elderly man, almost hidden by the wings of the huge armchair he was sitting in, coughed repeatedly and glared at him over the top of his spectacles. Narraway realized that he was being inconsiderate and returned to his seat.
He picked up the newspaper again and found his place in the varied accounts and letters to the editor.
He was still reading when the steward informed him that Mr. Quixwood had returned, and inquired if he would like tea, or perhaps whisky.
“Ask Mr. Quixwood if he will join me,” Narraway answered. “And then serve whatever he chooses.”
The steward inclined his head in acknowledgment and withdrew.
Fifteen minutes later Narraway was sitting opposite Quixwood in the quietest part of the lounge. He studied the man for several moments while they both sipped their whiskies in silence. Narraway would rather have had tea, but he was not here for his pleasure.
Quixwood looked exhausted. His skin was pale except for the dark circles under his eyes, but the hand holding his glass was perfectly steady. Narraway admired his self-discipline. He must be feeling both the ordinary grief of losing a wife suddenly and violently, and the loneliness, but he had the additional torture of imagining her last moments, and then there was the speculation in the press, which was no doubt read by almost everyone he met. It was not only a question of who had raped her, but whether the man had been her lover. It was written about in daily newspapers for everyone in the street to think about, talk about, even make jokes over.
Until it was solved, there would be no end to it.
“Do you know something new?” Quixwood asked. His voice was so low that Narraway had to concentrate to hear him.
“I imagine Knox has told you that he suspects Alban Hythe?” Narraway answered. “Or at least that the evidence suggests that he and Mrs. Quixwood knew each other unusually well.”
Quixwood shook his head fractionally. “Yes, but I find it very difficult to believe.” He smiled faintly, and with obvious effort. “But then, I imagine a man always finds it difficult to believe that his wife was having an affair.”
A day ago Narraway would have agreed with him. After his experience with Knox he responded differently. “It is very disturbing to realize how easily we go through life assuming,” he said, watching Quixwood’s face. “People change slowly, so infinitesimally that day by day we don’t see it. Like glaciers—so many feet in a year, or maybe it’s inches.”
Quixwood looked down at his glass and the light reflecting in its amber depths. “I thought I knew her. I’m slowly facing the fact that perhaps I didn’t.” He glanced up abruptly. “You know the worst thing? I’m not even as certain as I was that I really want to know exactly what happened. I … I don’t want all my illusions shattered. I trusted my wife and believed she loved me, and even at our most cool or difficult moments, she would never have betrayed me.”
A smile flickered across his lips for a moment and vanished. “I thought Hythe was someone I could trust, and now that I know his wife a little better, I know that she also trusted him. She still cannot accept even the possibility that he could be guilty of this. I suppose it is part of my own grief that I want to comfort her.”
Quixwood sipped his whisky again. “Am I a coward to want not to know?”
Narraway considered it for a moment before replying, wanting to be honest.
“I think you may be unwise,” he said at last. “I can imagine how you would prefer to leave your wife’s last days, and especially her last moments, unknown. In your best times you will not think of it at all. In your worst you will visualize it brutally.”
Quixwood was watching him, waiting for him to finish.
“But it isn’t only you,” Narraway continued. “Maris Hythe may find she cannot live with the uncertainty. If Hythe is innocent, he surely deserves to have that proved. How could he live with it otherwise, hinted at but unproven, for the rest of his days?”
“And if he’s guilty?” Quixwood asked.
“Then he deserves punishment,” Narraway said without hesitation. “And even more than justice toward him, what about the rest of society?”
Quixwood blinked.
“Do you want to live in a country where such appalling crimes go unpunished?” Narraway asked. “Where we are sufficiently indifferent to the horror of it that we prefer not to inquire too closely in