The Rebecca Notebook, Page 3

  The evidence is overwhelming. Leads up to the question, ‘Then, Mr de Winter, you never at any time had a suspicion that your wife might do away with herself?’ (Overwhelming relief, because it looked all the time as though they were working up to a leading question on murder.) ‘Will somebody take my wife home? She is going to faint.’ I think it was little Dr Marsden who caught my hands as I fell. End of chapter.

  Chapter XXII. Back home. Sits in a sort of stupor. Henry returns. Aged, and very tired. Verdict of suicide, without sufficient evidence to show the state of mind of the deceased. ‘We’ll have to get away.’ ‘Won’t it look suspicious?’ ‘Let’s go away this evening, Henry, quietly, to some stodgy respectable hotel in London, where no one will know us, where we are just two people out of eight million.’ ‘Yes—’ very wearily, ‘yes.’ ‘We had better go away tonight then?’ ‘No, not tonight.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because something has to be done first. It was Gray who suggested this evening. If we do it in the day there might be a morbid crowd of sightseers. I’ve arranged for it to be tonight at half past nine.’ ‘Yes, of course, I understand.’ It was as though Rebecca had died but yesterday. There was that particular atmosphere about the house connected with the aftermath of death. A sort of standing by—marking of time. Mrs Danvers. She had been crying. ‘Please, Mr de Winter, I understand Mrs de Winter is to be buried this evening. With your permission I should like to be present. She was always very good to me.’ I wondered why she looked at Henry like that, an unfathomable question in her eyes. ‘Yes, Mrs Danvers, of course, I appreciate your wish. You understand, though, the ceremony is to be entirely private. There will be no one attending but myself. I must ask you to say nothing about it to the servants.’ ‘They none of them know, sir.’ ‘Very well, then.’ We did not talk much during dinner. When he had gone I went upstairs to pack. I felt that I was doing things for the last time. When the stable clock struck ten, its odd high-pitched note, it seemed to me that I would not hear it again. Packing rather mechanically, and then the knock on the door. ‘Do you know how long Mr de Winter will be?’ ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be much after half past ten. Why?’ ‘Mr Paul Astley is below, and wants to see him.’

  Chapter XXIII. She has a short interview with him first. ‘You know what has happened, of course? I don’t know that Henry will see you. All this has been very upsetting, and we are going away.’ He kept examining his nails, and there was something about his half-smile that I did not like. ‘Going away. Yes, I think that’s very wise of you. Gossip is an unpleasant thing, and it’s always more pleasant to avoid it.’

  ‘I don’t think we are going for that reason.’

  ‘No? Of course, it’s been a great shock to me. Rebecca was my second cousin, you know, I was devoted to her.’ Work up the scene. And then Henry returns.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Well, actually I came to offer my congratulations.’

  ‘Do you mind leaving the house; or do you prefer to be chucked out?’

  ‘Steady a moment, Henry. You’ve done very well out of this affair. You realise of course that I can make things extremely unpleasant for you, I might almost say dangerous?’ I gripped the arms of my chair. Henry was unmoved. He lit a cigarette. The evidence is torn to shreds, the copy of the note is produced. ‘If this was made public, if I told my full story—damn the consequences to my reputation—it would put a very different light on the affair, wouldn’t it?’ ‘Well, what do you propose to do? There’s the telephone. Ring up Gray and tell him your story.’

  ‘Wait a bit, wait a bit. No need to get rattled. I’m a poor man, Henry, I don’t want to smash you up. Why don’t we come to an agreement? Here, I’ll put all my cards on the table. Let me have a settlement of two thousand a year and I swear to God I’ll never trouble you again.’ ‘Get out.’ ‘No, wait,’ I said. I turned swiftly to Paul Astley. ‘I see what you’re driving at. It happens, by some devilish stroke of ill fortune, that things could be twisted round to make it very difficult for Henry. Perhaps he does not see it as clearly as I do. I think we ought to consider this offer of yours.’ ‘Don’t you interfere with this. Don’t you see that it’s blackmail? Give him two thousand a year for life?’ ‘It depends how much you value your own. Mrs de Winter doesn’t fancy being pointed at as the widow of a murderer, a fellow who was hanged, do you?’

