by Ellis Peters
“I won’t!” he said in a gasp of protest. “Never!”
“No, perhaps you wouldn’t ever, you’re not the kind. Let me go on telling you, it makes it easier, and my God, I need rehearsing, this is going to be lousy on the night whatever I do.”
He had her by the hands again, and this time the initiative had been his, and the warm, strong fingers clung to him gratefully, quivering a little.
“He’d had a brainwave,” said Kitty in a half-suffocated voice, laughing and raging. “If Leslie wouldn’t have me and join the businesses up, he would! He was going to marry me himself! That’s what the champagne and the excitement was all about. He didn’t even ask me, he told me. He didn’t even pretend to feel anything for me. When he put his arms round me and wanted to kiss me it wasn’t even sexually revolting, it was just like signing a merger. And I’d been trying to talk to him all the while about Leslie, and he hadn’t even heard me. I was so mad, it was so mean and ludicrous and horrible, I was out of my mind, I couldn’t think of anything except getting away. I just pushed him off like a demon. We were by the table at the top of the stairs, where he’d put the champagne and the glasses. I don’t know how it happened, he went if backwards, and stepped off the edge of the top stair, and went slipping and rolling and clawing all the way down and crashed on the floor. I ran down and past him to the door, I was terrified he’d get up and try to stop me. I wasn’t afraid of him, it wasn’t that, it was just that everything was so foul, I couldn’t have borne it if he’d tried to speak to me again. But he just lay there on his face, and never moved. I didn’t think anything about it, I didn’t stop to see how much he was hurt, I just ran back to the car and left him lying there. So you see, I killed him. And I’ve got to tell them. I never meant to, it never even occurred to me until I was in the car that he might be terribly hurt. But I did it. And I can’t let them go on thinking poor Leslie had anything to do with it.”
When she had finished she lifted her eyes and looked at him closely, already half sorry and half ashamed that she should be so weak as to unload this cruel and humiliating confidence upon a mere child, too old not to be damaged by it, and not yet old enough to be able to evaluate it justly. But it wasn’t a child who was looking steadily at her, it was a man, a very young man, maybe, but unquestionably her elder at that moment. He kept firm hold of her hands when she would have drawn them away, and his eyes held hers when she would have averted them.
“Oh, God!” she said weakly. “I’m a heel to drag you into this.”
“No, you did right, Kitty, really you did. I’ll show you. That was all that happened? You’re sure that was all? You pushed him and he fell down the stairs and knocked himself out. That was all?”
“Wasn’t it enough? He was dead when they found him.”
“Yes, he was dead. But you didn’t kill him.” He knew what he was about to do, and it was so terrible that it almost outweighed the sense of joy and completion that he felt at knowing her innocent, and being able to hold out the image of her in his two hands and show her how spotless it was. Never in his life before, not even as a small, nosy boy, had he betrayed a piece of information he possessed purely by virtue of being George’s son. If he did it he was destroying something which had been a mainspring of his life, and the future that opened before him without it was lonely and frightening, involved enormous readjustments in his most intimate relationships, and self-searchings from which he instinctively shrank. But already he was committed, and he would not have turned back even if he could.
“Listen to me, Kitty. All that was published about Mr. Armiger’s death was that he died from head injuries. But it wasn’t just falling down the stairs that did it. It’s only because of my father’s work that I know this, and you mustn’t tell anyone I told you. After he was lying unconscious somebody took the champagne bottle and battered his head in with it deliberately, hit him nine times, and only stopped hitting him when the bottle smashed. And that wasn’t you! Was it?”
She whispered between parted lips, staring at him in a stupor of horror and incredulity and relief: “No, no, I didn’t, I couldn’t, , , “
“I know you couldn’t, of course you couldn’t. But somebody did. So you see, Kitty, you didn’t kill him at all, you didn’t do anything except push him away from you and accidentally stun him. Somebody else came in afterwards and battered him to death. So you see, there’s no need for you to tell them anything. You won’t, will you? There’ll be nothing in this glove business, they won’t touch Leslie, you’ll see. At least wait until we know.”
