by Julian Gloag
The incomprehensible murmur of the close—the chapel evensong, the chaplain congratulating God, God congratulating the chaplain, the pauses, the praises, the whispers, the stirring, the slow shuffling out …
But Jordan’s mind was already upon the peace of his prison room where he could attempt in all privacy to penetrate to the truth of the matter.…
25
“Sorry to disturb you so late, old man. I’d have seen you in the cells, but I wanted to have a word with Geoffrey first.” Tom walked up and down the small room, not looking directly at Jordan. “Did they give you dinner?”
“Yes. What’s up—a crisis?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m not surprised after today’s exhibition.”
Tom halted. “What do you mean by that? I thought it all went rather well, except for that old bastard Robbins.”
“Robbins?”
“Mr. Justice Robbins. The judge, lost his teeth twenty years ago and his wits with them. The way he whitewashed Symington. You’ve got to admit that bloody great oaf of a superintendent knows his judges though. Robbins has always been a sucker for war heroes. The story goes he was turned down for military service in the first war because of knock knees. George played that one up to the hilt—makes you want to puke. Mentioned in dispatches! I wonder if he really was.” Tom rubbed his chin. “I’d better check up on that first thing tomorrow.”
“Why did you destroy my note?” He was too tired to be really angry any more, but he had to go through with it.
“Your note? Oh that! I could hardly decipher it. Besides, I could scarcely interrupt Geoffrey in full flight.”
“And that is another thing. I thought we had agreed not to attack the police.”
“Attack? That was no more than a gentle prodding.”
“It was absolutely monstrous.”
“We’re not playing croquet, you know.”
“I don’t think it’s funny. Bartlett was deliberately twisting—”
“Twisting?” Tom put his hands on the back of the chair and leaned forward. “Let’s get this straight. The whole of the Crown’s evidence is twisted—twisted against you. It has to be. And I don’t mean anyone deliberately sat down and said, ‘Let’s nail this bugger.’ But, deliberately or not, that’s what it amounts to. And come hell or high water our brave bobbies are not going to admit to any failing. I’m not saying many of them are vicious—although seeing the nature of their work, it would be damned odd if there wasn’t a sadist or two here and there—but they’re not exactly models of openminded liberalism either. And don’t let that show of rocklike integrity fool you—it’s true enough up to a point, but only up to a point. And right from the beginning you were beyond the point. George has got his record to think of—and you bet your life he’s thinking of it. Not that I blame him, that’s what policemen are like. But you’re just one item on the list to him.”
“I don’t like this. The man did his duty. He didn’t harm me.”
“It beats me why you’re so fond of the police. What did they do? Brainwash you or something?”
“If that’s all you’ve got to say, Tom, let’s cut this short, shall we?” He made a movement towards the door.
“Oh come off it, Jordan.” Tom grinned suddenly. “Let’s sit down.”
Wearily Jordan sat down.
“There are two things,” said Tom. “First, I want to report to you about the investigations. We’re not giving up, although I’m afraid we haven’t got much to show for it as yet. But since we’ve had a couple of detectives on it, things are going faster. They’ve got through everyone in June Singer’s year at the Lamont School and the people a year ahead. Tomorrow they start on those a year behind. Meanwhile, Gladding’s in the morgue of the local newspaper, going through every issue for the last fifteen years—you know, weddings, dances, christenings, that sort of thing. Girl Guides. Singer must have done something. I don’t suppose you have any bright ideas?”
“No.”
