by Nina Bawden
At last, because I could bear it no longer, I said, “Stop it, for God’s sake. It helps no one. And I find it—despicable.”
It worked. He stopped and looked sheepish and exhausted.
I said quickly, “You’re talking like a fool. You should have told the police that you knew Jasmine Castle. It was stupid and dangerous not to. But that’s all. They won’t think that you murdered her because you saw her once or twice.”
He said simply, “But I had plenty of reason to kill her, Will. She was blackmailing me.”
There are moments when everything becomes clear and sharply drawn, moments that stand out in memory like three-dimensional figures against a flat background. I can remember now everything about that moment; the exact pinkish colour of the light, the pale patch in the carpet where a stain had been removed, the single cobweb strand that hung from the ceiling and moved gently in the breeze from the window. Humphrey’s back was to the light, his head was tilted towards me at a slightly enquiring angle as though he had just asked a question and was waiting for me to answer it. There was a small smile on his thin mouth, a timid, almost conciliatory smile.
I said, “Hadn’t you better tell me about it now?”
He limped across the room to the mantelpiece and took a cigarette out of the box and lit it carefully, holding it delicately and unnaturally between his fingers. He smoked very seldom; somehow the gesture added to the unreality of the whole thing.
It had begun after the affair with Rose was over and ended. He had been unhappy and drinking a great deal. He had been in the Flamingo one evening and Jasmine had asked him to buy her a drink. He was alone and bored and they had several drinks together. Then she said that she wanted to talk to him and suggested that they leave the club. She had seemed excited about something as though she were playing a secret game. They had left the club together; it was late and the streets were empty.
He said, “We walked for quite a while before she came to the point. I didn’t mind walking, it was a nice enough night and she was an attractive creature—warm, and sort of glowing. I don’t know what we talked about, although we must have been talking because I remember that she stopped suddenly in the middle of a sentence and said that she knew Rose. That Rose was her best friend. That brought me up with a bit of a jolt. I think that I was still in love with Rose just then. I wondered what she was getting at, and then I thought that she couldn’t know about me because she went on to talk about Rose quite naturally and simply as though she wanted me to know about her. No more than that. I can’t remember exactly what she said but it was something to the effect that Rose was extraordinarily pretty and that all sorts of people fell in love with her but that this hadn’t made her catty and horrible at all because she was naturally so sweet-natured and innocent. `Innocent’wasn’t the word she used—she said `a bit wet’; but she said it affectionately and not at all contemptuously, and `innocent’was what she meant. I think that she was quite sincere in all she said; she seemed a very likeable sort of person. By this time, d’you see, I had begun to think of her as a person and not just as a pretty girl I had picked up in the club.
“That’s why it was so much of a shock when she asked me for ten pounds. It was so unexpected that I couldn’t believe I had heard her properly. I suppose I must have gaped like a fool because she laughed and said, for the second time, `I want you to give me ten pounds. If you don’t, I shall tell your wife about Rose. She won’t like it, will she? I mean, it isn’t as if Rose was a nasty sort of girl. She was ever so unhappy when you gave her up. It wasn’t fair to do it so suddenly, you know.’ She had a pretty voice, I remember, low and sort of gentle. It didn’t change tone one bit. I was quite sure she meant what she said.”
He gulped at his tea. I said, “Did you give her the money?”
He nodded. “It didn’t seem that I had much alternative. After all, everything was over by this time and there was no point in having a showdown with Celia. It wasn’t only that I was scared of what she would say, I was still pretty unhappy about it all and I felt I couldn’t bear to have it dragged out into the open. Besides, Jasmine managed the whole thing with such an air of mischief, almost like a child playing a game, that it didn’t occur to me that she would carry it any further. We were in a deserted street in the middle of the night. I felt that if she were experienced in that sort of thing that she wouldn’t have tackled me there. I might have given her a nasty time. I was quite wrong, of course. She wasn’t frightened of me; I don’t think she was capable of being frightened of anything. Afterwards that seemed rather alarming. People without fear are somehow so inhuman.
