too and so do you. You're going to have some brandy.'

The maitre d'hotel was fat and smiling. He produced long thin rolls in paper envelopes. They were very hard, very crisp. I began to eat one ravenously. My brandy and soda was soft, warming, curiously comforting.
'When we've had dinner we'll drive slowly, very quietly,' said Maxim. 'It will be cool, too, in the evening. We'll find somewhere on the road we can put up for the night. Then we can get along to Manderley in the morning.'
'Yes,' I said.

'You didn't want to dine with Julyan's sister and go down by the late train?'
'No.'
Maxim finished his drink. His eyes looked large and they were ringed with the shadows. They seemed very dark against the pallor of his face.
'How much of the truth', he said, 'do you think July an guessed?'
I watched him over the rim of my glass. I did not say anything.
'He knew,' said Maxim slowly: 'of course he knew.'
'If he did,' I said, 'he will never say anything. Never, never.'
'No,' said Maxim. 'No.'

He ordered another drink from the maitre d'hotel. We sat silent and peaceful in our dark corner.
'I believe', said Maxim, 'that Rebecca lied to me on purpose. The last supreme bluff. She wanted me to kill her. She foresaw the whole thing. That's why she laughed. That's why she stood there laughing when she died.'
I did not say anything. I went on drinking my brandy and soda. It was all over. It was all settled. It did not matter any more. There was no need for Maxim to look white and troubled.

'It was her last practical joke,' said Maxim, 'the best of them all. And I'm not sure if she hasn't won, even now.'
'What do you mean? How can she have won?' I said.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know.' He swallowed his second drink. Then he got up from the table. 'I'm going to nag up Frank,' he said.

I sat there in my corner, and presently the waiter brought me my fish. It was lobster. Very hot and good. I had another brandy and soda, too. It was pleasant and comfortable sitting there and nothing mattered very much. I smiled at the waiter. I asked for some more bread in French for no reason. It was quiet and happy and friendly in the restaurant. Maxim and I were together. Everything was over. Everything was settled. Rebecca was dead. Rebecca could not hurt us. She had played her last joke as Maxim had said. She could do no more to us now. In ten minutes Maxim came back again.

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