The Man Who Killed Himself (10 page)

‘Yes?’

‘Why is it locked? What have you done with the key?’

He did not answer, but wrenched her arm so that she cried out. The night was hot. He could feel the sweat rolling down his body, dropping from the torso and pouring down his legs. His collar was wringing wet. Involuntarily he looked down to see whether water was staining his shoes. He swayed, and she caught his arm. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

They crossed the road and walked along beside the common. The scent of grass was strong in his nostrils, the roar of traffic exceptionally loud. Suddenly the grass scent was replaced by that of petrol, moving over him in sickly waves. The gears of a lorry grated, and the sound broke on his ears like a shriek of pain. In a field boys played cricket, the ball thudding on bat like a drum. Was it the traffic noise or something wrong with his hearing that made the words she was saying merge into indistinguishable blobs of sound? He turned his head to speak, but she shrieked something and made a gesture. He turned back. Slowly, as it seemed slowly, a cricket ball, reddish brown, moved through the blue air. A long way back on the field the players all stood turned towards him, a theatre audience waiting for something to happen. Joan was calling out, he moved his head, the ball went past (with a super-sensitivity of hearing that replaced his deafness he heard it pass, making a distinct train-like whistle). Then it was in the road and had banged against the tinny side of a car.

‘That almost hit you.’ Her voice sounded faint now, as though wax were in his ears. He shook his head and smiled slightly. A man picked up the ball and threw it back to the cricketers.

The cinema was half-empty. They sat in a row with only two other people in it. They arrived near the end of the first scene, the soldier’s encounter with the prostitute. The darkness surrounding them seemed to have something physical about it, like a blanket. He was jerked sharply into attention by a new theme in the music, and turned to look at Joan. She was staring straight ahead at the screen, and in profile her face had a crumpled, folded expression. Tears crawled like snailmarks down her cheek and she made no attempt to wipe them away.

This dumb-animal misery was too much for him. The day had been so full of anxiety and there was still so much to do, including what lay ahead of him that evening, that he was incapable of making the consoling gesture she needed. He closed his eyes against the images on the screen which mocked his own situation, and let the music flow over him. Within his head there moved incoherent abstract forms. Bright lights converged, met and noiselessly exploded, to be replaced by waves of sound and colour moving restlessly like the sea. They gave way to pictures of people – Pat Parker was there with a veil thickly covering her face. He removed it to find another veil which he pulled aside, and another and another. The important thing was seeing and touching, to assure himself that it was Pat and not somebody else who had come with him to Weybridge. When he touched her hand he knew that something was wrong.

He opened his eyes. The screen was in front of him, figures moved across it as they should do. What was wrong? He looked down to see Joan’s hand inside his trousers, felt the desperate groping of her fingers which moved as if she were trying to bring back the dead to life. She was still staring at the screen, and her hand might have been an agent remote from the rest of her body. He removed the hand, buttoned his trousers, stood up. She clutched his arm. He whispered: ‘Got to make a phone call, back in five minutes,’ walked up the aisle and out of the cinema. Less than half an hour had passed since they entered.

And less than half an hour after that he had done the thing that terrified him. He spent the night in a London hotel. In the morning, before taking the train to Birmingham, he read the papers carefully. Two of them reported the incident. ‘Mystery Fire at Clapham. Arson Suspected.’ Number 48 Elm Drive had been gutted, and people had been evacuated from Number 50. Nobody had been hurt. An empty petrol tin had been found and also some cotton waste in the garden shed belonging to the house. Arson was suspected.

He shivered as he read. It had gone as he intended, with no damage to anybody except an insurance company, yet he still felt uneasy. The crime against property seemed in a way to be a crime against himself. But it had been effective. There would be no personal trace left at Clapham of Major Easonby Mellon.

The Act

He had not decided upon the method and manner of committing the act without thought. It was tempting to play with the idea of planning some deliberate deception about the time of death. ‘It is not possible to be certain about the rate of cooling of a body’: those encouraging words had been written by no less a medico-legal expert than Sir Sydney Smith, and books of medical jurisprudence all spoke with delightful uncertainty about establishing the precise time of death. Suppose that one placed an electric fire near to a body, the time of death would appear to be an hour or two later than was actually the case. Or suppose – more ingenious and interesting – that one took ice cubes from the refrigerator and placed them in plastic non-leaking containers at various points about the body, the normal cooling process should be speeded up. He reluctantly rejected such ideas, partly because of the distaste that he felt for having anything to do with a dead body, but chiefly (or so he felt) because such ingenuity was in itself to be deprecated. If the police happened to notice that the electric fire, although turned off, was still curiously warm, if ice water somehow leaked out of the plastic packs, if in fact the police thought that deliberate deception was being attempted, might they not immediately suspect him? The strength of his position was that Arthur Brownjohn and Easonby Mellon were two wholly separate characters, and that there was no reason in the world why they should be associated. This was what he must remember. The act should be simple, quick and obvious. His plan was simple, and entailed practically no risk.

