Answer in the Negative

by Henrietta Hamilton

  She stopped and lay back in her chair. The lamplight was kind, but she looked white and strained.

  A full minute passed before Johnny spoke. Then he said gravely, ‘Thank you, Miss Marvell. I’m sorry, but this story must go to the police. All of it, I’m afraid. The last part is the more important, of course, but the first part must go with it to explain it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Selina. ‘If you insist. I feel better about it now I’ve told you. But I don’t suppose the police will believe it. I won’t ask if you do. You’ll want notice of that question.’

  ‘I’m inclined to believe it,’ said Johnny. ‘At the risk of looking foolish, I’ll even say that I’m inclined to admire your courage in telling it. As for the police, the main thing is that they should hear it, and as soon as possible. I’m going to ring up Scotland Yard and ask if I may bring you in at once. I hope Lindesay will be sent for if he’s not there.’

  Johnny didn’t come back till half past six. He had waited for Selina at Scotland Yard and taken her home. He looked a little tired and seemed quite glad to give the case a rest till after supper. Sally decided that it was a night for coffee, and he accepted his cup gratefully, and lit a cigarette. Then he said, ‘You see why Selina’s story is so important, if it’s true?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sally. ‘Though I admit the penny didn’t drop till you were just leaving. We’ve been assuming all this time that the booby-trap was rigged while Morningside was in the canteen, between twenty to seven and twenty past. But if Selina’s story is true, she was wandering about his office till twenty past. So an alibi for the canteen period isn’t the slightest good, and I suppose the trap must have been rigged while he was in Cuts, though that wouldn’t give the murderer very long.’

  ‘No,’ said Johnny. ‘I think we want a timetable.’

  He fetched a pad from Sally’s desk, and she went and sat beside him on the sofa. Between them they made a detailed table. All their times were approximate, but that couldn’t be helped.

  6.35 Miss Quimper enters Peex by back way.

  6.38 Teddy enters Echo House by Laxton’s door.

  6.39 Morningside leaves Peex by front way for canteen. Miss Quimper leaves Peex by back way and enters Ladies’.

  6.41 Teddy enters Peex by back way.

  6.45 Miss Quimper leaves Ladies’ and enters back lift.

  6.47 Miss Quimper leaves back lift on ground floor. (Laxton’s evidence.)

  6.50 Selina enters Echo House by Fleet Street entrance. (Brown’s evidence.)

  6.52 Teddy leaves Peex by back way. (It may have taken him approximately 10 minutes to find the Venezuelan pix; if it hasn’t, his date with Longwall is not till 7.00pm, and the Grapevine is close at hand.)

  6.53 Selina enters Peex by front way.

  6.55 Teddy leaves Echo House by Laxton’s door. (Laxton’s evidence.)

  7.20 Morningside enters Peex by front way from canteen.

  7.24 Selina leaves Peex by front way.

  7.26 Morningside leaves Peex by back way and enters Cuts.

  7.27 Selina leaves Echo House by Fleet Street entrance.

  7.30 Miss Quimper enters Cuts.

  7.32 Morningside leaves Cuts and re-enters Peex by back way. Miss Quimper leaves Cuts and re-enters back lift.

  7.37 Miss Quimper leaves Echo House by Fleet Street entrance. (Brown’s evidence?)

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnny. ‘I think it was long enough. Morningside was probably in Cuts for five or six minutes — he was coping with unfamiliar files — and possibly for as much as nine or even ten, if he left Peex the moment Selina had left it, and if he talked to Miss Quimper for more than two minutes. She said she was with him for a couple of minutes; that might well mean three, and possibly four. And while he was in Cuts the murderer slipped into Peex — I should think by the back way, which is the less public. He probably saw the light on in Cuts, guessed Morningside was there, did the job as quickly as possible, and left by the front way. And, of course, he could leave the lift before the ground floor and find another way out.’ He paused, and then went slowly on.