She hadn’t heard the half of that, she was still groping after the release and freedom he was offering back to her. The warm flush of colour into her face and hope into her eyes overwhelmed him with a kind of proud humility he had never experienced before.
“You mean it? You wouldn’t just try to comfort me, would you? Not with fairy stories? But you wouldn’t! Oh, Dominic, am I really not a murderess? You don’t know what it’s been like since yesterday morning, since they told me he was dead.”
“Of course you’re not. It’s true what I’ve told you. So you won’t tell them anything, will you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “I must. Oh, Dominic, what should I have done without you? Don’t you see, I don’t even mind now, as long as I’m not, what I thought I was. I don’t mind anything now. But I must tell them, because of Leslie. I can show them that he’d gone, and his father was still alive. I can prove he didn’t kill him.” She looked down at him, and was distressed by his consternation, but she knew what she had to do. “I’ve got this far and I’m not turning back now. I’ve had enough of concealing information. At least I can see that Leslie’s safely out of it.”
“But you can’t,” protested Dominic, catching at her wrist and dragging her down again beside him. “You can only prove he didn’t kill him in the short time you were there. They might still think he came back. Somebody came. And don’t you see, if you tell them what you’ve told me, they’ll think you’ve left out the end, they’ll think you stayed and finished him off.”
“I don’t see why you should say that,” said Kitty, wide-eyed. “You don’t think that, you believe me. Why shouldn’t they?”
“Well, because their business is not to believe, and how can you prove it?”
“I can’t,” she agreed, paling a little. “But I can’t turn back now, I couldn’t bear to. You don’t have to worry about me any more, the most wonderful thing anyone could have done for me is done already. You did it.”
If she hadn’t said that, if she hadn’t suddenly touched his hot cheek so lightly and fleetingly with her fingertips, he might have been able to protest yet once again, perhaps even to persuade her. But her touch snatched the breath from his throat and the articulation from his tongue, and he couldn’t say a word, he had to stand and watch, suffocating, mute and paralysed, as she turned to leave him; and when she looked back just once to say quickly: “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word about you,” he almost burst into tears of frustration and rage because he lacked the power to shout at her that it wasn’t about himself he was worrying, that he didn’t care about himself, that only she mattered, and she was making a terrible mistake, that he couldn’t bear it, that he loved her.
She was gone. The darkening doorway swallowed her, and it was in any case too late. He sat down again, huddled in the far corner of the seat, and wrestled with himself painfully until his mind cleared again, and presented to him the most appalling implication of the whole incident, producing it with cruel aplomb, like a magician palming an ace out of the pack. He had robbed her even of the defence of ignorance! He, and no one else. If she’d gone rushing in there as she’d wanted to, and poured out her story as she had to him, they’d have seen the glaring hole in it at once, just as surely as he had. They’d have questioned her about the weapon, about the injuries, and she wouldn’t have known what they were talking about, and her manner and her bewilderment would have rung true past any mistaking. And worse, she�
��d never tell them about his treachery, and explain how she got her information, because that would get him into trouble. One slip to warn them that she knew how that death had come about, and they’d be absolutely sure she was responsible for it. The details had never been published, only a handful of people knew them, and one other, the murderer. He’d as good as convicted her.
