Gibbous House 76

Maccabi had had the courtesy to leave the decanter on the wrought iron table. I removed the stopper and charged the reporter's glass to no discernible reaction. Miss Pardoner declined the offer and I filled mine own glass, with a little more care than Maccabi had. Miss Pardoner gave a polite, and unconvincing, cough - as though asking my permission to speak. Her bold stare gave the lie to this semblance of propriety:

'Mr Moffat. I wondered if you might care to discuss Miss Arabella Coble with me. I quite feel I know her. The late Mr Coble spoke of her fondly and often. You will forgive a young woman's curiosity, I am sure.'

I would have, that was indeed true. However, a young woman's dissembling I would have - and did - find less forgivable. It seemed doubtful to me that my late wife had been held in any great affection by a man who had instructed his lawyers to '‘be in no doubt, I hold yourselves responsible should my great-niece be so misguided as to believe I hold her in any kind of affection.” Miss Pardoner's request was merely a gambit of some kind. For that reason I chose to grant it, hoping to descry in what game she had made this opening.

'She was a remarkable woman.' I began. I regaled with as affecting an account of the family life of persons of quality as had ever been invented – for publication or otherwise. But I could not tell her any semblance of the truth. Even the most blurred facsimile of it should have, I supposed, shocked the woman to the core. There would come a time to tell Miss Ellen Pardoner about Arabella Coble: that time had not yet come. Though the reporter appeared insensible, it were too great a risk.

Therefore I spoke at length, with as little regard for veracity as Mr Charles Dickens himself - and perhaps with as much sentiment regarding the paragon I claimed Arabella to have been. I should confess I limned myself in colours less dark than they should have been, but not too much so. Though veracity was not required, a certain verisimilitude was necessary.

So Miss Pardoner did not hear of forgery, deception, or hurried departures by the light of moons gibbous and otherwise. Nor did she hear of occasional forays into the life of the street on both our parts, although admittedly Arabella provided service more often than I, who often contented himself with the pecuniary aspect, whilst foregoing any quid pro quo – other than the provision of restful ease for tormented men. Nor did I mention the swindle, the glorious gulling of a minor earl, whose climax earned a year's living – and the dying of her daughter left alone that night with the lucifer box. The ending I gave the fantasy was equally unreal, recounting how Arabella had died bravely in my arms after suffering much.

This last was true insofar as it went. My late wife had died raving and ravaged by syphilis, with a curse for Alasdair Moffat on her lips.