She had eaten none of the pie herself; just sat there with the tense look, the daft look, expressionless; but watching them eat. Watching them eat.
Back in his own kitchen, he confronted the terrified woman like a man gone mad. ‘It’s your doing! Your doing! You made her eat the doves…’ And he snatched up the remains of the pie and thrust them against her mouth, holding her fast, forcing her head back, crushing and crumbling the pastry against her bared teeth, smearing crust and contents across her face. ‘Your fault!’ he screamed at her, half shouting, half sobbing. ‘Your fault! Your fault! You made her eat her own doves; and now…’ And he left her, crouching there, petrified, a hideous new comprehension dawning; and rushed out again into the yard.
From her hiding place in the stable loft, Megan watched their blundering progress about the darkened farm, he impeded by the weight of the woman, dragging herself after him, half-fainting, sobbing and moaning, clutching with piteous hands at his arm, beseeching him to tell her that it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true, they would wake up and find it all some monstrous dream… He shook her off each time. ‘Don’t touch me, get away from me! Never touch me again! It’s all your fault, all your fault…!’ And over and over again: ‘You made her eat her doves…’
Soon they would think of the loft; she had heard enough, she had better be off. She slipped down, crept round by the cow barn, ungainly hoisted herself across a dry-stone wall and was gone. Was gone, running down the dark lanes to her Auntie Annie’s. To live with Auntie Annie for ever and ever. For after this…
After this, they would hardly be likely ever to wish to set eyes upon her again? Anyway, they’ll probably be half mad, she thought to herself complacently, for the rest of their lives. Who could live with such an idea as that—as she had lived for all these months—and not be half mad for ever afterwards. I’ve been sort of half mad, she thought, and after all, mine were only pigeons. And she recalled with keen joy his rough repudiations, ‘Don’t touch me, get away from me, never touch me again!’ No more touching. No more ugly words, no more suggestive sounds to be heard by an ear pressed up against a bedroom wall. I’ve put an end to all that, she thought, with savage satisfaction; and without that, what was there left between them?—no love, no kindness, no companionship, no respect—nothing. I won’t be there to see them, she thought, but I have seen them—I’ve seen them suffer, I’ve seen them suffer like I suffered about my doves. And long might it continue, she prayed, legging it across the familiar fields, nosing out the well-known route in the darkness, like a sheep-dog scampering home. Let them suffer! Let them suffer! Let it last just as long as it possibly could.
And if it lasted too long… She had a vision of herself, long planned, standing in front of the policemen, looking up into their faces with the blank look, the daft look…‘I only meant to hide the poor baby… I only meant to frighten them.’ She’d wished the baby no harm, it was a horrible giddy-goo creature but it couldn’t help that; (as if she’d have killed the thing and cooked it: she’d never dared to hope they’d fall for that! ‘But I suppose, having made me eat my own doves… You know they made me eat my own doves?’) But she’d meant it no harm, she’d wrapped it up well against the cold night, they could see that for themselves. It had been alive and crying when she’d left; she’d never imagined that with all the hullabaloo they were making they wouldn’t hear it. And if they were so stupid as not to think where, obviously, she’d have hidden it—well, that was their fault, wasn’t it?
After all, she would say, with the blank look, the daft look—where else would she have put the baby but into the empty dovecote?
Madame Thinks Quick
HE RAISED HIS HAND and struck out at her. She slipped on the silky rug before the fireplace; flesh and bone scrunched dreadfully against the heavy round brass knob of the fender, and she was dead.
Trudi ran forward from the doorway. She said: ‘I saw all. You did not touch—was accident.’
An accident. He had not touched her, it had been an accident; and now his wife was dead—and he was free.
It took him a little while to grasp that Trudi was not going to tie up her young life with that of a has-been, out-of-work actor, free or not free. ‘No, darrleeng. You must give all back-pay and then I go home.’
