The Serpent's Sting

by Robert Gott

  ‘Yes, you do. Very like. Only Fulton smiled a lot, which I’ve never seen you do.’

  To confirm the observation, he looked at me sourly.

  ‘There’s nothing to smile about. Nothing.’

  I had little sympathy for the tedium of his misery.

  ‘What is it that you want from me, John? Surely more than the fact that you look like Fulton.’

  ‘What do you think of my father?’

  I was suddenly conscious of the incipient hypocrisy of my position on this point. I disliked Peter Gilbert on the basis of his betrayal of my father’s trust. Was my objection to this adultery of the same order as John Gilbert’s? They may have been distinct, but perhaps they weren’t different. I decided to answer his question truthfully.

  ‘I don’t think much of your father.’

  ‘So we agree on that much, at least.’

  ‘He was my father’s closest friend, and yet he cuckolded him.’

  ‘I sometimes wish I still believed in sin. Calling something like that “reprehensible” doesn’t seem adequate.’

  ‘I don’t believe in sin, either, John. I do believe in character, and it doesn’t say much for a man’s character if he’s willing to do what your father did.’

  ‘What about your mother’s character?’

  Without hesitation, I said, ‘It says a great deal about her character, none of it flattering.’

  John reached out and grabbed my wrist.

  ‘I think we have a lot in common, Will.’

  There was a desperate quality in his voice that was unsettling.

  ‘Disliking the same people isn’t the same as having a lot in common.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting a friendship. Look, can we stop this pointless banter? Your mother mentioned that you were a private-inquiry agent as well as an actor.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I want to hire you. I have money. Dad is nothing if not generous.’

  This was so unexpected that it stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘You want to hire me? Why? What do you want investigated?’

  He looked at me, and his face was calm. I couldn’t see in it the fevered contortions of madness. His eyes were clear and sane.

  ‘I want you to investigate my father. I believe he murdered my mother.’

  I was silent.

  ‘I believe he poisoned her, slowly. I don’t know how he did it. I only know that he did it.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Cloris about this?’

  ‘Cloris and I don’t …’ He stopped, his eyes drawn now to Mother’s house. We’d moved some distance away, but we were close enough to see Mother and Peter Gilbert turn in at the gate. Peter Gilbert looked towards the place where we were standing. He shaded his eyes with his hand, but he couldn’t possibly have been certain that the small figures, deep in the park, were his son and me. John Gilbert pressed a piece of paper into my hand.

  ‘That’s my telephone number. He did this, Will, and he might do it again. Think about that.’

  He walked away towards Royal Parade.

  Mother and Peter Gilbert were in the kitchen when I entered the house. I went upstairs to my room and stretched out on my bed. John Gilbert’s accusation had dismayed me. I thought it was absurd and probably the product of an agitated mind. Still, what did I know about Peter Gilbert, really? I knew he was a solicitor, and that both he and my father had worked in some vague capacity in Intelligence in the Great War. It was where their friendship had been forged. I tried to think this through. If my recent travails in the Northern Territory had taught me anything, they’d taught me the perilous consequences of jumping to conclusions. Nevertheless, it was difficult not to succumb to the irresistibly satisfying notion that Peter Gilbert was a murderer. I began to doze with this thought in my mind, but before I’d slipped into sleep, a knock on my door roused me.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked, ludicrously, given that it could only have been one of three people.

  ‘It’s me — Brian. I need to talk to you.’

  I got up and went to the door. I hadn’t looked closely at Brian since our return from the north, but when I did so, I thought his new life in Intelligence was agreeing with him. Even though he hadn’t shaved, his face was a picture of health. It had filled out a little since he’d reacquainted himself with Mother’s cooking, but it wasn’t jowly or fleshy. The gauntness he’d acquired was gone, and for the first time I began to think that perhaps he looked more like Tyrone Power than I did — an observation that had been made in the past by others, but which I’d always dismissed as ridiculous. He seemed nervous, which wasn’t like him when he was around me.

