“Well, it’s silly,” Jane said. She looked again at Mrs Bloom and said: “She thinks she’ll make us talk, you and I. Silly. She can’t. Can she?”
“No,” agreed Mrs Bloom. “John was always good to me. The first day I saw him he was cutting wood in his shirt sleeves. He looked wonderful, like a young god come down to earth. John was my husband, you know. Did I say that before? He was always good to me, always till the day I killed him. We both wanted a boy, but we had a long time to wait for Ned. When I knew he was coming we were both so glad. When he came he had a club foot and he cried a good deal. John said a cripple had no chance in a world like this. I think he thought it was my fault, and I thought perhaps it was. Sometimes I thought baby would be better dead and John said: ‘That’s what you think, too, isn’t it?’ He said: ‘Who wants a cripple? What good’s a cripple?’”
Olive interrupted. She said:
“Many cripples are better every way than those who aren’t. That is, if they want to be.”
Mrs Bloom took no notice. She continued:
“That night when John came home he had had too much to drink. It had always happened now and then, but more often since Ned came. I think sometimes where he went they used to tease him for having a cripple for a son, because, you see, he had always been so strong and active, and there was never any one like him for playing football. But this time he had drunk more than usual, and he took up Ned from the cradle and he said he would take him down to the river and throw him in, because that’s what you did to kittens and puppies no one wanted, and who wanted a cripple in a world hard, and too hard for sound men? I tried to stop him, but he gave me a push and I fell down, and he ran out of the house to the river. He ran too fast for me, and I picked up his gun and I followed, and when he wouldn’t stop and when he was quite near the water I pulled the trigger and it went off and he fell down. I went to him and I said: ‘Have I hurt you?’ I said: ‘Are you hurt?’ and he said: ‘You have killed me, and so some day some one will kill the child, but I never meant to.’ When I saw he was dead I took Ned back to the house and gave him his bottle because he was crying, and then they came to take me away, and I said nothing because I couldn’t when it was all true. So I never said anything, though all I ever meant was to make him stop, and the judge put a black cap on his head and said I was to die. But that was stupid, because how could I? I had died already, when I saw what I had done. So I could not die again, could I? I expect that’s why they didn’t try, but put me in prison instead, and then they let me out again. It’s all a long time ago now, but I knew what had happened to Ned, because I always knew it would, because of what John said before he died.”
She stopped. Neither of the other two spoke or moved. She said presently to Jane:
“Now it’s your turn.”
“We killed your boy,” Jane said, “because he had found out too much. Why was he so fond of finding things out? It is always better not to know. It’s safer, too. Much safer. It would be safer for me if I did not know. For you as well,” she added, looking at Olive—“much safer for you if you did not know what I am going to tell you. I always knew some day she would have to know, and I would have to tell.” Jane was looking at Mrs Bloom now. Olive’s presence she might entirely have forgotten. She went on: “No one else, only you, and what’s it matter, because I can always say I never did? Roman’s line is jewellery. It’s funny. Jewellery. That’s all right, only mostly you want it so you can sell again. If it’s big stuff you go to South America generally and get rid of it there. The best market. If it’s small, there’s always some thieving swindling fence or another. Never pawn. You soon find that out. Roman is different. He’s funny. I mean the way he feels. I mean he won’t let the stuff go if he can help it. He has to sometimes for living money, but he hates it when he’s got to. Isn’t it funny? What he likes best is to put it out and look at it, or let me wear it while he watches how it shines. I liked that, too, but he never let me keep it. I’ve cooked and cleaned and scrubbed wearing jewels like a duchess would have worn at Court. That’s how he got me first. Showing me the stuff and letting me wear it sometimes. In London. Tom—that’s the man I had before—had just been sent up. I expect he’s in still. He was a swine. Of course, they all are, aren’t they? All of them. Men, I mean. It was only after I had run away from home to join Tom that I found out he was married. It was too late then. Everything is always too late.”
“Nothing is ever too late,” Olive said.
Mrs Bloom said:
“It’s too late when you see what you have done, as I saw it when I saw John was dead.”
