I saw Maxim go very white, and a little pulse began to show on his forehead. 'Don't interfere with this, Frank,' he said, 'this is my affair entirely. I'm not going to give way to blackmail.'

'I don't suppose your wife wants to be pointed out as Mrs de Winter, the widow of a murderer, of a fellow who was hanged,' said Favell. He laughed, and glanced towards me.

'You think you can frighten me, don't you, Favell?' said Maxim. 'Well, you are wrong. I'm not afraid of anything you can do. There is the telephone, in the next room. Shall I ring up Colonel Julyan and ask him to come over? He's the magistrate. He'll be interested in your story.'

Favell stared at him, and laughed.

'Good bluff,' he said, 'but it won't work. You wouldn't dare ring up old Julyan. I've got enough evidence to hang you, Max, old man.'

Maxim walked slowly across the room and passed through to the little room beyond. I heard the click of the telephone.

'Stop him!' I said to Frank. 'Stop him, for God's sake.'

Frank glanced at my face, he went swiftly towards the door.

I heard Maxim's voice, very cool, very calm. 'I want Kerrith 17,' he said.

Favell was watching the door, his face curiously intense.

'Leave me alone,' I heard Maxim say to Frank. And then, two minutes afterwards. 'Is that Colonel Julyan speaking? It's de Winter here. Yes. Yes, I know. I wonder if you could possibly come over here at once. Yes, to Manderley. It's rather urgent. I can't explain why on the telephone, but you shall hear everything directly you come. I'm very sorry to have to drag you out. Yes. Thank you very much. Good-bye.'

He came back again into the room. 'Julyan is coming right away,' he said. He crossed over and threw open the windows. It was still raining very hard. He stood there, with his back to us, breathing the cold air.

'Maxim,' said Frank quietly. 'Maxim.'

He did not answer. Favell laughed, and helped himself to another cigarette. 'If you want to hang yourself, old fellow, it's all the same to me,' he said. He picked up a paper from the table and flung himself down on the sofa, crossed his legs, and began to turn over the pages. Frank hesitated, glancing from me to Maxim. Then he came beside me.

'Can't you do something?' I whispered. 'Go out and meet Colonel Julyan, prevent him from coming, say it was all a mistake?'

Maxim spoke from the window without turning round.

'Frank is not to leave this room,' he said. 'I'm going to manage this thing alone. Colonel Julyan will be here in exactly ten minutes.'

We none of us said anything. Favell went on reading his paper. There was no sound but the steady falling rain. It fell without a break, steady, straight, and monotonous. I felt helpless, without strength. There was nothing I could do. Nothing that Frank could do. In a book or in a play I would have found a revolver, and we should have shot Favell, hidden his body in a cupboard. There was no revolver. There was no cupboard. We were ordinary people. These things did not happen. I could not go to Maxim now and beg him on my knees to give Favell the money. I had to sit there, with my hands in my lap, watching the rain, watching Maxim with his back turned to me, standing by the window.

It was raining too hard to hear the car. The sound of the rain covered all other sounds. We did not know Colonel Julyan had arrived until the door opened, and Frith showed him into the room.

Maxim swung round from the window. 'Good evening,' he said. 'We meet again. You've made very good time.'

'Yes,' said Colonel Julyan, 'you said it was urgent, so I came at once. Luckily, my man had left the car handy. What an evening.'

He glanced at Favell uncertainly, and then came over and shook hands with me, nodding to Maxim. 'A good thing the rain has come,' he said. 'It's been hanging about too long. I hope you're feeling better.'

I murmured something, I don't know what, and he stood there looking from one to the other of us, rubbing his hands.

'I think you realize', Maxim said, 'that I haven't brought you out on an evening like this for a social half-hour before dinner. This is Jack Favell, my late wife's first cousin. I don't know if you have ever met.'

Colonel Julyan nodded. 'Your face seems familiar. I've probably met you here in the old days.'

'Quite,' said Maxim. 'Go ahead, Favell.'

Favell got up from the sofa and chucked the paper back on the table. The ten minutes seemed to have sobered him. He walked quite steadily. He was not smiling any longer. I had the impression that he was not entirely pleased with the turn in the events, and he was ill-prepared for the encounter with Colonel Julyan. He began speaking in a loud, rather domineering voice. 'Look here, Colonel Julyan,' he said, 'there's no sense in beating about the bush. The reason why I'm here is that I'm not satisfied with the verdict given at the inquest this afternoon.'

'Oh?' said Colonel Julyan, 'isn't that for de Winter to say, not you?'