‘Trudi, I can’t. That’s what we were quarrelling about; she said we couldn’t afford you any longer. Trudi, darling, you can’t leave me now: my wife dead, no money…’
She gave one of her comic little shrugs, wagging her pretty head towards the window across the corner of the block. ‘Plenty money over there; and wife also.’
He grasped at it eagerly. ‘And then, you and I—’
Another of the shrugs, a little grimace. ‘Oh, darrleeng, I think this old monstre, the Madame Rosa, she does not put up with no nonsense like that. I think she pulls up the strings of the money-bags—tight!’
Did the idea come to him then, all in a flash, every detail worked out to perfection?—or was he in fact a long time standing there over the dead body of his wife, thinking it through to the end? All he later remembered was talking to Trudi, urgently, urgently; kneeling to scrape from the brass knob a little smear of the blood congealing there, transferring it to the head of the poker, identical in size and shape; passing his hand across it, blood and all; getting back to his feet again. ‘Now, Trudi, creep out, let yourself be seen in a little while coming back.’ And he himself slid out into the empty corridor and knocked softly at Rosa’s door.
She was not, as Trudi had called her, a monster, but she had been a big woman, a trained athlete and now the fine muscle was running to flabby white fat. He almost knocked her backwards with the violence with which he flung himself down on his knees at her feet. ‘Rosa—for God’s sake help me! I’ve killed her.’
She stepped back, away from him. ‘Killed her? Colette?’
‘She was saying vile things about you, Rosa. She said… Rosa, I know that you’ve—liked me—’
‘I love you,’ she said simply; for through the shock of it all, one thought had come to her as earlier it had come to him. His wife was dead and he was free.
He was too clever to pretend at once a return of feeling. ‘Then, Rosa, I can dare to ask you… She was being so vile. I picked up the poker. When I came to—there she was, dead! I thought very quickly: it seems awful now, it seems callous, I know but I do think quickly when I’m in a spot. And I—well, I moved her head, so that it was against the brass knob of the fender, I cleaned the poker—’
Fat and foolish she might be but she was a clever woman: clever and quick. She grasped it at once. ‘To look like an accident.’
‘But they could still say that I’d pushed her.’ He gave her a sick look not too difficult to assume. ‘They could bring it in—manslaughter.’
Quick and clever. ‘You want me to say that I saw what happened. That you didn’t strike her.’ She thought it over. ‘I’ll have to say I was out on the balcony; I can’t see into your window from here.’ She had got him to his feet, now she held him by the shoulders, steadying him. ‘You must get back to your flat. You ought to be ringing up the doctor. The au pair—?’
‘Out shopping,’ he said. ‘Thank God!’ But on the way to the door, he stopped and swung back to her. ‘Rosa! My God, it seems awful even to think of it now, but, Rosa—listen! You know how things are in the theatre, you know how little work I’ve been getting. But if suddenly there was all this publicity—in the dock, a murder charge: and then out of the blue this dramatic intervention—’
‘I’d have told them at once what I’d seen.’
‘Make excuses, you were ill, you didn’t want to get involved. And then if you could just go abroad for a bit, no English newspapers…’
She opened her mouth to say that once they were married, he’d never have to work again. But she closed it. Actors needed to work, they had to express themselves and whatever he wanted to do, that of course he should do. ‘I’ll cope with it all,’ she said. ‘Go now. I’ll
see to it all.’
The publicity when it came was hardly sensational but at last the day came and here he was in the box, pale and handsome, just the right air of settled grief. The police in the box: accused had appeared dazed, had claimed to remember nothing. Forensic evidence: a blood-smear on the head of the poker, consistent with its being the blood of deceased and having come there at the time of her death. Prints consistent with an attempt to remove the blood with a wipe of the hand. No further finger-prints; the shaft of the poker had recently been polished clean.
