A Penknife in My Heart

by Nicholas Blake

  “What makes you so certain?” she remorselessly pursued.

  He shrugged his shoulders, unable to reply. He saw now that when, a few minutes ago, he had exclaimed, “I know Brian didn’t do it,” Mrs. Holmes’s acute feminine instinct had recognized truth in the words: she was convinced he knew the real murderer’s identity, and nothing now could shake her off. Like an echo of his thoughts, she began, “I’m his mother. I shall be absolutely ruthless and unscrupulous if necessary, to save Brian from—”

  “He’s not even been arrested yet.”

  “—from madness. From living the rest of his life in fear of madness,” she flatly stated.

  11 The Secret Drawer

  When Ned awoke the next morning, his mind instantly resumed the argument upon which it had fallen asleep. Last night, returning from the Holmeses’ bungalow, he had imagined himself making the grand gesture which would lift the cloud from Brian’s head. He imagined Mrs. Holmes, a gray-eyed Athene, nodding approval and with a movement of divine magnanimity accepting the reparation he offered. He was afraid of her; it also struck him that there was no one’s admiration he desired more than hers.

  But this morning it was the practical difficulties of such a quixotic gesture, rather than its nobility, which occupied his mind. Even if there was not a policeman present when he visited Brian, how could he reassure the haunted young man without telling him the whole truth? What conviction would it carry to Brian if he said, “I know you are innocent. Don’t worry any more”?

  As he shaved and prepared breakfast, Ned found his dilemma generating irrational anger against Stuart Hammer. Stuart had bungled everything—or rather, he had done it all too efficiently, not leaving behind so much as a footprint in a garden bed to suggest to the police that there had been another man at the house that night. The damnable opportunism with which he had made use of Brian Holmes’s presence—Ned imagined him congratulating himself on his presence of mind, his speed of reaction, and utterly indifferent to the possibility that he might have condemned an innocent man to death for the crime he had committed. Stuart had even remembered to put the front-door key in the handkerchief drawer, removing thus the only thread of suspicion which could lead the police away from Brian Holmes.

  Ned’s first idea, he remembered, had been that Stuart Hammer should leave the key in the secret drawer of Helena’s bureau. He could still feel a twinge of shame when he recalled how he had come to know of its existence. The bureau, an heirloom left to Helena by her grandmother, stood in the drawing room. Several years ago, after one of their terrible scenes, Ned had flung out of the house; but then, impelled by a mixture of morbid curiosity and vindictiveness, he had walked round to the back and peered curiously in at the window of the drawing room where he had just left Helena: he wanted to see what she looked like, how she behaved, when she believed herself alone after the degrading exhibition they had made of themselves. He saw her at the bureau, her back half turned to him. He saw her fingers turn the knob of a pigeonhole drawer, while with the other hand she pressed on a boss of the ornamental brasswork. A shallow drawer slid out from the side of the bureau. Helena’s face was contorted as she took something from the drawer. She turned a little, and he could see now that her eyes were shut—clenched shut. For an instant of horror and hope, Ned thought it must be poison she kept in the drawer, so blindly desperate was the expression on her face. Then she moved toward the fireplace, and he could see that she carried a sheaf of letters. He knew, though he could not distinguish the handwriting, they must be letters he had written to her when first they were in love. He stood petrified outside the window as she tore them into fragments and threw them in the fire. He could hear no sound, but the convulsive movements of her breast told him she was sobbing.

  She was always a hoarder, he thought now, trying to harden himself against the memory. The possessiveness which made her keep old programs, broken trinkets, worn-out dresses, was all of a piece with the character that refused to let go of a marriage which had long ceased to mean anything but misery for them both. She had the frenzied grip of the drowning, he thought; and, the next moment, in a flood of contrition, he saw how it was all part of her dreadful insecurity—how she had to grip every straw in reach. He felt this now with his whole being, like a revelation, though in theory he had known for years it was true.

