Except For One Thing

by John Russell Fearn

  When he entered his scrupulously polished hall old Baxter came forward as usual to meet him. He was a tired, crumpled man who had used up his energy and youth in the service of Richard’s parents. Richard kept him on because of his trustworthiness and his uncanny knowledge of where everything lay in the rambling old place. His wife Sarah did the cooking and the housekeeping.

  “Good evening, Mr. Richard, sir…” Baxter took Richard’s coat in shaky hands. “Cold again…”

  “Yes, Baxter — very cold.”

  “Everything’s ready, Mr. Richard, sir,” Baxter added. “I’ll just tell the wife to serve dinner — shall I?”

  “Er — yes,” Richard agreed pensively. “No callers, Baxter?”

  “No, Mr. Richard, sir. Nobody at all.” Richard nodded and went on into the firelit room. After he had switched on the electric light he stood looking round on the huge Regency pedestal sideboard, the William and Mary walnut escritoire, the Queen Anne walnut angle chairs, the antique glass cabinet, the old-fashioned armchairs…All of them would have to go when he married Joyce. She had modern ideas and her coming into the Harvey residence would mean the opening of a new chapter in furnishings, hangings, in life itself in fact.

  Richard settled down at the table and watched the advance of Mrs. Baxter’s ample, bustling figure. Eight years younger than her husband, she was grey-haired, spotlessly clean, a superb cook and house-manageress.

  “I have a surprise for you, Mrs. Baxter,” Richard said. “I’m going to be married.”

  “That’s wonderful! Who’s the lady, may I ask?”

  “At the moment,” Richard said, smiling oddly, “it’s a secret. We’re planning to spring a big surprise, and you are the only person so far who has even a hint of what is coming. I thought I’d just warn you,” Richard explained. “My wife-to-be will very probably turn this rambling ancestral pile into a bear garden in an effort to convert it to modern standards.”

  “And I’ll be glad too!” Mrs. Baxter declared surprisingly. “The place is never as clean as I’d like with all this heavy furniture about.” She brightened suddenly. “An’ when’s it to be?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Richard answered, commencing his meal. “First, I have to attend to a little matter of a garage on the premises. You see, my fiancée likes a car far more than I do, so I think I’d better get some contractors to send along a few bricks, cement, and a small-sized concrete mixer.”

  Mrs. Baxter’s expression changed. She had memories of the dirt and confusion attending the building of the laboratory annex.

  “You’re not going to build a garage yourself, Mr. Richard?”

  He grinned. “Why not? I built the laboratory annex, didn’t I?”

  “Ye-es, but…How will you be able to spare the time when you’re going to be married?” It was a hopeful if futile effort.

  “Oh, I’ll wedge it in,” Richard decided calmly. “Anyway, should a few loads of bricks and timber and things arrive while I’m in the city you’ll know what it’s all about.”

  “Yes, Mr. Richard,” Mrs. Baxter agreed sadly. “Will there by anything more now?”

  “Not just now, thanks. I’ll be going into the study afterwards. I’ve a few things to work out.”

  Mrs. Baxter went out. Richard smiled faintly to himself: he felt a curious elation at having made the first move in what he knew was going to be a deadly gamble in wits. So a perfect crime could not exist, eh? The body was always the stumbling block, was it?

  Preparation! Faultless preparation upon which to build a master plan…Letters. Check up on the letters Valerie Hadfield had sent him from time to time during the first flush of their acquaintance. He recalled that she had rarely put a date — and usually put the day instead.

  From his safe he took the half dozen letters Valerie had written in the last two years and read them through carefully beneath the desk lamp, smoking and pondering as he did so. Odd how the innate coldness of the woman flowed even from her written words.

  Tuesday.

  Ricky, my dear,

  Of course I’ll meet you at the Silver Grill tomorrow! In fact I consider it a privilege to which your future wife is entitled. Frankly, I cannot understand your constant reiterations of love for me. I know you love me., just as I love you. Tomorrow then at 12:30 in that nice, quiet cafe.

