Portrait of a Murderer

by Martin Edwards

  Olivia has a habit that I have always loathed, but that now I might turn to good account. As a child she always knew the extent of her possessions, and ferocious battles were waged as to the ownership of some paltry plaything or scrap of material. I make no doubt that at any moment during her married life she could have reeled off a list of Eustace’s wardrobe and her own, recalling where every article was bought. And if he lost a handkerchief she certainly wouldn’t allow that to be overlooked. I hoped for my own sake that she would discover her loss before anyone raised a hue and cry, for then all that was left of it would be found in the same room as the dead man, and obvious conclusions would be drawn. The fire, unfortunately, was out, and I had to burn the handkerchief by means of lighted matches. It took a good many, for one of Sophy’s economies is to buy cheap foreign matches, whose sticks are often no more than a splinter and snap at the slightest contact. When I’d burnt it completely, holding it down among the ashes with a poker to make sure it remained as evidence, I looked round wondering what next to do. Then a frightful thing happened. All my life, since very early childhood, I’ve been subject to sudden panics, due as a rule to overstrained imagination. As a small boy, for me, also, the hag sat nightly by my pillow; and in moments of panic I suffer a return of these delusions. For instance, at this moment I perceived an exceedingly tall man lounging against the bookcase in the shadow, watching me sardonically. Turning my eyes thence, I discovered a small hunched dwarf among the hangings and draperies of the couch; faces gibbered from the folds of the curtains, and steps sounded in the shadowy corners. The horrid thought came to me that these apparitions had not been apparent until I had closed the window, and the fancy attacked me that I had thus shut myself in with these creatures of fable and imagery. Absurd though it must seem, it was some minutes before I could persuade my overwrought brain to accept the obvious facts, namely that I was allowing myself to be terrified by an accumulation of shadows, echoes, and the effects of a chance draping of hangings and tapestries.

  It is astounding how slowly the mind works in times of crisis, when you might suppose it would be more than normally alert. I found myself staring aimlessly round the room with no fixed idea in my mind, except a rigid intention to escape somehow the consequences of what I had done. Not that I underrate murder as a crime; I am even prepared to admit it is the worst of all crimes, since it involves robbing your neighbour of the one thing worth possessing—physical life. Though what value life could have had to such a man as my father I don’t know, particularly as, if accounts are true, he was on the verge of losing even the wretched things he did care for. It was then that I saw the cheque-book lying among the other papers on his desk.

  3

  There is a great deal of nonsense talked by men who are neither artists nor poor about the advantages of poverty, of the freedom engendered by small incomes and a corresponding lack of responsibility. Poets who don’t have to earn a weekly wage, but write as they will, sing blithely in praise of our Lady Poverty, and hark back to St. Francis and various other saints, who don’t appear to have had families to support. In any case, they’d be the first to blame us if we tried to shift our burdens and live on the community. And begging wasn’t an offence in those old days. Besides, it’s all wrong. I only wish these lunatics could experience poverty for themselves, real poverty, that would teach them what responsibilities mean when there are insufficient means to cope with them. Life doesn’t send the greatest responsibilities to the men with the most comfortable incomes. They get visited on rich and poor alike. And poverty in the twentieth century means, as I have ample reason to know, cracked ceilings, undignified shifts and excuses, damp-speckled walls, peeling paper, inferior food, the persistent whine of dissatisfied or sickly children, a general crowding together and lack of leisure and privacy both, and all the kindred humiliations of the dispirited poor. I don’t pretend that everyone else feels the lack of space both to move and think and create that I do. I know my father and brother call them luxury, but to me they’re as essential as bread. And so, when I saw the cheque-book, I thought I saw also my opportunity.

  Since I had killed a man, I might surely take full advantage of the fact. Later it might return to haunt me; but at least it should not deride my futility, cowardice, lack of enterprise, call it what you like, as well as my crime. I knew my father well enough to realise that, of his estate, not a penny would come to me; nor could I appeal to any of my relatives. But from childhood I have had a certain dexterity in copying signatures. I tried it seriously for the first time when I was a schoolboy of thirteen, and wished to be excused certain work I had decided was useless to me. I forged a letter in my father’s hand, signing it with his usual crabbed scrawl, and handed it in. By pure ill-luck I was found out, some weeks later, by my father encountering the master in question, who raised the point with him. My father’s rage was indescribable. He had a criminal for a son, he declared, a base, prospective (no, actual) felon. I was unfit to mix with decent people, and certainly not with my own family. I had my meals apart, and in addition was thrashed till I could hardly stand. He even suggested that Green should repeat the performance. Luckily the fellow had some sense of humour, and he mildly suggested that the affair had probably begun as a joke, and he was convinced I had had a sufficiently serious lesson. He was right, in so far as I didn’t repeat the experiment while I remained at home, but some months ago, at Higginsons, I became a forger for the second time. There was an older man in our department, a fellow called Wright, a pursy, strutting nonentity, with a great conceit of himself and an intolerable manner. At length he became so disagreeable that a number of us got together and drew up a letter, that I signed with the name of the head of the firm, warning Wright that disquieting rumours had been received concerning his work, and also his attitude towards his juniors. Unless he showed considerable improvement in both respects, the letter continued, he could seek employment elsewhere. There was no need to mention this letter, which was intended for a confidential warning.