Taking no notice of these two interruptions, Jane continued:
“What made him so fond of finding things out? Your boy, I mean. Roman found out things, too. He found out Ned had been in the garden at night when Roman had out all his jewellery he had stolen over years and years and kept because it was all he ever cared for. Not me nor any one, not his wife—because when I got here I found he was married too, just like Tom was. But this time I didn’t care. I had got over caring, and, besides, Mrs Wright—you never noticed her—was there but all she wanted was you shouldn’t notice, and Roman never did. It was funny about that, too. Sometimes he would take her into the diningroom and lock the door, so they were alone, and I never heard a sound, not even when I listened at the keyhole; but when she came out she was like dead, and couldn’t hardly speak or stand. But what he did I never knew, and she wouldn’t tell. And I didn’t ask so often, because, you see, even then I thought it was better not to know too much. And all those jewels and things, all shining, all beautiful, all sparkling and most lovely, so Roman was drunk with them, like others are with whisky. I liked to watch them, too, and wear them when he let me, but Mrs Wright, she never seemed to care, only to slip away and not be noticed any more, by him nor me neither. When Roman knew Ned had been snooping round he thought at first he would hide it all again and bluff Ned out, if Ned said anything. But Ned had managed to get a snap of all the stuff spread out, and when Roman knew that, he knew, too, he had to do something. He did think of trying to make Ned believe it was all his own and he was a dealer in jewellery, and at first he thought Ned believed him, and Ned told him the Skinners weren’t going by their real name, and really they were some one else. Because one night when he was listening at the window he heard Mrs Skinner say something that made him sure they weren’t what they let on to be. That’s what put Roman wise about the sapphires, and he began to plan to get them, and he found out, too, that the rest of the set had been sold to a lady who was a friend of Lady Vennery and sure to visit her some time or another. So he made his plans, and he told Ned how Mr Skinner must have stolen the necklace and they would get it back again and ask for a big reward. Only he knew Ned didn’t believe it, and he watched Ned, and when he knew Ned had gone to Midwych to the police, he rang up to make sure. He made me speak so it should be a woman’s voice, and I said I was his mother.”
“That was the third ’phone call,” Olive said.
“What third ’phone call?” Jane asked, and without waiting for an answer she went on: “When Roman knew for certain where Ned had been, he told me it all depended on how much Ned really knew and how much he had said, and perhaps we should have to go on the run. He said he would try to get hold of Ned and find out, and I was to wait at the end of Love Lane in case he came back that way. But Roman found him first. He hadn’t come by the ’bus, he had come back another way, through the forest, and I don’t know why, but that made Roman still more afraid. I think that was when Roman made up his mind. When I saw them coming I went to join them, and Roman told me to give Ned the note I had. The note said Roman had got hold of the big sapphire necklace from Mr Skinner and Ned could have it for proof who was right. Roman said: ‘You can ask her if it’s true.’ Ned said: ‘Is it true?’ and I said of course it was true, I had seen it; it was on the diningroom table. Ned went with us then. He was very excited. When we got indoors Ned said: ‘Where is it?’ and he looked all ro
und. Roman said it was in the drawer, and he went to open it, but before he did, he said: ‘Now the police will have to believe you. How much did you tell them?’ Ned said: ‘Not much.’ He said they would look foolish now, and sorry they hadn’t wanted to listen. He said it would most likely cost that cocky young Inspector Owen his job. People wouldn’t think he was so smart, after all. Roman opened the drawer, but he didn’t take out the necklace, because of course it wasn’t there. He took out a cosh instead. He said: ‘Well, that’s all right if you haven’t told them much, because if I kill you now you won’t be able to, will you?’ Ned began to laugh. He said: ‘What’s the joke?’ and Roman hit him and he fell down. Roman knelt on him, and he told me to hold Ned’s legs to stop him kicking. Roman said: ‘There mustn’t be any blood.’ He put his hands round Ned’s neck and squeezed. Presently he said: ‘Now it’s finished.’ He said I needn’t hold Ned’s legs any longer. I said I never knew he was going to do that, and he said I always was a fool and I had better look out. I thought he was going to kill me, too, because he looked like it, and I think with them like him, when they’ve once begun, they feel they must go on. I went into the hall, and Mrs Wright was there. She said: ‘That’s the second’. I think that was the first time I had ever heard her speak unless you spoke to her first. I said: ‘Who was the first?’ and she said it was the girl he had before me. Because she had been like Ned and said perhaps some day she would tell. We went into the kitchen and we made ourselves a cup of tea. Mrs Wright said it would be us next, because once you’ve begun you can’t stop. I said I thought so, too. Roman came into the kitchen. He asked us for some tea. While he was drinking it, he said he would have to get rid of the body somehow, but he didn’t know how. He said most likely Bobby Owen from Midwych would come messing round, but he wasn’t so smart but that Roman Wright, Esq., couldn’t outsmart him, same as he had done others. He went back into the dining-room, and he carried Ned out to the cycle shed. When it was dark we heard him go off. We went to bed then, Mrs Wright and I, and in the morning we tidied up the dining-room.”
