Death Invites You

by Paul Halter

  ‘Extraordinary,’ he said finally. ‘Quite extraordinary.’

  She looked at him with her big blue eyes and he was struck once more by the intensity of her gaze.

  ‘Simon,’ she said, ‘I have something very important to ask.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘You saw straight away that it was a masterpiece, but also that it was unfinished.’

  ‘Of course, but the essentials are there. It just needs a few more touches....’

  ‘Exactly, Simon, but those last few touches are very, very important.’

  ‘I know how talented you are, Henrietta, and I’m sure you’ll complete it perfectly.’

  She went to the easel and, in order to examine her work more closely, placed one foot on a low stool. Another button popped open. Simon was getting hot under the collar and heroically averted his eyes in order to avoid the view of Henrietta’s sublime upper leg.

  ‘As soon as I went into the study last night, I realised immediately that the subject would be a source of inspiration. It’s hard to explain why. I had the shivers at the view of the body, the kind of reaction necessary for creative painting. That was why I left so quickly, by the way. What I want to say is, to paint successfully I have to be in the right mood. I was last night and the result speaks for itself.’

  ‘I imagine every painter has his own way of concentrating.’

  Henrietta stood silently in front of Simon, her mouth quivering. It was his turn to feel a shiver. He became suddenly aware of the irresistible attraction of the young woman standing so close to him and he controlled himself with great difficulty.

  ‘Simon,’ she murmured, ‘I don’t want to spoil the finish of my masterpiece. I absolutely have to be in the right mood.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You have to help me.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever I can.’

  ‘Kiss me.’

  Simon stood speechless, unsure of what to do.

  ‘Kiss me, Simon. You must.’

  No, he wasn’t dreaming, she’d really asked him to kiss her. So why was he standing there speechless, watching her wriggle her shoulders under the housecoat? He needed to react, to shake himself. Decidedly he’d been at the mercy of the whole family tonight. First the conjurer had hypnotised him and now Henrietta was vamping him shamelessly. Get a grip of yourself right away, Simon, or this will not end well.

  ‘Henrietta, what are you asking? It’s out of the question: you know I love your sister.’

  ‘So I don’t please you?’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘I disgust you, is that it? Just admit it.’

  ‘Not at all. Quite the contrary. You’re, you’re....’

  ‘Then kiss me.’

  There was a silence. Simon, seeing Henrietta starting to tremble, felt a cold shiver run down his spine. This was not the time to lose his nerve. He needed to play for time.

  ‘Henrietta, try to understand the situation. Please. Valerie and I—.’

  The young woman’s eyes flashed.

  ‘And you think that’s more important than my masterpiece?’

  ‘Maybe not, but....’

  ‘You have to kiss me, do you understand? You have to take me in your arms and—.’

  ‘Henrietta, I beg you.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He was taken aback by her change of attitude, so very welcome. His relief was short-lived. Henrietta pulled the housecoat off one shoulder.

  ‘Henrietta! What are you doing?’

  She dug her nails into the soft flesh and scratched herself determinedly. Red streaks appeared.

  ‘Henrietta! My God! What are you doing?’

  She thrust her face into his triumphantly:

  ‘If you don’t kiss me, I’ll call for help and say you tried to rape me.’

  He felt his heart in his mouth and hesitated mere seconds before giving in.

  He left her room ten minutes later, white with rage. Not only had he given in to the blackmail, but he’d completely succumbed to the young girl’s charms. Worse still, he had the impression she’d become infatuated with him. What would be the consequences of the transient madness? He didn’t dare think about it. He stood for a long time in front of Valerie’s room to get his breath back and calm himself down, then knocked on the door.

  No sooner was he inside than she was in his arms, sobbing.

  ‘Simon, thank goodness you’re here. If you only knew what happened earlier.’

  ‘I do know. I’ve just seen your uncle. But don’t worry, my angel, I’m here now.’

