The Last of Philip Banter

by John Franklin Bardin

  Although he knew he should not do it, Philip swerved quickly around – threw up his hands to protect himself-screamed.

  But his scream blended in with the roar of the train.

  Epilogue

  By the time Dr Matthews reached the subway station, a large crowd had gathered about the entrances, the police emergency squad had arrived and two scout cars were parked across the street. Next to the scout cars Matthews recognized the car of his friend, Lieutenant Anderson, and surmised that the Lieutenant, on the way to the address Matthews had given him on the telephone, had stopped to see what was wrong at the subway station.

  The policeman guarding the entrance Matthews entered was one of Anderson’s men – he recognized Dr Matthews and let him by, touching his fingers to his visored cap as he did. Inside the station a large crowd had gathered on the edge of the platform where members of the disaster squad were working at uncoupling the cars. Matthews had guessed what had happened when he had seen the curious mob in the street, now he was even more sure. But he looked around for Anderson. He found him at the far end of the platform talking to a pale, shaken Steven Foster. Dorothy was seated beside them on a bench, her face in her hands, sobbing hysterically.

  Anderson was a middle-aged man with thin grey hair. His manner was dour, his habit of speaking terse. As he saw Matthews approach, he asked, ‘Did you know this was going to happen, George?’ He had worked with Matthews many times in the past and they knew and respected each other.

  ‘I can tell you better when you tell me what happened,’ Matthews answered.

  ‘But didn’t you say that I was to come to a particular address to prevent an accident? Before I got there, I saw this commotion and investigated. From what he says’ – and he jerked his hand at Steven Foster – ‘the fellow under the train is a friend of yours, Philip Banter.’

  Matthews swallowed hard. ‘He jumped in front of the train?’ he asked.

  Anderson shrugged his shoulders. ‘That depends upon which one of the three witnesses is talking to you. According to Foster there, who I understand is Banter’s father-in-law –’ He turned to Steven and said, ‘Will you please repeat your account of what happened, Mr Foster?’

  Steven Foster nodded his head and passed his handkerchief over his mouth. His cold eyes twitched and his forehead was beaded with sweat. ‘My son-in-law has been mentally ill for some time. This morning, in my office, Dr Matthews and I tried to persuade him to enter a sanatorium. He ran away from us then and we followed him to Mr Foulkes’ apartment which is down the street a way.

  ‘He ran away from us a second time, after Mr Foulkes, my daughter and another friend, Brent Holliday, had taken turns talking to him. This time my daughter followed him, and then I ran out after her. They both had a good start on me, so I took a taxi I found in front of Mr Foulkes’ apartment and told the driver to catch up with them. Before he could, they had both entered the subway station.

  ‘I paid the driver and entered the station myself. Just as I reached the foot of the stairs, where I could get a clear view of the platform –’ He paused and mopped at his brow. Matthews saw that his hand was shaking. ‘A train was coming into the station. Philip must have been standing on the very edge of the platform, his back to me. But as I watched, he turned. Dorothy was standing behind him. She must have spoken to him. Anyway, he turned quickly around – lost his balance – fell in front of the train. He screamed as he fell. I ran forward, but there was nothing – absolutely nothing – I could do.’

  Anderson broke in. ‘Thank you, Mr Foster,’ he said. ‘I won’t make you tell about it again for a while. Why don’t you sit down beside your daughter?’

  ‘What is Dorothy’s version of what happened?’ Matthews asked Anderson.

  Anderson looked at him, his eyes quizzical. Matthews knew that the Lieutenant was trying to think out a problem. He wondered how much Anderson knew. But all Anderson said was, ‘Mrs Banter corroborates her father’s story in every detail, except that she says she did not speak to Philip. Is that right, Mrs Banter?’

  Dorothy raised her eyes. Her face was puffed and tear-streaked, and her shoulders drooped. ‘I had just reached the platform when Philip turned around. I did not have time to speak to him. I don’t think he saw me. He just let himself fall backwards…’ And she began to sob again.