  “Funny she didn’t finish it “Yours faithfully”,” Richard muttered, tossing it down and selecting another.

  Thursday.

  Ricky, my dear,

  All right. I can spare time for a little tete-a-tete tomorrow. Thanks for keeping away from the phone. It might make things difficult for me and I must think of my career.

  Always

  Val.

  Richard took a pair of rubber gloves from the desk drawer and snapped them on his hands; then with a soft India rubber he went over the letter carefully, back and front, erasing all trace of fingerprints. That the surface “mashed” a little in the process didn’t signify.

  This done he put the letter carefully away in an envelope, sealed it, and put it separately from its fellows. Then he replaced the whole bundle back in the safe. Coming back to the desk he wrote “Friday” in block capitals on his note pad, tore the leaf off and put it away in the desk-drawer, locking it. Then he tore away the next five blank leaves until he was satisfied no indent of the word remained on the clean pad. The five blank leaves he tossed into the fire.

  “You don’t get me with your iodine spray, Mortimer Garth!” he said slowly, pulling the gloves off and putting them away again.

  He switched off the lights, left the study, and went along the hall into the laboratory annex. The lights came up at his touch and he drew the bolt over the door behind him.

  The laboratory was ultra-modern: his unlimited money and love of the work had seen to that. Three centre tables on the concrete floor contained test-tube racks, beakers, retorts, and a good selection of electrical equipment. On the side, benches held microscopes and racks of modern instruments — and above them shelves lined with orderly labelled bottles and culture-jars. Against one wall stood heavy X-ray equipment on a rubber-wheeled base, and against the opposite wall a liquid air compressor with its quiescent electric dynamo.

  Richard strolled the length of the laboratory until he came to three large bellying Dewar flasks, stoppered with cotton — actually giant vacuum flasks containing a pale blue mobile fluid. Richard contemplated them, then he turned and looked at the second door of the laboratory which led into the driveway and thence down to the road outside the gates.

  Next, he studied the ground glass windows — six wide ones — the three on the “drive-side” wall carrying his shadow from the low hanging lights as he walked along deliberately to see the effect.

  “Alibi?” he mused. “That’s what I need — I might create an artificial image of myself and make it cast a shadow on the window — a mechanical model perhaps…”

  Then he shook his head. A mechanical model though possible, cut out of aluminium and actuated by a motor, might develop a fault and stop. A motionless image of “himself” if seen in shadow form on one of the lighted windows would bring Mr. or Mrs. Baxter, or both, running to find out what was wrong.

  On the other hand, if he simply left the laboratory lights on and did not bother about a shadow or any other proof of his presence in the laboratory, there was no reason to suppose but what Mr. and Mrs. Baxter would accept the fact that he was there. They would not pry: they never had.

  “Never gild the lily,” he muttered. “Right! Lighted windows and nothing else. Good!”

  He switched off the lights, left the laboratory, and locked it behind him. The great house was silent. A dim electric glimmer showed along the hall. The Baxters had retired to bed at eleven. This Richard permitted as a regular thing in deference to their ages and his own erratic nocturnal work upon research.

  He switched the light off, and went up the broad, familiar staircase in total darkness — and so to his bedroom. Entering, he switched o
n the small single lamp on the table by the big old-fashioned armchair and sat down in it.

  He was planning cold-blooded murder, working it out beforehand with the relentless logic of a chemical formula. Murder — destruction of life — the slaying of a living woman no matter how coldly cynical she might be. Planning for her total disappearance, for his own unshatterable safety and future happiness with Joyce Prescott. She would never even guess. In fact nobody could ever know or guess. When finished the plan would be foolproof…

  But still murder!

  Richard’s mind went racing back over the events of the day, to the point where this monstrous, glorious idea had first occurred to him…The vision of Joyce leaping into the river; the cold shock to his nerves as in imagination he had heard the sound of her body striking the water. Yes, it had begun there — gently, insidiously…Then Inspector Garth with his macabre anecdotes of the blunders of past criminals, his colossal faith in his own and Scotland Yard’s ability…

  A chemist with modern equipment against Scotland Yard’s merciless array. Somehow it had all acted on Richard like a catalyst and at the same time had offered a solution to his own dilemma.