  The results were stupefying. Wright took the letter in dead earnest; his nerve, his conceit, the foundations of his security were shaken. He had a wife and several children and no private means. Within twenty-four hours his manner had completely changed. He was no longer officious and arrogant; on the contrary, he asked opinions, even cringed, was apologetic, and submissive. It was so simple we were tempted to make a second experiment; but the more sober spirits urged that we had gone far enough, and it would be tempting providence to try again, so we left it at that.

  I had these two successes in mind as I drew the cheque-book towards me. At last the possibility of attaining leisure and security lay under my hand. It was dishonest, of course, but my whole life has been stamped with dishonesty. The work I do, my relations with Sophy, my deliberate blindness as to her probable relations with other men—this seemed no worse, and at least it had some purpose. Of course, it was dangerous. It was borne in on me, as I stood wondering how much I dare put myself down for, how dangerous. No one would believe that my father would willingly give me a halfpenny. I should have to contrive some story that would satisfy or at all events silence Richard and Amy and Eustace, who’d be on my heels like a pack of dogs after a fox. But since my present way of living was intolerable, and my life had been trapped in a cul-de-sac whence I saw no other possible escape, I determined to run the risk. I had suffered so much from the humiliations of poverty that anything seemed preferable.

  I began, this decision once taken, to find excellent reasons for the forgery. It would, I argued, actually strengthen my hand to produce the cheque, for what earthly motive should I have for murder in that event? This was so subtle an argument that I promptly took a pen from the rack on the table and began to test my skill on a writing-pad lying near at hand. I found I retained the art as skilfully as ever. Any one of those specimens, I think, would have been passed by my father’s bank. So I took up the cheque and in a moment of fine, reckless frenzy filled in a sum o
f two thousand pounds. Colossal, of course, but I had to make provision for Sophy and the children, and I couldn’t go abroad without a penny in my pocket. In any case, the temptation was too great. I might easily be detected, and, if so, it would be humiliating to have lost freedom for a beggarly five hundred pounds. But when I had signed the cheque and torn it out and filled in the counterfoil, with my father’s customary meticulous detail, I stood there, rather at a loss, feeling I should do something to safeguard myself. For, considering the position, it now seemed obvious to me that the simplest intelligence would realise that I had been the last person to see my father alive. It was unlikely that anyone else would come down to-night. Yet, to save my own skin, I must make it appear that he had had a later visitor than myself. The solution was, of course, a simple one, though it was some time before I hit upon it. I tore out a blank cheque, that I destroyed, filled in the second counterfoil with Eustace’s name, and an amount of ten thousand pounds, and dated that the 25th December. The plan was simplicity itself; anyone turning over the leaves of the cheque-book would leap to the obvious conclusion that Eustace had visited the library after my departure. It being now Christmas Day, there would be no possibility of his arguing that he had received the cheque before the evening.

  It seemed to me that I had laid the perfect trap; in addition, there was his handkerchief lying destroyed in the grate. It might, of course, be shown that some other member of the family used silk handkerchiefs, but the association of facts seemed to me invincible. As for the amount, I was aware that Eustace had mentioned a sum of ten thousand pounds as being requisite for the settlement of his affairs.

  I chose him instinctively as my victim, because he suited my plan better than anyone else in the house. He needed the money desperately, for one thing. Again, it would be difficult to imagine Richard using violence against his father, whatever his provocation, whereas, I argued, Eustace might easily lose his head. (I think now that I was wrong, but at the time I really did believe in my own argument.) And when I came to consider the position, I realised that, if I had had time for a mature judgment, I should have come to a similar conclusion. Eustace was Olivia’s husband, and I owed her and him and their supercilious young sons a long reckoning. And beyond all these facts, I revelled in the notion of watching that crooked dealer squirm and writhe in an attempt to extricate himself, as his dupes must often have squirmed and wriggled, without an iota of sympathy from him.