'No, I don't think it is,' said Favell. 'I have a right to speak, not only as Rebecca's cousin, but as her prospective husband, had she lived.'

Colonel Julyan looked rather taken aback. 'Oh,' he said, 'Oh, I see. That's rather different. Is this true, de Winter?'

Maxim shrugged his shoulders. 'It's the first I've heard of it,' he said.

Colonel Julyan looked from one to the other doubtfully. 'Look here, Favell,' he said, 'what exactly is your trouble?'

Favell stared at him a moment. I could see he was planning something in his mind, and he was still not sober enough to carry it through. He put his hand slowly in his waistcoat pocket and brought out Rebecca's note. 'This note was written a few hours before Rebecca was supposed to have set out on that suicidal sail. Here it is. I want you to read it, and say whether you think a woman who wrote that note had made up her mind to kill herself.'

Colonel Julyan took a pair of spectacles from a case in his pocket and read the note. Then he handed it back to Favell. 'No,' he said, 'on the face of it, no. But I don't know what the note refers to. Perhaps you do. Or perhaps de Winter does?'

Maxim did not say anything. Favell twisted the piece of paper in his fingers, considering Colonel Julyan all the while. 'My cousin made a definite appointment in that note, didn't she?' he said. 'She deliberately asked me to drive down to Manderley that night because she had something to tell me. What it actually was I don't suppose we shall ever know, but that's beside the point. She made the appointment, and she was to spend the night in the cottage on purpose to see me alone. The mere fact of her going for a sail never surprised me. It was the sort of thing she did, for an hour or so, after a long day in London. But to plug holes in the cabin and deliberately drown herself, the hysterical impulsive freak of a neurotic girl – oh, no, Colonel Julyan, by Christ no!' The colour had flooded into his face, and the last words were shouted. His manner was not helpful to him, and I could see by the thin line of Colonel Julyan's mouth that he had not taken to Favell.

'My dear fellow,' he said, 'it's not the slightest use your losing your temper with me. I'm not the Coroner who conducted the inquiry this afternoon, nor am I a member of the jury who gave the verdict. I'm merely the magistrate of the district. Naturally I want to help you all I can, and de Winter, too. You say you refuse to believe your cousin committed suicide. On the other hand you heard, as we all did, the evidence of the boat-builder. The sea-cocks were open, the holes were there. Very well. Suppose we get to the point. What do you suggest really happened?'

Favell turned his head and looked slowly towards Maxim. He was still twisting the note between his ringers. 'Rebecca never opened those sea-cocks, nor split the holes in the planking. Rebecca never committed suicide. You've asked for my opinion, and by God you shall have it. Rebecca was murdered. And if you want to know who the murderer is, why there he stands, by the window there, with that God-damned superior smile on his face. He couldn't even wait could he, until the year was out, before marrying the first girl he set eyes on? There he is, there's your murderer for you, Mr Maximilian de Winter. Take a good long look at him. He'd look well hanging, wouldn't he?'

And Favell began to laugh, the laugh of a drunkard, high-pitched, forced, and foolish, and all the while twisting Rebecca's note between his fingers.

Chapter 24

THANK God for Favell's laugh. Thank God for his pointing finger, his flushed face, his staring bloodshot eyes. Thank God for the way he stood there swaying on his two feet. Because it made Colonel Julyan antagonistic, it put him on our side. I saw the disgust on his face, the quick movement of his lips. Colonel Julyan did not believe him. Colonel Julyan was on our side.

'The man's drunk,' he said quickly. 'He doesn't know what he's saying.'

'Drunk, am I? ' shouted Favell. 'Oh, no, my fine friend. You may be a magistrate and a colonel into the bargain, but it won't cut any ice with me. I've got the law on my side for a change, and I'm going to use it. There are other magistrates in this bloody county besides you. Fellows with brains in their heads, who understand the meaning of justice. Not soldiers who got the sack years ago for incompetence and walk about with a string of putty medals on their chest. Max de Winter murdered Rebecca and I'm going to prove it.'

'Wait a minute, Mr Favell,' said Colonel Julyan quietly, 'you were present at the inquiry this afternoon, weren't you? I remember you now. I saw you sitting there. If you felt so deeply about the injustice of the verdict why didn't you say so then, to the jury, to the Coroner himself? Why didn't you produce that letter in court?'

Favell stared at him, and laughed. 'Why?' he said, 'because I did not choose to, that's why. I preferred to come and tackle de Winter personally.'