  ‘If Selina is lying, she rigged the trap herself, between six-fifty-three and seven-twenty — plenty of time there. We can almost certainly rule out the possibility of an accomplice. And if she knows that you — or someone — overheard her little scene with poor Toby, she may have designed her story to explain it away. Toby’s remark about ‘what she did to Morningside that evening’ could refer to her behaviour at Knox’s party as well as to Morningside’s death. In fact, Sally, a good deal better. Remembering how Morningside died, and how shaken Toby was by the sight of his body — and remembering that Toby is very genuinely religious — I can’t believe he could ever have brought himself to say that he had no feelings about Morningside’s death, however much in love he might have been with the killer. Besides, Selina would have had to be damned sure of his devotion to proceed to a second murder, knowing that he knew she had done the first. She’s accustomed to devotion, of course — Toby, Morningside in his way, Knox in his, and apparently even Silcutt. But she’s not a fool. I’m quite sure she was talking about Knox’s party when you overheard her, and when she spoke of confessing to Toby, she was probably just having a dig at his clerical background. But she may have realised that the scene could be interpreted differently, and she’d be more likely to see that if she had in fact killed Morningside.’ Johnny paused again.

  ‘I’ve been realising very gradually,’ he said, ‘that Morningside’s murder might not be the kind of murder we thought it at all. We thought it the work of an unbalanced person — a dangerous lunatic — who had been feeding his hatred of Morningside with increasingly unpleasant tricks and increasingly nasty communications until it reached proportions so great that he didn’t care whether he killed Morningside or not. Or, perhaps, whether he killed anyone else or not. It was as callous and brutal and cold-blooded as you like, but it wasn’t an altogether deliberate murder, and it wasn’t necessarily backed by any understandable motive.

  ‘Several things made me wonder if we were right. First, there was the apparently deliberate use of Pat’s and Pam’s rude rhymes and Teddy’s prep school tricks as a foundation for the heavier stuff which followed, and, secondly, there was the acquisition of the key to Morningside’s office. A madman can be extremely clever, but these things — to my mind — struck an unexpectedly practical and purposeful note which was held throughout the performance. Thirdly, it was clear that the key had been acquired either by Teddy or by the writer of the ruder rhymes, and that the owner of the key was responsible for the booby-trap. Teddy’s tricks might have been a stage on the road to lunacy — I’m not a psychiatrist, and I wouldn’t know — but they obviously weren’t at all necessarily so. On the other hand, the ruder rhyme Toby showed me seemed a perfectly sane production. I got him to repeat to me what he could remember of the others, and it only confirmed my impression. It seemed to me that there was a big gap between those things and the filth of the letters — an even bigger gap than there was between Teddy’s prep school stuff and the poltergeist tricks, if only because the rhymes were obviously the work of a mature mind and the prep school stuff — in this case — the work of an adolescent one. When I said so to Toby, he reminded me that the rhymes had shaded off gradually, and that the only one I had actually seen had been an early effort. But I wasn’t quite convinced. I was beginning to think that what had been presented to us might be not the real degeneration of a good mind, but a deliberate impression of it. Not a perfect impression, perhaps, but about as good as it could be, given a definite starting-point which must have seemed too good to waste, but which involved the impressionist in a rather tricky process of gradation.

  ‘Well, if I was right, all this build-up could have only one object: the deliberate murder of Morningside for some powerful and perfectly logical motive which was to be concealed by the impression of lunacy. But here I ran straight into what looks like a brick wall. The Coroner said a thing which came back to me very forcibly. H
e said that the appropriate verdict was murder if some person had deliberately placed the box on the top of the door with the intention or in the hope of killing or injuring Morningside — “even if that person could not have been absolutely certain of causing Morningside’s death”. That’s the point, Sally. It looks as if he couldn’t have been certain. And yet, if this whole elaborate plot was designed with the sole object of killing Morningside, his actual death can’t have been left to chance.’

