by John Bingham
When “prep” was over, the House at once broke up into small groups of wildly chattering boys. The noise, the speculations, the rumours drove me from the Common Room. I walked down the long stone corridor, now growing dark, into the spacious quiet of the gymnasium. I thought I was alone until, in the half-light, I saw Prosset, hands in trouser pockets, looking silently out of one of the long windows. He turned round and looked at me as I crossed the floor, and then went on staring out into the twilight.
I said, “I got fed up with all the excitement.”
He nodded. “Morbid lot of swine. They make me sick.”
We exchanged one or two further comments in low tones; then the supper bell rang. Years later, when the climax came between Prosset and myself, I remembered this incident, but by then it was too late; there were too many other complications.
Thinking back along the trail of the years, I do not think he actively liked me at school, but rather that he liked having me around. I was a good butt for his boisterous humour, in addition to providing an outlet for his mental vigour. He would come tiptoeing into my study, where I sat with my back to the door, and suddenly sweep three or four books off my desk on to the floor, and laugh, and when I bent down to pick them up he would jerk the chair away from under me; or if I was gazing out of the window, dreaming, chin in hand, he would suddenly knock my elbow away; or creep up behind and aim a blow with his hand, directed so that it just skimmed the top of my head. Sometimes he would start a friendly tussle with me, and when I took my spectacles off as I had to, he would grab them and dash off and hide them. And, of course, he criticized me unmercifully whenever the chance occurred.
His relationship with David Trevelyan was different. The Cornishman had an agile brain and quick tongue. Prosset never clashed with David and David never provoked him. There was a tacit understanding that they should respect each other, and sharpen their wits when necessary on me. As a result, David rarely sided with me; he was on the side of the big battalions.
I was the mascot of the team; not even that: I was the tame buffoon; and like the court fool I was well fed, had my just share of everything, and was duly protected against unfair aggression. Like the king’s jester, too, unsuspected by everybody I was often extremely unhappy.
It got to the stage where I used to look forward to the occasional days when Prosset might be away from the dining-room table playing an away match for the Second Fifteen, and later, for the First Fifteen. Once, when he was in bed for a week with a touch of influenza, the lightening of the oppressive atmosphere which pressed down so heavily upon me was like a glimpse of sunshine on a heavy day. Although I did not wish him to die, at that stage in our relationship, I was certainly sorry that he recovered so quickly.
But nobody knew of all this. Everybody thought I was very lucky to be able to go about with Prosset and Trevelyan.
Perhaps I should have broken away from them at this point; I say them, because David would certainly have stayed with Prosset. I suppose I could have found some other chap to go around with. There was the studious Willet, a little thing who looked like a white slug; and Banks, red-headed and so temperamental that he rarely kept friends for long; or Wilson, known as “Oiler” Wilson, because he had a greasy, fawning smile; and several others of the rag, tag and bobtail, the residue, the boys who were not popular, the floating population, the friendless and the outcasts.
But on what grounds?
Having gone through three-quarters of our school career together, what reason could I give for suddenly wishing to split the partnership? I couldn’t just say: “Because I want to.” Prosset would not take that for an answer. I imagined the way the conversation would go:
“Next term I think I’ll walk with Wilson or somebody, Prosset. No offence or anything.”
A blank silence while he gazed at me amazed.
“But why, old man? What’s up with you?”
“Nothing’s up with me. I just want to, that’s all.”
“But why? There must be some reason.”
“No; there isn’t.”
“You can’t break up the gang in our last year without some reason, man. Go on, tell me, old man.”
“Well, you two rag me such a lot.”
“Rag you?”
“Yes. You know, arguing and making jokes about me, and hiding my glasses and all the rest of it. I get fed up with it.”
He would give me one of his rather contemptuous looks. Probably he would go and fetch David Trevelyan. They would roar with laughter.
“If you don’t want us to take any notice of you, we won’t,” David would say.
“Oh, let him go and walk with Oiler Wilson if he wants to, David. If he prefers Oiler to us.”
“It’s not that at all. I can’t really explain it.” Nor could I have done. I never could talk clearly and with conviction.
David Trevelyan and John Prosset would look at each other in exaggerated mystification. Later, Prosset would record it all in his red diary in his study: Old Sibley had gone all queer! What a funny fellow old Sibley was! But old Sibley had come round in the end. Queer fellow, Sibley.
They would make me feel that here was something so inexplicable that only an oddity like myself could act in such a manner; and if there is one thing a boy cannot stand, it is the thought that he is an oddity, something different from others.
I was an ordinary boy with an ordinary boy’s reactions. I felt I could never do it. I never tried.
Should I have tried? Looking back now, the answer must be yes; whatever the price in ostracism, in queer looks from others in the House, in humiliation, it would have been worth it. Anything, I see now, would have been worth it.
Then David Trevelyan left to start work on his father’s farm. Thus the trio was broken up; and I was alone with Prosset. Strangely enough, that was slightly better. It put me more on a level with him. Instead of being the third in the trio, the one whom the other two so often united to laugh at, and at other times ignored altogether, I now shared all his conversation.
