The Colour of Murder

by Julian Symons

  Mr Likeness, as we have seen, had no such inhibition, and he was pleasantly surprised during this interview with John Wilkins. He had seen the young man once before, when Wilkins had seemed merely a dazed, hang-dog figure, the kind of person who would not merely become flustered under questioning, but would also produce an impression of shiftiness in ordinary conversation. Now he had apparently recovered his spirits a little and Mr Likeness, making a reassessment, saw him as a well-set-up young fellow with a shy smile, a ready tongue, and a friendly manner. Was the tongue a little too ready, so that its owner gave an impression of over-eagerness? Was the manner so friendly that it was on the verge of puppyish fawning? Perhaps – but John Wilkins was the kind of young man that any woman on the jury could think of easily, and without displeasure, as her son.

  “I’m delighted to tell you Mr Newton’s agreed to take the case,” the solicitor said. “You couldn’t be in better hands. But if he’s to help you, you’ve got to help him, you understand that? You’ve got to try to remember what happened on Monday night after you left this Lannigan.”

  “Lonergan, Bill Lonergan.”

  “Lonergan. You must try to remember.”

  “I’ve tried, don’t you think I’ve tried.” The young man’s lower lip trembled. He looked slightly repulsive, and slightly pathetic. “I never can remember after I have these blackouts.”

  “You’ve been extremely frank in talking to Doctor Andreadis. Some of what you said is to your benefit in relation to this trial and some – I’m speaking quite frankly myself – some of it isn’t. But the most important thing you can possibly do is to remember what you were doing between half past six and the time you got back to your hotel on that Monday night.”

  “Mr Likeness.” The young man’s slightly damp hand was touching his, the dog-brown eyes looked at him pleadingly. “I said it to Doctor Andreadis, and it’s true, I don’t want to avoid responsibility if I did it. It’s a thing I could never have done if I’d been myself, and if I did it, well, it can only have been that something else took possession of me, something that must be stamped out. If I did it I ought to be punished.”

  The solicitor withdrew his hand from the alien touch. “How far back do these blackouts go?”

  Wilkins had noticed the withdrawal of the hand, he seemed to shrink backwards into himself. “Three or four years.”

  “They had been growing more frequent.”

  “I suppose so.” He said it without much interest.

  “And it was because of them that you went to see Doctor Glenister. You know we are calling him for the defence.”

  Wilkins shuddered. “He’s a horrible man.”

  “But his evidence may be useful. Now I want to talk about your marriage. That’s a delicate subject, but you’ve been so frank with Doctor Andreadis that I know you won’t mind being frank with me. It wasn’t a happy marriage.”

  Wilkins looked boyishly rebellious. “I don’t know. I made a good home for May, the kind she wanted, and I’d just got this rise–”

  “Yes. But we aren’t talking about that side of it. The two of you were – you were not fitted for each other’s emotional needs.”

  Still rebelliously, Wilkins said, “I don’t know that May ever had any emotional needs.”

  If only, Mr Likeness thought, one could deal with reasonable, sensible people. But the trouble is that people who are tried for crimes of violence are never really reasonable or sensible. “We shall probably call your wife as a witness. Her evidence about the time you got back to the hotel may be immensely important.”

  “All right.” Wilkins seemed to have lost interest.

  “But when we put her in the box she will be exposed to cross-examination. She has made a statement to the police, and although they cannot call her as a witness, in cross-examination they may elicit certain facts–”

  “I hate May.” Wilkins spoke with eagerness now, even with passion. “I told Doctor Andreadis. I hate her. The way she ate toast and marmalade, the way she was so house-proud, a dozen different things.”

  Mr Likeness sighed, and continued probing. He got nothing more out of the young man.

  Chapter Five

  “Where are you off to?” Uncle Dan asked, when Mrs Wilkins came down wearing her best black coat, and with a tightly-fitting black hat skewered firmly in place with a hatpin.