  ‘You think you can blackmail me, Astley, but you’re wrong.’ Very white. ‘I’m not afraid of anything you can do. There’s the telephone. Shall I ring up Gray, ask him to come over?’

  ‘You would not dare. This evidence is enough to hang you.’ Henry walked to the telephone. ‘Give me Cutty 17, please.’ I saw our safety fall from us piece by piece. Rings Gray. ‘Will you come along here?’ Gray comes. ‘Good evening, Henry. What’s happened?’ ‘You know Paul Astley, Rebecca’s cousin.’ ‘Yes, we have met, I think.’ ‘Very well, Astley, go ahead.’ (Wind out of sails.) ‘Look here, Gray, I’m not satisfied with the verdict.’ ‘Isn’t that for de Winter to say?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it is. I have a right to speak, not only as Rebecca’s cousin but, if she had lived, as her prospective husband.’

  ‘Is this true, Henry?’ Henry laughed shortly.

  ‘So he says, Arthur, if you want to believe it you can.’

  ‘Supposing you tell me exactly what’s wrong.’

  ‘Listen here, Gray, this note was written to me half an hour before Rebecca was supposed to have set out on that suicidal sail. Here it is, I want you to say whether you think a woman who wrote that note had made up her mind to kill herself?’

  ‘No—on the face of it, no. What does the note refer to? What were these plans?’

  ‘We were going to Paris. It was her idea, she loathed Manderley, loathed every stick and stone in the place. Henry was going to London, it was an escapade after her own heart.’

  ‘ “I’ve got something to tell you.” What do you suppose that means?’

  ‘I don’t know. One never knew with Rebecca. It might mean anything. But there was the meeting—nine-thirty—in the cottage, it’s as plain to me as though she was standing here now.’

  ‘What are you suggesting, get done with these insinuations and speak out.’

  ‘Rebecca never plugged the holes in that boat, Gray, Rebecca never committed suicide, she was murdered, and if you want to know who the murderer is, why there he is—standing there with his God damned superior smile, he couldn’t even wait till the year was out before marrying again, the first chit of a girl he set his eyes on—there’s your murderer for you, Mr Henry de Winter of Manderley.’ He began to laugh, high-pitched and foolish, the laugh of a drunkard, and all the while pointing his finger at Henry, who stood very still in his corner by the window.

  Chapter XXIV. They go into it more carefully. ‘You say you were Mrs de Winter’s lover. Can you prove it? Have you other letters? I want to remind you of this, because in a court of law you might find yourself making a big mistake.’ (Henry interposes about the blackmail.) ‘No, I didn’t. Rebecca was not the sort of woman to write love letters.’

  ‘Does anybody know?’

  ‘Yes—there’s one person knows. But whether she’d speak the truth or not I don’t know. But she might speak, if she thought it would help Rebecca.’ Already I had an inkling of what was to come.

  ‘Well, who is it?’

  ‘Mrs Danvers.’

  ‘Then I think the simplest thing to do would be to ask Mrs Danvers to come here.’

  Mrs Danvers comes. Tall and gaunt. She had evidently been weeping.

  ‘Mrs Danvers, were you aware of the relationship between the late Mrs de Winter and Mr Astley?’

  ‘They were second cousins, so I’ve always understood.’

  ‘No—I was not referring to blood relationship. Were you aware that there existed a closer relationship than that?’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  Astley laughed coarsely.

  ‘Come off it, Mrs Danvers. You knew damn well that Mrs de Winter and I (
etc., etc.). I’ve already told Major Gray, but he won’t believe me. Come now, admit what you know, she was in love with me, wasn’t she?’

  Mrs Danvers considered him a moment. I can’t describe her smile, it had all the meaning of disdain and of scorn.

  ‘She was not.’

  ‘Listen here, Mrs Danvers—’

  ‘She was not in love with you, no, nor with her husband. She was above you all, she despised all men.’

  ‘Look here—didn’t she creep down the woodland path to me at nights, weren’t you waiting up for her sometimes, didn’t she spend nights with me in London?’

  ‘Well’—with sudden passion—‘what if she did, hadn’t she a right to amuse herself the way she liked? Love-making was a game with her, she told me often, she did it because it made her laugh, it made her laugh, I tell you,’ etc., etc., torrent of passion.

  It was horrible, unexpected, and it was not helping Henry.