At Euston Station, on his return from Birmingham he telephoned Clare, and cut short a burst of recriminatory phrases by saying that he was coming home and wanted to see her.

There must have been something strange in his tone, for she checked abruptly as a horse coming to a jump. ‘What about?’

‘I can’t explain now, but –’

‘You can’t explain,’ she said incredulously.

‘You’re alone, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am alone. I am just finishing my lunch.’

‘I shall be back soon. Don’t tell anybody I’m coming, will you?’

‘Arthur, have you been drinking?’

‘I’ll be there soon after three.’ He put down the telephone. His hand was shaking.

In the station lavatory he changed into Easonby Mellon’s clothes, and carefully adjusted the wig and beard. He went out carrying Arthur Brownjohn’s clothes and diary in his suitcase. He caught the two-thirty train from Waterloo for the half-hour journey to Fraycut.

This time Major Mellon made his way straight out of the station in the direction of Livingstone Road. Phil Silvers was not on duty, and the man at the barrier took his ticket without a glance. The Laurels stood foursquare in exurban dignity. The rest of Livingstone Road appeared to sleep. He opened the gate, which gave its accustomed small squeak, walked up the path, inserted the key in the lock, turned it, was inside. Mr Slattery stared at him accusingly, as though aware of the revolver in his jacket pocket. The door of the living-room opened, and Clare came out. ‘What –’ she said, and stopped. He found himself holding his breath, as if something important depended on her words. Then she completed the sentence.

‘What are you doing in those ridiculous clothes, and that –’ She seemed to find it impossible to specify the wig and beard. ‘Take it all off immediately.’

She had known him at once. It was awful. His fists were clenched into tight balls. ‘I can explain.’

‘Your telegram, what was the meaning of that? I waited for more than an hour at Waterloo. And now this fancy dress.’

‘I said I could explain.’

‘I doubt it very much. I cannot think what possible explanation there can be.’

He heard himself saying that it was quite simple, and knew with dismay that the tones were those of Arthur Brownjohn, not of Easonby Mellon. How could boldness have so speedily and humiliatingly abandoned him? One hand went into a pocket and drew out the revolver.

‘What is the
meaning
of this masquerade?’ Clare was becoming angry, it could be seen in the thickening of her neck muscles and the spot of colour in her cheeks. He was near the door of the living-room and she stood in the middle of it just beside the mottled grey sofa. She saw what was in his hand, and her reaction was one of pure exasperation. She spoke like a mother to a misbehaving child. ‘Arthur, what are you doing? Put it
down.’

‘No.’ He found it impossible to speak, then swallowed and managed it. ‘I really must explain.’

She took a step towards him. He retreated. ‘If you could see how silly you look.’

‘Silly!’ he cried out. The word moved him to anger. He raised the revolver, squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

‘Of course you do. Just get that stuff off and wash your face and you’ll feel better.’

‘I am not silly,’ he shouted. Why didn’t she realise that he was a dangerous man? He realised that he had not moved the safety catch and did so. Suddenly the revolver went off, making a tremendous noise. The kickback jolted his arm severely. What had happened to the bullet? He became aware that Clare was strangely pale.

She took another step towards him and said in a low voice, ‘What is the matter with you, Arthur?’

He retreated. He had his back to the door. The revolver went off again, almost deafening him. This time she put her hands to her stomach, so evidently the bullet had hit her, but she did not fall down. Instead she put out a hand, and he felt that if she succeeded in touching him something terrible would happen. He cried out something, he could not have said what, and fired again and again, he did not know how many times or where the bullets went. There was a ping of glass and he thought: ‘Heavens, I’ve broken the French window.’ He looked and saw the window starred at one point, and with a deep crack down the centre. He was so much distressed by this time that his attention was temporarily distracted from Clare. He saw, however, that she was badly hurt. She appeared to be trying to speak to him, but failed to do so. Blood shot in a stream from her mouth – he jumped back hurriedly so that it should not touch him – and she fell over the back of the sofa and then down the side of it to the floor, clawing at the sofa for support and making unintelligible noises in her throat. She seemed still to be trying to say something to him, but he could not imagine what it was. She lay on the carpet groaning. Blood continued to trickle from her mouth. He found it unendurable that she was not dead, perhaps would not die. The revolver was empty, but in any case he could not have fired it again. He stood and watched helplessly as she tried to inch her way across the carpet to – what would it be? – of course, the telephone. There was blood on her face now, and she moved more slowly. He could not have said whether it was seconds or minutes before he realised that she was not moving at all.