His manhood, so recently and intoxicatingly achieved, was crumpling badly, slipping out of his hold. He ought to get up and march in there after her and tell them honestly about his lapse, but he hadn’t the courage, the very thought of it made him feel sick. It wasn’t just for himself he was such a coward, it was his father’s job, his whole career. C.I.D. officers ought not to discuss their cases in front of their families. They’d been the exceptional family, proud of their solidarity, disdaining to doubt their absolute mutual loyalty, over-riding conventional restrictions because they were so sure of one another. All this had made perfect sense while that solidarity remained unbreached, but now he’d broken it, and how did it look now? His father was compromised. He would have to own up, it was the only way he could even try to repair the harm he’d done to Kitty; but he’d have to do it in private, to his father alone. Maybe there’d be some grain of evidence that would extricate Kitty, and make it unnecessary for confession to go any farther. Supposing George felt he had to resign, supposing, ,
He longed for George to come and take him home, so that he could get the first awful plunge over. But when at last a step rang on the flags of the hallway and he jerked round in hope and dread to see who emerged, it was only Leslie Armiger, stepping lightly, buoyant with relief. He walked like a new man, for the old gloves he’d discarded after painting the garden shed where he kept his materials had yielded a great many interesting substances, creosote, bituminous dressing, several kinds of paint and lacquer, but not a trace of blood. As soon as he’d seen them he’d laughed with relief; he could have kicked himself for the imaginative agonies of anticipation he’d inflicted on himself, all on account of these ancient and blameless relics. His position now was actually neither better nor worse than it had been before this tea-cup storm blew up, but there was no doubt that the recoil had raised his credit all round. Especially with himself; this feeling of liberation was more than worth the scare.
Detective-Sergeant Felse had been called away from the interrogation to interview someone in his own room, but Leslie didn’t know who it was, or whether the caller had anything to do with his father’s death. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. He was on his way home to Jean, still free and almost vindicated, and never again would he scare as easily as that.
It was ten minutes more before George came out to speak to his son, and then it was only to say tersely that after all he wouldn’t be able to leave for some time yet, possibly several hours, and Dom had better get on home by bus. He wasn’t going to have an opportunity to unburden himself here, that was obvious; his father was gone again almost before he could open his stiff lips to get out a word.
Miserably he took his dismissal and went home; there was nothing else to be done. He countered Bunty’s queries with monosyllables, sat wretchedly over his tea without appetite, and refuged in his corner with textbooks he couldn’t even see for the anxiety that hung over his eyes as palpable as fog. Bunty suspected a cold coming on, but he repelled her attempts to take his temperature so ill-humouredly that she revised her diagnosis. Something on his mind, she reflected with certainty, and it isn’t me he wants, so it must be his father. Now what, I wonder, have those two been doing to each other?
It was twenty to ten before George came home. He looked tired and frayed and in no mood to be approached, but there was no help for it. Bunty fed him and allowed him to be quiet, though she knew by old signs that there was something on his mind, too, that would have to come out before long. It was without prompting that he leaned back wearily at last, and said in a voice entirely devoid of any pleasure or satisfaction: “Well, it’s all over bar the shouting. We’ve just made an arrest in the Armiger case. We’ve charged Kitty Morris.”
Bunty’s exclamation was drowned by the shriek of Dominic’s chair. He was on his feet, trembling.
“No!” he said faintly, and then, with the flat quietness of desperation: “Please, Dad, I’ve got to talk to you. It’s about that. It’s important.” He looked imploringly at his mother, and his lips were quivering. “Mummy, do you mind awfully, , , “
“That’s all right, darling,” said Bunty, loading her tray methodically as though nothing out of the way was happening. “I’m going to wash up. You go ahead.”
She made things sound so normal and calm, as she almost always did, that he longed to ask her to stay, but it couldn’t be done that way, he had to have it out with George. She cleared the table, flicked Dominic’s ear very lightly with the folded tablecloth as she went to put it away, and bore off the tray into the kitchen, closing the door firmly after her. They were left looking rather helplessly at each other, neither of them any longer able to doubt that this was a family crisis of the first magnitude. George flinched from it as much as Dominic did; he was tired and out of temper, and he knew it, and this luckless child was inviting trouble even their combined goodwill might not be able to avert.
What was the use of thinking how best to do it, when all that mattered was that it should be done?
