‘That’s all right,’ said Thomas. ‘I realized what it was all leading up to. You’re going to charge me?’
‘That depends on the answers to one or two more questions. I want to know whether you went to your car again that night; and I want to know whether anyone else went to it; and I want to know what happened to the shoes you were wearing when you came home.’
Thomas was terribly pale—terribly pale. Charlesworth said: ‘Take it easy. I don’t want to rattle you.’
Thomas summoned up a smile. ‘Thank you very much, Inspector. You’re being very decent about it. I’d better say first that of course I didn’t do this thing. As for the rest, no—I didn’t go out to my car again that night. I put it in the garage before I went into the house and nobody else can have gone to it because I’m the only person who has a key to the garage—I handed it over to the police later on, that evening. And I handed my shoes over too; we all did. We’d been puddling around in the blood, I suppose and they were messing about with footprints and things.’ He added, lightly: ‘I suppose you’ve still got them, because I haven’t had them back. Wanted as exhibits at my trial, I wouldn’t be surprised?’
‘Together with the mat from the front of your car,’ said Charlesworth. ‘Marked with Raoul Vernet’s blood. And you say that after you got home at ten to ten that night, you didn’t go back to your car.’
Matilda was not a fainter. She wished very often that she was, she wished she could swoon and cling and have hysterics and be made a fuss of and get it all out of her system that way; but, worse luck, she was one of those who, from the first impact of the blow, are calm and clear and impress everybody by their fortitude (or callousness), and only afterwards pay a price in jangled nerves and exhaustion of spirit and pain and helplessness and a bleak despair, that comes too late for sympathy or help. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Charlesworth, looking at her white, still face. ‘It just had to be, that’s all.’
‘What does he say?’
‘Not very much.’ He dragged forward one of the big, square, pale-green drawing-room chairs. ‘Do sit down, Mrs. Evans. I’m afraid it’s a shock for you.’
She sat down on the arm of the chair. ‘Do you mean to say he doesn’t deny it?’
‘Well, he said he hadn’t done it; but he said it as a sort of formula, he made no secret but that it was just “for the record”. When we charged him he just said that there wasn’t any point in saying anything at this stage. Which,’ admitted Charlesworth, ‘was quite true.’
‘But what in God’s name have you got against him? Merely that he was driving about in the fog.…’
‘Mrs. Evans—he put his car away as soon as he got back to the house. He got some of Raoul Vernet’s blood on his shoes—well, that’s easy enough, most of you did; but traces of blood were found on the mat in your husband’s car. How did they get there, if he didn’t go back to his car after you found the body?’
‘Well, the next day_____’
‘We collected all your shoes that night; and also the mat under the driving seat of the car. That blood must have been there before he came into the house at ten to ten.’
Matilda was silent, sitting quietly on the arm of the pale-green chair, against the glow of the coral-coloured curtains. ‘He must have gone out to the car some time, that’s all.’
‘He himself says he didn’t. Only he has a key—is that right?’
‘Yes. The garage is left unlocked all day.’
‘He had locked it after garaging the car. And it’s he who says he didn’t go back.’
‘Well, he just must have.’
‘When, for example?’ said Charlesworth.
‘I don’t know when. We were all messing about all over the place after we found poor Raoul.…’
‘Did you see your husband go out to the garage? Or did anyone else?’
‘No, but … Well, we all dispersed. Melissa put on one of her well-known acts, though what it was to do with her I don’t know, she didn’t even know Raoul, she’d never heard his name unless I happened to mention it to her that morning, which I can’t remember whether I did; but anyway she threw a drama and I got Rosie to take her into the office and quiet her down. Yes, and it was at the same time that I took Gran upstairs, because I remember saying to Rosie, “You cope with Melissa while I take Granny back to bed.” And Tedward had gone for the police; so that would leave Thomas alone, with poor Raoul’s body. Perhaps that’s when he went to the garage?’
