Bertie put the poker back down by the stove in the kitchen. He didn't really trust Gregson, but holding the poker while making tea was very impractical.
Besides - Gregson seemed to be resigned to his fate now. Instead of insisting on going into the bedroom he busied himself with helping Bertie to make the tea.
Bertie felt certain now that Gregson wouldn't grab the poker and threaten him with it to be able to force his way into the bedroom to Edith. Gregson must realise that being awaken in the middle of the night by someone who had been dead for years was not a good experience.
Gregson cared enough for Edith not to insist, and that made Bertie like him a little better.
He knew that Edith had loved and trusted this man, but that didn't really make Bertie trust him. There were too many question marks, both in the way Gregson had disappeared and the way he had come back.
But Gregson didn't look like much of a threat, worn out and dirty as he was. He was looking at least twenty years older than the fifty-something that Bertie knew that he was. The man must have had a hard life lately, Bertie thought.
...
The beneficial health effects of tea - any Englishman would tell you about them - are not limited to the drinking of it. Even the little ceremony of tea-making has its calming effect on the mind. The boiling of the water, the warming of the tea pot, the measuring up of the tea, the time of stillness needed to let it brew - all these little rites served to soothe an agitated and restless mind.
Both Bertie and Michael felt a little more confidence in each other after making tea together. They sat down at the table, each with a steaming cup in front of him, waiting for the tea to cool down enough to be possible to sip.
...
So this was the man who had caused Edith so much worry and pain, Bertie thought. Where had he been hiding those last few years?
Sitting there without talking, Bertie got some disturbing thoughts. He wondered what would happen if he hit Gregson in the head with that poker. The man was declared dead after all, so no one would miss him.
But of course Bertie couldn't do a thing like that, and it wasn't the thought of having to hide the body - while wearing nothing but its own dressing-gown - that held him back.
Of course not. Bertie Pelham wasn't a violent man. He had been to the war, he had been there for far too many years. And the presence of all that death and horror had only made him less violent.
...
After taking their first sip of tea the two men looked at each other again.
It is hard to drink tea with another person in total silence so Michael decided to talk.
"I'm totally worn out", Gregson said with a deep sigh. "I have been travelling through Germany for more than a week, after several years in prison."
"How come you haven't tried to contact anybody here?" Bertie wondered when he heard this. "Made a phone call or sent a telegram? Perhaps it would have been a little awkward since they all thought you were dead, but you didn't seem to be aware of that."
"I wanted to get back to England as fast as possible", Michael said with a sigh. "I wanted to get out of Germany before something else happened to me - something bad. I have been half starved this week - not that the food was all that good in the prison either. I found it much more important to buy food than to send a telegram. There really was no hurry, I have already been away for more than three years, so a week or two extra wouldn't make much difference..."
Bertie decided just to let Gregson talk. To his own surprise he was starting to feel sorry for the man.
"When I was let out of prison they gave me back the few things I had when they arrested me. The clothes on my back, you can see how worn they are. My Swedish passport that of course is a fake, and a wallet with very little money in it. And my keys, the key to this apartment among them."
"Ah" Bertie said. "I see. I thought someone was breaking in, but you still had the key."
"That key was all I had kept from my life here. I only got over to London with a freighter from Hamburg late this evening. I thought it would be easier to enter England with a forged passport as a sailor on leave, and also I had no means to pay for a ticket on a passenger boat. I was desperate to leave Germany... It was lucky they thought I was a Swede. They are apparently known to be good sailors - I'm not exactly young so... I have shovelled coal all evening... I'm tired in every way, you didn't need to threaten me with that poker. I didn't feel safe until I was back on English soil again, and then it was too late to call anybody. So I just went here to sleep."
"As I said, I thought you were a burglar, breaking in", Bertie said. "I wouldn't have grabbed the poker if I had known that it was you."
...
Michael Gregson would wonder later on why he hadn't even asked what Bertie was doing there. Afterwards it seemed to him that it had all been obvious, but perhaps he had been too exhausted to realise. Or simply too unwilling to accept it.
He hadn't even asked for Bertie's name. He didn't find that out until later, when Edith woke up.
AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the many friendly comments to last chapter. Please keep reviewing!