“She asked me for more money, never more than ten pounds and once it was only five. If she had asked for more I might have gone to the police. She turned up when I wasn’t expecting her, once at The Odd Flamingo and several times at Piers’s flat. She didn’t come to the flat, she hung about in the street and waited until I came out. She was always quite blatant about the money; it was a straightforward commercial transaction as far as she was concerned. She always smiled and thanked me very nicely when I gave it to her. I got so that I hated her smile. It was so blandly unselfconscious and full of young, white teeth like a toothpaste advertisement. Will, several times I could have killed her when she smiled at me.”
He was trembling like an animal driven into a comer. He had lost his usual air of buoyant youth and looked what he was, a badly scared middle-aged man. I was sorry for him, but in a remote, detached way that did not affect me deeply.
He said, “When the police find out about this they’ll be sure I killed her.”
I said, surprised that I could think coherently still, “But that evening—when she was killed—I’d told you that Celia knew about Rose. She couldn’t blackmail you any more, you would have had no reason to kill her.”
He said slowly, “But I might have killed her first. I’d seen her, with Rose. I didn’t know then that Celia knew.”
I said, “Did she say anything? Ask you for money?”
He shook his head. “No, she didn’t. Rose was there all the time, you see, and I don’t think Rose knew about it.”
I said, “Why shouldn’t she have known?”
He looked dazed. “I don’t know. But it isn’t in character, somehow. Rose was honest and gentle and sweet. I don’t think she was capable of that kind of shabbiness. Perhaps I’m only clutching at the last shreds of illusion. Not a pretty picture, is it, Will?”
He sat down, his hands on his knees and stared at the floor. He said, “Will, there was something badly wrong with Rose that night. She barely opened her mouth in the pub. She never talked much in the ordinary way but that evening I got the idea that she was afraid to talk. She looked wretched and rather ill; and when she did say anything she looked at Jasmine first as though she was wondering whether it was all right for her to speak. I think she was scared of Jasmine. Perhaps that’s the wrong word. Sort of hypnotised by her.”
I said, “If she’d been involved with Jasmine in this blackmailing game she’d spoiled it all by going to Celia hadn’t she? Perhaps they’d had a row about that.”
He looked at me in a puzzled way. “No. She didn’t act as if they’d just had a row. It was more important than that. I know that, though I can’t explain why. I got the idea that she was frightened of something that, they’d arranged to do. She kept looking at her watch and when Jasmine said that they would have to go she looked at her in a terrified sort of way and said wouldn’t they be rather early? I think that she’d have given anything to stay in the pub but Jasmine carted her off in a masterful fashion. She said that they mustn’t be late.”
“You’ve no idea where they were going? Or who the friends were that they’d arranged to meet?”
He grinned faintly. “If I knew that I shouldn’t be in such a muck sweat now, should I?”
He got up and walked about the room, his hands in his pockets and his neck thrust forwards from his shoulders. Then he swung round to face me with a look of imp
loring agony.
“Will, suppose she doesn’t turn up? Suppose she’s dead. Suppose no one saw them, after they left me at the pub? Any jury would convict me.”
I said roughly, “Don’t talk like a fool. Of course she’ll turn up. Anyway the police won’t take any action until she does. She’s their most important witness, remember. I don’t think you should worry overmuch.”
But he was beyond argument of that kind. He was deep in his private hell and nothing that I could say could reach him there.
His eyes were feverish and shining; I think that he was near to tears.
He said, “Can’t we look for her? We can’t just wait.”
I was very tired. I said, “There’s no need to wait. I could see her family. They must know something about her.”