  ‘Can you suggest any reason why she should have taken her life?’

  ‘No—I’ve lain awake at nights, Major Gray, reproaching myself. If I’d been at Manderley that night.’

  ‘You were not here?’

  ‘No—I’d gone into Stanebury. I usually went on Friday afternoons, and I missed my bus. I didn’t get back till after nine. She had gone then.’ I felt pity for Mrs Danvers now. If only that loyalty was ours.

  ‘Mrs Danvers, you knew Mrs de Winter very well, we can gather that from what you’ve already told us.’ Astley would have spoken but he motioned him to be quiet. ‘Can you think of any reason, however remote, why Mrs de Winter should have taken her own life?’ She shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, Major Gray. Ever since the verdict I’ve been thinking about it, turning it over and over in my mind.’

  ‘There you see,’ Astley said swiftly, ‘it’s impossible, I’ve told you that.’

  ‘Be quiet, Astley,’ he thundered, ‘give Mrs Danvers time to think. If we’d known how she’d spent her day in London it might help.’

  ‘She had a hair appointment from twelve till one-thirty. She lunched alone at her club, and came down by train about half past three.’

  ‘It ought to be easy to verify that. What was she doing from two until three?’

  ‘Wait—I’ve got her engagement diary. You know you let me have all those little mementoes, when she went. They’re locked in my room. Everything she did she’d write down, and tick off with an X.’

  Goes to fetch it. ‘Yes—here it is—“Hair 12.00: Lunch at Club. 2 o’clock. Baker.” ’

  ‘Who’s Baker?’

  ‘Baker, Baker. Never heard of the fellow.’

  ‘Baker. I don’t know the name. But look here, she’s put a great X after that, as though as a special gesture. I believe if we knew who Baker was we’d be near to solving Mrs de Winter’s suicide. Mrs Danvers, she wasn’t in the hands of moneylenders?’ ‘No.’ ‘Blackmailers?’ A glance at Astley. Too careful for that. ‘She had no enemy, no one she was in fear of?’

  ‘Mrs de Winter afraid? She was afraid of no one and nobody, there was only one thing that she was afraid of—and that was pain.’

  We all of us stared. Paul Astley looked astonished.

  ‘What on earth do you mean? What about the falls she had out hunting? What about the dogs she looked after?’

  ‘Not that sort of pain, Mr Paul. She was, like all strong people, afraid of being ill, and most of all of having operations. “When I die, Danny,” she said to me, “I hope it will be quick, like the snuffing of a candle. If I knew I was to suffer—I think I’d go clear off my head.” ’

  That seems no good.

  ‘That’s why I was glad it was a quick death. They say drowning is painless, don’t they?’ Eagerly. I felt sorry for Mrs Danvers. At any rate, I thought, Henry and I both knew that Rebecca had died painlessly.

  ‘When did she say that?’

  ‘She always felt that way, all the time I knew her. But she did say it to me not long before she died.’

  ‘What in hell’s the use of all this, we’re getting away from the point all the time. Baker, if we only knew.’ Mrs Danvers had been going through the diary. Suddenly, she gave an exclamation. ‘There’s something here, right at the back, between a number of loose pages. Baker—and the number 1057. That’s the telephone number. No exchange, though.’

  ‘Try all the London exchanges with that number. It will take you a week. What’s the time?’ (Make it earlier.) I could see that Henry, like the rest of us, considered the tracing of Baker a wild goose chase. However, it served to delay. It might quieten Gray for the time.

  ‘This will cost you a bit. [Explain about telephone books.] Give us this book again. Is that a dash after the number? Couldn’t it, with a little ingenuity, be twisted into M?’ He tries one number, etc. Couple named Carter lived there for seven years. ‘Try Museum, sir,’ from Mrs Danvers. He does so. Night porter. Anyone named Baker. ‘No, sir, I’ve only been here six months. There may have been. I believe there was a gentleman of that name once.’ ‘Could you inform me, is it a private house or offices? Ah—’ He turned, an odd, rather triumphant look in his eyes. ‘The man said he believed there was a man named Baker there once and it’s not offices.’

  ‘What are they?’ from Astley.

  ‘The address is 113 Harley Street, and are a number of doctors’ consulting rooms.’ Then I knew at once. Of course Rebecca spent the hour from two to three with the doctor who had told her that, etc.