  Anderson walked away from both Dorothy and her father. Matthews walked with him. ‘There is one other witness,’ Anderson said. ‘A blind man who must have been standing near Philip. There were other people on the platform at the time, and plenty more who came downstairs before I put men at the entrances to keep them out – but nobody else saw or heard anything. It’s just our luck this man is blind!’

  He pointed to a slim negro man who stood talking to another policeman. The man was neatly dressed and his hand held the harness of a sleek, well-fed German Shepherd dog. When Anderson asked him to repeat his story, he said, ‘I started to listen when I heard Bozo here growl. Bozo never growls unless there’s a reason. Bozo is a good friendly dog. But then I heard a scuffling, and someone panting for breath. All the time the train was coming in and making an awful racket. Bozo backed up and I backed up with him – away from the edge of the platform that is. I knew there was danger or Bozo wouldn’t have done that. He’s used to trains. Then I heard the voice. It was the nastiest voice I ever did hear. It said, “Philip, you’re cra-zee!” – and then it said, “Oh, Philip!” The next thing I heard, a man screamed a terrible sound. And I said to myself, somebody’s gone and pushed that poor guy under the train.’

  Anderson shrugged his shoulders again. ‘Could you tell whether this voice you heard was a man’s or a woman’s?’ Matthews asked.

  The fellow thought for a moment. ‘That I couldn’t do,’ he said, smiling blankly. ‘All I can tell you is that it was the nastiest – the meanest, cruellest – voice I ever did hear. I hated that voice.’

  Anderson thanked the man and told him to give his address to the patrolman and he could go. Then he looked at Matthews.

  ‘This is my mistake, Andy,’ Matthews said. ‘I had a chance to prevent it, and if I had put things together right I would have prevented it, too. But I put things together wrong – and Philip Banter was murdered.’

  Anderson pushed his hat back on his head. ‘Murdered, you say? How do you know the blind man’s right? He is only telling us what he heard, you know – he couldn’t see. I admit there are disparities between his story and that of Dorothy and her father. But if the guy was murdered, who murdered him?’

  Matthews smiled tightly. ‘If you will get these people together in your office this afternoon, I’ll name the murderer.’ He gave Anderson a slip of paper on which he had written the names of Jeremy, Brent, Dorothy and Miss Grey. ‘Miss Grey works at Brown and Foster. If she isn’t there the switchboard girl will tell you how to reach her,’ Matthews added.

  He took Anderson’s arm. ‘Why don’t you let one of your men round up these people? You and I can have lunch together and I’ll bring you up to date on what has happened before this.’ Matthews was smiling, but he did not feel the happiness he simulated. He knew that if he had acted more quickly, Philip would not have died. Now all he could do was to make certain that his murderer was brought to justice.

  Even psychiatrists sometimes make mistakes.

  Anderson’s office was sparsely furnished. It usually contained a desk, three chairs and a framed map of the five boroughs of New York City; however, for this occasion several extra stiff-backed chairs had been added. When Matthews and Anderson came into the room, the others were already there. Brent and Jeremy sat together, holding hands. Jeremy’s neck was bruised from where Philip had struck him and he kept rubbing this sore spot. Miss Grey sat by herself near the door. She carried a large black purse and her fingers played restlessly with its catch – her nose and eyes were red as if she had been crying. Dorothy and Steven sat near Anderson’s desk, but not together. Dorothy had changed into black and by some ef
fort of will she had recovered her poise. Her glossy head was carried high and her gloved hands rested calmly in her lap. Steven Foster was the same as he had been when Matthews first met him: he sat rigidly erect on the edge of his chair, his eyes staring forward, his cane upright between his knees.

  Anderson seated himself behind his desk, but George Matthews remained standing. He knew that all of them were looking at him, waiting to hear what he would say. Taking advantage of this interest he turned slowly around and regarded each one of them before he spoke.

  ‘Most of you, I believe, know why you are here. Philip Banter died this morning. He was crushed to death beneath the wheels of a subway train at the 50th Street station of the 8th Avenue Independent Subway. All but one of you were present at the scene in Jeremy’s apartment a few minutes before Philip’s death, and you know that Philip tried at that time to discover who was writing a “Confession” – a series of threatening, prophetic manuscripts – that had been appearing on his desk.