It would have been impossible for him to touch her with his gloved hands, but he moved across with the caution he would have used in approaching a squashed but possibly still dangerous insect, and rolled her over with his foot. She lay still, staring at the ceiling with her eyes open. She was, she must be, dead.

He felt that he could no longer bear to be in the house. He dropped the revolver to the floor, looked round him without seeing anything, and ran out of the room. His case stood in the hall. He picked it up, opened the front door, and began to run down the path. Then he checked himself. In the garden of Endholme old Mr Lillicrapp was at work with his fork and trowel. He straightened up and said, ‘Afternoon. Some boys been breaking windows round here. Heard the glass go. Thought it might be mine, but it wasn’t. Not next door, I hope.’ He laughed heartily, but the man leaving The Laurels in a hurry made no reply. Mr Lillicrapp leaned on his fork and stood looking after the man as he walked down the road. Discourtesy was rampant nowadays. He ascribed it less to rudeness than to the hurry and bustle of modern life.

After the Act

Discovery

Major Easonby Mellon died in a train lavatory somewhere between Fraycut and Waterloo. The clothes, wig and beard that had been the corporeal marks of his existence went into the suitcase. The police, when they checked, might find that Mellon had got on to the train at Fraycut. From that point onwards he would have vanished. They would check at Waterloo and at the intermediate stations, and would find no trace of him. Arthur Brownjohn, a man totally inconspicuous except for the bald head concealed by a trilby hat, got off the train at Waterloo, deposited a suitcase in the Left Luggage office, and put the ticket carefully into his wallet. He spent a few minutes in the buffet and then bought a ticket and caught the next train to Fraycut. He walked from the station to Elsom’s house, which was ten minutes’ distance from his own.

The Elsoms lived in a new development of what were called superior town houses, and he was happy to feel that the man who walked up their short drive and rang their three-tone chiming bell, was in complete command of himself. The revulsion he had felt during and after the act remained, but the terror accompanying it had vanished when he shed the appurtenances of Easonby Mellon in the lavatory. Waiting at Fraycut Station, as he had had to do because the train was late, he had been dreadfully agitated. The fear had possessed him that a policeman would come up and say, ‘You were seen leaving The Laurels a few minutes ago under suspicious circumstances, and I must ask you to accompany me to the police station.’ When he became Arthur Brownjohn again he shrugged off these fears, and indeed was able to see that everything had happened for the best. That Mr Lillicrapp had seen the murderer leaving, and that he should have displayed such obvious agitation on the station platform, must surely remove any doubt that might linger in the official mind. If he had planned all that – and it was with a shade of reluctance that he acknowledged what had happened as unplanned and at the time distressing – it could not have worked out better. The call on Elsom was a precautionary measure designed to show that at (he looked at his watch) six o’clock he had been perfectly calm. And he congratulated himself that he had passed the test, that he
was
calm. Many men, after all, would not have been. It was with insouciance that, as the door opened, he faced Elsom’s fine teeth.

‘What a very nice place you have here.’ In fact he detested the appearance of the living-room, the picture window, the differently coloured walls, the rugs placed with careful carelessness on the wood block floor, the absence of a fire-place. How could you possibly call such a place a home?

‘We like it. Melissa’s done the furnishing. She’s got taste.’ All Elsom’s statements were positive. They both invited contradiction and implied that it would not be tolerated. Melissa, a wispy blonde with a tiny triangular face, came in and said that she was sorry.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Melissa couldn’t get along to your party. She had one of her heads.’

‘One of my heads.’ A red-tipped claw was placed upon the longest side of the triangle, the forehead. ‘I believe your wife has heads.’

‘What? Oh yes, she does have heads.’ The conversation was proving less easy to maintain than he had expected. An image flashed across his mind of Clare with two heads. He rejected this, and it was succeeded by one of her face as he had last seen it, with blood trickling down the chin.

‘I find the only thing is a darkened room. Does your wife find that too?’

He began to wish that he were alone with Elsom. However, it proved that Melissa had come in only to make polite conversation. She extolled the virtues of the new development, said how pleasant it was to be among people who were really your sort, expressed a hope that she would meet Clare very soon, and drifted delicately from the room.

‘She’s very sensitive.’ Elsom closed the door decisively. ‘What’ll it be, gin, whisky, vodka, sherry? You name it, we have it.’

‘A little vodka.’ He coughed. ‘I believe that has no smell. I mustn’t go home smelling of drink.’

‘Clare wouldn’t like it, eh?’

‘The truth is, I must confess, I have rather a weak head.’

‘You haven’t been home yet?’