He was destined to go into the United Imperial Bank, largely because his uncle was manager at one of the more important branches. The idea of it filled him with dismay. The role of a humble and humdrum bank clerk with regular hours had no appeal for that adventurous and aggressive nature. However, he was planning that after a year or two he would apply to be transferred to one of their branches in the Far East. His father had been manager of a branch in Shanghai, but was now retired and lived with his mother in Galway. Here the old man could indulge his liking for shooting and fishing, not to mention an occasional day out with the Galway Blazers, at reasonable cost.
The problem of where he should live in London had always been clear in Prosset’s mind. He would have what he called, in the language of Victorian novels, “bachelor lodgings.” There he would entertain his friends, and generally live the life of a gentleman about town.
“I expect my pater will help me out with an allowance,” he told me. He was always an optimist.
My Aunt Edith, with whom I lived after the death of my mother, my father being in India, once suggested that Prosset should be a paying guest in her house in Earl’s Court, but I told her he had already got his eye on a place. Quite apart from my own feelings, Prosset’s flamboyant character hardly fitted into that dingy house of fringed tablecloths, small potted palms, and stained-glass windows on the landings. As a matter of fact, I never had the courage to introduce him to Aunt Edith. With her widow’s weeds, pale, pear-shaped face and jet earrings, she was hardly his type.
Although things were slightly better during Prosset’s last term, I looked forward with longing to the end of it. I was to stay on another term, and during that term I would be free, an untrammelled personality of my own; free to engage on equal terms in the dinner-table conversation, without the fear of being set upon by Prosset with one of his tenacious onslaughts; free to suggest some plan without it being greeted with scorn; to laze in my study on a Sunday afternoon if I wished, ins
tead of being forced to play cricket in the yard, or go swimming; I always regarded cold water with some dislike.
I already had my eye on another boy with whom I would go about. He was called Crane, a worthy, dull individual in the Sixth Form; an eminently likeable chap who would always be prepared to adjust his plans to your own; who would meet you halfway in an argument, and even admit defeat if he thought your reasoning sounder than his. A very different proposition from Prosset. Above all, I would not have to smile feebly when all the time I was smarting under some derisive remark from Prosset, pretending that I enjoyed the joke, that I thought him vastly funny and clever and witty, and what have you, when all the time I was hating him.
It was the custom of the school that those boys who lived in Ireland should leave for the holidays a day before the others. Doubtless it was an attempt to ensure that they should have an equal amount of time at home. So the day before the rest of us went home, I watched the House porter carrying Prosset’s trunk out to the old horse cab which was to take him to the station. Then I watched Prosset carrying his tuck box, and even helped him by carrying his overcoat for him.
Old Buckley the Housemaster was there to see him off; beaming, with the spring breeze ruffling his scanty white hair, tugging at the lapels of his grey tweed jacket in the way he used to do, and obviously longing to get back into the warmth of his study. Prosset and I had already agreed, of course, to see a lot of each other in the holidays. I could hardly refuse.
Now he turned to old Buckley and shook hands.
“Goodbye, sir,” he said. “Expect I’ll see you again before long.”
“That’s right; come and see us,” mumbled old Buckley.
“Probably be down for Speech Day, or to watch one of the rugger matches.”
“That’s right; always welcome,” muttered Buckley. “Come and see us, come and see us.”
Prosset shook hands with Smith, the porter, and slipped him some money.
“Goodbye, Smith.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Prosset. We shall miss you,” said Smith, the old hypocrite, holding the cab door open. Prosset turned to me.
“Cheerio, old man. Be seeing you in London.”
“Cheerio,” I said. “See you in London.”
He got into the cab, and Smith slammed the door. The driver touched the horse with his whip, and the vehicle rattled off.
The three of us, Buckley, Smith and myself, stood by the gate watching as it rattled down the road. I have a notion that at the actual moment when it started, as it was gathering way, I experienced a funny little feeling almost of regret. Even a dog is sad when its master goes away. Maybe it was a form of nostalgia, a sensation that a portion of my life was over which could never now be relived. But as the cab rolled down the road this gave way to an upsurge of relief.
He was gone. Prosset was gone and I was free again. I watched without moving, without saying a word, until the cab turned the corner. Then I felt old Buckley linking his arm in mine and leading me back to the House. I heard him speaking in his gruff way.
“Expect you’ll feel a bit lonely without young Prosset. Never mind. Cheer up. Holidays tomorrow.”
The silly old fool, I thought, the stupid old imbecile! He thought I was standing there watching the cab to the corner because I wanted a last glimpse of my friend. He thought I was silent and still because I was sad. It was laughable.
I went back to the studies. I strolled along to Prosset’s old study. He had decorated it with fawn curtains, and with brown cushions on the makeshift divan. There was a dark green patch of carpet on the floor, and two or three cheap prints, and one or two coloured drawings of ladies in scanty attire such as one found in the glossy society magazines. All the contents of the study had been sold by auction to other boys, and would be dispersed next term.
