Minute for Murder

by Nicholas Blake

  “I can’t think how Alice hasn’t brought Jimmy into a novel yet,” he concluded. “He’s absurdly down her street—the champion window-dresser—he could dress windows for England; Test Match standard.”

  “I did,” said Jimmy, softly and coldly. “That was my job.”

  “And now he’s spent the war holding up his distorting mirror to the nation’s morale—or whatever kind of mirror it is that makes the crooked seem straight—telling them how wonderful they all have been, how brave, how industrious, how democratic, how——”

  “Well, I think on the whole they have been wonderful. Even Charles has behaved rather well.”

  “A good conduct medal from you! That’s too dishonouring!”

  “Let’s go in and have some supper,” said Jimmy firmly.

  There was cold chicken, salad, a trifle and a tray of drinks on the sideboard in the exquisite, white-panelled dining-room.

  “Do you mind?” said Jimmy to Charles, indicating the chicken. “I can’t carve yet. My shoulder. And Nigel can cut it up for me. It’s an agreeable sensation, being quite helpless like this. Back to the nursery.”

  When they were all served and had started eating, Charles Kennington remarked:

  “Well, Nigel, we’re both dying to hear the latest about the crime. That’s why you were invited, I hope you realise that. Come along, my dear, don’t be bashful, put us out of our misery. Or have you got that forbidding Superintendent of yours hidden under the table waiting to pounce on the bricks we drop? If so, I shall definitely hold my peace.”

  “You really want to know? “asked Nigel, scrutinising him intently.

  “Really. I can’t answer for our host, of course.”

  “I dare say I can manage to answer for myself, Charles. Nigel must tell us as much as he sees fit to tell us.”

  “Well then,” said Nigel, “I’d better tell you first what my theory of the crime is.”

  “Ah, it’s your theory now,” said the Director, smiling gently. “Or is this a different one from the theory you said the Superintendent had developed?”

  “The same. Mine. I’m sorry about the deception. It was necessary, at first.”

  “He really is a monster of duplicity, Jimmy—this blue-eyed, innocent-looking Temporary Civil Servant of yours. You ought to have sacked him long ago. He’ll be the ruin of you yet.”

  “Oh, pipe down, Charles! Gabble, gabble, gabble all day—let Nigel get a word in.”

  “It was like this,” began Nigel. He described how, that afternoon in Nita’s flat, he had wrestled with the two unyielding questions—how was the container hidden from the police and conveyed out of the room, and why was it necessary for the murderer to convey it out of the room?

  “I thought it might be possible to imagine a satisfactory answer to the second question. I found myself arguing like this: Why does a criminal remove the weapon from the scene of the crime? Because, if it were discovered, it could be traced to him. But in this case we had all seen the weapon a few minutes before: therefore there was no point in the murderer’s removing it, and at such a risk. But the murderer did remove it. I remember thinking—it’s a vicious circle, absolutely unbroken. And suddenly the word “unbroken” put an image before my mind’s eye—an image of the poison container unbroken, unused.”

  Charles and Jimmy were both leaning forward, following his words with the most concentrated attention, their food forgotten for the moment.

  “Supposing Stultz’s thing had not been used for the murder—not used, that is to say, except as a sort of decoy? At once the question, why did the culprit have to remove it, was answered. He had to remove it simply because it had not been used. It was the only logical answer to that question. It was necessary for him to remove it in order to establish the belief in our minds that it was the instrument of murder. For, if it were found, unused, the police would at once investigate what other sources of cyanide had been available to the suspects.”

  “That’s very bright, I must say,” murmured Charles, who seemed to be cold sober again.

