Portrait of a Murderer

by Martin Edwards

  I was surprised to find that it was snowing heavily. And with the snowfall the wind had dropped. Outside, everything was deathly still. There were no lights to be seen; even the snow looked dim. Nor was there a sound inside the house or beyond it.

  I decided to switch off the light. If I left it on, it would be discovered by some officious servant, descending early, and the story that was already maturing in my mind depended on my seeing some of the family before the discovery was made. Besides, I was sure Eustace would switch it off. It has always struck me as strange that a man who launches out into his dangerous schemes should have so narrow an imagination. I’ve tested it more than once, and never without a fresh stab of surprise that an ingenuity—I won’t call it a mind—that can evolve these fantastic plans for picking other men’s pockets should be practically blindfolded most of the time.

  4

  I was fortunate in meeting no one as I crept upstairs. My room was at the end of a corridor. This is an oddly built house, low and L-shaped, the short arm of the L comprising the servants’ quarters and store and box rooms. As I shut my bedroom door, I seemed to shut all my alarm and terrors outside. I put the thought of what I had done behind me. Whatever mistakes I had made, it was too late to rectify them now. I have the same sensation when I finish a picture. I’ve never messed about with a canvas. When it’s done I let it go. If I want to do something better, I start afresh.

  Switching on my light, I saw that against the blind in one of the servants’ rooms a light still burned. I took it for a feeble gas-jet, though it might have been a candle. (It’s indicative of the position of the servants in my father’s house that, when electricity was installed, their rooms retained the old-fashioned gas.) I began to wonder why she stayed up so late, considering that to-morrow would be a heavy day. And what she was doing sitting there so quietly at the window when the rest of the house was abed.

  This problem, trifling though it was, intrigued me. I walked across to my own window, that I flung open, dislodging a soft shower of snow. The shadow on the blind moved, the blind was shifted, and I saw a white figure lean forward a little. She had no interest in me—I was sure of that. But “She can’t have a lover in this joyless house” I marvelled, and then some quite material explanation occurred to me, such as tooth-ache, or perhaps she was mending clothes, or even, possibly, she was devout, though I found it hard to believe that such devotion would keep her awake until two o’clock.

  She pushed aside the blind and stared out at the snow, but it was too dark for me to distinguish her face. On my rare visits here the servants are always new, and I never pay any heed to them—except Moulton, of course, who has been here for twenty years. I could see that the girl had something in her hand, which by its shape I took to be a book. Her dark shadow, the straight lines of her dress, her artless pose, gave her the appearance of some mediæval figure—say, the Spirit of Christmas. She stood there without stirring for some minutes. Then something startled her. Perhaps she caught sight of my light. Anyway the blind dropped back into place, and she disappeared. A moment later the light was extinguished.

  The sight of her had excited and stimulated me, not in any physical way, but in my mind. She seemed the antithesis of the body downstairs, even when that body was quick with life. She was young and vigorous, and, if she had been reading, she was sufficiently steeped in life to lay aside all those tiresome duties that held her during the day, and enter into the new world that books do open for one, even the silliest and most dangerous. So that I continued to stand there, forgetting I had been tired and had meant to collapse immediately on to the bed, thinking of her, not as an individual, but as the symbol of a new hope. I was sorry she had gone, but the memory of her pleased and invigorated me.