“I thought not.” He lit a cigarette. “It’s damnable. At this very moment there’s some chap sitting down to a pint of beer and the evening paper with the report of the trial, who knows.… That chap Lambert, for instance—I’ve a shrewd suspicion he was a lot better acquainted with Singer than he’s letting on to. There’s so bloody much we don’t know. Look, Jordan, I don’t like having to take this line with most of these witnesses, police or not, that they’re, well, if not exactly lying, certainly biased and unreliable, et cetera. Geoffrey doesn’t like it either. It can easily make us look captious and carping, the pot calling the kettle black, and that kind of thing. But there’s so much we don’t know, can’t explain at all, there’s just no other possible line to take. Those photos—how on earth did she get hold of a photo of you? How did she plant a snapshot of herself in your desk? Not how, but why? Why on earth? And this Mrs. Payne’s deposition—her evidence ought to come up late tomorrow or early on Monday, by the way—and the letters she’ll swear you wrote to Singer. The letters she saw—who did they really come from? And why did Singer let the old lady think they were from you? These things are tricky enough—but at least we can suggest and hint and hypothesize that Singer was in love with you and wanted other people to think you were in love with her. God knows, this kind of thing is the stuff of schoolgirl fantasies. But …” Tom stood up restlessly, frowning. “It’s a trivial thing in its way—yet it worries me and worries Geoffrey too. It’s the letter you wrote to Jackson Timberley—that implicates you, that’s an action on your part. And yet it’s inexplicable. We know, from that little squirt Lambert, that Singer was probably stoking up on Gleason’s on February the fourteenth. She’d made her decision to try to get rid of the baby. You wouldn’t think she’d have room in her mind, only four days later, for plans about emigrating to America. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.” He hesitated. “When she came to you and asked you, did she—?”
“She didn’t come to me, Tom. I suggested it to her.”
“You what?” Tom gripped the back of the chair. “You never told me anything. Why? Why on earth did you suggest it to her?”
“Why?” Why had he? Tom’s presence blocked Jordan’s mind. It must have been after that evening he’d taken her out for a drink to the wine cellar. Jordan stared blankly ahead of him. She had asked him for something—the business about some friend’s fatherless baby—for help, for …
He looked at Tom. “I don’t know why,” he said quietly.
“But she took you up on it, or else you wouldn’t have written the letter. Are you sure she didn’t ask you—indirectly perhaps?”
“No, she didn’t ask me for that.”
“Well, why did you suggest it? You must have some idea.”
Jordan braced himself. “I must have thought she needed a change—the death of her mother, you know…”
“Yes, yes. I know. That’s half of it, and, well, as you heard, Geoffrey’s plugging that. Although it was three months since her mother kicked the bucket. Still … But why did she take you up on it, then? Just to please you? That sounds pretty feeble. If she was in love with you, surely to God she wouldn’t have wanted to leave you. She knew she was pregnant, must have done, by the fourteenth, and almost certainly long before that, and yet—”
“She knew before that, all right.”
“What?”
“She was certainly aware she was pregnant before the fourteenth.”
“How do you know?” Tom was wary.
“She told me.”
“She what?”
“She told me. As plain as could be. I was just too—too stupid to understand.”
“You mean she just hinted?”
“I suppose you could put it that way.”
“Well, look, old man,” said Tom, with relief, “nobody can be blamed for not getting a hint. Women are congenitally incapable of saying anything straight out.”
“You do not understand.”
“Of course I understand. You needn’t think t
hat sort of thing hasn’t happened to me. I’m not exactly a monk, you know. The things that get told in an office would—”
“It wasn’t in the office that she told me.”
“That’s beside the—what?”
“I took her out for a drink. To the Wine Cellar. On Friday the thirteenth of February.”
“Good God almighty.” The words were low, as if spoken in private prayer. “Good God almighty.” He rubbed his forehead slowly and hard.
“I don’t see there’s any need to make such a fuss.”
Tom lowered his hand and leaned forward towards Jordan. “Were you,” he asked softly, “in court today?”
“Don’t be damn silly.”
“Did you happen to notice what was going on? It was a trial, you know—a murder trial. You are being tried for murder.”
“For God’s sake, I’m not a mental patient.”
“I’m not so bloody sure. This drink you had with the girl—you just remembered it, I suppose? Just popped into your mind out of a clear blue sky, eh?”
