Payment Deferred

by C. S. Forester

  And as a crowning worry came the fear that he would be taken ill, too. In that case Atkinson, the interfering busybody, would step in and have them taken away to hospital. If he were delirious like Annie! He shuddered at the thought. So it was wildly necessary that he should retain his health. Marble had never worried about his health before, but now he paid for it in full. He took his temperature every few minutes, he studied his body attentively, and he stopped drinking the whisky for which his nerves shrieked.

  The strain told on him. The worrying days and the broken nights – for he had to attend to Annie frequently during the nights – broke his already strained nerves to pieces. And he could not forget about the garden. That was continuously in his thoughts, too. If anything, it was worse now. Marble found himself, whenever the jangle of Annie’s bell roused him out of his sleep, and after he had done what she wanted, creeping downstairs to peer out into the dark garden to see that all was secure. He even began to wake on his own during the night and go down, and he had never done that before.

  Strange to tell, Annie recovered. It was more really than Atkinson expected, and it seems stranger still when it is remembered that she did not want to recover. For she did not. Annie wanted to die.

  But she recovered. The fever left her, very thin, very pale, with the shining pallor of the invalid, and she was able to leave off the pneumonia jacket that Marble had hurriedly contrived, and sit up in bed dressed in one of her opulent, overlaced nightdresses and a dressing-jacket and boudoir cap. Atkinson told Marble that she was not yet quite out of danger. There was always a risk after a bad attack of influenza. There might be grave heart trouble, or even now pneumonia might intervene if she were to get up too soon.

  ‘But, of course,’ said Atkinson, ‘there’s not much chance of her getting up for a bit yet. She’s too weak to stand at present.’

  Annie lay in bed, thinking. She was thinking with the clearness of thought, harsh and raw as a winter’s morning, that comes after a period of high fever. Over her brooded the dreadful depression following influenza, the poisonous depression which darkens the most hopeful outlook. And Annie’s outlook was anything but hopeful. Downstairs she could hear her husband moving about on one of his endless household tasks, and her lips writhed at the thought of him. She did not hate him, she could not hate him, even now. But she felt she hated herself. And she had lost her husband’s love, the love which for a brief space had made the whole world seem a wonderful place. Looking ahead, as far as she was able to look ahead, she could see nothing to hope for. She was tormented by the hideous knowledge of what lay in the barren flower-bed in the backyard; the whole future held out no promise for her. She would have faced the peril that hung over her husband – and over herself as well, she realized – gladly, had she only been sure that her husband wished her to do so. But instead she was only sure of the opposite. He would be glad to have her out of the way, and she –? She would be glad to be out of the way.

  That set her thoughts moving swiftly on another tack. It might be easy enough. But if only she had died during this illness! She tried to piece together in her mind what that book of Will’s had said about the stuff – that – that – the stuff that still stood on the locked shelves in the bathroom. Death is practically instantaneous. Death is practically instantaneous.

  That meant an easy death, a quick death. There would be no trouble about it, none at all. Oh, it would be the best way. That clearness of thought was in evidence at present. Will was downstairs, and he was unlikely to disturb her for some time. It could be done, and better do it now, and save trouble, save trouble.

  Annie threw off the bedclothes and set her feet to the floor. Even as she did so she found how unsteady she was. The room seemed to swing round her in a great arc; she nearly fell to the floor, and she would have done had she not, by a vast effort, seized the bed and collapsed across it. It took several minutes for her to recover. She tried again, more tentatively, and again she had hard work to save herself from falling. She could not walk, that was certain. But that would not prevent her.

  Slowly, with infinite precaution, she lowered herself to the floor. Then she crawled across the floor towards the window. It was dreadfully hard work; she could only move slowly. The cold air and the coldness of the linoleum bit deep into her, and she shuddered as she moved.

  She reached the chest of drawers, and clutching the knobs she pulled herself to her feet, standing there swaying. It took several seconds for her to grow used to this position. Once she swayed dangerously, but her grip on the drawer-knobs saved her. Then she pulled open one of the drawers and did what she had been wanting to do all through her illness. She pulled out the strange letter, and read it through, as closely as her swimming eyes would allow. She was right. There was no hope for her in it. It began ‘My dearest, darling Will’ sure enough. Once again the satire was lost on her. She reeled as she stood. Then she thrust the letter back into the drawer and closed it.

  Somehow she was still able to think clearly. The next thing she wanted was the key. All Will’s keys were on a ring on the dressing-table. She had to crawl there to get them. Then she crawled – oh, so slowly – out through the door to the bathroom. The effort of standing up again when she reached the shelves was almost too much for her, but she achieved it. She stood listening for a brief space, just to make sure that Will was still busy downstairs. It would never do for him to come up now and find her here. But it was all quiet. She could just hear him, pottering about in the kitchen. The key fitted easily, and she opened the glass door. There on the shelf, just as she had seen it so long ago, stood the bottle – potassium cyanide. She took it in her hand, fondled it, she almost smiled as she looked at it.