Trudi, for the defence; very wide-eyed and innocent, very shrewd, however, and cool. Had arrived back from the shoppings to find Mr. Grray on his knees beside the body. Had had almost to lift him to his feet. Yes, he might well have touched the poker as she hauled him up—his arms were all over the place and his hand bloody from his attempts to revive his wife. As to the shaft, no, in the ordinary way people did not much handle the shaft of a poker and she had that day polished it in the usual routine. Had wished, of course, to ring the doctor but did not have the number of him and Mr. Grray for a long time too stupide to help her. And anyway, said Trudi, with one of the shrugs, what was the hurry? Madame was dead.
And so at last to Rosa and into the agreed routine. The casual acquaintance, the occasional drink together. Agreed that when questioned she had told the police that she had seen nothing; she had been ill and under stress, wished only to get abroad to her health spa, didn’t want to become involved. Had never dreamed, of course, of any trouble for Mr. Gray, having herself seen exactly what happened. ‘From my balcony, you can look straight into the room. I glanced over and saw them standing there. They seemed to be arguing, he said something, she jerked back as though he had raised his hand to her—’
‘Mrs. Fox—had he anything in his hand?’
‘Anything in—? Oh, you mean the poker? No nothing of the kind; and anyway, he never raised his hand. I saw it all perfectly clearly and he never raised his hand at all.’
Headlines, yes; but nothing front page or anything like that. There was to be a big picture of him, however, in a Sunday newspaper—celebrating with the neighbour, almost a stranger to him, whose evidence had clinched the case. Not in the best of taste, perhaps, all in front of the fireplace where his wife had died; but it was not a best-of-taste newspaper and, anyway, the publicity business had been only a lure to get Rosa to act as she had. He had other fish to fry.
And now the moment had come. The reporters departed and she with them, to show them the famous balcony. She returned and they were alone—except for Trudi, listening outside the door. She said softly: ‘Well, my dear?’
She revolted him: fat and middle-aged, no charm about her but the sparkle of the diamonds on her mottled white hands. He said coldly: ‘Well, Rosa—you did a great job.’
She did not observe the chill. She asked: ‘And so—when may I collect my reward?’
‘Your reward?’ he said.
‘After all, my darling—I have perjured myself for you.’
‘So you have—haven’t you?’ he said.
Now the chill crept in, the flabby face went an ugly ashen grey. ‘Raymond, what do you mean?’
‘I mean that you perjured yourself, as you say; and you know, perhaps, what happens to perjurers?’
A clever woman; the keen mind clove its way through doubt and protest. ‘Are you by any possible chance trying to blackmail me?’ And as he remained silent, triumphant, she said: ‘To do that you will have to admit that it was murder.’
‘In fact it wasn’t murder. It happened almost exactly as you said in court.’
‘Very well,’ she said swiftly, ‘I can just stick to my story. Who can prove that I wasn’t in fact out on the balcony?’
‘I can prove it,’ he said. ‘Anyone will confirm that you have a violent allergy reaction to pollen. The plane trees just below were in full pollination, there was a breeze; yet when the police saw you, you showed no symptoms whatsoever. I know, because I’d just seen you myself.’
He certainly had thought of everything. ‘But without me, there’ll be no proof that you didn’t murder her.’
‘They couldn’t touch me. I can’t be tried a second time, once I’ve been acquitted. So you see,’ he said, ‘I’m safe. But you’d be in the soup.’
She thought it all out, quietly and steadily. ‘From the very first?’ she said. ‘All that about the publicity—to persuade me to hold back my story? The blood deliberately smeared on the poker?—you had to give them enough of a case to charge you on; you had to be tried and acquitted, through my perjured evidence, so that you could set me up for blackmail.’ And now she did say: ‘You must be the lowest thing that crawls on this earth; the lowest of the low.’
He was not even listening; he was taking from her handbag the thick wad of notes, stuffing them loosely into his pocket-book. ‘Just to be getting on with, my dear,’ he said.
‘And then—?’
‘Five thousand for a start?’ he suggested. ‘You can lay your hands on that much quickly? And I want it quickly.’ In the mirror, over his shoulder, she could see that Trudi had sidled in and was standing by the door. He said, cruelly sneering: ‘I shall need it for my honeymoon.’