It was funny to stand there looking at the empty study, and think that Prosset would never again inhabit it. No doubt he would come back wearing an old school tie and glance in for a few seconds, but in effect he was gone for good now and the little room was curiously silent.
Crane saw me standing in the doorway.
“Going to be a bit lost without old Prosset, aren’t you?” he asked in his good-natured way. I smiled and shrugged, and he passed on.
I stood looking at it all, at the scraps of paper and bits of string on the floor, at the old textbooks flung into the corner, the writing table with its ink stains, its sheet of blotting paper, and old nibs, and dirty, broken inkwell. I looked at all the debris which is always left behind by one who departs, at the air of desolation which hung over the whole place. Already it seemed to be gathering dust.
It was one of the finest sights I have ever seen in my life.
I revelled in the sight of all the litter and disorder. I could hardly tear myself away from it.
CHAPTER 3
I was not telling the truth, therefore, when I told the Chief Detective Inspector and the Detective Sergeant that Prosset was my friend. But Prosset was now dead, and it did not seem to me that any useful purpose would be served by dragging up the past, even supposing that I could have brought myself to do so.
After all, I had not killed him.
They would do better to concentrate their energies elsewhere. Indeed, I persuaded myself into thinking that I had really acted in the public interest by ensuring that the police were not diverted along a false trail, however briefly, at a time when every hour might be of importance. For I had no doubt in my own mind that, since the Sussex police had already enlisted the aid of Scotland Yard, this was a case of murder.
I could feel no sorrow; in fact, grim though it is to record it, I rejoiced from the bottom of my heart that he was no more. Without him, the world was a better place for me. I had planned, and in great detail, to kill him myself, but it had fallen to another to carry out the deed. For all I knew, this unknown assassin had an equally compelling reason to put an end to Prosset’s life.
Yet I disapproved. Instinctively I felt drawn to the side of society in the search for his murderer.
It was not hypocrisy which made me feel thus, but, I think, the instinct of self-preservation. Had I killed him, the identity of the killer being to me no mystery, I should have felt no uneasiness; but with an unknown assassin at large, I felt united with the community, for who could tell whether he might not strike again, and who could say whom he might kill next time?
Thus, though I applauded the result, I deplored the method; and I only deplored the method because I myself had not been the one to do the action. Into such strange paths does instinct lead one.
The talk with the Inspector and the Sergeant had been comparatively brief. I had expected it would last longer. When they had gone, I found the mood for work had also departed. I sat in my armchair smoking, and sipping another whisky and soda.
I felt vaguely uneasy, though as I had a clear conscience as far as the actual crime was concerned, there was little reason why I should. True, I had told them lies, but at a pinch that could be put right. I wondered why the interview had been so short. On thinking it over, I had the impression that they knew almost everything I had told them, and that they were primarily interested in me and my manner. I recalled how they had pulled me up once or twice, and that I had not talked fluently. I never talk fluently, but they would not know that.
They had not tried to help me out much. They had listened in blank silence a good deal of the time, the Inspector with his hard eyes on my face, the Sergeant quietly taking his notes.
I went over again in my mind all that I had said about Prosset being my friend; I felt no apprehension on that score, for I had let the world in general go on believing that there were no better friends to be found than Prosset and I. Even Kate did not know the real extent of my hatred. Then I reviewed my drive down to Ockleton and back, the weekend he was killed.
I was certain nobody had seen my car turn off to take the side road to his cottage, or been about when I drove back to London. What is more, if they had seen th
e car they could not have identified it, for on previous occasions I had travelled down in Prosset’s car. Our local correspondent’s report had confirmed my belief that everybody thought Prosset had been alone.
Anyway, I could always prove that I was with Kate at the time of the murder. But at this thought I sat up and impatiently threw my cigarette end into the empty grate: what on earth was I doing to start thinking about alibis? It was damned silly.
I considered it likely that they would go round and question Kate. Indeed, they might be on their way now. Time is invaluable in a murder case; every day makes a case more difficult because every day people’s recollections of important details grow fainter. You have to act fast. Yes, I thought, they are probably going round there now. I finished the whisky and got up. I would ring Kate and tell her not to be surprised if they called. It would give her a chance to prepare her mind in advance.
In my digs there was always a chance that somebody would overhear what was said, because the telephone stood at the foot of the stairs, in the hall. I did not particularly wish to let other people know of this affair, and as there was a telephone booth at the end of the road, I decided to use that. I walked quickly down the road, fortunately found the booth was empty, and went inside and dialled her number.
The block in which Kate had her room was more modern than the converted house in which I lived, and the telephone on her landing was built into a recess and had a reasonably soundproof door. I heard the telephone ringing, and then old Tom the handyman answered. I asked for Kate, and he told me to hang on while he put me through; they had a sort of code system in the building, and I waited while he buzzed twice for Kate. In a moment or two she came on the line.
“Look, darling,” I said, “I’ve just had a visit from a couple of dicks from Scotland Yard in connection with Prosset’s death. It was only a routine call, but I had to let them know I was engaged to you, and they asked for your address. I thought I would let you know because they may call on you.”