“You’ll feel better now you’ve told some one,” Mrs Bloom said.
Jane was looking at Olive. She said:
“Well, now then, there you are. Well, now then, what do you think of me?”
“I suppose it might have been me and not you,” Olive said.
“That’s a silly thing to say,” answered Jane. She jerked a hand at Mrs Bloom. “What do you think of her?” she asked.
“I know it might have been me,” Olive answered.
“If you ever say a word of what I’ve told you, either of you,” Jane said, “I’ll just say you’re both liars and you’ve made it all up yourselves. See?”
“Yes,” said Olive.
“I’ll never hang,” Jane said. “Not me. Never.”
“No,” said Olive.
“Where did he put my boy?” Mrs Bloom asked.
“I don’t know,” Jane answered. “He never said, and I never asked. I knew better.” To Olive she said: “Do you know why I’ll never hang?”
“No,” said Olive.
“Because he’ll do me in first,” said Jane.
She got up and went away quickly. The little red-cheeked girl saw her going and ran after her to ask her if she had paid. Jane said she had forgotten, and gave her a two-shilling piece. The red-cheeked child came back beaming.
“She said I could keep the change,” she confided to Mrs Bloom and Olive as she went by. “I do think she’s just sweet.”
She hurried on to attend to another customer. Mrs Bloom and Olive watched her. Mrs Bloom said:
“They have taken my boy and I know not where they have laid him.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
FEAR OF SAFETY
THIS WAS THE story to which, as Olive told it, Bobby listened gravely, uneasily, with increasing discomfort. Only once did he interrupt. It was to make the comment that it was small wonder he had thought, the day when he first saw Jane, that she had looked as if she were suffering from a hangover—though little had he suspected then of what kind that hangover was to prove to be. Then he went to the ’phone, to send out fresh orders, new instructions. He returned to hear the rest of Olive’s story and to ask a few quick questions. He was looking more troubled, more uneasy than ever as he said:
“The difficulty about a verbal statement is that it can always be denied. A thing’s no good unless it’s in writing and signed and all that.”
“Mrs Bloom was there, she heard it all,” Olive said.
“Yes, there’s that,” Bobby agreed, “but not much help. For one thing, you can’t be sure she would be willing to speak. She has a gift for silence. She may exercise it once more. Besides, we can show nothing to prove Jane wasn’t inventing the whole story for her own purposes. To put us off, perhaps. Oh, I know, you and I, we know she wasn’t,” he added as he saw Olive was about to speak, “but it’s what other people might suggest. Anyhow, we must get hold of Jane. I think what she said is true enough. Her life won’t be worth much if Roman Wright gets to know she’s been talking. I expect he will as soon as he sees her. We must find her first and make her understand her best chance, her only chance, is for us to accept her as king’s witness, for her to tell in public what she’s told you in private. But will she? Or there’s Mrs Wright. She could give us the evidence we need. But she won’t unless we can get her right away from Roman Wright. He has them both completely under his thumb. No wonder he called that water-colour of his he showed me the most remarkable picture ever painted. Quite true. At least I’ve never heard before of a murderer making a picture of his victim’s secret grave. Or using it to put such fear into his wife as to make him sure she would never tell.”