  Then, for a time, I watched the snow. It had already obliterated landmarks that had been familiar to me since childhood, piling itself softly on my sill; I went to the bed presently and lay down, still watching it fall. It fascinated me in its beauty, its silence, and its persistence. There was no light in my room now—I had switched off the electricity—but the reflection of the snow, and by this I could just distinguish the outlines of the severe ramshackle furniture. The events of the evening, though chiefly, I think, the sight of that girl at the window, had kindled the creative flame in me, and I fell to wondering about the furniture—the carved mahogany dressing-table, with its haughty mirror, its curled claw-feet. How much had that glass reflected, what had the drawers held? I pictured to myself all the scenes that had perhaps occurred in this room, the whole gamut of the emotions the walls had witnessed—passion, despair, misery, patience, joy. A procession of dead and gone Grays and all the nameless guests this room had housed, and who would never forget it because of some occasion of heartbreak or ecstasy it represented, filed past me. And at the end of the procession, perhaps, myself. The murderer. One of them might have been a murderer too, for all I could tell. And I wondered if a member of a later generation, lying wakeful on some crucial night, as I lay wakeful now, would have any conception of the emotions that racked me. I turned over and traced the faded blossoms on the wallpaper with a critical finger. I thought, “These I shall never forget, these lilac roses that never grew on bush or spray, gathered in baskets and tied with true lovers’ knots, never forget their moulding, the fantastic shape that would give a botanist nightmare.” To-night they had a certain life of their own. My own vitality possessed them. I knew it would be hours before I should sleep. Nevertheless I began to undress slowly in the dark. To a man who knows no privacy these minutes of solitude were exquisite. At home there was always Sophy and often a sickly child whose cot was dragged in and put in the inadequate space at the foot of our bed. I thought, if I were a rich man I would often spend nights in hotels for the joy of knowing myself immune from disturbance. To sleep under the same roof as even those to whom you are inescapably tied destroys the charm, though you have a whole private suite. There is always the possibility of invasion by those who have the right to interrupt your privacy. Now for a few hours I was free. When I had undressed I returned to the window; there were trees beyond the glass soughing a little in the subdued wind, and I reflected that there were also trees within, trees that had been carved, hacked, disciplined into unnatural shapes for the service of men, who would shape to their own pleasure everything they touch, including their own kind. So powerfully enticed was my imagination that it seemed to me the noise of the branches came from within rather than without. It would scarcely have surprised me if the tallboy had blossomed into green buds and the chairs burst into leaf. My imagination does this to me sometimes, transporting me into a sphere of pure delight, when the sense of beauty ceases to have any shape or even to pronounce itself as beauty at all, but is a natural environment. But naturally one remains outwardly cold, savage, and morose, in case that treasure, too, is looted.

  Out in the darkness, prowling through the snow, I caught a glimpse of twin sparks of green light, the eyes of a wandering cat. I loved it as it moved silently through the dark, disdaining that security that humans and dogs crave, and roaming fearlessly as it would. A line I had read somewhere returned to my mind: “Plundering the secret richness of the night”; a type, I thought, watching those eyes flame at me, and conscious of their heat, of all the unhouselled adventurers of the earth—Cyrano, Traherne, a nameless host, men and women who didn’t want the security my family holds so dear, preferring the unattainable and the unknown.

  The cat vanished, seeking its adventure, leaving me to brood on its strange silent appearance. My thoughts slipped irrelevantly from one thing to another, touching different levels, like water dropping from shelf to shelf of rock. I thought about cats. Black ones were popular emblems for Christmas cards. One saw them in ridiculous postures, conveying good wishes in every conceivable manner, from the merely absurd to the insipid and vulgar. There was an enormous grey Persian cat, I remember, that used to fill the window of an undertaker’s establishment in Paris. Ther
e was a thin dirty little tabby that howled outside our Fulham windows every night, until in desperation we took it in, and it promptly loosed its fleas on the children. There was the legend of the Cat that walked alone; and that carried me on to the Christmas stories of Michael Fairless, and brought keenly back to recollection a Christmas I spent when I was fifteen in Germany (one of those exchange arrangements by which the youth of both nations are supposed to learn the other’s language). It had been like a fairy story, all of a piece with the painted waxen angels on bright Christmas-trees, the effigies of the Holy Child in innumerable neat mangers, the glittering balls; the donkeys, oxen, and shepherds; windows full of strange-shaped cakes, decorated with gilt bells, Santa Klaus in red and gold and green cloaks, trimmed with fur, a model of a reindeer sleigh loaded with presents, crackers and bonbons, round smiling faces and tight flaxen plaits. It was a long cry from the joyous innocence of that festival to the cynical show we made of it at King’s Poplars, where it became a day of suppressed jealousy and gluttony and criticism, of secret valuations of presents and calculations as to what one had made or lost on one’s personal expenditure.