  ‘I’ve been wondering what to do,’ he said, ‘since we got back.’

  I looked puzzled.

  ‘For work, I mean. I’ve been wondering what to do for work. I don’t want to go back to teaching.’

  ‘But you have a job. You work for Intelligence.’

  Just as he’d managed to do earlier, he kept exasperation out of his voice.

  ‘I don’t work for them, Will. They offered me a job, I’ll admit that. I turned it down. If I’d taken it, do you think I’d still be here?’

  ‘Perhaps even Intelligence was willing to give you until after Christmas, after what they put us through.’

  ‘I don’t work for them.’

  He said each word slowly, and carefully. ‘I don’t like their methods any more than you do, Will. I was vulnerable up there. I’m not as emotionally strong as you are.’

  ‘You mean cold.’

  ‘No. That’s not what I mean. My marriage had been a disaster, and I spent a fair bit of time in high heels and a sheath dress. It was a confusing time.’

  ‘Did you have sex with someone up there? A bloke?’

  His face registered no surprise at the invasiveness of the question.

  ‘Well, after a fashion and up to a point.’

  I was careful to keep my face immobile.

  ‘Does that horrify you, Will? Do you think I’m not normal?’

  ‘Being normal hasn’t got very much going for it, Brian. Of course it doesn’t horrify me. Horror is what I felt when you married Darlene. That was an act of cataclysmic normality.’

  ‘It was just the situation up there.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who it was. I was susceptible, and I don’t imagine anything like that will ever happen again. Not that I regret it. I don’t, but I’m not queer.’

  There was a pause. Brian changed the subject.

  ‘I think Mother liked Geraldine.’

  ‘Yes. I think she did. Not that it matters. It makes a nice change, though.’

  ‘She never really took to Darlene, you know.’

  It would have been ungracious of me to point out that in not taking to Darlene, Mother wasn’t Robinson Crusoe. I was a little surprised that Brian had mentioned his wife, who now languished in an institution, in a fog of confusion and psychosis.

  ‘I hope it works out for the two of you,’ he said. ‘She seems very nice.’

  Even he was aware of how awkward this sounded, and he hurried on. ‘I wanted to ask you if you could find me some work.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Please get it into your head, Will. I don’t have a job. I need work. I need to earn money, and I don’t want those bloody Manpower arseholes sticking me in some shitty war job.’

  His indignation caused his face to flush a faint red, and I wondered if he was a sufficiently accomplished actor to manufacture this. Perhaps he was telling the truth.

  ‘What kind of work do you think I could find for you? Acting?’

  ‘No. I’m no actor. I thought something in the way of your private-inquiry stuff. You’re still a private-inquiry agent, right?’

  ‘That was always something of a s
ideline, and now I’ve got a decent acting job, so …’

  ‘Yes, that’s excellent. You always believed something like this would happen, didn’t you?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I learned early to believe in myself. No one else seemed particularly interested in following my example.’

  Brian made no comment, and I was grateful that he didn’t bother defending either of our parents on this point.

  ‘Maybe I could take over the business. What do you think? Just to keep the chair warm.’

  ‘I think, Brian, that you’ve got the wrong idea about the private-inquiry business. I don’t have anything to pass on to you. Were you expecting me to solemnly hand over a deer-stalker hat and a magnifying glass?’

  ‘You mean there was no business?’

  ‘Business is altogether too grand a word for it. I don’t have accreditation of any kind. I fell into it, and to my surprise a bit of work turned up. I can admit now that I might have strayed a little out of my depth.’

  Brian seemed taken aback by this admission.

  ‘The north has really changed you, Will.’

  ‘The north has changed everything.’

  We were both silent for a moment.

  ‘If you’re serious, and you really want to get into the detective business, you could begin by having a look at something close to home. There’s money in it.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I was collared by John Gilbert, not half an hour ago, across in Princes Park. He’s a desperately unhappy young man. At first I thought he had the emotional range of a disturbed twelve-year-old, but having thought about it, I’m not so sure. He came to me because Mother had mentioned to him that I was a private-inquiry agent.’

