“Go on, Colin,” he said. “How did it come into Raymond’s possession?”
“I can only conjecture that. But this morning, after poor Ray had gone out to skate, I wanted a light for my cigarette, and I had no matches. I drew out something from the waste-paper basket. It was an envelope directed to Raymond, and on the back was the seal of the bank. His handwriting, as you know, was exactly like mine, a spider scrawl you used to call it. I think he must have written to the bank in my name, asking that what I had deposited there was to be sent to him. He would never be safe till he had got that. And—and, oh, father, I should never have been safe when he had got it.”
There was a long silence; Colin’s head was bent on his father’s shoulder; he lay there quivering, while in Philip’s face the grimness grew. Presently Colin spoke again:
“You said you had heard, or half heard, some of this,” he said. “I will remind you. One night at dinner, the night Ray got back from Cambridge, I made the usual nonsensical fool of myself. I seemed to try to recollect something funny that had happened on the morning when Ray went out to shoot pigeons. ‘A man with a gun,’ I said, and you and Vi voted that I was a bore. But I think Raymond knew why I said it, and went on with it till you were all sick and tired of me. I made a joke of it, you see; I could not talk of it to him. I could not be heavy and say, ‘I forgive you; I wipe it out.’ That would have been horrible for him. The only plan I could think of was to make a joke of it, hoping he would understand. I think he did; I think he saw what I meant. But yet he wanted to be safe. Oh, Lord, how I understand that! How anxious I was to be safe and not to have to tell you. But I have had to. If you had listened to me, father, you would have burned that paper. Then no one would ever have known.” (Of course Colin remembered that Violet knew, but he went on without a pause:)
“I’m all to pieces to-night,” he said. “I have horrible fears and all sorts of dreadful things occur to me. That paper is safe nowhere, father. It wasn’t even safe—poor Ray—at my bank. Supposing Vi, by some appalling mischance, got to see it. It would poison Raymond’s memory for her. He did love her, I am sure of that, and though she didn’t love him, she thinks tenderly and compassionately of him. She is not safe while it exists. Burn it, father. Just look at it once first, if you want to know that I have spoken quiet, sober truth, which I did not want to speak, as you know, and then burn it.”
Philip’s first instinct was to throw it straight into the smouldering logs. He believed every word Colin had said, but there was justice to be done to one who could not plead for himself. He was bound to see that Raymond had acted the story that Colin had told him. Dry-eyed and grim, he read it from first word to last, and then stood up.
“Here it is,” he said. “You have been scrupulously accurate. I should like you to see me burn it.”
The paper was damp, and for a little while it steamed above the logs. Then, with a flap, a flame broke from it. A little black ash clung to the embers and grew red, then a faint, grey ash ascended and pirouetted.... Philip’s stern eyes melted, and he turned to his only son.
“And now I have got to forget,” he said.
That seemed the very word Colin was waiting for.