  Chapter XXV. Journey to London to Harley St. Baker of course retired six months ago through ill-health. Living in Hampstead. Trek to Hamp—(noose drawing tighter round his neck). Baker out when they get there. They sit round the room, description of, etc. Baker comes in. Different somehow. Gray takes the initiative, and asks the question. On the thirteenth of last year, between two and three, a Mrs de Winter.

  Shakes his head, no idea of the name.

  Perhaps she did not come under her own name. Here, he looks up his diary. ‘I see a Mrs Winter booked an appointment for that day. Hold on, I’ll go through my files. Yes—here we are. H’m. Yes—of course you know, unprofessional conduct.’

  ‘This is Mr de Winter. In strict confidence, she committed suicide, we strongly believe, and it is possible, just possible, you may furnish us with the motive.’ I waited for his denial, for his inevitable, ‘Mrs Winter, if I remember rightly, did not strike me as being the sort of woman who would be afraid to have a child.’ But instead he glanced through his files again. ‘She had been to have some X rays taken, and she came to know the results. She told me, “I want to know the truth, no gentle bedside manner for me.” She had a deep-rooted malignant growth, and since she had asked for the truth I let her have it. The pain was slight as yet, but in six months’ time, perhaps in less than that, she would have to be under morphia. An operation might have done some good, personally I believe not.’

  ‘Dr Baker,’ Henry leaning forward, ‘you are quite certain of this? There is no possibility of mistake?’

  ‘None at all. Outwardly Mrs Winter was a perfectly healthy woman. There was a certain malformation of the u, she could never have had a child, for instance, but that had nothing to do with the disease.’

  We sat silent. It was Arthur Gray who first rose to his feet. ‘I think Dr Baker has told us all we wanted to know. If you could let us have a copy of that analysis.’

  ‘Oh, certainly.’

  We went outside.

  ‘I think you two had better go off on your own,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with Astley. This’—he tapped the document—‘and Mrs Danvers’ statement give us our motive. There’s no twisting about of that. And blackmail is a very ugly charge. You can leave it all to me.’

  He hailed a taxi. ‘God bless you both,’ he said abruptly. And then he was gone. We got into the car.

  ‘He knows, of course,’ said Henry.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  And we went along the North Circular Road, etc., etc.

  Chapter XXVI. Going
towards Manderley. We still have to go away—they take the decision, they go over it all. After all that has happened. Perhaps Rebecca will have the last word yet. The road narrows before the avenue. A car with blazing headlights passed. Henry swerved to avoid it, and it came at us, rearing out of the ground, its huge arms outstretched to embrace us, crashing and splintering above our heads.

  Epilogue?

  Atmosphere.

  Simplicity of style.

  Keep to the main theme.

  Characters few and well defined.

  Build it up little by little.

  The Rebecca Epilogue

  If you travel south you will come upon us in the end, staying in one of those innumerable little hotels that cling like limpets to the Mediterranean shore. You will be passing through to somewhere more attractive, but we are fixtures there, and have been for many months. As you walk into the dining room you will not notice us at first, for we have a table in the corner by the window; but when you have eaten your inevitable hors d’oeuvre, and are considering the plate of roast veal and haricot beans that the obliging but clumsy little waiter has put before you, you will hear my voice for a moment, raised above the clatter of plates, demanding a bottle of Evian water in ineffectual French. You groan inwardly, and hope that we will not edge into conversation with you when the time comes to take coffee in the lounge. The nuisance is spared to you, however, for when déjeuner is over we make for the shady side of the verandah without glancing once in your direction.

  You see then that he is crippled, he walks slowly and awkwardly with the aid of sticks, and it is some little time before I have settled him for the afternoon. There is the long chair to adjust, the pillows to arrange, and the rug over his knees; and when this is done to his satisfaction, and he has rewarded me with a smile, I sit down beside him and open my bag of knitting.

  You watch us covertly for a while from behind the concealing pages of the continental Daily Mail, and speculate idly upon our identity. His face is vaguely familiar to you. There is something arresting about his profile and the line of his jaw, but it is impossible to put a name to him. Of course there are replicas of us all over Europe. Both of us bear upon our persons the unmistakable signs of the wandering English who live abroad.