The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “Yes, they’re all in their rooms.”

  “Good. I suggest an immediate raid on the scullery.”

  We assembled a bucket of hot water, a scrubbing brush, two floor cloths and a cake of carbolic soap. Back in the billiard room

  I sent him off to the farthest corner and told him to keep his mouth shut.

  “But can’t I do anything to help?”

  “No.” I didn’t trust him to clean up properly. He hadn’t been to public school. I’d once been beaten because I’d made a poor job of cleaning out a fireplace, and that was the kind of lesson one didn’t forget in a hurry.

  “Luckily,” I said, kneeling down again beside the smashed head, “he hasn’t bled on the carpet, only on the marble of the fireplace. That’s our first lucky break, and let’s hope to God it won’t be our last.” I stole a quick look at Kester to make sure he wasn’t watching me, but he had slumped onto a chair and was leaning forward with his head in his hands. Nimbly my fingers worked their way through Thomas’s pockets. Melody’s Swiss birth certificate was in the inside pocket of the jacket.

  Very neat. According to Kester’s script Thomas was blackmailing me and that was the fundamental cause of the bad blood between us; when I had arrived at Oxmoon to help poor terrified Kester defend himself against his wicked drunken uncle I just hadn’t been able to resist the chance to dispose of my blackmailer—or so Kester would have confessed to the police after making a touching effort to save me in the name of family solidarity. The plot had a certain stylized insouciance which at a less dangerous time I might have paused to admire, but as it was I merely noted that the murder had been meticulously planned and despite the novelettish trappings might well have proved fatal to me. Pocketing the birth certificate I picked up the scrubbing brush.

  “Are you sure I can’t do anything, Harry?”

  “You can get the whisky decanter. We don’t want the housemaid coming in here tomorrow and wondering why the fireplace reeks of carbolic.”

  I set to work. I had to be very careful moving Thomas. One false drip could be fatal. The blood on my hands bore a startling resemblance to strawberry jam and it occurred to me that it would have looked more realistic in a film or on the stage. Idly I pictured a Saturday matinee with all the old tabbies in the audience clanking their tea trays with excitement.

  “Here’s the decanter, Harry.”

  “All right, put it on the table. Now let’s plan our story. I think I can just about face it.”

  “Well, you see, what I intended was—”

  “No, spare me the elaborate complexities of your master plan. Just tell me exactly what happened this evening so that we can work out how far the truth can be adapted for the police. If we stick to the truth as far as possible we run less risk of being caught out in a lie.”

  “Yes, of course. All right, where shall I start?”

  “What time did Thomas arrive?”

  “Nine thirty-two. I’d been watching the clock all evening because I was certain he’d roar up here in a rage once he was drunk enough to face me. I knew you’d tell him he was going to be sacked.”

  “How drunk was he?”

  “At his most belligerent. He’d been all evening at the pub.”

  “Good. That means there’ll be plenty of witnesses to swear he was breathing fire, and your phone call to me for help will sound thoroughly plausible. We’ll have to incorporate that phone call into our story, no choice; I had my girlfriend with me at the time and Mrs. Williams was waggling her ears as usual at the switchboard. So what we both have to insist is that Thomas was alive when you phoned and alive when I arrived here.” I wrung out the cloth and watched the water turn red. “All right,” I said. “Back to the details. Thomas arrived at about half-past nine. You were on the lookout so presumably you let him in. What happened next?”

  “Is this the truth or is this what we say to the police?”

  “The truth. It could also be what we say to the police, of course, but let’s hear it first.”

  “I made an attempt to pacify him by taking him into the drawing room and offering him a whisky, but after that …” He fell silent.