“Wouldn’t it be evidence enough itself if you could find it?” Olive asked.
“Yes, if—but a big if. It wasn’t there the next time I went, you remember. I suppose he began to feel after I left that day that he had gone just a bit too far, given too broad a hint. He wanted to gloat to himself how he had dangled his secret before the thick-headed police and they never knew. All the same, prudent to destroy the exhibit. He could still enjoy remembering how he had taunted us with the evidence we wanted, pushed it under our nose and drawn it back again. Vanity. It has destroyed before to-day better men, greater men, than Roman Wright. Not but that he isn’t remarkable enough in his own way, with his passion for jewels, his influence over women, his painting. He slipped up there, though.”
“You mean it was all that silly stuff he talked when you first met him that made you suspect him?”
“Well, not so much what he said,” Bobby answered. “All that might have been merely the swank of the incompetent amateur trying to pass himself off as the successful practitioner. Of course, it was a bit difficult to suppose that any one who took any interest in art at all wouldn’t know that the Resurrection painting in the Tate Gallery was a Stanley Spencer and not an Augustus John. Or that even if Hogarth’s ‘Shrimp Girl’ had been a John, living artists are not shown in the National Gallery. But the things people don’t know, even about their own jobs, are often surprising enough—the strangest gaps in the knowledge of us all. What struck me as really suspicious was his choice of a house facing a main road and so entirely overshadowed by trees so close up behind as to cut off completely the north light. I thought it possible the incompetent amateur might never have heard of the ‘Shrimp Girl’ or be very clear about the respective works of Stanley Spencer and Augustus John, but the more incompetent he is, the more as a rule he is inclined to be fussy about his tools and his technique, even if, especially if, he doesn’t know much about how to use it and them. He likes to impress by talking about the importance of having a north light to work by, for instance. Then, on the other hand, you couldn’t help noticing how conveniently placed the house was for secret comings and goings. Easy to slip in and out without being noticed, and if he were noticed—well, he had been studying sunrise effects in the forest. He went out of his way to lay all the
stress he could on that, and if any of our men noticed his comings and goings in the small hours—well, there was the excuse to satisfy them, and why should they associate an artist coming home early from painting a sunrise or moonlight effects with a recent burglary? I thought it might be all right, but I didn’t like it very much, though at the time there was nothing to show that anything had happened to poor young Ned Bloom. A queer, inquisitive lad, and he might easily have slipped away to try to pry into some one else’s private affairs. Besides, he had learned so much about so many secrets of so many other people there was always the possibility that one of them was responsible. Easy enough to lose your temper and go too far with a cheeky, inquisitive lad trying to nosey parker into your private affairs you might have very good reason for wishing to keep’ to yourself. And then, in addition, there was the mercy-killing theory. It was all over the village.”
“I know,” Olive said. “I used to wonder sometimes. I’m sorry, now we know the truth.”
“I did more than wonder,” Bobby told her. “There was always a look about Mrs Bloom, something—most people felt it. A background, so to speak, a background of horror beyond imagination or experience. Jane Wright knew it, recognized it, understood very well that Mrs Bloom had memories like her own. Their mutual knowledge seems to have made between them such a bond Jane could not keep away; and when she came, then, in her turn, Mrs Bloom could not keep from her. In the end I think it was your presence made them speak.”
“It was a dreadful thing to listen to them,” Olive said slowly. “Because it made you feel how easily you might have been like them yourself, if you had been in their place. It’s so easy to be bad.”
“Jane was right in what she thought she saw when she looked at Mrs Bloom,” Bobby repeated. “It might have been her son. A mercy killing as they call it. It was her husband instead, but it might have been her son.”
“She never meant to,” Olive said. “She never meant it.”
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