He shook his head. “Her father drinks and the aunt doesn’t care about her. I think Rose was afraid of her. I saw her once—a savage-looking bitch in a Salvation Army uniform. They live in a nasty little hole in Kilburn. I went to the flat once when no one was there but Rose. It stank of meanness and poverty. There was a girl who lived in the flat below and I think Rose was quite friendly with her at one time. She was a dreary little creature. Quite young, I should think, but it was difficult to tell because she had made-up with a trowel. She was with Rose the night I met her at the club—I think Rose dropped her after that night. They might know something at The Odd Flamingo. And Jasmine Castle’s parents—wouldn’t they know something about Rose?”
He was speaking disjointedly, clutching at straws.
He said, “Will, you must help me. I shall go mad.”
I had never before heard such helplessness and despair in his voice. I had loved and admired him for so long that it should have touched some spring of pity in me. And yet I felt nothing but horror and a kind of disgust, not only with Humphrey but with the whole sick world. I think that if it had not been for Rose I would have dropped the whole business then and there.
I went to the police station early in the morning, before I drove to London. I saw Jennings. They had allotted him a narrow, sunless room at the back of the building. He was polite and friendly and anxious to be of service. He listened to me with the right side of his face turned carefully towards me as if he were deaf in the other ear. He had a thin face with more lines in it than was natural for a man of his age. His eyes, as he smiled at me, were not amused, but sad.
He said, “Of course you are anxious to find the girl, Mr. Hunt.
We are all anxious to find her. If you can help us in any way we shall be grateful.”
His manner was diffident but he sounded like a man who knew what he was about. I felt, even then, that underneath the gentleness he was both hard and sure. In a curious way, although he couldn’t have been nicer or more obliging, I found him disconcerting.
The little girl said, “Mrs. Castle’s upstairs resting.” She spread her fingers over her mouth and giggled at me. She was a fat, freckled child, very plain.
I said, “Can I see her?” and she nodded her head and eyed me speculatively, with a cold adultness. “Are you from the papers? There’s been a lot of men from the papers.” Then she giggled again. “Mum says Miss Jasmine is dead and the worms are eating her.”
Someone shrieked from the interior of the dark house. “Beryl, come away from that door.” A ferret-like woman appeared from the end of the passage.
“D’you want Mrs. Castle?” she said. “If you’ll step in, I’ll fetch her.” She turned on the child with ferocity. “Get back in the kitchen or I’ll tan the hide off you,” she said. The child giggled and vanished and I was left in the cold hall with the blinds drawn and the door closed.
When Mrs. Castle came down the stairs I was at once made aware that this was a house in mourning. She was dressed from head to foot in deep and tragic black. She was a big, dramatic woman and she must once have been quite exceptionally handsome. In the dim light she was handsome still. Only when she came close did you see that her eyes were no longer very clear and that there were crow’s feet round them. She brought with her a heavy, stale smell of whisky.
I made my short, conventional speech of sympathy. I said that I was distressed to be intruding on her at this time. She hiccuped a little and said “Pardon.”
She took me into a back room where the blinds were up and the windows open to the summer. Her husband sprang to his feet when she came in and fussed anxiously about her. He was a small, shy man with a cultivated voice. His face was yellow and dry like the faces of men who have spent their time in the East and the suburban room was full of ebony elephants and Benares brass.
I told them that I was looking for Rose.
Mrs. Castle said, “Such a lovely girl. I do hope she’ll be all right. My Jasmine was so fond of her.” She wiped her eyes with a large, black handkerchief.
Her husband said in his nervous, cultured voice, “You’ll understand, I’m sure. In the middle of our own tragedy.… We’d almost forgotten the poor child.”
I said hastily that of course I understood.
He went on, “She was our only one, you know. We have been hit very hard—very hard. To lose a child, and in such terrible circumstances, too—one finds it difficult to believe it has really happened.”
Mrs. Castle looked like a tragedy queen. Her hair was dyed and she was growing old but she still had a kind of assurance, almost arrogance, about her that the possession of beauty brings. I wondered if Jasmine had looked like her.
She said, “The gentleman wants to know about Rose. Not about our darling.”
She smiled at her little husband with an affectionate, slightly tipsy smile.