  On the edge of the bath stood one of her medicine glasses. She filled it half full, the neck of the bottle chattering on the rim of the glass, and replaced the bottle. As it stood there on the shelf she tried to bow to it; she tried to say ‘thank you’ to it. And she locked the shelf door again tidily.

  She stood hesitating for a space, holding on to the edge of the bath. She did not want to die here, in this cold place. She would much rather die in her splendid great bed with the cupids twined about it. It would be risky trying to get back, but she thought she would run the risk. Oh, but it was so hard. She crawled along the floor, pushing the medicine glass in front of her, the keys trailing by their ring from one finger. Very hard it was, but she succeeded in the end. She hardly spilt a drop on the way.

  The medicine glass stood on the floor beside the bed. It was as much as she could manage to pull herself half erect and fall across the bed. She had to lie and rest again, after that. But now at last she was ready. She must make everything neat and tidy first. With fumbling fingers she drew the bedclothes round her, and set her boudoir cap straight and settled the lace at her throat. Then she leaned over the side of the bed and took the glass in her hand. There was no hesitation in her raising it to her lips. She drained it, and the glass fell from her fingers to the floor and rolled under the bed.

  But even now things went badly for her. That cyanide had been kept in solution for over a year, slowly reacting with itself and with the atmosphere. It was not an easy death, not a quick death.

  16

  Mr Marble had just finished his preliminary morning’s work when Dr Atkinson’s rat-tat-tat came at the door.

  ‘How is she this morning?’ asked Atkinson as they went up the stairs together.

  ‘She seemed a little bit down when I was in with her last. But I haven’t been up to her for some time,’ said Marble.

  They entered the room, where Annie lay in the big gilt bed, with the other gilt furniture blazing about her. She lay there in a natural attitude, and there was a trace of colour in her cheeks. But there was something different, which flashed to Atkinson’s trained eye the moment it rested on her.

  ‘She’s dead!’ said Atkinson, moving forward.

  Marble was there before him, standing by t
he bed with his hands clasped in front of him. It is impossible to say whether he was moved or not; all that he was conscious of at the moment was that his heart was thumping and thudding within him the way it always did nowadays when anything unusual happened. It beat and it beat, and his hands shook with the vibrations.

  ‘Her heart, I suppose,’ said Atkinson, coming to the bedside.

  He might have spared Marble the technical details if only Marble had appeared upset. But Marble did not. He was too busy thinking – his mind had started racing away as it always did, to the accompaniment of the thudding of his heart. He was working out all the details of how this change would affect him; what difference it would make to his chances of continuing to avoid detection. All he could do was to stare at the body while his hands shook and his face remained stolid. Clearly his thoughts were far away.

  With an effort he recalled himself. Suspicion, suspicion! He must do all he could to avoid suspicion. He looked sidelong at Atkinson, and caught Atkinson looking sidelong at him. He started, and tried to appear concerned.

  Now up to that moment Atkinson had not had the least trace of suspicion, but that glance and that start set thoughts flooding into his mind. He bent over the body, and noticed something else, something which roused him to the highest pitch of suspicion.

  ‘I must make a slight examination,’ he said, ‘could you go downstairs and get me – get me a spoon? A silver spoon.’

  Marble went without a word, like an ox to the slaughter. No sooner had he left the room than Atkinson sprang into activity. He tiptoed across to see that Marble was really gone, and then he hurried back. There was a trace of foam on the dead woman’s lips. There was a trace of a faint odour. He glanced under the bed; a medicine glass lay there. He picked it up and looked at it. A little of the contents remained. Close examination of this made him certain. When Marble came back to the room he was scribbling something on a sheet from his pocket-book.

  ‘I shall want this as well,’ he said. ‘Will you go and give this note to the boy in my car outside, and ask him to go straight home for it?’

  Marble took it. The note was an order to the boy to fetch a policeman, but Marble did not know that.

  So they hanged William Marble for the murder of his wife. It was a simple case. They proved that she had died of cyanide poisoning, and they proved that Marble had cyanide in his possession. Dr Atkinson swore that Annie Marble would be quite incapable of going into the bathroom to get it for herself. Everything else pointed towards the same end. He would not have a nurse for her, but had insisted on doing everything himself, against the urgent advice of his doctor. Neighbours came flocking in, eager to swear that there had been bad blood between Marble and his wife for a long time, and that they had often heard quarrels and cries. They even found downstairs a number of books on crime, and in one book on medical jurisprudence the page where cyanide poisoning was discussed was much thumbed and dirty, through constant study. And for a motive – well, they found in a drawer a letter from a woman that amply proved a motive. It was a letter that Marble knew nothing about, but no one believed him when he said so. In fact, Marble went down through history as an extraordinarily clumsy murderer.

  And Winnie inherited twelve hundred a year.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 1926

  Published in Penguin Classics 2011

  Copyright © Cassette Productions, 2011

  Cover illustration by Nick Morely

  All rights reserved

  Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-141-19811-8