  My sole desire now was to leave the library before my presence here was discovered. By filling in the second counterfoil I had intensified my peril a hundred times. Moreover, panic was beginning to assail me. To my troubled ears, the house now seemed full of turmoil. I was continually jerking up my head to observe the door, that at every instant seemed about to open. It was all I could do to refrain from crossing the room and flinging it wide to reassure myself that no malevolent presence lurked in the shadows of the hall. Odd shapes, like mysterious birds, flashed across the ceiling. The thunder of the gale at the windows and the chimney were heavy with voices. There were steps on the stairs and faces at the pane. Nevertheless, I beat down the approaching storm of terror, and compelled my imagination to work for my release. Before I left the room, I must evolve some kind of story to account for the magnitude of the cheque; indeed, for its very existence. For the life of me—literally for the life of me—I could not for some time strike any plausible explanation. The only answer to my problem that occurred to me was blackmail, and I knew too little, and Richard probably too much, of my father’s life to be able to play such a card. In my mind I carefully recollected the heated conversation that had preceded the blow that killed him. There had been his comments on art and artists, and his insulting references to my wife. Next, I remembered that I had promised—had even offered to give him a statement in writing—that if he would help me now, I would see to it that neither I nor Sophy nor our children should ever appeal to him again. He had merely laughed in an offensive manner, saying, “Likely story, my dear Brand!” But suppose, my imagination urged, he had not laughed? Suppose he had accepted my undertaking, surely then he might have bought me off handsomely?

  I brooded. I had offered him a signed undertaking. And he hadn’t accepted it. But who was to know that? Here were pens, ink, and paper to my hand. I had already proved my ability as a forger. In any case, my blood was warm and my spirit intrepid. I had forgotten to be afraid lest this fresh venture betray me, and in a fine frenzy of excitement I began to write.

  What I wrote was something like this:

  I, Hildebrand Gray, do hereby agree that in consideration of the sum of two thousand pounds paid to me this day by my father Adrian Gray of the Manor House, King’s Poplars, Grebeshire, I will never again appeal to the said Adrian Gray for assistance in money or otherwise, never permit my wife, Sophy Gray, or any of her children, Margot, Eleanor, Dulcie, Anne, or Ferdinand Gray to approach him for any reason whatsoever. And I voluntarily abandon any claims I may ever have put forward against the said Adrian Gray both for myself and for them. In addition, I agree never to give the said Adrian Gray’s name as a reference in any circumstances whatever or proclaim the relationship except where this is unavoidable.

  It seemed to me that, having signed this preposterous declaration, I had now done everything possible to mislead the authorities. Richard and probably Eustace would recognise in its pretentiousness the authentic note of pomposity and inhumanity that had marked my father’s relations with myself. I had written the paper with a pen that lay on the inlaid lacquer inkstand, but I signed it with a cheap one I took from my pocket, pausing to admire my own enterprise. I had allowed my instinct to guide me as to the precise formation of my father’s writing, for it was long since I had heard from him, long enough for me to forget his personal idiosyncrasies. Yet when I re-read my masterpiece I was convinced that, had I not been in the secret, I should not have questioned the genuineness of the paper.

  There was nothing more for me to do but contrive to reach my room unperceived. The construction that I hoped everyone would put on the position was that Eustace, in dire straits, had come down in the early hours of the morning to put the position more clearly yet to my father. For I knew, though possibly the old man did not, that Eustace had been sailing very near the wind, and might even find himself involved in criminal proceedings. By leaving my document in a prominent position on the table, I might suggest that he had inadvertently read it, and his anger would at once be roused at the thought of such a wastrel as myself being presented, in any conceivable circumstances, with so large a sum, while he was denied a penny. After that, the interview might become heated; Eustace might confess the desperation of the position, practically compelling my father to part with the ten thousand pounds. Presumably, however, he would only do so on certain conditions, and these might prove not merely humiliating to Eustace, but positively dangerous. My father had a very vitriolic tongue, and Eustace was in a state of considerable nervous tension. Moreover, it would obviously be unsafe to let such a man as Adrian Gray retain a document that might, if produced, involve Eustace in some very difficult explanations, and I doubted whether my father was the type of man to let an advantage of this nature slip. Eustace would, of course, realise that. Possibly my father would gloat openly. The paper-weight lay close at hand. The conclusions the police—I presumed, of course, that this would be an affair for the police—and the family would arrive at would, I hoped, be too obvious to admit of discussion.

  On my way to the door I detached the leaf of the calendar for Christmas Eve. The quotation was “Wealth is of the mind, not of the pocket.” The new quotation said, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.” I looked round for a final glance to see if there was anything I had left undone. This was my last chance. Amateur criminals, they say, usually leave some glaring piece of evidence behind them, and their careful work is seldom appreciated. Anything I left now would betray me to the experts. Probably I should not enter this room again till all t
he formalities were over. I felt extraordinarily sleepy and foolish, and, to keep myself awake, I took up a round black ruler and twisted it in my fingers. When I put it down, I did not attempt to rub it clean of finger-prints. It would be less suspicious to leave some trace of my presence in the room, since I had no intention of denying the interview. The whole family is aware of my trick of taking up any convenient object and handling it while I talk. It is one of the pegs on which they hang their various objections to my character. Indicative of the restless temperament that is never satisfied, they tell one another; no self-control. Then it occurred to me that I might add a little to the general mystification by opening one of the windows; that might suggest the alternative of a criminal from outside. Moreover, it is precisely the type of thing Eustace would do, in such circumstances.