“That is exactly what happened.”
“By Christ, if I didn’t know you, I’d think … Think what it looks like, man. You take the damn girl—”
“Tom—June is dead.”
“You don’t say?”
“I’d rather you didn’t talk about her in that way.”
Tom Short’s face was dark red, except for a white hand mark on his forehead. “What the hell do you mean?”
“Show her some decency at least. No one did while she was alive.”
Tom straightened up. He took a long breath that ended in a kind of sob. He muttered something to himself. “Look, I’m sorry. Let’s start again, shall we? You say you took the girl out for a drink on Friday. I’ve little doubt that somebody at the Wine Cellar spotted you. The waiter knows you? Yes—well. Now the next day—the very next day—the girl starts trying to get rid of the baby. The jury, any reasonable man, might well see a connection between those two events. They’d think, at the very least, that you let her down in some way, which doesn’t—”
“I did let her down.”
“I’m not talking about your conscience or whatever it is. I’m talking about the facts.” Suddenly Tom seemed very tired. He pulled the chair out and sat down slowly. “I accept the fact that you acted in all innocence. That’s one of the chief troubles—you were so much of the complete innocent, it’s almost incredible.” He looked at Jordan speculatively. “You and I have never been on the same wave length, of course. Still … Well, look—the prosecution isn’t going to accept the innocence of your motives. On the contrary, the real gravamen of their case is that you had a guilty relationship with June Singer and that you acted in terms of it. I suppose we ought to thank our stars they don’t know about your little drink with her. But all the same—all the same, Pollen is very likely to ask you a question like this: ‘Did June Singer at any time tell you that she was pregnant?’ How would you answer that question?”
“Well, not in so many words. I think that’s what I’d say. It’s the truth.”
“All right. Next question: ‘She implied to you that she was pregnant, is that it?’”
“Yes, she did, but—”
“‘And was this implication given on a specific occasion?’”
“Yes.”
“‘When?’”
“I’d have to tell him, Tom.”
“Okay—so you tell him. We’ll take it from there. Pollen: ‘You state that you took June Singer out for a drink on the night of February the thirteenth. Were you in the habit of taking your secretary out for a drink?’ If you said Yes, you’d be damned right away. And yet to answer No is almost worse. Because Pollen will say: ‘So this was a special occasion?’ And you’ll have to admit it was unusual. And then he’ll ask you why you took this unusual and special step. And what’ll you say to that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why I took her out for a drink. Perhaps I thought she seemed a bit down in the mouth.”
“‘Now, Maddox, is it not in fact true that you took this unusual step because you had something of the greatest importance to discuss?’”
“No.”
“‘I put it to you that you knew very well that the girl was pregnant, that you knew yourself to be the responsible party, and that you sought to persuade her to dispose of the baby in order to conceal your adulterous relationship?’”
“That’s absurd.”
“‘And do you think it absurd, Maddox—an absurd coincidence, perhaps—that the day after you took her out for a drink, June Singer was taking steps to procure a miscarriage?’”
“Tom—I …”
“‘Was it a coincidence, Maddox?’”
“No. Tom, you see—I don’t think it was a coincidence.”
Tom grunted. “Alright, Jordan. You’re putting nails in your own coffin, you know.”
“Coffin? I thought it carried a sentence of life impris—”
“Listen, will you?” A moment of savagery. “I want you to see quite clearly the picture that the jury is going to see, if you persist in this. Pollen’s next question ought to go something like this.” Tom paused, squinting his eyes. “Right. ‘And as a means of persuading her to undertake this dreadful thing, you held out to her the promise of a job in America, did you not?’”
“No, certainly not, I—”
“‘And you thought, did you not, that it would be highly convenient, once this was all over, to have the girl safely out of the way in a distant place?’”
“Not at all.”
“‘And when she refused the job, refused to go away, that was a great blow to you, was it not?’”