  ‘But it was a very good chance, wasn’t it? If—’ Sally stopped suddenly, remembering Johnny’s experiment with the Penguin.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘On the face of it, I don’t think it was, and I’m not sure how far the Coroner realised that. There are, generally speaking, two different ways of approaching a door which you’re going to open — or push open, if it’s ajar. If you’re a shy, ill-assured person, you sidle up to it — as Silcutt does — and you don’t open it or push it open until you’re close against it. So you’re quite likely to get anything that’s on top of it on your head. More likely, of course, with a box of negs than with a Penguin book, because the box is a good deal bigger, but still not certain. Or, at least, the blow is not certain to be fatal. If, on the other hand, you’re fairly self-confident, as Morningside was, you extend your arm as you approach, open the door, and get what’s coming to you on the forearm. If it’s a box of negs it will no doubt break your arm, but it won’t kill you. Either way, from the point of view of a determined murderer, it’s just not good enough.’

  Sally forced her mind back. ‘I’m trying to remember how he was lying,’ she said. ‘His head and shoulders were inside the door and the rest of him outside. His right arm was stretched out ahead of him with that one negative in his hand. He—’

  She stopped again, because Johnny’s face had changed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said almost sharply. ‘That one negative. I wondered about it at the time, and then I forgot it. How did it get there? Miss Quimper doesn’t seem to have noticed it when she met him in Cuts. It’s possible he had it in his pocket then, but if so, why did he take it out before he got into his office? Admittedly he was in a slightly abnormal nervous condition, and he might have made a restless movement of that kind. But—’

  He got up suddenly and fetched the thick green Penguin, which he had stuck into its cover. Then he went back to Sally’s desk and found a postcard.

  ‘I think we must do this,’ he said, moving a chair towards the door. ‘You remember how to balance the thing?’ He placed the book against the lintel in the same way as before. Then he gave it to Sally and opened the door. He laid the postcard carefully on the red mat outside, close to its inner edge, and drew the door to behind him.

  Sally climbed on to the chair, placed the book, climbed down again, moved the chair, and said, ‘Right.’

  Johnny approached briskly. Then he stopped. A moment later the door opened, not very far. The book struck him square on the head. He was squatting just short of the mat, with the card in his hand.

  He straightened up and said, ‘Again, if you don’t mind.’

  They did it again, and this time he bent down to the card. They did it a third time, and he knelt on one knee. Every time the book fell on his head, or at least grazed it.

  ‘This is the answer, isn’t it?’ said Sally at last. ‘The card’s the negative, I take it.’

  ‘The card’s the negative, yes. Laid just outside the door, for Morningside to pick up. He’d be bound to pick it up, and however he got down to it, the movement would bring his head into the right position, and a thing as big as the box would be almost bound to score a direct hit. The lights at that end of Peex were on, so he’d see the neg. The light in his office was off, so even if he looked up, he’d be unlikely to see the box.’

  ‘Well done, darling,’ said Sally quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnny, ‘but that’s not the answer, you know. Again, please.’

  This time he straightened up before opening the door, and the book caught him on the forearm again. When he rose a little more slowly it just touched his forehead. At the third attempt he sidled close, and it got him on the head.

  ‘You see?’ he said. ‘Come outside and I’ll show you.’ She followed him on to the landing, and he went on, suiting his actions to his words, ‘When you squat — or stoop — or kneel — to the neg, you don’t normally touch the door. Your head is closer to it than any other part of you, and I suppose it’s a natural instinct not to run your head into things. I pushed the door deliberately with my hand when I was down — so — and that isn’t a natural movement. The natural thing to do is to straighten up first — so — and there you are half a pace back from the door and faced with the original problem all over again. If you sidle — as Morningside almost certainly wouldn’t — you’ll probably get the thing on your head. If you open the door at arm’s length, you certainly won’t.’

  ‘Supposing,’ said Sally, as they went back into the room, ‘the murderer didn’t work this out quite so far. After all, he almost certainly had to do it without someone on the other side of the door to help him. Supposing he thought that with the neg the thing was foolproof. And supposing Morningside just happened to make an unnatural movement.’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I mean I don’t believe that the murderer didn’t work this thing out at least as carefully as we’ve done. Anyhow, I haven’t the slightest doubt we’re right about the negative, and to my mind the negative proves that the whole thing was entirely deliberate and logical.’