  Memories began to pour through the breach in his defenses. … A stuffy, sweetish smell. In their bedroom. Was it three years ago? four? He had traced it to a drawer in Helena’s dressing table, where, hidden away at the back, as if by a guilty child, he found a cache of rotting apples, each with a bite taken out of it. Even these she had not been able to throw away.

  Leaving his breakfast unfinished, Ned went into the drawing room. He had been seized by an inexplicable impulse to open the secret drawer. Standing at the bureau, he manipulated drawer knob and boss as he had seen Helena doing. In the moment before the secret drawer was released, it flashed across his mind that it was not respect for her privacy but lack of curiosity about her which had kept him from opening it before.

  The shallow drawer contained one article—an old-fashioned book with clasp and lock. Ned lifted it out. On its worn green leather spine were embossed in gold the initials of Helena’s grandmother. It looked like a diary or commonplace book. The clasp, though flimsy, resisted his effort to open it. He set off to get a cold chisel, but then was diverted by a mysterious compunction about forcing the book open, and started looking for the key. He tried all the other drawers in the bureau, finding an assortment of keys but none which fitted the tiny lock of the book. Perhaps, as it was all so secret, Helena had kept it in her handbag.

  Piled on Helena’s bed lay the collection of personal belongings which the police had taken away and recently returned. Ned had been putting off a decision as to what he should do with them when he left the Old Farm. One couldn’t very well hand them over to the auctioneers. Bury them? Give them to Mrs. Marle? Send them to Helena’s parents?

  In the handbag he found a minute key which fitted the lock of the leather book. He flipped through the pages: poems, “great thoughts” and such like, in a spidery handwriting, the ink gone brown—Helena’s grandmother had copied them out as a young girl, judging by the date inscribed under her name on the first page.

  But then, about two-thirds through the book, the spider writing left off and was replaced, after two blank pages, by one he knew well. Helena had been using the book for her own confidences. The first words she had written there went into him like a knife.

  N. went off for his holiday today. I could see he was glad to go—to get away from me. He was kind and distrait, his thoughts running ahead of him. He looked through me when he said good-by, as if he was seeing some distant prospect. Another woman? I don’t suppose he’s faithful to me. Why should he be?—I’m hopeless, I’ve ruined his life. If I could stop loving him, I would stop tormenting him.

  Before Ned could read further, there was a loud knock on the front door. He felt a moment of panic, convinced that the police had somehow ferreted out the secret compact between Stuart Hammer and himself; but, putting his head out of the window, he saw that the caller was only Colonel Gracely. Still holding the leather book, he ran downstairs to let him in.

  “On my way to Mrs. Holmes—thought I’d drop in here first and see if you wanted any help. Damned unpleasant business, all this packing up,” The colonel glanced round at the furniture in the hall, already ticketed by the auctioneers.

  Ned thanked him. Why is he going to see Mrs. Holmes? Had she asked him over, so that she can tell him what I said last night? he wondered, feeling as if a ring were tightening round him. How easily the animal fear of discovery blotted out the more delicate reproaches of conscience!

  “I had supper with her last night,” he said, grasping the nettle. “She wants me to visit her son.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Would the police allow it? What’s the position?”

  “There’d be no obje
ction, I imagine. They haven’t enough evidence yet to charge him. I had another chat with the chief constable yesterday, y’know. Young Holmes seems to have made a favorable impression on Bartley. Didn’t tell fibs when he was questioned, anyway. Trouble is, he doesn’t remember anything after—” The colonel broke off, embarrassed.

  “Do the doctors think he’ll recover his memory?”

  “Probably, yes. But they can’t be sure.”

  “What makes the police think he’s telling the truth?” Ned asked against his will.

  “Bartley is sure that it came as a great shock to Holmes when he told the young chap that Mrs. Stowe had died of violence. You can’t act that sort of surprise—not so as to take in an experienced C.I.D. officer.”

  “But if he’d lost his memory—?”

  “Ah, that’s the rub. Of course, they’ll turn on the heat when he’s fitter. But Bartley’s a decent fella; and besides, he can’t get round that knock on the head young Holmes was given. He knows, if it came to trial, the defense would bring medical experts to swear it could not have been self-inflicted and couldn’t have been done, under the circumstances, by your poor wife.”