  ‘It was awful. I’ve never quarrelled like that with mama and Henrietta before. I was trying to calm them down... and I only made things worse. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my darling. Everyone’s nerves are on edge, after what’s happened. It’ll be better tomorrow, you’ll see.’

  She looked at him through her blue eyes full of tears. As he touched the lips of her tearful face he couldn’t help thinking about Henrietta. A wave of anger swept over him: how could he have lost his head so easily, he who was normally master of every situation? Would she try to blackmail him again? And how should he react if she did? Shouldn’t he tell Valerie what happened? Not in her present state, for sure. And, besides, she was insanely jealous, which didn’t help matters one little bit.

  The subdued lighting from the lamp illuminated Valerie’s black hair and her sad, pretty face.

  ‘Simon, tell me it’s not true, that it’s all a dreadful nightmare. It’s terrible. Murdered. And yesterday at the morgue your colleagues tried for a while to convince us that it wasn’t Papa. Simon, I’m at the end of my tether. I can’t go on. Simon, don’t go, don’t ever leave.’

  ‘Darling, you know I ask for nothing more. But for now it would be terribly difficult to make any plans. There’s something else I need to tell you, Valerie. You’re going to need to be very brave.’

  ‘You don’t want me any more!’ she exclaimed, her eyes welling up again.

  Simon took her in his arms again and stroked her hair.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, darling. You’re everything to me. I love you Valerie, and that will never change.’

  ‘Oh, Simon, if only we were already married you’d always be at my side and I’d be able to cope better with this terrible tragedy.’

  Simon’s expression darkened:

  ‘This tragedy may not be the last.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your father was murdered. So someone must have murdered him.’

  ‘Obviously. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Well....’ He hesitated. ‘The police think it’s someone in the house. And not one of the servants. Obviously, that’s only a theory, but it seems to have some basis. We must expect the worst.’

  Valerie burst into tears again.

  ‘I know, it’s horrible,’ he said compassionately. ‘But I thought you should know.’

  ‘So it’s her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Henrietta. Who else could it be? The poor girl has lost her reason. But I would never have thought....’

  ‘As far as I know they don’t suspect anyone in particular,’ lied Simon tactfully, judging that his fiancée was in no condition to be told of the police’s conclusions. ‘However, for reasons which would take too long to explain, they don’t believe it was Henrietta or you.’

  ‘Which means....’

  ‘Yes, it’s one or the other. I’m sorry, Valerie, but I didn’t think it was right not to tell you.’

  There was a painful silence. Valerie straightened up courageously.

  ‘Simon, we must get to the bottom of this. We have to unmask the murderer, otherwise life would be impossible with the doubt hanging over us. We need to know the truth. You must—.’

  ‘Not I, darling, it’s beyond my power. I asked my superiors not to put me in charge of the investigation. Put yourself in my place: it’s your family, whom I all know well.’ />
  ‘Simon, we have to know!’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough, dearest. I have absolute confidence in my superior officer.’

  15

  Simon Works With a Paintbrush

  At around ten o’clock, Simon drove into the courtyard at the rear of his residence. He turned off the engine and got out of the car. It was dark and a damp mist obscured the lights from the windows of the surrounding high buildings. Situated near Paddington Station, his flat dated from the last century and, although spacious, had fairly basic amenities. Simon didn’t mind: the rent was low and he lived on the ground floor and didn’t have to climb any stairs. In fact, from his car it took only four steps to reach the back door of his flat.

  Once inside he noticed, as he hung up his coat, a slip of paper folded in half under the front door. He picked it up and opened it:

  In possession of new information. Will pass by tonight between

  10.30 and 11.00. Alan Twist.

  Frowning, Simon considered the message for a while before going into the bedroom to change his clothes. He came out clad in a housecoat with a shirt tied in a turban on his head and went into the room where he had started painting. The walls and ceiling were already finished, leaving only the window and doorframes. An attentive observer would not have failed to notice the numerous splashes of paint on the newspapers spread out on the floor and the sheets protecting the wardrobe and a large chest and concluded that Simon was a novice at painting. Which was perfectly true: he’d never touched a paintbrush before.