  ‘John Gilbert offered you work? He wanted to hire you?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘To investigate his mother’s death.’

  Brian’s jaw dropped open.

  ‘But Mrs Gilbert died of cancer.’

  ‘Not according to John. He believes that his father murdered her, presumably because he got sick of waiting for her to die so that he could finally marry Mother.’

  ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘Is it? If you allow yourself to entertain the thought, it doesn’t seem utterly unbelievable.’

  ‘And how did he murder her?’

  ‘John Gilbert doesn’t know. He thinks it was some sort of slow poisoning.’

  Brian’s eyebrows came together to signal that dismay and revelation were jockeying for position.

  ‘You get on well with Peter. You could do some discreet digging. If he did bump off his wife, behind that suave, conservative exterior there’s a ruthless man, and you should be careful. If he can kill the mother of his children, I don’t think he’d have too many qualms about disposing of you.’

  ‘You’ve already decided that John Gilbert is telling the truth, haven’t you?’

  ‘No I haven’t, Brian. All my instincts tell me that he’s either deluded or lying. My problem is that I’ve lost confidence in my instincts.’

  ‘Suppose I agree to look into it. Will you help me? Where do I start?’

  ‘You should start with John Gilbert. I have his telephone number. We’ll both go to see him tomorrow, after the show. You’ll have to forego the Tivoli horror. I won’t tell him you’re coming.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Let’s not scare him off before we even get started. If he thinks it’s just me, he’ll agree to a meeting without a problem. I’ll insist that I need to see the room where Mrs Gilbert died. I want to meet him in situ, as it were. We need to get some sense of Mrs Gilbert. You need to know the victim if you’re going to find the killer. I already know that Peter and she slept in different bedrooms.’

  Brian seemed impressed that I was privy to this intimate detail, and I didn’t reveal that Peter Gilbert had revealed it without embarrassment or prompting.

  ‘When I was talking to John Gilbert,’ I said, ‘I got the distinct impression that his relationship with his sister is fraught.’

  ‘I think you might be better at this inquiry stuff than you say you are, Will.’

  I accepted this praise with a small nod of the head.

  ‘And one last thing, Brian. There are enormous gaps in our knowledge of Peter Gilbert’s life.’

  ‘Of course. He was here on and off for years, but he rarely stayed the night until recently.’

  ‘When I saw him in the garden this morning, he said something to me that might have been no more than a throwaway line. In the light of his son’s accusation, it might be more sinister.’

  I paused for effect.

  ‘Go on, what did he say?’

  ‘He said that when I revealed Fulton’s existence, he could have killed me.’

  The performance of Mother Goose on the following day, Monday 21 December, was a good one, and I was pleased that Brian was in the audience to see it. The only disappointment was that Geraldine hadn’t returned from Puckapunyal to play the Fairy. Sophie, her understudy, was barely adequate. There was an amateur edge to her playing, and the crisp and rounded vowels weren’t yet effortless; half her mind was given over to putting into practice lessons learned in elocution. At interval she had the temerity to tell me that I was acting too broadly and that I was diminishing her more nuanced reading. As she was speaking to me in the wings, a little grimace of distaste crossed her undeniably pretty face.

  A person with a more fragile ego than my own might have been wounded. I was, however, well used to the neuroses of actors and actresses, and recognised in her complaint that she was simply giving expression to the threat posed by one actor to another. It was the threat of a competing talent. Crouched in the psyche of all actors and actresses is a hungry demon who feeds on the insecurities of its host. Unusually, Percy Wavel had left his barstool and was standing nearby when Sophie explained my shortcomings to me. He didn’t leap to my defence. All he offered was a smirk.

