Sweet Sorrow

by David Roberts

  When they got back to the house Edward stood in the hall sniffing, his long, beaky nose twitching. There was something in the air – something poisonous. He had no difficulty in locating the source of the smell – it was the pile of respirators stacked next to the elephant’s foot which held his walking sticks and umbrellas. He leant over and then backed away quickly.

  ‘Go outside, will you, V. I don’t know what there is here but it’s deadly and could be infectious.’

  ‘But I . . .’ she began to protest.

  ‘Outside! I mean it, V’

  There was something in his voice that made Verity obey without further objection.

  Edward had a moment of fear that Heron might have used anthrax or some other deadly bacteria on the gas masks, but he had never heard that anthrax smelled like this. Could one of them have been contaminated by something left in it from the war? No! He remembered reading that all the gas masks which were being distributed had been manufactured recently. It was one of the few preventative measures the government had taken in 1937.

  One thing he did know was that, having only just recovered from TB, Verity must be prevented at all costs from breathing in noxious fumes. He put on gardening gloves and gingerly picked up one respirator, then the next . . . They looked so sinister with their tiny Perspex windows, long black snouts and rubber tubing. Ugh! He inadvertently breathed in before pressing his handkerchief over his mouth and nose. The last gas mask in the pile was the one which was stinking. He took it out into the garden, holding it as far away from his face as possible, and dropped it on the lawn.

  ‘Get away from it – it’s poisoned!’ he shouted as Verity, ever inquisitive, came over to look at it. The gas mask lay there, black and sinister on the innocent green grass, like some not quite dead, deformed animal. Edward suddenly felt a pain in his lungs and throat. He hurried back to the house. His eyes were streaming and his throat was burning by the time he reached the bathroom. He splashed cold water over his face time after time and when the basin was full, he plunged his head in and held his breath for a full minute.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Mrs Brendel inquired, handing him a towel. She had followed him upstairs, alarmed by his coughing and the sight of the tears streaming down his cheeks.

  ‘I am all right now, Mrs Brendel, thank you. I have found the source of the poison – it’s one of the gas masks Colonel Heron delivered. I’ve taken it out into the garden. I’ll call the police.’

  ‘Sir, you aren’t well,’ she said as he began coughing again. ‘Shall I call the doctor?’

  ‘No, I’m all right, I promise you, but it must be pretty powerful stuff. I only got a whiff of it and it’s made me weep worse than peeling onions.’

  He tried to make light of it, not wishing to alarm her unduly.

  ‘But how could this have happened?’ she wailed. ‘How could one of the masks be poisoned?’ She shuddered. ‘I never liked the look of the things. Now I swear I’ll never put one on.’

  ‘You didn’t put one on, did you, when the Colonel was here?’

  ‘No, he wanted me to try one on for size but I said that, if it was all right with him, I would prefer to wait until you came home. I hope I did right, sir?’

  ‘You certainly did, Mrs Brendel. You wouldn’t be standing here now if you’d tried on the one I’ve just taken outside. Now, I must find a flowerpot or something to put over it. No one must go anywhere near it.’

  He went down to the hall to telephone the police but, as he lifted the receiver and was about to dial the operator, a thought occurred to him. ‘I say, Mrs Brendel, do you know whether the Colonel had other gas masks to deliver?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He said he had some he was going to drop in at Monk’s House.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting the receiver at her, ‘you call the police and explain what has happened. Tell them there is a poisoned, possibly infectious, gas mask on the lawn which must only be touched by someone who knows what they are doing – someone wearing protective clothing. Tell them I have gone to Monk’s House. I must warn Mr and Mrs Woolf not to touch the gas masks.’

  A terrible fear gripped him. If he and Verity had been there when Heron delivered the gas masks, they might very well have tried them on for size. In their absence, Heron had had to leave them in a heap by the front door. Basil had clearly been rifling through the pile, perhaps curious about the smell, and disturbed the poisoned mask. He had inhaled some of the gas but, in doing so, had alerted them to the danger. Basil, Edward thought grimly, had almost certainly saved their lives.