  “And that answer, you see, also gave me an answer to the first question—how had the murderer concealed it. If Stultz’s thing was used to poison Nita’s coffee, it must have been broken. I found out that the Sergeant who searched you had been a trifle careless: he did not thoroughly search the mouths of the suspects. Logically, the only place any one could have hidden the container was in his back teeth. But, if the container had been broken, there’d have been a few drops of poison left in it, or at any rate fumes of cyanide, which would have caused at the very least a severe fit of choking. Obviously the murderer wouldn’t dare risk this. And nobody did choke. But, if the container was unbroken, there’d be no such risk. Therefore the container must have been unbroken. Q.E.D. Mind you, there was the risk of having it found in his mouth. But no doubt he had some story prepared for that eventuality: he’d say he’d put the container absent-mindedly back in his pocket——”

  “Back in his pocket?” asked Major Kennington sharply.

  “Well, in his pocket, if you like—before the death of Nita. And, when the search was announced, he’d lost his head and concealed the thing in his mouth. Some story, anyway. But, if it was found on him, it couldn’t immediately incriminate him, simply because the poison would still be in it. No doubt the police would in consequence investigate what other access he had to cyanide, particularly carefully. But, either he was prepared to risky this, or he believed that no other source could be traced to him.”

  “Oh dear,” said Jimmy: “my poison pill. Still, there was no difficulty in tracing that. I suppose the police were searching this house to-day in order to find Stultz’s thing, then?”

  “Yes,” said Nigel, aware of Charles Kennington’s fingers tightly laced on the table opposite.

  “But surely the—the murderer—well, the first thing he’d do would be to get rid of it. At any rate, as soon as he realised the police hadn’t fallen for his little trick.”

  “You’d think so. Of course, he might have decided to keep it, you know—for his own use; in case everything went wrong.”

  “Or to use on someone else,” snapped Major Kennington.

  “Or, as you say, to use on someone else.”

  “Well, presumably they haven’t found it here,” said Jimmy, “so we’d better all stop eating and drinking for the present.”

  Charles Kennington cut in quickly.

  “This is all theoretical so far. What we want to know is, whom the police propose to pin it on. Always assuming,” he added, with an acrid little grin across the table, “that we’re to keep up the polite fiction that it’s the police who are running the case, and not our Nigel.”

  He addressed himself to the remains of his chicken and salad. All three ate in silence for a little. Then Nigel said:

  “Very well, I’ll tell you exactly what’s in our minds. Perhaps you’ll tell me if you can find any flaw in this reconstruction of the crime. There were three people who had a strong motive for getting rid of Nita Prince—the three people at present living in this house. Two of them, Mrs. Lake and Jimmy, had access to the cyanide pill: Charles knew about it, but apparently did not have direct access to it. Agreed? Very well. The murder takes place immediately after Charles’s return to England. This seems to us extremely significant. You, Jimmy, had had the opportunity and the means to kill Nita weeks or years ago, if you’d wanted to. Why then, should you wait to stage a risky and elaborate murder, in full view of seven other people? Does it seem reasonable? No, let me finish,” said Nigel, as Major Kennington began to protest. “The second piece of evidence pointing away from Jimmy is the use of Stultz’s thing as a decoy. It was essential to the murderer that it should disappear, just before the murder. But it was being handed round for inspection then. So how on earth could Jimmy rely on getting it into his possession, without attracting notice? Charles, on the other hand, had brought it along: it was his: it would be quite natural for him to take it quietly back from whoever had
it, at the critical moment, and then say he’d put it down on the desk or somewhere. But that didn’t prove necessary. For, in point of fact, who did have it at the critical moment?”

  “Nigel, this is——” began Jimmy Lake, in a broken voice.