‘If so, why doesn’t he say so? And anyway, what for?’
‘He may have gone to put the car away.’
‘He says he put it away when he arrived back. He always does, doesn’t he?’
‘He may have forgotten—he may not have put it away this particular time.’
‘That would suggest that he knew that this was a particular time! Why depart from his usual procedure?—unless, of course, he knew what was going on in the hall.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Matilda, wearily. She added: ‘He’s probably “shielding” somebody: they always do in books and he’s just the sort of person, the silly chump.’
‘They may in books,’ said Charlesworth. ‘But not in real life, they don’t. I mean, people shield people, even murderers; but not to the extent of getting themselves hanged for it—you can take it from me! And anyway, who would he be protecting?’ He added, in alarm: ‘Now, don’t you start!’
She gave him a rather wavering smile. ‘Well, I don’t know, Mr. Charlesworth; it’s all the most horrible, ghastly, fantastic mistake and I suppose it’ll all be all right in the end; but meanwhile …’ She got up off her chair-arm. ‘Can I see him? Where is he?’
Thomas was at the police station where he would remain for the night until he should appear before a magistrate next day and be taken off to Brixton to await his trial; in a narrow little cell, white tiled, with a tiny window of thick glass high up in the wall and a tiny peep-hole in the door. A narrow wooden bench ran down one side and was the only furniture in the room; four blankets were neatly folded at one end of it—one for a pillow—and at the other was the huh-ha, its chain dangling outside the cell so that he might not be tempted to tear it down and strangle himself with it. A suicidal drunk howled forlornly in the cell across the way and now and again slow footsteps clomped down the corridor and a voice called out to stop that bloody row; Thomas knew that as the footsteps passed his own cell, an eye was applied for a moment to the peep-hole—that there was no corner or crevice of the cell in which he could feel himself really to be alone. Now and again he wondered if the death of Raoul Vernet had really been worth all this; but he knew that it had.
Next day at the police court, he was allowed a few words with Matilda, sitting gripping her hand on a hard wooden bench with other prisoners also muttering to their friends and lovers, in little groups round the room; a bare, cold room stinking of dust and disinfectant with an ink-marked table in the centre and the wooden benches all round the walls. Afterwards he was in a small courtroom with a magistrate in plain clothes at a huge desk on the dais, under the lovely carved Royal Arms in their colour and gold; himself in a little, raised dock, fenced in with modestly ornamental wrought iron, the whole so narrow that he could hardly stand up in it, let alone sit down on the six-inch bench. It was all very informal. The court buzzed with ceaseless comings and goings and murmurings and mutterings, outside in the corridor where witnesses waited like hospital patients on benches against the walls, the chattering rose to a deafening crescendo and a very new young policeman put his curly head out through the door and shouted, ‘Quiet, please!’ and drew in his head again with a mock-bridling movement, winking at his colleagues: there!—what do you think of that for a first effort, eh? Under some misapprehension, the door from the cells was opened and a prisoner was marched in, looking scared and strung-up, and hurriedly turned round and marched out again more bewildered than ever. Mr. Charlesworth lounging against the wall behind the witness box was suddenly galvanized into action, stepped briskly in
to the box and embarked upon a brief recital of events at the station the day before. ‘… the prisoner was then charged and he said, “There’s no point my saying anything at this stage, is there?”’ He was silent, his hands on the edge of the square witness box, his arms rigid, looking alertly into the magistrate’s face.
The magistrate shifted at his desk. ‘Yes. Now, Doctor Evans—are there any questions you’d like to ask?’
Thomas looked round him vaguely. ‘Well, no, I don’t think so.’ He caught Charlesworth’s eyes, and Charlesworth almost imperceptibly shook his head. ‘No, definitely not, thank you.’ A funny place to be looking for guidance—but still!
‘Do you apply for legal aid?’