Clever; and quick. Clever not to have to ask a question, to know it all in one intuitive flash. And quick. The poker lay there in the fender: she snatched it up—and struck.
Trudi ran forward. They stood together, staring down, as so short a time ago he himself had stood staring down at the dead body of his wife. It was his turn now. The flabby white arm still held something of the splendid muscle; long-ago anatomical study had suggested the susceptible spot. With exact accuracy the heavy ball of the poker had found the delicate temporal bone.
The jacket had fallen open. Rosa stooped and picked up the thick wad of notes. She held it out with a shaking hand. ‘Trudi?’
Trudi took the money, tucked it into her apron pocket, looking with a brutal complacency into the sick white face. ‘That rrug!’ she said. ‘Fancy a second time, just the same like the poor wife! All alone, by himself—alone here in the room, Madame, was it not so? Just slipped on that rrug and fell—’
‘He’d been drinking champagne,’ said Rosa, as though roused by some glimmer of hope.
‘Thanks God that this time I was present, to say that this also was just a terrible accident!’
‘Yes,’ said Rosa. She looked down again at the body; prompted timorously: ‘His story was that he had moved her head, to look as though she had fallen against the fender.’
Trudi knelt and with a grimace shifted the head so that the wound lay crushed against the heavy brass ball. Rosa with a shudder handed her the poker. ‘Can you clean it?’ But she remembered the smear of blood. ‘Wipe the shaft, wipe off the finger-prints; but leave the top, put it close to the wound. We’d never get all the blood off. Let them think it got splattered when he hit his head.’
‘Madame thinks quick,’ acknowledged Trudi, taking the poker in a fastidious hand.
Clever; and quick. But now the brief exhilaration died, the look of sickness returned and a dull despair. ‘You won’t let me down, Trudi, will you? I’ll pay anything. It wasn’t because of the money that—’ She gestured with averted head at the sprawled thing on the floor. ‘After all, I’m rich enough.’
‘No, no, I look after you,’ said Trudi. ‘You will be safe. Everyone believes from the trial that you were almost to him a stranger; why then should you kill him? So go back now, Madame, collapse upon your bed, you were worn out with all the long day, you lay there, you know nothings. In fact I saw you there,’ said Trudi, triumphantly. She thrust a couple of glasses into the shaking hand. ‘Take these with you, you had lent them for the champagne with the reporters. I brought them back to you; while I was with you, then it must have happened. So shall we both be safe. When I went home, I found him.’ She hustled her out. ‘Be quick now! I make all safe for you and then I ring up the doctor.’ The Trudi shrug, the comic little grimace.
‘This time I know the number of him.’
Rosa went back to her flat but she did not collapse upon her bed. ‘Police?’ she said, holding the telephone receiver in a hand now as steady as a rock. She gave Raymond Gray’s address. ‘You’d better get there quick. I’ve just seen from my balcony, the au pair girl going for him with that great heavy poker. He fell back; she bent down, I couldn’t see what she was up to, but when she stood up, she seemed to be cleaning the poker. And she put something into her pocket—I daresay if you search her room you’ll find money hidden there.’ She gabbled eagerly on. ‘They were having an affair, I always thought, even before the poor wife died; of course I can’t be sure, I really hardly knew them. But now that he’s free, I suppose she’s been badgering him to marry her. And he’d refuse—a vulgar little trollop like that…’ And she replaced the receiver and edged out cautiously on to the balcony. ‘Madame thinks quick,’ said Rosa to the shadow moving so busily about behind the opposite window, ‘making all safe’ for her.
The Scapegoat
‘STAY ME WITH FLAGONS,’ said Mr. Mysterioso, waving a fluid white hand, ‘comfort me with apples!’ There had been no flagons, he admitted, in that murder room thirteen years ago, but there had been apples—a brown paper bag of them, tied at the top with string and so crammed full that three had burst out of a hole in the side and rolled away on the dusty floor; and a rifle, propped up, its sights aligned on the cornerstone, seventy-odd yards away and two storeys below.
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