  “All right,” I said again. “The short answer to my question is that you took him to the drawing room, and as far as the police are concerned that’s going to be where you both stayed. Our story’s going to be that he was never in the billiard room at all. You came here earlier in the day to show me Uncle Lion’s clubs and I clumsily spilled whisky all over this nice clean fireplace, but that’s irrelevant. Now …” I started to polish the fireplace with a dry floor cloth. “… this is what happened. Thomas accepts your whisky but it only makes him more belligerent. Finally in desperation you suggest summoning me to act as a mediator—I’m not your ideal choice but I’m the nearest member of the family and I’m better than nothing. Thomas agrees. He’s being pigheaded as usual and refusing to leave here till you’ve promised he can keep his job. You both wait. I arrive. We argue interminably. In the end I give up and mutter to you that you’ll never get Thomas out of the house unless you promise not to sack him. You promise—it’s the only thing to do. You’re still determined to sack him, you understand, but you realize it’s got to be done in my father’s presence with your solicitors acting as bodyguards.” I sat back on my heels. “Does all that ring true?”

  “Yes. Very plausible. Everyone acting in character.”

  “Very well. We see Thomas to the front door and watch him drive away in drunken triumph. Then … what would we do next? Talk for a few minutes?”

  “Have a brandy to recover,” said Kester promptly.

  “Yes, that’s right, of course we would.” I paused to consider this. “Better arrange it now. Go to the drawing room, pour out two doubles, tip them down the cloakroom basin and return the glasses to the drawing room for the servants to find tomorrow morning—oh no, bring my glass in here to me so that I can put my fingerprints on it.”

  “Can I drink my brandy?”

  “No, better not. I want you in full possession of your faculties when we stage the car accident.”

  Kester blanched but slipped away without further comment to obey orders.

  We plowed on. I found I needed running water to clean the gore from the golf club so we withdrew to the scullery again. The pail was sluiced out, the scrubbing brush rinsed, the floor cloths hung out to dry on the wooden rack, the carbolic soap replaced. Eventually we returned to the billiard room.

  I stared at the golf bag. “I’m trying to remember if I handled any other club except the mashie, but I didn’t. That’s all right, though, because I handled the bag.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “If the police inquire about my earlier visit to Oxmoon I’ll have to say I came to this room, to examine Uncle Lion’s clubs, and it’ll look odd if there are no fingerprints on the clubs to back up my story. But it’ll be all right because I can just say I took the bag, realized at a glance that the clubs were abnormally long and decided without more ado that they’d be of no use to Owen.”

  “But if our story’s going to be that the billiard room is irrelevant to Thomas’s visit, why should the police start fingerprinting the clubs?”

  “I agree that with luck it’ll never occur to them to do such a thing, but if something goes wrong and the police don’t believe us, they’re going to fingerprint everything in sight. Kester, think hard. Did Thomas touch anything when he came into this room? If the police do put the whole ground floor of Oxmoon under a microscope, this is the last place where they must find a trace of him.”

  Kester took his time. Then he said, “He opened the door when he came into the room.”

  I could just see it: Kester pretending to lose his nerve, Thomas crashing after him. Kester would merely have had to wait behind the door of the billiard room with the club in his hand. Thomas would have suspected nothing as he charged in like an ox to the slaughter.

  Pulling on my gloves I wiped the door handle with my handkerchief. “Now put
your prints there,” I said. “We can’t leave the handle wiped clean.”

  He did as he was told. Again I paused to think. Then Kester said, “The smell of carbolic—” and I said, “Christ, the bloody whisky,” and the omission was rectified. As a generous helping of whisky was spilled in the fireplace the smell of carbolic died instantly.

  Replacing the decanter in the drawing room we prepared to face the next phase of the operation.

  “We can’t be too careful about this part,” I said. “Let’s go to the stable block and make sure the lights are all out in the servants’ bedrooms. Then we’ll move round to the drive to prepare the Hillman—oh, and bring your gloves. Your prints mustn’t be found in Thomas’s car.”

  We padded around outside in the dark for some time. When we were back in the hall I said, “Turn off all the lights. What can we use to prop open the front door?”

