The Morning After Death

by Nicholas Blake

  Apart from this blinding mistake, it was quite a clever attempt to get Mark in trouble again. This time you had the sense not to plant the evidence (the medical journal) in his room, as you did the copy of Playboy, but put them in your cupboard suggesting he had planted them on you.

  And you weren’t far from succeeding—it must be very riling for you. Brady favored your brother as the murderer; he might even have arrested him.

  Do you know what May Edwardes calls you?—“the Organization Man.” It’s interesting how almost everyone I met here treated you, talked about you, in a kind of humoring, forbearing, allowance-making manner, ranging from mild contempt to compunction: only Mark seemed genuinely solicitous for you, at times. For him, blood was thicker than water. But you’re so enclosed in your delusions of grandeur that you hardly noticed his affection for you, his protectiveness. He’s just someone who was in your way. How could you understand human feeling when you’re subhuman yourself?

  But you did show one glimmer of it. When you heard that John Tate had been arrested, and later that his sister had “confessed,” you became quite indignant. But alas, this was not a disinterested emotion. It was petulant fury at your plan going awry: for it was not they you wanted put away, but Mark, the man who stood between you and the whole of your father’s fortune.

  So there we have it—a mean plot and a mean murderer. Your madman’s luck has run out at last.

  What do you propose to do about it? You could shoot yourself, but you improvidently chucked the gun into the Thames. You could confess the whole thing to Brady. Or you could have another of your “nervous breakdowns.” I don’t know what to advise.

  You have not much time to decide. Lieutenant Brady will get a copy of this letter tomorrow morning. If he has not already ordered your arrest, he will do so then: even your father’s influence cannot stop it.

  Yours etc. Nigel Strangeways

  Nigel put the letter in an envelope, and walked round to the Cabot Infirmary. There he was told that Chester Ahlberg was recovered; but since some final tests confirming this had only been made in the afternoon, he would not be discharged till tomorrow morning. He asked permission to deliver a letter by hand, and was directed to the second floor.

  In the orderly’s little room, its door open to give a full view of Chester’s door, a plainclothes cop sat yawning. Nigel asked him when his relief would turn up. “Nine P.M. Coupla hours.”

  “I’ve a letter here for Mr. Ahlberg. Will you hand it to him right away?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll be returning to the station house before you go off duty?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then will you please leave this one for Lieutenant Brady? He must see it the moment he gets in.” Nigel handed the duplicate letter, with “Urgent” typed on the envelope.

  “Why not give it to this Ahlberg yourself, mister?” asked the policeman, holding up the other letter. “You’re free to go in.”

  “He’d keep me chatting. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Okay. Your word’s my law,” said the man sardonically.

  “And there’s this. Impress it on your relief that, if he doesn’t get a message from the Lieutenant before Mr. Ahlberg leaves tomorrow morning, he must shadow him. He’s got to stick on Ahlberg’s tail as tight as a tick. It’s top priority.”

  “Say, what’s this? I figured we were here to protect the guy.”

  “You’re here to see no more harm’s done.”

  “You mean, somebody might try to bump him when he goes out of this morgue?”

  “What—in a law-abiding city like this, officer?”

  The man grinned at him.

  “Wherever he goes, he must be followed. Like—” Nigel drew upon the vernacular—“like a wolf follows a well-stacked dame.”

  “Right. I get you.”

  It was a nuisance, though quite proper, thought Nigel as he walked back to Hawthorne, that Brady should have gone in person to New York to see the passenger lists and talk to witnesses; to say nothing of the sticky interview with Mr. Ahlberg senior. Of course, it would have been better to keep Chester under surveillance at the Infirmary till every detail of the case against him was sewed up: but this could only have been done by Brady’s taking the hospital authorities into his confidence, which he was unwilling to do at this stage.

  When Nigel left the hospital he went to see Mark Ahlberg. “Mark,” he said abruptly as he came in, “what are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? Why? Well, I’ve two pupils in the morning. Then there’s the ball game.”

  “You’re going to miss them all, I’m afraid,” Nigel said. “You’re going away for the weekend, starting early—very early.”