  If Valerie did not die Joyce would probably do so!

  Here, Richard felt, was an excuse for his actions. He wasn’t destroying life: he was saving it. And still he did not see how deeply he had assimilated the toxin of selfishness, how it had grown by subtle mutations from a plain earthy desire to discard one woman and possess another, into an implacable ego-mania which insisted he destroy one woman completely to prove his mastery over an otherwise intolerable situation.

  At last he got into bed and lay in the darkness, not dwelling any more upon the rightness of his behaviour but upon the next moves he must make. Tomorrow he must call on Rothwell, the builders’ merchant; buy a cheap car; find a small house in a village if he could, preferably a good way from Belsize Park. Perhaps in the quiet Sunbury-on-Thames district…Yet not too quiet. Enough people about to notice him coming and going.

  He went to sleep deciding that he would travel to the Sunbury district on the morrow.

  CHAPTER IV

  Next morning Richard told Mrs. Baxter he would probably not be home until evening, and then left the house about nine-thirty.

  After walking to his bank and withdrawing a hundred pounds, which he insisted be in one pound notes, he went on to Rothwell’s, the builders’ merchants.

  Old Rothwell looked at the specification sheets Richard had handed him as they sat together in the little shack with its reek of fumes from the paraffin stove. “Yes, we c’n do that easy enough.”

  “One thing I want added — a small concrete mixer,” Richard said. “It will save me a lot of trouble.”

  “No problem, sir,” Rothwell assured him. “I expect we’ll deliver the stuff today sometime.”

  Richard next made for the bus stop, and waited for a bus to take him to Camden Town. Here he sought an emporium where he purchased a readymade suit, raincoat, cap, shirt, socks, shoes, and gloves, all of them below the grade of his normal attire.

  Then on to Camden Town Underground. Here, still hugging his brown paper parcel, he disappeared into the gentlemen’s waiting room. A man in a cap and raincoat, with blue trousers showing beneath it, and clutching a brown paper parcel emerged again some minutes later. He walked with a pronounced limp of the left foot, stooped, and sported blue wool gloves on his hands. Dimly visible where his raincoat collar had fallen open was a print shirt and collar and somewhat glaring tie.

  With the cap pulled low down over his eyes Richard limped along towards the platform, entered the train when it arrived and alighted again finally at Euston. Here he deposited his parcel in the luggage office to be called for later, and then set out into the city to find a second-hand car depot.

  After considerable searching he finally alighted upon the kind of firm he sought, loaded with cars of all ages and types.

  “I just want a plain good goer,” Richard explained, hardening his mellow voice into a decided Northern intonation. “Nothing fancy.”

  “Quite, sir,” the young salesman agreed politely. “About what price?”

  “The price doesn’t matter — within reason — as long as the car’s what I’m looking for. How about that one over there?” Richard limped towards an old saloon.

  “Reliable enough, sir — a good engine,” the salesman said.

  Richard pulled open the doors and peered inside. That the car was a saloon was the chief attraction. He knew right away it was exactly what he wanted but he didn’t wish to appear too eager. Internal metalwork was very rough, he noticed.

  “All right, it’ll do,” he said finally. “How much?”

  “Sixty-seven pounds, sir — ready licensed. I can make out a cover note for the insurance while you wait. Third party or comprehensive?”

  “Third party,” Richard said; and he waited until the salesman turned aside before he pulled out his wallet and extracted seventy pound notes; then he limped across to the glass-topped counter where the salesman was scribbling on a printed cover note.

  “And the name and address, sir?”

  “The name’s Rixton Williams, spelt with an ex. I haven’t an address yet — or rather I don’t know exactly what it will be. I’m going to see about a place — Sunbury way.”

  “Sunbury, sir? Pretty spot…Well, as long as the car is recorded in your name we’ll use this address for the moment. You can let us have it when you’re settled and we’ll let the insurance company know.”