  “Alice had it. She was the last person to handle it that morning. Her evidence that it was lying on Jimmy’s desk a minute before Nita died cleared Jimmy of the suspicion of having used it. But it also cleared Charles. Now that is very important. And it became vitally important when we discovered that Mrs. Lake had access to the cyanide capsule with which the murder was really committed, and when she betrayed great confusion at this discovery of ours. Now we know there is a strong bond between Charles and his sister. It seems natural that his first act on returning to England would be to get in touch with her, and equally natural that she should at once tell him how her marriage was threatened. And indeed, she gave evidence herself that Charles did ring her up immediately after his arrival in London. Alice now knows that only the most drastic action will save her marriage. You, Charles, have been at great pains to impress me with the idea that your sister is not a jealous woman, that she wouldn’t go far out of her way to keep her husband. But when Jimmy had been attacked by Billson, he muttered something—the doctor and the nurse heard it—he was semi-conscious: ‘Alice. She won’t let me go, darling.’ Doesn’t this suggest that Alice was more retentive than we’ve been assuming? And she did, after all, more or less refuse to divorce Jimmy. She and Charles agree that he should see Nita and make a final appeal to her; and, if she refuses to give up Jimmy, they will take that drastic action. Charles will do anything for his sister—that we know. Well, he visits Nita. He gives her this ‘last chance’ to release Jimmy. She refuses, though she is badly frightened—Charles’ ‘appeal’ veiled what was pretty obvious to her as a threat. Next morning, Charles comes here to fetch Alice. He tells her that Nita won’t play. They decide to put their plan into operation. Alice has got hold of Jimmy’s cyanide capsule in readiness. They go together to the Ministry. One or the other finds an opportunity to drop the capsule into Nita’s coffee. Alice quietly takes Stultz’s thing off the desk at the last moment, while our attention is directed to those cover designs of Merrion’s. She hands it, during the general confusion after Nita’s death, to Charles. This again is most important. It would require extreme nerve to conceal Stultz’s thing, as it must have been concealed, during the police examination. Extreme nerve, and the sort of familiarity with such poison containers that would breed contempt. The only one of our suspects who had the familiarity as well as the nerve was Charles. And he got away with it. Until the police found Stultz’s thing this afternoon in a locked suitcase of his. Which seems just about to clinch this reconstruction, doesn’t it, Charles?”

  “Would you say that again?” asked Jimmy, staring at Nigel with ill-concealed amazement. Nigel said it again. He went on:

  “This is terribly painful for you, Jimmy, I’m afraid. But—well, I couldn’t help noticing, when I was here this morning, your wife’s behaviour to you—the sort of invisible wall between you, which you were trying to climb, and she—she was defeated by: as though there was some terrible load on her mind that prevented her climbing.”

  Jimmy Lake’s right hand was over his face.

  “Nigel,” he said brokenly, “surely this is not true? I can’t, I will not believe it. Not Alice.” He looked up and gazed into Charles Kennington’s eyes. “Charles, is this true? For God’s sake, tell me it isn’t.”

  Major Kennington was staring back at him, an indecipherable expression on his face. There was a moment’s silence in the room, the sultry, toppling stillness of banked thunder-clouds before the first clap. Then he said very quietly:

  “You should know how true it is, Jimmy. You should know.” Then his whole mien altered in a flash. He was transformed into the alert, intelligent, dangerous creature Nigel had glimpsed but once before—just after the death of Nita; the man who had lived for weeks in enemy territory and hunted down Stultz with a remorseless skill as frightening as any of the cold-blooded acts of that execrable Nazi. He said:

  “Now that Alice is to be arrested as an accessory before the fact, or a murderess, perhaps you will do something about it. Perhaps even you will do something about it.”

  “I? My dear Charles, what can I do? I’d do anything——”

  “You don’t have to do ‘anything.’ You just have to confess. That’s all.”

  Jimmy Lake sat bolt upright, staring at his brother-in-law. The air between them seemed to crackle with wordless messages.

  “I confess? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “So you propose to bluff it out, and save your skin at Alice’s expense? Well, have it your own way.” Charles Kennington turned contemptuously from Jimmy. “Now then, Nigel. That reconstruction of yours. It breaks down completely at one point. You say that, on the morning of Nita’s death, I came round here and Alice had her husband’s poison pill ‘in readiness’ for me. Right?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And this was the result of a conversation she and I had had the day before? Part of a plan we’d prepared then?”

  Nigel nodded.

