on the boxes had been originally my pathway to her father. I might not need her to work on them any longer, but I’d grown to like finding her here in my rooms.
‘I hope you’ll go on with the cataloguing tomorrow,’ I said.
‘All right.’
‘But this evening I have to work on the film… er, alone.’
She seemed slightly disappointed but mostly relieved. A daring step forward… half a cautious step back. But we would get there one day, I thought, and was content and even reassured by the wait.
We left through the still slightly open doorway and I walked down the passage a little way before waving her down the stairs; and, returning, I stopped to talk to my bodyguard whom O'Hara, for the company, had by now installed in the room opposite my own.
My bodyguard, half Asian, had straight black hair, black shiny eyes and no visible feelings. He might be young, agile, well-trained and fast on his feet, but he was also unimaginative and hadn't saved me from the Armadillo.
When I pushed open his unlocked door to reveal him sitting wide awake in an upright chair facing me, he said at once, 'Your door has all the time been open, Mr Lyon.'
I nodded. I'd arranged with him that if he saw my door closed he was to use my key and enter my rooms immediately. I couldn't think of a clearer or more simple demand for help.
'Have you eaten?' I asked.
'Yes, Mr Lyon.'
I tried a smile. No response.
'Don't go to sleep,' I said tamely.
'No, Mr Lyon.'
O'Hara must have dug him up from central casting, I thought. Bad choice.
I retreated into my sitting-room, left the door six inches open, drank a small amount of brandy and answered a telephone call from Howard.
He was predictably raging.
'Cibber told me you've made him the murderer! It's impossible! You can't do it. I won't allow it! What will the Visboroughs say?'
I pointed out that we could slot in a different murderer, if we wanted to.
'Cibber says you tore him to shreds.'
'Cibber gave the performance of his life,' I contradicted: and indeed, of the film's eventual four Oscar nominations, Cibber won the award for Best Supporting Actor – graciously forgiving me about a year later.
I promised Howard, 'We'll hold a full script conference tomorrow morning. You, me, Nash and Moncrieff.'
'I want you to stop the film!'
'I don't have that authority.'
'What if you're dead?' he demanded.
I said after a moment, 'The company will finish the movie with another director. Killing me, believe me, Howard, would give this film massive publicity, but it would not stop it.'
'It's not fair,' he said, as if he'd learned nothing, and I said, 'See you in the morning,' and disconnected in despair.
The safe in my sitting-room, as in O'Hara's, was out of casual sight in a fitment that housed a large TV set above and a mini-bar as well as the safe below. The mini-bar held small quantities of drinks for needy travellers, spirits, wine, champagne and beer, also chocolate and nuts. The safe – my safe – held nothing. I programmed it to open at seven three five two, entrusted 'The Gang' photo into its safe keeping, and closed its door.
I sat then in the armchair in my bedroom and waited for a long time, and thought about the obligations of the confessional, and about how totally, or how little, I myself was bound by Valentine's dying and frantic admissions.
I felt the weight of the obligation of priesthood that so many priests themselves took lightly, knowing that their role absolved them from any dire responsibility, even while they dispensed regular indulgences. I had had no right to hear Valentine's confession nor to pardon his sins, and I had done both. I'd absolved him. 'In nomine Patris… ego te absolvo'.
I could not evade feeling an absolute obligation to the spirit of those words. I should not – and could not – save myself with the knowledge he'd entrusted to me as a priest when he was dying. On the other hand, I could in good conscience use what he'd left me in his will.
I hadn't come across, in his books and papers, any one single revelation that could have been found by ransacking his house. The pieces had been there, but obscured and devious. I'd sorted those out a good deal by luck. I wished there were a more conclusive artifact than 'The Gang' photo with which to bait the safe, but I'd come to the conclusion that there wasn't one.