  “I am going out.”

  “That I can see, my old duck. But whither bound, dressed in such finery?”

  “I am going to see May,” Mrs Wilkins said, and left him gasping, for in all the time that John and May had been married, she had never called on them at the flat. “I wrote and told her I was coming.”

  At Windover Close May opened the door and showed her into the lounge. Looking round, Mrs Wilkins had to admit that the room was very nicely kept, not a speck of dust anywhere, and the tables well polished. Two cups were ready on a tray, together with a plate containing four biscuits, and the electric kettle was just on the boil. Mrs Wilkins sipped her tea, which was thin straw-coloured stuff, not the dark brew she liked. “I hope I haven’t kept you from an engagement,” she said formally.

  “It’s my evening for the Townswomen’s Association, but I couldn’t have gone.”

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t want to have the wife of a murderer at their meetings.” May’s thin mouth was very pinched, her long nose looked very long and her close-set eyes very small, as she said this.

  Her mother-in-law put down her cup with a clatter. “How can you say such a thing? You’ve got no heart.”

  “Do you expect me not to notice the way people look at me, the things they say? It’s true, you know yourself it’s true.”

  “You’re no wife to him.”

  “You don’t think so? Let me tell you something. I might have been a much better wife to him if it hadn’t been for you.” In a sarcastic whine she said, “Have some more steak and kidney pie, you don’t get it at home. Draw your chair up, it’s a real coal-fire, dear. I know May only has the electric. You’ve always tried to fight me since the day we were married, now perhaps you’re satisfied.”

  Impregnable in righteousness, Mrs Wilkins said, “I have never interfered.”

  May got up, took a cigarette from a box with a slightly shaking hand. “What’s the good, I didn’t mean to quarrel. What did you come to say?”

  “You haven’t been to see John in prison.”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to give evidence for him, May?” Mrs Wilkins asked this question with no change in her granitic countenance, but with something in her tone that showed it had cost her some effort.

  “I suppose so. If they ask me. I shall tell the truth.”

  “You must do what you can to help him. He’s your husband, May.”

  “Not for long.”

  Mrs Wilkins was startled, and showed it. “What’s that?”

  “I said not for long. You’re so worried about your precious son, he’s all you think about. How do you think I feel?”

  “I should think any wife would want to stand by the man she married.”

  “Oh, would you? When he’s been going around after some other woman, some creature who was engaged to another man already but wanted to have him too. You think I don’t know what they’re saying about me, all the filthy jokes and lies about being a woman who can’t keep her man?” Her voice was as insistent as a cutting saw. “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to do as soon as this case is over. I’m going to get a divorce, I’m going to change my name, I’m going to leave London and get a job in a town where nobody knows me and points at me and says ‘There’s May Wilkins, you know, the one whose husband murdered a girl on Brighton beach.’ And if you don’t think I mean it, you just watch me and see. Do you know what your precious son’s done to me, your son who’s so fond of the steak and kidney pies that mother makes? He’s ruined my life.”

  She stopped, breathing hard as if she had been running. Mrs Wilkins took a handkerchief
out of her big crocodile-skin bag, blew her nose, put back the handkerchief, got up, opened the door, and left the flat without speaking another word. She walked home across the Common and as she walked her lips moved.

  Uncle Dan met her at the door. “I’ll make a cup of tea.”

  “She gave me one.” Mrs Wilkins went into the sitting-room and took off the formidable hat and the black coat.

  “I think we ought to do what you said a day or two ago. I think we ought to see a private detective.”

  Chapter Six

  Uncle Dan had seen the name in a lift, and had made a note of the details. “George H Spaulding Detective Agency. Investigations undertaken with utmost discretion. Divorce and other work. Reasonable charges. Apply 22 Rodd Street, WC2.”