  “Well then—”

  “Mind you, it’s possible theoretically for a fellow to knock himself out deliberately. But the nature of Holmes’s injury bars that one. A violent blow which didn’t break the skin. Must have been given with something in the nature of a blackjack. And the police have found no weapon of that kind here, or at Field Cottage, or in between.”

  “But in that case what on earth do they—how can they account for it at all?”

  “They can’t. They’re properly up the pole. Y’know how the police hate theorizing without facts. Well, they’ve been reduced to theorizing over this. Just shows you. Theory number one—burglar got in—either young Holmes was wrong in thinking the front door had been shut, or there was a ground-floor window open which the burglar locked behind him when he entered—and that’s unlikely enough for a start. Burglar goes upstairs, enters bedroom: Brian Holmes wakes up and gets clubbed—trying to protect your poor wife, maybe. She starts calling for help, and the chap silences her with a pillow.”

  “Why not with his blackjack or whatever it was?” asked Ned, after a pause during which he had been forcing himself to digest this so-nearly accurate account of what Stuart Hammer must have done.

  “Goodness knows,” said the colonel. “Fella might have lost his head.”

  There was another silence in the sunny drawing room where they were sitting.

  “You said, ‘theory number one.’ Is there another?”

  Colonel Gracely’s mild eyes wandered uneasily: he looked awkward, almost guilty. “Shouldn’t be telling you this, old chap. Indiscreet. But of course it’s quite fantastic. Well, here goes. Bartley conceived the idea you might have paid some thug to—lent him a key, and so on and so forth.”

  “Paid someone to murder my wife?” Ned’s voice rose in a tone of what was almost genuinely righteous indignation.

  “Now steady on, old son. Of course it’s a perfectly crazy notion. Anyone who knows you would know that. But you weren’t on good terms with her—and Bartley couldn’t find anyone else with any motive—forget it, my dear chap,” the colonel hastily added, misinterpreting the consternation on Ned’s face. “I happen to know Bartley isn’t thinking on those lines any more.”

  “Well, I couldn’t disprove it,” Ned remarked, controlling his voice.

  “You don’t have to,” said the colonel, a slight military snap in his tone. “Poor old Bartley’s scraping the bottom of the barrel now. For instance, a Marksfield chap ran his car into the ditch, just this side of the town, in the small hours of the night your wife—Chap told his friends next day he’d been nearly run down by a car he tried to stop for help, coming in this direction. Well, it finally gets to Bartley’s ears, and he asks the Marksfield chap if he took the number of the car. Chap says he did, tells Bartley the number—and the car turns out to belong to a harmless bloke in Norringham, who was quietly at home all that night. Obviously the Marksfield fella was tight and got the number wrong. Just shows you the sort of blind alleys the police are chasing up.”

  Ned tried to show only a mild interest in the colonel’s anecdote, but his mind was seething. To ask the name of the Norringham man would look decidedly odd. It would be a remarkable coincidence for two men from Norringham to have been in the vicinity at that time. The ruthless motorist must surely have been Stuart Hammer: yet the police were satisfied the owner of the car had been “quietly at home all that night.”

  Or so Colonel Gracely said. After his visitor had left, Ned began to wonder if Gracely’s indiscretions had not been calculated. Suppose he had been deputed by Bartley or the chief constable to try him out, act as an agent provocateur, lay some sort of trap for him? The police had, at any rate, entertained the idea that Helena might have been killed by an accomplice of his. It positively irritated Ned that such a farfetched notion should have entered their heads. But it had; and the colonel might be acting on their behalf, laying seeds of doubt and fear in Ned’s mind, so that he should try to get in touch with his accomplice and lead the police to the murderer.

  Ned’s instinct for self-preservation was now thoroughly roused, and the effect of this was that he saw danger and double-talk everywhere. Perhaps Mrs. Holmes had been tipped off to lead him on, too. Perhaps the police had already sensed a connection between Herbert Beverley’s death in Norringham and the presence of a Norringham car near Crump End the night Helena was killed: perhaps they were grilling Laura this very moment about his movements last Saturday evening.