  He stumbled into the garden to find Verity approaching the poisoned respirator, drawn to it as though by some evil attraction.

  ‘I told you to stay away,’ he said, more roughly than he had intended but his lungs and throat still hurt. ‘Sorry, V, but this thing is designed to kill. Pass me that flowerpot, will you. I want to cover it.’

  Without a word, she passed him the pot he had indicated. As he dropped it over the mask, he looked at it again with disgust and anger. He saw it was a small size – obviously too small for him and probably for Mrs Brendel too. It was the one Verity would have selected to try on.

  He now knew for certain that Heron was a killer. He must be quite mad or completely reckless and have abandoned any idea of escaping detection. Perhaps he had guessed that Paul Fisher had ‘spilt the beans’. If Edward knew that Paul wasn’t Byron’s killer, then he would also know that the murderer had to be Heron. He must have decided he had nothing to lose and that before he was arrested he would take his revenge on us, but why the Woolves? Edward could understand why Heron might want to hurt him through Verity. It was he who was Heron’s nemesis, but Leonard and Virginia had befriended him for no other reason than their kindness to a man adrift and alone in the world.

  ‘Verity, I want you to go round to Monk’s House as quickly as you can and stop Leonard and Virginia putting on any of the masks Heron may have left with them. Explain about the poison and say we have called the police.’

  ‘But what are you going to do, Edward?’ Her eyes were wide with anxiety.

  ‘I want to pay Colonel Heron a visit. I won’t be long but I’ve got a score to settle with that man.’

  ‘Why not wait for the police?’

  ‘Please, V, you must go now! We’d never forgive ourselves if we were too late and Virginia . . . hurt herself. You know how she dreads gas attacks so she might decide to try them on.’

  ‘All right, I’ll go but, Edward, please be careful.’

  Five minutes later, Edward was beating on the locked door of Seringapatam. He banged the knocker again and again, angry and frustrated. He stood back and tried to see if there was anyone watching from a window. The house had never seemed so gloomy and forbidding. He ran round the back of the house and found an open window. After a moment’s hesitation, he swung his leg over the sill. He found himself in the dining-room. The Munnings seemed to glare at him but he ignored it. He sniffed the air. Yes, there was a smell of gas and it seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath him.

  He went out into the passage and into the kitchen. There was a dirty plate, a meat pie and a half-empty glass of whisky on the table. Heron had either been interrupted in his meal or suddenly decided that there was something he had to do without further delay. In the corner of the kitchen, partly hidden by a wooden bench, Edward found some stairs leading down to a cellar. After a few steps, his way was blocked by a heavy oak door. He shook the handle but it was locked and there was no sign of the key. He put his shoulder to the door but it would not budge. Returning to the kitchen, he picked up a heavy chair he had noticed. He swung it against the lock like a mallet and, after half a dozen blows, felt the lock begin to give. Sweating hard, he picked up his battering ram again. At the fifth blow, the lock broke and the door opened with a crash.

  The smell of gas was now so strong that he had to take out his handkerchief and hold it over his nose and mouth. There was no doubt about it – he had found Heron’s secret labora
tory, but the place was in disarray. There was broken glass all over the floor, the remains of several bell jars. Rubber tubes and metal pipes lay everywhere like the tangled and twisted entrails of a dead monster. This was not the debris from some accident or explosion, as Edward had first thought. Heron had made an attempt to destroy his laboratory but had given up before completing the job. Worst of all, the pathetic corpses of rabbits and rats lay in a pile in a corner – the victims, no doubt, of his experiments.

  Edward was finding it hard to breathe and realized he must get out before he was overcome by the fumes. As he turned to leave, he saw Velvet, the Colonel’s retriever, lying dead under a workbench. Edward knew that, if there was one living thing Heron loved, it was his dog so he guessed Velvet had not died a painful death like the rabbits and rats. Gingerly, he turned the corpse over and saw that she had been shot in the head.