  “Nigel! Have you gone crazy?”

  “I hear your brother’s being discharged in the morning. I’m not taking any more risks.”

  Mark’s look of bewilderment soon changed to one of intelligence and sadness. “Oh, I see. I was afraid of it, you know. Nigel, are you absolutely sure you’re right?”

  Nigel nodded.

  “Oh, God! Poor old Chester.”

  15 Go Go Go!

  FOR HOURS THAT night Chester Ahlberg had felt his brain slowly, by infinitesimal degrees, dwindling and hardening: it was now a small, sharp point. When he had first read the letter, he had cowered physically under the impact of Nigel’s withering contempt. Then he tore it up—tore each page into smaller and smaller fragments, as if to destroy it would cause the past, and all that the letter said, to be nullified. But it couldn’t be, and the dispersed fragments of the past came together again, and would not be evaded.

  Or could be evaded only, with a tremendous mental wrench, by a change of direction. It was Nigel Strangeways—the man who had led him on and betrayed him—not Mark now, against whom the small, sharp point was turned. “Mad,” “humorless,” “insensately ambitious,” “negligible,” “nonentity”—such words, which had rankled so horribly, began to harden the purpose within him. “I can hate. Whatever you say. I can,” he muttered: “you’ll be sorry that you dared address me like that.”

  I am not crazy, he thought; but I can act madness, like Hamlet. Bare bodkin. Act madness so they’ll never send me to the chair.

  His mind kept repeating certain phrases, like a phonograph record with a faulty groove. I am sane I am sane I am sane I am sane. He pushed the needle on. I’ll teach him I’ll teach him I’ll teach him. Josiah’s face blazed up suddenly huge in his mind, as it had showed that Thursday night. “What on earth are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be in Britain.” Same tone of voice, ordering me about, questioning my every move, as if I was a boy still. Prig bully pedantic son of a bitch!

  It is not enough to have power: one must be seen to have it, acknowledged as a man of power. The finger on the trigger has absolute power, but it is secret: an explosion, a timeless instant like an orgasm which takes away life instead of giving it; but this is an act of darkness. To kill in broad daylight, in the presence of thousands—that would be the greatest, the pinnacle of climax. . . .

  Out of the hospital and seemingly healthy, seemingly sane, sitting in his warm room, Chester fondled his gigantic, audacious purpose. Its where and when had flashed on him during the night watches: its how lay on the desk before him—a stiletto brought back three years ago from Italy as a souvenir. Would he have time, though? He had left the Infirmary early, saying grateful good-bys to matron, nurses, registrar. No one had prevented his return to Hawthorne House. At 9:30 he had called Mark on the telephone: there was no reply. He assumed the plainclothes man detailed to protect him at the Infirmary would any minute now be warned by Brady to keep him cornered till reinforcements arrived. The man was outside his door, no doubt, or hanging about in the entrance.

  Chester kept his ear cocked for the wail of a police-car siren. It all depended now upon timing and luck. Well, he’d been told he was fantastically lucky; but that was a sneer, a jealous refusal to admit the formidable power of achievement of his
brain. He felt wonderfully brisk and bright and cold, like the weather outside his window: a fine day for the game.

  Another hour passed. What were they waiting for? Chester began to feel disquieted. How much longer would he have to wait, dressed up in his black overcoat and black kid gloves, the fedora on the desk beside him? Was it some trick they were playing, some way of breaking his nerve? Or perhaps Brady had not yet received Strangeways’ letter. Stupid bastards, standing him up like this! Chester allowed that other self within him to master and dictate to him—surrendered to it, as a woman to a lover, or an athlete to his trainer.

  A little before midday he heard the police-car siren. He rose, put on his hat, slid the stiletto up his left sleeve, opened the door gently. No one outside. The lock clicked behind him. His rubber-soled shoes were silent on the stone stairway. He peered downward at its first turning. A broad back stood in the entrance, looking left to the main gateway. Chester drew the stiletto from his left sleeve. He could not see the police reinforcements, but they must be moving across the court now, for the plainclothes man hailed them—moved down the steps outside the entrance to meet them. And, as he did so, Chester moved silently down the stairs, turned right, and continued on, down another flight into the basement passages.