  Thank God they had not found Helena’s diary—heaven knows how much it might not have strengthened their suspicions. Ned pulled the book out of his pocket, where it had been nudging at him during the colonel’s visit. Flinging himself on to a sofa, he opened the book with a heavy sense of fatality, like a huge stone on the stomach, weighing him down, as if not till now had he faced the worst.

  It’s lonely with N. gone. I don’t seem able to settle to anything—yet I ought to be used to it—he’s like a visitor in his own house when he is here. I suppose I ought to be doing a thorough clear-out with Mrs. Marle, but what’s the use? Seven devils might enter, each worse than the previous resident. I wonder what N. is doing in Norfolk. He never even asks me to go on holidays with him now.

  Brian Holmes came in after tea, with a bunch of flowers for me. It’s a long time since anyone gave me flowers. I used to dream of huge bouquets, after I’d played the “Emperor” with Toscanini. Bloody fool. I wasn’t even good enough for a Saturday afternoon at the Wigmore. The devil always got into my brain and my fingers, like a freezing fog. B. H. asked me to play for him. Astonished myself by doing so. All thumbs of course, but it was like beginning to thaw. He’s very young—ten years younger than me at least.

  Ned ran his eye rapidly over the next two pages. They offered nothing but brief, factual entries. Then he came to a longer passage:

  Heard from N. this morning. He writes like an unwilling child sat down to write a letter when it wants to be out of doors. The pen of an unready writer. Why does he do all this wretched pot-boiling stuff for television, etc.? He had talent once. So had I. We’ve destroyed each other that way too—no, that’s not fair, he did his best for me in the early days at any rate—it was my devil that ruined me.

  I smelt the paper to see if there was a woman’s scent on it from his fingers. Why should I care? But I do.

  He says he is leaving Brackham Staithe and going on a sight-seeing trip, ending up at Yarwich. Ned sight-seeing?—it doesn’t sound at all like him. And what is there to see at Yarwich? Oh, what a suspicious, impossible bitch I’ve become!

  Thank God the police didn’t find this diary, thought Ned again. They could have traced my movements: the constable I ran into on Yarwich docks would tell his story; they would discover that Stuart Hammer had been sailing Avocet on this part of the coast; there’d be inquiries at Yarwich
and the Nelson Arms.

  But perhaps Bartley did find the diary, and replaced it to lull me into a sense of security. Oh, don’t be such a bloody fool—the police don’t work like conspirators in a corny spy story. Bartley has never questioned me about my holiday, and it’s the first thing he’d do if he had any suspicions.

  Brian and I played some sonatas this evening. He’s not too bad for an amateur—fingering good, but a flautist needs sound lungs—he can’t sustain a long run.

  I think the last time I was really happy was when I nursed N. through that illness, five years ago. Perhaps I ought to have married a permanent invalid.

  Funny how Brian reminds me of N. when I first met him. The same unformed, unpredictable character: prickly, quixotic, loyal: a streak of queer integrity, but no moral stamina (who am I to talk?). I fell in love with him most of all for some restless, reckless quality I sensed beneath the surface. It excited me. I wonder is that true. Perhaps it was the child in him I married: the dear little scruffy lost boy. What a pity he never grew up. He would have, if we’d had children. Probably. And probably I’d have ruined the children’s lives, instead of his, with my dreadful insatiable need for love. Or is it power—the need for people to be always responding to me? These terrible scenes N. and I have: I provoke him beyond endurance, simply to get a response from him—hate, lust, fury, even disgust—I don’t seem to mind what it is as long as there is some response. I’m unfit for human—I ought to let myself be put away in a mental home but I am so frightened.

  O God, help me.

  Ned forced himself to read it through again, wincing, his feelings in confusion. So Brian Holmes was his double, his stand-in. That damp, ineffectual young man. Colonel Gracely too had noticed the resemblance. And Helena, a victim of her psychological pattern, going to bed with his bearded shadow …

  There was a gap of several days in the diary. Then: