“Maybe not.”

“She wasn’t, either.”

“You think not?”

“My God, I’m not telling you what I think — I’m giving you facts.”

It seemed to me that I couldn’t go on arguing with him. I said nothing, leaving him, if he chose, to continue. After an interval he said: “You see … I was in the house myself that night.”

“Really?”(Again, what else could one say?) “How was that?”

“Simple enough. I’d been quartered with an aunt and uncle who lived at the other end of the town. I was lonely and miserable with them — or rather, I should say, I was lonely and miserable without my father. Just a prisoner in an enormous shabby vicarage. That evening — you remember it was the evening war was declared — everyone was so excited by the news that I had my first chance to escape. I took it. I ran across the town, aiming for home. I climbed over the garden wall from the side footpath. Nobody saw me or would have cared much if they had. I thought the house was empty. I went to the surgery. It was always fun there, but that afternoon more than usual, because — well, because a cupboard usually kept locked was half open.”

“Ah yes, I remember the evidence about that.”

“So I had a nice game with some bottles, taking the corks out and sniffing. Damn lucky I didn’t poison myself — or perhaps damned unlucky, when you come to think about it. Suddenly I heard footsteps in the hall. I was scared. I shut the cupboard as quick as I could and pushed away the bottles on a shelf where there were other bottles. I didn’t want her to know I’d been touching anything.”

“You knew who it was?”

“Oh yes, her walk was quite unmistakable … Presently she came in and found me. She was very hot — it was a very hot day and she’d been out in the sun. ‘You here?’ she began, but she didn’t grumble as much as I’d expected. I think she was tired. ‘Where’s your father?’ she asked. I said I didn’t know. ‘He’s never here when he’s wanted,’ she said. Then she went to the shelf and took some pills out of a bottle. ‘I’ve got a bad head,’ she said, ‘and I want to lie down. Fetch a glass of water to my bedroom.’ So I did, and that was how it happened … All quite by accident, you see.”

“Yes, I see.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“May I say again — I don’t really know … At any rate, why didn’t you tell all this to the court?”

“I never had a chance. I was only too glad to get away … I’d always been blamed for everything and I thought I should be again … So I ran back to my uncle’s house. They thought I was ill — one of my ‘attacks’ they called them — I used to have bad nerves when I was a child.”