  “All right,” Richard agreed.

  He took the slip handed to him, paid his money in one pound notes, and studied the receipted bill and log book. The driving licence he had decided he would risk. Then with the salesman preceding him he went back to his car and clambered inside with deliberate awkwardness.

  Somewhat jerkily he started forward and so out into the street. He drove slowly, getting the feel of the relic, until he felt safe enough to put on speed and so began a swift journey which eventually brought him to grey, drab, vaguely commercial-looking Twickenham.

  Just beyond Twickenham Green he pulled up sharply outside an estate agent’s office and went inside, shambling and limping.

  “Good afternoon, sir…” A girl of perhaps eighteen with blonde hair obscuring one eye came to the enquiry desk.

  Richard glanced at the various auction sale bills. “Is Mr. — er — Hardisty about?” he asked. “It’s about a house around here. I want to buy one.”

  “If you’ll just wait a moment, sir?”

  The girl turned aside and went into an adjoining office, then she came back and lifted the counter flap to let Richard through. He limped into a small room with a desk laden with papers and files. Behind it sat the shirt-sleeved Amos Hardisty, round-faced, and beaming.

  “Good afternoon, sir!” He shook Richard’s hand. “Take a chair.”

  Richard sat down, and failed to remove his cap. Never do to show he had rich dark wavy hair and that his face was really young.

  “I’m looking for a small house,” he explained. “What have you got?”

  Hardisty closed his eyes and thought; then he opened them and said, “I’ve got one, three up and three down with the usual appointments. But maybe it won’t do. It’s detached, good garden back and front.”

  “Sounds all right to me. What sort of people live around it?”

  “Oh, mostly retired old folks. One or two houses in a bunch if you follow me. It’s on this very road, which leads through to Sunbury. Open country situation with a few small shops nearby.”

  “But there are people about?” Richard insisted; then he added casually “I don’t want to feel lonely you see.”

  “I think,” Hardisty said, “you might find it the very thing. It’s going at sixteen hundred. Would be more only it wants a bit of painting. And the fact that, though detached, there is not enough room at the side to bring in a car, is another drawback. Maybe you’d like me to show it to you?”

 
“No need for that. Give me the key and I’ll look for myself.”

  Hardisty summoned the girl with the waterfall hair and had her make out a receipt for the small key charge; then when the exchange was complete and Richard had the key in his pocket, Hardisty added:

  “You can’t miss it, Mr. — er — ?” He frowned at the receipt.

  “Williams — Rixton Williams, spelt with an ex.”

  “Oh! Well, follow the main road outside and on the way you’ll see the house with four others. People are away next door to you. You’ll let me know soon?”

  Richard nodded and departed. Ten minutes of driving brought him to the house. He went inside it, glanced round, and came out again to survey. The narrow side path with bordering wall was a drawback, certainly. Have to leave the car at the front that was all. On the other hand the next house was far removed. In all directions around the houses there seemed to be open fields.

  At the next but one house a bald man in an alpaca jacket, smoking a pipe, was supposed to be tending chrysanthemums, but he was looking at Richard at the same time. Richard moved towards him, limping along the pavement.

  “Good afternoon, sir…”

  The elderly man pretended surprise and glanced up with a round, pink face. “Afternoon. Thinking of taking the house?” The childlike blue eyes were inquiring.

  “I might,” Richard mused. “That is if it isn’t too dead-alive round here. I’m used to a busy Lancashire town, you see. Industrial district — but I’m looking for somewhere quiet. I’ve had quite enough of noise. I’m Williams, by the way — Rixton Williams.”

  “Glad to know you…”

  The man said he was Timothy Potter, a retired paper merchant, and for nearly half an hour Richard stood talking to him deliberately — allowing curiosity on the part of other neighbours to have its fling — most of whom seemed to find it necessary to suddenly come outside or else clean windows or arrange curtains from inside — and also gleaning a full-scale picture of the local colour.

  When he took his leave of Timothy Potter and climbed back into his car it was already becoming drab evening. He turned the car round and headed back for Hardisty’s estate office.