  After looking around the room he picked up a bottle of paint thinner which he emptied into a large bowl and cleaned a paintbrush which didn’t need it. Simon was a perfectionist. After that he opened several cans of paint and finally chose a cream colour with which to paint the door, which he started to do.

  While he was so occupied, he couldn’t help thinking about Henrietta, who must herself be in the process of painting. The door, including the frame, was finished in a quarter of an hour. Simon hadn’t skimped on the amount of paint, but he could have been more thorough: there was scarcely an area where the paint wasn’t dribbling down. He was about to start on the windows when the front doorbell rang. While he was leaving the room, his foot hit one of the open pots of paint which spilt all over the newspapers. Without batting an eyelid, he calmly went to open the door for his visitors.

  Twist and Hurst were looking grim, but the inspector’s eyes widened when he saw Simon.

  ‘Cunningham, why are you dressed like that? Whew! It smells of paint in here.’

  ‘Yes, I’m redecorating one of the rooms.’

  ‘You’re painting? You?’ exclaimed Hurst. ‘I have to see this.’

  Reluctantly, Simon showed them the room in question. He knew exactly what Hurst would say and he wasn’t mistaken.’

  ‘The work of an amateur, Cunningham. Look at that door! A veritable catastrophe. Give me the brush, I’ll show you how to do it.’

  ‘Hurst,’ said Dr. Twist, ‘don’t you think we have better things to do?’

  ‘True,’ sighed the inspector. ‘You’re right.’

  Going over to the window, he only noticed at the last moment the pool of paint on the floor and almost fell on his face. He growled, pulled furiously on the sheet covering the huge chest and let it fall. A sinister cracking sound startled Simon.

  ‘All right, Cunningham, tell us what happened tonight.’

  Simon recounted his visit to the Vickers residence in detail, omitting the episode in Henrietta’s room. He ended his account with the quarrel between Mrs. Vickers and her daughters.

  ‘The old grandfather again!’ sneered Hurst. ‘He gets around a lot for a dead man. Now, Cunningham, pay attention. We’ve been underestimating Harold Vickers.’

  Simon removed his glasses and stammered:

  ‘Underestimating? I-I don’t understand.’

  Hurst smiled sarcastically:

  ‘Yes, underestimating.’ He paused before making the dramatic announcement. ‘The body isn’t that of Harold Vickers!’

  Simon looked as if he’d been slapped in the face. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

  ‘I got a call from the morgue at six o’clock. After we’d left, Dr. Leedom examined the corpse again. He found something which intrigued him, given the assertions of the Vickers family. He happens to know their family dentist quite well and he telephoned him as soon as we’d left, to ask him to come over.’ Hurst paused to light a cigar. ‘Bright, the dentist, is a friend of the family and got on well with Harold Vickers. And he often complimented him on his perfect teeth. Are you following me? Guess what Leedom found on the body: two false teeth.’

  Simon felt his knees weaken.

  ‘We’ve been underestimating Harold Vickers,’ continued Hurst with a menacing look in his eye. ‘We’re dealing with a third degree of misdirection, signed Harold Vickers.’

  ‘But it’s not possible,’ exclaimed Simon. ‘There was a scar on the leg which meant it could only be Vickers.’

  Hurst drew voluptuously on his cigar, obviously enjoying his subordinate’s bewilderment.

  ‘Precisely, Cunningham, and that’s where he outdid himself: a really clever trick which typifies the twisted mind of the man. When I first heard the news from the morgue, I had the same reaction as you: I couldn’t accept the facts because of the famous scar. The scar he’d drawn to everyone’s attention on his return from Australia, on the grounds that it wasn’t healing properly. A masterstroke, Cunningham, a masterstroke. You still don’t get it?’

  ‘Not at all. And I persist in thinking—.’