'That's why I rang you up,' said Maxim, coming forward from the window; 'we've already heard Favell's accusations. I asked him the same question. Why didn't he tell his suspicions to the Coroner? He said he was not a rich man, and that if I cared to settle two or three thousand on him for life he would never worry me again. Frank was here, and my wife. They both heard him. Ask them.'

'It's perfectly true, sir,' said Frank. 'It's blackmail, pure and simple.'

'Yes, of course,' said Colonel Julyan, 'the trouble is that blackmail is not very pure, nor is it particularly simple. It can make a lot of unpleasantness for a great many people, even if the blackmailer finds himself in jail at the end of it. Sometimes innocent people find themselves in jail as well. We want to avoid that, in this case. I don't know whether you are sufficiently sober, Favell, to answer my questions, and if you keep off irrevelant personalities we may get through with the business quicker. You have just made a serious accusation against de Winter. Have you any proof to back that accusation?'

'Proof? ' said Favell. 'What the hell do you want with proof? Aren't those holes in the boat proof enough?'

'Certainly not,' said Colonel Julyan, 'unless you can bring a witness who saw him do it. Where's your witness?'

'Witness be damned,' said Favell. 'Of course de Winter did it. Who else would kill Rebecca?'

'Kerrith has a large population,' said Colonel Julyan. 'Why not go from door to door making inquiries? I might have done it myself. You appear to have no more proof against de Winter there than you would have against me.'

'Oh, I see,' said Favell, 'you're going to hold his hand through this. You're going to back de Winter. You won't let him down because you've dined with him, and he's dined with you. He's a big name down here. He's the owner of Manderley. You poor bloody little snob.'

'Take care, Favell, take care.'

'You think you can get the better of me, don't you? You think I've got no case to bring to a court of law, I'll get my proof for you all right. I tell you de Winter killed Rebecca because of me. He knew I was her lover; he was jealous, madly jealous. He knew she was waiting for me at the cottage on the beach, and he went down that night and killed her. Then he put her body in the boat and sank her.'

'Quite a clever story, Favell, in its way, but I repeat again you have no proof. Produce your witness who saw it happen and I might begin to take you seriously. I know that cottage on the beach. A sort of picnic place, isn't it? Mrs de Winter used to keep the gear there for the boat. It would help your story if you could turn it into a bungalow with fifty replicas alongside of it. There would be a chance then that one of the inhabitants might have seen the whole affair.'

'Hold on,' said Favell slowly, 'hold on... There is a chance de Winter might have been seen that night. Quite a good chance too. It's worth finding out. What would you say if I did produce a witness?'

Colonel Julyan shrugged his shoulders. I saw Frank glance inquiringly at Maxim. Maxim did not say anything. He was watching Favell. I suddenly knew what Favell meant. I knew who he was talking about. And in a flash of fear and horror I knew that he was right. There had been a witness that night. Little sentences came back to me. Words I had not understood, phrases I believed to be the fragments of a poor idiot's mind. 'She's down there isn't she? She won't come back again.' 'I didn't tell no one.' 'They'll find her there, won't they? The fishes have eaten her, haven't they?' 'She'll not come back no more.' Ben knew. Ben had seen. Ben, with his queer crazed brain, had been a witness all the time. He had been hiding in the woods that night. He had seen Maxim take the boat from the moorings, and pull back in the dinghy, alone. I knew all the colour was draining away from my face. I leant back against the cushion of the chair.

'There's a local half-wit who spends his time on the beach,' said Favell. 'He was always hanging about, when I used to come down and meet Rebecca. I've often seen him. He used to sleep in the woods, or on the beach when the nights were hot. The fellow's cracked, he would never have come forward on his own. But I could make him talk if he did see anything that night. And there's a bloody big chance he did.'

'Who is this? What's he talking about?' said Colonel Julyan.

'He must mean Ben,' said Frank, with another glance at Maxim. 'He's the son of one of our tenants. But the man's not responsible for what he says or does. He's been an idiot since birth.'

'What the hell does that matter?' said Favell. 'He's got eyes, hasn't he? He knows what he sees. He's only got to answer yes or no. You're getting windy now, aren't you? Not so mighty confident? '

'Can we get hold of this fellow and question him?' asked Colonel Julyan.

'Of course,' said Maxim. 'Tell Robert to cut down to his mother's cottage, Frank, and bring him back.'

Frank hesitated. I saw him glance at me out of the tail of his eye.

'Go on, for God's sake,' said Maxim. 'We want to end this thing, don't we?' Frank went out of the room. I began to feel the old nagging pain beneath my heart.