  Rodd Street was a narrow lane off the Strand, and the agency occupied two rooms on the second floor. In the first of them a girl sat typing. Uncle Dan gave his name and was led into the second room, where a military-looking figure sat smoking a pipe at a desk crowded with a variety of slightly dusty objects, which included a thermometer embedded in an elephant’s tooth, a packet of peppermints and a packet of cheese biscuits, an empty cigar-box, three or four large legal-looking volumes, a mouth organ and a piece of lead piping.

  “Mr Spaulding?”

  “Captain Spaulding, sir, at your service.” The detective gripped Uncle Dan’s hand firmly. He wore a tweed jacket slightly frayed at the cuffs, well-pressed grey trousers, a Guards tie. Above the pipe was a clipped moustache, above that a pair of keen blue eyes, thin hair neatly brushed. The whole appearance was both military and sporting, marred only by a rather bad squint. “What can I do for you?” Captain Spaulding asked.

  Uncle Dan wriggled uncomfortably in the chair, crossed one long leg over another, put his head on one side. “It’s a delicate matter.”

  “Can I help then, break the ice.” Captain Spaulding knocked out his pipe sharply, one, two, three. “Divorce?”

  “Eh? No, I’m not married.”

  “Breach of promise, spot of blackmail? Involved with a young lady? Happens to all of us.”

  “Nothing like that. This is a case of murder.”

  “Murder.” Captain Spaulding’s eyes squinted fearfully. “No good coming here about anything like that. You’re mixed up in a murder, you’d better go to the police.”

  “I’m not mixed up in a murder,” Uncle Dan said, exasperated. “This is in connection with John Wilkins, who is to be tried for murder at Lewes next week. I’m his uncle, and I want to know if you can undertake some investigations.”

  “Oh. Go on.” Captain Spaulding picked up his pipe again and refilled it.

  “We feel sure – that is, his mother and I – that John didn’t do it. He had a blackout on the night the murder took place, and can’t remember what he did between six-thirty and the time when he got back to his hotel. The prosecution have got a witness to say they saw him on the promenade at twenty to twelve, and the hall porter says he came in at ten minutes to the hour. Also, at some time in the evening he cut his thumb and got blood on his clothes. They say the blood came from the girl who was murdered. We think it would help if we could find out where and when he cut his thumb.”

  “Probably would. Any idea where he might have been?”

  “I should try the pubs. The solicitors have had a chap on it already and he’s found out that at nine o’clock John was in a pub called the Toll Gate, but that’s not of much importance. They’ve turned up nothing else.”

  “Got a photograph?” Uncle Dan produced one. “Well set-up young chap. Married, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  Captain Spaulding put the photograph into an envelope. “Anything else?”

  “Just this.” Uncle Dan spoke hesitantly. “If you happen to come across anything that gives you an idea of who did it–”

  “Bear it in mind. Probably a sex maniac, though, didn’t even know the girl. Four a day and up to three expenses, all right?”

  “That’s seven pounds a day.” Uncle Dan was startled.

  “Give you a statement of expenses, might come to a bit less. Not much, though. Got to stand a few rounds on this kind of job.”

  “You’ll work on it yourself?”

  “My dear chap.” Captain Spaulding pulled at his military moustache. “Who do you think’s going to run the office, handle other business? Put my very best man on it, keen as a ferret, report every day. Time’s a bit short, scent’s pretty cold, but Lambie will track it down if anyone can. Now there’s some other information I want. Let’s get down to it.”

  They got down to it.

  Chapter Seven

  Legal histrionics are out of date nowadays. The coldly merciless prosecutor, the wrathful defence counsel who bullies the truth out of witnesses, these belong to the past. Counsel for the defence may be relied on to give a lying witness an uncomfortable time, but he will be at pains to avoid any suggestion of bullying. It is generally agreed that, in these equalitarian days, the spectacle of a witness battered into submission by bulldozer methods is likely to arouse the jury’s sympathy for that witness. As for the coldly merciless prosecutor – well, nobody could look at James Hayley, who was conducting the prosecution, without recognising that he was the kind of warm, sympathetic (for some tastes perhaps almost over-ripely sympathetic) personality who has achieved in recent years so much success in television and radio programmes.