“Nothing of the kind. I thought it might have been best for her, but—”
“‘It was on March the first that she wrote that letter refusing to go to America. It was about that very time, too, that she ceased her purchases of laxatives at Marben’s Chemists. I put it to you, Maddox, that these two actions of Singer’s rose from her decision to give up her efforts to procure a miscarriage, to stop this wicked thing.’”
“I know nothing about that. It has nothing to do with me.”
“‘On the contrary, I suggest you knew full well of her decision, that you urged her to reconsider, because, if she did not, the whole thing would come out with consequences you could not bear to face. And I further suggest that, having failed in your pleadings, you went to Number Twenty-seven Panton Place on the morning of Monday, March the ninth, to make one final effort of persuasion, and that, having failed once more to shake her decision to have the baby, in an access of rage you murdered her. Is that not what happened?’”
“Tom, I’ll tell the truth. And the answers are No.”
“This is one of those times when the answers are not anything like as important as the questions. I warn you, Jordan, once you start to fiddle about with fancy notions of spiritual responsibility, you’re done. At least in the courtroom—the law isn’t one whit concerned with the state of your soul. If you stand up there and say that June Singer told you she was pregnant …”
“I don’t think I have any alternative.”
“But it’s not true, man. You’ve told me it’s not true. No—June Singer did not tell you that she was pregnant at any time.”
Jordan shook his head. “You want everything to be simple, don’t you? And tidy. It just isn’t, Tom. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Me? I don’t matter a damn. But there are others who do. Jordan, I’m a lawyer, not a moral philosopher. Perhaps I’m out of my depth. But aren’t you being rather selfish?”
“Selfish?”
“You’re wallowing in it a bit, aren’t you? Don’t you have a duty—not just to yourself, but to your family, to Willy, to Georgia?”
Jordan smiled faintly. “I’ve listened to that sort of simplemindedness for years, Tom. I’m not sure it convinces me any longer. If I’d been able to see outside it a little, perhaps I wouldn’t have failed June.”
&nb
sp; “You think you can make up for that failure—if failure it was—by sacrificing those who depend on you?”
“You’re arguing like a lawyer. Let’s drop it, shall we?”
“Very well,” said Tom heavily. “I’ll talk to Geoffrey. He’ll want to see you. If you feel like this, we’ll have to think again about calling you. And that—that knocks the bottom out of our whole strategy.”
“I don’t care a damn about the strategy,” Jordan said irritably. “You lawyers can sort that out.”
Tom Short stood up. He was a big man. “You don’t care a damn. I wish …”
Jordan rose. “You wish what? That you could take yourself off this case?”
Tom picked up his briefcase. He hesitated and then said, “If it wasn’t for Willy …”
Jordan’s forehead pulsed with anger. “Well, Tom, you never did like to be associated with failure, did you?”
He thought then that the lawyer would hit him. But after a moment in which his bloodshot face lost all its colour, Tom merely nodded, as if some deeply held conviction had been confirmed at last.
26
He enjoyed going up to Frank’s office. He liked the wide automatic lift, each wall a different colour, sliding smoothly upward, and the doors parting with a small ping from a hidden bell; the perfumed secretaries; the quick glimpses through glass-panelled doors of men in shirtsleeves; the pattering of electric typewriters; the pastel-coloured filing cabinets; the sudden vividness of a poster. No invisible layers of dust. A bright casual carefree fantasy.
“Can I help you?”
“Is Mr. Wade in?”
“Are you Mr. Maddox?”
“Yes.”
The dark girl smiled. “He said for you to go right in.” She rose smoothly and opened the door for him to the inner office.
“Hello, Frank.”
“Jordan, come in! Oh, Sheila,” Frank called out as the door was closing, “I shan’t be back till four. If anybody calls, tell them I’m designing St. Paul’s. Look at this, Jordan, look here—I just got it this morning.”