  ‘I thought, and I know that some of you agreed with me, that Philip was writing these manuscripts himself. I knew him to be neurotic, and alcoholic, and from his wife’s testimony as well as his own I knew that he had been experiencing certain schizophrenic symptoms. Schizophrenics often bedevil themselves by writing diaries or journals with one half of their personality which they do not recognize as their own handiwork during saner intervals. And Philip was a recognizable schizoid type. I went so far as to recommend that he commit himself to an asylum – although only as a cure for his alcoholism.’

  Matthews paused and looked around the room again. Lieutenant Anderson had lighted his cigar. Brent was watching him intently. ‘Philip uncovered proof this morning that he was not writing the “Confession”. Miss Grey admitted that she had received payment on two occasions from a messenger for placing the manuscript on his desk. At the same time that she told him this, however, she resigned her job, saying that she could not stand to work for him any longer. And when Philip called the messenger service, he discovered that so far as that company knew he himself had arranged to have the messenger pay Miss Grey to put the manuscript on his desk.

  ‘I say that Miss Grey’s admission that she attended to the delivery of the “Confession”, was positive proof that Philip was not writing it. I think it was. For if Philip had been writing the “Confession”, why would it have been necessary to go through the complicated business of hiring a messenger service to pay Miss Grey? He would have been writing it at the office, and he would have left it on his desk. But, what had been happening was that someone had been preparing the manuscript and having it placed on his desk so that it looked like he had left it there. And it was the mechanism for simulating this – the business of hiring the messenger service in Philip’s name to pay Miss Grey one hundred dollars for placing the manuscript on Banter’s desk – that Philip discovered.’

  ‘Yet when he told me about it,’ Brent interrupted, ‘he made it sound like further evidence that he was writing it himself.’

  ‘And so it was to him, although he denied it in part. It was a shock to him to have the messenger service tell him that he had ordered the deliveries – and he never had the time to reason it through. Shortly afterwards Steven Foster summoned him into his office to talk to me and the whole affair worsened.

  ‘Philip was ambivalent about the “Confession”. He knew himself well enough to know that he was a rake, an alcoholic. He knew that he was losing his job at Brown and Foster and that his marriage was breaking up. He knew that he had spells during which he heard voices. But he did not think he was sufficiently insane to write a long narrative that predicted his own future actions, and then forget about it.’

  Matthews paused and lighted his pipe. This operation took several minutes of tamping and fussing with the shining meerschaum; during this time he studied his audience. Everyone was listening intently. Miss Grey was the most visibly nervous, Brent and Dorothy were equally calm, old Steven Foster showed his usual hostility.

  ‘It never occurred to Philip that the “Confession” might be a prelude to his murder. Nor, do I think, did it occur to the murderer until a few minutes before his crime. No, Philip thought of the “Confession” as a subtle means of frightening him, perhaps, an attempt to drive him out of his mind. First he suspected Jeremy Foulkes of this. You heard what he had to say in Jeremy’s apartment. Jeremy’s motive, he thought, was jealousy. Philip had married the girl he loved. Jeremy was throwing Brent at Philip to make Dorothy divorce him, and if in the process Philip had a breakdown – well, that would have complicated matters a little, but the end result might have been the same.

  ‘As you know, Philip rejected this theory. He realized that Jeremy loved Brent, that while he was infatuated with Dorothy he would not go to the extreme of writing the “Confession” to win her away from Philip. Besides, in these times among people in this income category, divorces can be arranged easier than that.

  ‘So Philip turned to Dorothy,’ and as he said this Dr Matthews regarded her, too. ‘Much of what Philip had to say this afternoon was painful for you to hear, Dorothy. But you know that much of it is true. You might have written the “Confession” out of your own feelings of inadequacy, as a neurotic device that you hoped one day would drive Philip from you, and the next day you hoped would bring him back to you. Philip believed you were doing it. And, I think, you were a little afraid – like Philip – that you might be doing it, too, and then forgetting about it.