  Red-faced, stout and jolly, speaking with an assumed rustic accent that masked what might have been slightly too cultured tones, Hayley could make a rape sound like a chummy evening out, robbery with violence a boyish prank gone wrong. We are all human, he seemed to say, we can all understand the temptations to which a young man is exposed in the company of a pretty woman, but at the same time we must have laws, people really can’t be allowed to go around doing this kind of thing… Such anodyne eloquence was extremely effective with juries.

  Now Hayley was on his feet opening, with his usual jovial mateyness, the case against John Wilkins, giving them the usual warnings of what they should and should not consider, and going on to outline cheerfully and simply the events of that fateful Monday the fourth of June, as they concerned Sheila Morton.

  “Before we come to Monday, though, let’s trace the whole course of this unhappy seaside holiday which Miss Morton had only undertaken from the desire to give her invalid father a change. Miss Morton had arranged that it should be a quiet holiday, so that she could give undivided attention to her father. They came down on Friday, and engaged in what you might call a round of pleasure, although not a very hectic one. On Friday night they went to see a musical show, on Saturday morning they were on the pier, and in the afternoon they went on a charabanc tour. Not very hectic, I think you’ll agree – the kind of thing that you and I would do in the ordinary course of things – but it was too much for Mr Morton. On Saturday evening he had a severe heart attack. Doctor Burrows, of Brighton, who attended him, told her that it was touch and go, and Mr Morton’s condition remained grave for some days. Now, I am happy to say, he is restored to his former state of health.” Hayley cast a beaming smile round, pleased to irradiate the grim proceedings with this single item of good news.

  “In these unhappy circumstances Sheila Morton acted with what you may feel to have been her customary promptness and efficiency. On Sunday she sent a telegram to her cousin, Mr Lonergan, who works as an engineer in Birmingham, and asked him to come down if possible. She also telephoned to Mr Leslie Jackson, to whom she had recently become engaged. Her father was very ill, and not expected to live. Mr Lonergan came down to Brighton on Monday morning, and Mr Jackson in the evening. A night nurse had been engaged to take some of the strain off Miss Morton.”

  The attention of the prisoner wandered away from Hayley’s account of his visit to the Langland Hotel, to consideration of the court in which his whole future life was being decided. Above the head of red-robed Mr Justice Morland, incongruous among all this mahogany panelling and brown paint, was an e
lectric lamp in a large pink silk shade. Why pink, John Wilkins wondered, why not a shade in keeping with this austere courtroom? His eyes closed wearily, but he brought himself back to reality with a start, and listened to what Hayley was saying.

  “Just after ten o’clock, with the night nurse safely installed, Miss Morton went out for a walk alone. As a result of what she said to Mr Jackson before setting off, he was somewhat surprised when she had not returned at a quarter to eleven, and went out to look for her. He walked up to the West Pier and beyond, and returned at eleven fifteen without having seen her. Mr Lonergan had gone out to the cinema, and was not staying in the hotel, so Mr Jackson had no help in his search.

  “What happened to Sheila Morton on her walk? We can find nobody who saw her after she left the hotel. We know only that at twelve fifteen a young man named Sydney Pethers and his friend Thelma Wayne found her body on the beach near the Palace Pier. Her head and face had been savagely beaten by several blows from some blunt instrument. Her clothes were torn, and there were scratches on the inside of her legs which indicated an attempted sexual assault, although she had not been violated. I have to tell you now that we have not found the instrument with which the crime was committed. It is at least possible that the instrument was a large stone, of which there are many on Brighton beach. I have to tell you also that, because of the peculiar conditions surrounding the crime, the medical experts cannot place the time of death more precisely than to say that it took place between ten-thirty and midnight.”