  I changed as quickly as I could, and congratulated Roger Teddles, who’d re-assumed the part of the Maid. Unlike Geraldine’s understudy, Roger was gracious. If anything might be said against him, it was that his personal hygiene could have been taken up several notches. He was immune to the blandishments in the newspapers for Pyrex Tooth Powder, Mennen Talc, and Guardian Medicated Soap. His resistance to this last was especially puzzling, as he was the model in the advertisement, and he had it pinned proudly to his mirror. There he was, holding a hammer and giving a reasonable impersonation of masculinity as he performed a small ‘everyday job’. He was, the advertisement warned, ‘In constant danger. Germs breed in the dust — cling to everything you touch.’ Fortunately, Guardian soap ‘gets rid of germs as well as dirt. A Guardian bath or shower is just the way to start the day.’ Roger neither started nor ended his day with a Guardian wash. Like many actors I’ve known, he thought the sweet smell of make-up and cold cream was enough to disguise body odour. It wasn’t. It especially wasn’t in the hot summer of 1942. He also had an actor’s indifference to modesty, and after he’d removed his costume, he liked to sit, his hands behind his head, with his legs splayed like an animated Barberini faun, only not quite so well formed.

  I’d invited Brian to come round after the show, and I told Roger that my brother might be paying us a visit.

  ‘Beaut,’ he said, and made no move to alter his position. ‘It’s fucking hot, isn’t it?’

  There was a knock on the door — Brian had clearly learned from the last visit that it was inadvisable to burst in unannounced.

  ‘Come in!’ Roger called, and Brian entered, to be confronted by the spectacle of Roger Teddles, all frank angles, like a butterflied capon. To Brian’s credit, he showed no surprise and nodded a polite hello.

  ‘I’m Brian — Will’s brother.’

  ‘How
do you do. I’m Roger.’

  No hands were extended. I was already in my street clothes, although Brian pointed to a blob of greasepaint on my ear. I wiped it off, and we farewelled Roger.

  ‘He’ll stay like that till the Tivoli show. He says he gets over-heated.’

  ‘Is there a Mrs Teddles?’

  ‘Yes, there is, which makes the way he smells even more of a mystery. You’d think she’d tell him.’

  ‘I didn’t notice particularly. All I could smell was greasepaint.’

  The sky was overcast when we emerged from the stage door. It looked threatening. The air was hot and I couldn’t smell rain, but the clouds were dark and heavy.

  ‘I wish it would rain,’ Brian said. ‘Where are we going? It’s odd, isn’t it, but I have no idea where the Gilbert house is.’

  ‘This whole thing with Peter Gilbert and our mother is most peculiar, Brian. He’s suddenly an established and apparently long-standing presence in our lives, and I’ve known about him since, when, September of this year?’

  ‘I remain astonished, Will, that that is true. They were discreet, but no one is that discreet.’

  It was a source of considerable embarrassment to me — not that I’d admit to this out loud — that I’d missed the twenty-something-year affair between Mother and Peter Gilbert. I was sorry I’d raised it, and asked Brian if he’d thought about John Gilbert’s accusation.

  ‘I have. I don’t believe it. He struck me as highly strung.’

  ‘So you don’t think Mother is in any danger?’

  ‘Come on, Will. They’ve been lovers for twenty years. If he wanted to knock Mother on the head, he would have done it years ago.’

  ‘Is he marrying her for her money, do you think?’

  ‘I think he’s got more money than she has. He’s a very successful solicitor.’

  ‘I rang John Gilbert last night. They live in Drummond Street. No wonder Peter Gilbert was able to come and go with ease. It’s only ten minutes from Mother’s house.’

  It was too oppressive to walk, so we took a tram, which offered a different order of oppression. Mother’s house was grand; the Gilbert house was its equal, though of a different style. It was one of an elegant, solid row, double-storeyed and deep. I knocked on the door. In another time it would have been opened by a housekeeper, or perhaps even a butler. The house was certainly large enough to have quarters for such staff. It was opened to us by Cloris. She seemed surprised to see us, and was even more surprised when I told her that we were there at John’s invitation. She invited us in.