  My thoughts now seemed to move simultaneously in both directions, back to the ardent past, forward to the hopeful future. The snow drifted through the window on to the clothes I had flung on to a chair. I saw this and smiled. So much at ease did I feel, I was like an athlete at the end of a hard race. Already I had achieved. That was the effect of my first murder on me.

  5

  Presently I heard the clock strike four. Then I fell asleep. It was Christmas Day, I had my plan in readiness, and I was full of hope.

  Part III

  Christmas Day

  1

  The snow had ceased some hours when Brand awoke. It was very early and he could detect no sound in the darkened house. His watch, that he had forgotten to wind, stood at three o’clock. The surface of the snow, that lay thickly on every object visible from the window, had been frozen by the wind, and glittered brilliantly in the sharp white light that to-day preceded the sun. The road, hedges, and the steep slope of the hill were dazzling in their untrodden whiteness as, standing at the window where he had stood some hours earlier, he stared at the silent world. At his elbow lay a branch bowed down with snow. On the sill itself it was three inches deep; even the telegraph wires were white this Christmas morning.

  The sky was very clear and pale and sparkled with light. As yet no one had trodden the great white bank that ran up from the road to the horizon. As Brand watched, a robin completed the Christmas-card effect by perching delicately on the snow that lay heaped on the sill. It was a young bird, its feathers puffed out because of the cold. In this simple romantic setting, the happenings of the night became fantastic. He could scarcely persuade himself they were true. At length, however, he was definitely aroused by a sound of voices under his windows; standing with bare feet on the chill oilcloth, he saw the women of the family in a little group by the gate, setting off for the early celebration. Most noticeable was his grandmother, an ancient aristocrat in weedy black; she was, as usual, absurdly ill dressed for the occasion. She wore a thin black gown and a black silk coat. As Brand watched, he saw her imposingly flap away the obsequious maid who came forward with shawls and furs. The woman persisted; old Mrs. Gray became haughty and remote. The maid, submissive and unmoved, sank into the background, burdened with prayer-books, umbrellas, a black shawl, and a heavy cloak for emergencies.

  “I suppose if she didn’t make that protest, my grandmother would dismiss her instantly. It’s just a ritual, like two-thirds of life.”

  Olivia had observed to her husband, “I suppose I may as well go. If I don’t, father will make a personal triumph of it. And you can never tell. Ten thousand pounds is a mere flea-bite compared with the miracle we’re supposed to be celebrating.”

  Ruth had not been with this contingent—with wary suspicious Amy, with her neat sturdy figure and sharp eyes that noticed who ate most ham and was most extravagant with butter; Isobel, still young, with her pale unhappy face, her coronet of pale gold plaits, her lovely hands, the air of remoteness that had clung to her since her little girl died; Laura in a fur coat that would have attracted attention in a far more sophisticated neighbourhood. But as the maid, hampered by her burdens, struggled with the catch of the gate, finally opening it with a vigour that shook a shower of soft dry snow on to Amy, and brought down a curt rebuke for her carelessness, the front door opened again and Ruth and Miles came out. The lawyer, looking up, saw his brother-in-law at the window, and waved a friendly hand. Ruth’s lips shaped the words “Merry Christmas.”

  Brand smiled back. He felt serene and light-hearted. The old English word jocund came back to him. He supposed his sense of continuity was broken. He simply could not link up that tumbled body under the library window with his own future. He put it behind him, like some disagreeable experience on which he preferred not to brood, and that had become a part of his past. He experienced a sense of liberty as he had done last night, of anticipation even. He could scarcely wait for the opening of this new phase of his existence, so fraught with hope, so powerful with intent.