  It could only mean that Heron had decided it was all over. Having shot Velvet, he would surely now shoot himself but what if, before he did so, he claimed one more death? Edward ran up the stairs two at a time and gratefully reached the fresh air. Doubling up, he vomited the poison he had ingested. His head dizzy and his eyes streaming, he went back to the lane. Monk’s House . . . Verity was in danger. He must get to Monk’s House before it was too late.

  Verity, meanwhile, had knocked on the door of Monk’s House and been told by Louie that Mr and Mrs Woolf were in the garden. Filled with trepidation, she ran round the house to the writing-room at the end of the garden. The doors were open and Colonel Heron was standing just outside offering Virginia a gas mask to try on.

  ‘No!’ Verity screamed, as she saw her raise the gas mask to her face. Virginia stopped in surprise and then saw who it was.

  ‘Verity! What’s the matter?’

  ‘The gas mask – it may be poisoned,’ she gasped. ‘Throw it on the ground . . . please!’

  The mask dropped from Virginia’s fingers and lay like a huge spider on the grass. She went very pale and seemed about to faint as Leonard went to support her.

  Verity turned to Heron, furiously angry. ‘Is this the way you return all the kindness they showed you? You kill Byron . . . well, I can sort of understand that. You held him responsible for his first wife’s death . . .’

  ‘For my sisters’ deaths,’ Heron corrected her. ‘Both my sisters.’ He seemed quite calm, almost resigned, and made no attempt to deny the accusations Verity was making.

  ‘What do you mean – your sisters’ deaths? I don’t understand. Didn’t you tell my husband that you and Marion had been engaged?’

  ‘That was a lie. You see, I had to keep it secret that she was my sister otherwise the police would have known I killed Gates. Marion died of cancer knowing that Gates was sleeping with her own sister – Beatrice. She was the youngest and a silly girl but we both loved her. She killed herself out of despair and guilt when, immediately after Marion’s death, he abandoned her and married the actress.’

  Heron’s voice was hoarse and there was look of such utter despair in his eyes that, just for a second, Verity pitied him.

  ‘So Marion was your sister! I understand now why you hated Byron so much.’ Then, remembering that he had been within a whisper of killing Edward and might well have killed her beloved Basil, her heart hardened.

  ‘If what you say is true – and you are such a liar I can’t be sure – but, if it is true that Byron was responsible for the death of both your sisters, I can see you had a reason to hate him, but why kill Frieda? What had she ever done to hurt you?’

  ‘It was Frieda who had taken him – worthless as he was – from Beatrice. It was she who made Beatrice commit suicide.’

  ‘But you said yourself that he left your sister to marry Mary Brand. He didn’t start an affair with Frieda until after he had remarried.’

  Heron shook his head like a bull bewildered by his tormentor in the ring. He seemed to make an effort to try and explain himself.

  ‘Well, his new wife was often away in America and I couldn’t reach her. Frieda was a tart and, anyway, Cathcart wanted her dead. He said she betrayed him – that Gates had taken her from him. She deserved to die. We agreed she deserved to die . . .’ He shook his head again like a confused animal. ‘I could not allow Gates to betray his second wife with her as he had betrayed Marion.’

  ‘But how did you know your way round Broadcasting House?’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult. An army friend of mine had an office at the BBC. He showed me round once when we met in London for a drink.’

  ‘And why try to kill us and . . . Mrs Woolf? Did you intend her to be your next victim?’

  ‘Your precious husband had everything I didn’t have – a job, a place in society, someone to love . . .’

  ‘And you also knew that, in the end, we would hunt you down?’

  ‘I knew that silly, half-mad vicar of ours would blab and blab until even you and your husband – always so patronizing to those less well-off than himself – would work out who the murderer was. I had hoped to convince Fisher that he had committed the murders in his madness . . .’

  ‘But it was you – in your madness – who killed and killed again.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Woolf . . .’ Heron turned to Virginia, whose eyes were wide with disbelief. ‘You and your friends with your claptrap pacifism . . . It was people like you who betrayed the generation who died in the war. I could not bear the thought that comrades of mine had given their lives so that stupid so-called “intellectuals” could spout pacifist poison. Unlike Gates and all you other “intellectuals”, I’m not one for poetry – most of it strikes me as being pretty silly – but one poet I do like is Julian Grenfell. Do you remember this? “And he is dead who will not fight, and who dies fighting has increase.”’ Heron’s eyes blazed and Verity’s anger turned to fear. This was a man gripped by an obsession.