  He could hear, behind him, a voice saying, “Hi, fellas! He’s still up there. Hasn’t been a peep outa him.”

  Chester strode along the underground passages, the, stiletto in his pocket now.

  “Nice to see you back, Mr. Ahlberg,” said a student coming the other way. “I hear you’ve been sick. I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “Thanks, Pete. I feel fine.”

  Chester climbed stairs again, up to one of the House’s side entrances, took a bicycle from a stand outside, and pedaled off leisurely. Apart from that one student, he had not encountered anyone. Who in hell said his luck had run out? . . .

  Sukie Tate was sitting at her desk by the window. Sheets of paper, covered with her sprawling handwriting, lay in front of her. She’d got the thesis running again, after a day or two during which Nigel had ousted Emily Dickinson from her mind. She felt serenely happy, not a twinge of regret, or of annoyance that Nigel had not returned to her after that first visitation. For so it seemed to her now—a visitation, a lovely, unearned, unexpected bonus. Not that you didn’t work for it, my girl, she thought, smiling secretively: but now you must get on with real life.

  Nevertheless, when her doorbell rang, she leapt up eagerly. Perhaps Nigel had changed his mind.

  “Why, Chester!” she exclaimed. Even he, in his present state of mind, noticed how her face fell.

  “You were expecting Mark?” he asked hopefully.

  “Oh, no,” she said in some confusion. “I— Come right in, Chester. You startled me. I didn’t know they’d let you out of hospital.”

  “Yes, I’m fine now. Thought I’d drop in.”

  “It’s nice to see you,” Sukie said, a little nervously. “May I take your coat?”

  “That’s all right. I know where to hang it.”

  He hung up his coat in the hall closet. There was another man’s coat there, an old tweed one. A brilliant improvisation came to him. “Sukie, is that coat John’s? Could I borrow it for the afternoon? I’m going to the Yale game, and mine’s rather thin for this cold weather.”

  “Sure you may,” she called out.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Now, will you have a drink?”

  Chester transferred the stiletto to one pocket of the tweed coat, and to the other a woolen balaclava helmet he extracted from an inside pocket of his black overcoat.

  “Cheers,” he said, raising the glass. “You look different, Sukie.”

  The lineaments of gratified desire, she thought, smiling like a cat. “So do you, Chester.”

  He gave her a suspicious glance. “I’ve been sick. Remember?”

  “Should you go to the game?”

  “It’ll do me good. Fresh air. You wouldn’t have a bite for me to eat, would you?”

  “Why, of course, Chester.” Odder and odder, she thought. “I’ll fix something. Make yourself comfortable.”

  He relaxed in this chair. Everything was going well. Nobody would think of looking for him here. The town must be buzzing with cops; but, once he’d joined the multitude flocking over Cabot Bridge to the stadium, he would become invisible.

  And then the telephone rang. Chester went rigid. Ten to one, Sukie would mention his presence to whoever was calling. Or it could be somebody who wanted to know if he was with her.

  “Will you answer it for me, Chester?” she called from the kitchen. “Tell them unless it’s urgent I’ll call back.” He took up the receiver.

  “Yes?” he croaked. . . . “She’s busy right now. I’ll give her the message.”

  “Who was it?” Sukie called.

  “Girl called Emmeline. Wants to remind you about Sunday.” Sukie appeared, carrying a tray with a napkin, knife and glass. “Fuss-budget. Goodness, you’re perspiring, Chester. Is it too hot for you in here? Though it really isn’t. Are you sure you feel okay? I really don’t think you’re well enough to go to the game.”

  “Now, don’t you fuss, Sukie.” . . .