‘I came straight from London. I wanted to see you.’

‘Here I am. Anything I can straighten out, be happy to do it.’ Elsom settled himself in an oddly shaped chair. ‘Fire away.’

‘The truth is Lektreks hasn’t been doing very well lately. In the last couple of years, I mean.’ Elsom’s brisk nod showed him to be unsurprised. ‘And Clare is not very keen on my giving up.’

‘Doesn’t want you round the house all day.’ Elsom guffawed, gulped at his drink. ‘So?’

He said carefully, ‘It might be a question of what terms you have in mind.’

‘I told you, that’s in the hands of the slide rule boys. But I’ve never known anyone who dealt with GBD who had any complaints afterwards.’

‘You did say you might employ me. My inventions.’

‘Your inventions, yes.’ Elsom was obviously about to launch on a long speech, and Arthur took the chance to look surreptitiously at his watch. Just after half past six. How long should he go on with this, when could he decently leave, having established the fact of his calmness and coherence? He listened for what seemed like minutes to Elsom circuitously conveying that what really interested GBD was Lektreks and that the offer of a job was conditional on the purchase of the firm. He nodded occasionally, and was astonished to find that his eyelids had actually closed for a moment. He jerked into attention at mention of Clare’s name.

‘Why not give her a ring?’ Elsom leaned forward doggily in his chair, ready to spring.

‘Give Clare a ring?’

‘Unless you’ve any more problems, conference is finished, agreed? Why not ask her round for a drink, Melissa would love to meet her, won’t take a couple of minutes in the car.’

‘We haven’t got a car.’

‘Shanks’s pony then, it’s a fine evening. Or I’ll nip round and fetch her.’

Why not, he suddenly agreed with doggish Elsom, why not give Clare a ring? There was something gruesome about the thought of the telephone ringing in the empty house, the body on the floor with blood coming out of the mouth, but it was necessary not to think of that. You must be brave, he told himself, you must not draw back now. He saw the sequence of events, the telephone call, no reply, where can Clare have got to, must get back at once, no doubt she’s just slipped out for a few minutes but still. Perhaps Elsom would drive him back. If he did, so much the better.

‘Very good idea. I’ll ring her now if I may use your phone.’

The telephone was in a corner of the room, beneath a grinning mask. As he picked it up and dialled he saw with extreme vividness the telephone at the house. It stood in the hall, an old-fashioned black instrument, different in colour and even in shape from the red telephone in his hand. Burr-burr, the telephone said in his ear, burr-burr. It would take Clare four burr-burrs to get there from the living-room, a dozen from upstairs. He would give it something over a dozen before turning to Elsom, brows knit together, to say that there seemed to be no reply.

The burr-burr stopped. A man’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

He thought for a moment that he would drop the telephone. Then he managed to say, ‘What number is that? Who is it?’

The number was his own. The speaker did not give his identity.

‘I want to speak to my wife. Mrs Brownjohn. Call her to the telephone, please. And who is that?’

‘Just a moment.’

In the next seconds he expected to hear Clare’s voice and to be assured that nothing had happened, the whole thing had been something merely imagined in his diary. A different man’s voice said, ‘Mr Brownjohn?’

‘Yes. Who are you? Where is my wife?’

‘Coverdale, sir. Detective-Inspector, CID. I’ve got some bad news for you.’

He did not have to make his voice quaver as he asked the nature of the news, and was told it. How had the police got there so quickly? Was there something threatening in the Inspector’s voice? He was asked where he was.

‘A friend’s house. Very near.’

‘Give me the address, sir. I’ll send round a car.’

He put down the telephone for a moment. ‘Not bad news, I hope,’ Elsom asked eagerly.

‘The address, what’s the address?’

‘I don’t get you. What address?’

‘The address
here,
you fool.’ The actions and emotions of the day were too much for him, and he began to weep. Elsom looked at him appalled, called his wife, and then picked up the telephone. Even in the grip of the hysteria which was not checked by the huge drink Melissa poured for him, he could not help noticing the businesslike way in which Elsom received the news, opening his jacket to reveal a battery of pens and pencils and selecting one with which to make notes. He chose a ballpoint which wrote in red, and as Arthur remembered the trickle of blood, this seemed to him absurd. The tears streaming down his cheeks became tears of laughter. He made a gesture at the ballpoint, and the laughter grew higher. Elsom put down the telephone, turned, said, ‘Sorry about this.’ He saw nothing, but felt a tremendously hard blow on the jaw, one that rattled his teeth and knocked him off the chair arm on which he had been sitting, on to the carpet.

Melissa’s triangular face bent anxiously over him. He looked up, unable to focus properly.

‘Oh, Derek,’ she said, ‘I hope you haven’t hit him too hard.’