  ‘Get off your high horse and listen to me, Cunningham. Let’s begin at the beginning. At first we were astounded and bewildered by the spectacular nature of the crime, losing sight of one of the essential facts, namely that the corpse had been disfigured. Then we saw a photograph of the two brothers and discovered that the other one had left Australia for England a few weeks earlier: why doubt it, given the resemblance of the two brothers and the apparent identity of the body? The weird nature of the crime inevitably led us to a plot by the author who, in order to grab the headlines, killed his brother so as to have the body identified as his own.

  ‘There, gentlemen, I have to tip my hat, for I have never in my whole life met a more adroit murderer: he delivered his motive to us on a plate. What a nerve! But one little fact was to spoil our hypothesis: during the examination at the morgue, we found a small scar which proved it was definitely him. Naturally, our suspicions would then fall on a member of the family—with an obvious motive—who would have created the incredible crime to deflect suspicion.

  ‘And we fell for it, persuaded as we were of his wife’s guilt. Harold Vickers was, naturally, cleared of all suspicion because we believed he was dead. A masterpiece, gentlemen, let’s face it: a veritable masterpiece. A triple cross! We were bamboozled by an extraordinary criminal who’d thought of everything—except his brother’s two false teeth!’

  ‘But you still haven’t explained the scar on the corpse’s leg.’

  Hurst took a deep breath and continued:

  ‘A year ago, Harold Vickers went to Australia to see his brother. At that point he’d already worked out his plan in great detail. He went, as we know, to make sure they still looked alike. He’d already thought, of course, about dental identification and he was delighted to see that his brother, like himself, had a perfect set of teeth. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t know two of the teeth were false. He arranged for them to be photographed together and made sure it was highly visible in his study at home, for the reasons we now know. And then—and this is the most ingenious part of the plan—he arranged for his brother to receive a minor injury to his leg... and inflicted the same wound on himself! Needless to say, he drew attention to it on his return. You know the rest: the scar was the determining factor in the identification. How could anyone suspect for a moment that it wasn’t his body?’

  Simon, incapable of uttering a sound
, removed his improvised turban and wiped his perspiring brow. Dr. Twist noticed a few splashes of paint in the young man’s hair and couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘It remains to be seen how and when Harold Vickers will reappear,’ continued Archibald Hurst. ‘Perhaps he’ll take the place of his brother, his face slightly disfigured by a car accident. Perhaps he won’t reappear at all. Anything is possible with this devil of a man. We can’t even rule out the possibility that he will appear under his own name. In which case, what kind of extravagant explanation will he offer? There’s no way of telling at this point. Anything’s possible.’ Hurst shook his head wearily. ‘And to think all this was done for glory... it’s incredible.’

  ‘But what are we going to tell Valerie, her mother and... they believe he’s dead,’ said Simon, aghast.

  ‘Better not to say anything for now. We’ll tell them tomorrow. Whether he’s the victim or the murderer, I imagine it’s all the same at this stage. We’re going to leave now, Simon. I’m dead on my feet and didn’t sleep a wink last night. We’ll see each other tomorrow. The weekend’s over.’

  The inspector drove Twist home. He couldn’t help talking about his young colleague’s talents as a house painter:

  ‘Did you see that door? What a mess! Worse than the paintings of that Vickers girl. He’s lucky he knows how to use his grey matter better than his hands. Even so, he didn’t seem to grasp what I said. Did you see his face when I said the body wasn’t that of Harold Vickers? And it wasn’t clear to me he understood what I meant by a third degree of misdirection.’

  Dr. Twist shrugged his shoulders. He wanted to defend the young sergeant, but was distracted by the way Hurst was driving.

  ‘Tell me something, Twist. Before you left the Yard tonight, you apparently dropped in on Inspector Briggs.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘I see, trying to pull the rug from under me. It was my idea that Harold Vickers might be mixed up in the murder of Charles Fielder. Why go behind my back?’