  ‘I expect you despise men like Grenfell, Mrs Woolf, who fell in battle so you could live your comfortable lives undisturbed by the real world. You can write your boring, empty books – I tried one and had to chuck it in the river before I had read fifty pages – because soldiers like us had suffered and died. And then, instead of standing up to Hitler, you and your like gave him what he wanted and brought this new war down on us. So I thought – how best to punish you for your pusillanimity? Of course! I recalled the dread we felt in the trenches when we heard the gas-gong and the anger when I saw my men gasping for breath in a cloud of poison gas, tearing at their eyes, ripping their flesh to try and scrape the poison off them . . . That, I decided, was how people like you should die. That’s how I am dying.’

  Verity thought Virginia was going to collapse. She was as pale as the moon, now visible in the sky above them, and seemed almost as serene. Leonard had put his arm round her but she did not seem to notice. This was the evil she had long dreaded and now she was face to face with her nightmares. Without a word of protest or complaint, Leonard led Virginia away. She had suffered a severe spiritual wound but at least she had not been poisoned.

  Verity watched them walk away and then turned back to Heron. ‘What do you mean? How are you dying?’

  ‘I was diagnosed with cancer of the throat a month ago. They gave me just three months to live so I knew I had to hurry if I was to take my revenge before I became too weak.’ He coughed – a rasping, cruel explosion of breath. ‘I told Gates at the fête that I had something important to tell him and – rather reluctantly, I must say – he agreed to meet me on the green after it was over.’

  ‘Did he know who you were?’

  ‘He knew who I was all right. He knew I was Marion’s brother. We had never met before he moved to Rodmell but he knew she had a brother in India and that she and I had the same surname.’

  And you threatened him in the pub . . .?’

  ‘I warned him that I would exact vengeance for what he had done.’

  ‘Why didn’t he go to the police or leave Rodmell?’

  ‘I didn’t want that. I wanted him to stay un
til I was ready, so I went and saw him the next day and apologized. We agreed to keep the whole thing a secret. He didn’t want me telling everyone that he had seduced his sister-in-law as his wife lay dying. He didn’t want Ada to know.’

  ‘Oh my God – Ada is your niece. How could you have done what you did to her?’ Verity was appalled. ‘Is that what your sister would have wanted? You are a monster.’

  ‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Heron mumbled. ‘I did not mean to hurt Ada . . . I did not think . . . but I had to do it, don’t you see? I had to . . .’

  ‘So you lured Byron to the green after the fête?’

  ‘Yes, he came. He did not dare not to. He needed to know what I was planning to do but he never guessed I was going to kill him – not until I told him. He blustered and then blubbed – it was disgusting. He pleaded with me and I enjoyed that most of all. I made him kneel and then I bound his hands. When he understood what I was going to do to him, he wet his pants. I told him it was only justice and I didn’t know why he was making such a fuss. I dragged him over to the block I had erected. I felt that I was his executioner and that this was Tower Green. He was a traitor and deserved to die. He had betrayed two women who were very dear to me and no doubt many more I did not know. I can die happy now. I have done what I set out to do.’

  ‘And you will hang for it,’ Verity said grimly.

  ‘The hangman will never loop the rope round my neck.’ A throaty chuckle turned into a cough that shook his whole body. ‘Another of his kind is squeezing the life out of me.’ He coughed again and almost fell.

  ‘The police will be here shortly, Colonel Heron,’ Verity said, ‘and it’s no good appealing to our sympathy. You have caused terrible suffering to Ada. Byron may not have been the best of men,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘but he did not deserve to die – certainly not in the way you made him die. You drove Paul Fisher mad and yet you both had something in common, had you but known it. He, too, had a sister who suffered and died because of Byron Gates. And now you are trying to kill someone who has only done you kindness. You deserve to be hanged and if the cancer kills you first, I hope it will be a painful death.’