  He found a pipe and began to fill it.

  ‘The same question arises in Miss Quimper’s case,’ he said. ‘Toby raised it this morning. How could her murderer be sure she’d die of a twenty-foot fall?’

  ‘He couldn’t. Unless — unless he went down after her?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It would be quite a tricky climb in the dark; he might be seen, and if he completed the work of the fall, he might well leave traces that the doctors could read. He could hardly hope to pass it off as an accident, of course; It would be far too much of a coincidence, coming so soon after Morningside’s death, and you would certainly give evidence of the telephone conversation. But he may have hoped to make it look like another insane practical joke, inspired by hatred rather than by logical fear — after all, there was on the face of it nothing very much for him to fear in Miss Quimper’s story. A practical joke which might prove fatal, but which couldn’t be counted on to kill. Only I don’t think it was a practical joke, and I think it was certain to kill.’

  Sally looked anxiously at him, and he said quietly, ‘I don’t think she fell twenty feet. I think she fell more like eighty.’

  ‘Do you mean she was pushed — thrown — out of the window of Toby’s office?’

  ‘I’m almost sure of it. There’s no evidence that she left the building. She didn’t leave by the Fleet Street entrance, and Laxton seems to think he’d have seen her if she’d gone through Garrick Square. And there were marks on Toby’s window-sill this morning. That doesn’t mean much, although they were fairly fresh; it’s a very low sill, and people automatically put a foot on it. But there was a fresh scrape on the parapet outside, too. It’s a very low parapet, and it wouldn’t be frightfully difficult to tip her over. She was very small and light. The path below is very narrow, and the rail is so rotten it would be bound to break even under her weight.’

  ‘You don’t think the doctors could tell that she’d fallen eighty feet and not twenty?’

  ‘I think they probably could. The impact and therefore the damage would be a good deal greater. But the murderer might have hoped they couldn’t. He doesn’t necessarily know much about the effects of falls. And remember, Sally, it was all quite impromptu, as far as we know. He had to work it out while she was talking to you. Then he walked into Toby’s office, and perhaps he made some excuse to get her to lean out of the window. Or perhaps, if he was strong enough, he just made some excuse to open it, and picked her
up and threw her out.’

  ‘She’d cry out,’ said Sally. ‘And there must have been plenty of Echo people in the offices on that side of the building.’

  Johnny, the ex-Commando, said without emphasis, ‘Oh, there are plenty of tricks to silence someone for a few minutes.’

  Sally controlled her imagination with some difficulty. ‘And you think there’s the same — the same pattern in Morningside’s case?’

  ‘I think there must be, if only one could see it.’ Johnny was frowning. ‘There’s another point, you know. As you say, we’ve assumed all along that the trap was rigged during the canteen period. If Selina is telling the truth, I think we were meant to assume it. And that again makes the whole thing more deliberate and more subtle than we thought. It probably means that the murderer has an alibi for the canteen period and none for the time during which Morningside was in Cuts…’

  His voice trailed off. Sally realised that another penny was dropping and said nothing.

  After a moment he went back to the door. He opened it three or four inches, swung a solid armchair into place behind it, kicked off his slippers, and stepped on to the seat. From this position he was able to look down on the top of the door. He put a hand on it and moved it an inch or two to and fro. Sally, looking up, saw him frowning again.

  Suddenly he got down, picked up the postcard from the table where he had left it, and laid it again on the mat outside. He said quickly, ‘May I have the mirror out of your bag, darling?’

  Sally thought she understood. She found her bag, fished out her mirror, and gave it to him.

  ‘Turn out the lamps, will you?’ he said.

  In the half-darkness, with only a flicker from the neglected fire and a little light coming in from the landing, he stood on the chair, towering like an enormous shadow above her, placed the Penguin, and played about with the glass, sending a flash of light across the walls and ceiling until he had found the right angle. Then he stood quite still for a moment.