  Nigel had gone out with Charles Reilly for an early lunch, thereby just missing the brouhaha set up by Chester’s disappearance. Brady arrived at 12:20, seething with rage at the sergeant and his detachment who had let Chester slip through their fingers: the plainclothes man detailed to keep Chester penned in received a tongue-lashing he would not forget to the end of his days. Brady sent out the alarm to the city’s police headquarters, and soon Cabot was swarming with cops. Every exit from Hawthorne House was blocked: everyone going in or out was asked if he had seen Chester Ahlberg any time this morning. But it was not till nearly 1 P.M. that the student Peter, hurrying in for lunch, told how he had met the tutor in the basement. Peter, questioned, described Chester’s strange clothes and said he’d met him around midday.

  So Chester had escaped the net. It was fairly certain he had got out through one of the side entrances to the House. Shortwave radio sets broadcast the news to all patrol cars. Nevertheless, Brady had the whole House searched from top to bottom to make sure, and himself, with the Master, had at once searched Chester’s room which was quite unoccupied, and afforded no clues to its owner’s disappearance.

  “Anything missing, can you see?” Brady asked.

  “No. I don’t think so. Let me think for a moment though. Hm-m, why, yes: he used to keep a sort of stiletto—looked like a long, thin paperknife—at least he used to—on the desk here.”

  “He did? Jesus! We must warn his brother. Look, ring him for me quickly.”

  “You needn’t worry about Mark. Nigel told him to leave town early this morning. He’s gone to stay with a cousin in Gloucester, and only Nigel and I knew where he’d gone.”

  “Good. But still and all, I’m going to call the Gloucester police right now. Give me this cousin’s name and address.” . . .

  Charles and Nigel left the restaurant at 1:50, and began walking toward Cabot Bridge and the stadium. From every side street people flocked in, thickening the main stream as it flowed more and more slowly toward the game.

  “Hell of a lot of cops about,” said Charles. “Wonder why.”

  A couple of minutes behind them, and unnoticed by them, out of one of the side turnings there emerged, in a press of people, a figure warmly clad against the weather: balaclava helmet, shabby tweed overcoat, a fraternity scarf (also picked up in Sukie’s cupboard) swathing the neck and lower part of the face. Chester’s purpose was formed like an icicle, pure, brittle, pointed. . . .

  Past the sellers of programs and favors and peanuts, past the ticket touts, past the vigilant policemen at the outer gates, the vast concourse moved solidly, like a stream of treacle over the tough grass, then divided into several streams, each pouring through an entrance into the stadium. Nigel and Charles found their seats, high up on one of the concrete tiers,
in a section behind the goalposts at the southern end of the field. Flags billowed out over the stands: the checkerboard lines over the empty field looked dazzling white in the sunshine, the grass from the distance seemed smooth as green velvet, artificial. Behind the sidelines, acrobats and cheerleaders entertained the crowd with wild antics, as if to release the electric tension gathering in the air. A band was playing, a perfervid supporter rent the air with spasmodic screams from a hunting horn.

  “I don’t see any drum majorettes,” complained Nigel, raking the sidelines with his field glasses.

  “This is Ivy League football. They keep sex separate from their serious activities.”

  “I like to see them prancing around, at televised games.”

  “Those huge bare thighs? Shame on you! And the Chocolate Soldier uniforms.” Charles laughed. “They can’t resist dressing up, over here. It’s all part of the great American dream.” . . .

  A figure, its head wrapped in balaclava and scarf so that nothing showed but nose and eyes, slipped into its seat two sections away. Chester knew he wasn’t near them but he knew just where Charles Reilly would be sitting: at the party in Chester’s room, Charles had mentioned that he was going to ask Nigel to the game, and said his tickets were for one of the upper rows in J section. Chester congratulated himself on the excellent memory which had kept this piece of information in his brain. . . .

  The wind struck bitter up there, swirling invisibly over the top of the stadium and stabbing downward. Nigel took out his hip flask, offered it to Charles, then took a nip of neat Scotch himself. The teams were out now—the blue of Yale, the gold of Cabot. They looked like miniature men, so far below—a child’s idea of Martians, with their visored helmets and fantastically padded-out shoulders. On benches at the sides of the field the replacements sat, muffled up, glancing at their coaches who spoke to them with rhetorical gestures. On form, Yale had been the more resourceful team this fall, and the more successful: Cabot was streaky, showing flashes of unorthodox genius one day, wallowing in ineptitude another.