  Kester found a jade statuette. It was dark with the lights out. A quarter-moon gleamed palely over the black mass of the woods.

  “Can’t see a thing,” muttered Kester.

  “You will. Let’s wait till our eyes get adjusted.”

  We waited, then found our way back to the body.

  “Now, this is going to be very difficult. I want his head to go forward onto his chest. You can take the legs but we must be close together so that I can keep the head steady. He’s no longer bleeding but he could drip.”

  “Christ. Oh God, I think I’m going to be—”

  “No, save being sick for later. Vomiting’s a luxury. When you murder someone your first priority is to make your stomach obey orders.”

  “I think that’s the most terrifying thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Shut up and take his legs.”

  “How many men did you kill in the war?”

  “Shut up!”

  He shut up. We began to move the corpse.

  “Take it slowly. No hurry. No accidents.”

  We edged our way along. I had never before realized what a long way it was from the billiard room to the front door.

  “Pause here a moment. Let’s just make sure there’s no stray thief tiptoeing up the drive.”

  There wasn’t. Slowly we began to descend the steps. We had already opened the door of the Hillman’s front passenger seat.

  “Swing his legs in … that’s right … now get in the back seat and hold him by the shoulders. I don’t want him slopping around and leaving blood in the wrong places.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I want to make sure he hasn’t dripped. Then I’ll close the front door. Have you got a key?”

  “Yes.” But he checked to make sure.

  Slipping back into the house, I switched on the lights with my gloved hand and took a look. No blood. A faint scent of whisky hung on the air in the pristine billiard room. Flicking off the lights again I left the house, closed the front door softly and slid behind the driving wheel of the Hillman.

  “All okay, as the Yanks say. Let’s go.”

  The keys were in the ignition. Starting the engine I drove carefully through the gateway and turned right onto the road to Penhale, but after a quarter of a mile I halted at the top of a slope. A hundred yards ahead beyond a sharp bend a dry-stone wall marked the border of a field.

  “Thomas is roaring drunk,” I said, “and driving like a bat out of hell. He’d misjudge that corner, wouldn’t he?”

  “Entirely.”

  “Right. Remember that Thomas left Oxmoon five minutes before this after our protracted family wrangle. Now … we’ve got to get him into the driver’s seat. Keep holding his head steady and move sideways as I drag him over. Oh, and pray no cars come while we’re at it.”

  Our prayers were answered. Somehow we got Thomas wedged behind the wheel.

  “That’ll do. Now go down to the bend and make dead sure nothing’s coming up the road from Penhale. If the coast’s clear strike a match, count to five and blow the match out. Then start running.”

  “I haven’t got a match.”

  I passed him my cigarette lighter and he ran off, a shadowy figure moving in and out of the patches of moonlight. Winding down the driver’s window, I checked that the car was in neutral and restarted the engine. It died. The accelerator needed to be jiggled. I opened the door, slid my foot over the pedal and tried again. This time the engine ticked over just as my lighter flared in the distance.

  I released the hand brake. I slammed the door. I jumped onto the running board. My right hand was grasping the steering wheel through the open window, and the car, still in neutral, began to pick up speed as I steered straight for the stone wall.

  At the last moment I jumped clear, flung myself face down on the verge and covered my head with my hands. An almighty crash tore the night apart but a sinister silence sewed it together again. And then, just as I was cursing the fact that I’d apparently run the engine to no avail, the petrol tank obliged me by blowing up, the force of the explosion seared my cheek and looking back I saw a ball of fire eliminating all trace of Kester’s highly successful murder.

  I got to my knees. Then I leaned over, retching, on all fours, and finally succeeded in vomiting over the pretty wild flowers that were growing at the side of the road.

  II

  Kester had run the other way, towards Penhale, and it was some minutes before he cut back across the nearby field to join me. He tried to apologize for the delay but I stopped him. I knew he’d been vomiting too.

  We walked in silence to Oxmoon and paused by my car in the drive.

