Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen Walter Fane

Gwenda glanced at Walter Fane as he sat at the wide mahogany table. She saw a rather tired-looking man of about fifty, with a mild and indescribable face.He was, Gwenda thought, the kind of man you'd be a little hard to recall if you happened to meet him... in modern terms.Is a man who lacks personality.When he spoke, his voice was slow, careful, and melodious.Gwenda judged that he might be a legitimate lawyer. She took a peek at the office—the office of the major shareholder of the firm.It suited Walter Firth, she decided.The style is antique.The furniture is worn out, but made of good quality Victorian materials.Boxes of papers lined the walls—boxes bearing the names of esteemed counties.John Vavasu - Sir Trench.Ms. Jessup.Mr. Arthur Fox.the late. .

The large sash windows, facing the hospital square, flanked on either side of the back yard by the strong walls of a seventeenth-century house, had dirty glass.There's nothing hip or modern in any of the places, but there's nothing out of the ordinary either.This office is messy on the surface, with file boxes piled up, things on the desk in disarray, and law books on the shelves. office. Walter Firth stopped signing and smiled slowly and pleasantly. "I think it's pretty clear, Mr. Reed," he said. "A very simple resolution. When would you like to sign?" Gwenda said he could do it whenever he liked, and there was no rush.

"We've got a house here, you know," she said. "It's Hillside." said Walter Firth, looking over his notes: "Yes, you gave me the address..." His smooth tenor voice has not changed. "It's a beautiful house," said Gwenda. "We love it." "Really?" Walter Finn said, smiling. "Is it by the sea?" "No," said Gwenda. "I believe the name has been changed. The customary name is Santa Caterina." Finn took off his pince-nez first, wiped them with a silk handkerchief, and looked down at the table.

"Oh yes," he said. "On Leehampton Road?" He looked up, and thought Gwenda, how different people looked when they put on their glasses!His eyes were pale and seemed to be particularly weak and astigmatic. "It made up his whole facial expression," thought Gwenda, "as if he wasn't really there." Walter Fane put on his pince-nez again.He said in his precise lawyer's voice: "I think, you said that on the occasion of this wedding, you have made up your mind?" "Yeah. But I've left stuff in it for various relatives in New Zealand who've all died since then, so I figured it would really be easier to reorganize a whole new home—we means, especially to settle in this country."

Walter Fane nodded. "Yes, the idea is advisable. Well, I see it quite clearly, Mrs. Reed. Come back the day after tomorrow? Is eleven o'clock appropriate?" "Okay, that's a good fit." Gwenda got up, and Walter Fane got up too. Gwenda said suddenly, exactly as she had rehearsed: "I—I ask you specifically, because I think—I mean I believe—that you knew my—my mother." "Really?" Walter Firth had a little extra social enthusiasm mixed into his manner. "what is her name?" "Halliday. Meghan Halliday. I think—I'm told—you were engaged to her?"

The clock on the wall was ticking. Gwenda felt her heart beat faster suddenly.What a quiet look Walter Fane had!It was as if you saw a house—with all the curtains down, that would mean a dead body inside. ("What a stupid idea you have, Gwenda!") Walter Fane said without changing his tone and sentences: "No, I never knew your mother, Mrs. Reed. But I was engaged, for a short time, to Helen Kennedy, and she ended up marrying Major Halliday as his second wife." .” "Oh, I know. I was stubborn. All wrong. It was Helen—my stepmother. Long before I can remember, of course. I was a kid when my father's second marriage fell through. But I heard that you were engaged to Mrs. Halliday in India - of course I thought it was my own mother - the opinion is in India, I mean...my father met her in India .”

"Helen Halliday came to India to marry me," said Walter Fane. "However, she changed her mind. On the boat home, she met your father." This is a frankly indifferent statement of reality.The image of the house with the drawn curtains had not yet faded from Gwenda's mind. "Sorry," she said. "Am I wrong?" Walter Fane smiled--a slow, pleasant smile.The curtains are opened. "Nineteen or twenty years ago, Mrs. Reed," he said. "The troubles and follies of one's youth mean little after such a time. Didn't you know that your father and Helen actually lived here in Dillmouth for a time?"

"Yes," said Gwenda, "that's why we came here. I don't remember them all, of course, but when we had to decide where to live in England, I came to Dillmouth first. , to see what it really looks like. And I thought it was a very attractive place. So decided to stay here and not go anywhere else. Lucky you? Actually we got mine a long time ago Did you live in the same house?" "I remember this house," said Walter Fane.He smiled slowly and pleasantly again. "You may not remember me, Mrs. Reed, but I can still picture you riding on my shoulders so often."

"Really? So you're an old friend, aren't you? I can't claim to remember you - but I was about two or three years old, and I think... you're back from India for a holiday or something?" "No, I left India for good. I went there to experiment with growing tea - but I wasn't used to life there. I gave it up and came here to follow in my father's footsteps, to be a bland, harmless tea Country lawyer. I passed my law exams earlier, so I came back here easily, and went straight to the firm." He paused, and said, "I've been here ever since. "

After another pause, he repeated in a lower voice: "Yes—since then..." But, Gwenda thought, eighteen years really wasn't that long, although... However, he changes his demeanor and shakes her hand. "Since we seem to be old friends, really, you must bring your husband to tea with my mother sometime. I'll ask her to write to you. How about Thursday, also at eleven o'clock?" Gwenda left the office and went down the stairs.There was a spider web at the corner of the stairs, and in the center of the web was a gray, indescribable spider, not the kind of fat flycatcher, but more like a spider's ghost, really like Walter Fane.

Gilles met his wife on the waterfront. "How?" he asked her. "He's at Dillmouth now," said Gwenda. "I mean from India, because he rode on my shoulders. But he couldn't have killed anybody—no way. He was too quiet and gentle. Well, he was one of those you really Someone who can never comment. You know, they come to the party, but you never know when they leave. I should see him as a very righteous person or something like that. He loves His mother, had many virtues. But from a woman's point of view, he was terribly stupid. I could see why he couldn't make it with Helen. You know, she wanted to marry someone who was pretty and reliable." "Poor thing," said Giles. "I guess he's just infatuated with her." "Oh, I don't know... I shouldn't think so, really anyway, I'm sure he's not the vicious murderer we're looking for. He's not the murderer I thought he was at all." "And yet you know very little about murderers, don't you, my dear?" "what do you mean?" "Well - I'm thinking of the quiet Lizzie Borden - only the jury says she didn't. Wallace, a quiet man, the jury insists he killed his wife, despite calls for annulment Trial. And Armstrong, what a benevolent and humble fellow he's been told for years, I don't buy the idea that murderers are always a special kind of guy." "I really can't believe Walter Finn—" Gwenda stopped talking. "what?" "nothing." But she remembered Walter Finn cleaning his glasses and his suspiciously blind air the first time she mentioned Santa Caterina. "Perhaps," she said uncertainly, "he's in love with her, . . . "