A Choice of Murders, page 12
There was something about the way she looked at me. So trusting. It made me feel crueler than I was. I told myself I was doing her a kindness. She’d never have fitted into my circle. Her shallow little mind could never have grasped the complexities of mine. Oh, I don’t suppose Caroline would have got them either, but she’d have been content to be my wife without trying to intrude on my ideas.
I began gently. I was prepared for tears and, perhaps, even for some hysteria. I wasn’t prepared for the transformation of the gentle René into a virago. She stormed at me and as she did so, I was interested to notice that she shed the affectations of her speech and lapsed into her native Scots. Listening to her rage, I told myself I was well out of it.
I let her finish and got up to pour myself a drink. I measured a good four fingers of whiskey into the glass and took up the soda-siphon.
Then she spoke, quite softly, “David, you’ll have to marry me. I’m going to have a baby.”
I saw it. I was trapped. My brilliance would count for nothing tied to this vulgar little baggage. And I’d be tied for life. I knew it would be no use suggesting that anything could be done about it. She’d never have agreed. Although René wasn’t a Catholic herself, her parents were, and she’d imbibed enough of the doctrine to make that impossible.
Oh, yes, she’d got me neatly by the short hairs. I don’t know why I did it, but in a sudden flush of rage—like a beast cornered—I swung the siphon at her. I don’t think I meant to hit her with it, but she moved toward me just at that moment. Her lips were parted as though in readiness for a kiss, as though what she had said had made everything all right between us once more.
I felt rather than saw the heavy glass crash against the side of her head.
Then I was suddenly cool again. She lay crumpled on the floor. I bent down over her and realized she was dead. There was nothing I could do about it.
For about half an hour I walked up and down the room—just as these last weeks I’ve been walking up and down this cell. I thought I might explain it as an accident—for, damn it all, it was that and nothing more. I hadn’t meant to kill her. I might have got away with that. She could have hit her head on the cast-iron fender.
But then I realized how that would involve me. I’d need to think of a way out which wouldn’t blacken me in the eyes of Caroline’s people. Sir John is an awful old stuffed shirt. You’d never dream he’d ever been young himself. No, it was clear I couldn’t call the police and say there’d been an accident.
There was only one way out for me. That was to cut her up and dispose of the body. It was fortunate, I told myself, that I was such a brilliant hand at dissection. I took a piece of oilcloth and laid it on the table in the kitchen. I bent to pick her up. She wasn’t heavy.
The siphon hadn’t damaged her looks at all. She was still lovely. I laid a handkerchief over her face. I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t bear to look at her. Do you remember from school—“Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle, she died young”? Yes? Well, I suppose it was something like that.
I don’t suppose you want to hear about the next hours? I don’t much like remembering them myself. The knife exploring where the loving hands had been. I was steady, though, and I made an excellent job of it.
There was, however, one point where I nearly lost control of myself. That was when I discovered she’d lied to me about her condition. But even that didn’t make me wish to mar her face. Somehow I couldn’t do it.
You know—everyone knows—how I strewed the minute particles of flesh and bone about The Meadows. It might have seemed a stupid move, but I’d often watched the dogs rioting about there, and I knew that, cut sufficiently small, these fragments would soon disappear. The trouble was her head.
When I’d finished my work, I think I was pretty drunk. At any rate the whiskey bottle was empty, and I was more than halfway through the brandy. I took them neat, for somehow I just couldn’t use the soda-siphon.
You know the way things go? I was not alarmed when a policeman came to my flat one evening to ask if I’d seen her. I avoided the common error of saying I thought she’d gone off with another man. I don’t say I didn’t think of that, but I realized it might involve me. It might suggest that I’d been intimate with her. I managed to get it across that, while I’d certainly been friendly with the girl, I knew nothing of her love-life. That policeman went away satisfied.
What I hadn’t counted on was her girlfriend in the shop where she’d worked. If I’d had any sense I’d have realized she couldn’t keep a romance, as she’d have called it, like hers a secret. It was too like the stories in her pathetic papers. I’d represented her possibility of escape from trivial drudgery and her rise in the social scale.
The next time they came there were two of them. A constable and a fellow in plainclothes. They were polite, I will say that for them. But the man in plainclothes said, “I don’t suppose you mind if we take a look round?” And, of course, I couldn’t refuse.
All the time I was in Sauchiehall Prison, waiting for the trial, Caroline never came near me once. I felt annoyed by this. It showed a lack of trust in me. I never anticipated any trouble. Of course, I knew I shouldn’t have cut up her body and disposed of it the way I’d done. But, then, a chap in my position couldn’t afford to be mixed up in a thing like that. Of course, too, it was different now. The whole story would have to come out. I supposed that having a trial was just a formality.
It was so patently absurd to suppose that a man of my attainments would actually have murdered a shop-girl. To my surprise, I found that my lawyer didn’t think it was as simple as I did. That’s one of the troubles about living in a place like Edinburgh. All these old family lawyers are more dead than alive. Of course, they’re all right on matters of property and so on—but they know nothing of the real facts of life.
