Eighteen
T HE L ETTERS
I“S orry to worry you again, Mrs. Haymes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Phillipa coldly.
“Shall we go into this room here?”
“The study? Yes, if you like, Inspector¹. It’s very cold. There’s no fire.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not for long. And we’re not so likely to be overheard here.”
“Does that matter?”
“Not to me, Mrs. Haymes. It might to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you told me, Mrs. Haymes, that your husband was killed fighting in Italy?”
“Well?”
“Wouldn’t it have been simpler to have told me the truth—that he was a deserter from his regiment².”
He saw her face grow white, and her hands close and unclose themselves.
She said bitterly:
“Do you have to rake up everything?”
Craddock said dryly:
“We expect people to tell us the truth about themselves.”
She was silent. Then she said:
“Well?”
“What do you mean by ‘Well?,’ Mrs. Haymes?”
“I mean, what are you going to do about it? Tell everybody? Is that necessary—or fair—or kind?”
“Does nobody know?”
“Nobody here. Harry”—her voice changed—“my son, he doesn’t know. I don’t want him to know. I don’t wanthim to know—ever.”
“Then let me tell you that you’re taking a very big risk, Mrs. Haymes. When the boy is old enough to understand,tell him the truth. If he finds out by himself some day—it won’t be good for him. If you go on stuffing him up withtales of his father dying like a hero—”
“I don’t do that. I’m not completely dishonest. I just don’t talk about it. His father was—killed in the war. After all,that’s what it amounts to—for us.”
“But your husband is still alive?”
“Perhaps. How should I know?”
“When did you see him last, Mrs. Haymes?”
Phillipa said quickly:
“I haven’t seen him for years.”
“Are you quite sure that’s true? You didn’t, for instance, see him about a fortnight ago?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“It never seemed to me very likely that you met Rudi Scherz in the summerhouse here. But Mitzi’s story was veryemphatic. I suggest, Mrs. Haymes, that the man you came back from work to meet that morning was your husband.”

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