  “Don’t forget,” I said, “that since Thomas left we’ve been drinking those double brandies in the drawing room.” I peeled off the gloves and handed them to him; he gave me back my lighter. “All right, here’s what happens next: I drive to Penhale, I see the burning car, I call the police as soon as I get home. Then I naturally phone you to say that Thomas has had a terrible accident.” I paused. Then I said, “We’ll meet later, preferably when all the fuss is dying down. Now don’t panic when the police come, just stick to the story and for God’s sake don’t try to be too clever and add fancy touches. Save that for your novels. And if ever you’re in doubt over the correct attitude to take … what was that writer’s phrase you used earlier? Oh yes—act in character.”

  “I understand. Thanks. Good luck.”

  We parted.

  I managed to drive back to the Manor but the reaction was hitting me, and when I arrived it was some time before I could force myself out of the car. I noticed that there was a light in Dafydd’s room. Like me he suffered from insomnia.

  Eventually I dragged myself inside and made the necessary telephone calls to the village constable and to Kester. I knew I should phone Eleanor but I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face anything. Sinking down on the sofa I buried my face in my hands.

  I heard a quiet footfall and looked up. It was Dafydd.

  “Saw you stagger into the house,” he said. “You all right?”

  “No, I’ve had a bloody shock.” That at least was true.

  He didn’t ask what had happened but took me beyond the green baize door, sat me down at the kitchen table and brewed me some tea. He sat beside me while I drank it. His restful presence, the soothing quality of our silence and the fortifying influence of the tea eventually combined to ease my shock. I gave him a dress rehearsal of the story I planned to give to the police and was relieved when I sounded so convincing. Then I told him about the burning car and I sounded rather more than convincing. I put my head in my hands again.

  “I stopped my own car,” I heard myself say, “to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake, but the Hillman’s number plate was still legible and suddenly the shock hit me, it was—it was—”

  “The smell.”

  I felt fiercely grateful to him for understanding.

  He took my hand and held it. It was the sort of gesture Bronwen would have made. I felt better.

  “He was an awful old sod really,” I said at last, “but it was a
terrible end.”

  “Would he have known much about it?”

  The answer was no, but the most I could say was, “Probably not.” I had to conform to my story.

  “Then I can think of worse ends,” said Dafydd.

  So could I. We went on sitting in silence but I was recovering fast, and by the time the police arrived to question me I was ready for them.

  I was going to survive.

  III

  The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of accidental death and added a rider that there should be more attempts to keep drunken drivers off the roads. I attended the funeral, which took the form of a cremation of the remnants, but Kester, acting in character, stayed away and no one was surprised. Afterwards I was touched that Eleanor turned for comfort not to my father, the family’s traditional Rock of Gibraltar, but to me, her brother-in-law. After the service she asked me to take her to a pub and we spent the lunch hour drinking together. My father took care of Bobby for the afternoon.

  “I know you had your troubles with Tom,” said Eleanor, “but I don’t suppose that was all your fault—I know how difficult the old boy could be.” Tears streamed down her weather-beaten cheeks again. “It’s that damned Kester who’s responsible for Tom’s death!” she said fiercely with more truth than she realized. “If he hadn’t been so vilely ungrateful … after all Tom’s loyalty and hard work … oh, I’ll never forgive him, never!”

  I said it was bloody awful and gave her my handkerchief. It was a mere conventional gesture but to my surprise Eleanor said unsteadily how kind I was and how she’d always liked me and how I’d been a much better husband than Bella deserved.

  “My dear Eleanor …” Really, it’s extraordinary how different people can view a given situation in entirely different ways.

  After the cremation Kester waited twenty-four hours and then invited me to Oxmoon for a drink. I accepted. The moment had come when I could no longer postpone the horror of hearing the details of his plot, but I was so cynical by that time that I wondered if he’d already rewritten it.

  Taut with dread I drove to Oxmoon.