  “Then how did she get hold of the capsule? And when? The drawer was locked. The police are satisfied there is only the one key to it—oh, yes, I took the trouble to ask Blount about that. And this key was on Jimmy’s keyring. And Jimmy’s key-ring is always in his pocket, except when he undresses at night. And that night Jimmy was sleeping at the Ministry. So much for your reconstruction. Now, if you’ll give me your attention, both of you, I’ll tell you mine.”

  Major Kennington raised his forefinger, then lowered it slowly like a duelling pistol to point straight at Jimmy.

  “That window-dresser there killed poor Nita. I’ve kept quiet till now, because I love Alice, and as you say I’d do anything for her—I’d even refrain from telling all I know about Jimmy in order to protect her from the horror of knowing he’s a murderer, and the murder trial and everything. But I refuse to protect Jimmy when there’s a danger of Alice herself being arrested.”

  Jimmy was gazing at him, in a measuring, contemplative way, a quirk of a smile at one corner of his mouth.

  “Well, let’s see what your case is. I suppose the condemned man is allowed to eat his trifle,” he said, and rising from the table, walked over to the sideboard and began to help himself. “You chaps want some? One of Alice’s specialities. Nigel, you ought to try it. Hallo, what’s that?” Jimmy’s voice fell to a whisper. “Someone at the door.”

  Nigel went silently to the door and flung it open. A superb marmalade cat walked in, taking its time, gliding and pausing with the studied movements of a mannequin. Jimmy laughed.

  “Good old Marmalade. I thought it must be the Superintendent at least.”

  Nigel wondered again at Jimmy’s extraordinary knack for lowering the tension, for gently deflating a scene by disassociating himself from it: a champion spell-unbinder. Nigel went over and helped himself to trifle, feeling slightly ridiculous, as though he were responsible for the whole pack of accusations and counter-accusations—which indeed he was, and as though they had all been proved farcically wide of the mark—which was certainly not so. Charles Kennington was, it seemed, less impressed. He had refused the trifle. He just sat patiently at the table, and when the other two were back in their seats, took up the scene where it had been broken off.

  “If you’re quite ready,” he said, “I’ll go on. We’ll not discuss Jimmy’s motive at any length. Nigel has a very fair idea of it. So have I. So, in spite of his prodigious powers of self-deception, has Jimmy. He murdered Nita because it was the only way he could get rid of her. Far be it from me to speak disrespectfully of the dead: but, if a bulldog gets a grip on your throat, there’s no other way to dislodge it except to kill it.”

  “Pepper?” murmured Jimmy, between mouthfuls of trifle.

  “And Nita was, emotionally, a bulldog. Sh
e was absolutely determined to stick to Jimmy—though God knows why—and none of the ordinary methods would prise her off him. Jimmy had tried them all—every variation of the brush-off.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Jimmy gently.

  “She told me. That evening I went to see her. She told me everything. Jimmy had just made his last attempt, an hour or so before I saw her. He had tried to persuade her that she ought to come back to me. Oh, yes, he put up a positively trumpet-tongued call to decency. She’d got to do the decent thing and fly back into the arms of her returning warrior. The sanctity of the engagement ring was touched on. Pity Jimmy had not thought of that some years before. I won’t enlarge upon the disinterested appeal he made to her better feelings—I have a gorge which rises rather too easily. This, by the way, answers your point, Nigel, about why Jimmy waited so long before deciding to murder her. Of course one reason was that he had the normal man’s distaste for imbruing his hands with the blood of a fellow-creature who loves and trusts him—I’ll concede Jimmy that. But he also had waited because he was not certain I was dead, hoped for my return, hoped I would take Nita off his hands. I returned. But Nita wouldn’t be taken. She made an appalling scene that night: she admitted it. The last of many. It tipped Jimmy over the edge. He got quite distraught, she said, and kept on muttering ‘This is your last chance. I’ve given you your last chance.’ Nita had realised, of course, that my return endangered her. She felt Jimmy would leap at any excuse for breaking it off—any excuse that would salve his conscience: that’s why she was so insistent that my visit to her should be secret; she felt Jimmy might even have his pretext if he knew a man had visited her late at night.”