Do I apply for legal aid? What the hell’s the use, thought Thomas, of asking me questions I can’t properly understand. I suppose they’re so used to their jargon that they can’t imagine everyone else isn’t. Did legal aid mean free legal aid, or what? ‘I’d just like to see my solicitor, I suppose,’ he said to the magistrate. (Poor dear Mr. Burden—how was he going to like this?)
And it was all over and he was being whisked off through the prisoner’s waiting-room, down the stairs to the cells again; there to wait for a full complement of prisoners before the van drove them all off to Brixton gaol. He caught one parting glimpse of Matilda’s face, stretched with a palpable effort into a smile; her eyes gazed lovingly after him through a mist of tears. He could not know how gallant and small he looked between his two tall escorts, with his pale face and untidy, faded gold hair, his hands thrust down angrily into the pockets of his jacket. He flung her back a smile and she raised one hand with the thumb stuck up and gave it a little uh-uh jerk, as though to say: It’s O.K.! It’s in the bag.
But it’s me that’s in the bag, thought Thomas, ruefully. It was not much fun.
It was a brisk November day. Cockie hugged his old mackintosh about him, jigging from one foot to the other to keep himself warm as he waited for Charlesworth to emerge from the police court. He appeared at last, with Sergeant Bedd. ‘Hallo, Inspector. Just the chap I want to see.’ He jerked his thumb over towards a pub. ‘Come on; we’ll talk when we get there.’ In the saloon bar, as yet fairly empty, he sat his guest down at a little round table with a raised brass rim round it, and asked what he would have. ‘Get us three bitters then, Bedd, will you, like a good chap? I want to talk to Mr. Cockrill.’ To Cockie he said, in a phoney American accent, ‘I expect you’re plenny mad with me?’
‘I’ve got no right to expect anything,’ said Cockie. ‘I think you might have warned me before you actually charged him, but I suppose you had your reasons.’
‘It all happened so quickly; and it was after I saw you yesterday, I wasn’t expecting to charge him; but when I got back from Maida Vale, they’d established this blood on the mat in the car—same group as the body and all that. What was I to do?’
‘I’m not complaining,’ said Cockie. ‘It’s just that it would have been easier for me to talk to Mrs. Evans and all that.’ He reminded Charlesworth: ‘They’re personal friends of mine.’
‘I know, I know, and if I’d had the slightest intention of charging him, I swear I’d have let you know. To tell you the truth, I rather surprised myself. But there it was—the blood’s established and he trots out that he’s never been back to the car after seeing the body. I couldn’t go on questioning him without the caution.’
‘The feller’s a doctor,’ said Cockrill, grumpily. ‘He’s probably wading about knee-deep in gore all day.’
‘Not in this gore; not with great dollops of brain floating about in it.’
‘Of brain?’
‘Well, not actual chunks of grey matter,’ confessed Charlesworth, leaning back in his chair to fish in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes. ‘But traces. Now, a G.P. doesn’t get that kind of blood on him, not unless he’s been dealing with an accident case or something, and he hasn’t had any recently—he admits it. Then when I questioned him, he—well, he baulked a bit, you know, went white, all the usual signs.’ He held out the packet. ‘Cigarette?’
‘No thank you,’ said Cockrill, gruffly. He produced his own tobacco and papers and started rolling one. ‘So you charged him?’
‘How else could the blood have got into the car?’
Sergeant Bedd came back with the three glasses balancing each other in his big hands, and manoeuvred them down on to the table. They went through automatic gestures of good health, but Cockrill did not even put his glass to his lips. ‘He’s shielding someone; that’s the long and the short of it.’
‘That’s what his wife said. O.K. he’s shielding someone: but who?’
‘There are three women in this case—four if you count the old lady.’
‘This wasn’t a woman,’ said Charlesworth. ‘Take it from me.’
Inspector Cockrill was taking nothing from Mr. Charles-worth. ‘Not a woman? Prove it!’
‘The telephone message proves it. “Someone came in and hit me with a mastoid mallet”.’