The court was crowded. Looking along the public benches I saw many of my friends. You were there, too, weren’t you? I thought I saw you. I also saw René’s parents. They looked old and shrunken. It was absurd that they should’ve been so upset over the death of such an unimportant person.
I realized quickly that I was the only person in court who had any real philosophical grasp of the meaning of civilization. Here I was, a potential benefactor of humanity, suffering the indignity of being tried for my life—for my life, mind you—all because of the death of one who had nothing to give to the people among whom she lived.
Nonsense, old boy, nonsense. That’s rubbish. Beauty is an accident, and the world could get along nicely without beautiful women. “Beauty is but a flower which wrinkles will devour.” It couldn’t get along without doctors.
My lawyer didn’t want me to go into the witness box. I had to insist. His account of what had happened was so garbled I felt I had to get it straight, in justice—that’s a funny word—to myself. After all, I’d been there myself and I alone knew just what had happened.
I pointed out, rightly, that René was a person of no importance. It only goes to show that crass sentimentality is not quite dead. When I spoke, some people on the public-benches hissed. I’m glad to say the judge made short work of them. He told them, more or less, to shut up or get out. I suffered no further interruptions. One of the advantages of a training like mine is that you learn to tell a story briefly, without inessentials.
Of course, the other side did their best to blacken my character. They said I’d been trifling with the girl’s affections, and that I’d seen a personal advantage in a marriage with Caroline. This was nonsense. I was going to marry Caroline because she was the same kind of person as myself, with the same background. I’d sufficient faith in my own abilities to know that I didn’t need to be helped to success. Then, too, they tried to make capital out of the way in which I’d disposed of the body. A set of sentimental slobs, they could not realize that my actions had been entirely logical.
The judge was a little man with a little dried-up face. He shuffled his notes slowly before he spoke to the jury. He reminded them that there were three verdicts in Scotland—Guilty, Not Guilty, and Not Proven. He made some remarks about the jury’s not being influenced by any personal distaste for the prisoner. I supposed he meant well, but I couldn’t for the life of me see why he said it, unless he was trying to protect a man of his own level of intelligence against the malignancy of the unlettered mob.
I had little doubt about the verdict. They might not go all the way to saying I wasn’t guilty, but I blessed my lucky stars that the trial was in Scotland, with that providential third verdict. Of course, I myself knew I wasn’t guilty, but I couldn’t vouch for what was going on in the minds of a lot of small tradesmen.
I may say that when the jury came back after only ten minutes and said I was guilty I nearly laughed. I thought the judge would send them back to reconsider the verdict, but he just nodded his little bird-like head.
I scarcely heard what he said to me. He said something about agreeing with the jury, which showed me I’d been wrong in my estimate of him. He was a man utterly lacking in the finer points of sensibility. You might have expected a man in his position to realize that an educated man like myself could not set about murdering a shop-girl, for that was all she was. He asked me if I’d anything to say before he pronounced sentence.
I certainly had. I pointed out that the trial had been badly mismanaged and that it was ridiculous to think of punishing a man of my gifts—gifts of incomparable value to humanity—just because he had failed to make the true story acceptable to a bunch of clods. I indicated the jury. Further, I thought it was my duty to point out that the world was no poorer for René’s death, whereas it would be a great deal poorer for mine. I thought I made the position clear.
Then he put on that silly little bit of black silk and, playing with a little nosegay of herbs, told me I would be hanged by the neck until I was dead. It was so farcical I could scarcely believe it myself.
However, I had little doubt that a higher court would see there’d been a gross miscarriage of justice, so I didn’t worry. It’s all so obviously absurd. The law is corrupt. My appeal was rejected, and they tell me now there’s no hope of a reprieve.
In a little more than ten hours the chaplain will come in and ask me to say my prayers. Why should I pray? It won’t do me any good. Then they’ll tie my hands behind my back and I’ll go for that short walk. I don’t think I’ll break down. I still can’t quite believe it’s me in this cell. No—I mustn’t think of it.
Thanks for coming, old fellow. You can make what use you like of what I’ve told you. You will make it clear that I’m suffering unjustly, won’t you? It’s destroyed all my faith in the infallibility of British justice. It’s a travesty, that’s what it is!
The whole situation is too ridiculous for words. If I’d been a little less sensitive than I am, I wouldn’t be here now. They could never have proved it against me. It was all circumstantial evidence but for that one thing. I just couldn’t bring myself to cut it up, so there it was in the kitchen cupboard—René’s head in a jar of formalin.
* * *
EDITOR’S POSTSCRIPT: At lock-up time or bedtime, however it is called, I have had no word from Ruthven on what set him off on this tale. He is reading poetry somewhere on the West Coast, his own and other people’s. By which I mean he is giving poetry readings, presumably for love and money. But I thought about the story and decided that if it’s anyone we know in there, we don’t want to look anyway, do we?
The Couple Next Door
Margaret Millar
It was by accident that they lived next door to each other, but by design that they became neighbors—Mr. Sands, who had retired to California after a life of crime investigation, and the Rackhams, Charles and Alma. Rackham was a big, innocent-looking man in his fifties. Except for the accumulation of a great deal of money, nothing much had ever happened to Rackham, and he liked to listen to Sands talk, while Alma sat with her knitting, plump and contented, unimpressed by any tale that had no direct bearing on her own life. She was half Rackham’s age, but the fullness of her figure, and her air of having withdrawn from life quietly and without fuss, gave her the stamp of middle-age.
Two or three times a week Sands crossed the concrete driveway, skirted the Eugenia hedge, and pressed the Rackhams’ door chime. He stayed for tea or for dinner, to play gin or scrabble, or just to talk. “That reminds me of a case I had in Toronto,” Sands would say, and Rackham would produce martinis and an expression of intense interest, and Alma would smile tolerantly, as if she didn’t really believe a single thing Sands, or anyone else, ever said.
They made good neighbors: the Rackhams, Charles younger than his years, and Alma older than hers, and Sands who could be any age at all…
It was the last evening of August and through the open window of Sands’ study came the scent of jasmine and the sound of a woman’s harsh, wild weeping.
He thought at first that the Rackhams had a guest, a woman on a crying jag, perhaps, after a quarrel with her husband.
He went out into the front yard to listen, and Rackman came around the hedge, dressed in a bathrobe.
He said, sounding very surprised, “Alma’s crying.”
“I heard.”
“I asked her to stop. I begged her. She won’t tell me what’s the matter.”
“Women have cried before.”
“Not Alma.” Rackham stood on the damp grass, shivering, his forehead streaked with sweat. “What do you think we should do about it?”
The “I” had become “we,” because they were good neighbors, and along with the games and the dinners and the scent of jasmine, they shared the sound of a woman’s grief.
“Perhaps you could talk to her,” Rackham said.
“I’ll try.”
“I don’t think there is anything physically the matter with her. We both had a check-up at the Tracy clinic last week. George Tracy is a good friend of mine—he’d have told me if there was anything wrong.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“If anything ever happened to Alma, I’d kill myself.”
Alma was crouched in a corner of the davenport in the living room, weeping rhythmically, methodically, as if she had accumulated a hoard of tears and must now spend them all in one night. Her fair skin was blotched with patches of red, like strawberry birthmarks, and her eyelids were blistered from the heat of her tears. She looked like a stranger to Sands, who had never seen her display any emotion stronger than ladylike distress over a broken teacup.
Rackham went over and stroked her hair. “Alma, dear. What is the matter?”
“Nothing…nothing…”
“Mr. Sands is here, Alma. I thought he might be able—we might be able—”
But no one was able. With a long shuddering sob, Alma got up and lurched across the room, hiding her blotched face with her hands. They heard her stumble up the stairs.
Sands said, “I’d better be going.”
“No, please don’t. I—the fact is, I’m scared. I’m scared stiff. Alma’s always been so quiet.”
“I know that.”
“You don’t suppose—there’s no chance she’s losing her mind?”
If they had not been good neighbors Sands might have remarked that Alma had little mind to lose. As it was, he said cautiously, “She might have had bad news, family trouble of some kind.”
“She has no family except me.”
“If you’re worried, perhaps you’d better call your doctor.”
“I think I will.”
George Tracy arrived within half an hour, a slight, fair-haired man in his early thirties, with a smooth unhurried manner that imparted confidence. He talked slowly, moved slowly, as if there was all the time in the world to minister to desperate women.
Rackham chafed with impatience while Tracy removed his coat, placed it carefully across the back of the chair, and discussed the weather with Sands.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” Tracy said, and Alma’s moans sliding down the stairs distorted his words, altered their meaning: a terrible evening, an awful evening. “There’s a touch of fall in the air. You live in these parts, Mr. Sands?”
“Next door.”
“For heaven’s sake, George,” Rackham said, “will you hurry up? For all you know, Alma might be dying.
“That I doubt. People don’t die as easily as you might imagine. She’s in her room?”
“Yes. Now will you please—”
“Take it easy, old man.”
Tracy picked up his medical bag and went towards the stairs, leisurely, benign.
“He’s always like that.” Rackham turned to Sands, scowling. “Exasperating son-of-a-gun. You can bet if he had a wife in Alma’s condition, he’d be taking those steps three at a time.
“Who knows?—perhaps he has.”
“I know,” Rackham said crisply. “He’s not even married. Never had time for it, he told me. He doesn’t look it but he’s very ambitious.”
“Most doctors are.”
“Tracy is, anyway.”
Rackham mixed a pitcher of martinis, and the two men sat in front of the unlit fire, waiting and listening. The noises from upstairs gradually ceased, and pretty soon the doctor came down again.
Rackham rushed across the room to meet him. “How is she?”
“Sleeping. I gave her a hypo.”
“Did you talk to her? Did you ask her what was the matter?”
“She was in no condition to answer questions.”
“Did you find anything wrong with her?”
“Not physically. She’s a healthy young woman.”
“Not physically. Does that mean—?”
“Take it easy, old man.”