  ‘You need not have feared that. Philip said that the person who was bedevilling him both hated him and wanted him out of the way, and had the continuing opportunity to place all three instalments of the “Confession” on his desk.’ Matthews looked around the room. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I said three. Each of you could have written the first two instalments, each of you could have hired the messenger service to do its tricks – but only one of you could possibly have placed that blank piece of paper on Philip’s desk!’ Matthews’ eyes swept the room.

  ‘Miss Grey,’ he barked, and the girl, startled, jumped to her feet. ‘Did you clean and tidy Mr Banter’s desk last night before you left?’

  The girl stammered, ‘Y-yes, s-sir.’

  ‘Did you see a blank piece of paper on his desk then?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Did you clean his desk this morning before he arrived?’

  ‘Y-yes, sir.’

  ‘Was there a blank piece of paper on it then?’

  ‘N-no sir.’

  ‘Did you sit in your office until Mr Banter arrived?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I wanted to see him early. I wanted to tell him I was quitting.’

  ‘Did you see anyone go into his office from the time you cleaned his desk until he arrived?’

  ‘N-no, sir.’

  ‘No one at all?’ Matthews raised his voice an octave on that last syllable.

  The girl thought for a moment. ‘Only Mr Foster,’ she said. ‘He had been paying me extra to tell him all the queer things Mr Banter did. He came in and asked me if I had seen Mr Banter this morning. I told him no. He said I must have seen him since he had come in a good five minutes ago. He said he would just look inside and see… he was only inside a minute.’

  Steven Foster jumped to his feet and threw his cane at Dr Matthews – all in one movement. Before Anderson could stop him, he had reached the door and jerked it open. But a uniformed policeman stood outside. Foster halted abruptly, gazed at the man for an instant and then slowly turned to face Matthews. His face was a study in disdain. ‘I did it,’ he said deliberately. ‘I killed Philip Banter. He was a rotter and a waster and he did not deserve my daughter!’ His face had grown taut and ashen, his eyes protruded.

  ‘Philip came very close, didn’t he, Steven?’ Matthews asked. ‘He said you had the opportunity, and he was right. You were the only one who could have written both sections of the “Confession” and placed the blank piece of paper on his desk. He gave your motive when he said tha
t you had never liked the idea of having a son-in-law and that you had always loved your daughter deeply. And who but Philip knew that Dorothy talked to you so frequently and freely? You knew that Brent and Jeremy were coming to visit Philip and Dorothy before Philip did. In fact, you took it for granted that Philip knew, and in so doing made one of your few mistakes.’

  Steven Foster, although he stood very straight, seemed to be experiencing difficulty in speaking. ‘I saw that he did not honour my daughter. I set about to ruin him. I could only attack him through his vanity, his self-love. Dorothy had told me of Jeremy and Brent, of how Jeremy felt towards Philip. I saw in their visit an opportunity to suggest Brent to Philip. I started to write the “Confession”…’

  ‘And, after Philip had read the two instalments, you stole the manuscript from his desk and left it in Jeremy’s apartment. Since Jeremy habitually left his door unlocked, you had no trouble getting in. You wanted him to read it, to grow jealous of Philip – to take its slander for truth – you wanted Jeremy to kill Philip. You even misdirected our taxi this morning to delay us and give Philip time to reach Jeremy’s apartment in the hope that Jeremy would attack him.

  ‘But several things went wrong. You had not thought it possible that Jeremy was still attracted to Dorothy – that Dorothy would go away with him. So Brent read the “Confession”, not Jeremy. And without Dorothy to inform you, you did not know whether Philip had conformed to the “Confession’s” predictions last night or not. All you dared place on his desk this morning was a blank piece of paper.’

  Matthews was silent, looking at the old man who now swayed as he stood before Anderson’s desk. ‘Your scheme was ingenious. In many ways it corresponds to the witchcraft of primitive man. Did you get the idea out of Sea-brook? I saw his book on your shelf. You should not have relied on a secondary source. Yet it almost worked.