“You know I was outside there this evening when Kitty Norris came to ask for you,” said Dominic in the drained tones of despair. “I talked to her before you did. She told me all that tale about pushing Armiger down the stairs because he, he insulted her. But she told me she killed him. She didn’t! You’ve got to believe me. All she did was go away and leave him there stunned. She said, , , “
“I don’t know why it should be necessary for us to discuss it at all,” said George, laboriously patient with him but desperately unwilling to go on hammering at an affair of which he’d already had about all he could take, “but if I’m supposed to humour you, I will. If she went away and left him there stunned, how did she know it was the champagne magnum that battered his head in? If she wasn’t the one who killed him, if she was gone from the scene and somebody else came in and finished him off, how did she know how it was done? All that was ever made public was that he died of head injuries. So you tell me how she knew, how she could know and still be innocent?”
So they had tricked it out of her, questioned and cross-questioned and slipped in catch remarks until she gave herself away. Dominic hated them all, even his father, but not so much as he hated himself for making such an appalling miscalculation. He should have known she’d still insist on going through with her confession, because Leslie must be safeguarded whatever happened to her, Leslie who wouldn’t many her, thank God, the stupid fool, Leslie with whom she was still so crazily, desolately in love that she couldn’t see anyone else for him. Dominic sat down slowly and carefully at the table, braced his sweating palms upon its glossy surface before him, and said loudly and hoarsely: “She knew because I told her.”
He was glad he’d sat down, however it diminished his dignity, he felt safer that way; his knees would never have held him up, standing. George had lurched forward in his chair and come heavily to his feet. He spread his hands upon the table and leaned over his son, and in spite of himself Dominic wilted. He wanted to close his eyes, but he wouldn’t, because whatever was coming to him, he’d asked for it, he couldn’t complain.
“You what?” said George.
“I told her. I told her because I thought then she wouldn’t have to tell you about being there at all. She was going to tell you she’d killed him, and yet she didn’t know anything about him being battered to death, she just thought he’d cracked his skull when he fell down the stairs. So I knew she hadn’t, and how could I let her go on thinking she had? I had to tell her. I couldn’t not tell her.” Resolute in his desperation, he said with an altogether inaccurate suggestion of defiance: “I’d do the same again.”
George said, after a
blank and awful pause: “I’ve a good mind to tan the hide off you.”
With all his sore heart Dominic almost wished he would, but with all his lively senses he knew he wouldn’t. There was no getting out of things that way any more, the bolt-hole had been stopped at least two years now. Paying this debt was going to be a whole lot more complicated than that, a whole lot more long-drawn-out and painful. The compensations of being under juvenile discipline had never presented themselves to him before.
“I know,” he said drearily, “but I had to do it. There wasn’t anything else to do. And now I’ve made everything worse for her instead of better.”
“Whether you’ve done that or not, you’ve certainly made it impossible for us to judge how far she’s telling the truth. And you know what else you’ve done, don’t you?” said George remorselessly.
Yes, he knew. He’d undermined the foundations of the house, and shaken the pillars that held up the roof. He wouldn’t have believed himself that he could do such a thing; for a moment half of his heart was with George, astonished and reproachful, half of it with Kitty, injured and imprisoned. Between the two of them he wished he could die.
“I shall have to report this to the chief, of course,” said George. “I blame myself more than you. There’s nothing to be done but tell him that I’ve been consistently indiscreet. I’d no right to allow you such easy access to information in the first place, it was thoroughly unconstitutional behaviour, and I should have known better. It was unreasonable to expect that you could refrain for ever from shooting off your mouth, I suppose.” But he had expected it; he’d been so sure of it, in fact, that it had never occurred to him to question his discretion at all. Only now that he’d lost that absolute trust did Dominic know how to value it.
“I didn’t do it lightly,” he said, flinching. “I never have before.”
“Once is all it takes. I shall have to see Superintendent Duckett in the morning and take the responsibility for this myself. That’s putting it squarely where it belongs.”