He said, “Yes, yes, of course,” and blinked his eyes at me. “She came here quite a lot. We encouraged the friendship. Rose was a good influence. Jasmine was inclined to be wild and headstrong; she’d made some friends in the past that we hadn’t liked at all. But Rose was different. So gentle and kind. And religious, too. We aren’t Catholic ourselves, of course; I’m ashamed to say that we don’t practise any religion.”
Mrs. Castle said, in a deep voice, “I always say that it’s the way you live that matters. Not going to church.”
I said, “Do you know who their friends were? Where they spent their time?”
Mr. Castle said, “I believe they used to go quite often to a little club in London. Jasmine told us that there were a great many other young people there. We thought it sounded very nice and suitable. The club was called The Odd Flamingo. We shouldn’t have liked Jasmine to go there on her own, perhaps, but as she went with Rose, we were sure it was all right. She was such a sensible girl, and nice-minded.”
I said, “Did you know any of the people they met at the club?” I didn’t think it was any use; these people seemed so oddly detached from the world.
The Castles looked at one another. Mr. Castle said, “No, we never met any of their young friends. Of course they were always laughing about some boy or other in the way that girls do but I don’t remember that they mentioned any names.”
Mrs. Castle said, “What about the old man? The one that died?”
Her husband said, “Oh yes. I came in one morning when they were here. Rose was crying. I asked her what was the matter and she said that an old gentleman who used to go to the club was dead. She was a sensitive child, you know, and she took things to heart. She was very upset; I found her distress rather touching. Jasmine was rather cross with her—she hadn’t much patience. She took Rose upstairs to her bedroom to wash her face and I heard them quarrelling. I remember I thought Jasmine was being a little unkind to Rose.”
Something stirred uneasily in my mind but I couldn’t pin it down.
I looked at the quiet little man and the nice, drunken woman. I said unhappily, “You said your daughter was a little wild. Had she ever been in trouble with the police?”
Mr. Castle got up from his seat and went across to his wife. He took her large hand tenderly in his little paw. He said, “I’m afraid she had. She wasn’t re
ally a bad girl, you know, only wilful. She liked excitement and adventure. She was once on probation for stealing things from a shop. She didn’t need the things she took; she’d never wanted for anything, had she, my dear? She promised us, when it happened, that she would never do it again.”
I said, “Do you think she could have led Rose into bad company?”
He looked at me with puzzled eyes. “I suppose it is possible. Perhaps we were selfish. We were so glad, for Jasmine’s sake, that she was friends with a nice girl like Rose. We never thought that she might do her harm.” He looked sad and rather humble. I hoped that they would never know that Jasmine had been a blackmailer.
Mrs. Castle got up and went to the mantelpiece. She took down a photograph in a cheap frame.
“There’s my Jasmine,” she said. “And that’s Rose with her.”
It was an enlarged snapshot of two girl in summer dresses, sitting on a rug. They were looking straight at me and laughing as if they had been laughing together at some private joke when the camera had caught them unawares. Jasmine was very like her mother. She was a bigger girl than Rose with a lively, sensual mouth. They looked very pretty, bright and young.
And one of them was dead now, and the other missing.
When I left the house I was hot and sticky and tired. I drove back into London and down on to the Embankment. I parked the car and bought an evening paper. There was a small, cool breeze from the river and the surface of the brown water foamed with yellow curds. I leaned on the parapet and opened the paper.
The photograph of Humphrey was half-way down the front page. It was small and not very clear but it was quite recognisable. Later I discovered that it was a copy of one that had appeared in the local paper when he had been appointed to the School.
Underneath it said that the police were anxious to interview Mr. Humphrey Stone in connection with the dead girl who had been found in the Canal in Little Venice. It said that Mr. Stone had made a statement to the police that morning and had later left his home without leaving an address. It said that Mr. Stone was the Headmaster of Somerhurst School. He had served in the Royal Armoured Corps during the war and had been awarded a D.S.O. for gallantry.