‘Rosie’s not sure; it may have been “a man came in and hit me with a mastoid mallet”. ’
‘Well, if it was,’ said Charlesworth, gaily, ‘then it wasn’t a woman, was it?’
‘All right; settle for “someone”.’
‘Good. Well, here we have Raoul Vernet standing in the hall and someone comes in and hits him with the mallet. “Comes in” you observe: not “comes down”. So that counts out two of them, because both the Mrs. Evans’s, old and young, were upstairs, or at any rate in the house; so he wouldn’t have said “came in”.’
‘One of them might have gone out and come back,’ said Cockie. ‘And anyway, Rosie may have misheard: she’s quite unreliable.’ Still, it was no part of his desire to throw suspicion on old Mrs. Evans, or on Matilda either.
‘Well, all right, skip “came in”. There he is standing in the hall; the light’s on—Mrs. Evans left it on when she went upstairs. Now—Matilda Evans marches up to him and takes a crack at him. Would he ring up and say “someone”? Of course not—he’d say, “Matilda came up and dotted me one.” Same goes for Rosie Evans, only of course she was out of it anyway. Then, take the old lady; surely he wouldn’t say, “someone”?—surely he’d say “an old woman came in and hit me”? You must agree with that!’
‘Yes,’ said Cockie, slowly, ‘I think I must.’
‘And Melissa Weeks; if Melissa came up to you and conked you—you wouldn’t call that “someone”, would you? You’d say, “a girl came in”, or you’d kind of remark on it, you’d say “some little bit of a girl came up and blipped me”—I mean, you’d be so surprised. It all sounds rather feeble,’ said Charlesworth, thoughtfully, ‘but I honestly do think it’s incontrovertible or whatever the word is. It can’t have been any of those four women, so it must have been a man. And the only other man …’
Cockrill had already worked round to the same conclusion, by a different route. It must have been a doctor, and the only other doctor … The only other man, the only other doctor, had been half a mile away on the other end of a telephone; if one thing in the whole damn show was certain, it was that. ‘Someone came in and hit me with a mastoid mallet.…’ If it had been a woman, surely he’d have said ‘a woman’. But no: ‘Someone’, or ‘A man’—‘came in and hit me with a mastoid mallet.…’
The creamy bubbles whispered round the rim of his glass as he set it down on the table and sat staring into its amber depths: staring, staring down with eyes as bright and clear and brown as the clear, brown beer itself. Opposite him, Charlesworth too sat staring into his glass. ‘I’m sorry about it, Inspector, but there it is: I hate it myself, I had a beastly time bringing him in for the job, telling Mrs. Evans and all that—I like them both. From all one can see, the chap was no great loss and if he seduced the girl, then he certainly wasn’t—but the point is that whether he did or not, quite obviously Thomas Evans believed that he had. He’s a doctor, he must have tumbled to what was wrong with her; then, a mysterious assi
gnation—with this foreigner suddenly appearing from Geneva, Mrs. Evans anxious to talk to the man alone, the girl anxious to avoid him, going off out into the fog.… Dr. Evans is dotty about his young sister, he thinks she’s the last word in lily-white innocence, he sees her as seduced and betrayed and all the rest of it. He goes out, mills round for a bit till he sees by the lights that his wife’s left the feller alone in the drawing-room, goes into the hall, gets out the gun and the mallet from the drawer and calls him out into the hall. He forces him to the telephone with the dud gun, swops over hands and conks him one with the mallet. Out to the car again with a bit of blood on his shoes; drives round some more, shows up all horror when the time comes.’ He glanced up from his beer, eyeing the little Inspector anxiously. Surely it all hung together, surely it must be true? For the millionth time he wondered secretly whether he had not been over-impulsive in getting Thomas Evans charged. But damn it all—there was a case against him, and against nobody else. He insisted: ‘It was a man, it was probably a doctor. And the only other man, and incidentally the only other doctor, was half a mile away when Raoul Vernet rang up.’
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