1937-07-23 — Page 11

A BROADCAST TALK

Banstead.

timmy

And now he who had taught me so much, now taught me how to hate. With gone, I had nothing in life that I cared about. I turned all my pent-up energies into one dirèc- tion. Banstead had robbed me of my friend. I would rob him of everything he wanted in the world.

every-

I suppose I really owe thing to Banstead. I certainly. should never have aspired to be President of the Union had he himself not so obviously wanted it. I should never have stood for by- Parliament in that fateful election at Bristol had it not been. that he was so anxious to get in.

I should certainly never have looked so high as Letitia Fren- cham if Banstead had not already been practically engaged to her.

·

It's odd how easy it all was. Once I had robbed him of her I

With was a made man.

such a wife no man could fail. Her family pulled all the strings. I had Banstead just where I want- ed him. I let him get a certain way in politics, just far enough' to make him think I'd forgotten him, and then I sprang—and he was out.

or

He then turned to Education, underrating the extent of my, rather my wife's, influence there. I saw to it that he succeeded in getting the Headmastership he wanted. And I let him hold it just three years, long enough to make a name for himself.

Then I swooped again.

You are listening, aren't you? It seems so odd, not that the light is no longer on, but you couldn't cut me off without hearing now that you see how important it is.

There have been many moments of triumph in my life, but one of the sweetest was the day on which, after repeated denials, I at last granted him an interview to de- fend himself against the accusa- tions that led to his being asked to resign his headmastership.

It was fun to be able to be so charming to him and so full of pretended sympathy, and yet to know that all the evidence against him was faked, and that he knew that I knew and that he couldn't, in spite of that, do anything about it.-

The papers gave a fine splash to that episode. I saw to that (Now probably you recall the name.) It was a very unsavoury case. It ruïned the school, and it ruined him. He was quite inno- cent.

I didn't have to worry about him after that. Occasionally · I read the lists of suicides to see if he was among them, but there are so many. He might easily have slipped through without my notice. I hoped not. I wanted every step in my triumph to be seen by Banstead.

Success is an odd thing. I had not, as a boy, been ambitious. It was owing entirely to my effort to do down Banstead that I had odd, turn of grown to be so. An o the screw. Having started, there was no turning back. I was now ambition's slave. I had to “go from success to success exactly as Macbeth went on from mur-

der to murder until he was wad- ing knee-deep in blood...

with And I had another link Macbeth. My wife died in the middle of one of my fiercest bat- would tles for power. "There have been a time for such a word." But not then. I had used her to gain office. Some day I would repay, so far as in me lay, what she had done for me.. I was not ungrateful even if I was incapable of true husbandly affec- tion.

But the chance never came for me to show my gratitude. Her death caught me unawares.

Not that she would have ever let me show it. She was proud of what she had made me, but she remain- ed to the end as quietly aloof as she had been at the beginning. She needn't have died. It was through sheer lack of any will to live. And on the very day of the funeral I read that Banstead had been sent to prison for blackmail. Joy mingled with my sorrow.

And since then I've lived only for my daughter. It's odd when

you think how unlike me she is, how like her mother in beauty and reserve and poise and absence of passion, that she should have taken to me so, borne with my insolence, impatience, and quick furies. She is like Jimmy in her simplicity, unswerving loyalty. loving so unreservedly. And yet he walked out without one word to me. With a similar incentive might she not, too, act as he act ed?

I sent Felicity, that is my daughter, to the South of France last week. I felt she needed a holiday from me. This India business has been getting on my nerves. What I was - going to tell you to-night would have made all the difference to my future.

She knew that, too. She had been my mainstay through all this troublous battle. But there was no more that she could do. I sent her away. That was last

week.

To-night, I was dining quietly by myself as I always do before broadcasting, in the Cottesmore. Just as 'I was on my way to wash

I always make rather a ceres mony of washing before broad- casting a bell boy came after me with a note, a common enough oc-- currence, but just before broad- casting I dislike it because it means something either completely irrelevant or something of im- mense importance.

I was in a hurry. It was too dark in the corridor to read it. I waited till I got to the lavatory, and while the attendant was fill- ing the basin for me I opened it, and there fell out a newspaper cutting.

It was a portrait of Felicity. I went cold all over. I am always. anticipating some accident. She's so reckless, and she's all I've got in the world. But there was a note as well as the cutting. opened - it.

Before my eyes, had time to read the first

I knew that

the writing wear. I was ́

holding in my hand

once, more

the note that had sent Jimmy to his death. As I read the lines. before me. my hand began to shake

uncontrollably

this time the writer had fastened his fangs in- to Felicity. Why?

Did he imagine that I would go out and hang myself. because of

lines those few

of dirt? He would not be such a fool. Anony- mous letter writers do not seek maim. to kill, only to hurt and Had he sought to kill Jimmy? Perhaps not, but Jimmy had died.

"Is there anything I can do, sir?" I looked up and saw the reflection of the attendant in the mirror in front of me.

I

It is over thirty years since last saw that malicious gleam lurking behind Banstead's eyes, but in spite of the bent shoulders, the furrowed lines, the premature old age, short cropped grey hair, I recognised him at once.

So it was he who had sent that note to Jimmy, and now this one to me to put me off my balance at a supreme psychological mo- ment. I felt a glow of delight that he had sunk to his depth: from headmaster to lavatory at- tendant. Then that feeling was followed by one of ungovernable desire to destroy once and for all those mocking eyes. As I turn- ed on him he shrunk back in ter-

ror.

This is what you must listen to, the truth of it. If only that light hadn't been turned off.

Continued From Page 1

it.

He had no more chance than a

my

he knew fingers

rat with a terrier,

As I fastened round his throat my mind went back to the day at school when I felt the ring of fire round my 'throat, and I gripped the hard- er. I thought of Jimmy's lone- ly death in the quiet water, and I shook the gurgling thing and smiled at the staring eye-balls.

I dragged his body to his own little dark room, shut the door on it, and then went back to wash -strangely calm, as if something had been accomplished.

I then walked across the road to the B.B.C.

I wanted you to know the truth of it, before you read the garbled versions in be to-morrow's papers. I shan't hanged. They don't hang Cabin- et Ministers. Anyway I shan't be available for hanging.

But I wish I could see Felicity I once more, and tell her that know that note wasn't true. Per- haps one of you would' Please!

You are still listening, aren't you? Ah! the door. But my time isn't up yet. I've got, I've got at: least two

What Do minutes more. are all you gentlemen standing

in there for? Come in. Come

and let me finish, please, gentle- men, please

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blindfold! And to think that at one

#

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