  To strengthen that conviction, he took up the sketch he had made in the library a few hours earlier, and examined it critically. He had been prepared to discount the artist’s enthusiasm of the previous night, and discover the thing to be a hotch-potch of blemishes and false values. But, to his delight, he found that morning sustained the earlier judgment. More, it added to his satisfaction. The picture enthralled him in its clean economy of detail, its strength and assurance, its purity of line, its massive simplicity. It was ridiculous, it was pathetic, it was abominably wrong that a man capable of such work should be grinding out his life in a draughtsman’s office. The buoyancy in the atmosphere, the sharp clean air, and the sense of fresh beginnings found its counterpart in his responsive breast. He was aware of hope and of unbounded horizons. Poverty and the obligations of his wretched domestic life had crippled but not wholly deformed him. Already he recognised a new power in his brain and hand; the challenge, to which he had been compelled to stop his ears for so long, tantalised him anew. Space, leisure, opportunity—he saw all these at length within his grasp. He would make his home among the hard, resolute, one-idea’d men with whom he had lived for a time before his crazy marriage.

  Dreaming thus, he was amazed to discover, by the sound of voices outside, that he had brooded an hour away. Hastily he examined his position in the family’s regard. And at once the composure on which he plumed himself fell apart like a pack of cards, disclosing excitement, alarm, the realisation (at last) of the alternative to the life he had been occupied in picturing to himself. Now that the moment was upon him, it found him dry-mouthed and bright-eyed, repeating over and over again the story he had to tell. Fortunately it was very short and involved him in no admission of any importance, so far as he could see. Even his family would probably believe it, delighted though they might be to see him taken for the crime. His passion for detail in his own work helped him, and he became quite cool-headed as he memorised the story, experiencing even a kind of pleasure in allotting to each occurrence its true share of significance. His imagination, indeed, suggested to him problems so fantastic that even a fictional detective would scarcely put them to him, yet even to these he had subtle replies ready.

  Opening the door, he came out on to the landing as the party from church ascended the stairs. There was a hurried interchange of greetings. Eustace emerged from his room while they were talking, said, “Cold, what?” in an abstracted sort of voice. “I suppose the post isn’t in yet. Morning, Amy. Happy Christmas, Ruth.” He ignored Brand, who whispered to his eldest sister. “He had no luck, I suppose. That would account for his sour temper. It must be galling to a professional shark to find a tenderfoot has jumped his claim.”

  Amy stared. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ask Eustace. But not till after breakfas
t. After all, it is Christmas Day.” And, laughing, he ran down the stairs.

  The Grays, with embarrassed comments and averted eyes, handed parcels to one another in a shamefaced sort of way, secretly pricing both what they received and the gifts each donor gave to other members of the family. Brand’s share was a collar-box, some cuff-links, an account book, some handkerchiefs from Olivia (he was sure these had been sent to Eustace and been discarded as unsuitable for him), a leather stamp-book, a bookmarker, two comic golfing calendars (he didn’t play golf), and an illustrated Christmas legend. He kept the cuff-links and left everything else behind him when he went. The handkerchiefs he gave to Moulton.

  Everyone except Adrian came down to breakfast, though no one except Ruth and her husband looked very festive. And even they sighed from time to time, thinking of Christmas as it should be when one has young daughters to come battering on the door at five in the morning with demands to be allowed to examine the contents of their stockings, and, permission obtained, to come scuffling into bed, to exult over everything, small or great, concealed therein.

  Old Mrs. Gray was occupied with letters and cards from the survivors of her own youth. Eustace was clearly nervous; he had received a letter with a City postmark, and, after reading this through, he thrust it into his pocket, and started eating ham in a hurried and abstracted manner. Olivia caught the infection and talked a great deal, very brightly and smartly, after the manner of Dot and Lalage in her letters. Laura surveyed Brand and Eustace with a cool amusement and reflected on the peculiarity of her husband’s relations. But possibly all in-laws were like this. It was like being one kind of an animal and being penned in the Zoo with another kind. Presumably one might get a certain amusement of a cynical kind from observing their qualities. She knew well enough what they thought of her—a bad bargain. Oh, well, it mattered very little, she supposed. Those early ideas, when she had thought of life as a crusade, a challenge, an affair of flame and endeavour, those died when you had been married to Richard Gray for some years. She smiled and passed her cup for tea.